Frederick the Great post links
Sep. 18th, 2019 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnMore Frederick the Great (henceforth "Fritz") and surrounding spinoffs history! Clearly my purpose in life is now revealed: it is to encourage mildred_of_midgard and selenak to talk to me about Frederick the Great and associated/tangential European history. I am having such a great time here! Collating some links in this post:
* selenak's post on Frederick the Great as a TV show with associated fandom; a great place to start for the general history
* I have given up indexing all posts, here is the tag of discussion posts. Someday when I actually have time maybe I'll do a "best of."
Some links that have come up in the course of this discussion (and which I am putting here partially for my own benefit because in particular I haven't had time to watch the moviesbecause still mainlining Nirvana in Fire):
Fritz' sister Wilhelmine's tell-all tabloidy memoirs (English translation); this is Part I; the text options have been imperfectly OCR'd so be aware of that (NOTE 11-6-19: THIS IS A BOWDLERIZED TEXT, I WILL COME BACK WITH A BETTER LINK)
Part II of Wilhelmine's memoirs (English translation)
A dramatization of Frederick the Great's story, English subtitles
Mein Name ist Bach, Movie of Frederick the Great and J.S. Bach, with subtitles Some discussion of the subtitles in the thread here (also scroll down)
2017 miniseries about Maria Theresia, with subtitles and better translation of one scene in comments
ETA:
Miniseries of Peter the Great, IN ENGLISH, apparently reasonably historically solid
ETA 10-22-19
Website with letters from and to Wilhelmine during her 1754/1755 journey through France and Italy, as well as a few letters about Wilhelmine, in the original French, in a German translation, and in facsimile
University of Trier site where the full works of Friedrich in the original French and German have been transcribed, digitized, and uploaded:
30 volumes of writings and personal correspondence
46 volumes of political correspondence
Fritz and Wilhelmine's correspondence (vol 27_1)
ETA 10-28-19
Der Thronfolger (German, no subtitles; explanation of action in the comment here)
ETA 11-6-19
Memoirs of Stanisław August Poniatowski, dual Polish and French translation
ETA 1-14-20
Our Royal Librarian Mildred has collated some documentation, including google translate versions of the Trier letters above (see the "Correspondence" folder)!
mildred_of_midgard and selenak to talk to me about Frederick the Great and associated/tangential European history. I am having such a great time here! Collating some links in this post:* selenak's post on Frederick the Great as a TV show with associated fandom; a great place to start for the general history
* I have given up indexing all posts, here is the tag of discussion posts. Someday when I actually have time maybe I'll do a "best of."
Some links that have come up in the course of this discussion (and which I am putting here partially for my own benefit because in particular I haven't had time to watch the movies
Fritz' sister Wilhelmine's tell-all tabloidy memoirs (English translation); this is Part I; the text options have been imperfectly OCR'd so be aware of that (NOTE 11-6-19: THIS IS A BOWDLERIZED TEXT, I WILL COME BACK WITH A BETTER LINK)
Part II of Wilhelmine's memoirs (English translation)
A dramatization of Frederick the Great's story, English subtitles
Mein Name ist Bach, Movie of Frederick the Great and J.S. Bach, with subtitles Some discussion of the subtitles in the thread here (also scroll down)
2017 miniseries about Maria Theresia, with subtitles and better translation of one scene in comments
ETA:
Miniseries of Peter the Great, IN ENGLISH, apparently reasonably historically solid
ETA 10-22-19
Website with letters from and to Wilhelmine during her 1754/1755 journey through France and Italy, as well as a few letters about Wilhelmine, in the original French, in a German translation, and in facsimile
University of Trier site where the full works of Friedrich in the original French and German have been transcribed, digitized, and uploaded:
30 volumes of writings and personal correspondence
46 volumes of political correspondence
Fritz and Wilhelmine's correspondence (vol 27_1)
ETA 10-28-19
Der Thronfolger (German, no subtitles; explanation of action in the comment here)
ETA 11-6-19
Memoirs of Stanisław August Poniatowski, dual Polish and French translation
ETA 1-14-20
Our Royal Librarian Mildred has collated some documentation, including google translate versions of the Trier letters above (see the "Correspondence" folder)!
