cahn | Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 21

Much slower because of world-events/Life-in-general/Yuletide/holidays, but still going!

End of Yuletide signups:
4 requests for Frederician RPF :D :D 2 offers
2 requests for Circle of Voltaire RPF, 2 offers (I hope we did not scare you off, third offer!)

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From:

felis

Ahaha, I thought about answering with this, too. :D

Additionally, I wondered if Fritz' line might be a very veiled Voltaire reference, because in the "are the talents of the mind not preferable?" letter to Duhan from 1736, I left out that Fritz changed a couple of verses of the Henriade to express a similar sentiment (minus the self-complimentary exaggeration):

I owe you everything, master, I must admit it;
And if for a little virtue Europe praises me,
It's to you, dear Duhan, to you that I owe it, etc.

(Henriade: I owe him everything, madame, I must admit it:
And if for a little virtue Europe praises me,
If Rome has even often esteemed my exploits,
It is to you, illustrious shadow, to you that I owe it.)

--
The way the opinionated (and intensely Fritz fannish) German translator keeps arguing with the French editor he's translating via footnote is indeed hilarious

Right? They are both quite opinionated really, which makes it fun.

Editor: Introduction*
*Translator: Here I'm sparing you some comments on vanity and the transigence of glory which have nothing to do with anything.

Editor, second sentence of the introduction: In this book you'll see an example of the king's orginal character before his correspondence with Voltaire and d'Alembert changed him irrevocably!*
*Translator: Totally disagree, d'Alembert only became a thing after the 7 Years War, can be disregarded, and Voltaire only changed the king's literary taste and character.

Also, the rumours: There seems to have been one going around that Seckendorff helped get Hanau (the secret library librarian) out of exile after only a few months? I don't know anything about this, but:
Editor: This totally shows that Seckendorff did his utmost to help the Crown Prince's cause!*
*Translator: I think this was only a rumour, Friedrich himself wrote that Seckendorff caused lots of trouble for him!
Editor: It is therefore quite strange that the King wrote about Seckendorff as he did.*
*Translator: It's even stranger that the editor feels the need to accuse the king of ungratefulness. Total bullshit.

Finally, I couldn't help but smile at this quote from the editor: The way the King called for Duhan right after he ascended the throne is incomparable.
Algarotti in retrospect: Weeell....

From:

selenak

Seckendorff's biographer completely agrees with the editor (and then some, what with "the so-called Philosopher of Sanssouci" phrase - which reminds me of "die sogenannte DDR" as our worst rag, the Bildzeitung, used to all the GDR), and thinks Fritz was an ungrateful lying wretch when it came to Seckendorff.

Seckendorff himself, while imprisoned by Fritz in Magdeburg, to Lehndorff: "As for him calling me an ursurer" - which Fritz did in the Histoire de la Maison de Brandenburg - "I haven't been one to him, as I never saw anything of the XXXXX Taler I gave him again".

My own take: Seckendorff, once he'd decided FW would not actually execute Fritz, did push for reconciliation and was indeed ready and willing to donate Austrian money to both Fritz and Wilhelmine, all as an investment into the future, of course. Fritz and Wilhelmine were ready to accept this money without ever intending to do something for the Austrians in return; as Seckendorff and Grumbkow previously had done a lot to widen the rift between FW and SD, and as a consequence between FW and them, I doubt they felt as much as a flicker of gratitude. The Fritz-worshipping crowd near the end of 18th Century, otoh, would never have believed their heroic Prussian hero would ever have accepted money from two men he despised (Seckendorff and Grumbkow), even if he didn't intend to do something for it. Not the stalwart fighter against corruption!

So you have in the 1790s Fritz fans who not only utterly believe Fritz when it comes to Seckendorff in general but blame the Küstrin fiasco almost entirely on him and declare it was all an attempt to force heroic Protestant Fritz to marry Catholic MT (or her sister), since no one has access to the letters between Seckendorff and Prince Eugene, or Grumbkow and Fritz, which make it very clear this was Fritz' idea and that the Austrians, far from being enthused at the prospect, went all "yeah, no!" Zimmermann is the sole early Fritzologue who proposes the idea Fritz might have wanted to marry MT, but of course he goes over the top with it and has this adventurous spin where Fritz doesn't intend to flee to England or France at all but to Austria to marry MT, and this, quoth Zimmermann, is why Seckendorff and the Emperor pleaded for mercy later with FW.

