cahn | 18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 38

Gonna go ahead and make this post even though Yuletide is coming...

But in the meantime, there has been some fic in the fandom posted!

Holding His Space (2503 words) by felisnocturna
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF, 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf/Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Characters: Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Additional Tags: Protectiveness, Domestic, Character Study
Summary:

Five times Fredersdorf has to stay behind - and one time Friedrich doesn't leave.

Using People (3392 words) by prinzsorgenfrei
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great/Hans Hermann von Katte
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Hans Hermann von Katte
Additional Tags: Fluff, Idiots in Love, reading plays aloud while gazing into each others eyes
Summary:

Friedrich had started to talk to him because he had thought of him as a bit of a ditz.
And now here he was. Here he was months later, bundled up in this very same man’s blankets with a cup of hot coffee in front of him, its scent mixing with that of Katte’s French perfume.
_
Fluffy One Shot about one traitorous Crown Prince and the sycophant he accidentally fell for.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

From:

mildred_of_midgard

A few things I've turned up recently in my research into Peter Keith's life, in which no detail is too minor.

1. I was convinced he was the fourth child and younger son (either second or third) of his parents. Well, tracking down citations for the essay that continues to be in progress, I found that Kloosterhuis indeed says fourth child, but nothing about being a younger son. Surely he's a younger son, though, or he would have inherited the family estate in Poberow? His father died in 1729, so it's not like Peter missed out because he was living in exile. Though I guess Hans Heinrich wanted to pass on the inheritance to his younger son, so it could be done.

Seriously, I still think Peter has all the signs of a younger son, I was just surprised I can't find it spelled out anywhere.

2. I figured out where not!Robert's name "Robert" came from! This has been bugging me for three years now.

Turns out it originates with a misunderstanding on MacDonogh's part, and MacDonogh is of course heavily used by Wikipedia.

MacDonogh's source is the Neue Deutsche Biographie, the entry on James Keith. It says that James Keith was from a Scottish family, an earlier side-line of which had already furnished members to Prussian service, such as Robert Keith, adjutant of Fritz, and Peter Keith.

MacDonogh clearly took that to mean that Robert was Peter's brother the page, when, as far as I know, Robert was unrelated/not closely related to Peter Keith. (I actually thought he was closely related to George and James, but I could be thinking of a different Keith. There are so many.)

Mystery solved!

ETA: Robert Keith and James+George Keith are both descended from William Keith, 6th Earl Marischal, 1st Baronet (c. 1585 – 1635). Robert Keith, who married one of Suhm's daughters, was the 5th Baronet of Ludquharn. George Keith was the 10th Earl Marischal. So they were probably like second or third cousins.

I have never been able to figure out how exactly Peter's line fits into this, even with the genealogy Formey gives. I've only found a mutual relative descended from the 4th Earl Marischal, but all Formey will say is that he was a "relative" of Peter's line.

3. So you know how Jordan kept writing letters to Fritz about how Peter wants more money and also to go to war? Because it's humiliating staying home? And then Peter's about to leave for war in May 1742, and the war ends in June and he gets married in July, so I'm not sure he ever left? Or that he was ever in the Second Silesian War?

On the one hand, Preuss specifically says Fritz never took Peter to war. On the other and, his only citations are the Jordan letters, plus the Berlinische Nachrichten article of December 1740 that Felis very much wants. Neither is great proof, imo. A 1740 article doesn't prove anything about 1742, much less 1744-1745, and the Jordan letters first tell Fritz that Peter wants to go to war, and then, a month later, that Peter's on the point of leaving. Which sure *sounds* like Peter got permission.

So if there's evidence Preuss knows of that Peter never actually went to war, he's teasing me and not telling me what it is. OTOH, maybe he's just guessing like I am, and making the same educated guess for the same reason.

4. I had read this passage years ago but had forgotten: Preuss says Keith had a "soft and yielding" nature, very susceptible to compassion for Fritz's sufferings. This reminds me of Koser's "weak man" description of Katte.

Guys. Maybe these are normal people and FW was just SO beyond the pale that you don't have to be especially weak or soft in order to be WTFing at his abusive parenting. You just have to not be a 19th century German historian.

In conclusion, no, I still haven't finished this essay, but I'm getting closer! (If everything weren't either in French or this ridiculous German font, it would be going a lot faster, but every few days or weeks I add a bit more.)

From:

selenak

Go you for finally discovering the origin (Not!)Robert! But I have a bit of pity for McDonogh, despite him being the origin; all these many Keiths in the life of Fritz are bound to confuse! Btw, can't

luzula as our resident Scots expert help with tracing back just which Keith clan Peter's family originally sprang from?

