Having completed Exner's dissertation, I have not much more to add. It does what it sets out to do, presents a good picture of the musical networking triggered by Fritz the ultra musical becoming King, with a focus on the 1740 - 1756 period when, Exner says, Berlin music was cutting edge, whereas post 7 Years War it became staid because nothing was allowed to change anymore. With her Zelter prologue, she however demonstrates that even within that period, there were some great long time benefits. (For example: Zelter growing up in Frederician Berlin imprinted his musical taste and his love for all things Bach, which in turn led to his student Felix Mendelssohn loving Bach, which in turn led to Mendelssohn spearheading the great Bach revival of the 19th century.) She also provides a good "what came before" overview that includes Sophie Charlotte championing music in F1's Berlin, FW and his exception for Händel-on-oboe, with the job of being the most important musical patron of the land being taken up by F1's younger half brother Christian Ludwig, to whom Bach's "Brandenburg Concertos" are dedicated. Several of the musicians of his orchestra later ended up with Fritz or Wilhelmine after his death, so it really must have been first class. (BTW, Christian Ludwig was just five or so years older than FW, so we have another case of someone's uncle being more of a cousin. I dimly recall a none too fond quote from Fritz about him which didn't make it into Exner's dissertation, though, along the lines of him never failing to point out that he was the son of the Great Prince Elector and demanding to be treated accordingly.)
So if we need to look up a musician Fritz employed until 1756, this is good book to look it up, though personally I would go to the book I used from the Münchner Stadtbibliothek last year, because that one has original research (read: Newspapers!) whereas Exner relies on a number of older sources or anthologies and keeps making tiny avoidable mistakes. We've covered the Fredersdorf stuff; later, there was this gem, when she talks about Fritz' libretto for Montezuma and the obvious "here's what happens if you don't fight in time against the evil Catholics" moral - she says that the current Habsburgs, i.e. MT & Co., were descendended from the Spanish line of the Habsburgs. While there was some intermarriage between the Spanish line and the Austrian line (that helped making the last Spanish Habsburg such a genetic wonder) after the two lines separated post Charles V., this is really a stretch, because the Spanish line notoriously ended in said genetic dead end, who had no surviving children. But okay, that's nitpicking, and of course I agree with Fritz wanting people to associate current day Habsburg MT with the evil Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella (neither of them Habsburgs, btw; their daughter Juana married Philip le Bel who was a Habsburg, resulting in the Emperor Charles V. who was the first Habsburg to rule in Spain). Also, with all the emphasis on Fritz making Berlin cutting edge pre 1756 in musical terms, there's not a single mention of Gluck, aka the composer who revolutionized the way opera was composed, and who wasn't in Berlin but, dare I say it, Vienna. (And later France when Marie Antoinette was Queen and asked for her old teacher.) I just kept coming up against tiny stuff like this, and I wish she'd have had a better beta.
HOWEVER. One of her old sources is the Ledebur dictionary of Berlin musical artists which Mildred has uploaded now in the library. It's from 1861, and at fault for the "Fritz gave Fredersdorf Zernikow in 1734" whopper, but then information about Fredersdorf wasn't that easy to get in the 1860s. Otoh, Amalie is far better documented, and I do want share with you two excerpts from the Amalie entry, one about her musical abilities and one featuring her withering sharp tongue.
Ledebur quotes Gerber, an earlier author:
She studied counter point with her court composer, the famous Kirnberger, and advanced in this art so far that she deserves to be counted among the masters of this art, which is supported by the surviving examples of her composing. In order to prove this, I have only to remind people that it was her who could rival the great Graun's claim for the laurel of having set Ramler's "Death of Jesus" to music. How much she has achieved with this work, in which masculine style she has worked, how far she was able to use every secret of the double counter point and the fugue, the choir of this cantata proves which Kirnberger has provided us with in his "Kunst des reinen Satzes". A passage from her violin trio printed in the same place proves both her deep insight in the teaching of counter point and the Instrumentalsatz.
However, while being way more into all Bachs than her brother, Amalie in general shared Fritz' musical preferences and wasn't shy making this known when one of her younger contemporary composers talked to her. The dictionary lists the example of J.A.P. Schulz (of whom I admit I haven't heard before), who seems to have been Rheinsberg based (working for Heinrich?) - Amalie's letter, which the dictionary entry quotes, is addressed to "Kapellmeister Schulz zu Rheinsberg", and dated Berlin, January 31st 1785. Schulz had asked permission to dedicate his "Choirs to Athalia" to her. Now, asking permission for a dedication was the rule, because by accepting the dedication, the influential person in question publicly supported the work dedicated to them, and also by implication the artist. Amalie was according to the dictionary (in)famous for turning down most people wanting to dedicate stuff to her and only accepting those she really liked. And she didn't just say no. She wrote this:
I imagine, Herr Schulz! you to have sent by accident your child's dribbling of notes on paper instead of your own work, for I couldn't discover the slightest scientific art in it, but instead found from beginning to end nothing but mistakes in expression, content and reason of the language and in rhythm. To say nothing of the modus contrarius; no harmony, no singing, the Third completely left out, no sound set out, one has to guess from which it's supposed to develop, no canon imitations, not the slightest counter point, nothing but quints and octaves, and that's supposed to be called music? May God open the eyes of those possessing such a vivid self flattering imagination, enlighten their minds and teach them to recognize that they're nothing but charlatans.
Well, I'm glad it gave you the Zelter info you were looking for and is a relatively good resource for matters music, even if the scholarship is lacking in some respects.
So if we need to look up a musician Fritz employed until 1756, this is good book to look it up, though personally I would go to the book I used from the Münchner Stadtbibliothek last year
But this one is in our Frederician library, so more convenient in some respects. :) Which was the one you're referring to? If I ever manage to recoup my savings, I might expand our library's restricted section.
omg although the scholarship may be not the best this is full of things that are Relevant To My Interests :D
(For example: Zelter growing up in Frederician Berlin imprinted his musical taste and his love for all things Bach, which in turn led to his student Felix Mendelssohn loving Bach, which in turn led to Mendelssohn spearheading the great Bach revival of the 19th century.)
I knew about Mendelssohn and Bach of course, but I never knew where Mehndelssohn got his love of Bach from. That's really cool!
she says that the current Habsburgs, i.e. MT & Co., were descendended from the Spanish line of the Habsburgs. While there was some intermarriage between the Spanish line and the Austrian line (that helped making the last Spanish Habsburg such a genetic wonder) after the two lines separated post Charles V., this is really a stretch, because the Spanish line notoriously ended in said genetic dead end, who had no surviving children. But okay, that's nitpicking
Yes, but I'm always very happy when you nitpick, because of course I don't know the difference :P
there's not a single mention of Gluck
WHAT yeah, like, I can forgive her all her history snafus, but NO GLUCK? :P
but, dare I say it, Vienna
LOL!
A passage from her violin trio printed in the same place proves both her deep insight in the teaching of counter point and the Instrumentalsatz.
Huh, I found this flute trio and I don't think I'd mistake it for Bach but I like it a lot. I wasn't as impressed with some of the other samples I found, but I suspect some of that is that it's all done by the wrong instruments -- I wish there were any recordings of her cantatas actually done with voice, but I suppose that's a lot harder to get together than for instrumentalists.
(There is also a recording on YouTube of Anna Amalia "of Brunswick" whom the poster says he thinks was Amalie of Prussia, for the very reason that it sounds Bachian. It sounds in general pretty impressive to me (I was never trained explicitly in counterpoint, but I know what sounds good :) ) which makes me think it must be our Amalie.)
I imagine, Herr Schulz! you to have sent by accident your child's dribbling of notes on paper instead of your own work
LOL FOREVER. This whole thing was, wow. AMALIE. MY OTHER PROBLEMATIC FAVE. :D
Hmm, yes, I was thinking of collecting everyone over the course of his reign in a semi-crackfic, but if we're trying to pin this down in time and make it a serious historical AU, then okay.
I was actually going for happy medium of serious and crack. :) But if you want to collect people from his entire life, at least one of the teachers thrown down the stairs or out of the window or what not should make it on the list.
FS a the detective: Is FS going to be okay with it, though? Because that's also a key plot point to the final resolution, as I recall. I feel like FS miiiight have an incentive to go..."No, ganging up on even your crazy abusive monarch is not okay."
Well, it would set a bad precedent if it became known he okay'd it. But since he wouldn't tell anyone, it's not. Also, consider the alternative. The Clement Plot was fake and still caused lots of trouble between Vienna, Berlin and Saxony until FW had calmed down enough to accept Eugene's pledge that the letter was forged etc., and even longer till he warmed up to the Saxons again. If the Emperor's future son-in-law officially accuses the Queen Mother and the new King of in armed-to-the-teeth Prussia of having been involved in a plot to assassinate the previous King, what would that produce? Definitely not Fritz calmly surrendering himself to the Diet and the Emperor for judgment. More like every single Protestant German principality accusing the Catholic Habsburgs to spread lies in order to hand over Protestant Brandenburg-plus-Prussia to a Catholic tool, and likely war within the HRE. At a point where MT's Dad needs every prince on his side he can get since his people are still trying to get everyone to sign on the Pragmatic Sanction. Nobody wants war (well.... so FS thinks!). And FS is canonically a guy who urged MT to let things go re: Silesia, to reconciliation, and who wrote to his son Leopold about the advantage of putting yourself in the others' shoes, taking a step back, seeing it from their pov, etc. So I think him discovering the truth but not letting on what he figured out (since he's seen as a lightweight anyway) would be ic enough for a fanfiction!
But if you want to collect people from his entire life, at least one of the teachers thrown down the stairs or out of the window or what not should make it on the list.
I was thinking of the defenestrated chamberlain! If nothing else, that allows us to put that ridiculous story into the hypothetical fic. :D
Nobody wants war (well.... so FS thinks!).
Ha!
Fritz: Speak for yourself. :P
FS: if you think it's plausible enough for our semi-crackfic, I won't argue. So, assuming we have a body with 14(?) stab wounds, how does that work out in terms of preventing European war?
So I never replied to this on the other thread but this is AWESOME and I think this is a GREAT CRACK IDEA :D and someone should write it for me.
(But I also think Voltaire would work as a guy whom Fritz would talk to, if not SD... the problem is that I find it completely unbelievable that he could find out a murder happened and keep his mouth SHUT about it, even if part of him thought justice was better served that way.)
Also, in canon there's one guy who actually doesn't participate on purpose, right? It would be fun if that were Fritz... so he's at least technically free of patricide/regicide (which idk, would FS have more problems with that than with the other guys doing it? At first I thought he might, since Fritz actually becomes king from it... but I could see it both ways, maybe it's worse if it's the subjects). And then of course Fritz goes on to, well, as you say below :)
As we've seen in the contemporary accounts, whether via dispatches like Mitchell's during the 7 Years War or late life memoirs like Schöning's, and of course in Henri de Catt's two versions of his time with Fritz, he consistently comes across as respectful and complimentary about his father once he's King, and if he does bring up a downside like FW's rages, it's immediately qualified and put into (generally) positive perspective. This is one big reason why the official version of the two of them getting along fine post Küstrin submission in August 1731 was so widely accepted, and in 19th and early 20th century dogma also FW's sentence changing and rehabilitation regime, because look! Result: Frederick the Great! Who accepts Dad has been right!
Now, the 1730s contemporary documents beg to differ. Chiefly the Fritz and Wilhelmine correspondence which show the Fritz & FW relationship post Küstrin was more of a jojo going up and down all the time, but even Other Seckendorff's secret journal (fed by Manteuffel reports) notes the same thing; one day it's "Fritzchen" and Fritz swearing he'd give his right arm for Dad to get better, the next it's "why no babies yet? Also, let me predict AW's future greatness!" and needlings behind close doors. (Once he's ordered to report in person in Austria, Other Seckendorff is even asked point blank how serious this father/son reconciliaton thing is in his opinion and he basically replies he thinks it's patched up on the surface, hurt feelings boiling underneath.) it occurred to me that the emotional release of venting to Wilhelmine about FW, instant of constantly holding himself in check as reported by the later accounts, was another thing that ended (at least in writing - we dont know what they said to each other in person, of course) when Fritz became King. (BTW: just for a compare and contrast: Fritz is careful not to critisize FW towards Voltaire in his 1730s letters even when Voltaire all but baits him to do it, presumably because he knows that correspondence is read by third parties from the get go. And while by what you've quoted from the Suhm and Duhan correspondences he is ready to write poetry about how those who teach and give knowledge are his spiritual fathers, there is, to my knowledge, no "Dad: still the worst!" outburst towards them, either.) So in terms of risking writing (as opposed to whatever he might have said in person to anyone around him from Fredersdorf to visiting Suhm or Manteuffel to painting that rising son, err, sun Pesne), it's Wilhelmine, full stop. (And vice versa, though we don't know that as definite because a lot of Wilhelmine's not-addressed-to-Fritz letters are still unpublished.) Wilhelmine is also the addressee of that single complaint about Mom which stands out to me so much, and it's worth rereading that 1734 letter again, because it's yet another reason why Oncken flatly calling either Knyphausen or Hotham or both a liar because of Hotham reporting in his dispatch Knyphausen quoted FW as saying "I hate him and he hates me" and that they need a break from each other about his oldest son. Looking up this letter again, I just saw that the version in the Volz edition is longer than the one in "Solange wir zu zweit sind", and also has a lengthy passage discussing sister Charlotte which had been edited out there, and which is quite intriguing.
Berlin, March 19th 17354 Dearest Sister! I envy you for not being here; for our gracious monarch and the monarchess have agreed upon taking turns of being in a bad mood. One doesn't know how one stands with them at any given point: today you get overwhelmed with tenderness, and tomorrow there are only sullen faces and unfriendly words. In short, their mood changes from one day to the next. (...) by Gustav Volz. Lotte has spoiled everything I've done for you with the Queen and nearly would have caused distress between her and me as well. Among ourselves I advise you not to put one foot into this direction and to pray for those who have to endure here: for this is the most false, most treasonous court of the world. The King's mood has become unbearable again, he hates me like sin, and the prestige of the Crown Princess has nearly been exhausted. I still mock everything and am in a good mood. I'm not sad and only pity the King who can't bring himself to show his children affection. I advise you to arrange it for the Prince Heir (her husband, serving in one of FW's regiments) to quit the service and to end any relationship with this place. But if you want to do me a favour, drag things out until May 10th when I want to present myself to you. (En route to the Rhine; as it turns out, FW would forbid that.) To return to Lotte, who has just left (for Braunschweig), she's charming in conversation, funny and in a good mood, much more sophisticated than she used to be. She dances perfectly and always comes up with a new entertainment. At the same time, she's the most false creature of the world, and capable of the worst against those who have the misfortune to provoke her jealousy. I've studied her thoroughly, and unfortunately noticed she has a very bad character. I fear this is more a result of her general disposition than of her temper. The King and the Queen are completely enamored with her. I sooner would dare to insult their majesties than to say anything against Lotte. Which proves yet again that there is no more certain way to insinuate yourself with the Great than to applaud blindly all they want and to banish sincerity and charity from one's heart. A bad character and not worth of anyone with a good heart!
Prince Karl (Charlotte's new husband, the future Duke of Braunschweig, EC's brother) is the exact opposite. He is a good fellow and an honest bloke, a declared enemy to falseness and lies, and incapable of doing anything below his dignity. He's cheerful, can take a joke, knows my sister as well as I do and condemns her falseness for what it is worth. Which is why his dear wife has already found means and ways to badmouth him to the King, and even more to the Queen. Since my sister Charlotte was here, all my other sisters got treated like maid servants, as if they were not her equal. This, dearest sister, is the truth about how things stand here. As you see, staying here isn't exactly character building. I'll leave sooner or later and would rather risk a shipwreck in order to avoid the other dangers of these stormy seas.
I am thoroughly pleased Benda (his musician) has your esteem. As soon as I'm at the (Rhine) campaign, I'll send you both Grauns, Schardt, Schafrath and the entire company in the hope they will entertain you. Farewell, dearest sister! You are my sole north star, and will find your faithful and truly devoted servant in me, even if this puts me into disgrace with the entire world. But I wouldn't change an inch for this.
Ooookay. Like I said, I remembered the part about FW, SD and EC, but the one about Charlotte was new to me. On the one hand, this not only backs up the claim in Wilhelmine's memoirs of Charlotte's behavior towards her (and EC) around that time. (And fits with what Mildred lets Wilhelmine think about Charlotte in her Christmas story.) Otoh, the claim that Honest Karl, Charlotte's new husband, already sees through her is something else again. Not just because as far as I know, Charlotte had one of the better royal marriages (and sided with her husband over Fritz years later when it came to Fritz' idea that his brothers-in-law were mainly on earth to contribute soldiers to his wars). But also because: doesn't Fritz entrust Charlotte with Duhan (and his correspondence with Duhan) none too much later? The most false creature of the world, who will only rat you out to FW and SD?
Which leads me to the speculation that the case of sibling jealousy depicted here isn't just Charlotte's. I mean, in the same letter, Fritz says he pities FW for not being able to show affection to his children, and that Charlotte is the current petted parental fave. As I said in regards to AW, I think Fritz could have coped better with a FW who was awful to all his children. But FW capable of showing affection, praise and tenderness without (much) of the temper tantrums and (as far as we know) the verbal abuse to the favourites like AW, Ulrike or Charlotte demonstrated he was capable of a different type of parenting, which in turn must have made Fritz secretly wonder again and again it was something about himself that was unlovable. Now, he's writing to the sister who is FW's other unfavourite (and no matter about secret resentment for not encouraging him to run away, he never had to fear she's try to win favour with their parents at his expense) and can vent there, but to continue the theme of sibling jealousy, the fact that Wilhelmine is the recipient of the letter also shouldn't be ignored, because Wilhelmine? Most definitely jealous of her sisters. (Most blatantly so after Fritz becomes King and in the last bit of her memoirs, before they break off, she's sure he dumps her as favourite sister in favour of Friederike in Ansbach.) And of course laboring with the same problem/fear Fritz does - if FW (and SD) can be loving towards the younger sibs, doesn't that prove something is wrong with her? So a factor in the letter could also be that Fritz knows he'll find open ears with not just the complaints about Mom and Dad but the complaints about Charlotte, not least because they'll reassure Wilhelmine he still loves her best. Wilhelmine's reply letter shows her actually pleading EC's case, and directly proving Charlotte really did make that ulcers-in-the-anus allegation from the unbowlderized memoirs.
Bayreuth, March 27th 1734
Dearest Brother! While your letters are always a source of great joy to me, the last one, to be honest, has made me sad: for I can see from it how much grief the Berlin lords and ladies are causing you. You seem to be in exactly the same position I was a year ago, when I was nearly driven mad and my poor health was wrecked to a degree I'm still sensing the aftermath. I wish Lotte would be so kind as to spread all her poison against me and leave you alone. Quarrells without reasons leave me indifferent since I'm not there. But what does sadden me and is the worst is that she has badmouthed the Crown Princess. She has never liked her and had described her to me in such a way I was imagining a mental and physical monstrosity. It was also her who riled up the Queen against (EC); otherwise, one could have calmed (SD) down and reasoned with her.
To be frank with you, dearest brother, your peace and quiet depends on the Crown Princess. If her standing with the King is sunk, I'm afraid you two will experience much grief. Therefore, I think it would be best if she tries everything to regain favour, with the Queen, too, who, if I may say so, due to her thoughtlessness and bias against the Crown Princess could tell the King things which could have evil results. (EC) must make (SD) little presents now and then and pretend to madly love my sister. I pity the poor Crown Princess, who has deserved a better fate. Her good heart and her kind disposition deserve recognition. Should I have the joy to greet you here, I will say some more things in this matter to you which I don't dare to entrust to my pen.
I'm familiar with Prince Karl and his good character. He is to be pitied for being married to such a creature. That she should have badmouthed him to the King and Queen is, in my opinion, the meanest thing she's done so far. But I can assure you that Lotte isn't the only one at fault for this; so is la Montbail, whose low disposition I am familiar with. I'm sure (Montbail) has goaded (Charlotte) into this; for that good lady strongly dislikes both the Crown Princess and myself. And I know why Lotte is angry with you, too. Hopefully she'll acquire a better mindset in time, but only heartbreak can improve her. (...)
Since everything in Berlin changes so quickly, I hope this will, too, and the bad moods will be over (by the time her letter arrives). As far as I can judge, the worst thing is that no one has influence on the Master's mind anymore. Even Grumbkow's and Seckendorff's credit has sunk a great deal. (I'm cutting the discussion as to whether or not Bayreuth Friedrich should quit the regiment and how far Prussia will engage in the Rhine campaign.) For my part, I'm resolved not to return to Berlin again. I know too well how things stand there and what the mood of our sovereigns are to enter the labyrinth once more which I only recall with a shudder. Our old Margrave is currently amiability itself. I f he stays that way, we'll be the happiest of mortals.
No such luck, but he won't live much longer. Anyway, heartbreak improves no one, Wilhelmine, but I'm not surprised you'd think so. The subsequent letters also deal with poor Sophie getting engaged to the Schwedt cousin, for which she's pitied by both Fritz and Wlihelmine. (Justly so, as Sophie's subsquent fate will prove.) Since SD is taking Sophie's marriage to the Margrave Schwedt (which she had explicitly not wanted for Wilhelmine, remember) on the chin and resigns herself to it, without blaming Sophie for it, Wilhelmine risks a pointed Mom obervation in her letter to Fritz from April 27th, saying It would have been nice if she'd dealt as kindly with our marriages; it would have spared us much grief. The Crown Princess deserves all the respect. People of her character are rare to find. I don't understand why the King is still disgruntled with you. Hopefully, the revue will improve this.
No such luck, as the next news is that FW forbids Fritz to visit Wilhelmine en route to the Rhine, though he's still open to a reunion on the way back. (Which Fritz will make happen though FW will have forbidden it by then as well.) Anyway, I don't get how any historian can read through the Fritz and Wilhelmine correspondence from the 1730s and emerge with the conviction that Fritz and FW had settled into a warm father/son relationship post Küstrin, or that family dynamics chez Hohenzollern in general were one bit less dysfunctional. Oh, and I do suspect that Wilhelmine's positivity about EC in these letters is also the result of Fritz having emphasized in every letter from 1732 and 1733 he mentions her how much he does not love her, but even so, it's still interesting that she speaks well of her (and gives good advice, because it's true, of course, FW's benevolence towards EC is one of the few plus factors for Fritz to bargain with). Given the sheer level of dysfunction, it's remarkable at all that Fritz and Wilhelmine ended up as allies instead of rivals. For comparison, Lord Hervey's memoirs - which are of course biased, but still, he's an eye witness - make it sound as if there were no sibling alliances among the Hannover cousins, it was all mutual scheming against (and everyone ganging up against FoW, but that didn't mean supporting each other).
Oh, wow, that was new to me as well! (And Volz still cut parts of it, sigh.)
But also because: doesn't Fritz entrust Charlotte with Duhan (and his correspondence with Duhan) none too much later?
Not later, same day! He writes to Duhan, March 19th, 1734: You know the risk you run when you can only do things while trembling. This is why I have only been able to answer you now, having a good opportunity through my sister. She will tell you everything I think about you. (After that comes the "I have to be a mirror" quote btw.) So Charlotte has "just left" with this letter in her pocket.
Which certainly suggests that he does know how to deal with her, possibly indeed trading on his future position? Huh.
Also, re: venting about Dad to Duhan, this is as far as it goes, from 1736: When one indulges blindly in one's prejudices, and without examining things thoroughly, one is often prone to be seriously mistaken; hence most of the mistakes that men make. This is why it would be hoped that Father Malebranche's treatise 'The Search after Truth' was better known and read. Blood ties impose silence on me on a subject where I could explain myself more clearly, and where the subtle distinction between hating a bad deed and loving the one who commits it might vanish.
But the correspondence with Duhan was also fraught and risky in general. Looking at a less risky connection, he does vent to Camas! See the January 1739 letter for example, with lines like this: I must see him as my most cruel enemy, who spies on me constantly to find the moment when he thinks he can give me the blow of jarnac [an unexpected blow from behind].
So while I think that the "blood ties" are certainly one reason why he'd mostly talk to Wilhelmine (both the ties to her and the lacking ones to others) and why he didn't speak badly about his father later on (but still didn't go to Wusterhausen with the rest of the sibs :P), he did vent to friends as well, even in writing.
(... and now I'm back to wishing for the Keyserlingk letters. Stupid (suspected) censors.)
Having seen felis's evidence that the Adresskalender lists Jägerhof as Jägerhof in the 1760s, and given that Jägerhof is not exactly on the water, I'm coming to the conclusion that the Keiths and Frau von Knyphausen moved to a new house in 1748 that wasn't the Jägerhof. So when they got the Jägerhof, I'm not sure. It is possible that Ariane only moved in once Peter died, for financial reasons, and before that it was a property that they owned. I'm also still confused by Frau von Knyphausen being listed until 1754, when the internet is unanimous in claiming her death for 1751. (The internet may be wrong; I think all the wiki and genealogy pages copy off each other and thus go back to a single source.)
Btw, since we're all bringing out our inner nitpickers, Selena, you said recently that Hertefeld and Nicolai had no way to check that Peter was cross-eyed, so that detail must be genuine. I agree that it's likely genuine, but in addition to the uncheckable Lehndorff diaries and Wanted description from FW to Degenfeld, the squint also shows up in Formey, who was published and available at the time. In fact, Felis turned up something from 1790 that what we both agree is a recounting of Formey's eulogy.
Meanwhile, cool things I found in the Adresskalender: our envoys! Suhm was living in the "Field Marschall Count von Flemming Hause" in 1725, but no indication of where that was. But given that he was a "creature of Flemming" per Stratemann, that makes sense. Is that like the Saxon embassy? Stratemann is also listed, as is Düburgee (another spelling!), as is Lovenohr.
Katte! In 1730, is living "auf der Dorotheenstatt unter der Linden in Reichmanns hause." This is probably in Kloosterhuis (update: checked, and yes, it is), but it's cool to see it in the address book. Oh, man, right next to him in the address book, i.e. alphabetically, not geographically next door, is preacher Muller. :/
Oh, look, it's the whole Gens d'Armes section. Katte's listed because he's an adjutant. There's Natzmer and Pannewitz, and oh! There's a Major Schenck and a Major Schack, no wonder Wilhelmine and Pollnitz got confused in their memoirs over who was responsible for carrying out Katte's execution.
[Argh, premature submission.]
Also, felis, I found your missing 1777-1787 years! Munich Stabi has them!
If I didn't have to give a presentation at work in an hour, I'd keep hunting, but I need to stop here. For now. :D
I have to say, I didn't imagine that Selena would read a book on Gundling and felis would turn this into tracking down Keith residences for me. Now that's what I call alchemy!
Also, felis, I found your missing 1777-1787 years! Munich Stabi has them!
Ha, it doesn't, it links to the Berlin StaBi, which is where the other issues are as well. The ZLB overview page just didn't link to them for some incomprehensible reason, what the heck. *shakes head*
(Just so we don't work double here: I'll have a look at the missing ten years for the Keith family later, will report back.)
Also, if you want a great 1748 Berlin map, the Schmettau Plan de Ville is your friend. (Heads up: north = down here, but there's a georeferenced version down the page as well.) Just out of interest, I looked up two of Lehndorff's addresses on there and he moved from somewhere around Jägerbrücke (which is the one leading away from the Jägerhof) to a place next to the Zeughaus (= "Arsenal" on the plan, i.e. right next to Heinrich's Palais).
still confused by Frau von Knyphausen being listed until 1754
Possibly because that's what the house was known as, even for a few years after her death? ("Knobelsdorff'sches Haus" kept being a thing after his death as well.)
I have to say, I didn't imagine that Selena would read a book on Gundling and felis would turn this into tracking down Keith residences for me. Now that's what I call alchemy!
Heh, I was thinking something similar. I'd never have thought to look for it if Selena hadn't reported on Sabrow's research work.
Taking Selena's advice that I should feel free to reach out to Germans by writing English emails, I sent an email to a historical society last night, and woke up to a reply...in German. Now, I can read German well enough for these purposes, so that's fine, and I also can't throw stones, so it's certainly not a criticism, but I just want to point out that I now have written evidence that, contrary to what fluent English speakers from Germany keep telling me, a monolingual speaker of English *cannot* get around in Germany without at least being able to understand spoken German. [I mean, obviously you can get around the same way you can get around in, say, Brazil or Hungary, with sign language and accepting you won't be able to talk to people, but you can't get around on the strength of the locals' English, is what I'm saying.]
Because I don't know whether it's a case of "can't" or "won't", but not only workers in the service industry, who might be less educated, but also the contact people for local history societies, evidently feel no more comfortable writing two English sentences to express, "Thanks for your email, I've forwarded it to the appropriate person, who will reply to you," than I feel comfortable writing two German sentences to express, "I'd like to purchase a back issue of one of your society's publications, let me know if this can be arranged."
