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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)
Helga Peham: Leopold II. Herrscher mit weiser Hand. (Vienna 1987) - II
Date: 2022-02-19 04:23 pm (UTC)The Emperor has a lot of talent, ability and vivacity, he easily comprehends and has a good memory and has the gift of rethoric, since he can talk well and can express himself well in writing. (...)n But he's a harsh, violent man, full of ambition, who does everything and says everything in order to be praised and to make himself known in the world. He doesn't know hat he wants and is easily bored and isn't busy at all but hates work.
(Sidenote: Beales says that of all of Leopold's critique, this is most easily dismissed, because we have Joseph's daily schedules and more than enough paper proof that he kept them. He was a hard worker.)
He doesn't allow for resistance and is full of wild, spontanous princples and the strongest, most violent and harsh despotism.(...) He doesn't love anyone and only thinks of himself and doesn't give audiences and doesn't receive anyone other than when walking where his servants under everyone's eyes let all the lowest, most shameful and infamous peopole to him, where everyone passing can see in front of his door every day the most dirty whores and pimps since he's drawn to that kind of low and dirty women whom he pays very well. He actually believes this scum and based on their conversation is able to go up against everyone. (...)
Due to his character and taste he enjoys talking back no matter what one says and do everything what one doesn't want him to do, and to hurt everyone in small matters, and especially the Empress, and that's why they keep arguing with each other, and he always says angry things and threatens her with going away and giving up the co-regency and similar things.
As Helga Peham says, this is as telling about Leopold as it is about Joseph. Basically, the impression I had is that if there was one life long thought in Leopold, it was "It should have been me!" - not just that he should have had Joseph's job as the successor, co-regent, Emperor, but that he should have been the most loved, not one of many siblings - and that it ate him up that it just wasn't. That he was admired for his rule of Tuscany, that his own wife and children were devoted to him doesn't appear to have helped there, nor that Mimi teamed up wit him against Joseph in the later years. He still was seething.
As mentioned earlier, one of the few examples of Leopold sounding positive about someone comes in the two preserved letters to Olivia Raimondi, who was one of his mistresses, a dancer and the daughter of a Roman servant. We know a bit more about her than the others because a) she had a son from him, Luigi, and b) Leopold wanted her to come with him to Austria after Joseph's death. In Florence, he'd given a her a palace, and a list of the entire interior still exists, so we know Leopold was very generous there. So this is Leopold, trying to persuade his mistress to come with him to Austria (despite not speaking the language):
..Come freely and without fear to Vienna, and you will never receive slights there, you will be satisfied in all the points you've made to me, and I will have the happiness and the immense satifsfaction for me to have Livia and Luigi near me, two human beings to whom I owe so much and who are so near my heart. You may be sure that with no thought at nowhere in the world I will ever cause you grief again, and believe me, that I will always be thinking of the affection, friendship and devotion I love with you with and will love you till my death, as my dear and best Livia, for whom I am and will always be in devoted love your faihtful lover, I embrace you.
So she came. Bad decision. Not only did he have local lovers as well (such a Bohemian countess), but she didn't really like Vienna. So she planned to move back, which we know from the second letter of his that still exists ("Farewell! You believe you'll find pleasure, but maybe you willl find neither the calm nor the friendship you had with me!"), but then he died. Next thing you know, a servant shows up to fetch Luigi from Livia. She will never see him again. Instead, she gets ordered by Leopold's legal son Franz to leave the country, which she eventually does. Livia gets into written contact with her son many years later when he's an adult fighting against Napoleon. 42 letters from Luigi to his mother exist, and what we know about him comes from this letters. (He had the Habsburg fondness for music and spoke French, Italian, German and Bohemian.) But alas he died of pneumonia before they could reunite in person. One of the last things he wrote to was sending her a lock of hair from himself and asking her for more of her hair, because the lock she had already sent to him wasn't enough to make a ring of. And that's the story, basically.
