* Oh, Podewils was Grumbkow's son-in-law! I feel like I've run into that like 3 times and have forgotten it every time. So, goodbye English-friendly Knyphausen (Ariane's father) and hello Grumbkow son-in-law.
* That letter where Charles VI asks FW to not kill his son? Oster says Seckendorff only handed it over when the pardon was a done deal. Because it's Seckendorff, I believe it, but I'd like to see a citation.
* FW asking the preachers whether a father can force his daughter to get married: apparently one said yes! The preacher of the Garrison Church in Potsdam. (Where both FW and Fritz would be buried until Nazi times, if I'm remembering correctly.)
* Contra Wilhelmine's memoirs, Oster doesn't think that SD proposed the future Margrave of Bayreuth as a possible match, not even as a decoy.
* Oster has the "don't get married just to get me out of prison" letter, AWWW. I still love the mutual self-sacrifice between these two. YOU TWO. <3
* Oh, the future Margrave's regiment later got renamed the Ansbach-Bayreuther dragoons! I was *wondering* where that name came from. Duuuh. cahn, they will later distinguish themselves at the battle of Hohenfriedberg in 1745, one of Fritz's great victories. Wikipedia:
At this point the Prussian Bayreuth Dragoons, an oversize unit numbering around 1,500 men, entered the battle. A strong gust of wind blew away the powder smoke and the dust and revealed an opening in the Austrian lines through which to charge the vulnerable Austrian infantry. The dragoons deployed into line, and attacked north against the right flank of the first Austrian line. They drove all the way along that line, routing it completely, then turned south to destroy the second Austrian line.
The Austrians, already outnumbered, abandoned by their Saxon allies, without cavalry protection, and now broken by this attack, began to surrender en masse. The Bayreuth Dragoons defeated several thousand Austrian infantry and only suffered 94 casualties. The Dragoons overran twenty battalions, took 2,500 prisoners, capturing 67 flags and standards as well as four cannons in what is considered and celebrated as one of the great cavalry battlefield triumphs. The battle ended with the complete defeat of the Austro-Saxon army.
* Lol at SD protecting her girls' delicate ears from dirty sexual jokes.
* FW on his boar hunt: We're going to kill a bunch of pigs and everyone has to buy the meat! Especially if you're Jewish.
Sigh. Less expensive and more offensive than Fritz making them buy porcelain, I guess.
* Oster on Wilhelmine bringing Marwitz to Bayreuth: Little did she know that this girl would one day ruin her marriage.
That's right, blame the woman.
* Fritz writing to Wilhelmine after her wedding: "When I see you, you will again find the brother who dares [emphasis mine] to show you tenderness." Everybody stop being so hard on him for the wedding! We have the letter from Grumbkow telling him to set boundaries! There are plenty of other things to be hard on Fritz for, you won't have to do without.
* Schwager: I keep seeing this word used, not just for what I would call a brother-in-law, but also for the relationship between the FW and Wilhelmine's father-in-law, for which English has no single word. So German 1) actually has a word for that relationship, 2) it's the same as brother-in-law?
* Fritz in 1732: Can I go to Bayreuth with you, Dad? Can I can I can I?
Oster: The memory of the last trip FW had taken through south Germany with Fritz was too fresh...
I bet.
* Lol at the whole *drama* over Wilhelmine's daughter's baptism. I'm sorry you're being born into a dysfunctional family, little Friederike! [selenak, do we know what name she went by?]
* Fritz was godfather! Aww, I had either forgotten that or not known it. But of course he was.
* Fritz on October 19, 1732: If I could make gold, I would first use my knowledge to help out Wilhelmine.
If you could make gold, huh? I wonder if Fritz talked about making gold before 1732, or if we're seeing traces of Fredersdorf here.
* Speaking of Fritz and Fredersdorf, as we head into Christmas 1732, Fritz had been visiting FW at Wusterhausen before Wilhelmine arrived! I had missed that and assumed it was the first visit in a while, and wrote accordingly. Oh well! Fanfic takes liberties with chronology.
