One thing I knew about the memoirs which is still true is that they, even at their fullest, do not reach the time of the coup against Peter and Catherine's ascension to the throne. (Or if they ever did, that part didn't survive.) She never finished them. She wrote them in several stages, and this was a headache for any editor because she kept rewriting some scenes, such as her first meeting with (P)Russian Pete, for which there are three versions, one from the 1750s, one from the 1770s, and one from the late 1780s. The editor tells us here, and with other scenes, he had to make a choice as to what to use. Anyway, since the memoirs only cover her youth and Grand Duchess days, the "meeting the Hohenzollern" scenes are limited, I guess. I've now reached the point where Sophie reaches Russia, i.e. where the bowlderised memoirs start, and here are the Hohenzollern-related scenes so far:
First, the one I already excerpted for Mildred.
On the way from Stettin to Braunschweig or on the way back my mother usually made a stop at Berlin or Zerbst, depending on where my father was at the time. I remember how I was presented at age 8 for the first time to the late Queen Sophia Dorothea, the mother of King Frederick the Great; the King her husband was still alive then. Her four children, eleven years old Prince Heinrich, seven years old Prince Ferdinand, Princess Ulrike, the later Queen of Sweden, and Princess Amalie, both of a marriagable age, were with her. The King was absent. On that occasion, my friendship with Prince Heinrich of Prussia began during playing with each other; at least I could not name an earlier occasion. We have agreed repeatedly that the origin of our friendship goes back to that first meeting.
Young Sophie: not a fan of FW:
But before I describe this journey, I shall mention that in this year, King Friedrich Wilhelm died. I think no people has ever greeted the news of a death with more joy than this one. Passers-by on the street embraced and congratulated each other to the death of the King, whom they gave various nicknames; in short, young and old despised and hated him. He was strict, rude, miserly and passionate; still, he certainly possessed great attributes as a King, but he had nothing in him that could be loved, neither in his personal nor in his public life. His son, crown prince Friedrich, who succeeded him and to whom even his contemporaries gave the name Frederick the Gerat was beloved and respected, and there was much joy about his ascension.
Young Sophie: definitely a fan of the Countess Bentinck! (Whom she meets at that lady's mothers, who is also related to Sophie's Mom.)
Frau von Bentinck approached us on horseback. I had never seen a woman ride before and was delighted. She rode like a master of the horses. Once we'd arrived in Varel, I made friends with her; which displeased my mother and even more my father. We did start oddly. Frau von Bentick had hardly changed her clothes when she went upstairs. I was with her while she changed, and didn't leave her. She didn't play coy, showed herself for a moment in her mother's room, where my mother was as well, and we immediately started to dance a Steiermärker together. This made everyone look at us, and I got scolded for my behaviour. The next day, I still went and used an excuse to visit the Countess, for I found her delightful. How else she was supposed to appear to me? I was fourteen, she rode, she danced when she felt like it, she sang, joked, jumped around like a child, though she had to be around thirty years at this point. (Edtitor: She was 28.) She already lived separated from her husband. (...) In one of of the room, there was a portrait of Count Bentinck, who had to have been a very beautiful man. The Countess saw it and said: "If I hadn't been married to him, I'd have been madly in love with him!"
Heinrich & Sophie = bff is still a thing:
I think Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia got married in 1741 with Princess Louise of Braunschweig-Bevern. I was a guest at that wedding, where Duke Karl Eugen of Württemberg and his two brothers were present as well. The Duke was one year older than I was, his brothers were still little boys. Prince Heinrich of Prussia made me feel very distinguished back then, since we danced at every ball either a menuet or a contradanse together.
Footnote from editor with excerpts of Catherine's later correspondance with her Hamburg friend Frau von Bielcke (another childhood friend), who wrote to Catherine on October 7th, 1766 (date is interesting, since this is BEFORE Heinrich made his first trip to Russia):
I ask your majesty's permission to mention that about two years ago, I had the honor to encounter Prince Heinrich (of Prussia). He was kind enough to visit me and talk with me for about two hours. He spoke of your majesty with so much vivid admiration to me, with such great interest, that I couldn't help but think that if he had the happiness of being united with the charming Princess Sophie, he might not have made himself guilty of the terrible things which today darken his fame; but Pope says that all, that happens, is good!
To which Catherine replied on November 5th, 1766: The conversation you had with Prince Heinrich which you mentioned and the interest he showed in his old friend do delight me. It is not the first time I've heard about it, but like Pope, I agree that all happening as it did is well; so I don't regret more didn't come of our contredanses.
(Frau von Bielcke, if you you mean Heinrich wouldn't have been gay when married with Catherine, you don't know Heinrich. Methinks Catherine would agree. Also, just think of what would have happened if they'd fallen for the same guy!)
Incidentally, Catherine is slightly wrong about the date here; AW married Louise on January 6th 1742, right in the middle of Berlin's Carneval season.
Young Sophie, still 14, next gets romanced by Uncle Georg Ludwig, because Uncle/Niece is a thing in this century, it seems. Old Catherine thinks her mother knew (it was her brother) and didn't say anything. Old Catherine is rather jaundiced about her mother in general, says she prefered Sophie's brothers and had not much interest at all in Sophie until the possibility of marrying the Czarina's heir became a thing. Like Wilhelmine with Sonsine and MT with the Countess Fuchs, Catherine had a governess she loved very much, though, named Babet. Anyway, Uncle Georg Ludwig uses his uncle privileges for caressing and love declarations, says one day they'll make it official, and can't stand bff Heinrich's very name because he's not sure that might not be competition. He may or may not have proposed in the end, given they were Protestants and just needed Fritz' permission, but then the future Peter III match became a distinct possibility, provided they'd come to Russia for inspection.
And here's the passage about meeting Fritz, en route to Russia.
In Berlin, my mother didn't think it suitable for me to present myself at court or otherwise in public; but it happened otherwise. THe King of Prussia, through whose hands all incoming letters from Russia for my mother went first, knew exactly why my parents were in Berlin. (...) When the King of Prusisa who knew exactly where the journey was headed learned that I had arrived in Berlin, he wanted to see me in any case. My mother claimed I was sick. Two days later he invited her to dinner at the Queen's, his wife's, and asked her personally to bring me with her. My mother promised him, but on the day in question she went alone anyway. When the King saw her, he asked her about my condition. She replied that I was sick. Whereupon he replied that he knew this wasn't true. She then said I wasn't wearing any gala dress right now, to which he returned he would wait to see me at dinner the next day. At last, my mother said I didn't have any suitable court wardrobe. He ordered that one of his sisters should send me a dress. Finally my mother realised that no excuse would be accepted and sent a message to me that I was to get dressed and come to the palace. Thus I had to throw myself into gala robes an get ready, and was finished approximately at 3 pm. Finally I arrived at the palace. The King was waiting for me in the antechambre of the Queen. He drew me into a conversation and escorted me to the rooms of the Queen.
I was shy and embarassed. At last, we sat down at the table from which we were to rise again only very late. When we did get up, Prince Ferdinand of Braunschweig, the Queen's brother, whom I knew very well and had known for a long time and who back then was always around the King of Prussia approached me. He told me: "Tonight you'll be my lady at the King's table during the Redoute in the Opera House." (The Redoute was a big public masque ball.) I replied to him that it would be my pleasure. Back at our residence, I told my mother about the Prince of Braunschweig's invitation, and she said: "That is strange, for I've been invited to the Queen's table."
One of the tables had been given to my father, wo was to receive people there, which meant I sat alone at the King's table. My mother first drove to the Princess of Prussia, and then together with her to the Redoute. I spent the entire evening in conversation with the older Countess Henkel, who was lady-in-waiting to the Princess of Prussia, and when I had told her that I would have to sit at the King's table for the souper, she guided me to the room where dinner would be served. No sooner had I entered but that the Prince of Braunschweig approached me and took my hand. He pulled me to the end of the table, and because the other couples were coming, too, he pushed ahead so smoothly that he ended up sitting me right next to the King. When I saw the later was my neighbor, I wanted to withdraw, but he told me to stay, and through the entire evening he kept talking to me and said a lot of pleasantries. I tried to handle the conversation as good as I could; but I did direct some accusations at the Prince of Braunschweig for sitting me right next to the King. He turned it into a jest. At last, the dinner was finished, and we left Berlin supposedly for Stettin. Near Stettin my father said goodbye to me with much tenderness. It was the last time I was ever to see him, and I cried bitterly.
Re: Anhalt Sophie: Portrait of the Czarina as a young girl
he certainly possessed great attributes as a King, but he had nothing in him that could be loved, neither in his personal nor in his public life.
Sophie, I cannot say I disagree with a word of this.
The Countess saw it and said: "If I hadn't been married to him, I'd have been madly in love with him!"
ahahaha, okay, I'm a fan too :)
Prince Heinrich of Prussia made me feel very distinguished back then, since we danced at every ball either a menuet or a contradanse together.
sooooo cuuuuute now I want the story where Heinrich is her gay BFF
It is not the first time I've heard about it, but like Pope, I agree that all happening as it did is well; so I don't regret more didn't come of our contredanses.
Catherine: That is to say, Frau von Bielcke, have you not noticed that my old friend Heinrich is GAY GAY GAY? I'd prefer to be married to someone het, thanks! also someone I don't mind organizing a coup to get rid of
And I remain amazed that Fritz can be so charming :) Fritz, it's not that hard!
Re: Anhalt Sophie: Portrait of the Czarina as a young girl
re: Fritz: I tell you, it's the absolute power problem. If you don't have to care what anyone thinks of you because everyone around you depends on you, and you've got background trauma and a terrier nature, your use of the social graces distinctly lessens. In this case, he wasn't just being nice, either; after all, he had pushed for her marriage to happen himself because he figured two Prussia fans on the throne of Russia were better than one. (Little did he know...) Incidentally, something I hadn't consciously known before browsing through the memoirs was that Catherine's mother was also Ulrike's (later) sister-in-law, i.e. Ulrike married one of the brothers (not the niece-pawing creep). Which means Gustav was Catherine's first cousin. (Not that this stopped the war between them in the 1790s.)
Countess Bentinck: may not have scored with Heinrich (unless you're Charlotte Pangels and believe facilitating this heartrendering affair was Lehndorff's happy desire), but definitely comes across as a captivating, interesting woman in all mentions of her I've seen so far.
sooooo cuuuuute now I want the story where Heinrich is her gay BFF
If you've ever sceen the final scene of "My Best Friend's Wedding", with Julia Roberts and Rupert Everett as her gay bff, that's the one that came to mind immediately when you said this. Meanwhile, here is a wonderful (danced) version of the contredanse, and here is the menuet (also danced) teen Heinrich and Sophie would have been dancing at all the balls of AW's wedding, blissfully unaware of what was waiting for each of them in the future.
