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]

August III gets a few shots sent his way on this as well, though nothing as sharp as Louis--with Louis, it feels personal

Well, Louis is letting the (French) side down. Plus I think he never had much partisans. Even people who hate on Louis Quatorze for all the wars acknowledge that the Sun King made all other princes imitate him and managed to not just culturally but politically dominate Europe for most of his reign. And poor Louis XVI gets credit even among Republican minded later historians (if not his contemporaries) for having been without personal vices and dying nobly and bravely after surprising everyone with a spirited defense in his trial. Plus he very clearly inherited the mess his predecessors created and really would have had to be a genius to manage. But Louis XV neither had his great grandfather's tremendous energy, work willingness and charisma nor his grandson's personal virtues. Instead, he's the typical rich kid who fucks up with the inherited wealth without contributing anything of his own. (I mean, even culturally speaking - Madame de Pompadour gets the credit for the various styles she created and porcellain and silk manufacturers she supported, and of course Louis XV's time saw some of the superstars of French literature at their peak, but he had so absolutely nothing to do with the later that it's the Age of Voltaire in French, not the Age of Louis XV. So Broglie is just following well trodden footsteps when taking shots at him.

I'm also reminded of Orieux being frustrated that Voltaire had the love/hate relationship with Fritz and not Louis because in his French pov, it ought to have been Louis, except Louis never even hated Voltaire, he just was monumentally uninterested.

Never underestimate everyone catching sexual morals in the 19th century, though. When I read up on the 1848 revolutions, mistresses came up only to be booed and hissed at like there was no tomorrow. And remember the delusion about many chaste Prussians in Fritzian times that made Schmidt-Lötzen regretfully conclude in his Lehndorff preface that based on this diary, extramarital sex of all types didn't just start being practiced by the aristocracy when FW2 was King.

Re: The King's Secret

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, I absolutely assumed it had to do with them both being French and the Duke having him some nationalist sensitivities. You should see Adam Zamoyski dragging August III in a similarly personal manner, it includes some of the most vicious attacks I've encountered on the part of a historian.

(You *will* see it, once I'm ready to do my write-up on August III, but I'm still trying to get my hands on a copy of his most recent biography.)