* Oster confirms that Fritz's only baptismal name was Friedrich. Der Einzige! "This name has been luck-bringing to my house. Hopefully this baby is as fortunate/happy as his ancestors."
Oster: Well, Fritz won't be *happy*, exactly...
Me: :-(
* So remember when we discussed how Wilhelmine resented her first two brothers (named Fritz) and our Fritz was the first one she showed affection to? And cahn, the only one of us with parental experience ;), says that 2 1/2 years is about right for a kid to start thinking babies are cute?
Well, Oster reports the following:
1707, November 23, 1707: Bb!Fritz1 born. Barely six months later: Bb!Fritz1 dies. The internet gives me May 13, 1708. 1709, July 3: Wilhelmine born. 1710, August 16: Bb!Fritz2 born. 1711, July 31: Bb!Fritz2 dies. 1712, January 24: Bb!Fritz3 born. 1712, February 8: Grandpa F1 writes in a letter, "sie ihre zwei ersten Brüder nicht leiden konnte"--she couldn't stand her first two brothers.
What's wrong with this picture?
The first of the two brothers in question died before she was born!
What's up with that, F1? I can believe that she didn't like the one that was born when she was one and died when she was two, especially since he got all the attention that she didn't, but she's being falsely accused of things that happened before she was born!
I wonder if F1's having a memory lapse here, or if something else is going on.
* The bit about FW being impressed by Dutch burgher values, like cleanliness and orderliness, is relevant to why the servant book I read is specifically about servants in *France* during the period. The author makes the point that French upper class values were about conspicuous consumption, so servants did a lot of standing around in livery looking handsome and making you look wealthy, and very little attention in "how to run your household" manuals was devoted to things like making sure servants dusted and kept the fire going. So there was gold and marble and filth everywhere, and the living space was uncomfortable to live in but very eye-catching. French travelers who went to England or the Netherlands were amazed at how clean and comfortable the houses were, and the servants were actually supposed to take scrubbing the floors and such seriously.
* Heinrich Rüdiger von Ilgen: I'm recognizing more and more obscure names! This is the father of Baroness von Knyphausen, Ariane's mother, who receives that box from Fritz in the opening scene of "Lovers lying two and two."
Knyphausen, the minister who's pro-English marriage and eventually loses his job over it, is, as I said in the Wilhelmine memoir write-up recently, Ariane's father.
* Google wasn't able to translate "Knirps", as in "König Knirps", Wilhelmine and Fritz's not-so-respectful nickname for Dad, but when I put it in the browser, I got "midget, squirt, little fellow." Lol! The little fellow and his long fellows.
* Loved Oster pointing out what I had noticed when rereading the memoirs: evil governess Leti's introduction was all about how she was Italian, from no family to speak of, and had an unprestigious job correcting newspaper prints, whereas wonderful Sonsine's introduction is all about how noble her family was and how her ancestors distinguished themselves with all the services they performed. !!!
Lehndorff, who's not exactly not a snob himself: This Wilhelmine is a bit hung up on class.
This is why I put in two of the things that selenak noticed in "With You, There's a Heaven": Wilhelmine not seeing Fredersdorf as a person but as an extension of her brother, and Fritz being afraid to admit that he's falling in love with a commoner. I threw in the line about Fritz remembering Wilhelmine accusing "even a von Katte" of not knowing his place, with the intention of conveying that this isn't her real (or at least her biggest) objection, but it's one she can admit to, unlike "But what about meeeee?!", and that Wilhelmine (along with SD, and society in general), was a formative influence on Fritz and his own classism.
Also, the servants book has a good section on the tension between servants and families that resulted in the cycle of abuse: badly treated servants were more likely to treat their masters' children badly. Including: total neglect, meaning wealthy kids were sometimes half-starved; sexual abuse: the older men in the house molest the maidservants, who molest the boys, who grow up with a fucked up attitude toward sex and proceed to molest their own servants.
As the century went on and middle-class family-and-home values started to percolate upwards in France, the thrust of moralizing works directed at servants charged with caring for children went in a little over a hundred years from "You are responsible before God for every child who dies as a result of your action or inaction," to, "It's probably not healthy to give kids everything they want all the time. Tell them no once in a while?"
* Oster doesn't think FW's kids went hungry, because Seckendorff didn't report inadequate portions. He thinks FW's tastes in food weren't to the liking of SD, who taught her kids to despise it. While I'm absolutely sure this happened, I'm not convinced the kids never went hungry, or that they didn't learn to associate it with their father.
Fritz's weight at Dresden, combined with his height, tell me he wasn't underweight at 16. But even if FW was starving the kids every chance he got (and I suspect it was more like small portion sizes than actual starvation), SD was apparently smuggling them food (I think this was in Lavisse?) *and* FW was away a lot. So it's quite possible that FW was frugal in terms of portion sizes and the kids got compensation later.
But that's not evidence that he *was*, just that he could have been.
The two additional pieces of evidence I have beyond Wilhelmine's memoirs are these:
Fritz writing a letter to Grumbkow (?) at Küstrin, saying he preferred to starve there than at Potsdam. Now, this is not when he's being his most fair to FW, and could be part of the SD "this is not acceptable food" rhetoric, but...
