Oh, Leineweber's dissertation is great stuff! It provides several key bits of biographical information about Morgenstern, demonstrates pretty efficiently that 99% of his stories about young FW (and FW's relationships with his parents) are nonsense (with the F1 stuff for the most part indeed hailing from Fritz' "Histoire" as I guessed, including, btw, the "he married unnecessarily a third time" complaint) but that the stuff about older FW is far more reliable. Most intriguingly, he thinks the contradiction between Morgenstern claiming one thing (FW isn't cruel, FW is polite to ladies etc.) and then demonstrating another via the anecdotes he tells was entirely intentional on Morgenstern's part, with Morgenstern employing the "and Brutus is an honorable man" technique in Frederician Prussia.
A seperate, more detailed write up on Leineweber/Morgenstern to follow.
Oh, YAY! Having read your write-ups, I can now say that it was a very interesting and informative find! Better than I'd hoped when just googling everywhere trying to identify the editor. (Am still proud that I managed to find the passage in this dissertation where he talks about the editor and understand that he was saying that he didn't know either. That's not something I could have done at the beginning of salon!)
including, btw, the "he married unnecessarily a third time" complaint
Lol, Fritz, we know you don't like your friends and generals to marry, but objecting to your grandfather marrying before you were born is taking it too far! :P
with Morgenstern employing the "and Brutus is an honorable man" technique in Frederician Prussia.
Ooooh, that is very interesting!
Leineweber write-ups have been read and added to the backlog for future commenting!
Lol, Fritz, we know you don't like your friends and generals to marry, but objecting to your grandfather marrying before you were born is taking it too far! :P
In fairness to Fritz, it's the heritage factor and the miserlinesss speaking rather than the general dislike of the matrimonial state, I think. See also Wilhelmine in the early 30s exploding in letters when her father-in-law wants to remarry (and Sonsine's sister, no less). (Luckily for Wilhelmine and BayreuthFriedrich, Flora von Sonsfeld says no to the old Margrave.) Of course the old Margrave can't change primogeniture as far as the order of who gets to be the next Margrave is concerned, because HRE law, for the same reason FW can't remove Fritz from the succession (or Fritz AW or FW2 later)without these agreeing to it or the Emperor and the diet agreeing to a petition asking for it. HOWEVER, if the old Margrave had reproduced, he could have left practically everything but the title to his new son if he had so wished, and Wilhelmine and BayreuthFriedrich were in financial dependence to FW already during the old Margrave's life time. This could have condemmed them to more scraping forever from the Prussian table.
Now, as it happens Grandpa F1 did neither reproduce nor did his poor bonkers third wife drain the treasury. But reproduction had certainly been the intention - since FW's first two baby boys had died - and I can see Fritz, already predisposed to hate on Grandpa, deciding this was F1 wilfully risking his, Fritz' future heritage by potentially dividing it up among more potential heirs and widows.
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Re: He's just a soul whose intentions were good: Morgenstern on FW - A
Date: 2021-03-09 05:12 am (UTC)A seperate, more detailed write up on Leineweber/Morgenstern to follow.
Re: He's just a soul whose intentions were good: Morgenstern on FW - A
Date: 2021-03-11 01:05 am (UTC)including, btw, the "he married unnecessarily a third time" complaint
Lol, Fritz, we know you don't like your friends and generals to marry, but objecting to your grandfather marrying before you were born is taking it too far! :P
with Morgenstern employing the "and Brutus is an honorable man" technique in Frederician Prussia.
Ooooh, that is very interesting!
Leineweber write-ups have been read and added to the backlog for future commenting!
Re: He's just a soul whose intentions were good: Morgenstern on FW - A
Date: 2021-03-11 06:28 am (UTC)In fairness to Fritz, it's the heritage factor and the miserlinesss speaking rather than the general dislike of the matrimonial state, I think. See also Wilhelmine in the early 30s exploding in letters when her father-in-law wants to remarry (and Sonsine's sister, no less). (Luckily for Wilhelmine and BayreuthFriedrich, Flora von Sonsfeld says no to the old Margrave.) Of course the old Margrave can't change primogeniture as far as the order of who gets to be the next Margrave is concerned, because HRE law, for the same reason FW can't remove Fritz from the succession (or Fritz AW or FW2 later)without these agreeing to it or the Emperor and the diet agreeing to a petition asking for it. HOWEVER, if the old Margrave had reproduced, he could have left practically everything but the title to his new son if he had so wished, and Wilhelmine and BayreuthFriedrich were in financial dependence to FW already during the old Margrave's life time. This could have condemmed them to more scraping forever from the Prussian table.
Now, as it happens Grandpa F1 did neither reproduce nor did his poor bonkers third wife drain the treasury. But reproduction had certainly been the intention - since FW's first two baby boys had died - and I can see Fritz, already predisposed to hate on Grandpa, deciding this was F1 wilfully risking his, Fritz' future heritage by potentially dividing it up among more potential heirs and widows.