cahn | Frederick the Great, discussion post 16

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frederick the great

Frederick the Great, discussion post 16

We have slowed down a lot, but are still (sporadically) going! And somehow filled up the last post while I wasn't looking!

...I was asked to start a new thread so that STDs could be discussed. Really! :D

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I took it to mean Fritz' behavior towards his siblings in general, and the critical depiction of Fritz as King (not of his decisions as monarch, of his behavior) in the memoirs. Don't forget, if you simply go by the Wilhelmine/Fritz correspondance and nothing else, then, their own big crisis aside, you've just sentences like when Wilhelmine's replies to his "let's commit suicide together" letter where in the cause of lifting his spirits she says among other things that all his family loves him and adores him, which, well, not so much. Also, after their reconciliation in the summer of 1746, Wilhelmine and Fritz go back to the old intense and affectionate tone, whereas her corresponding letters to AW show she felt scarred by the whole thing and it took her a while longer to go back to trusting Fritz completely again, which can be seen by the fact that when she finally talked about Marwitz (female) having that affair with the Margrave and basically blackmailing Wilhelmine on the terms of "if you don't make your brother give me my inheritance, I'm never leaving Bayreuth and will continue my affair with your husband", she confessed this to AW first and wanted his advice on whether or not to come clean to Fritz. (He did advise her to go ahead and tell Fritz, which turned out to be the correct thing to do.) This was after their reconciliation - in 1747 or 1748, even, I'm not sure which one - and that she asked her kid brother and was still insecure whether or not Fritz would help her or explode at her again is telling about the longer after effect.

(I think it's also telling that very late in the memoirs when she's describing the visit by Fritz & Co. en route to Straßburg, she after stating her amazement how AW has grown up etc. since last she saw him says that just so there is no confusion, from this point on "my brother" means AW, and "the King" is Fritz (who previously was "my brother" throughout). You bet that sentence was written at the height of the quarrel.)

Now, Ziebura says "modified", not "changed utterly", and by the 1750s, Wilhelmine did feel comfortable in her standing with Fritz again and during AW's last year of life was the one trying to achieve reconciliation etc., and Ziebura does point this out (also that Wilhelmine was the only sister who actually dared to plead AW's case to Fritz). But in terms of the big Firstborns crisis, the AW-Wilhelmine letters certainly do modify the picture solely gained by the Fritz-Wilhelmine ones.

That makes sense, thank you!

This was after their reconciliation - in 1747 or 1748, even, I'm not sure which one - and that she asked her kid brother and was still insecure whether or not Fritz would help her or explode at her again is telling about the longer after effect.

Wow, I had forgotten this. Poor Wilhelmine. Also, poor AW. (I just got to the part where SD is threatening to whip him if he doesn't intercede for the tall guy.) :/

Read 15 pages on a little more sleep but a raging headache. :/ They're celebrating Fritz and EC's wedding.

I'm now rethinking my speculations on FW and masturbation. Because the 1727 instructions to five-year-old AW's governor say the governors have to sleep next to him in case he needs anything, and in the very next paragraph, "although we don't need to worry about 'silent sins' yet, in a few years, don't tolerate it and do everything you can to prevent it, and in the meantime, no dirty talk in his presence."

And the 1738 governor instructions for Heinrich and Ferdinand go, "Sleep next to them every night in case they need anything," and in the next paragraph, "don't tolerate any silent sins, and no dirty talk during the day."

So why is 18-yo Fritz suddenly getting "sleep next to him every night" instructions for his governors in 1730? I'm now thinking they originally had orders to do this, a few years before, and then Fritz talked them into giving him some privacy (which would explain why he liked Keyserlingk so much in years to come), and FW was merely reiterating the instructions after Fritz and Peter got caught doing whatever it was they were doing.

Because the 1727 AW instructions and the 1738 Heinrich and Ferdinand instructions are almost verbatim the same, but Fritz's are rather different, and they emphasize "whether you're here [i.e. Potsdam], in Berlin, or on trips, sleep next to him every single night, and be responsible for his person." Which could read as, "And when I said every night when you were hired, I meant every. Single. Night. Not just the ones where his boyfriend isn't coming over."

Now, it could be that in 1727 FW thought that if you taught your son not to commit silent sins and set a good example with no dirty talk, that was sufficient, and then in 1730, finding out otherwise was another brick in the foundation of "wretched son is false to the core," or it could be that he intended Fritz supervised every night for no masturbating or midnight reading or anything, and Fritz talked his governors into giving him some space, until FW caught on.

I mean, for all we know, Fritz and Peter got caught reading French literature late at night. :P Judging by that Catt anecdote, which I don't remember if it's in the diary, Fritz was also having to sneak out of his room to read at night, until he almost got caught and had to stop. And we know Peter was a big reader.

My headcanon has always been that Fritz shared books if he could with Peter, and if not, told him what he was reading in that giant secret library of his that he'd gotten into debt for. Heck, I put that in "Lover": I missed late nights talking about literature with you, even whispering because your father would beat us if he found out, and He and royal page Keith had bonded over smuggled books, feeding their starved minds as best they could together.

So, who knows.

(I still think they got caught fooling around, though. :P Would love to have the complete text of that order from the archives.)

