cahn | Frederick the Great, discussion post 14

cahn

Check out the opera clips at Rheinsberg!

(both the real-life place, which

selenak found out hosts a festival for young opera singers! and the community

rheinsberg)

Also! our fandom has been producing lovely fic at a rapid clip (okay, well,

selenak has):

Sibling dysfunction: Promises to Keep and My Brother Narcissus

Sibling dysfunction PLUS sibling M/M love triangle: The moon flies face to face with me

VOLTAIRE! Between the hour and the age

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

From:

selenak

*beams* (Hand)Kisses for all the recs!

This is from a chapter called "Let's Talk About Money", just to balance the fighting for justice stuff. Orieux gives an example of Voltaire the early modern Capitalist. Renember, "get wealthy" had been an early goal just as "become the greatest writer of the age" had been.

He didn't get much out of his first tragedy, Oedipe, money wise, though there was some income through the subscriptions to his verse epic about Henri IV, the Henriad. Nothing that would have enabled him to live in the same type of comfort as his noble friends did, though. Then there was some inheritance money (never the main thing, but some) from Dad and pious brother Armand later. Also, kid!Francois had managed to charm legendary courtesan Ninon de Lenclos - who'd hit the Paris salon scene in the reign of Louis XIII, lived through the entire reign of Louis XIV and died very old, very rich and still with boyfriends proving that age does not wither and a life in sin does pay. (In addition to being a high class courtesan, she was also famous for her witty letters.) Kid Francois got introduced to her via one of the guys he named as potentially his Dad (according to Orieux mostly to annoy his actual father, since Orieux does not believe Mme Arouet ever cheated on the notary), the Abbé Chateauneuf, and she was charmed enough to leave him a sum to buy books from when she died. Which he did, this being before he figured out about working capitalism.

So after his return from England, adult and having figured out early modern capitalilsm Voltaire invested his money int busying shares of a trade company in Cadiz which equipped ships sailing to and from the West Indies, and he used his connections to get in a position to arrange army supplies (food, mainly, but also clothing). This was hitting the jack pot, since despite the French army in the 20s and 30s being relatively unoccupied (War of Polish succession with the little action Fritz complained about aside), it existed, and wanted to be fed. And once he'd made money, he also lend it to other people, with interest. It was the interest that by the late 1740s provided most of his incone. (Interestingly, as Orieux says, all this money only existed on paper. I.e. you couldn't have broken into Cirey and robbed Voltaire of big boxes of money.) But it certainly by now amounted to a lot. Orieux gives a list from 1749, i.e. the year of Émilie's death, showing that most of Voltaire's income indeed derived from people who owed him money paying him interest. "Historiographer of France" was the one court position at Versailles Voltaire managed to get, along with "gentleman of the chamber, which came with it":

Contract with the town of Paris - 14 025 livres
Contract with M. Le Duc de Richelieu - 4 000 livres
Contract with M. le Duc du Buillon - 5 250 livres
Contract with M. le duc de Villars - 2 100 livres
Contract with m. le Marquis de Lezeau - 2 300 livres
Contract with M. le Comte d'Estaing - 2 000 livres
Contract with M. le Prince de Guise - 25 500 livres
Contract with M. le Président d'Aunueuil - 2 000 livres
Contract with M. Fontaine - 2600 livres
Contract with M. Marchand - 2 400 livres
Contract with the Compagnie des Indes - 605 livres
Income as Historiographer of France - 2 000 livres
Income as Gentleman of the Chamber - 1 620 livres
Contract with M. Le Comte de Guebriant 540 livres
Contract with M. de Bourdeille - 1 000 livres
Contract with the Royal Lottery - 2 000 livres
Contract with M. Marchand - 1 000 livres
Contract with 2S (no, I don't know what that means) - 9 900 livres
Food for the Royal Army in Flandres - 17 000 livres

Income in totem: 74 038 livres.

One of the first things he did when moving to Prussia was buying shares of a shipping company Fritz had founded in Emden for 200 000 livres. (The money resulting from this, he invested in buying estate in Horburg and Reichenweier in Alscace, which was a very smart move, since this was French territory but was administred by the Duchy of Würtemberg. Which meant that neither Fritz nor Louis could get their hands on it.) And then of course he invested in the Saxon government bonds via Hirschel, and shadiness exploded.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Contract with 2S (no, I don't know what that means) - 9 900 livres

I haven't quite figured it out either, but, from googling, it's a right that appears to work like a cut or tax. It's "contrat sur les 2 s. pour livres," which I take to mean 2 sols/sous (smaller unit of currency) per livre (larger unit of currency). That means for every qualifying livre, Voltaire has the right to collect 2 sous. There are 20 sous per livre, so he's getting a 10% cut of something. Of what, I do not know.

The money resulting from this, he invested in buying estate in Horburg and Reichenweier in Alscace, which was a very smart move, since this was French territory but was administred by the Duchy of Würtemberg. Which meant that neither Fritz nor Louis could get their hands on it.

Clever move. Of course, I expect nothing less from our man Voltaire!

Edited Date: 2020-04-08 09:45 pm (UTC)

From:

From:

cahn - Date: 2020-04-20 04:09 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

selenak

I already briefly summed up the Calas affair in an earlier entry, but since Orieux offers a lot about it, and it really makes for a fascinating story - a fascinating detective story, too, which makes me wonder whether anyone has ever written a historical mystery series about Voltaire, who as it turns out has the intelligence and relentlessness for an investigation, the tenacity not to give up and the connections to hang out with all types of people who could murder each other, not to mention that his excentricities can easily compete with those of Sherlock Holmes and Poirot.

So, the cast:

Jean Calas- most unfortunate father of the age; Protestant merchant living in Toulouse. Their clothing shop is downstairs, their living space upstairs.

Marc-Antoine Calas - oldest son; tried to study law, for which you needed to be a Catholic in France; Protestants tried to get around this by getting a friendly priest to sign a paper saying they converted without actually converting, studied, and then went back to being Protestant. The priest in the parish of St. Etienne, where Marc-Antoine and his family lived, however, refused to sign that paper without Marc-Antoine going to confession (and thus proving his Catholic intentions) first. Marc Antoine didn't. End of legal hopes. He tried to enter his father's business, which he wasn't much good at, was unhappy, drank a lot, and also was into theatre and declaiming dramatic monologues, according to his friends.

Louis Calas - middle son, who actually converted to Catholicism for career reasons some years earlier. That he did, and even got his father's permission for it, is important for the evidence situationi.

Pierre Calas - younger son, Protestant, adolescent; there's also a youngest son, Donat, but he lives in Nimes and is not important to this tale

La Vaysse - a young man from Bordeaux, friends with the family; he's just returned, found his parents' house locked up and has thus been invited to dinner by the Calas clan.

Two daughters: spending the day in the countryside with a family they were friends with (they were lucky).

Madame Calas: Jean's wife. About to face terrors beyond belief.

Jeanne Viguière: Catholic servant of the Calas; has encouraged Louis to convert, goes to mass each morning.

David de Beaudrige: "Capitoule" (civil servant, technically not a policeman but in effect) of Bordeaux eager to make a name for himself

The date: October 15th 1761 (the 7 Years War is still going on). Everyone, including La Vaysse, is having dinner chez Calas. Marc-Antoine gets up, goes to the kitchen, tells the servant it's too hot for him, he wants to go outside in order to catch some air. The others still talk, but since young Pierre is about to fall asleep, La Vaysse gets up (he was the guest, as long as he was still sitting at the table, the family couldn't withdraw for the night). Dad Calas and Pierre pick a candle to escort him out. Suddenly Madame Calas, who is now alone in the dining room, hears cries and shouts. She doesn't dare to look and sends the servant, who doesn't return. Then she goes herself and encounters La Vaysse who tells her not to go any further and return. At first she does so, then she can't stand it and goes downstairs after all. Whre she sees her oldest son Marc-Antoine lying on the floor. She thinks he must have a fainted. A doctor, who's been sent for at once, says Marc-Antoine is dead and must have been either strangled or been hanged. According to their later statements, Dad Calas and Pierre, when they went downstairs, saw the door was open, which amazed them, so they checked and saw Marc-Antoine hanging from a beam on which usually rolls of fabric were put. They took him down, but it was too late already. In the presence of the doctor, Dad Calas, unfreezing from shock, tells Pierre "Don't tell anyone your brother has committed suicide. Save the honor of your unfortunate family."

(Remember suicides weren't given a Christian burial, and it was an incredible stigma.)

This, fatefully, was the worst idea ever. Meanwhile, as soon as Madame Calas saw her son's body, she started to cry so loudly that it got the neighbours alert, lots of people assembled in the streeets, and word got to the "Capitoules", and by the time La Vaysse, who' d gone to call the police, returned, he found the house surrounded by 40 soldiers. He wasn't allowed to get in and questioned what he wanted, and when he said he'd just had dinner there and was a friend, he sealed his fate. He was let inside.

By now, the people were mostly wondering out loud what the hell was going on, and who'd killed Marc Antoine. And that's when a voice, never identified, said, outshouting the others: "Marc Antoine was murdered by his Protestant parents because he converted to the Catholic religion!" This cry was adopted by more and more people. David de Beaudrige heard this and adopted the theory completely. He ordered the arrest of anyone who'd been inside the house that night. What he didn't order was an investigation (say, of whether Marc-Antoine had Catholic books lying around). Even the papers in Marc-Antoine's pockets, which contained according to a much later questioned soldier "obscene verses", were thrown away. The Calas family was naive enough to believe that they were just supposed to make a statement to the authorities, and so Jean ordered Pierre to let the candle at the house entrance burning so they'd have light upon their return. Beaudrige ordered it put out.

At this point, in retrospect, the Calas family was doomed. The priests in every church read for three Sundays in a row a letter from the Bishop demanding that the murderous Protestants were made an example of. The priest of St. Etienne, who could have testified that he refused to accept Marc-Antoine had indeed wanted to convert, didn't say anything (only much later). Marc-Antoine was buried as a martyr to the Catholic religion, in a big procession. Now the Calas family did take a lawyer, one M. Docoux, but he was bullied by the Capitoules so much that he exploded and ended up excluded from legal proceedings for three months and having to do a public declaration of repentance to boot.