Another outlier is the Seckendorff biographer, who doesn't appear ot have had access to the Austrian state archives with the Eugene letters, either, but who champions Seckendorff the misunderstood hero in general.

In other news, kudos to you for the Henriade catch. I'm reminded of the biographer who points out that with the start of the 7 Years War, Fritz changes his usual goodbye to a direct Henri IV quote from the Henriade - which implicitly casts all his opponents as the bigotted League and himself as the most popular of French monarchs - and I think one can never go wrong assuming he had Voltaire on the brain in some fashion if he's older than 16...

From:

mildred_of_midgard

LOLOLOL, well, I stand corrected! That's my Fritz! :D

My conclusion: yep, that's the state of mind The Great was in when writing the Marwitz letters and tells Wilhelmine the ways of how she's betrayed him, alright.

Yep, that plus in desperate need of a trip to take the waters = not easy to deal with. Remember when I speculated that Darget + Marwitz was maybe his sex drive spiking right after conquering Silesia and being called The Great?

I am really enjoying the battle of the footnotes, hee.

Also, German translator's footnote about excusing vanity reminds me of this bit from Theodor Mommsen, 19th century German historian, who would have given Caesar a blow job given the chance: "[Caesar] retained a certain foppishness in his outward appearance, or, to speak more correctly, the pleasing consciousness of his own manly beauty."

From:

cahn

Thank you for this! This is great.

My father only gave me life; are the talents of the mind not preferable?

Take that, FW! :(

Blood ties impose silence on me on a subject where I could explain myself more clearly, and where the subtle distinction between hating a bad deed and loving the one who commits it might vanish.

...is this the diss to FW that I think it is?

And that condolence letter is... surprisingly not bad! Like mildred I figured it was because it wasn't someone he had strong emotions about.

<3

From:

cahn

Awwww, Doris :((((

Clearly early proof of Heinrich's strategic abilities. :)

Hee! But yes, an odd parallel and complaint :)

(still loling forever at future!Louis XVI not knowing how to have sex)

From:

cahn

That "asteure" is weird to me! I mean, not just because it stumped me (which it did until reading your french text) but because I would have figured it would have been rendered as three separate words, even if the spelling of them was garbled. But maybe Fritz looked at it like a contraction or something.

Duhan may have come across as suitably pious, FW not realizing that for some people, religion and freethinking philosophy were compatible.

Oh, yeah, like

felis I was struck by the piety of his letters. I can see how that might have blinded FW to his less orthodox opinions. (added to his natural capacity to be extremely awfully bad at picking kidstaff...)

From:

cahn

This is hilarious, lol!

From:

cahn

ahahahah I am totally loving the editor/translator wars (though I guess I can't call it that when the translator always gets the last word?)

Finally, I couldn't help but smile at this quote from the editor: The way the King called for Duhan right after he ascended the throne is incomparable.
Algarotti in retrospect: Weeell....

HEE!

From:

cahn

YAY ANNA AMALIA. I feel she is the real hero of this family for being the only one (as far as I know?) to actively decide to Parent Differently <3

So my impression was that Charlotte was one for playing it safe, punching downwards and submitting upwards. Which is why I'm intrigued she played courier for Fritz and Duhan. Of course, the personal risk for her isn't that great - she's not financially dependent on FW the way Wilhelmine still is, Braunschweig is a duchy with blood ties to the Habsburgs as well as the Hohenzollern, so if FW finds out, he's not able to harm her or her husband as a consequence - and since Fritz will be the next King, it could be a way to cement her standing with him.

That makes a lot of sense!

From:

selenak

I have just one problem with this theory: Fritz' worst condolence letter was the one to EC about the death of her youngest brother Franz. (You know, the "sorry about your brother Franz, but he had it coming, and actually, I'm surprised he didn't get himself killed far sooner" one.) I don't think he had strong feelings about either of them. (Unless we count the strong feeling of not wishing to be married to EC, but I don't think he hated her as a person.)

