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

From:

selenak

Okay, I've now progressed to 1730, though I admittedly skipped a lot of declarations. It's really noticeable that Fassmann didn't join FW's court until the later 1720s. Until that point, there isn't much about FW the person, it's just FW the model reform monarch. And good lord, pages upon pages of descriptions of SD's entrance in Berlin as a bride, or F1's wake and funeral procession. And so many royal declarations! There are some childhood anecdotes, though notably no unflattering ones (no Tiny Terror FW beating up his teacher or his cousin here!), for example the one where young FW swallows his golden shoe clip because he hates waste and splendor that much as a kid already.

The comparison to Morgenstern, writing just a few decades later, is instructive, because Fassmann and Morgenstern knew FW in roughly the same decade, and neither knew him when young, i.e. they're both referring hearsay. But Morgenstern is writing in Fritz' era, and so there's F1 bashing, Tiny Terror FW, SC criticism, and what might just be the earliest mention in a public source (as opposed to private correspondence not accessible to normal contemporaries) of young FW wanting to marry Caroline before he hooks up with SD. By contrast, Fassmann doesn't mention Caroline, SD was the perfect princess and then became the perfect Queen, and she and FW have the perfect marriage. What else!

Then we get into the later 1720s, and suddenly you get detailed stuff that actually feels like an eye wittness account, like this one about FW's 1728/1729 serious illness:

"As his majesty for as long as it took had many sleepless nights, he used to sleep a while in the morning starting at 4 or 6 am. When he awoke and if his great pain permitted it, he threw himself into the business of governing, as he signed, dictated or answered many letters. At noon he rose if possible from bed, put on a dressing gown and had lunch with her Majesty the Queen and some of the children who were at Potsdam. Such as his royal highness the Crown Prince, the current Margravine of Ansbach, and his Royal Highness Prince August Wilhelm. Her Royal Highness the Margravine of Bayreuth was then still in Potsdam, but because she was suffering from chicken pox had to be locked up with Fräulein von Sonsfeld in the later's room all the time.

After lunch His Majesty, pain and weakness permitting, either went back to bed or painted, an art which he had learned in his youth and mastered fairly well. His Majesty created various portraits of farmers from different nations. To this end, there always had to be a painter at hand in the afternoon who mixed the colors and made the first sketch. As his Majesty tried to push back sleep for the entire afternoon until 9 or 10 pm at night so he might have a calmer night thereafter, there needed to be certain people in the room at all times whom he tolerated, no matter whether they were sitting or lying with him in the bed. The Queen' s Majesty came and went, and one could see more than once that His Majesty once the pain had lessened a bit, put his hand into her Majesty's most lovingly, seeking either additional soothing this way or expressing the calmness of his heart. His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and the current Margravine of Ansbach went up and down through the room. His Royal Highness the Crown Prince used to either read French books, or listen to the conversation, while her Royal Highness the Margravine of Ansbach either knitted or wove. Most of all Prince August Wilhelm used to be in the room for the entire afternoon, and either wrote or painted, in which art he had already done a few things."

Sidenote: Morgenstern says FW only started to learn how to paint in 1730, not in his youth, and so does Förster; I'm inclined to believe them. But the rest is believable enough.

Absolutely no mention of any father/son problems until we get to the FW and Fritz tour of the summer of 1730. And there Fassmann first gives us the tourist attractions and FW's reaction to each of them as if he's writing a travelogue, which made me wonder whether he's actually going to skip over the entire incident. But no. After talking about FW, Mannheim tourist, he suddenly says, only slightly paraphrased: Oh, and on this journey, something went down between the King and the Crown Prince, which has been talked about so much that I guess I have to include it. Now I don't know what really happened, and nor do you, reader, and since neither of us will ever find out, let's just be joyful that the cloud of this sad disagreement has disappeared and now the King and the Crown Prince are living in perfect harmony again. True, this sad affair has cost this officer of the Regiment Gens d'Armes, one Herr von Katte, his head, and this despite him being the son of ultra respectable FW buddy and officer Hans Herrmann and the grandson of rich and respected Wartensleben. V. sad. But look, these things happen between royals! Future F1 also ran away from his Dad when he was still a Kurprinz! And hey, we can all read in the newspapers that Fritz of Wales hardly ever shows up at court but keeps staying at a place called Richmond. FW and Fritz aren't unusual, is what I'm saying. I hope people in high places won't hold it against me that I mentioned this wretched affair at all, it's just that it's so well known that my readers wouldn't trust me if I didn't mention it. Okay, so FW then went to Wusterhausen and spend the rest of the year there...

