Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 19

[cahn]

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

Comments

Re: Advancing the Cause of Seckendorff

[selenak]

Come on, those are the best years! Zomg.

I know, right? The very years Seckendorff will remain known for when most people won't have heard of the various succession wars other than the Austrian one anymore.

Yes, that's why the anti-Old Dessauer outburst was so unusual and striking. If I ever find the time, I'll translate some of the passage for you, because I did not exaggarate. Mind you, discounting personal animus, one bit I found fascinating was the (roughly contemporary) critique of the brutality of Prussian army training included here. It's a good reminder - like Ulrich Bräker's memoirs - that by no means everyone at the time drank the cool-aid, and it wasn't until the later 19th century that the rest of Germany had adopted the Prussians as role models in this regard, too. Something else that was unusual not just in terms of what came later was that the biographer has no animus against the French. At all. Granted, this is before Napoleon crosses the Rhine, ends the HRE for good and reorders the German principalities, but the 7 Years War already had brought on a lot of proto national poetry along "Go Fritz! Kick French ass!" post Rossbach, and the 1770s and 1780s had seen the explosion in German literature specifically rejecting the French models now (and instead going SHAKESPEARE IS SO MUCH COOLER), which not always came with literary arguments but also sometimes with "booh on the French" ones. But this biographer on the contrary at one point includes a flash forward beyond Seckendorff's life time to say how much the French army, now newly inspired by patriotism and no longer led by overpromoted nobility, recently amazed everyone. (This would be the allied armies aiming to restore the monarchs getting their backsides kicked by the revolutionary army of France.) If you're not Heinrich, this is not a common attitude to take in the 1790s.

(Unless our writer has as sneaking sympathy for the French Revolution and hopes it will spread, but that's not visible otherwise, what with all the talk about what a good Christian Seckendorff was.)

Biographer settling the "Seckendorff: Hot or not?" question with an Eddie Izzard sketch: I know, that's why I translated the statement. :)

Do we know how this guy is related to Seckendorff?

Haven't seen it mentioned anywhere in the passages I skimmed. However, since one of the few critiques he makes on his subject is that Seckendorff wasn't always appreciative enough of all the hard work his devoted nephew (that's the diarist) did after him in Berlin, and on that occasion says said nephew was one of the best, most noble people who ever lived, I'm tempted to assume he might have been this man's son.

Fritz quote on Seckendorff: this is of course the very quote which Seckendorff himself brings up when Lehndorff visits. (Which is in March 1759, if you want to look it up yourself now.) "He can't forgive the King calling him an ursurer in his memoirs. 'At least', he claims, 'I haven't been one towards the King, whom I've given 1500 Ducats which I never saw again.'"

Re: Advancing the Cause of Seckendorff

[cahn]

Fritz quote on Seckendorff: this is of course the very quote which Seckendorff himself brings up when Lehndorff visits. (Which is in March 1759, if you want to look it up yourself now.) "He can't forgive the King calling him an ursurer in his memoirs. 'At least', he claims, 'I haven't been one towards the King, whom I've given 1500 Ducats which I never saw again.'"

This is awesome. I am looking forward to this :D