As much boyfriend action and family dysfunction as you could want, all in one entry!
showing him "all the tendernesses imaginable", took him into his room afterwards and there confided in him about this family:
Fritz: I can be the most tender person imaginable when there's money involved!
It's worth spelling out to cahn that Manteuffel is a successor to Suhm, i.e. Saxon envoy to Prussia, and that Suhm in a few months will become Saxon envoy to Russia, drumming up money for Fritz in St. Petersburg. Right now (July 1736), Suhm is in Dresden.
Let's pause here for the only moment good old Ferdinand, age six at this point (Heinrich is ten), gets singled out for the prediction he'll exceed in anything. Ferdinand, coming menace, this was your day!
Lolsob. Remember, Joseph is also going to be the menace of Europe as soon as he gets a chance!
You get the impression Fritz is incredibly paranoid and pessimistic, and as Lavisse says, he and Wilhelmine were taught from a young age to look for the worst in people and expect the worst. :/
I venture to guess this is an allusion to a French saying unknown to us.
"Un fine mouche", "a fine fly," is someone clever, astute, observant. As early as 1389, used to designate someone good at spying and concealing what they know. It's a bit like English "fly on the wall": someone who can listen and learn without being detected.
Iunior showed the Devil a small present that he intends for him. It's a golden apple for a cane that he had comissioned to be made. It represents the image of Socrates and there are engraved French verses above, which Iunior composed himself. This composition is most flattering for the Devil: because Iunior in these verses represents himself as Alcibiades and looks at the Devil like Socrates.
Are you serious? Are you fucking SERIOUS? Omg, all I can take away from this is 1) Fritz is a troll, 2) Fritz wants an erastes SO BAD and Suhm is in Dresden :-((((.
I thought you were practically broke?
Oh, please, Fritz is only broke because he's a total spendthrift. He runs through money like water and can never get enough. Commissioning golden walking stick heads for prospective erastes friends is just one way of running through his money. He's always got a sob story, but let's be real, this is WHY he's constantly broke.
Who was the original intended recipient, Voltaire or Mantteuffel?
Both? Fritz playing a numbers game? :P
Heinrich totally kicked him under the table. Or Ferdinand did, since he gets to be the coming menace.
Someone did! Or else somebody (probably Ferdinand) dissed education.
1.) Fritz, cheating on Voltaire this early on in the relationship?
It's not cheating if the other guy isn't willing to commit either!
3.) Younger brothers, your educational day will come. Junior is a man with a mission here, clearly.
Yes, and his educational methods won't make *anyone* bitter!
4.) So did he have sex with Mantteuffel, and do we count Mantteuffel among the boyfriends or the witty pretties?
Well, Manteuffel is, if Wikipedia can be trusted, 60 years old in 1736, thus 36 years older than Fritz (Suhm is "only" 21 years older than Fritz, Voltaire 17). If anyone is playing the witty pretty in this relationship, it's Fritz! Not that Fritz is especially pretty, but I have to imagine being young and Crown Prince is even better.
So I see two possibilities here. One is that Manteuffel, Saxon ambassador, patron of Wolff, that Fritz is showing tenderness to and trying to drum up money from, is a surrogate Suhm. Potential boyfriend with a heavy dose of wishful thinking on Fritz's part. It would help to know at what date Fritz turned sour on him. With everyone lying to everyone else, it's hard to tell.
But aww, poor lonely Crown Prince, what with Katte dead, Suhm only around for a few weeks a year (and soon not at all), Voltaire not willing to give up freaking Émilie, and I'm telling you, Fredersdorf may fill more niches than is humanly possible, but he *does not* satisfy those erastes cravings!
Alternately, what I really think I'm getting here is a "make nice to foreign envoy to get some leverage against FW" vibe. Maybe it's just because I got to this passage in Lavisse today, but I'm reminded of the part where he recounts 14-yo Fritz going to French Rottenburg (Katte's Rottenburg, not Fritz's Prussian Rottenburg), envoy from Paris to Berlin, showering him with unsolicited attentions, and trying to get a conspiracy going. [ETA: I have confirmed my memory that Lavisse and Asprey report one key detail differently: Lavisse says Fritz demanded Rottenburg tell him everything he knew about the King was up to. Asprey says Fritz offered to tell Rottenburg everything he knew about what the King was up to. That's quite a difference!]
Given that it's 1736, and Fritz is systematically trying to get money out of everyone with access to any money--he's *just* moved or is about to move into Rheinsberg--and favors out of everyone, down to AW probably spying on Dad for him, and is even willing to use Grumbkow as long as G can make himself useful...one can read the Manteuffel relationship with a great deal of cynicism.
Quite likely: Fritz starts out hoping that Manteuffel will be another Suhm but conveniently close at hand, gets disillusioned, starts using him, has no hesitation in kicking him out as soon as it's time to invade Silesia. At what point we switch from "hoping" to "disillusioned," I don't know. I don't even know whether it's before or after that October 1737 letter to Grumbkow.
Sex? Not impossible, but imo, unlikely.
