cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 43

Still going! Still clearing Fritz's valet/chamberlain Fredersdorf's name from the calumny enshrined in wikipedia that he was dismissed for financial irregularities!

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From:

cahn

This is the first though not the last time when our author points out the streak of cruelty within Frederick Hervey, and yeah, this kind of prank feels, if not identical to FW style "pranks", to at least heading towards this way. (Much as he's entertaining in general, by the time I finished the book I was glad Frederick Hervey had never been an absolute monarch.) Still, his actions in Ireland were his best, by and large.

Yeeeeah. It's entertaining to read about, I admit, but in large part because he wasn't an absolute monarch with that kind of power over people. It's also interesting to me -- I felt this about his treatment of Bess Foster as well -- that Fred (lol, I find it hilarious that you call him that) has a sort of way about him where he does seem to care (at least sometimes) about people in the aggregate, like the Irish, but can't really be bothered at all about actual individual people.

(Hervey's idea was that they should swear off any Stuart loyalties, swear loyalty to G3 and that they did not recognize the Pope as an authority in temporal matters, "just" in spiritual ones, and then all would be well. He was somewhat surprised when the Pope wasn't keen to signing on to this.)

Hee.

Many years later Lord Cloncurry recalled how he had seen 'the excentric Earl-Bishop ride about the streets of Rome dressedin red plush breeches and a broad brimmed white or straw hat, and was often asked if that was the canonical costume of an Irish prelate'

Heh, those guys and their red costumes :P

What she's best known for: a menage a trois where, depending on whom you believe, either Bess first seduces the Duchess and then the Duke of Devonshire, and lives with both, or that she becomes bff with the Duchess, platonic or not, and then the Duke, jealous and mean, wants sex and because her income depends on him she agrees.

WOW

But no. All this happens when her father is the Bishop of Derry, globetrotting the continent, building mansions in Ireland and collecting Michelangelos

HERVEY

Once she was so established with the Devonshires as to be influential and he wanted favours from hs daughter, he asked those.

*blinks*

Not as much as offering to let her live in one of his many houses, or asking one of his friends to accept her as a companion, or inviting her to live with him. Or anything.

ARRRRGH.

From:

selenak

Yeeeeah. It's entertaining to read about, I admit, but in large part because he wasn't an absolute monarch with that kind of power over people.

Yes, this is what I was getting at. I mean, Frederick Hervey with absolute power might have made good laws for Ireland, at least until the Irish did something to make him feel they're ungrateful, but I do not wish to know what he'd have done to his entourage.

Fred (lol, I find it hilarious that you call him that) has a sort of way about him where he does seem to care (at least sometimes) about people in the aggregate, like the Irish, but can't really be bothered at all about actual individual people.

Yep. Or rather he cares for individuals only up to the point where it's inconveniencing him while going to considerable lengths for abstract masses. (And it shouldn't be underestimated that he really was consistent about the Irish and for years, so it wasn't laziness about humanity per se.) A bit of the proverbial social worker syndrome who is good with strangers and awful with the family?

Heh, those guys and their red costumes :P

I was terribly amused that his reaction to see the RC Cardinals in Rome in their splendour was "away with austere black, let's have a fashion off in red!" Luther would have been mortified. (And no wonder the peasant who first took him in thought he was an RC bishop before Hervey made the mistake of mentioning he was Anglican...

From:

cahn

Oh, I was also going to say, and forgot, that I enjoy the Bishop's quips, and in that way he seems similar to Voltaire, but in terms of attitude towards people, Voltaire seems to me to be in large parts the opposite. He's willing (at least when he hasn't thought about it) to write off large swathes of people like Protestants as "eh, they don't like the theater, just goes to show you," but if it's a particular individual person, he will move heaven and earth. And if he'd had a daughter, he would never, ever have let that happen to her! (...this is why I really love Voltaire. I also like his quippiness and sharp sense of humor and propensity to get into ridiculous relationships, but it's his heart that really makes him great <3 )

From:

mildred_of_midgard

He had a sort of adopted daughter, Mademoiselle Corneille, and he moved heaven and earth for her!

Your comment that Frederick the Bishop liked swathes of people but not individuals reminds me of Rousseau, whom I have seen described bitingly in those exact terms, sth like "The man who preached love of humanity struggled when faced with flesh and blood humans."

From:

selenak

Well, he did like George Keith, Lord Marischal, for protecting him, but otherwise. :) (There's, of course, the famous story of Rousseau handing over his illegitimate kids to orphanages because he didn't/couldn't want to deal with them, sort of exemplifying this.)

cahn, Guy Endore, who wrote that novel about the Alexandres Dumas, père et fils, which we both read, also wrote one about Voltaire and Rousseau, somewhat less successfully, and in it Rousseau (who's the pov character throughout, Endore never gives us a Voltaire pov) basically is your emo fanboy who is all willing to adore Voltaire only to find Voltaire making cutting quips, with the result that having his fannish love rejected, Rousseau spends the rest of his life feuding with Voltaire in resentful anger, and because he becomes more and more famous, Voltaire, never one to say no to a feud with a rival philosophe, feuds back. In Endore's novel, you get the sense that despite all the anger and hurt, Rousseau if only Voltaire would just acknowledge him as a great writer and be nice would forgive all and love him again, but alas Voltaire just won't, because on Voltaire's part, this isn't a love/hate thing as with Fritz, this is a "god, that emo guy and his fanclub are annoying!" thing.

Re: Voltaire vs Frederick Hervey, I think it's also that Voltaire behaving awfully towards people he was in a relationship with, be it familiar or friendship or romance, never went with indifference. For example: telling Émilie he wasn't up for sex anymore while starting an affair with his niece, then getting upset at her affair with Lambert at first? Awful. But a different brand of awful, because he never behaved indifferently towards Émilie, and as history demonstrates, would never have deserted her when she was in a fraught/dangerous situation. Voltaire making shady business deals in Prussia, trying to blame other people for it, firing off anonymous pamphlets directed not just at Maupertuis but also Fritz while lying about it? Also awful (and the later part hilarious), if you're Maupertuis or Fritz. But of course, the moment Fritz is actually in a bad situation, during the 7 Years War, he's there (letter wise).

Re: the specific situation Bess was in with her first husband, now whether John Foster was abusive or was having sex with the maid servant after Bess had extra marital sex first, ore a mixture of all, once Bess was in a "no husband willing to pay alimony, no access to her children, no place to live" situation, Voltaire would of course have been on her side if she'd been his daughter or niece. (Err. Come to think of it, if Bess had been Voltaire's niece, if she'd moved in with him, well, let's not go there.) (Otoh: the idea of Bess instead of Madame Denis, personality wise, has its hilarity, because she had her father's fondness for travelling and so definitely would have gone with Voltaire to Prussia to begin with, instead of only joining him at the tail end of the three years there. And of course she'd have not lived quietly in Potsdam or Berlin, she'd have made a splash in Prussian society and flirted with women and men unabashedly. Bess/Algarotti definitely would have happened. Bess/Barbarina as well, in an AU where Barbarina is still around instead of off with husband Cocceji to Glogau. What Fritz would have made of all this...