cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 45

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Unfortunately, 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) )

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From:

selenak

Good grief, yes, that sounds like awful bullying, and I bet Beilby was of a slightly (or not so slightly) lower perdigree than the rest of them, and so they all ganged up on him.

Thank you for telling us; I didn‘t now about hararssment for NOT dueling, either! I mean, about that open kind of harrassment. There‘s a famous conversation in Fontane‘s novel Effi Briest between her husband and said husband‘s friend. The husband, Innstetten, has found letters from years ago proving Effi had a short affair with another man. Though this was years ago and the letter also make it clear it ended for good, and even though he still loves his wife and doesn‘t hate the other man, AND even though duelling is illegal in the German Empire as well (this is a late 19th century novel), he feels obliged to go through with the duel. His friend swears he would never say anything, and tells him to forget about it, but Innstetten says no, though he trusts his friend he also knows the friend will always know, and if you don‘t adher to the rules society has given itself then it‘s chaos and anarchy, and thus he has to go through with the duel and separate from his wife. Despite still loving her and having no urge to kill the other guy. It‘s one of the most famous scenes in 19th century German literature, supposed to epitomize the kind of society it was (not a good one) without employing caricature or boo-hiss one dimensionality. So that was my association for duelling code perversity, but as I said - I never expected this real life example!

From:

luzula

if you don‘t adher to the rules society has given itself then it‘s chaos and anarchy, and thus he has to go through with the duel and separate from his wife
I mean, he's kind of choosing which rules are important to him, here, since duelling was illegal...but yeah, I'm sure that sort of honour-culture ate its way into your head.

Re: Beilby, it's striking that he never uses the law to justify his actions; i e says that actually Robinson is breaking the Articles of War, and he himself is keeping them. I guess he must be aware of what a paper product those particular articles are, and what is actually important when it comes to having other (upper-class) men respect you.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I guess he must be aware of what a paper product those particular articles are, and what is actually important when it comes to having other (upper-class) men respect you.

Yeah. Quite a story, thank you for sharing it with us!

From:

cahn

Re: Beilby, it's striking that he never uses the law to justify his actions; i e says that actually Robinson is breaking the Articles of War, and he himself is keeping them. I guess he must be aware of what a paper product those particular articles are, and what is actually important when it comes to having other (upper-class) men respect you.

That's a good point and I didn't realize that until you said that. All his defenses are things like "well, I actually didn't hear it." Ugh, poor guy.

Thanks for this, this was a very interesting example! Though again, poor guy.