Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 22 (or: Yuletide 2020 edition)

[cahn]

ETA: Whoops, I missed my cue -- this might as well be the next discussion post, I guess! :)

This is about the fic I didn't author (I have another reveals post for the fics I did author).

So my goal this Yuletide was NOT to write any historical fandom (because hard!) and just enjoy the excellent stuff that other people wrote. And... that sort of happened? I didn't end up authoring anything history-intensive? Buuuuut I ended up spending a lot more time than I did on any of my own fics working with mildred_of_midgard on her fic, which she was worried about being able to pull off because she had had this completely insane idea to write a long casefic about Frederick the Great that every time I turned around had another twist put in :P :) She supplied me with what we called a "rough opal in matrix" bus pass casefic, and I cut away the matrix that remained and in some cases carved the opal -- that is to say, writing additional text for some of the scenes, what we liked to call "putting in feels," and in at least two cases entirely rewriting and/or restructuring the scene she'd written. She didn't always keep what I wrote (which we'd agreed upon in the beginning), but when she did (which was most of the time :) ) she then went in and rewrote/restructured what I put in to wordsmith (some of the words I gave her were really rough) and match her style, adding even more scenes -- that is, polishing it up and adding some gold and diamonds -- and voila, a beautiful pendant, I mean, story :)

I'm really proud of it and also it was really fun and also what I could handle this year, especially because mildred did all the parts I thought were hard and also wrote all the parts involving actual history or subtle AU before I was brought in so I didn't actually have to know historical stuff (though I guess I will never forget the battle of Leuthen now), and took full responsibility for how the whole thing turned out, so all I had to do was be like "Here, I'll write some rough feels for you for this scene!" The funny part was that I would often then write a paragraph justifying why I *had* to write the scene the way I did, and more likely than not mildred would be like, "yeah, I was sure you would do that, of course it should be written like that." (The most glaring example of this was where I inserted the Letter of Doom at the climax. I was worried there was some reason she didn't want it there, but she said, no, she just didn't have time to put it in herself and was just trusting me to do that :) ) She started jokingly calling me her "other self," to which I replied that it was with 1000% less angst and frustration -- as Frederick the Great's brother was his "other self" (which actually comes up in the fic) that he could trust to do all kinds of competent things, but they had a relationship that was, um, fraught? radioactive? Whereas this was just fun :)

Mildred did so much more than I did (we estimated a 90%/10% word ratio, not even counting the part where she wordsmithed a lot of my text) that I felt very uncomfortable being listed as a co-author, but hey, ~3000 words is a respectable Yuletide fic length :)

Yet They Grind Exceedingly Small (30384 words) by mildred_of_midgard
Chapters: 5/5
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Anna Amalie von Preußen & Wilhelmine von Preußen, Anna Amalie von Preußen & Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen, Wilhelmine von Preußen & Elisabeth Friederike Sophie von Brandenburg-Bayreuth, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia
Characters: Anna Amalie von Preußen (1723-1787), Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758), Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802), Elisabeth Friederike Sophie von Brandenburg-Bayreuth (1732-1780), Wilhelmine von Hesse-Kassel (1726-1808), August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758), Alcmene 1 | Frederick the Great's Italian Greyhound, Voltaire (Writer), Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dysfunctional Family, Suicide, Alternate Universe - Dark, Siblings, Canon-Typical Violence, Mystery, Tide of History Challenge
Summary:

January 1758. Prince William is dead, some say of a broken heart. Frederick wants to absolve himself of blame for William's death. Henry schemes to end the Third Silesian War on his terms. Amalie and Wilhelmine team up to find out what really happened to their brother. Alcmene just wants to be told she's a good dog.

Comments

[mildred_of_midgard]

So, a little backstory here, if you want to imagine what it's like to be a generous person bailing me out of my own insane idea and to be getting emails from me, imagine getting an email from me that goes like this:

"Okay, I just shared a 20,000 word Google doc with you. It has all the plot but not enough feelings and some very thinly-sketched in scenes. You like shiny things, so here's an analogy. What I want to give Selena for Yuletide is this. What I've sent you is this. We have three weeks. Go!"

The idea of this analogy was twofold.

1) To establish an MO for collaborating. So, "There are parts of the fic that are inherent to the fic and that I'm attached to and that I want to stay. If you want to change or delete them, let's discuss first. That's the opal. Then there's the part where I just wrote some words so that it would read like a fic. That's the matrix. Please get rid of these parts at will (in suggestion mode, but you don't have to discuss them first)."

2) To assuage my self-consciousness about sending something this incomplete. Like, "I know these words are clumsy! I know these people aren't robots and should have feelings! If I had more time, I would fix a million things before letting a beta see it. But you're an alpha-and-beta, so please just don't judge me by thinking that I think these are great words that I am proud of. It's just there to convey the information you need to know in order for you to be able to make your contributions."

And then she made amaaaazing contributions, everyone!

Like the Mina and Heinrich scene. The purpose there is introduce Chekov's snuffbox (my idea) and to have Heinrich give himself away by being a terrible husband (cahn's idea).

Step 1: I wrote the core of the fight, where Mina says how much she misses AW and Fritz, and Heinrich says, "Oh, yeah? If you liked Fritz so much..." and Chekov's snuffbox is revealed. Then Mina comes back later and the Glasow/Heinrich connection is revealed (with ominous words that make sense in context).

Step 2: Cahn supplied a whole beginning to the scene, where Mina is trying to come to terms with Fritz's death on top of AW's, missing AW as a person, deciding to comfort Heinrich, going to Heinrich, saying all the wrong things, and getting rejected. She also introduced Heinrich's violin and other little details, etc.

Step 3: I bulk delete cahn's words and replace them with words of my own in which Mina is trying to come to terms with Fritz's death on top of AW's, missing AW as a person, deciding to comfort Heinrich, etc. I also added some things, like her maternal feelings toward FW2 (because I wanted to link that to AW leaving her the kids, which I wanted to introduce because it makes Heinrich's anger more understandable in context, especially since I couldn't provide the whole backstory of forced marriage, etc.) I inserted bits and pieces of cahn's phrasing into what I was writing, but most of that scene is mine--but you can see how much structure was hers.

Step 4: Profit!

*Knowing* that Mina and Heinrich should not be talking heads doing nothing but advancing the plot, and Mina should be grieving AW, etc., because duh, and *actually having* text, however rough, to work with, are radically different in terms of my ability to knock out a scene by the deadline. So cahn's contributions are *massive* and far beyond the total word count of which of her words remained in the final draft.

The funny part was that I would often then write a paragraph justifying why I *had* to write the scene the way I did, and more likely than not mildred would be like, "yeah, I was sure you would do that, of course it should be written like that." (The most glaring example of this was where I inserted the Letter of Doom at the climax. I was worried there was some reason she didn't want it there, but she said, no, she just didn't have time to put it in herself and was just trusting me to do that :) )

This was so funny, because it happened over and over again! The fact that I had my other self collaborating on this and didn't have to spell out everything I wanted was why we got this done in 2 weeks and had the last week free to hack away at the ending and to write treats.

Mildred did so much more than I did (we estimated a 90%/10% word ratio, not even counting the part where she wordsmithed a lot of my text) that I felt very uncomfortable being listed as a co-author

The funny part is that I've been trying to pressure you into accepting co-authorship credit for weeks because I'm very uncomfortable being listed as sole author. :D I did my best to credit you in the author's notes.

(we estimated a 90%/10% word ratio, not even counting the part where she wordsmithed a lot of my text)

NOT COUNTING the part where you were responsible for the STRUCTURE of scenes I bulk-deleted and regenerated or heavily rewrote in place, like Mina and all the opera parts. :P Not counting the part where after I sent you a 20k draft so rough I hadn't even reread it, I actually let you go over each scene before I revisited it. Not counting the part where, near the end, I was like, "Welp, not working on my fic today, because I'm just waiting on cahn to write the opera parts, and that's the only major thing left."

:D :D

This was an AMAZING experience, even better than last year (probably because my sleep, bad as it was, was a million times better than a year ago), and I can't thank you enough, other self.

Whereas this was just fun :)

It was SO much fun. And also very efficient when you can just trust your other self. <3

especially because mildred did all the parts I thought were hard

As with last year, I think I did all the easy parts! This is why we have such great collaborations. Though really, I can see why writing emotional reactions to someone else's plot developments is easier than writing the plot developments they have in mind, so I think we ended up with a really good division of labor here.

Collaboration

[cahn]

This was an AMAZING experience, even better than last year (probably because my sleep, bad as it was, was a million times better than a year ago), and I can't thank you enough, other self.

I also enjoyed it more than last year! I think on my end because the division of labor really worked for me, not least in terms of how much time and the specific types of brainpower I had available this year (for example, major self-editing/rewriting, which I always find draining if rewarding, was something I was just not in the mindset for this Yuletide, so the part where I could just write you stuff and have you edit/rewrite it was really nice for me), but also:

Though really, I can see why writing emotional reactions to someone else's plot developments is easier than writing the plot developments they have in mind, so I think we ended up with a really good division of labor here.

Part of it was the plot, yeah -- even though you'd supplied me with a detailed outline, it was the sort where I could tell you had even more detailed ideas in mind -- but even more, with you the plot and the history are intertwined so much, and I just don't have the minutiae (or, often, the bulk*) history at my fingertips like you and selenak. But thanks to both of you (principally selenak, of course), I have the characterization at my fingertips, and also, like you say, because you'd supplied me with all the plot text, it was super easy to write emotional reactions around whatever was going on in the plot.

Whereas you may remember that when I was writing "Counterpoint" (which you supplied the plot for) or "Survived" (which Wilhelmine supplied the plot for) every two paragraphs or so I'd run into where I was inadvertently writing some sort of anachronism, or hanging a plot point on something that wasn't historically accurate. I mean, I'm very proud of those fics, but I feel like they were very... inefficient?... to write because I kept having to run things by you and then change them. Whereas the way "Grind" was set up was the most efficient in both directions! :D

I must confess (well, I've told you this before) that I also really liked being able to write/structure the emotional parts to exactly fit my id :) IDK how you felt about that, since I know our ids aren't always kept in the same place -- apparently it didn't bother you too much :) So that was a really nice present for me <3

* At times I did what I told mildred was a great job as a beta reader who knew nothing about the fandom, despite having been in it for more than a year *facepalm* Which was useful! Since she wanted it to be accessible to someone who wasn't in the fandom! But still sort of embarrassing.

Let's kill Fritz! aka the salon hive mind

[mildred_of_midgard]

As felis pointed out in the comments, and as I was laughing about with cahn in email (and mob boss AU author on Facebook) even before story reveals, this is definitely the "Let's murder Fritz!" Yuletide. But as I pointed out, it's not the first time. We have:

Yuletide 2019, "Fiat Justitia": Fritz killed in a fit of anger by a close family member, Wilhelmine has to go on a quest for revenge.

Yuletide 2020, "Grind": Fredersdorf tries to convince Fritz that his taste in short-term boyfriends is F-, Fritz doesn't listen, Fritz is murdered by a boyfriend plus a close family member, Wilhelmine has put on her detective hat and also go on a quest for posthumous revenge.

Yuletide 2020, "Valet": Fredersdorf tries to convince Fritz that his taste in short-term boyfriends is F-, Fritz doesn't listen, Fritz is murdered by a boyfriend, Fredersdorf has to put on his detective hat and also go on a quest for rescuing Fritz.

Honorable mention to Ferdinand the unimportant, who showed up in two fics.

Someday it would be great if we had Voltaire crusading for Fritz twice, once when he's dead and once when he's in prison. (Oh, the humiliation.) :D

Re: Let's kill Fritz! aka the salon hive mind

[selenak]

I feel proud to have started the "Let's kill Fritz!" trend. :) And would like to point out we haven't yet exhausted the possibilities. After all, I recall that back whwen I first read Fritz' letter to EC about her brother's death at Soor, I said there should be an Agatha Christie style murder mystery where everyone has a motive, Heinrich is the obvious red herring for who actually did it, but it was really EC the overlooked. Though more seriously, that would mean writing her as essentially an OC, because given all the data we have on her, I just can't see her do it, no matter how provoked. Unless in a mercy killing kind of way, and here's a scenario: as it turns out, there was a second time EC visited Sanssouci, in the weeks before Fritz' death. She saw in how much pain he was, and and remembers how basically FW lived like this for a decade (which she saw a lot of, given she lived with the in-laws mostly for the first few years of her marriage when Fritz was still stationed at Ruppin), and when he's all "I just want to die", for the first time opening up emotionally to her, she's resolved to help him. That's the only way I can see it happening and still be in character for EC.

Poached Eggs and Boiled Frogs

[mildred_of_midgard]

Man, this title makes me laugh but also hungry every time I see it. I should have picked a different one. :P

A couple comments I wanted to reply to here instead of AO3, for greater visibility.

selenak: good to know that in the modern world, Catherine can resort to divorce and still get to be CEO instead of having to use the, err, traditional method.

The modern setting is a fix-it for some things and a break-it for others.

Fixed: Stigma-free no fault divorce for women.

Broken: Fritz has access to Slack and text messages and expects round-the-clock instantaneous responses. Can you imagine? 18th century people, you didn't know how good you had it with the postal service. ;)

:D

cahn: Thank you for this delightful snippet of Corporate AU, I would love to see more in this universe :D

My immediate response: If I write a fic that picks up immediately where this one left off, it's going to be titled "Kaphengst Kommt" and rated M. ;)

More seriously, thoughts that suggest themselves:
- First Polish Partition on the Europe trip with Catherine.
- Catherine being shocked to find that her kids are being raised with Poniatowski-influenced values instead of only hers.
- Fritz/Mike, where Mike is the CFO but also so much else. <3
- Mike talks a reluctant Fritz into therapy?
- Okay, but I'm serious about the Kaphengst porn. :P

And who knows what else. But I also want to study German and French and Voltaire and write a Voltaire/Heinrich showdown sequel to a certain other fic, so who knows what 2021 will bring. :D I still haven't given up hope on that fix-it fic where everyone escapes to France!

In the meantime, I'm delighted my rushed last-minute borderline crackfic brought the chortles and the giggles it was intended to. You two are the best of readers and commenters!

Re: Poached Eggs and Boiled Frogs

[selenak]

Fixed: Stigma-free no fault divorce for women.

Broken: Fritz has access to Slack and text messages and expects round-the-clock instantaneous responses. Can you imagine? 18th century people, you didn't know how good you had it with the postal service. ;)

Good lord yes, no kidding. However, his various employees, relations and friends are spared whenever he and Voltaire are texting at each other, clearly, because then no one else exists!

