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cahnAnd including Emperor Joseph II!
from Derek Beales: Joseph II, Volume 2: Against the World, 1780 - 1790:
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 monstrous 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 were those of the Viennese audience, whom he was mocking for their limited appreciation of Mozart's elaborate music.
(though not gonna lie, I think it is a LOT of notes)
from Derek Beales: Joseph II, Volume 2: Against the World, 1780 - 1790:
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 monstrous 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 were those of the Viennese audience, whom he was mocking for their limited appreciation of Mozart's elaborate music.
(though not gonna lie, I think it is a LOT of notes)
Re: Klement: the Weber Version - I
Date: 2022-01-29 06:57 pm (UTC)Weber quotes from his letters, and the letters referring to him, at length untranslated in the original French, just to make my life harder.
I knoooow, I saw! He did this to me in the stuff I read, too. :/
Wilhelmine, child of a Klement-believing father and a snob, considers he might have had Philippe d'Orleans or the King of Denmark as an illegtimate Dad, but no such thing,
Ahahaha, sorry, Wilhelmine!
Again according to himself, which is always a problem if you've been exposed as an international conman.
Very true. Alas for reliable sources, but this whole write-up is a giant soap opera, which is of course why I asked for it. :D
Louis looking for allies among the Hungarians against his enemy the Austrians and trying to woo the Prussians away isn't implausiblel
My memory of various sources I've read was that Louis was funding Rakoczi for exactly this reason (think funding Jacobites when fighting England), so I think that's real. And they definitely tried to woo the Prussians a few years later, by sending Rottembourg (with permission to bribe Grumbkow and Ilgen), so this is also plausible, I agree.
The Crown Prince who's supposed to pretend to escape so he can become King of Hungary is FW, guys.
At least it would have been plausible! Prussian crown princes are always trying to escape! :PP
Wait, though, this is ringing some faint bell. Have we heard this story before? Or am I thinking of a different secret treaty? Maybe one with Austria that future F1 agreed to when he was crown prince?
Given how the rest of Klement's life went, I'm not sure I follow his logic here.
Hahaha. Eugene could have been conned too, Weber! His right-hand man in the Netherlands seems to have been a huge embezzler, for one thing.
claiming that the plan had been to make Prince Eugene one the Spanish throne once Charles failed at getting/keeping it, and that Eugene once this secret plan emerged had a twelve hours meeting with Charles assuring him he didn't want the Spanish throne and offering to withdraw from all his offices, which ended with Charles urging him to stay. Given that the Spanish throne was well occupied by Philip the future frog
Huuhh. So there was definitely talk of sending Eugene to the Spanish front as a *general*, which Eugene did not want, but king??? Neither the Habsburgs nor the Bourbons would have stood for this!
Meanwhile, Klement, evidently inspired by his personal encounters with FW, kept adding details - Eugene had even gotten the Hannover okay for this dastardly plan. FW is thunderstruck.
Lol! Well, I mean, FW's paranoia is easy to feed into here. Klement must have thought he'd hit the jackpot!
Klement gets interrogated, but in a friendly way, FW even sends him food on silver plates from the royal kitchen. He sticks wit his story and says, in tears, that he knows he can't prove it, Eugene and Flemming will deny everything but he, Klement, did it for FW and the Protestant Faith! FW is wavering but wants to believe him.
Man, you could make a movie out of this bonkers episode! And then everyone would critique it as unrealistic. :PPP
One of the people busted on this occasion: the secretary of Katte's grandpa Wartensleben, Bube, who borrows the clothing of a female "moor" to escape in disguise, but is controlled and outed.
And again! The screenwriters would get criticized for too much imagination.
Saxon Legationssekretär Wilhelmi also gets strip searched in his own living quarters against all diplomatic conventions. FW writes to August that August can't blame him for this since an assassinaton/kidnapping attempt was planned! He knows it has been!
Wow, this episode is truly bonkers. And I love how Wilhelmine's source was FW and she totally bought it!
Re: Klement: the Weber Version - I
Date: 2022-01-30 09:25 am (UTC)You'd have to sell it as a satire even if you just stuck to the truth. Well, alleged truth, what with Pöllnitz' and Klement's own accounts in the mix. But still!
Re: Klement: the Weber Version - I
Date: 2022-01-30 10:02 am (UTC)Also, I just thought for the first time: Die Geschichte des Gestiefelten Katers fits so much in this era with these guys, doesn't it?
All this said, I'm surprised that none of the later German satirists having a go at the Prussian state took the Clemens/Klement story and ran with it. Yes, censorship applied till WWI, but you could get around it in historical drama, especially if publishing in a not Hohenzollern ruled state before 1870.
Re: Klement: the Weber Version - I
Date: 2022-01-31 07:50 am (UTC)Yeah, I think we can see how Klement's con man career evolved. Let's say he did work for Racoczky, though possibly not as his right hand man, but still high enough to know R. got funded by Louis and that there were also French attempts to move the Prussians from Team Austria to Team France. When he gets himself hired by Eugene, he relays that intel, but he thinks he needs to spice it up a little since it's not something Eugene couldn't have figured out on his own (I mean, since it makes so much sense Louis would pursue those policies). So he adds the story of an offer of the Hungarian Crown to Prussia, complete with the Crown Prince pretending to escape in order to come to Hungary to get crowned and ruled. This is not something anyone could have figured out, it's new, and it gets him interest. And from this point onwards, his stories get more and more adventurous.
Wait, though, this is ringing some faint bell. Have we heard this story before? Or am I thinking of a different secret treaty? Maybe one with Austria that future F1 agreed to when he was crown prince?
Yep, the later, the one people held against F1, calling him "weak" for it, whereas the F1 defending biographers of the last decades pointed out his Dad agreed to a similar secret treaty with Louis of all the people (which even involved making Louis, Catholic Superpower Absolutist extraordinaire, executor of his will).
So there was definitely talk of sending Eugene to the Spanish front as a *general*, which Eugene did not want, but king??? Neither the Habsburgs nor the Bourbons would have stood for this!
No kidding, and Eugene knew that. He also never showed ambitions of wanting to rule any fiefdom, and notably did NOT try to marry into either the Habsburgs or another powerful and influential family. But Weber says that Klement in his made up reports basically wrote Eugene as Wallenstein. (
The female mooor who whose clothes Bube the secretary borrowed is referred to by Weber as "die Mohrin der Markgräfin Philippine" - I didn't have time to look it up, but is Philippine Mrs. Wartensleben or are we talking about one of the Schwedt wives?
ETA: also, check out how much of the files on Klement from the Secret Prussian State Archive survive! Wow. Lots of material still there.
Re: Klement: the Weber Version - I
Date: 2022-02-03 02:26 am (UTC)The latter, apparently, but I can't easily find which one, and like you, I have no time. (I am now again waiting on a script to finish running before I can resume work.)
ETA: I can't find a wife named Philippine or Philippe, but the late Margrave at this date was Philip. Wilhelmine calls his wife the "margravine Philippe" or "margravine Philippine" (depending on your translation, I really don't have time to check out the French). Is it possible that she and Weber are doing the equivalent of "the Princess Heinrich"? I.e. it's actually Philip's widow Johanna Charlotte?
ETA: also, check out how much of the files on Klement from the Secret Prussian State Archive survive! Wow. Lots of material still there.
Wow, yes! And those would have been closed to Weber, right? Only special people, like Preuss, got access?
Re: Klement: the Weber Version - I
Date: 2022-02-03 08:09 am (UTC)Is it possible that she and Weber are doing the equivalent of "the Princess Heinrich"?
By Jove, I think you've got it. Yes, that makes sense.