we want Heinrich's commentary on Voltaire's memoirs!
Yes we do!! Lehndorff, why are you letting us down like this? :)
Truly. I suppose his inner loyal subject prevented him from doing so, but never mind, Lehndorff, Fritz can take it! Trust us. I should add that at this point, Lehndorff does occasionally wonder who'll read his diaries once he's dead, and for whom he's writing this, and comes to the conclusion that he's writing for future generations of Lehndorffs to whom Fritz & Co. will only be legends, like the people from Louis XIV court are to him when he's reading Liselotte's letters. Perhaps he doesn't want those hypothetical future Lehndorffs and his very real actual kids (who also are bound to have a look at his diaries once he's gone) to know all Prince Heinrich has to add to Voltaire's trashy tell all about Frederick the Great?
Tauentzien: So after all these, er, adventures, he became one of Heinrich's lovers? What happened to him after that?
As Heinrich boyfriends go, he had a pretty good life. For starters, he wasn't a hopeless spendthrift, and like his father a good military man. (Dad Tauentzien the General is the Tauentzien who is included on the Rheinsberg Obelisk.) He also was very career minded. The relationship with Heinrich ended in 1791 when Tauentzien switched from Heinrich's to FW2's personal entourage. (Chronology reminder: Fritz dies in the summer of 1786. Heinrich finds out soon thereafter that FW2 while treating him as dear old Uncle Heinrich has zero intention of letting him play any political role whatsoever and completely freezes him out of government business. Anyone who still wants to advance in the ranks starts to realize this won't happen through Heinrich.) Tauentzien, who'd gone with Heinrich on all his travels through the 1780s - including the second one to Paris just before the Revolution; he was the boyfriend who thought it was funny to coach an actor in Fritz mannerisms and make Heinrich watch the play starring his brother (as mentioned here) - first became FW2s' liason officer to the Austrian army (remember, this was when Prussia and Austria teamed up for the first time to fight the French Revolutionaries in the "avenge the French Royals, let's invade" war, which btw Heinrich was against, and promptly got their backside kicked at Valmy), then FW2's envoy at Catherine's court in Russia. He then took a leave of absence; FW2 died in 1797, FW3 called Tauentzien back to the Prussian army, promoting him to Generalmajor, and as opposed to poor Wartensleben, Tauentzien managed to fight in the Prussian army against Napoleon at Jena and lose without getting blamed for it afterwards. In fairness, this was because he also managed to win on several key occasions in the 1813-1815 wars. He ended up commanding the 3rd Army and in peace time in his old age died as the distinguished Commandant of the Berlin City Garnison; he's buried there.
The child his first wife died giving birth to was a daughter and survived into old age (she died in 1859); he married again in 1787 and had four more children by his second wife, who also was more fortunate in her life expectancy - she outlived him and died in 1840.
He was the last but one of Heinrich's main lovers; after him came the French émigré count who stuck around till Heinrich's death and was described by Fontane so memorably as the last warming beam of the setting sun. (The Comte's wife lived long enough for Fontane to actually have met her and get some stories about Rheinsberg in Heinrich's time from her.)
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh oh Lehndorff, you are the most adorably smitten guy ever, we should all be as lucky to be as adorably and passionately in love as you after thirty years <333333333
Same! I mean, his early bedazzled entries are very enjoyable to read, too, but everyone is in such a mood when it's young love. But this is Lehndorff decades later, after he's quite clear on Heinrich's darker sides as well, and I don't just mean the tendency to fall for charismatic bastards, but Heinrich's own capacity for pettiness (ask Mina) and carrying a grudge (or, as Lehndorff puts it, "sulking with the Firstborn"). This is Lehndorff who has given up on the idea that Heinrich will ever change and propose monogamous marriage and has managed to build a life for himself at Steinort, with the annual Berlin trip, with his family, that he's content with. And yet, he's still as passionately in love as that.
(What Heinrich felt for Lehndorff remains a mystery. Not least because no one ever published those letters. I mean, evidently, as Mildred put it, Lehndorff did not and could not push those sexual/emotional buttons in terms of powerplay. But otoh, he kept up the relationship and sought out Lehndorff's company again and again throughout the decades when there was absolutely no benefit in it for him, neither when Lehndorff was EC's chamberlain nor in the retirement years, beyond, well, Lehndorff himself. So he must have felt an attachment of whatever nature, and one that lasted through a life time, too.)
