His father's hunting lodges and hunting grounds became deserted [because Fritz didn't like hunting], and the care of the game began to cease. Against this a commission was set up, consisting of the Landjägermeister v. Schwerin [Hans Bogislav by the way, brother of the field marshall], lieutenant colonel v. Keith and the sur-intendant v. Knobelsdorff to make suggestions for converting the Tiergarten into a tasteful pleasure forest, according to which Knobelsdorff should design the facilities. For this purpose, the entire forest terrain was surveyed in 1742, the extent of which was determined to be 820 acres.
and later:
... Raumer says about the creation of this establishment: Lieutenant Colonel v. Keith, who after Knobelsdorff's death was in charge of the management of the Charlottenburg Palace Gardens, of the avenues and plantations in the Tiergarten during the years 1754 and 1755, had some old furniture from that palace sold in order to use the proceeds to build a mulberry plantation on the empty space at the confluence of the Landwehrgraben and the Spree, whereby the Tiergartenpflanzkasse should receive an income. The plantation created by the Planteur Sello only existed for a few years, ...
Neither Meyer nor Raumer mention the name Peter and usually I'd suspect possible confusion of Keiths, but together with the Lehndorff info, the second part at least make perfect sense. The first one, though! That must have been very early, 1741/42, and that would be brand-new information if that was Peter already. But it could explain how he and Knobelsdorff became friends.
In the preface, Raumer says he collected information from books and handwritten sources and he does quote a couple of cabinet orders from Fritz to Schwerin verbatim for example, so he must indeed have had access to something. But 1840 is where this train stops so far.
(Raumer also mentions the Jägerhof by the way (at the Schinkenplatz, which is correct, if colloquial), and that it was turned into a bank in 1765, but to heighten the confusion, there's no mention of Keith at all, on the contrary, he says that the Oberjägermeister was still living there. *throws up hands* Given the info from the address calendar, which seems to place Peter's house on the other side of the water, too, I'm maybe possibly doubting Lehndorff a bit here? Or maybe there were several buildings? *throws up hands again*)
More tomorrow, but yes, I'm more leaning toward it being Peter now. Which is interesting in 1741/2!
Given the info from the address calendar, which seems to place Peter's house on the other side of the water, too, I'm maybe possibly doubting Lehndorff a bit here?
Yeah, it's odd. But as I remember, Lehndorff's specific about Ariane getting a pension from Fritz in 1765 because he turned her house into a bank, and I researched the Jägerhof at the time enough to know *exactly* what building was turned into a bank, and...see if Daheim in the library tells you anything useful. It's been a while since we read it. The details in Google Drive should tell you what page to look on--I annotate the docs that are long and contain only a single piece relevant to us.
Because felis might not know the relevant Lehndorff entry (it's not in my Rheinsberg collection of Lehndorff diary entries), here it is again, from June 1765 in Volume II, Lehndorff Unplugged: Alles beschäftigt sich jetzt mit dem Handel. Die Bank kommt nach dem Jägerhof. Frau von Keith, der der König dieses Haus auf Lebenszeit überlassen hatte, wird von Sr. Majestät mit jährlich 1800 Talern sehr großmütig enschädigt.
It occurs to me this doesn't actually have to mean Peter and Ariane were living at the Jägerhof before Peter's death. Just that Ariane, as a widow, had been given the Jägerhof for her lifetime and now got a pension instead. Given there was a war inbetween Peter's death and this entry, during which Berlin had been occupied twice, which is why Lehndorff's mother was taken in by Ariane during one of these events, I wouldn't be surprised if either new living space or just something to draw an income from would have been necessary. After all, owning property can be profitable without you ever living there. (One of the reasons why Wusterhausen was an issue briefly after Fritz' death, see my reply elsewhere, was that it was still a florishing country estate worth about 40 000 Taler per annum.) So giving Ariane the Jägerhof might have been an attempt to make her financially secure, given she was a widow with two sons to raise, which was subsequently replaced by a direct pension.
BTW, looking up that Lehndorff entry has reminded me this was a terrible time for him. In the previous month, May 1765, he got sick, both his daughter and son died shortly after another, and then his wife got sick (though would not die yet).
All my happiness and my only joy were my dearly beloved children. My three years old beautiful boy who could walk and talk already was my everything. On the 7th, these dear children and my entire family celebrated my birthday. Since I was sick and in bed, these two angels came into my room and both handed me flowers. Of all the celebrations ever done for me, this was the dearest. With intense joy, I regarded these two dear sprouts, and my heart was overflowing. But my God, what a blow was ahead of me! I had started to recover somewhat, and my sister Podewils, who had lived with us for eight months, decided to return to Stettin. This made me very sad, and on the day of her departure a nameless misery came upon me. In order to distract me a bit, I searched for my children and found them both rather well, but they did cough, which didn't seem dangerous to me. At 5 pm I was told that the children suddenly had started to have fits. Immediately I was with them. It had been only a slight attack, and after a quarter of an hour, they were both calm again, so that I, too, started to calm down. When I went to bed in the evening, I was again given good news about their state. But on the 15th, my little daughter (Töchterchen, the pet form of the word) woke up at 4 am in terrible fits, and despite all ossible attempts and help, the dear child died at eight in the morning. The pain which this sad event had caused me can not be put in words. I pleaded with all the world and prayed to God to let me keep at least my son. This dear child seemed to do better again, I let him be moved to my room and did not leave his bedside for an instant. All the 15th, I had hope that God would let me keep him, but on the 16th, at 11 in the morning the fits started anew, and on the 17th at 5 in the morning I had lost my son as well. My hand cannot hold the pen. What one feels in such a situation cannot be expressed through words. I can only say that one does not die of pain despite prefering to be dead. My God! Is it possible that a human being survives such a blow! I was shattered, went from one room to the next and then went to my wife, whom I found extremely distressed but at least calm. I sat down at her bedside in order to commiserate our misfortune. Suddenly she tells me she feels sick; I jump up to support her, but she falls into my arms cold as death. I call for help. My brother-in-law Schlippenbach, Fräulein v. Horn and Fräulein v. Chaselons wo have just arrived to give me their condolences enter and stand around horrified when they saw the extent of the misfortune that had attacked me. I believed my wife would not live an hour longer; she had such terrible fits that I saw the moment arrive when she would take her last breath. She was bled, and one gave her the strongest smelling salts, but she still was between life and death for 24 hours longer.
