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.
Yet another awesome write-up that I have read and not had time to reply to!
Not to dig myself deeper into this hole :P, but there's now a 2007 dissertation by Judith Matzke on Saxon diplomatic service 1694-1763 in the library. I turned it up about a year ago in my Suhm research, and found it useful enough for my purposes that I put it on my reading list, but since we're getting to know some more envoys these days, and since it's going to be mooooonths before my German is fast enough *and* I've gotten through the items higher on my reading list...it's there if you want to take a look and see if it has anything of interest to salon. (It's a 400+ page dissertation, it may be dry as dust. But also it has a nearly 50 page bibliography, so maybe it'll point us somewhere interesting.)
With luck, I should be able to participate in salon and chip away at the backlog this weekend. The amount of work I'll have to do is less than I anticipated (though still some).
At a first glimpse, it looks pretty dry, but check out page 222! It has something dear to year heart: a neat little excel thing listing which envoy got how much salary and expenses in the year 1723 (the one with the highest salary and expenses is unsurprisingly Hoym in Paris, with 8000 Reichtaler per annum and 400 additional expenses. Suhm in Berlin in the same year gets 1.800 per annum and 900 for additional expenses. And he has a lot other guys ahead of him in addition to Hoym - the envoys to London, Moscow/St. Petersburg, Vienna, Venice, Mainz, Rome and Frankfurt, in that order. Don't ask me why Mainz, other than it's one of the towns with an Archbishop who is also a prince elector. The order of the others are pretty much what I assumed, though it amuses me that St. Petersburg is already more expensive than Vienna. On page 226, however, there is a new statistics, showing that Suhm's salary has risen. In 1727, he ranks fourth after Hoym (still the one who gets the most money for being the envoy in France - in fact, Hoym gets 15% of the annual total budget), and the envoys in Moscow and London, respectively, in that order. Suhm now gets 7.200 per annum.
Oh, and Suhm's successor in 1729 was called von Polenz.
Oh, yes, I saw that! Basically, when I was researching Suhm (for your Georgii fic!), I searched for "Suhm" in this document and Google translated everything I found, but the rest of the dissertation is a black box to me (a dry one, it seems). Oh, other than the time for diplomatic correspondence to get between Dresden and various courts, I documented that in Rheinsberg. And I know a bit about Polenz qua Suhm's successor and was planning to talk about him in my reply today. He's actually in our Frederician chronology document! :)
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.
Everything about this guy's introduction was amazing, but this made me go, "Oh, of *course* this guy was like that."
Honest Clement
LOL
a Hungarian who is NOT a Catholic
So I keep running into the Rakoczy (under a variety of spellings) family in Hungary, and so I read their Wikipedia page, and they were apparently notable for being Calvinists.
Francis/Ferenc II led an unsucessful rebellion against Habsburgs during the War of the Spanish Succession. After his defeat, he went and lived in Poland, where Peter the Great apparently wanted to make him king of Poland twice. Then he went to England, but they were allied with the Habsburgs, and forced him to leave. Then he went to France, where he was treated well but his claims never recognized (and his sons, who were basically hostages in Vienna, apparently never got to leave Vienna to be with him). Then he went to the Ottoman Empire, where the Sultan refused to extradite him ever, though he also refused to let him lead a Christian army against the Habsburgs. (Remember that the Ottomans and Hapsburgs share a lot of borders and are at war more often than not. (The Ottoman conflicts with Russia and Austria will later play a role in why Heinrich and Catherine are like, "...Why don't we just divide up Poland instead of starting another ginormous war."
A lot of Hungarians joined him there, and he lived the rest of his life and died in what is now modern-day Turkey (the European part).
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.
OMG. Just, OMG.
.Those letters from Eugene Clement presented were declared really Eugene's handwriting by other courtiers who know it.
A+ forging, Honest Clement!
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.
LOLOL
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*
Touching, I have to admit!
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?
Lol, this is *such* a wild ride. It just keeps getting better!
Flemming: Fuck, fuck, fuck. This will set us back decades.
Manteuffel: But we're innocent?
For some reason, I loved this.
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.
My thoughts exactly! I guess they're reliable when you need someone to change their story about this *not* being a giant conspiracy against you but just your abused son trying to run away with a couple BFFs, but they're TOTALLY unreliable when someone changes their story from there being a conspiracy to there not being one. The moral of the story is: it's always a conspiracy!
FW: ...Okay. You're innocent. Eugene is, too. BUT SOMEONE CONSPIRED AGAINST ME, I JUST KNOW IT.
Wow, yeah, I see where the paranoia began.
But wait, did he ever catch on to the actual conspiracy to overthrow him and put Fritz on the throne, the French Count Rottembourg-Knyphausen-Fritz one? Because there actually was a conspiracy once, but I don't recall anyone getting tortured over it. :P
Oh, wait, I think Lavisse said FW got suspicious about that one and forced Fritz to drink, but even drunk, Fritz refused to give anything away. I'm not sure what the source on that is, though.
A plus compassionate ruler, FW!
Morgenstern: The reputation for cruelty was a misunderstanding based on the beatings, tortures, and executions!
Self: Incidentally, aren't the intervening years when Suhm is Saxon envoy and FW hates his guts?
You got it! 1720-1730. 1727 is the year of threatening to hang Suhm.
Manteuffel: works his magic, so that when FW and Fritz visit Dresden in 1728, they actually stay at his house.
Ahhh, I had forgotten that!
Fritz' first preserved letter to Wilhelmine, which contains a "hot or not?" report on August, was written there.
And I had forgotten this exists!
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.
See, when you've got someone who doesn't naturally like drinking, that's a real chameleon at work. It's a useful skill for a diplomat!
Summer of 1729: FW and G2 have their almost-duel
Was the almost-duel referenced in Seydewitz, or are you supplementing it with salon knowledge?
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.
Huh, yes. 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.
Again according to my notes based largely on the dissertation, Polenz is the kind of hard-drinking military guy the Saxons think can get on FW's good side, unlike poor Suhm--oh, and I kind of remember the dissertation author saying they specifically wanted to compete with Seckendorff's influence. Now, this makes sense if Hoym's policies are exactly opposed to Seckendorff's pro-Imperial policies, but it would mean that Suhm was replaced not because he was in favor of France and Britain, but because he had no chance of winning FW over. Maybe.
(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.)
And yes, when I saw that Manteuffel could adopt a public persona suited to FW, I remembered Fritz telling Suhm that he was very poorly suited to a hard-drinking, hard-fucking court like St. Petersburg. It's pretty clear Suhm's style of diplomacy doesn't involve being a chameleon, but rather keeping people from being offended. (Which might have something to do with his laconic style.) I remain impressed at how he managed to get Fritz to go, "Oh, yeah, my bad, thank god I have you to point out my mistakes," in a completely non-defensive, emotionally mature way. And having recently reread the letter in question, I can see just how veeeery skillfully Suhm couches his "That was a really bad idea, Fritz" feedback.
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.
Oh, cool. I love all these connections.
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.
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.
His indulgence of Keyserlingk's daughter's less than flawless for by the standards of the day sexual behavior comes to mind...as does the passage in Wilhelmine's memoirs in which Fritz is debauching himself in his teens, and...Peter Keith was the "pandar of all his vices."
Since one thing she reports about Peter is him passing info on FW to Fritz that makes Fritz's life easier, I wonder if Peter was enabling Fritz sneaking off without getting caught! Of course, it's hard to say how much has been exaggerated in the telling, but there is that letter from Fritz to Duhan in the 1730s regretting his misspent youth.