Re: Nomination coordination redux
Date: 2019-09-30 05:58 am (UTC)Re: Nomination coordination redux
Date: 2019-09-30 06:21 am (UTC)Which reminds me: if this fandom really takes off, how long before we get a "League of Pettiooats": Maria Theresia, Elizabeth of Russia, Madame de Pompadour" group tag going? (Madame de Pompadeur is a well established AO3 character, since as Reinette, she showed up on Doctor Who. And the Czarina does have some fictional appearances as well.) /also silly.
*In the prologue to one of the new MT biographies which appeared when she had her most recent 300 centennary, the author sums up her changing image with Austrian and German historians:
MT dies in the late 18th century: thank God the old and old fashioned girl is gone, time for our new male reforming Emperor to rule unhindered!
(A few years and Joseph's reforms later: OMG not THOSE reforms! Bring on his old fashioned brother, we don't need a Fritz follower on the throne! Yay Leopold!)
Napoleon conquers much of Europe, officially dissolves the Holy Roman Empire and restructures the German principalities into something making more geographic sense, blackmails himself an Austrian second wife:
Historians: this is so humiliating. Remember when MT ruled and held her own against bloody Fritz? Yeah. Those were the days.
Napoleon is defeated, nationalism is on the rise in both Austria and the remaining German principalities, fiery debates about possible German unification and if so, with or without Austria are held through the 19th century:
Historians: MT was the woman! Fritz was the man! Shame their parents didn't think of marrying them to each other, then we could have had a unified German Empire a long time ago! (What's that you say about incompatible religions and sexual orientations? Pffff!)
This goes on until WWI, after which a lot of historians get disenchanted with empires of all persuasians and the ones still singing the nationalistic tune also come with a side helping of never mind the woman and the man, they were of their day but we need a new glorious leader now.
Post WWII: eh. Can we study economic developments producing history instead of glorified rulers now?
Re: Nomination coordination redux
Date: 2019-09-30 06:35 am (UTC)MT was the woman! Fritz was the man!
He was a boy. She was a girl. Can I make it any more
obviousheteronormative?(What's that you say about incompatible religions and sexual orientations? Pffff!)
Didn't stop FW from marrying EC to Fritz! (Of course, EC at least espoused the religion of her *country*, if not her husband. Not to mention the even bigger incompatibilities between Fritz and MT. Lol. Disaster or big disaster?)
Bring on his old fashioned brother, we don't need a Fritz follower on the throne! Yay Leopold!
Stop me if I'm wrong, but Leopold II was at least sort of reforming, right? Not Joseph levels, but notable for ending the death penalty, among other things?
Re: Nomination coordination redux
Date: 2019-09-30 09:28 am (UTC)Not to mention the even bigger incompatibilities between Fritz and MT. Lol. Disaster or big disaster?
Maximum desaster. Though I have a hard time seeing it happening in the first place, because the religious obstacles are truly considerable. One of them would have had to convert. There's no way, no how, that the heiress presumptative to the Habsburgs, a dynasty defining itself as champions of the Catholic faith, would have been allowed to convert, or to marry someone who wasn't a Catholic himself, even if he swore any children would be Catholics.
(There were, of course, several Protestant German princesses who had to marry Catholic or Russian Orthodox princes and converted - including Catherine II - but Catherine I is the only Catholic I can think of who converted in order to marry Peter I., and she was a freed serf, not a princess. The only "Catholic princess marries Protestant prince who is allowed to maintain his religion as part of the marriage deal" example I can currently think of is the most notoriously ill fated of them all - Margot de Valois/Henri de Navarre - and post- St. Bartholomew Night, he did have to convert. Not for the last time.)
But let's say FW, arch-Protestant who he is, allows Fritz to convert, and let's say Fritz is willing to fake becoming a Catholic for the sake of becoming Emperor (which, after all, is the deal for anyone marrying Maria Theresia unless her father sires a male heir at the last minute, which on one but her dad considered still possible at that point). Maybe Fritz activates his inner Machiavellian and figures once he's on the throne, he can ignore what nominal religion he has anyway, plus he gets to be his father's boss if FW should outlive MT's father. Let's also consider that Maria Theresia was raised to believe in the superiority of the male sex and would have accepted, to a degree, her husband's decisions. Let's also say the two don't hate each other on sight, because MT symbolizes freedom from Dad and superiority to Dad for Fritz, and she's well educated (she was trained to be a royal spouse, after all), smart, and, importantly, musical. (She must have had a great singing voice; her singing opera arias early in the miniseries is one of the actual historical elements. Meanwhile, MT might have been heartbroken because she was already in love with Franz Stefan, but she had a keen sense of duty, Fritz was smart and again, well educated, though they'd have to talk about the classics and music since she had no sympathy for Voltaire. If all this works out, then I still would argue "to a degree" would soon be used up.
