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: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough - Koser quote

[selenak]

Here it is: after describing the disaster that was Fritz & Hanbury Williams, Koser continues:

Even rougher were at the same time the ending of diplomatic relations wiht Russia. The Empress Elisabeth was represented in Berlin by one Herr von Groß, since 1749, who had succeeded the well-liked Count Keyserling. Since he'd achieved a reputation for rough manners in Paris, the King of Prussia believed that his arrival was supposed to worsen the Prussian-Russian relationships, who'd been in a decline since the second Silesian War, and for his part did nothing to win the new arrival over. Groß emphatically noticed the mockery in the question when the King asked him on his first visit whether he was a brother of the Erlangen journalist Groß. After a yar, in August 1750, Groß felt entitled to complain that he hadn't been invited to supper after a court festivity in Charlottenburg, which all the other foreign envoys had been. The Russian court let three months pass, then recalled its envoy, and listed this complaint in a note presented to the Prussian envoy in St. Petersburg among other complaints. Groß left Berlin without announcing this to any official; he limited himself to asking for postal horses, with a note that goes as follows in its entirety: "The Russian Envoy needs 16 horses for four wagons until tomorrow, December 2nd, in order to get from Berlin to Memel, and hence kindly requests that they should be given to him. Groß."
He was given the horses; later, the explanation was given that while after the first of the Charlottenburg festivities only three foreign envoys had been invited to supper, the Imperial envoy, the Swedish and the Danish envoy, on the second day all the envoys, including Herr von Groß, had been invited to both the ball and to supper.
Maria Theresia's envoy, the imperial Generalfeldwachtmeister Count Anton de la Puebla used his position very differently. Despite in a way fighting for a hopeless cause, he due to his qualities navigated the difficult position he was in quite happily, and accordingly found himself treated with distinction and even up to a point with benevolence. In the summer of 1752, the King gifted him with a splendid box, and he did so, as the court put it, in a fine manner, for the present was offered as an exchange object. The King had wished to see a portrait of the Empress-Queen, Puebla sent one to him, and the King replied that if one was in the possession of such a beautiful portrait, one did not let it go anymore, so the Envoy should in exchange accept the King's portrait along with this box. When rumor had it that Vienna wanted to recall Puebla in favor of a new envoy, the King wrote to his envoy in Vienna that such a change would displease him.

(Puebla remained until the war. Koser adds a footnote re: MT's portrait saying: Maria Theresia's portrait may have been the same which the King pointed to in July 1756 when talking with the British envoy Mitchell while saying: "This lady wants war? She'll get it."

Puebla: I'd like to enter the "Who's the best envoy?" ompetition as a dark horse, please. Since I clearly had the worst start, seeing as Fritz and MT would always hate each other, and there was nothing I could do to change that, and yet I made myself popular with not just the court but Fritz himself. Moreover, Lehndorff reports my mistress kept my portrait on display in her salon even after the war had started and was open about missing me.

Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough - Koser quote

[mildred_of_midgard]

Royal reader and translator hard at work, I see. :) (I'm pleased I got at least some of this from a quick skim, but it would have given me a headache to do the whole thing, so thank you.)

Puebla: well done! MT inherited a talent for picking envoys?