cahn | Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 19

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frederick the great

Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 19

Yuletide nominations:

18th Century CE Federician RPF
Maria Theresia | Maria Theresa of Austria
Voltaire
Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Ernst Ahasverus von Lehndorff
Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802)
Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758)
Anna Amalie von Preußen | Anna Amalia of Prussia (1723-1787)
Catherine II of Russia
Hans Hermann von Katte
Peter Karl Christoph von Keith
Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf
August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758)

Circle of Voltaire RPF
Emilie du Chatelet
Jeanne Antoinette Poisson (Madame de Pompadour)
John Hervey (1696-1743)
Marie Louise Mignot Denis
Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu
Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis
Armand de Vignerot du Plessis de Richelieu (1696-1788)
Francesco Algarotti

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Another of the books I found in the Bayrische Staatsbibliothek ws "Francesco Algarotti: Ein philosophischer Hofmann im Jahrhundert der Aufklärung", edited by Hans Schumacher and Brunhilde Wehinger. (Brunhilde Wehinger also wrote and edited several Émilie-related essays and essay collections.) This is an anthology of essays by different authors on Algarotti's work, covering the entire spectrum - the Newton book, the poetry, the philosphical treatises, the correspondance with Fritz, the Russian travel book - and showcases what a polymath he was. Otoh, there is little biography in it; it's really focused on the work. This said, I found various interesting-to-us things to report, starting with a tiny tiny morsel to feed our crack theory of an Algarotti/Heinrich one night stand. (Or two.) Because he dedicated a book to him. Now, book dedications to nobility usually don't signify anything else than the writer hoping for a patron, or trying to keep a patron, and there are enough book dedications written by authors who never met the people in question in this and the next century. But the thing is, Algarotti did this during his time in Prussia, when he already had THE top patron (Fritz of course got a book dedicated to him, too, though technically the second edition of one), and Heinrich pre 7 Years War was not an important, influential person, nor one with financial means that he didn't derive from Fritz. I totally feel justified by canon for one particular dialogue "My brother Narcissus" now.

On to more solid info.The essay about Algarotti's poetry tells me that Algarotti in the first flush of Fritz enthusiasm kept comparing him to Augustus, and himself to Horace in his eloges. (Che se concedi a noi nominarti Augusto/ Di Flacco a me concedi il canto, e il nome.) Modesty clearly was not his problem. I still wish we had the alternate poems for Fritz and MT, depending on who'd win the war, which Lady Mary mentions, but evidently not, instead, two essays tell me that Algarotti supposedly completely bought into the Fritzian propaganda like calling the battle of Prague in May 1757 the modern "Battle of Pharsalus" (with Fritz as Caesar, of course), the decisive battle between Caesar and Pomey, which became a bit awkward when the war kept happening afterwards, not to mention Prussian defeats. Algarotti loyally kept comparing Fritz to Caesar (as in, Fritz surpassing good old Gaius Iulius) all through the war in his letters, though.

Otoh, the essay on the correspondance between Fritz and Algarotti shows him also - in a diplomatic way - from a more independently minded side, when it comes to Voltaire specifically. It also in terms of "how much into Algarotti was Fritz?" points out Algarotti had to be one of the very few not military people who was told by Fritz he'd invade Silesia before he did, in a letter from October 28th 1740 (when he's in Rheinsberg for the last time, I think):

"My dear Algarotti! I completely agree with you that my Antimachiavell contains the mistakes you list. I'm even convinced one could add or cut a great many things would improve the book as it is. However, the death of the Emperor has made me a bad proof reader. I is a fatal time for my book, and a potentially glorious time for me. (...) We act as Caesar and Mark Antony in all calm here and expect to act as them in real life soon. Now that' what one calls leisure activity. (...) I won't go to Berlin now. A little thing like the death of the Emperor doesn't demand great efforts. It's all been prepared. It's just a matter of acting on plans I've been carrying with me for a long time now."

I was also reminded that Algarotti sending Fritz broccoli is canon. ("Je prends la liberté d'envoyer à Sans-Souci des graines de brocoli", Algarotti to Fritz on November 24th 1749.)

