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Yuletide tags are out: Frederician version
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)
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)
Re: Fritz's death
Re: Fritz's death
That detail kills me. Incidentally, do we know who took care of the dogs afterwards, or even if someone did?
Also, those painful, lonely deaths for days and days are hard to read about. BTw, people aren't sure what exactly kicked off MT's dying process, either - long term after effect of small pox, pneunomia from an autumn cold, something else - which reminds me of Elizabeth I. and her insistence on not lying down in bed but remain standing as well. (I think it took her three days and nights to die, as well.) It's not exactly suicidal in all those cases, but I do suspect these people with their considerable will power subconsciously were sick of living and did want to die.
(On a cheerier note, see below for some distraction.)
Re: Fritz's death
I was hoping you knew! It's something I often wonder about. (Okay, I make up fanfic in my head about August 16-17, because I have elaborate fanfics about the deaths of *all* my favorite characters, call me crazy.) I have read in multiple places that the dogs had their own dedicated servant (who had to Sie/vous them, of course), so I'd like to think said servant continued to get paid and to take care of the dogs? I know there's a Superbe buried next to Fritz, but he also reused names, so idk if it's the one who was there when he died, or an earlier one. At any rate, I hope she (and any others who were with him until the end) was well cared for until her end.
Do you know how FW 2 felt about dogs? I've read that he was in residence at Sanssouci (or maybe just Potsdam? he could have been at the Neues Palais, I guess) that last month or so waiting for Fritz to die, and the fact that he's never mentioned in any of the accounts of Fritz's last days just tells you that he was impatiently drumming his fingers waiting for it to happen. I imagine he was asleep when it did, and someone came to inform him.
those painful, lonely deaths
The difference between your description of MT's death (and Franz's, for that matter) and mine of Fritz's was striking. She had family coming and going, he was giving orders to a general, taking care of his dog(s), and dying in the arms of a valet because he had no friends or family left. :-( That's part of why I still mean to finish and post that chronology of his isolation.
I do suspect these people with their considerable will power subconsciously were sick of living and did want to die.
Hmm, difficult for me to say in this case. Judging by his last letters, Fritz was unhappy about his health, but apparently trying to reconcile himself to the actual fact of his imminent death. Even when you're suffering, and even when you've been quoted saying things like "The happiest day of your life is the one on which you leave it" throughout your often unhappy life, the survival instinct is strong. The fact that he was still trying to give orders on his last day and announcing maybe two hours before his death his intention of waking up at his usual ridiculously early hour to resume working tells me that, whatever may have been going on subconsciously, consciously he was resisting and denying death to the end.
Speaking of lonely, I have read somewhere, I would need to check the source for reliability, that in his last years he started thinking about whether there was maybe an afterlife after all, because he wanted to see his mother and sister again. I don't think he ever got to the point of believing in one intellectually, but quite understandably, emotionally he must have wanted there to be one.
On a cheerier note, see below for some distraction.
That is a cheerier note indeed!
Re: Fritz's death
No, I haven't seen it mentioned somewhere. Checked the wiki just in case it's mentioned, and it struck me that in this case, the German and English wiki entries on FW 2 are utterly different. Not just because the German wiki entry is way more detailed (though no mention of dogs), but because the English entry is all "Fritz' concerns about his successor proved themselves to be justified" (i.e. traditional 19th century take), whereas the German entry is "Fritz systematically non-stop humiliated his successor and destroyed his reputation before he ever had the chance to acquiring it because, like Robert Graves' version of the Julian-Claudian emperors, he wanted his own glory to shine all the brighter", with FW2 pointedly not being allowed near his dying uncle, as would have been the custom even with estranged princes, one last deliberate humilitation. (He also had not been taught statescraft or allowed to participate in government in any way - he did have duties, just not those - and thus in this regard was as unprepared as MT had been when taking over.)
Now, the one thing Fritz and FW2 appeared to have in common is love of music; FW 2' instrument of choice was the cello, which practiced sometimes up to four hours a day, belying the idea he was unable to focus on anything. But his working statebusiness hours were ridiculously low compared with workoholic Fritzes, that's true, one of many ways he fashioned himself as the opposite of his uncle, and they were so many that I wouldn't be surprised if FW2 was a cat person just because of that.
