Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 28

[cahn]

That is a lot of posts! :D <3

Comments

Stats?

[cahn]

Just curious, resident salon statistician! How many words are we up to now? :D

(another two weeks for me -- maybe one, depending; we'll see -- and then I'm baaaaack!)

THIS many words!

[mildred_of_midgard]

User	Words	Comments
selenak	1,058,596	2,599
mildred	985,557	3,878
cahn	225,773	2,154
felis	71,823	294
gambitten	13,116	36
prinzsorgenfrei	12,223	67
Everyone else	21,039	102
Total	2,388,127	9,130

(Who knows how the html formatting is going to turn out; I get annoyed that the preview looks nothing like the actual comment. ETA: Hey, it turned out fine (at least in my browser), although absolutely nothing like the preview.)

(another two weeks for me -- maybe one, depending; we'll see -- and then I'm baaaaack!)

Awesome!

Sarabande for dead lovers

[selenak]

The SD the older/Königsmarck love letters book turned out to be only a registry of their love letters, published by Schnath in 1952, at which time he doesn't show double standards about male and female adultery anymore in his introduction. He provides a short summary of what the letter in question is about for each letter, and whether or not the letter in question has been mentioned or printed in one of the earlier publications. Not without smugness, he notes that this registry is the most complete ever, especially since the edition by Wilkins solely features the letters archived at Lund and completely ignores the letters Ulrike stole and sent Fritz which were kept at Sanssouci within his life time and then at the Prussian State archive. Schnath says that since this was already a well known fact when Wilkins published, he can't explain why Wilkins didn't make the additional trip to read them in Germany.

The letters themselves prove that Königsmarck and poor SD of Celle, whatever other risks they took, were way more careful in their coding than the Imperial secret service two generations later with such code names like "Olympia", "Junior" and "Le Diable". Königsmarck/SD use about 50 code names, thirty of which have only been decyphred as of 1952, and sometimes several code names for the same person. They also used secret ink, and numbers for additional secrecy. In his letter summaries, Schnath provides mostly the clear names or numbers with footnotes if he has guesses that aren't yet proven, and otherwise the numbers or code names. Future G1 is mostly "Don Diego", SD the older herself "Leonissa" but also "Isabella" and some other names taken from popular novels at the time.

Since summaries of love letters tend to be pretty dull ("K swears eternal love" "Pr. is sad about getting no letters the last two days" etc.), except if such details are mentioned as the bit that also made it into Horowski's book, Königsmarck amusing little 6 years old SD and the future Mrs. Grumbkow (same age) by building card houses for them, I mostly leafed through them. Meanwhile, I found out there's a 1946 British movie - produced by the Ealing Studios - about the affair, "Sarabande for Dead Lovers" (great title!), starring Stewart Granger as Königsmarck and Joan Greenwood as Sophia Dorotha of Celle. (Co-starring Flora Robson as Countess Platen, about whom more in a moment, and a young Christopher Lee - THAT Christopher Lee - in a cameo as Anton Ulrich of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel.) The movie was filmed mostly at Blenheim Palace (of Marlborough fame, remember), which makes sense considering that in 1946 Hannover was in ruins due to all the bombing and it would take a while to rebuild. This movie in turn is based on a 1935 novel of the same name by Australian writer Helen Simpson, which is online in its enterity courtesy of Gutenberg Australia. It turned out to be a solid historical novel. You can nitpick about some of the choices (for example, no argument that future G1 was a brute, but he actually wasn't the kind of brute who doesn't care how many of his soldiers he gets killed; on the contrary, he had during his service in the Imperial wars against Turkey and the Palatine succession war gained the reputation of a sensible, cautious but not too cautious commander, and at one point when his superior wanted to punish for a bad battle by decimation (literally - every tenth man was supposed to get shot) had outright refused to do so. (He also wasn't a baroque party boy but while Prince Elector of Hanover and not yet English King on the contrary famous for keeping an eye on the money and avoiding the money consuming trips to Italy for debauchery both his uncle and his father had made an annual event; Schnath, who doesn't like him and calls him "cold and unsympathetic" also says he was a very able administrator. ("A jerk, but not that kind of a jerk" sums up G1 well in general.) Also, while Sophie undoubtedly once the English succession became a plausible option inwardly was rooting for that and was thrilled when it became a certainty, neither her memoirs nor her letters gave me the impression she saw England and the English as superior, wiser beings. The novel also completely misses out her sense of humor and the warmth she was capable of, though given that she mostly interacts with people she doesn't like, including her daughter-in-law, fair enough.

But such nitpicks don't change the fact the novel does a good job conjuring up the era and provides pretty layered characters. For a plot in theory sounds like a precipe for an historical AU of the pop culture depiction of Princess Diana (young girl marries into cold dysfunctional royal family where no one likes or supports her, her husband already has a mistress he loves anyway, and when she takes a lover, that's treated completely differently), only more so, it amazingly spends most of its narrative exploration not on the two tragic lovers - though they are treated with great sympathy - but on two of the antagonists/villains, by which I don't mean future G1, who only shows up briefly to make it clear what a jerk he is. No, I mean Sophie and the Countess Platen. The Countess, long time mistress of Sophie's husband Ernst August, is basically the main villain of the novel. In this version, Königsmarck was her lover first, and she made the mistake of actually falling in love with him just when he was falling in love with SDC, to whom he then became faithful. It's a woman scorned plot, but one written from her pov. (Re: the film version, Stewart Granger said he wanted Marlene Dietrich for the part and wasn't content with Flora Robson, because Flora Robson, while a great actress, had never been beautiful, "and I had to be cruel to her, and I find it hard to be cruel to a woman who has never been beautiful". Okay, Stewart.) The historical basis for this are rumors about a previous Countess/Königsmarck affair, but they weren't proven; her main beef with him according to wiki seems to have been that he refused to marry her daughter, whereupon she outed him and SCDC to future G1. Said daughter doesn't show up in the novel at all, but she's the later Gräfin Kielsmannsegg and Lady Darlington whom G1 took with him to Britain along with his mistress, Katte's aunt Melusine von Schulenburg, and whom the Brits took to be his mistress as well.

Anyway, the Countess in the book is presented as smart and able - the only smarter character is Sophie - , and falling in love with Königsmarck is the first uncalculated thing she does in her life, which (from her pov) promptly backfires on her as he ditches her for the next pretty (and socially higher) thing. And not only does she out him, she actually organizes his murder herself. (When reading, I wondered whether this was the author's wway of blaming the ancestors of the current Royal family for it, but then again, G1 is presented as getting his soldiers killed for the heck of it and shooting a huntsman as a joke, so probably not.)

Less of a villain but definitely an antagonist is the novel's version of Sophie, who in addition of having the historical Sophie's objection to SDC and what she represents (reminder: SDC's Dad Georg Wilhelm was the Hannover who originally was supposed to marry Sophie, got syphilis, thought this was it and suggested Sophie marry his younger brother Ernst August instead, promising he would never, ever marry and procreate if she did and gave her that in writing, only for him to then fall in love with his mistress Eleonore d'Olbreuse, morganatically marry her and legitimize their daughter SDC) is written in general as a cold (but not evil) intellectual, loving only her books, seeing her son for the jerk he is but seeing the family's ascension to the English throne as the main goal which no one must endanger. It's not that she hates on young SDC once the marriage is done, she's just not sympathetic. (Typical scene: SDC, wanting to bond with her mother-in-law, vents about the fact that they're both openly cheated on by their respective husbands with very prominent mistresses. Sophie's response is a cool "Oh, grow up".) She gets probably the most scenes in the novel, including the last scene, and there is the vibe that while the author feels sorry for the two young lovers, these two ladies are the characters who actually interest her, and not so coincidentally the last scene is between them. (Sophie signals to the Countess she knows what Platen did and why, and banishes her from Hannover, no ifs, no buts.)

As for the titular lovers, SDC is a young naive who because her parents had married for love has no idea what she's getting into and for whom the love affair is the only escape of a terrible situation, and Königsmarck is at first something of a dashing opportunist (Platen is still an attractive woman, but his motivation for the affair is definitely mercenary) who however then truly loves SDC, and dies for it. Neither of them has much common sense or smarts. I do regret that other than one remark, there is no mention of his sister, Aurora von Königsmarck, who was August the Strong's first maitresse en titre (and the ancestress of French writer George Sand through her son Maurice de Saxe), since she's the one who wanted to find out what happened to him and used her royal lover's influence to investigate, thus ensuring the mysterious disappearance couldn't just be covered over and forgotten. But branching out to include her would have gone against the atmosphere of increasing claustrophobia in Hannover, so I guess I understand why Simpson didn't.

Not having seen the movie, I don't know how close or different to the novel it is, but going by the opening scene, they've changed the narrative emphasis, if it's all in first person as a letter written by dying SDC to future G2 in order to explain to him about her life.

Re: Sarabande for dead lovers

[mildred_of_midgard]

The letters themselves prove that Königsmarck and poor SD of Celle, whatever other risks they took, were way more careful in their coding than the Imperial secret service two generations later with such code names like "Olympia", "Junior" and "Le Diable". Königsmarck/SD use about 50 code names, thirty of which have only been decyphred as of 1952, and sometimes several code names for the same person. They also used secret ink, and numbers for additional secrecy.

Good for them! Bad for us, but good for them. Sorry it still didn't work out. :/

Since summaries of love letters tend to be pretty dull ("K swears eternal love" "Pr. is sad about getting no letters the last two days" etc.), except if such details are mentioned as the bit that also made it into Horowski's book, Königsmarck amusing little 6 years old SD and the future Mrs. Grumbkow (same age) by building card houses for them, I mostly leafed through them.

Yeah, that makes sense. Too bad, but glad it led you to the novel. The review was great as your reviews always are, thank you!

Re: Sarabande for dead lovers

[cahn]

at one point when his superior wanted to punish for a bad battle by decimation (literally - every tenth man was supposed to get shot) had outright refused to do so.

Wow! I mean mostly about the decimation, but good for G1, in this case at least.

For a plot in theory sounds like a precipe for an historical AU of the pop culture depiction of Princess Diana (young girl marries into cold dysfunctional royal family where no one likes or supports her, her husband already has a mistress he loves anyway, and when she takes a lover, that's treated completely differently)

Heh, I wouldn't have made the Princess Diana connection necessarily, but it really is reminiscent, isn't it!

and there is the vibe that while the author feels sorry for the two young lovers, these two ladies are the characters who actually interest her, and not so coincidentally the last scene is between them. (Sophie signals to the Countess she knows what Platen did and why, and banishes her from Hannover, no ifs, no buts.)

Sophie and Countess Platen actually sound really fascinating in this novel. I really like that they're portrayed as interesting and not one-dimensional, and I agree with Simpson that they sound more interesting than the lovers :P

(Typical scene: SDC, wanting to bond with her mother-in-law, vents about the fact that they're both openly cheated on by their respective husbands with very prominent mistresses. Sophie's response is a cool "Oh, grow up".)

hee!

[selenak]

Question: are Salon members other than me familiar with Sandman? Because going back to it has made me wonder about the Endless and our antihero(es), and how encounters would go.

[mildred_of_midgard]

Not this one, alas.

Voltaire miscellanea

[mildred_of_midgard]

While reading Orieux, I made a few notes on minor points to bring up.

1. Classics reference alert: I don't know if this made it into your abridged copy, cahn, but the Philippiques attributed to Voltaire, that were an attack on Philippe II d'Orleans, Regent, son of gay Philippe (have you got that connection in your head now, or should we keep repeating it?), are an allusion to the attacks by Demosthenes on Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great. Demosthenes kept warning the Athenians to resist the temptation to cozy up to the increasingly threatening Philip, and instead to unite with the other city-states of Greece to fight Macedon before it became too powerful. He claimed that Philip, whatever alliances or promises he made now, would turn on Athens as soon as it was in his best interests to do so.

The original Philippics became so well-known that Cicero's polemics against Marc Antony were also called the Philippics, even though Antony's name wasn't Philip. ;) Educated contemporaries would have absolutely made the connection between Philippe the Regent and Philip of Macedon when they read the Philippiques.

2. Orieux says that Voltaire's remains were stolen, as was proven when his grave was dug up in the 19th century. Every semi-reliable source I could find when googling this says that there was a rumor going around to this effect, until his grave was dug up in the 19th century and his remains were found to still be there. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

3. So I talked about the whole war chariot thing in one of my posts. At the start of the Seven Years' War, before Fritz gets his butt kicked at Kolin and starts talking suicide, and Voltaire is still not speaking to him, he designs a whole war chariot (Kriegswagen), based on his reading of ancient history, that he wants the French to use to try to defeat the Prussians!

To tell the truth, he would have liked to see Friedrich's defeat and hoist the flag for it. At this time Voltaire was doing an astonishing occupation: he invented a war chariot to destroy the Prussian army. It is not a matter of poetic reverie: the plans are drawn up, the machine exists on paper. Of course, it's of literary origin: from a description of the war chariots of Assuerus [Xerxes], he was inspired with the idea of ​​his modern war machine. He presents his plan to Monsieur de Florian, a talented officer who studies it and presents it to the minister. Richelieu is interested in it for a moment - or pretends to be. Briefly, while the offices leaf through the plan and it changes files, the Austrian infantry annihilates the Prussian army near Kolin. And the paper car is returned to Voltaire-Assuerus. Which does not prevent Monsieur de Florian's and other officers' reports from being serious. They even built a small model that Voltaire was enthusiastic about.

Then Fritz starts talking suicide, Wilhelmine sends out a cry for help, Voltaire "wiped away [Fritz's] tears from afar that [he] no longer want[ed] to wipe up close" (thanks for this awesome quote, felis), Fritz kicks French butt at Rossbach, there's no more talk of war chariots...

Until Catherine! Once his new fan is on the throne and waging wars of conquest against the Ottomans, Voltaire is all gung ho:

When she went to war against the Turks, there was no torture that Voltaire did not wish the Sultan to undergo. Everything should belong to "his Käthe", and above all the Balkan countries! She should just grab them! "Semiramis" as liberator from Sophocles' fatherland, what an intoxicating plan! Let her take Istanbul, bring Constantinople back to life and make it her capital! Nothing was too big or too beautiful for his Käthe. He regretted being seventy, otherwise ... he indicates that he would fight for her.

