Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 39

[cahn]

Last post, along with the usual 18th-century suspects, included the Ottonians; changing ideas of conception and women's sexual pleasure; Isabella of Parma (the one who fell in love, and vice versa, with her husband's sister); Henry IV and Bertha (and Henry's second wife divorcing him for "unspeakable sexual acts"). (Okay, Isabella of Parma was 18th century.)

Comments

Re: Fritzian Dawn according to Le Diable

[felis]

Then the Old Dessauer was alarmed that Fritz was adopting principles contrary to those he had always tried to instill in Fritz

Now that's the first I hear about Old Dessauer being involved in this. I'm wondering how much of that is conjecture and how much of it is true, because I certainly can't see Fritz being all that open to anything Old Dessauer has to say on the topic of ethics and principles and learning.

And thanks for the heads-up! Not sure I'm up for the French right now, though.

Re: Fritzian Dawn according to Le Diable

[mildred_of_midgard]

selenak mentioned the Old Dessauer's involvement here:

Formey in his write up of Manteuffel says Old Dessauer (who disliked him of old) scored a point with Fritz by saying how ridiculous it looked for a prince at Fritz' age to still need a teacher to guide him.

Re what Old Dessauer said, I imagine that it was OD + FW shoving "all military, all the time" down Fritz's throat, and Fritz paying lip service to their faces while sneaking around behind their backs (which FW knew full well).

It might be conjecture, or blame-shifting. I'm sure Manteuffel wants an evil advisor to point the finger at. Obviously Fritz didn't fall out with him because of anything *he* did! But there might have been intrigues as well.

Re: Fritzian Dawn according to Le Diable

[selenak]

Not mutually exclusive; i.e. "aren't you too old for a schoolmaster now" sounds like an Old Dessauer comment to make, plus no matter how amiable a front Manteuffel presented to FW and how participated in the Anti-Sobriety-Society, I doubt Old Dessauer doubted Manteuffel was still working for Saxon interests. Which aren't Prussian interests. So nipping any chance of Manteuffel getting actually close to Fritz in the bud would have made sense from that perspective. Simultanously, Manteuffel, who was writing to Brühl (who was paying him) had a vested interest in presenting himself as blameless re: the fallout, and most likely ascribed far more weight to Dessauer hostility than it deserved.

It might be worth (but also a headache, because the font was awful there as well) to look into that early Seckendorff biography again, because the Seckendorff biographer kept going on about how Prince Moustache was THE WORST and always feuding with the valiant subject of said biography, so he might have picked up such a story as well.

Re: Fritzian Dawn according to Le Diable

[felis]

Oops, I obviously forgot that bit. I'd wager that Formey has the info from Manteuffel, too, so it's still Manteuffel saying that Old Dessauer actually had any influence, not just that he made some comments, which I don't doubt - the comment does sound like something Old Dessauer would say for sure. It's just the amount of influence it had on Fritz that I'm wondering about - I mean, Fritz is somewhat vulnerable to being ridiculed and if he took the comment to mean that he was being unduly manipulated by Manteuffel, we are back to where we were anyway. On the other hand, he didn't seem ashamed of wanting to learn and looking for people to learn from, whereas Old Dessauer might be someone he'd react with (secret) defiance to.