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: Andrew Mitchell: The Return

[mildred_of_midgard]

(There is actually a quote from Johnson to the effect that Fritz is the sole real monarch of Europe in Boswell's Life, which was given during G3's reign, so...)

I remembered the quote, but not the source. Johnson, cool!

What about Catherine, inquiring minds want to know? Johnson was apparently quite excited when she decided to propagate one of his works in Russia:

Gentlemen, I must tell you a very great thing. The Empress of Russia has ordered the Rambler to be translated into the Russian language; so I shall be read on the banks of the Wolga. Horace boasts that his fame would extend as far as the banks of the Rhône; now the Wolga is farther from me than the Rhône was from Horace.

ETA:
he appointed George Keith - i.e. a man who'd done his best to ensure the Stuarts, not the Hannovers, would sit on the British throne - as Prussian Ambassador to GB.

I've quoted this before, but now seems a good time to remind everyone that when Keith was dying,

He summoned the British envoy, Elliot, on 23 May 1778: "I called you, because I find pleasure in emitting the last sighs of a Jacobite to a minister of King George."

As I said when I first quoted this, I can see why he and Fritz were friends for so long. :D

Peter Keith: ARGGRHHMBLLWTF!!!!!

That's Fritz for you, Peter.

Re: Andrew Mitchell: The Return

[selenak]

Would have to reread the "Life" to check about Catherine, but, you know: Dr. Johnson is also the author of that famous misongynistic quip re: a female preacher, that this is like watching a poodle walk upright, i.e. the miracle is in the creature doing it at all, not that it's doing it well. So I doubt he's into female monarchs per se. (Though happy if they translate his works, of course.) And if they kill their husbands to get on the throne? The Algarotti essay volume has reminded me that Orieux chides Voltaire of having had no problem with this, because near the end of the century there's a Russia book by another Italian writer obviously modelled on Algarotti's, only at the passage where Algarotti praises the late Peter the Great, there's a diatribe against Catherine, calling her a "philosophizing Clytaemnestra". So, without having looked it up yet, I guess chances are Dr. Johnson did not approve of Catherine per se.

(As for MT: impeccable moral reputation on the one hand, but Catholic on the other; also an enemy of England in the latest war, and Bisset's editorial comments as well as Holdernesses letters to Mitchell in the Mitchell papers show me the British thought this was totally ungrateful of her, since they credit themselves with having saved her in the Silesian Wars (Hungary: What?!!?; Austrian Trenck: As if!), and she just should have listened to Britain and not stabbed them in the back by teaming up with France. And then she refused Naples - which they didn't have - as a peace offering. Really. Not a good monarch, clearly.)

Dying George Keith: LOL. Scotland forever!

I can see why he and Fritz were friends for so long.

Same here.

Re: Andrew Mitchell: The Return

[felis]

I've quoted this before, but now seems a good time to remind everyone that when Keith was dying,

He summoned the British envoy, Elliot, on 23 May 1778: "I called you, because I find pleasure in emitting the last sighs of a Jacobite to a minister of King George."

As I said when I first quoted this, I can see why he and Fritz were friends for so long. :D

Oh, nice, all new to me, and very much appreciated, because the Fritz - G. Keith friendship is rather interesting. May I ask where the quote is from?

Re: Andrew Mitchell: The Return

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, right, we have new people! Then I should definitely repeat myself when the opportunity arises. :D

As for the quote, I have to admit it may be apocryphal: the source is anonymous. It appears in "A Fragment of a Memoir of Field-Marshal James Keith, Written By Himself, 1714-1734." That volume was published in 1843 along with a 5-page summary of the life of George Keith, in which the quote in question appears. That 5-page summary of George Keith is anonymously written, but the 1843 editor says that, although it has many mistakes, it bears the stamp of being written by one personally acquainted with the Earl Marischal, and though the anecdotes it records are mostly well known, the notice may be regarded with some favour, if, as is believed, it be the composition of Sir Robert Strange, formerly known for his attachment to the party which the Keith brothers supported*, and now better remembered as the first of English engravers.

* The Jacobites.

The James Keith memoir is very short, heavy on marches and military maneuvers, and doesn't include Fritz, but it's in the library if anyone wants it.