Just saying!
(I'll let salon know, of course, if anything comes of this contact.)
I'll let salon know, of course, if anything comes of this contact.
Victory! I have obtained an electronic copy of the essay I was after, without even having to pay for the back issue.
So, I was contacting a local history society of Frankfurt an der Oder, because of a claim I saw that one of the historians wrote an essay conclusively proving that Fritz met Fredersdorf at the musical performance there and not at Küstrin. This essay is now up in the restricted section. Most of it is not new to us, but I'm at work and read German very slowly and can't tell whether there might be something new to us that does conclusively prove it, or whether this author is overstating the strength of his evidence. There does seem to be some stuff about Schwerin and the details of his regiment and residence that are new.
It's ~20 pages, heavy on images, and most of it is known to us already, so it shouldn't take long for an actual German reader to vet its claims.
I see that the author does quote from Alfred Weise (creatively depicting that first meeting, apparently), which means I'm definitely going to do what I was thinking about, which is email him asking if he knows about the other so far unsubstantiated claim about Fredersdorf (the embezzlement)!
The author also sent me his essay on an anecdote about Seydlitz, which I've also uploaded, but which is in no way urgent.
Gambitten's post of individual sources has already been put in Rheinsberg, and I can create a tag covering both posts (and any future individual source posts we may create).
Individual public domain pdfs can be downloaded and put in the Frederician library. Feel free to bring my attention to any you would like archived there! I'm looking mostly for websites that are good for research purposes, although you'll notice I included a couple maps, and we could also have a blog post/news article section for things that can't be readily downloaded, and we could add more to the map section.
I've only been meaning to do this since we founded Rheinsberg in January 2020, lol.
Wilhelmine's French and Italian Journey website, which has both the neat map you once admired and lots of letters she wrote and received during her travels, not just by Fritz but by other family members, transcribed in the orignal French, in a German translation, and with many (though not all) scanned so you see the original document as well.
Because I knew I had these somewhere, and looking for something else, I found them again and refreshed my memory. Sophie wrote these memoirs in 1680, going through a midlife crisis, to put it mildly - her favourite sister and brother both died that year, she turned 50, and her husband took off for the half year debauchery in Venice, and like her great granddaughter, she chose memoir writing as a method to cope and vent. She had more than thirty years more to live - she only died in 1714, just a few weeks before thirtyfive years younger Cousin Anne in Britain, so missed out being Queen of England by said weeks - , and they were very eventful indeed, for her and others, but Sophie writing these memoirs doesn't know this yet. There's nothing about Prussia in them; her daughter's marriage and all this is still ahead. The memoirs' big climax therefore is the visit to Versailles Sophie and young Sophie Charlotte undertook, which does deliver on various fronts - it's an entertaining look at Versailles at that time, a big spectacle, and lots of snark (though not, interestingly enough, about Monsieur; Philippe d'Orleans, husband to Sophie's niece Liselotte, hasn't been described as sympathetic in any other contemporary document I've read. Now you could argue this is because he is her niece's husband, but Sophie is pretty sharp tongued about lots of other people she's related to. She didn't write for publication. The memoirs' existence wasn't known until the mid 19th century. The only manuscript still in existence is a hand written copy Leipniz made for himself, who was given the memoirs when getting the official job of writing the history of the Welfs in 1785. (We don't just know he got the manuscript from her because he says so, there's also a letter in existence.) Sophie's memoirs are much shorter than Wilhelmine's memoirs (not even 200 pages in the edition I have), and that has a preface and afterword, and covers a lot of people not in our focus, but here are a few highlights that would indicate that not just the intellectual streak but also the snark might hail from her.
Kontext for the first quote: Sophie was born the twelfth child of Elizabeth Stuart the Winter Queen and her husband Friedrich the Winter King. These poetic names for mocking taunts at the same, meant to ridicule her parents for having ruled only for a winter, enough to kick start the 30 Years War by accepting the crown of Bohemia. Her parents spent their remaining years in exile, with her father dying relatively young and tragically of the plague after siring 13 kids (the only one younger than Sophie died as a child), and her mother living in the Netherlands in exile for 40 years until the Restoration; Elizabeth returned to England to die (and be buried in Westminster Abbey) then. Now, Elizabeth, who was the daughter of James VI. and I. and the sister of Charles I., did with her children what not just British monarchs, but expecially them, had been doing for eons - have them raised not just by other people, but in a different place altogether, and only seeing them on special occasions until they were teenagers. (See Elizabeth I. famously spending much of her childhood and youth at Hatfield, for example.) But Elizabeth Stuart was a Queen in name only (and for the Catholics not even that - in Catholic documents, she's the Countess of the Palatinate only), and Sophie wasn't impressed by this distant raising when they all lived on a tiny budget with the Dutch anyway. Therefore, the memoirs open with parents snark:
I think the only reason why my birth might have brought them joy was because I inhabited another place after it than I had before. (...) When I was old enough to be brought away, my mother the Queen sent me to Leyden, which is only a three hours away from The Hague and where Her Majesty let all her children be raised far from herself, for she decidedly preferred the sight of her dogs and long-tailed monkeys to ours.
Sophie's education: I was taught the Heidelberg catechism, which was written in the German language. I knew it by heart without understanding a word of it. At seven in the morning I rose and had to present myself each day in a house dress to Mademoiselle von Quadt (...), who let me pray to God and read the bible. She taught me Pibrac's verses while rinsing her mouth and brushing her teeth which direly needed it. The grimaces she made while doing so I remember better than anything she wanted to teach me. Then I was dressed up. This happened at half past eight, and I then saw one teacher after the other until around ten, unless God sent them a cold to spare me. Now it was time for the dancing master, who taught me until eleven, the time for lunch. Which happened always with great ceremony at a long table. When I entered the hall, all my brothers were standing in line with their governors and their cavaliers, always in the same order. Court etiquette demanded of me to first make a deep curtsey to the princes, then a less deep one to everyone else, then another very deep one when taking my place opposite of them, then a small one in front of my governess whose daughters in turn curtseyed to me after having entered the room.
Young Sophie thinks all this is dull. Being the youngest but one, she remains in Leyden with her little brother when everyone else is with Mom or already married.
I remember when the Queen ordered us both one afternoon to the Hague, in order to present us to her cousin, the Princess of Nassau, as horses are presented if one wants to sell them, and that Madame Gorin, when she saw my little brother and myself, said: "He is very pretty, but she's thin and ugly. I hope she doesn't understand our English."
In fact, I understood it all too well, and was saddened by it for I believed there was no remedy for my affliction. However, it wasn't as bad as my poor little brother's, who soon after died among the most terrible pain, which touched and frightened me deeply.
(Languages: all in all, Sophie was fluent in Dutch, German, French, Latin and English, and she would pick up some Italian, too.) After her brother's death, nine or ten years old Sophie (she's not sure) goes to live with her mother, because maintaining the Leyden estate for just one child is too expensive. Since her sisters are seen as the pretty ones, she decides to become the witty one. By now, the fortunes of the House of Stuart are on the decline. England had a Civil War, Charles I. has been captured, and most o his family are on the continent in exile, including his wife, Henrietta Maria, who visits her sister-in-law. In better times, Van Dyck had portrayed the English royals, that's what Sophie is alluding to when noting down her impressions on her aunt: Through the Van Dyck portraits I ha dsuch a beautiful idea of English ladies that I was suprrised to find the Queen, who had appeared so pretty to me on her paintings, a small person sitting on her chair, with long, thin arms, bent shoulders and teeth which emerged from her mouth like canons from a fortress. When I regarded her more closely, I found her to have very beautiful eyes, a well formed nose and great skin. She honored me by saying that I resembled her daughter somewhat; this pleased me so much that I decided she was pretty after all from this point onwards.
I was told that some Mylords flattered me by declaring I would surpass all my sisters in beauty once I had grown up. This immediately jumpstarted my affection for their entire nation, for when one is young, one loves being regarded as pretty.
Sophie's newfound affection for the Brits doesn't mean she's willing to marry Cousin Charles (the soon to be II), who's just one year older than her, though. Sure, he's charming, but he's also broke, and using her to get money from his creditors. Sophie then lucks out because her oldest brother - fourteen years older, in fact - who has gotten the Palatinate as a part of the peace treaty after the 30 Years War, invites her. This brother is her fave and about to become Liselotte's father, and the reason why Liselotte and Sophie have a life long intense relationship is that Sophie co-raises Liselotte. First in the Palatinate, then in Lower Saxony, because Sophie's brother and sister-in-law have a really bad marriage with non stop arguments. Case in point, when Sophie's sister-in-law already suspects Sophie's brother to have a mistress (and btw, Sophie is entirely on her brother's the Prince Elector's side; Degenfeld is her brother's mistress):
One night, the Princess Elector received certainty when she woke up and saw that the Prince Elector was with the girl. The noise she made due to her stormy temper was incredible. The Prince Elector had a great deal of trouble to protect his mistress from his wife grabbing at her; in the end, she only caught the girl's little finger and in her rage bit into it. When her rage had calmed down somewhat, her ladies talked her into moderation. (...) In order to amuse the Princess Elector, the balls and comedies started happening again, and it would have all continued if not for the Princess Elector to do such evil things. When she searched Degenfeld's cabinet she didn't just find all the Prince Elector's love letters but also the jewelry which he had given his mistress. This enraged her so much that she caused a terrible noise once more. She summoned me and my sister, while Degenfeld called the Prince Elector, and when we entered, we were witnesses to an extraordinary scene. The Prince Elector stood in front of his mistress and protected her from the beatings which Madame his wife was attempting to give her. The Princess Elector marched up and down in the room with Degenfeld's jewelry in her hands. Full of rage, she approached us and cried: "Princesses, look at a whore's reward! Doesn't all of this belong to me?"
I couldn't help myself, I had to laugh at this lament, I just burst into laughter, so much so that the Princess Elector got infected and started to laugh as well. But within moments, her rage erturned, when Monsieur the Prince Elector told her she should return the jewelry to its owner. She threw them across the entire room and cried: "If they don't belong to me, well, here they are!"
Sophie's brother , Liselotte's father, ended up doing a Henry VIII and deciding since he was the nominal head of his Protestant principalities church, he could divorce himself unilaterally and morganatically marry his mistress. However, his (first) wife refused to move out, and he didn't have Henry's power. So he lived with two wives and the children from two marriages, and that's why Liselotte ended up with Sophie for years.
The Hannover brothers show up in Sophie' life as suitors as her brother's marriage goes from bad to worse. First Georg Wilhelm, who, however, gets Syphilis. Here's Sophie's way of putting it:
In the meantime, the Duke of Hannover had arrived in Venice, and enjoyed himself with the first courtisan available, a Greek woman who had nothing beautiful to recommend her other than her dresses. However, she immediately put him in a condition which is less than advantageous for a marriage, and he thought no longer of me.
Georg Wilhelm gives it in writing - a document Sophie reproduces in her memoirs - that if Sophie marries younger brother Ernst August, he swears he himself won't marry and have children, and Ernst August will be his heir. Why does Sophie reproduce this document? Because wouldn't you know it, once Georg Wilhelm realised he wasn't dying of Syphilis just yet, he didn't just go back to debauching, but ended up with a favourite mistress he wanted to marry. And have children with. Sophie and Ernst August were thrilled, as you can imagine. In the end, the marriage was a morganatic one, there was no son, and Ernst August did become Duke of Hannover after Georg Wilhelm's death, but by then he'd gotten the "go to Venice for half the year, have fun" habit himself.
I'm glad you talked about this, because this is quite excellent snark :D
I think the only reason why my birth might have brought them joy was because I inhabited another place after it than I had before. (...) When I was old enough to be brought away, my mother the Queen sent me to Leyden, which is only a three hours away from The Hague and where Her Majesty let all her children be raised far from herself, for she decidedly preferred the sight of her dogs and long-tailed monkeys to ours.
Lol forever, this is great. (Also thank you for the context -- again me failing at synthesis, because I did know about Elizabeth and Hatfield, and also of course about Fritz of Wales :P but would never have put it together -- but fortunately you provide the context so I understand why it's so funny :D )
I then saw one teacher after the other until around ten, unless God sent them a cold to spare me.
Ha!
Since her sisters are seen as the pretty ones, she decides to become the witty one.
Valid life choice!
The Prince Elector had a great deal of trouble to protect his mistress from his wife grabbing at her; in the end, she only caught the girl's little finger and in her rage bit into it.
Wow. On one hand, being a woman sucks and I get it! On the other hand... wow.
Now, like I said, the big showcase climax is years later, when Sophie and young daughter Sophie Charlotte visit France. This is both a family trip - to visit Liselotte, now Madame, the Duchess of Orleans, and to visit Sophie's older sister who is the Abbess of Maubuisson - and a matchmaking pitch, as Sophie hopes to marry Sophie Charlotte to the Dauphin, son of Louis XIV. (Doomed to die of measles.) There's also a wedding to be celebrated, since Philippe's oldest daughter, from his first marriage to Henriette "Minette" of England, Marie Louise, is about to marry the genetic wonder of Spain, the last Spanish Habsburg. So: Madame = Liselotte; Monsieur = Philippe; Mademoiselle = Marie Louise, about to become Queen of Spain. "Little Mademoiselle" = Elisabeth Charlotte the younger, daughter of Liselotte and Philippe, later to marry the Duke of Lorraine and become mother to Franz Stephan.
Sophie and entourage have just arrived at Maubuisson, where they expect to meet Sophie's sister the Abbess, not yet the French royals, when:
We were all still wearing our travelling dresses in order to get into the nunnery unnoticed and were very surprised to learn that Monsieur, Madame and Mademoiselle along with their entire court were already there. (...) When we drove into the courtyard, the Duchess of Orleans came running, Mademoiselle behind her, in order to receive me. I could hardly get out of the carriage to do justice to all. The good princess kissed me, crying with joy to see me again, and kept holding me in her arms. She only let me go for a moment so I could greet Mademoiselle while she herself greeted Frau von Harling, who had been her governess, very tenderly. Then she took my arm again and introduced me to the Duke of Orleans whom I saw standing with my sister the abbess at the nunnery's gate. This prince received me very considerately and interacted with me as if he'd known me all his life.
Monsieur and Mademoiselle return to Paris for the night while Liselotte remains to dine with Sophie, her sister and little Sophie Charlotte. The next day, they all drive to Paris, which is when Sophie has an experience familiar to anyone who has to take Taxis often:
I was surprised Madame's horses were driving so slowly. She kept saying "drive faster!" It was of no use, because Monsieur's master of the horses, who was paid by the hour to deliver her, took very great care with her for that reason.
When Sophie arrives at the Orleans' Paris residence, she gets introduced to Philippe's main boyfriend and favourite, the Chevalier de Lorraine. Sophie has nice things to say about the Chevalier as well: "I very much enjoyed watching the beautiful paintings from the Chevalier de Lorraine's gallery, which are exquisite." (Note she doesn't say anything about the Chevalier being exquisite as well.)
Next, Philippe shows Sophie all the wedding dresses he's had made for his daughter and the jewelry he intends to give her, which he has personally selected and designed. And since he has great talent for these things, he took the trouble to improve all my jewelry as well, and wanted me to change it according to fashion , which he ordered and organized in great detail. Philippe tells Sophie his brother, King Louis, would be cool with meeting her incognito and that she can attend the wedding incognito as well. (Incognito because it's less trouble that way with etiquette. So, off to Fontainebleau!
After my arrival, I first went to Madame where I met Monsieur and a great many people. Monsieur had me enter his little cabinet in order to show me the tight frock he'd had tailored and stitched with diamonds for himself on the occasion of Mademoiselle's wedding. Then he led me to my room and asked for forgiveness that it wasn't better, and said Madame de Montespan had the best rooms, but these were appropriate to my Incognito. They were indeed pretty bad, for I had only two rooms for my daughter, myself, our two ladies-in-waiting and all our maids.
Sophie gets to witness the official signing of the wedding contract between Mademoiselle and the genetic wonder (himself not present, of course, the Spanish envoy signs for him). On the French side, every member of the Royal family present and every bastard of Louis present sign the contract as well. Sophie finds this tiring after a while:
I wanted to return to my room, since I had seen everything, but Monsieur said that I had to await the ending, which caused a very good looking man unknown to me to observe: "Monsieur believes everybody loves ceremony as much as he does."
The official ending consisted of all the princesses making their curtsey to Louis and leaving, then the Queen doing that as well, and then Sophie gets introduced by Philippe and hears some gracious words about how Liselotte always sings her praises from Louis. "Madame d'Osnabrück" is in fact one of Sophie's titles; while her brother-in-law was still alive, her husband was (Protestant) Prince Bishop of Osnabrück.
From there, I was led to the French comedy. I was so much incognito there that it got shouted all over the place "Make room for Madame d'Osnabrück!" when in fact the chair reserved for me should have made it clear that I wanted to be (incognito); it was far from the King and the entire royal family who sat down below opposite the stage. I was so busy observing people that I ignored the actors. I saw Madame de Fontanges (Louis' latest mistress) who was then in the King's favor. She sat wide away from him, near the door in order to be able to escape if she should fall sick due to her pregnancy. For the crowd was large, and the heat was terrible, and I thought that the pleasures of the French court were tied to a great deal of inconvenience. People drank lemonade to refresh themselves. When I asked to have one, it was loudly shouted again: "Something to drink for Madame d'Osnabrück!", which I thought was disgraceful in the King's presence.
At last, that play is over, too. Sophie withdraws to her tiny two rooms. After dinner, I wanted to see Madame again before going to bed, despite it being rather late by now. I found her in her dressing gown, and Monsieur, too, wore his nightcap already, which was held in place by a red ribbon; he was busy organizing jewelry for Madame, himself and his two daughters. He was terribly embarassed to present himself to me in this state and always turned the head to the other side, but I calmed him down and helped to get his jewelry into order, and bound a ribbon on his hat, which he seemed to be very content with. After I had accomplished a work of such major importance, I could rest and thus withdrew in order to get into my bed.
The best dig comes when Sophie is presented to the Queen. Now, remember what mildred_of_midgard had said about arm chairs versus chairs versus taborets?
The Queen sat down in an arm chair, Monsieur took a taboret and indicated to me I should do likewise. But I was careful not to obey him. I told the Queen that Madame had asked me to see her, made a deep curtsey and left. Monsieur took my hand and asked me why I had not sat down; of course I could claim a different seating opportunity at Madame's than at the Queen's. I replied to him that I hadn't dared to accept a taboret from the Queen of France since the Empress (of the Holy Roman Empire) had offered me an arm chair.
So much for royal etiquette. Sophie now leaves with Orleans' to visit their summer residence, Saint-Cloud.
At the very front of the palace, the carriage overturned. Monsieur and Madame, the Queen of Spain, Mademoiselle and the entire court hurried outside in order to help us. Monsieur took me by the hand, led me to my room and cried out loud "pisspotts!", for he was convinced they were needed due to the shock. He showed me around in his palace and always led me by the hand, even ahead of the new Queen of Spain, since there was no consequence to etiquette. I admired his beautiful gallery, his splendid salon and the practical order of everything, for he is rather good at designing a house. I was given a room from which I could step outside into the garden, which is the most beautiful garden in the world, both by its design and its water arts. I did not grow tired from walking through it with Monsieur and Madame, who both were so kind of me that I shall be grateful for the rest of my life.
Monsieur always ate with the Queen of Spain, and Madame honored me by eating with me in the antechambre. (...) Monsieur had me kiss the Chevalier de Lorraine, who is the only man I kissed in France other than the King and Monsieur, despite the etiquette of country which would have demanded of me to kiss all the Dukes and Peers, as poor Madame has to. But they had the decency not to insist on it.
Then, Sophie visits Versailles itself (all the previous events have taken place in Parisian palaces and Saint-Cloud), and wins Philippe's heart forever with the following reaction: Monsieur escorted me to show me the beauty of Versailles, where money has accomplished more miracles than nature. Personally, if I had to choose, I would prefer Saint-Cloud. After being shown everything, I found a picknick prepared to keep up my strength, which was as much worth to me as the waterworks which they had tried very hard to get going earlier.
Alas, the day comes when the new Queen of Spain actually has to leave for Spain:
When we left the opera, the Queen of Spain said goodbye to us all since she was supposed to leave Paris forever the following day, which caused such great despair in her that she could not restrain her sobs and tears. One couldn't help but crying with her. And I was even more touched than the rest. For this amiable princess had won my heart through the charm of her personality and through a thousand attentions she showed towards me and my daughter (Sophie Charlotte, future wife of F1); for the later had captivated her so much that she wished to be a prince so that the two of them could have married instead.
I dare say Sophie Charlotte/Marie Louise would have been more fun than Marie Louise's actual marriage. Anyway, after the visit of Versailes is over, the memoirs end on a series of downers (Sophie's siblings die, and her husband takes off to Venice anyway, and she wonders whether she'll follow her siblings into the grave. Which she won't. Instead, she'll become the matriarch of two royal houses, with even 19th century historians calling her "the greatest of the three Hannover Sophies. Supposedly, one reason why Anne forbade any of the Hannover relations, but especially Sophie, to put one foot on British shore as long as she was still alive was because she was aware that there would be a rival court (as there always is around a successor) , because for all that Sophie was 35 years older than Anne, she had such a vivid personality, and showed no bit of senility, remaining sharp and witty till the end, that Anne would have been overshadowed. And I think these excerpts demonstrate something of that.
Re: Sophie of Hannover: Memoirs - II (Visiting France)
I dare say Sophie Charlotte/Marie Louise would have been more fun than Marie Louise's actual marriage.
I'd ship it! ...[reads wiki] ...yeah, I would definitely be into Sophie Charlotte/Marie Louise fix-it fic :P
because for all that Sophie was 35 years older than Anne, she had such a vivid personality, and showed no bit of senility, remaining sharp and witty till the end, that Anne would have been overshadowed. And I think these excerpts demonstrate something of that.
I am slowly collating and formatting the Camas conversations, at selenak's request, for rheinsberg, and what should I find but this:
In January 1737 for example, Fritz writes a note to thank Camas for sending him cheese
Why is this notable?
selenak: BTW, the very first Trier letter from Fritz to Heinrich is dated Rheinsberg, February 3rd 1737, and goes thusly:
My dearest brother, I am infinitely obliged to you for your memories, and for the cheeses you are kind enough to send me. I would like to have something that could be pleasant to you, in order to show you, my dear brother, that the friendship that I have for you does not yield anything to that which you have for me. You may be sure, my dearest brother. I am forever with sincere friendship, My dearest brother, Your most faithful brother and servant, Frederic. Put me, I pray you, very respectfully at the Queen's feet, and assure her from me that no one can be more attached to her than I am.
So January 1737 was the year of sending Fritz cheese for his 25th birthday.
Selena's theory hitherto: larder-raiding by Heinrich during the visit of an unnamed brother to Ruppin in May 1736.
My super boring theory: Fritz is visiting Berlin for the 1736/1737 holidays. Mentions really liking cheese (probably with reference to which kind(s)). Gets cheese from multiple parties for his subsequent birthday. (And future birthdays, judging by other letters.)
And based on "my brother" with no further elaboration being AW in a future letter to Suhm, the recipient of the original "my brother showed up and only wanted to eat" 1736 babysitting letter, I'm leaning toward the anonymous 1736 visitor being AW and Asprey being off the mark when he said it was Heinrich (with no citation).
But I still super want Rococo babysitting fic, I'm SOLD on this as an awesome fanon. :)
Now that's just a cheesey way of turning 25. :) Though seriously, your theory sounds like the correct one. Still doesn't explain Ferdinand the coming menace and worst child of FW, though! (Unless he hit Fitz' dog by accident not in Ruppin or Rheinsberg but at Wusterhausen?) (Did Fritz have a dog at Wusterhausen?)
Having just incorporated Selena's pages and pages of hard work on Gundling, Knobelsdorff, and Manteuffel into the main chronology, I see that we have 33 pages of chronology, covering about 260 distinct days of the year.
Is anyone interested in receiving a daily email (or I guess an email 2 out of every 3 days...for now) titled "On this day in Frederician Fandom" and consisting of items from the chronology that happened on this day? Because I could write code to parse the file and send us those emails, it wouldn't be too difficult.
Let me know if you want in! I've been meaning to do it for a long time now, and our chronology is now finally long enough that it might be worth it. And I'll be more likely to get around to it if other people are interested as well. :)
In the interests of regaining my momentum on German, when even yelling by cahn isn't doing the trick :(, I'm going to try recounting one fact from my daily reading, even if my daily reading doesn't meet a quota.
Today's fact(s) from the childbearing world: childbirth was in a transitional phase, when learned physicians were trying to take it out of the hands of superstition and midwives and turn it into a science. MT was surprisingly on board with this! (This would backfire starting in a few decades, because more doctors + more instruments = more chances to infect your patient, oops.) She was like, "No amulets for me! I have a doctor, and he's been to the university and has written pamphlets."
She was *also* like, "And there will not be a debate about childbirth techniques among different schools of thought. There will be one opinion, and it will be the opinion of the guy I hired, and it will be disseminated downwards in strict hierarchical manner. He is the Pope of childbirth!" (paraphrased)
So she sends her grown children doctors who went to the school of her guy, and she got upset when her children would listen to other people or have opinions of their own. She strictly told one of her sons not to allow anyone unauthorized in the birthing room, and never to let a third party hear him express his own views on childbirthing to the doctor she sent.
Semi-enlightened, as Stollberg-Rilinger says.
One change that was in transition during this period was that women were moving from the traditional method of giving birth sitting/squatting over a birthing stool, to the doctor-approved method of giving birth lying in bed. MT gave birth to some of her kids one way, others the other way.
People went to great lengths to get their weak-looking babies baptized before they could die unbaptized and go to limbo. (Where their souls were subject to manipulation by witches who could summon them as revenants into this world.) Some midwives squirted water into the womb! Some parents took their dead babies to a church that would perform "miracles," and momentarily bring the baby back from the dead, conveniently just long enough to baptize it.
Because it's not traumatic enough to have just lost a baby, you have to also worry about it ending up in limbo and being used for witchcraft.
Because birth was a very public affair, there was protocol even when the baby died. When MT gave birth to a baby that died moments after it was born--they officially claimed that it survived long enough to be baptized, but much like FS, we have reason to doubt this--she had her guy in charge of protocol research what to do now. And he found that, since the baby had died, there would be no 3 days of festivities, but because the mother had survived, there would be one day of festivities.
MT, for what Stollberg-Rilinger calls "understandable reasons," vetoed even one day of celebrating after she had lost a baby. But apparently the orders the court received were contradictory, and so no one knew what clothes to wear. This led the guy in charge of protocol to complain that there was Not Enough Protocol at this court! (A recurring theme in his writings.)
Because it's not traumatic enough to have just lost a baby, you have to also worry about it ending up in limbo and being used for witchcraft.
OMG. My religion says explicitly (in the Book of Mormon) that infant baptism (in particular, the belief that unbaptized children go to limbo/hell) is an "abomination," which I always thought was really too strong but... now I can see how one might really have felt that way. The Book of Mormon was published in 1830, and I can't believe it never occurred to me to check the dates before but Joseph and Emma Smith lost a baby in 1828. (And lost others as well, but afterwards.) Ugh. :(
This led the guy in charge of protocol to complain that there was Not Enough Protocol at this court! (A recurring theme in his writings.)
Speaking of people prone to use euphemisms, I had dimly recalled Stratemann, otherwise FW Fan No.1. among the envoys, does mention Gundling's ghastly funeral, though I hadn't translated the passage in question in my big Stratemann write up, just mentioned it. So I looked it up again right now, and wow. Stratemann has all the horrid details, and his editor Wolff, otherwise also a FW fan who doesn't lose an opportunity to chide Wilhelmine for being a bad, unloving daughter, grudgingly adds a footnote that the recent Hohenzollern Jahrbuch essay by Schneider "proving" that the barrel of wine burial has to be a legend since FW would never has thus been made redundant due to an impeccable contemporary witness.
Stratemann first mentions Gundling's death at the end of his dispatch from April 14th:
Last Wednesday, the famous Baron v. Gundling has left this world at 10 in the morning, and the well known writer of entertainments, Faßmann, now has his post, though he has made it a condition: that he was to have familiar conversations only with the King, and with no one else.
"Familiäre Conversation", eh? That's one way to describe it. In the next dispatch, dated April 28th 1731, Stratemann offers much more detail. He starts the dispatch by saying FW entertains himself with daily par force hunting, taking along not just the younger kids, the Queen and his fave officers, but now for the first time Gundling's successor Faßmann.
