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Frederick the Great discussion post 9
...I leave you guys alone for one weekend and it's time for a new Fritz post, lol!
I'm gonna reply to the previous post comments but I guess new letter-reading, etc. should go in this one :)
Frederick the Great links
I'm gonna reply to the previous post comments but I guess new letter-reading, etc. should go in this one :)
Frederick the Great links
Re: Toppings of all types, continued
True and true in the best classical tradition. I mean, if you wanted to slander a political opponent in Rome you didn‘t just insinuate he was getting it on with men, that wasn‘t negative per se, but that he was getting topped by social inferiors. (Or non-Romans.) (Or both and by women - hardcore mode of trash talk!)
(See also Cicero about Mark Antony. Now there‘s a Roman Fritz would not have cared to be compared to.)
I absolutely believe Fritz was getting off, figuratively and/or literally, on the idea of having charismatic pretty boys at his disposal
We have another concensus. :)
Which contemporaries? Lehndorff (or his sources)? Gossipy sensationalists demand quotes!
I was extrapolating from comments like that of the Marquis de Bombelles, who writes when Heinrich is visiting Paris for the first time: This Prince whom one had assumed to be just the willing toy of his favourites now appears in France as an imposing, brilliant personality. His repliques show his intelligence, dignity and common sense while he also asks witty and persistent questions.
„Willing toy“ doesn‘t have to be a sexual position assumption, of course, but it could be, given the climate of the day.
(BTW, another Frenchman, Count Ségur, on the same occasion - Heinrich‘s first visit to France - sums up what I meant in an earlier reply to Iberiandoctor about first impressions based on looks vs personality: His enchanting conversation and his amiable nature soon won him everyone‘s love. When one talked with him one soon forgot his unimpressive height, and the disagreeableness of his face which at first even looked repellent. His mind ennobled his body, and soon one only noticed the great man and the most charming of humans.)
As for Lehndorff, what do you take him for? He would never get into this much detail about the most adorable of princes. Seriously now, when he‘s angry or eye-rolling about Heinrich and boyfriend du jour, the most he says is that „X had a pretty face, so of course the prince fell for him“ or makes the terse comment that everyone had to hear what a genius, say, Mara was when Heinrich was aflame, but he doesn‘t make physical insinuations. Re: his own physical interactions with Heinrich,i.e. the benefits part of friends with benefits, it doesn‘t get more detailed than „embraced me tenderly“ or the „Polterabend/Stag Night“ entry about Heinrich coming home with him to his old flat where they celebrated stag night and then went on to his new flat, and since the two of the are the only ones doing the celebrating and we get in the same entry a sentence like „ My heart feels the whole height of this pleasure as I haven't been able to enjoy it for such a long time“, at a point where he’s seeing Heinrich practically daily in terms of social interactions, well, this reader assumes they did a bit more than tenderly embrace. Another occasion where I‘m pretty sure something happened is in the 7 years war when he hasn‘t seen Heinrich for two years due to the war and mentions not leaving him until he‘s fallen asleep. Maybe they did just talk each other‘s ears off, of course, but despite having his then boyfriend Kalkreuth as trusted lieutenant with him and Lehndorff being a married man by then, I suspect Lehndorff the civilian and reminder of a life beyond the battlefield, no to mention Lehndorff the fellow mourner for AW and provider of constant affection since about a decade would have been someone Heinrich reached out physically on that occasion. As for Lehndorff, it‘s Heinrich. And a Heinrich now endowed with a new heroic reputation, - Lehndorff at one point goes a bit hipster - I loved him already when the lot of you were gossipping about his various boyfriends - when the court starts to talk about Heinrich‘s battle heroics ca. 1757/1758. Sorry, Mrs. Lehndorff, but not only do I doubt he‘d have said no, but I also think he might have been eager to assert a claim there.
Mind you, as opposed to the rough trade boyfriends I don‘t think Heinrich usually went for penetrative sex with Lehndorff, and that that whatever sexual elements their relationship had were mostly kissing, blow jobs plus petting. But on those two specific occasions? Mutual topping, i.e. switching, is my head canon.
