Yuletide tags are out: Frederician version

[cahn]

Come join us in this crazy Frederick the Great fandom and learn more about all these crazy associated people, like the star-crossed and heartbreaking romance between Maria Theresia's daughter Maria Christina and her daughter-in-law Isabella, wow.

OK, so, there are FOURTEEN characters nominated:
Anna Karolina Orzelska (Frederician RPF)
Elisabeth Christine von Preußen | Elisabeth Christine Queen of Prussia (Frederician RPF)
Francesco Algarotti (Frederician RPF)
François-Marie Arouet | Voltaire (Frederician RPF)
Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great (Frederician RPF)
Hans Hermann Von Katte (Frederician RPF)
Joseph II Holy Roman Emperor (Frederician RPF)
Maria Theresia | Maria Theresa of Austria (Frederician RPF)
Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf (Frederician RPF)
Peter Karl Christoph von Keith (Frederician RPF)
Sophia Dorothea of Hanover (Frederician RPF)
Stanisław August Poniatowski (Frederician RPF)
Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758) (Frederician RPF)
Yekatarina II Alekseyevna | Catherine the Great of Russia (Frederician RPF)

This means some fourth person kindly nominated Algarotti and -- I think? -- Stanislaw August Poniatowski! YAY! Thank you fourth person! Come be our friend! :D Yuletide is so great!

I am definitely requesting Maria Theresia, Wilhelmine, and Fritz (Put them in a room together. Shake. How big is the explosion?), and thinking about Elisabeth Christine, but maybe not this year.

I am also declaring this post another Frederician post, as the last one was getting out of hand. I think I'll still use that one as the overall index to these, though, to keep all the links in one place.

(seriously, every time I think the wild stories are done there is ANOTHER one)

Comments

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yaaay all around! I have posted a comment asking if Poniatowski was actually intended for this fandom. It's not impossible, especially if someone wants political fic, but it's worth querying. Algarotti, though... <33 ILU, whoever you are, nominator!

Soooo...you guys, something awesome happened today (besides the opening of the tag set). Remember my 2 physical books I was opening to a random page to get random facts on? One of them is on Kindle but too expensive for my current budget. Then this happened! Aka Rachel bought me the book for my birthday! So now I can read it properly and share trivia.

(seriously, every time I think the wild stories are done there is ANOTHER one)

I know, right?! It also helps that selenak has a larger cast of characters as well!

[mildred_of_midgard]

Am so stoked about Algarotti's nomination that I went looking for more source material on him in hopes of inspiration for treat-writing. I've found that there's very little by way of material about his life, but there is one fascinating dissertation that's available online (!!) and which I am now reading. Table of contents suggests his relationship with Fritz was as volatile as Fritz's biographers claimed (without, of course, supplying much evidence--am hoping for the evidence here).

*having lots of fun*

Also, canon-divergent AUs for the win: I'm not sure I'm ever going to finish it, and it's certainly not intended for Yuletide, but it seems to be coming along, so it's not impossible it'll exist someday...I'm working on a "Five Ways Frederick the Great and Katte Cheated Fate" fic aka "Katte Lives Five Times Because Katte Can Never Live Enough Times." Except of course each of the 5 AUs wants to be about 3,000 words, because I'm me, so...anyway, I've got very rough drafts for 4 of the 5 AUs now and am waiting for inspiration on the 5th. I will probably ramble at you about them here, if you want to hear more. :D

[selenak]

Am absolutely thrilled we got a fellow Frederician on board!!! We're going to have so much fun!

Random facts

[mildred_of_midgard]

Resuming the trivia from my current reading material.

1) FW and SD are having trouble producing a male heir that survives infancy. Hence all the inspecting of bb!Fritz like he was some kind of backward worm. FW's father, Frederick I, is still alive. Well, if his son and daughter-in-law can't do it, he'll give it the old college try himself! Frederick I marries a third time, hoping for a male heir pretty much right up until his deathbed (bb!Fritz is one year old and sickly when Grandpa Frederick kicks it).

But apparently the third wife had some...mental health problems. Bipolar with psychotic breaks? Total guess on my part based on one paragraph in Wikipedia.

So then this happened:

"On a February night his insane wife, in a fit of religious frenzy and convinced that she was being divorced to be married to the Sultan of Morocco, burst through a glass door into his [her husband's] apartments. Bloody and disheveled, wearing only a white shift, she flung herself on the dozing monarch. Mistaking her for 'the White Lady,' who traditionally appeared just before the death of a Hohenzollern, Frederick lapsed into a coma and shortly died."

Wikipedia gives a somewhat less dramatic rendition of the episode: "One night the queen, dressed only in her white nightclothes and with loose hair, rushed through the gallery which connected her apartments with those of the king, burst through the glass door in to his room and, covered in blood from the wounds afflicted by the broken glass door, attacked the king and screamed reproaches at him. The suddenly awakened king, who suffered from fever, imagined in his confusion that she was the legendary 'White Lady' who would foretell his death, and screamed until his attendants appeared, causing a scene. Sophia Louise was reportedly not aware of what she had done."

Deciding which one to believe is left as an exercise to the reader.

A bit of background on Frederick I: the first king in Prussia (remember, king "in", not king "of" yet, as explained here), patronized the arts, really liked French culture, spent gadzooks of money on his palaces and other luxuries. His son FW, as we all know, was the diametric opposite; Fritz a mixture of the two. Perhaps surprisingly, Fritz was full of vitriol about his grandfather lack of talents as King*, and was much more positive about his abusive father's awesomeness as ruler.

Later generations of historians, as I gather, were all, "Yeah, whatever Old Fritz says! Frederick I sucked!" and only after a while started looking at Frederick's reign on its own merits and not through the lenses of his opinionated-about-everything grandson.

2) From my 18th century military history book, talking about the demographics of the officer class. While it was normal at the time for officers to be primarily nobles, there was a lot of flexibility in places like the German countries about who counted as a noble, and some opportunities to rise in the ranks. Whereas in France: "In the expeditionary corps that went to bring freedom to America in 1780, about 85 per cent of the officers were of the nobility, and among these the leadership was clearly exercised by the 30 per cent whose titles dated from the middle ages. The newcomers who went back only as far as the sixteenth century were at a severe disadvantage, and they were virtually barred from becoming colonels."

France briefly experimented with bourgeois officers, but not for long. One such lieutenant, formerly a merchant, was on leave when he got this incredibly condescending letter from his commanding officer, informing him that he'd been replaced by a noble: "You are well-off and young, and you will not be without an occupation as long as you devote yourself to the kind of life which was followed by your ancestors—it is a perfectly acceptable one when it is pursued honourably. However, by desiring to serve in the army you are out of your sphere; go back to your former condition, and you will be happy. I know, Monsieur, that high birth is the result of chance and that it should not be the object of vainglorious pride. But birth brings privileges and rights which cannot be violated without disturbing the public order."

Okay, guys, good luck with that meritocracy.

This reminds me, btw, of Louis XV getting all huffy about Prussian upstart Frederick daring to write to him as an equal, and cuttingly referring to Fritz as the "Margrave of Brandenburg," which makes me laugh every time I see it. Sorry, dude, you have the ancestors, but Fritz gets it done.

3) Still in Algarotti's early years in the dissertation I'm reading, haven't gotten to the part where he meets Fritz yet. Absolutely fascinating stuff so far, though.

