cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 40

I'm trying to use my other account at least occasionally so I posted about my Yuletide gifts there, including the salon-relevant 12k fic that features Fritz, Heinrich, Voltaire, Fredersdorf, Saint Germain, Caroline Daum (Fredersdorf's wife), and Groundhog Day tropes! (Don't need to know canon.)

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From:

mildred_of_midgard

It is perhaps that which approaches the nearest to perfection of all hte four;

On a historiographical note, remind me how revolutionary this idea is? When did people start doing an about-face on the past being inherently better than the present? (Nostalgic coloring of the past is still a thing, obviously, but "progress" is more of a concept that's taken for granted than it used to be.)

FRENCH music, especially the vocal , is disliked by all other nations .

Fritz agrees! Per Blanning:

The Berlin opera house was...multinational: most of the singers were Italian, the dancers French and the musicians German. Although so often described as a Francophile, Frederick in fact had a generally low opinion of contemporary French culture. During the golden age of the mid-seventeenth century, he believed, French writers, led by Corneille and Racine, had produced dramatic works of unsurpassable quality, but since then their star had waned. Dismissing their music as “puerile,” he told Graun to stop composing overtures in the French style. Modern Italian music was mellifluous when sung properly but essentially “stupid.” What Frederick demanded was music in the Italian style but written by Germans. Ascribed to him was the dictum: “The French only know how to write drama and the Italians only know how to sing; the Germans alone understand how to write music.”

He also claims that a) Anne fell out of love with him, and b) Louis himself was glad when Mazarin died. There goes a story with each which were the occasions where I wanted and got sourcing

Interesting! Like you, I had definitely not encountered this before. Do you need me to track down those memoirs?

(You may recall I mentioned this when we talked about Christina a while ago. Mazarin advised her to pretend Monaldeschi had died in a quarrel between courtiers; Christina said no, she owned it, she had him executed for his transgressions against her as was her right as Queen. Everyone else: *Gulp*)

I do recall!

Which, as Voltaire repeatedly points out, given the Spain/Netherlands backstory, really took some doing.

I myself have always been impressed by this foreign policy development! Truly, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

From:

selenak

On a historiographical note, remind me how revolutionary this idea is? When did people start doing an about-face on the past being inherently better than the present? (Nostalgic coloring of the past is still a thing, obviously, but "progress" is more of a concept that's taken for granted than it used to be.)

Without looking it up, I think while the "golden age of the past/the present sucks" school of thought - usually as a way to chastize the present - never went away, the "we're now better off than in the past" idea is something that may have debuted once Christian monks started to write the chronicles, simply because the past is pagan, and of course Christianity is an improvement. However, once there were several centuries of solely Christianity to look back on, the "golden age" probably made a comeback with a vengeance.

Meanwhile, the idea of progress in the way Voltaire puts it strikes me as very much a product of the Enlightenment, i.e. 18th century. It's also worth noting that while he credits the Age of Louis XIV with making France the cultural beheemoth of Europe and making everyone quake in their boots for a while politically, not only does he have several criticisms that go with that, but he mentions philosophy only starting in that era. (BTW, clearly he doesn't ignore the existence of Greek and Roman philosophers here. Or Christian ones, for that matter. I blame the problem of translation. When Voltaire talks about philosophes, he doesn't mean the likes of Platon or Seneca, he means what we'd call intellectuals, though in our days the invention of the modern Intellectual is credited to the 18th, not the 17th century, and very much to Voltaire and friends. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that when you read the book, you're left with the impression that the author thinks that this sure as hell was a remarkable age, but we still have a lot to accomplish and improve, so get to it, people!

Meanwhile, as I recall in one of his later life letters to Voltaire Fritz describes the Age of Louis XIV as a lost golden age when giants walked the earth whereas the present sucks and compliments Voltaire as being the last survivor from that age (of Louis XIV). Though in a yet later letter, the one I used in my story about the two of them, he more accurately and more poignantly says something like "it's enough to have lived in the Age of Voltaire" (which is what the Enlightenment is often referred to in France in the 20th century at least, so go Fritz for predicting that). Now Voltaire's life time and that of Louis XIV barely overlap because Louis got to be so old, so it's not really a question as to in which era he belongs, but it's telling that Voltaire's book at no point gives you the impression its author would have wanted to live as a true contemporary of Louis, no matter how impressive he finds him, whereas Fritz' earlier reference is already applying the golden age concept again.

