cahn | 18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 33

cahn

And, I mean, it doesn't have to be just 18th century characters, either!

(also, waiting for Yuletide!)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

selenak

Having had a quick look at the texts

felis linked, the descriptions of FW's 1739 outbursts include, among other thing we've already heard about (like the occasion when everyone rises), even an "I should have killed you in 1730!" outburst. To be fair, they also include in 1740 the Fritz-praising (with a backhand added) "You will have a better King than I have been, though it wasn't always thus", but given the earlier, I can just see every envoy being on tiptoes in 1739.

Also, it makes it most likely Fritz advised Wilhelmine not to come because with FW's temper, the chances of her getting abuse instead of a conciliatory death bed goodbye were about even.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

"I should have killed you in 1730!" outburst.

Woooooww. Oh, wow.

You will have a better King than I have been, though it wasn't always thus

This is why I remain convinced that if FW were to somehow learn what Fritz did after his death, he'd largely praise him (despite all the parts he wouldn't approve of) and take credit for the "tough love" that turned him into a great king instead of money-wasting baroque prince F1.

From:

selenak

Oh, FW would definitely be a subscriber to the "Küstrin made Frederick Great" interpretation. Re your wow, here's more if you want to quote or refer to it in the future:

Weber does mention Manteuffel's sources (for what Manteuffel doesn't witness himself) re: the FW stuff, to wit, a chamber servant of FW's, and a royal courier. (

cahn, reminder, everyone tried to read everyone else's mail in this century. And then they were all SHOCKED whenever they found out someone else was doing it.)

Here are the Weber-collected FW 1739 outbursts according to Manteuffel:

- FW demands that Fritz should swear an oath thathe would not make the slightest change for the army and the administration if he, FW, dies, nor appoint new personal. Fritz refuses. FW explodes

- FW cuts down people's pensions, Fritz resupplies them with his own money - "his last 10 Taler" according to W/M - , which makes him popular but also makes his father explode

- 31 January 1740, FW says: "I don't regret having to die, for he who fears death is a dog. But what I do regret is that I should have such a monster ("Unmensch") like my son as my successor." And: "I know exactly what those many bowings and scrapins mean, may thunder and lightning strike all! I'lll have to cut down a few heads like flowers, then we'll see whether the boy or I are the Mayor of Berlin." Even normal politeness towards the Crown Prince made him angry. When the Prince entered his father's room one evening and everyone present rose, the King angrily shouted "Sit down!", and when the Prince didn't sit down immediately and everyone else present waited for him to sit first and remained standing, he cried: "Sit the hell down or go to the devil, everyone of you!" Another time, he swore that he could blame himself for only one thing, and that was not having the Prince executed ten years ago.

- Feburary 3rd 1740, FW thinks a (French) servant has been paid by Fritz to poison him just because the guy, as ordered by FW's doctor, had tried to give him a sleeping draught. FW says the servant has to consume it all if he wants to prove there's not poisoning plot going on, or he'll be hanged. Servant says he'll do that, but in two hours, because it takes that long to prepare a new drought, since the draught is meant to help FW against his horrible pain and make him sleep. FW says fine, he'll prove he does not fear death, drinks the drought and sleeps like a baby.

(I'm going out on a limb here and guess the French servant is Manteuffel's source.)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

And then they were all SHOCKED whenever they found out someone else was doing it.

Every time I encounter a new example of someone reading someone else's mail, I think of Oncken. :P

Fritz resupplies them with his own money

I see why he needed so many sugar daddies.

31 January 1740, FW says: "I don't regret having to die, for he who fears death is a dog. But what I do regret is that I should have such a monster ("Unmensch") like my son as my successor."

Good god. No wonder when Voltaire asked if FW had ever learned to appreciate Fritz, Fritz was like, "SO, he died like a hero and a stoic and a king."

Servant says he'll do that, but in two hours, because it takes that long to prepare a new drought, since the draught is meant to help FW against his horrible pain and make him sleep. FW says fine, he'll prove he does not fear death, drinks the drought and sleeps like a baby.

LOLOL, gotta love these anecdotes.

(I'm going out on a limb here and guess the French servant is Manteuffel's source.)

