Frederick the Great, discussion post 14
Apr. 7th, 2020 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnCheck out the opera clips at Rheinsberg!
(both the real-life place, whichselenak found out hosts a festival for young opera singers! and the community ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rheinsberg)
Also! our fandom has been producing lovely fic at a rapid clip (okay, well,selenak has):
Sibling dysfunction: Promises to Keep and My Brother Narcissus
Sibling dysfunction PLUS sibling M/M love triangle: The moon flies face to face with me
VOLTAIRE! Between the hour and the age
(both the real-life place, which
selenak found out hosts a festival for young opera singers! and the community rheinsberg)Also! our fandom has been producing lovely fic at a rapid clip (okay, well,
selenak has):Sibling dysfunction: Promises to Keep and My Brother Narcissus
Sibling dysfunction PLUS sibling M/M love triangle: The moon flies face to face with me
VOLTAIRE! Between the hour and the age
Re: (not much) Katte! (but much Lehndorff)
Date: 2020-04-24 04:55 am (UTC)Absolutely - as long as there's no question that they're both devoted more to Fritz than to each other. I mean, an escaped at 18 Fritz with friends and lovers is clearly a more emotionally healthy Fritz than the rl version, but there were those 18 years with Hohenzollern dysfunction and abuse first. And that guy who is absolutely unwilling to invite Émilie as well as Voltaire and is going to resent that while Voltaire still had a choice, he prioritized Émilie years and YEARS after her death is still in him, surely. So my speculation would be that he'd be cool with a poly situation - as long as he's the centre of it.
Plus, re Doris and the mysterious "some girl," as you've pointed out, Lehndorff demonstrates just how much bi men could compartmentalize their romantic lives by gender.
This reminds me of how I went from seeing Lehndorff as gay to seeing him as bi once I'd read the second volume, because in the first one, Schmidt-Lötzen cut out most of the stuff about both wives & Cousin du Rosey Katte and the occasional het adventure. (As well as even more unambiguous stuff about Heinrich. I mean, the first volume has things "what a man to be worshipped" and the notorious "beautiful like an angel" in his riding pants, but the second one has "I'm afraid I'll never find the courage to tell him how much I love him" and "all reason leaves me when I'm near him" (we've noticed) from the same era.) If you've read solely the first (and the only reprinted) volume, then the wives really look like not signifying much in Lehndorff's life, and all the times he shows interest in women he doesn't have to also got censored. BTw, I suspect the reason for the last one is that Schmidt-Lötzen got access to the Lehndorff diaries from the same Countess Lehndorff who made an early and ultimately abandoned attempt to change all the il and lui into elle. Not that Lehndorff comes across as Don Juan in the originally censored parts. There's this one time after Hotham has left and he's depressed as hell when a friend advises him to try a prostitute, Lehndorff does so and concludes it's just not worth it because it's v.v. awkward afterwards (is it more gentlemanly to wait or to send her away immediately?), not to mention dangerous (he goes and visits the famous Charité, the Berlin hospital FW founded (which is still going strong), to remind himself that STDS and especially syphilis are a thing and that's why prostitutes = bad idea). And he's also into the mistress of the Austrian/Imperial envoy Puebla, the Countess Bredow, because she's hot, witty and loyal to Puebla even after he's goine and Austrians are less popular than ever since the war has now started. (She still has a painting of Puebla hanging in her salon.) Oh, and at one point none other than the Countess Wreech (she who was the last female recipient of Fritz' love poetry that he didn't play Cyrano for someone else with) makes a pass at him ("played the wife of Potiphar for me"), but, says Lehndorff, he took the role of Joseph and fled because "Grandmothers are not tempting".
Now, at first glance the fact this got censored but the entire Hotham saga did not in the original volume is odd, because Charles Hotham Jr. is the clear proof that Lehndorff's romantic feelings for men weren't limited to something that Schmidt-Lötzen presumably eventually sold the Countess on could be explained by devotion to royalty. But I think that's just it - see also Schmidt-Lötzens original preface of how the Rokoko age was just different, evryone was emo, and Lehndorff's bursting into tears at the prospect of not seeing Heinrich for a few days because Heinrich has to attend Fritz in Potsdam in early 1753 is utterly normal in that context. Whereas "Prostitutes: better not", "man, I want to score with the Countess Bredow" and "nope, not into you, Madame Wreech, though your son Ludwig is my candidate for "Should be Heinrich's boyfriend if I can't be instead of those other guys" - all this is unmistakably sexual stuff, and not conductive to the manly chaste image of how Frederician era Prussians after all the 19th century propaganda efforts were thought of. (Which is also why Schmidt-Lötzen had to explain in his preface that contrary to the 19th century image, sexual licence at court didn't start when nephew FW2 took over, there, gulp, actually lots of affairs among the Prussian nobility before that.)
(Meanwhile, most about the wives and kids didn't make the cut because it had nothing to do with Frederician goings on, and in the original volume Schmidt-Lötzen assumed his readers would only want to know about the historically important people.)