One remembers his war machines, his Assyrian war chariots, which the artillery colonel Monsieur de Florian replicated at his suggestion, but were then rejected after closer examination by the war minister. This rejection of Versailles had hurt him. He did not hide the fact that the French defeats in the Seven Years' War stemmed from the lack of his chariots/wagons in the French army. Now he offered his war machines to Catherine II. He did so with a passion and tenacity to which Her Imperial Majesty finally ... gave a very evasive answer. He didn't want to see that she was politely rejecting him. He pretended that her letter opened negotiations. In his answer to Katharina, he promised her all possible victories over the Great Turk and let his comedic imagination run wild. He already saw himself as the stimulus and tool of the victory of his tsarina. He, who was so adept at reading and interpreting the language of the court, let himself be blinded by the limelight because he played in front of an incomparable spectator: Catherine II, Empress of all the Russias. Everyone has their own whimsy, even the sensible François Arouet. And so his chariots, which had been defeated in Versailles, were defeated for the second time in Saint Petersburg. But this defeat remained a secret.

Lol, Voltaire. I found a whole scholarly article on Voltaire and his attitudes toward war, which basically concludes, "Yeah, it's complicated."

4. So remember how Fritz was convinced Voltaire was going to refute everything on his deathbed? While we can see in hindsight how it really turned out, Fritz wishes you to know that he wasn't totally making this up, either:

During a trip to Saxony a few years before, he had been seized with such severe colic that he thought he was dying, and this time he wasn't lying. He immediately called a priest, confessed, received the sacraments, but recovered; that is the rule. When he regained his senses, he said to his secretary, Monsieur Dièze, who was as confused by the agony as by the sacraments and the resurrection: "My friend, you have seen man's weakness."

5. Remember when Voltaire in 1766 was trying to get Diderot and the other philosophes to go to Cleves, where everything would be awesome because it was Fritzian territory (and yet, as Peter Keith proved, close enough to the Netherlands to escape if you needed to)? Apparently, he actually wrote to Fritz, and Fritz said yes (of course):

He then asked Friedrich to grant him asylum in his principality of Kleve. The king, though surprised, agreed. "This asylum will always be open to you. How could I refuse it to a man who has done so much honor to literature, his fatherland, humanity, in a word, his century?"

THOSE TWO.

6. Speaking of THOSE TWO, Voltaire wants to be allowed to return to Paris, but Versailles is looking askance at him defecting to Prussia, then coming back to France and wanting his old job back. Orieux:

Listen to this; it's really astonishing what [Voltaire] writes:

"If I dared to speak of myself for a moment, then I would say that I've never understood why people are mad at me for my flirtation (Koketterien) with the King of Prussia. If they knew that one day he kissed my hand, as thin as it is, in order to keep me with him, then everyone would forgive me for letting it happen."

We admit, there's nothing anyone can say against this argument. Who in this base world could resist a king who kissed one's hand?

NOT VOLTAIRE, that's for sure. :PPP

7. So this part confused me. When he's introducing the correspondence between Voltaire and Crown Prince Fritz in 1736, Orieux writes, "Friedrich had offered him his house in London to escape to." What house in London? It's 1736, he's just barely acquired Rheinsberg. He could maybe put in a good word with the Prussian resident there, but doesn't that depend on FW?

I'm confused. Can one of you who've read Pleschinski (*cough* it's on my list!) maybe clear this up?

8. Orieux is really a fan of the Arouet ancestors, isn't he? I found it charming, albeit unconvincing.

Thanks for the rec, selenak! This was really worth the struggle with German read. If I ever make it to French, I'm planning on tackling this in the original.

Re: Voltaire miscellanea

[selenak]

Orieux about Voltaire's remains: Well, remember his version of Voltaire's death is also way behind the one I linked cahn to. Checking out what other biographies of his are available in Germany, I came across this withering critique of his Catherine de' Medici biography, the highlights of which (of the critique, not the book, which I Haven't read) are:

Protestant "Heresy" wtf, Orieux? Pray use a more neutral term. Ditto for Henri III's "unnatural practices", by which you mean gay sex. Also, you're way over the top about the Grande Nation. It needs some chuzpe to present France as being "under siege for the entire 16th century by the HRE". Yeah, no, especially if one looks as to who started most of the wars. Also, writing that Metz, Verdun and Toul may have belonged to the HRE back then but that they were totally French in spirit is just the kind of 19th century nationalist mentality that led to dire things. Why is Eleanor of Austria, sister to Charles V. and second wife of Francis I., presented as a poor dumb goose, when Charles trusted her with several political missions, proving he hardly considered her dumb? And while we're talking Habsburgs, I question your claim that Margaret of Austria had a hate-on for the French ever since Charles VIII ditched her. Given the rest of Margaret's ultra competent life, I don't think so. And your Huguenot numbers are either too little explored or way off!"

Well, my French pal who originally recced Orieux to me did say he was "opinionated" and so he is in the Voltaire biography, too. And yes, one can tell the French perspective there a mile away, too. (And not just because he gets the name of Fritz' wife wrong and seems to have known zilch about Fritz' brothers, just assuming they'd have been like most younger brothers to French monarchs, hence the idea that acting in Voltaire's plays kept them from "scheming" against Fritz.) But most biographers are biased, not always intentionally but as a matter of which sources are available to them; Orieux is just open about his opinions. (And has humor and style.)

Lol, Voltaire. I found a whole scholarly article on Voltaire and his attitudes toward war, which basically concludes, "Yeah, it's complicated."

Indeed. :)

When he regained his senses, he said to his secretary, Monsieur Dièze, who was as confused by the agony as by the sacraments and the resurrection: "My friend, you have seen man's weakness.

:) Mind you, the priests in Saxony, a largely Protestant country where most Catholics were probably Poles because of August III, son of the Strong, was also King of Poland, wouldn't have tried to blackmail him into a giving them a written "hereby I renounce all my works" letter before absolving him anyway, nor would the question of burial have been such an issue as it would be in Paris. Given that many a Saxon was still disgruntled August the Strong and his son had converted to get the Polish crown, coming over high handedly was not something a Catholic priest in Saxonyn could have afforded. (Look, it was the original hotbed of the Lutheran Reformation.)

Who in this base world could resist a king who kissed one's hand?

NOT VOLTAIRE, that's for sure. :PPP

Most def. :) To be fair, Maupertuis, who didn't get his hand kissed, also didn't resist, along with several other French literati and scientists. (And Maupertuis also got cries of "traitor" in 1756.) Did Fritz kiss anyone else's hand once he was King? Well, his mother excepted, and perhaps also Maman Camas. But, you know. Another man's. In public.

House in London: I bet Orieux is confusing something here. As far as I know, he had no house in London, didn't have the money for one, and sure as well would not have been in a position to offer it to anyone as public a person as Voltaire if he did (i.e. Dad would have inevitably found out). As I told you, the bibliography doesn't include any solo Fritz biographies, just "Fritz and..." works. In French. So the mistake might not even have been Orieux'. Maybe one of his sources misread the name of a place in one of Fritz' letters as "London". Between Fritz' handwriting, and Rokoko spelling, that would be entirely possible. It's more likely he could have offered Voltaire a place in a Prussian territory near the French border like Cleves, or in the principalities of one of his married sisters.

Tiny bit of Rottembourg

[mildred_of_midgard]

Rottembourg, like Peter Keith, is someone you have to accidentally run across references to in books about other people. In this case, Charles Whitworth, British envoy in the first quarter of the 18th century, whose biography I've just finished reading.

Whitworth and Rottembourg overlapped in Berlin: a couple months in 1716, and then mid 1719 to late 1720. The latter was, if you know your dates, right as the Great Northern War was ending and the peace was being negotiated, so they were not idle. Britain was trying to push a treaty with Sweden and Prussia, and, if I'm recalling correctly, France was acting as guarantor. And FW was dragging his feet on signing it. (This is the treaty where Prussia got most of Swedish Pomerania, but FW was trying to hold out for more stuff and the exact terms of Stettin he wanted.)

Turns out, Whitworth and Rottembourg were, if not BFFs, at least good working buddies:

He was also able to establish cordial relations with Count Conrad Rottembourg, the French ambassador, which lasted for the rest of his diplomatic career.

When FW was dragging his feet:

Whitworth was aware that everything could be lost at this moment. He decided to approach Frederick William personally, with Rottembourg at his side.

The treaty did eventually get signed, with some pushing and backdating by Whitworth.

But not before this happened:

A further complication arose through an almost comic incident in September when Whitworth became aware of a secret negotiation between the Prussian and Russian ministers concerning Poland. Ilgen [Prussian Foreign minister] had sent a servant with two packets to be delivered, one for Rottembourg, the French minister, and the other for Golovkin. The servant, however, delivered the wrong packages with the result that Rottembourg discovered the draft of a proposed Russian-Prussian treaty, intended for Golovkin, which he duly revealed to Whitworth. The proposed Russian-Prussian treaty thus came to nothing and poor Ilgen was left ‘in the agony of his mistake’.

So Rottembourg is totally passing on secrets to his buddy Whitworth, the English diplomat.

Ilgen, btw, is Ariane's mother's (the Baroness who gets a cameo at the beginning of "Lovers lying two and two") father. Remember, Ariane's father Knyphausen is a diplomat and Minister of War, and he marries the daughter of the foreign minister Ilgen. (Peter totally married up.)

And then, a few years later, in 1723-1725, Whitworth and Rottembourg are posted to the Congress of Cambrai together!

On a personal level, Whitworth had excellent relations with Count Rottembourg, the French Plenipotentiary, whom he had known from his mission to Berlin and liked as ‘a man of very great Judgment, and Experience … one of the best heads they have now left in France’. But he also suspected that Rottembourg was kept in the dark as to the true intentions and policies of the French court now there had been a change in leadership. [The Regent died in late 1723 and was replaced by the Duc de Bourbon.]

Unfortunately, nothing happens at Cambrai, because the real negotiation is happening in Paris. Whitworth is extremely frustrated.

But, what this quote about Rottembourg suggests to me that is of interest to my hypothetical fic is that Rottembourg may not have been a stickler/hypersensitive about etiquette by the standards of the time, because there was very little Whitworth could stand less on his missions than unnecessary ceremony. Those informal Brits! Or possibly Rottembourg just had other qualities that made up for it (he was French, after all).

But we'll just say Rottembourg got along with the guy whose letters are constantly like, "Oh my gooooood, I had to enter Cambrai as part of a formal procession, just like I did in Moscow, there is no neeeeed for this. Fucking hell. Now I'm trying to do real work, but nothing is getting done, because everyone's just arguing about precedence. Whyyyyyy." Only more politely. :P

(Also, man after my own heart, clearly. :P)

Whitworth died in 1725, thus ending his chances to work together with Rottembourg.

I'll try to say more about Whitworth on another occasion, but I must sign off now.

Re: Tiny bit of Rottembourg

[selenak]

This is the treaty where Prussia got most of Swedish Pomerania

And Fredersdorf becomes a Prussian citizen. Otherwise, he and Fritz would never have met, so this is an important historical date!

So Rottembourg is totally passing on secrets to his buddy Whitworth, the English diplomat.

Given that French/English relations were no warmer in this century than they were in most centuries, I find this extra remarkable. Was Withworth financially sound, or could his sympathy for Rottembourg have come with some financial encouragement?

Harold Acton: Last of the Medici I: How to make really bad marriages

[selenak]

Overall: very well written, very much biographie romancee in style - Stefan Zweig would have been delighted, and who knows, maybe was -, and also very opinionated. I looked up the author. He was Harold Acton, one of the Bright Young Things of the 1920s, best man to Evelyn Waugh during the later's first marriage, supposedly partly the model for Anthony Blanche in Brideshead Revisited. Scion of an Anglo-Italian family. Gay. Not a fan of Mussolini, thank God. Served in the RAF during WWII.

On to the narrative. Acton covers roughly a century, between the 1640s, when future Cosimo III. is born, to the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici, whereupon Franz Stephan gets the Duchy. He's focused on the family members and their wives - and btw, the end of the line came to be if this book is anything to go by because a couple of in varying degrees awful men married a couple of strong willed women, degree of awfulness debate worthy, several of whom did not behave as expected, and had catastrophic marriages with them - and blithely assumes you know at least a bit history if you've purchased this book and he doesn't have to explain everything from ground scratch. For example, when saying in the introduction the reader may be surprised that he didn't pick the more famous Medici and their time to focus on instead of this bunch, he says:

The Renaissance is admittedly the most interesting period of Italian history, Florence the most typical state, Lorenzo de' Medici its most typical citizen.

Okay? I mean, I'm not exactly disagreeing, the Italian Renassaisance is fascinating - but "the most interesting of Italian history? whatever did he think of all those Roman Republic and Roman Empire centuries? Or how about the late 11th, early 12th century, starring the other Frederico Secondo, the medieval HRE Emperor born in Sicily, a Renaissance mind in the middle ages, and in the same era St. Francis and the dastardly yet very efficient Pope Innocent III and Salerno as a place where women could study medicine as well as men and Italians, Germans, Normans and Moors all living in Italy? And how is Florence more typical of the Renaissance than, say, Venice? Or Rome? Lorenzo de'Medici as the epitome of the Renaissance man I can go with. Note that Acton expects you to know something about Lorenzo, aka Il Magnifico, here, and like I said, doesn't bother explaining why you should.

Here's another bit from the preface illustrating neatly Acton's style, when he talks about the portraits of the last Medici:

And it is strange to compare the portraits of these Medici with those of the earlier branch, with the Renaissance -faces of Lorenzo and Giuliano, and the grandsons and great - grandsons of Cosimo Pater Patriae. For the Bourbon has intruded . There is no longer the same austerity : instead, a ponderous sensuality becomes more and more apparent, rigid in the beginning of the seventeenth century and kept under firm control, as in the faces of Austrian and Spanish nobility, but later loosening into a thicker voluptuousness, curdling into flaccid folds until, finally, a terrible senile lust asserts itself. Decay sets in . The muscles that were taut have let themselves go. The heavy eyelids droop more than ever now, the loose and flabby lips completely drop, like some pulpy fruit, bursting and over-ripe : only the nose retains its mighty prominence. But for this indomitable bulwark all the features sag, and no amount of pride will succeed in pulling them together. The over -emphasis of each weakness:the triumph of matter over mind, of exultant fleshiness (never has the
spirit surrendered to such an extent as this, one exclaims) accumulates so as to form the most gruesome of caricatures.