Meanwhile, Lehndorff is an earnest blogger with good descriptions (who can be snarky on occasion, such as when posting a snapshot showing Kaphengst's double chin in a photo featuring Heinrich in Las Vegas) who is into lengthy emails more than texts but who got on twitter just to follow Heinrich there.

Yet They Grind Exceedingly Small

[mildred_of_midgard]

I wanted to comment on a particular comment here, because it delighted me so much:

January 1758? That's too early! And why is Glasow still around? What's the point of the Leuthen divergence? ....and then I arrived at the Alcmene pov scene and the penny dropped. ZOMG. Romulus and Remus indeed. (I also could see the point of the Leuthen divergence immediately. Aside from pushing Wilhelm even more, it gives Heinrich an additional reason to feel guilty and project on to Friedrich (not to mention a legitimate reason to hate on Fritz some more.

The whole AU aspect of this fic was very complicated. On top of that, the summary was the hardest and most successful one I've ever written. I decided to open with "January 1758" and Wilhelm's death, because I knew you would *immediately* pick up on it being too early, and that would tell you something about the way in which it was canon-divergent, beyond the tag just saying it was.

Then there was the Leuthen divergence.

Well, cahn can tell you, I did everything in my power to avoid this. I wanted the point of divergence to be "How dark is Heinrich?" such that the divergence is him being the kind of person who decides to kill Fritz.

But then, by wanting to make it a mystery, I added new constraints, namely: I wanted it disguised as suicide, and I wanted Wilhelmine to have long enough to live to travel to Berlin and play detective. I toyed with having her show up, charge Amalie with finding out what happened, and die. But I didn't like that, I wanted the sisters to team up.

But *you* try finding a point during the Seven Years' War in which Heinrich is motivated to kill Fritz, Wilhelmine still has at least several months to live and it's at least a little bit plausible that she traveled to Berlin, and the military situation is bad enough that Fritz's death can be passed off as suicide (because no one's going to believe it was *just* Wilhelm's death). Between AW's death and Wilhelmine's death are only 4 months, and the military situation is looking pretty up for Prussia.

I tried everything. And I eventually gave up and had to mess with the military situation.

And because I'm me and I dislike randomness, I incorporated it into the fic such that it puts extra pressure on Heinrich (he's still intentionally slightly OOC, but there's also more external motivation for him compared to canon) and is the result of a different single point of divergence: Glasow not getting locked up. So I'm glad that paid off for you in terms of added character motivation.

And *then*, when all was said and done, I had to figure out how to write a summary that would make it clear this was a mystery-and-drama (and thus appeal to mystery lovers) without letting on about Fritz's death! So I totally cheated, like those movie trailers that cut and splice things that don't go together. "Amalie and Wilhelmine team up to find out what really happened to their brother," lol. It's true but also a total lie of omission, and it makes me laugh every time. The whole summary is a LIE, although every word is true. :D

Also, this is hilarious and I can't resist sharing: I know how selenak is always tickled by Fritz writing nearly verbatim letters to different people, so I made good use of that in this fic. And when Wilhelmine realizes that the "suicide note" is almost verbatim the same as a portion of the "not my fault!" letter she got from Fritz, cahn wrote this in a comment on the draft:

Fritz's frugality! Being frugal is a good quality! ...I guess. If you're murdered.

This still makes me laugh.

I also found the textual aspects of this fic to be rewarding to write: not only are there a lot of letters bouncing around (Heinrich's letter to AW that leads him to start refusing food, Amalie's canonical letter to Fritz that she's worried pushed him over the edge, our favorite Fredersdorf letter--I couldn't resist--etc.), but Fritz writes two specific texts that are important to the plot. One, the very similar letters to Wilhelmine and Heinrich, the text of which gets used as a trigger for his murder, a faked suicide note, *and* the key to Wilhelmine realizing he was murdered. Two, that poem about wanting to be die for Wilhelmine, and failing that, to be buried with her, which leads Amalie to believe she understands why he committed suicide, misleads Wilhelmine into silently telling Fritz that he may have died for Heinrich instead (well, yes, but differently!), and leads to Fritz and Wilhelmine being buried together with the dogs. (Even in this darkest of fics, I couldn't resist fixing one thing. And yes, FW2 not calling the shots is key here-I don't think Heinrich can risk drawing attention to his resentment by burying Fritz anywhere other than where he'd made it really clear he intended to go.)

In summary, one text to make you understand why someone would want to murder Fritz, and another to make you realize he wasn't a complete monster.

And yes, cahn, this was always meant to be the trigger behind Heinrich's decision, and I did trust you to put it in (it would have been there by the time you saw it, if you hadn't been given such an early draft). Other self indeed. :)

The war not ending with the return of Silesia: yeah, this wasn't me thinking, "What would be the most logical outcome?", it was me thinking, "For plot and character reasons, the show war *must* go on--how can I make it happen?" And I lucked out that East Prussia was occupied in January 1758 (and of course, that the alliances, balance of power issues, and the war itself have gathered a momentum that transcends Fritz's misogynistic remarks).

Carel was likewise me wanting a named character with some kind of a backstory, and thanks to Selena's Fahlenkamp research, having one! He only needed a small rescue, and so I didn't have to tie it to the rest of the divergence. Hi, Carel, you get a fix-it in this bleak fic too!

Catt showing up a few months early was less my wanting a token decoy suspect (also that, but it was pretty obvious, as sub_divided said, that it wasn't him) and more me wanting a canonical source for Fritz talking about his poison, combined with my inability to resist taking a dig at Catt being self-important but not murderous. :P I'm still holding a grudge, okay!

The line about acting like he had as much right to consider himself the bereaved as Amalie was a cahn-supplied line, though, and a good one it is. :)

All in all, this was a doozy to write, and a great experience that I feel I grew as a writer from. It was also *awesome* collaborating with cahn and getting to watch selenak pick up on all the little things, as always. <333

Re: Yet They Grind Exceedingly Small

[cahn]

The line about acting like he had as much right to consider himself the bereaved as Amalie was a [personal profile] cahn-supplied line, though, and a good one it is. :)

Oh wait, it was? I wrote you a comment earlier about how great I thought that line was, oops :) What can I say, I guess I like my own lines! :D

The Adventure of the Time-Traveling Valet

[mildred_of_midgard]

I just wanted to say that I was TICKLED by this passage in my gift:

"Accidents with shooting weapons happen all the time," Frederdorf said, which was true, though they usually happened in battle; soldiers who tried to reload an already loaded gun, for example. Besides, as a battle went on, the gun barrel accumulated with powder remnants from the previous rounds, which made them more difficult to manage and more prone to misfire. Guns exploding in their soldier's hands were unfortunately not an uncommon occurence.

Seeing as how I had written this in salon in late October:

no matter how much you drill in peacetime, you're under tremendous stress when the bullets are flying around you, and you're very likely to make mistakes. And if you're relying on muscle memory, and miss a step, you might very well reload an already loaded gun, not realizing that you haven't fired, or that the last attempt to fire was unsuccessful and the gun is still loaded, and then, boom!

It was also common for soldiers in the front lines to be taken down by misfires from behind.

Also, as the battle went on and the gun barrel accumulated with powder remnants from the previous rounds, the guns became more difficult to manage and more prone to misfires.

I was like, hmm, this extremely anonymous author clearly follows me closely. :D

I emailed cahn when I read this to go, "Isn't salon greeeeat?"

She also emailed me, as she said, when she saw your Ferdinand line in "Crown", only a couple hours before I would have emailed her about the same thing (because I had read it on my phone but not yet found my way to a computer yet).

Magical alchemy. <3

Re: The Adventure of the Time-Traveling Valet

[selenak]

It was a good description, what can I say. :)

BTW, I was chuffed that both you and cahn spotted the half a sentence about Heinrich advising AW to start his own war in Fredersdorf's timeline. I just couldn't resist. In addition to the whole similarity of temperament and talents, there's this: if Fritz dies in the summer of 1741, Heinrich most likely really doesn't have negative memories of him. (Unless Heinrich was the brother visiting and raiding the larder, but even then, he was young enough to maybe not have noticed how ticked off Fritz was, unless they both responded like in my emojis.) And no idea of how negatively Fritz would have impacted the lives of his siblings. Or how his ability to piss off half of Europe would result in Prussia's political isolation. No, Fritz is probably a (dead) hero to him, more an example to follow (instead of a warning example) than anything else.

As I mentioned in my reply to Mildred's comments, when writing I did consider Fritz figuring out the truth just before the last of older Fredersdorf is gone, but refrained for various reasons - there was enough angst already, and Frederick the Great should not find out time travel to alter the past was possible. (And Heinrich better not find out there was a timeline where AW was King etc.) Mildred said yes, but otoh she wouldn't mind reading stories where he does, and/or the time wars between Fritz and Heinrich.

Now, leaving aside what Heinrich would do for the moment, let's focus on Fritz: if he got a hold on the potion Saint-Germain and Fredersdorf co-invent in this story, where would he go? Because of the forgetting factor, chances are he only could do it once, and would have a limited amount of time before he's forgotten why he came. The obvious temptation is to save Katte's life, but how? Also, there are other factors to consider, such as: if Katte does not get executed in Küstrin while Fritz is a prisoner there, Fritz and Fredersdorf likely never meet, and Fredersdorf stays an obscure soldier in some backwards regiment. And of course, depending on when Fritz goes back (i.e. how long has he been King until then?) - if he tries for a scenario where he does successfully escape with Katte after all (by not writing that fatal letter, by making his escape attempt much earlier during the South German tour with Dad, etc.), he'd have to consider he won't become King, and I have a hard time imagining later day Fritz, who has tasted power, creating a world where he'll be powerless even for love.

So, if the aim of the time travel is to save Katte, I could imagine two alternate things:

- he goes back to when they started to become friends and snubs Katte unforgivably instead, unleashing the full cruel-tongued Old Fritz on him. No friendship with Katte = Katte lives, whether in Prussia or elsewhere, and Fritz still becomes King. Fritz may or may not also use the brief time he has to contact Schwerin and ask for Fredersdorf to be transfered to Potsdam if he can engineer that without making Dad suspicious

- he kills FW by opium, err, in some way not traceable to him. Then he becomes King, and can keep Katte and Wilhelmine. (May or may not use the limited time to ask for a Fredersdorf transfer as well.) The problem here is that Fritz in rl even under the most dire provocation never seems to have considered killing FW, but hey, if Heinrich gets to be a fratricide in an AU despite not having made any move in that direction in rl, Fritz becoming a patricide can also be on.

Lastly: or older Fritz, who now knows a thing or two about MT, doesn't do anything Katte related at all with that time travel potion and instead goes back to give the order to march to Vienna in 1741. That would be a Fritz during the 7 Years War travelling back. :)

Welcome, sub_divided!

[mildred_of_midgard]

In case anyone missed it, sub_divided was my assigned author, matched on my Cryptonomicon request, found that I was part of this amaaazing Frederick the Great experience, then decided to pick up a new fandom instead of writing for my Cryptonomicon request, and wrote us a space AU!

Welcome to our small but active fandom, sub_divided! Uh, there's a fandom + DW primer here, which I should probably move somewhere else, but for now, that'll do.

selenak and cahn, I have to share this delightful quote by sub_divided about our Rheinsberg community:

In the end I went with this one because I thought the amount of research you guys were doing in reinsburg was just so cool and impressive, like a friend joked "imagine being an academic studying this time period and finding this community, I would retire immediately" lololol.

<333

The idea for the community may have been mine, but most of the content is selenak's, and it was cahn who prompted the discussion by asking if we wanted to move to a community, so...alchemy as always!

Speaking of Rheinsberg, Selena, I noticed that your Fahlenkamp Fredersdorf findings aren't copied over there yet. (Discovered that while researching Carel.) Are you planning on it, or would you like me to?

Re: Welcome, sub_divided!

[selenak]

I was so happily curious and intrigued when a story showed up at Madness which clearly didn't hail from any of the three of us! Welcome indeed, sub_divided!

re: Fahlenkamp, I'll do it, not least since I need to collect the comments discussing my checking on Fahlenkamp's disgrace claim as well as the straight write-up, etc.

You should see me an a crown

[selenak]

I could not resist using that title, since, as Mildred noted in her comment, that song really works for Sophie/Catherine as well as Fritz. (And since there's more than enough tv and movie footage of Catherine the Great, someone really ought to do a vid.)

Nabielka and I were matched on three characters - Catherine, Fritz and MT - and when I read her letter, I was relieved that she was okay with only using two of them given that her main wish was for the (First) Polish Partition to be a theme and the difficulty of all of them being in different countries. This alas meant no MT, because the time I really wanted to focus on was Heinrich's visit and the build up to the Polish Partition, so MT was the one of the three who would not be used. Fritz only gets two "on page" scenes but as he's very much in Catherine's and Heinrich's thoughts all the time, I thought he still qualifies as an important character.

Now, in order for the story to convey the complexity of the relationship, I knew flashbacks had to be a thing - show over tell, because I wanted readers to get invested into the childhood friendship and hope they can maintain it despite being in current day also professional cutthroats, err, power players who have to be aware the other party has their own agenda. Also, the flashbacks could show how much Catherine did and didn't change from Sophie to Catherine, and by remaining in her pov, I hopefully added a bit of mystery for newbies as to what Heinrich was up to - i.e. getting to wonder along with Catherine and Fritz.

Nabielka had asked for Poniatowski to be included, if possible, and I was happy to do that, not just because of the obvious relevance the Catherine/Poniatowski backstory has if you write about the Polish Partition but because it (hopefully) makes what Catherine and Heinrich come to plan/do more personal. The fate of millions, as the saying goes, is a statistic, alas. Destroying your ex lover's life and world - not motivated by personal malice towards him at all - is a tragedy. It also works as a counterpoint for Catherine's relationship with Heinrich and for his decision not to stay in Russia at the end, and her realisation about why this is ultimately a good thing. As Poniatowski really was the only person who got to call Catherine "Sophie" in her Russian life, it also very workeable for her emotional development in past and present throughout.

Incidentally, in terms of research, in addition to their respective memoirs, I had read some books about the first Polish Partition, some Catherine biographies, and the Poniatowski biography "The Last King of Poland". Which was very useful when it came to inner Polish matters, but I raised an eyebrow or both when it came to the wholesale buying into, say, Poniatowski's admiring image of Charles Hanbury Williams (you would not think this was the same envoy who managed to piss off Fritz and MT, the sole ambassador to achieve this feat, in his respective postings), and I found Horowski’s take (in Das Europa der Könige) rendition of how what Hanbury-Williams thought was his crowning achievement - the 1755 treaty between England and Russia - turned into a complete fuck-up because of the 1756 treaty between England and Prussia. (Hence Elisaveta, who hadn't ratified the earlier treaty yet, telling the Brits in 1756 sarcastically she would absolutely hold to that treaty and help them in the event of Hannover getting attacked by Prussia, sure thing!) Not to mention that The Last King of Poland has Fritz as the Evil Mastermind who planned the Polish Partition from the get go, in detail. Heinrich who? (He gets two mentions in the entire biography, once as an alternate candidate for the Polish crown - in one sentence that says Fritz didn't go for it and doesn't mention he explicitly forbade any mention of this to Heinrich - and then again by saying Fritz sent him to Catherine as part of the Evil Masterplan.) But, like I said: when it came to inner Polish matters, and of course Poniatowski himself who was after all the subject of the biography, it certainly delivered.