What I find culturally interesting is that Lehndorff - who does not lose his appreciation for the male form in his older years, see his remarks on Poniatowiski when he meets him in Poland - doesn't appear to have had the type of sexual identity struggle we are almost conditioned to expect about all of this. When he angsts, it's about questions like "will I never get out of this dead-end job?" or "it's all over between Heinrich and me, I just know it!", "why doesn't the King ever notice me?", "why does Heinrich keep going for jerks?". Not "is there somethign wrong with me for loving whom I love?" And in his later years, when he tries to find a balance between being a responsible family man and his relationship with Heinrich (and ends up deciding not to travel with Heinrich to Russia or France, despite wanting to), this isn't in any way coded as "I must do what society expects me to", it's "my wife is pregnant and/or my kids need their dad" (since journeys abroad take several months at least).
Now, of course Lehndorff lives in an age where sexual fidelity was not expected from men of his class, and one didn't, as a rule, marry for love but as a sensible business arrangement, though some mutual consideration thereafter was expected. But otoh, all of Voltaire's digs about Potsdamites in his trashy pamphlet would not have worked as digs if it had been gay and bi utopia. (See also Catherine's Hamburg-based friend Frau Bielke writing to her that surely, if Heinrich had married charming Princess Sophie back then, "he would not have made himself guilty of the terrible things which today darken his name". In a letter from 1766, it's hard to read this as referring to anything but Heinrich by then being an internationally known gay man.) So: how much of this matter-of-factly bisexuality was Lehndorff-specific, and how much was Rokoko age? (Not a rethoric question, I haven't made up my mind.)
Re: (not much) Katte! (but much Lehndorff)
Date: 2020-04-24 05:17 am (UTC)Yes *exactly*. The plan is for them to negotiate exactly those boundaries. It helps that they hooked up while *trying to find Fritz and fearing he was dead*, because Katte will be able to tell Fritz, "Of *course* I bonded with him, he was the only one as motivated as I was to find you!" And they will continue in that vein.
I know my Fritz. ;) So does Katte, I might add.
a friend advises him to try a prostitute, Lehndorff does so and concludes it's just not worth it because it's v.v. awkward afterwards (is it more gentlemanly to wait or to send her away immediately?),
Huh, I don't remember this, but then Lehndorff was also several months ago, so if you told us, I might have forgotten.
sexual licence at court didn't start when nephew FW2 took over, there, gulp, actually lots of affairs among the Prussian nobility before that
LOL
doesn't appear to have had the type of sexual identity struggle we are almost conditioned to expect about all of this. When he angsts, it's about questions like "will I never get out of this dead-end job?" or "it's all over between Heinrich and me, I just know it!", "why doesn't the King ever notice me?", "why does Heinrich keep going for jerks?". Not "is there somethign wrong with me for loving whom I love?"
Yeah, that is really interesting.
So: how much of this matter-of-factly bisexuality was Lehndorff-specific, and how much was Rokoko age? (Not a rethoric question, I haven't made up my mind.)
Yes, a very interesting question. I wonder how much of it was class-based: Lehndorff and his ilk are classically educated and have lots of Greco-Roman models if they want them; pamphlet readers are maybe not?
I've also wondered how much to have my characters worry about their sexuality. Katte and Suhm (Dresden!) are worldly enough to be cool with it, Fritz is like, "Hey, it pisses Dad off, how bad can it be?" but I wonder about the uneducated, minor nobility, brought-up-at-FW's-court Peter.
I feel like I saw someone on DW whom I don't normally follow reviewing a book that talks about exactly this...ah, yes, it was Men In Love: Masculinity and Sexuality in the Eighteenth Century. I haven't read it, have no idea if the author's any good at history, but it might be
relevant to your current interestsworth checking out.Re: (not much) Katte! (but much Lehndorff)
Date: 2020-04-24 06:28 am (UTC)No, you haven't, I didn't mention it then.
Lehndorff and his ilk are classically educated and have lots of Greco-Roman models if they want them; pamphlet readers are maybe not?
True. I mean, middle-class education became more and more a thing - one generation later, the entire French Revolution VIPs are well educated middle class citizens, and on the non-revolutionary side, there's good old Goethe (who btw did read Voltaire's pamphlet as well as the later memoirs, the former with a mixture of being appalled and amused, and the later just being amused, what with several years and De La Literature Allemande in between), who with his sister got a fantastic classical education as the son of a Frankfurt lawyer - but so did middle class morality. Les Liasons Dangereuses was such a bestseller partly because of the "see what the depraved nobility is up to!!!!!" factor, Lessing's tragedy Emilia Galotti has a licentious prince aiming at forcing the titular middle class heroine to become his mistress, and the entire genre of the "sentimental novel" in England as inaugurated by Richardson revolves around the "depraved aristo vs virtuous middle class people" construct.
(And speaking of Voltaire's memoirs, remember, Lehndorff has a great time listening to Heinrich reading them out loud to him in Rheinsberg, complete with commentary, but is SHOCKED that they get sold in bookshops to the people at large in Berlin.)
Thank you for the reading tip! A quick googling tells me the author is specialized in English literature, and the summary only mentions English and French examples, so the use for my current purpose might be limited, though.
I wonder about the uneducated, minor nobility, brought-up-at-FW's-court Peter.
