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

Entry tags:

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

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

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.

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?"

Oh, nice! I wouldn't even have noticed, because the shoe phrase is such a common one. Great to know its origin now, and with the context, I of course can't help but make the connection to the "marital bed" part of the mystery speculation... No idea if the context would have been on Fritz' mind with that quote, though.

So, Fritz and his contemporaries being as conversant with Plutarch as they were (I think Fritz read him in translation regularly), I feel pretty confident in saying that's where he got the quote and that he knew the anecdote in question. Whereas if someone today were to use it, I wouldn't necessarily assume they knew the source.

But given how widely applicable the moral of the story is, I don't think Fritz would have limited himself to applying it to marital bed situations. It could just as easily be gambling debts. Though I admit I did think of EC and the imminent move to Rheinsberg when I saw he'd made the allusion to the shoe pinching story!

I did not know this, this is great! (Man, I have to read more classics. Maybe... later :) )

I still dream of us doing a Classics salon, but not...yet. ;)

I bet it was, and do instinctively suspect 19th century Hohenzollern censorship. I would say the survival of the Marwitz letters argues against that, but otoh technically these incriminate only Heinrich and Marwitz and Fritz' attitude could be written off as "he was just being sarcastic and trying to toughen Heinrich up". Whereas I bet this would not have been the case in letters between him and Caesarion.

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.

....I think Gröben is back as a suspect for spreading STD and getting into gambling debts as well, is what I think. (Not least because this reminds me a bit of the whole Reisewitz matter in the originally censored part of the Lehndorff diaries (i.e. those passages in volume 2 from 1752/1753 when Heinrich has just found out Reisewitz has been skeevy with his (Heinrich's money) and his emotional reaction as described by Lehndorff matches that of Fritz above; and he does cover Reisewitz' debts.) It would also explain why he was being cryptic with Wilhelmine as well, because I think if money had been the only problem, he'd have told her point blank.

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.

Yes, and rumors about FW changing the succession in favor of AW would still go around as late as 1739 since they show up in Fritz' correspondence with Wilhelmine that year (where he tells her he's sure AW is on his side and is being honest, helping as much as he can and not scheming against him). Though again, if FW pushing him to produce an heir was the key cause of his January 1736 misery, I think he'd have been more explicit about it in his letters to Camas at least. Which I hadn't read yet, though the letters to Countess Camas were on my to do list for a while, so thank you for reading them!

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

(*looks at the date, December 25th* Talk about the ghost of Christmas Past!) FW: never skippping that power gesture if he can. After all, he did it to Fritz of Bayreuth as well, and he'd run out of successors to poor Grundling whom he could force to drink, plus I bet the goodwill Fritz earned by marrying in the first place was now being replaced by irritation of the lack of pregnancies, especially given FW, as ever, would apply his own experience to his children, which was that he and SD never had problems conceiving issue, even if the first few babies were either female or died. Wilhelmine also got pregnant almost immediately, and so did poor Friederike and Charlotte. I can see FW concluding that clearly, Fritz couldn't be trying very hard.

(Fritz of Wales, from overseas: At least he didn't accuse his son of being impotent and bent on substituting an anonymous baby as heir?)

I bet it was, and do instinctively suspect 19th century Hohenzollern censorship.

Yeah, my first thought, too. :( It's quite the blank space, because he was obviously very important in Fritz' life, and yet, I only have a very vague idea of him - basically just the couple of times he shows up in passing in the Voltaire correspondence, his eulogy by Maupertuis (mostly for some actual facts about his life), some vaguely reliable Bielfeld (I think?) anecdotes, and the letters Fritz wrote after his death which I've been collecting...

....I think Gröben is back as a suspect for spreading STD and getting into gambling debts as well, is what I think. (Not least because this reminds me a bit of the whole Reisewitz matter

Huh. Interesting, and not something I'd have thought of. Might not necessarily be Gröben, given that there were quite a few people in Fritz early Ruppin/Rheinsberg circle, but the general idea seems to make sense! I was kind of stuck on how much weight to place on the "friend" line vs. something that's more directly relevant to Fritz, but this would work.

Idle speculation of course, but apart from the possible money/gambling thing, if somebody he did have sex with came down with an STD, it would make sense that he'd be worried both for them and that he might have gotten it himself. Which of course would be the perfect time for an extended stay in Berlin, during which FW starts pressuring him about an heir, gifting him a special marital bed and all. :P

if FW pushing him to produce an heir was the key cause of his January 1736 misery, I think he'd have been more explicit about it in his letters to Camas at least

Okay, point. Especially since he openly mentions it to Manteuffel, too.

Which I hadn't read yet, though the letters to Countess Camas were on my to do list for a while, so thank you for reading them!

By the way, I've now finished all there is at Trier and definitely enjoyed reading, so let me know if I should post some excerpts. There aren't that many letters in either correspondence and they don't overlap, i.e. Fritz' letters to her start a couple of years after her husband's death (1734-1740 vs. 1744-1765). What they have in common is that Fritz seems to have had a lot of respect and affection for both of them and wrote pretty openly about his state of mind (when he wasn't being cryptic, see above, although that's also being open about his state of mind, just not the particulars).

