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

Entry tags:

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

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

OK, I am now Confused About Dates And Letters, and I probably should have put it here, but I think I replied to mildred instead.

Well, I love it, because it's almost as much right as it is wrong! You can look at it as: he said some words under duress, but was pretty much never married in any way that counted, in his head.

BUT STILL. You're clearly not qualified to write a thinkpiece, author. You're like that stopped clock that tells the time twice a day by total accident.

You continue to be an absolute GOLD MINE.

Maybe he also was sincere in offering his older brother guidance re: education

I absolutely think he was. Partly control issues, sure, but I wasn't kidding when I said in some other comment that Fritz was giving AW what he'd wished he had. This is not terribly unlike SD trying to get Wilhelmine the marriage she would have wanted for herself.

for example, Fritz took AW with him and Algarotti when making that trip across the French border

I had either not known or forgotten AW was included! I can *totally* see him coming out of it with the impression as Fritz as the coolest older brother ever.

SD threatened to have little AW whipped by rod if he didn't ask his father for a deserter's life - one of the long fellows

Oh my god. I'd known the second half of this story, but not the first. Was she nice to any of the kids except Fritz? And was that only because FW treated Fritz the worst of all the kids? OMG, this family.

they did NOT see the Austria/France alliance coming

They can be forgiven!

That's so cool about the roleplay, I had no idea. Did they predict a Prussian victory? And did they predict a Prussian victory *after* the Diplomatic Revolution happened?

AW's daughter Wilhelmine did say about Fritz in her memoirs "He was for me a second father, and his affectionate behavior towards me never changed".

Does AW's son Heinrich get a mention? Fritz was supposed to have been very close to him as well, and devastated when he died of smallpox at age 19. (I included him in my list of emotional isolation; did not know or had forgotten about Wilhelmine.)

Think about that while you're in the field. Think long and hard.

Ooof. And then the way Fritz reacts when Wilhelmine dies. :-(

Von Krockow is with Mildred that the Fritz/Heinrich relationship is basically an eerie RP of FW/Fritz

Yeah, I think it's too pat an explanation to be *only* that, but Heinrich is the one that's most like Fritz, and...it's eerie.

The one he hated passionately and knocked himself out to work for and kept writing at least once a week to while he was still alive and kept obsessing about after his death was Fritz.

I hadn't thought of it in these terms, but yes, you're absolutely right. It's FW/Fritz from the other side as well.

Our Insane Family: The First Generation Reprised.

Heinrich in his old age finally managed to score one who wasn't yet another charismatic money waster but kind and devoted

Aww, good. That's what we were hoping.

But why does no one include the Marwitz episode?! I've seen two different versions on how it played out, I don't trust either one, and I want to know what happened!

contemporaries did testify that Heinrich as an adult did pretend not to speak German

I forgot to mention, I looked up my source, and it said he "claimed" not to speak German. And my immediate reaction was, "Oh, well, that's completely different." Fritz would have claimed not to speak German if he could have gotten away with it. :P

Fritz seems to have had something of an accent, too, at least if Voltaire is anything to go by

Oh, from everything I've read, Fritz totally spoke French with a German accent, his poetry neither scanned (because he pronounced words with the "wrong" number of syllables) nor rhymed as a result, he knew it, and that was one reason he was so desperate to get Voltaire, and on reason he always referred to himself as being handicapped in literary matters by being a German.

This is all extremely great, thank you so much, and omg, word to the wise: try not to be born a Hohenzollern, or to marry one.

These book reports are THE BEST. :)))))))

Hohenzollern family group dynamics are THE WORST. :((((((((

Heinrich and AW :((((( Just your saying Heinrich... really loved him above and beyond, same intensity as the Fritz/Wilhelmine relationship. ...yeah, when you said that I was like, now I do know where this is going :(

Amalie was present through most of it, and said report, in great detail, tearstained and with ink blots, is adressed to Fritz. It doesn't include a direct accusation, but Ziebura thinks the very fact she writes this detailed has a "this is your fault, now at least learn what it was like" subtext.

Heinrich, of course, did not need subtext.

They just all need lots and lots of hugs and therapy :(

Fritz, you know, the sibling YOU love? You've killed her along with the one I loved best as well. Think about that while you're in the field. Think long and hard.

Oh. Ouch. OUCH.

"The Count appeared as a present from heaven to him, the evening of his life had arrived, but behold, the setting sun gave him once more a beam of warming light."

Aww, that is sweet! And I love the picture of old!Heinrich as an eccentric gentleman with impeccable manners <3 Also, lol for Heinrich's German.

(uh, my French pronounciation is worse than my reading comprehension -- do they not rhyme because of the difference between "te" and "tte," and/or is there some slight difference in the vowel? I suck so badly at vowels!)

