The last major shift in Fritz' letters to Heinrich as presented in the Trier archive comes when after the break between Bavarian war of succession the correspondance resumes two years later in 1781. Politics are still and always subjects, but now we get history and philosophy debates as well. (Well, we get Fritz' side of same, since Heinrich's letters aren't there.) Here's Fritz in a Senecan mood again (writing from the leisure palace he build for himself):
You ask me, my dear brother, in which countries there have been the most virtues. I believe it was at Sparta, as long as the institution of Lycurgus was followed there, in Rome until after the second Punic War, in England in the time of Queen Elizabeth; and, if you want me to tell you the cause, I attribute it to the frugality of manners. We have seen all the monarchies perverted by wealth, which brings luxury; the worldly goods attract consideration, so everyone believes that money takes the place of merit. We do not care about the choice of means to acquire it, it is who will have the most; from then on mores are perverted, and vices and crimes are overflowing. If I am not mistaken, it was Agesilaus who first introduced gold from Asia to Lacedemon, and from then on the old discipline was altered. In Rome, it was all the money brought there from Spain, Carthage, Macedonia and Syria, which softened Latium, and which perverted the citizens. In England, it was wealth which, in Cromwell's time, flooded Great Britain which introduced a frenzied debauchery and the license of morals.
Fritz, this is, err, an original interpretation of the Puritan republic under Cromwell followed by the Restoration of the Monarchy under Charles II.
In general, for men to be virtuous, they must enjoy a mediocre lot, that they are neither too poor nor too rich; add to that that they occupy themselves, and that work distracts them from the malice and nastiness that idleness would hatch in their brains.There is in the mountains of Silesia a population of about five hundred thousand souls, but laborious and simple in its manners; therefore, in the forty years that I have governed this country, I have only signed one death sentence, having only had one man who deserved to be punished. In all our possessions, which contain five million past souls, it almost never happens that, in a common year, there are more than twelve death sentences. The only crime that I cannot eradicate, and the most common, is that of these unhappy women who kill their children.
I mean, it's not that I don't see reasons for critisizing capitalism, but if a highly successful robber of worldly goods does it... (Sorry, still channelling MT sometimes.)
1780s Fritz is also very much in the misanthropic "it's all meaningless" vein, and he knows best about history. Looks like Heinrich mentioned Cardinal Richelieu in a positive manner. This gets instant disagreement: I see, my dear brother, that, at whatever cost, you want to raise our species. You say that Cardinal Richelieu made Louis XIII tremble; not only did he make him tremble, but he killed his king's mother in exile and poverty, he had Montmorency and many others beheaded; but such bad deeds can only honor the lives of tigers and wolves. Richelieu was haughty and vengeful, I insist on it, and I refuse him the title of great in all his wickedness; I only grant him the title of enlightened minister when he unites with the Swedes to demean Austrian despotism in Germany.
Historical footnotes here: Maria de' Medici, mother of Louis XIII, did die in exile after having lost a power struggle with Richelieu, but no poverty was involved, and that was the end of a long road; she also was as loving and kind a mother to Louis XIII as SD was to Wilhelmine, much preferring his younger brother Gaston and backing several conspiracies against her older son. As for Richelieu's politics in general, I'd say he was no more or less bloody than Fritz, and also prone to seeing himself justified in the same way. ("I have no enemies but the enemies of the State.") He'd have loved the "first servant of the state" designation, considering he himself did not sit on the throne.
However all these are only minorities; what does it matter to the universe whether Germany is divided between fifty princes, or whether it bends under the scepter of a tyrant? These things are important to us, relative to our small interests; they are indifferent to the mass of the universe; the planets will also revolve around the sun, and so will we, whether we are free or slaves. We also see in history that a perpetual vicissitude changes the destinies of empires: some rise, and others fall; this uninterrupted game represents the same scene with different actors. I am convinced that the ants in your garden in Rheinsberg often go to war, my dear brother, for a grain of millet, and that you have no idea of their famous quarrels. We are these ants, and we imagine that the whole universe must have our eyes on us; what am I saying, the whole universe? the celestial court still, with all the choir of the angels and the saints, are occupied only with reading the gazettes of our nonsense. This is how human vanity feeds on visions, and rises to admire in it the masterpiece of nature.
They keep arguing this point, and much as Fritz strikes the "it all doesn't matter" attitude, I get the impression he secretly is relieved Heinrich argues back that it does matter, there's sense in it all, etc. Even the arguing about historical figures though of course he's convinced he knows best. As ever.
