cahn | 18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 33

cahn

And, I mean, it doesn't have to be just 18th century characters, either!

(also, waiting for Yuletide!)

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From:

mildred_of_midgard

I will do a Victor Amadeus write-up, I swear! I'm just aggressively reading the 50 million books I've ordered in the last 5 weeks since I got my full salary back and started doing some part-time work. German is suffering too, although I'm slowly starting to go back to it (and still bitter about Horowski).

From:

cahn

Honestly, I wiffled back and forth about making a new post because December is kicking my butt, partially because I have one less week than I usually do because of the way dates and vacations lined up this year. So I'm not going to be around much in salon this month either until after Christmas. And salon has in the past been kind of dead in December anyway because there's so much going on this month. So no hurry! And I can make a new post if we want one after Yuletide anyway :D

(no subject)

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2021-12-03 05:57 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

My glancing at bibliographies of books in my extremely long reading list, although it isn't doing the length of the reading list any favors, has been rewarded today by the discovery of a published volume of letters between FW and his BFF Alte Dessauer! (Mostly from FW to AD.)

It's now in the library for any German readers that may be interested.

Some observations:
1. 1905 publication date, with all that entails.
2. 100-page intro on the relationship between FW and Alte Dessauer.
3. The editor takes pity on the reader with heavy use of brackets to spare you FW's spellings, plus spaces between sentences to compensate for the lack of punctuation. You're still on your own with the French, though. Fortunately, there's not much of it.
4. Each letter has a list of topics at the beginning supplied by the editor. Which is good, because it's a thousand pages, and this should help with identifying the interesting letters.
5. The editor seems to be doing a certain amount of summarizing of letter passages that are less interesting and quoting of things that are more interesting to him. *side-eyes*
6. There's a whole section in the intro and at least one letter I saw relating to the Klement conspiracy!

Pleeease someone at least glance at this. :D I'm getting closer, but I'm not there yet.

From:

selenak

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From:

felis

Oh, I didn't realize you were looking for this, or I'd have linked you before. The other good thing about this volume is that the index is amazingly extensive (starts on page 719) and it'll tell you exactly where to find things. I used it for the Keyserlingk description for example, and skimmed some of the other stuff, including the few letters concerned with 1730 and "dem bösen Menschen" Fritz, the gist of which was kind of familiar from previous secondary sources. Also the 1725 duel stuff Selena mentioned, but it's quite the drawn-out back-and-forth and I kind of gave up at some point tbh. (Although it was somewhat amusing that FW was the one trying to get Old Dessauer to Stand Down Already and stop making things worth, almost throwing up his hands in the process because he wasn't quite getting through.) It's been on my to-read list somewhere, but I haven't gotten to it so far, just kept it around for looking things up, because, as I said, great index. Also, as Selena alludes to, the editor must have had access to the Dresden state archive, because most of the Suhm mentions for example are footnotes that quote his reports for context (all French) instead of actual mentions of him by FW. Oh, and there's exactly one Peter mention in the index, which is the 1728 "send him back here" sentence which has shown up in other sources (Kloosterhuis I think?) as well, so nothing new there.

Re: Letters from Soul Mates: FW and Alte Dessauer

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From:

luzula

Recent reading: Petticoat Patronage: elite Scotswomen’s roles, identity, and agency in Jacobite political affairs, 1688-1766 by Anita Randell Fairney (2015)
A Ph D thesis. It had a lot of interesting stuff about the roles of women: the political endogamy that led to new generations of Jacobites being brought up; women using the patronage system to save their menfolk who had been sentenced to death or exile, and also saving their estates; women managing estates; women passing information and being active in plotting; women taking roles as patronesses, raising troops, and doing political hosting.

But honestly the coolest thing I learned from it is the central roles played primarily by Anne Drummond, countess of Erroll, and Elizabeth Howard, duchess of Gordon, in the plotting leading up to the failed revolution of 1708.

Just to show how interrelated everyone was, Anne Erroll was:
- the sister of the Duke of Perth who was James III's governor (and was the grandfather of the Duke of Perth in the '45),
- the sister of the Duke of Melfort, close advisor to James II,
- aunt of the Countess Marischal (George and James Keith's mother)
Obviously her son, her parents and her husband (who died in 1704) were also important Jacobites.

Elizabeth Gordon was married to the 1st Duke of Gordon. She was tied to Anne Erroll through another active Jacobite, Mary Gordon, Duchess of Perth, who was sister-in-law to both women. Also Elizabeth's daughter married Anne's nephew.

Anyway, Anne Erroll seems to have been the main manager of the conspiracy on the Scottish end. Daniel Szechi in Britain's Lost Revolution? : Jacobite Scotland and French Grand Strategy, 1701-8 confirms this (though she seems unsurprisingly to have been ignored by older scholarship):

Elizabeth Gordon was, then, an important actor within the Scottish end of the conspiracy. But Anne Erroll was the most important of all. She was, Hooke told Torcy and Chamillart, ‘a lady of about fifty, with a sound, penetrating mind. All the [Jacobites] have confidence in her.’ 153 Because she was well known to be a strongly committed Protestant Anne Erroll enjoyed a deeper, broader level of trust than Elizabeth Gordon within the Jacobite community in Scotland and beyond and she seems to have assumed responsibility for the practical administration of the conspiracy from 1705 onwards. 154 This probably stemmed from her uniquely strong network within the Jacobite underground. For Anne Erroll not only enjoyed high status, as the wife and then widow of one earl of Erroll, High Constable of Scotland, and the mother of the next, but also directly connected with one of the most senior politicians at St Germain: Perth was her brother, and he, too, trusted her implicitly. 155 It was, in consequence, Anne Erroll to whom all the key correspondence was directed for distribution to the rest of the underground. 156

It seems that the important men were either in exile, or being closely watched, and this is one reason why her role became so large. Also she just seems super competent! The Hooke mentioned is a French agent sent to assess the readiness of Scotland to rise. Here's what Anne's brother wrote to her about Hooke: He will take what shape or figure you please, he will follow your direction absolutely, and so you have but to consult your own measures and give him his. Anne was referred to with more than six different code names in correspondence. She also arranged secret signals with a family connection in the Navy so that he would let ships through with messages and goods; she sounded out and negotiated with important men who might join the cause, and kept in contact with Elizabeth Gordon and other women who arranged meetings and hosted spies and agents in Edinburgh. Elizabeth Gordon, growing impatient, wrote directly to one of the French ministers, saying For God's sake! What are you thinking of? Is it possible that, having ventured all our zeal, we have neither assistance nor answer?

The repercussions of the plotting in 1708 ended with 20-30 Scottish noblement being arrested, but none of the women! Apparently they were not suspected at all.

Well, this may not be directly relevant to the story I'm writing, but it was was very interesting nevertheless! Competent middle-aged women FTW. Would read a novel about Anne Erroll.

(I know I promised you more on the famous Jacobite women of '45, but that will have to wait...)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Wow, this is great stuff! She sounds super cool. (I love competent people, and it's nice to see ignored women getting some credit.)

He will take what shape or figure you please, he will follow your direction absolutely, and so you have but to consult your own measures and give him his.

Nice!

The repercussions of the plotting in 1708 ended with 20-30 Scottish noblement being arrested, but none of the women! Apparently they were not suspected at all.

Ha! That's what you get for underestimating women.

Thanks for sharing, look forward to more whenever you have time!

Re: Fangirling about Anne Erroll

From:

cahn - Date: 2021-12-08 06:12 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

So this is what I know about rumps:

* The word starts out meaning "buttocks".

* From there, it evolves a second meaning of "remnant".

* The parliament that remains in 1648 after the members opposed to trying Charles I were removed was called the Rump Parliament, i.e. the remnant parliament.

* The phrase "rump parliament", "rump government", "rump senate", "rump state", or just "rump" entered the language as a generic term for what's left over of a political body after a large purge/pruning. E.g. the rump state of Poland after the first and second partitions.

What I have deduced from that book

luzula linked:

* Because the Rump Parliament of 1648 was linked in Stuart supporters' minds with the execution of C1, it became linked with their anti-Stuart enemies in general.

* It seems the Stuart supporters started renewing the word with its buttock meaning to lampoon their enemies, viz. the Hanovers.

* Other non-Stuart supporters also started doing the same when they wanted to complain about the Hanovers.

Wikipedia tells me:

The Golden Rump is a farcical play of unknown authorship said to have been written in 1737. It acted as the chief trigger for the Theatrical Licensing Act of 1737. The play has never been performed on stage or published in print. No manuscript of the play survives, casting some doubt over whether it ever existed in full at all. The authorship of the play has often been ascribed to Henry Fielding, at that time a popular and prolific playwright who often turned his incisive satire against the monarch George II and particularly the "prime minister" Sir Robert Walpole. Modern literary historians, however, increasingly embrace the opinion that The Golden Rump may have been secretly commissioned by Walpole himself in a successful bid to get his Bill for theatrical licensing passed before the legislature.

Plays, prints, pamphlets and journal articles attacking the King, Walpole and the extended Whig faction were not an uncommon feature of early 18th century London. Plays were subjected to the greatest displeasure from royal authority, and individual works like John Gay’s Polly (1729) and Fielding's own Grub-Street Opera (1731) had earlier been prevented from reaching the stage. However the trend itself survived through the 1720s and 1730s, and a number of these satirical works used the devices of physical, sexual and scatological humour to mock the persons of Walpole and George II. Both the king and the prime minister were men of short, corpulent build; George II being the unfortunate possessor of a disproportionately large posterior and an affliction of piles, to which he had acquired a fistula by early 1737. All these personal deficiencies were mercilessly lampooned by Opposition satirists of the period.

Did not know this, thank you for pointing me to that book!

From:

luzula

Great, thanks for digging into it more! And I haven't read that book at all, it just turned up when I searched for rumps... : )

Modern literary historians, however, increasingly embrace the opinion that The Golden Rump may have been secretly commissioned by Walpole himself in a successful bid to get his Bill for theatrical licensing passed before the legislature.

Ha ha, wow, talk about manipulation.

And interesting about Fielding. I knew he was an anti-Jacobite, nice to see he turned his satire on both sides...

Re: Rumps

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2021-12-04 11:01 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Rumps

From:

cahn - Date: 2021-12-08 06:16 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Back when

selenak read Dennison's First Iron Lady, she found it to be very factually solid, with only one ?? that made her wonder if maybe Dennison was right after all.

The questionable point was whether the double marriage project was meant to marry Fritz to older daughter Anne or younger daughter Amelia/Emily. All of our sources, including contemporary primary sources from parties who should know, pointed to Amelia, so we concluded that Anne was a case of mistaken identification.