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
Seydewitz needs to name names, darn it! But yes, you've convinced me re Wartensleben, especially with this latest piece of evidence that Manteuffel was actively bribing young men Fritz was close to. Between that, the letter listing Wartensleben as one of the six (and he managed to stay on both Fritz's and FW's good side in the late 1730s, meaning *maybe* he had some of Manteuffel's chameleon-like skills), and the evidence you found from the Strasbourg reports with the Wartensleben POV...cahn, I know you like salon solving mysteries, and we might have one here, thanks to Selena!
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.
Agreed on both counts.
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*
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.
only with Fritz he'd bitten off more than he could chew
You were neither the first nor the last, Manteuffel.
I remain impressed at how he managed to get Fritz to go, "Oh, yeah, my bad, thank god I have you to point out my mistakes," in a completely non-defensive, emotionally mature way. And having recently reread the letter in question, I can see just how veeeery skillfully Suhm couches his "That was a really bad idea, Fritz" feedback.
ahahahaha well we know now that Manteuffel wasn't... necessarily very good at that part of it, especially in his younger years :)
[personal profile] cahn, I know you like salon solving mysteries, and we might have one here, thanks to Selena!
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.
re: Suhm - I was checking out this essay (written 1900) about the Antisobres, which prints a letter the Berlin members apparently sent to August in November 1728. Said letter gives a whole list of members and their nicknames beyond the big five, and among them is: "Suhm, surnommé le Diaphane". I had no idea that he was a member - given the political aspect of this Saxon/Prussian society and his position as Saxon envoy, it kind of makes sense, but, aw, poor Suhm - and that the nickname was in use there (which makes me wonder if he chose it himself).
And a second tidbit, summer 1729: Since Suhm gave offense in Berlin through his intimacy with the English envoy, King August sent Manteuffel himself [who got sick on the way, as Selena reported].* *On August 15th, 1729, Friedrich Wilhelm asked Manteuffel how he could send the Prussian-Russian contract to the patron without unauthorized persons becoming aware of it, "étant convaincu que le Sieur de Suhm ne pourroit guère s'empecher d'en faire un fidele rapport au du Bourgé."
Thing is, I have no idea who or what "du Bourgé" is supposed to be? Not the English envoy as far as I know. But it still at least suggests that FW didn't trust Suhm and that's why Polenz was deployed in September.
That's fascinating, and definitely predates any other use of the nickname I've seen so far. This argues he did indeed choose it for himself, though I suppose it's possible 16 years old Fritz after Suhm consoled him during the Hubertus Hunting disaster or thereabouts could have come up with it, but I think it's more likely Suhm himself did. (Makes sense. Would you want to be known forever as "Little Devil" ?)
Du Bourgé: search me, I've got no idea. The English envoy - wasn't Hotham yet, I think Hotham arrived in early 1730, so Guy Dickens? Anyway, poor Suhm indeed. In a way, it's a minor miracle that he lasted as long as he did in Berlin. All the other examples of when an envoy was seriously disliked/distrusted by the ruling monarch resulted in the envoy being withdrawn and replaced pretty soon - see Charles Hanbury Williams. (Or younger Manteuffel himself, the moment he went from getting results in Denmark to pissing off the King.) I mean, being an envoy isn't a popularity contest, and you can win a King around enough to work with him - Valory evidently managed to do that with Fritz, and Manteuffel went from being suspected of being part of a complicated murder/coup d'etat plot by FW to being buddies again eventually - , but Suhm almost got strangled, and that would be usually the point where it's time to cut your losses and send another guy. It occurs to me that if the almost strangling happened in 1727, and Flemming died in 1728, then the reason why Suhm wasn't replaced in 1727 already might simply have been because Flemming was too sick to be up to an ambassadorial reshuffling, and then in 1728 after he died, there was a big reshuffling anyway.
Ah, I hadn't read your comment when I wrote mine. (I should really read all the comments first, then reply.) I see you noticed the connection of timing with the Hubertus Hunting disaster too!
(Makes sense. Would you want to be known forever as "Little Devil" ?)
Lol, yes, exactly!
Re English envoys, see my reply: the list of envoys is in Wikipedia ("1751-1756 apparently no representation" made me laugh. Oh, Fritz.). Dickens was Hotham's secretary, as far as I know, and arrived when Hotham did. And yes, Hotham was sent specifically in 1730 to try to see if he could settle the English marriages affair once and for all (which he did, only...not as expected).
In a way, it's a minor miracle that he lasted as long as he did in Berlin.
I've ALWAYS thought that! Like, dear lord, no matter how much I personally liked Suhm, I would not have left him there that long. You may be right that Flemming was too sick. Though given that August personally scolded FW over the whole 1727 kerfluffle (which was almost exactly like the G2 kerfluffle in 1729, in that FW's agents were kidnapping soldiers, the other German principality had his recruiters arrested, and FW erupted) and allegedly told Suhm to get his butt back to Prussia, maybe August went over Flemming's head on this matter.
I need to read more closely the letter exchange between FW and August in question, but they consist of several pages of non-copy-pastable French, so ugh. Maybe I can figure out how to do the screenshot trick on my phone.
Still, Suhm doesn't seem to have done Saxony any good with FW. Perhaps he and Fritz were close already in 1727 (hopefully as father figure rather than erastes at this date!), and with FW's health, they hoped that his rising son connections would help any minute now? If so, they gave up on that just in time. As much as I would love to read Suhm's report on Katte's execution...I'm glad he didn't have to deal with the fallout of being the official envoy, given that even Løvenørn/Leuvener was in hot water. Can you imagine FW's feelings toward Suhm in August 1730?
FW: You totally knew about this! Your shifty eyes give it all away! Suhm: I've been trying to talk him into appeasing you since 1728! Don't kill me! FW: YOU KNEW!!
Suhm clearly lucked out there, not being around as a potential FW target, yes.
Stratemann: I don't know what you're talking about. My reports around that time keep stating that the King will pardon Katte and recall the Crown Prince any minute now. Also look, by Christmas, he's being a model Dad, shopping for his kids. He's just such a lovely man, a model parent to his model family, and that's exactly what I'm reporting to Braunschweig.
Every other envoy: Head. Desk.
Still, Suhm doesn't seem to have done Saxony any good with FW. Perhaps he and Fritz were close already in 1727 (hopefully as father figure rather than erastes at this date!), and with FW's health, they hoped that his rising son connections would help any minute now?
Could be. After all, that's when Rottembourg is actually conspiring for a hot minute, so clearly in 1727, FW comes across as vulnerable either to illness or to being declared insane.
Good point about August possibly going over Flemming's head in insisting Suhm stays in Berlin (or rather returns there). Not least as a point of pride. (No one is kicking MY envoy out of the country.)
Yeah, they might have decided it would look like weakness for them to back down in 1727, and then they got stuck in a sunk costs situation that only got rectified during the big reshuffling.
After all, that's when Rottembourg is actually conspiring for a hot minute, so clearly in 1727, FW comes across as vulnerable either to illness or to being declared insane.
Ah, yes, good catch on the chronology. 1727 is when Rottembourg is recalled for the last time, so the Suhm-hanging episode happened right during the conspiracy, yes!
But even if Fritz and Suhm are already close (and we know they are in 1728), Lynar got recalled from Russia, as I described in another comment today, and only sent back when his lover was actually in power, so they could totally have done that with Suhm.
Du Bourgé is Dubourgay/Du Bourguai/Du Bourgay, who is in fact the English envoy to Prussia! 1724-1730, according to Wikipedia. He shows up in Lavisse and Wilhelmine's memoirs as deeply involved in the marriage intrigues with SD. If Suhm was actually friends with him and reporting to him, that makes me think even more that Suhm wanted the English marriages to happen and that that was part of his desire to reconcile FW and G2.
