Announcing Rheinsberg: Frederick the Great discussion post 10

[cahn]

So for anyone who is reading this and would like to learn more about Frederick the Great and his contemporaries, but who doesn't want to wade through 500k (600k?) words worth of comments and an increasingly sprawling comment section:

We now have a community, rheinsberg, that has quite a lot of the interesting historical content (and more coming regularly), organized nicely with lots of lovely tags so if there's any subject you are interested in it is easy to find :D

Comments

Grumbkow's "How to Succeed at the Court of FW if you're his son" list....

[selenak]

...of tips for Fritz, written in the August of 1731, i.e the month where Fritz' official submission to FW complete with feet kissing is taking place, is interesting to me not just because Grumbkow is probably sincere here as far as it goes - i.e. this is from his pov good and useful advice - but a case can be made that Fritz is listening and adjusting his behavior accordingly. For the suggestions amount to: "Don't give your father the impression you're secretly mocking him; being respectful and loving to your mother is okay, as long as you don't rub it in how much more you like her than you like your Dad; you and Wilhelmine have no boundaries with each other, so put up some quickly; be nice to your brothers and show some interest in how they're doing. As for your brothers in law, don't single one out but be polite to them all, and always remind them that Dad now should come first in their lives."

Oh, and Grumbkow uses "Crown Princess" - Princesse Royale, this letter of instruction is written in French - for Wilhelmine, too.

Or, in rokoko speech:


If the King seeks the opinion of Crown Prince, or his feelings on something, and he foresees, that this opinion does not conform to the King's ideas or principles, it will be necessary to use this phrase: If your majesty does me the honor of asking, I must say my feeling, it is such and such, I may well be wrong, however, and my little experience can make me err easily. It is important to avoid all spirited mocking and all mischievous expressions towards the King, which would cause disadvantages to even the least of the servants, but on the other hand, do get rid of any austere air, reservedness or brooding, which the King has so often complained about. (...)

As to Her Majesty the Queen: I believe that the tenderness and the deep respect that your highness naturally has for
this worthy Princess, does not need to be regulated and governed. However, everything must be done with beautiful
discernment; there is surely no need to recommend to show no preference in what is said to the King; past experience must have taught his royal highness that the suspicions we had in this arena caused much grief to the illustrious mother and the
beloved son.

Whatever tenderness, trust and friendship, the incomparable Crown Princess has the right to claim, and which are due to her in a thousand remarkable places, I still believe that in the beginning it will be necessary to put up certain boundaries. As to the princes, your royal highnesses brothers, you need to show a tender and natural friendship and show your joy when they do their duty well.

As to your royal highness' brothers in law. I believe you will have to treat them on an equal footing without distinction, with
friendship, civility and politeness, accompanied in this with a little seriousness, and in conversation with them, always preach to attach themselves solely to the King and to expect all their advantage and happiness from him.

Now, here's the thing: I previously put Wilhelmine's impression of Fritz when she sees him for the first time post-Katte during her wedding due to them being observed and his having had the year of hell behind him. (Which is also the explanation she has at the time, but her 1740s self wonders whether it starts here.) Especially since the next time they are physically together, they're back to their old footing. And similarly, I put the fact that in his first preserved "regular" letter in the Trier archive, in 1732, he tells her to disregard any impression he's gone cold on her and how can she believe this due to Wilhelmine (like him) having no chill. But here's Grumbkow giving this very pointed advice, and given FW did have a hang up about the affection between his two oldest long post Küstrin - hence him not permitting Fritz to visit Bayreuth when Fritz is en route to Philippsburg, for example, and the need for the two to arrange a secret rendezvous when Fritz is en route back but technically does not stop in Bayreuth (just, as later MT, on the outskirts). So I now think Wilhelmine might not have been just hypernervous and needy in the aftermath of the big catastrophe plus a year and confused PTDSD (without any P in this traumatic stress) with Fritz emotionally withdrawing from her. Maybe he did at least try to provide Dad, Grumbkow and everyone else with the impression he was, in fact, putting boundaries between them. (Made easier by the fact he was traumatized as hell and so was she, in a different way, and they had no real chance to be together at length and talk until the post marriage family visit from hell.)

