cahn | Frederick the Great, discussion post 5: or: Yuletide requests are out!

Do we know what Wilhelmine died of? I had it in my head that it was tuberculosis (the same as Algarotti), but when I recently went googling for her name and tuberculosis or consumption, I couldn't find anything. It would be consistent with her emaciated appearance and later attempt to get a change of climate in Italy, and I guess it's not impossible that it would take more than ten years to kill her, but...do we know?

G: Not so! These are authentic Frederick the Great letters in German! Proving his touching utterly platonic regard for his loyal servant. May they inspire you in these dark days!

...yep, being in a fandom with them is the worst.

I went on a scavenger hunt for Fredersdorf material today, found an article describing this episode, and it said the context was even worse: the letters were valued because they contained anti-Semitic comments from Old Fritz. Because while Fritz was often liberal for his time, he lived in dark times. *facepalm* Fucking out of my fandom now, Nazis! Nobody invited you.

Anyway. This article said something about 300 pages of Fritz/Fredersdorf letters. The University of Trier site has roughly 30 pages. And while I was churning through these letters in Google translate, I did not see a bunch of things I'd seen quoted elsewhere, leading me to believe Trier has only a small sample.

So I went and looked for the book that I keep seeing cited for the Fritz/Fredersdorf correspondence, and Amazon said it was 400+ pages. Amazon also said it was $5.48.

You can guess what happened.

Yes, mes amies, I ordered yet another hard copy of a book that I can't physically hold without pain, in a language I don't know, at a time when I'm not working and shouldn't be buying books (but it was only $5!). Because fandom plus bibliophilia really messes with your mind.

Anyway. It's on its way. Among other things, I want to see if it has any material on or post-dating the estrangement. Various of my sources say Fredersdorf was dismissed over financial irregularities in mid-1757, and he proceeded to die in January 1758, after a lengthy illness, wracked with grief over his disgrace. If you know your chronology, you may compare AW, who was dismissed over a military failure in mid-1757 and proceeded to die in mid-1758, after a somewhat less lengthy illness, wracked with grief over his disgrace.

Fritz, in mid-1757, was writing suicidal-sounding letters after a major military defeat. I'm guessing his mood and his interpersonal relations at this time had something of a chicken-and-egg effect on each other. Then everyone dies in 1757-1758, his sister on the day of an even bigger military disaster, and he becomes even more depressed. A year later, the ultimate military defeat happens, surviving loved ones are thin on the ground, and Fritz tells Catt, "You know, if I ever look like I'm about to be captured, I'm taking a fatal dose of opium so fast it'll make your head spin."

Speaking of Catt: interesting Fredersdorf parallels. Fritz meets Fredersdorf shortly after Katte's death. They're together for 26 years. During this time, Fredersdorf gets married, which makes Fritz unhappy. After 26 years, Fritz dismisses him for financial irregularities. Within a year, he's taken Catt on. Catt is with him for 24 years. During this time, Catt gets married, which makes Fritz unhappy (okay, this part was kind of a thing). After 24 years, Fritz dismisses him for financial irregularities. Catt does not proceed to die, but outlives Fritz by a good many years (being a good many years younger).

But what I really came here to say, is that I have to share this absolutely endearing, ship-writes-itself moment from the Fritz/Fredersdorf letters.

In April 1754, while Fredersdorf was extremely ill and housebound, and Fritz was frantically writing ~~touching utterly platonic~~ "For God's sake, take care of yourself!" letters to him, Fritz wrote the following: "I'm planning on riding out today around noon. Come to the window, I want to see you; but keep the window shut and make sure there's a strong fire in your room."

I AWWWed out loud. I'm still AWWWing. When you're traveling on business all the time, and you don't have FaceTime or WhatsApp, you have to get creative to see your sick loved ones. <3

Actual quote to Fredersdorf from the same year: "Monday I go to the camp in Spandau, Friday I'm back here, Monday to Berlin, then Tuesday to Silesia*."

Related quote, also from 1754, which made me laugh out loud: "Tomorrow I'm leaving, but on Monday I'm coming back, and then no devil will get me out of Potsdam, or the King of England will have to come here with his Russians to besiege me."