Good point. There's also this: if FW, who as you point out transfers Peter to Wesel the same day he gives orders for Keyserlingk to sleep in the same room with Fritz all the time and not to leave his side, thought Peter was the guilty and experienced party in whatever had happened, why doesn't anything worse than a transfer to Wesel happen to Peter? It's not like the Keiths are of such great influence in Prussia, and Peter is a fourth son, right? Why doesn't he simply get dismissed from the service? Unless, at this point, FW sees him and Fritz as equally culpable and Peter doesn't have a reputation for sexual license, or any kind of experience.
Re: (more) Katte! (some Lehndorff) (more Keith)
Date: 2020-04-24 07:32 am (UTC)No, you haven't, I didn't mention it then.
Aha. Well, as
middle-class education became more and more a thing...but so did middle class morality.
Very true. And I should clarify: while I expect that the
depraved nobleseducated classes *also* read pamphlets, what with society being a pyramid, I imagine the bulk of pamphlet readership (viz. sales) is going to come from lower down, smack in the midst of middle-class morality. And gossipy sensationalism about Potsdamites is thus going to sell.Thank you for the reading tip! A quick googling tells me the author is specialized in English literature, and the summary only mentions English and French examples, so the use for my current purpose might be limited, though.
Ah, too bad. It makes sense, though, as the context in which I saw it reviewed was someone in the Jacobite fandom. If there were still libraries, I would endorse checking out the bibliography in case it had materials more suited to your interests, but alas. No libraries at the present time.
Oh, wait, I just remembered. I do have a reference of translated-into-English primary sources on sodomy in 18th century France on my wishlist (perhaps waiting for my next book bribe, or at least the return of my concentration). Despite the different law and religion, for the Francophilic Hohenzollerns, the French context might be at least relevant as part of the cultural milieu (as I recall, it does have a Voltaire passage!), and this book might also have bibliographic references of use. Much of it is police reports, so less relevant as far as Prussian law and enforcement thereof, but possibly there are some insightful comments into the mindsets of people in different classes.
If not relevant enough now, then it may still be of interest after real life lets up a little.
Also, maybe if we click on enough of these books on Amazon, their algorithm will have some suggestions about 18th century manly unchaste Prussians. ;)
Unless, at this point, FW sees him and Fritz as equally culpable and Peter doesn't have a reputation for sexual license, or any kind of experience.
I absolutely always assumed FW always saw them as at least equally culpable, if not Peter as the victim. I mean, one, Peter is Fritz's age. Two, granted we have little data on Peter's personality, but between Wilhelmine and Lehndorff, I get the impression of Fritz as the driver in that relationship and Peter as kind of sedate, not especially strong-willed, and future family man. Three, FW's opinion of his son couldn't be lower.
Four, well, there's this 1731 passage with which you're very familiar:
"Did you seduce Katte, or did Katte seduce you?" Whereupon the Crown Prince replied without hesitation: "I seduced him", to which his royal majesty returned: "I am pleased that you finally speak the truth for a change."
Regardless of whether that's seduce sexually or just seduce into treason (I think it's both), FW is absolutely convinced Fritz is at fault. I assume the same was true of Peter. Even regardless of whether there really was a sexual peccadillo, as I think there was, or just plotting to defy FW and escape.
It's not like the Keiths are of such great influence in Prussia, and Peter is a fourth son, right? Why doesn't he simply get dismissed from the service?
Fourth child, but yes, a second or younger son iirc, which is the salient point. As to your second question, well, one, we don't know what they got caught doing. Two, FW would probably want to take the legal route, as he later did with Katte, and even if he doesn't mind dragging Fritz's name through the mud for sex, Fritz and Peter might not have done anything that would stand up in a court martial as grounds for dismissal.
I don't know exactly what counted as "sodomy," but FW hated masturbation, so even if the two were talking and flirting and maybe kissing/touching a bit in Fritz's room, and they both went back to their separate chambers, and the next morning the servants found evidence of Fritz having ejaculated in bed or in his breeches, that might be enough for FW. Especially given that Peter is *also* BFFs with wretched son and supporting his general defiance.
Btw, something occurs to me about that seducing Katte quote. It makes total sense if Fritz was frantically blaming Katte the whole time in 1730 and FW didn't believe him, and despised him as a coward. But as we've seen, from August 10 to the very end, Fritz was steadfastly trying to take all the blame and absolve Katte as the one who tried to talk him out of it and got pressured (seduced) into it.
It's been a year by August 1731. I wonder if FW has selective memory and is remembering what he wants to remember.
Bastard.
Re: (more) Katte! (some Lehndorff) (more Keith)
Date: 2020-04-25 07:03 am (UTC)A valid goal!
I don't know exactly what counted as "sodomy," but FW hated masturbation
Did he ever. I see elsewhere you've now read his instructions for his younger sons as well. Complete, of course, with Ziebura pointing out that FW with his unerring hiring instinct managed to get a gay-as-gay-can-be governor to carry out his anti-masturbation agenda for the divine trio.
Btw, something occurs to me about that seducing Katte quote. It makes total sense if Fritz was frantically blaming Katte the whole time in 1730 and FW didn't believe him, and despised him as a coward. But as we've seen, from August 10 to the very end, Fritz was steadfastly trying to take all the blame and absolve Katte as the one who tried to talk him out of it and got pressured (seduced) into it.