Louis XIV: Excuse you, Acton. What do you mean, "The Bourbon has intruded"? Leaving aside that I am the grandson of a Medici, are you accusing my family of being sex fiends?

Henri IV: Well, I will admit I did might qualify. I certainly pounced whenever I had the chance. On the other hand, I am still everyone's candidate for Best French King ever, and not just because Voltaire wrote an epic about me. So it evidently was not to my detriment.

Louis XIV: With all dlue respect, Granddad, I might not be everyone's choice for "best" but for "most influential" and "the one everyone else is thinking of when saying "French King"? Le Roi, c'est moi. And I did have mistresses, of course I did, but only rarely two at a time, unlike you. Certainly compared with such imitators of myself like that Saxon boasting about this strength, I showed both taste and restraint.

Louis XIII: And I was repressedly gay and therefore had only one mistress. I probably never had sex with my male favourites at all. As for my wife, Anne and I needed 23 years to produce Louis and Philippe. No one, but no one, can accuse me of having had too much sex!

Louis XV: Well. Err. What can I say? When your niickname is "the Well beloved".... and we can't all do ballet for physical exercise. We really can't, great-grandfather. I hated it.

Louis XVI: The only woman I ever had sex with in my entire life was my wife. After seven years of trying in vain. And no, I did not have sex with a man, either. You have to go back to the middle ages to find a French King with my fidelity among earlier dynasties.

All pre revolutionary Bourbon Kings: Back at ya, Acton. If the Medici ran themselves down, our heritage wasn't at fault!

Back to the story. For cahn, some more orientation, as to how these Medici relate to other Medici you might have heard of, to wit, two Queens of France:

Catherine de' Medici: last of the older line of the Medici, descended from the famous Lorenzo. Married Henri II of France, a Valois. More in my story which you've read. Three of her four sons became Kings of France and died; the fourth had already died when the third still reigned. That was the end of the Valois, and then came Henri de Navarre, the first Bourbon on the throne, who had married Catherine's daughter Margot in the famous St. Bortholomew's Night . When their marriage was annulled years later, he married:

Marie de' Medici: second wife of Henri IV. Marie came from another branch of the Medici line, descending from Lorenzo the Elder,younger brother to Cosimo Pater Patriae, whereas Catherine had descended from that Cosimo. Marie de' Medici was the mother of Louis XIII., and various smart and energetic daughters, including Henrietta Maria, married to Charles I. of England (he would get beheaded), mother of Charles II and James II. However, Marie de' Medici's favourite kid was her second son Gaston, which is important for this story. Gaston was the in fact THE archetypical scheming younger brother, and his mother schemed right with him. Since Louis XIII and Anne d'Autriche did not produce living kids for 23 years, Gaston joined every plot against his brother ever in the security that as the sole male heir, he would never suffer serious consequences when caught. Then came future Louis XIV, and shortly after him Philippe the Gay. With now two living boys between him and the throne, Gaston was very frustrated indeed, but also more cautious. He transferred his ambition to his children. One of his daughters will be a main character of this book, so remember: Gaston = wannabe King. Also, thanks to his second marriage, loaded in cash. His idea for his daughters - he didn't have any sons - was that they should either marry their royal cousins or other royalty. That's how he raised them.

Our story starts in 1642, in the year Galileo Gaililei dies, Tuscany's greatest scientist. His boss was Ferdinando II de' Medici , Grand Duke of Tuscany and basically the last Medici managing to show the old Medici virtues - patronage of the arts and sciences - united to basic government efficiency. Ferdinando is married to Vittoria della Rovere, a first cousin, and the same year Galileo dies, his son Cosimo (future Cosimo III) is born.

(If Friedrich and Wilhelm and any mixing thereof a fave Hohenzollern names and the Hannovers go for "George" and "Ernst August" and combinations thereof, the Medici go for: Cosimo, Lorenzo, Giuliano, Ferdinando, Francesco. Most are called variations of these names.)

Ferdinando comes across as a sympathetic guy in general. At age 20 he didn't lieave Florence when the plague struck again but remained and helped as much as he could. People didn't forget that. He also, which was increasingly rare in his age of religious strife, was not a bigot. Quote from the book:

An anecdote of his youth already denoted certain symptoms of the Grand Duke's easy , tolerant nature. On a cold winter's evening he was warming himself by a fire in his apartment, when his mother, the Archduchess Maria-Maddalena, paid him an impromptu visit. She told him with dismay that she had suddenly discovered the existence of a particular carnal abuse in Florence ; among people, more over, of distinct parts, power and social standing. In spite of whatsoever virtues they might possess, she was determined to have them all severely punished, and submitted a long list of offenders to his scrutiny.
When the Grand Duke had read it, he remarked that this information did not suffice. There were others of similar tendencies he could append to her list. And taking a quill, he added his name in capitals.
The Archduchess said he had done this merely to save the guilty, but that she would have them chastised all the same. The Grand Duke in quired to what punishment she chose to condemn them , and she replied with some vehemence: ‘They must be burned. ' So the Grand Duke, flinging the list into the fire, said : “ There they are, Madame, punished just as you have condemned them .'

Ferdinando wasn't kidding. One of the reasons why his marriage to his cousin Vittoria was miserable was that she caught him with a hot page, one Count Bruto della Molara. (Acton: "The Grand Duchess was naturally indignant when she surprised her husband and his page in the midst of forbidden dalliance, and promptly left the room without a word.")

Vittoria first tried to take her revenge by calling in Jesuits to denounce these specific sins from the pulpit. Whereupon the hot page, with Ferdinando's knowledge, managed to "compromise" at least one of the Jesuits. Exit Jesuits from Florence. Vittoria next ensured that her new baby, Cosimo, was raised exactly as the opposite of his father. Ferdinando loved art and sciences; Vittoria ensured Cosimo would only love religion and be as little taught in the sciences as she could get away with. And the religion was of the most fundamentalist type available at the time. Despite having a deeply miserable marriage, she and Ferdinando, eighteen years after Cosimo, managed to produce another living male child, Francesco Maria. Now Cosimo would turn into an ultra pious bigot. Francesco Maria would be a partying playboy who ate, drank and fucked his way to an early death. Give you three guesses which was was made a Cardinal of the Church. (Because second sons, hey.)

Cosimo was such a serious ultra pious kid and youth that he ceased to smile in public. He was with priests all the time. Ferdinando correctly concluded that this did not bode well for the future and that the boy had to get married quickly so he could procreate and maybe live a little. Also, of course, a shiny wife would bring useful connections and money. To that end, he procured for his son the younger daughter of Gaston d'Orleans, eternal biusy schemer. Uncle to Louis XIV. Said daughter, Marguerite-Louise, absolutely did NOT want to go and marry a future Medici Duke, but cousin Louis insisted. And young Cosimo quickly found out that his parents' marriage was paradise compared to his own. Marguerite Louise had one goal: she'd return to France. Never mind that noble Catholic marriages were supposed to be forever. She wanted to return to France with the same singlemindedness and fervor SD wanted to marry Fritz and Wilhelmine to their Hannover cousins. To that end, she proceded to insult and humiliate both Cosimo and the Medici in general as much as she could from the get go. She demanded the Tuscan crown jewels (used for her marriage and coronation as Duchess) for her personal use, and when Cosimo pointed out they didn't belong to him as a private person but to the state of Florence, she attempted to steal them and smuggle them out of Tuscany to sell them. (She was caught.) (BTW, the man Marguerite Louise had wanted to marry instead was, wait for it, Charles de Lorraine, Grandfather of Franz Stephan. He was her lover for a while, too.) She threatened to break a bottle on Cosimo's head if he didn't leave her alone. According to our Sophie of Hanover, who made her one and only long Italian trip with husband Ernst August around that time, she slept with her husband once a week to duty's sake, but that was that, neither of them couldl force themselves to do more. Louis XIV. sent a marriage counsellor in the form of a Poitevin lady, Madame Deffand, to whose reports we owe the knowledge that Marguerite Louise was also a passionate walker who exhausted both her Florentine and French attendants by long hiking tours.

Cosimo responded to this at first by reducing Marguerite Louise's French staff in the hope of forcing her to adjust, but fat chance. She came up with a new insult instead. Since Italians in general and the Medici in particular were all poisoners, clearly, she insisted on only eatiing what a French cook would prepare for her. Marguerite Louise then hit on a really good (for her) idea, which was telling Cosimo, by then the Duke, that since she hadn't wanted to marry him and had been forced to, clearly their marriage was null and void, which meant they were living in shameless unholy concubinage. Cue much self flagelation on Cosimo's part and ponderings whether she was right.

She did swear she was ready and willing to retire to a nunnery, as long as it was FRENCH nunnery. By then, he'd basically been reduced to keeping her in a genteel prison with guards prepared to stop her if she made a run for it. She pretended to have breast cancer, so she'd be sent back to France, but the (French) doctor sent by Cousin Louis said she was fine. Then she started public pillow fights with her cook and tickled him on her bed. Since somehow, in this years of hell, three children, two boys and one daughter, had been produced, Cosimo at last caved and allowed to return to France. (Without her children, of course.)

Re: Harold Acton: Last of the Medici I: How to make really bad marriages

[mildred_of_midgard]

ZOMG. This turnaround time is nothing short of amazing! Now I feel like I should send you a book every day. :P

Looks like this book was a good find, then!

Not a fan of Mussolini, thank God.

Makes a nice change from some of our 1930s authors and their opinions.

"the most interesting of Italian history? whatever did he think of all those Roman Republic and Roman Empire centuries?

Okay, so this is maybe where Germans do things differently than Anglophones. Because I, as an American who's studied history, would raise both eyebrows if you referred to the Roman Republic and Empire as part of "Italian history." And after reading the sentence a couple times, I'd say to myself, "Well, I guess you could call it that...technically..." and move on but be lowkey bothered for probably the rest of the chapter.

So I can almost guarantee you he's excluding Roman history, which precedes Italian history in my worldview and probably his. Without being a specialist and without claiming to speak for Italian historians, my sense of when "Italian" history begins is that Theodoric is fuzzy but probably Roman, and the Lombard invasion is about when I start thinking of the peninsula as "Italian".

As for the rest of it, well. Yes, you have excellent points. When did historians start to really push back on the "Dark Ages" vs. "Renaissance" model? He might be operating inside that framework.

And how is Florence more typical of the Renaissance than, say, Venice? Or Rome?

If by typical he means "most average", then I got nothing. If he means "stored in my, the author's, head as best embodying Renaissance principles," then I can see where he got that, speaking not so much historicaly as historiographically. Because when my high school class covered the Italian Renaissance very very superficially, the model we got was "Venice = trade, Florence = art/architecture/literature/humanism, Rome = Counter-Reformation." And that model probably came out of some school of thought that predated the 1990s.

(I'm currently biased by having studied the Florentine Renaissance due to absolutely falling in love with the city during a visit, and not having studied the others more than in passing. So most of the things I know are about Florence, which may or may not reflect its actual importance.)

Louis XVI: The only woman I ever had sex with in my entire life was my wife. After seven years of trying in vain. And no, I did not have sex with a man, either. You have to go back to the middle ages to find a French King with my fidelity among earlier dynasties.

Philip V: But I, first Bourbon king of Spain, and contemporary of most of these Medici Acton is writing about, was totally faithful to both my wives, no known mistresses or male favorites! If I got a reputation for being sexually dependent on them, well, remember that it's a tough life thinking you're dead or possibly a frog, and I needed moral support. Wife = nurse! I too take umbrage at being blamed for Medici decadence.

Now Cosimo would turn into an ultra pious bigot. Francesco Maria would be a partying playboy who ate, drank and fucked his way to an early death. Give you three guesses which was was made a Cardinal of the Church. (Because second sons, hey.)

LOL forever. So typical.

She wanted to return to France with the same singlemindedness and fervor SD wanted to marry Fritz and Wilhelmine to their Hannover cousins.

As soon as I read this, I sat up straight and knew nothing good was coming.

Wooooow. That poor woman. And good for her for keeping up the fight, I guess? But bad that that involved making everyone else miserable. That really sucks all around. TAKE NOTE, FW.

Marguerite Louise then hit on a really good (for her) idea, which was telling Cosimo, by then the Duke, that since she hadn't wanted to marry him and had been forced to, clearly their marriage was null and void, which meant they were living in shameless unholy concubinage. Cue much self flagelation on Cosimo's part and ponderings whether she was right.

That is a good idea! I'm just surprised it didn't come sooner.

This write-up definitely had all the gossipy sensationalism I was hoping for! Another gem from our royal reader!

Harold Acton: Last of the Medici 2: This is the end, my friend...

[selenak]

Now, independent from this once his father had died Cosimo had started the longest reign any Duke of Tuscany would ever have (52 years, all in all). And it was a terrible one on every level. Scientists and artists were either banished or so poorly paid they went on their own initiative. The economy became so poor that there was bartering on the streets instead of paying with coins. And bigotry ruled. Complete with old school religious antisemitism. Cosimo started to persecute Jews. He forbade Christian/Jewish marriages, forgave Christians and Jews to live in the same house together, forbade Jews to serve in Christian households and Christians to serve Jews. Any type of sexual intercourse between Christians and Jews was forbidden. Etc. And even the Christians were supposed to denounce each other for not being Christian enough if needed.

(There are, however, two examples of laws Cosimo created which our author does approve of. I quote from the book:

Youthful sinners were punished with corresponding severity: in some cases, however, one must applaud the method. Settimanni writes, in October, 1690 : 'A peasant boy between five and six years old, from the district of Pistoia, was castrated in the hospital of S. Maria Nuova, for killing a little girl of three with a stone. He had wanted to remove a medal that she wore about her neck, whence she began to scream , and he stoned her to the ground, striking her head in such wise that it killed her. Seeing that she was dead, he dragged her to a ditch , and covered her face with his clothes . For so much craftiness (malizia ) it was well judged that he should not be allowed offspring in this world, and therefore he was castrated .' Cruelty to animals was also punished in a manner we might emulate : a scoundrel was put in the pillory by the column in the market-place, with a collar and placard , ‘ for being a murderer of cats ' , and two of his dead victims were
appended on his neck .)