No kidding. Btw, Heinrich's unwanted wife, also called Wilhelmine (commonly referred to as Princess Heinrich, to differentiate her from all the other Wilhelmines in this family), was a beauty and clever, as opposed to AW's wife, who like her sister Elisabeth Christine comes across as an avarage looking, well meaning Braunschweig girl in over her head and trying to make the best of it. Both AW and Ferdinand flirted with Wife-of-Heinrich Wilhelmine when she arrived as if to make up for Heinrich's lack of interest (within courtly limits, i.e. nobody assumed there'd be a scandal, and there wasn't); AW, though, kept up an intense and affectionate correspondance with her till the end of his life. (She wasn't whom he wanted to marry when asking Fritz - in vein - for the permission to divorce his wife, though, that was a lady in the court named Sophie von Pannwitz who according to her memoirs loved him, too, but was of the "no sex without marriage" persuasion, so they didn't have an affair, either. He did have a lot of short term affairs, with various other ladies.

What I also learned from these latest bunch of biographies: brother Ferdinand was actually permitted to marry for love. Whom did he fall in love with and marry? Wait for it - his niece, daughter of his and Fritz' sister Sophie. At which point you throw up your hands and wonder, leaving the close cross generational blood relationship and moral implications of same aside, why on earth a Hohenzollern would marry another Hohenzollern. (Seriously, guys, this is not how you want to compete with the Habsburgs.)

SD and non-Fritz kids: don't know. I mean, they're all "Woe, the best of mothers is dead" when she dies, but that's par the course for the era. Also the German wiki entry for Ulrike (though not the English one) says SD said about her that Ulrike was the sole daughter "whom I could never deny anything to."

The source Ziebura quotes re: the "little Wilhelm asks for mercy" story is Freilnghausen, who was a preacher from Halle whom FW had preach in Wusterhausen, his country mansion, and who noted down the following:

"The prince had been told by his mother the previous day how and for what he should plead, but Wilhelm was afraid his father would be angry. Seckendorff and Grumbkow, too, had talked to him and told him they would ease his path to the King, by saying something like "I believe your son carries something within his heart, Sire..." But only when the mother threatened him with the rod if he didn't say anything, he asked (SD's chief lady in waiting) von Kameken what "hanging" meant, if people got hurt by it, and of one died from it - and then he went to his father."

Whereupon this scene happened.

The prince began by kissing his father's hands and to stroke his cheeks. Rex asked: "You want something, don't you?" Wilhelm: "Yes, Papa." Rex: "What is it?" Wilhelm: "Please don't hang the long fellow who ran away." The King smiled but did not yet give a positive answer. The Queen signalled that the intercession found her favour. Grumpkow and Seckendorff, too, aided the little Prince. Whereupon Rex started to kiss the Prince and hold him in his arms. Now the Queen signalled (Freilinghausen) silently, he, too, was supposed to say something. (Freilinghausen) admonished mercy and said that one had to be harsh if murder had been committed, but in this case surely mercy sould take preference over the letter of the law. The King agreed, and so did the generals present.

Now obviously, saving a human life - especially of a poor guy who just was kidnapped for his body length - is a good thing, but it's still a bit chilling to read all the adults present using this kid. Now this was toddler Wilhelm; child and een Wilhelm, when brother Fritz sends him loving big brother letters from Neuruppin and Rheinsberg and asks him "to tell me bluntly whether or not the King has talked about me; even with a clear conscience I find myself somewhat concerned in this matter", is also delivering as requested:

As you want to know all what the King has been saying about you, so I allow myself to write to you that he has said this noon that he's building a lot of beautiful houses in Berlin; for he knew very well that after his death, my dear brother would have comedies and parties, mistresses and balls; that it would be a pleasure to my brother to waste all the money he had been saved with such hardships; but by now he did not care anymore. Secondly, he said he didn't like fops despite having one in the family. He knew very well which one, but that one was too old to be improved.
You will be surprised, dear brother, that I find the time to write, but I am not in good grace myself right now, and thus have not been taken along on the hunt. I have not done anything wrong! It is only that I did not know the name of a village. But it is alright, as long as he doesn't punish me harder, the way he does a hundred others. Now I am afraid I am boring you, and thus I conclude with the assurance that I will never forget the good advice of a brother whose affection I hope to deserve in the future.

Ziebura quotes a German (rhymed) translation of the praise-and-instruction poem Fritz wrote to AW, which ends with, after wishing glorious deeds (and more voluntarily read books) to young Wilhelm:

"While I am happy to observe
your victories, your joy, your nerve,
and shall content myself with philosophy
Your education as my only trophy"

(English rhymed translation of German rhymed translation by yours truly. It's not Schlegel and doesn't properly scan, but then neither is the Fritzian original.)

