Frederick the Great, discussion post 6
Dec. 2nd, 2019 02:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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
(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
Re: Lehndorff: This is the end, my friend - II
Date: 2019-12-12 10:21 am (UTC)I see both Kings return, wet to their skin. It is for us a very unusual event to see someone seated at the right of the great Friedrich. Both Kings separate, and the one from Sweden returns to his rooms. A moment later, he bids me enter. I find him leaning at a table and pay my compliments to him, which he returns om am amiable manner and with a charming tone of voice. He is of middle height, has very beautiful eyes, bad skin color, and a natural eloquence. After he has paid me some personalized compliments, he bids me farewell, and I go to his younger brother, the Prince Friedrich Adolf. The later is a delightful apperance, youth itself. I find him with my dear Prince Heinrich, who introduces me with the words: "But I must present you to Lehnsdorff, whom you'll meet again in Rheinsberg", and thus I don't have to say my compliments.
Some months later, Ulrike shows up for her state visit, and we get this exchange upon her first reunion with littlest sister, which totally cracks me up:
"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."
So what does Lehndorff think about Ulrike in general, after having been exposed to her for some weeks? Well, first of all, unlike certain Queens who shall remain his boss, she's never boring. But:
I have rarely met a woman with more knowledge and more wit. But alas, these brilliant qualities only bring her misfortune. For she has not learned to make her life agreeable to herself, as she could in her high position. On the contrary, this position contributes to making her unhappy. She knows no higher happiness than despotic rule while living in a country where the very phrase is a crime. In religious matters, she's a free thinker while the higher clergy of Sweden clutches to the letter of the bible. She openly admits to not being able to disguise herself, and since she does not love Sweden, she uses the most terrible phrases for this country. She is a deist, scorns priests and praises despotism, all of which in mockery of her Swedish entourage, who of course hasten to report all of this back home. She is arrogant, though she is kind on a personal level, as long as she doesn't believe one is lacking in the proper respect towards her. And the later is true for the entire diplomatic corps in Berlin in her eyes. (...) A for me, I lunch with her daily and I have to say, she's incredibly amiable on these occasions. But it does annoy people she rarely talks to women. She does treat her ladies rather haughtily. When the poor Countess Sinclair wanted to sit down opposite of her a few days ago, her majesty told her: "My dear, you are my daily bread, sit elsehwere."
In Ulrike's favour (for us, not for Lehndorff): Lehndorff notes she tries to reconcile Heinrich to Mina. Fat chance, alas. I should say something about Lehndorff & the wife of his dearest prince: for obvious reasons, he's never jealous and speaks only positively about her until Heinrich starts to ostracize her for real, and then our courtier basically shrugs and thinks, well, tough, but c'est la vie.
Lehndorff is the source for the big sibling "who was worse?" argument, which it turns out Ziebura rendered almost verbatim, only slightly paraphrased, in her biography, so I shan't repeat it here again (you already know my own paraphrase and have the upload from Ziebura). However, what she doesn't include are two direct sentences, one from Amalie, one from Heinrich, both in German. (Again, Lehndorff's diary itself is written in French, so when he suddenly goes into German, it means people are actually using German.) Given Heinrich pretended not to speak it at all, it is, of course, telling that when things heat up in dear old Wusterhausen, he and Amalie switch to German to really have a go at each other. It's also noteworthy that they use "du", whereas otherwise Fritz & siblings are vous-ing each other in their French correspondance. The sentences are:
Amalie: "Min mutter hät mi einmal so geärgert, det ich fast the schwere Rothe von gekriegt!"
Heinrich: "Ich wollte dass du sie noch hättest weil du so übel von deiner Mutter sprichst!"
(Amalie - in nothern German dialect, btw - "My mother once so upset me that I nearly got smallpox!"
Heinrich : I wish you did if you talk so badly about your mother!")
But that exchange is the only thing Ziebura did not quote. Oh, and Mildred, you wondered whether Fritz heard about the big argument, and whether he had anything to say to Amalie about her stand: Lehndorff doesn't tell, but he does mention being bewildered Fritz gives Amalie another 5000 Taler as a present about a week later. (In general, one gets the impression that after Wilhelmine's death, Amalie got promoted to favourite sister, much to Charlotte's and Ulrike's Frustration.)