For starters: sex. There's no way Maria Theresia would have gone for one of Fritz' siblings as heirs presumptative of the Habsburg dynasty. No matter if she'd come to loathe Fritz as a person, she'd have wanted heirs from her own body. And her father, who in fact outlived FW, would have insisted, too. (And considering Joseph's mission to fix his sister's sex life with Louis XVI in rl, you can bet his granddad would have been as intrusive when it came to his daughter and Fritz.) There are few things easier to produce mutual hostility than two people who don't love each other forced to have sex. (And I don't think either of them would have been much good at it under these circumstances.)
Secondly: priorities. Where do they live, Prussia or Austria? The Austrian army direly needed Prussian reforms, but I'm not sure the Austrian nobility would have accepted being subjected to them from a Prussian prince, especially if said Prince didn't produce male heirs from the Arch Duchess. (In rl, Franz Stefan was ridiculed for "only" siring daughters those first few years, and he actually had spent some considerable time at the Austrian court as a youth.) Once both fathers are dead, does Fritz actually get elected as Emperor or has he by then pissed off various other princes already and they go for the Wittelsbach guy anyway? How long does MT's sense of wifely duty last before she considers
killing himasking for an annulment from the Church? If she and Fritz somehow do produce a male heir, would Fritz thenkill hertake off to Prussia and hope she's content with a separated life instead of mobilizing the Austrian and Hungarian nobility against him? And so forth.Re: Nomination coordination redux
Date: 2019-10-01 01:06 am (UTC)No matter if she'd come to loathe Fritz as a person, she'd have wanted heirs from her own body. And her father, who in fact outlived FW, would have insisted, too. (And considering Joseph's mission to fix his sister's sex life with Louis XVI in rl, you can bet his granddad would have been as intrusive when it came to his daughter and Fritz.)
Notoriously open secret gay/asexual Fritz goes through the motions of trying, makes a point of not ejaculating inside her? Plays it off as impotence/sexual hangups? He only has to get away with this for 7-10 years to get elected Emperor. This is the same guy, remember, who, when forced by Dad to go hunting, would write fake upbeat letters going, "Welp, I shot at the animal and missed. But I'm sure I'll have better luck next time!"
There's no way Maria Theresia would have gone for one of Fritz' siblings as heirs presumptative of the Habsburg dynasty. No matter if she'd come to loathe Fritz as a person, she'd have wanted heirs from her own body.
After ~10 years of the above, would she have gone for an annulment of a childless marriage and a marriage to brother Augustus Wilhelm? It's a variation on marrying a sister to AW to appease the Brunswicks. Assume Fritz has been elected Emperor at this time, is pretty clearly not having kids of his own or planning to remarry, is willing to leave her the prestige and nominal power of the titles of the Pragmatic Sanction, but is consolidating power in his own hands and politically sidelining his entire family. In a misogynistic world, with her sense of duty and a more ambitious husband than Franz Stefan, would MT have gone along with this? I don't know her personality well enough. Would the entire Austrian nobility have gone along with this or not been able to stop it?
It's a real stretch: I'm struggling to come up with *any* possible non-catastrophic outcome. Fritz does not play well with others, and MT does not take things lying down like EC, plus she comes with a whole family and country with opinions of their own.
The only other possible path that I can see to a less than catastrophic outcome is if EC got an especially raw deal from Fritz, and Amelia or MT or basically anyone who gave him an "out" from Dad before 1740 would have gotten better treatment, including maybe a willingness to make an effort to beget heirs once a month or something. I mean, when he was plumping for the British double marriage, should we imagine he was intending to completely avoid Amelia sexually even before he became king? I find that difficult to believe, or at least to assume without questioning.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: the way I read Fritz's personality, there is a world of difference between an idea that came out of his own head and one that was forced onto him, in terms of how he reacts. And if he decides he wants to be HRE because it's a way to get the upper hand over Dad, and he gets what he wants, then I'm guessing his brain decides to emphasize the way MT and he can bond over music and some literature, and he has some sex with her, at least in the early days. If FW forces him into this marriage because FW is a big fan of the Emperor, then Fritz's brain emphasizes how he despises the long-past-its-glory-days HRE and Catholics and women and possibly the thought of being shipped to Vienna as if *he* were the subordinate partner, and maximum disaster ensues with maximum speed.
