Wow, you all have been busy overnight! Okay, addressing one subject at a time.
Wow, that really was an almost-duel! Now I can't help but wonder what would have happened if they'd actually gone through with it and one of them (*cough*presumably FW) had managed to kill the other!
For starters: who kills who really depends on the method of duelling. We tend to automatically think "pistols", but swords are still a viable alternative, see Hervey fighting his duel with swords, and of course the chances of both parties surviving generally is higher then. However, in the particular case of FW vs G2, swords would have been a death sentence (or at least a humiliating defeat sentence) for FW, given his weight and shape (even if not just sick). I'm not sure how heavy G2 ws in the late 1720s, but neither Hervey nor anyone else mentions constant illnesses, which FW definitely had. So presumably even FW would have had enough sense to go for pistols, at which they'd have been evenly matched. In which case it's 50/50, and either King could have died (or be severely wounded). As to what had happened, let's see.
G2 DIES
Does England declare war against Prussia? Nope. Enough witnesses around to testify it was an honorable duel. Also, new King Frederick I, aka former Fritz of Wales, more likely to send thank you bouqet to FW.
Do the English marriages happen for Fritz and Wilhelmine? Hell no, is my first thought, though on second thought SD could try to spin this as a reconciliation project to FW and try to guilt trip him into agreeing to push it. Otoh, the Brits were never keen on the match in the first place, and now they really have no reason.
Does the 1730 escape attempt therefore still happen? I think so, yes.
What about Hannover family dysfunction?: Well, in the late 20s it wasn't as bad yet as it would become, but Fritz of Wales would still have been long enough around his family to notice no one wanted him, everyone wanted little brother Billy the Butcher, and even if there's now a complete turnaround once he's on the throne, I doubt mother Caroline will ever gain much influence on him. Unless she's really really convincing. Otoh, late 20s is when he's just become friendly with Hervey and they're nearing Orestes/Pylades territory. Therefore, I guess Hervey gets his wish and becomes mentor to the new King, with a nice cabinet office to go with it, and Caroline can say goodbye to her Vice Chamberlain. (He did like and respect Caroline, but not enough to give up a shot at the top for her sake.)
FW DIES
Does Prussia declare war on England? No, see above. Honorable duel. Also secret thank you boquet from SD. And massive attempt to guilt trip G2 into offering his two kids to her two kids now.
Do the English marriages happen for Fritz and Wilhelmine?: Definitely can see that. Not least because MT's Dad Charles might send a "two of my Electors killing each other, WTF? Make sure the new kid on the block won't continue the feud against you, G2!" reprimand. As to whether these marriages will be happy, err. For Fritz, mayyyyyyybe better, because Emily/Amalie of England was brainy, well educated, sharp tongued. Otoh, given SD would have resented any sign of the new Queen getting more respect than she did, and Emily/Amalie would not have been nearly as shy as EC and would not have taken any humiliating silently... For Wilhelmine, see below.
What about Hannover family dysfunction? That stays the same. And because Fritz is the new King in/of Prussia, he's not around to support Wilhelmine. Which means that she still has to deal with in-laws that hate on her new husband, imply that she's faking her first pregnancy, and her husband trying to get her elswhere during labor.
I feel like I will forever find hilarious that Fritz/Voltaire had this crackship going that NO ONE understands :D
Same here. And it's really a universal reaction, no matter whether it's Mitchell in his 7 Years War reports or modern biographers. I think people can just about understand their mutual motives until the big breakup in 1753. It's the fact they then went back to writing each other that slays everyone.
Not gonna lie, I had Voltaire on the brain when I wrote this! He went to Mass any number of times.
So he did, and even built a church. ("To God, from Voltaire", wasn't that the dedication?) And let's not forgot the "I'm sorry if you're insulted" repentenance document to penned on his deathbed (which was accepted by the first priest to have a go at him but not by the indignant Archbishop of Paris).
Same. No matter whether the phrase comes from New Brunswick Ambassador, Wartensleben or Manteuffel himself, it's well put, well put indeed. :)
That's why part of me wants it to have originated with Voltaire! Lol.
On the one hand: this is like later 19th century historians deciding unilaterally that the "she cried, but she took" etc. crack about MT and the first Partitioning of Poland was too good to hail from some minor figur and had to come from Fritz, and nearly every biographer until this day following suit.
On the other hand: Not very scientific, I know! But...Wartensleben overhears it in Cleves, conveys it in his report via super-fast courier to Manteuffel, Manteuffel is Anonymous after all? :P
Sold! Especially since I very much doubt that Voltaire reads anonymous reports sent from Mantteuffel (whoever wrote it) to Brühl and thereafter lingering in the Saxon State Archive. (If you want an argument against Voltaire picking up the bonmot from someone else.)
First of all, felis, fantastic discovery about SD being secretly in contact with her mother after all! I'm now mentally revising my picture entirely on that front. Also, what you quote:
I believe my brother will be touched anyway, he loved her and everything that is happening can't please him.
Settles the question Victorian editor of Hervey's memoirs John Crocker raised, as to whether Walpole was right about G2 loving his mother, and whether him not speaking of her signals the depth or the lack of feeling.
Mind you, in any case it's fairly evident that what happened to their mother impacted both SD and G2 - both children when it did - and influenced their own family dysfunctionality later.
By the way, I had no idea that GI visited Berlin in 1725!
This, I did know, as it's a fairly prominent sequence in the 1980s tv two parter Der Thronfolger, which was on Youtube a year ago (but no longer, alas, copyright struck, I guess). It also comes up in Der Vater, and, of course, in Wilhelmine's memoirs.
Fique apparently what she called herself/he called her? And he got nicknamed "Wilke", in case you didn't/needed to know.
We did know, though the usual (current) spelling is "Fieke" (which was then a popular nickname for Sophie in Brandenburg; I've read a novel in which Heinrich actually uses it for Catherine (the Great), even, in the sole scene from his pov of the novel); it also comes up in one of Stratemann's reports: In the entry on March 4th 1730 (one more month to go in SD's last pregnancy), FW tells his "Fieke" that God has given her to him for 24 yers now, he wants to keep her, God can do to the baby whatever he wants as long as he lets FW keep SD.
(Ferdinand: not getting any respect even before he's born. Although that's actually a touching statementby FW.)
Thank you also for linking Droysen and the letter excerpts. Some were known to me from Uwe Oster's Wilhelmine biography, but most were not. Also, your link even has a facsimile of the first letter Wilhelmine wrote to FW, at age 4! BTW, since we've heard a lot about what Grumbkow & Seckendorf weren't to blame for - the marriage to a Habsburg idea - here's something they were definitely to blame for: feeding into FW's paranoia, including the infidelity suspicion, in order to get him against the English marriage project.
„You can be assured that I will not say anything and will not tell him that you wrote to me; if he knew that you hate him and wish him death, he would be in despair and it would kill him. He is already too ill. God take the thoughts you have against him, and you govern your heart. I believe you wrote to me against him out of malice, to see what I will answer you.
He probably did, and yes, that's absolutely a heartbreaking quote. Bear in mind that while SD writes this in 1728, Stratemann doggedly describes a perfectly happy Prussian Royal Family with Disney Dad!
So Wilhelmine's Mom-killing opera Semiramis was staged for SD's birthday. Who made that decision? Fritz? Was Amalie present for it? I checked and it was March 1754
Lehndorff's diary entry from March 27th 1754 describes the opera staging and other birthday celebrations for SD, but doesn't say whose idea the production of this particular opera was, just that Lehndorff doesn't think it's a good subject ("Der Stoff ist für einen Geburtstag wenig geeignet"). This entry is in volume 1; I did check volume 2, the cut bits, just in case there's more on the subject, but no, there isn't. (Not least because Lehndorff is through the entire month in one of his relationship downs with Heinrich, and then, having made up, they have a last stroll through the Tiergarten on March 28th, before Heinrich's regular departure for Potsdam ("with the greatest pain, I take my leave of the Prince. His stay in Potsdam is always fatal to me. I have just cause to grieve. This is the world's curse"). This means his attention is, shall we say, divided.
Was 1753 her last visit to Berlin?
I think so, yes. I can't recall mention of a later visit, at least.
How long would the royal family wear mourning for a monarch?
Argh. I honestly don't know. Today's royals wear mourning from the day of death till the day of the funeral, google tells me, but I bet it was longer in the 18th century. Lehndorff mentions the court having to wear mourning repeatedly, including, as I mentioned in my original Lehndorff write up, when Isabella dies, which she does on November 27th 1763, and if they wear morning for not even a reigning Empress Consort but the wife of MT's oldest (not yet crowned) son in the year where the 7 Years War has ended, I'm pretty sure mourning for a reigning monarch is far more elaborate. BTW, I checked that entry again, which is in volume 2 as it was cut in the original volume, and there's a hint about the dates. Because Lehndorff mentions that no sooner has the court finished wearing mourning for Isabella that they have to wear mourning for the Prince Elector of Saxony. This wasn't August III., who had died earlier that year, but his son Friedrich Christian, who never became King of Poland and thus was "only" Prince Elector of Saxony, dying in the same year as his father, in Deecember 17th. So mourning for Isabella was between November 27th and December 17th, and then it's mourning for Friedrich Cristian (head of an enemy state in the recent war). The quote:
Wir tragen Trauer für die junge Erzherzogin. Diese an der Seite eines jungen und liebenswürdigen Gemahls so glückliche Frau, die eines Tages mehrere Kronen zu erwarten hatte und eben im Begriff stand. zur römischen Königin gekrönt zu werden, ist an den Blattern im Alter von 22 Jahren gestorben. Kaum haben wir diese Trauer abgelegt, als wir für den Kurfürsten von Sachsen von neuem Trauer anlegen müssen. Nur sechs Wochen sind feiner Regierung, die sein Volk glücklich zu machen begann, beschieden gewesen.Er starb gleichfalls an den Blattern. Sic transit gloria mundi!
Alas this doesn't tell you how long they wear mourning for their own monarch, of course. Lehndorff wasn't at court yet but a child when FW died, and his diaries from 1786 are a victim of WWII, so he can't tell us how long Prussia wore mourning for Fritz, either.
Do we know the names of any of Wilhelmine's dogs other than Folichon?
I dimly recall at least one other dog mentioned by name in either Oster or in one of the correspondences, but it would take way longer to look it up than I have currently time available.
I guess that admiring and seeking advice from a Catholic is cool even if personally converting to Catholicism is worse than 18 years of paternal abuse? Idk. (And obviously it was England, not Spain, that Katte thought about settling down in.)
Not a big contradiction there. Just think of everyone, from Grandma Sophie Charlotte to Fritz to Leopold Mozart through the 18th century fangirling and fanboying Fénelon's bestseller on how to be a good prince and good young man in general. Only Leopold was a Catholic, the others were all Protestants raised, while Fénelon wasn't just a Catholic, he was a member of the clergy. And of course arch Protestant FW enjoyed his drinking bouts with pragmatic Catholic August. Befriending people who happen to be Catholics is a very different issue from converting, let alone being forced to convert against your convictions, which is what Katte believes to be on the menu for Fritz. And even leaving the strength of his own faith or lack of same completely aside, Katte would have several good reasons to regard such a scheme as a disaster for his friend:
1.) It would deepen the gulf between him and his father and likely cost him the succession.
2.) Even if it doesn't (because a succession change would need imperial approval), and Fritz does become King of Prussia, he'd have a majority of his own subjects set against him. For recent illustrations, see what happened when the Prince of Hesse-Kassel converted from Protestant to Catholic. And of course the Saxons had been anything but thrilled when August did in order to get the Polish crown. When the Duke of Würtemberg, Karl Alexander, converterd to Catholicism after marrying Catholic Marie-Auguste, this was part of a major state crisis in deeply Protestant Würtemberg which didn't get resolved until Karl Alexander's death. Flash forward: when there's a rumor that Wihelmine's son-in-law, Carl Eugen, Karl Alexander's son, will also secretly convert and make her daughter convert, Fritz immediately writes that this would be a terrible idea because all her daughter has after her husband's passion has gone is populariy with her Protestant subjects and she'd lose that if she converts.
And now I have to assume that Fritz lied, presumably because he was getting resistance from Katte on escaping, and Katte's religious fervor at the end was not only sincere but based on strong feelings before that fact.
Now, we know Fritz converting was never an issue. But Katte doesn't know this in 1730, because Fritz is a really good liar, and he doesn't even have to be a hardcore Protestant, but a good friend to Fritz, to find this prospect deeply alarming, if it's any consolation to you. (Also, as to why he finds this more alarming and a better reason for immediate flight than 18 yeas of abuse: betting on FW's early death isn't unreasonable. In 1729, FW was so seriously ill that he wrote to his friend Old Dessauer that he'd prefer dying than enduring this pain any longer. So I can see Katte reasoning that if Fritz endures just a year or so longer, it will all be over. Otoh, if Fritz converts and marries a Habsburg, the political damage from this is permanent, see above, and the spiritual damage likewise, if this is important in any way for Katte.
This said, Katte's reaction to such an idea in combination to his letters to his father and his interactions with the preachers before his death do point to Katte taking his Protestant faith seriously, or at least being hard enough imprinted on it to fall back on it when faced with the prospect of his impending death. But if you want more arguments for Katte being at least a relaxed Protestant with doubts before November 1730, well, here's another example of a childhood imprint of "this faith is vile" surviving far beyond believing in the other faith: good old Voltaire. As Orieux points out, his initial reaction when hearing about the Calas affair, in the version most people outside Toulouse did (to wit: Protestant father kills his son rather than let the poor boy convert to Catholicism), is: "Wow, go figure that Protestant bigots are still worse than Catholic bigots. As can also be seen by the fact Protestant fundies are anti theatre!" (The last never fails to crack me up.)
It also suggests that the reason Fritz couldn't come up with a clever answer when put on the spot at the trial was that he wasn't expecting this lie to come back and bite him. He may have blurted it out to Katte and forgotten he even said it?
Very likely. It wasn't one of his real reasons,and so he forgot about it once it had worked. That Katte, otoh, did remember, and brought it up on his own initiative, shows he took it very seriously.
Here's another aspect, though: how did Fritz feel when discovering that his lie had had such an impact on Katte (especially in combination with receiving the Punctae later)? Might this cause some hastily repressed resentment that later shows itself in the remark to Grumbkow re: Katte?
Lastly: re: Philip V. of Spain: cahn,also famously the monarch so into the famous castrato singer Farinelli's voice that he made him his musical therapist, or, to quote wiki:
Apparently intending to make only a brief visit to the Continent, Farinelli called at Paris on his way to Madrid, singing on 9 July at Versailles to King Louis XV, who gave him his portrait set in diamonds, and 500 louis d'or. On 15 July he left for Spain, arriving about a month later. Elisabetta Farnese, the Queen, had come to believe that Farinelli's voice might be able to cure the severe depression of her husband, King Philip V (some contemporary physicians, such as the Queen's doctor Giuseppe Cervi, believed in the efficacy of music therapy). On 25 August 1737, Farinelli was named chamber musician to the king, and criado familiar, or servant to the royal family. He never sang again in public.
Farinelli became a royal favourite and very influential at court. For the remaining nine years of Philip's life, Farinelli gave nightly private concerts to the royal couple. He also sang for other members of the royal family and organised private performances by them, and by professional musicians in the royal palaces. In 1738 he arranged for an entire Italian opera company to visit Madrid, beginning a fashion for opera seria in the Spanish capital. The Coliseo of the royal palace of Buen Retiro was remodelled, and became Madrid's only opera house.
On the accession of Philip's son, Ferdinand VI, Farinelli's influence became even greater. Ferdinand was a keen musician, and his wife, Barbara of Portugal, more or less a musical fanatic (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"). The relationship between singer and monarchs was personally close: he and the queen sang duets together, and the king accompanied them on the harpsichord. Farinelli took charge of all spectacles and court entertainments. He was himself also officially received into the ranks of the nobility, being made a Knight of the Order of Calatrava in 1750, an honour of which he was enormously proud. Although much courted by diplomats, Farinelli seems to have kept out of politics.
Talk about a second career!
I was thinking about Mitchell and Algarotti being lovers, and Mitchell putting up his glamorous Italian lover for sponsorship. :D
Oh, I was thinking about that as well. Especially since when Mitchell and Algarotti met, Mitchell was just another Brit (Scot, to be precise) touring Italy, no one of influence (though clearly someone with enough money to stay abroad for years), with no position at all (having left Scotland at age 18). So in this case, a connection Algarotti made without knowing it would give him anything in terms of professional benefits. Then they reconnected during Algarotti's first visit to England when he was staying at Mitchell's before becoming involved with Hervey and Lady Mary. However, clearly they enjoyed each other enormously, given Algarotti years later, after he's already member of the Royal Society (i.e. Mitchell has done what he can) and is now mainly sponsored by Lord Hervey when in England, writes the "you shall be the tastiest dish at our supper" letter. (Which he did when returning from Russia for his as it turned out final trip to England). (BTW, the reason why Algarotti was visiting Russia as part of the British delegation was the wedding of Annna Leopoldowna to EC's brother which would result in all those doomed children and tragedy all around.)
...I still like Mildred's idea that when Fritz shows Mitchell his poetry in the 7 Years War, Mitchell offers to beta that Algarotti orgasm poem for verisimilitude. :)
Now if ARTE (= French-German tv network) should adopt it, I'd have a shot at watching, otherwise it's probably hard to come by. Stay tuned! The cast includes Philippe d'Orleans the regent, his daughter, Voltaire's buddy Richelieu, and Voltaire as a child, young man, and old narrator.
Can't believe I forgot to put this on my list of things to report from my reading during November/December, but this came up in the Versailles book. Unknown veracity, but too charming not to share:
Louis XV loved fine food and wines, as would his grandson. He lived in an age of culinary revolution and the first celebrity chefs, some of whom he employed. The upper classes now relished food for its taste as well as its appearance. When he was sixteen, Louis revealed the budding gourmet in him by taking lessons from an expert chef in a kitchen over the Stag Court, specially installed for this purpose. An order survives for the king’s aprons, twelve of them, embroidered with the double V of Versailles. He wore them when he made omelettes.
After an interruption, I've continued with my Nicolai browsing, and volume 6 contains several jewels. cahn, there are a lot of Quanz stories, including the one which made it into many a fiction, of FW nearly surprising Fritz and Quanz playing the flute, when in comes Katte to warn them, and Quanz hiding just in time, but also one from Fritz' time as King, which is very Fritzian. Background: Quanz only said "Bravo" when Fritz' play was good enough (though otoh he did not, Nicolai emphatically says, say "rubbish" or grimace when it was bad, he just withheld the applause). The anecdote goes thusly: Quanz makes a new flute for Fritz, Fritz plays but makes mistakes, promptly blames the flute, Quanz checks the flute again and says no, the flute is good, Fritz says it's not true and shouts, they don't talk for a week during which Quanz withholds applause and approval, after eight days, Fritz caves and says okay, yes, it was him, not the flute, Quanz is "okay, then let's practice". Also, Quanz - whom Nicolai knew, and who is his source for all these stories, once said ruefully about Fritz as a person and why despite their ups and downs he can't bring himself to leave him, that he'd miss him if he left: Ich hätte nicht gedacht,dass mir der Mensch so nötig wäre. ("I wouldn't have thought that I need this man so much.")
mildred_of_midgard, apparently until the early 1790s, the most common spread story about the escape attempt was that Fritz and Katte were both arrested at the same time, at Wesel. Nicolai corrects this and says he's had it from a son of a former Gens d'Armes comrade of Katte's that Katte was in Berlin, and that the plan had been for Katte to escape separately, and then tells the "you're still here?" story that subsequently is told everywhere else. There's one detail that I haven't seen in later versions, and that is that when Katte is moved form his original arrest place, the officer in charge of the transport is optimistic that he'll be released once it's all cleared up, and Katte replies "Non, mon ami, le tyran demande du sang". I can see why this story didn't make it into other accounts, though, because unlike Nicolai, we've seen the interrogation protocols and Katte's petitions for his life etc., and I don't think it occured to Katte this early that the death penalty (as opposed to imprisonment and possibly physical punishment) was where this was going. Still, I thought you'd like the quote.
Nicolai's version is also the one where Peter gets the "sauvez-vous" warning note from Fritz and therefore hightails it out of Wesel, which was we now doesn't work, date wise. He (N) says his source isn't sure whether Peter then initially took refuge with the French or English ambassador in Holland (we know it was with the Brits, but with Chesterfield's staff rather than Chesterfield himself), and has him directly interact with the unnamed envoy, but the trajectory of Peter's flight otherwise is correct, as is Peter's later career, and Nicolai says his source's dad knew Peter personally as well. This supposed former comrade of Katte's and friend of Peter's whose son is Nicolai's source is called von Hertefeld.
Aaand then I saw Nicolai has yet another version of the Glasow story in the offering, which is far too good not to give you verbatim, which I shall do in another comment (it's that long).
Glasow was the son of a "Zeugleutnant" of a Zeughaus in Brieg, Silesia. He had joined the infantry regiment at Brief when still a very young man of 16 years. The King took him out of it due to his advantageous form, made him a chamber hussar and planned to educate this young man, whom he also had taught by various teachers. He liked him enormously, and thus usually called him by his first name: Karlchen
(Mes amies, you know that Karlchen is little Charles, a form of address hat denotes affection, right? Much like FW, in a good mood, occasionally speaks of Fritzchen, so noted by Seckendorf Jr. early in his diary.)
When the King had to take to the field in 1756, the Secret Chamberlain Fredersdorf couldn't join the King on his campaign due to his long term illness of which he did die not too long thereafter. So the King transferred everything to Glasow, whom he made his valet on this occasion, had tailored some very beautiful civilian clothing for him, and gave him his personal treasury and the supervision about his household, despite Glasow still being very young.
For a few days, the King told him personally how he had to run everything; especially, he taught him how to do the accounts about the income and expenditure of the royal household. Now there was a particular secretary in charge of this, but that one remained with Fredersdorf, and wasn't called to Dresden until the opening of the next campaign on the following year in the spring of 1757; until then Völker, who was a smart fellow, administrated this office together with Glasow.
(Not to spoil anything, but Völker will be the villain of this tale. It's the first time I've heard of his existence; he's introduced only in the previous page as "a man named Völker" who supposedly did the much rumored poison attempt together with Glasow, a story Niicolai sets out to rectify. How Völker got into this story pre Nicolai, I have no idea; note that neither Lehndorff nor Kalckreuth nor Münchow nor von Henckel mention him at all. I haven't seen mention of any "Völker" in 20th century biographies, either, Mildred, have you?
ETA: Aha and shame on me. Not Völker, but Henckel von Donnersmarck, reading his journal entry again, which I just linked to, does mention a "Wöllner" as Glasow's good friend who got also arrested and condemned to running the gauntlet. Okay then, and apologies, Nicolai, there was indeed a second person involved./ETA
The King showed even more grace to Glasow, and often made him large presents; but Glasow was not always grateful. When the King had his winter quarters in Dresden in the winter of 1756, Glasow started to consort with two women. The King didn't like his people to have this kind of relationships at all; and in this particular case, additional circumstances were there why these relationships should be suspicious and dislikeable to the King for political reasons.
(Interestingly, Nicolai does not name the Countess Brühl, as opposed to Henckel, Lehndorff and Kalckreuth. Possibly because they are nobles writing their diaries and dictating memoirs and thus not having to fear law suits, whereas Nicolai is a commoner writing for publication?)
He therefore strictly forbade Glasow this kind of consorting, but the later didn't stop doing it. Glasow, whom the King had sleeping in the room next to his, wasn't in his bed for entire nights, and when he was missing, the King could easily guess where he had to be spending his time. Now the man who encouraged young Glasow in this kind of loose living because he could take advantage from his wastefulness was the King's Kammerlakei and Treasurer Völker.
The King knew very well about the connection between these two men, and thus blamed Völker for Glasow's debauchings, as he knew Völker as an otherwise not at all foolish man, and held him to be the seducer of the young and inexperienced Glasow. Now despite the King tried to improve his valet's behavior through harsh reprimands, threats and punishments, his affairs grew steadily worse when the King near the end of March 1757 took his main quarters at Lockwitz, a small mile away from Dresden. Glasow continued to keep up his relationships in Dresden. Nearly every night, he rode to Dresden. The King couldn't fail to notice this and grew even more disgruntled. However, as Glasow otherwise was still in favor with the King, it was all too understandable that no one dared the tell the King about the exact nature of the consorting this favourite was doing.
Glasow took into his service a fellow named B*** who until then had been in service with an officer from the Garde du Corps who lived near Berlin, but then kicked him out in disgrace some time later. This B*** subsequently went to his old master. B*** now started to talk very loudly about Glasow's suspcious relationships in Dresden, and that Völker was seducing him into them, and added that if the King only knew the true circumstances, whom he should be told about, both of them would suffer evil consequences.
Völker knew that what this fellow was saying was the truth, and he grew greatly afraid that through either him or his master the King should find out the true circumstances. He therefore persuaded Glasow that it was necessary to get rid of this fellow for their shared safety's sake.
Through Völker's persuasions, the young and inconsiderate Glasow was seduced to start a very serious enterprise worthy of punishment. Völker wrote an order of arrest to the commander of Magdeburg in the name of the King, Glasow used the King's small seal, B*** was arrested, and sent via transport to Magdeburg.
The commander in Magdeburg thought the order of arrest which hadn't been signed by the King to be suspicious. Some claim that it had been signed by the King's name, but in an unreadable fashion. The Commander now sent the original arrest warrant to the King, and asked whether the King truly wished the arrestant to be brought to this fortress.
The King was not a little amazed about this turn of events. He investigated further, and Vöker's own handwriting testified against him, and proved he had seduced Glasow into such a punishable abuse of the royal authority. The King was incensed. He ordered that the prisoner was to be released at once. He sent Glasow for a year to the fortress Spandau, and Völker had to run the gauntlet twentyfour times, and later was put into the third bataillon of the guard as a common soldier. The type of punishment alone proves enough that a crime such a poisoning can't have beeen an issue. Also, people who are well informed have testified the complete truth of all of the above named circumstances to me.
The King had to punish the irresponsible abuse of his authority by Glasow, but he still kept being fond of him, as he seemed to be convinced that Glasow as a young man had simply been seduced, and hadn't acted out of malice. He even asked how (Glasow) was doing during his imprisonment. If Glasow had survived the time of his arrest, there can't be any doubt that he'd been accepted back into the King's favour, and might even have been put back on his old posts. However, he died in Spandau three weeks before his term of imprisonment was over. When the King heard about his death, he cried a few tears, and was even more angry with Völker, whom he saw as the seducer of the poor young man.
Völker accepted his fate, and during the war became a sutler. After the war, he found opportunity to leave the army through the fact hat he could create Russian leather, got his dismissal, and started to work in the Russian leather factory of the manufacturer Schneider in Berlin. As he didn't have luck in this art, he then found a way to get a job in Prussia via the recently installed tobacco administration. Carelessly, he signed a report which ended up being read by the King. The King noticed the name. He asked, and when he learned that this was the same man who had been in his service, he had him casheered at once and ordered to put im into a garnison regiment, where Völker died only a few years ago.
This ends the Nicolai version of the tale of Glasow (and Völker). If you want to refresh your memory on what people at the time it happened (i.e. 1750s) or shortly thereafter wrote about Glasow, the relevent Rheinsberg collection is here. There are just enough common elements to show Nicolai got his story from people who themselves had at least some part of the tale, but the differences are still startling and fascinating.
