Tuesday 19 July 2016

Frederic the Great ( II )




Frederic is called the Great as a result of his tremendous skill in warfare.As Napoleon said of Frederic's victory at Leuthen -

"The battle of Leuthen was a masterpiece. This battle alone would be sufficient to make Frederic immortal among the greatest field commanders in history"

[Frederic and his staff before the battle]

And one could add Frederic's extraordinary resolve and persistence,  despite some  battles which were lost  and  even though all the European powers   ( apart from England) were massed against him for seven years. As Macaulay wrote when peace was at last signed -

"Frederic yielded nothing.  The whole Continent in arms had failed to tear
Silesia from his iron grasp.

The war was over. Frederic was safe. His fame was beyond the reach of envy"





    Sans Souci




Yet his greatness lay in other areas of life also. He built Sans Souci - a house of extraordinary genius, where he entertained Voltaire....and where, to my great delight, the principal room in the centre of the line of apartments is the dining room, somewhat lushly portrayed by Adolph von Metzel in the nineteenth century. The rooms for visitors and for musical performances were in the line to the left as one looks at the palace.  The king especially played and composed for the flute, and Mozart commented that his compositions were such as to have serious content.


The King's rooms are in the line to the right, and when I visited Sans Souci I was struck by the fact that the two first rooms on the King's  side were of a different style, and looked as though they had been done over by an expensive but conventional interior decorator. In fact they were redecorated by Frederic's successor, Frederic William II. But the chair in which Frederic died is still there.

"I suppose that you have assisted many men into the next world" he remarked to the doctor

"Yes, but not as many as Your Majesty and with far less glory " was the reply.

As Frederic said, " My people say what they like, and I do what I like."

In the most recent and commendable biography of Frederic Professor Tim Blanning of Cambridge opens for us aspects of Frederic's life previously only guessed at ( though Blanning could have recognised Frederic's military ability to a greater extent). Frederic was gay,and apart from the professor's detailed analysis I take as evidence a poem which was written by the King, ostensibly
to demonstrate the ability of  North Germans to show true passion, which Frederic's Italian friend Count Algarotti had denied.. Ostensibly. But no one reading this poem can doubt Frederic's true sensuality and his erotic attraction to Algoratti . I give some of the verses here, as translated (  from the  original of course in French) by Giles MacDonogh:

From Konigsberg to Monsieur Algoratti, Swan of Padua

La Jouissance

This night,vigorous desire in full measure,
Algoratti wallowed in a sea of pleasure,
A body not even a Praxitiles fashions
Redoubled his senses and imbued his passions
Everything that speaks to eyes and touches hearts
Was found in the fond object that inflamed his parts
Transported by love and trembling with excitement.......


Our fortunate lovers, transported high above
Know only themselves in the fury of love:
Kissing, enjoying, feeling, sighing and dying
Reviving, kissing, then back to pleasure flying.
And in Knindos' grove, breathless and worn out
Was these lovers' happy destiny, without doubt.
But all joy is finite; in the morning ends the bout.



Read that, and look at Algoratti's face 



And the face of the young Frederic

4 comments:

  1. It seems that FtG was his own Renaissance Man. And one would tremble and quiver with the words of his own La Jouissance. Not only intelligent, but passionate as well, though the full verses give a clear passions of FtG towards Algoratti.

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  2. Yes indeed. And I think that it is only when the gay aspects of his character can be clearly written about that we can see the passionate aspects

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  3. The poor staff never had a quiet night!

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    Replies
    1. It was one advantage of being an absolute prince (life and death) that one did not have to worry about the views of one's subjects and could rely on obedience and confidentiality

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