The only "Catholic princess marries Protestant prince who is allowed to maintain his religion as part of the marriage deal" example I can currently think of is the most notoriously ill fated of them all - Margot de Valois/Henri de Navarre
Catherine of Braganza and Charles II come to mind, but Braganza != Habsburg, as you point out. And Charles at least had Catholic sympathies. Fritz...did not. I also imagine the Pope having nominal authority over Fritz would have gone over about as well as the Holy Roman Emperor having nominal authority over Fritz went over irl. "Lol wut? I barely took orders from my father when he was alive and locked me in prison, and you think you can tell me what to do from a distance? You and what army?"
Secondly: priorities. Where do they live, Prussia or Austria?
Totally trolling here: after their dads die, Fritz in Prussia, MT in Austria. That's far enough away to avoid the cooties, right? :PP
Once both fathers are dead, does Fritz actually get elected as Emperor or has he by then pissed off various other princes already and they go for the Wittelsbach guy anyway?
1730s Fritz? Sympathies for him personally are still running high, to the point where various European courts are lending/giving him money, he's not as despotic as in later years, and Prussia is starting to be taken seriously thanks to FW's army, which Fritz has inherited by the time of the election. My guess is he gets elected and everyone regrets it *later*. Assuming he's managed to pay enough lip service to Catholicism. If he has and he still doesn't get elected, my guess is that it takes him and MT less than 8 years to solve it in their favor. Which is of course the whole point of this scenario.
My question is, how much does young Fritz manage to piss off his *dad* in the 1730s, particularly if this marriage lands him in Austria? And what are the consequences of *that*?
Re: Nomination coordination redux
Date: 2019-10-01 06:28 am (UTC)How FW would have reacted to a Fritz not just geographically but hierarchically completely out of his control - if Fritz is in Vienna (and assorted other locations all over the HRE which aren't Prussia - as MT's spouse, son-in-law of the Emperor and likely Emperor-in-Waiting is beyond my power to imagine. From the first time his ambassador reports onwards about how HRH had a great time at the public concert last night, playing flute while MT sang, and that's before we get the first letter (in French, of course) saying "Mon cher Papa, have suggested to the Emperor to request loan from our treasury so we can bring the Austrian army up to speed and also build me an extra royal mansion equipped with the latest fashion from Paris, cherio, Fritz".
Charles II/Catherine of Braganza: true, but in addition to not being the heir presumptative of the Portuegese throne she didn't have to convert, and that she was a practicing Catholic was used against her (and him) by Titus Oates et al. (I'm assuming that if they had had surviving children, they'd have been Anglicans, so Catherine's father must have agreed to that in the wedding treaty.
Assume Fritz has been elected Emperor at this time, is pretty clearly not having kids of his own or planning to remarry, is willing to leave her the prestige and nominal power of the titles of the Pragmatic Sanction, but is consolidating power in his own hands and politically sidelining his entire family. In a misogynistic world, with her sense of duty and a more ambitious husband than Franz Stefan, would MT have gone along with this?
Really hard to say. I mean, there's the rl example of her handling Joseph as a co-ruler with great difficulties and by coming out on top more often than not. (
(MT really lucked out with Franz Stefan, because I bet most of the available princes would have at least tried to take power from her since tehy were nominally the Emperor, instead of accepting this was her throne and her rule and doing their own - useful, since he was making cash - thing.)
If FW forces him into this marriage because FW is a big fan of the Emperor, then Fritz's brain emphasizes how he despises the long-past-its-glory-days HRE and Catholics and women and possibly the thought of being shipped to Vienna as if *he* were the subordinate partner, and maximum disaster ensues with maximum speed.
Entirely agreed. Especially if he gets told the way Franz Stefan was that he's essentially there as a stud and if he can't even do that right, what is the point of him? (Again, MT lucked out with Franz Stefan, because seven or so years of "look at that whuss from Lorraine, can't even sire boys, just more useless girls!" might have embittered and thus poisoned the marriage in 8 out of ten cases.)
In that scenario, I see MT going for an annulment at top speed, and if she has to blackmail dad into it somehow, so be it.
