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

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

All Yuletide requests are out!

Yuletide related:
-it is sad that I can't watch opera quickly enough these days to have offered any of them, these requests are delightful!

-That is... sure a lot of prompts for MCS/Jingyan. But happily some that are not :D (I like MCS/Jingyan! But there are So Many Other characters!)

Frederician-specific:
-I am so excited someone requested Fritz/Voltaire, please someone write it!!

-I also really want someone to write that request for Poniatowski, although that is... definitely a niche request, even for this niche fandom. But he has memoirs?? apparently they are translated from Polish into French

-But while we are waiting/writing/etc., check out this crack commentfic where Heinrich and Franz Stefan are drinking together while Maria Theresia and Frederick the Great have their secret summit, which turns into a plot to marry the future Emperor Joseph to Fritz...

Master link to Frederick the Great posts and associated online links

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It is! And here's the rest, not about his looks but his personality: "For eight days, I made dinners of three hours with him [in a small group] which gave me the opportunity to hear him throughout, and to admire the vivacity of his wit, the endearing charms of his address and politeness, so far that I did conceive people could forget what a tyrannic, hard-hearted, and selfish man he is."

Because I have the epic rap battle permanently stuck in my head, I am reminded by this, and also the "as charming an expression...as he can take a rough and threatening one at the head of his troops" in the above quote, of "I've got creative talents and battle malice; hard as steel on the field, genteel in the palace."

This is why people entitle biographies of him with words like "enigma" and "contradictions."

I am also reminded of his ability to charm young Catherine the Great at dinner. He could switch it on when he wanted to, no question.

I have recently discovered that the barn Fritz and his father were sleeping in when he tried to escape is still there, is now a Fritz museum, and has a plaque on the outside reading "Hier blieb auf seiner Flucht am 4/5. Aug. 1730 Friedrich d. Große dem Vaterland erhalten."

Is it just my German being too rudimentary here, or do they sound as happy about the child abuse continuing so Prussia could have a warmongering general as I think they do? (I dug up some pictures of the inside of the museum, and they seem extremely battle-recreation-focused, lending credence to my suspicion.)

Maybe he didn't realize they were anecdotes? Maybe he was just busy being Voltaire, and Algarotti was like "o.O" in the background, and then he just slipped off quietly while not letting on that he didn't want to stay in that situation any longer.

I mean, you could probably dig through Voltaire's correspondence to see what he was up to during those six weeks, and if I'm not falsely accusing him (I mean, Émilie seemed happy to live with him until her death!), maybe you'd get some ideas. But idk.

Voltaire's correspondence has been digitized, btw, but for the cost of a subscription that's more than I'm willing to pay atm, especially since the three volumes of letters to and from Fritz are freely available. (Would love to write a Fritz/Voltaire treat, but I would need to learn French and read said three volumes first, and possibly get my hands on a bio of Voltaire, and oh yeah, I still need to read the translation of that Fritz-trashing memoir that's on my list. So yeah. :P)

It might be easier for you to get your hands on this the next time you're in a German library than for me here, so the citation I found is Friedrich der Grosse. Ein biografisches Porträt, Wolfgang Burgdorf, p. 83.

By the way, I turned up the original source (aside from Wilhelmine's more elliptical account) for the forced intoxication episode, or at least a German translation of what I assume was the original French. It's Suhm* writing a report to his boss August the Strong**.

* Saxon envoy to Berlin at the time, later to St. Petersburg. The same Suhm who was later Fritz's close friend at Rheinsberg, whose translation of Wolff for Fritz was set on fire by Fritz's monkey. Fritz's nickname for him was "Diaphane", which one of my sources says may be a play on "Durchlaucht", usually translated "Serene Highness" in English and used for minor German princes, but we're not sure.

** He of the 354 supposed illegitimate children, father of Orzelska.

Anyway, translation mine with help from the internet (Google Translate and some dictionaries). I've bracketed a few places where I could use clarification.

"October 21, 1728,

"Finally the St. Hubert's Hunt came. Etiquette dictates that the Crown Prince sit opposite the King at the table and act as host. I sat next to him and also across from the Queen. All the companions at table had to keep pace with the King in drinking; only I [And here I need either a clearer translation or else some cultural context for how Suhm got out of this requirement: 'nur mir liess er etwas darin nach, weil ich dazu begnadigt worden war, als ich nach Beendigung der Jagd die Taufe erhalten hatte']...

