1) Reading along in Blanning, coming to the question of whether Fritz ever had sex with a woman ever, and I found some interesting surprises that all turned out to be in Förster. Of course, our library copy had a terrible quality scan, and one of the relevant pages was unreadable, so I tracked down a better copy and swapped it in for the one we had.
First and most surprising: Volume 3, page 112.
On 30 August 1732 the minister von Grumbkow wrote to the Austrian ambassador von Seckendorf (often spelled “Seckendorff”) that Frederick William had told him that Frederick had got Frau von Wreech pregnant and that the cuckolded husband would refuse to recognize the child as his own.
Okay, so far, so good. Nothing new here. Next sentence.
Frederick William was pleased by this sign of his son’s virility and hoped that Frederick’s fiancée would be equally impressed.
Frederick William the guy who spent the entire time Fritz was at Küstrin going NO WOMEN to all of Fritz's minders/captors? Frederick William the NO WHORES political testament guy? Are we in an OOC AU?
I tracked down the letter, it was in French, and sure enough, it looks like FW wanted Fritz to get a married Frau Wreech pregnant.
Il m'a dit en confidence, que le P.R. avoit fait ..... à la Wreech, femme d'un Colonel, et que le mary disoit, ..... qu'il ne le reconnoitroit pas pour ..... Cela luy fait plaisir, espérant qu'il en feroit autant à la Bevern.
And looking at the preceding context, "il" does seem to be "le roy." Is FW so worried about his son's heterosexuality by 1732 that any heir is better than no heir, even if it means Fritz is having some extra/premarital sex on the side? Is this like MT allying with Pompadour because needs must and all that?
Well! At any rate, as Blanning points out, the lady turned out not to be pregnant, and it was probably all smoke and no fire. And he says Seckendorff was skeptical even at the time.
Certainly there is nothing in the surviving correspondence to indicate a physical relationship and Frau von Wreech was not pregnant. Seckendorf himself was not convinced. A month later he told Prince Eugene that, although Frederick was in an erotic mood, “it was believed” that his physical capability did not match his ambition and consequently his amorous pursuits were more a case of showing off than genuine desire.
Citation: page 91 of ibid. It's in German, but as far as I can tell, does seem to be saying that.
2) And then I found this. Fritz simultaneously sends two letters about the marriage, one to his father saying the only pleasure he has in life is doing whatever FW wants and he will marry if that's what he's told to do, and one to Grumbkow saying, "I'd rather shoot myself in the head." (All biographers I've seen give Fritz a hard time about his duplicity. I'm willing to forgive him trying everything to get out of a situation that he should never have been in. And definitely should not put other people in later, sigh.)
"I have been unhappy all my life and I believe that it is my destiny to stay that way… but I still have a last resort, and a pistol shot would simultaneously put an end to my misery and to my life." He implored Grumbkow to get the wedding stopped. The minister replied with a stern reminder of the fate of Philip II’s son Don Carlos.
Chronology: it's February 1732, Katte's been dead for just 15 months, and Fritz is still under house arrest at Küstrin.
Citation: page 80. Also in German. Grumbkow seems to be saying, "Look, kid, if you want to play Don Carlos, fine, but I'm not inclined to play the Duke of Grammont."
From context, I can guess it didn't end well for Grammont, but Wikipedia is failing me. You two know the story better than I do, help?
At any rate, it appears Grumbkow is not above implicitly threatening Fritz with being killed by his father, in 1732.
3) Totally unrelated thing I ran across while tracking all this down: when Fritz was planning to run away, he sent Katte a letter and told Katte to leave it behind. It was his "Why I left" apologia. I haven't tracked the text down, but in it he apparently mentions Derschau as one of the people who's made life especially unbearable.
So it looks like he had a grudge against Derschau even before Derschau was assigned to interrogate him.
4) The translator of Lavisse, says in a footnote about something Fritz wrote before the escape attempt, "This, as well as all of Frederick's writing in this book, is in bad French. Voltaire said (I quote from Edward Everett), that 'there was not a sentence which you would not know to be the language of a foreigner.'"
So again I wonder: how good was Fritz's unedited-by-others prose? And to what extent, notwithstanding that Fritz was trying to write the most French French of the best authors, was Brandenburgian French simply a different dialect that is perfectly legitimate in and of itself, but wasn't a prestige dialect and wouldn't get any respect from someone like Voltaire? I.e. to what extent is this simply a matter of sociolinguistics rather than proficiency? (The question continues to impact speakers of non-prestige dialects in a very real way today.)