* This part, though, zomg:
Fritz to Wilhelmine: Don't bring too many servants, or Dad will fire them, and don't bring your musician right away. Let him come later, and don't let anyone find out he belongs to you.
THAT part of our fics was spot on! Wow, I didn't realize cahn and I had accidentally fictionalized an actualfax letter!
Also,
Nimm nicht viel Dienerschaft mit, denn er willdaran streichen
I'm assuming "streichen" is "remove", not, as Google hilariously translated it, "paint". Though Fredersdorf is nearly tall enough to get painted!
cahn, you missed the chance to include that scene. :P (Though historically, as far as I can tell, FW hadn't taken up painting yet. What is fic for if not for chronological liberties!)
* Another thing I got wrong that I will pretend was intentional conflation of minor characters: the Sonsfeld who takes care of little Friederike while Wilhelmine is in Berlin is not Sonsine the much loved, but her inexperienced sister who's like, "Halp, a baby, what do?" Or at least so Wilhelmine claims in her letter to try to get money for a proper nurse--I hope that was partly a rhetorical device!
* Fritz is disillusioned with the English and "hates everything English."
Lehndorff: :-(
* Judging by the letters and not the memoirs, Fritz had already left for his regiment when the German comedian episode happened, because Wilhelmine reports to him on it.
THAT is one chronological liberty I will stand and die by! Besides, we were writing fanfic of her memoirs. :P
* Fritz of Bayreuth: *loves his baby* Fritz of Bayreuth: Please don't tell your sarcastic brother-in-law. Wilhelmine to Fritz: Please tease my husband about this.
Okay, Wilhelmine?
* Wilhelmine: Dr. Superville saved my husband after a stroke! I will take this opportunity to note that he is of French extraction and comes from a good family.
* Superville on Fritz in 1739: much wit/spirit/intelligence, but a bad heart and a terrible character. He's suspicious, stubborn, excessive, selfish, ungrateful, vicious, and unless I'm very much mistaken, will someday be even stingier than his father.
Oster: He's not wrong.
Me: Well spotted in 1739! Here's one person who wasn't caught off guard in 1740.
* Wilhelmine and the Margrave set off for Italy and France in 1739! This is not ringing a bell at ALL! Wow.
That sucks that it didn't work out and they had to wait another 15 years, at which point she was very sick. :( :( :( I'm glad she was healthy enough to enjoy it, at least.
* Per Oster, Wilhelmine knew about her husband/Marwitz in 1739, but Fritz didn't.
* Oh, something I forgot to mention from the earliest pages:
Daß die Akademie der Wissenschaften unter Friedrich Wilhelm I. für die Bezahlung der Hofnarren zuständig war, sagt eigentlich alles.
That the court fool was responsible for the Academy of Sciences under FW really says it all.
Things like this are why I had *no* concept of Gundling as anything *but* the court fool until selenak stepped in. MacDonogh's the same.
You do remember correctly re: the Garrison church.
Schwager: I keep seeing this word used, not just for what I would call a brother-in-law, but also for the relationship between the FW and Wilhelmine's father-in-law, for which English has no single word. So German 1) actually has a word for that relationship, 2) it's the same as brother-in-law?
It usually means "brother-in-law", but in old fashioned German, it used to mean any male in-law, which the old Margrave was.
Wilhelmine's daughter did go by "Friederike". And I did translate Wilhelmine's letter about her husband being adorable about the baby for you back in the day. :) Fritz as godfather: alas he wasn't a good one, in the sense that he actually did something for the girl. Now part of it was that he didn't see her often, due to geography (what with her living either in Franconia with her parents or in Swabia with her husband), and she didn't visit Berlin a lot. (Enough to impress Lehndorff with her beauty, though.) But Fritz quite openly writes to Wilhelmine in the 1750s, when she's fretting about her daughter's marriage, that "the only interest I have in your daughter is because of her mother". Exchanges between Fritz and Wilhelmine about adult Friederike tend to go thusly:
W: Visiting Stuttgart right now. My son-in-law is incredibly jealous and possessive re: my daughter. I think it's creepy, and doesn't bode well for how the marriage will go if the honeymoon era is over. F: Eh, isn't it good if a young bride has her husband's undivided attention? Your daughter should count herself lucky. W: Visiting Stuttgart again. Now he's having favourites. F: Men will be men. I knew he was like that when he was still growing up at my court. W: I've heard a rumor the Duke is secretly considering converting to Catholicism like his father and will make my daughter do the same. Please advise? F: Your daughter converting to Catholicism is a no-go. She's the Duchess in a Protestant principality where people hated the last Duke's guts for converting. Since her marriage is not going well, her being Protestant is all she has to assure herself of being in the public favor, and that can be useful to her if her husband turns more against her. W: Thanks, that's actually good ad.... F: Also I need Würtemberg to continue as my ally, not MT's, so your daughter better ensure her husband doesn't convert.
