Everything about this guy's introduction was amazing, but this made me go, "Oh, of *course* this guy was like that."
Thanks.:) Mind you, as John le Carré observed re: himself and his father, conmen and agents (and authors) do have a lot in common, and so it's not surprising that in a century full of espionage some spys should turn out to be like that.
I'm also a bit reminded of the Titus Oates/Popish Plot affair in Restoration England. cahn, brief version: reigning King is Charles II; his brother and heir presumptative, James, has outed himself as a Catholic, and Charles' wife Catherine of Braganza is also a Catholic. This makes just a generation after Oliver Cromwell a lot of Protestants very nervous and ready to believe when Titus Oates, fundie preacher, demagoge and con man, starts to rant on about the "Popish Plot" in which both James and the Queen are involved, as is every other Catholic in England, and Charles will be assassinated and what not. Some people actually died over this before Charles managed to calm everyone down. The big difference to the Clement affair is that while an incredible amount ouf people believed that canard in London, C2 himself, the most sceptic and reasonable of the Stuarts, decidedly did not. Whereas FW believed it and had a hard time unbelieving it for the rest of his life, evidently. Who knows, if Clement hadn't made the mistake of naming Old Dessauer, he would have gone on believing all of it wholeheartedly, but Clement had gotten greedy enough to want the King to trust only him.
Sidenote: the psychological disaster of making someone with the emotional make-up of FW believe that everyone around him is lying to him and ready to kill him is obvious.
Also, consider the irony: for all the pride FW took in recognizing when people (read: Fritz and Wilhelmine, but also people in general) were lying to him, which Morgenstern brings up at the start of his biography (the whole thing about looking them straight in the eye and distrusting anyone who can't meet his gaze, which btw immediately reminded me of one FW letter to Fritz from the late 1720s where he accuses him of not being able to do that), he evidently wasn't good at recognizing liars at all. Clement was the most outrageous counter example, but Grumbkow, Seckendorff, Manteuffel also all come to mind.
Polenz is sent in September 1729, as co-envoy according to my memory (which is probably the dissertation), and in October, Stratemann is reporting (unfounded, as we know) rumors that Suhm has been locked up--but he attributes it to the fact that Flemming is gone. But if Flemming's replacement is Hoym, who is pro-France-and-Britain, then I'm curious how Manteuffel had the power to have him recalled.
Because Manteuffel, not Hoym, was the actual minister for foreign affairs after Flemming's death. (He'd been minister for the interior before). Hoym was increasingly muscling in on to his territory, which was one of the things they clashed about. This whole situation came to be not least because after Flemming's death, August wanted to try out not having a super powerful minister and do some more divide and rule, which is among other reasons why Manteuffel got one of Flemming's offices (the foreign affairs seat in the cabinet) but not Flemming's authority and why Hoym (who nominally didn't have the foreign affairs section) was called back from Paris. In the event, August found he was more comfortable with one super powerful minister and Hoym briefly became it, but that wasn't yet decided in 1729, when Manteuffel would still have been the guy to decide which envoy got recalled or send. Mind you, since Hoym is the indisputed top guy from early 1730 onwards (and the one Fritz tries to contact via Katte at Zeithain), it could also be that it's Hoym who recalls Suhm. It's just that Seydewitz mentioning Manteuffel being "indignant" about Suhm giving FW exactly the wrong message made me sit up and look at the date.
Polenz was a hard-drinking military guy and even made it to the Tobacco Parliament repeatedly, so that worked on that level.
I'm also sure Suhm had many sound political reasons for wanting to reconcile FW and G2, but I also like to imagine him thinking maybe the marriages will work out just so Fritz has a way out that doesn't involve running away.
That is a lovely thought which makes complete sense!
You know, with the accumulating evidence, I'm starting to think he might have during his questioning phase! What I'm most impressed with is that he managed to pull it off with all the strict supervision.