Of possible characterization interest, he's from Padua but hates it there, went to Venice but hated it more, went to Florence and fell in love with it, for two months, then decided the Florentines were "unbearably pretentious" and "pitiful," so he wrote a satire about them. "In it, he depicts them as forever boasting about all the insignificant things they wasted their time learning instead of using their time to learn things that actually matter. Algarotti confided to Francesco Maria Zanotti that he would find Florence insufferable were it not for the presence of so many foreigners."

Then he goes to Rome. "Initially, just as had been the case with Florence, Algarotti was delighted with Rome...After being pressured to eat with two [church]men one day, he reported to Francesco Maria Zanotti that he found the experience so disagreeable that he would even have preferred to dine with ten Florentines, each of whom had ten pieces of news to tell him."

So now he's off to Paris!

And I'm thinking...who does this remind me of? The falling passionately in love with something/someone only to be disillusioned shortly thereafter, the writing off of entire demographics, the satirizing, and of course the specific opinions about Italy.

P.S. If, perchance, you read a Yuletide fic where Algarotti and Fritz meet and immediately hit it off with satires of present-day Italians, you know who wrote that fic. :P

And now we know who turned (or helped turn) Fritz off going to Italy. "Look, sis, I heard it from the horse's mouth! It's terrible there."

4) Algarotti's family: "You NEED to get married. We need the money and alliances."

Algarotti: "Marriage = DEATH."

[Actual quote: "Algarotti was steadfast in his refusal to submit to his family‘s desires, however, telling his brother Bonomo that marriage would be like death for him." He never did get married.]

Maria Theresia Trivia

[selenak]

*okay, transferring my last replies to here, where they're both more readable and more accessible*

You're very welcome. Re: Franzl, I would like to know how the original conversation went, pre- and post invading:

MT: So, you've met him. What can we expect?
FS: He's completely different from his fright of a father, very cultured, loves the arts, maybe a bit sharp-tongued, but he's funny, and he told me he's planning on writing a book on how a king as to rule morally and not wage wars other than defensive ones! Just the pal to have among the German princes!

Silesia: *gets invaded*

MT: ....
FS: Or not? For now, at least.

Sex policing: yeah, that's one one thing even contemporary admirers found hard to stomach, let alone later biographers. Though Fritz actually thought it to be in her favour, since this is what he meant when he said "The Queen despises whores" (whereas most other women are whores for him, not that he didn't also call MT one when it suited him). Mind you, it gets even more complicated than that in the famous young Marie Antoinette versus Dubarry case, which you may have heard about but which has a lesser known post script, so I shall recount it here:

Teenage MA arrives at Versailles, marries young teenage Louis, while his grandfather, Louis XV., is still ruling, with the last of his famous mistresses, the Countess of Dubarry, at his side. MA and young Louis (see earlier entry about Joseph, improvised sex counsellor) don't have sex. Old Louis as per usual does, a lot. So does Madame Dubarry. Who is hated by her lover's adult and unmarried daughters, nicknamed "the aunts". (No, really, centuries pre Margaret Atwood.)

Aunts *scheme*: Surely the daughter of MT will not greet Dad's slut? You could totally impress everyone by showing that whore who she really is, MA!
Easily influenced teen MA: *snobs Dubarry in public by not speaking to her*
Dubarry: I worked for this position. Lover, make the funny little carrot (*that*s what she called her in rl*) say hello to me, will you?
Louis XV: Say hello to my mistress, sweetie, will you?
Aunts: Don't do it! You're a Habsburg and the daughter of the most moral woman of Europe, she's a slut!
MA: Sorry, I can't.
Louis XV *summons Austrian Ambassador*: Tell MT to tell her daughter to say hello to my mistress, or the alliance is off.
MT *writes*: For God's sake, say hello to the mistress. I need that alliance. Your brother has just met Fritz at Neisse and is still starry eyed.
MA: But Mom! She's a slut! Surely you of all the people are not sanctioning talking to sluts!
MT: I would never malign my beloved husband, your late father and thus I won't mention I did talk to his mistress, before and after his death, but I will very cryptically say that sometimes needs must, some monarchs have their weaknesses and are still good people, and also, needs must, and did I mention I need that alliance? Say hello to Dubarry, that's all you need to do for your mother and your mother's empire.
MA: I'm very disappointed in you, Mom, but fine. *gets ready, but at the last moment does not talk to Dubarry and snubs her in public again, because she's 15 and a brat*
Louis XV: Should I write to Fritz instead?
MT: *unleashes her full written wrath on her fifteenth kid*
MA: *caves and says exactly seven words to Dubarry, in public* "There are many people tonight at Versailles."
Louis XV: Dear MT, we're good and staying allies.

Flashforward to three years later: Louis XV dies. Dubarry, as was the custom also when previous French kings died, is sent away during his dying so he can confess and is not in a state of sin. However, these ladies were then pensioned off, whereas...

MA: Dear Mom, am proudly writing my first letter as Queen now. Among many new things I'm doing is this: Making sure that slut Dubarry finally gets what's coming to her! Should have seen her face when she had to leave! No more creature comforts for you, whore!
MT: For God's sake. "I don't wish to hear from you about Dubarry again unless you write words of compassion." (Literal quote.) She's just lost everything, given she's been a mistress she's facing hellfire when she dies unless she repents, so you can show her some kindness now as a good Christian should.
MA: I don't get you, Mom. I really don't get you.

re: Joseph, you already know he was Fritz-style unkind to his second wife. (And admitted later when she was dead that he could at least have been civil, not least since the consequence of his behaviour was that the courtiers took their cue from him and she was utterly isolated.) He also could be high handed, when trying to imitate Fritz in his foreign policy he invited disaster (see previous post; this almost war about the Bavarian Succession is but one example), and his reforms had this problem:

Joseph: Having Latin as the official language in schools bars the peasantry and a lot of the middle class from understanding anything. Therefore, I shall make German the official school language, thus opening the realm of learning to all the people, not just nobles and a few outstanding middle class scholars! The language of the people, for the people! Yay!

Hungarians, Czechs and assorted other East Europeans ruled over by the Habsburgs: What do you mean by "the people", asshole? We didn't save your mother's throne back in the day for you to impose German on us! HABSBURG LINGUISTIC TYRANNY!

Joseph: *gets never crowned in Hungary*

Joseph: One of the great evils of an Ancien Regime court is that ordinary citizens can't speak to their ruler, except for a very few times when Mom wants to make a point. They have to pay a dozen courtiers and civil servants before their petitions even have a chance of advancing, many can't afford that, and all the time, the nobles are getting fat with the bribery money. I shall therefore radically reform the entire system by making myself available directly to the people in halls, floors and on the streets and by contrast ignore any nobles bringing petitions. After all, the nobility is just a tiny percentage of my people, and I need to be there for all the others.

Nobles: Joseph, you asshole! We hate you forever! This is still a monarchy, buddy, and we're financing most of your army. See where you'll be without us.

Leopold *writes letter to friend*: Saw my brother Joe speaking to a dirty peasant while going up the stairs. Ew, ew, ew. I'm pro reform, too, but for sensible ones, that avoid pissing off everyone. For God's sake!

Ordinary people: ...does that mean we've paid Count X and Secretary Y for nothing and the Emperor still hasn't heard our case? This new Emperor is a tyrant!