Re: Ulrike's visit in Rheinsberg, things are relaxed enough that she shows up in her morning gown instead of in full regal robes all of the time. Lehndorff reports on the festivities (including that Mara and Schmeling to a lot of musical numbers together), but doesn't clue into the budding Mara/Schmeling affair until afterwards. Last but one quote, representative of Lehndorff's takes on Heinrich's boyfriends in general:
Another matter which amazed me was that Prince Heinrich finally decided to fire the infamous Mara, who had such influence on him. He was the son of a local poor musician and was educated as a boy through the benevolence of the late Prince of Prussia who financed his study of music, at which he soon made great progress. After the death of this prince, Prince Heinrich took him into his service. Despite Mara playing pranks all the time, but Prince Heinrich in consideration of his great talents was lenient. Mara possesses a vivacious, passionate temper, and not fourteen days passed without him arguing with the Prince who nonetheless treated him leniently, which spoiled him completely. Four years ago, he already left the Prince once already and went to Paris, and the Prince not only paid for his journey but allowed him to come back upon his return. Last winter, Mara left him once already, and in order to win him back, the Prince had to concede him the greatest privileges. Thus Mara was allowed to get as many meals as he wanted and for as many people as he wanted from the kitchen, he had a courtly equipage, he had a large apartment in the Prince's town residence, in which he was allowed to install Fräulein Schmeling, our first singer, of whom he is enamored. This still wasn't enough for him, and he behaved so badly that the prince finally sent him away.
One can see why Fritz was able to predict Mara was not great husband material....On the bright side, Lehndorff considers the Mara news as a signal he should visit Rheinsberg again, for:
I travel to Rheinsberg. The joy of coming to such a beautiful place and to the amiable lord of it make the long tedious journey bearable. (...) Here, I lead a delicious life. No one on earth can make himself so agreable in day to day living with him as the Prince. Despite us usually being only four at the table - the Prince, myself, Lodwig Wreech and Baron Knyphausen - time flies and we rarely separate before one in the morning. At always spirited conversation, music, painting and reading time flies so pleasantly that one is full of regret to find it did, finally, end.
I hear you, Lehndorff. And thus I conclude, too, my write ups from your diaries. You probably did the right thing at finally calling it quits with the Hohenzollern court, but I must say, I shall miss you!
Re: Lehndorff: This is the end, my friend - II
Date: 2019-12-12 10:59 am (UTC)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
Date: 2019-12-13 02:37 pm (UTC)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
Date: 2019-12-13 08:42 pm (UTC)Yes. Yes, they are.
Re: Lehndorff: This is the end, my friend - II
Date: 2019-12-16 10:58 pm (UTC)OMG.
Can you imagine what Amalie must have been thinking at that moment, omg. Poor Amalie!
Lehndorff is the source for the big sibling "who was worse?" argument, which it turns out Ziebura rendered almost verbatim, only slightly paraphrased, in her biography, so I shan't repeat it here again (you already know my own paraphrase and have the upload from Ziebura).
OF COURSE HE WAS :D Just imagine me drawing big sparkly hearts around Lehndorff's name here :D
So he was actually there?? And Editor didnt' think this was interesting enough to put in so it was in the CUTS??!! (Or, I guess, maybe didn't show the Ruling Family in the best light?) Also, your paraphrase is a thing of beauty and a joy forever (it still cracks me up SO MUCH) but what is this about an upload from Ziebura? Mildred, I demand a full translation :D
But also: those sentences she didn't include are ALSO gold :D Lehndorff, you come through again!!
Thank you SOOOO much for these amazing writeups! <33333333
Re: Lehndorff: This is the end, my friend - II
Date: 2019-12-16 11:15 pm (UTC)I know, you requested it a while back, it's on my Trello list (lol, most organized fandom experience I've ever had), I am a bad fan. :P j/k But since I can do it mechanically, and the Voltaire stuff I want to report on is rather less mechanical, I will probably get it typed up, at least partially, tonight, since today is an especially bad day concentration-wise and I need something mechanical to do.
Thank you SOOOO much for these amazing writeups! <33333333
THIS.
Lehndorff, you come through again!!
Also this. :P
Prince Heinrich as mediator
Date: 2019-12-17 03:08 am (UTC)Your wish is my purpose in life! These are the excerpts that
Gustav's return journey led through Brunswick and Berlin, where he was very careful to talk about his conversations with Louis XV. Nevertheless, Friedrich had his concerns, so he hastily had his brother Heinrich come to Potsdam, "because I think the two of us are not too much to preach him moderation or at least to dampen his first fire." The Prince then invited Gustav, his brother, and the whole retinue to Rheinsberg. Here they met Prince and Princess Ferdinand and the most charming ladies of the Berlin court society. For four days, Heinrich hosted 200 people, who must have had a strong appetite, because 60 calves were slaughtered; albeit about 100 of his own employees also ate with them. To the delight of the Swedish guests, a hunt was organized on the Boberow, and in the evening they went to the theater, where Heinrich had an opera and a Singspiel performed, the libretti of which he had written himself.
