Frederick the Great discussion post 11

[cahn]

In our last installment, our heroes found that Henri de Catt's memoirs, a major source for current biographers of Frederick the Great, are not to be trusted!!

rheinsberg

Comments

Re: Katte! - The Koser take

[cahn]

Btw, Koser assures us our hero naturally had nothing but contempt for the Catholic religion (true) and was a true Protestant in his heart, Deist leanings not withstanding. If the Emperor had given him his daughter he‘d still have NEVER converted! (Well...)

LOL! Okaaaay...

Another Grumbkow letter quote from early 1732 has Fritz saying he‘ll never accept a wife except „through the hands of the Margravine of Bayreuth“. I can almost hear Grumbkow sighing „what did I say about you two needing boundaries?“

Ahahaha oh wow. These two are my fave dysfunctional sibling relationship, but I can imagine poor Grumbkow being very frustrated.

Well, says Koser, FW himself was raised by Madame de R., evidently still had affection for her and knew he was able to see through all things French regardless and reject them, so he expected the same to happen with Fritz. In general, he wanted his oldest to be exactly like him so they could be bffs.

I mean... this kinda makes sense to me, or at least makes sense as something that FW might think, in the weird way his mind works.

Also he was less of a playboy thereafter, because Koser’s Fritz is really into women. And look! „He, too, used marriage to tame his brothers in their headstrong ways“

*blinks* --Um --

Koser says SD from ca. 1738 onwards instructed her younger sons to treat Big Bro as the future King. (I take it to mean „no more kicking under the table, you lot!“)

heeee!

Since I don‘t believe I‘ve said it elsewhere: Fritz‘ reply to the question „does he believe himself to be worthy of the crown of Prussia“ - „He cannot be his own judge“ - Er könne sein eigener Richter nicht sein - is, as examples of masterful replies under extreme pressure are concerned, on a level with Jeanne d‘Arc‘s reply in her trial whether she believes herself to be a in a state of grace. („If I am not, may God help me to it, if I am, may God keep me there“.) In both cases, it‘s a trick question to which a. Yes or No reply would be equally self damaging, but in both cases, the accused finds a way to outwit their interrogators with the answer.

This is really cool (and I didn't know the Jeanne d'Arc story either, I know the bare minimum about her but somehow my French education missed any details about her).

Tangentially: St. Joan

[selenak]

Jeanne D'Arc: are you familiar with Shaw's play? As far as fictional versions are concerned, this one is my favourite.

We do have the transcripts of her trial, which is a rare glimpse at a historical character in their darkest hours unfiltered by biographers, though much of the biographical Information about her comes from them. Said transcripts weren't available until the 19th century, however, which is why anyone writing about Jeanne before that was working from chronicles and legends. There's still no excuse for Schiller, in his play, making her fall in tragic love with an English noble and die on the battlefield instead of being burned at the stake, but that's F2 for you. (Verdi, who made an opera out of that Schiller play as well, removed the Englishman and made her fall in love with the Dauphin & later King, which isn't much better…)

Re: Tangentially: St. Joan

[mildred_of_midgard]

Fifteen, twenty years ago, I would have said yes, but I haven't looked at Joan, fictional or nonfictional, since then, so today I have to say no. Those neural pathways got overwritten with new information. ;) She was one of my top favorites in high school, and I read as much fiction and nonfiction on her as I could get my hands on. Not Schiller, though, I'm pretty sure. Mark Twain, though, yes.

And I did read the transcripts, though again, fifteen years ago. They've been on my list to reread for a while now, when health permits. I will add Shaw on your recommendation.

Something that cahn read and I reread recently: Mary Gentle's Ash. (Cahn liveblogged her reactions reading it the first time, which delighted me and inspired me to do a reread.) It's not quite Joan of Arc fiction, but it's adjacent to it. Are you familiar with it?

Re: Tangentially: St. Joan

[selenak]

Ash: it's on my "to read" list, I've only heard good things about it.

Shaw's play: to give you a taste, here's Shaw the Irish playwright making fun of the English while writing a play about the French national heroine, in a typical Shavian debate scene, between the Earl of Warwick, Bishop Cauchon and Warwick's chaplain Stogumber:

WARWICK. My lord: I wipe the slate as far as the witchcraft goes. None the less, we must burn the woman.
CAUCHON. I cannot burn her. The Church cannot take life. And my first duty is to seek this girl's salvation.
WARWICK. No doubt. But you do burn people occasionally.
CAUCHON. No. When The Church cuts off an obstinate heretic as a dead branch from the tree of life, the heretic is handed over to the secular arm. The Church has no part in what the secular arm may see fit to do.
WARWICK. Precisely. And I shall be the secular arm in this case. Well, my lord, hand over your dead branch; and I will see that the fire is ready for it. If you will answer for The Church's part, I will answer for the secular part.
CAUCHON [with smouldering anger] I can answer for nothing. You great lords are too prone to treat The Church as a mere political convenience.
WARWICK [smiling and propitiatory] Not in England, I assure you.
CAUCHON. In England more than anywhere else. No, my lord: the soul of this village girl is of equal value with yours or your king's before the throne of God; and my first duty is to save it. I will not suffer your lordship to smile at me as if I were repeating a meaningless form of words, and it were well understood between us that I should betray the girl to you. I am no mere political bishop: my faith is to me what your honor is to you; and if there be a loophole through which this baptized child of God can creep to her salvation, I shall guide her to it.
THE CHAPLAIN [rising in a fury] You are a traitor.
CAUCHON [springing up] You lie, priest. [Trembling with rage] If you dare do what this woman has done--set your country above the holy Catholic Church--you shall go to the fire with her.
THE CHAPLAIN. My lord: I--I went too far. I--[he sits down with a submissive gesture].
WARWICK [who has risen apprehensively] My lord: I apologize to you for the word used by Messire John de Stogumber. It does not mean in England what it does in France. In your language traitor means betrayer: one who is perfidious, treacherous, unfaithful, disloyal. In our country it means simply one who is not wholly devoted to English interests.

Re: Tangentially: St. Joan

[mildred_of_midgard]

Man, that is some cutting social commentary. It reminds me of William Wallace getting convicted of treason, his defense supposedly (no, I haven't checked any primary sources on this and am going from ancient memories) being that he was Scottish and had never taken any oath to any English king and therefore could not have betrayed him, and the English brutally executing him on grounds of treason anyway.

I will have to check this out, then.

Ash is a pretty wild ride! I don't know your tastes well enough to know if it's your thing, but it's definitely not your standard historical fiction.