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Frederick the Great, discussion post 5: or: Yuletide requests are out!
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
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
Re: Casanova
Casanova does it too! Excerpted in full again:
My intimacy with Madame Denis commenced. One night when I was supping with her she was seized with convulsions which lasted all the night. I did not leave her for a moment, and in the morning, feeling quite recovered, her gratitude finished what my love had begun twenty-six years before, and our amorous commerce lasted while I stayed at Berlin. We shall hear of her again at Florence six years later.
Some days after Madame Denis took me to Potsdam to shew me all the sights of the town. Our intimacy offended no one, for she was generally believed to be my niece, and the general who kept her either believed the report, or like a man of sense pretended to believe it.
Amongst other notable things I saw at Potsdam was the sight of the king commanding the first battalion of his grenadiers, all picked men, the flower of the Prussian army.
The room which we occupied at the inn faced a walk by which the king passed when he came from the castle. The shutters were all closed, and our landlady told us that on one occasion when a pretty dancer called La Reggiana was sleeping in the same room, the king had seen her in ‘puris naturalibus’. This was too much for his modesty, and he had ordered the shutters to be closed, and closed they had remained, though this event was four years old. The king had some cause to fear, for he had been severely treated by La Barbarina. In the king’s bedroom we saw her portrait, that of La Cochois, sister to the actress who became Marchioness d’Argens, and that of Marie Theresa, with whom Frederick had been in love, or rather he had been in love with the idea of becoming emperor.
After we had admired the beauty and elegance of the castle, we could not help admiring the way in which the master of the castle was lodged. He had a mean room, and slept on a little bed with a screen around it. There was no dressing-gown and no slippers. The valet shewed us an old cap which the king put on when he had a cold; it looked as if it must be very uncomfortable. His majesty’s bureau was a table covered with pens, paper, half-burnt manuscripts, and an ink-pot; beside it was a sofa. The valet told us that these manuscripts contained the history of the last Prussian war, and the king had been so annoyed by their accidentally getting burnt that he had resolved to have no more to do with the work. He probably changed his mind, for the book, which is little esteemed, was published shortly after his death.
Madame Denis: Marie Louise Mignot, literary figure in her own right, Voltaire's niece and lover--yes, you read that right.
Portrait of MT in Fritz's bedroom: Who else thinks it was a portrait of someone else and Fritz told his staff to troll visitors by saying it was a young MT? :P
Also, here we have yet another reference to that old marriage AU!
Re: Casanova
Incest: just a thing in this era. Given Casanova in his later life had a one night stand with an old flame of his and their mutual (adult) daughter, he certainly wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow.
The memoirs are a treasure trove for period detail, observations on interesting people all over the continent and of course his own life (as remembered as a librarian in Bohemia). Occasionally also horrifying not necessarily for the reason the people of his era would have considered it to be so. Starting with his childhood; he’s the oldest son of a singer/actress and her less successful husband who’s also an actor because she’s, and simultanously admiring and deeply resentful of his glamorous mother, so he doesn’t speak until he’s about eight (and is considered dumb accordingly), and then he doesn’t shut up. Which gets him his mother’s interest in as much as she pays for his schooling in Padua (since he’s not so dumb after all), but not so much that she considers taking him with her on her tours through Europe (as opposed to a younger brother and sister - of several, the other siblings end up with their grandmother, the dad is already dead). What also happens in Padua before he’s even hit puberty: he gets fingered by his teacher’s sister. This to contemporary readers looked like “lucky dog, early initiation, eh” and to us like “child molestation much?”. And so forth.
Re: Casanova
Portrait of MT in Fritz’ bedroom
I think it’s quite likely that Fritz wanted to troll people, and possibly (while she was still alive) MT herself if reports get to her, and yes, period portraits look very similar to us, what with the wigs and the beauty ideals needing to be observed, but just for the sake of argument: MT was actually one of the few people whose portrait would have been recognizable to people within the HRE. Partly due to Fritz. Because those portraits of her and her family were a loyalty declaration, just as Fritz’ portraits were. For example, recently I was at the castle in Würzburg, which at the relevant era was held by the Schönborn family (v important Catholic family through several centuries all over the HRE and there’s a cardinal von Schönborn in Vienna even now), and sure enough, there was MT, both young and old, and Joseph (younger), too. For non-nobles, there were prints.
Now how much those portraits actually resembled the person - shrug. (Though I’d say Wilhelmine’s pastel is recognizable MT if you’ve seen some of her other portraits.) But they certainly had created an iconic look, identifiable to the casual observer.
(BTW, I was v amused at Fritz complimenting MT on her complexion in the crack fic, ,because, Cahn, that’s another insult if you consider the Prussian ambassador wrote to Fritz she was ruining her face with all that outdoorsy stuff. (Remember the period ideal for female skin was soft, white and rosy, not tanned and wind-weathered!)
Re: Portrait of MT in Fritz’ bedroom
Now, of course Fritz may actually have had a portrait of MT in his room! For trolling, for gloating, for coming across as superior for having defeated such a worthy ally and for treating her with such "respect", for many reasons. But I also like the idea of him testing people's gullibility. :P
(BTW, I was v amused at Fritz complimenting MT on her complexion in the crack fic, ,because, Cahn, that’s another insult if you consider the Prussian ambassador wrote to Fritz she was ruining her face with all that outdoorsy stuff. (Remember the period ideal for female skin was soft, white and rosy, not tanned and wind-weathered!)
Indeed, that was intended to be an insult on more than one level, disguised as a compliment. :D I had fun with that one.
Re: Portrait of MT in Fritz’ bedroom