And then she recovered.... for now. It's the kind of passage that didn't make it into the original volume because I guess Schmidt-Lötzen figured the readers wouldn't be interested in Lehndorff's family, but which really contribute to show who he was aside from his relationships with the Hohenzollern.
It occurs to me this doesn't actually have to mean Peter and Ariane were living at the Jägerhof before Peter's death.
I started thinking that yesterday as well! So possibly the two of them never actually lived there but they did get the money from it. (And maybe they could have lived there if they wanted to but decided to stay in Baroness Knyphausen's place.)
And yeah, poor Lehndorff. :((
Re: Jägershof and Brüderstrasse: Royal Reader request!
Given there was a war inbetween Peter's death and this entry, during which Berlin had been occupied twice, which is why Lehndorff's mother was taken in by Ariane during one of these events, I wouldn't be surprised if either new living space or just something to draw an income from would have been necessary.
Agreed that this could have been purely a source of income, but: we know that it wasn't a new gift from Fritz to Ariane during the war, because Lehndorff also mentions at Peter's death 9 years earlier that Fritz had given *Peter* the Jägerhof during his lifetime. That was how we knew that the Frau von Keith of 1765, and the Frau von Keith who took in Lehndorff's mother, was the same Frau von Keith who had been married to Peter. This was a source of confusion for a long time. As was the identity of the Jägerhof, which we learned about at Peter's death and could never find (it being ungoogleable) until we learned that it was turned into a bank in 1765.
Oh, wait, I just looked up Lehndorff at Peter's death, and he actually says "Wohnung":
Als lebenslängliche Wohnung gab ihm der König den Jägerhof, den auch seine Witwe behält.
You guys tell me, can "Wohnung" and "behält" mean just a source of income? "Keep" in English would be ambiguous to me--it could mean "provides for financially"--but "Wohnung" would have to be "property" rather than "dwelling."
Oh, wait, I think I found the Brüderstrasse property! This is cool, but I need breakfast.
Guys, one of you German readers go read this (it's short), otherwise I'll poke through it when I have time. Short version as best I can tell: Brüderstrasse 13, today the Nicolaihaus, owned by Frau von Knyphausen 1719-1747 and greatly expanded by her, sold in 1747. Purchased by Nicolai in 1788, who had it renovated by your guy Zelter, selenak.
So Peter was probably living there in 1744, but I'm suspicious that he was not after 1748 and maybe the address just didn't get updated. Although it's a good-sized property, so maybe he rented an apartment? But the Adresskalender is looking more and more confusing to me.
Oh, btw, this is a map of the city in 1710. The Jägerhof is off to the lower left of the walled city, just inside the customs wall, and you can see Brüderstrasse just the other side of the Spree.
Edited 2021-03-20 13:25 (UTC)
Re: Jägershof and Brüderstrasse: Royal Reader request!
I can't afford to do more than look very quickly, so I'll pass this over to felis. But my very quick look tells me that Frau von Knyphausen aquired the property from none other than the von Blaspiels, aka Manteuffel's recently locked up in Spandau and then released and exiled mistress and spy Frau von Blaspiel and her husband the fired Minister of War (whose job now was held by Herr von Knyphausen).
Also didn't Felis original discovery say that the "Frau von Knyphausen's house" description at some point disappears from the address as given in the Adress book? Which might go with her selling the property. To the owner of the porcelain factory that would later become KPM, I see. Anyway, tentative suggestion - Peter kept the address in a kind of work office capacity and had his mail going there?
Re: Jägershof and Brüderstrasse: Royal Reader request!
The Frau v. Knyphausen bit actually stays until 1754, but the change in 1748 is from "Brüderstrasse" to "behind Brüderstrasse at the waterside", which fits a 1747 sale perfectly. So the question is, did she acquire a different house "behind Brüderstrasse etc" or is that supposed to be a synonym for the Jägerhof, which is on the other side of the water plus a block over and could have been called just that?
Re: Jägershof and Brüderstrasse: Royal Reader request!
Ah, yes, now that I look more closely at your summary of the dates, it's:
1744-1747: "in der Brüderstrasse in der Frau v. Kniphausen Hause". 1748-1754: "in der Frau von Knyphausen Hause hinten am Wasser hinter der Brüderstrasse". 1755-1756: it's "his" house, without the Knyphausen mention, but the same description.
So yes, they moved from on the Brüderstrasse to behind the Brüderstrasse on the opposite side of (behind/beyond) the water (Spree)! So she was in fact living with them; I had been wondering about that when I wrote my fic.
So I guess she got the Jägerhof and then after she died, Fritz said Peter could stay as long as he lived, and then he said the same to Ariane after Peter died, and then he compensated her when he needed it again.
So now the question is: did Frau von Knyphausen die in 1751, as the internet tells me, or in 1754/1755, as the Adresskalender seems to indicate?