Berlin members apparently sent to August in November 1728. Said letter gives a whole list of members and their nicknames beyond the big five, and among them is: "Suhm, surnommé le Diaphane". I had no idea that he was a member - given the political aspect of this Saxon/Prussian society and his position as Saxon envoy, it kind of makes sense, but, aw, poor Suhm - and that the nickname was in use there (which makes me wonder if he chose it himself).
Oh, wow, that's interesting on at least three counts. That's the earliest reference to the nickname I've seen! It means it wasn't developed after Wilhelmine married and left, but it may have been a recent development that she hadn't gotten used to (since in ~1736 she's still referring to him as Diablotin, and Fritz, who's clearly more used to calling him Diaphane, replies with "Diablotin or Diaphane").
Maybe he did assign it himself!
Also, Suhm as a member of the Antisobriety society, lolsob. I mean, like you say, it makes sense, because if the Saxons and Prussians are setting up a society that's supposed to improve relations between them, I can see why the Saxon envoy can't exactly get out of it.
But November 1728! That's a fascinating date! Because it was October 21, 1728 that Suhm to August reported on the infamous St. Hubertus feast where FW forced Fritz to get drunk, Fritz cried that he loved FW, and Suhm had to help carry him to bed.
And if you've forgotten, this was Suhm's "baptism", which we took to mean his first hunt with the king, and he used that as an excuse to get out of having to drink every time FW took a drink. (Or he says he did; apparently Grumbkow greatly exaggerated his sobriety in his reports. But of Suhm I actually believe he tried to drink as little as possible, unlike Biberius.) And I'm supposed to believe that a couple weeks later he's a member of the Antisobres? More lolsob.
So I'm getting the impression that Manteuffel, who is not a big drinker by nature, is waaay better at adopting a persona for diplomacy's sake than Suhm, who is not a big drinker, but may be a wee bit better at being what we call "diplomatic" in English: phrasing things so as not to give offense. I find this fascinating.
But it still at least suggests that FW didn't trust Suhm and that's why Polenz was deployed in September.
Well, I mean, FW was threatening to hang him in 1727! But admittedly that was for stuff that August and his ministers did, which suggests that FW didn't *like* Suhm at all, but if by 1729, he's specifically suspicious of Suhm's intrigues, that does make sense.
And yeah, I now think Suhm was quietly trying to make the English marriages happen! Which is interesting, because I never see him mentioned in that context.
Or, alternately, no, wait, I have a better idea. The one who suspects him of intriguing with Dubourgay is FW. Maybe Suhm was just averting his eyes a lot because FW was terrifying and Suhm *wasn't* in a position of counter-power due to intriguing (unlike certain people), and that led FW to become suspicious that he was intriguing, because FW's judgment of who's intriguing is exactly like his judgment on who will raise his kids in the FW-approved way! (Admittedly the last one was more a case of him not being able to find anyone because there *was* almost no one, because the FW-approved way died at Leuctra (when the Spartans were defeated by the Thebans in the 4th century BC :P). Joking, but the point is that he was definiteliy not a man of his time).
So, headcanon: poor Suhm is terrified of FW, hates being forced to drink, is deeply in sympathy with abused Fritz but wants Fritz to try to appease FW so FW will let him leave voluntarily, and is secretly hoping the English marriage project pans out but is probably not risking a lot to make it happen, until that last offer to reconcile them (which might have been about avoiding an outbreak of war as much as anything). But it does sound like he's politically more inclined toward England than the Empire (which, remember that Suhm and most of his countrymen are Protestant--Suhm studied in Geneva--even if August and his son converted).
So while searching for references to Dubourgay in MacDonogh, who does a *very* detailed account of the years of English marriage negotiations, I found his source: Oncken 1894-1895, who wrote an account called "Sir Charles und Friedrich Wilhelm I im Jahre 1730." He's apparently one of those 19th century scholars who decided to go through the archives (of Vienna and London in this case) and publish previously unpublished documents. It seems to be an article incorporating passage after passage from various letters and possibly envoy reports, helpfully translated into German. I see the occasional brief quote in English, but we can all handle that. ;)
I had to download every page individually, because argh Hathitrust and Royal Patron is busy, but it was only 67 pages, so I did. It's now in the library. I suspect that there will be stuff new to us (lots of mentions of Dubourgay!), and even if none of the new stuff is interesting (and it may well be), it will be helpful to know the sources for claims we've encountered in secondary sources.
Let me know if I missed any pages or got them out of order, because the process was a little error prone and it's easy to fix, but be aware that the article was a two-parter published in two subsequent volumes of a journal, so there will be a page number jump right at the start of the second article, which is clearly signaled.
First of all, thank you for your dedication. The dispatches qoted are far longer than I've seen elsewhere. Secondly, these are two articles; Oncken mentions a third in which he'll finish the job of revealing the full extent of British infamy and Raumer & Carlyle slander against FW. By which you can gather we have a late 19th century guy in full nationalistic fervour at our hand, only in his case it's not the French, it's perfidious Albion.
Now, the main conclusion he reaches aren't new to us, i.e.: the Brits in 1730 weren't interested in getting just a Wilhelmine/Fritz of Wales match, or even that much into a double marriage; their main interest was to get FW away from the Emperor and more into a British alliance, and getting rid of Grumbkow, with a Fritz/Amalia match as a second (also desirable, but not the main issue) goal. The whole final phase of the interminable English marriages project starts when SD, on December 17, writes to Caroline a letter that basically says: Dear Caroline, my husband right now absolutely won't agree to a Fritz/Amalia match, so Wilhelmine/Fritz of Wales is the only thing on the table; can we proceed on the basis you're going for that unconditionally?
Caroline's reply basically says: Dear SD, I'm positively shocked you'd think that as a loving and caring mother I'd agree to let any of my kids marry under such terms as "unconditionally". George says hi.
Oncken: HOW DISGUSTINGLY IMPUDENT.
Now, no one tells FW about Caroline's reply, only about SD's letter. When Hotham shows up - and btw, learned a new thing, Sir Charles Hotham was married to the Earl of Chesterfield's sister! Which means he was related to the Schulenburgs and thus to the Kattes in a roundabout way -, as far as FW is concerned, he's there to officially propose in Fritz of Wales name to Wilhelmine, without any further conditions. Hotham, otoh, has instructions to absolutely avoid doing anything like that and only refer to the reason for his arrival as "the matter addressed in the Queen of Prussia's letter" , and to secure the following from FW:
1.) Getting rid of Grumbkow, moving FW to Team Britain and away from Team Vienna. 2.) Getting the current Prussian envoy to London fired, who has a way too good spy network and also pissed everyone in government off. 3.) Fritz/Amalia-Emily, with Fritz and Amalia governing Hannover, preferably with Amalia in charge.
Wilhelmine/Fritz of Wales at this point just isn't an issue anymore as far as the Brits are concerned.
There's initial diplomatic double talk where Hotham painfully avoids saying anything when FW goes on about the happy Wilhelmine/Fritz of Wales nuptials now that G2 doesn't want any double marriage anymore. At the first reception for Hotham, FW gets drunk and even makes a toast to the match (we have a Stratemann report on this, too), only to tell everyone the next morning he's gone too far and they're not supposed to spread the story. Hotham, realistically, says given the number of guests and servants attending, he doubts this can be done and he was clear instructions from London for how to proceed, given that clearly Caroline's letter (which has made it clear Wihelmine/FoW is not on the table) has had no effect here.
Cue disaster unfolding, on every level. What baffles me is that Oncker otoh points out Caroline's "impudent" letter already made it clear the Brits would not go for solely Wilhelmine/Fritz of Wales, let alone "unconditionally", but otoh goes on and on about how insidious and deceptive it was to use SD's letter as a pretext to show up under the false pretense of Wilhelmine/FoW to achieve their sinister aims.