With him, Fritz talks about army matters (recruits and 1734 and plans), gifts that are sent back and forth (Fritz: "quickly break the glasses I sent you so I can send you more!" ;)), and he gives reports on what he's doing (not much) and on his ever volatile relationship with FW, especially when he's in Berlin. Oh, and there's some gossiping about two women writing letters to Voltaire and Voltaire possibly answering. (Fritz needs to know everything of course.)

His correspondence with her is basically all during wartime (save for a few letters in 1764/65), short reports on the state of the war and of himself, grief after Keyserlingk's death (which is how I got there in the first place), sending gifts, a couple of problem-solving matters concerning his mother, a girl that got pregnant at court, and the queen. All very affectionate ("ma chère/bonne maman" is the usual adress from the first letter on), occasionally self-deprecating, and - unlike her husband - she doesn't even get a "write me more often" letter. (At least not one that's published at Trier. Preuss definitely left out some of hers, no idea if he also skipped some of Fritz's.)

Oh, and there's some gossiping about two women writing letters to Voltaire and Voltaire possibly answering. (Fritz needs to know everything of course.)

LOL. Of course!

Preuss definitely left out some of hers, no idea if he also skipped some of Fritz's.)

Well, the only editions where I can contrast and compare is Fritz/Wilhelmine with Preuss versus Volz versus "So lange wir zu zweit sind", and Preuss definitely left out some (especially of Wilhelmine) which Volz has, so it wouldn't be surprising if he did the same with the Camas letters. As for excerpts, please do. I'm currently way too busy to read and review.

OH, and btw,

cahn: Countess Camas is the old lady depicted in Menzel's Flute Concert at Sanssouci painting, and the one one delivering the punchline in Lehndorff's Wartensleben the sugar horder write-up. Lehndorff also mentions her greeted and hugged by Fritz upon his return post 7 Years War (as opposed to poor EC). Her being called "Maman" is telling in itself.

Preuss actually quotes a couple of lines from her unpublished letters in the footnotes to explain what Fritz is talking about, instead of just including the letters themselves. Sigh.

Lehndorff also mentions her greeted and hugged by Fritz upon his return post 7 Years War

Yeah, I definitely had to think of this Lehndorff entry when Fritz repeatedly told her in his letters that he would do that, so she could "prepare for it". :D

Speaking of Lehndorff, I checked what he had to say on the occasion of her death in 1766 and it's very complimentary:

Countess Camas, the Queen's Oberhofmeisterin, died at the age of 80. This venerable woman should have lived centuries. I have never known a woman of such perfection; a dignified, cheerful, kind, and magnificent character; everything about her was perfect and remained so despite her age. Until the last moments of her life, she retained her freshness of mind. I will mourn her all my life and forever miss what I lost in her. The queen's court ought to mourn her forever, for all its splendor has died out with her. The king loved and respected her. She was the only lady His Majesty distinguished and yet she never got above herself, on the contrary, she knew how to assess everything according to its correct value.

And then there was the whole EC hits Wartensleben with a fan incident, where his and Countess Camas' reaction was to find a quiet spot for themselves and talk about Candide.

Will be back with some letter excerpts!

Will be back with some letter excerpts!

Yay! It's awesome that we have different people in the salon reading and reporting on different selections of the correspondence, so that no one person has to read all those volumes. :)

Preuss actually quotes a couple of lines from her unpublished letters in the footnotes to explain what Fritz is talking about, instead of just including the letters themselves. Sigh.

Sigh indeed. Because of course Preuss thinks readers would only care about the Fritz part of the correspondence. :(

I definitely had to think of this Lehndorff entry when Fritz repeatedly told her in his letters that he would do that, so she could "prepare for it". :D

On the one hand, aw. On the other, if he could plan his gestures at the post war big welcoming reception in such detail, you'd think he'd been able to come up with a bland nice remark for EC as well since it was inevitable he'd see her there with all ears and eyes on them. I mean, I have a headcanon as to what went on inside him on that occasion, but that's mere speculation.

And yes, Lehndorff was definitely a fan, and I haven't found a biographer who had to say anything negative about her, either, both of the hero worshipping and the deconstructing type. Incidentally, does Fritz write "Maman" from the start, or does this come after SD's death? I've always wondered.

Re: Addendum Camas Letters

felis - 2021-01-18 09:14 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Addendum Camas Letters

selenak - 2021-01-19 04:45 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Addendum Camas Letters

felis - 2021-01-19 13:10 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Addendum Camas Letters

mildred_of_midgard - 2021-01-19 18:40 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Addendum Camas Letters

mildred_of_midgard - 2021-01-18 13:27 (UTC) - Expand

I'm going chronologically, therefore a look at the correspondence with the husband first. There are 43 letters at Trier (42 from Fritz, 1 from Camas), dated from June 1734 to March 1740.

The early ones are mostly short and deal with military recruitments (a topic that keeps coming back throughout the years), except for this postscript to the very first one: I will finally depart on Thursday and leave this unfortunate land [to join the military campaign against France]. It seems to me that since you are no longer here with Madame, we are missing someone in the house; and it occurred to me more than once to want to invite Madame de Camas. You see by this that you are not forgotten. Your health has been drunk to here, and I drank to it with all my heart.

