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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is in the running for most awesome explanation :) Maybe it was just... what... snarky people did back then? accuse people of having STDs, just for fun??

Well, if you're young Voltaire, you can also accuse them of incest. Remember, young Voltaire's first stint in the Bastille came when he wrote satiric poetry charging that the Regent of France, Philippe D'Orleans (son of Liselotte and her very gay husband of the same name), had sex with his favourite daughter. I know David Bodanis (of the Voltaire and Émilie biography) added "it was likely true", but Jean Orieux (of the big Voltaire biography) does not think so, and while both Bodanis and Orieux have their weaknesses in German history, I trust Orieux to know his stuff in French history more than Bodanis. (For what's worth, German wiki agrees with Orieux.) Anyway, Philippe D'Orleans' reaction to young Voltaire trash talking him is very Philippe II.: first the stint in the Bastille, then he and his daughter visit the premiere of Voltaire's first drama Oedipe (the daughter even went on to watch more performances) and Philippe gives Voltaire a gold medal and 1200 livres as a present.

...compared to "he totally does it with his daughter", Fritz got of lightly with the "he's a bottoming Potsdamite" taunt, I'd say, but then I'm not an 18th century contemporary.

, how on earth Fritz would have been satisfied with Heinrich buying him Meseberg as technically satisfying the terms of the conditions

Well, the basic idea of buying Meseberg (which wasn't just the palace but considerable estates) for Kaphengst according to Ziebura was to make him financially independent, which if Kaphengst had any idea about how to run an estate and any restraint whatsoever it would have done. I see the wiki footnote compares the gift to Fritz giving Fredersdorf Zernikow; that comparison shows of course how terrible Kaphengst was, because Meseberg is where Germany puts its foreign guests of state today; Zernikow was and is still a country house. And the estate was then considerably smaller. Yet Fredersdorf managed to make it thrive, big time.

The thing that makes *me* doubt is, as I've alluded to, Fritz taking Heinrich's defiance lying down

Just idly speculating here: as long as Heinrich keeps having these money spending boyfriends like Kaphengst, he'll also be dependent on Fritz. If 1774 is a correct date, Heinrich has in the last four years had great success in his Russia trips, proving that he's not just a good general, he's a good diplomat. He's got a good international reputation (see also the Poles considering him as King in 1764 and Catherine wanting him to become her satrap in Wallachia). And Fritz was paranoid about "princes of the blood" (read: his brothers) getting uppity already in his 1752 political testament, at a point when Heinrich hadn't done anything other than mouth off and was without any reputation abroad.

So maybe he had mixed feelings about the entire Kaphengst situation. On the one hand, the man is clearly no good for Heinrich on either the personal or the professional level, and a potential danger in case young not yet FW2 dies and so do his even younger children. On the other, the one thing marring Heinrich's general good reputation abroad is that he has these extravagant favourites (see Frau Bielke writing to Catherine in 1766 in her "pity he didn't marry you back then" letter about "the rumors darkening his fame", and the French courtiers who meet him when he finally makes it to Paris being surprised because they heard about the "dominated by his favourites" thing and didn't expect him to be smart and determined); and during their terse 1746 late "first you don't talk to me for six months, now you want me to let you go on the Grand Tour?" letter exchange Fritz wrote that the one thing Heinrich needs him for is to bail him out with his money spending romances. So the existence of Kaphengst also gives Fritz the upper hand over Heinrich, at least in his own mind.

This might actually have contributed to emotionally tone-deaf Fritz thinking that Darget would be perfectly happy with a royal poem about his imaginary sex life! After all, Algarotti was happy with his! Darn ungrateful readers.

We can add Catt getting Fritz "generously" playing Cyrano for him, and Lucchesini getting regaled by Fritz reading the entire Palladion to him, and the poetry written for Catt. (Luccesini probably decided to never ever tell Fritz about a single affair of his right then and there.)

And yes, I'm so glad I'm nowhere near Fritz' court. For any number of reasons.

Forgot to add above, re: Lehndorff - right, so he heard it from Heinrich's secretary. I probably subconsciously substituted Ludwig Wreech in my memory because Lehndorff got on very well with him. Mind you, now I'm imagining at least some of Heinrich's staff keeping Lehndorff updated on Heinrich and his circle because they low key ship Lehndorff/Heinrich and/or figure he's a safe ear to vent their frustration with the favourite du jour to.

My review.

Thoughts partly prompted by my reading the Beuys biography, and partly by earlier discussions: so, we have FW, son and grandson of two ladies who weren't just smart and determined but actually in charge and/or dominating in their respective domains, and son of a man who aside from pushing to be King instead of "just" Prince Elector and aside from the (admittedly immense) conflict with his father about Stepmom and the suspicion of murder prefered compromise, and definitely abided by the rules his wife set in terms of their relationship no matter whether you agree with Beuys or not on the validity of the French ambassador anecdotes. It doesn't seem to be a big leap to assume that the bad opinion FW had of the female sex in general (and promptly transmitted to his sons), which Wilhelmine reports in her memoirs early on, his "my way or nothing" determination and celebration of manliness and as much all masculine company as possible were all in reaction to this, as much as his austerity programm was in reaction to everyone else's baroque opulence. (While the last one was of course also due to the dire necessity of restoring broke Prussia's finances, the former are textbook backlash of privileged masculinity going toxic, no?)

However, I wonder whether two more things aren't also due to this upbringing, in this case not actions against it but, despite himself, following it. If our speculation that SD stopped having sex with him post August 1730 (as indicated by the lack of pregnancies thereafter as well as FW for the first time straying and going - unsuccessfully - after another woman) is correct, then he doesn't seem to have, as the euphemism for marital rape goes, tried to force his marital rights. And we do know he did not make Frau von Pannewitz pay for rejecting and punching him. Now in the later case this might have been partly because by his own standards he was clearly in the wrong there and she was behaving as a good Christian wife (tm) should, but then FW in other matters was entirely capable of overriding his own standards (ask whipped for nothing Doris Ritter), especially when angry. So I'm wondering whether the fact that in both cases, he accepted the women's right to say no to sex wasn't due to some inner buried standard from his youth.