Joseph: A major problem in this country is the stranglehold the Catholic church has on everything, including our education. I mean, just look at Mom. She was brilliant, don't get me wrong! I argued with her all the time while we were co-ruling, but I still admire the hell out of her, and by the way, Poldl, you snidely writing she was half senile near the end was a) a jerk move, and b) dead wrong, as I'm in the best position to know - look at that stunt she pulled with Catherine and Fritz when I was trying to take over Bavaria. That was in the last year of her life. Also, you weren't there, I was, you were in Tuscany. Anyway, as I was saying: Mom. Imagine what she'd have been like if she hadn't been educated by the most old fashioned Jesuit Granddad could find! So: I'm decreeing that education of the young, nobles and peasants alike, should be put into non-clerical hands. Any priest who does still want to teach needs to go to a non-clerical seminar first and qualify just like a layman would. Also, I want teaching priests swear loyalty to the state. Oh, and any orders who don't make themselves socially useful by running hospitals or caring for the poor get shut down and run out of the country.

Church: Clearly, Joseph is a secret atheist and may be the antichrist. Also, who do you think has been propping up your house all this time, buddy? Do you really think the Habsburgs would still be ruling without us? Preachers, tell everyone what's going on!

People: The Emperor is a godless fiend who wants us to give our children into the hands of the Freemasons who'll teach them evil rituals! I'm not sending my kid into one of those schools! Never!

Leopold: Congratulations, bro. You've now managed to piss off the nobles, the church and the people. Anyone left?

Joseph: Yes, Mr. Mozart, you may write a German language opera. In fact, I've been thinking. More people should write German language operas. As patron of the arts of this realm, I'm renaming the Burgtheater (literal: Castle theatre, used until that point exclusively by the imperial family and the nobility) into Deutsches National Theater, because that was one area Fritz was completely wrong in, and I'm determined to encourage German language culture in all departments, thus making the enjoyment of opera and theatre accessible to ordinary people!

Italian composers: Fuck no!

Re: Maria Theresia Trivia

[cahn]

I actually did not know about Marie Antoinette vs. Dubarry (I knew about both of those figures, but had not heard about both of them together -- my French history of this time is better than most of my abysmal history, but actually lower on the gossipy sensationalism, lol)

MA: *caves and says exactly seven words to Dubarry, in public* "There are many people tonight at Versailles."
Louis XV: Dear MT, we're good and staying allies.

This totally made me laugh out loud and I can't even fully articulate why, I think because it's so anticlimactic and yet, well, solves the problem!

(You know I'm going to ask you about MT and talking to Franz' mistress now, right? :P I mean, you did mention that she gave her a pension as Franz had requested, but that seems easier in some ways than actually talking to her...?)

MT: For God's sake. "I don't wish to hear from you about Dubarry again unless you write words of compassion." (Literal quote.) She's just lost everything, given she's been a mistress she's facing hellfire when she dies unless she repents, so you can show her some kindness now as a good Christian should.
MA: I don't get you, Mom. I really don't get you.

This is sooooo fascinating. Go MT! (although MA has a point! if you're going to sex police everyone then you can't be surprised when your kid learns some things from it!)

I gotta admit all of this (except for his second wife, oh man, mildred is right, all of history is just everyone having PTSD at each other :( ) is making me even more kind of wanting to pat the head of Woobie Rational Fanboy Joseph. He's so clueless, awwwww!

(also yay Zauberflöte, gotta admit that puts me on your side, Joseph)

Re: Maria Theresia Trivia

[mildred_of_midgard]

Ah, man, Joseph. :/ Rough times.

I'd known about the du Barry/MA incident, but not in that much detail, and not with the MT backstory. Fascinating stuff!

Clearly, Heinrich and Franzl need to have a drink somewhere at some point.

AT THE SUMMIT! MT, Joseph, and Fritz are locked in a room together for a secret summit, while Franzl and Heinrich are sitting outside in the antechamber with a bottle of tokay, commiserating.

"You know, if it were up to me..."

"If it were up to me..."

*indistinct shouting on the other side of the wall*

"Here, have another drink."

"No, no. I know it's all my brother's fault. You're the wronged party."

"Oh, no question, but you're the one who has to live with him."

"...Better make it a double."

ETA: Meant to add:

FS: Just the pal to have among the German princes!
FS: Or not? For now, at least.

It's okay, Franzl. A lot of people were fooled. Even Fritz was fooled!

Voltaire in 1741: "Son, I am disappoint."

The Ballad of Isabella and Maria Christina

[selenak]

Re: the only allowing one of her kids to marry for love, whereas she did marry the man of her choice: double standard indeed, though in fairness, the situation was different in that one of the reasons why she knew her Franzl ahead of time and thus had the opportunity to fall in love with him was that he was partially raised at the court in Vienna when not in Lorraince. And the reason for this was that her father was at least tentatively eyeing him as a potential marriage candidate for one of his daughters. (Like Fritz having young Carl Eugen raised in Prussia, then marrying him to Wilhelmine's daughter.) While this had not been done with the intention of making Franz Stefan the Emperor - since MT's Dad kept hoping for a son of his own throughout - he was seen as a possible suitable political alliance for an arch duchess, so her love match also made political sense.

(Well, except for the part that by the time they did marry, her political value as heiress had increased so much that FS was no longer a truly beneficial candidate, but that's another story.)

Ultimately, though, it came down to marriage as a key way to make or maintain alliances, and the famous Habsburg motto: Tu felix Austria nube! MT did not have all those children as a private person, after all, or for her own maternal joy. She had them as part of her duty to her country. (And to prevent the situation she herself had been in, with only two female children - her and her younger sister Maria Anna (aka Marianne), who died when still in her 20s - left to secure the future.) Making an exception for MC was possible because out of the 16, ten were still alive (and marriagle/already married) at that point, but if all had been allowed to marry (or not) according to their own choosing, the entire purpose of their existence would have been abandoned.

There was also the fact Franz Stefan really went through a non-stop humiliation conga in the early years as the guy without political clout of his own (as a ruler in his own right would have had). Starting with the marriage ceremony: because the House of Lorraine was not a royal one (they were dukes, after all), his younger brother, who was present, could only be present as a private citizen and could not be greeted by the other royals present or the papal nuntius. Who wasn't able to say hello to the groom, either. Because he'd had to give up his duchy, he was entirely dependent on the Habsburgs and told by his father in law, in public, that "since the Emperor had given him the honor of marrying his daughter he would have to suffer all at the Emperor's pleasure", his only use was to father sons, and if he couldn't even do that, what was the point of him? (If Joseph had been born before MT's dad died, he would have been able to bypass her as heiress, made the baby his heir and install a regent.) No fellow sovereign who'd been married for politics would have been treated this way. And precisely because MT loved her Franzl, she hated seeing this happen, and might not have regarded marriage (primarily) for love as an example to follow.

Incidentally, Franz Stefan's letter to his son Leopold when the later became Duke of Tuscany is quite revealing in what he learned during that time: With politeness, amiabilitiy and gentleness (politesse, complaisance & douceur) one got further than with a lordly tone (le ton de maitre); inner calm (tranquilleté chez soi) was more important than authority. In matters not of crucial importance, it was okay to concede and let the other win. Especially for marriage, it was important to listen to each other and learn to deal with each other's temper (humeur). A wife should see her husband as a true friend, not as a lord and master. The ideal marriage was: "sincere friendship and complete trust between husband and wife". In general, he adviced his son to put himself into the other party's shoes now and then and always be careful of his own flaws, for nous meme, we ourselves, were the worst enemy we could have.

(This is clearly both why MT loved him and why his contemporaries thought he was a joke, and not like a man should be at all.)

