Michael Klement or Clement: I'm an Hungarian conman in training. For some reason, a 19th century publication will call me Jakob, but my first name as listed by the Secret Prussian State Archive is Michael, so Michael it shall be. Anyway, after selling out my first boss Prince Racocsky to Prince Eugene, I get to work for Eugene for a while, long enough to get the hang of his writing, because I'm also a gifted forger. Unfortunately, Eugene just refused to make me his right hand man, so before he could fire me, which he eventually did, I kept an eye out for other opportunities, and became a spy for Flemming for a while. Flemming, like Eugene, was first impressed and then less so, probably because my spy tells tended to be a bit on the colorful and less on the factual side. So Flemming fired me as well, but not before I didn't get a good hard look on the who is who of his spy network. Which came in handy, because by now I was pissed off and wanted REVENGE. So I went to FW.
FW: In the autumn of 1718, I'm less paranoid than I will be, but this will now change, because Honest Clement, a Hungarian who is NOT a Catholic, tells me a terrible tale. Prince Eugene, Grumbkow and others at my court have hatched a plot to kill me, and via controlling my Schwedt cousin become regent for my son, little Fritz, who will be raised A CATHOLIC and a tool of Rome. I'm now only sleeping with pistols at my side for a while. Those letters from Eugene Clement presented were declared really Eugene's handwriting by other courtiers who know it. I'm now ordering everyone's letters to be opened, which is how I discover that Frau von Baspiel is corresponding with Manteuffel and Fleming. Not only is she clearly a traitorous WHORE, she dares to compare me to Tiberius, and even though I hated my Latin and ancient history lessons, I know that wasn't a compliment. I'm sending her to Spandau and firing her husband. Wait, Clement says there's more?
Clement: This is where I make my mistake. I claim Old Dessauer is part of the conspiracy as well.
FW and Old Dessauer: *have a scene of manly tears where old Dessauer says if FW believes this of him, he should kill him right away. Take up your sword again or take up me!*
FW: *takes up Dessauer*
Old Dessauer: I can't stand Grumbkow, or Flemming, or Manteuffel, and I'm gonna slap that whore Baspiel, literally, but maybe you should demand an explanation from Vienna and Dresden before proceding any further?
Prince Eugene: Oh, FFS. Listen, FW, if the boss says to make war on you, I will, but I'm not going to plot your assassination. And no one wants to make your kid a Catholic. Why do I have an inkling this subject might come up again in my life? Anyway, you know me from Malplaquet. I give you my word as a fellow soldier.
Flemming: Fuck, fuck, fuck. This will set us back decades.
Manteuffel: But we're innocent?
Flemming: Regarding assassination and conversion plans, sure, but we did spy on him via Baspiel. He won't forgive that.
Manteuffel: We'll see about that. Concentrate on denying what we can honestly deny for now. In fact, take the initiative. Let's demand that our good name gets cleared by FW personally! That will impress him, I tell you.
Clement: I get interrogated three times. The third time, I get shown instruments of torture, which is when I confess all.
FW: I don't think threatening torture to find out the truth is a good idea. Poor Clement clearly spoke out of fear. I'm now going to visit him every day in prison, because I still believe there's a conspiracy against me to put my kid on the throne. Thiwill become a fixed idea for me from this point onwards. My scepticism regarding the use of torture or the threat of torture as a truth finding instrument will not come up again in 1730, though.
Grumbkow: Doesn't the bond of manly comrades count anymore? Do I look like a regicide to you? Just read Eugene's letter, boss.
FW: ...Okay. You're innocent. Eugene is, too. BUT SOMEONE CONSPIRED AGAINST ME, I JUST KNOW IT. Just look at Vienna and Dresden insisting that Clement be punished. That just smells like a patsy to me.
Clement: I get poked with glowing iron and then hanged, but because FW really feels sorry for me, the hangman strangles me before having a go with the glowing iron. A plus compassionate ruler, FW! My last speech will emphasize that, and also that while I did con you, I did it because I wanted you to be alert to all the CATHOLIC skeeviness going on in Vienna and Saxony.