Madame Bielke (born Johanna von Grothusen but married to a Dane, which is why her last name sometimes gets spelled Bjelke or Bielke, depending on the source) got a letter from Catherine during Heinrich's first Russia trip (which lasted for months), and in this letter she wrote:
I have never met someone else in whom I have found such a sympathy of ideas. We often open the mouth at the same time to say the same thing. This probably explains why he enjoys my society. I must admit that no royal visit could have been more agreeable to me than his is. He doesn't miss anything, and one has to esteem him very highly. His mood is always bright, his character sincere and philanthropic, his mind is noble, in a word, he is a hero and my dear friend.
Now, in all fairness: Heinrich was at his best because he was on a diplomatic mission (and Big Bro was far, far away). Undoubtedly, if he had become part of Catherine's court or administration, in whichever capacity - making him her satrap in Wallachia was one of her suggestions to Fritz (Fritz: NO!), they'd have clashed sooner or later, and he would have found her as despotic as he found his brother. Not to mention that he had his dark moods, too, and as for sincerety and honesty, I was reminded again of how he turned a Fritz-licensed family trip to visit Ulrike in Sweden into a top political mission with the triple goals of 1. Reconciling Ulrike and Catherine (Sweden and Russia being at cold war odds at the time, Gustav wasn't even King yet), 2. Encouraging the readiness for peace on the Russian side and offering on Prussia's behalf to take over the mediator role (in the Turkish-Russian war which was going on at that time) possibly with Austria, 3. Investigate the possibility of a triple alliance in conjunction of land appropriation (poor Poles!) as a treaty guarantee for all three powers) - by arranging an invite for himself to Russia behind Fritz' back. He could totally lie and manouevre with the best of them. (But then, so could Catherine.) This particular bit didn't get known until 130 years later, when in 1896 Catherine's correspondance with her envoy Prince Dimitri Golizyn was first published. It took a while longer for German historians to accept this hadn't been Fritz' idea to begin with. None other than our G. Volz had to lay it out in the "Forschungen zur Brandenburgisch-Preußischen Geschichte" Bd. 35, 1923 that it happened thusly:
Prince Golizyn was en route to Den Haag and stopped by in Berlin when Heinrich approached him. Reports Golizyn: "Prince Heinrich has told me that the King was sending him in the summer to Stockholm in order to influence the Queen his sister for peace. (...) The Prince said that he was very satisfied by this mission but would be even happier if on this occasion he would have the chance to visit St. Petersburg to express his admiration to the Czarina. But this could not happen in any other way but through the Czarina's own contribution, if she immediately after his arrival at Stockholm were to write to the King in this matter, who might not agree to a first request but would definitely give in if the Czarina would insist. The Prince concluded with the request that Prince Golizyn would tell the Czarina of this wish (...) and would keep this request in stricted confidence in order not to compromise him with the King, who did not know about this."
Fritz duly got a letter from Catherine which said: His royal highness Prince Heinrich has gone to visit his sister in Stockholm. It's only a day from Stockholm to Reval, from Reval to Kronstadt another day. This town is only two miles away from Peterhof, where I usually spend my summers. I can't be in such a close proximity to a prince who is close to your majesty without experiencing the vivid wish to renew our acquaintance. HOwever, I wouldn't make further step without your majesty's permission. I have no other motive for this suggestion than my great admiration and friendship to you and all who belong to you.
Whether or not Fritz deduced Little Bro, with the help of his childhood bff, had just pulled a fast one on him, he agreed and wrote to Heinrich: If you manage to reconcile the Czarina with Ulrike, I would be very pleased. Besides, I am entrusting you with everything that serves our interests. (..) It is just annoying I did not know about this sooner, I could have explained so much to you.
(Heinrich: You Fritzplaining things to me is one big reason why I didn't say anything. Mission accomplished! On to Russia!)
I must admit, now that their youthful friendship is canon, I am mentally revising my Frederician "Adventures in Babysitting" to include the episode where Heinrich and Sophie organize a midnight raid & slumber party behind Fritz' back.
On a more serious note, of course Catherine, as opposed to her late (very late) husband, never let personal friendship with a Prussian Prince get in the way of go-getting, and she wouldn't have done this if she didn't consider there was a potential use for her. Just as Heinrich, when she died, was both sincerely mourning her and aware this could be politically advantageous to Prussia, because her son Paul, with his urge to prove he was really also Peter's son, was also a devoted Prussia fan (and also more approachable to the idea of making peace with Revolutionary France).(Remember: I am wearing (mourning) in memory of the friendship she's shown towards me, and of her genius. For losing it is a loss to the whole world. (...) She had supreme qualities. I can never forget her attention, her amiability and the power of her mind. What remains now is very small, compared to her. Of course, from a political point of view her death is a stroke of luck for us. ) Which is to say: they were both of them followers of Realpolitik, but the personal fondness was real as well.
ETA: And here is the final scene from My Best Friend's Wedding which I meant. Context, if you haven't seen the film: our heroine, Julia Roberts, has in vain through the movie tried to prevent the man she loves from wedding another, in the process realised she was being wrong and mean, and did her best to patch up things between the two lovers who do marry according to schedule after all. Rupert Everett is her gay bff who cheers her up in said final scene.
I... am not sure whether I have seen this. I think maybe? It looks vaguely familiar. I know I heard a bunch about it at the time, so maybe that just got stuck in my brain. But YES that is exactly how I picture Heinrich as a gay dancing bff (only rather shorter). (Although I cannot picture Sophie as Roberts' character.) (My first reaction to the excerpt you linked: OMG did we really live through that kind of hair in the 90's? ...we did, didn't we?? (I even have pictures of myself to prove it, sadly.))
Meanwhile, here is a wonderful (danced) version of the contredanse, and here is the menuet (also danced) teen Heinrich and Sophie would have been dancing at all the balls of AW's wedding
These were lovely and I love to picture Heinrich and Sophie dancing these. Incidentally, the minuet they play in the second link (Luigi Boccherini) is a staple of the Suzuki violin repertoire, and I played it countless times as a small person. It was really cool to see them dancing to it (of course, as a child I only had a very vague idea that it was a dance at all) and to see how the parts of the music actually lend themselves to parts of the dance as well. (Also, (a) I am super impressed by how into it the kids seemed to be -- I was forced to take a Cotillion class as a teenager and every single one of us, as far as I know, hated it, although we didn't learn to dance minuets and I might have been more interested if we did -- and (b) I really liked the one girl with the purple swishy skirt :) )
He could totally lie and manouevre with the best of them. (But then, so could Catherine.)
Ahahahaha perhaps that is why they were BFFs and "often open the mouth at the same time to say the same things" :D That is an amazing story and once again I am indebted to both G. Volz and to you for relaying the story :D
I have no other motive for this suggestion than my great admiration and friendship to you and all who belong to you.
Catherine! :D
It is just annoying I did not know about this sooner, I could have explained so much to you.
LOLOLOLOL Fritz do you listen to yourself sometimes??
I am mentally revising my Frederician "Adventures in Babysitting" to include the episode where Heinrich and Sophie organize a midnight raid & slumber party behind Fritz' back.
Excellent!
Which is to say: they were both of them followers of Realpolitik, but the personal fondness was real as well.
This is exactly why I get such a huge kick out of their friendship (and, for that matter, both of them) :D And why I imagine Catherine as partially thinking "eh, besides the gay thing, it's good I didn't marry Heinrich because I would have hated to destroy our friendship by staging a coup and killing him. Also because he might have plotted right back at me" :) ...okay, now I really want the AU where they do get married and end up hilariously triple-crossing each other to fulfill their personal political agendas, but still retain that fondnessfor each other :D
Hair in the 90s: better than in the 80s at least? Also, still modest compared with the 1780s (see also: Marie Antoinette). :)
AU in which young Heinrich and Princess Sophie get married: on the one hand, AU!Catherine, who never bears that name because there is no reason for a change of religion, would have had far less advantageous circumstances for any type of coup. As opposed to Peter, Heinrich is not the heir to the throne, nor ever will be. He's a third brother who until the 7 Years War has exactly zero political power. And since AW quickly produces two sons after that wedding, Heinrich is really far from the throne. What's more, Russia has had three female monarchs before Catherine makes her coup, and Catherine I., the wife of Peter I., has established the precedent that you can, in fact, become the ruling monarch without a single drop of Romanow blood in your vein, based on you being the widow of the deceased Czar and mother of his children. No such circumstances apply for Prussia, with a grand total of three monarchs (F1, FW and Fritz), all male, and all against female rulers in their every uttering. (Not sure Fritz' early last will already has the "no female regent!" clause or not. Also not sure whether FW excluded the possibility of his wife being regent if he should die before his son reaches his majority in the 1722 will, I didn't read it for that, but it's FW, so it's likely.
Still, I would bet that any AU where kids Heinrich and Sophie get married is an AU in which Heinrich does, in fact, take his one shot during the 7 Years War where Fritz is really really depressed post Kunersdorf and goes for the regency. I.e. he and Sophie are the Prussian Macbeths, hopefully with a better ending for either. I'm also sure that Sophie, if Heinrich, as to be expected, won't have sex with her does what Catherine did in RL, i.e. take lovers. Whether Heinrich would be cool with the resulting kids as heirs: impossible to say, since a comparable situation never arose. (Mina never got pregnant, and they were never friends who truly liked each other).
yesssss! Prussian Macbeths, except that Lady, er, Sophie feels no compunction about double-crossing Heinrich afterwards, and vice versa. And also with a happy ending, yes -- for one thing, I can't imagine Sophie ever feeling too bad about causing Fritz' death :P (Heinrich would for a while, but Sophie would be all, "Are you kidding me? Come on, he was the worst, y/y? Look, do I have to remind you of AW?")
It is just annoying I did not know about this sooner, I could have explained so much to you.
LOLOLOLOL Fritz do you listen to yourself sometimes??
No? That would require far more self-awareness than he's equipped for? :-PP
Catherine! :D
:D
Yeah, she and Heinrich are two peas in a pod! They would make excellent Macbeths...for a while.
Btw, the whole "taking the heir away from its parents to be raised as the monarch sees fit" thing that Fritz did to FW2 with such stellar results *cough* was something that was both done to Catherine and by Catherine: Elizaveta took Catherine's son Paul (of the dubious paternity) away at birth, and Catherine similarly later took Paul's son Alexander, her grandson, away.
Dysfunctional families: not limited to Hohenzollerns and Hanovers!
okay, now I really want the AU where they do get married and end up hilariously triple-crossing each other to fulfill their personal political agendas, but still retain that fondnessfor each other :D
THIS. I mean, assuming Fritz is poisoned at the nadir of Prussian fortunes in the Seven Years' War, it spares Heinrich from having to feel bored without him. Even leaving aside the responsibilities of regency, his wife will keep him on his toes. Never a dull moment! :D
Re: Anhalt Sophie: Portrait of the Czarina as a young girl
She wrote them in several stages, and this was a headache for any editor because she kept rewriting some scenes, such as her first meeting with (P)Russian Pete, for which there are three versions, one from the 1750s, one from the 1770s, and one from the late 1780s. The editor tells us here, and with other scenes, he had to make a choice as to what to use.