Edited 2020-08-28 03:10 (UTC)

OK, I didn't get that far but I think I'm close.

"if he cannot get along with my son in kindness, then I will probably find means to make Wilhelm obey"? He "wanted the child's own will to be broken from the start"? UGH. (I know, you're like "yeah, it's just FW." I keep forgetting that FW is... FW.)

Also, do you know what uses syntax and vocabulary simple enough for me to read? Wilhelm's letters! Woohoo, I can read at a 6-year-old level :D (I'm not sure most of the 6-year-olds I know would be able to write a letter that well, actually.)

:) Given Voltaire's crack in the anonymous pamphlet about Wilhelm only learning how to read and write when Fritz became King, he'd be glad to hear it!

More seriously, it has to be said that the "children need to learn to obey unquestioningly" part wasn't just FW, that was the general conviction of the era until Rousseau. Which is why the Mozart family biographer has a point when he says that Leopold Mozart might come across as the ultimate overbearing, micomanaging Dad to us, but in terms of his contemporaries, he was downright revolutionary as long as his children were still children. Also if you compare him with the teachers of other musical prodigies. (Looking at you, Herr Schmeling.) Hitting/spanking children was normal; Leopold never did, and in his "Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule" had firm opinions on how musical instruments should be taught, with the pupil understanding, not blindly obeying, being key. Also with all the travelling and teaching them he spent much more time with Wolfgang and Nannerl (until puberty struck, poor girl) than fathers were used to do at the era.

(Leopold as a parent to adult children is another matter, but there his favourite tactic was emotional blackmail of the "I remember when you kissed me on the nose as a little boy and promised you'd always take care of me in my old age, and now you'r hanging out with the Webers and giving them money which we gave you for your journey instead of moving on to Paris to conquer the musical scene there? SERIOUSLY? I am heartbroken!" type rather than FW style "you wretch, kiss my feet if you want to live!")

That scene never fails to make me flinch. All the more so because the guy reporting it seems to think he's reporting an adorable domestic scene with the royal family.

When reading the Sophie Charlotte biography and coming to the part where young FW hates his Latin lessons and flute lessons (yes, he had them), not to mention his dance lessons, I sighed, because you can see the "MY CHILDREN WILL NEVER HAVE TO DO THIS" forming in his head, followed by "why is my ungrateful oldest son not full of affection and gratitude to me that I'm sparing him this but wants to do all I hated? He must hate me!". So yes, for all we know, Peter and Fritz were just caught book sharing. (Which would explain why Peter just gets transferred and not punished or threatened with hellfire.)

Here's a thought: what if Sophie Charlotte had lived a few decades longer instead of dying young and in her 30s? It would have caught FW in a bind, because he was so much into respecting your parents, and he couldn't have objected if his mother at her court would have (openly, not in secret) provided Fritz with cultural opportunities.

Yeah, the most unusual part about FW isn't that he was brutal to his kids, it's that he was brutal to his kids for doing what most other noble/royal parents wanted their kids to do.

Normal kid: *doesn't want to study Latin*
Normal kid: *gets beaten*
Fritz: *eager to study Latin*
Fritz: *gets beaten*
Most parents: *would die to have bb!Fritz*

Btw,

cahn, I was rereading Zenna Henderson's short stories this week, and watching even the nicest teachers paddle the kids for misbehaving in the 1950s was a definite moment of "Oh, right, you could *do* that then."

"why is my ungrateful oldest son not full of affection and gratitude to me that I'm sparing him this but wants to do all I hated? He must hate me!"

Sigh.

FW really thinks he is God and created his offspring in his image.

Which would explain why Peter just gets transferred and not punished or threatened with hellfire.

Yeah, I keep going back and forth on what would get you transferred but not cashiered by FW. Not!Robert got pressured into helping with the escape attempt, then voluntarily fessed up and plea bargained, and he got the same deal Peter had six months earlier: dismissed as page, given a promotion to lieutenant, sent to a regiment in Wesel. (FW: "It worked so well the first time!" :P Though to be fair, what he actually wrote to not!Robert's new commander was, "He should be more honest than his brother the rogue.")

So Peter fessing up, probably not, not if Fritz continued to trust him and involve him in plans. But given that Fritz voluntarily and consistently in late 1730 said that escaping was his idea, he talked everyone else into it, and he didn't want his friends punished--well, whatever it was in January 1730 wasn't bad enough that FW felt the need to punish both parties like he did in November 1730. So I very much doubt, say, anal penetration was what Fritz and Peter got caught at. But whether it was book reading, kissing and fondling, or something else, it's very likely that Fritz took the blame, FW assumed the worst of his son, or both, and Peter didn't get the lion's share of FW's wrath.

I imagine whatever Peter said, he was careful to appease FW and also not to blame Fritz. Sth like, "I'm so sorry, I know I shouldn't have, I was weak, it won't happen again-"

FW: No, it won't, because you'll be in Wesel, far, far away from my wretched son.

Let's also remember that FW wasn't always as harsh as November 1730. On at least one previous occasion, he found out that Fritz had run up debts and he was like, "I'll pay them, I just wish he'd be honest and not sneak around." The final time, it was maximum sentences for everyone who had helped or even associated with Fritz in any way.

