Frederick the Great, discussion post 5: or: Yuletide requests are out!

[cahn]

All Yuletide requests are out!

Yuletide related:
-it is sad that I can't watch opera quickly enough these days to have offered any of them, these requests are delightful!

-That is... sure a lot of prompts for MCS/Jingyan. But happily some that are not :D (I like MCS/Jingyan! But there are So Many Other characters!)

Frederician-specific:
-I am so excited someone requested Fritz/Voltaire, please someone write it!!

-I also really want someone to write that request for Poniatowski, although that is... definitely a niche request, even for this niche fandom. But he has memoirs?? apparently they are translated from Polish into French

-But while we are waiting/writing/etc., check out this crack commentfic where Heinrich and Franz Stefan are drinking together while Maria Theresia and Frederick the Great have their secret summit, which turns into a plot to marry the future Emperor Joseph to Fritz...

Master link to Frederick the Great posts and associated online links

Comments

Re: Heinrich the Younger, AW's son

[selenak]

Wait, so he actually said, non-paraphrased literal quote, "first servant of the state"?

So he did. :) (BTW, do we know when Fritz first started to use that phrase? I.e. would Ulrike have caught the implication at once?)

AW seeing both Fritz and FW as role models in terms of kingship: the inevitable result of a childhood as FW's favorite son and then an adolescence thinking Fritz was the coolest? The respect for constitutional monarchy per se is also interesting. Heinrich later was one of the few European high ranking nobles who didn't take against the French Revolution once heads started to roll, which caused one 19th century Prussian historian to helplessly speculate: Maybe he was such a Francophile that even a French Revolution was okay by him, as long as it was French?

...or maybe, just maybe, both AW in his seeing the point of limiting royal power and Heinrich seeing the point of the French Revolution reflect a personal awareness of what unlimited royal power can do, historian.

Re: Heinrich the Younger, AW's son

[mildred_of_midgard]

(BTW, do we know when Fritz first started to use that phrase? I.e. would Ulrike have caught the implication at once?)

Well, I don't know how widespread his use of it was, and whether it would automatically click in Ulrika's mind like it does in ours, but the first reference I find to it is in his memoirs of the house of Brandenburg. Those were published 1747-1748, so if that letter is from 1755 or 1756, Fritz had definitely come up with the phrase and published it by then.

By the way, the context for this is "Grandpa F1 was *not* the first servant of the state."

Actual quote: "His court was one of the most fabulous in Europe; his embassies were as magnificent as those of the Portuguese; he trampled the poor, to fatten the rich; his favorites received large pensions, while his people were in misery; his buildings were sumptuous, his parties magnificent; his stables and his offices had more of Asian pomp than European dignity about them."

Two pages later begins the chapter about FW. I can see where this is going.

AW seeing both Fritz and FW as role models in terms of kingship: the inevitable result of a childhood as FW's favorite son and then an adolescence thinking Fritz was the coolest?

Maybe not strictly inevitable, but extremely natural, I would agree.

...or maybe, just maybe, both AW in his seeing the point of limiting royal power and Heinrich seeing the point of the French Revolution reflect a personal awareness of what unlimited royal power can do, historian.

Yeeeeaaaah. Omg, those Prussian historians.

Re: Heinrich the Younger, AW's son

[cahn]

ahahaha the phrase clicks for me because of the rap :P (I mean, it might have anyway? But I immediately think "Out the gate, first servant of state!")

Yeah, AW seems kinda... perceptive, from what you guys have shared about him.

Re: Heinrich the Younger, AW's son

[mildred_of_midgard]

Hahaha, that's what the rap is for! It's to make things so catchy they're unforgettable. :P I admit that despite knowing about and associating this phrase with Fritz for decades, that line now runs through my head too, and has been doing so throughout this whole conversation. I will also now never be able to hear the phrase "oblique order" without thinking "oblique attack tactics ain't exactly straight" either. :P

Pssst, what about a flute-bustin' Prussian?

what about a flute-bustin' Prussian

[cahn]

Lol, I was going to say, I am never gonna forget that Frederick the Great was known for the oblique order (although I may call it "oblique attack tactics" instead)

Re: what about a flute-bustin' Prussian

[mildred_of_midgard]

Good enough!