uddenly going from poverty (Pomeranian peasant) to plenty makes a *lot* of people go money-crazy. We saw how Fritz reacted to the sudden relief from a deprived childhood! Fredersdorf is subject to the same aspects of human psychology that Fritz is. S
Absolutely, that's very true. And unlike most of Heinrich's faves, he didn't waste that money he suddenly received but made it multiply. *suddenly imagines Fredersdorf as Scarlett O'Hara vowing "I will never go hungry again!" and becoming a capitalist extraordinaire in the second part of Gone with the Wind.*
At lodge meetings, though...I like to imagine Fredersdorf getting to "du" him!
Same!
Back when we decided MacDonogh's "Fredersdorf pocketed small sums" referred to Tyrconnell's "Fredersdorf accepted payment for forwarding your petition on to Fritz" accusation I went through Fredersdorf's probable thought process (at least to generate a headcanon for fic purposes), and concluded that it would be very easy Fredersdorf to rationalize this as him not being corrupt, i.e. that he would never allow money to influence him to do anything against Fritz's best interests, but all other things being equal wrt Fritz's best interests, if you wanted something *from* Fritz, you might as well pay for the privilege. He might even have seen it as weeding out frivolous requests.
*nods* BTW, I wonder whether McDonogh is basing this on the same Tyrconnel/Latouche letter that I was quoting from? Because it, Tyrconnel/Latouche continue after "but enough of this", in the very next sentence: This favourite isn't supposed to be unbribable, but is would be too late to win him over now; for he is very rich and has shares from all the fairs, all the defeats and all the monopolies.
It's worth noting they're talking rumor/reputation rather than personal experience here, i.e. the phrasing doesn't sound like Tyrconnel, personally, had to pay Fredersdorf for advancing a petition, but like he's talking about Fredersdorf's reputation in general. Or maybe McDonogh is referring to a different letter where Tyrconnel does talk about a bribe he had to make?
Anyway, given that Fritz accepted money from all and sunder in the Crown Prince years without letting this influence him in his future policies one bit (Seckendorff: you can say that again!!!), I could see Fredersdorf conclude he's entitled to do the same, i.e. accept money, as long as he doesn't actually try to manipulate Fritz accordingly. Maybe they even had an arrangement where Fredersdorf tells him what the current bribing rates are and who offers most, because that's telling about the respective envoys and their nations?
Indeed, and Blanning claims that the poisoning is only one of two accusations that have been made against Glasow, and that the true crime isn't known. Münchow, Jr. certainly thought there was a poisoning attempt, but Münchow, Jr. is not the source of all truth.
No, but Lehndorff backs him up in his diary, writing the gossip down as it happened during the easter holidays of 1757. Again, could simply be that this was the official explanation to cover for another reason, but the story certainly was there and believed in 1757, Münchow Jr isn't misremembering this bit decades later. What he contributes is that based on his own experience as a page, he thinks it might have been discovered because Fritz had people serving him his coffee or chocolate take a spoon of it first in a playful manner.
Yeah, Fredersdorf was in a position to collect a lot of malicious gossip. People were bitter.
Absolutely, and we shouldn't lose sight of the possibility these stories are no more fact based than "Prisoner Fritz is now wearing a beard and wild hair and long nails!", "Amalie has lots of illegitimate children and burned some in her fireplace" (Lehndorff notes that one down while simultanously saying it was ridiculous and that Amalie had a habit of adopting street strays of which, since it was the 7 Years War going on, there were an increasing lot), "AW couldn't count or write until Fritz became King", and, of course, the immortal "Let them eat cake" misattribution to Marie Antoinette. Fredersdorf, as the commoner who managed to remain Fritz' closest confidant from 1731 to 1757, would have been one of the most envied and resented people in the kingdom, and thus a lightning rod for malicious stories.
So, to recapitulate, we have the following possibilities:
1.) Nothing happened beyond possibly Fritz wanting to have privacy for some kind of action in his tent. Rumours took it from there and became ever more extravagant in the retelling.
2.) Georgii the handsome hussar did happen, and with bad timing, too, because it was just at the time when Fritz and Fredersdorf were still readjusting to the changes coming from Fritz' new warrior absolute king self, Fritz wanted to make a pointed gesture to reassure himself he was boss (after Mollwitz would be psychologically ideal), and Fredersdorf starts to wonder whether Zernikow could have been meant as a farewell gift and he's being eased out of Fritz' life, and decides to take action (by putting Georgii under intense scrutiny).
1.) would be nicer for rl, but 2.) certainly is more conductive to fanfiction! One would, of course, have to figure out what kind of dirt Fredersdorf then unearths on Georgii that leads Georgii to shoot himself. Gambling debts is traditional but would not work in this case, because who doesn't have those? Georgii responding to being newly favoured by the King with taking bribes could be blown off by Georgii with the same rationale we speculated on for Fredersdorf above. Hm.... I know! Georgii turns out in his free time to have composed odes to MT! Okay, more seriously, some kind of Austrian connection is the only thing I can think of right now.
Or: wait! My inner pulp fiction plotter awakens! Georgii, whose name rounds Russian anyway, has orginally come to Fritz' attention by a rec letter from the (recently) late Suhm, who supposedly met this fine young gent at St. Petersburg. Fredersdorf finds evidence that this letter was forged and someone coldbloodedly exploited Fritz' affection and grief for Suhm. This, Fritz would not forgive! And now that Georgii actually has gotten to know him a little, he nows that. Ergo suicide. (If faking a Suhm rec letter is not enough, then we could escalete it to "not only was the rec letter faked but Georgii POISONED Suhm (in the service of whichever enemy Suhm had), which Fredersdorf discovers and then gives Georgii an ultimatum).
