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Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 24
Every post I can't believe this is still going on, and yet, here we are :D
Ah, two excellent finds! Thank you, Holmes.
Wikipedia reminds me that Büsching met Fritz, but didn't know him well, so it's possible something got changed in the telling (like how often it happened), but something like it must have happened (and perhaps it happened exactly like that all the time).
I also saw that he has a date for the "days without sleep anecdote", saying that Fritz used to tell the story in his old age
YAY! Look, I buy it totally, given 1) his lifelong commitment to at least minimizing sleep, 2) the fact that doing without sleep is an idea that occurs to a lot of workaholics, myself at ~16 included. ;) (If you joined salon late enough not to have heard this story, the upshot is that I was arrogant enough that I assumed that just because other people couldn't do without sleep didn't mean I couldn't, but finding out that *Fritz* couldn't made me think that, okay, this limitation probably applied to me too, and thus that I shouldn't bother trying the experiment. And I didn't. Thank you, Fritz, for nearly killing yourself with coffee so I didn't have to! (You are one of the few people my past self would have drawn that conclusion from.))
Also, the 1734 campaign date makes PERFECT sense for this experiment. (Note that he's also cutting down on sleep to study in 1736, and Suhm is trying to convince him this is a bad idea.)
I was going to ask whether the fennel water was mentioned in the "last hours" write-up. It's mentioned as the last thing he drank in his life (August 16) in numerous accounts, which probably go back to Carlyle, who evidently read this.
It's apparently used for medical reasons, including digestive problems (which Fritz had all his life) and water retention/edema/dropsy (which he had in his last months due to what sounds very much like congestive heart failure).
Wikipedia reminds me that Büsching met Fritz, but didn't know him well, so it's possible something got changed in the telling (like how often it happened), but something like it must have happened (and perhaps it happened exactly like that all the time).
I also saw that he has a date for the "days without sleep anecdote", saying that Fritz used to tell the story in his old age
YAY! Look, I buy it totally, given 1) his lifelong commitment to at least minimizing sleep, 2) the fact that doing without sleep is an idea that occurs to a lot of workaholics, myself at ~16 included. ;) (If you joined salon late enough not to have heard this story, the upshot is that I was arrogant enough that I assumed that just because other people couldn't do without sleep didn't mean I couldn't, but finding out that *Fritz* couldn't made me think that, okay, this limitation probably applied to me too, and thus that I shouldn't bother trying the experiment. And I didn't. Thank you, Fritz, for nearly killing yourself with coffee so I didn't have to! (You are one of the few people my past self would have drawn that conclusion from.))
Also, the 1734 campaign date makes PERFECT sense for this experiment. (Note that he's also cutting down on sleep to study in 1736, and Suhm is trying to convince him this is a bad idea.)
I was going to ask whether the fennel water was mentioned in the "last hours" write-up. It's mentioned as the last thing he drank in his life (August 16) in numerous accounts, which probably go back to Carlyle, who evidently read this.
It's apparently used for medical reasons, including digestive problems (which Fritz had all his life) and water retention/edema/dropsy (which he had in his last months due to what sounds very much like congestive heart failure).
I must go to bed now, but have only 2 meetings tomorrow, and aside from that am hoping to spend some time in salon. As you can see, I'm putting off the really juicy stuff until I have time to devote to it properly. ;)
AHAHAHAHAHA
Act 1: lol Voltaire's shrug! Also, this is probably the only thing that is going to get me to snicker at Emilie's death :P :) Voltaire and Fritz putting a ring on it, HEE!
Act 2: I love Maupertuis' icon! omg I laughed so hard at Voltaire being like "sure I'll sign the document saying I'm not going to write any pamphlets but PSYCH"
Act 3: heeeee!
Act 4: Aw, that's my completely and hilariously nonsensical-and-yet-weirdly-not-completely-dysfunctional Voltaire/Fritz relationship <3
Act 1: lol Voltaire's shrug! Also, this is probably the only thing that is going to get me to snicker at Emilie's death :P :) Voltaire and Fritz putting a ring on it, HEE!
