Frederick the Great discussion post 12

[cahn]

Every time I am amazed and enchanted that this is still going on! Truly DW is the Earthly Paradise!

All the good stuff continues to be archived at rheinsberg :)

Comments

Re: The Lehndorff Report: We didn't start the fire! (1778 - 1780)

[mildred_of_midgard]

I'm not sure that Lehndorff is right about him secretly wanting another war despite of what he says. Though on the other hand, he could be, or at the very least torn. He is restless, he knows he's good at war, and like all of FW's kids, he believes in being useful. Then again, he probably imagines, like MT at the same time in Vienna, what a disaster another bloody war would be for everyone involved and shudders.

Mixed feelings makes sense to me. At the very least, I agree he wasn't gung-ho about it, not after the Seven Years' War.

So: some people actually get out of town when told they should get out of town! Just saying.

Lol. :P Clearly, she didn't have a princess to protect!

Incidentally, if Voltaire did take too much opium, then, based on the fact he spent the last week of his life in tremendous physical pain, I'd speculate it was quite intentionally (on both his and Richelieu's part).

That's exactly what I was thinking, having read your account of his last days.

Lehndorff knows about Fritz' spectacles and mentions them casually, so presumably this isn't newas or something lately learned by him.

Interesting! Maybe it's less of a problem to need glasses in 1778 (the man is 66) than in 1740? I mean, this is right around the time Fritz has to stop playing the flute because he's losing his front teeth, so everyone knows he's slowly falling apart (and reports of his impending demise have been greatly exaggerated). Maybe he even pretends, or Lehndorff assumes, he only needs them for reading, i.e. is farsighted like many people as they get older. Especially as the spectacles get mentioned right after "important papers."

Re: The Lehndorff Report: We didn't start the fire! (1778 - 1780)

[selenak]

Mixed feelings makes sense to me. At the very least, I agree he wasn't gung-ho about it, not after the Seven Years' War.

Not even Fritz was, after all. I think they both had seen more than their share of bloodshed, and Heinrich knew if this actually got serious, it would stay limited to Bavaria. (See also MT's letter.)

Voltaire's death: I looked up the Duc de Croy again, since he's a simultanous contemporary witness who is in Paris at the time, and he does mention Voltaire taking opium, though not an accidental (or deliberate) overdose. (Mind you, given not just clerical but legal laws in Ancien Regime France were really firm on how to deal with the body of suicides, and people who helped other people to commit suicide, so I can see why not.) Anyway, the Duke had met Voltaire and Émlie 30 years earlier at Versailles.

When Voltaire returns to Paris for the first time sine a life time:

"When I had known and seen him thirty years ago, he already had been a skeleton and a hypochondriac. How did he look now? Well, he lived only of coffee and poetry. It seems that work and coffee are not always lethal, then. One has to recall that he wrote the Henriade when he'd been five or at least wrote his first tragedy with eighteen. The main purpose of his journey to Paris was the production of his play Irene which he was still working on. As one wasn't quite satisfied with the work and he was afraid for his fame, he rewrote an act within two nights into smoking verses. One really needs inner fire for this at the age of 83! He wanted everything to be recited differently and made the actors rehearse nonstop. On that occasion, he got so heated that he coughed blood and Tronchin had to treat him."

The Duke describes the theatrical triumph I already told you about as well as the "if your feelings are hurt, I'm sorry, Catholic Church" letter and the Archbishop of Paris being less than happy about it. Then, a few entries later, the Duke learns Voltaire has died and manages to get the story out of the doctor who embalmed him (not Tronchin) as well as one of the houseguests.

Apparently he'd been progressively worse through the last ten days due to his colics. Since he was still full of fiery energy working and composing tragedies for which he alwaays needed a lot of coffee, he poured up to 20 cups into himself and had a set back. On May 21, he became bed bound for good, and suffered terribly. He organized some opium and took enough to be calm, if not completely numb. That's how rumors started someone was trying to poison him. Others said his family would declare him insane, though he was completely sound of mind most of the time. Sometimes he was in delirium and fantasized, but even that was impressively intense, full of wit and sometimes fury. He made blasphemous speeches and ended badly. Tronchin has called it the end of a desperate man and preached at him to think of his conscience. But Voltaire replied to him: "To claim a religion which I wanted to destroy for sixty years, really?"

