In April 1744, Tido gets news that his mom has gotten him a position as a lieutenant in the Bavarian army. He's supposed to go to Lyon, where someone will equip him with a uniform, a horse, and everything else he needs to set out and join the Second Silesian War.
He is extremely astonished, as he thought she would put him in the French army, but okay! To Bavaria he will go! He thanks his mom effusively, and says that he will go to Lyon promptly. He will explain the delay to the colonel of his regiment by saying that he took a bad fall on his travels and can't set out just yet.
But then he gets to Lyon, and the person who was supposed to outfit him for the army claims to know nothing of the arrangement, and definitely isn't giving him stuff for free.
So then it's all letters to everybody asking for money, money, money!
He writes to somebody, I'm not sure whom, who has been a benefactor to him in the past, and whom he is surprised and pleased to find is now in Prussian service, asking him to please use his influence with Mom to get him out of "the cruel embarrassment into which her manner of acting, which I dare call unreasonable, has plunged me."
Then my least favorite words, "I won't bore you with the complete detail of everything she's done in regard to me."
Me: No! Bore him! Historians centuries hence need to know!
BUT, he goes on to say, "I wrote the complete detail in a letter to Mr. de Keith two years ago, and I asked him to communicate everything to you. I'll content myself with saying that, unbeknownst to me, having received the position of lieutenant, without doubt due to his/her solicitation..." And then he recounts his financial situation and the difficulties he ran into at Lyon.
Now! The timing here is madly interesting to me, as is that possessive pronoun.
Two years before April 1744 is April 1742. I.e. when Jordan is acting as a go-between for Fritz and Peter, as well as Fritz and the Baroness von Knyphausen, when Fritz is threatening her with a workhouse and telling Peter that he's on his own. Now, since Tido doesn't say "two years ago this month," that means it's somewhere between late 1741 and late 1742 that he wrote to Peter. But the general mood holds: Peter may or may not be married to Oriane when he gets Tido's letter, and Fritz is definitely pissed at both Tido and Mom.
Second, whose solicitation? Is he saying he assumes that Peter, the most recent noun in the sentence, intervened with Mom? Or that it was Mom who pulled strings with the Bavarians? I mean, we know it has to be Mom pulling strings, would he feel the need to say "without doubt?" Elsewhere, in his next letter, he just says, "She saw fit to get me this position," without saying what amounts to "I assume she got me this position."
So is he saying that he never heard back from Peter, but Peter must be the one who talked her around?
Tell me more, Tido!!
Also: why is he writing to Peter? Did he know Peter before he left Prussia? What does he know *about* Peter? The window's a little tight: Peter got back to Berlin in mid October 1740, the Prussian army leaves (with Tido as an officer) for the Silesian invasion in mid December. Unless Tido came back to Berlin during winter quarters (possible, I suppose), he's in Silesia until his arrest in mid 1741, then has to escape. He has no further opportunity to meet Peter.
So is this an act of desperation: "I hear my sister just married this guy, let me try him?" But if you've never met someone, and you never hear back from them to confirm that they intervened on your behalf, why would you assume silence means they totally got on board with supporting you, just didn't feel the need to tell you that? I'm leaning toward him having met Peter and deciding he was a nice guy.
We know from Maupertuis that Peter knew the Knyphausens already within 5-6 months of his arrival, well enough that he's telling Oriane and Hedwig hi from Maupertuis. It starts to make me wonder if Kloosterhuis is right when he speculates that maybe Peter already knew the Knyphausens in the late 1720s, and that was one reason he was valuable to Fritz for the escape plan.
Because if Peter knew the Knyphausens when he left, then him looking them up as soon as he arrives in Berlin makes sense. Then Tido's decision to write to him and to assume the best in the absence of evidence makes sense.
But there's always the possibility that he's referring not to "Mr. de Keith" with "sa" but to "elle" way back in the beginning of the paragraph. Seems highly unlikely, but I'm not ruling it out.
Btw, I'm assuming "Mr. de Keith" is Peter, because there aren't *that* many Keiths in Berlin; George and James hadn't arrived in 1742 (and still haven't in 1744); and what other Keith would you write to to try to get your mom to send you money, if not the man your sister just married?