But what intrigued me most in the essay about the correspondance was the author pointing out that despite Fritz keeping bitching about Voltaire to Algarotti (whether it's about his Antimachiavel corrections, or in 1749, i.e. when Voltair annoys him by refusing to come before Émilie hasn't given birth, complaining about his rotten character and insisting he only wants Voltaire for his elegant French, Algarotti doesn't sycophantically or sincerely agree but in one instance even cautiously defends Voltaire. This is when Fritz - he who'll later be all "Immortal poetry now! All of Europe must grieve with me for Wilhelmine!" - makes his "he's mourning so loudly that I have no doubt he doesn't mean it and he'll get over it at once" dig, and Algarotti disagrees, writing with a faint note of reproof: Je le pains réellement d'avoir perdu ce qu'il ne retrovuera peut-etre jamais; la perte d'une femme qu'on aime, et avec qui on passait sa vie, est irréparable pour ceux qui ne commandent pas des armées et ne gouvernent pas des États.

(Fritz: Freaking Émilie!)

Our essay writer also points out that correspondingly to the ongoing Fritz/Voltaire implosion, Algarotti prepares his own Frexit by increasingly mentioning his bad health in his letters to Fritz. Conversely, when he did leave Potsdam, Voltaire congratulated him, and as late as 1759 invited him for a visit to his then finally found home in Switzerland, writing, in English: "Let a free man visit a free man."

(Algarotti: no, I'm really sick now. But thanks.)

The correspondance essay furtherly points out that Algarotti kept acting as an informal art agent for Fritz in Italy, sending him architactual plans and designs of Palladio as inspiration for Potsdam, where you an indeed find distinct echoes.

Lastly, the essay about Algarotti's Viaggi di Russia I found fascinating both in terms of having recently read up on Lady Mary, and in terms of the whole "Pamela" stunt from Voltaire.

Algarotti travelled to St. Petersburg in the summer of 1739, as part of a delegation led by Lord Baltimore which G2 had sent to the wedding of Anna von Mecklenburg, niece of the Czarina Anna Ivanova, and her designated successor Anton Ulrick Prince of Brunswick-Lüneburg. En route back from St. Petersburg, he wouldn't just meet Fritz at Rheinsberg but also dine with FW (!!!) in Berlin in his capacity as Lord Baltimore's temporary sidekick. (So FW might not have met Voltaire, but he did meet another Fritzian boyfriend.) This trip resulted in:

a) A travel diary
b) A first, short version of a travel book in the form of nine letters addressed to Lord Hervey, "Saggio di lettere sopra la Russia", published by Algarotti in 1760
c) an extended version which adds twelve more letters to other people drafted in 1763, and
d) the final version from 1764, going into print after Algarotti's death

Like Lady Mary with her Embassy Letters, Algarotti only drew partially on his actual letters from the time for this book and mostly on his diary notes, using the basic material for letters forming a travel narrative. Again, as with Lady Mary, that means no letter repeats information the previous one contains, and the letter format is literature rather than documentation. It's also interesting that he chooses Hervey as his exclusive correspondant for the first version, because by the time he was writing/redrafting this book, Hervey had long since died (Hervey died in 1743, remember), so there was nothing to be gained in terms of patronage by this. It therefore looks like a gesture of respect/affection for the dead man, and Hervey might have been fresh on his mind again as well because he'd rekindled relationships with Lady Mary as a friendship in the later 1750s.

The comparison between the various versions of this book as well as the diary unsurprisingly reveals Algarotti edited out lots of criticism he made re: Russia, such as: The government is potentially the most arbitrary and horrible in the entire world. Al those who are nobility have to live at court against their will, and do whatever they're told. Which is why they can call themselves true slaves, and those who habve left the country feel their misery more than any others and keep complaining about it, especially when they have drunk a bit.

(Sidenote: Russian nobility, who famously owned serfs longer than anyone else in Europe, as slaves, that's... one interesting simile, Algarotti. But you're in the best tradition of Rule, Britannia here , as in "Britons never never never shall be slaves".. they'll just own them.)

There are, otoh, also a lot of vivid landscape descriptions, and it seems Algarotti came up first with the simile of Russia as a threatening white bear and St. Petersbur as "un gran finistrone" - a great window through which Russia looks west, which a lot of people, including Fritz, would adapt later. And of course some redrafts just go for a better styl; the essay here compares a description Algarotti gives of Leopold von Anhalt-Dessauer (the famous old Dessauer, pal of FW) drilling soldiers in the first version to how phrases it in the final version, and the final description is far more elegant.

Now, what all of this makes me wonder is: a) did Lady Mary read it as a work in progress, given that she herself was busy working on the Embassy letters at the same time, and/or did Algarotti read her manuscript in progress?

b) Could it be that what Voltaire at first intended to do when reworking his correspondance with Madame Denis from 1750 - 1753 was something similar in form though of course not in spirit, i.e. a "Prussia Letters" travelogue (doubling as Fritz trashing), and it became redundant when he wrote his trashy tell all memoirs instead? Because while they're called "memoirs" in English, the German title is "Über den König von Preußen", and they're not really Memoirs of Voltaire's life as such, but specifically about his life in connection with Fritz.

