cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 39

Last post, along with the usual 18th-century suspects, included the Ottonians; changing ideas of conception and women's sexual pleasure; Isabella of Parma (the one who fell in love, and vice versa, with her husband's sister); Henry IV and Bertha (and Henry's second wife divorcing him for "unspeakable sexual acts"). (Okay, Isabella of Parma was 18th century.)

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From:

felis

Okay, so five more minutes and my genuine reaction just now was "What? WHAT? WHAT????" Out loud. Because, how does he celebrate becoming King in 1740? (My flippant answer was: "by invading Silesia" but okay, that was a bit later :P) Their answer, and I'm quoting: "He begins openly appearing in public with a man who is, quite clearly I think, his lover and [he] treats him as such."

Three guesses anyone?

From:

selenak

I stand confirmed in my not listening any further. But do tell - Keyserlingk? Algarotti? Fredersdorf?

From:

felis

Well, at least you got him, because he would not have been my first guess: Algarotti. "Very much one of Frederick's great loves, not just emotionally, but also intellectually." And they quote the "come at once" letter to him as proof, with total awe at the "don't make me pine" part. You know, the very same one Duhan got.

From:

selenak

LOL. To be fair, a) the Duhan letter with identical wording does not show up in every biography, and b) Algarotti is on top of Salon's "men Fritz most likely did have sex with" list, and undoubtedly, he enchanted through his conversation as well as his looks so sure, there was both an emotional and an intellectual connection. But "great love"? With Algarotti heading off to Saxony quite soon? And later, after coming back, managing a better Frexit than Voltaire?

From:

felis

Yeah, without too much context, I can see how you'd get there, and he does give him a title and takes him to both Königsberg and then Strassburg later, but man, the way it was framed here is misleading.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I mean, I am okay with "one of his great loves"! No one ever said great loves had to have happy endings, or that Fritz was easier to love up close! Also, Fritz never wanted to let him go, either to Saxony or to Italy. I think he was one of Fritz's great loves, I don't think they had what it took to make a long-term stable relationship work (Fredersdorf is special).

I will stand by "He begins openly appearing in public with a man who is, quite clearly I think, his lover and [he] treats him as such" as as close to factually correct as you can get in a claim about an 18th century homosexual relationship, and "one of his great loves" as arguable, at least not egregiously wrong, and the Duhan letter as an obscure salon factoid. ;)

But WOW some of these other claims.

From:

selenak

Look, at the world's first author of a Fritz/Algarotti story, you would think that.:)

Just kidding. I completely agree with you, and not just because of that gigantic Fritz financed tomb. For that matter, even the Marquis D'Argens inspired rant by Nicolai re: how no one but the Marquis was worthy among the Sanssouci Table Round notes that Algarotti meant a lot to Fritz.

Lady Mary: Of course he loved Algarotti! How could anyone not have Algarotti as their great love, is what I want to know.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

the world's first author of a Fritz/Algarotti story

Mobster!AU author beat me to it! She actually made Algarotti the one true long-lasting love of his life, Fredersdorf who? :P

I completely agree with you, and not just because of that gigantic Fritz financed tomb.

Yeah, Maupertuis got one too, right? But Algarotti got an orgasm poem, that I don't think Maupertuis or Duhan did. :PPP

Lady Mary: Of course he loved Algarotti! How could anyone not have Algarotti as their great love, is what I want to know.

</3

From:

selenak

...I still hope that someone at some point writes the story where Andrew Mitchell when Fritz makes him read his poetry has a look the orgasm poem and offers a beta based on personal experience.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Convince me at an emotional level that Mitchell was a tasty dish and I'll see what I can do. :P (That is actually my problem with shipping Algarotti/Mitchell: while I'm intellectually sure Algarotti had good taste, I have no personal sense of Mitchell as sexy based on his Seven Years' War persona.)