Five people were accused: Jean Calas, Madame Calas, Pierre, La Vaysse and the servant Jeanne Viguère. Since none of them wanted to admit guilt, the Calas parents and Pierre were tortured. (La Vaysse and the servant were Catholics and thus had a right to the "Questioning", the half-torture. La Vaysee was another who'd converted to Catholicism in order to get a job, btw. His own (Protestant) father had had his sons raised by Jesuits already, and so the idea of La Vaysse helping a Protestant murder was really as bewildering as that of Jeanne the servant, pious Catholic which she was, helping. But she refused to turn against her employers, and thus she had to be an accomplice. Even after the "mild" torture, she kept to her statement (and btw, continued in prison to confess and take mass from the prison priest). (If her confessor would have believed that she'd sworn a false oath, he'd have had to refuse mass to her, which he didn't; Voltaire was the first one to discover this contradiction later and, Jesuiit raised as he was, understand the implication.)

By the time the trial started, most of Toulouse was baying for blood. Only one of the judges ared to say he thought Jean Calas was innocent. Whereupon another judge saidL: "Monsieur, you are all Calas!" "Monsieur, you are all the people!" Jean Calas was tortured in the highest degree now. He still kept insisting on his innocence. He was condemned to be executed by the wheel. This meant being tied to a wheel, getting his arms and legs broken by iron, getting strangled by the executioner, with his body then flung on a burning pyre and his ash flung into the winds later. Father Bourges, the priest who'd gone with the accused, had kept urging him to confess to his guilt, but Jean Calas just replied: "How, father, even you believe that one can kill one's own son?" When he was urged to name his accomplices, he just said: "There are no accomplices, because there was no crime." And his last words were: "I have said the truth. I die innocent."

The rest of the arrested were condemned to exile, which Beaudrige called a "far too mild" judgment. The two daughters were put into a nunnery.

Now, when Voltaire first heard about it, he heard it in the version most people did: a hardcore fanatic Protestant father had killed his son. He didn't doubt it at this point and said: "We're not worth much, but the Huguenots are worse than us, and besides, they preach against the theatre." (That's our hero, comments Orieux: anyone able to hate the theatre has to be capable of killing their son as well.) Then, however, a Monsieur Audibert who'd been in Toulouse during the trial visited Ferney and told Voltaire more about it, which is when he started to think about it. Now, he did not start with the idea that Jean Calas had to be innocent. He just thought his guilt had by no means been proven. And clearly an actual investigation was asked for. And lo, Detective Voltaire was on the case. He met the surviving children Calas (minus Louis) who by now were living in Geneva. He wrote to all his friends and aquaintances in France in order to gather information. (Richelieu, btw, did check out events in Toulouse, but just told Richelieu to let sleeping dogs lie, and take care of his poetry in Ferney instead. Voltaire didn't. Instead, he questioned every Toulouse merchant and lawyer coming to Geneva on business. He confronted Pierre Calas with what they had said and took Pierre's and everyone else's statements. He did by no means immediately trust Pierre, who had, after all, been undoubtedly present when the body was taken down. Voltaire went as far as setting spies on Pierre for four months. By February 13th 1763, he'd come to the conclusion that Jean Calas as well as the other Calas were innocent, and bombarded every influential French person he knew with letters again, and of course, started with the pamphlet writing, pointing out all the illogical parts.
How could a man of 62 have hanged/strangled a young man of 27 without out help? And if he supposedly was helped by Pierre, why was Pierre instead condemned to exile? Why should Jeanne the very Catholic servant who'd already encouraged Louis to convert go along with the Calas going against Marc-Antoine for the same thing, down to covering up their murder? Why was Marc Antoine refused the document testifying his conversion he needed for his studies if he did actually convert? And so forth.

Now, one obstace was that Madame Calas, who'd lost a husband and a son, was by now so desperate and so terrified she just want it to be over, and Voltaire had to go to some effort to convince her to go public and go for a retrial. The former was important for the propaganda campaign to change the public mood; the sight of Madame Calas in Paris, petitioning the judges, crying, made her from sinister murder mother to martyr as far as the Parisians were concerned. (Voltaire, btw, paid for all her expenses. Since the judges in Toulouse had confiscated the Calas fortune, this was necessary.) The Toulouse judges first refused to hand over the files from the trial to her lawyer (also paid for by Voltaire). Things still looked back, and La Vaysse at first did not want to come to Paris to testify. (He was still scared by how close he'd come to death.) Voltaire, being the mixture of shady, practical and high minded he was, then lured La Vaysse by pointing out that in Paris he'd be safe from the Toulouse judges and would get to meet all kinds of famous princes and celebrities, many of whom had been willing to donate fo the Calas cause, and that money would be administred by Le Vaysse, and once all was over, he'd have made all kind of useful connections with these generous people. This helped with La Vaysse's courage a lot. Whenever Madame Calas lost courage, Voltaire pointed out to her the only way she'd get her daughters back and out of the nunnery was if she'd be declared innocent, and that worked.

The two pamphlets Voltaire wrote - "Histoire d'Elisabeth Canning et de Calas" and "Traite de la Tolerance" later became classics. By now, both Choisieul (the most important French minister) and Madame de Pompadour were on board. In the end, the counsil consisting of eighty judges declared the Toulouse judgment as invalid. (Among them were actually some Toulouse judges. One of them told the Duc d'Ayan: "Monsieur, even the best horse can shy that one time..." Quoth the Duke "Yes, but... an entire stable of horses?"

Madame Calas was received at Versailles. This, however, did not mean all was in the clear. Because with the original judgment declared invalid, there had to be a retrial. The Toulouse people (who saw this as a north vs south tyranny, "no one in the capital tells us what to do", etc, still refused to hand over the original files. When Madame de Pompadour made the King himself demand them, they said fine, they'd send copies, but Madame Calas would have to pay for the copies to be made. (Voltaire paid.) This, it turned out, was the least of it. Retrial also meant that Madame Calas, Pierre, Jeanne and La Vaysse had to be arrested again, go back to prison again. On March 9th, 1765, the final judgment was given, and all accused, including the late Jean, were declared innocent. (The Toulouse civil servants, told to strike out the names of the formerly accused from the list of offenders, refused; only La Vaysse's father, who was a lawyer, used a public holiday to be let into the city hall and strike out his son's name with his own hand.) They also refused to give the Calas family reparations. The King, to his and Madame de Pompadour's credit, did this instead, and immediately. And Madame Calas got her daughters back. (One of them, Nanette, had convinced one of the nuns of her father's innocence so that this nun wrote a letter to the chancellor. Voltaire was impressed by the clarity and compassion of the letter and wrote to say so, which in turn shocked the nun. "Can it there be good in a man who has turned against his creator?")

In February 1765, Voltaire had the satisfaction to learn that Beaudrige got dishonorably disimissed from his job. The Calas family (what was left of them) were back together, rehabilitated. And, also important, a new principle had been established. As Voltaire had put it in his pamphlet: "You (Judges in general) need to be held to humanity for the human blood you shed."

As Orieux put it: of course there had been numerous show trials and murders by law before Calas. But until this affair, whoever was declared guilty, remained guilty. (Except for Jeanne d'Arc, but that was a very special case.) A victim once condemned remained condemned. The concept of the judicative being held to account for abuse, of a normal citizen's name being cleared, this was new. As was the idea of a publicity campaign for this goal, and intellectuals weighing or even spearheading the campaign; this was more than a century before Emile Zola and the Dreyfus affair.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I did not know this in any kind of detail, so thank you very much for the write-up. Voltaire at his best indeed!

From:

cahn

okay I am sorry you have had to wait so long for a comment on this amazing writeup, but I wanted to make sure I had time to write all the KEYSMASH that I feel about this

Okay, this? is the greatest thing ever, both Voltaire himself and your writeup of same, and as you say, if someone hasn't written a mystery or a series of mysteries with Our Man Voltaire as the detective(or a musical :P ) then it Should Be Done.

Jean Calas- most unfortunate father of the age

:(((((((

(If her confessor would have believed that she'd sworn a false oath, he'd have had to refuse mass to her, which he didn't; Voltaire was the first one to discover this contradiction later and, Jesuiit raised as he was, understand the implication.)

Okay, this is all horrifying (I mean, not this particular passage, but everything that's led up to this), and also I love Voltaire for this: the atheist using knowledge of religion for good! THE BEST.

Jean Calas just replied: "How, father, even you believe that one can kill one's own son?"

:(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

"We're not worth much, but the Huguenots are worse than us, and besides, they preach against the theatre." (That's our hero, comments Orieux: anyone able to hate the theatre has to be capable of killing their son as well.)

HAHAHAHAHA (it's only funny because of what Voltaire did later, but it IS funny given that.)

Richelieu, btw, did check out events in Toulouse, but just told Richelieu to let sleeping dogs lie, and take care of his poetry in Ferney instead. Voltaire didn't.

Voltaire is SO COOL. I am totally on his side now (while thinking he is also often ridiculous)

(Voltaire, btw, paid for all her expenses. Since the judges in Toulouse had confiscated the Calas fortune, this was necessary.)

I am finding it hard to articulate my simultaneous "Voltaire is so awesome!" fistpump and "The judges in Toulouse are THE WORST" facepalm.

Voltaire, being the mixture of shady, practical and high minded he was, then lured La Vaysse by pointing out that in Paris he'd be safe from the Toulouse judges and would get to meet all kinds of famous princes and celebrities, many of whom had been willing to donate fo the Calas cause, and that money would be administred by Le Vaysse, and once all was over, he'd have made all kind of useful connections with these generous people. This helped with La Vaysse's courage a lot.

LOLOLOL Voltaire!

"Can it there be good in a man who has turned against his creator?"

HAHAHAHA I love this. I bet Voltaire got a good laugh out of that one too

The concept of the judicative being held to account for abuse, of a normal citizen's name being cleared, this was new.

Okay, this is just all amazing. Thank you so much for this!

