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

[cahn]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Comments

Camas Letters II - Countess Camas Part Two (1760-1763)

[felis]

In November 1760, Fritz has porcelain to distribute, changes to report, and smaller battles to fight:

I am exact in answering you and eager to satisfy you; you will have breakfast, my good maman, with six very pretty coffee cups, well variegated, and accompanied by all the little embellishments which add to the price. A few additional pieces will be delayed in shipment for a few days; but I flatter myself that this delay will contribute to your satisfaction, by providing you with a trifle [joujou] which, by pleasing you, will make you remember your old worshiper.

It is singular how age makes itself known. For four years I have given up suppers, as incompatible with the profession I am obliged to follow; and on walking days my dinner consists of a cup of chocolate.

We ran like mad, swollen with our victory, to see if we could drive the Austrians out of Dresden; they laughed at us from the top of their mountains; I retraced my steps, like a little boy, to hide in spite in one of the most accursed villages in Saxony. Now we must drive them out of Freyberg and Chemnitz to have enough to live on and space for ourselves. It is, I swear to you, a dog's life [une chienne de vie - he uses that expression repeatedly], that, except for Don Quixote, no one has led but me. All this business, all this disorder that never ends, has aged me so much that you will hardly recognize me. On the right side of the head, my hair is all gray; my teeth are breaking and falling out; my face is wrinkled like the frills of a skirt, my back arched like a bow, and my mind sad and downcast like a monk from La Trappe. I warn you about all this, so that, in case we still see each other in the flesh, you don't find yourself too shocked by my face. Only my heart remains, it has not changed, and will preserve, as much as I breathe, the feelings of esteem and of a tender friendship for my good maman.

But lest you think coffee cups are it, she also gets snuffboxes! Her response, from Magdeburg, April 25th, 1761:

M. le Comte de Finckenstein asked me for a special audience on his arrival; he showed me the beautiful snuffbox which YM was kind enough to fill for me. Full of joy, I wanted to throw myself on it; but he took care not to let go until I had listened to his explanations on the gray colour, endless love, and on the little flowers called Forget-me-nots [since the original rhymes and has German, have that too: gris de lin, amour sans fin, et sur les petites fleurs nommées Vergissmeinnicht]. I was like crazy; I replied to all this: But this dear king, this good king who is willing to think of me! And here it is, Sire, all that my eloquence can provide to thank YM. I therefore find myself as if drowned in great pleasure; I take my chocolate with delight in my beautiful cups, and I will take good tobacco in my beautiful box. They are pleasant amusements while I'm waiting for that longed-for happiness of seeing YM face to face, devouring him with my eyes, and then closing them forever, if necessary. But this much-desired peace, where is it kept? Will we still have a summer filled with anguish? It is not of YM that I have the impertinence to ask these questions, it is of myself, and it is a little soliloquy that I make at all times, and where my answers to myself are not very satisfactory.


Next up, Fritz doesn't mince words (!) and makes plans for the reunion:

January 27th, 1762:
I am delighted, my good maman, that you have so much courage, and I strongly urge you to redouble it even more. Everything ends; so hopefully this damn war will not be the only eternal thing in this world. Since death dispatched a certain harlot from a hyperborean country [as in: Elizabeth of Russia], our situation has conveniently changed and become much more bearable than it was. It is to be hoped that some good events will still happen, which we can take advantage of to achieve a good peace.
You tell me about Berlin. I wish I knew all of you there together. But I would like, if you went, that you wouldn't be like birds perched on a branch, and that you could stay there with the proper dignity. This means that I am waiting for the moment when I will believe security established on good foundations, to write to you to return there. If all this ends well, honestly, I will bless heaven to see you again, my good maman, and to embrace and kiss you [embrasser]! Yes, I say embrace and kiss, because you no longer have another lover [amant] in the world but me, you can no longer give me jealousy, and I have the right to claim a kiss [baiser] as the price for my constancy and my attachment to you. You can prepare for it. Finette can say what she wants; she can dry up in annoyance, because since her late duke, she no longer has a [baiseur - google says "fucker", German says "Hurenbock", the two German translations at Trier say "nobody to kiss her" which seems literal and might be sanitized, but I'm not sure that there hasn't been some drift in meaning].
Farewell, my good maman. Pardon the poor things I write to you; it is that I am alone, that I sometimes forget my troubles, that I love you, and that I take advantage of the pleasure of talking to you.

Finette, by the way, is Auguste Marie Bernardine de Tettau, lady-in-waiting to EC, born 1721. Fritz apparently gave her the "Finette" nickname and in the early days - 1742 - he occasionally sent her greetings through Jordan, like so: Sent my jokes to the limping satyr [Pöllnitz], my regrets to Brandt, my compliments to Mme de Katsch, and my love to Finette. (She also visited Wilhelmine in 1747.) Telling you all this because she dies a couple of months later, and the Countess writes the following: I am convinced, Sire, that Your Majesty will have taken part in the death of Mademoiselle de Tettau, who has suffered for so long with so much strength, without the slightest change in her mind or in her mood.

