>>I have to say, Fritz wins points for style with the wedding.
>
>Heh, we considered for some time exactly how we were going to lead
>into that, our deliberations largely focusing on (as another poster
>has indicated wondering about) how he was going to announce the
>unexpected change to the program. And then - plot twist! - it
>occurred to us that he just wouldn't; he would simply go ahead
>as if he'd meant to do what he ended up doing all along and people
>would have to take notes if they couldn't keep up.

Not exactly "L'etat c'est moi.", but Fritz seems a bit more sensitive to his people than Le Roi de Soleil. Plus, you know, more modern all that. Still, I have to think that there's a bit of "I'm the King. If you don't like it, tough."

>He did presumably speak to his original fiancée privately
>beforehand, and though we have seen what her younger brother made of
>it, we have no information as yet regarding how she took the change in
>plan herself.

One would think with a bit more decorum and manners than her rather stupid sibling. Still, the German/Karlslander sense of machismo (of which I'm sure there's a perfectly good word in German, but I can't find it on a brief search) does seem to go hand in hand with a certain level of stupidity. How else would you explain Mensur fencing?

Ebony the Black Dragon

This is not to exempt other nations' forms of machismo from that stupidity. We've already seen it in the Liberion senior officer corps.

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."