18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 38

[cahn]

Gonna go ahead and make this post even though Yuletide is coming...

But in the meantime, there has been some fic in the fandom posted!

Holding His Space (2503 words) by felisnocturna
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF, 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf/Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Characters: Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Additional Tags: Protectiveness, Domestic, Character Study
Summary:

Five times Fredersdorf has to stay behind - and one time Friedrich doesn't leave.

Using People (3392 words) by prinzsorgenfrei
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great/Hans Hermann von Katte
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Hans Hermann von Katte
Additional Tags: Fluff, Idiots in Love, reading plays aloud while gazing into each others eyes
Summary:

Friedrich had started to talk to him because he had thought of him as a bit of a ditz.
And now here he was. Here he was months later, bundled up in this very same man’s blankets with a cup of hot coffee in front of him, its scent mixing with that of Katte’s French perfume.
_
Fluffy One Shot about one traitorous Crown Prince and the sycophant he accidentally fell for.

Comments

Replies From the last post

[mildred_of_midgard]

It does remind me of the story with him and Quantz -- I feel like sometimes people who are impulsive can also think quickly in a crisis because they're sort of used to thinking (sometimes too) quickly. Which I think you said to me maybe when writing the Katte fic? when you were cautioning me against making him too thoughtful.

Lol, I don't remember saying that to you, but it's exactly what I think of him and exactly what I think that story illustrates. So if I did say that, I agree with my past self! :D

Yuletide: Omg, I did not have time to reply to that thread, but it is really interesting to see how we're perceived from the outside!

- Unfortunately, I'm not surprised that we're kind of intimidating (prinzsorgenfrei already said that wrt the Discord crowd).

- No, we do not have a single source like the letters that we're relying on, and to me, that's the point: I consider this historical research first, fandom second. In fact, the best part of salon is that we mostly don't even read the same sources or even in the same language!

- I do think Blanning is a good start for an Anglophone wanting a quick introduction to Fritz. I wouldn't want to confine Yuletide fic to Blanning's interpretation, either, though. Then Katte would always have to be executed by axe! :P

- Lol at rheinsberg being its own fandom! I could get behind that, I think, except for the part where we don't always go back and revise posts in the light of new knowledge (I even added a caution about that in the community description long ago).

Unrelated to anything: How come Victor Amadeus gets the bad rap for changing sides? The Great Elector changed sides more than anyone! At least according to Luh's revisionist take. :P

Re: Replies From the last post

[selenak]

Unfortunately, I'm not surprised that we're kind of intimidating (prinzsorgenfrei already said that wrt the Discord crowd)

Us? The most harmless bunch of people this side of Fritz, Voltaire and Hervey? :) More seriously, I'm always happy to see our occasional guests, without whom, for example, we'd never have discovered where "she cried but she took" originated. And I only want to kill the one who never provided any feedback for my Yuletide story I'd written for them, but that grudge is unending, like Heinrich's against Fritz.

I wouldn't want to confine Yuletide fic to Blanning's interpretation, either, though. Then Katte would always have to be executed by axe! :

I have to confess I still haven't read Banning's Fritz bio- too much other things to read for this Royal Reader! - but I'm taking your word for his readability. Didn't he also use the "MT wrote a Dear Sister letter to Pompadour" Prussian propaganda, though?

I could get behind that, I think, except for the part where we don't always go back and revise posts in the light of new knowledge

Well, us and George Lucas. Also G'Kar. (cahn will understand the last one.) So I think we're in good company.

How come Victor Amadeus gets the bad rap for changing sides? The Great Elector changed sides more than anyone! At least according to Luh's revisionist take. :P

Savoy didn't continue to develop a European superpower with centuries of propaganda supporting it, m'dear. Also Victor Amadeus didn't save any Huguenots (or did he?).

Re: Replies From the last post

[cahn]

Unfortunately, I'm not surprised that we're kind of intimidating

Yeah, I must admit that if I'd stumbled upon something like this in someone else's DW, I would have been intimidated! I do hope that my ability to forget everything and constantly ask elementary questions helps, but I think even I have managed to pick up enough that I might be intimidating to 2019!me :P

No, we do not have a single source like the letters that we're relying on, and to me, that's the point: I consider this historical research first, fandom second.

Yeah, I thought that in particular was a weird take. I do appreciate the idea that one might want to know a single primary or secondary document one could read and write a fic about (you know that I am most successful in writing historical fic when I can do that!), but (I say, after the last several years) it seems that specifically restricting to a particular one document is more of a literary way of looking at the world, not a historical way. (Also, if one doesn't specify a document, it means I can choose what single document to use, lol! Ahem Ziebura :D )

(I do have reason to believe that the take in that thread is not necessarily the take of broader fandom, or even broader fandom-wanking.)

The Ottonians

[mildred_of_midgard]

I just want to say that I'm super enjoying the podcast I talked about in my blog, and it's filling in some gaps in my knowledge, like the Ottonians (10th century). I knew *names* like Henry the Fowler and Otto the Great, but I knew nothing about them.

With the caveat that this is my first introduction to the subject, and I can't comment on whether what he says is sound according to the latest medieval scholarship, I'm at least impressed that the podcaster does a pretty good job of naming the primary sources and critiquing them.

And he has occasional moments of humor, like this one that I had to share:

...Conrad Short-and-Bold. Thank god for these nicknames. When half the protagonists are called Henry, Conrad, Otto, or Eberhard, nicknames are the only way to find out who is who. And they're also brilliant, with short-and-bold being one of the best.

In reference to Conrad Kurzbold.

I'm also having this weird sense of double vision every time I hear about Otto the Great's younger brother Henry rebelling constantly. It's like a might-have-been for Heinrich, if he hadn't been so fiercely and resentfully loyal. After, I think, three? rebellions, Ottonian Henry gets forgiven again and promoted to Duke of Bavaria. Bavaria is under such loose control by the king that it's basically like having your own kingdom. That's when he has enough prestige and important responsibilities to occupy him that he stops rebelling (though he does continue undermining and sometimes waging war on his nephew Ludolf, the heir apparent).

Heinrich: If only I thought I could have gotten prestige and some important responsibilities to occupy me.

Catherine: I tried to make you my satrap!

Dutch: We tried to make you stadtholder!

Poles: We tried too!

Honestly, the podcaster keeps marveling at how these kings keep forgiving their disloyal family, but I'm reminded of Gaston d'Orleans (younger brother of Louis XIII, cahn): repeated open rebellions, and repeated forgiveness. Even more so because Henry's mother Matilda may (with the sparsity of medieval sources and their general silence about women, it's hard to be sure) have favored him for the throne (shades of Marie de' Medici here).

Oh, speaking of Matilda, she founded the Abbey of Quedlinburg to hold her husband's (Henry the Fowler) remains, she was later canonized, and she started the tradition of princess-abbesses of Quedlinburg. Of which Amalie was the second-to-last one, and apparently, one of Ulrike's daughters was the last. My studies have now bookended the Abbey of Quedlinburg.

I will pass on anything else salon-tangential that I learn!

Re: The Ottonians

[selenak]

I‘m glad the Ottonia podcast is so good! I‘ve written some posts on Adelheid and Teophanu in the past, if I‘m not in the train, I‘ll try to find them for you and Cahn, because these ladies were fascinating. Also I was in the Magdeburg cathedral where Otto the Great with his first (English) wife is buried.

Re: Henry the often forgiven younger brother - well, the main reason why Gaston d‘Orleans got away with all those conspiracies was that until future Louis XIV was finally born after 22 years of marriage, he was the next and only legitimate male heir of the Bourbon line. Bearing in mind that Louis XIII was only the second Bourbon king ever, not ending the dynasty prematurely is a good reason for not killing, permanently harming or punishing Gaston in a way that made him unable to take over as King. Of course, that safety net for Gaston expired the moment Anne produced future Louis XIV and Philippe the Gay, and I don‘t think it‘s a coincidence that Gaston only got entangled in one more conspiracy after that, and only peripherally (the Cinq Mars one), instead of starting them left right and center.

(Cahn, for cross connection: Gaston‘s younger daughter was the enterprising lady who got married very much against her will to Cosimo „the Bigot“ Medici, produced some kids (including last of the Medici Gian Gastone) and through years and years of resistance and outrageous behavior finally managed to achieve her goal of returning to France. Gaston‘s oldest daughter was the „Grande Mademoiselle“ who pissed off Cousin Louis by participating in the Fronde, is referenced a couple of times in Charles II related books because his mother wanted them to marry which both parties were less than kean on, and is Angelique‘s friend and patroness in the early Angelique novels.)

Did Ottonian Henry have such a safety net? I can‘t remember when Adelheid‘s kids were born, but I imagine he might have had it in the Eaditha era of Otto‘s life?


Heinrich: If only I thought I could have gotten prestige and some important responsibilities to occupy me.

Catherine: I tried to make you my satrap!

Dutch: We tried to make you stadtholder!

Poles: We tried too!

Fritz von Steuben: Heinrich for President King of America!

