Not that Count Rothenburg, selenak, his less well known French cousin the envoy to Prussia. (And yes, that was confusing to me at first.)
Given that better-known-Rothenburg was the one who gifted Fritz with Biche and Fritz said about his death "I lost a second Caesarion", I was confused, yes.
(BTW the English ambassador was less impressed by him and wrote about him when alive: "Count R. is lethally hated by everyone here; he specializes in the belittlement and slander of others." Thereby delivering another example of how everyone sees something else.)
Is there one AU in which FW actually goes through with his retirement plan (in which he also would have abdicated in Fritz' favour) and lives the religious hermit life in the country side, the one that Wilhelmine wrote about? (See, if Shakespeare actually would have had a shot at getting read at this point in Prussia I would have suspected someone of having told FW about King Lear about why this is not a good idea and if he thinks that his wife and daughters will actually play housekeepers for him in such a situation once he doesn't have absolute royal power over them anymore while Fritz does...) Since he had that idea for some months before he and Fritz visited Dresden it must have been when Fritz was 15 or 16? Since, however, Shakespeare was anathema to the lovers of French literature and not yet discovered by the German reading crowd when Fritz was a teen, FW must have reconsidered for other reasons.
Being an evil person sometimes, I also wonder about an AU in which Katte survives... but where FW actually does follow Philip II's example, though not Peter the Great's, has his son killed (though not tortured to death a la Peter). Maybe Katte survives because he got out of Berlin in time, or maybe FW needs to soothe his conscience about the son-killing by not pressing for a death sentence for Katte but accepts the original military tribunal sentence of imprisonment. But Fritz dies, and Katte survives. What would happen?
Re: Alternate universes where everyone is at least incrementally more happy
Given that better-known-Rothenburg was the one who gifted Fritz with Biche and Fritz said about his death "I lost a second Caesarion", I was confused, yes.
(BTW the English ambassador was less impressed by him and wrote about him when alive: "Count R. is lethally hated by everyone here; he specializes in the belittlement and slander of others." Thereby delivering another example of how everyone sees something else.)
Is there one AU in which FW actually goes through with his retirement plan (in which he also would have abdicated in Fritz' favour) and lives the religious hermit life in the country side, the one that Wilhelmine wrote about? (See, if Shakespeare actually would have had a shot at getting read at this point in Prussia I would have suspected someone of having told FW about King Lear about why this is not a good idea and if he thinks that his wife and daughters will actually play housekeepers for him in such a situation once he doesn't have absolute royal power over them anymore while Fritz does...) Since he had that idea for some months before he and Fritz visited Dresden it must have been when Fritz was 15 or 16? Since, however, Shakespeare was anathema to the lovers of French literature and not yet discovered by the German reading crowd when Fritz was a teen, FW must have reconsidered for other reasons.
Being an evil person sometimes, I also wonder about an AU in which Katte survives... but where FW actually does follow Philip II's example, though not Peter the Great's, has his son killed (though not tortured to death a la Peter). Maybe Katte survives because he got out of Berlin in time, or maybe FW needs to soothe his conscience about the son-killing by not pressing for a death sentence for Katte but accepts the original military tribunal sentence of imprisonment. But Fritz dies, and Katte survives. What would happen?