Frederick the Great, discussion post 6
Dec. 2nd, 2019 02:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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
(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
Re: Barbarina
Date: 2019-12-09 07:15 am (UTC)(Which Italian poet, Mildred?)
Lehndorff in 1750 catches the tail end stories and reports on them, but he's... distracted.
September 1st. (...)Cocceji, the son of the grand chancellor, goes to Silesia; against his will, he's been made President of Glogau. His father can't forgive him having married La Barbarina, and thus he plays such tricks on his son. (...)There are several dinners with the princes. (...) I spend some very pleasant evenings alone with Prince Heinrich. My God, how charming the Prince is under these circumstances! I would always like to visit him under these term!
(Also Lehndorff, which I've remembered apropos James Stuart-Mackenzie: *reads a history of the Stuarts* Wow, the Stuarts are such a WEIRD royal family. Must be the weirdest royal family ever. Do you get the Stuarts? I don't get the Stuarts. Frist they fuck around and then they keep losing their throne for some old fashioned religion they don't even believe in.)
(Ghost of James II: Slander. I am the most faithful son of the Catholic Church there ever was!)
Back to Barbarina: I guess everything was beautiful at the ballet? And anyway, what kind of gay man would Fritz have been if he didn't have a soft spot for ballet and ballet dancers? I'm just surprised no one threw shade at him for all that boasting about being the sole monarch in Europe to keep it in his pants and not spend money on favourites. No one other than Voltaire, that is.
Does Lady Mary mention ballet in her letters?
Re: Barbarina
Date: 2019-12-09 08:14 am (UTC)She kinda does!
(Which Italian poet, Mildred?)
If it's not Algarotti (whom no one else considered ugly, but, you know, it's Voltaire), I don't know off the top of my head. I see Maupertuis was offered a pension of 12,000 livres, so it's possibly Algarotti, but I'd have to dig, and it's my bedtime. If I find out, you know you'll be the first to know. :)
September 1st. (...)Cocceji, the son of the grand chancellor, goes to Silesia; against his will, he's been made President of Glogau. His father can't forgive him having married La Barbarina, and thus he plays such tricks on his son. (...)There are several dinners with the princes. (...) I spend some very pleasant evenings alone with Prince Heinrich. My God, how charming the Prince is under these circumstances! I would always like to visit him under these term!
LOL, Lehndorff is nothing if not consistent! I admire your focus (Hotham notwithstanding).
(Also Lehndorff, which I've remembered apropos James Stuart-Mackenzie:
Just to be historically accurate: I have Jacobites more or less permanently on the brain, but just because your last name is Stuart-Mackenzie and your parents named you James and it's 1743 doesn't mean you're necessarily a suspected Jacobite. (If your parents named you James Francis Edward, that's a different matter.)
Wow, the Stuarts are such a WEIRD royal family. Must be the weirdest royal family ever. Do you get the Stuarts? I don't get the Stuarts. Frist they fuck around and then they keep losing their throne for some old fashioned religion they don't even believe in.)
They are pretty darn weird. Personally, I find them less exciting as individuals than the Hohenzollerns, though as a family they definitely had a topsy-turvy history.
But the Hohenzollerns are NORMAL, and everything they do is NORMAL, and ADMIRABLE, and why can't all the other princes be more like them?
(Ghost of James II: Slander. I am the most faithful son of the Catholic Church there ever was!)
You, maybe. Your grandson Cardinal Henry Benedict, def. Your grandson Charles Edward, not so much. (What year is Lehndorff reading the history? Before or after the '45?)
Does Lady Mary mention ballet in her letters?
She might? I only have a library copy whose spine I cannot bend, fold, spindle, or mutilate, so cannot check. I don't remember it from her letters to Algarotti, if that's what you're asking. She agrees with AW on hunting, though!
After the end of a long rant on inhumanity of same: "If I were inclined to write, I would compose an epistle in the name of all the animals to the greatest Warrior of the Century, to encourage him to the Slaughter of these Tyrants, who imagine themselves privileged to exercise the most enormous cruelty."
Well, Lady Mary, your recipient's boss (or boss until recently):
- arguably the greatest Warrior of the Century,
- agrees with you on hunting,
- currently (Feb 1757) engaged in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands,
- most of whom probably imagine themselves privileged to exercise that most enormous cruelty of which you write!
...Somehow I don't think that's what she meant.
Re: Barbarina
Date: 2019-12-09 12:05 pm (UTC)Lehndorff is nothing if not consistent! I admire your focus (Hotham notwithstanding).