So, in conclusion, why there's no large Leopold fandom,
Re: Helga Peham: Leopold II. Herrscher mit weiser Hand. (Vienna 1987) - II
Date: 2022-02-20 06:44 pm (UTC)So I'm sorry Leopold didn't win you over, but thank you very much for finding the Peham book and reporting on it, and I will keep both Peham and Wandruszka on my someday-maybe list. (Because I am *here* for his reforms.) How dry is the prose, closer to Beales or closer to Stollberg-Rilinger?
Re: Helga Peham: Leopold II. Herrscher mit weiser Hand. (Vienna 1987) - II
Date: 2022-02-21 08:42 am (UTC)Re: Helga Peham: Leopold II. Herrscher mit weiser Hand. (Vienna 1987) - II
Date: 2022-02-21 03:11 pm (UTC)Nice, thanks.
coming close only to end up being cast off by the city (Carthage) he tried to protect,
Yeah, that was part of the emotional hook, as was the sheer doggedness of him wandering around the Mediterranean trying to stir up interest in his "Down with Rome" project, then eventually committing suicide because the Romans were still scared enough of him to be hunting him. :)
having foe yay with Scipio Africanus
Sadly, this is a DNW for me, and the #1 reason none of the Hannibal fic that gets written in fic exchanges is satisfying to me. Because apparently everyone except me loves Hannibal + Scipio feelings!
As for your guys Diocletian and Maximian,
As for them...?
Romans
Date: 2022-02-21 03:19 pm (UTC)And here I was thinking you must enjoy all the Hannibal/Scipio Africanus. I have no opinion in this matter, and can take or leave the pairing, but out of sheer curiosity, is there a particular reason why they are your NOTP?
Re: Romans
Date: 2022-02-22 12:04 am (UTC)Because: you needed siblings and Voltaire and Fredersdorf and other complex relationships to get into post-crown-prince Fritz, and I got into him solely because of his military and political maneuvering combined with his snark. (Writing the anti-Machiavel and then invading! Abandoning his allies twice! Blitzkrieg in Saxony!) I wasn't even into Katte until my second time around in the fandom!
Because: the number one thing I care about re Hannibal is Cannae, followed by Lake Trasimene. (Those are battles,
Because: did Fausta betray dear old Dad or didn't she? Did Diocletian foresee just how ruthless Constantine was going to be and maybe tried to project Maximinian by making him retire? And what WAS up with Fausta/Crixus? How did Maxentius fit into this?
Because: Fausta and Maxentius hold zero interest for me. I am here for Diocletian taking over a chaotic empire and imposing order on it, and also his partnership based on complementary skill sets with Maximian. The fact that Maximian didn't betray him and in fact retired when Diocletian told him to is a big loyalty kink win, but the soap opera potential is unappealing to me.
And ever since 2019 when I noticed we had radically different interests, I've been super glad to be in a fandom with you*, because the aspects you're interested in are aspects I would never in a million years have pursued on my own. And even if you didn't make me have fannish feels about Heinrich and company, I am infinitely more well-rounded in the Fritz fandom because of you! Which I am so grateful for.
* I mean, in addition to all the other reasons. <3
So if we end up in a Classics salon, I can see that I will be talking about Diocletian and Maximian's politics*, and you will be exploring their relationships with the people around them, and I will learn so much!
* My disapproval of authoritarian governments having, as usual, nothing to do with my fannish feelings. See also: I write dysfunctional sibling fic for you, but in my head, much of the unwritten fic for myself is "What could Fritz have done to win more battles and conquer more territory?" :P
is there a particular reason why they are your NOTP?
There are probably exceptions, but I think the trope of love across enemy lines is, in general, a turn-off for me. I think it conflicts with my desire to commit 100% to crushing my enemies. :P I realize the internal conflict adds nuance and depth that makes it of great interest to many people! I can see why! It just doesn't work for me, and more than that, actively gets in the way of my "kill everyone" mode.
