Frederick the Great discussion post 12

[cahn]

Every time I am amazed and enchanted that this is still going on! Truly DW is the Earthly Paradise!

All the good stuff continues to be archived at rheinsberg :)

Comments

Re: The Lehndorff Report: 1776

[selenak]

EC: I quoted this partly before, but Lehndorff's assessment in that same year of SD's death, after which he had an argument with EC, remember, was:

At her heart, the Queen is a good woman, but she doesn't fit at all as the spouse of the greatest, most estimable and most charming of Kings. (The what of Kings, Lehndorff?) She possesses no dignity, no gift to entertain people, despite being far more talkative than she needs to be. She is touchy beyond measure and so often embarassed when with people of high rank. Now she imagines she'll play a more meaningful role and will come first but doesn't realise one was in awe towards the deceased - i.e. SD - due to her benevolence and graciousness towards everyone. It is a pity that this princess who does have a great many good qualities often gets provoked into a touchiness that one would call brutality in an ordinary person and which estranges a great many people from her which otherwise would be devoted to her.

Lehndorff isn't the only one to call EC touchy towards her courtiers in this period of her life. Sophie von Voß, née von Pannwitz (daughter of the FW puncher, AW's One Who Got Away) writes 1760 in her diary: "At court in the evening. The Queen is in a terrible mood and keeps saying desperate things. This moodiness is a terrible flaw of hers. She always wants everyone to tell her she's right in all things; and that makes every conversation with her so embarassing.

And Lehndorff again: "I know no one who has so few social graces as the Queen does. When one watches her, one would think that fate has put her on the throne by accident. She would have been far happier as the wife of a mayor, since she's happiest when she can talk nonsense in her hiding hole at Schönhausen."

I've said this before to Cahn, but it's pretty clear where the problem is. Two decades into Fritz' rule, it's pretty clear to EC that things with Fritz and his family will never change, no matter how hard she tries. (And that during the war he keeps asking for Amalie whe he wants visits from home, and never from her, just continues to rub it in.) If she's too shy to talk, her in-laws ridicule her; if she tries to make conversation, her own courtiers roll their eyes because they find her so dull. If she takes ridicule from Fritz without complaint, she's a doormat; if she tries to behave like he does, demand everyone's approval in her court, she's a trial. So she does what everyone else does in this system. She takes it out on those in the hacking order below her. Now, Lehndorff also records she apologizes for these bursts of temper (to him, to Wartensleben) a day or two later, but that makes it even worse, because it just furtherly proves her lack of royal dignity. It really doesn't get much better until her sister's star rises with Fritz after the war, and Louise makes everyone be nicer to EC, who of course promptly behaves far less moodily to her court. (I wonder why, head, desk.)

Best of all possible worlds for Lehndorff: at a guess, would consist of three main aspects:

- married to cousin Catharine du Rosey
- Heinrich's favourite (no competing charismatic bastards)
- given an interesting job by Fritz, trusted by the King and graced by the King's attention and conversation

And well, I really really don't see how he could have had all three. I suppose being married and still Heinrich's favourite would have been managable, since actually all of Heinrich's favourites were either already married or married during their relationship with him, and the only time this coincided with the end of the relationship was with Mara. But whether his ideal wife would have been happy in that arrangement - we just don't know enough about Cousin von Katt to say.

But there's no way he could have been both a trusted Fritz protegé and Heinrich's favourite at the same time.

BTW, re: Candide, I don't know whether you've spotted Fritz critisizing Candide to de Catt - he says "what a terrible idea that we're happy when we're being abused" (this is how Bischof's edition translates it - your algorithm says "raped". Now, this actually isn't what Candide the novel says, but I find it fascinating that Fritz would jump on this interpretation - and refute it, even while simultanously telling Catt and Mitchell what a great ruler FW was and that his own behaviour when young had been somewhat blameworthy. It's basically saying in a literary discussion what he can't bring himself to say about his own father and himself, not anymore.

Incidentally: Voltaire seems never to have been tempted to internalize his father's abuse, i.e. you don't get Voltaire saying "you know, looking back, I can see Dad's point, even if he was somewhat over the top about it" at any point in his life. Doesn't mean he wasn't also scarred - I suspect his life long inability to resist pissing off any given authority, his own need for admiration and his need to be financially independent by all legal and illegal means - have a lot to do with that - but being a private citizen NOT going into your father's profession and not getting absolute power apparantly provides you with a key bit of more emotional health.

Re: The Lehndorff Report: 1776

[cahn]

I don't know whether you've spotted Fritz critisizing Candide to de Catt - he says "what a terrible idea that we're happy when we're being abused"

This is what the diaries say? Huuuuuh. That's surprising to me --

It's basically saying in a literary discussion what he can't bring himself to say about his own father and himself, not anymore.

--oh! I guess this explains it, because if Lehndorff the oft-clueless can figure out what the book is about and not seize on that aspect (which like you say isn't quite accurate, either, although I can kind of see how one could misread to that conclusion) then it's shocking to me that Fritz is doing this, but it makes a lot more sense if he's, well, actually talking about something else entirely.

Incidentally: Voltaire seems never to have been tempted to internalize his father's abuse

Also, I suppose that fact that his actual day job involved writing all kinds of things that mocked everything, especially anyone in power, helped a lot. Like Wilhelmine's therapy-by-opera :)

Re: The Lehndorff Report: 1776

[mildred_of_midgard]

Touchy, yes, but if you reported that EC hit people, I'd forgotten!

BTW, re: Candide, I don't know whether you've spotted Fritz critisizing Candide to de Catt - he says "what a terrible idea that we're happy when we're being abused" (this is how Bischof's edition translates it - your algorithm says "raped".

Machine translation is a work in progress... ;)

but I find it fascinating that Fritz would jump on this interpretation

Yeah, that's the interesting part to me. Refuting it I find less surprising, especially since he may not be talking only about his father, but about his life as a whole, and especially about the ongoing Seven Years' War.

but being a private citizen NOT going into your father's profession and not getting absolute power apparantly provides you with a key bit of more emotional health.

It definitely helps! I don't know enough about Voltaire to do a thorough compare-and-contrast, but I'm pretty sure "needing to justify why the king should be obeyed at all costs" and "catching myself acting just like dear old Dad" of the Year did Fritz no good at all, even beyond the normal tendency of people to downplay abuse.