To me as a Tolkien scholar, this headache sounds extremely familiar!
On that occasion, my friendship with Prince Heinrich of Prussia began during playing with each other; at least I could not name an earlier occasion. We have agreed repeatedly that the origin of our friendship goes back to that first meeting.
Awww! BFFs forever! <3
he certainly possessed great attributes as a King, but he had nothing in him that could be loved, neither in his personal nor in his public life.
Hard to disagree. (Ha, I see cahn said the same thing.) Who actually did love him? AW? Old Dessauer maybe? Help me out here.
I suppose it's possible to love your kids while being embarrassed about them, and at such a loss to deal with them that you send them to their grandparents, who have to send them back, and you resort to putting the fear of eternal damnation into them, but...certainly not the best relationship there, nor much in common with either parent.
For all his flaws, Fritz had a lovable side to go with all the "Oh fuck no" parts.
I had never seen a woman ride before and was delighted.
I admit I don't know enough about customs of the place and time to be able to say whether my surprise is really warranted, but...is it possible she means ride *astride* (something I believe Catherine herself was later known for doing)? As opposed to sidesaddle? Or was it really not done for a woman of her class to appear on horseback at all?
(Frau von Bielcke, if you you mean Heinrich wouldn't have been gay when married with Catherine, you don't know Heinrich. Methinks Catherine would agree. Also, just think of what would have happened if they'd fallen for the same guy!)
LOL! There's an AU waiting to happen here.
I think Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia got married in 1741...Incidentally, Catherine is slightly wrong about the date here; AW married Louise on January 6th 1742, right in the middle of Berlin's Carneval season.
She may have been misremembering, but I'm going to come to her rescue here with Old Style dates! In Russia, where she was living while writing her memoirs, if not in Germany where she was living at the time of the marriage and where the marriage took place, January 6, 1742 would still have been December 26, 1741, O. S. (If I've done my math correctly.)
Anyway, Uncle Georg Ludwig uses his uncle privileges for caressing and love declarations, says one day they'll make it official, and can't stand bff Heinrich's very name because he's not sure that might not be competition.
Hmm. AU where Anhalt Sophie never leaves for Russia, and when Fritz forces Heinrich to get married, he picks childhood BFF? And they have an open marriage and become a power couple. Maybe Sophie's the one who nudges sibling collector Glasow in the direction of poisoning Fritz? Because she's distinctly Done With His Shit? (Maybe we can push the date forward, till after Kolin, or even Kunersdorf. It's an AU!)
Then things become complicated, because they're both strong-willed and, yes, might fall for the same guy, and might clash politically even if they manage to avoid that. And she's going to have a hard time pulling off enough coups to get herself into a position of direct power, to the point where I'd be surprised if she even entertained it. This isn't Russia. Which means Heinrich's always going to have the upper hand, and she's not going to take that lying down (especially one who's gone to all the trouble of getting him to be regent in the first place). So unless they manage to unite their political interests *and* keep their respective (or joint) lovers from causing trouble, I could see this ending badly. Not to mention when FW2 gets old enough to have opinions of his own and wants to end the regency.
So...bad for real life, excellent for plotty fic. Much like actual history with all its dysfunctional family dynamics and unhappy marriages, lol.
Ah, reading further down in the thread, I see you anticipated many of my AU thoughts! We certainly have a hive mind going here. The Macbeths, love it.
(Heinrich: You Fritzplaining things to me is one big reason why I didn't say anything. Mission accomplished! On to Russia!)
Heinrich: You're my brother. I've known you for *how* long? I saw this coming a mile away.
Also, there's Fritzplaining, which can range from entertaining to annoying but is ultimately harmless, and then there's Fritz-micromanaging, which is what drove Algarotti crazy about his diplomatic mission and played a role in its failure. I think Heinrich getting a free hand was the big payoff here.
Go Heinrich. :P
I must admit, now that their youthful friendship is canon, I am mentally revising my Frederician "Adventures in Babysitting" to include the episode where Heinrich and Sophie organize a midnight raid & slumber party behind Fritz' back.
Hee!! She would be...7 that year, and Heinrich 10, so that's prime slumber party and raiding time! I approve of your addition, and I need this fic in my life.
Meanwhile, here is a wonderful (danced) version of the contredanse, and here is the menuet (also danced) teen Heinrich and Sophie would have been dancing at all the balls of AW's wedding
And thank you for these! It's great to have visuals, especially for fic purposes. Let's be real: I may never pen another fic in this fandom in my life, but I'm always on the lookout for material in case I do.
Who actually did love him? AW? Old Dessauer maybe? Help me out here.
AW definitely (even in his last month of life, he mentions FW affectionately to Lehndorff), also Charlotte, if those affectionate letters to and from FW are anything to go by. Of course letters can be deceiving, and one expressed devotion to the monarch even when hating his gut, but it's still noticable that there are no "my daughter should let her self be fucked better" cracks about Charlotte and instead tender concern whenever she gets pregnant.
With the other kids, it's hard to say, and of course the younger they were the less they actually saw of him, between all the illnesses in his last decade and him prefering to be with the army when healthy enough. They certainly all respected him beyond his death, but were selective as to what they actually maintained from him, beyond dysfunctional child raising. As you noticed, they basically all ended up as free thinkers instead of being religious, most of them (that were free to do so, poor Sophie and Friederike Luise) were majorly into the arts, and only Charlotte gave the German language and literature a shot, so Fritz was by far the greater influence there. And the big "who was worst" argument certainly doesn't seem to have developed out of passion for FW - I mean, what we hear about its climax isn't Amalie defending him, it's her attacking Mom.
(Heinrich in his last years of life, when prone to nostalgia through the mists of the decades, might move into Wusterhausen, but note he tells brother Ferdinand that he put up SD's and AW's portraits in his bed room. Dad does not get mentioned, despite Wusterhausen being his place.)
Just speculating, I think that it's even more likely that Fritz and Wilhelmine, who hated him, and did look forward to his death, also loved FW (beyond paying lip service to social customs of children loving their parents, I mean), than that the younger sibs (with Ulrike and AW as the cut off point as the middle siblings) did, for whom the big male parental authority figure in their lives became Fritz, not FW. I mean, you have Wilhelmine still trying to impress him with being a good housewife and sending him sausages he might like when she's in Bayreuth and has lived through the family holidays from hell in Berlin, vowing never to go home in his life time again, and there are all those letters from child!Wilhelmine to dear Papa which Oster quotes, including the one where she sends him one of her milk teeth, and the one where she's upset he writes to little Fritz (who can't write back) but not to her. And we all know about Fritz' dreams featuring FW.
As to who of his own generation might have loved FW: Old Dessauer is as good a guess as any. I very much doubt any of the Potsdam Giants loved him back. Grumbkow & Seckendorff were entirely pragmatic about their relationships with him. SD certainly did not, not even right at the start in Fieke & Wilke times. Re: his parents, agree with you; the governess Madame de Rouccoulles would be an option, since he certainly had enough affection and respect for her to want her to raise his oldest son as well during Fritz' toddler years, and governesses certainly come across as the ones loved by royal children more than their mothers in many cases (see also MT & Countess Fuchs, Wilhlemine & Sonsine, Catherine & Babet). But wasn't she also the one being driven to tears by the golden shoe lace swallowing & the like?
ETA: here's what Pöllnitz, as quoted by Gustav Volz, wrote about FW in his history of the four Brandenburg rulers. Given that Pöllnitz was definitely an F1 type of guy, this strikes me as a pretty reasonable assessment:
Friedrich Wilhelm had an excellent mind, and he was very gifted in the interior government of his country, though not balanced in his political aims. He liked to switch from one extreme to the other. (...) In his virtues and flaws, the same contrasts were evident. He was a better son than he was a father. He did love his wife and children, but he treated them harshly. From early childhood onwards, he loved all things military, and had a great aversion to the sciences. This went so far that after his ascension, he'd prefered it if everyone would have chosen the professon of a soldier, and none to study. Consequently, he took little care of the education of his sons. He married his daughters without regard for their fuiture happiness. (...) He has a great ability for sorting through information, a strong imagination, a fantastic memory. He, personally, managed an incredible workload. All departments of government had to report to him and had to go through his hands. Unlike those of others, his ministers never dared to forgve his signature uder a document; he rather signed every single one himself, without relying on them, though he did rely on their discretion and integrity otherwise. At some days, the numbers of orders to officers and civil servants he'd signed rose over a hundred. But the harshness he did not relent in til this dying day meant that his subjects did not mourn for him; he did achieve their admiration, but their love, he never could win.
the big "who was worst" argument certainly doesn't seem to have developed out of passion for FW - I mean, what we hear about its climax isn't Amalie defending him, it's her attacking Mom.
Yeah, I notice it wasn't a "who was best" argument!
Just speculating, I think that it's even more likely that Fritz and Wilhelmine, who hated him, and did look forward to his death, also loved FW
Yes, I realized after turning off the computer last night that I hadn't phrased this the way I meant to: I meant to say "loved without hating." Love/hate was definitely a thing in FW's life. Fritz and Wilhelmine: definitely, but that's not so much because he was lovable as because he was a parental figure.
I was curious what you thought about Charlotte, and yes, that makes sense. Hard to say, but maybe.
I very much doubt any of the Potsdam Giants loved him back.
Not unless one of them had a fetish for dominating short guys, no. :P
the governess Madame de Rouccoulles would be an option
Ooh, yes, I'd forgotten her. She's definitely in the running.
But wasn't she also the one being driven to tears by the golden shoe lace swallowing & the like?
Maybe (I don't remember a name being given), but maybe not. I got the impression she was the head governess for FW and Fritz, and she had underlings to deal with the grunt work. She might have shown up enough to be the source of affection and to make all the decisions, but delegated the "get the kid dressed in the morning" parts, which honestly can be a trial for even the best parent of small children.
Edited 2020-03-21 23:40 (UTC)
Re: Anhalt Sophie: Portrait of the Czarina as a young girl
Countess Bentincks as the first woman equestrian young Sophie saw:
I admit I don't know enough about customs of the place and time to be able to say whether my surprise is really warranted, but...is it possible she means ride *astride* (something I believe Catherine herself was later known for doing)? As opposed to sidesaddle? Or was it really not done for a woman of her class to appear on horseback at all?