Well, one of the people supervising him was Keyserling. Also, what are the chances AW was still a virgin at age 18 when FW died? His teachers got the same instructions, and he had one sympathetic to free sex and bawdy talk, too. But back to Fritz, Manteuffel is writing not in the late 1720s but in the Ruppin era, when Fritz is with his regiment and hanging out with the guys a lot, see locker room talk letter to von Gröben, and visiting prostitutes together isn't exactly unheard of for army officers. Given that FW actually greeted the rumor of Madame de Wreech being pregnant from Fritz with "yay! Now keep up the good work with your future wife!", not with "zomg what did I say about NO WHORES?", he might have kept a blind eye to stories about Fritz and Ruppin prostitutes, as long as it was in the context of Fritz becoming a manly man who finally loves the army and the military life and connects with his fellow soldiers, as opposed to being an art-loving peacenik. Also, wasn't this before Fritz properly lived with EC? I'm assuming FW would have taken a different attitude if he thought such behavior interfered with Fritz delivering the next Hohenzollern heir in his marriage.
Wooow, that makes sense! Yeah, 1739 as the year when everyone knows that FW is dying and FW knows they know makes perfect sense for FW to get suspicious and start muttering again about changing the succession.
IKR? Which again makes me be amazed at Pesne risking that ceiling at Rheinsberg.
Who knows, if Clement hadn't made the mistake of naming Old Dessauer, he would have gone on believing all of it wholeheartedly
Yeah, that is an interesting (and undoubtedly very painful) AU.
Sidenote: the psychological disaster of making someone with the emotional make-up of FW believe that everyone around him is lying to him and ready to kill him is obvious.
I knooow, and especially when he's got kids who have been forced to lie to him just to survive. :(((
Also, consider the irony: for all the pride FW took in recognizing when people (read: Fritz and Wilhelmine, but also people in general) were lying to him
It looks like what he recognized was people who were totally in his power and afraid of him, and took that as an excuse to abuse them even more. Whereas if you could keep your cool because you had some kind of power over *him*, he couldn't pick up on that at all.
which btw immediately reminded me of one FW letter to Fritz from the late 1720s where he accuses him of not being able to do that
And also the Grumbkow report in 1731, where FW is boasting about being able to read Fritz from thirty feet away and how Fritz probably thinks he has magical powers.
UGH.
Polenz was a hard-drinking military guy and even made it to the Tobacco Parliament repeatedly, so that worked on that level.
Yes, but what I meant to point out but forgot, because 4 hours of sleep, was that just three months later, both Suhm and Polenz were replaced with Lynar, who was sole envoy from that point on. Lynar, as a reminder, is the one who will later be sent to St. Petersburg, get involved in an affair with Anna Leopoldovna (currently niece and heir of the tsarina, future mother of Ivan VI and future regent, finally dies in prison with her family in remote parts of Russia), gets recalled because the affair is turning into a big scandal that's making him enemies, and gets replaced by Suhm.
Then when Suhm steps down and almost simultaneously Anna Leopoldovna becomes regent in late 1740, Lynar's sent back on the assumption that having the lover of the Regent of Russia as Saxon envoy will be *really* good for Saxon interests, but Elizaveta's coup happens in 1741 before he can make it there.
Well, one of the people supervising him was Keyserling.
Exactly why we brought up how super nice Fritz was with his daughter. We had speculated back then that Keyserlingk may have been very indulgent of teenage Fritz exploring.
But back to Fritz, Manteuffel is writing not in the late 1720s but in the Ruppin era, when Fritz is with his regiment and hanging out with the guys a lot, see locker room talk letter to von Gröben, and visiting prostitutes together isn't exactly unheard of for army officers.
Of course, I'm just saying that *Wilhelmine* has him debauching himself the moment Duhan steps down when he's 16, and Fritz seems to say the same thing in the letter to Duhan. The fact that he's later consorting with prostitutes (apparently!) at Ruppin makes me think that it's even more likely that Wilhelmine was right about that. And that's when I started thinking about FW-avoiding logistics. Obviously everything was *much* simpler in the 1730s!