Speaking of other people's decriptions of Keith and Katte, I just saw

prinzsorgenfrei has posted this poem by Sheelagh Pugh about Katte which I hadn't known before:

LT. HANS HERMAN VON KATTE (1979)

I like good manners better than anything;
no heroism comes so hard as style,
and many men might have met your death bravely
but few, I think, would have behaved themselves
like you, when the poor prince whose hare-brained scheme
brought you to the scaffold begged for your forgiveness …
Tempting, at least, to shout ‘Here’s a fine mess
you’ve got me into’, or words to that effect,
but no; you kissed your hand; called politely
that it was quite alright; you didn’t mind
at all; then sauntered on, to lay your youth,
and fun and gallantry and love of life
under a steel blade, minding very much.

From:

luzula

Btw, can't luzula as our resident Scots expert help with tracing back just which Keith clan Peter's family originally sprang from?

Hmm. Have you tried the 40-page history of the Keith family in the Scots Peerage? Could not find him in thepeerage.com nor in Burke's Family Records (though maybe I was doing the search wrong in the latter, as it did not turn up George Keith either). I'll let you know if I think of anything else...

ETA: Augh, poor Katte...does the poem agree with salon's conclusions about Katte's character? *curious*

Edited Date: 2022-11-13 03:09 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

ETA: Augh, poor Katte...does the poem agree with salon's conclusions about Katte's character? *curious*

Oh, you ask me about Katte's character!

The short answer is, yes and no. The long answer...Settle in. :D

He was definitely brave and died with style, no question.

We're pretty sure he minded dying, like you do. One of the people who was with him until he died said that though Katte was putting a very brave face on it and cheering everyone around him up, you could see flesh and blood struggling with the realization of imminent death in his last hours.

One of the Danish envoys said that Katte "lost all countenance and burst into tears" when his death sentence was read. (This is in contradiction to Wilhelmine's claim that he heard his sentence read without changing countenance. Either could be correct, since both were reporting hearsay, but the Danish envoys were writing as events unfolded and they tended to have pretty good sources aka spies, and Wilhelmine was writing ten years later without access to the archives and noticeably got a lot wrong--like she has him being executed on a scaffold.)

Some sources Selena got hold of convinced me that Katte's display of piety and belief in eternal life was genuine, not an act put on to look good for FW and reassure his own father/family. But even with a belief in eternal life and a belief that this was God's will, he clearly minded very much.

Did he blame Fritz? I think he genuinely loved Fritz and pitied him, even at the end, and really wanted to make him feel better. During his last night, when they were both imprisoned in separate rooms in the same fortress, Katte was begging to be allowed to go talk to Fritz, even for fifteen minutes, to reassure him. All the authorities would agree to was to run messages back and forth, conveying, "I know you must hate me! This is all my fault!" "No, Fritz, it's not your fault! It's God's will! I still love you!" And then, of course, they got that famous last, hand-kissing encounter where Katte's main concern was to reassure Fritz.

I have always read Katte as not wanting to die but, given that he had to, being very glad that he could die in the presence of the person he was willing to die for. I think (I hope) it gave him some comfort, even though doing it that way was hella hard on Fritz. (I think

selenak has said she agrees with this take, though of course neither of us can point to hard evidence.)

Could he have harbored a smidge of resentment toward Fritz? We have evidence that Fritz harbored a smidge of resentment toward Katte several years later, and we've definitely speculated that Wilhelmine and Fritz resented each other (her for him being willing to abandon her to the punishment/abuse that came from FW being furious at Fritz escaping, him for her trying to talk him into enduring the abuse indefinitely).

Yeah, mixed feelings are a thing, and given that these people didn't have a well-developed framework for talking about abuse and victim blaming and such, some repressed resentment is to be expected.

We of salon don't *think* Katte ever figured out Fritz had lied to him to get him to help with the escape attempt when he was reluctant, but it's possible he did, or that he wondered.

But I think, even if he had some repressed resentment, Katte's surface feelings were genuinely love and concern for Fritz, and that wasn't an act he put on for the sake of "good manners."

As for why Fritz resented Katte later, I think two reasons: One, he was one of the people who tried to pressure Fritz into staying in an abusive situation and demonstrably had to be lied to to get him out. (Lie: "My father's ministers want to make me a Catholic!") Two, I think Fritz was doing the victim blaming thing himself and blaming Katte for not pulling off his end of the plan and escaping when he was supposed to (possibly because it was legit hard, possibly because he really was hoping the whole thing would blow over and Fritz would come home), leaving Fritz in a situation where he had to live with the guilt of Katte's death.