By contrast, his report on the bonkers Clement affair actually is pretty matter-of-factly and much as I've found it in other accounts. Fassmann doesn't doubt for a moment Clement was a gifted conman (with untrustworthy black eyes!) (also of small stature and fat! So it can't have been his looks, I guess...) and a lying liar. He doesn't mention that FW had a hard time giving up on Clement, but other than that, his account, as mentioned, is very much on the money. Interestingly, he does mention that in the fallout of the Clement affair SD's lady in waiting, Frau von Baspiel, had to leave the court after a brief Spandau interlude with her husband, but he doesn't include the fact that this was because while Frau von Baspiel had nothing to do with Clement or insane kidnap plans, she did in fact spy for the Saxons (and had been Manteuffel's mistress). Whether this is because Fassmann truly doesn't know or whether he wants to be discreet, I have no idea.

One more trivia fact: if his account of FW breaking the "you're going to get married" news to Friederike Louise is in any way correct, the Hohenzollern called this sister of Fritz' "Louise".

Edited Date: 2022-11-17 05:21 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Until that point, there isn't much about FW the person, it's just FW the model reform monarch. And good lord, pages upon pages of descriptions of SD's entrance in Berlin as a bride, or F1's wake and funeral procession. And so many royal declarations!

This is what I meant when I said given the length (for those who haven't looked, it's over a thousand pages long) and what I could see of the topics, you were going to do a lot of skimming/skipping!

young FW swallows his golden shoe clip because he hates waste and splendor that much as a kid already.

Oh, hahaha, not because he was a toddler throwing a temper tantrum and trying to get his way, which is the explanation I've always seen from less favorable-to-FW sources? :P

And there Fassmann first gives us the tourist attractions and FW's reaction to each of them as if he's writing a travelogue, which made me wonder whether he's actually going to skip over the entire incident.

OMG, we had the same reaction! I went looking for 1730, of course, and I found the trip and it just went on and on, and I also wondered if he was going to talk about the escape attempt at all! And then I found Katte's name, read that sentence, and gave up on the print and decided you could tell me the rest. <3

But look, these things happen between royals!

I mean, he's not wrong! But *some people* used that as an argument to go, "FW, you don't want to be like Philip II and Peter the Great!"

Okay, so FW then went to Wusterhausen and spend the rest of the year there...

Lol, yeah, I think somebody is trying to get a job back or at least keep his options open. (I am reminded of Pollnitz and his desire to keep his options open when talking about various princes in Europe. The Ruspanti? Pensioners of the Grand Duke!)

By contrast, his report on the bonkers Clement affair actually is pretty matter-of-factly and much as I've found it in other accounts.

Ooh, wonderful, this is one of the things I went looking for and didn't have the patience find and hoped you would find and tell us all about!

(with untrustworthy black eyes!) (also of small stature and fat! So it can't have been his looks, I guess...)

Oh, this matches the description you found in Weber a while back: "Here we get a physical description by the arresting officers who bring hin to Spandau - 'the black and brown fat gentleman in an Hungarian furcoat'." I guess he could still have been tall in that description, so good to know that his height was not what recommended him to FW!

So if that description is firsthand, from the people arresting Klement, then that backs up Fassmann's info as pretty solid.

if his account of FW breaking the "you're going to get married" news to Friederike Louise is in any way correct, the Hohenzollern called this sister of Fritz' "Louise".

Always nice as a fanfic writer to know what these people called each other!

From:

selenak

Always nice as a fanfic writer to know what these people called each other!