Leopold on the other hand...I'm estranged from my entire family (an option because of none of us being heads of state), and we've established that I use my blog to bitch about my unfavorite coworkers*. His dogged negativity could be a plus for yours truly! :P
ETA: On a perhaps related note, enemies are for crushing, not for making friends with. :D
* The reason being that when I get off work, ideally I want to stop thinking about work and start thinking about salon/German/fandom/travel/something fun. Coworkers who make my job easier make it easy for me to stop thinking about work at 5 pm. Coworkers who make my job more difficult are the reason I get off work frustrated and furious and going in circles in my head trying to figure out what I can do to solve this problem and whether I should look for a different job. And that's when the blog posts come out.
Re: Romans
Date: 2022-02-22 06:15 am (UTC)Leopold on the other hand...I'm estranged from my entire family (an option because of none of us being heads of state), and we've established that I use my blog to bitch about my unfavorite coworkers*. His dogged negativity could be a plus for yours truly! :P
See, the difference between you and Leopold is that I don't think of your blog posts about your coworkers as unrelenting negativity. As far as I can tell, there might be isolated incidents, but generally speaking you're pretty okay with your coworkers except for That One Incompetent Guy, and then the other guy who said super weird things about you, but even there I feel like you said something like "look, I know he has a lot of problems, but WTF."
Now, if That One Incompetent Guy had been emperor and not really able to be dislodged by anything but death, I guess I could imagine you writing pretty unrelenting negative blog posts about it. So okay, I guess I can see Leopold's point if he truly thought he'd be far more competent than Joseph. But I do think his portrayal of Joseph, at least in these excerpts, seems to me to be vicious in a way that "Incompetent Guy was incompetent again today!" isn't.
Re: Romans
Date: 2022-02-22 06:33 am (UTC)Re: Romans
Date: 2022-02-24 05:45 am (UTC)Re: Romans
Date: 2022-02-24 03:35 pm (UTC)Me, reading this: I do now!
But yeah, if Idiot Ex-Boss was still your boss
Yes, see, exactly! :P
But no, I get that I say more positive things about other people than we see in the Leopold sources, but also I'm aware that the 21st century is a pretty good place for me to live in. And I know what I was like when I was trapped with my family, and thus what I would be like if circumstances hadn't allowed me to develop some of the emotional maturity that, say, Fritz never got.
(Though Joseph is a far cry from your sister :P )
She is in a class of her own, it's true. :)
Re: Romans
Date: 2022-02-22 11:49 am (UTC)Did someone say commenting about your sibling's sex life?
Date: 2022-02-23 12:24 am (UTC)Well, not his1, but I can't say I'm innocent of complaining about my one sister's a) getting pregnant at 16, 18, 19, and 21 and neglecting the kids that resulted (and telling the first one he didn't have a daddy like his siblings, meaning she either had no idea who it was or it was someone she couldn't admit to2), b) getting her second husband to drive her to meet-ups with "friends" that turned out to be dates with the other guy she was seeing, c) general tendency to behave toward her boyfriends and husbands like a black widow who sucks them dry and then moves on.
There is lots of soap opera potential there! I probably even vented about this back in LJ days when she and I were still in contact. :P In this AU in which she is empress and I am Duke of Tuscany, you are going *hear* about it in my secret memoranda. Is all I'm saying.
I feel like we're doing this thing again where
1. I will complain about Incompetent Guy's trying to talk coworkers out of getting vaccinated, though!
2. Have as much sex as you want, but don't make innocent small children bear the consequences. There are ways to tell kids they have a different father without causing them emotional distress; my mother managed it when I was three.
Re: Did someone say commenting about your sibling's sex life?
Date: 2022-02-24 03:57 am (UTC)Post the first, in which my sister claims 3 times in very implausible circumstances to have been mistaken for a prostitute.
Post the second, in which a coworker at the worst company I ever worked for claims much more plausibly to have been mistaken for a prostitute at work. In a way that was one drop in the bucket of why I started looking for a new job immediately, but now that I'm safely away, makes for a collection of *hilarious* jaw-dropping stories. (Exactly like my sister, who is a collection of jaw-dropping stories, mostly hilarious but sometimes infuriating because of the innocent children.)