And then there's the fact he didn't divorce SD, or locked her up. Much as she hated him, she really dreaded the divorce prospect (not least due her own backstory with her mother), which we know from letters. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying FW should be congratulated for NOT doing awful things when he did do so many other awful things. I'm just curious about the factors that might have caused him drawing the line there. A Protestant divorce, unlike a Catholic annulment, would not have illegitimized his male offspring. SD's father did it to her mother while still keeping future G2 as heir without a problem. And from his pov, certainly his life would have been easier - and the chances of him being the sole influence on his son(s) greater - if, after several years of marital battle showed SD would never give up her English alliance idea - if he'd have done the despote thing of putting her in some remote castle somewhere. (Küstrin or Stettin come to mind.) Again, see SD's father, and see also, for that matter, Wilhelmine's father-in-law doing just this to his wife. Yes, SD didn't offer him the excuse of adultery, but he already thought (correctly) she was conspiring against him with foreign amabassadors, and this is FW; he certainly could have done it without anyone in his own country making much of a protest. (I assume brother G2 might have done a token protest, but I don't see him going to the baricades for her.) Even when he's ranting at Fritz during the August 1731 submission and painting a "what if" scenario, Wilhelmine is the one getting the imaginary prison away from sun or moon. SD gets unspecifically made very unhappy. Now both daughter and wife are in his complete social power... but I think the difference is that daughters aren't covered by childhood impressions. Wives and mothers are. Maybe that's the difference?

Brought to you by me watching one more Disney film due to having one month access to Disney plus.

Well, why not, given what Disney did to the Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Little Mermaid, both truly tragic stories in the original. And those are just the animated movies.

Funny animal sidekick: Biche, of course. (Sorry, other dogs.) Biche arrives several years too early, historical speaking, but never mind history, it's Disney. Folichon can come, too. Katte probably has his own funny animal sidekick, a horse.

"I want" song: Fritz early on, wanting music, travel, literature and not as much chicanery as a Disney movie will allow to be shown.

The villain: Sorry, Grumbkow and Seckendorf. This is Disney, which means Fritz' bio dad can't be so awful that the tearful reconciliation doesn't work. Therefore, FW's worst actions (those that survive into Disney-dom, that is) are retconned to be your actions, on behalf of MT's Dad the Emperor Charles, who gets transformed into an ominous shadowy supervillain hardly seen and out to destroy Prussia. Grumbkow & Seckendorf do most of the on screen villainous action by manipulating:

The ambigous character: FW, who of course does not have Katte executed but realises the truth at the last moment so Katte can be saved from beheading and Fritz freed by a valiant team effort, since the executioner works for G & S. Cue tearful "I love you, son!" reconciliation and all the Hohenzollern hugging and exclaiming "family is everything!". In the tag scene, we'll see young Fritz declaring he'll deal with the Evil Austrian Empire behind it all in the sequel.

Villain death by falling from somewhere high: Grumbkow and Seckendorf, in a duel with Fritz and Katte in the grand action finale on the walls of Küstrin

Love story: Disney's first movie with an official gay couple, if made today/slightly into the future. If we're talking golden age Disney, they'll probably go for Fritz/Doris Ritter and Katte/Wilhelmine.

Big action sequence other than the finale: Fritz' almost escape, beefed up to a hair-raising escape riding sequence only stopped at the very last minute by Grumbkow shouting they have Katte.

Big Villain song: G-S-Emperor trio "No power but mine/That boy must die!"

Big dance sequence: the Prussian soldiers exercising gets transformed into something like the opening sequence of West Side Story. FW looks on with a beaming smile.

Hee! This was fun.

I have to admit I'm now imagining the even more unhistorical version where Fritz's real dad is dead, and FW is the scheming uncle who gets thrown off a cliff and torn apart by hyenas at the end, just for my own personal satisfaction. But yours is much more like what Disney would actually put together!

I'm still laughing at Katte's sidekick horse.

Villain death by falling from somewhere high: Grumbkow and Seckendorf, in a duel with Fritz and Katte in the grand action finale on the walls of Küstrin

I'm in favor! They can land in the Oder and their bodies be carried far, far away.

Fritz + Katte forever.

Big dance sequence: ~~the Prussian soldiers~~

Potsdam Giants! :D

ETA: Biche arrives several years too early, historical speaking

Worth pointing out that Fritz reused dog names! I don't know that he reused Biche specifically, but he definitely did Alcmene, and if the 19th century traveler who could still read the now weathered doggy gravestones is to be trusted, others as well.

Edited 2020-07-23 18:51 (UTC)

If our speculation that SD stopped having sex with him post August 1730 (as indicated by the lack of pregnancies thereafter as well as FW for the first time straying and going - unsuccessfully - after another woman) is correct, then he doesn't seem to have, as the euphemism for marital rape goes, tried to force his marital rights.

*nod* The lack of pregnancies could be due to reduced fertility, but the not getting any, if we're correct, does suggest that she said no and he respected that, at least eventually. Because even if she was fully menopausal, Old Testament God let Sarah have a late-in-life pregnancy, so even if FW didn't believe in non-reproductive sex, he could have rationalized sex with a post-menopausal woman if he wanted to force the issue.

The last kid being born just 2.5 months before the big escape attempt did make me suspicious once you pointed it out.

