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cahnUnfortunately, there was then at Berlin a King who pursued one policy only, who deceived his enemies, but not his servants, and who lied without scruple, but never without necessity.
(from The King's Secret - by Duke de Broglie, grand-nephew of the subject of the book, Comte de Broglie, and grandfather of the physicist) )
(from The King's Secret - by Duke de Broglie, grand-nephew of the subject of the book, Comte de Broglie, and grandfather of the physicist) )
More FS related Quotes: Prussians, Politics and Sons
Date: 2023-08-17 02:48 pm (UTC)Wilhelmine might have been curious to meet the female monarch who had had the courage to stand up to her brother. Their meeting was relatively short but happened in a friendly framing, during which the 28th years old Maria Theresia made a charming impression on Wilhelmine. The farewell, too, was cordial, and the Bayreuth bodyguard escorted the Austrians to their borders. Once these events were reported to Berlin, all hell broke loose. Against her brother's accusations, the Margravine defended herself cooly and matter-of-factly: "Regarding my encounter with the Queen of Hungary, it was a simple polite gesture. (...) We have to pay consideration this court, since they're our neighbours on all sides. (...) Their troops are marching through the country constantly. The Imperial election had already taken place. All these reasons seemed to me enough - especially since we are a neutral country - to do this step. Another behaviour would have been regarded as offensive on our part. The Margravine here addreses openly the difficulties of a tiny principality, but she's not completely honest, since the meeting with Maria Theresia had gone beyond exchanging a few polite sentences.
FS takes a leaf from Voltaire's, Fritz' and Heinrich's book and writes, not an anonymous pamphlet, but an anonymous memorandum "by a true German" to explain why he thinks they should just make up with Prussia already in 1748 (Cahn, the two Silesian Wars are over for some years, but MT is just about to wrap up the War of Austrian Succession as far her other opponents are concerned):
Regarding the King of Prussia, one shouldn't just try for some good neighbourhood but try to manage him instead of playing to the public by openly displaying the hate one has for hilm which, granted, has good cause. To accuse people all the time of being Prussian-minded is of no use, au contraire, we should change our speeches and abandon animosity for the time being and do nothing to heighten our prejudice, nor anything which could embitter him even more against us. Now I don't believe he'll ever be well minded towards us, but I do think we shouldn't waste time to contradict him everywhere in all courts, especially in affairs that do not concern us, but should behave with indifference. If it is of no consequence to us, we should even help him, and thus we should get rid of this idea the whole world has of us that we try to whip up hate against him everywhere all the time, an idea which is wrong but of which as I am told the King is convinced. (...) In a word, we should treat the Prussian court in such a manner as if we were in the greatest harmony with them.
At the end of this memo, FS collects his key theories in puncae form:
1.) We should consolidate in interior affairs both in militari and oeconomico
2. We should stay away from any wars or feuds as much as possible
3) We should try to manage our allies diplomatically - we shouldn't try to boss them around, for no one likes that, but treat them as allies and friends
4) We should try to keep all of our friends we already have and try to win new ones
5) We should never trust our natural enemies, France and Prussia
6) But we should always act friendly towards them
7) Trying to divide France and Prussia from each other should be regarded as a chimera since they need each other far too much
8) The sea powers (England and the Netherlands) and Russia should always be regarded as our natural allies
9) In Italy, we should regard the King of Sardinia as our sole ally, but never trust him completely, and we should never, ever trust those principalities ruled by the Bourbons there and should regard them always as our natural enemies, who only look to their enlargement
10. We should try to keep good neighbourhood with the Turks and shouldn't give them an opportunity for complaints
11. All Alliances we make should be explicitly and only defensive in nature.
This is why FS did not get along well with Kaunitz. Now whether or not a peaceful coexistence with Prussia as FS suggests would have been possible had they stuck with the English alliance is up for debate. (The more recent years of alliance with the Brits from the Austrian pov mostly resulted in the Brits not letting them either ditch the Austrian Netherlands or use their trade and ports in useful way, and in being told to give in to everything Fritz wanted all the time - and that was when the Brits hadn't been allied with Prussia yet.) But one thing is undoubtedly true: this memo isn't written by a guy who only wants to have a comfortable life and doesn't have his own opinion on politics.
