It had occurred to me before that while Fritz's ideal partner probably had Suhm's personality and Voltaire's brain, there might be something mutually exclusive in what he wanted out of each of them, in that Voltaire's viciousness was a feature rather than a bug, or at least a feature/bug.
Yep, that's what I'm thinking, too, though I'm not sure Fritz knew this - that he wanted different things from them - before actually meeting Voltaire. As long as they're still exchanging mutually gushing admiration letters, he might have been thinking he'd get a slightly more sharp tongued Suhm. I mean, as of the early 1740s, he had had no comparable relationship to the one he'd end up having with Voltaire in his life, and the cult of romantic friendship certainly does not entail constant verbal sparring. So I'm thinking maybe on the one hand, Voltaire didn't live up to his idea of him as a person, but on the other, he simultanously realised that what he was getting with Voltaire was something which turned up way more addictive than if Voltaire really had been sage and wise and just etc.
Stung by this misadventure, and also possibly because he gets hit by a bout of malaria at this time, Fritz cancels the trip to Paris, which he never does get to visit. (Heinrich does, after Fritz's death.)
And before. One trip in 1784, one just before the French Revolution and after Fritz' death. The Paris trip from 1784 is the one whom this superlonging old age letter from Fritz to Heinrich while he was there is about (in the old age section of my letter write up):
My dearest brother, When you are in Paris, my dear brother, a multitude of materials appear under the pen; a prodigiously populated city, an industrious nation, are inexhaustible sources from which one draws a hundred pleasant, interesting and instructive things. In this I find myself very backward, and unable to return the favor to you. Shall I speak to you of my vines, which have produced very poor grapes, of our trees, which the cold strips of their leaves, of my garden, which the cold will force me to abandon shortly? What will I tell you about society? I live as a recluse like the monks of La Trappe, on which you have glanced; I work, I walk, and I don't see anyone. But I talk to the dead by reading their good works, which is better than invoking the manes and talking to the Sorbonne and its evil genius, a use that masonry has put in vogue, and that popular superstition adopted. I beg you, my dear brother, to familiarize yourself a little with the Gallic hermits, so that when you return you can live with your old brother, who no longer cares about the world except by a thread. What a fall to leave Paris, and find yourself in Potsdam, at the home of an old rambler who has already sent part of his big baggage to take the lead for the last trip he has left to make. There, you saw busts, you were presented with operas, you heard famous academicians declaim; here, you will see an old cacochym body, whose memory is almost lost, who will annoy you with used words and the nonsense of his gossip. But bear in mind, however, that this old man loves you more than all the fine ésprits in Paris do. Be convinced of his tender attachment and the high regard with which, etc.
You think Algarotti wasn't one of Voltaire's sources for the manuscript on how to succeed at Fritz's court? Katte was starting a family collection back in the 1720s!
LOL! Well, Algarotti had some catching up to do, and he was triangle-experienced...
I also don't think it was in the carriage because carriage rides were super uncomfortable, with all the jolting, and with Fritz's health problems, I doubt he would have been physically comfortable enough to relax and have sex.
Oh absolutely. Even Casanova avoided having sex in a driving carriage for that reason. Presumably if they did get it on, Algarotti and Fritz waited till the kid was off to his own bed, so to speak, in a nice and comfortable inn. (And in the later to be burned Bayreuth town residence.)
How many people do you think per carriage, btw? I've got a record of 2 royals and 2 nobles on this trip, plus assorted servants.
Depends on the type of carriage they were using. There were really different sizes available. Remember, the Duc de Croy is slightly scandalized Joseph during his incognito visit in Paris shows up in "a shaby German chaise with post horses driving quickly", with only wet two servants (it's raining) and another one on horseback. ("That's how they always travel in Germany, no matter in which weather or during which time of the year, in open and very ugly carriages.") But then Joseph really did not have travelling companions a la Algarotti and AW, he had "only" the three servants. I think the carriage Bach and son Friedemann are using at the start of Mein Name ist Bach is likely similar to what Fritz & Co. could have been travelling in. They're only two people, but have all the musical instruments with them, and inside the carriage you could fit in four.
Anyway, the servants don't get to drive inside the carriage, they're either on separate horses or outside on the coach box or even on the top of the roof. Hang on - I just recalled a famous example. When Marie Antoinette & Louis made their doomed escape attempt, they were using one carriage, for the entire royal family - five all in all, two kids, Louis' sister Elisabeth & MA & L - as well as a servant and the coachman. In the movie I already mentoned once, La Nuit de Varennes, which is about the random company following them, you can see in this clip what a carriage containing six people inside - with ample space to go - looks like. (One of them is Harvey Keitel as Thomas Paine, btw.) Meanwhile, Casanova enters the film in a much smaller and cheaper chaise (he's old and a librarian in Bohemia, after all), which is commonly used by just one or at most two travellers, as seen here.