Given that Heinrich keeps changing boyfriends, Lehndorff is allowed one alternate True Love. Incidentally, note that 1906!Editor does not try to sell us Lehndorff's feelings for his prince or for Dearest Hotham as paternal/filial/fraternal/family relationship of choice. He doesn't classify them at all, he just apologizes and explains the general Rokoko emo and waterworks. Otherwise, he even says in the summaries stuff like "and then he was delighted to see his beloved Prince Heinrich again". I have no idea what 1926!Editor would have made of Lehndorff. Or Heinrich. Also, I can't help but seeing a backwards development here. Theodor Fontane in the late 19th century, with the Oscar Wilde trial still to come, has no problem referring to Heinrich's last boyfriend as "a relationship of the heart" and not mentioning the word "fatherly" even once, despite an age gap which actually would have fit with that for his readers.
Stuarts: Lehndorff is reading the history in the early 1750s, so definitely after. And yes, finding the Stuarts weird when you're surrounded by Hohenzollerns whom you fanboy as royalty role models is so breathtakingly... something... that I just had to share. Incidentally, the current head of the Stuarts through the Jacobite line is... drumroll... none other than the current head of the House of Wittelsbach, Franz von Bayern. Wittelsbachs: smugly: Not only are we better at survival than the Hohenzollern, we also still own our castles. And those we don't any more, we got paid handsomely for. Also? We know which claims to pursue and which to leave for folk dancing opportunities.
(Seriously though, Franz spent some time in a concentration camp as a child because the Wittelsbachs, as opposed to Willy's kids, really were anti Nazi. A plus guy, Franz. Jacobites could do worse.)
As for me, the only of the classic Stuarts I really like is Charles II., but that generation and the one before and after certainly is screwed up enough that we could, post Yuletide, hold a very special Stuarts session. Given The Favourite has made Anne as the last Stuart Queen reappear on people's radar again, who knows who might join?
Re: Barbarina
Date: 2019-12-09 09:02 pm (UTC)Barbarina: it's a shame that final guy turned out to be a less than stellar choice (seriously, Fritz actually turns out to have a good instinct for lousy husbands/boyfriends - all accidents due to his Control issues, or character insight?)
From the guy who thought living with Voltaire was an A+ idea? Well, I don't know, it's not uncommon for it to be easier to spot the mote in someone else's eye than the beam in yours. And we have no data on Hotham, of course. But aside from Voltaire, and some non-serious pretty boys he liked to look at (Trenck, Glosow), Fritz's choices for relationships of the heart that I can think of, seem to have been pretty solid choices: Keith, Katte, Fredersdorf, Algarotti. He was not necessarily good at holding up his end, but I would approve any of them for him as a boyfriend/husband (though not necessarily him for them).
Of course, if Voltaire had been interested in marrying Fritz, he would have eloped with him in a heartbeat, so...no one's perfect.
As for how clearly he saw the problems in other people's relationships, I really can't say. Too many control issues, and Occam's razor and all that.
Given that Heinrich keeps changing boyfriends, Lehndorff is allowed one alternate True Love.
Indeed! I'm very far from criticizing him. Just teasing him a little about what you told me was the very abrupt rebound boyfriend he was ready to emigrate for. Heck, maybe emigrating and getting *away* from the yo-yoing of his emotions re Heinrich was a major draw. :(
the current head of the Stuarts through the Jacobite line is... drumroll... none other than the current head of the House of Wittelsbach, Franz von Bayern.
Hahaha, yup. The Stuart line got saner with time?
Franz spent some time in a concentration camp as a child because the Wittelsbachs, as opposed to Willy's kids, really were anti Nazi.
That part I didn't know. Good for them. (I mean, sucks to be them in the 1940s, but good for them.)
As for me, the only of the classic Stuarts I really like is Charles II
He's definitely best of breed.
we could, post Yuletide, hold a very special Stuarts session. Given The Favourite has made Anne as the last Stuart Queen reappear on people's radar again, who knows who might join?
Very true! I've only heard of this in the last few days, by way of my wife, who actually watches things. She really liked it. So yes, maybe we'll attract some new people for that session. Plus YT had some James VI/I slashing nominations and at least one request I remember seeing, so maybe we'll gain some traction there.
I admit to largely skipping 17th century history, so I assume I know more than
Re: Barbarina
Date: 2019-12-10 12:07 pm (UTC)You do have a point. In his defense, he hadn't met Voltaire in person before inviting him? Then again, as you say, he probably would have eloped with him later, too, so. Good point about the other serious relationships, too. He certainly shows a better taste in choosing for himself there than Heinrich (mostly).