Most of all, of course, "Völker". Now, see above, I just saw there was not a "Völker" but a "Wöllner, the King's footman and coffeemaker" who got indeed arrested and punished along with Glasow according to Henckel von Donnersmarck, Heinrich's AD who was around at the time. However, Henckel seems to have had no doubt that Glasow was the main culprit, and far from being a seduced youth manipulated by someone else was "the tyrant of the Royal Household" in the post-Fredersdorf era. Sadly, Nicolai doesn't say where he has the story from, other than that the people are trustworthy. The other pro-Glasow source we have is Kalckreuth, but Kalckreuth blames Glasow's dismissed servant for wrongly accusing him and doesn't say anything about Völker/Wöllner at all, so I don't think Kalkreuth is Nicolai's source. (My other reason for doubting it is that Heinrich doesn't get mentioned once in six volumes of anecdotes, and I think if Nicolai had an in with Heinrich's former boyfriend AD, there's be some stories at least co-starring him.)
Next: "Karlchen". Glasow's first two names were Christian Friedrich, without a "Carl" (or Karl). However, there was, of course, Carl "Carel" the favoured page, and I suspect in the retellings, he and Glasow might have gotten mixed up somewhat. (It was also Carel who got the teachers.)
As we now know due to the state archive letters from Fredesdorf's actual successor to Fredersdorf, Glasow did indeed abuse a seal, only it was Fredersdorf's, not Fritz'. And Nicolai was right in that a poisoning attempt is unlikely to have happened if you look at the punishment, but nothing in Fritz' granting mercy in reaction to Glasow's father's petition makes it sound as if Glasow would only have been in Spandau for a year if he hadn't died.
Lastly: Fritz objecting to Glasow's "consorting with women", and noticing Glasow's nightly absence: I don't think Nicolai is trying to insinuate something - as valet, it would have been Glasow's duty to be available next door or in the King's room itself -, and he's far less blatant than Kalckreuth or Lehndorff about Glasow's good looks originally getting him noticed by Fritz, but he does mention it. Otoh, Nicolai unlike Lehndorff and writing with the hindsight of knowing Fredersdorf would die does not mention the possibility of jealousy and presents it as straightforward that Glasow got the valet job because Frederdorf was too ill.
So, friends, what do you think? Were Glasow's shady actions due to manipulations by Völker/Wöllner or was the later just a confederate? Is it significant that Völker/Wöllner was the coffeemaker (though I still think an actual poison attempt would have had far more serious consequences)? And who were Nicolai's absolutely trustworthy sources he can't name by name? (Very much as opposed to his sources elsewhere about other things, including the Katte anecdotes, where he gives the names each time.)
Because I would feel like a cruel Royal Reader indeed if I didn't translate it for Mildred, instead of just summarizing it.
I previously didn't dare to protest against the commonly shared tale that (Katte) had been with the King and the Crown Prince in Wesel. But now Landrat Baron v. Hertefeld zu Boetzelaar near Xanten has been kind enough to share with me from the trustworthy narration of his late father the true circumstances of the arrest of the unfortunate Herr v. Katte. I believe my readers will thank me for sharing the both interesting and trustworthy news in this gentleman's own words.
"My father, born in the year 1709, served in the year 1730 with the Gens d'Armes at a Lieutenant, together with his unfortunate friend, Lieutenant von Katte. The later, Lieutenant von Keith and Lieutenant von Spaen were the confidants of the then crown prince, who were meant to support his escape to England. Katte remained in Berlin and was supposed to follow the Crown Prince via Leipzig through the HRE. Keith, who was stationed in Wesel, had the task to prepare the flight. Spaen, then a Lieutenant with the tall guard at Potsdam, knew about the plans but had no active part in them. The escape of the Crown Prince was supposed to happen in the moment when the King departed from Wesel; for as the Crown Prince usually travelled behind the King from their various stops, he would have won a few hours before his escape became known to the King. Katte had taken a leave of absence when the King had departed from Berlin in order to visit the countryside. He delayed his departure to the date when he supposed the King would arrive at Wesel, and the need to repair his carriage kept him a day longer than he wanted in Berlin. At the evening of his departure he met Major v. Asseburg from the Gens d'Armes who told him with a frightened face: "Are you still here? I am amazed!"
Katte replied to him: I travel this very night. Asseburg knew that a courier had brought the news of the Crown Prince's arrest, but he couldn't say more due to the distrust which was then dominating in Berlin. At night, Colonel von Pannewitz, the commander of the Gens d'Armes, received the order to arrest Lieutenant von Katte; he delayed this until morning in the hope Katte would have been escaped by then, then he sent the regiment's AD to him who still found him and brought him the order to immediately report to the Colonel. At 8 o'clock in the morning my father, who had then guard duty, the order to send a subaltern officer and four men to the Colonel's quarters; and at half past 8 Katte was brought in the Colonel's carriage in the company of the AD and the guard to my father in the Gens d'Armes guards house, with the order: he was now responsible for the prisoner with his head, to be transmitted from one officer on guard's duty to the next.
When Katte was transported to Küstrin, my father took leave of him with the words: j'espére de vous revoir bientot; and (Katte) replied: Non, mon ami, le Tyran demande du sang. He gave my father some books as presents in which he'd written his name, as a souvenir, and I still own some of them.
Spaen was arrested the very same day at Potsdam by Colonel von Kneseback. After Katte's death, he was casheered, and brought to Spandau for a yar; immedately after his release, he went to the Netherlands to serve there, and died in the year 1768 at his country estate Bellevue near KLeve, as a Generalmajor in Dutch service. He told everyone that the Crown Prince had planned to go to England in order to marry an English Princess; and that, if Katte had managed to escape, he himself would have lost his head for sure, since the raging King would have demanded another sacrifice. Frederick the Great had done nothing for Spaen after his ascension; but when he travelled to Kleve in the year 1763, he did take lodgings with General von Spaen, was very gracious and confidential towards him, reminded him of stories of their shared youth, but did not mention the year 1730 with one word; which is why General von Spaen used to joke that the King had an excellent memory right up to 1730.
Keith had been in Wesel when the Crown Prince was arrested. The later found means and ways to send a note to him, on which he'd written with a pencil: Sauvez-vous, tout es découvert. Keith recognizes the handwriting, goes to his stable, puts his saddle on his horse himself and under the pretense of a leisurely ride he happily leaves through the Brün Gate, from which he gallops until Dingden, the first village belonging to Münster, one mile away from Wesel; from there, he hurries through upper Wesel county straight the The Hague, where he goes to an ambassador - I forgot whether my father said it was the English or the French ambassador -, tells him of his fate, and pleads for his protection. The envoy promises said protection to him, and escorts him personally to the mansard roof, and orders his valet to serve this gentleman exclusively, and not to tell anyone else that there is a stranger lodging in this house. The envoy advised Keith to go to England and from there to Portugal, where foreign officers were sought after.
Meanwhile, the King was angry to the utmost degree that Keith had escaped him. At once Colonel von Dumoulin, later General lieutenant von Dumoulin, had to take up the pursuit of Keith, and he was given a letter to the King's envoy at the Hague, which ordered the later to assist Dumoulin in demanding Keith should be surrendered. Dumoulin and Meinertzhagen learned that one day a foreign officer had arrived and had gone to the envoy in question, without ever having been seen again. Their spies told them that in the mansard roof of the envoy's house, light was burning late at night, and that this room had not been used before. From these circumstances they concluded that Keith was hiding at the envoy's, and now their spy didn't let the envoy's house out of his sight. The envoy learned of this and that Keith's habit of reading late at night had given him away.
The following morning, the envoy came to Keith and told him: You are betrayed. Your King has spies after you, so be ready, I'll bring you to Scheveningen today, and everything there is ready for your transport to England. In the evening, he brought Keith in his own carriage to Scheveningen, and gave him letters of reccomendation for London, and didn't leave him until he saw him depart on a fisherman's boat. Keith happily arrived in England, from where he went into Portueguese service armed with reccommendations from the court. A few days later, Dumoulin learned by accident that Keith had escaped. He had gone to Scheveningen in order to see the fishermen arrive and was surprised that they dared to brave the sea in such little boats. One of the fishermen told him: With such a boat, we even make the trip to England; I'm just returning from there, and have transported a foreign officer. Dumoulin demanded a description of the officer, and from the circumstance that said man had been crosseyed, he concluded that it had been Keith.
Keith returned to Berlin in the year 1741, was appointed Colonel lieutenant and Master of the Horse, and became curator at the Academy of Sciences. My father knew Herr von Keith very well, and was told by him the way of his escape. V. Hertefeld."
cahn,blue was Prussia's color - Preussisch blau - while red as you probably know was what the Brits wore in this era. Hence FW's thing about the colors.
In the summer of the year 1730, shortly before the King undertook the journey with the Crown Prince which was to lead them through the Empire until Wesel, where the Crown Prince had intended to escape to England, followed by the known unfortunate results, Quantz - - Nicolai spells it Quanz all the time, btw - , too, was in Berlin, in order to play with the Crown Prince sometimes early in the morning around 6 am, but usually always in the afternoon from 4 until 7 pm. The discontent between the King and the Crown Prince was already very high at that point, and the Prince back then sought to be the opposite of what his father was in most things. In the morning, he had to submit to force as far as his exterior was concerned. The tight uniform, the simple curled hair, the stiff tail, the serious soldier's step weren't to his taste, but he had to accept them. Only after lunch, once he was left in his rooms on his own, he wanted to live there as he pleased. Thus, he usually had his hair styled according to the then current fashion, used a Haarbeutel and wore a dressing gown made of golden brocade; and thus he studied and played the flute.
The Crown Prince was dressed in this fashion one day, and Quantz was playing with him, when suddenly the later doomed Herr von Katte, the Crown Prince's favourite, hurried into the room and frightened reported that the King was coming and was already very close. Now the Crown Prince's passion for books and music had not been hidden to the King. Both were repellent to him, and he wanted to surprise the Crown Prince. Katte took the boxes with the flutes in the greatest hurry, and the scores, took the extremely frightened Quantz by the hand and jumped with him and the boxes in a small cabinet where they usually stored material to heat the stoves with. Here, they had to remain for over an hour, and Quantz, who told me the whole story himself, trembled, even more so since he was wearing a red coat; a color which the King hated. The Crown Prince had dressed into the uniform in the greatest hurry, but he couldn't get rid of the Haarbeutel as quickly, and thus it is easy to guess how disturbing this encounter must have been. The King soon discovered the hidden shelves behind the tapestry where the books and the dressing gowns were kept. The later, he had thrown into the fireplace at once, as for the books, he ordered them to be sold to the bookstore owner Haude. The later kept the books as a service to the Crown Prince, who ordered them to be taken to him one by one, according to his needs, until his complete library could be restored to him.
Quantz finally was freed from his tight corner once the King had left; but he was extremely careful during his subsequent visits to Berlin; he especially took care never to wear a red coat again, but only a grey or a blue one.
Dedicated to Charlotte, and the dedication mentions having talked to her, too, about her noble brother. Reminder: Niicolai was bff with Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, writer of some of German's most enduring classic plays and theoretical essays, who had ended up as Charlotte's librarian in Wolfenbüttel. The preface also mentions his buddy Dr. Zimmermann encouraging to publish, which is of course deeply ironic in hindsight, since they're about to fall out. Another motive for being a Fritz fan, err, an intense scholar of the late King's character and life, Nicolai gives is that he grew up in Fritz' Prussia, all the ideas he has about enlightenment etc. were formed there, he would not be who he became without Fritz. Aw. As I told you earlier, his three main sources named in the introductions are the Marquis d'Argens, Quintus Icilius and Quantz, all of whom he had befriended. As for Charlotte, she even provided Nicolai with two of Fritz' letters, one he wrote to her after the death of her son Leopold, and the other just six days before his own death, which Nicolai prints here for the first time. (In the French original.) He promises to the readers that if he gets new information contradicting anything he tells in his first volume, he'll include it in the subsequent ones (and will keep the promise, as we've seen.)
The condoling letter is very Fritz (in a mild way way, I hasten to add): we must all die, alas, be a philosopher, accept it, even though I totally feel your pain as a tender mother, live for me, you are the happiness of my life.
After reprinting the two letters to Charlotte, Nicolai tells the reader all about D'Argens, how much he rocked, and why he was Fritz' worthiest friend. Nicolai admits D'Argens was an excentric and a hypochondriac, but chides the people laughing at the Marquis for all the clothing he put on himself, saying they should consider how someone born in warm, sunny Provence would feel in freezing Berlin. He also praises the Marquis as a tender husband and the Marquise as a wonderful wife and attacks another Councillor Adelung, who recently published an encyclopedia about learned men, who claims that D'Argens had separated from his wife the ex ballet dancer. Nicolai (correctly) says this is pure slander and that the Marquise was with D'Argens till his death and still lives in Provence as an honored part of his family. (Correct. Also, we've seen EC reply to her condolence letter upon Fritz' death, remember?) After some more general D'Argens characterisation, we get the dissing of everyone else form the table round which I already paraphrased and summarized for you. Here it is, and it's probably fair to say that this must be what D'Argens himself thought about his fellow knights of the Sanssouci table round:
Darget was an honest man who however felt burdened by having to stay near the King, and who was homesick for France; he highly esteemed the King, but he did not love him. De La Mettrie wasn't really held in high regard by the King. Instead, (Fritz) regarded him as a Clown who could amuse him entre deux vins now and then. De La Mettrie behaved very undignified towards the King; not only did he blab everywhere in Berlin about everything that was talked about at the King's table, he also narrated everything twistedly, with malicious addenda.
(Reminder: according to Voltaire, De La Mettrie was his source for the orange quote from Fritz.)
He especially liked to do this while dining with the then French envoy, Lord Tyrconnel, at whose table he died. Algarotti, a very subtle man and very subtle politician, was pleased by Friedrich's company because the later was a King and a man of wit. The King held him in high regard and loved him very much for his good qualities; but Algarotti was more concerned with the esteem he gained by the King's friendship and did not love the King, which the later eventually realized. Maupertuis, whom the King esteemed for his scientific abiliities and pleasant manners, was full of quirks and pretensions, and envious of everyone for whom the King had as much as a kind word, for he thought he'd lose whatever the other gained. He was never satisfied, and consequently caused great irritation to the King whom he annoyed with his quirks and who would have liked to see him content.
Voltaire, although the greatest writer of them all by far, was the most ungrateful towards the King. He was jealous of everyone whom the King preferred. His utmost bitterness resulted from believing the King didn't distinguish him enough from the other scholarly favourites. Full of pride and petulance, he often when everyone was in great spirits lashed out against the others in the King's company, which displeased the King himself not a few times; two times, when Voltaire had been too insolent, the King had to speak as a King, and Voltaire, as proud as he'd been, was now immediately humbled. But he avenged himself through impudent and partially false stories he spread behind the King's back.
(Footnote from Nicolai here: D'Argens once told me with the vivaciousness of a Provence man about Voltaire: Le Bastard a de l'esprit come trente, mais il est malicious come un vieux finge.)
(Only partially false stories, though, Nicolai? I can't help but note which ones you don't go on to refute....)
He boasted about correcting the King's writings, which as D'Argens has assured me wasn't true, except for individual words or sayings very occasionally, and yet (Voltaire) talked with contempt about said work. It is certain that Voltaire made secret copies of the King's poems which had been entrusted to him in the strictest confidence, and that these poems first became known through him against the King's strict will. Thus, the King hasn't been wrong to have taken these copies from him in Frankfurt, for otherwise even more of them would have become known. The King did appreciate his extraordinary talent and loved him more than he ever deserved. As early as the Seven Years War, the King was corresponding with him again, and apparantly on good footing. From a distance of a hundred miles, this seems to have worked; but close up, it would have soon be over, and not through the King's fault, but solely Voltaire's. D'Argens said: Le Roi veut tacher de se faire aimer de lui, mais il ne réussira pas. It is telling of the Marquis D'Argens benevolent and agreeable character that he did not argue once with that impudent man while they were both around the King.
And then we get Nicolai going on some more about how all these foreigners of the first 15 years (except for D'Argens) were purely exploitative and unworthy of poor, poor Fritz, who thought he could recover with them from the burdens of rulership. In his assurance that D'Argens was worthy and best beloved, Nicolai has to navigate around the fact that Fritz mocked D'Argens, too, and not a few times, but he assures his readers this had nothing to do as to why D'Argens eventually left, that was just for his health, and he's also sure that Fritz had resolved never to make jokes at D'Argens' expense again and D'Argens totally would have returned to the King's side when, alas, he died. Nicolai argues that the fact Fritz kept corresponding with D'Argens throughout his greatest trial, the 7 Years War, on a nearly daily basis shows how close the two men were, and how Fritz trusted him more than any other, while the fact D'Argens never schemed against anyone else, and kept all that Fritz entrusted to him secret, shows his worthy character. According to Nicolai, he locked himself in a room whenever a Fritzian letter arrived to read it on his own, and also that people peeping through keyholes (?!) saw repeatedly that D'Argens took off his two caps which he was otherwise wearing all the time before reading the letters.
Among the D'Argens anecdotes Nicolai tells is also the one about Fritz' non- public arrival in Berlin post war and D'Argens reaction to it, which Lehndorff writes about at the time, and the quote Nicolai gives of D'Argens' comment is literally the same Lehndorff notes down in his diary (which Nicolai can't have looked up); it's always neat when two independent sources back each other up on something.
Here's a story I hadn't seen anywhere else: When the new palace next to Sanssouci had been finished, the King had prepared an apartment there for the Marquis. One day he said very gracefully: he wanted to show the new apartment to (D'Argens) and the Marquise himself, and therefore invited them over for tea. Thus it happened; the King was in high spirits, showed them every detail of how comfortable their new rooms were, and at last said in the bedroom: he didn't want to stay too long, but wanted to leave the Marquis to his comfort and his nightcaps; and with a funny compliment, took his leave. Here Nicolai adds a footnote: As the Marquise was the sole woman to actually live in one of the King's palaces with her family, he wished her a new heir in this new apartment.
(In conclusion: frat boys are eternal.)
Then Nicolai gets nationalistic and swears that not only did D'Argens clue into the fact that German literature had started to happen (unlike Fritz), but that whenever someone French showed up in the hope D'Argens would get him a job with Fritz just because they were countryman, D'Argens said he wasn't French but had the honor of being German.
Finally, Nicolai uses the opportunity to pitch a work of his own. Due to his friendship with D'Argens, he had translated D'Argens Lettres Juives into German, which he said pleased the Marquis muchly, so much so he even when getting the proofs added some new passages. So the German edition of Lettres Juives has exlusive new text material, readers! Buy it!
Moses Mendelsohn was introduced to the Marquis via Nicolai and they became friends. The saga of the Schutzbrief unfolded, and it's worth giving in totem, not least because it shows the status quo of Jewish citizens in Frederician Prussia, so, translation time again.
My late friend Moses Mendelsohn met the Marquis through me around the year 1760, and became very fond of him due to hte later's good nature and naivite. For the Marquis' part, he esteemed the worthy Moses very highly, and they occasoinally had interesting discussions about philosophical subjects as well.
Now back then in Berlin lived a Jew named Raphael, a friend of Moses Mendelsohn's. He wasn't working in trade but solely as a teacher of languages, for he was fluent in French, Italian and English. Through various open speeches against some Jewish superstitons, he incurred the wrath of the rabbis and senior Jews, who wanted to expell him from Berlin. In order to get him some protection, Moses Mendelsohn introduced him to the Marquis, who became very fond of him, engaged him as a teacher of Hebrew, talked with him about literature on an almost daily basis, especially of German literature, and referred to him as his "angel Raphael". This was enough so that the Jewish Elders did not try to attack him outright.
During the conversations with Raphael, the Marquis also talked about tolerance. He expressed his amazement that intolerance should still exist in the state of Frederick the Great. He believed that the Jewish Elders had wanted to exploit the King's absence in order to banish Raphael from Berlin. He was therefore not a little amazed to learn that the Jewish Elders didn't just have the right but indeed the obligation by law to expell any Jew who did not either have a Schutzbrief or was working for a Jew with a Schutzbrief, without any other recourse to the law, within an hour of the police having received the first complaint about him.
(Footnote here from Nicolai: This happens in every city where a Jew does not have a protection privilege - Schutzprivilegium -, and so every foreign Jew is brought to the borders of the country at last. The point of the law is to make the Jew return to his place of birth where he has that protection. Raphael used to tell me: "I was born in a Polish village which was burned down. So I don't have a place of birth.")
The Marquis still couldn't understand that this law should be used without differentiation, and at last asked: "But our dear Moses surely would not fall prey to this?" Raphael replied: "Indeed he would. He only is currently tolerated because he's in the service of the Widow Bernhard. If she were to dismiss him, and he can't find another Jew with a Schutzbrief who takes him into their service, then he'd have to leave the city today if the Jewish Elders should denounce him to the police." The Marquis was indignant. The noble Marquis could not bear the thought: that a philosophher, such a wise and learned man whom every man should highly esteem should be in daily danger to be humiliated in such a fashion. He did not want to believe it until Moses himself confirmed it to him, adding in the calm, noble manner that was his: "Socrates proved to his friend Kriton, too, that a wise man has the duty to die if the laws of the state demand it. I thus have to consider the laws of the state in which I live as benign by comparison, since they would only expell me, if in lack of another Jew with protection one of the trade Jews plying their trade in the Reezengasse won't take me into their service."
The Marquis was stunned to the utmost by this matter; and he resolved to write to the King about it even while the 7 Years War was still going on. He could barely be kept from doing so but at last accepted that this was not the time.
Once peace had been made, the Marquis thought about the matter and demanded that Moses Mendelsohn himself should write a petition which he would then personally give to the King, even though he otherwise never handed over petitions. Moses at first didn't want to do it. He said: "It pains me that I should have to ask for the right of my existence, which should be given to every human being living as a decent citizen. If the state sees cause to tolerate people of my nation only in very limited numbers, why should I be privileged among my brethren to demand an exception?" However, Moses Mendelsohn's friends pointed out to him that he was the head of a family who had to take this step for their sake, as they depended on him. He finally was persuaded.
(Nicolai gives the full text of the petition.)
The Marquis handed over this petition himself in April 1763; but Moses received no reply. We were all thunderstruck by this; and I have to admit that the otherwise very gentle Moses was bristling, and accused us who had talked him into making this step of having acted wrongly. The matter kept hanging for a few months as the Marquis assumed the favour had already been granted, while Moses didn't want to do anything more, and didn't want to tell the Marquis about it, either, who was living in Potsdam. At last, in July 1763, the Marquis talked to one of Moses' friends about the matter and of the protection privilege which surely had been granted to Moses by now. The friend just shrugged and said that the King hadn't even bothered to reply to his petition. The Marquis didn't want to believe this; and when others confirmed it to him, he became very angry and exclaimed with his usual vivaciousness: "This is too much! That's not how I know him! But if he did this, he won't have done so without consequence from me!"
When the Marquis visited the King that evening, he started to chide him as soon as he had stepped into the room. The King, who didn't know what he was talking about, showed his amazement. "Oh!", the Marquis exclaimed, "Sire, you are otherwise known to keep your word! You know I demand so rarely something from you. Now I have asked a favour from you, not for me, but for the most righeous worthiest man. You promised to grant it! This is too wrong! I must be discontent!"
The King assured him that Moses had received the protection privilege. The Marquis swore Moses had never received an answer to his petition. At last, it became known that a mere misunderstanding was at the bottom of this. The King said that the petition had to have been lost through an unusual accident. Moses should write another petition, and he would order the protection letter to be written for him. "Very well, Sire," said the Marquis, "I will create this petition with my own hand. But don't lose it again." So Moses after the Marquis' repeated requests wrote another draft of his petition on July 19th, and the Marquis added to it in his own name: "Un philosophe mauvais catholique supplie un philosophe mauvais protestant, de donner le privilege a un philosophe mauvais juif. Il y a dans tout ceci trop the de philosophie, pour que la raison ne soit pas du coté de la demande."
Consequently, Moses received his letter of privilege on October 26th. The administrative treasury demanded a thousand Reichstaler of him as expenditure according to law. The King handwaved this sum in the following year, 1764. In the year 1779 Moses out of love for his children supplicated the King (to extend the privilege to them).(...) This, the King denied him. But King Friedrich Wilhelm II. has granted it upon the petition of the philosopher's widow in the year 1787.
The most depressing aspect? The only one aware that the law itself is wrong (i.e. that the crux isn't that exceptions for great thinkers should be made) is Moses Mendelsohn. :(
In order not to finish on this note, here's one last Nicolai anecdote from volume 1:
In the year 1785, the King talked with a worthy man about the manner in which a young prince should be raised so that he could become a good regent. Among other things about how a future regent had to learn early how to use his power, but also how not to abuse it. He added: "Several things by their very nature are of a matter that a regent must never extend his power to influence them. Chief among these: Religion and love!" This is in my opinion one of the truest and most noble thoughts the regent of a great realm has thought or said.
(Or, as Voltaire expressed it: The freedom of thought and of the penis.)
Nicolai volume 2: opens with another promise to be truthful and correct when necessary in the preface, which also says if he'd known Unger would provide the public with a German translation of the Prince de Ligne's Fritz-meets-Joseph memoir (you know, the one which contains among other things the priceless "Fritz dressed in white to spare Austrian feelings" story) , he wouldn't have included his own translation here, especially since Unger didn't cut as much as he, Nicolai, had to. (BTW, Unger's translation is in the volume Mildred just put up in the library.)
Then we get the volume proper which opens with the Ligne memoir in edited form, with Nicolai's annotations. The best bits were already in both Volz and the "Fritz and MT as seen by their contemporaries" collection, so I already quoted them for you.
Nicolai has a major section about FW and music, opening by telling the readers that they may be surprised to learn FW didn't hate music per se, there was some music he liked. True, he fired all the royal musicians he inherited from F1 except for Gottfried Pepusch, whom he made head of the regiment's choir of the Tall Fellows. Said regiment musicians were also the ones he had playing for him if he wanted to listen to music.
(FW: finding a way to save money, look at Tall Men and enjoy music at the same time. Gotta respect that.)
Nicolai next says FW loved Händel, which I had heard before - "Der Thronfolger" has Fritz mention this followed by the sarcastic remark that what this means is that FW can fall asleep when listening to Händel - , but not Händel's operas (opera performance in FW's Prussia? Hell to the no!) per se, just individual arias and choir pieces, which, however, he didn't want to be sung to him but played in an arrangement on the oboe. His favourites were the arias and choir pieces from Händel's operas "Alessandro" and "Siroe", which had to be played for him over a hundred times. And now I have to quote Nicolai directly.
The way these pieces were performed as that the main oboists and their conductor, with the necessary pults and candles, were standing at one end of a very large room, and the King was sitting on the other, completely alone. Now sometimes it happened that he started to fall asleep in the evening, especially if he'd eaten well or if he'd drunk a bit too strongly while the music played. However, one couldn't trust him. For often the musicians, upon noticing he'd fallen asleep, skipped several arias in order to finish earlier. No sooner did they try that he opened his eyes and called "But you're leaving something out". Or he called "The aria - is missing" and sang the beginning of this aria." That's how well he knew Händel's operas by heart. But if he didn't notice, the musicians used to play the final choir especially loudly and strongly so that the King had to wake up for the finale. If he didn't order any further music, the performance was over. But if upon awaking he thought that the music hadn't lasted long enough, he ordered the already performed opera to be played from the beginning, and then they really didn't dare to leave something out.
(Source for these and other stories: Fritz via Quantz who told Nicolai.)
Nicolai mentions Fritz' depressed poems from the 7 Years War (among others, one to D'Argens) and since some of Voltaire's letters have now been printed, including two from that era where he urges Fritz to live, says that a sensitive heart could almost forgive Voltaire his dastardly behavior towards Fritz for the sake of these letters.
