I'm still amazed that Fredersdorf rather than Wilhelmine was the exception.
Jürgen Luh, like Judith Zinsser with Voltaire vs De Lambert, is put off by all the French written Rokoko emo in the letters to Wilhelmine, Suhm et al and qualifies it as posing and rethoric, written with an eye to posterity, whereas he sees the secret German emo in the Fredersdorf letters as possibly genuine, seeing as it was decidedly not written for anyone but Fredersdorf to read. Somehow, the fact that Wilhelmine and Fredersdorf (and Suhm, and Algarotti, and just about anyone who's sick) gets the "live for meeeeee!" in whatever language, does not seem to be a shared factor here.)
I should add here that actually the 1926 editor of the Fredersdorf letters, who is the oppposite of a Deconstructing Fritz biographer like Luh, also suggests the relationship with Fredersdorf was more genuine (FATHERLY FATHERLY FATHERLY) love, but not for Luh's reasons - he just doesn't consider Wilhelmine worthy. Fredersdorf, after, all, never had lunch with MT, nor did he carry on corresponding with perfidious Frenchmen who broke our national hero's heart!
But seriously, if he was going to only ever love one person, it would be either SD or Wilhelmine, imo.
Oh, agreed. BTW, the passage in Seckendorff's diary quoted below about SD hating on Wilhelmine up to the mid 1730s and telling FW "odious stories" about her, which Seckendorff Jr. wonders might spoil things for her with her son (it didn't) did make me wonder. If Wilhelmine by not encouraging Fritz to make a run for it and escape the abuse (because she was afraid it would fail, because she didn't want to be left alone in hell, for a variety of reasons) did something which, as with Katte, in his subconscious he resented her for yet could not express, even to himself, why (so it might have come out much later in the 1740s during their crisis)... it could also be possible that Fritz blinding himself (as he had to) to the fact that while Best of Mothers might do all she could to please him (as per Mantteuffel), she was abusing his sister, also caused such a subconscious resentment gathering reaction inside Wilhelmine which in turn contributed to her cathartic memoirs writings (with their critical deictions of 1730s and early 1740s Fritz)? (And they were cathartic for her; after their reconciliation, she never seems to have doubted his emotions for her again, as if she'd gotten all out of her system.)
Incidentally: SD being so hostile towards her oldest daughter that foreign ambassadors notice it - still revenge for Wilhelmine having failed her (in her eyes) by not holding out for the English marriage, or awareness that when the next regime comes, it's not EC who is going to be her competition for royal woman most important to the next King? In any case, what all the verbal abuse through the early 1730s reminds me of is also Fritz' behaviour to AW in the year between the casheering and AW's death. Yes, FW was the chief royal role model for wanting the crown prince who has failed you (in your eyes) broken and submitting by an admission he was utterly wrong and you were utterly right, but what SD was doing with Wilhelmine had more scapegoating in it. It could never be SD's fault for having asked the impossible from her daughter (and driven her children into a war with their father they couldn't win), it was Wilhelmine's fault that she failed to become Queen of England.
Re: Some biographers, ugh
Jürgen Luh, like Judith Zinsser with Voltaire vs De Lambert, is put off by all the French written Rokoko emo in the letters to Wilhelmine, Suhm et al and qualifies it as posing and rethoric, written with an eye to posterity, whereas he sees the secret German emo in the Fredersdorf letters as possibly genuine, seeing as it was decidedly not written for anyone but Fredersdorf to read. Somehow, the fact that Wilhelmine and Fredersdorf (and Suhm, and Algarotti, and just about anyone who's sick) gets the "live for meeeeee!" in whatever language, does not seem to be a shared factor here.)
I should add here that actually the 1926 editor of the Fredersdorf letters, who is the oppposite of a Deconstructing Fritz biographer like Luh, also suggests the relationship with Fredersdorf was more genuine (FATHERLY FATHERLY FATHERLY) love, but not for Luh's reasons - he just doesn't consider Wilhelmine worthy. Fredersdorf, after, all, never had lunch with MT, nor did he carry on corresponding with perfidious Frenchmen who broke our national hero's heart!
But seriously, if he was going to only ever love one person, it would be either SD or Wilhelmine, imo.
Oh, agreed. BTW, the passage in Seckendorff's diary quoted below about SD hating on Wilhelmine up to the mid 1730s and telling FW "odious stories" about her, which Seckendorff Jr. wonders might spoil things for her with her son (it didn't) did make me wonder. If Wilhelmine by not encouraging Fritz to make a run for it and escape the abuse (because she was afraid it would fail, because she didn't want to be left alone in hell, for a variety of reasons) did something which, as with Katte, in his subconscious he resented her for yet could not express, even to himself, why (so it might have come out much later in the 1740s during their crisis)... it could also be possible that Fritz blinding himself (as he had to) to the fact that while Best of Mothers might do all she could to please him (as per Mantteuffel), she was abusing his sister, also caused such a subconscious resentment gathering reaction inside Wilhelmine which in turn contributed to her cathartic memoirs writings (with their critical deictions of 1730s and early 1740s Fritz)? (And they were cathartic for her; after their reconciliation, she never seems to have doubted his emotions for her again, as if she'd gotten all out of her system.)
Incidentally: SD being so hostile towards her oldest daughter that foreign ambassadors notice it - still revenge for Wilhelmine having failed her (in her eyes) by not holding out for the English marriage, or awareness that when the next regime comes, it's not EC who is going to be her competition for royal woman most important to the next King? In any case, what all the verbal abuse through the early 1730s reminds me of is also Fritz' behaviour to AW in the year between the casheering and AW's death. Yes, FW was the chief royal role model for wanting the crown prince who has failed you (in your eyes) broken and submitting by an admission he was utterly wrong and you were utterly right, but what SD was doing with Wilhelmine had more scapegoating in it. It could never be SD's fault for having asked the impossible from her daughter (and driven her children into a war with their father they couldn't win), it was Wilhelmine's fault that she failed to become Queen of England.