He also otoh demolishes Carlyle (also Raumer) for only quoting partially from Hotham's dispatches, thus creating the impression Hotham did deliver a marriage proposal upon arrival and FW was the one to reject it and doom the marriage, and prides himself on being the first to quote Hotham's reports almost uncut. Otoh, though, when Hotham reports Knyphausen told him FW said to Knyphausen about Fritz "I hate him and he hates me" and that Fritz going to Hannover might be good after all because it would give them a break from each other (a quote that made it into various biographies), Oncken flatly states this is a complete and utter lie on Knyphausen's part and can't have happened because "The King never hated his son" and also the Hannover regency was a British/Knyphausen idea anyway. Note: he doesn't say "I think it's unlikely that" or "Knyphausen could have made this up because this and that", he just states it is a lie, it can't be anything else,because "King Friedrich Wilhelm never hated his son".
At this point I lost my professional respect. I can take 19th century nationalism, but look,you can't otoh complain about Caryle falsifying evidence by selected quotes and otoh dismiss something you don't like as a lie just because it doesn't fit with your idea of a historical personality.
Anyway, Hotham's report show him between Scylla and Charybdis, because obviously what FW wants and what London wants is imcompatible, except for the withdrawal of the Prussian envoy which will happen in summer, but, Oncken announces, in a way that's like "a fist in Hotham's face" and which he'll describe in his third article about honest and misunderstood FW vs Perfidious Albion (and his own family who are ready to stab him in the back).
ETA: A few more thoughts about British goals at this point. The disinterest in a FoW/Wilhelmine match could have both political and personal reasons. Political: if Fritz marries Amalia/Emily, they already have a match affirming the Prussia alliance, so Wilhelmine doesn't deliver any additional political advantage, and with FW's thriftiness, she won't deliver a huge dowry, either.
Personal: Fritz of Wales has now been in England for less than two years, but it's already obvious the gap between him and the rest of his family which fourteen years apart have left won't heal, and besides, George and Caroline are already trying to figure out a way in which younger beloved son Cumberland, aka Bill the future Butcher, can inherit after all, if not the crown, then at last part of the kingdom. The ideal solution, though it will take a few arguments and years more for them to say it out loud, is for FoW to die without an heir, so Bill of Cumberland becomes the next crown prince. I'm not saying this was coldbloodedly plotted out, but it might be behind dragging out any - not just the one with Wilhelmine - potential marriage projects for Fritz of Wales in his parents' subconscious. He did marry relatively late for one of only two sons in an age where securing the male line of succession (for a relatively new dynasty as far as Britain was concerned) was key.
Also: if you want to know why Wilhelmine is so snarky about Caroline ("Agrippina" comparison and all) in her memoirs despite never having met her, look no further than that letter. (Well, okay, look further to being raised for twenty years with the No.1. goal of your education being to please these people, this causing incredibly heartache to you because it's a big reason for your father to treat you as the enemy, and then they just dismiss you like that.)
I stand corrected! (Thwarted by phonetic spelling, ha. ETA: Ha, I just saw that Blanning even mentions him and quotes some of his Fritz-related reports (via Carlyle). Did not remember that.) But that's good to know. Even if he didn't actively try to make anything happen, I can easily believe that Suhm was in favour of the English marriages and that FW would find him suspicious, particularly if he noticed that Suhm was friendly with Fritz. And as you said in another comment above, he really did get out just in time. If FW thought he was working with the English in 1729 already, true or not (FW's paranoia is certainly not enough evidence), it would not have gone well for him in 1730. No wonder FW called him an arch villain whom he should have hanged in 1737, and that Fritz and Suhm had to take some precautions with their correspondence. ... but now I'm wondering what it must have been like for Suhm to follow the whole 1730 drama from afar. :(
what we call "diplomatic" in English: phrasing things so as not to give offense
Ha, I just saw that Blanning even mentions him and quotes some of his Fritz-related reports (via Carlyle). Did not remember that.
This is why I periodically reread key works. When I first read Wilhelmine's memoirs, I had no idea who most of the characters in volume 1 were! And only recently did I get Duke Anton Ulrich straight in my head, just in time for my Suhm letters reread.
If FW thought he was working with the English in 1729 already, true or not (FW's paranoia is certainly not enough evidence)
Yep, that's the conclusion I came to. Btw, if Diaphane did nickname himself specifically for the drinking club, part of me thinks a possible interpretation was "transparent," i.e. "not hiding anything from you, FW, totally. Straightforward straight-shooter, I am!"
No wonder FW called him an arch villain whom he should have hanged in 1737, and that Fritz and Suhm had to take some precautions with their correspondence.
Indeed. We wondered at the time if there was a reason other than Fritz/Suhm, and now I think we've found it! Or one. Possibly he didn't convincingly drink enough. :P
... but now I'm wondering what it must have been like for Suhm to follow the whole 1730 drama from afar. :(
I've wondered that for a long time, especially since writing their post-1730 reunion in "Heaven." It wasn't all that afar--Suhm was in Berlin! Just not at court, or not officially. (Even if he was showing up at court from time to time, I bet he kept a low profile August-January that year.)
what we call "diplomatic" in English: phrasing things so as not to give offense
Same in German. :)
Good to know, thank you! (Learning German one word at a time, lol.)
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.
Hee. That... explains a lot about what follows.
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.
Heh, I snorted.
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*
Okay, I admit that was a bit endearing, but mostly on Dessauer's side. (A bit on FW's, okay.)
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.
Heh.
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.
That's kind of interesting, actually. I don't know that I would have still been so set on this when about to be hanged, ubt maybe he was hoping for a last-minute reprieve.
"I, FW, declare to bear no grudge against Manteuffel and Flemming, and to respect them in the way their qualities deserve"
HA.
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*
Okay, I admit that was a bit endearing, but mostly on Dessauer's side. (A bit on FW's, okay.)
Old Dessaur is probably the closest thing FW had to a soulmate. What with inventing the brutal modern drill that created the Prussian soldiers as the world would know them, the passion for hunting, the distrust of scholarly education (hence his sons not getting a lot of it, or according to Lehndorf, one of them none), and as far as one can tell the lack of bribery. I do suspect that Fritz' lack of mourning as evidenced in the letterly exchange with Frederdorf on the topic was because of this. He respected the man and what he'd done, but as opposed to his father, when he couldn't show ambiguity once he was King anymore, he could re: Old Dessauer.
Clement saying in his death speech that while he lied, he did it in the greater cause of alerting FW to all the Catholic infamy going on against him in Vienna and Dresden: I see several possibilities. He may have believed it himself at this point. The most successful liars are the ones believing their own lies. He may have wanted just what he got - a quick death so it was only his dead body which got the hot pliers. Or he may indeed have hoped for a last minute pardon, given that FW had visited him in prison so often and had made it clear he still wasn't sure what to believe. Never underestimate the power of hope.
Wow, there were so many things I meant to say yesterday, but 4 hours of sleep turned my memory into a sieve.
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.
I was going to say, I'm in my 30s and I have a teacher! Her name is Selena. ;)
More seriously, I'm curious whether this was before or after Fritz wrote
But, my dear Suhm, do not forget the tenderness which you owe to an infant whom you have not yet weaned in the school of philosophy. What would I have become? for I feel that I need your eyes to see, and that, losing sight of my guide, I run the risk of losing my way.
in June 1736, which is apparently when he still very much wants a teacher to guide him at his age.
