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.
Mourning: These orders from June 1st, 1740, say that royals, royal servants, nobility, and ministers had to wear specific black clothing for six weeks after FW's death, starting June 15th. (To give them time for ordering/tailoring I guess. Until then, everybody was supposed to wear any black clothing they already had.) Royal carriages had to be clad in black, but nobody else's. Envoys could do what they wanted on their own time but had to appear in black at court. I suspect it might have been similar after Fritz' death regarding the "deep mourning" period, i.e. the black clothes, which I think is different from a general mourning period. I also found this FW edict from 1734, which specifies the different mourning periods after the deaths of ordinary citizens, and it also says that when a royal dies, there will be individual orders every time, which we see above. So FWII must have given his own, but I couldn't find a copy so far.
Mildred, cahn, the FW micromanaging orders for mourning for ordinary citizens are fascinating and very FW/Prussian. Since they are written in the font you like to much, I shall translate:
Parents for children who were older than twelve years: three months. For children younger than twelve years: no mourning.
Biological parents, grandparents, great-gandparents: are to be mourned for six months. Adopted or stepparents as well as aunts: only thirty days.
Widow for her husband: exactly a year and no more. Widower for his wife: half a year and no more.
Parents-in-law: half a year, no more.
People who made you their universal heir, even if they're not related to you: six months, if you like.
Brother, Sister, brother-in-law, sister-in-law: no more than three months.
Death-related rituals have been a lifelong interest of mine, hence my interest in the death masks and various other things that have come up.
Since they are written in the font you like to much, I shall translate:
Hahaha. Thank you. I'm getting better! And one day, after I've gotten the hang of German, I'm going to tackle the font so that I can read all the older sources without you having to do it for me. In the meantime: thank you!
Widow for her husband: exactly a year and no more. Widower for his wife: half a year and no more.
Ha! This actually matches England and the US in the 19th century, and I've learned painfully that my knowledge of those places and periods don't always translate to early 18th century Prussia when I think they do.
So I'm a bit confused: does the six week rule only apply to FW qua monarch, so the servants and nobility are done after six weeks, but his wife and children have to abide by the family rules? Or is it six weeks across the board?
So I'm a bit confused: does the six week rule only apply to FW qua monarch, so the servants and nobility are done after six weeks, but his wife and children have to abide by the family rules? Or is it six weeks across the board?
I was wondering that as well, and also inhowfar position trumps personal relation, as in: surely Fritz himself as the new king did not actually wear black for six months. (Or even the six weeks??) The one thing I found at Trier were two entries in Droysen's itinerary, who marks the beginning of the deep mourning ("große Trauer") on June 15th, and then has an entry on June 1st, 1741, which says "Die Königin-Mutter legt die Trauer ab.", which would indicate that the family rules did indeed apply to royals. Or at least some of them, as I have a feeling that the rules for the women (and in another way, also for the military possibly) might have been their own thing, particularly because I just realized that I translated inaccurately in my initial comment: It doesn't actually say "royals", it says "royal princes"! Sorry about that. I don't know if that means that the guys got away with six weeks and the women didn't, though.
surely Fritz himself as the new king did not actually wear black for six months.
That's what I thought! Surely FW would want him (and the rest of his sons) in uniform. :P (Were black uniforms for the military a thing? I just realized I don't know.)
For children younger than twelve years: no mourning.
Note that this reflects the child mortality rate, which I keep reading was 50% or even higher, and applied across all social classes; i.e. your chances of survival in your first few years weren't actually better if you were a royal as opposed to a peasant.
Finally found FWII's order in this. The mourning details start page 31, and it says that the higher officers wore black waistcoats and trousers and black hats with mourning bands, captains the same minus the hat, everyone else just a mourning band. (Lots more details concerning how and where to wear the mourning band, and also about sashes and port d'epees etc.)
And I was totally wrong about the six weeks probably being the same for Fritz! Not only that, I think I was totally wrong about the six weeks entirely and didn't read closely enough. Sigh. My head is not in the game today. So. FWII's order, August 19th, 1786, has the same nobility/royal servants/ministers thing (minus the "royal princes" for some reason), but it's six months instead of weeks. Which made me go back to the document I linked earlier and I think the six weeks there are not for the entirety of the "wearing black" part, but only for the "carriages clad in black without crest" part. There is no other mention of a time period, though. It might have been six months back then as well, because I've read repeatedly that FWII went for "do things as they were done for FW" when it came to the burial and it would make sense that the same is true for the mourning period. Which means it would render the "family" vs. "royal" mourning moot, because it'd be the same except for SD, which is the one thing that's menioned separately by Droysen.
