Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 30
Sep. 8th, 2021 09:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnIn which, despite the title, I would like to be told about the English Revolution, which is yet another casualty of my extremely poor history education :P :)
Also, this is probably the place to say that RMSE opened with three Fritz-fics, all of which I think are readable with minimum canon knowledge:
The Boy Who Lived - if you knew about the doomed escape-from-Prussia-that-didn't happen and tragic death of Fritz's boyfriend Hans Hermann von Katte, you may not have known about Peter Keith, the third young man who conspired to escape Prussia -- and the only one who actually did. This is his story. I think readable without canon knowledge except what I just said here.
Challenge Yourself to Relax - My gift, I posted about this before! Corporate AU with my problematic fave, Fritz' brother Heinrich, who's still Fritz's l'autre moi-meme even in corporate AU. Readable without canon knowledge if one has familiarity with the corporate world and the dysfunctions thereof.
The Rise and Fall of the RendezvousWithFame Exchange - Fandom AU with BNF fanfic writer Voltaire, exchange mod Fritz, and the inevitable meltdown. (I wrote this one and am quite proud of the terrible physics-adjacent pun contained within.) Readable without canon knowledge if one has familiarity with fandom and the dysfunctions thereof :P
Also, this is probably the place to say that RMSE opened with three Fritz-fics, all of which I think are readable with minimum canon knowledge:
The Boy Who Lived - if you knew about the doomed escape-from-Prussia-that-didn't happen and tragic death of Fritz's boyfriend Hans Hermann von Katte, you may not have known about Peter Keith, the third young man who conspired to escape Prussia -- and the only one who actually did. This is his story. I think readable without canon knowledge except what I just said here.
Challenge Yourself to Relax - My gift, I posted about this before! Corporate AU with my problematic fave, Fritz' brother Heinrich, who's still Fritz's l'autre moi-meme even in corporate AU. Readable without canon knowledge if one has familiarity with the corporate world and the dysfunctions thereof.
The Rise and Fall of the RendezvousWithFame Exchange - Fandom AU with BNF fanfic writer Voltaire, exchange mod Fritz, and the inevitable meltdown. (I wrote this one and am quite proud of the terrible physics-adjacent pun contained within.) Readable without canon knowledge if one has familiarity with fandom and the dysfunctions thereof :P
Re: Empress Ch 10-16
Date: 2021-10-02 07:15 am (UTC)Horowski had the same impression, for what it's worth, and I haven't come across him misrepresenting something yet. Summarizing, sure. He covers a century. But, for example, his chapter son the Hannover clan were what alerted me to the cousins being interesting in the first place, and having now read up on Hervey and Lady Mary, I didn't find a wrong thing.
I feel that for someone who doesn't seem to get Goethe, Goldstone seems to want to quote him a Lot
Most people do when describing the relevant places and people (his description of Emma's attitudes, for example, is in every Emma biography ever), so I still suspect she hasn't actually read him but quotes the quotes. This installment's evidence: "Even the sophisticated Goethe" was swept away by Naples. Look, Goethe isn't a current day intellectual tourist able to travel around the globe. He's a man who has dreamt of travelling through Italy all his life, who hasn't made it further than Switzerland on previous occasions, who lives in a deeply provincial tiny German realm at a time where if you weren't a nobleman, a member of a nobleman's household and/or rich, going to Italy simply wasn't an option. Goethe, like I said, has dreamt of Italy (past and present) all his life, and now he's finally seeing it, and blissfully happy for the two years he spends there. No "even" and "sophisticated" about it.
Louis XVI aa possibly having autism: it's plausible. (And not in Zweig because his biography was written before the term for it was coined.) There's the problem of long-distance diagnosis, but that doesn't stop anyone from diagnosing porphyria for G3 (and possibly some Hohenzollern, too).
Madame Du Barry: here Goldstone is not incorrect but one sided again in her one note negative description of Dubarry. No, she wasn't as smart or well educated as the Marquise de Pompadour, but she wasn't just the greedy gold digger Goldstone presents (so MA doesn't look bad for snubbing her). She had warmth and charm according not just to men if you were friendly to her, and she was a loyal friend who didn't throw past associates under the bus once she didn't need them anymore. Also, I note Goldstone doesn't include MT chiding MA for the gloating "yay, we kicked the whore out!" letter by telling her to be charitable. Or the fact that Joseph during his visit in France actually took the trouble of meeting her. (This at a point where she had zero influence, long after her lover's death.)
m, I definitely got the impression from you guys that MT was much more in control of the partition of Poland than this makes it sound. I mean, the apocryphal line is "she cried, but she took," not "she cried, but Joseph took"!
Well, here Goldstone is on firmer ground in that MT was against it and always would feel guilty for it. But she did go through with it. What she wrote to one of her younger sons once it was done, in 1772, was: You will see the entire miserable development of this matter. I have refused it for a long time! Only the blows after blows in the forms of the Turks attacking, the lack of a prospect of getting support from France or England in this, the likelihood of having to conduct a war against both Russia and Prussia otherwise, misery, famine and sickness in my countries forced me to accept these bloody proposals, which throw a shadow over my entire rule. God will make me face my responsibility for this in the other world. I must admit to you that I cannot get over this matter, it lies heavily on my heart, haunts me and poisons my already sad days. I must stop writing about this in order not to get even more upset and not to sink into the blackest melancholia.
