cahn | Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 19

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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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

mildred_of_midgard

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)

From:

selenak

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?“

From:

cahn

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 :)

From:

selenak

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. :)