From:

selenak

Also: in fairness, as Mildred has often said, it's FW who is the unorthodox person here. Every other king or uncrowned ruler in Europe when hiring someone to teach their son would have been all for Latin and Greek and Roman history, as well as French literture, because that was the canon. Kings were expected to know about this. If the kid actually is curious about this and wants to learn, all the better. The only other noble in sympathy with FW's position would have been his pal the Old Dessauer, who supposedly had his sons raised with minimum to no education at all to see what would happen. (Says Lehndorff when writing about one of the sons: the result was such that we should hope no prince will ever try such foolery again.) But seriously, Duhan was doing what every other noble father of his time would have wanted him to do.

Somewhat relatedly, I recently came across the anecdote of G1's early days in Britain again when he didn't speak much English and his PM and cabinent apparantly were none too good in French (and of course did not have a word of German) - making Latin, for a while, the default language of communication. Now G1 was no intellectual. But knowing enough Latin (in addition to being bilingual in French and German, and having some Italian) for this was not unusual, it was expected of him as a Prince Elector of Hannover.

From:

felis

...to see what would happen? *headdesk* (I hope they at least learned how to read.)

From:

felis

...is this the diss to FW that I think it is?

I certainly took it that way.

From:

felis

Ah, yes, the ~~beginnings of the Mafia AU~~ money thing. I recently came across the 1732 letter exchange that seems to have started it and was very amused, both by the way Seckendorff writes - "well, since I'm very invested in a good relationship between you and your father, we don't want him to find out about the new debt, do we? here's a detailed instruction on how to receive and spend the money. please destroy this letter and sent me proof" - and by the fact that Fritz apparently didn't destroy it and debuted (?) his 'secret code' of 'books' and 'poems' in his reply.

re: The Henriade catch, just to be clear, it was mentioned in a footnote on the letter, I just applied it to the eulogy.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I may not be able to reply to comments until this weekend, but I had to clarify this one.

Because you and I developed a whole theory about what happened to produce this Worst of All Possible Condolence Letters!

Facts:
September 30: Middle brother Albert dies at Soor (not to be confused with youngest brother Franz, who dies later at Hochkirch).
October 2: Fritz writes two lines to EC with virtually no content at all, certainly no mention of her brother. He writes to Fredersdorf that Albert is dead, but that was no great loss.
October 5: EC writes to surviving brother Ferdinand that Albert died in Fritz's service and it's cruel of Fritz not to have written a syllable to her or to sister Louise.
October 9: Fritz writes the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad condolence letter that he'd always told Albert to stop being reckless or he was going to get himself killed, and it's only a surprise it didn't happen sooner.
Other relevant fact: AW was present at Soor.

The theory that you and I came up with: Fritz initially does not write a condolence letter to EC, because he dislikes Albert and has no strong feelings for EC. EC and Louise complain to each other that Albert died in Fritz's service and they haven't heard a word from Fritz. Louise passes these complaints on to AW. AW, ever the family mediator, tries to tactfully suggest to Fritz that maybe it's his job as husband and commander-in-chief to write this letter, even if he didn't like the guy, because he died in Fritz's service.

Cue letter in which a suddenly on the defensive Fritz feels the need to write about how it's not HIS fault that Albert's dead, HE tried to save Albert, it's ALBERT'S fault he wouldn't listen to Fritz, because everyone would be so much better off if they always listened to Fritz.

I think Fritz went from having mildly negative feelings about the parties in involved to suddenly having extremely strong feelings about how it can't possibly be his fault. Hence the tone of this letter matching the first part of the Worst Letter to Heinrich about how AW's estrangement and death were anyone's fault but Fritz's.

So I think it still falls into the category of Fritz's emotional involvement getting in the way of anything like emotional intelligence, only in a different way from the other letters (though the defensiveness is notably common to AW and Albert).

felis, this is the original thread where we discussed this, and downthread it has some discussion of Blanning and Manger.

