On Des Champs and Fredersdorf: Okay, just to say that Des Champs is hilarious!
But also: Fredersdorf, since this is what I really care about :)
d) Fritz kept Des Champs in service because he was cheap, see above, but saw no reason why he should pay someone who was a proven spy good money, so told Fredersdorf not to pay him more than the mere minimum. Fredersdorf did so, leaving Des Champs to conclude that Fredersdorf kept the rest of the money to himself.
Obviously I am 1) super duper biased in Fredersdorf's favor, and 2) inclined in all cases to choose the hypothesis that amuses me the most, so I think you guys are not surprised that I have chosen (d) :D (But also it amuses me so much because that would be so in character for Fritz! And Fredersdorf, lol.)
Aw. Considering you and [personal profile] cahn wrote the ultimate first-meeting-in-Küstrin story for me, maybe I should write the first-meeting-in-Frankfurt story?
Um, YEAH. :D
I consider him an honorary salon member, though I carefully call it "reading group" when talking to him and definitely don't say it's on Dreamwidth. ;)
I gotta say this is super awesome, I love our honorary salon members :D
On Vienna Joe:
This book quotes not only the letter but the follow up letter one and a half months later where Joseph tells Leopold that yay, the talk helped, pregnancy achieved, they figured it out! It really was just laziness and lack of imagination and knowledge, not a physical impediment, told you.
Heh, nice! I think the only thing better than sensational gossip is finding out better-sourced sensational gossip :D
The two non-Joseph male members of the club, Lacy and Orsini-Rosenberg
ahahaha, I know about Orsini-Rosenberg from, of course, Amadeus
She handled it brilliantly... So she did go for "friendship yes, love no", and made sure she wasn't alone with him ever in this initial phase. From this, the circle of five - plus two of his male friends - developed. His infatuation passed, but the friendship didn't
This is really cool, and like you say brilliant.
and when one of the ladies (not Eleonore) had lost two children in short order he was a true comfort (remember, he had lost his only daughter and been heartbroken over it, so she knew he knew whereof he spoke).
:( <3
On Family Letters:
Sophie: Look. Eugene isn't a handsome man, but he's a wonderful example of how one can be a military hero AND a man of culture and of MANNERS. It might be INSTRUCTIVE to observe that close up. I'm just saying.
Heeeeee! ...sadly, this appears not to have worked as well as she was hoping...
On the more touching side again, in the letter where he announces his third marriage to Sophie, he swears it won't make a difference to FW and SD because he'll never, ever allow anyone no matter their standing to mistreat his children, he knows what a stepmother is and Sophie knows he knows, and the new wife won't be a stepmother, she'll be a mother.
Okay, that's really great <3
The King has now repeatedly talked to me about marrying me off, but most recently he has promised me that he would give me another year for this and would not force me to take a woman whom I don't love (...).
(Obvious irony in terms of events a few decades later is obvious.)
*blinks* That's just... wow.
As for me, I can only repeat that I do feel glad to possess her and with with all my heart that God may keep us this happy for all our life... SD, on the other had, reports to Grandma that she has the impression she ended up in fairy tale palaces, and loves every bit of it. This is so how she wanted her life to be! And everyone is lovely and kind. Bliss!
Argh. I suppose there's a reason why the honeymoon phase is a thing in the abuse cycle. But also... I guess it's sort of like FW being nice to AW, right? When everything's going right and everyone's happy and there aren't any disagreements, I imagine FW is probably... mostly... fine to be around. It's just that life (and other people) don't work in such a way that everything always goes right and there aren't any disagreements and sometimes it turns out your kid actually likes to play the flute
I don't know through which misfortune I've become a topic of conversation in France
it's the tall guys, FW (no, I know the further context of the letter makes that unlikely, but I couldn't resist)
LOL. I'm sure a few years later, it would have been the tall guys! But as long as F1 was still alive, I don't think he already kidnapped people.
Heeeeee! ...sadly, this appears not to have worked as well as she was hoping...