Back to Isabella, but still on the topic of advice per letter: the non-amatory quotes from the letters in the biography I'm reading make it clear she had no problem giving Joseph the impression she loved him. (Till his own death, he always said the time with her had been "the greatest happiness of my life" and that she was the most wonderful person he ever knew, etc.) She also instructs MC on how to behave: MC was supposed to show "the arch duke" as she consistently called him that she admired Isabella for her character, not for her tender qualities. As he hated open flattery, MC should not compliment him directly, just ensure to make a positive comment now and then in a situation where he overheard but could believe she didn't know she was there. That way, smooth sibling relations and MC's constant presence at her side would be ensured, etc. It's quite manipulative, but it has to be said it was survival stragegy, for Isabella couldn't have known she'd die early. In the normal run of things, she'd have remained married to Joseph for decades, and he'd have had complete authority over her life. If he'd behaved towards her as FW did to Sophia Dorothea, for example, or as her own father had behaved towards her mother, then once his mother was dead there would have been no one to stop him. So it's understandable she didn't trust him, or anyone else (other than MC?)and instead prefered using strategy and manipulation.

(She did with MT, too, because of course she knew that as long as MT lived, her word was ultimate law in Vienna, and thus winning and keeping her favour was quintessential. Writes Isabella to MC about MT: "The Empress has an excellent, tender and compassionate heart" but "she distrusts her own insight, she forgets that few people are sincere and true friends are a rareity. That is where the mistakes she makes hail from; that is the root of the indecision she occasionally shows; and thus she at times asks those for council who are more impertinent than others in offering their falseness." Therefore, MC was supposed to outmaneuvre everyone else and take advantage of the fact that one of MT's primary virtues was loyalty, that if you'd once won her friendship, she remained your friend for life. Of course it was difficult to "be the friend of a great princess, a monarch and your own mother" since the unequality of rank and the respect for a parent were in the way, but that with "discretion, steadfastness and a lack of sensitivity towards attacks by others scheming to be close to MT", it could be done.

It comes across as cold-blooded, but like I said: in an ancien regime court, this was survival technique.

Addendum on Joseph and Isabella's daughter

[selenak]

...who was called MT after his mother. 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.

Whom to ship Joseph with...

[selenak]

...which you must have been wondering. Not with his wives, obviously, and Fritz might have gone for it one time if only to annoy MT, but generally he didn't trust him, and one wants true affection for one's ship. Possible candidates: the circle of five, allow me to copypaste:

"In late eighteenth-century Vienna there existed a remarkable coterie of five aristocratic women, known to history as “the five princesses” (die fünf Fürstinnen), who achieved social preeminence and acclaim as close associates of the Habsburg “reform emperor” Joseph II: Princess Maria Josepha Clary (1728–1801); Princess Maria Sidonia Kinsky (1729–1815); Princess Marie Leopoldine Liechtenstein (1733–1809); Countess—subsequently Princess—Marie Leopoldine Kaunitz (1741–1795); and Princess Marie Eleonore Liechtenstein (1745–1812). (...)
In a remarkable letter written in summer 1775, Grand Duke Leopold scolded his older brother Emperor Joseph about the unsuitable company Joseph kept. Leopold’s critique was direct and vivid: “that persons among the groups you visit informally dare to meddle by talking to you about political matters and accordingly if they are women to make wrongheaded objections … and even dare to scold you … or make impertinent remarks, and that you can allow this, tolerate it, and visit them again seems to me one of the most astonishing things in the world.”

(He may have abolished the death penalty in his dukedom before Joseph did but we don't like Poldl, no we don't, precious. When Mozart wrote La Clemenza di Tito for his coronation, Leopold's wife called it "una porcheria tedesca", a German swinishness.

Joseph, for his part, referred to the "charmed circle" as "“five ladies joined together in society who tolerated me" and when he was on his deathbed in 1790, he wrote this to the five:

Mesdames, it is time, my end approaches, to acknowledge to you once more here through these lines my appreciation and gratitude for the kindness, patience, friendship, and even flattering concern that you have been good enough to show me and to bestow on me during the many years we have been together in society. I miss each of those days, not once were there too many for me, and never to see you again is the only meritorious sacrifice I make in leaving this world, be so good as to remember me in your prayers, I cannot be sufficiently grateful for the grace and infinite mercy of providence to me, in complete accord therewith I await my hour, farewell then, you will be unable to read this scribbling, the handwriting attests to my condition.

For a m/m ship, there's Angelo Soliman, one of the earliest black citizens of Vienna, who was befriended by Joseph and often played chess with him. (His post mortem fate is infuriating. Franz II - son of Leopold - had him mummified and put on display in a museum where Angelo's own daughter had to see him.) Angelo also knew Mozart and may or may not have been the model for Bassa Selim in Die Entführung aus dem Serail.

Addendum: What happened to Maria Christina

[selenak]

The man of her choice turned out to be Prince Albert (no, really), who was a sixth son (and the thirteenth child all in all), and thus really a penniless prince (grandkid of August the Strong). (Fritz having invaded Saxony by now, that descent wasn't worth much anyway.) They had one child, a daughter, who died the day of her birth, and the birth was so difficult that MC could not get pregnant again. Otherwise, though, she was happy in her marriage. (She later persuaded brother Leopold to give her one of his sons for adoption so she and Albert would have an heir.) After MT's brother-in-law had died, she wanted MC and Albert to govern the Austrian Netherlands after him. (The Austrian Netherlands were roughly the territory of Belgium and Luxemburg.) Then she died, and trouble started.

Joseph honored the appointment, but he also insisted they'd reform the Austrian Netherlands according to his new program. And cut down their budget.

MC: I can't believe you're cutting down my budget! How are we're supposed to represent the Empire this way?!?
Joseph: The way I do. Your husband can wear uniforms. You can wear a dress more than once.
MC: You're mean and jealous. Because Mom liked me better. Yep. That's whom you're jealous of.
Joseph: I've spent seven weeks in the Austrian Netherlands, and they really need reforming. Here's a detailed list of what you and Albert are supposed to do and the laws you're supposed to sign. Do not dare to do anything else. Micromanagement is the way to go, says Fritz!
Albert: So we're just there to be pretty faces in old fashioned clothes? That sucks! MC, we're off to visit your sister in Paris.
MC: Ah, the city of light. Party time!
Marie Antoinette: If you must, but not in my favourite place. You get a public reception in Versailles, and that's that.
MC: But when Joseph visited, you were all over him! For weeks! And weeks!
MA: He helped me and Louis with an urgent problem. Also, we like each other, even if he's a lecturing know-it-all. Whereas I still can't stand you. Bye.
MC: Jealous siblings are the curse of my existence. Is it my fault Mom liked me best?
Albert: Better go to Vienna and make nice with Joseph.
Joseph: I thought I told you two to govern the Netherlands for me.
MC: We can't! You don't let us decide anything! And everyone hates your reforms!
Joseph: You're going back to the Netherlands. Reform already!
Netherlands: have a minor uprising.
MC: This is all bloody Joseph's fault!
Revolution in France: Ensues.
Netherlands: Have a major uprising as a follow up, resulting in the first Republic of Belgium.
MC: No way am I going to let myself captured by the peasants like silly MA. Come on, Albert, we're off to Bonn in exile until Joe sends us troops, more money and finally admits his reforms are rubbish!

Joseph: *dies*
MC: Well, I'm not exactly broken. Poldl, do we have a deal? Troops? Decision leaveway? Heir?
Leopold: *sends troops who take Netherlands/Belgium back* Okay, you two are governors again. But the actual governing shall be done by this new kid I've just discovered. He's got talent. Step forward, Metternich.
Albert: I can't believe your family. I'm so writing a trashy tell-all after you're all dead.
Leopold: *dies*
Franz II: You two can stay as my representatives, except...
French Revolutionary Army: *arrives*
Napoleon: What can I say. It's a new era.