However! Detective Mildred reporting in with newly uncovered facts.

From my reading in the last week, I've come across Anne's name twice in this connection. Between those two sources, I might know what's going on.

One is Jeremy Black's dissertation, British Diplomacy 1727-1731. Now, he is not some random music or art history student, like some of our dissertation writers, but a reputable historian and professor who's published something like 100 books, most of them having to do with 18th century British foreign policy (yes, there is a lot of overlap in his 100 books). And he writes:

Noises were made in Berlin about the projected marriages between George's eldest son Frederick, now Prince of Wales, and Frederick William's eldest daughter Wilhelmina, and between the Prussian Crown Prince Frederick and the British Princess Royal, Anne.

He doesn't give me an exact citation for this claim, but he has 4 footnotes to other sentences on this page, and those 4 footnotes look like this:

1. Despite Waldegrave's-appointment, the Austrians did not name an envoy for Britain, St. Saphorin to Tarouca, draft, Aug. 1727. PRO. 80/61; O'Rourke reported that the Austrians wanted a reconciliation with Britain, O'Rourke to Graham, 1 Oct. 1727, Vienna, England, Varia, 8; Fonseca pressed Waldegrave to go to Vienna, 24 Sept. 1727, Waldegrave Journal, Chewton.

2 Charles Du Bourgay, British Envoy Extraordinary in Berlin, to Townshend, 28 June, 12 July 1727, PRO. 90/22. The Saxon envoy in Berlin, Sühm, reported that Prussia wanted a reconciliation with Britain and France, Suhm to Augustus II, 21 July 1727, Dresden, 3378, Vol. IV, f. 127.

3 Wallenrodt was suspected of being anti-British, Horatio Walpole to Tilson, 26 July 1727, BL. Add. 48982, f. 62,64.

4 Townshend to Du Bourgay, 14 July (OS) 1727, PRO. 90/22; Suhm to Augustus II, 22 Aug. 1727, Dresden, 3378, IV f. 171-2; Le Coq to Augustus II, 23 Sept. 1727, Dredsen, 2676, Vol. 18a. f. 242-3.

In other words, 9 unpublished envoy reports and letters from foreign ministers in various archives. On the one hand, that means I can't cross-check him; on the other, it means he might know what he's talking about.

I checked Dennison, and Black is indeed in his bibliography (something like half a dozen of his books, including the one on foreign policy from 1714-1727, which, yes, I am currently reading).

So I'm betting Dennison got this from Black.

But what about all those reliable contemporary sources that say Amelia? Brendan Simms, author of Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, 1714-1783, has an explanation.

First, note that all those citations in Black's footnotes are from 1727. Simms, who relies very heavily on several of Black's books (though disagrees with him politically), duly reports that Anne was the object of the marriage negotiations in 1727, but when Hotham was sent in 1730,

Hotham was instructed to push for the marriage of the Prince of Wales to Princess Wilhelmina, by now a very old chestnut, and that of Crown Prince Frederick to George’s daughter, this time Amelia.

Emphasis mine. All of the sources we've turned up are talking about the 1730 negotiation (or even later), the more famous and memorable one whose failure led directly to the escape attempt.

So I think our mystery is solved, and Dennison's reputation redeemed, if we assume Black is getting reliable info from the archives, and that the marriage plans changed between 1727 and 1730.

The Simms book, btw, might be useful to you,

luzula, if you care about Britain's relationships with other European countries and how they affected domestic politics, including Jacobitism, during the 18th century. The book is popular rather than scholarly, which on the one hand pays off in terms of readability, but on the other, means it relies entirely too much on secondary rather than primary sources, and furthermore, too much on British sources. I've caught Simms in some mistakes, and I really don't agree with his interpretation of everything, but it's 800 pages chock-full of useful information that also manages not to be a chore to read. (More readable than Black, for one thing.) And sometimes, that's what you need.

Besides, I haven't caught Simms in as many mistakes as, for example, Massie, and considering I know way, way more about the subject matter here, that probably means he's not the most unreliable popular author ever!

Anyway, recommended for you with mild caveats.

selenak, you're probably better off with the drier and more reliable texts;

cahn, not enough anecdotes to be of interest to you. ;) This is just politics.

Edited Date: 2021-12-05 02:35 am (UTC)

From:

selenak

From:

cahn - Date: 2021-12-14 06:03 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Also from my recent reading, this portrait by Jean Huber, titled Voltaire's Morning, was brought to my attention:

Catherine the Great--remember, she was a Voltaire fangirl and correspondent who never got to meet him in person--had in her collection, currently in the Hermitage Museum:

Jean Huber's series of intimate paintings of Voltaire engaged in everyday activities at his estate of Ferney. By Catherine's own account, she "burst out laughing" when she saw Huber’s portrayal of Voltaire rising from bed, getting dressed, and dictating a letter all at the same time. To see the lord of Ferney furiously multitasking reminded her that "the vivacity of his character and the impatience of his imagination give him no time to do one thing at once."

I admit, I laughed too. I had to share this.

From:

cahn

ahahahaahha thank you for sharing! I also think this is hilarious and SO VOLTAIRE :D

Re: Voltaire portrait

From:

selenak - Date: 2021-12-08 06:36 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Voltaire portrait

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2021-12-09 03:54 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Voltaire portrait

From:

selenak - Date: 2021-12-10 08:53 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Voltaire portrait

From:

luzula - Date: 2021-12-08 08:57 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

cahn

Oh, yeah, right, as of course you know, Jude Morgan covers (if sometimes somewhat elliptically) the Louis-Minette stuff, both affair-ish and political (and de Guiche gets a couple of paragraphs too, though I don't think I realized quite the portent of it). I guess though that I hadn't realized that Minette was trusted more than Philippe politically speaking! (Though given the way he was portrayed in the book, that was clearly a conclusion one was supposed to draw.)

Was the Chevalier gone for all of Philippe's marriage with Liselotte? I had the vague idea from some vid of Versailles (...that you probably linked me, lol, I don't know who else would be linking me vids of Versailles) that he was around for some of it, but I'm probably extremely mixed up :)

(I don't think you linked me to the correspondence! Or at least not when I had any inkling of who these people were :) Heh, I could see menstruation horrifying Philippe... and not Charles :P )

From:

selenak

No, the Chevalier was still around. In Versailles, he and Liselotte eventually bond and become bffs. This did not happen in rl, where they tolerated each other at best, and I don't think it's a coincidence that she described the Chevalier-less final three years of her marriage as the happiest. He encured a few more banishments (one by pissing of Louis (again) by seducing Louis' illegitimate son the Duc de Vermandois) but always came back when Philippe pleaded enough. In the end, he had gambled away most of the massive fortune he'd gained as Philippe's favourite.

(BTW, the reason why everyone keeps referring to him as the Chevalier, even in Versailles, where he's a bit bitchy but otherwise a positive character, is that his first name was also Philippe. Which calls for an alternative.)

Re: Replies: Philippe d'Orléans and wives

From:

cahn - Date: 2021-12-14 06:20 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Replies: Philippe d'Orléans and wives

From:

selenak - Date: 2021-12-14 05:57 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Replies: Philippe d'Orléans and wives

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2021-12-14 06:05 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Among the books I'm reading is an account of Diderot's visit to Catherine in Russia. (This is the one that told me about the Huber paintings.) And I had to share this bizarre interlude.

Diderot: *is in Russia*

French envoy: *also in Russia*

French envoy: So, Diderot, you know how Catherine hates me and likes you? Versailles is trying to make a Franco-Russian treaty happen, and you can help! You're a patriot, right? Here's a list of talking points we'd like you to bring up with her next time to you talk.

Diderot: Eep! Catherine will be very upset if I start trying to push a French political agenda. Also, I'm really not qualified!

French envoy: Forgot to add, remember the last time you got locked up for your freethinking publications? It's not 1789 yet, and the Bastille is still there. Just saying. :D

Diderot: Fuck! If I can't go home, I'll be stuck as Catherine's guest in this wretched country forever, and she *is* kind of an absolute monarch who makes me nervous. And my wife and daughter and grandchildren are in France, I want to go home! But also not piss off the absolute monarch who's currently making me nervous. What do?

[Mildred: Normally I would say the refuge for freethinking French philosophes in trouble at home is Prussia, but I guess you burned that bridge.

(Remember that as we learned from the Diderot bio I reported on, Fritz really wanted Diderot to come say hi on his way to St. Petersburg, but Diderot was like "Hell to the no" and ostentatiously went out of his way to avoid Prussian territory, while badmouthing Fritz. Then Fritz started writing anti-Diderot pamphlets, because of course he did.)]

Some time later...

Diderot: Catherine, fount of all generosity and wisdom, I have come to throw myself on your mercy! I will be totally honest and up front with you about everything that's currently troubling me.

Catherine: Was not expecting this, but go on. What's up?

Diderot: Lots of complicated stuff, so I've got to work my way up to the big confession. Let's start with some common ground that we can all agree on. Fritz is THE WORST, amirite?

[Mildred: Burn that bridge, baby!

Author: "Given Catherine’s close personal and diplomatic ties to Frederick of Prussia, Diderot's vow of candor bordered on the suicidal."

Mildred: Well, I don't think she was *that* close personally as in a huge fangirl, but yeah, they were kind of allied, which is what the French are trying to change.]

Diderot: You know how the French court and us freethinking French philosophes don't see eye to eye on much? The one thing we can all agree on, ministers and philosophes alike, is without exception, we sincerely hate Fritz!

[Author: "While Catherine knew this claim was dubious—after all, didn't her good friend Voltaire, despite his difficult moments with the Prussian ruler, still praise Frederick?—she allowed Diderot to continue."

Mildred: Well, I can't blame Diderot for being confused by Fritz/Voltaire! Everyone was confused!]

Diderot: So France, France should be your ally. The time has come for you to open your eyes and see what Fritz is really like. He's just pretending to be an enlightened despot, but really he's a straight-up despot. And as for other enlightened monarchs? Let me flatter you by saying that it's just you. Louis XV can't claim any greatness either. He's mediocre, and we're on our way down. We haven't hit rock bottom in France yet, but who knows what the next reign holds? "Personally, I'm pessimistic, but let's hope I'm wrong!"

[Mildred: It's 1773, and you're not wrong.]

Catherine: So France...would or wouldn't make a great ally? You're undermining your own argument that I should break up with Fritz to ally with France.