Like you, I had definitely not encountered this before. Do you need me to track down those memoirs?

Nope, unnecessary. I do have some biographies I can look up in this regard.

I do recall!

Incidentally, I think Voltaire may be overestimating the British adherence to law and willingness to arrest foreign dignitaries if he thinks Christina would have gotten arrested if she'd had the guy murdered, err, executed on English soil.

I finally had the chance to watch the most recent Christina biopic, The Girl King, which starts well but then devolves, alas, goes for the most simple black and white storyline imaginable - Christina, champion of progressive thought and same sex love, first gets robbed of her one true love Edda Sparre by homophobic Protestant bigots, then her fatherly mentor Descartes gets poisoned by a French priest who puts Arsenic on the host while handing it to Descartes so Christina is left without a friend and open to evil French-Catholic machinations, and then she abdicates, the end. Leaving aside Descartes' surviving letters gives one the impression he and she did not get along and he regretted having moved to Stockholm and having to get up in the middle of the night so he could teach her at 5:00 am in the morning, thereby catching the inevitable cold, what's missing here entirely is her inner autocrat, not to mention all the money spending on luxuries which lessened her popularity in Sweden. Christina does sound fascinating, but she's still waiting for a fictional treatment that lets her keep her edges as far as I can see.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

- never went away, the "we're now better off than in the past" idea is something that may have debuted once Christian monks started to write the chronicles

Interesting, I am not an expert on medieval chronicles, but I had the impression that the idea of the Fall, and of course the impending end of the world, governed Christian historiography a lot, and you get a strong negative "now is worse" slant. It's actually kind of interesting that Otto von Freising, a bishop, writes on his own initiative a book that's not primarily a history but a story of how everything on earth is so meaningless and terrible and ephemeral, and that's why you should not care about earthly things...and then he gets commissioned by his nephew the emperor (Barbarossa) to write a history of his reign, and suddenly Otto discovers "progress". ;)

I know the idea of progress being a natural state of affairs really took off with the Whigs, but the nuances of its development are not something I'm conversant with.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that when you read the book, you're left with the impression that the author thinks that this sure as hell was a remarkable age, but we still have a lot to accomplish and improve, so get to it, people!

I mean, that's exactly how I feel about the present: it's a lot better than the past, but we've got a long way to go, people!

Meanwhile, as I recall in one of his later life letters to Voltaire Fritz describes the Age of Louis XIV as a lost golden age when giants walked the earth whereas the present sucks and compliments Voltaire as being the last survivor from that age (of Louis XIV). Though in a yet later letter, the one I used in my story about the two of them, he more accurately and more poignantly says something like "it's enough to have lived in the Age of Voltaire"

But in that letter Fritz also said the future was going to be better (at least for German culture), but he was old and knew he wasn't going to live to see it, so he was contenting himself with Voltaire:

Germany is now like France was in the time of Francis I. The taste for letters begins to spread; we must wait for nature to give birth to true geniuses, as under the ministries of Richelieu and Mazarin. The soil that produced one Leibniz can produce others.

I will not see these beautiful days of my homeland, but I foresee the possibility. You will tell me that this can be very indifferent to you, and that I play the prophet quite at my ease by extending, as much as I can, the term of my prediction. This is my way of prophesying, and the surest of all, since no one will give me the lie.

As for me, I console myself with having lived in the age of Voltaire; it's enough for me.

So he clearly has an idea of progress here. While he may reminisce about a 17th century golden age, he doesn't *just* think in terms of a lost golden age (maybe because he's enough of a product of the Enlightenment.)

Incidentally, I think Voltaire may be overestimating the British adherence to law and willingness to arrest foreign dignitaries if he thinks Christina would have gotten arrested if she'd had the guy murdered, err, executed on English soil.