Said Faßmann will be introduced, like his predecessor, in all local colleges, the financial directory and will be made Geheimer Rat, and will be presented to the Academy of Sciences as their next President. He also enjoys the complete Gundling salary of 1200 or 1500 Reichstaler per annum and fodder for two horses. As the King approached him for the job, he has argued with His Majesty: That he should be treated at court on a completely different footing from Gundling. The King was his lord and master, and he would suffer anything from him, but! all the others should keep out of his face and should pay him the respect due to a royal Geheimer Rat, otherwise he would forego all respect towards no matter which person and would take up St. Peter's sword.* Whereupon he was given the reaussurance: that he would be protected against everyone, and it wouldn't be allowed that anyone should harm him or do anything else.
He's also being given the favor: that in the royal lunch room, a small table has been set up and that he is to share food on it served to the royal table. He's now working at his latest entertainment, a "Conversation among the Dead" featuring the famous Saxonian Taubmann and the lately died Gundling.
Of the later, his predecessor, the following story has reached me from Potsdam: the preachers there have decidedly not wanted to join the procession; whereupon the larger part of their funding has been withdrawn from them; the generals and officers, on the other hand, have put all scruples aside and have done the King's will in this.
( ...) by editor Wolff. The next printed part of the dispatch deals with Küstrin rumors about Fritz getting food and drink delicacies mailed to him by the sympathetic population. However, Stratemann also attachs the news agent report about Gundling's funeral to his dispatch, and Wolff quotes it in the footnote.
News Agent report: Last Thursday, the funeral rites of Geheimer Rat Gundling took place, which were remarkable indeed. For as soon as Gundling had died, his wife, who had been here throughout his illness, had to leave again. Following this, the King had (Gundling) dressed up in his proper robes, put on a stretch and had him carried across the market in public by two fellows into a citizen's house. There, he was put into a coffin which had been an ordinary barrel of wine, and which still had its pegs and hoops attached, and there until his funeral was exhibited for everyone to gawk at. The barrel of wine had been cut in the middle, since one half had to serve as the top,and on this top was written the following inscription:
Here lies in his skin, half man, half pig, a marvellous thing: Smart in his youth, mad in his age, witty at dawn, at sunset full of rage, thus Bacchus shouts in all this bling: That dear child of his is Gundling!
On Friday afternoon at 2 pm the procession happened thusly: this barrel was put on a stretch and was carried by thirty tailors, and the entire school and his footman were marching in front of the coffin wearing mourning; after the coffin, the castellan and headmaster followed as the bereaved, then all the generals and officers from the regiments, and allpresent Geheime and Kriegs-Räte, doctors and physicians of regiments; then the entire city council, and representatives of the guilds. All this the King had ordered, and the citizens were threatened with five Reichstaler fee to pay if they should stay away. The procession passed the palace and the garnison church, went to the Brandenburg Gate, after which the company returned, while the coffin, or rather, the barrel, was put on a cattle truck, and was buried in Bornstedt. This much about a such a remarkable funeral.
Epitaph Gundling has now drunk his last, can no longer have a blast from the wine this barrel held, and regret he must have felt. Therefore this was his last will: that his belly with wine to fill, should be put in such a hose, in which he'd often put his nose throughout his life. Now readers, if you are not thick: admit this man was nothing but a pig!
Next dispatch, dated May 5th, opens: As I hear from Potsdam, the King isn't feeling well at all, but has been hurt by a boar attacking with his tusks on his foot, which subsequently has swollen up massively. So he has been much inconvenienced.
Small justice. As is Faßmann lasting only until July the same year, at which point he's realised what FW's promises were worth, got into a nasty antisemetic argument with a Jew named Marcus to boot and flees Prussia. The next few attempts to replace Gundling don't last much longer, until Morgenstern. But seriously, the cruelty of it all is breathtaking every time I read about it. FW taking away funding from the five rebels, and fining anyone else who dares to stay away: go figure. Of course, it's also telling of the era's toleration of "pranks" towards an ennobled commoner like Gundling that Stratemann sees no reason to prettify any of this, whereas the Katte saga has such touches like him believing the tribunal wanted a death sentence and FW would pardon him, or that Fritz' release is immminent, or that Wilhelmine got locked up for months only because she was so sick.
It's been over a year since I've read Kloosterhuis, and it's strictly speaking not his subject, but I don't recall him mentioning Gundling anywhere in his book, not just when analysing the escape attempt related documents but when talking about FW's character in general.
*St. Peter's Sword: allusion to Peter cutting off the ear of one of the guards arresting Jesus.
Stratemann, unexpected source. Although I did remember you telling us about his reports on unsuccessful successor recruitment efforts, which read even less lighthearted now.
But seriously, the cruelty of it all is breathtaking every time I read about it.
Totally. I kind of just wanted to stop reading once I encountered the pig detail. :(
And then I got to the money detail, which, really? There's so much effort put into this from FW's side.
Volz reviewing Richter, summarized: After Burchardt already published a selection of these letters, I'm thrilled the public is now able to read all of the preserved the Fritz/Fredersdorf letters, edited by the late Richter. Go him for this public service! With some minor nitpicks, to which I'll get in time.
Now, we Fritz researchers knew these letters before, of course. Koser, for example, had read all of them, as he told me himself back in the day when we debated Fritz. But now normal readers, too, can enjoy this correspondence, which is unique in Fritz' life, not just for the fact he keeps writing in German but because of the emotion shown therein. Mind you, of course his relationship with Frederdorf can't be compared to those he had with Jordan, D'Argens, Keyslerlngk, both because Fredersdorf was socially so far below him and because he wasn't intellectually his match at all. But wow, did he care regardless! And I'm telling you, readers, Fredersdorf deserved it, being tireless, dutiful and utterly trustworthy and unbribably in Fritz' service. (Since I'm writing this in the late 1920s, and there isn't a contemporary source I have not seen, this means that whatever caused the "Fredersdorf got fired for embezzling" story at wiki must have been published after my review.)
On to Richter's editing practices. He explains a lot, and keeps repeating himself, sometimes in small essay length. Also he has opinions I disagree with. Take the tragedy of Fritz' marriage. Here, Richter manages to miss both the times Fritz is scapegoating EC for the errors of her family (!), and the fact more recent biographers have demonstrated she wasn't such a saint herself. (I mean, I've helped my buddy Schmidt-Lötzen translate Lehndorff's diaries. I know whereof I speak.) And good lord, do I ever disagree with Richter's explanation for why Fritz & marriage were a doomed pairing. Even when Richter is defending Fritz, he gets it wrong. Look, to refute the broken penis theory, just point towards my essay on how this is rubbish. And we all know that there are only "the dirtiest of sources" for the accusation of same sex relationships, so why bother with that? (What do you mean, Lehndorff's diary entries on Marwitz and Glasow?) Fact is: Fritz got all the affection he needed via FRIENDSHIP. Marriage, as a social construct, was far too confining for his independent soaring spirit, and any woman, not just one forced on him by his Dad (which is the reason Richter gives for the marriage tragedy), would have been doomed. Oh, and while we're at it, he didn't hate women. He just hated the silly types. Just look at his letters to Countess Camas to see how much he respected women who deserved it
Back to Richter. Instead of eight pages on EC and the marriage, Richter, you should have written more background on theatre and music in the age of Fritz, because that's way more interesting (and also important for both Fritz and Fredersdorf). And what I really must chide you for is that you a) don't present the entire letters, and b) don't indicate when you cut and edit. Look, I've cut in my editions of the Fritz/Wilhelmine letters, too, but I goddam show it! Not indicating when there's a cut is just not cool, and no, it' s no comfort to hear a scienfic complete edition for academics is planned.
(selenak: it's no comfort for me, either, Volz, because it never got published, to this day.)
Especially since you cut some theatre stuff which I for one think is VERY INTERESTING INDEED, how often do I have to repeat this? And now, readers of this review, let me add some background stuff Richter didn't mention, because I'm cool like that. Fredersdorf's spy with the Austrians was Legationssekretär Weingarten. How do I know? Because there's a whole file on his reports in the Secret State Archive, complete with Fredersdorf's annotations and observations.
And good lord, does Richter fuck up with all the alchemy stuff. Those letters dealing with Fritz briefly actually falling into temptation and trying alchemy as well to beef up his budget all deal with an event happening in September 1753 and are directly connected, even if they are undated. See also Burchardt. Richter spreads them through the correspondence and misdates them, putting the last ones into November. Oh, and why isn't there more about Fredersdorf's role in the Voltaire showdown if you print the Voltaire-to-Fredersdorf's letter, Richter?
I won't even bother with minor errors like: no, Fritz did not attend Keyslerlingk's daughter's wedding. There was a war going on at the time. And wouldn't you know it, but Richter has unquestioningly accepted the completely faulty edition of Countess Voss' diaries which I made mincemeat of re: what that editor did with the misidentifications.
Still, all in all: that book is a must for any Fritz fan! I should have edited it, though.
Thank you for the review! No time to reply in full this morning, but:
(Since I'm writing this in the late 1920s, and there isn't a contemporary source I have not seen, this means that whatever caused the "Fredersdorf got fired for embezzling" story at wiki must have been published after my review.)
Yeah, I'm increasingly suspecting Alfred Weise, and will ask Buwert, probably this weekend.
([personal profile] selenak: it's no comfort for me, either, Volz, because it never got published, to this day.)
Curses!
Those letters dealing with Fritz briefly actually falling into temptation and trying alchemy as well to beef up his budget all deal with an event happening in September 1753 and are directly connected, even if they are undated
Iiinteresting.
Richter has unquestioningly accepted the completely faulty edition of Countess Voss' diaries which I made mincemeat of re: what that editor did with the misidentifications.
I remember that! Richter! Even *I* noticed immediately that the editor was making historical howlers, and that was before we read Volz's take!
I should have edited it, though.
Indeed! And I still lament that scholarly edition.
I read a bit more about Knobelsdorff, mostly descendant Wilhelm von Knobelsdorff's (WvK) 1860 bio. He has a lot of conjecture and really doesn't approve of Knobelsdorff's relationship with Charlotte Schöne (sigh), but he seems to have checked some primary sources and also reminded me of a couple of things.
According to him, Knobelsdorff was stationed in Küstrin - in 1714. But then he went to war and after the war he was stationed in various places, particularly in Fürstenwalde in 1728 and then in Berlin proper from April 1729 on, and then he left the military in June with a final promotion to captain. (He footnotes Geheime Kriegskanzlei for all of these, so I'm inclined to think they are reliable.) Therefore, WvK says, Knobelsdorff meeting Fritz at Küstrin is a legend, but he also has his own theory: They already met in 1729 in Berlin! But there's no proof of course. (Which he acknowledges but then he keeps talking about it like it's fact anyways. It isn't entirely impossible I guess, especially if Knobelsdorff met Pesne in 1729, but, well. No proof at all.)
No mention of FW facilitating a Knobelsdorff/Fritz meeting either, but not only did Knobelsdorff paint FW in 1737, Fritz is quite deferential in a letter to FW regarding Knobelsdorff and where he is supposed to be, see May 1737: I also humbly report to my most gracious father that Captain Knobelsdorff has arrived here again. I will keep him here until I hear my most gracious father's order about him. He told me a lot about Italy, where he was with a certain Count Firmond. In Florence he broke his arm on the way back, which was to blame for his long absence. (Read: His long absence had nothing to do at all with any secret missions related to hiring Italian opera singers for me, no way. ... that said, I'm still not quite clear on what Fritz would have done with them in 1737, if Knobelsdorff had managed to poach any.)
Something I was reminded of: Fritz asked Knobelsdorff to take care of Keyserlingk's daughter in 1745, together with Countess Camas. Also, Bielfeld's description of him as "common sense [bon sens] personified". Which is what Fritz praises Countess Camas for as well, so he appointed two common sense people to look after Keyserlingk's daughter, which I find interesting.
(Lehndorff: And yet!)
Also, Knobelsdorff's Tiergarten property went through several hands after his death, but in 1785 Ferdinand bought it and built Bellevue there.
Probably only interesting to me (although I'm curious if Selena knows the expression as well): there's a German expression, "bis in die Puppen aufbleiben/schlafen", which means staying up/sleeping late, i.e. very long. Apparently, that expression hails from the Tiergarten, where Knobelsdorff built a rondel with lots of statues - dubbed "dolls" (Puppen) by the people - at the far end (today Großer Stern), which took a long time to get to from the city (so far out that it's not even on the 1748 plan). The more you know.
Knobelsdorff painted two portraits (that we know of) of his life partner Sophie Charlotte Schöne - one is here - and they had two daughters, Charlotte Sophie (* 12.01.1748) and Caroline Juliane (* 12.12.1751). Poor kids lost their father really young, even younger than Peter's. :(
Which brings me to the question: Does WvK mention Peter? Kind of! He clearly doesn't know who he is or where he belongs, but he does mention Lt.Col. Keith in two different contexts:
1. Being Knobelsdorff's successor in charge of the Tiergarten, which is where he calls him an "Englishman" and guesses that's why he got the job. (Which, funny enough, still kind of works with Selena's theory re: Hyde Park.) He refers to Raumer for his Tiergarten info, though, so nothing new here.
2. He doesn't seem to have had access to Knobelsdorff's will, speculating about it, but he apparently had some later documents referring to it. At least, he says that "his Rheinsberg friends, General v. Buddenbrock and Oberlieutenant von Keith, become executors of the will and the first one also guardian for the children". He seems to have had a 1767 source for this - which is when the two daughters sold the Kronenstrasse house they'd inherited, which is documented at the state archive (Engel mentions it) - and he does mention that Keith was dead at that point. He also says that the executors of the will made a deal with Knobelsdorff's brother, who got some additional money and in turn agreed to not contest the will.
Finally, WvK includes an appendix with three documents: two of Knoblesdorff's letters to Fritz from Italy (in German!) based on copies at the state archive, and his last letter to him regarding the status of his daughters (in French) based on the original at the state archive.
Excerpt from an Italy letter, January 27th, 1737, written in Rome, an example of Knobelsdorff having opinions:
Regarding the antiques, one can see clearly how much the Greeks surpassed the Romans in this art, and how much the current Romans are even below their ancestors. Regarding the buildings, it's the same and it's only a pity that the first Christian Emperor Constantine the Great didn't have the same enthusiasm for the sciences as he did for religion, and therefore had all the pagan temples destroyed to build bad and lousy churches for the true God out of the excellent debris. One has to wonder how, at the rising of the light of faith, the understanding in all other sciences fell into such darkness that it hasn't really recovered with the Italians to this day. [...] the number of the truly learned is small compared to their admirable predecessors, who showed them a straight path to perfection, and so this path will hardly be found, since all scriptures are banned in which sound reason shines even a little, the human mind is locked into narrow rules, and the right philosophy is thought of as atheism.
I have to say, it's almost like hearing Fritz talk to Wilhelmine here, almost twenty years later. Kind of makes me wonder how much Knobelsdorff influenced his view on current day Italy, although he also had Algarotti of course. (Who in turn had his own correspondence with Knobelsdorff.) Knobelsdorff also reports on opera and religious events he witnessed, and he sends Fritz two landscape sketches. The other Italy letter is from March, written in Venice, and he reports his broken elbow (ouch!) and that he didn't have much luck poaching Italian opera singers for Fritz ("Ich bin chagrin" - aw).
The last letter, written ten days before his death:
Sire, I feel the last moments of my life approaching, and I take advantage of a break in the pain to express the feelings of gratitude with which I have been filled due to all the benefits and kindnesses Your Majesty showered on me during my life. These same kindnesses give me the confidence that Y.M. will grant me confirmation of the disposition I made in favor of two children whose existence I caused. This grace will give me consolation during the last moments of my life, which this old servant will use to wish for the reign of Your Majesty to be as long as it is glorious.
As far as I know, Fritz granted the petition, recognizing the two daughters as Knobelsdorff's heirs (without the nobility rights, though!), but I'm not sure if he did it quickly enough for Knobelsdorff to learn about it, since the official document is from November. But maybe he promised him in time - as I've mentioned, Fritz' letters to Knobelsdorff seem to be gone.
Finally, one little exchange that did survive, from May 1748, is a small dispute regarding some bills for the marble gallery at the Potsdam Town Palace (again in German), which is at Trier (partly) and reported by Seidel among others. It's mostly interesting because one letter is from Knobelsdorff to Fredersdorf, asking for "WTF is going on?" intel on the letter Fritz wrote him and calling Fredersdorf "verehrtester Freund", which reminded me that they were freemasons together.
If Knobelsdorff actually served at Küstrin at some point in his military career, even if it was many years pre Fritz, I can see how the rumor got started and Manger got confused.
I'm still not quite clear on what Fritz would have done with them in 1737, if Knobelsdorff had managed to poach any
Well, in 1737, he was in Rheinsberg happily collecting an orchestra and having concerts. He and Wilhelmine keep mentioning this musician or that or such and such being outstanding (or especially annoying) in their letters around that time. Now, of course he didn't have an opera to let the singers perform in yet, but that wasn't necessary for a patron to hire singers for. He could have let them sing for himself and his guests, concert performances. (Which was how Elisabeth Gertrud Schmeling Mara always performed for him much later, for example, when he did have a Knobelsdorff-build opera for her to perform in (which she also did, but additionally there were Fritz-specific concerts).
Btw, I'm not surprised Knobelsdorff didn't get any. A) budget, and b) if you were an Italian singer in 1737, would you dare to travel to FW's Prussia?
Fritz asked Knobelsdorff to take care of Keyserlingk's daughter in 1745, together with Countess Camas. Also, Bielfeld's description of him as "common sense [bon sens] personified". Which is what Fritz praises Countess Camas for as well, so he appointed two common sense people to look after Keyserlingk's daughter, which I find interesting.
(Lehndorff: And yet!)
LOL. Well, Knobelsdorff wasn't around anymore when Adelaide started running wild, and there was a war going on where most of the adults around her were flirting and dancing with enemy officers and having affairs. BTW, when did Mrs. Keyserlingk die? Because the Fredersdorf letters mention her, but Lehndorff's diary does not. Did she die? I hope Fritz didn't take her daughter from her?
"Puppen" phrase: no, this South German has not heard it.
I have to say, it's almost like hearing Fritz talk to Wilhelmine here, almost twenty years later. Kind of makes me wonder how much Knobelsdorff influenced his view on current day Italy, although he also had Algarotti of course.
It also reminds me of something else: Winckelmann - who had a far more positive attitude towards Italy in general, though - made the same mistake Knobelsdorff makes, to wit: 90% of the statues believed to be Greek originals and thus proving the superiority of Greek sculptors over Roman ones which Winckelmann saw in Italy in the early to mid 18th century were actually, as we now can tell, Roman era copies. (Where Knobelsdorff is unusual is in claiming Greek superiority for buildings as well, especially given that as far as I know he didn't visit Greece, and the Pantheon, which even in the 18th century was available to visit, usually knocks out architect afficiniados the first time they see it. (There's a reason it got so widely copied all over the world.) (Did he make it to Naples? Because the underground water system, which worked from the time of Augustus till the mid 19th century when an earthquake did it in, is another masterpiece of Roman architecture which could be visited even then; I think Wilhelmine saw that as well when she was there.) But yes, otherwise the views very much sound like Fritz' letter to Wilhelmine. Complaining about current day Italy being held back by Catholic superstition is pretty much a trope not just for Protestant Germans; Dickens' notes on Italy a century later contain much about this as well. And there's a reason why Algarotti sought employment elsewhere for a long time. Otoh, it's worth pointing out that Laura Bassi as the first female professor at a European university happened in Bologna centuries before any German state (or Britain, or France) followed suite. And as for art, I remember Wilhelmine liking current day Italian painters (and praising them to Fritz as cheap to acquire), and Algarotti sold August III. a whole gallery of them. (Which ended up stored in Hubertusburg in the 7 Years War and then suffered the fate of the rest of Hubertusburg.)
Generally, the series of tropes:
- Greeks were superior to Romans - Christianity made Romans decline to weak/superstitious/degenerate/negative attribute of choice/Italians - the only thing of worth current day Italy produces is music
- shows up repeatedly in male Protestant Italy visitors (with the notable exception of Goethe) in the era. It's interesting that the female letter and memoirs writing visitors - Anna Amalia, Wilhelmine, Lady Mary, also Sophie in the one half a year trip she took with her husband early in the marriage - have a go at the Catholic processions and the Catholic church as well (in varying degrees of critique), but they aren't at all prone to the "the Greeks were better!" or "current day Italy/Italians are so weak compared to their past!" or "The only good thing current day Italy produces is music" tropes the men go for. Instead, you get a lot of "I live like in a dream", "I'm learning so much!" and "OMG, so much better climate!" in their initial reactions. (I mean, obviously Lady Mary after years of actually living there has more to critisize. But not those tropes.)
It's mostly interesting because one letter is from Knobelsdorff to Fredersdorf, asking for "WTF is going on?" intel on the letter Fritz wrote him and calling Fredersdorf "verehrtester Freund", which reminded me that they were freemasons together.
That is fascinating. (Also argues against Team Claus Back and Martin Stade's fictional Knobelsdorff/Fredersdorf feud in "Der Meister von Sanssouci".)
I finally finished Orieux! (Actually a couple of weeks ago at this point, but it has taken me this long to sit down and write about it.) It was SO GOOD and near the end I could feel myself drawing it out a little so I wouldn't have to finish reading it. Orieux really gets that what I want out of history is well-thought-out-and-well-analyzed-and-well-sourced gossipy sensationalism delivered in anecdotal bite-sized chunks (of which selenak is the master, of course) -- but still with overriding themes and a through-line. And boy was Voltaire's life basically tailor-made to deliver that -- but Orieux also leaned into it for all it was worth.
I really loved how Orieux makes Voltaire come alive as someone who had so SO many faults (SO MANY, lol, the innumerable places where Orieux was all "...and here's yet another example where ANY ACTUAL GROWNUP would have LET IT GO, but did Voltaire? I will give you one guess.") but also at the same time so many amazing virtues, many of which were in some sense part and parcel with his flaws -- I mean, I guess it is old news to salon at this point (at least dating back to selenak reading Orieux and reporting back to us! Which, btw, thank you SO much, because that review is the reason why I read it) that the Voltaire who Could Not Let Things Go is the same Voltaire of the Calas affair, but it is really cool to see Orieux make those connections implicitly and explicitly.
It does make me wish that we got more biographies these days that were written as literature and where the biographers weren't afraid to have overt opinions. Orieux has Decided Opinions about everything and is not shy about owning it (and usually has evidence, though okay, sometimes is sloppy as selenak noted in her writeup), and it is GREAT. As opposed to, say, the Zinsser Émilie bio (of which more below), which had a Whole Lot of implicit opinions that she presents as "research," which is much drier without (as far as I can tell) being any more factually correct (and in fact probably less so, see below).
Unfortunately I wasn't taking good notes while reading, so I can't deliver the extremely long writeup that I would had I been taking notes, because every couple of pages or so I was like "omg I need to talk about this with salon, this is SO GREAT." Oh! but I did take a couple of notes on Émilie which I have now found, so here you go :D
-I am coming to the same conclusion about Zinsser's Emilie bio that selenak has already come to: to wit, that Zinsser employs bad faith to make Voltaire (and also Sainte-Lambert in some ways) come off as The Worst. I mean, there's no need for this; Voltaire as he comes across in Orieux is certainly full enough of vices that one need not also erase all his virtues. And in Orieux their relationship is, umm, extremely drama-filled, so you could still think they were better apart without Voltaire having to have been The Worst. (It's not clear to me that Orieux is unfair to her factually, although as selenak noted, for example, he doesn't seem to have any context for why her Newton work was actually extremely intellectually nontrivial.)
One difference between the Emilie bios and Orieux is that Emilie is portrayed in Orieux as much more of an inveterate gambler who loses money hand over fist. This occurs most strikingly in the incident where she loses money all day at which point Voltaire says, "Don't you realize you're playing with knaves?" and they both have to flee because you don't call the French court knaves :P In Orieux's telling (in which admittedly he is editorializing/romanticizing):
One evening, playing at the Queen's tables, she started to lose badly. The four hundred louis she had on her disappeared in a few moments; and she had not accumulated them without difficulty. Voltaire watched with mounting vexation; he hated wasting time and money in that way. Nevertheless he handed over to Emilie the two hundred louis he had in his pocket. They were swallowed up as quickly as the rest. He ventured a few remarks, but they were curtly rejected. So he resigned himself to dispatching a footman to borrow another two hundred louis at an exorbitant rate from a business acquaintance. But Mademoiselle du Thil, who had been of such help in stagemanaging the appearance of his emissaries at the Pope's palace, happened to be present, and she gladly lent a hundred and eighty louis. The divine algebrist flung them all down, but instead of multiplying they all disappeared. Voltaire begged her to withdraw from the game, but she only jumped down his throat again and went on playing, giving her word in place of stakes. Then the real disaster began. She lost eighty-four thousand livres, which with the nine hundred louis she had lost earlier made a hundred and three thousand livres. Madame du Châtelet was not a rich woman. Voltaire had been following what happened with the silent fury and clairvoyance of one who has foreseen all and been powerless to prevent it. He had seen her rush headlong to her ruin. As she made her last unlucky throw of the dice he could not contain himself any longer and said, in English, “Do you not see that you are playing with knaves?"
[Totally unrelated to my point, but I love the soubriquet "the divine algebraist" and need to find more excuses to use it :D Perhaps I shall start calling various math/tech people of my acquaintance "the divine geometer" and "the divine engineer" and so on.]
Whereas in Zinsser -- I am too lazy to go look it up, but I am pretty sure she spins this in a way that doesn't reflect badly on Emilie and reflects badly on Voltaire for calling everyone knaves by eliding a lot of this in-between material. I'm willing to believe it's in-between what Orieux and what Zinsser say, buuuuut I'm betting Orieux was actually drawing from his source (whatever it was) and that Zinsser just kind of glossed over all of that.
Also, just because this is bugging me: The part where I was most irritated by Voltaire in Zinsser is the bit where, after Emilie has a baby, Voltaire says "I [having completed a play] am more fatigued than she!" Well, Orieux says that Voltaire wrote to d'Argental, "Last night Madame du Châtelet, scribbling away at Newton, felt a slight call of Nature. She called a chambermaid, who only just had time to hold out her apron and catch a little daughter, whom she then carried off to cradle. Her mother put away her papers, and as I write this they are both sleeping as soundly as dormice."
Which... if it's part of the same letter that he said he was more fatigued than she was, he's clearly talking about how the birth was very easy, not about how it's All About Him and how tired he is. (I mean, this is Voltaire, it's kind of always all about him... but this strikes me as principally adorably sweet and relieved about Emilie.) And I am grumpy mostly at Zinsser for the bad faith reading, but also at myself for taking it on faith and not demanding context :P So, here I am asking for context! :D Are these both quotes from the same D'Argental letter? Is this letter available to denizens of salon??
-It's definitely cut from the version selenak read, bah, both small and large cuts. There were a couple of bits from selenak's writeup that I could not find in my English copy. I guess maybe someday I will have to read this in French (I don't think I can handle it in German, sorry).
-Also, there is a very weird typo in the English edition I have that systematically calls Fredersdorf "Fredendorff" (both in my hard copy and in the one mildred sent, and including the index!) which confused me no end when I first read it ("Fritz has this secretary Fredendorff that I've never heard of before?") but fortunately selenak's writeup included talking about the Frankfurt affair (the only place where "Fredendorff" shows up) and that made it clear. But also kind of hilarious to me :)
-I must admit that though I was riveted almost the entire time, there were bits where Orieux goes on about various visitors Voltaire had (especially in his later years) where I was, okay, kinda bored :)
-Wow, Orieux reeeeeally does not like Madame Denis. I feel like I cannot at all analyze whether/how much this is justified. I can see that in the stories Orieux tells there is room for a Madame Denis (as selenak said somewhere else in salon) who is more interesting and nuanced than the greedy buffoon that he thinks she is, but it seems a bit harder for me to argue with, e.g., Madame Denis and Voltaire's last days -- ? Would love to get some insight on this from you rigorous critical thinker types <3
-Guy Endore (*) wrote a historical novel called Voltaire! Voltaire! that's actually (as far as I can tell) about Rousseau, and after reading this I can see why! They seem to have clashed rather a lot. So... that is moving right up on my reading list.
(*) He wrote King of Paris, a historical novel (well, if you can call it that... it's written in the style of a biography but one that takes extreme novelistic liberties and novelistic theme/plot -- in fact, now that I think about it, it has a lot in common with Orieux' writing, but decidedly landing on the fiction side rather than the biography side) about Alexandre Dumas pere et fils that is still my favorite book that Awesome French Teacher lent me and that I really highly recommend, though it's out of print now.
-But next on my list is the Arianrhod, which I have started! (She does seem to portray Emilie as between Orieux and Zinsser.)