I wouldn't want to bet against you.

From:

selenak

Good god. No wonder when Voltaire asked if FW had ever learned to appreciate Fritz, Fritz was like, "SO, he died like a hero and a stoic and a king."

Yes, that exchange from their letters came to my mind as well when reading this. Also Fritz dreaming of his father mid 7 Years War and still yearning for a "Well done, son" moment.

Seriously, though, given all of this, if I was Fritz I'd have told Wilhelmine to stay in Bayreuth, too! (Though given Wilhelmine probably yearned for a "Well done, daughter!" moment, too, and had not experienced the face to face joy of parental behaviour since her miserable 8 months in 1732/1734, it's also not surprising part of her wanted to go.)

Meanwhile, Pesne: paints rising sons, err, suns. Methinks he was probably feeling safe to do so because he was so famous a painter that if FW had kicked him out and had not died, he'd have easily found a place in Saxony or Austria or France.

From:

felis

Seriously, though, given all of this, if I was Fritz I'd have told Wilhelmine to stay in Bayreuth, too!

had not experienced the face to face joy of parental behaviour since her miserable 8 months in 1732/1734

Yeah. And it's the exact same thing Fritz says to her:

"I don't understand why, under the current circumstances, you have such a vivid desire to come here. The King is in a bad state, but life in Berlin is really not for you. You will act according to your own judgement, but if you regret it and experience sorrow here, don't hold me responsible. I'm predicting how things will go, there's nothing more I can do. You haven't been here in eight years, so maybe you forgot the hundred thousand little things which two days in Berlin will remind you of, to your detriment. I'm saying it with the bible: blessed are the absent or those who don't know what is happening here, because we often say: Mountains, cover us, Hills, fall over us!"

And in a letter to AW from Ruppin in April he writes:

"I was lucky to spend eight days in peaceful calm, without hearing of sickness and bad mood. [...] One scares me of Berlin a lot. The mood there is supposed to be unbearable and the water is rising into the abdomen. If that's true, it can't take more than six weeks, and I'm afraid the King and we will suffer a lot during that time. I wholeheartedly commiserate with all sufferers and am collecting a big supply of patience in advance."

Given that he had to suffer FW's outbursts and then apparently went and still tried to mitigate the worst of it for other people, he really did bring that patience it seems.

From:

cahn

"I don't understand why, under the current circumstances, you have such a vivid desire to come here. The King is in a bad state, but life in Berlin is really not for you. You will act according to your own judgement, but if you regret it and experience sorrow here, don't hold me responsible. I'm predicting how things will go, there's nothing more I can do. You haven't been here in eight years, so maybe you forgot the hundred thousand little things which two days in Berlin will remind you of, to your detriment. I'm saying it with the bible: blessed are the absent or those who don't know what is happening here, because we often say: Mountains, cover us, Hills, fall over us!"

Oh wow.

...Although I do have sympathy for Wilhelmine and totally see where she's coming from and why she yearned for validation from her parents, I... must admit that in this particular instance I have a certain amount of empathy for Fritz, as my sister and I have a bit of this dynamic (my parents are not really anything like FW or SD, thankfully, but validation is not really a thing one gets from them, and I think my sister might have figured that out, but it took her longer than it took me).

Also, this totally reminds me of Fritz telling Heinrich that it's a terrible idea to go to Dear Old Wusterhausen, heh. He was right then, too!

From:

selenak

He so was. :) Examples of Fritz being the emotionally wisest are so rare they are worth being remembered!

Mind you, towards non-family members, Fritz wasn't above prettifying their family life in retrospect, and I don't just mean the hilarious "at least we're nothing like the Hannover cousins with their family dysfunction, we're so harmonious" to Mitchell. You have all types of witnesses, up to and including Fritz second chamber hussar who was with him for the last decades of his life testifying that Fritz was a model son who never said an unkind word about Dad other than the occasional "great King, but wow, that temper". But that's a familiar psychological mechanism, too, isn't it, for abused children to close ranks against outsiders and insisting everything was fine except for some minor excentricities?