* It's August, so time for those autumn military reviews ~~which are going to pay off in a few years.~~

You know...it occurs to me this might be the context for that galley slave comment to Wilhelmine. She's about to leave for Italy in a couple months, and Fritz is thinking, "I just want to see my sick boyfriend here in Berlin, and I can hardly even do that." :(

But seriously. Sick Fredersdorf coming to the window so Fritz can see him as he rides past his house, omg. <333 4ever

Yes, yes, he's a respectable *king*, as kings go. I think we are all forced to admit that. Even Fritz was. (Well, Fritz had a certain amount of survivor Stockholm Syndrome, but still.) And yes, that father-son combination being responsible for subsequent German history is an argument that I've always found compelling. (Again, agreed that it was not necessarily a good thing--and unlike many, I don't think it depends on the father-son dynamics, just the individual personalities.)

I still hate him, though. :P

BUUUUT, I have to admit that last uniform anecdote is pretty great. I wish it were from someone I actually liked. Ahem.

See, I knew these two qualify for curtain fic. ;) 'Tis indeed heartwarming. And I salute your devotion to aquire that book!

Heinrich's boyfriends got married to, and not just when they left him, a la Mara; the last one, the beautiful French emigré count, picked up a wife who became part of the Rheinsberg circle and lived long enough for a young Theodor Fontane to meet her and get some first hand accounts of Heinrich in his old age. (And of her husband, which explains the enthusiastic description of his looks and charm in the Wanderungen!) The widow was a cat lover and died, Fontane says, in a Rococo way - one of her favored cats bit her on the lower lip, the wound got infected, and that was that.

Fredersdorff also makes it into the Wanderungen apropos Zernikow, the estate he managed and Fontane has this to say:
For eighteen years, from 1740 to 1758, Fredersdorff was in possession of Zernikow, to which fact we pose the question whether he was a blessing to the village and its inhabitants or not. The answer to the question is quite in his favor. While having ambition and an unmistakable desire for respect and wealth, he has been mainly of a kind and benevolent nature, and he turned out to be mild, indulgent, helpful, as a landlord. His farmers and day laborers fared well. And as for the inhabitants at the time, he was fortunate enough for the village itself. Most innovations, as far as they are not merely the beautification, can be traced back to him. He found a neglected piece of sand and left behind a well-cultivated estate, which he had given partly through investments of all kinds, partly through the purchase of meadows and forests, which he usually needed. The activity he developed was great. Colonists and craftsmen were consulted and weaving and straw-weaving were done by diligent hands. At the same time and with fondness he adopted the silk industry. Gardens and paths were planted with mulberry trees (as many as 8,000 by 1747), and the following year he had for the first time a net yield of the reeled silk. No sooner did he find a piece of good clay soil on his field-mark than a brick-work was already built, so that in 1746 he was able to build the still existing house from self-made stones. In the same year he introduced, as well as in Spandau and Köpenick, large brewery buildings in which the so-called "Fredersdorffer beer" named after him was brewed. In everything, he proved to be the eager disciple of his royal master, and in the whole manner in which he set things in motion, it became clear that he was to follow the king's organizational plans with understanding, and to use them as a model. Many tried, though he found it easier than most, especially with regard to the means of execution, since a king who could write to him: "If there was a means in the world to help you in two minutes, I wanted to buy it, be it as expensive as it may, " was probably prepared to help with gifts and advances of all kinds. It seems, however, that these aids always remained within a limited range, and that the improvements did not take until 1750 on a larger scale, where Fredersdorff had married Karoline Marie Elisabeth Daum, the wealthy heiress of Banquier Daum, who had died in 1743. At least starting from there from those purchases of goods, which I have already mentioned above. Fredersdorff lived with his young wife in a very happy but childless marriage. It is not to be supposed that he was in Zernikow all the time, but it seems that from 1750 onwards (ie after his marriage) he was at least as often as possible on his estate and liked to spend the summer months there. Whether he had practiced his alchemical arts and gold-making experiments even in rural seclusion, has not been determined. He died at Potsdam in the same year (1758), which brought so many heavy casualties to his royal master, and his body was transferred to Zernikow. Michael Gabriel Fredersdorff died on January 12, 1758.

Re: Fredersdorf's marriage, the internet tells me otherwise it was 1753, not 1750, and Fontane couldn't look it up?