Alas. I mean, in theory, it was a great idea and btw also shows Sophie must have had a pretty progressive pedagogic concept if her solution of how to deal with what she knows of grandson's troublesome sides (and I bet she hadn't heard the worst stories, but undoubtedly enough for her to be worried somewhat) isn't to lay down the law and tell him he's rubbish, but to use his enthusiasms and present him with someone he can admire who could be a good role model in his behavior. It sure as hell is a very different approach to how FW would handle what were to him Fritz' "troublesome tendencies". As to why it didn't work as intended - hmmm. Not sure how much FW actually saw of Eugene during his time with the Allied forces at Malplaquet. He was in Marlborough's command, wasn't he? And of course, the days before and after this most gruesome battle weren't occasions where Eugene could display manners, love of culture and the ability not to lose his temper at underlings.
I do find it interesting that FW swears to Sophie he doesn't kick or beat people because he knows how a prince ought to behave. I mean, obviously he's lying, but it ties with the fact he bribed and cajoled his governor into not telling his parents that FW had thrown him down the stairs. He was 15 then and is now just a few years older, but Sophie technically has no authority over him, unlike his parents. Also she's a woman. But clearly she has emotional authority over him, he does want her good opinion, and he's aware that physical brutality towards underlings would not be something she'd tolerate. That's another reason why the young FW letters feel so different from the ones we know later - once Sophie and his father are dead, he does not write to people who have either political or emotional authority over him anymore. He's the highest authority. At best, he writes to people he sees as equals, i.e. fellow monarchs. But it's a very different mental and emotional set up.
On to Austria.
In the audio commentary to Amadeus, Peter Shaffer says that "Franz Xavier Orsini-Rosenberg" is the most Austro-Hungarian kuk monarchy type of name imaginable, and I see his point. :) Though the real man was far less of an humorless control freak than the one in the play. (One of the main things Amadeus turns on its head re: the supporting cast is that Joseph didn't need Salieri or Orsini-Rosenberg to form his musical opinions. Like Fritz, he was more the know-it-all type all too ready to offer his own opinions. Or, as the author of the "Charmed Circle" book puts it: Throughout the late 1770s and the 1780s Rosenberg acted as the empror's chief advisor and manager for court theatrical productions, but Joseph's own active interest in theatrical activities robbed hte post of independent authority. To the emperor, Rosenberg was a trusted servitor rather than a mentor and advisor, as Lacy (the other male member of the circle) was. Chamberlain Khevenhüller noted that Rosenberg's jovial humor made his company attractive to his sovereign.
Lady Mary Coke, meeting him in Vienna in 1773, had this to say: He is one of the most Amiable sensible Men I never knew: amon gother talents has that of languages beyond anybody, and has as much knowledge of English as I have: the accent is the only thing that wou'd make you know him for a foreigner. The good English came to be because Orsini-Rosenberg had started his career at age 19 as secretary of the Hungarian ambasssador in London in 1742. (Meaning: MT's ambassador. Remember, Queen of Hungary in 1742, and FS was not yet Emperor, Wittelsbach Charles was.) MT trusted him considerably. During the Seven Years War, he was ambassador in Madrid, and then she made him minister and advisor to son Leopold in Tuscany from 1766 to 1770. Since Leopold's reign in Tuscany is one of the most successful ones by a Habsburg in that century, he probably was good at his job, and all that international knowledge and experience was one reason why Joseph befriended him once Orsini-Rosenberg was back in Vienna.
Here's the final letter Joseph wrote literally on the evening of his death (it's dated February 19th 1790, and Joseph died in the early morning hours of February 20th), adressed to "Five ladies joined together in society who tolerated me": Mesdames, it is time, my end approaches, to acknowledge to you once more here through these lines all my appreciation and gratitude for the kindness, patience, and friendship, and even flattering concern which you have been good enough to show me and to bestow on me during the many years that we have been together in society. I miss each of those days, not once were there too many for me, and never to see you again is the only meritorious sacrifice that I make in leaving thi sworld, be so good as to remember me in your prayers, I cannot be sufficiently grateful for the grace and infinite mercy of providence to me, in complete accord therewith I await my hour, farewell then, you will be unable to read this scribbling, the handwriting attests to my condition.
Eleaonore Liechtenstein, who had often been very critical about Joseph (especially since she didn't agree with most of his reforms, also because she and Joseph were the two most hot tempered members of the group) wrote to her sister Leopoldine Kaunitz (another of the five ladies, and daughter-in-law to Kaunitz the key minister): We were often infuriated by him, but how much verve, life, enthusiasm and love for justice did he awaken in all of us!