Other Knyphausen trivia:
Ariane's father, the foreign minister and former envoy (to Denmark, Spain, Vienna, France, and Russia, per Wikipedia!) who was involved in scheming against FW and in the English marriages, was in Venice at the same time as Pesne, was painted by Pesne, and it was this painting that so impressed F1 that he invited Pesne to his court.
One of Ariane's brothers was George Keith's successor as Fritz's envoy to France, right before the Seven Years' War. When the Diplomatic Revolution happened and the war started, he was recalled. Then he was sent to England instead, and he was the one who negotiated the subsidies with the Pitt government. He was recalled in disfavor when Bute took control and the subsidies stopped. Then he was supposed to be sent as envoy to Vienna after the war, but Fritz didn't pay enough, so he declined. He was married to a daughter of Frau von Wreech, the one Fritz courted with poetry and allegedly impregnated in his Küstrin days.
And! One of Ariane's sisters was married to Hertzberg! Meaning that even if my French was wrong yesterday, Envoy Son of Peter and Ariane was the nephew by marriage to Hertzberg. So between his uncle the envoy to France, England, and almost Vienna, and his uncle-by-marriage the Prussian minister of foreign affairs, I'm betting it was maternal connections that got him the Turin post. Horowski is right, you have to look at the maternal family connections! Peter never got to be an envoy to anywhere, as we know. :P But his brother-in-law got to negotiate the subsidies once Fritz actually had two fucks to give about diplomatic relations with England.
Re: Jägershof and Brüderstrasse: Royal Reader request!
Frau von Knyphausen aquired the property from none other than the von Blaspiels, aka Manteuffel's recently locked up in Spandau and then released and exiled mistress and spy Frau von Blaspiel and her husband the fired Minister of War (whose job now was held by Herr von Knyphausen).
Ahh, nice! So wait, Blaspiel was fired and replaced by Knyphausen, who was fired in 1730--do we know who his replacement was?
Re: Jägershof and Brüderstrasse: Royal Reader request!
It's the kind of passage that didn't make it into the original volume because I guess Schmidt-Lötzen figured the readers wouldn't be interested in Lehndorff's family, but which really contribute to show who he was aside from his relationships with the Hohenzollern.
I still love that the readers were like "No, we want more LEHNDORFF!" Thank you, readers!
Sorry, Lehndorff, I got sidetracked by original research on Peter Keith! But that passage is harrowing in its own way. When I was researching Lehndorff's chronology for the final chapter of "Lovers", and I saw the dates of death after death after death, it was so heartbreaking. :'( That's why I had to include the scene where a kid actually gets *better*.
I still love that the readers were like "No, we want more LEHNDORFF!" Thank you, readers!
Yes, we're deeply indebted to you, readers! To you, Schmidt-Lötzen, for all your hard work, but to you as well, readers, for your good taste!
For Lehndorff and Jägershof, see my reply to Mildred below. Otherwise, awesome research is awesome! I really think it's very unlikely that we're dealing with Other Keith(s) here,as opposed to Peter meeting and befriending Knobelsdorff this way, which also, btw, explains why he got the Tiergarten job after Knobelsdorff's death in the first place - if this was all him, he'd be a natural successor.
Btw, I could see one explanation how Peter so relatively soon after his return from exile got on a team wo figure out what to do with the Tiergarten - as far as I know, the converting of a former royal hunting ground into a public park and then the landscaping of same had happened in England already, and one prominent example just in time for Peter to observe. To quote wiki on Hyde Park: The first coherent landscaping in Hyde Park began in 1726. It was undertaken by Charles Bridgeman for King George I, but following the king's death the following year, it continued with approval of his daughter-in-law, Queen Caroline. Work was undertaken under the supervision of Charles Withers, the Surveyor-General of Woods and Forests. The principal effect of the work was to sub-divide Hyde Park and create Kensington Gardens. The Serpentine was formed by damming the River Westbourne, which runs through the park from Kilburn towards the Thames. It is divided from the Long Water by a bridge designed by George Rennie in 1826.
The work was completed in 1733. The 2nd Viscount Weymouth was made Ranger of Hyde Park in 1739 and shortly after began digging the Serpentine lakes at Longleat.
So, until we find something out about Suhm's post-mortem son-in-law that sounds like he hung out with Knobelsdorff, Peter & Knobelsdorff bffness shall be canon. :)
which also, btw, explains why he got the Tiergarten job after Knobelsdorff's death in the first place - if this was all him, he'd be a natural successor.
Exactly!
Neat finding on Hyde Park. I think Peter was only in England for a few months between 1726-1733 (he spent 3 years in Ireland shortly after his arrival in England, remember), but considering he later returned to London and socialized with people before leaving for Portugal, he might well have seen it and talked to the people responsible. (He spent very little of the 1730-1740 period in England proper, incidentally--only about 2 years.)
So, until we find something out about Suhm's post-mortem son-in-law that sounds like he hung out with Knobelsdorff, Peter & Knobelsdorff bffness shall be canon. :)
It's now canon for me! Until now, we had Peter as Knobelsdorff's Tiergarten successor and a Lt. Col. Keith that Knobelsdorff was friends, but that could have been like a Katte first cousin showing up as minister in Küstrin a year after Fritz becomes king: somebody qualified was available at the right time. But now that we have a Lt. Col. Keith being involved in the Tiergarten from 1742 (at least according to our 1840 Raumer), the coincidence is too much!
Bffness it is! And now we can add to our knowledge of Peter Keith.
This is so awesome! As I said to selenak below, the addition of a third data point, this early, makes the 1753 bequest to a Lt. Col. von Keith and the 1753/4 takeover of the Tiergarten responsibilities by a Lt. Col. von Keith into something that's not a coincidence of Keiths as far as I'm concerned!