"The Crown Prince drank a lot, but only against his will [any further nuance of 'mit Widerwillen' would be appreciated], as he later confided to me. It meant that he would be sick the next day. Finally the wine began to have an effect on him. He spoke quite loudly of all the grounds that he had for being unhappy with his lot in life. The queen kept waving at me to signal me to make him be quiet, and I did everything I could. I asked him to use what little sense he had left.

"But it didn't help at all: on the contrary, he turned all the way toward me and said everything that came to his tongue...

"Suddenly, the King asked me, 'What is he saying?'

"I replied that the Crown Prince was drunk and couldn't stop himself any more.

"The King answered, 'Oh, he's just pretending. But what's he saying?'

"I replied that he had squeezed my arm the whole time and said that although the King made him drink too much, he still loved him.

"The King repeated that the Crown Prince was only pretending to be drunk. I replied that I could testify that he really was: he had squeezed me so hard in the arm that I couldn't move it.

"Then the Crown Prince suddenly became very serious about that. Then the wine got the upper hand again, and he started to talk again. The Queen was so embarrassed she left the table. Everyone stood up, but only to sit down again. General Keppel and I asked the Crown Prince to go to bed, since he really couldn't hold himself upright any more.

"To this, the Crown Prince began to cry ['schreien'] that he wanted to kiss the King's hand first. The others called out that this was right. The King laughed, when he saw the condition the Prince was in, and held out his hand across the table. But the Crown Prince also wanted to have the other, and he kissed them both, one after another, swore that he loved him with all his heart, and had the King bend over so he could hug him.

"Everyone called, 'Long live the Crown Prince!' This got the Crown Prince even more worked up; he stood up, walked around the table, embraced the King intimately, sank onto one knee, and stayed a long time in that position, all the while talking to the King.

"His Majesty was deeply affected and kept saying, 'Now, that's very good, just be an honest fellow, just be honest,' and so on. The whole proceeding was extremely moving and moved most of those present to tears.

"Finally, the Prince was lifted up. The King lifted up the table. ['hob die Tafel auf'--What? Why? Does this mean he released everyone by standing up?] Herr von Keppel, I, and several officers carried the Prince to his room and put him to bed."

Footnote in my source: "Eyewitnesses expressed the not entirely unfounded opinion that Friedrich's performance was a cleverly calculated comedy."

Okay, eyewitnesses. It's painful to think about either way.

when the children finally did come, of course their paternity got disputed.

Speaking of disputes about her children, here's a story.

During the Revolution, they were imprisoned along with their parents. Then they were separated from their parents on the grounds that Louis and MA were unfit parents--Louis had to testify to the extremely improbable charge of being sexually molested by MA, just as an excuse for his jailers to separate them. Louis, as the heir to the now defunct crown, was given to some appropriately low-ranked member of society for a good revolutionary upbringing in prison. Then Louis and MA were killed, and the kids continued to be kept very secluded in prison. Louis XVII was 7 years old when this happened.

The accounts of young Louis's treatment by later royalist sources (including his sister, who was separated from him much of the time and is not a reliable eyewitness), describe abuse that far surpasses anything Fritz ever went through. I kind of have to hope accounts have been greatly exaggerated by propaganda. Then he died of illness in prison at age 10.

Or did he? Naturally, people turned up in later years claiming to be him, claiming that he was smuggled out. The strongest piece of evidence was an eyewitness who saw Louis XVII in prison (his doctor, I think?) and said that the boy refused to talk and showed little signs of understanding what was said to him, or any signs of being the same boy as the dauphin. Conspiracy theories ensued, including one where his protectors smuggled him out and substituted an uneducated deaf mute child, who conveniently couldn't write or say anything that might reveal the deception. Then the incredibly sickly deaf mute died, while the real Louis was living in exile.

Today, in the 21st century, there are still people claiming to be descended from one of the 19th century pretenders. (There are still at least two people living today claiming to be descended from Charles Edward Stuart/Bonnie Prince Charlie. Predictably, one who wants to be recognized as king and probably isn't descended, and one who wants nothing to do with royalty and probably is.)

