To round off Jessen: he has of course the MT to Joseph quote I worked into my Fritz & MT fanfiction, from 14th Sepember 1766 ("But has this hero who won himself such fame, has this conqueror a single friend? Doesn't he have to distrust the entire world? What kind of life is this, that has humanity banished out of it?").
It also has Joseph's report on his encounter with Fritz in Neisse, wherein he tries to demonstrate to Mom how he's kept his cool, because he's the rational fanboy. The letter is dated August 29th, 1769:
Dear Mother, at last you shall have some disconnected news about my strange journey to Neisse. (...) The King has overwhelmed us with politeness and friendliness. He's a genius and a man who talks wonderfully well, but he doesn't say a word which does not betray the rascal in him. I do believe he wants peace, not out of the goodness of his heart but because he recognizes that he can't win anything by going to war. I've asked him about all kind of things. (...) But I can't possibly tell you all, since we were in conversation for at least sixteen hours per day with each other. (...) Anyway, everything showed his fear of Russia's power, which he also wants to transmit to us. Regarding religion, he was very restrained, even with malicious zingers. He talked with the greatest respect about you, and with much respect of Kaunitz.
(Kaunitz is MT's and later Joseph's first minister.)
Volz, bw, has a more thorough version of Joseph's letter in his "Gespräche mit Friedrich dem Großen", but the Jessen edition is fairly representative for what he says. I must say, all the "I totally saw through Fritz, Mom!...during the sixteen hours per day we talked to each other" cracks me up to no end. (I mean. 16 hours? Per day?)
Incidentally, Fritz had brought Heinrich along on this first trip, but Joseph, unsurprisingly, had only eyes for Fritz. Something else the original documents in Jessen and Volz tell me is that in order to be polite, Fritz and his entourage wore the Austrian white uniforms "to spare the Austrians the sight of the Prussian blue (they) have encountered on the field so often", as one of the Austrian delegation was told, who in his letter snarked, you know, we could have born the sight, and also it wouldn't have showcased the King's tobacco snuff as much as the white uniform did.
BTW, MT also took some tobacco, though not as much as Fritz did. She does, however, mention it in a letter to a female friend as something good for keeping you awake and alert and sends snuff box with the stuff in it. Considering her working schedule had similar hours to Fritz' schedule, this is not surprising. It's a drug for sleepless workoholics, alright. (Neither of them considered smoking it, though.)
And here's the letter I already mentioned to Heinrich. The treaty of the First Partitioning of Poland is dated to March 4th, 1772. On June 12th, Fritz is on a tour through his newly aquired territories to inspect them and writes to Heinrich (sorry about the one somewhat antisemitic crack):
I have seen this Prussia which I basically received from your hand. It is a very good and advantageous aquisition, both for the political position of the state and for our finances. However, in order not to awake too much jealousy I'm telling everyone who wants to hear it that I have only observed sand, fir trees, bracken and Jews on my journey. In any case, this land will cause me a lot of work, too, for I believe Canada to be as civilized as Pommerellen; no order, no districts. The towns are in a pitiable state. Kulm, for example, is supposed to have eighthundred houses, but there are only a hundred standing. (...) As far as the army is concerned, I've found the entire cavalry of this area to be as good as hours. Regarding the infanty, the garnison regiments of the province equal the field regiments. The field regiments here are larger than those of Berlin. But there will have to be some personnel changes for the staff offficers and the subaltern officers. The great mistake in the drilling of the troops consists in them loading badly, don't fall into step easily and don't aim too well. But that can be practiced during the following year, and God willing, the entire army will be on the same level and equally organized next year.
"This Prussia which I basically received from your hand" becomes of course "my property, which I negotiated because I'm just that awesome" later on.
(Fritz: You don't think Heinrich would have gotten anything from anyone if I weren't awesome, do you? Heinrich: You don't think you'd have gotten anything other than pissing everone else off AGAIN if you' been the one to negotiate, do you?)
Something Mildred alluded to is that MT on the one hand thought this entire Poland partitioning was shameless robbery, which it was, but on the other wanted/accepted her share, which she did. There is a famous but apocryphal quip by Fritz which gets quoted on this a lot, but no one has ever been able to find it in any of his letters or even in his described conversations in other people's memoirs, so biographers were reluctantly forced to admit that it was probably invented after the fact by other people but sounded so much like something he would have said that it stuck. In several variations, this apocryphal quote goes "she cried, and the more she cried, the more she took".