MC: I liked the time when Isabella told me I was the most wonderful person alive much better. Albert, we're off to Vienna. My nephew has to cough up a pension.
Albert: Still writing that tell-all though.
MC: *dies in Vienna*
Albert: *comissions a tomb by Canova titled "Uxori Optimae Albertus" (to the best wife, Albert), collects graphics, gets the Albertinum in Vienna named after him*

Re: The Ballad of Isabella and Maria Christina

[cahn]

...I mean, it may have been cold-blooded, but given the situation they were all in (forced marriage, annulment/divorce not really easy and the resulting position probably being far worse) it does seem like the best thing for everyone, really. Of course I'm coming from the position of having just read Sophia Dorothea and FW basically clawing each other's eyes out (FW, of course, managing to do a lot more damage from a position of power) and that just doesn't sound fun for anyone, whereas in this case it seems like everyone got to be more-or-less content.

Isabella actually sounds really fascinating -- I feel like a lot of what she's saying here is, while perhaps manipulative, actually true (e.g., what she says about MT) and the best way to familial and marital harmony under these circumstances -- I feel like it comes across as manipulative in large part because she actually thought about it and analyzed it for MC rather than just doing it. (Or maybe this is just me being spectrum-y again :P )

And if you'd told me about all this a month earlier I would have been inclined to spinoff Maria Theresian RPF and nominate her :P (Probably good that you didn't, you and mildred would probably have killed me)

ETA: And wait, I forgot to ask all my questions!

(Well, except for the part that by the time they did marry, her political value as heiress had increased so much that FS was no longer a truly beneficial candidate, but that's another story.)

WELL? :D

Incidentally, Franz Stefan's letter to his son Leopold when the later became Duke of Tuscany is quite revealing in what he learned during that time:

By the way, Franz Stefan is AWESOME. My question: so how was Leopold's marital life?

Word count

[mildred_of_midgard]

Since I'm keeping a running word count and all, I thought I'd update with the latest stats, now that we've switched to a new post. They're a little overinflated, including things like us quoting each other and the occasional html tag, but should be in the right ballpark.

mildred_of_midgard: 56,122
selenak: 46,940
cahn: 13,225
Total: 116,287

cahn continues the all-important jobs of 1) hosting, 2) encouraging us. *hugs*

Btw, I've been meaning to ask, can I get you to tag all the posts that ended up with 100+ Fritz comments, even if they started out being about opera? It makes it easier to figure out if I've already said something, or link to a comment where someone said something. Thanks!

Re: Word count

[cahn]

\o/ This is SO FUN, thank you both!!

Yes, thanks for reminding me! I had started to tag last night and... got halfway through, oops. Done now!

I also put an index with links on the previous page and I'll try to keep that one updated. (I also finally added links to the letters that you and selenak gave me :D )

[iberiandoctor]

Hee, I definitely also go here and am watching this space :)

[cahn]

:D Isn't it great :D

On a lighter note

[selenak]

Since I feel guilty about all the tragedy I'e recounted recently, some fun stuff: saw an interview with one of the more recent Fritz biographers, the one who said that he didn't go into "was Fritz gay, and how gay was he?" because that was for gossipy sensationalists and his book was a serious Fritz analysis. Well, in this interview he's asked again and basically just verbally shrugs. (He does say "well, his brother Heinrich definitely was, and his brother August Wilhelm was bi" - the later was new to me.) But in the comments, a mighty "no homo!" Fritz "defender" roars who not only insists that Fritz wasn't, but also that Heinrich wasn't, either, and what do you mean, bi about AW?, and it was all an Austrian slander cooked up by the Habsburgs and spread through their agent Voltaire. I pause in admiration. As centuries old conspiracy theories go, this is a new one, at least to me. I mean: how MT would have hired Voltaire to spread gossip about Fritz' sex life (as opposed to Voltaire doing it out of spite), I don't know, but I'm sure Voltaire would have taken the money if he was annoyed and broke enough at the time, principles be damned. It's just that given MT's general opinion on French freethinking philosphers suspected of denying god, he'd probably run once he saw an Austrian agent.

(Also, what could I possibly say about the King of Prussia that would make his reputation wnorse than what he says himself? my inner MT insists.)

Also fun: found an essay by Katharina Mommsen speculating why on earth Old Fritz in his last years bothered to fire off his anti-German Literature tirade; and he didn't do so casually, he wrote it for publication, had it translated into German in manuscript, so it was published simultanously in French and German. It was important for him that it appeared.

Now, as I think I mentioned before, we know from Fritz' last reader, Henri de Catt's successor, that he got the idea after his sisters Amelie and Charlotte showed up and evidently must have said something complimentary. What I hadn't so far bothered to check when looking at the date as that this wasn't before but after Goethe had already moved to the court of Charlotte's daughter Anna Amalia and become bff with Fritz' great nephew Carl August. What I also hadn't known was that for all that he'd been a Fritz fan as a boy, Goethe tongue-in-cheek did a version of Aristophanes' "The Birds" for the Weimar court in which the eagle (the emblem of Prussia) is mildly spoofed and made fun off. Also, apparantly Fritz had been complimentary about teen Carl August and had hoped his great nephew would take to the military life. This, otoh, was really not was Anna Amalia wanted.

So this ensued.

Anna Amalia: I'm hearing rumblings about some war about the Bavarian succession. Carl August already says he wants to go and is starry eyed about serving with Uncle Fritz. Now I'm honoring my Hohenzollern blood, but really, no. However, I'm not so naive to assume he'd listen if I told him to be careful and stay at home. Mr. Goethe, you've gotten over Fritz fanboying, have you? Advise me, how do we stop Carl August from joining the Prussian army without me coming across as a nagging Mom or you as a fun killer?

JWG: Here's my cunning plan: I'm off with your son to Berlin, where the Great King is not, but your uncle Heinrich is. Now maybe I've been listening to the wrong gossip, but methinks your uncle Heinrich has something to say about what serving with his brother is like, and considering he's renowned as a hero himself...

Anna Amalia: I knew there was a reason why I didn't make a fuss about you and Carl August hanging out all the time.

Heinrich: Has a lot to say.

Goethe: *is not two faced at all as he uses his one and only trip to Berlin to also visit Sanssouci like a tourist*

Carl August: Dear Uncle Fritz, I've reconsidered. Am not joining the army after all. My duchy needs me. Also, I've got a court of the muses to attend to with a Voltaire of my own, by which I mean my bff JWG, the author of Werther and "Götz von Berlichingen". He's just the coolest!

Fritz: *has just gotten MT's offer via Catherine and knows there won't be any actual battles in this war, but is still pissed off as he returns*

Anna Amalia: *writes* Dear Mom, maybe you should check on Uncle Fritz, I don't know, could be he's annoyed with us? Weimar is way too close to Prussia for me not to feel uncomfortable about that. I don't know, maybe take Aunt Amalie with you and distract him with some literature talk?

Charlotte: Eh, why not.

Fritz: *going back to bookwriting about how the German language is awful, German literature is horrible and the one young German writer he mentions by name has written this horrid play Götz which just shows his utter lack of talent ensues*

German writers, 99% of whom have been Fritz fanboys after the 7-years-war: *facepalm*

Wieland: Good lord, what's gotten into the old man? I mean, we already knew he hasn't updated his literary taste since he was 16, but doesn't he have something better to do? What on earth brought this on?