To which Whilhelm replies:

"For the epistle which you've sent
And all the praise that you did spent,
Receive much thanks! To me you wish much wisdom
With which, dear brother, you've always endowed been.
To all of us it would be good to heed,
to follow where your mind us wants to lead.
Then I'd be saved from clumsy ignorance,
through you, most noble brother - what a chance!
You are in everything a perfect man,
in body and in mind: salute I can!"

The tragic irony is that AW did learn more, improved his French, geography, maths etc to please his brother. Flash forward to 1749, Fritz has a big argument with Heinrich (which precedes him forcing Heinrich to marry)warming up his FW roleplay, AW tries his old role as family mediator, and:

F: You believe blindly anything (Heinrich) says. (...) Heinrich is your idol, your blind friendship doesn't let you recognize his mistakes. I love him as a brother but would regret it if he doesn't improve in the various aspects I told him. I am not acting out of a whim or to boast. Only his sloppy behaviour is at fault.

AW: I am sad to learn of the unfortunate idea you have of your brothers. The picture of Heinrich you paint, I don't recognize. You ascribe a character to him which I haven't notice, and you consider me so clueless that you believe I am dazzled and fooled by him.

(Can we say "Projecting into Heinrich much, Fritz?")

The roleplay: they finished it before the Diplomatic Revolution. But yes, Prussia wins. Heinrich-as-Fritz first defeats Hannover - the brothers assume that the English Parliament wouldn't be willing to okay British troops to save Hannover, since they felt their royals were too much involved with Hannover anyway - and then fights the Austrians to a standstill.

It does have all the signs of a modern RPG, for, to quote from the biography:

While Heinrich, playing the King, laid out the political-strategic plan and also wrote diplomatic notes, dispatches from ambassadors and memoranda, it was Gessler's, that it is Wilhelm's job to work out the practical side of the enterprise. He sent the King his dispositions for the occupation and defense of Hildesheim, made sketches of the Hildesheim, Misburg and Hannover fortresses indicating siege and weopon positions. He also organized supply lines and the disposition of the field ambulance units. He drew large maps for the battle plans.

How do we know all this? Because our two princes had the whole thing assembled and privately printed once they were done. It's not known whether Fritz ever got a copy.

AW's son Heinrich: nope, Ziebura says nothing about him other that he exists, though yes, I know he's supposed to have been Fritz' favourite nephew. Re: Wilhelmine the younger, I checked out wiki, and while English wiki is longer, German wiki has more about her relationship with Fritz. She married William V. of Orange, which makes her the ancestresss of the current Dutch royals. (BTW, this Hohenzollern connection is also why Willy was offered asylum/retirement in the Netherlands after WWI.) German wiki has this to say: She conducted a lengthy political correspondance with her uncle Frederick the Great, whose favourite niece she was supposed to be. Armed with his advice, she tried to win political influence on the rule of the Netherlands.

Fritz! Encouraging a woman to overrule her man on the throne when it suits you! I'm shocked, simply shocked. Whoever made you believe that would work?

Mysterious Marwitz episode: it's most frustrating. We will find out one day, I hope.:)

Edited 2019-11-22 09:00 (UTC)

My French pronounciation isn't better than yours (or Fritzes). I was somewhat stumped as well but transcribed Ziebura paraphrasing Voltaire.

And yes, no kidding about family therapy and hugs. And no one has access to any weapons. Music, otoh, is not just permitted but encouraged.

Bear in mind that what I have at my disposal in German are:

a) The audiobook version of their correspondance - which is a selection.
b) Various quotes from their correspondance in various biographies
c) The website with the travel correspondance.

This being said, the big big "reason you suck" letter from Fritz I have in mind is from April 16th - that's the one that lists all he thinks Wilhelmine did wrong. Also, the AW biography as well as the Wilhelmine biography point out that parallel to all the Fritz letters, she corresponded with AW - there's one letter either from her or Fritz which brings this up as well, see: ways Fritz shows his displeasure -, and the Wilhelmine/AW correspondance has never been published except in quotes in various biographies.

(Mind you: In one letter to Fritz dated May 9th 1744 (i.e. the previous year, when the trouble wasn't yet the MT meeting but mainly the Marwitz business), AW writes "Following your order I have written to my Bayreuth sister and as you have asked me to transmit you her reply, I add her letter to mine here", which you can read as either Fritz asking AW to run interference as a mediator or as Fritz using AW to distance himself from Wilhelmine as a punishment - perhaps it's also a bit of both.)