Well, we can argue about textual evidence and probabilities all day and not get anywhere. A DNA test would be awesome! But burying a 10-year old deposed monarch in royal style was not a priority of the French revolutionaries (I say this ironically--they went to a great deal of trouble to make sure it didn't happen). So while we think we might know where he's buried, it's with very low confidence, and a test of a body found there wouldn't prove anything.

But, before he was buried, his heart was removed by a royalist sympathizer and stored in a container. (Preserving and displaying the hearts of monarchs separately was a long-standing tradition.) It passed through many hands, not always recognized for what it was, and disappeared completely at one point and was thought lost forever.

Meanwhile, in the mid 20th century, one family was still trying to prove their claim to the throne via the pretender. (Omg, guys, calm down.) In the 1990s, trying to get them to shut up, someone did a DNA test of the hair and arm bone of that guy (now long dead, of course), hair in some lockets belonging to Maria Theresia, which were thought to be locks of hair of her children, hair thought to belong to Marie Antoinette, and hair from living relatives of MA. They decided he *probably* wasn't Louis XVII, but it was hard to disprove with confidence, because the DNA was so degraded and contaminated because of the passage of time (pretenders also don't get the most pristine burials).

Then, circa 2000, a historian contacted the DNA guy and said, "Hey, I spent my life trying to track down Louis XVII's heart, and I know where to find it!"

Believe it or not, the heart had actually made it, through a very roundabout route, to Saint-Denis. For those of you just joining (or maybe you know this from historical fiction), that's where all the French monarchs were buried. The heart wasn't prominently displayed, nobody knew it was there any more, but there it was, hidden on a bottom shelf behind a crucifix in a glass container.

DNA guy got permission to cut off a small piece for the test, and boom! Perfect match. What we have here is the heart of the Dauphin, meaning the kid who couldn't talk to the doctor but seemed to appreciate the guy being nice to him, was the son of Louis and MA, was the same kid who died at age 10.

Before the DNA test, there was a ceremony to re-inter the remainder of the heart. The presiding priest said, "I do not know whose heart this is, but it is certainly symbolic of children anywhere in the world who have suffered. This represents the suffering of all little children caught up in war and revolution."

Which is very true--even if nine-tenths of what we hear about the sufferings of Louis XVII was propaganda, what we know for certain would be enough to traumatize any young child into not talking.

Of course, the descendants from the pretender are still contesting the results of the test, but they have even fewer people taking them seriously these days.

Older sister Marie-Thérèse, by the way, did not die in prison, and was the only one of MA and Louis's children to make it to adulthood. She spent her life in and out of exile, in sync with the fluctuations between monarchical and republican dominance in France. Wikipedia tells me there was also a dispute about whether a certain shadowy figure known as the "Dark Countess", who never spoke in public, might actually have been Marie-Thérèse. The theory is that MT was too traumatized to live a normal life and had traded places with another woman, allowing her to assume her identity, but DNA tests a few years ago proved that the Dark Countess was not the daughter of Marie Antoinette either. We still don't know who she was, but definitely not Marie-Thérèse. Cool name, though!

Edited 2019-11-18 17:03 (UTC)

That must have been a memorable moment!

I too am astounded by all the gossipy sensationalism of these latest installments! Clearly, like you, I need to up my fiction game. As they say, the difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense. :P

Alternatively, "Truth is always strange, stranger than fiction." --Lord Byron, who would know.

Please tell me you know all the good Byron anecdotes,

selenak; I mostly only know they exist. Something about keeping a bear at college because they wouldn't let him bring his dog, but there were no rules against bears. Probable sex with his sister. Things like that.

Sure I do. Check out my Byron tag. And there's no "probable" about it. From a love letter he wrote to her from Italy, after the big scandal ("That very helpless gentlemen your cousin" is her husband and in fact her and his (first) cousin, too, George Leigh, a typical gambling Regency rake who depended on Augusta for his income):

I still hope to be able to see you next Spring, perhaps you & one or two of the children could be spared some time next year for a little tour here or in France with me of a month or two. I think I could make it pleasing to you, & it should be no expense to L. or to yourself. Pray think of this hint. You have no idea how very beautiful great part of this country is—and women and children traverse it with ease and expedition. I would return from any distance at any time to see you, and come to England for you; and when you consider the chances against our—but I won’t relapse into the dismals and anticipate long absences——

The great obstacle would be that you are so admirably yoked—and necessary as a housekeeper—and a letter writer—& a place-hunter to that very helpless gentleman your Cousin, that I suppose the usual self-love of an elderly person would interfere between you & any scheme of recreation or relaxation, for however short a period.

