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timeasmymeasure
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Ch 11-13
Date: 2020-05-21 05:28 am (UTC)We'll never know what kind of King he would have made, but I think it's clear why even less Heinrich friendly historians than Ziebura regarded him as the most gifted of Fritz' siblings, and the tragedy of his life that, to quote Mitchell about both brothers, "there cannot be two suns at the same firmament".
Well, that, and I've gotten to post-Fritz's death, and OMG poor Heinrich!! He really does get tossed aside like a bit of rubbish, doesn't he, and that must have been hard to take. I know he probably did miss Fritz as his dysfunctional "other self" to a certain extent as well, but I can also see how he would have preferred a life in constant conflict with Fritz, but where he could do interesting things and was always walking a bit of a tightrope, to the one where he doesn't get to do anything interesting and no one wants him to anymore.
I really want the AU where FW II sees how awesome he is and actually listens to him and has him do important things. I bet he would not have missed Fritz very much at all in that world. :(
Other random things:
-I forget what I was going to say about Heinrich's France visit. It was just all very cute <3
-...yeeeah, this book was written for people who generally know more history than I do, I think :P The only bit of European history I can say I (used to) know anything about is the French Revolution, due to a French teacher who liked to give me books to read and also herself was really into it, and I had no trouble following those parts, whereas if I were coming to it without that knowledge, I would so have been like "what is this National Assembly thing?? what's she trying to say??" (I didn't know about what was going on in the rest of Europe at the time, so this is fascinating, although I'm not sure I followed all of it.)
-Gosh, Heinrich is really long-suffering
except with Mina. Wonder where he learned that from :P Seriously, I know you told us the Mirabeau story before, but it's pretty telling that he just... lets it go. (I mean, can you imagine Fritz letting it go??)(Of course, it might also have been that Heinrich was a little depressed by that point, sigh, but still.)
-I really like how he helped out / sponsored all those people. That's just really great. <3
-Many thanks
Re: Ch 11-13
Date: 2020-05-21 06:20 am (UTC)Yeah. And later on he's explicitly going to be all, "THE LATE KING never did this to me!"
I also, now having read through chapter 15, stand by my original, summary-based assessment that while Heinrich may have hated Fritz personally and been appalled by his autocracy and warmongering, and he may have loved FW2 personally, there was some level on which he respected Fritz in a way he didn't respect FW2.
Also, I am entertained by:
Seven Years' War Fritz: DO SOMETHING, Heinrich! Why must you be so indecisive?
Post-1786 Heinrich: DO SOMETHING, FW2! Why must you be so indecisive?
-Many thanks [personal profile] selenak for giving us all the wonderful synopses of this book, it is making it way easier to read <3
YES GOD YES. I don't think this book would be suitable for learning German if I didn't already have a very good idea what was happening, and by the time we get to the part where I have a more vague idea, my German is thankfully much better and up to some complicated politicking. (It's still hard keeping some of the ministers and envoys straight, but not much more than it would be in English, especially with multiple people's names beginning with H.)
...yeeeah, this book was written for people who generally know more history than I do
Which is to say, this book was written for people who generally know more German than I do. :P
Seriously, I know you told us the Mirabeau story before, but it's pretty telling that he just... lets it go. (I mean, can you imagine Fritz letting it go??)
Didn't Fritz kind of let the Voltaire memoirs go, though? Of course, Voltaire was dead when they were published, which no doubt helped.
* Speaking of memoirs, referring to Heinrich's obelisk for people not given adequate credit in Fritz's version of history:
MacDonogh: "about whom his fucking memoirs say nothing."
Ziebura: "von denen der große Friedrich in seinen Memoiren kein Wort sagt."
So either Ziebura's bowdlerizing, or MacDonogh's misquoting. My vote is on the latter, but it would be interesting to check. Source seems to be Henckel Donnersmarck's "letters to my grandparents."
* Heinrich refuting his authorship of an anonymous pamphlet by saying that if he had something to say, he would say it under his real name--says Marshal Gessler! :P
I mean, I'm sure 1787 Heinrich would, and 1753 Heinrich was in a radically different power differential, but still. IT was pretty funny.