Re: The Calas Affair

From:

selenak - Date: 2020-04-15 03:38 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

selenak

Collected replies from the last post:

Zinsser thought that Voltaire liked Mme Denis partially because she was so very different from Émilie, and one of her pieces of (weak) evidence was their writing in Italian, the "language of love" rather than the language of intellect. Though that may be going a bit far into speculation, it certainly is plausible, although of course Zinsser has a very strong pro-Émilie and anti-Voltaire bias :)

That strikes me as a case of right theory, wrong evidence. Not least because I can hear Algarotti and Lucchesini coughing about the "language of love, not intellect" classification. (Note: Algarotti wrote his Newton for Dummies book first in Italian before translating it in other languages. Luccesini wrote his diary in Italian. And of course as you know from the argument about which language Mozart should use for "Die Entführung aus dem Serail" - just about every opera libretto on the continent and most in England were written in Italian before Joseph made an efffort to encourage das deutsche Singspiel. As opposed to the Germans of this tale, the Italians did not regard their language as inferior in the least, and weren't on the defensive in this regard. (Casanova wrote his memoirs in French for the widest possible readership and said as much at the start, but if you'd told him something about "language of love", he'd have been terribly amsued.)

One more language thing: note that Voltaire and Émilie talked in English both when they argued and when they plain did not want anyone to understand for other reasons (as when Voltaire warned her about the cheating card players). Now I suppose you could make an argument that English was the language of science to them because of Newton, but given the various decriptions Orieux quotes from them using it (and annoying whoever is reporting the event by this, be it servants or guests), it doesn't come across as the primary association - it's definitely connected to highly emotional moments in their lives more often than not. Given that Voltaire originally taught Émilie English, you could certainly just as well make the case that English was the language of love (and argument) for them.

(All of which goes to say: I suspect Voltaire was language-sexual. If Fritz had been capable of writing fluently in Latin, he might have written and argued in Latin with him.)

This being said, I don't doubt par of the allure of Madame Denis in the mid 1740s was that she was different from Émilie (and Fritz, for that matter), and that there was a part of typical "middle aged man falls for sexy secretary" element there back then. But if this had been the main factor, you'd think that she'd played the role of understanding submissive admirer to Émilie's challenging equal. Instead, one of the ways Marie-Louise Denis frustrates Voltaire's biographers is that she had quite the ego and the high opinion of herself as well, only in her case without the talent to pull it off. (She thought, among other things, she was a good actress. No one else thought so, which made it cringeworthy when Voltaire let her play with the great Le Kain and raved about her peformance later.) She was argumentative, she was bossy, and she definitely wasn't inclined to do whatever Voltaire wanted. (Hence her not coming to Germany until the very end. You may remember the exchange Mildred quoted at some point between her and Voltaire where he writes that the French language has conquered the German courts and cultural scene completely, and really, it's like Charlemagne time (when Karl der Große ruled both German and French territories), do come, and Madame Denis the Parisian was "yeah, I imagine the culture produced is like that of Charlemagne time as well, thanks but no thanks, I'm staying where I am".

Now Voltaire in his 60s and onwards was hardly a great catch (except financially), with his constant illnesses and his temper and histrionics, and it might be that he simply did not want to be alone and thus clung to her long after Émilie was gone and he himself was hardly up to any form of sex anymore. But then again: he wasn't lacking alternatives. For starters, she wasn't the only niece, and her sister, whom he had an amiable (and non-incesteous) relationship with and who according to Orieux had a far more agreeable and kind nature, would have certainly been willing to live with him. He also never stopped having friends of either gender, if he wanted to, he could charm people right to the end, and even that aside, well, he was rich. So it really did not have to be Marie-Louise Denis. And yet. (Which had a bad ending as far as Voltaire was concerned, no matter whether you believe the milder version (she censored his mail out of fear he'd change his will at the last moment, he noticed, they argued, and that's why she wasn't around for his last week of life, but according to Catherine's envoy he did think of her and asked his servant to take care of her before he died)) or the worst case version (she was too busy receiving visitors and homages to come back, not even when told that the two nurses she'd engaged for him in addition to his servant failed to give him enough to drink - that's the version where he's forced to drink from his excrements).

On a less depressing note, it's also true hat in his old age Voltaire got more and more into mentoring and having paternal relationships. Mademoiselle Corneille was one; Philiberte de Varicourt (whom he adopted) and the Marquis de Villette (that's the one who ended up with Voltaire's heart) were others, and then there was one whiz kid named Johannes von Müller. You can read a wish to have children into this, and maybe the secret of his relationship with Madame Denis was that she was, at different times in his life, both, a romance and a daughter.

(Incidentally, she and her sister and the Abbé Mignot who made sure Voltaire got a Christian burial were all the children of his sister, whom as opposed to his brother he had loved.)

okay, I find Fritz paying a share of a nude Voltaire totally hilarious

Fritz in 1740: haggles with Voltaire about covering Voltaire's travel expenses.

Fritz in the 1770s: pays in parts for a nude Voltaire statue.

Voltaire: Look, Pigalle, I'm honored, but I really doubt whether me naked is a good idea.

Pigalle: but artistic freedom! Also, Fritz pays for some of it!

Voltaire: ...okay.

Mind you, good old Richelieu paid more. (50 Louisdor. When he was told he made everyone else look bad that way, he diplomatically went down to 20 Louisdor.)

According to Orieux, Fritz was asked to contribute by Madame Necker whose idea it had been and asked back how much. He was told "Your name and an Ecu". But upon hearing what Richelieu gave, he did feel competitive. And he also wrote, re: Voltaire: The Greece of the ancients would have made him a God, one would have built him a temple: we only erect a statue to him as a pale recompense for all the persecutions he has suffered.

(Fritz, as the same time, back in Berlin: nephew Gustav, did I tell you how Voltaire is THE WORST yet? Damn, where's my copy of the Henriade, I want to read some verses to you!"

Voltaire did feel awkward about those whole modelling thing, though, writing to Madame Necker: Monsieur Pigalle is supposed to come to model my face, but, Madame, for this I would need to have a face. One hardly guesses where it lies hidden. My eyes lie three inches deep, my cheeks are old paper, which is badly put on bones that can't hold anything together anymore. What few teeths I had left are gone.

D'Alembert the encyclopedist wrote to soothe him: Genius has, as long as it breathes, a face that can be rendered by the genius of his brother, and Monsieur Pigalle will take the fire from the two diamonds nature has made your eyes and use it to awaken his statue to life. I can't tell you, dear honored comrade, how flattered Monsieur Pigalle is to have been chosen to create this monument for his and the glory of the French nation.

When Pigalle showed up in Ferney, Voltaire just could not sit still, either moved too much, dictated, came and went, or grimaced, and then finally Pigalle lucked out by drawing him into a discussion about the golden calf in the bible. Voltaire said no way the Israelites could have created a statue of gold within four hours, and Pigalle explained to him how such a statue was created and that it usually took six months at least. Voltaire listened, sitting quietly and attentively, and Pigalle was delighted, because at last he had the chance to model him.

While Orieux at some point just throws up his hands and admits the whole Fritz/Voltaire thing going on and on and on despite all the awful things they keep saying about each other is not explainable by anything but love

Mildred: Ahh, those two. Baffling contemporaries and generations of posterity alike. <3

Orieux is good at describing the turnaround from Voltaire being gleeful at Fritz getting humbled to Voltaire getting into a "save Fritz" kind of mood.

After Fritz losing the battle of Kolin: Richelieu, who was in Germany and contributed as much as he could to Friedrich's defeat, received the following letter from Voltaire: "If you come through Frankfurt, Madame Denis asks you urgently to send her the four ears of two villains; they are a man named Freytag, envoy of the King of Prussia in Frankfurt, who never got any money but the one he stole from me, and of another, named Schmidt, a thieving scoundrel and advisor of the King of Prussia. Both have committed the foolishness to lock up the widow of a royal officer who had a passport issued by the King. THe two villains had bayonets directed against her body and searched her luggage. Four ears aren't too much for such services." (...)
Nothing appeared to be able to save Friedrich from the coalition against him. Voltaire celebrated when he noticed the moment of revenge was close. And then, suddenly, his attitude changed. When he believed Friedrich lost, he thought only of the friend, of the marvelous Salomon, his fervent admirer, of the kissed hand, of the incomperable praise fallen from the royal lips into the bewitched soul of the "French Virgil". He cried, he wished for someone to help, he exchanged desperate letters with the Margravine who wrote to him: "One recognizes his true friends only in misfortune. And she sent him a billet in which Friedrich wrote to him: "I have heard you feel for my successeses and my misfortunes. It only remains to me to sell my life as dearly as possible." (...) Voltaire suggested to the Margravine - Soeur Guillemette - to approach Richelieu. "I don't dare name this thought as a suggestion nor as an advice, but simply as a wish springing from my eagerness."
What strange eagerness! After complaining to all of Europe about this barbarian who had bayonets directed against the body of his dear Denis, he wants to save him? How to understand this change of heart? Perhaps in the simplest manner possible: he still loved Friedrich.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Fritz in 1740: haggles with Voltaire about covering Voltaire's travel expenses.

Fritz in the 1770s: pays in parts for a nude Voltaire statue.

HAHAHAAA. This is even better, because, in a normal relationship, it might well develop that way, but if you rephrase it as:

Fritz before the marriage: haggles with Voltaire about covering Voltaire's travel expenses.

Fritz after the acrimonious divorce: pays in parts for a nude Voltaire statue.

...it becomes even more obvious how gloriously fucked up they were. And I'm with

selenak on this: therapy for everyone, but only after they've had a chance to do all the crazy in the 18th century so we can read about their antics. :P

Voltaire did feel awkward about those whole modelling thing, though, writing to Madame Necker: Monsieur Pigalle is supposed to come to model my face, but, Madame, for this I would need to have a face. One hardly guesses where it lies hidden. My eyes lie three inches deep, my cheeks are old paper, which is badly put on bones that can't hold anything together anymore. What few teeths I had left are gone.

Very endearing.