P.S. This poet is very victim blame-y. Yes, it was a hare-brained scheme, but it was also the desperate act of someone whose entire life until now has been "abused child" and is now looking forward to a life as "abused adult." He had virtually no support, the deck was stacked against him, and what exactly about his life up until now had trained him in the art of making and executing on well-thought-out escape plans? One of the other victims of FW's horrific abuse, an adult who hadn't even been raised in this situation, escaped twice and got dragged back both times.

If you study psychology and abuse, you see a whole lot of "But why didn't the abuse victim [do X]?" and the answer is that they're at the mercy of someone else and that trauma warps your brain and makes it hard to think in a purely rational manner.

The two main hare-brained features of Fritz's plans are:

1. Everyone knew about them.
2. He kept trying to make his move too soon. It's been argued that if he'd waited until the party reached Wesel, he might have made it. (And even Katte was trying to convince him to wait until Wesel.)

Well, the reason everyone knew about these plans was that Fritz's teenage years went like this:

Fritz: "Person A, please help me escape!"
Person A: "I don't want to lose my head/lose my job/start a war! Please don't run away!"
Fritz: "Person B, please, PLEASE talk my father into letting me take a vacation!"
Person B: "Sorry, no can do. Have you tried being nicer to your father so he's nicer to you?"
Fritz: "Person C, I'm begging you!"
Person C: "Here's some money, kid, if you promise not to try to run away."

and so on. Until persons A-Z in the kingdom have all heard that Fritz is trying to escape. The more time we've spent in salon, the more examples we've turned up.

Now, I'm sympathetic to people who were *also* afraid of FW, but the poor kid just got told to steel himself for a lifetime of this, even by the people who loved him the most. So of course he's increasingly desperate, and of course word gets out.

The only person I have evidence knew about the escape attempt and don't have evidence he tried to talk Fritz out of it was...Peter Keith, the only person who made a sincere effort to run away himself (and made it). And that just means we don't *know* that he ever tried the "But have you tried being nicer to your father?" line on Fritz, because he's poorly attested in the records.

(But I like to think Peter was all, "Yeah, your father's awful, he beats me for reading too, let's go!" This is my headcanon.)

And, of course, Fritz kept trying to make moves when there was very little chance of him getting away. Well, it's easy to sit here in a comfy chair and go, "You should have waited!" but the thing is, given that he was NEVER not supervised by Dad's agents, there was no good time. There's no guarantee he would have made it at Wesel. He didn't get caught at Steinsfurt because it was too far from the border, while Wesel was closer. He got caught at Steinsfurt because the several adults supervising him never let him get as far as getting on a horse and making a break for it. What exactly would have been different a few days later?

Keith, as a random lieutenant in the army, had more freedom in Wesel, and he was allowed to get on a horse and ride around unsupervised as long as he gave some excuse. So he was able to get a head start and make it over the border before his absence was noted at roll call the next day.

Call the escape attempt "hare-brained," but a better word might be "impossible," and I don't blame Fritz for trying anyway. (Trust me, if he hadn't tried, the same people who are calling it hare-brained would have said, "Well, the abuse can't have been that bad, or he would have tried to run away!" That's how victim-blaming works.)

Me: I have a lot of feelings. :P

From:

mildred_of_midgard

(Lie: "My father's ministers want to make me a Catholic!")

Huh. So while this was definitely a lie, I had the impression from Selena's summaries that Fritz was actually proposing to convert to Catholicism in spring of 1731. Today I had to go read these letters myself for the first time, as part of my Peter Keith citation work (this bit comes up in the essay, because it's too good not to include in a footnote), and I find that what Fritz actually says is, "I will marry the archduchess as long as I don't have to convert, because I never ever want to do that as long as I live." And Grumbkow writes to Wolden, "This whole thing doesn't make sense, among other reasons because there's no way they'd let the archduchess marry a prince who wasn't totally Catholic."

Would he have been willing? Presumably. But it makes sense that he was smart enough not to admit that up front to arch-Protestant Dad.

The other thing I found that was super interesting was something we've talked about a lot in salon in our various AUs. Grumbkow says, "As for renouncing his Prussian claims, that'll never work, because everyone knows no one ever keeps their word on a renunciation like this unless there's force involved."

This is so true! I mean, we saw what happened with Philip V "the Frog" (

luzula, do you know why we call him "the Frog"?) and his repeated renunciations of his claims to the throne of France: every time it looked like Louis XV might die, Philip got ready to march into France and claim his rights, with a civil war if need be.

ETA: Speaking of Grumbkow and sources for this essay, though,

selenak, do you have the source for the August 1731 submission protocol you translated for us here?