I think it probably was different from country to country. The hunts at the German courts, even if ladies were present, don't sound as if said ladies usually participated in them on horseback (riding in whichever fashion), unlike in Britain, where noblewomen were expected to hunt. I know MT, child of Vienna who had a proud tradition of horse riding and one of the most famous equestrian schools in the world, had nonetheless to learn riding explicitly for her Hungarian coronation because apparantly for an archduchess and future wife of a sovereign it hadn't be part of the educational program. (And it was really quintessential for the Hungarian coronation ceremony, in order to impress the Hungarians into fighting for her by adopting their customs; not only did she have to ride but she had to draw a sword from its sheath and turn it, and the horse, into all four directions.) She did love it, though, and kept it up for as long as she could, making it a custom for other ladies as well and at one point staging an all female riding event at the Hofschule (the famous riding hall in Vienna).
Bear also in mind that Sophie's from a small, small very Protestant court (her father was not happy about this converting to the orthodox faith), and the next largest court her mother occasionally visited with her is the one one headed (in theory) by SD and FW, and then by Fritz and EC. You can bet neither SD nor EC were on horseback! So it's quite likely that Countess Benticnk really was the first woman rider she saw. (And note she's riding to meet the visitors, i.e. it's not a hunt, she's just riding for the fun of it. Not something I can see either Prussian Queen doing, and consequently not their ladies in waiting, either.) All this being said, it's also possible the Countess did ride astride on that occasion, given that Catherine later says "she rode like a master of the horses" - German translation of the French original says "a stallmeister", which in courtly terms isn't a stable master but the courtly office Robert Dudley received when Elizabeth ascended the throne in England, for example, but in any effect is a male term.
Mind you, riding sidesaddle was by no means unimpressive. Two centuries earlier, another Catherine, Catherine de' Medici, had famously invented it when being the Dauphine in France so she could participate in the hunt, which impressed the hell out of her father-in-law Francois I. whose approval ensured she wasn't sent back to Italy. And the custom for women on horseback before that was basically for them to sit in box-like arrangements, with no possibility to ride at a pace other than very very slowly. Catherine de' Medici was an excellent rider, again like MT for as long as she was physically able (i.e. before all those pregnancies and weight increase made it impossible), and while we're talking France, Liselotte also was a great (sidesaddle) rider and enthusiastic hunter, bonding with brother-in-law Louis XIV about this because none of his mistresses was any good at it, but does seem to have learned both after arriving in France, not before. (One of Liselotte's letters contains a rather dramatic description of her horse getting spooked and starting to run without any possibility of getting restrained again, which meant she had to cling to it until it had run ahead far enough so she wouldn't get trampled by subsequent horses, then let herself fall to the ground while the horse was still in full gallop. She survived this with just a few scratches, though the King was "white as a sheet" when arriving.) While Liselotte's relationship with her royal brother-in-law had its ups and downs - not least because she really hated him invading the Palatinate while using her as a pretense, and also she hated Madame de Maintenon, his last mistress and morganatic wife -, this shared enthusiasm was something they kept up even in old age, when neither of them was physically able anymore to ride. They used a carriage instead.
She may have been misremembering, but I'm going to come to her rescue here with Old Style dates!
Good point! That is a distinct possibility. (The difference in dating is also something the memoirs editor mentions as giving him a headache.)
Sophie/Heinrich = Prussian Macbeths AU: yes, given the conditions in Prussia, she's always going to need a man as an intermediary to exert power through. Even if both young FW and Henricus Minor die of smallpox or measles or any of the many illnesses available after AW's death, and thus Heinrich does become the next in line for the throne. I suppose if she has a son whom he has acknowledged as his, she could, in theory, become regent once Heinrich himself dies, if none of the predecessors made it explicit law to have no female regents, but: that only lasts a few years, too, and then she's back where she started. For "no woman shall rule in Salic lands". And those are a lot of necessary deaths happening first. Heinrich wasn't the Augustus from I, Claudius and Catherine wasn't Livia. He also was emotionally invested in AW's kids, and had a sound sense of self preservation. With no Fritz holding him back from a divorce, it probably would have been, if she'd really tried to achieve such a scenario in the way Graves' Livia did, divorce at best, Küstrin at worst. But I'm not sure she would have gone this route in the first place, because she was realist, and trying for a few years of shared regency post Fritz death with the option of remaining the most important advisor/power behind the throne once FW2 reaches his majority would have been a far more sensible policy. Especially since young FW2 liked the ladies, and I don't just mean sexually. The smartest play for Sophie would be to make herself his second mother figure and understanding ear early on, and leave the issuing of unpopular dos and don'ts after Fritz' death to Heinrich.
So...bad for real life, excellent for plotty fic. Much like actual history with all its dysfunctional family dynamics and unhappy marriages, lol.
Yep. I mean, the long distance and them not being part of the same hierarchy undoubtedly was great for allowing them to remain friends. Now I'm trying to decide whether they could, in theory, have fallen for the same guy. As opposed to what I believed, Heinrich actually did have Kaphengst with him during the first Russia trip (though not the seoond), and him being sex on legs is pretty much the only explanation any biographer could find as to why Heinrich put up with him for so long despite of all the ever increasing downsides. And Kaphengst would have had zilch restraint to exchange being a prince's favourite to becoming an Czarina's favourite. However, in Catherine's life this would have been where Grigorij Orlov was still around and Potemkin (who of all her lovers is the one with the biggest claim to the "love of life" title) was up and coming, plus she really liked Heinrich, so she probably would have looked at Kaphengst and thought, nah.
Also, there's Fritzplaining, which can range from entertaining to annoying but is ultimately harmless, and then there's Fritz-micromanaging, which is what drove Algarotti crazy about his diplomatic mission and played a role in its failure. I think Heinrich getting a free hand was the big payoff here.
Absolutely. And Fritz himself, due to both brothers suspecting (correctly, as it turned out) that the Prussian envoy at St. Petersburg, Solms, in whose hands the courier service was, was either not enough concerned with safety or in the pockets of the Russians and thus not a safe channel of communication, had written that while Heinrich was in Russia they could only exchange harmless letters full of Catherine praise and travelogues, which together with the sheer geographical distance meant Fritz couldn't change his mind and try to micromanage Heinrich from afair after all. Heinrich hadn't had this much of a mixture of actual political responsibility and room to use it since parts - but only parts, and it always ended - of the 7 Years War.
And thank you for these! It's great to have visuals, especially for fic purposes.
You're welcome, and agreed. Especially since when people today read "dancing" they automatically imagine waltz, which wasn't a thing yet. Incidentally, when I plotted Fiat Justicia and wondered how Katte would approach Wilhelmine at Monbijou, it recalling those rococo dances that made realise that with all the partner changing and group dancing, he could have cut into the dance floor quite easily, and Wilhelmine did write in her memoirs she'd been determined to dance that day.
I note that despite Fritz, later in life, telling more than one person he enjoyed dancing when younger and still enjoys watching it even if he can't participate anymore-, - not surprising, btw, coming from a man willing to pay princely salaries to ballerinas -, not a single movie or tv series I can think of has Frederick the Great, at whichever age, dancing. The image just doesn't fit with people's idea of him, I suppose.
Re: Anhalt Sophie: Portrait of the Czarina as a young girl
Thank you for the excellent rundown on hunting practices! That's all very useful information.
(The difference in dating is also something the memoirs editor mentions as giving him a headache.)
*nod* It gave me a headache back in my Jacobite-studying days.
remaining the most important advisor/power behind the throne once FW2 reaches his majority would have been a far more sensible policy.
She's enough of a pragmatist and survivor that I agree. I think in this AU, Fritz is the only plotted death, and everything else is maneuvering.
due to both brothers suspecting (correctly, as it turned out) that the Prussian envoy at St. Petersburg, Solms, in whose hands the courier service was, was either not enough concerned with safety or in the pockets of the Russians
Do we know which it was?
which together with the sheer geographical distance meant Fritz couldn't change his mind and try to micromanage Heinrich from afair after all.
Heinrich definitely caught a lucky break there!
not a single movie or tv series I can think of has Frederick the Great, at whichever age, dancing
Old Fritz did a good job of projecting the public image he intended to project.
Poniatowski: What is this suspiciously decadent-looking waistcoat here? Staff: Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain waistcoat on the chair!
Oh, speaking of public images. Blanning, who is the one who led us to Hahn (via Fredersdorf accusations), and who therefore should know about the nearsightedness, has Fritz showing off his fabled memory for names and faces in the 1760s!
Re: Anhalt Sophie: Portrait of the Czarina as a young girl
due to both brothers suspecting (correctly, as it turned out) that the Prussian envoy at St. Petersburg, Solms, in whose hands the courier service was, was either not enough concerned with safety or in the pockets of the Russians
Do we know which it was?
According to Ziebura, Solms did eventually 'fess up to telling Panin all, but he assured Heinrich it was all for patriotic reasons, that this openess served Prussia best to win Russia's trust. ;)
(cahn, Panin was back then Catherine's foreign secretary. He'd backed her coup against Peter. His English wiki page sounds just a liiiiiittle bit biased, but if you want to check out out, it's here. Seriously though, who wrote that page? Phrases like "Panin's strange tenderness towards Poland", "the efforts of the old statesman to prevent a matrimonial alliance between the Russian and Austrian courts determined Catherine to get rid of a counsellor of whom, for some mysterious reason, she was secretly afraid" or "Panin supported Catherine when she overthrew her husband, Tsar Peter III, and declared herself empress in 1762, but his jealousy of Catherine's lovers caused him to constantly try to sleep with her" (in vain) all sound as if they were cribed together from different novels.)
Anyway, Heinrich and Fritz did decide on using an alternate, non-embassy courier once the issue of Poland got on the table, with new cyphre; this was the Berlin business man Bachman who had a trading post in St. Petersburg, and with whose mail Heinrich could send some secret letters in addition to those he sent via offical embassay mail. But that still took two or three weeks per letter, so Fritz still couldn't micromanage from a far and had to more or less trust in his brother's ability to know what he was doing. Undoubtedly this was haaaaaard.
Poniatowski: recognizes a waistcoat a la mode when he spots one, see also here.
Blanning, who is the one who led us to Hahn (via Fredersdorf accusations), and who therefore should know about the nearsightedness, has Fritz showing off his fabled memory for names and faces in the 1760s!
Et tu, Blanning? Well, Fritz may well have had a great memory for names, per se. (The occasional Pliny/Ovid glitch excepted, he's doing fine with his writers and quotes till the end of his life from what I can see in Lucchesini's diary and in the letters to Heinrich.) Just not for the faces matching them, unless they get close enough. ;)
Re: Anhalt Sophie: Portrait of the Czarina as a young girl
According to Ziebura, Solms did eventually 'fess up to telling Panin all, but he assured Heinrich it was all for patriotic reasons, that this openess served Prussia best to win Russia's trust. ;)
Oh, of course. I believe you completely! I also believe Katte's sole motivation was to prevent Fritz from escaping without causing more bad blood between him and FW. Absolutely.
Seriously though, who wrote that page?
