Being yelled at is so great for my motivation. :D 7 more pages achieved. Fritz has just sent his top secret "my thoughts on making war" write-up to AW.
I didn't know AW and Maupertuis had that exchange of letters! It was actually really interesting to read. And I liked how they related their opinions on the role of passion to their opinions of theater censorship.
Fritz saying the stupidest lady should go first: MacDonogh has a fuller version of that quote (which I've found in Trier):
We don’t have any differences of rank here and we don’t recognise any either. I don’t intend to introduce any. You wear my Order [the Black Eagle] therefore you have the same position as my ministers and the others who have received it.
When Charles V was in Milan a storm blew up between two of the first ladies of the court as to which of the two walked before and which behind the other. The quarrel reached his ears and he decided that the stupidest came first. That decision removed all distinction and the women came in in whatever order they chose. I don’t want to know about any ceremonial either, when you get to the door first, you enter first; when another reaches it before you, he precedes you.
ETA: Oh, I was incorporating some material from the AW book into our chronology, and I notice Fritz is visiting the spa at Bad Pyrmont (which is closer to Wesel than Berlin, so not a trivial trip) in May 1746. Suggesting that bad health might have been contributing to his bad mood in April 1746, the month of Marwitz (and also continuing to lose it at Wilhelmine).
None of this excuses his behavior, but in much the same way that I agree with numerous historians that FW's wretched health contributed to his perennial bad mood, you can probably pick out some statistically significant correlation in Fritz's life as well.
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Re: AW readthrough
Date: 2020-08-31 02:26 am (UTC)I didn't know AW and Maupertuis had that exchange of letters! It was actually really interesting to read. And I liked how they related their opinions on the role of passion to their opinions of theater censorship.
Fritz saying the stupidest lady should go first: MacDonogh has a fuller version of that quote (which I've found in Trier):
We don’t have any differences of rank here and we don’t recognise any either. I don’t intend to introduce any. You wear my Order [the Black Eagle] therefore you have the same position as my ministers and the others who have received it.
When Charles V was in Milan a storm blew up between two of the first ladies of the court as to which of the two walked before and which behind the other. The quarrel reached his ears and he decided that the stupidest came first. That decision removed all distinction and the women came in in whatever order they chose. I don’t want to know about any ceremonial either, when you get to the door first, you enter first; when another reaches it before you, he precedes you.
ETA: Oh, I was incorporating some material from the AW book into our chronology, and I notice Fritz is visiting the spa at Bad Pyrmont (which is closer to Wesel than Berlin, so not a trivial trip) in May 1746. Suggesting that bad health might have been contributing to his bad mood in April 1746, the month of Marwitz (and also continuing to lose it at Wilhelmine).
None of this excuses his behavior, but in much the same way that I agree with numerous historians that FW's wretched health contributed to his perennial bad mood, you can probably pick out some statistically significant correlation in Fritz's life as well.
stop inbreeding, people