Diderot: This is why I told the French envoy I wasn't qualified to push a political agenda! Which, after much meandering and a rant about Fritz I apparently just really needed to get out of my system, brings me to what I've been trying to work up the courage to say. I need you to know that that the French envoy approached me with this list of talking points and threatened me. Please help, and don't be mad at me. I don't want to talk foreign policy with you. Look how bad I am at it!

Catherine: Okay, I see that this is not your fault. You may tell the French envoy that you gave me the list, and tell him what I did with it.

Catherine: *tosses list into fire*

Catherine: All good!

[Mildred: Well, that was...odd.]

From:

mildred_of_midgard

As I continue trying to learn enough about politics and foreign policy of the 1720s to pretend I might write a fic set in 1730, there's one thing my sources aren't giving me the kind of detail I want on: the Mecklenburg crisis.

What I know

Mecklenburg is fairly big and borders Prussia and Hanover, so they have a significant geopolitical interest in what goes on in Mecklenburg.

One of the turning points of the Great Northern War is when Peter the Great decides to winter his troops in Mecklenburg in 1716, making G1 incredibly nervous about whether he intends to use Mecklenburg as a base to take over neighboring principalities in the HRE.

In that same year, Peter marries his niece Catherine (daughter of Ivan V) to Karl Leopold, duke of Mecklenburg. They will be the parents of Anna Leopoldovna, future regent of Russia, mother of Ivan VI, enjoyer of threesomes with Lynar and other women, wife of EC's brother Anton Ulrich, and eventual prisoner in Middle of Nowhere, Russia.

In 1717, Peter is succesfully pressured by other European powers into pulling his troops out of Mecklenburg, so that ends up being a tempest in a teapot.

Duke Karl Leopold manages to piss off his nobility *and* Emperor Charles VI to the point where there's a Reichsexekution against him in 1719.

Hanover and Prussia jointly take over the rule/administraton of Mecklenburg?? Wikipedia is vague on the specifics here.

Mecklenburg becomes such a point of contention between FW and G1, later G2, for the entire 1720s that it comes up more often than Jülich-Berg. France is successfully pressured by its ally Britain into threatening to go to war if FW invades Mecklenburg.

Wikipedia:

After the death of George I (1727), the execution of the Reich was overturned. Although the emperor had the power to execute the execution of the empire, he lacked the power and the means to remove the foreign troops from Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The Elector of Hanover and the King in Prussia pressed for payment of the costs they had incurred in the execution of the Reich. Since a settlement of the conflict initially failed, Karl Leopold was finally deposed in 1728 by the Reichshofrat in Vienna in favor of his brother Christian Ludwig II .

In 1733, deposed Karl Leopold tries to take power back, with Prussian support.

What I don't know

What outcome does FW want in Mecklenburg? Why is he threatening armed intervention every other page in my reading?

Why outcome do G1 and G2 want in Mecklenburg? Is it coming up on every other page as a point of contention just because they *don't* want their rival FW gaining an advantage over Hanover in a neighboring territory, or is there more to it? If FW didn't care, would G1 and G2 still care?

Why is FW trying to restore Karl Leopold to power? What does he get out of this?

I'm annoyed because Black assumes you know all about the Mecklenburg crisis, and he refers you to an unpublished dissertation that's not for sale, is held only by the University of London, is not available for download on EThOS, and cannot be ordered by interlibrary loan. It's even in English! But I can't get it. Wikipedia helped, but not to the level of detail I want.

Do any of our Germans know more about this episode? And in particular, what's going on in FW's and G1/G2's heads?

Edited Date: 2021-12-13 10:22 pm (UTC)

From:

selenak

Honestly, I only know what wiki says. Oh, and a snarky passage from Hervey's memoirs:

There was another subject of dispute between the Kings of England and Prussia, which I forgot to enumerate, though it was the only one really of consequence, and that was with regard to the affairs of Mecklenburg.
The short statement of their differences on this article was, whether the Prussian or Hanoverian troops
(both ordered into Mecklenburg by a decree of the Aulic Council) should have the greatest share (under
the pretence of keeping peace) in plundering the people and completing the ruin of that miserable duchy, already reduced to such a state of calamity by the tyrannical conduct of their most abominable, deposed, or rather suspended duke.

Hervey doesn't say more than this, the next passage is about him coming back and his wife liking Pulteney better than Robert Walpole and urging him to ally with the wrong guy, i.e. the one whom he'll later fight in a duel because of being accused openly of being gay right when the Dutch were executing gay men by the masses. No more interest in Mecklenburg.

Edited Date: 2021-12-14 07:09 pm (UTC)

Re: Mecklenburg crisis

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2021-12-14 07:37 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Some time ago,

felis, you reported this:

Fritz in his eulogy for him: M. de Knobelsdorff had a character of candor and probity which made him generally esteemed; he loved the truth, and convinced himself that it offended no one; he regarded courtesy as an inconvenience, and shunned anything that seemed to constrain his freedom; you had to know him well to fully appreciate his merit.

Could you give me a link or citation for that passage, when you get a chance? I'm putting together the bibliography and citations for my Peter Keith essay. Thanks! (No rush, I realize everyone but me is celebrating holidays.)

From:

felis

Trier! See the last paragraph. Translation was likely a mix of google and myself, I don't remember for sure.

Re: Felis, help!

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2021-12-23 11:58 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

As you know:

- I am plotting a fix-it fic where Fritz makes it to France in 1730.

- I have been researching 1720s foreign policy lately. Because I want to know what happens when a runaway Prussian crown prince shows up in France in 1730! Not necessarily the single most likely thing, but a reasonable way for me to get the fix-it outcome I want. :P

- I hardly ever finish writing fics like these, but researching and plotting them is super educational!

So here I am to tell you what I've learned about the 1720s, so we can talk about our 1730 "What if?" AU.

There's so much, and the topic is so politically-oriented instead of personality-oriented, that I'm going to break my findings into a million individual comments instead of one or two giant ones. My hope is that bite-sized chunks of diplomatic convolutions make it easier to digest, and easier to find things later. Apologies in advance for the notification spam! I've also tried to use my first-person dialogue trick as much as possible for making the topic more accessible.

Sub-threads to follow...

From:

From:

selenak

This has become available in the online Munich library, and thus I read it. In general, it's an okay novel, neither great nor bad, with some intriguing ideas to which I'll get - Nauman uses two theories in this novel which could be possible in historical reality, and I'd love to discuss them with salon.

Now, since she really wants to write about Wilhelmine, and any rendition of the miserable childhood and escape attempt tends to focus itself on Fritz no matter what, she starts the main story of her book in the spring of 1731 - i.e. Wilhelmine is under house arrest, Fritz is in Küstrin - and ends it shortly after the burning of the Bayreuth town palace (after which in her novel Wilhelmine reconciles with her husband for real, the two realise how much they still care for each other), with a framing narration which keeps interrupting the linear story, of Wilhelmine in her last days dreaming/ being delirious and talking to various people in her life (this includes a dream encounter with Fritz as the last but one of those present day interludes, with the last one being her actual death). There are some flashbacks to the childhood & youth to make it clear how ghastly it was, but the main narration starts as I said in the spring of 1731.

The first third is all about those few months between Wilhelmine giving in and agreeing to marry and the actual marriage, in a rendition of the arranged marriage becoming real trope that's more realistic than Die Preußische Heirat but still hits all the usual emotional beats, and then we proceed faster, narratively. The main characters are who'd you assume given this time frame - Wilhelmine, BayreuthFriedrich, Fritz, Sonsine, Female Marwitz, Superville. Additionally, author uses Wilhelmine's dressmaker, nurse and some other servants as a counter perspective to the goings-on to the noble main characters, which mostly works but not always. (Though I'm biased, since I begrudge she's describing the Wilhelmine & MT lunch from the perspective of the backstage servants who don't even describe who said what but argue about the implications.) If you're aware of the actual background, you realize how ruthlessly cut down everyone's families are. BayreuthFriedrich's siblings show up via one sister (Charlotte). Wilhelmine's non-Fritz siblings who actually get scenes are, with only one or two scenes each: Friederike (who gets Charlotte's lines about not minding if Mom hates her), Amalie (gets a cute cameo as a child), and August Wilhelm, who is the four years old "youngest" kid in the big FW homecoming & freak out scene, - Heinrich does not exist in this novel - , and later shows up as an adult in exactly one scene where he tells Wilhelmine to call him Gustl - which is wrong in several levels, firstly because Wihelm was the one of his first names he used, and secondly Gustl is a southern German/Austrian short form of August - and complains about Fritz forcing him to marry and how heartless his wife is. (Now AW was a lousy husband, but one thing he definitely is not guilty of is describing Luise as heartless.) We learn far more about the Marwitz sisters and Sonsine than we ever do about the non-Fritz siblings. Which, again, I can understand given the chosen time frame and emphasis, but of course I regret it.

The Wilhelmine characterisation is, with one exception, plausible - the author doesn't make her the misunderstood heroine all the time and shows her flaws, such as her snobbery (though we get the psychological explanation that in a childhood and youth like hers where self worth was systematically destroyed by both parents in different ways and without the rendezvous-with-fame option, "I am the daughter/sister of a King and you are not" is part of what she clings to), and her disgust and fear at the sight of poverty (which includes disgust at the sight of poor people). Her virtues, the creativity, determination, courage and loyalty of attachment of course get ample display. One key scene is when Wilhelmine meets Caroline Neuber (legendary German actress and producer working with Gottsched, the first to get German theatre from slapstick to playing good plays, though at this point mostly translated ones), and at first it's a potential disaster (due to their very different attitudes re: German as a language), but then Madame Neuber mentions her father throwing plates at her (as the explanation for a scar on her forehead which makeup can't entirely disguise) and Wilhelmine is stunned for obvious reasons.

W: "Did your father have a stick?"
CN: "How do you know that?"
W: "A girl raised by such a tyrant will be either a rebel or a hypocrite. Which one are you?"
CN: "A bit of both, your highness, since I'm an actress."

Wilhelmine has a moment of self realization there, only in her case it's "I'm a musician", and the novel takes music as her greatest passion seriously, and also shows her as a theatre and opera producer, sometimes even makes it too blatant for my taste that this is also her therapy, though not only that. (By letting Wilhelmine actually say that her opera Argenore is "my cure". This is too sledgehammery - trust your readers more, Cornelia Naumann.) Consequently, the novel's big moment of FW exorcism for Wilhelmine is when she learns he's dying, he only has weeks to live via a Fritz letter. At the same time, Argenore, her first completed opera, is about to be produced, she has finally settled all arguments of her cast, gotten the musicians and singers to work just as she wanted. If she wants to see FW alive and take her leave of him, complete with final death bed conciliation, she has to go to Berlin and abandon the idea of seeing her opera debut. She's torn, but then says "No, Papa, you will never take my music from me again" and remains in Bayreuth, letting FW die without her and watching her fictional King, Argenore, kill himself after having realized he's destroyed his son and daughter.

