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cahnAll 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
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
Re: Algarotti
Date: 2019-11-19 06:42 am (UTC)Unfortunately, the political correspondence really only seems to be available in scans, so not even searchable or anything. I guess if I had to pick one, I'd pick the personal correspondence, but still. I'm starting to get interested in his political correspondence too. (Yesterday, for example, I found the letters where Fritz wrote to the guy in Hanover, shortly after becoming king, telling him to find Peter Keith and tell him to come home. I'm still a bit uncertain why Fritz said to keep the matter a secret?)
ETA: Correction, the first 20 of the 46 volumes of political correspondence have been converted to text! I just thought they hadn't because my first foray into the correspondence was the Peter III correspondence, which is in volume 22.
Wilhelmine/Fritz letters
Date: 2019-11-21 05:26 pm (UTC)Also my French is even worse than I thought it was, sigh.
So now I'm puzzled -- it seems to be missing at least one 1745/1746 letter and the dates are all over the place!
Quoting from
20. September 1745: Coronation of FS in Frankfurt; en route to said coronation, but the biography does not specify on which day exactly, MT passes through Emskirchen which is Bayreuth principality territory, and there has lunch with Wilhelmine
=> all hell breaks loose.
22. November 1745: Fritz invades Saxony (the first time). This basically ends the second Silesian War, with MT agreeing to letting Fritz have Silesia, Fritz belatedly voting for FS as Emperor and writes to Wilhelmine the "have made peace with YOUR FRIEND THE QUEEN OF HUNGARY" letter I already mentioned, along with Wilhelmine's "yay peace! she's not my friend, though cool" reply. Or, to quote it in the original phrasing: "Regarding the Queen of Hungary, I have never had a preference for her or a particular attachment to her interests. I simply do justice to her good qualities and consider it permitted to esteem all people who possess these." (Countered with "you are a traitor and a miscreant" type of letters.)
The letters:
2 Oct, F to W - "We have just defeated the Austrians."
19 Oct, W to F - You're the greatest, bro!
29 Oct, F to W - Thanks, sis! I am the greatest!
30 Dec, F to W - (Ma chere soeur instead of Ma tres chere, :(((((( ) - I just made peace with YOUR FRIEND
15 Jan, W to F - Yay peace! She's not my friend, I just acknowledge her good qualities! (these two are the ones referred to above)
29 Mar, F to W - You know, all the conflicts we've been having are not JUST your fault, it's also the fault of That Person I Won't Name Because That Would Actually Be Good Communication, but if I say "cuckold" will you get my hint? (which selenak has also translated previously)
But it sounds like there is at least one more letter between Jan and Mar where Fritz really got on her case for the "yay peace" comment? Or am I misunderstanding something one of you said in previous comments? Or is it a later letter where she's called a traitor and miscreant?
Re: Wilhelmine/Fritz letters
Date: 2019-11-22 11:21 am (UTC)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....
Re: Wilhelmine/Fritz letters
Date: 2019-11-25 08:28 pm (UTC)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!