(The biography reminds me that in rl, the first vaguely not quite insulting thing Fritz said about her - while she was still alive - was "finally the Habsburgs produced a man again, and it's a woman".)
Re: Nomination coordination redux
Date: 2019-10-01 04:56 pm (UTC)How FW would have reacted to a Fritz not just geographically but hierarchically completely out of his control ...is beyond my power to imagine. From the first time his ambassador reports onwards about how HRH had a great time at the public concert last night, playing flute while MT sang, and that's before we get the first letter (in French, of course)
I'm dying, this is hilarious, I can't imagine FW's reaction either. Especially if the marriage was his idea!
"have suggested to the Emperor to request loan from our treasury" Yes, yes, he totally would have done that! LOL
Charles II/Catherine of Braganza: Yup, completely different political waters, agreed. I was just throwing that out there as another example of a Catholic princess being allowed to marry a Protestant sovereign, not as a close parallel.
Side note, it's "heir presumptive" in English.
Really hard to say. I mean, there's the rl example of her handling Joseph as a co-ruler
Agreed. It says a lot about her personality, but mother/son dynamics are completely different than wife/husband dynamics, especially in her place and time.
MT really lucked out with Franz Stefan
Agreed!!
the first vaguely not quite insulting thing Fritz said about her - while she was still alive - was "finally the Habsburgs produced a man again, and it's a woman"
Oh, Fritz! *laughing* Of course you said that.
Yeah, I feel like Fritz is in way over his head politically in this scenario.
To expand a little on this, his forte was not navigating complex interpersonal dynamics. His forte was deciding what he was going to do, entrenching his position, and defending it at all costs. He reminds me of the proverb, "'Take what you want and pay for it,' says God." His default when he felt threatened was the pre-emptive attack. When he didn't have enough power for that, passive resistance. The one time we see him so helpless neither of those was an option is the one time we see him faint.
And I do think that keeping EC at arm's length for life was both a pre-emptive attack (don't let her get any political power) and passive resistance (this marriage was forced on me, so I will undermine it to the utmost). Fritz was capable of keeping up both the pre-emptive attacks and the passive resistance against his father well after FW died. All of which is perfectly in keeping with child trauma psychology.
Re: Nomination coordination redux
Date: 2019-10-01 08:12 pm (UTC)This is why I think he's in over his head. He doesn't have the same opportunity to isolate and entrench as he did as sole uncontested ruler in Prussia, following in his father's footsteps as sole uncontested ruler.
One could wonder how adaptable Fritz was, i.e. whether he took the isolate-and-entrench approach because it was easily available to him, and whether he would have been capable of developing a different strategy in a different context like Vienna. But considering how little he managed to back down even in the face of someone having absolute power over him (like, he just barely played along to the point where FW *knew* and was constantly complaining that the moment his back was turned, Fritz was getting up to whatever he wanted--Fritz was not capable of or willing to fool anyone, at any time in his life I can think of; the closest he could come was promising something and blatantly and openly breaking his word as soon as it was convenient to do so, which is worlds away from manipulative skills), I kind of feel like isolate-and-entrench was Fritz's innate strategy, and it was amplified by one million by decades of chronic trauma*, and his chances of developing a different strategy in his twenties were slim.
Interpersonal skills were what would have been needed at Vienna, and Fritz was always short on those. I've seen biographers point out that if he'd been willing to play along more often instead of kicking out foreign envoys and refusing to meet with people, he could have been a much greater, more effective, and more famous ruler. To which my reaction is, "Me too. My career would be way more successful if I were willing to interact with people more. I've seen it done by a friend/former boss who's almost exactly like me except for being willing to fake extraversion for the sake of good leadership. And to me and Fritz, it's just not worth it." Take what you want and pay for it.
* Whatever strategy people develop in the face of trauma is the one that they usually carry for life, regardless of how ineffective it is in their post-trauma life, because their limbic systems equate that strategy with survival. Much of effective PTSD therapy is built around helping people develop new strategies for less traumatic environments.
Re: Nomination coordination redux
Date: 2019-10-02 12:59 am (UTC)I keep opening the notification thread in my email to reread this and laugh out loud.
RIP Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia
1688 - 1733
Cause of death: aneurysm
Re: Nomination coordination redux
Date: 2019-10-02 03:06 am (UTC)I also sort of have this attachment to the thought of Fritz and MT in this AU playing music together and bonding over it, even if they didn't see eye-to-eye on a lot of other things :) (Well, until Fritz started telling MT how to sing, anyway...)
