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

[cahn]

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?

Comments

Re: Catherine and Voltaire

[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.

Re: Catherine and Voltaire

[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!)