![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 47
We haven't had a new post since before December 25, so obligatory Yuletide link to this hilarious story of Frederick the Great babysitting his bratty little brother, with bonus Fritz/Fredersdorf!
Løvenørn letters: Sep 10, 1730
Last night I informed Mr. Secretary of State von Hagen of my arrival here, and that I had written to the Majesty the King of Prussia, to find out when it would please him to see me. Whereupon Mr. de Borck came to me the day before yesterday and told me laughing that he was going to show me what the King had replied to him on my letter and on this question, Mr. de Borck having written to him to notify him of my arrival.
The words of the king were: "Borck should say to Lovenörn, 'I had believed him to be my good friend, but not anymore since Katte and Fritz, c'est le Prince, have testified that he'd known what they had planed, and that the later had confided it to him at Prince Galitzin's party. If he as my friend had told me about it, this unfortunate affair would not have happened.'"
Mildred: So previously I thought "c'est le Prince" was the addition of Borck, because I thought we had a letter from Borck to Løvenørn, but this is Løvenørn writing, so I think it's his addition. Borck always writes strictly in German to Løvenørn, from what I can see in this collection of papers, and Løvenørn, who's been hanging out at the Berlin court for years, would know that "Fritz" is how FW often refers to Fritz. Løvenørn, in contrast, is writing this letter in French, and Frederik V would not necessarily know who "Fritz" is.
This Minister congratulated me at the same time on what was in the explanation, then that he knew from his own experience that it was a sure sign of wanting to make amends.
I began by asking him what he would have done if he had been in my place, and if he believed that I could have betrayed Prince without committing an action that would have shocked the whole world. right to blame me. He replied very naively that I had only done what any honest man should have done in such an encounter, and that he would say the same thing to the King if he spoke to him about it.
After that I asked him to testify to His Majesty that I was noticeably touched to learn that he believed he was right to be dissatisfied with me, but, as I was convinced that His Royal Equanimity would not allow him to condemn anyone without listening to them, I hoped that when he arrived here, he would kindly give me a couple of minutes to justify myself, and that I didn't need more to completely convince him of the innocence and the righteousness of my conduct. Indeed, Sire, I am convinced that His Prussian Majesty, who will be here this evening or tomorrow morning, will not delay in recognizing that I could not act contrary to what I did in the matter in question, and that it will not be difficult for me to make him understand that even if he had learned about it from me, he would not have been able to apply any other remedies than those that he has just used now that he has been informed of it via other sources.
In the meantime I see, from what the Prince Royal said about having spoken to me about this affair at Prince Gallitzin's, that he did not say everything, or that his memory failed him, since he only ever spoke to me about it at Camp de Saxe.
I have no doubt that as soon as I have explained myself to His Prussian Majesty, he will return his good graces and talk with me as usual. It is not the same with Knight Hotham and Captain Guidickens, against whom His Majesty is so angry that he cannot name them without giving them the most mortifying epithets. For the Prince Royal as well as Lieutenant Katte having testified that Knight Hotham had knowledge of their design and that it was to find out the intentions of the King of Great Britain on this matter that Captain Guydickens had made the trip in London from the Camp of Saxony in the month of June last, the King of Prussia is absolutely in the opinion that they have strengthened the Prince in this design.
However, both admitted at the same time that His British Majesty did not want to enter into this in any way. We extremely admire the presence of mind that the Royal Prince showed before the commission, which had gone to find him in Mittenwalde, having had a most serious interview with Mr. de Gromkow at the same time as he was dictating, with the eloquence of a Cicero, to the Privy Councilor Mylius, who held the pen, what he had to write, without confusing himself in the slightest in the connection of things. He is now locked up in a room in Cüstrin, with no other company than a single chamber lackey, who brings him food and who comes in the morning to dress him and in the evening to put him to bed. May God be his consolation! Because the temptation is great for a young prince of his age. His first valet was sent to Spandoir and put in the cart (?), on some suspicion that His Majesty had conceived against him, his second valet was made surgeon of a regiment, and his page Low Officer in the regiment of Gersdorf, who is garrisoned at Spandow. The daughter of the rector of Potsdam, of whom Chancellor Johnn mentioned in one of his last letters to Mr. State Secretary von Hagen, was publicly whipped by the hand of the executioner and sent to the penitentiary in Spandow: her only crime consists of having received a small present from the Prince by the hands of the 2 officers who were arrested with her, to whom the Prince must have told, that it was not fair that a her daughter should not have been dressed properly, without him having ever spoken to her in his life. The father and mother of this unfortunate girl were shamefully expelled from His Majesty's states.
