Oh, this is interesting: she presents the material in a different order, where only the last 5 lines are in verse, and the ones immediately before them, from Celui qu la curiosité on, are in prose, which she says were written below that short verse. The first several lines of the poem, which were new to me, she doesn't reproduce at all.
I wonder whether that means that whoever was her source and wrote it down for her - I imagine Wilhelmine didn't go herself to an army barrack - copied it badly, or whether she was just told it verbally and writes it out of her memory twenty years later? That is assuming Stratemann has the correct version, but since he's writing at the time and has no problem copying down the exact text since no one should object to the Braunschweig envoy doing such a thing, I'm assuming so.
Yeah, I gather that didn't make it into the Hans Heinrich biographical monograph you picked up at Wust.
Nope. Would have blown quite a hole into his theory.
WOW. Go Hans Heinrich.
That's what I think. I mean, I wouldn't exclude the possibility that he has mixed feelings about Fritz as well, but mostly this points to him struggling to reconcile the loyalty he feels he ows his sovereign with being a grieving father who thinks his son, while deserving some punishment (I think Hans Heinrich would have been okay with some years in prison - well, ashamed, but okay in terms of considering it just), was taken from him by this man, and not higher justice.
Your plan for the AU in which he and Hans Herrmann have a heart to heart later in life looks more plausible than ever.
Yep! I imagine that had changed by 1736, year of raiding Fritz's larder?
So I would gather. Not least because there's a big difference between a four years old child who until Ferdinand is the baby of the family and a ten years old child. FW's imagine of himself as a loving dad can be amplified by adoring small children. (Note that little Wilhelmine wrote him affectionate "dear Papa" letters, too, when she was around that age and older.) Who get Christmas treats, and who get indulged when they ask for favors (like AW for the pardon) or gifts. Otoh, ten years olds who like books and music are a different matter. Stratemann's reports don't extend to that period, but younger Seckendorff is writing into his journal then, and the only two kid-related anecdotes I recall is a) young AW fainting in the tobacco parliament, and b) Ferdinand (who's the indulged five years old then) cheeking Grumbkow about handing over bread and being a Field Marshal. (Unless we count "Junior"'s pronouncement that Heinrich and Ferdinand have a bad nature, Ferdinand is the worst and AW is good natured but with the education of a peasant.) What we do have, otoh, from that era is FW's statement - quoted in several biographies - that he doesn't make predictions about his children except about AW who would be an "honnete homme" and a great one, surely. So I'm still going with the assumption that the indulgence for Heinrich on those two occasions in 1730 was based on him being the baby of the family, the position he just lost to Ferdinand who however was an actual baby and couldn't yet interact with Dad, and once Heinrich left tiny cutie phase behind and developed interests that were not FW's, he faded into the background with the other kids, with AW the constant male favourite and the female favourite being Charlotte and Ulrike in turns.
Wait, what? Another much-loved valet? Do we know anything about this individual? Was this just the random Küstrin servant that FW said should come shave him and for a brief period wasn't allowed to even sleep in the same room as Fritz, but had to visit daily?
Must be, since I don't think the valet he had before, the one who also shows up in the interrogation protocols, was with him in Küstrin at any point?
It sucks to be both of them.
Absolutely. And that's why I'm majorly sideeying those editors and historians who are complaining about her being a bad daughter, or hysterical, and that poor FW was the one to be pitied, with his wife and two oldest ganging up on him. He had all the power, and no, not every word Wilhelmine wrote in the memoirs was true, but she probably was as accurate as most people looking back at very traumatic events years later and using the writing as a chance to vent and in lack of actual therapy.
It's also always important to remember that while many a contemporary thought FW was over the top with his reactions, both Fritz and Wilhelmine would still have gotten the message that it was his right to treat them this way both as monarch and as father from all sides. And while they hated him, they didn't, I fear, ever stop loving him as well and wanting his approval and a "Well done, you".
On a lighter note, Hervey in his memoirs has this passage of G2 ranting about how lousy sons are the worst, absolute scum, fathers are martyrs, and then he suddenly recalls his own dear old dad and adds, yes, okay, there are bad fathers and good sons as well. And, says, Hervey, it was clear to everyone hearing this that G2 was thinking of himself both as the cardinal example of a wronged father and a wronged son. Meanwhile, FW, only child of two parents who despite being very different from him both seem to have loved him and whose most most debatable action was a) to send him to live with his cousins for a while, and b) given him a strict Calvinist as a teacher when he was ten: Of course there are no bad fathers! Fathers should only be loved and listened to and adored! There are no exceptions!