Edited 2019-11-28 13:37 (UTC)

Incidentally, had to hit the road before getting much further with the Heinrich biography, but I was curious whether there was more of why Ernst von Lehndorff, if he was EC's chamberlain and EC wasn't much around Fritz post-1740, was to tuned into this kind of delicate and spicy gossip, and lo, but he (Lehndorff) and Heinrich later (starting ca. 1750) had a life long friends-with-benefits relationship which was a bit uneven in that Lehndorff pined for more - he really seems to have fallen for Heinrich - whereas Heinrich liked him and kept up friendly correspondance etc., but doesn't come across as being in love (just not adverse to the occasional tumble).

Now, what is your take on these letters, i.e. what is going on inside Fritz? Because that's not FW roleplay, for starters.

Wait, so he actually said, non-paraphrased literal quote, "first servant of the state"?

So he did. :) (BTW, do we know when Fritz first started to use that phrase? I.e. would Ulrike have caught the implication at once?)

AW seeing both Fritz and FW as role models in terms of kingship: the inevitable result of a childhood as FW's favorite son and then an adolescence thinking Fritz was the coolest? The respect for constitutional monarchy per se is also interesting. Heinrich later was one of the few European high ranking nobles who didn't take against the French Revolution once heads started to roll, which caused one 19th century Prussian historian to helplessly speculate: Maybe he was such a Francophile that even a French Revolution was okay by him, as long as it was French?

...or maybe, just maybe, both AW in his seeing the point of limiting royal power and Heinrich seeing the point of the French Revolution reflect a personal awareness of what unlimited royal power can do, historian.

:) Glad you like. When I read about this interlude, I knew I had to share the goods. Including some original quotes, like Heinrich‘s attempt to persuade Fritz to join the Wusterhausen trip after all. I mean. Yeah. What you said.

Re: Amalie, my guess is she probably was more discreet around Big Bro most of the time regarding her feelings about their mother. Of course, it‘s worth considering that as the sole unmarried sister and the second youngest child overall (Ferdinand being the youngest), she was simultanously the daughter who lived with SD the longest (as she didn‘t marry), and was least exposed to FW (due to being a daughter as well as a child when he died).

(The strict gender divide in the „who was worst?“ fight confirms all my theories, too.)

Incidentally, the letters from Fritz to Wilhelmine from the early 1730s that I‘ve heard contain a criticism of their mother, but it‘s the only one I‘ve heard/read from him. To wit: „Our most gracious sovereign and queen are competing in ill temper, and one cannot make one happy without agrieving the other.“ (I‘m tempted to assume Wilhelmine‘s reaction to reading this was „this is not news!“

Gustav‘s comment on this summary of his demise: And that‘s why I‘m the only one in this music loving family whom an entire Verdi opera has been written about. No, Uncle Fritz, Don Carlo doesn‘t count. Un Ballo di Mascera rules! As patron and builder of Stockholm‘s opera, I approve.

Cahn, do link Mildred to some appropriate arias or at least your reviews. :)

But seriously, if Fritz and Heinrich agree on something, and go to some effort to doubletag their nephew in order to talk sense into him, it really is better to listen.

(BTW, do we know when Fritz first started to use that phrase? I.e. would Ulrike have caught the implication at once?)

Well, I don't know how widespread his use of it was, and whether it would automatically click in Ulrika's mind like it does in ours, but the first reference I find to it is in his memoirs of the house of Brandenburg. Those were published 1747-1748, so if that letter is from 1755 or 1756, Fritz had definitely come up with the phrase and published it by then.

By the way, the context for this is "Grandpa F1 was *not* the first servant of the state."

Actual quote: "His court was one of the most fabulous in Europe; his embassies were as magnificent as those of the Portuguese; he trampled the poor, to fatten the rich; his favorites received large pensions, while his people were in misery; his buildings were sumptuous, his parties magnificent; his stables and his offices had more of Asian pomp than European dignity about them."

Two pages later begins the chapter about FW. I can see where this is going.

AW seeing both Fritz and FW as role models in terms of kingship: the inevitable result of a childhood as FW's favorite son and then an adolescence thinking Fritz was the coolest?

Maybe not strictly inevitable, but extremely natural, I would agree.

...or maybe, just maybe, both AW in his seeing the point of limiting royal power and Heinrich seeing the point of the French Revolution reflect a personal awareness of what unlimited royal power can do, historian.