When the pastor of Saint-Sulpice learned that the time was approaching he hurred to him. He had to wait. He pushed, and when he entered and saw Voltaire was dying, he called out: "Monsieur de Voltaire, do you believe in Jesus Christ?" Voltaire stared at him with glowing eyes and said while turning away from him: "Leave me in peace!" Upon which the pastor withdrew and declared that Voltaire had denied God in his writings and could not receive a Christian burial. When shortly afterwards Mr. de Vllette stood crying next to his bed, Voltaire asked in a stage worthy manner: "Tears, my boy?" IN the night from Saturday to Sunday the 30th, he said goodbye around eleven pm to his servant, who was holding him, and died.

And then we get the farce with the burial, also described in detail. The Duke, who is a faithful Catholic, nonetheless is Team Voltaire's nephews there. About the man himself: It remains very regrettable taht Voltaire throughout his life knew neither honorable conduct nor any principles. His is one of the most beautiful and richly endowed geniuses to ever exist. His system to deny everything, never to follow a given path, to look at everything with scepticism, this meant he could make you believe anything like a lawyer would. And that is why he has written so much, and few writers have commented on everything so brilliantly.

Maybe he even pretends, or Lehndorff assumes, he only needs them for reading, i.e. is farsighted like many people as they get older. Especially as the spectacles get mentioned right after "important papers."

That is quite plausible, and yes, glasses at 66 when people have called you "The Great" for many years now are quite different than having to wear them at 28 when you're busy establishing yourself as a Mars-and-Apollo-hybrid. But as foreign visitors still don't mention them, I'm assuming he did take care not to wear them outside of a plausible "I'm reading now" context when in company.

Also, note he doesn't get undressed alone. Which is not a symptom of old age but one of those things one tends to forget about this period often, but which is worth keeping in mind in terms of how the nobility and royalty lived - the presence of servants from morning till night and beyond for all these tasks.

Re: The Lehndorff Report: We didn't start the fire! (1778 - 1780)

[mildred_of_midgard]

(Mind you, given not just clerical but legal laws in Ancien Regime France were really firm on how to deal with the body of suicides, and people who helped other people to commit suicide, so I can see why not.)

Agreed! Plausible deniability is a thing.

But Voltaire replied to him: "To claim a religion which I wanted to destroy for sixty years, really?"

Really? Do you know who I am?

when you're busy establishing yourself as a Mars-and-Apollo-hybrid

Haha. Sparta in the morning, Athens in the afternoon, as Voltaire said of Fritz's court.

I'm assuming he did take care not to wear them outside of a plausible "I'm reading now" context when in company.

Agreed. I could see him ostentatiously taking them off to look up from what he was reading to whoever he was talking to, and fix them with his "My eyes appear to be boring through your skull because I can't see a thing otherwise, but feel free to be intimidated!" stare. ;)

Also, note he doesn't get undressed alone.

Normally, I would have assumed that from the get-go, but for Fritz specifically, I've been going by MacDonogh's "...his extreme prudery. His servant Schöning, who occupied a position of great trust at the end of Frederick's life, maintained that he could not suffer anyone to see him without his clothes on, and would not even attend to a call of nature in their presence." Citation: Either Volz's 3-volume bio or Halmsten's Friedrich II in Selbstzeugnisse und Bilddokumenten or neither (he cites both in the same endnote at the end of a paragraph that contains a bunch of stuff, and he's been known to have uncited claims in the paragraph when he does that).

On the one hand, never trust MacDonogh and it *would* be weird for Fritz not to be undressing with servants around; on the other, I found it just plausible enough because Fritz is weird wrt his fellow monarchs, and isolation is one of his notable qualities. Even from the early days when he wanted to build a palace that was a private residence and not hold any kind of proper court there, and almost never allow guests at his musical performances.

So we'll see if Volz supports this claim. Currently waiting on delivery from our royal patron.

Also, cahn, notice that not wanting to attend to a call of nature while talking to other people is "extreme prudery" by the standards of the day--it really was!