Act 2: I love Maupertuis' icon! omg I laughed so hard at Voltaire being like "sure I'll sign the document saying I'm not going to write any pamphlets but PSYCH"
Act 3: heeeee!
Act 4: Aw, that's my completely and hilariously nonsensical-and-yet-weirdly-not-completely-dysfunctional Voltaire/Fritz relationship <3
OMG, the juxtaposition of Voltaire's grief and Fritz's "OMG does this mean we can finally be together! Woot!" is just...something else. Fritz at his most self-centered.
LOLOLOLOL
Voltaire's snarky cat face when he writes the "Reasons you suck and should not commit suicide" letter to Fritz! The emotional rollercoasters within the same letters! Everyone else going WTAF at them!!
Yesssss
This was just soooo awesome!
LOLOLOLOL
Voltaire's snarky cat face when he writes the "Reasons you suck and should not commit suicide" letter to Fritz! The emotional rollercoasters within the same letters! Everyone else going WTAF at them!!
Yesssss
This was just soooo awesome!
and her entire education was aimed at this one goal (which SD could do because FW didn't much care what Wilhelmine learned as long as religious instructions were included, unlike Fritz), I can well believe it.
Oh wow -- that hadn't really occurred to me.
And eventually realising it had all been for nothing, and worse, because trying to please her mother by clinging to this plan had greatly contributed to making her a target for FW must have been incredibly bitter.
:( I feel so bad for Wilhelmine. (Yet again.)
Oh wow -- that hadn't really occurred to me.
And eventually realising it had all been for nothing, and worse, because trying to please her mother by clinging to this plan had greatly contributed to making her a target for FW must have been incredibly bitter.
:( I feel so bad for Wilhelmine. (Yet again.)
Ohhhh, I saw that and didn't quite know how to take it, thank you! I should have remembered about the child mortality rate. I didn't know that survival chances weren't actually better if you were a royal, but I guess it makes sense that any advantages from e.g. better nutrition were probably more than offset by MORE BLEEDING. NOT THAT I AM BITTER.
It's basically "Who was the greatest? FRITZ! Fuck Yeah!" in Latin
LOL! I love your way with words.
...okay, I have to ask, why would you forbid an autopsy and embalming? I can see why AW would request one, but as a child of the post-Enlightenment world I don't really see what the problem is in getting an autopsy. Is it because it messes with the dead body and people thought that was weird??
LOL! I love your way with words.
...okay, I have to ask, why would you forbid an autopsy and embalming? I can see why AW would request one, but as a child of the post-Enlightenment world I don't really see what the problem is in getting an autopsy. Is it because it messes with the dead body and people thought that was weird??
(That has always broken my heart, btw, and made Katte's last day feel more real to me: uniform cheerfulness would have been alien to me, but terrified and trying to do the right thing is uuuuuggghhhh right in the feels.)
Ugh, yeah. :((((((((((((((((
(I am just enjoying the heck out of this whole thread -- well, you know, for values of "enjoy" that also include "having my heart broken a lot," although I don't have anything coherent to say.)
Ugh, yeah. :((((((((((((((((
(I am just enjoying the heck out of this whole thread -- well, you know, for values of "enjoy" that also include "having my heart broken a lot," although I don't have anything coherent to say.)
Oooooh, wow, I had no idea about Farinelli! (I mean, I'd heard of him, but I didn't know about Philip V or Barbara of Portugal.)
in 1728 she had appointed Domenico Scarlatti as her harpsichord teacher; the musicologist Ralph Kirkpatrick acknowledges Farinelli's correspondence as providing "most of the direct information about Scarlatti that has transmitted itself to our day")
That is really kind of amazing.I wonder if Farinelli writes good letters
in 1728 she had appointed Domenico Scarlatti as her harpsichord teacher; the musicologist Ralph Kirkpatrick acknowledges Farinelli's correspondence as providing "most of the direct information about Scarlatti that has transmitted itself to our day")
That is really kind of amazing.