Among the quotes from Wilhelmine's letters to AW during the estrangement from Fritz era:

"Your tenderness is my one consolation in my distress caused by the King's harsh way. But I am sure in his heart of hearts, he cannot but feel ashamed for treating me thus."

This was written in 1744 and thus overly optimistic. By the time we're in early 1745, Wilhelmine to AW sounds thusly:

"Please make him return his friendship to me again, and tell him I can't go on living like this any longer, as all I've written to change his mind about me has been in vain. He is still angry with me. I am eternally grateful to you for all you're doing on my behalf."

And after Fritz finally signals he is mollified, she writes to AW:

"You were the only one who felt with me and understood how hurt I was, I shall never forget it. From this, I have learned to value your kind heart, and your good character, and if you'd been the only one drawn into these affairs, the misunderstandings would have been cleared up far sooner. I still write respectful and affectionate letters to the Queen Mother, but she demands too much of me and has never understood me."

Wilhelmine was as good as her word, too, and did plead for AW when he needed her in the last year of their lives.

W to F: I am convinced that my brother was not lacking in good will. The grace you've shown him in entrusting the leadership of the army to him was a mighty incentive to deserve it. Only you, my dearest brother, are free of flaws in this regard. You cannot demand of others what you ask from yourself. His despair (...) is a very harsh punishment for him. His mistake will teach him to be smarter, and he will make up for it, I am sure!

This was written after her letter from Fritz about the whole disaster but before AW's letter about his version arrived. Post receiving AW's letter, rites Ziebura: "In her letter from August 24th 1e747, the Margravine pointed out to Wilhelm that much of one said in the first flush of anger was soon repented. The King had gone too far, true, and Wilhelm's hurt reaction was understandable. But Friedrich's accusations had not yet been made public. (...) His reputation and honor thus had not yet been damaged in the eyes of the outside world, it was still a private matter between him and the King. He should make a generous gesture towards the King as he couldn't expect the King to make the first move."

As things instead go from bad to worse (and AW's disgrace does become public): "We cannot find a remedy in the past, only in the future. (...) At your hearts, both of you want things to be alright again!"

But unlike Wilhelmine's estrangement from Fritz in the 40s, this was to have no reconciliation ending....

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

It's a deserved classic. Of course the research is a bit dated. Also, it's worth bearing in mind that Stefan Zweig wrote this between two world wars, the first of which had made him a committed pacifist. He'd grown up in pre WWI Austria when in school the Habsburgs could do no wrong, and had seen where that type of history lesson led to, so he's somewhat iconoclastic/Habsburg-critisizing in response to that. All this being said, he was a master of the biographie romancee, and also of the German language; of course I don't know how good the translation is but he was a bestselling author the whole world over in his day. He was also very musical - he wrote the libretto for a late Richard Strauss opera, and when it was produced for the first time in 1933, his name wasn't mentioned anywhere, because Zweig was Jewish, and Hitler had arrived.

(His day ended in exile, in Brazil during WWII, where he committed suicide, shortly after finishing his memoirs of his youth in pre-WWI Vienna, Die Welt von Gestern, "The World of Yesterday".)

My own first Zweig work was his Joseph Fouché biography, a great example of how you can write the biography of someone you despise and yet make it absolutely fascinating. Most of the other people he wrote about he liked, including MA,but Fouché, he was both revolted and fascinated by, and it shows.

Well, I am a fan, but given the sheer number of seasons, it's very time consuming. You could watch The Girl in the Fireplace, though, it's a pretty self contained episode which wraps up its story at the end.

And yes, no kidding about family therapy and hugs. And no one has access to any weapons. Music, otoh, is not just permitted but encouraged.

This, this, and this!

It looks like it's also freely available for borrowing on archive.org, but you have to wait in line for the e-copy. Used paperback copies look like they start at about $4, so not bad either. Your call!

See, that's why Mozart in any shape would come in handy. ;) On a very different musical note, seems the BBC has been listening to those rap battles of historical celebrities as well, for they made one of their own about the beginning of World War I, here. It does contain one bit pointing out this started out in many ways as a war of cousins!

(uh, my French pronounciation is worse than my reading comprehension -- do they not rhyme because of the difference between "te" and "tte," and/or is there some slight difference in the vowel? I suck so badly at vowels!)

Short answer: they rhyme today but didn't necessarily rhyme in Voltaire's day.

Long answer...well, bear in mind that I had only one semester on the history of the French language--

selenak, my PhD was in historical linguistics--so the following explanation is derived from Wikipedia plus the 15-year-old hazy memory of a non-French speaker. But Wikipedia matches my memories closely enough that I'm just going to go with it.