Moving on to FS' death, Schreiber provides some gruesome details, because since this was August, poor FS was decaying very quickly and they had to use a lot of herbs and perfumes for the burial. Zedinger doesn't have those details, but mentions something I had been curious about, i.e. who provided the original source for the detailed account of FS' death, complete with Joseph catching him in his arms when FS had his stroke and was falling, the servant's bed, calling doctors and confessors but it being essentially all over etc. .It's not the usual court diarist Khevenmüller who wasn't there, it's a guy from the Austrian Netherlands (i.e. Belgium), Corneille lde Neny, who was at this point one of MT's secretaries and with the Imperial family in Innsbruck in that capacity. He had been present during FS' death and he's the one from whom the original description hails.
Fred Hennings and Georg Schreiber both are a bit confused why MT wanted the Leopold marriage to take place in Innsbruck instead of Milan or Vienna. Zedinger, like Stollberg-Rillinger, is confused they're confused, because the reasons seem obvious to her:
1) The House of Lorraine had a deep connection to Innsbruck. This is where FS' grandfather (the one married to an Austrian Archduchess and who beat the Turks at the famous siege in Vienna) had lived in exile for many years.
2) MT's bff Sophie von Erzenberg was the wife of the Imperial Governor and residing in Innsbruck. Letting Leopold's marriage take place there was a sign of special favour. (And then everything went wrong that could go wrong, from Leopold catching diarrhoea to rain pouring down to FS dying, but who could have known?)
Lastly, something on the funny side again, from Schreiber's bio. It's post 7 Years War, and young Vienna Joe is elected as King of the Romans and crowned as same in Frankfurt, with Dad at his side. (This is the ceremony described by Goethe.) It's typical for the state the late HRE was in that of the Princes Elector, only the clerical ones (i.e. the archbishops of Mainz, Trier and Cologne) showed up in person, while the secular Princes Elector all sent representatives to do their job duiring the election and coronation ceremonies. (Okay, the Prince Elector of Hannover happened to be young King G3 who was in England and thus had an excuse for not showing up.) The secular princes are told by the Fritzian representative to not perform the genuflection, the kneeling anymore. FS ignores this, but come the coronation day, he draws a consequence. See, the Prince Elector of Brandenburg was the traditional Reichs-Erbkämmerer. Thus it would have been the job of the Fritz representative, one Erich Christoph Freiherr von Plotho, to carry the imperial scepter ahead of the procession. But instead, FS took it from him and carried it himself through the whole of Joseph's coronation, which was quite the feat since he had to do it on horseback.
As mentioned elsewhere, Joseph was writing detailed descriptions of their Frankfurt journey and how Dad was doing to MT.
On March 14th, when they were still on Austrian soil, he had told her: "His Majesty the Emperor enjoys perfect health except for a cold which causes him to sneeze often and to use his hankerchief a lot. But his appetite is more than well; the fish of Upper Austria and the milk agree with him splendidly. I took the liberty to warn his Majesty, but he replied that this was healthy food."
There are in these letters no traces of a dislike, let alone hatred from Joseph towards his father, which has been occasionally ascribed to him. Now and then he mentiones encounters with friends from Lorraine like the widow of the Prince Beauvau-Craown and with Karl Count Ogara. When ther are repeated often ridiculous complications during the journey, he writes: "An angel would lose his patience at this point, and his Majesty, too, is in a bad mood and exhausted." After their arrival in Frankfurt on March 29th 1764 he praises how the Emperor replied to the opening speech by the Prince Elector of Mainz in very suitable form: "It's impossible to speak better or with more dignity than he did." This is also confirmed by Archduke Leopold in a letter to his Ajo, Franz Count Thurn-Valsassina: "His Majesty the Emperor replied as a true Roman Emperor with fire, dignity and a greatness remarked by all attendants."
Regarding their quarters at Frankfurt, Joseph writes to his mother that they were somewhat modest, even the Emperor had only been given a bed room and two smaller rooms for his servants. The many descriptions of Frankfurt society by Joseph to his mother are amusing to read with their little digs and malices. But important for the relationship between father and son is a passage from a letter by Joseph from April 4th: "Today we had a public dinner. I handed the towel to his Majesty the Emmperor, and I think I did rightly, despite Count Khevenhüller doubting this, but the more respect I show to the Emperor - even if I am treating this only from a political pov - the more I honour myself. Bsides, I believe a son's duties should always have prference to those of a King."