Förster also has the protocol of the big feet-kissing public submission from that same August of 1731, which was written by Grumbkow for Seckendorff. This one is in German, and seems to be quite close to the real event given FW keeps switching between the formal second person plural and the "Du" when adressing Fritz. (Including, btw, in the "Did you seduce Katte or did he seduce you?" question - that's a "Du" question.) This protocol includes the "what I've done to your mother and sister and Hannover if you'd succeeded" which Mildred has mentioned repeatedly.

"Now listen to the consequences! Your mother would have fallen into the greatest unhappiness, for I would naturally have treated her as if she'd known everything. And your sister I'd have locked up for the rest of her life at a place where she'd never seen the sun or moon again. I'd have gone to Hannover territory with my army, and would have burned everything down, even if I had lost my country, my people and my life for it!"

Fritz then submits and asks to be given the chance to prove himself and win back FW's esteem, FW then asks the Katte question and when Fritz replies "without hesitation" that "I seduced him", FW replies "It pleases me that you tell the truth for once."

Now, I have my doubts whether we'd have gotten a Prussian invasion of Hannover had Fritz managed to escape, because even enraged FW knows better than to start a war with the British Empire. But the SD and Wilhelmine threats would undoubtedly have been carried out. It's hostage taker logic at its most ruthless.

Re: Grumbkow's "How to Succeed at the Court of FW if you're his son" list....

[mildred_of_midgard]

Maybe he did at least try to provide Dad, Grumbkow and everyone else with the impression he was, in fact, putting boundaries between them.

Wow. That's a very persuasive theory. Those poor kids. They have ONE good thing going for them in their lives, and then FW has to go fuck that up too. Start with imprisoning Fritz and pressuring Wilhelmine into a marriage, then put Fritz in a position where he has to be more aloof than usual around her and act like it's his idea. Man.

Also, thanks so much for this write-up. I had seen summaries but never a full translation, and I don't at all remember seeing the advice to have boundaries with Wilhelmine.

But the SD and Wilhelmine threats would undoubtedly have been carried out. It's hostage taker logic at its most ruthless.

Yep. Something that comes into play in my AUs where he makes it.

Let's also remember that Wilhelmine has her own reasons for pent-up resentment of Fritz, not just for being all "the best of all possible mothers" with SD, but for being willing to abandon her to the abuse, in a way that will lead to a worsening of her abuse. And with a plan that obviously poorly thought out, to boot.

Is this Fritz's fault? No, I will defend to the death the right of any abuse victim to get out of an abusive situation, even if it means leaving hostages behind to be punished. But as Wilhelmine psychology goes, I don't think she'd be human if she wasn't hurt at all, just as I don't think Fritz could help being hurt that she didn't support him getting out of there, however valid her reasons (like the fact that that plan was never going to work).

Honestly, props to them both for sticking by each other as much as they did, and in however messed up a way.

Re: Grumbkow's "How to Succeed at the Court of FW if you're his son" list....

[selenak]

They have ONE good thing going for them in their lives, and then FW has to go fuck that up too. Start with imprisoning Fritz and pressuring Wilhelmine into a marriage, then put Fritz in a position where he has to be more aloof than usual around her and act like it's his idea. Man.

My thoughts precisely. The odds were incredibly against them; like you say, props to them for sticking by each other as much as as they did. I'm so relieved that neither of them died in 1746, I can't tell you, and that they had the additional decade of renewed closeness, long distance as it often was.

Re: Grumbkow's "How to Succeed at the Court of FW if you're his son" list....

[mildred_of_midgard]

I'm so relieved that neither of them died in 1746

God, I hadn't even thought of that. Wow, yes. I'm glad neither of them died then, and also that he never saw her memoirs after her death (or at all).

I also meant to say earlier, well-spotted on your cross-referencing of Grumbkow's advice to Fritz and Wilhelmine's observation of Fritz's unusual aloofness on that occasion. Subdetective insights FTW!

Re: Grumbkow's "How to Succeed at the Court of FW if you're his son" list....

[cahn]

:( Yeah, I don't have anything to add to this discussion. This just all makes me really sad :( GAH.