Since I was trying to keep the ensemble limited in order not to make things too confusing, I had to decide who in addition should show up. Kaphengst got mentioned in dialogue mostly to make it clear that Heinrich really had no romantic interest in Catherine, but there was no reason to give him an actual scene, and so there isn't one. By contrast, Grigory Orlov got to show up in person because he really was still an important factor during Heinrich's first trip to Russia (if about to be deposed), to demonstrate how Catherine handled her lovers at this point, and for exposition reasons. Otoh Potemkin, who was already around and about to become Catherine's No.1, didn't make the cut because that would have been too distracting from the main story.

Lastly: I was going back and thro about the matter with Sophie's uncle. But it happened, according to her memoirs he (the uncle) was jealous of Heinrich, it gave me a good opportunity to show the youthful bffs in action and it conveyed some of Sophie's emotional background long before coming to Russia, so I couldn't do without it.

Re: You should see me an a crown

[mildred_of_midgard]

I love this insight into your writing process! I would write more if I were not trying to limit my salon interactions, but know that I felt these were all excellent decisions that worked.

Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria: A Miniseries in six parts (A)

[selenak]

This was not just an but the most famous, most expensive GDR tv production, and somehow I didn't watch it until this last week. The title is somewhat misleading, since it's All Saxony, (Nearly) All The Time, and Prussia only has two cameos (in episode 2) in the first four episodes, not becoming equally important in terms of location and character until the last two episodes (which are set early in the Seven Years War). The miniseries is loosely based on a a series of novels by a nineteenth century Polish author collectively referred as "the Saxon series". If he already took liberties with history, the show then added some. Something else to keep in mind: it was created in the 1980s. The first few decades, East Germany found dealing with its Hohenzollern past a bit tricky. On the one hand, imperial feudalism and militarism = BAD, obviously. On the other hand, by the 1980s, they GDR was in dire need of money, tourists were an income, and national pride was a thing again. And given the content of this miniseries, I also suspect someone in the production team said: "You know how they're all glued to the tv screen in the west, watching these decadent American shows where people have sex and scheme all the time? We can do that, too, with more nudity than the Yanks and way better fashion, and still justify it as national heritage!"

Keep this in mind as I give you the summary of the six episodes:

Episode 1: Countess Cosel (Part I):

August(us) the Strong: the series starts in the late 1690s when I'm crowned as King of Poland for the first time, but I get played by Dietrich Körner throughout, and he looks like he's somewhere in his late 50s or early 60s. I just abandoned the proud Protestant Saxon heritage of House Wettin in order to get my hands on Poland, since they accept only Catholic sovereigns. By this, you can see I have large scale ambitions. I also really like to party!

Charles of Sweden: I'm the wannabe Alexander of the Baroque, just on the throne and determined to invade and make war! Saxony is just a piece of cake for me. Watch me kick Russian ass next once I'm done here!

Swedes: rape and pillage, which is shown in a few discreet shots, also plunder a castle without raping, which is good for:

Anna Constantia von Hoym: I'm the leading lady of the first two parts, and I will not forget this, Swedish bastards.

Flemming: I'm August's scheming advisor and most important minister, and I have to tell him that our army just isn't up to battlling Charles. We have to sue for peace as long as we still have Saxony and give up on Poland for now.

August: This is humiliating, but fine, I'll do it. But I'll be back!

August: *parties in Dresden to cheer himself up, dares everyone to describe their fave mistresses*

Treasury Chancellor Hoym: I don't have one, because my wife is the most beautiful woman of the country. Way more beautiful than your current maitresse en titre. She's the most beautiful woman of the world!

selenak: You clearly haven't read Livy. Also, didn't Anna meet August when the Hoym town residence burned and she organized the fire fighting? Wasn't that dramatic enough for you, Polish novelist and German scriptwriters?

August: She's invited to my next ball.

Olav von Rosen: I'm an OC who is in all the episodes. Currently I am a young man bravely escorting Anna from the recently plundered castle to Dresden despite some more marauding Swedes with evil intentions. Charles still uses us as his backyard, you know.

Anna (to Hoym): I can't believe you. Where do you think this is going?

Hoym: Look, he's my boss.

August: You're hot. I'm still King.

Anna: Prince Elector right now, and also, if you want to play Henry VIII, I'm playing Anne Boleyn. I have no intention of becoming your next mistress. If you like it, put a ring on it.

Flemming: What's that? You're jut supposed to be the next piece of fluff! Your majesty, no way!

August: Relax, I have it all under control. Look, Anna, I'm already married, and so are you. And since I'm now Catholic, divorce is just not on.

Anna: But you want me all for yourself, don't you?

August: I really really do.

Anna: I'll divorce Hoym if you give me a marriage promise in writing in which you swear that you'll marry me if you ever become a widower.

Flemming: Don't do it!

August: I never wanted a woman more. Here's your marriage pledge in writing, Anna. Only the best for you! Once you're divorced, you need a new title. How about Countess Cosel?

Anna: Thank you. Since you are now my fiancee and basically my husband, I take a wifely interest in the government of this country. Starting with the fact we're still sort of occupied by the goddam Swedes.

August: Not forever, I promises. Did I mention I have long term plans? Poland back, of course, but more than that. The current Emperor has no sons, see.

Anna: But he has a brother who'll succeed him.

August: The brother doesn't have any sons yet, either. I love gambling, and I'm banking on the fact the Habsburs will die out. My oldest kid is going to marry the current Emperor's daughter, older cousin to not yet born MT. You see where this is going, Darling?

Anna: I love a man with a plan. So, about those Swedes....

Charles: I'm off to another round with Peter the not yet Great, but I want to do some sightseeing first and visit Dresden incognito.

Anna: August, Charles is in Dresden incognito. We could totally capture him and end your humiliation.

August: This would go against the royal bro code. Sorry, no can do.

Anna: Rosen, organize the capture of Charles anyway behind August's back, it's for his own good.

Flemming: Aha, the slut is making a mistake! Your Majesty, guess what I just found out?

August: Meets up with Charles as per the royal bro code.

Rosesn: Can't capture Charles if my King is also around, sorry.

Charles: So, August, before I leave, I keep hearing about how strong you are, want to demonstrate?

August: *bends a bar of iron around Charles in the form of a horse's shoe, then throws it away, in a none too subtle demonstration of how he could have captured Charles if not for the royal bro code*

Charles: First time I am impressed by you. So long! Off to earn more glory against Peter.

Anna (to August): I don't believe you. We could have...argh! What kind of a King are you?

August: Since you insulted my manliness, I'm off to Malapart, the most famous pre-Fritz battle of the century, where I'll meet young FW, Grumbkow and Seckendorff off screen and have a lot of sex with other women!

Peter the about to become Great: *wins against Charles*

Charles: *retreats in depression and infamy, will not get old*

Flemming: At last, things are looking better. Now we can get Poland back, and I can surely get rid of Cosel. He's having lots of sex with other women already, time to get him an alternate mistress.

Anna: I'll leave it at one jealous scene and then reconsider since I actually missed you, offering you a compromise: other one night stands, fine, but I'm your true Queen.

August: Of course you are.

A few more happy years during which Anna is the uncrowned Queen and produces some children: *ensue*

Flemming: Grrr. Argh. But now that Lescynski guy has finally left. Poland beckons, your majesty!

Anna: Farewell, dearest. I have a bad feeling about this....

Episode 2: Countess Cosel (Part II):

August: Hi, Polish ladies. Missed me?

Flemming: At last, I've found one who captures his attention for longer than a night. Also, I'm censoring the Royal Mail so he doesn't get any of Cosel's love letters, only the ones where she's irritated by his not replying and sharp tongued!

August: You're hot.

Rival: I want to be a mistress, not a one night stand.

August: ...okay. Anna maybe could do with some competition.

Flemming: *fakes a murder attempt on the new mistress, makes it look like Anna ordered it*

Rival: I'm not going back with you to Saxony if I have to fear for my life. Banish that evil woman!

August: Um. Well. Flemming, send someone to tell Anna tactfully she should leave Dresden and go to Pillnitz for a while. After some time, when tempers have cooled down...

Flemming: *sends messenger who tells Anna that she's banished to Pillnitz, but has to leave her children behind*

Anna: No way! Rosen, let's try to meet August on the road.

Flemming: Your majesty, Countess Cosel has disobeyed a direct order.

August: Make her go to Pillnitz, I don't care how!

Anna: *is escorted forcibly to Pillnitz*

Rosen: Countess, sorry, but I think Flemming knows if you ever manage to see the King, he's screwed. He'll kill you. We should escape. I'll organize it.

Anna: Thanks, loyal knight.

Escape: *happens, but with interruptions; Anna and the kids are already on the escape boat when she sees there are fireworks in Dresden (literal ones) and decides she needs to try one last time*

August: *sees Anna wearing a masque, approaches her* You're hot. How come I haven't seen you before?

Anna: Because you're a complete cad, you bastard. I've had it now with you. Bye!

Escape: *continues, now with added obstacle of furious August sending soldiers after them, but loyal Rosen manages to smuggle them out of Dresden anyway*

Anna, Rosen and the kids: *arrive in Berlin*

Flemming: Your Majesty, we have a problem. Your youngest kid by Cosel is a boy. You're a widower now. As long as she has that marriage promise in writing, she could make a case that she is in fact your wife, and thus he another legitimate son. Your oldest son will never become King of Poland, let along Emperor, if that question mark hangs over him. Do it for the Imperial future, your majesty! We need to get that marriage pledge, and the Countess Cosel to go with it. It's way too dangerous to let her hang out in neighbouring Prussia.

August: ....I see your point and am tearing out the last of my love of my heart. We need to get FW to return Anna to us. How? Let's call my secretary.

Young Page Brühl: I am now entering the narrative played as a late teen by future director Leander Hausmann. The actor who'll play me from the next episode onwards is Leander's dad.

Young Brühl: August's secretary, have some more wine, it's not like the King is going to need you in the next five minutes.

Secretary: *passes out drunk*

Brühl: Sorry, your majesty, your secretary is passed out, but maybe I can help?

August: Not unless you can write a letter making FW return Anna to me.

Brühl: Not a problem. *writes* Dear FW, if you send my ex back I'm returning some tell deserters to you. Love, August. P.S. Also you don't want people to think your're harboring sluts in Berlin, do you?

August and Flemming: *are impressed*

August: That's one promising young man.

FW: Tall deserters, you say? *heart eyes* Arrest the slut and deliver her to August!

Anna: *arrives in Stolpen as a prisoner*

Soldier in the Stolpen garnison: *falls in love with Anna*

Rosen: This has potential. Don't give up, Countess!

Anna: I never do.

Flemming: *gets his hands on the marriage pledge by blackmailing the Jewish banker Rosen has left it withÜ

FW: *has his second scene of the episode, at an event which is a mix of his and Fritz' trip to Dresden and the Zeithain camp*

Orzelska (silent role): *dances suggestively like Salome*

selenak: Why is she blonde? All the Orzelska's I've seen so far were brunettes.

Fritz (played by very much not a teenager actor): *looks*

Fritz: Leutnant Keith, we must escape!

Leutnant Keith: I am apparently a mix of Keith the page, Peter Keith and Katte, and say this escape thing might be difficult:

Fritz: Gonna do it, though.

FW: *Catches him, drags him in front of everyone and abuses him*

Flemming (to August): Okay, the Prussian King has calmed down now and is ready to leave. But I have a bad feeling that the kid is never going to get over the fact this happened in front of lots of Saxons.

*exit Prussians from the tale for the next few episodes*

Anna: *changes clothes with the young soldier in love with her, escapes the castle, is met by loyal Rosen outside*

Young Soldier: *leaves the castle because can't bear to be without Anna, which naturally alerts the guards to the fact they just saw him leave the castle TWICE*

Anna: *after some action scene horseriding, is recaptured*

Anna: This is just not the episode for succeful escapes.

*Some time later*

August: I want to try out those new canons FW sold me. The Stolpen area has some tough rocks to shoot at.

Anna: He's totally using that as an excuse to visit me, I just know it.

August: shoots at rocks, leaves without visiting.

Anna:... I guess that's it for me. You shall not see me on screen again, audience, though I live for many decades more.

Re: Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria: A Miniseries in six parts (A)

[cahn]

I mean... if you wanted to make a sexy soap opera, you could definitely do worse than August the Strong. A lot worse :P

(uh, real life meeting of Anna and August seems much cooler than what they actually went with??)

lol to the royal bro code! (I guess the royal bro code, as we'll see, is less funny to the women)

August: *sees Anna wearing a masque, approaches her* You're hot. How come I haven't seen you before?

OH AUGUST NO

FW: Tall deserters, you say? *heart eyes*

OMG FW, everyone knows about you

Leutnant Keith: I am apparently a mix of Keith the page, Peter Keith and Katte, and say this escape thing might be difficult:

what. Well, okay?

Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria: A Miniseries in six parts (B)

[selenak]

Episode 3: Brühl (Part I)

Brühl (now played by a man in his 40s): The last episode ended in 1730, and now it's 1733, since August has just died in Warsaw. I still look 24 years older. Just go with it. I am the J.R. Ewing of the Rokoko age, your main character for the next two eps, and now I have to bring the news of August's demise to his son, future August III., who is in Dresden.

Sukowski: I started out as a page as well but am future August III.'s bff. Clearly, that means I get to rule once my bud is King, because he likes me best. I have nothing to fear from Brühl, who can do the financial stuff. I'm a military man! Hey Brühl! Back from Warsaw?

Brühl: Sadly, our glorious King has died.

Sukowski: OMG we have to tell my buddy!

Brühl: Clearly he shouldn't get such sad news without emotional support. How about getting his wife and his confessor so they can break it to him gently? Also, I must get out of these travel cloths and wear something appropriate for such news, see you later with the other two.

Sukowski: That's actually a good idea. Okay, see ya!

Brühl: *gets a page* Tell young(er) August you've seen me, but not that I sent you.

Brühl: *is summoned by August the soon III while Sukowski is still busy tracking down the wife and the confessor*

Brühl: *tells August the soon III. the news, is there for him*

Wife, Confessor, Sukowski: Arrive too late.

