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Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 19
Yuletide nominations:
18th Century CE Federician RPF
Maria Theresia | Maria Theresa of Austria
Voltaire
Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Ernst Ahasverus von Lehndorff
Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802)
Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758)
Anna Amalie von Preußen | Anna Amalia of Prussia (1723-1787)
Catherine II of Russia
Hans Hermann von Katte
Peter Karl Christoph von Keith
Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf
August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758)
Circle of Voltaire RPF
Emilie du Chatelet
Jeanne Antoinette Poisson (Madame de Pompadour)
John Hervey (1696-1743)
Marie Louise Mignot Denis
Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu
Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis
Armand de Vignerot du Plessis de Richelieu (1696-1788)
Francesco Algarotti
18th Century CE Federician RPF
Maria Theresia | Maria Theresa of Austria
Voltaire
Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Ernst Ahasverus von Lehndorff
Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802)
Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758)
Anna Amalie von Preußen | Anna Amalia of Prussia (1723-1787)
Catherine II of Russia
Hans Hermann von Katte
Peter Karl Christoph von Keith
Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf
August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758)
Circle of Voltaire RPF
Emilie du Chatelet
Jeanne Antoinette Poisson (Madame de Pompadour)
John Hervey (1696-1743)
Marie Louise Mignot Denis
Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu
Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis
Armand de Vignerot du Plessis de Richelieu (1696-1788)
Francesco Algarotti
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
Fritz: WTF, Voltaire. I didn't get a copy until 1750!
*
Since the Margravine did not understand the academic language Latin and did not value the French professors too highly, she asked them to discuss the two theses in German.
should read:
Since the Margravine did not...estimate the French language skills of the German professors too highly.
Not what's happening here, but one thing I noticed while reading this is that when Google randomly decides to delete half a sentence or a sentence and a half or whatever, it's frequently the part immediately following a direct quotation. Not just when quotes are split up by "he said," but when it's like "Blah blah. 'Direct quote here.' New sentence not in the quote.", Google will go, "Blah blah. 'Direct quote here.' in the quote.", and completely drop the words "New sentence not", for example.
I might programmatically inject paragraph breaks at the ends of quotes in the future and see if that helps.
* Erlangen journalist who trashes Fritz and causes a Fritz/Wilhelmine fallout is Johan Gottfried Groß.
Ohhhh!
That makes sense of something Blanning said. When recounting how Fritz's lack of people skills and unwillingness to make nice with foreign envoys backfired on him diplomatically, he writes:
So when Frederick went out of his way to insult the newly arrived Russian envoy, von Gross, by asking him whether he was related to a journalist of the same name, he was also ensuring that every last piece of malicious gossip would be reported back to St. Petersburg.
I thought that was just a remark that would be snide in a very classist era (which it was also that!), but Fritz is specifically asking about the guy who trashed him a few years before. See, Blanning needs to tell us these things.
The source, btw, is Koser in an article on the Prussian court circa 1750, which looks potentially interesting, as well as other articles (mostly the Great Elector, but at least one containing letters from Sophie Charlotte to FW's governor Dohna), but in addition to having the bad 1903 font, it is exceedingly tiny. Are they trolling me? :P I can almost read this (a fluent German reader should have no problem), but it just drives me crazy whenever I'm making a good faith effort to deal with a foreign language in a foreign font and then the text *also* has tiny, blurry, faint, or smeared font to boot. :P
Anyway, see Hohenzollern_Jahrbuch under Articles if you're interested.
* Long ago, we had questioned why Fritz calls female Marwitz "Medea": Oster gives enough of the quote that it looks to me that Fritz is saying Marwitz is bent on revenge, which is certainly a feature of Medea.
* Oster says Marwitz was responsible for the Bayreuth court allying more closely with Vienna!
* Wilhelmine is eerily like Fritz when it comes to hanging out with French intellectuals and snarking at her own subjects:
"They take 10 years to learn how to say good day and good evening, and another 10 to learn how to make an awkward bow."
This reminds me of Heinrich's
"I am busy feeding my officers and teaching them to speak. Until recently, they could only speak single words, but I dipped some cookies in Hungarian wine and now they can produce whole sentences."