Flemming & Manteuffel: We're both Protestants. Also, we're still demanding FW clears our good name.
SD: And I demand you release my favourite lady-in-waiting from Spandau.
FW: *releases Frau von Baspiel in early 1719 from Spandau, but banishes her and her husband to Kleve*
Seydewitz: I know Wilhelmine says she ended up as governess of the younger princesses, but that won't happen until Fritz comes to the throne, which is when he'll do his mother the favour of recalling and reinstalling her.
Grumbkow: Let me phrase the name clearing for you in a subtle way that satisfy their demands so we can go back to politics as usual yet also make it sound as if you're still not convinced, Sire.
Official FW letter to August in June 1719: "I, FW, declare to bear no grudge against Manteuffel and Flemming, and to respect them in the way their qualities deserve"
Manteuffel: That was...amazingly subtle for him. Still. It's a start. Let some time pass and let me work on reconstructing the relationship network, and he'll come around.
Self: Incidentally, aren't the intervening years when Suhm is Saxon envoy and FW hates his guts?
Manteuffel: works his magic, so that when FW and Fritz visit Dresden in 1728, they actually stay at his house. (Fritz' first preserved letter to Wilhelmine, which contains a "hot or not?" report on August, was written there.) This is also when the "Society against Sobriety" is founded, with Grumbkow as President, August as "patron", FW as "compatron" , and Manteuffel as, what else, Le Diable. At this point, FW likes him so much again that he writes him in French. (!) (Seydewitz quotes a letter dated December 23rd 1729 from Wusterhausen from, sic, "Votre tres Affectionne Amy FW". (Fritz came by his spelling honestly.) And FW borrows him 5000 Reichstaler so Manteuffel can attend and shop at the Leipzig Book Fair, for ten years without interest. Manteuffel-concerning letters to the Prussian envoy in Dresden sound thusly (in January 1730): "Dites de Ma part au Diable qu'il change de vie, touchant le bouteille, ou il souccombera, quel malheur pour la cause commune, et tres fidele serviteur du Patron et ami du Compatron."
Good to know for Manteuffel, because as mentioned in Bronisch's books, 1730 is when his career takes a turn for the worse and officially ends because Flemming is dead and Hoym has taken over. Flemming died in 1728, and from 1728 to 1730, Manteuffel was also cabinet minister for Foreign Affairs. As a reminder, the main point of clash between Manteuffel and Hoym was that Manteuffel was favouring a Saxony-Prussia-Austria alliance, now also including Russia, wile Hoym had no time for the HRE and thought Saxony should ally for France and Hannover/Britain instead. (Manteuffel correctly thought France would push Stanislas' Lescyinski's claim for the Polish throne again as soon as August the Strong died and so definitely saw it as the main enemy.) So between 1728 and 1730, Mantteuffel was in a struggle with Hoym about whose ideas would prevail with August. And then this happened:
Summer of 1729: FW and G2 have their almost-duel, Prussia and England growl at each other.
Manteuffel: Excellent. If August offers to support FW militarily, not only will FW remain our ally but Hoym's idea of alliances with France and Britain is shot down, since France, for a breahttaking change, is currently on the same page as England in this matter.
Suhm in Berlin: FW, August could totally negotiate between you and Hannover and reconcile you with your brother-in-law.
Manteuffel: WTF, Suhm? WTF?
Seydewitz doesn't say so, she just says he was indignant, but I think the timing works: this is when Suhm is recalled as envoy.
Manteuffel: goes to Berlin himself in September, at least that's the intention
Manteuffel: unfortunately also gets sick in Breslau, en route; by the time he has recovered, FW has calmed down, and neither a duel or a war happen, without August having had the chance to support FW militarily.
Manteuffel: Grr. Argh. Okay, if that's the case: look, FW, Saxony has gotten on a war footing because of you. We had expenses. Please pay same?