Fritz of Prussia: *famous historical quote about how to treat Princes of the Blood waving the banner of independence*

Oh, speaking of Matilda, she founded the Abbey of Quedlinburg to hold her husband's (Henry the Fowler) remains, she was later canonized, and she started the tradition of princess-abbesses of Quedlinburg. Of which Amalie was the second-to-last one, and apparently, one of Ulrike's daughters was the last. My studies have now bookended the Abbey of Quedlinburg.

I knew about Ulrike‘s daughter being the last (I think Lehndorff mentions it somewhere - that she‘s the new Abbess, that is -, but didn‘t know or had forgotten Matilda had founded the abbey. Go you!

Re: The Ottonians

[mildred_of_midgard]

Okay, more fun from this podcast. I went back and listened to one of the prologue episodes, which covers Charlemagne and the Carolingians. (I had originally started with episode 1, which begins about a hundred years later with Henry the Fowler, the first of the Ottonians.)

The podcaster is talking about the decentralization of Charlemagne's empire.

For context, cahn, "count" used to be a political office that Charlemagne would appoint you to, and he could remove you at will, make you Count of Somewhere Else, or Count of Nowhere, as he pleased. As his descendants lost their grip, "count" became more what we think of it as today: a noble title tied to a specific place and inherited in the same family.

Our podcaster describes this transition:

The king no longer directed the counts. Charlemagne's administrative system had worked exceedingly well whilst the empire was expanding. As long as the counts had the opportunity to plunder and extort, they were happy to move around the empire at a moment's notice. Once the empire is at peace, their motivations and their powers changed.

Imagine: the king sends a new count to replace the current incumbent. That is quite easy if the new guy comes with a letter signed by "Charles the Great, by the grace of God, Roman Emperor and King of the Franks." Imagine the new guy shows up with a letter signed by "Charles the Fat, by the skin of my teeth, still King of East Francia."

So it was just easier to leave the old count in place and, when he died, replace him with some at least semi-competent and halfway loyal member of his family. The third time this happens, the new count really cannot remember which of the estates he controls were originally his granddad's private property and which were part of the crown estate. So it's better to put it all into one pot. Just easier to administrate.

If the king sends a letter and says, "Give me back my farm or tolls or court fees," the count again looks at the signature, and it still says, "Charles the Fat, by the skin of my teeth, still King of East Francia."

Re: The Ottonians

[cahn]

It's like a might-have-been for Heinrich, if he hadn't been so fiercely and resentfully loyal.

Aww! Although my tropes being what they are, I love Heinrich because he was so loyal. And resentful. <3


Poles: We tried too!

Hee!

My studies have now bookended the Abbey of Quedlinburg.

Okay, that's pretty awesome!

Re: The Ottonians

[mildred_of_midgard]

More podcast fun!

So, Gerbert of Aurillac is, according to Wikipedia (which is easier to copy-paste than to find the equivalent passage in the podcast and transcribe it):

...a French-born scholar and teacher who served as the bishop of Rome and ruled the Papal States from 999 to his death. He endorsed and promoted study of Arab and Greco-Roman arithmetic, mathematics and astronomy, reintroducing to Europe the abacus and armillary sphere, which had been lost to Latin Europe since the end of the Greco-Roman era. He is said to be the first in Europe to introduce the decimal numeral system using the Hindu-Arabic numeral system. He is credited with the invention of the first mechanical clock in 996.

...Gerbert of Aurillac was a humanist long before the Renaissance. He read Virgil, Cicero and Boethius; he studied Latin translations of Porphyry and Aristotle. He had a very accurate classification of the different disciplines of philosophy....

Gerbert was said to be one of the most noted scientists of his time. Gerbert wrote a series of works dealing with matters of the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music), which he taught using the basis of the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric). In Rheims, he constructed a hydraulic-powered organ with brass pipes that excelled all previously known instruments, where the air had to be pumped manually...Gerbert may have been the author of a description of the astrolabe that was edited by Hermannus Contractus some 50 years later.

Pretty impressive guy!

So I was listening to the podcast yesterday, and imagine my hysterical laughter when I learned that Otto III, reaching his majority,

invites Gerbert to become his teacher and political advisor to, in his words, 'help him overcome his Saxon rusticity and acquire Greek sophistication.'

Voltaire: Political advisor?!

Fritz: Dream on.

But seriously. I was not expecting that so many German kings openly admitted to needing famous French scholars to help them overcome their Saxon/Brandenburgian rusticity. :'D

I was hoping for a major falling out with much popcorn-munching, but Wikipedia isn't giving me any indication of one, just Gerbert becoming pope Silvester II with Otto's help. (I'm currently in the middle of Otto III's reign.)

Changing ideas of conception and of women’s sexual pleasure

[luzula]

I have read the fascinating article The pleasures of procreation: traditional and biomedical theories of conception, by Angus McLaren!

So, during the 16th and 17th centuries (don't know about earlier) the dominant medical theory was that women had to come during sex for conception to take place. Which isn't that far-fetched--the idea was that both men and women had to contribute seed, and since men need to come for their seed to be ejaculated, the same was true for women. This theory comes from Hippocrates via Galen (Aristotle of course thought women were only passive vessels).

Lazarus Riverius in The Practice of Physick (1658): …the woman’s womb, skipping as it were for joy, may meet her husband's sperm, graciously and freely receive the same, and draw it into its innermost cavity or closet, and withal bedew and sprinkle it with her own sperm, and powered forth in that pang of pleasure, that so by the commixture of both, conception may arise.

The most common sex manual, the weirdly titled Aristotle’s Masterpiece, held to this theory until the 1755 edition. It included instruction about clitoral stimulation, which gave delights, and without this, the fair sex neither desire mutual embraces, nor have pleasure in them, nor conceive by them. This is interesting, by the way, since the only 18th century porn I have read (The Memoirs of Fanny Hill by John Cleland (1749)) does not mention the clitoris at all, and only focuses on penis-in-vagina sex. I guess it's a male fantasy.

So the focus on women's pleasure was of course positive (though it obviously does not mean that everything was happy equality between the sexes). It also had a negative side: if a woman was raped and conceived, that was used as evidence that it wasn't really rape.

But gradually during the 18th century, various new theories of conception came along. The microscope allowed the sperm to be seen, though the female egg wasn't found for a while yet. in 1776, the first artificial insemination was done. Medicine got closer to an empirical and scientific understanding of conception. There is no logical reason why this should mean that women’s pleasure in sex was disregarded, even if it was not now seen as necessary to conception, so there were probably other social changes that helped cause it.

A Dr. Acton in the mid-19th century: As a general rule, a modest woman seldom desires any sexual gratification for herself. She submits to her husband, but only to please him and, but for the desire of maternity, would far rather be relieved from his attentions. So yeah, it's time to lie back and think of England! Sigh, the 19th century. The rape thing did change, though. Also interesting is that doctors in the 19th century were annoyed at the lingering beliefs among the lower classes that women had to come in order to conceive!

Re: Changing ideas of conception and of women’s sexual pleasure

[mildred_of_midgard]

This is great, thank you!

the woman’s womb, skipping as it were for joy

Oh, wow. That is a heck of a mental image!

I have to say, the only time I've felt my womb skip, it wasn't for joy (menstrual cramps), and that's why I had it removed. :P

The most common sex manual, the weirdly titled Aristotle’s Masterpiece

Oh, wow, I have to know more.

Wikipedia:

It was first published in 1684 and written by an unknown author who falsely claimed to be Aristotle. As a consequence the author is now described as a Pseudo-Aristotle...The title of the work was possibly chosen because many people saw Aristotle as a sex expert in early modern England. Another popular pseudo-Aristotelian text which covered sex and reproduction, Aristotle's Problems (1595), was responsible for this reputation. The real Aristotle also wrote works about the reproduction of animals (such as History of Animals and Generation of Animals) and many people considered him an authority on scientific matters in general so “[a]ttributing the work to Aristotle [gave] it a claim to respectability, authority, and ancient pedigree."

Alrighty, then! Aristotle's masterpiece.

The rape thing did change, though.

Sort of! Apparently this view that if a woman conceives, it can't have been rape, is alive and well among lawmakers in Texas. *facepalm*

Six Degrees

[mildred_of_midgard]

Not Algarotti per se, but I found another cool connection as I pick my way slowly through Hinrichs and Fahlenkamp.

A couple days ago, I found Fredersdorf writing to Fritz in 1748 that "Splittgerber" has said that if certain ships are ready in time, the antique statues can be in Hamburg by such-and-such a date. Fahlenkamp notes that the firm "Splittgerber & Daum" was at the time the most significant bank- and trading-house in Berlin, later in all Prussia. Fredersdorf would later marry Daum's redoubtable daughter, whom we know so well.

Then today, reading in the 1730 escape attempt trial protocols as collected by Hinrichs, where Katte is giving testimony about where he borrowed money from to lend to Fritz, I find that one of his sources was "Splitgerber and Daum"!

A neat and accidental find. (I searched our old posts, and this doesn't appear to have come up before, so I mention it now.)

Re: Six Degrees

[cahn]

Oh cool!