Fritz reports from the 1734 campaign, casting himself as the eager student of military matters and humble manners - You see by that, my dear Camas, how much I pay attention to your lessons; after practicing them, they can make me deserve the praise you give me. - and in later years, there's some talk about siege and salary plans, plus reactions to promotions and reviews on both sides. In short, quite a bit of shop talk, which illustrates that Camas was an experienced military man. (According to wiki, he came from a Huguenot family and joined the Prussian army at age 13. As mentioned, he lost his arm at age 18 (during the War of the Spanish Succession), got a prosthesis and kept rising through the ranks until he died in 1741 (of fever). During this correspondence, he was stationed at Frankfurt (Oder).)

As of this Ruppin letter from December 1735, Fritz starts talking more about non-military things as well, and gets creative with his metaphors:
You know that my occupations are only fixed to three objects, namely, the service, reading, and music. This is what alternately keeps me throughout the day, except for two hours which must be given both to dinner and to digestion.
[...] It is a foreshadowing of death to me when a hussar comes to bring me the order to leave. Do not cry out, I beg you, at this comparison; I will demonstrate it to you just in every way. Death is, according to what theologians say, a separation of the soul from the body, and a general abandonment of all our honours, our goods, our fortune, and our friends. Freedom is my soul; I see myself more honored here than in other places; I have friends that I only see here. So the comparison is fair; and to push it even more, my return conforms to the dogma of the rehabilitation of all things, and between [my return] and my departure, I appear before the tribunal of a judge ready to condemn us and unwilling to absolve us.

Not the last time he'll compare FW to a (vengeful) God in these letters. Nonetheless, he has to leave for Berlin and that's where, only two weeks later, he writes about the mystery affliction, quoted and discussed above.

FW is a frequent topic in general, as Fritz very openly reports ups and downs (which I was roughly familiar with through the Wilhelmine correspondence), whereas friends and other family members get basically no mentions.

Forced hunting excursion in December 1736: The devil, who never sleeps, has put an end to the hunting of wild boars; he gave the master a cold, which confused all the designs of the planned murders. However, I had a commission to kill nearly two hundred of these miserable boars. I acquitted myself of it as a not very cruel person; taking pity on their sufferings, I shortened their martyrdom as much as I could. I confess to you that I do not feel any inclination for hunting; this passion is precisely the opposite of mine.

Interesting detail from December 1737 - Camas was a guest at Wusterhausen and Fritz thinks it would have been a bad idea to write to him there: It is a mark of caution in a young man not to blindly follow his inclinations, and to know how to restrain his inclinations when he foresees that the consequences they draw after them might be detrimental to someone. It was by such prudence that I refrained from writing to you during your stay at Wusterhausen. I feared that our correspondence might have augured badly; moreover, it seemed to me that you would be sufficiently occupied over there with the attentions you owe the King, with the hunts, with the tobacco parliaments, with the dissipations from the neighborhood, etc., that my letters would only steal whatever little time you had left. I know how to impose silence on myself, and I am currently enjoying the pleasure of breaking it.

[That said, when Camas is there again almost a year later, he gets a "stop inventing eloquent excuses for your laziness and write more often" letter afterwards, clearly in jest, but Fritz still makes sure to tell him it was a joke in the next one.]

Familiar FW whiplash a year later (which I'd encountered before, see #7), where he goes from

I feel the feelings of filial love redouble in me when I see feelings so reasonable and so just in the author of my days. (December 1738)

to this state of things in January 1739:

All these beautiful appearances of grace, benevolence and gentleness have disappeared like a dream. The King's temper was so soured, and his hatred against me manifested itself in so many different forms, that if I had not been what I am, I would have asked for my leave a long time ago; and I would like a thousand times better to beg my bread honorably elsewhere than to feed myself on the sorrows that I must devour here. The relentlessness of the King to denounce me secretly and in public is no longer something that is whispered to each other; it is the talk of the city, everyone witnesses it, and everyone talks about it; and what is most curious is that I still do not know my crime, if not that of being his heir apparent. [...]

The prognosis I made for myself is unfortunate, but true; I should never expect to be able to live in peace with a father who is easy to irritate, and who is filled with fatal impressions. I must see him as my most cruel enemy, who spies on me constantly to find the moment when he thinks he can give me the blow of jarnac [an unexpected blow from behind]. You have to be on your guard without slacking off; the slightest misstep, the slightest imprudence, a trifle, a nothing magnified and amplified, will suffice for my condemnation.

Another year later, December 1739, it's a mixed bag: We are amphibians of joy and sadness here; on the one hand we have parties to entertain my sister [Charlotte just came to visit], and on the other we pity the King for the uncertain and failing state of his health. You can, my dear friend, roughly imagine the situation in which we are; however, it is a hundred pikes preferable to that of last year, which was desperate. I will hardly be able to send you news from here, except that the old etiquette is observed regularly, that it has been terribly cold here, that we dance a lot, that we speak even more, and that the we laugh and cry in turn. We have two new envoys here, Rudenskjöld and Valori. The first is a witty, clever man who has a lot of knowledge and world. The second is a fool, very coarse, and so deeply absorbed by the salacious, that the man of quality is totally lost in it; [...]