FW: Nope, but good try, and I still like you. Pray keep up the good work against Team France!
Manteuffel: I don't think so. I can see where the wind is blowing. Starting to evacuate my papers to Pomerania now, will hand in my resignation in the summer.
Since, however, even a retired to Pomerania Manteuffel has a correct instinct as to whom to befriend, he becomes buddies with young Brühl, which means, as reported elsewhere, that when Hoym falls, he's in contact with an up and coming power again. As Bronisch told as well, in 1733, Private Citizen Manteuffel moves to Berlin and gets lots of invites from FW.
FW: But you're not again in service, are you?
M: Nope. Total private citizen, me.
FW: I'm glad, because I couldn't talk to you as frankly as I do if you were still working for Saxony. But now we're just honest countrymen!
(Manteuffel in 1733: was instrumental in Brühl's campaign to bribe enough Poles to get August III. elected as King of Poland, due to his old connections with the Polish nobility.)
Seydewitz offers more details for how Mantteufel got into Fritz' circle. FW had one of his serious illnesses where everyone predicted his death in 1734. Now Manteuffel had known Fritz before, of course - as mentioned, FW and Fritz were guests in his Dresden palace during the 1728 trip - , but he hadn't sought out a relationship with him earlier, not least because he hadn't been in Berlin during the 1720s when Fritz was getting old enough to have a relationship with, Suhm was. Now, however, it was another matter.
Seydewitz: Manteuffel's letters to Brühl through the 1730 offer a great look at the goings on of the Berlin court, and it's a shame they haven't been published so far, except in excerpts in Weber's two essays. Note that Manteuffel doesn't just write what the Saxonian court would love to hear; if FW is disgruntled with August III., he says so, and also when a Saxon action is perceived badly by other influential people. He also had a better idea than Brühl of how powerful Saxony was and wasn't, to wit, that there was no way it could go to war with Prussia and win anymore, so being allies and friends was quintessential, and tried to hammer that down. This, Seydewitz approves of, but she strongly disapproves of initially sinister ways Manteuffel uses to get from Team FW to Team Fritz. For starters, he asks Brühl for money to buy presents for various ladies (!) who could win Fritz' favour and/or have influential husbands, and for the various young men around Fritz who look like they could have lasting power. Then, he mentions le Chetardie and he are after the same prostitute ("grisette") whom Fritz supposedly visited in Ruppin and who could be a really useful channel, and anyway, it's prostitutes in general, not ladies in general.
Now, since Manteuffel later will have no doubt Fitz doesn't swing that way ("Hadrian"), it's interesting that at this point, when his knowledge is that of an avarage good courtier but not yet intimate, he sees Fritz as someone into women enough that this could work as an in. And of course it actually fits with all the stories of young Fritz "debauching" himself with prostitutes. The girls don't pay off, but the various gents in Fritz' social circle do. (Seydewitz doesn't name names, but I'm eyeing young Wartensleben.) FW shows he's not dying yet after all, but Manteuffel now has his in and Seydewitz is relieved that "we're breathing cleaner air again" in the reports, i.e. no more prostitutes on the payroll, instead, it's philosophical and cultural debate time, and she's also glad Manteuffel sounds honestly impressed.
Bronisch covered the rest. Three things in Seydewitz which he either didn't mention, or not in detail, or I skipped re: the Manteuffel/Fritz breakup in the fall of 1736:
1.) Formey in his write up of Manteuffel says Old Dessauer (who disliked him of old) scored a point with Fritz by saying how ridiculous it looked for a prince at Fritz' age to still need a teacher to guide him.
2.) Other Seckendorff's secret journal contains this bit: "The Devil confided in me that Suhm has talked to him about Junior, and that (Junior) said to Suhm he'd heard during his journey through East Prussia news of the Devil's" troublemaking and thus has ended the correspondence in order not to have trouble inflicted on him."