Isabella of Parma: Pre-marriage Days

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yours truly has been reading Tamussino's biography of Isabella of Parma, which is indeed very readable, but since:

1. I read German veeery slooowly,
2. Writing summaries is like pulling teeth,
3. I am easily distracted,

...I decided to write up the first third of the bio, which is as far as I've gotten, instead of waiting until I finish the whole thing, which will make the prospect of any write-up at all less likely. Will there be write-ups of the second and third parts? Who can know such things! But in the meantime, here's the pre-marriage days.

Isabella of Parma is named after her grandmother Isabella Farnese, strong-willed (second) wife of Philip V "the Frog" of Spain. Her father is Don Philipp, second son of Isabella and Philip. Their first son, Don Carlos, is the one who Isabella, among other things, unsuccessfully tried to get married to one of the Austrian Archduchesses, hoping for MT. More on him at Rheinsberg here.

Isabella's mother is Louise-Elisabeth, the favorite daughter of Louis XV. Being the favorite daughter didn't mean she didn't have to marry for policy: she was shipped off to Spain and married at age 12, and she was only 14 years and 4 months old when she gave birth to Isabella, in what was a difficult birth that she was fortunate to survive. (14-year-old bodies, possibly not ideally suited for giving birth.)

What you need to know about Louise-Elisabeth is that she:
- Did not like Spain
- Did not like Parma
- Loved France (aka Versailles)

Spain was run by strong-willed mother-in-law Isabella. Parma was a "hole in the wall." Versailles was glamorous and had her beloved family. She was homesick whenever she wasn't there and tried to spend as much time there as possible.

Endearing anecdote of Louise-Elisabeth before she had to leave home: as an 11-year-old kid sneaking out of Versailles when war broke out against England and getting caught.

"Where are you going?"

"To the army. I'm going to put myself at the head and lay England at the feet of Papa-Roi."

"How, then?"

"I'll have the lords sleep with me, and then they'll feel greatly honored, and I'll kill them, one after the other."

Alas, she ends up in Spain, married to Don Philipp in Spain. She gives birth to Isabella in December 1741, which is right as the War of the Austrian Succession is breaking out. Don Philipp goes off to war in Italy a couple years later, trying to help Spain capture Austrian Habsburg provinces there so that he and his older brother Don Carlos will have principalities to inherit. (This is Isabella's life mission and responsible for much of European politics in the 1720s.)

While Don Philipp is off in Italy, Louise-Elisabeth stays behind in Spain and sends him letters.

Then when the war ends in 1748, they have a principality called Parma. Louise-Elisabeth says "good riddance" to Spain and goes to...France.

To see her family again. Don Philipp is still in Italy. They write letters. She drags out her stay in France as long as possible.

Isabella, meanwhile, is about 7 years old, and a hyperactive kid.

One teacher, who wanted to intimidate her by making faces, she only imitated, and unsettled him with unpleasant truths, which she told him bluntly to his face. She couldn't see a pile of earth or coal without jumping over it, she chased butterflies, flooded her room, wanted to play war, write, sing, dance, construct a horse that could be set in motion by a string, nothing was too difficult for her, she would have loved to dance on the tightrope!

She writes later in life that this was received better at Versailles than at the hyper-etiquette-conscious world of the Spanish court. Considering how stifling Marie Antoinette found the etiquette of Versailles after Vienna, Spain was really something! (The daughter of Regent Philippe who was sent to Spain in the 1720s as part of the "exchange of princesses" also found Spanish etiquette stifling and was always getting in trouble.)

In France, Louise-Elisabeth is occupied by:

1) Playing the "favorite daughter" card to get money out of Dad (Louis XV) for Parma. Don Carlos had apparently ransacked all the art and luxuries from the palace and taken them to Naples when he upgraded his principality in the 1730s. Parma was, according to Louise-Elisabeth, according to the letters she was getting from her husband, in a sad state. Please send money!

2) Trying to see if she can get a better principality than Parma, which, have I mentioned, she thinks sucks.

3) Trying to broker a good marriage for her daughter.

Reluctantly, she finally goes to Parma. She and her husband see each other for the first time in 6.5 years. She gets pregnant quickly with future Duke Ferdinand of Parma, about whom more if I ever do that write-up.

While in Parma, she ignores her kids (par for the course) and spends most of her time writing letters to:

1) Heads of state with marriageable children.
2) Dad, asking him for money for Parma.
3) Her agent in Paris, asking him for all the luxuries that one can buy in Paris.

(You may be sensing a theme here.)

At one point, Louis sighs and says it would have been cheaper to keep her in Paris and not have to fund a second court in Parma.

Eventually, he sort of gets his wish, because Louise-Elisabeth goes back to France. Except that her husband and kids are still in Italy, and she's there basically to ask for money, in hopes face-to-face requests are even more lucrative.

Meanwhile, Isabella is growing up in Italy. She doesn't like it and writes about it in terms not unlike Algarotti's. The climate is terrible (alternating sweltering summers with frozen winters), the people are stupid, especially the "cicisbei", who are pretty but empty-headed, everyone is stupid and false, and only exist to cause her ten thousand irritations, and she always has the feeling she is surrounded by mortal enemies. 

Not happy!

It's also not clear that she has any friends her own age, and as we've seen, her mother isn't around much even when she's around. 

What she does have are a lot of hobbies. From Mom's agent in Paris, she orders:

four volumes of sonatas by Leclair, Vivaldi's "Four Seasons", the quartets by Telemann, the sonatas op. 6 by Locatelli, pieces for the harpsichord by Couperin, but also a wealth of operatic works, mainly by French composers.

She also went for dancing, archery, cooking, and gardening. She had a secret garden hidden away from prying eyes, and bred silkworms. She learned drawing, painting in pastels and copper engraving. We have one pastel painting by her ("Roman Charity", in which a young woman offers her breast to her dying father in a dark prison), and two landscape drawings.

And of course, she reads and writes a lot. Her library is again thanks to Mom's agent in Paris. Of course, this episode made me laugh.

She/her tutor wanted a bilingual "Telemachus" (remember, Fenelon's bestselling novel on how to be a good prince) from France, so Isabella could practice her German.

But no luck, there are no bilingual editions in Paris. A French copy and a German translation, then?

German translations in Paris? You must be kidding. :-P

As Isabella is growing up, the 1750s were full of marriage negotiations. At one point, they involve Ferdinand VI of Spain. He is the first son of Philip V "the Frog" and his *first* wife, Marie-Louise of Savoy (daughter of Machiavellian Victor Amadeus of Savoy). So he is the older half-brother of Isabella's father, Don Philipp.

His wife is believed to be on her deathbed, and he's childless, so marriage negotiations to get him an heir to the throne are of paramount importance. Who better but Don Philipp's twelve-year-old daughter, Isabella?

Fortunately (??), by the time his wife dies, Ferdinand is in the grips of such poor mental health that nobody sees a point in arranging for a remarriage. To quote a passage from Wikipedia that I think I've quoted before:

 Between the date of her death in August 1758 and his own on 10 August 1759, he fell into a state of prostration in which he would not even dress, but wandered unshaven, unwashed and in a nightgown about his park. Other opinion is that Ferdinand VI suffered a rapidly progressive clinical syndrome where behavioral disorganization with apathy and impulsivity, loss of judgment, and epileptic seizures of right frontal lobe semiology were predominant. This semiology is highly suggestive of a right frontal lobe syndrome.

He died a year later. So Isabella dodged a bullet there. I mean, not that marrying Joseph, becoming clinically depressed, and dying of smallpox + childbirth at age 21 was such a stroke of luck, but now we see that it spared her marrying her acutely mentally ill uncle at the age of 12.

Instead, she ends up with Joseph. What happened was that for the entirety of the 1750s, MT was trying to decide whether to marry Joseph off to someone from Parma (Don Philipp's kids) or Naples (Don Carlos's kids).

Then the Diplomatic Revolution happens and the Seven Years' War breaks out in 1756. In 1757, the Austrians inflict Fritz's first defeat on him, at Kolin, and things are looking good! Time to solidify that French alliance. Because Louise-Elisabeth of Parma is Louis' favorite daughter, and an Isabella-Joseph marriage will help solidify the alliance. Even Fritz's humiliating defeat of the French at Rossbach a few months later doesn't put a wrench in the marriage works.

So Parma it is, not Naples. Of course, the royal family in Naples was so offended that MT had to tell them that Joseph had seen a picture of Isabella and fallen so in love that he refused to have anyone else. It's unclear whether the powers that be in Naples fell for it, says Tamussino, but historians certainly did, and you'll see it in biographies.

MT will, of course, later marry Maria Carolina to butt-groper Ferdinand in Naples, where she will befriend Emma Hamilton.

Meanwhile, Louise-Elisabeth is surprisingly lukewarm about this marriage, writing to her husband that "an opera would be overkill for the festivities" and "this marriage is good fortune for us, but not an honor." Tamussino: "Not an honor? What more 'honor' did Louise-Elisabeth want than a future emperor as son-in-law?"