Goethe: I couldn't possibly say.

Re: On a lighter note

[mildred_of_midgard]

The hilarity, it never stops. Didn't he trash talk Shakespeare (since you mentioned Shakespeare in another comment) in that same pamphlet, or at least around the same time? IIRC, "Shakespeare at least had the excuse that culture hadn't been invented in England yet, but now we have Germans imitating Shakespeare when they could be imitating my favorite 17th century French dramatists, and that's just inexcusable. Discuss! [It had been five minutes since I last said or did something controversial, I was having withdrawal symptoms and produced this pamphlet. Sorry not sorry.]"

we know from Fritz' last reader, Henri de Catt's successor

Just out of curiosity, do any of your sources provide a name? Mine just say "reader," and 'I've been wondering for a while.

[nineveh_uk]

I admit that I know basically two things about Frederick the Great of Prussia. (1) he was involved in a legal kerfuffle with a mill (but this might be urban legend), and (2) he tried to run away with his officer boyfriend, who was executed as a result.

Which is to say, since there is clearly a lot of glorious historical batshit here I would enjoy, do you recommend a particular book to start (in English)?

[selenak]

Alas, I have to pass this on to mildred_of_midgard, because being German,the Frederick biographies I'm familiar with are as well. In the meantime, why not check out Mein Name ist Bach, a movie based on the historical encounter(s) between Frederick and, well, Bach? That one has English subtitles, is focused on a brief point in time (so you don't have to know context beyond the one the movie provides), and it does give you a first impression of Frederick's personality. (Though, as Mildred said, the jerk woobie part, not the magnificent bastard part, but that's due to circumstance. (The magnificent bastard part comes out when he's facing off with most of Europe, not with musicians, some of which depend on him for a living.)

Fritz Does His Bit For European Unity (And So Does Voltaire)

[selenak]

Guys, I‘m at another conference and thus it will take me a while longer to reply to all the replies I got from your gracious selves, but I just had to share this gem:

Discussion theme: what can writers do to further the European spirit?

Hans Pleschinski, author: „Well, I was the first to translate all the Fritz/Voltaire letters into German and publish the complete correspondance of these brilliant Europeans in 1991, and I have to say, when I got to present them in front of the European Parliament, with me reading Fritz and a Wallonian reading Voltaire, it was a highlight of my life and the most European event imaginable.“

Re: Fritz Does His Bit For European Unity (And So Does Voltaire)

[cahn]

heeee this is awesome! :D

I found a Voltaire sampler that has a few of the Voltaire->Fritz letters and all of them seem quite complimentary. I assume that the collater chose those intentionally -- I was waiting for the snarky letters and they never came! (The sampler also has some other writing by Voltaire where he goes off on Fritz, so there's that, but still.)

Fritz: Worst condolence letter writer ever?

[selenak]

...Good grief, I've just come across his letter to Heinrich about AW dying for the first time. Mildred, you've probably read it before, but I hadn't. Cahn, bear in mind that Fritz had blamed AW for a lost battle in the 7-years-war and publically humiliated him ("you're suited for commanding a seraglio but not my army!" was one of the nicer things), and AW had lived just long enough thereafter to write a resentful "here's what really happened!" private memo, then die. (Of brain tumor, but contemporaries saw it as him dying of a broken heart.) Bear also in mind AW and Heinrich had been close. So, this is Fritz, writing to Heinrich, mid 7 years war (before Wilhelmine's death, in case you're wondering):

„I received the sad and painful news of my brother's death from Berlin. I am all the more crushed as I have always loved him tenderly, and I have always blamed all the trouble he has caused me on his weakness for bad advisors and his choleric temper which he could not always curb."

(The "bad advisors" were some of his best generals and Heinrich himself.)

Due to the kindness of his heart and all his good qualities, I suffered a lot of his conduct with patience, even as it was most irregular and meant he was failing in his duties towards me.

(Meaning: AW, who had joined the club of unhappy Hohenzollern marriages, had asked Fritz for permission to divorce his wife and marry his long term mistress. Fritz was livid.)

I know how tenderly you have loved him. I hope that after you have given free reign to love and human nature in your first hurt, you will make every effort a strong soul is capable of to of course not forget a brother whose image shall always live in your and my heart, but to limit the overabundance of a grief which could damage you. Please remember that in little more than a year, I have lost a mother I adored and a brother whom I have always had tender affection for. Please don't add to my current difficult situation another wound which your grief might inspire in you."

How Heinrich didn't desert to Austria on the spot, I don't kow. (The letter is quoted in this article about AW.) As it is, the famous "Fuck you, Fritz!" obelisk in Rheinsberg with AW's image on it is more understandable than ever.

Re: Fritz: Worst condolence letter writer ever?

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yes. Yes, I have read it. I have paraphrased it here. I have linked to fanart someone else made about it on tumblr. It's that bad. It's part of why I was ranting about Fritz's "condolence" letters, and it's why I said I would actually be okay with it if EC did decide to use a red seal instead of black to announce Fritz's mother's death to him. Because retaliation mostly just makes things worse in life, but in the absence of an actual solution to the problem, sometimes you just have to keep your own self-respect. And using the red seal would have been a minor and forgivable act of retaliation.

The only thing I can say about Fritz's letter is that he may genuinely have meant the Stoic aspects of it to be comforting/good advice, and he seems to be telling Henry "If you were to, I don't know, die of grief like he did or otherwise become incapacitated, I would be upset because I care about you," but none of that excuses the "Me me me all about ME" "But what about MY feelings??" "Oh and don't forget there's a war on, bro" themes to this letter.

Also, I may have mentioned that this letter is practically paraphrased in Catt's memoirs, where Fritz also goes on about how much he loved AW and it was all the fault of those bad advisors coming between them (he does at least admit that he himself has a choleric temper he can't always control, BUT STILL), and basically how, lip service to his own faults aside, everything is everyone's fault except his. Scapegoating is honestly one of Fritz's least attractive qualities.

Obelisk: oh, yeah. This letter had a lot to do with that.

How Heinrich didn't desert to Austria on the spot, I don't kow.

I'm telling you, HE NEEDS THAT HOT PAGE.

MT marriage AU

[mildred_of_midgard]

Haha, oh, lol, Carlyle, you never fail to provide entertaining gems even while being infuriatingly unreadable.

So, you know Muller, the pastor at Küstrin? His son got interviewed fifty years later. Carlyle quotes the son:

"'My Father used to say, he found an excellent knowledge and conviction of the truths of religion in the Crown-Prince. [Insert evidence of how devout Fritz was at that point in his life.] Whoever considers this fine knowledge of religion, and reflects on the peculiar character and genius of the young Herr, which was ever struggling towards light and clearness (for at that time he had not become indifferent to religion, he often prayed with my Father on his knees),— will find that it was morally impossible this young Prince could have thought [as some foolish persons have asserted] of throwing himself into the arms of Papal Superstition [seeking help at Vienna, marrying an Austrian Archduchess, and I know not what] or allow the intrigues of Catholic Priests to'— Oh no, Herr Muller, nobody but very foolish persons could imagine such a thing of this young Herr."

So apparently, the marriage project was well enough known that half a century later, some guy who wasn't even there was still trying to convince people Fritz WOULD NEVER.