Also, now we have at least tentative dates (and reasons!) for Peter's Charlottenburg and Tiergarten responsibilities, and a date for the Jägerhof move!
This is nearly completing my longstanding wishlist for Peter's chronology! The only thing I wish we had now was firmer evidence for the same. And more deets on his kids and their actual first names, omg. The most reliable source I can find says Carl Ernst Reinhard for Envoy Son, and 1743-11-29 for his birth date, so I'm leaning toward that, but I wish I didn't have three different sets of first names for him. (Also, if that's true, then Friedrich Ludwig was likely the name of the second son, not the elder as I'd guessed, unless Ariane got pregnant on (or before :P) her wedding night and also within a month after giving birth the first time, and then never again (not that I would blame her after that!))
In the preface, Raumer says he collected information from books and handwritten sources and he does quote a couple of cabinet orders from Fritz to Schwerin verbatim for example, so he must indeed have had access to something. But 1840 is where this train stops so far.
If this is the same Raumer as the one who published all the envoy reports around the marriage intrigues, then he's probably pretty reliable, but I do still wish we had his sources.
But! We have dates where we didn't have them before, and I'm going to incorporate them into Rheinsberg! (Someday, omg.)
And more deets on his kids and their actual first names, omg.
Remember that Adresskalender? ;) It's totally at fault for three different names, and it also has a very inconvenient gap between 1777 and 1787, but I still found some stuff:
1764: Kammergericht-Referendarii: Carl Ernst Reinhard v. Keith Friedrich Ludwig v. Keith, who both live "auf dem Jägerhofe" [this is the one and only mention of a Friedrich Ludwig]
1765: Kammergericht-Referendarii: Carl Ernst Reinhard v.K., who lives at Königl. Jägerhof, Große Jägerstrasse
nothing in 1766
1767-1771: Geheime Staatskanzlei: Peter Carl v. Keith, Legationsrath and Geh. Secretarius, "expediert sämtl. Schlesische Sachen", lives "hinter dem alten Packhof in dem Colbischen Hause" 1772-1774: same for Peter Carl, except he lives "close to the Jungferbrücke [that's the one between Brüderstrasse und Jägerhof by the way] im Knobelsdorffschen Hause" 1775-1776: Geheime Staatskanzlei + Royal Envoy at foreign courts: Peter Carl v. Keith, Legations-Rath, Königlicher Kammerherr and Envoyé Extraordinaire at the Turin Court, is absent [therefore no adress]
GAP 1777-1787
1788-1791: Geheime Staatskanzlei: Ernst Reinhard Carl v. K., Legationsrath, lives at Taubenstr. im Friedelschen Hause and also: Widow v. Keith, born Baroness v. Kniphausen, great governess of the Queen [still EC], lives at the Palace
1792-98: same for Ernst Reinhard Carl, except that he "hat die Schlesische Expedition" under "Expedierende Geheime Secretarien" [no Widow Keith anymore, so that fits, since Ariane died in in 1791]
It's like a "find the one that doesn't fit puzzle" and I have no idea. :P
I remember it well! I was thinking of using it for my Keith son research, but hadn't gotten to it yet. Thank you, Holmes!
Lol at the different names. At least none of them is Friedrich Ludwig! Schmidt-Lötzen has *Friedrich* as the envoy, but then I later discovered a more reliable looking modern source that has Carl Ernst Reinhard as the envoy and Friedrich Ludwig as the obscure brother, and then the Prussian state archives had Peter Karl Christoph (vel sim.). And now I see he's listed as Carl Ernst Reinhard and Peter Carl! I count Ernst Reinhard Carl and Carl Ernst Reinhard as the same, btw, since name ordering wasn't constant back then--our Peter is Peter Karl Christoph and Peter Christoph Karl with almost equal frequency--but Peter Carl and Ernst Reinhard Carl are rather different.
Was he named Peter Carl Ernst Reinhard and they called him Carl or Ernst or Reinhard while Peter the father was alive, and then after Peter died, Carl started wanting to be known by his father's name at some point as an adult (it's easy to miss a father who died just before you got to the teenage conflict years), and then went back to his old name? See if you can find me his baptismal certificate. :P (I say this tongue-in-cheek, but I wouldn't put it past you!)
Oh! And I want to know where Peter was buried. I went with "random churchyard in Berlin" for fic, knowing that there's a decent chance he was buried indoors. But I want to know where, even if it no longer survives!
I wonder if Friedrich Ludwig died young. Or maybe he just lived a very obscure life, unlike envoy brother, and never made it into the records.
Also, thanks to Kloosterhuis, we know where Peter Carl Ernst Reinhard :P lived when he died in 1822: Taubenstraße Nr. 42. So that's presumably the "Taubenstr. im Friedelschen Hause" mentioned starting in 1788.
Oh, this is what I find on Friedel, who apparently was a construction manager who worked on Rheinsberg, then on Sanssouci under Knobelsdorff, in addition to his later, independent Anhalt-Zerbst work. He owned a house on Taubenstrasse, and died in 1793.
Not sure about the Colbischen Haus, but this is the Alter Packhof. You can just about see it on this 1710 map: find Jägerhof in the lower left inside the walls, find the nearby Fürsten Haus (at least that's what it seems to say), then go up a little: it's right by the river. Today's Schinkelplatz. You can also see the Jungferbrücke.
So basically, he's staying in this tiny little corner of Berlin. Okay, here's the 1710 map, with Jägerhof in red. Everything else is nearby. Brüderstrasse is just across the water from Jägerhof.
Modern-day Berlin.