You're linking to books faster than I can download them and upload them to the library! (I was in the middle of trying to catch up on some of your recent findings when this came in.)
Thank you! (Also, I thought 6 weeks was surprisingly short and was trying to come up with a reason. In my head when I wrote "Grind", my guess was 6 months.
Also...there's a whole book/longish essay on Fritz's last hours and funeral arrangements? Hmmm. That's Mildred catnip. :D
Having browsed through it, it is incredibly detailed, includes stuff like the exact clothing dead Fritz was dressed in, or that his "thin grey hair" was combed and powdered into "loose curls", and the name of the servant who held him when he died. (I'll translate the passage for you.) The whole tone is legic and hyperpatriotic, and this means the author runs into an obvious problem, to wit, that the whole funeral arrangements and procedure which he describes in loving detail was something the "Hochseliger" as he refers to Fritz, the late King of blessed memory, would explicitly not have wanted. At which point our author commits a blatant falsehood and goes (paraphrased): "Dear readers, you may have heard the story that Fritz wanted to be buried in Sanssouci. Well, maybe the whim struck him on one of those lovely evenings sitting out there, and he made a remark to that effect to a visitor, but I can assure you it really was no more than that, no written instructions anyway, and so our noble new king, who just couldn't know for sure one way or the other, decided to bury him worthily in royal style!"
The only point where he says something critical about the funeral arrangements etc. at all is when in the memorial service they play a new composition with Latin text by Luccessini, and the author chides that it being in Latin means that most of the people assembled in the Garnisonskirche would have understood a word, and provides the text with German translation in an appendix. (It's basically "Who was the greatest? FRITZ! Fuck Yeah!" in Latin, in several verses, listing individual accomplishments - the land winning by river draining projects, Silesia, making his enemies quail in the 7 Years War, philosopher and writer.)
The death scene, starting on the evening: They say the King had asked about the time, and when he was told that it was 9 pm, he supposedly said then it was time for him to retire. There are a lot of other stories, the veracity of which I can't swear to, so I won't repeat them here. Finally, his breath became shorter and shorter, the moaning sound became softer and softer, as is the habit with a marusmus senilis, and at last, he took his last breath on Thursday morning at 2 am 19 minutes, leaning forwards to one side, with the head pressed against the body of the chamber servant ("Kammerlakei") Strizky.
Present during the death of this great monarch were, aside from the two royal chamber hussars, Mr. Neumann and Mr. Schöning, various other servants. His excellency the state and cabinet minister Baron von Herzberg, Generallieutenant Count von Görtz, and General Major and Master of the Horse Schwerin were situated in the side chambers next door. The royal physician, Dr. Selle, immediately called his excellency state and cabinet minister von Herzberg, who then signalled to the stableboy waiting at the ramp of Sanssouci that the King was dead, and the later immediately brought the news to his excellency Generallieutenant von Röddich and to the Prince of Prussia, now the current King's Majesty.
FW2 was in Sanssouci within hours. (And moved in one of the rooms for the next few days until everything administartive was transferred to the Berlin town palace, though he resided in one of the guest rooms; Fritz' chamber was sealed off.) Because Fritz had strictly forbidden an autopsy and an embalming (his mother had done the same thing; AW was the outlier with explicitly requesting an autopsy after his death), and it was August, the funeral really happened very quickly because of the threatening decay, and the death mask was also taken quickly for that reason. Otoh, the three coffins Fritz was put in were all openened again before they found their final place in case the body had been shaken and moved through the transport and had to be put back into dignified position.
Alas, no mentioning as to what became of the dogs in the entire text that I could see! (Though maybe I overlooked it, it was a very quick reading on my part.) I remember this was one of our old questions.
the author runs into an obvious problem, to wit, that the whole funeral arrangements and procedure which he describes in loving detail was something the "Hochseliger" as he refers to Fritz, the late King of blessed memory, would explicitly not have wanted
I noticed that! Manger had a similar problem when describing the Sanssouci vault and Fritz' wish to be buried there, but was a bit less embellishing: It's possible that he changed his mind over time, or that one didn't think it necessary to follow his instruction.
