selenak: (Fredersdorf)
[personal profile] selenak
I've now read the three Franz Stephan biographies I got from the Stabi, products of vastly different eras. To which:


Fred Hennings, Georg Schreiber, Renate Zedinger: T'hree Franz Stephan biographers introduce themselves, their subject and their biographies )


How young Franz Stephen ended up in Vienna to begin with )

Did Franz Stephen sell army supplies to the Prussians? )

How FS nearly had to propose to EC in Fritz' place )

Choice quotes:

Spousal nicknames and endearments )

Invading is how you show true friendship: the Prussian envoy and FS in 1740 )

Franz Stephan: Hot or not? The Podewils version )

How Lorraine fared during the War of the Polish Succession )

If you think the problem of Julian (still used by the Russians) vs Georgian Calender is making 18th century history even more complicated, here's another issue. When FS takes over Tuscany, he also imports a new calendar AND way to count the hours of the day:

The actual arrival in Florence probably took place not before January 21st 1739. There aren't any detailed documents about these last few hours and in any case the documented dates invite misunderstandings, since the year started in Tuscany on March 23rd and thus the larger part of the (FS and MT) visit took place still in the year 1738 by Tuscan reckoning. The hours, too, were then counted "all'italiana", from the first hour after the evening Ave Maria twenty four hours to the Ave Maria of the next day; since the Ave Maria was, however, prayed differently according to the seasons, misunderstandings were preprogrammed. This changed because starting on March 30th 1739 the counting "alla francese" was introduced, twelve hours starting from noon and twelve hours after midnight. Which is why the only thing certain is that the arrival of the new Grandduke and Grandduchess happened in the afternoon and that they had made a stop at noon in front of the city in the Villa Corsi before that.

FS in Tuscany )

Ladies who lunch! )

FS presents his foreign policy suggestions )


FS: The Final Journeys (Frankfurt and Innsbruck) )
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)
[personal profile] mildred_of_midgard
[personal profile] mildred_of_midgard's random comments on Isabella of Parma's pre-marriage days from her biography by Ursula Tamussino. For a fuller story of Isabella's life, see the tag.

Isabella of Parma is named after her grandmother Isabella Farnese, strong-willed (second) wife of Philip V "the Frog" of Spain. Her father is Don Philipp, second son of Isabella and Philip. Their first son, Don Carlos, is the one who Isabella, among other things, unsuccessfully tried to get married to one of the Austrian Archduchesses, hoping for MT. More on him at Rheinsberg here.

Mom )

Isabella, meanwhile, is about 7 years old, and a hyperactive kid.

One teacher, who wanted to intimidate her by making faces, she only imitated, and unsettled him with unpleasant truths, which she told him bluntly to his face. She couldn't see a pile of earth or coal without jumping over it, she chased butterflies, flooded her room, wanted to play war, write, sing, dance, construct a horse that could be set in motion by a string, nothing was too difficult for her, she would have loved to dance on the tightrope!

She writes later in life that this was received better at Versailles than at the hyper-etiquette-conscious world of the Spanish court. Considering how stifling Marie Antoinette found the etiquette of Versailles after Vienna, Spain was really something! (The daughter of Regent Philippe who was sent to Spain in the 1720s as part of the "exchange of princesses" also found Spanish etiquette stifling and was always getting in trouble.)

Mom after leaving Spain )

Meanwhile, Isabella is growing up in Italy. She doesn't like it and writes about it in terms not unlike Algarotti's. The climate is terrible (alternating sweltering summers with frozen winters), the people are stupid, especially the "cicisbei", who are pretty but empty-headed, everyone is stupid and false, and only exist to cause her ten thousand irritations, and she always has the feeling she is surrounded by mortal enemies.

Not happy!

It's also not clear that she has any friends her own age, and as we've seen, her mother isn't around much even when she's around.

What she does have are a lot of hobbies. From Mom's agent in Paris, she orders:

four volumes of sonatas by Leclair, Vivaldi's "Four Seasons", the quartets by Telemann, the sonatas op. 6 by Locatelli, pieces for the harpsichord by Couperin, but also a wealth of operatic works, mainly by French composers.