Mildred: I have two things I don't recognize here: Fritz never spoke to Doris; Doris's parents were kicked out. I would have to check, but I feel like Hinrichs has Fritz or one of the other people who were interrogated admitting Fritz did interact with her directly? Maybe?
Searching through salon for "Doris Ritter" and "parents", I don't see anything except them testifying that there was nothing improper.
Alas, I think Løvenørn may be guilty of some exaggeration/relying on unreliable sources himself, between this, Spaen and Ingersleben being locked up for life, and what's coming:
Finally, Sire, it is impossible for me to properly represent to Your Majesty the desolation in which everyone finds themselves here. The Queen has not eaten for several days and only cries, being made like a skeleton. The Royal Prince was so terribly mistreated, by the King his Father at Wesel, that most of his hair was torn out, and he still bears the marks. The eldest Princess suffered almost the same treatment when the King arrived in this city, and it is believed that she would perhaps not have escaped alive from his hands, if the great governess von Kamecke had not finally had the courage to throw herself between two, although the King had nothing else against her except that she did not repeat to him what her brother said to him when leaving.
That she might not see him again so soon: he had to go away, since he couldn't stand it any longer.
I'm 100% willing to believe that the guy who dragged Fritz by his hair at Zeithain dragged him by his hair at Wesel. But hair is hard to pull out in large amounts, and I feel like if Fritz was missing most of his hair, someone else would have told us by now?
Anyway, I think it's clear that Frau von Kamecke intervened, especially given this next bit:
As the Queen is not to be approached in these sad circumstances, I have instructed Madame de Kamecke to pay her Your Majesty's compliments and to return a thousand thanks on her part for what she was kind enough to allow Mr. Stahl to stay for such a long time with Your Majesty, and this lady brought me in response that the Queen was sorry not to have had a better opportunity to show to Your Majesty the friendship she has for her person and that she wished to learn immediately of Your Majesty's complete recovery.
So it seems Løvenørn has direct contact with Kamecke and could have gotten her version of the story from the horse's mouth. I think Kamecke and Wilhelmine count as two separate eyewitnesses of what happened that day, and their stories align.
I'm also interested in SD being a "skeleton". It's the second time he's said this in one of his letters. I know she weighed a lot at her death, but that was over 25 years later. Do we know anything about her weight in this period? After 14 pregnancies, I'd be surprised...
As a reminder, Stahl is the doctor we've seen before, the one whom SD allowed to go to Denmark to try to treat a dying Frederik IV, and the one who didn't want to go back, but didn't want to tell SD he didn't want to go back, so the Danes set up an elaborate diplomatic pretense that he wanted to go back but the king said no. :P
Btw, significant parts of this letter have a note in the margin saying "ciphers"; those are the parts I've underlined. Since the ciphered text is in plaintext, I'm assuming this beautiful handwriting is a clean copy for the records. In fact, much of this beautiful handwriting I've been praising may be a secretary doing a clean copy for the royal archives?
At any rate, it is SO COOL to be reading Løvenørn's unpublished letters and finding things like a second source for Doris Ritter being a virgin, a second source for Frau von Kamecke being the hero of the day, etc.!
Re: Løvenørn letters: Sep 10, 1730
I see Knight Hotham belongs to the same google translate family as the Knight of Lorraine. *g* Lehndorff will refer to Sir Charles Hotham's nephew as "the Chevalier Hotham" as well. Lövenörn spelling it Guidickens, as one word, is a good reminder of what we didn't realize for the longest time, that it's not Guy Dickens, but Melchior Guy-Dickens.
Campe de Saxe - the Saxon Camp = Zeithain.
We extremely admire the presence of mind that the Royal Prince showed before the commission, which had gone to find him in Mittenwalde, having had a most serious interview with Mr. de Gromkow at the same time as he was dictating, with the eloquence of a Cicero, to the Privy Councilor Mylius, who held the pen, what he had to write, without confusing himself in the slightest in the connection of things.
