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

[cahn]

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)

Comments

Books about the Great Elector: The Second Marriage

[selenak]

The Elector, who all his life had bouts of depression which only got worse with the years, freely confessed he could not bear to be alone, and apparantly wasn't the type for mistresses, so he remarried within six months. Here's the interesting thing, though: Dorothea, his second Misses, was already 32 years old, and had been married and widowed as well. In the years of that first marriage, which had lasted 12 years (!), she had never become pregnant. Now, obviously at a time where women were primarily looked at to be fertile in any type of royal marriage, this is highly unusual, and shows the Elector really married for company rather than in the hope of additional children to secure the succession. Dorothea, btw, was a Schleswig-Holstein-Glücksburg. (Making her related to both Prince Philip, the late Duke of Edinburgh, and a great many other people, cahn.) Both the writer of the essay about her and Jürgen Luh plead her case for having been a good wife and a good Duchess, joining her husband on campaigns, getting ihm out of his bouts of depressions (though not always), and as a former Lutheran (who had to convert when marrying) being popular with the majority Lutheran Brandenburg population. However, against all expectations, she did become pregnant, repeatedly, and most of her children survived. And once they were there, she wanted them to get equal portions of the heritage.

Neither writer thinks she poisoned anyone, but between the Elector's behaviour to his older sons alienating them (espeically F1) more and more, and his reaction when Sophie Charlotte got pregnant (reminder, it was the same Caroline would later have in England: declare it couldn't be his son's because said son was clearly impotent), and then the death of Ludwig, who unlilke F1 had never been sickly before, AND the big scandal at Versailles, it's really not surprising F1 jumped to certain conclusions. What I hadn't known before is that F1 was not the first to make assassination allegations. Because you see, the first few years of the Young Elector's governing years had been less than successful. Later, when he had achieved success, he rewrote history and declared this all to be the fault of the mighty minister Schwarzenberg whom he had inherited from Georg Wilhelm, and not only that, he claimed that Schwarzenberg had tried to kill him, and that he, the Elector, had caught and defeated the wannabe assassin sent by Schwarzenberg in his bedchamber. However, when the Elector told this tale (years after Schwarzenberg's death), no one called him paranoid or ridiculed him the way it happened with F1.

=> This was one paranoid family.

Now, Fritz and all the subsequent historians influenced by him declared the Great Elector the true founder of Prussia. This left them with having to explain why he did something every antiproductive to founding Prussia, to wit, make a will where it gets paritioned into tiny tiny principalities among his sons. If that will had been listened to as written, there would not have been any Prussia-as-a-German-power, never mind as a European superpower, and only by F1 going against it and settling with his half brothers so they'd get estates but only as his vassals did it happen. Fritz & Co. either blamed F1 for the Elector's last will (i.e. said that the Elector must have seen him as too weak to succeed him) or blamed Dorothea (subsequent historians), except for Leipnitz, who was a contemporary and famousl remarked the epitaph "Great" should be taken away from the Elector for that last will, showing himself acting backwards and not forward looking (as opposed to Leipnitz' bosses the electors of Hannover, who made primogeniture the law in Hannover, thus uniting the many Hannovrian principalities and making it a power just in time to take over Britain. Luh thinks what the Elector's will proves isn't just that he was depressed and angry (despite the sort of, kinda official reconciliation with son F1) but that this whole modern idea of the national state that began to emerge was indeed not in him. He thought, like the previous century, in dynasties, and that's where all the sons came in, plus he probably did regret he couldn't by pass F1 altogether and make Margrave Philip the main heir.

re: religious tolerance, the thing other than winning the battle of Fehbellin the Great Elector is famous for, Luh the deconstructionist points out this mainly meant "tolerance for Calvinists", i.e. while the Elector did make issue a declaration for toleration, all the examples quoted therein which were not to happen anymore were of Lutherans discriminating Calvinivists. Three quarters of his staff were Calvinisists, which was in ino way representative of his subjects. He actually had more Catholic subjects than he had Calvinist ones (before the big immigration of Huguenots), but he had laws to ensure the Catholics were not able to get in any administrative positions, like in England, because NO POPERY. However, between Brandenburg direly needing immigrants after the devastation of the Thirty Years War and the Elector needing more Calvinisits, those Huguenots truly were a gift from God (or rather from Louis) and changed Brandenburg & Prussia forever.

Re: Books about the Great Elector: The Second Marriage

[cahn]

=> This was one paranoid family.

Wow, yeah.

Re: Books about the Great Elector: The Second Marriage

[mildred_of_midgard]

The Elector, who all his life had bouts of depression which only got worse with the years, freely confessed he could not bear to be alone, and apparantly wasn't the type for mistresses, so he remarried within six months.

Him and Philip V of Spain!

In the years of that first marriage, which had lasted 12 years (!), she had never become pregnant.

Huh! Do we know if her husband had fathered any other children, legitimate or illegitimate?

(reminder, it was the same Caroline would later have in England: declare it couldn't be his son's because said son was clearly impotent)

More repeating themes!

However, when the Elector told this tale (years after Schwarzenberg's death), no one called him paranoid or ridiculed him the way it happened with F1.

Wow.

=> This was one paranoid family.

And THEN there was the Klement affair!