Edited (Sorry about that, Calas family!) 2021-04-10 05:35 (UTC)
To start with the end, re: Voltaire's death - this account, which discusses the various versions and legends, seems to be the most reliable to me I've read so far. It's in German, but you can employ that automatically translating google fu, right?
To go back to the beginning: yay for your review! I'm so glad you liked Orieux as much as I did, Opinions and all. And I'm doubly glad a French friend of mine recced it to me after reading my Voltaire & Fritz story.
I really loved how Orieux makes Voltaire come alive as someone who had so SO many faults (SO MANY, lol, the innumerable places where Orieux was all "...and here's yet another example where ANY ACTUAL GROWNUP would have LET IT GO, but did Voltaire? I will give you one guess.") but also at the same time so many amazing virtues, many of which were in some sense part and parcel with his flaws
Indeed, that's one sterling quality of this book, and such a tricky balance for a biographer to keep. (I mean, leaving aside biographies of people like Hitler and Stalin.) Usually they tend to either err in the bashing or in the blending out of vices direction, if they aren't so afraid of romantisizing that they're so ultra dry so they can't be possibly accused of being entertaining. But Orieux, as you say, shows flaws and virtues are directly interconnected, and if you disregard one, you're missing out on the completeness of the character.
Orieux on Émilie: I didn't have the impression that he's factually incorrect, either; that he does not offer the context as to why her work is so important is a minus, but as he actually likes her a lot (this is also a Decided Opinion of his, see Orieux stating that Émilie was worth ten of Parisian gossips like Madame Deffand, or, during the 1743 crisis when Voltaire is holidaying with Fritz in Prussia, that between the two of them - Voltaire and Émilie, not Fritz and Émilie - she was the more committed lover), I didn't see it as an intended slight, and more of a male biographer of his time kind of thing.
Émilie's gambling and the "knaves" incident: I think Orieux' description is actually based on a Voltaire letter to a friend directly after the event itself (though I could be wrong). Incidentally, Émilie letting gambling get away with her on that occasion (and earlier) at a point when she was unhappy reminds me that Ada Lovelace also thought she could use her gift as a mathematician for gambling in order to make money so she and Babbage could continue to work on his machine (i.e. the computer), and instead ended up addicted to gambling and losing huge sums. In the case of the Versailles incident, though, I think an additional factor was that Voltaire calling Émilie's opponents "knaves" certainly carries the implication that he thinks they're cheating, and for a commoner to accuse noblemen (and -women) of cheating is certainly a potential case of HOW DARE YOU INTO THE BASTILLE WITH YOU! Still, as I recall (book's back in the library since half a year or more) Zinsser's biography definitely slants opinion by putting the emphasis on this and leaving out Émilie had lost huge, huge sums at this point.
Sidenote: one thing I love about the entire incident is the reminder that Voltaire and Émilie talked English with each other when either not wanting to be understood by the other people around them (only in this case they were) or by being in an intense mood. In Lauren Gunderson's play, she has Émilie tell the audience re: Voltaire "luckily for you, we always argue in English, so you'll understand everything we say."
Which... if it's part of the same letter that he said he was more fatigued than she was, he's clearly talking about how the birth was very easy, not about how it's All About Him and how tired he is. (I mean, this is Voltaire, it's kind of always all about him... but this strikes me as principally adorably sweet and relieved about Emilie.)
I only know excerpts from biographies, not having access to the Enlightenment website which presumably has the entire letter, so I can't tell whether it's the same letter or not. However, given the few days that passed between Émilie giving birth and her sudden turn for the worse and death, I doubt Voltaire wrote to D'Argental twice in those few days. In any event, since Voltaire had been massively worried about Émilie giving birth this relatively late (for the era especially) in her life - see his reply to Fritz' "you're neither a midwife nor the dad, so why do you need to stick around for the birth at all, come to meeeeee!" letter - and since I had read the more complete description of her giving birth that you quote, I always took the "I had more problems with my play" as a joke in the same spirit of giddy relief. Yes, he was a massive egotist and hypochondriac. But he also had been (justifiably) very worried and now it looked like Émilie was fine, so adding a relieved joke like this to his description of her having given birth would come naturally to him. But Zinsser, who even sees in the front piece of Voltaire's Newton book dedicated to Émilie and written in the early part of their romance a kind of subtextual insult, of course saw it another way.
there is a very weird typo in the English edition I have that systematically calls Fredersdorf "Fredendorff"
LOL. I have a spontaneous theory about this which of course I can't verify without counterchecking Orieux' original French edition. Because consider this:
- in his memoirs, pamphlets and letters, Voltaire keeps misspelling Fredersdorf's name (Mildred listed a couple of versions in her original Voltaire write up, I think)
- in his massive bibliography, Orieux doesn't list a Fritz biography that's not a "Fritz and...." type of book or essay, i.e. "Fritz and Louis XV", "Fritz and Voltaire", "Fritz and French Enlightenment" etc. There is no "Life and times of Fritz" biography in it.
- studies with these subjects aren't likely to mention Fredersdorf, except for the "Fritz and Voltaire" ones, and of those only ones specializing in the Frankfurt episode
=> Conclusion: Orieux might not have known himself how Frederdorf's name was spelled, and gave a wrong version in his book, which the English translator promptly used as well. Whereas the German translator either counterchecked or actually knew some stuff about Fritz beforehand, including the correct version of Fredersdorf's name.
(Backup for this theory: in the German version of Voltaire's memoirs, Fredersdorf's name is spelled correctly all the way through, very much as opposed to the original French or the English translation.)
Guy Endore: I've read both King of Paris (which, like you, I love) and Voltaire!Voltaire!, which is indeed about Rousseau, and while predating Amadeus for decades, it basically interprets him feeling vis a vis Voltaire as Shaffer's Salieri does towards Mozart. It's entertaining and quite readable, but whereas the Dumas novel offers the relationship between both Alexandres (and arguably Catherine the mother of Dumas fils - I thought Endore did a great job making her a character in her own right) as emotional hooks, and makes Alexandre Dumas the Musketeer author such a larger than life personality, Voltaire! Voltaire! suffers from minimal actual Voltaire in it (he looms large in Rousseau's thoughts, of course, but the man himself hardly shows up), and Rousseau's neuroses and paranoia and increasing misery not being as good company.
Came across this one by Fritz from a November 1773 letter to Voltaire: Everything depends, for man, on the time when he comes into the world. Although I came too early, I do not regret it; I saw Voltaire; and if I no longer see him, I read him, and he writes to me.
Fritz thinking he was born too early was new to me, so I looked up the letter - and the quote comes at the end of a long passage where he is being sarcastic in response to Voltaire's sudden crusading ways:
You can be sure that the Empress of Russia, jealous of the glory of her nation, will know how to make peace without foreign aid. You who are, I believe, immortal, you would like to be a spectator of one of those great revolutions which are changing the face of Europe; blame the Empress of Russia for moderation if this revolution does not happen. [...]
But, tell me, how can you excite Europe to the fighting, after the sovereign contempt that you and the encyclopedics have displayed against warriors? Who will be daring enough to incur the great excommunication of the Patriarch of Ferney and all the subsequent encyclopedics? Who will want to win the fine title of driver of brigands, and of brigand himself? Believe that Greece will be left a slave, and that no prince will start the war before having obtained full indulgence from the philosophers.
From now on these gentlemen will govern Europe as the popes once subjected it. I even believe that M. Guibert will renounce his murderous art in your hands, and that he will become a Capuchin or a philosopher, to find in you a powerful protector. Philosophers must have missionaries to increase the number of such conversions; this way, they will imperceptibly relieve the states of their large armies, which damage them, and successively there will be no one left to fight. All sovereigns and peoples will no longer have these unhappy passions whose consequences are so fatal, and everyone will have reason as perfect as a geometric demonstration.
I very much regret that my age deprives me of such a beautiful spectacle, which I will not enjoy even at dawn; and my contemporaries will be pitied for having been born into a century of darkness, at the end of which began the twilight of the day of perfected reason. Everything depends [etc, see above]
So, definitely sarcasm, but I'm wondering if there's still a kernel of truth here. Because I also remembered this quote to Voltaire from almost 40 years earlier: I don't feel made for the century we live in (July 1737). I already wondered which century he felt made for back then, but kind of assumed it would be an earlier one for some reason, which is why the 1773 quote surprised me. Hmmm. Where would Fritz time-travel to, if he could?
--
While I'm here, Voltaire's response:
Sire, a beautiful lady from Paris (whom you hardly care about) claims that you will be angry with me for giving Your Majesty to the devil;* and I, I maintain that you will forgive me, and that Beelzebub will be very happy indeed, since there has never been anyone more devil than you at the head of an army, either to arrange a campaign plan, to execute it, or to repair. It is true that I do not like your profession as a hero at all, but I revere it; [...] As Your Majesty will probably receive my little package on the good Christmas holidays, and the God of Peace will be born within three weeks, I recommend myself to him, so that he may obtain my grace from you, and that you forgive me all the reproaches I have said to Your Majesty, and the cordial hatred I have for your profession as Caesar. This Caesar, as you know, forgave his enemies when he had conquered them; and you will have the same mercy for me, after having made fun of me. The old patient of Ferney, who is sometimes cheerful in the intervals of his sufferings, places himself at your feet with five or six kinds of veneration for your five or six kinds of great talents, and for your person who unites them.
* He'd just published a work containing the following lines: I hate all heroes, from the great Cyrus/ To that brilliant king who made Lentulus;/ No matter how much they praise their admirable conduct,/ I run away from them all, and I give them to the devil.
And of course, Fritz again: The lady from Paris was certainly wrong, and you guessed right by believing that I wouldn't be mad at anything you just wrote. Love and hate cannot be ordered, and everybody has the right to feel on this subject what they can; [...] Preserve this rejuvenated spirit, and, were you to satirize my bloody verse at the age of a hundred years, I will answer you in advance that I will not be angry, and that the Patriarch of Ferney can say everything he likes about the Philosopher of Sans-Souci. Vale.
... basically, you can throw a dart at their correspondence and come away with gems.
Though I didn't have much computer time this weekend, I did have a relative abundance of reading time, so I got all the way through the Émilie section of the Arianrhod (though I haven't read the appendices... yet).
I am quite impressed by Arianrhod's ability as a science writer. I'm familiar with the physics she covers -- though not nearly as much with the history of the science -- and I thought she did a great job of making it clear and accessible and demonstrating what they were thinking about back then, and the different strains of thought, and what we think today relative to what they thought then. I really felt like I learned a lot about all that, which I enjoyed a lot. (The only exception is when she talked about the double-slit experiment, which I realize is really beyond the scope of this book, but as someone who is familiar with the experiment, her description seemed rather muddled to me.)
I also really liked the way she disentangled the threads of how Émilie was instrumental in interpreting and arguing for Newton, and how although obviously Newton was a genius and did amazing and genius-y things which arguably no one else at the time could have done except for Leibniz (just kidding, lol, calculus aside), all these physics developments really depended on all these other people too (Edmond Halley, basically sweet-talking Newton into writing all his stuff down? Did not realize he was such a hero until this book!) and it made me think about the kinds of things we prioritize in terms of the stories we tell and the people we remember, and how some of that is shifting and becoming more inclusive -- by which I don't mean of women/minorities, though that's also happening and is a really good thing, but concurrent with that, the idea that it's not just Lone Genius Man (or even woman, or nb person) who is worth remembering and talking about. Which is a really good thing!
A couple of various thoughts (trying not to wholly duplicate what selenak has already written about; thank you for covering this and for writing about Laura Bassi and Mme de Graffigny!)
-LOL to reading this after Zinsser; Arianrhod clearly likes Voltaire a lot more than Zinsser (this is not hard) and mostly seems to agree with Orieux that they had a rather tempestuous relationship but that both of them were... kind of like that, and actually soulmates in a "we decided at some point we'd rather have sex with other people but you're still the awesomest" sort of way
She was fiery, while he was prone to awful sulking moods. She could be imperious and controlling... he was egotistical, and he could be passively aggressive, deliberately hurting her... Sometimes he hurled awful words that made her cry for hours, and she occasionally threw at him a spoon or a plate. But always they made up. Usually, after a dreadful scene... soon all would be forgiven and they would be laughing together. It was an intimacy very few people understood.
VOLTAIRE. Voltaire's taste in soulmate relationships, man, he does seem to have a bit of a type ;) (Though maybe not Mme Denis as much? Though they seem to have fought a lot too, though differently, according to Orieux.)
-After our discussion on Orieux and Zinsser (she has read Zinsser's work, and at some point I may go through her notes), I was charmed to see this:
It had all gone so well, Voltaire told a friend, that although the mother was now sleeping, she was not as tired as he was, having recently delivered his Catalina.
Go Arianrhod :P (Émilie :(((( )
Of course, she may err on the side of liking Voltaire:
Walking around Paris today, it is hard not to like and admire Voltaire, whose kindly face smiles down from the many statues erected to this great poet, dramatist, essayist, and revolutionary hero.
I... have never thought of his face as kindly (though I know he could be kind). More "like he's laughing at you. Possibly in a mostly-kind way."
Loved the following quote, and I feel like this sums up the balanced view that Arianrhod takes towards Émilie:
[Émilie] broke so many stereotypes about women and about mathematicians, stereotypes that lingered until the eve of the twenty-first century. She showed it is possible to be both emotional and rational, both intellectual and sexy. She was truly the 'divine Émilie'.
Edited 2021-04-12 05:47 (UTC)
Re: Arianrhod - some thoughts on the Émilie section
I am quite impressed by Arianrhod's ability as a science writer.
So was I, but then unlike you I'm a complete laywoman in this regard, so I'm gratified to hear Arianrhod holds up to you!
Arianrhod clearly likes Voltaire a lot more than Zinsser (this is not hard) and mostly seems to agree with Orieux that they had a rather tempestuous relationship but that both of them were... kind of like that
Yep. As you say, Voltaire clearly had a type. Did Émilie, though? Her men seem to be pretty different from each other. I mean, two we don't actually know whether or not she had affairs with them or was just friends with romantic overtones, i.e. Maupertuis and Richelieu. Then there was The One With The Possible Suicide Attempt, about whom I recall nothing, personality wise. The three we know for sure she was romantically and sexually involved with are her husband, Voltaire and Saint-Lambert. While her marriage was mostly a sensible arrangement, she and her husband seem to have truly liked each other, and I doubt she'd have married him if she hadn't felt at least a tiny bit attracted at the point of marriage (enough to know producing offspring wouldn't be a hardship), so we shouldn't completely ignore him. Anyway, out of all these guys, the only two prone to diva behaviour and ready to argue fiercely were Voltaire and Maupertuis, and if she didn't have an affair with Maupertuis, this leaves Voltaire, while her husband and Saint-Lambert come across as more quietly supportive types. (Richelieu, whether or not they had a fling, clearly never was a serious romance.)
"Catalina": this reminds, not just Arianrhod spells the name like this, so do some other books. But the man in question still was called Lucius Sergius Catilina. There's also the anglisized "Catiline" in the offering. But "Catalina", as far as I know, is the Spanish version of the name Catherine, so who in Voltairian literature started to spell the Roman bad boy this way, I have no idea.
Of course, she may err on the side of liking Voltaire:
LOL, I thought the very same thing when coming across this very description of walking through Paris etc. And I definitely agree on Voltaire's expression, see also the icon. (Also, as I think you observed before: Voltaire is that rare case in the 18th century, someone whose portraits do provide an impression of his personality as it comes across in his writings and history. *g*)
I'm now in possession of and reading the anthology of FW-themed essays, "Mehr als ein Soldatenkönig", of which Jürgen Kloosterhuis' "Liebe Kinder, gute Kameraden: Friedrich Wilhelms I. Tabakskollegium als Sehnsuchtsort" is but one. Have read this and two more essays (one about FW as a father to his non-Fritz, non-Wilhelmine children, and one about FW's daughters' literary as mirrored in their libraries - the libraries in question are those of Wilhelmine, Charlotte, Ulrike and Amalie, with daughters Friederike and Sophie, aka the ones with the horrid husbands and the non stop misery, not having left any libraries to speak of) already.
The Kloosterhuis essay is mainly focused on analyzing the famous Tobacco Parliament painting in terms of whom it depicts and what this symbolizes. The eighteenth century document which provides a who is who list is actually written in two different hand writings and provides different identifications for a whole number of people, with Second Writer being the one who's actually way better informed, while the First Writer seems to have made guesses based on well known members of the Tobacco College. For example, First Writer identifies a figure as Grumbkow, aka THE best known pal of FW, whereas Second Writer crosses that out and identifies the figure in question as the far less prominent Camas instead; Kloosterhuis compares the figure in question with Grumbkow's portraits and is willing to bet Second Writer is as correct here as he is in the far more obvious mistake First Writer made. For First Writer identifies the figures at the left and right of the fool-symbolizing hare at the end of the table as Gundling and Morgenstern, who of course never were members of the Tobbacco Parliament (or even in Berlin!) at the same time, what with Gundling dying in 1731 and Morgenstern not getting noticed by FW until 1736. Second Writer instead identifies them instead as the far less prominent (again) Professor Johann Samuel Strimes, aka Strimesius (misidentified as Gundling by the first writer), and Otto von Graben zum Stein (nicknamed Astralicus, misidentified as Morgenstern by the first writer). Both of whom were among the various FW attempts to fill Gundling's position, and did indeed overlap at a point, which also allows for the narrowing of the date of this painting to 1737.
As you can see by this, Kloosterhuis does mention Gundling (and even footnotes Sabrow's biography); his way of explaining why there were so many post Gundling candidates for the "Funny Councillor" position and none of them lasted long sounds thusly: On the one hand, this cross cut of the court modernization in Prussia offered chances to publish one's scholarly efforts, a financially beneficial collection of offices and a future court pension, on the other hand, a disrespectful treatment loomed, along with evil pranks and the lowering into the court fool status, especially if a "funny councillor" was or became an alcoholic.
Otto von Graben zum Stein/Astralicus lasted until FW's death though increasingly at the periphery with an ever shortened salary and rare court attendence, since Morgenstern became the main event in that position, while Strimesius was fired after three quarters of a year already.
Now, the list of names, even the first version, was definitely written after FW's death, since AW is identified as "Prince of Prussia", a title he only got in Fritz' reign when becoming heir presumptative. And since Second Writer knows about these really obscure figures, Kloosterhuis concludes he must have been a member of the Tobacco Parliament himself or one of FW's kids. He does consider AW but says the handwriting doesn't match either the first or the second writer, admits Heinrich's hand writing doesn't, either, but still thinks Heinrich is the most likely person to have dictated the crossing out and replacing of names, since the number of people still knowing Strimesius and Astralicus had even existed must have been severely limited, and Heinrich did have the required knowledge, did present the painting to FW3 when starting to spend some time in Wusterhausen, and had the past very much on his mind because my guess was right, this was also when he in turn had been given Wilhelmine's memoirs to read in manuscript by FW3.
(Strangely, one option Kloosterhuis does not consider at all is Ferdinand. What else is new? :) I mean, I think Heinrich is the most likely source for the identifications, too, but still, it might have been worth pointing out he wasn't the only person left alive even in 1799 who could have made them.)
Kloosterhuis defends the painter from the charge of stiffness and mediocrity by pointing out the subtleties of the painting, such as young AW, who doesn't have a beer mug in front of him, pointing to the beer mug of the man next to him, which Kloosterhuis interprets as teenage AW being eager to become a man and joining the merry tableround, or that the figure of Heinrich, who is the one closer to FW, has already transfered his hat to his other hand in order to be able to take and kiss his father's hand as per custom when greeting or taking leave the sovereign. He also says that with the painting, the painter gave FW the world as FW wanted it to be: a place of (male) comradery (and colorful characters, with worthy soldiers like Camas intermingling with professional shady anecdote deliverer and F1 era veteran Pöllnitz and the two unfortunate current Gundling replacements) and loving and obedient children, hence a "Sehnsuchtsort", thus: "the touching confession of the sensitive needs of a complicated King".
Coming up in the next comment: FW playing the flute with and for Charlotte, and that time Heinrich got his ears boxed by Dad.
You already mentioned the Gundling-related phrasing in another comment, the use of passive constructions etc, but I also have to say, Kloosterhuis in particular seems hung up on Gundling's alcoholism being somehow responsible for his fate and that's just more of implicitely blaming him or the nebulous circumstances for it. Disrespectful and cruel are two different things, too.
did present the painting to FW3 when starting to spend some time in Wusterhausen, and had the past very much on his mind because my guess was right, this was also when he in turn had been given Wilhelmine's memoirs to read in manuscript by FW3
Interesting! Discussing family history with the great nephew? Did they like each other?
Strangely, one option Kloosterhuis does not consider at all is Ferdinand.
Heee. Poor Ferdinand. (Wait, how old was he? ... seven in 1737, hm. Might be just old enough to remember people decades later.)
as per custom when greeting or taking leave the sovereign
And here I thought there was no formal etiquette in the tobacco parliament...
"Of "Nuns" and "Cadets": About Friedrich Wilhelm I.'s role as a father" is an essay by Sören Schlueter which right at the outset declares that FW as a father is both the most written about and the least written about aspect of his personality, due to otoh all the father/son conflict eximaninations focusing on him and Fritz, and to a somewhat lesser degree also him and Wilhelmine, but otoh the near complete silence on FW as a father to the seven other of his surviving into adulthood children. Schlueter says his intention isn't to white wash (and he does call FW's behavior towards Fritz and Wilhelmine abuse here and in some footnotes), but to differentiate and show that there were far greater nuances with the younger kids, meaning FW as a father was more nuanced, and why this might have been. Which is why he won't write about Fritz and Wilhelmine in relation to their father at all, though he promises he will do so in his upcoming dissertation, and entirely focus on the younger sibs.
The essay quotes from primary sources who are mostly familiar to us (Stratemann, for example, and the visiting reverends Freylinghausen and Franck) by now with the exception of an FW biography by David "Getting the hell out of Prussia!" Fassmann, published in 1735, a collection of Charlotte's letters in the original French which he thoughtfully gives in the French original in the footnotes and paraphrased in German in the main text, and some letters from and to Friederike. (Incidentally, it seems FW wrote to the girls in German and received replies consistently in French, with the odd German word thrown in.) The title refers to letters FW wrote to his pal Old Dessauer, one where he comments on the arrival of Ulrike with the famous quote amounting to "ugh, another girl, can't marry them off all, they'll probably have to become nuns or get drowned"), and one where AW's arrival is greeted with "another cadet was born"). While the clear preference for boys is consistent (and not unusual for the era) in FW throughout his life, his treatment of his younger daughters still has a great variation. Friederike (the first one to get married, to the Margrave of Ansbach, but not the first one to get pregnant) hears that Wilhelmine expects a child from Dad, Dad adds "Shame on you, now get pregnant!" And when Wilhelmine has been safely delivered (of her one and only daughter), Friederike, offering her congratulations in a letter to Dad, hears "don't congratulate, get pregnant!" Friederike, married to one of the two godawful husbands, takes all this without talking back.
As opposed to Charlotte, who hears the same "get pregnant" admonishment but proves she really, as Fritz writes to Wilhelmine in 1733, is allowed to get away with everything, because she writes back, yeah, no, Dad, I'm 18 and feel I need a parent myself, I want a few more years before making you a Grandfather. Charlotte also cheeks FW about his handwriting in another letter - "mon cher Papa critzel si terriblement, que je ne puis pas lire les belles choses qui'il me ecrit" - , and when she does get pregnant, delivering a male grandchild first, then daughters, with the letter the Anna Amalia biographer also quoted: Si mon cher Papa consent de noyer mes souers Ulrique et Amélie, je suit content alors que ma fille périsse avec dans leur compagnie (...). But the most intriguing bit I learned through this essay is that while all the daughters (and I knew this from Wilhelmine) send food as presents to FW when he makes presents to them, Charlotte also sends opera scores, since he's into (Händel) arias. (Although, as Nicolai who had it from Quantz who had it from Fritz also notes, only in orchestrated, voice-less form.) What's more, we get this stunner, when writing about her own musical activities to FW: Je regrette infiniment que mon cher Papa ne me peut accompagner en pipant, quand je chante; car je crois que cela rendrait la musque encore plus belle.
Comments Schlueter: "Though a literal translation only names the activity in question as "piping", the context implies that playing the flute has to meant."
Now, I knew FW could play the flute, because I'd read his mother's biography, and this was part of his education in the arts which she as a baroque princess gave him. (Along with ballet dancing.) But I had assumed he'd stopped doing that once he was grown up for obvious reasons. Schlueter of course immediately addresses the obvious reasons, to wit, FW's well documented loathing of Fritz playing the flute (for which you don't need Wilhelmine's memoirs as a source; there are more than enough FW written letters and orders on the subject) and even before things went to hell between him and Fritz, an outburst against opera in his 1722 testament ("my dear successor must not allow that in his country and provinces comedies, operas, ballets, masquerades and redoutes are celebrated, he has to loathe them, as the ones enacting them are godless and fiendish and enrich Satan's temples"). So what's up with that? Schlueter's own speculation is that gender makes all the difference (loving music is okay for girls), as does FW not doubting Charlotte's loyalties, as does these musical activities being confined to a private performance. Whether FW would have reacted the same way if one of the younger sons, including fave AW, would have shown Fritz-like devotion to an instrument in his life time is questionable. Still, it's worth noting down: FW was capable of supporting a music loving child to the degree of exchanging favored musical scores with her, possibly to the degree of playing music together (unless Charlotte was joking, which is always a possibility, given her status as the family clown).
For AW, Schlueter delivers the quotes we already know, plus a new one, which is interesting because of the timing. On September 7th, Wusterhausen visiting Reverend Franck notes down: Rex observes that it wasn't possible to take complete joy in the children because one didn't know how they would turn out. "Even my Wilhelm," he said, "I don't know, whether he'll become a child of God or a child of the Devil."
On the same time, also visiting Reverend Freylinghausen notes down FW confiding in him about himself: Which Rex declared with a serious and moved temper, and connected it with an accusation of himself, that he was an evil man (ein böser Mensch) and so easily turned evil, angry and merciless.
In October, i.e. only a month later, Freylinghausen (the one who provides us with the scene if little AW successfully pleading for a deserter, and with himself having a nice chat with Gundling who sits at the table between members of the royal family), notes down in a more cheerful mode: (FW) praised the prince (AW) a lot, that he had a good nature, and was so obedient: that he (FW) wanted to swear (AW) would become an honnete homme, for an honnete homme was nothing but a good Christian, for otherwise one had still an inner scoundrel.
Now I've always thought that FW's negative feedback loop with Fritz and his positive feedback loop with AW was most closely connected to how they made him feel about himself, and that's as good a demonstration as any. FW feels miserable and sees himself as an evil, bad tempered man? Maybe even Wilhelm is a child of the devil, too. FW feels like a good father and merciful sovereign? Wilhelm is a good boy and good Christian.
Schlueter notes none of the three younger boys seems to have shown the initial dislike to the military education Fritz had, or if they did, it's not documented. However, Heinrich's status changes. Fassmann - who, as a reminder, hightails it out of Prussia in the summer of 1731, i.e. when Heinrich is five - says that while AW was first undisputed and sole fave of FW, Heinrich once being able to talk, play and join the drills is second fave. Otoh, Morgenstern, who becomes a part of the Tobacco College in 1736, notes Ferdinand as the second fave, which leads me to suspect that whoever was youngest, out of the baby state and in the adorable toddler stage but not yet as old as to show a personality with likes and dislikes was second fave. Fassmann otoh also provides an anecdote about five years old Heinrich stumbling across his sword in the Tobacco College which makes FW angry, but he only punishes Heinrich by sending him back to his mother, out of the manly circle.
A few years later, though, Schlueter provides a Charlotte quote from a letter of hers to Fritz from September 4th 1738 in which Heinrich is definitely in trouble: Je plains le pauvre Henri des soufflets qu'il recus. On a dit qu'il était en disgrace auprès du Roi, parcequ'il avait une fois dit, peut-etre dans son innocence, qu'il le connaissait comme s'il l'avait fait, et que depuis ce templslà le Roit était encore piqué contre lui.
(Given Heinrich was twelve by then, I'm a bit doubtful how "innocent" a remark like "I know how you've made me" might have been.) Schlueter quotes this in the context of investigating how far or little FW was physically abusive towards the younger children. He also quotes Henri de Catt's Memoirs version (i.e. the one where Fritz tells the story) of the "FW comes home in August 1730, Wilhelmine pleades, FW explodes, younger kids hide, Frau von Kamecke becomes the heroine of the hour" tale and while stating it's based and slightly rewritten diary entry where the story has a cryptic origin instead doesn't appear to have noticed what we did, i.e. the pov change and the implication. Otoh, he also quotes Heinrich's much later letter to Fritz apropos visiting Wusterhausen with Ulrike & Co. with the "where we were scolded and sometimes hit" passage, saying while this doesn't explicitly say that FW was the one to do the scolding and hitting, it's hard to see who else would have hit Heinrich as a royal prince. Still, Schlueter argues, given that Heinrich mentioned this in the overall context of trying to persuade Fritz to join the trip, and given that he himself wanted to go (and much later chose to spend some time in Wusterhausen towards the end of his life), it's likely that he had more positive than negative memories of the place, and that FW scolding and/or hitting him can't have been the rule it was for Fritz, but more the exception.
