cahn | Happy Fritzmas! (*) / Frederician discussion post 7

we are Taking Steps to attempt to rectify this

HAHAHAHAAA. Steps are Being Taken. *official sounding voice*

I almost hope this post doesn't get much action and then we resume in the new year?

If you're suggesting I hold off another week on my textual criticism, I suppooose. :P It's true I would like to give you time to catch up on comments to existing discussions, and then

selenak is probably too busy with her own holidays to read and comment on 10,000 words of cross-referencing and analyzing 7 primary sources.

(Especially since there is a limited amount of discussion we can do on the fics right now!)

Alternatively, you could lock the post to the three of us for a week? How wedded are you two to maintaining ~~the pretense~~ that last 0.00001% of uncertainty as to author identity? If you are, that's fine, I'm just...proposing alternatives?

I am ashamed to admit I've been misspelling "Glasow" as "Glosow" in many of my comments. I know why, it's because of how often the place-name Głogów cropped up in my map work, and then got stuck in my head. Anyway. Glasow.

Refresher on who Glasow is:

- Fritz's batman.
- Went with him to the Netherlands on the incognito trip.
- Lehndorff really wanted to go with Fritz on the Netherlands trip.
- Lehndorff said Fredersdorf retired because he was jealous of Glasow.
- We're not sure about Fredersdorf, but pretty sure Lehndorff is jealous of Glasow.
- Imprisoned for something, historians debate what.
- Maybe attempting to poison Fritz.
- Maybe unauthorized use of his seal.
- So basically another Marwitz or Trenck, possibly less exciting (but possibly very exciting if only we had more data).

Anyone who wanted to write crackfic that included Glasow, Marwitz, *and* Trenck would have a lot of material to work with. :P Lehndorff's head would explode from all the envy. "Why does he keep picking these charismatic bastards when he could have meeee?"

Attn Lehndorff: You have to make cow eyes at siblings *after* you start working for Fritz, not before.

I thought about commenting to mildred's comment on the chatfic but maybe it more belongs here? (I can move it to the fic itself if that is preferable.) Okay, I'm probably forgetting because it was a while ago, how did this go down in real life?!

Other discussions that are happening outside this space but are Highly Relevant to this space:

The fics in our fandom are popular!

Newcomers love crackfic!

This person is clearly one of us, and I am trying to get them to join us, and also Selena commented so then this happened.

To keep historical commentary on people's fics and comments here, I want to add something to one of

cahn's comments:

A week later, Friedrich’s replacement flute wasn't up to par any more than Eichel's replacement was

LOL Have I mentioned Oh Fritz lately?!

Fictional detail is historically accurate! We have a letter from Fritz complaining that the new flute was "nicht recht gut," and he wanted a different one. As for Eichel, I have no data, but I assume no replacement could live up to him on his first day on the job; the man could out-work Fritz and Fredersdorf.

Another historically accurate detail is that we don't know exactly on what day the dogs were returned, but the letter complaining about the flute dates to October 9, as does a letter to EC. (It is in fact, the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad* condolence letter about her brother's death.) I like the author's implication that Fritz was killing time by writing to her. :P

* In case our native of Germany is not familiar, this is an allusion to a children's book called Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Thanks to my wife, I have learned that no matter how up on American popular culture you are, you may still miss the children's book references.

Subdetective

selenak, would you be able to tell from Gallus

1) What Münchow Jr.'s first name is?
2) When the letter was written?

I'm putting some finishing touches on the textual criticism write-up, like context for the authors of our sources, and the font is freaking defeating me here. :/

Okay, I've now dug up the full set of poems, instead of relying on other people's excerpts, and you can judge for yourself, but it does seem to me like Fritz is being playful rather than upset while discouraging Voltaire. He also, amazingly, manages to drag Émilie into it, because Émilie is his main romantic rival in life right now.