(For more info, Lehndorff: [...] this girl had a very peculiar fate. She had come to court very young, at the time when the queen formed her court after the accession to the throne. Beautiful and amiable, she aroused general admiration. The king himself marked her in such a way that people thought there was more to it than mere esteem. The old Duke of Holstein was still madly in love with her before his death. This pleasant life lasted until 1747, when she suffered a neuropathy. She went to several baths but got weaker and weaker and was eventually paralyzed and wheelchair-bound for 15 years. A few years ago her only sister, General Saldern's wife, died, which depressed her completely, although she bore her suffering with the steadfastness of a hero.
For a year her ailments got worse from day to day, in June she left Magdeburg to go to the bath in Freienwalde. In the middle of her cure, she got the news of the dethroning of Emperor Peter II. and the false rumor that Russia had declared itself against us. Since the Russians were only a few miles away, she had to flee in a hurry. She arrived in Berlin seriously ill and died there in September with excruciating convulsions. The Queen and all her friends weep for her sincerely.)

In conclusion: damn it, Fritz, let's hope Finette didn't get to see the January letter before her death.

Fritz' response to the news, October 19th, 1762:
You tell me about poor Finette. Alas! my good maman, for six years I no longer pity the dead, but the living. It is a dog's life that we lead, and there is no regret in losing it. I wish you a lot of patience, my good maman, and all the prosperity that is useful in these calamitous times, especially that you keep your good humour, the greatest and the most real treasure that fortune can give us.


Back to nicer things, we are not done with porcelain gifts yet, and I'm including this one for the decoration and the response:

Meissen, November 20th, 1762:
I am sending you, my good maman, a trifle to make you remember me. You can use this snuffbox for rouge, or mouche [artificial beauty spot, I was surprised to learn those existed already], or tobacco, or sugared almonds, or pills; but, whatever use you intend it for, think at least, upon seeing this dog, this emblem of fidelity which is painted on it, that the one who sends it to you surpasses in his attachment to you the fidelity of all the dogs in the universe, and that his devotion to you has nothing in common with the fragility of the material that was used. I ordered porcelain here for everyone, for Schönhausen [euphemism for EC, which Contess Camas uses as well, see below], for my sisters-in-law; in short, I am only rich now in this fragile material. I hope that those who receive it will take it for good money, because we are beggars, my good maman; we only have honor, cloak, sword, and china.

Her response from Magdeburg:

Nothing could better delight my heart and my eyes than the gracious letter and the charming snuffbox which I have just received. YM surely does not doubt my gratitude; but will he not find me too impertinent when I dare to remember that he gave me, several years ago, a box of Spanish tobacco, and that he was kind enough to tell me that he would give me more when I needed it? I have saved it so well, taking it only in the morning when I wake up, that I still have it, but so little, so little, that I tremble to see the end of it.
Now, it will be impossible for me to put big, ugly tobacco in this pretty snuffbox. I don't use rouge or mouche, let alone pills, which only serve to quarrel with my good friend Lesser when he wants me to take them, and who told me bluntly that when one is greedy and lazy, one must take medicine. I give him a thousand reasons for doing nothing, and he leaves me laughing and shrugging his shoulders. [...]
Schönhausen is delighted and full of gratitude for the porcelain he intended for her; finally YM has the gift of making people happy. The highest price is placed on everything that comes from his hand, and if he has, as he says, only honor, cloak and sword, with a good supply of glory, only modesty kept him from adding that he will always be the greatest king in the world and the object of the admiration and envy of other rulers.

He promptly sends her the tobacco only a few days later, too.


Early in 1763, Countess Camas tells him about a lady of the court who got pregnant. He has opinions on the matter, as does she:

Fritz: [...] The affair which has just happened is quite ordinary; there is no court, no convent even where this does not happen. I am very indulgent when it comes to the weaknesses of our species, I do not stone ladies of the court who have children. They perpetuate the species, unlike these fanatical politicians who destroy it with their fatal wars. One is not always master of oneself; one takes a poor girl in a moment of tenderness, one says such pretty things to her, one makes her a child: what harm is there in that? I confess to you that I like these too tender temperaments better than the chastity dragons who tear their fellow human beings apart, or these vexatious women who are fundamentally wicked and evil. Let this child be brought up well, let the family not be prostituted, and let this poor girl get out of court without scandal, while sparing her reputation as much as possible.