In a footnote, Schlueter says: "Certainly verbal and other non-physical forms of abuse did play a role in Friedrich Wilhelm's father-chilid relationships. However, they can't always be identified properly, since their nature and result very much depends on the perception of the potential victim. Such a difficult discussion would be beyond the scope of my essay. For the specific case of Wilhelmine of Bayreuth, though, there is a study of the different forms of violence used on her and her perception of them: .Claudia Jarzebowski, Gewalt und Erfahrung. Überlegungen zu den Memoiren der Wilhelmine von Bayreuth (1709 - 1758), in: dies./Jutta Eming (Hrsg.), Blutige Worte. Internationales und interdisziplinäres Kolloquium zum Verhältnis von Sprache und Gewalt im Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit. (Berliner Mittelalter- und Frühneuzeitforschung, BD 4.) Göttingen 2008, S. 187 - 211."
Mildred, whenever you get around to reading this comment, this sounds like an essay we want to read.
Schlueter's overall conclusion: FW was a more peaceful father to his younger chlidren than could be expected by his treatment of the two oldest ones, and only by degrees, not in basic premises, was different from other royal fathers of his era as far as the younger kids were concerned. This, again, he says does not deny what he did to the older ones, just shows FW as more complicated than the cliché would allow.
Lastly, one aspect that's curiously missing: while Schlueter notes the importance FW placed on his sons' governors raising them as good Christians and quotes from the instructions, and while he footnotes Ziebura's AW and Heinrich biographies, there's no mention of their governor being gay and less than thorough in providing an atmosphere of manly chastity, or of the fact that none of the younger sons and the daughters ended up as the good Christians FW intended, instead adopting degrees of free thinking and Fritzian deism. Given how central the "my children must become good Christians" idea was to FW's life goals, you'd think this was included in this essay, but no. Other than that, though, it's a good overview, and I'm glad I've read it.
The essay about four of FW's daughters (Wilhelmine, Charlotte, Ulrike and Amalie) as mirrored by their libraries is by Isabelle Bosch, and contains some interesting and telling tidbits, such as:
- Wilhelmine's huge library, which demonstrates a great variety of her interests, still contains not a single book connected to her Bayreuth surroundings
- in addition to being into the Romans and the Greeks (here the essay says while she did have secondary sources, like "Histoire ancienne" by Charles Rollin, she chiefly had primary sources, i.e. the Roman and Greek authors themselves, though the essay doesn't say whether in French translation, like Fritz, or in the original languages) she was very curious about China and the Chinese, and thus had books like "La Morale de Confucius, Philosophe de la Chine"
- while her "Philosophical Cabinet" was decorated with the usual suspects as portrait busts (Voltaire, Newton, Locke, Leipniz, Descartes, Maupertuis and brother Fritz - btw, Newton AND Leipniz? Orieux is right, she so would have hosted Émilie in 1743!), her library antechambre and audience room had lots of great women instead
- Charlotte, as I told you before, disagreed with Fritz about German literature and her and Amalie's visit famously triggered the publication of "De La Literature Allemande" for that reason; Bosch points out that her library contains her scholar Jerusalem's refutation of Fritz' pamphlet, but: it contains it in French; Charlotte's collection of German books is limited to those written by her librarian Lessing and a single one by Goethe
- because the Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel library was so well curate and catalogued, we know Charlotte ordered "L'Histoire d'Angleterre" to be read by her daughters before a family trip to Hannover where they'd meet G2 (How much this was helpful with G2 whose interest in l'histoire d'Angleterre was somewhat limited, though, I wonder)
- when Charlotte's old governess Montbail (mentioned by Fritz and Wilhelmine negatively in their correspondence, but as "the learned Montbail" in a letter from Fritz to AW as someone to give his regards to) died, she left Charlotte her private library containing a stunning (for a private, non-royal library) number of 852 books, which meant the Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel library added a third of hits former size as additional content
- Ulrike proves herself as the later life SD fave in book terms, too; over 70 of the books in her library were owned by SD before (and do have the letters "SD" as their ex libris signature); books also are discussed in the SD/Ulrike correspondence, and Ulrike's letters to Amalie frequently contain requests to send her books she couldn't get in Sweden
- Ulrike actually did want to hire Voltaire to write a "History of Sweden" for her, but one condition was that he should move to Sweden for the duration of the writing (this despite the fact only three years earlier a Swedish author had started a court-patronized "History of Sweden" and the first volume had been published already); presumably Voltaire, poem or not, wasn't charmed enough to spend some years in Scandinavia
- all four sisters had their personal copies (with personal dedications) of both Fritz' published work (i.e. "L'Histoire de la Maison de Brandenburg") and the "Ouuvres du Philosophe de Sanssouci" which he had printed only for a small circle of and not for the general public. When the Bayreuth town palace burns down, Wilhelmine is happy to report that the Fritzian works have survived this.
- Amalie left her books (not her musical manuscript collection, though, that was separate) to a school, the Joachimsthaler Gymnasium; today, they're part of the state archive.
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Music and Hohenzollerns
So if we need to look up a musician Fritz employed until 1756, this is good book to look it up, though personally I would go to the book I used from the Münchner Stadtbibliothek last year, because that one has original research (read: Newspapers!) whereas Exner relies on a number of older sources or anthologies and keeps making tiny avoidable mistakes. We've covered the Fredersdorf stuff; later, there was this gem, when she talks about Fritz' libretto for Montezuma and the obvious "here's what happens if you don't fight in time against the evil Catholics" moral - she says that the current Habsburgs, i.e. MT & Co., were descendended from the Spanish line of the Habsburgs. While there was some intermarriage between the Spanish line and the Austrian line (that helped making the last Spanish Habsburg such a genetic wonder) after the two lines separated post Charles V., this is really a stretch, because the Spanish line notoriously ended in said genetic dead end, who had no surviving children. But okay, that's nitpicking, and of course I agree with Fritz wanting people to associate current day Habsburg MT with the evil Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella (neither of them Habsburgs, btw; their daughter Juana married Philip le Bel who was a Habsburg, resulting in the Emperor Charles V. who was the first Habsburg to rule in Spain). Also, with all the emphasis on Fritz making Berlin cutting edge pre 1756 in musical terms, there's not a single mention of Gluck, aka the composer who revolutionized the way opera was composed, and who wasn't in Berlin but, dare I say it, Vienna. (And later France when Marie Antoinette was Queen and asked for her old teacher.) I just kept coming up against tiny stuff like this, and I wish she'd have had a better beta.
HOWEVER. One of her old sources is the Ledebur dictionary of Berlin musical artists which Mildred has uploaded now in the library. It's from 1861, and at fault for the "Fritz gave Fredersdorf Zernikow in 1734" whopper, but then information about Fredersdorf wasn't that easy to get in the 1860s. Otoh, Amalie is far better documented, and I do want share with you two excerpts from the Amalie entry, one about her musical abilities and one featuring her withering sharp tongue.
Ledebur quotes Gerber, an earlier author:
She studied counter point with her court composer, the famous Kirnberger, and advanced in this art so far that she deserves to be counted among the masters of this art, which is supported by the surviving examples of her composing. In order to prove this, I have only to remind people that it was her who could rival the great Graun's claim for the laurel of having set Ramler's "Death of Jesus" to music. How much she has achieved with this work, in which masculine style she has worked, how far she was able to use every secret of the double counter point and the fugue, the choir of this cantata proves which Kirnberger has provided us with in his "Kunst des reinen Satzes". A passage from her violin trio printed in the same place proves both her deep insight in the teaching of counter point and the Instrumentalsatz.
However, while being way more into all Bachs than her brother, Amalie in general shared Fritz' musical preferences and wasn't shy making this known when one of her younger contemporary composers talked to her. The dictionary lists the example of J.A.P. Schulz (of whom I admit I haven't heard before), who seems to have been Rheinsberg based (working for Heinrich?) - Amalie's letter, which the dictionary entry quotes, is addressed to "Kapellmeister Schulz zu Rheinsberg", and dated Berlin, January 31st 1785. Schulz had asked permission to dedicate his "Choirs to Athalia" to her. Now, asking permission for a dedication was the rule, because by accepting the dedication, the influential person in question publicly supported the work dedicated to them, and also by implication the artist. Amalie was according to the dictionary (in)famous for turning down most people wanting to dedicate stuff to her and only accepting those she really liked. And she didn't just say no. She wrote this:
I imagine, Herr Schulz! you to have sent by accident your child's dribbling of notes on paper instead of your own work, for I couldn't discover the slightest scientific art in it, but instead found from beginning to end nothing but mistakes in expression, content and reason of the language and in rhythm. To say nothing of the modus contrarius; no harmony, no singing, the Third completely left out, no sound set out, one has to guess from which it's supposed to develop, no canon imitations, not the slightest counter point, nothing but quints and octaves, and that's supposed to be called music? May God open the eyes of those possessing such a vivid self flattering imagination, enlighten their minds and teach them to recognize that they're nothing but charlatans.
Yep, that's Fritz' sister, alright.
Re: Music and Hohenzollerns
So if we need to look up a musician Fritz employed until 1756, this is good book to look it up, though personally I would go to the book I used from the Münchner Stadtbibliothek last year
But this one is in our Frederician library, so more convenient in some respects. :) Which was the one you're referring to? If I ever manage to recoup my savings, I might expand our library's restricted section.
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(For example: Zelter growing up in Frederician Berlin imprinted his musical taste and his love for all things Bach, which in turn led to his student Felix Mendelssohn loving Bach, which in turn led to Mendelssohn spearheading the great Bach revival of the 19th century.)
I knew about Mendelssohn and Bach of course, but I never knew where Mehndelssohn got his love of Bach from. That's really cool!
she says that the current Habsburgs, i.e. MT & Co., were descendended from the Spanish line of the Habsburgs. While there was some intermarriage between the Spanish line and the Austrian line (that helped making the last Spanish Habsburg such a genetic wonder) after the two lines separated post Charles V., this is really a stretch, because the Spanish line notoriously ended in said genetic dead end, who had no surviving children. But okay, that's nitpicking
Yes, but I'm always very happy when you nitpick, because of course I don't know the difference :P
there's not a single mention of Gluck
WHAT yeah, like, I can forgive her all her history snafus, but NO GLUCK? :P
but, dare I say it, Vienna
LOL!
A passage from her violin trio printed in the same place proves both her deep insight in the teaching of counter point and the Instrumentalsatz.
Huh, I found this flute trio and I don't think I'd mistake it for Bach but I like it a lot. I wasn't as impressed with some of the other samples I found, but I suspect some of that is that it's all done by the wrong instruments -- I wish there were any recordings of her cantatas actually done with voice, but I suppose that's a lot harder to get together than for instrumentalists.
(There is also a recording on YouTube of Anna Amalia "of Brunswick" whom the poster says he thinks was Amalie of Prussia, for the very reason that it sounds Bachian. It sounds in general pretty impressive to me (I was never trained explicitly in counterpoint, but I know what sounds good :) ) which makes me think it must be our Amalie.)
I imagine, Herr Schulz! you to have sent by accident your child's dribbling of notes on paper instead of your own work
LOL FOREVER. This whole thing was, wow. AMALIE. MY OTHER PROBLEMATIC FAVE. :D
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Mozarts
FW Whodunit
Hmm, yes, I was thinking of collecting everyone over the course of his reign in a semi-crackfic, but if we're trying to pin this down in time and make it a serious historical AU, then okay.
I was actually going for happy medium of serious and crack. :) But if you want to collect people from his entire life, at least one of the teachers thrown down the stairs or out of the window or what not should make it on the list.
FS a the detective:
Is FS going to be okay with it, though? Because that's also a key plot point to the final resolution, as I recall. I feel like FS miiiight have an incentive to go..."No, ganging up on even your crazy abusive monarch is not okay."
Well, it would set a bad precedent if it became known he okay'd it. But since he wouldn't tell anyone, it's not. Also, consider the alternative. The Clement Plot was fake and still caused lots of trouble between Vienna, Berlin and Saxony until FW had calmed down enough to accept Eugene's pledge that the letter was forged etc., and even longer till he warmed up to the Saxons again. If the Emperor's future son-in-law officially accuses the Queen Mother and the new King
ofin armed-to-the-teeth Prussia of having been involved in a plot to assassinate the previous King, what would that produce? Definitely not Fritz calmly surrendering himself to the Diet and the Emperor for judgment. More like every single Protestant German principality accusing the Catholic Habsburgs to spread lies in order to hand over Protestant Brandenburg-plus-Prussia to a Catholic tool, and likely war within the HRE. At a point where MT's Dad needs every prince on his side he can get since his people are still trying to get everyone to sign on the Pragmatic Sanction. Nobody wants war (well.... so FS thinks!). And FS is canonically a guy who urged MT to let things go re: Silesia, to reconciliation, and who wrote to his son Leopold about the advantage of putting yourself in the others' shoes, taking a step back, seeing it from their pov, etc. So I think him discovering the truth but not letting on what he figured out (since he's seen as a lightweight anyway) would be ic enough for a fanfiction!Re: FW Whodunit
I was thinking of the defenestrated chamberlain! If nothing else, that allows us to put that ridiculous story into the hypothetical fic. :D
Nobody wants war (well.... so FS thinks!).
Ha!
Fritz: Speak for yourself. :P
FS: if you think it's plausible enough for our semi-crackfic, I won't argue. So, assuming we have a body with 14(?) stab wounds, how does that work out in terms of preventing European war?
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for me.(But I also think Voltaire would work as a guy whom Fritz would talk to, if not SD... the problem is that I find it completely unbelievable that he could find out a murder happened and keep his mouth SHUT about it, even if part of him thought justice was better served that way.)
Also, in canon there's one guy who actually doesn't participate on purpose, right? It would be fun if that were Fritz... so he's at least technically free of patricide/regicide (which idk, would FS have more problems with that than with the other guys doing it? At first I thought he might, since Fritz actually becomes king from it... but I could see it both ways, maybe it's worse if it's the subjects). And then of course Fritz goes on to, well, as you say below :)
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More on Hohenzollern family life
Now, the 1730s contemporary documents beg to differ. Chiefly the Fritz and Wilhelmine correspondence which show the Fritz & FW relationship post Küstrin was more of a jojo going up and down all the time, but even Other Seckendorff's secret journal (fed by Manteuffel reports) notes the same thing; one day it's "Fritzchen" and Fritz swearing he'd give his right arm for Dad to get better, the next it's "why no babies yet? Also, let me predict AW's future greatness!" and needlings behind close doors. (Once he's ordered to report in person in Austria, Other Seckendorff is even asked point blank how serious this father/son reconciliaton thing is in his opinion and he basically replies he thinks it's patched up on the surface, hurt feelings boiling underneath.) it occurred to me that the emotional release of venting to Wilhelmine about FW, instant of constantly holding himself in check as reported by the later accounts, was another thing that ended (at least in writing - we dont know what they said to each other in person, of course) when Fritz became King. (BTW: just for a compare and contrast: Fritz is careful not to critisize FW towards Voltaire in his 1730s letters even when Voltaire all but baits him to do it, presumably because he knows that correspondence is read by third parties from the get go. And while by what you've quoted from the Suhm and Duhan correspondences he is ready to write poetry about how those who teach and give knowledge are his spiritual fathers, there is, to my knowledge, no "Dad: still the worst!" outburst towards them, either.) So in terms of risking writing (as opposed to whatever he might have said in person to anyone around him from Fredersdorf to visiting Suhm or Manteuffel to painting that rising son, err, sun Pesne), it's Wilhelmine, full stop. (And vice versa, though we don't know that as definite because a lot of Wilhelmine's not-addressed-to-Fritz letters are still unpublished.) Wilhelmine is also the addressee of that single complaint about Mom which stands out to me so much, and it's worth rereading that 1734 letter again, because it's yet another reason why Oncken flatly calling either Knyphausen or Hotham or both a liar because of Hotham reporting in his dispatch Knyphausen quoted FW as saying "I hate him and he hates me" and that they need a break from each other about his oldest son. Looking up this letter again, I just saw that the version in the Volz edition is longer than the one in "Solange wir zu zweit sind", and also has a lengthy passage discussing sister Charlotte which had been edited out there, and which is quite intriguing.
Berlin, March 19th 17354
Dearest Sister! I envy you for not being here; for our gracious monarch and the monarchess have agreed upon taking turns of being in a bad mood. One doesn't know how one stands with them at any given point: today you get overwhelmed with tenderness, and tomorrow there are only sullen faces and unfriendly words. In short, their mood changes from one day to the next. (...) by Gustav Volz. Lotte has spoiled everything I've done for you with the Queen and nearly would have caused distress between her and me as well. Among ourselves I advise you not to put one foot into this direction and to pray for those who have to endure here: for this is the most false, most treasonous court of the world. The King's mood has become unbearable again, he hates me like sin, and the prestige of the Crown Princess has nearly been exhausted. I still mock everything and am in a good mood. I'm not sad and only pity the King who can't bring himself to show his children affection. I advise you to arrange it for the Prince Heir (her husband, serving in one of FW's regiments) to quit the service and to end any relationship with this place. But if you want to do me a favour, drag things out until May 10th when I want to present myself to you. (En route to the Rhine; as it turns out, FW would forbid that.)
To return to Lotte, who has just left (for Braunschweig), she's charming in conversation, funny and in a good mood, much more sophisticated than she used to be. She dances perfectly and always comes up with a new entertainment. At the same time, she's the most false creature of the world, and capable of the worst against those who have the misfortune to provoke her jealousy. I've studied her thoroughly, and unfortunately noticed she has a very bad character. I fear this is more a result of her general disposition than of her temper. The King and the Queen are completely enamored with her. I sooner would dare to insult their majesties than to say anything against Lotte. Which proves yet again that there is no more certain way to insinuate yourself with the Great than to applaud blindly all they want and to banish sincerity and charity from one's heart. A bad character and not worth of anyone with a good heart!
Prince Karl (Charlotte's new husband, the future Duke of Braunschweig, EC's brother) is the exact opposite. He is a good fellow and an honest bloke, a declared enemy to falseness and lies, and incapable of doing anything below his dignity. He's cheerful, can take a joke, knows my sister as well as I do and condemns her falseness for what it is worth. Which is why his dear wife has already found means and ways to badmouth him to the King, and even more to the Queen. Since my sister Charlotte was here, all my other sisters got treated like maid servants, as if they were not her equal.
This, dearest sister, is the truth about how things stand here. As you see, staying here isn't exactly character building. I'll leave sooner or later and would rather risk a shipwreck in order to avoid the other dangers of these stormy seas.
I am thoroughly pleased Benda (his musician) has your esteem. As soon as I'm at the (Rhine) campaign, I'll send you both Grauns, Schardt, Schafrath and the entire company in the hope they will entertain you. Farewell, dearest sister! You are my sole north star, and will find your faithful and truly devoted servant in me, even if this puts me into disgrace with the entire world. But I wouldn't change an inch for this.
Ooookay. Like I said, I remembered the part about FW, SD and EC, but the one about Charlotte was new to me. On the one hand, this not only backs up the claim in Wilhelmine's memoirs of Charlotte's behavior towards her (and EC) around that time. (And fits with what Mildred lets Wilhelmine think about Charlotte in her Christmas story.) Otoh, the claim that Honest Karl, Charlotte's new husband, already sees through her is something else again. Not just because as far as I know, Charlotte had one of the better royal marriages (and sided with her husband over Fritz years later when it came to Fritz' idea that his brothers-in-law were mainly on earth to contribute soldiers to his wars). But also because: doesn't Fritz entrust Charlotte with Duhan (and his correspondence with Duhan) none too much later? The most false creature of the world, who will only rat you out to FW and SD?
Which leads me to the speculation that the case of sibling jealousy depicted here isn't just Charlotte's. I mean, in the same letter, Fritz says he pities FW for not being able to show affection to his children, and that Charlotte is the current petted parental fave. As I said in regards to AW, I think Fritz could have coped better with a FW who was awful to all his children. But FW capable of showing affection, praise and tenderness without (much) of the temper tantrums and (as far as we know) the verbal abuse to the favourites like AW, Ulrike or Charlotte demonstrated he was capable of a different type of parenting, which in turn must have made Fritz secretly wonder again and again it was something about himself that was unlovable. Now, he's writing to the sister who is FW's other unfavourite (and no matter about secret resentment for not encouraging him to run away, he never had to fear she's try to win favour with their parents at his expense) and can vent there, but to continue the theme of sibling jealousy, the fact that Wilhelmine is the recipient of the letter also shouldn't be ignored, because Wilhelmine? Most definitely jealous of her sisters. (Most blatantly so after Fritz becomes King and in the last bit of her memoirs, before they break off, she's sure he dumps her as favourite sister in favour of Friederike in Ansbach.) And of course laboring with the same problem/fear Fritz does - if FW (and SD) can be loving towards the younger sibs, doesn't that prove something is wrong with her? So a factor in the letter could also be that Fritz knows he'll find open ears with not just the complaints about Mom and Dad but the complaints about Charlotte, not least because they'll reassure Wilhelmine he still loves her best. Wilhelmine's reply letter shows her actually pleading EC's case, and directly proving Charlotte really did make that ulcers-in-the-anus allegation from the unbowlderized memoirs.
Bayreuth, March 27th 1734
Dearest Brother! While your letters are always a source of great joy to me, the last one, to be honest, has made me sad: for I can see from it how much grief the Berlin lords and ladies are causing you. You seem to be in exactly the same position I was a year ago, when I was nearly driven mad and my poor health was wrecked to a degree I'm still sensing the aftermath. I wish Lotte would be so kind as to spread all her poison against me and leave you alone. Quarrells without reasons leave me indifferent since I'm not there. But what does sadden me and is the worst is that she has badmouthed the Crown Princess. She has never liked her and had described her to me in such a way I was imagining a mental and physical monstrosity. It was also her who riled up the Queen against (EC); otherwise, one could have calmed (SD) down and reasoned with her.
To be frank with you, dearest brother, your peace and quiet depends on the Crown Princess. If her standing with the King is sunk, I'm afraid you two will experience much grief. Therefore, I think it would be best if she tries everything to regain favour, with the Queen, too, who, if I may say so, due to her thoughtlessness and bias against the Crown Princess could tell the King things which could have evil results. (EC) must make (SD) little presents now and then and pretend to madly love my sister. I pity the poor Crown Princess, who has deserved a better fate. Her good heart and her kind disposition deserve recognition. Should I have the joy to greet you here, I will say some more things in this matter to you which I don't dare to entrust to my pen.
I'm familiar with Prince Karl and his good character. He is to be pitied for being married to such a creature. That she should have badmouthed him to the King and Queen is, in my opinion, the meanest thing she's done so far. But I can assure you that Lotte isn't the only one at fault for this; so is la Montbail, whose low disposition I am familiar with. I'm sure (Montbail) has goaded (Charlotte) into this; for that good lady strongly dislikes both the Crown Princess and myself. And I know why Lotte is angry with you, too. Hopefully she'll acquire a better mindset in time, but only heartbreak can improve her. (...)
Since everything in Berlin changes so quickly, I hope this will, too, and the bad moods will be over (by the time her letter arrives). As far as I can judge, the worst thing is that no one has influence on the Master's mind anymore. Even Grumbkow's and Seckendorff's credit has sunk a great deal. (I'm cutting the discussion as to whether or not Bayreuth Friedrich should quit the regiment and how far Prussia will engage in the Rhine campaign.) For my part, I'm resolved not to return to Berlin again. I know too well how things stand there and what the mood of our sovereigns are to enter the labyrinth once more which I only recall with a shudder. Our old Margrave is currently amiability itself. I f he stays that way, we'll be the happiest of mortals.
No such luck, but he won't live much longer. Anyway, heartbreak improves no one, Wilhelmine, but I'm not surprised you'd think so. The subsequent letters also deal with poor Sophie getting engaged to the Schwedt cousin, for which she's pitied by both Fritz and Wlihelmine. (Justly so, as Sophie's subsquent fate will prove.) Since SD is taking Sophie's marriage to the Margrave Schwedt (which she had explicitly not wanted for Wilhelmine, remember) on the chin and resigns herself to it, without blaming Sophie for it, Wilhelmine risks a pointed Mom obervation in her letter to Fritz from April 27th, saying It would have been nice if she'd dealt as kindly with our marriages; it would have spared us much grief. The Crown Princess deserves all the respect. People of her character are rare to find. I don't understand why the King is still disgruntled with you. Hopefully, the revue will improve this.
No such luck, as the next news is that FW forbids Fritz to visit Wilhelmine en route to the Rhine, though he's still open to a reunion on the way back. (Which Fritz will make happen though FW will have forbidden it by then as well.) Anyway, I don't get how any historian can read through the Fritz and Wilhelmine correspondence from the 1730s and emerge with the conviction that Fritz and FW had settled into a warm father/son relationship post Küstrin, or that family dynamics chez Hohenzollern in general were one bit less dysfunctional. Oh, and I do suspect that Wilhelmine's positivity about EC in these letters is also the result of Fritz having emphasized in every letter from 1732 and 1733 he mentions her how much he does not love her, but even so, it's still interesting that she speaks well of her (and gives good advice, because it's true, of course, FW's benevolence towards EC is one of the few plus factors for Fritz to bargain with). Given the sheer level of dysfunction, it's remarkable at all that Fritz and Wilhelmine ended up as allies instead of rivals. For comparison, Lord Hervey's memoirs - which are of course biased, but still, he's an eye witness - make it sound as if there were no sibling alliances among the Hannover cousins, it was all mutual scheming against (and everyone ganging up against FoW, but that didn't mean supporting each other).
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But also because: doesn't Fritz entrust Charlotte with Duhan (and his correspondence with Duhan) none too much later?
Not later, same day! He writes to Duhan, March 19th, 1734: You know the risk you run when you can only do things while trembling. This is why I have only been able to answer you now, having a good opportunity through my sister. She will tell you everything I think about you. (After that comes the "I have to be a mirror" quote btw.) So Charlotte has "just left" with this letter in her pocket.
Which certainly suggests that he does know how to deal with her, possibly indeed trading on his future position? Huh.
Also, re: venting about Dad to Duhan, this is as far as it goes, from 1736: When one indulges blindly in one's prejudices, and without examining things thoroughly, one is often prone to be seriously mistaken; hence most of the mistakes that men make. This is why it would be hoped that Father Malebranche's treatise 'The Search after Truth' was better known and read. Blood ties impose silence on me on a subject where I could explain myself more clearly, and where the subtle distinction between hating a bad deed and loving the one who commits it might vanish.
But the correspondence with Duhan was also fraught and risky in general. Looking at a less risky connection, he does vent to Camas! See the January 1739 letter for example, with lines like this: I must see him as my most cruel enemy, who spies on me constantly to find the moment when he thinks he can give me the blow of jarnac [an unexpected blow from behind].
So while I think that the "blood ties" are certainly one reason why he'd mostly talk to Wilhelmine (both the ties to her and the lacking ones to others) and why he didn't speak badly about his father later on (but still didn't go to Wusterhausen with the rest of the sibs :P), he did vent to friends as well, even in writing.
(... and now I'm back to wishing for the Keyserlingk letters. Stupid (suspected) censors.)
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Speaking of Paintings...
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Jägerhof
Btw, since we're all bringing out our inner nitpickers, Selena, you said recently that Hertefeld and Nicolai had no way to check that Peter was cross-eyed, so that detail must be genuine. I agree that it's likely genuine, but in addition to the uncheckable Lehndorff diaries and Wanted description from FW to Degenfeld, the squint also shows up in Formey, who was published and available at the time. In fact, Felis turned up something from 1790 that what we both agree is a recounting of Formey's eulogy.
Meanwhile, cool things I found in the Adresskalender: our envoys! Suhm was living in the "Field Marschall Count von Flemming Hause" in 1725, but no indication of where that was. But given that he was a "creature of Flemming" per Stratemann, that makes sense. Is that like the Saxon embassy? Stratemann is also listed, as is Düburgee (another spelling!), as is Lovenohr.
Katte! In 1730, is living "auf der Dorotheenstatt unter der Linden in Reichmanns hause." This is probably in Kloosterhuis (update: checked, and yes, it is), but it's cool to see it in the address book. Oh, man, right next to him in the address book, i.e. alphabetically, not geographically next door, is preacher Muller. :/
Oh, look, it's the whole Gens d'Armes section. Katte's listed because he's an adjutant. There's Natzmer and Pannewitz, and oh! There's a Major Schenck and a Major Schack, no wonder Wilhelmine and Pollnitz got confused in their memoirs over who was responsible for carrying out Katte's execution.
