cahn | Frederick the Great, discussion post 6

...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

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From:

selenak

Thank you for the sorting out of Keiths!

re: the passage when Keith (Peter) dies, you may rest easier in that the phrasing in German is in the Conditionalis, i.e. Lehndorff speculates that this is why Fritz got out of touch, he doesn't say it as a statement. I assume the German translator rendered the original French here, since both French and German have the that grammatical possibility.

All this being said? Fritz still could have believed it. Then again, Lehnsdorff isn't a Fritz intimate, he never has a single conversation with him that's not part of a public occasion, and he doesn't say he has this theory from Fritz intimates, either. He probably drew his own conclusion out of the remote royal figure with the spectacular temper outbursts he knows. Who is not cool with people running off with their Lovers to England.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Oh, that is good to know, thank you! Jonas Hanway, the guy who knew Peter in Lisbon and was pleased to see Fritz giving him money in 1750, and who was definitely not a confidant to the king and even more of an outsider than Lehndorff, speculated thus as to the reason: "On his return home, it was natural for this gentleman to expect a kind reception; but the king having now adopted other principles, was desirous to inculcate the necessity of obedience to the sovereign."

But if you want to know what I think, speaking as a close confidant of Fritz who's had many private conversations with him ~~in my head~~... :P

First, I think it's quite likely Fritz was doing to Peter what he did to almost everyone who wasn't Fredersdorf: signaling to him in the early days that there was no way he was going to let him have any influence, and also *nobody* could expect much money from Fritz, that was just a thing. That doesn't say anything about his attitude toward Keith; who *didn't* feel underpaid at his court? I think Hanway is right here.

But second, I think it's significant that Fritz treated Keith rather like he treated Algarotti, Maupertuis, and the other intellectual civilians he invited to his court: told him to sit tight in Berlin while Fritz went off and conquered a province. Well, nobody took that well, and also I think Fritz dramatically underestimated the five years it was going to take him before he could get started on the reign he and everyone had been expecting. Nobody's going to wait that long.

Interestingly, we know from Wilhelmine that young page Peter was intelligent but not educated, and that he got sent off to a regiment by FW as punishment. Like Keith and Fritz, I expect that Peter didn't want to join the army and was more or less forced into it by FW. My read on Peter is that he wanted to be a civilian intellectual.

Furthermore, Hanways reports that in the early days, Fritz "put [Peter] near the queen mother." That, to me, is a very telling signal of favor. I think Lehndorff is way off the mark here. And at the time Fritz is getting things going at the Academy in Berlin, mid 1740s, he makes Peter an honorary member. The more I learn, the more I think Fritz was really giving Peter the option to become the intellectual he'd wanted to be.

Only Peter was a young man, a Prussian (unlike, say, Algarotti), and a member, unwilling or not, of various armies for the last dozen or so years, and he would have been under a certain amount of pressure, external and probably internal, not to "shirk his duty." So he asked for a commission, and got it. Around this same time, he was also getting engaged, and complaining about his salary.

What I think is that Fritz and Peter got their signals mixed (because nobody can communicate). Fritz told Peter to stay in Berlin as a sign of favor, a rare exception to the "everyone has to support my wars in every way possible" rule. Fritz was probably absolutely planning to help Peter live his dream as an intellectual, the same way he invited Maupertuis to Berlin with promises of the presidency of the academy and then went, "But, wait, hold on one minute while I take care of Silesia; then we'll have money for all these awesome plans I have."

Everyone: *twiddles thumbs for significantly longer than one minute*
Everyone: *gets fed up*

Meanwhile, Peter, former personal page and boyfriend, returning to Prussia, might or might not expect a lot of money, but I think he expected to see Fritz. I think "you stay over here, far far away from me," did *not* feel like a mark of favor. It probably felt like, "I know I haven't seen you in twelve years, but, eh, I didn't really miss you, and also I don't respect your military service record, and also here's a pittance for your personal sacrifices for me." That had to hurt.

So Peter, in the absence of anything that felt like an emotional recognition that he was special, reacted with, "Fine. If you're going to try to pay me for what I went through, there's not enough money in the world for that. ~~I did it for you.~~ And if you're going to treat me like any other subject, I'm going to act like any other subject, because I've gotten the message here. I'm on my own. So I want a bigger salary and a commission. Like anyone else."

And Fritz hears, "You know how you decided to make an exception for me? Screw your exception, I want money. Woe is me, my sacrifices were so great and my reward small." When Fritz has just finished handing Katte's dad a promotion and a title, because he can't actually repay Katte for DYING. Without complaining. With a smile on his face. And I can't imagine Fritz reacting to that with, "Oh, yeah, no, you definitely deserve a bigger reward for all that sacrifice. My bad."