* Wilhelmine getting the money to build an opera house by telling the committee in charge of finances that if they give her money to build a new palace, she and the Margrave can stay in Bayreuth longer in the winter and not have to go to Erlangen.
Then, "Oops, I accidentally built an opera house with the money." :P
Also, lol at Wilhelmine starting out wanting an opera house like Fritz's and then, after the fallout, even after they've made up, deciding she wants one like the one in Vienna.
* Aww at Wilhelmine enduring a horrible winter trip by pretending she's on her way to Berlin to see Fritz. YOU TWO. <333
* Aww at Wilhelmine wanting to see Fritz so much that she says she would have set out even if on death's door.
(You know which boyfriend I'm thinking of here. <3)
* Oster believes in the orange peel quote, sigh.
* Lol at Wilhelmine getting Fritz's permission to go to Montpellier, in France, for the sake of her health, all the while knowing she's using it as a jumping off point for an Italy trip, but doesn't want to ask him for permission for that up front.
Now I see where Heinrich got it from!
* Lol at Wilhelmine spending the night at the Marquis de Sade's!
* Lol at Wilhelmine making nice with the Pope's people so they'll look the other way while she illicitly exports art from Italy.
And apparently she left the whole Italy collection to Fritz in her will, and so it's still in Berlin to this day.
* Ansbach brother-in-law votes against Fritz in the imperial ban, Fritz swears to avenge himself if he survives the war! Ansbach brother-in-law also criticizes Wilhelmine's expenses, and Fritz says, "That's rich, coming from you, mister big spender. Just be glad the Italy trip was good Wilhelmine's health and she's still alive. Also, I'm not kidding about the vengeance part."
Brother-in-law conveniently dies early in the war, thus evading his eventual meeting with destiny, aka a gangster with good PR. :P
* And with that, I'm finally finished with the Oster comments! I have to say, I appreciated how Oster did justice to Wilhelmine and her husband as doing a good job at being the Baroque/Rokoko representational rulers they wanted to be, while repeatedly pointing out that this meant they were completely out of touch with their people, who justifiably resented their spending and were less than impressed.
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
Voltaire: First, the Duchess Marie Auguste was hot, just ask the Marquis D‘Argenson. Secondly, Würtemberg has a border with France, which is why I parked some of my money there, where neither you nor my sovereign could got your paws on it. I also made loans to the Duchess and her sons with huge interest on that occasion. All of which started by me permitting her to copy La Pucelle.
Johann Gottfried Groß: who also, as I recall Oster reports, was gleefully happy to note that clearly, his was the only German newspaper Fritz actually was reading. :)
Female Marwitz being pro-Austrian: well, not only was her husband Austrian but she did end up in Vienna once she had left Bayreuth, conducting a very successful salon there. Presumably she‘d calculated early on that there was no future back in Prussia being married to a Dad and Fritz chosen guy, and that as Maitresse en titre of Bayreuth Friedrich it wasn‘t in her interest to promote a policy strengthening the ties to the all mighty brother of her lover‘s wife, but rather the opposite. In addition to which Bayreuth really was surrounded by largely Catholic HRE principalities, except for Ansbach.
Also, lol at Wilhelmine starting out wanting an opera house like Fritz's and then, after the fallout, even after they've made up, deciding she wants one like the one in Vienna.
Well, the result would argue she made the right choice. *g*
And yes, Oster‘s good at keeping the balance between showing Wilhelmine and BayreuthFritz acting as princes of their era were supposed to and showing how this affected their subjects. (Hence also the readiness to believe the „that fire was totally a plan, just like Nero and Rome“ story.)
Now I see where Heinrich got it from!
Had not thought of this, but you‘re absolutely right. Well, one of this strengths as a general was noticing and studying efficient strategies. *g*
Ansbach brother in law: in addition to this, he was also yet another lousy husband I am reminded of Fritz‘ unexpectedly touching reaction in a letter to Heinrich when his Ansbach sister died: My dearest brother,
It is the heartbroken with pain that I write to you today. I have just learned of the death of our poor and unhappy sister in Ansbach. This comes back, my dear brother, to what I have been telling you lately, that what is left of our family is shaking up their sleeves. I have always thought of going to Ansbach to see my poor sister again; I never could find the moment. She was a very good and honest person, whose heart was full of integrity. I confess to you, my dear brother, that this distresses me so much, that I will put off another day to answer you.