Louise-Elisabeth also didn't feel the need to write Isabella any advice on how to be a good wife and mother (or at least no such document is extant); apparently she was too busy hiring a tutor for Ferdinand, future duke, who wrote a 13-volume set of textbooks for him. (If I ever get around to summarizing the monograph I read on his education, you'll see how that turned out.)

Whatever was going on there, Louise-Elisabeth doesn't live to see the marriage; she dies of smallpox, still in Paris, and is buried there. It's unclear, says Tamussino, how much Isabella genuinely mourned her.

Meanwhile, the marriage planning is in the works. Joseph Wenzel of Liechtenstein is in charge of planning the trip.

Planning the trip is a BIG DEAL. They have to get over the Alps. In a fancy carriage. A fancy carriage that is really old and needs to be completely renovated by what are basically art historians doing restoration. And also have an entire body of men dedicated to keep it from falling into ditches. And to run ahead and figure out what gates need to be widened, or if they can't do that, what cities need to be circumnavigated because the carriage is too big, and what roofs of which buildings will be damaged as the carriage passes by and the owners need to be recompensed, and so on and so forth. It took months to get ready.

The author says that the modern reader who travels in fancy metal limousines along asphalt-paved roads and highways reads with astonishment just how difficult it was to get Isabella from Parma to Vienna.

(Liechtenstein, remember, sold Fritz the Antinous statue, and was present at the siege of Philippsburg in 1734 along with Fritz, Voltaire, Eugene, the Duke of Berwick, and apparently everyone who was anyone.)

But what I read with--well, not astonishment, but mild surprise, was that Isabella and Maria Christina corresponded while Isabella was still in Parma.

Just normal, friendly letters, like, "I can't wait to meet you" and "I'm so glad to be going to Germany, a place I love not just out of duty but out of inclination," and "Congrats on beating the Prussians, I really hope Fritz is finished off for good by the time I arrive," but knowing what's coming, I was interested to see their ongoing correspondence began so early.

And that's as far as I've gotten.

Re: Isabella of Parma: Pre-marriage Days

[selenak]

Go you for giving us this detailed look in Isabella's youth!

Louise-Elisabeth: I bet everyone who was old enough to remember Marguerite-Louise d'Orleans must have had a distinct sense of deja vue...

German translations in Paris? You must be kidding. :-P

LOL. That's why Liselotte wrote so many of her letters in German. Better than using a code or invisible ink! Mind you, a German translation of Telemachus must have existed (just not in Paris) at the time, because I bet Leopold Mozart didn't read it in French. Hang on, I dimly recall Sophie Charlotte might have ordered a French and German version for son FW. Or something like that.

(BTW, there's a portrait of Fenelon in the Alte Pinakothek here in Munich. The Dr. Spock of his day!

Isabella dodged a bullet there. I mean, not that marrying Joseph, becoming clinically depressed, and dying of smallpox + childbirth at age 21 was such a stroke of luck, but now we see that it spared her marrying her acutely mentally ill uncle at the age of 12.

Verily. What I'd like to know is: how come the Bourbons, who have better reason than most to remember how all the uncle/niece marriages worked out for the Spanish Habsburgs, wanted to continue where the later left of?

Meanwhile, Louise-Elisabeth is surprisingly lukewarm about this marriage, writing to her husband that "an opera would be overkill for the festivities" and "this marriage is good fortune for us, but not an honor." Tamussino: "Not an honor? What more 'honor' did Louise-Elisabeth want than a future emperor as son-in-law?"

A combination of French hostility towards a centuries long enemy (which was returned, see also the Prince de Ligne, Eugene memoirs ghost writer, venting his grudge via said RPF) and French nobility snobbery? But seriously, it's worth remembering that while on the one hand, the imperial family (and a future Emperor) certainly outranked everyone else on the continent and besides the Habsburgs were in the empire ruling business since way more centuries than the Bourbons were in the business of ruling France, this did not stop French royals and nobles looking down on their noses on Joseph's sister Marie Antoinette, either. And I'm reminded of Sophie the Electress of Hannover visiting Versailles, not getting offered an arm chair by the Queen and commenting that she had been given one by the Empress herself, so really...

Liechtenstein, remember, sold Fritz the Antinous statue, and was present at the siege of Philippsburg in 1734 along with Fritz, Voltaire, Eugene, the Duke of Berwick, and apparently everyone who was anyone.

Cousins George II and FW in a rare moment of perfect unity: We weren't! Everything would have been different if we had been! We deserved to be! We complained of not being there to our respective courtiers!

FS: I wasn't there, either. I had just returned from my grand tour, I think, which had been way more fun. )

I read with--well, not astonishment, but mild surprise, was that Isabella and Maria Christina corresponded while Isabella was still in Parma.

Does our author mention who started it? I did know they had written before they met, but not who initialized it and why.

Grrrr

[mildred_of_midgard]

Horowski's book has been pushed out another month, and now I'm skeptical of even that.

It's not like I'm short on reading material in any language, but still--grrr!

ETA: It's even worse than I thought. It's been pushed out till November 2023!! I hadn't noticed the year changed too.

It was supposed to come out next week, on the 19th, just in time for my 3-day birthday weekend, hopefully giving me time to get a good start on it!

Fie upon publisher delays!

Re: Grrrr

[selenak]

I'm starting to understand how GRRM readers are feeling, is what I'm saying. :)

Henry IV and Bertha

[mildred_of_midgard]

Again from the History of the Germans podcast, I found this an interesting illustration of how two different historians can put very different interpretations on the same facts.

Here's Wikipedia on Emperor Henry IV (that's mid 11th century, cahn) and his wife Bertha:

Despite the insults and humiliations to which she was subjected by her husband, Bertha remained true to him. Nevertheless, in 1069, Henry attempted to repudiate her. At an assembly at Worms, he "explained publicly (before the princes), that his relationship with his wife was not good; for a long time he had deceived others, but now he did not want to do so any longer. He could not accuse her of anything that justified a divorce, but he was not capable of carrying out conjugal relations with her any longer. He asked them for the sake of God to remove him from the bonds of a marriage closed under bad signs ... so that the way to a luckier marriage might be opened. And nobody knowing any objection to raise, and his wife being an obstacle to a second marriage ceremony, he then swore that she was as he received her, unstained and her virginity intact."

Here's our podcaster's take, from the transcript of this episode:

Long ago, when Henry IV. was a child, his father had engaged him to marry Bertha, daughter of the Count of Savoy. That seems a rather odd choice, since as future emperor he should get married to a byzantine princess or absent that, at least the daughter of a king, not a mere count. Bertha’s family had however one key asset, which will become important as we go further, and that was the alpine pass of Mont Cenis...

To make sure Bertha was at least brought up to an imperial standard, she was delivered aged 6 to the imperial court where she grew up in the household of Henry’s mother, the empress Agnes of Poitou.

In 1066, shortly after Adalbert had been sent packing and the king had recovered from his illness it was deemed time for Henry IV to finally marry little Bertha as had been agreed all these years ago.

By 1069 Henry IV. wants a divorce. At the Reichstag in Worms he stands up and declares that he simply “does not think he and his wife are a good match”. He says that he is simply tired of pretending that the relationship was ok., when it was not. He does not accuse her of anything, that would warrant a divorce. But he, be it by fate or divine order, cannot be in a marital relationship with her. He therefore asks for the grace of God to be released from these chains. He hopes that she would find a happier life in another marriage and if needed, he would swear that the marriage had never beenconsummated..

This strikes me as a very modern grounds for a divorce. The fact that two people just simply are not meant to be together. But an 11th century royal marriage is not an agreement between two adults looking for fulfilment and happiness. It is a political contract, and that meant, liking each other is not a requirement. The pope sends Peter Damian up to Germany to explain these simple facts to the young king and he accepts the verdict. Henry and Bertha will from then on have a strong relationship where she will stand by him even in the most challenging moments and be more loyal than his own mother was. The couple had 5 children.

Step back. What was that. Henry IV. asks for a divorce because he does not think a relationship is possible and wants her to be happy with someone else. And then -when forced- fulfils the marriage and things turn out ok.

I am going out on a limb here, but it seems as if the most obvious point is completely overlooked by most historians Bertha and Henry have grown up together since they were five. They have grown up in a super tense environment where empress Agnes was clearly out of her depth most of the time. His older sisters have been sent away to become abbesses or have died early. It is not impossible that Henry and Berth felt more like siblings than marital partners. That would explain his insistence on her being blameless and his wish that she would be happy with someone else. It would also explain why the couple could maintain a relationship of trust and friendship despite his attempt at divorce.

This all sounds very plausible to me, but, selenak, you like family relationships and you're way more conversant with the data than I am. What do you think?

Re: Henry IV and Bertha

[selenak]

I'm not that much more familiar, not having read an individual biography of Henry IV's. What I do know is that due to who he was - cahn, the Canossa guy, his big penitence gesture at Canossa but one of many showdowns with the Pope during his reign, and by no means the end of it; he went to Rome, had the Pope deposed and himself and Bertha crowned as Emperor and Empress AFTER Canossa; also, you may recall Mathilde of Canossa, one of the ladies buried at St. Peter like Queen Christina, a very important supporter of the Pope's in this conflict - , you have the obvious source problem, i.e. lots of monkish chronoicles where he is the scum of the Earth and no crime was beneath him, including setting both of his wives up for rape so he could divorce them for adultery, only according to this one "Henry was the Antichrist!" chronicle Bertha managed to hide her servants who beat up both the intended rapist and Henry, Henry so much so he had to stay in bed for a month.