Judging by the footnotes and the slightly archaic writing style, Bain, in 1911, whom the annual-Yuletide-Peter-requesting author has *nothing* good to say about as an objective historian. And indeed, he seems very biased in both her summaries and this Wikipedia page!
Undoubtedly this was haaaaaard.
Undoubtedly. But it paid off, because he got to take credit later!
Et tu, Blanning?
Read your own sources!
Well, Fritz may well have had a great memory for names, per se.
Perhaps, but we've seen at least one anecdote where he's recognizing people by having their names whispered in his ear, so combined with the eyesight, I'm guessing that that was 90% of his reputation of recognizing people. I may be biased because I'm personally faceblind. (I too can remember names as words, but identifying a person in front of me as someone I know or don't know or putting a name to a face is beyond me. I joke that I'm one step away from mistaking my wife for a hat--Oliver Sacks joke.)
But I've also wondered if I'm faceblind and inclined to guess who people are based on their hair precisely because some critical neurological paths were laid down when I was a small child supposed to be learning to recognize faces, and instead was peering blindly into the world and trying to do my best with something more visible to my eyes. Which would have been even harder as a nearsighted child with everyone around me wearing wigs and tricorns! Yes, wigs differed in style, but they definitely make it *even harder* than usual for me when watching these 18th century shows to figure out who's who. (One reason I will forgive Ekaterina for doing away with them, besides Elizaveta's lovely hair.)
So if Fritz was nearsighted when he was young (and we don't know that) and if uncorrected nearsightedness in early ages has anything to do with faceblindness (and I really, really don't know that), then maybe being king gives you all kinds of options for compensating, like getting the answer whispered to you while no one ever, ever gives you away. :P
Re: Anhalt Sophie: Portrait of the Czarina as a young girl
This is lovely, thank you for talking to me about how my AU would have actually worked (even if it means that it wouldn't have worked quite as Game-of-Thrones-like as I was sort of imagining in my head, lol). :D
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Anhalt Sophie: Portrait of the Czarina as a young girl
First, the one I already excerpted for Mildred.
On the way from Stettin to Braunschweig or on the way back my mother usually made a stop at Berlin or Zerbst, depending on where my father was at the time. I remember how I was presented at age 8 for the first time to the late Queen Sophia Dorothea, the mother of King Frederick the Great; the King her husband was still alive then. Her four children, eleven years old Prince Heinrich, seven years old Prince Ferdinand, Princess Ulrike, the later Queen of Sweden, and Princess Amalie, both of a marriagable age, were with her. The King was absent. On that occasion, my friendship with Prince Heinrich of Prussia began during playing with each other; at least I could not name an earlier occasion. We have agreed repeatedly that the origin of our friendship goes back to that first meeting.
Young Sophie: not a fan of FW:
But before I describe this journey, I shall mention that in this year, King Friedrich Wilhelm died. I think no people has ever greeted the news of a death with more joy than this one. Passers-by on the street embraced and congratulated each other to the death of the King, whom they gave various nicknames; in short, young and old despised and hated him. He was strict, rude, miserly and passionate; still, he certainly possessed great attributes as a King, but he had nothing in him that could be loved, neither in his personal nor in his public life.
His son, crown prince Friedrich, who succeeded him and to whom even his contemporaries gave the name Frederick the Gerat was beloved and respected, and there was much joy about his ascension.
Young Sophie: definitely a fan of the Countess Bentinck! (Whom she meets at that lady's mothers, who is also related to Sophie's Mom.)
Frau von Bentinck approached us on horseback. I had never seen a woman ride before and was delighted. She rode like a master of the horses. Once we'd arrived in Varel, I made friends with her; which displeased my mother and even more my father. We did start oddly. Frau von Bentick had hardly changed her clothes when she went upstairs. I was with her while she changed, and didn't leave her. She didn't play coy, showed herself for a moment in her mother's room, where my mother was as well, and we immediately started to dance a Steiermärker together. This made everyone look at us, and I got scolded for my behaviour. The next day, I still went and used an excuse to visit the Countess, for I found her delightful. How else she was supposed to appear to me? I was fourteen, she rode, she danced when she felt like it, she sang, joked, jumped around like a child, though she had to be around thirty years at this point. (Edtitor: She was 28.) She already lived separated from her husband. (...) In one of of the room, there was a portrait of Count Bentinck, who had to have been a very beautiful man. The Countess saw it and said: "If I hadn't been married to him, I'd have been madly in love with him!"
Heinrich & Sophie = bff is still a thing:
I think Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia got married in 1741 with Princess Louise of Braunschweig-Bevern. I was a guest at that wedding, where Duke Karl Eugen of Württemberg and his two brothers were present as well. The Duke was one year older than I was, his brothers were still little boys. Prince Heinrich of Prussia made me feel very distinguished back then, since we danced at every ball either a menuet or a contradanse together.
Footnote from editor with excerpts of Catherine's later correspondance with her Hamburg friend Frau von Bielcke (another childhood friend), who wrote to Catherine on October 7th, 1766 (date is interesting, since this is BEFORE Heinrich made his first trip to Russia):
I ask your majesty's permission to mention that about two years ago, I had the honor to encounter Prince Heinrich (of Prussia). He was kind enough to visit me and talk with me for about two hours. He spoke of your majesty with so much vivid admiration to me, with such great interest, that I couldn't help but think that if he had the happiness of being united with the charming Princess Sophie, he might not have made himself guilty of the terrible things which today darken his fame; but Pope says that all, that happens, is good!
To which Catherine replied on November 5th, 1766: The conversation you had with Prince Heinrich which you mentioned and the interest he showed in his old friend do delight me. It is not the first time I've heard about it, but like Pope, I agree that all happening as it did is well; so I don't regret more didn't come of our contredanses.
(Frau von Bielcke, if you you mean Heinrich wouldn't have been gay when married with Catherine, you don't know Heinrich. Methinks Catherine would agree. Also, just think of what would have happened if they'd fallen for the same guy!)
Incidentally, Catherine is slightly wrong about the date here; AW married Louise on January 6th 1742, right in the middle of Berlin's Carneval season.
Young Sophie, still 14, next gets romanced by Uncle Georg Ludwig, because Uncle/Niece is a thing in this century, it seems. Old Catherine thinks her mother knew (it was her brother) and didn't say anything. Old Catherine is rather jaundiced about her mother in general, says she prefered Sophie's brothers and had not much interest at all in Sophie until the possibility of marrying the Czarina's heir became a thing. Like Wilhelmine with Sonsine and MT with the Countess Fuchs, Catherine had a governess she loved very much, though, named Babet. Anyway, Uncle Georg Ludwig uses his uncle privileges for caressing and love declarations, says one day they'll make it official, and can't stand bff Heinrich's very name because he's not sure that might not be competition. He may or may not have proposed in the end, given they were Protestants and just needed Fritz' permission, but then the future Peter III match became a distinct possibility, provided they'd come to Russia for inspection.
And here's the passage about meeting Fritz, en route to Russia.
In Berlin, my mother didn't think it suitable for me to present myself at court or otherwise in public; but it happened otherwise. THe King of Prussia, through whose hands all incoming letters from Russia for my mother went first, knew exactly why my parents were in Berlin. (...) When the King of Prusisa who knew exactly where the journey was headed learned that I had arrived in Berlin, he wanted to see me in any case. My mother claimed I was sick. Two days later he invited her to dinner at the Queen's, his wife's, and asked her personally to bring me with her. My mother promised him, but on the day in question she went alone anyway. When the King saw her, he asked her about my condition. She replied that I was sick. Whereupon he replied that he knew this wasn't true. She then said I wasn't wearing any gala dress right now, to which he returned he would wait to see me at dinner the next day. At last, my mother said I didn't have any suitable court wardrobe. He ordered that one of his sisters should send me a dress. Finally my mother realised that no excuse would be accepted and sent a message to me that I was to get dressed and come to the palace. Thus I had to throw myself into gala robes an get ready, and was finished approximately at 3 pm. Finally I arrived at the palace. The King was waiting for me in the antechambre of the Queen. He drew me into a conversation and escorted me to the rooms of the Queen.
I was shy and embarassed. At last, we sat down at the table from which we were to rise again only very late. When we did get up, Prince Ferdinand of Braunschweig, the Queen's brother, whom I knew very well and had known for a long time and who back then was always around the King of Prussia approached me. He told me: "Tonight you'll be my lady at the King's table during the Redoute in the Opera House." (The Redoute was a big public masque ball.) I replied to him that it would be my pleasure. Back at our residence, I told my mother about the Prince of Braunschweig's invitation, and she said: "That is strange, for I've been invited to the Queen's table."
One of the tables had been given to my father, wo was to receive people there, which meant I sat alone at the King's table. My mother first drove to the Princess of Prussia, and then together with her to the Redoute. I spent the entire evening in conversation with the older Countess Henkel, who was lady-in-waiting to the Princess of Prussia, and when I had told her that I would have to sit at the King's table for the souper, she guided me to the room where dinner would be served. No sooner had I entered but that the Prince of Braunschweig approached me and took my hand. He pulled me to the end of the table, and because the other couples were coming, too, he pushed ahead so smoothly that he ended up sitting me right next to the King. When I saw the later was my neighbor, I wanted to withdraw, but he told me to stay, and through the entire evening he kept talking to me and said a lot of pleasantries. I tried to handle the conversation as good as I could; but I did direct some accusations at the Prince of Braunschweig for sitting me right next to the King. He turned it into a jest. At last, the dinner was finished, and we left Berlin supposedly for Stettin. Near Stettin my father said goodbye to me with much tenderness. It was the last time I was ever to see him, and I cried bitterly.
Re: Anhalt Sophie: Portrait of the Czarina as a young girl
Sophie, I cannot say I disagree with a word of this.
The Countess saw it and said: "If I hadn't been married to him, I'd have been madly in love with him!"
ahahaha, okay, I'm a fan too :)
Prince Heinrich of Prussia made me feel very distinguished back then, since we danced at every ball either a menuet or a contradanse together.
sooooo cuuuuute now I want the story where Heinrich is her gay BFF
It is not the first time I've heard about it, but like Pope, I agree that all happening as it did is well; so I don't regret more didn't come of our contredanses.
Catherine: That is to say, Frau von Bielcke, have you not noticed that my old friend Heinrich is GAY GAY GAY? I'd prefer to be married to someone het, thanks!
also someone I don't mind organizing a coup to get rid ofAnd I remain amazed that Fritz can be so charming :) Fritz, it's not that hard!
Re: Anhalt Sophie: Portrait of the Czarina as a young girl
Countess Bentinck: may not have scored with Heinrich (unless you're Charlotte Pangels and believe facilitating this heartrendering affair was Lehndorff's happy desire), but definitely comes across as a captivating, interesting woman in all mentions of her I've seen so far.
sooooo cuuuuute now I want the story where Heinrich is her gay BFF
If you've ever sceen the final scene of "My Best Friend's Wedding", with Julia Roberts and Rupert Everett as her gay bff, that's the one that came to mind immediately when you said this. Meanwhile, here is a wonderful (danced) version of the contredanse, and here is the menuet (also danced) teen Heinrich and Sophie would have been dancing at all the balls of AW's wedding, blissfully unaware of what was waiting for each of them in the future.