Sukowski, when the other two take over: But I thought we were to tell him together?

Brühl: Sorry, I was summoned, I didn't even have time to change. But I swear I have no ambitions. You are the only one for PM, clearly!

August the soon III: So you're going to be my PM, Suko, but you, Brühl, you're going to be my second most important minister.

Brühl: If I must.

Brühl: *has sex with the Countess Moscynska, daughter of August the Strong and Anna Countess Cosel*

Brühl: *during sex*: Your father was the coolest, I am actually sorry that he's dead, and I'm so into you not just because you're hot but because you're his daughter and that of the one and only Cosel*

Brühl: *after sex*: So did I mention that your Dad is who I want to be?

Moscynska: You're lucky we're into kink in this family. Well, you can't be him, but you could totally be the power behind the throne.

Brüh: That'll do.

Watzdorf: I'm an idealistic enlightened thinker, writing pamphlets against the corruption at court, especially as practised by the two ex pages Sukowski and Brühl.

(selenak: *googling him later: You're nothing of the sort and already have several rape suits following you at this point.)

Franziska: I'm a young naive, totally in love with you.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee: We're two civil servants, one of us going to become Sukowski's minion, one Brühl's. We sort of deliver the economic commentary on events from now on.

Maria Josepha: I'm August the now III's wife, Mt's cousin and thus a proud Habsburg and very Catholic.

Guarini: I'm the confessor from earlier, and the evil priest of the remaining episodes. I scheme.

Sukowski: So, I have plans for Saxony. The Austrians are really going downhill in this decades. Isn't Silesia a nice province next door? We should totally invade it!

Maria Josepha: What?

Guarini: And that's why we should back the other one.

Maria Josepha: But is that Brühl more reliable? Isn't he a Protestant?

Guarini: We should marry him to a Catholic lady. Doesn't your Bohemian lady-in-waiting here have a daughter named Franziska?

Franziska: But I love Watzdorf! Brühl, I know you're into Mosczynska, can't you let me be with my true love?

Brühl: Not if I want to continue my career, darling. Not giving up Moscynska, though. I'm afraid our engagement is on.

selenak: Hang on... Franziska? Your future wife is called Marianne! Also she did not have a thing with Watzdorf. *googles* Maria Anna Franziska, okay, fair enough though her biography says she used "Marianne".

Watzdorf: *is busy writing more pamphlets against Sukowski and Brühl*

Sukowski: I'm punishing the printer.

Brühl: Pff. I'm buying the printer and bribing him by making him the official court printer. What's that you say, minion, my fiancee and Watzdorf? Well well well. Do tell Sukowski's minion in strict confidence Watzdorf is about to launch an exposé on Sukowski's Silesia plans!

Sukowski: *arrests Watzdorf, puts him into Königstein*

Franziska: Fine, I'll marry you, if you promise to help me to set my beloved free and avenge myself on that bastard Sukowski.

Brühl: Naturally.

Episode 4: Brühl (II):

Sukowski: So, about Silesia. I think that's absolutely brilliant plan of mine, and history will prove me right, you'll see.

Brühl: Maybe we should try to get it politically instead? Seeing as our army isn't anywhere near as large as the Austrian one?

Sukowski: You're not a military man, Brühl, you don't understand. Here are my secret plans to explain it, though, while I'm off to fight for the Habsburg Emperor against the Turks. We're still subjects to the Emperor, after all, so I can't deny the request.

Brühl: *makes copy of the secret plans, and gives them to the Austrian envoy*

Vienna: WTF?

Maria Josepha, Guarini, Brühl, all in their respective ways to August III: Sukowski got you in a hell of a lot of trouble with the Emperor with these Silesia plans. He needs to go.

August III: I'm just into art and building palaces, can't we all be nice together?

Everyone else: No!

Meanwhile, on the front:

Sukowski: Hello there. You seem a trustworthy veteran. Let's be friends.

Rosen: By all means. You should be careful.

Sukowski: Eh, the King loves me. I'll always stay on top!

Rosen: I've heard that before. Countess Cosel is still at Stolpen.

Sukowski: I'll make August release her when I get back, he's completely unlike his Dad.

Sukowski: *gets a letter that he's dismissed as PM*

Sukowski: WTF? *rides home, manages to see August III despite Brühl's precautions*

August III: I just want peace and love, can't it stay as it was?

Everyone else: NO.

Franziska: So, husband, if I seduce August III who unlike his father has been a loyal husband so far and make him banish Sukowski, will you then see to it that my beloved Watzdorf is released from Königstein?

Brühl: Naturally.

Brühl: *tells minion that he wants Watzdorf to be freed, but phrases it in a way that makes it very clear what really should happen*

Minion: *tells sub minion to do go to Königstein*

Subminion: I don't think this will end well for me, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

Other civil servant minion: Sukowski, the only thing that can save you now is if we get the dirt on Brühl. Maybe that Watzdorf who used to write the pamphlets knows me? I'm off to Königstein to find out.

Watzdorf: *is thrown of the walls of Königstein as a free dead body*

Brühl: Sukowski did that.

Franziska: I'm not THAT naive. Also I'm going to have sex with every handsome young guy who comes my way from this point onwards in revenge on you, but not with you, you bastard.

(selenak: I suppose the ten children you two had together don't exist in this miniseries. Also you two wrote love letters to each other twenty years post marriage, but okay, based on a 19th century novel written at point when official history was completely anti Brühl.)

Brühl: That's okay, dearest, Moscynska and I are still an item, anyway.

August III: Brühl, you're now my only minister and bff and everything.

Brühl: Yay!


Episode 5: From the time of the 7 Years War (I):

Brühl: So, I've been thinking. Silesia got unfortunately nabbed by Fritz of Prussia, but Saxony can still end up as a superpower by diplomacy, since he's been pissing off everyone else in the last decade. I' have this brilliant plan of creating an alliance between France and Austria, with Russia and Sweden joining in. And Saxony right in the middle.

Moscynska: Wow. How come you're letting this Kaunitz guy all the credit?

Brühl: I'm modest like that.

*change of location to.... Sanssouci*

Fritz (now played by an actor who got famous for this part, Arno Wyzniewski): Fredersdorf (first word of dialogue he has), let's talk exposition and establish that I'm the toughest, meanest, magnificent bastard of the era. Brühl is officially outclassed.

Fredersdorf (played by actor somewhat smaller than Wyzniweski, Joachim Tomaschewsky): No question about it, but since I'm not just your treasurer but also your spy master, I'd still like to know what he's up to.

Italian greyhounds: *are always around Fritz; this is a plot point*

Max de Simoni: I'm one of the two new OCs, a handsome young Swiss adventurer who wants to serve Fritz.

Fredersdorf: You can do that in Dresden as our spy. Countess Brühl is still into young guys lilke you. Seduce her and find out what Brühl is up to.

Simoni: You want me to have sex for Prussia?

Fredersdorf: Absolutely.

Simoni: I never thought serving the Hohenzollern could be such fun.

Simoni: *has sex with Franziska who gets him a job as one of Brühl's undersecretaries*

Pepita von Nostiz: I'm the new naive, in love with a Prussian soldier, who leaves his regiment for a night of love with me. Dresden is just three hours away on horseback, after all.

Prussian soldier: *gets shouted at by his superior officer, draws his sword, realises that he's done, is arrested*

Fritz: Anyone who draws on his superior officer needs to get executed for the sake of discipline in my army.

Fredersdorf: ...But he's a promising young guy otherwise, so maybe some mercy?

Fritz: No. Discipline! Also I don't like deserters.

Pepita: I hate the King of Prussia and swear revenge forever and ever.

Xaver Maslowski: I'm the other new OC, in love with Pepita, tormented by the fact Simoni, who, lilke me, is an undersecretary at Brühl's, flirts with her as well and no one can resist him.

Simoni: *actually gets his hands on the secret documents proving the alliance against Prussia* RED ALERT RED ALERT.


Fritz: ....okay, I'll admit to being just a bit surprised. Clearly, action is called for. Fredersdorf, time to invade again, I've been getting rusty! We're off to Saxony.

Minion: Um. The Prussian army is currently invading our country.

Brühl: Your majesty, while that is a admittedly a bit worrying, it's only a temporary set back. No way Fritz can win against the armies of our allies.

Allies: armies we're going to send next year.

Saxon commander: No way our army can hold off the Prussians until then.

Brühl: ... I think you and I should retreat to Königstein, your majesty.


Episode 6: From the time of the 7 Years War (II):

Fritz: *still in Sanssouci* Fredersdorf, I still need intel on Brühl. Even from Königstein.

Fredersdorf: Will see to it, but why are we still in Sanssouci when it's now autumn of 1756 and we've taken most of Saxony except Pirna and Königstein?

Fritz: Because the producers got permission to film here, and by God, they're going to film here. So every time I'm not explicitly in a battle, I hop back to Sanssouci. It's just a few hours!

Pepita, Maria Josepha, Franziska and Guarini: *conspire in the Dresden palace where the Queen still lives, even under Prussian occupation*

Pepita: I had this brilliant idea of how we can save Saxony from Fritz. We kidnap him, then use him as leverage.

Maria Josepha: Sounds like a plan to me. Countess Brühl, write to your husband to tell him that.

Franziska: Will do, and Pepita, send me your hot Swiss admirer whom I'm still banging as well, we'll use him as a courier.

Simoni: rides to Sanssouci (seriously, the number of times they find an excuse to show that palace is amazing), reports to Fritz about a secret plan, but doesn't actually now WHICH scheme because Franziska hasn't told him what's in the letter and the letter was written in chiffre*

Fritz: You seem competent, and I like your looks. Are you by any chance musical?

Simoni: I play the cembalo.

Fritz and Simoni: *play a flute/cembalo duet*

Simoni: shows up in Königstein

Brühl in Königstein: *is slowly getting stir crazy and suspects a mole, but suspects poor innocent Waslawski, not Simoni, who is just that irresistible to everyone

Guarini in Dresden: As an evil priest, I'm not putting my trust into this kidnapping scheme. We need a fallback scheme. Here's a potion in a black bottle. To be used if the kidnapping doesn't work out. Got that, Glasow?

Glasow: *is a middle aged overweight man* And I get absolution?

Guarini: That's what evil priests spreading the opiate of the masses are for.

Maslawski (not knowing any of this): Pepita, to prove my love for you, I'll be the one to kidnap Fritz, personally.

Maslawski: *spies on Fritz to get a sense of his schedule, thus seeing Simoni depart from the Prussians*

Maslawski: tells this to Pepita

Simoni: *back in Dresden to figure out what the secret plan is*

Simoni: Hi, Franziska. Let's have sex, I've missed you.

Franziska. So I hear you've been hanging out with the Prussians? That's what little Pepita claims anyway.

Simoni: Slander! Okay...I sort of spent some time in Berlin, but I'm Swiss, you know, which means neutral, and can I help it Fritz wanted to play a duet with me?

Franziska: I empathize. You've got a hot bod, you're smart, and they say he doesn't like women.

Simoni: Countess! *wink, nudge* You're the hottest, though.

selenak: Wow. This is the first time this miniseries seem to as much as hint at the existence of non-straight orientation in anyone.

Pepita's grandmother: *Is a Fritz fan, has heard Pepita's plotting and sends an anonymous (as not to incriminate her granddaughter) warning letter to Fritz that he's about to be kidnapped*

Fritz: *dictates instructions - in Sanssouci - that if he's shot, the invasion should proceed anyway, and if he's kidnapped, any instructions from him thereafter are to be ignored, then heads off to Bohemia, because*

Austrians: have managed to get an army together to fight Fritz at Lobowitz

Fritz: *wins*

Brühl and August: That's it, alas. We're off to Warsaw.

Glasow: *puts Guarini's poison in Fritz' chocolate cup* (at Sanssouci, Fritz came back immediately after the battle)

Fritz: *sits reading with an Italian greyhound in his lap, tells Glasow to put the chololate next to him*

Glasow: *does so, leaves*

Fritz: *smiles lovingly at dog, lets it drink the chocolate*

Italian Greyhound not named out loud*: *dies*

Fritz: REVENGE!

Glasow: *is tortured, incriminates all the conspirators, not just Guarini, including Simoni (because he's seen him with Franziska a lot)

Fritz: Simoni what? Okay, he is to be hanged, just like Glasow.

Glasow: *is hanged*

selenak: But he wasn't executed! ... Never mind.

Prussian soldiers: Search chez Franziska Brühl for Simoni (and telling her she'd to leave for Warsaw to join her husband and the King there)

Simoni: *escapes through secret door*

Simoni: *is shot when trying to make a run for it anyway, dies*

Pepita: Maslawski, now I can tell you I love only you.

Maslawski: Ditto.

Epilogue scenes in quick montage: *Fritz wins at Prague, loses at Kolin, but doesn't have a melt down because he's too manly and tough for that but says he'll win again in the next one, wins Roßbach and Leuthen after dramatic speech, cut to end of 7 Year War which the narrator tells was was a few years later*

Narrator: 1763 was also the year August III. died. And Brühl. But we're still living in the echoes of Saxony's splendour and Prussia's glory.

Re: Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria: A Miniseries in six parts (B)

[mildred_of_midgard]

Am exercising significant amounts of willpower to adhere to my salon hiatus resolutions, but am here to let you know I read this gleefully and have bookmarked it for future replies.

Lehndorff readalong redux

[cahn]

Guess who is reading Lehndorff again?? Me!

I'd done a couple of lessons of Duolingo pretty consistently every day during our two-month hiatus, and I'm really pleased to report that I can definitely tell a difference. Unsurprisingly, my vocabulary sucks really badly still (the way Duolingo is structured, I can't really learn vocab very well unless it's something I already knew from some other context), but surprisingly, at least to me, the structure of Lehndorff's sentences is, if not transparent, at least quite a bit easier for me to parse than it was before Yuletide, I think just because I've had two months' more practice (and harder lessons) now. So while it's pretty rare for me to be able to figure out a sentence entirely, because I don't know the words, at least I can usually follow it once I refer to the translation for all the words I don't know, which was often not the case before Yuletide.

I'm also seeing what you mean, Selena, about how Lehndorff gets better over time. The word-portraits he does now are still really fun, but not as masterful as that Wartensleben one.

Re: Lehndorff readalong redux - 1753 15th June to 22 June

[cahn]

idk how much I'll be able to do -- I expect this is probably about the maximum I can do in one day, especially since weekend -- but as it's also easier now, we'll see how it goes.

-1753 15th June Countess Bentinck! Sort of interesting that she's been mentioned before (at least I think it's the same person?) but this is where he gives the thumbnail sketch. Aw to her being ugly AND the wrong sex for Heinrich :P

What is certain is that she left her Galten to meet a Count v. d. Lippe to live together, who did not shine in the world with the mindset of a Stoic.

