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: Peter Keith

[mildred_of_midgard]

Later references to Peter Keith.

In 1750, an English traveler reports that Fritz actually gave him a gift of more money (I was aware of the amount but not the timing--I thought it had been an up-front thing in 1740), with this little anecdote:

There was a military review that took place partly on the grounds of his mother-in-law's house. Though little or no damage was done (depending on who you believe), Fritz gave Keith a casket with 10,000 crowns inside and told him to give it to his mother-in-law. The casket also had a letter saying nice things about Peter.

Hilariously, our source on this is a guy who:

1) Doesn't think Fritz can possibly be a free-thinker "in the worst sense of the word," because he's so virtuous.

2) In 1753, writes that Fritz is so extremely non-Machiavellian that the Anti-Machiavel was written by him--or his favorite Voltaire, the author's not sure, but either way, it means Fritz is like the most virtuous monarch ever. In 1753!

3) Doesn't think war is going to break out between Prussia and Russia, because Russia's not going to fuck with Fritz, and also Fritz would probably lose from the sheer disadvantage of numbers, even if he won a battle or two. Man, dude is going to be in for a surprise in about 3 years, and again in 10 years.

Anyway, I don't hold people responsible for predicting very unexpected political and military developments, and everyone is going to be biased by their own perspective on religion, but where was he in 1740?? Haha.

However, I was interested to find that he moved to Lisbon in 1729, which means he was there when Peter Keith arrived in 1730/1731, and in fact he states that he was very well acquainted with Keith and had a high opinion of him.

Unlike one Thomas Carlyle, who did not know Keith (being born too late), but did not let a little thing like that stop him from disliking him. Observe: "At the name Keith, a slight shadow (very slight, for how could Keith help himself?) crosses the mind: 'Is this, by ill luck, the Feldmarschall Keith?' No, reader; this is Lieutenant-Colonel Keith; he of Wesel, with 'Effigy nailed to the Gallows' long since; whom none of us cares for."

Thank you, you cranky Scot, I definitely enjoy being told whom I do and do not care for.

The anecdote in which Carlyle passes judgment (well, not for the first time) against Keith is the one where there's a huge bitter academic fight at the Academy of Sciences in 1752. It will eventually suck in König, Maupertuis, Euler, Voltaire, and Fritz, and culminate in or at least contribute to the final big Fritz/Voltaire explosion.

Anyway, Peter Keith had been appointed a curator at the academy by Fritz a few years earlier, so he gets to collect votes, write letters, etc. Carlyle disagrees with the decision, so he announces that none of us like Keith anyway. He also trashes Euler in the same section with "great in Algebra, apparently not very great in common sense and the rules of good temper."

Now, I tried super hard to understand what Carlyle was upset about in this passage, but I was forced to admit defeat at the hands of paragraphs like this:

"THURSDAY EVENING, 13th APRIL, 1752, The Academy met; Curator Monsieur de Keith, presiding; about a score of acting Members present. To whom Curator de Keith, as the first thing, reads a magnanimous brief Letter from our Perpetual President: 'That, for two reasons, he cannot attend on this important occasion: First, because he is too ill, which would itself be conclusive; but secondly, and A FORTIORI, because he is in some sense a party to the cause, and ought not if he could.' Whereupon, Secretary Formey having done his Documentary flourishings, Curator Euler—(great in Algebra, apparently not very great in common sense and the rules of good temper)— reads considerable 'Report;' [Is No. 1 of— Maupertuisiana.—] reciting, not in a dishonest, but in a dim wearisome way, the various steps of the Affair, as readers already know them; and concludes with this extraordinary practical result: 'Things being so (LES CHOSES ETANT TELLES): the Fragment being of itself suspect [what could Leibnitz know of Maxima and Minima? They were not developed till one Euler did it, quite in late years!], [— Maupertuisians,— No. i. 22.] of itself suspect; and Monsieur Konig having failed to' &c. &c.,—" c.,—' it is assuredly manifest that his cause is one of the worst (DES PLUS MAUVAISES), and that this Fragment has been forged.' Singular to think!' And the Academy, all things duly considered, will not hesitate to declare it false (SUPPOSE), and thereby deprive it publicly of all authority which may have been ascribed to it' (HEAR, HEAR! from all parts)."

