(Mind you: some of Heinrich's other favourites were good at their respective jobs, too - Kalckreuth and Mara come to mind - which didn't stop them from being charismatic jerks.)
And he wasn't exactly amiable exes with Kalckreuth! (Do we know about Mara?)
I unearthed one interesting tidbit about Mara. He visited Heinrich in Rheinsberg in 1799. Now this was after his wife the singer had finally had enough and kicked him out, and he might just have hoped for some money; otoh, he's described as very emotional both by people who disliked him, like Lehndorff, and by his wife who paints a positive portrait in her memoirs, so it might have been about emotion as well as or instead of money, who knows. Be that as it may, Heinrich - who was with the Comte and thus definitely not short of company - received him graciously and seems to have been glad of the visit. Since however Mara went on to drink himself to death elsewhere, he doesn't appear to have offered to take him back (as a musician or in another capacity).
Huh. That's really interesting. Poor Heinrich, with his taste for charismatic bastards. (Lehndorff would like to recommend the true hero of 1730, Peter Keith, to you, Heinrich, if he can't convince you to go for himself!) I'm glad he had the Comte at this point, and was able to be amiable exes with at least some of his bastards.
Ghost of Fritz: I told her Mara was a bad husband!
Speaking of 1799, that reminds me: are you able, in the middle of the pandemic and also your r/l duties, able to get your hands on Ziebura's edition of the final published volume of Lehndorff's diary? I know it's outside your time period, but it may still be relevant to your current interests!
That is actually where I have the Mara story from. (Heinrich tells Lehndorff about the visit in a letter. Lehndorff head desks.)
I'm not going to do a real write-up for both lack of time and lack of interest relevant content. Not that Lehndorff suddenly writes dull, but you don't know most of the people and situations he's talking about, and I had to look a lot up. He has a lot of joy with his family. He also has tea with Mina practically every day because she lives in the other wing of Heinrich's town residence (remember, Heinrich has given Lehndorff reign of the place because Lehndorff has no more Berlin residence but wants to live close to his sons), which is endearingly nice of him, especially as she's half deaf and pretty lonely at this point. On the downside, he's disgruntled about his Rheinsberg visit that Heinrich was cranky about himself, but blames a combination of a) Heinrich not being able to acknowledge the wonderfulness of FW3 and Queen Luise and the rightness of FW3's policies (Lehndorff, like most of Prussia at this point, is a big Queen Luise fan - she's the one who'll later have a famous encounter with Napoleon - and did get more conservative in his old age), and b) Heinrich being in the hands of a jerk boyfriend and his ruthless wife. By which he means the Comte and Marie. Says Ziebura that while Lehndorff always paints Heinrich's boyfriends in the deepest black, and often isn't wrong (Kalckreuth, Kaphengst), in this particular case it really is blatant jealousy and a very unfair judgment which we have plenty of evidence against. He describes the Comte as "a complete fool"; this, mind you, is a man whose four volume work on the conduct of war which he writes while with Heinrich will be taught in France in military schools until the 1920s, who will after Heinrich's death first have a career in the Prussian army (including winning the Pour le Merite) and then after the defeat of Napoleon an even greater career in the French army, dying as the commander of the Legion d'Honneur in his old age, neither of which careers he owes to any patronage.
As for his wife the Comtesse, she'll speak with great fondness and respect of Heinrich decades after he's gone and no one cares about him anymore, as we know through Fontane who got to know her in her own old age. Lehndorff is indignant that she's now the hostess in Rheinsberg and that Heinrich apparantly said to Queen Luise his grand niece when she visited that they're both equally beautiful women. Bear in mind that Marie the Comtesse is a famous beauty, nicknamed Princess Goldenhair, so this really is Heinrich being gallant to both young women, but young Queen Luise says to Lehndorff that she never felt as humiliated in her entire life. (Luise, just wait till you meet Napoleon.) Because Marie is of provincial nobility and the wife of Heinrich's boytoy. (Luise doesn't add that, I'm just assuming that's why she regards the comparison as so humiliating.) To Lehndorff, who like I said is a Luise fan the occurance is just one more proof that Heinrich is once again in the hands of a bad boyfriend who in this case comes with an equally bad wife, which grieves him, which causes him to arrive in Rheinsberg cranky, which is when Heinrich is cranky, and presto, "the first visit in Rheinsberg I did not enjoy".
