Who knows, if Clement hadn't made the mistake of naming Old Dessauer, he would have gone on believing all of it wholeheartedly
Yeah, that is an interesting (and undoubtedly very painful) AU.
Sidenote: the psychological disaster of making someone with the emotional make-up of FW believe that everyone around him is lying to him and ready to kill him is obvious.
I knooow, and especially when he's got kids who have been forced to lie to him just to survive. :(((
Also, consider the irony: for all the pride FW took in recognizing when people (read: Fritz and Wilhelmine, but also people in general) were lying to him
It looks like what he recognized was people who were totally in his power and afraid of him, and took that as an excuse to abuse them even more. Whereas if you could keep your cool because you had some kind of power over *him*, he couldn't pick up on that at all.
which btw immediately reminded me of one FW letter to Fritz from the late 1720s where he accuses him of not being able to do that
And also the Grumbkow report in 1731, where FW is boasting about being able to read Fritz from thirty feet away and how Fritz probably thinks he has magical powers.
UGH.
Polenz was a hard-drinking military guy and even made it to the Tobacco Parliament repeatedly, so that worked on that level.
Yes, but what I meant to point out but forgot, because 4 hours of sleep, was that just three months later, both Suhm and Polenz were replaced with Lynar, who was sole envoy from that point on. Lynar, as a reminder, is the one who will later be sent to St. Petersburg, get involved in an affair with Anna Leopoldovna (currently niece and heir of the tsarina, future mother of Ivan VI and future regent, finally dies in prison with her family in remote parts of Russia), gets recalled because the affair is turning into a big scandal that's making him enemies, and gets replaced by Suhm.
Then when Suhm steps down and almost simultaneously Anna Leopoldovna becomes regent in late 1740, Lynar's sent back on the assumption that having the lover of the Regent of Russia as Saxon envoy will be *really* good for Saxon interests, but Elizaveta's coup happens in 1741 before he can make it there.
Well, one of the people supervising him was Keyserling.
Exactly why we brought up how super nice Fritz was with his daughter. We had speculated back then that Keyserlingk may have been very indulgent of teenage Fritz exploring.
But back to Fritz, Manteuffel is writing not in the late 1720s but in the Ruppin era, when Fritz is with his regiment and hanging out with the guys a lot, see locker room talk letter to von Gröben, and visiting prostitutes together isn't exactly unheard of for army officers.
Of course, I'm just saying that *Wilhelmine* has him debauching himself the moment Duhan steps down when he's 16, and Fritz seems to say the same thing in the letter to Duhan. The fact that he's later consorting with prostitutes (apparently!) at Ruppin makes me think that it's even more likely that Wilhelmine was right about that. And that's when I started thinking about FW-avoiding logistics. Obviously everything was *much* simpler in the 1730s!
Also, wasn't this before Fritz properly lived with EC? I'm assuming FW would have taken a different attitude if he thought such behavior interfered with Fritz delivering the next Hohenzollern heir in his marriage.
Yep, she was in Berlin until 1736 afaik, and that makes sense.
Which again makes me be amazed at Pesne risking that ceiling at Rheinsberg.
I know, I was thinking of that! Look, Honest Pomeranian Fredersdorf is keeping a million secrets, not least of which is that he can play the oboe. ;)
ETA: Oh, and thank you for the explanation of Saxon politics! That was helpful.
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timeasmymeasure
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.