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: Poniatowski: Totally Objective Assessment of (P)Russian Pete

[cahn]

I just think this is hilarious.

I suppose that his nurse and all his first teachers in his own country were Prussians, or otherwise bribed by the King of Prussia,

LOLOLOL!
Fritz: Hey, you know, that's a great idea. Heinrich, go bribe all the nurses of monarchs in the vicinity.
Heinrich: Why is it that I always have to do the work?

And to me he said in one of those outpourings with which he often bothered me

This I bet is true, I mean, maybe not necessarily the content but that he was pestering Poniatowski who was rolling his eyes, lol.

he wasn't stupid, he was just mad... and was in general dressed so ridiculous and tasteless that he ever looked like a Capitano or like something that escaped an Italian farce.

Heeee. Regardless of whether his portrait is true, he can sure make it memorable.

(Being the unironic, undetached, un-historically-informed reader that I am, very glad the two of you are here to make comments on Poniatowski's objectivity, lol. Otherwise I would have come away thinking Peter was exactly like that!)

Re: Poniatowski: Totally Objective Assessment of (P)Russian Pete

[selenak]

Well, between being Catherine's lover for years - and the likely father of her daughter who was legally Peters (the baby didn't survive the year though, but historians think she was Poniatowski's) - , and being a political opponenent (the Fritz fannishness, which was no joke if you're a representative of invaded Saxony and hail from economically ruined Poland), Poniatowski wasn't likely to give Peter good grades. This being said, I don't think it's fair to entirely dismiss what he says as Catherinian propaganda, either, since a) he wrote it after his own breakup with her, and b) he knew Peter for years. Let's just say it's about as objective as Lehndorff's descriptions of Heinrich's boyfriends.