So just because Fritz failed to get Katte or Peter's sentences lightened by taking the blame on himself in late 1730, doesn't mean he wouldn't have been successful in early 1730.

And there's also: becoming a lieutenant is a promotion, true, but even leaving aside the distance from Fritz, it was apparently a very low-prestige regiment at the time.

All of which is to say, could have been some light fooling around (whether or not they passed it off as masturbation), could have been book reading, could have been something else. Koser thinks it was an escape plan.

I'e always questioned that on the grounds that surely FW would have reacted more harshly, but...he actually wasn't *that* harsh on August 6-August 9, after Fritz's attempt was discovered but before Peter's was. It was only when the escape plan turned out to have been coordinated across a large geographical area, to have been successful as far as at least one member was concerned, and to have involved England that FW started seeing conspiracies. And January 1730 is when that mass desertion conspiracy among the Potsdam Giants was uncovered. (I looked yet again for Kloosterhuis' 700-page "Lange Kerls" book, and I still can't find it cheaper than $136. Sigh. NO, self.)

So maybe Kloosterhuis is right, and FW has escape on his mind and is just separating Fritz from anyone he suspects might try to help, while tightening the guard on him.

FOOLING AROUND HEADCANON :P

he couldn't have objected if his mother at her court would have (openly, not in secret) provided Fritz with cultural opportunities.

Hmm. Could he have kept Fritz mostly away from her? How far does filial obedience to a legally powerless mother extend?

6 pages. Fritz is writing a very long poem to AW.

I tried to do more than 6. I stared very hard at the screen and went, "Work, brain! Work!" But my brain was too tired to work. :(

On the plus side, all week long, I kept to my goal of waking up ~8 am instead of ~noon, as I was doing until this week. On the minus side, I've done maybe 25 pages of German and 12 hours of work all week. #sleepdeprivation

Notes on the reading:

* Google dropped the first three quarters of a sentence, when AW is asking FW for permission to paint:

After all, painting was also his hobby and the only relaxation that he allowed himself other than hunting.

Rendered by Google as "the hunt indulged."

* Which leads me to: already in 1729 when this letter was written? I'd thought it was a late-in-life discovery, but admittedly I have never read a dedicated bio of FW. :P

* 15-yo Fritz has to cut the meat and serve it to his family: is this normal for a crown prince?

cahn can tell you what you already gleaned from the servants write-up: when doing historical beta for her fic, I had very little idea what normal etiquette was like at FW's court, because you can't just go applying Versailles etiquette, Fritz like his father invented his own etiquette and discarded what he didn't like, and I have no idea who's cutting and serving at FW's table. So I made some best guesses for "How I Survived", tried to be conservative, and hoped it would pass muster.

* I want to say "lol" at AW having the emotional intelligence to answer a question with a question, but it very much shows that he was afraid to give the wrong answer, and ugh.

* Also. AW turning pale at the finger-chopping joke before going, "You would never do that!" This is not a child who grew up in a stress-free environment!

Also, I can imagine Fritz silently thinking, To you, maybe.

THOSE KIDS.

* Ziebura citing the Voltaire to Madame Denis letter about the orange peel to support the claim that Fritz used people: oops! *checks publication date* 2006. I guess she just missed the scholarship on that one.

Whether or not she's right that Fritz might have been latching onto AW emotionally in Wilhelmine's absence, I'm also much more willing to excuse 1730s Fritz cold-bloodedly trying to survive an abusive situation than I am 1740s and beyond Fritz roleplaying the abuser.

* Speaking of using AW to survive abusive situations: why does SD care more about a random soldier than her own kid? Does she hate FW's favorite kid because marital warfare? Why is she so invested in a Potsdam Giant? Is it related to the English marriage somehow?

Yeah, and obviously what I already know about FW is coloring my response, but at least the translation says he was trying to break him, which I feel like might be a little less common? (Or maybe I'm just having flashbacks to fic discussion --

selenak, the bit about FW breaking his son in "Survived" was the product of several earlier drafts where mildred said I wasn't getting that part quite right. :) ) Of course that particular bit was Ziebura speaking, not FW himself, and she clearly is not exactly FW's biggest fan either.

, and watching even the nicest teachers paddle the kids for misbehaving in the 1950s was a definite moment of "Oh, right, you could *do* that then.

My parents (born in 1945 and 1947 respectively) still had their fingers hit by rulers by their teachers in school, so definitely still a thing in Germany in the 1960s, too.

(Whereas my generation was safe from this in school, though parents spanking their children was still considered an okay punishment. I mean, I wasn't, but a lot of people my age were.)

Meat-cutting: sorry, the only thing that immediately popped into my mind was that knights were supposed to do this for their ladies in the 1200s, which isn't useful in this context at all. However, if Frau von Kameke specifically says to the preacher that Fritz "had to" do this these last two days ("mußte"), and since he's entirely silent throughout, I bet it was meant as a punishment, or at least as an exercise in humility.

Incidentally,

cahn, a reminder: Frau von Kameke was much loved by Fritz who called her "Mama" (and made a point of greeting her thusly in the big post 7 Years War reception); it's also worth pointing out AW asks her, not SD, what "hanging" means, whether it hurts and whether you die of it. Oh, and she's depicted along with Wilhelmine and Amalie in Menzel's painting "Flute Concert at Sanssouci".

