cahn | Frederick the Great, discussion post 16

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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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From:

cahn

Thank you -- I was also confused by that humor point (which I took the same way as mildred).

THAT LETTER. UGH. And speaking of which, I was thinking of that letter during the part where SD visits Oranienburg and Pollnitz is all "AW is so courteous, he accompanied all the pretty ladies-in-waiting to their rooms!" Hmm, yeah, "courteous" is one word for it...

Also, FS is almost the best <3 :P (I already like you so much, FS, why'd you have to go and have those affairs?)

Other things in this reading:

But why had the King let Wilhelm fidget for so long and not sent him his marching orders at the same time as the one to Heinrich?

It doesn't seem like she answers this?

he got the answer from Friedrich that he shouldn't [imagine? go on?] so much about the one created child, but rather use the time to make another.

I think google is funking "einbilden," but anyway I laughed out loud with sheer shock at Fritz's answer. Woooow, Fritz. Your brother is worried about his utility as a person and that you see him as just a baby daddy, and your response is seriously to tell him to go make another one??

German progress: I continue to mostly be able to read AW's letters syntax-wise with help from the translation, even the ones he's writing as an adult, though of course I don't have the vocab. I don't get all the syntax, mind you, but it's a marked contrast to Fritz's letters where I have a lot more trouble. And in both AW and Fritz's letters I can make out a lot more than in Ziebura's prose. Then there's Biefield and Pollnitz, where I can't even figure out if I know the syntax because it's all descriptive using words I don't know :P

Edited Date: 2020-08-30 11:22 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

he got the answer from Friedrich that he shouldn't [imagine? go on?] so much about the one created child, but rather use the time to make another.

I think google is funking "einbilden," but anyway I laughed out loud with sheer shock at Fritz's answer. Woooow, Fritz. Your brother is worried about his utility as a person and that you see him as just a baby daddy, and your response is seriously to tell him to go make another one??

Oh, then you're going to love this. I'll let

selenak tell me if I'm wrong, but what I'm finding in dictionaries is "have inordinate pride over."

Look, AW, you had one kid. Mom and Dad had fourteen. You gotta think numbers game here. If 4 die, 6 are girls, and 2 are not only gay but committed to being childless, you've got 2 left over who can carry on the succession. What if that one kid of yours dies? Get fucking!

Your brother is worried about his utility as a person and that you see him as just a baby daddy, and your response is seriously to tell him to go make another one??

Well, remember during the cashiering, Fritz says that AW may be fit to command a harem, but not troops. If you ask me, he used AW's heterosexuality and sex drive as a weapon to keep him in his place, i.e. Erzeuger¹ of the continuation of the Hohenzollern line, not an actual viable rallying point for an alternative to Fritz as ruler.

I wasn't actually shocked when I got to this, because I remembered Ziebura saying in the Heinrich bio that AW got nagged to father more kids so much that the normally good-natured AW protested that he wasn't a breeding bull.

Fritz: Yes, you are. Get to it.

¹ Reminder, per Selena:

Erzeuger: it's usually used in a passive sense, the most disdainful way you can say "father".

Okay, I'm off to read 7 more pages before bed. Yell at me if I don't!

From:

cahn

Heh, just the nagging AW part wasn't shocking (I did also remember that), it was the part where Fritz literally replied to a letter where AW was worried that Fritz thought he was just fit to sire babies with "eh, maybe you should go make another one!" Way to confirm that AW should be worried about that, Fritz :P

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Way to confirm that AW should be worried about that, Fritz :P

Fritz: It seems I somehow didn't make this perfectly clear earlier. Yes, your purpose in life is to make babies while I do important things. Capiche?

From:

selenak

Well, remember during the cashiering, Fritz says that AW may be fit to command a harem, but not troops. If you ask me, he used AW's heterosexuality and sex drive as a weapon to keep him in his place, i.e. Erzeuger1 of the continuation of the Hohenzollern line, not an actual viable rallying point for an alternative to Fritz as ruler.

Lehndorff agrees with you, because that harem jibe made it to Berlin, or rather Magdeburg, where he writes in an entry dated November 7th (1757) about how Heinrich's page has arrived at court and has reassured everyone Heinrich's wound was harmless (remember, this is post Roßbach and Lehndorff has been a bit salty about Mina fainting at the news Heinrich was wounded), and that Fritz has promoted Heinrich to top boss in Saxony. But also, Lehndorff continues:
"At the same time, I am inconsolable not just to hear about the sad state of health of the Prince of Prussia, but also of all the grief that has come to him. After that unfortunate Bohemian march and the burning of Zittau, fortune seems to have left him entirely, which is all the more regrettable since he put his all into wanting to serve and earn glory. The King knows his weak spot and taunts him with writing him that he's evidently only fit to command a harem, not an army. He became ill, went to Dresden, then Torgau, then Wittenberg, finally to Lepzig."

Now, presumably Lehndorff either learned this from Heinrich's page, or via a letter the page brought from Heinrich (currently in Leipzig with AW), or even a letter from AW himself. But either way, it's telling that of all the jibes in Fritz' letters of that time, the "the only thing you're good for is sex" seems to have struck hardest. (Or at least Lehndorff thinks it did.)

"have inordinate pride over" is the correct translation, btw.

What if that one kid of yours dies? Get fucking!

See, this is why I'm loving the apocryphal story about Elisabeth's reaction to a similar Fritz command so much. (And am without pity for George Keith, if it was him who brought the command.)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

But either way, it's telling that of all the jibes in Fritz' letters of that time, the "the only thing you're good for is sex" seems to have struck hardest. (Or at least Lehndorff thinks it did.)

Yeah. :/ Unfortunately, unlike (parts of) his bad condolence letters, I don't think the part that

cahn reacted to was just lack of emotional intelligence: I suspect this one was very deliberate.

See, this is why I'm loving the apocryphal story about Elisabeth's reaction to a similar Fritz command so much. (And am without pity for George Keith, if it was him who brought the command.)

I so hope that story was real. You go, Messalina!