Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 46

[cahn]

Background: The kids' school has a topic for "Unit" every trimester that a lot of their work (reading, writing, some math) revolves around. These topics range from time/geographic periods ('Colonial America') to geography ('Asia') to science ('Space') to social science ('Business and Economics'). (I have some issues with this way of doing things, but that's a whole separate post.) Anyway, for Reasons, they have had to come up with a new topic this year, and E's 7/8 class is doing "World Fairs" as their new topic.

Me: I know E's teacher is all about World Fairs and I know she is great and will do a good job. But I feel like if we had a different teacher who wasn't so into World Fairs, they wouldn't do such a good job and another topic would be better.
Me: Like... the Enlightenment!
D: Heh, you could teach that! But you'd have to restrain yourself from making everything about Frederick the Great.
Me: But that's the thing! Everyone does relate to each other in this time period! Voltaire -- and his partner Émilie du Châtelet, who was heavily involved in the discourse of conservation of energy and momentum -- well, I've told you Voltaire had a thing with Fritz -- and then there's Empress Maria Theresa, who went to war with him a few times -- and Catherine the Great --
D, meditatively: You know --
Me: *am innocently not warned even though this is the same tone of voice that is often followed by, say, a bad pun*
D: -- it's impressive how everyone from this 'the Great' family is so famous!
Me: *splutters*
D, thoughtfully: But of course there's probably selection bias, as the ones who aren't famous don't get mentioned. You never see 'Bob the Great' in the history books...
Me: *splutters more*

Comments

Løvenørn letters: Aug 21, 1730

[mildred_of_midgard]

This one's to von Johnn, the legation secretary who's stationed in Berlin and who will remain the Danish point of contact after Løvenørn's recall in November. He will be the author of the well-informed envoy report on Katte's execution that reads suspiciously like a certain pamphlet published in Cologne.

A little context from previous letters: Løvenørn's in Schleswig because the king of Denmark (Fredrik IV, the guy who kicked off the Great Northern War by trying and failing to gang up on Karl XII of Sweden) is extremely sick*. Monsieur Stahl is, I gather from context, a doctor who's been sent from Berlin to Schleswig to tend to the sick king.

* We salongoers know he will die in October; in these letters, Løvenørn's still hoping he might recover.

Løvenørn writes to Johnn:

I have just received from Monsieur the Grand Chancellor an order from H.M. the King Our Master to return a thousand thanks to H.M. the Queen of Prussia, for the kindness she had in consenting to Mr. Stahl's trip to here, and to pray for her to be willing to allow him to stay here a few days longer than he wants. (Between us, Mr. Stahl allowed himself to be persuaded to stay a few more days, but he wants us to write to Berlin that he is kept here in spite of himself.)...One imagines here that I can write directly to the Queen, but you, Monsieur, who know the lay of the land there, can judge otherwise.

Okay, it's not super exciting, but I'm amused by the hint of drama around SD.

ETA: Oh, and I forgot to mention, he's discussing finances in this letter, and the inevitable mention of Mssrs. Splitgerber & Daun, and the need to repay them, makes an appearance. :D