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

[mildred_of_midgard]

Royal Detective, I think you solved another case:

I can hardly take much credit! It's another beautiful case of alchemy, with you reading Troeger and Lehndorff, and Felis reading Volz and both of you reading Manger, and me knowing my Katte execution. :D (ETA: And researching the Fouquet side, I suppose, both when betaing a Cahn fic and just now.)

Lehndorff would have noted if he'd heard the story either naming Knobelsdorff or Fouqet, but not with Graurock

Again, no credit to me, I'm just quoting past!you. :D And when Lehnedorff visits Küstrin in the 1750s and hears the story of the soldier with the cancle, it's just an anonymous soldier. At this point, Knobelsdorff was already famous and of Europe wide renown, and Lehndorff most definitely knew who he was, so if it had been him, he'd probably have noticed!

Ditto Fouquet, I say.

I must say, I always tended to think the candle story was apocryphal, full stop,

See, I always believed it, until we started turning up sources like Lehndorff hearing rumors and Fouquet's grandson in the nineteenth century, and then I reluctantly started to believe it was apocryphal.

but if König reports it in 1740, naming Graurock, who was demonstrably in Küstrin at the relevant time, then this is another matter.

But this, yes, exactly! That was some excellent alchemy with Felis knowing the candle story and me knowing/finding the Lepel report.

It's not solid evidence, but I'm inclined to believe Graurock did in fact let Fritz have a candle, even if not in that exact loophole-y fashion. Plus, the Lepel report confirms not only that Graurock was stationed at Küstrin at the time, but that he was assigned to go into Fritz's room and carry out orders, which makes it even more plausible that he would have been the one extinguishing candles.

Graurock himself must have voiced his complaints about not being rewarded pretty quickly, since this was summer 1740, with FW only dead since the last day of May. This probably contributed to general Fritzian cynicism about humanity

Ooh, that is a good point, I hadn't made that connection. :/

So whatever his original motivation, and I'd say it was probably two thirds pity, one third awareness this WAS the future King, he did take a great risk.

You know...if Fritz had to be woken up at 5 am to learn about his boyfriend's impending execution, I'm glad that at least one of the parties breaking the news was someone who was somewhat sympathetic to him and tried to alleviate the prison conditions.

But I can see Fritz resenting Graurock seeing him at his most vulnerable nonetheless. :( Especially if he then started complaining about money.

Re: Fritzian Dawn according to Le Diable

[cahn]

:D (I don't have much to say about any of this, but: candles! :D )