Kletschke, by the way, is this guy, military and court chaplain, and also responsible for and invested in reforming the military schools and the military orphanage in Potsdam during Fritz' last years, continuing that under FWII.
Because Fritz had strictly forbidden an autopsy and an embalming (his mother had done the same thing; AW was the outlier with explicitly requesting an autopsy after his death), and it was August, the funeral really happened very quickly because of the threatening decay, and the death mask was also taken quickly for that reason.
Yeah. FWIII wrote his own description of the day (which can be found in Vol. 3 of Volz' "Spiegel") - he was woken during the night, arrived shortly after his father, and mentions that two servants kept away the flies with green branches while Fritz' body was still in Sanssouci (the music room) and before he was washed with spirit alcohol. (No embalming, as we know, but they did make a couple of incisions to get rid of the water, and FWIII comments that if they could have done that when he was still alive, he might not have died.) Also: It has been said that the king probably never rested as gently as he does now that he is dead; for it must be remembered that the most blessed king lay on mattresses at all times during his lifetime and that the pillows in the coffin are extremely soft. No mention of the dogs from him either. Which is almost surprising, given that he spent so much time in Sanssouci that day, but I guess they were brought away pretty quickly after Fritz' death, as to not be underfoot during the proceedings.
Thank you for this! Some of it (like the thin grey hair being powdered and curled) I had run into, and Strizky for example I'd seen written as Strutski, but certainly not all of it, and I didn't know what the source of any of this was. It's good to know!
maybe the whim struck him on one of those lovely evenings sitting out there, and he made a remark to that effect to a visitor, but I can assure you it really was no more than that
WHAT. What about the WHOLE VAULT he had constructed all the way back in the 1740s??? >:-(
It's basically "Who was the greatest? FRITZ! Fuck Yeah!"
LOLOL. Der Einzige! My fave.
Alas, no mentioning as to what became of the dogs in the entire text that I could see!
It's basically "Who was the greatest? FRITZ! Fuck Yeah!" in Latin
LOL! I love your way with words.
...okay, I have to ask, why would you forbid an autopsy and embalming? I can see why AW would request one, but as a child of the post-Enlightenment world I don't really see what the problem is in getting an autopsy. Is it because it messes with the dead body and people thought that was weird??
Ha, sorry! I was on a bit of a roll this past week and it's too easy to get sucked into following new references and/or questions that present themselves while reading one thing.
Ohhhh, I saw that and didn't quite know how to take it, thank you! I should have remembered about the child mortality rate. I didn't know that survival chances weren't actually better if you were a royal, but I guess it makes sense that any advantages from e.g. better nutrition were probably more than offset by MORE BLEEDING. NOT THAT I AM BITTER.
Lol, yes, I was telling my wife about the child mortality rate being the same across classes, and since I had previously told her about Louis XV's governess barricading herself in the room with the kid, she said the same thing you did! We joked blackly that if your kid was about to survive measles on their own, you could afford to have them bled to death to keep up with the peasants!
Nutrition for rich children was better overall than for peasants, but not as much as you might think.
- There were a lot of rich neglected children, because the underpaid and abused servants raising them didn't always have a whole lot of motivation to keep them alive. A *lot* of rich kids, not just FW's, reported growing up hungry.
- There were really poor medical beliefs. Like if a baby wasn't thriving, the doctor might take them off milk and feed them weird powders (like dried snake) ground up in water.
- Since rich women weren't breastfeeding their own kids, they had a wet nurse to do that. Sometimes she lived in the countryside, and it took a couple days to get the kid to her. During that time, people believed it was very important that the kid not imprint on anyone else, so instead of letting them breastfeed with whatever lactating woman was in the vicinity, they would feed the kid sugar water.
- Middle-class/rich kids more likely to stay inside, less likely to get vitamin D from the sun, more likely to have rickets. (This may be offset by the sheer amount of child labor that went into poorer kids getting plenty of sun.)
Etc.