Alas, google brought me nothing about Hotham Jr. in terms of what he was like, so he could have been anyone between Mr. Perfect and soemone Lehndorff was better off without. Can't help but notice, in any event, that he never came back for Lehndorff. And he hadn't been banished from Prussia, he could have. Perhaps not during the Seven-Years-War, though Britain was an ally, but later? Then again, it was four months. Hotham Jr. could have been a great guy and still be forgiven for not clinging to a four-months love affair years later.
There's also the question as to how much Fritz noticed about Lehndorff anyway. In what I've read, Lehndorff doesn't report a single one on one conversation, which I'm sure he would have if they'd ever had one, or at least he'd have written something like "the King graciously singled me out for conversation". Given the sheer amount of time Lehndorff spent hanging out with the younger brothers, he must have registered at least as something a bit more than "EC's chamberlain", but not much more.
Now, given that when Hotham arrives on the scene, Lehndorff is in a "Heinrich who?" mood and all "ignoring you now, see if I care, here's my new love!", I'm not surprised he didn't ask Heinrich to intercede for him with the King, but it's interesting he doesn't ask AW, either, and AW is the sole royal brother he's consistently on good terms with. So why not ask the Crown Prince to plead on your behalf with the King? Especially since even royal siblings (Ulrike, Wilhelmine during the three years of estrangement) ask AW for mediation, and that's his role in the family from toddlerdom on - when SD & Co. used him to ask FW for favours - until the Seven Years War; he's not likely to refuse without good reason, especially if he likes someone, and he did like Lehndorff. (If the direct German quotes from his last year of life are anything to go by, he called him "Lehndorfchen", i.e. the endearment form.)
Tentative speculation: as much as Lehndorff was in love with Hotham, maybe a part of him didn't want to go and thus subconsicously was holding him back?
Fritz and Voltaire
Date: 2019-12-10 10:05 pm (UTC)Au contraire! He first met Voltaire in 1740, in Cleves, on his trip west to Bayreuth, western Prussian domains, and Strasbourg, right after becoming king. Then Voltaire spent a couple weeks at his court before the Silesian invasion. Voltaire was annoyed because he didn't get an invitation to stay on permanently on that occasion, and people like Maupertuis and Algarotti did.
And then he visited again in 1743, to spy on Fritz for the French court (and Fritz apparently suspected this and kept him away from anywhere he might acquire any useful information). And during this time, they visited Wilhelmine together.
And then Fritz spent years trying to lure him back, and finally got him in 1750, after his mistress Émilie Du Châtelet died in childbirth in 1749. (Poor Émilie. :-( )
So not only had he met Voltaire, Fritz was already snarking about his personality, and he knew Voltaire was willing to spy on him (on behalf of his at-the-time French allies, but still). And Fritz's approach to wooing Voltaire to his court involved publishing a scurrilous poem in Voltaire's name, in hopes of pissing off the French court so that he would need to flee to Prussia for asylum. (Voltaire found out and was not too impressed by the underhandedness.) And between spying on each other and betraying each other, they wanted each other badly enough that 1750-1753 happened.
I can hear you saying, "Good lord." This sort of thing is what their correspondence translator meant by "They so thoroughly deserve each other"!
(You know, this would actually make good fic if I could write at all. Someday.)
But yes, aside from Voltaire, Fritz seems to have had pretty good judgment in selecting partners, even if not always the relationship skills to back it (re Algarotti especially).
Alas, google brought me nothing about Hotham Jr. in terms of what he was like, so he could have been anyone between Mr. Perfect and soemone Lehndorff was better off without.
Agreed. I admit I didn't dig too deeply, but I was looking for what I could find on him, and it wasn't much. It took a fair bit of digging just to work out that he was the nephew of the double marriage Hotham.
Hotham Jr. could have been a great guy and still be forgiven for not clinging to a four-months love affair years later.
Agree completely.
Tentative speculation: as much as Lehndorff was in love with Hotham, maybe a part of him didn't want to go and thus subconsicously was holding him back?
Could be! It's an interesting question that hadn't occurred to me.
Re: Fritz and Voltaire
Date: 2019-12-11 06:59 am (UTC)I'm with the translator -they thoroughly deserve each other.
ETA: Could you tell me more about Voltaire's particular beef with Maupertuis? /end of ETA
re: Hotham - Lehndorff Unplugged has more on that front, too. Including one time when he drags Hotham on one of his farewell visits (since Lehndorff thinks he's emigrating to England, he makes a goodbye tour through the Berlin salons), and wouldn't you know it, it's the one to Heinrich. Whom he's totally indifferent towards now. Bad luck, Prince! See what you'll be missing!