So I went and googled the affair. A much clearer source explained that König had attacked some principle of physics that Maupertuis considered one of his most important contributions, and furthermore said that Maupertuis didn't come up with it at all, but Leibniz did. A debate then ensued over whether the fragment König produced and claimed was written by Leibniz was real or a forgery.

Things escalated when Voltaire took König's side and attacked Maupertuis in a satire, and Fritz said, in effect, "Stop satirizing everyone at my court; only I'm allowed to do that!" and Voltaire said, "Fuck that, I'm a professional satirist! Satirize ALL the peoples!" and Fritz said, "Fuck you and the monkey you rode in on, and also give me back my book of satires I wrote about other people or I cut you." And the rest was history.

1752-1753, ladies and gentlemen. As we know, Algarotti skipped town in 1753 to avoid getting caught up in all this drama. Wise man. Also, total tangent, but it's hilarious to read in Wilhelmine's memoirs, ca. 1745, "My brother and I used to satirize everyone we knew as teenagers, but I outgrew that," and then several years later, Voltaire: "Women are better than men. Case in point: Wilhelmine, me, Fritz." [Fritz: "Pretty sure she's a man anyway." Wilhelmine: "You're not helping your case, bro."]

Anyway, my modern source concludes, "In the final analysis, neither of the protagonists prevailed, since most historians of science give the most credit for developing the principle of minimum action to Euler."

Whereas Carlyle seems to be mocking the point of view that gives Euler the credit, taking König's side, and upset with Keith and the academy for taking Maupertuis' side. Which makes me even less inclined to take at face value any of Carlyle's conclusions about whether we do or do not care for Peter on the basis of his participation in this debate.

That academic kerfluffle is the last bit of data I have on Peter Keith until his death on December 27, 1756. I haven't found a place or cause of death. It is after the Seven Years' War started, but the Prussian army was in winter quarters at the time, so there shouldn't have been a major encounter. Still, if he was in the army, there's lots of ways to die in the army, most notably illness (possibly responsible for more deaths than battle, I'm not sure). Anyway, if I find out more, will pass it on. Not that anyone else is as obsessed as I am, but I'm researching in hopes of future fic inspiration here.

Finally, Robert Keith, Peter's younger brother who betrayed the escape plan to FW, apparently got transferred to a regiment and then disappeared from history. The last trace of him that I or any biographer I've read (some state explicitly that he disappears) can find is November 1, 1730, when he wrote a letter thanking FW for not killing him his mercy. 5 days later, Katte is executed, and protests are felt as far away as England. I really have to wonder how the guy who went to FW and said, "Btw, it might interest you to know that your son is trying to escape please don't kill me," fared in that regiment, with sympathies running so high for Fritz and the shock over Katte. If I were him, I'd keep my head low too.

ETA: I can't believe this only just occurred to me, but I wonder if he actually changed his name. Would that have been an option in the military?

Like, when Fritz came to power he famously did not punish anyone involved, but that's a long ten years before he's king to be in a violent environment and be known not just as a snitch, but as a snitch in a situation where the consequences were terrible. I'd change my name if I could.

Re: Peter Keith

[cahn]

Hee, this is all very interesting. I should also brush up on my history of mathematics :P (I do feel like the rule is generally "If in doubt, ascribe it to Euler because he probably came up with it.")

Oh man, yeah, I wouldn't want to be Robert Keith after that.

it's hilarious to read in Wilhelmine's memoirs, ca. 1745, "My brother and I used to satirize everyone we knew as teenagers, but I outgrew that," and then several years later, Voltaire: "Women are better than men. Case in point: Wilhelmine, me, Fritz." [Fritz: "Pretty sure she's a man anyway." Wilhelmine: "You're not helping your case, bro."]

HEE.