* Btw,
Re: Ch 11-13
Date: 2020-05-21 07:25 am (UTC)It's a bit "the grass is always greener on the other side", of course, but... yeah. Incidentally, re: AU where Heinrich gets to do stuff, there are of course three obvious "what ifs", though I'm not sure they'd have ended all that happily for Heinrich:
- King Heinrich of Poland (if Fritz hadn't nixed that from the start)
- King/Prince Heinrich of Wallachia (ditto)
- King Henry I. of the United States of America
Since the first two would have inevitably brought Heinrich into clashing with Catherine sooner or later (much sooner, in the case of Poland), the third one, provided Steuben et al could have somehow convinced Congress that a gay Francophile Hohenzollern is just the ticket for a constitutional monarchy, is really the most promising opportunity. Just think of all the Hamilton crossovers. :) Seriously though, which Founding Fathers would Heinrich have gotten along with, which not? Would there have been a constitution similar to Britain's where there's a head of state (Heinrich) and a head of Government (whether the later is called PM or President), with the later being voted for, and how would the two have worked together?
Re: Voltaire memoirs, the sympathy of our minds strikes again! (We also posted simultaneously.:)
So either Ziebura's bowdlerizing, or MacDonogh's misquoting. My vote is on the latter, but it would be interesting to check. Source seems to be Henckel Donnersmarck's "letters to my grandparents."
Give me a link, and I'll try to look it up. (BTW, the Allgemeine Deutsche Biography article with its Fritz fan Richard von M. of course bitches that the author "has adopted the UNFAIR attitude of his grandfather & the King's Brothers towards Frederick the Great".)
Heinrich refuting his authorship of an anonymous pamphlet by saying that if he had something to say, he would say it under his real name--says Marshal Gessler! :P
I mean, I'm sure 1787 Heinrich would, and 1753 Heinrich was in a radically different power differential, but still. IT was pretty funny.
:) True. Also, it's Voltaire's standard excuse whenever he leaked a letter or issued a pamphlet.
so two 18th-C contemporaries walk into a bar...
Date: 2020-05-23 03:59 am (UTC)Re: so two 18th-C contemporaries walk into a bar...
Date: 2020-05-23 08:45 am (UTC)Re: central government, hmmmm. I think you can argue either way. Otoh, Heinrich is used to micromanaging Fritz as way too much centralized goverment. Otoh, Heinrich is also aware that one reason why the HRE in his life time is a collapsing antique is that by the 18th century, every German prince has started to do his own thing (and if he's an elector, also aquiring kingdoms). I mean, in the really long term, this actually is beneficial in that I think current day Germany profits from having a federal states structure with the Federal states having a lot of authority, as opposed to a centralized goverment and a lot of angry provinces like France. But I doubt anyone would have predicted that then.
Would Franklin have still been alive for Heinrich to have a relationship with? Because I can definitely see them hit it off.
Re: so two 18th-C contemporaries walk into a bar...
Date: 2020-05-25 04:21 am (UTC)except for when he had to micromanage a wedding, then you'll seeLet's see, wiki tells me that Franklin doesn't die until 1790. I agree, they would totally have hit it off!
Re: Ch 11-13
Date: 2020-05-23 03:28 am (UTC)Yeah, I absolutely buy this. Of course, I think the converse was true, too: Fritz may have felt the absolute need to dominate him, but he also respected Heinrich in a way that FW2 didn't. And those two things (Heinrich/FW2, FW2/Heinrich) fed off each other.
So either Ziebura's bowdlerizing, or MacDonogh's misquoting.
I feel like from the general tone of everything Heinrich says in his obelisk speeches (declamatory, with the "fuck you" as an extremely strong subtext but never quite getting entirely explicit) it's definitely MacDonogh misquoting, unless Donnersmarck is adding a whole lot of editorial.
Re: Ch 11-13
Date: 2020-05-23 03:49 am (UTC)tous les noms que j'ai pu parler et dont le grand Fédéric dans ses . . . . . . . . . mémoires ne dit pas le mot.
MacDonogh beats Ziebura for accurate quoting! You may now pick your jaws up off the floor. :P
I have to say, I did immediately doubt that a public speech would be given in the same register as a private letter, but I still trusted Ziebura over MacDonogh. Not the first time I've had to apologize to MacDonogh the Unreliable But Not Always.
