cahn | 18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 36

Starting a couple of comments earlier than usual to mention there are a couple of new salon fics! These probably both need canon knowledge.

felis ficlets on siblings!

Siblings (541 words) by felisnocturna
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758), Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758)
Summary:

Three Fills for the 2022 Three Sentence Ficathon.

Chapter One: Protective Action / Babysitting at Rheinsberg (Frederick/Fredersdorf, William+Henry+Ferdinand)
Chapter Two: Here Be Lions (Wilhelmine)

Unsent Letters fic by me:

Letters for a Dead King (1981 words) by raspberryhunter
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen (1726-1802)
Characters: Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802)
Additional Tags: Epistolary, Love/Hate, Talking To Dead People, Canonical Character Death, Dysfunctional Family
Summary:

Just because one's king and brother is dead doesn't mean one has to stop writing to him.

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From:

cahn

So I was all "nope definitely do not have the time to do Unsent Letters" and then

selenak went out on the post-deadline pinch-hit list, and then she stayed on the pinch-hit list, and I was like, "well, maybe I could write a thousand words?" and Mildred said she'd be up for beta. I was taken with your prompt on Joseph writing to his dead mother, but it became very swiftly clear that was Not Feasible (nor that Mildred would be able to help beta as thoroughly as usual), and I also wrote about 300 words of Timov, but wasn't confident about being able to get that done either, and then I got interested in the prompt where Heinrich was reading Wilhelmine's memoirs for the first time, and combining that with the original prompt of interest Joseph writing to MT, and perhaps subconsciously thinking of Beale's analogy of Joseph:MT::Heinrich:Friedrich...

Since the vast majority of canon we have for Heinrich and Fritz in this era is encapsulated in Ziebura, that also made it a lot easier (if it had been something for which I'd have needed several sources of canon review ~~like Voltaire~~, I don't think it would have been possible, willing beta or no). (I didn't consult Trier myself, but Mildred did for beta.)

Anyway, I am a little miffed that I didn't sign up now, because I want

selenak's epistolary! :)

-Mildred and I went back and forth about how to translate mon très cher frère, but I finally went for "My dear brother" as the best compromise between something that sounds like a formal salutation in English without being too over-the-top to modern eyes, as "My very dear brother" looks to me, and not as jarring as using a French salutation would be.

-The paragraphs that Mildred wrote are "I've waited and waited..." down to "My efforts." I'd written a version with the same factual content, and much of the phrasing Mildred kept, but she took it from being a more-or-less bloodless recap of Ziebura to Heinrich actually sounding upset, and I liked her version so much I mostly kept it :)

-Totally random noob question that I have wondered for ages: when someone closes a letter e.g. "I form the most sincere wishes for your preservation, my very dear brother, while giving you thanks for the fruits which you deigned to send me, being, etc." is the "etc" actually transcribed literally from the letter, or is it the transciber's shorthand for "yours, Heinrich"? (I probably should have asked this literally years ago, lol, because I've always wondered.)

From:

cahn

felis,

mildred_of_midgard mentioned that you had put your ficlets up on AO3 -- can I link to them in the post? I would have linked already but they are locked, and I didn't want to link if you don't want me to. (I did, I think, previously link your "Blackbirds" poem, not realizing it was locked -- sorry if I shouldn't have done that, and I can edit if you'd rather I didn't!)

From:

felis

It's fine! The Thirteen Ways poem wasn't actually locked when you linked it, I only did that a couple months ago when the kudos bot kept hitting works by people on my reading list. I didn't want that to happen to any of my works, nor for any other bots to crawl them, that's why it's all archive-locked now. But linking is fine, if you don't mind linking to archive-locked things.

(no subject)

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-05-14 05:29 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

In our last post,

selenak wrote:

Richelieu: one of the very few men of power not afraid to find and train a gifted successor to take their place, which meant that after his death, the system they'd built around them didn't collapse.

And this is very true, and we are indeed looking at you, Fritz.

But from my recent reading I can give an example of a *woman* of power doing it!

Back in 11th century Italy, Salic law was in force, meaning women could not inherit. But as we've seen in Europe during our much later period, women could totally be regents for their sons, or for their husbands if they were sick or away fighting wars.

Well, when Matilda of Tuscany was a child, her father died. Her mother took over as regent for their son Frederick.

Then Frederick died. Technically, the imperial possessions should have reverted to the Holy Roman Emperor to dispose of to one of his followers, buuuut, the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope were not on great terms (this is the lead-in to the big Investiture Controversy), and Matilda's family was taking the Pope's side, so they just kind of hung on with papal support.

Meaning Matilda's mother, Beatrice, kept ruling. Now, Matilda had been married off to her stepbrother, the duke of Lorraine. But at one point, she decided to leave her husband and come home. She pushed for a divorce and wanted to enter a nunnery, but the Pope very much did not want her to. He and everyone else pushed back and urged her to reconcile with her husband; she refused.

Eventually, Beatrice gave up on Matilda ever going back to Lorraine, and she started including her daughter in all her governing activities. Beatrice knew the only way for a woman to succeed a woman, totally illegally, was if the woman was well entrenched in power when her predecessor died. And the only way Beatrice was able to stay in power was by traveling throughout her realms, being very hands-on, and making sure her subjects knew who she was and saw her as an authority figure (to be fair, this was extremely the norm for male rulers of the period--centralization was not yet a thing; peripatetic courts were).

So Beatrice and Matilda traveled, and Beatrice made sure everyone saw Matilda as an authority figure, so that when Beatrice died, the transfer of power to Matilda was, if not totally seamless, at least made possible. And Matilda kept ruling for another forty years, de facto if not de jure.

(She and her family were not extremely popular, incidentally. They faced a lot of rebellions, had to make concessions and play political games in order not to be locked out of major cities entirely, and the end of Matilda's reign, ca. 1110, is when Florence went, "Welp! We think we'd like to be a republic," and much of northern Italy started dissolving into the city states that we know and love (or love to hate?) from the Renaissance.)

By the way. The author of the bio I read, Elke Goez, speculates as to some reasons Matilda might have left her husband and refused to go back, stating that "how great her despair must have been can be seen from the fact that she took the difficult journey [over the Alps] south in winter." So, speculates Goez, maybe Matilda couldn't deal with her husband being a hunchback, or maybe her desire for a contemplative life as a nun was just that strong, or maybe she refused to be in a marriage where the woman wasn't an equal partner.

Does anyone else see a missing possible explanation there? Like that maybe her husband was awful to her? I have no evidence for this, but it seems a bit odd to omit it.

Anyway, props to Beatrice for seeing her daughter not as a threat but as the future.

From:

cahn

OK, this is really cool!

So, speculates Goez, maybe Matilda couldn't deal with her husband being a hunchback, or maybe her desire for a contemplative life as a nun was just that strong, or maybe she refused to be in a marriage where the woman wasn't an equal partner.

Me: But... maybe Matilda's husband was crappy? As seems to have been the case for MANY MANY other husbands out there?
Mildred: Does anyone else see a possible missing explanation...?
Me: I've actually learned something from you guys! If only that it sucked to be a woman in the past :P

From:

mildred_of_midgard

German wiki has some interesting (to me, anyway) information on the historiography of his diary: it only turned up in 1988, having languished in archives until then, and it didn't even mention his name! Scholars had to do research to figure out who he even was.

The key turns out to be the very passage I reproduced in the last post, where he records the birthplace, date, and name of his daughter Margareta. The historian who turned up his diary looked through the church records, which, amazingly, survived (it's probably not an accident that she was born in 1645, i.e. close to the end of the war, because so many German churches were destroyed during the war that records before 1648 are sparse), and included an entry for a Margareta, same date, same place, daughter of a Peter Hagendorf. So the historian who translated and published the diary took a guess that the diarist's name was Hagendorf.

The guess didn't turn into a claim in which historians have confidence until 2004, when more archival evidence surfaced.

In 2018, Juliana da Costa José developed a profile of Peter Hagendorf using the methods of operational case analysis and based on this the thesis that he could come from the High Fläming and have gone back there. She turned to Müller, who informed the historian Hans Medick. Together with the handwriting expert Claudia Minuth, they found entries in Gorizia's church books from 1649. Apparently, Hagendorf arrived in Gorizia with his family in autumn 1649, because from November 9th "Peter Hagendorf, a soldier" and "Anna Maria Hagendorf, wife of Peter Hagendorf" and descendants of the two mentioned several times. Müller and Medick analyzed the presumed way back in terms of plausibility and made historical observations on the reason for return, such as punitive regulations and resettlement measures that ordered military personnel and refugees who had been scattered in Saxony-Anhalt to return to their places of origin in order to repopulate the orphaned areas. The church book entries could be confirmed by these investigations.

On February 4th / February 14, 1679 ^greg. der alte M: Peter Hagen was buried in Görzke at the age of 77. Medick concludes from the currently available data that the funeral entry mentioned is that of the soldier Peter Hagendorf, who demonstrably had his son of the same name baptized there in November 1649. According to Medick, there are indications that this Peter Hagendorf was elected "mayor and judge". Calculating backwards, the year of birth would be 1601 or 1602.

So when Münkler says we don't know what happened to the 2 kids who survived infancy after the war, he presumably didn't know about Medick's 2018 research, since Münkler's own book was published in 2018. Of course, Medick could also be wrong, but I went looking up Hagendorf's wiki entry precisely to see if we knew how long the kids survived, and it didn't surprise me that at least the wiki editor thinks we do, and it sounds plausible!

Per wikipedia, he had 4 children with his first wife, none of whom survived (and she died in childbirth, per the entry I reproduced), and 10 with his second wife, of whom only 4 survive to adulthood. The two that Münkler mentions, because they were born during the war and are thus recorded in the diary, plus two that are born after the war (and presumably had better survival odds!), which were found recently in the archives.