There is no comparable SD exorcism, since SD as a character doesn't show up anymore after the marriage, but fair enough, I don't think there was one in Wilhelmine's actual life, and it would have to be invented from stretch.

Since "Friedrich" is what Wilhelmine's husband the Margrave is called by the narration, Fritz is in Wilhelmine's thoughts either "Federic" or "Fritz". Given the time frame, I was wondering whether he'd be depicted as too negative, or whether the author was of the Lavisse/Jürgen Luh school of "he didn't love anyone except maybe Fredersdorf, and if he ever loved Wilhelmine he didn't anymore after her marriage", but no. He does love her, the enstrangement is depicted as hailing from multiple causes, and when he comes through for her post reconciliation by paying off female Marwitz without a question because that means she'll finally depart and leave Wilhelmine's husband for good, Wilhelmine realises he's never stopped loving her and they still have each other. This Fritz is also unquestioningly gay, though with the novel's lack of subtlety he gets a modern coming out scene with Wilhelmine in early 1732 (the novel lets him accompangny her and Bayreuth Friedrich a bit on the way to Bayreuth), which goes like this:

Fritz: So, you really are into your husband. Good for you, but I'm extra depressed.
Wilhelmine: One day, you'll also find someone to truly love...
F: Already did - Katte! I'm gay, I realise this now. Which I realized after Orzelska infected me with syphilis, thus curing me of heterosexuality forever, which is something else I confide to you in this scene. But back to Katte! He was the love of my life. There'll never be another. And now I'll have to marry because Dad makes me. I'm telling you, it'll be celibacy for the rest of my life now.
W: Um. I was pretty sure something was off about your intense Katte feelings (Keith who?), and I'm responding in a very 20th century fashion by first feeling an instinct of abhorrence and then my love for you overriding my sociological homophobia. Fritz, I feel for you, but you should marry EC because if you refuse, Dad will just imprison you all over again. Later in this book, I will realise I'm not immune to same sex attraction myself. For now, I promise you I'll never forget Katte and his sacrifice, either!

Now, here are the novel interpretations/theories I actually wanted to talk with you about:

1) Escape attempt. Cornelia Naumann actually has Wilhelmine not just knowing about this but fully intending to escape along with Fritz to England (and marry Fritz of Wales). Alas, Fritz then changes the plan spontanously by deciding to use the southern trip with Dad as his getaway. This is what was in the burned letters. Now, on the one hand, I could believe that Fritz and Katte covered for Wilhelmine in their interrogations and Wilhelmine herself would stick to the official version in her memoirs, but on the other, I think that removes both Fritz' subconscious resentment that Wilhelmine didn't encourage him in his escape plans and Wilhelmine's subconscious resentment he was willing to leave her to FW's tender mercies which did influence their relationship thereafter.

2) Superville and female Marwitz. Of Female Marwitz's two names, "Dorothea Wilhelmine", our author uses the second but shortens it to the nickname "Minni" under which she's known in the novel. Wilhelmine isn't just bff with her at first but does feel some attraction even after realizing BayreuthFriedrich is into her, but at this point "Minni" still keeps it platonic with BayreuthFriedrich. This slowly changes, plus Superville shows up, flirting with Wilhelmine from the get go, who is also attracted to him. BayreuthFriedrich then essentially suggests open marriage, i.e. him/Minni, Wilhelmine/Superville. (But this is something only he and Wilhelmine know about.) This happens for a while. When Minni does find out Wilhelmine has an affair of her own, and with Superville (who can't stand Fritz and vice versa), she starts to blackmail Wilhelmine with this knowledge, on the premise that if Fritz finds out his favourite sister, that exception to the female sex and honorary man, has a lover, he will be v.v.v. angry with her indeed. This is when Minni becomes officially Maitresse en Titre (and Wilhelmine's own attraction to her, which she didn't act on but which had her wonder whether she's "like Sappho" a few times, ends). Wilhelmine retaliates by setting Minni up with Austrian Count Burghaus, but this marriage is one of the Fritz estrangement factors so makes everything worse, and Minni uses her knowledge of the Superville affair even more. When she starts to change court positions, Wilhelmine has had it and asks Fritz for help re: the Marwitz heritage money so she can pay out Minni while simultanously ending her affair with Superville, sending him to Braunschweig to her sister (Charlotte, though not named in the novel), thus removing the leverage Minni has on her.

Now, I can buy both Wilhelmine having more than just friendly feelings for female Marwitz, especially in this half aware fashion, as one factor why early on she doesn't do anything about the affair and is okay with it. The idea of her having an affair with Superville and female Marwitz using this as blackmail material as an explanation as to why Wilhelmine didn't try to get rid of her sooner once she became disenchanted with her intrigues me, and certainly offers new subtext for Superville's Fritz hate-on and keeping of Wilhelmine's last memoirs manuscript. (Unmentioned in this novel, though.) HOWEVER, all of this is also connected to the author's general characterisation of Wilhelmine very much enjoying sex (once BayreuthFriedrich has introduced her to it), which I didn't get the impression she did from her letters (but then, those are to her siblings, so...)

3.) Sonsine's motives for supporting the English Marriage project as long as she did. The author does a general good job with Sonsine, making her dedicated to Wilhelmine but also having her own ambitions early on. In 1731, when the novel starts, this means she doesn't want to end up in the backwater provinces of Bayreuth, she's not as fixated as SD but she has been hoping to be rewarded for years of live in the FW household by moving to Britain and be the confidante of the future Queen of England, and it takes some time her her to abandon this dream. Sounds plausible, no?

Oh, and the author does sprinkle in some incest subtext, like this:

BayreuthFriedrich: I'm going to surprise my standoffish fiancee while showing up while she's playing the lute; I'll respond with my transverse flute, she's bound to love it!
Wilhelmine, once she hears the flute playing: Is shocked, burst into tears, runs off.
BayreuthFriedrich: ?!?

Or, two days before Wilhelmine's marriage:
SD: Daughter, forget all my words about how I hate you now. I've just come up with a new plan, which you need to follow. See, marriages can be annulled when they're not consumated. Therefore, you should treat your husband exactly like you treat your brother, and must live with him like brother and sister! Shouldn't be too difficult for you, should it? And then, after a few months, when the marriage proposal from England finally arrives, we can annull the hell out of this arrangement. So: brother/sister is your watchword!
W: ?!?

And, again, Minni: Yeah, our Prussian Overlord isn't too keen on his brother-in-law anyway, but what he definitely won't forgive is Wilhelmine taking a lover out of her own free will.

Lastly: the novel's Wilhelmine has a very modern abhorrence of war in general. Not buying it for historical Wilhelmine. I mean, yes, she was concerned for her husband when the Polish Succession war was a thing in the mid 1730s, and obviously she was worried for her brothers' lives in all the wars. And she definitely tried to make a separate peace with France happen as hard as she could in the last two years of her life. But she also wrote "wow, you're awesome!" letters to Fritz in the first two Silesian wars, not "less Mars, be Apollo again" letters which is what she does in the novel, and I don't recall any "(any)war is evil" statement from her in reality.

So, all in all: like I said, the novel isn't a must, neither awful nor really good, but interesting to read.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Why we care

I first realized I needed to learn more about Victor Amadeus II when I encountered the saying (which I think is from a contemporary) that he was guaranteed to come out of any war on the opposite side from which he'd started, unless by chance he'd changed sides an even number of times.

You guys know me well enough to know why I was immediately intrigued!

I was subsequently tickled by Simms describing him as "Victor Amadeus of Savoy, always a reliable weathervane, if not a dependable ally."

One salary increase and several books later, I'm here to report on "Who is this guy and why is he always switching sides?"

Sub-threads because it's 6,000 words.

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-01-04 12:51 am (UTC) - Expand

Victor Amadeus II: Religion

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-01-03 12:55 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

luzula

Ha ha, wow, you guys have been busy! I have not kept up with your recent comments.

A question: I don't suppose any of you know how old the practice of using dance cards at balls is? I did find a master's thesis on the topic, but it's more interested in how they are designed and how they go out of fashion. Earliest mentioned examples are from the 1760's, and my fic is set in the 1740's.

No need to do any research for my sake, this is just if you happened to know anything about it, or had a new idea for where I might look. How dare scholarly articles not address the things I need for my fanfiction...

I thought Google Ngram might help, but nope, according to that the term began to be used in 1920. And the OED's earliest example is from 1895, which is also weird.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I don't, and I wouldn't have guessed they were around as early as the 1760s! I would have guessed 1790s.

Earliest mentioned examples are from the 1760's, and my fic is set in the 1740's.

In Britain, I assume? That might make a difference.

I have not kept up with your recent comments.

I don't blame you! This is exactly how

cahn and I guessed that anyone who kept up with comments enough to write "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Frederick" must be

felis. ;)

Edited Date: 2022-01-04 01:04 am (UTC)

Re: Dance cards at balls

From:

luzula - Date: 2022-01-06 09:33 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Dance cards at balls

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-01-06 11:44 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Dance cards at balls

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-01-11 05:57 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Dance cards at balls

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-01-04 06:44 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I'm not planning on doing a write-up of the Eugene bio I read, but here's more detail on something we've talked about before, that I found interesting:

He was clearly never at ease with German because not a single sentence written by him in it has been found: in 1705 he confessed to Joseph that he 'was not used to writing in German.' When he wrote letters in his large bold hand, they were in French or Italian. Those written in German were dictated, sometimes with a sentence or two of his own in French, and always signed with the curious Eugenio von Savoy: this was not an attempt to sum up his life in a mixture of Italian, German and French but the result of his mistaken belief that this was the correct German form. When he signed French letters it was always as Eugene de Savoye.

I kinda wish it had been an attempt to sum up his life!

From:

selenak

Same here!

