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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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

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)

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.

lol, you guys are amazing :D I feel like the two of you should write a book, you're chasing down all the evidence like you are!

Heeee. :DD Tbh, I'll be happy if one of us writes that curtain fic. (But seriously, is that not high on the list of sweetest things Fritz has ever come up with??)

Also, I refuse to write a book on Fritz until I can read both French and German, and that might take a while. :P

If we did convert these posts into a book, though, I think we could model it on 1066 and All That. 1740 and All That?

Also, I refuse to write a book on Fritz until I can read both French and German, and that might take a while. :P

Heh. There is that. (My French background is sufficiently strong that, as long as I don't have to pronounce anything, I could probably be pretty good at reading fairly quickly, but my German is nonexistent, and more to the point my history and everything else is nonexistent, although as a result of being in this fandom for... four months?? ... I feel like I now know more about it than the average person, at least :P Possibly more than some biographers :PP)

Well, you definitely know a lot of things that biographers don't! And I think it's safe to say you've left the average person in the dust. You were the average person four months ago.

I feel like I could get my French reading proficiency up to speed if I were sufficiently motivated and in better health, but German would take ages, and also they're just not high enough on my list that they're likely to happen, alas.

Awwww. He sounds pretty great, actually! <3

(and, okay, I am now a sucker whenever anyone says that anyone was in a happy marriage! Regardless of whether it actually makes sense to believe them!)

Yeah, I wish Fritz had been more supportive of Fredersdorf's decision to get married, but I guess when you were forced into a loveless marriage and then your boyfriend leaves you, at least partly, for a happy marriage, being rational and mature about said marriage may not be your knee-jerk reaction. Even beyond your normal resentful attitude toward other people's marriages.

Also, if it was 1753, what else happened that year? Well, the big Voltaire implosion, and Algarotti scuttling away to Italy never to return. Once again, I feel like Fritz's mood and interpersonal relationships are having a chicken-egg effect here.

"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.

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