It has to be said, though, that Fritz came by this nephew dislike honestly. The kid was taken from AW & wife & household of same at age 3 because it was the future crown prince, and raised by Fritz-appointed people exclusively. His schedule at age 4 were verbal German and French lessons in the morning, reception of courtiers at noon, writing French and German lessons in the afternoon, then play time but play time consisting of having to replay the lessons received during the day with dolls, then public dinner with courtiers. (A few years later, maths, history, geography, military drill and law were added.) When Fritz was told little FW was shy, he said the courtiers were to tease him as often as possible, so he'd get rid of that shyness post haste. (German wiki quotes from a letter from Fritz to AW to that effect, with Fritz telling his brother what he's ordered for his brother's son.) Then AW's own public humiliation and early death happen.
Net result: young FW is into women, forms life long attachment to later maitresse en titre Wilhelmine Encke (we talked about her), finds religion and spiritism for good measure, changes the theatre program in Berlin from French plays to Schiller plays soon as Fritz has breathed his last, stops French as the official court language in favour of German, stops the Hohenzollern/Habsburg dualism in favour of an alliance (due to the French Revolution as much as because of any uncle issues, though), has all 29 royal rooms in the Berlin Hohenzollern palace (i.e. the one in the city itself, not Potsdam or Sanssouci) refurnished from Rokoko into neoclassical), and ignores Fritz' orders re: burial in favour of a daylight pomp and circumstance funeral ending with Fritz getting buried next to FW1. So yes, I'd say FW 2 could hold a grudge. But nothing I've read about him makes it sound like he was the type to take said grudge out on animals. Also, Heinrich was still alive and well at that point, and I dare say would have objected. If I were to make stuff up, I'd go for the irony of Heinrich ending up with the dogs. Or Wilhelmine the mistress does, who is depicted with dogs (though little ones) in some of her portraits and definitely liked them.
Re: Fritz's death
Right, right, I'd forgotten that. Well, I'm with Fritz on his right to decide who's with him in his last hours, politics be damned, but not everything that preceded it, especially the not training the heir part. In general, Fritz was what in the corporate world we would call a really good IC (individual contributor) and a really bad manager. Also should not be allowed to be in charge of children. Dogs, yes.
If I were to make stuff up, I'd go for the irony of Heinrich ending up with the dogs. Or Wilhelmine the mistress does, who is depicted with dogs (though little ones) in some of her portraits and definitely liked them.
If I were going to make something up, I'd go with EC ending up with them. It seems like the kind of thing she would do regardless of whether she was a dog or a cat person (do we know?), and that might bring her some comfort.
Re: Fritz's death
What did EC do after Fritz' death, besides occasionally say nice things about him?
Re: Fritz's death
EC:
- Being a reference on court etiquette
- Occasionally smoothing things over with visiting dignitaries
- Running her household
- Engaging in charitable practices
- Attending weddings and christenings
- Making sure nobody stopped the public from enjoying her gardens
- Planting trees
- Giving immigrants a place to live rent free in exchange for one day a week working on her gardens
(List taken from the Memoirs of the Queens of Prussia.)
Re: Fritz's death
Re: Fritz's death
Yeah, the immigrant thing is cool. All my sources agree that she was well-loved and everyone (people who knew her personally and residents in and around Berlin) sincerely grieved her when she died.
Fritz, in contrast, continued to be divisive after his death:
On the one hand: "For forty-six years, Frederick had tried to rule Prussia single-handed. If he had asked a great deal from himself, he had made just as many demands on his servants and subjects, high and low. How did they all feel when the iron band that held them to their labors finally snapped? According to Mirabeau, the general response was one of overwhelming relief. Whatever else it might prove to be, the next regime was certain to be more relaxed."