Otoh, he attacks "the author of the Vie Privée du Roi de Prusse, most likely Voltaire" for slandering Fritz re: the Battle of Mollwitz, and for others following suit. Reminder, cahn: the issue here is that Fritz was persuaded by Schwerin to retire from the battlefield and the battle was one without him. Nicolai furiously defends Fritz from the charge of cowardice (which I don't think Voltaire makes? He just exaggarates how far Fritz retired from the battlefield from for comic effect?) and says geography alone proves he can't have gotten as far as Ratibor, and anyway, everyone knows Fritz was the bravest! Nicholai then gives an account of the battle and does say Fritz never forgave Schwerin for having made the suggestion or himself for listening, which strikes me as accurate.
As Nicolai likes the Prince du Ligne's memoir about Fritz very much, he only has two mild corrections: one, that of course Prussian officers were all fluent in French and if some spoke German with the Marchese de Lucchessini, it's not because they didn't know French but because Lucchessini is fluent in German, and two, about the Antinuous statue. This is the passage most important for Mildred, and thus it's translation time.
Regarding the arbor in which the beautiful antique bronze statue of Antinuous that originally was brought from Vienna used to stand*
*here Nicolai makes a footnote, correctly stating the previous owners were Joseph Wenzel von Lichtenstein and Prince Eugene, and another footnote to explain that "the now ruling King did not want to expose this statue as well as the two beautiful antique copies from Bouchardon which used to stand near the Japanese house to the weather any longer and thus had them brought to the new rooms in the Berlin town palace"
there is no doubt that the King on hot summer afternoons, when he sacrificed to the muses, often has sat in front of the beautiful antique statue in this cool harbor. But the Prince de Ligne seems to insinuate upon mentioning this statue as well as at other times that the relaxations of the King were solely of a cheerful and sensual manner. One would wrong this great man if one were to assume he'd found his enjoyment mainly in this. True, the merrry spirit of the King, which expresses itself in his writings and especially in his youthful correspondences, would not contradict this assumption. He himself says -
(Nicolai quotes from several Fritz poems praising Epicure)
It was this cheerful mindset which, as I have observed repeatedly, enabled the mind of the great man to endure through the greatest misfortunes and under the strongest concerns. It is perhaps, understood correctly, no more noble philosophy of the enjoyment of life than to open the heart to pleasure and what Horace calls "Dulce desipere in loco", but only to enjoy it on the surface, while going deeply in serious matters. Frederick the Great was able to unite both approaches to a large extent. He knew to enjoy pleasures of all types, but he also could at the appropriate time res severa gaudium. Serious thoughts were with him even in his most cheerful and high spirited hours, for these were only the spice to his serious ponderings. Even the above named statue of Antinous may serve as an example of this. It was there, and he enjoyed the beauty of this wonderful monument now and then; but it wasn't this statue which was the focus of his main attention in this particular area.
Nicolai now explains Sanssouci geography to everyone who hasn't visited and points out that Fritz would have looked at his chosen grave. Which he feels entitled to talk about since Büsching mentioned it first. Nicolai correctly describes the vault and the Flora statue with it and says D'Argens had told him 20 years ago already that Fritz wanted to be buried there, but he, Nicolai, kept mum until Büsching's publication. He then reports that this vault was probably the reason why Fritz called Sanssouci Sanssouci to begin with, and tells the anecdote of Fritz saying to D'Argens "Quand je serai là, je serai Sanssouci". (I.e. this is the original source for that story, mes amies.)
It takes not a little strength of mind to build one's grave in front of one's eyes at one's lonely and peaceful summer house, without letting anyone know and thus without pretensions, and to hide it beneath the statue of the flower goddess. Friedrich thus had always his death in front of him during his lonely summer pleasures, and thus knew how to unite his idea of it with both the cheeful enjoyment of life and the consideration of his duties. He didn't bring the statue of Antinous to this place until long after he had built his vault there. The later thus was much more in his regard than the former, as were his duties more than his pleasures.
Volume 2 also has the dog story I mentioned before:
Just like the King chose among his snuff boxes those he liked best, he chose among his greyhounds the companions of his lonely hours. Those who conducted themselves best were taken with him during the carnival times to Berlin.
(Reminder: The carnival lasted from December til March in Frederician Prussia. As Sanssouci was a summer palace, Fritz spent that time in the city palace in Berlin.)
They were driven to Berlin in a six hourse equipage supervised by a so called royal little footman who was in charge of their feeding and care. One assures us that this footman always took the backseat so the dogs could take the front seat, and always adressed the dogs with "Sie", as in: "Biche, seien Sie doch artig!" (Biche, be good), and "Alcmene, bellen Sie doch nicht so" (Alcmene, don't bark so much!"
Nicolai finishes the volume by dissing Zimmermann's first Fritz publication. From now on, it's war.
Now, Nicolai saying Antinous comes up in Ligne's Fritz memoir made me check out Unger's rendition of same, and the passage in question which Nicolai took as an occasion to correct is:
The King was used to chat with the Marchese Lucchesini in the presence of four or five generals who didn't speak French, and he rewarded himself for the hours in which he worked, pondered and read by visiting his garden, where opposite of the door was the statue of the young and beautiful Antinous.
That's it, and Ligne doesn't say whether he learned this from Fritz while talking to him (he met him more than that one time at Neisse) or whether he observed it himself.
So I had a look at Dr. Johnson’s Fritz essay, and it’s easy to see why Nicolai eviscerates it, but I found several points of interest to us. Firstly, according to the editor and continuator, Harrison, Johnson published this originally in 1756. However, it only covers the years until the end of the Second Silesian War. Now, presumably the reason for the article was the Diplomatic Revolution, Fritz now being England’s ally and the outbreak of the war. However, what it does tell us is a British attitude to Fritz before Fritzmania struck, for which the editor Harrison frequently takes Dr. Johnson to task. Because Johnson is not impressed by Fritz’ claims to Silesia and has a lot of MT praise for the first two Silesian Wars, our editor constantly footnotes to say that events have shown MT to be an ungrateful bitch allying against the country protecting her (England) on that occasion to whom she owes her survival (errr....), and Fritz was entirely in the right re: Silesia, and if he ditched his French allies, well, they had it coming, etc., etc.
As for the Crown Prince years, good lord. Yes, dreadfully ill informed for hte most part, but it’s telling about what made it into the international papers, since Dr. Johnson did not have access to any other source than that. Though he clearly had read Voltaire’s anymous 1752 pamphlet, because one of the few correct things in this essay is his insistence that Fritz married EC solely at his father’s insistence, and that he strongly suspects the marriage is without any sex whatsoever. (BTW, how's that for humiliation: having your marital sex life, or lack of same, discussed by the international press?) Other factoids making into Johnson’s article, if in distorted form:
- Doris Ritter (!) being whipped publically at FW’s orders (Johnson has Fritz having to be present for this) - FW overriding the tribunal sentence on Katte in order to order the death penalty
Otoh, most things FW (other than his thing for tall fellows) really bear not much resemblence to fact. Most of all that Johnson says FW always was busy without any result of that business showing itself anywhere and that he never did anything for his subjects. Now FW was a terrible human being, but there’s a reason why he’s neck to neck with his son for the “Best Prussian monarch” title and post WWII sometimes winning. Taking a broke and poor kingdom and making it a wealthy one, schools, hospitals, land reforms, and of course the complete changeover of the mentality for better and worse, you name it, he did it. Johnson leaves you with the impression that he gained the money by taxing his poor subjects and never did anything with it but bath in it like Scrooge McDuck. As to why he didn’t notice the sheer amount of what FW accomplished in Prussia when no less a person than Fritz pointed it out in his History of the House of Brandenburg: I do suspect Johnson really didn’t read much more than the Voltairian 1752 pamphlet plus some newspaper reports at the time of the Silesian Wars in terms of research because the article was a hash job written under time pressure when the 7 Years War broke out and some publisher wanted Johnson to tell the English public about their new ally.
As to where the “Karl Friedrich” name came from - beats me.
The sleep of the King was supposed to consist only of seven hours in the second half of his life; it actually lasted up to eight or nine hours, partly because he liked to sleep on healthy days, partly because waiting for transpiration, which he regarded as a benefit of nature, made it necessary. In the first half of his life, he was very busy, in a very good mood a friend of pleasures and petit soupers. He often sat at the table until midnight and still rose early in the morning in order to practice the flute and to let soldiers practice at exercising. In his younger years, he never believed he'd get old, and thus wanted to prolong the enjoyment of life by skipping over sleep. He often told the story: "When I was with my father's army at the Rhine, I decided together with some other young people to remain constantly awake and thus to live as much in eight days as others who went to sleep in fourteen. For four days, I was able to endure this through strong coffee, but nature demanded its rights, and I was so feverish through all the coffee and the lack of sleep that I had to stop for my health's sake."
The soupers only lasted until the 7 Years War. The King recognized that the stomach didn't digest as quickly when one got older, and that a commanding general had to rise early; thus, he stopped having supper during the 7 Years War, and never started again. Until the Bavarian War (1778), the King played the flute, and his days were scheduled in the following way.
During the months of November, December, January and February, the King got to bed between nine and ten pm, and rose between five and six am. During this time, no one was with him, nor did light burn in his bedroom; in the antechambre, two common footmen were keeping watch. He was awoken in the morning in the exact minute he had ordered in the previous evening, and fifteen minutes before that, the fireplace in his bedroom was lighted. Depending on circumstances, he either rose immediately or slept a quarter of an hour, half an hour, sometimes even an hour longer. He dressed himself while in bed with stockings, trousers and boots, the rest he put on while standing in front of the fire in the fireplace. For this was lighted in summer and winter time regardless; for the King sweated so strongly that his nightdress and his sheets had to get dried at the fireplace every time. As soon as he'd gotten dressed, he sat down to read from the intake of arriving letters those he was most interested in while his hairtail was combed; the rest, he sent for summarizing and excerpting to the cabinet secretary. After having read all and put it next to himself on a small table, he rose, washed and put his wig and the hat on him which he always wore, except when sitting at a table or when talking to persons of rank, and went to the first adjoining room to accept the report of the AD of the first bataillon there, or to give him some commands regarding the military. He drank a few glasses of water, which during the last years of his life were mixed with Fenchel extracts, and afterwards two or three small cups of coffee, sometimes with and sometimes without milk. Coffee he drank in his younger years very strongly, later in a weaker mixture, but always, for the kick of it, mingled with mustard. During the last years of his life he also ate at different times of the day several small dry bars of chocolate. Otherwise, he rarely indulged in chocolate, and drank it mainly just when he was taking the waters, or if he had been riding out in bad weather, or if he suspected he was due to an attack of gout, and thought the chocolate would help to spread the gout from the torso to the outer extremities. After having drunk his coffee, he took the flute and played on it, walking from one room to the next, for two hours passages he knew by heart.
Once he put the flute away, he accepted, around 9 or 10 am, the summarzing and excerpts from the Cabinet Secretary, read it, ordered the cabinet councillors to him one by one and told them what the reply to the incoming depeches would be, but he didn't lock himself into his cabinet as has been reported. The door was closed now and then but often remained completely open.
Now he finished his getting dressed, which means he took of his nightshirt, put some gellantine in his hair, got himself powdered, washed his face and hands with a towel and put on the uniform which only lasted five minutes if he didn't get shaved as well. In the time between ten and eleven, he told the commanders the password of the day, replied to some family letters, talked to some visitors he'd ordered to come, read out loud to himself, practiced, if time permitted, some concert sections, and went to lunch at 12 o'clock sharp.
The table usually was seated with seven to ten people, and about eight very well filled plates were put on the table, but as for dessert only fruit of the season. Always, beautiful porcellain was used; every guest was at liberty to eat as much or little as they wanted, and to drink as much Mosel or Pontac as they wished. Champagne and Hungarian Wine were only served if the King ordered them especially. The King's usual drink was Bergerac mixed with water; on some occasions, he also drank Champagne or Hungarian Wine.
(Passage of how Fritz with his fondness for spicy Italian and French food at times invited colics.) It's true that the King loved lunching; all his vivaciousness and good mood followed him to the table. He talked nearly exclusively in French there, and those of his guests who didn't understand the language were mere listeners. Conversational topics were different subjects: politics, religion, history, military affairs etc. Occasionally, trivial matters were talked about, and religion was soundly mocked. *
*woeful footnote from the editor, summarized: Fritz, that's how we got the French Revolution and Napoleon, dammit! Often, the table rounds lasted four to five hours, sometimes even longer; just as long, the King kept drinking, and it may be asked whether his heart then was in his tongue. Immediately afterwards, he played the flute again for an hour or half an hour, signed the letters the cabinet had written, went through the menu for the following day with the kitchen, and drank coffee. Once business had ended in the fourth hour, he kept reading until five, at which point the so called reader arrived - he didn't have one who really did the reading until a year before his death - with whom he talked until six o'clock while walking between the chambers and the great hall.
Before the concert, which usually started at 6 pm, he played preludes for about fifteen minutes, then played three concerts in a row, or at times listened to one by Quantz, or to a solo played on the cello, or to an aria sung by a singer, and then the music was usually done for the day. After the concert, the Marquis d'Argens arrived, and after his death Colonel Quintus Icilius. The monarch himself read to them, and after he had ended reading, he debated about the paragraph he'd read with his learned visitors.
These learned conversations usually lasted until 9 or 10 pm. The King then dismissed his companion, undressed himself standing in front of the fireplace except for boots and pants, put his nightshirt on, dismissed his servants with the order to awaken him the next morning, and usually soon fell asleep. Two common footmen kept watch in the antechambre. If the King wanted a glass of water or something else, he rang; it is wrong what the papers wrote, that they had to bring Burgundian wine to the King's bed when he rang. During his last twenty years, the King didn't drink any wine at night, and certainly no Burgundian wine, which he couldn't stand.
(...)
AS the King had scheduled his winter months, he also scheduled the summer. In that time of the year, there was more emphasis on bodily exercise. That's why he went to bed earlier and rose earlier in order to get used again to the early rising for the revues. As the month of February was ending, he ordered himself to be woken a bit earlier week by week and went to bed sooner, so that he could rise for the Berlin revue at 2 1/2 am and sit on his horse at 4 am. On such days, there wasn't much practice on the flute, the letters were only read, and the replies happened once he'd returned from the revue. As soon as the revue was over, he lengthened his nightly rest bit by bit again. In the month of march, he rode out on horseback at 10 or 11 in the morning if the weather was good. Near the end of March or, if the weather was bad, in April at the latest, he left the Potsdam palace and moved to Sanssouci, attended, if illness didn't stop him, five times a week the exercising of the garnison, commanded it in person each time; on the other days of the week, too, he rode at least for an hour.
Near the end of April or in May he went to Charlottenburg and had the Berlin Special Revue presented. On these occasions, he nearly always rode into town, partly to visit his sister, the Princess Amalie, partly to inspect the buildings in progress. Around noon, he returned to Charlottenburg to dine with the assembled chiefs and commanders of the regiments. On May 17 or 18, the big Potsdam Revue was presented. On the 19th, the King rode to Spandau in order to inspect the regiments of his brothers Prince Heinrich and Prince Ferdinand; from there, he rode to Charlottenburg, where he ate and remained for the night. As long as his brothers still appeared with their regiments, he always lunched after the special revue with his brother Prince Heinrich at Spandau. On the morning of the 20th, he rode to Berlin, inspected in passing Kowalsky's garnison regiment, afterwards the other foreign regiments, and arrived around nine or ten at the Berlin town palace. After having done his cabinet work, he went to the great hall, gave the assembled chiefs of staff the watchwords and dispositions, and went to lunch with his guests. The revue took place from 21 - 23rd May in Berlin, afterwards from May 26 - 28 in Magdeburg. Then, on June 1st, he arrived at Küstrin, inspected the dragoon regiments there immediately and held revue the next morning. From there, he went to Stargardt the next day on June 2nd, where on the 3rd and the fourth and in (East) Prussia the revue took place on the 8th, 9th and 10th June. On June 12th or 13 the King usually arrived back at Sanssouci.
From the end of the Prussian journey to the start of the Silesian one, all the ministers of the general directory arrived at Sanssouci, and the yearly budget was concluded. Afterwards, the King drank Eger waters, and lived at the New Palais for ten to fourteen days while his siblings visited him.
(Schöning observes that the King only went to this most expensive of buildings on the ground during those sibling visits, otherwise he much prefered Sanssouci.) However, he only lived in half of it, consisting of three rooms, an alcove and the library; the other half was for the princes, generals and ministers whom the King had ordered to him.
(Schöning says the two rooms at Sanssouci for lunches were too small to host all the officers during the grand revues, which is why Fritz hosted them at the New Chambres instead. He also says Fritz felt so safe at Sanssouci that he didn't permit any of the doors being locked.)
The King had a very good memory, a very eloquent tongue, saw reasonably well things that were near him but needed glasses for anything further away. For reading or writing, he did not need glasses. The flute, he played masterfully as a King; he had knowledge about general basso and composition, and has composed some arias, some concerts and over a hundred solos; he also could play the piano a bit. He performed a superb adagio. The only ones allowed at his concerts were the musicians involved and now and then a few musical connaisseurs. His concerts were simple, but pleasant. The flute was accompagnied by two violins, a viola, a cello, a fagot and the fortepiano. After the King wasn't able to play music anymore, he didn't want to listen to it, either, and only rarely attended concerts.
I remember the "Fritz and Music" author arguing with this statement, and using as evidence the various Berlin newspapers reporting Fritz' regular attendance to various opera performances and concerts in the 1780s (these are the years Schöning is talking about, since Fritz lost the ability to play the flute with the majority of his teeth in the Bavarian war). My speculation: it's a matter of perspective. Compared with the huge number of daily performances, see my previous translated excerpt, Schöning can say Fritz only attended rarely concerts anymore. To normal people, two or three times a week is often.
The King's behaviour towards his servants was very strict; especially if he noticed they were consorting with the other sex. He punished them with harsh words, beatings with his stick or with his fists, arrests or dismissals ,and sometimes he put them in the army.
Footnote from the editor here, in a rare spirit of criticism saying Fritz was wrong to do so, because if you treat the army as a deposit for people you want to punish, you're not making it look attractive and honorable, and maybe that's why Prussia lost against Napoleon. Again, reminder that Schöning himself was among the servants who married.
In his last years, his behavior towards them grew gentler, and he began to make little presents to those who were around him after he had endured illnesses, or at Christmas. Those who had managed to make themselves indispensible received larger presents in those last years, and those he favoured larger ones still.
Insert obvious comment about son of FW repeating patterns of abuse here. Meanwhile, guests who weren't servants:
The King's companions at the table and the scholars who kept him company in the evening were treated very graciously by him and hardly noticed their host was wearing a crown; though he mocked everyone leaving themselves open to it relentlessly. He had a stock collection of anecdotes regarding emperors, kings, and other worthies; these, he told often and kept repeating them, especially when strangers had joined the company who weren't familiar with them yet; meanwhile, the people who were around him for many years couldn't enjoy the repetitions and the often heard tales.
This is pretty much the same which Lucchessini notes down in his diary; that Fritz, like many old people, kept retelling the same stories.
The King's physical exercise consisted of the many slow and fast ridings as well as walks through the garden; even while playing the flute, he was unable to sit still, but kept moving from one room in the next. He often rode from Potsdam to Berlin without using his carriage which followed him. On marches, he always rode; if it was too cold, he went on foot.
Fritz and religion: He used to say "Post mortem nihil est, and that proves that he thought that he didn't believe in the immortality of the soul. He also used to say : Ex nihilo nihil est. So there has to be someone who created the world and everything in it; (...) so he recognized a single God as the creator and beginning of all things. Whether he also regarded him as the ruler of everything, or whether he believed the world had been left to run itself; whether not everything that happened happened by accident; that I can't say for sure. (...) Ever since he's been left to his own devices, one hasn't seen him showing an outward sign of serving God. What he's done during his father's life time, has been force and pretense, and if he afterwards visited churches a few times, he did so either for political reasons or to listen to the beautiful music.
And now we get data supporting a previous theory as to why Fritz didn't want an autopsy; it really was for Mom's reason, for:
Regarding chastity and honesty, the King showed a great deal of shame about his person; he didn't even allow his own servants to see him in the nude, and he never satisfied natural urges in their presence.
(Sidenote: in case this isn't clear, Schöning means he didn't piss or shit in their presence. Now today that's a given, but not so much in the 18th century, or earlier. One of the important offices among the courtiers of Henry VIII., for example, was the gentleman of the stool, who, yes, had to wipe the royal bottom.)
Verbally, on the other hand, he was an utter libertine, especially when sitting at the table with people, when he completely cut loose and named everything by its name.
Footnote from 19th century editor: Yes, that was one of Fritz' darker sides. OMG, if only he had lived in our times where people have learned not to talks so indecently!
Fritz: a good patient? The more pain he felt during his illnesses, the kinder and more graciously he behaved towards those who were nursing him. It was always a certain sign of his impending recovery when he started to be rude to the people he'd been content with while he was suffering.
Good grief.
Now let's talk budget for the kitchen:
The budget for the kitchen had been fixed on 12000 Reichstaler per annum by the King, and he didn't want to change this throughout his life. From this, the following had to be financed: daily eight plates for his table, eight plates for the marshal's table, three plates at noon and in the evening for ten to twelve servants, and cold foot for three to four dogs. If he was visited by noble strangers or by his family, and twelve, twenty or even thirty plates daily were necessary, he did pay for them as an extra expense, as he did for the table food during the masks and revues.
Salary for servants:
It's true that his personal servants received a very low salary. The primary ones received in addition to food and free lodging eight to ten Reichstaler per month; the rest only 8, 7 or 4.
Whereas the dogs:
The King's love for his dogs was extensive. Three or four were always around his person, and of these one was the favourite, and the others were this favourite's companions. The former was always lying next to the King on a chair with cushions and slept in her master's bed at night. The others had to leave the room in the evening, but returned early in the morning when the King was woken up. During the walkings or at the table, they were constantly following the King, who was particularly concerned about the grooming and about the health of his favourite dog. The King's pain when his favourites died was intense. They were buried at Sanssouci at a certain spot in a coffin, and received a tombstone inscribed with their names. In addition to the dogs which were always around his person, he also owned a pack at the palace of Potsdam and in the Jägerhof which consisted of forty to fifty whippets, and were cared for by two hunters, one of whom was also supposed to be an expert in curing dogs. The favourite dog and her companions had a chamber footman as their personal servants, who had to feed them and take them on walks. For their meals, they received different types of roastings, cake, buttery bread rolls, milk and water as much as they enjoyed. Whoever had the misfortune of kicking a dog did not escape without a scolding.
But no, Schöning doesn't tell us what became of them after Fritz' death, either. Women: like I said, Schöning says Fritz regarded them as a necessary evil and with a few exceptions towards whom he behaved "very gallantly and decently", disliked their company, both out of general dislike for females and because he had to dress up and show manners for them. Fritz and languages: Nothing new. I.e. loved French ,hated German, pretended to know Latin but actually didn't except for some learned phrases, read on the classics in French translations, knew a bit Italian due to music.
Time for some comic relief, which also answers one of Mildred's questions. Fritz tries fasting, but not out of respect for the Austrians:
In his younger years, he wanted to find out by a self experiment whether the Roman-Catholics deserved credit for their fasting. However, he decided that it wasn't much effort if you were allowed to eat fish, eggs, butter, cheese and milk; though he did try to live for forty days without the earlier mentioned food, but found it hard, and in order to make it through that time resorted to chocolate.
This isn't fasting, Fritz, but you do you. And finally, we got to something depressing: Regarding the fourth commandment - "Honor your parents", in case anyone forgot - THe King has to be a rare model for humanity. As much as he pondered about the human race, as much did he venerate the memory of his father; and if on rare occasions he did talk about the later's rages, about his lashing out temper or other flaws, he always tempered this with moderation and concern. That's how he talked about his mother, too, and his siblings, and this love for his parents and siblings does his ashes much credit. Only about his grandfather did he talk very differently. He described him as prince full of pride, puffed up and completely driven by vanity, and often stated angrily that (F1) could have saved Prussia from the Plague if he'd used 100 000 Reichtaler on it. Moreover, he called him an upstart King and a Louis XIV wannabe.
Grandpa F1, who treated his wife and kid gently, loved culture and never hit anyone in his life: stunned.
Voltaire: Well, I liked him and told Fritz so.
MT: I know someone who is a Louis XIV wannabe, and it wasn't the grandfather of the current Margrave of Brandenburg who wouldn't have a royal title if not for said grandfather.
I've been rereading the Suhm letters since felis turned up a professional translation. I had hoped to get through the entire volume by now, but I didn't sleep well all week, so I'm about halfway through. These are my mostly trivial notes so far.
1) Fritz, early in the correspondence, thanking Suhm for the Wolff translation, writes:
[My] soul, feeling it owes to you only, after God, its existence...
Which immediately struck me as parallel to the Duhan letter where he writes:
I owe you more, finally, than the author of my days: He gave me life in his young love; But he who teaches me, whose reason enlightens me, He is my nurturer, and my only father.
So, FW gets credit for giving Fritz life, Duhan his mind, and Suhm his soul. <33
2) A footnote by the helpful editor tells me:
Suhm had previously written to the prince, telling him he amused himself by sawing wood, in his moments of recreation.
(Many of Suhm's letters weren't printed, apparently, sigh.)
Sawing wood! This I confess I had not expected.
Fritz has brought it up twice so far.
In the first time, Fritz reported that he's been getting more exercise at the advice of his doctor, but not to fear--he's giving up sleep so as to have more time to read! Why horseback riding? Well...
I was near becoming one of your sect, and to have set about sawing wood, but the fine weather made me determine otherwise.
*g*
Then, when Suhm tries to convince Fritz not to give up sleep (he does the thing that Fritz does in condolence and get-well-soon letters, which is "You must take care of your health for the sake of other people! Both because you're a prince and because people love you!", Fritz replies,
When a man knows what you do, and when a happy genius aided by treasures drawn from the study of the belles lettres, has elevated him to the point of perfection wherein I see you shine, he has full permission to saw wood and to give himself leisure. But when he only begins his course, he ought not to stop at the first step, but rather to sink down than not attain the desired end.
"Stop trying to talk me out of being a workaholic!" Fritz concludes.
FW: My son hates everything which includes effort and work.
Us: *facepalm*
Anyway, I now have this lovely mental image of Suhm sawing wood and Fritz considering it!
3) Another editor's footnote tells me that FW started a commission to look into Wolff as early as 1736, and that he was proclaimed innocent. Do we know if this is true? I ask because we had tentatively concluded that FW started reading Wolff in late 1739 after Fritz had encouraged AW to read Wolff, and maybe AW convinced FW that Wolff was worth reading.
4) Fritz refers to "morality" (French 'morale') in a context that makes it clear that it refers to Stoicism in the face of misfortunes. He's comforting Suhm over the latter's financial misfortunes that are forcing him to look for a job (the horror!)--this is right before he gets the St. Petersburg posting--and after giving some Stoic advice, writes,
How easy, my dear Diaphane, it is to give this precept, and how difficult to follow it! I know that a heart preyed upon by chagrin in the bitterness of its grief, is little flexible to the remonstrances of morality.
This is relevant to our interpretation of the line in the mystery affliction letter to Camas that goes, "I beg you to take part in [my troubles], and not to preach to me either a morality beyond my reach, or a heroism which renders me insensitive to the events of life."
I'm increasingly sure that's just a parallel construction, and "morality" refers to Stoic philosophy.
5) I had encountered two explanations for "Diaphane" so far: wordplay on Durchlaucht ("Illustrious", a title given to German princes), according to Hamilton, and Suhm's open-heartedness, according to MacDonogh. I'd been wondering if they had an 18th century origin, and I now see that both of these speculations are included in the same footnote by this one editor.
I still stand by my interpretation, which is backed by Fritz drawing effectively the same comparison, of the sun breaking through his dark moods, about Keyserlingk!