Cahn, remember how you said my parents remind you of FW in that you keep forgetting just how bad it was until you get a reminder that no, it really was that bad? My sister is orders of magnitude more awful-cum-bizarre (they were a mixed bag who did many good things for which I remain grateful; her...not so much), and the only reason you aren't constantly being reminded of that is that it's been so long since she was a part of my life that my rants have moved on. But ask me sometime. :P I also took notes on that one workplace, because I knew the list of bizarreness was so long the memories would fade over time, and I knew I would want to tell the story again someday.
Me: *is clearly not as high-minded as Selena*
(Tonight's salon (or salon and gossip) comments brought to you by 5 hours of sleep = 3 pages of German. I was planning to do the Duke of Parma write-up, but ended up helping move furniture instead. One day!)
Re: Romans
Date: 2022-02-22 05:18 pm (UTC)Most of all, though, as with any pairing and any trope, I need to find the people involved both interesting, and their relationship (whether as enemies or lovers) interesting, and I have to have some sympathies for both if I'm supposed to root for them to become lovers as opposed to rooting for the character I like to get the hell out of there (and get back to crushing his enemy). BTW, the later variation can also be fun to write. I did that once, since canon absically provided me with one of the few truly irredeemable revolting villains hitting on my shady antihero, that is, behaving very flirtatious towards him. So I wrote a story in which the villain - who has social power over the antihero - takes it one step further, and the shady antihero has to use his wits and cunning to get out of that situation without either getting himself killed or giving the irredeemable villain what he wants. (And then he got back to canonically potting the villain's downfall.)
and then there are characters for which the "enemies to lovers" trope is just wrong. I'm looking at you, Friedrich Schiller, for inflicting it on Jeanne d'Arc, of all the people, by giving her a hot Englishman to fall in love with. (That's not all Schiller did to Joan. He also made her die on the battlefield instead of being burned at the stake.) (Verdi then did an opera version where his librettist wrote out the hot Englishman and instead had Joan fall in love with her King. Either way, she dies in battle to atone for falling in love. Not her trope!) But speaking of Schiller, one reason why I'm into the Schiller/Goethe relationship the way I am is that this is a real life rivals to lovers, err, bffs thing, and comes with lots of juicy quotes to demonstrate that, both from the hostile and the being close stage.
Going back to the late Roman Empire, when I had finished Mike Walkers audio series "Caesar!", of which the Constantine episode is the last but one, I was glued to the spectacular soap opera of it and then I thought, hang on, hang on, wasn't Fausta the daughter of one of Mildred's guys? Wasn't she supposedly involved in his downfall (only German and English wiki disagree with each other whether or not she actually was)? And that guy Maxentius who shows up early in the episode to be defeated by Constantine, wasn't he also an offspring? Okay, I finally have my emotional in now! Why hasn't anyone told me these guys were ona Julio-Claudian level of scheming against each other within the family, and wow, someone gets boiled alive by their husband!
If I had only had more time before Christmas, I would have written you Fausta's very secret diary entries about Dad and his boyfriend/boss man, is what I'm saying.
Re: Romans
Date: 2022-02-24 02:58 am (UTC)Most of all, though, as with any pairing and any trope, I need to find the people involved both interesting
I've seen other people say this too. I apparently don't! I apparently have very specific id buttons for dynamics, which can override feeling indifferent toward or despising one or even both characters. I have no interest in and in fact slightly negative feelings toward Maximian as an individual, but he does his part so well in the dynamic with Diocletian that it doesn't matter.
He also made her die on the battlefield instead of being burned at the stake.
In isolation, this arguably counts as a fixit! :P
Either way, she dies in battle to atone for falling in love. Not her trope!
This, though, is just silly. Joan obviously dies in battle because she is AWESOME, and Charles rescued her from the English like he SHOULD HAVE, in recognition of her TOTAL AWESOMENESS, and until her HEROIC death in battle, they went on CRUSHING THEIR ENEMIES together. Not falling in love with them. :PP
*cough*
If I had only had more time before Christmas, I would have written you Fausta's very secret diary entries about Dad and his boyfriend/boss man, is what I'm saying.