I do find it interesting that FW swears to Sophie he doesn't kick or beat people because he knows how a prince ought to behave.
Ugh. This also, I feel like, brings home to me that he knows very well that he shouldn't be doing these things (also reminds me of what you said about how Fritz made him feel bad about himself). But he still does.
Throughout the late 1770s and the 1780s Rosenberg acted as the empror's chief advisor and manager for court theatrical productions, but Joseph's own active interest in theatrical activities robbed hte post of independent authority.
Ha, yeah, that was definitely not the impression I got from Amadeus :)
Here's the final letter Joseph wrote literally on the evening of his death
This is just a heartbreakingly lovely letter, especially knowing he knew he was dying. I'm glad that they had each other.
We were often infuriated by him, but how much verve, life, enthusiasm and love for justice did he awaken in all of us!
And this is a wonderful epitaph in its honesty as well as what it says about Joseph and their friendship <3
Ha, yeah, that was definitely not the impression I got from Amadeus :)
I suspect that Peter Shaffer basically went for types in his characterisation of the courtiers and Joseph himself rather than attempting historic relevance. I.e. Orsini-Rosenberg is every officious censoring official artists had to content with, Joseph is the well meaning but ignorant of art potentate (who depends on his circle to feed him lines if he has to say something about a work of art, which as even TV Tropes in its Amadeus entry points out is the reverse from rl where Joseph was more likely to annoy people by having more than enough opinions of his own). This is dramatically understandable - they are minor characters, the audience will thus recognize them as familiar types and not be confused despite the historic setting with unfamiliar names. Which allows more dramatic focus on the three characters who do get in depth characterisation (Salieri, Mozart and Constanze). (Okay, Leopold also gets some characterisation in the movie version. But Caterina Cavalieri, for example, is a type again -she's every prima donna/sexy star.)
Obviously I am 1) super duper biased in Fredersdorf's favor, and 2) inclined in all cases to choose the hypothesis that amuses me the most, so I think you guys are not surprised that I have chosen (d) :D
Hahaha, I thought you would like our honorary member doubting the truth of the embezzlement story!
it's the tall guys, FW (no, I know the further context of the letter makes that unlikely, but I couldn't resist)
LOL, totally! Speaking of the tall guys, I never replied to Selena's comment in the last post:
But unless he wrote a completely different one after the 1722 Testament
The thing is, both MacDonogh's "FW totally told Fritz to get Silesia back!" and Duffy's "FW said he was faking it about the tall guys and the miserliness" specify 1722 as the year of the testament. Which as you said, jibes in no possible way with the copy we have. So I'm still guessing 19th century nationalistic forgery and am looking forward to your acquisition of Bleckwenn next month, in (somewhat slim) hopes that that book will point is in the right direction of "WTF is going on here?"
Okay, I'll have you know I just reread FW's political testament for your sake, in case I missed anything, and the Rokoko German is still a headache. :)
Also, thank you, gracious Royal Reader. I did skim it but was not about to sit down and work my way laboriously through, so I owe you a great debt.
As for ministers, FW recs Grumbkow (spelled Grumkau in this document, telling us how it was pronounced)
Does it? I mean, I know how modern Parisian French pronounces <au>, but I know too little about late 17th century Brandenburger Huguenot-exported French to be confident that I know how to interpret that spelling. I mean, Voltaire *was* always correcting Fritz's rhymes... ;)
(FW! THe classical education Mom insisted on was not in vain if you remember Sardanapal, who is not in the bible.)
Haha, this made me laugh! It also reminded me of FW on Frau von Baspiel:
Not only is she clearly a traitorous WHORE, she dares to compare me to Tiberius, and even though I hated my Latin and ancient history lessons, I know that wasn't a compliment.
c) Fritz chewing out young FW2 for having sex with everone but his wife who has sex with everyone but him. Somehow, "I really like women, too, and just pretended" is not the kind of thing fitting the pattern there.
Fritz: "Nephew, you've got to fake not liking women better! Like I do!"
FW2: "Yeah, you definitely had me convinced you were gay, Uncle."
Zimmermann: "See?! That's what I said!"
:PPP
Yeah, I was not at all surprised to find that this was an anonymous pamphlet rather than something Fritz actually wrote to FW2.