(ETA: no, got it wrong, looked it up again. Much loved "Mama" who is depicted at the flute concert and was hugged post 7 Years War was the Countess Camas. Sorry for the confusion./ ETA)

When exactly FW takes up painting: search me. The painting exhibited at Wusterhausen is from the 1730s, but that doesn't mean he didn't do it before. Certainly his health started its decline in the later 1720s, with the wheelchair getting its first use then, and this was something he could do while sitting or lying, even.

why does SD care more about a random soldier than her own kid? Does she hate FW's favorite kid because marital warfare? Why is she so invested in a Potsdam Giant? Is it related to the English marriage somehow?

I did wonder, too - why this soldier? And my current theory is this: if this happens when AW is a toddler, then Fritz, ca. 15, has just started to enter the phase where FW begins to openly admit he hates his kid. Also when the marital battle intensifies around anything connected to the English marriage project. Now here's this kid who it just turns out does have FW's approval and whom FW behaves downright indulgently towards. Maybe SD just wanted to test how far this indulgence goes. So the point wasn't this particular soldier, it was saving a soldier from hanging, since she knew how serious FW took his military punishments. If little AW could achieve this, then maybe he could achieve more in the future. After all, her children were her weapons in the marital battle.

Next question: why are Grumbkow & Seckendorff also having a go at little AW to plead for this guy? What's the angle for our enterprising duo? I mean, it doesn't serve the Imperial cause whether or not FW executes one of his Potsdam Giants. And it doesn't serve the cause of G & S's advancement, either. Maybe they, too, were curious and wanted to test what you could do via this kid?

Edited 2020-08-29 13:58 (UTC)

FW really thinks he is God and created his offspring in his image.

I think this is also why he had an easier time with the girls other than Wilhelmine (once it was clear she and Fritz were indivisible and she sided with SD in the big marriage battle). In as much as he paid any attention to them at all, that is, but he did write affectione letters to Charlotte and Friederike once they were married. (Of course, they from him pov did everything right - married without arguing whom they were supposed to, produced grandchildren.) Daughters were a different species and he never expected them to be like himself. It also explains why he initially took to AW, thereby creating a positive loop instead of a negative one, despite the fact that AW in the end wasn't much like FW. AW as toddler had just enough similarities for FW to believe that this was finally the kid he'd wanted to have all along, to wit, he enjoyed playing with soldiers and canons, he liked sports - to overlook that actually, their tempers couldn't be more differently. (Tiny Terror FW beats up cousin George, swallows golden shoelaces in protest and makes his teachers cry, kid AW's policy when interacting with adults seems to be to charm them, and far from being jealeous of other children, he's delighted about sharing rooms with Heinrich.

(I'm still not over adult AW in 1744, writing his "my life so far" retrospective for his newborn son, regarding four years old Heinrich moving in with him as the big event of 1730.)

Now granted, Tiny Terror FW was an only child (and as the one and only heir a very precious one in every sense) whereas AW was the spare to the heir and one of many siblings when he was born, but still, they were both given the "apple of the eye" treatment by the most powerful adults around them, and FW was raised with his cousins in a sibling-like situation for a while. (Resulting in him beating them up, where AW took to Heinrich and then Ferdinand with joy.)

All of which goes to show: FW had expectations of his kids but he also saw what he wanted to see. Unfortunately, it was clear early on that little Fritz' interests were not his interests, while the mere fact little AW liked some of the same things he'd done was enough to further the (for AW fortunate) misunderstanding that they were alike and he'd finally gotten his replica.

If Sophie Charlotte had lived: Hmm. Could he have kept Fritz mostly away from her? How far does filial obedience to a legally powerless mother extend?

Good question. The 19th century Prussian historians think he didn't like his mother ("not a good Christian"), as he despised all she loved and through his life rejected what she had valued, but Barbara Beuys does reproduce enough letters and actions from young FW to demonstrate that's not exactly true. His grandmother may have noticably gone from "OMG how cute tiny FW is!" (in the ballet when he was six) to "his father adores him" (when FW was twelve) in her letters, but young FW when visiting Brussels for the first time took the trouble to hunt down some paintings for his mother and to describe others to her which he'd seen because he knew she loved them. These were baroque opulent paintings with pagan subjects, not religious stuff. Bear in mind that even at F1's court, where the militarisation hadn't happened yet and where the genders weren't that strictly separated, young FW still had no reason to interact with his mother on more than official court occasions once he was a teenager, and yet he still sought out her company. (Mind you, of course Sophie Charlotte hadn't done any more hands-on raising than the other princesses of the era - that had been Madame de Roucoulles.)

