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

Re: Løvenørn letters: Sept 26, 1730

[mildred_of_midgard]

Stratemeann the Braunschweig envoy gives us the same report (i.e. Wilhelmine is sick) right until very very briefly before she's allowed out again.

Yep, I was thinking of him!

Sad story, I presume.

Yes, sorry, typo for "sad" ("triste").

. Fontane points out that all the fretting among the envoys and at foreign courts was done for as long as Fritz' fate and Katte's fate were linked in that people did have genuine fears FW would go hardcore on Fritz, but that as soon as it was clear Fritz would survive, no one bothered with Katte anymore because he was guilty for conspiring with the crown prince against the sitting monarch and of attempted desertion, and therefore his sentence, while harsh, was not seen as unduly unfair.

I definitely remember Eugene being disapproving of Katte's fate, until he read the Puncta, when he realized Katte had been encouraging Fritz, and he concluded the sentence was probably for the best.

I am curious whether Lövenörn will change his attitude as soon as it's clear that while it's death for Katte, Fritz' life is no longer at stake.

We may not find out; the letters only go up to October (which is why luzula is going to go to the archives someday for me to see if we can find that Katte passage from Løvenørn in the von Johnn papers).

There are a couple letters between King Christian and Løvenørn in November, but they seem to have to do more with Christian's accession and Løvenørn's recall than with affairs in Prussia. Though that's only as best I can tell from skimming Kurrent in German and--oh god--Danish; I may modify this assessment after I do a proper decipherment. Løvenørn's Kurrent seems readable, I should be able to do this, at least for the German ones.

That's an interesting rumor. I could see him intending to do so and being talked out of it by Grumbkow & SEckendorff, because seriously, he would not do himself or the reputation of the Prussian royal family any favours no matter how much he insists on being in the right and everyone conspiring against him.

It's a rumor that rings a bell, but I can't remember where I've encountered it before.