Edited Date: 2022-11-14 07:52 am (UTC)

Re: Fritz and the MT marriage project

From:

selenak - Date: 2022-11-14 08:07 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Fritz and the MT marriage project

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-11-14 08:11 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

luzula

Thanks for writing that up! : ) I now also have some of your fics on the subject open in tabs…

luzula, do you know why we call him "the Frog"?
Ah no, I do not. I did go to

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-11-22 05:52 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Keith genealogy: Thank you! Unfortunately, none of those links have helped me. The 40 page history in the Scots Peerage was great, but even with all that detail, I still wasn't able to link up Peter's line. All I can assume is that he's descended from a younger son so far back that no one has bothered keeping track of that side-line. I even read through that history assuming that all the details and even the names in Formey were wrong, because by the time Peter was writing them down in the 1750s, we're talking oral history going back to the 1500s, and I still can't find any points of connection.

Maybe one day!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Throwing this out there, in case anyone runs across any connections in their reading.

According to Peter Keith's eulogist who reports his family history, which was written down by Peter in his memoirs, presumably from memory:

The first mentioned ancestor is a 16th century George Keith who lived in Scotland, was a colonel, and married a woman from the house of Stewart/Stuart.

George's son, William Keith, left Scotland in 1606 at the age of 19 and went into Swedish service, where he became a captain of cavalry. He was related somehow to this much more famous Keith in Swedish service, Andrew Keith, Lord Dingwall.

William's son George was a lieutenant in the Swedish guard.

His son Jean Christophle/Hans Christoph established himself in Pomerania (then part of Sweden), and married Vigilantia Elisabeth von Woedtke, of the house of Sydow. He died in 1729, she died in 1747.

The son of Hans Christoph and Vigilantia Elisabeth is our Peter, 1711-1756.

The alternating Williams and Georges exactly matches the naming practices of the Marischals, but that paradoxically makes it harder, because if you find a William or George of that line in the 16th century, he's the heir, and so not Peter's more obscure ancestor.

There's a George Keith of Troup who was born sometime around 1537, and his wife's name is unknown (so could be a Stewart) but he's a bit too old to have fathered William, who was born ca. 1587. And the only son I can find attested for him is named Alexander. I suppose he could have had a son named George who fathered William, or he could have had a son at age 50, but that's speculation.

Other than the naming problem, the problem is they went to Sweden, so they tend not to show up in Scottish documents. In books titled "Scots in Sweden" (of which I've found 2 so far), there's a lot of Andrew Keith, Lord Dingwall, but not a lot of details on other Keiths. One of the books says, "There are many Keiths in Swedish history," and gives examples of a John, an Alexander, and a James (not our James), but that's not helping here!

Since you can read Swedish sources,

luzula, if you run across any 17th century William or George Keiths in Swedish service, let me know!

Edited Date: 2022-11-14 05:02 am (UTC)

From:

luzula

Well, if I run into anything, I'll let you know. I did just put "Keith" into the Swedish army rolls 1620–1723 and got nothing…you can try it yourself here, if you think of any likely spelling variation.

Re: More Peter Keith findings

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-11-16 03:07 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

cahn

Hey, I wrote a story about this! :D (Which you have read.)

mildred_of_midgard betaed, so it's obviously going to more-or-less agree with her take on things, but one of my contributions that I'm pretty sure hadn't been brought up in salon before that was to notice that the Puncta, his last letter to Fritz, started very first thing with him being very clear he doesn't blame Fritz <3

Tempting, at least, to shout ‘Here’s a fine mess
your sociopath dad has got me into’, or 'The tyrant demands blood!' or words to that effect,

Fixed that for you,

mildred_of_midgard!

But really, my sense was that hare-brained/impossible escape or not, pretty much everyone (at the time) knew where to put the blame? Especially that one awesome pastor who was like "Katte is totally a martyr!" and he wasn't saying that because of Fritz...

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Tempting, at least, to shout ‘Here’s a fine mess
your sociopath dad has got me into’, or 'The tyrant demands blood!' or words to that effect,

Fixed that for you,

mildred_of_midgard!

THAT'S AWESOME, Cahn, you totally did!

Tempting, at least, to shout ‘Here’s a fine mess
your sociopath dad has got me into’

Speaking of which, I forgot to mention the 1731 pamphlet based on the Danish envoy report, which has Katte's last words being that if he had ten lives, he would gladly give them all if only Fritz could be reconciled with his father. The mention of FW is unique in all the sources we've found, and Selena's interpretation was that in Cologne, where FW/Prussia was very unpopular, mentioning him in the context of poor martyred Katte in a sensationalist pamphlet was a dig at FW, reminding everyone whose fault this really was.