It's been a year by August 1731. I wonder if FW has selective memory and is remembering what he wants to remember.
Bastard.
Quite. I mean, FW's opinion of his oldest son had its ups as well as its downs in the 1730s, but for all "here stands one who will avenge me" you get a "I don't like fops despite having one in the family, I know very well which one, but that one is too old to be improved", for every "Fritzchen" (as reported by other Seckendorff) there's a rant about how FW's money will be spent on theatre and mistresses. No wonder Fritz' subconscious as late as the 7 Years War wants a "well done, son" from the dead man.
In terms of this particular quote during the big submission, though, I offer the alternate (to selective memory) explanation that FW expected Fritz to lie to him by default, not just re: Katte; see also the part of the submission day rant about how Fritz lied to him about the extent of his debts even after FW promised to cover them (which Fritz did) and of course the FW quote which Valory includes in his report on Fritz from 1753, with no date given as to when FW said this (though it must have been during the 1730s, not earlier, since Valory got AW to verify it as a second source): When you are lord and master here, you will betray everyone, for you can't help yourself. You are false to the core of your being, and a betrayer. Be careful, Friedrich! Make that first betrayal as complete as possible, for you won't manage to fool them a second time.
As we've said before, the (most) infuriating thing here is that FW never acknowledges he was a big reason why Fritz became such a default liar to begin with. Nor, and this brings us back to Katte again, does he acknowledge Fritz is quite capable of being loyal. (To Katte, to Suhm, and also to his mother and sister, though FW and Grumbkow tried their best to destroy the trust between Fritz and Wilhelmine and make Fritz come across as disloyal there, too.) I think he - FW - needed to believe Fritz was incapable of this because otherwise he'd have to wonder about his own responsibility for how his son acted towards him, and he just was incapable of admitting that he'd been anything but the perfect father.
Re: (more) Katte! (some Lehndorff) (more Keith)
Date: 2020-04-26 12:30 am (UTC)A valid goal!
Okay, I laughed. :P
I see elsewhere you've now read his instructions for his younger sons as well.
Indeed! I also notice that Heinrich was 12 when these instructions were given. (And that's assuming that they hadn't been given to other governors earlier.) And Fritz was 18 when he got the "governor sleeping in his room" order.
What I'm thinking is that FW might not have been on guard against silent sins with his oldest son, until Fritz got caught with Peter. And then with the younger sons, FW was proactive rather than reactive.
And if it *was* solitary nocturnal ejaculation after hanging out with Peter that Fritz got caught at, that might explain why FW was content to banish Peter.
Our "who tops, who bottoms?" discussion has become a "who tops, who bottoms, who masturbates?" discussion, lol.
with Ziebura pointing out that FW with his unerring hiring instinct managed to get a gay-as-gay-can-be governor to carry out his anti-masturbation agenda for the divine trio.
I wonder if FW's logic here was "Immune to the temptations of women" -> "Good role model for my sons."
In terms of this particular quote during the big submission, though, I offer the alternate (to selective memory) explanation that FW expected Fritz to lie to him by default
True. I would still see that as selective memory--FW remembering things as they what happened but according to his preconceptions of Fritz--but I think you're right, it's not Fritz as disloyal coward that's the salient preconception here, it's Fritz as lying liar who lies.
does he acknowledge Fritz is quite capable of being loyal. (To Katte, to Suhm
The part that always strikes me as speaking louder than words about Fritz's feelings for Suhm was the way he kept trying to get him to come back from St. Petersburg, even though it was only after he arrived there that he started being able to send Fritz copies of the Life of Eugene. Those are some priorities right there.
The flip side, of course, is Suhm requesting resignation the day he hears about FW's death, before even hearing from Fritz, and then of course setting out even when deathly ill.
I think he - FW - needed to believe Fritz was incapable of this because otherwise he'd have to wonder about his own responsibility for how his son acted towards him, and he just was incapable of admitting that he'd been anything but the perfect father.
That makes perfect sense.
Re: (more) Katte! (some Lehndorff) (more Keith)
Date: 2020-04-27 06:45 am (UTC)Clearly not FW, though, if he needed an oldest son to discover boys do that. Seriously, how can a man be so obsessed with soldiers and discover the "silent sins" concept so relatively late in life?
I wonder if FW's logic here was "Immune to the temptations of women" -> "Good role model for my sons."
Probably!
Incidentally, and considering FW's default assumption that Fritz and Wilhelmine are lying to him (which he doesn't assume from the younger kids): given that all three younger princes were completely aware that "Kreutz"(en) the gay governor was gay and AW had no problem writing explicit letters referring to this once Dad was dead, one has to conclude that not only were the younger kids good at keeping secrets from Dad, but doing so with a straight (ahem) face.
It's almost two generations later and from the opposite camp in terms of German speaking territories, but if you read the letters from the Mozart clan, but it's not just Wolfgang Amadeus himself who makes sex and scatological jokes. His mother writing to her husband Leopold does it, too, and while Leopold was a strict father in the sense of not wanting Wolfgang to marry one of the Webers (because a young musician in search of a well paying job should not tie himself to what Leopold, somewhat unfairly, sees as a clan of leeches), what you don't have is endless paternal control issues re: his son's sex life in general. I'm thinking of this every time I read nineteenth and early 20th century biographers argue FW was just being "ein deutscher Hausvater". Look, 19th century people, they don't get more micromanaging than Leopold "my son was given to me by God so that I may foster and promote his genius to the world and BY GOD THAT IS WHAT I AM GOING TO DO!" Mozart. And he still had no hang up about his kid's every small or larger sign of sexuality.