Now, I think the podcaster's theory sounds more psychologically plausible, especially since the "set both of his wives up for rape" story wasn't written in Bertha's lifetime but after the big scandal of the second wife* (and with a lot of Emperor vs Pope, Emperor vs Nobles battles in between). Otoh, the fact that they had five children after he attempted to divorce her by itself is no proof of a good relationship, nor is the fact she went with him on most of his journeys - I mean, just look at SD/FW, a marriage where with the big exceptions of the Northern War and the tail end of the War of the Spanish Succession, they were together most of the time, and produced 13 children. Otoh, Bertha seems to have done the Empress/Queen thing of interceding for people petitioning her regularly and successfully, and royal consorts in bad standing with their husbands usually don't manage that. At any rate, I do like the "the problem wasn't that they didn't like each other, the problem was that they felt like siblings about each other due to having grown up together" theory.

*Second wife: after Bertha's death, Henry married one Adelheid/Praxedis of Kiev, and within a year she divorced him for "unspeakable sexual acts"; she went to the Pope and the cardinals and told them by describing and gesturing that Henry demanded incredibly filfthy acts from her, they agreed no Christian woman should have to put up with that, annulled her marriage, and Praxedis went back to Kiev and became a nun. The "set her up for rape, and btw, his first wife, too" thing is only mentioned by that one chronicler and not given as the official reasons from the church, which was Henry being a sex fiend.

Henrv VIII of England: dammit. Wolsey never told me that was a divorce option! I could have been a sex fiend demanding unspeakable acts, too!

Tiny Terror FW: The Sequel

[selenak]

I recently read another anthology of FW themed essays, this one called "Der Soldatenkönig. Friedrich Wilhelm I. in seiner Zeit", edited by Friedrich Beck and Julius H. Schoeps. This one was published in 2003, and what's remarkable is that it's far more FW critical than the later "Mehr als ein Soldatenkönig" anthology edited by Jürgen Kloosterhuis and Frank Göse (who also contributed an essay to this earlier anthology). For example, there's an entire essay about the way FW was presented by historians by Thomas Stamm-Kuhlmann which is very critical about said historians' dismissal of Wilhelmine's memoirs as being too biased to be worth considering and of the acceptance of the self stylizing of Prussian monarchs (both FW and Fritz) as having to do their grim duty and suffering the most for it. There's also an essay about FW's antisemitism. (Typical for the era, no less antismetic for it. Now, nothing of this in the anthology is new to salon, so you won't get a proper write up, but I did want to share this description of Tiny Terror FW's school days and his teacher Jean Philippe Rebeur.

Jean Philippe Rebour, on th eother hand, provided (FW) not so much with factual knowledge as with a moral christianity. His diligently kept diaries describe his efforts to educate the Crown Prince in all details, and one is forced to consider him a candidate for martyrdom based on it. Friedrich Wilhelm's first impression of him was that he was "too clean for a schoolmaster". If Calvinism would include saints, he certainly would be a candidate for canonization. Maybe Rebour was motivated by a spark of mystic stoicism, or simply Calvinistic determinism. The fact remains that Friedrich Wilhme didn't just, as is an eternal phenomenon among teenagers, have no interest in learning, but also was impudent, lacking focus, malicious, and often physically agressive, which resulted repeatedly in his educator ending up with black and blue spots. Besides, his student declared in all sincerity that he would cut his teacher's head off after his ascension to the throne.
Pedagocic experts, who existed even then, probably could have given some interesting advice on how to cope with such an unruly student. Rebour found the answer in his religion, his Calvinistic Christianity, with which he tried to tame the Crown Prince. The Calvinistic God Rebeur taught did not simply punish any transgression of his laws in deep anger, but also had made his choice of who would be saved and who would be damned for all eternity, and he became the young Crown Prince's schoolmaster. The reality of this eternal choice of grace and damnation hung like a Damocles sword above the young Crown Prince. Despite the choice was known only to God himself, therw were certain certae notitiae, certain hints which could allow some conclusions on one's own state of being chosen. These certae notitiae were based on virtuous conduct and faithful adherence to the teachings of the church.
Rebeur connected his student's flaws, the arrogant violent temper to this teaching, and young Friedrich Wilhelm quickly realised that his notitae were pointing towards eternal damnation.

From the essay "Religion und Politik in Preußen: Friedrich Wilhelm I. und der Pietismus" by Hans J. Hillerbrand. Now, again, this isn't new to us, we've talked about how hardcore Calvinism and determinism was how Tiny Terror FW's teacher(s) were trying to get him in line, with life long consequences. (Up to and including the way Katte's Punctae mysteriously include a "And btw, Fritz, determinism is of the devi!" paragraph.) And I wouldn't have wanted to teach young FW for the world, plus short of scaring the hell out of FW via religion, it's difficult to see what Rebeur could have done, given Tiny Terror FW was the Crown Prince and he evidently wasn't allowed to fight back when physically attacked. But I still wouldn't nominate him for sainthood, given his religious fears probably contributed to making FW even more dangerous for everybody else...

Re: Tiny Terror FW: The Sequel

[mildred_of_midgard]

Tiny Terror FW is still one of the most apt monikers of all time!

For example, there's an entire essay about the way FW was presented by historians by Thomas Stamm-Kuhlmann which is very critical about said historians' dismissal of Wilhelmine's memoirs as being too biased to be worth considering and of the acceptance of the self stylizing of Prussian monarchs (both FW and Fritz) as having to do their grim duty and suffering the most for it.

Oh, good for Stamm-Kuhlmann!

Despite the choice was known only to God himself, therw were certain certae notitiae, certain hints which could allow some conclusions on one's own state of being chosen. These certae notitiae were based on virtuous conduct and faithful adherence to the teachings of the church.
Rebeur connected his student's flaws, the arrogant violent temper to this teaching, and young Friedrich Wilhelm quickly realised that his notitae were pointing towards eternal damnation.

This is interesting, thank you for the additional detail!

Up to and including the way Katte's Punctae mysteriously include a "And btw, Fritz, determinism is of the devi!" paragraph.

So while I'm sure FW's well-known opinions had something to do with the inclusion of this detail, ever since you turned up that one Hans Heinrich letter, plus the evidence that the last book Katte was reading was by Sherlock, a theologian who argued against predestination, I'm now leaning toward "Katte genuinely experienced a religious conversion/reversion to the religion of his childhood" and that his displays of piety were genuine.

But I still wouldn't nominate him for sainthood, given his religious fears probably contributed to making FW even more dangerous for everybody else...

Lol, well, while he was certainly martyred, and getting Tiny Terror FW to behave even a little bit was surely a miracle :P, yeah, I agree it didn't improve the situation at all. Turns out religious fanatics can be awful people too, Rebeur! (My wife got to the podcast episode on the Crusades yesterday, which came with a trigger warning by the podcaster, and now she's like, "...I don't wanna listen to any more history of the Germans.")

Valmont the Frederician Fan

[selenak]

Because contemporary references in unrelated works are always nifty: I‘ve been following Dangerous Liasons Daily, and in the letter wherein the Vicome de Valmont reports to the Marquise de Merteuil that he finally scored with pious Madame de Tourvel, he writes re: the tactics he employed to seduce her:

Thus far, my lovely friend, you will find, I believe, a purity of method which will give you pleasure, and you will see that I departed in nothing from the true principles of that war which, as we have often remarked, so strongly resembles the real war. Judge me then as though I had been Frederic or Turenne². I had forced to combat an enemy who would do nothing but temporise; by scientific manoeuvres I obtained the choice of positions and of the field; I was able to inspire the enemy with confidence, in order the more easily to catch up with him in his retreat; I was able to add terror to this feeling before the fight was engaged; I left nothing to chance, except in my consideration of a great advantage in case of success, and the certainty of resources in case of defeat; in short, I did not engage until I had an assured retreat, by which I could cover and preserve all that I had previously conquered. That is, I believe, all that one can do: but I am afraid, at present, lest, like Hannibal, I may be enervated by the delights of Capua.

I dare say Fritz would object to the „leaving nothing to chance“ bit as a description of his tactics but might feel gratified a contemporary novelist lists him with Turenne and Hannibal as a grand strategist in war. Note that the Vicomte expects the Marquise to know who „Frederic“ was just as well a the other two.

Incidentally, Les Liasons Dangereuses was published in 1782, so he might have read the book (after all, it wasn‘t German literature), though I don‘t recall a reference to it anywhere.

Re: Valmont the Frederician Fan

[luzula]

Wow, military metaphors for heterosexual relationships and sex is truly The Most 18th century. I have even seen "weapon" and "wound" as euphemisms/flowery language for penis and vagina in 18th c porn...