Re: Ch 11-13
Date: 2020-05-23 04:00 am (UTC)Re: Ch 11-13
Date: 2020-05-23 04:01 am (UTC)Re: Ch 11-13
Date: 2020-05-23 04:23 am (UTC)Which is why you can see Fritz playing the control games where he makes Heinrich wait and sweat and drop hints before finally letting him have what he wants, just to assuage his own "power is a zero sum game" insecurities before letting Heinrich have a free rein with the military or diplomacy. As hire As, but abused and abusive As play mind games first.
Re: Ch 11-13
Date: 2020-05-21 06:28 am (UTC)I can also see how he would have preferred a life in constant conflict with Fritz, but where he could do interesting things and was always walking a bit of a tightrope, to the one where he doesn't get to do anything interesting and no one wants him to anymore.
There's also this: given he was 14 years younger than Fritz, he must have always expected to outlive him, and the prospect of eventually, one day, live a Fritz-less life where he'll be both free and useful probably kept him going. And since pre-Fritz' death, he did get along with FW2 pretty well, he really did not expect this lightning fast ending up in complete ignored retirement. Basically: pre-Fritz death, he wrote to Ferdinand: I don't know whether we'll be bedded on roses once he's gone, but one thing I know, there will be fewer thorns than during the last 46 years.
...and then he found out that the thorns at least interest.
I know you told us the Mirabeau story before, but it's pretty telling that he just... lets it go. (I mean, can you imagine Fritz letting it go??
To be fair, Heinrich was way less emotionally invested into Mirabeau to begin with than Fritz with Voltaire. (And Fritz himself is of course the big example of Heinrich in a Sweeney Todd ("And he never forgot, and he never forgave") mode.) (But then, Heinrich was super duper emotionally invested in Fritz. Negatively invested, but well, hateship of his life.)
I think with Fritz and people trashing him, it depended on the degree of emotional investment and his situation du jour as well. Hence the contrast between:
Journalist in tiny Franconian town of Erlangen, Editor of journal that can't have THAT much of a circulation: Writes Fritz-criticial articles in the Silesian War.
Fritz as the enstrangement builds up to its climax: I can't believe you and the Margrave stand for this and haven't flung him into the dungeon yet, Wilhelmine! What kind of sibling love is this!?!!!
and:
Voltaire's postumous memoirs are published in 1784 and, so Lehndorff notes, available in two languages in Berlin bookstores till the end of Fritz' life.
Fritz: Lucchessini, have I told you about how Voltaire was the worst yet? Gimme my copy of the Pucelle with the personal dedication, and read me some more Voltaire.
-I really like how he helped out / sponsored all those people. That's just really great.
What impressed me there, too, was that on the one hand, he helps French émigrés, but on the other, he still keeps an open mind about revolutionary France per se, and its goals.
Whereas most people at the time, especially in his social class were: Down with the rabble! The poor, poor dead king and queen and murdered aristocrats! What do you mean, help those refugees? No way, we need to save money, and they're probably only spongers and thieves anyway, and you know *insert slur about French national character* But the dead French royals!
Re: Ch 11-13
Date: 2020-05-21 06:44 am (UTC)I'm going to second this recommendation. I think I made the right call to continue, but the politics were confusing even for *me*, and the frustration was definitely frustrating. I don't see you getting a whole lot out of it that we can't summarize.
What impressed me there, too, was that on the one hand, he helps French émigrés, but on the other, he still keeps an open mind about revolutionary France per se, and its goals.
Yeah, same.
It's also interesting to watch Fritz go, "Previous monarch was a micromanaging autocrat, which I think is an awesome way to run a country," and Heinrich go, "Previous monarch was a micromanaging autocrat, which I think is the WORST way to run a country." Part of it is, of course, do you personally get the benefits of the micromanaging autocracy or not? But I think part of it is personality, much like Charlotte and Anna Amalia as parents. "Well, that sucked, I will now do exactly the same thing/the exact opposite."
~Ch 14-15
Date: 2020-05-23 05:05 am (UTC)Mina: ...
But yeah, the Basel Peace was extremely confusing and I skipped most of it. Although I wasn't following the military or political bits, I did think it was funny how everyone around the king was like, "We don't know what to do now... hey, let's ask Heinrich, we've got nothing to lose." Although of course it's sad too.
Also liked the line about how FW2 was all "dunno about going up against Austria and France BOTH?? too hard" and how Heinrich was the only one who remembered about going up against Austria and France and Russian, lol. Not that that was a good idea, exactly...