Re: Nomination coordination redux
Date: 2019-10-02 03:09 am (UTC)War of the Roses, Rokoko Edition
Date: 2019-10-02 11:17 am (UTC)MT was fluent, though unlike Fritz, she also was fluent in German, which she spoke with a Viennese accent. There was a joke in Austria at the time re: the Austrian nobility, that they spoke Latin like Cicero, French like a Parisian, and German like their nurse. Which was literally true in that their nurses - both wetnurses and nurses in the toddler years - were the only ones speaking German to the noble kids, and they of course were not nobles. Meaning the German they spoke was literally the language of the people, deemed vulgar by the nobility. Note that Wilhelmine, who could be a snob, is making fun of MT's older cousin the Empress married to the Wittelsbach guy for her Austrian accent and for insisting to speak German, not French. MT, having been raised to be a spouse to European royalty, spoke French just fine and corresponded in French not just with her youngest daughter (Marie Antoinette), but she didn't have Fritz' hangups about the German language. There's an affectionate, playful letter of hers to Franz Stefan from their engagement time where she keeps switching between French, German and Italian and writes stuff like "je vous adore, mio Mausi".
re: the Latin: being taught hardcore old fashioned Catholicism by a Jesuit does have its drawbacks for one's future mind in the of the Enlightenment, but it does provide one with first class Latin.
Re: War of the Roses, Rokoko Edition
Date: 2019-10-05 01:25 am (UTC)There's an affectionate, playful letter of hers to Franz Stefan from their engagement time where she keeps switching between French, German and Italian and writes stuff like "je vous adore, mio Mausi".
That is so super cute. MT/FS is basically my OTP for this fandom. Your posts are making me realize how incredibly lucky she was <3
Re: War of the Roses, Rokoko Edition
From:Composers and Writers
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From:Aside: Gluck’s opera innovations
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From:The eagles are coming!
Date: 2019-10-02 11:47 am (UTC)Re: The eagles are coming!
Date: 2019-10-02 02:09 pm (UTC)Re: The eagles are coming!
Date: 2019-10-04 05:15 am (UTC)Since my Frederician noms are already in the spreadsheet, I'll wait to comment on the other fandoms until some time when it's not bedtime :) But it's now officially IN.
Re: The eagles are coming!
Date: 2019-10-04 05:17 am (UTC)Re: Nomination coordination redux
Date: 2019-10-01 05:49 pm (UTC)Question for you guys. How over the line would it have been if in this MT/Fritz AU where Fritz isn't having sex with her, MT had found someone else (Franz Stefan?) to father her kids? You've told me that Fritz was not cool with it with his brother's wife, but then again this is a situation where it's her heir too...? Is this something they could have worked out? (Both from the political and the psychological sides.) Or is it just completely off the table?
Re: Nomination coordination redux
Date: 2019-10-01 06:31 pm (UTC)at first I was thinking I might ask for this AU for Yuletide too only, like, it's all right here so I don't even need to ask for it
Hee! I've been thinking this too! Sometimes a plot outline is almost as good as a fic, and they're a lot easier to generate.
How over the line would it have been if in this MT/Fritz AU where Fritz isn't having sex with her, MT had found someone else (Franz Stefan?) to father her kids?
I've been wondering the same thing, only with brother Wilhelm, if an annulment was out of the question. Yesterday I entertained the idea of Fritz allowing Franz Stefan to father his heir, for about two seconds, and then went, "Naaaahh. DDD-:" But if I squint, I could almost just barely see some parallel universe where Fritz is telling his brother and MT, "Okay, you two, heirs from my wife and my next of kin, get to it, I have better things to do." Fritz is just enough of a "I do what I want" person that if he decides he wants something, societal expectations be damned. That's the scenario in which I see him agreeing to this.
Problem is, even in the rather unlikely scenario where MT/her family/the Austrians put up enough of a fight against Fritz's reluctance to father heirs that he concedes there needs to be a child of the marriage, *and* he decides that it doesn't need to be of his body if everyone involved is discreet about it, I see MT's piety and sense of duty as the sticking point.
And that's *if* Fritz goes along with it, which 1) probably requires it to be his idea, and 2) requires him to have his back to the wall in terms of admitting he needs an heir via MT and not be willing to do it himself. (If he really is incapable of getting it up with a woman, I see an annulment agreed to or better yet, insisted on, by MT as the most likely scenario.)