Also, wasn't this before Fritz properly lived with EC? I'm assuming FW would have taken a different attitude if he thought such behavior interfered with Fritz delivering the next Hohenzollern heir in his marriage.
Yep, she was in Berlin until 1736 afaik, and that makes sense.
Which again makes me be amazed at Pesne risking that ceiling at Rheinsberg.
I know, I was thinking of that! Look, Honest Pomeranian Fredersdorf is keeping a million secrets, not least of which is that he can play the oboe. ;)
ETA: Oh, and thank you for the explanation of Saxon politics! That was helpful.
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Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Thanks.:) Mind you, as John le Carré observed re: himself and his father, conmen and agents (and authors) do have a lot in common, and so it's not surprising that in a century full of espionage some spys should turn out to be like that.
I'm also a bit reminded of the Titus Oates/Popish Plot affair in Restoration England.
Sidenote: the psychological disaster of making someone with the emotional make-up of FW believe that everyone around him is lying to him and ready to kill him is obvious.
Also, consider the irony: for all the pride FW took in recognizing when people (read: Fritz and Wilhelmine, but also people in general) were lying to him, which Morgenstern brings up at the start of his biography (the whole thing about looking them straight in the eye and distrusting anyone who can't meet his gaze, which btw immediately reminded me of one FW letter to Fritz from the late 1720s where he accuses him of not being able to do that), he evidently wasn't good at recognizing liars at all. Clement was the most outrageous counter example, but Grumbkow, Seckendorff, Manteuffel also all come to mind.
Polenz is sent in September 1729, as co-envoy according to my memory (which is probably the dissertation), and in October, Stratemann is reporting (unfounded, as we know) rumors that Suhm has been locked up--but he attributes it to the fact that Flemming is gone. But if Flemming's replacement is Hoym, who is pro-France-and-Britain, then I'm curious how Manteuffel had the power to have him recalled.
Because Manteuffel, not Hoym, was the actual minister for foreign affairs after Flemming's death. (He'd been minister for the interior before). Hoym was increasingly muscling in on to his territory, which was one of the things they clashed about. This whole situation came to be not least because after Flemming's death, August wanted to try out not having a super powerful minister and do some more divide and rule, which is among other reasons why Manteuffel got one of Flemming's offices (the foreign affairs seat in the cabinet) but not Flemming's authority and why Hoym (who nominally didn't have the foreign affairs section) was called back from Paris. In the event, August found he was more comfortable with one super powerful minister and Hoym briefly became it, but that wasn't yet decided in 1729, when Manteuffel would still have been the guy to decide which envoy got recalled or send. Mind you, since Hoym is the indisputed top guy from early 1730 onwards (and the one Fritz tries to contact via Katte at Zeithain), it could also be that it's Hoym who recalls Suhm. It's just that Seydewitz mentioning Manteuffel being "indignant" about Suhm giving FW exactly the wrong message made me sit up and look at the date.
Polenz was a hard-drinking military guy and even made it to the Tobacco Parliament repeatedly, so that worked on that level.
I'm also sure Suhm had many sound political reasons for wanting to reconcile FW and G2, but I also like to imagine him thinking maybe the marriages will work out just so Fritz has a way out that doesn't involve running away.
That is a lovely thought which makes complete sense!
You know, with the accumulating evidence, I'm starting to think he might have during his questioning phase! What I'm most impressed with is that he managed to pull it off with all the strict supervision.
Well, one of the people supervising him was Keyserling. Also, what are the chances AW was still a virgin at age 18 when FW died? His teachers got the same instructions, and he had one sympathetic to free sex and bawdy talk, too. But back to Fritz, Manteuffel is writing not in the late 1720s but in the Ruppin era, when Fritz is with his regiment and hanging out with the guys a lot, see locker room talk letter to von Gröben, and visiting prostitutes together isn't exactly unheard of for army officers. Given that FW actually greeted the rumor of Madame de Wreech being pregnant from Fritz with "yay! Now keep up the good work with your future wife!", not with "zomg what did I say about NO WHORES?", he might have kept a blind eye to stories about Fritz and Ruppin prostitutes, as long as it was in the context of Fritz becoming a manly man who finally loves the army and the military life and connects with his fellow soldiers, as opposed to being an art-loving peacenik. Also, wasn't this before Fritz properly lived with EC? I'm assuming FW would have taken a different attitude if he thought such behavior interfered with Fritz delivering the next Hohenzollern heir in his marriage.