All formalities and the "his Majesty the Emperor" phrasing aside, I'm struck by the domesticity of Joseph reporting on the cold and on exactly what his father has been eating to his mother, because I can just imagine her tasking him with this. Again, I remember the sight of those three coffins in the MT crypt - that beautiful baroque opulent tomb of MT and FS with their statues depicted lying on their bed turned towards each other, and the absolute contract, that zinc coffin Joseph put himself into. But he still wanted to be with his parents in that final resting place. Different as they were from him, and as much as they often had to find each other frustrating, I think he always was aware they loved him.
Re: More FS related Quotes: Prussians, Politics and Sons
Date: 2023-08-19 05:48 pm (UTC)Wilhelmine might have been curious to meet the female monarch who had had the courage to stand up to her brother.
Awwww. I love this framing and, I mean. I can't imagine she's wrong.
Once these events were reported to Berlin, all hell broke loose. Against her brother's accusations, the Margravine defended herself cooly and matter-of-factly: "Regarding my encounter with the Queen of Hungary, it was a simple polite gesture.
as we know: FRITZ
FS takes a leaf from Voltaire's, Fritz' and Heinrich's book and writes, not an anonymous pamphlet, but an anonymous memorandum "by a true German" to explain why he thinks they should just make up with Prussia already in 1748 (Cahn, the two Silesian Wars are over for some years, but MT is just about to wrap up the War of Austrian Succession as far her other opponents are concerned):
Thank you as always for the chronology note (maybe someday I will figure out more dates in this fandom -- I did finally get 1730 into my head :P -- but today is not the day) -- also, LOL :D A true German! <3
Fred Hennings and Georg Schreiber both are a bit confused why MT wanted the Leopold marriage to take place in Innsbruck instead of Milan or Vienna. Zedinger, like Stollberg-Rillinger, is confused they're confused, because the reasons seem obvious to her:
Heh. I really am enjoying your parallax view of the three bios, and how some of them have viewpoints that others of them don't have!
Moving on to FS' death, Schreiber provides some gruesome details, because since this was August, poor FS was decaying very quickly and they had to use a lot of herbs and perfumes for the burial
:(
When ther are repeated often ridiculous complications during the journey, he writes: "An angel would lose his patience at this point, and his Majesty, too, is in a bad mood and exhausted."
Awwww. I love these quotes about Vienna!Joe and his dad, and reporting about the random stuff that happens during the journey.
Again, I remember the sight of those three coffins in the MT crypt - that beautiful baroque opulent tomb of MT and FS with their statues depicted lying on their bed turned towards each other, and the absolute contract, that zinc coffin Joseph put himself into. But he still wanted to be with his parents in that final resting place. Different as they were from him, and as much as they often had to find each other frustrating, I think he always was aware they loved him.
Oh, this is just... I'm glad that they shared that love. This is beautiful and touching and there's something in my eye now :P <3333333
Re: More FS related Quotes: Prussians, Politics and Sons
Date: 2023-09-05 12:50 pm (UTC)Hee, well, you're ahead of one contemporary! I was looking at my Peter fic today, because I got a comment on it yesterday, and I noticed the line "at least Ariane was glad he'd survived that terrible year of 1730." Of all the details I suspected were going to turn out historically inaccurate when I wrote that fic, and many of which did*, I never anticipated that Peter remembering the year as 1730 was going to be one of them!
* I knew making
outup with Fritz was not how he got Charlottenburg and Tiergarten responsbilities, but we didn't know about Knobelsdorff yet. I strongly suspected Friedrich Ludwig was dead already in in 1777, and indeed, he was. I didn't realize Peter *did* ask Fritz for things after the early 1740s. Etc.Re: More FS related Quotes: Prussians, Politics and Sons
Date: 2023-09-05 12:50 pm (UTC)I seem to recall Leopold will also later write anonymous pamphlets to get around the nobility's opposition to his planned reforms.