Interesting point re all this, though: Goldsmith interprets "C'est pourquoi, si je me marie en galant homme, c'est-à-dire laissant agir madame comme bon lui semble, et faisant de mon côté ce qui me plaît, et vive la liberté!" from one of his letters to Grumbkow to mean that Fritz might have been okay with EC having discreet affairs. Now, as noted, Goldsmith puts a lot of weight on evidence that won't hold it up, imo, and my eyebrows immediately flew up. Especially since the preceding text is "Once I get married, I'm in charge, no woman ever tells *me* what to do."
Plus, even if Goldsmith's right (curious what you two think), what desperate Crown Prince Fritz thinks and what autocratic King Friedrich II thinks are two different things. *Plus*, a child is not the same thing as a discreet affair, although if it's his idea and it's discreet enough that no one knows/no one talks about it, and he's keeping up appearances enough that it's plausibly his...I would be interested in what
AUs are fun!
Re: Nomination coordination redux
Date: 2019-10-01 06:51 pm (UTC)So from everything you guys have told me about Fritz, and reading this totally without context, I actually think he might have meant that he was OK with EC having affairs, but I also am getting Anti-Machiavel vibes here in a big way :P It's the kind of thing where I can totally see him going around saying "Everyone should have freedom to have affairs and do their own sex thing, vive la liberté!" and then when presented with the actual thing from his actual wife... maybe might not feel the same way about it.
Re: Nomination coordination redux
Date: 2019-10-01 06:59 pm (UTC)I can totally see him going around saying "Everyone should have freedom to have affairs and do their own sex thing, vive la liberté!" and then when presented with the actual thing from his actual wife... maybe might not feel the same way about it.
You almost literally quoted from Mein Name ist Bach there. In that case (since I don't think you've seen it) it's his unmarried sister having an affair, Fritz throws a fit, and she says, "You're always saying everyone is master of their own fate and arse in this kingdom, but by 'everyone' you mean 'you'." :P
So like I said, that's why I can see him deciding that his wife needs to sleep with someone of his choosing, but not that she's allowed to sleep with someone of her choosing.
His side
Date: 2019-10-02 11:01 am (UTC)He might have tried to marry August Wilhelm off to MT's younger sister (who in rl married Franz Stefan's younger brother, so it's a plausible match under the circumstances) and get a Habsburg/Hohenzollern heir the respectable way. But that's supposing said younger sister was still free to be married off by the time Emperor Karl dies instead of Karl making a match for his younger daughter before that. Also, again, I think MT would have been invested into getting a child of her own as heir, especially if she has a miserable marriage and no or not much power.
Now, best case scenario: we take Fritz at his word that he did have an affair (in the physical sense as well) with Orzelska as a teen in Dresden and when she later secretly visited him in Berlin, i.e. he's able if he's willing, he is motivated post-Küstrin to make a success of his new life in Vienna. Maria Theresia wouldn't get the 16 kids she had in rl out of that, but she was certainly fertile, and if she and Fritz manage an heir and a spare instead of or in addition to girls in the first few years, that would be enough to make any more future marital sex superflous, so by the time both their fathers are dead, they've come to an arrangement that suits them.
Re: His side
Date: 2019-10-07 05:03 pm (UTC)But poor MT, still. <3
Her side
Date: 2019-10-02 11:30 am (UTC)Definitely not if he'd advised her to sleep with his brother. That would have been spiritual incest (since, post-marriage, his siblings were her siblings as well) in addition to being adultery, and a MT unhappy in her marriage would have been more likely to throw herself into her religion to compensate, not less.
However: in rl she never was in the situation of being in love with someone she absolutely could not have. So I'm not completely sure she wouldn't have had an affair with Franz Stefan (who definitely was okay with adultery) if he'd tried, because she really was deeply in love with him already at the point where the timelines would have diverged. Not immediately, I think she would have given this marriage an honest, dutiful try, but some frustrating years later? Just about possible for young MT, foiled in love, no realm ruling to put her energies into and stuck with Fritz as a husband.
Re: Her side
Date: 2019-10-07 05:01 pm (UTC)But, ugh, this is sounding really awful, MT driven by frustration into an affair that she would have been super against religiously. This is making me so glad she and Franz Stefan got to have each other <3