Yellow circle over modern-day Lunch Time cafe, where the Jägerhof stood, then the Bank of Berlin, until the bank filled up the entire block, and then got moved one block east to the larger block on the water where you see the modern Auswärtiges Amt (moving the bank there was, if I recall from my Jägerhof research a year ago, the first building project of the Worst Fanboys and highly publicized by them as it was happening).
Just east of Jägerhof, on the other side of the water, the Brüderstrasse 13 property, where Peter and family lived with Ariane's mother until she sold it in 1747, and where Nicolai later gave it its current name. (If I ever go back to Berlin, I'm going to have TOO MUCH to see. :P)
ETA: also, note that the Lustgarten and Museumsinsel (where the Altes Museum, and thus the original Antinous statue, not the copy at Sanssouci, stands) are *right there*, a little to the north, and thus that I was *right there* near the Keith residences! (Even if the Jägerhof is no longer standing, I still care.) Of course, I probably looked *right at* the "Praying Boy" when I was in the museum, and had *no idea* I was looking at Katte's tribute (like Fritz used to do on summer days, in his old age).
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Re: Manger, Knobelsdorff - and Peter Keith!
A Tiergarten history by Meyer, from 1892, says:
His father's hunting lodges and hunting grounds became deserted [because Fritz didn't like hunting], and the care of the game began to cease. Against this a commission was set up, consisting of the Landjägermeister v. Schwerin [Hans Bogislav by the way, brother of the field marshall], lieutenant colonel v. Keith and the sur-intendant v. Knobelsdorff to make suggestions for converting the Tiergarten into a tasteful pleasure forest, according to which Knobelsdorff should design the facilities. For this purpose, the entire forest terrain was surveyed in 1742, the extent of which was determined to be 820 acres.
and later:
... Raumer says about the creation of this establishment: Lieutenant Colonel v. Keith, who after Knobelsdorff's death was in charge of the management of the Charlottenburg Palace Gardens, of the avenues and plantations in the Tiergarten during the years 1754 and 1755, had some old furniture from that palace sold in order to use the proceeds to build a mulberry plantation on the empty space at the confluence of the Landwehrgraben and the Spree, whereby the Tiergartenpflanzkasse should receive an income. The plantation created by the Planteur Sello only existed for a few years, ...
Raumer = this even earlier Tiergarten history from 1840, which does indeed mention both the early commission and the second story about Keith in charge and the mulberry plantation.
Neither Meyer nor Raumer mention the name Peter and usually I'd suspect possible confusion of Keiths, but together with the Lehndorff info, the second part at least make perfect sense.
The first one, though! That must have been very early, 1741/42, and that would be brand-new information if that was Peter already. But it could explain how he and Knobelsdorff became friends.
In the preface, Raumer says he collected information from books and handwritten sources and he does quote a couple of cabinet orders from Fritz to Schwerin verbatim for example, so he must indeed have had access to something. But 1840 is where this train stops so far.
(Raumer also mentions the Jägerhof by the way (at the Schinkenplatz, which is correct, if colloquial), and that it was turned into a bank in 1765, but to heighten the confusion, there's no mention of Keith at all, on the contrary, he says that the Oberjägermeister was still living there. *throws up hands* Given the info from the address calendar, which seems to place Peter's house on the other side of the water, too, I'm maybe possibly doubting Lehndorff a bit here? Or maybe there were several buildings? *throws up hands again*)
Re: Manger, Knobelsdorff - and Peter Keith!
Given the info from the address calendar, which seems to place Peter's house on the other side of the water, too, I'm maybe possibly doubting Lehndorff a bit here?
Yeah, it's odd. But as I remember, Lehndorff's specific about Ariane getting a pension from Fritz in 1765 because he turned her house into a bank, and I researched the Jägerhof at the time enough to know *exactly* what building was turned into a bank, and...see if Daheim in the library tells you anything useful. It's been a while since we read it. The details in Google Drive should tell you what page to look on--I annotate the docs that are long and contain only a single piece relevant to us.
Jägershof and Lehndorff
It occurs to me this doesn't actually have to mean Peter and Ariane were living at the Jägerhof before Peter's death. Just that Ariane, as a widow, had been given the Jägerhof for her lifetime and now got a pension instead. Given there was a war inbetween Peter's death and this entry, during which Berlin had been occupied twice, which is why Lehndorff's mother was taken in by Ariane during one of these events, I wouldn't be surprised if either new living space or just something to draw an income from would have been necessary. After all, owning property can be profitable without you ever living there. (One of the reasons why Wusterhausen was an issue briefly after Fritz' death, see my reply elsewhere, was that it was still a florishing country estate worth about 40 000 Taler per annum.) So giving Ariane the Jägerhof might have been an attempt to make her financially secure, given she was a widow with two sons to raise, which was subsequently replaced by a direct pension.
BTW, looking up that Lehndorff entry has reminded me this was a terrible time for him. In the previous month, May 1765, he got sick, both his daughter and son died shortly after another, and then his wife got sick (though would not die yet).