She also went for dancing, archery, cooking, and gardening. She had a secret garden hidden away from prying eyes, and bred silkworms. She learned drawing, painting in pastels and copper engraving. We have one pastel painting by her ("Roman Charity", in which a young woman offers her breast to her dying father in a dark prison), and two landscape drawings.

And of course, she reads and writes a lot. Her library is again thanks to Mom's agent in Paris. Of course, this episode made me laugh.

She/her tutor wanted a bilingual "Telemachus" (remember, Fenelon's bestselling novel on how to be a good prince) from France, so Isabella could practice her German.

But no luck, there are no bilingual editions in Paris. A French copy and a German translation, then?

German translations in Paris? You must be kidding. :-P

There are worse marriages than Joseph, it turns out )

Instead, she ends up with Joseph. What happened was that for the entirety of the 1750s, MT was trying to decide whether to marry Joseph off to someone from Parma (Don Philipp's kids) or Naples (Don Carlos's kids).

Marriage preparations )

Salon discusses )
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)
[personal profile] mildred_of_midgard
[personal profile] selenak: Preface by Adam Wandruszka: Leopold is the coolest! I don't know why more people aren't stanning him. Smartest and most modern Habsburg ruler ever. Now I can't complain about the lack of attention my own biography of Leopold has received - I got lots of attention - but I'm so glad Helga Peham joins the cause of Leopold appreciation! May her book about our Leopold - he really writes "our" Leopold - also become successful and further the cause. Leopold Forever!

Main book: solid biography with some double standard tendencies, but not many, and nothing in a big 19th century Fritz stan or Nancy Goldstone category. It does its job of presenting Leopold as very competent indeed, though I'm afraid I'm still not a fan, and I do have a suspicion as to why there are way more Joseph and MT biographies than there are Leopold ones, and no, it's not that he only got to rule the Empire for two years. (There are more Italian books about him as Grand Duke of Tuscany than there are German ones, though.) But in order.

Leopold )
selenak: (CourtierLehndorff)
[personal profile] selenak
Joseph II, Volume I: In the Shadow of Maria Theresa (1741 - 1780)

I've now read the first volume of Beales' opus magnum. As biographies go, I find it less dense while as informative as Stollberg-Rillingers MT biography, but otoh not as fluently narrated as, say, "Der Kaiser reist incognito" or Stefan Zweig's Marie Antoinette biographie romancee. He's mostly good with footnotes and sourcing his quotes. (A very rare exception: the apocryphal "She cried, and she took!" re: MT & Poland supposedly by Fritz but really not! Near the end of the book in an overall assessment of the co-regency years, no less.) Also, as opposed to Nancy Goldstone on one end of the scale (Fritz bad, MT and daughters plus Leopold but not Joseph good) and the whole school of Prussian historians pre and some post WWII (Fritz glorious, destiny justifies everything! Party of Progress! Also MT should just have given him Silesia which was Prussia's by old right anyway, and he'd have been her champion!) on the other, he's refreshingly matter of factly and unpartisan. In terms of Habsburg vs Habsburg, he of course makes his case for Joseph but without putting down MT, and I find his rendition of the Mother/Son relationship, both in its personal and political aspects - and at the way these were hopelessly intertwined, which - very plausible. He doesn't prettify the increasing dysfunctionality of the later years, but nor does he simplify and makes a good case for the ongoing affection along with all the mutual criticism and frustration. And he makes an absolutely fascinating contemporary comparison which never occurred to me before, but the more I think about it, the more the shoe fits:

Joseph & Maria Theresa = Fritz & Heinrich? )

Interlude: Joseph and Eleonore Liechtenstein )

And here's an anecdote featuring the Prince de Ligne, he who wrote the Eugene's memoirs RPF and also gave us some great descriptions of the Joseph and Fritz summit (including an Antinous reference!). Writes Beales, in a story that also is very descriptive of 18th century monarchies, Austrian edition:

A trivial example will highlight the difference of attitude between mother and son. The Belgian prince de Ligne, serving in the Monarchy's army, recalled in his memoirs that, furious at not being at once appointed on the death of his fatherh to command the family regiment and to a Knighthood of the Golden Fleece, he had written to the appropriate official, using the phrase: "Born in a land where there are no slaves, I shall be in a position to take my small merit and fortune elsewhere." When this insubordination became known to Maria Theresa and Joseph, they called a 'council of war'. The emperor wanted to take the initiative and dismiss the prince forthwith. Another member wanted him imprisoned. But a third, marshal Lacy, made the courtier's suggestion which the empress adopted: .for three months she would refuse to speak to Ligne, or to look at him when he kissed hands. The prince claimed that on one occasion during the period of this cruel sentence, he had caught her laughing.

Joseph & Frederick the Great as monarchs, compare and contrast )

Beales doesn't hold back on Joseph's flaws - for example, his Fritzian treatment of his second wife - but also has praise for his ability to be there when people he loved were suffering. Reading this biography, it hit me that Joseph was present at the deaths of his father, mother, first wife and daughter. The only death which was quick of these was the one of his father. The death of his daughter is the saddest of these, (MT to Lacy, one of Joseph's two male bffs in the circle: After this cruel blow, take care of my son. Try to see him every day, even twice a day, so that he may share his grief with you whom he knows to be his friend. )

Joseph the Theatre Patron )

Maria Theresa's Death and Joseph's reaction )

In conclusion: a good and profound book on a tricky subject.


Joseph II, Volume II: Against the World (1780 - 1790)

Volume 2, about Joseph's decade as a lone ruler, continues to be concise, informative, neither dense and headache inducing nor as vividly told as the biographies romancees. Beales remains non-partisan in that he shows very clearly how Joseph manages to alienate most people, including most of his siblings, and piss off the nobility of various countries under his rule (whom he'd have direly needed on his side) in completely unnecessary ways, while also making mince meat of some legends (there's a chapter basically all about Joseph as a patron of music, with special emphasis on Mozart, where Beales really cuts loose against Joseph vilification in some older Mozart biographies and makes a convincing case of Joseph having been a good patron to Mozart (and in general responsible for Vienna really being the capital of European music under his reign), and showing the sheer magnitude and radicalism of what Joseph was aiming for. There's a good discussion near the end of putting Joseph in context not just with the two other enlightened despots of his time - Fritz and Catherine - but also with the two monarchs before him who could be called not enlightened, but revolutionaries from the top who did succeed in radically changing their countries and societies - Peter the Great and FW. He points out that the usual explanation as to why they were successful in ways Joseph was not, that Joseph's temper, the high handedness, the sarcasm, the know it all ness, the arrogance etc. ruined his efforts, really does not work, because both Peter and FW were easily as difficult as Joseph, if not way more so, and Joseph would never have done to his nephew (or alienated siblings) what they did to their sons. But, says Beales, Peter and FW worked with their nobles. And that, in his opinion, did make the difference.

MT is dead in volume II, of course, but her long term effect and the intense and complicated feelings Joseph had for his mother continue to play a role. Right at the start, Beales has great description: "(S)he had been a bulwark on which he needed to lean even while he was pummelling it with his fists."

Self evidently he was glad to finally get all the reforms he wanted going without anyone on an equal or superior level argueing back, let alone prevent it (he was yet to discover this did not mean the reforms would actually be accepted and work), but he also wrote to Leopold: Every minute I think I ought to be sending her some packets or going to see her myself. A pleasant habit of forty years' standing, affection such as Nature, duty, inclination and admiration combined to inspire, can enither be forgotten or effaced. It is as if I am stunned.(...)