However, given the striking height differences between adults (and presumably children) of different classes, child nutrition must have been much better *on average* in affluent families. Treatment for infectious diseases, not so much.
Like if a baby wasn't thriving, the doctor might take them off milk and feed them weird powders (like dried snake) ground up in water.
Or: if you're Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, you get the idea in your head that milk isn't good for your first baby and it's going to be water and sugar all the way, and it takes your wife, your mother-in-law and your Dad writing from Salzburg to talk you out of this terrible idea.
(I was reminded of this again when listening to Brandauer recite some Mozart letters.)
Re: wetnurses for rich and noble women: remember, Stratemann provided us with the intel of how this was handled chez Hohenzollern, i.e. there was a selection of women applying for the job made by various court officials, and then SD decided between the final candidates. The one for Ferdinand (which is what Stratemann writes about) was a French Colonel's wife living in Berlin, so thankfully no trip to the countryside was necessary. (Voltaire: indeed not, since according to me, who never saw it at that time, Berlin under FW was a village anyway.) But it really was often the case, and I remember first coming across it in the Angelique novels by Anne Golon.
Geesh, Mozart, congratulations, you have managed to be more boneheaded than prevailing medical advice of the day, I didn't even realize that was possible!
Middle-class/rich kids more likely to stay inside, less likely to get vitamin D from the sun, more likely to have rickets.
Unless they were called FW and their response to compliments about their complexion was to cover their face with oil and loiter in the hot sun all day... ;)
During that time, people believed it was very important that the kid not imprint on anyone else, so instead of letting them breastfeed with whatever lactating woman was in the vicinity, they would feed the kid sugar water.
My first baby lost an alarming amount of weight because my colostrum and early milk wasn't nutritious enough for her (and despite a poster in my hospital room assuring me that it was good enough for the baby, which I'm still bitter about), at which point the doctor put her on formula for a couple of weeks. At which point I had more than enough milk, but I remember talking to my sister (a pediatrician) at the time being bitter about how I couldn't feed my own child and wondering how this worked before formula, at which point my sister was like, "Yeah, they died a lot, is what happened."
All that is to say that this just kind of viscerally upset me, like, you've probably got some sort of lactating woman around, including the own mom (which also! ouch! not breastfeeding when your breasts are totally primed for it is also painful and also I wonder how many of these women died from mastitis) and you're feeding this kid sugar water?? Poor kids :(
OMGGG, detective felis makes it Christmas for me yet again! <333 Thank you so much!
Speaking of which...
If Mildred is Holmes, you're clearly Poirot.
Ahaha, given the icon I've been using around these parts, I'll go with "AU!Holmes". ;)
Well, since I never got into Holmes but love Poirot, you can be Holmes and I'll be Poirot. Deal? :D
Aw, thanks! I have to say, I'm genuinely amazed that there's so much to find online in the first place! We are really lucky that way.
We are! I'm going to play my "I'm getting old" card and say that in MY day when I first got into 18th century history, in 1998-2001, there were no scanned books, no Google translate (Altavista Babelfish sucked), no Google maps, no Google drive, no Wikipedia, none of it! There was Brian Tompsett's royal genealogy site (which I'm sad was taken down recently), a forum where I managed to exchange messages with an actualfax adult historian (I was a high schooler, a fact which I was at pains to conceal) about the Jacobites, aaaand...that was most of the extent of my internet usage for historical research!
If there had to be a global pandemic during my lifetime, I'm glad it was after the internet took off.
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.
And even longer for me ;), so if anyone runs across it, please let me know, and if I run across it, I'll let everyone know.
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timeasmymeasure
Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-21 09:02 am (UTC)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
Date: 2021-02-21 12:06 pm (UTC)Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-21 12:20 pm (UTC)Parents for children who were older than twelve years: three months. For children younger than twelve years: no mourning.
Biological parents, grandparents, great-gandparents: are to be mourned for six months. Adopted or stepparents as well as aunts: only thirty days.
Widow for her husband: exactly a year and no more.
Widower for his wife: half a year and no more.
Parents-in-law: half a year, no more.
People who made you their universal heir, even if they're not related to you: six months, if you like.
Brother, Sister, brother-in-law, sister-in-law: no more than three months.
Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-21 06:29 pm (UTC)Death-related rituals have been a lifelong interest of mine, hence my interest in the death masks and various other things that have come up.