Hmm. Looking at the birth years of their kids:

1707/08?
1709
1710
1711
1712
1714
1716
1717/18?
1719
1720
1722
1726
1730

Either fertility or marital relations or both broke down in the 1720s. I mean, there's the obvious first few years of trying desperately for a male heir who doesn't immediately die, but even after the 5 kids in 5 years, there's 6 more kids in 10 years, and then...2 kids in 8 years. It doesn't escape me that 1726-1730 is the height of the double marriage war. (Hmm. What was going on in August 1729?)

she was behaving as a good Christian wife (tm) should, but then FW in other matters was entirely capable of overriding his own standards (ask whipped for nothing Doris Ritter), especially when angry.

On the one hand, we could point out that Doris, though sexually innocent (per Dickens), was consorting with wretched son (tm) and accepting gifts (Fritz spending money! the horror!) during the time leading up to the escape, so I think that's much easier for FW to justify as misbehavior even if she's a virgin. Duhan got locked up for helping obtain the secret library, even though, as far as I know, he was innocent of involvement in the escape.

On the other hand, as you've repeatedly pointed out, the number of men who would accept Pannewitz's refusal like that is low enough that it does call for *some* explanation that FW would.

So I'm wondering whether the fact that in both cases, he accepted the women's right to say no to sex wasn't due to some inner buried standard from his youth.

And that's entirely plausible!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying FW should be congratulated for NOT doing awful things when he did do so many other awful things. I'm just curious about the factors that might have caused him drawing the line there.

Understood, and I share the curiosity and desire to seek an explanation.

Even when he's ranting at Fritz during the August 1731 submission and painting a "what if" scenario

Which, btw, is very helpful for my fix-it fic where Fritz does escape. Thanks, FW! (I guess.)

Now both daughter and wife are in his complete social power... but I think the difference is that daughters aren't covered by childhood impressions. Wives and mothers are. Maybe that's the difference?

Could be! It seems very plausible to me. And as someone (Hinrichs?) pointed out, FW may have hated everything his father stood for, but he still stubbornly did the dutiful son thing right up through the lavish funeral, at which point the "your new master bids you go to hell" began.

So dutiful son obeys father's wishes, dutiful husband doesn't lock up wife, dutiful father expects 100% perfect obedience from children all the time, and does whatever is necessary to break their wills. Including if the pastors say forcing one's daughter into marriage is a no go.

(Luccesini probably decided to never ever tell Fritz about a single affair of his right then and there.)

Seems advisable.

Mind you, now I'm imagining at least some of Heinrich's staff keeping Lehndorff updated on Heinrich and his circle because they low key ship Lehndorff/Heinrich

Ha! Now I'm imagining this as

cahn's new headcanon. :D

that comparison shows of course how terrible Kaphengst was

HAHAHA EVERY comparison with Fredersdorf shows how terrible Kaphengst was. :P

Yet Fredersdorf managed to make it thrive, big time.

Fredersdorf is so great. <33

a potential danger in case young not yet FW2 dies and so do his even younger children.

I don't even think anyone would necessarily have to die, and certainly not all of them.

1. If FW2 dies, Heinrich's regent for the kids.
2. If FW2 lives, Fritz in the mid 1770s is talking about setting Heinrich up as the real power behind the throne, because Wretched Nephew sucks so much.
3. The paranoid Fritz who was accusing AW of being too easily influenced by Heinrich is going to have the same concerns about FW2. Neither Fritz nor Heinrich foresaw FW2 totally sidelining Heinrich.

Fritz wrote that the one thing Heinrich needs him for is to bail him out with his money spending romances

So is this Reisewitz already in 1746?

So maybe he had mixed feelings about the entire Kaphengst situation.

That I can buy. What would surprise me would be if Fritz gave him an order and Heinrich didn't follow through on it. Okay, in 1774, Heinrich says, "One last gift, then he'll be independent in short order," and Fritz allows it. But the years wind on, and Heinrich doesn't stop paying his bills until 1785, and Fritz still doesn't say anything? He even gives permission for the Paris trip in the early 1780s, which Heinrich has to postpone because Kaphengst is spending all his money, and Fritz lets it go unremarked? I just feel that disobeying Fritz is not something that results in Fritz being silent on the topic for 10 years.

I could be wrong! As you said, Fontane cites a lot of specific info, and an unprintable letter is one that could easily have gotten disappeared. And as discussed, Fritz had plenty of reasons to worry about Kaphengst getting his hands on the treasury. I'm just examining the case from both sides.

I trust Orieux to know his stuff in French history more than Bodanis.

I trust Bodanis to know pretty much nothing. Though I have to say, I grabbed the first Voltaire bio I could find on Kindle, by Ian Davidson, and wow, he hates on Émilie, and he thinks Bentinck scored with Heinrich! (And Fritz was upset about that.) So I now think there are worse things than Bodanis. (Davidson is still useful for providing dates in footnotes, which I'm planning to work into the chronology as time and health allow.)

Semi-unrelated, since I mentioned Peter Keith elsewhere in this thread as a Fritzian boyfriend for whom we have some documentary evidence for sex (the only such boyfriend now that I'm leaning toward putains for Algarotti), and if my admittedly flimsy case is correct...it would make a lot of sense if the boys tried to downplay it as "masturbation practical demo and technique sharing between two totally het randy young men," because this would account for:

1) How it took FW 18 years to discover apparently through experience* that your son might commit masturbation if left to his own devices.
2) Why Peter got off so easy as to get a promotion to lieutenant (in an obscure regiment as far away as possible) instead of a cashiering for sodomy.

Ahhh. I'd been trying to remember where I read online that Fritz was sent to Wusterhausen to "repent of his sins" when Peter was sent away. English Wikipedia, Fritz article, of course, and the source cited is 1929 biographer Goldsmith. Now, I love her because she openly ships Fritz/Katte like whoa (like I wish she were alive today to post stuff on AO3), but I also hate her because she doesn't provide sources.