Meanwhile, Cosimo also kept up on news about his ex in France, via the Tuscan emissary, who sent regular reports on Marguerite Louise. Having achieved her life goal, Marguerite Louise was a bit at a loss at what do with herself. Technically, she did stay in a nunnery. De facto, she was at Versailles most often, gambling huge sums away (which lead to regular arguments for her pension via letter with Tuscany). She had an affair with her groom. (She also hit her servants when the mood struck her. Sex or beatings, it could be either.) She bathed in the nude. (When Cosimo complained about this to Louis via envoy, Louis basically reacted with a shrug.) When the Abbess of the convent where she was living, Montmartre, had died and a new Abbess was appointed, the new Abbess tried to lay down the law. Fat chance. Marguerite Louise threatened to kill her with a hatchet and a pistol. In the end, an agreement with Cosimo and Louis was reached that Marguerite Louise would move to a new convent (Sainte Mande).

For a while, Marguerite Louise had kept up correspondence with her oldest son, Ferdinando when he'd become a rebellious teen writing her letters, and once when Cosimo became ill she told everyone at Versailles it wasn't Tuscany she'd hated, only her husband, and immediately after his death she would "she would fly to Florence to banish all hypocrites and hypocrisy and establish a new government". In the end, Cosimo outlived her, but Marguerite Louise never stopped surprising people till her end. Having moved to Sainte-Mande, she declared it a "spiritual brothel" in need of reform, and she had a point; there were five or six nuns with illegitimate kids and several lovers, and the Abess was present only some months in the year and with her lover otherwise. Marguerite Louise threw herself into her last transformation into a sincere reformer, overhauled the convent, kicked out the Abess and the wayward nuns and next threw herself into charity. She had two strokes which partially incapacitated her, and by then, Louis was dead and Philippe d'Orleans Regent. In another surprising turn of events, the aging Marguerite Louise had become pals with his mother, Liselotte, and so Philippe allowed her to buy a house in Paris and live out her live there, which she did.

As for her children. The oldest, Ferdinando, had some of the good Medici gifts of old - he was a musician and composer, and openly bisexual (this included an affair with a castrato and with a hot musician, but he also had female lovers). Cosimo, despite all evidence to the contrary thinking marriage was just the thing, and argueing with this rebellious son all the time, much like FW insisted him marrying. A very nice girl, as it happened, Violante of Bavaria, who was devoted him. Alas, Ferdinando found her dull and didn't requite her feelings. (Stop me if this sounds familiar.) During his regular trips to Venice, he managed to get infected with syphilis, and not the type to stop at stage 2. He died of it, eventually.

This made brother Gian Gastone the heir, though Dad Cosimo also tried to heighten his chances by making his own younger brother, the frolicking playboy Cardinal (remember him) leave the clergy and marry. His brother did that, and promptly died. Gian Gastone (named after his scheming French grandfather Gaston d'Orleans) had been married at Dad Cosimo's orders in Ferdinando's life time already since it was evidence that tertiary syphilis suffering Ferdinando would never rule. (And had no children by Violante.) With an unerring instinct, Cosimo's wife of choice for Gian Gastone was.... Anna Maria Franziska of Saxe-Lauenburg, in Bohemia. She'd already been married and widowed. This may have given her the self confidence to do absolutely NOT what either her husband or his father wanted. Gian Gastone had travelled to Osnabrück to marry her there and had expected to return with her to Tuscany forthwith. Instead, she insisted they'd go to her estate in Bohemia. He hated it there and found it deadly borin. She was a passionate horsewoman and into agriculture, and they shared absolutely nothing. He attempted to flee to Paris; Dad ordered him back. He also ordered Franziska to come to Tuscany, but fat chance. She stayed where she was, and where she made the rules and had the power. Gian Gastone started to drink, massively, and became an alcoholic who was rarely seen sober for the rest of his life. He also gambled away huge sums of money in Prague. Cosimo enlisted the help of the Pope to order his daughter in law to come to Tuscany with her husband, but she only said there was no point, since Gian Gastone was impotent in addition to being a useless gambling drunk. At which point Cosimo III. caved and allowd Gian Gastone to come home alone.

By now, it was glaringly obvious to Cosimo that he had a succession problem. One son dying of syphilis, the other impotent according to his wife, drinking himself to death and staring up to the stars (he did that, it was a thing). He tried to petition that his daughter, who'd been married to the Elector Palatine, would be allowed to succeed. But alas.

Charles VI, HRE: Cosimo, my friend, let me point out two things for you. Firstly, the Palatinate is a principality within the HRE, which means I'm your daughter's husband's boss, and I decide about any additional title any of my Electors get. Secondly, and as importantaly, do you remember why Tuscany is a duchy now? Which it sure as hell was not in the days of Lorenzo the Magnificent? Because my ancestor Charles V. took the quondam Republic of Florence and made it into the Duchy of Tuscany, appointing your ancestor its Duke. You know, when his troops were in Italy and Rome got sacked and the Florentines debated either letting child!Catherine de' Medici be raped by the troops or put her out in a cage in front of the city walls so Charles' canons would hit her. Those days. Anyway, since your ancestor from the younger Medici line accepted Tuscany as a Duchy from the hands of the Holy Roman Emperor, it means any Duke of Tuscany is the vassal of the HRE and if your dynasty is about to die out, well, I've got an idea...

Cosimo: I hate you. How about I pick Don Carlos, son of Elisabetta Farnese, Queen of Spain and of Philip V. instead?
Charles VI (having spent years of his life fighting Philip V.) : I don't think so.

Cosimo dies. Gian Gastone ascends, the literal last of the Medici, save for his sister. He's so drunk all the time that he throws up out of his chaise when carried through Florence, so he rarely is. At meals he's not better - vomiting into his napkin, wiping his mouth with his periwig. But: he immediately gets rid of the anti-Jewish and anti-Protestant laws his father had made, threw out corrupt churchmen from the government, and revoked the banishment of "new" (i.e. Galilelean) ideas from the university of Pisa. He also separated Medici property from state property, being aware that despite his efforts, neither his sister nor Don Carlos would succeed him, and this way his sister could at least inherit the family posessions. Amazingly given thie condition he already was in by the time he took over, he managed a reign of 13 years before his alcoholilsm at last killed him. Because of his reforms, he was sincerely mourned. But the story of the Medici was over for good.

Re: Harold Acton: Last of the Medici 2: This is the end, my friend...

[mildred_of_midgard]

Scientists and artists were either banished or so poorly paid they went on their own initiative. The economy became so poor that there was bartering on the streets instead of paying with coins. And bigotry ruled.

Man, I can see where all the anti-Italy diatribes came from. I know when Algarotti's bitching about Florence (1733), Cosimo's dead and Duke Gian Gastone is drinking himself to death ruling, so conditions may have improved, but I can see where you'd still be making comparisons.

She bathed in the nude. (When Cosimo complained about this to Louis via envoy, Louis basically reacted with a shrug.)

Ha!

the new Abbess tried to lay down the law. Fat chance. Marguerite Louise threatened to kill her with a hatchet and a pistol. In the end, an agreement with Cosimo and Louis was reached that Marguerite Louise would move to a new convent (Sainte Mande).

Good god, this book was not boring, was it!

Alas, Ferdinando found her dull and didn't requite her feelings. (Stop me if this sounds familiar.)

Wow, it's almost like bad ideas are bad!

During his regular trips to Venice, he managed to get infected with syphilis, and not the type to stop at stage 2. He died of it, eventually.

This also sounds sadly familiar.

drinking himself to death and staring up to the stars (he did that, it was a thing)

This whole write-up was full of gems.

At meals he's not better - vomiting into his napkin, wiping his mouth with his periwig.

Yeah, I saw this on Wikipedia when I was tracking down this book for you. I figured it meant a book on the last of the Medici might at least not be dull as dirt.

But: he immediately gets rid of the anti-Jewish and anti-Protestant laws his father had made, threw out corrupt churchmen from the government, and revoked the banishment of "new" (i.e. Galilelean) ideas from the university of Pisa. He also separated Medici property from state property, being aware that despite his efforts, neither his sister nor Don Carlos would succeed him, and this way his sister could at least inherit the family posessions. Amazingly given thie condition he already was in by the time he took over, he managed a reign of 13 years before his alcoholilsm at last killed him. Because of his reforms, he was sincerely mourned.

Wow. Definitely a mixed bag.

I didn't know anything about the Medici in this period before this week except that they died out and FS and Don Carlos had claims, so this was definitely instructive and...entertaining, in a train-wrecky sort of way. Thanks for filling in another gap for us, O Royal Reader!

Starting to catch up from last post

[cahn]

It turns out I do have a small breather where all my available brainpower isn't going to work or church deadlines (or kidstuff) to do salon, yay! (In a couple of days, will have to go back underground for a week or so, but I'm hoping to get at least somewhat caught up before then :) )

On Tales from Hollywood: I will definitely check it out if I am ever able (Amazon Prime, just to taunt me, has it in its lineup but then tells me it's not available... maybe it's available to non-USians?), those excerpts were so great.

When she killed herself, Thomas and Katia were unmistakably relieved

*sigh*

but Thomas' son Klaus wrote Heinrich a truly touching condolence letter which I've held in my hands when I researched Heinrich at USC which has part of his papers.

That is a lovely condolence letter <3 :(

On Margaret of Austria: She is awesome!

Margaret: composes her epitath just in case: "Here lies Margaret, the willing bride,
Twice married - but a virgin when she died."

Heh, you go Margaret!

Margaret: *is so successful as governor of the Netherlands that Charles, once he's grown up, reappoints her indefinitely until her death*

Margaret: *also starts to become first her father's and then her nephew's chief representative in tricky negotiations; she ends up being called the greatest diplomat of her era*

This is AWESOME!

Re: Starting to catch up from last post

[selenak]

Tales from Hollywood: well, I don't know about other parts of the world, but Amazon Prime Germany doesn't have it!

Margaret of Austria: have another vid about her! (Using, again, footage from four sources - "Maximilian" (child Margaret), "Isabel" and "La Corona Partida" (adult young Margaret) and "Carlos Rey Emperador" (Middleaged Regent Margaret - but it really works amazingly well). Once Isabella of Castile was dead, she was arguably the most powerful woman in Europe. Incidentally, in one of her negotiations, her opposite number was the other claimant of that title, Louises de Savoye, who was the mother of Francis I. and his representative and chief negotiator, as Margaret was that of her nephew Charles, which is why this particular treaty became known as the Paix des Dames.

While the odds were against women in general in the Renaissancce as well as in most other eras, there were really some great examples who were able to use their considerable abilities really well.

Incidentally, this is something to keep in mind when getting this argument:

Henry VIII: Dear first wife Catherine, I know we have a living daughter, but really, you have to admit that this is not enough. I need a male heir. Women can't do politics and rule kingdoms.

Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Isabella of Castile, sister-in-law to Margaret of Austria, aunt to Mary of Hungary (who ruled the Netherlands after Margaret): Say again?

Catching up: Philip V, Rottembourg

[cahn]

Finally, on June 28, he sneaks some paper while Isabella's in another room for a minute, writes out his abdication, and has his most trusted servant smuggle it into the council. The council session is discussing it when Isabella's messenger arrives, confiscates the piece of paper, and destroys it.

Wow. Just wow.

* Urinating and defecating in bed.
* Believing he's a frog (July). (Rottembourg's replacement as ambassador arrived in June. Man, I don't envy him.)
* Believing that he's dead.

Holy cow. The frog thing is still just something else --

Nope, I'm staring at the page again, and it does say: "At one time in July he believed that he was a frog."

Right?? I'm like, did mildred actually say that? Yup, there it is on the page.

His only entertainment is fishing...in his garden...at night...from a bowl that his attendants have placed fish in.

I just...

Upon arriving, Rottembourg describes the situation as "incomprehensible"

I am with you, dude.

This is the kind of thing that could make you miss FW forcing you to get drunk!

...yeah.

He writes, 'my achievement is that I am considered not as mere Farinelli, but as ambassador Farinelli.'

This is quite cool! (Thank you for including Farinelli and thank you selenak for asking for me!)

Re: Catching up: Philip V, Rottembourg

[selenak]

The movie "Farinelli", btw, is up at Amazon Prime Germany and available. Maybe also in the US?

This is the kind of thing that could make you miss FW forcing you to get drunk!

...yeah.

Morgenstern, all three of us are sorry for doubting you. Clearly, my next poll should be "where do you want to be stationed as an envoy in 18th century Europe?"

still catching up

[cahn]

On Des Champs and Fredersdorf: Okay, just to say that Des Champs is hilarious!

But also: Fredersdorf, since this is what I really care about :)

d) Fritz kept Des Champs in service because he was cheap, see above, but saw no reason why he should pay someone who was a proven spy good money, so told Fredersdorf not to pay him more than the mere minimum. Fredersdorf did so, leaving Des Champs to conclude that Fredersdorf kept the rest of the money to himself.

Obviously I am 1) super duper biased in Fredersdorf's favor, and 2) inclined in all cases to choose the hypothesis that amuses me the most, so I think you guys are not surprised that I have chosen (d) :D (But also it amuses me so much because that would be so in character for Fritz! And Fredersdorf, lol.)

Aw. Considering you and [personal profile] cahn wrote the ultimate first-meeting-in-Küstrin story for me, maybe I should write the first-meeting-in-Frankfurt story?

Um, YEAH. :D

I consider him an honorary salon member, though I carefully call it "reading group" when talking to him and definitely don't say it's on Dreamwidth. ;)

I gotta say this is super awesome, I love our honorary salon members :D

On Vienna Joe:

This book quotes not only the letter but the follow up letter one and a half months later where Joseph tells Leopold that yay, the talk helped, pregnancy achieved, they figured it out! It really was just laziness and lack of imagination and knowledge, not a physical impediment, told you.

Heh, nice! I think the only thing better than sensational gossip is finding out better-sourced sensational gossip :D

The two non-Joseph male members of the club, Lacy and Orsini-Rosenberg

ahahaha, I know about Orsini-Rosenberg from, of course, Amadeus

She handled it brilliantly... So she did go for "friendship yes, love no", and made sure she wasn't alone with him ever in this initial phase. From this, the circle of five - plus two of his male friends - developed. His infatuation passed, but the friendship didn't

This is really cool, and like you say brilliant.

and when one of the ladies (not Eleonore) had lost two children in short order he was a true comfort (remember, he had lost his only daughter and been heartbroken over it, so she knew he knew whereof he spoke).

:( <3

On Family Letters:

Sophie: Look. Eugene isn't a handsome man, but he's a wonderful example of how one can be a military hero AND a man of culture and of MANNERS. It might be INSTRUCTIVE to observe that close up. I'm just saying.

Heeeeee! ...sadly, this appears not to have worked as well as she was hoping...