Friederike Luise had once been a spirited girl whose cheeky telling FW that the food he gives his children is lousy triggered the occasion where he threw with the plates at Wilhelmine and Fritz; she was the first to get married, and by the time she died, she was an utterly depressed lonely woman hardly able to talk anymore.
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
Wilhelmine: the Traun of the Hohenzollern siblings. :D
Friederike Luise had once been a spirited girl whose cheeky telling FW that the food he gives his children is lousy triggered the occasion where he threw with the plates at Wilhelmine and Fritz; she was the first to get married, and by the time she died, she was an utterly depressed lonely woman hardly able to talk anymore.
Yeah. :/ Her appearance in the last part of Wilhelmine's memoirs is filled with sibling rivalry and resentment.
Wilhelmine: She said to wake up early so we could go on a trip, and then when I Got up early, she stayed in bed and said she didn't feel like going, but she looked fine to me! Her maid said it was just moodiness.
Me: Could be clinical depression.
Wilhelmine: I'm mad at her because she didn't follow my lead in standing on ceremony with this one guy who didn't agree with me about how to treat me as a King's daughter, and she's mad at me because I insisted on my rights! Naturally, everyone at her court agreed with me.
Me: You just keep telling yourself that.
Wilhelmine: And then she insulted me by insisting on standing on ceremony with me and treating me as her social superior! Which technically I am, but I never insist on that with family. This was an insult!
Me: Judging by the previous anecdote, I CAN SEE WHERE SHE GOT THE IDEA she needed to stand on ceremony with you!
Wilhelmine: And then my totally changed now-king brother *shocked* me by wanting to see her when he came to visit me, because he never liked her before. And then he was nicer to her than to me and gave her more presents!
Me: To quote
More memoir updates:
* Wilhelmine buying into toxic masculinity: When an unmarried woman is flirting with every man in sight and her doctors have essentially diagnosed her with sexual frustration, her father is obliged to hit her, otherwise no one will be able to control her. Also, my father-in-law was forced to lock up my mother-in-law because of her bad behavior.
Me: Go back to the horseback riding!
* Wilhelmine says FW abdicated the day he died (remember, there was some ambiguity in different editions of Fritz's correspondence whether it was the day of or the day before), but as caveats, she wasn't there, she was writing 4 years later, and she reports the final parting at 7 am instead of Fritz's 5 am.
Oh, and hilariously, when FW dies and she's sad because none of her relatives would let her come (apparently her husband, brother, and mother were all against it, although to be fair, Fritz said, "Up to you, though,"), she reports that Fritz and SD withdrew into another room and cried together, but whether the tears were genuine or fake, I can't tell.
Probably a little of both? The occasion would have been moving, and Fritz *clearly* had strong feelings, and also this was the last chance for FW to do a "Well done, son." Which, judging the exchange with Voltaire and also the dreams 20 years later, did not happen to Fritz's satisfaction. So I'm guessing the tears were real, which doesn't mean he wasn't also thinking, "Oh, thank God."
* Her dog dies and she takes the opportunity to talk about how dogs are better than people.
I honor the loyalty of dogs; it seems to me that they have the advantage here over people, who are so fickle and changeable (veränderlich).
Granted I'm reading in translation, I'll have to keep an eye out when it comes time for French, but she's writing this in 1744 (the dog died back in 1735; this isn't Folichon), and "verändert" is the word she most often uses of Fritz in this volume. :/
Worth pointing out that she says on his way to the siege at Phillipsburg, he was all sweetness; but her husband wrote her letters from the front talking about how he had changed, and she reports that never after that did she meet the Fritz she used to know; on his way back a few weeks later, he was awful (mocking the "little" court at Bayreuth, that sort of thing).
Now, I know she's writing with hindsight during their fallout and trying to convince herself she should have seen it coming, and I know she reports the first signs of him changing in 1731 (and vacillation after that, until 1734), but given how Fritz *did* seem to have an at-war mode he switched into, and given how absolutely common that is among veterans, I actually buy it.
Mind you, she also says Fritz of Bayreuth "changes" toward her on multiple occasions: immediately after he inherits, and after he recovers from a serious illness and starts checking out Marwitz.