What a fool was I to marry—and you not very wise—my dear—we might have lived so single and so happy—as old maids and bachelors; I shall never find any one like you—nor you (vain as it may seem) like me. We are just formed to pass our lives together, and therefore—we—at least—I—am by a crowd of circumstances removed from the only being who could ever have loved me, or whom I can unmixedly feel attached to.

Had you been a Nun—and I a Monk—that we might have talked through a grate instead of across the sea—no matter—my voice and my heart are

ever thine—

Noted! I'll check whether my local library has it.

nur mir liess er etwas darin nach, weil ich dazu begnadigt worden war, als ich nach Beendigung der Jagd die Taufe erhalten hatte'

Translation: "Only towards me he was more lenient, as I had been pardoned" - here in the sense of "had been given more leaveway" - "due to having gotten my baptism after the hunt was finished".

I'm assuming "baptism" means Suhm hadn't been hunting before, or at least not with FW. It puts me in mind of today's ceremonies when you cross the aequator for the first time, or travel with a balloon for the first time. Champagne is involved, and it's refered to as a baptism as well. Anyway, that's why Suhm hadn't to Keep pace with FW drinking.

"Widerwillen": actually means more "intense dislike", though the literal Translation of the word means "against one's will", that's true.

"Schreien" usually means more "scream" than "cry", but in this particular description I'd translate it as "cry" as well.

"Lifted up the table" made me laugh out loud, because it's one of those expressions that sound funny if you translate them literally - like "it's raining cats and dogs" sounds hilarious to us in German if you render it word by word. It simply means FW gave the signal that mealtime was over and everyone could go. It's an old fashioned expression these days, very occasionally still used.

That description sounds as if it's distinctly 19th or early 20th century in the making, because post 1945 no one says "Vaterland" anymore. ("Heimat", otoh, is still okay.)

"Here during his flight on 4/5 August Frederick the Great got preserved for the fatherland" does sound like whoever wrote the inscription was glad that Fritz didn't escape, no doubt. You might take comfort in the fact that anyone supporting that idea is undoubtedly miffed there is no more Prussia and has not been for a hundred years. (It continued as a province post WWI but not as a Kingdom, and post WWII it was dissolved entirely.)

On that note, the latest from Current Hohenzollern Boss vs German States: Battle of the historians.

To recapitulate: Prinz of Hohenzollern: We want money, paintings and castles. You owe us for Fritz. And other glorious contributions my family made to German history.

Representatives of current day Brandenburg: Like Willy and WWI, you mean? No dice.

Current embodiment of Hohenzollern nuttery: But! There's this law from 1991 saying those nobles who got disowned by the Sowjets when the GDR got founded get their stuff back, or at least compensation.

State representatives: That law has an exception clause: "Unless said nobles supported the Nazis in significant ways." You want to talk Son of Willy chumming around with Hitler, your highness?

Prince: Son of Willy was misunderstood, AND I WILL HIRE THE HISTORIANS TO PROVE IT.

State guys: Bring it on!

And now the conclusion: Historians hired by current day Brandenburg: Stephan Malinowski and Peter Brandt.

Historians hired by Willy's great grandson: Christopher Clark and Wolfgang Pyta.

Christopher Clark: Eh, Son of Willy was an insignificant figure. He didn't matter to anyone.

Wolfgang Pyta: Son of Willy was a secret resistance fighter! He hung out with someone who knew Stauffenberg!

Peter Brandt and Stephan Malinowski: Son of Willy and Willy, for that matter, were deluded enough to believe Hitler would reintroduce the monarchy and were totally willing to play along to that end. Now let's talk about why the hell the Weimar Republic was so lenient to the German nobility in the first place that such a lot of them were still in positions of influence come the Third Reich!

Edited 2019-11-18 22:06 (UTC)

Lol, that is pretty passive aggressive. I gotta say that I am kiiiiiinda on Fritz's side here, in the sense of, you know, if I had a choice between playing passive-aggressive games or saving money, why not just save the money. :)

Yeah, I agree, I imagine that recessive gene pool wasn't doing her any favors! Even with all the stress and trauma, at least according to her memoirs she seems to have been seriously sick a lot, even as a kid. (I mean, who knows how well she remembers all that, and there is probably some bias if she was sick while she wrote them, but still!)