Ooh, now that I've opened my copy, I see that she dates it to September 1728. Which, thanks to Kloosterhuis, we know is wrong, but explains where all the fanfic with that dating comes from (including my own, pre-Kloosterhuis). I really think the archivist guy was the first one to step outside Wilhelmine's memoirs and figure out the real chronology.

Anyway, per FW's order with the later kids, "sins" in his mind could just as easily include "masturbation" and bawdy talk with Peter as open sodomy. Now, *we* know Fritz and Peter were totally getting it on, but of course they talked fast and convincingly when caught. Headcanon!

And if you wonder whether FW would fall for this...he's the father who apparently thought that the guy who wasn't interested in women was the perfect role model and sexual warden for his younger sons! (And he was, just not in the way FW intended. I'm so glad Heinrich had him, though.)

* Remember, it was only in 1731 that a royal edict went out against lending money to minors of the royal family. And it's not like FW hadn't known about Fritz's money-spending habits before the big escape attempt and trial. He was like, "Don't do it again." And then Fritz did it again.

So while on the one hand FW believed Fritz was the worst, I think specifics kept taking him by surprise. And masturbation might have been one of those.

Though I have to say, I grabbed the first Voltaire bio I could find on Kindle, by Ian Davidson, and wow, he hates on Émilie, and he thinks Bentinck scored with Heinrich! (And Fritz was upset about that.) So I now think there are worse things than Bodanis.

How dare he. I gathered from Orieux' defensive tone about her (he's a fan!) that there's a bunch of older Voltaire biographers with a hate-on, mostly from before the publication of the (sexual) Madame Denis letters, though. (Which nixed the whole "poor Voltaire, devoted to a woman who first cheats on him with Maupertuis and then with this St. Lambert guy" story.) Older biographers who take that malicious gossip from Madame SuchandSuch that Émilie isn't a real scientist but that her teachers write all her stuff for her as true , and/or don't understand the enormity of what she achieved anyway due to lack of scientific knowledge. But a quick google tells me Davidson is a living author, so he doesn't have those excuses.

(I'm happy to report that my Mr. Pleschinski who translated and edited the Fritz/Voltaire correspondance into Germanin the 1990s thinks Émilie is amazing, as is only proper.)

He thinks Bentinck scored with Heinrich! (And Fritz was upset about that)

Does he provide source citation, and could it be Pangels? I mean, I suppose if you take the early Lehndorff entry where he's upset people think Bentinck scored with Heinrich, and nothing else Lehndorff wrote, you can believe that. Young Lehndorff going "he'd never!" is hardly an argument, Bentinck certainly tried very hard, and Lehndorff in said entry proves there were rumors. Which, given it's late 1751 or 1752 (haven't looked it up again, it's just my vague recollection on Lehndorff's own relationship with Bentinck going "shameless hussy!" to "meeting up/corresponding with my pal Bentinck again to sigh about Heinrich" fits with with these years where he goes from friends to in love with and friends with benefits with Heinrich himself), are understandable; Heinrich is still in his mid 20s, and while every gossip must know he likes men, they may not yet have gathered he likes them exclusively. (Which btw Voltaire in the 1752 anonymous pamphlet seems to have no doubt about.) Whereas later gossips no longer think of Bentinck as an option, and Pangels is the only biographer I've read so far who does. (And I don't think she does so sincerely, because how you can read Lehndorff's diaries and emerge with the idea that Lehndorff ships Heinrich/Bentinck and wanted them together while just having faithful friend interest in Heinrich himself is beyond me. That's a wilful act of falsification in the interest of no-homo'ing.)

Anyway: if Davidson's source is Pangels (with some highly selected and edited diary entries from Lehndorff as back-up), I wouldn't be surprised. However, he adds one new element when saying Fritz (same guy who in the summer of 1751 writes to Wilhelmine re: Heinrich marrying Mina, "women will do him good, muhahaa" ) was upset - does he say why? Because Bentinck wanted his political support against her husband and he thought her having an affair with one of his brothers might lead people to assume she had it? Another reason?

it would make a lot of sense if the boys tried to downplay it as "masturbation practical demo and technique sharing between two totally het randy young men,"

Sounds all extremely plausible to me. I'm still baffled why FW never discovered masturbation himself as a boy, unless the Calvinist teacher who put the fear of God and predestination into him also covered the subject with a mighty DON'T DO IT OR YOU WILL GO TO HELL and young FW was suitably impressed and didn't. Since he was an only child, and really seems to have be utterly caught by surprise that Fritz given the same education would not be just like him, the idea tat different children and youths could respond differently seems to have been new to FW.

(Btw, nothing in Beuys about Sophie Charlotte sending her lady-in-waiting to deflower him, so either Klepper made that up or Beuys thought the source was so unreliable as to not be included in her biography. Not being a biographer but a novelist, Klepper is certainly allowed to make it up.)

Edited 2020-07-23 05:31 (UTC)

Reisewitz: Ziebura has him entering Heinrich's services on the occasion of his (Heinrich's) marriage as his new master of the horses. Lehndorff helpfully provides a short biography when Reisewitz dies, which I think I already translated for you once many a post ago, which says that they were at school (Kloster Berge) together ("I always mistrusted him"), then Reisewitz became a page at AW's, and already started "all kind of debaucheries", "but because he had a pretty face and a vivacious temperament, he gained the attention of Prince Heinrich who took him into his service as master of the horses on the occasion of his wedding (i.e. in 1751). (When Fritz allowed Heinrich his own household.) Now Lehndorff could be wrong as to when exactly Reisewitz got Heinrich's attention, but his (Lehndorff's) younger self certainly backs up when Reisewitz committed his first financial misdeed because there's a lengthy diary entry on this, and it's in 1752. So, at a guess, whoever Fritz is referring to in his later 1746 letters, it's not Reisewitz.

