cahn | 18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 35

You're viewing

cahn's journal
Create a Dreamwidth Account Learn More

Reload page in style: site light

In the previous post Charles II found AITA:

Look, I, m, believe in live and let live. (And in not going on my travels again. Had enough of that to last a life time.) Why can't everyone else around me be more chill? Instead, my wife refuses to employ my girlfriend, my girlfriend won't budge and accept another office, my brother is set on a course to piss off everyone (he WILL go on his travels again), and my oldest kid shows signs of wanting my job which is just not on, sorry to say. And don't get me started about Mom (thank God she's living abroad). What am I doing wrong? AITA?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I must admit I've stopped reading Massie for the time being, because right at this moment I'm sort of very ambivalent about reading about Russian ruthless people in power

I hear and understand you.

Seconding Selena's comment. You can tell from my DW post that I immediately had some ambivalent feelings about invaders myself. (Just because you're my historical fave doesn't mean I could like you if you were alive!)

This is why I went to all the trouble of world-building a universe where this kind of thing is ethical!

the economy-wrecking and the alliances-burning. Say what you want about Catherine, but she was careful not to leave Russia without allies

Whereas my fave... :P

So if Massie thinks Voltaire's money came from his writings, he clearly doesn't know much about a) Voltaire and b) the author business in the 18th century.

Which is why I warned you all about Massie's accuracy! Or rather lack thereof. His strength is preparing you to read drier and more accurate treatments of his subject.

Ummmmm idk those Pamela letters are reeeeally written in such a way to emphasize the "niece" part of it and not so much the "mistress" part of it.

Yeah, like Selena said, he concealed it from other people. His letters to her--the genuine ones, not the ones written for publication like Pamela--though, were full of cunts and penises and breasts. She tried to bowdlerize them for selling to make money, then apparently gave up because there was TOO MUCH. :P

As we've discussed, Voltaire presumably was very aware that while uncle/niece was okay with you were a Habsburg or a Hohenzollern and married your niece, for normal citizens (and without a marriage) it was a criminal offense

I was reminded of him in my recent German reading in which I encountered another uncle/niece marriage: Acton, the naval commander and later prime minister in Naples during the Ferdinand - Maria Carolina - Hamilton - Emma - Nelson days. To quote from Wikipedia:

On 2 February 1800, at the age of 63, he married his 13 year-old niece Mary Ann Acton, the eldest daughter of his younger brother General Joseph Edward Acton (1737-1830). The marriage appears to have been made for dynastic purposes to keep control of the family's wealth and required papal dispensation due to consanguinity. On hearing the news Nelson commented "it is never too late to do well" and following his arrival in Naples threw a party for the newlyweds aboard his flagship.

63 and 13 is definitely waaaay skeevier than Ferdinand and his wife/niece. To the point where I hope it *was* dynastic, but still not cool either way.

See also "Athens of the North", which at various times was used to compliment Christina for Stockholm, Sophie Charlotte for Berlin and Fritz for Berlin again.

And Solomon of the North for Fritz. One of the most hilarious things Voltaire ever wrote, imo, was, "As Solomon said--the other Solomon, the one not from the North," which makes me collapse into giggling whenever I remember it. :D

The second one does sound like he means Diderot, though then again Catherine was trying to get as many literati and artists as she could, and I don't think Diderot was the only Frenchman of Voltaire's aquaintance to make it to St. Petersburg?

I too guess Diderot, but Grimm comes to mind as another qualifying Frenchman, and I see that he's also name-checked in this letter. Remember this passage from one of the books I was reading:

As his homesickness deepened, Diderot had begun to make plans for his return to Paris. Determined to make the trip with Grimm, he was no less determined to avoid a layover in Berlin. Torn by his devotion to Diderot and his debt to Frederick, Grimm’s predicament seemed without issue. “I am more than a bit embarrassed over Denis’s intentions,” he confided to Nesselrode at year’s end. “As you can imagine, the last thing in the world I want is to cancel Berlin, but the last thing Denis wants is to place his foot there.”

And my summary: "Grimm and Diderot ended up traveling separately, so they could respectively go to, and avoid the hell out of, Berlin."

From:

selenak

But would Voltaire refer to Grimm as a Frenchman? I‘ll remind you the guy was a German pastor‘s son (and studied at Leipzig where he held the 50 years graduation anniversary speech for Manteuffel), not moving to France until he was an adult. Yes, he remained there and was everyone‘s go to French culture correspondent, but look, this is the century where Marie Antoinette, who leaves Austria as a teen, still gets referred to as „The Austrian“ for the rest of her life by the French. Francophilia and decades of living in France does not a Frenchman make in the eyes of another Frenchman, is what I‘m saying.

63 and 13 is incredibly skeevy, no matter the motive. Suddenly, the Judge‘s intentions re: Johanna in „Sweeney Todd“ look like hardcore realism. Btw, the guy -Karl Thedor - who was married to the erotic letters writing Elisabeth Augusta and who couldn‘t trade Bavaria for Belgium to Joseph because everyone else among the German princes was WTF? About it and started to root for protector-against-invasions Fritz, married again after her death since they didn‘t have a surviving son. He married a teenage Habsburg. Who retaliated against her family for marrying her off to a 70 years old (she was 17, I think, which is at least well past puberty) by successfully refusing to have sex with him till he died, so Bavaria went to another branch of the Wittelsbachs who were profoundly grateful. In Nymphenburg, the text that goes with her portrait says „heroine of Bavarian independence“ since otherwise Bavaria would have ended up swallowed by Austria after all.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Francophilia and decades of living in France does not a Frenchman make in the eyes of another Frenchman, is what I‘m saying.

Fair! I just think of him as the French culture correspondent guy, but yes, you're right about how Voltaire would see it. So yeah, it's got to be Diderot even if there are other qualifying Frenchmen hanging out with Catherine.

Who retaliated against her family for marrying her off to a 70 years old (she was 17, I think, which is at least well past puberty) by successfully refusing to have sex with him till he died

Ha! Good for her.

I forgot to mention that this Acton is the grandfather of "absolute power corrupts" Lord Acton, and the brother of Harold Acton's ancestor. Harold Acton being the author of the Last of the Medici, and a friend of Norman Douglas, who was no stranger to age-skeevy relationships himself.

(Srsly, Fritz being 24+ and crown prince and having a strong personality negates any squickiness for me surrounding any possible power differential based on the age gap with Suhm. Especially since I don't think they had sex when he was in his 20s, much less his teens. Hand-kissing and emo letters is my ship. I am not okay with Acton and Douglas!)