6) Finally, whoever scanned this pdf decided, apparently deliberately, to scan several pages out of order. This is super annoying, and I might fix it in our library copy someday. WTF, scanner.
This is the tv version of a 19th century play; the original title of the play was “Zopf und Schwert”, “Tail and Sword”, the title of the tv movie is is “The Prussian Marriage”, “Die Preußische Heirat”. There are several interesting things about it, to which historical fidelity definitely doesn’t belong. The director was the great Helmut Käutner, who is responsible for several deserved German classics, some of the best 20th century Germanmovies; I can only assume he was short of cash and needed the money in this case. The playwright was Karl Gutzkow, who was one of the rebellious 19th century Prussian folk ending up in exile. He had a very strict ultra religious Prussian Dad and a nervous breakdown from which he recuperated in Bayreuth, so I could see how he would empathize with Wilhelmine. Unfortunately, his empathy doesn’t express itself by writing her as a character with traits beyond “ingenue love interest”. And the story itself is, err, basically the Disney movie we joked about. Here’s a summary for you. Excuse the Terminator jokes, but I couldn’t resist.
Opening scene: cheerful court with dancing people and a fellow playing the flute, who is of course...
John Connor Crown Prince Fritz: BayreuthFriedrich, since you have to leave my exile court at Rheinsberg, here’s your mission: go back in time, save my sister by providing her with books and a French teacher I’m sending her. Also, here’s a miniature portrait of her owned by me. If you show her this, she’ll know she can trust you.
BayreuthFriedrich: Go back in time?
Fritz: Since we’re in Rheinsberg. The rest of the play is clearly meant to be set in 1731.
BayreuthFriedrich: Mission accepted!
Wusterhausen or PotsdamPalace, the film isn’t clear: Potsdam Giants are loudly exercising. Just a few, because a tv budget can’t finance more, and also this was made in the 1971, at which point no one West German was allowed to shoot in GDR territory, so who knows where they filmed.
Sonsine (a young woman): You bastards, do you have to do this so loudly this early in the morning? This wakes up the princess.
Potsdam Giant leader: That’s the point of the King’s orders. We’re supposed to wake her up because she’s been a bad Fritz supporting girl.
Wilhelmine: God, I’m depressed. I can barely use what little French I know to write to Fritz that I can’t accept this French teacher, or Dad will punish me even more.
(She really says “mein bißchen Französisch”)
Sonsine: Courage! Also, talk to your brother’s messenger, he’s hot.
BayreuthFriedrich: Sarah Connor, I mean, Wilhelmine, come with me if you want to live! For starters, accept the French teacher your brother sends you.
Wilhelmine: Let me give you my daily schedule organized by Dad so you see I have little time for French lessons, despite dearly needing and wanting them. If I meet strange men without his permission, it’ll be Küstrin time for me, too.
BayreuthFriedrich: I can’t believe a beautiful princess like you gets treated this way! Take heart, meet the secret French teacher.
Wilhelmine: ...Okay. *returns to her room; they had this conversation in the stairways*
BayreuthFriedrich: I’m in love!
Servant: You’re also summoned to the Queen.
SD: I’m talking with a weird accent that’s supposed to the the Hannover habit of pronouncing “spitz” and “stein” “s-pitz” and “s-tein” instead of “schpitz” and “schtein”, which is what the rest of Germany does. So, who are you again? Right, the Prince of Ansbach, or some other Franconian hell hole.
BayreuthFriedrich: Your daughter Friederike is already married to the Margrave of Ansbach.
SD: Not in this play and movie, she’s not. So, Ansbach Guy, is it true my darling son sent you?
BayreuthFriedrich: Yes; he even calls me Frederic, because we have the same first name, and he wants me to....
SD: ...help me marry my daughter to the Prince of Wales, undoubtedly. You’ve done the Grand Tour, so you must have some useful connections. Get on it! *dismisses him*
BayreuthFriedrich: That was weird. Off to see the King next.
FW: *inspects tall fellows*
FW: *is played by Carl Raddatz, tall himself, former matinee idol, which even with a bit of a fat suit is a problem*
FW: *inspects his younger kids, who are standing straight like the Potsdam Giants, checks out whether they have clean nails and well combed hair*
Younger Kids: *are the wrong gender and age, i.e. two of the three boys are nearly identically old and the oldest, while all the girls are younger than the boys, and three of the girls are smaller than the youngest boy*
Grumbkow & Seckendorf: We’re the incredibly dumb evil stooges of this play. The clever evil schemer is someone else, to wit:
FW’s valet Eversmann: Me! I’m in league with G & S, and we’ve heard rumors about a British diplomat approaching. This means we need a countermove.
G, S, E: Sire, Archduke Leopold the future Emperor is asking for your daughter’s hand!
FW: Not impressed with the fact you’ve been making the Grand Tour for years while your little principality is practically broke and your father keeps building palaces, young man. Still, you probably learned how to throw a party for nobles during your travels. I’m putting you in charge of the festivities. Throw an engagement party for Wilhelmine and... the Prince of Wales, I guess.
“Lord” Henry (!) Hotham: *arrives*
Hotham: I’m the other smart schemer in this play, the good one. Hey, isn’t that BayreuthFriedrich, whom I know from his Grand Tour?
BayreuthFriedrich: Henry! Long time no see. Woe is me. I’m in love with Wilhelmine, whose marriage to Fritz of Wales you’re supposed to negotiate, and even if that falls through, she’ll be married to the future Emperor Leopold.
Hotham: Cheer up, let the master plan. Fact is: there’s one point in the English marriage offer that FW is bound to balk at if I emphasize it properly, to wit, that he’ll allow English exports into Prussia again. If he says no, your hour will come.
G, S, E: Your Majesty, we’ve heard there’s a French teacher in town, sent by Crown Prince Fritz to Wilhelmine, brought here by that Bayreuth fellow.
FW: WHAT. I hate all things French. Arrest the guy and kick him out of the country.
G, S, E: Which one?
FW: The French teacher. The Bayreuth prince leaves as well, but unarrested.
Wilhelmine: *gets French lesson from Frenchman clearly imitating the “Princess Catherine learns English” scene from “Henry V*
Potsdam Giants: Arrest French teacher, throw him out of the country
Wilhelmine: Woe!
BayreuthFriedrich: Let me be your replacement French teacher!
Wilhelmine: Okay?
BayreuthFriedrich: I LOVE YOU.
Wilhelmine: ...This is only our second meeting, but I love you, too.
Evermann: Oh, hi, BayreuthFriedrich. You’re unmasked as a smuggler of Fritz letters and French contraband. You’re also supposed to leave the country.
BayreuthFriedrich: OMG WHAT SHALL I DOOOO! HENRY!!!!
Hotham: Never fear, I’m on the case.
Wilhelmine, FW, SD, Hotham: *meet*
Hotham: reads out the marriage contract clauses
SD: *is indignant about the little dowry Wilhelmine gets*
Hotham: We’re cool with the little dowry, but we’d like you to import our stuff again.
FW: Never. I need to support our local trade. The marriage ist through.
Hotham: Well, that’s inconvenient, since the Prince of Wales is already in town.
SD: Yay!
FW: Not officially receiving him, but if he puts on a white domino (cloak), he won’t get arrested. Also, the marriage is still a no go.
BayreuthFriedrich, hearing about this: Henry, I don’t understand. Whose side are you on?
Hotham: Yours, of course. Listen, get yourself a Prussian uniform and a white domino, and all will be cool. Fritz of Wales is hunting boars in Scotland, don’t worry about him. This is all part of my cunning plan.
Potsdam Giants: *march in front of Wilhelmine’s room, deliver the message she’s supposed to stay put, learn passages of the bible by heart and knit socks for the children from the Berlin orphanage as punishment for the secret Fritz correspondence*
Sonsine: Hang on, one of you soldiers just gave me the eye. This has potential.
*flirts with Potsdam Giant*
Potsdam Giant Eckhof: I’m actually the son of actors who wanted to be an actor myself when I was forcibly recruited. I also play instruments.
Sonsine: Excellent. Play for us now, we have all of Fritz’ instruments hidden in Wilhelmine’s wardrobe.
Eckhof: Well, I can’t play the flute, but the violin will do.
Eckhof: *plays violin while Wilhelmine and Sonsine dance*
FW: *arrives unexpectedly, sees one of his Potsdam Giants play the violin while his daughter dances with her lady in waiting*
FW: What. Eckhof, you’re fired from the regiment. Clearly, you need punishment. Therefore, I order you to join the theatre troupe currently visiting Berlin as penance, thus signalling I’m good at heart and know what’s going on.
Eckhof: Yay! You’re the best, Sire. *exits Eckhof*
Sonsine: *exits at a signal from FW*
FW: So you’re hiding Fritz’ instruments and still go behind my back. Why don’t you children love me when I do everything for you! I wanted my family to prove that royal families can be just like burgher families, and you two keep counteracting me.
Wilhelmine: Sire...
FW: You used to call me Dad.
Wilhelmine: I still love you. But can’t I marry for love?
FW: No.
*exit FW*
Hotham: I’m here to officially take my leave, Sire. Despite efforts from minor evil stooge Grumbkow here, I shall now demonstrate how a true schemer plots. No hard feelings, FW, I’m about to return to Blighty, but I have a farewell present for you. I know this good looking tall young man who really really wants to join your army.
FW: Huh. I think I misjudged you. That’s a thoughtful farewell gift, which I’ll accept.
Hotham: I’ll introduce him to you later. Also, see, we Brits are all about the clubs. And I’ve heard the best club that ever clubbed meets in this very building, smoking, drinking beer and talking about all subjects, headed by the coolest host ever. There’s nothing I’d like more than get an invite for one evening.
FW: Wow, I really like you. Okay, you’re invited.
Eversmann, in an attempt to counterscheme: Sire, shall we roast him? We always need one fellow to mock anyway.
FW: Nah, I like him to much, but I have an idea whom to roast. Okay, Eversmann, if BayreuthFritz is still in Berlin, he is invited, too. We’ll make him our object of fun for the evening!
*later that evening* *Tobbacco Parliament*: assembles, with Hotham and BayreuthFritz as guests
Hotham: Remember, this is your one chance BayreuthFriedrich: *delivers zinger after zinger against Grumbkow, Seckendorf and Eversmann, impressing FW* FW: Okay, young man, ultimate test: Pretend you’re holding an obituary on me BayreuthFriedrich: *takes all his courage* Dear assembly, we’re here to mourn FW, great administrator and reformer and lousy Dad. We all know about the unfortunate affair with the Crown Prince, no need to say more. And not content with that, FW also wants to force his daughter into marriage, never wants asking her what her heart wants! The irony: I do think he loves his family. But he’s poisoned his relationships with them all by himself. So he’ll die respected but not loved, and then the young eagle, the rising sun will ascend and we’ll all root for him! Fritz Fuck Yeah!” Hotham: *for god’s sake, pretend to be drunk* BayreuthFriedrich: *pretends to be drunk* FW: Ooooookay. When you sober up, young man, let people tell you you and I drank together.
*still later that evening* SD: Party time, ladies! I’m hourly expecting the visit of my nephew the Prince of Wales and of my daughter whom I’ve broken out of her imprisonment by following Hotham’s advice and lending her a white domino to wear. *someone knocks at the door* Piano player: *starts to play British national anthem which as far as I know wasn’t yet the national anthem then, “God save the King”* SD: His highness, the Prince of Wales. FW: *enters in white domino* FW: Aha! So this is what you’re up to behind my back, Fieke! *someone knocks at the door* SD: Yes, and you can’t stop me! At last, here he is, his highness the Prince of Wales. Piano: Plays anthem Wilhelmine: *enters wearing a white domino* FW: WTF? *someone knocks at the door* SD: Okay, that’s gotta be him now. My future son in law. Piano: Plays British anthem Hotham and BayreuthFriedrich: *enter, wearing white dominos* FW: WTF? Hotham: Let me introduce your new recruit to you, Sire. *takes off white domino from BayreuthFriedrich, showing he wears a Prussian uniform underneath* FW: Hmmm. A German prince, eager to serve as a simple soldier in one of my regiments, was brave towards me, roasted the guys wanting to roast him... what say you, daughter? Wilhelmine: I LOVE HIM! FW: Okay, Fieke, I think we should let these two marry. SD: ....Only if I get to say the size of her dowry, you miser.
Hotham: Happy ending!
Now, aside from everything else: presumably the one publication Gutzkow must have read when doing research for this are Wilhelmine's memoirs. Can you imagine reading them and coming up with this plot?
Browsing through Nicolai's anti-Zimmermann book is a headache because the printing quality is so smudged and bad (in addition to the font used), and there is a lot of detailed refuting of Zimmermann's numbers and locations which is good research work but not interesting to us sensationalist gossip mongers. (Well, not to me at any rate, as I'm not as systematically minded as Mildred with her maps.) Otoh, after a lot of that I was rewarded by getting to the good stuff, i.e. Nicolai addressing the chapters in which the good doctor voices a) the broken penis theory, b) his Fritz/MT shipping, and c) his Fritz/Barbarina influenced the 7 Years War theory. I have to share these gems:
1.) Zimmermann, as you may recall, is the planet's first Fritz/MT shipper and conspiracy theorist who deduced in his fragments that Fritz wanting to go to France or England was just a cover story, he was really in league with Seckendorf and had arranged to go to Austria where he wanted to marry MT, thus sparing the world the Silesian Wars and the 7 Years War. (Zimmermann calls this the greatest Fritz plan ever and really mourns it wasn't to be.) This is also the reason why Seckendorf and the Emperor later intervened with FW to save Fritz' life, and why FS was at Fritz' engagement party later, gloating over his defeated rival for MT's love and hand.
Unsurprisingly, Nicolai has an easy time making mincemeat of that theory even without access to the secret state archives, not least because he's collected stuff on Fritz for decades, including the publication of the various foreign monarchs' letters to FW on the subject, which he uses to point out that the one from MT's Dad was just standard for the day. He also correctly thinks that Seckendorff would have shot himself and his own influence on FW massively in the foot if he'd conspired with FW's son against him in this way and would never have done that, and points to all the meetings with Hotham and Guy Dickens Fritz had, as well as Keith going to England, as proof England was the agreed upon escape destination. And he argues that Katte's published letters form the pamphlet about his execution (which Nicolai has read, and which apparantly has just been republished) as well as the description Preacher Müller gave of his death point to Hans Herrmann von Katte having been an upstanding, really good Protestant, who would never, ever, have signed on a scheme where his beloved Crown Prince has to convert to the Church of Rome to marry MT. On the contrary, upstanding Protestant Katte would have done anything to prevent this.
...I must say, I'm impressed, because Nicolai does not, repeat, does not have access to the interrogation protocols.
2.) Of course, the part of Zimmermann's "Fragments" everyone talked about wasn't this, it was the "Fritz: psychologically impotent due to botched penis operation after youth of STD, but NOT GAY NEVER, he just faked gay interest to cover for this" chapter. Now, as we've seen, in his own collection of anecdotes Nicolai completely avoids the "gay" question, and when he repeatedly has a go at Voltaire for all of Voltaire's ungrateful slanders, he does not include this one. So I was curious how he'd handle what is a part of Zimmermann's big headlines making argument. Mes amies, he handles it thusly.
Nicolai: Okay. Z. - he always calls him "Ritter von Z" or "Herr von Z", never writing out the last name and always using the "von" to mock Zimmermann's pride in his ennoblement - pretends he had to go against all decency to devote an entire chapter on the state of Fritz' penis in order to defend Fritz from a certain charge he then lists in detail. As anyone with a brain in the publishing industry would know, even if you are refuting a charge, by listing it and talking about it you're just making sure more people hear about it. I therefore will not talk about this charge Z is supposedly defending our glorious King from, save to say all right thinking people would never talk about this subject AT ALL. Now, on to Zimmermann's arguments for a broken penis.
.... He points that if Zimmermann was so worried about this question, he could have simply done what Nicolai and Büsching did, to wit, asked the various people who saw dead Fritz naked in the one and a half hour his dead body was lying around in that state while it was cleaned up for the wake and funeral. (You, Mildred, quoted Banning on this, I think; Banning's source is Nicolai, because the phrasing is almost identical.) He then, as Büsching did, prints signed testimony of the various guys involved to the effect Fritz had a completely normal piece of male equipment without any scarring tissue, meaning there can't have been any operation, botched or not, at any point. Because Nicolai is thorough, he also says readers (if they'd made it so far in this unsavoury subject) might wonder what the various people were doing checking Fritz' genitals close enough to look for scarring tissue. Well, says Nicolai, it's all that bastard Voltaire's fault, because he was the one who started the story of the botched operation in his slanderous writings, which everyone had read, so these guys were curious and had a look.
Nicolai then proceeds in his Zimmermann evisceration by showing Zimmermann indulges in the art of quote falsification, as Zimmermann says Schöning told him no one alive saw Fritz naked ever; by contrast, Nicolai points to Büsching quoting Schöning saying that the King had "große Schamhaftigkeit" about his person and didn't want his servants to see him naked, hence dressed and undressed himself, which is a different kind of statement, as, see above, the people who cleaned up Fritz' dead body as well as the doctors making the cuts releaving the body of the water all saw him naked.
Next, Nicolai addresses Zimmermann's statement of Fritz (believing himself cured from STD courtesy of the Schwedt cousin and his quack of a doctor) indulging in six months of non stop sexual married bliss with EC until the STD returned, for which Zimmermann said there's the testimony of one of EC's ladies in waiting, whom he names by name. Leaving aside that it's extremely indelicate to incriminate a lady this way, says Nicolai, it's not true, either, since the lady in question never was lady-in-waiting to EC. She was present at the Fritz/EC wedding, and she and her husband were visiting Rheinsberg at one point, as mentioned in Bielfeld's letters, which is, Nicolai says cuttingly, presumably where Zimmermann has picked her name from. But he, Nicolai, talked to the late lady's son, Count Such and Such, and here reprints the son's testimony that his mother wasn't EC's lady-in-waiting during the first six months of EC's marriage (or later), and also certainly would never have been as crass and tasteless as to gossip about EC/Fritz marital sex. How, Nicolai demands, would Zimmermann, himself a married man, feel if people were quoted or "quoted" about his own sexual activities with his wife? And EC is still alive! As is one of Fritz' sisters!!!! The thought of poor EC and Charlotte having to read this (invented) stuff is TOO MUCH, how could you, Z!!!!!
3.) On to Fritz/Barbarina. Here, Nicolai doesn't really go on about Zimmermann's "Fritz clearly wanted to, but thought he couldn't anymore, and this explains his entire behavior with her", but chooses as his target for eviscaration another angle, because Zimmermann in "Fragments" theorizes that Barbarina's ditched boyfriend/sort of fiance?? "Mackenzie" whom she'd been with when Fritz had her extradited by Venice subsequently must have been fueled with thoughts of revenge, a revenge he later took when becoming advisor to none other than Lord Bute, making him withdraw British funding from Fritz in the 7 Years War. Thus, the story of the 7 Years War would have been different if not for Fritz' tragically unfulfilled longings for Barbarina and her ditching this Mackenzie for Fritz, sort of. Nicolai mocks this, saying that it could be one of Bute's advisors is called MacSomething or the other, it's a very common name part in GB for someone to have, but there's no proof this is Barbarina's ex. As for the idea the Brits wouldn't have withdrawn funding from Fritz otherwise, pleaaaaaase. And Z, you're again not being a gentleman towards a lady by putting into print Barbarina's old scandals, because Barbarina? Still alive, and wonderful highly respected old lady who has funded a woman's shelter in silesia with her fortune, so there.
So, for context: Zimmermann published this in 1788, one and a half years after Fritz' death. He's not yet fallen out wiith Nicolai, which is noticeable because at one point, he advertises for a Nicolai publication, to wit, the German versions of the comedies written by Catherine the Great. However, he's already engaged in arguments about who's the biggest Fritz fan of them all, and the big publishing rush about Fritz has of course long since started. Nor is this the first time Zimmermann throws his hat into the ring; he's already published about his first meeting with Fritz, in 1771. This book consists of: a narration of his being summoned to Fritz in the summer of 1786 and the several meetings and conversations he had with him, in detail; then another description of his first meeting with Fritz back in the day; then ponderings and warnings about where all this freethinking and religion mocking is leading among people less morally fortified than Fritz and the hope FW2 will do something about this at least in Prussia. Most of all, though, the book is yet another fannish love declaration to Der Einzige König.
Fritz isn't just the greatest King of the 18th Century, he's the greatest man of the 18th Century. And he had the most beautiful eyes ever given to a human being, ever. And Zimmermann was filled full of male tenderness (männliche Zärtlichkeit) when visiting this wonderful human being dying before him, which he also felt for Fritz in happier, healthier days. His tone of voice is the clearest and most agreeable Zimmermann has ever heard. Also, no one was ever so misunderstood as Fritz was. His critics accuse him of never having loved, which is so wrong, and no, Zimmermann isn't just speaking of the dogs. (Though he does tell a touching dog story, about Fritz' current favourite dog having been ill in 1785, when Fritz was doing his last trip to Silesia, so he couldn't take the dog with him but had fast couriers standing by to bring him news of how the dog was doing, and was heartbroken when the dog died.) Zimmermann, like the Salon, has read the printed Crown Prince Fritz/Suhm letters and thinks they're the most beautiful testimony to Fritz' capacity of feeling and love.
All this Fritz fannishness does not, however, prevent him from also plugging his own royal patron, who since he's (while born Swiss) a citizen of Hannover is Frederick Duke of York, younger son of G3, currently studying at the university of Göttingen which his family co-sponsors; Göttingen is about to become the most famous German university. Luckily, Fritz like Fred of York, too; he even tells Zimmermann repeatedly he loves the Duke of York like a son and hopes Fred of York will stay in Hannover after he's finished with uni and be a German, because Brits, eh. Zimmermann's other famous royal patron is none other than Catherine the Great. (Who has just ennobled him in 1786, making him Ritter von Zimmermann.) About her, he and Fritz have this exchange:
KING: You're corresponding with the Empress of Russia? I: The Empress condescends to writing to me occasionally, yes. KING: So the Empress consults you about her health? I: The Empress doesn't need to, since she enjoys excellent health. Literature, philanthropy and philosophy are the themes of the letters with which the Empress honors me. KING: But eveyone knows the Empress is sick! I: The Empress knows everyone believes that. She often jokes about it and once wrote to my: her yearly expenses for her health are thirty pennies. KING: Not what I've heard. I: Your Majesty knows best how unreliable in such a case even secret news from so called confidential sources are. I know perfectly well and very recently that everyting which is said about the Empress being sickly can't be true. The Empress endures the toughest fatiguing trials. As late as last year, she undertook a journey of more than twohundred and fifty German miles, in a great mood and in cheerful spirits. Her good mood doesn't leave her all day. Her busy mind never rests and remains effective. In her hours of leisure, she's recently written by her own hand a new book of laws for Russia's nobility, and a new law book for Russia's towns. She's also started a book which is amazing from a philosophical point of view, a glossary comparing slang and phrases between different languages and dialects. A few of the comedies the Empress herself wrote in order to ridicule superstition, full of sparkling satire and wit I received by the Empress' own hands this very year.*
*footnote: Three comedies against superstitions: 1) The Con Man (Cagliostro), 2.) The Deluded Man, 3) The Siberian Shaman. By Her Imperial Highness Katharina Alexejewna, published by Friedrich Nicolai, Berlin 1788. Buy it, readers!
KING: I admit it, the Empress of all the Russias is a woman of uncommon genius.
** Footnote: The King wasn't just saying that then, he ALWAYS said it. After his death, my dear friend the Marchese Lucchessini wrote to me: L'Imperatrice de la Russie, un temps l'amie du grand Frederic, toujours la rivale de sa gloire, etoit toujours aussi l' object des discours et de 'l admiration de ce roi unique.
(Now Luccessini puts it a bit differently in his diary, where he he lets Fritz give Catherine credit for writing well and also for offering, via future FW2 who has just visited her when Lucchesini writes in his diary in 1780, to mediate between Fritz and Heinrich ("„L‘Imperatrice di Russia scrive bene. Ho apiuto in quesito giorni da altra parte, che la prima conversazione dell‘ Imperatrice di Russia col Principe Reale si piegrava a porre in ricilolo il Re, e il Principe Enrico"), but also says she spent her first few years being ruled by the Orlovs, and also he's still the biggest genius of them all. But Luccessini wasn't just ennobled by her and hoping for future gifts.)
Speaking of Luccessini, since Zimmermann here uses almost identical phrases to describe him as he uses in "Fragments" to describe the unnamed companion of Fritz' last years who had the deepest insight etc. into Fritz and to whom Fritz said he had had sex until directly before the 7 Years War, which briefly led Zimmermann to assume that all the gay rumors could be true until he figured out this was just part of Fritz' distraction campaign to fool people about his tragic broken penis, I think we can settle that Luccessini is indeed the source for this story. Which still makes it sound as if Fritz/Glasow happened to me.
Back to Zimmermann. He isn't just emo all the time, he can describe Fritz' various symptoms with medical accuracy. I also believe him when he says he realised at once that Fritz was dying, and that conversely Fritz refused to acknowledge it until shortly before Zimmermann left. (Heinrich, not a medic, also realised Fritz was dying when he saw him in January that same year and wrote to Ferdinand that if he wanted to see Fritz again alive he should make his visit now. So Zimmermann, a celebrated doctor of his day, definitely must have realised it.) In terms of describing people, Zimmermann is neither a Lehndorff nor a Boswell, which is to say, he doesn't have the gift of bringing them to life with a few sentences; he resorts to stock phrases instead. Take this introduction of Schöning; Zimmermann is in conversation with an unnamed courtier, who told him Fritz has fired his regular doctors before summoning Zimmermann:
"But Sir, how is the King, and who is the King's Doctor?" "The King," he replied, "is very ill, and he has no other doctor but his chamber hussar." "His Chamber Hussar is his doctor?" "Yes, and in between and mainly the King himself is his own doctor. This Chamber Hussar is the King's valet. He's called Herr Schöning. He will now lead you to the King." Herr Schöning entered, and greeted me politely and with good manners, but very seriously, and with great alacrity. In this moment I thought: Next to the King, I need to get along best with Herrr Schöning. So I pulled myself together and said and did what a lifetime of knowing people had taught me in order to study and win over the chamber hussar as much as I was able. Herr Schöning soon showed me his true nature. I found him to be a man of good sense, of feeling and of intelligence, who spoke with great deliberation, yet truthfully, and very well. He seemed to know the King through and through. Soon Herr Schöning showed himself to be a Herzensfreund of Professor Selle of Berlin, whom the King had dismissed for a good while. This heightened the good opinion I had already formed of Herr Schöning, for this wasn't courtier behavior. (To show friendshp for a fired official.) But as it had to grieve him that I, a stranger, replaced his Herzensfreund at the King's side, this thought, or rather this suspicion made us equal and made us be very delicate in all we said and did to each other.
It's servicable as a description, but no more. Oh, and speaking of descriptions, Zimmermann never fails to mention that Fritz has a portrait of Joseph in the last antechambre where he can see it when the door of his study is open. This Zimmernann takes to mean he wants to keep an eye on Joseph. (Coming menace of Europe in Fritz' view, we might add, though Zimmermann probably thinks of Joseph as the son MT and Fritz never had instead.) Though the one Fritz truly loves as a son, as is repeatedly said by Zimmermann in this text, is the Duke of York. (Who will, btw, later marry FW2's daughter, thus concluding yet another miserable Hohenzollern and Hannover marriage.)