Since they are written in the font you like to much, I shall translate:
Hahaha. Thank you. I'm getting better! And one day, after I've gotten the hang of German, I'm going to tackle the font so that I can read all the older sources without you having to do it for me. In the meantime: thank you!
Widow for her husband: exactly a year and no more.
Widower for his wife: half a year and no more.
Ha! This actually matches England and the US in the 19th century, and I've learned painfully that my knowledge of those places and periods don't always translate to early 18th century Prussia when I think they do.
So I'm a bit confused: does the six week rule only apply to FW qua monarch, so the servants and nobility are done after six weeks, but his wife and children have to abide by the family rules? Or is it six weeks across the board?
Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-21 07:27 pm (UTC)I was wondering that as well, and also inhowfar position trumps personal relation, as in: surely Fritz himself as the new king did not actually wear black for six months. (Or even the six weeks??) The one thing I found at Trier were two entries in Droysen's itinerary, who marks the beginning of the deep mourning ("große Trauer") on June 15th, and then has an entry on June 1st, 1741, which says "Die Königin-Mutter legt die Trauer ab.", which would indicate that the family rules did indeed apply to royals. Or at least some of them, as I have a feeling that the rules for the women (and in another way, also for the military possibly) might have been their own thing, particularly because I just realized that I translated inaccurately in my initial comment: It doesn't actually say "royals", it says "royal princes"! Sorry about that. I don't know if that means that the guys got away with six weeks and the women didn't, though.
Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-21 07:38 pm (UTC)That's what I thought! Surely FW would want him (and the rest of his sons) in uniform. :P (Were black uniforms for the military a thing? I just realized I don't know.)
Also wanted to call this to
For children younger than twelve years: no mourning.
Note that this reflects the child mortality rate, which I keep reading was 50% or even higher, and applied across all social classes; i.e. your chances of survival in your first few years weren't actually better if you were a royal as opposed to a peasant.
Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-21 09:32 pm (UTC)And I was totally wrong about the six weeks probably being the same for Fritz! Not only that, I think I was totally wrong about the six weeks entirely and didn't read closely enough. Sigh. My head is not in the game today. So. FWII's order, August 19th, 1786, has the same nobility/royal servants/ministers thing (minus the "royal princes" for some reason), but it's six months instead of weeks. Which made me go back to the document I linked earlier and I think the six weeks there are not for the entirety of the "wearing black" part, but only for the "carriages clad in black without crest" part. There is no other mention of a time period, though. It might have been six months back then as well, because I've read repeatedly that FWII went for "do things as they were done for FW" when it came to the burial and it would make sense that the same is true for the mourning period. Which means it would render the "family" vs. "royal" mourning moot, because it'd be the same except for SD, which is the one thing that's menioned separately by Droysen.
Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-21 10:31 pm (UTC)Thank you! (Also, I thought 6 weeks was surprisingly short and was trying to come up with a reason. In my head when I wrote "Grind", my guess was 6 months.
Also...there's a whole book/longish essay on Fritz's last hours and funeral arrangements? Hmmm. That's Mildred catnip. :D
Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-22 07:14 am (UTC)The only point where he says something critical about the funeral arrangements etc. at all is when in the memorial service they play a new composition with Latin text by Luccessini, and the author chides that it being in Latin means that most of the people assembled in the Garnisonskirche would have understood a word, and provides the text with German translation in an appendix. (It's basically "Who was the greatest? FRITZ! Fuck Yeah!" in Latin, in several verses, listing individual accomplishments - the land winning by river draining projects, Silesia, making his enemies quail in the 7 Years War, philosopher and writer.)
The death scene, starting on the evening: They say the King had asked about the time, and when he was told that it was 9 pm, he supposedly said then it was time for him to retire. There are a lot of other stories, the veracity of which I can't swear to, so I won't repeat them here. Finally, his breath became shorter and shorter, the moaning sound became softer and softer, as is the habit with a marusmus senilis, and at last, he took his last breath on Thursday morning at 2 am 19 minutes, leaning forwards to one side, with the head pressed against the body of the chamber servant ("Kammerlakei") Strizky.