Ziebura says *AW* later said he and the other kids were often half-starved as kids. If Wilhelmine, Fritz, *and* AW all agree on something about FW...maybe they're not making it up. Now, I haven't seen the context, or even a direct quote, for that claim, but I'm keeping it as supporting evidence until I do.
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Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough - young Wilhelmine
Date: 2020-09-26 06:52 pm (UTC)Oster: Well, Fritz won't be *happy*, exactly...
Me: :-(
* So remember when we discussed how Wilhelmine resented her first two brothers (named Fritz) and our Fritz was the first one she showed affection to? And
Well, Oster reports the following:
1707, November 23, 1707: Bb!Fritz1 born.
Barely six months later: Bb!Fritz1 dies. The internet gives me May 13, 1708.
1709, July 3: Wilhelmine born.
1710, August 16: Bb!Fritz2 born.
1711, July 31: Bb!Fritz2 dies.
1712, January 24: Bb!Fritz3 born.
1712, February 8: Grandpa F1 writes in a letter, "sie ihre zwei ersten Brüder nicht leiden konnte"--she couldn't stand her first two brothers.
What's wrong with this picture?
The first of the two brothers in question died before she was born!
What's up with that, F1? I can believe that she didn't like the one that was born when she was one and died when she was two, especially since he got all the attention that she didn't, but she's being falsely accused of things that happened before she was born!
I wonder if F1's having a memory lapse here, or if something else is going on.
* The bit about FW being impressed by Dutch burgher values, like cleanliness and orderliness, is relevant to why the servant book I read is specifically about servants in *France* during the period. The author makes the point that French upper class values were about conspicuous consumption, so servants did a lot of standing around in livery looking handsome and making you look wealthy, and very little attention in "how to run your household" manuals was devoted to things like making sure servants dusted and kept the fire going. So there was gold and marble and filth everywhere, and the living space was uncomfortable to live in but very eye-catching. French travelers who went to England or the Netherlands were amazed at how clean and comfortable the houses were, and the servants were actually supposed to take scrubbing the floors and such seriously.
* Heinrich Rüdiger von Ilgen: I'm recognizing more and more obscure names! This is the father of Baroness von Knyphausen, Ariane's mother, who receives that box from Fritz in the opening scene of "Lovers lying two and two."
Knyphausen, the minister who's pro-English marriage and eventually loses his job over it, is, as I said in the Wilhelmine memoir write-up recently, Ariane's father.
* Google wasn't able to translate "Knirps", as in "König Knirps", Wilhelmine and Fritz's not-so-respectful nickname for Dad, but when I put it in the browser, I got "midget, squirt, little fellow." Lol! The little fellow and his long fellows.
* Loved Oster pointing out what I had noticed when rereading the memoirs: evil governess Leti's introduction was all about how she was Italian, from no family to speak of, and had an unprestigious job correcting newspaper prints, whereas wonderful Sonsine's introduction is all about how noble her family was and how her ancestors distinguished themselves with all the services they performed. !!!
Lehndorff, who's not exactly not a snob himself: This Wilhelmine is a bit hung up on class.
This is why I put in two of the things that
Also, the servants book has a good section on the tension between servants and families that resulted in the cycle of abuse: badly treated servants were more likely to treat their masters' children badly. Including: total neglect, meaning wealthy kids were sometimes half-starved; sexual abuse: the older men in the house molest the maidservants, who molest the boys, who grow up with a fucked up attitude toward sex and proceed to molest their own servants.
As the century went on and middle-class family-and-home values started to percolate upwards in France, the thrust of moralizing works directed at servants charged with caring for children went in a little over a hundred years from "You are responsible before God for every child who dies as a result of your action or inaction," to, "It's probably not healthy to give kids everything they want all the time. Tell them no once in a while?"
* Oster doesn't think FW's kids went hungry, because Seckendorff didn't report inadequate portions. He thinks FW's tastes in food weren't to the liking of SD, who taught her kids to despise it. While I'm absolutely sure this happened, I'm not convinced the kids never went hungry, or that they didn't learn to associate it with their father.
Fritz's weight at Dresden, combined with his height, tell me he wasn't underweight at 16. But even if FW was starving the kids every chance he got (and I suspect it was more like small portion sizes than actual starvation), SD was apparently smuggling them food (I think this was in Lavisse?) *and* FW was away a lot. So it's quite possible that FW was frugal in terms of portion sizes and the kids got compensation later.
But that's not evidence that he *was*, just that he could have been.
The two additional pieces of evidence I have beyond Wilhelmine's memoirs are these:
Fritz writing a letter to Grumbkow (?) at Küstrin, saying he preferred to starve there than at Potsdam. Now, this is not when he's being his most fair to FW, and could be part of the SD "this is not acceptable food" rhetoric, but...
Ziebura says *AW* later said he and the other kids were often half-starved as kids. If Wilhelmine, Fritz, *and* AW all agree on something about FW...maybe they're not making it up. Now, I haven't seen the context, or even a direct quote, for that claim, but I'm keeping it as supporting evidence until I do.