I feel a bit cruel for mocking Zimmermann; it's clear he did adore Fritz and was deeply affected by having to watch someone he loved so extensively be painfully ill without being able to truly help. (Because while some of the symptoms can be relieved temporarily, it's clear that he's dying.) But even for the spirit of the age, the mixture of high strung adoration on the one hand and the insistence of being The One Who Truly Understands (while all the other competing publications are wrong, of course) is annoying, and even in this book, before he starts to speculate about Fritz' sex life or lack of same, you can see why he's about to fall out with his fellow fanboys.
Guys, you are TOO FAST, I am so behind in responding to these (though I have been reading them with great glee) but... I guess... I'll respond to them in the next post :P
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
What if: FW vs G2 duel goes go through, ends lethally
Wow, that really was an almost-duel! Now I can't help but wonder what would have happened if they'd actually gone through with it and one of them (*cough*presumably FW) had managed to kill the other!
For starters: who kills who really depends on the method of duelling. We tend to automatically think "pistols", but swords are still a viable alternative, see Hervey fighting his duel with swords, and of course the chances of both parties surviving generally is higher then. However, in the particular case of FW vs G2, swords would have been a death sentence (or at least a humiliating defeat sentence) for FW, given his weight and shape (even if not just sick). I'm not sure how heavy G2 ws in the late 1720s, but neither Hervey nor anyone else mentions constant illnesses, which FW definitely had. So presumably even FW would have had enough sense to go for pistols, at which they'd have been evenly matched. In which case it's 50/50, and either King could have died (or be severely wounded). As to what had happened, let's see.
G2 DIES
Does England declare war against Prussia? Nope. Enough witnesses around to testify it was an honorable duel. Also, new King Frederick I, aka former Fritz of Wales, more likely to send thank you bouqet to FW.
Do the English marriages happen for Fritz and Wilhelmine? Hell no, is my first thought, though on second thought SD could try to spin this as a reconciliation project to FW and try to guilt trip him into agreeing to push it. Otoh, the Brits were never keen on the match in the first place, and now they really have no reason.
Does the 1730 escape attempt therefore still happen? I think so, yes.
What about Hannover family dysfunction?: Well, in the late 20s it wasn't as bad yet as it would become, but Fritz of Wales would still have been long enough around his family to notice no one wanted him, everyone wanted little brother Billy the Butcher, and even if there's now a complete turnaround once he's on the throne, I doubt mother Caroline will ever gain much influence on him. Unless she's really really convincing. Otoh, late 20s is when he's just become friendly with Hervey and they're nearing Orestes/Pylades territory. Therefore, I guess Hervey gets his wish and becomes mentor to the new King, with a nice cabinet office to go with it, and Caroline can say goodbye to her Vice Chamberlain. (He did like and respect Caroline, but not enough to give up a shot at the top for her sake.)
FW DIES
Does Prussia declare war on England? No, see above. Honorable duel. Also secret thank you boquet from SD. And massive attempt to guilt trip G2 into offering his two kids to her two kids now.
Do the English marriages happen for Fritz and Wilhelmine?: Definitely can see that. Not least because MT's Dad Charles might send a "two of my Electors killing each other, WTF? Make sure the new kid on the block won't continue the feud against you, G2!" reprimand. As to whether these marriages will be happy, err. For Fritz, mayyyyyyybe better, because Emily/Amalie of England was brainy, well educated, sharp tongued. Otoh, given SD would have resented any sign of the new Queen getting more respect than she did, and Emily/Amalie would not have been nearly as shy as EC and would not have taken any humiliating silently... For Wilhelmine, see below.
What about Hannover family dysfunction? That stays the same. And because Fritz is the new King in/of Prussia, he's not around to support Wilhelmine. Which means that she still has to deal with in-laws that hate on her new husband, imply that she's faking her first pregnancy, and her husband trying to get her elswhere during labor.
Re: What if: FW vs G2 duel goes go through, ends lethally
Re: What if: FW vs G2 duel goes go through, ends lethally
Re: What if: FW vs G2 duel goes go through, ends lethally
Re: What if: FW vs G2 duel goes go through, ends lethally
Re: What if: FW vs G2 duel goes go through, ends lethally
Re: What if: FW vs G2 duel goes go through, ends lethally
Re: What if: FW vs G2 duel goes go through, ends lethally
Re: What if: FW vs G2 duel goes go through, ends lethally
Re: What if: FW vs G2 duel goes go through, ends lethally
...
...
Re: What if: FW vs G2 duel goes go through, ends lethally
Re: What if: FW vs G2 duel goes go through, ends lethally
Re: What if: FW vs G2 duel goes go through, ends lethally
Voltairean Matters
Same here. And it's really a universal reaction, no matter whether it's Mitchell in his 7 Years War reports or modern biographers. I think people can just about understand their mutual motives until the big breakup in 1753. It's the fact they then went back to writing each other that slays everyone.
Not gonna lie, I had Voltaire on the brain when I wrote this! He went to Mass any number of times.
So he did, and even built a church. ("To God, from Voltaire", wasn't that the dedication?) And let's not forgot the "I'm sorry if you're insulted" repentenance document to penned on his deathbed (which was accepted by the first priest to have a go at him but not by the indignant Archbishop of Paris).
Same. No matter whether the phrase comes from New Brunswick Ambassador, Wartensleben or Manteuffel himself, it's well put, well put indeed. :)
That's why part of me wants it to have originated with Voltaire! Lol.
On the one hand: this is like later 19th century historians deciding unilaterally that the "she cried, but she took" etc. crack about MT and the first Partitioning of Poland was too good to hail from some minor figur and had to come from Fritz, and nearly every biographer until this day following suit.
On the other hand:
Not very scientific, I know! But...Wartensleben overhears it in Cleves, conveys it in his report via super-fast courier to Manteuffel, Manteuffel is Anonymous after all? :P
Sold! Especially since I very much doubt that Voltaire reads anonymous reports sent from Mantteuffel (whoever wrote it) to Brühl and thereafter lingering in the Saxon State Archive. (If you want an argument against Voltaire picking up the bonmot from someone else.)
Re: Voltairean Matters
Re: Voltairean Matters
Re: Voltairean Matters
Re: Voltairean Matters
Re: Voltairean Matters
Re: Voltairean Matters
Re: Voltairean Matters
Re: Voltairean Matters
Re: Voltairean Matters
Re: Voltairean Matters
Re: Voltairean Matters
Re: Voltairean Matters
Re: Voltairean Matters
Re: Voltairean Matters
Re: Voltairean Matters
Re: Voltairean Matters
SD Letters discoveries
I believe my brother will be touched anyway, he loved her and everything that is happening can't please him.
Settles the question Victorian editor of Hervey's memoirs John Crocker raised, as to whether Walpole was right about G2 loving his mother, and whether him not speaking of her signals the depth or the lack of feeling.
Mind you, in any case it's fairly evident that what happened to their mother impacted both SD and G2 - both children when it did - and influenced their own family dysfunctionality later.
By the way, I had no idea that GI visited Berlin in 1725!
This, I did know, as it's a fairly prominent sequence in the 1980s tv two parter Der Thronfolger, which was on Youtube a year ago (but no longer, alas, copyright struck, I guess). It also comes up in Der Vater, and, of course, in Wilhelmine's memoirs.
Fique apparently what she called herself/he called her? And he got nicknamed "Wilke", in case you didn't/needed to know.
We did know, though the usual (current) spelling is "Fieke" (which was then a popular nickname for Sophie in Brandenburg; I've read a novel in which Heinrich actually uses it for Catherine (the Great), even, in the sole scene from his pov of the novel); it also comes up in one of Stratemann's reports: In the entry on March 4th 1730 (one more month to go in SD's last pregnancy), FW tells his "Fieke" that God has given her to him for 24 yers now, he wants to keep her, God can do to the baby whatever he wants as long as he lets FW keep SD.
(Ferdinand: not getting any respect even before he's born. Although that's actually a touching statementby FW.)
Thank you also for linking Droysen and the letter excerpts. Some were known to me from Uwe Oster's Wilhelmine biography, but most were not. Also, your link even has a facsimile of the first letter Wilhelmine wrote to FW, at age 4! BTW, since we've heard a lot about what Grumbkow & Seckendorf weren't to blame for - the marriage to a Habsburg idea - here's something they were definitely to blame for: feeding into FW's paranoia, including the infidelity suspicion, in order to get him against the English marriage project.
„You can be assured that I will not say anything and will not tell him that you wrote to me; if he knew that you hate him and wish him death, he would be in despair and it would kill him. He is already too ill. God take the thoughts you have against him, and you govern your heart. I believe you wrote to me against him out of malice, to see what I will answer you.
He probably did, and yes, that's absolutely a heartbreaking quote. Bear in mind that while SD writes this in 1728, Stratemann doggedly describes a perfectly happy Prussian Royal Family with Disney Dad!
Re: SD Letters discoveries
G1 state visit as per Wilhelmine
Re: G1 state visit as per Wilhelmine
Re: G1 state visit as per Wilhelmine
Re: G1 state visit as per Wilhelmine
Re: G1 state visit as per Wilhelmine
Re: G1 state visit as per Wilhelmine
Wilhelmine being snarky about the English relations
Re: Wilhelmine being snarky about the English relations
Re: SD Letters discoveries
Re: SD Letters discoveries
Re: SD Letters discoveries
Re: SD Letters discoveries
Re: SD Letters discoveries
Various questions from Mildred
Lehndorff's diary entry from March 27th 1754 describes the opera staging and other birthday celebrations for SD, but doesn't say whose idea the production of this particular opera was, just that Lehndorff doesn't think it's a good subject ("Der Stoff ist für einen Geburtstag wenig geeignet"). This entry is in volume 1; I did check volume 2, the cut bits, just in case there's more on the subject, but no, there isn't. (Not least because Lehndorff is through the entire month in one of his relationship downs with Heinrich, and then, having made up, they have a last stroll through the Tiergarten on March 28th, before Heinrich's regular departure for Potsdam ("with the greatest pain, I take my leave of the Prince. His stay in Potsdam is always fatal to me. I have just cause to grieve. This is the world's curse"). This means his attention is, shall we say, divided.
Was 1753 her last visit to Berlin?
I think so, yes. I can't recall mention of a later visit, at least.
How long would the royal family wear mourning for a monarch?
Argh. I honestly don't know. Today's royals wear mourning from the day of death till the day of the funeral, google tells me, but I bet it was longer in the 18th century. Lehndorff mentions the court having to wear mourning repeatedly, including, as I mentioned in my original Lehndorff write up, when Isabella dies, which she does on November 27th 1763, and if they wear morning for not even a reigning Empress Consort but the wife of MT's oldest (not yet crowned) son in the year where the 7 Years War has ended, I'm pretty sure mourning for a reigning monarch is far more elaborate. BTW, I checked that entry again, which is in volume 2 as it was cut in the original volume, and there's a hint about the dates. Because Lehndorff mentions that no sooner has the court finished wearing mourning for Isabella that they have to wear mourning for the Prince Elector of Saxony. This wasn't August III., who had died earlier that year, but his son Friedrich Christian, who never became King of Poland and thus was "only" Prince Elector of Saxony, dying in the same year as his father, in Deecember 17th. So mourning for Isabella was between November 27th and December 17th, and then it's mourning for Friedrich Cristian (head of an enemy state in the recent war). The quote:
Wir tragen Trauer für die junge Erzherzogin. Diese an der Seite eines jungen und liebenswürdigen Gemahls so glückliche Frau, die eines Tages mehrere Kronen zu erwarten hatte und eben im Begriff stand. zur römischen Königin gekrönt zu werden, ist an den Blattern im Alter von 22 Jahren gestorben. Kaum haben wir diese Trauer abgelegt, als wir für den Kurfürsten von Sachsen von neuem Trauer anlegen müssen. Nur sechs Wochen sind feiner Regierung, die sein Volk glücklich zu machen begann, beschieden gewesen.Er starb gleichfalls an den Blattern. Sic transit gloria mundi!
Alas this doesn't tell you how long they wear mourning for their own monarch, of course. Lehndorff wasn't at court yet but a child when FW died, and his diaries from 1786 are a victim of WWII, so he can't tell us how long Prussia wore mourning for Fritz, either.
Do we know the names of any of Wilhelmine's dogs other than Folichon?
I dimly recall at least one other dog mentioned by name in either Oster or in one of the correspondences, but it would take way longer to look it up than I have currently time available.
Re: Various questions from Mildred
Re: Various questions from Mildred
Re: Various questions from Mildred
Re: Various questions from Mildred
Re: Various questions from Mildred
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
Re: Various questions from Mildred
Re: Various questions from Mildred
Re: Various questions from Mildred
Protestant Katte?
Not a big contradiction there. Just think of everyone, from Grandma Sophie Charlotte to Fritz to Leopold Mozart through the 18th century fangirling and fanboying Fénelon's bestseller on how to be a good prince and good young man in general. Only Leopold was a Catholic, the others were all Protestants raised, while Fénelon wasn't just a Catholic, he was a member of the clergy. And of course arch Protestant FW enjoyed his drinking bouts with pragmatic Catholic August. Befriending people who happen to be Catholics is a very different issue from converting, let alone being forced to convert against your convictions, which is what Katte believes to be on the menu for Fritz. And even leaving the strength of his own faith or lack of same completely aside, Katte would have several good reasons to regard such a scheme as a disaster for his friend:
1.) It would deepen the gulf between him and his father and likely cost him the succession.
2.) Even if it doesn't (because a succession change would need imperial approval), and Fritz does become King of Prussia, he'd have a majority of his own subjects set against him. For recent illustrations, see what happened when the Prince of Hesse-Kassel converted from Protestant to Catholic. And of course the Saxons had been anything but thrilled when August did in order to get the Polish crown. When the Duke of Würtemberg, Karl Alexander, converterd to Catholicism after marrying Catholic Marie-Auguste, this was part of a major state crisis in deeply Protestant Würtemberg which didn't get resolved until Karl Alexander's death. Flash forward: when there's a rumor that Wihelmine's son-in-law, Carl Eugen, Karl Alexander's son, will also secretly convert and make her daughter convert, Fritz immediately writes that this would be a terrible idea because all her daughter has after her husband's passion has gone is populariy with her Protestant subjects and she'd lose that if she converts.
And now I have to assume that Fritz lied, presumably because he was getting resistance from Katte on escaping, and Katte's religious fervor at the end was not only sincere but based on strong feelings before that fact.
Now, we know Fritz converting was never an issue. But Katte doesn't know this in 1730, because Fritz is a really good liar, and he doesn't even have to be a hardcore Protestant, but a good friend to Fritz, to find this prospect deeply alarming, if it's any consolation to you. (Also, as to why he finds this more alarming and a better reason for immediate flight than 18 yeas of abuse: betting on FW's early death isn't unreasonable. In 1729, FW was so seriously ill that he wrote to his friend Old Dessauer that he'd prefer dying than enduring this pain any longer. So I can see Katte reasoning that if Fritz endures just a year or so longer, it will all be over. Otoh, if Fritz converts and marries a Habsburg, the political damage from this is permanent, see above, and the spiritual damage likewise, if this is important in any way for Katte.
This said, Katte's reaction to such an idea in combination to his letters to his father and his interactions with the preachers before his death do point to Katte taking his Protestant faith seriously, or at least being hard enough imprinted on it to fall back on it when faced with the prospect of his impending death. But if you want more arguments for Katte being at least a relaxed Protestant with doubts before November 1730, well, here's another example of a childhood imprint of "this faith is vile" surviving far beyond believing in the other faith: good old Voltaire. As Orieux points out, his initial reaction when hearing about the Calas affair, in the version most people outside Toulouse did (to wit: Protestant father kills his son rather than let the poor boy convert to Catholicism), is: "Wow, go figure that Protestant bigots are still worse than Catholic bigots. As can also be seen by the fact Protestant fundies are anti theatre!" (The last never fails to crack me up.)
It also suggests that the reason Fritz couldn't come up with a clever answer when put on the spot at the trial was that he wasn't expecting this lie to come back and bite him. He may have blurted it out to Katte and forgotten he even said it?
Very likely. It wasn't one of his real reasons,and so he forgot about it once it had worked. That Katte, otoh, did remember, and brought it up on his own initiative, shows he took it very seriously.
Here's another aspect, though: how did Fritz feel when discovering that his lie had had such an impact on Katte (especially in combination with receiving the Punctae later)? Might this cause some hastily repressed resentment that later shows itself in the remark to Grumbkow re: Katte?
Re: Protestant Katte?
Re: Protestant Katte?
Re: Protestant Katte?
Re: Protestant Katte?
Re: Protestant Katte?
Re: Protestant Katte?
Italian Affairs
Apparently intending to make only a brief visit to the Continent, Farinelli called at Paris on his way to Madrid, singing on 9 July at Versailles to King Louis XV, who gave him his portrait set in diamonds, and 500 louis d'or. On 15 July he left for Spain, arriving about a month later. Elisabetta Farnese, the Queen, had come to believe that Farinelli's voice might be able to cure the severe depression of her husband, King Philip V (some contemporary physicians, such as the Queen's doctor Giuseppe Cervi, believed in the efficacy of music therapy). On 25 August 1737, Farinelli was named chamber musician to the king, and criado familiar, or servant to the royal family. He never sang again in public.
Farinelli became a royal favourite and very influential at court. For the remaining nine years of Philip's life, Farinelli gave nightly private concerts to the royal couple. He also sang for other members of the royal family and organised private performances by them, and by professional musicians in the royal palaces. In 1738 he arranged for an entire Italian opera company to visit Madrid, beginning a fashion for opera seria in the Spanish capital. The Coliseo of the royal palace of Buen Retiro was remodelled, and became Madrid's only opera house.
On the accession of Philip's son, Ferdinand VI, Farinelli's influence became even greater. Ferdinand was a keen musician, and his wife, Barbara of Portugal, more or less a musical fanatic (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"). The relationship between singer and monarchs was personally close: he and the queen sang duets together, and the king accompanied them on the harpsichord. Farinelli took charge of all spectacles and court entertainments. He was himself also officially received into the ranks of the nobility, being made a Knight of the Order of Calatrava in 1750, an honour of which he was enormously proud. Although much courted by diplomats, Farinelli seems to have kept out of politics.
Talk about a second career!
I was thinking about Mitchell and Algarotti being lovers, and Mitchell putting up his glamorous Italian lover for sponsorship. :D
Oh, I was thinking about that as well. Especially since when Mitchell and Algarotti met, Mitchell was just another Brit (Scot, to be precise) touring Italy, no one of influence (though clearly someone with enough money to stay abroad for years), with no position at all (having left Scotland at age 18). So in this case, a connection Algarotti made without knowing it would give him anything in terms of professional benefits. Then they reconnected during Algarotti's first visit to England when he was staying at Mitchell's before becoming involved with Hervey and Lady Mary. However, clearly they enjoyed each other enormously, given Algarotti years later, after he's already member of the Royal Society (i.e. Mitchell has done what he can) and is now mainly sponsored by Lord Hervey when in England, writes the "you shall be the tastiest dish at our supper" letter. (Which he did when returning from Russia for his as it turned out final trip to England). (BTW, the reason why Algarotti was visiting Russia as part of the British delegation was the wedding of Annna Leopoldowna to EC's brother which would result in all those doomed children and tragedy all around.)
...I still like Mildred's idea that when Fritz shows Mitchell his poetry in the 7 Years War, Mitchell offers to beta that Algarotti orgasm poem for verisimilitude. :)
Re: Italian Affairs
Re: Italian Affairs
Re: Italian Affairs
Jeune Voltaire
Trailer
Wiki entry
Now if ARTE (= French-German tv network) should adopt it, I'd have a shot at watching, otherwise it's probably hard to come by. Stay tuned! The cast includes Philippe d'Orleans the regent, his daughter, Voltaire's buddy Richelieu, and Voltaire as a child, young man, and old narrator.
Re: Jeune Voltaire
Re: Jeune Voltaire
Omelettes
Louis XV loved fine food and wines, as would his grandson. He lived in an age of culinary revolution and the first celebrity chefs, some of whom he employed. The upper classes now relished food for its taste as well as its appearance. When he was sixteen, Louis revealed the budding gourmet in him by taking lessons from an expert chef in a kitchen over the Stag Court, specially installed for this purpose. An order survives for the king’s aprons, twelve of them, embroidered with the double V of Versailles. He wore them when he made omelettes.
Re: Omelettes
Re: Omelettes
no subject
Nicolai's version is also the one where Peter gets the "sauvez-vous" warning note from Fritz and therefore hightails it out of Wesel, which was we now doesn't work, date wise. He (N) says his source isn't sure whether Peter then initially took refuge with the French or English ambassador in Holland (we know it was with the Brits, but with Chesterfield's staff rather than Chesterfield himself), and has him directly interact with the unnamed envoy, but the trajectory of Peter's flight otherwise is correct, as is Peter's later career, and Nicolai says his source's dad knew Peter personally as well. This supposed former comrade of Katte's and friend of Peter's whose son is Nicolai's source is called von Hertefeld.
Aaand then I saw Nicolai has yet another version of the Glasow story in the offering, which is far too good not to give you verbatim, which I shall do in another comment (it's that long).
Nicolai Vol. 6
Re: Nicolai Vol. 6
Re: Nicolai Vol. 6
Re: Nicolai Vol. 6
Re: Nicolai Vol. 6
Re: Nicolai Vol. 6
(no subject)
Sauvez-Vous!
Re: Sauvez-Vous!
Re: Sauvez-Vous!
Re: Sauvez-Vous!
...
...
Re: Sauvez-Vous!
(no subject)
(no subject)
Hertefelds
Re: Hertefelds
...
...
Re: Hertefelds
...
...
Re: Hertefelds
(no subject)
Glasow: the Nicolai version
(Mes amies, you know that Karlchen is little Charles, a form of address hat denotes affection, right? Much like FW, in a good mood, occasionally speaks of Fritzchen, so noted by Seckendorf Jr. early in his diary.)
When the King had to take to the field in 1756, the Secret Chamberlain Fredersdorf couldn't join the King on his campaign due to his long term illness of which he did die not too long thereafter. So the King transferred everything to Glasow, whom he made his valet on this occasion, had tailored some very beautiful civilian clothing for him, and gave him his personal treasury and the supervision about his household, despite Glasow still being very young.
For a few days, the King told him personally how he had to run everything; especially, he taught him how to do the accounts about the income and expenditure of the royal household. Now there was a particular secretary in charge of this, but that one remained with Fredersdorf, and wasn't called to Dresden until the opening of the next campaign on the following year in the spring of 1757; until then Völker, who was a smart fellow, administrated this office together with Glasow.
(Not to spoil anything, but Völker will be the villain of this tale. It's the first time I've heard of his existence; he's introduced only in the previous page as "a man named Völker" who supposedly did the much rumored poison attempt together with Glasow, a story Niicolai sets out to rectify. How Völker got into this story pre Nicolai, I have no idea; note that neither Lehndorff nor Kalckreuth nor Münchow nor von Henckel mention him at all. I haven't seen mention of any "Völker" in 20th century biographies, either, Mildred, have you?
ETA: Aha and shame on me. Not Völker, but Henckel von Donnersmarck, reading his journal entry again, which I just linked to, does mention a "Wöllner" as Glasow's good friend who got also arrested and condemned to running the gauntlet. Okay then, and apologies, Nicolai, there was indeed a second person involved./ETA
The King showed even more grace to Glasow, and often made him large presents; but Glasow was not always grateful. When the King had his winter quarters in Dresden in the winter of 1756, Glasow started to consort with two women. The King didn't like his people to have this kind of relationships at all; and in this particular case, additional circumstances were there why these relationships should be suspicious and dislikeable to the King for political reasons.
(Interestingly, Nicolai does not name the Countess Brühl, as opposed to Henckel, Lehndorff and Kalckreuth. Possibly because they are nobles writing their diaries and dictating memoirs and thus not having to fear law suits, whereas Nicolai is a commoner writing for publication?)
He therefore strictly forbade Glasow this kind of consorting, but the later didn't stop doing it. Glasow, whom the King had sleeping in the room next to his, wasn't in his bed for entire nights, and when he was missing, the King could easily guess where he had to be spending his time. Now the man who encouraged young Glasow in this kind of loose living because he could take advantage from his wastefulness was the King's Kammerlakei and Treasurer Völker.
The King knew very well about the connection between these two men, and thus blamed Völker for Glasow's debauchings, as he knew Völker as an otherwise not at all foolish man, and held him to be the seducer of the young and inexperienced Glasow.
Now despite the King tried to improve his valet's behavior through harsh reprimands, threats and punishments, his affairs grew steadily worse when the King near the end of March 1757 took his main quarters at Lockwitz, a small mile away from Dresden. Glasow continued to keep up his relationships in Dresden. Nearly every night, he rode to Dresden. The King couldn't fail to notice this and grew even more disgruntled. However, as Glasow otherwise was still in favor with the King, it was all too understandable that no one dared the tell the King about the exact nature of the consorting this favourite was doing.
Glasow took into his service a fellow named B*** who until then had been in service with an officer from the Garde du Corps who lived near Berlin, but then kicked him out in disgrace some time later. This B*** subsequently went to his old master. B*** now started to talk very loudly about Glasow's suspcious relationships in Dresden, and that Völker was seducing him into them, and added that if the King only knew the true circumstances, whom he should be told about, both of them would suffer evil consequences.
Völker knew that what this fellow was saying was the truth, and he grew greatly afraid that through either him or his master the King should find out the true circumstances. He therefore persuaded Glasow that it was necessary to get rid of this fellow for their shared safety's sake.
Through Völker's persuasions, the young and inconsiderate Glasow was seduced to start a very serious enterprise worthy of punishment. Völker wrote an order of arrest to the commander of Magdeburg in the name of the King, Glasow used the King's small seal, B*** was arrested, and sent via transport to Magdeburg.
The commander in Magdeburg thought the order of arrest which hadn't been signed by the King to be suspicious. Some claim that it had been signed by the King's name, but in an unreadable fashion. The Commander now sent the original arrest warrant to the King, and asked whether the King truly wished the arrestant to be brought to this fortress.
The King was not a little amazed about this turn of events. He investigated further, and Vöker's own handwriting testified against him, and proved he had seduced Glasow into such a punishable abuse of the royal authority. The King was incensed. He ordered that the prisoner was to be released at once. He sent Glasow for a year to the fortress Spandau, and Völker had to run the gauntlet twentyfour times, and later was put into the third bataillon of the guard as a common soldier. The type of punishment alone proves enough that a crime such a poisoning can't have beeen an issue. Also, people who are well informed have testified the complete truth of all of the above named circumstances to me.
The King had to punish the irresponsible abuse of his authority by Glasow, but he still kept being fond of him, as he seemed to be convinced that Glasow as a young man had simply been seduced, and hadn't acted out of malice. He even asked how (Glasow) was doing during his imprisonment. If Glasow had survived the time of his arrest, there can't be any doubt that he'd been accepted back into the King's favour, and might even have been put back on his old posts. However, he died in Spandau three weeks before his term of imprisonment was over. When the King heard about his death, he cried a few tears, and was even more angry with Völker, whom he saw as the seducer of the poor young man.
Völker accepted his fate, and during the war became a sutler. After the war, he found opportunity to leave the army through the fact hat he could create Russian leather, got his dismissal, and started to work in the Russian leather factory of the manufacturer Schneider in Berlin. As he didn't have luck in this art, he then found a way to get a job in Prussia via the recently installed tobacco administration. Carelessly, he signed a report which ended up being read by the King. The King noticed the name. He asked, and when he learned that this was the same man who had been in his service, he had him casheered at once and ordered to put im into a garnison regiment, where Völker died only a few years ago.
This ends the Nicolai version of the tale of Glasow (and Völker). If you want to refresh your memory on what people at the time it happened (i.e. 1750s) or shortly thereafter wrote about Glasow, the relevent Rheinsberg collection is here. There are just enough common elements to show Nicolai got his story from people who themselves had at least some part of the tale, but the differences are still startling and fascinating.