So that happens, and eventually he ends up in Germany with the Bavarian army, but only at great personal expense and after having to "call in sick" multiple times the colonel.
Then in August he writes a letter from Altstadt, to what I believe is a Monsieur de Kraut, saying that Kraut has always had a lot of influence with Mom, can he please get her to send him the same monthly allowance he used to get when he was in the Prussian army, this is completely unreasonable. Lots of detail on how much things cost. Some military detail, and how he's been lucky to escape unwounded.
Mr. de Kraut forwards the letter to Mom and says, "I got this letter from your son, and I didn't want to reply without your permission and knowing what your intentions are."
-- Kind of what I feel Peter did too.
And that's all the letters I have from Tido (though I may add in more detail as I remember more and/or reread; I'm going largely from memory here).
There's one letter from Monsieur Girard, sent from Lyon in June 1741, which I've only partially read, because his handwriting is so *weird*, plus long loops on every letter that cover the line below it, so all the writing is partially obscured. What I was able to make out without putting in too much effort didn't make it look like it was worth the effort of mastering his handwriting right now, but it looks like it might have a better explanation of the financial troubles Tido ran into in Lyon.
Anyway! This is all from Tido for now, until some English merchant who doesn't like him writes about him in 1783. (Wikipedia tells me Tido died in 1780.)
ETA: Oh, right, I forgot his suicide threat!
I let her know by Mr. de Keith that however far I am from making new and unpleasant business with her, that I am nevertheless very resolved to take a course in which I will listen only to my despair, if she does not want to grant me my necessities.
Right, and I was going to comment to agree with what Selena said: the Baroness is being yelled at by Fritz for helping her son too much, and yelled at by her son for not helping him enough. No wonder Jordan feels sorry for her!
(I really wish I knew what Peter said/did re Tido!! I feel like 1742 was not a time he wanted to piss off Fritz, though maybe after the war was over and he was married to Oriane, which is *probably* when Tido wrote to him, he was in a slightly more secure position.)
Good lord, the melodrama. My sympathies are with Mom, Tido.
Re: the Bavarian army, and who got him a job there - this is also interesting because unless I‘m misremembering, the supreme commander of the Bavarian army in Silesia 2 was….drumroll… Seckendorff. Remember: in the final years of MT‘s Dad‘s reign, he‘d been locked up supposedly for fucking up in the war against the Turks, then MT released him when she took over, but evidently didn‘t offer him the command of her armies, then Seckendorff was pissed off about that and took the job offer from the Bavarians, i.e. the newly elected Karl Albrecht of Wittelsbach, now the second and last Wittelsbach Emperor of the HRE. (Much entertaining stuff about the first Wittelsbach Emperor, Ludwig the Bavarian, in Dirk‘s podcast.) Now given Seckendorff‘s most notable job in recent decades had been when he was envoy at FW‘s court, so I wouldn‘t be surprised if Frau von Knyphausen knew him from that time. (I mean, Peter evidently must have known of him, but being a friend of Fritz, I very much doubt he socialized with him.)
Anyway, Silesia 2 was of course when the Bavarians didn‘t succeed gloriously at all but found MT’s army (including Austrian Trenck) occupying Bavaria and Karl Albrecht kicked out of his own home country and remaining kicked out until he died and the chastened electors voted for MT Franz Stephan. So I‘m not surprised Tido would rather have been with the French (who didn‘t cover themselves with glory, either, but at least didn‘t get their country occupied) and had a miserable time of it. Notable Bavarian curse to this day: „Saupreuß!“
(The Rhinelanders weren’t the only ones who really really really did not like the Prussians very much.)
No, I had forgotten! Damn, good memory, Selena! Yeah, that explains why the Baroness had contacts in Bavaria.
Now given Seckendorff‘s most notable job in recent decades had been when he was envoy at FW‘s court, so I wouldn‘t be surprised if Frau von Knyphausen knew him from that time. (I mean, Peter evidently must have known of him, but being a friend of Fritz, I very much doubt he socialized with him.)
