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: Sept 26, 1730

[mildred_of_midgard]

Okay, this one is *really* hard to read. It's clearly a draft, with one unfinished column that has a line through it, and a parallel column that contains the same content in different words, and is finished. And the handwriting is some of his worst. However, the gist is clear: FW is PISSED.

The letter is addressed to a Mr. de Söhlenthal, and the only reason I can read that name is that the first tutor of future Frederik V (unhinged alcoholic) was a Söhlenthal. Since that Söhlenthal was appointed in 1730 (when Frederik turned 7, usual age for boys to be taken away from women and handed over to men), this could be the same guy, or a close relative.

Løvenørn writes, and I'm going to make some of my best guesses here:

I protest to you, Sir, that those who imagine that they will be able to do something with the King of Prussia in the future through gentleness are very much mistaken. He's in a mood, of which it's impossible to paint a picture, and I must close the curtains on any attempt to do that, apart from the fact that he is animated to the utmost degree against all those who appear to be affected by the present state of the Prince and the rest of the court, and Your Excellency can be well convinced that in the situation in which affairs are at the moment, the court of England could not give the King a greater pleasure than to make him new proposals either for the double or for the single marriage, so that he would have the opportunity to reject them entirely and that with contempt.

I was reading along and got to "the court of England could not give the King a greater pleasure than to make him new proposals either for the double or for the single marriage," and I thought, "I must have read that wrong, surely that's the last thing he wants. I'll go back when I'm done and see if I missed a negative or something." Then I kept reading, and I was like, "Aha, no, I had it right all along!" Also, that's hilarious.

There's another sentence, but I can't decipher it (without a lot more effort than I'm willing to put in). It seems to be something along the lines of Løvenørn going, "I'm doing the best I can here."