There's also my old speculation that FW accepting SD kicking him out of bed instead of committing outright marital rape, and taking the punch from Frau von Pannewitz instead of either forcing her or punishing her for her rjection might have had to do with the fact his mother had been a strong-willed lady who got to set the rules in her own marriage. (F1 famously was only allowed to come to Charlottenburg - once he'd given her the place - if she explicitly invited him to, and he abided by that. )

And FW really was sentimental about the whole family concept, perhaps precisely because h'd been an only child. He wanted an adoring wife and many children surrounding him. So I don't think he'd been emotionally capable of, say, practically banishing his mother if Sophie Charlotte had lived, or forbidding his children to visit her. Assuming she wouldn't have moved back to Hannover (or gone to England) after F1's death, but would have stayed in Prussia, and would have maintained her own little court at Charlottenburg, I really have no idea how he'd have responded to her encouraging the grandkids culturally. Because as opposed to his wife, him trying to forbid her to do this would presumably just have resulted in a raised eyebrow and her doing it anyway. She definitely would not have felt threatened or intimdated, because he had no social power over her.

Another question is: what would SD have done? Because she wasn't a good mother-in-law even when it was no question of her oldest daughter-in-law being her rival, even when Fritz had made it clear from the get go she was the true first lady of Prussia. This was not a woman easily putting up with competition for the Queen spot. And Sophie Charlotte wouldn't just have been any Queen Mother. She had been one of the most praised queens of Europe in her time, despite of her kingdom being thought of as little more than a joke. Both when she was on the marriage market and after, her beauty was heralded. She was praised for making Berlin "Athens on the Spree" long before Fritz' time. The great Leipniz raved about her intellect. Young Sophie Charlotte had been to Versailles, even, while SD despite her English marriage fixation had never seen more than Hannover and Brandenburg. In short, it would be like competing with royal glamour personified, while simultanously your husband starts his austerity program.

However, if Frau von Kameke specifically says to the preacher that Fritz "had to" do this these last two days ("mußte"), and since he's entirely silent throughout, I bet it was meant as a punishment, or at least as an exercise in humility.

That's what I was thinking, but I wanted to check. Especially the being silent part: I had to do lots of things when I was a kid that weren't punishments or humiliation, just doing what my parents told me. But in the absence of you knowing this was a standard thing for princes, I'm going with "FW is mad at him."

Btw,

cahn, you may have looked at the German and figured this out, but I'm preeeetty sure FW didn't bake the apples himself. :P He himself presented the baked apples to the guest.

(ETA: no, got it wrong, looked it up again. Much loved "Mama" who is depicted at the flute concert and was hugged post 7 Years War was the Countess Camas. Sorry for the confusion./ ETA)

I was about to look up if somehow they were the same person in different marriages! Thank you for clarifying.

Jsyk, Countess Camas has a correspondence with Fritz in the Trier archive, which I haven't checked to see if it has anything interesting.

When exactly FW takes up painting: search me. The painting exhibited at Wusterhausen is from the 1730s, but that doesn't mean he didn't do it before.

So what I was remembering, in addition to my general impression that it was a couple years before he died, was a letter exchange you reported between Fritz and Wilhelmine, where Fritz is telling Wilhelmine that FW has taken up painting. Which means it would have to be 1732 or later. I turned up the comment in question, and sure enough, you said "around 1737":

And, around 1737:

W: Have just heard rumors that Mom and Dad have done a 180%. She's supposed to have gone religious while he's supposed to have discovered music. What the hell?

F: Don't worry, it's not true. Mom's no more religious than before and Dad has discovered painting, not music. That can still be our thing.

Since that jives with my 1737/1738 impression, I'm surprised to see Ziebura implying he was into painting in 1727.

Another interesting bit of chronology: in spring of 1739, Fritz sends AW some Wolff as consolation for having to put up with sick Dad. Ziebura says that AW had to keep FW from finding out that he was reading. (Whether this is a recorded fact or an inference, I'm not sure.) In October 1739, Fritz writes to Suhm that FW has now spent three hours reading Wolff and is retracting the banishment on pain of death and offering Wolff a pension!

Did AW read some Wolff at Fritz's suggestion and then tell FW that it was full of things he would agree with, and FW decided to give it a try on the basis of his favorite, not very bookish, son liking it?

So the point wasn't this particular soldier, it was saving a soldier from hanging, since she knew how serious FW took his military punishments. If little AW could achieve this, then maybe he could achieve more in the future. After all, her children were her weapons in the marital battle.

Ahhh, okay, that makes sense! Yeah, I bet that's it. Ditto Grumbkow and Seckendorff, who are always looking for ways to get what they want out of FW.

My mother (born 1957) went to a school where there was a paddle hanging up in the classroom, but it was only for really *really* bad misbehavior, and she, like the majority of kids (I gather), made it through her entire schooling without ever experiencing any corporal punishment.

Whereas my generation was safe from this in school, though parents spanking their children was still considered an okay punishment. I mean, I wasn't, but a lot of people my age were.

Same, no corporal punishment in schools, but parents could do it. Mine did, in the 80s and 90s, but quite mildly. It was more of a shame punishment than a pain one. I remember one occasion when I was 5 and got spanked, and I actually protested, "But that didn't even hurt!" when my mother was done and told me to go stand and face the wall.

And she rolled her eyes, said, "All right, come back here," and then administered a couple more swats that actually stung for a few seconds. As I walked off to my time-out, I felt satisfied that at least she had done it right.

Which tells you how little it hurt! And also that it was intended to, just a little.

I'm not saying I would endorse this, but FW it was not.

at least the translation says he was trying to break him, which I feel like might be a little less common?...Of course that particular bit was Ziebura speaking, not FW himself

No, "broken" was FW speaking. Eigenhändig (in his own hand) to boot!

