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.
There's a vid on YouTube where people have staged a discussion between Maupertuis, Émilie and La Mettrie based on their respective writing. (I.e. with actors playing the roles but speaking solely in quotes by the real deals.) I haven't had the time to wach more than the start yet, but the Maupertuis bits sound as if they could have come from this exchange, though of course I bet he was repeating himself in his correspondances.
"The stupidest lady should go first" is one of my AP's favourite Fritz stories. He will be crushed to learn Fritz borrowed the quip from Charles V. Whom is the letter addressed to?
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.
Oh, absolutely. And unfortunately, if you're on top of the hacking order, you have ways to share and vent your misery a normal patient does not.
re: Inbreeding - worth pointing out that for all the Habsburg related jokes there, another reason why MT was an aberration from the norm and lucked out with FS was that she - who must have had an iron constitution, as we've repeatedly said - was the product of a Habsburg marrying a Protestant (and of course converting) Braunschweig princess he wasn't related to instead of doing the usual cousin marrying, and to find shared ancestors between MT and FS, you have to go back enough generations to make it irrelevant. Presto, relatively healthy children and not one mad one among them (looking at you, Spanish Habsburgs).
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Re: AW readthrough
Date: 2020-08-31 06:53 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.
There's a vid on YouTube where people have staged a discussion between Maupertuis, Émilie and La Mettrie based on their respective writing. (I.e. with actors playing the roles but speaking solely in quotes by the real deals.) I haven't had the time to wach more than the start yet, but the Maupertuis bits sound as if they could have come from this exchange, though of course I bet he was repeating himself in his correspondances.
"The stupidest lady should go first" is one of my AP's favourite Fritz stories. He will be crushed to learn Fritz borrowed the quip from Charles V. Whom is the letter addressed to?
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.
Oh, absolutely. And unfortunately, if you're on top of the hacking order, you have ways to share and vent your misery a normal patient does not.
re: Inbreeding - worth pointing out that for all the Habsburg related jokes there, another reason why MT was an aberration from the norm and lucked out with FS was that she - who must have had an iron constitution, as we've repeatedly said - was the product of a Habsburg marrying a Protestant (and of course converting) Braunschweig princess he wasn't related to instead of doing the usual cousin marrying, and to find shared ancestors between MT and FS, you have to go back enough generations to make it irrelevant. Presto, relatively healthy children and not one mad one among them (looking at you, Spanish Habsburgs).