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: Return of the Orange Peel (in unexpected places)

[selenak]

I take it she doesn't specify who this is?

Alas no, she does not. BTW, keep in mind that this is a two edged anecdote. Yes, she's snarky about Peter, but given she feels Catherine was ungrateful to her thereafter, she also does a bit of shading and burning in the guise of letting Catherine's loathed husband predict this.*

Anyway, assuming she didn't make the story up entirely:

Though, wouldn't Fritz's supposed quote and Peter's use of it be at odds with Peter's Fritz-worship?

Not necessarily? Because of the context, i.e. Fritz saying this about Voltaire. Given Catherine really was a Voltaire fan even before getting on the throne and needing him for good publicity - there are enough letters from her in her Grand Duchess days referencing his works and praising them to testify to this - I could imagine Peter feeling satisfied about his wife's hero getting properly dissed and put in his place by a superior monarch.

*Not that old Dashkova has softened on Peter in general. She's still 100% Team Disposing Him Was A Patriotic Necessity. (And Team He Was a Russia-Hating, Fritz-Fawning Idiot.) However, whom she really hates are the Orlovs, Grigorij and Alexej both. She claims she had no idea that Grigorij Orlov and Catherine were an item before the coup, and says Alexej Orlov murdering Peter would have nearly ruined Catherine and almost destroyed the achievement of what had until then been a bloodless revolution carried by public acclaim. She insists that Catherine herself was innocent, however, as proven by the letter Alexej Orlov wrote to her after the deed was done which didn't come to light until after Catherine's death (when her son Paul found it among her papers and exclaimed he was very relieved to finally have it settled in his mind his mother didn't kill his father).

Re: Return of the Orange Peel (in unexpected places)

[mildred_of_midgard]

I could imagine Peter feeling satisfied about his wife's hero getting properly dissed and put in his place by a superior monarch.

True, but that's why I included "Peter's use of it": he's presenting the practice of throwing away orange peels as reflecting badly on the person who does it. I still consider it at least possible he doesn't know this is Fritz (if it is), and that it's come to him through an intermediary.

when her son Paul found it among her papers and exclaimed he was very relieved to finally have it settled in his mind his mother didn't kill his father

I should learn Russian someday so we can evaluate all the evidence properly. *g* #EternalOptimist

Re: Return of the Orange Peel (in unexpected places)

[selenak]

Eh, Alexeji Orlov might have written in French, in which case you're good already. :) (Daskhova in her memoirs mentions she spoke Russian as a child and young woman about as well as Fritz and Wilhelmine spoke German.)

On a Voltairian note, while looking up quotes to type them again elsewhere I was reminded that Voltaire wrote the following to his other niece, Madame de Fontaine, i.e. not Madame Denis and hence presumably not part of the reworked correspondance:


Berlin, September 23rd, 1750: I wish I could sacrifice the King of Prussia for your benefit, but I can't. He's a King, but it's a sixteen-years-long passion that connects us; he's swept me away. I imagine nature has created me for him. Our taste is so eerily alike that I forgot he's master over half of Germany. And that the other half trembles in front of him, that he's won five battles and is the greatest general of Europe, that he's surrounded by six foot tall professional killers. All of this should have caused me to run a thousand miles in the other direction, but the philosopher in him has reconciled me with the monarch, and I have only found him to be a great man who is good and sociable.

Re: Return of the Orange Peel (in unexpected places)

[mildred_of_midgard]

Eh, Alexeji Orlov might have written in French

Oh, sure, but I was thinking of modern scholarship evaluating the evidence, for the same reason I have to learn German to study people who wrote in French. Imagine if you only knew French and read Catt's memoirs! ;)

he's swept me away.

Swept you off your feet, you say? ;)

I have only found him to be a great man who is good and sociable.

Ah, the honeymoon phase.

That's a great quote to remember, thank you. Filing that one away.

Re: Return of the Orange Peel (in unexpected places)

[cahn]

I imagine nature has created me for him.

Oh man. This is great!