On the more touching side again, in the letter where he announces his third marriage to Sophie, he swears it won't make a difference to FW and SD because he'll never, ever allow anyone no matter their standing to mistreat his children, he knows what a stepmother is and Sophie knows he knows, and the new wife won't be a stepmother, she'll be a mother.

Okay, that's really great <3

The King has now repeatedly talked to me about marrying me off, but most recently he has promised me that he would give me another year for this and would not force me to take a woman whom I don't love (...).

(Obvious irony in terms of events a few decades later is obvious.)

*blinks* That's just... wow.

As for me, I can only repeat that I do feel glad to possess her and with with all my heart that God may keep us this happy for all our life... SD, on the other had, reports to Grandma that she has the impression she ended up in fairy tale palaces, and loves every bit of it. This is so how she wanted her life to be! And everyone is lovely and kind. Bliss!

Argh. I suppose there's a reason why the honeymoon phase is a thing in the abuse cycle. But also... I guess it's sort of like FW being nice to AW, right? When everything's going right and everyone's happy and there aren't any disagreements, I imagine FW is probably... mostly... fine to be around. It's just that life (and other people) don't work in such a way that everything always goes right and there aren't any disagreements and sometimes it turns out your kid actually likes to play the flute

I don't know through which misfortune I've become a topic of conversation in France

it's the tall guys, FW (no, I know the further context of the letter makes that unlikely, but I couldn't resist)

Re: still catching up

[selenak]

LOL. I'm sure a few years later, it would have been the tall guys! But as long as F1 was still alive, I don't think he already kidnapped people.

Heeeeee! ...sadly, this appears not to have worked as well as she was hoping...

Alas. I mean, in theory, it was a great idea and btw also shows Sophie must have had a pretty progressive pedagogic concept if her solution of how to deal with what she knows of grandson's troublesome sides (and I bet she hadn't heard the worst stories, but undoubtedly enough for her to be worried somewhat) isn't to lay down the law and tell him he's rubbish, but to use his enthusiasms and present him with someone he can admire who could be a good role model in his behavior. It sure as hell is a very different approach to how FW would handle what were to him Fritz' "troublesome tendencies". As to why it didn't work as intended - hmmm. Not sure how much FW actually saw of Eugene during his time with the Allied forces at Malplaquet. He was in Marlborough's command, wasn't he? And of course, the days before and after this most gruesome battle weren't occasions where Eugene could display manners, love of culture and the ability not to lose his temper at underlings.

I do find it interesting that FW swears to Sophie he doesn't kick or beat people because he knows how a prince ought to behave. I mean, obviously he's lying, but it ties with the fact he bribed and cajoled his governor into not telling his parents that FW had thrown him down the stairs. He was 15 then and is now just a few years older, but Sophie technically has no authority over him, unlike his parents. Also she's a woman. But clearly she has emotional authority over him, he does want her good opinion, and he's aware that physical brutality towards underlings would not be something she'd tolerate. That's another reason why the young FW letters feel so different from the ones we know later - once Sophie and his father are dead, he does not write to people who have either political or emotional authority over him anymore. He's the highest authority. At best, he writes to people he sees as equals, i.e. fellow monarchs. But it's a very different mental and emotional set up.

On to Austria.

In the audio commentary to Amadeus, Peter Shaffer says that "Franz Xavier Orsini-Rosenberg" is the most Austro-Hungarian kuk monarchy type of name imaginable, and I see his point. :) Though the real man was far less of an humorless control freak than the one in the play. (One of the main things Amadeus turns on its head re: the supporting cast is that Joseph didn't need Salieri or Orsini-Rosenberg to form his musical opinions. Like Fritz, he was more the know-it-all type all too ready to offer his own opinions. Or, as the author of the "Charmed Circle" book puts it: Throughout the late 1770s and the 1780s Rosenberg acted as the empror's chief advisor and manager for court theatrical productions, but Joseph's own active interest in theatrical activities robbed hte post of independent authority. To the emperor, Rosenberg was a trusted servitor rather than a mentor and advisor, as Lacy (the other male member of the circle) was. Chamberlain Khevenhüller noted that Rosenberg's jovial humor made his company attractive to his sovereign.

Lady Mary Coke, meeting him in Vienna in 1773, had this to say: He is one of the most Amiable sensible Men I never knew: amon gother talents has that of languages beyond anybody, and has as much knowledge of English as I have: the accent is the only thing that wou'd make you know him for a foreigner. The good English came to be because Orsini-Rosenberg had started his career at age 19 as secretary of the Hungarian ambasssador in London in 1742. (Meaning: MT's ambassador. Remember, Queen of Hungary in 1742, and FS was not yet Emperor, Wittelsbach Charles was.) MT trusted him considerably. During the Seven Years War, he was ambassador in Madrid, and then she made him minister and advisor to son Leopold in Tuscany from 1766 to 1770. Since Leopold's reign in Tuscany is one of the most successful ones by a Habsburg in that century, he probably was good at his job, and all that international knowledge and experience was one reason why Joseph befriended him once Orsini-Rosenberg was back in Vienna.

Here's the final letter Joseph wrote literally on the evening of his death (it's dated February 19th 1790, and Joseph died in the early morning hours of February 20th), adressed to "Five ladies joined together in society who tolerated me": Mesdames, it is time, my end approaches, to acknowledge to you once more here through these lines all my appreciation and gratitude for the kindness, patience, and friendship, and even flattering concern which you have been good enough to show me and to bestow on me during the many years that we have been together in society. I miss each of those days, not once were there too many for me, and never to see you again is the only meritorious sacrifice that I make in leaving thi sworld, be so good as to remember me in your prayers, I cannot be sufficiently grateful for the grace and infinite mercy of providence to me, in complete accord therewith I await my hour, farewell then, you will be unable to read this scribbling, the handwriting attests to my condition.

Eleaonore Liechtenstein, who had often been very critical about Joseph (especially since she didn't agree with most of his reforms, also because she and Joseph were the two most hot tempered members of the group) wrote to her sister Leopoldine Kaunitz (another of the five ladies, and daughter-in-law to Kaunitz the key minister): We were often infuriated by him, but how much verve, life, enthusiasm and love for justice did he awaken in all of us!

Latest book discoveries

[mildred_of_midgard]

I can't find a copy of The Age of Liberty: Sweden 1719-1772 for less than $40, but, Stabi not only has it, they have it available for reading online if you have a card. I don't know if it's any good, but it's recent-ish (1986, reprinted or second edition in 2009?), and it's our period.

I have managed to order, for a more reasonable price, a book called Seize the Book, Jail the Author: Johann Lorenz Schmidt and Censorship in Eighteenth Century Germany. Schmidt was a theologian who published a new translation of the Pentateuch, which was considered sacrilegious on two grounds: 1) it claimed to supersede Luther! 2) it followed the Hebrew literally, without interposing millennia of Christian interpretation on the words. (From what little I read of Genesis in Hebrew before burning out on my old method of language study, I can tell you there is a significant difference between what it actually says and the traditional translations, aka what you probably think it says.) And you can see how that led to Schmidt getting included in a book that's about censorship.

Will let you know when the book arrives. I ran across it while looking up Wolff, and the Google excerpts looked interesting.

Re: Latest book discoveries

[selenak]

I don't think I'll be able to read anything for salon in the next two weeks, due to Darth Real Life, but I'll try afterwards.

Whitworth destroys a factory

[mildred_of_midgard]

So then there was the time Whitworth destroyed a factory in Russia.

Why? Well, we need a little backstory for that.

At the end of the seventeenth century, Peter the Great had not yet turned things around for Russia. It was still seen as very much on the fringes of Europe, and barbarous. This means England saw it primarily in economic rather than political terms. So now let's talk about the economic relationship between Russia and England.

Imports: England gets the raw materials for its navy from Russian ports. Timber for their ships, hemp for their ropes, tar for sealing the boats. This is all pretty indispensable.

Exports: Historically England has imported woolen goods into Russia, but that hasn't been enough to offset the trade imbalance. Then, in 1697, Peter, now sole ruler of Russia, lifts the ban on the sale of tobacco in Russia. The English, with their massive slave-manned tobacco plantations in the colonies, see a major opportunity here.

Two problems: infighting among the English as to who gets to capitalize on this, and Russians smuggling tobacco in from places like Crimea, despite the English monopoly. (I have way simplified the details for you that the author did not simplify for me, you're welcome. ;))

The English decide to send an envoy to solve this problem. Note that the Russians are kind of annoyed at not being taken seriously politically, and the envoy--Whitworth--is annoyed that he's being treated as effectively a tobacco agent, when he wanted to do real diplomacy. He had opinions about how the ministers back home were dramatically underestimating the Russian problem, and would hold that opinion throughout his career.

After Poltava, when the Russians hand a decisive defeat to the Swedish superpower and put a definite cramp in the style of Charles XII's meteoric military career, England starts taking Russia more seriously. But right now, it's 1705, and all anyone cares about is selling tobacco in Russia.

In particular, right now, there are two Englishmen in Russia who are running a factory for processing tobacco. Their competitors, who have a contract to supply Russia with tobacco, are very much afraid that the locals will learn how to process tobacco, and then will be able to rely on tobacco smuggled from Crimea instead of buying it from England.

So Whitworth gets an order from the ministers in England to destroy all the equipment in the factory.

The clock is ticking, because Peter is about to head off to war, and Whitworth is going to have to follow him. So moving quickly, he maneuvers to get the two Englishmen sent away on some errand so that they'll be out of town when he does the dirty deed, and then he invades the factory by night. To quote from his dispatch:

We spent the best part of the night in destroying the severall instruments and materials, some whereof were so strong, that they oblidg’d us to make a great noise in pulling them to pieces. There were 11. barrils about a quarter full of the Tobacco-liquor in the severall degrees of preparation, which I caus’d to be let out, and destroy’d five parcells of ingredients, which are used in the Composition … I likewise broke the great spinning wheel, and above three score reels for rowling; I then destroy’d three Engines ready set up for cutting Tobacco … several large Engines for pressing the Tobacco into form have been pulled to pieces, their screws split, the wooden moles broke, the coper carried away, and about 20 fine sieves cut to pices, nor is the least thing left standing, except some great plain wooden presses, wherein they put the Tobacco after it is rolled and wetted … and some ordinary wooden tables and the very next day my servants burnt all the remains of the wood, which wee had broke, and my Smith is now working in my house on the rest of the Iron- and Coper-machines…

Comments the author: Such were the duties required of a diplomat to Russia at the beginning of the eighteenth century in order to serve the national interest.

So Whitworth's all happy. Mission accomplished.

Then, he gets another letter from London. (Remember, the mail takes weeks between London and St. Petersburg.) "Dear Whitworth, FYI, the debate about what to do about the tobacco situation is still ongoing at home. Please hold off on the destroying any factories till we reach an agreement. Cheers, your ministers."

Whitworth goes BALLISTIC. He is now not only terrified that he's made powerful enemies, he's convinced that he was set up to take the fall. He complains to a friend:

'It looks as if these orders had been given, in hopes I would not execute them, that then the blame of all might lye at my door'.

Comments the author: His suspicions were probably not unjustified. The various tobacco groups represented important business and political interests and it was not unreasonable to suppose that the government would be quite happy to let an inexperienced diplomat take the blame whilst distancing themselves from his actions.

Damage control ensues. He has to convince the tobacco contractors that he was just following orders, and that he put off following them as long as he could at his own risk, and that his own personal opinion was that this was a bad idea. He has to convince Peter the Great that this isn't a hostile act from England, and definitely doesn't mean England is withdrawing all specialists in all fields from Russia. He has to bribe a bunch of Russian ministers to make this all blow over.

Meanwhile, Peter is busy prosecuting a war and constantly disappearing on campaign, and Whitworth has to periodically go with him. At one point, he's nagging Peter in person about finally coming to an agreement about the tobacco trade, after years of not getting anywhere, and Peter responds in annoyance that God had given him 'twenty times more business than other people, but not twenty times the force and capacity to go through with it.'

Meanwhile, Whitworth is annoyed because no one back home is taking him seriously when he reports Russia is an actual threat and not just a tobacco market. Even in matters of trade, he thinks that the English are too concerned with short-term profits and not with long-term advantages of establishing solid relations with Russia.

Whitworth spends most of his career annoyed with the ministers back home as well as the people he has to negotiate with, as far as I can tell.

Some addenda:

Mercantilism
Why do the English care so much about importing tobacco to Russia? Well, in the age of mercantilism, a country's economic success was measured by the amount its exports outstripped its imports. England needed its navy, the raw goods came from Russia, and so imports at the end of the seventeenth century. It exported woolen goods (lots of sheep in Britain), but these were luxury goods in Russia, and the market wasn't strong. So when the potential for a tobacco market opened in 1697, the English were interested enough to send an envoy just to work out the details.

Timber
I thought this bit was interesting, on why the Russian imports were so important:

It was generally accepted that the best timber for masts came from the port of Riga, which were transported there from Livonia and Russia (the firs which grew in climates with short hot summers and long cold winters retained more resin and were therefore more flexible than Scottish pines which grew more quickly).

Book review
The book was very informative, somewhat dry, but definitely not the driest book ever. Reading between the lines, I imagine the author thinking, "Whitworth left a voluminous correspondence with ministers and fellow diplomats. Publishing that would be prohibitively difficult. So instead I'm going to publish as much as I possibly can in this volume."

The book is filled with sizable passages in 18th century spelling, and a large proportion of sentences has phrases or even just individual words in quotation marks, to show they were taken from the primary sources. Sometimes this practice reaches near absurd levels, e.g.:

The tobacco contractors, for their part, also had little choice but to express their 'surprise' at Whitworth’s actions but dismissing the incident as something in the 'past' and trusting that he would continue to serve their interests.

I question the value of the quotes there, especially 'past'. I feel like putting the main text in the author's words, with occasional block quotes from the primary sources, would have made the text more readable, compared to having the reader's eye constantly snag on random occurrences of "ye" (for "the") and "alleadged" and "Maty[Majesty's]". I'm all for primary sources, but writing 'past' instead of past reduces readability without giving me the benefit of confidence that the author didn't omit important context.

The book is definitely not bringing the gossipy sensationalism. The only things Whitworth ever really wrote about were work and his money woes. His marriage correspondence went like this: "Btw, I met a woman; she has a good nature, good sense, and some money. I'm definitely not marrying her for her looks, as you can judge when you meet her. I'm getting the wedding over with without ceremony or guests, so I can get back to work pronto." That's Whitworth for you.