Aw, thank you, and also, LOL re: the Fritz-to-Suhm quote. (Bronisch would eagerly add that sure, he may write that to Suhm in July, but he's already written to Manteuffel in April "moi, qui suis votre disciple".) You could add the entire first letter to Voltaire who is but the latest Socrates candidate, after all. This being said, Voltaire is far away, and Suhm is a) also not often around, and b) a low-key personality, whom nobody could suspect of dominating Fritz. Manteuffel isn't a bulldozer personality, not even when hanging out with FW and certainly not when he hangs out with Fritz, but he is, as ex-cabinet minister of Saxony, more of a political weight even if you don't know/assume he's still in contact with the current Saxon PTB, and he's actively compaigning for Wolff and involving himself in big scholarly/philosophical debates of the day. (When Suhm tranlates Wolff for Fritz, it's at Fritz' request. Suhm doesn't undertake public campaigns for Wolff.) Taking Suhm as a teacher/philophical guide is a private (in as much as it can be for a prince) affair; taking someone like Manteuffel is a public one. (Even before the indiscretion with the painting.) And Fritz has issues with authority and anyone being seen as pulling his strings which surely don't just break out in 1740, especially since Dad is still around grumbling he just knows Fritz will ruin the kingdom when he takes over and be run by his mistresses and favourites. So I can see Fritz minding the old Dessauer's dig. Not as a sole reason to break things off, absolutely not, but as one of several factors.
You could add the entire first letter to Voltaire who is but the latest Socrates candidate, after all.
Yeah, I was thinking that even in 1750, when Fritz will *only* talk literature with Voltaire and will not be guided by anyone politically, he still wants a teacher of poetry composition!
But yes, your point about Manteuffel and Fritz's issues with anyone having authority or influence over him is very accurate. Big difference between Manteuffel and Suhm.
(Bronisch would eagerly add that sure, he may write that to Suhm in July, but he's already written to Manteuffel in April "moi, qui suis votre disciple".)
So, like, at the same time of his life, Bronisch. :PP
Suhm was...a low-key personality, whom nobody could suspect of dominating Fritz.
No, no, other way around. Though I suspect he and Fredersdorf had in common the ability to convince Fritz he was totally in charge while couching their ideas in a way he could accept.
So I can see Fritz minding the old Dessauer's dig. Not as a sole reason to break things off, absolutely not, but as one of several factors.
Voltaire would observe that he may have been the latest, but he turned out to be the only one who lasted, as evidenced by the fact that Fritz ditched Wolff easily as a philosophical guide whereas he spent the rest of his life following Voltaire's taste in literature, and both reading his books and alternatingly cursing and praising his person till the day he died. And hey, no one complained their correspondence was boring or dared to edit it in ways where mostly Fritz' letters are there. :)
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timeasmymeasure
Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-12 10:24 am (UTC)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.
Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-13 12:47 am (UTC)Not to dig myself deeper into this hole :P, but there's now a 2007 dissertation by Judith Matzke on Saxon diplomatic service 1694-1763 in the library. I turned it up about a year ago in my Suhm research, and found it useful enough for my purposes that I put it on my reading list, but since we're getting to know some more envoys these days, and since it's going to be mooooonths before my German is fast enough *and* I've gotten through the items higher on my reading list...it's there if you want to take a look and see if it has anything of interest to salon. (It's a 400+ page dissertation, it may be dry as dust. But also it has a nearly 50 page bibliography, so maybe it'll point us somewhere interesting.)
With luck, I should be able to participate in salon and chip away at the backlog this weekend. The amount of work I'll have to do is less than I anticipated (though still some).
Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-13 03:32 pm (UTC)Oh, and Suhm's successor in 1729 was called von Polenz.
Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-13 04:07 pm (UTC)Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-13 09:01 pm (UTC)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.
Everything about this guy's introduction was amazing, but this made me go, "Oh, of *course* this guy was like that."
Honest Clement
LOL
a Hungarian who is NOT a Catholic
So I keep running into the Rakoczy (under a variety of spellings) family in Hungary, and so I read their Wikipedia page, and they were apparently notable for being Calvinists.
Francis/Ferenc II led an unsucessful rebellion against Habsburgs during the War of the Spanish Succession. After his defeat, he went and lived in Poland, where Peter the Great apparently wanted to make him king of Poland twice. Then he went to England, but they were allied with the Habsburgs, and forced him to leave. Then he went to France, where he was treated well but his claims never recognized (and his sons, who were basically hostages in Vienna, apparently never got to leave Vienna to be with him). Then he went to the Ottoman Empire, where the Sultan refused to extradite him ever, though he also refused to let him lead a Christian army against the Habsburgs. (Remember that the Ottomans and Hapsburgs share a lot of borders and are at war more often than not. (The Ottoman conflicts with Russia and Austria will later play a role in why Heinrich and Catherine are like, "...Why don't we just divide up Poland instead of starting another ginormous war."
A lot of Hungarians joined him there, and he lived the rest of his life and died in what is now modern-day Turkey (the European part).
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.
OMG. Just, OMG.
.Those letters from Eugene Clement presented were declared really Eugene's handwriting by other courtiers who know it.
A+ forging, Honest Clement!
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.
LOLOL
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*
Touching, I have to admit!
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?
Lol, this is *such* a wild ride. It just keeps getting better!
Flemming: Fuck, fuck, fuck. This will set us back decades.
Manteuffel: But we're innocent?
For some reason, I loved this.
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.
My thoughts exactly! I guess they're reliable when you need someone to change their story about this *not* being a giant conspiracy against you but just your abused son trying to run away with a couple BFFs, but they're TOTALLY unreliable when someone changes their story from there being a conspiracy to there not being one. The moral of the story is: it's always a conspiracy!
FW: ...Okay. You're innocent. Eugene is, too. BUT SOMEONE CONSPIRED AGAINST ME, I JUST KNOW IT.
Wow, yeah, I see where the paranoia began.
But wait, did he ever catch on to the actual conspiracy to overthrow him and put Fritz on the throne, the French Count Rottembourg-Knyphausen-Fritz one? Because there actually was a conspiracy once, but I don't recall anyone getting tortured over it. :P
Oh, wait, I think Lavisse said FW got suspicious about that one and forced Fritz to drink, but even drunk, Fritz refused to give anything away. I'm not sure what the source on that is, though.
A plus compassionate ruler, FW!
Morgenstern: The reputation for cruelty was a misunderstanding based on the beatings, tortures, and executions!
Self: Incidentally, aren't the intervening years when Suhm is Saxon envoy and FW hates his guts?
You got it! 1720-1730. 1727 is the year of threatening to hang Suhm.
Manteuffel: works his magic, so that when FW and Fritz visit Dresden in 1728, they actually stay at his house.
Ahhh, I had forgotten that!
Fritz' first preserved letter to Wilhelmine, which contains a "hot or not?" report on August, was written there.
And I had forgotten this exists!
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.
See, when you've got someone who doesn't naturally like drinking, that's a real chameleon at work. It's a useful skill for a diplomat!
Summer of 1729: FW and G2 have their almost-duel
Was the almost-duel referenced in Seydewitz, or are you supplementing it with salon knowledge?
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.
Huh, yes. 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.
Again according to my notes based largely on the dissertation, Polenz is the kind of hard-drinking military guy the Saxons think can get on FW's good side, unlike poor Suhm--oh, and I kind of remember the dissertation author saying they specifically wanted to compete with Seckendorff's influence. Now, this makes sense if Hoym's policies are exactly opposed to Seckendorff's pro-Imperial policies, but it would mean that Suhm was replaced not because he was in favor of France and Britain, but because he had no chance of winning FW over. Maybe.
(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.)