Me: *is pretty sure Fritz would*

Also: is Carlyle being sarcastic in that last sentence or not? I can't tell without reading him more extensively, and I don't want to read him more extensively. I only cherry-pick from the Fritz bio because it has a gazillion volumes' worth of data.

Re: MT marriage AU

[selenak]

I can't tell, either; as a late 19th century cranky Scot, he's both likely to have thought "as if Fritz, hero and defender of Protestants everywhere in Europe, would!" and "of course Fritz, masterful tactician and faker if needs must, would, you naive Son Of Muller!"

But yeah, I'm with you: he would have if he could have. Meanwhile, here's how I imagine things went down in Potsdam:

Grumpkow: Your Majesty, the crown prince is now very devout, praying with Pastor Muller.

FW: Good.

G: He's sworn off the English marriage project.

FW: He'd better.

G:...and wants to marry an Austrian arch duchess, convert to Catholicism and move to Vienna.

FW: WTF?!!!!!

G: Just a suggestion, maybe allow him to play the flute again? Just as an alternative to Catholicism, of course.

Meanwhile, in a dispatch to Vienna:

Seckendorff to Prince Eugene: Things are still bonkers here, crown prince just proposed to arch duchess, plz ignore!

Eugene to Seckendorff: WTF????

The meeting that did happen

[selenak]

cahn, Mildred mentioned this about two posts ago, but I just saw tumblr has Massie's description of the one and only meeting between not-yet-Catherine and Fritz when she was a teenager.

When at last Sophia appeared before him, Frederick saw a girl neither plain nor beautiful, wearing a gown that did not fit, adorned with no jewellery, her hair unpowdered. Sophia’s shyness turned to surprise when she learned that she - but neither her mother nor her father - was to sit at the king’s table. Surprise turned to astonishment when she found herself actually sitting next to the monarch himself. Frederick made an effort to put the nervous girl at ease. He spoke to her, she wrote later, about ‘opera, plays, poetry, dancing and I don’t know what, but anyway, a thousand things that one usually does not talk about to entertain a girl of fourteen.’ Gradually gaining confidence, Sophia managed to answer intelligently and, she proudly said later, ‘the entire company stared in amazement to see the king engaged in conversation with a child.’ Frederick was pleased with her; when he asked her to pass a dish of jam to another guest, he smiled and said to this person ‘Accept this gift from the hand of the Loves and Graces.’ For Sophia, the evening was a triumph. And Frederick was not indulging his young dinner partner; to Empress Elizabeth he wrote, 'The little princess of Zerbst combines the gaiety and spontaneity natural to her age with intelligence and wit surprising in one so young.’ Sophia was then only a political pawn, but one day, he knew, she might play a greater role. She was fourteen and he was thirty-two, and this was the first and only meeting of these two remarkable monarchs. Both would eventually be accorded the title 'the Great.’ And between them, for decades, they would dominate the history of central and eastern Europe.

What I'm always thinking when remembering that encounter:

1.) That British tv show about Catherine which has Fritz pushing the Anhalt-Zerbst marriage for Elizabeth's nephew because he wants two pro-Prussian Germans on the Russian throne is probably right, and that's also the reason why he bothered to charm teenage Sophie/Catherine, but

2.) It's still proof that Fritz could be nice to awkward teens under a lot of social pressure.

Now, how much irritated must her future husband the ultimate Fritz fanboy have been that she was the one who actually met his hero?

Re: The meeting that did happen

[cahn]

Ha, I am glad you re-posted this because I had forgotten! (I don't think I had situated Catherine properly at that point.)

It's also nice to have a story once in a while that Fritz could actually be not a jerk when he decided not to be? especially after just looking at that condolence letter to Heinrich again

Wilhelmine's memoirs

[mildred_of_midgard]

Today I learned.

There are at least two editions of Wilhemine's memoirs floating around the internet (well, I'd already found different translations, but that's a different story). One that includes the Dresden interlude in full, and one that bowdlerizes it so effectively that Orzelska isn't once mentioned. The one I linked you to here is the full version. The archive.org version you linked to in your "Frederick the Great post links" post is the bowdlerized version.

I discovered this by accident, since I've been reading her memoirs, and am about halfway through the first volume, and it's 1730, and it occurred to me that I didn't even remember the Dresden interlude, much less any mention of Orzelska. When I went back to reread it, it was obvious why. Here it is in its entirety:

"The reception given to the King of Prussia was worthy of the two monarchs. As the Prussian monarch was not fond of ceremonies, everything was regulated according to his inclinations. He had requested to be lodged at the house of Count Wakerbart, for whom he entertained a high esteem. The mansion of this general was superb; the king found an apartment truly royal: unfortunately, it was consumed by fire the second day after his arrival. The conflagration was so sudden and violent, that it was not without extreme difficulty that the king was saved. The beautiful mansion was reduced to ashes. The loss would have been very considerable to Count Wakerbart, had not the Polish monarch presented him with the Pirna palace, which still excelled in sumptuousness.

"The court of Dresden was then the most brilliant in Germany: its magnificence was carried to excess. The King of Prussia was not long there before he forgot his devotion; the debauches of the table and the wines of Hungary soon revived his good-humor. The obliging manners of the Polish monarch made him contract an intimate friendship with that prince.

"My father, in the mean time, did not forget the object of his journey. He entered into a secret treaty with King Augustus, the conditions of which were nearly these: the King of Prussia engaged to furnish a certain number of troops to the King of Poland to force the Poles to render the crown hereditary in the electoral house of Saxony. He promised to marry me to the Polish monarch, to lend him four millions of dollars, and to give me a considerable portion. The King of Poland, on his part, was to assign Lusatia to him. as a mortgage for the four millions. A dowry of two hundred thousand dollars was to be settled for me upon that province, and after the king's death I should be permitted to reside where I might choose. I was to have the free exercise of my religion at Dresden, where a chapel was to be built for me. Lastly, all these articles were to be signed and confirmed by the electoral Prince of Saxony. As my father had invited the King of Poland to Berlin to be present at the review of his troops, the signature of the treaty was delayed to that time. The Polish monarch had solicited this delay, to prepare the mind of his son, and to persuade him to consent to what was required of him.

"The king my father left Dresden highly satisfied with his journey, as likewise was my brother. They were both equally zealous in launching out before us in praise of the King of Poland and his court."

I bet they were! All those debauches of the table and Hungarian wine, you know.

Wooow. Now I wonder what else was cut.

Re: Wilhelmine's memoirs

[selenak]

ZOMG who was the (presumably) Victorian prig who committed these acts of vile censorship to protect English readers from Wilhelmine‘s Rokoko frankness?!?

(I know that when her memoirs were finally published, there was a shortened German edition and a complete French edition, but my great aunt had the shortened German edition and even that one has the Dresden interlude with naked lady (and FW after some oggling recalling his teenage son and dragging him out of the room), Orzelska and Fritz getting deflowered, so I feel safe in blaming British censorship instead of assuming they were simply translating the first German edition.)

Fritz's death

[mildred_of_midgard]

Since selenak gave you synopses of the deaths of Franz and MT, I thought I'd do Fritz's. As always, I continue to be obsessed with chronology. I promise there are fewer dates than the Algarotti synopsis. ;)

In the middle of 1785, Fritz's health took a sharp turn for the worse. He hadn't been able to play the flute since 1779, which was also the year of his last war, but he'd been pretty well hanging in there. After that point, it started to become increasingly clear that he was dying, and he gradually got worse and worse. Around the beginning of 1786, Heinrich started checking his mail every day for the announcement that Fritz was dead already and he could get to work on making that obelisk happen.