I actually very much appreciate these notes on the German, because now I know enough to distinguish Mensch from Mann (I don't imagine I get the nuances, but at least I know enough to know there is a nuance) and I can at least see the passive construction. But I would never have gotten this on my own of course!
Nicolai, btw, is a big Quantz admirer, regrets that his work hardly gets played anymore at the time of writing (because musical taste moves on) and defends him against the accusation of his flute pieces being repetitive by saying that many of these were composed explicitly for Fritz who hated completely new stuff, so there had to be something familiar in each one.
Oh wow, that's really interesting actually. I wonder how Quantz felt about that. (Does Nicolai say?)
See, Fritz, that's why MT and later Joseph get Gluck and later Mozart respectively, aka the musical innovators of the age. His taste in everything really was frozen somewhere in the 1730s.
Ha, yeah. I'm imagining ghost!Fritz (maybe mildred's reincarnated Fritz?) visiting the present day and being extremely indignant that it's those young whippersnappers who are remembered... Like so much, you bring it on yourself, Fritz!
Nicolai, btw, is a big Quantz admirer, regrets that his work hardly gets played anymore at the time of writing (because musical taste moves on) and defends him against the accusation of his flute pieces being repetitive by saying that many of these were composed explicitly for Fritz who hated completely new stuff, so there had to be something familiar in each one.
Oh wow, that's really interesting actually. I wonder how Quantz felt about that. (Does Nicolai say?)
See, Fritz, that's why MT and later Joseph get Gluck and later Mozart respectively, aka the musical innovators of the age. His taste in everything really was frozen somewhere in the 1730s.
Ha, yeah. I'm imagining ghost!Fritz (maybe mildred's reincarnated Fritz?) visiting the present day and being extremely indignant that it's those young whippersnappers who are remembered... Like so much, you bring it on yourself, Fritz!
Uggggh. Yeah, I think even in this day and age where mixed feelings about people are a lot more acceptable and talked about, it's often hard to personally verbalize/admit to those sorts of mixed feelings about someone one really loves, especially if one is a person who hasn't had a lot of practice in self-analysis in general. Then add in an era where it really wasn't acceptable or talked about, and...
That makes a lot of sense about Fritz and Wilhelmine :(
That makes a lot of sense about Fritz and Wilhelmine :(
I am as always in awe of your detective work :D
Hertefeld with his special gift to bore his listeners only likes those who have the patience to listen to him.
Heh! Lehndorff can certainly paint a word-portrait in a sentence :)
That poem is pretty long :P And I didn't read it carefully (and stuck it into google translate, because I am way too short on time this week :( ) but although it could certainly be a lot worse (*cough*Heinrich *cough*EC) I still feel like Fritz could use a refresher on the ring theory of grief, and find myself wondering how Amalie took it...
Hertefeld with his special gift to bore his listeners only likes those who have the patience to listen to him.
Heh! Lehndorff can certainly paint a word-portrait in a sentence :)
That poem is pretty long :P And I didn't read it carefully (and stuck it into google translate, because I am way too short on time this week :( ) but although it could certainly be a lot worse (*cough*Heinrich *cough*EC) I still feel like Fritz could use a refresher on the ring theory of grief, and find myself wondering how Amalie took it...
Well, if Dr. Zimmermann - he of the broken penis theory - is to be trusted, the problem was that Fritz didn't want to be seen in the nude by anoyne, which if your dead body gets embalmed is inevitable, whether or not there's an autopsy first. This might have been SD's reason as well. Caveat here: as among other things the detailed "last days and funeral" report ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
felis unearthed shows, dead nude Fritz was, in fact, seen by several someones, not least because his body was cleaned up from head to to and dressed in a uniform, which he had to know would happen even if he had gotten the funeral of his choice, so forbidding embalming for that reason alone would have been illogical.
