cahn | 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...

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From:

selenak

The problem is that someone removed all the AW/Heinrich correspondance from the archives. Now it's entirely possible that they burned their respective letters themselves. (After all, that's why we don't have any Wilhelmine letters pre late 1732, even discounting the big letter fire of 1730 - Fritz burned them all at her request for FW reasons - and hardly any Fritz letters - ditto.) But it's also possible the letters were destroyed later. But it's still odd that their correspondances with practically every other family member survives in large parts, including some explicit "Fritz sucks!" letters to brother Ferdinand.

re: AW's sexuality, Ziebura doesn't mention any m/m affairs for him, but she certainly describes him as an ally in this regard. Because, you see, with his usual talent of picking teachers for his kids who were supposed to do one thing and who did then just the opposite when his back was turned, FW hired a steward for teenage AW and his kid brothers Heinrich and Ferdinand who was supposed to ensure their utter chastity, one Lt. von Kreyzen. Writes FW, in a letter still preserved:

To that end, he must never let Prince Wilhelm sleep alone at night, he shall sleep in the same room as the prince, always, and he must see and be responsible for the Prince Wilhelm not to go to whores, fornicate, or commit silent sins. (...) If he visits places with the prince, he is never to leave him alone. The prince is to talk to everyone but never to have any sinful discourses.

I take it "silent sins" means masturbation. Now, you probably guessed where this is going: Kreyzen turns out to be gay. Very gay. As for sinful discourses, here's AW some years later, writing to brother Ferdinand who at that point is the sole one left in von Kreyzen's charge, inviting the both of them to visit him, AW, at the military revue in Spandau, and adding as a postscript/inducement to Kreyzen: "I'm holding a beautiful ass and fleshy tighs ready for him." And at another opportunity, writing to Kreyzen directly: "My prettiest fellows expect your thick priapus full of impatience."

Edited Date: 2019-11-25 07:11 am (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

FW hired a steward for teenage AW and his kid brothers Heinrich and Ferdinand who was supposed to ensure their utter chastity

Oh LOLOLOL it's Keyserlingk all over again!

cahn, FW did the same thing with Fritz. The guy appointed to sleep next to teenage Fritz and keep him chaste, as well as well-behaved by FW standards in general, ended up being gay (probably? definitely?), well educated and cultured, and named in future Fritz's list of "the 6 I have loved the most."

Man. Whatever the opposite of gaydar is, FW had an unerring instinct for it, didn't he?

From:

selenak

No kidding. Incidentally, you probably know this, but von Krockow's double portrait with introductory FW chapter has reminded me again: back when FW took up pastel painting as a late hobby (not least due to being incapacitated so much by his various illnesses), he portrayed every. single. Potsdam. Giant. I mean.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Really? Omg, I knew he painted them, but I had not learned or forgotten it was every single one.

OMG, FW, your kids are all showing signs of being attracted to each other and/or their nieces, and you're drooling over your tall guards, HALP.

From:

selenak

And the uncle/niece marriage was still way more functional than the one of that girl's parents. I mean, due to being the youngest of the FW/SD brood, Ferdinand was only eight years older than his niece. (He was born in 1730, the year of doom.) (Something to keep in mind about SD, too, of course, that she was pregnant during some of that year, though by the time Fritz tried to escape baby Ferdinand was already there.) And they actually got along. Meanwhile, his poor older sister Sophie had been married to that same 19 years older Margrave of Schwedt whom Wilhelmine absolutely did not want (nicknamed "the mad Margrave" for good reason), and then, according to Wiki: The relationship of the couple was not happy. Sophia often fled to the protection of her brother King Frederick. The latter did not stop at friendly admonitions, but sent General Meir to Schwedt with unlimited authority to protect the margravine from insult. Eventually they lived in separate places: Sophia lived in the castle Montplaisir, and the Margrave lived in the castle of Schwedt.

Go Fritz, I suppose? Doing something nice for a sibling who isn't Wilhelmine? On the other hand, Wiki also says, re: Fritz and this brother-in-law in general (who was also his cousin): In contrast to his father's policy Frederick II sought to distance himself from his Schwedt cousins, humiliating them at every chance. He made them unwelcome at his court, undermined the margrave's authority in his own dominions by encouraging complaints and lawsuits by his tenants and neighbours and, most effectively, he marginalised the position of the Schwedt brothers within the Prussian army. Margrave Frederick William was removed from command in the army.

....Yeah, Elisabeth Luise (aka the niece) sure grew up in a peaceful family atmosphere, alright.

From:

cahn

Oh no, she got married to that Margrave? The only things I know about him are what Wilhelmine said in her memoirs, but he... did not sound good. Bad enough that Wilhelmine was like "yeah, I would actually rather hang out with my super abusive parents a while longer than marry you, even given that one of them is abusing me even more for not taking you. Thanks but no thanks."

From:

selenak

Indeed, that's the one poor Sophie ended up with. Now, the reasons why FW absolutely wanted to have him as a son-in-law were three fold. On the hand, it was strategic, because the von Schwedts were actually Hohenzollerns from a younger branch of the family, which meant that if by some misfortunate Fritz and all his siblings had been struck by lightning before they could procreate, this guy would have ended up on the Prussian throne, as a prince of the blood. (Fritz has a very sarcastic comment about princes of the blood in general in his political testament.) As the von Schwedts were ambitious, giving them one of the princesses basically bound them to the royal family in FW's mind, instead of giving them reason to plot against it. Secondly, that Margrave, between loving to hunt, loving to drink beer and loving rough pranks was just FW's type of fellow. And thirdly, the very fact that Milhelmine had refused him, given how FW related to his two oldest children at that point.

He was, however, sick during the actual wedding, which meant Fritz was the one who gave Sophie away in church. And if he provided her with an authorized knight to shield her from Schwedt's abuse, I'd say Fritz must have had a pretty clear idea about what that brother-in-law was like from the beginning, too.

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

From:

cahn

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

Yeeeeeah. Ugh.

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

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

From:

cahn

WHAT
...yeah, have I mentioned repressed? OMG.

From:

cahn

OMG. Oh FW. LOL. Everything you tell me about him makes me think more and more that he was repressing all kinds of things :P ("This guy seems ~~attractive~~ ~~like someone I'd like to see around the place~~ like a good steward for my teenage boy!")