Says the author:

In June 1721, he informed [a friend] of his wife's illness which 'goes very near to me' which is almost the closest he came to an expression of affection in writing.

So between that, the sheer amount of detail about things like the exact number of barrels of tar in individual contracts, and the lack of gossipy sensationalism, there will probably not be more write-ups forthcoming from me about this book any time soon. But it was definitely worth reading and will be valuable as a reference work. Especially as I pursue the Great Northern War more.

Many thanks to cahn for the book bribe that helped bring this down to an affordable price for me!

Re: Whitworth destroys a factory

[selenak]

You know, all of this combined with the fact I just finished l listening to a BBC radio dramatisation of all Smiley novels makes me imagine Whitworth as a John le Carré character who has to deal with Moscow St. Petersburg Central...

I can also see the groundworks being laid for the much later big British/Russian bust-up in the Crimea. Also I agree with you on the "past" ridiculousness. But in general, this sounds like an interesting look at yet another aspect of the era, and Whitworth could certainly hold his own among the other envoys of the 18th century in terms of will power and much put upon-ness.

The Charmed Circle

[selenak]

A few notes on the Five Princesses, since I have to return my books. It's, alas, still not a proper write up, not least because this book and Der Kaiser Reist Incognito are structured thematically, not always linearly. But a few morsels.

Firstly, who were the five Princesses? Four of the five were related, all were Austrian aristocracy. Since all of them, being Austrian Catholics, had "Maria" in their names, and their titles were lengthy, biographers tend to simplify our lives by referring to them by another Christian name and the name of the family they married into. This still means a doubling of first names in one case! Reality is just badly written this way. Anyway, they were:

Josepha Clary: The oldest one, already in her midthirties when Joseph became Emperor after his father's death in 1765. The peacemaker of the group, praised by both locals and foreign visitors for her friendly disposition and kindness. Josepha Clary's company, Leopoldine (Kaunitz) told her sister Eleonore Liechtenstein, was like "a sweet perfume that completely envelopes you. (...) She inspires respect and trust.

Sidonia Kinsky: her one years younger sister, the other senior member. Small (as noted by Zinzendorf), according to Lady Mary Coke "the most pleasing figure without being a regular beauty that I ever saw; & her manner extremely agreeable". Prussian envoy Fürst thinks Kaunitz the famous chancellor was romantically interested in Sidonia, but got rebuffed. A great reader and concert lover.

Both sisters were born Hohenzollern-Hechingen; this Swabian line of Hohenzollerns split from the Brandenburg line in the middle ages and remained Catholic.

Leopoldine Liechtenstein: born a Sternberg, married at 16 and thus already a society matron when Joseph becomes Emperor. The only one of the group with out a blood relationship with the other members. Also flirted with Kaunitz the Chancellor a bit without getting serious. More imperious in temper than the older sisters and more serious in manner, but basically kind. Married to a nephew of Wenzel von Liechtenstein the Antinous owner, who after the death of his uncle becomes the next family head.

Leopoldine Kaunitz: married to a son of Kaunitz the chancellor. Has charm when animated, but isn't pretty, as noted by all observers. Otoh, well educated, sharply intelligent, can be relied on for the occasional bon mot and terse comment. Her husband was Austrian envoy in Naples when Sir William Hamilton was English envoy there, MT's daughter had married the King and Vienna Joe was visiting, which is why we have Leopoldine Kaunitz' letters on these events, too. Letters directed at her sister, who was:

Eleonore Liechtenstein: the youngest of the group, in her 20s when the group forms. Married to another nephew of Wenzel von Liechtenstein, Charles. Eleonore is praised as beautiful, dignified and intelligent but more modest about it than her sister (read: she knows how to play it down); Charles Greville, nephew of Sir William Hamilton and ex-lover of Emma whom he has handed over to his uncle, meets her when travelling through Vienna and notes frustratedly she's very devout and won't give him the time of the day. Her being very religious will cause many a clash with ViennaJoe, who starts the group by falling in love with her. Eleonore is also more thin skinned and more easily insulted than the others, yet another reason why she and Joseph would have been a terrible romantic couple, but she's absolutely loyal as a friend (and no matter how fiercely she critisizes Joseph, which is VERY fierce, she will not allow anyone not a member of the group to do so.).

Both sisters were born Öttingen-Spielberg, which means they actually hail from the Bavarian part of the HRE.

Male members other than ViennaJoe: Orsini-Rosenberg, about whom I've already written, and Count Moritz Lacy, who started out as a protegé of Wenzel von Liechtenstein, was a military man and a workhorse able to power through 14 hours a day of work, thus impressing first MT and then Joseph. (Who wasn't aware that Lacy was still corresponding with MT when being his friend, otherwise the friendship might have been not as intimate, as Joseph was very much in his rebelling against Mom phase.) Grave, discreet, good looking, gives nothing away of what he's thinking. At his best in intimate gatherings (like the ones of the circle) when he can relax, not in larger parties where comes across as aloof. Lacy's friendship with Joseph will go through a big crisis when the two military disasters - first the Bavarian War and then the Turkish-Russian one - demonstrate what happens if you adopt Fritz as your role model but don't have the same military talent to go with it. Lacy loses faith in Joseph as a commander-in-chief then and doesn't recover it. But he's present when Joseph dies, holding his hand, and had already been present to console Joseph when Joseph's only daughter died.

Both Orsini-Rosenberg and Lacy are bachelors. The Ladies are all married, but none of the husbands is ever allowed to attend the meetings. Joseph doesn't dislike them exactly, he just has no interest in them.

Population of Vienna: in 1764, a year after the 7 Years War ended, 155 3000. By 1783, more than 202 700. The second largest city under direct Habsburg control is Prague with 72 824 residents in 1784. Vienna has night time illuminations with 3446 oil lamps burning from dusk til 1:00 am in the streets as of the 1770s.

Eleonore Liechtenstein's husband Charles, who was way older than her, didn't object to her relationship with the Emperor the way he had to her with dashing Irishman O'Donnell, but he did have an affair of his own, with, wait for it, none other than MT's favourite daughter Maria Christina, aka Mimi, aka Isabella's only love. I must say this surprised me because it happened when Maria Christina had already been married to her husband Prince Albert, with whom she supposedly had a happy relationship, having been the only one of MT's children allowed to marry for love. This happened when Albert was serving as governor in Pressburg (Hungary), and Charles Liechtenstein was stationed there while Eleonore remained in Vienna. How do we know? Because Eleonore and her sister Leopoldine Kaunitz refer to this affair in their letters; said letters, which are mostly preserved, are the most important source for the entire circle. (The letters of other members also exist, but not in the same quantity.) Anyway, Eleonore wasn't a fan of Mimi but years and years later when Joseph was already dead and Leopold bit the dust, too, Mimi was the sole one of MT's children still left in Vienna and Eleonore found herself warming up to her for this reason, and they became amiable in their old age.

Description of ViennaJoe by English traveller Swinburne from the 1770s: His manners are easy, his conversation lively, voluble and entertaining; running rapidly from one subject to another, and displaying frequently a vast variety of knowledge. Perhaps he minifests too great a consciousness of possessing extensive information; and he may be repreached likewise with frequently anticipating the answers of the personsn with whom he converses. A mixture of vanity and impetuoasity conduce to this defect. (...) His accent is rather harsh and nasal. His French is very good, except for a few Germanisms.

Partition of Poland: According to the Prince de Ligne (writer of Prince Eugene memoirs, was present at Neisse), this exchange between Joseph and his ladies happened:

During a gathering of the Dames with the emperor that occured soon after the Polish partitions when the conversation turned upon the recent hanging of a thief, one of the women had remarked, "How was it possible for Your Majesty to condemn him after having stolen Poland?"
The emperor had responded that his mother the empress, who was respected by the Dames and attended mass fully as often as they did, had bene perfectly willing to take her share of Poland; "I am merely the first of her subjects."

The author thinks Ligne isn't above stretching the truth for the sake of an anecdote, but otoh it could have happened, and also illustrates that Joseph was fibbing when telling brother Leopold that he doesn't discuss politics with his ladies.

That despite emotional ups and downs this circle of friends, having established itself in the early 1770s, remained until Joseph's death in 1790s, as opposed to some members leaving or being exchanged for new favourites (as is common with other monarchs) the author thinks is connected to Joseph's emotional disposition, and the fact his know-it-all-ness, verbal sharpness, ramming down reforms people's throats and lacking the charm with MT - who had her own faults - had and used with people ensured that he was increasingly isolated from people willing to be friends, not sycophants, and/or whom he was able to trust. But these five ladies and two men remained.

Re: The Charmed Circle

[mildred_of_midgard]

Thank you for this! I still have the sample on my Kindle, and might get to it someday, after I finish Acton, the book and 2 dissertations on British diplomacy 1709-1731, and Czernin. Hope springs eternal!

The author thinks Ligne isn't above stretching the truth for the sake of an anecdote

Well, definitely not when writing first-person fanfic! ;)

the fact his know-it-all-ness, verbal sharpness, ramming down reforms people's throats and lacking the charm with MT - who had her own faults - had and used with people ensured that he was increasingly isolated from people willing to be friends, not sycophants

MT: "What did I tell you about choosing your role models?" :P

Frederik the Great

[mildred_of_midgard]

Not Frederick the Great, Frederik.

Who is he? A Friesian stallion, who went viral in 2016 as the world's most handsome horse. Brought to you by YouTube's algorithms, which suggested a video on the same to my wife yesterday, who felt compelled for obvious reasons to tell me about this latest way in which posterity is immortalizing our antihero.

Just a bit of silly fluff to make everyone laugh. (I'm now irresistibly tempted by the thought of what prinzsorgenfrei could do with this information. :D)

Re: Frederik the Great

[selenak]

That is a beautiful horse. Fritz only wishes he'd ever been this good looking! ;)

Born too soon

[mildred_of_midgard]

Another conversation I didn't get to participate in due to salon hiatus was this one:

felis: Came across this [quote] by Fritz from a November 1773 letter to Voltaire:

Everything depends, for man, on the time when he comes into the world. Although I came too early, I do not regret it; I saw Voltaire; and if I no longer see him, I read him, and he writes to me.

Fritz thinking he was born too early was new to me, so I looked up the letter - and the quote comes at the end of a long passage where he is being sarcastic in response to Voltaire's sudden crusading ways:

[See the original post for the full passage.]

So, definitely sarcasm, but I'm wondering if there's still a kernel of truth here. Because I also remembered this quote to Voltaire from almost 40 years earlier: I don't feel made for the century we live in (July 1737). I already wondered which century he felt made for back then, but kind of assumed it would be an earlier one for some reason, which is why the 1773 quote surprised me. Hmmm. Where would Fritz time-travel to, if he could?

This finding was super exciting to me, because I had run across that "I came too early, but I didn't regret it because I saw Voltaire" quote before, but only in an unreliable source. When I tried to track it down, I found only this letter, written in 1775. Which says the same thing, but didn't have the "I came too early" in those exact words, so I knew there was another quote out there that I hadn't found. Thank you, felis!

This letter is another of Fritz's anti-German diatribe, but unlike the letter felis found about feeling that he was born too soon, this one isn't not sarcastic but completely straight. Courtesy of Google Translate:

Our Germans have the ambition to enjoy in their turn the advantages of the fine arts; they strive to equal Athens, Rome, Florence and Paris. Whatever love I have for my country, I cannot say that they have succeeded so far; they lack two things, language and taste. The language is too wordy; the good company speaks French, and a few school cooks and a few teachers cannot give it the politeness and easy tricks which it can only acquire in the society of the great world. Add to that the diversity of idioms; each province supports its own, and so far nothing has been decided on the preference. For taste, the Germans lack it on everything; they have not yet been able to imitate the authors of the century of Augustus; they make a vicious mixture of Roman, English, French, and Germanic taste; they still lack that fine discernment which grasps the beauties where it finds them, and knows how to distinguish the mediocre from the perfect, the noble from the sublime, and apply them each to their proper places. Provided that there is a lot of r in the words of their poetry, they believe that their verses are harmonious; and, for the most part, it is nothing but a mishmash of bombastic terms. In the story, they would not omit the slightest circumstance, even though it would be unnecessary.

Their best works are on public law. As for philosophy, since the genius of Leibniz and the big monad of Wolff, nobody gets involved any more. They believe they are successful in the theater; but so far nothing perfect has appeared. Germany is today as was France in the time of Francis I. The taste for letters begins to spread; we must wait for nature to give birth to real geniuses, as under the ministries of Richelieu and Mazarin. The soil that produced one Leibniz can produce others.

I will not see these beautiful days of my homeland, but I foresee the possibility. You will tell me that it may be very indifferent to you, and that I make the prophet at my ease by extending, as much as I can, the term of my prediction. It's my way of prophesying, and the surest of all, since no one will deny me.

For myself, I take comfort in having lived in the century of Voltaire; that's enough for me. May he live, may he digest, may he be in a good mood, and especially may he not forget the solitary one of Sans-Souci. Vale.

So, ignoring the part where he's completely out of sync with the majority opinion on the value of German literature during his time, it's interesting to me because he does believe he was born too soon, he is emotionally invested in Germany's future success as he sees it, and he names the same centuries Selena talks about as his likely time-travel destinations: Athens, Rome, Florence, and Paris. But where Selena guesses *after* the death of Mazarin, Fritz mentions Mazarin and Richelieu--but I can't tell if he's just saying that that's when people like Corneille and Racine were born, but they reached their heyday after Mazarin's death under Louis XIV, which is when Fritz would like to visit.

It is interesting that he says he was born too early instead of too soon. It makes sense if he means "born too soon in Germany," but that tells you he's identifying pretty hard as a German here.

As far as Greece is concerned, he'd probably want to meet Socrates, Plato et all and go for the age of Pericles instead.

Agreed, that was one of my guesses before Selena made it. Incidentally, speaking of Pericles, the thing that brought Fritz back on my radar when I was studying Greece in early 2019 was discovering that 19th century military historian Hans Delbrück wrote a book called Die Strategie des Perikles erläutert durch die Strategie Friedrichs des Grossen (The Strategy of Pericles Explained Through the Strategy of Frederick the Great). Which made me check to see if MacDonogh (the most encompassing biography I owned at the time) had made it into Kindle yet, which it had, and the rest is history, thanks to cahn. ;)

And, rather tangentially, speaking of the classics, selenak, you neglected to tell me when you were giving us a rundown on Maecenas that the German word for patron is "Mäzen"! I ran across it on my own in my reading, tried to figure out where it came from, because it sure didn't look like a normal German word, and then had a big DUH moment. Sharing this tidbit with cahn!

