![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnI'm trying to use my other account at least occasionally so I posted about my Yuletide gifts there, including the salon-relevant 12k fic that features Fritz, Heinrich, Voltaire, Fredersdorf, Saint Germain, Caroline Daum (Fredersdorf's wife), and Groundhog Day tropes! (Don't need to know canon.)
Pop Quiz opportunity for Fredericians
Date: 2023-01-18 06:47 am (UTC)Nothing like starting the day with a Lehndorff quote from 1785.:)
EC, the entertaining history YouTube channel I've linked a couple of times - last time with the Diocletian cartoons, has started to do a series on Fritz. His Monstrous Father is the title of the first installment.
Re: Pop Quiz opportunity for Fredericians
Date: 2023-01-18 01:26 pm (UTC)Several authors make it! I was looking through a bunch of biographies for "who says what about Fritz and the candles?", and I was surprised at how many axes there were at Katte's execution. All fanfic writers are hereby forgiven.
Btw, I never did find the "it was his jailer" anecdote in any of those bios, just the Fouquet story. And that's weird, because the "it was his jailer" story is the one I remember recounting to other people before salon! Selena or Felis, do remember where you've run into this story in the past, and if so, which version? I'm not promising to write an academic essay on our findings, but I'm not promising *not* to, either. ;)
BTW, the fact that he and Fritz were caught fooling around is stated as fact instead of "maybe?" is of course another issue
We decided they weren't caught fooling around, though, remember? It turned out FW received an anonymous letter that tipped him off to Fritz's escape attempt plans. I mean, we don't *know* they weren't also caught, but we do know there was the anonymous letter at the time and that FW acted quickly. And that made a lot more sense psychologically of how FW reacted (we really thought it was an underreaction for the sin of sodomy).
Re: Pop Quiz opportunity for Fredericians
Date: 2023-01-21 05:57 am (UTC)aha I am failing the pop quiz, although I did catch the axe, of course! And the EC marriage night doesn't seem quite right? Like, we know he wrote a letter to Wilhelmine, right? But do we know what else he was doing that night? (Or did he say in his letter to Wilhelmine?)
I also had never heard the thing about the transverse flute being especially bad because it was French? (If this isn't an error, I'd be glad to hear more about this.)
ETA: And of course "I die for you with joy in my heart!" I mean, you gotta admit it's a great line :P And didn't we decide that the most likely case was that Fritz wasn't forced to watch?
Re: Pop Quiz opportunity for Fredericians
Date: 2023-01-21 01:20 pm (UTC)A quick google suggests that the transverse flute was not new, but the Baroque flute was, and that it was popular in France before it became popular in Germany (and our Quantz is mentioned as an innovator!)
Whether FW cared, I am not sure.
But do we know what else he was doing that night? (Or did he say in his letter to Wilhelmine?)
I haven't watched the video, so I'm not *entirely* sure what you're talking about, but Seckendorff did report there were rumors that he was seen walking around outside an hour after he supposedly took EC to bed, and MacDonogh just quotes that. Now, according to Selena, Seckendorff's actual words were along the lines of, "I was there and these rumors are nonsense," which is context that gets dropped, but...if that's what they said, then it's a forgivable mistake (for them, not for MacDonogh).
But if they said something else, let me know!
And didn't we decide that the most likely case was that Fritz wasn't forced to watch?
Well. WE did, but literally no one else has a
magical alchemycombination ofThe most prominent sources, both secondary and primary, all say he was forced to watch but fainted. This is what the Küstrin authorities wrote in their official report to FW! (For obvious reasons.) So I will forgive any makers of podcasts and YouTube channels for not having read Hoffbauer.
Re: Pop Quiz opportunity for Fredericians
Date: 2023-01-21 01:50 pm (UTC)Transverse flute: I don't think FW cared which kind of flute, one way or the other. He objected to Fritz playing an instrument as his main passion, full stop. (Though, note, not to one of his children playing an instrument per se - he was fine with the girls, from Wilhelmine downwards, doing so. And remember that FW essay that claimed FW even played the flute himself, based on Charlotte's letter to him, where she jests about missing his "piping" or something like that (where I questioned the essay writers translation of this into "playing the flute"?)