At this point, Keith deciding to get married like a normal 30-yo who had a fling with a guy in his teens whom he hasn't seen or communicated with since, and has totally moved on and built a life of his own that isn't just twiddling his thumbs while waiting on Fritz to have time for him, just sealed the deal of "You're not that special to me either."

And that's why I think, if there was any hope of picking up a teenage friendship again at age 30, it fell afoul of Fritz's wars and Fritz's issues. The sad thing is, between exempting him from the war, keeping him near SD, and later giving him an honorary Academy of Sciences membership and an administrative job if not an intellectual one (which reads to me like, "I know through no fault of your own, you never got that fancy education you wanted, but here I am recognizing and sharing your values and expressing my belief in you"), I think Fritz had good intentions here. But as usual, emotional intelligence fail.

After that, I think we saw a general, albeit temporary, increase in Fritz's chill between his wars. Both Lehndorff and Hanway speak well of Peter's personality, and I suspect once Fritz got the message that he wasn't going to make a power grab, and he wasn't at war, he was more willing to give him both money and responsibilities. Lehndorff tells me Fritz entrusted Peter with Amalia's trip the Abbey of Quedlinburg in 1755, which speaks of a certain amount of trust to me. I read in some secondary source that he was made aide-de-camp to Fritz, which is likely reflects what Lehndorff's report that Fritz invited Peter to camp in 1753. Given that it's autumn, I'm guessing it's camp in Silesia.

A couple

selenak questions for Lehndorff on Keith:

1) Lehndorff reports that Fritz gave Peter Jägerhof as a lifelong dwelling. Do we know where that is?

2) Can you translate "Er hatte ein schönes Gesicht und eine ehrliche Physiognomie, der sein etwas schielender Blick keinen Eintrag tat, wie das sonst beim Schielen oft der Fall ist"? My rough translation is "He had an attractive face and an honest-looking physiognomy, such that you didn't notice his somewhat cross-eyed gaze, unlike in most cases of squints*," but can you correct me where needed? I'd like to have this one right. (I've seen a secondary source reporting that Peter was cross-eyed, and I was wondering what the primary source was. Now we know.)

*Where I'm using the "cross-eyed" meaning of "squint" rather than the more common "voluntarily narrowed eyes" meaning.

Edited Date: 2019-12-06 11:07 pm (UTC)

From:

selenak

Your translation strikes me as correct. Incidentally, since Heinrich in his later years, post one blow to an eye at some Seven-Years-War battle, got somewhat crosseyed as well, which you can see in at least some of the later portraits, I suppose it's good Lehndorff doesn't mind this.

Jägerhof: sorry, I have no idea, and googling doesn't help, I can tell you, because it's such a common name. It literally means "Hunter's Lodge" and all the many many German principalities had dozens and dozens of places named after those.

Your interpretation of cross communication between Peter Keith and Fritz sounds absolutely plausible and makes the most sense out of everything.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Your translation strikes me as correct.

Woohoo, I translated a German sentence! :D

since Heinrich in his later years, post one blow to an eye at some Seven-Years-War battle, got somewhat crosseyed as well

Ooh, I knew he was a bit cross-eyed/boss-eyed, but didn't know it was due to a war wound. Well, that makes sense.

Jägerhof: sorry, I have no idea, and googling doesn't help, I can tell you, because it's such a common name. It literally means "Hunter's Lodge" and all the many many German principalities had dozens and dozens of places named after those.

That's exactly why I couldn't google it. Oh well.

Your interpretation of cross communication between Peter Keith and Fritz sounds absolutely plausible and makes the most sense out of everything.

It makes sense to me. I'm glad you agree.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Like Keith and Fritz

This should read, "Like Katte and Fritz." And I meant to add that it's very plausible that Fritz at that age was drawn to people who didn't want to be in the army. So at age 30, his primary memory of Peter might be of someone like Katte, who didn't want to be an officer.

I also meant to include Lehndorff's quote about Keith being "almost completely forgotten" in the beginning. That must have been exactly how it felt, sitting in Berlin without even being summoned to see Fritz. It must have hurt. But that's also how Algarotti and company felt, and it's not because adult Fritz disapproved of their actions as teenagers.

which is likely reflects what Lehndorff's report that Fritz invited Peter to camp in 1753

Well, I apparently conflated two syntactical possibilities for that sentence, wow. And now I can't edit any more. You know what I mean. :P

Edited Date: 2019-12-07 07:57 am (UTC)

From:

cahn

This set of miscommunications makes total sense to me too, and in addition I can totally see how Lehndorff, he of the total lack of socioemotional awareness, could well have gotten the wrong end of the stick here (especially since he's mostly listening to Hohenzollerns).