...
Her sister Charlotte came from Brunswick for 14 days, and the king happily gathered "his remaining family" in Potsdam. The three sisters--Ulrike, Amalie, and Charlotte--planned a trip together with their younger brothers to the old hunting lodge Wusterhausen, where they had spent the summer months together in childhood. Friedrich didn't want to come along. He feared the memory of all those who could no longer be there, especially his favorite sister Wilhelmine and the mother. Heinrich tried to change his mind by writing to him: "We will remember the corners of the rooms where we were scolded and sometimes spanked. But even the suffering that one remembers from childhood makes you happy in old age. " But the king refused. But they took Baron Pöllnitz, now over eighty, who had known their grandfather and whose memory worked perfectly: "There was no corner of the room, no chair, no table, about which Pöllnitz could not tell us an anecdote," Heinrich let his brother know after the visit. But it was precisely these memories that led to typical family disputes, as old as the institution of the family itself. While the sisters in particular claimed that the blessed king was a better father than the queen a good mother, Heinrich took the opposite view. When Amalie, in her harsh manner, especially attacked [herzog über] their mother, her younger brother gave her the same back. After much quarreling, the two swore they never wanted to see each other again.
Despite such troubled times, Ulrike had a brilliant time. Everyone fought with each other to make her stay in her home country as festive as possible through festivals, gala dinners, theater performances, concerts and balls. Everyone admired her multifaceted interests and her intelligence, but some found her arrogant and tactless. When she wasn't at the center of all the attention, at a festival that Duke Fredrick of Brunswick-Oels, who was stationed with his regiment in Berlin, held in honor of his mother [Charlotte], she was in a bad mood.
...
Almost every evening there were theater, concert or opera performances. In order to make them even more brilliant, Heinrich had hired the Berlin court singer Gertrud Elisabeth Schmeling, who on this occasion sang her parts particularly beautifully and soulfully. A love affair between her and Johann Mara, the cellist in the prince's chapel, developed in the Rheinsberg idyll. During her winter appearances at the Berlin Opera, Lehndorff found her "decidedly pregnant", and a short time later she broke her contract and fled to Vienna with Mara. It was particularly painful for Heinrich, because he had not only loved the young Mara, but also encouraged his talents and had him educated in Paris at his own expense. On the other hand, he could be glad that he was rid of him, because this reckless fellow had made good use of the good nature of his patron. He ran up debts everywhere, which Heinrich had to pay.
...
Heinrich had tried to make it easier for her to return by having a serious talk with Gustav by letter, "Forget the many small misunderstandings that led to your dismissal, and achieve clarity. Tell her openly what you expect from her. She can also tell you her opinion and express her wishes. Once you have agreed on this, it has to be possible to live in harmony with one another. In a kind of family contract, both the important and the everyday questions have to be settled with the approval of your siblings. That is the only way that comes to my mind. She loves the king with all her heart. She speaks of you with tears in her eyes, but precisely because she loves you so much, her vulnerability is particularly great."
...
Before arriving in Stockholm, Ulrike found out about her son's coup d'état. Under the pretext that one of the parties had plotted against him, Gustav had drawn up cannons in front of the parliament and forced the members to adopt a new constitution in 20 minutes, which gave the king almost unlimited powers. Despite her brother's displeasure, Ulrike stood by her son. She was proud that Gustav had done what had long been her own wish.
Friedrich was desperate. "If no miracle happens, I don't know how we can save this unfortunate family. Everything we have achieved for them in Russia has been destroyed. In two weeks at the latest, I expect terrible letters from Petersburg about this event... ", he wrote to his brother on September 10, 1772. In a letter to Heinrich, Gustav tried to justify his actions by saying that he himself would have been imprisoned or even killed if he had not acted decisively.
Re: Prince Heinrich as mediator
Date: 2019-12-17 07:19 am (UTC)I believe that's an English expression, too? Über jemanden herziehen = to drag someone, to bitch/negatively gossip about someone.
Re: Prince Heinrich as mediator
Date: 2019-12-17 07:23 am (UTC)Thanks!
Re: Prince Heinrich as mediator
Date: 2019-12-29 01:03 am (UTC)