All my happiness and my only joy were my dearly beloved children. My three years old beautiful boy who could walk and talk already was my everything. On the 7th, these dear children and my entire family celebrated my birthday. Since I was sick and in bed, these two angels came into my room and both handed me flowers. Of all the celebrations ever done for me, this was the dearest. With intense joy, I regarded these two dear sprouts, and my heart was overflowing. But my God, what a blow was ahead of me! I had started to recover somewhat, and my sister Podewils, who had lived with us for eight months, decided to return to Stettin. This made me very sad, and on the day of her departure a nameless misery came upon me. In order to distract me a bit, I searched for my children and found them both rather well, but they did cough, which didn't seem dangerous to me. At 5 pm I was told that the children suddenly had started to have fits. Immediately I was with them. It had been only a slight attack, and after a quarter of an hour, they were both calm again, so that I, too, started to calm down. When I went to bed in the evening, I was again given good news about their state. But on the 15th, my little daughter (Töchterchen, the pet form of the word) woke up at 4 am in terrible fits, and despite all ossible attempts and help, the dear child died at eight in the morning. The pain which this sad event had caused me can not be put in words. I pleaded with all the world and prayed to God to let me keep at least my son. This dear child seemed to do better again, I let him be moved to my room and did not leave his bedside for an instant. All the 15th, I had hope that God would let me keep him, but on the 16th, at 11 in the morning the fits started anew, and on the 17th at 5 in the morning I had lost my son as well. My hand cannot hold the pen. What one feels in such a situation cannot be expressed through words. I can only say that one does not die of pain despite prefering to be dead. My God! Is it possible that a human being survives such a blow! I was shattered, went from one room to the next and then went to my wife, whom I found extremely distressed but at least calm. I sat down at her bedside in order to commiserate our misfortune. Suddenly she tells me she feels sick; I jump up to support her, but she falls into my arms cold as death. I call for help. My brother-in-law Schlippenbach, Fräulein v. Horn and Fräulein v. Chaselons wo have just arrived to give me their condolences enter and stand around horrified when they saw the extent of the misfortune that had attacked me. I believed my wife would not live an hour longer; she had such terrible fits that I saw the moment arrive when she would take her last breath. She was bled, and one gave her the strongest smelling salts, but she still was between life and death for 24 hours longer.
And then she recovered.... for now. It's the kind of passage that didn't make it into the original volume because I guess Schmidt-Lötzen figured the readers wouldn't be interested in Lehndorff's family, but which really contribute to show who he was aside from his relationships with the Hohenzollern.
Re: Jägershof and Lehndorff
I started thinking that yesterday as well! So possibly the two of them never actually lived there but they did get the money from it. (And maybe they could have lived there if they wanted to but decided to stay in Baroness Knyphausen's place.)
And yeah, poor Lehndorff. :((
Re: Jägershof and Brüderstrasse: Royal Reader request!
Agreed that this could have been purely a source of income, but: we know that it wasn't a new gift from Fritz to Ariane during the war, because Lehndorff also mentions at Peter's death 9 years earlier that Fritz had given *Peter* the Jägerhof during his lifetime. That was how we knew that the Frau von Keith of 1765, and the Frau von Keith who took in Lehndorff's mother, was the same Frau von Keith who had been married to Peter. This was a source of confusion for a long time. As was the identity of the Jägerhof, which we learned about at Peter's death and could never find (it being ungoogleable) until we learned that it was turned into a bank in 1765.
Oh, wait, I just looked up Lehndorff at Peter's death, and he actually says "Wohnung":
Als lebenslängliche Wohnung gab ihm der König den Jägerhof, den auch seine Witwe behält.
You guys tell me, can "Wohnung" and "behält" mean just a source of income? "Keep" in English would be ambiguous to me--it could mean "provides for financially"--but "Wohnung" would have to be "property" rather than "dwelling."
Oh, wait, I think I found the Brüderstrasse property! This is cool, but I need breakfast.
Guys, one of you German readers go read this (it's short), otherwise I'll poke through it when I have time. Short version as best I can tell: Brüderstrasse 13, today the Nicolaihaus, owned by Frau von Knyphausen 1719-1747 and greatly expanded by her, sold in 1747. Purchased by Nicolai in 1788, who had it renovated by your guy Zelter,
So Peter was probably living there in 1744, but I'm suspicious that he was not after 1748 and maybe the address just didn't get updated. Although it's a good-sized property, so maybe he rented an apartment? But the Adresskalender is looking more and more confusing to me.
Oh, btw, this is a map of the city in 1710. The Jägerhof is off to the lower left of the walled city, just inside the customs wall, and you can see Brüderstrasse just the other side of the Spree.
Re: Jägershof and Brüderstrasse: Royal Reader request!
Also didn't Felis original discovery say that the "Frau von Knyphausen's house" description at some point disappears from the address as given in the Adress book? Which might go with her selling the property. To the owner of the porcelain factory that would later become KPM, I see. Anyway, tentative suggestion - Peter kept the address in a kind of work office capacity and had his mail going there?
Re: Jägershof and Brüderstrasse: Royal Reader request!
Re: Jägershof and Brüderstrasse: Royal Reader request!
1744-1747: "in der Brüderstrasse in der Frau v. Kniphausen Hause".
1748-1754: "in der Frau von Knyphausen Hause hinten am Wasser hinter der Brüderstrasse".
1755-1756: it's "his" house, without the Knyphausen mention, but the same description.
So yes, they moved from on the Brüderstrasse to behind the Brüderstrasse on the opposite side of (behind/beyond) the water (Spree)! So she was in fact living with them; I had been wondering about that when I wrote my fic.
So I guess she got the Jägerhof and then after she died, Fritz said Peter could stay as long as he lived, and then he said the same to Ariane after Peter died, and then he compensated her when he needed it again.
So now the question is: did Frau von Knyphausen die in 1751, as the internet tells me, or in 1754/1755, as the Adresskalender seems to indicate?
Other Knyphausen trivia:
Ariane's father, the foreign minister and former envoy (to Denmark, Spain, Vienna, France, and Russia, per Wikipedia!) who was involved in scheming against FW and in the English marriages, was in Venice at the same time as Pesne, was painted by Pesne, and it was this painting that so impressed F1 that he invited Pesne to his court.
