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: The Elusive Keyserlingk

[selenak]

Yeah, there's so much misinformation out there in respectable history books that I find it hard to fault people who put together websites, fanfics, or YouTube vids for trustingly repeating what they've read.

Agreed up to a point, the point being Sanssouci as a pink palace in the "Bad Gays" podcast, because that really takes seconds to google. :) Oh, and Stephen Fry going "there were PROTESTANT PRINCES in the HRE???" But yeah.

And even if MacDonogh did say "may" in the main text, I blame him, because I don't see why he included it at all, and then hid in an endnote the information that this claim only comes from an assumption that Fritz's entire social circle was gay. Because WHY would you ever make an assumption like that? Unless you had an axe to grind and wanted to claim that all the boys you've been molesting aren't victims at all.

+1 I guess he included it for sensationalism's sake, but he's not making a tumblr post, he's supposed to write a serious biography. Also:

an assumption that Fritz's entire social circle was gay

I mean, it's one thing to do this in fandom - assuming everyone is gay or bi as a default, fair enough - but again, for a biography you need to deliver more than "I want this to be true". Just for argument's sake, though, let's go through a bit Fritz' social circle:

- Algarotti: bi

- Brothers Keith: straight as far as we know. They both had mistresses, but no one, including Voltaire in his trashy pamphlet, ever insinuated they were, to quote Voltaire, "Potsdamites"

- Marquis d'Argens: straight as far as we know. Again, no insinuations to the contrary but various het affairs before he settles down with his ballet dancer

- La Mettrie: I have no idea

- Maupertuis: straight afawk. Various het affairs plus marriage, no gossip to the contrary

- CPE Bach: straight afawk, though since he's working for Fritz and a commoner I'm not sure whether he counts as "social circle"

- Darget: gets classified as a possible Fritz boyfriend because of the Palladion and Fritzian allusions in the letter, but did he ever banter back? Or said something towards anyone else? Not sure about marriage or no marriage, mistresses or not, boyfriends or not.

- Pöllnitz: straight

- Suhm: tender for Fritz in whichever fashion, but otherwise we don't know, other than he was married and had kids, which by itself, see above, not necessarily a proof against, though also not for

- Jordan: no idea, but since he was a clergyman, it would have been somewhat scandalous and would have provided the gossips with some satire material, surely?

- Rottembourg and Rothenburg: Mildred, you're the expert on these two

- Knobelsdorff: straight afawk, to the point where he's one of the few nobles to commit to an open relationship with a commoner

- Wartensleben the possible Manteuffel spy: no idea

...and that's just the most prominent ones, excluding good old Voltaire, and btw, like you I'm amused that Fritz got posthumous revenge re: the bottoming "accusation". So how you could go from there to "exclusively gay" in good faith, I have no idea.

Re: The Elusive Keyserlingk

[mildred_of_midgard]

- Rottembourg and Rothenburg: Mildred, you're the expert on these two

Only on one, French Rottembourg, and I've never even been able to figure out if he was ever married or not! I have sources claiming both. I'm leaning toward "probably married," but if so, I can't even tell what her name was, because I have sources claiming "Eva Sophie nee Helmstat" and "Jeanne-Madelene d'Helmstat"!

And that, as we noted, doesn't reflect one way or the other on his sexuality. I've never actually been able to get much about his personal life, just his professional life.

Also, Rottembourg was *not* part of Fritz's social circle; he left for the last time before Fritz even turned 18, and before that, when they were conspiring, they were avoiding interacting directly and were using Knyphausen (Ariane's dad) as a go-between, so that FW didn't get suspicious (which apparently worked!). Again, relying on Lavisse here, and provisionally trusting him.

So how you could go from there to "exclusively gay" in good faith, I have no idea.

Yeah, seriously. Ugh, you're going to make me buy Peyrefitte and see what he says, aren't you. :P Maybe someday when my French is faster.