Reformer Joseph vs The Vatican )

Joseph's Russian alliance and in-laws )

Joseph emancipates the Jews and pisses off the Hungarians )

Joseph, both the least and the most approachable of Enlightened Despots )

How Joseph got the other HRE Princes paranoid )

Joseph and Leopold agreeing on their worst brother-in-law )

Leopold and Max Ernst versus Joseph )

Joseph as a patron of music and musicians )
selenak: (City - KathyH)
[personal profile] selenak
There are two Frankfurts of relevance for Fredercians: Frankfurt an der Oder, the lesser known one, where Fritz on Christmas 1731 was given a concert organized by students as a Christmas surprise, very likely a concert starring Fredersdorf (and thus causing their first meeting), for reasons more detailed here, and Frankfurt am Main, the better known Frankfurt, among many other things the city where Holy Roman Emperors were voted for and crowned. (Meaning, for our particular ensemble of characters: where Franz Stephan and Joseph as well as Mt's luckless rival the Wittelsbach Emperor Karl Albrecht were crowned.) Also the city where Fritz had Voltaire arrested without having any legal authority to do so there whatsoever. And of course, hometown to Goethe.

Frankfurt mit Dom


Frankfurt locations await under the cut. )
selenak: (Émilie du Chatelet)
[personal profile] selenak
A few notes on two books focused on Joseph II, son of Maria Theresia, not so secret fan of Frederick the Great (with an understanding of fandom that includes "going to war with" eventually), brother of Marie Antoinette, reform minded multi travellling Emperor and comic relief in Amadeus.

One is in English - Rebecca Gates-Coon: The Charmed Circle. Joseph II and the "Five Princesses", 1765 - 1790" - and one in German, Monika Czernin: Der Kaiser reist inkognito.

Young Joseph hits the road and plays marital sex counselor in France )

Five Ladies and Joseph II: How did it happen? )

A few more notes on the Five Princesses.

The Famous Five (Princesses): Who were they? )

The two male members of the "charmed circle" other than Joseph:

Orsini-Rosenberg and Lacy )


Both Orsini-Rosenberg and Lacy are bachelors. The Ladies are all married, but none of the husbands is ever allowed to attend the meetings. Joseph doesn't dislike them exactly, he just has no interest in them.

A few quotes from letters and more entertaining trivia )

The Maras

Sep. 13th, 2020 10:52 am
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)
[personal profile] mildred_of_midgard
[personal profile] selenak write-up:

Born Gertrud Elisabeth Schmeling in Kassel in the same year fellow Hessian Goethe was, 1749, she was the eighth daughter of a poor (and violent) town musician. Who had the same idea Leopold Mozart did when he saw his toddler kid grabbing a violin and hit the road with little Gertrud, presenting her as a musical Wunderkind in the Netherlands and various German cities. At first a violinist, but then this happened:

Schmeling Mara overview )

[personal profile] selenak write-up:

Schmeling Mara's memoirs )

[personal profile] mildred_of_midgard write-up:

The (Johann) Mara Stradivari )

An additional write-up by [personal profile] selenak on more general music topics:

Fritz and Music )
selenak: (DadLehndorff)
[personal profile] selenak
Somewhat belatedly as I just realised I haven't put them up here yet, my notes (from March this year) on the diary of Girolamo Lucchesini, lector and librarian to Friedrich II in his final years, later diplomat in the Prussian service, still later working as chamberlain for Napoleon's sister Elisa. Lucchesini was credited by contemporaries as different as Johann Georg von Zimmermann (who assures us that no one, but no one, looked sharper into Fritz' heart than "this witty, learned and amiable Italian" and Lehndorff in his 1783 diary ("He reminds me vividly of Count Algarotti, who used to occupy a similar position in the King‘s life. One can call his nature angelic") as being an immensly charming and amiable Fritz manager. Goethe, who met him a year after Fritz' death, had a positive impression as well about him as well but was a bit more salty about Lucchesini's, shall we say, adaptability: The arrival of the Marchese Lucchesini has pushed my departure to a few days; I have had a lot of pleasure getting to know him. He seems to me to be one of those people who have a good moral stomach to always be able to enjoy sitting at the table of the world's luminaries; instead of ours being overcrowded like a ruminant animal's at times and then unable to eat anything else until it has finished repeated chewing and digesting.