(Side note: this is probably the less euphemistically put same explanation Suhm gives in his write-up of Fritz to Brühl later. BTW, it also shows that despite the 1729 clash, there wasn't long term animosity between Suhm and Manteuffel.)
3.) The matter with the painting of Manteuffel by Matthieu. This in itself was an unusual portrait for a German nobleman because it doesn't show him in official wardrobe but in a dressing gown, sans wig, and with alll the surroundings coding him as a scholar rather than a noble. The trouble, though, is that the painting shows the letter Manteuffel is writing starting with "Monseigneur". (It's not readable anymore.) Seydewitz says the painting today (1926) hangs in the book-loaning hall of the university of Leipzig. Who knows whether it's still there, but given that Manteuffel remained connected to his alma mater all his life, I wouldn't be surprised if he left it to them. Anyway, neither Fritz nor FW were amused when they learned of this "through an indiscretion of the painter" (i.e. Matthieu), though Seydewitz doesn't source this info to an original document but to Gurlitt's "Beschreibende Darstellung der Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler".
FW's reaction, btw, reminds me of something in Bronisch which I forgot to mention in my write up there: FW, like his son with the Sanssouci tableround, liked the fantasy that in the tobacco parliament, he could be relaxed among friends without any formality, so as opposed to everywhere else, people did not have to rise for the King if he entered or left. Now, remember how we found out that as late as1739, there was yet another FW/Fritz crisis, along with speculation about a change of the succession? I think I found a reason. Bronisch said that in 1739, FW invited Fritz to the Tobacco Parliament again. Fritz enters. Everyone rises.
FW: *death glare at all his tobacco chums*
FW: *does not visit the tobacco college ever again*
FW: *does not forgive if people give him the impression they are ditching him for the rising sun, not ever*
Oh, one more Seydewitz trivia: she claims Manteuffel was nominated by Fritz of Wales to the Royal Society in the 1740s. I'm going to trust the latest Andrew Mitchell dissertation has done its homework on this and that it was Andrew M., not Fritz of Wales. At any event, she says this does show that while Manteuffel was not a power factor anymore in the 1740s, he had become a name in the world of letters and scholars. Also, while a lousy husband, he had his daughters (his sole son didn't survive; the title went to a distant relation he adopted) educated very well and the surviving letters show he enjoyed debating with them on a high level. Basically, Manteuffel in his silver fox years comes across as good with young people in general (see also Formey still being starry eyed about him decades later), only with Fritz he'd bitten off more than he could chew.
Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
FW: In the autumn of 1718, I'm less paranoid than I will be, but this will now change, because Honest Clement, a Hungarian who is NOT a Catholic, tells me a terrible tale. Prince Eugene, Grumbkow and others at my court have hatched a plot to kill me, and via controlling my Schwedt cousin become regent for my son, little Fritz, who will be raised A CATHOLIC and a tool of Rome. I'm now only sleeping with pistols at my side for a while. Those letters from Eugene Clement presented were declared really Eugene's handwriting by other courtiers who know it. I'm now ordering everyone's letters to be opened, which is how I discover that Frau von Baspiel is corresponding with Manteuffel and Fleming. Not only is she clearly a traitorous WHORE, she dares to compare me to Tiberius, and even though I hated my Latin and ancient history lessons, I know that wasn't a compliment. I'm sending her to Spandau and firing her husband. Wait, Clement says there's more?
Clement: This is where I make my mistake. I claim Old Dessauer is part of the conspiracy as well.
FW and Old Dessauer: *have a scene of manly tears where old Dessauer says if FW believes this of him, he should kill him right away. Take up your sword again or take up me!*
FW: *takes up Dessauer*
Old Dessauer: I can't stand Grumbkow, or Flemming, or Manteuffel, and I'm gonna slap that whore Baspiel, literally, but maybe you should demand an explanation from Vienna and Dresden before proceding any further?
Prince Eugene: Oh, FFS. Listen, FW, if the boss says to make war on you, I will, but I'm not going to plot your assassination. And no one wants to make your kid a Catholic. Why do I have an inkling this subject might come up again in my life? Anyway, you know me from Malplaquet. I give you my word as a fellow soldier.