Historians really are detectives! I like how da Costa José leaned into that and decided to just treat this as a cold case investigation. :D

This wiki summary of the diary was also interesting:

He shows feelings about things that obviously inspire him, such as nature, mills and architecture. Between the phases of the battle, he describes nature and landscapes verbosely, in detail and with great clarity, showing a lively interest in the respective inhabitants and their culinary peculiarities. He does not glorify war. Hagendorf describes the horrors that he has to witness, but also those he causes himself, in a distant way. Nor does he skimp on self-critical illumination of his own person. This is how his tendency to alcoholism is described, which he usually has well under control, but which gets him into trouble, mostly of a financial nature, if he gets through it. He genuinely loves his women. He describes his children reservedly, as long as they are still infants. Only when the first, the son Melchior Christoph, reaches the toddler age, does his description becomes warmer and more emotional. When the child begins to become aware of things around him, he takes care of him and places him with a schoolmaster until the end of the war.

Also this:

In 1648 Hagendorf acquired 12 sheets of fine paper from his pay, which he tied together with sturdy thread to write down his wartime experiences. The diary was most certainly the fair copy of many slips of paper. The historian Marco von Müller found in his master's thesis that it can be proven that pieces of paper were mixed up or lost; in some places, parts of the text are not entirely conclusive and sound as if they were reconstructed from memory.

See, this is why, when betaing for

cahn's Christmas with the Hohenzollerns fic, I suggested Fritz gift Fredersdorf a bound journal to write in: that would have been non-trivial for someone of Fredersdorf's background to come by!

In conclusion, "18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, and Also Whoever Catches Our Interest, Be It 11th-Century Matilda of Tuscany or 17th-Century Charles "AITA" II and Peter Hagendorf." :) Aka "Operation Learn German First, Then Go Back to the 18th Century."

From:

From:

selenak

Last night, at a literary festival:

Well known older German actor, first time author of an autobiographical novel:

"...my mother came from a very Prussian family, and when I was young she told me this story about Frederick the Great. He was a musical, artistic boy, and apparantly it was evident that he was homosexual early on. He tried to flee with his friend Katte, they were caught, and Katte was executed while Frederick's face was forcibly turned towards the spectacle. Now, in filmed versions, the execution tends to be by shooting, but in reality, Katte was guillontined."

Selena, in the audience, prudently silent but thinking: Is he using that expression metaphorically? Surely he has to know....

Actor: "Yes, it was the Guillontine, and so any depiction with a firing squad is wrong. And until the post war period, this was seen as tough love and good Prussian education because the result was Frederick the Great!"

Selena, still only thinking: Dude, you mean well, but you still should know when the Guillontine was invented, and that Katte died in 1730. Also, which filmed firing squads are you talking about? Some writers went for the axe instead of the sword, and sure, there was that Yuletide fanfic where he was shot (and FW was present), but in terms of films and tv, even the one shot during the Nazi era didn't use a firing squad as far as I know? Where are those filmed firing squads!

...Mildred has influenced me far too much. I didn't use to care that much about the exact manner of Katte's execution.

Edited Date: 2022-05-18 01:25 pm (UTC)

From:

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-05-19 05:26 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

luzula

Hi salon! I am going on a fannish trip with lots of 18th century elements. : D More specifically, I am going to Scotland with

regshoe, and passing by London and Paris on the way (I'll be going by train from Sweden). In Scotland, we will, among other things: go to the West Highland Museum, go to the Clan Cameron museum, and go hiking on what remains of one of Wade’s military roads. And obviously also hike up to the spot of the fictional Ardroy from Flight of the Heron.

In Paris,

garonne and I will probably go to Versailles and also to the Musée de la Mode and their huge collection of 18th century clothing. : D Any tips for other 18th-century-related things to do in Paris?

In London, where I have two days, I have not yet decided what to do. I am considering the National Maritime Museum, since I have an interest in navigation and related areas. And how could I resist standing with one foot on either side of the Greenwich Meridian? *g* There's a National Army Museum, which might be good for fic research, but it's not really clear from their website what exhibitions you can look at (they did very kindly help me by photographing a mid-18th century captain’s commission for my fic research once…). And there's the Victoria and Albert Museum, which also has lots of 18th century clothing, but I'm already going to a museum with clothes in Paris, so I don't know. I'm sure I'm missing lots of 18th-century-related stuff I could be doing in London! Help me out, salon!

From:

From:

selenak - Date: 2022-06-06 08:48 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I'm back in the 18th century! Now with more German. So you may see more of me. But I'm still working full-time and very slow at reading German, so you won't see as much of me as I would like.

Anyway, I'm reading an article on Algarotti from the Neues Archiv für sächsische Geschichte, 1913, and found these things which were either new to me or I had forgotten about them and thus so perhaps has at least one of you, so you will forgive me the repetition.

* Algarotti dedicated his "lettere sopra la scienze militare" in 1759 to Heinrich.

selenak, this made me think of your RMSE request!

cahn, if you need chronology reminders, this is after his final estrangement from Fritz, where he left Prussia for the last time, he's living in Italy, and the Seven Years' War is on. This is the same year that Fritz loses the battle of Kunersdorf, contemplates suicide, steps down from command for a few days, and puts Heinrich in charge.

Interestingly, if I'm remembering correctly, Heinrich by this time was already commanding an army in Saxony and being substantially nicer to the populace than Mister "War Crimes" Fritz ever was. If news of this reached Algarotti, who lived in Dresden and probably had friends, good memories, etc., he might have been grateful to Heinrich on a personal level, beyond the usual networking practice of dedicating your works to someone influential.

* Voltaire was the one who recommended to Algarotti that he stop by Rheinsberg and meet Fritz in 1739? If we knew this, I had forgotten, but it makes perfect sense! This was the initial infatuation period.

* Manteuffel writing to Brühl (Saxon minister and #2 guy after the king, Cahn) in September 1740:

I have already often mentioned the famous Algarotti. I must emphasize today, how he is daily getting more and more credit and reputation with the king, who hardly lets him out of his sight (lit: go more than a step away from him). I haven't had the opportunity to get to know him, but he is depicted as a dangerous person (gefährlicher Mensch) by all who know him: he knows a great deal and speaks exquisitely, but he is free in his attitudes toward both religion and morals.

A few weeks later, Manteuffel made Algarotti's acquaintance at a court table, and confirmed that he was very charming and was a person of penetrating understanding. But, reports Manteuffel, Algarotti was annoyed with Fritz over the question of his pension.

Two things to remember: one, Algarotti, who is free in his morals, is treated for an STD in December of the same year. He must have been having fun in Berlin.

Two, as noted in the previous point, Brühl ends up being Algarotti's patron in a little over a year (Jan 1742), when Algarotti gets fed up with Fritz.

* Fritz, in May 1742, snipes at Algarotti, who has defected to Dresden, by calling him "M. l'Italien polonais," = "Monsieur the Polish Italian." Note that Poles can't get no respect in this century, so this is way more insulting than calling him Saxon, and also note Fritz's personal opinions on Poles, which as I recall were none too flattering.

Also, "Monsieur l'Italien polonais" reminds me greatly of the "YOUR FRIEND the Queen of Hungary" letter to Wilhelmine.

Oh, Fritz.

* Obligatory forward to a poem by Algarotti in which he refers to August III as Augustus and to Brühl as Maecenas, check.

ETA: And at least two more such ~~cliches~~ references in his time working for them.

* I had forgotten he went to Vienna in 1743! And I compiled a chronology of his travels from the dissertation on him and his networking. But now that I'm looking for it specifically, I see that it's mentioned in passing in a way that's very easy to miss.

Ahh, right, this is when he was trying to get stuff from the Count of Liechtenstein's collection, including the Antinous statue. August III didn't want the statue, so Liechtenstein started thinking about selling it to Fritz.

Also, the stuff August III *did* want from Liechtenstein's collection went to the King of Sardinia, who would be Victor Amadeus' II son at this point. I like that I know who's who now. :)

Author of this article: it's too bad for the Dresden antiquities collection that they passed up on the Antinuous statue, because Fritz got it and now it adorns the Berlin Museum!

* Huh, so I knew that moving through Central Europe on his way from Dresden to Italy was hard for Algarotti because of the war ~~that SOMEONE started~~, but apparently he also got stuck because of plague quarantines.

We feel your pain, Algarotti.

But fortunately not your literal pain, which he had upon arriving in Italy, because of a rheumatism attack. He's 30! These poor people with their terrible medicine.

* Some of the pieces he worked so hard to acquire during this trip were sent to Hubertusburg and disappeared after the 1760 Prussian sack of this palace, and to this day we don't know whether they were destroyed or removed. Yeah, Algarotti was probably happier with Heinrich than Fritz in 1759.

* Huh. Algarotti agreed to come back to Fritz in October 1746, and arrived in Berlin in March 1747. Then the Old Dessauer died April 7, 1747, and the Saxon envoy in Berlin reports to Brühl that now that the Dessauer's dead, there's a lot of money available, so Algarotti's going to get a good pension. I had no idea that this was where the money for Algarotti came from!

And sure enough, on April 15, Algarotti writes to Brühl, "You guys didn't appreciate me, but Fritz does, and now I get 300 Talers *and* I'm royal chamberlain [the title he'd been trying and failing to get from August III] *and* I got the pour le mérite! I've officially handed in my resignation from all Saxon titles to your ambassador."

August the Chill was apparently displeased that Algarotti resigned without like, asking, but wished him luck (and probably munched on popcorn in coming years).

Oh, lol, and then they get sarcastic at each other. (I'm liveblogging this article, if you can't tell.)

Brühl: But the king is pleased with your gratitude for the time in which you found asylum at his court.

Algarotti: Excuse you, I never needed asylum! I went to Dresden of my own free will and stayed there, despite how much you disappointed me!

Proof that Algarotti is not always the master of the amicable long-distance breakup.

* Lol, the author is convinced that things were always hunky-dory between him and Fritz after 1747, that Algarotti went to Italy the first time because of that alleged unrequited love for Barbarina, and the second time solely for health reasons. Never because Fritz was getting on his nerves or he was watching the Fritz/Voltaire explosion with horror.

I mean, that's just our theory, but there's some evidence for it! (I think his health played a role, but I also don't think Fritz was his dream boss.)

* Oh, and according to this author, anyway, where it says "Fredericus Magnus" in very large letters on Algarotti's tomb, Fritz had actually said to put "Fredericus Rex," but Algarotti's brother changed it.