LOL

- 17 June the prince plays the viola I had to go show this to my daughter, who plays viola :D (Viola is relatively easy to play if one plays violin.)

- 22 June. The peasants stop us and it makes a funny fight, our servants beat these poor peasants through and they are delighted to receive 16 groschen for all these blows.
Ha ha. Yes I'm sure that was funny and delightful for the peasants. Geez you guys.

-" Obwohl seit vier Jahren Großmutter, ist sie im Begriff sich mit einem jungen Mann zu vermählen, der sie »um der schönen Augen ihrer Schatulle willen« heiratet." So I think this is making a joke about marrying her for her money??

Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria: PICSPAM

[selenak]

Okay, I achieved screencaps. Have some illustrations of the Fritzian parts of the above.

Here are Fritz and Fredersdorf in front of Sanssouci




Here they are in a room supposedly Fritz' audience room. Actually, now that I can look closer at the screen caps, I can see it's not even in the Neue Kammern, it's in the Neuer Palais, which definitely did not exist yet in early 1756 when this is supposed to take place: the great ball room. (Note the Silesian marble!)







Fredersdorf hires a new spy, OC Max de Simoni:





Have sex for Prussia!



Simoni uncovered the Diplomatic Revolution. This is somewhat worrying for our Prussian duo:




For all I make fun of this series and it's massive liberties, they did do their research. Fritz is showing snuffing repeatedly, and note the dogs in the background here:





Now this is a rather good approximation of how Fritz' study might have looked like before it was renovated in his successor's time. This is the scene when he's duetting with hot Swiss spy Simoni.









Since Fritz has taken all the Saxon soldiers and pressed them into his army, August III. sends a messenger asking whether he can at least have his honor guard back when he retreats to Warsaw. Fritz, somewhat preoccupied with his dog, says no.











Now for the big one, the attempted assassination by chocolate scene somewhat later. First, leisure time chez Fritz:





Glasow puts the fateful cup of chocolate on the desk.



Lemme have some chocolate!



The King's love could be deadly, is all I'm saying.



This totally explains the Scourging of Saxony thereafter:



Lastly, I couldn't resist at least one screen cap not featuring our lot but Brühl (in the blue coat) and August III at Königstein, having just received the news the Austrians got defeated at Lobovitz which means they're screwed:

Re: Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria: PICSPAM

[mildred_of_midgard]

Awesome screenshots, thank you so much!

I feel obliged to point out what Cahn pointed out (and what I had been thinking) when the smell of opium repels her in "Grind": "Well, good, Alcmene, chocolate isn't good for dogs anyway." :P

Per internet search results: "While rarely fatal, chocolate ingestion can result in significant illness."

Poor unnamed doggie. :(

For comparison, Fritz with furry, fearsome beasts (taken from Amazon Prime "Ekaterina" video):



Since they're a Russian breed (borzoi), I imagine they were easier for the producers to obtain. But it's still extremely wrong!!

I must stop here, alas. Am still following with glee and hope to be back in the near future.

Strange historical fiction among other things

[prinzsorgenfrei]

I spent my holidays not really working for Uni and instead found some... stuff while browsing the online parts of the university library.

Namely, I found a pdf of that "Katte - Ein Schauspiel in fünf Aufzügen" stage play from 1914 (my university apparently owns three physical copies as well and I just want to ask WHY). I don't know if any of you have read it already, but it's... wild. It is also an earlier example of the "Katte was totes in love with Wilhelmine"-trope found in the musical and has his last words be "Long live the King"... And SD is actually all for Wilhelmine marrying Fritz of Bayreuth and only worried for her happiness. Some interesting decisions were made.

I could try to make a post summing everything up for you if that is of interest. It is definitely fun, in a weird way :'D

Another strange thing I've found, luckily not in my university library, is that there is, apparently, a digital anime trading card game where you can collect people from history, mythology, and literature in... anime-girl-form. Among the people featured as anime-girl trading cards are Fritz, Voltaire, Peter the Great and Stalin. Stalin has bunny ears. I do not wish to type that sentence ever again.

Away from weird stuff and onto more scholarly things: I got myself an exhibition catalogue from a 1994 Rheinsberg exhibition on portraits of Heinrich. It has some fun images that I have not necessarily found online (including a carricature which I love dearly) as well as contemporary descriptions of him and is quite fun to read. I could try to scan/photograph it and send you a pdf version, if you'd like that :D

Re: Strange historical fiction among other things

[mildred_of_midgard]

On behalf of all of us, YES to all of the above. :D

Another monarch who didn't like ballet

[mildred_of_midgard]

(Or at least performing in it as a child.)

Per Wikipedia,

In 1720, following the example of Louis XIV, Villeroy had the young Louis dance in public in two ballets at the Tuileries Palace on 24 February 1720, and again in The Ballet des Elements on 31 December 1721. The shy Louis evidently did not enjoy the experience; he never danced in another ballet.

Re: Another monarch who didn't like ballet

[selenak]

But everything was abeautiful at the ballet....

(And here one would think FW and Louis XV had nothing in common!)

Heinrich's Lookbook

[prinzsorgenfrei]

Alright, here's the kind of crappy pdf that I managed to create with my phone camera and an app that I have cursed about 200 times since I downloaded it this morning:
"Prinz Heinrich von Preußen in Bildnissen seiner Zeit"

It should be legible (mostly), although the image quality could be better.

I originally got this catalogue with the idea that I might be able to write about Heinrich's superior taste in wigs for an art history class I'm taking, but, according to my professor, wigs are the topic that is pretty much the most difficult to research with the art history library being closed. Soooo that didn't work out, but I am still very happy with my purchase :D One of my personal favourites is this "caricature by an unknown artist", I think it's rather charming:


Almost as charming as Louise-Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun writing how she "can barely describe how ugly [she] thought [Heinrich] was".

I'll probably try to properly scan the image parts of the catalogue at some point, but until then I can also just send you better images outside of the pdf if the need arises ^^

Re: Heinrich's Lookbook

[selenak]

Aw, thank you! That's great. And LOL on everyone being so relentlessly down on Heinrich's looks (once he's past 40 anyway). Somewhere in my mind, Lehndorff mutters he stands by his assessment that Heinrich in riding pants is "beautiful as an angel". ;) (Seriously though, that assessment alone against everyone else's opinion shows how smitten Lehndorff was.)

Katte - A Tragicomedy (the first half)

[prinzsorgenfrei]

Because the 2012 musical is just the tip of the iceberg.

To get some dates in: “Katte – Ein Schauspiel in fünf Aufzügen“ was published in Leipzig in 1914 and premiered on stage in Dresden on November 6th of the same year. The author, Hermann Burte, was a raging Nazi and this play is apparently one of his less bad works. It is, supposedly, a tragedy and it is obvious that Burte has read some primary sources, like Wilhelmine’s memoirs and Katte’s farewell letters, both of which he quotes verbatim at times. He just decides to ignore some parts.

Act 1 (of five)

We begin our journey in the city palace of Berlin with Crown Prince Friedrich and Princess Wilhelmine playing the flute and lute respectively. Fräulein von Sonsfeld is “in the background”, doing God knows what.

Enter: Our Hero.

Katte informs the siblings and the audience about the newest developments in the English marriage endeavour and is not above using long pauses for dramatic effect:

Katte: “Sir Hotham is…”
Fritz: (after a long, dramatic pause) “…Yes?”
Katte: “Leaving…”
Wilhelmine & Fritz: “Leaving!”
Katte: “Because England wanted Grumbkow fired…”
Fritz: “Fired!”
Katte: “Because he is, allegedly, on the Austrian payroll…”
Wilhelmine: “He is.”
Katte: “And they have found letters....”
Fritz: “Letters?!”
Katte: “In which he talks shit about the King.”

We’ve got a very eloquent Crown Prince, haven’t we?
Katte tells the siblings that Grumbkow is still FW’s bff because Seckendorff – Grumbkow’s friend, their enemy (yes, he says that. Just in case Fritz and Wilhelmine forgot.) – has gotten his hands on the letters that Fritz wrote to England, so Grumbkow is fine and Fritz is in deep shit and should write to Hotham asap.

But who will deliver the letter? Katte will! And he’ll bring Hotham’s answer too, so Fritz grabs his hand for a moment and, presumably looking deep into his eyes in a very friendly manner, tells him that he would be nothing without his dear friend’s services, to which the dear friend replies that his services would be nothing without Fritz’s friendship. They use “Du” for each other btw. Not that that will be important for too long.

Fritz leaves, Katte, Wilhelmine and Fräulein von Sonsfeld lurking in the shadows remain.

Wilhelmine: “So, Katte, why are you acting as my brother’s mailman?”
Katte: “Oh, you know, I’m just somewhat bored.”
Wilhelmine: “Oh Katte, you’re so brave for not selling my brother out to our dad.“
Katte: “There are other responsibilities than those of a soldier’s oath. Different ones. I love your brother; that I am his friend is my greatest reason for happiness on this earth, the meaning of my existence even. In a very heterosexual way.”
Wilhelmine: “If you weren’t here, he’d find someone else.”
Katte: “Actually, I am pretty sure that I am the most fitting person in the entire Prussian army to be Fritz’s friend. I mean, look at me, I’m great. I’m musically inclined, I know languages, I have travelled, I was a law student, which is somehow relevant, and also the King trusts me like no other, for some reason.”
Wilhelmine: “You’re pretty vain.”
Katte: “No, no! I am also ugly as sin! Have I mentioned that I do not have a girlfriend? Also, for some reason, I get a line about being some kind of grand puppeteer who likes manipulating the people around him, isn’t that heroic.”

The only person Katte is not manipulating is FW, but FW likes him anyways and even had a chat with him asking “Why does my son not love me, Katte? Make him love me, Katte!” and Katte is now convinced that dear old dad is actually the sweetest person, deep deep inside. Wilhelmine has never considered that before.

Fritz returns with the finished letter, Katte leaves.

The Parents show up and have a fight about whether Wilhelmine should just become a nun and after that it’s time for some classic FW (the sweetest person, deep deep inside) yelling at his son, throwing musical instruments across the room and threatening violence. After he tells Fritz that he will accompany him on his travels, Katte returns and FW and he are overjoyed to see each other:

FW: “Katte!”
Katte: “Your Majesty!”
FW: “Your father is Good Prussian Noble Hans Heinrich von Katte and your grandfather on your mother’s side is Good Prussian Noble Alexander Hermann von Wartensleben?!”
Katte: “Indeed!”
FW: “Great! Be a Good Prussian Noble like them! Do you know what that means?”
Katte: “Predestination sucks?”
FW: “Exactly! Also your collar is a centimetre too high, fix that.”

Fritz is told that he will be taking “the younger Keith” as a page for the duration of the journey south and is kind of bummed out that Katte will not be his page, for some reason.

The Parents leave, the other three remain.

Katte, ever FW’s biggest fan, remarks that his Majesty was very merciful and gets himself an earful of Hohenzollern-sarcasm with Wilhelmine saying that the King just wanted to lock her up in a convent for life a little bit and Fritz marvelling at the fact that his face is still intact and his hair was not ripped out, a merciful King indeed.

We have now reached talk of escaping. Wilhelmine is not into it and asks Katte to please say something wise.

Katte: “There are three ways to fix this.”
Fritz: “Running, leaving and getting away?”
Katte: “No. Wilhelmine marrying the Duke of Weißenfels…”
Wilhelmine: “Fuck you AND the Duke of Weißenfels!”
Katte: “We could also sacrifice your mom, since this is all totally just her fault…”
Fritz: “True, but no, so let’s run.”
Katte: “Alright, but please don’t leave before you reach Wesel, it won’t be safe.”
Fritz: “How about no? You won’t order me around, I’m leaving whenever I want to leave.”
Katte: “Then I’m not going.”

prinzsorgenfrei: Herr Müller-Lüdenscheidt!
Wilhelmine: “Listen to the nice man, Fritz, wait until Wesel.”
Fritz: “I won’t promise you shit, actually?? Do you want to imprison me like my father is doing already??”
Katte & Wilhelmine: “We literally just want you to not die.”
Fritz: “Well, I won’t promise you shit! See you around!”

And he leaves. This is the last thing we’ll see of him until the execution scene, so I hope you didn’t get too used to his presence. Wilhelmine tells Katte to run after him and work his magic as a master puppeteer, Katte says “Keith is an unreliable Scotsman, so if Fritz leaves before Wesel he’s absolutely fucked and so are we. See you around, your Highness!” and runs after Fritz.

Act 2

We are in Monbijou, where Frau von Kamecke and Fräulein von Sonsfeld are talking about possible ghost sightings during the last few days, especially a commotion that happened in the evening of the 11th of August. Fr. von Kamecke is convinced that shit is about to go down, Frl. von Sonsfeld is not.

Kamecke: “So, in any case, we’re all gonna die. Oh no, here comes your Princess – YES, a BEAUTIFUL celebration, NOTHING TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT! Oh shit, was that an owl outside!? Do you know what that means!?”
Wilhelmine: “That owls scream when they see light.”

Fr. von Kamecke leaves, possibly frightened of either the owl or Wilhelmine’s “I ain’t afraid of no ghost” approach and Wilhelmine is left alone with Frl. von Sonsfeld whom she ends up kissing passionately because she is just so glad to be alive!

People are having fun at the celebration and Frl. von Sonsfeld attributes that to Katte being there and telling funny stories. He is, apparently, being spoiled rotten by the Queen’s affection. We later find out that SD is “telling FW about how great he is”-levels of into Katte. Because literally everyone in this play is super into Katte. Wilhelmine is the least into Katte and she’s supposedly in love with him.

The miniature portrait of totally just Wilhelmine that Fritz is definitely not a part of is mentioned and apparently SD took to the whole “I will not give this back, the Queen should calm down” thing way better here since not only is she not not talking to him anymore but, according to Frl. von Sonsfeld, Katte is “a favourite”.

Katte is also not done by simply saying “The Crown Prince allowed me to copy it, I made it, it’s mine”, no-o, this Katte apparently said that he “would rather die than give up Wilhelmine’s image”. Wilhelmine swoons a little at that and I believe I saw a glimpse of my own brain while rolling my eyes.

Frl. von Sonsfeld mentions that Katte seems a little distraught because he doesn’t listen to people and suddenly sucks at dancing, so Wilhelmine has her call him over.