Pigalle explained to him how such a statue was created and that it usually took six months at least. Voltaire listened, sitting quietly and attentively, and Pigalle was delighted, because at last he had the chance to model him.

That's hilarious!

What strange eagerness! After complaining to all of Europe about this barbarian who had bayonets directed against the body of his dear Denis, he wants to save him? How to understand this change of heart? Perhaps in the simplest manner possible: he still loved Friedrich.

Well, duh. :P Also, it's going to be wonderful to read about the time Fritz was captured and threatened with a trial, and Voltaire couldn't resist coming to his rescue.

From:

cahn

All of which goes to say: I suspect Voltaire was language-sexual.

heeeee! Yeah, I guess I can't argue there.

You can read a wish to have children into this, and maybe the secret of his relationship with Madame Denis was that she was, at different times in his life, both, a romance and a daughter.

I feel like this is both really touching and rather skeevy. :P Voltaire!

But upon hearing what Richelieu gave, he did feel competitive.

The more details you give, the more utterly hilarious I find this. "I'm going to give money for a nude Voltaire... becaues I'm competitive with the other people who are giving money for it!" Fritz!

then finally Pigalle lucked out by drawing him into a discussion about the golden calf in the bible. Voltaire said no way the Israelites could have created a statue of gold within four hours, and Pigalle explained to him how such a statue was created and that it usually took six months at least. Voltaire listened, sitting quietly and attentively, and Pigalle was delighted, because at last he had the chance to model him.

HAHAHAHA this is totally great, so Voltaire :D

How to understand this change of heart? Perhaps in the simplest manner possible: he still loved Friedrich.

Okay, my heart melted <3 But also, he was always going for the underdog, right?

Re: Love is a many splendoured thing

From:

selenak - Date: 2020-04-16 07:08 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Love is a many splendoured thing

From:

cahn - Date: 2020-04-18 05:10 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Love is a many splendoured thing

From:

selenak - Date: 2020-04-18 05:31 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Love is a many splendoured thing

From:

cahn - Date: 2020-04-20 03:54 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

selenak

From:

cahn - Date: 2020-04-22 05:02 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Also! our fandom has been producing lovely fic at a rapid clip (okay, well, selenak has):

Lol, yes. *Someone* in the fandom has. She also passed 500K words of teaching us stuff AND has pulled into the lead for salon word count!

User	Words	Comments
selenak	500,586	1,163
mildred	493,903	1,856
cahn	85,381	971
Everyone else	15,295	78
Total	1,095,165	4,068

You can also see from the word/comment ratio that I'm the chattiest and she's the most informative. Appropriate, from the detective and reader, I suppose!

From:

selenak

Mes amies, I finally discovered where the "Fredersdorf got married within 24 hours of pretending he was dying" story hails from which shows up in the early, but not later biographies. (And is disproved by, for example, Lehndorff mentioning the future Mrs. Fredersdorf as the future Mrs. Fredersdorf in a diary entry about a year before the marriage took place; he also is informed of Fritz' wedding present for the bride. (December 15th 1752. Dinner with Frau von Grappendorf, a very charming lady who has a revolting husband; in his appearance, he is a monster, full of prejudices and rather ridiculous. I make the aquaintance of the Abbé de Prades, who had to leave France due to his preachings. I also see the fiancee of Fredersdorf; she has received 5000 Taler as a wedding present from the King.)

Unsurprisingly, the origin of the "24 hours" tale is a poet, to wit, Achim von Arnim. Reminder for non-Germans re: Achim von Arnim: grandson of Fredersdorf's widow on the maternal side, bff of Clemens Brentano, husband of Clemens' sister Bettina, both of whom are more famous in German literature than Achim. Who spent much of his childhood on the Zernikow estate. His mother had died shortly after his birth, his father didn't want to take care of him and his brother Karl Otto, and his grandmother, Karoline Maria Elisabeth Labes, widowed twice at this point (Fredersdorf was husband No.1, Johann Labes, also chamberlain to the King, was husband No.2, who died in 1776), literary bought the right the raise her grandkids from her son-in-law with 1.000 Taler and a contract saying as much. (Possibly to ensure he wouldn't suddenly change his mind again, the law favouring fathers.) This shows what an enterprising lady she was in her older years. The estate website mentions she continued Fredersdorf's work on the estate and added, among other things, a hospice for workers who were either too old or for other reasons incapable of working anymore. She also built this crypta next to the village church, where Fredersdorf is buried.

So is Karoline Maria Elisabeth. According to Achim, with the caveat that he's also the origin or "they tricked Fritz in order to get the wedding permission and got married within 24 hours" tale:

"Thus the sickbed was the entrance to a marriage in which my grandmother (...) lived with him in such blessed liberty, accordance and inner cheerfulness, until he died after many sufferings, that she wanted after her own death rest only at the side of the most beloved of her husbands."

Mind you, given Johann Labes was Achim's grandfather and also the husband who got ennobled to von Labes - Lehndorff somewhat cynically assumes this is why Mrs. Fredersdorf married him, though then again, she was an heiress and the widow of an immensly wealthy man, so if she wanted a title and nothing but that, she could have gone for actual Prussian nobility, lots of whom were heavily in debt, rather than an ennobled Chamberlain - , I'm going with the assumption that if Achim were to make a wrong declaration as to which of her husbands Karoline Maria Elisabeth loved best, he'd pick Grandpa. I'm therefore assuming that she told her grandson as much during the later's childhood. This of course tells us nothing re: how Frederrsdorf felt about her in return. But I find the phrase " in such blessed liberty" - in solch seliger Freiheit" - interesting (and presumably directly derived from Grandma). What we know about her is that on the one hand, she was a banker's daughter, presumably under the tight control not just heiresses tended to be in her day and age, and on the other that she was a strong-willed woman managing her estate and buying her son-in-law out of his paternal rights in her later years. So: I'm currently speculating that Fredersdorf, who was already in 1752 when he proposed and in 1753 when he married her a man with a lot of illnesses behind him and more ahead, and thus, even leaving his orientation and relationship with Fritz aside, hardly the model of a romantic lover, offered her not exactly a classic romance but something all too few women got: friendly companionship with a promise that she would get to live the life she wanted, instead of being patriarchally bossed around. And that this was why she ended up loving him (and remember him with such fondness).

The Zernikow website provides the history of the estate before and after. It was chronically mismanaged and in debt through F1 and FW's reigns, and often changed its owner accordingly. Fritz bought as Crown Prince in 1737 from the previous owner, a Lieutent de Beville (who himself had bought it in 1731), and at first rented it to six citizens in the area. In 1740, when he ascended to the throne, he ended the contracts and gave it to Fredersdorf, who despite all his work for Fritz found time to completely reorganize the estate. In 1741 Fredersdorf set up a brick factory. Construction of the manor house began in 1746 (a rectangular, two-storey, baroque plastered building with a mansard roof and 7/3 axes. In 1747, a mulberry tree plantation with 8,000 trees near the watermill and a silk house were built. (This was in accordance to Fritz wanting to stop Prussia from relying on foreign exports for its silk production and encouraging citizens to produce their own silk. For which, of course, you needed mulberry trees.) Extensive remedial measures took place from 1750 onwards. Fredersdorf also expanded. A year later, he had various avenues planted, of beech, poplar, oak, and walnut trees. The best-known avenue is that of mulberry trees, located between the village and the Zernikow watermill. About 70 trees can still be seen today. The estate was further expanded by a pheasant garden and a carp pond. Fredersdorf's beer, which was produced in his own breweries, became known beyond the borders of Zernikow. Unfortunately, nothing (especially the recipes) could be saved up to the present. Mostly because of severe mismanagement in the 19th century after Achim von Arnim's death, when numerous later owners had no interest in it and didn't find people to manage it competently for them, either.

The estate today:

Incidentally, the website - which like us believes Fredersdorf's interest in alchemy could have greatly contributed to his demise, also quotes one of Fritz' letters, from 1753 (the year of the marriage and the Voltaire implosion) , in his wonderful informal and badly spelled German, apropos returning an achemical recipe: "Ich danke Dihr vohr Deine Schöne Sachen; ich Schike Dihr alles zurüke. gesundtheit ist besser, wie alle Schätze der Welt. flege Dihr erst, daß Du besser wirst, dann Könen wihr goldt und Silber Machen."

("I thank you for your beautiful things; I'm sending it all back to you. Health is better than all the treasures of the world. Take care of yourself first so you get better, than we can make silver and gold.")

Alchemy to Fredersdorf = Childbirth to Émilie, y/y?

Edited Date: 2020-04-14 11:47 am (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Aha! Thank you for sharing all this.

This shows what an enterprising lady she was in her older years. The estate website mentions she continued Fredersdorf's work on the estate and added, among other things, a hospice for workers who were either too old or for other reasons incapable of working anymore. She also built this crypta next to the village church, where Fredersdorf is buried.

I can see what they had in common! Good for her and good for them.

I'm currently speculating that Fredersdorf, who was already in 1752 when he proposed and in 1753 when he married her a man with a lot of illnesses behind him and more ahead, and thus, even leaving his orientation and relationship with Fritz aside, hardly the model of a romantic lover, offered her not exactly a classic romance but something all too few women got: friendly companionship with a promise that she would get to live the life she wanted,

Makes perfect sense to me. And yes, definitely something worthy of being prized.

And that this was why she ended up loving him (and remember him with such fondness).

<33

Mostly because of severe mismanagement in the 19th century after Achim von Arnim's death, when numerous later owners had no interest in it and didn't find people to manage it competently for them, either.

Sigh. I'm reminded of the restaurant on the Sanssouci grounds that's named after Fredersdorf (as a marketing gimmick, as far as I can tell, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the historical Fredersdorf), which has all one-star reviews on Yelp. I commented in Rheinsberg that if Fredersdorf were running it, it would be much better managed! Seems like this is a recurring theme in Fredersdorf's legacy.

"Ich danke Dihr vohr Deine Schöne Sachen; ich Schike Dihr alles zurüke. gesundtheit ist besser, wie alle Schätze der Welt. flege Dihr erst, daß Du besser wirst, dann Könen wihr goldt und Silber Machen."