In conclusion, Katte almost certainly didn't *say* anything about FW in that last kiss-blowing goodbye to Fritz, but at least some contemporaries wished he had!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

But I have a bit of pity for McDonogh, despite him being the origin; all these many Keiths in the life of Fritz are bound to confuse!

I have pity too! Kloosterhuis hadn't even published his Katte monograph yet, so it's not like MacDonogh could have checked it. And I feel like if the monograph had been available, MacDonogh would have used it. I used to bash on MacDonogh at the beginning of salon, but the more salon has continued, the more I've come to appreciate his good points. Yes, he's borderline no homo, yes, he makes mistakes, no, his style isn't especially readable, yes, he uncritically copies his take on the siblings from Pangels--but his selection of sources and citation of same comes out looking pretty good compared to other biographers.

I know that if I manage to learn French properly and get my German reading speed (and especially evil font reading speed) up, I will learn a *lot* just going through MacDonogh's sources and reading for context in the passages he cites. (I hate him for not having a bibliography, just full citations in the first occurrence in the notes and abbreviated citations later, which makes it monstrously difficult to browse and see what his sources are, but I still have hopes of doing this source-reading exercise someday.)

Pugh: Oooh, I hadn't known that poem before either. Poor Katte. It does capture his tragedy. </33

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Another trivial finding! I have often speculated that maybe the "Sauvez-vous" note had something to do with *Fritz* sending the note, not knowing Peter had already escaped, and believing that his warning had triggered Peter's escape.

But if so, he had a faulty memory: even in his interrogation on September 16, he knew that Peter had escaped the same Sunday (August 6) that Fritz was trying to escape again from Mannheim, i.e. before things got bad enough that Fritz needed to send a note saying the jig was up. And that's leaving aside Fritz's reviewing of the archives in 1740.

That said, I myself, who pride myself on my memory for dates, have recounted a series of events, and then gone back to look at emails/DW posts, and found that some of my memories were off by a few days, and so the order was wrong. So it's still possible that later-in-life Fritz remembered sending a note in a panic to Peter, not yet knowing that Peter had made it, but later-in-life Fritz forgot the details of the chronology that were later revealed to him. (Honestly, it might have made him feel better to think that his note had something to do with one of his friends not being executed in front of him.)

Edited Date: 2022-11-14 11:41 pm (UTC)

From:

cahn

I have not much to say about this, except yay for the essay! And also I know I owe you some genealogy, we have a date in January :)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yes we do! I have plans for us. :DDD (I'm also going to need exact citations for the records you've already pulled up, which I can't access on the site. #19thCenturyGermanScholarReincarnated #HopefullyWithLessBadOpinions)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Of possible interest to fanfic writers:

Münchow says when he was page, he had to sleep in the antechamber next to Fritz's room, and acts like this is a normal thing.

Nicolai has Glasow (valet) sleeping in the antechamber next to Fritz.

Scharfenort, author of the detailed 19th century book on pages that we turned up a while back, says in the section on FW and pages, "Whether the latter [body pages] slept in the monarch's antechamber, has not been ascertained, but it doesn't seem plausible."

Huh! I assumed Peter had to sleep next to FW. *revises phrasing in essay*

Also, Scharfenort told me why Peter was still a page at almost 20 when I always thought pages were much younger: there were regular pages, of which there might be one or two dozen at a time, who were generally 12-16 years old, and whose job was mainly to be educated in the ways of piety and the military and to furnish future officers. And then there were body pages, of which there were maybe two, who followed the king around at all times, and who were 18-20 (presumably because they had greater responsibilities). Peter was a body page, a Leibpage. Mystery solved (by dint of font-wrestling)!

Edited Date: 2022-11-15 06:57 am (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

What 19 regular pages got to eat on July 27, 1735:

Midday: 14 bowls of green pods (Schoten--Google's translation) with bacon, 2 bowls of beef with parsnip. The 4 sick pages got rice soup.

Breakfast: 1 1/2 pounds horstsche (?) butter.

Evening: 4 bowls of buckwheat groats with butter, and 4 bowls of beef with tubers.

Scharfenort: This food was simple but abundant, and Wilhelmine's uncharitable depictions must be given a very limited belief.

Mildred: I don't know, for 19 people, it depends on how big the bowls are. And hopefully they got something to put the butter *on* for breakfast?

ETA: German speakers feel free to help out with better translations:

14 Schüsseln grüne Schoten mit Speck, 2 Schüsseln Rindfleisch mit Pastinack. Reissuppe.

1 1/2 Pfund Horstsche Butter.