Jessen does have a letter from MT on the subject to one of her younger sons, Ferdinand (yes, she had a Ferdinand, too), dated September 12th 1772:
You will see the entire miserable development of this matter. I have refused it for a long time! Only the blows after blows in the forms of the Turks attacking, the lack of a prospect of getting support from France or England in this, the likelihood of having to conduct a war against both Russia and Prussia otherwise, misery, famine and sickness in my countries forced me to accept these bloody proposals, which throw a shadow over my entire rule. God will make me face my responsibility for this in the other world. I must admit to you that I cannot get over this matter, it lies heavily on my heart, haunts me and poisons my already sad days. I must stop writing about this in order not to get even more upset and not to sink into the blackest melancholia.
I.e. she did rationalize and excuse herself for participating, but it never really worked for her. I already quoted her letter to Joseph on the War of the Bavarian Succession by the time this decade ended, but what Jessen's collection of documents also tell me is that the official peace between Prussia and Austria was made on May 13th 1779, which was MT's birthday.
Jessen also quotes not one but two poems by Matthias Claudius. One is the "Sie machte Frieden" poem I already quoted and translated to you many a post ago after MT's death. The other was written after the war had ended instead of evolving into another 7 Years War, which was what everyone, including MT had been afraid of, and this one was new to me. It goes thusly:
Die Kaiserin und Friederich Nach manchem Kampf und Siege Entzweiten endlich aber sich Und rüsteten zum Kriege
Und zogen mutig aus ins Feld Und hatten stolze Heere, Schier zu erfechten eine Welt Und » Heldenruhm und Ehre « .
Da fühlten beide groß und gut Die Menschenvater -Würde, Und wieviel Elend , wieviel Blut Der Krieg noch kosten würde,
Und dachten , wie doch alles gar Vergänglich sei hienieden , Und sahen an ihr graues Haar . . . Und machten wieder Frieden .
(The Empress and Friedrich/After many a fight and victory/were at odds again/and armed themselves for war/ They bravely went into the field/and had proud armies/to fight for a world/ and for 'heroic courage and honor'./ Then, both felt good and great/the dignity of being a parent to human kind/and how much misery, how much blood/this war would cost,/ and thought of how everything/was mortal on this plain/and looked at each their own grey hair.../and made peace again.)
Fritz not reading any German literature, I doubt he ever saw it, but MT might have. To repeat the Claudius poem after her death again, since it's very short:
Sie machte Frieden ! Das ist mein Gedicht. War ihres Volkes Lust und ihres Volkes Segen Und ging getrost und voller Zuversicht Dem Tod als ihrem Freund entgegen . Ein Welteroberer kann das nicht. Sie machte Frieden !Dasist mein Gedicht.
ETA: And I have made my own rhyming, not prose translation! *shares wit pride*
This is my poem: she made peace! She was her people's blessing and delight, went confident, comforted and at ease To face her death. Her death, and not a fight. No conqueror of the world can have such release. This is my poem: she made peace!
Jessen has also the letter from Fritz - to D'Alembert, as it turns out, dated January 6th 1781 (MT having died in November 1780) which has the famous "I was never her enemy" quote in it. Writes he:
And yet, I have regretted the death of the Empress-Queen: she brought honor to her throne and sex; I have gone to war with her, but I was never her enemy. Regarding the Emperor, the son of this great woman: I know him personally; he seemed too enlightened to me to me to make overhasty steps; I esteem him and do not fear him. (...) To give you a proof of just how calmly minded I am, I include a little brochure which aims at showing the flaws of German literature and to explain the means by which it can improve. You will mock the care I'm taking to teach a people which until now has been good at nothing but eat, drink, make love and make war to have at least a little understanding of taste and Attic salt. But a man wants to be useful; often a word falls on fertile soil and bears unexpected fruit.
Yep, he announces his trashing of (unread by him) German literature in the same letter. (Also, Fritz, I thought Joseph "the son of this great woman" was the coming menace of Europe? That's what you've told all your other correspondants, at least.) And Jessen, bless, has the passage in "De La Literature Allemande" which is specifically aimed at Goethe (and Shakespeare, while he's at it). ("Götz von Berlichingen" had been Goethe's first play, and it's indeed blatantly Shakespeare-inspired. It's also to this day fun for 12 years old pupils for containing the line "kiss my ass!") ("Und er sage seinem Herren, er könne mich am Arsche lecken!")
