Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 45

[cahn]

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) )

Comments

Re: The King's Secret: fighting Fritz

[selenak]

Repnin's dancing master quip is especially nasty because dancing masters are really the lowest on the scale of professional males in terms of other men's estimation. Remember FW ranting about dancing masters as well vis a vis Fritz.

Now, dancing masters may have been ridiculed and used as stock figures of fun etc., but knowing how to dance was regarded as quintessential for a gentleman, so they needed to exist. Remember that in Freylinghausen's diary, FW & pals have a discussion about whether or not it's necessary for men to know how to dance. Seckendorff is the only one not kowtowing to FW and saying that like it or not, it's quintessential knowledge for a young gentlemen. Now, FW and Grumbkow as children danced ballet because when they were children, Louis XIV - famously in love with ballet and dancing ballet himself until he was 35 - was still THE model for European royalty, and presumably they were daught in the social dances like menuet and contredance as well, and I note that FW, no matter how much he growled, evidently did let not just his oldest but also his younger sons learn how to dance, otherwise Heinrich wouldn't have been able to dance with Sophie so much at AW's wedding. And if even FW gives in to the necessity of male dancing, you know how much it was part of the social must. But dancing masters were still the least respected of men, the never show up in fiction of the time unless it's as figures of ridicule, so for Repnin to suggest this particular job for Poniatowski really was way nastier than Friedrich II Hohenstaufen making that quip about himself as a falconer for the Khan.

(If he had wanted to be just humourous, he could have pointed out Poniatowski's knowledge of literature and languages would qualify him as a librarian, university scholar or as what he had already been to H-W, a secretary. Dancing Master, though, is vicious.

Re: The King's Secret: fighting Fritz

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yes, indeed. cahn, if you end up reading the book, you will see how Repnin treated Poniatowski. Actually, here you go, here's an excerpt:

The ambassador's role was a complex one. The depth of Russian involvement in Poland and the free hand he was given made his role akin to that of a colonial governor. His personality compounded this, and he was soon behaving like a satrap. It could not have been easy for anyone, let alone a fiery young man like Repnin, to know what limits to impose on his behaviour. Any society placed in a colonial form of subjection will react with the same baffling mixture of fear, defiance and irresponsibility, and Poland was no exception. The Russian ambassador found no lack of toadies to do his work for him, and since he promoted them and pushed them into the highest offices, he created an unwelcome social phenomenon. After four years of his activities, many of the highest posts in public life were occupied by people who in normal societies spend their lives in brothels and gaming-houses. While he promoted such venal elements, the ambassador despised them. But he reserved his hatred for those who showed moral backbone: their probity was the reef on which all his calculations were wrecked. Yet he could do little to hurt people like Michał Czartoryski, Zamoyski or Lubomirski. The one person he could hurt, very deeply, and through whom he could get his own back on the whole Polish nation, was Stanisław. The fact that he genuinely liked the king could not alter this.

In their private conferences, of which Stanisław kept meticulous records, Repnin often lapsed into the most uncouth behaviour. He could do this with impunity, since he represented a formidable military power, and because he also held Stanisław by the throat financially. The Russian troops in Poland provisioned themselves in the Crown estates, for which Repnin was supposed to pay the king. It requires little imagination to see what kind of a weapon this put in the ambassador's hand. While this could not have been pleasant for Stanisław, it was as nothing to the public humiliations, which were an affront to his majesty and therefore to the whole nation. Repnin flouted etiquette, talking out of turn, sitting in the king's presence, arriving or leaving at will, and generally treating the king as if he were a person of little consequence. The Poles grew so used to it that they hardly bothered to record such outrages. Visiting foreigners were scandalised.

When he went to the theatre in Warsaw, James Harris was astonished to find the actors waiting for Repnin to arrive before beginning the play, even though the king had been sitting in his box for almost an hour. At a masquerade given by Karol Radziwiłł during the 1768 Seym, Harris records that Stanisław wanted to wait until the ball room was ready before opening the dance, only to receive a message from Repnin, who was impatient to start the dance in another room, that 'If he does not come at once, we shall begin without him!'

Repnin

[cahn]

Oh nooooo. Thank you for this excerpt, but poor Poniatowski! That one about him sitting in the theatre for an hour while they wait for Repnin... ouch.

Re: Repnin

[selenak]

It was awful. And indeed smacks of colonialism.

Re: The King's Secret: fighting Fritz

[cahn]

Oh awwww. This simultaneously is the kind of great content I come to salon for (it would have never occurred to me that dancing master was a terrible insult... I guess in stuff like Marriage of Figaro we see a singing master, not a dancing master, who is comic but not (I thought?) ridiculous; presumably singing master is a more genteel profession? (Or have I been reading Basilio's character wrong all these years?) Of course in modern society dancing and singing as artistic professions are valued reasonably similarly, so I'd just extrapolated from that... Anyway, I certainly wouldn't have thought that it was worse than falconer!) and also kind of makes me sad, that it was such a nasty dig.

Re: The King's Secret: fighting Fritz

[selenak]

presumably singing master is a more genteel profession?