Onto happier content, there are a few gift-related letters, mostly food from Camas and wine and glassware from Fritz. In January 1737 for example, Fritz writes a note to thank Camas for sending him cheese, adding: You get too favorable an idea of my poor solitude; we are more in a convent than in the world. Philosophy, however, does not make us more austere than necessary, as you have guessed very well. A thousand compliments to Madame. (By the way, greetings to Madame are a very common occurrence.)

And this one from February 1738 made me smile, even with the chronic debt problems in the background: My dear Camas, I give you a thousand thanks for the cheeses, the pears, and everything that you took pleasure to send me. Your memory is dearer to me than all the treasures that could be given to me, and even if your letters were accompanied only by a sprig of straw, that very straw would please me if it came from you. Do not think that I appreciate the marks of friendship according to their value or their weight in gold; far from it, I can assure you that the love of poverty was never to such a high degree among the Romans as it is with me. Mark of that: I don't have a dime in the whole house, nor in my power. [...]

Lots of "wish you were here" variations as well, and when Camas visits Rheinsberg in June 1738, this is the result: I must have struck you as an intruder, and perhaps even an annoyance, the whole time you have been here. I hounded you, I persecuted you to possess you for a few moments, and this, sometimes, when you needed rest. I confess my wrong to you, and I admit it; however, in order not to deny this unfortunate character, I will sustain it until the moment of your departure.

Lovely take on his quiet Rheinsberg life, October 1738 (if, as always, struggle with the Stoics): I'm not sure, to tell the truth, what the weather is like here. The sphere of my activity extends only from my home to my library: the trip is not long, and there is no time to feel the weather on the way. As for hunting, there is a whole coterie here that hunts for me, and I study for them; there is something for everyone, and no one is hindered in their entertainment. We politicize little, talk less, and think a lot. It is not a question here of the Greek, Turkish, or Christian emperor; it is the contentment of mind and peace of soul which I try, with my little convent, to cement as best as we can. If we succeed, that is the criterion. At least we work on it, although, to tell the truth, the impassibility of the Stoics seems to me to be in morality what the Philosopher's Stone is in chemistry and the squaring of the circle in mathematics: it is the chimerical idea of a perfection or a tranquility that we cannot achieve.

Also in 1738: Voltaire gossip. Someone not Fritz is writing to him and Fritz has to know everything, because reasons: [...] remember, please, that you promised me a certain letter from a person whose good wit had in some way obscured common sense; I will not misuse it; it will only be to satisfy my curiosity, and to give me a little sermon on the foolishness that self-love can make same-minded people commit. The ridicule of others makes me tremble for myself, and I do not hear of any extravagance that, by looking back on myself, I do not fear being at risk of committing as well. [...] I would say much more if I did not fear to abuse your patience; I therefore expect from you all the correspondence of our heroine Don Quixote of the good wit, and the answers of Voltaire, if he does [answer], which can only be entertaining.

He gets the letter from Camas - unintelligible epistle of our very obscure beautiful mind [...], a masterpiece of extravagance - and a couple of months later has this to report: I had my spies on the campaign to find out the answer that the Solomon of Cirey gave the queens of Northern Saba [Madame Louise von Brandt and Madame de Wr...]. I learned that it was a very didactic reasoning on how to suppress and overcome passions. It is left to know if it was to the taste of our heroines in fine spirits; it's up to you to judge.

In August 1739, Camas gets sick and Fritz worries: The second piece of news, which distresses me, which worries me, which alarms me, is the gout with which you are said to be tormented; I admit that I trembled at the mere thought of seeing such a brave officer become an invalid, such an honest man, such an experienced soldier, who, for having lost one of his limbs for the country, seems to deserve that human infirmities respect those whom he saved from a thousand dangers and a hundred battles. Your letter reassures me in some way, if it is not the effect of one of those generous efforts of friendship which puts aside pain and what can disturb common souls. I still fear for you, my dear Camas, and I reproach you for not having said two words to me about your health, which is dear to me, in a letter of four pages. You may think that I think only of myself, and that, intoxicated with my happiness [the first piece of news = FW just gifted him the Prussian stud farms at Trakehnen], I count my friends for nothing. Disillusion yourself, I beg you; no, I will never be indifferent to those with whom I am bound by the sacred knots of friendship. [...]

I'd love to include the four-page letter from Camas, or any letter from Camas, but I'm pretty sure Preuss edited even the single one that's available, only leaving a couple of lines of praise for the "Ode on Flattery" (written in the wake of a conversation they had about the topic), which is both ironic and not very interesting.

The final 1740 letters are short notes Fritz seems to have written while they were both in Berlin, sending some of his verses back and forth. For some reason, I found them oddly charming. The last one: My dear Camas, by asking you to lend me for a few moments the tale of the doctor which I gave you [a satire inspired by Superville], I will pay you the interest in advance through two Epistles. If I told you that the weather is fine outside, and that the walk is charming, you would be outraged; but telling you that I esteem you with all my heart cannot, I hope, be disagreeable to you. These are the feelings with which, in wishing you good night, I am all yours. Farewell. Federic

Finally, once he became king, he sent Camas on a diplomatic mission to Paris and while there are a couple of letters in the Political Correspondence from that time, they all contain only official politics, largely written by secretaries, and nothing personal. Camas did meet Voltaire, though, who gets the last word here, from a letter he wrote to Fritz in September: If kings are the images of the gods, and the ambassadors the images of kings, it follows, Sire, by Wolff's fourth theorem, that the gods are chubby, and have a very agreeable physiognomy. Blessed is this M. de Camas, not so much because he represents Your Majesty but because he will see you again!