* Finally, if you care more than I do about the exact details of Algarotti's artistic contributions while working for the Saxons, this article delivers. I admit I skimmed.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

One of the things I'm reading is Neugebauer's history of the Hohenzollern family. It's the 1200s, and the Hohenzollerns are beginning their rise to power. How do they go from minor nobility to being somebodies in the HRE? By hitching their wagon to the star of the Habsburg family. The Habsburgs aren't yet at the point of delivering all the Holy Roman Emperors, but they've managed to put their guy Rudolf on the throne.

What is the first concession the Hohenzollerns get from Rudolf as a reward for their Habsburg support?

The right to inherit in the female line, in case the male Hohenzollern line dies out.

500 years later:

MT: *glare*

From:

selenak

LOL. Well, quite. Incidentally, partly due to the current chief Hohenzollern continuing with his law suit, the guy writing an acid takedown on just how much the Hohenzollern from the first half of the 20th century collaborated with Hitler won the German book price.

Fritz: I would like to point out that contrary to his claim, Willy and his son weren't my descendants.

Heinrich: They may have carried my favourite brother's genes, but Guille is last Hohenzollern anyone could accuse of being pro multi front wars of agression and the people conducting them.

Re: Hohenzollerns, Habsburgs, and hypocrisy

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-06-10 07:49 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Hohenzollerns, Habsburgs, and hypocrisy

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-06-11 05:31 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Hohenzollerns, Habsburgs, and hypocrisy

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-06-11 05:30 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Hohenzollerns, Habsburgs, and hypocrisy

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-06-11 02:03 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Hohenzollerns, Habsburgs, and hypocrisy

So I'm also reading Geoff Mortimer's biography of Wallenstein, mostly for German practice. (Yes, Geoff Mortimer is a British name; the book was translated into German for the audience that cares the most about Wallenstein, and that's how I'm reading it.)

Reminder for

From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2022-06-15 06:22 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Wallenstein and Kepler

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-06-15 06:41 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Wallenstein and Kepler

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-06-18 05:11 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

luzula

Another "Oh, James II, no,"-moment...

From:

selenak

Good grief. I hadn't known about this episode. It does sound like him, alright!

*marvels again at the audio Stuarts characterisation of James as someone who only ever meant well and didn't do a mean thing in his life...*

(no subject)

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-06-15 06:44 pm (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From:

selenak - Date: 2022-06-15 07:05 pm (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-06-18 05:12 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-06-18 05:02 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

selenak

Okay, I could read it sooner than expected, and before my trip next week, here are a few impressions:

Firstly, you know, all the German sources quoting Guy Dickens on the Hohenzollern family had left me with the idea he was called, well, first name Guy, last name Dickens. He was not. He was, in fact, (Lt. Col.) Melchior Guy-Dickens. His marital history is one of extremes. As a young man, he married a Huguenot lady twice his age who died as the result of giving birth to Mary Ann's mother Mary and later, he married a fifteen years old half his age. Go figure. Anyway, while Melchior Guy-Dickens is busy in the diplomatic service and recording FW's parenting methods for posterity, he's told that the daughter he fathered while stationed in Ireland and left with a couple called Smith once he got posts elsewhere had died, while little Mary is told her father is dead my the Smiths. Why the Smiths would do this remains a mystery. (Maybe they wanted to keep Mary around.) But! Once Mary becomes marriable, a notorious gambler with good looks named Jordan Costelllo enters the scene, one of many no good incompetent men in this saga. Only this one happenes to know Mary is the daughter of the very much alive Melchior Guy-Dickens, thinks that means she has an inheritance and sweeps her off her feed. Then he delivers the happy news, and claims Mary's inheritance from her Dad, and gambles it away. This leaves our heroine, Mary Ann, growing up first with contantly arguing parents (her mother having long since fallen out of love with Jordan, understandably so) , and then being sent to live with now retired Gramps Guy-Dickens in England in the hope that she either charms him into coughing up more money or makes a brilliant match on the marriage market (as opposed to anything she can get in Ireland).

Melchior has children from his second marriage who are less than enthused at the idea of Melchior hitting it off too well with his granddaughter, which he does, and so encourage the marriage idea. After a succession of possible matches whom Mary Ann does not like, they land her with George Canning (the elder). George Canning is the rebellious, moody son of a tyrannical Dad, wrote some anti-royalist poetry and good at offending the wrong people, and also he thinks Mary Ann is her grandfather's heir. She's not. They end up, you guessed it, in dire straits. He dies soon, and if that's not bad enough, Mary Ann's parents have now moved from Ireland to England in the expectation she'll support them. Also, old Melchior has gone senile and is totally under the control of his daughter. (At least that's what Mary Ann said decades later in recounting her life.) For a while, Mary Ann has an ally in her brother-in-law, Stratford "Stratty" Canning. (Her biographer thinks, based on Mary Ann's later one novel, there was some unspoken tenderness between them, but apparantly marrying your sister in law would have been illegal in 18th century GB, and so Stratty marries a resolute young lady named Merihabel instead.

So Mary Ann, with two children (one of whom will die soon, the other is future PM George Canning (the younger)) and useless parents as well as herself to support, needs a job. She does not want to be a governess, or a paid companion for some lady. But she's young and pretty, and the great Garrick, the greatest actor of the age, offers to launch her as an actress in a production of a melodrama titled "Jane Shore" besides him. That she decided on this option (and not the more respectable jobs of companion or governess) seals her fate, and will always be held against her by Merihabel and Stratty, who end up raising her son George from the time George is four years old. This doesn't happen immediately once Mary Ann starts her stage career, it has to be said. First, Mary Ann's debut and subsequent roles, most in today forgotten plays as the romantic ingenieu, don't result in a "Star is born" scenario. She's pretty and smart (which will serve her long term), and later she'll pick up some stage technique, but her voice isn't strong enough (and not yet stage trained), and while her debut is received friendly, a subsequent play has her booed relentlessly. (That she didn't run off stage in tears says something about her, too.) In this situation, the next shady male character appears. This one, Mr. Reddish, is actually a good actor, but also prone to quarrel with other actors, plus he happens to keep quiet he's already married. Instead, he wooes Mary Ann under the pretense of wanting to marry her, she goes to Scotland with him, he fesses up to his marital state, and she has to live with him sans marriage (though she uses the Mrs. Reddish name) because she's already pregnant. When her next kid, Sam, is born, and Merihabel hears young George refer to "the player's brat" as his brother, she and Stratty decide action is called for. And that's when George ends up with them. He and Mary Ann won't see each other again until George is sixteen, though they correspond via letter.

Mary Ann tours the provinces (and Ireland) with Reddish the Rake (not London, they're burned there because of Mary Ann getting booed off stage and Reddish having pissed everyone off), and discovers she actually has a talent for management. In terms of her stage life, these are fairly successful years - she smooths things over between Reddish and the other ensembles, chooses easy roles for herself and star roles for him, and they're doing mostly well (she also becomes pregnant repeatedly, thus having even more dependents). Then Reddish has a complete mental breakdown and ends up in the asylum, leaving Mary Ann even worse off than George Canning the older left her, because now she has multiple kids, still her useless parents to cope with, and she's eight years older. The one thing she now has which she didn't then is stage technique and experience. She does get other acting jobs, but still, when a seemingly respectable draper from Bristol proposes, she says yes and wants to retire into financial safety and marriage. Except, as it turns out, said guy, Mr. Hunn, is a stage fan who wants to be an actor. He sells his business and insists Mary Ann get him engagments like she got Mr. Reddish. Except Mr. Hunn has zero talent and gets booed off stage. Unlike Mary Ann, he doesn't rally after that. Instead, he blames her, has affairs, and produces more kids with her. (Around this time, Mary Ann reads Mary Wollstonecraft's "Vindication of the Rights of Women" and goes THIS THIS THIS!!!! in her letters about it.)

And that's when now sixteen years old George meets his mother again. Young George hadn't been told why he didn't live with his mother anymore for years, but eventually, his aunt and uncle said it was because she chose to be an actress and live in sin with a player. Still, no one objected to letters, and he built up a romantic image of her based on his few memories. When he meets her, she's far older than he remembers, and of course looks like a woman with multiple pregnancies behind her and who had to be the main breadwinner for a large family for many years did. Also, she's effusive, with grand gestures. He is, as he'll later admit, disgusted and shocked by the sight of her and secretly decides two things: a) he'll never, ever live with her, and b) he will dutifully support her and rescue her from this life.

George is a clever (top marks) child, ambitious youngster turning into a clever, ambitious man, and his relationship with his mother is the bleeding core of the book. Were this a Dickens novel, he would either be a complete bastard cutting her off completely, or a good son providing her with love and care and company, or possibly first one, then the other. In real life, George works his way up the political ladder (not easy even for a brilliant young man, because first of all, he starts out with no money and few connections, and second, the few he has are Whig connections - because of his dead father the moody anti-royalist -, and George, not least due to the French Revolution, becomes a firm Tory instead. And while he's doing that, he both intensifies his correspondence with his mother (they end up writing to each other once a week without fail through the years, and he doesn't miss it no matter the political crisis) and keeps her at a distance in terms of actual meetings. She's very proud of him and at first believes that once he's able to afford it, they'll live together, not least because one of his arguments to convince her to say goodbye to the theatre for good is that'll hurt his career. (This, btw, isn't something he invented. Even decades later, "son of an actress" was used as a slight against him by his enemies.) And she's absolutely shattered to find out that not only does he not want to live with her once he's in a position to do so, he does not want her in his life (the letters aside), full stop.

When he gets married, he doesn't want her to meet his wife. When he has children of his own, he doesn't want her to meet them. Now, on all these cases, he eventually relents, because Mary Ann is nothing if not obdurate, and their life long struggle where she wants love and attention and he wants to provide money and otherwise a distance (with thousands of letters as his compromise) might be uneven in terms of power, but she's not without weapons. One of the efficient rethorical blows she lands is when she tells him his late father couldn't stand the historical figure of King James VII and I. (son of Mary Stuart, first Stuart monarch to rule England, remember, aka Alan Cumming on Doctor Who), because James "shook the hand of Elizabeth when it was red with the blood of his mother" and when the late George Canning the older (according Mary Ann) was told that King James must have objected to his mother's sins he said "he should have been her son and defender, not her judge!" Hint, hint.

