felis: (House renfair)
felis ([personal profile] felis) wrote in [personal profile] cahn 2021-03-05 04:35 pm (UTC)

Re: His Name is Diable. Le Diable: Bad Times

Morgenstern (meaning: maybe he was a fool, maybe he was, like Gundling, a scholar with the bad luck of being treated like one

Salomo Jacob Morgenstern seems to have been a scholar, if not a very good one. Interesting detail at the end: Für Friedrich Nicolai, der ihn 1779 besuchte, hob er sich immerhin positiv von Friedrich Wilhelms übrigen „Hofgelehrten“ ab. Seine in vielem wenig zuverlässige, aber lebendige und, da auf persönlichen Erlebnissen beruhend, nicht uninteressante Geschichte „Ueber Friedrich Wilhelm I.“ erschien erst 1793.

(His book about FW is here and I have to say, he has to be the first person who started a description of FW like this: The late blessed King Friedrich Wilhelm in his youth must have been a well built and handsome man, because his face was appealing until his last sickness and his eyes not just light, but piercing and, most of the time, friendly. ... !
Oh, man, further on: Since he could see to the bottom of your heart, he suspected a bad conscience in everyone who didn't look at him freely; or that he could never trust them because of deceitfulness and perfidity of their heart. There are only few occasions where he was wrong in his judgment. A Gundling successor who turned out to be a FW fan? Wow. Seems kind of accurate when it comes to FW's way of thinking, though.)


Mantteuffel's own argument is of the psychological type, using period sexism very effectively; if Wolff now attempts, one has to assume that he was "un homme absulement gouverné par sa femme et qui par consequent n'est grand Philosophe".

Argh. Manteuffel! Very interesting to get the details of the sabotaged Wolff return, though.

As for the other Academy members already called according to the papers, this Algarotti fellow (WTF Newton for Ladies?), Maupertuis (did he really compare exploring Lappland to exploring a woman's body ?!?) and Voltaire (Arggggggh), yeah, no. "I can't talk to them, and they don't understand me." He stays in Halle, thank you very much.

:DDD

Manteuffel after Grumbkow died in 1739 immediately wrote home to Dresden and asked for a budget raise to he could take over Grumbkow's spy network, which he got and which he did

Also interesting! Honestly, the 00Diable - as you so nicely put it - version of Manteuffel has to be my favourite one from a storytelling perspective.

Louise Gottsched (remember her? Émilie fan and translator?), who points out to him in a letter even before the Silesian invasion that this Roi Philosophe dedication to Fritz and the whole Roi Philosophe concept is a mistake because she knows of not a few princes who had a great education and knew damm well what they were doing and did it anyway

Good for her! I really like that she had such a different perspective on it.

re: Deschamps

- official court preacher at Rheinsberg (if you're surprised Fritz had an official court preacher at Rheinsberg, remember FW being alive and making surprise visits)

That, and possibly also for EC?

- as well as teacher to Heinrich and Ferdinand. (How this worked out geographically, I don't know.)

He became their teacher in 1740, when he wasn't at Rheinsberg anymore, see the excerpt at Trier here.

- On November 1742, a one act play gets performed in Charlottenburg, Le singe de la Mode

Premiered on the occasion of Keyserlingk's wedding and not played very well, as Fritz writes to Voltaire when he sends him a copy. (Of course he did.)



Boie: writes RPF titled "Totengespräche"

:DD This seems to have been a fanfic trend at the time, at least I remember coming across another "Totengespräch" between Fritz and Amelie at some point last year.

because he was pining for the happy time with his mentor in the mid 1730s. So there.

Ah, I see. That's why he doesn't mention Suhm, he's a shipper, too. :P

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