Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 42

[cahn]

Last post, we had (among other things) Danish kings and their favorites; Louis XIV and Philippe d'Orléans; reviews of a very shippy book about Katte, a bad Jacobite novel, and a great book about clothing; a fic about Émilie du Châtelet and Voltaire; and a review of a set of entertaining Youtube history videos about Frederick the Great.

Comments

Pöllnitz

[mildred_of_midgard]

though it's always possible that Pöllnitz - who did visit during the relevant time -

I know he visited in early 1744, do we know if he visited in the next couple years? Though it almost doesn't matter: we know they were communicating about this and showing each other manuscripts, there's no way they weren't given the textual similarities (I think it was Droysen who said Pöllnitz def had a copy of her memoirs?*).

One way or another, he could have communicated with her.

* Still weirded out by the thought of Pöllnitz the Secret-keeper, but maybe she didn't show him the "insane family" parts. I've never done a thorough comparison of the entire texts.

Of possible interest: was this during one of his Catholic or Protestant phases?

Oooh, good question! I feel like he was a Protestant during his time with Fritz. Wikipedia says he converted to Catholicism in 1717 and back to Protestantism in 1735, when he rejoined FW:

In 1735 he returned to Berlin via Vienna and, after becoming a Protestant again, found employment with the Soldier King, but at the same time spied for Vienna and Dresden.

Wait, did we know about this? Is it true? I can't keep track.

Well, Koser says so in the ADB, so I guess there's at least something to substantiate it.

If I had much, much more time, I'd look for fashionable French novels or plays in the early 18th century where a loyal knight gets executed on behalf of his dear lord and check for any sweet princes and ten thousand lives...

Yep, seems eminently reasonable.

Re: Pöllnitz

[selenak]

* Still weirded out by the thought of Pöllnitz the Secret-keeper, but maybe she didn't show him the "insane family" parts. I've never done a thorough comparison of the entire texts.

Well, Pöllnitz doesn't have FW abusing his family by throwing plates at them, or hair-dragging Fritz, and definitely nothing negative about SD, so either she didn't show him these stories or he did keep mum. Remember, when Wilhelmine's memoirs were first published the initial reaction was "no way, that's an anti Prussian forgery!" until someone produced her original manuscript in her handwriting. Which tells you something about how by the 19th century (first edition of Wilhelmine's memoirs was published in a shortened form in German in 1810, then later a complete French edition), FW's image had been cleaned up, since in the 18th century, you had such stories like Wilhelmine getting thrown out of the window (by Voltaire) which were bought by the public because that was his reputation.

Anyway, I think Wilhelmine might have needed Pöllnitz for things like Katte's poem or how his arrest went down, since there were more people he could ask in Berlin than she could in Bayreuth. And definitely for the Dresden gossip. Which, btw, he does NOT include in the version of his book that is in our library - i.e. no incest stories about August the Strong and Orzeslka - because presumably Pöllnitz wants to be reinvited to Dresden, but I bet he was ready to share any number of tales about Dresden orgies verbally. Conversely, she might have shared what she knew about the actual execution (as you pointed out, the Wilhelmine version like Voltaire's is essentially told from Fritz' pov). But if Pöllnitz knew some of the darker stuff of their family life, I think he might have been too tempted not to present himself as the royal confidant as not to share it later on, especially once Wilhelmine is dead, and yet Lehndorff, who spent some considerable time with Pöllnitz during the 7 Years War during all those court evacuations and while very annoyed by him (and the fact he couldn't control his bladder anymore in his old age) did admit he knew good stories, does not note down any of this.

Wait, did we know about this? Is it true? I can't keep track.

Given Pöllnitz liked his creature comforts and FW gave him a low salary, I'm not surprised, though I doubt either Vienna or Desden got anything useful - it's not like FW or later Fritz was sharing any of their political plans with Pöllnitz.