And yes, when I saw that Manteuffel could adopt a public persona suited to FW, I remembered Fritz telling Suhm that he was very poorly suited to a hard-drinking, hard-fucking court like St. Petersburg. It's pretty clear Suhm's style of diplomacy doesn't involve being a chameleon, but rather keeping people from being offended. (Which might have something to do with his laconic style.) I remain impressed at how he managed to get Fritz to go, "Oh, yeah, my bad, thank god I have you to point out my mistakes," in a completely non-defensive, emotionally mature way. And having recently reread the letter in question, I can see just how veeeery skillfully Suhm couches his "That was a really bad idea, Fritz" feedback.
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.
Oh, cool. I love all these connections.
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.
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.
His indulgence of Keyserlingk's daughter's less than flawless for by the standards of the day sexual behavior comes to mind...as does the passage in Wilhelmine's memoirs in which Fritz is debauching himself in his teens, and...Peter Keith was the "pandar of all his vices."
Since one thing she reports about Peter is him passing info on FW to Fritz that makes Fritz's life easier, I wonder if Peter was enabling Fritz sneaking off without getting caught! Of course, it's hard to say how much has been exaggerated in the telling, but there is that letter from Fritz to Duhan in the 1730s regretting his misspent youth.
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
Seydewitz needs to name names, darn it! But yes, you've convinced me re Wartensleben, especially with this latest piece of evidence that Manteuffel was actively bribing young men Fritz was close to. Between that, the letter listing Wartensleben as one of the six (and he managed to stay on both Fritz's and FW's good side in the late 1730s, meaning *maybe* he had some of Manteuffel's chameleon-like skills), and the evidence you found from the Strasbourg reports with the Wartensleben POV...
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.
Agreed on both counts.
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*
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.
only with Fritz he'd bitten off more than he could chew
You were neither the first nor the last, Manteuffel.
Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-14 01:10 am (UTC)Yeeeeah.
I remain impressed at how he managed to get Fritz to go, "Oh, yeah, my bad, thank god I have you to point out my mistakes," in a completely non-defensive, emotionally mature way. And having recently reread the letter in question, I can see just how veeeery skillfully Suhm couches his "That was a really bad idea, Fritz" feedback.
ahahahaha well we know now that Manteuffel wasn't... necessarily very good at that part of it, especially in his younger years :)
[personal profile] cahn, I know you like salon solving mysteries, and we might have one here, thanks to Selena!
:D
Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-14 09:30 am (UTC)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
Date: 2021-03-14 01:57 pm (UTC)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.
Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-14 10:57 am (UTC)And a second tidbit, summer 1729: Since Suhm gave offense in Berlin through his intimacy with the English envoy, King August sent Manteuffel himself [who got sick on the way, as Selena reported].*
*On August 15th, 1729, Friedrich Wilhelm asked Manteuffel how he could send the Prussian-Russian contract to the patron without unauthorized persons becoming aware of it, "étant convaincu que le Sieur de Suhm ne pourroit guère s'empecher d'en faire un fidele rapport au du Bourgé."
Thing is, I have no idea who or what "du Bourgé" is supposed to be? Not the English envoy as far as I know. But it still at least suggests that FW didn't trust Suhm and that's why Polenz was deployed in September.
Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-14 12:21 pm (UTC)That's fascinating, and definitely predates any other use of the nickname I've seen so far. This argues he did indeed choose it for himself, though I suppose it's possible 16 years old Fritz after Suhm consoled him during the Hubertus Hunting disaster or thereabouts could have come up with it, but I think it's more likely Suhm himself did. (Makes sense. Would you want to be known forever as "Little Devil" ?)
Du Bourgé: search me, I've got no idea. The English envoy - wasn't Hotham yet, I think Hotham arrived in early 1730, so Guy Dickens? Anyway, poor Suhm indeed. In a way, it's a minor miracle that he lasted as long as he did in Berlin. All the other examples of when an envoy was seriously disliked/distrusted by the ruling monarch resulted in the envoy being withdrawn and replaced pretty soon - see Charles Hanbury Williams. (Or younger Manteuffel himself, the moment he went from getting results in Denmark to pissing off the King.) I mean, being an envoy isn't a popularity contest, and you can win a King around enough to work with him - Valory evidently managed to do that with Fritz, and Manteuffel went from being suspected of being part of a complicated murder/coup d'etat plot by FW to being buddies again eventually - , but Suhm almost got strangled, and that would be usually the point where it's time to cut your losses and send another guy. It occurs to me that if the almost strangling happened in 1727, and Flemming died in 1728, then the reason why Suhm wasn't replaced in 1727 already might simply have been because Flemming was too sick to be up to an ambassadorial reshuffling, and then in 1728 after he died, there was a big reshuffling anyway.
Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-14 02:50 pm (UTC)(Makes sense. Would you want to be known forever as "Little Devil" ?)
Lol, yes, exactly!
Re English envoys, see my reply: the list of envoys is in Wikipedia ("1751-1756 apparently no representation" made me laugh. Oh, Fritz.). Dickens was Hotham's secretary, as far as I know, and arrived when Hotham did. And yes, Hotham was sent specifically in 1730 to try to see if he could settle the English marriages affair once and for all (which he did, only...not as expected).
In a way, it's a minor miracle that he lasted as long as he did in Berlin.
I've ALWAYS thought that! Like, dear lord, no matter how much I personally liked Suhm, I would not have left him there that long. You may be right that Flemming was too sick. Though given that August personally scolded FW over the whole 1727 kerfluffle (which was almost exactly like the G2 kerfluffle in 1729, in that FW's agents were kidnapping soldiers, the other German principality had his recruiters arrested, and FW erupted) and allegedly told Suhm to get his butt back to Prussia, maybe August went over Flemming's head on this matter.
I need to read more closely the letter exchange between FW and August in question, but they consist of several pages of non-copy-pastable French, so ugh. Maybe I can figure out how to do the screenshot trick on my phone.
Still, Suhm doesn't seem to have done Saxony any good with FW. Perhaps he and Fritz were close already in 1727 (hopefully as father figure rather than erastes at this date!), and with FW's health, they hoped that his rising son connections would help any minute now? If so, they gave up on that just in time. As much as I would love to read Suhm's report on Katte's execution...I'm glad he didn't have to deal with the fallout of being the official envoy, given that even Løvenørn/Leuvener was in hot water. Can you imagine FW's feelings toward Suhm in August 1730?
FW: You totally knew about this! Your shifty eyes give it all away!
Suhm: I've been trying to talk him into appeasing you since 1728! Don't kill me!
FW: YOU KNEW!!
...Yeah.
Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-14 03:57 pm (UTC)Stratemann: I don't know what you're talking about. My reports around that time keep stating that the King will pardon Katte and recall the Crown Prince any minute now. Also look, by Christmas, he's being a model Dad, shopping for his kids. He's just such a lovely man, a model parent to his model family, and that's exactly what I'm reporting to Braunschweig.
Every other envoy: Head. Desk.
Still, Suhm doesn't seem to have done Saxony any good with FW. Perhaps he and Fritz were close already in 1727 (hopefully as father figure rather than erastes at this date!), and with FW's health, they hoped that his rising son connections would help any minute now?
Could be. After all, that's when Rottembourg is actually conspiring for a hot minute, so clearly in 1727, FW comes across as vulnerable either to illness or to being declared insane.
Good point about August possibly going over Flemming's head in insisting Suhm stays in Berlin (or rather returns there). Not least as a point of pride. (No one is kicking MY envoy out of the country.)
Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-14 04:09 pm (UTC)After all, that's when Rottembourg is actually conspiring for a hot minute, so clearly in 1727, FW comes across as vulnerable either to illness or to being declared insane.
Ah, yes, good catch on the chronology. 1727 is when Rottembourg is recalled for the last time, so the Suhm-hanging episode happened right during the conspiracy, yes!
But even if Fritz and Suhm are already close (and we know they are in 1728), Lynar got recalled from Russia, as I described in another comment today, and only sent back when his lover was actually in power, so they could totally have done that with Suhm.