So here's Voltaire's poem to Ulrike:

Souvent un peu de vérité
Se mêle au plus grossier mensonge.
Cette nuit, dans l'erreur d'un songe,
Au rang des rois j'étais monté;
Je vous aimais, princesse, et j'osais vous le dire.
Les dieux à mon réveil ne m'ont pas tout ôté;
Je n'ai perdu que mon empire.

Fritz then wrote three [god, this is so in character, "Hamilton wrote the other fifty-one" describes him perfectly] separate replies, apparently:

1) C'est pour vous faire part, monsieur, de l'aventure la plus étrange de ma vie que j'ai le plaisir de vous écrire. Comme vous y avez donné lieu, je ne pouvais me dispenser de vous en faire le récit. Retirée dans ma solitude, dans le temps que Morphée sème ses pavots, je goûtais le plaisir d'un sommeil doux et tranquille. Un songe charmant s'emparait de mes sens. Apollon, d'un port majestueux, l'air doux et gracieux, suivi des neuf Sœurs, se présente à ma vue. « J'apprends, dit-il, jeune mortelle, que tu reçus des vers de mon favori. Une chétive prose fut toute ta réponse; j'en fus offensé. Ton ignorance fit ton crime; te pardonner, c'est l'ouvrage des dieux. Viens, je veux te dicter. » J'obéis en écrivant ce qui suit :

Quand vous fûtes ici, Voltaire,
Berlin, de l'arsenal de Mars,
Devint le temple des beaux-arts;
Mais trop plein de l'objet dont le cœur vous sut plaire,
Émilie, en tous lieux présente à vos regards ....
Enfin l'illusion, une douce chimère,
Me fit passer chez vous pour reine de Cythère.
Au sortir de ce songe heureux,
La vérité, toujours sévère,
A Bruxelles bientôt dessillera vos yeux;
Je sens assez de nous la différence extrême.
O vous, tendres amis, qui vous rendez fameux!
Au haut de l'Hélicon vous vous placez vous-même;
Moi, je dois tout à mes aïeux.
Tel est l'arrêt du sort suprême:
Le hasard fait les rois, la vertu fait les dieux.

A ces mots je m'éveillai; à mon réveil vous perdîtes un empire, et moi, l'art de rimer. Contentez-vous, monsieur, qu'une deuxième fois, en prose, je vous assure de l'estime parfaite avec laquelle je suis

Votre affectionnée
Ulrique.

2) On remarque pour l'ordinaire
Qu'un songe est analogue à notre caractère :
Un héros peut rêver qu'il a passé le Rhin,
Un marchand, qu'il a fait fortune,
Un chien, qu'il aboie à la lune.
Mais que Voltaire, en Prusse, à l'aide d'un mensonge,
S'imagine être roi pour faire le faquin,
Ma foi, c'est abuser du songe.

3) Je ne fais cas que de la vérité;
Mon cœur n'est pas flatté d'un séduisant mensonge.
Je ne regrette point, dans l'erreur de ce songe,
La perte du haut rang où vous étiez monté;
Mais ce qui vous en reste, et que vous n'osez dire,
S'il est vrai que jamais il ne vous soit ôté,
Vaut à mes yeux le plus puissant empire.

Admittedly my French is no great shakes, but Fritz seems more peeved about Voltaire leaving him for Émilie (this was written after Voltaire was on his way away from Fritz's court back to Brussels) than about anything Voltaire may be thinking of doing with Ulrike. He seems still quite taken with Voltaire in these.

Lol, I went and looked again at that article on how the Voltaire-Ulrica relationship evolved (long story short, once she became queen he became far more interested in her as a potential patron than as a woman), and it contains these lines: "Implied here is the notion that a liaison is just as conceivable between the poet and the Princess, as between the poet and the King." I mean, that's *exactly* what I got out of these poems. "Yes, yes, you're interested in my sister, that's nice, what about meeeeee??? Freaking Émilie."

It's also evidently been questioned whether Fritz was even the author of (2).