No, I don't at all think Peter was getting him a job with the *Bavarians*. That's obviously Mom. The question is: is Tido attributing Mom's willingness to do that to Peter? Or is he just commenting on how he assumes his new Bavarian job comes from Mom? I would think the second one is so obvious as not to require comment, but it's possible that that's what he's saying.
(I mean, Peter evidently must have known of him, but being a friend of Fritz, I very much doubt he socialized with him.)
Though keep in mind, Peter's job as page is to stay on FW's good side so he can spy, and Wilhelmine says he was a great favorite with FW. I doubt his desertion left him with any social capital with Seckendorff, though. (Though late Knyphausen, Sr., was also dismissed in 1730 on suspicion of helping Fritz, and evidently his wife still has some strings to pull.)
(The Rhinelanders weren’t the only ones who really really really did not like the Prussians very much.)
No, they weren't. The Prussians, by which I mean the actual Prussians, from East Prussia, where Lehndorff's from, didn't like the Prussians, by which I mean the Brandenburg-based Hohenzollerns, very much either. They were quite happy to be conquered by the Russians with the intention of handing them back to Poland after the war. Fritz never forgave them, and never went there on his annual visit again.
...I feel like the Saxons have to hate the Prussians too, right?
They certainly do after Fritz takes over. :) Mind you, in the later 19th century there‘s also a weird masochistic „it was all for the best in the end, because only under the glorious House of Hohenzollern could Germany be unified, and we needed the discipline after our spendthrift days“ Saxon fannishness. Of course, NOW Saxony is, alas, one of the centres for right wing extremism, and there‘s vilifying of Berlin for entirely different reasons. :(
Yikes. All I remembered was that in the later 19th century is when the Saxons finally got around to defending themselves against Fritz's charge that they were totally part of the alliance to dismember Prussia and thus that invading them in 1756 was justified, and thus that the glorious House of Hohenzollern should *not* be unifying Germany. Until then, they had not bothered to counter his PR move.
I let her know by Mr. de Keith that however far I am from making new and unpleasant business with her, that I am nevertheless very resolved to take a course in which I will listen only to my despair, if she does not want to grant me my necessities.
Wow! This guy. Letting her know via her son-in-law, too :P
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timeasmymeasure
A Knyphausen Vagabond - Part 2
Date: 2025-01-14 12:00 pm (UTC)He is extremely astonished, as he thought she would put him in the French army, but okay! To Bavaria he will go! He thanks his mom effusively, and says that he will go to Lyon promptly. He will explain the delay to the colonel of his regiment by saying that he took a bad fall on his travels and can't set out just yet.
But then he gets to Lyon, and the person who was supposed to outfit him for the army claims to know nothing of the arrangement, and definitely isn't giving him stuff for free.
So then it's all letters to everybody asking for money, money, money!
He writes to somebody, I'm not sure whom, who has been a benefactor to him in the past, and whom he is surprised and pleased to find is now in Prussian service, asking him to please use his influence with Mom to get him out of "the cruel embarrassment into which her manner of acting, which I dare call unreasonable, has plunged me."
Then my least favorite words, "I won't bore you with the complete detail of everything she's done in regard to me."
Me: No! Bore him! Historians centuries hence need to know!
BUT, he goes on to say, "I wrote the complete detail in a letter to Mr. de Keith two years ago, and I asked him to communicate everything to you. I'll content myself with saying that, unbeknownst to me, having received the position of lieutenant, without doubt due to his/her solicitation..." And then he recounts his financial situation and the difficulties he ran into at Lyon.
Now! The timing here is madly interesting to me, as is that possessive pronoun.
Two years before April 1744 is April 1742. I.e. when Jordan is acting as a go-between for Fritz and Peter, as well as Fritz and the Baroness von Knyphausen, when Fritz is threatening her with a workhouse and telling Peter that he's on his own. Now, since Tido doesn't say "two years ago this month," that means it's somewhere between late 1741 and late 1742 that he wrote to Peter. But the general mood holds: Peter may or may not be married to Oriane when he gets Tido's letter, and Fritz is definitely pissed at both Tido and Mom.