That, and he had competition with Voltaire which he didn't have with Suhm. No Émilie in Suhm's life! And competition surely appealed ot his inner terrier.
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Re: Toppings of all types, continued
Date: 2020-01-17 05:41 pm (UTC)Yep, that's what I'm thinking, too, though I'm not sure Fritz knew this - that he wanted different things from them - before actually meeting Voltaire. As long as they're still exchanging mutually gushing admiration letters, he might have been thinking he'd get a slightly more sharp tongued Suhm. I mean, as of the early 1740s, he had had no comparable relationship to the one he'd end up having with Voltaire in his life, and the cult of romantic friendship certainly does not entail constant verbal sparring. So I'm thinking maybe on the one hand, Voltaire didn't live up to his idea of him as a person, but on the other, he simultanously realised that what he was getting with Voltaire was something which turned up way more addictive than if Voltaire really had been sage and wise and just etc.
Stung by this misadventure, and also possibly because he gets hit by a bout of malaria at this time, Fritz cancels the trip to Paris, which he never does get to visit. (Heinrich does, after Fritz's death.)
And before. One trip in 1784, one just before the French Revolution and after Fritz' death. The Paris trip from 1784 is the one whom this superlonging old age letter from Fritz to Heinrich while he was there is about (in the old age section of my letter write up):
My dearest brother,
When you are in Paris, my dear brother, a multitude of materials appear under the pen; a prodigiously populated city, an industrious nation, are inexhaustible sources from which one draws a hundred pleasant, interesting and instructive things. In this I find myself very backward, and unable to return the favor to you. Shall I speak to you of my vines, which have produced very poor grapes, of our trees, which the cold strips of their leaves, of my garden, which the cold will force me to abandon shortly? What will I tell you about society? I live as a recluse like the monks of La Trappe, on which you have glanced; I work, I walk, and I don't see anyone. But I talk to the dead by reading their good works, which is better than invoking the manes and talking to the Sorbonne and its evil genius, a use that masonry has put in vogue, and that popular superstition adopted. I beg you, my dear brother, to familiarize yourself a little with the Gallic hermits, so that when you return you can live with your old brother, who no longer cares about the world except by a thread. What a fall to leave Paris, and find yourself in Potsdam, at the home of an old rambler who has already sent part of his big baggage to take the lead for the last trip he has left to make. There, you saw busts, you were presented with operas, you heard famous academicians declaim; here, you will see an old cacochym body, whose memory is almost lost, who will annoy you with used words and the nonsense of his gossip. But bear in mind, however, that this old man loves you more than all the fine ésprits in Paris do. Be convinced of his tender attachment and the high regard with which, etc.
You think Algarotti wasn't one of Voltaire's sources for the manuscript on how to succeed at Fritz's court? Katte was starting a family collection back in the 1720s!
LOL! Well, Algarotti had some catching up to do, and he was triangle-experienced...
I also don't think it was in the carriage because carriage rides were super uncomfortable, with all the jolting, and with Fritz's health problems, I doubt he would have been physically comfortable enough to relax and have sex.
Oh absolutely. Even Casanova avoided having sex in a driving carriage for that reason. Presumably if they did get it on, Algarotti and Fritz waited till the kid was off to his own bed, so to speak, in a nice and comfortable inn. (And in the later to be burned Bayreuth town residence.)
How many people do you think per carriage, btw? I've got a record of 2 royals and 2 nobles on this trip, plus assorted servants.
Depends on the type of carriage they were using. There were really different sizes available. Remember, the Duc de Croy is slightly scandalized Joseph during his incognito visit in Paris shows up in "a shaby German chaise with post horses driving quickly", with only wet two servants (it's raining) and another one on horseback. ("That's how they always travel in Germany, no matter in which weather or during which time of the year, in open and very ugly carriages.") But then Joseph really did not have travelling companions a la Algarotti and AW, he had "only" the three servants. I think the carriage Bach and son Friedemann are using at the start of Mein Name ist Bach is likely similar to what Fritz & Co. could have been travelling in. They're only two people, but have all the musical instruments with them, and inside the carriage you could fit in four.
Anyway, the servants don't get to drive inside the carriage, they're either on separate horses or outside on the coach box or even on the top of the roof. Hang on - I just recalled a famous example. When Marie Antoinette & Louis made their doomed escape attempt, they were using one carriage, for the entire royal family - five all in all, two kids, Louis' sister Elisabeth & MA & L - as well as a servant and the coachman. In the movie I already mentoned once, La Nuit de Varennes, which is about the random company following them, you can see in this clip what a carriage containing six people inside - with ample space to go - looks like. (One of them is Harvey Keitel as Thomas Paine, btw.) Meanwhile, Casanova enters the film in a much smaller and cheaper chaise (he's old and a librarian in Bohemia, after all), which is commonly used by just one or at most two travellers, as seen here.
That, and he had competition with Voltaire which he didn't have with Suhm. No Émilie in Suhm's life! And competition surely appealed ot his inner terrier.