Thank you so much for this write up. Colonel Camas definitely sounds like a much liked/loved paternal mentor, and it’s fascinating that he’s entrusted with the ups and downs of the FW/Fritz relationship, given this is a very hot iron indeed and FW is Camas’ commander-in-chief and ultra distrustful against his officers conspiring with the rising sun. Incidentally, I’ve been trying to think for a while what set FW off in January 1739. Sure, it doesn’t have to be an actual reason (abusers don’t need one), but more often than not there’s a triggering event. I mean, in the crisis year 1730, you had the English marriage disaster and the debts coming to light as outward triggers. But in early 1739, Fritz has spent almost a decade being the perfect obedient son, with the non appearance of a grandchild really being the only thing where you can accuse him of not matching FW’s expectations. So why now? FW becomes aware one more illness will do him in and he’s rulnning on borrowed time?

Madame de Wr... writing to Voltaire: Madame de Wreech, whom Fritz wrote poetry to in Küstrin? (Also the mother of two of Heinrich’s courtiers. Also made a pass to Lehndorff in her later years.)

We have two new envoys here, Rudenskjöld and Valori. The first is a witty, clever man who has a lot of knowledge and world. The second is a fool, very coarse, and so deeply absorbed by the salacious, that the man of quality is totally lost in it; [...]

Hang on, what? In that order? That would be a very negative first judgment on Valori, author of some of the best Fritz portraits in writing by a contemporary, and friends with his younger brothers.

I’m charmed by Voltaire deducing Fritz early 1740s chubbiness from Camas. :)

Incidentally, I’ve been trying to think for a while what set FW off in January 1739.

I noticed that he was set off in January 1736 and January 1739. This coincides with Fritz visiting Berlin.

cahn and I had a conversation (related to her Yuletide Madness fic) recently about how dysfunctional families set up all these expectations about how GREAT it's going to be to get together and see each other again, and the disappointment sets in early and increases throughout the visit. Wusterhausen is only a particularly egregious example.

Going from warm and fuzzies in December, in the first part of the visit, to disillusionment in January, is straight out of the dysfunctional family playbook, to borrow a phrase from

rachelmanija.

Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)

felis - 2021-01-19 20:42 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)

mildred_of_midgard - 2021-01-19 22:00 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)

cahn - 2021-01-20 06:12 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)

felis - 2021-01-19 17:59 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)

selenak - 2021-01-19 18:14 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)

mildred_of_midgard - 2021-01-19 18:43 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)

felis - 2021-01-19 20:29 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)

selenak - 2021-01-19 18:41 (UTC) - Expand

This is lovely, thank you!

As mentioned, he lost his arm at age 18 (during the War of the Spanish Succession), got a prosthesis and kept rising through the ranks until he died in 1741 (of fever).

I forgot to mention it in your earlier writeup, so I will here. Wow, this guy!

I feel the feelings of filial love redouble in me when I see feelings so reasonable and so just in the author of my days.

My response was something like "...well, I guess I can see why you might be super impressed by FW ever acting reasonable." Gah, abusive families.

Your memory is dearer to me than all the treasures that could be given to me, and even if your letters were accompanied only by a sprig of straw, that very straw would please me if it came from you.

Awww, this is really sweet <3

Voltaire gossip. Someone not Fritz is writing to him and Fritz has to know everything, because reasons

Of COURSE he does :P

The letter where Camas is sick is just really sweet <3

Blessed is this M. de Camas, not so much because he represents Your Majesty but because he will see you again!

Awwww, these guys! <3

Okay, here I am!

This is quite an interesting mystery. Many clues, and I'm not sure how to put them together.

The first thing that came to mind when I saw the date was EC, which I see you guys discussed. FW is on him about the succession, and he's going to have to move in with her soon. That said, on further reading, I join you in rejecting this hypothesis. Not only does it not fit the further clues he drops, but I don't think he would hesitate to confide in Wilhelmine. If he couldn't say, "I'm really afraid I'm going to have to start sleeping with her regularly or she's going to tell on me to Dad," he could at least bitch about having to move in with her, and vent that way. And he seems to have had no trouble saying "I can't sleep with my wife out of passion" to other people, so...I agree with

selenak that I don't think that's it.

That said, if anyone is planning on writing 1736 fanfic, fear of having to sleep with her regularly might be something preying on his mind. ;)

So, putting the clues I have together:

- It primarily concerns someone else.
- He's worried about one of his friends.
- He's afraid of being told not to worry so much.
- It doesn't come from the heart.

The last one doesn't seem to fit with the other three. I'm not sure what to make of that. Like you guys, my first reaction was Gröben and the STD! But Gröben's gambling debts make at least as much sense, maybe more. We know that Fritz was lending/giving money to his friends during these years, that was one reason he was pumping everyone he knew for money. (Or at least that's what he claimed, but I believe it.)