Aaaand, I see why she appreciated her dogs. Therapy animals for everyone.
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
So the Wilhelmine writing her memoirs in the 1740s is one whose sense of self worth has been thoroughly shattered: the lady-in-waiting whom she thought was her best friend has an affair with her husband, the same husband whom her mother blamed and ridiculed her for marrying, with Wilhelmine's counter argument having been "he may not be a future King, but at least he truly loves me"). And the first and foremost affectionate relationship of her life, the one with Fritz, now looks ended or at least so changed she can no longer draw from it the love and confidence she used to.
=> presto Wilhelmine the memoir writer lashing out in jealousy, whether it's sister Friederike Luise or for that matter Katte and Keith, and clinging extra hard on her social standing as the one thing still intact to be proud of
Wilhelmine's other method of self therapy was of course opera composing, and it's worth pointing out that in Argenore, you don't just have
Argenore: tyrannical king who in final scene commits suicide after realising he's destroyed his son and daughter
Palmida: his daughter, is supposed to marry Leonida but loves Ormodo
Ormodo: his long-lost son, whose true identity however is only uncovered to everyone, including himself, in the last act
but also
Leonida: Palmida's fiance, who secretly has a love affair with
Martesia: Palmida's best friend, believed to be Ormodo's sister through most of the opera. Also the sole survivor of this opera (everyone else is dead by the final note).
Wiki points out Martesia is possibly the most interesting role, since the composer gives her the same amount of arias as Palmira has, including the final arias of the second and third act, and the final aria of the overall opera. She is the one who calls the titular character, King Argenore, a "monstrous father" and clears up who's related to whom and what happened in the end. She also isn't a villainess, since she gives up her love for Leonida so he can marry Palmida, and is the only one not killing anyone else. Her guilt is that she holds back on the document that reveals Ormodo is really not her brother but Palmida's, so she's not innocent, either.
...and then of course, the opera has such plot points as King Argenore, wishing to force his daughter Palmida to marry Leonida and forget about Ormodo, wants first to force her to kill Ormodo , and then, when that doesn't work out and he thinks he's got Ormodo killed (but in reality, Ormodo has managed to escape and kill the executor instead, trading clothes with him), wants to force Palmida to look at her lover's dead body.
Meaning: it's not like one opera character completely corresponds to one in Wilhelmine's life, but that the autobiographical points are all intermingled, remixed and given to several characters. The final kicker, btw, is that this opera premiered on the Margrave's birthday, it was officially Wilhelmine's birthday present for him. (Just like her next opera, the opera version of Voltaire's Semiramis, aka the one that ends in matricide, was staged as a birthday present to SD.)
Mind you, all of which is still less harmful a way to work through your trauma than roleplay with your younger siblings or go to war, but then Wilhelmine didn't have the option to do either.
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough - Koser quote
Even rougher were at the same time the ending of diplomatic relations wiht Russia. The Empress Elisabeth was represented in Berlin by one Herr von Groß, since 1749, who had succeeded the well-liked Count Keyserling. Since he'd achieved a reputation for rough manners in Paris, the King of Prussia believed that his arrival was supposed to worsen the Prussian-Russian relationships, who'd been in a decline since the second Silesian War, and for his part did nothing to win the new arrival over. Groß emphatically noticed the mockery in the question when the King asked him on his first visit whether he was a brother of the Erlangen journalist Groß. After a yar, in August 1750, Groß felt entitled to complain that he hadn't been invited to supper after a court festivity in Charlottenburg, which all the other foreign envoys had been. The Russian court let three months pass, then recalled its envoy, and listed this complaint in a note presented to the Prussian envoy in St. Petersburg among other complaints. Groß left Berlin without announcing this to any official; he limited himself to asking for postal horses, with a note that goes as follows in its entirety: "The Russian Envoy needs 16 horses for four wagons until tomorrow, December 2nd, in order to get from Berlin to Memel, and hence kindly requests that they should be given to him. Groß."
He was given the horses; later, the explanation was given that while after the first of the Charlottenburg festivities only three foreign envoys had been invited to supper, the Imperial envoy, the Swedish and the Danish envoy, on the second day all the envoys, including Herr von Groß, had been invited to both the ball and to supper.