Edited Date: 2020-11-18 04:40 pm (UTC)

From:

felis

... because I just stumbled across him while looking for something else! (previous thread)

a) Fritz mentions him in passing in a letter to Wilhelmine from December 15th, 1732, where he gives a list of people he dines with, and calls him "a harlequin by nature and a fop by profession".

b) I should have read both the editor's notes and the bibliographical notes at Trier, because the latter have a link to an uncensored version of both letters, provided by Volz, and while I have a hard time understanding some of it (unknown words and references + Fritz orthography + verse + blackletters = ???), I do see why they were extensively censored: lots of profanity. Like: Fritz accuses v.d.Groeben of sitting at home and lousing his "hosenbeutel" and I don't know if he means his bottom or his balls or something less personal, but he certainly tells him that "thunder should drive sideways into your arse with barbed hooks, for you devil are sitting at home and hatching your hen's eggs". (That last expression just means that he's lazy I think, because I seem to dimly remember hearing it used even in my time?) There's more in the uncensored poem, but, see above, comprehension problems.
But, on a less sweary note, he also tells him that he's lucky because he's getting enough to eat and because there's dysentery going around in the camp. And he sends him fruit and dice and possibly a (snuff?)box filled with contraband(?) ("so you don't forget me").

As for the editor's notes: Preuss and Volz can't seem to agree on much, not even the guy's name - Johann Heinrich (Preuss, which fits the state archive) vs. Joachim Heinrich (Volz, which might make him the brother of the wiki guy Mildred linked, with a 1705 birthdate and a 1738 marriage) - but they both say that he was first ensign (at the time of the letter to Wilhelmine) and then lieutenant in Fritz' regiment, and transfered to the hussars in 1738. (Preuss says he was thirty-four at the time, so it seems that he was definitely years older than Fritz.)

Preuss' footnotes also led me to two other anecdotes about him, one in Büsching p. 20 - some questionable "pranks" on preachers and their wives played by Fritz and him - and a Fritz letter to Grumbkow in 1733, where von der Groeben apparently almost got into a fistfight with a woman - Preuss says Wolden's wife - because he bothered her with his smoking, she started to insult him, he insulted back, and then "a fight of the amazons" almost broke out, except her husband intervened and the combatants made peace by drinking.

... I guess now we know why Fritz called him a devil!? (Although in this particular case, he actually called her a female one.)

From:

selenak

Albert, right, I always get the two names confused!

I remember the theory well, but I remember your conclusion at the time ws that Fritz decided to write a letter to ensure now one else ever pesters him into writing a condolence letter again. :) More seriously, if we were right, it's intriguing he does feel defensive instead of going "yeah, yeah, now hand over your clean shirts, and can I get some sympathy for fretting about my dogs?"

From:

selenak

Good old Volz. Thank you very much indeed for the links!

"a harlequin by nature and a fop by profession".

Checking on your link, I see Volz footnotes this not just with his own translation of the Fritz/Wilhelmine letters but with the original French phrase, where Fritz uses "petit-maitre" for "fop". Which stood out to me because that's what FW keeps calling him in his rants, including in the August 1731 submission protocol.

Hosenbeutel: definitely where the balls and the penis are kept, as far as male 18th century fashion is concerned.

I recognized one quote from the letter, the one about Prince Eugene letting the imperial army drill now the way the Prussians did. Though Fritz may have written this to more than one person, he had a lot of time at his hands in this inconclusive war.

Snuffbox: giving one with your portrait was a popular way to signal favor for royals, so I assume this is what happened. As for contraband, perhaps due to the war situation the tobacco import had gotten tricky?

What strikes me about the letter other than its frat boy tone (see, AW wasn't the only one in the family!) is that Fritz uses the Du address. This is not surprising when he's writing to Fredersdorf, because Fredersdorf is a commoner and his valet. But von der Gröben is a noble and an officer, which means he's just the kind of person whom Fritz, were he writing in French, would using "vous" to address. And of course writing in German by itself is rare - writing a poem in German hasn't happened since Küstrin!

(And in Küstrin, it had been in return to the friendly gesture by Wilke.)

I note in the poem he asks "how is the pack of whores?" (Das Hurenpack.) Which could literally mean female prostitutes, but it's worth mentioning Fritz also calls undeniable male Marwitz a whore in one of the Marwitz lettrs, and he calls all the singers (female and male alike) whores in the Fredersdorf letters (with the footnotes both by Richter and by other editors assuring the readers he didn't mean it like that, it was just how one refered to singers in Those Days, which, yeah, some people certainly did...

