Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 42

[cahn]

Last post, we had (among other things) Danish kings and their favorites; Louis XIV and Philippe d'Orléans; reviews of a very shippy book about Katte, a bad Jacobite novel, and a great book about clothing; a fic about Émilie du Châtelet and Voltaire; and a review of a set of entertaining Youtube history videos about Frederick the Great.

Comments

Re: Augustus Hervey III: Sex and Antiquities

[selenak]

It is, though of course it's also an illustration of how gender changes a story. I dare say a Duke abducting a female traveller would not have felt as amusing. And of course if the Duchess had not been good looking, and thus Augustus not, hm, inspired, who knows how it would have ended...

Anyway, we now know that the Hervey clan, not just solely Lord Hervey the memoirist, is providing as much entertainment value for the discerning historical fan as the royals across Europe...

BTW: I wonder whether all this royal nun-loving was already going on a century earlier? Because now I'm curious how much Catherine de Braganza taking Charles II's infidelities - with the one notable exception of Barbara Villiers - in stride was coming from this background - or was this her nephew's innovation?

Re: Augustus Hervey III: Sex and Antiquities

[mildred_of_midgard]

I dare say a Duke abducting a female traveller would not have felt as amusing.

I had the same thought! Speaking in real life, I'm not a fan of abducting in either direction. But Augustus at least had more social power to compensate than his female counterpart would, and also my morals disappear when we're talking about fiction or remote history, in favor of "what is most interesting to read about?" :P

BTW: I wonder whether all this royal nun-loving was already going on a century earlier? Because now I'm curious how much Catherine de Braganza taking Charles II's infidelities - with the one notable exception of Barbara Villiers - in stride was coming from this background - or was this her nephew's innovation?

Not sure! Portuguese Wikipedia tells me that "the term flourished in the time of João V of Portugal, documented in the archives between 1653 and 1744." So it was definitely around before she got married, but how much it might have influenced her, I can't say.