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

[cahn]

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

Comments

Re: Why you should never marry a Hohenzollern: The Wives' Tale

[selenak]

This isn't in Ziebura's book, but I'm tentatively speculating that one reason why not just Heinrich but also Ferdinand completely changed their behaviour towards Mina, aside from using her as an emotional punchbag for their own issues at that point, but why Fritz who'd at least been approving before and why the sisters who'd all been "Mina is great!" didn't try anything to shield her might have been, in a cruel irony, precisely because AW in his changed will wanted her to raise his kids and left her the diamond ring he was always wearing while he was at it. I mean, we know that they didn't have a sexual affair because we have access to Mina's diary as well as their entire correspondance. But the suspicion that there might have been more would have been logical at that time, especially given that AW did have affairs, and Ferdinand had written at least one letter saying "yes, Mina is great, but always remember so far and no further".

My own guess is they were each other's might-have-been. (While Sophie von Pannwitz, whom AW had asked Fritz permission to divorce his wife for, was a far more clear cut "one who got away".) BTW, Ziebura isn't sure if Mina ever got that diamond ring, because surely once she was financial difficulties she'd have sold it, but we simply don't know one way or the other.

(Re: financial difficulties - given Heinrich was only rarely in Berlin and surrounding area during the war during the Seven Years War and was the most important general in same other than Fritz, he has a sort of excuse for not always getting his wife her allowance, except he did always find the money for his boyfriends when they were in trouble. Post-war, he was simply being petty.)

Now, given the entire family knew that Mina might have been a virgin as far as Heinrich was concerned, you'd think that they would have understood even if they assumed the thing with her and AW had gone beyond harmless flirtation due to the "I want Mina to raise my kids and have the ring I was always wearing" bit from the altered Last Will. But we're talking 18th century double standards here. And it would definitely make sense of Ferdinand doing a 180% as well. (Stopping flirting would have made sense not least because he was married now, even though their flirting had been harmless, but not completely dumping her as a friend, too. Poor Mina literally writes I thought he was my friend in her journals. She basically went from being SD's favourite daughter-in-law, the most admired woman at the court, with an empty marriage, yes, but one very intense relationship with a man who had high regard with her and another friendly flirtatious one with her other brother-in-law, to "well, you can come to the next salon, fine, but only if Heinrich isn't there."

Re: Why you should never marry a Hohenzollern: The Wives' Tale

[cahn]

omg, that all makes total sense, particularly the double standards, and UGH UGH UGH. Poor Mina :(((((((