Re: Born too soon

[selenak]

ignoring the part where he's completely out of sync with the majority opinion on the value of German literature during his time,

Which is at least partially because he hasn't read it. As Fritz himself tells Gottsched, he hasn't read anything in German since he was 18. And when he's forced to come up with examples in another conversation about a German poet/writer he's read in German before that, not translated a la Leipniz and Wolff, he names... Canisius. Who was an early Jesuit writing against Luther, for Christ's sake, writing half of his stuff in Latin. Not even one of the Baroque poets from his great grandmother's time like Martin Opitz, Andreas Gryphius and Grimmelshausen, no, one of the Humanists. And of course not a single contemporary writer. How Gottsched stopped himself from crying, I don't know.

he is emotionally invested in Germany's future success as he sees it

Which might be why. :) I'm familiar with this part, btw, because 19th century German Fritz admirers brought it up a lot to prove he would have if he could have, and he did care. Which, yes, and I have sympathy for the triggering problem (thanks, FW), but: he could have, and for pyschological/emotional reasons, he didn't. He lived in one of the most exciting times for German literature ever with talent exploding all around him during his life time, and managing to miss out every single one and still hold forth on your opinion on the subject really takes some effort. As I said many a moon before: it's comparable to someone living in the age of Elizabeth I. and managing to miss Shakespeare, Marlowe and Johnson along with with Spenser and Philip Sidney and hold forth on English literature based on medieval morality plays.

you neglected to tell me when you were giving us a rundown on Maecenas that the German word for patron is "Mäzen"!

Untrue! I mentioned it to you when I quoted and translated Goethe's poem about Carl August for you ("Klein ist unter den Fürsten Germaniens freilich der meine..."), which ends with "er war mir August und Mäzen", and I do remember quoting that part in German as well as English and explaining to cahn about the pun.

Mazarin and Richelieu: well, if one wants to get technical, Corneille, the first of the great poets of the classical French age, already published when Richelieu was still PM - The Cid, Corneille's big scandalous success, is dedicated to Richelieu's favourite niece, Marie D'Aguillon, and was hotly debated by the newly founded (founded by Richelieu) Academie Francaise. But the rest - Racine, and of course Moliere - were definitely hitting the big time when Louis XIV ruled (himself, not when he was a youngster and Mazarin ruled for him), which means yes, they were born when the Cardinals were ministers, and I think he'd want to live when they were of an age to produce readable (and stageable) work. ;)

a question out of our time period

[cahn]

But since we were talking about Margaret of Austria and the Netherlands... what do you know about Margaret of Parma, if anything? (I mean, I can read Wikipedia, but you guys have taught me that even when it's reliable, it doesn't really give a good sense of gossipy sensationalism what it was like...)

Re: a question out of our time period

[mildred_of_midgard]

I'm going to have to lean on Selena for this, since it's extremely not my period, and her biography is $183. WHY BRILL.

Stabi has it online, though! (How come *my* library never has these books?)

Fredersdorf: exonerated!

[mildred_of_midgard]

ZOMG, you guuuuuuys, I woke up and guess what was in my inbox? An email from Fahlenkamp! Buwert's snail mail letter reached him and he replied by email, ccing me as well.

Truly, Buwert is an honorary salon member and royal patron!

So why didn't Fahlenkamp cite his "Fredersdorf was dismissed for embezzlement" source in his book? Apparently because he got it from WIKIPEDIA.

Auf die Quelle Fredersdorf sei "wegen Unehrlichkeiten zusammen mit dem Kriegs-und Domänenrat Johann Pfeiffer" entlassen worden bin ich im Rahmen eines Wikipedia Artikels gestossen. Eben da ist der Sachverhalt vermerkt. Pfeiffer ist offenbar - so in Gutenbergs Biographics (Verzeichnis der Prof. der Universität Mainz 1477-1973) in den 50iger Jahren aus preussischem Diensten entlassen worden. Er war mit der Einrichtung mehrerer Domänen befasst und hatte in diesem Zusammenhang offenbar auch mit Fredersdorf zu tun, der ja Mädchen für alles war. Der Vorwurf der Unterschlagung könnte vor Gericht jedoch nicht bewiesen worden, er wurde freigesprochen, quittieren jedoch seinen Dienst. Von 1782-1787 war er an der Universität Mainz Professor.

Einzelheiten zu seinem Wirken in Preussen finden Sie in der Bibliothek des Brandenburgischen Landesarchivs, so in "Diese Aufgaben erforderten den Einsatz der ganzen Person" von Fred Bruder in der Schriftenreihe antifaschistische Seminare, 1998.

A lot of "offenbar" ("apparently") in there, and no evidence for anyone but Pfeiffer (who he acknowledges was found innocent!) being accused of embezzlement.

So between the fact that we have NO source other than Wikipedia (I'm 99.99999% sure the unreliable Herrenhaus volume either draws on Wikipedia or Fahlenkamp, probably Wikipedia) AND Lehndorff doesn't know anything about it AND the letter from Leining as summarized in the box bills project shows that Leining trusted Fredersdorf to report accurately on financial transactions, I'm delivering a verdict of innocent for our man Fredersdorf. If anything else turns up, I'll revisit, but until now, I can say that we have found no book that the Wikipedia article is based on, have found two reliable contemporary sources that know nothing about this accusation and really should if it existed, and have examined enough sources that the burden of proof is on Wikipedia, not us.

Salon continues to be amaaaaaazing. I still can't believe we've gone as far as emailing with Fahlenkamp. The Royal Reader-Royal Detective partnership strikes again! :DDD

Also. If you're going to accuse your subject of embezzlement, use a source more reliable than Wikipedia! (Buwert's scholarship seems far more rigorous than Fahlenkamp's, and he was very skeptical about the claim even before he heard it came from Wikipedia.)

Re: Fredersdorf: exonerated!

[cahn]

YAY GO FREDERSDORF :D

Sorry, even with google translate I'm muddling through this -- it sounds like Pfeiffer was accused of embezzlement and someone (?) thought that he was "apparently" connected to Fredersdorf in some way? Also, what does it have to do with a girl (der ja Mädchen für alles war)?

Anyway, yaaaaaay Fredersdorf!

Keyserlingk, sensational gossip, and Royal Reader request

[mildred_of_midgard]

Remember when I found a source that said Keyserlingk was gay/bi, and then decided it was too unreliable to be worth anything? I've now turned up an unreliable source, Homosexuality and Civilization, that says Valory reported that Fritz and Keyserlingk spent hours together, and that Fritz forbade Keyserlingk to go near the window "as he did not wish him to be seen and talked about."

This source also claims that Fritz met Keyserlingk at Küstrin, which, you know, that's why I called it an unreliable source. However, the Valory part is interesting to me, and the claim has an endnote to a citation, only the page with the endnote isn't in the Google Books preview.

However, Stabi has the book online! When you get a minute, selenak, could you log in and tell me what the source is? In Google books, it's note 23 on page 562 and the main text passage is on page 508, but the pagination in Stabi seems to be slightly different (2003 vs. 2009 publication date, and 648 vs. 623 pages). In any case, it shouldn't be hard to find.

Thanks!

ETA: Oh, and I did of course check Valory's memoirs, since we have them, but either he has a spelling of Keyserlingk that I can't predict (I tried a few), or it's not in there.

Re: Keyserlingk, sensational gossip, and Royal Reader request

[selenak]

I checked, and the source annotation is Asprey, page 83. I take this to mean Robert Asprey: Frederick the Great, the Magnificent Enigma. Which you have read, I think? I have not. So you'll have to check whether Asprey says that Valory said, etc.

Anyway, the "Fritz met Keyserlingk at Küstrin" claim isn't the only mistake in the Fritz chapter. Andreas Lepsch being burned for sodomy in 1730 and Fritz' later statement re: lessening the punishment for sodomy, "lest it gets imitated" ignores what we've found when reading the pamphlet re: Lepsch, that this particular case of sodomy was definitely bestiality, not m/m, as was what Fritz lessened the penalty for. And claiming that Will Durant wrote the most widely read account of Fritz in this or any age (???? goes Voltaire and his memoirs) is so incredibly Anglosaxon/American-centric a claim that I'm still staring in stunned disbelief. Also, not a word of Heinrich, which given the general topic is homosexuality per se in the age of Enlightenment is, shall we say, a bit odd.

From Pyrmont With Love? Waters, Spies, and Dogs

[felis]

I was reading an essay on Fritz' two visits to Bad Pyrmont in 1744 and 1746 (May/June both times) and it pointed me towards this 1874 article, which quotes and summarizes several spy reports, which I think were kept at the Hannover archive (even though it doesn't actually say so). Because as there was still a war on, when G2 heard that Fritz was about to visit Pyrmont and take the waters there, he gave the order that Hannover should send a spy! Which they did: at first it was Court Marshall v. Wedel, but halfway through, they apparently realized that the son-in-law of Fritz' doctor in Pyrmont was working as a secretary for Hannover, so they sent him instead because they thought he'd have a better way in. The guy, Unger, reports what he observes and hears - where does Fritz go and how often (and how often does he think he knows better than his doctors :P), who else shows up, messengers coming and going etc. Generally, Fritz was rather secluded and busy in 1744 (which was shortly before the Second Silesian War, not to mention that he acquired Ostfriesland during this period) and more social in 1746.

Example: This afternoon the King came to the alley all alone, walked up to where the women were playing, watched them for a good quarter hour, talked to Gen.Maj. Schmettau who was sitting there as well, and then went to walk with Col. Polenz and Keyserlingk for an hour, reading a letter, during which Keyserlingk went to the musicians to tell them not to play now, as the King had a conversation to hold.

As you can see, lots of comings and goings but not much in terms of actual political intel. But even without that, the whole thing is an entertaining read, and the most interesting part to me was Fredersdorf, who is with Fritz in 1744 and in Aachen in 1746.

Now, in 1744, Unger has this to say:

[...] Fredersdorf said that nothing would come of things, until his King were to tip the scales for one side or the other with 30.-40.000 men. Said Fredersdorf isn't, as far as one knows, relevant in these affairs, but since his Master likes him very well and he's connected to the people who could know, one believes he might not be entirely unaware of what one needs to know. The King wants to leave him here to take the waters for a while longer since he came down with a fever, so there might be an opportunity to hear one or two things from him through the known channel [editor's note: unclear what's meant by that].

And what do you know, he did indeed get to talk to Fredersdorf after Fritz left:

This Fredersdorf is the one who layed the groundwork for his current luck in past times at Küstrin. He is rewarded with such trust that everybody seeks to have his friendship. He has a very talented, natural understanding and is needed in everything concerning the personal economy of the King; additionally, he is, together with Minister Bode, in charge of the purse and is always around and with his Master.
Since said Fredersdorf doesn't act superior in his luck and shows a cordial character everywhere, his sentiments seem to be sincere and it's likely that what he lets drop publicly might stem from [...] the King's own thoughts. He assured [us] multiple times that there wasn't anything special planned by his Master this year and that His Majesty would just watch the development of events attentively, and would step in at the right time to not let France play Master in Germany.

Again, this is happening two months before the Second Silesian War and you know what? Me thinks that Fredersdorf outplayed Unger there!

Now, 1746, as I said, Fredersdorf wasn't there, but he still gets mentioned. But first, also travelling with Fritz this time: Heinrich, Rothenburg, and Pöllnitz. The local musicians still aren't allowed to play when Fritz is around and since they only got a very small tip not just from Fritz but also from Heinrich, I'm inclined to think they weren't all that great. (Fritz of course has his own musicians with him anyway, and nobody, not even Heinrich, is allowed in the room when he plays with them in the evening.)

Money quote re: Heinrich: [Walking] the alley, [the King] told the two doctors: Prince Heinrich - who was with them - should take the waters so he could marry, and Pöllnitz so he could pay his debts.

Which, omg.

Right afterwards, the Fredersdorf mention:

Similar jokes happened often and it's usual for the King to be on such footing with his people. Among other things, he ordered that when his dog gave birth three days before he left, the Secret Chamberlain Fredersdorf - who is currently in Aachen for his health - should be notified and send a godfather-letter, with the note that he should visit the dog and her pups soon.

This sounds like the exact same, printed, "godfather-letter" that AW got (in addition to the hand-written one) a couple years later. (Fritz reusing things? I'm shocked.) But still, fascinating that Fredersdorf got one, too, and first. Also, that it's somewhat semi-public - do we have another instance of Fritz talking about Fredersdorf directly?

Now, for the dog, a.k.a. Biche:

This dog was always in the King's bedchamber and when she gave birth, he came and went repeatedly. [Since he had to leave three days later], he left a hunter to take care of her and gave her a pillow from his bed, with the order that as soon as she and her pups could be transported without harming them, they should be carried over the mountains, accompanied by the hunter, and should be treated very carefully.

Aw.

Re: From Pyrmont With Love? Waters, Spies, and Dogs

[mildred_of_midgard]

This is great! Speaks the dog-lover and Fredersdorf-defender.

Generally, Fritz was rather secluded and busy in 1744 (which was shortly before the Second Silesian War, not to mention that he acquired Ostfriesland during this period)

And Ulrike's marriage, as we saw! Also, the chronology (which I just updated with Bad Pyrmont dates, thank you), reminds me that June 1744 is also when AW is officially named Prince of Prussia.

Re Ostfriesland, I see from the article that "the Prussians" were raising questions about whether they actually had to pay the debts of the previous royal house (haha), and also that the Dutch were rather uncomfortable with their new neighbor. I bet!

Again, this is happening two months before the Second Silesian War and you know what? Me thinks that Fredersdorf outplayed Unger there!

Hee. Go Fredersdorf!

Okay, checking Duffy's military bio of Fritz, I see June 5 is when Fritz concludes an alliance with France, but reserves the right to go to war only when he saw fit. Apparently he saw fit by the end of June, when the Austrians crossed the Rhine and threatened to invade Alsace.

Since Unger's letter is dated June 14, it's possible Fredersdorf was telling the truth: Fritz was still planning to bide his time when he was in Pyrmont. In Duffy's words, "but he was very soon overtaken by events." The real action seems to have come end of June to July 12, which was when he made a commitment to the French to go to war.