I'm marveling. Really, Fritz, this is impressive.

("I thank you for your beautiful things; I'm sending it all back to you. Health is better than all the treasures of the world. Take care of yourself first so you get better, than we can make silver and gold.")

Those two. <333 I'm reminded of your Mirror of Erised write-up in which Fredersdorf sees himself sharing the elixir of life with Fritz, so they can be together forever.

*this is the sound of my heart breaking*

Alchemy to Fredersdorf = Childbirth to Émilie, y/y?

YES. Omg, you guys, I'm so sorry about 18th century medicine! Fredersdorf and Karoline Maria, I'm glad the marriage thing worked out, sorry you only had a few years and there was so much nursing involved.

I'm still desperately curious what the remaining two boyfriends died of: Suhm and Peter Keith, who also died in their forties. Preuss reproduces a letter from Fritz to Suhm's brother saying "thank you for telling me all the details and circumstances of his death," but DOESN'T REPRODUCE the letter from the brother with the detail! Preuss! Inquiring gossipy sensationalists need to know.

Re: Zernikow

From:

cahn - Date: 2020-04-16 05:04 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

selenak

So I was idly browsing through

fail_fandomanon when the question was asked "how would your fave get along with their younger self and vice versa", and lo, I thought: MY historical fandom has a canonical reply to this that doesn't involve time travel! Which other fandom can say that?

Incidentally, for what it's worth, I think Older Fritz and younger Fritz would interact slightly differently than Fritz and Heinrich do if there was time travel, simply because older Fritz would try to save Katte (and possibly some other people dying from 18th century medicine rather than despot). If there was no time travel/saving people possibility there, though? We've got the canon.

Which led me to wonder about some other people, and here I'm going for "most interesting" as when they meet in their respective timelines:

MT: young MT would not get why in the last years of her life MT would reach out to Fritz to end the war of Bavarian Successio as long as it was still unbloody. Making peace with that bastard behind your own son's back? How could you, older self! Conversely, she'd be appalled at older MT's depression, denying herself so much she used to enjoy and general stressed relationship with her kids. Older MT would not relate to younger MT as she does to daughter Marie Christina aka "Mimi" (whom she did see as her younger self), because young MT is way more headstrong and less prone to flatter the monarch. Lots of "damn, I was a brat!" feeling on the part of older MT. There'd definitely be clashes. Then reconciliation as older MT uses the time travel to see FS again, even from a distance, and younger MT just gets it.

Voltaire: would get along swimmingly for about an hour of mutual "we're so brilliant at any age, aren't we?" admiration. Then there'd be fireworks. Younger Voltaire would not accept any advice other than business tips (which companies to invest in).

Fredersdorf: would actually get along with his younger self and give useful tips that would be listened to (both re: his own health and various Fritzian dramas). Younger self would be very surprised by older self's appearance but would adapt quickly. The one problem I could foresee is if younger self asks if Fritz is happy in the future, and older Fredersdorf, who time travels shortly before his death, has to admit there's a war going on (and the Glasow assassination attempt also happened recently, which is one of the things he warns himself about).

ETA: young Heinrich with an older self who isn't Fritz: at least I'm not in uniform, so I haven't drunk the cool-aid, that's good. At the same time, it's nice to have a good general repuation, I guess. But wtf is this with writing to goddam Fritz once a week? Why the hell didn't I stay in France once I got there? Where's Wilhelm? And older self, since this is before you meet the Comte, do you mean we're several decades in and STILL haven't found a boyfriend who is exciting and reliable at the same time?

Older Heinrich to young Heinrich: prevent Wilhelm gettting his own command early in the 7 Years War by all means. Even if you have to get on your knees to Fritz and spoil your relationship with Wilhelm for a while by taking the command yourself. But trust me on this. It's the only way to prevent the biggest catastrophe of his and your life.

Any other ideas?

Edited Date: 2020-04-19 10:04 am (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

And also Katte's boyfriend. I hear he's considered important. ;)

Anyway, courtesy of book bribes (thanks,

cahn!) and scanning efforts, we now have a new volume of primary sources pertaining to the Fritz-and-Katte trial, called Hinrichs_Kronprinzenprozess.pdf, in the library. Much of it we've seen, but some of it is new.

Calling the Royal Reader!

I'm particularly interested in anything Katte may have said about Fritz taking a dislike to him at first, and then getting to know him, because I gather that's from one of the Katte interrogations, but I haven't seen the actual quote.

In general...you know my interests, go! :D

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2020-04-27 01:36 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Katte! - the rest

From:

cahn - Date: 2020-04-26 03:35 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

1. I've always wondered how much FW starved his kids (partly in the context, as you know, of Fritz's later disordered eating). Wilhelmine says "a lot", but we all know we have to take her with a grain of salt. Fritz writing in 1730 that he prefers starving at Küstrin to starving at Potsdam is at least a contemporaneous corroboration, but, he's not exactly an objective source on FW, and, he's not an independent source from Wilhelmine, since we know these two were going through the same childhood together and constructing a picture of it together.

I considered it possible that they weren't exactly starved so much as living frugally and resenting it, or punished periodically with skipping meals. (I'm not a fan, but it's got a long history in childrearing.)

But now I see Ziebura says *AW*, favorite child and the one who got along with Dad, reported later in life "sometimes being half starved." Assuming she's got her source right, that is some reliable corroboration.

Yeah, I can believe whatever brother showed up in Rheinsberg in 1736 raided the larder first thing. Amazing how quickly Fritz, who's got sugar daddies now, forgets. "No, I don't care about food, only learning. That's why my larder is so full and my debts so high for all these imported delicacies, and why if you look at paintings of me from this period, I look so well fed."

Actually, ha, check it out:

1728, living ~~in the hall of the Mountain King~~ under Dad's thumb.

1736, just moving into Rheinsberg this summer. Finally (mostly) free!

1743, king for 3 years.

I mean, who doesn't put on weight between 16 and 31? But somebody is clearly eating well, while being hoity-toity about his younger brother who still lives with Dad. :P

3. Asprey, the "Sources? What sources?" biographer, has the following anecdote:

The day after Frederick invaded Silesia his envoy in Vienna, von Borcke, delivered the ambitious five-point Prussian proposal. Frederick offered to guarantee Maria Theresa the accession and all of her German territories, and he would ally with Russia, England, and Holland for this purpose; he would vote for Grand Duke Francis as next emperor and would persuade other electors to do the same; he would cede his claims to Juliers and Berg to the Habsburgs; and he would pay the hard-pressed queen an indemnity of two million gulden. In return for effort and risk involved, the Austrian court was to cede all of Silesia to him.

Queen Maria Theresa, heavy with child, refused to see Borcke but waited behind a door to ensure that Francis forcefully rejected the Prussian demands.

I'm curious about that last bit. Have you run across any more reliable mentions of her eavesdropping on her husband to make sure he doesn't give into Fritz,

selenak?

cahn: That child would be Joseph, btw. He will be born 3 months later.

4. Asprey writing in 1986: "Sans-Souci can easily be visited today and is well worth the effort, as is Potsdam (Russian soldiers and all). Refurbishing, however, moves slowly. When I first went through the palace, Voltaire's bedroom was closed for redecoration. On a second visit five years later I found it still closed but bribed a custodian to have a look. It was still not finished."

I love the casual bribery admission in the footnote.

5. It occurred to me to check the index of the third Lehndorff volume for Marwitz, and it turns out Schmidt-Lötzen thinks page Marwitz is Johann Friedrich Adolf von Marwitz, aka the "chose disgrace where obedience did not bring honor" general who refused to sack a castle at Fritz's orders. But Wikipedia has him born in 1723, so he would be 23 years old in 1746. That's not too old to be fought over, but it is a bit old to be a page. Furthermore, Wikipedia says he was in the Gendarmes at age 17 and remaining there until at least 1758, whereas Lehndorff has Page Marwitz getting a commission in the guard after Heinrich intervened on his behalf after the whole dispute with Fritz. So either Wikipedia is wrong, or Schmidt-Lötzen has surely made the wrong identification.

German wiki also says there's a 2014 publication that calls into question the whole "disgrace over dishonor" story and says it may be more fiction than fact.

6. I'm not watching the Outlander series, but I decided to check out one of my favorite scenes from the books. It's the execution (omg...OKAY I HAVE A PROBLEM :P) of prisoners after the Battle of Culloden, so it's April 1746. I idly wondered what Fritz was up to over on the Continent. Then I realized the answer was: squabbling with Heinrich over Marwitz.

Wow. Things I did not know back when I was in Jacobite and Fritz fandoms 20 years ago! Our salon is definitely the fandom that delivers, on the gossipy sensationalism front. ;)

Edited Date: 2020-04-21 12:52 am (UTC)

From:

selenak

Guys, it occured to me that I never did the write up for Das Palladion, the German translation of Fritz' most notorious verse satire, after Mildred linked me.

So: firstly, if there was buggery in this work, it's been edited out by the translation. According to some biographies and/or essays I've read, Darget gets molested by priests and doctors at school and later by Austrian soldiers. This does not happen in the German translation by one E.König, edited by our pal Gustav Volz. (Volz adds a lot of footnotes to explain who is whoy, which are necessary. I'll get to that.) Now, as part of the big Fritz centennary, the work as been newly translated, and this thorough review does quote from the passages that the König/Volz version left out, but they still don't dominate the poem.

The plot, such as it is, is this: During the second Silesian War, the squabbling Saints, who are written an obvious spoof of the Homeric Gods in the Ilias (as well as of course as a means of making fun of the Catholic religion) decide to interfere to help against the Prussians. (Not unanimously; some of the saints, like Hedwig, Patron Saint of Prussia, are not on Austria's side.) The Austrian general Karl von Lothringen (that's MT's brother-in-law, called most often by the diminutive "Karlchen" in the "Palladion", which presumably means he's "Charlot" in the original) dreams that if he can capture the Marquis de Valory, the French envoy, the Prussians will lose, for he is their good luck totem. (The "Palladion" of the title, alluding to the image of Pallas Athena guarded in Athens.) Valory, however, gets warned by his patron saint and hides in time, Darget (courtesy of his patron saint, St. Etienne) sacrifices himself and gets captured, we get his life story in a flashback, then we get his main captor's Franquini's life story, then Valory, strengthened by the furies, intervenes on his secretary's behalf with the Prussian generals, there's a mighty battle, which the Austrians lose (cue again Saints and this time also the ghosts of Luther and Calvin intervening a la the Gods in the Ilias), so Darget is exchanged back for a Lorraine soldier, and "Karlchen" never dares anything like that again.