<33333 Wilhelmine is so great, I love her <3 And now that I know more about AW I'm even more :((((((( about him :( <3
Re: Wilhelmine/Fritz letters
Date: 2019-11-26 06:59 am (UTC)Re: AW, naturally Fontane covers him as well in his travel guide, apropos Oranienburg, the palace Fritz gave him when Heinrich got Rheinsberg. It had been one of their grandfather's favored residences, which meant of course that FW had shut it down and ignored it for the three decades of his rule as part of his saving money to balance the state budget policy. This, however, meant that by the time AW got it and reopened it, the park had grown wild and really made it look like a fairy tale residence. Now Fontane quotes an older Prussian courtier - who did remember the F1 days - describing the party AW threw for his mother and siblings there. As it is a great example of a rokoko festivity, here is the description as quoted by Theodor Fontane: "On April 14," it says, "the Queen Mother set out from Berlin and arrived in Oranienburg in the afternoon of the same day. Her court followed her in a long line of bodies, probably thirty in number. The princess Amalie sat in the car of the queen. As soon as the approach of the train was announced to Prince August Wilhelm, he hurried up the great avenue towards the train, leapt from the horse in the face of the Queen's carriage, and greeted her, with his head bare, at the door of the carriage. Then he quickly swung himself back into the saddle and hurried forward in full gallop to repeat the honors at the entrance to the castle. At his side stood his wife, the Princess of Prussia (a born princess of Brunswick), the princes Heinrich and Ferdinand, and the court ladies of Wollden, Henckel, Wartensleben, Kamecke, Hacke, Pannewitz and Kannenberg. The queen most tenderly embraced her sons, greeted the bystanders, and was then led up the great staircase to the bedchamber destined for her, the same that King Frederick I used to inhabit during his visits to Oranienburg Castle. The queen found in this room a state bed of red damask, as well as an armchair, a fire-screen, and four taburets of the same cloth and the same color. Soon after the noble woman had settled in and enjoyed the view of the park and the landscape, the prince appeared to present her with three beautiful figures of Dresden porcelain, which the Queen Mother, as the prince knew, was particularly enamored by. But the queen mother was not alone in attracting the attention of this amiable prince, and Baron von Pöllnitz was also honored with similar attention. His Royal Highness well knew the fondness of the old Baron (von Pöllnitz) for all the antiquities and curiosities of the time of King Frederick I, who had always been a good and gracious lord to him, and mindful of that fondness, His Royal Highness presented the old baron with a morning cap, richly embroidered with gold, and a pair of slippers, which King Frederick I used to wear during his visits to Oranienburg, and who for more than thirty-two years had stood unnoticed and unappreciated in a half-forgotten chest. After sunset, promenades followed in the park, then game tables were arranged until about ten the welcome message that the supper was served, the game interrupted. What subtleties and surprises from the kitchen, which highly qualified wines, what cheerfulness, what cheerfulness of the guests! And yet at last the inevitable happened, as King Dagobert bitterly lamented at the time that even the best society had its end and had to part.
That was on April 14th. Early the next morning, and sooner than we liked, unfamiliar sounds woke us; the shepherd drove his flock past the castle, out into the fresh fields. The decision was made by a bull of such extra-elegant beauty that he could be none other than the well-known happy lover of the Virgin Europe; indeed, the manner in which he wore, and the strength of his breast tones, seemed to indicate that he would steal our Ladies at the different windows of the castle. But he was deceived, our ladies, who may have read the story, were afraid and held back so as not to expose themselves and their charms to similar dangers. However that may be, the morning slumber was disturbed, and in place of sleep, which refused to come again, promenades in a light, fluttering morning costume and, after breakfast, the mutual visits. The Princess Amalie received the tributes offered to her beauty; she wore a corset of black satin quilted with white silk and beneath it a silver-embroidered dress, embroidered with natural flowers. In this costume she stood and practiced the flute: Euterpe itself could have been the envy.
After dinner, the queen-mother received all the ladies present in her bedroom; those who preferred hand-crafting to card-playing sat on tabourets for the queen, while Baron Pöllnitz took his place as a reader, continuing in the reading of "La Manche or The Adventures of Monsieur. Bigaud". The queen followed the lecture and took off gold threads (se à à effiler de l'or). The decision of the day was made by a ball in the brightly lit dance hall, followed by a supper in the state room, at the end of the porcelain gallery. As the queen entered the state room, she suddenly noticed through the high windows opposite, as it suddenly did, in the middle of the dark park, like a flame-tree growing out of the earth. The picture became ever clearer, until at last it stood like a fiery arcade, which bore a crown at the highest point and below it the words "Vivat Sophia Dorothea."
Re: Wilhelmine/Fritz letters
Date: 2019-11-28 01:58 am (UTC)Re: Wilhelmine/Fritz letters
Date: 2019-11-28 06:49 pm (UTC)Re: Wilhelmine/Fritz letters
Date: 2019-11-28 06:59 pm (UTC)Re: Wilhelmine/Fritz letters
Date: 2019-11-29 03:54 am (UTC)AND FRITZ I HOPE YOU WERE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF. Ahem.