Most of all, of course, "Völker". Now, see above, I just saw there was not a "Völker" but a "Wöllner, the King's footman and coffeemaker" who got indeed arrested and punished along with Glasow according to Henckel von Donnersmarck, Heinrich's AD who was around at the time. However, Henckel seems to have had no doubt that Glasow was the main culprit, and far from being a seduced youth manipulated by someone else was "the tyrant of the Royal Household" in the post-Fredersdorf era. Sadly, Nicolai doesn't say where he has the story from, other than that the people are trustworthy. The other pro-Glasow source we have is Kalckreuth, but Kalckreuth blames Glasow's dismissed servant for wrongly accusing him and doesn't say anything about Völker/Wöllner at all, so I don't think Kalkreuth is Nicolai's source. (My other reason for doubting it is that Heinrich doesn't get mentioned once in six volumes of anecdotes, and I think if Nicolai had an in with Heinrich's former
boyfriendAD, there's be some stories at least co-starring him.)Next: "Karlchen". Glasow's first two names were Christian Friedrich, without a "Carl" (or Karl). However, there was, of course, Carl "Carel" the favoured page, and I suspect in the retellings, he and Glasow might have gotten mixed up somewhat. (It was also Carel who got the teachers.)
As we now know due to the state archive letters from Fredesdorf's actual successor to Fredersdorf, Glasow did indeed abuse a seal, only it was Fredersdorf's, not Fritz'. And Nicolai was right in that a poisoning attempt is unlikely to have happened if you look at the punishment, but nothing in Fritz' granting mercy in reaction to Glasow's father's petition makes it sound as if Glasow would only have been in Spandau for a year if he hadn't died.
Lastly: Fritz objecting to Glasow's "consorting with women", and noticing Glasow's nightly absence: I don't think Nicolai is trying to insinuate something - as valet, it would have been Glasow's duty to be available next door or in the King's room itself -, and he's far less blatant than Kalckreuth or Lehndorff about Glasow's good looks originally getting him noticed by Fritz, but he does mention it. Otoh, Nicolai unlike Lehndorff and writing with the hindsight of knowing Fredersdorf would die does not mention the possibility of jealousy and presents it as straightforward that Glasow got the valet job because Frederdorf was too ill.
So, friends, what do you think? Were Glasow's shady actions due to manipulations by Völker/Wöllner or was the later just a confederate? Is it significant that Völker/Wöllner was the coffeemaker (though I still think an actual poison attempt would have had far more serious consequences)? And who were Nicolai's absolutely trustworthy sources he can't name by name? (Very much as opposed to his sources elsewhere about other things, including the Katte anecdotes, where he gives the names each time.)
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
...
...
...
...
...
...
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
...
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
Heights, again
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
...
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
...
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
...
...
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
The Escape Attempt (Nicolai Version)
I previously didn't dare to protest against the commonly shared tale that (Katte) had been with the King and the Crown Prince in Wesel. But now Landrat Baron v. Hertefeld zu Boetzelaar near Xanten has been kind enough to share with me from the trustworthy narration of his late father the true circumstances of the arrest of the unfortunate Herr v. Katte. I believe my readers will thank me for sharing the both interesting and trustworthy news in this gentleman's own words.
"My father, born in the year 1709, served in the year 1730 with the Gens d'Armes at a Lieutenant, together with his unfortunate friend, Lieutenant von Katte. The later, Lieutenant von Keith and Lieutenant von Spaen were the confidants of the then crown prince, who were meant to support his escape to England. Katte remained in Berlin and was supposed to follow the Crown Prince via Leipzig through the HRE. Keith, who was stationed in Wesel, had the task to prepare the flight. Spaen, then a Lieutenant with the tall guard at Potsdam, knew about the plans but had no active part in them. The escape of the Crown Prince was supposed to happen in the moment when the King departed from Wesel; for as the Crown Prince usually travelled behind the King from their various stops, he would have won a few hours before his escape became known to the King.
Katte had taken a leave of absence when the King had departed from Berlin in order to visit the countryside. He delayed his departure to the date when he supposed the King would arrive at Wesel, and the need to repair his carriage kept him a day longer than he wanted in Berlin. At the evening of his departure he met Major v. Asseburg from the Gens d'Armes who told him with a frightened face: "Are you still here? I am amazed!"
Katte replied to him: I travel this very night. Asseburg knew that a courier had brought the news of the Crown Prince's arrest, but he couldn't say more due to the distrust which was then dominating in Berlin. At night, Colonel von Pannewitz, the commander of the Gens d'Armes, received the order to arrest Lieutenant von Katte; he delayed this until morning in the hope Katte would have been escaped by then, then he sent the regiment's AD to him who still found him and brought him the order to immediately report to the Colonel. At 8 o'clock in the morning my father, who had then guard duty, the order to send a subaltern officer and four men to the Colonel's quarters; and at half past 8 Katte was brought in the Colonel's carriage in the company of the AD and the guard to my father in the Gens d'Armes guards house, with the order: he was now responsible for the prisoner with his head, to be transmitted from one officer on guard's duty to the next.
When Katte was transported to Küstrin, my father took leave of him with the words: j'espére de vous revoir bientot; and (Katte) replied: Non, mon ami, le Tyran demande du sang. He gave my father some books as presents in which he'd written his name, as a souvenir, and I still own some of them.
Spaen was arrested the very same day at Potsdam by Colonel von Kneseback. After Katte's death, he was casheered, and brought to Spandau for a yar; immedately after his release, he went to the Netherlands to serve there, and died in the year 1768 at his country estate Bellevue near KLeve, as a Generalmajor in Dutch service. He told everyone that the Crown Prince had planned to go to England in order to marry an English Princess; and that, if Katte had managed to escape, he himself would have lost his head for sure, since the raging King would have demanded another sacrifice. Frederick the Great had done nothing for Spaen after his ascension; but when he travelled to Kleve in the year 1763, he did take lodgings with General von Spaen, was very gracious and confidential towards him, reminded him of stories of their shared youth, but did not mention the year 1730 with one word; which is why General von Spaen used to joke that the King had an excellent memory right up to 1730.
Keith had been in Wesel when the Crown Prince was arrested. The later found means and ways to send a note to him, on which he'd written with a pencil: Sauvez-vous, tout es découvert. Keith recognizes the handwriting, goes to his stable, puts his saddle on his horse himself and under the pretense of a leisurely ride he happily leaves through the Brün Gate, from which he gallops until Dingden, the first village belonging to Münster, one mile away from Wesel; from there, he hurries through upper Wesel county straight the The Hague, where he goes to an ambassador - I forgot whether my father said it was the English or the French ambassador -, tells him of his fate, and pleads for his protection. The envoy promises said protection to him, and escorts him personally to the mansard roof, and orders his valet to serve this gentleman exclusively, and not to tell anyone else that there is a stranger lodging in this house. The envoy advised Keith to go to England and from there to Portugal, where foreign officers were sought after.
Meanwhile, the King was angry to the utmost degree that Keith had escaped him. At once Colonel von Dumoulin, later General lieutenant von Dumoulin, had to take up the pursuit of Keith, and he was given a letter to the King's envoy at the Hague, which ordered the later to assist Dumoulin in demanding Keith should be surrendered. Dumoulin and Meinertzhagen learned that one day a foreign officer had arrived and had gone to the envoy in question, without ever having been seen again. Their spies told them that in the mansard roof of the envoy's house, light was burning late at night, and that this room had not been used before. From these circumstances they concluded that Keith was hiding at the envoy's, and now their spy didn't let the envoy's house out of his sight. The envoy learned of this and that Keith's habit of reading late at night had given him away.
The following morning, the envoy came to Keith and told him: You are betrayed. Your King has spies after you, so be ready, I'll bring you to Scheveningen today, and everything there is ready for your transport to England. In the evening, he brought Keith in his own carriage to Scheveningen, and gave him letters of reccomendation for London, and didn't leave him until he saw him depart on a fisherman's boat. Keith happily arrived in England, from where he went into Portueguese service armed with reccommendations from the court. A few days later, Dumoulin learned by accident that Keith had escaped. He had gone to Scheveningen in order to see the fishermen arrive and was surprised that they dared to brave the sea in such little boats. One of the fishermen told him: With such a boat, we even make the trip to England; I'm just returning from there, and have transported a foreign officer. Dumoulin demanded a description of the officer, and from the circumstance that said man had been crosseyed, he concluded that it had been Keith.
Keith returned to Berlin in the year 1741, was appointed Colonel lieutenant and Master of the Horse, and became curator at the Academy of Sciences. My father knew Herr von Keith very well, and was told by him the way of his escape.
V. Hertefeld."
Re: The Escape Attempt (Nicolai Version)
Re: The Escape Attempt (Nicolai Version)
Re: The Escape Attempt (Nicolai Version)
Re: The Escape Attempt (Nicolai Version)
Re: The Escape Attempt (Nicolai Version)
Re: The Escape Attempt (Nicolai Version)
Re: The Escape Attempt (Nicolai Version)
Re: The Escape Attempt (Nicolai Version)
Re: The Escape Attempt (Nicolai Version)
Re: The Escape Attempt (Nicolai Version)
Re: The Escape Attempt (Nicolai Version)
Re: The Escape Attempt (Nicolai Version)
Re: The Escape Attempt (Nicolai Version)
Re: The Escape Attempt (Nicolai Version)
Re: The Escape Attempt (Nicolai Version)
The FW-Fritz-Quantz-Katte tale (Nicolai version)
In the summer of the year 1730, shortly before the King undertook the journey with the Crown Prince which was to lead them through the Empire until Wesel, where the Crown Prince had intended to escape to England, followed by the known unfortunate results, Quantz - - Nicolai spells it Quanz all the time, btw - , too, was in Berlin, in order to play with the Crown Prince sometimes early in the morning around 6 am, but usually always in the afternoon from 4 until 7 pm. The discontent between the King and the Crown Prince was already very high at that point, and the Prince back then sought to be the opposite of what his father was in most things. In the morning, he had to submit to force as far as his exterior was concerned. The tight uniform, the simple curled hair, the stiff tail, the serious soldier's step weren't to his taste, but he had to accept them. Only after lunch, once he was left in his rooms on his own, he wanted to live there as he pleased. Thus, he usually had his hair styled according to the then current fashion, used a Haarbeutel and wore a dressing gown made of golden brocade; and thus he studied and played the flute.
The Crown Prince was dressed in this fashion one day, and Quantz was playing with him, when suddenly the later doomed Herr von Katte, the Crown Prince's favourite, hurried into the room and frightened reported that the King was coming and was already very close. Now the Crown Prince's passion for books and music had not been hidden to the King. Both were repellent to him, and he wanted to surprise the Crown Prince. Katte took the boxes with the flutes in the greatest hurry, and the scores, took the extremely frightened Quantz by the hand and jumped with him and the boxes in a small cabinet where they usually stored material to heat the stoves with. Here, they had to remain for over an hour, and Quantz, who told me the whole story himself, trembled, even more so since he was wearing a red coat; a color which the King hated. The Crown Prince had dressed into the uniform in the greatest hurry, but he couldn't get rid of the Haarbeutel as quickly, and thus it is easy to guess how disturbing this encounter must have been. The King soon discovered the hidden shelves behind the tapestry where the books and the dressing gowns were kept. The later, he had thrown into the fireplace at once, as for the books, he ordered them to be sold to the bookstore owner Haude. The later kept the books as a service to the Crown Prince, who ordered them to be taken to him one by one, according to his needs, until his complete library could be restored to him.
Quantz finally was freed from his tight corner once the King had left; but he was extremely careful during his subsequent visits to Berlin; he especially took care never to wear a red coat again, but only a grey or a blue one.
Re: The FW-Fritz-Quantz-Katte tale (Nicolai version)
Re: The FW-Fritz-Quantz-Katte tale (Nicolai version)
Re: The FW-Fritz-Quantz-Katte tale (Nicolai version)
Re: The FW-Fritz-Quantz-Katte tale (Nicolai version)
Re: The FW-Fritz-Quantz-Katte tale (Nicolai version)
Re: The FW-Fritz-Quantz-Katte tale (Nicolai version)
The Sanssouci Table Round (aka Nicolai, Volume I, a)
The condoling letter is very Fritz (in a mild way way, I hasten to add): we must all die, alas, be a philosopher, accept it, even though I totally feel your pain as a tender mother, live for me, you are the happiness of my life.
After reprinting the two letters to Charlotte, Nicolai tells the reader all about D'Argens, how much he rocked, and why he was Fritz' worthiest friend. Nicolai admits D'Argens was an excentric and a hypochondriac, but chides the people laughing at the Marquis for all the clothing he put on himself, saying they should consider how someone born in warm, sunny Provence would feel in freezing Berlin. He also praises the Marquis as a tender husband and the Marquise as a wonderful wife and attacks another Councillor Adelung, who recently published an encyclopedia about learned men, who claims that D'Argens had separated from his wife the ex ballet dancer. Nicolai (correctly) says this is pure slander and that the Marquise was with D'Argens till his death and still lives in Provence as an honored part of his family. (Correct. Also, we've seen EC reply to her condolence letter upon Fritz' death, remember?) After some more general D'Argens characterisation, we get the dissing of everyone else form the table round which I already paraphrased and summarized for you. Here it is, and it's probably fair to say that this must be what D'Argens himself thought about his fellow knights of the Sanssouci table round:
Darget was an honest man who however felt burdened by having to stay near the King, and who was homesick for France; he highly esteemed the King, but he did not love him. De La Mettrie wasn't really held in high regard by the King. Instead, (Fritz) regarded him as a Clown who could amuse him entre deux vins now and then. De La Mettrie behaved very undignified towards the King; not only did he blab everywhere in Berlin about everything that was talked about at the King's table, he also narrated everything twistedly, with malicious addenda.
(Reminder: according to Voltaire, De La Mettrie was his source for the orange quote from Fritz.)
He especially liked to do this while dining with the then French envoy, Lord Tyrconnel, at whose table he died.
Algarotti, a very subtle man and very subtle politician, was pleased by Friedrich's company because the later was a King and a man of wit. The King held him in high regard and loved him very much for his good qualities; but Algarotti was more concerned with the esteem he gained by the King's friendship and did not love the King, which the later eventually realized.
Maupertuis, whom the King esteemed for his scientific abiliities and pleasant manners, was full of quirks and pretensions, and envious of everyone for whom the King had as much as a kind word, for he thought he'd lose whatever the other gained. He was never satisfied, and consequently caused great irritation to the King whom he annoyed with his quirks and who would have liked to see him content.
Voltaire, although the greatest writer of them all by far, was the most ungrateful towards the King. He was jealous of everyone whom the King preferred. His utmost bitterness resulted from believing the King didn't distinguish him enough from the other scholarly favourites. Full of pride and petulance, he often when everyone was in great spirits lashed out against the others in the King's company, which displeased the King himself not a few times; two times, when Voltaire had been too insolent, the King had to speak as a King, and Voltaire, as proud as he'd been, was now immediately humbled. But he avenged himself through impudent and partially false stories he spread behind the King's back.
(Footnote from Nicolai here: D'Argens once told me with the vivaciousness of a Provence man about Voltaire: Le Bastard a de l'esprit come trente, mais il est malicious come un vieux finge.)
(Only partially false stories, though, Nicolai? I can't help but note which ones you don't go on to refute....)
He boasted about correcting the King's writings, which as D'Argens has assured me wasn't true, except for individual words or sayings very occasionally, and yet (Voltaire) talked with contempt about said work. It is certain that Voltaire made secret copies of the King's poems which had been entrusted to him in the strictest confidence, and that these poems first became known through him against the King's strict will. Thus, the King hasn't been wrong to have taken these copies from him in Frankfurt, for otherwise even more of them would have become known. The King did appreciate his extraordinary talent and loved him more than he ever deserved. As early as the Seven Years War, the King was corresponding with him again, and apparantly on good footing. From a distance of a hundred miles, this seems to have worked; but close up, it would have soon be over, and not through the King's fault, but solely Voltaire's. D'Argens said: Le Roi veut tacher de se faire aimer de lui, mais il ne réussira pas. It is telling of the Marquis D'Argens benevolent and agreeable character that he did not argue once with that impudent man while they were both around the King.
And then we get Nicolai going on some more about how all these foreigners of the first 15 years (except for D'Argens) were purely exploitative and unworthy of poor, poor Fritz, who thought he could recover with them from the burdens of rulership. In his assurance that D'Argens was worthy and best beloved, Nicolai has to navigate around the fact that Fritz mocked D'Argens, too, and not a few times, but he assures his readers this had nothing to do as to why D'Argens eventually left, that was just for his health, and he's also sure that Fritz had resolved never to make jokes at D'Argens' expense again and D'Argens totally would have returned to the King's side when, alas, he died. Nicolai argues that the fact Fritz kept corresponding with D'Argens throughout his greatest trial, the 7 Years War, on a nearly daily basis shows how close the two men were, and how Fritz trusted him more than any other, while the fact D'Argens never schemed against anyone else, and kept all that Fritz entrusted to him secret, shows his worthy character. According to Nicolai, he locked himself in a room whenever a Fritzian letter arrived to read it on his own, and also that people peeping through keyholes (?!) saw repeatedly that D'Argens took off his two caps which he was otherwise wearing all the time before reading the letters.
Among the D'Argens anecdotes Nicolai tells is also the one about Fritz' non- public arrival in Berlin post war and D'Argens reaction to it, which Lehndorff writes about at the time, and the quote Nicolai gives of D'Argens' comment is literally the same Lehndorff notes down in his diary (which Nicolai can't have looked up); it's always neat when two independent sources back each other up on something.
Here's a story I hadn't seen anywhere else: When the new palace next to Sanssouci had been finished, the King had prepared an apartment there for the Marquis. One day he said very gracefully: he wanted to show the new apartment to (D'Argens) and the Marquise himself, and therefore invited them over for tea. Thus it happened; the King was in high spirits, showed them every detail of how comfortable their new rooms were, and at last said in the bedroom: he didn't want to stay too long, but wanted to leave the Marquis to his comfort and his nightcaps; and with a funny compliment, took his leave. Here Nicolai adds a footnote: As the Marquise was the sole woman to actually live in one of the King's palaces with her family, he wished her a new heir in this new apartment.
(In conclusion: frat boys are eternal.)
Then Nicolai gets nationalistic and swears that not only did D'Argens clue into the fact that German literature had started to happen (unlike Fritz), but that whenever someone French showed up in the hope D'Argens would get him a job with Fritz just because they were countryman, D'Argens said he wasn't French but had the honor of being German.
Finally, Nicolai uses the opportunity to pitch a work of his own. Due to his friendship with D'Argens, he had translated D'Argens Lettres Juives into German, which he said pleased the Marquis muchly, so much so he even when getting the proofs added some new passages. So the German edition of Lettres Juives has exlusive new text material, readers! Buy it!
(Book selling tactics are also eternal.)
Re: The Sanssouci Table Round (aka Nicolai, Volume I, a)
Re: The Sanssouci Table Round (aka Nicolai, Volume I, a)
Re: The Sanssouci Table Round (aka Nicolai, Volume I, a)
Re: The Sanssouci Table Round (aka Nicolai, Volume I, a)
Re: The Sanssouci Table Round (aka Nicolai, Volume I, a)
Re: The Sanssouci Table Round (aka Nicolai, Volume I, a)
Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
My late friend Moses Mendelsohn met the Marquis through me around the year 1760, and became very fond of him due to hte later's good nature and naivite. For the Marquis' part, he esteemed the worthy Moses very highly, and they occasoinally had interesting discussions about philosophical subjects as well.
Now back then in Berlin lived a Jew named Raphael, a friend of Moses Mendelsohn's. He wasn't working in trade but solely as a teacher of languages, for he was fluent in French, Italian and English. Through various open speeches against some Jewish superstitons, he incurred the wrath of the rabbis and senior Jews, who wanted to expell him from Berlin. In order to get him some protection, Moses Mendelsohn introduced him to the Marquis, who became very fond of him, engaged him as a teacher of Hebrew, talked with him about literature on an almost daily basis, especially of German literature, and referred to him as his "angel Raphael". This was enough so that the Jewish Elders did not try to attack him outright.
During the conversations with Raphael, the Marquis also talked about tolerance. He expressed his amazement that intolerance should still exist in the state of Frederick the Great. He believed that the Jewish Elders had wanted to exploit the King's absence in order to banish Raphael from Berlin. He was therefore not a little amazed to learn that the Jewish Elders didn't just have the right but indeed the obligation by law to expell any Jew who did not either have a Schutzbrief or was working for a Jew with a Schutzbrief, without any other recourse to the law, within an hour of the police having received the first complaint about him.
(Footnote here from Nicolai: This happens in every city where a Jew does not have a protection privilege - Schutzprivilegium -, and so every foreign Jew is brought to the borders of the country at last. The point of the law is to make the Jew return to his place of birth where he has that protection. Raphael used to tell me: "I was born in a Polish village which was burned down. So I don't have a place of birth.")
The Marquis still couldn't understand that this law should be used without differentiation, and at last asked: "But our dear Moses surely would not fall prey to this?" Raphael replied: "Indeed he would. He only is currently tolerated because he's in the service of the Widow Bernhard. If she were to dismiss him, and he can't find another Jew with a Schutzbrief who takes him into their service, then he'd have to leave the city today if the Jewish Elders should denounce him to the police."
The Marquis was indignant. The noble Marquis could not bear the thought: that a philosophher, such a wise and learned man whom every man should highly esteem should be in daily danger to be humiliated in such a fashion. He did not want to believe it until Moses himself confirmed it to him, adding in the calm, noble manner that was his: "Socrates proved to his friend Kriton, too, that a wise man has the duty to die if the laws of the state demand it. I thus have to consider the laws of the state in which I live as benign by comparison, since they would only expell me, if in lack of another Jew with protection one of the trade Jews plying their trade in the Reezengasse won't take me into their service."
The Marquis was stunned to the utmost by this matter; and he resolved to write to the King about it even while the 7 Years War was still going on. He could barely be kept from doing so but at last accepted that this was not the time.
Once peace had been made, the Marquis thought about the matter and demanded that Moses Mendelsohn himself should write a petition which he would then personally give to the King, even though he otherwise never handed over petitions. Moses at first didn't want to do it. He said: "It pains me that I should have to ask for the right of my existence, which should be given to every human being living as a decent citizen. If the state sees cause to tolerate people of my nation only in very limited numbers, why should I be privileged among my brethren to demand an exception?"
However, Moses Mendelsohn's friends pointed out to him that he was the head of a family who had to take this step for their sake, as they depended on him. He finally was persuaded.
(Nicolai gives the full text of the petition.)
The Marquis handed over this petition himself in April 1763; but Moses received no reply. We were all thunderstruck by this; and I have to admit that the otherwise very gentle Moses was bristling, and accused us who had talked him into making this step of having acted wrongly. The matter kept hanging for a few months as the Marquis assumed the favour had already been granted, while Moses didn't want to do anything more, and didn't want to tell the Marquis about it, either, who was living in Potsdam. At last, in July 1763, the Marquis talked to one of Moses' friends about the matter and of the protection privilege which surely had been granted to Moses by now. The friend just shrugged and said that the King hadn't even bothered to reply to his petition. The Marquis didn't want to believe this; and when others confirmed it to him, he became very angry and exclaimed with his usual vivaciousness: "This is too much! That's not how I know him! But if he did this, he won't have done so without consequence from me!"
When the Marquis visited the King that evening, he started to chide him as soon as he had stepped into the room. The King, who didn't know what he was talking about, showed his amazement. "Oh!", the Marquis exclaimed, "Sire, you are otherwise known to keep your word! You know I demand so rarely something from you. Now I have asked a favour from you, not for me, but for the most righeous worthiest man. You promised to grant it! This is too wrong! I must be discontent!"
The King assured him that Moses had received the protection privilege. The Marquis swore Moses had never received an answer to his petition. At last, it became known that a mere misunderstanding was at the bottom of this. The King said that the petition had to have been lost through an unusual accident. Moses should write another petition, and he would order the protection letter to be written for him. "Very well, Sire," said the Marquis, "I will create this petition with my own hand. But don't lose it again." So Moses after the Marquis' repeated requests wrote another draft of his petition on July 19th, and the Marquis added to it in his own name: "Un philosophe mauvais catholique supplie un philosophe mauvais protestant, de donner le privilege a un philosophe mauvais juif. Il y a dans tout ceci trop the de philosophie, pour que la raison ne soit pas du coté de la demande."
Consequently, Moses received his letter of privilege on October 26th. The administrative treasury demanded a thousand Reichstaler of him as expenditure according to law. The King handwaved this sum in the following year, 1764. In the year 1779 Moses out of love for his children supplicated the King (to extend the privilege to them).(...) This, the King denied him. But King Friedrich Wilhelm II. has granted it upon the petition of the philosopher's widow in the year 1787.
The most depressing aspect? The only one aware that the law itself is wrong (i.e. that the crux isn't that exceptions for great thinkers should be made) is Moses Mendelsohn. :(
In order not to finish on this note, here's one last Nicolai anecdote from volume 1:
In the year 1785, the King talked with a worthy man about the manner in which a young prince should be raised so that he could become a good regent. Among other things about how a future regent had to learn early how to use his power, but also how not to abuse it. He added: "Several things by their very nature are of a matter that a regent must never extend his power to influence them. Chief among these: Religion and love!" This is in my opinion one of the truest and most noble thoughts the regent of a great realm has thought or said.
(Or, as Voltaire expressed it: The freedom of thought and of the penis.)
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Fanny Mendelssohn
Nicolai Volume 2: It's Antinous Time! (Also: FW, Music lover)
Then we get the volume proper which opens with the Ligne memoir in edited form, with Nicolai's annotations. The best bits were already in both Volz and the "Fritz and MT as seen by their contemporaries" collection, so I already quoted them for you.
Nicolai has a major section about FW and music, opening by telling the readers that they may be surprised to learn FW didn't hate music per se, there was some music he liked. True, he fired all the royal musicians he inherited from F1 except for Gottfried Pepusch, whom he made head of the regiment's choir of the Tall Fellows. Said regiment musicians were also the ones he had playing for him if he wanted to listen to music.
(FW: finding a way to save money, look at Tall Men and enjoy music at the same time. Gotta respect that.)
Nicolai next says FW loved Händel, which I had heard before - "Der Thronfolger" has Fritz mention this followed by the sarcastic remark that what this means is that FW can fall asleep when listening to Händel - , but not Händel's operas (opera performance in FW's Prussia? Hell to the no!) per se, just individual arias and choir pieces, which, however, he didn't want to be sung to him but played in an arrangement on the oboe. His favourites were the arias and choir pieces from Händel's operas "Alessandro" and "Siroe", which had to be played for him over a hundred times. And now I have to quote Nicolai directly.
The way these pieces were performed as that the main oboists and their conductor, with the necessary pults and candles, were standing at one end of a very large room, and the King was sitting on the other, completely alone. Now sometimes it happened that he started to fall asleep in the evening, especially if he'd eaten well or if he'd drunk a bit too strongly while the music played. However, one couldn't trust him. For often the musicians, upon noticing he'd fallen asleep, skipped several arias in order to finish earlier. No sooner did they try that he opened his eyes and called "But you're leaving something out". Or he called "The aria - is missing" and sang the beginning of this aria." That's how well he knew Händel's operas by heart. But if he didn't notice, the musicians used to play the final choir especially loudly and strongly so that the King had to wake up for the finale. If he didn't order any further music, the performance was over. But if upon awaking he thought that the music hadn't lasted long enough, he ordered the already performed opera to be played from the beginning, and then they really didn't dare to leave something out.
(Source for these and other stories: Fritz via Quantz who told Nicolai.)
