Frederick the Great, discussion post 6

[cahn]

...I think we need another one (seriously, you guys, this is THE BEST) and I'd better make it now before I disappear into the wilds of music performance.

(also, as of this week there are two Frederician fics in the yuletide archive and eeeeeeeeeee)
(huh, only one of them is actually tagged with Frederick the Great even though two with Maria Theresia and Wilhelmine, eeeeeee this is awesome I CAN'T WAIT)

Frederick the Great masterpost

Comments

Re: Lehndorff: This is the end, my friend - II

[mildred_of_midgard]

We shall all miss you, Lehndorff. :D

Thank you SO much, again and again, for your lovely, informative, and entertaining write-ups!

"When the Queen embraced her fiercely, she told her: "My dear sister, who fortunate you are to live with our family always!" Whereupon the Princess Amalie did not reply. Thus one can see that what is regarded by one as happiness is of no worth to the other."

Hahahahaaa. Family therapy for everyone, seriously.

In religious matters, she's a free thinker

Are *any* of FW's kids not? He really seems to have failed signally in Operation Piety, even worse than he failed in Operation Compulsory Heterosexuality.

they also wear mourning when Isabella (of Parma, Joseph's first wife) dies, which did surprise me. (Ditto when FS dies, of course.) But she's the wife if the future Emperor, and it seems even after having just fought the Seven Years War, at least technically Prussia still considers itself part of the Holy Roman Empire?

That's super interesting!

(When you read the entry where Fritz "absolutely wants to make a soldier out of the Crown Prince" and is "incensed at all the French fashion he wears" , you do have an odd sense of deja vu...)

You do. Yet another passage I've seen that turns out to be from Lehndorff...

I guess you're only supposed to wear French fashion in the late afternoons and evenings, after you get back from reviewing the troops in uniform. What was it Voltaire said, Fritz's court was "Sparta in the morning, Athens in the afternoon"? Fritz, you're being very specific about your requirements here. :P Stop traumatizing the next generation.

Re: Lehndorff: This is the end, my friend - II

[selenak]

Are *any* of FW's kids not?

Well, I don't know whether or not the two daughters with the worst husbands were, Sophie and Luise Friederike, because they were being depressed and sick and bullied, which makes for less certified opinions on anything other than "life sucks". Also Lehndorff reports Ferdinand gets a case of religion in the later phase of the Seven-Years-War, but also that he comes off it again in the mid 1760s, so. Other than that, though: Operation Piety was a bust, even with AW who was exposed to Dad's (positive) influence the most and ended up taking a "religion is okay for the masses if it gives them comfort, but other than baptisms, and weddings, I'm not attending anything" attitude. Probably the inevitable result of a) religion being rammed down everyone's throats when they were children, b) Fritz instead of FW becoming the key influence when they were teens, and c) living in the Age of Enlightenment, when more and more fashionable and/or interesting people (that they interacted with) stopped seeing religion (either Catholic or Protestant) as formative.

(Wilhelmine and Fritz were the two of whom it is really amazingly rebellious, though, since there was no precedent in their lives, and FW was in charge well into their adulthood.)

Glad to see you had the same reaction to the Ulrike-Amalie exchange (or lack of same) as i did. :)

That's super interesting!

And it's not like the Prussian court is wearing mourning for any other (unrelated) royals. When Heinrich does so for Catherine, it's a personal choice, no one else does, despite the fact there's a sort of family relationship since her son is married to future FW3's sister-in-law. And yet, just a short time after fighting the Austrians, it's mourning cloth time because MT's daughter-in-law is dead. Go figure.

Today I had to return my Ziebura biographies and the unreliable Burgdorf to the library. Looked up Ziebura's judgment on the Lehndorff before I did so, and she writes: What exactly Heinrich felt for the Count is hard to say. The Count, however, had found in Heinrich the great love of his life. "I will never be able to love more than right now", he wrote in June 1753 in the diary from which we've already quoted repeatedly. Consequently, he had to endure all the torments of jealousy, the grief of being never put first. But "my passion is stronger than my reason, always" and so he kept his tender affection for the Prince for the next 50 years, despite two marriages and lengthy separations. For his part, Heinrich may have been an unreliable lover, but he was a loyal friend. He kept drawing Lehndorff to his side again and again. Consequently, the diaries of the Chamberlain are the most important source for Heinrich's private life and besides, they are an interesting chronicle of the Prussian Court at the time of Frederick II."

Re: Lehndorff: This is the end, my friend - II

[mildred_of_midgard]

besides, they are an interesting chronicle of the Prussian Court at the time of Frederick II.

Yes. Yes, they are.