4 Schüsseln Buchweizengrütze mit Butter, sowie 4 Schüsseln Rindfleisch mit Knollen.

Edited Date: 2022-11-15 07:08 am (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

felis! Remember the Berlinische Nachrichten volume of 1740 that isn't digitized, and that you and I have been wanting, because it's Preuss's source for Peter Keith's positions on his return to Prussia?

The solution, once I buckled down and became determined to track down all my Peter Keith citations, turned out to be embarrassingly easy: I submitted a request for the December 20 article to my local library's interlibrary loan on Friday, they processed it Monday, and the Berlin Staatsbibliothek sent a digital photocopy to my inbox today!

The single relevant sentence is: "Der Herr von Keith ist von Sr. Majestät zum Stallmeister und Oberstlieutenant von der Armee ernennet worden."

There's also a whole section on how Fritz, on July 28, issued a general pardon (and revocation of confiscation of property, I think) to all deserters as well as anyone who left the country out of fear of being recruited, and now he's...this sentence is a page long and I need to get to work, but I think he's saying that if they used to live in the country and be subject to the canton recruitment, and now they want to live in the city and practice a trade there, he's okay with that? I may need to revise this reading later, or allow one of you Germans to read it, but off to work now.

Anyway, we got Preuss's source! Woo!

From:

felis

Nice!! :D

And nice to know that Preuss was indeed trustworthy here when he said that Peter became Oberstlieutnant in 1740 already and not later, in response to his complaints during the war. Makes it all the more interesting that Fritz didn't want him to go, even though he was an officer already.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yep!

Makes it all the more interesting that Fritz didn't want him to go, even though he was an officer already.

I do still wonder why not! I mean, it obviously wasn't a compliment, in that Fritz clearly wasn't thinking, "You'd make a great addition to my army!" a la James Keith in a few years. But if he was concerned about Peter's youthful indiscretions reflecting on his commitment, surely he would *want* Peter to go to war. And he did give him a rank and a position as stallmeister (possibly with SD), so it wasn't a situation like AW where he didn't want him in his army at all. Which makes me wonder if maybe my initial speculation that Fritz felt some guilt and wanted Peter safely in Berlin and not dying as soon as he got back has any truth to it.

I would give a lot to know what was said in that first October meeting. Whatever it was, it didn't seem like it went especially well.

Therapy for everyone.

From:

selenak

I vote for a whole variety of contradictory emotions on both parts. For Fritz, I think your original speculation can be true alongside something else, to wit, a massive need to prove that FW had been WRONG WRONG WRONG in fearing for so long Fritz would be the plaything of his favourites and bring the kingdom to ruin etc. And making an example of Peter by NOT letting him join in the big war which will prove that King Fritz is different from Crown Prince Fritz and will get glory etc. is the way to make that point to dead FW. (I don't think Fritz ever stopped making points to dead FW, see also his need to work until his dying day.) If you think about it, Peter is unfortunately the one most qualified to make that point. Because Duhan is a lovely old fellow, with a proven military reputation, and while FW was angry with him about the secret library, he had been personally selected by FW as Fritz' teacher to begin with. Keeping a distance from nice old Duhan would prove nothing to dead FW, so calling him back immediately is fine. Algarotti isn't someone connected with the military part of Fritz being King anyway, and while he's just the type of friend who'd make dead FW go mental (or not? back when I was reading the Algarotti essays book, I was surprised to learn Algarotti actually had lunch with FW as part of the big wedding of Anna Ivanova delegation when it passed through Berlin before he ever met Fritz), de facto FW had no voiced opinion about him. But Peter, as the only one involved in the escape plot who actually escaped, as the successful deserter and as the one who knew Crown Prince Fritz as his most vulnerable? Peter is just whom dead FW had expected to become the new Wartensleben and Brühl rolled in one. So there, Dad. I'm worthy!

(Sidenote: actually, plenty of 19th and early 20th century biographies of Fritz do point out how the fact Peter never became a fave at his court proves that Küstrin Made Frederick Great.)

Plus I'm pretty sure that Peter, who hasn't seen Fritz for a decade and had him fixed in his memory as the desperate 18-years-old, was probably showing up ready for a real emotional reunion, complete with hugs, and when not getting that might have thought his worst fears are true, King Fritz now thinks less of him for having helped Crown Prince Fritz and/or resents him for living where Katte died, or what not.

And that's leaving aside any Hohenzollern paranoia about Peter being susceptible to English influence (as seen later when Fritz didn't want him as envoy); after all, GB is MT's ally at this point!