The essay about Algarotti as an art collector to August III. in Dresden: Algarotti didn't just shop for established classics, he commissioned a lot of new paintings from living painters!!
Self: That's nice. Go Algarotti for encouraging the artists of your own time!
Essay: ....which during the war were stored in Hubertsburg.
Self: Err.
Essay: ....where they ended up destroyed or sold when Fritz had Lentulus vandalize it.

Lastly, Mildred of course must know it already, but I'd just like to share the first enthusiastic description Algarotti gives of Fritz, in a letter to Voltaire, after having met him for the first time: En revenant j'ai été dans le troisième ciel: j'ai vu, oh me beato! ce prince adorable, disciple de Trajan, rival de Marc Aurèle.

But the thing is, Algarotti did this during his time in Prussia, when he already had THE top patron (Fritz of course got a book dedicated to him, too, though technically the second edition of one), and Heinrich pre 7 Years War was not an important, influential person, nor one with financial means that he didn't derive from Fritz.

That sounds good to me! :D (Heinrich/Algarotti one-night-stand is totally my headcanon now thanks to you, so I am pleased by anything that supports it :D )

and Algarotti disagrees, writing with a faint note of reproof: Je le pains réellement d'avoir perdu ce qu'il ne retrovuera peut-etre jamais; la perte d'une femme qu'on aime, et avec qui on passait sa vie, est irréparable pour ceux qui ne commandent pas des armées et ne gouvernent pas des États.

Oooooh, this is really interesting to me. Go Algarotti! But also it is interesting given that I'd had this idea of Algarotti as the kind of person who was always saying "sure, whatever," to slither out of conflict, which this isn't really. ~~because everyone thought Émilie was the best, clearly~~

Russian nobility, who famously owned serfs longer than anyone else in Europe, as slaves, that's... one interesting simile, Algarotti.

Heh. Yeeeeeah.

Could it be that what Voltaire at first intended to do when reworking his correspondance with Madame Denis from 1750 - 1753 was something similar in form though of course not in spirit, i.e. a "Prussia Letters" travelogue (doubling as Fritz trashing), and it became redundant when he wrote his trashy tell all memoirs instead?

This makes a lot of sense, now that I know it was a thing that people did? Interesting!

En revenant j'ai été dans le troisième ciel: j'ai vu, oh me beato! ce prince adorable, disciple de Trajan, rival de Marc Aurèle.

Okay, this is adorable :P :)

Oooooh, this is really interesting to me. Go Algarotti! But also it is interesting given that I'd had this idea of Algarotti as the kind of person who was always saying "sure, whatever," to slither out of conflict, which this isn't really

That was my reaction, too, including having had the impression Algarotti was conflict-avoidant by all means otherwise. I think one reason why he risks it on this occasion might indeed have been that Émilie wasn't just a name to him, he'd known her in person and also, he'd witnessed her and Voltaire together at the time of their greatest closeness (while missing out on their more critical years), so for Fritz to be that dismissive about the death and the genuineness of Voltaire's grief about it might have actually angered him, or at least irritated him a lot.

By contrast, Algarotti's first Fritz impression:

Okay, this is adorable :P :)

The "oh me beato!" in between the French is what makes it for me. :) As for the classical comparisons: well, Trajan was an expansionist, so clearly Algarotti saw Silesia coming. :) (Kidding. Trajan at this point was regarded as the best of the Roman Emperors, and Marcus Aurelius of course has the philospher emperor reputation, so Algarotti just came up with the highest accolades he could think of.

Heinrich pre 7 Years War was not an important, influential person, nor one with financial means that he didn't derive from Fritz. I totally feel justified by canon for one particular dialogue "My brother Narcissus" now.

Headcanon!

Also, do you know what year this was? The Fritz/Algarotti relationship was kind of rocky after 1740, and Heinrich's obviously going to be in a position of influence if anything happens to Fritz. Algarotti hedging his bets?

I still wish we had the alternate poems for Fritz and MT, depending on who'd win the war, which Lady Mary mentions, but evidently not, instead, two essays tell me that Algarotti supposedly completely bought into the Fritzian propaganda like calling the battle of Prague in May 1757 the modern "Battle of Pharsalus" (with Fritz as Caesar, of course), the decisive battle between Caesar and Pomey, which became a bit awkward when the war kept happening afterwards, not to mention Prussian defeats.