Like I said to Cahn elsewhere, everyone calms down afterwards and they resume their confidential correspondance - the letter mentioning Mara's visit, for example, is months later. Sadly, because the diary ends before 1799 is over and any later diaries are not preserved courtesy of 1945, this means the last Lehndorff described Rheinsberg visit is a frustrating cliffhanger, so to speak, instead of the harmonious affectionate occasions from volume IV. And of course based on Heinrich's track record of boyfriends as well as Lehndorff in old age being more, not less possessive, as well as more conservative, it's psychologically understandable he'd jump to the conclusion that this French émigre Count and his wife are UP To No Good and Heinrich should just get rid of them. (Just as understandable that Heinrich for whom the Comte is one of the few truly good things that happened to him in a depressing time is in a less than tolerant mood about such an atttitude.) Again, like I said: any 50 plus years of friendship include such episodes.
However, most of the diary really is not about this but about 1799 Berlin, recorded in detail. Mind you, while Lehndorff is a loyal fan of the young royal couple and glad his sons are doing so well, and records with some worry all the ups and downs he hears from abroad, though of course FW3 is doing everything right and why won't Heinrich just admit that, he could be at court then, and "a fiery mind like his" is so wasted in self chosen Rheinsberg and Wusterhausen exile), he catches himself thinking more than once that while Fritz never did anything for and much against him, Lehndorff, personally, there was a greatness about those days which is gone now, and no offense, Ferdinand, but Heinrich is the last of the geniuses of those days, if diminished and gone to the west. (Okay, Lehndorff does not quote Tolkien, but you get the idea.)
So that's it from the 1799 journal in terms of interesting stuff. (Oh, and Lehndorff meets John Quincy Adams who is the first US envoy at the Prussian court, but doesn't leave a quotable Impression.)
Thank you for this! I was hoping you'd been able to get a hold of it. Figures that it contains a lot of material unfamiliar/uninteresting to us, with almost everyone we know being dead by that point.
Pity about Lehndorff being unfair to the Comte, but I suppose he was never fully rational on the subject of Heinrich's boyfriends! I'm glad the 1799 visit wasn't the last word on their relationship, because I too was disappointed when I got to that in Ziebura!
Also, curse 1945!
while Fritz never did anything for and much against him, Lehndorff, personally, there was a greatness about those days which is gone now
This is really interesting. I was thinking of it when I read the write-up that Ada Palmer posted today on a golden age as a time that produces amazing art, literature, technological feats, etc. that later ages look back on in awe, vs. a golden age as an epoch when you personally would want to be dropped into via time machine and have to live your life in, and how those are REALLY REALLY different, and the Renaissance was one but not the other. (I know we've had problems with her as historian before, but I think this is a fair contrast, and is something I've brought up to people in the past when they insist on using the term "Dark Ages" either for the Iron Age Aegean or post-antiquity Europe.) And I think this applies equally to the Fritzian period. Which I would not want to live in, not even as a man.
Heinrich is the last of the geniuses of those days, if diminished and gone to the west. (Okay, Lehndorff does not quote Tolkien, but you get the idea.)
Hahaha. Now I'm imagining Tolkien quoting Lehndorff. ;)
I was going to say. „Lehndorff has hobbit-like qualities“, but then I reconsidered. Let‘s do this properly. Who would be of which race and age, were they a Tolkien character? I‘m tempted to go with dwarves for the Hohenzollern, because two thirds male homosocial society, champion grudge bearers, stubborn, love good singing and a nice treasury. Which would beg for the Habsburgs as Elves (their time is actually past, highest rank and all that, but then again, neither MT nor her immediate family had any intent of going west and diminishing, and MT can‘t be accused of avoiding a fight, so - maybe they should rather be Stewards of Gondor?