Hmm. There are not a whole lot of parallels. The diplomatic reciprocity thing I mentioned was an envoy to Britain getting thrown in debtors' prison, but that was just an envoy, not a visiting ex-monarch. I guess the closest parallel would be this question (to which I don't know the answer): what's the worst thing Peter the Great got away with when he was visiting Britain? Trashing your residence with your wild parties isn't exactly comparable to execution/murder!

But it's an interesting question, I wouldn't feel certain saying either they would or wouldn't have arrested her.

From:

selenak

Interesting, I am not an expert on medieval chronicles, but I had the impression that the idea of the Fall, and of course the impending end of the world, governed Christian historiography a lot, and you get a strong negative "now is worse" slant.

Otto of Freising and other high medieval chroniclers fall under the category of "have centuries of Christianity to look back on" I indicated above. Whereas I was thinking of really early Christian chroniclers, like Einhard who was Charlemagne's contemporary and chronicler. I recently had to reread his entire Carolus Magnus, and he definitely is under the impression the Carolingian age is pretty fab and better than before when one had to put up with Merowingian kings, never mind the pagan past. It's just since Charles died - sob! - that things are starting to look just a teeeeeensy bit concerning... Oh, Einhard does have a bit of a chip on his shoulder regarding the general German ability to write in Latin, which he assures us has been getting better all the time due to all those schools now operating in the Francian Empire, and also, if his Latin isn't Ciceronian, well, whose is? Certainly not that of those Italian busybodies across the Alps.

I guess the closest parallel would be this question (to which I don't know the answer): what's the worst thing Peter the Great got away with when he was visiting Britain? Trashing your residence with your wild parties isn't exactly comparable to execution/murder!

Indeed, and Peter is a sitting monarch, with the corresponding armies to call on, not an ex monarch. I suppose another question is: who is going to do the arresting, i.e. which British goverment are we talking about? Obviously Oliver Cromwell would be just fine with arresting Christina for murder - biggest traitor in the Protestant world, Gustavus Adolphus' daughter who has become a Catholic! - but then Christina, while reckless, hardly would have visited England while he was still in charge. After the Restoration, I think Charles II. would be aware of the PR disaster (Catholic! Monarch! Killing People Autocratically On British Soil!) but would have tried to solve the situation by sending her off to France post haste. James II. would have stuck his heels in and said Christina - who has seen the light of the one true religion even before he dared to confess his own seeing the light to all and sunder - shall ever be God's annointed and thus of course is above the law!

But this is all speculation, because I can't think of a comparable case in English history, either.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Otto of Freising and other high medieval chroniclers fall under the category of "have centuries of Christianity to look back on" I indicated above.

Ah, okay, I see what you mean. I was going back to the early writers, like Augustine, and thinking that they don't seem to be big believers in progress, and that by the high Middle Ages, the chroniclers are still taking their cue from him, but if you mean when Christianity started triumphing over paganism, then yes, I can see that.

Without being especially knowledgeable, I think in Christian historiographry, you get a variety of trends:

"The pagans are winning, everything is bad and getting worse": Gildas, who saw Christianity under attack by a resurgence of paganism.

"No, Christianity is not responsible for recent disasters, like the fall of Rome! Things sucked just as much, if not more so, under the pagan Romans, and everyone should become Christian so things get better!": Orosius, Augustine.

"Forget about this life, focus on the next life": Augustine, Otto von Freising.

"Christianity is triumphing, woo!": Einhard, Bede.

"I'm a fan of this monarch, who has made things better": Einhard, Otto when writing about his nephew.

"I'm not a fan of this monarch, who has made things worse": probably everyone who ever wrote about Henry IV? But also a lot of other monks about a lot of other emperors.

Also, leaving aside chroniclers, there was a very strong medieval attitude toward politics and law that consisted of resolving modern difficulties by returning to an alleged status quo, when things were better/right. I think what's really ground-breaking about the tradition Voltaire embodies is the idea that it is natural and right to focus human efforts on improving human life here on earth, and that if you're not doing that, something has gone terribly wrong.