Anyway, there's the occasional personal meeting after all (both between George and his mother, and between George's wife and his mother, and eventually even between some of the grandkids and his mother), but not many. Financially, she's at last secure (he got her a government pension, which provides his enemies with material as well. Also, Mary Ann's other kids (remember them?), both the illegitimate ones by Reddish and the legitimate ones by Hunn keep wanting George to help them in their respective careers. He's less than thrilled and pointedly refers to the male ones as "my mother's sons", not "brothers" as he used to say as a four years old to the horror of his aunt, but he does come through when push comes to shove. The other kids seem to have resented both that he's Mum's favourite and that they sooner or later would grovel to him in the hopes of advancement anyway. (His youngest brother, Frederick, wrote him an obscene letter at age 12. George saw it as a prank and just ignored it, but he wasn't warm with adult Frederick, either.)

Mary Ann ends up living in Bath (another compromise; George didn't want her in London, but Bath was fashionable enough not to be the provinces, and full of interesting people, plus visiting from London the few times he did it was easy), and didn't quite live long enough to see George as PM, though she saw him achieve all the other offices before that. Like parents with less dramatic background, she chided him on his rare visits if he didn't stay long but was in ecstasies if he prolonged a visit without any prompting, and never stopped offering advice on anything from childcare to politics in her letters. (Her letters were long and emotional; his were, with a very few exceptions when he was angry with her because, say, she had shown one of his letters around in Bath, good humored and bantering, fun to read but never passionate.) Ironically, they died within six months of each other (he wasn't PM long). Our author thinks he might have caught the fatal cold on his trip to Bath to attend her funeral. Throughout the book, she tries to be fair to both Mary Ann and George in terms of their relationship. (George as a politician, she sums up by saying that it's impossible, even centuries later, not to be impressed by his rhethoric, wit and intelligence, nor not to be appalled by some of the use he made of it, like defending the Peterloo Massacre. Also, this is very much a biography written in our present, because unlike earlier biographies of similar 18th and 19th century figures I've read, it constantly keeps slavery in mind. George consistently voted against slavery through his entire career - he was a protegé of Pitt's and knew Wilberforce - , but he also wasn't above profiting from monetary sources that came from overseas plantations and thus inevitably involved slavery, not least since he represented the Liverpool district, and Liverpool was one of the biggest slave trading places until it was abolished.

All in all, a readable book, if inevitably full of real life frustrations. Mary Ann doesn't really fit into various tropes - she never completely failed nor ever hit the big time as an actress, her three known romantic relationships (with George Canning the older, Reddish the Rake and Hunn the Wannabe Actor) all ended badly, and while the one novel she wrote between acting hints that she might have had feelings for her brother-in-law and he for her, this, too, ended badly and he was instrumental in raising her son to judge her (though she tried her best to blame his wife for this). Her younger children thought it was unfair she favored George and, like her parents, the majority of them were dependent on her far beyond their childhood, and George never gave her the emotion she wanted from him or allowed her to be part of his life the way she had hoped he would, though he gave her just enough of his time and attention (all those letters!) to keep her hoping one day, he would come around to more than the occasional visit. At the same time: she survived. She did not have to prostitute herself. She did not want to be anyone's servant (hence her refusal to become a governess or companion once her first husband had died), and she never did. And for someone who doesn't seem to have had a natural acting gift, but had the discipline to learn and the stamina to continue even after having lived through the frightening experience of an entire theatre boo and hiss at you, she had a respectable bread winning career in the business for fifteen years, not just the two or three a pretty face alone could have gotten her. Would she have traded with Emma Hamilton, who had both an affectionate marriage (Sir William) and a great requited passion (Nelson), not to mention the social climb from zero to envoy's wife, friend of a Queen, but also had the complete fall, loneliness and self destructive death in alcoholic exile? I don't think so.

ETA: Link for possible further use: Grandpa Melchior Guy-Dickens' surviving papers are all listed here, and thus it looks like the Hohenzollern related letters are most likely to be found in the correspondence with one Thomas Robinson from 1730 to 143.)

Edited Date: 2022-06-18 12:02 pm (UTC)

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From:

cahn - Date: 2022-06-21 04:40 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

In case you missed it and want some reading material, an impromptu salon happened here this weekend.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Update: And as a result of that, I've now invited

telophase to come here and tell us all about her fantasy WIP and ask for historical info to help flesh certain aspects out, so if she decides to take me up on it, you may be seeing her here in the near future. :D

Re: Accidental salon

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-06-23 12:54 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Accidental salon

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-06-23 01:51 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

In lieu of the detailed write-up I don't have the energy for and that frankly probably no one is dying to know the details of, here's the TL;DR version.

Remember when

selenak gave us a truly royal write-up of Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria that was almost as good as having seen the movie?

And she reported this:

Brühl: So, I've been thinking. Silesia got unfortunately nabbed by Fritz of Prussia, but Saxony can still end up as a superpower by diplomacy, since he's been pissing off everyone else in the last decade. I' have this brilliant plan of creating an alliance between France and Austria, with Russia and Sweden joining in. And Saxony right in the middle.

Moscynska: Wow. How come you're letting this Kaunitz guy all the credit?

Brühl: I'm modest like that.

With later commentary:

selenak: Plans to invade and take Silesia by people not Fritz: well, I guess both Poland and Saxony do in fact share borders with Silesia, but Sulkowski planning to take it is entirely invented (by either the tv show or the original novelist). Yes, the Austrian army was in decline, but the Habsburgs still had not only their territories but the entire HRE to draw on (since this was before MT's Dad had died, his rule was uncontested). Such an action would have made August III. an outlaw all the other German princes would have been obliged to go against. And the Saxon army really wasn't nothing much, not least because all the money went elsehwere. If you don't have a completely modern, drilled and well equipped army at your disposal like Fritz did in 1740, in a situation where MT's rule hasn't been accepted yet, it can't be done.

It is, however, in tandem with this show letting the Saxons think of everything first - Silesia, and later the Diplomatic Revolution. (It's true that Brühl was involved in some of the negotiations, but it definitely hadn't been his brainchild.)

The TL;DR of my recent findings is:

Getting (at least part of) Silesia was one of Saxony's two main goals from at least 1726 to 1756. (The other being making Poland a hereditary monarchy.) They had absolutely no chance of taking it by force, for the reasons Selena spelled out, but they were relentlessly campaigning to get it by diplomacy. So the movie was...on the right track about Saxony's goals but taking creative license with their methods for dramatic purposes?

Once Silesia was in Prussian hands and Prussia had permanently alienated Saxony, the only way to get Silesia was by taking it from Prussia. Which Saxony absolutely could not do, for the reasons Selena spelled out. So Brühl set out on a mission to get Austria and France to set aside their differences, form a coalition with Russia and whoever else wanted to join (hopefully GB), and wage war on the real enemy: Fritz. Brühl's attempts to pull off the Diplomatic Revolution started in 1744, 5 years before Kaunitz's first memorandum, and continued unbroken for 12 years, independently of Kaunitz, so the movie got at least that much right!

Unfortunately for Brühl, not only were his efforts unsuccessful, but he missed his brief window in 1756 to join Kaunitz's coalition, so everything generally sucked for Saxony all around.

As for why Saxony wants Silesia more than anything? Land bridge between Saxony and Poland.

Map for

cahn:

As things stand, Saxons have to get permission from Austria (later Prussia) to move between their two main territories, pay tolls on commerce, and don't even get me started on the difficulty of moving troops through someone else's territory.

This puts Saxony in the exact mirror position of Prussia, which wants to partition Poland because they at least theoretically have to get permission from Poland (later Saxony-Poland) to move between their two main territories, pay tolls on commerce, etc.

This puts Saxony and Prussia into a zero-sum game where each step one of them takes toward becoming a great power comes at the expense of the other.

Also, apparently Prussia wanted to partition Poland as early as FW's time (it's not clear whether this is FW or his ministers), but couldn't get an international majority approval. Poor Poland.

I will try to add more details later.

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mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-06-28 04:18 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

luzula

Hi, just wanted to say that there are trip updates from Scotland in my journal, if you're interested! Some of it is fannish Flight of the Heron geekery, some of it is nature geekery, but there's some pure 18th century stuff as well, and more coming.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Great, thanks for the heads-up!

Re: Reports from Scotland

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cahn - Date: 2022-06-24 04:10 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

telophase

Hello! Here from the thread over at

rachelmanija. The context is that

mildred_of_midgard mentioned Victor Amadeus II consolidating several provinces into a centralized state, which made me perk up and go "Hey! There's a character in the background of the Novel I Am Currently Editing whose ultimate plan is to basically do exactly that and who is starting to lay the groundwork at the end of this story, and that looks like something I should maybe read about because I really have very little idea where to go from here."

The book--really a novella and a direct sequel novel, which is, you know, terribly marketable--is secondary world fantasy in which the worldbuilding is somewhat based on roughly the era of the Thirty Years' War, with inspiration from earlier and later as plot/world/characters accrete in my head. For example, I swiped the major/minor guild political setup from Renaissance Florence, and took inspiration for political unrest from the Ciompi Revolt. As I'm also writing extruded fantasy product, I have a guild of mercenaries angling for political power and a vote on that being a driving force.

My background is in anthropology, and I'm on more solid ground with social history than political or military history, so naturally my male main character is a mercenary and my female main character is the daughter of a major political power. Oops. (I also hate Magic Systems and prefer magic numinous so of course the FMC is a scholar of "esoteric sciences," because I planned that out really well. Sigh.) The Victor Amadeus II (or other) thing would come in as a bit of background for the sequel, and as something for me to use to work out motivations for the FMC's father and brother as I'm editing this one. Obviously, knowing more would help y'all recommend sources for me, but I'm sort of loath to hang all my worldbuilding out in public, for no specific reason.

mildred_of_midgard suggested I ask for a locked, tagged post. (I'm kind of intimidated to stroll in and immediately ask people to accommodate me, but, uh. Well.)

A couple of interesting things I've found while reading around--my writing process appears to be coming up with a vague sketchy outline of characters, then reading random history and social history that piques my interest until I've stolen enough random bits that cohere into a Thing.