Every other envoy: Head. Desk.
Stratemann: Hey! My tactics got us 3 marriages!
Every other envoy: A Pyrrhic victory at best.
rising son
I am entertained by my typo here.
August vs FW: Nobody kicks MY envoy out of the country
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From:Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-14 02:28 pm (UTC)Berlin members apparently sent to August in November 1728. Said letter gives a whole list of members and their nicknames beyond the big five, and among them is: "Suhm, surnommé le Diaphane". I had no idea that he was a member - given the political aspect of this Saxon/Prussian society and his position as Saxon envoy, it kind of makes sense, but, aw, poor Suhm - and that the nickname was in use there (which makes me wonder if he chose it himself).
Oh, wow, that's interesting on at least three counts. That's the earliest reference to the nickname I've seen! It means it wasn't developed after Wilhelmine married and left, but it may have been a recent development that she hadn't gotten used to (since in ~1736 she's still referring to him as Diablotin, and Fritz, who's clearly more used to calling him Diaphane, replies with "Diablotin or Diaphane").
Maybe he did assign it himself!
Also, Suhm as a member of the Antisobriety society, lolsob. I mean, like you say, it makes sense, because if the Saxons and Prussians are setting up a society that's supposed to improve relations between them, I can see why the Saxon envoy can't exactly get out of it.
But November 1728! That's a fascinating date! Because it was October 21, 1728 that Suhm to August reported on the infamous St. Hubertus feast where FW forced Fritz to get drunk, Fritz cried that he loved FW, and Suhm had to help carry him to bed.
And if you've forgotten, this was Suhm's "baptism", which we took to mean his first hunt with the king, and he used that as an excuse to get out of having to drink every time FW took a drink. (Or he says he did; apparently Grumbkow greatly exaggerated his sobriety in his reports. But of Suhm I actually believe he tried to drink as little as possible, unlike Biberius.) And I'm supposed to believe that a couple weeks later he's a member of the Antisobres? More lolsob.
So I'm getting the impression that Manteuffel, who is not a big drinker by nature, is waaay better at adopting a persona for diplomacy's sake than Suhm, who is not a big drinker, but may be a wee bit better at being what we call "diplomatic" in English: phrasing things so as not to give offense. I find this fascinating.
But it still at least suggests that FW didn't trust Suhm and that's why Polenz was deployed in September.
Well, I mean, FW was threatening to hang him in 1727! But admittedly that was for stuff that August and his ministers did, which suggests that FW didn't *like* Suhm at all, but if by 1729, he's specifically suspicious of Suhm's intrigues, that does make sense.
And yeah, I now think Suhm was quietly trying to make the English marriages happen! Which is interesting, because I never see him mentioned in that context.
Or, alternately, no, wait, I have a better idea. The one who suspects him of intriguing with Dubourgay is FW. Maybe Suhm was just averting his eyes a lot because FW was terrifying and Suhm *wasn't* in a position of counter-power due to intriguing (unlike certain people), and that led FW to become suspicious that he was intriguing, because FW's judgment of who's intriguing is exactly like his judgment on who will raise his kids in the FW-approved way! (Admittedly the last one was more a case of him not being able to find anyone because there *was* almost no one, because the FW-approved way died at Leuctra (when the Spartans were defeated by the Thebans in the 4th century BC :P). Joking, but the point is that he was definiteliy not a man of his time).
So, headcanon: poor Suhm is terrified of FW, hates being forced to drink, is deeply in sympathy with abused Fritz but wants Fritz to try to appease FW so FW will let him leave voluntarily, and is secretly hoping the English marriage project pans out but is probably not risking a lot to make it happen, until that last offer to reconcile them (which might have been about avoiding an outbreak of war as much as anything). But it does sound like he's politically more inclined toward England than the Empire (which, remember that Suhm and most of his countrymen are Protestant--Suhm studied in Geneva--even if August and his son converted).
English marriage intrigues
Date: 2021-03-14 07:21 pm (UTC)I had to download every page individually, because argh Hathitrust and Royal Patron is busy, but it was only 67 pages, so I did. It's now in the library. I suspect that there will be stuff new to us (lots of mentions of Dubourgay!), and even if none of the new stuff is interesting (and it may well be), it will be helpful to know the sources for claims we've encountered in secondary sources.
Let me know if I missed any pages or got them out of order, because the process was a little error prone and it's easy to fix, but be aware that the article was a two-parter published in two subsequent volumes of a journal, so there will be a page number jump right at the start of the second article, which is clearly signaled.
Re: English marriage intrigues
Date: 2021-03-15 07:34 am (UTC)Now, the main conclusion he reaches aren't new to us, i.e.: the Brits in 1730 weren't interested in getting just a Wilhelmine/Fritz of Wales match, or even that much into a double marriage; their main interest was to get FW away from the Emperor and more into a British alliance, and getting rid of Grumbkow, with a Fritz/Amalia match as a second (also desirable, but not the main issue) goal. The whole final phase of the interminable English marriages project starts when SD, on December 17, writes to Caroline a letter that basically says: Dear Caroline, my husband right now absolutely won't agree to a Fritz/Amalia match, so Wilhelmine/Fritz of Wales is the only thing on the table; can we proceed on the basis you're going for that unconditionally?
Caroline's reply basically says: Dear SD, I'm positively shocked you'd think that as a loving and caring mother I'd agree to let any of my kids marry under such terms as "unconditionally". George says hi.
Oncken: HOW DISGUSTINGLY IMPUDENT.
Now, no one tells FW about Caroline's reply, only about SD's letter. When Hotham shows up - and btw, learned a new thing, Sir Charles Hotham was married to the Earl of Chesterfield's sister! Which means he was related to the Schulenburgs and thus to the Kattes in a roundabout way -, as far as FW is concerned, he's there to officially propose in Fritz of Wales name to Wilhelmine, without any further conditions. Hotham, otoh, has instructions to absolutely avoid doing anything like that and only refer to the reason for his arrival as "the matter addressed in the Queen of Prussia's letter" , and to secure the following from FW:
1.) Getting rid of Grumbkow, moving FW to Team Britain and away from Team Vienna.
2.) Getting the current Prussian envoy to London fired, who has a way too good spy network and also pissed everyone in government off.
3.) Fritz/Amalia-Emily, with Fritz and Amalia governing Hannover, preferably with Amalia in charge.
Wilhelmine/Fritz of Wales at this point just isn't an issue anymore as far as the Brits are concerned.
There's initial diplomatic double talk where Hotham painfully avoids saying anything when FW goes on about the happy Wilhelmine/Fritz of Wales nuptials now that G2 doesn't want any double marriage anymore. At the first reception for Hotham, FW gets drunk and even makes a toast to the match (we have a Stratemann report on this, too), only to tell everyone the next morning he's gone too far and they're not supposed to spread the story. Hotham, realistically, says given the number of guests and servants attending, he doubts this can be done and he was clear instructions from London for how to proceed, given that clearly Caroline's letter (which has made it clear Wihelmine/FoW is not on the table) has had no effect here.
Cue disaster unfolding, on every level. What baffles me is that Oncker otoh points out Caroline's "impudent" letter already made it clear the Brits would not go for solely Wilhelmine/Fritz of Wales, let alone "unconditionally", but otoh goes on and on about how insidious and deceptive it was to use SD's letter as a pretext to show up under the false pretense of Wilhelmine/FoW to achieve their sinister aims.