On the other: "A Frederick cult got under way at once, as entrepreneurs moved in to satisfy what was clearly a large and growing demand for memorabilia. His image was reproduced on drinking vessels, clocks, bracelets, ribbons, snuff-boxes and vivat ribbons, as well as in books, pamphlets, periodicals and calendars. Perhaps the most enterprising of all were the Pages brothers, who bought Frederick's clothes from the court chamberlain, dressed up a wax figure and then hawked it around Germany, France and the Habsburg Monarchy, making a fortune along the way. So valuable was it that they turned down an offer of 4,000 talers. They were soon flattered sincerely, as imitators hurried to cash in too; by the early nineteenth century, there were sixteen wax figures of Frederick on display in Berlin."
Re: Fritz's death
Re: Fritz's death
I'm less worried that he gave the orders to let the dogs starve, and more worried that they fell through the cracks in the transition from old King to new King. Another possibility is that they had their basic needs met after August 17, but not their emotional needs. I really hope they ended up in the hands of someone who actually liked dogs and would interact with them (or EC, who would probably make sure they got attention even if just for Fritz's sake).
Re: Fritz's death
Re: Fritz's death
Re: Fritz's death
After giving it a moment's sensible thought, it must be an earlier one. I can't *believe* anyone, Heinrich or EC or anyone else, still cared enough to bury one of Fritz's dogs at Sanssouci years after he was gone. And even if they wanted to, I imagine it would feel like a slap in the face of FW 2, who decided not to bury Fritz next to his dogs.
Any dog that's currently buried there I have to assume, until I have evidence otherwise, predeceased Fritz and is there because he made the decision.
Death is also here but much more life
(That book has other musical factoids like Fritz telling EC to arrange Heinrich's birthday party, birthday meal and birthday opera for him on January 18th 1784. Fritz did attend, though.)
Oh, and remember that Elisabeth Mara/Gertrud Schmeling had after she left Fritz a glorious Paris season complete with rivalry with local soprano La Todi, with people declaring themselves Maraists or Todists? Well, guess whom Fritz hired to make up for the lack of a heroic female soprano in Berlin once that season was over? (Though she didn't stay for longer than one season. She had an offer from St. Petersburg, and Catherine paid better than Fritz.)
Also of possible interest to you - a list of musicians who did stay with Fritz either until his death or theirs, meaning that micromanaging boss or not, Fritz must have won their enduring loyalty:
Carl Heinrich Graun (1704 - 1759), from 1735 till his death (first as a singer, then since 1740 as Kapellmeister)
Violinists: Gohann Gottlieb Graun (1703 to 1771) from 1733 till his death, Franz Benda (1709 - 1786) till his death, Georg Czarth (1708 - 1780) from 1734 to 1758, Ems (or Ehmes, ? - 1764), Joseph Blume (1708 - 1782) from 1734 till his death and JOhann Caspar Grundcke (? - 1787) from 1734 to 1786.
Viola: JOhann Georg Benda (1713 - 1752) from 1734 till his death.
Violincello: Antonius Hock (no known life dates) between 1734 to 1758
Contraviolone: JOhann Gottlieb Janitsch (1708 - 1762) between 1734 and his death.
Cembalo: Christoph Schaffrath 81709 to 1763) from 1734 till 1744
Theorbe: Ernst Gottlieb Baron (1696 - 1760) from 1735 till his death
Harp: Petrini (? - 1751) from 1735 till his death
Horn: Joseph Ignaz Horzizki (? - 1757) from 1735 till 1755
Most of these musicians were hired in Rheinsberg, i.e. during the "happiest time".
When Fritz and Joseph met at Neisse and Mährisch-Neustadt, there was ,of course, music, too. ("la ritornata di Londra" by Domenico Fischietti.) (They got the theatre decorations from Breslau.) A countess from Joseph's entourage kept notes: "The opera, which bears the name Il Ritorne de Londres, was better performed than yesterday. The two monarchs were listening very attentively, and the Emperor once laughed heartily. The opera took really long, though."
Opera content: Petronilla, a female singer, returns home to Bologna after having been a great success in London. On her way, she stops in Milan.She gets received by the noble house of Ridolfino. But she's greedy and not content with the cash she's made in London, so she cons her accidental fellow travellers, an Italian and a French noblemen, out of their fortune while pretending to love them. After a while, they smell a rat, one of the suitors pretends to be a castrato, and the lot uncover her duplicity. In the end, though, everyone reconciles and Petronilla continues her journey with the Marquis and the Baron in tow.