From:

selenak

Hm, let‘s see. For starters, Mitchell is competent, courageous, and keeps his cool in very tricky situations, which you find appealing. His predecessors as British envoys weren‘t popular with Fritz, but he was, and not just for the subsidies. He‘s also Scottish no-nonsense like, which I can see an Algarotti who otherwise is busy flirting with Hervey and Lady Mary finding appealing, curious enough about the world to live nearly three years abroad as a young man on his prolonged Grand Tour. He‘s that rarity, a man capable of changing his opinion on people when provided with new data (see his 180% turnaround on Heinrich, going from „smug snake sure to sell out King and Country to the French“ to „my hero, shame that there can‘t be two suns in the sky at the same time!“) which an Algarotti hanging out with feuding British aristocrats or super neurotic brilliant Hohenzollern and lots of feuding Academians, all of whom are prone to go „my way or the high way!“ is bound to find relaxing. He lives through the Seven Years War with his personal sense of ethics intact (and thus finds the bombardment of Dresden barbaric, despite Saxony being the enemy and Prussia his ally). He sees through Henri de Catt! He has a sense of humor as evidenced not just by taking Fritz‘ poetry in good stride but by him being kind to young James Boswell after the war. And he must have been good in the sack, if Algarotti calls him the tastiest dish!

Fancast: Liam Neeson?

From:

cahn

I mean, I was going to say, I would go for that! :D and I'd forgotten more than half of what you mentioned! (But I have a really pronounced competency kink, and also a pronounced partiality for characters who can change their minds when provided with new data. (See also Neroon! :D ))

Also has a tragic backstory! (I think that was before the Seven Years War, right?)

Mitchell backstory

From:

selenak - Date: 2022-12-15 06:53 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Mitchell backstory

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mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-12-15 08:32 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Mitchell backstory

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selenak - Date: 2022-12-15 01:51 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Mitchell backstory

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Re: Mitchell backstory

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cahn - Date: 2022-12-15 09:37 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Mitchell backstory

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selenak - Date: 2022-12-16 07:13 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Mitchell backstory

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mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-12-16 11:43 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Mitchell backstory

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cahn - Date: 2022-12-16 08:56 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Lol! Okay, I will keep this in mind, thank you for the write-up! The orgasm poem and Mitchell offering feedback on it is something I've idly thought about before.

Of course, we all know I'm not writing anything this year (I got 4 hours of sleep last night and have now been awake for 21 hours), but who can know what next year holds! I have this idea that maybe, someday, I'll be able to read Germany comfortably and then I can let my brain focus on other things.

From:

luzula

*pops up at mention of a Scot*

He does sound potentially dishy! Would read the fic. : D

Andrew Mitchell

From:

selenak - Date: 2022-12-15 06:43 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

"Very much one of Frederick's great loves, not just emotionally, but also intellectually."

I mean, I'm with them so far on that, but the letter thing is not great proof, yeah. But at least that's understandable and probably hasn't come up in a skit. ;)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I mean, between the riding in the same carriage making dirty jokes and singing bawdy songs, and the orgasm poem (which has gotten a lot of press since its rediscovery in the last 10 or so years) and taking him on the trip west, my only guess was Algarotti, and I actually think this sounds legit?

From:

felis

It sounds legit that to celebrate becoming King he begins to publicly and openly appear with his great lover, Algarotti? (And it's the one and only point they mention for things he does as new King, too.) I'm not saying they weren't lovers or that he wasn't into Algarotti at the time, he obviously was - I'm saying that the way it's phrased is really misleading, making it sound much more deliberate and official and public than it was, and singling out Algarotti as the King's consort in a way that's too much, even in 1740. But hey. YMMV.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

It sounds legit that to celebrate becoming King he begins to publicly and openly appear with his great lover, Algarotti?

Yes? Considering that until now, Fritz couldn't have the people he wanted around him, Keyserlingk was having to meet him incognito as late as 1740, and we all know that having the people he wanted around him was one of THE most important things to Fritz...I would say he was celebrating by publicly having Algarotti accompany him, yes.

making it sound much more deliberate and official and public than it was

I concede that you've listened to this and I haven't, but given the passage you've quoted, the "quite clearly I think" says to me that they're saying it specifically wasn't an official consort situation, and we in salon know Algarotti's status certainly wasn't exclusive, either as public companion or as lover. But the carriage ride to the homage ceremony in Königsberg was public and deliberate, imo, and a celebration by Fritz of his ability to have his self-chosen same-sex lover instead of his boring forced-marriage wife with him. Unless I'm wrong about how well-attested it is that Algarotti was riding with him, because I'm blanking on the exact source.