In other words, he didn't incriminate Danemark more than the absolute minimum wise and also, unlike Katte, didn't try to sell FW on Seckendorff & Grumbkow trying to make him into a Catholic to marry MT :)
Mildred: I have two things I don't recognize here: Fritz never spoke to Doris; Doris's parents were kicked out. I would have to check, but I feel like Hinrichs has Fritz or one of the other people who were interrogated admitting Fritz did interact with her directly? Maybe?
She definitely interacted directly with him, because Spaen was accused of, and admitting to, chaperoning her and Fritz on some strolls. She also played the piano (I think?) while Fritz played the flute. So Lövenörn is definitely exaggarating in one direction, downplaying in the other in the partisan spirit. Re: her parents, I'm not sure but maybe her Dad lost his job as cantor over this? But her parents definitely weren't banished from either Potsdam or Berlin.
Fritz getting half his hair torn out reminds me of Guy Dickens claiming he lives unshaven with a wild beard and long hair in Küstrin, i.e. it's not true at all but says something about the imagination of the respective envoy and belongs to the trope of the abused prisoner.
Sceleton!SD is similarly a rethorical exaggaration. Stratemann saw her repeatedly that autumn and mentions nothing about any significant weight loss. Granted, Stratemann also insists that Wilhelmine is "unwell" and that's why she's in her rooms all the time right until she accepts the marriage and is allowed out again which is when he mentions it wasn't all for health reasons, so he'd downplay any physical SD distress as much as the other two would play it up. But what's most likely is that SD was upset and distressed and what not, but any weight loss wasn't so much that many people noticed. Let's not forget: she gave birth to Ferdinand in the same year in late spring (May, I think?), and it's now early September. My mother took more than half a year to recover her waistline after the birth of my brother, and SD is living in far unhealthier times, and also doesn't appear to have been one for physical exercise like riding or walking, unlike, say, her grandmother Sophie of Hannover.
At any rate, it is SO COOL to be reading Løvenørn's unpublished letters and finding things like a second source for Doris Ritter being a virgin, a second source for Frau von Kamecke being the hero of the day, etc.!
That it definitely is! And all praise to you for ordering copies of those letters and translating them!
Re: Løvenørn letters: Sep 10, 1730
Heh, I was going to say that I lost a bunch of weight while breastfeeding, but of course SD wouldn't have been breastfeeding, right? So never mind that argument! :)
Re: Løvenørn letters: Sep 10, 1730
(The kids weren't starved in the sense of not getting enough food full stop, either. In the famous scene where Wilhelmine recounts her sister Friederike (the first one to get married) mouth off FW re: food, she has Friederike complain that the food was awful and unenjoyable, not that it wasn't there. (This is the scene when FW starts to throw plates soon, but not at Friederike, at Fritz and Wilhelmine.) (Friederike will leave Berlin soon for Ansbach, which helps with the courage, undoubtedly.) How much Wilhelmine exaggarates about the food being awful was of course heavily debated among Hohenzollern historians ever since. On the one hand, we do have Fritz' weight from when he and FW were visiting Saxony and got on that famous scales where August the Strong had all his guests weight, at Königstein, and it's not below avarage, even taking account that he was fully clothed (like everyone else). And if you recall, Stratemann reports such scenes like FW being a Disney Dad, feeding pregnant (with Ferdinand) SD with chicken soup, telling Wilhelmine to take care of Heinrich (the then youngest before Ferdinand's birth) and ensure he gets the fish he wants to eat, and in the previous year he reports on FW touring the Christmas market and buying sweets for his kids. While Stratemann is as pro FW as Lövenörn is against him, I don't think he made that up - FW is just the type to play the good housefather when he's feeling sentimental, which his highly pregnant wife or Christmas approaching would bring out of him. But that wouldn't stop him from insisting everyone eat healthy like the Spartans during the rest of the year, especially the boys.
No, SD would not have been breastfeeding. Another thing Stratemann reports on is how Ferdinand's wetnurse was chosen from a variety of candidates in the spring of 1730, renember? It's a French Colonel's wife who makes it in the end. I refer you to my Stratemann write up at Rheinsberg for more details, it's an interesting glimpse of how wetnurses were chosen.
(FW: I can't understand why all my kids speak French rather than German...)