One of Ariane's brothers was George Keith's successor as Fritz's envoy to France, right before the Seven Years' War. When the Diplomatic Revolution happened and the war started, he was recalled. Then he was sent to England instead, and he was the one who negotiated the subsidies with the Pitt government. He was recalled in disfavor when Bute took control and the subsidies stopped. Then he was supposed to be sent as envoy to Vienna after the war, but Fritz didn't pay enough, so he declined. He was married to a daughter of Frau von Wreech, the one Fritz courted with poetry and allegedly impregnated in his Küstrin days.
And! One of Ariane's sisters was married to Hertzberg! Meaning that even if my French was wrong yesterday, Envoy Son of Peter and Ariane was the nephew by marriage to Hertzberg. So between his uncle the envoy to France, England, and almost Vienna, and his uncle-by-marriage the Prussian minister of foreign affairs, I'm betting it was maternal connections that got him the Turin post. Horowski is right, you have to look at the maternal family connections! Peter never got to be an envoy to anywhere, as we know. :P But his brother-in-law got to negotiate the subsidies once Fritz actually had two fucks to give about diplomatic relations with England.
Re: Jägershof and Brüderstrasse: Royal Reader request!
Ahh, nice! So wait, Blaspiel was fired and replaced by Knyphausen, who was fired in 1730--do we know who his replacement was?
Re: Jägershof and Brüderstrasse: Royal Reader request!
Re: Jägershof and Brüderstrasse: Royal Reader request!
Okay, Lavisse says, "Cnyphausen had been sent away, and replaced by Grumbkow's son-in-law." Podewils, then.
Re: Jägershof and Lehndorff
It's the kind of passage that didn't make it into the original volume because I guess Schmidt-Lötzen figured the readers wouldn't be interested in Lehndorff's family, but which really contribute to show who he was aside from his relationships with the Hohenzollern.
I still love that the readers were like "No, we want more LEHNDORFF!" Thank you, readers!
Lehndorff
I still love that the readers were like "No, we want more LEHNDORFF!" Thank you, readers!
Yes, we're deeply indebted to you, readers! To you, Schmidt-Lötzen, for all your hard work, but to you as well, readers, for your good taste!
Re: Manger, Knobelsdorff - and Peter Keith!
Btw, I could see one explanation how Peter so relatively soon after his return from exile got on a team wo figure out what to do with the Tiergarten - as far as I know, the converting of a former royal hunting ground into a public park and then the landscaping of same had happened in England already, and one prominent example just in time for Peter to observe. To quote wiki on Hyde Park: The first coherent landscaping in Hyde Park began in 1726. It was undertaken by Charles Bridgeman for King George I, but following the king's death the following year, it continued with approval of his daughter-in-law, Queen Caroline. Work was undertaken under the supervision of Charles Withers, the Surveyor-General of Woods and Forests. The principal effect of the work was to sub-divide Hyde Park and create Kensington Gardens. The Serpentine was formed by damming the River Westbourne, which runs through the park from Kilburn towards the Thames. It is divided from the Long Water by a bridge designed by George Rennie in 1826.
The work was completed in 1733. The 2nd Viscount Weymouth was made Ranger of Hyde Park in 1739 and shortly after began digging the Serpentine lakes at Longleat.
So, until we find something out about Suhm's post-mortem son-in-law that sounds like he hung out with Knobelsdorff, Peter & Knobelsdorff bffness shall be canon. :)
Re: Manger, Knobelsdorff - and Peter Keith!
It is so awesome!
which also, btw, explains why he got the Tiergarten job after Knobelsdorff's death in the first place - if this was all him, he'd be a natural successor.
Exactly!
Neat finding on Hyde Park. I think Peter was only in England for a few months between 1726-1733 (he spent 3 years in Ireland shortly after his arrival in England, remember), but considering he later returned to London and socialized with people before leaving for Portugal, he might well have seen it and talked to the people responsible. (He spent very little of the 1730-1740 period in England proper, incidentally--only about 2 years.)
So, until we find something out about Suhm's post-mortem son-in-law that sounds like he hung out with Knobelsdorff, Peter & Knobelsdorff bffness shall be canon. :)
It's now canon for me! Until now, we had Peter as Knobelsdorff's Tiergarten successor and a Lt. Col. Keith that Knobelsdorff was friends, but that could have been like a Katte first cousin showing up as minister in Küstrin a year after Fritz becomes king: somebody qualified was available at the right time. But now that we have a Lt. Col. Keith being involved in the Tiergarten from 1742 (at least according to our 1840 Raumer), the coincidence is too much!
Bffness it is! And now we can add to our knowledge of Peter Keith.
Re: Manger, Knobelsdorff - and Peter Keith!
Also, now we have at least tentative dates (and reasons!) for Peter's Charlottenburg and Tiergarten responsibilities, and a date for the Jägerhof move!
This is nearly completing my longstanding wishlist for Peter's chronology! The only thing I wish we had now was firmer evidence for the same. And more deets on his kids and their actual first names, omg. The most reliable source I can find says Carl Ernst Reinhard for Envoy Son, and 1743-11-29 for his birth date, so I'm leaning toward that, but I wish I didn't have three different sets of first names for him. (Also, if that's true, then Friedrich Ludwig was likely the name of the second son, not the elder as I'd guessed, unless Ariane got pregnant on (or before :P) her wedding night and also within a month after giving birth the first time, and then never again (not that I would blame her after that!))
In the preface, Raumer says he collected information from books and handwritten sources and he does quote a couple of cabinet orders from Fritz to Schwerin verbatim for example, so he must indeed have had access to something. But 1840 is where this train stops so far.
If this is the same Raumer as the one who published all the envoy reports around the marriage intrigues, then he's probably pretty reliable, but I do still wish we had his sources.
But! We have dates where we didn't have them before, and I'm going to incorporate them into Rheinsberg! (Someday, omg.)
Re: Manger, Knobelsdorff - and Peter Keith!