Lehndorff does work as a hobbit, but given his longing to travel, one of the larger Took clan. Seydlitz, of course, is a man of Rohan. So is Katte.
Re: living in a golden age - agreed, and since Lehndorff isn‘t a historian but has actually lived through it, it‘s doubly interesting that he sees it that way. Mind you, he doesn‘t say he wants to go back there. Just that there were giants in those days. (This reminds me: Heinrich‘s letter „pretending the last twelve years didn‘t happen“ letter to Ferdinand includes the self aware „having illusions about the past“.)
Lehndorff and the Comte, yes, shame he didn‘t get along with the (nearly) sole decent one of the lot, but it might have been too much to ask - the sole one he actually liked was Lamberg when they were young, and with all the others, he varied between toleration to active dislike. The odds were against the Comte there.
Hmm. I always have trouble thinking in terms of groups of people instead of individuals. Maybe the British could be Numenoreans? With you on Seydlitz and Katte. :D
since Lehndorff isn‘t a historian but has actually lived through it, it‘s doubly interesting that he sees it that way.
Agreed! And yes, he seems to be saying that the times that are filled with giants are *not* necessarily the times that are most comfortable to live in as a normal person.
Heinrich‘s letter „pretending the last twelve years didn‘t happen“ letter to Ferdinand includes the self aware „having illusions about the past“.
Is there any other age you would want to live in?? (I mean, besides, say, 2015 as opposed to 2020, which, fair.) Honestly, any time period before modern health care and sanitation is not really something I'd be interested in :P
Of course not! But the question isn't "Would you rather live in the Renaissance or now?" the question is, "Would you rather live in the Middle Ages or the Renaissance?" And for the average person, the answer is, "The Renaissance! It was so glorious, and the Middle Ages were so dark, and ProgressTM!"
And her point is that life expectancy actually dropped, and quality of life became a lot more horrible for the masses, and no matter how great the art and science was, the Renaissance was not necessarily an improvement on the Middle Ages for the average person, and we need to rethink this Whig take on history as inevitable progress.
Likewise, whenever I hear people talk about the Bronze Age collapse and the ensuing "Dark Ages", I point out what one of my archaeology profs said: "no huge palaces =/= unhappier populace." (He wouldn't let us use the term "Dark Ages".) We don't know that, after the dust settled, the average person was happier...but just because the art and architecture got a lot worse, doesn't mean the average person's life did. A lot of great projects are produced by having a highly stratified society, and highly stratified societies are not always nice to the people further down, see also: Fritz and Lehndorff.
besides, say, 2015 as opposed to 2020
Funnily enough, just the other day my wife and I were talking about our last Europe trip, in 2012, and how it was the Dark Ages, because we didn't have smartphones or data/texting plans or anything, and we had to sit in hotel lobbies and print maps and trace out our excursions for the day, and we missed so many things because we didn't know that were in the place that had X thing we'd heard of, because the wifi was so crap you'd only use it for 5 minutes a day, while cursing.
And god knows, finding food was harder; you'd walk down the street and go, "I'm hungry, this place has food," instead of actually getting to read reviews, or even just see what place is freaking open (Italy the entire afternoon, when you have to walk really far before you find a place that's open, because you just got off the train and you're starving, but everyone's on siesta for the next four hours, omg).
So once the dust settles (pandemic, my health, our income which closely correlates to my health), hopefully in a couple of years I can go with international data plans and have an even better time in and around Berlin!
Heh, you didn't have guidebooks? When I went to Italy in 2000 we only ate at places that were in our guidebooks or that we found through asking people. (The one time we deviated from that we regretted it.) Though Yelp is much better and also lighter in the pocket. D and I joke that the internet was made for people like us who don't plan ahead on trips. (I used to plan ahead before I went on trips, but D and his family... don't, and they've made me lazy.)
