I hoped you'd like it. Also, between Fontane being a witty conversationalist, into history into neurotics with a bit of brokenness in them, a triangle would definitely have ensued. Mind you, given that for all his affection for history he could clearly see the rot and all that needed to go, and something of a lack of self preservation skills, it's good he doesn't stay longer than a few exciting months, even in crack fic!
(Self preservation: Middle-Aged Fontane: So, I've been hired as a war correspondant in 1870/71 due to my fluent French and Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg credentials as a Prussian patriot, despite my dodgy revolutionary past. Clearly, this means that between reporting on our victorious troops and the Empire being declared in Versailles, I can make a side trip to Rouen to do some research about Joan of Arc, whom I'm currently fascinated by. It's not like the French, humiliated and all to eager to get their hands on a non-military Prussian, would arrest me. I mean, I'm the descendant of French Huguenots on both sides, my parents had both French first names, and I'm doing research about the French national heroine here, what's not to love? ...I'm totally getting arrested as a spy.
German readers: Free Fontane!
Bismarck: I'm not into him myself, a bit too cheeky, that one, plus we were on opposite sides in 1848, but I can't ignore all those letters, and I'm currently feeling generous, what with having founded an empire which will surely survive really long after me. Messieurs: Free Fontane!)
Permission to travel: Not sure myself, but consider: laws were different in each principality, and Prussia had the strictest. Also, I think laws for the nobility and laws for the commoners were different in Fritz' time, i.e. Prussian non-noble citizens, as long as they weren't part of the army and weren't banished or in debt, could move as they pleased.
Not Prussia, but Saxony: Georg Friedrich Händel could as a young man move to Italy, live there for some years, later move to Hannover and England, without having to ask August the Strong's permission. Otoh, August the Strong's children and mistresses definitely could not come and go as they pleased.
Of course, Napoleon' arrival on the scene changed such a lot. Not only because Napoleon officially disolved the HRE, but because all the German states which were under direct French rule (for example, Westphalia) or were French allies ( for example, Bavaria) either adopted the Code Napoleon or reformed their own laws based on it. This meant, for example, for the first time equal legal status for the Jews, legally binding marriage taking place before a state official, with the marriage in a church an additional, no longer an absolutely necessary ceremony, divorce without needing the head of state's or the churche's permission, etc. And if you were of age and were not in legal trouble, you could definitely travel as you pleased. Now granted, several of these reforms were taken back once Napoleon was defeated for good, but some stayed. Incidentally, German law - and the law of most continental European states - having been developed on the basis of the Code Napoleon is one reason, so a lawyer told me, why even today aside from shared EU law it's far easier to conduct legal cases in other continental states than it is with Britain or the US, who don't share the Code Napoleon basis.
Only after the founding of the Empire in 1870/1871 do we have the same law in all the German states. (Minus Austria, of course.) By then, leaving the country or not - be it for travel or emigration - was certainly your own decision, no matter whether you were a noble or a commoner. But how long before that this was the case in Prussia for the nobles - beats me. Certainly private citizen Theodor Fontane could come and go as he pleased (and could afford), though he was definitely lying low for a while after the aborted revolution and took the assignment to become a newspaper correspondant in England 1852 both because it looked like an interesting, promising job and because it meant he got out of Prussia where post aborted revolution the police was extra strict. (Truefax: While Theodor Fontane reported for the Kreuzzeitung from London, one Karl Marx reported for the Neue Rheinische Zeitung from London. We do not know whether the two ever met.
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Re: Fontane-Lehndorff
Date: 2020-01-07 12:40 pm (UTC)I hoped you'd like it. Also, between Fontane being a witty conversationalist, into history into neurotics with a bit of brokenness in them, a triangle would definitely have ensued. Mind you, given that for all his affection for history he could clearly see the rot and all that needed to go, and something of a lack of self preservation skills, it's good he doesn't stay longer than a few exciting months, even in crack fic!
(Self preservation: Middle-Aged Fontane: So, I've been hired as a war correspondant in 1870/71 due to my fluent French and Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg credentials as a Prussian patriot, despite my dodgy revolutionary past. Clearly, this means that between reporting on our victorious troops and the Empire being declared in Versailles, I can make a side trip to Rouen to do some research about Joan of Arc, whom I'm currently fascinated by. It's not like the French, humiliated and all to eager to get their hands on a non-military Prussian, would arrest me. I mean, I'm the descendant of French Huguenots on both sides, my parents had both French first names, and I'm doing research about the French national heroine here, what's not to love? ...I'm totally getting arrested as a spy.
German readers: Free Fontane!
Bismarck: I'm not into him myself, a bit too cheeky, that one, plus we were on opposite sides in 1848, but I can't ignore all those letters, and I'm currently feeling generous, what with having founded an empire which will surely survive really long after me. Messieurs: Free Fontane!)
Permission to travel: Not sure myself, but consider: laws were different in each principality, and Prussia had the strictest. Also, I think laws for the nobility and laws for the commoners were different in Fritz' time, i.e. Prussian non-noble citizens, as long as they weren't part of the army and weren't banished or in debt, could move as they pleased.
Not Prussia, but Saxony: Georg Friedrich Händel could as a young man move to Italy, live there for some years, later move to Hannover and England, without having to ask August the Strong's permission. Otoh, August the Strong's children and mistresses definitely could not come and go as they pleased.
Of course, Napoleon' arrival on the scene changed such a lot. Not only because Napoleon officially disolved the HRE, but because all the German states which were under direct French rule (for example, Westphalia) or were French allies ( for example, Bavaria) either adopted the Code Napoleon or reformed their own laws based on it. This meant, for example, for the first time equal legal status for the Jews, legally binding marriage taking place before a state official, with the marriage in a church an additional, no longer an absolutely necessary ceremony, divorce without needing the head of state's or the churche's permission, etc. And if you were of age and were not in legal trouble, you could definitely travel as you pleased. Now granted, several of these reforms were taken back once Napoleon was defeated for good, but some stayed. Incidentally, German law - and the law of most continental European states - having been developed on the basis of the Code Napoleon is one reason, so a lawyer told me, why even today aside from shared EU law it's far easier to conduct legal cases in other continental states than it is with Britain or the US, who don't share the Code Napoleon basis.
Only after the founding of the Empire in 1870/1871 do we have the same law in all the German states. (Minus Austria, of course.) By then, leaving the country or not - be it for travel or emigration - was certainly your own decision, no matter whether you were a noble or a commoner. But how long before that this was the case in Prussia for the nobles - beats me. Certainly private citizen Theodor Fontane could come and go as he pleased (and could afford), though he was definitely lying low for a while after the aborted revolution and took the assignment to become a newspaper correspondant in England 1852 both because it looked like an interesting, promising job and because it meant he got out of Prussia where post aborted revolution the police was extra strict. (Truefax: While Theodor Fontane reported for the Kreuzzeitung from London, one Karl Marx reported for the Neue Rheinische Zeitung from London. We do not know whether the two ever met.