Re: (more) Katte! (some Lehndorff) (more Keith)
Date: 2020-04-27 06:58 am (UTC)Clearly not FW, though
See, that's exactly what I'm thinking. Although by the time Fritz was 18, FW knew that his son hadn't turned out exactly like him, who had a French governess and still managed to discover the superiority of everything German, at some level I think FW was still being caught off guard by unexpected behaviors that wouldn't occur to *him*. (Not being tempted, of course, but to give into temptation when God is watching. If there was one thing the man had, for all his faults, it was self-denial when it stemmed from principles that mattered to him.)
Seriously, how can a man be so obsessed with soldiers and discover the "silent sins" concept so relatively late in life?
The soldiers presumably kept their mouths extremely shut around Scary Monarch, but I wonder how the tobacco parliament managed when they were all drunk and being informal and vulgar and Rococo. :P
every time I read nineteenth and early 20th century biographers argue FW was just being "ein deutscher Hausvater".
*cough* Preuss
Look, 19th century people, they don't get more micromanaging than Leopold "my son was given to me by God so that I may foster and promote his genius to the world and BY GOD THAT IS WHAT I AM GOING TO DO!" Mozart. And he still had no hang up about his kid's every small or larger sign of sexuality.
Indeed. I think FW is such a visible strict father to people writing about Fritz (*cough* Roes) that people assume he was more representative than he was, instead of a fish out of water in his time and place and class.
Re: (more) Katte! (some Lehndorff) (more Keith)
Date: 2020-04-27 09:33 am (UTC)No kidding. I mean, given the sheer quantities of what they drank, and the spirit of the age! (And btw, it's not like FW didn't have the vocabulary. See also Other Seckendorff reporting that remark when FW isn't even drunk: June 13th: Voit from Bayreuth gets an audience with the King. - "Should I congratulate or send my condolences? My daughter has to let herself be f... better.") I guess they weren't drunk enough to forget that only m/f type of sex talk is allowed?
*cough* Preuss
Him and Koser. I mean, I'm eternally grateful for all the original work they did, especially Koser, but when I summarized the Hinrichs for you, I did some quick compare and contrast to Koser's "Fritz the Crown Prince", and was reminded again of Koser, when describing the August 1731 submission, talking about with "mit welch tiefem sittlichen Ernst" - with what deep moral seriousness/sincerity - FW behaved on that occasion, and how his attitude to Fritz throughout that encounter was tough but loving. Having read Grumbkow's entire protocol, that's... not my impression. (Mind you, Koser when describing it and quoting from the Grumbkow protocol carefully leaves out the entire "here's what I'd have done to your mother and sister and Hannover if you'd have succeeded" rant, and any "nobody cares if you live or die" remarks. And he concludes that all FW ever wanted from Fritz was being loved and respected by him and for Fritz to tell him the truth, all of which happened on that occasion, so finally, happy ending to that dark chapter in our hero's life.
I think FW is such a visible strict father to people writing about Fritz (*cough* Roes) that people assume he was more representative than he was, instead of a fish out of water in his time and place and class.
Even if you look at the other spectacularly dysfunctional royal/princely father-son relationships of the era - any Hannover/Hannover combination will do (I'M not writing George/George because in one case it was George/Frederick) - they don't come with FW's dose of Calvinism and his freaking out about Fritz having hobbies and interests other than he does, which are normal to everyone else. I mean, the one father/son pairing that tops FW/Fritz in dysfunction remains Peter/Alexeji, and that's because physically torturing your son to death will top anything else, but in that combination, the religious factor was on the other foot, so to speak.
And what Roes ignores is that it does make a difference whether we're talking royals or nobles (let alone middle class people like the Goethes or the Mozarts). One big reason fueling FW's paranoia was the idea that Fritz would ruin his life's work by being a default money wasting prince. A nobleman like Hans Heinrich might have some concern about the estate, sure, but not to that degree, and especially not with Hans Herrmann not being a big gambler/debt maker. And since he wants his son to have a career and be well educated, he won't object to his son being musical simply that's actually expected of any well educated nobleman who's not a son of FW!
Lehndorff, btw, as a younger son who was the unfavorite of his mother (with his father dead) got a somewhat atypical education for a Prussian nobleman in that there was no military in it due to his handicap, but he still was expected to know his way around French literature, history, geography etc. And definitely listen to music.
Re: (more) Katte! (some Lehndorff) (more Keith)
Date: 2020-04-29 09:04 am (UTC)Note: this is NOT a royal reader request! It wasn't going to be (I've been meaning to do this for a little while now) even *before* you said real life was going to take over for a few months.
It's there as a reference, since Koser is so good at certain things, like dates, and in case, if someday you have the time or I have the German, it turns out to be like Volz, where flipping through reveals something neat, like the dead hussar story!