The ironic thing is, I actually paused before writing that because my old smartphone was from 2014 and I got this 2019 one and it's crazy how much cooler 2019 is technology-wise, so I was thinking, hey, you know, from my local perspective things are pretty great now. And then in between writing that comment and writing this one, as you can see from my latest post, it has cracked now *sigh* so I may be going back to 2014 after all. It was fun visiting, 2019.
Awwww, Lehndorff <3 Yeah, okay, this whole episode is making a lot more sense -- I can see that they were both not in a headspace to enjoy that visit! As always your rendition of Lehndorff's thoughts about his rival are hilarious and also moving <3
he catches himself thinking more than once that while Fritz never did anything for and much against him, Lehndorff, personally, there was a greatness about those days which is gone now, and no offense, Ferdinand, but Heinrich is the last of the geniuses of those days, if diminished and gone to the west. (Okay, Lehndorff does not quote Tolkien, but you get the idea.)
This is fascinating, and I guess not that far off the truth, really.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rheinsberg
Re: Peter Keith eulogy
And he wasn't exactly amiable exes with Kalckreuth! (Do we know about Mara?)
Re: Peter Keith eulogy
Be that as it may, Heinrich - who was with the Comte and thus definitely not short of company - received him graciously and seems to have been glad of the visit. Since however Mara went on to drink himself to death elsewhere, he doesn't appear to have offered to take him back (as a musician or in another capacity).
Re: Peter Keith eulogy
Ghost of Fritz: I told her Mara was a bad husband!
Speaking of 1799, that reminds me: are you able, in the middle of the pandemic and also your r/l duties, able to get your hands on Ziebura's edition of the final published volume of Lehndorff's diary? I know it's outside your time period, but it may still be relevant to your current interests!
1799
I'm not going to do a real write-up for both lack of time and lack of interest relevant content. Not that Lehndorff suddenly writes dull, but you don't know most of the people and situations he's talking about, and I had to look a lot up. He has a lot of joy with his family. He also has tea with Mina practically every day because she lives in the other wing of Heinrich's town residence (remember, Heinrich has given Lehndorff reign of the place because Lehndorff has no more Berlin residence but wants to live close to his sons), which is endearingly nice of him, especially as she's half deaf and pretty lonely at this point. On the downside, he's disgruntled about his Rheinsberg visit that Heinrich was cranky about himself, but blames a combination of a) Heinrich not being able to acknowledge the wonderfulness of FW3 and Queen Luise and the rightness of FW3's policies (Lehndorff, like most of Prussia at this point, is a big Queen Luise fan - she's the one who'll later have a famous encounter with Napoleon - and did get more conservative in his old age), and b) Heinrich being in the hands of a jerk boyfriend and his ruthless wife. By which he means the Comte and Marie. Says Ziebura that while Lehndorff always paints Heinrich's boyfriends in the deepest black, and often isn't wrong (Kalckreuth, Kaphengst), in this particular case it really is blatant jealousy and a very unfair judgment which we have plenty of evidence against. He describes the Comte as "a complete fool"; this, mind you, is a man whose four volume work on the conduct of war which he writes while with Heinrich will be taught in France in military schools until the 1920s, who will after Heinrich's death first have a career in the Prussian army (including winning the Pour le Merite) and then after the defeat of Napoleon an even greater career in the French army, dying as the commander of the Legion d'Honneur in his old age, neither of which careers he owes to any patronage.