Behold this glorious proof of just how calmly minded Fritz is:
To convince yourself of the utter lack of taste that to this day rules in Germany, you only have to go to the theatre. That's where you see the despicable plays by Shakespeare produced in the German language, see the entire audience swoon at hearing these ridiculous farces which are worthy of a Canadian savage. I call them thus because they go against every rule of theatre. These rules are not random! They are to be found in Aristotle's poetics. There, the unity of time, place and action are prescribed. But the English plays provide an action which takes place through years. Where's the plausibility there? Baggage carriers and grave diggers show up and hold speeches that suit their stations; and then, princes and Queens appear. This strange brewery of the elevated and the low, of slapstick and tragedy is supposed to please and touch people? One may forgive Shakespare such odd abberations; for the birth of the arts was never the time of their maturity. But now, a "Götz von Berlichingen" appears on the stage, a disgusting imitation of those terrible English plays, and the audience applauds and demands with enthusiasm more of these tasteless rubbish. I know, you can't argue about taste. But allow me to tell you one thing: who enjoys acrobats and puppets just as much as the tragedies of Racine just wants to pass time. He prefers something which appeals to his eyes to something which appeals to the mind and to the heart!
German writers of the day: *headdesk, as described in another entry*
(Herder: Go polish your rusty armor, old man. Si tacuisses, philosphus mansisses.)
Jessen also quotes a letter from Goethe to a buddy of his, Merck, like him and most Germans that age a (in Merck's case now former) Fritz fanboy, who asked "OMG, have read what Fritz wrote):
No one should have been surprised by the pamplet of the old King if one knew him for who he actually is. If the audience hears of a hero who has done great deeds, it forms him convenient to the common idea, subtle, high-minded and well educated; in the same way, one assumes a man who otherwise has done much to posses clarity and precision of the mind. One imagines him without bias and actually well informed and educated. This is what has happened with the King; but just as he has done great deeds in his shabby blue uniform and his humpbacked figure, he has forced the events of history by his stubborn, prejudiced and unteachable imagination.
I.e. he could not have done so with with a balanced and fair mindset. Elaborating further on the argument that the very thing which made Fritz great was his imperfection, Goethe replies to yet another correspondant asking him "OMG, have you read that?!?".
There's nothing strange to me about the King mentioning my play unfavourably. A powerful man who rules over thousands with a sceptre of iron, has to find the creation of a free and cheeky youth unbearable. Besides, a tolerant taste can't be the distinguishing characteristic of a King, and would not, had he possessed it, have allowed him to make a great name for himself; I rather think that the great and noble live by exclusivity.
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He said, she said, they said: on partitioning Poland and other matters
Date: 2020-02-29 09:36 am (UTC)It also has Joseph's report on his encounter with Fritz in Neisse, wherein he tries to demonstrate to Mom how he's kept his cool, because he's the rational fanboy. The letter is dated August 29th, 1769:
Dear Mother, at last you shall have some disconnected news about my strange journey to Neisse. (...) The King has overwhelmed us with politeness and friendliness. He's a genius and a man who talks wonderfully well, but he doesn't say a word which does not betray the rascal in him. I do believe he wants peace, not out of the goodness of his heart but because he recognizes that he can't win anything by going to war. I've asked him about all kind of things. (...) But I can't possibly tell you all, since we were in conversation for at least sixteen hours per day with each other. (...) Anyway, everything showed his fear of Russia's power, which he also wants to transmit to us. Regarding religion, he was very restrained, even with malicious zingers. He talked with the greatest respect about you, and with much respect of Kaunitz.
(Kaunitz is MT's and later Joseph's first minister.)
Volz, bw, has a more thorough version of Joseph's letter in his "Gespräche mit Friedrich dem Großen", but the Jessen edition is fairly representative for what he says. I must say, all the "I totally saw through Fritz, Mom!...during the sixteen hours per day we talked to each other" cracks me up to no end. (I mean. 16 hours? Per day?)
Incidentally, Fritz had brought Heinrich along on this first trip, but Joseph, unsurprisingly, had only eyes for Fritz. Something else the original documents in Jessen and Volz tell me is that in order to be polite, Fritz and his entourage wore the Austrian white uniforms "to spare the Austrians the sight of the Prussian blue (they) have encountered on the field so often", as one of the Austrian delegation was told, who in his letter snarked, you know, we could have born the sight, and also it wouldn't have showcased the King's tobacco snuff as much as the white uniform did.
BTW, MT also took some tobacco, though not as much as Fritz did. She does, however, mention it in a letter to a female friend as something good for keeping you awake and alert and sends snuff box with the stuff in it. Considering her working schedule had similar hours to Fritz' schedule, this is not surprising. It's a drug for sleepless workoholics, alright. (Neither of them considered smoking it, though.)
