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

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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...

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From:

selenak

Cicisbeo: I had to look it up, too, but in a previous letter, because Fritz earlier asked her whether she had one yet.

Wilhelmine, Fritz and their "dogs are the better people" conviction: in addition to their background, Wilhelmine had lived through the Bayreuth town residence burning down, with her and the Margrave in it, and the Bayreuth population not lifting a finger to help them, or to quench the fire. Obviously, they made it out alive, but that experience deeply shocked her, not least because it underscored how unpopular they both were. The main reason was money, i.e. her building the beautiful Eremitage and the gorgeous Rokoko opera house (that several generations later would be Wagner's reason for moving to Bayreuth in the first place), along with the garden of Sanspareil, and the Margrave living in Rokoko prince style (provincial edition), too. Not to mention that the Bayreuth/Prussia alliance meant Franconians ended up as soldiers in the various conflicts between Fritz & MT. Now Fritz who spent even more money on cultural things and whose fault most of the wars were still was (for most of his reign) very popular and beloved in his kingdom because nobody doubted he was simultanously a workoholic and he took that "first servant of the state" thing seriously. But the Margrave was decidedly not a workoholic, and Wilhelmine wasn't allowed to do any governing because WOMAN. So they had the "this couple taxes us and spends our money on their hobbies, AND our sons are prone to die in wars we have zilch to do with" anger from the population.

I went !! at the bit where Fritz actually had the self-awareness to pick up that he might be sour-graping :D

Same here, when I first read it. I was also struck by the second image he uses, of the galley slave.

From:

cahn

:( Poor Wilhelmine, I bet she would have done a much better job at all of this.

~~though personally I am happy she built the opera house~~

From:

selenak

So is the UNESCO, as it's declared a World Cultural Heritage. Have a look here! (A vid made apropos the finished restoration in 2018).

Bayreuth went from being a sleepy provincial town to, well, still a sleepy town but with some magnificent architecture and gardening, as well as a first class musical ensemble during Wilhelmine's life time and then, a century later, becoming a world musical centre again because Wagner originally had fallen in love with Wilhelmine's opera house before realising he still needed his own building to stage the Ring in. All of which is due to Wilhelmine, which is why current day Bayreuth loves her. It's still understandable 18th century Bayreuth had problems, though!

(Tellingly, when the town residence burned rumor claimed the Margrave burned it down himself because he and his wife wanted to build yet more new mansions. This was rubbish, not least because the Margrave wasn't suicidal or murder-inclined, and the wretched building had burned with him and Wilhelmine inside it. But it says something about how the population saw them.)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

which is why current day Bayreuth loves her. It's still understandable 18th century Bayreuth had problems, though!

*nod* A lot of history is like this. Algarotti had the reverse problem! Everyone who met him loved him, but he didn't do enough for his birthplace to make future residents happy with him.

The opera house is lovely. Thank you for the video.

But it says something about how the population saw them.

Yeah, yikes. On another sweet sibling note, Fritz at least came through with replacement books, music, clothes, etc. for them.

Wilhelmine: Dear brother, you know how it goes when you're super depressed and you don't even have flute music to take your mind off your miseries? That's my husband right now. Could you maybe send a flute and some Quantz concertos to cheer him up? It would do him a world of good.

Fritz: Yes, yes, absolutely, they're on their way now. Anything for my sister. Please make a list of what else you lost, both of you, so I can make good on your losses. The important thing is that you didn't die. As long as you're alive, we can fix the rest. PLEASE DON'T DIE. NEVER DIE. (5 years before she died, about a year and a half before she and her husband left for Italy hoping to improve her health.)

From:

cahn

That looks gorgeous. One day I'll make the pilgrimage :D

Awwww, yeah, they must really have disliked them :(

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I just got to the part in her memoirs (written several years before the fire) where she's talking about how awesome her husband is, and concludes, "All his subjects, by whom he is adored, are ready to confirm all I have written on this subject."

That must have been one brutal wake-up call. :/