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

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:

selenak

Among Louis' first mistresses were a series of sisters, one after the other, until he'd collected 4 of the 5.

They were also from the uppercrust of the aristocracy, very much in contrast to Pompadour later, and never got over losing their influence once Louis switched preferences. For example, the French prisoner whom Heinrich befriends and sends back to France in a (Fritz-authorized) attempt to get a separate peace was a member of that family and considered reliable for that reason (i.e. he already had a grudge against Reinette and thus a reason to work for a policy different from the one she supported). (For what it's worth, he did try. And failed.)

Awwwww on Maria Josepha. Joseph would empathize on the remarriage enforcement but dealt far worse with his second wife.

selenak, I know Fritz asked for her portrait and sent his own, but did she ever actually send him one of her, or did he have to acquire it on his own?)

I don't know or don't remember. What I dimly remember is that the portrait exchange proposal (by Fritz) comes up with in Lehndorff's diaries and in some envoy letters, because the Austrian envoy to whom Fritz talked about this was the guy he liked (despite his being the Austrian envoy) way better than Charles Hanbury-Williams (and so did tout Berlin - Lehndorff later mentions that his, the envoy's, mistress still had his portrait in her salon even after the war had started and he had left). But whether I read the letters in a Volz edited collection or in the "MT and Fritz in the eyes of their contemporaries" collection, I don't know, and I don't have the time to check.

Also also, I had forgotten that it was Wilhelmine (at least according to Schultz) who reported (erroneously) to Fritz that MT was writing to Pompadour and calling her "dear friend," thus inspiring his fit of satire.

If it originated with her, it's news to me (doesn't mean it can't have). I do know she mentions it indignantly - Stollberg-Rillinger quotes from that letter, too -, but from what I recall of the quote not as something she reports for the first time to someone who has never heard of it before, i.e. no "guess what I just found out/heard", as opposed to stating something the way one does a "fact" already known to both parties (I think it comes in a "your/his enemies are awful" list - I'm not even sure it was a letter to Fritz, as opposed to a letter to Voltaire.

At any rate, I think it's worth pointing out here that "MT wrote to Pompadour a "dearest sister" letter" was reported by Fritz and Prussians thereafter as a fact, not a satire, and formed an important part of their propaganda. Fritz did write a "reply letter" from Madame de Pompadour petitioning on behalf of all whores to MT to change her laws re prostitutes which was clearly meant as satire, though decades letter he tries to sell it to Lucchesini as authentic, too. (Causing Volz to regretfully footnote that not only was this rubbish because Fritz had written the "Pompadour" letter himself but also the supposed MT "Dearest Sister" letter never existed as had to be conceeded after the Austrian archives were opened.

Anyway, in order to find out whether the story originated with Wilhelmine or was repeated by her, I guess one would have to compare the dates of the relevant letters and pamphlets.

Incidentally, re: the portrait, Madame de Pompadour did ask for one, and received it, as well as permission to write "thank you for the furniture" letter, because if you really want to make a case for MT pussyfooting around the fact they tried their best to get the mistress on their side, Schultz should have brought up instead that they sent her a very beautiful and expensive secretary. (Er, a table,

cahn, not a guy.) (This, btw, was an excellent choice on Kaunitz' part, because it came across as a personal present fitting Madame de Pompadour's image of herself rather than a crude bribe.)

So we knew about the first part of this episode (Catt claims to have tried to stop Fritz, and Voltaire complains in his memoirs), but I didn't know or had forgotten about the French counterattack!

I hadn't known, either! ROTFLOL. Nor did anyone of the "no comtemporary but Voltaire ever accused Fritz of gayness" party, clearly. (I did know about another French satiric verse because Lehndorff quotes it indignantly in his diaries. It was penned after Fritz lost his first big battle at Kolin and rhymed "Schwerin" with "rien", claiming that with Schwerin died Fritz' military craft, proving it had been him all along. (In all fairness, the French also immediately made satiric poetry against Soubise who lost the battle of Rossbach against Fritz later that year.)

From:

cahn

the French prisoner whom Heinrich befriends and sends back to France in a (Fritz-authorized) attempt to get a separate peace was a member of that family and considered reliable for that reason (i.e. he already had a grudge against Reinette and thus a reason to work for a policy different from the one she supported).

Oh wow, that's interesting -- I really like when dots like this get connected for me :)

Schultz should have brought up instead that they sent her a very beautiful and expensive secretary. (Er, a table, [personal profile] cahn, not a guy.)

Lol! I did know the table/desk definition, but I absolutely just thought of the person on first look and was really confused before reading the parenthetical :) ("Why... would MT need a beautiful secretary?")

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Schultz should have brought up instead that they sent her a very beautiful and expensive secretary.

He did! However, he says that the Austrian ambassador reports that Pompadour complained that it was *so* beautiful and expensive that she had to keep it a secret, lest people get the wrong idea.

She did at least accept it, unlike Fritz's actual crude bribes.

(Er, a table, [personal profile] cahn, not a guy.)

LOLOL! No, that was Darget, whom the French sent to Fritz. :P

I hadn't known, either! ROTFLOL. Nor did anyone of the "no comtemporary but Voltaire ever accused Fritz of gayness" party, clearly.

Rereading MacDonogh, he actually is slightly more nuanced than I had given him credit for:

What makes one reluctant to fall in with this view is that so much of their evidence is culled from one source alone, namely Voltaire; and that Voltaire was definitely seeking revenge for the slights he felt he had suffered at Frederick’s hands in Berlin and Frankfurt. Still, Roger Peyrefitte and others are right to point out how much Frederick, and indeed Voltaire, used the language of Greek love in their correspondence, and that Frederick made constant allusions to it in his poetry.

To play devil's advocate, I can't imagine a second French poet seeking revenge for slights to the king and mistress during wartime would count as much more reliable than the first French poet, but it does indicate that this was the widely known weak point of Fritz's sexual reputation. (For which salon also has an abundance of evidence that MacDonogh is *not* listing.)

Also, can I just say that I love how Fritz's response to the counterthreat is to go ahead and release his satire? "Do your worst! I am out and proud!" I imagine him thinking. :DDD

(I told my partner about this battle of poetry and she laughed. "We see your misogyny and we raise you homophobia!")

From:

cahn

lol!

Also, can I just say that I love how Fritz's response to the counterthreat is to go ahead and release his satire?

I must say that this seems wildly in character :D