cahn | 18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 34

And 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)

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From:

selenak

Isn't she the one who really dislikes Wilhelmine, too?

Indeed she is. Some of the criticism isn't per se wrong - Wilhelmine was a snob, she was very jealous re: other people Fritz was close to (with the glorious exception of Voltaire, I'll say something about Wilhelmine the shipper in the reply to your other comment) and the memoirs are one long venting about just about anyone - but even there she's inconsistent; when it's something furthering her own agenda, she treats the memoirs as an impeccable source, when it's something going against her ideas, Wilhelmine clearly made it up. And the later accusation usually comes with a snide remark, as when she mentions the bit in the memoirs where Wilhelmine says Dad for a short while (i.e. during the Dresden visit) considered marrying her to August the Strong. After declaring there's nothing about this in other sources, and that FW would never have married his daughter to a decades older guy (um, Sophie/Schwedt Cousin?), K F-P adds that Wilhelmine clearly made it up because "she could not stand being not the center of attention".

(Sidenote: I have no idea whether or not FW considered this at the time of the Dresden visit, but given young Fritz gives Wilhelmine a detailed "hot or not?" description of August the Strong in his first preserved letter, I don't think it's impossible that Wilhelmine and Fritz thought this might be in the offering.)

Which is fairly representative. On the other end of the scale, Charlotte is her favourite, and after (correctly) stating Charlotte had a way of interacting with FW and SD that was utterly lacking the tensions and dramas of the Fritz and Wilhelmine interactions with their parents, she adds that in addition to having a sense of humor, Charlotte pleased FW by not being into dresses, make-up and jewelry the way Wilhelmine was. Which, um. Maybe not while she was still living with Dad, but going by the childhood and youth chapters of the Anna Amalia biography I've read, Charlotte enjoyed the fashionable life in Braunschweig as much as the next Duchess once she was away from Dad.

Oh, and there are so many avoidable minor errors. Like naming Peter Karl Christoph von Keith ("offspring of old Scottish nobility") as the page whom Fritz tells to get a horse etc. during the escape attempt and who spills the beans. A confusion of Keiths is easy in this fandom, admittedly, and fiction of course frequently makes the two Keith brothers into one, but an author who keeps publishing Hohenzollern biographies really should not.

SD, Klement sponsor: :) I knew that would leave an impression. (K F-P really has no idea who the guy was beyond his appearance in Berlin, there is nothing about his backstory in Hungary, Austria and Saxony.)

Wanted to add that the Heinrich anecdote is rather nice (when was it again that Heinrich was sulking and cold and not talking? I thought around then...)

Checking my old write-up of their correspondence again, yes, that was in 1746. So either Fritz indulged in a bit of rethorical exaggaration when accusing Heinrich to not have talked to him for six months despite living in the same house with him that same year, or they were about to have dinner in silence when the painting frame got loose. Then again, you discovered Heinrich was with him in Pyrmont that same year, so Fritz clearly made an effort to spend some time with him (and/or wanted to keep an eye on him after their Marwitz bust-up).

and we do know that Fritz also always included updates on his brothers when he wrote to her during the Silesian wars.

What makes it all so compellingly messed up is that he really did try to act like a responsible family patriarch with his siblings (see also the new education schedule once he became King)... but could not resist following the obvious role model in the long term.

From:

felis

Charlotte pleased FW by not being into dresses, make-up and jewelry the way Wilhelmine was. Which, um. Maybe not while she was still living with Dad

I seemed to remember something about christmas presents from your Stratemann report and yes, there it is, 1730: Princess Charlotte, our Prince of Bevern's bride, received an expensive jewel, some silver kitchen supply, shovels and pliers, and a few pretty things to dress herself up.

Checking my old write-up of their correspondence again, yes, that was in 1746.

Okay, so those were all before the 1747 dinner incident then. (But then again, I had a look at Trier and saw that all these 1746 letters have no further dates and even the year is just Preuss conjecture, so who even knows.)

From:

selenak

If Preuss was just guessing, it's hard to say, other than obviously Heinrich didn't yet live in the Potsdam house he moved into in the later 1740s, but still had to live with Fritz, and the Berlin town palace wasn't finished until after the 7 Years War anyway.

Charlotte: well, it was already obvious via her Gundling funeral denial K F-P can't have read Stratemann, but yeah, that passage flies right in the face of the idea of Charlotte the modest Spartan who doesn't want fine dresses or jewelry. Since she lists Charlotte Pangels in her bibliography, I'm assuming that might have been her source. (She also lists Ziebura's AW and Heinrich biographies, which is persumably why she doesn't follow Pangel's "no one but Voltaire ever claimed Fritz was gay, and Heinrich was straight, too!" assertion, but dumps an entire chapter of AW/Sophie von Pannwitz on us despite this having nothing to do with SD.

From:

cahn

What makes it all so compellingly messed up is that he really did try to act like a responsible family patriarch with his siblings (see also the new education schedule once he became King)... but could not resist following the obvious role model in the long term.

Ugh, yeah. I mean, it makes perfect sense -- changing things on the surface, like encouraging education and music, but following the underlying behavior because that's what he has the role model for. Sigh.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

was very jealous re: other people Fritz was close to (with the glorious exception of Voltaire, I'll say something about Wilhelmine the shipper in the reply to your other comment)

And Algarotti! And Suhm!

From:

selenak

Algarotti and Suhm: true, you're right. she liked them as well, but:

a) with Suhm, I don't think she ever saw him as a boyfriend. I mean, the interactions she could have observed between him and Fritz were when Fritz was still a teenager, so she certainly put him in the friendly older mentor category, like Duhan.

b) Algarotti: probably was that irresistably charming. Also not one of the settling sort, and thus not genuine competition for Fritz' affections. And while she wrote friendly about him to Fritz from Italy, she didn't try to get them back together again the way she lobbied for Brother Voltaire.

(As you once put it, Wilhelmine clearly was able to identify a Hohenzollern soul in an Arouet body.)