cahn | 18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 36

Starting a couple of comments earlier than usual to mention there are a couple of new salon fics! These probably both need canon knowledge.

felis ficlets on siblings!

Siblings (541 words) by felisnocturna
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758), Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758)
Summary:

Three Fills for the 2022 Three Sentence Ficathon.

Chapter One: Protective Action / Babysitting at Rheinsberg (Frederick/Fredersdorf, William+Henry+Ferdinand)
Chapter Two: Here Be Lions (Wilhelmine)

Unsent Letters fic by me:

Letters for a Dead King (1981 words) by raspberryhunter
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen (1726-1802)
Characters: Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802)
Additional Tags: Epistolary, Love/Hate, Talking To Dead People, Canonical Character Death, Dysfunctional Family
Summary:

Just because one's king and brother is dead doesn't mean one has to stop writing to him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

selenak

I was motivated, what can I say, and also I'll be busy for the rest of the week, so I wanted to get it done.

That is a cute story about the kid, though!

What I thought. While I can't recall a story of Fritz being mocking towards a kid he wasn't related to - by which I mean future FW2 - , I don't blame Lehndorff for worrying until he heard it went well, though.

So, do you think Voltaire called Fritz the French equivalent of Hanswurst or Alexander?

(Alexander: Hanswurst or no Hanswurst? Debate.)

I had forgotten about the double chin! Oh, Lehndorff.

Lehndorff notices these things. In fairness, he also grudgingly ascribes a pretty face to most of Heinrich's faves when he first encounters them. And don't forget him admiring Poniatowski's figure when he meets him in Poland!

(But nothing will beat Heinrich in tight pants, obviously.)

I don't usually talk to days of the year in the second person!

Clearly you're missing out on something.

More seriously, it is kind of sad to read:

1) FW's 1722 Political Testament telling his future heir, "Be a workaholic! Don't let your ministers do stuff!"
2) FW's opinions from the late 1720s on re his lazy son who never wants to work.
3) Fritz's inability to take a vacation.

That it is. FW really did a number on him.

Wow. It is always neat to see people reacting to famous contemporary events

It is, and what I find particularly interesting here is that Lehndorff insists Rohan had a great reputation and was esteemed by Louis and Marie Antoinette alike. Because the way I remember it from various MA biographies is that he was a known ladies' man and she couldn't stand him, whereas he wanted to score with her, which made him such an easy mark for Jeanne LaMotte. Also worth noting that Lehndorff doesn't seem to think Marie Antoinette is guilty, which is what most of the French public thought. Yes, she's a Queen, but when the scandal in Denmark around Queen Caroline (sister of G3) erupted, he had no problem slapping the MESSALINA! designation on her and believing the version of EC's sister Queen Mother Juliana where Caroline and her lover the enlightened Doctor were plotting to take over the country and do away with the King. And MA is MT's daughter (and Joseph's sister).

(BTW, the Bishop de Rohan with whom Charlotte Stuart, daughter of Bonnie Prince Charlie had an affair was his younger brother, in case anyone recalls my STuarts-Audio-Writeup.)

(Speaking of Joseph, a repeated theme of Lehndorff's political musings is "WTF is going on in Austria, WTF is Joseph up to?!?" But he never arrives at any conclusions beyond "nothing good, clearly, what a chaos".)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

So, do you think Voltaire called Fritz the French equivalent of Hanswurst or Alexander?

Lol! Well, maybe one in a particularly bad mood, one in a somewhat better mood. If it's Voltaire and Fritz talking about each other, it has to be a mixture of admiration and resentment, after all!

(Alexander: Hanswurst or no Hanswurst? Debate.)

LOL. Well, you're the one who actually knows about Hanswurst, but if I just go by Wikipedia, "a half doltish, half cunning, partly stupid, partly knowing, enterprising and cowardly, self indulgent and merry," I don't see a whole lot of Alexander in there. Heavy drinking notwithstanding, cowardly and self-indulgent are right out. Stupid, well, he had some stellarly bad ideas, but probably not in the sense that I associate with German comedy (which I hasten to add, I have seen literally zero of). Enterprising and cunning, yes, very much.

Doltish, well, admittedly the sources are skewed by millennia of admiration, but I don't know if even his enemies would have picked that particular insult. OTOH, I haven't looked at the sources in 3 years, so I could be forgetting something Demosthenes said!

(But nothing will beat Heinrich in tight pants, obviously.)

Obviously!

That it is. FW really did a number on him.

Lehndorff's account of his death is also telling in this respect. "If I pull myself together through my partial paralysis, I can sign three more letters before I die!"

Because the way I remember it from various MA biographies is that he was a known ladies' man and she couldn't stand him

Uh, yeah, the way I remember it is that she refused to speak to him, and that La Motte won him over precisely by convincing him that MA was secretly signaling him and then finally agreeing to meet with him. If they'd had a good relationship, she wouldn't have been able to pull this off!

(Speaking of Joseph, a repeated theme of Lehndorff's political musings is "WTF is going on in Austria, WTF is Joseph up to?!?" But he never arrives at any conclusions beyond "nothing good, clearly, what a chaos".)

LOL! Well, I imagine Joseph had a *lot* of contemporaries confused.

From:

selenak

Uh, yeah, the way I remember it is that she refused to speak to him, and that La Motte won him over precisely by convincing him that MA was secretly signaling him and then finally agreeing to meet with him. If they'd had a good relationship, she wouldn't have been able to pull this off!

Exactly. That entire con depended on Rohan not talking to or corresponding with real MA at all. Refreshing my memory on the internet reminds me he used to be a the French ambassador at Vienna for a short while, and MT hadn't liked him then, either. (A prince of the church who was an open lothario, you bet she didn't.) Incidentally, one of the things I recall from the biographies was that the eventual letter from MA that LaMotte forged was signed "Marie Antoinette de France", which as real MA pointed out she'd never have signed as. (Her signature, as can be seen in the documents preserved, was either simply "Marie Antoinette" or "de Autriche-Lorraine", but not "de France".)

Now I did know that public opinion in France considered the Cardinal innocent and the victim in all this (with the only disagreements being whether he was Jeanne La Motte's or Marie Antoinette's victim), so I wasn't surprised Lehndorff heard a Rohan-sympathetic version of the story, but what did surprise me was that the version Lehndorff heard declared him not just innocent in this affair (which he was in the sense that he really was deceived), but a royal favourite and a capital fellow all around. Then again, Lehndorff is a friend of hyperbole, and it's just an even more dramatic fall if Rohan goes from hero to zero instead of decadent sponge of the church to zero.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

but a royal favourite and a capital fellow all around. Then again, Lehndorff is a friend of hyperbole

AW: Achilles. 'Nuff said.

From:

cahn

Also worth noting that Lehndorff doesn't seem to think Marie Antoinette is guilty, which is what most of the French public thought. Yes, she's a Queen, but when the scandal in Denmark around Queen Caroline (sister of G3) erupted, he had no problem slapping the MESSALINA! designation on her and believing the version of EC's sister Queen Mother Juliana where Caroline and her lover the enlightened Doctor were plotting to take over the country and do away with the King. And MA is MT's daughter (and Joseph's sister).

This is interesting to me, because Zweig at least made the case that there were a billion rumors about MA going around. (And then of course he's all "And I ship her with Count Fersen, myself!" which, uh, doesn't exactly help in that regard...) :)