Nicolai mentions Fritz' depressed poems from the 7 Years War (among others, one to D'Argens) and since some of Voltaire's letters have now been printed, including two from that era where he urges Fritz to live, says that a sensitive heart could almost forgive Voltaire his dastardly behavior towards Fritz for the sake of these letters.
Otoh, he attacks "the author of the Vie Privée du Roi de Prusse, most likely Voltaire" for slandering Fritz re: the Battle of Mollwitz, and for others following suit. Reminder,
As Nicolai likes the Prince du Ligne's memoir about Fritz very much, he only has two mild corrections: one, that of course Prussian officers were all fluent in French and if some spoke German with the Marchese de Lucchessini, it's not because they didn't know French but because Lucchessini is fluent in German, and two, about the Antinuous statue. This is the passage most important for Mildred, and thus it's translation time.
Regarding the arbor in which the beautiful antique bronze statue of Antinuous that originally was brought from Vienna used to stand*
*here Nicolai makes a footnote, correctly stating the previous owners were Joseph Wenzel von Lichtenstein and Prince Eugene, and another footnote to explain that "the now ruling King did not want to expose this statue as well as the two beautiful antique copies from Bouchardon which used to stand near the Japanese house to the weather any longer and thus had them brought to the new rooms in the Berlin town palace"
there is no doubt that the King on hot summer afternoons, when he sacrificed to the muses, often has sat in front of the beautiful antique statue in this cool harbor. But the Prince de Ligne seems to insinuate upon mentioning this statue as well as at other times that the relaxations of the King were solely of a cheerful and sensual manner. One would wrong this great man if one were to assume he'd found his enjoyment mainly in this. True, the merrry spirit of the King, which expresses itself in his writings and especially in his youthful correspondences, would not contradict this assumption. He himself says -
(Nicolai quotes from several Fritz poems praising Epicure)
It was this cheerful mindset which, as I have observed repeatedly, enabled the mind of the great man to endure through the greatest misfortunes and under the strongest concerns. It is perhaps, understood correctly, no more noble philosophy of the enjoyment of life than to open the heart to pleasure and what Horace calls "Dulce desipere in loco", but only to enjoy it on the surface, while going deeply in serious matters. Frederick the Great was able to unite both approaches to a large extent. He knew to enjoy pleasures of all types, but he also could at the appropriate time res severa gaudium. Serious thoughts were with him even in his most cheerful and high spirited hours, for these were only the spice to his serious ponderings. Even the above named statue of Antinous may serve as an example of this. It was there, and he enjoyed the beauty of this wonderful monument now and then; but it wasn't this statue which was the focus of his main attention in this particular area.
Nicolai now explains Sanssouci geography to everyone who hasn't visited and points out that Fritz would have looked at his chosen grave. Which he feels entitled to talk about since Büsching mentioned it first. Nicolai correctly describes the vault and the Flora statue with it and says D'Argens had told him 20 years ago already that Fritz wanted to be buried there, but he, Nicolai, kept mum until Büsching's publication. He then reports that this vault was probably the reason why Fritz called Sanssouci Sanssouci to begin with, and tells the anecdote of Fritz saying to D'Argens "Quand je serai là, je serai Sanssouci". (I.e. this is the original source for that story, mes amies.)
It takes not a little strength of mind to build one's grave in front of one's eyes at one's lonely and peaceful summer house, without letting anyone know and thus without pretensions, and to hide it beneath the statue of the flower goddess. Friedrich thus had always his death in front of him during his lonely summer pleasures, and thus knew how to unite his idea of it with both the cheeful enjoyment of life and the consideration of his duties. He didn't bring the statue of Antinous to this place until long after he had built his vault there. The later thus was much more in his regard than the former, as were his duties more than his pleasures.
Volume 2 also has the dog story I mentioned before:
Just like the King chose among his snuff boxes those he liked best, he chose among his greyhounds the companions of his lonely hours. Those who conducted themselves best were taken with him during the carnival times to Berlin.
(Reminder: The carnival lasted from December til March in Frederician Prussia. As Sanssouci was a summer palace, Fritz spent that time in the city palace in Berlin.)
They were driven to Berlin in a six hourse equipage supervised by a so called royal little footman who was in charge of their feeding and care. One assures us that this footman always took the backseat so the dogs could take the front seat, and always adressed the dogs with "Sie", as in: "Biche, seien Sie doch artig!" (Biche, be good), and "Alcmene, bellen Sie doch nicht so" (Alcmene, don't bark so much!"
Nicolai finishes the volume by dissing Zimmermann's first Fritz publication. From now on, it's war.
Now, Nicolai saying Antinous comes up in Ligne's Fritz memoir made me check out Unger's rendition of same, and the passage in question which Nicolai took as an occasion to correct is:
The King was used to chat with the Marchese Lucchesini in the presence of four or five generals who didn't speak French, and he rewarded himself for the hours in which he worked, pondered and read by visiting his garden, where opposite of the door was the statue of the young and beautiful Antinous.
That's it, and Ligne doesn't say whether he learned this from Fritz while talking to him (he met him more than that one time at Neisse) or whether he observed it himself.
Re: Nicolai Volume 2: It's Antinous Time! (Also: FW, Music lover)
Re: Nicolai Volume 2: It's Antinous Time! (Also: FW, Music lover)
Re: Nicolai Volume 2: It's Antinous Time! (Also: FW, Music lover)
Re: Nicolai Volume 2: It's Antinous Time! (Also: FW, Music lover)
Re: Nicolai Volume 2: It's Antinous Time! (Also: FW, Music lover)
...
Re: Nicolai Volume 2: It's Antinous Time! (Also: FW, Music lover)
Re: Nicolai Volume 2: It's Antinous Time! (Also: FW, Music lover)
Re: Nicolai Volume 2: It's Antinous Time! (Also: FW, Music lover)
Re: Nicolai Volume 2: It's Antinous Time! (Also: FW, Music lover)
Re: Nicolai Volume 2: It's Antinous Time! (Also: FW, Music lover)
Re: Nicolai Volume 2: It's Antinous Time! (Also: FW, Music lover)
Re: Nicolai Volume 2: It's Antinous Time! (Also: FW, Music lover)
Re: Nicolai Volume 2: It's Antinous Time! (Also: FW, Music lover)
Re: Nicolai Volume 2: It's Antinous Time! (Also: FW, Music lover)
Johnsonia
As for the Crown Prince years, good lord. Yes, dreadfully ill informed for hte most part, but it’s telling about what made it into the international papers, since Dr. Johnson did not have access to any other source than that. Though he clearly had read Voltaire’s anymous 1752 pamphlet, because one of the few correct things in this essay is his insistence that Fritz married EC solely at his father’s insistence, and that he strongly suspects the marriage is without any sex whatsoever. (BTW, how's that for humiliation: having your marital sex life, or lack of same, discussed by the international press?) Other factoids making into Johnson’s article, if in distorted form:
- Doris Ritter (!) being whipped publically at FW’s orders (Johnson has Fritz having to be present for this)
- FW overriding the tribunal sentence on Katte in order to order the death penalty
Otoh, most things FW (other than his thing for tall fellows) really bear not much resemblence to fact. Most of all that Johnson says FW always was busy without any result of that business showing itself anywhere and that he never did anything for his subjects. Now FW was a terrible human being, but there’s a reason why he’s neck to neck with his son for the “Best Prussian monarch” title and post WWII sometimes winning. Taking a broke and poor kingdom and making it a wealthy one, schools, hospitals, land reforms, and of course the complete changeover of the mentality for better and worse, you name it, he did it. Johnson leaves you with the impression that he gained the money by taxing his poor subjects and never did anything with it but bath in it like Scrooge McDuck. As to why he didn’t notice the sheer amount of what FW accomplished in Prussia when no less a person than Fritz pointed it out in his History of the House of Brandenburg: I do suspect Johnson really didn’t read much more than the Voltairian 1752 pamphlet plus some newspaper reports at the time of the Silesian Wars in terms of research because the article was a hash job written under time pressure when the 7 Years War broke out and some publisher wanted Johnson to tell the English public about their new ally.
As to where the “Karl Friedrich” name came from - beats me.
Re: Johnsonia
Re: Johnsonia
Re: Johnsonia
Re: Johnsonia
Re: Johnsonia
...
Re: Johnsonia
Re: Johnsonia
Marie Antoinette
Schöning: Days in the Life of Old Fritz
The soupers only lasted until the 7 Years War. The King recognized that the stomach didn't digest as quickly when one got older, and that a commanding general had to rise early; thus, he stopped having supper during the 7 Years War, and never started again. Until the Bavarian War (1778), the King played the flute, and his days were scheduled in the following way.
During the months of November, December, January and February, the King got to bed between nine and ten pm, and rose between five and six am. During this time, no one was with him, nor did light burn in his bedroom; in the antechambre, two common footmen were keeping watch. He was awoken in the morning in the exact minute he had ordered in the previous evening, and fifteen minutes before that, the fireplace in his bedroom was lighted. Depending on circumstances, he either rose immediately or slept a quarter of an hour, half an hour, sometimes even an hour longer. He dressed himself while in bed with stockings, trousers and boots, the rest he put on while standing in front of the fire in the fireplace. For this was lighted in summer and winter time regardless; for the King sweated so strongly that his nightdress and his sheets had to get dried at the fireplace every time. As soon as he'd gotten dressed, he sat down to read from the intake of arriving letters those he was most interested in while his hairtail was combed; the rest, he sent for summarizing and excerpting to the cabinet secretary. After having read all and put it next to himself on a small table, he rose, washed and put his wig and the hat on him which he always wore, except when sitting at a table or when talking to persons of rank, and went to the first adjoining room to accept the report of the AD of the first bataillon there, or to give him some commands regarding the military. He drank a few glasses of water, which during the last years of his life were mixed with Fenchel extracts, and afterwards two or three small cups of coffee, sometimes with and sometimes without milk. Coffee he drank in his younger years very strongly, later in a weaker mixture, but always, for the kick of it, mingled with mustard. During the last years of his life he also ate at different times of the day several small dry bars of chocolate. Otherwise, he rarely indulged in chocolate, and drank it mainly just when he was taking the waters, or if he had been riding out in bad weather, or if he suspected he was due to an attack of gout, and thought the chocolate would help to spread the gout from the torso to the outer extremities. After having drunk his coffee, he took the flute and played on it, walking from one room to the next, for two hours passages he knew by heart.
Once he put the flute away, he accepted, around 9 or 10 am, the summarzing and excerpts from the Cabinet Secretary, read it, ordered the cabinet councillors to him one by one and told them what the reply to the incoming depeches would be, but he didn't lock himself into his cabinet as has been reported. The door was closed now and then but often remained completely open.
Now he finished his getting dressed, which means he took of his nightshirt, put some gellantine in his hair, got himself powdered, washed his face and hands with a towel and put on the uniform which only lasted five minutes if he didn't get shaved as well. In the time between ten and eleven, he told the commanders the password of the day, replied to some family letters, talked to some visitors he'd ordered to come, read out loud to himself, practiced, if time permitted, some concert sections, and went to lunch at 12 o'clock sharp.
The table usually was seated with seven to ten people, and about eight very well filled plates were put on the table, but as for dessert only fruit of the season. Always, beautiful porcellain was used; every guest was at liberty to eat as much or little as they wanted, and to drink as much Mosel or Pontac as they wished. Champagne and Hungarian Wine were only served if the King ordered them especially. The King's usual drink was Bergerac mixed with water; on some occasions, he also drank Champagne or Hungarian Wine.
(Passage of how Fritz with his fondness for spicy Italian and French food at times invited colics.)
It's true that the King loved lunching; all his vivaciousness and good mood followed him to the table. He talked nearly exclusively in French there, and those of his guests who didn't understand the language were mere listeners. Conversational topics were different subjects: politics, religion, history, military affairs etc. Occasionally, trivial matters were talked about, and religion was soundly mocked. *
*woeful footnote from the editor, summarized: Fritz, that's how we got the French Revolution and Napoleon, dammit!
Often, the table rounds lasted four to five hours, sometimes even longer; just as long, the King kept drinking, and it may be asked whether his heart then was in his tongue. Immediately afterwards, he played the flute again for an hour or half an hour, signed the letters the cabinet had written, went through the menu for the following day with the kitchen, and drank coffee. Once business had ended in the fourth hour, he kept reading until five, at which point the so called reader arrived - he didn't have one who really did the reading until a year before his death - with whom he talked until six o'clock while walking between the chambers and the great hall.
Before the concert, which usually started at 6 pm, he played preludes for about fifteen minutes, then played three concerts in a row, or at times listened to one by Quantz, or to a solo played on the cello, or to an aria sung by a singer, and then the music was usually done for the day. After the concert, the Marquis d'Argens arrived, and after his death Colonel Quintus Icilius. The monarch himself read to them, and after he had ended reading, he debated about the paragraph he'd read with his learned visitors.
These learned conversations usually lasted until 9 or 10 pm. The King then dismissed his companion, undressed himself standing in front of the fireplace except for boots and pants, put his nightshirt on, dismissed his servants with the order to awaken him the next morning, and usually soon fell asleep. Two common footmen kept watch in the antechambre. If the King wanted a glass of water or something else, he rang; it is wrong what the papers wrote, that they had to bring Burgundian wine to the King's bed when he rang. During his last twenty years, the King didn't drink any wine at night, and certainly no Burgundian wine, which he couldn't stand.
(...)
AS the King had scheduled his winter months, he also scheduled the summer. In that time of the year, there was more emphasis on bodily exercise. That's why he went to bed earlier and rose earlier in order to get used again to the early rising for the revues. As the month of February was ending, he ordered himself to be woken a bit earlier week by week and went to bed sooner, so that he could rise for the Berlin revue at 2 1/2 am and sit on his horse at 4 am. On such days, there wasn't much practice on the flute, the letters were only read, and the replies happened once he'd returned from the revue. As soon as the revue was over, he lengthened his nightly rest bit by bit again. In the month of march, he rode out on horseback at 10 or 11 in the morning if the weather was good. Near the end of March or, if the weather was bad, in April at the latest, he left the Potsdam palace and moved to Sanssouci, attended, if illness didn't stop him, five times a week the exercising of the garnison, commanded it in person each time; on the other days of the week, too, he rode at least for an hour.
Near the end of April or in May he went to Charlottenburg and had the Berlin Special Revue presented. On these occasions, he nearly always rode into town, partly to visit his sister, the Princess Amalie, partly to inspect the buildings in progress. Around noon, he returned to Charlottenburg to dine with the assembled chiefs and commanders of the regiments. On May 17 or 18, the big Potsdam Revue was presented. On the 19th, the King rode to Spandau in order to inspect the regiments of his brothers Prince Heinrich and Prince Ferdinand; from there, he rode to Charlottenburg, where he ate and remained for the night. As long as his brothers still appeared with their regiments, he always lunched after the special revue with his brother Prince Heinrich at Spandau. On the morning of the 20th, he rode to Berlin, inspected in passing Kowalsky's garnison regiment, afterwards the other foreign regiments, and arrived around nine or ten at the Berlin town palace. After having done his cabinet work, he went to the great hall, gave the assembled chiefs of staff the watchwords and dispositions, and went to lunch with his guests. The revue took place from 21 - 23rd May in Berlin, afterwards from May 26 - 28 in Magdeburg. Then, on June 1st, he arrived at Küstrin, inspected the dragoon regiments there immediately and held revue the next morning. From there, he went to Stargardt the next day on June 2nd, where on the 3rd and the fourth and in (East) Prussia the revue took place on the 8th, 9th and 10th June. On June 12th or 13 the King usually arrived back at Sanssouci.
From the end of the Prussian journey to the start of the Silesian one, all the ministers of the general directory arrived at Sanssouci, and the yearly budget was concluded. Afterwards, the King drank Eger waters, and lived at the New Palais for ten to fourteen days while his siblings visited him.
(Schöning observes that the King only went to this most expensive of buildings on the ground during those sibling visits, otherwise he much prefered Sanssouci.)
However, he only lived in half of it, consisting of three rooms, an alcove and the library; the other half was for the princes, generals and ministers whom the King had ordered to him.
(Schöning says the two rooms at Sanssouci for lunches were too small to host all the officers during the grand revues, which is why Fritz hosted them at the New Chambres instead. He also says Fritz felt so safe at Sanssouci that he didn't permit any of the doors being locked.)
Re: Schöning: Days in the Life of Old Fritz
Re: Schöning: Days in the Life of Old Fritz
Re: Schöning: Days in the Life of Old Fritz
Re: Schöning: Days in the Life of Old Fritz
Re: Schöning: Days in the Life of Old Fritz
Schöning: Old Fritz: Not Your Dream Boss (Unless You're Dog)
The flute, he played masterfully as a King; he had knowledge about general basso and composition, and has composed some arias, some concerts and over a hundred solos; he also could play the piano a bit. He performed a superb adagio. The only ones allowed at his concerts were the musicians involved and now and then a few musical connaisseurs. His concerts were simple, but pleasant. The flute was accompagnied by two violins, a viola, a cello, a fagot and the fortepiano. After the King wasn't able to play music anymore, he didn't want to listen to it, either, and only rarely attended concerts.
I remember the "Fritz and Music" author arguing with this statement, and using as evidence the various Berlin newspapers reporting Fritz' regular attendance to various opera performances and concerts in the 1780s (these are the years Schöning is talking about, since Fritz lost the ability to play the flute with the majority of his teeth in the Bavarian war). My speculation: it's a matter of perspective. Compared with the huge number of daily performances, see my previous translated excerpt, Schöning can say Fritz only attended rarely concerts anymore. To normal people, two or three times a week is often.
The King's behaviour towards his servants was very strict; especially if he noticed they were consorting with the other sex. He punished them with harsh words, beatings with his stick or with his fists, arrests or dismissals ,and sometimes he put them in the army.
Footnote from the editor here, in a rare spirit of criticism saying Fritz was wrong to do so, because if you treat the army as a deposit for people you want to punish, you're not making it look attractive and honorable, and maybe that's why Prussia lost against Napoleon. Again, reminder that Schöning himself was among the servants who married.
In his last years, his behavior towards them grew gentler, and he began to make little presents to those who were around him after he had endured illnesses, or at Christmas. Those who had managed to make themselves indispensible received larger presents in those last years, and those he favoured larger ones still.
Insert obvious comment about son of FW repeating patterns of abuse here. Meanwhile, guests who weren't servants:
The King's companions at the table and the scholars who kept him company in the evening were treated very graciously by him and hardly noticed their host was wearing a crown; though he mocked everyone leaving themselves open to it relentlessly. He had a stock collection of anecdotes regarding emperors, kings, and other worthies; these, he told often and kept repeating them, especially when strangers had joined the company who weren't familiar with them yet; meanwhile, the people who were around him for many years couldn't enjoy the repetitions and the often heard tales.
This is pretty much the same which Lucchessini notes down in his diary; that Fritz, like many old people, kept retelling the same stories.
The King's physical exercise consisted of the many slow and fast ridings as well as walks through the garden; even while playing the flute, he was unable to sit still, but kept moving from one room in the next. He often rode from Potsdam to Berlin without using his carriage which followed him. On marches, he always rode; if it was too cold, he went on foot.
Fritz and religion: He used to say "Post mortem nihil est, and that proves that he thought that he didn't believe in the immortality of the soul. He also used to say : Ex nihilo nihil est. So there has to be someone who created the world and everything in it; (...) so he recognized a single God as the creator and beginning of all things. Whether he also regarded him as the ruler of everything, or whether he believed the world had been left to run itself; whether not everything that happened happened by accident; that I can't say for sure. (...) Ever since he's been left to his own devices, one hasn't seen him showing an outward sign of serving God. What he's done during his father's life time, has been force and pretense, and if he afterwards visited churches a few times, he did so either for political reasons or to listen to the beautiful music.
And now we get data supporting a previous theory as to why Fritz didn't want an autopsy; it really was for Mom's reason, for:
Regarding chastity and honesty, the King showed a great deal of shame about his person; he didn't even allow his own servants to see him in the nude, and he never satisfied natural urges in their presence.
(Sidenote: in case this isn't clear, Schöning means he didn't piss or shit in their presence. Now today that's a given, but not so much in the 18th century, or earlier. One of the important offices among the courtiers of Henry VIII., for example, was the gentleman of the stool, who, yes, had to wipe the royal bottom.)
Verbally, on the other hand, he was an utter libertine, especially when sitting at the table with people, when he completely cut loose and named everything by its name.
Footnote from 19th century editor: Yes, that was one of Fritz' darker sides. OMG, if only he had lived in our times where people have learned not to talks so indecently!
Fritz: a good patient? The more pain he felt during his illnesses, the kinder and more graciously he behaved towards those who were nursing him. It was always a certain sign of his impending recovery when he started to be rude to the people he'd been content with while he was suffering.
Good grief.
Now let's talk budget for the kitchen:
The budget for the kitchen had been fixed on 12000 Reichstaler per annum by the King, and he didn't want to change this throughout his life. From this, the following had to be financed: daily eight plates for his table, eight plates for the marshal's table, three plates at noon and in the evening for ten to twelve servants, and cold foot for three to four dogs. If he was visited by noble strangers or by his family, and twelve, twenty or even thirty plates daily were necessary, he did pay for them as an extra expense, as he did for the table food during the masks and revues.
Salary for servants:
It's true that his personal servants received a very low salary. The primary ones received in addition to food and free lodging eight to ten Reichstaler per month; the rest only 8, 7 or 4.
Whereas the dogs:
The King's love for his dogs was extensive. Three or four were always around his person, and of these one was the favourite, and the others were this favourite's companions. The former was always lying next to the King on a chair with cushions and slept in her master's bed at night. The others had to leave the room in the evening, but returned early in the morning when the King was woken up. During the walkings or at the table, they were constantly following the King, who was particularly concerned about the grooming and about the health of his favourite dog. The King's pain when his favourites died was intense. They were buried at Sanssouci at a certain spot in a coffin, and received a tombstone inscribed with their names. In addition to the dogs which were always around his person, he also owned a pack at the palace of Potsdam and in the Jägerhof which consisted of forty to fifty whippets, and were cared for by two hunters, one of whom was also supposed to be an expert in curing dogs. The favourite dog and her companions had a chamber footman as their personal servants, who had to feed them and take them on walks. For their meals, they received different types of roastings, cake, buttery bread rolls, milk and water as much as they enjoyed. Whoever had the misfortune of kicking a dog did not escape without a scolding.
But no, Schöning doesn't tell us what became of them after Fritz' death, either.
Women: like I said, Schöning says Fritz regarded them as a necessary evil and with a few exceptions towards whom he behaved "very gallantly and decently", disliked their company, both out of general dislike for females and because he had to dress up and show manners for them.
Fritz and languages: Nothing new. I.e. loved French ,hated German, pretended to know Latin but actually didn't except for some learned phrases, read on the classics in French translations, knew a bit Italian due to music.
Time for some comic relief, which also answers one of Mildred's questions. Fritz tries fasting, but not out of respect for the Austrians:
In his younger years, he wanted to find out by a self experiment whether the Roman-Catholics deserved credit for their fasting. However, he decided that it wasn't much effort if you were allowed to eat fish, eggs, butter, cheese and milk; though he did try to live for forty days without the earlier mentioned food, but found it hard, and in order to make it through that time resorted to chocolate.
This isn't fasting, Fritz, but you do you. And finally, we got to something depressing:
Regarding the fourth commandment - "Honor your parents", in case anyone forgot - THe King has to be a rare model for humanity. As much as he pondered about the human race, as much did he venerate the memory of his father; and if on rare occasions he did talk about the later's rages, about his lashing out temper or other flaws, he always tempered this with moderation and concern. That's how he talked about his mother, too, and his siblings, and this love for his parents and siblings does his ashes much credit. Only about his grandfather did he talk very differently. He described him as prince full of pride, puffed up and completely driven by vanity, and often stated angrily that (F1) could have saved Prussia from the Plague if he'd used 100 000 Reichtaler on it. Moreover, he called him an upstart King and a Louis XIV wannabe.
Grandpa F1, who treated his wife and kid gently, loved culture and never hit anyone in his life: stunned.
Voltaire: Well, I liked him and told Fritz so.
MT: I know someone who is a Louis XIV wannabe, and it wasn't the grandfather of the current Margrave of Brandenburg who wouldn't have a royal title if not for said grandfather.
Re: Schöning: Old Fritz: Not Your Dream Boss (Unless You're Dog)
Re: Schöning: Old Fritz: Not Your Dream Boss (Unless You're Dog)
Re: Schöning: Old Fritz: Not Your Dream Boss (Unless You're Dog)
Re: Schöning: Old Fritz: Not Your Dream Boss (Unless You're Dog)
Re: Schöning: Old Fritz: Not Your Dream Boss (Unless You're Dog)
Suhm letters
1) Fritz, early in the correspondence, thanking Suhm for the Wolff translation, writes:
[My] soul, feeling it owes to you only, after God, its existence...
Which immediately struck me as parallel to the Duhan letter where he writes:
I owe you more, finally, than the author of my days:
He gave me life in his young love;
But he who teaches me, whose reason enlightens me,
He is my nurturer, and my only father.
So, FW gets credit for giving Fritz life, Duhan his mind, and Suhm his soul. <33
2) A footnote by the helpful editor tells me:
Suhm had previously written to the prince, telling him he amused himself by sawing wood, in his moments of recreation.
(Many of Suhm's letters weren't printed, apparently, sigh.)
Sawing wood! This I confess I had not expected.
Fritz has brought it up twice so far.
In the first time, Fritz reported that he's been getting more exercise at the advice of his doctor, but not to fear--he's giving up sleep so as to have more time to read! Why horseback riding? Well...
I was near becoming one of your sect, and to have set about sawing wood, but the fine weather made me determine otherwise.
*g*
Then, when Suhm tries to convince Fritz not to give up sleep (he does the thing that Fritz does in condolence and get-well-soon letters, which is "You must take care of your health for the sake of other people! Both because you're a prince and because people love you!", Fritz replies,
When a man knows what you do, and when a happy genius aided by treasures drawn from the study of the belles lettres, has elevated him to the point of perfection wherein I see you shine, he has full permission to saw wood and to give himself leisure. But when he only begins his course, he ought not to stop at the first step, but rather to sink down than not attain the desired end.
"Stop trying to talk me out of being a workaholic!" Fritz concludes.
FW: My son hates everything which includes effort and work.
Us: *facepalm*
Anyway, I now have this lovely mental image of Suhm sawing wood and Fritz considering it!
3) Another editor's footnote tells me that FW started a commission to look into Wolff as early as 1736, and that he was proclaimed innocent. Do we know if this is true? I ask because we had tentatively concluded that FW started reading Wolff in late 1739 after Fritz had encouraged AW to read Wolff, and maybe AW convinced FW that Wolff was worth reading.
4) Fritz refers to "morality" (French 'morale') in a context that makes it clear that it refers to Stoicism in the face of misfortunes. He's comforting Suhm over the latter's financial misfortunes that are forcing him to look for a job (the horror!)--this is right before he gets the St. Petersburg posting--and after giving some Stoic advice, writes,
How easy, my dear Diaphane, it is to give this precept, and how difficult to follow it! I know that a heart preyed upon by chagrin in the bitterness of its grief, is little flexible to the remonstrances of morality.
This is relevant to our interpretation of the line in the mystery affliction letter to Camas that goes, "I beg you to take part in [my troubles], and not to preach to me either a morality beyond my reach, or a heroism which renders me insensitive to the events of life."
I'm increasingly sure that's just a parallel construction, and "morality" refers to Stoic philosophy.
5) I had encountered two explanations for "Diaphane" so far: wordplay on Durchlaucht ("Illustrious", a title given to German princes), according to Hamilton, and Suhm's open-heartedness, according to MacDonogh. I'd been wondering if they had an 18th century origin, and I now see that both of these speculations are included in the same footnote by this one editor.