Yeeeeaaaah. Omg, those Prussian historians.

Of course, it‘s worth considering that as the sole unmarried sister and the second youngest child overall (Ferdinand being the youngest), she was simultanously the daughter who lived with SD the longest (as she didn‘t marry), and was least exposed to FW (due to being a daughter as well as a child when he died).

That definitely makes sense.

(I‘m tempted to assume Wilhelmine‘s reaction to reading this was „this is not news!“

"Welcome to my life!"

Fritz/Fredersdorf curtain fic. <33 Also hurt/comfort.

Re: Fredersdorf's marriage, the internet tells me otherwise it was 1753, not 1750, and Fontane couldn't look it up?

The internet tells me the same thing, but the internet also tells me Katte's birthday is several days later than Fontane says, and Fontane gives documentary evidence he personally inspected, while the internet doesn't cite any source at all, so I'm suspending judgment. However, a letter from Fritz concerning the upcoming marriage is cited, so once I have the volume containing their correspondence, I will look and see if I can find it.

Also, how much hassle would it be for you to scan and upload the page(s) containing the family reunion? If too much, then no worries, but I wouldn't mind having a copy.

OMG. I was going to ask *you* if you had any idea what was going on. Never mind inside Fritz, I can't even tell what the external facts outside Fritz are. I can't tell if Marwitz actually had gonorrhea and Fritz was trying to protect a Heinrich who wouldn't listen*, or if Fritz was giving Heinrich a hard time and making complaints up out of wholecloth, either out of sour grapes or to try to get Heinrich to give up Marwitz...omg, I can't even tell. No matter what, though, I can say that laying the sarcasm on that thick is NOT HELPING, Fritz.

* As we've seen, he had his occasional moments of emotional insight, e.g. "Don't take that family trip down memory lane in Wusterhausen," or "Mara might be bad news as a husband."

Because that's not FW roleplay, for starters.

Not in the homophobia and attitude toward casual sex, no--haha--but it's very possibly a power play. I'd have a much better idea what was going on if I had any idea of the actual facts. Like, were these letters before or after Marwitz was dismissed and brought back? How active or passive was Marwitz's role in all this--did he prefer Heinrich over Fritz, or what? Did he start out Fritz's and end up Heinrich's or vice versa? Like I said, I've seen it both way in secondary sources. This is why I've been desperate all this time for a reliable accounting of the sober facts as we have them, from which I could try to draw conclusions. Right now, I have nothing but a chaotic muddle of very confusing facts.

The only thing I'm getting out of this episode is speculation based on the timing that I mentioned earlier: Fritz is riding high* on his recent Silesian victory and accompanying acclaim, and maybe a little bit more interested in--if not sex, at least sexually charged encounters--than usual. (I wonder what Fredersdorf thought of all this. I personally read them as queerplatonic, but that's a fanon, not a headcanon--it could just as easily have been a long-term sexual and/or romantic relationship.)

* He was also somewhat chastened, in that it turned out to be much harder than he thought, and like AW, his attitude toward war shifted more toward the negative after having experienced it firsthand, but none of that is incompatible with a general "fuck yeah!" attitude toward winning, especially since the more difficult it was, the more invested he became. And also he had a *lot* to prove.

According to the biography, Wihelmine died of edema/dropsy as a follow up on her earlier tuberculosis. ("Dropsy" aka Wassersucht seems to have been something a great many Hohenzollern - FW most famously, but also several of her sisters - were prone to have; Wilhelmine didn't show any symptoms until the last year of her life, but then it came with a vengeance. The tuberculosis, otoh, had been ongoing far longer and was a reason for the France & Italy trip, yes.

Aha, thank you. And yes, everyone had dropsy, including Fritz in that last year of his life. It's a very non-specific medical term and just means fluid retention, which has many causes. One is congestive heart failure--which, of course, is my guess for what Fritz died of. Googling suggests tuberculosis can, in some cases, also play a role in heart failure. Sympathy of their fates striking again? Or limited diagnostic evidence? Who can know?

"I'm planning on riding out today around noon. Come to the window, I want to see you; but keep the window shut and make sure there's a strong fire in your room."

Typo: "tomorrow," not "today." Today would be a little short notice.

I knoooow, isn't that weird?!