I did look up the exact phrasing, and it's this: You know how carefully I sought your friendship; that I spared neither caresses, nor what can be called advances, to win your heart. You know that I have done for your establishment all that my faculties allowed me to do. But, despite this cordiality and all that my procedures have been most affectionate, I could not win your friendship.You confided in me when the history of your loves forced you to have recourse to me, as the only one capable of satisfying you; but on no other occasion have you shown me the slightest trust. On the contrary, I saw in your conduct only an extreme coldness; you did not live with me as with a brother, but as with a stranger.

Now I certainly interpreted the boldened sentence as meaning "you asked me to bail you out when your romances put you in debt since no one else in this family has any money to do so", but I suppose it could also literally mean "confide in". Bear in mind this is still the year of Marwitz. For all we know, Marwitz did have an STD, Heinrich needed a doctor and that's what Fritz is alluding to. (Though I doubt it, because if he needed a doctor, Heinrich certainly had other options to ask - the gay steward, for one, brother AW, for another.) The one thing which none of these guys can offer in 1746 but Fritz can is money.

...or maybe he means Marwitz getting rehired as a guard after being fired as a page?

Aside from everything else, though, bearing in mind Fritz' gleefully mocking tone in the Marwitz letters from earlier the same year, You know how carefully I sought your friendship; that I spared neither caresses, nor what can be called advances, to win your heart is certainly one way of putting it. Fritz rewriting reality certainly didn't just start after AW's death...

But a quick google tells me Davidson is a living author, so he doesn't have those excuses

How few excuses he has, let me show you them! Copyright 2010!¹ He cites what must be every sexually explicit passage from Voltaire to Madame Denis. I've never read so many mentions of Voltaire's prick² and her arse!

He has no mention of Pangels, though he admits his biography is select rather than scholarly. I was wondering if that was where he got it from.

He has no citation for Bentinck/Heinrich or Fritz's displeasure at all. This is the passage:

Sophie was much younger than Voltaire and full of gusto, and she may have had love affairs with other men in Berlin – with Prince Henri, younger brother of Frederick (to Frederick’s irritation) and even, most poignantly, with Wilhelm zu Schaumburg-Lippe, the younger (legitimate) son of her dead lover Wolfgang, now in his late twenties – but not with Voltaire.

Just take his word for it, I guess.

"women will do him good, muhahaa"

I was thinking of this! Though apparently, according to your original report of this line, I had to look up the original for that one, and Fritz writes "la femme", singular.

Still.

Another reason?

"Reason." You give him too much credit. :P

Heinrich is still in his mid 20s, and while every gossip must know he likes men, they may not yet have gathered he likes them exclusively.

This makes perfect sense to me.

the publication of the (sexual) Madame Denis letters, though. (Which nixed the whole "poor Voltaire, devoted to a woman who first cheats on him with Maupertuis and then with this St. Lambert guy" story.)

Unless you're Davidson, in which case, poor Voltaire, devoted to a woman who ran him ragged and held him back intellectually and couldn't commit to him, thus finally forcing him to look elsewhere for fulfillment. With her mathematical talent, and her lack of emotional control, she was probably autistic (!!) and couldn't understand how men would perceive her passionate expressions of love.

You know, I'm so glad that Kindle books exist in my time of chronic pain, but I super hate being limited to them, (plus, lately, whatever I can scan and stand to read in very small font on my phone).

The double standard of "she can't commit to one man, could be autism!" is stunning.

To be fair, he does acknowledge that Voltaire's ten year flirtation with Fritz contributed to the deterioration of their relationship in a way that Voltaire was oblivious to, BUT, at no point has he so far pathologized this. Naturally you would want to flirt with Fritz! (And have sex with your niece, I guess.) Especially if Émilie is smothering you with her demands.

Oh, and this is my favorite quote so far. It's the second paragraph of the chapter after Émilie dies:

Émilie had done her best to keep Voltaire away from Potsdam and to rein in his intellectual and creative life, and to some extent she had succeeded: it is striking how little Voltaire produced during the last four years of their life together. With her death he regained his freedom not just to go to Prussia but also to think and to write what he wanted. It was only after her death, and in the relative calm and solitude of Frederick’s court, that Voltaire was finally able to finish Le Siècle de Louis XIV.

Davidson! I can understand pre-1753 Voltaire being frustrated at being caught between Fritz and Émilie and having to choose, but you have the benefit of hindsight!

I haven't yet got to the Fritz/Voltaire breakup, but am super looking forward to seeing how he handles that, and by "looking forward to" I mean "munching popcorn."

(I'm happy to report that my Mr. Pleschinski who translated and edited the Fritz/Voltaire correspondance into Germanin the 1990s thinks Émilie is amazing, as is only proper.)

Indeed, indeed. Pleased to hear it.

¹ I would have cut an older biographer some slack on the Émilie-hating. I'm cutting the 1973 Lord Hervey biographer some slack on the one expression of toxic masculinity I've run into so far (I'm only a few pages in, because I had to scan it and thus the font is so small). But 2010!

² My heart and my prick send you the most tender good wishes. This evening I shall surely see you.

Davidson footnotes this with:

As so often, Voltaire wrote to Mme Denis in Italian. In her copy of this letter she heavily crossed out the Italian word for ‘prick’ (cazzo), replacing it with the word spirito.

Given what happened to Lehndorff's diary, I have to ask: are we 100% sure this was in her handwriting?

Edited 2020-07-23 06:22 (UTC)

I'm still baffled why FW never discovered masturbation himself as a boy, unless the Calvinist teacher who put the fear of God and predestination into him also covered the subject with a mighty DON'T DO IT OR YOU WILL GO TO HELL and young FW was suitably impressed and didn't.