Another thing re: SD's weight - according to Wilhelmine, she was in denial about being pregnant with Amalie and thought it was already menopause, and thus there weren't the usual midwives and wetnurses etc. ready and FW had to assist with the birth. Leaving some room for exaggaration, that story still would not work if SD hadn't already been a somewhat heavy woman by the time Amalie was born. Which was years before 1730. So she did have some weight to lose and a far way to to to a skeleton.
Re: Løvenørn letters: Sep 10, 1730
Yeah, I can't remember anyone saying she was starved by FW, either.
(The kids weren't starved in the sense of not getting enough food full stop, either.
This is something we've debated in salon before. On the one hand, both Wilhelmine and Fritz said they were starved. Ziebura also says AW says he and the other kids were often half-starved (but Ziebura doesn't believe in citing her sources). On the other hand, yeah, we have Fritz's weight and he was not underweight or skeletal or anything.
In the famous scene where Wilhelmine recounts her sister Friederike (the first one to get married) mouth off FW re: food, she has Friederike complain that the food was awful and unenjoyable, not that it wasn't there.
But in other places in the memoir, she does talk about not being given enough to eat, quantity-wise.
My own theory is that on a regular basis, the kids got enough to eat, to the point where they weren't underweight, but the times when they were deprived of food were really traumatic and loomed large in their memory. This is how trauma works. Plus Mom talking about how this food wasn't edible (by upper class people) and sending them secret food deliveries, etc.
she was in denial about being pregnant with Amalie
I remembered the scales at Königstein but had forgotten about this, but yes, now that you remind me, I remember. There's no way she was a skeleton in 1730.
Sadly for our desire to back Wilhelmine up, Løvenørn, like Guy-Dickens, is a massively partisan exaggerator. But I still think he counts as an independent source for Frau von Kamecke! (He's an independent second-hand source for Doris, but may go back to the same first-hand source. Guy-Dickens and Løvenørn are obviously not both independent first-hand sources who witnessed the evidence of her virginity.)
No, SD would not have been breastfeeding. Another thing Stratemann reports on is how Ferdinand's wetnurse was chosen from a variety of candidates in the spring of 1730, renember?
I also remembered this and was going to tell Cahn about it if you hadn't reminded her first! :D
Re: Løvenørn letters: Sep 10, 1730
Right, that does make sense, and it's worth noting that SD uses withdrawal of food as punishment for Amalie when Amalie is around 30! I mean, in this case it's funny, because Amalie has alternate methods of getting her chickens roasted, but it's still telling that "the princess will no longer be supplied by my kitchen" is something SD thinks off when she's really angry with her (adult) daughter.
Sadly for our desire to back Wilhelmine up, Løvenørn, like Guy-Dickens, is a massively partisan exaggerator. But I still think he counts as an independent source for Frau von Kamecke!
He does, and re: backing up Wilhelmine, Stratemann - who is partisan to FW and thus not suspect of inventing stuff detrimental to FW - did that with a couple of claims. Remember 19th century Hohenzollern doubting even Wilhelmine's mention of Gundling's funeral (in a letter to her sister) as a Dad slight? And then it turns out Stratemann reports the same funeral in great detail to Braunschweig. He also confirms a few days after Wilhelmine's wedding that rumour has it there was an impression Fritz was cold to "people", which verifies something Fritzian partisans have argued was surely her projecting backwards when writing it in her memoirs.
Re: Frau von Kamecke, we actually have a non-Wilhelmine independent source, to wit, Henri de Catt in his diary, not in the memoirs, with the diary noting down the story when de Catt has been left with Heinrich (and the memoirs putting the whole story into Fritz' mouth which makes no sense since he wasn't there), and her role is mentioned. So you don't have to look it up, here's the version as noted down by Henri de Catt in Heinrich's camp (likely either narrated by Heinrich himself or by one of his friends, de Catt doesn't say whom he talked to, but the perspective is Heinrich's, as seen by the mention of him hiding under the table):
When the King was in Küstrin, the Queen mother told her children to throw themselves on the King's knee to beg for mercy. The Princess of Baireuth, as the oldest one, threw herself before him in the anteroom; she got beaten. Then the family got under the table. Prince Heinrich got squeezed in.The King had a stick, he wanted to beat them. Arrives the chief stewardess, the Countess of Kameke. She spoke. - ›Go away, carrion!‹ Dixit ei Rex. One argues. - ›The devil will take you away,‹ she said, ›if you don't let these children alone!‹ Which she put in a room. The next day the King saw her, thanked her for the madness she had made him avoid. - ›I will always be your good friend,‹ and he was. Grumbkow said to the late King: "You should send this rascal over there", speaking of His Majesty. What horror!
