Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 20

[cahn]

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!)

Comments

Re: Boswell in Prussia: Meeting Mr. Mitchell

[selenak]

<3; Mr. Verelst the Dutch envoy must have been a good guy, given he was the envoy who took in as many Berliners as possible and gave them sanctuary when the city was taken by the Russians and Austrians, which is why Fritz singles him out along with Mitchell at the post war party.

Re: EC: see also my reply to Mildred earlier - unbeknowest to Boswell, she was under great stress (and distress) on that occasion, so the fact that she managed to provide a gracious reception is admirable. (Re: her stammering - Lehndorff remarks on both her and Louise as well as their mother "mumbling", not stammering, when talking together ("it's supposed to be German, but not German I ever have been able to understand"); other visitors also vary between thinking she stammered or thinking she mumbled when nervous. It might also have been dialect, since Lehndorff mentions Louise and their mother doing it as well when all three were together. In any case, it was evidently yet another reason why EC when young and first presented to the Hohenzollern kept as silent as possible.

Mitchell being the best is also something consistent in all the descriptions of him I've seen so far. (I.e. Lehndorff and Thiebault praise him as a straight arrow in very similar terms; and then of course there's the recent discovery that Algarotti called a young Andrew "the tastiest dish" *g*)

Re: Boswell in Prussia: Meeting Mr. Mitchell

[cahn]

*nods* I think I had remembered the stammering and not the mumbling, but I would have conflated them all anyway as "not talking very well when nervous or under stress."(E.g., I know someone who has a speech impediment where her voice just stops/skips in the middle of phrases when she is stressed, where I would also kind of not know how to describe it as stammering or mumbling or something between the two.) Huh, interesting it might have been dialect, though.

and then of course there's the recent discovery that Algarotti called a young Andrew "the tastiest dish" *g*)

Lol, that is a... somewhat different being the best, but I will assent that is still the best :D