Re: More Peter Keith findings: Berlinische Nachrichten

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-11-17 08:24 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: More Peter Keith findings: Berlinische Nachrichten

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-11-19 06:12 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

More Peter Keith findings.

While editing my essay, I noticed a bit of trivia: both Peter and Hans Hermann had a younger brother (half-brother in Katte's case) who was their parents' first son born after FW became king in 1713, and who was named Friedrich Wilhelm. Georg Friedrich Wilhelm von Keith, born 1713, and Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig von Katte, born 1721 (one of the fratricidal dueling Katte brothers).

Also, since I like to keep an eye on how often these poor women give birth, I notice Katte's mother was giving birth in 1704, 1705, and 1706 before dying in 1706.

His stepmother gets more spaced out births in 1714, 1718, 1721, 1725. Seems nice, but of course, we don't know if she was miscarrying every year.

Peter's mother must have had an iron constitution. I don't have dates for his older siblings, but I know he was the fourth child in 1711, and then she had children five through seven in 1712, 1713, and 1714. Oof!

Ooh, speaking of brothers! I was trying to find out how old Peter's mother was (I only have a death date), to try to extrapolate about children one through three, and I found a 1786 historian saying that of Peter and Ariane's sons, only one is still living, Carl Ernst Reinhardt. You may remember that the two brothers show up in the Berlin address books after going to university, and then the younger one, Friedrich Ludwig, disappears, never to be seen again in any records we could find. We suspected he died, but we couldn't be sure he hadn't moved away or decided to leave public life.

Well, if he disappears after 1764 and is confirmed (with at least reasonable confidence--this author could be wrong, even though he was a contemporary) dead in 1786, he *probably* died when he disappeared from the address books, sometime between 1764 and 1765. Though I suppose he could have been sickly, left public service, and lingered for a few years, but he almost definitely died before age 41, and probably around age 19-21. :(

You may also recall that per the baptism record Cahn found that he was baptized "en chambre" because of "maladie". He may have always been sickly, rallied enough to go to university and enter public service, but didn't live very long. Or he had two unrelated health problems, or fell off his horse and broke his neck, who knows. But poor guy. And poor Ariane, probably losing first her husband and then her younger son less than 10 years later.

Anyway, mystery...if not solved, then at least cleared up a little! Okay, off to update the essay with this new info.

ETA: 1786 author's take on Peter is interesting. First, his explanation of 1730: "The preferential favor in which Peter stood with the crown prince of the time became so dangerous, due to the domestic conflicts between father and son, that he left Prussian service and went into Portuguese service." Not exactly what happened, but interesting to see what stories were going around!

And, aww: Keith appears in a section called "Of the great men that the Prussian state lost through their deaths," and the author lists a bunch of men and says of them that "they were torn from the state by illness, and their merits preserve the most enduring memory for them." Well, it may not be 49,000 years, or the consummation of all things, yet, but I still remember you, Peter!

Another ETA: I forgot to mention, when we first turned up Friedrich Ludwig's baptismal record, we speculated that the "maladie" might have been Ariane's; but from my reading on Cunegonde's kidnapping, at least in that part of Germany, it was normal for the midwife to take the baby to the church for baptism, while the mother stayed home to recover. Given how hard childbirth is and especially was, and traditions of lying-in, I wouldn't be surprised if Friedrich Ludwig would normally have been carried to his baptism by someone other than his mother, while she stayed in bed.

All of which is to say I'm reasonably sure that the malady in question was his, not hers. And given that it was August and not even winter, the fact that it wasn't considered safe to carry him to church must mean he was pretty sick/weak. :/

Edited Date: 2022-11-24 06:33 pm (UTC)

From:

selenak

Friedrich Wilhelms born after FW's ascension to the throne: on that note, I don't know whether I ever pointed this out to you, but I was recently reminded that Lehndorff's first born son (who then tragically dies as a baby in the 7 Years War, to be followed by various siblings) was named by him Friedrich Ahasverus Heinrich, which is the most Lehndorffian thing to do....

Katte's poor mother. I mean, not everyone was MT (and unimpressed with her ministers pleading vacations when she worked for all but two days or so of her pregnancies)!

Disappearing Friedrich Ludwig Keith: I've been meaning to ask - while it's always obvious where the Friedrich, Wilhelm and Heinrich, and even the Georg in everyone's names probably hail from, where do we think the occasional Ludwig (including among the names of "our" Heinrich) comes from? It would be ooc for FW, surely, to do a homage to the French king?

it was normal for the midwife to take the baby to the church for baptism, while the mother stayed home to recover.