As for his wife the Comtesse, she'll speak with great fondness and respect of Heinrich decades after he's gone and no one cares about him anymore, as we know through Fontane who got to know her in her own old age. Lehndorff is indignant that she's now the hostess in Rheinsberg and that Heinrich apparantly said to Queen Luise his grand niece when she visited that they're both equally beautiful women. Bear in mind that Marie the Comtesse is a famous beauty, nicknamed Princess Goldenhair, so this really is Heinrich being gallant to both young women, but young Queen Luise says to Lehndorff that she never felt as humiliated in her entire life. (Luise, just wait till you meet Napoleon.) Because Marie is of provincial nobility and the wife of Heinrich's boytoy. (Luise doesn't add that, I'm just assuming that's why she regards the comparison as so humiliating.) To Lehndorff, who like I said is a Luise fan the occurance is just one more proof that Heinrich is once again in the hands of a bad boyfriend who in this case comes with an equally bad wife, which grieves him, which causes him to arrive in Rheinsberg cranky, which is when Heinrich is cranky, and presto, "the first visit in Rheinsberg I did not enjoy".
Like I said to Cahn elsewhere, everyone calms down afterwards and they resume their confidential correspondance - the letter mentioning Mara's visit, for example, is months later. Sadly, because the diary ends before 1799 is over and any later diaries are not preserved courtesy of 1945, this means the last Lehndorff described Rheinsberg visit is a frustrating cliffhanger, so to speak, instead of the harmonious affectionate occasions from volume IV. And of course based on Heinrich's track record of boyfriends as well as Lehndorff in old age being more, not less possessive, as well as more conservative, it's psychologically understandable he'd jump to the conclusion that this French émigre Count and his wife are UP To No Good and Heinrich should just get rid of them. (Just as understandable that Heinrich for whom the Comte is one of the few truly good things that happened to him in a depressing time is in a less than tolerant mood about such an atttitude.) Again, like I said: any 50 plus years of friendship include such episodes.
However, most of the diary really is not about this but about 1799 Berlin, recorded in detail. Mind you, while Lehndorff is a loyal fan of the young royal couple and glad his sons are doing so well, and records with some worry all the ups and downs he hears from abroad, though of course FW3 is doing everything right and why won't Heinrich just admit that, he could be at court then, and "a fiery mind like his" is so wasted in self chosen Rheinsberg and Wusterhausen exile), he catches himself thinking more than once that while Fritz never did anything for and much against him, Lehndorff, personally, there was a greatness about those days which is gone now, and no offense, Ferdinand, but Heinrich is the last of the geniuses of those days, if diminished and gone to the west. (Okay, Lehndorff does not quote Tolkien, but you get the idea.)
So that's it from the 1799 journal in terms of interesting stuff. (Oh, and Lehndorff meets John Quincy Adams who is the first US envoy at the Prussian court, but doesn't leave a quotable Impression.)
Re: 1799
Pity about Lehndorff being unfair to the Comte, but I suppose he was never fully rational on the subject of Heinrich's boyfriends! I'm glad the 1799 visit wasn't the last word on their relationship, because I too was disappointed when I got to that in Ziebura!
Also, curse 1945!
while Fritz never did anything for and much against him, Lehndorff, personally, there was a greatness about those days which is gone now
This is really interesting. I was thinking of it when I read the write-up that Ada Palmer posted today on a golden age as a time that produces amazing art, literature, technological feats, etc. that later ages look back on in awe, vs. a golden age as an epoch when you personally would want to be dropped into via time machine and have to live your life in, and how those are REALLY REALLY different, and the Renaissance was one but not the other. (I know we've had problems with her as historian before, but I think this is a fair contrast, and is something I've brought up to people in the past when they insist on using the term "Dark Ages" either for the Iron Age Aegean or post-antiquity Europe.) And I think this applies equally to the Fritzian period. Which I would not want to live in, not even as a man.
Heinrich is the last of the geniuses of those days, if diminished and gone to the west. (Okay, Lehndorff does not quote Tolkien, but you get the idea.)
Hahaha. Now I'm imagining Tolkien quoting Lehndorff. ;)
Re: 1799
Lehndorff does work as a hobbit, but given his longing to travel, one of the larger Took clan. Seydlitz, of course, is a man of Rohan. So is Katte.