Now today, I know a good share of people who don't want to be embalmed, but they usually buy burial places under trees in a "Friedwald" so their dead bodies can become one with nature, if they don't opt to be cremated to begin with. Wanting to become one with nature definitely wasn't an option for SD, though! So I'm left there with "she probably thought doctors cutting her open would be terribly undignified"?
felis unearthed shows, dead nude Fritz was, in fact, seen by several someones, not least because his body was cleaned up from head to to and dressed in a uniform, which he had to know would happen even if he had gotten the funeral of his choice, so forbidding embalming for that reason alone would have been illogical. Now today, I know a good share of people who don't want to be embalmed, but they usually buy burial places under trees in a "Friedwald" so their dead bodies can become one with nature, if they don't opt to be cremated to begin with. Wanting to become one with nature definitely wasn't an option for SD, though! So I'm left there with "she probably thought doctors cutting her open would be terribly undignified"?
In the movie Farinelli (for which they tried to recreate the sound and range of a castrato voice by blending the voices of a soprano and a countertenor), Farinelli retiring to Spain is the happy ending, so there isn't much of that, but check out two great sequences which showcase the opulent late Baroque/Rococo staging habits beautifully: in the former, he sings an aria from an opera composed and conducted by his brother Riccardo (Farinelli's real name was Carlo Broschi), and in the second, the Lascia di Piange by Händel. The main relationship of the film is that between the brothers Broschi which is super angsty because Riccardo is the older and did help Dad to have Carlo castrated back in the day; he also subsequently dedicated his life to him, composing for him, managing him etc. Cue arrival of mind messing Händel who points out to Carlo, aka Farinelli, that he's the way better composer, and what's this about dedicated his life, isn't it more the case that Riccardo exploits Carlo, has done since their childhood and wouldn't get his mediocre compositions staged otherwise? Presto, conflict.
So you know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking we have another simplification here.
Having gone through Seckendorf's report, I'm thinking you're right. Also, the fact that Peter took the time to have lunch or dinner with Keppel (the former Dutch resident in Berlin, who, however, seems to have been a Prussian citizen*, since Seckendorff mentions later FW is pissed off with "General Keppel for aiding Keith") would indicate he's at this point not yet aware that FW is after him and he has to fear for his life.
*Like Stratemann was actually a Prussian citizen but appointed envoy by the Duke of Braunschweig nonetheless.
I'm curious what you make of other details Hertefeld-via-Nicolai gives for the escape plan, but I'll fait for your comment on this before I ask.
Having gone through Seckendorf's report, I'm thinking you're right. Also, the fact that Peter took the time to have lunch or dinner with Keppel (the former Dutch resident in Berlin, who, however, seems to have been a Prussian citizen*, since Seckendorff mentions later FW is pissed off with "General Keppel for aiding Keith") would indicate he's at this point not yet aware that FW is after him and he has to fear for his life.
*Like Stratemann was actually a Prussian citizen but appointed envoy by the Duke of Braunschweig nonetheless.
I'm curious what you make of other details Hertefeld-via-Nicolai gives for the escape plan, but I'll fait for your comment on this before I ask.
Via Nicolai, who had a lot of contact with Quantz and names his sources is pretty good! (I mean, not necessarily for every single detail, but for this event happening.)
Indeed. knew you'd be happy this is not a headcanon you have to abandon. :)
I did not know about the Haarbeutel! I knew that Fritz's hair was done up in a fancy French style as opposed to the Prussian pigtail, but not the detail of what it looked like.
Der Thronfolger, which restages this scene pretty faithfully, nonetheless drew the line at a Haarbeutel, I realise retrospectively, and so FW having a go at Fritz' hairstyle in addition to everything else sort of comes out of nowwhere because Fritz' hair doesn't look so different from how it does in other scenes (except he's not wearing a wig, which he usually does when with Dad).
This is interesting, because I always learned that it was Fritz who was wearing a red dressing gown!
So have I, and I think what happened is the similar as with the MT quip made by someone else and then attributed to Fritz; at some point in the retelling, someone decided that no one cares what Quantz wore on that occasion, red or not, the point is what Fritz wears, so instead of just a golden brocade dressing gown, he gets a golden-brocade-and-red-silk dressing gown.