Anyway, re: the question whether or not he had sex with von der Gröben: it more sounds like, what's the euphemism theses days employed by US politicians, army "locker room talk". Which isn't to say that he didn't! Just that I can't tell on the basis of the letter and the poem alone.

Oh, and it does crack me up that the the next previously unprinted Fritz work Volz presents in this article is the famous orgasm poem about Algarotti, "cygne de Padue"...with Volz assuring is it's characteristing for the great King that in the last lines of the poem, he prefers "the happiness one enjoys in qieteness and in one's own room" to the great glory and fame.

From:

selenak

One would hope, since he became a leading general, and even with a secretary, that would be hard without this ability. His German wiki entry says it might be a legend (that his father didn't have him educated) and that at any rate Prince Moritz didn't do worse than other generals. (True: while he's co-responsible for Fritz' big defeat at Kolin, he also fought in victorious battles such as Leuthen.)

Lehndorff wasn't too keen on him, as mentioned, but he does report the lack of education, so if it was a legend/rumor, it was one already known to contemporaries and deeemed believable. In his entry on January 24th (i.e. Fritz' birthday) 1753, he writes: Great gala dinner at the Queen's; all foreign princes participate, including Prince Moritz, who is an odd fellow. His father let him grow up completely according to nature, without providing him with the least bit of education. As a result, he's grown into an idiot the likes of which habe rarely been seen. He has a strong disposition towards all things military, loves his soldiers like a commander, loves his horses and his dogs. He also treats them all in the same style.

Mind you, of course he could exaggarate. (See also Voltaire, well, some guy claiming in the 1752 pamphlet that AW could neither read nor write until Fritz got on the throne because FW didn't believe in education.) But even taking this with a pinch of salt, I think it's a safe bet Moritz von Anhalt-Dessau can't have received much of an education, and people noticed.

*now envisions the sons of old Dessauer singing Pink Floyd*

From:

felis

Fritz uses "petit-maitre" for "fop". Which stood out to me because that's what FW keeps calling him in his rants

Oh, nice, I totally missed that connection! Interesting.

As for contraband, perhaps due to the war situation the tobacco import had gotten tricky?

Possibly, yeah. Spain was on the opposite side, too, if I remember correctly.

Talking about his gifts, I'm also rather curious what the "rare local fruit" was that had to be cooked on coals...

What strikes me about the letter other than its frat boy tone (see, AW wasn't the only one in the family!) is that Fritz uses the Du address.

Right! I already noticed this last time and forgot to comment on it. But also: shouldn't von der Groeben, as a noble, know French? And if he did, it would be rather interesting that Fritz was still writing in German - possibly because their relationship is so closely army related?

re: Hurenpack - thank you for the collection of other instances where Fritz uses the word, that's good context. I wasn't quite sure how he meant it, so I didn't mention it. (I mean, I even know the compound word as a current day insult for a group of people regardless of gender and/or profession, but I have no idea if that particular use was a thing in the 18th century. If so, and given that he asks if they are "in good harmony", he might even be referring to the rest of their group who stayed behind?)

From:

selenak

Petit-maitre: I just remembered another prominent use of the term, and that's good old Voltaire managing to tick off his friend Lord Hervey with the dedication of Voltaire's tragedy, Zaire, to an English merchant named Edward Falkener. To quote Hervey's biographer Halsband:

In France it was regarded as scandalous because it was addressed not only to a commoner but to a foreign one at that. Hervey told Henry Fox that he thought it "bad, false, & impertinent ... by a superficial Frenchman to an Englishman, & the Dedicator pretends to be better acquainted with our Country, our Manners, our Laws, & even our Language than the Dedicatee'.

What could have aroused such a violent opinion ? In the dedicatory epistle, after praising the high rank and regard the mercantile class enjoyed in England, Voltaire continues : 'I know very well that this profession is despised by our petits-maîtres ; but you also know that our petits -maîtres and yours are the most ridiculous species that proudly crawl on the face of the earth'. This, rather than the general remarks about French and English theatre, could have been offensive to one who was certainly closer to being a petit-maître than a man of commerce.