Maria Theresia's envoy, the imperial Generalfeldwachtmeister Count Anton de la Puebla used his position very differently. Despite in a way fighting for a hopeless cause, he due to his qualities navigated the difficult position he was in quite happily, and accordingly found himself treated with distinction and even up to a point with benevolence. In the summer of 1752, the King gifted him with a splendid box, and he did so, as the court put it, in a fine manner, for the present was offered as an exchange object. The King had wished to see a portrait of the Empress-Queen, Puebla sent one to him, and the King replied that if one was in the possession of such a beautiful portrait, one did not let it go anymore, so the Envoy should in exchange accept the King's portrait along with this box. When rumor had it that Vienna wanted to recall Puebla in favor of a new envoy, the King wrote to his envoy in Vienna that such a change would displease him.
(Puebla remained until the war. Koser adds a footnote re: MT's portrait saying: Maria Theresia's portrait may have been the same which the King pointed to in July 1756 when talking with the British envoy Mitchell while saying: "This lady wants war? She'll get it."
Puebla: I'd like to enter the "Who's the best envoy?" ompetition as a dark horse, please. Since I clearly had the worst start, seeing as Fritz and MT would always hate each other, and there was nothing I could do to change that, and yet I made myself popular with not just the court but Fritz himself. Moreover, Lehndorff reports my mistress kept my portrait on display in her salon even after the war had started and was open about missing me.
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough - Koser quote
Puebla: well done! MT inherited a talent for picking envoys?
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
Do we know if/when Fritz found out? (Also, Pleschinski says that Voltaire visited Bayreuth without Fritz, is he wrong about that?)
I thought that was just a remark that would be snide in a very classist era (which it was also that!)
Same here! Great to get more context on that.
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
I don't. I hope he didn't! Perhaps
Also, Pleschinski says that Voltaire visited Bayreuth without Fritz, is he wrong about that?
I would have to check, but my impression from Oster was that they went to Bayreuth together, but Fritz went off and did his own thing for much of the time without Voltaire, who stayed behind in Bayreuth. Take that with a grain of salt, as I'm going by memory and don't have time to check at present.
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
One of my reasons for asking was that apparently, some of the letters from around that time don't exist anymore, and since it's exactly when the blow-up happens that leads to more than two years of radio silence, I was trying to piece together some more details beyond "Fritz is insulted that Voltaire didn't stay for good" and possibly politics. (And what with the ungratefulness and "only come back with the works I'm owed", I was also wondering in how far not getting the Pucelle played a role, given that he started writing postscripts like these - La Pucelle! la Pucelle! la Pucelle! et encore la Pucelle! Pour l'amour de Dieu, ou plus encore pour l'amour de vous-même, envoyez-la-moi. - on his letters during the first half of the year. So if he found out that Voltaire gave it to someone else in Bayreuth... On the other hand, I'm pretty sure we would know about that, because surely Fritz would have mentioned it.)
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
You lent the Pucelle to the Duchess of Würtemberg: learn that she had it copied overnight. These are the people you confide in; and the only ones who deserve your trust, or rather to whom you should abandon yourself entirely, are those with whom you are distrustful.
Still doesn't tell me when exactly he found out which details, but he sure did know. Voltaire in response says she didn't get anything that Fritz didn't already have (he did possess around five chapters) - if he's lying about that, you guys would know better than me. (On the other hand, why would Émilie let him take the whole thing on a journey at all?)
Re: Oster Wilhelmine readthrough
rather to whom you should abandon yourself entirely
Tell us how you really feel, Fritz. :D
if he's lying about that, you guys would know better than me
That, I don't know. I do know (or at least have read) that Fritz had a partial copy, hence in "Lovers lying two and two" I had Fritz say in 1750 that he was going to get his hands on a "complete" copy now that Voltaire was in Prussia. How much the duchess had? Your guess is as good as mine.
On the other hand, why would Émilie let him take the whole thing on a journey at all?
Ah, but that I can see. Having someone show up at your house on behalf of the Crown Prince you
view as a romantic rivaldon't trust is one thing, having your lover abscond with a manuscript he owns might be something you don't find out about until it's too late. Maybe?