![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 20
Yuletide signups so far:
3 requests for Frederician RPF, 2 offers
2 requests for Circle of Voltaire RPF, 3 offers !! :D :D
(I am so curious as to who the third person is!)
3 requests for Frederician RPF, 2 offers
2 requests for Circle of Voltaire RPF, 3 offers !! :D :D
(I am so curious as to who the third person is!)
Lehndorff readalong: through August 23, 1753
July 31: "Fat Cross" = "Fat Kreutz"
Weird because Google got that it was a proper name on the 29th. Oh well.
Also, ever since I read the "Kaphengst has a double chin = divine retribution", I've been planning to include a part in my future hypothetical "Kaphengst is spectacular in bed" fic where Heinrich actually likes the added weight. Now that I've encountered more fat-shaming from Lehndorff, I'm even more determined. ;)
August 1: "as the can snakesall the way around it" = "as the Dosse [the river] snakesall the way around it"
August 4: This is where I admit I looked at "[we dress up as] Pilger" and thought, "...Mushrooms?" Then I had to look at the translation, where "pilgrims" made a whole lot more sense. Finally, I had to google the German for mushrooms, and it turns out to be "Pilze". #GermanStudentAnecdote :)
August 5: AW gives his field preacher the text for a sermon, namely Song of Solomon chapter 4, verse 1. New International Version translation:
How beautiful you are, my darling!
Oh, how beautiful!
Your eyes behind your veil are doves.
Your hair is like a flock of goats
descending from the hills of Gilead.
Btw, I'm totally betting Song of Solomon/Song of Songs was AW's favorite book of the Bible. :P
August 7: "Since we had new opening credits every mile" = "Since we had a fresh team of horses every mile"
Btw, in a text like this, I'm assuming a "mile" is the old-fashioned "German long mile", which is about 5 of our American miles. In case it's confusing why they're changing horses every mile.
Also, it's Prussia, so don't forget the roads are terrible. ("The worst of all roads: those that lead to Prussia," as Algarotti put it, both literally and, most likely, metaphorically.)
August 8: Ha, I was just thinking, "I can see why
:D
August 10: Let's play "fill in the blank"!
Lehndorff writes: "I receive letters from the most splendid of men, and I answer him," and the editor adds a footnote explaining, "Naturally, ______ is meant."
You get one guess whose name goes in there. ;)
August 10: You know Darget and Valori by now, right? Let me know if not!
August 10: "there is a regularity in their [her] behavior and nature that is very seldom found in the grown-ups."
While this may also arguably be true :P, I'm going with "among the great" here for "bei den Großen."
August 14: "There is nothing in the world more terrible than an old drool" = "lickspittle, toady"
August 23: In the evening I go to Monbijou, where Prince Friedrich von Württemberg can always be found, the lover of Princess Dorothea von Schwedt.
Friedrich von Württemberg: Remember Wilhelmine's daughter's husband, the Duke of Württemberg, whom she eventually left? That's Karl Eugen. This is his younger brother, who will end up becoming the Duke of Württemberg when Karl Eugen dies with only daughters.
Dorothea von Schwedt is the daughter of Wilhelmine's sister who ended up with the Schwedt husband.
August 23: "It is a good game this prince will make." = "It is a good marriage partner this prince will make."
Re: Lehndorff readalong: through August 23, 1753
Can totally see that, and also this being his way of truthfully replying if/when Dad asks whether he's learned bible verses by heart this week. Am amused he made the field preacher hold a sermon about them, and sure the soldiers loved this.
(Also: when Fritz selected a text to preach about, it was "Let women remain silent in the church" as I recall, post- battle of Mollwitz.)
August 8: Ha, I was just thinking, "I can see why [personal profile] selenak was wondering how Lehndorff found the time to hang out with the Divine Trio so much," and then I got to the "The Queen gave me a hard time--no rose without thorns!" line that I was telling Royal Patron about last week when I was describing the Lehndorff diaries to him.
What do you mean, the "Chamberlain to the Queen" job description isn't "hanging out with the Divine Trio"?
Let's also recapitulate EC's top staff here: One Oberhofmarschall von Wartensleben, who is a sugar-hoarding miser who in his younger years "seduces the chambermaids" and in his older years spies on everyone, and with whom she clashes now and then without being able to fire him; one chamberlain who is an addicted gambler (Müller), and one chamberlain who's busy mooning over her brother-in-law when he's not wishing he'd work for her husband instead.
Cape Stallion's ghost salutes you for discerning he just got sexier with more weight. :)
The Würtemberg brothers: also worth pointing out they were both raised at the Prussian court after the death of their father. Said father, Karl Alexander, was one of those Rokoko party boys who also pissed off his very Protestant subjects by converting to Catholicism. The reason he made it into literary history is an ugly one. His son Carl Eugen would immortalize himself by clashing with young Friedrich Schiller, which may not speak well of Carl Eugen but produced great literature.
Karl Alexander, otoh, being a baroque party boy of a prince needed money, lots of it. So he did what a great many princes at the time did; he had a "Court Jew", one Josef Süß Oppenheimer. When Karl Alexander died of a stroke, and left behind a dukedom in uproar over his money wasting ways, Catholic conversion and rumors he had wanted to conduct a coup with the help of his (Catholic) wife Marie Auguste's Thurn-and-Taxis relations which would have disempowered the Protestant parliament and reintroduced the cuius regio, eius religio principle in Würtemberg. Naturally, a scapegoat was wanted. Three guesses who became the scapegoat.
Josef Süß Oppenheimer got a show trial. Supposedly he might have saved his skin if he had converted, but Süß, despite the fact he was very assimilated and not orthodox at all, refused. (This circumstance was what centuries later attracted the attention of the writer my doctoral thesis is about, Lion Feuchtwanger.) His (Christian) mistress got publically whipped and shamed, and he himsel got hanged in a cage with all the viciousness an antisemitic lawforce in tandem with a mob is capable of. This produced some sensational pamphlets and a literary trope, as "Jud Süß", as he was thereafter called, became written about again and again. The two most famous versions remain the Feuchtwanger novel, which was his big international breakthrough as an author (and promptly ended up burned in 1933, as Feuchtwanger was among the first authors banned), and the Nazi movie, one of the worst propaganda movies in the Third Reich, which is saying something.
Re: Lehndorff readalong: through August 23, 1753
"Yep, I go over them every night right before bed!"
Let's also recapitulate EC's top staff here: One Oberhofmarschall von Wartensleben, who is a sugar-hoarding miser who in his younger years "seduces the chambermaids" and in his older years spies on everyone, and with whom she clashes now and then without being able to fire him; one chamberlain who is an addicted gambler (Müller), and one chamberlain who's busy mooning over her brother-in-law when he's not wishing he'd work for her husband instead.
OMG. Poor EC. Also, sorry, EC, but I laughed.
Thank you for the additional Württemberg history!