As for the supposed Fritz-to-FW2 text: if it first shows up in print in 1766, and existed in manuscript from before that, making the rounds, it might even have been produced in the last years of the 7 Years War, when the propaganda war by anonymous pamphlet was as fervent as that on the battlefield.
In fact, one of claims that's been made for its genuineness is that if it had been produced by the French, it would have been published during the war! Appearing after the war is a clear sign that Fritz suffered a head injury and a temporary personality change wrote it. :P
Grumbkow: how does French get into it? The 1722 will is written in Rokoko German. If FW spells it "Grumkau", this to me suggests this is how he pronounced it. To clarify, if I myself see a "-ow" ending, I would pronounce it with an a long ohhhhh in German. "kau" otoh is pronounced in German with the vocal the way English speakers pronounce "how?" Conclusion: the man himself was adressed with the "au" (German)/"ow" (English) sound by his contemporaries.
Mostly from me being both unclear and unrigorous. I was assuming that as a native speaker of a Huguenot/Brandenburg French whose French is known to have influenced his German, FW, when trying to represent a word that may not have a fixed spelling and that he's probably heard more than he's seen, may have defaulted to a French spelling even when writing in German. In which case I don't know whether it's like English "ohhhh" or "how". However, I should have acknowledged that the possibility that he's consistently using German spelling (if he's writing a lot of 'au's in a German text, he may simply just keep doing that) is the obvious one, in which case you're most likely right: we have a Grumbkau and not a Grumbkoh.
Speaking of which, something that's been bugging me for a while if we ever meet in person is that my pronunication of most proper names in my head is either straight up English or is some kind of hybrid French+English or German+English, and some names I just haven't settled on a pronunciation for (Suhm being a noticeable one: English because I'm speaking English? German because he was German? French because he communicated with Fritz in French? Even "Diaphane" is a bit different in English and French. :P)
I'm quite sure there will be moments when you'll have no idea who I'm talking about, particularly if there's a 'th' or an umlauted vowel and I'm blithely plowing my way through the word as though it were English. (Like, after two semesters of German I know how German is pronounced, in theory. But then there's the part where 1) my mouth won't do all those things, 2) even when it will, I have to consciously stop and remember how it goes. (My wife and I, who talk about paleoanthropology a lot, are currently trying to switch from the traditional English pronunication "Neanderthal" to "Neandertal", and it's hard.)) So I'm incredibly self-conscious, and warning you ahead of time. ;)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
still catching up
But also: Fredersdorf, since this is what I really care about :)
d) Fritz kept Des Champs in service because he was cheap, see above, but saw no reason why he should pay someone who was a proven spy good money, so told Fredersdorf not to pay him more than the mere minimum. Fredersdorf did so, leaving Des Champs to conclude that Fredersdorf kept the rest of the money to himself.
Obviously I am 1) super duper biased in Fredersdorf's favor, and 2) inclined in all cases to choose the hypothesis that amuses me the most, so I think you guys are not surprised that I have chosen (d) :D (But also it amuses me so much because that would be so in character for Fritz! And Fredersdorf, lol.)
Aw. Considering you and [personal profile] cahn wrote the ultimate first-meeting-in-Küstrin story for me, maybe I should write the first-meeting-in-Frankfurt story?
Um, YEAH. :D
I consider him an honorary salon member, though I carefully call it "reading group" when talking to him and definitely don't say it's on Dreamwidth. ;)
I gotta say this is super awesome, I love our honorary salon members :D
On Vienna Joe:
This book quotes not only the letter but the follow up letter one and a half months later where Joseph tells Leopold that yay, the talk helped, pregnancy achieved, they figured it out! It really was just laziness and lack of imagination and knowledge, not a physical impediment, told you.
Heh, nice! I think the only thing better than sensational gossip is finding out better-sourced sensational gossip :D
The two non-Joseph male members of the club, Lacy and Orsini-Rosenberg
ahahaha, I know about Orsini-Rosenberg from, of course, Amadeus
She handled it brilliantly... So she did go for "friendship yes, love no", and made sure she wasn't alone with him ever in this initial phase. From this, the circle of five - plus two of his male friends - developed. His infatuation passed, but the friendship didn't
This is really cool, and like you say brilliant.
and when one of the ladies (not Eleonore) had lost two children in short order he was a true comfort (remember, he had lost his only daughter and been heartbroken over it, so she knew he knew whereof he spoke).