From:

selenak

I've now read the first volume of Beales' opus magnum. As biographies go, I find it less dense while as informative as Stollberg-Rillingers MT biography, but otoh not as fluently narrated as, say, "Der Kaiser reist incognito" or Stefan Zweig's Marie Antoinette biographie romancee. He's mostly good with footnotes and sourcing his quotes. (A very rare exception: the apocryphal "She cried, and she took!" re: MT & Poland supposedly by Fritz but really not! Near the end of the book in an overall assessment of the co-regency years, no less.) Also, as opposed to Nancy Goldstone on one end of the scale (Fritz bad, MT and daughters plus Leopold but not Joseph good) and the whole school of Prussian historians pre and some post WWII (Fritz glorious, destiny justifies everything! Party of Progress! Also MT should just have given him Silesia which was Prussia's by old right anyway, and he'd have been her champion!) on the other, he's refreshingly matter of factly and unpartisan. In terms of Habsburg vs Habsburg, he of course makes his case for Joseph but without putting down MT, and I find his rendition of the Mother/Son relationship, both in its personal and political aspects - and at the way these were hopelessly intertwined, which - very plausible. He doesn't prettify the increasing dysfunctionality of the later years, but nor does he simplify and makes a good case for the ongoing affection along with all the mutual criticism and frustration. And he makes an absolutely fascinating contemporary comparison which never occured to me before, but the more I think about it, the more the shoe fits:

Domineering, meddlesome, hypercritical and restrictive as his mother could be; hectoring, sarcastic, resentful and self-righteous as he often showed himself; he could not utterly reject her graciousness, charm, admiration and affection. (...) Both the angry, even hysterical exchanges between mother and son, and and the expressions of affection, have to be accepted as genuine. Despite all alarms they did contrive to work together - unlike successive princes of Wales with George I., George II and George III. Perhaps the nearest parallel is the relationship between the brothers prince Henry of Prussia and Frederick the Great, in which extreme personal bitterness proved compatible with close collaboration. But the mutual affection was decidedly stronger in the case of Joseph and Maria Theresa.

He could have added Catherine and her son Paul to the pairings who could not not work together, which brings me to the following gem quoted in this book, showing Joseph in yet another way resembling his mother's arch nemesis:

Joseph (though not to a ~~British~~ Russian envoy): I'm so glad we're not like Catherine and Paul.

Though not having read the second volume yet, I don't know whether Joseph ever got to the point before his own death where he wished to forget the years since MT's death. Anyway, Fritz and Heinrich as the closest contemporary equivalent to MT and Joseph (and vice versa): discuss!

Of course, in terms of governing, they were actually a triumvirate, with Kaunitz as the third party, and in the last five years or so of MT's life, one of them was always threatening to resign in order to make the other two give in. Joseph's last such attempt leads to a line from MT that sums the relationship up:

Joseph, having offered to resign from the co-regency: I've always been able to carry out the job of a good son without having to work at it. It comes naturally. The position of co-regent, to be tolerable, needs only to become imaginary. After welve years of study I haven't yet attained proficiency, and never shall, except by the method that I'M sure you'll permit me to adopt, and my withdrawal will be the beginning of my happiness.

MT to this: It is cruel that we should love each other and mutually torment each other without doing any good.

As an example of Beales' narrative fairness: he points out on the one hand Joseph had good reason to be upset with her when she reached out to Fritz mid War of the Bavarian Succession, bypassing him when he was not only her fellow monarch but also the commander-in-chief of the ongoing war, not to mention it made him look like a schoolboy, BUT that at the same time, MT's intervention won back some sympathy for Team Austria in the German states who had until then been all pro Fritz (because this time, Austria had done the invading and thus could be condemned as the aggressor), see also Protestant Matthias Claudius praising MT in poetry with "She made peace", and that this was one reason why Austria actually ended up with some territorial gain (the Innnviertel) in the peace treaty when military wise, they hadn't managed anything. He also says that as much as MT made Joseph work for every little reform concession he pushed through during their co-regency, those reforms actually survived him instead of having to be taken back.

Now, the "Five Princesses and Joseph II" study was written after Beales had already published, so by necessity there is less here in general than there was in that single volume about Joseph and his lady friends, but Beales does indeed point out the importance those relationships had for him first. Incidentally, he reports the Marie Christina ("Mimi") affair with Eleonore Liechtenstein's husband as a fact, not a question, so wherever Goldstone had her idea that it was an invented rumor by Eleonore to carry favor from Joseph for her husband from, it's not from this biography. On the contrary, the timing of Eleonore writing this was a thing to her sister Leopoldine makes it even less likely, because it actually happens when the circle is just starting to form, at the same time when Eleonore is still wooed by Joseph. The way Beales narrates it, the chronology is thusly:

Joseph: *crushes increasingly on Eleonore, to the point where at a ball he makes an unmistakable move*
Eleonore: *does not want to become Joseph's mistress, decides to leave Vienna and visit her husband at Pressburg (Hungary), where he's stationed*
Mimi and Albert: *are currently governors in Hungary, residing in Pressburg*
Eleonore: *finds husband in affair with Mimi*
Eleonore: *writers angry and exasparated letter to sister Leopoldine*
Joseph in Vienna: *writes to brother Leopold how totally he does not mind having been rejected as a lover, pfff, he's so over it, who cares?*
Joseph: *convinces no one*
Joseph: Dear Eleonore, please please come back to Vienna, friends only it shall be!
Eleonore: *comes back*
Circle of Five: *established*

Yes, clearly exactly the kind of situation where a woman needs to do the guy a favor by making up a story about his sister and her husband.

Something else this first volume does not have is Goldstone's claim of Mimi showing Joseph Isabella's letters to herself. She may yet do so in volume 2, but so far, Beales has reported no such thing, and by the time of MT's death, Joseph still has no clue about Isabella having loved his sister, not himself.

And here's an anecdote featuring the Prince de Ligne, he who wrote the Eugene's memoirs RPF and also gave us some great descriptions of the Joseph and Fritz summit (including an Antinous reference!). Writes Beales, in a story that also is very descriptive of 18th century monarchies, Austrian edition:

A trivial example will highlight the difference of attitude between mother and son. The Belgian prince de Ligne, serving in the Monarchy's army, recalled in his memoirs that, furious at not being at once appointed on the death of his fatherh to command the family regiment and to a Knighthood of the Golden Fleece, he had written to the appropriate official, using the phrase: "Born in a land where there are no slaves, I shall be in a position to take my small merit and fortune elsewhere." When this insubordination became known to Maria Theresa and Joseph, they called a 'council of war'. The emperor wanted to take the initiative and dismiss the prince forthwith. Another member wanted him imprisoned. But a third, marshal Lacy, made the courtier's suggestion which the empress adopted: .for three months she would refuse to speak to Ligne, or to look at him when he kissed hands. The prince claimed that on one occasion during the period of this cruel sentence, he had caught her laughing.

Beales compares Fritz and Joseph apropos the Frederician political testaments vs the memoranda Joseph wrote to his mother and Kaunitz shortly after the death of his father and his becoming Emperor, detailing how he thought the state should work:

It is not possible to treat them as they were on exactly the same footing. Frederick devotes much space to foreign policiy, Joseph none. Frederick is writing, on the strength of great experience and success, for his heir; Joseph, innocent and untried, is addressing his still dominant mother. The political testaments wholly lack the adolescent dogmatism and passion of the memorandum. But the documents are comparable in that they both contain considered statements on the role of the monarch and on domestic policy.
Here there are many points of similarity, as well as revealing differences. Frederick and Joseph are agreed in their dedication to the state. Each believes that as the sovereign he is uniquely qualified to govern it and to decide what is best for it. Both are prejudiced against committees, concerned to augment the population, anxious to improve education, ready to let justice take its course, opposed to the granating of lasvish pensions, and intrested in maintaining a large army well integrated with society. But Frederick of course is the friend of the aristocracy, and Joseph their foe. The Prussian takes a more resonable line on the prohibtion of imports. He does not make a point of receiving the petition of every subject personally. Though anti-religous, he is untroubled about the position of the churches in his domnions; indeed he acknowledges that the Lutherans are ideal subjects. Incidentally, he decribes Maria Theresa's council as the best in Europe. But the essential difference is that Frederick is describing a system with which in large measure he is now content. Joseph, by contrast, wishes to transform the Monarchy.

Beales doesn't hold back on Joseph's flaws - for example, his Fritzian treatment of his second wife - but also has praise for his ability to be there when people he loved were suffering. Reading this biography, it hit me that Joseph was present at the deaths of his father, mother, first wife and daughter. The only death which was quick of these was the one of his father. The death of his daughter is the saddest of these, (MT to Lacy, one of Joseph's two male bffs in the circle: After this cruel blow, take care of my son. Try to see him every day, even twice a day, so that he may share his grief with you whom he knows to be his friend. )

Another aspect of interest to yours truly is Joseph the patron of German theatre (and opera), which was the one area where his mother really let him do what he wanted and didn't interfere. This I had known, but I hadn't been aware that Lessing's Emilia Galotti was produced in Vienna in 1772, the year of its completion. This is pretty sensational for several reasons:

1.) Lessing = Protestant Prussian Enlightenment writer.
2.) Emilia Galotti features a decadent ancien regime prince ordering the heroine, product of the up and coming middle class and not interested in extramarital sex with the nobility, into his bed. Unlike Figaro's Wedding, this isn't a comedy. It ends bloodily. Sure, the action takes place in Italy, but the critique on the status quo of the pre revolutionary all powerful rulers and nobles is pretty unmistakable.

Joseph actually dissolved the French theatre ensembles and as I told you before renamed the Burgtheater into "Deutsches Nationaltheater", the Court guaranteed the German players' wages for a trial period of one year, and Joseph offered prizes to German playwrights and sent a talent-scout into the Empire to seek out distinguished actors.

cahn, it's in this context that Die Entführung aus dem Serail with its German libretto is produced. In short: (Joseph)s reforms had unquestionably made Vienna the capital of the German stage - at a time when Frederick the Great would patronize only French players.

(Otoh, Joseph's idea of founding an Academy of the Sciences died when his mother took a look at the proposal and said they'd be the laughing stock of Europe if they founded such an Academy with three ex Jesuits and a Professor of the Physics. The good scientists were all in Berlin, Paris and St. Petersburg.)

In conclusion: a good and profound book on a tricky subject.

Edited Date: 2022-01-05 07:38 pm (UTC)

From:

From:

selenak - Date: 2022-01-09 06:25 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

selenak

One of the things I acquired while visiting Sanssouci in November was “The Anti-Machiavel” on audio (cd, to precise). Now I finally had the chance to listen to it. Since I don’t have the text in wriltten form in front of me, I can’t provide exact quotes to go with my impressions, just paraphrases.

Firstly, there’s a current day preface explaining how the book came to be, and that the version used for this audio is the final one, which is important because as the preface points out, the manuscript went through three stages: Fritz-written first version, Voltaire’s beta, and then, when the whole thing was already with the Dutch printer, FW dies, Fritz succeeds, some hasty addenda (and a new printer, because the old one refused this last minute stuff) for the final version. The preface doesn’t say which parts were added, but let’s just say it’s possible to make an educated guess.