Madame Bielke (born Johanna von Grothusen but married to a Dane, which is why her last name sometimes gets spelled Bjelke or Bielke, depending on the source) got a letter from Catherine during Heinrich's first Russia trip (which lasted for months), and in this letter she wrote:
I have never met someone else in whom I have found such a sympathy of ideas. We often open the mouth at the same time to say the same thing. This probably explains why he enjoys my society. I must admit that no royal visit could have been more agreeable to me than his is. He doesn't miss anything, and one has to esteem him very highly. His mood is always bright, his character sincere and philanthropic, his mind is noble, in a word, he is a hero and my dear friend.
Now, in all fairness: Heinrich was at his best because he was on a diplomatic mission (and Big Bro was far, far away). Undoubtedly, if he had become part of Catherine's court or administration, in whichever capacity - making him her satrap in Wallachia was one of her suggestions to Fritz (Fritz: NO!), they'd have clashed sooner or later, and he would have found her as despotic as he found his brother. Not to mention that he had his dark moods, too, and as for sincerety and honesty, I was reminded again of how he turned a Fritz-licensed family trip to visit Ulrike in Sweden into a top political mission with the triple goals of 1. Reconciling Ulrike and Catherine (Sweden and Russia being at cold war odds at the time, Gustav wasn't even King yet), 2. Encouraging the readiness for peace on the Russian side and offering on Prussia's behalf to take over the mediator role (in the Turkish-Russian war which was going on at that time) possibly with Austria, 3. Investigate the possibility of a triple alliance in conjunction of land appropriation (poor Poles!) as a treaty guarantee for all three powers) - by arranging an invite for himself to Russia behind Fritz' back. He could totally lie and manouevre with the best of them. (But then, so could Catherine.) This particular bit didn't get known until 130 years later, when in 1896 Catherine's correspondance with her envoy Prince Dimitri Golizyn was first published. It took a while longer for German historians to accept this hadn't been Fritz' idea to begin with. None other than our G. Volz had to lay it out in the "Forschungen zur Brandenburgisch-Preußischen Geschichte" Bd. 35, 1923 that it happened thusly:
Prince Golizyn was en route to Den Haag and stopped by in Berlin when Heinrich approached him. Reports Golizyn: "Prince Heinrich has told me that the King was sending him in the summer to Stockholm in order to influence the Queen his sister for peace. (...) The Prince said that he was very satisfied by this mission but would be even happier if on this occasion he would have the chance to visit St. Petersburg to express his admiration to the Czarina. But this could not happen in any other way but through the Czarina's own contribution, if she immediately after his arrival at Stockholm were to write to the King in this matter, who might not agree to a first request but would definitely give in if the Czarina would insist. The Prince concluded with the request that Prince Golizyn would tell the Czarina of this wish (...) and would keep this request in stricted confidence in order not to compromise him with the King, who did not know about this."
Fritz duly got a letter from Catherine which said: His royal highness Prince Heinrich has gone to visit his sister in Stockholm. It's only a day from Stockholm to Reval, from Reval to Kronstadt another day. This town is only two miles away from Peterhof, where I usually spend my summers. I can't be in such a close proximity to a prince who is close to your majesty without experiencing the vivid wish to renew our acquaintance. HOwever, I wouldn't make further step without your majesty's permission. I have no other motive for this suggestion than my great admiration and friendship to you and all who belong to you.
Whether or not Fritz deduced Little Bro, with the help of his childhood bff, had just pulled a fast one on him, he agreed and wrote to Heinrich: If you manage to reconcile the Czarina with Ulrike, I would be very pleased. Besides, I am entrusting you with everything that serves our interests. (..) It is just annoying I did not know about this sooner, I could have explained so much to you.
(Heinrich: You Fritzplaining things to me is one big reason why I didn't say anything. Mission accomplished! On to Russia!)
I must admit, now that their youthful friendship is canon, I am mentally revising my Frederician "Adventures in Babysitting" to include the episode where Heinrich and Sophie organize a midnight raid & slumber party behind Fritz' back.
On a more serious note, of course Catherine, as opposed to her late (very late) husband, never let personal friendship with a Prussian Prince get in the way of go-getting, and she wouldn't have done this if she didn't consider there was a potential use for her. Just as Heinrich, when she died, was both sincerely mourning her and aware this could be politically advantageous to Prussia, because her son Paul, with his urge to prove he was really also Peter's son, was also a devoted Prussia fan (and also more approachable to the idea of making peace with Revolutionary France).(Remember: I am wearing (mourning) in memory of the friendship she's shown towards me, and of her genius. For losing it is a loss to the whole world. (...) She had supreme qualities. I can never forget her attention, her amiability and the power of her mind. What remains now is very small, compared to her. Of course, from a political point of view her death is a stroke of luck for us. ) Which is to say: they were both of them followers of Realpolitik, but the personal fondness was real as well.
ETA: And here is the final scene from My Best Friend's Wedding which I meant. Context, if you haven't seen the film: our heroine, Julia Roberts, has in vain through the movie tried to prevent the man she loves from wedding another, in the process realised she was being wrong and mean, and did her best to patch up things between the two lovers who do marry according to schedule after all. Rupert Everett is her gay bff who cheers her up in said final scene.
Catherine and Heinrich BFF <3
I... am not sure whether I have seen this. I think maybe? It looks vaguely familiar. I know I heard a bunch about it at the time, so maybe that just got stuck in my brain. But YES that is exactly how I picture Heinrich as a gay dancing bff (only rather shorter). (Although I cannot picture Sophie as Roberts' character.) (My first reaction to the excerpt you linked: OMG did we really live through that kind of hair in the 90's? ...we did, didn't we?? (I even have pictures of myself to prove it, sadly.))
Meanwhile, here is a wonderful (danced) version of the contredanse, and here is the menuet (also danced) teen Heinrich and Sophie would have been dancing at all the balls of AW's wedding
These were lovely and I love to picture Heinrich and Sophie dancing these. Incidentally, the minuet they play in the second link (Luigi Boccherini) is a staple of the Suzuki violin repertoire, and I played it countless times as a small person. It was really cool to see them dancing to it (of course, as a child I only had a very vague idea that it was a dance at all) and to see how the parts of the music actually lend themselves to parts of the dance as well. (Also, (a) I am super impressed by how into it the kids seemed to be -- I was forced to take a Cotillion class as a teenager and every single one of us, as far as I know, hated it, although we didn't learn to dance minuets and I might have been more interested if we did -- and (b) I really liked the one girl with the purple swishy skirt :) )
He could totally lie and manouevre with the best of them. (But then, so could Catherine.)
Ahahahaha perhaps that is why they were BFFs and "often open the mouth at the same time to say the same things" :D That is an amazing story and once again I am indebted to both G. Volz and to you for relaying the story :D
I have no other motive for this suggestion than my great admiration and friendship to you and all who belong to you.
Catherine! :D
It is just annoying I did not know about this sooner, I could have explained so much to you.
LOLOLOLOL Fritz do you listen to yourself sometimes??
I am mentally revising my Frederician "Adventures in Babysitting" to include the episode where Heinrich and Sophie organize a midnight raid & slumber party behind Fritz' back.
Excellent!
Which is to say: they were both of them followers of Realpolitik, but the personal fondness was real as well.
This is exactly why I get such a huge kick out of their friendship (and, for that matter, both of them) :D And why I imagine Catherine as partially thinking "eh, besides the gay thing, it's good I didn't marry Heinrich because I would have hated to destroy our friendship by staging a coup and killing him. Also because he might have plotted right back at me" :) ...okay, now I really want the AU where they do get married and end up hilariously triple-crossing each other to fulfill their personal political agendas, but still retain that fondnessfor each other :D
Re: Catherine and Heinrich BFF <3
AU in which young Heinrich and Princess Sophie get married: on the one hand, AU!Catherine, who never bears that name because there is no reason for a change of religion, would have had far less advantageous circumstances for any type of coup. As opposed to Peter, Heinrich is not the heir to the throne, nor ever will be. He's a third brother who until the 7 Years War has exactly zero political power. And since AW quickly produces two sons after that wedding, Heinrich is really far from the throne. What's more, Russia has had three female monarchs before Catherine makes her coup, and Catherine I., the wife of Peter I., has established the precedent that you can, in fact, become the ruling monarch without a single drop of Romanow blood in your vein, based on you being the widow of the deceased Czar and mother of his children. No such circumstances apply for Prussia, with a grand total of three monarchs (F1, FW and Fritz), all male, and all against female rulers in their every uttering. (Not sure Fritz' early last will already has the "no female regent!" clause or not. Also not sure whether FW excluded the possibility of his wife being regent if he should die before his son reaches his majority in the 1722 will, I didn't read it for that, but it's FW, so it's likely.
Still, I would bet that any AU where kids Heinrich and Sophie get married is an AU in which Heinrich does, in fact, take his one shot during the 7 Years War where Fritz is really really depressed post Kunersdorf and goes for the regency. I.e. he and Sophie are the Prussian Macbeths, hopefully with a better ending for either. I'm also sure that Sophie, if Heinrich, as to be expected, won't have sex with her does what Catherine did in RL, i.e. take lovers. Whether Heinrich would be cool with the resulting kids as heirs: impossible to say, since a comparable situation never arose. (Mina never got pregnant, and they were never friends who truly liked each other).
Re: Catherine and Heinrich BFF <3
Re: Catherine and Heinrich BFF <3
LOLOLOLOL Fritz do you listen to yourself sometimes??
No? That would require far more self-awareness than he's equipped for? :-PP
Catherine! :D
:D
Yeah, she and Heinrich are two peas in a pod! They would make excellent Macbeths...for a while.
Btw, the whole "taking the heir away from its parents to be raised as the monarch sees fit" thing that Fritz did to FW2 with such stellar results *cough* was something that was both done to Catherine and by Catherine: Elizaveta took Catherine's son Paul (of the dubious paternity) away at birth, and Catherine similarly later took Paul's son Alexander, her grandson, away.
Dysfunctional families: not limited to Hohenzollerns and Hanovers!
okay, now I really want the AU where they do get married and end up hilariously triple-crossing each other to fulfill their personal political agendas, but still retain that fondnessfor each other :D
THIS. I mean, assuming Fritz is poisoned at the nadir of Prussian fortunes in the Seven Years' War, it spares Heinrich from having to feel bored without him. Even leaving aside the responsibilities of regency, his wife will keep him on his toes. Never a dull moment! :D
Re: Anhalt Sophie: Portrait of the Czarina as a young girl
To me as a Tolkien scholar, this headache sounds extremely familiar!