Countess Camas: I suspected, Sire, that Your Majesty would make fun of me a little, but that at the same time he would have pity for this poor girl, who, however, does not think herself as unhappy as I find her. She wants to go to Stettin, to see her sister Madame de Lepel, and she is too convinced that her lover will marry her first thing after the peace. The Queen has taken care to have the child placed with a nurse through Mr. Lesser, who at the same time takes care of everything necessary for the childbirth. Everything is done quietly, no one at court talks about it; but that does not prevent that everyone whispers about it in town. Finally, despite the compassion I have for her, I must admit that we are happy to be free of her; her character is worth nothing, and her too great inclination towards love is, in my opinion, the least of her faults.


Fritz has a birthday coming up and the end of the war in his sights:

Leipzig, January 22nd, 1763:
Fifty-one, my good maman, is no trifle. It is almost the entire extent of Madame Clotho's spindle, which spins our destinies. I thank you for taking part in bringing me here. You are interested in an old friend, a servant for whom neither age nor absence ever change his feelings, and who now hopes with some sort of conviction to see you again and to embrace you, if you will allow it. Yes, my good maman, I believe that you will be in Berlin before Flora has embellished the earth with her gifts, to express myself poetically; and if I am sincerely delighted to see anyone in this capital again, it is you; but don't say anything. This is not poetic, and must be understood literally. [...]

The court finally returns to Berlin and I'm annoyed that Preuss only gives this one line of the Countess' report in a footnote:

I admit that I was delighted to be at the palace, where I arrived exasperated by all the entrances and harangues the Queen had to suffer on the way, which delayed our march at all times.

Fritz is looking forward to the reunion, but has to report another death, since Bayreuth!Friedrich just died:

So I'll see you again, my good maman, and I hope it will be towards the end of this month or the beginning of April, and I hope to find you as well as I left you. For me, you will find me aged and almost babbling, gray as my donkeys, losing a tooth every day, and half crippled by gout; but your indulgence will endure the infirmities of age, and we will speak of the old days.
Here is our good margrave of Baireuth who has just died. This causes me real pain. We are losing friends, and enemies seem to want to last forever. Ah! my good maman, how I fear Berlin and the voids I will find there! But I will think only of you, and I will delude myself on the rest. [...]

And that concludes the wartime letters.

Re: Camas Letters II - Countess Camas Part Two (1760-1763)

[cahn]

Awwww, the porcelain and the snuffbox exchanges are rather cute! (well, I guess if one doesn't think too hard about where the porcelain came from) Especially how she asks him for more tobacco later on :)

Heh, it was selenak who informed me that "baiser," which I learned in my proper schoolgirl (and apparently old-fashioned) French as meaning "to kiss," is a way of colloquially saying "to fuck." (Hmm, poking around on google gives a couple of links that says that this meaning started in ~16-17th C (so definitely would have had that connotation by this time), and that in current French the verb form basically almost solely means "to fuck," (embrasser being used as "to kiss") although this wasn't always true. But it seems much harder to get the history of "baiseur" in particular.) So yeah, I think a "baiseur" literally might mean "someone to kiss," buuuuut it probably meant "someone to fuck." (But, confusingly, as far as I can tell, "un baiser" really does mean a kiss, and not a fuck.)

Let this child be brought up well, let the family not be prostituted, and let this poor girl get out of court without scandal, while sparing her reputation as much as possible.

Awwww! Fritz, you're actually being nice and enlightened here! (Not as sure about Countess Camas right here, honestly, although I guess it's true that she knew her and Fritz didn't...)

Re: Camas Letters II - Countess Camas Part Two (1760-1763)

[felis]

Especially how she asks him for more tobacco later on :)

Right? Her writing style is entertaining in general, and this is certainly one example.

this meaning started in ~16-17th C (so definitely would have had that connotation by this time)

Okay, that's a useful thing to know.

So yeah, I think a "baiseur" literally might mean "someone to kiss," buuuuut it probably meant "someone to fuck." (But, confusingly, as far as I can tell, "un baiser" really does mean a kiss, and not a fuck.)

Yeah, and while he uses both nouns here, he doesn't use the verb, so ... ambiguity it is I guess.

(Not as sure about Countess Camas right here, honestly, although I guess it's true that she knew her and Fritz didn't...)

That, and she did write to enlist Fritz' compassion/help in the first place, despite not having a good opinion of her. Plus, as a woman at court herself, she might have a more direct grasp of the social and societal realities here, whereas Fritz, male and king, might have the luxury of being a bit more blasé about it?

ETA: I was just looking through Lehndorff for a different anecdote and he actually talks about a scandal concerning a pregnancy in early 1763 as well! If that's the same one, which would make sense, the scandal horse has definitely left the barn. He is even less complimentary about the person in question, calling her unworthy and detestable, a liar and a gossip, and someone who managed to deceive the Queen and even Countess Camas for a while. He also says the father is an Austrian officer. Huh.