:( <3
On Family Letters:
Sophie: Look. Eugene isn't a handsome man, but he's a wonderful example of how one can be a military hero AND a man of culture and of MANNERS. It might be INSTRUCTIVE to observe that close up. I'm just saying.
Heeeeee! ...sadly, this appears not to have worked as well as she was hoping...
On the more touching side again, in the letter where he announces his third marriage to Sophie, he swears it won't make a difference to FW and SD because he'll never, ever allow anyone no matter their standing to mistreat his children, he knows what a stepmother is and Sophie knows he knows, and the new wife won't be a stepmother, she'll be a mother.
Okay, that's really great <3
The King has now repeatedly talked to me about marrying me off, but most recently he has promised me that he would give me another year for this and would not force me to take a woman whom I don't love (...).
(Obvious irony in terms of events a few decades later is obvious.)
*blinks* That's just... wow.
As for me, I can only repeat that I do feel glad to possess her and with with all my heart that God may keep us this happy for all our life... SD, on the other had, reports to Grandma that she has the impression she ended up in fairy tale palaces, and loves every bit of it. This is so how she wanted her life to be! And everyone is lovely and kind. Bliss!
Argh. I suppose there's a reason why the honeymoon phase is a thing in the abuse cycle. But also... I guess it's sort of like FW being nice to AW, right? When everything's going right and everyone's happy and there aren't any disagreements, I imagine FW is probably... mostly... fine to be around. It's just that life (and other people) don't work in such a way that everything always goes right and there aren't any disagreements
and sometimes it turns out your kid actually likes to play the fluteI don't know through which misfortune I've become a topic of conversation in France
it's the tall guys, FW(no, I know the further context of the letter makes that unlikely, but I couldn't resist)Re: still catching up
Heeeeee! ...sadly, this appears not to have worked as well as she was hoping...
Alas. I mean, in theory, it was a great idea and btw also shows Sophie must have had a pretty progressive pedagogic concept if her solution of how to deal with what she knows of grandson's troublesome sides (and I bet she hadn't heard the worst stories, but undoubtedly enough for her to be worried somewhat) isn't to lay down the law and tell him he's rubbish, but to use his enthusiasms and present him with someone he can admire who could be a good role model in his behavior. It sure as hell is a very different approach to how FW would handle what were to him Fritz' "troublesome tendencies". As to why it didn't work as intended - hmmm. Not sure how much FW actually saw of Eugene during his time with the Allied forces at Malplaquet. He was in Marlborough's command, wasn't he? And of course, the days before and after this most gruesome battle weren't occasions where Eugene could display manners, love of culture and the ability not to lose his temper at underlings.
I do find it interesting that FW swears to Sophie he doesn't kick or beat people because he knows how a prince ought to behave. I mean, obviously he's lying, but it ties with the fact he bribed and cajoled his governor into not telling his parents that FW had thrown him down the stairs. He was 15 then and is now just a few years older, but Sophie technically has no authority over him, unlike his parents. Also she's a woman. But clearly she has emotional authority over him, he does want her good opinion, and he's aware that physical brutality towards underlings would not be something she'd tolerate. That's another reason why the young FW letters feel so different from the ones we know later - once Sophie and his father are dead, he does not write to people who have either political or emotional authority over him anymore. He's the highest authority. At best, he writes to people he sees as equals, i.e. fellow monarchs. But it's a very different mental and emotional set up.
On to Austria.
In the audio commentary to Amadeus, Peter Shaffer says that "Franz Xavier Orsini-Rosenberg" is the most Austro-Hungarian kuk monarchy type of name imaginable, and I see his point. :) Though the real man was far less of an humorless control freak than the one in the play. (One of the main things Amadeus turns on its head re: the supporting cast is that Joseph didn't need Salieri or Orsini-Rosenberg to form his musical opinions. Like Fritz, he was more the know-it-all type all too ready to offer his own opinions. Or, as the author of the "Charmed Circle" book puts it: Throughout the late 1770s and the 1780s Rosenberg acted as the empror's chief advisor and manager for court theatrical productions, but Joseph's own active interest in theatrical activities robbed hte post of independent authority. To the emperor, Rosenberg was a trusted servitor rather than a mentor and advisor, as Lacy (the other male member of the circle) was. Chamberlain Khevenhüller noted that Rosenberg's jovial humor made his company attractive to his sovereign.