[Argh, premature submission.]
Also,
If I didn't have to give a presentation at work in an hour, I'd keep hunting, but I need to stop here. For now. :D
I have to say, I didn't imagine that Selena would read a book on Gundling and
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Ha, it doesn't, it links to the Berlin StaBi, which is where the other issues are as well. The ZLB overview page just didn't link to them for some incomprehensible reason, what the heck. *shakes head*
(Just so we don't work double here: I'll have a look at the missing ten years for the Keith family later, will report back.)
Also, if you want a great 1748 Berlin map, the Schmettau Plan de Ville is your friend. (Heads up: north = down here, but there's a georeferenced version down the page as well.)
Just out of interest, I looked up two of Lehndorff's addresses on there and he moved from somewhere around Jägerbrücke (which is the one leading away from the Jägerhof) to a place next to the Zeughaus (= "Arsenal" on the plan, i.e. right next to Heinrich's Palais).
still confused by Frau von Knyphausen being listed until 1754
Possibly because that's what the house was known as, even for a few years after her death? ("Knobelsdorff'sches Haus" kept being a thing after his death as well.)
I have to say, I didn't imagine that Selena would read a book on Gundling and felis would turn this into tracking down Keith residences for me. Now that's what I call alchemy!
Heh, I was thinking something similar. I'd never have thought to look for it if Selena hadn't reported on Sabrow's research work.
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The Schmettaus
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Flemming
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Nothing to do with Jägerhof at all
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English and German
Because I don't know whether it's a case of "can't" or "won't", but not only workers in the service industry, who might be less educated, but also the contact people for local history societies, evidently feel no more comfortable writing two English sentences to express, "Thanks for your email, I've forwarded it to the appropriate person, who will reply to you," than I feel comfortable writing two German sentences to express, "I'd like to purchase a back issue of one of your society's publications, let me know if this can be arranged."
Just saying!
(I'll let salon know, of course, if anything comes of this contact.)
Fredersdorf essay for Royal Reader
Victory! I have obtained an electronic copy of the essay I was after, without even having to pay for the back issue.
So, I was contacting a local history society of Frankfurt an der Oder, because of a claim I saw that one of the historians wrote an essay conclusively proving that Fritz met Fredersdorf at the musical performance there and not at Küstrin. This essay is now up in the restricted section. Most of it is not new to us, but I'm at work and read German very slowly and can't tell whether there might be something new to us that does conclusively prove it, or whether this author is overstating the strength of his evidence. There does seem to be some stuff about Schwerin and the details of his regiment and residence that are new.
It's ~20 pages, heavy on images, and most of it is known to us already, so it shouldn't take long for an actual German reader to vet its claims.
I see that the author does quote from Alfred Weise (creatively depicting that first meeting, apparently), which means I'm definitely going to do what I was thinking about, which is email him asking if he knows about the other so far unsubstantiated claim about Fredersdorf (the embezzlement)!
The author also sent me his essay on an anecdote about Seydlitz, which I've also uploaded, but which is in no way urgent.
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The case of the mysterious German 1761 or 1762 pamphlet
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Rheinsberg links
- Everything we've already got in the links section, obviously.
- Munich Stabi
- Berlin Stabi
- SLUB
- Hathitrust
- archive.org
- Google books (en and de)
- Trier, especially the Œuvres and the political correspondence
- Prussian state archives
- Adresskalender (missing 1777-1787 years)
- Box bills of Frederick the Great
- Academy of Sciences records
- Seven Years War project
- Tout Voltaire
- Voltaire foundation
- 1748 Berlin map
- 1740 Europe map
What else?
Gambitten's post of individual sources has already been put in Rheinsberg, and I can create a tag covering both posts (and any future individual source posts we may create).
Individual public domain pdfs can be downloaded and put in the Frederician library. Feel free to bring my attention to any you would like archived there! I'm looking mostly for websites that are good for research purposes, although you'll notice I included a couple maps, and we could also have a blog post/news article section for things that can't be readily downloaded, and we could add more to the map section.
I've only been meaning to do this since we founded Rheinsberg in January 2020, lol.
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Obituaries
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Sophie of Hannover: Memoirs - I
Kontext for the first quote: Sophie was born the twelfth child of Elizabeth Stuart the Winter Queen and her husband Friedrich the Winter King. These poetic names for mocking taunts at the same, meant to ridicule her parents for having ruled only for a winter, enough to kick start the 30 Years War by accepting the crown of Bohemia. Her parents spent their remaining years in exile, with her father dying relatively young and tragically of the plague after siring 13 kids (the only one younger than Sophie died as a child), and her mother living in the Netherlands in exile for 40 years until the Restoration; Elizabeth returned to England to die (and be buried in Westminster Abbey) then. Now, Elizabeth, who was the daughter of James VI. and I. and the sister of Charles I., did with her children what not just British monarchs, but expecially them, had been doing for eons - have them raised not just by other people, but in a different place altogether, and only seeing them on special occasions until they were teenagers. (See Elizabeth I. famously spending much of her childhood and youth at Hatfield, for example.) But Elizabeth Stuart was a Queen in name only (and for the Catholics not even that - in Catholic documents, she's the Countess of the Palatinate only), and Sophie wasn't impressed by this distant raising when they all lived on a tiny budget with the Dutch anyway. Therefore, the memoirs open with parents snark:
I think the only reason why my birth might have brought them joy was because I inhabited another place after it than I had before. (...) When I was old enough to be brought away, my mother the Queen sent me to Leyden, which is only a three hours away from The Hague and where Her Majesty let all her children be raised far from herself, for she decidedly preferred the sight of her dogs and long-tailed monkeys to ours.
Sophie's education: I was taught the Heidelberg catechism, which was written in the German language. I knew it by heart without understanding a word of it. At seven in the morning I rose and had to present myself each day in a house dress to Mademoiselle von Quadt (...), who let me pray to God and read the bible. She taught me Pibrac's verses while rinsing her mouth and brushing her teeth which direly needed it. The grimaces she made while doing so I remember better than anything she wanted to teach me. Then I was dressed up. This happened at half past eight, and I then saw one teacher after the other until around ten, unless God sent them a cold to spare me. Now it was time for the dancing master, who taught me until eleven, the time for lunch. Which happened always with great ceremony at a long table. When I entered the hall, all my brothers were standing in line with their governors and their cavaliers, always in the same order. Court etiquette demanded of me to first make a deep curtsey to the princes, then a less deep one to everyone else, then another very deep one when taking my place opposite of them, then a small one in front of my governess whose daughters in turn curtseyed to me after having entered the room.
Young Sophie thinks all this is dull. Being the youngest but one, she remains in Leyden with her little brother when everyone else is with Mom or already married.
I remember when the Queen ordered us both one afternoon to the Hague, in order to present us to her cousin, the Princess of Nassau, as horses are presented if one wants to sell them, and that Madame Gorin, when she saw my little brother and myself, said: "He is very pretty, but she's thin and ugly. I hope she doesn't understand our English."
In fact, I understood it all too well, and was saddened by it for I believed there was no remedy for my affliction. However, it wasn't as bad as my poor little brother's, who soon after died among the most terrible pain, which touched and frightened me deeply.
(Languages: all in all, Sophie was fluent in Dutch, German, French, Latin and English, and she would pick up some Italian, too.) After her brother's death, nine or ten years old Sophie (she's not sure) goes to live with her mother, because maintaining the Leyden estate for just one child is too expensive. Since her sisters are seen as the pretty ones, she decides to become the witty one. By now, the fortunes of the House of Stuart are on the decline. England had a Civil War, Charles I. has been captured, and most o his family are on the continent in exile, including his wife, Henrietta Maria, who visits her sister-in-law. In better times, Van Dyck had portrayed the English royals, that's what Sophie is alluding to when noting down her impressions on her aunt:
Through the Van Dyck portraits I ha dsuch a beautiful idea of English ladies that I was suprrised to find the Queen, who had appeared so pretty to me on her paintings, a small person sitting on her chair, with long, thin arms, bent shoulders and teeth which emerged from her mouth like canons from a fortress. When I regarded her more closely, I found her to have very beautiful eyes, a well formed nose and great skin. She honored me by saying that I resembled her daughter somewhat; this pleased me so much that I decided she was pretty after all from this point onwards.
I was told that some Mylords flattered me by declaring I would surpass all my sisters in beauty once I had grown up. This immediately jumpstarted my affection for their entire nation, for when one is young, one loves being regarded as pretty.
Sophie's newfound affection for the Brits doesn't mean she's willing to marry Cousin Charles (the soon to be II), who's just one year older than her, though. Sure, he's charming, but he's also broke, and using her to get money from his creditors. Sophie then lucks out because her oldest brother - fourteen years older, in fact - who has gotten the Palatinate as a part of the peace treaty after the 30 Years War, invites her. This brother is her fave and about to become Liselotte's father, and the reason why Liselotte and Sophie have a life long intense relationship is that Sophie co-raises Liselotte. First in the Palatinate, then in Lower Saxony, because Sophie's brother and sister-in-law have a really bad marriage with non stop arguments. Case in point, when Sophie's sister-in-law already suspects Sophie's brother to have a mistress (and btw, Sophie is entirely on her brother's the Prince Elector's side; Degenfeld is her brother's mistress):
One night, the Princess Elector received certainty when she woke up and saw that the Prince Elector was with the girl. The noise she made due to her stormy temper was incredible. The Prince Elector had a great deal of trouble to protect his mistress from his wife grabbing at her; in the end, she only caught the girl's little finger and in her rage bit into it. When her rage had calmed down somewhat, her ladies talked her into moderation. (...) In order to amuse the Princess Elector, the balls and comedies started happening again, and it would have all continued if not for the Princess Elector to do such evil things. When she searched Degenfeld's cabinet she didn't just find all the Prince Elector's love letters but also the jewelry which he had given his mistress. This enraged her so much that she caused a terrible noise once more. She summoned me and my sister, while Degenfeld called the Prince Elector, and when we entered, we were witnesses to an extraordinary scene. The Prince Elector stood in front of his mistress and protected her from the beatings which Madame his wife was attempting to give her. The Princess Elector marched up and down in the room with Degenfeld's jewelry in her hands. Full of rage, she approached us and cried: "Princesses, look at a whore's reward! Doesn't all of this belong to me?"
I couldn't help myself, I had to laugh at this lament, I just burst into laughter, so much so that the Princess Elector got infected and started to laugh as well. But within moments, her rage erturned, when Monsieur the Prince Elector told her she should return the jewelry to its owner. She threw them across the entire room and cried: "If they don't belong to me, well, here they are!"
Sophie's brother , Liselotte's father, ended up doing a Henry VIII and deciding since he was the nominal head of his Protestant principalities church, he could divorce himself unilaterally and morganatically marry his mistress. However, his (first) wife refused to move out, and he didn't have Henry's power. So he lived with two wives and the children from two marriages, and that's why Liselotte ended up with Sophie for years.
The Hannover brothers show up in Sophie' life as suitors as her brother's marriage goes from bad to worse. First Georg Wilhelm, who, however, gets Syphilis. Here's Sophie's way of putting it:
In the meantime, the Duke of Hannover had arrived in Venice, and enjoyed himself with the first courtisan available, a Greek woman who had nothing beautiful to recommend her other than her dresses. However, she immediately put him in a condition which is less than advantageous for a marriage, and he thought no longer of me.
Georg Wilhelm gives it in writing - a document Sophie reproduces in her memoirs - that if Sophie marries younger brother Ernst August, he swears he himself won't marry and have children, and Ernst August will be his heir. Why does Sophie reproduce this document? Because wouldn't you know it, once Georg Wilhelm realised he wasn't dying of Syphilis just yet, he didn't just go back to debauching, but ended up with a favourite mistress he wanted to marry. And have children with. Sophie and Ernst August were thrilled, as you can imagine. In the end, the marriage was a morganatic one, there was no son, and Ernst August did become Duke of Hannover after Georg Wilhelm's death, but by then he'd gotten the "go to Venice for half the year, have fun" habit himself.
Re: Sophie of Hannover: Memoirs - I
I think the only reason why my birth might have brought them joy was because I inhabited another place after it than I had before. (...) When I was old enough to be brought away, my mother the Queen sent me to Leyden, which is only a three hours away from The Hague and where Her Majesty let all her children be raised far from herself, for she decidedly preferred the sight of her dogs and long-tailed monkeys to ours.
Lol forever, this is great. (Also thank you for the context -- again me failing at synthesis, because I did know about Elizabeth and Hatfield, and also of course about Fritz of Wales :P but would never have put it together -- but fortunately you provide the context so I understand why it's so funny :D )
I then saw one teacher after the other until around ten, unless God sent them a cold to spare me.
Ha!
Since her sisters are seen as the pretty ones, she decides to become the witty one.
Valid life choice!
The Prince Elector had a great deal of trouble to protect his mistress from his wife grabbing at her; in the end, she only caught the girl's little finger and in her rage bit into it.
Wow. On one hand, being a woman sucks and I get it! On the other hand... wow.
This is great gossipy sensationalism :D
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Sophie of Hannover: Memoirs - II (Visiting France)
Sophie and entourage have just arrived at Maubuisson, where they expect to meet Sophie's sister the Abbess, not yet the French royals, when:
We were all still wearing our travelling dresses in order to get into the nunnery unnoticed and were very surprised to learn that Monsieur, Madame and Mademoiselle along with their entire court were already there. (...) When we drove into the courtyard, the Duchess of Orleans came running, Mademoiselle behind her, in order to receive me. I could hardly get out of the carriage to do justice to all. The good princess kissed me, crying with joy to see me again, and kept holding me in her arms. She only let me go for a moment so I could greet Mademoiselle while she herself greeted Frau von Harling, who had been her governess, very tenderly. Then she took my arm again and introduced me to the Duke of Orleans whom I saw standing with my sister the abbess at the nunnery's gate. This prince received me very considerately and interacted with me as if he'd known me all his life.
Monsieur and Mademoiselle return to Paris for the night while Liselotte remains to dine with Sophie, her sister and little Sophie Charlotte. The next day, they all drive to Paris, which is when Sophie has an experience familiar to anyone who has to take Taxis often:
I was surprised Madame's horses were driving so slowly. She kept saying "drive faster!" It was of no use, because Monsieur's master of the horses, who was paid by the hour to deliver her, took very great care with her for that reason.
When Sophie arrives at the Orleans' Paris residence, she gets introduced to Philippe's main boyfriend and favourite, the Chevalier de Lorraine. Sophie has nice things to say about the Chevalier as well: "I very much enjoyed watching the beautiful paintings from the Chevalier de Lorraine's gallery, which are exquisite." (Note she doesn't say anything about the Chevalier being exquisite as well.)
Next, Philippe shows Sophie all the wedding dresses he's had made for his daughter and the jewelry he intends to give her, which he has personally selected and designed. And since he has great talent for these things, he took the trouble to improve all my jewelry as well, and wanted me to change it according to fashion , which he ordered and organized in great detail.
Philippe tells Sophie his brother, King Louis, would be cool with meeting her incognito and that she can attend the wedding incognito as well. (Incognito because it's less trouble that way with etiquette. So, off to Fontainebleau!
After my arrival, I first went to Madame where I met Monsieur and a great many people. Monsieur had me enter his little cabinet in order to show me the tight frock he'd had tailored and stitched with diamonds for himself on the occasion of Mademoiselle's wedding. Then he led me to my room and asked for forgiveness that it wasn't better, and said Madame de Montespan had the best rooms, but these were appropriate to my Incognito. They were indeed pretty bad, for I had only two rooms for my daughter, myself, our two ladies-in-waiting and all our maids.
Sophie gets to witness the official signing of the wedding contract between Mademoiselle and the genetic wonder (himself not present, of course, the Spanish envoy signs for him). On the French side, every member of the Royal family present and every bastard of Louis present sign the contract as well. Sophie finds this tiring after a while:
I wanted to return to my room, since I had seen everything, but Monsieur said that I had to await the ending, which caused a very good looking man unknown to me to observe: "Monsieur believes everybody loves ceremony as much as he does."
The official ending consisted of all the princesses making their curtsey to Louis and leaving, then the Queen doing that as well, and then Sophie gets introduced by Philippe and hears some gracious words about how Liselotte always sings her praises from Louis. "Madame d'Osnabrück" is in fact one of Sophie's titles; while her brother-in-law was still alive, her husband was (Protestant) Prince Bishop of Osnabrück.
From there, I was led to the French comedy. I was so much incognito there that it got shouted all over the place "Make room for Madame d'Osnabrück!" when in fact the chair reserved for me should have made it clear that I wanted to be (incognito); it was far from the King and the entire royal family who sat down below opposite the stage. I was so busy observing people that I ignored the actors. I saw Madame de Fontanges (Louis' latest mistress) who was then in the King's favor. She sat wide away from him, near the door in order to be able to escape if she should fall sick due to her pregnancy. For the crowd was large, and the heat was terrible, and I thought that the pleasures of the French court were tied to a great deal of inconvenience. People drank lemonade to refresh themselves. When I asked to have one, it was loudly shouted again: "Something to drink for Madame d'Osnabrück!", which I thought was disgraceful in the King's presence.
At last, that play is over, too. Sophie withdraws to her tiny two rooms. After dinner, I wanted to see Madame again before going to bed, despite it being rather late by now. I found her in her dressing gown, and Monsieur, too, wore his nightcap already, which was held in place by a red ribbon; he was busy organizing jewelry for Madame, himself and his two daughters. He was terribly embarassed to present himself to me in this state and always turned the head to the other side, but I calmed him down and helped to get his jewelry into order, and bound a ribbon on his hat, which he seemed to be very content with. After I had accomplished a work of such major importance, I could rest and thus withdrew in order to get into my bed.
The best dig comes when Sophie is presented to the Queen. Now, remember what
The Queen sat down in an arm chair, Monsieur took a taboret and indicated to me I should do likewise. But I was careful not to obey him. I told the Queen that Madame had asked me to see her, made a deep curtsey and left. Monsieur took my hand and asked me why I had not sat down; of course I could claim a different seating opportunity at Madame's than at the Queen's. I replied to him that I hadn't dared to accept a taboret from the Queen of France since the Empress (of the Holy Roman Empire) had offered me an arm chair.
So much for royal etiquette. Sophie now leaves with Orleans' to visit their summer residence, Saint-Cloud.
At the very front of the palace, the carriage overturned. Monsieur and Madame, the Queen of Spain, Mademoiselle and the entire court hurried outside in order to help us. Monsieur took me by the hand, led me to my room and cried out loud "pisspotts!", for he was convinced they were needed due to the shock. He showed me around in his palace and always led me by the hand, even ahead of the new Queen of Spain, since there was no consequence to etiquette. I admired his beautiful gallery, his splendid salon and the practical order of everything, for he is rather good at designing a house. I was given a room from which I could step outside into the garden, which is the most beautiful garden in the world, both by its design and its water arts. I did not grow tired from walking through it with Monsieur and Madame, who both were so kind of me that I shall be grateful for the rest of my life.
Monsieur always ate with the Queen of Spain, and Madame honored me by eating with me in the antechambre. (...) Monsieur had me kiss the Chevalier de Lorraine, who is the only man I kissed in France other than the King and Monsieur, despite the etiquette of country which would have demanded of me to kiss all the Dukes and Peers, as poor Madame has to. But they had the decency not to insist on it.
Then, Sophie visits Versailles itself (all the previous events have taken place in Parisian palaces and Saint-Cloud), and wins Philippe's heart forever with the following reaction:
Monsieur escorted me to show me the beauty of Versailles, where money has accomplished more miracles than nature. Personally, if I had to choose, I would prefer Saint-Cloud. After being shown everything, I found a picknick prepared to keep up my strength, which was as much worth to me as the waterworks which they had tried very hard to get going earlier.
Alas, the day comes when the new Queen of Spain actually has to leave for Spain:
When we left the opera, the Queen of Spain said goodbye to us all since she was supposed to leave Paris forever the following day, which caused such great despair in her that she could not restrain her sobs and tears. One couldn't help but crying with her. And I was even more touched than the rest. For this amiable princess had won my heart through the charm of her personality and through a thousand attentions she showed towards me and my daughter (Sophie Charlotte, future wife of F1); for the later had captivated her so much that she wished to be a prince so that the two of them could have married instead.
I dare say Sophie Charlotte/Marie Louise would have been more fun than Marie Louise's actual marriage. Anyway, after the visit of Versailes is over, the memoirs end on a series of downers (Sophie's siblings die, and her husband takes off to Venice anyway, and she wonders whether she'll follow her siblings into the grave. Which she won't. Instead, she'll become the matriarch of two royal houses, with even 19th century historians calling her "the greatest of the three Hannover Sophies. Supposedly, one reason why Anne forbade any of the Hannover relations, but especially Sophie, to put one foot on British shore as long as she was still alive was because she was aware that there would be a rival court (as there always is around a successor) , because for all that Sophie was 35 years older than Anne, she had such a vivid personality, and showed no bit of senility, remaining sharp and witty till the end, that Anne would have been overshadowed. And I think these excerpts demonstrate something of that.
Re: Sophie of Hannover: Memoirs - II (Visiting France)
I'd ship it! ...[reads wiki] ...yeah, I would definitely be into Sophie Charlotte/Marie Louise fix-it fic :P
because for all that Sophie was 35 years older than Anne, she had such a vivid personality, and showed no bit of senility, remaining sharp and witty till the end, that Anne would have been overshadowed. And I think these excerpts demonstrate something of that.
Yep, I can totally see that!
Re: Sophie of Hannover: Memoirs - II (Visiting France)
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Birthday cheeses
In January 1737 for example, Fritz writes a note to thank Camas for sending him cheese
Why is this notable?
My dearest brother,
I am infinitely obliged to you for your memories, and for the cheeses you are kind enough to send me. I would like to have something that could be pleasant to you, in order to show you, my dear brother, that the friendship that I have for you does not yield anything to that which you have for me. You may be sure, my dearest brother.
I am forever with sincere friendship,
My dearest brother,
Your most faithful brother and servant,
Frederic.
Put me, I pray you, very respectfully at the Queen's feet, and assure her from me that no one can be more attached to her than I am.
So January 1737 was the year of sending Fritz cheese for his 25th birthday.
Selena's theory hitherto: larder-raiding by Heinrich during the visit of an unnamed brother to Ruppin in May 1736.
My super boring theory: Fritz is visiting Berlin for the 1736/1737 holidays. Mentions really liking cheese (probably with reference to which kind(s)). Gets cheese from multiple parties for his subsequent birthday. (And future birthdays, judging by other letters.)
And based on "my brother" with no further elaboration being AW in a future letter to Suhm, the recipient of the original "my brother showed up and only wanted to eat" 1736 babysitting letter, I'm leaning toward the anonymous 1736 visitor being AW and Asprey being off the mark when he said it was Heinrich (with no citation).
But I still super want Rococo babysitting fic, I'm SOLD on this as an awesome fanon. :)
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Dogs and Ferdinand
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Dogs
Ferdinand the Coming Menace
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On this day in Frederician fandom
Is anyone interested in receiving a daily email (or I guess an email 2 out of every 3 days...for now) titled "On this day in Frederician Fandom" and consisting of items from the chronology that happened on this day? Because I could write code to parse the file and send us those emails, it wouldn't be too difficult.
Let me know if you want in! I've been meaning to do it for a long time now, and our chronology is now finally long enough that it might be worth it. And I'll be more likely to get around to it if other people are interested as well. :)
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Maria Theresia and childbirth
Today's fact(s) from the childbearing world: childbirth was in a transitional phase, when learned physicians were trying to take it out of the hands of superstition and midwives and turn it into a science. MT was surprisingly on board with this! (This would backfire starting in a few decades, because more doctors + more instruments = more chances to infect your patient, oops.) She was like, "No amulets for me! I have a doctor, and he's been to the university and has written pamphlets."
She was *also* like, "And there will not be a debate about childbirth techniques among different schools of thought. There will be one opinion, and it will be the opinion of the guy I hired, and it will be disseminated downwards in strict hierarchical manner. He is the Pope of childbirth!" (paraphrased)
So she sends her grown children doctors who went to the school of her guy, and she got upset when her children would listen to other people or have opinions of their own. She strictly told one of her sons not to allow anyone unauthorized in the birthing room, and never to let a third party hear him express his own views on childbirthing to the doctor she sent.
Semi-enlightened, as Stollberg-Rilinger says.
One change that was in transition during this period was that women were moving from the traditional method of giving birth sitting/squatting over a birthing stool, to the doctor-approved method of giving birth lying in bed. MT gave birth to some of her kids one way, others the other way.
People went to great lengths to get their weak-looking babies baptized before they could die unbaptized and go to limbo. (Where their souls were subject to manipulation by witches who could summon them as revenants into this world.) Some midwives squirted water into the womb! Some parents took their dead babies to a church that would perform "miracles," and momentarily bring the baby back from the dead, conveniently just long enough to baptize it.
Because it's not traumatic enough to have just lost a baby, you have to also worry about it ending up in limbo and being used for witchcraft.
Because birth was a very public affair, there was protocol even when the baby died. When MT gave birth to a baby that died moments after it was born--they officially claimed that it survived long enough to be baptized, but much like FS, we have reason to doubt this--she had her guy in charge of protocol research what to do now. And he found that, since the baby had died, there would be no 3 days of festivities, but because the mother had survived, there would be one day of festivities.
MT, for what Stollberg-Rilinger calls "understandable reasons," vetoed even one day of celebrating after she had lost a baby. But apparently the orders the court received were contradictory, and so no one knew what clothes to wear. This led the guy in charge of protocol to complain that there was Not Enough Protocol at this court! (A recurring theme in his writings.)
Re: Maria Theresia and childbirth
OMG. My religion says explicitly (in the Book of Mormon) that infant baptism (in particular, the belief that unbaptized children go to limbo/hell) is an "abomination," which I always thought was really too strong but... now I can see how one might really have felt that way. The Book of Mormon was published in 1830, and I can't believe it never occurred to me to check the dates before but Joseph and Emma Smith lost a baby in 1828. (And lost others as well, but afterwards.) Ugh. :(
This led the guy in charge of protocol to complain that there was Not Enough Protocol at this court! (A recurring theme in his writings.)
Heh.
Stratemann on Gundling's funeral.
Stratemann first mentions Gundling's death at the end of his dispatch from April 14th:
Last Wednesday, the famous Baron v. Gundling has left this world at 10 in the morning, and the well known writer of entertainments, Faßmann, now has his post, though he has made it a condition: that he was to have familiar conversations only with the King, and with no one else.
"Familiäre Conversation", eh? That's one way to describe it. In the next dispatch, dated April 28th 1731, Stratemann offers much more detail. He starts the dispatch by saying FW entertains himself with daily par force hunting, taking along not just the younger kids, the Queen and his fave officers, but now for the first time Gundling's successor Faßmann.
Said Faßmann will be introduced, like his predecessor, in all local colleges, the financial directory and will be made Geheimer Rat, and will be presented to the Academy of Sciences as their next President. He also enjoys the complete Gundling salary of 1200 or 1500 Reichstaler per annum and fodder for two horses. As the King approached him for the job, he has argued with His Majesty: That he should be treated at court on a completely different footing from Gundling. The King was his lord and master, and he would suffer anything from him, but! all the others should keep out of his face and should pay him the respect due to a royal Geheimer Rat, otherwise he would forego all respect towards no matter which person and would take up St. Peter's sword.* Whereupon he was given the reaussurance: that he would be protected against everyone, and it wouldn't be allowed that anyone should harm him or do anything else.
He's also being given the favor: that in the royal lunch room, a small table has been set up and that he is to share food on it served to the royal table. He's now working at his latest entertainment, a "Conversation among the Dead" featuring the famous Saxonian Taubmann and the lately died Gundling.
Of the later, his predecessor, the following story has reached me from Potsdam: the preachers there have decidedly not wanted to join the procession; whereupon the larger part of their funding has been withdrawn from them; the generals and officers, on the other hand, have put all scruples aside and have done the King's will in this.
( ...) by editor Wolff. The next printed part of the dispatch deals with Küstrin rumors about Fritz getting food and drink delicacies mailed to him by the sympathetic population. However, Stratemann also attachs the news agent report about Gundling's funeral to his dispatch, and Wolff quotes it in the footnote.