But one thing is undoubtedly true: this memo isn't written by a guy who only wants to have a comfortable life and doesn't have his own opinion on politics.
No, but I can see where contemporaries and military-minded historians would say it was written by a guy who only wants to have a comfortable life foreign policy-wise and isn't willing to risk everything for glory! I can also see where they find this consistent with the guy who lets his wife have the final say. And the patriarchy takes it from there, and you end up with an "indolent" emperor. (What you have in reality is a guy who is not willing to die on his hill the way Fritz and MT were willing to die on their respective hills, both in terms of foreign policy and in terms of who's in charge at home.)
The secular princes are told by the Fritzian representative to not perform the genuflection, the kneeling anymore. FS ignores this, but come the coronation day, he draws a consequence. See, the Prince Elector of Brandenburg was the traditional Reichs-Erbkämmerer. Thus it would have been the job of the Fritz representative, one Erich Christoph Freiherr von Plotho, to carry the imperial scepter ahead of the procession. But instead, FS took it from him and carried it himself through the whole of Joseph's coronation, which was quite the feat since he had to do it on horseback.
That's hilarious. I don't think Stollberg-Rilinger mentions it in her book on the Holy Roman Empire and ritual symbolism. I'd think I'd remember it?
No, I don't see it in searching my copy. What I do see is:
The coronation ritual was an even more grotesque spectacle to later historians: "How might Frederick the Great have performed the task of bringing the emperor washing water and a towel on horseback!" It is all the more remarkable that Frederick the Great, as the archchamberlain of the Empire, was also present at the coronation through his envoy Plotho, who did not bring the emperor water to wash his hands at the Römer (that was the job of the hereditary imperial chamberlain of the Hohenzollerns), but who did help him dress and undress and handed him the scepter. Evidently all participants maintained the normative order of the Empire by publicly participating in the joint ritual, even if they did so through representatives. Nobody took the first step to destroy the collective imagination.
Oh, this is interesting, she does talk about the refusal to kneel, but with a different revenge:
In Frankfurt, where the electoral envoys had to appear before the emperor for a solemn audience, both sides continued the strategy of gaining ceremonial ground with all means. The bone of contention was the “Spanish reverence” on bent knee, which the emperor demanded from the electoral envoys in his written regulation but not from the envoys of foreign monarchs. “But since the reverence on bent knee in this regulation was very offensive to the delegation from electoral Bavaria, Saxony, and the Palatinate, and especially to electoral Brandenburg,” the Brunswick envoys wrote to their lord, the King of England, it was the subject of protracted negotiations. “Yet the imperial court did not wish to yield the least bit on this, and the delegation from electoral Brandenburg, to which the others could not accord any priority, would not even entertain the proposed compromises. Thus they found themselves compelled to act united in refusing the reverence on bent knee.” The delegation from electoral Bavaria was the first to be summoned to an audience, and “was the first to suffer this steadfast decision.” Although it had previously been stated that the emperor would not appear in the official Spanish mantle (Mantelkleid), and the envoys therefore also had to appear in Campagne Gala—according to the courtly code, en campagne was the formula for the reduced level of formality that prevailed at the pleasure residences in the countryside and gave greater leeway to dress—the imperial court marshal surprised them upon their arrival with the announcement that things would be different now. They thus had to fetch their mantles (Mantelkleider) in all haste to change on the lower floor of the imperial quarters, which they regarded as a shrewdly arranged embarrassment. The other envoys were given a timely warning, allowing them to appear in the requested ceremonial attire. While the imperial Obersthofmeister passed this “considerable confusion” off as a misunderstanding, which even the envoy from electoral Bohemia had been unable to prevent, the envoys were convinced that this was the emperor’s payback for their steadfast refusal to pay their respects on bent knee. But even after this incident they were not willing to do it.
Again, I remember the sight of those three coffins in the MT crypt - that beautiful baroque opulent tomb of MT and FS with their statues depicted lying on their bed turned towards each other, and the absolute contract, that zinc coffin Joseph put himself into. But he still wanted to be with his parents in that final resting place. Different as they were from him, and as much as they often had to find each other frustrating, I think he always was aware they loved him.
<3