I'm a systems librarian at a university by day, found the ebook of this in our collection, and bought the print copy as a reward to myself for finishing the draft: Warriors for a Living: The Experience of the Spanish Infantry during the Italian Wars, 1494-1559. From which I was very interested to discover that mutiny was treated more as a labor dispute action and not the desperate last resort it's viewed as today. It also has a chapter on how to sack a city!

I also recently found the book Women and Authority in Early Modern Spain: The Peasants of Galicia, which has given me Ideas for my MMC's background and family.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Hi and welcome and this is all awesome! I have emailed

cahn requesting a locked post when she has time. No need to feel intimidated--it was my idea! Like I said: we plot fiction in salon, and sometimes we (or the two of us who are collaborating on exchange fic for the third member of our trio) have to do it locked.

I'm going to hold off on replying until we have the locked post, so we can keep discussion in one place, but I'm super looking forward to it!

Full disclosure: the Thirty Years' War is a little before my period, but I can talk somewhat about 17th and 18th century centralization, and

mildred_of_midgard

Researching Brühl's diplomacy prompted me to finally buy and read M.S. Anderson's The War of the Austrian Succession. Since summarizing books is like pulling teeth for me (still envy you, Selena!), and since no one here cares about military history anyway, I'm just going to pull out some tidbits that made me raise my eyebrows and that may be of interest to salon.

Usual caveat: except where I note I was able to confirm in the Political Correspondence, these claims are only as trustworthy as this unknown author.

*

When Fritz came to power, he was interested in pursuing the Hohenzollern claims to Jülich and Berg, to the point that he proposed an entire alliance with Russia just to get them to support his claims. [Confirmed in the Polit. Corr.]

*

So I had always heard that Fritz refused to improve the roads in Prussia, because bad roads would make it harder for people to leave, but Anderson tells me he's nothing if not consistent:

In Prussia, by contrast, Frederick II, who feared that good maps might help an enemy, discouraged the survey begun by Field-Marshal von Schmettau in 1750.

*

We always remember that FW and Charles VI died in the same year, but what's easy to forget is that Tsarina Anna Ivanovna (she of the ice wedding) died 8 days after Charles VI. Since Russia had been allied with Austria and was likely to *actually* enforce the Pragmatic Sanction, and since her heir was a 2-month old baby (Ivan VI, who ends up in lifetime prison along with the rest of his family, including dad who is EC's brother,

cahn), invading Silesia was a lot more dangerous between October 20 (Charles VI's death) and October 28 (Anna's) than it was after.

In his Histoire de mon temps, Fritz said that Anna's death was the deciding factor in his decision to go ahead with the Silesian invasion. Anderson points out that this memoir was written with the benefit of hindsight, and it's unclear how much he can be trusted. (However, Anderson seems to be confusing the 1775 edition with the 1746 composition, and thinks it was written long after it was. That said, he's right that Fritz is not an utterly reliable source on his own motives.)

*

When the Holy Roman Emperor recognized Hanover as an electorate in 1692, it was on the condition that the Hanovers always use their vote for the Habsburg candidate. However, it was realized (by whom? the author does not say) in the 1730s that the Hanovers might decide that the failure of the male line exempted them from this.

*

Heinrich apparently went to Dresden with Fritz in January 1742 and met Brühl. Salon's Frederician chronology confirms that 1742 is the year Heinrich became Fritz's AD, so while I can't confirm his presence in Dresden, the timing checks out.

*

During the War of the Austrian Succession, MT apparently dreamed not only of restoring Alsace and Lorraine to the Holy Roman Empire, but Burgundy! Have not been able to confirm this one, but if so--talk about archaic claims!

*

After MT's allies the British win the Battle of Dettingen in 1743:

Maria Theresa, who was in Linz when she heard of the victory, made a triumphal entry into her capital: at the Hofburg she was greeted by her son, the two-year-old Archduke Joseph, who waved a little flag from a window.

Awww.

*

End of 1745: the Jacobite rebellion is underway and showing signs of success, the French are considering sending an invasion, and--

The duc de Richelieu, who was to command it, was equipped with 3,000 copies of a manifesto drawn up by Voltaire himself, to be distributed when the invasion force got ashore.

Voltaire?! I mean, 1745 is when he's court historian and writing panegyrics about the French victory at Fontenoy, so the timing checks out, but I did not realize or had forgotten he was writing pro-Jacobite pamphlets for Louis too!

*

The French foreign minister, the Marquis d'Argenson (friend of Voltaire), proposed a federation of Italian states that would be free of foreign intervention.

cahn, this is relevant because much of the War of the Austrian Succession is being fought over Habsburg and Bourbon territory in Italy.

According to d'Argenson's proposal, any foreign princes that acquired a principality in Italy would be required to give up any other territory or alliegances. The Holy Roman Empire would cease to have any authority in Italy. The Italians would develop independently and make their own political decisions.

I was not expecting anything quite this proto-nationalist in the 1740s in Italy, and certainly not from the French!

Unfortunately, neither was anyone else in the 1740s. Everyone went, "What? No," and life carried on in Italy with foreign powers controlling most of the states either de jure or de facto.

Even the Italians thought this was a bad idea. Largely as it was considered better to have two or three foreign powers in your peninsula than one with a monopoly, and if France withdrew and pushed the Habsburgs out, that just left Spain. And nobody wanted Spain (this is Philip V and Isabella Farnese, who have *ambitions*) to have control of all Italy.

But I thought it was super interesting to see this proposal this early.

*

Speaking of proposals I was surprised to see, Anderson writes that in the Netherlands in 1747:

Popular Orangist feeling, centred on the landward provinces and relatively pro-British, was now in the ascendant; and demands for the restoration of the stadtholderate were becoming irresistible. The States-General, faced by the growing menace of an Orangist seizure of power, even in desperation thought for a moment of offering the office of stadtholder to Frederick II; but he inevitably and wisely refused to have anything to do with the idea which, he pointed out, meant embroiling himself with both Britain and France.

Fritz as stadtholder of the Netherlands?!

Then I followed the footnote to the Polit. Corr., and found something even more interesting. Here's Fritz's May 1747 refusal, Google translated from the French:

I received your dispatch of the 12th of this month. Although I am always very glad to learn that I have a good number of partisans in Holland and that the unjust prejudices which have previously been held against me have been changed there, however, if it is true that some of the Principal Regents had the idea of offering the stadtholdership of the province of Holland to one of my brothers, on condition that I had to make war on France, I want to tell you that this idea would not have accommodated me at all, and that I would not have entered into negotiations on it, since firstly my State would have drawn no advantage from such an establishment of one of my brothers, and that secondly it would have also put me at odds with France and with England.

Anderson, you left out the most important part!!

Another missed opportunity for Heinrich, wow. And in 1747, he would have really wanted one! (

cahn: 1746 is Marwitz, 1749 is when he's desperate enough to agree to marry for more freedom. 1746-1749 are really oppressive years for Heinrich (remember that he's not even allowed to live at Rheinsberg even though it's technically his).

Hell, no, Fritz is not letting one of his brothers go be stadtholder of the Netherlands, or as Fritz called it, "wave the banner of independence."

So far, Fritz has turned down opportunities for Heinrich to become:
- Stadtholder of the Netherlands
- King of Poland
- satrap of Catherine the Great

And Heinrich turned down an opportunity to become King of America.

Man.

Also, since Fritz kept the Poland offer secret from Heinrich, and since Selena was hoping that Peter Keith never found out about Fritz's refusal to let him become ambassador to Britain just 3 months before (February 1747), I wonder if Heinrich ever found out about the stadtholder offer. (If it was mentioned in Ziebura, I have utterly forgotten.)

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From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-07-01 08:34 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

A while ago,

selenak informed me that

Bismarck's idea of being a monarchist did include telling the Hohenzollern, repeatedly, that the Bismarcks had been in the Mark Brandenburg way longer than they had. Märkischer Uradel! Given the Bismarcks and the Kattes being related, I now wonder whether Katte ever teased Fritz with that.

Well, I haven't found an answer to that, but I have found more old Mark nobility/Hohenzollern immigrant conflicts in my Neugebauer reading (supplemented by Wikipedia).

The very first Hohenzollern to be Margrave/Elector of Brandenburg was Friedrich I, in 1411. His line of the Hohenzollerns had been based out of Franconia, and he was born in Nuremberg.

When he arrived in Brandenburg, the family that had all the de facto power locally was the von Quitzows. They refused to submit to this Hohenzollern newcomer. Traditionally, the Quitzow lords of this period have been called "robber barons", though German Wikipedia sighs and says this is not entirely accurate. English Wikipedia, of course, blithely uses the term. :P

While insulting Friedrich, the Quitzows called him a "Nürnberger Tand," which means "trinket from Nuremberg." It apparently refers to the fact that Nuremberg had a famous toymaking industry going at the time.

Friedrich waged war on the Quitzows and their supporters, and he won partly through his heavy artillery, one of the first times it had been used! (This is why I kind of hate the Middle Ages: you know there must be all these interesting stories that happened, but most of the attested data is either super boring detail on who donated how much money to which abbey, or else super sparse and just hinting at people throwing insults and cannonballs at each other. This is why I'm reading Neugebauer 2 pages at a time. It should start getting more interesting within about a century, though.)

Now, among the families Neugebauer names as supporters of the Quitzows in this conflict were the Rochows and the Bredows.

Me, a scholar studying the Katte family: You mean Bredow, like Katte's stepmother, and Rochow, like his brother-in-law? (Reminder for

cahn, the von Rochow brother-in-law was the one who was Fritz's governor and helped shut down the escape attempt, but in a way that *didn't* piss Fritz off. He's the one you worked into your Yuletide fic where Katte writes his last letter!)

So now I'm super curious whose side the Kattes took in this big showdown! There were apparently a lot of internal feuds at the time, so it could go either way.

Fast forward three hundred years, and the Quitzows had split into multiple lines. The Rühstadt line died out in 1719, and their estate there was given by FW to...Grumbkow!

But his heirs couldn't keep it, so it ended up in the hands of a Jagow, who was married to a Bismarck.

...I'm sensing a theme here.