As for the mistakes, here are the main ones I found and promptly commented on in that vid's comment section:
1.) Axe instead of sword. 2.) (Now I'm copying my comments) "Frederick William had a massive hang up about French, but actually had French at his own first language as well, not unusually so for a German prince of his era, especially in Brandenburg, where there had been a huge influx of Huguenot immmigrants after Louis XIV had revoked the edict on Nantes in FW‘s grandfather‘s day. His own governess had been a French Huguenot woman, and he later made her Frederick‘s governess as well. Now why he then was surprised about Fritz prefering French is a mystery, or would be, if not for the consistent fact that FW believed his oldest should be exactly like him and couldn‘t understand why Fritz responded differently to similar things. 3.) Frederick William did not put Latin on the school schedule for Fritz. He himself had hated Latin, and thought his son would be grateful for not having to learn it. Instead, Duhan (the teacher you mean, another French Huguenot, btw) taught it for a while in secret until found out, which caused a great storm and the end of Latin lessons. Frederick the Great did always regret not speaking Latin. 4.) Frederick William did not shut down the Academy of Science. He severely cut down funding, and he expressed his contempt by making Jakob Paul Gundling its President, but he let it continue. (Gundling is an incredibly tragic figure. He had started out as a true scholar under FW‘s father Frederick I., and then FW treated him as a mixture of court fool and scientific advisor, with a lot of physical abuse, including setting bears on him, and a lot of offices on the other. Gundling took the office of President of the Academy seriously, btw, and kept the Academy going, with publications of essays, books, meetings etc, but it would only regain the funding and prestige it had once enjoyed once Frederick the Great took over. ) 5.) The quote you mean isn‘t „if I had disgraced my father like that, I‘d have killed myself“, but the arguably worse, „if my father had treated me this way, I‘d have killed myself“. 6.) It would have been worth mentioning that the military tribunal twice refused sentencing Katte to death, but FW overrode that judgment. 7.) „In exchange for staying Crown Prince“ - that‘s not true. One of the few leverages young Fritz had was that FW could not by himself change the order of succession, though he tried some pressure very early on, in September 1730 (the flight attempt happened in August, Katte got executed in November), whereupon his son, still confident nothing worse could happen, said he‘d only resign from his succession right if FW declared his mother to be a whore and himself to be illegitimate. Ironically, once he was woken up at 5 am in November and told Katte would get executed, he did offer to resign from the succession of that meant Katte would live, but by then it was too late. So Frederick remaining Crown Prince, or not, was never under debate afterwards. The agreement to marry Elisabeth Christine had been part of the submission his father demanded, true, but not „in exchange for staying Crown Prince“. Lastly, I do appreciate the detail of Elisabeth Christine being drawn as slightly taller, which she was, which was one of many things Frederick held against the poor woman (who did do everything she could to please him but was forever the symbol of his submission to his father in his mind).
Re: Pop Quiz opportunity for Fredericians
Date: 2023-01-21 02:02 pm (UTC)Agreed.