(Does "playing hard to get to two suitors" have symbolism for one of the two monarchs, enquiring minds want to know?)
And btw, the book's author quotes the letter to Joseph from Fritz afterwards. As opposed to Peter, Joseph is "Monsieur Mon Frere", and the letter in full goes, in my own translation into English, because I think
"Dear Sir and Brother,
after I enjoyed the unestimable pleasure of receiving your imperial majesty , nothing can be more precious to me than the letter you've kindly written to me. I can see the assured testimonies to your friendship and in general - which is most longed for by me - the complete reconciliation between two houses which have been torn apart for such a long time. Yes, my dear Sir, I repeat it in writing, that I find it impossible in my heart to be the enemy of such a man, and may heaven grant us that other steps should follow this first one, which will bring us closer to each other. I promise you with the word of a King and the promise of a gentleman that even in the case of a war breaking out between England and the House of Bourbon, I shall faithfully keep the peace so happily arranged now between us, and that I even in the case of another war, the cause of which is not yet forseeable, should remain neutral towards your current possessions, as long as you promise to similarly remain neutral towards mine. I shall say nothing more about the impression your majesty's presence has left on my soul and shall limit myself to the assurance of the great respect and admiration with which I shall remain
dear Sir, the good and faithful brother of your imperial highness
Federic
(Joseph: Mom! Mom! Just look at that. See how I kept my cool? I got a neutrality assurance and a peace promise out of him, even if we invade someone else!
MT: Oh for God's sake. *goes back to writing to Marie Antoinette about saying hello to Dubarry.)
Re: Death is also here but much more life
I also love how you were like, "I know, I'll put in gobs and gobs of dates, that'll make Mildred happy." Mildred is happy. ;)
Re: Death is also here but much more life
AHAHAHAHA
Re: Death is also here but much more life
July 14: Oedipe by Voltaire.
July 15: Great concert.
July 16: Mahomet by Voltaire.
July 17: Partenope (opera by Hasse)
July 18: Zaire by Voltaire
July 19: another performance of Partenope
July 20: another performance of Oedipe
(Carl August: Mom, is it me or is Uncle Fritz really into Voltaire?
Anna Amalia: Shhsh. At least there was an opera by Hasse included, too.
Carl August: Do you think he knows Hasse composed that opera for the. wedding between the daughter of the Empress, err, Queen of Hungary and that Naples guy?)
Re: Death is also here but much more life
Fritz: will listen to a telephone book sung by a WOMAN if he finds it beautiful.
Fritz: so totally into Voltaire, thoughRe: Death is also here but much more life
Re: Death is also here but much more life
Well, guess whom Fritz hired to make up for the lack of a heroic female soprano in Berlin once that season was over?
LOL oh Fritz :D
This is all really cool! I could totally imagine that for musicians who could deal with Fritz' personality and/or who cared about music enough that his personality was of secondary importance (and weren't chomping at the bit to play/sing Gluck), his court could be a really awesome place to be a musician. I had a conductor a little like that in college -- not Fritzian, but with some personality issues that made it difficult for a lot of people -- but the quality of the music that happened with him was so great that he had almost a cult-like following. You either hated working with him and dropped out as soon as possible, or would sign on to sing with him no matter what he was doing. (Hmm, he also generally preferred older music -- we sang a lot of Renaissance, not much 20thC.)
The opera took really long, though.
AHAHAHA Countess, you are a woman after my own heart :D
I promise you with the word of a King and the promise of a gentleman that even in the case of a war breaking out between England and the House of Bourbon, I shall faithfully keep the peace so happily arranged now between us
I love the over-the-topness of this letter, thank you for translating :D And awwww, that's touching! Or, well, might be if he hadn't cheerfully broken all kinds of things with respect to Silesia.