Leopold Mozart
Date: 2020-04-29 05:22 am (UTC)Heh, this reminded me of that time the NYT ran this editorial where WA MOZART, OF ALL PEOPLE, was held up as an example of genius -- to argue, get this, why we shouldn't tiger-parent kids. WA MOZART THE ULTIMATE TIGER-PARENTED CHILD. It was only one line in the article, but it was definitely the line that infuriated me the most (although the entire article was infuriating). My history may be awful, but even I knew that!
Re: Leopold Mozart
Date: 2020-04-29 06:53 am (UTC)Now, in Salzburg, where was we know he ended up and got a job in the Salzburg Prince Bishop's orchestra, schools for normal citizens like the one he had attended in Augsburg weren't a thing yet. Leopold taught both his children himself as a result, not just in music but also in everything else, because he wanted them both to have the best education he could give them (and he didn't have money for a house teacher). This for a daughter was highly unusual. Now, you can blame Leopold for neglecting Nannerl as a musician once she hit puberty, absolutely, but not before that, and he was very unusual for his time and class. We don't know when exactly he started; the "Notenbuch für Nannerl Mozart" was written by him when she was eight. We do know that young Wolferl was intrigued enough by all the musical goings on to get involved, to imitate, and then, famously, at age four stun Leopold by writing down a composition, changing all their lives forever. That Leopold noticed his younger kid wasn't just imitating big sister almost immediately was not somthing that would have happened with most fathers in the era, because most fathers did not spend this amount of time with their two young children. Mothers did for poorer families, and of course governesses for the richer ones. But not fathers. His response - to intensify the the music lessons and then to take them on the road, first with and then without his wife - similarly made for a very atypical childhood for the era. You simply did not spend this much amount of time with your children.
Mind you: compared with present day parents, of course Leopold was not just micromanaging but also authoritarian (and we're talking childhood and puberty, not the later clashes once Wolfgang is an adult and has his own ideas about how his career should go). But as an 18th century dad, he was very open minded. (He also was the ultimate stage dad. This was not mutually exclusive.)
Writes Lemster: (Leopold)'s idea of a family wasn't so much that of a state with a clear above and below, but of a friendship based on the principle of reason and voluntarily cooperation. His lament in letters for his wife speaks volumes: "A family has been torn apart which did not live as parents and children but as friends with each other." Leopold never intended to break his children preventively in order to prepare them for their future roles as subject or wife, as had been the educational principle of many of his contemporaries.
His thinking had not just been formed by his Jesuit education but his reading of the French and German writers of the enlightenment like Rosseau, Gottsched or the today nearly forgotten pedagogic writings by Fénelon. He put such books into the hands of his children as well and thus provided them with an educational horizon which surpassed that of most musicians of the era. For the Grand Tour through Western Europe, he chose a road through the Picardie and Cambrai where the Mozart family admires Fénelon's tomb monument.
The other side was that Leopold really did think he had a mission from God.
This mission was: God has accomplished a miracle in my son, the miracle of a talent which never existed before. I owe it to God and humanity to promote this miracle. And I owe it to God and humanity to bring this talent to its highest fruition.
This sounds like good advertisement to sceptical observers, and undoubtedly Leopold was a gifted ad man. In addition to his ability as a musical pedagogue, this was his other surpassing talent. Wolferl's musical and Leopold's pedagoic and promoting talents had to join together to create the "miracle" Mozart. But any promotion works best if the advertiser believes his own message. And Leopold did believe. For nearly twenty years, he gave all he had in the service of this message. And he gave his family who supported him - in the case of his wife till her miserable death in a foreign city she hated.
Going on tour with your musically gifted kid wasn't unprecedented - Gertrud Schmeling/Elisabeth Mara's father did this as well, remember - but for someone as naturally cautious as Leopold to risk his livelihood (as a musician for the Prince Bishop - this wasn't yet Colloredo, the one with whom an adult Wolfgang would clash, but still, the predecessor could have done the same thing and told Leopold that either he stayed at home in Salzburg or that he was fired) by taking his entire family (his wife didn't stay at home until the later journeys) on the road for years was. And yes, they got paid by the princes they played for, and got presents. (For example, on that famous occasion when they played for MT and little Wolferl prosposed to young Marie Antoinette, they got what Leopold earned in Salzburg in a year, plus the two children got discarded robes from the little archdukes and archduchesses). But as opposed to modern concert tours they had to pay all travel expenses and the rent for wherever they were staying themselves, not to mention pay the doctors for when a family member got sick. Leopold didn't earn a fortune via his kid(s), which is what modern day stage parents are (not unjustly) frequently accused of. It evened out, more or less. (For example, Wolferl got sick after that glorious appearance in Vienna. Leopold paid 50 ducats for the doctor, which was half the salary the Mozarts had received gone again.) (All in all, the first "Grand Tour" cost Leopold 20 000 Gulden. The ill fated last tour, the one Wolfgang and his mother did alone, to Paris, where Maria Anna Mozart died, still cost 700 Gulden; Leopold had to take credit in Salzburg to finanze it and was years later still paying interest. When he responds so badly to Wolfgang moving in with the Webers and suggesting to go on tour with Aloysia - the first Weber sister he fell in love with, years before Constanze -, that is one big reason why.)