On that occasion, my friendship with Prince Heinrich of Prussia began during playing with each other; at least I could not name an earlier occasion. We have agreed repeatedly that the origin of our friendship goes back to that first meeting.
Awww! BFFs forever! <3
he certainly possessed great attributes as a King, but he had nothing in him that could be loved, neither in his personal nor in his public life.
Hard to disagree. (Ha, I see
I suppose it's possible to love your kids while being embarrassed about them, and at such a loss to deal with them that you send them to their grandparents, who have to send them back, and you resort to putting the fear of eternal damnation into them, but...certainly not the best relationship there, nor much in common with either parent.
For all his flaws, Fritz had a lovable side to go with all the "Oh fuck no" parts.
I had never seen a woman ride before and was delighted.
I admit I don't know enough about customs of the place and time to be able to say whether my surprise is really warranted, but...is it possible she means ride *astride* (something I believe Catherine herself was later known for doing)? As opposed to sidesaddle? Or was it really not done for a woman of her class to appear on horseback at all?
(Frau von Bielcke, if you you mean Heinrich wouldn't have been gay when married with Catherine, you don't know Heinrich. Methinks Catherine would agree. Also, just think of what would have happened if they'd fallen for the same guy!)
LOL! There's an AU waiting to happen here.
I think Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia got married in 1741...Incidentally, Catherine is slightly wrong about the date here; AW married Louise on January 6th 1742, right in the middle of Berlin's Carneval season.
She may have been misremembering, but I'm going to come to her rescue here with Old Style dates! In Russia, where she was living while writing her memoirs, if not in Germany where she was living at the time of the marriage and where the marriage took place, January 6, 1742 would still have been December 26, 1741, O. S. (If I've done my math correctly.)
Anyway, Uncle Georg Ludwig uses his uncle privileges for caressing and love declarations, says one day they'll make it official, and can't stand bff Heinrich's very name because he's not sure that might not be competition.
Hmm. AU where Anhalt Sophie never leaves for Russia, and when Fritz forces Heinrich to get married, he picks childhood BFF? And they have an open marriage and become a power couple. Maybe Sophie's the one who nudges sibling collector Glasow in the direction of poisoning Fritz? Because she's distinctly Done With His Shit? (Maybe we can push the date forward, till after Kolin, or even Kunersdorf. It's an AU!)
Then things become complicated, because they're both strong-willed and, yes, might fall for the same guy, and might clash politically even if they manage to avoid that. And she's going to have a hard time pulling off enough coups to get herself into a position of direct power, to the point where I'd be surprised if she even entertained it. This isn't Russia. Which means Heinrich's always going to have the upper hand, and she's not going to take that lying down (especially one who's gone to all the trouble of getting him to be regent in the first place). So unless they manage to unite their political interests *and* keep their respective (or joint) lovers from causing trouble, I could see this ending badly. Not to mention when FW2 gets old enough to have opinions of his own and wants to end the regency.
So...bad for real life, excellent for plotty fic. Much like actual history with all its dysfunctional family dynamics and unhappy marriages, lol.
Ah, reading further down in the thread, I see you anticipated many of my AU thoughts! We certainly have a hive mind going here. The Macbeths, love it.
(Heinrich: You Fritzplaining things to me is one big reason why I didn't say anything. Mission accomplished! On to Russia!)
Heinrich: You're my brother. I've known you for *how* long? I saw this coming a mile away.
Also, there's Fritzplaining, which can range from entertaining to annoying but is ultimately harmless, and then there's Fritz-micromanaging, which is what drove Algarotti crazy about his diplomatic mission and played a role in its failure. I think Heinrich getting a free hand was the big payoff here.
Go Heinrich. :P
I must admit, now that their youthful friendship is canon, I am mentally revising my Frederician "Adventures in Babysitting" to include the episode where Heinrich and Sophie organize a midnight raid & slumber party behind Fritz' back.
Hee!! She would be...7 that year, and Heinrich 10, so that's prime slumber party and raiding time! I approve of your addition, and I need this fic in my life.
Meanwhile, here is a wonderful (danced) version of the contredanse, and here is the menuet (also danced) teen Heinrich and Sophie would have been dancing at all the balls of AW's wedding
And thank you for these! It's great to have visuals, especially for fic purposes. Let's be real: I may never pen another fic in this fandom in my life, but I'm always on the lookout for material in case I do.
FW: Love of the Loveless
AW definitely (even in his last month of life, he mentions FW affectionately to Lehndorff), also Charlotte, if those affectionate letters to and from FW are anything to go by. Of course letters can be deceiving, and one expressed devotion to the monarch even when hating his gut, but it's still noticable that there are no "my daughter should let her self be fucked better" cracks about Charlotte and instead tender concern whenever she gets pregnant.
With the other kids, it's hard to say, and of course the younger they were the less they actually saw of him, between all the illnesses in his last decade and him prefering to be with the army when healthy enough. They certainly all respected him beyond his death, but were selective as to what they actually maintained from him, beyond dysfunctional child raising. As you noticed, they basically all ended up as free thinkers instead of being religious, most of them (that were free to do so, poor Sophie and Friederike Luise) were majorly into the arts, and only Charlotte gave the German language and literature a shot, so Fritz was by far the greater influence there. And the big "who was worst" argument certainly doesn't seem to have developed out of passion for FW - I mean, what we hear about its climax isn't Amalie defending him, it's her attacking Mom.
(Heinrich in his last years of life, when prone to nostalgia through the mists of the decades, might move into Wusterhausen, but note he tells brother Ferdinand that he put up SD's and AW's portraits in his bed room. Dad does not get mentioned, despite Wusterhausen being his place.)
Just speculating, I think that it's even more likely that Fritz and Wilhelmine, who hated him, and did look forward to his death, also loved FW (beyond paying lip service to social customs of children loving their parents, I mean), than that the younger sibs (with Ulrike and AW as the cut off point as the middle siblings) did, for whom the big male parental authority figure in their lives became Fritz, not FW. I mean, you have Wilhelmine still trying to impress him with being a good housewife and sending him sausages he might like when she's in Bayreuth and has lived through the family holidays from hell in Berlin, vowing never to go home in his life time again, and there are all those letters from child!Wilhelmine to dear Papa which Oster quotes, including the one where she sends him one of her milk teeth, and the one where she's upset he writes to little Fritz (who can't write back) but not to her. And we all know about Fritz' dreams featuring FW.
As to who of his own generation might have loved FW: Old Dessauer is as good a guess as any. I very much doubt any of the Potsdam Giants loved him back. Grumbkow & Seckendorff were entirely pragmatic about their relationships with him. SD certainly did not, not even right at the start in Fieke & Wilke times. Re: his parents, agree with you; the governess Madame de Rouccoulles would be an option, since he certainly had enough affection and respect for her to want her to raise his oldest son as well during Fritz' toddler years, and governesses certainly come across as the ones loved by royal children more than their mothers in many cases (see also MT & Countess Fuchs, Wilhlemine & Sonsine, Catherine & Babet). But wasn't she also the one being driven to tears by the golden shoe lace swallowing & the like?
ETA: here's what Pöllnitz, as quoted by Gustav Volz, wrote about FW in his history of the four Brandenburg rulers. Given that Pöllnitz was definitely an F1 type of guy, this strikes me as a pretty reasonable assessment:
Friedrich Wilhelm had an excellent mind, and he was very gifted in the interior government of his country, though not balanced in his political aims. He liked to switch from one extreme to the other. (...) In his virtues and flaws, the same contrasts were evident. He was a better son than he was a father. He did love his wife and children, but he treated them harshly.
From early childhood onwards, he loved all things military, and had a great aversion to the sciences. This went so far that after his ascension, he'd prefered it if everyone would have chosen the professon of a soldier, and none to study. Consequently, he took little care of the education of his sons. He married his daughters without regard for their fuiture happiness. (...)
He has a great ability for sorting through information, a strong imagination, a fantastic memory. He, personally, managed an incredible workload. All departments of government had to report to him and had to go through his hands. Unlike those of others, his ministers never dared to forgve his signature uder a document; he rather signed every single one himself, without relying on them, though he did rely on their discretion and integrity otherwise. At some days, the numbers of orders to officers and civil servants he'd signed rose over a hundred.
But the harshness he did not relent in til this dying day meant that his subjects did not mourn for him; he did achieve their admiration, but their love, he never could win.
Re: FW: Love of the Loveless
Yeah, I notice it wasn't a "who was best" argument!
Just speculating, I think that it's even more likely that Fritz and Wilhelmine, who hated him, and did look forward to his death, also loved FW
Yes, I realized after turning off the computer last night that I hadn't phrased this the way I meant to: I meant to say "loved without hating." Love/hate was definitely a thing in FW's life. Fritz and Wilhelmine: definitely, but that's not so much because he was lovable as because he was a parental figure.
I was curious what you thought about Charlotte, and yes, that makes sense. Hard to say, but maybe.
I very much doubt any of the Potsdam Giants loved him back.
Not unless one of them had a fetish for dominating short guys, no. :P
the governess Madame de Rouccoulles would be an option
Ooh, yes, I'd forgotten her. She's definitely in the running.
But wasn't she also the one being driven to tears by the golden shoe lace swallowing & the like?
Maybe (I don't remember a name being given), but maybe not. I got the impression she was the head governess for FW and Fritz, and she had underlings to deal with the grunt work. She might have shown up enough to be the source of affection and to make all the decisions, but delegated the "get the kid dressed in the morning" parts, which honestly can be a trial for even the best parent of small children.
Re: Anhalt Sophie: Portrait of the Czarina as a young girl
I admit I don't know enough about customs of the place and time to be able to say whether my surprise is really warranted, but...is it possible she means ride *astride* (something I believe Catherine herself was later known for doing)? As opposed to sidesaddle? Or was it really not done for a woman of her class to appear on horseback at all?
I think it probably was different from country to country. The hunts at the German courts, even if ladies were present, don't sound as if said ladies usually participated in them on horseback (riding in whichever fashion), unlike in Britain, where noblewomen were expected to hunt. I know MT, child of Vienna who had a proud tradition of horse riding and one of the most famous equestrian schools in the world, had nonetheless to learn riding explicitly for her Hungarian coronation because apparantly for an archduchess and future wife of a sovereign it hadn't be part of the educational program. (And it was really quintessential for the Hungarian coronation ceremony, in order to impress the Hungarians into fighting for her by adopting their customs; not only did she have to ride but she had to draw a sword from its sheath and turn it, and the horse, into all four directions.) She did love it, though, and kept it up for as long as she could, making it a custom for other ladies as well and at one point staging an all female riding event at the Hofschule (the famous riding hall in Vienna).