At which point I thought: mayyyyyynbe Hotham Jr. wasn't quite as clueless as Lehndorff, deduced new German boyfriend was just a bit hung up on this Prince Heinrich person, and later, once he's back in England, decided to leave things be. He doesn't write, either, or at least Lehndorff doesn't mention it, and the Unplugged version even mentions all the letters from his mother and siblings.
Re: Fritz and Voltaire
Date: 2019-12-11 07:07 am (UTC)(Mind you, from an individual liberty perspective, I totally think people should be allowed to make their own mistakes and risk disastrous relationships, just as Fritz and Voltaire did. But Fritz may be showing signs of a radar for "This is not serious relationship material" for everyone except Voltaire, about whom he was about as rational as Lehndorff and Lady Mary combined.)
Re: Fritz and Voltaire
Date: 2019-12-11 07:17 am (UTC)Apropos of that, this thread may afford you some brief amusement while you wait.
Re: Fritz and Voltaire
Date: 2019-12-16 10:41 pm (UTC)(well, okay, Fritz/Joe will always have a special place in my heart too)
Re: Fritz and Voltaire
Date: 2019-12-17 12:18 am (UTC)I mean, learning French and reading their 3 volumes of correspondence is a bit ambitious, but aggressively Google translating a bunch of letters: very likely.
They are an awesome crack pairing! Even 1926!Editor admits they're canon to at least some degree! (And aww, we never did get Fritz and Joe together.)
Re: Fritz and Voltaire
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From:Re: Barbarina
Date: 2019-12-16 10:38 pm (UTC)There's also the question as to how much Fritz noticed about Lehndorff anyway.
Heeeeee. I just really don't get the impression Fritz would notice someone like Lehndorff at all. I mean, I'm sure being EC's chamberlain didn't help, but I feel like Fritz went for the brainy and/or competent guys (and not just romantically speaking, although I was sort of thinking about that, but also in general) and... it's not that Lehndorff is incompetent, exactly, but his general cluelessness can't have helped! I bet he would have had a much better chance if he'd run EC's stuff so well that Fritz noticed... although with how much he didn't want to think about EC, that might have also been super difficult, so... Lehndorff may have just been in a no-win situation in terms of getting Fritz' notice!
Re: Barbarina
Date: 2019-12-17 03:21 am (UTC)Even though you are neglecting your true purpose in life, which is to encourage us in ours.I kind of agree re Fritz noticing Lehndorff, and I'm not sure even being hyper-competent would have helped (as you say, EC), but neglecting his job to crush on Heinrich and hang out with the divine trio was not calculated to appeal to Fritz!
Although, idk, it worked out for Marwitz. :P
Only as batman, though, where "charisma + pretty face" seem to have been the main job qualifications. Seriously, Fritz, your serious affairs are solid (unlike your brother's), but your batmen that I know of are Glosow (imprisoned for either attempted assassination or unauthorized use of your seal), Marwitz (Trenck-lite), and, uh, Trenck himself.
Lehndorff does not strike me as either hyper-comptent/brainy *or* charismatic bastard enough to catch Fritz's eye. Plus what
Re: Barbarina
From:Re: Barbarina
From:Re: Barbarina
From:Re: Barbarina
Date: 2019-12-10 05:11 am (UTC)Yes please! Stuarts are one of those parts of British history that I don't know anything about. And I have heard good things about The Favourite that made me want to watch it -- wait, that was your review :P :) (I haven't watched it yet, of course.)
Re: Barbarina
Date: 2019-12-10 05:13 am (UTC)Stuarts related preparation links
Date: 2019-12-10 11:21 am (UTC)Review of two novels by Jude Morgan. (The second one is about the romantic poets, btw, specifically Byron-Shelley-Keats, and it's excellent, too. The Stuart novel is called "The King's Touch", was Morgan's debut novel and deals with Charles II through the eyes of his first illegitimate kid, James, later Duke of Monmouth.
Now, in this review, I assume some things are made up by Morgan which later turned out to have been actually historical, bear this in mind.
Review post about two biographies. The other one is about Fancis Barber, servant to Dr. Johnson, no Stuart connection. The Stuart biography is about Monmouth, and that's where I do a compare and contrast to the novel.
Another historical tv show imagined by me, this one about penniless Charles II in his exile years forced to make a buck by fighting crime together with a Dutchwoman who later turns out to be a secret Cromwell agent.
Madame and her brother, review with extensive quotes of the correspondance between Charles and his youngest (and favourite) sister Henriette (Minette), the unfortunate first wife of Philippe d'Orleans. If Philippe comes across far worse here than I've presented him in the Liselotte context,
Review of THE FAVOURITE, set during the last years of Anne (niece of Charles, daughter to brother James), who is one of the three main characters.
