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cahnCome 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)
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)
More Algarotti
Date: 2019-10-25 08:21 pm (UTC)"Algarotti had conquered the hearts of both Lord Hervey and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu during his time in London. This had caused a rivalry between Hervey and Wortley Montagu to win Algarotti's love, a rivalry that became all the more bitter when Algarotti announced his decision to leave the city.
"Hervey and Algarotti had had an instant rapport, a rapport that led Hervey to fall madly in love with Algarotti. Even before Algarotti had decided to leave London, Hervey wrote to the Venetian to say he would never forget him for as long as he lived. Wortley Montagu, too, was entirely enamoured with Algarotti within only two weeks of meeting him, in spite of the considerable age difference between them: Wortley Montagu was forty seven years old, and Algarotti, twenty three, the same age as Wortley Montagu's son.
"In her letters to him, Wortley Montagu tried to impress Algarotti with her learning. She also made use of her letters to confess her love to him. Writing to Algarotti in August of 1736, Wortley Montagu declared that her feelings for him had become too strong for her to hide. By September she told him she would love him all her life in spite of both his impulsiveness and her good sense. She informed him that he should be happy to be loved in so desperately. Whether or not he was happy to be loved with such profundity, Algarotti did not return Wortley Montagu's feelings.
"Algarotti had tried to use romance to get ahead before: during his time in Bologna, he had professed his love to influential promoter of Italian intellectuals Elisabetta Ratta. Although she did not return his feelings, his efforts were not entirely without consequence, as it was she who had paid for his Rime to be published. Perhaps he hoped that his two well-placed London friends, Lord Hervey and Wortley Montagu, would be even more inclined to help him advance his career if their interest in him went beyond admiration of his talents. It is not clear whether Algarotti had actively sought to encourage Hervey or Wortley Montagu to confess their undying love to him. However, once they had, he certainly did not take steps to discourage these feelings in either one of them.
"When Algarotti decided to leave London, Wortley Montagu was plunged into the depths of despair. Hervey, too, was quite broken up about Algarotti's departure. Shortly after Algarotti left, Hervey wrote to Algarotti to say, 'I love you with all my heart and I beg you never to forget the affection I have for you, nor let the affection you have expressed for me grow weaker.' Indeed, Hervey missed Algarotti so terribly that he fell into a depression.
"The circumstances surrounding Algarotti's departure and its aftermath caused a great deal of friction between Wortley Montagu and Hervey. On his last night in London (September 5, 1736), Algarotti dined with Wortley Montagu, at her invitation. Algarotti told Hervey, who had also extended him a dinner invitation for that evening, that he could not accept because he had already agreed to dine with Martin Folkes. However, his choice of companion for his last night in London did not mean that he preferred Wortley Montagu to Hervey. Algarotti had promised to write to Wortley Montagu once he had reached Calais, but did not. Rather, he wrote to Hervey. Having discovered in whose company Algarotti had actually spent his last evening in London in the meantime, and wanting to get revenge on his rival, Hervey boasted about having received this letter to Wortley Montagu. Desperate to hear news of Algarotti, Wortley Montagu coerced Hervey into meeting with her. However, still resentful over not having Algarotti's first choice during his last evening in London, Hervey made certain not to share any information on their mutual love interest at this rendezvous.
"The more he ignored her after leaving London, the more desperate Wortley Montagu's love for Algarotti became. She continued to write him sentiment-laden letters in which she complained bitterly that he never wrote back. When sending him a portrait of herself proved not to be enough to persuade him to write to her, she wrote to express her anger at this latest evidence of his callousness. However, her anger was not great enough to induce her to forget about him; quite the contrary, in fact. In this same letter, she told him that, if he could not arrange to return to London, she would arrange to join him in Italy. She would make good on this promise in 1741, much to Algarotti's chagrin."
Wow, everyone is so...mature!
Re: More Algarotti
Date: 2019-10-26 05:58 pm (UTC)BTW, speaking of inocculation, given both Isabella and only a few years later Maria Josepha, Joseph‘s second wife, as well as a child daughter and other relations of MT died of smallpox, she showed her mixture of practicality and ruthlessness the following way after Josepha‘s death:
Dr. Van Swieten (brought by FS to court): There‘s this new method that sounds daring but actually possible and, if working, will immunize your remaining family, including your younger children who are still, well, children.
MT: What‘s the downside?
Dr. Van Swieten: If it doesn‘t work, your children will catch smallpox for sure and possibly die of it.
Clergy: this method is off the devil. Proof: the King of Prussia is for it! Don‘t do it, your highness.
MT: Right. I‘ll be careful.
Clergy: That means you won‘t do it?
MT: No. It means this Dr. Van Swieten will first try the method on these poor orphan boys who will, of course, be financially compensated, whatever happens. If it works, my kids and the rest of the family get inocculated as well, and ditto for the rest of the realm. Start praying for the boys.
Dr. Van Swieten: That would work, but...huh. Not sure what the ethics here are. Thankfully, we‘re living a few centuries before human experimentation becomes a definite crime.
MT: I‘m not volunteering my kids as the first to try this new method on, but I see your reasoning that it needs to be tried. Onwards!
Re: More Algarotti
Date: 2019-10-26 06:09 pm (UTC)Inoculation
Date: 2019-10-28 04:20 pm (UTC)If I had ultimate power and grew up with 18th Century mores, I'd be totally on the human experimentation bandwagon! Perhaps a good thing no one is trusting me with ultimate power :)
Re: Inoculation
Date: 2019-10-28 07:20 pm (UTC)