Fritz was no longer able to breathe while lying down, due to his worsening asthma, so he slept sitting up in his chair that last year. He occasionally able to ride his favorite horse around Sanssouci for short periods during the summer of 1786, but was mostly confined to his chair...working, working, working.

Naturally, he didn't stop being autocratic for one minute, and he continued being a workaholic whenever possible, which was most of the time. Despite periodic acute bouts of illness where it wasn't possible, he said he intended to die at his desk, and he very nearly did.

He was in enough pain his last year that celebrity seekers and other visitors kept remarking how impressed they were at the stoic (or Stoic) way he endured his suffering. First he stopped being able to read for pleasure on his own and had to be read to, and then in the last month he stopped being able to listen to his reader due to the pain...but he kept working. In those last few days, it was taking all his willpower to fight through the pain when reviewing and annotating reports, and his subordinates recorded that his concentration was impaired by the effort and he was having to rush through...but he kept working.

He worked all the way through August 15, keeping one of his ridiculously brutal workday schedules. Then he slept until midday on August 16--an almost unprecedented event from the man who woke up at 3 am every day on campaign and 4 in peacetime, and slept till 5 am in winter.

He spent that last day, August 16, fading in and out of consciousness. In the afternoon, he summoned an officer to give orders to, but then couldn't manage to speak. He finally gave up after three tries, with a wry look like "What can you do?"

At that point, the palliative care began.

As noted, he was having such trouble breathing that he had to sleep sitting up, but he kept slumping over in his sleep, which would compress his airways and wake him up gasping and coughing. Many nights he didn't sleep at all, or barely slept. In one of his letters late in life, Fritz joked to someone that if they were looking for a night watchman, he would like to apply for the job, seeing as he was an old hand at staying awake all night. So on the night of the 16th, his valet knelt beside his chair for hours and physically held Fritz upright so he could breathe as easily as possible and get some sleep.

The last order Fritz is known to have given was to cover up his dog, who was shivering. Italian greyhounds have very short coats and little body fat, so they're very susceptible to the cold. At 11 pm, he asked what time it was. Then he announced that he intended to get up at 4 am, as per usual.

Sometime between 11 pm and 2 am, a coughing fit brought up some phlegm that relieved his breathing somewhat. He said, "The mountain is passed; now we will go easier." Those were reported to be his last words: "La montagne est passée, nous irons mieux."

At 2:19 or 2:20 am on August 17, 1786, he died sitting up in his chair in his bedroom-cum-study at Sanssouci, in his valet's arms, his dog Superbe sleeping by his feet.

The room has since been renovated from his rococo into the Neoclassical style he hated (oh, Fritz); the chair is still there; and legend has it that the clock that was present at his death, and is still there, stopped at 2:20 when he drew his last breath and hasn't been wound since. Personally, I'm pretty sure if that's true, a human was involved, but hey, it makes a good story.

Re: Fritz's death

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, and I forgot to mention there's a death mask, so we can get a rough sense of what he looked like (in 1786, with no teeth, and probably having lost some weight). He didn't actually sit for his portraits after he became king (man after my own heart), so they represent best attempts from people working from memory and may be less accurate than most such portraits? On the other hand, the older he got, the less they were probably trying to flatter him, so who knows? "Grumpy old king who won't even sit for the portrait can take what he gets." :P

The Very Secret Chat Transcript of Three Rokoko Fanboys

[selenak]

In the spirit of crack, and conflating dates a bit: if there’d been WhatsApp in the 18th century, you just know that the following „Fritz4eva!!!“ Chatgroup would have been a thing during the 7 Years War:

Group moderator: FrankfurtHans (on account of being more diplomatic than the other two)

Number1Fan: *changes his name to MoscowPete at the other two‘s insistence*

ViennaJoe: OMG you guys, I can’t tell you how glad I am to have found you. Can’t talk Fritz to anyone at my place. They just don’t get him.

MoscowPete: Same here! My aunt rants about him all the time. And there’s this girl I’m stuck with who ACTUALLY MET HIM, can you believe that, and didn’t even get me his autograph, because that’s the kind of cow she is. Hey, are you two up for cosplay? I’m Fritz, of course.

FrankfurtHans: Maybe leave the cosplay until later. How do you guys feel about writing Fritz a letter of support? I mean, we all know he’s gonna win in the end, but he’s got to feel depressed now and then. He should know we’re rooting for him!

ViennaJoe: Um. Can I sign with an alias?

MoscowPete: Chicken. And you call yourself a Fritz fan! You’re not worthy!

ViennaJoe: Listen, jerk, some of us have family in the opposing armies. Just because I think Fritz is cool doesn’t mean I want them dead!

*Private Message from MoscowPete to FrankfurtHans* Do you think ViennaJoe could be a spy? We should kick him out!

*Private Message from ViennaJoe to FrankfurtHans* MoscowPete is faking it, I can tell. No one is that much over the top with the fandom. I’m thinking spy, personally. We should kick him out.

FrankfurtHans (*in the chat*): Okay, everyone, chill. I’ll write a draft for the support letter and you can still get input and sign, or not, however you want. Fandom should be fun, right? And speaking of writing: I’ve got this rl bud who asked me to beta his Fritz/Katte RPF. I’m thinking historical AU, just to be on the safe side and get it staged, so: Peter the Great or Philip of Spain for the Soldier King?

MoscowPete: How is this suddenly a writing community? What are you, girls? Fandom is action! If you want to get historical, at least talk about some cool stuff like whether Fritz could beat Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan! Or both at the same time!

ViennaJoe: Fritz could totally beat Alexander, man. Alexander was all flashy battles and no long term planning or stamina. Not sure about Genghis Khan, though.

FrankfurtHans: Okay, first draft of the support letter coming through. Have a look. Also, Alexander so had long term game, he just drank too much.

MoscowPete: Fritz could still beat him, though. Hang on, reading your letter now. WTF? It’s in German!

ViennaJoe: For reals?

FrankfurtHans: Duh. We’re all Germans, aren’t we? Including Fritz.

*Private Message from MoscowPete to ViennaJoe* Do you think FrankfurtHans could be a spy? I mean, everyone knows Fritz hates German! We should totally kick him out.

Re: The Very Secret Chat Transcript of Three Rokoko Fanboys

[mildred_of_midgard]

HAHAHHAAAAA, OMG, this is the best! I would totally eat this up if you wanted to post more. :DDD

One question, though: Moscow, really? Did Peter live there?

whether Fritz could beat Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan! Or both at the same time!

LOOL, MoscowPete would totally say that!

Alexander so had long term game, he just drank too much.

Stepping out of crackfic for a moment, IMO, Alexander had medium-term game, but his long-term game was weak. I'm not saying he didn't have long-term plans, they just don't strike me as the most feasible.

Anyway, I'm just laughing so much at the whole thing. Everything is hilarious. I could quote everything. Omg, all the spy accusations. Poor FrankfurtHans. Moderating the rational fanboy and the irrational fanboy in a room together is a thankless task.

moar plz

Katte

[mildred_of_midgard]

*moment of silence for Katte on Nov 6*

Re: Katte

[selenak]

You were loyal, brave, loving and true, Hans Herrmann von Katte. May your immortality as a romantic hero long continue.

Also

A vid showing Küstrin today, or what's left of it (it was a casualty of WWII)

Katte family history through the centuries: there were a few more notables, the current head is a woman, Dr. Maria von Katte, who has Lessing's old job as chief librarian of Wolffenbüttel.