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:

cahn

ahhhhh I don't have much time today but I will get to all of these book reviews eventually, I am loving this :D

Our Leopold! :D <3

But when trying to decide why I feel very different about Leopold's "Joseph sucks, Mom sucks, Mimi sucks, everyone sucks but me!" than I do about Heinrich's life long "Fritz sucks!" complex, which he wasn't shy of voicing, either

Everything that you have said is absolutely true, of course! But because I am a person with simple needs, I mean, if Leopold had had visceral emotional scenes where he put back together an emotionally-shattered Joseph, and times when Leopold and Joseph perhaps-grudgingly but extremely competently worked together, and also an awesome memoirist who said of Leopold that he was like a god, then I'd probably like Leopold a lot more too ;) (I mean, what's really true is that if he had had those kinds of times, he probably also wouldn't be so unrelentingly negative about everyone -- he'd be more like Heinrich :) )

Biographer: re: Leopold's private life: All his life, there was much gossip and people claimed he shagged everything that moved. That was clearly slander! One should not rely on hostile sources when it comes to people's sex lives.

I laughed! (And also am grateful that you are reading and summarizing, because this kind of double standard I can now occasionally catch but definitely often don't!)

He's quite adroit at doing his tasks, but he also has a false embarassment which damages him a lot. He seeks to accomplish his goals via tricks and short cuts you must not permit him to.

This is so interesting, I think it's neat that MT has these kinds of thoughts about her kids.

She's full of ambition and avarice, she always wants to be better served and distinguished than the rest of the family, she spends money in the name of the Empress and uses the Empress' servants as if they were her own, and she makes a big deal of how important her patronage could be to people.

Yeeeeah, I see what you mean. I mean, maybe he wrote letters that aren't full of dogged negativity? But this just makes me sad and not inclined to like him.

From:

selenak

LOL, yes, if these kind of events had happened in Leopold‘s life, I‘d feel warmer towards him, too. I mean, there‘s always the possibility he did and we just haven‘t come across them yet, but so far, he just doesn‘t seem to be the type. There‘s also this: Joseph, in the reverse position, would have been there for Leopold when he died. I mean, maybe he‘d also been smart and calculating enough to refuse a co regency in order to be able to make a fresh start, but he would have been there during the death of his brother. How do we know? Because Joseph was there for both his parents and his first wife and daughter, no matter how hard this was for him in the later two‘s case. And while a part of him must have been relieved when MT died because now he was finally able to govern exactly how he wanted, another part of him missed her and grieved for her, see his writing to Leopold about catching himself at wanting to send her a package, or wanting to visit her. Going by what I‘ve read so far, there is no testimony of such torn feelings on Leopold‘s part. There‘s no glitch in his negativity. He resented MT for not appreciating him enough, wrote she was senile in her last years - something Joseph, no matter how frustrated he got with her, never would have said, and he was in a far better position to judge her mental capacity - , and showed no sign of missing her once she was gone. He resented Joseph and remained consistent about this in the few years he survived him. There‘s nothing like Heinrich‘s inability to keep away from Fritz for good (i.e. his resumibng their letters because he was bored to tears after a two years break), let alone the „I‘m just going to pretend the last twelve years didn‘t happen“. There are no inner contradictions which is what makes people really interesting to me. I‘m as fond of competent people as the next fannish person, but they have to give me something else, too, for me to get hooked.

Thinking of contemporaries who were mostly negative about others and whom I still feel differently about: well, Hervey‘s memoirs are also a hilarious „everyone sucks!“ bitchfest (I mean, they suck in different degrees, Caroline and one of her daughters less than others, and he has some impressive things to report about her, but „she lived for power“ wasn‘t meant as a compliment). But only is Hervey a far better writer than Leopold (judging by the excerpts quoted in biographies), able to be witty in his badmouthing which Leopold is not, Hervey also has his share of positive emotions, for love-of-his-life Stephen and for Algarotti, among others.

MT and her children: Leopold‘s biographer goes with the general characterisation that FS was the fun, easy-going parent (up to a point: see FS pushing Joseph just as much to remarry as MT did), and MT was the aweinspiring disciplinary one whom they also were somewhat afraid of. This is probably partly caused by their gender atypical social roles, but also the expression of their respective natures. Now corresponding with your kid‘s teachers about your kid and instructing them were what many a royal parent did - hence us knowing all about FW wanting to be the fun parent, with SD as the disciplinary parent, and utterly failing at achieving this, for example - , but because of who she was, her various assessments are better preserved than most.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I mean, maybe he wrote letters that aren't full of dogged negativity?

Me: *thinking about my blog posts about my coworkers*

I have good relationships with a number of my coworkers, I swear! I just don't feel the need to ~~vent~~ blog about them. :P

From:

selenak

LOL. Well, like I said, maybe Leopold was bursting with good will for a lot of people he didn't feel the need to rant about, and we're just missing it because of the source problem.

Again: he's rarely completely off base in his complaints (for example, accusing Joseph of laziness was demonstrably wrong, but Joseph sure as hell was autocratic and more ready to piss everyone off instead of devoting time and patience to build alliances and convince people), and of course he's doing the emotionally healthy thing when not liking your siblings and parents - stay as much away from them as possible. One can't even blame him for pretending closeness with Joseph (via letters), because Joseph was the Emperor in an absolute monarchy, and while Leopold ruled Tuscany as independently as he could under the circumstances, there is still no way he could have afforded having the Emperor as an enemy. Pelham couldn't tell me whether Leopold really did feel warmer towards Maria Christina in their later years or whether he simply needed her as an ally because the Mimi-critical outburst hails from years before they teamed up, and apparantly there are no usuable quotes from him about her to third parties or in a secret diary which would tell us. Either way, she was an useful ally to have, and again, his original complaints about her weren't completely wrong, either - she sure as hell had a "the one who tells on us to Mom" reputation with her siblings, and she did feel entitled. But "does everything right from his pov" helps rather than hinders the "emotional fridge except for the part where he's seething with jealousy and resentment and pettiness" impression.