Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 44

[cahn]

Not only are these posts still going, there is now (more) original research going on in them deciphering and translating letters in archives that apparently no one has bothered to look at before?? (Which has now conclusively exonerated Fritz's valet/chamberlain Fredersdorf from the charge that he was dismissed because of financial irregularities and died shortly thereafter "ashamed of his lost honor," as Wikipedia would have it. I'M JUST SAYING.)

Comments

Re: The King's Secret

[selenak]

Good lord, or rather, Mondieu! Very entertaining indeed.

Isn't the Comte de Broglie also the guy who wanted to get across the borders in late 1756/early 1757 after the war had already started and raised a great fuss? I dimly seem to recall Heinrich was told to deal with him and tried to do so diplomatically yet firmly. (I think that's in his AD's diaries?)

19th century Duc de Broglie the editor and writer: I think Orieux - who as you might recall doesn't list a single Fritz Only book in his bibliography, but several "Fritz and..." ones, among them "Frédéric et Louis XV", might have used Broglie's on Fritz and Louis. I'm intrigued that he wrote so much about MT as well, though, that is news to me! And yes, Voltaire before the 7 Years War. BTW, I would not be surprised if he shares or is even the origin of Orieux' "Fredersdorf was Fritz' secretary who hated Voltaire" description if that's the case. (Since Voltaire himself did list some of Fredersdorf's actual jobs in his pamphlets, of which "secretary" wasn't one.)

Working for Louis XV: what a headache with the contradictions. We should do a poll: which 18th century monarch is your worst boss to work for if you're an enterprising dipolomat?

Re: The King's Secret

[mildred_of_midgard]

Isn't the Comte de Broglie also the guy who wanted to get across the borders in late 1756/early 1757 after the war had already started and raised a great fuss? I dimly seem to recall Heinrich was told to deal with him and tried to do so diplomatically yet firmly.

I have no memory of this and didn't find it when searching for previous mentions of "Broglie" through salon before doing this write-up, but I haven't read Donnersmarck and have forgotten most of what I read of Ziebura, so you could be right!

ETA: Looking ahead in the table of contents in The King's Secret, I see "Count de Broglie wishes to visit the Camp at Pirna-The King of Prussia refuses him a Safe Conduct-He endeavours to pass the Prussian Lines, and is taken-"

So yes! You are remembering correctly!

Also, while Orieux doesn't record having used the 19th century Duc de Broglie as a source, the author(s) of the H-W bio record cite only the Comte de Broglie's dispatches in footnotes, but Le Secret du Roi as well.

I think Orieux - who as you might recall doesn't list a single Fritz Only book in his bibliography, but several "Fritz and..." ones, among them "Frédéric et Louis XV", might have used Broglie's on Fritz and Louis. I'm intrigued that he wrote so much about MT as well, though, that is news to me!

I was thinking the same thing! I was wondering if these were the "Fritz and..." books Orieux had used, but I didn't check.

...Okay, I just searched through the digitized file as well as checking the bibliography, and no mention of Broglie. Orieux still might have read them, though.

Working for Louis XV: what a headache with the contradictions.

Stay tuned: more contradictions coming! It gets better. (Part of the reason it's slow going is that I'm trying to read other works, like the H-W bio, treating the same topics, for a compare-and-contrast...and of course I'm trying to read 6 other works related to Polish and Saxon history, which is how I got sucked into the King's Secret in the first place.)

Also, something I meant to mention about our author the Duc de Broglie: he is the grandson of Madame de Staël, through his mother's side.