6. Weil er auch einen Kopf hat, wie die Kinder alle haben, so muss dieser beizeiten gebrochen werden.

He also used "broken" to describe the desired state of Fritz's heart in the minutes immediately following Katte's execution. (Broken and therefore hopefully susceptible to being guided back onto the proper religious path by the preacher who was to be standing by at the execution.)

And yes, *that*, even at the time, was weird. Pace Preuss, FW wasn't a typical "deutscher Hausvater", either in his goals or in his methods. Here's how I think 18th century fathers stacked up:

- Expecting blind obedience beyond what we would consider healthy now: normal.

- Corporal punishment: varied.

- Micromanaging your kid's life and trying to break his will so that he never does anything he wants even when you're not around: weird.

- Threatening to kill your kid: WTF???

- Actually killing your kid: Peter the Great.

the bit about FW breaking his son in "Survived" was the product of several earlier drafts where mildred said I wasn't getting that part quite right. :)

With this part, I think it was less about not getting it right and more about me trying to help with the arc of the story. Since Fredersdorf has heard about the execution and met Fritz during the imprisonment, he can't exactly think everything is sunshine and roses between FW and Fritz. But the point of writing the first Christmas was for him to experience the dysfunction at close hand and realize just how bad it really is. And there are little things like SD ranting in front of the servants and FW keeping track of candle usage, but it occurred to me that a good major realization for Fredersdorf to have would be to go from believing that things were bad between FW and Fritz, but that a bunch of the conflicts were one-offs, the product of FW's temper--Fredersdorf giving him the benefit of the doubt and believing he does things he regrets--to Fredersdorf realizing that FW is actually trying to break Fritz: that hurting his oldest son isn't a bug, but a feature. And that's where Fredersdorf starts having second thoughts about whether this is what he signed up for.

The one where I felt maybe we needed to acknowledge FW's parenting wasn't as abnormal then as it is now was when you had the kids not speaking unless spoken to at the table, and Fredersdorf taking that as a sign something was wrong. Whereas to me, especially when your parents are monarchs, that feels way more normal.

Actually, you've read Farmer's Boy, right? I think Almanzo's father makes a good contrast with FW here.

The children have to do an adult's work on the farm at the age of 8 or whatever.

They get whipped for infractions.

They're not allowed to speak at the table unless spoken to.

Remember the last scene? Almanzo's father actually asks him what he thinks about being apprenticed and what kind of career he wants for himself, and Almanzo's shocked that he gets to have an opinion about his own future.

We find out in later books and/or Laura's letters that Almanzo's dad had the right to keep him on the farm and collect all his earnings until he was twenty-one, but Mr. Wilder actually gave his sons their independence at age 18 and let them take jobs, move out, keep their own money, etc.

And, Almanzo and his father have a good rapport.

Now, how this played out in real life, who knows. Laura clearly glamorized Pa and made Ma look worse in at least some respects than she was. But the point is that corporal punishment, "children should be seen and not heard," and children's futures being decided by their parents might have been normal then, but the kind of fear and hatred you get between Fritz and FW, or, say, Bullet and John Tillerman, isn't inevitable. Because Mr. Wilder on the one hand is capable of saying, "Everyone gets up at 5 am to go out to the fields, and you work diligently until I say it's time to eat," to his children, but also, "If Almanzo's heart's not in it, there's no point in forcing him into a career as a farmer. Let him go apprentice in the city," to his wife. Which is not an FW thing to do!

Or, from (totally fictional) Outlander, Jamie speaking: "My father whipped me as often as he thought I needed it, and a lot oftener than I thought I did. But I didna cower when he spoke to me. And I dinna think young Rabbie will lie in bed with his wife one day and laugh about it.

“He’s right; the lad’s his own son, he can do as he likes. And I’m not God; only the laird, and that’s a good bit lower down. Still…”

So that's why I think when the Hohenzollern kids are actively cringing around their parents in "Survived", it's a good clear signal of abusiveness even by the standards of the time.

And Fritz not saying *anything* during that one historical meal where he had to cut the meat is a bit different, in that it's a larger gathering of 21 people, where many different conversations would have been happening as everyone talked to the people sitting next to them (like Fritz and Suhm during the infamous forced intoxication episode). In contrast to a family-only meal, where I assume the adults talk and the kids wait to be addressed.

selenak, tell me if you disagree with any of my take on this. I speculate and extrapolate a lot in my betaing of historical mores.

Edited 2020-08-30 00:27 (UTC)

Daughters were a different species and he never expected them to be like himself.

Exactly. Much like the SD-Wilhelmine dynamic, vs. SD and Fritz.

AW as toddler had just enough similarities for FW to believe that this was finally the kid he'd wanted to have all along, to wit, he enjoyed playing with soldiers and canons, he liked sports - to overlook that actually, their tempers couldn't be more differently.

FW *definitely* latched onto superficials here. I mean, the kid that you're worried about being soft and effeminate is sticking to his guns in the face of increasing pain, humiliation, and fear of death. If that isn't a will of iron, I don't know what is.