Like Henri de Catt, Lucchesini kept a diary during his early years as Fritz' reader, and unlike Catt, he wasn't later found out to have beefed up the resulting memoirs as if he were a historical novelist. However, reading through the (slim) published result, it became immediately apparant to me why Lucchesini's diary never achieved the same popularity as Catt's either with historians nor with the rest of us sensationalistic gossip mongers. (Starting with the very different circumstances - Catt starts his time as Fritz' reader mid Seven-Years-War when the inner and outer crisis of our anti hero couldn't be greater, Lucchesini starts in the 1780s when the last war is over and he's a cranky and lonely old man given to repeat himself.) I read Lucchesini's notes - and they're mostly notes - in two versions. Once in the original Italian, which is beyond me (school Latin and school French as well as some months in Italy many years ago left me with some fragmentary Italian, but that's it) but has a German introduction and German footnotes by Gustav B. Volz, and once in a German translation edited together with Catt's diary and those parts from Catt's memoirs actually based on his diary by Fritz Bischof in 1885.

My own notes on Lucchesini's notes, first round, the orignal version:

Il Re Federico holds forth )

No sooner had I finished reading this that Mildred found a translated-into-German version. The translation selection of Catt's memoirs and diary as well as Lucchesini's diary is edited and published by one Dr. Fritz Bischof in 1885. This enabled me to make notes on interesting to me details I hadn't understood before:

...and then we talked about vampires... )
mildred_of_midgard: (Aragorn)
[personal profile] mildred_of_midgard
Just for fun, we came up with a playlist for Frederick the Great. This is the popular music version. Operatic/symphonic version to come!



Song Artist/Other ContextHistorical Parallel
"Children's Work"DessaWilhelmine and Fritz
"December, 1963
(Oh, What a Night)"
The Four SeasonsFritz and Orzelska
"Come Crying to Me"LonestarTeenage Peter Keith to Fritz
"Origin of Love"Hedwig and the Angry Inch Fritz/Katte
"You Should See Me in a Crown"Billie EilishFritz and power
"Devil in Disguise"Elvis PresleyEurope to Fritz in 1740
"Respect"Aretha FranklinMaria Theresia and the
War of the Austrian Succession
"Commissioning a
Symphony in C"
CakeFritz as 18th century monarch
"C'est Moi"CamelotAlgarotti to Fritz
"You Are a Runner
and I Am My Father's Son"
Wolf Parade Fritz to Heinrich
"The Book of Love"Peter Gabriel Fritz/Fredersdorf
"That's All"GenesisFritz/Voltaire
"O Fortuna"1
"O Fortuna"2
Carl OrffFritz and the
Seven Years' War
"History Repeating"Shirley Bassey, PropellerheadsOlder Maria Theresia
"The Unforgiven Ones"Crash Test DummiesFritz, Heinrich, and realpolitik
"We Don't Need Another Hero"Tina TurnerMT to Joseph,
on Fritz as a role model
"Diamonds and Rust"Joan BaezOlder Fritz to Voltaire
"Wishing You Were
Somehow Here Again"
Jose CarrerasFritz grieving his dead
"Lazarus"David BowieFritz dying


1 Trans-Siberian Orchestra, the one where you can hear the lyrics.
2 Berlin Philharmonic, the one without a synthesizer, at [personal profile] cahn's request. ;)

Bonus track: Alexander the Great vs. Ivan the Terrible, from the Epic Rap Battles of History. Despite the name, it includes Ivan the Terrible vs. the "great"s Alexander, Frederick, and Catherine. It's also hilarious, and had to be included even if it didn't fit the playlist. Frederick the Great's part is from 1:43-2:50, though the whole thing is worth listening to.
selenak: (DadLehndorff)
[personal profile] selenak
While researching the Marchese di Lucchesini's diaries, I'd come across a quote in the introduction to said diaries that mentioned a volume IV of Lehndorff's diaries, covering a near decade of his retirement years. This, naturally, I had to check out.