Classical mythology references that may be a little on the obscure side, forgive me if they're well-known to everyone:
- Cythère = Cythera, home of Aphrodite
- Helicon = Mount Helicon, haunt of the Muses

So the "Five Ways" fic has a reference to Katte at Zeithain. Ever since I read (lol, "read"--Google translated sizable chunks, heavily skewed toward the end) the novel by that name, I've wondered: is there evidence that Katte accompanied FW and Fritz on that trip? Or is that pure historical fiction?

Okay, I have so many questions about protocol. :P Okay, I've trimmed this down to the important ones:

1) When is Fritz king "in Prussia" vs. "of Prussia"? I've seen sources I don't trust say that Fritz became king "of" Prussia after conquering Silesia, i.e. in the 1740s, and others that it wasn't until after the Partition of Poland, after 1772, when he acquired most of the historical domains of Prussia.

I've no objection to an author using "of Prussia" to avoid confusing AO3 readers, but I am curious for my own purposes when the change actually happened. I've always gone with the latter as it makes the most sense to me, but I'd like to be more confident.

2) Would anyone here know why Archduchess MT is called Her Most Serene Highness in "Fiat Justitia", instead of Her Royal Highness?

3) Similarly, why Fritz alternates between being His Majesty and His Grace in "Five Ways" at Neisse?

I assume we've all read these wonderful fics, even though (or because?) not all of us have commented on them. ;)

ETA: A couple of wonderful quotes from Fritz himself on the unimportance of protocol:

1) "When the late Field Marshal Grumbkow had written to the crown prince in old age complaining that he had not been addressed as ‘your excellency’, Frederick had pretended that he was perfectly confused when it came to titles: ‘I accord count, marquis, duke, cousin, excellency, brother, etc., to anyone and everyone, without knowing whether I have got it right or not.’"

2) "We don’t have any differences of rank here and we don’t recognise any either. I don’t intend to introduce any. You wear my Order [the Black Eagle] therefore you have the same position as my ministers and the others who have received it. When Charles V was in Milan a storm blew up between two of the first ladies of the court as to which of the two walked before and which behind the other. The quarrel reached his ears and he decided that the stupidest came first. That decision removed all distinction and the women came in in whatever order they chose. I don’t want to know about any ceremonial either, when you get to the door first, you enter first; when another reaches it before you, he precedes you."

Another case where Fritz's priorities = my priorities. <3 (I only want to know about protocol so I can get it right when writing characters who do care, or alternatively, so Fritz can get it wrong on purpose. :P)

Edited 2019-12-29 10:26 (UTC)

...which are a major subject in this part of the correspondance, along with a lot more needling and snark once our two correspondants have actually met. Have now reached the letters immediately after Wilhelmine's deaths.

First, a P.S. to the earlier installment - Voltaire, veteran of father/son emotional bloodshed, in his "congrats, you're king!" letter writes: The is one thing I would never ask a King about, but which I want to know from a human being: it is this - has the former King before his death at last recognized and loved the qualities of my charming Prince? I know that the qualities of the former King were very different from yours, so it may be that he didn't recognize your very different virtues; but if he should have warmed to them near his ending, if he justified the admirable affection you've demonstrated for him through your letters, I would be somewhat content.

To which our antihero replies: I arrived on Friday evening in Potsdam, where I found the late King in such a sad state that I knew his ending was near. He gave me a thousand signs of his friendship and talked to me for a good hour about inner and foreighn affairs, and did this in complete clarity of mind, and with the firmest common sense. On Saturday, Sunday and Monday, too, he appeared very calm, did not hope for any improvement regarding himself, and bore his immense suffering with the greatest firmness; on Tuesday morning at 5 am, he put the government into my hands, and tenderly said farewell to my brothers, of all deserving officers, and of myself. The Queen, my mother and I were with him in his final hours, during which he showed the stoicism of a Cato. He died with the curiosity of a physicist who wants to know what happens with him in the hour of his death, and with the heroic courage of a great man; he left us in sincere sadness about his loss and with the example of a brave dying.

