cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 45

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Unfortunately, there was then at Berlin a King who pursued one policy only, who deceived his enemies, but not his servants, and who lied without scruple, but never without necessity.

(from The King's Secret - by Duke de Broglie, grand-nephew of the subject of the book, Comte de Broglie, and grandfather of the physicist) )

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From:

selenak

Are we talking about The Last King of Poland?

I was. And I thought I did mention it a bit back in the day, but if Mildred can't recall it, I probably misremember. It's a readable biography, though the Fritz stuff is, err, well, Adam Z. is under the impression his evil plan was to destroy Poland from practically the cradle onwards and this was his main obsession in life. While I was inwardly going, well, he did want that land corridor, but he had other things to obsess about as well, and also, I'm reading this with an eye to my Heinrich and Catherine story and you mention him only once as being sent by his brother to fulfill the evil plan. Credit him for his own scheming, why won't you?

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Me not recalling it means nothing, but not being able to find it in searches is something else. That said, you could have mentioned it without the author's name, or with the author's name spelled wrongly, and then it wouldn't show up (and I likely wouldn't remember it).

Anyway, as you can see,

cahn, neither

selenak nor I are enthusiastic about the style or the scholarship and opinions. But if you want to know more about Poniatowski, then, sure, it's a decent bio.

It's better than his treatment of August II and III in The Polish Way and Poland, which you will hear about once I get my hands on that bio.

(I will not learn Polish, I will not learn Polish, I will not learn Polish. I don't have *time*, self. French and German, then enough Danish to read Holm and finish the Moltke bio, then Italian. (But it's so frustrating that I keep hitting citations that I cannot read.))

From:

selenak

Before you learn Polish: you've never given us Peter's autobiography! This should come first, no? Along with the two essays.:)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I agree! I have not forgotten, and Peter's autobiography is next on my list after the bit of Saxon-Polish history I'm doing (my brain is working its way up to something as complex as deciphering archive records).

ETA 1: I did French every day last week!

cahn, yell at me if I don't do it every day this week.

ETA 2: Thank you for the essay encouragement,

selenak, encouragement/signs of interest help!

Edited Date: 2023-08-07 07:29 pm (UTC)

From:

cahn

Heh. Okay, well, given that I'm having trouble with Massie (not Massie's fault! whenever I am actually able to settle down with it he's riveting! Also: poor Poniatowski :( ) it's not for now, anyway. Maybe later :P