Re: living in a golden age - agreed, and since Lehndorff isn‘t a historian but has actually lived through it, it‘s doubly interesting that he sees it that way. Mind you, he doesn‘t say he wants to go back there. Just that there were giants in those days. (This reminds me: Heinrich‘s letter „pretending the last twelve years didn‘t happen“ letter to Ferdinand includes the self aware „having illusions about the past“.)
Lehndorff and the Comte, yes, shame he didn‘t get along with the (nearly) sole decent one of the lot, but it might have been too much to ask - the sole one he actually liked was Lamberg when they were young, and with all the others, he varied between toleration to active dislike. The odds were against the Comte there.
Re: 1799
since Lehndorff isn‘t a historian but has actually lived through it, it‘s doubly interesting that he sees it that way.
Agreed! And yes, he seems to be saying that the times that are filled with giants are *not* necessarily the times that are most comfortable to live in as a normal person.
Heinrich‘s letter „pretending the last twelve years didn‘t happen“ letter to Ferdinand includes the self aware „having illusions about the past“.
Oh, Heinrich. *hug*
Re: 1799
Re: 1799
Re: 1799
And her point is that life expectancy actually dropped, and quality of life became a lot more horrible for the masses, and no matter how great the art and science was, the Renaissance was not necessarily an improvement on the Middle Ages for the average person, and we need to rethink this Whig take on history as inevitable progress.
Likewise, whenever I hear people talk about the Bronze Age collapse and the ensuing "Dark Ages", I point out what one of my archaeology profs said: "no huge palaces =/= unhappier populace." (He wouldn't let us use the term "Dark Ages".) We don't know that, after the dust settled, the average person was happier...but just because the art and architecture got a lot worse, doesn't mean the average person's life did. A lot of great projects are produced by having a highly stratified society, and highly stratified societies are not always nice to the people further down, see also: Fritz and Lehndorff.
besides, say, 2015 as opposed to 2020
Funnily enough, just the other day my wife and I were talking about our last Europe trip, in 2012, and how it was the Dark Ages, because we didn't have smartphones or data/texting plans or anything, and we had to sit in hotel lobbies and print maps and trace out our excursions for the day, and we missed so many things because we didn't know that were in the place that had X thing we'd heard of, because the wifi was so crap you'd only use it for 5 minutes a day, while cursing.
And god knows, finding food was harder; you'd walk down the street and go, "I'm hungry, this place has food," instead of actually getting to read reviews, or even just see what place is freaking open (Italy the entire afternoon, when you have to walk really far before you find a place that's open, because you just got off the train and you're starving, but everyone's on siesta for the next four hours, omg).
So once the dust settles (pandemic, my health, our income which closely correlates to my health), hopefully in a couple of years I can go with international data plans and have an even better time
in and around Berlin!Re: 1799
Heh, you didn't have guidebooks? When I went to Italy in 2000 we only ate at places that were in our guidebooks or that we found through asking people. (The one time we deviated from that we regretted it.) Though Yelp is much better and also lighter in the pocket. D and I joke that the internet was made for people like us who don't plan ahead on trips. (I used to plan ahead before I went on trips, but D and his family... don't, and they've made me lazy.)
The ironic thing is, I actually paused before writing that because my old smartphone was from 2014 and I got this 2019 one and it's crazy how much cooler 2019 is technology-wise, so I was thinking, hey, you know, from my local perspective things are pretty great now. And then in between writing that comment and writing this one, as you can see from my latest post, it has cracked now *sigh* so I may be going back to 2014 after all. It was fun visiting, 2019.
Re: 1799
he catches himself thinking more than once that while Fritz never did anything for and much against him, Lehndorff, personally, there was a greatness about those days which is gone now, and no offense, Ferdinand, but Heinrich is the last of the geniuses of those days, if diminished and gone to the west. (Okay, Lehndorff does not quote Tolkien, but you get the idea.)
This is fascinating, and I guess not that far off the truth, really.