As opposed to the Voltaire correspondance, the letters to Heinrich prove Fritz did take notice there was something going on over seas in the soon to be ex colonies. He thinks it's a bit tricky when the new rebels wants to trade, because on the one hand, yay trade, on the other, Britain is an ally, but as long as he doesn't officially open the harbors but unofficially buys the goods, it's fine.
In the preceding decade, Heinrich is a fan of General Paoli, rebel against the French for Corsican independence, which struck me as typical. (In the 1770s, everyone discovered the Corsicans as the oppressed nation to sympathize with - my guy Boswell wrote his first book on the subject.) When he's finally allowed to go to Paris in 1784 (only five more years until the Revolution!), he reports back on the state of the countryside, which causes Fritz to insightfully comment:
The public in France follows this natural common sense right which sees objects without disguise; but the ministers have many other reflections to make, the main one of which concerns their conservation. The influence of the Queen alarms them and contains them, without counting the exhaustion of the coffers, the little credit of the court in finances, and the strange decline of the army, which is almost reduced to nothing.
Indeed. Mind you, both Fritz and Heinrich are biased against Marie Antoinette for the obvious reason - her marriage to Louis makes it impossible to detach France from its Austria alliance, which the brothers would love to do. Thus, MT's marriage politics still stand in their way years after her death. (Fritz thought she would survive him and writes as much to Heinrich in 1778, saying "women refill their oil, while our lamp burns out empty - Lady Theresia (Dame Therese) will survive me".) Something that is inadvertendly funny is Fritz' insistence, post War of Bavarian Succession, of seeing Joseph as the coming menace who will try to conquer Prussia and all of Europe as soon as he, Fritz, as breathed his last:
The evil that I fear will happen when I am no longer; however, it is my duty to dismiss it or entirely annihilate it, if I can. I fear the close ties which may form over time between the Emperor and Russia; I fear that the great Catherine will allow herself to be deceived by the Emperor without noticing it, and that, by making him take one step after another, he will drag her against us; and I confess that I would like to warn the plans of those who would like to ravage and devastate Prussia, Silesia and the Marches.
Seriously, Fritz, I know you couldn't see Napoleon coming, but still, projecting much? Just because he imitated you by invading Bavaria doesn't mean Joseph wants to conquer Europe. As for him bamboozling Catherine...
Unexpectedly touching: Fritz' reaction to the death of Friederike Luise, aka the sister who got married first of all the siblings, who started out as a spirited girl cheeking FW and calling him "unjust" to his face and ended up frozen into permanent depression and ill health by a rotten husband almost as bad as the Schwedt guy: My dearest brother, It is the heartbroken with pain that I write to you today. I have just learned of the death of our poor and unhappy sister in Ansbach. This comes back, my dear brother, to what I have been telling you lately, that what is left of our family is shaking up their sleeves. I have always thought of going to Ansbach to see my poor sister again; I never could find the moment. She was a very good and honest person, whose heart was full of integrity. I confess to you, my dear brother, that this distresses me so much, that I will put off another day to answer you.
Back to Heinrich's 1784 journey to Paris, the holy grail of Hohenzollern travel destinations, longed for and never seen by Fritz: My dearest brother, When you are in Paris, my dear brother, a multitude of materials appear under the pen; a prodigiously populated city, an industrious nation, are inexhaustible sources from which one draws a hundred pleasant, interesting and instructive things. In this I find myself very backward, and unable to return the favor to you. Shall I speak to you of my vines, which have produced very poor grapes, of our trees, which the cold strips of their leaves, of my garden, which the cold will force me to abandon shortly? What will I tell you about society? I live as a recluse like the monks of La Trappe, on which you have glanced; I work, I walk, and I don't see anyone. But I talk to the dead by reading their good works, which is better than invoking the manes and talking to the Sorbonne and its evil genius, a use that masonry has put in vogue, and that popular superstition adopted. I beg you, my dear brother, to familiarize yourself a little with the Gallic hermits, so that when you return you can live with your old brother, who no longer cares about the world except by a thread. What a fall to leave Paris, and find yourself in Potsdam, at the home of an old rambler who has already sent part of his big baggage to take the lead for the last trip he has left to make. There, you saw busts, you were presented with operas, you heard famous academicians declaim; here, you will see an old cacochym body, whose memory is almost lost, who will annoy you with used words and the nonsense of his gossip. But bear in mind, however, that this old man loves you more than all the fine ésprits in Paris do. Be convinced of his tender attachment and the high regard with which, etc.
Say what you want, the man can write sad, longing letters. We are a far cry from "apply yourself" or "we're both cold". This is one lonely old man writing to one of the few people he does give a damn about, even if that giving a damn about happened very dysfunctionally.