So I am not sure I parsed this correctly (and may have run into this gracious/ungracious translation error mildred notes) but, is it right that FW3 listened to him about domestic stuff but not about foreign policy at all? (I am pretty sure about the latter, but not about the former.)
Re: ~Ch 14-15
Date: 2020-05-23 08:03 am (UTC)Henckel his AD early in the 7 Years War (requested Transfer because of Kalckreuth but remained Heinrich's friend; Heinrich after his death supported his widow and Kids (hence, btw, also the reason why he organizes the wedding of the daugher)
Henckel von Donnersmarck the son: said son, wrote memoirs mostly dealing with the Napoleonic wars, but also containing a few old age Heinrich stories
Henckel the Grandson: published granddad's war time Diary and the letters of the Princes to Granddad
HvD the son's stories about Heinrich as an excentric old Gentleman were quoted/paraphrased by both Ziebura and Christian von Krockow in his Fritz and Heinrich double portrait, and they sounded affectionate there, but in the original there's an unmistakable note of contempt going with it, due to the occasional remarks like "no one would have believed that THIS was the brother of the great Friedrich, the hero of the Seven Years War", with his not wearing any manly uniforms but French ancien regime clothing, foppish wigs, and general Francophile cultural taste. (Why no, HvD Fils never met Fritz in person.) :(
Mind you, the wedding itself is another example of fraternal parallels, since it's Heinrich venting his autocratic vein but, due to him not being a monarch, in a way that's harmless and charming (except for the groom). You can bet that if anyone had dared to show up late at any of the weddings Fritz had arranged, not only would the wedding have gone ahead regardless, too, but there'd been hell to pay later.
Mind you, the stories are still good; HvD fils is also the source for Heinrich pretending not to speak German but when the hour was late and wine had been drunk would switch to "Das will ich Ihnen auch noch sagen" mid argument, for example. And it's a very generational reflecting the big cultural shift that had taken place. But still.
FW3: don't remember exactly, since I've only read that part once. But as far as I recall, FW3 didn't disagree with Heinrich's big three interior Reform Memoranda but didn't follow up on them, either, until Freiherr von Stein years later said the same Thing.
Re: ~Ch 14-15
Date: 2020-05-25 04:16 am (UTC)Ch 16: the end
Date: 2020-05-25 05:29 am (UTC)So, yeah, you were right that the best stuff is at the very end and it's depressing up until that point, but I'm not sorry I skimmed through the rest of it (even if none of the politics or military stuff took).
-Because I am such a Lehndorff stan, of course the most tragic (tragifarcical? farcitragedy?) was when Lehndorff came to visit and Heinrich was like "man, that was boring, all we could do was relive memories, which wasn't much fun." Poor Lehndorff! I guess they must not have had much in common at that point, though, so I get that... but still. *sparkly hearts Lehndorff*
-So I also thought it was hilarious how Marie de la Roche Aymon and Louis had this affair and everyone almost ended up dueling each other -- it's hilarious because, like the text says, she had to share her husband with Heinrich, after all! :P (She was the one who was the awesome character later in life, right?)
-"I think I can forget everything that has happened in the past twelve years here... I have illusions about the past." Well, I guess, points for being honest? But seriously, that was a pretty awful twelve years, I can see why, although before then wasn't exactly a bed of roses, he might choose to remember those over hte past twelve years.
-selenak, thank you for synopsizing the bit where Heinrich reads Wilhelmine's memoirs, because the translation was not good there and it's such a wrenching bit
-I had somehow forgotten by this point that Heinrich's name is actually Friedrich, like everyone else in the entire saga, lol!
But really, poor Heinrich. I feel like if he'd been incompetent that would have been one thing, but to be hyper-competent and not be able to use it, that just seems really awful.
I really enjoyed this, thank you
Re: Ch 16: the end
Date: 2020-05-25 06:51 am (UTC)Secondly, it always pays to look at what Heinrich is doing in addition to what he's saying. And simultanous to before, during and after this visit, he lets Lehndorff and his family live for free in his Berlin town residence. (Reason: Lehndorff had sold his own place in Berlin years ago, since he's been living mostly in East Prussia, but now the boys are grown up and starting in their careers and he wants to be close to them, but getting a house in late 1790s Berlin is awfully expensive, hence Heinrich to the rescue.) Also, he keeps writing to Lehndorff till the end of his life (Lehndorff outlives Heinrich). An essay in a painting catalogue about the Lehndorff family portrait even mentions Heinrich inviting him to Wusterhausen in 1800, which is after the cranky letter from 1799. So: comforting context.