And yes, if you're noticing that names ending in -ow are one of the themes, there were quite a lot of Slavs in the Brandenburg area in the Middle Ages, and that did influence the names, even after German became the dominant language.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-07-11 04:52 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I'm reading bits of Lehndorff tonight to practice my Font of Doom, and liveblogging for your entertainment.

Peter Keith chronology *confirmation*: the various wiki pages and genealogy sites are correct that Frau von Knyphausen died in 1751! Her death date has come up in a couple contexts, and until now I've always had to say I *think* she died in 1751.

What does "a total Hans Dampf" mean? All I get when I google it is tires. I'm guessing it's not a compliment, but more specifically?

August 1752: "Als Frau kostümiert, gehe ich mit meiner Schwester nach Potsdam."

It's not even Carneval! What's with the random cross-dressing? (Quoted in German because every time I encounter something even slightly weird, I'm inclined to question my command of German, or in the case of a certain frog, even my command of English. :P)

Man, we're only on page 3 and we've already had 3 declarations of eternal love for Heinrich.

"Count Henckel (von Donnersmarck?) says at dinner that he makes himself bedcoverings out of orange peels, which makes us all laugh very much." The last bit is the only thing keeping me from questioning my German, but it's supposed to be absurd, so I'm going with it. :P

Page 4, 4th declaration of eternal love for Heinrich. This is starting to feel statistically significant.

Page 4, new entry, oh no, Heinrich is sad! Aaah, it's Reisewitz's suicide. But he's still lovable/charming even when he's sad.

Page 4, new entry, 6th eternal declaration of love.

Page 4, new entry, 7th eternal declaration of love.

I see how it goes.

Schmidt-Lötzen: No one wants to hear about Lehndorff's obsession with Heinrich.
Schmidt-Lötzen: *volume 1*
Readers: We do, we do!
Schmidt-Lötzen: *volume 2*

:P

Page 5, ooh, a tender embrace. :DDD

Page 5, next entry: Ooh, Lehndorff *returns* the tender embrace the following day! This is amaaazing, forget volume 1.

Day 12, in love with Heinrich to the point of desperation.

Gets to visit Heinrich but then he has to leave and do something else, oh noooo this is the wooorst! :'-(((

Aww, trying not to be jealous of Lamberg but can't totally master his feelings. <3

Still page 5, Heinrich cures headaches with his very existence now!

Page 6, several more Heinrich mentions, and then the famous Polterabend entry! Sex at the old place, sex at the new place. :D

January 2, 1753, loving Heinrich more than ever now!

Day 3, the love is still tender.

cahn, I cannot convey how MANY entries are Heinrich entries. They just keep coming!

Tortured now by the thought that he might lose Heinrich's love. The emo is holding nothing back here.

Oh, lol, he's visiting a Bredow and there's a great crowd of people, "including a Herr Katt, who doesn't form exactly the most pleasant company for me." Mildred, student of the Katte family, sighs.

Page 7 and it's emo time! "I could be a philosopher if not for this passion for Heinrich!"

You know, Lehndorff, somehow I doubt it. <3 Never change.

"Mein lieber kleiner H."

Oh, no, Heinrich is speaking altogether too tenderly to someone named Maltzahn! Lehndorff is sad and goes home and can't sleep at night.

[Mildred, writing this at 3 am: I mean, same, but for different reasons. :P]

Lehndorff now hastening to Heinrich, who is reading in bed, and they remain together until 2 am. HMMM wonder what else happened in that bed. :P

Page 8, Heinrich is more charming than ever, but the only fly in the ointment is this Maltzahn guy that Heinrich *might* be attracted to. Lehndorff has to freak out whenever he sees them together.

Okay, I think I need to stop here, but this has been excellent font practice. I hope you were entertained,

cahn. :D

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-07-16 03:59 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Lafayette

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-07-11 05:17 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

No, not Fritz, and not Tsarevitch Alexei, either! Manuel, younger brother of João V of Portugal (reigned 1706-1740).

In my continuing research on Peter Keith, I read up a bit on Portgual in the early 18th century. And I found this.

Infante Manuel: Can I be involved in politics?

João: No. Why would I allow my brothers any power?

Manuel: The army?

João: No. This is a family tradition. Sons and brothers don't get to do anything interesting.

1715, when Manuel is 18 years old.

Manuel: *sneaks on board an English ship*

Manuel: Hello, Netherlands! Nice to be here. Nice to be literally anywhere that isn't with my obnoxious older brother. Party time!

João: You get your butt back here!

Manuel: Lalala, I can't hear you. Hey, Paris, traveling is fun!

French gov't: Uh, welcome, but, hmm, how to say this. Try not to start a diplomatic incident? Maybe you should go back home.

Manuel: Vienna! This is far enough away from Lisbon, right?

Austrian gov't: I mean, not that we're not hosting ~~hiding~~ a certain other runaway prince (why us?), but maybe you should go home?

Manuel: But I like it here. Can I help fight Turks?

Prince Eugene: I like how you think! Let's conquer Belgrade together!

1718, when the war ends.

Manuel: Party time in every capital of Europe!

[Mildred: Why will neither this book nor Wikipedia give me details on which ones and when?]

1733, War of the Polish Succession

Manuel: How about me? I'd make a great king of Poland.

Other European powers: Maaaaybe. We'll think about it.

1734, shortly thereafter.

Other European powers: Okay, no. Go home. João, pay his debts and don't punish him.

João: ????

1734-1766

Manuel: *lives happily ever after in Portugal*

Fritz: Some people have all the luck.

Alexei: *sob*

[Mildred: Seriously, I need more details. This is just enough to be tantalizing.]

From:

selenak

Indeed it is! Good find. And wiki says he didn't even have to marry.

Heinrich: *sighs*

cahn, Joao and Manuel were the nephews of Catherine of Braganza, Charles II.'s Queen. After Charles had died - and after James II. had executed Jemmy despite her pleading for him - she returned from England to Portugal, and wiki says she became a mother figure to Joao and his female role model till her death in 1705. Maybe that's why he was nicer to his wayward younger brother than most of his fellow monarchs?

Re: Runaway prince

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-07-10 09:27 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Runaway prince

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-07-16 03:51 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Runaway prince

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-07-11 04:50 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Runaway prince

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-07-16 03:49 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Fritz kept the world's most boring diary during the Rhine campaign in 1734. It's only 10 pages long, it only keeps a shorthand record of external events, no mention of Frederick's thoughts or feelings, and Koser says it doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know from other sources.

Therefore, I have not bothered translating the French or even picking my way through it except to confirm that it looks as boring as Koser says it is.

Furthermore, for those of us salon detectives and writers of fanfic who like knowing where Fritz was on any given day, there's a 1732-1740 equivalent of Rödenbeck's Tageskalender, by Droysen. It largely consists of saying he was at Ruppin, or later alternating between Ruppin and Rheinsberg. But it's there, if you need to know when he had to go to Berlin or Wusterhausen for his sins. ;)

From:

selenak

As every winter, the royal family and the nobility is in the capital. This isn’t all fun:
January 2nd, 1785: The King interrogates several doctors a second time in ordert o choose the one whom he’ll give the honorary pension to which has become available due to the death of Dr. Zelius. On this occasion, he treats them harshly. Thus he says to Roloff: „Your father was a clergyman. Why didn’t you become one was well?“ To Sprögel: „Your father was an idiot!“ To Loose: „Where did you say you’ve been? In St. Peterburg and Stockholm together with Prince Heinrich. Clearly you can’t have learned anything there!“ Finally to Selle: „I know that you often experiment at the poor sick in a barbaric fashion. Devil take you if you don’t take better care of the lives of these unfortunates!“ Despite this not very flattering address, he’s given Selle the pension. To the others, he recommended reading Boerhave.
One marvels at this prince using such a harsh language since a couple of years now which does not fit with his disposition. I remember earlier days when he used to say pleasantries, and this with an enchanting timbre in his voice.

Um. Lehndorff, you have written down similar statements from Fritz in earlier years, too.

Prince Heinrich is missing several enjoyments he had in France dreadfully, and that makes him feel sad. He has another reason for feeling low, for Knesebeck and Kaphengst have left him, and yet the departure oft he later ought to be very pleasing to him, since there has never been a man with such ingratitude towards the Prince, who has caused him as many problems.

No, Lehndorff will never get over hating Kaphengst with the double chin. The fact that Heinrich is sad about the bastard seems to have made him wonder whether or not Heinrich really likes him for the first time since eons, for:

After I presented myself to the Queen, I rushed to Prince Heinrich, whom I find painting with his reader. He has to like me very much after all, for as soon as I arrive, he sents the reader away in order to talk with me without disturbances. To be thus alone with the Prince is enchanting. Then, his soul opens to me. His views are always those of a humane, enlightened man. Thus we remain alone until 9 pm. Then Herr v. Wreech arrives, and now the Prince presents the Dolphin Lottery to us which he has just been sent from Paris. It is a pretty amusing game. Our dinner a trois is very cozy.

Given Fritz has been so sharp in public recently, Lehndorff has a big shock when:
Januar 15th. I’m staying at home quietly. My children want to see the King. As I knew he wanted to have lunch with Princess Amalie today, I’m sending them with their governor and governess to Madame de Maupertuis where they were to watch the arrival of His Majesty from the window. I have to add here that my son wears a uniform which I had ordered for him, because he dedicates himself with great eagerness under the supervision of a subultern officer from the Regiment Braun to military exercises. Now, the governor, who is a Frenchman and thus not familiar with our customs, believes himself to act cleverly when presenting himself with the child in the antechambre where all the people invited to lunch are waiting. The King arrives, spots the child in uniform and asks: „Who is the pretty little subaltern?“
Count Sacken replies to him: „It’s a young Count Lehndorff.“ The children return, and the governor, who otherwise is a capital fellow, shows up in my room with a beaming face and tells me that the King has adressed Count Heinrich. (Lehndorff’s son.) I’m thunderstuck. As I fear the biting taunts from the King, I’m desperate. But with all that I did have to laugh at Masson insisting in the joy of his heart that something like this surely was better for Count Heinrich than a swarm of hussars. The King surely had to be pleased to see a little man showing such eagerness for royal service.
Later in the evening at 6 pm at the party thrown by count Sacken I finally hear that the whole affair happened far better than I dared to hope, as the King has talked kindly to the child. God bless the King for his kindness! It is so blissful to be able to love one’s souvereign.