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Re: The Braunschweig Perspective: Family Holidays
Date: 2020-10-04 05:45 pm (UTC)I wonder whether that means that whoever was her source and wrote it down for her - I imagine Wilhelmine didn't go herself to an army barrack - copied it badly, or whether she was just told it verbally and writes it out of her memory twenty years later? That is assuming Stratemann has the correct version, but since he's writing at the time and has no problem copying down the exact text since no one should object to the Braunschweig envoy doing such a thing, I'm assuming so.
Yeah, I gather that didn't make it into the Hans Heinrich biographical monograph you picked up at Wust.
Nope. Would have blown quite a hole into his theory.
WOW. Go Hans Heinrich.
That's what I think. I mean, I wouldn't exclude the possibility that he has mixed feelings about Fritz as well, but mostly this points to him struggling to reconcile the loyalty he feels he ows his sovereign with being a grieving father who thinks his son, while deserving some punishment (I think Hans Heinrich would have been okay with some years in prison - well, ashamed, but okay in terms of considering it just), was taken from him by this man, and not higher justice.
Your plan for the AU in which he and Hans Herrmann have a heart to heart later in life looks more plausible than ever.
Yep! I imagine that had changed by 1736, year of raiding Fritz's larder?
So I would gather. Not least because there's a big difference between a four years old child who until Ferdinand is the baby of the family and a ten years old child. FW's imagine of himself as a loving dad can be amplified by adoring small children. (Note that little Wilhelmine wrote him affectionate "dear Papa" letters, too, when she was around that age and older.) Who get Christmas treats, and who get indulged when they ask for favors (like AW for the pardon) or gifts. Otoh, ten years olds who like books and music are a different matter. Stratemann's reports don't extend to that period, but younger Seckendorff is writing into his journal then, and the only two kid-related anecdotes I recall is a) young AW fainting in the tobacco parliament, and b) Ferdinand (who's the indulged five years old then) cheeking Grumbkow about handing over bread and being a Field Marshal. (Unless we count "Junior"'s pronouncement that Heinrich and Ferdinand have a bad nature, Ferdinand is the worst and AW is good natured but with the education of a peasant.) What we do have, otoh, from that era is FW's statement - quoted in several biographies - that he doesn't make predictions about his children except about AW who would be an "honnete homme" and a great one, surely. So I'm still going with the assumption that the indulgence for Heinrich on those two occasions in 1730 was based on him being the baby of the family, the position he just lost to Ferdinand who however was an actual baby and couldn't yet interact with Dad, and once Heinrich left tiny cutie phase behind and developed interests that were not FW's, he faded into the background with the other kids, with AW the constant male favourite and the female favourite being Charlotte and Ulrike in turns.
Wait, what? Another much-loved valet? Do we know anything about this individual? Was this just the random Küstrin servant that FW said should come shave him and for a brief period wasn't allowed to even sleep in the same room as Fritz, but had to visit daily?
Must be, since I don't think the valet he had before, the one who also shows up in the interrogation protocols, was with him in Küstrin at any point?
It sucks to be both of them.
Absolutely. And that's why I'm majorly sideeying those editors and historians who are complaining about her being a bad daughter, or hysterical, and that poor FW was the one to be pitied, with his wife and two oldest ganging up on him. He had all the power, and no, not every word Wilhelmine wrote in the memoirs was true, but she probably was as accurate as most people looking back at very traumatic events years later and using the writing as a chance to vent and in lack of actual therapy.
It's also always important to remember that while many a contemporary thought FW was over the top with his reactions, both Fritz and Wilhelmine would still have gotten the message that it was his right to treat them this way both as monarch and as father from all sides. And while they hated him, they didn't, I fear, ever stop loving him as well and wanting his approval and a "Well done, you".
On a lighter note, Hervey in his memoirs has this passage of G2 ranting about how lousy sons are the worst, absolute scum, fathers are martyrs, and then he suddenly recalls his own dear old dad and adds, yes, okay, there are bad fathers and good sons as well. And, says, Hervey, it was clear to everyone hearing this that G2 was thinking of himself both as the cardinal example of a wronged father and a wronged son. Meanwhile, FW, only child of two parents who despite being very different from him both seem to have loved him and whose most most debatable action was a) to send him to live with his cousins for a while, and b) given him a strict Calvinist as a teacher when he was ten: Of course there are no bad fathers! Fathers should only be loved and listened to and adored! There are no exceptions!