As you can see, lots of comings and goings but not much in terms of actual political intel.

I am reminded of Fritz writing to d'Argens, "In order to know my secrets, you have to corrupt me personally, and that is not easy."

since they only got a very small tip not just from Fritz but also from Heinrich, I'm inclined to think they weren't all that great.

Hahaha. I'm inclined to agree with you.

This sounds like the exact same, printed, "godfather-letter" that AW got (in addition to the hand-written one) a couple years later. (Fritz reusing things? I'm shocked.)

Thrifty in more than one way, our antihero!

But still, fascinating that Fredersdorf got one, too, and first. Also, that it's somewhat semi-public - do we have another instance of Fritz talking about Fredersdorf directly?

I don't want to say we don't, as I may be forgetting one/some, but certainly few enough that it's definitely been on my radar as a thing that doesn't seem to happen much if at all.

This dog was always in the King's bedchamber and when she gave birth, he came and went repeatedly. [Since he had to leave three days later], he left a hunter to take care of her and gave her a pillow from his bed, with the order that as soon as she and her pups could be transported without harming them, they should be carried over the mountains, accompanied by the hunter, and should be treated very carefully.

Aw.

AWWWWW times one million. Thanks for sharing this!

Vienna Joe

[mildred_of_midgard]

Nearing the end of Der Kaiser reist inkognito, and two anecdotes I had to share:

One, Joseph shows up in Versailles, meets his favorite sister Marie Antoinette after 7 years, and his immediate reaction is: "Man, if she weren't my sister, I'd totally marry her! I could be happy married to a woman like her."

Me: I see you're taking your role model's example to heart!

Two, an anecdote reported in the papers that you should take with a grain of salt: the incognito traveling emperor shows up in some town on his journeys. The postmaster's wife has just given birth. Joseph agrees to attend the baptism and be godfather.

While he's there, the attending priest asks for his name.

"Joseph."

"Joseph what?"

"Well, I would have thought that would be enough, but if you like, you can put down 'Joseph II.'"

"Occupation?"

"Emperor."

"OMGGG it's the Emperor!" Upon which everyone in the church falls to their knees and swears to take extra good care of his new godchild forever and ever.

Joseph: "I'm trying to get rid of all the ridiculous etiquette! Everyone stand up!" <-- Czernin has depicted this probably half a dozen times by now. "And then, as usual, Joseph told them to stand up."

"P.S. By ridiculous etiquette, I do *not* mean that you get to slap me on the behind with your sweaty hand, Ferdinand of Naples."

I'm really enjoying this book, and it's not the book's fault that I'm not done yet. (Mostly RMSE's at this point.) Good find, Selena!

Re: Vienna Joe

[selenak]

I'm glad you're enjoying it! Incidentally, just for completeness' sake, I put something in the library which belongs to that 18th century "Letter from the Dead" genre, because according to the Stabi registration it's a letter from Peter von Keith to Fritz, published 1762. Mind you, nowhere in the text that I can see does it say it's from Peter, just from "your Keith", and since I suspect the number of people who in 1762 knew who Peter had been or even that he was dead were limited, I strongly suspect that it's actually supposed to be a letter from James Keith to Fritz, since James was an internationally known general of great renown whose death at Hochkirch certainly had made the headlines. But on the off chance we're dealing with an early example of Fritz/Peter RPF, I added it.

Alas, though, it's also issue fic, the issue being that the unknown author, who according to the preface wrote this in French (the text is thus a German translation), wants to persuade the "philosopher of Sanssouci" that souls are immortal and the afterlife does exist. What with Peter (or James) writing to him. 30 pages of argument for the immortality of the soul, no less.

Pöllnitz: Secret Keeper?

[mildred_of_midgard]

Guys, I'm kind of excited for two reasons:

One, I started reading Kloosterhuis. It's slow going partly because of my German and partly because I'm not a royal reader but a royal detective, meaning I'm reading all the footnotes carefully and frequently stopping to google the sources and read things in them. Hey, it's how I read English, it's obviously how I'm going to read German. But I'm super happy because I can read them. I'm terribly slow and still have to look up one or two things per page, but if I go slowly, I can read almost all of it without resorting to help!

Number two, after chasing down a Kloosterhuis footnote, I read 5 pages in the Font of Doom and am here to report!

In 1899, Gustav Wallat wrote a 56 page article on 18th century depictions of FW. It's broken down into sections by writer, and these writers include many names we recognize from salon: Fassmann, Mauvillon, Fritz, Morgenstern, Pöllnitz, Wilhelmine, Other Seckendorff, Voltaire, Thiebault, Mirabeau. Plus a couple I didn't recognize.

Yours truly read the 5-page Pöllnitz section before deciding that was enough Godforsaken Font for one day.

Oh, note that 1899 is also the year of Leineweber's dissertation, so I'll be surprised if he's mentioned. (I read the last couple paragraphs of the Morgenstern section on page 23 and saw an analysis of Morgenstern's contradictory approach to FW that didn't mention Leineweber that I recall, so I suspect he was understandably not used by Wallat.)

Anyway, since Pöllnitz has been on our radar lately, a few notes from my reading.

Our source for FW beating up Katte when first encountering him after the escape attempt turns out to be Wilhelmine and Pöllnitz. I'm not seeing another source in Kloosterhuis, and as we know, these two are not independent (more on this later). So take with a grain of salt. As I had forgotten but am now reminded, Pöllnitz reports FW ripping Katte's Order of Saint John from around his neck,

Pöllnitz is forgiven for being unprepared for Gian Gastone's forced drinking, because he didn't spend regular time at the Prussian court or become part of the Tobacco College until 1735. He tried to get a job when FW came to power, discovered FW was not big on paying courtiers, left. After 1724, he disappears from the record for 11 years, then reappears in Prussia in 1735. We see from his memoirs that he was in Prussia briefly in the late 1720s, but I could easily see him missing out on the forced drinking experience (especially since FW's seems to have been more ad hoc than, say, the Russians'). 

Wallat says that Wilhelmine says that the reason that Pöllnitz got money from FW in the late 1730s for paying off his debts was that FW liked the depiction of his court in Pöllnitz's 1734 (reprinted in 1737) travel memoirs. On a related note, Wallat agrees with Selena that the memoirs depict everything in a "rosy light," showing that the author had not given up hope of getting a court position. :P

Other Seckendorff describes Pöllnitz as "Never tell him anything, knowing that he's a double spy." Now, if Seckendorff knows this in the 1730s, surely Heinrich knows this in the 1740s! But an even more surprising event is to come shortly.

In 1744, Pöllnitz asks for his dismissal from Fritz, and gets it, with lots of mockery, but then begs to come back. Now, this is interesting because of what's to follow:

Wallat does textual comparison (man after my own heart!) to conclude that Pöllnitz's Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg (not to be confused with his 1734 travel memoirs, these were published much later, in the 1790s I think) draws on a lot of sources, often just paraphrasing them. Including Fritz, where  Pöllnitz copies him but corrects one of his dates!

As you'd expect, one of the people Pöllnitz draws on is Wilhelmine. Now, we knew they'd swapped stories. But Wallat says that Droysen has already shown that Pöllnitz had Wilhelmine's memoirs in hand. Which implies that they weren't just swapping stories, but looking at texts. Mind you, I had already, during my textual comparison, been very surprised at the linguistic similarities between their texts if they were just talking and not looking at each other's manuscripts, so I'm not *too* surprised to see this claim from a textual perspective.

But, what is surprising is that, if this is correct, then somehow Pöllnitz kept Wilhelmine's memoirs a secret all his life.

??? 

To quote Selena when we first discussed this:

As Heinrich did not know Wilhelmine had written her memoirs before that, though - nor did, it seems, anyone else of the Hohenzollern family - I assume she didn't share them even with a private select circle. Which is the one thing that makes me hesitate to assume she showed them to Pöllnitz. Like Trenck, he was a blabbermouth. I mean, he was probably her source for the number of illegitimate kids August had, courtesy of his trashy tell all La Saxe Galante. Not the guy you want to confide in that you're writing "Our Insane Family" type of memoirs yourself. Especially since things are so tense with Brother Fritz right then anyway.

All I can think is that maybe he didn't know what an "Our Insane Family" trashy tell-all they were and thought they were just some "history of the House of Brandenburg" project.

Still!

Also, note that, again according to Selena, it's January 19th 1744 when Fritz sends Pöllnitz with plans for the Berlin opera house to Wilhelmine.

That means, in 1744, 1) Pöllnitz is visiting Wilhelmine, 2) Pöllnitz and Wilhelmine are swapping stories and apparently notes on the Hohenzollern crazy, 3) Pöllnitz is asking for his Frexit (to be retracted at an unknown date), 4) Wilhelmine is resuming work on her memoirs and things are heating up with Fritz.

I kinda wonder if hanging out together and swapping stories was feeding both their resentment?

Anyway, being a royal detective, I had to go chase down Droysen. Using the search function on Hathitrust, I can see that Droysen indeed says Pöllnitz was copying Wilhelmine, and I can see that there's a whole section on Pöllnitz, starting on page 97, where I presume this is gone into in more detail. Unfortunately, I have maxed out on both German and Satan's Font for now, so I leave the rest to our German readers.

Monday morning update: since I wrote this last night, I can now report that I've read another few pages of Wallat over breakfast: Fassman, Martiniere, and Mauvillon, and the first page of Fritz. I need to start work soon, so I can only say that 1) he's relying heavily on Droysen, 2) he declares Mauvillon completely worthless (following Droysen here, since he couldn't get a copy of his own). Which made me raise an eyebrow, because I've been following my modern-day sources in relying on Mauvillon for the letter exchange between FW and August over Suhm. I'm particularly alarmed by the report that Mauvillon relied on Dutch newspapers as a source. Now, it's possible that the FW/August exchange got leaked just like the Katte correspondence and that it's legit, but I suppose that would explain how in 1741 Mauvillon had access to the royal correspondence, which is something I always wondered about.

Anyway! I'm going to try to finish this article, both for font practice and because the material is interesting. But it will be slow going, so more fluent readers should feel free to read and give us a synopsis.

Re: Pöllnitz: Secret Keeper?

[selenak]

Briefly, due to Darth Real Life:

But, what is surprising is that, if this is correct, then somehow Pöllnitz kept Wilhelmine's memoirs a secret all his life.

While I can believe he kept it a secret from Fritz - knowing where his bread was buttered and not being suicidal - it’s still bewildering to imagine he didn’t tell anyone else. However, since Pöllnitz survived Wilhelmine by considerable time, he may in addition to whatever they told each other in 1744 have gotten a copy from the memoirs - or been allowed to read one and make excerpts - from Dr. Superville, who according to Droysen had the most extensive “Braunschweig” one, after her death. Given we simply don’t know when his own Histoire was finished, it could have been at any point before his own death.

I had a quick overview following your links since alas I lack the time for more, and it’s very late 19th century German in both cases (Droysen and Wallat) Along with sense-making textual comparisons and critique there’s a lot of “FW would never”. The hair dragging of Fritz and all the abuse of both Fritz and Wilhelmine has to be invented by Worst Daughter. The punching by Frau von Pannewitz is unspeakable slander along with FW lusting after her to begin with. The vocubulary she gives her father in general is something not only FW would not have used but Wallat can’t expose his tender fin du siècle readers to. And what kind of a woman writes crude stuff like this? (Meanwhile, my anecdotes from Team Arnim and Brentano have arrived. Turns out Fredersdorf’s father-in-law Daum was an occasional tobbacco parliament member, so FW has cameos, in which he tells Daum all women are whores (except, when Daum protests, for Mrs. Daum and SD. But all others.) And shouts “whores” after many a female citizen.

Younger Seckendorff’s journal grudgingly can’t be accused of being written in hindsight and with mean distortions by Wallat, but clearly it doesn’t do FW’s greatness justice due to inherent evil Austrian bias, and “one believes one hears the Margravine speak” when FW’s parenting is described, which, however, doesn’t enhance Wilhelmine’s credibility (despite the fact Seckendorff can’t possibly have it from her), it just proves how biased Other Seckendorff is. Otoh, his “here stands one who will avenge me?” Quote? utterly credible und ace reporting. As opposed to the utter utter slander of claiming FW, most honest of all princes who would never lie, most German of Germans, would POSSIBLY ally with the evil FRENCH against the Emperor (though the Emperor doesn’t deserve his loyalty, of course), and it shows how prejudiced Seckendorff is when snarknig about FW making contradictory alliances and double dealing.

I mean, he also does a lot of actual source comparisons. But that attitude is everywhere. Also, MIldred, Wallat wants to know why Fritz doesn’t get more credit for HIS portrayal of FW in the Histoire, because clearly it’s the best ever. Fritz as a born truthteller and impartial judge is evident in his harsh depiction of F1, that’s all the proof you need that his praise for FW isn’t filial duty, it’s brilliant objective analysis, and his critique of some of FW’s decisions is spot on, for yes, FW had flaws. But he wasn’t the ogre Wilhelmine described! (Or Pöllniltz, or any of the others.) And leaving aside Fritz gets some dates wrong and has too much foreign policty and too little inner policy in his FW chapter of the HIstoire, he’s the best, most credible source of FW among any of his contemporaries by far!

The biggest news for me was that Droysen says, and Wallat Wilhelmine worked on her memoirs until at least 1755, and the proof for this is that there was a diary of the Italian journey with the Braunschweig manuscript (i.e. the latest version in existence). This is the first time I heard of one, and I surely have not read any Italian journey diary in any edition of Wilhelmine’s memoirs (or elsewhere). I’ll check out the website devoted to her Italian and French travels again, but I’m pretty sure it only has letters (and a map!), not diary notes or a travellogue And I can’t recall any biographer quoting from them, either - only from the letters. Huh. In the far FAR FAR future when I have more time than such quick looks, I might have to check the Stabi for a more modern source comparison on the various stages of Wilhelmine’s memoir manuscripts (only one of which according to Droysen if I’ve understood this correctly is in her handwriting, the others are copies made by other people. Droysen says the one owned by Heinrich, for example, is written on paper from FW3’s era (with the water sign proving the paper was created only when FW3 was already king). (This fits with FW3 being the one to give the memoirs to Heinrich - evidently he didn’t give him an original but a copy to keep.)

And that’s it, more than this bit of skipping through both essays I can’t manage. Must work the rest of the week on non Fritzian things!