Second, whose solicitation? Is he saying he assumes that Peter, the most recent noun in the sentence, intervened with Mom? Or that it was Mom who pulled strings with the Bavarians? I mean, we know it has to be Mom pulling strings, would he feel the need to say "without doubt?" Elsewhere, in his next letter, he just says, "She saw fit to get me this position," without saying what amounts to "I assume she got me this position."
So is he saying that he never heard back from Peter, but Peter must be the one who talked her around?
Tell me more, Tido!!
Also: why is he writing to Peter? Did he know Peter before he left Prussia? What does he know *about* Peter? The window's a little tight: Peter got back to Berlin in mid October 1740, the Prussian army leaves (with Tido as an officer) for the Silesian invasion in mid December. Unless Tido came back to Berlin during winter quarters (possible, I suppose), he's in Silesia until his arrest in mid 1741, then has to escape. He has no further opportunity to meet Peter.
So is this an act of desperation: "I hear my sister just married this guy, let me try him?" But if you've never met someone, and you never hear back from them to confirm that they intervened on your behalf, why would you assume silence means they totally got on board with supporting you, just didn't feel the need to tell you that? I'm leaning toward him having met Peter and deciding he was a nice guy.
We know from Maupertuis that Peter knew the Knyphausens already within 5-6 months of his arrival, well enough that he's telling Oriane and Hedwig hi from Maupertuis. It starts to make me wonder if Kloosterhuis is right when he speculates that maybe Peter already knew the Knyphausens in the late 1720s, and that was one reason he was valuable to Fritz for the escape plan.
Because if Peter knew the Knyphausens when he left, then him looking them up as soon as he arrives in Berlin makes sense. Then Tido's decision to write to him and to assume the best in the absence of evidence makes sense.
But there's always the possibility that he's referring not to "Mr. de Keith" with "sa" but to "elle" way back in the beginning of the paragraph. Seems highly unlikely, but I'm not ruling it out.
Btw, I'm assuming "Mr. de Keith" is Peter, because there aren't *that* many Keiths in Berlin; George and James hadn't arrived in 1742 (and still haven't in 1744); and what other Keith would you write to to try to get your mom to send you money, if not the man your sister just married?
So that happens, and eventually he ends up in Germany with the Bavarian army, but only at great personal expense and after having to "call in sick" multiple times the colonel.
Then in August he writes a letter from Altstadt, to what I believe is a Monsieur de Kraut, saying that Kraut has always had a lot of influence with Mom, can he please get her to send him the same monthly allowance he used to get when he was in the Prussian army, this is completely unreasonable. Lots of detail on how much things cost. Some military detail, and how he's been lucky to escape unwounded.
Mr. de Kraut forwards the letter to Mom and says, "I got this letter from your son, and I didn't want to reply without your permission and knowing what your intentions are."
-- Kind of what I feel Peter did too.
And that's all the letters I have from Tido (though I may add in more detail as I remember more and/or reread; I'm going largely from memory here).
There's one letter from Monsieur Girard, sent from Lyon in June 1741, which I've only partially read, because his handwriting is so *weird*, plus long loops on every letter that cover the line below it, so all the writing is partially obscured. What I was able to make out without putting in too much effort didn't make it look like it was worth the effort of mastering his handwriting right now, but it looks like it might have a better explanation of the financial troubles Tido ran into in Lyon.
Anyway! This is all from Tido for now, until some English merchant who doesn't like him writes about him in 1783. (Wikipedia tells me Tido died in 1780.)
ETA: Oh, right, I forgot his suicide threat!
I let her know by Mr. de Keith that however far I am from making new and unpleasant business with her, that I am nevertheless very resolved to take a course in which I will listen only to my despair, if she does not want to grant me my necessities.
Right, and I was going to comment to agree with what Selena said: the Baroness is being yelled at by Fritz for helping her son too much, and yelled at by her son for not helping him enough. No wonder Jordan feels sorry for her!
(I really wish I knew what Peter said/did re Tido!! I feel like 1742 was not a time he wanted to piss off Fritz, though maybe after the war was over and he was married to Oriane, which is *probably* when Tido wrote to him, he was in a slightly more secure position.)