Only a bit. I'm reminded of how Hester Thrale, a friend of Dr. Samuel Johnson's, went down in everyone's esteem for her second marriage to an Italian music teacher, causing all kinds of crude jokes. (And in her turn was very cruel and slighting to the white woman married to Johnson's black servant, calling the marriage every racist trope you can think of, and to the black servant himself.) Otoh, Hester Thrale's second husband was an Italian, and this for xenophobic Brits might have mattered as much as the music teacher part.

It also depends on your original rank. For middle class composers and musicians, being appointed as music teachers to royals isn't just a regular income but also a great honor, see also Quandt and Fritz, and hence Salieri in Amadeus ensuring Mozart doesn't get the job of teaching Joseph's niece (who was actually his niece-in-law, the first wife of Leopold's son Franz whom Joseph grew very fond of and who was pregnant when he was dying so for their last meeting he had himself be painted and the lights dimmed so she wouldn't be frightened - he was, correctly as it turned out, very afraid that the same thing that happened to his wife would happen to her). Being a singing teacher to a member of the nobility, like the fictional Almavivas, is respectable to good if you're a professional musician, especially if your noble actually pays you. But if you are nobility yourself, it's definitely a sign of having fallen in rank.

Going back to Poniatowski, while he owed his throne very much to Russia's influence, he wouldn't even have been considered as a candidate if his family hadn't been one of most important and oldest Polish noble families. Respectable jobs for offspring from such a family:

- being an officer in any army (doesn't have to be the Polish one) - THE job for young nobles, and while some of Poniatowski's brothers went that way, he himself did not

- working in the diplomatic service (that's what he did for a while)

- joining the clergy (especially in Poland)

- being a gentleman of leisure with scholarly interests; publication of scholarly works are cool as long as you don't give the impression of actually needing to earn your living this way

But certainly not being a dancing master or a music teacher.

Re: The King's Secret: fighting Fritz

[luzula]

I guess this is a little late, given that I have already written and posted this story, but what about the status of fencing masters? I had an army officer (a gentleman's son with no means of independence) briefly consider this as a career when he left the army, but ultimately he trained as a surgeon instead. (Which I know is a lower status job than physician, but he was in exile in France at the time and could not really study at university due to being a Protestant.)

Re: The King's Secret: fighting Fritz

[selenak]

Honestly, I don't know. My instinct is to say that fencing master is more repectable because it's a manly occupation directly connected to soldier-ness (even though no one fences in wars anymore the later the century gets), and presumably often is a job for former soldiers. But that's just me guessing. Mildred is the one reading a biography of the Chevalier d'Eon right now, she should know!

Re: The King's Secret: fighting Fritz

[mildred_of_midgard]

Well, I don't *know*, but I wouldn't disagree. I did a search through the bio for "fenc", and most of the hits had to do with gender, not social class. I only saw one mention of the Chevalier giving fencing lessons; otherwise, they make their money in fencing tournaments.

Given the lack of mention of horror at crossing class boundaries, I would assume that a gentleman's son (but not daughter :P) could take up a respectable job as a fencing master! (But it would still be an insult if someone implied that Louis XV could do it when he lost his day job as king. Frankly, I think that would get you thrown in the Bastille for lese majeste.)

Re: The King's Secret: fighting Fritz

[cahn]

Being a singing teacher to a member of the nobility, like the fictional Almavivas, is respectable to good if you're a professional musician, especially if your noble actually pays you. But if you are nobility yourself, it's definitely a sign of having fallen in rank.

Ah, that makes sense. I was thinking about Mozart and Salieri, and not making the connection taht they weren't nobility.

he was, correctly as it turned out, very afraid that the same thing that happened to his wife would happen to her

Oh noooooo :((((

Respectable jobs for offspring from such a family:

Heh. This reminded me of what we used to say, if you go to an Ivy League university, it's only really acceptable for you to have a job in law, medicine, business, academia, management, technology, or consulting. Plumbing is right out!

Re: The King's Secret: fighting Fritz

[mildred_of_midgard]

I certainly wouldn't have thought that it was worse than falconer!

Stop me if I'm wrong, selenak, but my impression is that falconer at a medieval royal court would have been a courtier's job, i.e. a nobleman's, whereas dancing master is middle class. If the conquering emperor is distributing jobs to formerly reigning monarchs who are now courtiers, falconer would have been one of them.

There's also the part where this is Friedrich making a quip about himself, and not being treated disrespectfully by an envoy.

(I have just gotten up to the part in the podcast where Dirk is talking about De arte venandi cum avibus, funnily enough. I need to finish the stupor mundi parts so I can go back to the Hanseatic League episodes! (There has been some skipping around, as is my wont.))

Re: The King's Secret: fighting Fritz

[selenak]

I actually have a reprint of De arte venandi cum avibus somewhere, of Manfred's edition. It is a gorgeous book, even for us non-falconers.

Stop me if I'm wrong, [personal profile] selenak, but my impression is that falconer at a medieval royal court would have been a courtier's job, i.e. a nobleman's, whereas dancing master is middle class.

That's how I recall it, too. BTW, post Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, too. Shakespeare in Love doesn't make a claim to historicity and is an amusing fantasy, but one neat actual detail they included is that Ned Alleyn, the star actor cum leader of the Lord Admiral's Men, also teaches everyone how to dance for the dance scene in Romeo and Juliet.