And here's the letter I already mentioned to Heinrich. The treaty of the First Partitioning of Poland is dated to March 4th, 1772. On June 12th, Fritz is on a tour through his newly aquired territories to inspect them and writes to Heinrich (sorry about the one somewhat antisemitic crack):
I have seen this Prussia which I basically received from your hand. It is a very good and advantageous aquisition, both for the political position of the state and for our finances. However, in order not to awake too much jealousy I'm telling everyone who wants to hear it that I have only observed sand, fir trees, bracken and Jews on my journey. In any case, this land will cause me a lot of work, too, for I believe Canada to be as civilized as Pommerellen; no order, no districts. The towns are in a pitiable state. Kulm, for example, is supposed to have eighthundred houses, but there are only a hundred standing. (...) As far as the army is concerned, I've found the entire cavalry of this area to be as good as hours. Regarding the infanty, the garnison regiments of the province equal the field regiments. The field regiments here are larger than those of Berlin. But there will have to be some personnel changes for the staff offficers and the subaltern officers. The great mistake in the drilling of the troops consists in them loading badly, don't fall into step easily and don't aim too well. But that can be practiced during the following year, and God willing, the entire army will be on the same level and equally organized next year.
"This Prussia which I basically received from your hand" becomes of course "my property, which I negotiated because I'm just that awesome" later on.
(Fritz: You don't think Heinrich would have gotten anything from anyone if I weren't awesome, do you?
Heinrich: You don't think you'd have gotten anything other than pissing everone else off AGAIN if you' been the one to negotiate, do you?)
Something Mildred alluded to is that MT on the one hand thought this entire Poland partitioning was shameless robbery, which it was, but on the other wanted/accepted her share, which she did. There is a famous but apocryphal quip by Fritz which gets quoted on this a lot, but no one has ever been able to find it in any of his letters or even in his described conversations in other people's memoirs, so biographers were reluctantly forced to admit that it was probably invented after the fact by other people but sounded so much like something he would have said that it stuck. In several variations, this apocryphal quote goes "she cried, and the more she cried, the more she took".
Jessen does have a letter from MT on the subject to one of her younger sons, Ferdinand (yes, she had a Ferdinand, too), dated September 12th 1772:
You will see the entire miserable development of this matter. I have refused it for a long time! Only the blows after blows in the forms of the Turks attacking, the lack of a prospect of getting support from France or England in this, the likelihood of having to conduct a war against both Russia and Prussia otherwise, misery, famine and sickness in my countries forced me to accept these bloody proposals, which throw a shadow over my entire rule. God will make me face my responsibility for this in the other world. I must admit to you that I cannot get over this matter, it lies heavily on my heart, haunts me and poisons my already sad days. I must stop writing about this in order not to get even more upset and not to sink into the blackest melancholia.
I.e. she did rationalize and excuse herself for participating, but it never really worked for her. I already quoted her letter to Joseph on the War of the Bavarian Succession by the time this decade ended, but what Jessen's collection of documents also tell me is that the official peace between Prussia and Austria was made on May 13th 1779, which was MT's birthday.
Jessen also quotes not one but two poems by Matthias Claudius. One is the "Sie machte Frieden" poem I already quoted and translated to you many a post ago after MT's death. The other was written after the war had ended instead of evolving into another 7 Years War, which was what everyone, including MT had been afraid of, and this one was new to me. It goes thusly:
Die Kaiserin und Friederich
Nach manchem Kampf und Siege
Entzweiten endlich aber sich
Und rüsteten zum Kriege
Und zogen mutig aus ins Feld
Und hatten stolze Heere,
Schier zu erfechten eine Welt
Und » Heldenruhm und Ehre « .
Da fühlten beide groß und gut
Die Menschenvater -Würde,
Und wieviel Elend , wieviel Blut
Der Krieg noch kosten würde,
Und dachten , wie doch alles gar
Vergänglich sei hienieden ,
Und sahen an ihr graues Haar . . .
Und machten wieder Frieden .
(The Empress and Friedrich/After many a fight and victory/were at odds again/and armed themselves for war/ They bravely went into the field/and had proud armies/to fight for a world/ and for 'heroic courage and honor'./ Then, both felt good and great/the dignity of being a parent to human kind/and how much misery, how much blood/this war would cost,/ and thought of how everything/was mortal on this plain/and looked at each their own grey hair.../and made peace again.)
Fritz not reading any German literature, I doubt he ever saw it, but MT might have. To repeat the Claudius poem after her death again, since it's very short:
Sie machte Frieden ! Das ist mein Gedicht.