We've arrived in the last year of Fritz' life: My dearest brother, I give you a thousand thanks for the wishes that you deign to make regarding my birth day. I passed it very badly, having had a very strong attack of asthma, and of which I am not yet entirely quit. We have here a M. Mirabeau, whom I do not know; he will come to my house today. As far as I can judge, he is one of those effeminate satirists who write for and against everyone. It is said that this man is going to seek asylum in Russia, from where he can publish his sarcasm with impunity against his homeland.
Not just against his homeland. He'll write a book trashing you all, including Heinrich. BTW, Heinrich was in Paris for the second time when Mirabeau's trashy tell all hit the shelves, and according to Thiébault, who visited, reacted to his being described as an incompetent geezer whose military success was just due to his boyfriend Kalkreuth and who was utterly small minded thusly: "For better or worse, I am a historical figure. If Mirabeau's judgment on me turns out to be right, then he has preceded history's judgment but for a few years. If he turns out to be wrong, why should I begrudge him a few days in the spotlight?"
Great nephew Carl August, bff of Goethe, visits in that last year, which is the last public court activity Fritz absolves:
Today we will have the Duke of Weimar here; he goes back home, and I admit that he is far superior to his father, his grandfather, as well as his bisaïeul; to find a suitable man in his family, you have to go back to the famous Bernard de Weimar.
But to the last, he still keeps his black sense of humor: My dearest brother, Since the time that I did not have the satisfaction of writing to you, I suffered like a damned of asthma, which worsens at home daily. The doctor, who mixes a little witchcraft, frenzied me today by a demon named assa fetida, who, by means of a cannula, entered my stomach, and rages in guts. It is said that the devil is the sworn enemy of my evil, and that, therefore, for sure, if he wins, I will be possessed by him, or, if he loses his cause, I will continue to suffocate unceasingly, until the moment which will end my sufferings. If I had to choose between these rivals who argue for the honor of enslaving me, I admit that I would prefer the demon, because the funny one has wit, he seduced our first mother and many others; instead asthma is a ruthless executioner who constantly chokes you, and never completes you. Here, my dear brother, is the picture of my puny existence, and I will have to spend a few more days in uncertainty to judge which of these two heroes, by expelling his rival, will secure my conquest. I will not fail to realize this, begging you to count on all my tenderness, as on all my esteem, being, etc.
The Heinrich Letters - Two Old Men in a New Age
You ask me, my dear brother, in which countries there have been the most virtues. I believe it was at Sparta, as long as the institution of Lycurgus was followed there, in Rome until after the second Punic War, in England in the time of Queen Elizabeth; and, if you want me to tell you the cause, I attribute it to the frugality of manners. We have seen all the monarchies perverted by wealth, which brings luxury; the worldly goods attract consideration, so everyone believes that money takes the place of merit. We do not care about the choice of means to acquire it, it is who will have the most; from then on mores are perverted, and vices and crimes are overflowing. If I am not mistaken, it was Agesilaus who first introduced gold from Asia to Lacedemon, and from then on the old discipline was altered. In Rome, it was all the money brought there from Spain, Carthage, Macedonia and Syria, which softened Latium, and which perverted the citizens. In England, it was wealth which, in Cromwell's time, flooded Great Britain which introduced a frenzied debauchery and the license of morals.
Fritz, this is, err, an original interpretation of the Puritan republic under Cromwell followed by the Restoration of the Monarchy under Charles II.
In general, for men to be virtuous, they must enjoy a mediocre lot, that they are neither too poor nor too rich; add to that that they occupy themselves, and that work distracts them from the malice and nastiness that idleness would hatch in their brains.There is in the mountains of Silesia a population of about five hundred thousand souls, but laborious and simple in its manners; therefore, in the forty years that I have governed this country, I have only signed one death sentence, having only had one man who deserved to be punished. In all our possessions, which contain five million past souls, it almost never happens that, in a common year, there are more than twelve death sentences. The only crime that I cannot eradicate, and the most common, is that of these unhappy women who kill their children.
I mean, it's not that I don't see reasons for critisizing capitalism, but if a highly successful robber of worldly goods does it... (Sorry, still channelling MT sometimes.)