Wilhelmine: “Oh no, he’s pale and distracted and telling funny stories! What does this mean? Oh, his fate truly seems to be written all over his face! I do not know how I should know his fate or why the author thought that including the thing about Katte “always looking somewhat grim as if he already knew his fate” was necessary since I wrote that line over a decade later when I, in fact, knew his fate, but whatever. Hey, Katte, why are you only funny when I am not around?”
Katte: “Funny is a word that is hard to define, but apparently the rest of the court had a blast listening to me talking about figuring out my horse’s dietary restrictions after it almost died. I don’t get it either, maybe I’m just that charming.”
Wilhelmine: “You’re looking a little worse for wear and there’s a twitch right where your eyebrows, that even this Katte-approving version of me can’t not comment on, are connected in the middle. What are you worried about?”
Katte: “Alright, I will speak. You know my relationship with the Crown Prince.”
Wilhelmine: “I will react to this statement with “a pained movement” that the author of this summary still does not know how to interpret in other ways than “don’t make me think about the fact that you’re screwing my brother”.”
Katte: “First up, my collar is up to code today. Maybe it is a metaphor, who knows. Now let me tell you about how Fritz and your dad not getting along is tearing my heart apart because I love them both so much and I am still FW’s biggest fan and I honestly don’t get why Fritz has a problem with him. So anyway, I can’t give either of them my whole heart, I am so torn, I think I might die. Onto the actual happenings: I think Fritz has been captured.”
Wilhelmine: “Okay then, leave Berlin asap.”
Katte: "No, I can't leave, all of the King's wrath would come down onto the Crown Prince and you! So I intend to sacrifice myself to save my Prince. However! If you fled with me, I would go! Because fuck what happens to Fritz, I guess. Having feelings that are consistent for more than two lines is hard for me."
Wilhelmine: “Do me a favour and run, I do not want your sacrifice.”
Katte: “Am I not good enough?” D:
Wilhelmine: “Listen, I just vaguely want you not to die and Fritz would say the same.”
Katte: “Who? Anyway, are you mad at me because I did not give that picture back to you?” D:
Wilhelmine: “Alright, I’ll let you have a love confession, now run.”
Katte: “Well, now I REALLY want to die for you! Can I have this last dance?”

While they dance, Fr. von Kamecke gets the letter notifying her that Fritz tried to flee, connects the dots to the ghost sightings and leaves to tell the Queen.

Katte tells Wilhelmine that he will send her a box full of evidence to destroy, tells her where to find his signet and leaves when the Queen starts screaming.

Change of scenery, Katte’s friend Holtzendorff appears and lets Katte know that they got time off to go to Malchow. Katte says that he doesn’t need it anymore because he will get arrested. Then he gets arrested.

End of Act 2. I’ll do the rest as soon as I can!

Re: Katte - A Tragicomedy (the first half)

[mildred_of_midgard]

Ah, this is so great and your commentary is amazing! I laughed so many times I cannot tell you. I would tell you, but I've got to go study German, so I'll just say--keep it coming! :D :D

I will say that I took a look at this before you started summarizing, and being me I spent the most time on the execution and Fritz and Katte's last interaction, and I noticed a "Mein Bruder Jonathan." Uh huh. Yeah. Mein extremely heterosexual Bruder. :P

Gröben; Bielfeld; Strasbourg

[mildred_of_midgard]

felis, I'm so sorry I was heads-down on my ridiculously long Yuletide fic when you turned up the Gröben letters and I wasn't able to comment! What a great detective job. You would make Amalie, Fredersdorf, and Wilhelmine proud. :D

I agree whole-heartedly with Selena's comment that this is locker room talk (the exact phrase I thought of even before she wrote that) and not proof of a sexual relationship. However, I see that Gröben made into in "Time-Travelling Valet" as our culprit for Fritz's alleged STD in the late 1730s/early 1740s , which I thought was hilarious. :D And entirely possible!

Hypothesis/wanton speculation: The reason Fritz isn't upset when he learns Algarotti has an STD in late 1740 isn't because their relationship is purely platonic (and thus he's neither upset that they have to stop having sex nor worried that he got an STD from Algarotti), but because they *have* been having sex, and Fritz is where Algarotti got the STD from. :P

selenak: 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.

What this reminded me of was Bielfeld's "hot or not" report on Fritz from 1738, where he writes, "A petit maître of Paris would not perhaps admire his frisure; his hair however is of a bright brown, carelessly curled, but well adapted to his countenance."

Speaking of Bielfeld, if anyone is thinking of writing the Strasbourg episode that I didn't write for Yuletide, or otherwise just curious, I noticed while hunting for the petit-maître passage that Bielfeld writes a several-page account with numerous trivial details of interest to fanfiction writers. One minor detail he leaves out is the arrest/detainment. :P Which makes sense if he had his account from his friend Fritz.

I enjoyed his opening line: I much doubt if [Fritz] will ever obtain the title of Saint, but I am certain he will deserve that of Great, if Providence shall prolong his days.

Now, this letter is dated to September 2, 1740, but I have read that this is a collection of material that mixes real letters with material written after the fact and framed as letters, so that line may have been written with the benefit of hindsight, I don't know.

Re: Gröben; Bielfeld; Strasbourg

[selenak]

Gröben the STD spreader: I just couldn't resist!

I love the idea re: Algarotti. Does it work out date-wise? (I.e. from when exactly is this letter?)

Thank you for linking Bielfeld's account. I have to say, "The King was a good deal piqued by this indiscretion; for if the marechal knew that it was the King of Prussia, he ought not to have received his visit, but to have prevented him with the marks of utmost repect" is as Fritzian an alternate story for "Broglie locked me up!" that I can imagine. :)

Voltaire, Fritz, and statues

[mildred_of_midgard]

Way back in November (I am so behind, omg), selenak made a post on her personal blog about nude statues, and naturally Voltaire's came up.

To which I wrote: Also, I still want to know why Fritz didn't want it. We know he liked nude statues of, or at least, symbolically representing, his boyfriends! Total missed opportunity there. :P

He did at least get a copy of the bust, iirc.

selenak replied: Well, if Orieux is right he never unpacked the bust because he was pissed off about the memoirs, so not wanting the statue might have had a similar reason. Except that the memoirs were only published in 1784, so that wouldn't explain why Fritz didn't aquire the statue previously.

I've been meaning to reply and now finally am here to say that I misremembered slightly: the bust in question was not from Voltaire/Voltaire's people to Fritz, but vice versa. Quoting MacDonogh:

Three years later [so in 1775] KPM was issuing busts of Voltaire, ‘which resemble you in the old days, perhaps even now’, said Frederick. Voltaire peevishly acknowledged the gift of an ‘old man in porcelain’. The king thought it a very good likeness and told d’Alembert it lacked only the power to speak. He recommended that the best effects could be had by reciting the Henriade to it and watching it at the same time.

I absolutely love this image. Oh, Fritz, you never got over your ex, did you? :D

Continuing with the theme of their contentious relationship and its give-and-take:

Voltaire wanted revenge in the form of a Frederick, but the king of Prussia still adhered to his policy of keeping portrait painters at arm’s length, deeming them as adept at flattery as the most refined courtiers. He allowed Anna Dorothea Therbusch, however, to make the familiar bust of him that served as the KPM’s model, injecting a little youthful grace into his raddled face. Voltaire received one in good time. Frederick decided that the bust would be more likely to ‘ruin an apartment than to decorate it’. The king joked that the sculptress had refused to clothe him in the garb of an anchorite.

Never change, Voltaire and Fritz.

KPM is the Königliche Porzellan Manufaktur, or the porcelain factory that Fritz founded after the Seven Years' War.

(I'm still on partial salon hiatus, but have a little more time today, especially as sciatica is interfering with German studies. I mean, in theory I *can* study German at the computer, but it's too easy to get distracted. As you can see. :P)

Re: Voltaire, Fritz, and statues

[selenak]

There is still a copy of that Voltaire porcellain bust at Sanssouci!



Today, it's in the "Voltaire Room", of course. Missing someone reciting the Henriade to it. That really is a wonderful and so telling story.

Tiny correction of KPM - while it's true it didn't exist under that name yet, which was only provided by Fritz post war - it did exist in its earlier form as the Wegely'sche Manufaktur, which was founded in 1751, then sold from Wegely to Gotzkowsky in 1757 because SOMEONE suddenly had access to all the Saxon porcellain they could want and Wegely, to whom Fritz had been his primary patron, promptly went broke. Gotzkowsky kept it going until 1763, and then Fritz bought the factory and renamed it.

(I had to look this up last year at the KPM website because reasons.)

Candide (first half)

[cahn]

I finally broke down and bought a Candide with proper footnotes so that I could read something by Voltaire now that I'm, like, reading his biography and helping to write fic about him and such :P I'd tried my completely-footnote-less copy last year at around this time, and gave up because although I was enjoying it, I could see that I was missing quite a lot.

I chose this one under the vague idea that "critical edition" was what I wanted, and also I read the sample and thought the footnotes were probably decent enough, whereas most other editions I tried in the five minutes I looked around had no footnotes. I don't know that I'm totally content with the notes now that I have them (they are sort of short) but they're actually not too bad for my uses, as I need them to explicate things I didn't know I was missing, and once I know I'm missing them I can go look them up or ask in salon :) It's the stuff I don't know I'm missing that bothers me...

I've read the first half so far and it turns out the first several chapters are relevant to our fandom :)

Chapter 2 - in which Candide gets recruited into the army of the Bulgars - "Voltaire chose this name to represent the Prussian troops of Frederick the Great because he wanted to make an insinuation of pedastry against both the soldiers and their master. Cf. French bougre, English "bugger."

LOLOLOLOL. This is the kind of thing I'm here for, footnotes! Also as always I think it is hilarious that Voltaire is so stuck on Fritz that he has to make fun of Fritz being gay, lol.

"Two men in blue took note of [Candide]... 'Aren't you five feet five inches tall?'" And the footnote attached to that: "Frederick had a passion for sorting out his soldiers by size; several of his regiments would accept only six-footers."

...surely... they are mixing up Fritz and FW?? But still, this is 5000% funnier now that I know the Fritz/FW connection (tall guys, while sad for the tall guys, is always going to be hilarious to me)

The impressing of Candide into the army of the Bulgars by two guys who accost him in a tavern reminds me a lot of Ulrich Bräker's memoirs that selenak summarized for us a long time ago. I was going to ask if it was plausible that Voltaire had read his memoirs, but once I finally figured out the name of the guy and was thence able to look him up in rheinsberg, I saw that they were published much later than Candide. Well, I imagine he was just one of many.

Chapter 2/3: "The King of the Bulgars went to war with the King of the Abares." The footnote says here that this is a reference to the Seven Years' War and that "Allegorically, the Abares are the French, who opposed the Prussians in the conflict known to hindsight history as the Seven Years' War."

Me: The French?? Against the Prussians??
Footnote: Look, the Seven Years' War is complicated, okay? We are a footnote, we're not going to get all of this across in our allotted couple of lines. Check out the Battle of Minden, that's what he's referring to, it took place in Westphalia which is where Voltaire has set this bit.
Wikipedia: Yeah, your buddy Ferdinand of Brunswick defeated a French army there.
Me: He's not my buddy, I just thought it was funny that mildred thought of him before Ferdinand... never mind. Fine.

"...the two kings in their respective camps celebrated the victory by having Te Deums sung" -- Also appreciated the note about how this was sung to celebrate victory! By both kings, natch. Don't know if this was intentional, but it sure did remind me of Fritz for obvious reasons.

That's it for Fritz-related hilariousness in the first half (and, idk, maybe for the whole thing, I'll check in once I'm finished), but a couple of random other comments:

After we leave Westphalia and the Bulgars, in Chapter 11, the Old Lady says: "I am in fact the daughter of Pope Urban the Tenth and the Princess of Palestrina." The footnote observes that Voltaire left a note behind on this passage, first published in 1829: "Note the extreme discretion of the author: hitherto there has never been a pope named Urban X; he avoided attributing a bastard to a named Pope. What circumspection! What an exquisite conscience!" I don't know which I think is funnier, the "exquisite conscience!" or the fact that Voltaire is saying all this about himself in third person.

Chapter 16: "How can you expect me to eat ham when I have killed the son of my lord the Baron, and am now condemned never to see the lovely Cunegonde for the rest of my life? Why should I drag out my miserable days, since I must exist far from her in the depths of despair and remorse? And what will the Journal de Trevoux say of all this?" I would have thought this was funny by itself, but the footnote says this is a journal published by the Jesuit order, founded in 1701 and consistently hostile to Voltaire. HEE.

Re: Candide (first half)

[mildred_of_midgard]

This is greeeat, thank you! When I get around to French, some of Voltaire's nonfiction works (like the Treatise on Tolerance) are on my list, but not Candide, so I'm glad you're covering it for us!

"Voltaire chose this name to represent the Prussian troops of Frederick the Great because he wanted to make an insinuation of pedastry against both the soldiers and their master. Cf. French bougre, English "bugger."

This I actually knew!

"Two men in blue took note of [Candide]... 'Aren't you five feet five inches tall?'" And the footnote attached to that: "Frederick had a passion for sorting out his soldiers by size; several of his regiments would accept only six-footers."

...surely... they are mixing up Fritz and FW?? But still, this is 5000% funnier now that I know the Fritz/FW connection (tall guys, while sad for the tall guys, is always going to be hilarious to me)

They may be, partially? But height requirements were a thing in Fritz's army (this is what Heinrich got dinged for--admitting recruits who didn't meet the requirements), and different regiments definitely had different requirements (and I do recognize five-five as a cutoff...for the cavalry, I think?). The six-foot regiment I'm not sure of; the Potsdam Giants (whose cutoff was six feet) got distributed into other regiments immediately after Fritz became king, and he certainly didn't have a passion for collecting every single tall soldier in Europe. But he may have had some regiments (grenadiers?) who had that as their height requirement. The editor may be confusing this part with FW, but I would be very reluctant to say so; it strikes me as at least 75% likely it's Fritz.

ETA: Further research tells me the Potsdam Giants were an entire regiment under FW, and downgraded to a battalion (of grenadiers--I was right about that part!) under Fritz. So maybe "several regiments" only accepting six foot men was an exaggeration, but there being six-foot requirements for some bodies is possible? Will let you know if I find out more. (Though I'm not going full-out detective on this, as I'm prioritizing other things.)

Wikipedia: Yeah, your buddy Ferdinand of Brunswick defeated a French army there.
Me: He's not my buddy, I just thought it was funny that mildred thought of him before Ferdinand... never mind. Fine.