Note what he didn't answer at all? Voltaire's actual question.

Anyway. King Fritz is a great deal more prone to sarcasm and demands than Crown Prince Fritz, as could be seen in his point blank "you're welcome, Emilie is not" statement as quoted in my last account. Of course, he still thinks Voltaire is the greatest writer of them all. Voltaire, for his part, is still immensely flattering, and pays compliments during the first Silesian war about the new Caesar/Alexander/ etc., but he also starts with the needling. As when he's discussing his new play Mahomet. Which was mostly him using Mohammed as an example of how religious prosecution and theocracy is evil, something he and Fritz of course agree on, but then there's also this:

I know Mohammed hasn't committed exactly the type of treason which is the subject of this tragedy. (...) But whowever carries war into his own country and dares to claim this happens in the name of God and justice - isn't such a man capable of anything?

You tell me, Sire. You tell me. Fritz, writing back from Silesia, does not address this matter at all but sticks to religion as the source of tyranny. Voltaire gets a bit more pointed after one of his many illnesses:

I only touched the Styx with one foot, but I am extremely angry about the number of the poor unfortunates whom I saw transported across this river. Some came from Schärding, the others from Prague or Iglau. Will you and your fellow monarchs never stop ravaging this earth which you claim you want to make happy?

And then he tops this by writing an ode... to Maria Theresia, I kid you not. In July 1742. (I.e. post Silesia 1, pre Silesia 2. This does not make Fritz happier than Wilhelmine meeting her will do:

The Queen of Hungary can count herself fortunate to have found a champion so well versed in the seductive art of words as you. I am glad our little disputes aren't fought in trials, for if I consider your affection for this queen, as well as your talents, I could not help but be defeated by Apollo and Venus.
You thunder against those who fight for their right with weapons in their hands and armed by their claims; but I remember a time when you, if you had been in possession of an army, would certainly have set it marching against the Desfontaines, the Rousseaus, the van Durens etc. etc. etc. As long as the platonic judgment of the Abbot de Sainte Pierre cannot happen, the monarchs of this earth will have no choice but create facts to end their disputes. (...) Misery and misfortune caused by this are like illnesses of the human body. You may regard the last war as a little attack of an eternal fever which has Europe as quickly as it has made Europe shake.

Voltaire not staying permanently in Berlin after his second trip in 1743 does not make Fritz happy, either:
I was your greatest defender, I would have fought anyone who dared to besmirch your genius. But you are an ingrate, the walls of Caucasus have given birht to you, a tigress has been your nurse, your heart is harder than Alpine rock and the marble of Paros; there can be only mercy for you if you come back here, ask for my forgiveness properly and bring those of your works which I find you owe to me with you. These are the conditions under which I am ready to agree to our reconciliation.

Voltaire: does not come back until after Émilie has died. Fritz doesn't get the Pucelle until then, either. Otoh, the widowed Duchess of Würtemberg (previously very briefly mentioned as the mother of Carl Eugen, Wilhelmine's dastardly son-in-law; Fritz can't stand her and won't let her raise her sons who are at his court) does. This is totally not Voltaire's fault. He says. 'Twas his secretary who let her secretary make a copy, in passing.

Émilie dies. Voltaire proves he's one of those men, like Fritz, C.S. Lewis and John Lennon, who think the highest compliment they can pay a woman is to say she's an honorary man. Or maybe he does so because he's writing to Fritz, and wants to get across to him how much Émilie meant to him, I don't know. But:

After twenty five years, I have lost a friend, a great man, who had only one flaw, that of being a woman, who is now mourned and honored by all of Paris. They may not have done her justice in life, and perhaps you would not have judged her as you did if she had had the honor of being presented to your majesty in person. But a woman who was able to translate Newton and Virgil and who had all the virtues of a gentleman will be undoubtedly be mourned by you as well.

