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

[cahn]

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.

Comments

Re: Lehndorff

[cahn]

Oh no, and now Heinrich is saying hard words to him! Like, "It's only been two days, stop suffocating me"?

Hee. But man, I wouldn't be surprised. I love Lehndorff a lot, and I love how constant he is in his affections, but I can see that this kind of sustained over-the-top adoration might have been hard to live with! Heinrich may not have had a good boyfriend picker, but I can see why Lehndorff wasn't the guy for him. I would have had trouble with that too, for sure. (Actually now that I think about it, my first boyfriend was kind of like that and... well, it didn't work out.)

(On the other hand, it's still aww-inducing and hilarious to read about at a remove of hundreds of years hence and I applaud Dr. Schmidt's readers yet again for asking for more.)

Maupertuis challenges Voltaire to a duel. Voltaire replies in a letter that makes everyone laugh and is even more biting than the Akakia.

Meh, it's not in the wiki collection of Voltaire's correspondence.

ahahaha hmm if it's not in his correspondence, where is it?? Or do you think that Lehndorff is reporting gossip that might not be really a thing?

Huh. Lehndorff trash talks a young Bredow, saying he's ugly and plays the Don Juan, and is in every respect an unpleasant mortal. Schmidt's note: "In the margin: Fifty years later he was my friend."

It is really cool to get these occasional perspectives with the benefit of hindsight.

Ah, yes, I love this!

Re: Lehndorff

[mildred_of_midgard]

On the other hand, it's still aww-inducing and hilarious to read about at a remove of hundreds of years hence

It is!

ahahaha hmm if it's not in his correspondence, where is it??

Besterman, maybe? Or not extant. The wiki collection is a public domain work from 1880, and it's far from complete. As the editor himself says in the preface (Google-translated):

This is not, of course, to announce something definitive. We know only too well that an enormous quantity of letters still remains to be exhumed from public or private archives. Voltaire said to Formont, on July 24, 1734: “I will not go any further, because here, my dear friend, is the thirtieth letter that I am writing today. And of these thirty letters we only know two! “One will find, says M. Henri Beaune, letters from Voltaire up to the Last Judgment.” The expression is not Voltairian, but it is significant.

Many notable collections have escaped us; many bearers have not responded to our call, at least until today. But it is not possible in such a matter to claim ever to be complete.

ETA: In general, it's best, with any collection of published correspondence, to start from the assumption that it isn't complete, and then revise that assumption only if there's evidence that it is.

Re: Lehndorff

[cahn]

Oh, if salon has taught me anything, it is about the easily-lost and incomplete nature of historical documents!

I was more saying, if a royal detective were to be looking for such a letter somewhere else other than the wiki collection, where would she look? :)

Re: Lehndorff

[mildred_of_midgard]

Ah, okay! I misunderstood, because I had said "it's not in this collection of his correspondence" and you said "if it's not in his correspondence," so I wanted to point out that it might very well be in his correspondence, just not this one (relatively) small collection!

So now that I understand what you're actually saying: Besterman is where this detective would look next. And I'm now reminded that the E-Enlightenment site used Besterman as their basis and continues to add new letters as they turn up.

Haha, I went to the E-enlightenment site just now, and saw their big news on the front page is: "62 new documents, including a newly discovered letter by Voltaire," and on the learn more page is "Voltaire letters continue to be discovered." Ha! "Up to the Last Judgment" indeed. ;)

Meh, I have the money again now, so I'm toying with the question of whether it's worth it, given that my research interests have shifted slightly. I might at some point. (Salon, so much like my life in microcosm, is an ever-shifting balance between "Do I have time?" and "Do I have money?")