News Agent report: Last Thursday, the funeral rites of Geheimer Rat Gundling took place, which were remarkable indeed. For as soon as Gundling had died, his wife, who had been here throughout his illness, had to leave again. Following this, the King had (Gundling) dressed up in his proper robes, put on a stretch and had him carried across the market in public by two fellows into a citizen's house. There, he was put into a coffin which had been an ordinary barrel of wine, and which still had its pegs and hoops attached, and there until his funeral was exhibited for everyone to gawk at. The barrel of wine had been cut in the middle, since one half had to serve as the top,and on this top was written the following inscription:
Here lies in his skin,
half man, half pig, a marvellous thing:
Smart in his youth, mad in his age,
witty at dawn, at sunset full of rage,
thus Bacchus shouts in all this bling:
That dear child of his is Gundling!
On Friday afternoon at 2 pm the procession happened thusly: this barrel was put on a stretch and was carried by thirty tailors, and the entire school and his footman were marching in front of the coffin wearing mourning; after the coffin, the castellan and headmaster followed as the bereaved, then all the generals and officers from the regiments, and allpresent Geheime and Kriegs-Räte, doctors and physicians of regiments; then the entire city council, and representatives of the guilds. All this the King had ordered, and the citizens were threatened with five Reichstaler fee to pay if they should stay away. The procession passed the palace and the garnison church, went to the Brandenburg Gate, after which the company returned, while the coffin, or rather, the barrel, was put on a cattle truck, and was buried in Bornstedt. This much about a such a remarkable funeral.
Epitaph
Gundling has now drunk his last,
can no longer have a blast
from the wine this barrel held,
and regret he must have felt.
Therefore this was his last will:
that his belly with wine to fill,
should be put in such a hose,
in which he'd often put his nose
throughout his life. Now readers, if you are not thick:
admit this man was nothing but a pig!
Next dispatch, dated May 5th, opens: As I hear from Potsdam, the King isn't feeling well at all, but has been hurt by a boar attacking with his tusks on his foot, which subsequently has swollen up massively. So he has been much inconvenienced.
Small justice. As is Faßmann lasting only until July the same year, at which point he's realised what FW's promises were worth, got into a nasty antisemetic argument with a Jew named Marcus to boot and flees Prussia. The next few attempts to replace Gundling don't last much longer, until Morgenstern. But seriously, the cruelty of it all is breathtaking every time I read about it. FW taking away funding from the five rebels, and fining anyone else who dares to stay away: go figure. Of course, it's also telling of the era's toleration of "pranks" towards an ennobled commoner like Gundling that Stratemann sees no reason to prettify any of this, whereas the Katte saga has such touches like him believing the tribunal wanted a death sentence and FW would pardon him, or that Fritz' release is immminent, or that Wilhelmine got locked up for months only because she was so sick.
It's been over a year since I've read Kloosterhuis, and it's strictly speaking not his subject, but I don't recall him mentioning Gundling anywhere in his book, not just when analysing the escape attempt related documents but when talking about FW's character in general.
*St. Peter's Sword: allusion to Peter cutting off the ear of one of the guards arresting Jesus.
Re: Stratemann on Gundling's funeral.
But seriously, the cruelty of it all is breathtaking every time I read about it.
Totally. I kind of just wanted to stop reading once I encountered the pig detail. :(
And then I got to the money detail, which, really? There's so much effort put into this from FW's side.
Re: Stratemann on Gundling's funeral.
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Volz on Richter: The Review
Now, we Fritz researchers knew these letters before, of course. Koser, for example, had read all of them, as he told me himself back in the day when we debated Fritz. But now normal readers, too, can enjoy this correspondence, which is unique in Fritz' life, not just for the fact he keeps writing in German but because of the emotion shown therein. Mind you, of course his relationship with Frederdorf can't be compared to those he had with Jordan, D'Argens, Keyslerlngk, both because Fredersdorf was socially so far below him and because he wasn't intellectually his match at all. But wow, did he care regardless! And I'm telling you, readers, Fredersdorf deserved it, being tireless, dutiful and utterly trustworthy and unbribably in Fritz' service. (Since I'm writing this in the late 1920s, and there isn't a contemporary source I have not seen, this means that whatever caused the "Fredersdorf got fired for embezzling" story at wiki must have been published after my review.)
On to Richter's editing practices. He explains a lot, and keeps repeating himself, sometimes in small essay length. Also he has opinions I disagree with. Take the tragedy of Fritz' marriage. Here, Richter manages to miss both the times Fritz is scapegoating EC for the errors of her family (!), and the fact more recent biographers have demonstrated she wasn't such a saint herself. (I mean, I've helped my buddy Schmidt-Lötzen translate Lehndorff's diaries. I know whereof I speak.) And good lord, do I ever disagree with Richter's explanation for why Fritz & marriage were a doomed pairing. Even when Richter is defending Fritz, he gets it wrong. Look, to refute the broken penis theory, just point towards my essay on how this is rubbish. And we all know that there are only "the dirtiest of sources" for the accusation of same sex relationships, so why bother with that? (What do you mean, Lehndorff's diary entries on Marwitz and Glasow?) Fact is: Fritz got all the affection he needed via FRIENDSHIP. Marriage, as a social construct, was far too confining for his independent soaring spirit, and any woman, not just one forced on him by his Dad (which is the reason Richter gives for the marriage tragedy), would have been doomed. Oh, and while we're at it, he didn't hate women. He just hated the silly types. Just look at his letters to Countess Camas to see how much he respected women who deserved it
Back to Richter. Instead of eight pages on EC and the marriage, Richter, you should have written more background on theatre and music in the age of Fritz, because that's way more interesting (and also important for both Fritz and Fredersdorf). And what I really must chide you for is that you a) don't present the entire letters, and b) don't indicate when you cut and edit. Look, I've cut in my editions of the Fritz/Wilhelmine letters, too, but I goddam show it! Not indicating when there's a cut is just not cool, and no, it' s no comfort to hear a scienfic complete edition for academics is planned.
(
Especially since you cut some theatre stuff which I for one think is VERY INTERESTING INDEED, how often do I have to repeat this? And now, readers of this review, let me add some background stuff Richter didn't mention, because I'm cool like that. Fredersdorf's spy with the Austrians was Legationssekretär Weingarten. How do I know? Because there's a whole file on his reports in the Secret State Archive, complete with Fredersdorf's annotations and observations.
And good lord, does Richter fuck up with all the alchemy stuff. Those letters dealing with Fritz briefly actually falling into temptation and trying alchemy as well to beef up his budget all deal with an event happening in September 1753 and are directly connected, even if they are undated. See also Burchardt. Richter spreads them through the correspondence and misdates them, putting the last ones into November. Oh, and why isn't there more about Fredersdorf's role in the Voltaire showdown if you print the Voltaire-to-Fredersdorf's letter, Richter?
I won't even bother with minor errors like: no, Fritz did not attend Keyslerlingk's daughter's wedding. There was a war going on at the time. And wouldn't you know it, but Richter has unquestioningly accepted the completely faulty edition of Countess Voss' diaries which I made mincemeat of re: what that editor did with the misidentifications.
Still, all in all: that book is a must for any Fritz fan!
I should have edited it, though.Re: Volz on Richter: The Review
(Since I'm writing this in the late 1920s, and there isn't a contemporary source I have not seen, this means that whatever caused the "Fredersdorf got fired for embezzling" story at wiki must have been published after my review.)
Yeah, I'm increasingly suspecting Alfred Weise, and will ask Buwert, probably this weekend.
([personal profile] selenak: it's no comfort for me, either, Volz, because it never got published, to this day.)
Curses!
Those letters dealing with Fritz briefly actually falling into temptation and trying alchemy as well to beef up his budget all deal with an event happening in September 1753 and are directly connected, even if they are undated
Iiinteresting.
Richter has unquestioningly accepted the completely faulty edition of Countess Voss' diaries which I made mincemeat of re: what that editor did with the misidentifications.
I remember that! Richter! Even *I* noticed immediately that the editor was making historical howlers, and that was before we read Volz's take!
I should have edited it, though.
Indeed! And I still lament that scholarly edition.
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A bit more Knobelsdorff (and Friends)
According to him, Knobelsdorff was stationed in Küstrin - in 1714. But then he went to war and after the war he was stationed in various places, particularly in Fürstenwalde in 1728 and then in Berlin proper from April 1729 on, and then he left the military in June with a final promotion to captain. (He footnotes Geheime Kriegskanzlei for all of these, so I'm inclined to think they are reliable.)
Therefore, WvK says, Knobelsdorff meeting Fritz at Küstrin is a legend, but he also has his own theory: They already met in 1729 in Berlin! But there's no proof of course. (Which he acknowledges but then he keeps talking about it like it's fact anyways. It isn't entirely impossible I guess, especially if Knobelsdorff met Pesne in 1729, but, well. No proof at all.)
No mention of FW facilitating a Knobelsdorff/Fritz meeting either, but not only did Knobelsdorff paint FW in 1737, Fritz is quite deferential in a letter to FW regarding Knobelsdorff and where he is supposed to be, see May 1737: I also humbly report to my most gracious father that Captain Knobelsdorff has arrived here again. I will keep him here until I hear my most gracious father's order about him. He told me a lot about Italy, where he was with a certain Count Firmond. In Florence he broke his arm on the way back, which was to blame for his long absence. (Read: His long absence had nothing to do at all with any secret missions related to hiring Italian opera singers for me, no way. ... that said, I'm still not quite clear on what Fritz would have done with them in 1737, if Knobelsdorff had managed to poach any.)
Something I was reminded of: Fritz asked Knobelsdorff to take care of Keyserlingk's daughter in 1745, together with Countess Camas. Also, Bielfeld's description of him as "common sense [bon sens] personified". Which is what Fritz praises Countess Camas for as well, so he appointed two common sense people to look after Keyserlingk's daughter, which I find interesting.
(Lehndorff: And yet!)
Also, Knobelsdorff's Tiergarten property went through several hands after his death, but in 1785 Ferdinand bought it and built Bellevue there.
Probably only interesting to me (although I'm curious if Selena knows the expression as well): there's a German expression, "bis in die Puppen aufbleiben/schlafen", which means staying up/sleeping late, i.e. very long. Apparently, that expression hails from the Tiergarten, where Knobelsdorff built a rondel with lots of statues - dubbed "dolls" (Puppen) by the people - at the far end (today Großer Stern), which took a long time to get to from the city (so far out that it's not even on the 1748 plan). The more you know.
Knobelsdorff painted two portraits (that we know of) of his life partner Sophie Charlotte Schöne - one is here - and they had two daughters, Charlotte Sophie (* 12.01.1748) and Caroline Juliane (* 12.12.1751). Poor kids lost their father really young, even younger than Peter's. :(
Which brings me to the question: Does WvK mention Peter? Kind of! He clearly doesn't know who he is or where he belongs, but he does mention Lt.Col. Keith in two different contexts:
1. Being Knobelsdorff's successor in charge of the Tiergarten, which is where he calls him an "Englishman" and guesses that's why he got the job. (Which, funny enough, still kind of works with Selena's theory re: Hyde Park.) He refers to Raumer for his Tiergarten info, though, so nothing new here.
2. He doesn't seem to have had access to Knobelsdorff's will, speculating about it, but he apparently had some later documents referring to it. At least, he says that "his Rheinsberg friends, General v. Buddenbrock and Oberlieutenant von Keith, become executors of the will and the first one also guardian for the children". He seems to have had a 1767 source for this - which is when the two daughters sold the Kronenstrasse house they'd inherited, which is documented at the state archive (Engel mentions it) - and he does mention that Keith was dead at that point. He also says that the executors of the will made a deal with Knobelsdorff's brother, who got some additional money and in turn agreed to not contest the will.
Finally, WvK includes an appendix with three documents: two of Knoblesdorff's letters to Fritz from Italy (in German!) based on copies at the state archive, and his last letter to him regarding the status of his daughters (in French) based on the original at the state archive.
Excerpt from an Italy letter, January 27th, 1737, written in Rome, an example of Knobelsdorff having opinions:
Regarding the antiques, one can see clearly how much the Greeks surpassed the Romans in this art, and how much the current Romans are even below their ancestors. Regarding the buildings, it's the same and it's only a pity that the first Christian Emperor Constantine the Great didn't have the same enthusiasm for the sciences as he did for religion, and therefore had all the pagan temples destroyed to build bad and lousy churches for the true God out of the excellent debris.
One has to wonder how, at the rising of the light of faith, the understanding in all other sciences fell into such darkness that it hasn't really recovered with the Italians to this day. [...] the number of the truly learned is small compared to their admirable predecessors, who showed them a straight path to perfection, and so this path will hardly be found, since all scriptures are banned in which sound reason shines even a little, the human mind is locked into narrow rules, and the right philosophy is thought of as atheism.
I have to say, it's almost like hearing Fritz talk to Wilhelmine here, almost twenty years later. Kind of makes me wonder how much Knobelsdorff influenced his view on current day Italy, although he also had Algarotti of course. (Who in turn had his own correspondence with Knobelsdorff.)
Knobelsdorff also reports on opera and religious events he witnessed, and he sends Fritz two landscape sketches.
The other Italy letter is from March, written in Venice, and he reports his broken elbow (ouch!) and that he didn't have much luck poaching Italian opera singers for Fritz ("Ich bin chagrin" - aw).
The last letter, written ten days before his death:
Sire, I feel the last moments of my life approaching, and I take advantage of a break in the pain to express the feelings of gratitude with which I have been filled due to all the benefits and kindnesses Your Majesty showered on me during my life. These same kindnesses give me the confidence that Y.M. will grant me confirmation of the disposition I made in favor of two children whose existence I caused. This grace will give me consolation during the last moments of my life, which this old servant will use to wish for the reign of Your Majesty to be as long as it is glorious.
As far as I know, Fritz granted the petition, recognizing the two daughters as Knobelsdorff's heirs (without the nobility rights, though!), but I'm not sure if he did it quickly enough for Knobelsdorff to learn about it, since the official document is from November. But maybe he promised him in time - as I've mentioned, Fritz' letters to Knobelsdorff seem to be gone.
Finally, one little exchange that did survive, from May 1748, is a small dispute regarding some bills for the marble gallery at the Potsdam Town Palace (again in German), which is at Trier (partly) and reported by Seidel among others. It's mostly interesting because one letter is from Knobelsdorff to Fredersdorf, asking for "WTF is going on?" intel on the letter Fritz wrote him and calling Fredersdorf "verehrtester Freund", which reminded me that they were freemasons together.
Re: A bit more Knobelsdorff (and Friends)
I'm still not quite clear on what Fritz would have done with them in 1737, if Knobelsdorff had managed to poach any
Well, in 1737, he was in Rheinsberg happily collecting an orchestra and having concerts. He and Wilhelmine keep mentioning this musician or that or such and such being outstanding (or especially annoying) in their letters around that time. Now, of course he didn't have an opera to let the singers perform in yet, but that wasn't necessary for a patron to hire singers for. He could have let them sing for himself and his guests, concert performances. (Which was how Elisabeth Gertrud Schmeling Mara always performed for him much later, for example, when he did have a Knobelsdorff-build opera for her to perform in (which she also did, but additionally there were Fritz-specific concerts).
Btw, I'm not surprised Knobelsdorff didn't get any. A) budget, and b) if you were an Italian singer in 1737, would you dare to travel to FW's Prussia?
Fritz asked Knobelsdorff to take care of Keyserlingk's daughter in 1745, together with Countess Camas. Also, Bielfeld's description of him as "common sense [bon sens] personified". Which is what Fritz praises Countess Camas for as well, so he appointed two common sense people to look after Keyserlingk's daughter, which I find interesting.
(Lehndorff: And yet!)
LOL. Well, Knobelsdorff wasn't around anymore when Adelaide started running wild, and there was a war going on where most of the adults around her were flirting and dancing with enemy officers and having affairs. BTW, when did Mrs. Keyserlingk die? Because the Fredersdorf letters mention her, but Lehndorff's diary does not. Did she die? I hope Fritz didn't take her daughter from her?
"Puppen" phrase: no, this South German has not heard it.
I have to say, it's almost like hearing Fritz talk to Wilhelmine here, almost twenty years later. Kind of makes me wonder how much Knobelsdorff influenced his view on current day Italy, although he also had Algarotti of course.
It also reminds me of something else: Winckelmann - who had a far more positive attitude towards Italy in general, though - made the same mistake Knobelsdorff makes, to wit: 90% of the statues believed to be Greek originals and thus proving the superiority of Greek sculptors over Roman ones which Winckelmann saw in Italy in the early to mid 18th century were actually, as we now can tell, Roman era copies. (Where Knobelsdorff is unusual is in claiming Greek superiority for buildings as well, especially given that as far as I know he didn't visit Greece, and the Pantheon, which even in the 18th century was available to visit, usually knocks out architect afficiniados the first time they see it. (There's a reason it got so widely copied all over the world.) (Did he make it to Naples? Because the underground water system, which worked from the time of Augustus till the mid 19th century when an earthquake did it in, is another masterpiece of Roman architecture which could be visited even then; I think Wilhelmine saw that as well when she was there.) But yes, otherwise the views very much sound like Fritz' letter to Wilhelmine. Complaining about current day Italy being held back by Catholic superstition is pretty much a trope not just for Protestant Germans; Dickens' notes on Italy a century later contain much about this as well. And there's a reason why Algarotti sought employment elsewhere for a long time. Otoh, it's worth pointing out that Laura Bassi as the first female professor at a European university happened in Bologna centuries before any German state (or Britain, or France) followed suite. And as for art, I remember Wilhelmine liking current day Italian painters (and praising them to Fritz as cheap to acquire), and Algarotti sold August III. a whole gallery of them. (Which ended up stored in Hubertusburg in the 7 Years War and then suffered the fate of the rest of Hubertusburg.)
Generally, the series of tropes:
- Greeks were superior to Romans
- Christianity made Romans decline to weak/superstitious/degenerate/negative attribute of choice/Italians
- the only thing of worth current day Italy produces is music
- shows up repeatedly in male Protestant Italy visitors (with the notable exception of Goethe) in the era. It's interesting that the female letter and memoirs writing visitors - Anna Amalia, Wilhelmine, Lady Mary, also Sophie in the one half a year trip she took with her husband early in the marriage - have a go at the Catholic processions and the Catholic church as well (in varying degrees of critique), but they aren't at all prone to the "the Greeks were better!" or "current day Italy/Italians are so weak compared to their past!" or "The only good thing current day Italy produces is music" tropes the men go for. Instead, you get a lot of "I live like in a dream", "I'm learning so much!" and "OMG, so much better climate!" in their initial reactions. (I mean, obviously Lady Mary after years of actually living there has more to critisize. But not those tropes.)
It's mostly interesting because one letter is from Knobelsdorff to Fredersdorf, asking for "WTF is going on?" intel on the letter Fritz wrote him and calling Fredersdorf "verehrtester Freund", which reminded me that they were freemasons together.
That is fascinating. (Also argues against Team Claus Back and Martin Stade's fictional Knobelsdorff/Fredersdorf feud in "Der Meister von Sanssouci".)
Re: A bit more Knobelsdorff (and Friends)
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My reading of Orieux
I really loved how Orieux makes Voltaire come alive as someone who had so SO many faults (SO MANY, lol, the innumerable places where Orieux was all "...and here's yet another example where ANY ACTUAL GROWNUP would have LET IT GO, but did Voltaire? I will give you one guess.") but also at the same time so many amazing virtues, many of which were in some sense part and parcel with his flaws -- I mean, I guess it is old news to salon at this point (at least dating back to selenak reading Orieux and reporting back to us! Which, btw, thank you SO much, because that review is the reason why I read it) that the Voltaire who Could Not Let Things Go is the same Voltaire of the Calas affair, but it is really cool to see Orieux make those connections implicitly and explicitly.
It does make me wish that we got more biographies these days that were written as literature and where the biographers weren't afraid to have overt opinions. Orieux has Decided Opinions about everything and is not shy about owning it (and usually has evidence, though okay, sometimes is sloppy as selenak noted in her writeup), and it is GREAT. As opposed to, say, the Zinsser Émilie bio (of which more below), which had a Whole Lot of implicit opinions that she presents as "research," which is much drier without (as far as I can tell) being any more factually correct (and in fact probably less so, see below).
Unfortunately I wasn't taking good notes while reading, so I can't deliver the extremely long writeup that I would had I been taking notes, because every couple of pages or so I was like "omg I need to talk about this with salon, this is SO GREAT." Oh! but I did take a couple of notes on Émilie which I have now found, so here you go :D
-I am coming to the same conclusion about Zinsser's Emilie bio that
One difference between the Emilie bios and Orieux is that Emilie is portrayed in Orieux as much more of an inveterate gambler who loses money hand over fist. This occurs most strikingly in the incident where she loses money all day at which point Voltaire says, "Don't you realize you're playing with knaves?" and they both have to flee because you don't call the French court knaves :P In Orieux's telling (in which admittedly he is editorializing/romanticizing):
One evening, playing at the Queen's tables, she started to lose badly. The four hundred louis she had on her disappeared in a few moments; and she had not accumulated them without difficulty. Voltaire watched with mounting vexation; he hated wasting time and money in that way. Nevertheless he handed over to Emilie the two hundred louis he had in his pocket. They were swallowed up as quickly as the rest. He ventured a few remarks, but they were curtly rejected. So he resigned himself to dispatching a footman to borrow another two hundred louis at an exorbitant rate from a business acquaintance. But Mademoiselle du Thil, who had been of such help in stagemanaging the appearance of his emissaries at the Pope's palace, happened to be present, and she gladly lent a hundred and eighty louis. The divine algebrist flung them all down, but instead of multiplying they all disappeared. Voltaire begged her to withdraw from the game, but she only jumped down his throat again and went on playing, giving her word in place of stakes. Then the real disaster began. She lost eighty-four thousand livres, which with the nine hundred louis she had lost earlier made a hundred and three thousand livres. Madame du Châtelet was not a rich woman. Voltaire had been following what happened with the silent fury and clairvoyance of one who has foreseen all and been powerless to prevent it. He had seen her rush headlong to her ruin. As she made her last unlucky throw of the dice he could not contain himself any longer and said, in English, “Do you not see that you are playing with knaves?"
[Totally unrelated to my point, but I love the soubriquet "the divine algebraist" and need to find more excuses to use it :D Perhaps I shall start calling various math/tech people of my acquaintance "the divine geometer" and "the divine engineer" and so on.]
Whereas in Zinsser -- I am too lazy to go look it up, but I am pretty sure she spins this in a way that doesn't reflect badly on Emilie and reflects badly on Voltaire for calling everyone knaves by eliding a lot of this in-between material. I'm willing to believe it's in-between what Orieux and what Zinsser say, buuuuut I'm betting Orieux was actually drawing from his source (whatever it was) and that Zinsser just kind of glossed over all of that.
Also, just because this is bugging me: The part where I was most irritated by Voltaire in Zinsser is the bit where, after Emilie has a baby, Voltaire says "I [having completed a play] am more fatigued than she!" Well, Orieux says that Voltaire wrote to d'Argental, "Last night Madame du Châtelet, scribbling away at Newton, felt a slight call of Nature. She called a chambermaid, who only just had time to hold out her apron and catch a little daughter, whom she then carried off to cradle. Her mother put away her papers, and as I write this they are both sleeping as soundly as dormice."
Which... if it's part of the same letter that he said he was more fatigued than she was, he's clearly talking about how the birth was very easy, not about how it's All About Him and how tired he is. (I mean, this is Voltaire, it's kind of always all about him... but this strikes me as principally adorably sweet and relieved about Emilie.) And I am grumpy mostly at Zinsser for the bad faith reading, but also at myself for taking it on faith and not demanding context :P So, here I am asking for context! :D Are these both quotes from the same D'Argental letter? Is this letter available to denizens of salon??
-It's definitely cut from the version
-Also, there is a very weird typo in the English edition I have that systematically calls Fredersdorf "Fredendorff" (both in my hard copy and in the one mildred sent, and including the index!) which confused me no end when I first read it ("Fritz has this secretary Fredendorff that I've never heard of before?") but fortunately selenak's writeup included talking about the Frankfurt affair (the only place where "Fredendorff" shows up) and that made it clear. But also kind of hilarious to me :)
-I must admit that though I was riveted almost the entire time, there were bits where Orieux goes on about various visitors Voltaire had (especially in his later years) where I was, okay, kinda bored :)
-Wow, Orieux reeeeeally does not like Madame Denis. I feel like I cannot at all analyze whether/how much this is justified. I can see that in the stories Orieux tells there is room for a Madame Denis (as selenak said somewhere else in salon) who is more interesting and nuanced than the greedy buffoon that he thinks she is, but it seems a bit harder for me to argue with, e.g., Madame Denis and Voltaire's last days -- ? Would love to get some insight on this from you rigorous critical thinker types <3
-Guy Endore (*) wrote a historical novel called Voltaire! Voltaire! that's actually (as far as I can tell) about Rousseau, and after reading this I can see why! They seem to have clashed rather a lot. So... that is moving right up on my reading list.
(*) He wrote King of Paris, a historical novel (well, if you can call it that... it's written in the style of a biography but one that takes extreme novelistic liberties and novelistic theme/plot -- in fact, now that I think about it, it has a lot in common with Orieux' writing, but decidedly landing on the fiction side rather than the biography side) about Alexandre Dumas pere et fils that is still my favorite book that Awesome French Teacher lent me and that I really highly recommend, though it's out of print now.
-But next on my list is the Arianrhod, which I have started! (She does seem to portray Emilie as between Orieux and Zinsser.)
Re: My reading of Orieux
To go back to the beginning: yay for your review! I'm so glad you liked Orieux as much as I did, Opinions and all. And I'm doubly glad a French friend of mine recced it to me after reading my Voltaire & Fritz story.
I really loved how Orieux makes Voltaire come alive as someone who had so SO many faults (SO MANY, lol, the innumerable places where Orieux was all "...and here's yet another example where ANY ACTUAL GROWNUP would have LET IT GO, but did Voltaire? I will give you one guess.") but also at the same time so many amazing virtues, many of which were in some sense part and parcel with his flaws
Indeed, that's one sterling quality of this book, and such a tricky balance for a biographer to keep. (I mean, leaving aside biographies of people like Hitler and Stalin.) Usually they tend to either err in the bashing or in the blending out of vices direction, if they aren't so afraid of romantisizing that they're so ultra dry so they can't be possibly accused of being entertaining. But Orieux, as you say, shows flaws and virtues are directly interconnected, and if you disregard one, you're missing out on the completeness of the character.
Orieux on Émilie: I didn't have the impression that he's factually incorrect, either; that he does not offer the context as to why her work is so important is a minus, but as he actually likes her a lot (this is also a Decided Opinion of his, see Orieux stating that Émilie was worth ten of Parisian gossips like Madame Deffand, or, during the 1743 crisis when Voltaire is holidaying with Fritz in Prussia, that between the two of them - Voltaire and Émilie, not Fritz and Émilie - she was the more committed lover), I didn't see it as an intended slight, and more of a male biographer of his time kind of thing.
Émilie's gambling and the "knaves" incident: I think Orieux' description is actually based on a Voltaire letter to a friend directly after the event itself (though I could be wrong). Incidentally, Émilie letting gambling get away with her on that occasion (and earlier) at a point when she was unhappy reminds me that Ada Lovelace also thought she could use her gift as a mathematician for gambling in order to make money so she and Babbage could continue to work on his machine (i.e. the computer), and instead ended up addicted to gambling and losing huge sums. In the case of the Versailles incident, though, I think an additional factor was that Voltaire calling Émilie's opponents "knaves" certainly carries the implication that he thinks they're cheating, and for a commoner to accuse noblemen (and -women) of cheating is certainly a potential case of HOW DARE YOU INTO THE BASTILLE WITH YOU! Still, as I recall (book's back in the library since half a year or more) Zinsser's biography definitely slants opinion by putting the emphasis on this and leaving out Émilie had lost huge, huge sums at this point.
Sidenote: one thing I love about the entire incident is the reminder that Voltaire and Émilie talked English with each other when either not wanting to be understood by the other people around them (only in this case they were) or by being in an intense mood. In Lauren Gunderson's play, she has Émilie tell the audience re: Voltaire "luckily for you, we always argue in English, so you'll understand everything we say."
Which... if it's part of the same letter that he said he was more fatigued than she was, he's clearly talking about how the birth was very easy, not about how it's All About Him and how tired he is. (I mean, this is Voltaire, it's kind of always all about him... but this strikes me as principally adorably sweet and relieved about Emilie.)