Don't count on it, Voltaire. Btw, in the same letter he asks for Fritz to give him a medal as a little consolation, to wit, the newly founded Pour le Merite, which is available for civilians as well as the military. He won't get it until he's in Berlin, though. Given Fritz' track record of condolence letters, I was fearing the worst, but if he wrote a dastardly one following this, Pleschinski doesn't include it. Voltaire brings up Emilie and her death at irregular intervals through the years (for example, the court of King Stanislaus - "where I saw Madame du Chatelet die a hundered times more cruelly than you can possibly imagine has become a place of horror to me" ) but Fritz: *crickets* Instead, Fritz snarks about Voltaire not being with him already:

You will never lack good excuses for not coming; such a vivid imagination as yours is inexhaustible. (...) Thus I believe in your journey even less than in the arrival of the Messiah whom the Jews are still counting on.

He then gets back into flirting mode and writes a poem in which Voltaire is Danae and he's Zeus, who, as you'll recall, came to Danae in the shape of a rain of Gold:

For a brilliant beauty/Who attracted his fervent desire/ Jupiter devised to become/a splendid suitor/ Gold rained, and its enchantment/ compelled the harsh cruelty/ of the too chaste beloved/ (...)I who do not have the honor/to be this mighty God's replica/ I will in this agrarian place/still provide you with as much/imitate I will this rain/ which her suitor showed Danae with...

That does it. Voltaire rhymes back: "You very aged Danae/ will leave her little home/The gold which Jupiter sends/ is not her heart's desire/ She loves with a devoted heart/ Jupiter and not his pouring."

He arrives Disaster ensues. You've told the tale already, so let me skip forward to the 7 Years War, where Voltaire gets suicidal letters from Fritz (before Wilhelmine's death) and replies thusly:

You want to die. I won't speak to you of the painful horror this plan inflicts. (...) Let me instead add that nobody will regard you as freedom's martyr. You have to do justice to yourself; you know how many courts insist on regarding your invasion of Saxony as a violation of international law. What will people at these courts say? That you have avenged this invasion at yourself, that the grief to have acted against the law overwhelmed you. Do you want that? (...)
I, too, would have been in a mood to die when I lost my country because of you and my niece was dragged through the streets of Frankfurt on your orders. (...) He senses that such a dark decision is moved by speculation for an honor which won't be given to him. He feels that he doesn't want to be humiliated by personal enemies. So he makes that decision out of hurt, desperate vanity. Follow instead your superior reason despite such feelings; your reason will tell you you've not been humiliated and that you never can be; it tells you that you are a man like any other who even in the worst of circumstances will keep what makes other people happy: wealth, office, dignity, friends. (...)Can you truly claim to be a philospher if you couldn't live as a private citizen or if you, a former souvereign, could not bear anyone opposing you? (...) I am sixty five years old; I was born ill; I only have but one more moment to live; I was very unhappy, as you know; but I would die happily if I could leave you back alive on this earth and if you only practiced what you have so often written about.

Then Wilhelmine dies. Fritz writes to Voltaire on December 6th 1758, i.e. two months later:

You won't have found it difficult to measure the pain this loss has caused me. There are misfortunes which one can face with steadfastness and some courage; and then there are others against which all the steadfastness with one wishes to arm oneself and all the talk of philosophy is nothing, is useless help. (...) Never lose the memory of her, and please, I beg you, collect all your powers to create a monument in her honor. You only have to do her justice; and without needing to depart from truth at all, you will have the most beautiful and inexhaustible subject. I wish you more happiness and peace than I will now ever have. Federic.

So Voltaire writes a first draft of an ode to Wilhelmine ("femme sans préjugés, sans vice et sans molesse" and "ton cher frère aujourd'hui, dans un noble repos/recueillerait son ame à soi meme rendue;/ Le philosophe, le héros,/Ne serait affligé que de t'avoir perdue"). And so forth. But far from taking his loss stoically, for the first time, Fritz is not impressed by a Voltaire poetical work.