That's what everyone thinks when hearing Hohenzollern family life stories for the first time, Henri de Catt.
Re: Løvenørn letters: Sep 10, 1730
That's what everyone thinks when hearing Hohenzollern family life stories for the first time, Henri de Catt.
That's what I think! And not just for the first time hearing them, either.
Re: Løvenørn letters: Sep 10, 1730
(It must have been terrifying for all present, and that Heinrich at four can remember it later is also telling.)
Re: Løvenørn letters: Sep 10, 1730
Heee! Lol, yes, I missed that when cleaning up the google translate fic. Obviously, I go for speed on these things, not accuracy.
Lövenörn spelling it Guidickens, as one word, is a good reminder of what we didn't realize for the longest time, that it's not Guy Dickens, but Melchior Guy-Dickens.
The thing is, I *knew* it was spelled that way in contemporary German texts, since very early in salon, but I thought it was just a "Germans don't speak English" thing! Not that it was telling us something.
In other words, he didn't incriminate Danemark more than the absolute minimum wise and also, unlike Katte, didn't try to sell FW on Seckendorff & Grumbkow trying to make him into a Catholic to marry MT :)
Truly a Cicero! :'D
Spaen was accused of, and admitting to, chaperoning her and Fritz on some strolls
That's what I thought! Thank you for confirming I wasn't misremembering.
But her parents definitely weren't banished from either Potsdam or Berlin.
Okay, good. I would have liked to think I would remember such a thing.
Fritz getting half his hair torn out reminds me of Guy Dickens claiming he lives unshaven with a wild beard and long hair in Küstrin, i.e. it's not true at all but says something about the imagination of the respective envoy and belongs to the trope of the abused prisoner.
Yep, I was thinking of exactly this point of comparison.
Let's not forget: she gave birth to Ferdinand in the same year in late spring (May, I think?), and it's now early September.
Yes, I was thinking of that. And thank you for reminding me that she was in denial about the Amalie pregnancy.
also doesn't appear to have been one for physical exercise like riding or walking, unlike, say, her grandmother Sophie of Hannover.
Or even MT, who exercised and *still* got fat after all those pregnancies.
Doris Ritter
„dem Hoff Rath Klinte, daß er Morgen die in arrest allhier einsitzende Cantors Tochter soll auspeitschen laßen, und soll dieselbe alßdann ewig auf Spandow in das Spinnhauß gebracht werden, erstlich soll dieselbe Vor dem Rathhause gepeitscht werden, hernach vor des Vaters Hause, und dann auff allen Ecken der Stadt.“
– Potsdam, den 6. Sept. 1730. Fr. Wilhelm
Note the extra cruelty of her being whipped in front of her father's house as well. I did misrenember which friend chaperoned her and Fritz, though, it was Ingersleben, not Spaen, according to wiki. Which also said the relationship lasted six months, from January to June 1730, i.e. exactly the high time of Fritz/Katte relations. (Presumably the January date is based on Ingersleben's testimony. But it's interesting that Fritz in January - after Peter gets transferred to Wesel? - intensifies his relations with Katte and starts a whatever it was involving strolls and concerts with poor Doris.) Which is also when he's definite that he wans to escape by any means necessary.
Oh, and that wiki entry also mentions Ingersleben's exact sentence, complete with another direct quote. As opposed to Lövenörn reporting he got sentenced for life (which we knew had not been the case), he got sentenced for six months in Spandau, because he should have: wißen und urtheilen können, daß S. K. M. dergleichen [Spaziergänge] höchst mißfällig seyn würde“.
Re: Doris Ritter
Yeah, FW liked the "pour encourager les autres" approach, making people witness the punishment of people they were close to. I think he hanged a minister outside the place where the other ministers met? Something like that. It wasn't just Fritz and Katte.
But it's interesting that Fritz in January - after Peter gets transferred to Wesel? - intensifies his relations with Katte and starts a whatever it was involving strolls and concerts with poor Doris.)
Yes, that is interesting! I hadn't noticed the dates.
Thank you for the detective work and providing the quotes!
Re: Doris Ritter
Ugh, every time I think I'm used to FW he does something else that's just... needlessly cruel! :(