LOOK, if we're talking not purely about regents but about Heinrich replacements to get Prussia through the Seven Years' War, there's the guy who at least one scholar (remind me which one, Selena?) has claimed was a better general than Fritz or Heinrich, and then there's the guy who was "incapacitated by illness" the entire time, then proceeded to live another 55 years. :PPP

You had your reasons for not thinking I wrote a crack corporate AU, and I had my reasons for not thinking of Ferdinand as a viable alternative to Heinrich during the Seven Years' War, okay. :P

Horowski anecdotes

[selenak]

From Mildred's reply to the other post:

When Joseph II, while madly touring Europe, came to visit, Horowski reports this amazing anecdote (courtesy I *think* of British envoy William Hamilton, though I would need to check and I don't have time):

It is indeed Sir William Hamilton, eventual husband of Emma (who will become bff with Maria Carolina, remember), and son of probably Fritz of Wales' mistress (whom Lord Hervey sniffily accused of not even being that pretty). And that is indeed a hilarious tale. Given this was to my knowledge the same journey on which Joseph had already visited Paris, I wouldn't be surprised if he had a private list of "Who's my most idiotic brother-in-law?" in his head.

Louis - hasn't figured out penetrative sex after seven years of trying, despite being in love with his wife; otoh, can actually carry a conversation about other subjects, and his good hobby locksmitih

Ferdinand - not in love with his wife, but walking, talking embarrassment to everyone; groper of butts

Albert - husband of Maria Christina, aka Mom's and my late wife's favourite; not stupid, but big spender, keeps complaining about me using Dad's money for the state instead of letting him and Maria Christina have a big budget

Re: Horowski anecdotes

[mildred_of_midgard]

Ha! Since this was the trip on which he first met Fritz, I can see why his reaction was, "Oh thank god for someone I can have a conversation with!"

MT: For sixteen hours a day?
ViennaJoe: FOR SIXTEEN HOURS A DAY. :D :D :D

Friedrich: Mythos und Tragödie

[cahn]

I HAVE FINALLY WATCHED IT. Thank you so much prinzsorgenfrei for this musical!! Honestly, basically all you have to do is make a musical about, well, anything, and I will have ALL THE FEELINGS about it and I'm so happy to have gotten the chance to watch and understand it thanks to your subtitles! :D Those were a labor of love indeed <3 (And sorry it took me so long to watch -- I've had issues watching anything for the past year (idk why, my bizarre response to 2020 apparently??), and have just gotten to the point where I can do so again.)

So I wrote most of this and then went back and found the discussion with selenak's review (and have added in some replies to that conversation), and was rather charmed to see how much we agreed :) ) (Rheinsberg review is here and here is the original thread; selenak does a much better job of actually summarizing than I do, and this is more of a companion to her review :)

It was interesting coming to this as someone who now knows a little, versus if I'd watched it a year ago, and I was impressed by how historical it actually was! Maybe I just have super low expectations due to the way US entertainment generally treats historical subjects (Hamilton was a notable exception in mostly trying to follow the history and for the most part not over-romanticizing it) but... I loved that we got August the Strong and Grumpkow and Seckendorff and even a mention of Maupertuis :D and that it didn't shy away from what Old Fritz became, and how that contrasted with Young Fritz. (Which really might be American Broadway low expectations on my part? Like, if, oh, say, Frank Wildhorn or Andrew Lloyd Weber (who admittedly isn't American, but same deal) got hold of Fritz' story, I suspect there would be... a lot less of Old Fritz in it.)

I also thought it got a lot of the feel right; the one thing I kind of thought was weird -- besides the big het elephant in the room, getting to that -- was how Wilhelmine was played as basically relentlessly cheery, which was definitely not the impression I'd gotten of her from the memoirs. I mean, there's some libretto textual evidence that she's putting on the best face possible, and also her function in the musical as foil and central relationship with Fritz means it might work better for her to be cheerful -- but it was still a little ?? to me.

I'd purposely tried not to spoil myself by e.g. reading selenak's review beforehand (although I did see enough that Grumpkow/SD was spoiled for me, whoops -- but perhaps for the best, lol), but I'd seen a couple of the clips on youtube that selenak had shown us before. And yet, even having seen the clips I was unprepared for the overwhelming het weirdness of Katte/Wilhelmine and the near-absence of Fritz/Katte or even Fritz & Katte. Like... Katte meets both of them, he's immediately assumed by all three of them to have paired off with Wilhelmine, and then that's... kind of it... until later on Fritz is like "you're my best friend I want to escape with you!!" and I was like "...he is? What happened? Was there a whole scene I missed?" (There was not a whole scene I missed.)

Fritz is definitely played as more into Katte than strictly platonic friendship, but there was absolutely no chemistry or attempted chemistry between them, either romantic or platonic, and not even any really good friendship moments. Some of this was Katte's actor, who seemed almost to be shying away from Young Fritz sometimes, but a lot of it was just the lack of any text. (Contrast Rodrigo and Carlo in Verdi; you could even cut the friendship duet bits of Dio che nell'alma infondere, and act it totally non-slashily, and Act II would still give you no doubt of the friendship between these two.) Which makes it not very resonant at all when Katte is executed, much less as the ghost who is talking to Old Fritz. Knowing the ship history (and thinking of it a bit as a dramatization of mildred's Pulvis et Umbra) I still enjoyed it, I guess. And yet the part of me that was watching it as a self-contained musical was like "...why is Katte here?" and I imagine if you didn't really know the history very well it would not make much sense at all!

(I must admit laughing a bit when they do the letter-play where Katte drops a letter which Grumbkow picks up and gives to FW, and FW is all "Katte has betrayed me!!" Schiller strikes again, I'm betting! :) Or perhaps it's convergent evolution -- after all, it's rather easier, and therefore dramatically sensible, to think of FW feeling personally betrayed by Katte, and letters are a canon-relevant way of getting that information across... but...)

Random bit that totally made me laugh (given how much knowledge about Fritz there was on display, I feel that someone here was having fun):

Old Fritz: I got Voltaire to come see me! He read my poems! [Direct quote from prinzsorgenfrei's subtitles:] And that he came all the way to Potsdam shows how much he liked them!
Me: Oh Fritz. Oh Fritz.

I thought Fritz & Wilhelmine was quite well done, and though someone not in fandom wouldn't necessarily come out of the play shipping it (though there was definitely subtext there, which I thought was hilarious), I totally bought their close relationship in a way I didn't buy Fritz & Katte at all. The Wilhelmine scene where she argued with him about wanting Bayreuth to remain neutral was amazing. (And I thought that was a brilliant elision of history; lunch with MT, much as I adore that bit of history, wouldn't have worked nearly as well in a two-hour musical.) And now, selenak, I understand what you meant about the curtsey at the end -- her relating to him as the King she has just submitted to, not her beloved brother, ouuuuch.

And at the very end of the musical, I kinda loved that Katte slipped away during the final trio, leaving Young Fritz and Wilhelmine alone together. Though speaking of incestuous subtext: not only does Katte disappear, no longer coming between the two of them if you know what I mean, but she is wearing a white dress in the finale which I realize is supposed to symbolize that she is dead, but for this American audience member it also LOOKS LIKE A WEDDING DRESS and they're standing up on a platform like two figures on a wedding cake! I'm just saying.

The music was for the most part... selenak called it "workman level" in her review, and that's a good way of describing it; it did the job of making me invested (seriously, make anything into a musical and I will suddenly be emotionally involved in a way I wasn't before) but it wasn't at all memorable. The chorus numbers were for the most part particularly mediocre; often I really like the chorus numbers in musicals, but there was nothing in these that I found melodically or harmonically particularly catchy. The only song I could even take a stab at recalling the melody afterwards is "Sieben Jahr Krieg," which has that as its hypnotic refrain, and especially at the beginning of the song is rather devastatingly staged, with Old Fritz frowning stock-still at his desk in the middle while the chorus-stylized war is swirling around him. (Later in the song they start dancing around, which I think was supposed to evoke the frenzy of war but which I feel didn't work so well.) And I've forgotten that one too, a day later. Oh, and I did very much like the FW and Fritz duet ("Die Schande Preußens") about how Fritz is a disgrace to Prussia because he doesn't like war, etc. -- the neat thing was how FW and Fritz traded their melodic line back and forth, prefiguring the way Fritz takes on FW-like qualities later on. (Though I feel they lost a great opportunity for a callback when Fritz sings about how he's totally going to invade Silesia -- or maybe they didn't; although it's not the same melody as Die Schande Preußens, it's got enough harmonic commonality that on first watch-through I wondered if it was the same tune, which maybe was intentional and if so good job.)

Old Fritz (Chris Murray) is in my opinion by far the strongest singer in the cast; he's really good, with a resonant voice. So good that when it goes from his powerful solo (Ebenbild) to the finale where Young Fritz, Wilhelmine, and Katte have a trio, I had a moment of disorientation of "...why did the singing just get substantially more mediocre? Oh, because Old Fritz isn't singing anymore," which is probably not what you want your audience to be thinking at the grand finale. (I've now gone back and looked at the previous comments and saw prinzsorgenfrei said Bieri (Young Fritz) wasn't having a good day, which yeah, I'd totally buy. But even if he were having a good day, Murray's voice is substantially darker and richer than the others' (in part I imagine just because he's older and his voice has settled), and I don't think that was considered in the transition to the trio.)

Of course, this was the other thing I was thinking near the end:

Everyone in the musical: Old Fritz, you're such a terrible person that you're all alone!
Me: What about Fredersdorf?? ...oh, well, I guess he's dead at that point. What about Heinrich?
Heinrich: Leave me out of this!

Re: Friedrich: Mythos und Tragödie

[selenak]

I see we're of a mind when it comes to this musical. <3

Like, if, oh, say, Frank Wildhorn or Andrew Lloyd Weber (who admittedly isn't American, but same deal) got hold of Fritz' story, I suspect there would be... a lot less of Old Fritz in it.)

I'd say none. Hence my assumption that "Fritz, the Disney version", would blame all the worst stuff on Grumbkow & Seckendorff as the minions of the Evil Austrian Emperor, and would end with now crowned Fritz righteously invading the Evil Austrian Empire and triumphing.

Wilhelmine played as relentlessly cheery: I hear you. Mind you, back in the day when the early Salon had reawakened my interest and I checked out A03 for Fritz fic, what little Wilhelmne there was in those stories (before Mildred started to write her into her stories for me, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!) was also relentlessly cheerful and uplifting and comforting. I remember complaining about this. Now the reason for this is obvious - the writers want a character to comfort Fritz and cheer him up, and the way Wilhelmine herself was also emotionally damaged and neurotic is evident only if you bother to read more of the source material than posted on Tumblr -, but I would like to point out that the 1980s tv two parter "Der Thronfolger" also has Wilhelmine doing the comforting of Fritz, but it doesn't have her relentlessly cheery. (It even includes a bit to indicate her relationship with her mother when SD critiques her posture and asks for "contenance" in her behavior). So even if you need Wilhelmine primarly as a supporting (in both senses of the word) character, you can show she's not a bundle of joy all the time.

To return to the musical, at first I assumed it might also be that the actress/singer was one note and couldn't do more, but her big argument scene with Fritz in act 2 blew that assumption out of the water because she is great there (and here the script allows for a whole scala of emotions).

Fritz is definitely played as more into Katte than strictly platonic friendship, but there was absolutely no chemistry or attempted chemistry between them, either romantic or platonic, and not even any really good friendship moments.

So much agreed, and never mind history, that's truly to the detriment of the story the musical itself is trying to tell. If Katte and Fritz aren't believable good friends (even without the slightest bit of subtext), then Katte's actions make no sense, and Fritz still being haunted by him years later in both senses of the word does not resonate in the way it needs to. Your comparison/contrast to Carlos and Rodrigo, even if you'd cut the friendship duet, is astute.

The Wilhelmine scene where she argued with him about wanting Bayreuth to remain neutral was amazing.

Wasn't it just? This was perhaps the greatest surprise to me when I watched the musical, because the bits that are on YouTube don't include it and give no indication of it, and it is so very good. (It also means vindicates the actress playing Wilhelmine as in, clearly the relentless cheeriness earlier was how she was directed to play it, she can and does offer more.) Of course, it also helps that Chris Murray is now playing Fritz and he, as we agree, is the superior singer (and actor). But seriously, much as the rest of the script is workmanlike as is the music, here it deserves credit for having found a way to fuse various complicated historical developments into a stage-friendly shorthand for a two hour musical which nonetheless is layered and really, really effective.

And now, selenak, I understand what you meant about the curtsey at the end -- her relating to him as the King she has just submitted to, not her beloved brother, ouuuuch.

Indeed. You can imagine how when reading "Grind" for the first time and arrived at Amalie deeply curtseying in front of Heinrich, I thought "ohhhhh, did someone watch the musical after all?"

the neat thing was how FW and Fritz traded their melodic line back and forth, prefiguring the way Fritz takes on FW-like qualities later on.

See, that's the kind of astute musical diagnosis none of us other salon members could provide.

Everyone in the musical: Old Fritz, you're such a terrible person that you're all alone!
Me: What about Fredersdorf?? ...oh, well, I guess he's dead at that point. What about Heinrich?
Heinrich: Leave me out of this!

LOL. I bet. (Now someone just needs to compose the music to my script of Lehndorff!The Musical.)

Fritz Mystery Affliction January 1736

[felis]

So I was reading Fritz' correspondence with both Paul-Henri Tilio de Camas and his wife, Countess de Camas. (And by the way, I was surprised to learn that Camas, born 1688, lost his left arm with 18 and instead of leaving the army, he got a prosthesis and kept rising through the ranks, got his own regiment in 1740, and then died 1741 in Breslau. (Damn.) Also new to me: his wife - born Sophie Caroline von Brandt - only got the title Countess de Camas after his death. She also gets called "maman" by Fritz a lot, and lived until 1766.)

Anyway, I came across some cryptic allusions from Fritz, cross-referenced a couple of other sources myself (see below), but wanted to ask if anybody knows for sure what was going on there.

First, letter to Camas from Berlin, January 1st, 1736:
[...] If the first day of the year, according to popular tradition, is the foreshadowing of the rest of the year, I expect to make great progress in the school of adversity during this one. I started out with a sick body and a distressed mind. An inhuman colic has been following me very severely for some time; it undermines me, and if it continues to increase, I can easily predict where it will lead me. At the same time, I have a just cause of affliction, which is sensitive to me to the bottom of my heart; it does not come from there, but from another part; it devours me, and all the more because I hide my sorrow. You who know me, you will be able to judge if I am able to resist double attacks like this. However, I drag myself along as I can, and until I feel defeated. However, it seems to me that it relieves me to have told you about my troubles. I beg you to take part in them, and not to preach to me either a morality beyond my reach, or a heroism which renders me insensitive to the events of life. I have a tender and compassionate heart, and I feel the misfortunes that happen to my friends as strongly as if they happened to me. Finally I could tell you too much, and imperceptibly, without thinking about it, I could reveal to you what it is about, having once resolved to keep this matter a secret, not out of mistrust of your discretion, but because one judges differently the causes of the sorrows of others. One considers it ridiculous to grieve; the other says it's not worth the trouble; in the end, everyone knows for himself where the shoe pinches, and it is enough that he knows it, he must be silent.
Farewell, my dear Camas; my compliments to the wife. Love me always a little, I beg of you, and count on the perfect esteem that I have for you.
Frederic.

