Well, given his lack of brother-toppling conspiracies, his reputation as a schemer has to come from somewhere!
(When I looked up Paul and saw the manner of his death, which, yikes, even for royal assassinatons, that was extra, with son Alexander nearby, and considering Cousin Philppe voted for Louis XVI. beheading in the National Assembly, I was reminded again this really was a century where relations taking that step to actual conspiracy and murder was not confined to the realm of fiction.
Chronology note for [personal profile] cahn: he's just about to have his sixth birthday in a a couple weeks. Yeah, I bet his handmade arrow was non-lethal.
Ferdinand's age during that Mantteufel by way of Seckendorf Jr. conversation is why I was stumped for a while to come up with an explanation causing Fritz to predict he'll be the vilest spawn FW ever sired once he's grown up. But him inadvertently hitting a dog would totally do it!
If I ever discover the semblance of a plot thread to hang this up on, I might make something of this crack fic and call it "Adventures in Babysitting", Rokoko style.
Also, reading Lucchesini and Pangels in short order was a neat illustration of the following double standard:
Fritz, years after Voltaire's death:
Person: So, Voltaire... Fritz: The worst! The absolute worst! I'm not budging from this. Hand me my Voltaire volume, Lucchesini.
Posteriy: Aw. Poor Fritz. How terribly disillusioned must he have been. Or, as Richter of Fredersdorf letters fame puts it, when summing up Fritz/Voltaire: "Laßt uns den König eine Weile auf seinem Leidensweg begleiten." ("Let us join the king for a while on his path of suffering.")
(Also Fritz: trashtalks Pompadour decades after she's died, complete with revisionings of how she wanted money and titles from him in order to stop the war which he refused to give. Posterity: Well, she did greatly contribute to France not budging from the new Austrian alliance, and also, Fritz just tells it like it is, a maitresse en titre is a whore regardless of glamour.)
Heinrich, yeas after Fritz' death:
Person: So, your brother, der einzige, the genius, the best, right? Heinrich: The worst. The absolute worst. I'm not budging from this. Now excuse me while I move some of my stuff to Wusterhausen and pretend the last twelve Fritzless years haven't happened.
Person and posterity: OMG. How low can you go, hating on the poor man even after death! Such hatred! How twisted, how warped! That obelisk is "the revolting portrait of a twisted personality" (tm early 20th century US biographer).
Mind you, this is not true for the more recent stuff, but as Pangels, published in the 70s ilustrates, "more recent" really is the last 20 years or so. (Ziebura's Heinrich biography was published in 1999. BTW, think that was the first one to use the Marwitz letters. At least I haven't found any earlier examples so far. It may just be no one before Ziebura bothered to check out the unplublished by Preuss Fritz-Heinrich correspondance in the state archive, but even so, Lehndorff's diaries were published from 1907 onwards, and they already contain the tale.
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Re: Volz
Date: 2020-02-29 11:31 am (UTC)Well, given his lack of brother-toppling conspiracies, his reputation as a schemer has to come from somewhere!
(When I looked up Paul and saw the manner of his death, which, yikes, even for royal assassinatons, that was extra, with son Alexander nearby, and considering Cousin Philppe voted for Louis XVI. beheading in the National Assembly, I was reminded again this really was a century where relations taking that step to actual conspiracy and murder was not confined to the realm of fiction.
Chronology note for [personal profile] cahn: he's just about to have his sixth birthday in a a couple weeks. Yeah, I bet his handmade arrow was non-lethal.
Ferdinand's age during that Mantteufel by way of Seckendorf Jr. conversation is why I was stumped for a while to come up with an explanation causing Fritz to predict he'll be the vilest spawn FW ever sired once he's grown up. But him inadvertently hitting a dog would totally do it!
If I ever discover the semblance of a plot thread to hang this up on, I might make something of this crack fic and call it "Adventures in Babysitting", Rokoko style.
Also, reading Lucchesini and Pangels in short order was a neat illustration of the following double standard:
Fritz, years after Voltaire's death:
Person: So, Voltaire...
Fritz: The worst! The absolute worst! I'm not budging from this. Hand me my Voltaire volume, Lucchesini.
Posteriy: Aw. Poor Fritz. How terribly disillusioned must he have been. Or, as Richter of Fredersdorf letters fame puts it, when summing up Fritz/Voltaire: "Laßt uns den König eine Weile auf seinem Leidensweg begleiten." ("Let us join the king for a while on his path of suffering.")
(Also Fritz: trashtalks Pompadour decades after she's died, complete with revisionings of how she wanted money and titles from him in order to stop the war which he refused to give. Posterity: Well, she did greatly contribute to France not budging from the new Austrian alliance, and also, Fritz just tells it like it is, a maitresse en titre is a whore regardless of glamour.)
Heinrich, yeas after Fritz' death:
Person: So, your brother, der einzige, the genius, the best, right?
Heinrich: The worst. The absolute worst. I'm not budging from this. Now excuse me while I move some of my stuff to Wusterhausen and pretend the last twelve Fritzless years haven't happened.
Person and posterity: OMG. How low can you go, hating on the poor man even after death! Such hatred! How twisted, how warped! That obelisk is "the revolting portrait of a twisted personality" (tm early 20th century US biographer).
Mind you, this is not true for the more recent stuff, but as Pangels, published in the 70s ilustrates, "more recent" really is the last 20 years or so. (Ziebura's Heinrich biography was published in 1999. BTW, think that was the first one to use the Marwitz letters. At least I haven't found any earlier examples so far. It may just be no one before Ziebura bothered to check out the unplublished by Preuss Fritz-Heinrich correspondance in the state archive, but even so, Lehndorff's diaries were published from 1907 onwards, and they already contain the tale.