Whoa. PTSD and absolute power: DON'T MIX.

This is super cool, wow!! Though I am probably not appreciating the military maneuvers at all, lol. It would probably be really interesting to watch along with reading about the maneuvers or even his correspondence.

I wouldn't have noticed had you not mentioned it, but because you did mention it I could see how much faster the dates advanced as they got later in his life :(

~~Why doesn't anyone want to translate a biography of Wilhelmine to English?? Why? No, don't tell me~~

Re child!Wilhelmine and baby!Fritz: Huh! I wonder if Wilhelmine was just the right age to think babies were cute and want to bond with a baby, or something. (My 4-year-old has just asked for a new baby. No new baby is forthcoming ~~since I am not a royal person in the 18th Century oh my GOD~~)

And I do think this lay at the heart of her wanting to meet MT in person

This makes total sense to me and I really like your ideas here. (I'd say I wish to subscribe to your newsletter, but... I think I already do :D )

Waaaaait, I didn't realize that W meets MT right after she's been crowned Empress! (Or FS has been crowned emperor, whatever.) Not surprising Fritz is upset, being Fritz.

(Also, man, SD and Ulrike, can you let up for one minute?)

I went to look at those letters around the time of all hell breaking loose. HOLY COW. My French is not good enough to translate easily or well, but it's good enough to get a general sense of Fritz being Fritz and Wilhelmine trying really hard not to set him off. (And setting him off.) Eek.

Whoa, that's interesting about the Margrave. Hopefully he and Wilhelmine got along (besides the mistresses)? I gave up on the memoirs before there was too much about him, although it was pretty clear she didn't get along with the father-in-law, and rather better with her husband.

Awwwwww Wilhelmine, trying to make peace with everyone <3 Oh Fritz, so worried for his sister he's thinking only about her <3 I'm so sad for everyone here <333333

Except for Voltaire. SHUT UP VOLTAIRE :P

woooooow! Those indeed are earth-shattering reforms! OK, that's pretty cool, although he clearly paid for it a lot.

Heh, I suppose there would be scandal at that, given that Munck was careful to make public his role in all of this :) Whereas Joseph wasn't going to.... (I'm still amazed, from a prudish 21stC viewpoint, that he wrote a letter about it!)

MA was an evil nymphomaniac and hence not able to get pregnant

I... don't... think sex and pregnancy work the way you think they do, revolutionaries....

Heh, the whole first bit I was going "...but everything that happened to him is a perfectly sufficient reason for not wanting to talk!"

That is amaaaaazing historical forensics (or detective work, or whatever, what do yo ueven call that??) I love it when historical puzzles are solved by SCIENCE.

But also: :(((((((((

Wow, that's a really neat story.

OK, wow, she is awesome :D

(also I have to watch Doctor Who, don't I :P )

Yeah, this is something else I know zip about, wow. (My English history is better than my European history, but spotty.) Wow. Yes. European Royals: when terrible inbreeding (though maybe not at that point?), PTSD, and absolute power combine, EVERYTHING IS DYSFUNCTIONAL. (I'm surprised Stephen was as humane as he was!)

That description sounds as if it's distinctly 19th or early 20th century in the making, because post 1945 no one says "Vaterland" anymore.

That is *exactly* what I thought! Thank you for confirming. I note that *somebody* has decided to leave this plaque up for the last 75 years.

And thanks for the latest installment of Hohenzollern nonsense!

ahahahaha the Hohenzollerns are still crazy!

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Page 7 of 16

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

Re: What the Prussian Ambassador Wrote

Escape attempt

Re: Algarotti

Re: Crackfic

Go home, Fritz, you're drunk

Marie Antoinette's children

Re: What the Prussian Ambassador Wrote

Re: Meanwhile, in Sweden

Byron

Re: Crackfic

Re: Go home, Fritz, you're drunk

Re: Escape attempt

Re: Passive aggressive generals

Re: Wilhelmine

Re: Emotional isolation

Re: Fritz chronological maps, or a labor of love

Re: Sibling Correspondance - I

Re: Sibling Correspondance - II

Re: Meanwhile, in Sweden

Re: Marie Antoinette's children

Re: What the Prussian Ambassador Wrote

Doctor Who

Re: Merrie Olde England

Re: Escape attempt

Re: Escape attempt