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

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

mildred_of_midgard

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

Lol! Very true. Fortunately for everyone, Louise-Elisabeth was a bit more conventional and less hardcore about her efforts to return to France.

LOL. That's why Liselotte wrote so many of her letters in German. Better than using a code or invisible ink!

Well, personally, *I* think her Baroque German is better than a code! (Looking through old posts recently, I saw Felis proactively translating a passage because wow.)

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.

Hmm, I'm not seeing it in Beuy's SC bio (which talks extensively about the book, but doesn't specify a bilingual version that I can see), but then I don't have the FW bios you've read.

There was a German translation, though! Per Wikipedia:

A German translation was published in 1733 under the title Die seltsamen Begebenheiten des Telemach and was very popular in German court circles at the time.[11][12] It inspired Wilhelmine of Prussia, Margravine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth to design her English landscape garden, the Sanspareil.

The work is best known in Russia for a verse translation by Vasily Trediakovsky published in 1766 and entitled Tilemakhida, or the Wandering of Telemachus, Son of Odysseus (Тилемахида, или Странствование Тилемаха, сына Одиссеева). The translation is noted for its archaic diction and its use of hexameters. The work was ridiculed by Catherine the Great but defended by Alexander Radishchev and others.

Télémaque was translated into Ottoman Turkish in 1859 by Yusuf Kamil Pasha (1806-1876), a statesman who would later become grand vezir (prime minister) of the Ottoman Empire. It is considered the first translation of a European novel into Turkish.

Wilhelmine's Sanspareil garden has its whole own Wikipedia page,

cahn, you should check it out!

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?

I was wondering the same thing! It's too soon for them to be going, "Well, Ferdinand has the only functional marriage of the Hohenzollern brothers..." :P

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?

Haha, Tamussino the Austrian is outraged. ;)

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!

Lol forever! FW did show up at Philippsburg, though, right? I think toward the end of the siege?

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

MC started it. Looking through old posts, you did tell us back in October 2019 that they had corresponded before they met, but I had forgotten.

Unfortunately, we don't have MC's letters, only Isabella's, but it looks like MC probably wrote a "Welcome to the family, looking forward to meeting you" letter, and Isabella replied...but what was interesting to me was that they kept up the correspondence and exchanged *several* letters before meeting.

They're still corresponding as she continues her slow and formal progress from Italy to Vienna, stopping to be feted in most every significant city she comes to. I (and Tamussino) found this letter charming:

Madam, my dear sister,
All my letters today begin with an apology. It's really my fault that I neglected to answer your letter of the 10th. A thousand reasons could be given to justify me, but they are all of little value. I could say that the journey, the fatigue, the lack of time, the care I need for my health (you recommended it to me yourself!) have prevented me. As for fatigue, the day trips aren't long enough for me to be so exhausted that I can't write. And although I do refer to said care [sc. for her health] no one dies if one writes a letter, just as little does one die if one sleeps a quarter of an hour less - if necessary, one sleeps in the carriage. So you see that I give up all justification and count only on your friendship to forgive my laziness. Finally, I hope that you are convinced of my feelings for you and the joy that yours bring me!

Tamussino: "From Marie Christine's letters (unfortunately not preserved) such a heartfelt tone must have spoken to Isabella that she immediately gained confidence and corresponded with her future sister-in-law like an old friend."

Joseph's letters during this period, though, wow. He keeps writing to an old friend about how nervous he is about getting married. The first letter:

My dear Salm,
It was with great pleasure that I read your letter... The description you give me of the Princess is too favorable for me not to hope to be happy... I think that I have owed this great grace of God have deserved to the perfect equanimity which I have always shown toward the choice of a wife their majesties have made for me... Well, whether I like it or not, I am destined for the Infanta, whom I marry and, as far as I am concerned, I will certainly do my utmost to win her esteem and trust. As for love, you know it's against my nature to play the lover. Gradually prepare her for the fact that she will not find in me a dapper youth telling her a hundred lovely little nothings, but a man who is determined, from the first moment, to give her whatever consideration and attention she desires. I believe this is my duty and I will fulfill it, come what may. However, a means--perhaps the only means--to win my heart would be if she would be so kind as to place her trust in me and occasionally seek my advice, which I will always give her honestly and to the best of my knowledge... So there you have it, a rather silly speech by a lover who is to be married in three weeks . But my fame, the service of the Empress, and the welfare of the people could cause me to go into battle straight from the altar if I were allowed to. Even before the altar, I would take the princess by the head and, con gusto conforto, join the army... I have never felt the thrills of love that might turn my head, but it has happened to many people who are wiser than I.

Getting more excited:

Of all the reports and tales I have heard about the Infanta, nothing has given me so much joy as your announcement that she loves sincerity and wants a husband who will also be her friend...My heart, hitherto stony and insensitive to the charms of love, allows itself to be drawn into its nets...My heart is a little excited, although I don't admit it today. In 14 days we'll see each other in Laxenburg, where I'll be quite embarrassed and cut a silly figure, against my nature willing to play the lovable and maybe after a while the lover. For you, who know me, there will be something to laugh about there...For me, please thank the Infanta for the opera she sent me and say something nice and gallant to her, for I am too plain in my nature to think up such things.

Getting more nervous:

As the moment draws near, the more worked up I am, I confess, not for joy but for fear of not being happy. I feel very young and barely capable of directing myself - how am I supposed to direct a wife? I've never known the charms of love, God knows how I'll fare.

Man. :/ Poor everyone.

Edited (Html) Date: 2022-10-12 08:30 pm (UTC)

From:

cahn

Wilhelmine's Sanspareil garden has its whole own Wikipedia page, [personal profile] cahn, you should check it out!

I did and looked up some more pictures, and it looks very nice! :)

So you see that I give up all justification and count only on your friendship to forgive my laziness.

Aww, that's super cute.

Gradually prepare her for the fact that she will not find in me a dapper youth telling her a hundred lovely little nothings, but a man who is determined, from the first moment, to give her whatever consideration and attention she desires. I believe this is my duty and I will fulfill it, come what may. However, a means--perhaps the only means--to win my heart would be if she would be so kind as to place her trust in me and occasionally seek my advice, which I will always give her honestly and to the best of my knowledge...

Aww, Joseph <33 :(

From:

selenak

I did and looked up some more pictures, and it looks very nice! :

It is. We used to go there when I was a kid, and it was fun to play in this rock garden.

Joseph the Fritz fan and virgin convinced he's made for the manly military life and getting more and more nervous at the prospect of marriage but also resolved to be attentive and wishing for honesty in their marriage: poor kids. Poor, poor kids.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I can't find the quote, but Joseph's "I feel very young and barely capable of directing myself - how am I supposed to direct a wife?" reminded me of teenage bride Charlotte telling FW, who was all "WHERE ARE MY GRANDKIDS," that she felt like she still needed a parent and wasn't equipped to be a parent yet.

I feel like that must have been common. I guess if you had that kind of self-awareness, it at least beat the alternative? Ugh, though.

Poor, poor kids.

(Joseph was 19, btw,

cahn.)

Ah, there we go, found it:

As opposed to Charlotte, who hears the same "get pregnant" admonishment but proves she really, as Fritz writes to Wilhelmine in 1733, is allowed to get away with everything, because she writes back, yeah, no, Dad, I'm 18 and feel I need a parent myself, I want a few more years before making you a Grandfather.

Sadly, I checked, and her first child was born already in 1735, when she was 20.

From:

luzula

After reading these quotes, I feel apprehensive for these kids, so I went and found the relevant

rheinsberg post to find out what happened to them! Wow, that is...something. Poor kids.

From:

cahn

I KNOW RIGHT?? ...you could really not pay me to live in the 18th century. Especially now that I know that Isabella wasn't living her worst life at all, it could have been much worse!