I just wanted to say, this would make an excellent concluding line to a fic or scene in a fic about the handsome hussar! :)
Re: Fredersdorf: Prime Suspect? (or: By Jove, I've found it!)
Absolutely, that's very true. And unlike most of Heinrich's faves, he didn't waste that money he suddenly received but made it multiply. *suddenly imagines Fredersdorf as Scarlett O'Hara vowing "I will never go hungry again!" and becoming a capitalist extraordinaire in the second part of Gone with the Wind.*
At lodge meetings, though...I like to imagine Fredersdorf getting to "du" him!
Same!
Back when we decided MacDonogh's "Fredersdorf pocketed small sums" referred to Tyrconnell's "Fredersdorf accepted payment for forwarding your petition on to Fritz" accusation I went through Fredersdorf's probable thought process (at least to generate a headcanon for fic purposes), and concluded that it would be very easy Fredersdorf to rationalize this as him not being corrupt, i.e. that he would never allow money to influence him to do anything against Fritz's best interests, but all other things being equal wrt Fritz's best interests, if you wanted something *from* Fritz, you might as well pay for the privilege. He might even have seen it as weeding out frivolous requests.
*nods* BTW, I wonder whether McDonogh is basing this on the same Tyrconnel/Latouche letter that I was quoting from? Because it, Tyrconnel/Latouche continue after "but enough of this", in the very next sentence: This favourite isn't supposed to be unbribable, but is would be too late to win him over now; for he is very rich and has shares from all the fairs, all the defeats and all the monopolies.
It's worth noting they're talking rumor/reputation rather than personal experience here, i.e. the phrasing doesn't sound like Tyrconnel, personally, had to pay Fredersdorf for advancing a petition, but like he's talking about Fredersdorf's reputation in general. Or maybe McDonogh is referring to a different letter where Tyrconnel does talk about a bribe he had to make?
Anyway, given that Fritz accepted money from all and sunder in the Crown Prince years without letting this influence him in his future policies one bit (Seckendorff: you can say that again!!!), I could see Fredersdorf conclude he's entitled to do the same, i.e. accept money, as long as he doesn't actually try to manipulate Fritz accordingly. Maybe they even had an arrangement where Fredersdorf tells him what the current bribing rates are and who offers most, because that's telling about the respective envoys and their nations?
Indeed, and Blanning claims that the poisoning is only one of two accusations that have been made against Glasow, and that the true crime isn't known. Münchow, Jr. certainly thought there was a poisoning attempt, but Münchow, Jr. is not the source of all truth.
No, but Lehndorff backs him up in his diary, writing the gossip down as it happened during the easter holidays of 1757. Again, could simply be that this was the official explanation to cover for another reason, but the story certainly was there and believed in 1757, Münchow Jr isn't misremembering this bit decades later. What he contributes is that based on his own experience as a page, he thinks it might have been discovered because Fritz had people serving him his coffee or chocolate take a spoon of it first in a playful manner.
Yeah, Fredersdorf was in a position to collect a lot of malicious gossip. People were bitter.
Absolutely, and we shouldn't lose sight of the possibility these stories are no more fact based than "Prisoner Fritz is now wearing a beard and wild hair and long nails!", "Amalie has lots of illegitimate children and burned some in her fireplace" (Lehndorff notes that one down while simultanously saying it was ridiculous and that Amalie had a habit of adopting street strays of which, since it was the 7 Years War going on, there were an increasing lot), "AW couldn't count or write until Fritz became King", and, of course, the immortal "Let them eat cake" misattribution to Marie Antoinette. Fredersdorf, as the commoner who managed to remain Fritz' closest confidant from 1731 to 1757, would have been one of the most envied and resented people in the kingdom, and thus a lightning rod for malicious stories.
So, to recapitulate, we have the following possibilities:
1.) Nothing happened beyond possibly Fritz wanting to have privacy for some kind of action in his tent. Rumours took it from there and became ever more extravagant in the retelling.
2.) Georgii the handsome hussar did happen, and with bad timing, too, because it was just at the time when Fritz and Fredersdorf were still readjusting to the changes coming from Fritz' new warrior absolute king self, Fritz wanted to make a pointed gesture to reassure himself he was boss (after Mollwitz would be psychologically ideal), and Fredersdorf starts to wonder whether Zernikow could have been meant as a farewell gift and he's being eased out of Fritz' life, and decides to take action (by putting Georgii under intense scrutiny).
1.) would be nicer for rl, but 2.) certainly is more conductive to fanfiction! One would, of course, have to figure out what kind of dirt Fredersdorf then unearths on Georgii that leads Georgii to shoot himself. Gambling debts is traditional but would not work in this case, because who doesn't have those? Georgii responding to being newly favoured by the King with taking bribes could be blown off by Georgii with the same rationale we speculated on for Fredersdorf above. Hm.... I know! Georgii turns out in his free time to have composed odes to MT! Okay, more seriously, some kind of Austrian connection is the only thing I can think of right now.
Or: wait! My inner pulp fiction plotter awakens! Georgii, whose name rounds Russian anyway, has orginally come to Fritz' attention by a rec letter from the (recently) late Suhm, who supposedly met this fine young gent at St. Petersburg. Fredersdorf finds evidence that this letter was forged and someone coldbloodedly exploited Fritz' affection and grief for Suhm. This, Fritz would not forgive! And now that Georgii actually has gotten to know him a little, he nows that. Ergo suicide. (If faking a Suhm rec letter is not enough, then we could escalete it to "not only was the rec letter faked but Georgii POISONED Suhm (in the service of whichever enemy Suhm had), which Fredersdorf discovers and then gives Georgii an ultimatum).
I just wanted to say, this would make an excellent concluding line to a fic or scene in a fic about the handsome hussar! :)
*beams*