Flemming: Fuck, fuck, fuck. This will set us back decades.
Manteuffel: But we're innocent?
Flemming: Regarding assassination and conversion plans, sure, but we did spy on him via Baspiel. He won't forgive that.
Manteuffel: We'll see about that. Concentrate on denying what we can honestly deny for now. In fact, take the initiative. Let's demand that our good name gets cleared by FW personally! That will impress him, I tell you.
Clement: I get interrogated three times. The third time, I get shown instruments of torture, which is when I confess all.
FW: I don't think threatening torture to find out the truth is a good idea. Poor Clement clearly spoke out of fear. I'm now going to visit him every day in prison, because I still believe there's a conspiracy against me to put my kid on the throne. Thiwill become a fixed idea for me from this point onwards. My scepticism regarding the use of torture or the threat of torture as a truth finding instrument will not come up again in 1730, though.
Grumbkow: Doesn't the bond of manly comrades count anymore? Do I look like a regicide to you? Just read Eugene's letter, boss.
FW: ...Okay. You're innocent. Eugene is, too. BUT SOMEONE CONSPIRED AGAINST ME, I JUST KNOW IT. Just look at Vienna and Dresden insisting that Clement be punished. That just smells like a patsy to me.
Clement: I get poked with glowing iron and then hanged, but because FW really feels sorry for me, the hangman strangles me before having a go with the glowing iron. A plus compassionate ruler, FW! My last speech will emphasize that, and also that while I did con you, I did it because I wanted you to be alert to all the CATHOLIC skeeviness going on in Vienna and Saxony.
Flemming & Manteuffel: We're both Protestants. Also, we're still demanding FW clears our good name.
SD: And I demand you release my favourite lady-in-waiting from Spandau.
FW: *releases Frau von Baspiel in early 1719 from Spandau, but banishes her and her husband to Kleve*
Seydewitz: I know Wilhelmine says she ended up as governess of the younger princesses, but that won't happen until Fritz comes to the throne, which is when he'll do his mother the favour of recalling and reinstalling her.
Grumbkow: Let me phrase the name clearing for you in a subtle way that satisfy their demands so we can go back to politics as usual yet also make it sound as if you're still not convinced, Sire.
Official FW letter to August in June 1719: "I, FW, declare to bear no grudge against Manteuffel and Flemming, and to respect them in the way their qualities deserve"
Manteuffel: That was...amazingly subtle for him. Still. It's a start. Let some time pass and let me work on reconstructing the relationship network, and he'll come around.
Self: Incidentally, aren't the intervening years when Suhm is Saxon envoy and FW hates his guts?
Manteuffel: works his magic, so that when FW and Fritz visit Dresden in 1728, they actually stay at his house. (Fritz' first preserved letter to Wilhelmine, which contains a "hot or not?" report on August, was written there.) This is also when the "Society against Sobriety" is founded, with Grumbkow as President, August as "patron", FW as "compatron" , and Manteuffel as, what else, Le Diable. At this point, FW likes him so much again that he writes him in French. (!) (Seydewitz quotes a letter dated December 23rd 1729 from Wusterhausen from, sic, "Votre tres Affectionne Amy FW". (Fritz came by his spelling honestly.) And FW borrows him 5000 Reichstaler so Manteuffel can attend and shop at the Leipzig Book Fair, for ten years without interest. Manteuffel-concerning letters to the Prussian envoy in Dresden sound thusly (in January 1730): "Dites de Ma part au Diable qu'il change de vie, touchant le bouteille, ou il souccombera, quel malheur pour la cause commune, et tres fidele serviteur du Patron et ami du Compatron."
