Yuletide tags are out: Frederician version

[cahn]

Come join us in this crazy Frederick the Great fandom and learn more about all these crazy associated people, like the star-crossed and heartbreaking romance between Maria Theresia's daughter Maria Christina and her daughter-in-law Isabella, wow.

OK, so, there are FOURTEEN characters nominated:
Anna Karolina Orzelska (Frederician RPF)
Elisabeth Christine von Preußen | Elisabeth Christine Queen of Prussia (Frederician RPF)
Francesco Algarotti (Frederician RPF)
François-Marie Arouet | Voltaire (Frederician RPF)
Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great (Frederician RPF)
Hans Hermann Von Katte (Frederician RPF)
Joseph II Holy Roman Emperor (Frederician RPF)
Maria Theresia | Maria Theresa of Austria (Frederician RPF)
Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf (Frederician RPF)
Peter Karl Christoph von Keith (Frederician RPF)
Sophia Dorothea of Hanover (Frederician RPF)
Stanisław August Poniatowski (Frederician RPF)
Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758) (Frederician RPF)
Yekatarina II Alekseyevna | Catherine the Great of Russia (Frederician RPF)

This means some fourth person kindly nominated Algarotti and -- I think? -- Stanislaw August Poniatowski! YAY! Thank you fourth person! Come be our friend! :D Yuletide is so great!

I am definitely requesting Maria Theresia, Wilhelmine, and Fritz (Put them in a room together. Shake. How big is the explosion?), and thinking about Elisabeth Christine, but maybe not this year.

I am also declaring this post another Frederician post, as the last one was getting out of hand. I think I'll still use that one as the overall index to these, though, to keep all the links in one place.

(seriously, every time I think the wild stories are done there is ANOTHER one)

Comments

Re: The Ballad of Isabella and Maria Christina

[selenak]

Well, on the one hand, Joseph (who didn‘t have his mother‘s respect for the clergy) seems to have put the fear of God in that priest, and MT never said she didn‘t believe it, but...

...on the other hand, she did say that it‘s a comfort to her FS went to mass that day (it being Sunday) and took communion. Which could be read as meaning just that, or could mean she‘s somewhat suspicious of the „there were still life signs“ story but tells herself that there wasn‘t much sinning happening between morning, when FS had communion, and evening, when he died, so he still was in a good spiritual state.

Re: The Ballad of Isabella and Maria Christina

[cahn]

:( I'm glad that she did seem to believe he was in a good spiritual state, either way. I really don't want to imagine her thinking that not only did he die but that she'd never see him again after death because he'd died in a state of sin. :(

Re: The Ballad of Isabella and Maria Christina

[selenak]

Quite. This is as good a place as any to mention that her own death, by contrast, took three days (from the moment everyone admitted she was, in fact, dying), and was public (a lot, though not all of the time, courtiers and clergy were there in addition to her immediate family other than the children who were married abroad). She was wearing one of FSs old dressing gowns, as mentioned, and refused to fall asleep for those three days, saying she would not meet her maker in her sleep when he called her. A lot of coffee was involved. Joseph was present the entire time, too (also drinking a lot of coffee), for all that they'd really fought vehemently and a lot during their years as co-rulers. (And he had not taken her last intervention graciously - other than his immediate embarrassment at her contacting Fritz via Catherine behind his back and offer to step down which she didn't accept, he'd been pissed off to go, visit Catherine, and then write home that Catherine was certainly "the greatest woman of our age" (so there, Mom!).) But now he was there again, when even his sisters left to catch a break in between attending, because they did have an Albee-esque love/hate relationship on his part.

On the evening of the third day, November 29th shortly before 9 pm, she got up from the chair she was insisting to sit on and made a few steps to the Chaiselongue by herself, said "See, what bad weather for such a long journey" to Joseph (it was raining outside), took another three breaths and died.