Originally, back in Cicero's day in Latin, "t" and "tt" would have been pronounced differently, but by about the year 1000 they were pronounced the same in French. So Voltaire would not have heard any difference between the consonants. It's the vowels he would have cared about.

Now, the word "tête" comes from Latin "testa". Some time in the Middle Ages, "s" before a following consonant got turned to "h", pronounced "tehta".

Then the "h" stopped being pronounced, but to make up for the lost consonant, the preceding vowel went from a short vowel to a long vowel. This was represented by putting a circumflex over the vowel. So "tête" had a long vowel, and "trompette" a short vowel, for several hundred years, and the modern spelling difference reflects this historical difference.

Around Voltaire's time, French speakers stopped pronouncing vowel length differences. Like most sound changes, this took multiple generations and caught on gradually. There was a period when some people were pronouncing them the same, and some people were pronouncing them differently.

My guess (this is an educated guess) is that in ordinary, casual speech in France, and in German-speaking regions, the two words rhymed, but someone known for speaking the "best", i.e. conservative, French, like Voltaire, would still observe a difference, especially because they were spelled differently, and because the poets of preceding generations Voltaire and Fritz were emulating were not rhyming them.

Today, they rhyme in most dialects, including in Paris, and I know this not because I can pronounce French vowels*, but because I asked a friend who grew up just outside Paris to confirm Wikipedia.

* I barely even pronounce English vowels: people make fun of what vowels I rhyme and don't rhyme all the time. :P Case in point, I pronounce "sell" and "sail" the same. I have most but not all the mergers on this page.

Edited 2019-11-22 17:23 (UTC)

I've been meaning to tell you about this for a while, but: here's a film rec for both of you, featuring one of my favourite screen Casanovas and also offering a great take on the time of transition between Ancien Regime and French revolution.

La Nuit de Varennes, English title, That Night in Varennes. An Italian-French film, directed by Ettore Scola, with a first class cast, including Jean-Louis Barrault, Marcello Mastroianni, Hanna Schygulla and Harvey Keitel; it starts during the night from June 20th to June 21st 1791, which was when King Louis XVI and family made a run for it only to be captured a night later at Varennes. However, we don't see the Royals at all, except bits and pieces near the end; the film follows a different coach, travelling close behind, in wich there is a mixture of actual and invented characters, including Thomas Paine (aka why they hired Keitel), Giacomo Casanova (three guesses as to whom Marcello is playing), Restif de la Bretonne (as a girl, I thought he was invented, but no, he existed (a French novelist about whom more here, though I have to say, the German wiki entry is way more informative than the English one) played by one of the all time French theatre legends, Barrault, as well as a revolutionary student, an Italian singer, a rich widow, a countess who is friends wiith Marie Antoinette (Schygulla), a magistrate and a wealthy entrepeneur. And thus we get a historical road movie about the world that was and the world that will be, and Ettore Scola does a really great job showing both why there has to be a revolution and what will be lost with it. It's a witty script, the acting is great, and basically I have just one nitpick.

The later first: on the plus side, all the female characters except for the Countess' black maid (not a big part, but with her mini arc) are in their early 40s at least, and you sigh enviously and think, ah for the days with films with lots roles for actresses over 40 or in their very late 30s who aren't anyone's mother and aren't forced to play ingenues, either. (This particular film is from 1982, btw.) On the minus side, the men have the better lines and their own agendas, while the women, with the possible exception of the Italian singer (played by Laura Betti) who is very much her own person and while travelling with a (married) lover treats him as almost incidental and has most of her scenes with other people, either long for love or follow someone else's.

Something I hadn't remembered from my girlish watching and thought would make a complaint but instead turned into a virtue of the film when I saw it again on dvd: the treatment of Monsieur Jakob, the Countess' sidekick (played by Jean-Claude Brialy). At first I thought he was another example of the camp and gay servant as comic relief, but lo and behold, the film then later treated him with unexpected tenderness and dignity. So does the aged Casanova, on whom he crushes (as does the rich widow). Incidentally, and speaking of Casanova, I did remember this was probably my favourite fictional treatment of him (closely followed by the Tennant/O'Toole double act for Russell T. Davies, and Alain Delon) and it held up magnificently. It's a remarkably unvain performance by Marcello Mastroianni, because Casanova is supposed to be over 70 and looking like it, escaping one last time from his existence as a librarian in Bohemia; the camera exposes all the ravages of time and the script thematisizes Casanova's aging. And yet it never ridicules him, either, giving him a weary elegance, ongoing wit and hardwon wisdom as he gently lets the widow after she offers herself down by pointing out that what she really wants isn't the old man in front of her but the legend. And, which brings me back to Jacob the gay footman, in the way he responds to Jacob (who crushed on him through the film) saying as a farewell that he wishes they could have met when they were both younger by kissing him thoroughly as a farewell present, the only person whom Casanova kisses in this film despite the presence of three attractive ladies in the coach. (In the lengthy interview on the dvd, Ettore Scola says Brialy enjoyed that scene very much because "Marcello put his all into each take".)