Oops. :P

Algarotti loyally kept comparing Fritz to Caesar (as in, Fritz surpassing good old Gaius Iulius) all through the war in his letters, though.

Aww, Algarotti loyal to his ex.

I was also reminded that Algarotti sending Fritz broccoli is canon.

Yep! That's why I was so surprised a couple days after I found this to see an email notification from you with the word "broccoli" in it. I thought you'd found this episode and had something to say about it! (Your actual post, of course, turned out to be much, much more exciting.)

makes his "he's mourning so loudly that I have no doubt he doesn't mean it and he'll get over it at once" dig, and Algarotti disagrees

Go Algarotti! I have to say, while I will acknowledge that Fritz did many bad things, emotionally, I won't yell at him on other people's behalf in my head, just gently suggest he should stay away from them until he gets some therapy. EXCEPT ÉMILIE. Émilie I will fight Fritz for.

So good for Algarotti and his priorities. :P

b) A first, short version of a travel book in the form of nine letters addressed to Lord Hervey, "Saggio di lettere sopra la Russia", published by Algarotti in 1760
c) an extended version which adds twelve more letters to other people drafted in 1763, and
d) the final version from 1764, going into print after Algarotti's death

Oooohhh. This makes sense of all these copies that I was finding when I was researching the chronology of Algarotti's life. For lo:

Dissertation author points out that Preuss says the first letter from Fritz to Algarotti, after the latter's first visit to Rheinsberg is misdated by about a month (September 1, when they didn't meet until September 20). Then the dissertation author footnotes a letter from Algarotti talking about his visit with Fritz, gives the date, and doesn't notice the date is August 30.

"Both letters were misdated?" I thought. So I did a little digging, found another edition of Algarotti's letters on Russia, and found the same letter had been dated to late October!

So now we've got three misdated letters.

Long story short, I did some cross-referencing, concluded Preuss is correct, and we actually do have three misdated letters. If two of them are from a literary correspondence-cum-travel guide, that makes a lot more sense.

Also, I clearly care waaaay too much about chronology. :P

(Sidenote: Russian nobility, who famously owned serfs longer than anyone else in Europe, as slaves, that's... one interesting simile, Algarotti. But you're in the best tradition of Rule, Britannia here , as in "Britons never never never shall be slaves".. they'll just own them.)

Fritz: I'm a galley slave!

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Could it be that what Voltaire at first intended to do when reworking his correspondance with Madame Denis from 1750 - 1753 was something similar in form though of course not in spirit, i.e. a "Prussia Letters" travelogue (doubling as Fritz trashing)

Seems plausible to me! Now that we know that this is a thing. I notice both Lady Mary and Voltaire wanted theirs released posthumously, though for very, very different reasons. ;)

Because while they're called "memoirs" in English

And French, I note: Memoires Pour Servir A La Vie De M. De Voltaire.

Essay: ....which during the war were stored in Hubertsburg.
Self: Err.
Essay: ....where they ended up destroyed or sold when Fritz had Lentulus vandalize it.

*facepalm*

Let's hope the majority were sold because Fritz needed money?

Also, do you know what year this was?

Alas no. Heinrich is only mentioned along with James Keith as one of Algarotti's non-Fritz dedicatees from his Prussian era in the preface - as part of the larger point of him knowing everyone - , and they don't even provide a footnote to say which works were dedicated to whom. (The dedication of the second edition of *I'll have to look it up* to Fritz is mentioned in the essay about their correspondance, though.)

Oh, and the correspondance essay gave me one little important gem I forgot to mention: with the beginning of the 7 Years War, Fritz switches his usual ending of his letters to Algarotti - and various other people - to "En ceci je prie Dieu qu'il vous ait en sa sainte et digne garde". Previously, I had assumed this was a result of him having to be the defender of the Protestant faith, or somthing like that. Not really, though not unrelated. This precise phrase was the way Henri IV of France, Henri de Navarre, Henri Quatre, aka Most Admired Of All French Kings ended his letters, and to be even more precise, Fritz knew that because Voltaire had used this fact in his epic about Henri IV., the Henriad. So he was making both a literary allusion and a historical comparison (that still cast his opponents as the bigotted Catholic league fighting against Henri IV, never mind that neither Russia nor Sweden were Catholic powers), which his correspondants, and especially a correspondant like Algarotti, were bound to understand at once.