I received the verses you've written. Obviously I didn't express myself clear enough. I want something more splendid and more representative of her. All of Europe needs to cry with me for a virtuous woman far too little known. It's not necessary that my name is mentioned in this ode; all the world must know that she is worthy of immortality, and it is up to you to give her a place among the immortals!

They say that only Apelles was worthy of painting Alexander, and I believe that your pen is the only one worthy of serving the one being who will forever be the cause of my tears. I'm sending you verses I've written in a camp and which I have sent her a month before the cruel catastrophe which has taken her from me forever. These verses are assuredly not worthy of her, but they were at least a true expression of my emotions. In a word: I will only be able to die content if you manage to surpass yourself in this sad task I am giving you.

Pray for peace, but unless victory would give her back to me, neither peace nor victory nor anything in this universe could soothe the pain which eats me up inside.

(Voltaire writes a second version of the ode to Wilhelmine, which ends up in the first edition of Candide, and Fritz professes himself satisfied. But really, he wanted her back, and that was a task beyond any writer.)

Edited 2019-12-29 13:24 (UTC)

Okay, the finale. As the 7 Years War continues, Voltaire writes to Fritz what is probably the most famous of his statements about their relationship, so Mildred is bound to be familiar with it, but Cahn is not.

I admit to be very rich, very indedependent and very happy; but you are the one thing I am missing in my happiness, and soon I will die without having seen you again; you hardly care, and I try to work on not caring, either. I love your verses, your prose, your ésprit, your bold and firm mind. I couldn't live without you, nor with you. I do not speak to the King right now, to the hero, that is the business of monarchs. I speak to the one who has bewitched me, whom I have loved and who never ceases to infuriate me.

Now there, Fritz. You couldn't ask for a better love declaration, can you?

Our antihero replies (July 1759): You are indeed a unique creature; whenever I want to be angry with you, you speak two words to me, and my accusations die in the tip of my pen. (...) I know very well I have adored you for as long as I didn't regard you as a pest and a villain; but you have played so many dirty tricks on me - but let's no longer talk about this; I have forgiven you everything in my Christian heart. All in all, you've provided me with more joy than grief. I take more enjoyment in your works and only feel a little of the scratches. If you didn't have any flaws, you could make the human species look far too inferior, and the universe would have good cause to be envious of your qualities. As it is, one can say: Voltaire is the most beautiful genius of all centuries, but I am at least more calm, more agreeable and more soft hearted than he is. And this comforts a common man over the fact of your existence.

Now I'm talking to you as your father confessor would, if you had one. Don't be angry, and try to hone all your good traits into the perfection I want to admire in you with all my heart.

Rumor has it that you want to write a tragedy based on Socrates. I can hardly believe it. How could one introduce female characters in such a play? Love would only be a cold episode; the entire subject only offers a great fifth act, Plato's Phaidon one beautiful scene, but that is it. I have overcome a few prejudices - young Fritz early in the correspondance used to complain about romance in tragedies - and I must admit to you that I no longer consider love out of place in tragedy. No matter what anyone says, I can never read Berenice without shedding tears. Tell me I cry without reason if you must, think what you will; but nothing will be able to convince me that a play is bad which is able to touch me and move me.

Sudden work stops me from writing further. Live in peace; if you have no other care than my anger, you may allow your mind some rest on that count. Vale. Federic.

(Berenice: presumably Racine's version, about which more here. Draw your own conclusion about the fact that Titus, the hero of the play, was expected to live for love and marry the one he loved after his father Vespasian's death, but instead in the end follows the path of political duty, as does, in the end, Berenice.)

