18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 37

[cahn]

More diaries of our favorite 18th-century Prussian diary-keeper have been unearthed and have been synopsized!

January 18th: Blessed be thou to me! Under your light, my Prince Heinrich was born!

Comments

Re: Isabella of Parma

[mildred_of_midgard]

Tamussino: that was an anti-rec. She wrote one of the two Margaret of Austria biographies I read last year (Cahn, that's not Margaret of Parma but her great aunt), and hers really did not encourage me to read anything else she'd written.

Huh. I belatedly remembered I could search your journal for old entries, and I was curious what made her an anti-rec, what I found was you actually reccing her (to German readers, of which I am one now!):

Read: Ursula Tamussino's two biographies of Margaret of Austria and Mary of Hungary, respectively, a collection of Mary of Hungary related essays, and Catherine Fletcher's biography of Alessandro de' Medici, The Black Prince of Florence. All very readable and informative; first three books are in German, so I can only rec them to German readers.

Are you thinking of someone else? Or did you change your mind on her?

The movie sounds great! I do often wish my brain would allow me to watch and listen to things more. I may give this a try. But if I don't succeed, your write-ups are always like all the benefits of watching the movie without the downsides! <3

Louis d'Orleans: He, Anne, how about some flirting?
Anne: My hormones say yes, my mind says no. My mind wins. You're scum.

Good for her!

Person: *is revealed to be the other prisoner in a cage*

Louis XI: Yeah, he was grateful for me releasing him, so he wore my clothes, what can I say.

I feel a problematic fave forming!

Louis XI: My favourite daughter...
Jeanne: *suffers*
Louis XI:....is France. Always France.

Ha! That was a great payoff. *adds this movie to my list of things to try*

Re: Isabella of Parma

[selenak]

Argh, then I do confuse her with the other Austrian biographer who wrote about Margaret! I read them both at the same time, and I renember disliking one and liking the other very much.

Re: the Louis XI film - I suspect the Anne/Louis d'Orleans flirtation pre her marriage was something the movie invented to make Anne more vulnerable and give her an obstacle to overcome beyond general machismo, but within the movie's universe, it works. Also, ever keeping Fritz/MT in mind, maybe it did happen? We'd have to read a biography to find out, I guess. (Sarah Gristwood doesn't mention it, but then Anne is one of a huge ensemble of female main characters in her book.)

Re: Isabella of Parma

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, good, then! If you liked her very much, I might order the Isabella bio. (After I move, because I don't know when it will arrive and thus don't know which address to send it to.)

I'm also thinking of ordering a Leopold II bio. I'm undecided between Pelham, which has the advantage of being shorter and thus something I'm more likely to make it through, and Wandruszka, which has the advantage of not having been read by you already, which means it may contain new-to-salon information.

Currently, I'm--well, currently I'm moving, but when not moving, I'm alternating between Füssel and Jürgen Luh's bio of the Great Elector, which is on Kindle!