Lady Mary Coke, meeting him in Vienna in 1773, had this to say: He is one of the most Amiable sensible Men I never knew: amon gother talents has that of languages beyond anybody, and has as much knowledge of English as I have: the accent is the only thing that wou'd make you know him for a foreigner. The good English came to be because Orsini-Rosenberg had started his career at age 19 as secretary of the Hungarian ambasssador in London in 1742. (Meaning: MT's ambassador. Remember, Queen of Hungary in 1742, and FS was not yet Emperor, Wittelsbach Charles was.) MT trusted him considerably. During the Seven Years War, he was ambassador in Madrid, and then she made him minister and advisor to son Leopold in Tuscany from 1766 to 1770. Since Leopold's reign in Tuscany is one of the most successful ones by a Habsburg in that century, he probably was good at his job, and all that international knowledge and experience was one reason why Joseph befriended him once Orsini-Rosenberg was back in Vienna.
Here's the final letter Joseph wrote literally on the evening of his death (it's dated February 19th 1790, and Joseph died in the early morning hours of February 20th), adressed to "Five ladies joined together in society who tolerated me": Mesdames, it is time, my end approaches, to acknowledge to you once more here through these lines all my appreciation and gratitude for the kindness, patience, and friendship, and even flattering concern which you have been good enough to show me and to bestow on me during the many years that we have been together in society. I miss each of those days, not once were there too many for me, and never to see you again is the only meritorious sacrifice that I make in leaving thi sworld, be so good as to remember me in your prayers, I cannot be sufficiently grateful for the grace and infinite mercy of providence to me, in complete accord therewith I await my hour, farewell then, you will be unable to read this scribbling, the handwriting attests to my condition.
Eleaonore Liechtenstein, who had often been very critical about Joseph (especially since she didn't agree with most of his reforms, also because she and Joseph were the two most hot tempered members of the group) wrote to her sister Leopoldine Kaunitz (another of the five ladies, and daughter-in-law to Kaunitz the key minister): We were often infuriated by him, but how much verve, life, enthusiasm and love for justice did he awaken in all of us!
Re: still catching up
Ugh. This also, I feel like, brings home to me that he knows very well that he shouldn't be doing these things (also reminds me of what you said about how Fritz made him feel bad about himself). But he still does.
Throughout the late 1770s and the 1780s Rosenberg acted as the empror's chief advisor and manager for court theatrical productions, but Joseph's own active interest in theatrical activities robbed hte post of independent authority.
Ha, yeah, that was definitely not the impression I got from Amadeus :)
Here's the final letter Joseph wrote literally on the evening of his death
This is just a heartbreakingly lovely letter, especially knowing he knew he was dying. I'm glad that they had each other.
We were often infuriated by him, but how much verve, life, enthusiasm and love for justice did he awaken in all of us!
And this is a wonderful epitaph in its honesty as well as what it says about Joseph and their friendship <3
Re: still catching up
I suspect that Peter Shaffer basically went for types in his characterisation of the courtiers and Joseph himself rather than attempting historic relevance. I.e. Orsini-Rosenberg is every officious censoring official artists had to content with, Joseph is the well meaning but ignorant of art potentate (who depends on his circle to feed him lines if he has to say something about a work of art, which as even TV Tropes in its Amadeus entry points out is the reverse from rl where Joseph was more likely to annoy people by having more than enough opinions of his own). This is dramatically understandable - they are minor characters, the audience will thus recognize them as familiar types and not be confused despite the historic setting with unfamiliar names. Which allows more dramatic focus on the three characters who do get in depth characterisation (Salieri, Mozart and Constanze). (Okay, Leopold also gets some characterisation in the movie version. But Caterina Cavalieri, for example, is a type again -she's every prima donna/sexy star.)
Re: still catching up
Hahaha, I thought you would like our honorary member doubting the truth of the embezzlement story!
it's the tall guys, FW (no, I know the further context of the letter makes that unlikely, but I couldn't resist)
LOL, totally! Speaking of the tall guys, I never replied to Selena's comment in the last post:
But unless he wrote a completely different one after the 1722 Testament
The thing is, both MacDonogh's "FW totally told Fritz to get Silesia back!" and Duffy's "FW said he was faking it about the tall guys and the miserliness" specify 1722 as the year of the testament. Which as you said, jibes in no possible way with the copy we have. So I'm still guessing 19th century nationalistic forgery and am looking forward to your acquisition of Bleckwenn next month, in (somewhat slim) hopes that that book will point is in the right direction of "WTF is going on here?"