Oooooh, Catt's memoirs! I hope you can read it soon too :(

haha, yes, it would have helped had I actually been interested in any of the people as people at the time! As it was they all kind of blurred together. I think historical fiction only works for me as a memory aid if I really like the book or like the history :)

Yeah, me too! I read volume 1 and enjoyed it. And today I was working on the place name wrangling for my map, and I got to the most super complicated years, which are *exactly* the two years volume 2 of Catt's memoirs covers, and Catt was super helpful in tracking down some really obscure place names. But I didn't get as far in my wrangling as I'd hoped, because I got distracted by reading the anecdotes he was recounting, haha. Looking forward to actually reading it properly! (Making really good progress on the wrangling now that I'm past the Seven Years' War, and hoping to have an actual map to show for it soon!)

Hmm, okay, thank you! And, right, some of that FW-as-king I should have remembered, from when you talked to me about Schiller!Philip :)

That is kind of cool actually that he didn't start any wars, especially compared to Fritz. And really interesting about the FW-Fritz combination.

there were two pieces of land he thought he had a claim on (neither of them Silesia btw)

...this is totally hilarious.

OK, FW as surprise midwife is kind of endearing, actually. And hee, the story about his death is totally awesome (although I might fall short of calling it endearing, lol).

Oh, yeah, if you weren't into the people, they would super all blur together, one queen after another. Her books *were* pretty darn similar.

Jean Plaidy was also only one of the other's several pseudonyms. I happen to know far too much about her and her work because my mother was a fan, and I had so little access to books growing up that I desperately read all my mother's romance novels, even though that's not my genre *at all*. Wikipedia tells me Plaidy (real name Eleanor Hibbert) produced 200 books under her various pseudonyms in her lifetime, which I think has a lot to do with them being so similar.

And now I am glad I have access to other books. :)

That sounds gorgeous.

AND FRITZ I HOPE YOU WERE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF. Ahem.

Like I said: among the choices she had, Wilhelmine clearly picked the right guy.

Yeeeeeah. Ugh.

Secondly, that Margrave, between loving to hunt, loving to drink beer and loving rough pranks was just FW's type of fellow.

I'm just... okay, it sucks that Sophie ended up with him, but I'm still really glad Wilhelmine didn't. I had this visceral reaction to "just like FW" and thinking about Wilhelmine with him :(

And you being a Verdi fan, no less.

How was I supposed to know that Verdi was actually following history?? :) (no, seriously, whenever you or mildred is like "so this thing happened in real life that's actually in the libretto" I'm like, "really??")

and one of the reasons of his success was that he was disliked, admired and befriended by different great people in such a way that his fame could not fail to spread.

hahahahahaha!

Axel von Fersen! :(((((((((( geeeesh.

ugh ugh ugh FRITZ

From this description I could totally see him thinking that he had done right by AW, like, "what is your problem?? I would totally have been justified in killing him outright and I DIDN'T and look I'm just a merciful kind of guy why are you all so mad at me??"

FRITZ YOU ARE MISSING THE POINT

Heh, that would be hilarious! I mean, to me, not to Ulrike.

Frederick the Great, discussion post 5: or: Yuletide requests are out!

Re: Wilhelmine/Fritz letters

Fredersdorf

Re: More Book Reports: AW bio, Fritz and Heinrich double portrait/lengthy essay

Re: Fredersdorf

Re: Two Brothers, One Marwitz

Re: Heinrich the Younger, AW's son

Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion

Re: Heinrich the Younger, AW's son

Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion

Re: Fredersdorf

Re: Hohenzollern Family Reunion

Re: Two Brothers, One Marwitz

Re: Wilhelmine/Fritz letters

Re: Wilhelmine/Fritz letters

Re: Fredersdorf

Re: Marie Antoinette's children

Re: Merrie Olde England

Re: Marie Antoinette's children

Re: More Book Reports: AW bio, Fritz and Heinrich double portrait/lengthy essay

Re: Merrie Olde England

Re: Wilhelmine/Fritz letters

Re: More Book Reports: AW bio, Fritz and Heinrich double portrait/lengthy essay

Re: Sweden: the Dallas of Rokoko Scandinavia

Re: More Book Reports: AW bio, Fritz and Heinrich double portrait/lengthy essay

Re: Heinrich the Younger, AW's son