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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![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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:
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.
Addendum Camas Letters
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.)
Re: Addendum Camas Letters
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,
Re: Addendum Camas Letters
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!
Re: Addendum Camas Letters
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. :)
Re: Addendum Camas Letters
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
re: "maman" - he uses that from the start! There's even one where he's talking about both of them - maman vs. mère - which was a tad confusing for a moment. My subjective impression was that he got even more affectionate and clingy after SD's death, but there's of course no way to tell if that wasn't just due to his general state of mind during the war, particularly because there aren't any letters between 1745 and november 1760.
Re: Addendum Camas Letters
re: "maman" - he uses that from the start!
That is fascinating. Especially since SD was so much on the lookout for possible rivals in her son's affections otherwise - I mean, the entire early reaction to EC was based on that as much as snobbery (hence it settling down once Fritz had made it clear that SD would come first in Prussia nad with him). You'd think she'd resent Fritz calling someone else Mom?
Re: Addendum Camas Letters
If this was more about status than emotional connection, she probably wouldn't have seen Countess Camas as a rival, unlike the actual (future) Queen? I don't know enough about SD to judge the difference.
Re: Addendum Camas Letters
Re: Addendum Camas Letters
PREUSS!! I still haven't forgiven him for not including the letter from Suhm's brother to Fritz reporting Suhm's death in detail, but rather starting the published exchange with Fritz's response. I HOPE that letter is still out there in some archive.
This is like Richter going, "No one cares about Fredersdorf. These letters are just to highlight how great Fritz is!"
Grrr.
Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)
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!
Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)
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. :)
Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)
I noticed that he was set off in January 1736 and January 1739. This coincides with Fritz visiting Berlin.
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
Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)
For example, he was in Berlin in December 1737 as well, writing this to Camas: It is believed that the King will come on Monday to honor his capital with his presence. Time will develop the events that we have to wait for. It is assured that he will come as a beneficent divinity, to spread everywhere his benign influences. Others maintain that it will be blazing Jupiter, armed with thunders. For myself, I wait for everything with admirable composure, not foreseeing what I have to fear, especially since I feel clean and undefiled. I hope to do better in this campaign than Seckendorff, and to get back to my sheep next month.
And then the next letter from Potsdam in January: I have been here for three days awaiting a fit of repentance, holiness, credulity, etc., which I hope will pass before Monday; that dispatched, I plan to leave by Tuesday or Wednesday. I was treated very gently, but the devil loses nothing; you know the spirit of the court, and that is enough to judge it.
Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)
Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)
Anyway, when the setting of Amalie betaing Heinrich's play became a thing, I dropped the Wusterhausen setting :)
Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)
I guess that might have been one reason for Fritz' caution re: Wusterhausen and writing to Camas there. Do we know anything about how Fritz and Camas got close in the first place?
Madame de Wr... writing to Voltaire: Madame de Wreech, whom Fritz wrote poetry to in Küstrin?
No idea, might be. The ellipses come from a Fritz letter, not sure why he wouldn't write it out.
Hang on, what? In that order? That would be a very negative first judgment on Valori
Yep, in that order! Fritz definitely didn't like Valori, I remember that he said as much in his letters to Voltaire and regretted that he replaced La Chetardie ... wait, let me have a look ... okay:
October 10th, before meeting him: I don't know who and how this M. Valori is, but I've heard it said that he doesn't have the tone of good company. (Pleschinski translates "kein angenehmer Zeitgenosse" - no idea who told Fritz that)
And then in December around the same time as the Camas letter: This M. de Valori, so long announced by the voice of the public, so often promised by the gazettes, so long arrested in Hamburg, has finally arrived in Berlin. It makes us very much regret La Chétardie. M. de Valori shows us every day what we lost with the first. It is now only theoretical courses of the Brabant wars, trifles and minutiae of the French army; and I constantly see a man who believes himself vis-à-vis the enemy and at the head of his brigade. I always fear that he would take me for a counterscarp or a work with horns, and that he would dishonestly assault me. M. de Valori almost always has a migraine; he has not the tone of society; he does not soup; and it is said that the headache does him too much honor to inconvenience him, and that he does not deserve it at all.
Also: Valori says that you were exiled from France as an enemy of the Roman religion, and I replied that he had lied about it.
There you have it!
Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)
Valori: Well! That’s very interesting, given that Valori - like Mitchell three wars later - will go into the field with him. Also because Valori is one of the longest lasting envoys and one of the best liked by people other than Fritz. (According to Lehndorff, he even had intended to settle down in Berlin as a retirement place when politics changed irrevocably.) As mentioned, he was great friends with the Divine Trio, and far from being a dull conversationalist, he came up with one of the best bonmots about Fritz. (“It’s impossible to have more esprit than he does, but very possible to make better use of it.”) And like I said, the characterisation he gives of Fritz, written in the early 1750s, is one of the best portraits around. It’s quoted almost in full in the “Friedrich der Große und Maria Theresia in den Augen ihrer Zeitgenossen” anthology which I summarized and excerpted at Rheinsberg.
Of course, if Fritz takes that much against him on sight it puts a new light on Valori and Darget ending up in “The Palladion”, but it does make me wonder what Valori’s actual offense was. Seeing too much? Hitting it off too well with the brothers?
Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)
re: Doctor Superville [what a name] - didn't Valory say some similar things that early? I seem to remember coming across that. (And Voltaire kind of jokes about the mutual dislike between him and Fritz in one of the letters I read yesterday.)
...
Fritz told Voltaire that he didn't like [Valory] the minute he showed up and then Voltaire made a joke about the way Valory saw Fritz
Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)
Voltaire himself didn't know Valori before November/December 1740, when he seems to have spent some time at his place, because he promptly sets his Algarotti poem at Valori's:
Mais quand, chez le gros Valori,
Je vois le tendre Algarotti
Presser d'une vive embrassade
Le beau Lugeac, son jeune ami,
Je crois voir Socrate affermi
Sur la croupe d'Alcibiade;
And thank you for reposting the whole portrait - I had read it before but it was definitely good to reread and refresh my memory.
Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)
I beginn with his portrait. His face is compelling. He's small and of noble bearing. His figure isn't regular; his hips are too high, and his legs are too strong. He has beautiful blue eyes which are a bit too strongly pronounced, but easily reflect his moods, so their expression varies depending on his state of mind. If he's dissatisfied with something, their gaze is threatening, but nothing is more soft, gracious and captivating than if he's in a mood to please. His hair is thick, mouth and nose agreeable, his smile charming and witty, but often bitter and mocking. When his soul is peaceful, the softness of his gaze can charm anyone. His health varies, his temper heated, and his personal life style contributes quite a lot to heating his blood. He used to drink incredible amounts of coffee. One day, I dared to tell him that he drank too much coffee; he admitted as much and said he was trying to abandon the habit. "I now drink only six to seven cups in the morning", he said, "and after supper only one."
The King is extreme in anything he does. His main character flaw is his misanthropy. A virtuous and enlightened man is his ideal, and in his opinion the most foolish people are called honorable men. In general, he finds only a few to have wit, and he doesn't esteem the so colled common sense which as opposed to wit can provide a right and sound judgment. Anyone has their share of the later, and only a ruler of judgment can esteem everyone correctly, and if a man has his right place, he can surprise even the most witty people. The King talks a lot and very well, but he listens very little, and mocks every objection.
One can be hardly more daring than he is; hence his contempt for humanity. He speaks out against vice with surprising eloquence. The same is true for morals, the most beautiful traits of which he seems to have learned to name by heart. But he's so little consequential and believes so little in what he says that his own claims refute him only fifteen minutes later.
He does have principles regarding administration, and, if I may say so, even about temper and disloyal reports. Fortunately what he decides when in a mood isn't set in stone; he usually returns to a correct judgment. If, however, his decision is made, he has no regard for etiquette. As soon as something he has come up with and pondered thoroughly appears right to him, he abandons all restraint in order to execute it. He is extremely suspicious; if he was less so, he'd be content to have come up with good ideas and would delegate their execution to his ministers, who are more sensible than he is and would soften any too great harshness.
Again: he has contempt for humankind and believes people are born to obey without talking back. This explains the excess in his behavior and the obvious paradoxes which amaze all who managed to get closer to him. I always have tried to analyze the immediate causes he named for his rejections, as well as the reasons why he hurt or flattered those close to him. In most cases, I had to admit his reasons were good, though not the form they took.
He owes the conquest of Silesia (...) to his boundless energy. (...) The good status of his troops and his magazines which were equipped with all that was needed to start a campaign with a strong army heightened his audacity and made him reckless for as long as he was confronted by only a handful of troops dispersed across a few Silesian fortresses. As soon as he was confronted with a proper army, he got conscious of all the dangers he faced. I dare to say he even exaggareted them in his mind. His consistent fortune has nourished his boldness for a while, but since then he thought about this and has admitted he owes much to luck. His enemy in a distance is always politics. The later often get scorned as being dependent on the moment, especially the Saxons, and yet during the campaign of 1744, they caused him the deepest trouble, but he punished them thouroughly for it in 1745. In this last campaign, he has shown the talents of a great general. But he believes to have all the talents, both those of a King and of a writer, which is a strange brew; we see the great man occupy himself with trifles.
The arts have become his weakness, in the same way as his royal father had a weakness for anyone above six feet. He pursues the reputation of a polymath - the poet, the orator, the musician are starting to dominate the King in him. His many troops force thriftiness on him, and yet I dare say he's too thrifty. It is impossible to possess more ésprit than he does, but very possible to make a better use of it. He's never more charming than if he wants to please you, and he always wants this to flatter his love of self. Once he has charmed you, he neglects you and regards you as his slave, who is there to obey him in a servile manner and to put up with all his moods.
He's harsh and masterful towards his brothers. He holds them in an utter dependency which he himself never got used to when having it on his father who made everyone tremble. This father knew him very well and once told him: "When you are lord and master here, you will betray everyone, for you can't help yourself. You are false to the core of your being, and a betrayer. Be careful, Friedrich! Make that first betrayal as complete as possible, for you won't manage to fool them a second time." I have a trusthworthy second source for this anecdote, for it has been confirmed to me by the crown prince, his worthy brother. I hope thus to have drawn some traits of his character for you. In totem, he remains an enigma.
Re: Camas Letters I - Colonel Camas (1734-1740)
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