That's exactly what I think happened! He had the self-control to resist the sin of Onanism, his son was given proper religious instruction, QED. I mean! It's a sin! Right? Why would you do it?

Since he was an only child, and really seems to have be utterly caught by surprise that Fritz given the same education would not be just like him, the idea tat different children and youths could respond differently seems to have been new to FW.

Yep. I'm thinking of him giving Fritz the same French governess he had and expecting Fritz to somehow arrive at the same conclusion of the superiority of German, given the same upbringing. FW comes across as parentally naive in some ways.

I admit my theory is entirely a house of cards, but Peter's dismissal on the same day as Fritz's sudden need to be supervised by his governor at age 18, and the younger boys' sexual supervision starting at a much younger age makes me want to connect the dots in the same way as you cleverly connected the dots between the last child's birth, the locking up of SD's favorite son, and the sudden breakdown in FW's commitment to no extramarital sex.

...This is way more insight into FW's sex life (and lack thereof) than I frankly ever expected to have.

Either fertility or marital relations or both broke down in the 1720s. I mean, there's the obvious first few years of trying desperately for a male heir who doesn't immediately die, but even after the 5 kids in 5 years, there's 6 more kids in 10 years, and then...2 kids in 8 years. It doesn't escape me that 1726-1730 is the height of the double marriage war. (Hmm. What was going on in August 1729?)

Wasn‘t that when the English marriages almost happened (since the Brits were willing to take Wihelmine without a dowry) except Charles Hotham the older then overdid it by going „oh, and btw, your pal Grumbkow is an absolute corrupt bastard who has to be removed, and here‘s the proof!“ ? Perhaps Ferdinand was conceived in the short period when SD could truly believe that at last her dream for her two oldest children would come true, and felt generous?

The gap between Amalie and Heinrich is noticable compared with earlier gaps. Now, according to Wilhelmine Amalie herself was an accident and SD didn‘t want to believe she was pregnant (as opposed to already having the change) until shortly before the birth, hence unexpected midwife FW. Which I suppose could be invented, but I don‘t see what would be the point, and Wilhelmine was certainly old enough to notice.

Of course, we shouldn‘t lose sight of the fact that the 1720s were also when FW‘s health started to break down and he began spending time in the wheelchair. As I seem to recall, Amalie‘s birth year, 1722, is where his Last Will (the one with „no whores, no theatre, no wars of agression!“ in the beginning) is from. So FW‘s health in addition to everything else could be another reason why the rate at which they produce offspring goes down.

Wondering about the summer of 1725 (i.e. when Heinrich was conceived) - SD tries really hard to get FW on board the English marriage project? It might also have been when she was afraid he‘d divorce her, but I‘m not sure about the year.

More when I haven't been awake for nearly all of 36 hours, but your comment made me realize that in all the copy-pasting, I left out Amalie - 1723. So 12 kids in 16 years, then 2 more over the next 7.

2010! Then there's really no excuse, and he's the biographer equivalent of the slash writer who hates on the canon love interest because she comes between the OTP. Seriously though, "she held him back intellectually" is a stunner I had not expected even from an Émilie hater. Hell, Fritz himself, no slouch in that department, never comes up with something like this. (What he writes early on when he thinks Voltaire will choose him over Émilie is that "my purse is better filled than the Marquise's", not realising that money really wasn't something Voltaire got from Émilie.) Au contraire, considering what he says about her in his final tribute to Voltaire, the speech to the Berlin Academy. What the hell, Richardson?

As for the autism charge for Émilie and no suggestion of pathological reasons for Voltaire, yeah, the double standard is breathtaking. (Again, even Fritz when gossiping with D'Argens about her love life a decade after her death doesn't come up with the Rokoko equivalant of this charge.)

the relative calm and solitude of Frederick’s court

*snort* Do tell how he handles the big breakup.

Given what happened to Lehndorff's diary, I have to ask: are we 100% sure this was in her handwriting?

I assume the difference between Lehndorff's handwriting and that of his descendant was marked enough for Schmidt-Lötzen to notice at once. He, however, is tactful enough not to say who it was, while Ziebura in the introduction to her translation of the 1799 journal has no such problem. 'Twas the Countess Lehndorff who ended up giving Schmidt-Lötzen permission to publish. Apparantly this was her last ditch attempt to save her ancestor's and Heinrich's reputations before giving up. Since this means the "elle" for "lui" etc. would have been relatively recently added, I assume there was also the difference between a fresh crossing out/overwriting and Lehndorff's original faded ink.

The last one, of course, would not apply to Madame Denis trying to cross out and overwriting words Voltaire had written, since this would have been only a few decades later at most. Ditto for anyone after her trying this in the 19th century, which by the 20 century when the letters were published would have looked old as well. However, since her own letters are preserved, there are ample examples of her handwriting, and if there are not just strike outs but added words, I do trust that experts are able to tell whether or not the added words are from the same person. At any rate, considering Madame Denis sold Voltaire's library and some of his clothing to Catherine, she might have wanted to sell some of the letters, too. Catherine was definitely interested in buying up additional Voltaire letters (additional to those she had received herself), which I was recently reminded of because her literary handyman in Paris, Melchior Grimm, offered Heinrich to buy his. (However few or many Heinrich received aren't in existence anymore, and at any rate he drew the line there, because of the Fritz comments in them. Reading Voltaire's memoirs with added comments out loud for your friends is cool, but providing a foreign monarch with material, even if it's AnhaltSophie, would not be for him, it seems. Anyway, selling letters of a dead celebrity was quite common, and Madame Denis might have considered it before realising there was no way this letters would pass as anything but what they were and keeping them.

This article about the original publication of the letters in the 1950s reminds me that - as Orieux noted, too, - Madame Denis was as vehemently against Voltaire going to Potsdam as Émilie had ever been, so dies Richardson mention this?