And a week later: [...] My colic is getting better; but as regards my sorrow, I do not feel any decrease. I speak to myself, I reason, I moralize; but I feel that temperament still has the upper hand over reason. In the end, dear Camas, that of adversity is a hard school; I was, so to speak, born and brought up in it; it takes away a lot from the world, it shows the vanity of the objects it presents to us, their lack of solidity, and the inconstancy that the revolution of time brings with it. For someone my age, these are unpleasant thoughts; the flesh is loath to them. My temperament, which naturally leads me to joy, is like a dislocated limb wishing in vain to perform its ordinary duties. I prefer to keep myself from writing to you until I have reestablished peace and calm in my agitated mind, so I can talk to you about less sad and less disagreeable matters.

The next letter to Camas is from March and doesn't have anything to say on the matter.


Second, he also wrote a - similarly cryptic - letter to Wilhelmine, which is lost, but we have her response from January 29th and she has a theory: Your letter has me seriously worried; I don't understand what the cause of your grief may be, and why you want to bury yourself on your property. I hardly dare to say what I suspect, but I'm afraid you are in debt and don't know how to pay it back. Please tell me openly whether I guessed right; because maybe I'll find ways and means to rid you of this worry.

Volz has a footnote saying that Fritz returned 5000 taler to her after he became king, but there's no way to tell when she lend him the money or if it's related to this. Given that he's building Rheinsberg around the time, and that he has the vague "morality beyond my reach" line in his letter to Camas, Wilhelmine's guess might be it? But on the other hand, some of what Fritz writes to Camas seems a bit too much for just money troubles and the "it does not come from there, but from another part" made me think of the STD thing again. And then there's the question where his "tender and compassionate heart" and the "misfortunes of my friends" come in.


Finally, thanks to selenak's write-up, I found a couple of possibly relevant entries in the secret diary of the Seckendorff nephew, which present several possible causes, from general FW-related misery to very specific, procreation-related misery:

December 25th, 1735:
The prince royal, who dined with us, was very thoughtful, and the king still increased his reverie by forcing him to empty, following our example, a full great glass of Tokay.

I didn't realize FW kept doing that so late in the game.

January 17th, 1736 (using Selena's translation):
Biberius tells me about the secrets, that Junior confided in Pöllnitz. The King encourages him to produce children, had him made a marital bed out of velvet. Biberius does not believe, that Junior will survive the father, but that pessimus Wilhelmus will succeed one day.

Confiding in Pöllnitz, really, Fritz? You know better. But, more to the point, I wonder if this was the crux of the matter, i.e. FW having too much interest in Fritz' sex life or lack thereof, plus, apparently, still rumours of changing the succession if there's no child. I see from the rest of the write-up that the Manteuffel talk about producing an heir takes place later in the same year, too.


That's all I got, but maybe you guys know more? Other possible sources I thought of start later (Suhm) or aren't available (Keyserlingk).

/Speaking of, though, what is up with the Keyserlingk correspondence being just gone? I found a couple of early references to it, mostly saying that there was a very lively one between him and Fritz, but then it's quickly just "missing". I'm suspicious and annoyed because that one must have been a treasure trove.

Re: Fritz Mystery Affliction January 1736

[mildred_of_midgard]

One considers it ridiculous to grieve; the other says it's not worth the trouble; in the end, everyone knows for himself where the shoe pinches,

I don't have time to reply, but one quick note doing my duty as resident classicist: for those who don't recognize this, it's an allusion to Plutarch's Life of Aemilius Paulus.

A Roman once divorced his wife, and when his friends admonished him, saying: "Is she not discreet? is she not beautiful? is she not fruitful?" he held out his shoe (the Romans call it "calceus"), saying: "Is this not handsome? is it not new? but no one of you can tell me where it pinches my foot?"

Rheinsberg

[mildred_of_midgard]

Happy birthday to our community rheinsberg, which is one year old today and one of the best things we've done! The idea may have been mine, selenak, but almost all the content is yours, and as always, cahn, you were the unwitting catalyst. <3

Here's to year two!

(We also have a couple birthdays for key antiheroes in our fandom coming up in the next few days.)

Re: Rheinsberg

[selenak]

I salute our community with my favourite vid of the place.

And Mildred, you're exaggarating - just think of all the Katte execution (and Katte family) posts of yours! The Keith family contributions (Peter specifically)! Suuuuuhm!

re: birthdays, zomg, so we do. Both of them.

Candide (part 2)

[cahn]

I've finished! It's short and very Voltaire :) (I am glad I read this while reading the Orieux -- having a sense of Voltaire helps, I think.) Unfortunately no really good footnotes to share in the last half, although I will say that the footnotes make it clear that Voltaire continues to make fun of everyone whom he has any kind of conflict with. But some general thoughts/description, anyway:

As even my barbaric ahistorical self knew before reading it, the major idea of Candide is to rebut Leibniz's idea that this is the best of all possible worlds (which is the teaching of the absurd tutor Pangloss). He does this by having all kinds of terrible (and often hilarious) things happen to Candide, and Candide is also put in the path of many other characters (most interestingly the Old Lady and Martin the Manichee, the latter of whom I'll speak a bit more later) who also have horrible terrible (and again often hilarious, because this is Voltaire) things happen to them. And a couple of times Candide goes about trying to prove that someone in the world is happy -- but is always shown to be wrong. The idea is that this our most well-documented of all possible worlds (as John M. Ford once riffed on it, which I think is a hilariously brilliant way of putting it) could not possibly be the best of all possible worlds given that a) all these terrible things are happening, and b) they're happening to pretty much everyone; there is no one who is portrayed as happy in the book until the last chapter (with one notable exception which I will discuss).

Honestly, I felt like the strength of his arguments varied greatly. First, there seemed to be a lot of emphasis on Leibniz being disproved by terrible things happening to an individual person. I'd always conceived of "best of all possible worlds" to be a global condition rather than a local one: that is, one could certainly easily conceive of worlds where a particular person, or collection of people, had a better life than in this one, and my understanding of Leibniz's idea (which might be wrong?) is that it refers to everyone as a whole -- whatever that means (I haven't read Leibniz source; does he quantify happiness or utility of a world in a not-totally-undefined way?) -- that although at any particular moment a person or group of people might be unhappy, as a whole this is the best for humanity. Also that there might be constraints on what worlds are possible, e.g., if there hadn't been a horribly destructive earthquake at this time (one of the events in Candide, following real life), perhaps there would have been an even worse one. Or something. (I freely admit that I'm very influenced here by my religion having basically this as its theology, so I may be projecting the arguments.)

Though one could argue that if everyone is unhappy (which as becomes more and more clear in the book is pretty much the case), then it couldn't possibly be the best of all possible worlds just because this seems unlikely to be it in absolute terms. But this doesn't seem to be the primary argument Voltaire is making, as far as I could tell (though it could very well be a secondary argument). I do think that he's saying that it is pretty easy to postulate a universe where, e.g., soldiers didn't rape Cunegonde; that universe would clearly be better than the book-canon universe where she was.

Speaking of which, Voltaire also makes a more explicit argument from counterexample: that this is not the best of all possible worlds because he can construct a much better possible world that isn't this one. In the middle of the book Candide and his servant Cacambo somehow find themselves in the hidden-away and fabled land of El Dorado, which is a utopia where everyone is happy, there is lots of SCIENCE!, there is no war or crime or poverty (how this is attained isn't entirely clear, though Voltaire seems to tie it at least partially to the lack of organized religion), and no one cares about money, though their pebbles are precious stones and their mud is (literally) gold. Also, "Cacambo explained the king's witty sayings to Candide, and even when translated they still seemed witty. Of all the things which astonished Candide, this was not, in his eyes, the least astonishing." LOL. I wonder if this king writes poems that are actually good :PP

Candide and Cacambo decide to leave El Dorado in a stunningly stupid move (so Candide can find Cunegonde, whom he's been separated from) and take a bunch of gold and gems with them, which certainly make their life reasonably easier for the rest of the book, although Candide keeps losing money through various acts of stupidity (by him) and swindling (by others). Cacambo is dispatched to find Cunegonde, and Candide takes up with Martin the Manichee (whose name has come up before in salon). Manichaeism is the belief that there's evil as a tangible power in the world in addition to good/God (as opposed to the belief that an all-good God is the source of everything). Where Martin is concerned, this manifests in him being basically a raging pessimist, and whenever Candide goes around thinking that he's found a happy person or a happy way of life, Martin is like "I bet no." (He is always right.)

At the end of the book, Candide finally finds Cunegonde (whom he's been searching for during most of the book), only to find that, horrors, during the course of her misfortunes she has become ugly. But he marries her anyway, because he feels obligated to. He's also run out of money by this time, and he ends up on a farm with a bunch of random people from the book, some of whom have shown up again after some time (including Pangloss, who seems to have died twice during the book, but both times his death was greatly exaggerated). They're all quarreling and terribly unhappy!! Until... on the last page, they meet a man who is actually happy (the first non-ElDoradoean in the entire book!), because he cultivates his small garden with his family. In the last few paragraphs Candide and the other characters decide to also cultivate their garden, and become what, if Voltaire were in fandom, I'd call a nice little found family :) (Whether this is a lasting happiness is left to the reader, and it does seem rather unlikely, though I like to imagine that they're all so tired of adventures at this point that they do keep going like that.)

next step: gonna go watch the Bernstein musical

Re: Candide (part 2)

[mildred_of_midgard]

Thank you so much! Can I just say again how lucky I feel to be in a fandom where people read me books. :D

My own reading rn consists of finishing the chapter of Horowski I'm on tonight, and the book by the end of the month. I was planning to reply to Fritz's mystery affliction today, but...I'm on a roll. :) In the meantime, just assume I'm following all salon developments eagerly, even when not replying.

Toutes nos félicitations, Henri!

[selenak]

On the occasion of Heinrich's birthday, have a Lehndorff description of how he celebrated Heinrich turning 30 on 18th January 1756. Bear in mind that Lehndorff actually has fallen in love with Charles Hotham at this point and is making emigration plans. He's in as serious a state about leaving Heinrich as he'll ever get. The Duc de Nivernais was the unfortunate guy who had the job to negotiate the continuation of the France/Prussia Treaty when the news of the Prussia/England treaty were about to break.

18th January. Morning with the King. Then I present my congratulations to Prince Heinrich who receives me very amiably. I lunch in small company with the Duc de Nivernais with whose manners I am delighted. After the reception at the Queen's, I accompangny Prince Heinrich to Countess Monroy and introduce him as my cousin. The ruse works perfectly well since the Prince has put on a different outfit, we arrived in a hired carriage, and didn't fall out of character. Afterwards the Prince comes to me and I present him with a small party. At first, I let him enter a darkened room, where he finds the following words written at the wall with phosphorus: "The most worthy of mortals shall await the God's messenger here!"
A moment later, a man disguised as Mercury enters and gives him a letter from the assembly of gods, where it's said that the entire Olympus has been busy selecting presents worthy of him: Jupiter and his brothers had wanted to turn over the rulership of their realms to him, but after a vote Jupiter had decided that the Prince could not abandon his current position where he's crucial for the happiness of mankind and thus indispensable to it. Mars and Apollo had wanted to give him their courage and their mind, but Minerva then humiliated them by proving to them that the Prince surpasses them in both by far. At last, the noble assembly was much embarrassed at finding a worthy present, until Venus freed them through the suggestion to send him letters by his grandmother, Queen Sophie, whose worthy heir he was. At the same time, Mercury gave him letters from this Queen which I had received from Fräulein v. Fuchs. While the Prince reads them now, I change into evening wear and present my congratulations for the day. Then we dine in high spirits.

Re: Toutes nos félicitations, Henri!

[felis]

Awwww. ... that's all I have really. :D

(No, wait. The "Heinrich as Sophie's worthy heir" is rather interesting, and the fact that old family letters as a present are a thing. And I love the phosphorus detail. Not gonna go into the Gods' thoughts as foreshadowing, though. ;P)

Swedish calendar

[mildred_of_midgard]

Mostly caught up on existing threads, slowly chipping away at my backlog of things I ran across in my reading during Yuletide.

So we've talked about how the switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar happened gradually in Europe, meaning different countries were on different calendars at the same time. Catholic countries switched first, than gradually Protestant, and eventually Eastern Orthodox (Russia not until the Russian Revolution). So different dates are given for different events depending on who's reporting them, and if your event took place around the beginning of the year, you'll have different years, and don't even get me started on having March 25 as the first day of your new year.

But I thought I was on top of this, confusing as it is, until I learned in November that Sweden decided to make things extra complicated! From Henrik Lunde's A Warrior Dynasty: The Rise and Decline of Sweden as a Military Superpower:

Sweden did not begin making the change to the Gregorian calendar until 1700 and, to make matters worse, it was done in a confusing and halting manner. The Swedish calendar was therefore out of step with both calendars for forty years. The common rule that you add 10 days [Mildred's comment: note that it's 10 days in the 17th century, 11 in the 18th, 12 in the 19th, and 13 in the 20th.] that to the Julian calendar to arrive at the Gregorian date is therefore not applicable in the case of Sweden during the period 1700–1740.

How have other authors handled this problem? Swedish sources and some English sources, such as Michael Roberts, use the Julian calendar. Most make no mention of it and one therefore doesn’t know which calendar they are using. Both Robert I. Frost and Ragnhild Hatton address this problem in their books. Frost tried to use the Gregorian calendar (New Style or NS) but admits that there probably are mistakes.

Hatton, in her note at the end of her preface, has this to say:

But in 1700 Sweden opted for a modified form of the Julian calendar in the hope of a gradual progress to the Gregorian one: they dropped leap-year of that year and thus remained ten days behind N.S. but at the same time one day ahead of O.S. [Old Style]. [end Hatton quote]

To make this confusing situation even more bewildering, in 1712 Karl XII decided that the system in place gave the Swedes the worst of both worlds and switched back to the Julian calendar.

While I have tried to use the Gregorian calendar wherever I knew which calendar was used by my source, there will no doubt be numerous inconsistencies since most of the sources did not specify which calendar they used. After spending a long time trying to figure out how to handle a problem that two eminent professors had so much difficulty with, I decided to change dates when I knew they needed to be changed but to leave them as found in whatever source I was using when I was not sure.

Re: Swedish calendar

[selenak]

Good grief! Swedes, why?