However: she was still the ultimate power, for all that Joseph was co-regent. And she knew the buck stopped with her.
Goldstone reverses the order of events, btw, by letting Fritz and Joseph meet at Neisse to hash this out after Heinrich has been with Catherine, when actually, the Neisse meeting preceded the Russia trip (Neisse: August 1769, Heinrich in Russia: Autumn 1770), and also, Poland wasn't talked about on this meeting, contrary to popular legend. (Because of what would happen in the next few years, a lot of people assumed that Fritz and Joseph must have hashed it out there, but note the whole partition idea is new to Fritz when Heinrich reports to him from Catherine's court a year later. (And note she says "his brother Henry, who happened to be in Russia". Heinrich would like you to know where was no coincidence about this Russia trip whatsoever, he schemed hard behind Fritz' back to make it happen!)
okay, I need the straight dope on Mimi having an affair with Charles Liechtenstein, what is up with that?? (I'm side-eyeing the whole thing just because "few of her other close friends, who by sheer coincidence formed the faction most allied to Joseph at court" must mean the Five Princesses but we don't actually get that part because it wouldn't jibe with her story of Joseph being mean and nasty to everyone)
Having read this part just now: am I ever glad I read the Five Princesses book, because the affair is mentioned there, and I'm believing its author over Goldstone's "Eleonore and her husband made that story up to please Joseph by slandering his sister" interpretation any time, for the simple reason that the Five Princesses author quotes letters from Eleonore Liechtenstein to her sister. She was anything but thrilled by her husband having had an affair with Mimi. She was fuming, and hurt. And her sister Leopoldine was her closest confidant, whom she told all the important things in her life. Even if Eleonore, who was a proud woman deeply embarrassed by her husband cheating on her with the Archduchess, would have been willing to undergo such a ruse to somehow carry favor with Joseph (though given she already had Joseph's favor, there was really no deed), I can't see why she should have lied to the person she was closest to in the world for her entire life.
Conclusion: Goldstone just doesn't want to believe Mimi cheated on Albert because Mimi is one of her heroines in this book.
Emma Hamilton: so far so good, but OMG Goldstone, terrible literary comparison. Declaring Emma to be Eliza to Charles Greville's Professor Higgins is already stretching things (Greville did have her educated, true, but he was from the beginning into her as a mistress, while Higgins has zero sexual interest in Eliza), and the ghost of George Bernhard Shaw condemns you to a thousand linguistic exercises per day for saying "Emma grew to love Greville as Eliza loved Higgins", Nancy Goldstone. Here I suspect she only saw the musical "My Fair Lady", which altered the ending of Shaw's play "Pygmalion" completely. (Shaw's Eliza doesn't return to Higgins, she stays gone.)
Lastly: Nancy Goldstone is apparantly as unwilling to believe Fritz praised his Best Enemy after her death as the participants in my poll by only quoting "a new era begins" and letting him "exult", as opposed to quoting the rest of the relevant letter to D'Alembert, which says: And yet, I have regretted the death of the Empress-Queen: she brought honor to her throne and sex; I have gone to war with her, but I was never her enemy. Regarding the Emperor, the son of this great woman: I know him personally; he seemed too enlightened to me to me to make overhasty steps; I esteem him and do not fear him.
Re: Empress Ch 10-16
Date: 2021-10-03 04:25 am (UTC)*nods* OK, point for her. Yeah, I wouldn't expect Zweig to have that precise term, but for his description to be consistent with it, which it sounds like it is.
Madame Du Barry: here Goldstone is not incorrect but one sided again in her one note negative description of Dubarry.
Heh, yeah, I figured as much from previous characters, and thank you for providing me with a less negative description <3
(And note she says "his brother Henry, who happened to be in Russia". Heinrich would like you to know where was no coincidence about this Russia trip whatsoever, he schemed hard behind Fritz' back to make it happen!)
LOLOLOL riiiiight!
Having read this part just now: am I ever glad I read the Five Princesses book, because the affair is mentioned there, and I'm believing its author over Goldstone's "Eleonore and her husband made that story up to please Joseph by slandering his sister" interpretation any time, for the simple reason that the Five Princesses author quotes letters from Eleonore Liechtenstein to her sister.
ARGH. I like how Goldstone's like "so she shared this information with the faction allied to Joseph" without mentioning it's her SISTER. Anyway, as usual thank you for clearing that up :P
and the ghost of George Bernhard Shaw condemns you to a thousand linguistic exercises per day for saying "Emma grew to love Greville as Eliza loved Higgins", Nancy Goldstone.
LOLOLOLOL this made me laugh, and also riiiiight! (I've never seen Pygmalion and I have seen My Fair Lady, so this didn't ping for me, but I've read it and I've also read Shaw's sequel outline where he's basically like "yeah this is my anti-ship," lol.)
And yet, I have regretted the death of the Empress-Queen: she brought honor to her throne and sex; I have gone to war with her, but I was never her enemy. Regarding the Emperor, the son of this great woman: I know him personally; he seemed too enlightened to me to me to make overhasty steps; I esteem him and do not fear him.
I love that, and honestly it would have made her book stronger to put it in. WHY. (She's such a good writer at making history entertaining! AND YET.)
[I've read through Ch 18 now, but won't be able to write it up tonight -- just saying, in case you want to preemptively inform me of the inaccuracies ;) (Though no pressure, I'll probably write it up tomorrow.) I suspect you'll be able to find some in the MA section...)