And FW really was sentimental about the whole family concept, perhaps precisely because h'd been an only child. He wanted an adoring wife and many children surrounding him. So I don't think he'd been emotionally capable of, say, practically banishing his mother if Sophie Charlotte had lived, or forbidding his children to visit her.

Oh, very true, and good point.

I really have no idea how he'd have responded to her encouraging the grandkids culturally. Because as opposed to his wife, him trying to forbid her to do this would presumably just have resulted in a raised eyebrow and her doing it anyway. She definitely would not have felt threatened or intimdated, because he had no social power over her.

That is really interesting. But suppose it weren't FW, but someone less into respecting their parents. What would the actual consequences have been if he'd decided to physically keep his kids away from her and say that they were only allowed to carry out their military duties, attend church, and study the administration and smattering of history that he authorized? Because there's de jure power, and then there's de facto power. Who's on her side if he locks the kids away from her?

I guess it's the same as my question of "If Fritz had divorced EC, who would have *made* him get married again?"

Even today, at least in the US, parents have the right to keep their kids away from the grandparents, short of a court order (how that works depends on the state). I don't know about Germany.

But I agree with you that FW's personality would have led him to have a great deal of trouble defying Mom's wishes, in much the same way as he gave Dad the lavish funeral before beginning the reign of austerity. And I don't know how that would have played out in this AU.

Maybe it would have worked out better for poor Fritz and Wilhelmine. :(

what would SD have done? Because she wasn't a good mother-in-law even when it was no question of her oldest daughter-in-law being her rival, even when Fritz had made it clear from the get go she was the true first lady of Prussia. This was not a woman easily putting up with competition for the Queen spot. And Sophie Charlotte wouldn't just have been any Queen Mother.

In short, it would be like competing with royal glamour personified, while simultanously your husband starts his austerity program.

Oh, man. But Sophie Charlotte's presumably behind the English marriage, right? Is it possible they just become allies in the face of FW's crazy, and SC makes it so SD can have more glamor at her own court?

she wasn't a good mother-in-law even when it was no question of her oldest daughter-in-law being her rival, even when Fritz had made it clear from the get go she was the true first lady of Prussia.

How much of that was because she despised her daughters-in-law, though? How would she have reacted to Mina as Fritz's wife? (Not a rhetorical question.)

(I'm still not over adult AW in 1744, writing his "my life so far" retrospective for his newborn son, regarding four years old Heinrich moving in with him as the big event of 1730.)

I got to that yesterday, and I'm glad you prepared me, because that was really something else! And she does actually say that he doesn't mention either Ferdinand's birth or Fritz's escape and imprisonment. It's not just that she didn't quote them for us, which I think had been a point of doubt before.

Edited 2020-08-30 01:28 (UTC)

Oh, speaking of meal customs, something I had been wondering during my historical beta and fic-writing pastimes of recent months: which palace would Christmas 1732 have taken place in? Afaik, it's too late in the year for Wusterhausen and Monbijou.

If this is in the memoirs...I'm going to do a close reading of them when I get to studying French, I swear!

Oh, right, I've been meaning to ask this!

Wilhelmine's younger sister Charlotte joined in with equal enthusiasm, delivering with relish a description of just how bad she smelled.

This is based on a quote that's in both MacDonogh and Blanning, but in none of my digital copies of Wilhelmine's memoirs, in English or French as far as I and my search function can tell. They can't both be making this up, and it could easily have been bowdlerized, for lo:

MacDonogh: Charlotte was even nastier: she claimed the duke’s daughter ‘stank like rotting flesh’ and accused her of having a good ten or twelve fistulas.

Blanning: One of his sisters announced at the dinner table in his hearing that she had visited her prospective sister-in-law one morning when she was performing her ablutions only to find that she smelled so rank that it had taken her breath away. “She must have a dozen or so anal fistulas, that’s the only possible explanation,” his sister added.

Is this in the German edition?

This one's for

cahn. Sometime while 100% of my computer time was being eaten up by fic writing and betaing, and I was falling increasingly behind on comments (I'm slowly chipping away), I ran across a map that was basically what I'd been wanting to show you for a year now. It's a bit better than the ones I've shown you before.

This is 1740, right before Fritz invades, and it's worth looking at the differences between then and now.

Taken from Wikipedia.

Note the font and color on Finland. It's not an independent country; it's part of Sweden. And not all the Finns were happy with that.

Two years later, in 1742, there was a brief attempt to make it into an independent kingdom. A bunch of Finns wanted independence, and Elizaveta of Russia, who was currently occupying it during her war with Sweden, was toying with the idea of setting up a buffer state between her and Sweden, as part of the resolution of that war.

So a meeting of the Finnish Diet elected future (P)Russian Pete, who at this point is still HolsteinPete, only 14 years old, as the future king of Finland. The meeting was led by the commander of the Russian forces occupying Finland: none other than the James Keith, Scottish Jacobite in exile in Russia, who later joins Fritz, becomes Field Marshal, and dies at Hochkirch. And is later fanboyed by Mitchell's editor Bisset.

This effort fizzles out, though.

Elizaveta decides she'd rather have Peter for her own heir.

Simultaneously as part of the negotiations between Sweden and Russia, the Swedes decide they want Peter as the heir to their king.

Elizabeth has the biggest guns, so she gets HolsteinPete, who becomes (P)Russian Pete.

