![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 47
We haven't had a new post since before December 25, so obligatory Yuletide link to this hilarious story of Frederick the Great babysitting his bratty little brother, with bonus Fritz/Fredersdorf!
Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Rousseau
Yet another reason why Voltaire and Rousseau didn't see eye to eye, to put it mildly. And why young Maximilian Robespierre in the provinces is an ardent Rousseau fan. Meanwhile, Boswell of course managed to gatecrash and get interviews with Rousseau and Voltaire both. (And later even got Rousseau to attend his wedding and be one of the witnesses signing the contract.)
Re: Corsica, I think it was John Wain or Frederick Pottle who, in one of the introductions to selections of Boswell's diaries, said there's always one country which gets hopelessly idealized and seen as the ideal social experiment before reality and more extensive reports on the actual goings on there set in, and then goes on to compare Corsica being this for a while in the 18th century to Cuba being this (not in the US, I know! But in Europe!) in the early 1960s. I can't help but note the end of Corsica romantization also coincides with the most famous Corsican ever rising to the top, and then some.
If an investigation finds it was because you were corrupted, death penalty for you!
Robespierre: *hearteyes* (Okay, I'm being unfair to Maximilien R., who actually was anti death penalty, in a tragic irony, for most of his life and held speeches to that effect when starting his political career. Alas...)
Perhaps a good outcome would be if your neighbors took over parts of your country and made it smaller.
Mildred: NO REALLY, HE SAID THAT.
Wow. Do we know what Wielhorski's reaction was?
Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Rousseau
I'm not 100% sure, but I don't know that we do. I've presented this as a dialogue for readability, much the same way as I often make countries talk to each other and you often make biographers debate with each other, but only as a literary device. There is no record of any conversations between them, we're not even sure if any took place, and I *believe* all we have is Wielhorski's treatise that he presented to Rousseau, and the treatise Rousseau wrote in response.
Much of this essay is trying to reconstruct from the sparse evidence questions like how Rousseau came onto Wielhorski's radar, why on earth he would agree to his project at his time of life, what other works Wielhorski may have presented Rousseau with and that Rousseau might be writing on conversation with, etc. I would have to reread to be sure, but I don't know that we have any record of Wielhorski's reaction to Rousseau's plan, especially as it quickly became obsolete with Russia's victory in the Russo-Turkish War and the way the First Polish Partition actually played out.
Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Rousseau
Huh, I didn't know Voltaire was anti-Sparta! Good for him!
(Okay, I'm being unfair to Maximilien R., who actually was anti death penalty, in a tragic irony, for most of his life and held speeches to that effect when starting his political career. Alas...)
I DID NOT KNOW THIS.