If it were just his own debts, he would say so and ask for money, but someone else's debts and general poor life choices might worry him.

Alternately, given what we know about Fritz's tendency to be very distressed when his loved ones are sick, it could be that. Now, normally he would just say so. But there are at least two people he might worry about that he couldn't necessarily say he was worried about.

- Duhan, who he's not supposed to be in contact with, and who's apparently struggling with depression in the 1730s.
- Fredersdorf, whom he's not supposed to have feelings for.

Now, he seems to have secure lines of communication with Wilhelmine, and she certainly respects the heck out of Duhan, so I *think* Fritz would have said he was worried about Duhan if that were it.

Could Fredersdorf be sick? And Fritz is worried about him (especially if Fritz is in Berlin and Fredersdorf had to stay in Ruppin, but even if not), and he can't admit it, because people are going to be like, "He's a valet. You can get another one." And he can't go, "HE'S MY ~~BOYFRIEND~~ LIFE PARTNER!"

You know, while a friend's gambling debts or another form of trouble a friend could have gotten into could be it, my current headcanon is Fredersdorf being seriously sick.

The only thing that doesn't fit is "it comes not from my heart but from another part," but I can't quite figure that line out at all.

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?

Okay, so, based on my reading of Fritz's correspondence, where this theme crops up over and over again, I'm 99% sure "morality" is referring to Stoicism here. He's afraid of being told to take a stiff upper lip stance, accept that bad things happen, and console himself with philosophy.

It goes with:

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.

And he's saying he loves his friends too much to be indifferent to their sorrows, so please don't tell him to be a good Stoic.

Which. Fritz. Is what he *always* says when he's worried or grieving someone, and then the moment someone *else* is worried or grieving, he writes a condolence letter going, "I know from experience that philosophy is basically useless at a time like this, but remember your philosophy!"

This is Fontane on Fritz when Henricus Minor (our term for AW's son Heinrich, to distinguish him from birthday boy Heinrich) dies:

Rittmeister von Wödtke brought the sad news to the king. The King was moved to a rare degree. One of the high officers comforted the king and urged him to calm himself. "He ["er" of direct address] is right," Fritz answered, "but he doesn't feel the pain that this loss has caused me." "Yes, Your Majesty, I feel it; he was the most promising of princes." The King shook his head and said, "He has the pain on his tongue, I have it here." And so saying, he laid his hand on his heart.

But when Duhan's father dies, this is one of Fritz's better condolence letters:

It is certain that the most severe tests, which we are obliged to pass in this world, are when we lose people forever who are dear to us. Constancy, steadfastness, and reason seem little help to us in these sad circumstances, and we only listen to our pain in these moments. I feel sorry for you with all my heart, seeing you in such a situation. [...] What is more common than being born and dying? However, we are always astonished at death, as if it were something foreign to us, and uncommon.

Console yourself, my dear Duhan, as best you can. Consider that there is a necessity which determines all events, and that it is impossible to fight what is resolved. We only make ourselves unhappy, without changing anything in our condition, and we spread bitterness over the happiest days of our life, the brevity of which should invite us not to grieve so much with unhappiness.

The struggle between reason and philosophy on the one hand, and compassion and grief on the other, tormented Fritz for his entire life. When Biche died, he wrote to Wilhelmine along the lines of, "I know a good philosopher wouldn't be this torn up over a dog, and I'm kind of embarrassed. But I don't want to be the kind of person who wouldn't be torn up over losing their favorite dog! Dogs are worthy of love and grief!! *sob*"

I worked this into my fic when he loses his dogs, and he's *trying* to be philosophical, and he can't fully.

The fact that this is consistently his discourse when it comes to death makes me think that in January 1736 someone is worryingly sick and he can't talk about it. Which makes me think of Fredersdorf. But I'm not ruling out other people's STDs or gambling debts either!

Confiding in Pöllnitz, really, Fritz? You know better.

Well, there's confiding and there's confiding. There's a decent chance Fritz, who is pretty cynical and suspicious by this age, is playing an intrigue game.

Oh, also, speaking of 1736 fanfic and the relationship between Fritz and FW being on the downswing in January 1736, by May 2, FW is all "There stands one who will avenge me!" (which is admittedly more motivated by politics than Fritz being on his good side). For all that the Rheinsberg years were the "happy" ones, the constant whiplash was a huge stressor on Fritz.

Edited 2021-01-18 18:01 (UTC)

- It doesn't come from the heart.

Okay, so. This one isn't quite as clear as it seems in English I think. I left the google translation as it was, because it was one possible version, but the original French goes as follows: Avec cela, j'ai une juste cause d'affliction, qui m'est sensible jusqu'au fond du cœur; elle ne vient point d'ici, mais d'autre part; - the "not from the heart" is one possible interpretation of the "d'ici" phrase I'd say, but you don't have to read it that way, because "ici" can mean a lot of things and it's unclear if it's actually related to "coeur". He could even be talking geography and saying his affliction doesn't come from Berlin but from somewhere else! Which would fit your theory.

Okay, so, based on my reading of Fritz's correspondence, where this theme crops up over and over again, I'm 99% sure he's referring to Stoicism here.