Re: Wusterhausen, it's far, far away, so I can say it, but if next autumn there's a fanfic challenge featuring ghost stories you particularly like, tell me and I will join so I may have the chance to write a story about old Heinrich at Wusterhausen encountering all types of family ghosts during the last years of his life while reading Wilhelmine's memoirs. With or without a flashback to the family reunion of doom there two decades earlier. Hey, the Hohenzollern have their very own family ghost - a White Lady, no less - they should get a ghost story!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

But that's a familiar psychological mechanism, too, isn't it, for abused children to close ranks against outsiders and insisting everything was fine except for some minor excentricities?

*nod* Very.

but if next autumn there's a fanfic challenge featuring ghost stories you particularly like

Oooh! I don't have a good track record of signing up for exchanges, but I hereby cheer for the writing of new stories featuring our favorite Hohenzollerns!

From:

cahn

Oh man, you can't do this to me, I've learned that doing Trick or Treat (my ghostly exchange of choice -- at least, I think it's the only one around right now, unless you know of another I don't?) and Yuletide is a lot! But this is an offer it would be hard for me to pass up :)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Fritz: Sometimes being the most abused pays off!

I have empathy for both of them. I read that passage reminded of how I used to be guilty of forgetting how bad my parents were (not as bad as FW and SD, I hasten to add!) between visits, looking forward to the holidays, and then going, "Oh. Right. This is why I don't visit more often," 48 hours into the visit. Visits became shorter and less frequent as this pattern started to sink in, until finally the big estrangement happened.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Seriously, though, given all of this, if I was Fritz I'd have told Wilhelmine to stay in Bayreuth, too! (Though given Wilhelmine probably yearned for a "Well done, daughter!" moment, too, and had not experienced the face to face joy of parental behaviour since her miserable 8 months in 1732/1734, it's also not surprising part of her wanted to go.)

Agreed on both counts. I can see exactly where both of them were coming from and sympathize with both of them in this situation.

Methinks he was probably feeling safe to do so because he was so famous a painter that if FW had kicked him out and had not died, he'd have easily found a place in Saxony or Austria or France.

Yes, this does make sense! Question, though: could FW have done anything worse than kick him out? Like lock him up or anything?

From:

mildred_of_midgard

- FW cuts down people's pensions, Fritz resupplies them with his own money - "his last 10 Taler" according to W/M - , which makes him popular but also makes his father explode

You know, I'm 99% sure we ran into this before. I can't remember when or where, but it's ringing a bell, and I may have even made the same sugar daddy crack.

From:

cahn

And then they were all SHOCKED whenever they found out someone else was doing it.

I laughed!

FW says: "I don't regret having to die, for he who fears death is a dog. But what I do regret is that I should have such a monster ("Unmensch") like my son as my successor."

OMG. FW :(

Another time, he swore that he could blame himself for only one thing, and that was not having the Prince executed ten years ago.

FW, why are you like this :(

From:

selenak

A more endearing yet utterly FW anecdote is the one we already know, which seems to have been based on Manteuffel's report (or at least Manteuffel's reports include it as well), which is his pastor exhorting him to forgive all his enemies if he wants God to forgive him, whereupon FW replies he doesn't have enemies except "die canaille", i.e. "that bastard", his brother-in-law G2, and promptly tells SD "Fieke, write to your brother that I forgive him all the wrongs he did me - but only after I am dead, not before!"

Gotta say, while I guess Hervey is right when saying FW and G2 couldn't stand each other because of their alikeness, I do wonder which wrongs G2 did committ against FW in FW's mind, given that FW was the one who won that fight when they were boys. Morgenstern names inheriting three crowns and marrying Caroline without deserving any of it, but those are not specific actions aimed at FW. The 1729 almost duel affair? Encouraging Fritz' escape attempt? (Which G2 did not, but FW remained convinced he did.) Other things?

Aaaanyway. What's always worth remembering is that in the last years of his life, FW was in constant physical pain due to his illnesses, and his idea of self medication was to drink, which didn't help his general temper problem. If you're in constant pain and have a hair trigger temper, you lash out at familiar targets. For FW, these were his oldest children, Gundling, G2 and (if she brought up the English marriage project or otherwise argued with him), SD.