I reserve the right to change any and all opinions with more data. :)
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Re: Fritz Tells All: The Austrian Dossier (Seckendorff I)
Date: 2020-02-02 12:09 am (UTC)showing him "all the tendernesses imaginable", took him into his room afterwards and there confided in him about this family:
Fritz: I can be the most tender person imaginable when there's money involved!
It's worth spelling out to
Let's pause here for the only moment good old Ferdinand, age six at this point (Heinrich is ten), gets singled out for the prediction he'll exceed in anything. Ferdinand, coming menace, this was your day!
Lolsob. Remember, Joseph is also going to be the menace of Europe as soon as he gets a chance!
You get the impression Fritz is incredibly paranoid and pessimistic, and as Lavisse says, he and Wilhelmine were taught from a young age to look for the worst in people and expect the worst. :/
I venture to guess this is an allusion to a French saying unknown to us.
Unknown to us no longer!
https://www.expressio.fr/expressions/une-fine-mouche
"Un fine mouche", "a fine fly," is someone clever, astute, observant. As early as 1389, used to designate someone good at spying and concealing what they know. It's a bit like English "fly on the wall": someone who can listen and learn without being detected.
Iunior showed the Devil a small present that he intends for him. It's a golden apple for a cane that he had comissioned to be made. It represents the image of Socrates and there are engraved French verses above, which Iunior composed himself. This composition is most flattering for the Devil: because Iunior in these verses represents himself as Alcibiades and looks at the Devil like Socrates.
Are you serious? Are you fucking SERIOUS? Omg, all I can take away from this is 1) Fritz is a troll, 2) Fritz wants an erastes SO BAD
and Suhm is in Dresden :-((((.I thought you were practically broke?
Oh, please, Fritz is only broke because he's a total spendthrift. He runs through money like water and can never get enough. Commissioning golden walking stick heads for
prospective erastesfriends is just one way of running through his money. He's always got a sob story, but let's be real, this is WHY he's constantly broke.Who was the original intended recipient, Voltaire or Mantteuffel?
Both? Fritz playing a numbers game? :P
Heinrich totally kicked him under the table. Or Ferdinand did, since he gets to be the coming menace.
Someone did! Or else somebody (probably Ferdinand) dissed education.
1.) Fritz, cheating on Voltaire this early on in the relationship?
It's not cheating if the other guy isn't willing to commit either!
3.) Younger brothers, your educational day will come. Junior is a man with a mission here, clearly.
Yes, and his educational methods won't make *anyone* bitter!
4.) So did he have sex with Mantteuffel, and do we count Mantteuffel among the boyfriends or the witty pretties?
Well, Manteuffel is, if Wikipedia can be trusted, 60 years old in 1736, thus 36 years older than Fritz (Suhm is "only" 21 years older than Fritz, Voltaire 17). If anyone is playing the witty pretty in this relationship, it's Fritz! Not that Fritz is especially pretty, but I have to imagine being young and Crown Prince is even better.
So I see two possibilities here. One is that Manteuffel, Saxon ambassador, patron of Wolff, that Fritz is showing tenderness to and trying to drum up money from, is a surrogate Suhm. Potential boyfriend with a heavy dose of wishful thinking on Fritz's part. It would help to know at what date Fritz turned sour on him. With everyone lying to everyone else, it's hard to tell.
But aww, poor lonely Crown Prince, what with Katte dead, Suhm only around for a few weeks a year (and soon not at all), Voltaire not willing to give up freaking Émilie, and I'm telling you, Fredersdorf may fill more niches than is humanly possible, but he *does not* satisfy those erastes cravings!
Alternately, what I really think I'm getting here is a "make nice to foreign envoy to get some leverage against FW" vibe. Maybe it's just because I got to this passage in Lavisse today, but I'm reminded of the part where he recounts 14-yo Fritz going to French Rottenburg (Katte's Rottenburg, not Fritz's Prussian Rottenburg), envoy from Paris to Berlin, showering him with unsolicited attentions, and trying to get a conspiracy going. [ETA: I have confirmed my memory that Lavisse and Asprey report one key detail differently: Lavisse says Fritz demanded Rottenburg tell him everything he knew about the King was up to. Asprey says Fritz offered to tell Rottenburg everything he knew about what the King was up to. That's quite a difference!]
Given that it's 1736, and Fritz is systematically trying to get money out of everyone with access to any money--he's *just* moved or is about to move into Rheinsberg--and favors out of everyone, down to AW probably spying on Dad for him, and is even willing to use Grumbkow as long as G can make himself useful...one can read the Manteuffel relationship with a great deal of cynicism.
Quite likely: Fritz starts out hoping that Manteuffel will be another Suhm but conveniently close at hand, gets disillusioned, starts using him, has no hesitation in kicking him out as soon as it's time to invade Silesia. At what point we switch from "hoping" to "disillusioned," I don't know. I don't even know whether it's before or after that October 1737 letter to Grumbkow.
Sex? Not impossible, but imo, unlikely.
I reserve the right to change any and all opinions with more data. :)