Good to know for Manteuffel, because as mentioned in Bronisch's books, 1730 is when his career takes a turn for the worse and officially ends because Flemming is dead and Hoym has taken over. Flemming died in 1728, and from 1728 to 1730, Manteuffel was also cabinet minister for Foreign Affairs. As a reminder, the main point of clash between Manteuffel and Hoym was that Manteuffel was favouring a Saxony-Prussia-Austria alliance, now also including Russia, wile Hoym had no time for the HRE and thought Saxony should ally for France and Hannover/Britain instead. (Manteuffel correctly thought France would push Stanislas' Lescyinski's claim for the Polish throne again as soon as August the Strong died and so definitely saw it as the main enemy.) So between 1728 and 1730, Mantteuffel was in a struggle with Hoym about whose ideas would prevail with August. And then this happened:
Summer of 1729: FW and G2 have their almost-duel, Prussia and England growl at each other.
Manteuffel: Excellent. If August offers to support FW militarily, not only will FW remain our ally but Hoym's idea of alliances with France and Britain is shot down, since France, for a breahttaking change, is currently on the same page as England in this matter.
Suhm in Berlin: FW, August could totally negotiate between you and Hannover and reconcile you with your brother-in-law.
Manteuffel: WTF, Suhm? WTF?
Seydewitz doesn't say so, she just says he was indignant, but I think the timing works: this is when Suhm is recalled as envoy.
Manteuffel: goes to Berlin himself in September, at least that's the intention
Manteuffel: unfortunately also gets sick in Breslau, en route; by the time he has recovered, FW has calmed down, and neither a duel or a war happen, without August having had the chance to support FW militarily.
Manteuffel: Grr. Argh. Okay, if that's the case: look, FW, Saxony has gotten on a war footing because of you. We had expenses. Please pay same?
FW: Nope, but good try, and I still like you. Pray keep up the good work against Team France!
Manteuffel: I don't think so. I can see where the wind is blowing. Starting to evacuate my papers to Pomerania now, will hand in my resignation in the summer.
Since, however, even a retired to Pomerania Manteuffel has a correct instinct as to whom to befriend, he becomes buddies with young Brühl, which means, as reported elsewhere, that when Hoym falls, he's in contact with an up and coming power again. As Bronisch told as well, in 1733, Private Citizen Manteuffel moves to Berlin and gets lots of invites from FW.
FW: But you're not again in service, are you?
M: Nope. Total private citizen, me.
FW: I'm glad, because I couldn't talk to you as frankly as I do if you were still working for Saxony. But now we're just honest countrymen!
(Manteuffel in 1733: was instrumental in Brühl's campaign to bribe enough Poles to get August III. elected as King of Poland, due to his old connections with the Polish nobility.)
Seydewitz offers more details for how Mantteufel got into Fritz' circle. FW had one of his serious illnesses where everyone predicted his death in 1734. Now Manteuffel had known Fritz before, of course - as mentioned, FW and Fritz were guests in his Dresden palace during the 1728 trip - , but he hadn't sought out a relationship with him earlier, not least because he hadn't been in Berlin during the 1720s when Fritz was getting old enough to have a relationship with, Suhm was. Now, however, it was another matter.
Seydewitz: Manteuffel's letters to Brühl through the 1730 offer a great look at the goings on of the Berlin court, and it's a shame they haven't been published so far, except in excerpts in Weber's two essays. Note that Manteuffel doesn't just write what the Saxonian court would love to hear; if FW is disgruntled with August III., he says so, and also when a Saxon action is perceived badly by other influential people. He also had a better idea than Brühl of how powerful Saxony was and wasn't, to wit, that there was no way it could go to war with Prussia and win anymore, so being allies and friends was quintessential, and tried to hammer that down. This, Seydewitz approves of, but she strongly disapproves of initially sinister ways Manteuffel uses to get from Team FW to Team Fritz. For starters, he asks Brühl for money to buy presents for various ladies (!) who could win Fritz' favour and/or have influential husbands, and for the various young men around Fritz who look like they could have lasting power. Then, he mentions le Chetardie and he are after the same prostitute ("grisette") whom Fritz supposedly visited in Ruppin and who could be a really useful channel, and anyway, it's prostitutes in general, not ladies in general.