On to the text proper. Contrary to its reputation, it’s actually for the most part remarkably consistant with how Fritz saw himself and his government goals later in life. With some obvious exceptions, but still, it’s a far more consistent line of thought between Crown Prince and King than people were seeing later, and makes it clear why Voltaire in his Memoirs says that while one could think publishing the Anti-Machiavell while preparing Silesia 1 is the most Machiavellian thing ever, he actually thinks Fritz meant what he wrote.

As what it claims to be, a critique of Niccolo Machiavelli’s Il Principe, it’s about as well versed in Machiavelli and Renaissance literature as De la Literature Alllemande is about German literature. (I mean, he did probably read a French translation of Il Principe, but he clearly has no idea as to who Machiavelli was and what his goals were and is reacting to the pop culture image that also shows up in Elizabethan drama, ironically enough.) As a Government program and insight into up and coming King. Fritz, it’s remarkable. Also, there’s at least one historical anecdote re: Alexander the Great he uses where I really would like to know whether this was original Fritz or beta-reader Voltaire’s addendum, but more about this later. Also, Mildred, guess whom “The Anti-Machiavell” names as the smartest, most competent contemporary monarch at the time of writing?

….drumroll…

Victor Amadeus! Our young author says that he doesn’t mean this in the sense of excusing the guy’s general morals or lack of same, but that he is undeniably the most clever and the most able prince of Europe of their time, and an A-plus example of how to conduct secret negotiations before changing political directions.

The general arguments, short version: Machiavelli is overrated and sucks because he only talks to the basest instincts and sees the governing business purely from a cynical pov in Il Principe. He doesn’t even give us the backstory of how monarchies developed, which is that people needed a supreme law giver for greater justice! To make it clear just how overrated Machiavelli is, I’ll say that as a political theorist seen from today’s political theorists, ~~like, for example, me,~~ he’s like Descartes to Newton.

(Selena: Yep, that’s Voltaire’s correspondant, alright.)

Also, remember how Spinoza attacked religion and wanted to disprove God, and was totally crushed by writers defending God? That’s what I want to do here to overrated Machiavelli.

(Selena: leaving aside he clearly hasn’t read Spinoza, it’s an interesting look at 1739’s Fritz state of religion. We’re definitely not yet in Deist territory. Possibly a lingering Wolff influence still?)

So, there are two kinds of Kings: Kings who actually WORK, AND ARE IN THE FIELD WITH THEIR MEN, and Kings who delegate all to their ministers. Obviously, the first type is the best type of King. It’s a King’s job to WORK WORK WORK, and be a first servant to the state. (Yes, that phrase.) He should be his own minister of foreign affairs, treasurer, and minister of the interior. Actual cabinet ministers should just be his tools. Clearly, he should lead his armies and if there’s a war be in the field with them, always. Now, I’ll concede not all kings are good generals. In this case, I’ll admit they’ll have to delegate and let a good general do the strategy stuff, but they still should be in the field with their men.

On to the second type of Kings, the lazy sort. They better hope they’ll get a good minister or several. This is a tricky business. Because let’s talk about courtiers. Courtiers are like women with make-up. You never see their true face, only a mask that makes them all look identical. You never know what they’re actually thinking. And let’s face it, bribery is more common than not. Let me side track about envoys here. Envoys are smooth and wily and hand out lots of money to work for their respective governments as spies on the King’s court they’re sent to. Never trust an envoy, though they’re fun to hang out with. Anyway, even if one finds a competent minister, there’s the danger that guy will be bribed by an envoy. (Totally not thinking of Grumbkow & Seckendorff here.) Therefore, the obvious life goal for a monarch is to work work work and have only personality less tools as ministers.

Literature, art and science: needs to be encouraged by a good monarch as a primary state goal. Let’s face it, none of us is as impressed by Louis XIV’s battles as of Racine, Moliere, Corneille, Lully. There’s a reason why Lorenzo Il Magnifico is THE TOP RENAISSANCE GUY, and it’s patronage. As for Augustus, he owes a good deal of his current reputation not to the cruel conscription lists he started with but to the poetry of Horace. If you want to be a good King, you need to support the arts and sciences and encourage and patronize artists and scientists, or all your other efforts will be in vain.

(Yes, economy is important, too. But art!)

Now, Mr. Overrated Machiavelli gives a few examples of princes in his book who are in his opinion good role models because they are successful. His primary one is FERDINAND OF ARAGON. That one. The. Catholic. One half of Ferdinand and Isabella. Clearly, that alone shows how Machiavelli gets it all wrong and sucks. Yeah, sure, Ferdinand won his wars, enlarged his realm, ~~locked up his daughter as insane~~ outmaneouvred most of his enemies and died in bed. BUT. He used religion both as a tool of conquest and of governing. That just is the worst. If he actually was a true believer himself, he perverted his own religion by using it as as a war justification and tool of conquest. If he just faked being religious, he was a hypocrite to boot. Either way, bloody Ferdinand was the worst, and anyone who recs him as a role model therefore sucks, too.

Now, I will say sometimes war is justified. Not for selfish reasons, just to gain glory, obviously. That’s a very bad thing to do. Let me tell you here a story about Alexander: the envoys from the Scythes told him he had no right to boast of having cleared his realms of robbers when he was doing nothing but robbing and plundering other realms. They were right! In your face, Alex.

HOWEVER. Here are the reasons that to me justify going to war.

1) Defending your country from invasion. Obviously.

2) Defending your country preemptively from invasion. Because sometimes, you see these dark clouds on the horizon, like for example if there is this really really large realm in Europe, and you just know they intend you no good. Gotta strike first there, protecting your people. Look, if all the various realms the Romans would conquer had teamed up against them when Rome was still not yet top dog and struck first, Rome never would have ruled the world, I’m just saying.

3) Getting something for your country which is their ancient right to have. Look, Kings have no one above them. Therefore, they can’t go to court and sue the other party to hand over the thing which is totally theirs by right. Basically, these kind of wars are lawsuits with weapons.

None of these reasons means you should do as Machiavelli says! Absolutely one should try negotiations first , and treaties, treaties are good, if they’re carefully negotiated and phrased. And you should never betray your allies, monarchs who do that just invite backstabbing themselves. You should have your allies’ back and spare yourself future wars.

And wars are bad, did I mention that yet? I’m not even talking about how bad they are for the enemy country, but for one’s own country. Taxes are raised till the population can’t bear it anymore if a country is on war footing. More and mor of the youth of one’s country, the future, die, or survive in a crippled state. Kings should be made to visit wounded soldiers and hospitals and widows regularly, so they never forget what wars do to their people, as they so easily can because they usually live in such a removed sphere from misery.

Lastly: any fellow royal reading my book: I’m writing this because I know none of my contemporaries is a Caligula or a Tiberius. Obviously good advice would never be taken by those, and I know you’re all better than that! Let’s have another golden age, boys! (Girls need not apply. Earlier in the text, I say that monarchs must never let themselves be ruled solely by their emotions, like A WOMAN.)

Edited Date: 2022-01-07 06:15 am (UTC)

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mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-01-12 03:51 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

selenak

Volume 2, about Joseph's decade as a lone ruler, continues to be concise, informative, neither dense and headache inducing nor as vividly told as the biographies romancees. Beales remains non-partisan in that he shows very clearly how Joseph manages to alienate most people, including most of his siblings, and piss off the nobility of various countries under his rule (whom he'd have direly needed on his side) in completely unnecessary ways, while also making mince meat of some legends (there's a chapter basically all about Joseph as a patron of music, with special emphasis on Mozart, where Beales really cuts loose against Joseph vilification in some older Mozart biographies and makes a convincing case of Joseph having been a good patron to Mozart (and in general responsible for Vienna really being the capital of European music under his reign), and showing the sheer magnitude and radicalism of what Joseph was aiming for. There's a good discussion near the end of putting Joseph in context not just with the two other enlightened despots of his time - Fritz and Catherine - but also with the two monarchs before him who could be called not enligihtened, but revolutionaries from the top who did succeed in radically changing their countries and societies - Peter the Great and FW. He points out that the usual explanation as to why they were successful in ways Joseph was not, that Joseph's temper, the high handedness, the sarcasm, the know it all ness, the arrogance etc. ruined his efforts, really does not work, because both Peter and FW were easily as difficult as Joseph, if not way more so, and Joseph would never have done to his nephew (or alienated siblings) what they did to their sons. But, says Beales, Peter and FW worked with their nobles. And that, in his opinion, did make the difference.

Joseph does come across as the child MT and Fritz never had in his flaws, but also virtues. All MT feared in her September 14th, 1766 letter to Joseph (as translated by me here, the "don't be like Fritz, you don't want to pay the human price" letter comes to pass. However, Beales also argues that a better tempered, less stubborn monarch would not have achieved what Joseph did. What did he achieve that wasn't taken back? For example: Abolishment of serfdom (something neither Catherine or Fritz managed in their territories), obligatory school attendance in all Monarchy territories, complete restructuring of the Austrian Catholic Church, since neither Leopold nor Franz after him refounded those monasteries Joseph had dissolved en masse, and kept the obligation for priests to study at state universities in addition to theological colleges. Speaking of the dissolution of many a monastery and Joseph stating that no order which didn't do social work, i.e. no purely contemplative order, should remain, the big difference between his actions and that of, say, Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell, was that a) the money from the dissolution didn't go to the throne and some nobles, it went to a fund for social charity purposes, which exists to this day in Austria, and b) the monks from the dissolved monasteries had the option of either joining their order in other countries or work as parish priests, which mosts of them did. (The nuns could either join their order in other countries or work as nurses in hospitals.)

Meanwhile in Rome: What even? Does he want a schism?
Pope: *decides to visit*

This was really unusual at the time. In the 20th century, popes from JP2 onwards were travelling popes, but in the 18th century, they hardly ever left the immediate Roman surroundings, let alone Italy. That the Pope came to Vienna and visit Joseph was both an honor (also a balm because remember, they didn't have a memorial service for MT, to which Joseph wrote angrily on the letter saying this: ""It is of little consequence whether the Bishop of Rome behaves courteously or discourteously") and a huge sign of concern. In the end, while the papal visit was a big affair, and Joseph, who almost immediately after Mt's death had started transforming his court into a small scale bachelor court, proved he could be a perfectly splendour providing attentive host if he tried, it did not have practical results in that Joseph continued with his reforms and Rome looked on aghast. When Joseph himself died, he did get a memorial service as a male monarch, but everything laudatory was stricken out of the young priest's sermon until it only contained blanishments. (How do we know? The young priest would later become Pope himself.