1780s Fritz is also very much in the misanthropic "it's all meaningless" vein, and he knows best about history. Looks like Heinrich mentioned Cardinal Richelieu in a positive manner. This gets instant disagreement:
I see, my dear brother, that, at whatever cost, you want to raise our species. You say that Cardinal Richelieu made Louis XIII tremble; not only did he make him tremble, but he killed his king's mother in exile and poverty, he had Montmorency and many others beheaded; but such bad deeds can only honor the lives of tigers and wolves. Richelieu was haughty and vengeful, I insist on it, and I refuse him the title of great in all his wickedness; I only grant him the title of enlightened minister when he unites with the Swedes to demean Austrian despotism in Germany.
Historical footnotes here: Maria de' Medici, mother of Louis XIII, did die in exile after having lost a power struggle with Richelieu, but no poverty was involved, and that was the end of a long road; she also was as loving and kind a mother to Louis XIII as SD was to Wilhelmine, much preferring his younger brother Gaston and backing several conspiracies against her older son. As for Richelieu's politics in general, I'd say he was no more or less bloody than Fritz, and also prone to seeing himself justified in the same way. ("I have no enemies but the enemies of the State.") He'd have loved the "first servant of the state" designation, considering he himself did not sit on the throne.
However all these are only minorities; what does it matter to the universe whether Germany is divided between fifty princes, or whether it bends under the scepter of a tyrant? These things are important to us, relative to our small interests; they are indifferent to the mass of the universe; the planets will also revolve around the sun, and so will we, whether we are free or slaves. We also see in history that a perpetual vicissitude changes the destinies of empires: some rise, and others fall; this uninterrupted game represents the same scene with different actors. I am convinced that the ants in your garden in Rheinsberg often go to war, my dear brother, for a grain of millet, and that you have no idea of their famous quarrels. We are these ants, and we imagine that the whole universe must have our eyes on us; what am I saying, the whole universe? the celestial court still, with all the choir of the angels and the saints, are occupied only with reading the gazettes of our nonsense. This is how human vanity feeds on visions, and rises to admire in it the masterpiece of nature.
They keep arguing this point, and much as Fritz strikes the "it all doesn't matter" attitude, I get the impression he secretly is relieved Heinrich argues back that it does matter, there's sense in it all, etc. Even the arguing about historical figures though of course he's convinced he knows best. As ever.
As opposed to the Voltaire correspondance, the letters to Heinrich prove Fritz did take notice there was something going on over seas in the soon to be ex colonies. He thinks it's a bit tricky when the new rebels wants to trade, because on the one hand, yay trade, on the other, Britain is an ally, but as long as he doesn't officially open the harbors but unofficially buys the goods, it's fine.
In the preceding decade, Heinrich is a fan of General Paoli, rebel against the French for Corsican independence, which struck me as typical. (In the 1770s, everyone discovered the Corsicans as the oppressed nation to sympathize with - my guy Boswell wrote his first book on the subject.) When he's finally allowed to go to Paris in 1784 (only five more years until the Revolution!), he reports back on the state of the countryside, which causes Fritz to insightfully comment:
The public in France follows this natural common sense right which sees objects without disguise; but the ministers have many other reflections to make, the main one of which concerns their conservation. The influence of the Queen alarms them and contains them, without counting the exhaustion of the coffers, the little credit of the court in finances, and the strange decline of the army, which is almost reduced to nothing.
Indeed. Mind you, both Fritz and Heinrich are biased against Marie Antoinette for the obvious reason - her marriage to Louis makes it impossible to detach France from its Austria alliance, which the brothers would love to do. Thus, MT's marriage politics still stand in their way years after her death. (Fritz thought she would survive him and writes as much to Heinrich in 1778, saying "women refill their oil, while our lamp burns out empty - Lady Theresia (Dame Therese) will survive me".) Something that is inadvertendly funny is Fritz' insistence, post War of Bavarian Succession, of seeing Joseph as the coming menace who will try to conquer Prussia and all of Europe as soon as he, Fritz, as breathed his last:
The evil that I fear will happen when I am no longer; however, it is my duty to dismiss it or entirely annihilate it, if I can. I fear the close ties which may form over time between the Emperor and Russia; I fear that the great Catherine will allow herself to be deceived by the Emperor without noticing it, and that, by making him take one step after another, he will drag her against us; and I confess that I would like to warn the plans of those who would like to ravage and devastate Prussia, Silesia and the Marches.
Seriously, Fritz, I know you couldn't see Napoleon coming, but still, projecting much? Just because he imitated you by invading Bavaria doesn't mean Joseph wants to conquer Europe. As for him bamboozling Catherine...