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Random things
Date: 2020-02-14 04:13 am (UTC)First and most surprising: Volume 3, page 112.
On 30 August 1732 the minister von Grumbkow wrote to the Austrian ambassador von Seckendorf (often spelled “Seckendorff”) that Frederick William had told him that Frederick had got Frau von Wreech pregnant and that the cuckolded husband would refuse to recognize the child as his own.
Okay, so far, so good. Nothing new here. Next sentence.
Frederick William was pleased by this sign of his son’s virility and hoped that Frederick’s fiancée would be equally impressed.
Frederick William the guy who spent the entire time Fritz was at Küstrin going NO WOMEN to all of Fritz's minders/captors? Frederick William the NO WHORES political testament guy? Are we in an OOC AU?
I tracked down the letter, it was in French, and sure enough, it looks like FW wanted Fritz to get a married Frau Wreech pregnant.
Il m'a dit en confidence, que le P.R. avoit fait ..... à la Wreech, femme d'un Colonel, et que le mary disoit, ..... qu'il ne le reconnoitroit pas pour ..... Cela luy fait plaisir, espérant qu'il en feroit autant à la Bevern.
And looking at the preceding context, "il" does seem to be "le roy." Is FW so worried about his son's heterosexuality by 1732 that any heir is better than no heir, even if it means Fritz is having some extra/premarital sex on the side? Is this like MT allying with Pompadour because needs must and all that?
Well! At any rate, as Blanning points out, the lady turned out not to be pregnant, and it was probably all smoke and no fire. And he says Seckendorff was skeptical even at the time.
Certainly there is nothing in the surviving correspondence to indicate a physical relationship and Frau von Wreech was not pregnant. Seckendorf himself was not convinced. A month later he told Prince Eugene that, although Frederick was in an erotic mood, “it was believed” that his physical capability did not match his ambition and consequently his amorous pursuits were more a case of showing off than genuine desire.
Citation: page 91 of ibid. It's in German, but as far as I can tell, does seem to be saying that.
2) And then I found this. Fritz simultaneously sends two letters about the marriage, one to his father saying the only pleasure he has in life is doing whatever FW wants and he will marry if that's what he's told to do, and one to Grumbkow saying, "I'd rather shoot myself in the head." (All biographers I've seen give Fritz a hard time about his duplicity. I'm willing to forgive him trying everything to get out of a situation that he should never have been in. And definitely should not put other people in later, sigh.)
"I have been unhappy all my life and I believe that it is my destiny to stay that way… but I still have a last resort, and a pistol shot would simultaneously put an end to my misery and to my life." He implored Grumbkow to get the wedding stopped. The minister replied with a stern reminder of the fate of Philip II’s son Don Carlos.
Chronology: it's February 1732, Katte's been dead for just 15 months, and Fritz is still under house arrest at Küstrin.
Citation: page 80. Also in German. Grumbkow seems to be saying, "Look, kid, if you want to play Don Carlos, fine, but I'm not inclined to play the Duke of Grammont."
From context, I can guess it didn't end well for Grammont, but Wikipedia is failing me. You two know the story better than I do, help?
At any rate, it appears Grumbkow is not above implicitly threatening Fritz with being killed by his father, in 1732.
3) Totally unrelated thing I ran across while tracking all this down: when Fritz was planning to run away, he sent Katte a letter and told Katte to leave it behind. It was his "Why I left" apologia. I haven't tracked the text down, but in it he apparently mentions Derschau as one of the people who's made life especially unbearable.
So it looks like he had a grudge against Derschau even before Derschau was assigned to interrogate him.
4) The translator of Lavisse, says in a footnote about something Fritz wrote before the escape attempt, "This, as well as all of Frederick's writing in this book, is in bad French. Voltaire said (I quote from Edward Everett), that 'there was not a sentence which you would not know to be the language of a foreigner.'"
So again I wonder: how good was Fritz's unedited-by-others prose? And to what extent, notwithstanding that Fritz was trying to write the most French French of the best authors, was Brandenburgian French simply a different dialect that is perfectly legitimate in and of itself, but wasn't a prestige dialect and wouldn't get any respect from someone like Voltaire? I.e. to what extent is this simply a matter of sociolinguistics rather than proficiency? (The question continues to impact speakers of non-prestige dialects in a very real way today.)