Ohhhh. Nice. I definitely read his "moralize" in the second letter that way, but because he also has the heroism part in the first letter - which I took to mean just that, stoically withstanding things - I took the "morality" part more literally in that case, precisely because he's being so cryptic and seems worried that Camas might disapprove - and "worried for a sick friend" seems like something that Camas wouldn't object to or even fail to understand and sympathize with, unless the source of the illness is the problem - or the identity of the friend, as per your theory. Hmmm.

Yeah, I had gone and looked at the French for "doesn't come from there, but from another part," and I concluded I have no idea what he's talking about. I wonder if it's time to grab my native speaker friend for consulting services again.

And yes, the "either morality or heroism" gave me pause for the reason you mention, but I *think* I would still take it as referring to Stoicism rather than conventional morality, just because it's such a common trope in Fritz's letters. And redundancy in the form of parallel clauses is a stylistic device in both the Bible and Roman literature (Cicero is *all over* it), and all their imitators since. Your interpretation isn't impossible, though!

This is definitely a crux.

I think this take on "morality" is definitely in keeping with Fritz' use of it, not to mention that it would make sense for him to pick one concept that's more philosophy-based (morality) and one that's more military-based (heroism) to express a similar thought. (The combination of both sides is what drove Voltaire nuts after all. ;))

"worried for a sick friend" seems like something that Camas wouldn't object to or even fail to understand and sympathize with, unless the source of the illness is the problem - or the identity of the friend, as per your theory. Hmmm.

I could believe both, except that I think Fritz could pass off being worried for Fredersdorf being sick to Camas as being a good feudal lord concerned for a faithful servant, so I'm still betting on Gröben and a combination of STD and gambling debts. Not least because I don't think Fredersdorf's health problems had kicked in yet, though I could be wrong about this. Of course we don't have letters between him and Fritz from that era. And the thing is, by the later 1730s, Fritz definitely wasn't hiding that Fredersdorf wasn't an exchangeable servant to him; see Bielfeld's description of Fredersdorf as: The Prince's first valet, Herr Fredersdorf, is a tall, beautiful man, who has wit and intelligence. He's polite, attentive, skillful, smooth, likes his possessions but still likes splendour. I believe he'll play a large role one day. And if Bielfeld had noticed, Camas probably had as well.

Now with Wilhelmine, both a sick Fredersdorf and an STD and gambling debts ridden Gröben would be reasons to be cryptic - whereas simply accumulating more and more debts would not be - so that's not a tell in either direction.

Lastly: there's the way STD keeps coming up, both as a rumor about Fritz in his younger days (so established and wide spread that a visiting tourist like Boswell hears about it in 1764), and by Fritz himself when wanting do make a dig at others. In one of those poems mocking the rest of Europe which Voltaire wasn't supposed to take along, he's accusing Louis XV. to have it, for example; but more interestingly, there's the way he uses it in the Marwitz letters to Heinrich, completely out of the blue. I mean, he goes from mocking Heinrich and Marwitz for pining to saying "oh, and btw, that guy is a total slut with STD!" Given the way Fritz used Heinrich to play out his own life again with reversed roles, this makes me suspect he had at some point crushed on someone who turned out to have STD. (Could have been Algarotti, of course, except that his reaction to Algarotti having STD is so very blasé.)

I'm not wedded to the "Fredersdorf is sick" hypothesis, but I'm going to play devil's advocate here.

I could believe both, except that I think Fritz could pass off being worried for Fredersdorf being sick to Camas as being a good feudal lord concerned for a faithful servant

Worried, yes. Making sure Fredersdorf is taken care of, sure. Having stress-related illness, that's as bad as colic, because of it? I suspect the reaction would be similar to this one letter I saw, probably in the Fairchilds servants book: a noble teenage boy, maybe about 14 years old, has just had his tutor/governor/whatever taken away. Several months later, he writes to his father, begging for his tutor back, because he can't be happy without him. The boy is clearly having stress-related illness and depression from the separation from the guy who'd been parenting him for the last several years. The father writes an uncomprehending letter back that the son's filial regard for his tutor does them both honor, but it's time to move on.

I suspect losing sleep over your valet falls into the same category. You were the one who said Fritz couldn't write to anyone about Fredersdorf's death even after the guy had publicly been first minister for 15 years and Lehndorff was calling him the Prussian Pompadour, because Fritz didn't have a vocabulary for how much Fredersdorf had meant to him! Fredersdorf also never seems to have come up in the Fritz/Wilhelmine letters, granted that the complete correspondence hasn't been published.

Not least because I don't think Fredersdorf's health problems had kicked in yet, though I could be wrong about this.

They don't need to have; it's the 18th century. Do we know when Fredersdorf had smallpox? Or any number of other infectious diseases?

And the thing is, by the later 1730s, Fritz definitely wasn't hiding that Fredersdorf wasn't an exchangeable servant to him; see Bielfeld's description of Fredersdorf

I would be very surprised if Fritz wasn't trying to keep it at least partly on the down low as long as FW was alive. Bielfeld lived at Rheinsberg, and I have definitely read, though I forget where now, that many or all of his letters were composed later in life. That's why when I reported him writing in 1740 that Fritz would someday be called great, I said I didn't know if that was written with the benefit of hindsight.

