Frederick the Great discussion post 9

[cahn]

...I leave you guys alone for one weekend and it's time for a new Fritz post, lol!

I'm gonna reply to the previous post comments but I guess new letter-reading, etc. should go in this one :)

Frederick the Great links

Comments

Re: Fritz and Wilhelmine Correspondance, Trier Version II - OMG Voltaire!

[mildred_of_midgard]

See, this is why simultanously finding people willing to emotionally top and take the initiative is a bit tricky.

EXACTLY. That's why my headcanon is that aspect was missing from the Fredersdorf relationship. I'm sure that erring on the side of control issues was what accounted for his great and lasting success, but what Fritz needs and what Fritz insists on are often at crosspurposes. (I think you're quite right that Katte's ability to do some emotional topping would have come at the cost of not satisfying King Fritz's control issues nearly as well as Fredersdorf the Cautious.)

I mean, I just read the first sentence of the Preuss Magnum Opus of a biography because I really don't have the time, but good Lord. Der einzige König, natch, but also the greatest of all time, the most wonderful, the *insert hyperventilating attribute here*

AHAHAHAA, man. That's exactly what happened with me and reading the first sentence of 1926!Editor because my German + chronic pain weren't up for more. I'M ALREADY GETTING THE PETER III VIBE HERE, EDITOR!

But, I mean, would *you* put together 9 volumes (plus other volumes! He wrote other books about Fritz!) about someone you didn't think was the most wonderful of all time?

Speaking of Einzige! I found another instance. I don't have a date of composition, but the poet Gleim composed some epitaphs for Fritz after his death, so sometime 1786-1803, and one of them goes like this:

Auf Ihm die Grabschrift? — kurz und klug?—
'Hier liegt der Einzige!' das, mein' ich, ist genug!

And there weren't that many people left whom Fritz could be guaranteed to not ignore but take into account what they said (whether or not they listened).

I was exactly thinking that she must have been thinking that at least when Voltaire talks, Fritz listens, even if only to argue. (Heinrich too, but asking him for a letter would have risked: "Yes! Please! Just do it already and give the rest of us some peace, for fuck's sake." :P)

(Figures she'd pick the only shady one of the lot. She's a Hohenzollern.)

But problematic faves are the best! (Okay, I have the sense to keep mine at a safe distance, but then, I'm not a Hohenzollern.)