Now, nothing ages more quickly in general than contemporary satire. Because as soon as you're removed from the context it was written in, if you're not well versed in the period, no pun intended, you need footnote explaining who is who, and what the joke is. As we all know, if jokes need to be explained, they're usually not funny anymore. Plus of course this is a translation. All this being said: despite not having read Voltaire's Pucelle, the obvious role model there, I know several satiric verse epics full of then contemporary politics,which also include attacks on religious bigotry, and which do have sex jokes, which are still hilarious to read, to wit: most of Byron's satiric work, though in terms of comparison I'm primarily thinking of The Vision of Judgment right now, and Heinrich Heine's Deutschland: Ein Wintermärchen.

(The Vision of Judgment: when George III finally died, old, blind and mad, the poet laureate, Robert Southey, dutifully wrote a pompous poem in which the angels welcome George into heaven, and the devils gnash their teeth, called The Vision of Judgment. Cue Byron writing a savagely funny parody with the same title, about which more from me here.

Deutschland: Ein Wintermärchen: takes the visit Heine after 13 years of French exile made home in 1847 as the bare bones for a firework of satiric brilliance and a portrait of Germany (many a state in same) and the Germans at this point. More about it from me here.)

And the comparison just illustrates why the Palladion, leaving aside how good or bad Fritz' verses are, never made it into world literature. Starting with the premises. Notice what Byron, Heine and, even without having read the Pucelle, Voltaire, have in common?

Byron: uses the "death of George III" premise to satirically attack the British monarchy, British politics for the last few decades, British hypocrisy, oh, and Southey's platitidues. Byron is a Brit.

Voltaire: writes a satire about a national heroine and (though not yet officially canonized) saint, according to biographers making fun of French habits, clerical hypocrisies and national pride. Voltaire is a Frenchman.

Heine: uses the travelogue/here's me back in the home country" premise to having a go at German politicis (okay, mainly Prussian politics, because Heine the Rhinelander does play favourites), German habits, German hypocrisy. Heine does so as a German.

Fritz: has a go at the Austrians (Catholic superstition-ridden wannabes) and to a lesser degree the Brits (Darget makes a trip to Uncle George's court and when recounting his life story gets to say lots of unflattering things about Uncle George, British parliament and the English), the Italians (all that stuff he wrote to Wilhelmine about how current day Italy surely sucks beyond the telling, only in verse), with some asides about the Spaniards, and while Darget and Valory are positive characters, the occasion for a lot of patronizing in the "aren't you French darling and pompous at the same time vein).

=> It's not exactly the same thing as the difference between punching upwards and punching downards, but between making fun from without vs making fun from within. Byron and Heine are making fun of themselves in these satiric epics as well as of everyone else. (Not having read the Pucelle, I don't know about Voltaire.) They actually know what they're talking about in more than one sense. Heine lives in Paris instead of Hamburg, Düsseldorf or Berlin because of the post-Napoleonic censorship laws in the German states, especially those ruled by Prussia. Byron has had a stint in politics; his maiden speech in the House of Lords was about the Luddites. He knows that current day Britain is anything but a paradise. Fritz knows everyone he's writing about, other than Darget and Valory, by reports.

Then there's, even within the satiric genre that lives by comic exaggaration, the part where characterisation makes for better poetry. Byron, in The Vision of Judgment, like Fritz in the Palladion depicts heaven, angels, saints, and eventually the visiting devil as a parody, but allt he same, his St. Peter etc. come to life as characters (Peter grumbling about St. Paul the parvenu, Lucifer/Michael still having a thing for each other) beyond the parody (one reason why even we noncontemporaries can enjoy reading this). Heine has his narrator interact with the medieval Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa (who in German legends popular at that time was promised to come again, like King Arthur for the Brits) on one level to make fun of the 19th century romantic glorification of the middle ages, but his Barbarossa is also a character in his own right, and so is Father Rhine (being embarassed at being politically compromised in all the propaganda between Germans and French) and the Hamburg town goddess Hammonia (making a pass at the poet/narrator like the good time girl she is). They have an existence beyond allowing the writer to vent.

Then there's the whole "how obvious are you?" part. Compare Palladion!Darget, narrating his life, going on about how the Italy of today sucks, no more Caesars or Medici but just castrato singers to reccommend it, and also being let down when coming to England by vainglorious George (can't fight his own battles but claims the laurels) and his uppity parliament (lots of know-it-alls fancying they know ~~better than the King of Prussia~~ best), with, say, this passage of Byron's Beppo talking about England and Italy both, there's no question as to which writer actually has lived in both places he's satirically describing:

I like on Autumn evenings to ride out,
Without being forced to bid my groom be sure
My cloak is round his middle strapp'd about,
Because the skies are not the most secure;
I know too that, if stopp'd upon my route,
Where the green alleys windingly allure,
Reeling with grapes red waggons choke the way, ---
In England 't would be dung, dust, or a dray.

I also like to dine on becaficas,
To see the Sun set, sure he'll rise tomorrow,
Not through a misty morning twinkling weak as
A drunken man's dead eye in maudlin sorrow,
But with all Heaven t'himself; the day will break as
Beauteous as cloudless, nor be forced to borrow
That sort of farthing candlelight which glimmers
Where reeking London's smoky caldron simmers.

I love the language, that soft bastard Latin,
Which melts like kisses from a female mouth,
And sounds as if it should be writ on satin,
With syllables which breathe of the sweet South,
And gentle liquids gliding all so pat in,
That not a single accent seems uncouth,
Like our harsh northern whistling, grunting guttural,
Which we're obliged to hiss, and spit, and sputter all.

I like the women too ( forgive my folly ),
From the rich peasant cheek of ruddy bronze,
And large black eyes that flash on you a volley
Of rays that say a thousand things at once,
To the high dama's brow, more melancholy,
But clear, and with a wild and liquid glance,
Heart on her lips, and soul within her eyes,
Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies. (...)

"England ! with all thy faults I love thee still,"
I said at Calais, and have not forgot it;
I like to speak and lucubrate my fill;
I like the government ( but that is not it );
I like the freedom of the press and quill;
I like the Habeas Corpus ( when we've got it );
I like a parliamentary debate,
Particularly when 'tis not too late;

I like the taxes, when they're not too many;
I like a seacoal fire, when not too dear;
I like a beef-steak, too, as well as any;
Have no objection to a pot of beer;
I like the weather, when it is not rainy,
That is, I like two months of every year,
And so God save the Regent, Church, and King !
Which means that I like all and everything.

Our standing army, and disbanded seamen,
Poor's rate, Reform, my own, the nation's debt,
Our little riots just to show we are free men,
Our trifling bankruptcies in the Gazette,
Our cloudy climate, and our chilly women,
All these I can forgive, and those forget,
And greatly venerate our recent glories,
And wish they were not owing to the Tories.

And for all that young Fritz called Prussian uniforms "Sterbekittel", King Fritz, going by the Prussians in the Palladion, would have been incapable of writing satire like this by Heine, early in Wintermärchen after he's crossed the border and is in Aachen, a Rhineland town but now under Prussian occupation. (Oh, and remember, the eagle is Prussia's symbol, that's "the bird most detested".)

The Aachen’s street-dogs are so bored,
That, with servility, they’re imploring:
Give us a kick, stranger and perhaps,
Life will not be so boring.

I strolled about in that boring hole,
For an hour, or so, altogether;
I saw the Prussian soldiers once more:
They’re still the same as ever:

Grey coats, with the high blood-red collars
Is still the dress of these henchmen.
( Körner sang in former days:
Red is for the blood of Frenchmen)

They are still that wooden pedantic lot:
With stiff right angles, they pace,
And the same old arrogance
Remains frozen on their face.

And still, they strut about as stiff
As a candle, straight upright,
As if they’d swallowed the stick,
Formerly used to put them right.

Yes, the sticks have never quite disappeared:
Deep inside, old habits still exist:
Inside the new glove of humane ways,
There is still an iron fist.

In truth, the long moustache is just
The pig-tail’s newer phase:
The pig-tail that used to hang behind
Hangs under their nose, nowadays.

I liked the cavalry’s new costume;
To praise it would only be right,
Especially the impressive spike-helmet,
With its point of steel upright.

This is chivalric, reminding
The past, noble and romantic,
The Lady Jane of Montfaucon,
The Barons Fouqué, Uhland and Tieck.

It reminds of pages and noblemen,
Of those fine middle-ages years,
Who carried loyalty in their hearts
And a coat of arms on their rears.

It reminds of crusades and tournaments,
When men were noble-hearted,
Of the age of faith with no print,
Before the first press was started.

Yes, yes, I like this helmet,
It springs from the highest wit!
A royal notion it was indeed:
It has even a point to spike it!

My only fear, in case of storm,
The sky will be drawn by your spike,
And, straight upon your romantic head,
The most modern lightning will strike!

Also, should war ever break out,
A lighter head cover you will need;
For, heavy middle-ages helmets,
Your running from battle may impede.

On Aachen’s post-office coat of arms,
I saw the bird, most detested.
With a most poisonous glare,
His eyes, upon me, rested.

You hateful bird, if it so happens
That you fall in my hands one day,
I will pluck each of your feathers,
And I will chop your claws away.

I’ll set you up, high in the air,
As a target, on a perch, then
I’ll invite for a jolly shooting match
All the Rhineland’s huntsmen.

With sceptre and crown I shall reward
He who the bird’s downfall will bring.
The worthy fellow! A fanfare will blow
And we shall cry: “Long live the King! “

In conclusion: compared to this stuff, the Palladion just isn't up to scratch, and a few homoerotic jokes as quoted in the article earlier doesn't rescue it from mediocrity, either.