She gives Finland back to the Swedes, no more prospect of independence for them. No real independence until after the Russian Revolution in 1917/1918.

It was an exciting couple of months for 14-yo HolsteinPete!

Also note Lorraine, which is kinda in limbo in 1740. Remember that after the War of the Polish Succession, Stanislaw II Leszczynski of Poland, father of Louis XV's wife Marie Leszczynska, had to give up Poland. He got Lorraine in return, which was given up by FS, MT's husband, in return for France's recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction and FS as future Holy Roman Emperor.

So in 1740, Lorraine has a ruling duke living there, Stanislaw (whom Voltaire and Émilie will hang out with), and an honorary duke living in Vienna, FS, now part of the house of Habsburg-Lorraine. But as part of the 1737 treaty, the idea was that Stanislaw, after he died, would pass on Lorraine to the kingdom of France, through his daughter Marie, since he had no sons. So France is kinda considering Lorraine its own already, though it won't officially annex it until 1766, when Stanislaw dies. So the red line designating the HRE in the 1740 map still includes Lorraine.

Note the little purple spot on the Dutch border. That's Cleves, owned by Prussia, where Wesel is located and where Peter Keith escaped to the Netherlands from. And from where Fritz was sent back to Brandenburg under very close guard with orders to avoid any Hanover-controlled territory (you can see how very precisely they had to thread a needle there) and to kill him if any rescue attempts were made en route.

Notice also Saxony, Silesia, Bohemia, and Moravia, where almost all the Silesian War action takes place.

Notice also why Fritz was so interested in getting Ottoman military support during the Seven Years' War. (He failed.)

It definitely is. The entire uncut passage in the German edition, translated by yours truly into English:

The Queen steered the conversation towards the future Princess Royal while we were having supper. "Your brother," she said while looking at me, "is inconsolable about this engagement, and justly so, for she is exceedingly stupid, can only reply with "yes" or "no" to everything, and laughs while doing so in such a silly fashion that one wants to vomit."
"Oh!" my sister Charlotte said, "Your Majesty doesn't even known all her good qualities yet. I attended her getting dressed one morning, and I had to hold my breath, because she smelled like something rotten; she must have at least ten to welve fistulas, otherwise I can't explain it. I also noticed that she's grown mishapenly; her skirt has been padded on one side, and one hip sits higher than the other."
I was very amazed about these speeches, which were held in front of the servants and even in front of my brother. I saw that he blushed and that the words hit him in a sensitive spot. Immediately after supper, he withdrew. I followed suit.

Poor EC. Needless to say, there was nothing wrong with her figure (as even unlovoing bridgegroom Fritz observed, and the stinking is also invented. That she was very shy at this stage and only replied with yes and no, otoh, is reported by other parties (and who wouldn't be, getting thrown into that family), and we know how her efforts to become a better conversationalist ended up annoying Lehndorff and Sophie von Voss who complained about her boring talk instead. :( :( :(

Edited 2020-08-30 03:26 (UTC)

Oh, man, that got extremely bowdlerized! Thank you. Our version has:

"Your brother," said she to me, looking closely at him, "is in despair at being obliged to marry her, and not unreasonably : she is a downright fool ; to all that is said to her she replies yes or no, accompanied by a foolish laugh inexpressibly displeasing." I was astonished at this conversation, which was carried on in presence of the servants, and especially as my brother was also present.

Not even any vomiting!

Maybe I should get my hands on the German edition. My German could always use a little more practice. :P

Can you give me the publication details of yours, so I end up with the right one?

Poor EC indeed.

"Inexpressibly displeasing" instead of "makes me want to vomit" and censoring the entire Charlotte-authored slander sounds like someone did not like their royal ladies mentioning bodily functions, to put it mildly. The edition I used was the one put up on German Amazon Kindle for free, here.

(I also have a paperback edition, but that's the cut down version which leaves out most of the post marriage stuff anyway.)

They were in the main Berlin town palace. Wilhelmine mentions arrving at Berlin while her father was still at Potsdam, though the rest of the family minus Fritz were in Berlin. As far as I recall from all the biographies, they always spent the Winter months in the Berliner Stadtschloss. That one was utterly destroyed in WWII. (No wonder, since it had a central city location.) In its place, the GDR then built the "Palast der Republik". For which a lot of Asbest was used, and thus they ended up with a poisonous building, which is why post reunification it was first closed and then torn down. Then, after much debate, the old Hohenzollern palace was rebuild, which btw I was totally against, because there are such a lot of other things you could have spend that money on, and it's not like Berlin is lacking in palaces anyway. At least they're using it for the Humboldt Forum.

This reminds me: ever since Ziebura's Heinrich biography mentioned that Heinrich's Berlin town palace (which he hardly lived in, since it wasn't even finished pre 7 Years War, then it was destroyed after the second occupation of Berlin, then when it was restored his main residence had become Rheinsberg and he'd given it to Mina to live in, though he did occupy one of the wings (and she the other) when he was in Berlin for the winter) had post WWII become the first building used by the Alaexander-von-Humboldt-Universität (not to be confused with the above mentioned Humboldt Forum), I meant to take a photo for you two, and I did on my recent trip. It's this:

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