Re: Toppings of all types, continued
I just want to share this quote from Roman Homosexuality for
„Willing toy“ doesn‘t have to be a sexual position assumption, of course, but it could be, given the climate of the day.
Yep, makes sense to me. The alternative would probably be "source of ready money."
As for Lehndorff, what do you take him for?
Well, not someone who would share this much detail! That's why I was so surprised. I'm glad it was a different source, it makes much more sense.
Also, thanks for spelling out the details of your evidence for the FWB relationship. Yay data. Yay gossipy sensationalism.
Re: Toppings of all types, continued
Well, that, too. Btw, I find it pretty telling that while to this day you have indignant comment writers no-homo-ing Fritz and even about Heinrich going "there is no proof!", their contemporaries seem to have had zero doubts in that department.
But back to insinuations re: favourites - these do often come with assumptions of position.
I mean, take Louis XIV versus Louis XV. Le Roi Soleil had his share of mistresses, both short and long term, and made a great deal of enemies in his life, so there was no lack of caricature printed in, say, the Netherlands, which he was often at war with, or in some of the German states. But what's notably missing are caricatures that present him as being topped by his various ladies. The assumption being that however much influence the mistresses had, the sun king was the dominating manly man here, and thus of course on top. (His last maitresse en titre and morganatic wife Madame de Maintenon gets credited with emotionally topping him, but not in a way that lends itself to sexual assumptions, since the idea is that she, with the zeal of a convert - since she was a former Huguenot - is the one who makes Louis go ultra pious, ultra Catholic and drive out the Huguenots from France.)
Meanwhile, there is no lack of caricature of Louis XV being depicted as being physically topped by his mistresses as well as being led by his prick in general. Because unlike Grandpa, Louis XV isn't seen as manly and strong, he's seen as soft and easily swayed, which translates itself into being topped by women physically for the satirists.
Also, thanks for spelling out the details of your evidence for the FWB relationship. Yay data. Yay gossipy sensationalism.
Data is characterisation, as you've said. I also find it highly interesting that Lehndorff and Heinrich knew each other for years before Lehndorff falls in love. Until the winter of 1751, Heinrich is mentioned as part of the divine trio Lehndorff hangs out with, but not differently than Ferdinand, and the sole one of the three princes occasionally singled out for praise is AW. In fact, when lamenting AW in the summer of 1758 and looking back on his relationship with him, he notes that in 1750 Heinrich was in love with a guy named Wormser and had asked Lehndorff to let Wormser take his place in the carousel (= big Berlin carnival event), Lehndorff refused, Heinrich was irritated and somewhat cool towards Lehndorff for a while but AW backed Lehndorff up as being in the right not to surrender his place at the big social event of the season. This, like I said, jives with the early diary entries not singling out Heinrich among the brothers in any way until late 1751, when "Prince Heinrich" starts to get mentioned as "dear Prince Heinrich", Lehndorff starts to have dinners and meetings with him without one or both of the other two, and then in 1752 we start to get all those mad crush eloges ("what a man to be worshipped", "what little self possession I have leaves me when I am near him" etc.). So it's not a case of Lehndorff falling in love with a prince he doesn't yet know very well and is dazzled by, but Lehndorff falling in love with a prince he actually does know, has known and socialized with for years until something starts to change.
What major new thing is going on with Heinrich in the winter of 1751/ all through 1752? Fritz demands his submission in the form of marriage, that's what. Heinrich isn't actually boyfriend-less during that period, the boyfriend du jour back then is Reisewitz - who as Lehndorff notes is busy spending Heinrich's money supposed to go for the stables on himself - but for some reason, that's when he intensifies his relationship with Lehndorff from group friendship to intense personal relationship. (Which it will remain through the next decades.) And from Heinrich's pov, too, it's interesting he doesn't seek out someone new to compliment his already tumultous emotional life, he goes for someone he knows. (And knows to be a courtier, but not without a backbone instead of doing whatever a prince requests, as per the Wormer/carousel interlude.)
Re: Toppings of all types, continued
The iconography of the propaganda re the French kings was also interesting and informative.
This is such an educational fandom, I am in awe.
Re: Toppings of all types, continued