It turned out to have been so very much worth it. Post-retirement Lehndorff may now have made his East Prussian family estate, Steinort, his main place of residence, but not only does he travel a lot (as you do, when retired, not poor and finally having your monarch's permission), but he makes annual trips to Berlin and to Rheinsberg, finding it impossible to stay away too long from the man who is still the love of his life. (Otherwise known as Prince Heinrich of Prussia.) All of which means a lot of gems like Lehndorff's meetings with colourful contemporaries, like not one but two of Catherine the Great's exes, and the Comte de Saint Germain, one of the most famous con men of the Rokoko age, but a continuing first row seat to the soap opera that is Hohenzollern family life.

Our Editor, Dr. K.Ed. Schmidt-Lötzen, thanks G. Volz - the very same - for helping him because the excentric ortography of some of those letters, and of the diaries themselves, are a trial, and Volz has gone through the hardcore school of decyphering Fritz letters. Also, our editor doesn’t know whether he’ll live long enough to publish all of Lehndorff’s journals (he wouldn't), because looking at all those volumes still ahead, he doubts it. Aw. Editor, some of this material will go up in flames in 1945, so we’re grateful for anything you published, you were doing an intense public service, believe me.

(Today, post WWII, there are far fewer manuscripts still in existence, but there are some, thankfully, in the Lehndorff family archive as preserved in the Leipzig State Archive.)

Now, onwards to what our Lehndorff wrote. Remember, when last we left him, he retired from Queen EC‘s service, said goodbye to Heinrich and went home to Eastern Prussia to his estate Steinort. Which, btw, is in Poland today, along with a lot of other locations that will be mentioned in this volume; some even are in Russia now.

1775 - 1776: Sons and Lovers (of Catherine II) )

1777: Time of the Tricksters (some of which Heinrich doesn't have sex with) )

1778-1780: We didn't start the fire! )

1781-1782: The Magical Mystery Tour )

1783-1784: Yours, Yours, Yours )

As promised, I'll finish with a Lehndorff entry from June that same year (1784), which this man, now in his 60s, who fell in love with Heinrich as far as I can tell from the tone of his entries on him during late 1751 and through 1752, writes thusly:

June 1784: From there, I hurry home, change my clothing and jump, after I had talked for a moment with my wife and her visitor, into the post carriage. In order to avoid the heat, I drive through the entire night and arrive on the 6th in the evening at Rheinsberg. I always experience a particular sensation whenever I get close to this charming place, when I think of the fact that in an hour, in half an hour, in a quarter of an hour I shall see Prince Heinrich again, who when it comes down to it has been for as long as I can remember the Prince whom I love best. I had all reason to be satisfied with his greeting. I cannot adequately render the emotion that moves inside me, but I am his, utterly and completely. (Ich bin auf jeden Fall ganz sein eigen.)
selenak: (Wilhelmine)
[personal profile] selenak
I.e. "Frederick the Great and Maria Theresia: in eye witness accounts." This actually was/is a series of books devoted to a particular era or historical figure(s); the first one of those I've read was "The French Revolution: In Eye Witness Accounts". The advantage is obvious: these are all either excerpts of primary sources, written at the time, or memoirs, written none too much later, arranged by subject, many of which might be difficult to track down individually. On the down side, you're also at the mercy of the editor, in terms of what he chooses to highlight or edit out.

Short assessment of Jessen as an editor )

All these nitpicks aside, though, it's a great source book, and in addition to containing by now familiar documents it had a lot of documents from which I only knew individual phrases, but not the entire texts, which sometimes recontextualize previously known quotes quite differently. I've excerpted some especially intriguing gems.

Hot or Not: Portraits of an Enigma )

Since the emphasis on this collection is on the Friedrich/Maria Theresia arch nemesis relationship, we get treated to several of the things they said and wrote about each other.

