Frederick the Great, discussion post 6

[cahn]

...I think we need another one (seriously, you guys, this is THE BEST) and I'd better make it now before I disappear into the wilds of music performance.

(also, as of this week there are two Frederician fics in the yuletide archive and eeeeeeeeeee)
(huh, only one of them is actually tagged with Frederick the Great even though two with Maria Theresia and Wilhelmine, eeeeeee this is awesome I CAN'T WAIT)

Frederick the Great masterpost

Comments

Re: Lehndorff: The Bitter Years - It's Marwitz Time!

[mildred_of_midgard]

Seriously, I suspect someone (Voltaire?) might have trolled people by writing an anonymous "How to succeed at the court of Frederick II" list

I'm starting to think you're right. I now have two sources agreeing that in 1740, Voltaire was writing love poetry to an unmarried Ulrica, and Fritz was writing sarcastic poetry back, going, "No, you can't have."

And we all know about Katte's double portrait of Fritz and Wilhelmine.

Hohenzollerns are collectible items!

Re: Lehndorff: The Bitter Years - It's Marwitz Time!

[selenak]

Voltaire/Ulrike, now there's a crack pairing I never thought I'd see. :) Given her fondness for despotism, it would have crashed and burned even faster than any other pairing, but undoubtedly we'd have gotten good pamphlets out of it.

Gustav: So, let me see whether I understood that correctly. You, Mom, start a major scandal about my creative solution to the succession problem involving an expert, and now I hear that back in the day, you got wooed by the most notorious writing scoundrel of Europe who simultanously was flirting with Uncle Fritz?

Re: Lehndorff: The Bitter Years - It's Marwitz Time!

[mildred_of_midgard]

Ulrike: Can I help it if everyone wants me? I said he wooed me, not that I invited him into my bed. No, I let your Uncle Fritz write him some poetry, which I figured having to read that would be enough to turn anyone off. Little did I know Voltaire was into bad poetry, and they had a poetry-reading "arrangement". *air quotes with her fingers* But trust me, there were no threesomes.

Re: Lehndorff: The Bitter Years - It's Marwitz Time!

[mildred_of_midgard]

Correction: 1743, not 1740. It was Voltaire's second visit, not his first.

Googling just now, I found a scholarly article arguing that Fritz thought the flirtation was innocent, did *not* object, and was in fact trying to prolong it by adding some poetry to the mix. Well, well! (Crack pairing indeed.)

Re: Lehndorff: The Bitter Years - It's Marwitz Time!

[cahn]

OMG. Are there, like, excerpts of this poetry? (These can go in the next post, if they exist :) )