At least neither Joseph nor Fritz (had he gone) were the types to insist on wrestling the French king to show off their manliness only to get humiliatingly beaten in public. :)
(BTW, the rank and status problem, or rather, the acknowledgment or lack of same: that's why I rolled my eyes - one of many times - when The Tudors had Charles V. pay an official state visit to Henry VIII's court and defer to him. In your dreams, Henry.)
(Though that's less tv lack of historicity and more anglo-centric pov with an utter lack of realisation as to what the HRE was, I suppose. And that has a long pre-tv tradition. For example, in Josephine Tey's drama Richard of Bordeaux - which btw I like otherwise - about Richard II - she has Anne of Bohemia, Richard's first wife, refer to herself as a girl from the back of beyond coming to the wonderful English court when marrying Richard. Ahem. Anne was the daughter of Emperor Charles IV, most powerful man of his time. She was the sister of another HRE. She did not marry upwards in this match. Her father's court (mainly in Prague), far from being the back of beyond, was the most cultivated of its time, it was multilingual - her father was fluent in Latin, German, French, Bohemian and Italian - and multinational. But yeah, sure, coming to that island where Richard was thought to be decadent for using forks and hankerchief must have been really dazzling to a poor country girl like her.
Haha, do we know how early is early?
In this particulare case, the Duke writes Joseph and his ugly German carriage leave "at dawn", and since it's May 30th, I'm assuming around 5 am-ish?
Lol, I was thinking, "Now what does that remind us of?" Mind you, there are anecdotes of Philip and Alexander doing the same thing, 2000 years earlier.
Note that Louis XV is utterly lacking in inclination to lecture people about their fields of expertise, though sadly also lacking in inclination to take an interest in anything that's not fun and distracting to him. Like governing.
LOLOL! Those wacky marriage projects.
I would say "well, Joseph is a Habsburg and they take their family motto seriously", but you know, marrying relations off to strategic advantage was what Fritz did a lot, too. Though he probably drew the line at elephants. :)
Re: Chronicle of an undercover visit
At least neither Joseph nor Fritz (had he gone) were the types to insist on wrestling the French king to show off their manliness only to get humiliatingly beaten in public. :)
(BTW, the rank and status problem, or rather, the acknowledgment or lack of same: that's why I rolled my eyes - one of many times - when The Tudors had Charles V. pay an official state visit to Henry VIII's court and defer to him. In your dreams, Henry.)
(Though that's less tv lack of historicity and more anglo-centric pov with an utter lack of realisation as to what the HRE was, I suppose. And that has a long pre-tv tradition. For example, in Josephine Tey's drama Richard of Bordeaux - which btw I like otherwise - about Richard II - she has Anne of Bohemia, Richard's first wife, refer to herself as a girl from the back of beyond coming to the wonderful English court when marrying Richard. Ahem. Anne was the daughter of Emperor Charles IV, most powerful man of his time. She was the sister of another HRE. She did not marry upwards in this match. Her father's court (mainly in Prague), far from being the back of beyond, was the most cultivated of its time, it was multilingual - her father was fluent in Latin, German, French, Bohemian and Italian - and multinational. But yeah, sure, coming to that island where Richard was thought to be decadent for using forks and hankerchief must have been really dazzling to a poor country girl like her.
Haha, do we know how early is early?
In this particulare case, the Duke writes Joseph and his ugly German carriage leave "at dawn", and since it's May 30th, I'm assuming around 5 am-ish?
Lol, I was thinking, "Now what does that remind us of?" Mind you, there are anecdotes of Philip and Alexander doing the same thing, 2000 years earlier.
Note that Louis XV is utterly lacking in inclination to lecture people about their fields of expertise, though sadly also lacking in inclination to take an interest in anything that's not fun and distracting to him. Like governing.
LOLOL! Those wacky marriage projects.
I would say "well, Joseph is a Habsburg and they take their family motto seriously", but you know, marrying relations off to strategic advantage was what Fritz did a lot, too. Though he probably drew the line at elephants. :)