I only know excerpts from biographies, not having access to the Enlightenment website which presumably has the entire letter, so I can't tell whether it's the same letter or not. However, given the few days that passed between Émilie giving birth and her sudden turn for the worse and death, I doubt Voltaire wrote to D'Argental twice in those few days. In any event, since Voltaire had been massively worried about Émilie giving birth this relatively late (for the era especially) in her life - see his reply to Fritz' "you're neither a midwife nor the dad, so why do you need to stick around for the birth at all, come to meeeeee!" letter - and since I had read the more complete description of her giving birth that you quote, I always took the "I had more problems with my play" as a joke in the same spirit of giddy relief. Yes, he was a massive egotist and hypochondriac. But he also had been (justifiably) very worried and now it looked like Émilie was fine, so adding a relieved joke like this to his description of her having given birth would come naturally to him. But Zinsser, who even sees in the front piece of Voltaire's Newton book dedicated to Émilie and written in the early part of their romance a kind of subtextual insult, of course saw it another way.
there is a very weird typo in the English edition I have that systematically calls Fredersdorf "Fredendorff"
LOL. I have a spontaneous theory about this which of course I can't verify without counterchecking Orieux' original French edition. Because consider this:
- in his memoirs, pamphlets and letters, Voltaire keeps misspelling Fredersdorf's name (Mildred listed a couple of versions in her original Voltaire write up, I think)
- in his massive bibliography, Orieux doesn't list a Fritz biography that's not a "Fritz and...." type of book or essay, i.e. "Fritz and Louis XV", "Fritz and Voltaire", "Fritz and French Enlightenment" etc. There is no "Life and times of Fritz" biography in it.
- studies with these subjects aren't likely to mention Fredersdorf, except for the "Fritz and Voltaire" ones, and of those only ones specializing in the Frankfurt episode
=> Conclusion: Orieux might not have known himself how Frederdorf's name was spelled, and gave a wrong version in his book, which the English translator promptly used as well. Whereas the German translator either counterchecked or actually knew some stuff about Fritz beforehand, including the correct version of Fredersdorf's name.
(Backup for this theory: in the German version of Voltaire's memoirs, Fredersdorf's name is spelled correctly all the way through, very much as opposed to the original French or the English translation.)
Guy Endore: I've read both King of Paris (which, like you, I love) and Voltaire!Voltaire!,
which is indeed about Rousseau, and while predating Amadeus for decades, it basically interprets him feeling vis a vis Voltaire as Shaffer's Salieri does towards Mozart. It's entertaining and quite readable, but whereas the Dumas novel offers the relationship between both Alexandres (and arguably Catherine the mother of Dumas fils - I thought Endore did a great job making her a character in her own right) as emotional hooks, and makes Alexandre Dumas the Musketeer author such a larger than life personality, Voltaire! Voltaire! suffers from minimal actual Voltaire in it (he looms large in Rousseau's thoughts, of course, but the man himself hardly shows up), and Rousseau's neuroses and paranoia and increasing misery not being as good company.
Re: My reading of Orieux
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Speaking of out of context quotes...
Fritz thinking he was born too early was new to me, so I looked up the letter - and the quote comes at the end of a long passage where he is being sarcastic in response to Voltaire's sudden crusading ways:
You can be sure that the Empress of Russia, jealous of the glory of her nation, will know how to make peace without foreign aid. You who are, I believe, immortal, you would like to be a spectator of one of those great revolutions which are changing the face of Europe; blame the Empress of Russia for moderation if this revolution does not happen. [...]
But, tell me, how can you excite Europe to the fighting, after the sovereign contempt that you and the encyclopedics have displayed against warriors? Who will be daring enough to incur the great excommunication of the Patriarch of Ferney and all the subsequent encyclopedics? Who will want to win the fine title of driver of brigands, and of brigand himself? Believe that Greece will be left a slave, and that no prince will start the war before having obtained full indulgence from the philosophers.
From now on these gentlemen will govern Europe as the popes once subjected it. I even believe that M. Guibert will renounce his murderous art in your hands, and that he will become a Capuchin or a philosopher, to find in you a powerful protector. Philosophers must have missionaries to increase the number of such conversions; this way, they will imperceptibly relieve the states of their large armies, which damage them, and successively there will be no one left to fight. All sovereigns and peoples will no longer have these unhappy passions whose consequences are so fatal, and everyone will have reason as perfect as a geometric demonstration.
I very much regret that my age deprives me of such a beautiful spectacle, which I will not enjoy even at dawn; and my contemporaries will be pitied for having been born into a century of darkness, at the end of which began the twilight of the day of perfected reason. Everything depends [etc, see above]
So, definitely sarcasm, but I'm wondering if there's still a kernel of truth here. Because I also remembered this quote to Voltaire from almost 40 years earlier: I don't feel made for the century we live in (July 1737). I already wondered which century he felt made for back then, but kind of assumed it would be an earlier one for some reason, which is why the 1773 quote surprised me. Hmmm. Where would Fritz time-travel to, if he could?
--
While I'm here, Voltaire's response:
Sire, a beautiful lady from Paris (whom you hardly care about) claims that you will be angry with me for giving Your Majesty to the devil;* and I, I maintain that you will forgive me, and that Beelzebub will be very happy indeed, since there has never been anyone more devil than you at the head of an army, either to arrange a campaign plan, to execute it, or to repair.
It is true that I do not like your profession as a hero at all, but I revere it; [...]
As Your Majesty will probably receive my little package on the good Christmas holidays, and the God of Peace will be born within three weeks, I recommend myself to him, so that he may obtain my grace from you, and that you forgive me all the reproaches I have said to Your Majesty, and the cordial hatred I have for your profession as Caesar. This Caesar, as you know, forgave his enemies when he had conquered them; and you will have the same mercy for me, after having made fun of me.
The old patient of Ferney, who is sometimes cheerful in the intervals of his sufferings, places himself at your feet with five or six kinds of veneration for your five or six kinds of great talents, and for your person who unites them.
* He'd just published a work containing the following lines: I hate all heroes, from the great Cyrus/ To that brilliant king who made Lentulus;/ No matter how much they praise their admirable conduct,/ I run away from them all, and I give them to the devil.
And of course, Fritz again: The lady from Paris was certainly wrong, and you guessed right by believing that I wouldn't be mad at anything you just wrote. Love and hate cannot be ordered, and everybody has the right to feel on this subject what they can; [...] Preserve this rejuvenated spirit, and, were you to satirize my bloody verse at the age of a hundred years, I will answer you in advance that I will not be angry, and that the Patriarch of Ferney can say everything he likes about the Philosopher of Sans-Souci. Vale.
... basically, you can throw a dart at their correspondence and come away with gems.
Re: Speaking of out of context quotes...
... basically, you can throw a dart at their correspondence and come away with gems.
Lol, yes! This is amazing. OMG you two.
I really want to hear
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Arianrhod - some thoughts on the Émilie section
I am quite impressed by Arianrhod's ability as a science writer. I'm familiar with the physics she covers -- though not nearly as much with the history of the science -- and I thought she did a great job of making it clear and accessible and demonstrating what they were thinking about back then, and the different strains of thought, and what we think today relative to what they thought then. I really felt like I learned a lot about all that, which I enjoyed a lot. (The only exception is when she talked about the double-slit experiment, which I realize is really beyond the scope of this book, but as someone who is familiar with the experiment, her description seemed rather muddled to me.)
I also really liked the way she disentangled the threads of how Émilie was instrumental in interpreting and arguing for Newton, and how although obviously Newton was a genius and did amazing and genius-y things which arguably no one else at the time could have done
except for Leibniz(just kidding, lol, calculus aside), all these physics developments really depended on all these other people too (Edmond Halley, basically sweet-talking Newton into writing all his stuff down? Did not realize he was such a hero until this book!) and it made me think about the kinds of things we prioritize in terms of the stories we tell and the people we remember, and how some of that is shifting and becoming more inclusive -- by which I don't mean of women/minorities, though that's also happening and is a really good thing, but concurrent with that, the idea that it's not just Lone Genius Man (or even woman, or nb person) who is worth remembering and talking about. Which is a really good thing!A couple of various thoughts (trying not to wholly duplicate what
-LOL to reading this after Zinsser; Arianrhod clearly likes Voltaire a lot more than Zinsser (this is not hard) and mostly seems to agree with Orieux that they had a rather tempestuous relationship but that both of them were... kind of like that, and actually soulmates in a "we decided at some point we'd rather have sex with other people but you're still the awesomest" sort of way
She was fiery, while he was prone to awful sulking moods. She could be imperious and controlling... he was egotistical, and he could be passively aggressive, deliberately hurting her... Sometimes he hurled awful words that made her cry for hours, and she occasionally threw at him a spoon or a plate. But always they made up. Usually, after a dreadful scene... soon all would be forgiven and they would be laughing together. It was an intimacy very few people understood.
VOLTAIRE. Voltaire's taste in soulmate relationships, man, he does seem to have a bit of a type ;) (Though maybe not Mme Denis as much? Though they seem to have fought a lot too, though differently, according to Orieux.)
-After our discussion on Orieux and Zinsser (she has read Zinsser's work, and at some point I may go through her notes), I was charmed to see this:
It had all gone so well, Voltaire told a friend, that although the mother was now sleeping, she was not as tired as he was, having recently delivered his Catalina.
Go Arianrhod :P (Émilie :(((( )
Of course, she may err on the side of liking Voltaire:
Walking around Paris today, it is hard not to like and admire Voltaire, whose kindly face smiles down from the many statues erected to this great poet, dramatist, essayist, and revolutionary hero.
I... have never thought of his face as kindly (though I know he could be kind). More "like he's laughing at you. Possibly in a mostly-kind way."
Loved the following quote, and I feel like this sums up the balanced view that Arianrhod takes towards Émilie:
[Émilie] broke so many stereotypes about women and about mathematicians, stereotypes that lingered until the eve of the twenty-first century. She showed it is possible to be both emotional and rational, both intellectual and sexy. She was truly the 'divine Émilie'.
Re: Arianrhod - some thoughts on the Émilie section
So was I, but then unlike you I'm a complete laywoman in this regard, so I'm gratified to hear Arianrhod holds up to you!
Arianrhod clearly likes Voltaire a lot more than Zinsser (this is not hard) and mostly seems to agree with Orieux that they had a rather tempestuous relationship but that both of them were... kind of like that
Yep. As you say, Voltaire clearly had a type. Did Émilie, though? Her men seem to be pretty different from each other. I mean, two we don't actually know whether or not she had affairs with them or was just friends with romantic overtones, i.e. Maupertuis and Richelieu. Then there was The One With The Possible Suicide Attempt, about whom I recall nothing, personality wise. The three we know for sure she was romantically and sexually involved with are her husband, Voltaire and Saint-Lambert. While her marriage was mostly a sensible arrangement, she and her husband seem to have truly liked each other, and I doubt she'd have married him if she hadn't felt at least a tiny bit attracted at the point of marriage (enough to know producing offspring wouldn't be a hardship), so we shouldn't completely ignore him. Anyway, out of all these guys, the only two prone to diva behaviour and ready to argue fiercely were Voltaire and Maupertuis, and if she didn't have an affair with Maupertuis, this leaves Voltaire, while her husband and Saint-Lambert come across as more quietly supportive types. (Richelieu, whether or not they had a fling, clearly never was a serious romance.)
"Catalina": this reminds, not just Arianrhod spells the name like this, so do some other books. But the man in question still was called Lucius Sergius Catilina. There's also the anglisized "Catiline" in the offering. But "Catalina", as far as I know, is the Spanish version of the name Catherine, so who in Voltairian literature started to spell the Roman bad boy this way, I have no idea.
Of course, she may err on the side of liking Voltaire:
LOL, I thought the very same thing when coming across this very description of walking through Paris etc. And I definitely agree on Voltaire's expression, see also the icon. (Also, as I think you observed before: Voltaire is that rare case in the 18th century, someone whose portraits do provide an impression of his personality as it comes across in his writings and history. *g*)
Re: Arianrhod - some thoughts on the Émilie section
Kloosterhuis: Sehnsuchtsort
The Kloosterhuis essay is mainly focused on analyzing the famous Tobacco Parliament painting in terms of whom it depicts and what this symbolizes. The eighteenth century document which provides a who is who list is actually written in two different hand writings and provides different identifications for a whole number of people, with Second Writer being the one who's actually way better informed, while the First Writer seems to have made guesses based on well known members of the Tobacco College. For example, First Writer identifies a figure as Grumbkow, aka THE best known pal of FW, whereas Second Writer crosses that out and identifies the figure in question as the far less prominent Camas instead; Kloosterhuis compares the figure in question with Grumbkow's portraits and is willing to bet Second Writer is as correct here as he is in the far more obvious mistake First Writer made. For First Writer identifies the figures at the left and right of the fool-symbolizing hare at the end of the table as Gundling and Morgenstern, who of course never were members of the Tobbacco Parliament (or even in Berlin!) at the same time, what with Gundling dying in 1731 and Morgenstern not getting noticed by FW until 1736. Second Writer instead identifies them instead as the far less prominent (again) Professor Johann Samuel Strimes, aka Strimesius (misidentified as Gundling by the first writer), and Otto von Graben zum Stein (nicknamed Astralicus, misidentified as Morgenstern by the first writer). Both of whom were among the various FW attempts to fill Gundling's position, and did indeed overlap at a point, which also allows for the narrowing of the date of this painting to 1737.
As you can see by this, Kloosterhuis does mention Gundling (and even footnotes Sabrow's biography); his way of explaining why there were so many post Gundling candidates for the "Funny Councillor" position and none of them lasted long sounds thusly: On the one hand, this cross cut of the court modernization in Prussia offered chances to publish one's scholarly efforts, a financially beneficial collection of offices and a future court pension, on the other hand, a disrespectful treatment loomed, along with evil pranks and the lowering into the court fool status, especially if a "funny councillor" was or became an alcoholic.
Otto von Graben zum Stein/Astralicus lasted until FW's death though increasingly at the periphery with an ever shortened salary and rare court attendence, since Morgenstern became the main event in that position, while Strimesius was fired after three quarters of a year already.
Now, the list of names, even the first version, was definitely written after FW's death, since AW is identified as "Prince of Prussia", a title he only got in Fritz' reign when becoming heir presumptative. And since Second Writer knows about these really obscure figures, Kloosterhuis concludes he must have been a member of the Tobacco Parliament himself or one of FW's kids. He does consider AW but says the handwriting doesn't match either the first or the second writer, admits Heinrich's hand writing doesn't, either, but still thinks Heinrich is the most likely person to have dictated the crossing out and replacing of names, since the number of people still knowing Strimesius and Astralicus had even existed must have been severely limited, and Heinrich did have the required knowledge, did present the painting to FW3 when starting to spend some time in Wusterhausen, and had the past very much on his mind because my guess was right, this was also when he in turn had been given Wilhelmine's memoirs to read in manuscript by FW3.
(Strangely, one option Kloosterhuis does not consider at all is Ferdinand. What else is new? :) I mean, I think Heinrich is the most likely source for the identifications, too, but still, it might have been worth pointing out he wasn't the only person left alive even in 1799 who could have made them.)
Kloosterhuis defends the painter from the charge of stiffness and mediocrity by pointing out the subtleties of the painting, such as young AW, who doesn't have a beer mug in front of him, pointing to the beer mug of the man next to him, which Kloosterhuis interprets as teenage AW being eager to become a man and joining the merry tableround, or that the figure of Heinrich, who is the one closer to FW, has already transfered his hat to his other hand in order to be able to take and kiss his father's hand as per custom when greeting or taking leave the sovereign. He also says that with the painting, the painter gave FW the world as FW wanted it to be: a place of (male) comradery (and colorful characters, with worthy soldiers like Camas intermingling with professional shady anecdote deliverer and F1 era veteran Pöllnitz and the two unfortunate current Gundling replacements) and loving and obedient children, hence a "Sehnsuchtsort", thus: "the touching confession of the sensitive needs of a complicated King".
Coming up in the next comment: FW playing the flute with and for Charlotte, and that time Heinrich got his ears boxed by Dad.
Re: Kloosterhuis: Sehnsuchtsort
did present the painting to FW3 when starting to spend some time in Wusterhausen, and had the past very much on his mind because my guess was right, this was also when he in turn had been given Wilhelmine's memoirs to read in manuscript by FW3
Interesting! Discussing family history with the great nephew? Did they like each other?
Strangely, one option Kloosterhuis does not consider at all is Ferdinand.
Heee. Poor Ferdinand. (Wait, how old was he? ... seven in 1737, hm. Might be just old enough to remember people decades later.)
as per custom when greeting or taking leave the sovereign
And here I thought there was no formal etiquette in the tobacco parliament...
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FW and the Younglings
The essay quotes from primary sources who are mostly familiar to us (Stratemann, for example, and the visiting reverends Freylinghausen and Franck) by now with the exception of an FW biography by David "Getting the hell out of Prussia!" Fassmann, published in 1735, a collection of Charlotte's letters in the original French which he thoughtfully gives in the French original in the footnotes and paraphrased in German in the main text, and some letters from and to Friederike. (Incidentally, it seems FW wrote to the girls in German and received replies consistently in French, with the odd German word thrown in.) The title refers to letters FW wrote to his pal Old Dessauer, one where he comments on the arrival of Ulrike with the famous quote amounting to "ugh, another girl, can't marry them off all, they'll probably have to become nuns or get drowned"), and one where AW's arrival is greeted with "another cadet was born"). While the clear preference for boys is consistent (and not unusual for the era) in FW throughout his life, his treatment of his younger daughters still has a great variation. Friederike (the first one to get married, to the Margrave of Ansbach, but not the first one to get pregnant) hears that Wilhelmine expects a child from Dad, Dad adds "Shame on you, now get pregnant!" And when Wilhelmine has been safely delivered (of her one and only daughter), Friederike, offering her congratulations in a letter to Dad, hears "don't congratulate, get pregnant!" Friederike, married to one of the two godawful husbands, takes all this without talking back.
As opposed to Charlotte, who hears the same "get pregnant" admonishment but proves she really, as Fritz writes to Wilhelmine in 1733, is allowed to get away with everything, because she writes back, yeah, no, Dad, I'm 18 and feel I need a parent myself, I want a few more years before making you a Grandfather. Charlotte also cheeks FW about his handwriting in another letter - "mon cher Papa critzel si terriblement, que je ne puis pas lire les belles choses qui'il me ecrit" - , and when she does get pregnant, delivering a male grandchild first, then daughters, with the letter the Anna Amalia biographer also quoted: Si mon cher Papa consent de noyer mes souers Ulrique et Amélie, je suit content alors que ma fille périsse avec dans leur compagnie (...). But the most intriguing bit I learned through this essay is that while all the daughters (and I knew this from Wilhelmine) send food as presents to FW when he makes presents to them, Charlotte also sends opera scores, since he's into (Händel) arias. (Although, as Nicolai who had it from Quantz who had it from Fritz also notes, only in orchestrated, voice-less form.) What's more, we get this stunner, when writing about her own musical activities to FW: Je regrette infiniment que mon cher Papa ne me peut accompagner en pipant, quand je chante; car je crois que cela rendrait la musque encore plus belle.
Comments Schlueter: "Though a literal translation only names the activity in question as "piping", the context implies that playing the flute has to meant."
Now, I knew FW could play the flute, because I'd read his mother's biography, and this was part of his education in the arts which she as a baroque princess gave him. (Along with ballet dancing.) But I had assumed he'd stopped doing that once he was grown up for obvious reasons. Schlueter of course immediately addresses the obvious reasons, to wit, FW's well documented loathing of Fritz playing the flute (for which you don't need Wilhelmine's memoirs as a source; there are more than enough FW written letters and orders on the subject) and even before things went to hell between him and Fritz, an outburst against opera in his 1722 testament ("my dear successor must not allow that in his country and provinces comedies, operas, ballets, masquerades and redoutes are celebrated, he has to loathe them, as the ones enacting them are godless and fiendish and enrich Satan's temples"). So what's up with that? Schlueter's own speculation is that gender makes all the difference (loving music is okay for girls), as does FW not doubting Charlotte's loyalties, as does these musical activities being confined to a private performance. Whether FW would have reacted the same way if one of the younger sons, including fave AW, would have shown Fritz-like devotion to an instrument in his life time is questionable. Still, it's worth noting down: FW was capable of supporting a music loving child to the degree of exchanging favored musical scores with her, possibly to the degree of playing music together (unless Charlotte was joking, which is always a possibility, given her status as the family clown).
For AW, Schlueter delivers the quotes we already know, plus a new one, which is interesting because of the timing. On September 7th, Wusterhausen visiting Reverend Franck notes down: Rex observes that it wasn't possible to take complete joy in the children because one didn't know how they would turn out. "Even my Wilhelm," he said, "I don't know, whether he'll become a child of God or a child of the Devil."
On the same time, also visiting Reverend Freylinghausen notes down FW confiding in him about himself: Which Rex declared with a serious and moved temper, and connected it with an accusation of himself, that he was an evil man (ein böser Mensch) and so easily turned evil, angry and merciless.
In October, i.e. only a month later, Freylinghausen (the one who provides us with the scene if little AW successfully pleading for a deserter, and with himself having a nice chat with Gundling who sits at the table between members of the royal family), notes down in a more cheerful mode: (FW) praised the prince (AW) a lot, that he had a good nature, and was so obedient: that he (FW) wanted to swear (AW) would become an honnete homme, for an honnete homme was nothing but a good Christian, for otherwise one had still an inner scoundrel.
Now I've always thought that FW's negative feedback loop with Fritz and his positive feedback loop with AW was most closely connected to how they made him feel about himself, and that's as good a demonstration as any. FW feels miserable and sees himself as an evil, bad tempered man? Maybe even Wilhelm is a child of the devil, too. FW feels like a good father and merciful sovereign? Wilhelm is a good boy and good Christian.
Schlueter notes none of the three younger boys seems to have shown the initial dislike to the military education Fritz had, or if they did, it's not documented. However, Heinrich's status changes. Fassmann - who, as a reminder, hightails it out of Prussia in the summer of 1731, i.e. when Heinrich is five - says that while AW was first undisputed and sole fave of FW, Heinrich once being able to talk, play and join the drills is second fave. Otoh, Morgenstern, who becomes a part of the Tobacco College in 1736, notes Ferdinand as the second fave, which leads me to suspect that whoever was youngest, out of the baby state and in the adorable toddler stage but not yet as old as to show a personality with likes and dislikes was second fave. Fassmann otoh also provides an anecdote about five years old Heinrich stumbling across his sword in the Tobacco College which makes FW angry, but he only punishes Heinrich by sending him back to his mother, out of the manly circle.
A few years later, though, Schlueter provides a Charlotte quote from a letter of hers to Fritz from September 4th 1738 in which Heinrich is definitely in trouble: Je plains le pauvre Henri des soufflets qu'il recus. On a dit qu'il était en disgrace auprès du Roi, parcequ'il avait une fois dit, peut-etre dans son innocence, qu'il le connaissait comme s'il l'avait fait, et que depuis ce templslà le Roit était encore piqué contre lui.
(Given Heinrich was twelve by then, I'm a bit doubtful how "innocent" a remark like "I know how you've made me" might have been.) Schlueter quotes this in the context of investigating how far or little FW was physically abusive towards the younger children. He also quotes Henri de Catt's Memoirs version (i.e. the one where Fritz tells the story) of the "FW comes home in August 1730, Wilhelmine pleades, FW explodes, younger kids hide, Frau von Kamecke becomes the heroine of the hour" tale and while stating it's based and slightly rewritten diary entry where the story has a cryptic origin instead doesn't appear to have noticed what we did, i.e. the pov change and the implication. Otoh, he also quotes Heinrich's much later letter to Fritz apropos visiting Wusterhausen with Ulrike & Co. with the "where we were scolded and sometimes hit" passage, saying while this doesn't explicitly say that FW was the one to do the scolding and hitting, it's hard to see who else would have hit Heinrich as a royal prince. Still, Schlueter argues, given that Heinrich mentioned this in the overall context of trying to persuade Fritz to join the trip, and given that he himself wanted to go (and much later chose to spend some time in Wusterhausen towards the end of his life), it's likely that he had more positive than negative memories of the place, and that FW scolding and/or hitting him can't have been the rule it was for Fritz, but more the exception.
In a footnote, Schlueter says: "Certainly verbal and other non-physical forms of abuse did play a role in Friedrich Wilhelm's father-chilid relationships. However, they can't always be identified properly, since their nature and result very much depends on the perception of the potential victim. Such a difficult discussion would be beyond the scope of my essay. For the specific case of Wilhelmine of Bayreuth, though, there is a study of the different forms of violence used on her and her perception of them: .Claudia Jarzebowski, Gewalt und Erfahrung. Überlegungen zu den Memoiren der Wilhelmine von Bayreuth (1709 - 1758), in: dies./Jutta Eming (Hrsg.), Blutige Worte. Internationales und interdisziplinäres Kolloquium zum Verhältnis von Sprache und Gewalt im Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit. (Berliner Mittelalter- und Frühneuzeitforschung, BD 4.) Göttingen 2008, S. 187 - 211."
Mildred, whenever you get around to reading this comment, this sounds like an essay we want to read.
Schlueter's overall conclusion: FW was a more peaceful father to his younger chlidren than could be expected by his treatment of the two oldest ones, and only by degrees, not in basic premises, was different from other royal fathers of his era as far as the younger kids were concerned. This, again, he says does not deny what he did to the older ones, just shows FW as more complicated than the cliché would allow.
Lastly, one aspect that's curiously missing: while Schlueter notes the importance FW placed on his sons' governors raising them as good Christians and quotes from the instructions, and while he footnotes Ziebura's AW and Heinrich biographies, there's no mention of their governor being gay and less than thorough in providing an atmosphere of manly chastity, or of the fact that none of the younger sons and the daughters ended up as the good Christians FW intended, instead adopting degrees of free thinking and Fritzian deism. Given how central the "my children must become good Christians" idea was to FW's life goals, you'd think this was included in this essay, but no. Other than that, though, it's a good overview, and I'm glad I've read it.
Re: FW and the Younglings
https://opacplus.bsb-muenchen.de/title/BV022944362
Probably simpler for you to get this one than Royal Patron. If not, let me know and I'll try harder.
And I read immediately! I just can't reply properly until I've read...the remaining 80% of Orieux. :(
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Libraries
- Wilhelmine's huge library, which demonstrates a great variety of her interests, still contains not a single book connected to her Bayreuth surroundings
- in addition to being into the Romans and the Greeks (here the essay says while she did have secondary sources, like "Histoire ancienne" by Charles Rollin, she chiefly had primary sources, i.e. the Roman and Greek authors themselves, though the essay doesn't say whether in French translation, like Fritz, or in the original languages) she was very curious about China and the Chinese, and thus had books like "La Morale de Confucius, Philosophe de la Chine"
- while her "Philosophical Cabinet" was decorated with the usual suspects as portrait busts (Voltaire, Newton, Locke, Leipniz, Descartes, Maupertuis and brother Fritz - btw, Newton AND Leipniz? Orieux is right, she so would have hosted Émilie in 1743!), her library antechambre and audience room had lots of great women instead
- Charlotte, as I told you before, disagreed with Fritz about German literature and her and Amalie's visit famously triggered the publication of "De La Literature Allemande" for that reason; Bosch points out that her library contains her scholar Jerusalem's refutation of Fritz' pamphlet, but: it contains it in French; Charlotte's collection of German books is limited to those written by her librarian Lessing and a single one by Goethe
- because the Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel library was so well curate and catalogued, we know Charlotte ordered "L'Histoire d'Angleterre" to be read by her daughters before a family trip to Hannover where they'd meet G2 (How much this was helpful with G2 whose interest in l'histoire d'Angleterre was somewhat limited, though, I wonder)
- when Charlotte's old governess Montbail (mentioned by Fritz and Wilhelmine negatively in their correspondence, but as "the learned Montbail" in a letter from Fritz to AW as someone to give his regards to) died, she left Charlotte her private library containing a stunning (for a private, non-royal library) number of 852 books, which meant the Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel library added a third of hits former size as additional content
- Ulrike proves herself as the later life SD fave in book terms, too; over 70 of the books in her library were owned by SD before (and do have the letters "SD" as their ex libris signature); books also are discussed in the SD/Ulrike correspondence, and Ulrike's letters to Amalie frequently contain requests to send her books she couldn't get in Sweden
- Ulrike actually did want to hire Voltaire to write a "History of Sweden" for her, but one condition was that he should move to Sweden for the duration of the writing (this despite the fact only three years earlier a Swedish author had started a court-patronized "History of Sweden" and the first volume had been published already); presumably Voltaire, poem or not, wasn't charmed enough to spend some years in Scandinavia
- all four sisters had their personal copies (with personal dedications) of both Fritz' published work (i.e. "L'Histoire de la Maison de Brandenburg") and the "Ouuvres du Philosophe de Sanssouci" which he had printed only for a small circle of and not for the general public. When the Bayreuth town palace burns down, Wilhelmine is happy to report that the Fritzian works have survived this.
- Amalie left her books (not her musical manuscript collection, though, that was separate) to a school, the Joachimsthaler Gymnasium; today, they're part of the state archive.
Re: Libraries
Of course. :D But also, aww. (No quotes, I suppose?)
And strange that Charlotte didn't have more German books, quite unexpected.
Any details on the women displayed at Wilhelmine's?
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