Wasn‘t that when the English marriages almost happened (since the Brits were willing to take Wihelmine without a dowry) except Charles Hotham the older then overdid it

That's what I thought, but no, that was only in 1730.

Dug into it a bit more, and apparently what was happening in 1729 was the resumption of the marriage negotiations, and in the summer there was a minor conflict between Hanover and Prussia that escalated. As usual, it took the form of Prussians kidnapping Hanoverians for the army, the Hanoverians retaliating against the recruiters, and FW completely overreacting. (Remember, this exact sequence of events had happened two years before, with Saxony, which was when he was ready to hang Suhm.) So in late August, FW got to the point of mobilizing 44,000 soldiers (source: Koser) in late August and declaring himself ready to invade. Right when Ferdinand was conceived.

Make of that what you will.

The gap between Amalie and Heinrich is noticable compared with earlier gaps.

It is apparently only a 3-year gap, due to my copy-paste error (1722 is AW), but it's still the first 3-year gap, and it was followed by a 4-year gap.

Of course, we shouldn‘t lose sight of the fact that the 1720s were also when FW‘s health started to break down

That is an excellent point, and probably accounts for a lot of what we're seeing.

1725: Not sure.

1722, is where his Last Will (the one with „no whores, no theatre, no wars of agression!“ in the beginning

1732 FW: Good job impregnating Frau von Wreech! Bodes well for your marriage.
1736 FW: There stands one who will avenge me! (Does it count as a defensive war if the Austrians have repeatedly screwed you over re Juliers and Berg?)

Edited 2020-07-23 22:06 (UTC)

"but because he had a pretty face and a vivacious temperament, he gained the attention of Prince Heinrich who took him into his service as master of the horses on the occasion of his wedding (i.e. in 1751)

Yeah, I saw that, but my thinking was that he must have attracted Heinrich's attention already by 1751 in order for Heinrich to want to take him into his service at the first opportunity. But I wasn't sure how *much* earlier than 1751 and if 5 years was too much. And apparently he became a page for AW "after the peace," which I'm guessing is the peace of December 1745, so late 1746 was just possible. And Lehndorff wasn't around to report until 1748, right?

So if it was money, then Reisewitz wasn't the first. If it wasn't...

...or maybe he means Marwitz getting rehired as a guard after being fired as a page?

That is the first thing that came to mind for me. Because...

Marwitz did have an STD, Heinrich needed a doctor and that's what Fritz is alluding to. (Though I doubt it, because if he needed a doctor, Heinrich certainly had other options to ask - the gay steward, for one, brother AW, for another.)

So, if in March/April 1746, Fritz is taunting Heinrich about Marwitz having an STD, and Heinrich is so offended he spends the next six months not speaking to Fritz, I feel like he would rather DIE OF AN STD than admit Fritz was right to his face. I.e. I think AW or the steward would be looped in after promising to keep the secret to their grave, because Heinrich would never ever live it down otherwise.

Now, getting Fritz to rehire Marwitz, that, I think Heinrich could get behind. Especially since, didn't Ziebura say Heinrich flattered Fritz in an entirely uncharacteristic way to get Kalckreuth a promotion during the Seven Years' War?

Speaking of Marwitz's career, I still find it surprising that he was a page at age 23-24, depending when in the year his birthday falls. Do you think it's possible Lehndorff, who's writing ten years later about events he wasn't present for, is conflating, and Marwitz started as a page, but wasn't still a page in 1746?

Or do you think there were 23- to 24-year old pages running around?

he's the biographer equivalent of the slash writer who hates on the canon love interest because she comes between the OTP

That's *exactly* what he is! It makes Bodanis' shameless romanticization of his two favorites almost refreshing. The whitewashing gave me doubts about his scholarship, but I at least enjoyed reading it.

Seriously though, "she held him back intellectually" is a stunner I had not expected even from an Émilie hater.

Nobody could have expected this! She's keeping him from his destiny, which is to be break up epically with Fritz.

the relative calm and solitude of Frederick’s court

*snort* Do tell how he handles the big breakup.

Will do. Remember when Fritz made Voltaire promise to stop satirizing people and "behave in a manner which is suitable for a man of letters who has the honour of being a chamberlain to His Majesty, and who lives among honest men"? This reminded me of that. (As I did this write-up, I kept rereading that line to see if maybe I'd hallucinated it.)

Thank you for your excellent-as-always scholarship on the letters! If you'd been a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1752, I'm sure you would have voted against the Leibniz fragment being a forgery. ;)

Madame Denis was as vehemently against Voltaire going to Potsdam as Émilie had ever been, so dies Richardson mention this?

Not that I remember, but I admit I'm skimming, mostly looking for material for the chronology (once I'm capable of typing it up). I'll keep an eye out for it, though.

Oh, and re Fritz being annoyed at Bentinck/Heinrich, remember when Pangels devotee MacDonogh said Fritz wrote that one poem because he was annoyed at Voltaire for hitting on Ulrike? And some scholar wrote a whole article arguing the contrary? And you and I went and read the poem and concluded that Fritz didn't take Voltaire/Ulrike seriously enough to get annoyed, but what he really wanted was Voltaire to hit on him, and the whole poem was nothing but a broad hint best translated, "But what about meeee??"

Given that Davidson reports Voltaire desperately trying to get Bentinck as a mistress during the Potsdam years, I wonder if Fritz, if he did express annoyance at Bentinck (we still lack a source on this), actually meant, "Why does Voltaire keep chasing women when he could have meeeee??? Freaking Émilie."

Fritz to biographers: My priorities are not what you think my priorities are.

No, not her opinions on him leaving for Potsdam, I haven't reread that section. But the incest question! (I mean, this is the sex thread. We have to stay on topic!)