Casanova is of course a creature of the Ancient Regime, impossible in the developing new world (and very aware of it), while the other two writers, Restif de La Bretonne (only a decade younger, but looking forward to the new time) and Thomas Paine belong to the new age. Restif is basically our point of view character throughout the film, and this brings me to my one occasional being thrown out of the story problem, there's a two or three minutes of a scene early on which makes it clear he's having a sexual relationship with his daughter. Now, the film didn't make that up. According to the German wiki entry, he did have an affair with said daughter. But unlike, say, Der Thronfolger bringing this up about Orzelska, there is nothing in the movie indicating there might be a problem with that. (Der Thronfolger has Wilhelmine reacting and later the neatly ambigous "Do you love your father?" "Do you love yours?" exchange between her and Fritz). And I'm not really able to swallow "this amusing fellow is a writer of social critisim, erotic novels, had shoe fetishm named after him, and oh, he also sleeps with his daughter" without going ?!!!!!? and being thrown out of the narrative presenting this as just another of Restif's excentricities. It's not brought up again for the rest of the movie (which takes place on the road between Paris and Varennes) and the (adult, and presented as willing) daughter doesn't show up again, either, but despite really liking the film, I nonetheless on this rewatch never managed to get completely over my double take.

I actually am not fond of Hanna Schygulla as an actress in general, but she was perfect for this particular role as the Countess, an ardent monarchist unwilling to believe the people aren't really rooting for their king, and that it's not just a few discontents in the capital making all the trouble. The other two adherrents to the old order are the magistrate who is just offended by all the chaos and unrulyness and Casanova who is sarcastic about kings and nobles as well but basically misses his youth and thus longs for the world as it had been when he was young, increasingly aware that he has no place in the new one so that librarian for a Bohemian duke is the only thing left. But the Countess is the only monarchist who is passionate about the actual royals, and even she, as it turns out, is in love with an idea rather than the reality.

The film actually makes no judgments on either the republicans nor the monarchists and takes Restif's position of just wanting to experience and chronicle the times, but it offers a few digs at the then present, as when Thomas Paine (who will be imprisoned later during the Terreur, but the film doesn't do any cheap foreshadowing of this) talks with the industrialist about whether or not the new French Revolution is the logical follower of the American Revolution. Paine is all for it and his fellow traveller points out that "your countrymen at the embassy" don't think so and have already turned away from the revolutionary spirit and prefering to embrace conservatism instead now they're rid of the Brits. Meanwhile, Restif predicts an European Union in 1991 which for a film made in 1982 is pretty impressive. There are also a few breakings of the fourth wall which the interviewer on the dvd when talking with the director calls Brechtian but I'm more tempted to call Pratchettian because they resemble Terry Prattchet's type of footnotes far more than Brecht's illusion-breaking.

Best entirely-possible-but-who'd-have-thought-of-it? gag/sequence that captures the vivacity and charm of the film: Casanova and the Italian singer, when strolling with the other travellers through the woods for a bit, improvising a duet from Mozart's Don Giovanni (or rather, making an aria into a duet) which as Casanova (historically correctly) mentions he saw the premiere performance of in Prague. I tried to find it on Youtube for you,

cahn, but alas had no luck. There are a few excerpts, but not this one, it seems. Anyway, if you can get a hold on this movie, do watch!

My measly three years of French at school and I are very impressed and salute you. (It was my last foreign language to learn, after Latin and English, and I never was more than rusty in it and have forgotten a lot, not least because unlike my English, I hardly practiced.) Thank you for coming through with the linguistic expertise!

My pleasure! The nice thing about historical linguistics is that you can know stuff without needing to know the language in question.

Your measly three years of French in a German (I assume) school probably far surpass my measlier two years of French in a not only American, but academically poor even by American standards, high school. That plus my one semester of French historical linguistics in college is about it for me and French.

My German background is even weirder: one semester of proper German in college, one semester on German syntax from a linguistic perspective (so a lot of diagramming sentences and reading up on different theories that account for where verbs go), one semester on reading academic German in grad school, two semesters of Middle High German, and a few semesters of even more remotely removed long dead Germanic languages: Old English, Old Norse/Icelandic, Gothic. ;) All of these give me a slight edge in reading German over an English speaker who had only that one semester of German 101, but leave me with a total German reading proficiency that is actually worse than my two years of high school French. Largely due to English having a far greater overlap in vocabulary with French, notwithstanding that it's a Germanic language.