tops it with declaring he even contemplated killing himself before getting married, which, no
I don't believe for a minute he contemplated it, but he definitely threatened it in a letter to Grumbkow! Feb 19, 1732, Google translated from Trier:
Judge, my dear General, if I must have been greatly charmed by the description you give of the abominable object of my desires. For the love of God, let the King be undeceived on his subject, and let him remember that fools, for the most part, are the most stubborn. So a few months ago he wrote a letter to Wolden, in which at least he wanted to give me the choice of some princesses; I do not hope that he will give himself the lie. I rely entirely on the letter that Schulenburg will give you, for there is neither hope of good, nor reason, nor fortune that can make me change my feeling, and unhappy for unhappy, that is all the same. Let the King think only that he is not marrying me for himself, and that it is for me; and he himself will have a thousand sorrows to see two people who hate each other, and the most unhappy marriage in the world, to hear mutual complaints which will be so many reproaches to him for having erected the instrument of our yoke. As a good Christian, let him reflect if it is right to want to force people, to cause divorces, and to be the cause of all the sins that an ill-suited marriage makes us commit. I'm determined rather than anything, and since things are like this, you can somehow let the Duke know, come what may, that I'll never take her. I have been unhappy all my life, and I believe it is my destiny to remain so; you have to be patient, and take time as it comes. Perhaps such a sudden fortune which would follow all the sorrows which I have professed since I was born would have made me proud. Finally, whatever happens, I have nothing to reproach myself with; I have suffered enough for an exaggerated crime, and I do not want to undertake to extend my sorrows to future times. I still have resources, and a pistol shot can deliver me from my sorrows and from my life; I believe that the good Lord would not damn me for that, and, having pity on me, in exchange for a miserable life, will grant me salvation. This is what despair can bring a young person whose blood is not so stale as that of a septuagenarian. I feel, sir, and when one hates the ways of force as much as I do, that our boiling blood always carries us to extremities.
I strongly approve of the Emperor's courier, who condemns the senseless action of his sister-in-law. What ridicule does this woman give herself in the world, which consequently reflects on her daughter! If there are honest people in the world, they must think of saving me from one of the most perilous steps I have ever taken. I am consumed in melancholy thoughts, and I am afraid I cannot conceal my grief. This is the state in which I find myself.
Re: Pop Quiz opportunity for Fredericians
Date: 2023-01-21 04:08 pm (UTC)(Heinrich: Would that Fritz had remembered that part.
Fritz: I did.)
But not "a pistol shot can deliver me from my sorrows and from my life". Okay, then the Vid makers and whichever biography they have this from are excused, though I agree he's bluffing here. Also, isn't there also a later quote where he says (to Wilhelmine or someone else) he made the protests extra massive so FW would feel Fritz made a really big concession when inevitably caving on the marriage front?
Re: Pop Quiz opportunity for Fredericians
Date: 2023-01-21 04:16 pm (UTC)Oooouch.
Okay, then the Vid makers and whichever biography they have this from are excused
It's in MacDonogh, which is where I learned it from. I know he has his problems, but the more salon has gone on, the more I think he's a goldmine of primary sources, and once I get my French and German up, I still dream of going through his footnotes and reading some of his citations for more context. I still hate him for using the "first footnote" citation and not having a separate bibliography I can browse, but at least he *does* cite almost all his sources. Something I'm beginning to appreciate by comparison with the competition...
though I agree he's bluffing here
The whole correspondence between him and FW and Grumbkow here shows that Fritz is desperately trying to play them off against each other, but the vid makers cannot be expected to know this and can be forgiven for taking the letter at face value.
Also, isn't there also a later quote where he says (to Wilhelmine or someone else) he made the protests extra massive so FW would feel Fritz made a really big concession when inevitably caving on the marriage front?
I don't remember it, but I haven't read their correspondence, so there very well may be!
Re: Pop Quiz opportunity for Fredericians
Date: 2023-01-21 03:17 pm (UTC)As for the letter to Wilhelmine, [personal profile] cahn, I think you're thinking of the one he wrote to her after the engagement ceremony, not the marriage,
But he did write one in the marriage night, too, at midnight - the "thank God that's over with, you are the first one I write to, I still only love you" one. No mention of a nightly walk, though.
Re: Pop Quiz opportunity for Fredericians
Date: 2023-01-21 04:12 pm (UTC)BTW, one of the Youtube commenters either has read Thiebaut or has seen the recent MT series, since they state that FW wanted Fritz to marry MT at first. You have that backwards, Ma'am or Sir.
Re: Pop Quiz opportunity for Fredericians
Date: 2023-01-23 06:14 am (UTC)This is the one I was thinking of! Because I remembered being so WTF when you brought it up! :)
Re: Pop Quiz opportunity for Fredericians
Date: 2023-01-21 11:33 pm (UTC)I unfortunately definitely did not register the Academy of Science one at the time, which I am super sad about for the obvious reason: I'm really sorry, Gundling!! #GundlingErasure