Re: Leopold Mozart
Date: 2020-05-01 03:56 am (UTC)I read (in a not-particularly-reliable source) that Nannerl was considered a top musician of her day before she hit puberty; is this true?
Re: Leopold Mozart
From:Re: Leopold Mozart
From:Re: Leopold Mozart
From:Re: Leopold Mozart
From:Re: (more) Katte! (some Lehndorff) (more Keith)
Date: 2020-04-26 04:29 am (UTC)Ahahaha, and now I have too.
I think he - FW - needed to believe Fritz was incapable of this because otherwise he'd have to wonder about his own responsibility for how his son acted towards him, and he just was incapable of admitting that he'd been anything but the perfect father.
Yes, this is infuriating, and I also think it makes perfect sense with FW's personality. Does he ever admit fault for anything?? (I am NEVER EVER gonna get over him saying that it was FRITZ's fault Katte died.)
Re: (more) Katte! (some Lehndorff) (more Keith)
Date: 2020-04-26 08:28 am (UTC)Thinking long and hard about this, I can come up with two sort-of/maybe examples:
1) As you'll recall, FW having a go at Wilhelmine and shouting his rage to all and sunder was eventually stopped by Frau von Kamecke, SD's stewardess, who either
according Wilhelmine: told him not to do a Philip of Spain and Peter the Great with his son
or
according to whoever was Henri de Catt's source in Heinrich's camp: told him to stop terrorizing his children,
but in both versions of the story, it ends with FW calming down, telling her she was a courageous woman to speak thus to him, and that she was right. It's not quite the same as "I was wrong" or "I'm at fault", but it comes close.
2.) Getting punched by Frau von Pannewitz for attempting to grope her did not result in FW doing the usual male thing (of any period) of saying "she led me into temptation" or "she wanted me to!" but in backing off
and resigning himself to celibacy since SD had stopped sleeping with him, and not doing anything against her. This, too, isn't quite the same as saying "this was my fault/I was wrong", but it's as close as he'd get, I suppose.Re: (more) Katte! (some Lehndorff) (more Keith)
Date: 2020-04-27 02:59 am (UTC)Oh, wait...I guess he backtracked on Wolff at the end of his life, but did he admit fault? I don't know the documentary evidence well enough to say. Still, at least he went from "This guy needs to hightail it out of my kingdom upon pain of death!" to "Everyone needs to read this guy!" and trying to get him back.
Re: (more) Katte! (some Lehndorff) (more Keith)
Date: 2020-04-29 04:34 am (UTC)Re: (more) Katte! (some Lehndorff) (more Keith)
Date: 2020-04-29 08:08 am (UTC)"I know at this point in my bleak, bleak memoirs you all are in need of comic relief, and also some catharsis, so here's Dad getting punched! Back to the time I married under duress to save my brother from Dad..."
Re: (more) Katte! (some Lehndorff) (more Keith)
From:Re: (more) Katte! (some Lehndorff) (more Keith)
Date: 2020-04-27 08:06 am (UTC)By the way, anyone know what the Calvinist take on marital rape and the rights of a husband is/was? Because legally, marital rape wasn't criminalized until what, the 1990s?
I mean, there's always the Lysistrata approach of "if he forces the issue, lie still like a board and make sure it's not any fun," but given how much SD hated FW, unless she was really into hate sex, I have to wonder how much she had been enthusiastically participating in the first place.
I'm just wondering if we should be even a little impressed with him for hypothetically respecting her no? I know insistence on marital rights in the face of wifely resistance varied by husband even in pre-criminalization days, but from the man who got counseled by pastors that forcing his daughter into marriage was a no-no, if he was actually going without in 1733...
Who tops, who bottoms, who masturbates, who rapes? :P
Re: (more) Katte! (some Lehndorff) (more Keith)
Date: 2020-04-27 04:52 pm (UTC)(In the 19th century, I know at least one Protestant clergyman who actually advised a woman whose husband was a no-good drunk not above forcing her to sex to leave him, contrary to the cliché about Protestant priests, but that man was the Reverend Patrick Bronte, father of the writing siblings, and he was an original in other regards, too.)
Anyway, FW: I think while he had enough capacity for self delusion re: having sex with SD when she was non-enthusiastic through their marriage, if she explicitly said "no" post Küstrin, as we speculate she did, I do not believe he would have forced her. He could not have kidded himself then that it was anything but force, even if he or for that matter she would probably not have used the term rape, given the world into which they were born. Also, I suspect all this insisting that Fritz was to be told his mother didn't love him anymore and was disowning him was in fact projection.
Mind you, I don't think SD would have refused to have sex with him before that year, and not just because of all the children she kept giving birth to. As I recall, at one point she was afraid he'd divorce her due to the schemes of G & S, and there was much drama. Now sure, she hated him, and Queen of Prussia so wasn't what she'd dreamed off, but being divorced was the ultimate failure. (Which had happened to her mother. G1 did divorce SD the first, and still kept her prisoner.) FW telling her he wouldn't divorce her on that occasion was one of those quotes where he uses "Fieke" - "Fieke, now we've gone together thus far" etc.