So "petit-maitre" is definitely as derogatory as "Stutzer" is in German and "fop" in English, not just when FW says it.

rare local fruit: any chance it might have been a potato? He did famously introduce them to Prussia later. :)

But also: shouldn't von der Groeben, as a noble, know French?

He should. Now granted, your avarage Prussian noble family isn't able to afford the sheer number of French native speakers to raise their kids the way the Royal household did, and thus he's likely to have it learned later than Fritz & Co. Also, there's a great bandwidth of just how fluent a noble could be in French, even discounting sons of the Old Dessauer. Remember, when EC and Louise talked to each other or their mother, their default language was German, as Lehndorff notes more than once, and EC's French was deemed sufficiently imperfect when she first arrived in Brandenburg for her to take extra lessons to please her husband. Augusta von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Fritz of Wales' wife, also supposedly wasn't very good at French when first arriving in England. (Though the source for this is Hervey, who never loses an opportunity for a good diss.) So I'm guessing that while Gröben could read, write and talk French if he had to, presumably he wasn't as comfortable or fluent in it as the Hohenzollern and their usual social circle, and Fritz cared enough to indulge him by writing German.

And if he did, it would be rather interesting that Fritz was still writing in German - possibly because their relationship is so closely army related?

That, too, and chances are "Hurenpack" in this context means the rest of the regiment back home in Ruppin. There's another possibility, too; since Fritz is with the army when writing this, and his father is paranoid again,FW might have decided to have his mail read once more. Swearing not withstanding or even especially with the swearing, this letter sounds exactly like the kind of friendship FW would want Fritz to have. It's in German, not French, not a single work of literature or music is mentioned, the desire to see some military action is suitable, too, and the general tone is manly men enjoying manly things. (Note that Fritz doesn't mention having sex of either variety himself at all, so the one manly thing which could bring FW's ire is not there.)

From:

felis

any chance it might have been a potato?

It did cross my mind! Depends on how much he knew about potatoes at that point I guess, given that he calls it a "local fruit" and doesn't seem to have a name for it. That he introduced it seems to be more legend than fact, later efforts to popularize its cultivation notwithstanding. Wiki tells me that one of the first places where potatoes were grown in the 17th century was in Bavaria, and also that Fritz' great-grandfather already grew potatoes as ornamental plants in Berlin. Which doesn't mean Fritz encountered them later of course, or that he would make the connection between plant and "fruit" at that point.

since Fritz is with the army when writing this, and his father is paranoid again, FW might have decided to have his mail read once more

I initially tought it unlikely because he writes very openly to Wilhelmine during that time, but thinking about it, he probably had a much safer way to send letters to her than back to Berlin (he even mentions her messengers in his letters). The other reason was indeed all the swearing, which was one of the things FW named as something to prevent in his 1718 instructions, although compared to other things it seems low on the list on offenses.

From:

prinzsorgenfrei

Uni hit me like a freight train, every professor wants some presentation or essay as proof that I'm not sleeping in their Zoom lectures and drawing in perspective is hard, so my illustrations aren't working, but one thing is working out: Copying stuff.
So I copied one of my favorite portraits of Wilhelmine because who would deserve a spot on my wall more than her? :D And oh, the difference a familiar medium (colored pencils, in this case) can make.

images

My phone camera makes the texture look 10 times more rough than it is and there are some flaws, but I'm satisfied with the overall result :D She's now officially the prettiest person of the lineup so far.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Wow, that's AMAZING! Definitely the prettiest! Your talent never ceases to astound, and you must have the best-decorated apartment in town. :DDD

(Guys, I'm way behind on comments because I'm steadfastly not doing anything that might jeopardize finishing my Yuletide fic in time, but I have starred all the ones that I want to reply to and will be chatty again at some point. :) Also, Yuletide progress is happening, yay and fingers crossed.)

From:

selenak

Wow! It's one of my favourite portraits of her, too, and I love your version. Including how you bring out the Hohenzollern blue eyes, and the sceptical smile. A massive round applause for you!