Announcing Rheinsberg: Frederick the Great discussion post 10

[cahn]

So for anyone who is reading this and would like to learn more about Frederick the Great and his contemporaries, but who doesn't want to wade through 500k (600k?) words worth of comments and an increasingly sprawling comment section:

We now have a community, rheinsberg, that has quite a lot of the interesting historical content (and more coming regularly), organized nicely with lots of lovely tags so if there's any subject you are interested in it is easy to find :D

Comments

Re: MacDonogh Reread III

[selenak]

He had the right to dine at the queen’s table in Berlin (for all that it was worth — it might have sounded more impressive by report in Paris).

So he did meet EC after all? Probably not, though, I guess he never used that right.


Is this true?

In January 1757, Prussia was expelled from the Holy Roman Empire

I doubt it, since one of the conditions of Fritz' peace treaty post 7 Years War was for him to vote for Joseph as next Holy Roman Emperor. Which he duly did, and couldn't have done if Prussia had no longer been part of the HRE. Was reminded of this again by browsing through the Heinrich letters, which mention the condition.

There's also quite a lot in those late 7 Years War letters about Fritz hoping the Turks will come through for him and attack Austria again. Which, among so many other things, is especially... something... in light of the fact MT post war was blamed for having allied with foreign powers (France and Russia) and brought them to German soil, despite the terrible memory of the 30 Years War. The last Turkish invasion, as you mention elsewhere, was far more recent. It was also where Eugene of Savoyen had made his name and got a folk song named after him ("Prinz Eugen, der edle Ritter...")


One poem was ostensibly written by his dog Diane to 'wicked Elisabeth', the first wife of the future Frederick William II. Frederick’s purpose is clear:

Sheesh. This reminds me of an apocryphal anecdote which can't be verified but which is used in that still popular novel about Wilhelmine Encke, "Die schöne Wilhelmine", that the following happened in the time just before the FW2/Elisabeth marriage broke down entirely: Fritz sent one of his trusted friends to Elisabeth to tell her that as long as she's discreet, for God's sake, and provides a male heir, it's okay, and maybe choose some discreet and old Prussian nobility type? Whereupon Elisabeth says: oh yeah? If it's my duty to fuck on command for the King, fine, then let's do this right here and now, you and me. Whereupon the trusty old official flees in horror and tells Fritz she's hopeless. (In the novel, the old official is Keith the elder, the Lord Marischal.)

Re: MacDonogh Reread III

[mildred_of_midgard]

So he did meet EC after all? Probably not, though, I guess he never used that right.

I haven't seen any claims that he did, so yeah. Maybe Voltaire was just trying to sound good when writing home but never exercised the right. MacDonogh also claims that during the 1743 spying episode, Voltaire wrote back to his paymasters that he spent 4 hours a day closeted with the King! to get around the fact that Fritz adamantly refused to discuss anything of political or military significance.

I doubt it, since one of the conditions of Fritz' peace treaty post 7 Years War was for him to vote for Joseph as next Holy Roman Emperor.

You know, I figured that if something as major as Prussia getting kicked out of the HRE was real, I should have heard about it *somewhere* else, but I thought I'd ask you, since there's always the fact that my knowledge is very selective. Since neither of us has heard of this, well, as they say...pics or it didn't happen.

*Wow* is this like reading Wikipedia.

Whereupon the trusty old official flees in horror and tells Fritz she's hopeless.

That is totally hilarious. Like these examples, headcanon until we're told otherwise! (Go Elisabeth.)