Now, since Manteuffel later will have no doubt Fitz doesn't swing that way ("Hadrian"), it's interesting that at this point, when his knowledge is that of an avarage good courtier but not yet intimate, he sees Fritz as someone into women enough that this could work as an in. And of course it actually fits with all the stories of young Fritz "debauching" himself with prostitutes. The girls don't pay off, but the various gents in Fritz' social circle do. (Seydewitz doesn't name names, but I'm eyeing young Wartensleben.) FW shows he's not dying yet after all, but Manteuffel now has his in and Seydewitz is relieved that "we're breathing cleaner air again" in the reports, i.e. no more prostitutes on the payroll, instead, it's philosophical and cultural debate time, and she's also glad Manteuffel sounds honestly impressed.
Bronisch covered the rest. Three things in Seydewitz which he either didn't mention, or not in detail, or I skipped re: the Manteuffel/Fritz breakup in the fall of 1736:
1.) Formey in his write up of Manteuffel says Old Dessauer (who disliked him of old) scored a point with Fritz by saying how ridiculous it looked for a prince at Fritz' age to still need a teacher to guide him.
2.) Other Seckendorff's secret journal contains this bit: "The Devil confided in me that Suhm has talked to him about Junior, and that (Junior) said to Suhm he'd heard during his journey through East Prussia news of the Devil's" troublemaking and thus has ended the correspondence in order not to have trouble inflicted on him."
(Side note: this is probably the less euphemistically put same explanation Suhm gives in his write-up of Fritz to Brühl later. BTW, it also shows that despite the 1729 clash, there wasn't long term animosity between Suhm and Manteuffel.)
3.) The matter with the painting of Manteuffel by Matthieu. This in itself was an unusual portrait for a German nobleman because it doesn't show him in official wardrobe but in a dressing gown, sans wig, and with alll the surroundings coding him as a scholar rather than a noble. The trouble, though, is that the painting shows the letter Manteuffel is writing starting with "Monseigneur". (It's not readable anymore.) Seydewitz says the painting today (1926) hangs in the book-loaning hall of the university of Leipzig. Who knows whether it's still there, but given that Manteuffel remained connected to his alma mater all his life, I wouldn't be surprised if he left it to them. Anyway, neither Fritz nor FW were amused when they learned of this "through an indiscretion of the painter" (i.e. Matthieu), though Seydewitz doesn't source this info to an original document but to Gurlitt's "Beschreibende Darstellung der Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler".
FW's reaction, btw, reminds me of something in Bronisch which I forgot to mention in my write up there: FW, like his son with the Sanssouci tableround, liked the fantasy that in the tobacco parliament, he could be relaxed among friends without any formality, so as opposed to everywhere else, people did not have to rise for the King if he entered or left. Now, remember how we found out that as late as1739, there was yet another FW/Fritz crisis, along with speculation about a change of the succession? I think I found a reason. Bronisch said that in 1739, FW invited Fritz to the Tobacco Parliament again. Fritz enters. Everyone rises.
FW: *death glare at all his tobacco chums*
FW: *does not visit the tobacco college ever again*
FW: *does not forgive if people give him the impression they are ditching him for the rising sun, not ever*
Oh, one more Seydewitz trivia: she claims Manteuffel was nominated by Fritz of Wales to the Royal Society in the 1740s. I'm going to trust the latest Andrew Mitchell dissertation has done its homework on this and that it was Andrew M., not Fritz of Wales. At any event, she says this does show that while Manteuffel was not a power factor anymore in the 1740s, he had become a name in the world of letters and scholars. Also, while a lousy husband, he had his daughters (his sole son didn't survive; the title went to a distant relation he adopted) educated very well and the surviving letters show he enjoyed debating with them on a high level. Basically, Manteuffel in his silver fox years comes across as good with young people in general (see also Formey still being starry eyed about him decades later), only with Fritz he'd bitten off more than he could chew.