cahn | 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

From:

felis

Yeah, I was wondering about that, too. This particular case seems to be about sex with an animal indeed, which means that probably so is the whole cabinet order. That said, as far as I know, sodomy did still have a wider connotation back then and the narrowing of its German meaning was only in the process and happened a bit later, during the 19th century. So theoretically, "dergleichen Verbrechen" might include more than just sex with animals after all, but on the third hand, Fritz himself doesn't even use the word "sodomy" here, it's only in the title and I think that one might have been added by the publisher in 1894, so we would be back to the beginning regarding both the narrow meaning of the term and what Fritz is talking about.

The new law code from 1794, which wiki credits with actually abolishing the death penalty for homosexuality, says

"Sodomy [sodomiterey] and other such unnatural sins, which cannot be mentioned here because of their abomination, require a complete eradication of the memory. Therefore, after having endured a year or several years in prison with welcome and farewell [=corporal punishment], such a criminal should be banished forever from the place of his residence where his vice has become known, and a possibly abused animal should be killed, or secretly removed from the area."

remember a letter in his old age where he’s proud to having had to sign only a handful of death penalties in his entire reign

Annually! Letter to Voltaire in 1777:

I believed, following the sentiments of the wisest legislators, that it was better to prevent crimes than to punish them; that succeeded, and, to give you a clear idea of it, you must make yourself aware of our population, which only goes to five million two hundred thousand souls. If France has twenty million inhabitants, that makes about a quarter; therefore since our laws have been moderated, we have, in a common year, only fourteen, at most fifteen death sentences; I can answer you this all the more affirmatively, since no one can to be imprisoned without my signature, nor anybody justified [executed?], unless I have ratified the sentence. Of these offenders, most are girls who have killed their children; few murders, even less highway robbers. But among these creatures who behave so cruelly towards their offspring, it is only those whose murder has been proven who are executed. I did what I could to prevent these unfortunate women from killing their fruit. The masters are obliged give notice as soon as their maids are pregnant; in the past, these poor girls were made to do public penance in churches, I dispensed those; there are houses, in every province, where they can give birth, and where they are responsible for bringing up their children. Notwithstanding all these facilities, I have not yet been able to uproot from their minds the distorted prejudice which leads them to let go of their children. I am even now occupied with the idea of abolishing the shame formerly attached to those who married creatures who were mothers without being married; I don't know if maybe that will give me success.

(I have to say, not only was he invested, he had a better grasp of the connection between infaticide/abortion and shaming/punishing women instead of helping them than some modern-day right wing politicians.)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

the narrowing of its German meaning was only in the process and happened a bit later, during the 19th century.

Aah, okay, then Horowski was correct! But yes, the cabinet order still seems to refer only to bestiality, especially in conjunction with the 1794 code. Was that the code that was started by Fritz in the 1780s, though not finished and promulgated until after his death?

remember a letter in his old age where he’s proud to having had to sign only a handful of death penalties in his entire reign

Annually! Letter to Voltaire in 1777:

Hee, we were writing at the same time and found different letters, that's awesome.

And yes, Blanning talks about how Fritz abolished the public penance too.

(I have to say, not only was he invested, he had a better grasp of the connection between infaticide/abortion and shaming/punishing women instead of helping them than some modern-day right wing politicians.)

No kidding! Though Blanning also attributes this decision to Fritz's obsession with increasing the population of his territory. Given other things Fritz says about not shaming women who are seduced, and sympathizing with women cheating on their husbands if the husbands cheat first, I suspect his motives were partly humane, partly pragmatic.

From:

selenak

The Heinrich letter was the one I had vaguely recalled, and it's neat the Voltaire letter compliments it (though I had misremembered the per annum/in the entire reign ratio). I agree that Fritz does better than many a current day right wing politician when it comes to the connection between infanticide and shaming/punishing women.

I might add I was immediately skeptical that it's impossible to persecute the lower classes of Paris for something that the upper classes are doing

Hard same. Especially in a country where the law is highly capricious and backwards as hell, see also the Calas affair (okay, Toulouse, not Paris, but still). Also, disregarding all the enormous other differences between the respective historical situations for a moment, but: Ernst Röhm being openly gay and the leader of the SA as well as one of the few people to be on a "Du" footing with Hitler didn't do squat to protect gay men outside of Röhm's immediate circle even before the Night of the Long Knives and Röhm's arrest and death.

Back to France in the era of Louis XIV: we also have the Affair of the Poisons as an example of how the various participants were punished, and boy was there ever a difference in rank. La Voisin, non-noble abortionist and poisoner? Excecuted. Madame de Montespan, mistress of Louis (soon to be ex mistress), her likely client? Not so much, though the fact that she lost all influence was a punishment, just not a legal one.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

(though I had misremembered the per annum/in the entire reign ratio)

Blanning points out that it's still marvelously low compared to other countries. London alone had 48 executions per year, because even mild crimes came with the death penalty, whereas Fritz saved it for crimes that involved killing or trying to kill another person...and also soliciting desertion. *clears throat*

Hard same. Especially in a country where the law is highly capricious and backwards as hell

Right? It might have been slightly harder to grab two random men fornicating in an alley and then go, "Oh, wait, sorry, you're Philippe's boyfriend, carry on," but, like, look at miscegenation laws in apartheid South Africa. The black party to the "crime" would have their life ruined, and the white party got a "don't do it again." It's not that hard for a stratified society to enforce penalties differently! ~~Peaceful protestors and violent insurrectionists in the US in the last 6 months~~

Another thing Horowski has said that I'm skeptical about is that Fritz is a showcase example of how cousins marrying doesn't lead to health problems. I mean, I can't prove that FW and his kids had porphyria and this was related to SD carrying the same porphyria gene that G3 had and that this was related to SD and FW being first cousins, but...the FW/SD kids are hardly textbook cases of robust physical health! (I agree that first cousins marrying is not as bad as it's sometimes made out to be, and repeated inbreeding a la the Hapsburgs is where it gets really bad, but...you might want to choose your example better.)

From:

selenak

Blanning points out that it's still marvelously low compared to other countries. London alone had 48 executions per year, because even mild crimes came with the death penalty, whereas Fritz saved it for crimes that involved killing or trying to kill another person...and also soliciting desertion. *clears throat*

See, here's a cause for an argument in a Katte Lives!AU. :) (I also cleared my throat when "Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria" had him say deserters are just the lowest of the low, and not because I found it inaccurate.) The difference to Britain is still striking, especially due to the historical English self image if being the most enlightened of nations, especially compared to the European continent. (Remember Bodanis in the Voltaire and Émilie book going on and on about the barbarity of Prussia and France and praising England?) Now England definitely had the greatest freedom of the press in the 18th century, but other than that...

BTW, I recently saw a tumblr post about how both Wilhelmine and Fritz would have been so much happier had the English marriages happened, and for Wilhelmine one of the arguments was that she would have escaped the Hohenzollern crazy and even without making it to the throne (since Fritz of Wales dies either way) would have been spent her days in happy serenity encouraging the arts in GB.

....someone really didn't do research on the Hannover cousins. Read Hervey's memoirs and tell me again Wilhelmine would have been happier in London than in Bayreuth, seriously.

the FW/SD kids are hardly textbook cases of robust physical health!

Indeed not. That lot was constantly ill!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

then Horowski was correct!

I was in the middle of qualifying this when Selena replied: correct that "sodomy" could mean m/m sex then, apparently incorrect about Fritz officially abolishing the death penalty for m/m sex.