Okay, Carlyle definitely says the letters were not sent through the post office but were written after the fact. I don't know if a more reliable source says that or if modern scholarship has weighed in. But given what some of the people in our fandom have gotten up to, Bielfeld's letters could be anywhere from Catt-like self-insert fanfic, to Lady Mary redacting her letters for publication by removing repetition and creating a narrative. I just don't know.

But I wouldn't put somebody who authored and sold a book of his own letters in his own lifetime, in 1763 to boot, i.e. right after Fritz had won the Seven Years' War and this book was guaranteed to sell, up there with Preuss collating letters from the Prussian archives after Fritz's death, in terms of evidence that a given passage was written in the year the passage is claimed to have been written.

Even if the Fredersdorf passage is totally genuine, Bielfeld writing in October 1739 (almost the exact time the "rising sun" ceiling was painted), and staying at Rheinsberg and being a Freemason in the Rheinsberg lodge with both Fritz and Fredersdorf (assuming Bielfeld can be trusted on that), is far from the same as Camas corresponding long-distance with Fritz in January 1736, in terms of their respective insights into Fritz's relationship with Fredersdorf.

Now, it could be a friend's STD and/or (the friend's) gambling debts, certainly! Or something else we haven't thought of. But if you're right that Fritz couldn't talk about Fredersdorf's death even after a publicly known relationship that had lasted over 25 years, talking about Fredersdorf's illness after 5 years, when he must have been trying not to let FW catch on, must have been at least as difficult.

Edited 2021-01-24 19:23 (UTC)

Re: Fritz Mystery Affliction January 1736

selenak - 2021-01-25 10:09 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Fritz Mystery Affliction January 1736

mildred_of_midgard - 2021-01-25 21:30 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Fritz Mystery Affliction January 1736

mildred_of_midgard - 2021-01-26 00:04 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Fritz Mystery Affliction January 1736

selenak - 2021-01-26 05:49 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Fritz Mystery Affliction January 1736

felis - 2021-01-25 16:53 (UTC) - Expand

Okay, so, your mention of incurring debts and building Rheinsberg jogged something in my memory, and I've finally remembered where I read it: Krockow. This is Google translated, from the translation my algorithms prepared last year, because I don't have time to retranslate the German myself:

The purchase price was 75,000 thalers, of which the stingy majesty only contributed 50,000. The remainder, including all the costs for the renovation and expansion, was passed on to the Crown Prince's household, a substantial portion of which probably came from the dowry of Crown Princess Elisabeth Christine. Friedrich Wilhelm appointed his building director Johann Gottfried Kemmeter from the Kurmark to be the architect, naturally with urgent instructions for the greatest possible economy. Logically, Friedrich was soon no longer enough, what Kemmeter did, and in 1737 he appointed his own architect, Knobelsdorff, who had returned from Italy.

With the ambitious plans, of course, the lack of money increased, and getting into debt became notorious. The courtier and memoir writer Baron Pöllnitz reports of a significant incident: In the summer of 1736, Friedrich Wilhelm visited Rheinsberg. When the King had lunch with the Crown Prince and appeared to be in an excellent mood, [Minister] Grumbkow took the opportunity to favor the latter, with whom he was not exactly on the best of terms. So he began to praise the splendid dinner which the Crown Prince had set before the King, and added jokingly that he would not be able to hold such banquets often, otherwise his finances would suffer. The king asked his son if he owed him and how much it was. The Crown Prince did not dare to name a sum greater than 40,000 thalers, whereupon the King said he would pay him. Grumbkow then asked whether this was to be understood as meaning that the annual income of the Crown Prince should be increased by the sum mentioned. Friedrich Wilhelm, meanwhile, acted as if he hadn't heard anything, but the next day he sent his son the 40,000 thalers."

So we knew he was in debt and that he didn't want his father to find out, but that's nothing new in the 1730s and even late 1720s. I feel like it would neither distress him *that* much (he should be used to it by now!) nor that he wouldn't mention it to Wilhelmine. So I continue to not think this is what he's referring to, but I thought I would share this passage, since it's relevant to our discussion of his notorious 1730s debts. And it contains details that might be useful if anyone ever writes that Rokoko babysitting fic. ;)

Btw, the next paragraph is entertaining:

Unfortunately, it was the famous drop in the bucket. Frederick approached the courts in Vienna or London for help as secretly as urgently, and with the charm and tact of a future ruler he wrote to his middleman in St. Petersburg: “The king is sick. You can use that as a good reason to have a good sum advanced next summer. Seriously, if you want to give me thanks, you have to be quick.” But whatever you slipped him, there was no talk of gratitude later. The emperor in particular would have better spent his money on soldiers to protect Silesia.

Rokoko babysitting fic is still on the agenda. ;) AndI agree he'd have mentioned his debts to Wilhelmine. (Who must have lend him money at some point if he paid her 50 000 Taler back post ascension to the throne.) (Though maybe that could have been for her jewelry from 1730?)

with the charm and tact of a future ruler

Quite. :) Mind you, the "Dad is about to kick the bucket, you better bribe me NOW NOW NOW if you want me to favor you" grift worked, so... (Seckendorff: And then he had the gall of calling me a sleazy ursurer in his book!) (MT: And this, children, is why I ended up firing most of my father's cabinet in 1741.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All