I will never cease to complain that my graduate program:
- required nominal reading proficiency in French and German,
- failed to provide us with resources to acquire academic reading proficiency without taking years and years of irrelevant "When is the train coming?" undergraduate courses on spoken French/German that no one actually had time for,
- held the bar so low we could pass without actually being able to read French or German, thus giving us no incentive to prioritize reading proficiency over all the other things we were trying to cram into our years there.

And then we'd get random lectures like, "You know, you should also learn to read academic Russian," and we'd blink and stare at our advisors like..."I don't disagree. In principle."

I'm convinced I have the least knowledge of modern French and the most knowledge of older French of the three of us. :D

Lol! Poor Granny.

And she'd died in Willy's arms, too.

Btw, here's a footnote German wiki has on the hot page:

"Der „schöne Marwitz“ ist vermutlich identisch mit dem auf dem Rheinsberger Obelisken ohne Nennung seines Vornamens als "Quartiermeister bei der Armee des Königs" mit der Lebensspanne 1724-1759 erwähnten Angehörigen der Familie von der Marwitz."

("Beautiful Marwitz" is probably identical with the Marwitz family member included on the Rheinsberg Obelisk without a mention of his first name as "Quatermaster with the army of the King" and a life span of 1724 to 1759.")

Otoh the Wiki entry for the entire Marwitz family thinks the Obelisk Marwitz is "The Black Marwitz" who "soll dem König verweigerte haben, bei Hochkirch das Lager für die Preußische Armee aufzuschlagen, was sich durch den anschließenden Überfall bei Hochkirch als Weise erwies" ("is supposed to have refused to the King to make camp for the Prussian army at Hochkirch, which due to the later attack on Hochkirch turned out to have been a wise decision"). Which would fit with the general Obelisk theme of "People who were fucked over by Fritz" in a metaphorical, not literal way better.

Another footnote says the four letters from Fritz to Heinrich re: Marwitz the hot page were written in March 1746, which, if you'll recall, means this was happening simultanously to the end phase of his argument with Wilhelmine, featuring Marwitz the cheating lady in waiting. Or, was Wilhelmine would say, "the sympathy of our fates strikes again".

Lastly, two more bits of trivia about Hohenzollerns being just... well... so Heinrich in his old excentric gentleman phase has many to be expected cultural hobbies, and one really weird one. Apparantly he liked to look at the occasional corpse in Rheinsberg. But not until some make-up had been put on the dead fellow to make him look less corpse-like.

And secondly, on a note of "it's sweet, but also yet another example of 'you two were a scandal that never happened due to your orientation'": Fritz writes to Wilhelmine in the early 1730s that she should send him a ribbon of hers she's worn at least 14 days.

Edited 2019-11-24 11:45 (UTC)

I've just run across a citation of page 30 in Burgdorf for the Marwitz episode. I don't know how much detail it has, but I'm thinking we need to track this book down!

Book is tracked down. The Bavarian state library has it, as well as Ziebura's Heinrich bio. She also wrote a group one for Elisabeth Christine as well as AW's and Heinrich's wives - the trio of unwanted women, so to speak, so I ordered that as well while I was at it. I should have it in two days.

Our man Fontane was on the case. Here's what the Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg have to say about Henricus Minor, can't translate right now, due to lack of time, so please employ google:

„Prinz Heinrich, damals gemeinhin – zum Unterschiede von seinem berühmten Oheim in Rheinsberg – der junge Prinz Heinrich genannt, war der Sohn des 1758 zu Oranienburg verstorbenen Prinzen August Wilhelm von Preußen. Er war also Neffe Friedrichs des Großen wie zugleich jüngerer Bruder des späteren Königs Friedrich Wilhelms II. Friedrich der Große bezeigte ihm von dem Augenblick an, wo die Kriegsaffairen hinter ihm lagen, ein ganz besonderes Wohlwollen. Dies war ebensosehr in den allgemeinen Verhältnissen wie in den Eigenschaften des jungen Prinzen begründet. Dieser erschien von ungewöhnlicher Beanlagung, war klug, voll noblen Denkens und hohen Strebens, dabei gütig und von reinem Wandel; was indessen den König in all seinen Beziehungen zu diesem Prinzen eine ganz ungewöhnliche Herzlichkeit zeigen ließ, war wohl der Umstand, daß er sich dem verstorbenen Vater des Prinzen gegenüber, dem er viel Herzeleid gemacht hatte, bis zu einem gewissen Grade verschuldet fühlte, eine Schuld, die er abtragen wollte und an den ältern Bruder (den späteren König Friedrich Wilhelm II.), der ihm aus verschiedenen Gründen nicht recht zusagte, nicht abtragen konnte.“