BTW, since Quantz at this point has a well paid job in Saxony and is making these trips to Berlin solely for Fritz' sake, you can tell how emotionally invested he must have been, to put up with the prospect of angry FW. (Who'd have thought nothing of beating up a mere commoner and musician, one assumes.)
when Selena says he does no such thing
The way I recall it is that he says Fritz loved Fredersdorf like a father loves his son, full stop; he definitely does not say intense rocco friendship (that's more Schmidt-Lötzen's approach to Lehndorff's everything in his introduction), not least because Fredersdorf of course is in no way Fritz' equal and not interesting in himself, etc, but he can be loved like a son (by nineteen years old Fritz, when Fredersdorf is three years older). And at a different point in the book Richter rants somewhat about the modern tendency to Freudianize and sexualize everything, but not related to Fritz/Fredersdorf. The one several pages (might be nine) lecture we get is on Fritz/EC, i.e. Fritz' bad behavior towards her, which is the sole thing he critiques Fritz for, but explains as being the result of FW "raping his young soul" - he does say vergewaltigen, rape - into this marriage. The rant against the modern psychonalytic approach becomes hypocritcal when at yet another point, he diagnoses Wilhelmine as suffering from hysteria.
Quantz is frozen with panic (it sounds like), and Katte is ON IT. Just what I would expect of him. <3 And that's even more interesting given that Quantz is the narrator and has no incentive to make Katte sound better at his own expense.
Quite! It heightens the plausibility of the whole event and the reliability of Quantz as a narrator to no end.
Indeed. knew you'd be happy this is not a headcanon you have to abandon. :)
I did not know about the Haarbeutel! I knew that Fritz's hair was done up in a fancy French style as opposed to the Prussian pigtail, but not the detail of what it looked like.
Der Thronfolger, which restages this scene pretty faithfully, nonetheless drew the line at a Haarbeutel, I realise retrospectively, and so FW having a go at Fritz' hairstyle in addition to everything else sort of comes out of nowwhere because Fritz' hair doesn't look so different from how it does in other scenes (except he's not wearing a wig, which he usually does when with Dad).
This is interesting, because I always learned that it was Fritz who was wearing a red dressing gown!
So have I, and I think what happened is the similar as with the MT quip made by someone else and then attributed to Fritz; at some point in the retelling, someone decided that no one cares what Quantz wore on that occasion, red or not, the point is what Fritz wears, so instead of just a golden brocade dressing gown, he gets a golden-brocade-and-red-silk dressing gown.
BTW, since Quantz at this point has a well paid job in Saxony and is making these trips to Berlin solely for Fritz' sake, you can tell how emotionally invested he must have been, to put up with the prospect of angry FW. (Who'd have thought nothing of beating up a mere commoner and musician, one assumes.)
when Selena says he does no such thing
The way I recall it is that he says Fritz loved Fredersdorf like a father loves his son, full stop; he definitely does not say intense rocco friendship (that's more Schmidt-Lötzen's approach to Lehndorff's everything in his introduction), not least because Fredersdorf of course is in no way Fritz' equal and not interesting in himself, etc, but he can be loved like a son (by nineteen years old Fritz, when Fredersdorf is three years older). And at a different point in the book Richter rants somewhat about the modern tendency to Freudianize and sexualize everything, but not related to Fritz/Fredersdorf. The one several pages (might be nine) lecture we get is on Fritz/EC, i.e. Fritz' bad behavior towards her, which is the sole thing he critiques Fritz for, but explains as being the result of FW "raping his young soul" - he does say vergewaltigen, rape - into this marriage. The rant against the modern psychonalytic approach becomes hypocritcal when at yet another point, he diagnoses Wilhelmine as suffering from hysteria.
Quantz is frozen with panic (it sounds like), and Katte is ON IT. Just what I would expect of him. <3 And that's even more interesting given that Quantz is the narrator and has no incentive to make Katte sound better at his own expense.
Quite! It heightens the plausibility of the whole event and the reliability of Quantz as a narrator to no end.
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