Happy Fritzmas! (*) / Frederician discussion post 7

[cahn]

Frederician fandom is the best! 3 stories in main archive and 2 stories in Madness, eeeeeeee and I have only managed to read my own gifts so far (well, I guess Madness isn't open yet either, but even if it had been I wouldn't have managed to have read them) but they are so goooooood

Also, I would like to apologize on behalf of the fandom that none of us apparently managed any Fritz/Voltaire. Some of us, uh, didn't know enough about Voltaire, and we are Taking Steps to attempt to rectify this in the future if anyone requests it, say, next year. Just saying.

I'm making this post because the last one has an insane number of comments, but I still owe SO many comments on the last post and I kiiiinda would like to read and comment on Yuletide stories for the next week as time permits so I almost hope this post doesn't get much action and then we resume in the new year? (Especially since there is a limited amount of discussion we can do on the fics right now!) :D I was thinking of making another post anyway for reveals.

(*) My husband D came up with this :P :)

Comments

Re: Voltaire and Ulrike

[mildred_of_midgard]

The same Ulrike who comes back for a visit and gushes about how LUCKY the other siblings are to still live here, and everyone is super quiet and crickets can be heard? Yeah.

Thanks for the additional quotes. Those are, um, special.

Re: Voltaire and Ulrike

[selenak]

To be fair: Post marriage, of course, there‘s the thing where Fritz refuses to pay out her dowry. Which as you‘ll recall she asked AW to help her with. Naturally, she also asked Fritz himself. (The war she mentions is Silesia 2):

My dearest brother,
     It is not without endless pain that I find myself obliged by the disturbance of my business and by the expenses occasioned for the support of the party to beg you, my dear brother, for the payment of the thirty thousand ecus that the late King left in the will to me, as well as to my other sisters. You will have the grace to remember, my dear brother, that, during the whole time that the war lasted, I never spoke of it, and I dare to assure you that it is only the last extremity which obliges me to do so. But the excessive expenses that I was obliged to make this summer, during the trip that the Prince Royal made for magazines, put me in an essential necessity to have recourse to your justice. I dare to flatter myself, my dear brother, that, addressing me directly to you, you will not take it badly, and that this step will not diminish the kindnesses that you have always shown me. Be convinced, my dear brother, that I would rather give up everything than lose your friendship, nothing in the world could not be more dear to me. I flatter myself, my dear brother, that you will be convinced of these feelings and of the inviolable connection with which I will not cease to be all my life, etc

Fritz? Parting with money? Especially so Ulrike can finance a party supposed to help her remaking Sweden into an. sbsolute state? Good luck.

In the 1760s, he has this to say to her:

I am very glad to see you in the feelings of tranquility to which I have exhorted you for twenty years. I have always repeated to you the danger and the uselessness of your ambition; I knew the Swedish nation and I knew that you can’t take easily freedom away from a free nation. I felt that all those who gave you hopes for this were deceiving you. As for what you are asking about the political system, I am unfortunately unable to tell you anything, because I do not know any politics in Europe. But for the rest, as it seems to me that Sweden above all needs money, I advise you to stick to the power in which you have found resources of this kind for so long. Pull in the foot or wing, because the one I deal with will never give you a crown.

and also:
     .... You understand, my dear sister, how sensitive it would be to my heart and hard to yours to see you one day reduced to coming to Berlin with all your family to ask for asylum, for not having wanted to follow the advice that my tender friendship and the purest interest in your rest and your glory only have dictated me in this answer.

Yeah, no.