Daß die Akademie der Wissenschaften unter Friedrich Wilhelm I. für die Bezahlung der Hofnarren zuständig war, sagt eigentlich alles.
That the court fool was responsible for the Academy of Sciences under FW really says it all.
That's the wrong translation, though. "That the Academy of the Sciences under FW was responsible for paying the court fools (plural) salaries says it all."
I mean, the general meaning in the larger context presumably is still the same, re: the standing of the academy in FW's time, but in the interest of your German, I clarified.
It usually means "brother-in-law", but in old fashioned German, it used to mean any male in-law, which the old Margrave was.
Aahhh. Thank you!
And I did translate Wilhelmine's letter about her husband being adorable about the baby for you back in the day.
I indeed remembered the adorable good father part, but not the part where he told Wilhelmine not to tell and Wilhelmine promptly told.
But Fritz quite openly writes to Wilhelmine in the 1750s, when she's fretting about her daughter's marriage, that "the only interest I have in your daughter is because of her mother".
Oh, yes, I remember how he was, and my "awww" was 100% about Wilhelmine/Fritz feels at the time of the birth, not about his A+ godparenting/uncle-ing later in life.
Thank you for the German correction! The problem with my German at this point is that I can figure things like this out...if I'm willing to work for them. And in this case, I was typing fast and translating from a very faded memory, instead of rereading. (I.e. I'm pretty sure I got it when actually reading it a couple weeks ago.) My goal is to get to the point where the meaning jumps off the page at me!
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough - 1730s
Date: 2020-10-03 11:38 pm (UTC)* That letter where Charles VI asks FW to not kill his son? Oster says Seckendorff only handed it over when the pardon was a done deal. Because it's Seckendorff, I believe it, but I'd like to see a citation.
* FW asking the preachers whether a father can force his daughter to get married: apparently one said yes! The preacher of the Garrison Church in Potsdam. (Where both FW and Fritz would be buried until Nazi times, if I'm remembering correctly.)
* Contra Wilhelmine's memoirs, Oster doesn't think that SD proposed the future Margrave of Bayreuth as a possible match, not even as a decoy.
* Oster has the "don't get married just to get me out of prison" letter, AWWW. I still love the mutual self-sacrifice between these two. YOU TWO. <3
* Oh, the future Margrave's regiment later got renamed the Ansbach-Bayreuther dragoons! I was *wondering* where that name came from. Duuuh.
At this point the Prussian Bayreuth Dragoons, an oversize unit numbering around 1,500 men, entered the battle. A strong gust of wind blew away the powder smoke and the dust and revealed an opening in the Austrian lines through which to charge the vulnerable Austrian infantry. The dragoons deployed into line, and attacked north against the right flank of the first Austrian line. They drove all the way along that line, routing it completely, then turned south to destroy the second Austrian line.
The Austrians, already outnumbered, abandoned by their Saxon allies, without cavalry protection, and now broken by this attack, began to surrender en masse. The Bayreuth Dragoons defeated several thousand Austrian infantry and only suffered 94 casualties. The Dragoons overran twenty battalions, took 2,500 prisoners, capturing 67 flags and standards as well as four cannons in what is considered and celebrated as one of the great cavalry battlefield triumphs. The battle ended with the complete defeat of the Austro-Saxon army.