I'm reminded also that Lehndorff took the babies of his valets to church to be baptized. And Wilhelmine and Fritz stood in, respectively, for AW's and Heinrich's actual godparents, carrying their baby siblings to church and back during the baptizing ceremony.

Fritz: And the brat cried all the time! #foreverheadcanon

So presumably if you were reasonably sure the baby would live, you asked your boss (i.e. the Lehndorff's valet case), or, if you were royalty, you got yourself some high ranking godparents but had your kids standing in for them at the actual ceremony. Someone like Peter who married the daughter of a noble family would, for a healthy child, surely have had a noble godparent at hand?

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Friedrich Ahasverus Heinrich, which is the most Lehndorffian thing to do....

Hee! But it's worth reminding

cahn that Lehndorff *also* had Heinrich in his name: Ernst Ahasverus Heinrich Lehndorff, so family tradition as well.

Just like little Friedrich Ludwig/Frideric Louis von Keith was presumably named after godfather Fritz *and* maternal grandfather Friedrich Ernst zu Innhausen und Knyphausen (no, these people are really, really not creative).

And, lest we forget, the least creative family of all, the Reuss, where naming your son Heinrich is obligatory. "The House of Reuss practises a unique system of naming and numbering the male members of the family, every one of whom for centuries has borne the name "Heinrich", followed by a Roman numeral."

where do we think the occasional Ludwig (including among the names of "our" Heinrich) comes from? It would be ooc for FW, surely, to do a homage to the French king?

George I, SD's dad, was named Georg Ludwig. He shows up in some of the books I read on the Hanover family as such (or George Louis), in order to distinguish him from all the other Georgs. Just as his son, George II, often shows up as Georg(e) August(us).

So I assume that at least in FW & SD's descendants, the name goes back to G1.

Speaking of names, a neat connection between the book I was reading on the history of the Hohenzollerns (which I have yet to finish but still intend to--it will get more interesting as we move forward in time and records become less sparse and more full of shenanigans), and the podcast I was listening to, was:

1. Friedrich is one of the favorite names of the Hohenstaufen emperors.
2. Friedrich is one of the favorite names of the Hohenzollerns in Brandenburg.
3. The Hohenstaufen were from Swabia.
4. The Hohenzollerns started out in Swabia, expanded to Franconia, then to Brandenburg.

So our Fritz's name and the names of Friedrich Barbarossa and your fave Friedrich II (stupor mundi), all come from Friedrich being a popular name in Swabia almost a thousand years ago, as far as I can tell.

It's also cool seeing the Babenbergers keep using the name Leopold, attested all the way back to the 10th century, and being margraves of Austria, later dukes of Austria, and then, when they die out, being replaced by the Habsburgs, who also continue to use the name Leopold for centuries.

Someone like Peter who married the daughter of a noble family would, for a healthy child, surely have had a noble godparent at hand?

For the non-healthy child Friedrich Ludwig, we have the list of godparents, helpfully identified by

felis when

cahn turned up the record:

Now, godfathers and -mothers! Male ones are Fritz (! although not too surprising with that name) and Frederic Henry de Cheusses, who was the Danish envoy in Berlin from 1743 to 1746 and came from a Huguenot family, just like the preacher. (He's mentioned in the Political Correspondence a couple of times and was envoy to Russia afterwards.)

ETA: Friedrich de Cheusses - the 1745 address calendar says he lived next to the Ilgen's house, which was the family of Peter's mother-in-law and might be where the connection comes from. Also, I had to smile at this description in his wiki record: He did not excel in excellent ability or rich initiative, but he looked good, was very reliable and especially extremely careful. These were precisely the qualities needed opposite Frederick II of Prussia and later opposite Pyotr Bestushev.

Female: Peter's mother-in-law, who apparently wasn't present, as it says she was represented by Ariane's younger sisters, Hyma Maria (the one who married Hertzberg later, but not yet) and Hedwig Charlotte.

Some supporting evidence for asking your boss: From my studies of Count Rottembourg and his estates at Masevaux, I know he acted as godfather to at least two of the people who managed the estates (not servants, but like bailiffs and stewards and whatnot). The most famous of his godchildren, Conrad-Alexandre Gérard, who was named Conrad-Alexandre after Rottembourg himself, ended up following in his footsteps and going into the diplomatic service. He was sent to the United States by France, and became the first ambassador to the newly founded (and still fighting for independence) United States. There's a portrait of Gérard in Philadelphia, and a college named after him in Masevaux.

While Rottembourg died when he was a little kid, and thus can't have directly mentored him in his career, I wouldn't be surprised if there were connections that Gérard senior was able to make use of (France at the time being one big network where you milked your connections for all they were worth, because there was almost no other way to advance).