Edited Date: 2020-04-25 06:24 am (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I should have guessed that "don't have time for Royal Reader duties" would amount to "still reading and reporting faster than we can keep up with." ;)

So: firstly, if there was buggery in this work, it's been edited out by the translation.

OMFG I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN

Given the date, I really have no excuse for not just assuming that. Sigh.

but they still don't dominate the poem.

Except in the minds of Valory and especially Darget, I'm betting. ;)

The Austrian general Karl von Lothringen (that's MT's brother-in-law

cahn, you'll see him as Charles of Lorraine in any English bios you read.

dreams that if he can capture the Marquis de Valory, the French envoy, the Prussians will lose, for he is their good luck totem. (The "Palladion" of the title, alluding to the image of Pallas Athena guarded in Athens.)

Though there was a Palladium/Palladion in Athens, the most likely antecedent here is the one in Troy. In Greek mythology, there was a prophecy that the Trojans would lose if it were captured, so Odysseus and Diomedes set out to capture it. (Then everyone--Athens, Rome, etc.--claimed to have gotten the real deal and to still have it a thousand years later.)

Thank you very much for the comparative satire analysis. It was fascinating. Your PhD in literature strikes again!

Re: Fritz the Satirist: A Review

From:

cahn - Date: 2020-04-26 05:17 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Fritz the Satirist: A Review

From:

cahn - Date: 2020-04-26 05:15 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

cahn

So I read the community

fictional_fans and the other day it was asked, "What would the characters in your fandom be like if they had your job?" And I got to thinking. I do technical work and (some) program management with a bunch of engineers --

Fritz: Program manager, has the reputation for his programs getting amazing results, though those in the know know that a couple of times that has happened through his sheer stubbornness. Also has the reputation of trying to steal engineers, projects, and credit from all the other program managers at hte company. Especially from Maria Theresia.

Maria Theresia: Program manager and vice president, was the target of a lot of bigotry when she took the job as a lot of people didn't think a WOMAN could handle it. Has proved them all wrong. Is freezingly polite to Fritz in public but has been known to complain about his attempted poaching in private.

Heinrich: One of Fritz's chief engineers, extremely competent, and quite frankly a lot of the success of his group is due to Heinrich's work. Not that you'd ever know it from talking to Fritz.

Voltaire: Chief Scientist and doesn't ever let anyone forget it. Is superlative in his area of study and never lets anyone forget it. Thinks he knows best in all other areas of study as well. Doesn't always.

(okay, fine, you can tell who my favorites are :D )

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Heinrich: One of Fritz's chief engineers, extremely competent, and quite frankly a lot of the success of his group is due to Heinrich's work. Not that you'd ever know it from talking to Fritz.

TO BE FAIR TO MY FRITZ :P, he was known for talking up Heinrich as second-in-command. Remember, after the war was over, he toasted Heinrich in front of everyone as "the only general, including myself, who never made a mistake."

But yes to the rest. Fritz poaching, yes, but I think he *gets* poached more often than he poaches! Then again, he presumably wouldn't be controlling salary in this scenario, so on second thought, I'm not so sure.

The micromanaging, though, omg. *facepalm*

ETA: So what I'm thinking is Fritz worked for MT, signed an NDA, then broke off and joined or founded (depending on how close to your job we want to keep this) a different startup, bringing intellectual property he wasn't allowed to use. MT goes after him in a court of law multiple times, but never manages to prove it, and he keeps his company afloat, even if sometimes just barely.

...Any resemblance to actual living persons is purely coincidental. :P

"Thinks he knows best in all other areas of study as well. Doesn't always."

Applies equally well to Voltaire's other-self Fritz. ;)

ETA: Émilie: Chief Scientist OF MY HEART

Edited Date: 2020-04-26 07:42 pm (UTC)

From:

selenak

In between doing stuff: discovered that

a) There already was a play about the Émilie/Voltaire/Fritz triangle seeing it as romantic, called "LIght", and here is the review. Must comment on bits from the review:

As celebrity love triangles go, among the most complicated -- and historically significant -- was one that found the 18th century French writer Voltaire caught in an emotional tug of war between his mistress, the brilliant aristocratic Emilie du Chatelet, and his admirer, Frederick the Great, the poet-warrior king of Prussia. Their amorous adventures helped shape the turbulent intellectual, political and religious currents in an age of cultural transition.

They also make a remarkably compelling story, rescued from historical obscurity by Jean-Claude van Itallie’s new three-character play, “Light,” in a beautifully performed debut from Pasadena’s The Theatre @ Boston Court.

With you so far. Mind you, Fritz would love being described as a "poet-warrior king", poet first. Not so sure whether the other two would agree to that order.

As Voltaire, an overeducated offspring of France’s emerging merchant class, Lenny Von Dohlen reveals razor-sharp intellectual bravado constantly undermined by feelings of inadequacy even as he tries to ascend the social ladder.

I shall now call myself "an overeducated offspring of German's merchant class as well"; it's quite a phrase.

John Hansen’s Frederick is both a tower of strength and a lost soul -- an artist and homosexual who never aspired to power, he sees in Voltaire’s poetry the embodiment of everything he gave up in life.

He did hat not to power? I mean, with you that the whole Voltaire thing was among other things about feeding his artistic side, but look, reviewer: in the worst year of his life, the one thing he point blank refused to do except for the day his boyriend was executed was to give up the prospect of becoming King one day. A peace loving hippie, our Fritz never was.

Jeanie Hackett’s Emilie supplies the emotional heart of the piece. An accomplished mathematician, linguist and musician in a time that offered little reward for talented women, she shares Voltaire’s intellect as well as his alienation -- they fit together “like two spheres of light.”

It's interesting that "musician" is included. Maybe this play had Émilie sing?

Against an ominous backdrop of intolerance (heretical thinkers were still burned), enlightenment treads a precarious path through these three interlocking lives, as Emilie and Frederick vie for the conquest of Voltaire. Trophy wives are a dime a dozen, but a trophy philosopher -- that’s a new one.

"Trophy philosopher" is a priceless description, I've got to say. Not least because I want to see Voltaire's face if he gets described as Émilie's and Fritz' trophy philosopher.

Voltaire: Maupertuis might have been. I was der einzige philosophe!

B). Almost exactly a year ago, on May 5th 2019, you could have breakfeast with Voltaire, Fritz and Émilie at Kleve. Well, okay, you could have breakfeast and hear a lecture about them and by paying for that contribute to charity. If we didn't have a plague and they'd do it again, I'd totally go!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

mildred_of_midgard

Because we need one, clearly!

- Either I didn't learn or did not remember that Heinrich and Ferdinand had measles when FW was dying.

- I've seen multiple people report that FW abdicated on his deathbed. I extremely need the precise date for fic purposes. :P

Specifically, the one where Katte gets life imprisonment.

- I have to admit, I laugh-cringed at "He had caught smallpox in the camp and lay sick in Crossen. Although he survived the illness, which at the time claimed around 100,000 deaths in Germany every year," and went, "You guys are not practicing social distancing!" (Or hygiene, but that's a lost cause at this date.)

Seriously, army camps are the *worst* for disease. I remember learning that more people died of disease than enemy action during the US Civil War. Googling says 2/3 of soldier deaths were due to disease. (Which is why I was initially speculating that Peter Keith died from disease in camp during winter quarters. I now think he died from disease in Berlin, but the point about army camps stand.)

- I can see why Gessler wrote under a pseudonym! Did Fritz ever know it was Little Bro?

- The irony of Fritz harassing AW, and later FW2 and his wives, about producing an heir, but especially AW circa 1742 when Fritz is young and EC is young and he's not even pretending to be trying to produce an heir any more...

Look, Fritz, I know your golden rule is "Do unto others as was done unto you," but you're not going to like the heir anyway, and if he doesn't produce one, it'll go to some more distant family member whom you may or may not like, if you insist on doing this via primogeniture, so...what's the big deal here? You were making the case back in 1732 or thereabouts that no throne has ever sat vacant for lack of people in line to claim it.

TL;DR: Oh, Fritz.

Edited Date: 2020-04-27 01:41 am (UTC)

From:

From:

cahn - Date: 2020-05-01 03:38 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

selenak

Looking up something else, I stumbled across this story, told by Fritz via letter to Wilhelmine (letter dated November 16th, 1733, and in the Volz edited collection). Context: Wilhelmine's brother-in-law died of the smallpox. Odd noises were heard prior to his death. Since Wilhelmine's in-laws were also a branch of the Hohenzollern (Franconian edition), this promptly caused everyone to go: OMG, The Woman In White Strikes Again!

cahn, Mildred many a post ago told us the tale of how the White Woman appears to signal the death of a Hohenzollern, and when Grandpa F1's second wife showed up in the middle of the night in a white gown and with blood due to having cashed through a glass door, he totally thought it was the family ghost. Meanwhile, gandson Fritz thinks it were probably Bayreuth rats, and tells his own rat/ghost story a few letters later.

The story about the rats is this: when I had the misfortune of being imprisoned in Küstrin, I sat one evening - at about 9 pm - high above ground in my cell on a divan and read. I suddenly heard a noise as if someone rolled a cannon ball. Now I'm not afraid of ghosts or the devil as a matter of principle, but I must admit I was a frightened. To which presumably the locks at my door and the solitude contributed. The noise started three times, and finally it became so loud that I didn't know what to think, especially since it now rumbled beneath the divan on which I was sitting.

I pondered this and told myself: Are you mad to be afraid now of something which you never feared before? Besides, you're currently pursued by so many devils that a devil who shows up to torment you in your prison must be particularly malicious. Have courage!"

I rose, searched beneath the divan and the chairs and discovered with the help of my lamp in one corner of the room a swarm of rats which was fighting about a candle stump. But the noise earlier was nothing compared to the one following now. Every rat disappread in its hole and abandoned their prize. As you see, ghosts are mainly imagination.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Wow. I don't know whether to say "poor Fritz" or "go Fritz" or both, but that Küstrin episode must have been something else.