FW & Gundling fic

[cahn]

GUYS GUYS TOT JUST OPENED AND I HAVE A GHOST STORY ABOUT FW AND GUNDLING AND IT IS GREEEEEAT
#justiceforgundling
#FW really IS his own warning, omg

(more later, must work, but aaaaaaaaaaaaah)

Fool's Fate (5346 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF, 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich Wilhelm I. von Preußen & Jacob Paul von Gundling, Friedrich Wilhelm I. von Preußen & Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Friedrich Wilhelm I. von Preußen & Hans Herrmann von Katte
Characters: Friedrich Wilhelm I von Preußen | Frederick William I of Prussia, Jacob Paul von Gundling, Johann Heinrich Schubert, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Hans Hermann von Katte, Sophie Dorothea von Hannover | Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758)
Additional Tags: Character Study, Haunting, Dysfunctional Relationships, Dysfunctional Family, FW is his own warning, Endgame, Royalty, Abusive Relationships, Ghost Drifting, Non-Linear Narrative, Trick or Treat: Trick
Summary:

As he's facing his death, there are lot of ghosts waiting to catch up with King Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia, and a reckoning to be made...

Re: FW & Gundling fic

[mildred_of_midgard]

AAAHHHHHH *goes to check*

More Isabella of Parma

[mildred_of_midgard]

From Tamussino's bio of Isabella, the parts after the marriage. Thankfully, all of the high points were in Stollberg-Rilinger, where Selena already summarized them for us, so I am spared trying to do a summary and can just share some tidbits.

* Tamussino says that although it has caught on to refer to MT's favorite daughter who was the object of Isabella's affections as "Maria Christina" or "Marie Christine", she was never actually called that. The family called her "die Marie", Khevenhüller "our Frau Maria", FS sometimes called her „Madame Mimi", Maria Theresia "Mimi" or "Mimerl", even when she was long since grown up, and in Leopold's "state of the family" essay in 1778, where he hates on her, she's "die Maria".

* Props to Tamussino for being aware that baby Joseph wasn't there at the Hungarian assembly.

* In the middle of the Seven Years' War, when Joseph and Isabella are getting married to cement the French-Austrian alliance, a celebratory poem is written that begins, "Other nations wage war, you, happy Austria, marry." Comments Tamuissino: "The author couldn't resist the traditional 'bella gerant alii,' and left out the fact that Austria at the time was entangled in a bloody war of high losses."

* Isabella/MC: the "no homo" takes! This was delightful.

One historian claims MC was heartbroken over a failed romance, and Isabella was engaging in roleplay to cheer her up, pretending to be alternately madly in love and devastatingly heartbroken and distant after a fight. It was all RPG!

Another says the two women spent so much time talking about each other's bodies because, as women, they spent hours together in front of the mirror getting dressed and undressed. It was all innocent sisterly stuff!

Tamussino: ASIDE from the censored passages, this claim ignores the fact that 1) their apartments were several rooms apart, 2) they had maids to do their dressing and undressing. "Life at the Hofburg and Schönbrunn wasn't exactly like in 'Figaro.'"

(Mildred: I have not seen Figaro, but lol.)

* A very endearing letter from Isabella to MC:

The chambermaid came in just now, and I thought she was you. Probably a sign how constantly I'm occupied with you, since the resemblance doesn't seem to me to be very great. We won't have any repetition, since I don't want to get heated up.

* Tamussino points out something I hadn't thought of: Isabella was the granddaughter of mentally ill Philip V "the Frog" and niece of the mentally ill uncle Ferdinand VI she almost married. Meaning her suicidal depression may have had an inherited component. Her grandfather Louis XV was also subject to depressive episodes, although not as over the top as the Spanish branch.

* Obligatory Mozart anecdote:

On October 13, 1762, Leopold Mozart was a guest at Schönbrunn with his children and reported to Lorenz Hagenauer in Salzburg:

"Now there's only enough time to say that we have been received by their Majesties so extraordinarily graciously that if I recount it, it will be considered fabulous. Enough! Wolferl jumped onto the empress's lap, hugged her neck and rightly kissed her. In short, we stayed with her from 3 to 6 o'clock, and the emperor himself came out into the other room to take me in, to hear the Infanta play the violin."

Regrettably, Leopold Mozart withheld from us his expert judgment on the violin playing of the "Infantin", i.e. Isabella – how interesting it would have been!

* Tamussino calls the separate interment of the organs, practiced by the Habsburgs, "barbaric" and says that Isabella's smallpox at least spared her that. Strong feelings!

* Tamussino is absolutely sure that Pichler is wrong about MC showing Isabella's letters to Joseph. One, she would never have betrayed Isabella like that, two, she wouldn't have been capable of inflicting that kind of cruelty on Joseph, three, she would have been incriminating herself as well.

Plus, earlier in the book, Tamussino cites another Pichler anecdote about Isabella that is factually false--it involves Isabella visiting her mother's tomb, but her mother died in France while Isabella was in Parma, and Isabella never got to see it. Pichler is therefore totally unreliable, says Tamussino, and not to be trusted.

Also, Pichler is the only source for that anecdote, which is one of the things I wanted to know when I bought this book.

* It seems that after Isabella's death, MC asked her mother for all the letters she (MC) had written to Isabella, and destroyed them, but MC hung onto everything she had that Isabella had written, and carried them around with her her whole life, no matter where she was living. </3

Re: More Isabella of Parma

[selenak]

Props to Tamussino for being aware that baby Joseph wasn't there at the Hungarian assembly.

Not everyone falls for a good Voltaire story, clearly.:)

It was all RPG!

LOL. Well, in a world where Fritz has "fatherly" concerns for two years older Fredersdorf...

"Life at the Hofburg and Schönbrunn wasn't exactly like in 'Figaro.'"

(Mildred: I have not seen Figaro, but lol.)

Presumably she was thinking of these shenanigans between the Countess, Susanna and Cherubino.

Tamussino points out something I hadn't thought of: Isabella was the granddaughter of mentally ill Philip V "the Frog" and niece of the mentally ill uncle Ferdinand VI she almost married. Meaning her suicidal depression may have had an inherited component. Her grandfather Louis XV was also subject to depressive episodes, although not as over the top as the Spanish branch.

Anyone with such a lot of Bourbon and some Habsburg genes (let's not forget the Louis XIV married his first cousin twice over and reproduced with her) has a dicy genetic lottery, that's true enough.

Huh, I was familiar with that Mozart anecdote and in fact quoted it in a recent post, but it hadn't occured to me that Leopold doesn't say anything about whether or not Isabella was good, mediocre or bad on the violin. Perhaps he wanted to be discreet in case his letters were read by people not his friend? Also, the Amadeus version of Joseph wistfully remembering that first encounter with child!Mozart (and young Wolferl's proposal to sister Marie Antoinette) gains another layer if you imagine he was also recalling this as a happy occasion for Isabella to show off her own musical skills.

Tamussino is absolutely sure that Pichler is wrong about MC showing Isabella's letters to Joseph. One, she would never have betrayed Isabella like that, two, she wouldn't have been capable of inflicting that kind of cruelty on Joseph, three, she would have been incriminating herself as well.

These were the reasons why I was sceptical of the story when it showed up in Nancy Goldstone's book unsourced (not to mention the Don Giovanni = Joseph book), but once we had tracked it down to Pichler, whose mother had been a lady-in-waiting to MT, I thought it was at least possible. However, if Tamussino found no other second source, it's questionable again. Now, to play devil's advocate, she wouldn't have been capable of inflicting that kind of cruelty on Joseph is debatable since this was the time when MC and Leopold exchanged very Joseph critical letters as they were both pissed off with him for different reasons (for MC as I recall mainly his interference in Belgium/Austrian Netherlands). But otoh, these these MC - Leopold letters as quoted by Joseph's biographers also emphasize them being discreet and indeed afraid anyone would rat them out to Joseph. As long as Joseph was alive and Emperor, MC was to a degree dependent on him, so in her own best interests, showing him Isabella's letters complete with "she never loved you, she loved me!" would have been a very stupid and counterproductive move.

It seems that after Isabella's death, MC asked her mother for all the letters she (MC) had written to Isabella, and destroyed them, but MC hung onto everything she had that Isabella had written, and carried them around with her her whole life, no matter where she was living.

Awww. I do remember MT as the one who had Isabella's letters searched and the Mimi ones confiscated, but I hadn't known this had been on MC's request.

AU where MT immediately hands over Silesia

[selenak]

Question to mildred_of_midgard in particular: while checking some old rheinsberg entries for reasons, I was reminded again of those historians and biographers (mainly but not exclusively 19th century) who went "all MT had to do in 1740/1741 was accepting Fritz' generous offer of protection and give him Silesia, and he'd have been her champion forever more!"

Leaving completely aside the protection racket morality here, what, in your opinion, would have happened if MT had responded to Fritz' invasion and the letter to FS with "I can totally see your point, Silesia is yours, please defend me against anyone else who might consider this a good time to rob me of other real estate?"