* Lol at SD protecting her girls' delicate ears from dirty sexual jokes.
* FW on his boar hunt: We're going to kill a bunch of pigs and everyone has to buy the meat! Especially if you're Jewish.
Sigh. Less expensive and more offensive than Fritz making them buy porcelain, I guess.
* Oster on Wilhelmine bringing Marwitz to Bayreuth: Little did she know that this girl would one day ruin her marriage.
That's right, blame the woman.
* Fritz writing to Wilhelmine after her wedding: "When I see you, you will again find the brother who dares [emphasis mine] to show you tenderness." Everybody stop being so hard on him for the wedding! We have the letter from Grumbkow telling him to set boundaries! There are plenty of other things to be hard on Fritz for, you won't have to do without.
* Schwager: I keep seeing this word used, not just for what I would call a brother-in-law, but also for the relationship between the FW and Wilhelmine's father-in-law, for which English has no single word. So German 1) actually has a word for that relationship, 2) it's the same as brother-in-law?
* Fritz in 1732: Can I go to Bayreuth with you, Dad? Can I can I can I?
Oster: The memory of the last trip FW had taken through south Germany with Fritz was too fresh...
I bet.
* Lol at the whole *drama* over Wilhelmine's daughter's baptism. I'm sorry you're being born into a dysfunctional family, little Friederike! [
* Fritz was godfather! Aww, I had either forgotten that or not known it. But of course he was.
* Fritz on October 19, 1732: If I could make gold, I would first use my knowledge to help out Wilhelmine.
If you could make gold, huh? I wonder if Fritz talked about making gold before 1732, or if we're seeing traces of Fredersdorf here.
* Speaking of Fritz and Fredersdorf, as we head into Christmas 1732, Fritz had been visiting FW at Wusterhausen before Wilhelmine arrived! I had missed that and assumed it was the first visit in a while, and wrote accordingly. Oh well! Fanfic takes liberties with chronology.
* This part, though, zomg:
Fritz to Wilhelmine: Don't bring too many servants, or Dad will fire them, and don't bring your musician right away. Let him come later, and don't let anyone find out he belongs to you.
THAT part of our fics was spot on! Wow, I didn't realize
Also,
Nimm nicht viel Dienerschaft mit, denn er willdaran streichen
I'm assuming "streichen" is "remove", not, as Google hilariously translated it, "paint". Though Fredersdorf is nearly tall enough to get painted!
* Another thing I got wrong that I will pretend was intentional conflation of minor characters: the Sonsfeld who takes care of little Friederike while Wilhelmine is in Berlin is not Sonsine the much loved, but her inexperienced sister who's like, "Halp, a baby, what do?" Or at least so Wilhelmine claims in her letter to try to get money for a proper nurse--I hope that was partly a rhetorical device!
* Fritz is disillusioned with the English and "hates everything English."
Lehndorff: :-(
* Judging by the letters and not the memoirs, Fritz had already left for his regiment when the German comedian episode happened, because Wilhelmine reports to him on it.
THAT is one chronological liberty I will stand and die by! Besides, we were writing fanfic of her memoirs. :P
* Fritz of Bayreuth: *loves his baby*
Fritz of Bayreuth: Please don't tell your sarcastic brother-in-law.
Wilhelmine to Fritz: Please tease my husband about this.
Okay, Wilhelmine?
* Wilhelmine: Dr. Superville saved my husband after a stroke! I will take this opportunity to note that he is of French extraction and comes from a good family.
* Superville on Fritz in 1739: much wit/spirit/intelligence, but a bad heart and a terrible character. He's suspicious, stubborn, excessive, selfish, ungrateful, vicious, and unless I'm very much mistaken, will someday be even stingier than his father.
Oster: He's not wrong.
Me: Well spotted in 1739! Here's one person who wasn't caught off guard in 1740.
* Wilhelmine and the Margrave set off for Italy and France in 1739! This is not ringing a bell at ALL! Wow.
That sucks that it didn't work out and they had to wait another 15 years, at which point she was very sick. :( :( :( I'm glad she was healthy enough to enjoy it, at least.