Re: Camas Letters II - Countess Camas Part Two (1760-1763)

[selenak]

Austrian father: not that unusual, if you consider that the captured enemy officers socialized a lot with the Prussian court ladies, were drafted as dancers and what not. (Unless Fritz especially gave order for the officers in question not to.) But it explains why she'd think he'd marry her after the war (according to Countess Camas), not during. Having just found the relevant entry in Lehndorff when you pointed it out, I guess this Countess H. is probably the same person. In terms of Lehndorff's negative characterisation, on the one hand, he does have a double standard and is prone to cry out "MESSALINA!" intermittently at young women behaving the same way noble young men do, otoh, he doesn't do this all the time (see the very positive entry about the Austrian Ambassador's mistress in 1756, for example, and with Countess Bentinck, he goes from bristling at her from liking her. So IDK how reliable his judgment is here. Otoh, what he's most angry about is that she's been lying to both the Queen and Countess Camas when they had promised to help her and handle everything discreetly, i.e. the unnecessary lie more than the sex, and it would make sense that this is what makes Camas herself annoyed with the woman, too.

Re: Camas Letters II - Countess Camas Part Two (1760-1763)

[felis]

that she's been lying to both the Queen and Countess Camas

OMG, I just realized that a preceding sentence from Fritz' letter, which I cut because I thought it was unrelated, was actually very related: Verily, my good maman, you are quite an expert, and I congratulate you on being so well versed in dropsy. She obviously told him that the woman had insisted that she wasn't pregnant at first, saying that she just had a spot of dropsy and that's why she was gaining weight, which the queen and Camas initially believed! And that's also why Camas thought Fritz would mock her a bit! Lehndorff, thank you for the context. Again. (See, Preuss, this is what happens when you exclude one side of the conversation.)

Re: Camas Letters II - Countess Camas Part Two (1760-1763)

[selenak]

I see cahn has already covered the double meaning of "baiser". (Fritz definitely uses it in the second sense elsewhere, as when he's gossipping with the Marquis D'Argens about Émilie's sex life years after her death and says "she only let herself be fucked by poets and geometers". And I think he also uses it at least ambigously when asking Henri de Catt if he's already, well, either kissed or fucked the local girl Catt was after and offers to write love poetry for him. (This is in the diary, not in the memoirs.) So... poor Finette, yes, I hope she didn't see the letter.

This relationship with the Countess really comes across as one of the most positive relationships Fritz had in these quotes! I'm also intrigued that he's sorry to see BayreuthFriedrich go, seeing as he started out listing him as least fave brother-in-law towards Mantteuffel in the 30s and wrote to Heinrich when sending him to represent the family at Wilhelmine's daughter's wedding that the guy was a lightweight joke or something like that. Though of course that was when Wilhelmine herself was alive and well, and after her death Fritz sees him in a way as her legacy?

Re: Camas Letters II - Countess Camas Part Two (1760-1763)

[felis]

Wait, Bayreuth!Friedrich as least favourite? I know he put him beneath the Brunswick one, but I didn't think it was least favourite. I mean, he had way worse candidates for that.

This relationship with the Countess really comes across as one of the most positive relationships Fritz had in these quotes!

I really like that at least some of her personality comes through in the letters we were given, and it seems like they definitely shared a sense of wit/humour, some playfulness in expressing themselves, and an attitude towards doctors. :D
Plus, I think he really valued her common sense [sorry, Valori, that's the word he uses] and her steadfastness under pressure. Which reminds me, checking Lehndorff for mentions, I came across this anecdote from when they had to flee Berlin helter-skelter for the first time in 1757 and spend some time in Spandau under dire conditions:

But the most touching thing is to see good old Countess Camas. She hasn't closed an eye during the night, but her humour keeps her going and she knows how to see the bright side in everything. And there's indeed nothing more amusing than to see her sitting in her holey chair [the only one available] while the queen and the whole royal court confer with the ministers in front of her. A couple of times she says to us: "Children, speak louder, I would like to free myself from a wind that is incommodating me!"

It seems to me like Fritz would really appreciate someone with an attitude like that, while the same attitude would also make it easy for her to deal with him.

Re: Camas Letters II - Countess Camas Part Two (1760-1763)

[selenak]

BayreuthFriederich: I was exaggarating a bit based on the "meh, can't hold a candle to Mr. Brunswick" comment to Mantteuffel. Also, bear in mind that the odious Schwedt brother-in-law wasn't yet a brother-in-law when Fritz made said comment in the mid 1730s, and he didn't know yet that the Ansbach guy was such a louse, either.

Re: Camas Letters II - Countess Camas Part Two (1760-1763)

[felis]

Right, of course. Chronology is a thing, I forgot how early that was.