Bear also in mind that Sophie's from a small, small very Protestant court (her father was not happy about this converting to the orthodox faith), and the next largest court her mother occasionally visited with her is the one one headed (in theory) by SD and FW, and then by Fritz and EC. You can bet neither SD nor EC were on horseback! So it's quite likely that Countess Benticnk really was the first woman rider she saw. (And note she's riding to meet the visitors, i.e. it's not a hunt, she's just riding for the fun of it. Not something I can see either Prussian Queen doing, and consequently not their ladies in waiting, either.) All this being said, it's also possible the Countess did ride astride on that occasion, given that Catherine later says "she rode like a master of the horses" - German translation of the French original says "a stallmeister", which in courtly terms isn't a stable master but the courtly office Robert Dudley received when Elizabeth ascended the throne in England, for example, but in any effect is a male term.
Mind you, riding sidesaddle was by no means unimpressive. Two centuries earlier, another Catherine, Catherine de' Medici, had famously invented it when being the Dauphine in France so she could participate in the hunt, which impressed the hell out of her father-in-law Francois I. whose approval ensured she wasn't sent back to Italy. And the custom for women on horseback before that was basically for them to sit in box-like arrangements, with no possibility to ride at a pace other than very very slowly. Catherine de' Medici was an excellent rider, again like MT for as long as she was physically able (i.e. before all those pregnancies and weight increase made it impossible), and while we're talking France, Liselotte also was a great (sidesaddle) rider and enthusiastic hunter, bonding with brother-in-law Louis XIV about this because none of his mistresses was any good at it, but does seem to have learned both after arriving in France, not before. (One of Liselotte's letters contains a rather dramatic description of her horse getting spooked and starting to run without any possibility of getting restrained again, which meant she had to cling to it until it had run ahead far enough so she wouldn't get trampled by subsequent horses, then let herself fall to the ground while the horse was still in full gallop. She survived this with just a few scratches, though the King was "white as a sheet" when arriving.) While Liselotte's relationship with her royal brother-in-law had its ups and downs - not least because she really hated him invading the Palatinate while using her as a pretense, and also she hated Madame de Maintenon, his last mistress and morganatic wife -, this shared enthusiasm was something they kept up even in old age, when neither of them was physically able anymore to ride. They used a carriage instead.
She may have been misremembering, but I'm going to come to her rescue here with Old Style dates!
Good point! That is a distinct possibility. (The difference in dating is also something the memoirs editor mentions as giving him a headache.)
Sophie/Heinrich = Prussian Macbeths AU: yes, given the conditions in Prussia, she's always going to need a man as an intermediary to exert power through. Even if both young FW and Henricus Minor die of smallpox or measles or any of the many illnesses available after AW's death, and thus Heinrich does become the next in line for the throne. I suppose if she has a son whom he has acknowledged as his, she could, in theory, become regent once Heinrich himself dies, if none of the predecessors made it explicit law to have no female regents, but: that only lasts a few years, too, and then she's back where she started. For "no woman shall rule in Salic lands". And those are a lot of necessary deaths happening first. Heinrich wasn't the Augustus from I, Claudius and Catherine wasn't Livia. He also was emotionally invested in AW's kids, and had a sound sense of self preservation. With no Fritz holding him back from a divorce, it probably would have been, if she'd really tried to achieve such a scenario in the way Graves' Livia did, divorce at best, Küstrin at worst. But I'm not sure she would have gone this route in the first place, because she was realist, and trying for a few years of shared regency post Fritz death with the option of remaining the most important advisor/power behind the throne once FW2 reaches his majority would have been a far more sensible policy. Especially since young FW2 liked the ladies, and I don't just mean sexually. The smartest play for Sophie would be to make herself his second mother figure and understanding ear early on, and leave the issuing of unpopular dos and don'ts after Fritz' death to Heinrich.
So...bad for real life, excellent for plotty fic. Much like actual history with all its dysfunctional family dynamics and unhappy marriages, lol.
Yep. I mean, the long distance and them not being part of the same hierarchy undoubtedly was great for allowing them to remain friends. Now I'm trying to decide whether they could, in theory, have fallen for the same guy. As opposed to what I believed, Heinrich actually did have Kaphengst with him during the first Russia trip (though not the seoond), and him being sex on legs is pretty much the only explanation any biographer could find as to why Heinrich put up with him for so long despite of all the ever increasing downsides. And Kaphengst would have had zilch restraint to exchange being a prince's favourite to becoming an Czarina's favourite. However, in Catherine's life this would have been where Grigorij Orlov was still around and Potemkin (who of all her lovers is the one with the biggest claim to the "love of life" title) was up and coming, plus she really liked Heinrich, so she probably would have looked at Kaphengst and thought, nah.
Also, there's Fritzplaining, which can range from entertaining to annoying but is ultimately harmless, and then there's Fritz-micromanaging, which is what drove Algarotti crazy about his diplomatic mission and played a role in its failure. I think Heinrich getting a free hand was the big payoff here.
Absolutely. And Fritz himself, due to both brothers suspecting (correctly, as it turned out) that the Prussian envoy at St. Petersburg, Solms, in whose hands the courier service was, was either not enough concerned with safety or in the pockets of the Russians and thus not a safe channel of communication, had written that while Heinrich was in Russia they could only exchange harmless letters full of Catherine praise and travelogues, which together with the sheer geographical distance meant Fritz couldn't change his mind and try to micromanage Heinrich from afair after all. Heinrich hadn't had this much of a mixture of actual political responsibility and room to use it since parts - but only parts, and it always ended - of the 7 Years War.
And thank you for these! It's great to have visuals, especially for fic purposes.
You're welcome, and agreed. Especially since when people today read "dancing" they automatically imagine waltz, which wasn't a thing yet. Incidentally, when I plotted Fiat Justicia and wondered how Katte would approach Wilhelmine at Monbijou, it recalling those rococo dances that made realise that with all the partner changing and group dancing, he could have cut into the dance floor quite easily, and Wilhelmine did write in her memoirs she'd been determined to dance that day.
I note that despite Fritz, later in life, telling more than one person he enjoyed dancing when younger and still enjoys watching it even if he can't participate anymore-, - not surprising, btw, coming from a man willing to pay princely salaries to ballerinas -, not a single movie or tv series I can think of has Frederick the Great, at whichever age, dancing. The image just doesn't fit with people's idea of him, I suppose.
Re: Anhalt Sophie: Portrait of the Czarina as a young girl
(The difference in dating is also something the memoirs editor mentions as giving him a headache.)
*nod* It gave me a headache back in my Jacobite-studying days.
remaining the most important advisor/power behind the throne once FW2 reaches his majority would have been a far more sensible policy.
She's enough of a pragmatist and survivor that I agree. I think in this AU, Fritz is the only plotted death, and everything else is maneuvering.
due to both brothers suspecting (correctly, as it turned out) that the Prussian envoy at St. Petersburg, Solms, in whose hands the courier service was, was either not enough concerned with safety or in the pockets of the Russians
Do we know which it was?
which together with the sheer geographical distance meant Fritz couldn't change his mind and try to micromanage Heinrich from afair after all.
Heinrich definitely caught a lucky break there!
not a single movie or tv series I can think of has Frederick the Great, at whichever age, dancing
Old Fritz did a good job of projecting the public image he intended to project.
Poniatowski: What is this suspiciously decadent-looking waistcoat here?
Staff: Pay no attention to that
man behind the curtainwaistcoat on the chair!Oh, speaking of public images. Blanning, who is the one who led us to Hahn (via Fredersdorf accusations), and who therefore should know about the nearsightedness, has Fritz showing off his fabled memory for names and faces in the 1760s!
Re: Anhalt Sophie: Portrait of the Czarina as a young girl
Do we know which it was?
According to Ziebura, Solms did eventually 'fess up to telling Panin all, but he assured Heinrich it was all for patriotic reasons, that this openess served Prussia best to win Russia's trust. ;)
(
Anyway, Heinrich and Fritz did decide on using an alternate, non-embassy courier once the issue of Poland got on the table, with new cyphre; this was the Berlin business man Bachman who had a trading post in St. Petersburg, and with whose mail Heinrich could send some secret letters in addition to those he sent via offical embassay mail. But that still took two or three weeks per letter, so Fritz still couldn't micromanage from a far and had to more or less trust in his brother's ability to know what he was doing. Undoubtedly this was haaaaaard.
Poniatowski: recognizes a waistcoat a la mode when he spots one, see also here.
Blanning, who is the one who led us to Hahn (via Fredersdorf accusations), and who therefore should know about the nearsightedness, has Fritz showing off his fabled memory for names and faces in the 1760s!
Et tu, Blanning? Well, Fritz may well have had a great memory for names, per se. (The occasional Pliny/Ovid glitch excepted, he's doing fine with his writers and quotes till the end of his life from what I can see in Lucchesini's diary and in the letters to Heinrich.) Just not for the faces matching them, unless they get close enough. ;)
Re: Anhalt Sophie: Portrait of the Czarina as a young girl
Oh, of course. I believe you completely! I also believe Katte's sole motivation was to prevent Fritz from escaping without causing more bad blood between him and FW. Absolutely.
Seriously though, who wrote that page?
Judging by the footnotes and the slightly archaic writing style, Bain, in 1911, whom the annual-Yuletide-Peter-requesting author has *nothing* good to say about as an objective historian. And indeed, he seems very biased in both her summaries and this Wikipedia page!
Undoubtedly this was haaaaaard.
Undoubtedly. But it paid off, because he got to take credit later!
Et tu, Blanning?
Read your own sources!
Well, Fritz may well have had a great memory for names, per se.
Perhaps, but we've seen at least one anecdote where he's recognizing people by having their names whispered in his ear, so combined with the eyesight, I'm guessing that that was 90% of his reputation of recognizing people. I may be biased because I'm personally faceblind. (I too can remember names as words, but identifying a person in front of me as someone I know or don't know or putting a name to a face is beyond me. I joke that I'm one step away from mistaking my wife for a hat--Oliver Sacks joke.)
But I've also wondered if I'm faceblind and inclined to guess who people are based on their hair precisely because some critical neurological paths were laid down when I was a small child supposed to be learning to recognize faces, and instead was peering blindly into the world and trying to do my best with something more visible to my eyes. Which would have been even harder as a nearsighted child with everyone around me wearing wigs and tricorns! Yes, wigs differed in style, but they definitely make it *even harder* than usual for me when watching these 18th century shows to figure out who's who. (One reason I will forgive Ekaterina for doing away with them, besides Elizaveta's lovely hair.)
So if Fritz was nearsighted when he was young (and we don't know that) and if uncorrected nearsightedness in early ages has anything to do with faceblindness (and I really, really don't know that), then maybe being king gives you all kinds of options for compensating, like getting the answer whispered to you while no one ever, ever gives you away. :P
Re: Anhalt Sophie: Portrait of the Czarina as a young girl
Re: Anhalt Sophie: Portrait of the Czarina as a young girl