But once he puts her favourite son into prison, terrifies her by saying he's dead, too? With four living sons securing her position as a wife who has done her duty? I think she would, and did, and that the fact no more babies, stillborn or otherwise, existed after Ferdinand and FW after a life time of "no whores!" preaching strays and gropes (or attempts to) a lady-in-waiting are too closely happening not to be connected.
Re: (more) Katte! (some Lehndorff) (more Keith)
Date: 2020-04-27 06:40 pm (UTC)Yes, he was, and that is interesting, especially given The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. As I recall, a woman leaving her husband wasn't even legal in England at the time?
Anyway, FW: I think while he had enough capacity for self delusion re: having sex with SD when she was non-enthusiastic through their marriage
Agreed, especially given attitudes toward female sexuality. A woman who's just doing her procreative duty is doing it right.
Mind you, I don't think SD would have refused to have sex with him before that year, and not just because of all the children she kept giving birth to.
Oh, I agree. I have never imagined she did, except possibly for playing ill on particular occasions, but never in general. She may not have wanted him or the sex, but she needed the marriage and the kids.
But once he puts her favourite son into prison, terrifies her by saying he's dead, too? With four living sons securing her position as a wife who has done her duty? I think she would, and did, and that the fact no more babies, stillborn or otherwise, existed after Ferdinand and FW after a life time of "no whores!" preaching strays and gropes (or attempts to) a lady-in-waiting are too closely happening not to be connected.
I agree. Your arguments about the chronology are very compelling.
Let's see, so far, the gossipy sensationalists with scholarly instincts have come up with convincing chronological arguments for:
- Fritz and Peter got caught doing *something* January 21, 1730.
- FW didn't masturbate (and Fritz did).
- SD stopped sleeping with FW in 1730 and FW was desperate by 1733.
Heee!
Oh, and Lehndorff and Heinrich had sex on various specific occasions, such as that one stag night.
Bronte excursion
From:Re: Bronte excursion
From:Re: Bronte excursion
From:Re: Bronte excursion
From:Re: (more) Katte! (some Lehndorff) (more Keith)
Date: 2020-04-29 04:38 am (UTC)!! I wouldn't have thought of that, but boy does it make sense.
the fact no more babies, stillborn or otherwise, existed after Ferdinand and FW after a life time of "no whores!" preaching strays and gropes (or attempts to) a lady-in-waiting are too closely happening not to be connected.
Yep, I agree.
Re: (not much) Katte! (but much Lehndorff)
Date: 2020-04-24 05:24 am (UTC)Lehndorff is soooo cute, I love him <3 I also love that you are STILL telling us new and adorabe stories about him :D
Not "is there somethign wrong with me for loving whom I love?"
Huhhhh that is really interesting. (I clearly don't have an answer, but am enjoying you guys talking about it!) ETA: I can kind of see at least part of it being him -- he's just too wrapped up in Heinrich and his other concerns, hee -- but I think at least some of it would have had to be cultural as well, since as you pointed out earlier he does angst about his limp and whether he's attractive, right?
Re: (not much) Katte! (but much Lehndorff)
Date: 2020-04-24 06:03 am (UTC)(I, um, was motivated to look up some Lehndorff quotes in German, not in the English translation of a translation I made for you, hence my coming up with this stuff.)
Anyway: yes, should have added, there's also this "looking in the mirror" passage, and of course Lehndorff, who lives in a highly militarized society that FW has so succesfully transformed that for a young nobleman to not have gotten any military training (or have served with the army at least a while) is the big exception and only going with a physical handicap. (BTW, I think part of the appeal of Hotham is that he by contrast comes from a society where a young nobleman first gets to travel a lot, and sure, the military is an option, but it's really not a must.) It's not something Lehndorff spends diary page after diary page at, but it's in the background, and when there's war time, and he's at court with the women, the old men and early on the captured French and Austrian officers, he's aware.
Something that is definitely of the age and not just Lehndorff-specific is the free male crying, which everyone from Fritz downwards to the overworked preachers in the countryside do, of course, we knew that. I looked up whether there's an entry on taking leave of Heinrich when he leaves for the 7 Years War, and there isn't one in the summer of 1756 when it starts, but there is one in early 1757; remember, all four Royal brothers were back in Berlin in January 1757 to visit Mom, and this was the last time they saw their mother alive. However, Fritz and Heinrich on January 11th went straight back to Dresden, where the Winter Quarters were. (AW and Ferdinand remained in Berlin for a few days more.) While Vol.1 has just the sentence "but the joy" (of SD) "is short lived, as the King and Prince Heinrich depart on the same day", Volume 2, Lehndorff Unplugged, has this far longer and eminently Lehndorffian passage of January 11th 1757:
The entire royal family swims in tears about the King's departure. For me, in addition to this general pain there's the particular one to lose Prince Heinrich who returns (to the army) with his majesty. I go to him that same evening, but it is impossible for me to pronounce a single word; I cry, and leave again. (...) I do talk with Henckel and Lamberg (Heinrich's ADs) who return to Dresden as well, and withdraw sadly to my home. I cannot sleep and write a letter to Prince Heinrich.
Re: (not much) Katte! (but much Lehndorff)
Date: 2020-04-26 04:55 am (UTC)