Present during the death of this great monarch were, aside from the two royal chamber hussars, Mr. Neumann and Mr. Schöning, various other servants. His excellency the state and cabinet minister Baron von Herzberg, Generallieutenant Count von Görtz, and General Major and Master of the Horse Schwerin were situated in the side chambers next door. The royal physician, Dr. Selle, immediately called his excellency state and cabinet minister von Herzberg, who then signalled to the stableboy waiting at the ramp of Sanssouci that the King was dead, and the later immediately brought the news to his excellency Generallieutenant von Röddich and to the Prince of Prussia, now the current King's Majesty.
FW2 was in Sanssouci within hours. (And moved in one of the rooms for the next few days until everything administartive was transferred to the Berlin town palace, though he resided in one of the guest rooms; Fritz' chamber was sealed off.) Because Fritz had strictly forbidden an autopsy and an embalming (his mother had done the same thing; AW was the outlier with explicitly requesting an autopsy after his death), and it was August, the funeral really happened very quickly because of the threatening decay, and the death mask was also taken quickly for that reason. Otoh, the three coffins Fritz was put in were all openened again before they found their final place in case the body had been shaken and moved through the transport and had to be put back into dignified position.
Alas, no mentioning as to what became of the dogs in the entire text that I could see! (Though maybe I overlooked it, it was a very quick reading on my part.) I remember this was one of our old questions.
Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-22 11:18 am (UTC)I noticed that! Manger had a similar problem when describing the Sanssouci vault and Fritz' wish to be buried there, but was a bit less embellishing: It's possible that he changed his mind over time, or that one didn't think it necessary to follow his instruction.
Kletschke, by the way, is this guy, military and court chaplain, and also responsible for and invested in reforming the military schools and the military orphanage in Potsdam during Fritz' last years, continuing that under FWII.
Because Fritz had strictly forbidden an autopsy and an embalming (his mother had done the same thing; AW was the outlier with explicitly requesting an autopsy after his death), and it was August, the funeral really happened very quickly because of the threatening decay, and the death mask was also taken quickly for that reason.
Yeah. FWIII wrote his own description of the day (which can be found in Vol. 3 of Volz' "Spiegel") - he was woken during the night, arrived shortly after his father, and mentions that two servants kept away the flies with green branches while Fritz' body was still in Sanssouci (the music room) and before he was washed with spirit alcohol. (No embalming, as we know, but they did make a couple of incisions to get rid of the water, and FWIII comments that if they could have done that when he was still alive, he might not have died.) Also: It has been said that the king probably never rested as gently as he does now that he is dead; for it must be remembered that the most blessed king lay on mattresses at all times during his lifetime and that the pillows in the coffin are extremely soft.
No mention of the dogs from him either. Which is almost surprising, given that he spent so much time in Sanssouci that day, but I guess they were brought away pretty quickly after Fritz' death, as to not be underfoot during the proceedings.
Re: Various questions from Mildred
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Date: 2021-02-24 11:55 pm (UTC)maybe the whim struck him on one of those lovely evenings sitting out there, and he made a remark to that effect to a visitor, but I can assure you it really was no more than that
WHAT. What about the WHOLE VAULT he had constructed all the way back in the 1740s??? >:-(
It's basically "Who was the greatest? FRITZ! Fuck Yeah!"
LOLOL. Der Einzige! My fave.
Alas, no mentioning as to what became of the dogs in the entire text that I could see!
Alas! That was indeed one of our questions.
Re: Various questions from Mildred
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Date: 2021-02-26 05:29 am (UTC)LOL! I love your way with words.
...okay, I have to ask, why would you forbid an autopsy and embalming? I can see why AW would request one, but as a child of the post-Enlightenment world I don't really see what the problem is in getting an autopsy. Is it because it messes with the dead body and people thought that was weird??
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From:Freaking weird Habsburg burial protocols
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From:Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-22 11:47 am (UTC)Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-22 02:16 pm (UTC)Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-26 05:24 am (UTC)Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-26 05:23 am (UTC)Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-26 02:40 pm (UTC)Nutrition for rich children was better overall than for peasants, but not as much as you might think.
- There were a lot of rich neglected children, because the underpaid and abused servants raising them didn't always have a whole lot of motivation to keep them alive. A *lot* of rich kids, not just FW's, reported growing up hungry.