Re: Fritz's death
Specifically, Spanish snuff. He took so much snuff that his coat was constantly covered in it, like everyone who saw him commented on it, it was said that you could barely approach him without sneezing from all the snuff dust he was covered in, and even he repeatedly acknowledged that his habit and total lack of hygiene were disgusting. Poignantly, he told Catt he was slightly less "swinish" when his mother was alive, but now there was no one to care about his appearance. :/
This is how addicted he was: "Catt, we're going to read some French drama aloud. When we get to the end of this bit, I'm going to take a pinch of snuff. Then we read until the end of the scene. Then we pause for my next snuff break." This was his regular reading MO. There are multiple instances of this in Catt's memoirs, which are based on the very detailed diary he kept. (He was keeping a detailed diary of everything Fritz said in that first year largely so as to take notes and limit his chances of saying the wrong thing. Yes, conversations with Fritz were that high-stress exam you had to study for. ;) )
So anyway, lots and lots of tobacco consumption for decades. Now, membership in an at-risk demographic is not the same thing as a diagnosis, but sometimes, when the party in question has been dead for hundreds of years, it lends credence to your totally made up headcanon. ;)
Which leads me to wonder how much of the several years of coughing was asthma, which I always see it attributed to, and how much might have been heart failure. The cough appears to have gotten drastically worse in that last year, to the point where visitors reported it was hard to have a conversation with him; breathlessness while lying down is a symptom of congestive heart failure; and the only mention of phlegm that I'm remembering is the coughing fit that led to his last words. (Of course, that could also be a productive asthma cough.)
Other things I wonder about: one of the two classes of health problems that arguably caused him the most distress throughout his life was digestive. (The other being gout.) His doctors, for decades, unanimously thought it was caused by his eating habits. Fritz disagreed, vehemently. At least one modern biographer has suggested porphyria, which we know ran on both his mother's and father's side of the family (and we also know they were first cousins, sigh, which means all those recessive diseases are coming out of the woodwork in the kids) and at least one sibling had it.
We have numerous quotes from primary sources saying that Fritz constantly ate too much too fast, got an upset stomach, and then wondered why. (And because he didn't agree on the whole cause and effect thing, kept bolting his food.) He also insisted on spicy and strong-tasting food. We also have Fritz saying he suffered from disorderly cravings, "like a pregnant woman."
It's not terribly unlikely that both were responsible. He probably insisted there was no connection with his eating because he had digestive upsets even when he was eating slowly and sparingly, because porphyria; everyone, including him, could tell that he was abusing his stomach and not fully in control of his eating habits. No matter how many times he was told to get his diet under control, from at least the 1750s until about August 1786, he refused.
What else do we know? Both Fritz and Wilhelmine report being underfed by FW. Not just poor quality food, but not nearly enough food at times. In prison, Fritz wrote to her, "Starvation for starvation, I prefer Küstrin to living with Dad." (This was before Katte's execution, when Fritz still thought everything was going to turn out all right.)
Disordered eating as an adult after surviving years of food withholding as a child? That's a thing.
Fuck you, FW. Feed your damn kids.
Re: Fritz's death
That is amazing and while I am sure it must have been stressful, I kind of love that detail. Holy cow.
Both Fritz and Wilhelmine report being underfed by FW. Not just poor quality food, but not nearly enough food at times.
Oh right. Ugh. The kind of awful thing about Wilhelmine's memoirs is that FW does so much crap that I sometimes don't even remember some of it, because it's overshadowed by the worse crap. But... yeah.
Re: Fritz's death
It gets better. I'll put the new developments in the new discussion post, since this one is getting out of hand!
he kind of awful thing about Wilhelmine's memoirs is that FW does so much crap that I sometimes don't even remember some of it, because it's overshadowed by the worse crap.
*nod* The food thing jumped at out me specifically, since, as you may remember, I kind of had to report my own parents for food withholding. Not as bad as it sounds like FW was! (For one thing, they didn't spit in our food.) But similar.
And when I finally (very recently) put "Fritz's letter + Wilhelmine's memoirs + Fritz bolting his food as an adult" together, it was another of those "I can't prove causation, but it's a very suspicious correlation" moments.