War ihres Volkes Lust und ihres Volkes Segen
Und ging getrost und voller Zuversicht
Dem Tod als ihrem Freund entgegen .
Ein Welteroberer kann das nicht.
Sie machte Frieden !Dasist mein Gedicht.
ETA: And I have made my own rhyming, not prose translation! *shares wit pride*
This is my poem: she made peace!
She was her people's blessing and delight,
went confident, comforted and at ease
To face her death. Her death, and not a fight.
No conqueror of the world can have such release.
This is my poem: she made peace!
Jessen has also the letter from Fritz - to D'Alembert, as it turns out, dated January 6th 1781 (MT having died in November 1780) which has the famous "I was never her enemy" quote in it. Writes he:
And yet, I have regretted the death of the Empress-Queen: she brought honor to her throne and sex; I have gone to war with her, but I was never her enemy. Regarding the Emperor, the son of this great woman: I know him personally; he seemed too enlightened to me to me to make overhasty steps; I esteem him and do not fear him. (...) To give you a proof of just how calmly minded I am, I include a little brochure which aims at showing the flaws of German literature and to explain the means by which it can improve. You will mock the care I'm taking to teach a people which until now has been good at nothing but eat, drink, make love and make war to have at least a little understanding of taste and Attic salt. But a man wants to be useful; often a word falls on fertile soil and bears unexpected fruit.
Yep, he announces his trashing of (unread by him) German literature in the same letter. (Also, Fritz, I thought Joseph "the son of this great woman" was the coming menace of Europe? That's what you've told all your other correspondants, at least.) And Jessen, bless, has the passage in "De La Literature Allemande" which is specifically aimed at Goethe (and Shakespeare, while he's at it). ("Götz von Berlichingen" had been Goethe's first play, and it's indeed blatantly Shakespeare-inspired. It's also to this day fun for 12 years old pupils for containing the line "kiss my ass!") ("Und er sage seinem Herren, er könne mich am Arsche lecken!")
Behold this glorious proof of just how calmly minded Fritz is:
To convince yourself of the utter lack of taste that to this day rules in Germany, you only have to go to the theatre. That's where you see the despicable plays by Shakespeare produced in the German language, see the entire audience swoon at hearing these ridiculous farces which are worthy of a Canadian savage. I call them thus because they go against every rule of theatre. These rules are not random! They are to be found in Aristotle's poetics. There, the unity of time, place and action are prescribed. But the English plays provide an action which takes place through years. Where's the plausibility there? Baggage carriers and grave diggers show up and hold speeches that suit their stations; and then, princes and Queens appear. This strange brewery of the elevated and the low, of slapstick and tragedy is supposed to please and touch people? One may forgive Shakespare such odd abberations; for the birth of the arts was never the time of their maturity. But now, a "Götz von Berlichingen" appears on the stage, a disgusting imitation of those terrible English plays, and the audience applauds and demands with enthusiasm more of these tasteless rubbish. I know, you can't argue about taste. But allow me to tell you one thing: who enjoys acrobats and puppets just as much as the tragedies of Racine just wants to pass time. He prefers something which appeals to his eyes to something which appeals to the mind and to the heart!
German writers of the day: *headdesk, as described in another entry*
(Herder: Go polish your rusty armor, old man. Si tacuisses, philosphus mansisses.)
Jessen also quotes a letter from Goethe to a buddy of his, Merck, like him and most Germans that age a (in Merck's case now former) Fritz fanboy, who asked "OMG, have read what Fritz wrote):
No one should have been surprised by the pamplet of the old King if one knew him for who he actually is. If the audience hears of a hero who has done great deeds, it forms him convenient to the common idea, subtle, high-minded and well educated; in the same way, one assumes a man who otherwise has done much to posses clarity and precision of the mind. One imagines him without bias and actually well informed and educated. This is what has happened with the King; but just as he has done great deeds in his shabby blue uniform and his humpbacked figure, he has forced the events of history by his stubborn, prejudiced and unteachable imagination.
I.e. he could not have done so with with a balanced and fair mindset. Elaborating further on the argument that the very thing which made Fritz great was his imperfection, Goethe replies to yet another correspondant asking him "OMG, have you read that?!?".
There's nothing strange to me about the King mentioning my play unfavourably. A powerful man who rules over thousands with a sceptre of iron, has to find the creation of a free and cheeky youth unbearable. Besides, a tolerant taste can't be the distinguishing characteristic of a King, and would not, had he possessed it, have allowed him to make a great name for himself; I rather think that the great and noble live by exclusivity.