Another celebrity visit providing a big party break to Joseph's Spartan routine was when Grandduke Paul, Catherine's son, and his wife arrived. This was after Joseph had managed one of his few foreign policy coups, which was getting Catherine as his ally, which in effect, though not in letter yet, ended her alliance with Fritz. As a symbol of this, Joseph's oldest nephew, Leopold's son the Archduke Franz, was to be married to Paul's sister-in-law. (Since Catherine had no (legal) daughters, this was the closet thing to it. Paul's sister-in-law was a princess of Württemberg, closely related to the Hohenzollern (remember, Carl Eugen duke of Württemberg had been married to Wilhelmine's daughter?), and she was supposed to have married future FW3. So Catherine agreeing to this alternate match was a big signal of her change in ally priorities. (It wasn't because Joseph had charmed her that much; Catherine needed an alliance of use against the Turks. Which Prussia was not. Austria, otoh, had shared borders and old history with the Turks, and while MT had always refused to go to war with them, not least because she saw them as her allies, who had NOT done what Fritz wanted them to do in the 7 Years War and attacked Austria, for which she always wasa grateful, MT was no longer there to object.)

cahn, future Mrs. Franz is the Princess Elisabeth of Würtemberg whose teacher Mozart tries to become in order to get a court job in "Amadeus". She would be one of the few family members with whom Joseph was to remain on excellent terms for his remaining life. Ultra tragicallly, she would die in childbirth three days before Joseph died himself. He ordered she was to be buried as his first wife Isabella had been, and her new baby to be baptized as his dead daughter had been and in her baptism robe. That the biggest tragedies of his life should thus repeat themselves while he was painfully dying is just extra awful.

(The marriage - and the Paul invitation to Vienna - had been an attempt to ensure the Austro-Russian alliance would not die with Catherine, since Joseph very much did notice that Paul was a Prussia fan in (P)Russian Pete's mold. In effect, of course, Catherine outlived Joseph despite being twelve years older.)

One of Joseph's most sympathetic reforms were the emancipation of the Jews (and toleration of Protestant) edicts, which were also the direct result of all his travelling (which included Galicia, which had one of the largest Jewish populations in a territory ruled by the Habsburgs). It was also one of the few reforms where he changed the edict according to the territory in phasing. One of Joseph's big problems was that he aimed for a centralized, unified administration for all the Monarchy's territories. ("The Monarchy" = Habsburg controlled lands, not the HRE. The later is the Empire.) This was directly against MT s advice to always allow for the different laws for Hungary and the Austrian Netherlands (i.e. Belgium). Now, there were understandable reasons; the Hungarian nobles had always insisted on keeping their serfs, for example, and unless you were willing to subordinate the Hungarian contitution to the new Austrian law, this would not change. But it was still a wholesale disaster that in the end resulted in rebellions in both Hungary and Belgium.

Beales points out that both were not rebellions in the sense of the French Revolution, they were quintessentially conservative rebelllions by the nobility which didn not want to give up a single privilege; in the case of Belgium, their demand was even to go back to the law as it had been when Phiilip II of Spain ruled, which tells you something. But Joseph did make it unecessarily worse than it needed to have been from the get go. One of the first things he did was change the capital of Hungary from Pressburg back to Buda. (As I mentioned before, Pressburg had become the capital after the Turkish conquest of most of Hungary in Charles V's time.) This was actually a popular move, and the city authorities of Buda sent him a letter of thanks and asked whether they might erect him a statue. Whereupon Joseph wrote, making his biographer head desk:

When prejudices are eradicated, and true love of country and concern for the general good of the Monarchy take hold; when everyone cheerfully does his fair share to serve the needs of the state, to work for its security and success; when enlightenment through improved studies and simplification in clerical training is achieved; when, by the reconciliation of true concepts of religion with civil laws, a more effective system of justice is established (...) as I confidentally hope it will come to pass - it is then that I shall deserve a statue. But not now, when the town of Buda has merely, through my happening to move the administration there in the interest of more thorough supervisions, been enabled to secure better prices for its wine and higher rents for its houses.

Yeah, that's one way to win Hungarian hearts. Leopold, btw, was a fan of the Hungarian constitution, not for the serf factor but for a general liking of constitutionalism. He saw Joseph as a despot much as Fritz' brothers saw him as one, and he wasn't wrong about that, though Joseph's brand of despotism lacked the elements commonly associated with the term as it's used now - he didn't use the money from the realm for his own luxury, or randomly ordered people beheaded, or showed privileges at a few minions while exploiting the rest. But he did want complete obedience, and was very disappointed when establishing freedom of the press inevitably meant it would be used against him, too. That Joseph curtailed the regular court life (safe for a few occasions) and bypassed the traditional chain of petitioning via nobles meant he was simultanously one of the least and most approachable of Emperors. Least for the nobility, most for the commons - he famously made a point of talking to commoners and taking petitions from everyone during his walks. Musical anecdote for

cahn: Couirt Composer Salieri had overextended his leave. (This was the kind of thing which when young Mozart did it to his orignal patron, the prince bishop of Salzburg, it ended really really badly and was a major reason why he was eventually fired.) Since he was afraid that the Emperor would be angry, a returning Salieri went to the Kreuzgang where the Emperor usually was taking petitions from the commons. Joseph spotted him, greeted him warmly in welcome and spent the next two hours talking with him about music.) Leopld thought this whole thing was just cheap populism for Joseph's ego and yet another mistake in terms of the nobility, but Joseph was really consistent about it and kept it up until he was physically unable to walk near the end of his life.

Now, remember when Mildred mentioned that when Tuscany became transferred to FS in exchange for Lorraine, one of the conditions was that secundogeniture should apply, i.e. Tuscany would be inherited by FS's second son, not his first born, to ensure Tuscany would not become part of the Empire. Which is why in 1765, when FS dies, Leopold immediately inherits Tuscany. Nominal consent from Joseph is needed which he gives. (There is an irony here in that while Joseph is at this point Emperor, he's an Emperor without a land of his own. MT still holds the Habsburg main lands, Leopold has Tuscany, and Teschen, one of the few FS territories brought into the marriage which Joseph inherits, are given by Joseph to Maria Christina and Albert as a generous gesture.) At this point, the assumption is still that Joseph will have children, meaning the next Emperor will be Joseph's son while the next Duke of Tuscany will be Leopld's son. However, once it's clear Joseph will not have any children, meaning Leopold will be the next Emperor (unless he, who is eight years younger, will die before Joseph, in which case his son is the next Emperor), it means Tucany's Duke and the Emperor will again be the same person, as FS was. Joseph thinks this means that clearly, this means they should put it in writing that no matter who dies first, he or Leopld, Tuscany and the Monarchy and thus Tuscany and the Empire should be united again.

Leopold, who has lived in Tuscany for decades now and is aware of local feeling: Head. Desk.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

My work deadline got extended late last night, yay, so I have a little more time than expected for salon this week.

But, says Beales, Peter and FW worked with their nobles.

Yeah, I can see that. I mean, I'm still surprised Peter pulled off what he did, because he didn't exactly cater to his nobles, but he wasn't opposed to the idea of nobles. And I guess "yay serfdom" does count as catering.

Joseph does come across as the child MT and Fritz never had in his flaws, but also virtues.

Never thought of it that way, but what a great way to put it!

(something neither Catherine or Fritz managed in their territories)

cahn: note that they both made an effort, with all the enlightenment discourse about same, but backed off pretty quickly because they needed the support of the nobility. Catherine in large part because her grip on power was rather shaky, Fritz because he'd killed off half his nobles in the Seven Years' War insisting they be front-line officers. Well, Fritz really because he'd started with the a priori belief that the nobility of the sword made the best servants of the state, and then structured his approach to rule around keeping the support of the nobility.

Joseph, on the other hand, was like, "I don't need no stinkin' nobles!"

(How do we know? The young priest would later become Pope himself.

Ha. Which pope was this?

Ultra tragicallly, she would die in childbirth three days before Joseph died himself. He ordered she was to be buried as his first wife Isabella had been, and her new baby to be baptized as his dead daughter had been and in her baptism robe. That the biggest tragedies of his life should thus repeat themselves while he was painfully dying is just extra awful.

Ooof, yes. :(

Now, there were understandable reasons; the Hungarian nobles had always insisted on keeping their serfs, for example, and unless you were willing to subordinate the Hungarian contitution to the new Austrian law, this would not change. But it was still a wholesale disaster that in the end resulted in rebellions in both Hungary and Belgium.

Didn't...remind me, didn't Joseph write some Realpolitik memorandum about how if he had his way, he would ask the Hungarians for 10 years to make changes, and then make laws that they didn't like and possibly had agreed not to make, on the grounds that it was for their own good?

Yeah, that's one way to win Hungarian hearts.

Oh, lololol. That letter starts out so promising, and then he shoots himself in the foot with the increasing sarcasm. Yeah, I can see why MT was like, "Look, Fritz is not your role model, you're going to alienate everyone!"

Leopold, btw, was a fan of the Hungarian constitution, not for the serf factor but for a general liking of constitutionalism.

Someone I was reading recently--I can't remember if it was Beales--was casting Leopold's interest in constitutionalism as lip service, since the Tuscans never actually got a constitution out of him. Thoughts? Of course, we all have yet read any Leopold bios.

one of the conditions was that secundogeniture should apply, i.e. Tuscany would be inherited by FS's second son, not his first born, to ensure Tuscany would not become part of the Empire

As I recall, that was the one political point that Gian Gastone actually stood firm on, at least according to the less-than-trustworthy Acton, I think.

Leopold, who has lived in Tuscany for decades now and is aware of local feeling: Head. Desk.

Yeah, there was a lot of that on Leopold's part (as you mention in the next installment).

Edited Date: 2022-01-13 12:18 am (UTC)

Re: Derek Beales: Joseph II, Volume 2: Against the World, 1780 - 1790 - A

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Re: Derek Beales: Joseph II, Volume 2: Against the World, 1780 - 1790 - A

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Re: Derek Beales: Joseph II, Volume 2: Against the World, 1780 - 1790 - A

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Re: Derek Beales: Joseph II, Volume 2: Against the World, 1780 - 1790 - A

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selenak

Another Joseph idea is to trade Belgium for Bavaria. This is in the tradition of territory trade that was practiced a lot in the first half of the century, as Mildred has told us about, including, famously, when his parents married and FS gave Lorraine for Tuscany. It makes geographic sense to him: Bavaria is right next to Austria. Belgium is far away, both the Dutch and the French are constantly interfering there, and they don't take well to reforms. Hey, it looks like the Wittelsbachs would be wiling, so, great idea, right?