One of the reasons why I was glad Morgenstern referred to Gundling as Paul von Gundling, thus telling us which of the two first names, Jakob Paul, he actually used.

re: skimming/skipping, I also skipped a lot of Great Northern War stuff, FW at Stralsund, that kind of thing, sorry. Incidentally, perhaps worthy of note that Fassmann consistently uses the latinate for Peter the Great - Petrus Magnus, in the correct declined case wherever he uses it, ditto Carolus for Charles of Sweden, whereas a few decades down the line a writer like Nikolai doesn't, he just uses the German version.

"Wallis" for "Wales", otoh, is used throughout the century, as in Prince of Wales. Btw, if in 1735 someone like Fassmann, who doesn't speak English and is no longer connected to someone in the Prussian government, still knows all about Team Hannover's dysfunctionality, it means these stories have hit the German scandal sheets, which is the kind of 18th century internationality for a royal father/son conflict which doesn't involve one party beheading the other party's lover that I hadn't imagined before salon.

I went looking for 1730, of course, and I found the trip and it just went on and on

This really reminded me of young AW's "My life so far" essay as referenced by Ziebura, listing as the big event of 1730 "Heinrich moved in with me". :) Seriously,

cahn, right until Mannheim, this readers like a travelogue/tourist guide book!

I think somebody is trying to get a job back or at least keep his options open.

Let's not forget, Fassmann could also be betting on the fact that even if FW doesn't take him back, Fritz might after FW's death. Hence careful Crown Prince praise in the book, and lots of praise for SD, perfect mother and wife and Queen. After all, Fassmann was a member of the Academy as of 1731 (when Gundling died). (He just didn't become the boss as he expected to.) He might have counted on coming back after FW's death, and as he mentions a couple of times in the book, FW has just survived a very dangerous illness (again), i.e. concluding FW might not make it through another decade wasn't utterly far fetched.

So if that description is firsthand, from the people arresting Klement, then that backs up Fassmann's info as pretty solid.

True, as he wasn't able to consult any secret Saxon or Prussian archives. Also, he's even handed in that he describes Clement fooling three high officials in a row (Eugene, Flemming and FW), and where he guesses - that when Clement went from working for Racoczky to working for Eugene by bringing a lot of Racozky papers wsith him, he might have used a mixture of real and forged documents already to beeef his importance up and when getting away with it took it from there.

Basically Fassmann strikes me as the 18th century equivalent of a journalist willing to put in research effort but also without the narrative ability which, say, Nicolai has in his collection, and without much of the way of scruples if you recall the hatchet job he did on Gundling in another book. He must have had a considerable streak of cruelty himself.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

This really reminded me of young AW's "My life so far" essay as referenced by Ziebura, listing as the big event of 1730 "Heinrich moved in with me". :)

Me too, I thought of the exact same thing! Salon: the hive mind. :)

From:

cahn

This really reminded me of young AW's "My life so far" essay as referenced by Ziebura, listing as the big event of 1730 "Heinrich moved in with me". :)

Heh! I didn't think of it myself, but yeah :)

I think somebody is trying to get a job back or at least keep his options open.

Let's not forget, Fassmann could also be betting on the fact that even if FW doesn't take him back, Fritz might after FW's death

Oh, yeah, I can see how that would make him... tread very carefully around the whole Katte thing.

From:

cahn

Heh, I was surprised FW was said to be painting farmers and not, err, soldiers. I wonder if these were tall farmers?

But look, these things happen between royals!

Awwww, wow.

Now I don't know what really happened, and nor do you, reader, and since neither of us will ever find out,

~~but salon has done its best~~

(also of small stature and fat! So it can't have been his looks, I guess...)

Hee!

From:

selenak

Re: farmers, I'm torn between assuming Fassmann used "farmers" as a euphemism because he knows FW's thing about his tall soldiers gets sniggers all over Europe, or believing it's literally true and FW also painted some wholesome farmers which haven't been preserved. Wouldn't put it beyond him, but otoh if the farmers model, they don't work, which doesn't compute with thrifty FW. Whereas he has the soldiers right at hand.