Was he, as some scholars think, obliquely referring to the question of possibly marrying Mme Denis? The idea seems absurd. Mme Denis was his niece, and marriage with her would be incestuous and illegal. And yet it was not absolutely impossible, in the eighteenth century, for a man to marry his niece, if he got the right papal dispensation. Charles-Marie de La Condamine, the mathematician and physicist and one of Voltaire’s friends, married his niece in 1756; and the financier Jean Pâris de Montmartel also married his niece. Voltaire investigated the question in some detail. He claimed that there may have been about forty such marriages every year; and he estimated that the cost of the papal dispensation would have been some 120,000 francs (‘once you include the small expenses’), though he went on to say: ‘I have always heard it said that it cost M. de Montmartel only 80,000 francs.’

If Voltaire was so interested in the question of marriage between uncles and nieces and what it entailed, the implication must be that at some stage he gave real consideration to the idea of marriage with Mme Denis.

Footnoted citations: Voltaire, Romans et contes, pot-pourri, vol. XIII (Éditions de La Pléiade, Paris), p. 464 (first published in 1765); Voltaire, Mélanges, La Défense de mon oncle, de l’inceste (Éditions de La Pléiade, Paris), p. 1156, (first published in 1767).

Thoughts?

The section on 1750-1753, while wonderful about dates and the whole reason I got this book (chronology updates when I'm in a position to make them), is remarkably bland and especially light on Fritz/Voltaire commentary, possibly because that would involve ADMITTING ÉMILIE WAS RIGHT.

Davidson on the Prussian years:

1750: Voltaire is in the wrong during the whole swindle involving the banker.

1751: Things are calm and quiet and he gets a lot of work done.

1752, part the first: Maupertuis is an idiot and the Academy is filled with his stooges. Maupertuis threatens our hero with violence! (Mildred: Is this the duel challenge?)

1752, part the second: Fritz's decision to ~~go up against Voltaire when satire is on the line~~ get involved in the pamphlet war is a tactical error. And then the whole pamphlet-burning shows that Voltaire was wrong to think of him as an enlightened monarch. Time to get out of here!

1753: In Frankfurt, Freytag does some bad stuff and disobeys Fritz's orders. If you want to know what's in that book of poems Fritz wants back or why he wants it, or whether Fritz is authorized to put Voltaire under house arrest there, or whether Voltaire was more than mildly annoyed, you'll have to find out from another source. This is the most boring account of the Frankfurt episode you'll ever read, especially considering how lively my writing has been up until 1750. The only exciting part is where Mme Denis almost gets raped. :/

Post-1753: Likewise, just as Émilie's death turned out to be great for his career, the departure from Prussia all worked out for the best, because the happiest time of Voltaire's life was during his involuntary exile.

Seriously a letdown as far as capturing the drama.

Noteworthy parts from these two chapters:

* Berlin is the first time Voltaire realizes the French Enlightenment is happening and that he's part of it. Until then, he was just an isolated figure doing his own thing and ignoring his contemporaries.

* Voltaire gave Bentinck advice on how best to present her case to Fritz (Mildred: I'm trying to figure out if he's the most or least qualified person to do this); actual quote from a letter from Fritz chiding Voltaire for involving himself in her affairs which were none of his business. Oh, and this lovely quote from Fritz: "I must warn you, that if you have a passion for intrigues and cabals, you have come to the wrong place." (Mildred: Pull the other one, Fritz, it's got bells on.)

* If Davidson's correct, and it does sound plausible, the Academy vote was unanimous because the dissenters abstained. He goes for the "knowing which side their bread was buttered on" explanation:

Since Maupertuis had total power over all aspects of the Academy, notably the salaries of the members, most of them meekly did what he wanted, and on 13 April 1752 they found Kœnig guilty; those who disagreed simply stayed away.

Author of the Maupertuis bio, of course, just says it was unanimous.

* After 1753, Voltaire wanted to get back at Fritz, so he got back all the letters he wrote to Mme Denis from this period and doctored them to make Fritz look worse. This means they're all suspect, including the "dirty laundry" and "orange peel" anecdotes.

It was not until late in the twentieth century that scholars finally realised that these letters had been cooked by Voltaire and that they cannot be taken literally.

Is this true? Does Pleschinski say this at all?

See, this is why I love seeing you guys exchange with each other. I can't tell you how delightful it is to see you guys debate as to whether it's penises or putains (and that was a sentence I never thought I'd write!)

...yeah. I can totally imagine Algarotti being OK with an orgasm poem (it's a nice sweet poem, if not particularly notable) and Darget... really not. And I would neeeever tell Fritz anything about any romantic interests of mine :P

Mind you, now I'm imagining at least some of Heinrich's staff keeping Lehndorff updated on Heinrich and his circle because they low key ship Lehndorff/Heinrich and/or figure he's a safe ear to vent their frustration with the favourite du jour to.

mildred_of_midgard is right, this is totally going to be my new headcanon now!

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Page 3 of 13

Frederick the Great, discussion post 16

Re: The STD thread

Re: Not his type?

Re: Algarotti's STD and Fritz's sexuality

Re: Not his type?

Some FW Speculation

Fritz: The Disney version.

Re: Fritz: The Disney version.

Re: Some FW Speculation

Re: Algarotti's STD and Fritz's sexuality

Re: Not his type?

Re: The STD thread

Re: The STD thread

Re: Not his type?

Voltaire and Émilie

Re: The STD thread

Re: Some FW Speculation

Re: Some FW Speculation

Re: Voltaire and Émilie

Re: Some FW Speculation

Re: Not his type?

Re: Voltaire and Émilie

Re: Voltaire and Madame Denis

Re: Voltaire and Fritz

Re: Algarotti's STD and Fritz's sexuality

Re: Algarotti's STD and Fritz's sexuality