(Because everyone else would have pounced anyway.) Would he have

a) thought he'd better prevent the Saxons, French, Bavarians etc. from getting too mighty in his own interest, i.e. "protect"?

b) thought if she's that easy, he has some more real estate claims himself to make, i.e. continued invading

c) done nothing, remained at home or in Silesia, pop corn munching, while everyone else went for a land grab as well?

Re: AU where MT immediately hands over Silesia

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oooh. This is a really interesting question! Here's what I think:

d) All of the above.

See, I don't think a quick handover of Silesia in early 1741 would have fully scratched his itch to go to war for fame and glory; it's too easy and he wasn't done yet.

Also, from everything I've read about the War of the Austrian Succession, part of the reason MT was able to come off so well, holding on to everything apart from Silesia, was the same reason Prussia was able to survive the Seven Years' War: Having four enemies doesn't mean they're all super into supporting each others' land grabs. Fritz specifically wanted to keep France, Bavaria, and Saxony from getting too powerful in Germany. Or as Macaulay put it, "He had no wish to raise France to supreme power on the continent, at the expense of the house of Hapsburg. His first object was to rob the Queen of Hungary. His second was that, if possible, nobody should rob her but himself."

So I kinda suspect he does, (a) turn on Bavaria and France, but, in the process of doing so, had to occupy some more territory, i.e. "if she's that easy, he has some more real estate claims himself to make, i.e. continued invading," and at the end of the war, he wants to hang on to his additional territory. So (b).

And (c), because why not make a separate peace with your enemies early if you're only defending someone else's territory anyway.

I think because of (b) he ends up at war with her later anyway, although this is a very OOC MT, so who knows.

My biggest question is: when occupying new territory in the course of his protection racket, does he go for Habsburg territory, or does he actually try to hang onto, say, Saxony instead of Bohemia? Irl he made a failed land grab for Bohemia and Moravia, i.e. Habsburg territory, cahn, but those were actually fairly difficult (lots of Catholics), lower value economically, and farther from home. He might have gone for Saxony on the grounds that they were MT's enemies and he was just protecting her (including if Saxony did what I think they would have done, which was remain neutral--no sense in going to war if Prussia and Austria are allied against you!).

...Yeah, somehow I think she was better off doing what she did.

More Peter Keith findings

[mildred_of_midgard]

A few things I've turned up recently in my research into Peter Keith's life, in which no detail is too minor.

1. I was convinced he was the fourth child and younger son (either second or third) of his parents. Well, tracking down citations for the essay that continues to be in progress, I found that Kloosterhuis indeed says fourth child, but nothing about being a younger son. Surely he's a younger son, though, or he would have inherited the family estate in Poberow? His father died in 1729, so it's not like Peter missed out because he was living in exile. Though I guess Hans Heinrich wanted to pass on the inheritance to his younger son, so it could be done.

Seriously, I still think Peter has all the signs of a younger son, I was just surprised I can't find it spelled out anywhere.

2. I figured out where not!Robert's name "Robert" came from! This has been bugging me for three years now.

Turns out it originates with a misunderstanding on MacDonogh's part, and MacDonogh is of course heavily used by Wikipedia.

MacDonogh's source is the Neue Deutsche Biographie, the entry on James Keith. It says that James Keith was from a Scottish family, an earlier side-line of which had already furnished members to Prussian service, such as Robert Keith, adjutant of Fritz, and Peter Keith.

MacDonogh clearly took that to mean that Robert was Peter's brother the page, when, as far as I know, Robert was unrelated/not closely related to Peter Keith. (I actually thought he was closely related to George and James, but I could be thinking of a different Keith. There are so many.)

Mystery solved!

ETA: Robert Keith and James+George Keith are both descended from William Keith, 6th Earl Marischal, 1st Baronet (c. 1585 – 1635). Robert Keith, who married one of Suhm's daughters, was the 5th Baronet of Ludquharn. George Keith was the 10th Earl Marischal. So they were probably like second or third cousins.

I have never been able to figure out how exactly Peter's line fits into this, even with the genealogy Formey gives. I've only found a mutual relative descended from the 4th Earl Marischal, but all Formey will say is that he was a "relative" of Peter's line.

3. So you know how Jordan kept writing letters to Fritz about how Peter wants more money and also to go to war? Because it's humiliating staying home? And then Peter's about to leave for war in May 1742, and the war ends in June and he gets married in July, so I'm not sure he ever left? Or that he was ever in the Second Silesian War?

On the one hand, Preuss specifically says Fritz never took Peter to war. On the other and, his only citations are the Jordan letters, plus the Berlinische Nachrichten article of December 1740 that Felis very much wants. Neither is great proof, imo. A 1740 article doesn't prove anything about 1742, much less 1744-1745, and the Jordan letters first tell Fritz that Peter wants to go to war, and then, a month later, that Peter's on the point of leaving. Which sure *sounds* like Peter got permission.

So if there's evidence Preuss knows of that Peter never actually went to war, he's teasing me and not telling me what it is. OTOH, maybe he's just guessing like I am, and making the same educated guess for the same reason.

4. I had read this passage years ago but had forgotten: Preuss says Keith had a "soft and yielding" nature, very susceptible to compassion for Fritz's sufferings. This reminds me of Koser's "weak man" description of Katte.

Guys. Maybe these are normal people and FW was just SO beyond the pale that you don't have to be especially weak or soft in order to be WTFing at his abusive parenting. You just have to not be a 19th century German historian.

In conclusion, no, I still haven't finished this essay, but I'm getting closer! (If everything weren't either in French or this ridiculous German font, it would be going a lot faster, but every few days or weeks I add a bit more.)

Re: More Peter Keith findings

[selenak]

Go you for finally discovering the origin (Not!)Robert! But I have a bit of pity for McDonogh, despite him being the origin; all these many Keiths in the life of Fritz are bound to confuse! Btw, can't luzula as our resident Scots expert help with tracing back just which Keith clan Peter's family originally sprang from?

Speaking of other people's decriptions of Keith and Katte, I just saw prinzsorgenfrei has posted this poem by Sheelagh Pugh about Katte which I hadn't known before:

LT. HANS HERMAN VON KATTE (1979)

I like good manners better than anything;
no heroism comes so hard as style,
and many men might have met your death bravely
but few, I think, would have behaved themselves
like you, when the poor prince whose hare-brained scheme
brought you to the scaffold begged for your forgiveness …
Tempting, at least, to shout ‘Here’s a fine mess
you’ve got me into’, or words to that effect,
but no; you kissed your hand; called politely
that it was quite alright; you didn’t mind
at all; then sauntered on, to lay your youth,
and fun and gallantry and love of life
under a steel blade, minding very much.

Bad Gays

[luzula]

Hey, have you listened to the Bad Gays episode about Frederick the Great? I found it enjoyable and recognized much of it from salon, but don't know enough to say whether anyone on the podcast is wrong on the internet about any details, or not. : )

(It's a fun podcast, btw. I just listened to the John Maynard Keynes episode, which draws you in with salacious details like "he kept a sex diary where he chronicled fucking his way through the gay portion of the British upper classes, but then later in life he found heterosexual bliss in his marriage to a Russian ballerina who in her seventies liked to sunbathe nude in their garden", but then it's actually a long and interesting discussion about his economic theories and their cultural context.)

Re: Bad Gays

[felis]

Oh, hey! That one. :D It was rather entertaining indeed, but mostly because it was also very Wrong on the Internet and not just in the details. I have to admit, the Sanssouci = pink thing still throws me. HOW.

Secret library

[mildred_of_midgard]

For those of you who don't know, cahn, selenak, and I all receive daily emails telling us what happened on this day in Frederick the Great fandom. (If you don't receive these emails and want to, just let me know!)

On Sep 3, Selena replied, saying, "I just noticed the timing of Duhan's exile here - after the first Fritz and nth Katte interrogations. Presumably when the secret book buying etc. came out?"

Well, today I had to* research the secret book-buying in some depth for my Peter Keith essay, and I was able to confirm this excellent deduction!

In Katte's August 27-28 interrogation, he says, "Look, I was trying to do everything I could to hinder Fritz's designs without making the King mad at him. For proof, there's His Highness's library, which I was supposed to pack up and send to Hamburg, but I left it untouched, and you can find it at [address] today. Therefore, please restore me to your good graces, Your Majesty." [Side note: I'm seeing more and more why Fritz "could complain in some regards" about Katte even after his death.]

On September 19, Guy Dickens writes that Duhan has been banished to Memel for helping Fritz gather a few (!) good and useful books, and a French sexton has also been banished for taking care of the books.

"Few": According to a 19th century scholar named Friedländer, who decided to document the history of the library after FW got a hold of it, there were 3774 volumes. Apparently, a select collection of historical, geographical, military history, and military science books, a considerable mass of belle-lettres/fine arts books, French literature is only sparsely represented, risque books not at all; a conspicuously large number of theological books.

As for what happened to these books:

On September 12, a Prussian minister writes to the Prussian resident in Hamburg that a freight wagon of books has just left Berlin and the resident should expect them in Hamburg. Don't let anyone find out whose they are or that they came from Berlin!

September 27, FW writes that they're to be sold for a good price. Secretly, under foreign names, so no one knows who they belonged to!