Wooow, that makes sense! Yeah, 1739 as the year when everyone knows that FW is dying and FW knows they know makes perfect sense for FW to get suspicious and start muttering again about changing the succession.
IKR? Which again makes me be amazed at Pesne risking that ceiling at Rheinsberg.
Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Yeah, that is an interesting (and undoubtedly very painful) AU.
Sidenote: the psychological disaster of making someone with the emotional make-up of FW believe that everyone around him is lying to him and ready to kill him is obvious.
I knooow, and especially when he's got kids who have been forced to lie to him just to survive. :(((
Also, consider the irony: for all the pride FW took in recognizing when people (read: Fritz and Wilhelmine, but also people in general) were lying to him
It looks like what he recognized was people who were totally in his power and afraid of him, and took that as an excuse to abuse them even more. Whereas if you could keep your cool because you had some kind of power over *him*, he couldn't pick up on that at all.
which btw immediately reminded me of one FW letter to Fritz from the late 1720s where he accuses him of not being able to do that
And also the Grumbkow report in 1731, where FW is boasting about being able to read Fritz from thirty feet away and how Fritz probably thinks he has magical powers.
UGH.
Polenz was a hard-drinking military guy and even made it to the Tobacco Parliament repeatedly, so that worked on that level.
Yes, but what I meant to point out but forgot, because 4 hours of sleep, was that just three months later, both Suhm and Polenz were replaced with Lynar, who was sole envoy from that point on. Lynar, as a reminder, is the one who will later be sent to St. Petersburg, get involved in an affair with Anna Leopoldovna (currently niece and heir of the tsarina, future mother of Ivan VI and future regent, finally dies in prison with her family in remote parts of Russia), gets recalled because the affair is turning into a big scandal that's making him enemies, and gets replaced by Suhm.
Then when Suhm steps down and almost simultaneously Anna Leopoldovna becomes regent in late 1740, Lynar's sent back on the assumption that having the lover of the Regent of Russia as Saxon envoy will be *really* good for Saxon interests, but Elizaveta's coup happens in 1741 before he can make it there.
Well, one of the people supervising him was Keyserling.
Exactly why we brought up how super nice Fritz was with his daughter. We had speculated back then that Keyserlingk may have been very indulgent of teenage Fritz exploring.
But back to Fritz, Manteuffel is writing not in the late 1720s but in the Ruppin era, when Fritz is with his regiment and hanging out with the guys a lot, see locker room talk letter to von Gröben, and visiting prostitutes together isn't exactly unheard of for army officers.
Of course, I'm just saying that *Wilhelmine* has him debauching himself the moment Duhan steps down when he's 16, and Fritz seems to say the same thing in the letter to Duhan. The fact that he's later consorting with prostitutes (apparently!) at Ruppin makes me think that it's even more likely that Wilhelmine was right about that. And that's when I started thinking about FW-avoiding logistics. Obviously everything was *much* simpler in the 1730s!
Also, wasn't this before Fritz properly lived with EC? I'm assuming FW would have taken a different attitude if he thought such behavior interfered with Fritz delivering the next Hohenzollern heir in his marriage.
Yep, she was in Berlin until 1736 afaik, and that makes sense.
Which again makes me be amazed at Pesne risking that ceiling at Rheinsberg.
I know, I was thinking of that! Look, Honest Pomeranian Fredersdorf is keeping a million secrets, not least of which is that he can play the oboe. ;)
ETA: Oh, and thank you for the explanation of Saxon politics! That was helpful.