- There were really poor medical beliefs. Like if a baby wasn't thriving, the doctor might take them off milk and feed them weird powders (like dried snake) ground up in water.
- Since rich women weren't breastfeeding their own kids, they had a wet nurse to do that. Sometimes she lived in the countryside, and it took a couple days to get the kid to her. During that time, people believed it was very important that the kid not imprint on anyone else, so instead of letting them breastfeed with whatever lactating woman was in the vicinity, they would feed the kid sugar water.
- Middle-class/rich kids more likely to stay inside, less likely to get vitamin D from the sun, more likely to have rickets. (This may be offset by the sheer amount of child labor that went into poorer kids getting plenty of sun.)
Etc.
However, given the striking height differences between adults (and presumably children) of different classes, child nutrition must have been much better *on average* in affluent families. Treatment for infectious diseases, not so much.
Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-26 06:47 pm (UTC)Or: if you're Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, you get the idea in your head that milk isn't good for your first baby and it's going to be water and sugar all the way, and it takes your wife, your mother-in-law and your Dad writing from Salzburg to talk you out of this terrible idea.
(I was reminded of this again when listening to Brandauer recite some Mozart letters.)
Re: wetnurses for rich and noble women: remember, Stratemann provided us with the intel of how this was handled chez Hohenzollern, i.e. there was a selection of women applying for the job made by various court officials, and then SD decided between the final candidates. The one for Ferdinand (which is what Stratemann writes about) was a French Colonel's wife living in Berlin, so thankfully no trip to the countryside was necessary. (Voltaire: indeed not, since according to me, who never saw it at that time, Berlin under FW was a village anyway.) But it really was often the case, and I remember first coming across it in the Angelique novels by Anne Golon.
Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-26 09:57 pm (UTC)OMFG. Well, at least he got talked out of it!
And yep, I thought of Stratemann and how at least that didn't happen in this case! (Those kids had enough problems.)
Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-28 02:30 am (UTC)Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-26 07:01 pm (UTC)Unless they were called FW and their response to compliments about their complexion was to cover their face with oil and loiter in the hot sun all day... ;)
Re: Various questions from Mildred
From:Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-28 02:29 am (UTC)My first baby lost an alarming amount of weight because my colostrum and early milk wasn't nutritious enough for her (and despite a poster in my hospital room assuring me that it was good enough for the baby, which I'm still bitter about), at which point the doctor put her on formula for a couple of weeks. At which point I had more than enough milk, but I remember talking to my sister (a pediatrician) at the time being bitter about how I couldn't feed my own child and wondering how this worked before formula, at which point my sister was like, "Yeah, they died a lot, is what happened."
All that is to say that this just kind of viscerally upset me, like, you've probably got some sort of lactating woman around, including the own mom (which also! ouch! not breastfeeding when your breasts are totally primed for it is also painful and also I wonder how many of these women died from mastitis) and you're feeding this kid sugar water?? Poor kids :(
Re: Various questions from Mildred
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Date: 2021-02-21 06:21 pm (UTC)Speaking of which...
If Mildred is Holmes, you're clearly Poirot.
Ahaha, given the icon I've been using around these parts, I'll go with "AU!Holmes". ;)
Well, since I never got into Holmes but love Poirot, you can be Holmes and I'll be Poirot. Deal? :D
Aw, thanks! I have to say, I'm genuinely amazed that there's so much to find online in the first place! We are really lucky that way.
We are! I'm going to play my "I'm getting old" card and say that
in MY daywhen I first got into 18th century history, in 1998-2001, there were no scanned books, no Google translate (Altavista Babelfish sucked), no Google maps, no Google drive, no Wikipedia, none of it! There was Brian Tompsett's royal genealogy site (which I'm sad was taken down recently), a forum where I managed to exchange messages with an actualfax adult historian (I was a high schooler, a fact which I was at pains to conceal) about the Jacobites, aaaand...that was most of the extent of my internet usage for historical research!If there had to be a global pandemic during my lifetime, I'm glad it was after the internet took off.
Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-21 07:51 pm (UTC)Fine by me! ;)
Re: Various questions from Mildred
Date: 2021-02-21 06:10 pm (UTC)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.
And even longer for me ;), so if anyone runs across it, please let me know, and if I run across it, I'll let everyone know.