Frederick the Great: A Most Lamentable History Breaching Space and Time.

We talked in the chatter a bit last time about Lavoisier. And of course had a fine time two years ago cataloging the various twists of fate that totally messed up Danton.
Was Count Fersen actually Marie Antoinette’s lover, or did they simply have one of those terribly romantic courtly friendship romances that we only experience today if we work in used record stores or for some branch of municipal mass transit (so I’ve gathered – all of my notions of modern courtly romance stem from 90s cult comedies). There was a point when their relationship almost certainly became physical, and his devotion to her during the darkest moments of the Revolution, even when not always resulting in solid strategic decisions, is always endearing to read about. And, let’s not forget that Louis, perhaps because of some painful malformation of his junk, took a looooooooooong time to get around to effectively consummating his marriage with Antoinette, and only then after having The Talk with Joseph II. But no matter how you slice it, they don’t come much more Royalist than Fersen, so I’m guessing that vat of Citizen Blood is pretty well scotched.
– Count Dolby von Luckner

Robespierre working for Antoinette? A secret weapon designed by the father of chemistry himself? We’ve only just begun!
Lavoisier’s story is really quite sad. He was a tax farmer, which was an occupation that the Revolutionaries particularly loathed, but by all accounts an honest one and he was certainly of a liberal bent himself. But that wasn’t enough to save him when he and his fellow collectors were brought to trial, sentenced to death, and executed all within the span of a day. We still know his name today, but I don’t think it gets spoken with the same hush of reverence that you get with the physicists – a Newton or a Galileo. That’s seemingly true of all chemists, which is rather a shame. Who has Carl Wilhelm Scheele’s name on their lips in spite of being one of the pivotal figures in the formation of modern chemistry? Ah well…
– Count Dolby von Luckner