Okay, I'll have you know I just reread FW's political testament for your sake, in case I missed anything, and the Rokoko German is still a headache. :)
Also, thank you, gracious Royal Reader. I did skim it but was not about to sit down and work my way laboriously through, so I owe you a great debt.
As for ministers, FW recs Grumbkow (spelled Grumkau in this document, telling us how it was pronounced)
Does it? I mean, I know how modern Parisian French pronounces <au>, but I know too little about late 17th century Brandenburger Huguenot-exported French to be confident that I know how to interpret that spelling. I mean, Voltaire *was* always correcting Fritz's rhymes... ;)
(FW! THe classical education Mom insisted on was not in vain if you remember Sardanapal, who is not in the bible.)
Haha, this made me laugh! It also reminded me of FW on Frau von Baspiel:
Not only is she clearly a traitorous WHORE, she dares to compare me to Tiberius, and even though I hated my Latin and ancient history lessons, I know that wasn't a compliment.
c) Fritz chewing out young FW2 for having sex with everone but his wife who has sex with everyone but him. Somehow, "I really like women, too, and just pretended" is not the kind of thing fitting the pattern there.
Fritz: "Nephew, you've got to fake not liking women better! Like I do!"
FW2: "Yeah, you definitely had me convinced you were gay, Uncle."
Zimmermann: "See?! That's what I said!"
:PPP
Yeah, I was not at all surprised to find that this was an anonymous pamphlet rather than something Fritz actually wrote to FW2.
As for the supposed Fritz-to-FW2 text: if it first shows up in print in 1766, and existed in manuscript from before that, making the rounds, it might even have been produced in the last years of the 7 Years War, when the propaganda war by anonymous pamphlet was as fervent as that on the battlefield.
In fact, one of claims that's been made for its genuineness is that if it had been produced by the French, it would have been published during the war! Appearing after the war is a clear sign that Fritz
suffered a head injury and a temporary personality changewrote it. :PRe: still catching up
Grumbkow: how does French get into it? The 1722 will is written in Rokoko German. If FW spells it "Grumkau", this to me suggests this is how he pronounced it. To clarify, if I myself see a "-ow" ending, I would pronounce it with an a long ohhhhh in German. "kau" otoh is pronounced in German with the vocal the way English speakers pronounce "how?" Conclusion: the man himself was adressed with the "au" (German)/"ow" (English) sound by his contemporaries.
Re: still catching up
Mostly from me being both unclear and unrigorous. I was assuming that as a native speaker of a Huguenot/Brandenburg French whose French is known to have influenced his German, FW, when trying to represent a word that may not have a fixed spelling and that he's probably heard more than he's seen, may have defaulted to a French spelling even when writing in German. In which case I don't know whether it's like English "ohhhh" or "how". However, I should have acknowledged that the possibility that he's consistently using German spelling (if he's writing a lot of 'au's in a German text, he may simply just keep doing that) is the obvious one, in which case you're most likely right: we have a Grumbkau and not a Grumbkoh.
Speaking of which, something that's been bugging me for a while if we ever meet in person is that my pronunication of most proper names in my head is either straight up English or is some kind of hybrid French+English or German+English, and some names I just haven't settled on a pronunciation for (Suhm being a noticeable one: English because I'm speaking English? German because he was German? French because he communicated with Fritz in French? Even "Diaphane" is a bit different in English and French. :P)
I'm quite sure there will be moments when you'll have no idea who I'm talking about, particularly if there's a 'th' or an umlauted vowel and I'm blithely plowing my way through the word as though it were English. (Like, after two semesters of German I know how German is pronounced, in theory. But then there's the part where 1) my mouth won't do all those things, 2) even when it will, I have to consciously stop and remember how it goes. (My wife and I, who talk about paleoanthropology a lot, are currently trying to switch from the traditional English pronunication "Neanderthal" to "Neandertal", and it's hard.)) So I'm incredibly self-conscious, and warning you ahead of time. ;)
Bleckwenn: https://opacplus.bsb-muenchen.de/title/BV004108770