January 1, 1731: FW writes, Because you've run into so many difficulties selling these books, try Amsterdam. [Usual FW micromanage-y detail, including, to tell the Amsterdam guy not to open the chests until he receives further instruction.]

February 5, 1731: FW again: 1100 thalers is not enough for so many books! Also, I said Amsterdam! And send them packed securely so that no one knows they contain books, and also get rid of the crowned "F" marks on all the books that have them, so that no one knows in whose hands they've been.

Then in April/May they go the way of the auctioneer's hammer in Amsterdam, and the transportation costs of 71 Reichstaler 22 Groschen to Hamburg and 19 Rthlr 15 Gr to Amsterdam are paid off by the auction. Alas, I don't see where it says the total amount the books fetched at auction.

* For some definition of "had to", meaning, apparently, "My life would not be complete if I didn't meticulously write down everything that is known from primary sources about Peter Keith or anything related to him." :'D On days like this, I really understand those 19th century German scholars and their desire to meticulously document everything that is known from the primary sources about some really obscure topic, like "What happened to Fritz's secret library after the escape attempt?"

And speaking of buying books, I ordered something we've been wanting for almost two years: the volume that has Manteuffel's character portrait of Fritz before he becomes king. Alas, the holiday season approacheth, with all its mail delays, and the expected arrival, if the volume doesn't get lost in the mail, is December 23-February 10. The book also apparently has something about Fritz reading at night while his governor was asleep (remember, this story is in Catt), per Koser's citation, which is why it came back on my radar**, and why I decided to try one more time to hunt it down. Also, I am not yet in debt, but at $71 for this apparently 50 page volume, I understand Fritz getting into debt for his library. ;)

** I'm making and meticulously documenting a case that Fritz and page Peter bonded over sneaking out to read at night.

Re: Secret library

[selenak]

I knew it! BTW, the price haggling and the selling is so FW. But wow, 3774 books. At age 18, and one has to consider he can’t have started to buy them until getting infected with the reading bug, which he wasn’t from the start according to himself and Wilhelmine. He really must have gone on a book shopping rampage in the last two years or so before the escape attempt.

Fritz and Latin, Catt and Büsching

[mildred_of_midgard]

Continuing with tonight's findings...

I was looking for FW beating Fritz up over studying Latin. And I found we have two sources on that: Catt, and Büsching.

Büsching, you may or may not recall, authored one of those posthumous anecdote collections after Fritz's death. Selena commented a couple years ago that some of his anecdotes so closely match unpublished anecdotes by other sources that she wondered if he might have talked to Catt in the process of putting this together.

I've turned up another possible example.

Catt's diary has one line saying Fritz wasn't allowed to study Latin as a child.

Catt's memoirs have this more elaborate account of Fritz and his tutor getting beaten up:

"I was still a child, learning a little Latin, and was declining mensa, ae, dominus, i, ardor, is, with my master, when suddenly my father entered the room. ‘What are you doing there?’ — ‘Papa, I am declining mensa, ae,’ I said in a childish voice which should have touched him. ‘Ah, rogue, Latin to my son! Get out of my sight,’ and he gave him a volley of kicks and blows with his stick, accompanying him in this cruel manner into the inner room. Frightened by these blows and by the enraged looks of my father, and shivering with fear, I hid under the table, thinking that I should there be in safety. I saw my father come up to me, after having done execution; I shuddered still more. He took me by the hair, pulled me from under the table, and dragged me thus into the middle of the room, finishing by smacking my face several times: ‘ If I catch you again at your mensa, I will let you know what is what."

Büsching has this anecdote of Fritz's tutor getting beaten up.

He sometimes recounted how in his first youth he had a tutor who wanted to instruct him in the Latin language. His lord father had come by, when said tutor was having him translate something from the Golden Bull [important 1356 constitutional document for the Holy Roman Empire, cahn], and since he heard some bad Latin expressions, he said to the tutor, "You villain, what are you doing with my son?" "Your Majesty, I'm explaining the auream bullam to the the Prince." The King had raised his stick and said, "I'll auream bullam you, villain," had chased him away, and the Latin had stopped.

As you can see, the details are different, but the outline is the same: FW walks in on some forbidden Latin studies, overhears snatches of Latin, starts beating people up with his stick, no more Latin. And Catt and Büsching are the only two sources Koser cites for Fritz and the FW-imposed Latin ban.

I do think you're right, selenak. If they didn't talk to each other, they heard some of the same stories.

Re: Fritz and Latin, Catt and Büsching

[selenak]

“He sometimes recounted” does make it sound as if it was one of those stories he kept repeating in his old age, as per the testimony of the Second Hussar and Luccessini, and we know Büsching talked to the Second Hussar, so he’s another possible source. Otoh Catt is still a suspect, and it’s classic Catt to elaborate from the one sentence in the diary to a lengthy monologue in the memoirs, presumably based on the story how he heard it on later occasions, but wanting to create the impression with the readers that Fritz confided all of this to him instantly.

And Catt and Büsching are the only two sources Koser cites for Fritz and the FW-imposed Latin ban

Of course, unlike Catt and Büsching, we know FW himself hated the Latin he had to learn as a kid and therefore put it off the teaching schedule for his sons, which would have enraged him even further. Here he is, trying to do something nice for Fritz, and Fritz doesn’t appreciate it but backstabs him by WANTING to learn Latin! What do you mean, one child is not like the other?

A fawning dedication to William Keith

[luzula]

Since we have been talking about the Keiths, I thought you might enjoy this great example of an early 18th century fawning dedication, written by some guy called William Hope and dedicated to George and James's father William Keith. : D I discovered it while researching fencing for a fic.

***

To the Right Honourable,
WILLIAM
Earl Mariſchal,
Lord Keith and Altrie, Great Mariſchal of the Kingdom of Scotland, and Heretable Keeper of the Regalia of That Kingdom, etc.

MY LORD,
HAVING of late Diſcovered the Short and Eaſy Method of Fencing, contained in the following Sheets, and which I am perſuaded, will be found by Practice, to be as Uſeful as it is New; I was not long a making Choice of your Lordſhip, as the Perſon to whom I ought in Juſtice to offer It.

For not to mention, at preſent, your Lordſhip’s many Perſonal Endowments, which I the more willingly forebear, leſt I should be thought too much interested therein, not only upon account of that Great and Juſt eſteem, which I have always had for your Lordſhip, but alſo (and which is indeed my greateſt Honour) with reſpect to my near Concern in, and Relation to, your Lordſhip's most Ancient and Noble Family.

[…]

That therefore the moſt Noble and Ancient Family of the KEITHS may be Preſerved and Flouriſh, not only for Seven Hundred, but Seventy times Seven Hundred Years; nay even to the CONSUMMATION of all Things, is the most ſincere Wish, and hearty and fervent Deſire of,

My Lord,
your Lordſhips
Obedient and moſt
Humble Servant,
Will. Hope.

***

As you can see, Hope has taken full advantage of the possibilities of Capitalization, ALLCAPS, and italics. You can't see it, because there are limits to my efforts, but he has also made artistic use of changing font size and variation in indents. Alas that he has not discovered the bold style and the font change.

Re: A fawning dedication to William Keith

[mildred_of_midgard]

Lolololol! Your description of the typographic fawning is just as funny as the typographical fawning itself! :'D

Trenck

[mildred_of_midgard]

So here I am, innocently going through the Prussian secret state archives website, trying to figure out how to order stuff (in hopes prinzsorgenfrei will read it to us), and what do I find but Prussian Trenck being over-the-top again.

Here is an entry called "Trenck'sche Blutbibel" (Trenck's Blood-Bible), described as "Während seiner Festungshaft in Magdeburg mit eigenem Blut geschriebener Lebensbericht des Freiherrn v.d. Trenck über die Zeit von 1744-1754, selbst gemalte Bilder und eigene Gedichte", i.e. "Curriculum vitae of the Baron von der Trenck from the time 1744-1754, self-made pictures, and his own poems, written during his imprisonment in Magdeburg with his own blood."

...Yeah.

If you click on "Akte einsehen", you can see the whole thing digitized, with the reddish-brown, sometimes pink, writing in the margins and on blank pages. (But also sometimes black, which makes me wonder if all the writing is Trenck's or some of it is by other owners?)

On pages 4 and 7, there's a table of contents. I can't read all of it, but I definitely see that item 3 says "Letter to Her Royal Highness the Princess Amalia", and her name shows up again in item 5.

I have so many questions!

We didn't know about his blood Bible before, right? I have no memory of it, and searching for "Trenck" and "blood" through my notification emails isn't giving me anything.

Re: Trenck

[selenak]

Briefly, as I'm with the APs and have to sign Christmas mail like mad:

1.) It's been years, but I think I recall from Volz that Trenck's letter to Amalie went in tandem with letters to EC, Luise etc., i.e. various female members of the royal family in the hope they'd help and intercede on his behalf; this was one of Volz' arguments against a Trenck/Amalie relationship, in fact, since the one to her was not different to the ones to the others.

2.) Blood bible: I don't recall right now, alas. Only cups and carvings made by him.