This is a very neat story, thank you for sharing!

Are you mad to be afraid now of something which you never feared before? Besides, you're currently pursued by so many devils that a devil who shows up to torment you in your prison must be particularly malicious. Have courage!"

I love the tinge of humor here, and the rationality, and the rest just gives me OMG THAT POOR BOY feelings. "The locks on the door and solitude contributed" indeed.

*hugs*

I sat one evening - at about 9 pm - high above ground in my cell on a divan and read.

Let's see. It's after lights out, and he's got not only a lamp but a book. Now, it could be the Bible, but I'm betting this is more contraband from the Münchows. ;)

And I have to say, between the locks and solitude and the rats and the general uncertainty, I'm glad he's got a book and a lamp! Can you imagine being in the dark with that? Even in the pre-execution days, which I'm guessing from the general tone this was.

Also, as someone who's had mice and squirrels in my walls at the same time (that was an interesting summer), I can confirm that rodents in your space are hella loud.

Edited Date: 2020-04-28 10:50 am (UTC)

Re: Küstrin: The Rat Perspective

From:

selenak - Date: 2020-04-29 01:07 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Küstrin: The Rat Perspective

From:

cahn - Date: 2020-04-29 05:27 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Küstrin: The Rat Perspective

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2020-04-29 08:18 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

selenak

Due to needing to check out the non-Prussian, non-Austrian perspectives on the period, I've been browsing through "Das Europa der Könige" by Leonhard Horowski. Who is tremendosly entertaining and fantastic with unexpected cross connections. For example: at young Grumbkow's wedding, future arch enemy SD was a six years old child being entertained by her mother's soon to be murdered lover Köngsmarck who build a house of cards for her. (We know this because there are two letters mentioning this, one by a lady in waiting and one by Königsmarck himself to SD the older.) And guess who was a direct descendant of Lord Hervey, the one in a triangle with Algarotti and Lady Mary? Nancy Mitford. (And thus of course also her sisters, Diana the fascist, Decca the Communist and Unity the Hitler-Groupie.)

And I now know more of the Hannover cousins dysfunction. Incidentally, Horowski points out that the Kings George have a serious problem in terms of who provides most of the source material. To wit, the British nobility. Who, among other things, had a lot of resentment over the fact that the new dynasty kept marrying (until WWI) other Germans - the current Queen's Dad was the first one not married to a German) instead of British nobility. They also had massive blood snobbery going on (unjustified, Horowski says, given that most active British noble families at this point had their origin not before the Restauration, and otherewise the Wars of the Roses, whereas the Hannover Welfen had a solid millennium to trace themselves back to, with the first ruling a principality ancestor documented in the 9th century. As for the "couldn't even speak English" charge - Georg Ludwig von Hannover was 54 when he became George I. of England, and cousin Anne Stuart (the one from the movie) had explicitly forbidden anny member of the Hannover family to put a foot on Briitsh soil before she died. Naturally he was a German, but he was a typical German prince of his time, which mean he was bilingual in French and German, and also Italian and some Latin. English was the language he learned last (and not well) but "bad command of English" does not equate "did not speak other languages".

The same was true of George II, who was already adult, married and a father when his father got on the throne. His wife Caroline was in fact a Brandenburg cousin who as a girl for a hot minute was considered as an alternate match for MT's dad (she'd have had to convert, like MT's actual mother later would) and for cousin FW. (Did she luck out or what?) Both of them mostly talked French and German only if they didn't want to be understood by their English environment. Now, as mentioned in the song and in my earlier write up, all the Georges fought with each other, but Horowski has more details, to wit:

George not yet II: Okay, new Prince of Wales here, so I have to get on that island with Dad. However, someone representing the dynasty should remain in Hannover. I know! Kid son Friedrich Ludwig, called Fritz, you'll stay at Hannover. See again you in seven years.

(Sidenote: yes, acccording to Horowski they called the guy in question Fritz. Which is way of a coincidence, for.... this was the very boy his aunt SD absolutely wanted to marry to Wilhelmine. Which, considering the future Margrave's first name, leaves us with the question: was there anyone Wilhelmine was linked to who wasn't called Fritz?)

George now the II: King now! I suppose that means my oldest son whom neither my wife and I have seen in seven years needs to come over from Hannover. What a coincidence! Caroline and I don't like him. We'd rather our next son who actually grew up with us, young William Cumberland, be King.

Caroline to her chamberlain Lord Hervey: Can that be worked out somehow?

Hervey: I don't think so . We're into primogeniture on that island. Tell you what, though, I'm going to mentor the kid.

---- Interlude for a Lord Hervey introduction ---

Hervey: As you already know, I'm bi. I scandlously married for love, and lost interest in my wife as soon as I had her, though we did produce eight children. The great passion of my life so far is Whig politician Stephen Fox. Though I also have the occasional mistress. This will become a plot point.

---- End of Interlude ----

Fritz of Wales: Hervey, you're the first guy in this country who is nice to me, including my parents! I love you! I want to be with you always!

Stephen Fox: You're not seriously into the kid, Hervey???

Hervey: Look, a prince is a prince, and this one is a future King.

Three years during which Fritz of Wales and Hervey are inseparable and even write a play together: pass

Caroline: I still would prefer my son Cumberland, aka the future "Butcher of Culloden" to become King. Seeing as Fritz of Wales is tied to dear Hervey, I'm going to spread rumors of him being impotent. That counts as an argument, surely?

British society: Gay and impotent! *Snigger*

Fritz of Wales: Okay, in order to prove that I'm not either, I'm going to have sex with Hervey's current mistress.

Curernt mistress: *gets pregnant, gives birth to son, calls son "Fitzfrederick*

Fritz of Wales: Ha!

Hervey: Not amused. This was humiliating. I terminate our relationship, your highness. My bitchy memoirs about my time at the Georgian court lack the three years of our relationship completely and only resume afterwards, when I have decided to hate you forever and ever. Stephen Fox, I'm yours again!

Fox: I'm taking you back, but with secret resentment. This will become a plot point.

Fritz of Wales: married to Princess Augusta now; that I wasn't married earlier wasn't my fault, btw, it's all because some business with our continental relations. Anyway, here I am, heir-producing.

George II to Caroline: I thought you said he was impotent and the bastard kid had been Hervey's?

Caroline: I stilll think that. Are we sure Augusta wasn't cheating?

Fritz of Wales: I hate my parents. Augusta, when you start to get into labor, I'm going to bring you from Hampton Court Palace to St. James Palace to ensure my parents won't be present at the birth as tradition would have it. That's how much I hate them.

Caroline and George: We think you probably bought a kid to smuggle in to cover your impotence... hang on. That kid Augusta just gave birth to is a sickly girl. Presumably if you bought a kid you'd have made sure it was a strapping boy. Okay. Not impotent. Seems our fave Billy the Butcher won't become King after all.

Augusta: Next gives birth to future G3.

Fritz of Wales: This one shall be raised as the first George whose first language is English. Also, I'm supporting the opposition. Yay Tories!

Caroline: I'm dying. Husband, marry again!

G2: Never! I shall have mistresses.

Hervey: That was oddly touching. Still bitching about you in my memoirs otherwise. Because guess what happenes then?

Stephen Fox: Hervey, old chap, we finally managed to oust Robert Walpole as PM. There's a new PM. Which means everyone's court offices get handed out new as well. And seeing as the Queen is now dead, you don't have a job anymore anyway. I mean, you could try Fritz of Wales again...

Hervey: I don't believe this. Algarotti, comfort me.

Author: "His sole comfort was a vivacious Venetian named Algarotti, whom however he lost to Friedrich II's seductions."

Fritz of Prussia, to Mitchell: Am I glad my family is so normal and harmonious, compared to the Hannover cousins!

Edited Date: 2020-04-29 12:54 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I'm at a loss for words, except for: thank you for the latest installment of gossipy sensationalism! I've been wanting to know more about the English royal family, due to the AU where Fritz shows up in English and has to marry into it. (I.e. if you come up with more in your reading, please continue to share!) Oddly, being in the Jacobite fandom long ago did not give me many insights into royal family gossip beyond "Butcher of Culloden," so this nicely fills in a longstanding gap.

cahn: Culloden is the 1746 battle (so in the future of Selena's post) where the mostly Scottish Jacobite attempt to overthrow the Hanovers and restore the Stuarts ended in a crushing defeat. It was the last land battle fought on British soil, fought just outside of Inverness, and the Duke of Cumberland defeated Charles Edward Stuart aka Bonnie Prince Charlie. The latter was a grandson of the last Catholic monarch, James, who got kicked out of English for excessive Catholicism and unwelcome politics, some 60 years ago.

After Culloden, Cumberland got his "Butcher Billy" nickname by giving no quarter, summarily executing prisoners that surrendered, killing or imprisoning non-combatants, having his troops range through the countryside stomping out anything that looked like resistance, and appropriating property. This was a controversial move. Contemporary opponents repurposed the old Tacitus quote, "He created a desert and called it peace."

And seeing as the Queen is now dead, you don't have a job anymore anyway. I mean, you could try Fritz of Wales again...

Hervey: I don't believe this. Algarotti, comfort me.

Dissertation author says Hervey's connections with the royal family were why job-hunting Algarotti chose Hervey over Lady Mary, but Algarotti came too late and the connections failed to get him a position even when the Queen was alive, never mind after she died. I question dissertation author's tendency to see *everything* through the lens of job hunting and to make Algarotti into a freaking walking LinkedIn algorithm, but it is worth knowing that Hervey had the connections, or at least used to.

Author: "His sole comfort was a vivacious Venetian named Algarotti, whom however he lost to Friedrich II's seductions."

Hahaha. It is really funny which authors say Fritz "outbid" Hervey and which ones say he out-seduced him.

Fritz of Prussia, to Mitchell: Am I glad my family is so normal and harmonious, compared to the Hannover cousins!

Wilhelmine: I don't want to marry into this family!
SD: Of course you do!
Wilhelmine: I want to marry a different Fritz!
FW: Fine, take this one.
Wilhelmine: ...He'll do.