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 Sorting, or: The Harry Potter AU

[cahn]

Waiiiit explain Constantinople??

Re: The Sorting, or: The Harry Potter AU

[mildred_of_midgard]

I only know about this from selenak's write-up, so I'll just excerpt that part:

selenak: In the 1760s, Voltaire starts his correspondance with Catherine, who promptly gets referred to as "your Empress" or "your Imperiatrizia" by Fritz in his letters. Fritz also reports about his two meetings with Joseph, and what he writes before meeting ViennaJoe for the second time is downright crack ship encouraging, since it's not in a over the top letter between monarchs but in a personal one to Voltaire:

This Prince is amiable and truly deserving. He esteems your works and reads them as often as he an; he's not superstitious in the least. Consequently, he's an Emperor of a kind we haven't had in Germany since a long time. Neither he nor I like ignorants or barbarians; but this isn't a reason to kill them; if it was, the Turks would hardly be the only ones. How many nations have been dumbed down due to lacking enlightenment!

selenak: What he's alluding to here is that Voltaire in his old age has decided there is actually one worthy cause he wants Fritz to go to war to, allied with Joseph and Catherine both: against the Ottomans. Voltaire, it turns out, is really sincere idea that both Islam is the worst of the Abrahamatic religions and the Turks are the worst, and he wants Team Enlightened Monarchs to take them on militarily. I kid you not.

It's all very well to say that the Mohammadanian religion should pose a counterweight to the Greek religion and the Greek religion to the Catholic one. I'd love for you to be the counterweight. I'm always aggrieved at the idea that the feet of some pasha should walk through the ashes of Themistocles and of Alcibiades. This image makes me want to throw up as much as the one of Cardinals petting their doves at the tombs of Marcus Aurelius does.

Seriously, I don't understand why the Empress-Queen doesn't sell her household goods and equips her son, the Emperor, your friend - in as much as people of your rank can have friends - with her last Taler so he can go at the head of an army to Adrianopel and await Cathereine there. This enterprise strikes me as so natural, so easy, so beautiful that I can't understand why it has not yet been accomplished; of course your majesty would have received a good glass of wine out of this deal. Everyone has their chimera; this is mine.

selenak: (Voltaire, you don't want to know how "liberating" Muslim nations "for their own good" works out; you truly don't. Incidentally, Joseph and Catherine did fight the Ottomans together at a later point, post MT's death. This did not go well for Joseph.)