And I would have chortled in glee! One day, perhaps.
Also <3 for the thought, even if never gets written.
Re: Romans
Date: 2022-02-24 06:16 am (UTC)I don't think I feel particularly strongly either way about enemies to lovers. I enjoyed Flight of the Heron and the duty
(That's not all Schiller did to Joan. He also made her die on the battlefield instead of being burned at the stake.)
Heh, like mildred my reaction was, "Actually... that sounds sort of like a fix-it..." but that's without the atoning for falling in love bit, EWWWW.
Why hasn't anyone told me these guys were ona Julio-Claudian level of scheming against each other within the family,
Now, I do like inter-family political scheming a lot! This is why I keep asking for Heinrich/Anhalt!Sophie marriage and the resulting political scheming :)
Re: Romans
Date: 2022-02-23 05:34 pm (UTC)Ha ha ha!
Sorry in advance for the poor spelling and syntax of this, I'm dictating it.
I am a sucker for love across enemy lines (see: Flight of the Heron), but I am not into personal enmity. sometimes I think enemies to lovers should be separated out into two different tropes, one of which is love with Obstacles, where they have to come to terms with having opposing duties etc. The other one is where they are more personal enemies and actually dislike each other at first. This one I am usually not into, though there are exceptions (see: pride and prejudice).
In general I enjoy m/m pairings that are set in homosocial duty bound environments like the military, because you both get the comrades in arms thing, but also angsty conflicts between love and duty, etc. And of course there are opportunities for hurt comfort, as well. Or at least, this is one thing that I enjoy. I have wide ranging tastes. : )
I find that I actually am into the military history stuff at least somewhat For its own sake. I'm not sure exactly why I find it compelling, but it's not because I want to crush my enemies. : P
Tropes
Date: 2022-02-24 03:31 am (UTC)I meant to ask you what program you're using! I was looking for a dictation program a couple years ago, when my chronic pain was really acting up, and I couldn't find anything that met my standards. (Unfortunately, you have to understand that 1) I type 100-110 wpm, 2) my day job is writing code, which means lots of special characters and macros, and every character has to be perfect, so my standards were super high. Anything much less than that was not even worth bothering.)
I am a sucker for love across enemy lines (see: Flight of the Heron)
Ha! I was thinking of you and Flight of the Heron. :D
I remember when I saw a review of it (maybe by
sometimes I think enemies to lovers should be separated out into two different tropes
Oh, I agree completely! I see those as completely different tropes. (Sara Douglass, for instance, does enemies to lovers in a way that works for me, as long as I switch my brain off and don't think too critically about it. :P)
also angsty conflicts between love and duty, etc.
See, my loyalty kink means I want love and duty totally aligned, or at least, compatible. I.e., "Maybe duty means we're separated more than our love would like, but being on the same side means we each at least know the other is out there being committed to the same goal
of crushing our enemies, and we take comfort in that," like GUH, that is my favorite.I have wide ranging tastes.
Oh, agreed! I think for every generalization I make about my tastes, there are exceptions. Sometimes a really good author can make me love something I normally wouldn't like. (Or sometimes an author with the right strong points can make me switch off my brain enough to ignore the weak points, *cough* my love-hate with Sara Douglass.)
I find that I actually am into the military history stuff at least somewhat For its own sake.
YES! (I'm all alone in this fandom.) Welcome!
I'm not sure exactly why I find it compelling, but it's not because I want to crush my enemies. : P
Lol, yeah, no, that's just me. :P I remembered shortly after writing that comment that I've spent the last 10 or so years lovingly world-building a universe in which it's ethical!! to challenge everyone you meet to a fight to the death! and invade and conquer anyone you like! And then I collect all my favorite historical and fictional characters and put them in that universe and let them have at each other. :D
Re: Tropes
Date: 2022-02-24 06:26 am (UTC)I was going to say I wasn't so into the military history stuff, but well actually this I would be into! Someone I met in opera fandom on tumblr used to have a Hunger Games simulator she'd put opera characters in, which was extremely amusing to me.