„Prinz Heinrich hatte 1762 den lebhaften Wunsch geäußert, dem Könige bei Wiederbeginn der Kriegsoperationen sich anschließen zu dürfen. Friedrich lehnte jedoch ab, da der junge Prinz erst vierzehn Jahr alt war. Erst nach erfolgtem Friedensschluß wurde er von Magdeburg, wo er garnisonierte, nach Potsdam gezogen und trat als Hauptmann in das Bataillon Garde. Er gehörte nunmehr einige Jahre lang zu den regelmäßigen Mittagsgästen des Königs und begleitete diesen auf seinen Inspektionsreisen durch die Provinzen. 1767 im April übersiedelte der Prinz nach Kyritz, um nunmehr die Führung des hier stehenden Kürassierregiments oder auch nur eines Teils desselben zu übernehmen. Dies Kürassierregiment waren die berühmten »gelben Reiter«, deren Chef der Prinz bereits seit 1758 war.“

„Der Übernahme des Kommandos folgte, wenige Wochen später, jene Katastrophe, die ich, nach den Aufzeichnungen des Protzener Kirchenbuches, vorstehend mitgeteilt habe.“

„Rittmeister von Wödtke brachte die Trauerkunde dem Könige. Dieser war in seltenem Grade bewegt. Einer der höheren Offiziere sprach dem Könige Trost zu und bat ihn, sich zu beruhigen. »Er hat recht«, antwortete Friedrich, »aber Er fühlt nicht den Schmerz, der mir durch diesen Verlust verursacht wird.« – »Ja, Ew. Majestät, ich fühle ihn; er war einer der hoffnungsvollsten Prinzen.« Der König schüttelte den Kopf und sagte: »Er hat den Schmerz auf der Zunge, ich hab ihn hier.« Und dabei legte er die Hand aufs Herz. Eine ähnlich tiefe Teilnahme verraten seine Briefe. An seinen Bruder Heinrich in Rheinsberg schrieb er: »Ich liebte dieses Kind wie mein eigenes«, und an Tauentzien meldete er in der Nachschrift zu einer dienstlichen Ordre: »Mein lieber Hendrich ist tot.«“

Oh, wow, a gold mine! Awesome, I await your newest book reports (but no rush, of course).

Speaking of book reports, I have obtained the last of the Lady Mary/Algarotti correspondence and will be scanning and uploading that shortly.

Google has been employed, thank you! (Google is so smart it automatically translates as soon as I come here to read comments, and I never even get to see the German unless I ask for it.)

"Prinz Heinrich hatte 1762 den lebhaften Wunsch geäußert, dem Könige bei Wiederbeginn der Kriegsoperationen sich anschließen zu dürfen. Friedrich lehnte jedoch ab, da der junge Prinz erst vierzehn Jahr alt war."

In looking at the Henricus Major 1745/1746 correspondence, I find that Fritz also declined to let *him* go to war, age approximately 19.

So, um, asking for a friend...how close were Ulrike and AW? I ask because I went looking for that postscript, couldn't find it (probably because it's domestic rather than foreign and thus doesn't qualify as political correspondence), but ran across a letter to Ulrike in Sweden (who counts as political even when the subject is a death in the family?), telling her about the death of their mutual nephew.

And this--I'm not even going to call it a condolence letter, it's a "woe is me" letter--contains the following Fritzian gem about young late Henricus Minor: "C'était l'image de son père, il en possédait toutes les bonnes qualités, sans en avoir les défauts."

Which is to be translated:

Fritz: It's going on ten years and I'm still writing defensive death announcement letters about how I'm totally not responsible for AW's death!

Heinrich the Elder: Just you wait until it's been thirty years and I'm erecting an obelisk in his memory on the day of your funeral, bitch.

Oh, Fritz. Family therapy and hugs for everyone. No weapons, lots of music (though perhaps hold off on the fraternal rap battles).

As promised, the remainder of the Lady Mary letters to Algarotti, and the English translations thereof.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 9 of 16

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

Re: Sibling Correspondance - I

Re: Crackfic

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

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

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

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

Re: Wilhelmine/Fritz letters

Re: Marie Antoinette's children

Re: Doctor Who

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

Re: Marie Antoinette's children

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

French pronunciation

Re: Casanova

Re: French pronunciation

Re: French pronunciation

Re: French pronunciation

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

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

Re: Crackfic

Re: Crackfic

Heinrich the Younger, AW's son

Re: Crackfic

Re: Heinrich the Younger, AW's son

Re: Algarotti