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: Trenck affair, continued

[selenak]

But would even 1744 attracted to Trenck Fritz have trusted him that far? And would chatty Trenck later on resisted at least dropping a hint? I see I must read the uncut version after all, or at least the early Prussia part.

Bearing in mind that Thiébault wrote his memoirs well after Trenck's memoirs had been published and had become an international bestseller, and that he himself never talked to either Fritz or Amalie about the whole business, and only knew them in their late middle to old age, here's his theory on their relationship and the role Trenck played in it.



Something everyone noticed and no one could understand was the steady and deep friendship between the King and the Princess. While Frederick was polite and considerate to all his sisters, he did not pay as much attention to any of them as to this one, at all opportunities. He never came to Berlin without at once sending one of his pages to her to ask how she was doing; always, his first visit was to her, or rather, he did not visit anyone but her. He never rode through the town without stopping by for at least a quarter of an hour; if he received new rare fruit, he immediately shared them with her, and the anecdote of the page whom he sent with fresh cherries in the middle of the winter to her, of how this page greedily ate half the cherries and of the punishment Frederick declared is well known. (...)


The Princess, unhappy in many regards and especially in what was closest to her heart - here the German translator adds a footnote to say: "The explanation for the princess' unahappiness is to be found in the article: Trenck, Fr. v. - must have felt deeply that only in her royal brother she could find a purpose to her sufferings; that he was able to provide a goal for them; and one could interject: that he was the one who had caused them, but what I really want to say is that she had to understand that he had only been so strict due to the necessity of politics which, however, did not suppress fraternal love or compassion in him; all this, I think, must have led her into the arms of the King and must have caused her to say: "Here I am in my pain; do with your sister what you want, for only you can console her, as only you can save her from the world's mockery and its gossp."

And assuming this - which fits the facts as we know them -, did not have the King to tell himself: "My poor sister, once beautiful and amiable, now disfigured and unhappy, did become so through me! I will show her how I pity her, how her fate pains me! My friendship shall console her for the misfortune which I cannot spare her. And does she not deserve compassion? How great is her accdeptance of her sufferings, her devotion to me!" I do not believe one could truly know Frederick, as I have done, and not come to this conclusion.

Mildred: what say you?

Incidentally, her German wiki entry claims the Breslau visit wasn't Amalie's first in the field - she actually visited Fritz immediately after the defeat of Hochkirch & Wilhelmine's death. Looking this up in Lehndorff, he puts it somewhat differently; he says the court in Berlin had hoped Fritz would come post-Hochkirch but instead Fritz ordered Amalie to come to him at Trebatsch (ten miles away from Berlin) and remained there with her 24 hours before moving on to Silesia. Now I wasn't in charge of improving Fritz' French, as Thiébault was, but my own arm chair psychology tells me that Fritz wanting to see Amalie post Hochkirch and losing Wilhelmine - when Heinrich was still stone cold furious at him on AW's behalf and had, remember, written to him after visiting Bayreuth that once Wilhelmine would learn of AW's death, any hope for her recovery was doomed - was because he wanted consolation from at least one family member in this really dark hour, and he chose the one entirely dependent on him, for better or worse, and thus - despite her reputation for moodiness and a sharp tongue - unlikely to blame him. Conversely, however strongly (or not - we just don't know) Amalie might have felt about Trenck, Thiébaut was probably on to something in speculating this became the one relationship in her life that she could rely on. It's its own kind of messed up and close. Hohenzollern siblings: would have provided therapists with material for centuries to come!

Re: Trenck affair, continued

[mildred_of_midgard]

But would even 1744 attracted to Trenck Fritz have trusted him that far? And would chatty Trenck later on resisted at least dropping a hint?

Probably not, and hell no, in that order. The latter is why I used strikethough: just me being silly about scriptwriter's choices. ;)

I see I must read the uncut version after all, or at least the early Prussia part.

Truly, you must!

Mildred: what say you?

What you said: centuries' worth of material for therapy here.

I don't know Amalie that well, but you said that she spoke of wanting to follow Fritz into the grave in his final years. Now, she may have the world's worst case of Stockholm Syndrome (I've seen these kinds of cases), but that's notably *not* what Fritz said about FW1 or FW2 said about Fritz. So maybe he did convince her of the political necessity beyond "I think he had an affair with you, and that's a no-no because I wanted him to have an affair with me."

Or Stockholm.