Otherwise known as, why it is good that we're going through Lehndorff slowly :P Yeah, you thought I'd finished this a long time ago, didn't you? I still have not finished. (Yes, this is slow even for me, what can I say, I keep getting interrupted by having to read all the Megan Whalen Turner or do my Yuletide signup or something :P )
Marwitz: so Oster had implied earlier that Wilhelmine knew about Marwitz' affair with her husband way back when? But when it all comes to a head it doesn't sound like she knew about it years before then, to me.
I know all three of you (selenak, mildred_of_midgard, felis) have been telling me about Voltaire and Wilhelmine, but I guess I still didn't really realize how much they liked each other until reading this, awwww!
-I am super excited because the fact that I was so slow reading this meant that I got to this section and actually caught the name, which I definitely wouldn't have without selenak's wonderful writeup:
Voltaire, who wanted to stay at the Prussian royal court himself, offered his help. But it was not so easy even for him to convince great minds of the advantages of the Franconian province. For the time being, he was unable to fulfill Wilhelmine's dearest wish for an educated companion free of mischief.
Françoise de Graffigny, who was on friendly terms with Wilhelmine's chamberlain Carl Heinrich von Gleichen, would have been her first choice. The author of the well-read letters from a Peruvian woman had belonged to Voltaires County in Cirey-sur-Blaise in Champagne, while the latter lived there with his lover Gabrielle Émilie Marquise du Châtelet. In Paris she had a salon which Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and other great minds of the time attended. But Madame gave Voltaire a basket: “To put it briefly,” he wrote to Wilhelmine, “she doesn't want to leave Paris like I do to Frederick the Great.
(sie will Paris nicht verlassen, so wie ich Friedrich den Großen. I think I'd say "like I do for Frederick the Great"...? Also, what's the basket (einen Korb)?)
Madame Graffigny! :D Besides Wilhelmine's wanting her as a companion (and presumably being supported in this by Voltaire) being further evidence that she wasn't the conventional harpy that Zinsser and Bodanis paint her as, it's interesting to me here that Voltaire tries to get her for Wilhelmine, which seems to say to me that they weren't necessarily on terrible terms. Though I suppose it's possible that they were on bad terms and that's part of why she refuses?
* Lol at Wilhelmine getting Fritz's permission to go to Montpellier, in France, for the sake of her health, all the while knowing she's using it as a jumping off point for an Italy trip, but doesn't want to ask him for permission for that up front.
hahahaha this was great!
* Oster believes in the orange peel quote, sigh.
Oh well! (lol, I can't tell my Prussian generals apart, but at least I know about the orange peel quote now! I feel like I know a very weird assortment of things...)
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Oster's Wilhelmine bio - 1740s
Date: 2020-10-25 05:16 am (UTC)Marwitz: so Oster had implied earlier that Wilhelmine knew about Marwitz' affair with her husband way back when? But when it all comes to a head it doesn't sound like she knew about it years before then, to me.
I know all three of you (
-I am super excited because the fact that I was so slow reading this meant that I got to this section and actually caught the name, which I definitely wouldn't have without
Voltaire, who wanted to stay at the Prussian royal court himself, offered his help. But it was not so easy even for him to convince great minds of the advantages of the Franconian province. For the time being, he was unable to fulfill Wilhelmine's dearest wish for an educated companion free of mischief.
Françoise de Graffigny, who was on friendly terms with Wilhelmine's chamberlain Carl Heinrich von Gleichen, would have been her first choice. The author of the well-read letters from a Peruvian woman had belonged to Voltaires County in Cirey-sur-Blaise in Champagne, while the latter lived there with his lover Gabrielle Émilie Marquise du Châtelet. In Paris she had a salon which Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and other great minds of the time attended. But Madame gave Voltaire a basket: “To put it briefly,” he wrote to Wilhelmine, “she doesn't want to leave Paris like I do to Frederick the Great.
(sie will Paris nicht verlassen, so wie ich Friedrich den Großen. I think I'd say "like I do for Frederick the Great"...? Also, what's the basket (einen Korb)?)
Madame Graffigny! :D Besides Wilhelmine's wanting her as a companion (and presumably being supported in this by Voltaire) being further evidence that she wasn't the conventional harpy that Zinsser and Bodanis paint her as, it's interesting to me here that Voltaire tries to get her for Wilhelmine, which seems to say to me that they weren't necessarily on terrible terms. Though I suppose it's possible that they were on bad terms and that's part of why she refuses?
* Lol at Wilhelmine getting Fritz's permission to go to Montpellier, in France, for the sake of her health, all the while knowing she's using it as a jumping off point for an Italy trip, but doesn't want to ask him for permission for that up front.
hahahaha this was great!
* Oster believes in the orange peel quote, sigh.
Oh well!
(lol, I can't tell my Prussian generals apart, but at least I know about the orange peel quote now! I feel like I know a very weird assortment of things...)
(92%, so really almost done at this point!)