Once the war is over, it's noticable that the two decades age gap between our two correspondants has ceased to matter, because Fritz, who has aged rapidly, is in his own eyes and everyone else's eyes an old man now. But it's not all exchange of health tips and literary matters; Voltaire fights for two very worthy causes which illustrate his commitment to human rights beyond satire quite well. One is the Affaire Calas, about which more here, which thanks to Voltaire ended as nearly as much talked about as the far later victim of outrageous injustice by the state, Dreyfus, the other the matter of the Chevalier La Barre, beheaded and after his death burned for extreme blasphemy. (French law pre French Revolution: like that. Actually worse than in Italy, because the French church, like the Polish church today, prided itself on being more Catholic than the Pope. The Pope of the 1750s having been Benedict the Newtonian - aka the one whom Wilhelmine jested to Fritz about in her letters - whom Voltaire, in a typical move, dedicated his tragedy Mahomet to to avoid the accusation he was using Mohammed and Islam to satirize the Roman Catholic Church. This worked in as much as the Pope was amused, accepted the dedication and wrote a few encouraging letters, and didn't work in as much as Voltaire still couldn't get the play staged in France where the French church, see above, was more Catholic than the Pope.)

In the 1760s, Voltaire starts his correspondance with Catherine, who promptly gets referred to as "your Empress" or "your Imperiatrizia" by Fritz in his letters. Fritz also reports about his two meetings with Joseph, and what he writes before meeting ViennaJoe for the second time is downright crack ship encouraging, since it's not in a over the top letter between monarchs but in a personal one to Voltaire:

This Prince is amiable and truly deserving. He esteems your works and reads them as often as he an; he's not superstitious in the least. Consequently, he's an Emperor of a kind we haven't had in Germany since a long time. Neither he nor I like ignorants or barbarians; but this isn't a reason to kill them; if it was, the Turks would hardly be the only ones. How many nations have been dumbed down due to lacking enlightenment!

What he's alluding to here is that Voltaire in his old age has decided there is actually one worthy cause he wants Fritz to go to war to, allied with Joseph and Catherine both: against the Ottomans. Voltaire, it turns out, is really sincere idea that both Islam is the worst of the Abrahamatic religions and the Turks are the worst, and he wants Team Enlightened Monarchs to take them on militarily. I kid you not.

It's all very well to say that the Mohammadanian religion should pose a counterweight to the Greek religion and the Greek religion to the Catholic one. I'd love for you to be the counterweight. I'm always aggrieved at the idea that the feet of some pasha should walk through the ashes of Themistocles and of Alcibiades. This image makes me want to throw up as much as the one of Cardinals petting their doves at the tombs of Marcus Aurelius does.
Seriously, I don't understand why the Empress-Queen doesn't sell her household goods and equips her son, the Emperor, your friend - in as much as people of your rank can have friends - with her last Taler so he can go at the head of an army to Adrianopel and await Cathereine there. This enterprise strikes me as so natural, so easy, so beautiful that I can't understand why it has not yet been accomplished; of course your majesty would have received a good glass of wine out of this deal. Everyone has their chimera; this is mine.

(Voltaire, you don't want to know how "liberating" Muslim nations "for their own good" works out; you truly don't. Incidentally, Joseph and Catherine did fight the Ottomans together at a later point, post MT's death. This did not go well for Joseph.) Anyway, Fritz replies to this sudden pro war stance by Voltaire thusly:

You are amazed that neither the Emperor nor myself interfere in the oriental conundrums. As for the Emperor, you'd have to ask Prince Kaunitz; he will tell you the secrets of his policy. As for me, I provide the Russian operations with money, which I'm paying them for a considerable time already, and you should know than an ally doesn't provide both troops and money at the same time. I'm only indirectly concerned in this whole mess due to my relationship with your Empress. And speaking personally: I abstain from war out of fear to be excommunicated by my favourite philosopher.

(Shade throwing: still an art.)

Our antihero is of course aware he is not likely to see his favourite writer ever again. This comes up when Voltaire meets Wilhelmine's daughter.