He also otoh demolishes Carlyle (also Raumer) for only quoting partially from Hotham's dispatches, thus creating the impression Hotham did deliver a marriage proposal upon arrival and FW was the one to reject it and doom the marriage, and prides himself on being the first to quote Hotham's reports almost uncut. Otoh, though, when Hotham reports Knyphausen told him FW said to Knyphausen about Fritz "I hate him and he hates me" and that Fritz going to Hannover might be good after all because it would give them a break from each other (a quote that made it into various biographies), Oncken flatly states this is a complete and utter lie on Knyphausen's part and can't have happened because "The King never hated his son" and also the Hannover regency was a British/Knyphausen idea anyway. Note: he doesn't say "I think it's unlikely that" or "Knyphausen could have made this up because this and that", he just states it is a lie, it can't be anything else,because "King Friedrich Wilhelm never hated his son".
At this point I lost my professional respect. I can take 19th century nationalism, but look,you can't otoh complain about Caryle falsifying evidence by selected quotes and otoh dismiss something you don't like as a lie just because it doesn't fit with your idea of a historical personality.
Anyway, Hotham's report show him between Scylla and Charybdis, because obviously what FW wants and what London wants is imcompatible, except for the withdrawal of the Prussian envoy which will happen in summer, but, Oncken announces, in a way that's like "a fist in Hotham's face" and which he'll describe in his third article about honest and misunderstood FW vs Perfidious Albion (and his own family who are ready to stab him in the back).
ETA: A few more thoughts about British goals at this point. The disinterest in a FoW/Wilhelmine match could have both political and personal reasons. Political: if Fritz marries Amalia/Emily, they already have a match affirming the Prussia alliance, so Wilhelmine doesn't deliver any additional political advantage, and with FW's thriftiness, she won't deliver a huge dowry, either.
Personal: Fritz of Wales has now been in England for less than two years, but it's already obvious the gap between him and the rest of his family which fourteen years apart have left won't heal, and besides, George and Caroline are already trying to figure out a way in which younger beloved son Cumberland, aka Bill the future Butcher, can inherit after all, if not the crown, then at last part of the kingdom. The ideal solution, though it will take a few arguments and years more for them to say it out loud, is for FoW to die without an heir, so Bill of Cumberland becomes the next crown prince. I'm not saying this was coldbloodedly plotted out, but it might be behind dragging out any - not just the one with Wilhelmine - potential marriage projects for Fritz of Wales in his parents' subconscious. He did marry relatively late for one of only two sons in an age where securing the male line of succession (for a relatively new dynasty as far as Britain was concerned) was key.
Also: if you want to know why Wilhelmine is so snarky about Caroline ("Agrippina" comparison and all) in her memoirs despite never having met her, look no further than that letter. (Well, okay, look further to being raised for twenty years with the No.1. goal of your education being to please these people, this causing incredibly heartache to you because it's a big reason for your father to treat you as the enemy, and then they just dismiss you like that.)
Re: English marriage intrigues
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From:Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-15 12:30 pm (UTC)... but now I'm wondering what it must have been like for Suhm to follow the whole 1730 drama from afar. :(
what we call "diplomatic" in English: phrasing things so as not to give offense
Same in German. :)
Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-15 10:12 pm (UTC)This is why I periodically reread key works. When I first read Wilhelmine's memoirs, I had no idea who most of the characters in volume 1 were! And only recently did I get Duke Anton Ulrich straight in my head, just in time for my Suhm letters reread.
If FW thought he was working with the English in 1729 already, true or not (FW's paranoia is certainly not enough evidence)
Yep, that's the conclusion I came to. Btw, if Diaphane did nickname himself specifically for the drinking club, part of me thinks a possible interpretation was "transparent," i.e. "not hiding anything from you, FW, totally. Straightforward straight-shooter, I am!"
No wonder FW called him an arch villain whom he should have hanged in 1737, and that Fritz and Suhm had to take some precautions with their correspondence.
Indeed. We wondered at the time if there was a reason other than Fritz/Suhm, and now I think we've found it! Or one. Possibly he didn't convincingly drink enough. :P
... but now I'm wondering what it must have been like for Suhm to follow the whole 1730 drama from afar. :(
I've wondered that for a long time, especially since writing their post-1730 reunion in "Heaven." It wasn't all that afar--Suhm was in Berlin! Just not at court, or not officially. (Even if he was showing up at court from time to time, I bet he kept a low profile August-January that year.)
what we call "diplomatic" in English: phrasing things so as not to give offense
Same in German. :)
Good to know, thank you! (Learning German one word at a time, lol.)
Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-14 01:06 am (UTC)Hee. That... explains a lot about what follows.
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.
Heh, I snorted.
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*
Okay, I admit that was a bit endearing, but mostly on Dessauer's side. (A bit on FW's, okay.)
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.
Heh.
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.
That's kind of interesting, actually. I don't know that I would have still been so set on this when about to be hanged, ubt maybe he was hoping for a last-minute reprieve.
"I, FW, declare to bear no grudge against Manteuffel and Flemming, and to respect them in the way their qualities deserve"
HA.
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 maaaaan. FW!
Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-14 11:45 am (UTC)Okay, I admit that was a bit endearing, but mostly on Dessauer's side. (A bit on FW's, okay.)
Old Dessaur is probably the closest thing FW had to a soulmate. What with inventing the
brutalmodern drill that created the Prussian soldiers as the world would know them, the passion for hunting, the distrust of scholarly education (hence his sons not getting a lot of it, or according to Lehndorf, one of them none), and as far as one can tell the lack of bribery. I do suspect that Fritz' lack of mourning as evidenced in the letterly exchange with Frederdorf on the topic was because of this. He respected the man and what he'd done, but as opposed to his father, when he couldn't show ambiguity once he was King anymore, he could re: Old Dessauer.Clement saying in his death speech that while he lied, he did it in the greater cause of alerting FW to all the Catholic infamy going on against him in Vienna and Dresden: I see several possibilities. He may have believed it himself at this point. The most successful liars are the ones believing their own lies. He may have wanted just what he got - a quick death so it was only his dead body which got the hot pliers. Or he may indeed have hoped for a last minute pardon, given that FW had visited him in prison so often and had made it clear he still wasn't sure what to believe. Never underestimate the power of hope.
Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-14 01:20 pm (UTC)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.
I was going to say, I'm in my 30s and I have a teacher! Her name is Selena. ;)
More seriously, I'm curious whether this was before or after Fritz wrote
But, my dear Suhm, do not forget the tenderness which you owe to an infant whom you have not yet weaned in the school of philosophy. What would I have become? for I feel that I need your eyes to see, and that, losing sight of my guide, I run the risk of losing my way.
in June 1736, which is apparently when he still very much wants a teacher to guide him at his age.
Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-14 03:38 pm (UTC)Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-14 03:46 pm (UTC)Yeah, I was thinking that even in 1750, when Fritz will *only* talk literature with Voltaire and will not be guided by anyone politically, he still wants a teacher of poetry composition!
But yes, your point about Manteuffel and Fritz's issues with anyone having authority or influence over him is very accurate. Big difference between Manteuffel and Suhm.
(Bronisch would eagerly add that sure, he may write that to Suhm in July, but he's already written to Manteuffel in April "moi, qui suis votre disciple".)
So, like, at the same time of his life, Bronisch. :PP
Suhm was...a low-key personality, whom nobody could suspect of dominating Fritz.
No, no, other way around. Though I suspect he and Fredersdorf had in common the ability to convince Fritz he was totally in charge while couching their ideas in a way he could accept.
So I can see Fritz minding the old Dessauer's dig. Not as a sole reason to break things off, absolutely not, but as one of several factors.
Yep, makes perfect sense.
Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-20 05:20 am (UTC)You could add the entire first letter to Voltaire who is but the latest Socrates candidate, after all.
BURN! Lol Voltaire!
But also this is fascinating and makes a lot of sense!
Re: Le Diable: The Political Biography - B
Date: 2021-03-20 06:20 am (UTC)