Re: A Knyphausen Vagabond - Part 2
Date: 2025-01-14 04:24 pm (UTC)Re: the Bavarian army, and who got him a job there - this is also interesting because unless I‘m misremembering, the supreme commander of the Bavarian army in Silesia 2 was….drumroll… Seckendorff. Remember: in the final years of MT‘s Dad‘s reign, he‘d been locked up supposedly for fucking up in the war against the Turks, then MT released him when she took over, but evidently didn‘t offer him the command of her armies, then Seckendorff was pissed off about that and took the job offer from the Bavarians, i.e. the newly elected Karl Albrecht of Wittelsbach, now the second and last Wittelsbach Emperor of the HRE. (Much entertaining stuff about the first Wittelsbach Emperor, Ludwig the Bavarian, in Dirk‘s podcast.) Now given Seckendorff‘s most notable job in recent decades had been when he was envoy at FW‘s court, so I wouldn‘t be surprised if Frau von Knyphausen knew him from that time. (I mean, Peter evidently must have known of him, but being a friend of Fritz, I very much doubt he socialized with him.)
Anyway, Silesia 2 was of course when the Bavarians didn‘t succeed gloriously at all but found MT’s army (including Austrian Trenck) occupying Bavaria and Karl Albrecht kicked out of his own home country and remaining kicked out until he died and the chastened electors voted for
MTFranz Stephan. So I‘m not surprised Tido would rather have been with the French (who didn‘t cover themselves with glory, either, but at least didn‘t get their country occupied) and had a miserable time of it. Notable Bavarian curse to this day: „Saupreuß!“(The Rhinelanders weren’t the only ones who really really really did not like the Prussians very much.)
Re: A Knyphausen Vagabond - Part 2
Date: 2025-01-14 04:43 pm (UTC)Now given Seckendorff‘s most notable job in recent decades had been when he was envoy at FW‘s court, so I wouldn‘t be surprised if Frau von Knyphausen knew him from that time. (I mean, Peter evidently must have known of him, but being a friend of Fritz, I very much doubt he socialized with him.)
No, I don't at all think Peter was getting him a job with the *Bavarians*. That's obviously Mom. The question is: is Tido attributing Mom's willingness to do that to Peter? Or is he just commenting on how he assumes his new Bavarian job comes from Mom? I would think the second one is so obvious as not to require comment, but it's possible that that's what he's saying.
(I mean, Peter evidently must have known of him, but being a friend of Fritz, I very much doubt he socialized with him.)
Though keep in mind, Peter's job as page is to stay on FW's good side so he can spy, and Wilhelmine says he was a great favorite with FW. I doubt his desertion left him with any social capital with Seckendorff, though. (Though late Knyphausen, Sr., was also dismissed in 1730 on suspicion of helping Fritz, and evidently his wife still has some strings to pull.)
(The Rhinelanders weren’t the only ones who really really really did not like the Prussians very much.)
No, they weren't. The Prussians, by which I mean the actual Prussians, from East Prussia, where Lehndorff's from, didn't like the Prussians, by which I mean the Brandenburg-based Hohenzollerns, very much either. They were quite happy to be conquered by the Russians with the intention of handing them back to Poland after the war. Fritz never forgave them, and never went there on his annual visit again.
...I feel like the Saxons have to hate the Prussians too, right?
Re: A Knyphausen Vagabond - Part 2
Date: 2025-01-16 09:17 am (UTC)Re: A Knyphausen Vagabond - Part 2
Date: 2025-01-16 09:50 am (UTC)Re: A Knyphausen Vagabond - Part 2
Date: 2025-01-15 06:20 am (UTC)I let her know by Mr. de Keith that however far I am from making new and unpleasant business with her, that I am nevertheless very resolved to take a course in which I will listen only to my despair, if she does not want to grant me my necessities.
Wow! This guy. Letting her know via her son-in-law, too :P
Re: A Knyphausen Vagabond - Part 2
Date: 2025-01-15 10:56 am (UTC)