Re: Tropes
Date: 2022-02-24 03:28 pm (UTC)Someone I met in opera fandom on tumblr used to have a Hunger Games simulator she'd put opera characters in, which was extremely amusing to me.
That's awesome. :D
Re: Helga Peham: Leopold II. Herrscher mit weiser Hand. (Vienna 1987) - II
Date: 2022-02-22 06:07 am (UTC)Wow. (Also: Don Vienna!Joe!)
("Farewell! You believe you'll find pleasure, but maybe you willl find neither the calm nor the friendship you had with me!")
Heh. I realize that letters to one's ex is never a good look, but this definitely sort of undercuts the nice things he said in the other letter to me. (Also, Luigi :( )
Re: Helga Peham: Leopold II. Herrscher mit weiser Hand. (Vienna 1987) - II
Date: 2022-02-22 08:05 am (UTC)The other thing is which his biographer doesn't quote but the Five Princesses author did: Leopold also disapproved of Joseph's definitely platonic relationships to the princesses and wrote him not one but two letters, separated by several years, to say essentially: "why do you hang out with these stupid conservative ladies if you are so "progressive"? Also, hanging out with ladies one doesn't woo is stupid, full stop, and just makes people think you're discussing politics with them, which, ew". So given Leopold rants about sex with dirty prostitutes and about the princesses from the other end of the social scale makes one conclude his true problem wasn't what Joseph did or didn't do with either variety of women, but that he was looking for something to complain and feel righteous about.
Re: the audiences, a reminder - when Leopold complains that Joseph does not give audiences - about which youngest brother Max also complained, btw - what is meant here is that Joseph doesn't give the traditional style audiences to the nobility. He cancelled those, but he did famously talk to everyone addressing him at the famous stairs and crosswalks, which were mostly non-nobles. (That, for example, was how Salieri after an unauthorized extended absence showed up, since he was a bit worried - remember, unauthorized absences were what got young Mozart fired by his Prince Bishop - , only to find Joseph being delighted to see him again and sweeping him off for lunch and a a two hours talk about music.) Now you could point out all the drawbacks here: systematic audiences work better since everyone knows when they can talk to the monarch, and the adminstrative staff, whose job it is to impliment the policies, has a far better thance to do so if they witness the matter being brought up at an official audience than if Joseph hears about it on a walk and later says "oh, you should get onto doing x, I was petitioned by baker Y this morning", and maybe he didn't even catch the guy's name right. Not to mention that as youngest brother Max points out in his letter to Leopold, it pisses off the nobility - access to the monarch used to be a sought after privilege, and now they don't have it but street guys do? - and the Emperor needs the nobility to truly get things done. But the thing is, Leopold doesn't make these sensible (from an 18th century pov) arguments in his secret memoranda. Instead, he rants about lowlives and Joseph talking to scum. Again, that just makes me conclude that the heart of the issue weren't so much Joseph's mistakes (which he certainly made) but Leopold's envy and resentment.
Re: Helga Peham: Leopold II. Herrscher mit weiser Hand. (Vienna 1987) - II
Date: 2022-02-24 04:13 am (UTC)Yeah, the classism and misogyny are definitely showing through and seem to loom larger in his mind than reasoned arguments. Come on, Leopold!
Re: Helga Peham: Leopold II. Herrscher mit weiser Hand. (Vienna 1987) - II
Date: 2022-02-24 05:50 am (UTC)HEE. Oh Leopold. Well, it seems that Leopold at least thought that Joseph paid them well (if he used them), go Joseph :)
Also, hanging out with ladies one doesn't woo is stupid, full stop, and just makes people think you're discussing politics with them, which, ew".
LOL. Unless they're prostitutes. I guess.
what is meant here is that Joseph doesn't give the traditional style audiences to the nobility.
*nods* I actually did remember that, because you mentioned it was one of the things that made Joseph not so effective, and I am sort of the anti-Mildred in that I think it's interesting how people who mean well and have lots of exciting idealistic ideas fail when applying them to the real world, because it's such a geeky thing that I empathize :)