* Per Oster, Wilhelmine knew about her husband/Marwitz in 1739, but Fritz didn't.
* Oh, something I forgot to mention from the earliest pages:
Daß die Akademie der Wissenschaften unter Friedrich Wilhelm I. für die Bezahlung der Hofnarren zuständig war, sagt eigentlich alles.
That the court fool was responsible for the Academy of Sciences under FW really says it all.
Things like this are why I had *no* concept of Gundling as anything *but* the court fool until
:(
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough - 1730s
Date: 2020-10-04 05:57 am (UTC)Schwager: I keep seeing this word used, not just for what I would call a brother-in-law, but also for the relationship between the FW and Wilhelmine's father-in-law, for which English has no single word. So German 1) actually has a word for that relationship, 2) it's the same as brother-in-law?
It usually means "brother-in-law", but in old fashioned German, it used to mean any male in-law, which the old Margrave was.
Wilhelmine's daughter did go by "Friederike". And I did translate Wilhelmine's letter about her husband being adorable about the baby for you back in the day. :) Fritz as godfather: alas he wasn't a good one, in the sense that he actually did something for the girl. Now part of it was that he didn't see her often, due to geography (what with her living either in Franconia with her parents or in Swabia with her husband), and she didn't visit Berlin a lot. (Enough to impress Lehndorff with her beauty, though.) But Fritz quite openly writes to Wilhelmine in the 1750s, when she's fretting about her daughter's marriage, that "the only interest I have in your daughter is because of her mother". Exchanges between Fritz and Wilhelmine about adult Friederike tend to go thusly:
W: Visiting Stuttgart right now. My son-in-law is incredibly jealous and possessive re: my daughter. I think it's creepy, and doesn't bode well for how the marriage will go if the honeymoon era is over.
F: Eh, isn't it good if a young bride has her husband's undivided attention? Your daughter should count herself lucky.
W: Visiting Stuttgart again. Now he's having favourites.
F: Men will be men. I knew he was like that when he was still growing up at my court.
W: I've heard a rumor the Duke is secretly considering converting to Catholicism like his father and will make my daughter do the same. Please advise?
F: Your daughter converting to Catholicism is a no-go. She's the Duchess in a Protestant principality where people hated the last Duke's guts for converting. Since her marriage is not going well, her being Protestant is all she has to assure herself of being in the public favor, and that can be useful to her if her husband turns more against her.
W: Thanks, that's actually good ad....
F: Also I need Würtemberg to continue as my ally, not MT's, so your daughter better ensure her husband doesn't convert.
Daß die Akademie der Wissenschaften unter Friedrich Wilhelm I. für die Bezahlung der Hofnarren zuständig war, sagt eigentlich alles.
That the court fool was responsible for the Academy of Sciences under FW really says it all.
That's the wrong translation, though. "That the Academy of the Sciences under FW was responsible for paying the court fools (plural) salaries says it all."
I mean, the general meaning in the larger context presumably is still the same, re: the standing of the academy in FW's time, but in the interest of your German, I clarified.
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough - 1730s
Date: 2020-10-04 06:21 pm (UTC)Aahhh. Thank you!
And I did translate Wilhelmine's letter about her husband being adorable about the baby for you back in the day.
I indeed remembered the adorable good father part, but not the part where he told Wilhelmine not to tell and Wilhelmine promptly told.
But Fritz quite openly writes to Wilhelmine in the 1750s, when she's fretting about her daughter's marriage, that "the only interest I have in your daughter is because of her mother".
Oh, yes, I remember how he was, and my "awww" was 100% about Wilhelmine/Fritz feels at the time of the birth, not about his A+ godparenting/uncle-ing later in life.
Thank you for the German correction! The problem with my German at this point is that I can figure things like this out...if I'm willing to work for them. And in this case, I was typing fast and translating from a very faded memory, instead of rereading. (I.e. I'm pretty sure I got it when actually reading it a couple weeks ago.) My goal is to get to the point where the meaning jumps off the page at me!
Keep the corrections coming. :)
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough - 1730s
Date: 2020-10-06 04:47 am (UTC)