Something I've also read and watched, but not reviewed in my journal because it was years earlier: Antonia Fraser's biography of Charles II, as well as the BBC tv show about him based on it. That one comes in a bowlderized US and an uncut British version, so if either of you ever gets around to it, make sure to get the British version (more episodes, longer). The US one isn't just cut for sex but also for politics, as apparantly they thought you Colonials would not care for more complicated parliamentary manoeuvres. Wiki has more on the differences between the US and the UK version.
ETA: and of course I need to link this Horrible Histories song!
Re: Stuarts related preparation links
Date: 2019-12-16 10:39 pm (UTC)Re: Barbarina
Date: 2019-12-10 11:50 pm (UTC)I meant to say: yes, she did, and good for her!
Re: Barbarina
Date: 2019-12-10 05:07 am (UTC)I continue to find Lehndorff adorable! Though distractible :P
Re: Barbarina
Date: 2019-12-10 05:11 am (UTC)Re: Barbarina
Date: 2019-12-13 10:58 pm (UTC)Current evidence points toward Giampetro Tagliazucchi. I found Voltaire's quote in full, and it included a little extra identifying information, namely "His Italian poet, who was obliged to put the operas into verse, of which the King himself gave the plan had little more than a thirtieth part of this sum." So I went and asked Wikipedia who wrote the Italian libretto for Montezuma, and it was Tagliazucchi. I wasn't able to find much more on him; even Italian Wiki doesn't have an entry.
Re: Barbarina
Date: 2019-12-13 11:03 pm (UTC)"As for the Italian poet, he one day took care to pay himself with his own hands, for he stript off the gold from the ornaments in an old chapel of the first King of Prussia's; on which occasion Frederick remarked, that as he never went to the chapel he had lost nothing. Besides, he had lately written a dissertation in favour of thieves, which is printed in the collections of his academy; and he did not think proper this time to contradict his writings by his actions."
"This time" aka unlike with the Anti-Machiavel, obviously.
Ouch.
(I'm currently reading Voltaire's memoirs and taking notes. Sensationalist gossip coming soon.)
Re: Barbarina
Date: 2019-12-14 07:52 am (UTC)(I also admit I find it not a little satisfying that she and Schmeling-Mara were able to negotiate such top salaries out of frugal Fritz the misogynist. Go girls!)
Looking forward to your take on the memoirs, listed, of course, by 1926 Editor among the "few hints on the King's path of suffering" that was the Fritz/Voltaire relationship in Editor's eyes. "Leidensweg" will never fail to crack me up as a description, I must admit.
(Ziebura in her description of Mirabeau coming to Prussia, hitting it off with Heinrich (so Heinrich thinks) and returning to France to write a trashy bestseller declaring the entire Hohenzollern clan, including Heinrich, rubbish, was no less partisan, but she put it as "cheap homophobic slander", being a 21st century writer. As Heinrich had liked Mirabeau but hadn't been into him on a Fritz/Voltaire level, we didn't get a tempestous aftermath out of it, either, not even a letter-long rant, just a fatalistic "c'est la vie" shrugging. Heinrich: reserving all the obsessiveness for Big Bro.)
Re: Barbarina
Date: 2019-12-14 09:37 am (UTC)Indeed! And both ended up trying to flee to London with their lovers/husbands, said husband being arrested, and eventually the Maras make it to Prague. I have this quote re the successful Mara escape:
"In 1780 she fell ill, but Frederick refused to allow her to go to a Bohemian spa for a cure. 'But now I began to feel the weight of slavery,' she wrote in her autobiography. 'Not only was I having to bury my fame and fortune with him [Frederick] but also now my health,' so this time she and her husband planned their flight carefully. Describing her emotions on waking up for the first time in the safety of Bohemia, she wrote: 'A magnificent morning awaited my awakening, there was a lawn in front of the house, so I had my tea served there and felt completely happy— O Liberté!'"
"Leidensweg" will never fail to crack me up as a description, I must admit.
Indeed! The Passion of Fritz.
You know, for not having an army at your disposal, Editor, you're doing quite well in the life-or-death fanboying competition with Peter III.
Heinrich: reserving all the obsessiveness for Big Bro.
Yeah, Heinrich/Fritz and Fritz/Voltaire have a lot in common.
Italian poets
Date: 2019-12-21 09:12 pm (UTC)Voltaire, you and Lehndorff need to give us *names* if you're going to give us gossip!