Re: The Lehndorff Report: 1784
Yes we do!! Lehndorff, why are you letting us down like this? :)
Truly. I suppose his inner loyal subject prevented him from doing so, but never mind, Lehndorff, Fritz can take it! Trust us. I should add that at this point, Lehndorff does occasionally wonder who'll read his diaries once he's dead, and for whom he's writing this, and comes to the conclusion that he's writing for future generations of Lehndorffs to whom Fritz & Co. will only be legends, like the people from Louis XIV court are to him when he's reading Liselotte's letters. Perhaps he doesn't want those hypothetical future Lehndorffs and his very real actual kids (who also are bound to have a look at his diaries once he's gone) to know all Prince Heinrich has to add to Voltaire's trashy tell all about Frederick the Great?
Tauentzien: So after all these, er, adventures, he became one of Heinrich's lovers? What happened to him after that?
As Heinrich boyfriends go, he had a pretty good life. For starters, he wasn't a hopeless spendthrift, and like his father a good military man. (Dad Tauentzien the General is the Tauentzien who is included on the Rheinsberg Obelisk.) He also was very career minded. The relationship with Heinrich ended in 1791 when Tauentzien switched from Heinrich's to FW2's personal entourage. (Chronology reminder: Fritz dies in the summer of 1786. Heinrich finds out soon thereafter that FW2 while treating him as dear old Uncle Heinrich has zero intention of letting him play any political role whatsoever and completely freezes him out of government business. Anyone who still wants to advance in the ranks starts to realize this won't happen through Heinrich.) Tauentzien, who'd gone with Heinrich on all his travels through the 1780s - including the second one to Paris just before the Revolution; he was the boyfriend who thought it was funny to coach an actor in Fritz mannerisms and make Heinrich watch the play starring his brother (as mentioned here) - first became FW2s' liason officer to the Austrian army (remember, this was when Prussia and Austria teamed up for the first time to fight the French Revolutionaries in the "avenge the French Royals, let's invade" war, which btw Heinrich was against, and promptly got their backside kicked at Valmy), then FW2's envoy at Catherine's court in Russia. He then took a leave of absence; FW2 died in 1797, FW3 called Tauentzien back to the Prussian army, promoting him to Generalmajor, and as opposed to poor Wartensleben, Tauentzien managed to fight in the Prussian army against Napoleon at Jena and lose without getting blamed for it afterwards. In fairness, this was because he also managed to win on several key occasions in the 1813-1815 wars. He ended up commanding the 3rd Army and in peace time in his old age died as the distinguished Commandant of the Berlin City Garnison; he's buried there.
The child his first wife died giving birth to was a daughter and survived into old age (she died in 1859); he married again in 1787 and had four more children by his second wife, who also was more fortunate in her life expectancy - she outlived him and died in 1840.
He was the last but one of Heinrich's main lovers; after him came the French émigré count who stuck around till Heinrich's death and was described by Fontane so memorably as the last warming beam of the setting sun. (The Comte's wife lived long enough for Fontane to actually have met her and get some stories about Rheinsberg in Heinrich's time from her.)
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh oh Lehndorff, you are the most adorably smitten guy ever, we should all be as lucky to be as adorably and passionately in love as you after thirty years <333333333
Same! I mean, his early bedazzled entries are very enjoyable to read, too, but everyone is in such a mood when it's young love. But this is Lehndorff decades later, after he's quite clear on Heinrich's darker sides as well, and I don't just mean the tendency to fall for charismatic bastards, but Heinrich's own capacity for pettiness (ask Mina) and carrying a grudge (or, as Lehndorff puts it, "sulking with the Firstborn"). This is Lehndorff who has given up on the idea that Heinrich will ever change
and propose monogamous marriageand has managed to build a life for himself at Steinort, with the annual Berlin trip, with his family, that he's content with. And yet, he's still as passionately in love as that.(What Heinrich felt for Lehndorff remains a mystery. Not least because no one ever published those letters. I mean, evidently, as Mildred put it, Lehndorff did not and could not push those sexual/emotional buttons in terms of powerplay. But otoh, he kept up the relationship and sought out Lehndorff's company again and again throughout the decades when there was absolutely no benefit in it for him, neither when Lehndorff was EC's chamberlain nor in the retirement years, beyond, well, Lehndorff himself. So he must have felt an attachment of whatever nature, and one that lasted through a life time, too.)