If I cannot see you again in this life, I am glad you have encountered the Duchess of Würtemberg. Our way of hearing from each other via third parties does not replace the facie ad faciem. Greetings and letters do not replace Voltaire if one has once has had him in persona.
I am overjoyed at the virtuous tears you have shed in memory of my late sister. If I had been present during this sad scene, I would have united my tears with yours. Whether out of weakness or overwhelming affection, I have done for my sister what Cicero had planed to do for his Tullia. I have build her a temple dedicated to friendship; her statue stands in the back, and on every column there is a medaillon with an image of the heroes of friendship. I'm sending you a sketch in this letter. This temple I have placed in a part of my garden. I often go there, to remember her whom I have lost and of the happiness I once have enjoyed.

The letters they write to each other in their sunset years are affectionate and barbed, with ongoing mutual admiration without this going into such extremes as the crown prince/Voltaire correspondance. One thing Pleschinski notes is that neither of them seems to be interested at all in what's going on in the British soon to be ex colonies during the 1770s. This despite the fact that Prussia actually had, via Steuben, some troops there. (Then again: Steuben: while venerating den einzigen König more of a Heinrich fan.

cahn, did Mildred and I tell you yet about the time Steuben, he who fought in the American war of independence, wanted to make Heinrich King of America afterwards?) And you'd think Voltaire would be interested in revolution, especially one which actually gets armed support from France, but noooo. This is a contrast not just to younger people like Boswell - who is from another generation and a Scot and thus does root for the colonial rebels - but to the Duc of Croy (also translated by Pleschinski, remember my summaries and excerpts a few posts ago) who is of Fritz' age and very interested in what's going on overseas, and in Franklin. (And in wonderful Captain Cook, explorer of the Pacific. #saveJamesCook.) It's part of their mutual tendency to get increasingly isolated from the new world shaping around them, not just culturally. (Cue a few Fritz lines about omg, what are my people doing, staging godawful Shakespeare in godawful German translations in our theatres, we'll never be able to reach the French standard of literature that way!)

Voltaire's last letter is from Paris, where he's back after many years of exile and will experience one last triumph as his play Irene gets staged to thunderous applaus. It's the eve of the Revolution, of which he'll be regarded as a forerunner; he dies in Paris and the aftermath of his death is a story by itself, illustrating the need for revolution, among so many other things. Fritz, like I said, writes a heartfelt "why he was the greatest" speech to be read out loud at his academy. Earlier, he'd written to his problematic fave: "I am content to have lived in the age of Voltaire".

(Which is what the 18th century is actually known as in France - until the Revolution, of course. But Fritz said it first.)

So remember when I speculated that Fritz may not have gotten upset with Fredersdorf for getting married because Fredersdorf was smart enough to present it as a nursing opportunity from the get-go?

I just saw his general Seydlitz doing the same thing, in 1760: "Your Majesty,—I pray most devotedly that you will give your permission that I may marry the youthful Countess of Hacke, on the day preceding that on which I take my departure hence to join the army. Not to be entirely subjected to servants, if I should be wounded at a future time, is one of the motives which causes me to venture to lay this petition before your Majesty."

I wonder if Fritz ever caught on? Or if it seemed reasonable to him that the only reason you'd want a woman around is in case you've been wounded in battle?

Seydlitz, btw, seems extremely het in the 19th century bio I have; whether that actually means he was bi, idk, but love affairs with women seem to be a thing for him (a thing that the author, who evidently much prefers manly chaste Prussians, laments). At any rate, where I was going with this was that he does not seem like the kind of person who gets married only to have a nurse. Which is not to say that womanizers don't have marriages of convenience and a lot of mistresses on the side, but I suspect some managing of Fritz here.

Edited 2019-12-30 14:41 (UTC)

I almost hope this post doesn't get much action

I like how the fact that it didn't means that it "only" got 120 comments!

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Glasow

Holstein Pete and P(Russian) Pete

External links

Italian Greyhounds

Münchow

Voltaire and Ulrike

Zeithain

Protocol

Voltaire, Fritz and Deaths

Fritz and Voltaire: The Sunset Years.

Marriage

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