From:

felis

But the carriage ride to the homage ceremony in Königsberg was public and deliberate, imo,

And you know who the other person in that carriage was? Keyserlingk. (One source for the three of them travelling together is a Fritz letter to AW IIRC.) Which is my point. You mention him yourself as Fritz having to sneak around to meet him. Envoys to other states mention him as the big Favourite. So if this podcast singles out Algarotti as the one lover he parades around, it's absolutely misleading. Yes, of course Fritz celebrated by freely surrounding himself with the people he loved, but ALL of them, and including non-romantic relationships. Not just Algarotti.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

If the podcast is saying that Algarotti is the one person he parades around, then no, but the one lover immediately after he came to power? I totally agree Fritz had a variety of relationships, from sexual/romantic to romantic to close friendship to beloved mentor to love-hate to twin soul, and so on, but to me the sentence you quoted doesn't read as being about how Algarotti was the person Fritz loved more than anyone, but about how becoming king allowed Fritz to stick one foot outside the closet. Being gay (or not being gay) is one of the reasons Fritz is talked about in the English-speaking popular world, and that's the context I bring to a broadcast like this.

From:

selenak

On a tangentially related note but not about this broadcast, this reminds me of the Straßburg trip, which I did see described on tumblr as another Fritz-and-Algarotti excursion, only for us to find out that in addition to Algarotti, Fritz took along AW, Fredersdorf, Wartensleben and I think Knobelsdorff (or maybe the last one is something the novelist who wrote about K made up), and consciously edited out AW of any recountings of that trip to Henri de Catt or other people in his later life.

Conclusion: the broadcast guys aren't the only ones prone to make excursions in which Mr. Hot Stuff was present into travels a deux even if they demonstrably weren't. :)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

only for us to find out that in addition to Algarotti, Fritz took along AW, Fredersdorf, Wartensleben

~~Didn't Fritz describe it as a "me-and-Algarotti, AW who?" trip to Catt?~~

Somehow my eyes glazed right over that line. Yes! You just said that.

Fritz: When I rewrite history, people believe me. What can I say?

and I think Knobelsdorff (or maybe the last one is something the novelist who wrote about K made up)

I don't remember Knobelsdorff, but I could be forgetting. I do remember you and Felis found that Fritz and Algarotti stayed in separate inns, so sex was apparently not in the cards for that trip! (I think Fritz got hit by malaria toward the end, so he might have been feeling under the weather already?)

Edited Date: 2022-12-15 02:30 pm (UTC)

From:

selenak

Yes, Algarotti stayed with AW at the in "Holy Ghost", Fritz with Wartensleben (and presumably Fredersdorf) at the "Raven". (Though Bielfeld has it the other way around, but Volz is using two French sources who both agree on this.) If Fritz was already feeling under the weather, I bet he wanted to be rather nursed by Fredersdorf at night than having to be dashing with sexpot Algarotti. :)

(I stand by my theory as to why Maupertois wanted to take Algarotti along to Lappland.)

Mind you, Algarotti was also handy for makng Fritz' excuses to de Broglie later on. BTW, I'm currently reading at last Mike Duncan's Lafayette biography, and I know Straßburg!Broglie is the father of 7 Years War!Broglie, but: is 7 Years War!Broglie also the same guy who thinks he will be stadtholder of the US and replace Washington when Lafayette's first trip to the colonies gets organized?

From:

mildred_of_midgard

If Fritz was already feeling under the weather, I bet he wanted to be rather nursed by Fredersdorf at night than having to be dashing with sexpot Algarotti. :)

Headcanon! This is my new headcanon.

(I stand by my theory as to why Maupertois wanted to take Algarotti along to Lappland.)

I have thought about writing this one too, but alas, my South Pole background don't extend to 18th century Lappland well enough for me to feel comfortable writing a fic without a lot more research. Would that Maupertuis had wanted to take Algarotti to the South Pole in the early 20th century, then I could write that in my sleep!

BTW, I'm currently reading at last Mike Duncan's Lafayette biography

Oh, nice. As noted, I have no idea how accurate it is, but it's readable.

is 7 Years War!Broglie also the same guy who thinks he will be stadtholder of the US and replace Washington when Lafayette's first trip to the colonies gets organized?

Older brother. 7 Years' War!Broglie is the older brother of wannabe-stadtholder, who was best known for his important role in Louis XV's secret service.

Cahn, Louis XV had official ministers who got told to do one thing, and a secret service who reported directly to him and often got told to do the opposite thing, and this did not make life easy on French ministers.

From:

luzula

I have thought about writing this one too, but alas, my South Pole background don't extend to 18th century Lappland well enough for me to feel comfortable writing a fic without a lot more research.

Just saying that I have read Linnaeus' journal of his travels in Lapland, from 1732! In case you want beta-reading/brainstorming help. : )

What is this trip, btw?