He said, she said: through the decades )


Not that Joseph's kind of being a Fritz fan ever went the Peter III. way. He believed in imitation via competition, which turned out to be even more disturbing to his mother than mere admiration would have been, since it affected the peace of her realms. Fast forward to more than a decade later, and Joseph is like Fritz in the worst way, i.e. by invading Bavaria. Here's Mom trying to argue him out of it, on March 14th, 1778, very much belying son Leopold's claim that she was half senile near the end of her life, for that letter, written two years before her death, shows Maria Theresia the politician at the top of her game:

Maria Theresia versus War: It's on! )

The last Fritz section goes on for a while longer. Jessen has the letter from Fritz - to D'Alembert, as it turns out, dated January 6th 1781 - which has the famously revisioninstic "I was never her enemy" quote in it; what I hadn't known before reading the complete letter was that he then, bereft of his best enemy, transitions right to his next target, German literature. Writes he:

MT and me, by Fritz, followed by: Why Shakespeare is rubbish, and German literature does not exist )
selenak: (The Future Queen by Kathyh)
[personal profile] selenak
Friedrich wasn't the only one who ascended to the throne in 1740.

Maria Theresia
Collecting various posts on Friedrich’s best enemy, the one and only female ruler of Austria and de facto of the Holy Roman Empire:

She was always THE WOMAN )
One Count von Podewils, Prussian ambassador in Vienna, had a lot to say about Friedrich’s arch nemesis. That it is an "enemy" assassment makes it especially valuable, of course, as opposed to some Austrian courtier wanting to carry favor, but bear the intended recipient in mind:
Maria Theresia, The Prussian Dossier )
The Kids
Marie Antoinette
MT’s teenage daughter vs Madame Dubarry )

Joseph II

How (not) to be a successful reformer )

Joseph visits Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI in Paris, as covered by the Duc de Croy:

Chronicle of an undercover visit )

Joseph’s first wife, Isabella de Parma, was young, beautiful, smart – and utterly disinterested in men. She was in love with his sister Maria Christina. She also died young, after a few years of marriage.

The Ballad of Isabella and Maria Christina )

Isabella’s and Joseph’s only daughter, who was called MT after his mother, didn’t survive her mother for long. When she died at only 7 years of age, he wrote this letter to her governess, Christine de Trazegnies, Marquise d'Herzelles:

Madame,

If decency permitted, it would be with you alone that I would be pouring out the sorrow which… pierces my soul. I have ceased to be a father: it is more than I can bear. Despite being resigned to it, I cannot stop myself thinking and saying every moment: ‘O my God, restore to me my daughter, restore her to me.’ I hear her voice, I see her. I was dazed when the terrible blow fell. Only after I had got back to my room did I feel the full horror of it, and I shall go on feeling it all the rest of my life, since I shall miss her in everything. But not that I have, I believe, fulfilled all the duties of a father - and a good father - one [duty] remains which I hear my daughter imposing on me: that of rendering thanks to you. Madame, where would you wish me to begin? All your trouble and care have been beyond price. But [she] would never forgive me if I did not at least try to induce you to accept the enclosed offering as a memento of all that I owe you and a pledge of all that I should like to do for you. In addition the sincere respect and true friendship that I have sworn to you can in some way discharge [my obligation], you can be sure it will be unshakable. I venture to ask only one favour from you, which is that no one shall ever know anything about it and that even between ourselves - since I am counting on our weeping and talking again together about this dear child - there will never be any mention of it, or you will at once cause me to regret fulfilling this duty. I beg you to urge the same absolute silence of Mlle Chanclos, for whom I also enclose a letter; it is for me a point of importance. As my daughter’s sole heir, I have just given orders… that I should keep only her diamonds. [You are to have everything else.] One thing that I would ask you to let me have is her white dimity dressing-gown, embroidered with flowers, and some of her writings. I have her mother’s, I shall keep them together. Have pity on a friend in despair, and be sure that I can hardly wait for the moment when I come to see you…

Your true friend and servant,

Joseph

This unhappy 23 January, which has overturned our happy and so successful household, 1770.


Did Joseph have non-disastrous relationships? He did, the circle of five, allow me to copypaste:
The Circle of Five )
What happened to Maria Christina )

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