Dating of Algarotti's letters: there's one more factor, also mentioned in the essay. Both Russia and England were still using the Julian calendar at this point. While Algarotti, as an Italian and continental European, most of the time uses the Gregorian calendar as a matter of course in his letters, he might not have done so when writing from Russia to a Brit. Then again, since he was recreating these letters anyway, he might have simply misdated.

I notice both Lady Mary and Voltaire wanted theirs released posthumously, though for very, very different reasons. ;)

Hervey: I wanted mine released posthumously, too, preferably when the love rat has just been crowned, for maximum embarrassment. How was I to know he'd die just a few years after me, and that Grandson would censor my precious manuscript? Voltaire, at least your niece didn't do that but gave posterity the full version.

with the beginning of the 7 Years War, Fritz switches his usual ending of his letters to Algarotti - and various other people - to "En ceci je prie Dieu qu'il vous ait en sa sainte et digne garde". Previously, I had assumed this was a result of him having to be the defender of the Protestant faith, or somthing like that.

Huh, interesting. We had discussed this before (I had noticed that he sometimes did it and sometimes didn't with the same correspondents), and this is what I came up with:

Fritz does the same thing in French to a lot of other correspondents: "je prie Dieu qu'il vous ait en sa sainte et digne garde." Including Algarotti...I was looking through Trier to see who else he does this to (they remind me that he does this to Voltaire periodically, which I had seen but forgotten), and the list is long, and then I saw the editor actually talks about the formula. They conclude that he does this when he's either having a secretary copy his letter (I guess the secretary presumably adds this formula) or even having them write the letter from an outline. Otherwise, Fritz writing his own letters will add his own affectionate or otherwise personal note at the end. And they say this is why Voltaire only gets this formula when Fritz is pissed off at him. Oooh. I wondered why it was only some Voltaire letters.

So I assumed that he switched to doing it with Algarotti during the Seven Years' War because he's more pressed for time and delegating more of his letter-writing. Iirc, Rheinsberg author Hamilton claims that you can tell that the Suhm letters started being delegated as soon as Fritz became king.

Of course, I have no idea whether Preuss is correct, but it is at least worth taking into consideration.

Dating of Algarotti's letters: there's one more factor, also mentioned in the essay. Both Russia and England were still using the Julian calendar at this point...Then again, since he was recreating these letters anyway, he might have simply misdated.

I considered that, but O.S. only accounts for about 12 days, and these letters are off by about 30 in either direction. Misdating or intentional redating to fit a narrative make the most sense.

Hervey: I wanted mine released posthumously, too, preferably when the love rat has just been crowned, for maximum embarrassment.

I make this fandom sound all respectable and impressive when I talk to other people (I'm studying 18th century history!), but it's really just a tabloid meets soap opera. I'm waiting until my French native speaker friend catches on that all the ambiguous lines he gets asked to interpret have to do with sex or sexual orientation. (Seriously, 2/2 so far. :P)

Of course, I have no idea whether Preuss is correct, but it is at least worth taking into consideration

Yes, but if that salutation/end of letter is a direct Henri IV/IVoltaire quote, I‘m going with Fritz styling himself as the hero of the Henriad as an in joke that‘s not entirely meant as a joke by him.

„Tabloid meets soap opera“ sounds about right. A certain friend of mine, reading the Fritz letters to Heinrich re: Marwitz for the first time: „That‘s why too over the top purple prose. I don’t buy it. Who writes like that? Are you sure these weren‘t forged?“

I mean... "tabloid meets soap opera" was how you guys got me into this fandom :P :D

Who writes like that?

Heh, it's true! The Marwitz letters in particular really are way over-the-top.

Though on the other hand, anyone asking whether Voltaire's over-the-top comments about Fritz had been forged would have been right, so there's that... On the other hand, they were forged by Voltaire himself! I am continually delighted by how this fandom is totally WTF :)

The 18th Century: When "over the top" was just normal and understatement had not been invented yet. :)

Seriously though: if you put, say, the Marwitz letters side by side with Lady Mary's love letters to Algarotti, Lord Hervey's fumings about Fritz of Wales and just about any letter from Voltaire to Fritz and vice versa, the over the topness becomes just a matter of perspective.

I'm still standing on my explanation as to why 19th and early 20th historians left them out of the Fritz correspondance, though. :)

side by side with Lady Mary's love letters to Algarotti

Or Hervey's letter to LM *about* Algarotti! That was pretty over the top.

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Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 19

All About Algarotti

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