Unexpectedly touching: Fritz' reaction to the death of Friederike Luise, aka the sister who got married first of all the siblings, who started out as a spirited girl cheeking FW and calling him "unjust" to his face and ended up frozen into permanent depression and ill health by a rotten husband almost as bad as the Schwedt guy:
My dearest brother,
It is the heartbroken with pain that I write to you today. I have just learned of the death of our poor and unhappy sister in Ansbach. This comes back, my dear brother, to what I have been telling you lately, that what is left of our family is shaking up their sleeves. I have always thought of going to Ansbach to see my poor sister again; I never could find the moment. She was a very good and honest person, whose heart was full of integrity. I confess to you, my dear brother, that this distresses me so much, that I will put off another day to answer you.
Back to Heinrich's 1784 journey to Paris, the holy grail of Hohenzollern travel destinations, longed for and never seen by Fritz:
My dearest brother,
When you are in Paris, my dear brother, a multitude of materials appear under the pen; a prodigiously populated city, an industrious nation, are inexhaustible sources from which one draws a hundred pleasant, interesting and instructive things. In this I find myself very backward, and unable to return the favor to you. Shall I speak to you of my vines, which have produced very poor grapes, of our trees, which the cold strips of their leaves, of my garden, which the cold will force me to abandon shortly? What will I tell you about society? I live as a recluse like the monks of La Trappe, on which you have glanced; I work, I walk, and I don't see anyone. But I talk to the dead by reading their good works, which is better than invoking the manes and talking to the Sorbonne and its evil genius, a use that masonry has put in vogue, and that popular superstition adopted. I beg you, my dear brother, to familiarize yourself a little with the Gallic hermits, so that when you return you can live with your old brother, who no longer cares about the world except by a thread. What a fall to leave Paris, and find yourself in Potsdam, at the home of an old rambler who has already sent part of his big baggage to take the lead for the last trip he has left to make. There, you saw busts, you were presented with operas, you heard famous academicians declaim; here, you will see an old cacochym body, whose memory is almost lost, who will annoy you with used words and the nonsense of his gossip. But bear in mind, however, that this old man loves you more than all the fine ésprits in Paris do. Be convinced of his tender attachment and the high regard with which, etc.
Say what you want, the man can write sad, longing letters. We are a far cry from "apply yourself" or "we're both cold". This is one lonely old man writing to one of the few people he does give a damn about, even if that giving a damn about happened very dysfunctionally.
We've arrived in the last year of Fritz' life:
My dearest brother,
I give you a thousand thanks for the wishes that you deign to make regarding my birth day. I passed it very badly, having had a very strong attack of asthma, and of which I am not yet entirely quit. We have here a M. Mirabeau, whom I do not know; he will come to my house today. As far as I can judge, he is one of those effeminate satirists who write for and against everyone. It is said that this man is going to seek asylum in Russia, from where he can publish his sarcasm with impunity against his homeland.
Not just against his homeland. He'll write a book trashing you all, including Heinrich. BTW, Heinrich was in Paris for the second time when Mirabeau's trashy tell all hit the shelves, and according to Thiébault, who visited, reacted to his being described as an incompetent geezer whose military success was just due to his boyfriend Kalkreuth and who was utterly small minded thusly: "For better or worse, I am a historical figure. If Mirabeau's judgment on me turns out to be right, then he has preceded history's judgment but for a few years. If he turns out to be wrong, why should I begrudge him a few days in the spotlight?"
Great nephew Carl August, bff of Goethe, visits in that last year, which is the last public court activity Fritz absolves:
Today we will have the Duke of Weimar here; he goes back home, and I admit that he is far superior to his father, his grandfather, as well as his bisaïeul; to find a suitable man in his family, you have to go back to the famous Bernard de Weimar.
But to the last, he still keeps his black sense of humor:
My dearest brother,
Since the time that I did not have the satisfaction of writing to you, I suffered like a damned of asthma, which worsens at home daily. The doctor, who mixes a little witchcraft, frenzied me today by a demon named assa fetida, who, by means of a cannula, entered my stomach, and rages in guts. It is said that the devil is the sworn enemy of my evil, and that, therefore, for sure, if he wins, I will be possessed by him, or, if he loses his cause, I will continue to suffocate unceasingly, until the moment which will end my sufferings. If I had to choose between these rivals who argue for the honor of enslaving me, I admit that I would prefer the demon, because the funny one has wit, he seduced our first mother and many others; instead asthma is a ruthless executioner who constantly chokes you, and never completes you. Here, my dear brother, is the picture of my puny existence, and I will have to spend a few more days in uncertainty to judge which of these two heroes, by expelling his rival, will secure my conquest. I will not fail to realize this, begging you to count on all my tenderness, as on all my esteem, being, etc.