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: Random things

[mildred_of_midgard]

Re: Corneille, I‘ll check out whether the Orieux biography says where Orieux has his numbers from. It‘s interesting that they are so completely different for each participant, not just one.

Agreed, though the presence of Elizaveta in one and Catherine in the other suggests that Voltaire sent another request in or shortly after 1762, which makes sense.

Also, if Elizaveta is correct, then she must have been asked in 1761, which implies that Fritz was asked in 1761 (difficult breakup or no, they've resumed their correspondence, and I doubt Elizaveta gets asked years before Fritz), which was a reeeeally bad year for him war/finance-wise (hence the need for the second miracle a year later), so again, I believe 6. Maybe he bought another 200 after 1763. ;)

It is interesting that Orieux says Louis wouldn't contribute, and Davidson says he ponied up for 200.

My need for numbers to match up is bugging me!

Speaking of which...

MT: Ahem.

cahn, MT is peeved at losing on a technicality: she died at 63, extremely busy. :P

Catherine: I did all that at 65 and had a vivid sex life, too, Monsieur le Cardinal.

Rumors abounded that she died in the middle of one of her excessive sex acts (some said with a horse, the only male big enough to satisfy her appetites), but this is mostly likely (I say this because I haven't investigated the sources myself) men hating on a sexually and politically dominant woman.

Cardinal Richelieu

Died at 57, according to Wikipedia. Perhaps it's more impressive that he managed to cram that much activity into just 57 years!

(Our Yuletide nominee the Duc, however, lived to be 92, albeit I'm not seeing evidence that he was extremely busy for the latter few decades.)

LOL. Well, Boswell was young when first meeting Johnson (22 years), but Johnson was over 50.

Weird, I took that to mean Boswell was young, but you're right, it parses better if Johnson is the one who's young. I probably parsed it that way because I knew Boswell was young and Johnson wasn't.

Anyway, Johnson in his 50s is still younger than Voltaire at 316, which is what he would have been in 2010. ;)

he keeps writing memos to himself to be more dignified, more like his father or Johnson; it never works, but unaware, he was not

I saw this in The Club, and thought it was funny.

What‘s more, some statistic fans have worked out that between Boswell living most of the time in Edinburgh during these years, and being on the Grand Tour right after his initial time in London where he had met and befriended Johnson, they spend only about 200 plus days in each other‘s company all in all. (Though of course they corresponded in between.) (Also, just how much Johnson had taken to Boswell can be seen from the fact that Boswell talked the Scotland-disliking Johnson into a journey a deux to the Hebrides

And statistics fans have further worked out that a quarter of those were on the Hebrides trip! (Everything I know, I know from one book, but it was an interesting book. ;)

Actually, to quote the numbers more precisely:

It has been calculated that, all told, he and Johnson were in each other’s company just 425 days during a friendship that lasted twenty-one years, and fully a quarter of those days were during a single journey they took together.

Re: Random things

[selenak]

Okay, got my Orieux copy again, and checked the: the Corneille subscriptions. He doesn't use footnotes (there's an extensive bibliograhy at the end, though), alas, but I reread the passage, I could figure out the divergence on Louis XV. and Fritz at least, which was a misunderstanding of mine. In a text about Voltaire in his old age, I automatically tend to assume that "the King" = Fritz if there's no further designation given. But to Orieux the Frenchman, "the King", no further designation given, is automatically "the King of France".

Here's the relevant text passage, literally: The King subscribes 200 copies, Catherine II. imitates him in this, the Empress does the same, Voltaire himself takes a hundred, the Marquise du Pompadour 50, Choiseul likewise. The noble lords don't abstain, their friends follow their example, headed by the English nobility. Voltaire offers to a free copy of one of his to the literati who can't afford to subscribe. He's Voltaire at his best.

(Since he's also been Voltaire at his worst, bickering with Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the previous chapter.)

While this explains Louis and Fritz (who does not get mentioned at all by Orieux if "the King" is Louis), we're still left with Catherine vs Elisaveta. Given the date, I assume the following: whoever Orieux' source was just said "the Czarina", and when doing his write up he assumed this would be Voltaire's declared fan Catherine without keeping in mind she wasn't on the throne yet. After all, events and people outside of France can be his weak spot, see also Fredersdorf as Fritz' secretary, "Marie-Christine" instead of Elisabeth Christine, Lessing (aka great German writer of the enlightenment, playwright and essay writer, who as a young man was Voltaire's translator in the Hirschel trial and got very disilluioned about him) as a subsequently famous for his poetry), staging and acting in Voltaire's plays keeping Fritz' brothers from scheming against him, and so forth.

Re: Random things

[mildred_of_midgard]

In a text about Voltaire in his old age, I automatically tend to assume that "the King" = Fritz if there's no further designation given. But to Orieux the Frenchman, "the King", no further designation given, is automatically "the King of France".

Aahhh. That makes sense. See, I assume "the King" = Louis, unless Voltaire is living in Prussia at the time (or England, I suppose), or unless the subject at hand is Fritz.

Given the date, I assume the following: whoever Orieux' source was just said "the Czarina", and when doing his write up he assumed this would be Voltaire's declared fan Catherine without keeping in mind she wasn't on the throne yet.

Well...he started in 1761, but the work wasn't published until 1764, which means it could be either or both. If I were drumming up money, I would do it as often as I could, and if my fan ascended the throne during the process, I would make a special request just to her.

staging and acting in Voltaire's plays keeping Fritz' brothers from scheming against him, and so forth.

Haha, yes. Somebody's been reading Fritz's Political Testament(s).

Fritz: Didn't work, anyway. Heinrich showing up in St. Petersburg without giving me a chance to micromanage and Fritzplain, tsk. Can you believe it?