I still stand by my interpretation, which is backed by Fritz drawing effectively the same comparison, of the sun breaking through his dark moods, about Keyserlingk!
6) Finally, whoever scanned this pdf decided, apparently deliberately, to scan several pages out of order. This is super annoying, and I might fix it in our library copy someday. WTF, scanner.
And that's all I have for now. :)
Re: Suhm letters
Re: Suhm letters
Re: Suhm letters
Re: Suhm letters
Die Preußische Heirat, or Hohenzollern: The RomCom
Opening scene: cheerful court with dancing people and a fellow playing the flute, who is of course...
John ConnorCrown Prince Fritz: BayreuthFriedrich, since you have to leave my exile court at Rheinsberg, here’s your mission: go back in time, save my sister by providing her with books and a French teacher I’m sending her. Also, here’s a miniature portrait of her owned by me. If you show her this, she’ll know she can trust you.BayreuthFriedrich: Go back in time?
Fritz: Since we’re in Rheinsberg. The rest of the play is clearly meant to be set in 1731.
BayreuthFriedrich: Mission accepted!
Wusterhausen or PotsdamPalace, the film isn’t clear: Potsdam Giants are loudly exercising. Just a few, because a tv budget can’t finance more, and also this was made in the 1971, at which point no one West German was allowed to shoot in GDR territory, so who knows where they filmed.
Sonsine (a young woman): You bastards, do you have to do this so loudly this early in the morning? This wakes up the princess.
Potsdam Giant leader: That’s the point of the King’s orders. We’re supposed to wake her up because she’s been a bad Fritz supporting girl.
Wilhelmine: God, I’m depressed. I can barely use what little French I know to write to Fritz that I can’t accept this French teacher, or Dad will punish me even more.
(She really says “mein bißchen Französisch”)
Sonsine: Courage! Also, talk to your brother’s messenger, he’s hot.
BayreuthFriedrich: Sarah Connor, I mean, Wilhelmine, come with me if you want to live! For starters, accept the French teacher your brother sends you.
Wilhelmine: Let me give you my daily schedule organized by Dad so you see I have little time for French lessons, despite dearly needing and wanting them. If I meet strange men without his permission, it’ll be Küstrin time for me, too.
BayreuthFriedrich: I can’t believe a beautiful princess like you gets treated this way! Take heart, meet the secret French teacher.
Wilhelmine: ...Okay. *returns to her room; they had this conversation in the stairways*
BayreuthFriedrich: I’m in love!
Servant: You’re also summoned to the Queen.
SD: I’m talking with a weird accent that’s supposed to the the Hannover habit of pronouncing “spitz” and “stein” “s-pitz” and “s-tein” instead of “schpitz” and “schtein”, which is what the rest of Germany does. So, who are you again? Right, the Prince of Ansbach, or some other Franconian hell hole.
BayreuthFriedrich: Your daughter Friederike is already married to the Margrave of Ansbach.
SD: Not in this play and movie, she’s not. So, Ansbach Guy, is it true my darling son sent you?
BayreuthFriedrich: Yes; he even calls me Frederic, because we have the same first name, and he wants me to....
SD: ...help me marry my daughter to the Prince of Wales, undoubtedly. You’ve done the Grand Tour, so you must have some useful connections. Get on it! *dismisses him*
BayreuthFriedrich: That was weird. Off to see the King next.
FW: *inspects tall fellows*
FW: *is played by Carl Raddatz, tall himself, former matinee idol, which even with a bit of a fat suit is a problem*
FW: *inspects his younger kids, who are standing straight like the Potsdam Giants, checks out whether they have clean nails and well combed hair*
Younger Kids: *are the wrong gender and age, i.e. two of the three boys are nearly identically old and the oldest, while all the girls are younger than the boys, and three of the girls are smaller than the youngest boy*
Grumbkow & Seckendorf: We’re the incredibly dumb evil stooges of this play. The clever evil schemer is someone else, to wit:
FW’s valet Eversmann: Me! I’m in league with G & S, and we’ve heard rumors about a British diplomat approaching. This means we need a countermove.
G, S, E: Sire, Archduke Leopold the future Emperor is asking for your daughter’s hand!
FW: Hm.
FW: *receives BayreuthFriedrich*
FW: Not impressed with the fact you’ve been making the Grand Tour for years while your little principality is practically broke and your father keeps building palaces, young man. Still, you probably learned how to throw a party for nobles during your travels. I’m putting you in charge of the festivities. Throw an engagement party for Wilhelmine and... the Prince of Wales, I guess.
“Lord” Henry (!) Hotham: *arrives*
Hotham: I’m the other smart schemer in this play, the good one. Hey, isn’t that BayreuthFriedrich, whom I know from his Grand Tour?
BayreuthFriedrich: Henry! Long time no see. Woe is me. I’m in love with Wilhelmine, whose marriage to Fritz of Wales you’re supposed to negotiate, and even if that falls through, she’ll be married to the future Emperor Leopold.
Hotham: Cheer up, let the master plan. Fact is: there’s one point in the English marriage offer that FW is bound to balk at if I emphasize it properly, to wit, that he’ll allow English exports into Prussia again. If he says no, your hour will come.
G, S, E: Your Majesty, we’ve heard there’s a French teacher in town, sent by Crown Prince Fritz to Wilhelmine, brought here by that Bayreuth fellow.
FW: WHAT. I hate all things French. Arrest the guy and kick him out of the country.
G, S, E: Which one?
FW: The French teacher. The Bayreuth prince leaves as well, but unarrested.
Wilhelmine: *gets French lesson from Frenchman clearly imitating the “Princess Catherine learns English” scene from “Henry V*
Potsdam Giants: Arrest French teacher, throw him out of the country
Wilhelmine: Woe!
BayreuthFriedrich: Let me be your replacement French teacher!
Wilhelmine: Okay?
BayreuthFriedrich: I LOVE YOU.
Wilhelmine: ...This is only our second meeting, but I love you, too.
Evermann: Oh, hi, BayreuthFriedrich. You’re unmasked as a smuggler of Fritz letters and French contraband. You’re also supposed to leave the country.
BayreuthFriedrich: OMG WHAT SHALL I DOOOO! HENRY!!!!
Hotham: Never fear, I’m on the case.
Wilhelmine, FW, SD, Hotham: *meet*
Hotham: reads out the marriage contract clauses
SD: *is indignant about the little dowry Wilhelmine gets*
Hotham: We’re cool with the little dowry, but we’d like you to import our stuff again.
FW: Never. I need to support our local trade. The marriage ist through.
Hotham: Well, that’s inconvenient, since the Prince of Wales is already in town.
SD: Yay!
FW: Not officially receiving him, but if he puts on a white domino (cloak), he won’t get arrested. Also, the marriage is still a no go.
BayreuthFriedrich, hearing about this: Henry, I don’t understand. Whose side are you on?
Hotham: Yours, of course. Listen, get yourself a Prussian uniform and a white domino, and all will be cool. Fritz of Wales is hunting boars in Scotland, don’t worry about him. This is all part of my cunning plan.
Potsdam Giants: *march in front of Wilhelmine’s room, deliver the message she’s supposed to stay put, learn passages of the bible by heart and knit socks for the children from the Berlin orphanage as punishment for the secret Fritz correspondence*
Sonsine: Hang on, one of you soldiers just gave me the eye. This has potential.
*flirts with Potsdam Giant*
Potsdam Giant Eckhof: I’m actually the son of actors who wanted to be an actor myself when I was forcibly recruited. I also play instruments.
Sonsine: Excellent. Play for us now, we have all of Fritz’ instruments hidden in Wilhelmine’s wardrobe.
Eckhof: Well, I can’t play the flute, but the violin will do.
Eckhof: *plays violin while Wilhelmine and Sonsine dance*
FW: *arrives unexpectedly, sees one of his Potsdam Giants play the violin while his daughter dances with her lady in waiting*
FW: What. Eckhof, you’re fired from the regiment. Clearly, you need punishment. Therefore, I order you to join the theatre troupe currently visiting Berlin as penance, thus signalling I’m good at heart and know what’s going on.
Eckhof: Yay! You’re the best, Sire. *exits Eckhof*
Sonsine: *exits at a signal from FW*
FW: So you’re hiding Fritz’ instruments and still go behind my back. Why don’t you children love me when I do everything for you! I wanted my family to prove that royal families can be just like burgher families, and you two keep counteracting me.
Wilhelmine: Sire...
FW: You used to call me Dad.
Wilhelmine: I still love you. But can’t I marry for love?
FW: No.
*exit FW*
Hotham: I’m here to officially take my leave, Sire. Despite efforts from minor evil stooge Grumbkow here, I shall now demonstrate how a true schemer plots. No hard feelings, FW, I’m about to return to Blighty, but I have a farewell present for you. I know this good looking tall young man who really really wants to join your army.
FW: Huh. I think I misjudged you. That’s a thoughtful farewell gift, which I’ll accept.
Hotham: I’ll introduce him to you later. Also, see, we Brits are all about the clubs. And I’ve heard the best club that ever clubbed meets in this very building, smoking, drinking beer and talking about all subjects, headed by the coolest host ever. There’s nothing I’d like more than get an invite for one evening.
FW: Wow, I really like you. Okay, you’re invited.
Eversmann, in an attempt to counterscheme: Sire, shall we roast him? We always need one fellow to mock anyway.
FW: Nah, I like him to much, but I have an idea whom to roast. Okay, Eversmann, if BayreuthFritz is still in Berlin, he is invited, too. We’ll make him our object of fun for the evening!
*later that evening*
*Tobbacco Parliament*: assembles, with Hotham and BayreuthFritz as guests
Hotham: Remember, this is your one chance
BayreuthFriedrich: *delivers zinger after zinger against Grumbkow, Seckendorf and Eversmann, impressing FW*
FW: Okay, young man, ultimate test: Pretend you’re holding an obituary on me
BayreuthFriedrich: *takes all his courage* Dear assembly, we’re here to mourn FW, great administrator and reformer and lousy Dad. We all know about the unfortunate affair with the Crown Prince, no need to say more. And not content with that, FW also wants to force his daughter into marriage, never wants asking her what her heart wants! The irony: I do think he loves his family. But he’s poisoned his relationships with them all by himself. So he’ll die respected but not loved, and then the young eagle, the rising sun will ascend and we’ll all root for him! Fritz Fuck Yeah!”
Hotham: *for god’s sake, pretend to be drunk*
BayreuthFriedrich: *pretends to be drunk*
FW: Ooooookay. When you sober up, young man, let people tell you you and I drank together.
*still later that evening*
SD: Party time, ladies! I’m hourly expecting the visit of my nephew the Prince of Wales and of my daughter whom I’ve broken out of her imprisonment by following Hotham’s advice and lending her a white domino to wear.
*someone knocks at the door*
Piano player: *starts to play British national anthem which as far as I know wasn’t yet the national anthem then, “God save the King”*
SD: His highness, the Prince of Wales.
FW: *enters in white domino*
FW: Aha! So this is what you’re up to behind my back, Fieke!
*someone knocks at the door*
SD: Yes, and you can’t stop me! At last, here he is, his highness the Prince of Wales.
Piano: Plays anthem
Wilhelmine: *enters wearing a white domino*
FW: WTF?
*someone knocks at the door*
SD: Okay, that’s gotta be him now. My future son in law.
Piano: Plays British anthem
Hotham and BayreuthFriedrich: *enter, wearing white dominos*
FW: WTF?
Hotham: Let me introduce your new recruit to you, Sire. *takes off white domino from BayreuthFriedrich, showing he wears a Prussian uniform underneath*
FW: Hmmm. A German prince, eager to serve as a simple soldier in one of my regiments, was brave towards me, roasted the guys wanting to roast him... what say you, daughter?
Wilhelmine: I LOVE HIM!
FW: Okay, Fieke, I think we should let these two marry.
SD: ....Only if I get to say the size of her dowry, you miser.
Hotham: Happy ending!
Now, aside from everything else: presumably the one publication Gutzkow must have read when doing research for this are Wilhelmine's memoirs. Can you imagine reading them and coming up with this plot?
Re: Die Preußische Heirat, or Hohenzollern: The RomCom
Re: Die Preußische Heirat, or Hohenzollern: The RomCom
Re: Die Preußische Heirat, or Hohenzollern: The RomCom
Nicolai vs Zimmermann: En garde!
1.) Zimmermann, as you may recall, is the planet's first Fritz/MT shipper and conspiracy theorist who deduced in his fragments that Fritz wanting to go to France or England was just a cover story, he was really in league with Seckendorf and had arranged to go to Austria where he wanted to marry MT, thus sparing the world the Silesian Wars and the 7 Years War. (Zimmermann calls this the greatest Fritz plan ever and really mourns it wasn't to be.) This is also the reason why Seckendorf and the Emperor later intervened with FW to save Fritz' life, and why FS was at Fritz' engagement party later, gloating over his defeated rival for MT's love and hand.
Unsurprisingly, Nicolai has an easy time making mincemeat of that theory even without access to the secret state archives, not least because he's collected stuff on Fritz for decades, including the publication of the various foreign monarchs' letters to FW on the subject, which he uses to point out that the one from MT's Dad was just standard for the day. He also correctly thinks that Seckendorff would have shot himself and his own influence on FW massively in the foot if he'd conspired with FW's son against him in this way and would never have done that, and points to all the meetings with Hotham and Guy Dickens Fritz had, as well as Keith going to England, as proof England was the agreed upon escape destination. And he argues that Katte's published letters form the pamphlet about his execution (which Nicolai has read, and which apparantly has just been republished) as well as the description Preacher Müller gave of his death point to Hans Herrmann von Katte having been an upstanding, really good Protestant, who would never, ever, have signed on a scheme where his beloved Crown Prince has to convert to the Church of Rome to marry MT. On the contrary, upstanding Protestant Katte would have done anything to prevent this.
...I must say, I'm impressed, because Nicolai does not, repeat, does not have access to the interrogation protocols.
2.) Of course, the part of Zimmermann's "Fragments" everyone talked about wasn't this, it was the "Fritz: psychologically impotent due to botched penis operation after youth of STD, but NOT GAY NEVER, he just faked gay interest to cover for this" chapter. Now, as we've seen, in his own collection of anecdotes Nicolai completely avoids the "gay" question, and when he repeatedly has a go at Voltaire for all of Voltaire's ungrateful slanders, he does not include this one. So I was curious how he'd handle what is a part of Zimmermann's big headlines making argument. Mes amies, he handles it thusly.
Nicolai: Okay. Z. - he always calls him "Ritter von Z" or "Herr von Z", never writing out the last name and always using the "von" to mock Zimmermann's pride in his ennoblement - pretends he had to go against all decency to devote an entire chapter on the state of Fritz' penis in order to defend Fritz from a certain charge he then lists in detail. As anyone with a brain in the publishing industry would know, even if you are refuting a charge, by listing it and talking about it you're just making sure more people hear about it. I therefore will not talk about this charge Z is supposedly defending our glorious King from, save to say all right thinking people would never talk about this subject AT ALL. Now, on to Zimmermann's arguments for a broken penis.
....
He points that if Zimmermann was so worried about this question, he could have simply done what Nicolai and Büsching did, to wit, asked the various people who saw dead Fritz naked in the one and a half hour his dead body was lying around in that state while it was cleaned up for the wake and funeral. (You, Mildred, quoted Banning on this, I think; Banning's source is Nicolai, because the phrasing is almost identical.) He then, as Büsching did, prints signed testimony of the various guys involved to the effect Fritz had a completely normal piece of male equipment without any scarring tissue, meaning there can't have been any operation, botched or not, at any point. Because Nicolai is thorough, he also says readers (if they'd made it so far in this unsavoury subject) might wonder what the various people were doing checking Fritz' genitals close enough to look for scarring tissue. Well, says Nicolai, it's all that bastard Voltaire's fault, because he was the one who started the story of the botched operation in his slanderous writings, which everyone had read, so these guys were curious and had a look.
Nicolai then proceeds in his Zimmermann evisceration by showing Zimmermann indulges in the art of quote falsification, as Zimmermann says Schöning told him no one alive saw Fritz naked ever; by contrast, Nicolai points to Büsching quoting Schöning saying that the King had "große Schamhaftigkeit" about his person and didn't want his servants to see him naked, hence dressed and undressed himself, which is a different kind of statement, as, see above, the people who cleaned up Fritz' dead body as well as the doctors making the cuts releaving the body of the water all saw him naked.
Next, Nicolai addresses Zimmermann's statement of Fritz (believing himself cured from STD courtesy of the Schwedt cousin and his quack of a doctor) indulging in six months of non stop sexual married bliss with EC until the STD returned, for which Zimmermann said there's the testimony of one of EC's ladies in waiting, whom he names by name. Leaving aside that it's extremely indelicate to incriminate a lady this way, says Nicolai, it's not true, either, since the lady in question never was lady-in-waiting to EC. She was present at the Fritz/EC wedding, and she and her husband were visiting Rheinsberg at one point, as mentioned in Bielfeld's letters, which is, Nicolai says cuttingly, presumably where Zimmermann has picked her name from. But he, Nicolai, talked to the late lady's son, Count Such and Such, and here reprints the son's testimony that his mother wasn't EC's lady-in-waiting during the first six months of EC's marriage (or later), and also certainly would never have been as crass and tasteless as to gossip about EC/Fritz marital sex. How, Nicolai demands, would Zimmermann, himself a married man, feel if people were quoted or "quoted" about his own sexual activities with his wife? And EC is still alive! As is one of Fritz' sisters!!!! The thought of poor EC and Charlotte having to read this (invented) stuff is TOO MUCH, how could you, Z!!!!!
3.) On to Fritz/Barbarina. Here, Nicolai doesn't really go on about Zimmermann's "Fritz clearly wanted to, but thought he couldn't anymore, and this explains his entire behavior with her", but chooses as his target for eviscaration another angle, because Zimmermann in "Fragments" theorizes that Barbarina's ditched boyfriend/sort of fiance?? "Mackenzie" whom she'd been with when Fritz had her extradited by Venice subsequently must have been fueled with thoughts of revenge, a revenge he later took when becoming advisor to none other than Lord Bute, making him withdraw British funding from Fritz in the 7 Years War. Thus, the story of the 7 Years War would have been different if not for Fritz' tragically unfulfilled longings for Barbarina and her ditching this Mackenzie for Fritz, sort of. Nicolai mocks this, saying that it could be one of Bute's advisors is called MacSomething or the other, it's a very common name part in GB for someone to have, but there's no proof this is Barbarina's ex. As for the idea the Brits wouldn't have withdrawn funding from Fritz otherwise, pleaaaaaase. And Z, you're again not being a gentleman towards a lady by putting into print Barbarina's old scandals, because Barbarina? Still alive, and wonderful highly respected old lady who has funded a woman's shelter in silesia with her fortune, so there.
Re: Nicolai vs Zimmermann: En garde!
Re: Nicolai vs Zimmermann: En garde!
Re: Nicolai vs Zimmermann: En garde!
FIRST and SECOND Chamber Hussars
Re: FIRST and SECOND Chamber Hussars
Re: Nicolai vs Zimmermann: En garde!
Re: Nicolai vs Zimmermann: En garde!
Re: Nicolai vs Zimmermann: En garde!
Re: Nicolai vs Zimmermann: En garde!
Re: Nicolai vs Zimmermann: En garde!
Re: Nicolai vs Zimmermann: En garde!
...
Mackenzie and Bute
Re: Mackenzie and Bute
Re: Mackenzie and Bute
Zimmermann: Über Friedrich den Großen und meine Unterredungen mit ihm kurz vor seinem Tod
Fritz isn't just the greatest King of the 18th Century, he's the greatest man of the 18th Century. And he had the most beautiful eyes ever given to a human being, ever. And Zimmermann was filled full of male tenderness (männliche Zärtlichkeit) when visiting this wonderful human being dying before him, which he also felt for Fritz in happier, healthier days. His tone of voice is the clearest and most agreeable Zimmermann has ever heard. Also, no one was ever so misunderstood as Fritz was. His critics accuse him of never having loved, which is so wrong, and no, Zimmermann isn't just speaking of the dogs. (Though he does tell a touching dog story, about Fritz' current favourite dog having been ill in 1785, when Fritz was doing his last trip to Silesia, so he couldn't take the dog with him but had fast couriers standing by to bring him news of how the dog was doing, and was heartbroken when the dog died.) Zimmermann, like the Salon, has read the printed Crown Prince Fritz/Suhm letters and thinks they're the most beautiful testimony to Fritz' capacity of feeling and love.
All this Fritz fannishness does not, however, prevent him from also plugging his own royal patron, who since he's (while born Swiss) a citizen of Hannover is Frederick Duke of York, younger son of G3, currently studying at the university of Göttingen which his family co-sponsors; Göttingen is about to become the most famous German university. Luckily, Fritz like Fred of York, too; he even tells Zimmermann repeatedly he loves the Duke of York like a son and hopes Fred of York will stay in Hannover after he's finished with uni and be a German, because Brits, eh. Zimmermann's other famous royal patron is none other than Catherine the Great. (Who has just ennobled him in 1786, making him Ritter von Zimmermann.) About her, he and Fritz have this exchange:
KING: You're corresponding with the Empress of Russia?
I: The Empress condescends to writing to me occasionally, yes.
KING: So the Empress consults you about her health?
I: The Empress doesn't need to, since she enjoys excellent health. Literature, philanthropy and philosophy are the themes of the letters with which the Empress honors me.
KING: But eveyone knows the Empress is sick!
I: The Empress knows everyone believes that. She often jokes about it and once wrote to my: her yearly expenses for her health are thirty pennies.
KING: Not what I've heard.
I: Your Majesty knows best how unreliable in such a case even secret news from so called confidential sources are. I know perfectly well and very recently that everyting which is said about the Empress being sickly can't be true. The Empress endures the toughest fatiguing trials. As late as last year, she undertook a journey of more than twohundred and fifty German miles, in a great mood and in cheerful spirits. Her good mood doesn't leave her all day. Her busy mind never rests and remains effective. In her hours of leisure, she's recently written by her own hand a new book of laws for Russia's nobility, and a new law book for Russia's towns. She's also started a book which is amazing from a philosophical point of view, a glossary comparing slang and phrases between different languages and dialects. A few of the comedies the Empress herself wrote in order to ridicule superstition, full of sparkling satire and wit I received by the Empress' own hands this very year.*
*footnote: Three comedies against superstitions: 1) The Con Man (Cagliostro), 2.) The Deluded Man, 3) The Siberian Shaman. By Her Imperial Highness Katharina Alexejewna, published by Friedrich Nicolai, Berlin 1788.
Buy it, readers!KING: I admit it, the Empress of all the Russias is a woman of uncommon genius.
** Footnote: The King wasn't just saying that then, he ALWAYS said it. After his death, my dear friend the Marchese Lucchessini wrote to me: L'Imperatrice de la Russie, un temps l'amie du grand Frederic, toujours la rivale de sa gloire, etoit toujours aussi l' object des discours et de 'l admiration de ce roi unique.
(Now Luccessini puts it a bit differently in his diary, where he he lets Fritz give Catherine credit for writing well and also for offering, via future FW2 who has just visited her when Lucchesini writes in his diary in 1780, to mediate between Fritz and Heinrich ("„L‘Imperatrice di Russia scrive bene. Ho apiuto in quesito giorni da altra parte, che la prima conversazione dell‘ Imperatrice di Russia col Principe Reale si piegrava a porre in ricilolo il Re, e il Principe Enrico"), but also says she spent her first few years being ruled by the Orlovs, and also he's still the biggest genius of them all. But Luccessini wasn't just ennobled by her and hoping for future gifts.)
Speaking of Luccessini, since Zimmermann here uses almost identical phrases to describe him as he uses in "Fragments" to describe the unnamed companion of Fritz' last years who had the deepest insight etc. into Fritz and to whom Fritz said he had had sex until directly before the 7 Years War, which briefly led Zimmermann to assume that all the gay rumors could be true until he figured out this was just part of Fritz' distraction campaign to fool people about his tragic broken penis, I think we can settle that Luccessini is indeed the source for this story. Which still makes it sound as if Fritz/Glasow happened to me.
Back to Zimmermann. He isn't just emo all the time, he can describe Fritz' various symptoms with medical accuracy. I also believe him when he says he realised at once that Fritz was dying, and that conversely Fritz refused to acknowledge it until shortly before Zimmermann left. (Heinrich, not a medic, also realised Fritz was dying when he saw him in January that same year and wrote to Ferdinand that if he wanted to see Fritz again alive he should make his visit now. So Zimmermann, a celebrated doctor of his day, definitely must have realised it.) In terms of describing people, Zimmermann is neither a Lehndorff nor a Boswell, which is to say, he doesn't have the gift of bringing them to life with a few sentences; he resorts to stock phrases instead. Take this introduction of Schöning; Zimmermann is in conversation with an unnamed courtier, who told him Fritz has fired his regular doctors before summoning Zimmermann:
"But Sir, how is the King, and who is the King's Doctor?"
"The King," he replied, "is very ill, and he has no other doctor but his chamber hussar."
"His Chamber Hussar is his doctor?"
"Yes, and in between and mainly the King himself is his own doctor. This Chamber Hussar is the King's valet. He's called Herr Schöning. He will now lead you to the King."
Herr Schöning entered, and greeted me politely and with good manners, but very seriously, and with great alacrity. In this moment I thought: Next to the King, I need to get along best with Herrr Schöning. So I pulled myself together and said and did what a lifetime of knowing people had taught me in order to study and win over the chamber hussar as much as I was able.
Herr Schöning soon showed me his true nature. I found him to be a man of good sense, of feeling and of intelligence, who spoke with great deliberation, yet truthfully, and very well. He seemed to know the King through and through. Soon Herr Schöning showed himself to be a Herzensfreund of Professor Selle of Berlin, whom the King had dismissed for a good while. This heightened the good opinion I had already formed of Herr Schöning, for this wasn't courtier behavior. (To show friendshp for a fired official.) But as it had to grieve him that I, a stranger, replaced his Herzensfreund at the King's side, this thought, or rather this suspicion made us equal and made us be very delicate in all we said and did to each other.
It's servicable as a description, but no more. Oh, and speaking of descriptions, Zimmermann never fails to mention that Fritz has a portrait of Joseph in the last antechambre where he can see it when the door of his study is open. This Zimmernann takes to mean he wants to keep an eye on Joseph. (Coming menace of Europe in Fritz' view, we might add, though Zimmermann probably thinks of Joseph as the son MT and Fritz never had instead.) Though the one Fritz truly loves as a son, as is repeatedly said by Zimmermann in this text, is the Duke of York. (Who will, btw, later marry FW2's daughter, thus concluding yet another miserable Hohenzollern and Hannover marriage.)
I feel a bit cruel for mocking Zimmermann; it's clear he did adore Fritz and was deeply affected by having to watch someone he loved so extensively be painfully ill without being able to truly help. (Because while some of the symptoms can be relieved temporarily, it's clear that he's dying.) But even for the spirit of the age, the mixture of high strung adoration on the one hand and the insistence of being The One Who Truly Understands (while all the other competing publications are wrong, of course) is annoying, and even in this book, before he starts to speculate about Fritz' sex life or lack of same, you can see why he's about to fall out with his fellow fanboys.
Re: Zimmermann: Über Friedrich den Großen und meine Unterredungen mit ihm kurz vor seinem Tod
Re: Zimmermann: Über Friedrich den Großen und meine Unterredungen mit ihm kurz vor seinem Tod
Re: Zimmermann: Über Friedrich den Großen und meine Unterredungen mit ihm kurz vor seinem Tod
Re: Zimmermann: Über Friedrich den Großen und meine Unterredungen mit ihm kurz vor seinem Tod
no subject