(She was the one who was the awesome character later in life, right?)
Yes, she was the excentric old lady Fontane described, "the last survivor of the Prince Heinrich era" who still talked fondly about him. (And died herself a Rokoko death by cat bite and subsequent infection.)
I had somehow forgotten by this point that Heinrich's name is actually Friedrich, like everyone else in the entire saga, lol!
It's the reason why his tag at A03 is awfully long. For some reason, Wilhelmine by contrast was spared getting listed with all her first names, thankfully.
"I think I can forget everything that has happened in the past twelve years here... I have illusions about the past." Well, I guess, points for being honest? But seriously, that was a pretty awful twelve years, I can see why, although before then wasn't exactly a bed of roses, he might choose to remember those over hte past twelve years.
Quite. I mean, he only would have admitted it very begrudgingly, but if you'd asked him then to choose between living in the Fritz era (or eras, any of those 40 plus years) of his life versus living in the post Fritz years, it's clear what he'd have picked.
But really, poor Heinrich. I feel like if he'd been incompetent that would have been one thing, but to be hyper-competent and not be able to use it, that just seems really awful.
It makes me so angry when older writers like Pangels are like "..and then he deservedly died a bitter old man who wasted his life without anyone caring about him and he brought it on himself, too", because a) he died surrounded by people who cared, b) that he could not use all his abilities had not been his fault, and c) keeping all that frustration in mind, it wouldn't have been surprising if he'd been suicidal and misanthropic to the max, and he wasn't. He engaged with the present till the end (even if he was depressed about it), and he kept enjoying, as he always did, (French) theatre, literature and music.
Re: Ch 16: the end
Date: 2020-05-27 04:58 am (UTC)(but man, Ziebura, what about catering to my interests of gossipy sensationalism and also the romance with Lehndorff?? everyone should cater to those)
a) he died surrounded by people who cared, b) that he could not use all his abilities had not been his fault, and c) keeping all that frustration in mind, it wouldn't have been surprising if he'd been suicidal and misanthropic to the max, and he wasn't. He engaged with the present till the end (even if he was depressed about it), and he kept enjoying, as he always did, (French) theatre, literature and music.
Oh! Yes, I meant to comment on (a) as well -- I do really like how Ziebura makes it clear that in terms of fulfilling relationships he did have a bunch, and he loved and was loved (even if maybe those relationships were not necessarily romantic ones, except for the Comte). <3 And yeah, that's a good point that he was (very understandably) depressed sometimes, but he did engage with life.
And I was also going to say, he likes Gluck :D
Re: ~Ch 14-15
Date: 2020-05-23 10:26 am (UTC)Yeah, that was the best. I was totally going to point you to that if you didn't find it on your own! I also loved Heinrich's "Well, if it had been *me*, the groom would never have found me a virgin" line. Burn!
Also, I am so sympathetic, because if I were Heinrich, people would be hearing about this until I died.
I should have won the Greek prizeAlso liked the line about how FW2 was all "dunno about going up against Austria and France BOTH?? too hard" and how Heinrich was the only one who remembered about going up against Austria and France and Russian, lol. Not that that was a good idea, exactly...
Hahaha, yeah. Heinrich of all people knows you don't want to repeat that. Even Fritz didn't want a repeat!
Heinrich: But if you *need* to repeat it, I'm right here!
So I am not sure I parsed this correctly (and may have run into this gracious/ungracious translation error mildred notes) but, is it right that FW3 listened to him about domestic stuff but not about foreign policy at all?
With the caveat that this was my first time reading up on this subject and I was doing it in a language in which I'm very shaky, that's how I remember it. Heinrich told FW3 he needed to uncover and uproot corruption, and figure out what money was needed for what and where one could get it from, and he designed a whole system for the structure of the government (aka "the one where the monarch *doesn't* do everything personally from 3 am until 9 pm") and FW3 listened to at least some of it. But foreign policy not so much.
Re: ~Ch 14-15
Date: 2020-05-25 04:33 am (UTC)LOL!