Aw. And on a similar note:

Januar 18th: Blessed be thou to me! Under your light, my Prince Heinrich was born! – All the noble society shows up at his place in the morning. But the Prince has to go to the King early, since the King has organized a gigantic meal with the golden plates in his honor, where the ladies are obliged to show up in their grand robes. Around 4 pm, he’s back at home and sends for me in order to show me the snuffbox richly decorated with diamonds which the King has given him.
Then, we visit Frau van Verelst together, where the Prince hopes to spend a quiet hour. Earlier, I had sent my wife and my three children to this place, and both had put the Prince’s portrait on an easel and decorated it with laurel. As soon as the Prince arrived, the children declaimed poems praising him which made him cry. It is a joy to celebrate the Prince; it touches his heart. He repeatedly pets my children, and universal satisfaction reigns.

Lehndorff, I don’t know how I feel about the fact you’re making your children declaim praise poems about your life long crush in front of your wife.
Heinrich is reading Figaro’s Wedding by Beaumarchais to Lehndorff through the winter. (They both like it very much; Lehndorff shows no sign of detecting the social criiticism. Also ,there’s this:

In the evening, I visit Prince Heinrich, where the various subjects addressed are discussed thoroughly. Among other things, we speak of Voltaire, who in a bad mood said about the Salomo of the North that he was a mixture of Attila, Hans Wurst and Abbe Cotti.

Footnote from the editor and translator here that Coti, 1604 – 1682, royal councillor and preacher was a wit in various salons and wrote some philosophical treatises and verses which gave him some literary reputation until he was ridiculed by other wits. The editor also adds that „At the end of the ninth manuscript folder“ (of Lehndorff’s diaries?), it says „ a mixture of Alexander, Attila and Abbe Coti“ instead. Editor, which is it? There’s a difference between Hanswurst and Alexander, I dare say.
Heinrich is sick a few times, Lehndorff frets, and tells him to take it easier. He’s pleased as punch though when he hears from Prince Friedrich of Württemberg this story:

We talk oft he horrors which happened in Saxony during the Seven-Years-War, for example the sacking of Hubertusburg, a palace of King August’s, and of all the houses of Count Brühl. The Prince shows us on this occasion a letter by a Herr v. Lüttichau who killed himself out of pain about the misfortune of his fatherland. Before he did this, he wrote this very letter in which he declared that the terrible fate of Saxony was unbearable to him, and that he departed this life. He cursed all those who caused this misfortune and says at the end: „Only Prince Heinrich has treated Saxony well.“ Now this is truly a testimony for my Prince’s noble attitude.

Lehndorff also hears this quote from a letter by Fritz to Grimm (remember him? Go-to cultural agent in Paris for European nobility, hosting the Mozarts the first time they were there?): My brother Heinrich is delighted by Paris, and after everything he told me about the reception he’s been given, I must say he’s right tob e. As every true Muslim in order to achieve bliss has to make the pilgrimage to Mecca once in his life, I believe that every European has to visit Paris at least once. I am infinitely sorry that my duties compell me to remain forever with my Goths and Vandals.

That’s your choice, Fritz, not your duties. You could, say, make Heinrich Regent for some months and make the trip….

Foreshadowing of the post Fritz bane of Heinrich’s life:

The Prince doesn’t like Herr von Hertzberg the cabinet minister very much. Now there are many who delight in incensing his royal highness even further against this man. Just now the Prince was sent a letter which Herr v. Hertzberg wrote to the English doctor Bayliss regarding a sick child at his country estate of Britz. This letter goes directly against the humane philosophy the Minister always presents to the world.

A few entries later:
I’m now reading a book which caused quite a stir, as it was intended to. Our cabinet minister Herr v. Hertzberg every year reads a speech praising the King at the Academy, wherein he lauds the generosity oft he King, and talks about the florishing trade and the growing wealth and population. Many malcontents regard this as low flattery. It can’t be denied that one can complain about his style and his manner of reading. Now we have here a M. Laveaux, who believes himself to be a grand language purist. He first chided our preachers whom he proved to not understand much French, and lately he’s gone on the attack against Herr v. Hertzberg, whom he believed to be guilty of various Germanisms and of a wrong judgment. A calm temper would have simply left the matter alone, but Herr v. Hertzberg was incensed and forbade Laveaux to write anything further. Now the mocker has published a „Eusöbe“ in the style of Voltaire’s „Candide“. Without naming Herr v. Hertzberg, he talks of him quite a lot. If no one had objected to the pamphlet, it would have been read by only a few people, and even fewer would have recognized its target. But Herr v. Hertzberg had to get into a big public huff and made the bookstore owners pay a penalty. Thus he caused a pamphlet which would otherwise soon have been forgotten to become very famous.. The enemies of the minister, who are quite a few and are headed by Prince Heinrich, were delighted and will provoke this Laveaux to further impudences.

Heinrich goes quite early to Rheinsberg that year, before the snow is gone, and Lehndorff follows, but while the first few days where it’s just Heinrich and him are bliss, then Heinrich’s little court arrives, and Lehndorff declares he can’t stand them and departs. Since he frets a few months later whether he’s lost Heinrich’s favor (he hasn’t), I presume he told Heinrich so, but that’s guessing, the entry itself doesn’t say so. Thus, Lehndorff does not hear what Heinrich thinks of Lafayette, BUT he meets Lafayette himself before either Fritz or Heinrich do!

July 30th. I dine in great company at Count Sacken’s. There, I watch a tall thin man in the uniform of a French General enter, and learn to my great delight that it is the famous Marquis de Lafayette, who has distinguished himself so extraordinarily in America. I sit at his side, and we conduct a vivid conversation. He enlightens me about various American matters. He is first very quiet, even a bit embarassed, but if one acts in a relaxed way around him, then one sees from his thoughtful gaze that he is pleased by this. With great respect, he speaks of the Duke of Braunschweig, whose acquaintance he has made. He wants to see Prince Heinrich , and he has asked the King’s permission to present himself to him. When we rise from the table, we have become such friends that he asks me to come with him to Rheinsberg. To my great regret, I have to decline.
This evening I’m spending with my children to my great delight.

Back at his estate, here comes the fretting entry: I’m sick at heart. I think it’s the sense of having lost what was dear to me, the friendship of Prince Heinrich and the unchanging benevolence of the Prince of Prussia, and thus the respect of courts and of the city of Berlin. All of this causes me to feel the agreeability of the country life not as much as I would otherwise. But then right now there is such a bad weather that I can’t leave my room, and my garden, which otherwise is my greatest joy when I’m in the country, gets neglected since the death of an excellent young gardener whom I had hired, and the climate bodes ill for the harvest, which worries the farmers and mea s well. Thus fourteen days pass. I try to hide my sorrows as much as I can and always show a happy countenance in order not to worry my family. The charming letters I receive from Berlin, full of regret about my departure, only deepen my sad mood instead of a lessening it.

Henrich writes, all is well again. Also, Lehndorff is eagerly following international news and picks up what in retrospect certainly was the story of the year:

In France, something unique has happened. Cardinal Rohan, Archbishop of Strassbourg, one of the first gentlemen of France, popular with the King and the Queen both, esteemed for his personal qualities, an extraordinary mind, suddenly gets ordered in front of the King’s council and gets interrogated in the Queen’s presence. After not even half an hour, he gets arrested and is brought to the Bastille. All of France gets in an uproar about this, and wants to know the reason, since never before a Cardinal has been thrown into prison. A few days later, one learns he’s become entangled in the nets of an evil wman named LaMotte, a descendant of a bastard of Henri II. This woman caused him to buy diamonds for more than two millions Francs by claiming that the Queen wanted to have them but was asking for discretion. The woman even presented a letter signed by the Queen. The jeweller didn’t trust this Lamotte, however. So she asked the Cardinal for his sponsoring. When the date of the first payment arrived, and the jeweller didn’t get anything, he approached the Queen. She swore that she didn’t know anything about this, and because of this the Cardinal got arrested. LaMotte has made off with all the diamonds by now. That’s all the world knows. It seems to me that a lot of this bears further investigation.

You can say that again, Lehndorff.

Edited Date: 2022-07-11 06:08 pm (UTC)

From:

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-07-17 06:05 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

selenak

Then there’s this gossipy tale which somehow all the fictionalizers of Catherine the Great’s life seem to have missed out on:

At the 5th, I return, have lunch in Angerburg with the Archpriest and in the evening arrive at home. Here, the sudden death of Countess Moltke, the mother of the Duke of Holstein, is confirmed to me. This woman has finished her life at the age of 48 years. She could have been the happiest of woman, but through her conduct she has drawn countless misfortunes and universal contempt at herself. She had a very eventful life. Born the daughter of Count zu Dohna, the Queen’s Oberhofmeister, and of a Princess of Holstein-Beck, she was her family’s idol. Her mother, two princesses of Holstein who were her aints, and an old Duke of Holstein all competed in spoiling her rotten. At the age of 15, she already ruled her family completely and chose a husband for herself whom no one else liked. Thus, she was quickly married to her cousin, a young Prince of Holstein, Major in a Silesian regiment. Now she followed her moods and her passions. Of course she wasn’t lacking in admirers. One talks of a Herr v. Flörke and of General Rebentisch. Her husband died in one of the earliest battles of the 7 Years War. Then she returned to her family in Prussia, but kept up her previous conduct. When near the end of the war Peter III. ascended the Russian throne, he ordered anything named Holstein to Russia for love of his family. She was included in that number. Soon, the Emperor distinguished her more than any oft he others, and gave her a pension, estates and a lot of diamonds. People even claim that he had been so much in love with her that he wanted to marry her and had the intention to banish the Empress who is today the pride of Europe. She then acted with a wisdom she otherwise never showed. She refused all the suggestions by the Emperor and doubled her attentiveness towards the Empress. The later would not forget this. After the great revolution which brought Catherine on the throne and her husband into his grave, (the Countess) was left enjoying all her pensions, and she even was supposed to remain at court. The King of Poland - that’s Poniatowski, Catherine’s ex, remember - told me a few years ago that the Empress had intended to marry him to her cousin. But the later loved her freedom more than anything and asked the Empress to permit her to sell the estates the Emperor had given her in order to return to Prussia. So she arrived with the order of St. Catherine, countless diamonds and riches. If she had only enjoyed her happiness in an orderly fashion, she could have become the toast of Königsberg and of the entire province, where the name of Holstein is known and respected. By the Prince of Holstein, she had had a son, a charming child, whose guardian she became and whose fortune she wasted. Her entire being was only mood and passion. First she wanted to marry a Count Knorr, then she fell in love with a Herr v. Negelein, and finally she married a young Lieutenant v. Moltke, whom she had made into a Count. Now she couldn’t stay in Prussia anymore, so she went to Mecklenburg and bought herself an estate there. There, she regretted her foolishness a thousand times and now suddenly died, leaving several children from her second marriage behind.
What distinguishes her son, the Duke of Holstein, ist hat he has never failed to honor this mother who has harmed him in so many ways, and to oblige her whenever he could.
There was a time when I met her quite often, since we are related. She was a dazzling figure, could be quite charming and told intriguing stories of her Russian adventures. She was with Peter III. when he received the message about the Revolution. It was at a party in Peterhof, where the Emperor was surrounded by many ladies. He then entreated them to get on a boat with him and to go to Kronstadt. This was his misfortune. The ladies started to cry and to shout, and that slowed down his decisiveness. As is known he was brought to Oranienbaum instead, and was only seen in the tomb by the public again. The poor Princess of Holstein had been dumped in the garden and had to remain there for the entire night. She told me that all her aquaintances who came by and who the day before had shown her the greatest respect now pretended not to know her and did not listen to her. She was wearing courtly wardrobe and nearly died of fear and of the cold, until the Empress heard about her awful situation and ordered her sent to her father-in-law in St. Petersburg, to the Duke of Holstein who was then governor of Reveal.

1.) Wasn’t Peter’s official mistress a Russian lady?
2.) Methinks Lehndorff should have checked for other sources.

By now, we’re in the summer of 1786, and Fritz is dying. As early as January, Lehndorff is sure he will this time - for that matter, that was Heinrich’s impression as well, I think – and every news from Berlin seems to confirm it. In July, Lehndorff notes:

The King, who is still very weak, has ordered the famous Dr. Zimmermann from Hanover to come to him. One fears in every moment for the life of this great man. The judgments on him vary greatly. I am happy to note down while he’s still alive what is surely going to said once he’s dead: his little weaknesses will be forgotten, and one will only admire him as a great man. My judgment is all the more impartial since I never received the slightest benevolence from him. On the contrary, he often put obstructions in my path. But that was due to his character, and didn’t come from his heart. Firmness is part of his nature. When I entered the wide world, he at first showed himself gracious towards me and offered me the position of Chamberlain of the Queen, despite my being only 19 years of age. I first refused, for I could already see the entire hollowness of such a position. But he replied to me: „Just take the position on a preliminary basis until I can give you one in my direct surroundings.“ So this was his intention. But then distrust and jealousy appeared. I was young, excitable, didn’t have the slightest experience, but did have a loving heart and attached myself to his brothers, the Prince of Prussia and Prince Heinrich. This displeased the King. Additionally there were the evil minded schemers, headed by the arch villain Pöllnitz, who couldn’t stand the King to have a good opinion of me and slandered me to him in an outrageous fashion. He believed them, and from this point onwards he made me feel without mercy, as is his way, his displeasure about the fact I was able to form attachments to people other than himself. He did say repeatedly: „Lehndorff did not want to belong to me.“
Those who were serving him directly will not mourn him as much as the many living under his rule. The former often had to suffer due to his excentric nature, to which belonged the fact he could immediately forget all the greatest services at the slightest failure. The others, whose numbers are far larger, didn’t have to bear the injustices of the rich and mighty, since anyone could address themselves directly to him and trust in finding justice from him. He definitely improved the situation of the people and has spent large summs on the provinces. Only for (East) Prussia, he never cared. He couldn’t forgive it for having become Russian. And yet Prussia had proven the greatest devotion during the Russian occupation.
Returning to the men around him, I can declare that I have seen most of them either leave in bitterness or die. The harsh upbringing he was subjected to was most to blame for this. It is really the case that he never asked his companions, once they were in good quarters, whether they were lacking something; on the contrary, if he could spoil their good mood, he did. He couldn’t stand it if those who were with him at Potsdam went to Berlin. I remember that the famous Baron Bielfeld who had business to conduct in Berlin but didn’t dare to tell this to the King wrote to his Majesty that he was suffering from terrible toothache and thus had to go to Berlin in order to have a tooth removed. Then, the King told him that he’d order the dentist to Potsdam. This really happened, and the poor man had to have a completely healthy tooth pulled in order not to be exposed as a liar.

Okay, that’s worth chewing on. I mean, partly Lehndorff, forty years later, is definitely doing that thing you often do with such a long distance and rewriting history, because I don’t recall any mention of Pöllnitz scheming against him back in the day, and Lehndorff mentions Pöllnitz a lot, and also I doubt anyone saw Lehndorff as enough of a threat to badmouth him to Fritz, full stop. Did Fritz see Lehndorff’s attachment to his brothers as a minus? Undoubtedly. Was this the reason why he never promoted him? I doubt it. I think he was grateful to have filled the position, whatever he may or may not have said when hiring Lehndorff, and did not intend to bother with hiring someone else.

While it’s not true Fritz didn’t enquire after anyone’s health or comfort once he had them – ask Fredersdorf! -, overall, leaving Lehndorff’s personal „I could have been a contender, err, Fritz courtier“ rewriting aside, it’s pretty fair judgment, and he even correctly blames FW’s parenting.

Fritz is still alive when Lehndorff meets Heinrich’s 7 Years War diary writing AD, Henckel von Donnersmark, and does some projecting, methinks, though otoh he’s probably not wrong:

The conversation with Henckel is a great pleasure. He has lived forty years in the same company I did. We both belonged to the circle of the Prince of Prussia and Prince Heinrich without interruptions. But he always felt very miserably. He descended from noble, high minded but penniless parents, and was angry at his fate, and became sulking and jealous. I don’t believe he’s had a truly happy hour in his life. Despite having advanced to Generalmajor, he still calls his fate unjust. He wants to become Field Marshall. He complaints about Prince Heinrich despite all the good the later has done for him. He wanted to be the sole favourite. He was pushed out of this position with the Prince by Herr von Kalckreuth. Now he married a rich burgher’s daughter from Halberstadt, a Fräulein Weckerhagen. But she died before her parents did, and thus his expectations were ruined. That made him bitter; moreover, the two daughters from this marriage caused him much grief. His second wife is a Countess Lepel, his own niece, whom he believed to be rich, which she wasn’t. Thus he feels entitled to curse at his fate. And yet with a content temper, he could be very happy, since he otherwise has many good qualities, does his military service with great eagerness, and is universally regarded as one of the best officers in the army. At the moment, he’s fretting with worry about what will happen to him once the King is dead.

His Majesty is verey weak, and if the reports from Potsdam are true, he won’t remain alive much longer. Dr. Zimmermann supposedly told him simply that it was too late and there were no means for him. This naturally did not satisfy his Majesty, who gave him 2000 Taler and sent him away. Then, a doctor from Halberstadt named Fritsch was called. But one fears it’s too late, the dropsy takes ist course.

And then he dies. Lehndorff, who hears about it via mail and talk, has this version of events:
The departed has concluded his days with the dignity of a Seneca. At the 14th, things were bad with him already; he was lying in a daze. Sometimes he regained consciousness, and then he occupied himself with state business as in his best days. He was so swollen up that he couldn’t get out of his trousers anymore, or lie in his bed. He remained in his armchar and gave his orders with the usual circumspection, while being surrounded by the same people as always. He only allowed himself to be served by his hussar who replaced a valet with him. At the 16th around 5 pm he regained consciousness and immediately ordered his letters and orders brought to him in order to sign them. Sometimes he let the quill drop and said then: „It doesn’t work anymore.“ Still, he picked it up again and signed some more. When the quill dropped out of his hand agian and his servant told him there were only three letters left, he pulled himself together and signed them. Immediately afterwards a stroke came, and a second attack took him on the 17th around 4 am.

Edited Date: 2022-07-11 06:06 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

somehow all the fictionalizers of Catherine the Great’s life seem to have missed out on:

Wow. That is all I have to say. Wow.

1.) Wasn’t Peter’s official mistress a Russian lady?
2.) Methinks Lehndorff should have checked for other sources.

Yes to both. Elizaveta Vorontsova, sister of Catherine's BFF the princess Dashkova.

He did say repeatedly: „Lehndorff did not want to belong to me.“

I mean, Lehndorff did wear his heart on his sleeve! But yes, I agree, that was probably not the main reason. Although it would not have endeared him to Fritz.

ask Fredersdorf!

Hee! Don't forget to leave a fire burning and don't open the window when Fritz rides by!

it’s pretty fair judgment, and he even correctly blames FW’s parenting.

Yeah, that was impressive!

He wanted to be the sole favourite. He was pushed out of this position with the Prince by Herr von Kalckreuth. Now he married a rich burgher’s daughter from Halberstadt, a Fräulein Weckerhagen. But she died before her parents did, and thus his expectations were ruined. That made him bitter; moreover, the two daughters from this marriage caused him much grief. His second wife is a Countess Lepel, his own niece, whom he believed to be rich, which she wasn’t. Thus he feels entitled to curse at his fate.

Hmm, yeah, I see what you mean about the projecting!

At the 16th around 5 pm he regained consciousness and immediately ordered his letters and orders brought to him in order to sign them. Sometimes he let the quill drop and said then: „It doesn’t work anymore.“ Still, he picked it up again and signed some more. When the quill dropped out of his hand agian and his servant told him there were only three letters left, he pulled himself together and signed them.

Aww, Fritz. This is not a version I'd heard before. <3

a second attack took him on the 17th around 4 am.

cahn, as the editor notes, it was 2:20 am.