Except it's not the 1720s anymore, a new spirit of national feeling abounds, the Bavarians and the Belgians are all DO NOT WANT about being traded for each other, the Wittelsbachs hastily back away from having almost said yes, and the other German princes look askance and join Fritz in the Fürstenbund, an explicitly anti-Habsburg league from the 1780s. (Mind you: two years later, they realize that any league with Fritz as a member is just a tool of Prussian policy and he's easily as high handed as Joseph, and secretly pledge themselves to vote for Leopold as next Emperor, thus defeating the Prussian idea of robbing the Habsburgs of their lock on the Imperial Throne after all.) Even George III. of GB, in his capacity as Prince Elector of Hannover, is a Fürstenbund founding member.

Oh, and then there's this gem:

1788/89: G3 has one of his earlier mental breakdowns, though one from which he'll recover. It's not yet permanent regency time. It's "Madness of G3" the play/movie time.

Joseph: As you have reminded me, you are also Elector of Hannover. Now I don't care who gets to rule Britain while you're down and out, but clearly, it's my job as Emperor of the HRE to appoint a regent for Hannover.

G3: *makes recovery*
Other HRE princes: WHAT IF HE DOES THIS TO US?!?

Joseph and music is an entire extra chapter and thus will be an extra write up (and an undepressing one, this is one area where Beales does not head desk) for

cahn. Instead, I'll finish with another sensational gossipy bit. Now as I said, Joseph succeeded in alienating most of his siblings and had the bad luck that the ones with whom he got on best were either dead (sister Josepha), or far away married (Marie Antoinette and Maria Carolina. (And then there's the sad irony that Leopold as far as Joseph was concerned was his closest confidant among the siblings, the one he wrote his frankest letters to and the brother he was most affectionate with - and Leopold was bursting with resentment and even hate, towards the end. He wrote a secret memorandum after his 1784 visit to Vienna which is among the most vicious thing ever written about Joseph.) Now, Joseph during his trip to Italy had had first hand (literally) experience in what an oaf their brother-in-law the King of Naples was, but back then Maria Carolina at least did have the emotional upper hand, so to speak. In 1786, Leopold rings the alarm and temporarily sets aside fraternal resentment when teaming up with Joseph re: their sister:

Writes Leopold: There has taken placein Naples a scene very unpleasant for the queen. For nine years the King has been ill with various venereal diseases, which are not completely cured, and has passed them to the queen. She has been seriously ill with them several times, especially during her pregnancies and confinements. Her son Gennaro and two of her daughters have been seriously affected. She has finally had to undergo proper treatment, having had fainting fits and very painful bouts of urine retention and a gangrenous sore in the vagina.

(The Joseph and Leopold correspondence: speaking in anatomically frank terms about their sisters' and brothers-in-laws genitalia, thus ensuring these letters won't be printed until the later 20th century.)

Beales continues: But then, while she was both ill and pregnant, the king forced himself upon her. Relations between them had now, unsurprisingly, become very bad, increasing the political difficulties. Joseph declared the King "a monster", and he and Leopold tried to help and advise her, as she requested, but she paid little attention to what they said.

Ferdinand of Naples: still the worst husband in that Habsburg generation!

Edited Date: 2022-01-11 07:17 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Another Joseph idea is to trade Belgium for Bavaria.

Not just a Joseph idea! Joseph just revives it. Charles VI had the idea all the way back in 1715, as soon as Austria got the Spanish Netherlands. He kept wanting to do it, only nobody else would agree. (Getting the Spanish Netherlands out of the war of the Spanish Succession was kind of not a big win for Austria, for reasons discussed in my 1720s write-up.)

More when time. Thank you for this in the meantime!

Re: Derek Beales: Joseph II, Volume 2: Against the World, 1780 - 1790 - B

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Re: Derek Beales: Joseph II, Volume 2: Against the World, 1780 - 1790 - B

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cahn - Date: 2022-01-13 06:11 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

selenak

The relevant chapter, starting on page 455 if you want to read it entirely,

cahn, is titled: "Music and drama, with special reference to Mozart". Here, our Mr. Beales has an axe to grind.

Music was the one art in which Joseph participated regularly and enthusiastically. Despite the well-known portrayal of him in the play and film "Amadeus" as a musical ignoramus, he was in fact exceptionally knowledgeable about music. The composer Dittersdorf reported a long discussion he had with the emperor in which Joseph made an intelligent comparison between Haydn and the poet Gellert on the one hand, and Mozart and the poet Klopstock on the other. The essential point of it was that both Haydn's and Gellert's works has an immediate appeal, whereas both Mozart's and Klopstock's had to be heard or rad more than once for their beauties to be appreciated. Joseph's alleged comment to Mozart about the Entführung, "Too many notes", has been taken as evidence of his ignorance. But he probably said something like "Too beautiful for our ears, and monstreous many notes." It is always necessary to bear in mind, when appraising the emperor's remarks, his peculiar brand of humor or sarcasm. He was usually getting at someone. And he did not use the royal "we". The ears in question where those of the Viennese audience, whom he was mocking for their limited appreciation of Mozart's elaborate music.

While Orsini-Rosenberg was the nominal guy in charge of theatre affairs, Joseph was the de facto impressario of the Burgtheater/Nationaltheater. However far he was from Vienna, he sent specific orders to Rosenberg about the day-to-day running of the theatre. He made all the importanta and many lesser decisions, personally selecting librettists, composers, singers and operas. When in Vienna, he rarely missed a performance, and he often also attended rehearsals. On one occasion Zinzendorf found him singing an opera to himself from the score.

Precisely because Joseph had cut down nearly all other court activies, theatre and opera were the one chance where there was still a chance for the aristocrats to show off in the audience, so while there were music lovers attending, there were also people who wanted to flirt, do business and socially interact (which they would have usually done at court parties). But it was one aspect of Joseph's reforming theatrical management that, unlilke at most courts, the audience paid for their boxes and seats..

I already mentioned his encouragement of German plays and operas. (With the Entführung as the most prominent example. This very much annoyed the upper classes in Vienna at first, since they were used to French and Italian opera and plays only. But it made Vienna cutting edge, musically speaking, since Berlin stuck with the old under Fritz, and Paris was about to have a revolution and thus change everything anyway. More about Beales' axe:

It has become Joseph's chief claim to fame that he was Mozart's emperor. Some writers believe him to have blighted the composer's career. Robbins Landon, author of a biography of Heydn, declares that "Joseph's negative attitude was of catastrophic effect, particularly in Mozart's case." This is a grotesque misjudgment. In fact, Mozart was fortunate in finding in the emperor, for all his quirks, a warm admirer and a steady supporter.

Salieri had become Joseph's court composer at age 24, in 1774. Short of firing him, which Salieri had done nothing to deserve, there was therefore no way Joseph could have made Mozart court composer (there was only one), but he did create an office for him, "Kammermusicus" (chamber musician), at a salary of 800 Florins a year. Far from yawning at the Figaropremière, Joseph liked the opera so much that he ordered it performed for his guests at Laxenburg in June the same year. Don Giovanni had been commissioned bya Prague impresario, not Joseph, but Joseph had hoped to have it performed for the wedding of his niece to a prince of Saxony in Pargue in October 1787. When it wasn't ready yet at his point, the Emperor ordered Figaro to be performed at the wedding instead. It was Joseph who commissioned and possibly suggested the plot of Cosi fan tutte, which was first performed a few days before he died.

(La Clemenza di Tito, which Mozart wrote for Leopold's coronation, was badly received - Leopold's wife called it "una porcheria tedesca" - and that was it in terms of Habsburg encouragement. But that was not Joseph's fault!)

Another fascinating detail in the music chapter is that there was an opera version of Beamarchais Barber of Seville - by Paisiello, today forgotten because of the later Rossini opera - several years pre-Figaro, thus proving that a successful opera version of a French four act play could be done, and wetting the appetite for the sequel play to be made into an opera as well.

re: censorship - theatre censorship was much stricter than print censorship, but the original censorship of Beaumarchais' play Figaro's Wedding (which meant that Da Ponte and Mozart had to ask for permission before getting their opera version licencsed - doesn't have to have been political in nature. Beales points out that censor licensed Weidmann's piece Die schöne Wienerin in which a black servant says to his master, Count Fixstern: "Nature made me free when I was born, as free as you! I am flesh and blood like you. The same sun shines on us, the same earth bears and feeds us; we live and die in the same manner."

So possibly the original problem with Figaro befor da Ponte reworked it wasn't Figaro's cutting sarcastic speech about the aristocracy but the frivolous sexual shenigans. (In Beaumarchais, the Countess does have a fling with Cherubino, while da Ponte made her blameless.) The bit in Amadeus where the ballet is reinstated because Joseph shows up for rehearsal, watches the music-less pantomine and asks what the hell is going on is based on fact, except that unlike in Amadeus, Joseph showing up for rehearsal was not unusual and Mozart had in fact counted on it. (The reason why a ballet was forbidden before was because Joseph hated the ballet interludes in French operas which were usually not connected to the plot and were thus pretty pointless in his eyes. Since the ballet in Figaro's Wedding is connected to the plot, this reason did not apply, and so Joseph ordered it reinstated.

In conclusion, Beales quotes Austrian writer Caroline Pichler, writing as an old lady in 1840 about the Vienna of her youth:

In social circles, instead of the previous stiffness and archaism, a lively vigour prevailed. The theatre, to which Joseph gave his personal care, did a great deal to promote this social benefit. Under the direction of the monarch our stages soon became among the best for German plays, and perhaps the finest then existing for Italian operas, not even Italy ecepted; for the emperor had got to know the theatres of other countries on hist ravels and himself engaged the best singers of both sexes. So from our opera the second and third sopranos went back to Italy and appeared everywhere as first sopranos. (...) The public participated in the theatre in a manner very different from now. It sought intellectual pleasure, not just pastime.

Edited Date: 2022-01-11 07:22 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Not much to say about this, but it was interesting.

"Too many notes", has been taken as evidence of his ignorance. But he probably said something like "Too beautiful for our ears, and monstreous many notes." It is always necessary to bear in mind, when appraising the emperor's remarks, his peculiar brand of humor or sarcasm. He was usually getting at someone. And he did not use the royal "we". The ears in question where those of the Viennese audience, whom he was mocking for their limited appreciation of Mozart's elaborate music.

This makes perfect sense, and I'm going to share it with my wife, because she brings up that quote whenever I mention Joseph. (She has only pop culture knowledge of this period, although these days she has some gossipy sensationalism knowledge too. :P)