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: Pompadour gossip

[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!")

Re: Pompadour gossip

[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

Re: Pompadour gossip

[mildred_of_midgard]

Pretty sure he was constitutionally incapable of not releasing it. :D