Not the same guy, but he worked at the state archive during time of writing, later becoming its director.
Re: Manger, Knobelsdorff - and Peter Keith!
And thank you and
Re: Manger, Knobelsdorff - and Peter Keith!
Remember that Adresskalender? ;) It's totally at fault for three different names, and it also has a very inconvenient gap between 1777 and 1787, but I still found some stuff:
1764: Kammergericht-Referendarii:
Carl Ernst Reinhard v. Keith
Friedrich Ludwig v. Keith, who both live "auf dem Jägerhofe" [this is the one and only mention of a Friedrich Ludwig]
1765: Kammergericht-Referendarii: Carl Ernst Reinhard v.K., who lives at Königl. Jägerhof, Große Jägerstrasse
nothing in 1766
1767-1771: Geheime Staatskanzlei: Peter Carl v. Keith, Legationsrath and Geh. Secretarius, "expediert sämtl. Schlesische Sachen", lives "hinter dem alten Packhof in dem Colbischen Hause"
1772-1774: same for Peter Carl, except he lives "close to the Jungferbrücke [that's the one between Brüderstrasse und Jägerhof by the way] im Knobelsdorffschen Hause"
1775-1776: Geheime Staatskanzlei + Royal Envoy at foreign courts: Peter Carl v. Keith, Legations-Rath, Königlicher Kammerherr and Envoyé Extraordinaire at the Turin Court, is absent [therefore no adress]
GAP 1777-1787
1788-1791: Geheime Staatskanzlei: Ernst Reinhard Carl v. K., Legationsrath, lives at Taubenstr. im Friedelschen Hause
and also: Widow v. Keith, born Baroness v. Kniphausen, great governess of the Queen [still EC], lives at the Palace
1792-98: same for Ernst Reinhard Carl, except that he "hat die Schlesische Expedition" under "Expedierende Geheime Secretarien"
[no Widow Keith anymore, so that fits, since Ariane died in in 1791]
It's like a "find the one that doesn't fit puzzle" and I have no idea. :P
Peter Keith and maps
Remember that Adresskalender?
I remember it well! I was thinking of using it for my Keith son research, but hadn't gotten to it yet. Thank you, Holmes!
Lol at the different names. At least none of them is Friedrich Ludwig! Schmidt-Lötzen has *Friedrich* as the envoy, but then I later discovered a more reliable looking modern source that has Carl Ernst Reinhard as the envoy and Friedrich Ludwig as the obscure brother, and then the Prussian state archives had Peter Karl Christoph (vel sim.). And now I see he's listed as Carl Ernst Reinhard and Peter Carl! I count Ernst Reinhard Carl and Carl Ernst Reinhard as the same, btw, since name ordering wasn't constant back then--our Peter is Peter Karl Christoph and Peter Christoph Karl with almost equal frequency--but Peter Carl and Ernst Reinhard Carl are rather different.
Was he named Peter Carl Ernst Reinhard and they called him Carl or Ernst or Reinhard while Peter the father was alive, and then after Peter died, Carl started wanting to be known by his father's name at some point as an adult (it's easy to miss a father who died just before you got to the teenage conflict years), and then went back to his old name? See if you can find me his baptismal certificate. :P (I say this tongue-in-cheek, but I wouldn't put it past you!)
Oh! And I want to know where Peter was buried. I went with "random churchyard in Berlin" for fic, knowing that there's a decent chance he was buried indoors. But I want to know where, even if it no longer survives!
I wonder if Friedrich Ludwig died young. Or maybe he just lived a very obscure life, unlike envoy brother, and never made it into the records.
Also, thanks to Kloosterhuis, we know where Peter Carl Ernst Reinhard :P lived when he died in 1822: Taubenstraße Nr. 42. So that's presumably the "Taubenstr. im Friedelschen Hause" mentioned starting in 1788.
Oh, this is what I find on Friedel, who apparently was a construction manager who worked on Rheinsberg, then on Sanssouci under Knobelsdorff, in addition to his later, independent Anhalt-Zerbst work. He owned a house on Taubenstrasse, and died in 1793.
Not sure about the Colbischen Haus, but this is the Alter Packhof. You can just about see it on this 1710 map: find Jägerhof in the lower left inside the walls, find the nearby Fürsten Haus (at least that's what it seems to say), then go up a little: it's right by the river. Today's Schinkelplatz. You can also see the Jungferbrücke.
So basically, he's staying in this tiny little corner of Berlin. Okay, here's the 1710 map, with Jägerhof in red. Everything else is nearby. Brüderstrasse is just across the water from Jägerhof.
Modern-day Berlin.
Yellow circle over modern-day Lunch Time cafe, where the Jägerhof stood, then the Bank of Berlin, until the bank filled up the entire block, and then got moved one block east to the larger block on the water where you see the modern Auswärtiges Amt (moving the bank there was, if I recall from my Jägerhof research a year ago, the first building project of the Worst Fanboys and highly publicized by them as it was happening).
Just east of Jägerhof, on the other side of the water, the Brüderstrasse 13 property, where Peter and family lived with Ariane's mother until she sold it in 1747, and where Nicolai later gave it its current name. (If I ever go back to Berlin, I'm going to have TOO MUCH to see. :P)
ETA: also, note that the Lustgarten and Museumsinsel (where the Altes Museum, and thus the original Antinous statue, not the copy at Sanssouci, stands) are *right there*, a little to the north, and thus that I was *right there* near the Keith residences! (Even if the Jägerhof is no longer standing, I still care.) Of course, I probably looked *right at* the "Praying Boy" when I was in the museum, and had *no idea* I was looking at Katte's tribute (like Fritz used to do on summer days, in his old age).