Wow! All glory to the Royal Detective! What a find!
You should have seen me exclaiming out loud yesterday morning as I was reading it! I may be addicted to ordering scans from archives. :D
As the duel not being about science, this reminds me, didn't Maupertuis at some point contemplate duelling Voltaire in non-writerly fashion?
I had forgotten this, but yes, he did!
(I mean, not that Fritz would have allowed that;
I doubt they would have waited for his approval. Dueling had been illegal in France for over a hundred years at that point, so Frenchmen were accustomed to doing their dueling in secret.
FW certainly qualifies for well testified "poor anger management", to put it mildly, from early childhood onwards.
Me when I first read this: You mean the guy whose outbursts have been attributed to porphyria by some scholars? ;)
do we think FW was genuinely mentally ill, or was he simply a bad combination of temper plus absolute power with no higher authority checks once his father was dead?
The problem with the framing of this question is that there's no clear, agreed-upon distinction between "mentally ill" and "personality," nor what constitutes free will. Neuroscientists and philosophers are *still* debating it. I think we can all agree Fritz had PTSD. According to the DSM and whatever the German equivalent is, that means he was mentally ill. Does that mean that he didn't have a bad combination of temper plus absolute power with no higher authority checks once his father was dead? Obviously not. Would he have been less likely to assault his servants without the PTSD? Probably. Do we generally consider that to mean that he had completely taken leave of his senses, in the sense that, for example, we attribute to a psychotic break? We do not.
Very few mental illnesses strip you of free will in the way that epilepsy does. How accountable was FW for his actions? He always seemed to know where he was and what was going on, and to act according to some kind of internally consistent logic. So I would say he had a set of values, and one of his values was that he should be able to enforce his values with his fists and his cane.
Karl: Well, one reading of the evidence we have is that he had some kind of seizure out of the blue that manifested as aggression, similar to Springer Rage in dogs. Another reading is that he was acting according to the dictates of honor, and he believed he was justified in his actions. Maybe he had a really bad temper, and he invoked insanity as a defense to avoid a worse punishment.
Of course, a major possibility is that we're hearing gossip passed on largely by Italians about how an Italian was totally the defenseless and innocent victim of some crazy Prussian. We are *in* Italy, after all, and I bet the game of telephone is dominated by people who would see the Chevalier Fresia as one of them and Karl as an outsider.
Of course, Karl becoming so very hermit like does look like he might have considered himself as unsafe in society and that this was his way of dealing with it, certainly a better one for him and others than being locked up. (Though of course we don't know what he was doing to his servants.)
Entirely possible! Of course, he had hermit-like tendencies as early as 1764, and maybe he was clinically depressed!
I really wish we had his side of the story. But we do have him saying that honor required him to act as he did. Which makes me think he didn't have random attacks of pure psychosis, but overreacted to some provocation.
In any case, after all the bills and invoices and contracts and loans and interest I've had to decipher, this is a breath of fresh air! (And not just because I didn't have to decipher it. ;)
Very few mental illnesses strip you of free will in the way that epilepsy does. How accountable was FW for his actions? He always seemed to know where he was and what was going on, and to act according to some kind of internally consistent logic. So I would say he had a set of values, and one of his values was that he should be able to enforce his values with his fists and his cane.
Mostly yes, with the caveat that there is the occasional "I am a bad man" in conversation with Pastors, meaning not that he didn't feel himself entitled to physical violence as punishment but that he was on some level aware he went above and beyond and that this conflicted with his idea of himself as a good Christian monarch anad father. Also, the fact that on two famous occasions, he could be talked out of the violence - after having applied some of it already to Wilhelmine, granted - (the "don't be a Peter the Great or Philip of Spain!" homecoming scene from August 15th 1730), and if it happened the earlier time where General Mosel stopped him from attacking Fritz with a sword directly which I used as the springboard for my AU Fiat Justitia) - would indicate he had enough self control and self awareness during those rage times to stop IF he wanted to.
(Whereas, say, G3 during his mental breakdowns - both the earlier ones he recovered from and the final one he never did - was not able to stop out of his own free will.)
Of course, a major possibility is that we're hearing gossip passed on largely by Italians about how an Italian was totally the defenseless and innocent victim of some crazy Prussian. We are *in* Italy, after all, and I bet the game of telephone is dominated by people who would see the Chevalier Fresia as one of them and Karl as an outsider.
That is very true, and leaving aside the example of the Guy-Dickens reports of prisoner!Fritz growing a long beard and being chained to the wall when no such thing happened or the "Wilhelmine gets thrown out of a window" story from Voltaire which grew out of FW slapping and dragging her, but certainly not attempting murder, there is another FW era example I can now think of, i.e. the quarrel he had with Denmark where we have the conflicting reports about the abduction and counter abduction/liberation of a tall guy, where the Prussian report has the Prussian recruiters being entirely peaceful and just hanging their wet socks up to dry at the fire in the inn when these violent peasants storm in and beat them up and leave with their voluntarily recruited soldier and the Danish report is full of abusive Prussians and a heroically saved shephard.
Now, here is how fiction ought to present what set Karl off, and why he couldn't get into specifics other than "honor required...":
Turin person: "Say, is it true you got the job just because your father was your King's boytoy for a brief time?"
would indicate he had enough self control and self awareness during those rage times to stop IF he wanted to.
(Whereas, say, G3 during his mental breakdowns - both the earlier ones he recovered from and the final one he never did - was not able to stop out of his own free will.)
Totally agree, there's a big difference between the two. And I suspect, mentally ill or not, Karl falls into the FW category.
Now, here is how fiction ought to present what set Karl off, and why he couldn't get into specifics other than "honor required...":
Turin person: "Say, is it true you got the job just because your father was your King's boytoy for a brief time?"
ROFL! I was actually trying to think of ideas for how one might handle this in fiction, but I didn't come up with this one! You are truly the best.
(I think, though, that Karl *did* get into specifics, just not in the document we have, since he mentions writing and submitting a full account. However, if it *did* involve his father, I can see why Hertzberg would disappear that document real fast! :D)
Also, the fact that on two famous occasions, he could be talked out of the violence - after having applied some of it already to Wilhelmine, granted - (the "don't be a Peter the Great or Philip of Spain!" homecoming scene from August 15th 1730), and if it happened the earlier time where General Mosel stopped him from attacking Fritz with a sword directly which I used as the springboard for my AU Fiat Justitia) - would indicate he had enough self control and self awareness during those rage times to stop IF he wanted to.
(Whereas, say, G3 during his mental breakdowns - both the earlier ones he recovered from and the final one he never did - was not able to stop out of his own free will.)
*nods* Yeah, the thing one sees with many abusive people is that they don't act abusively, or at least less obviously so, when it would have bad consequences for them. They break other people's stuff, not their own :P It's not absolutely clear to me from this description which Karl falls into, since obviously this did have bad consequences, but maybe he didn't fully understand that it would? On the other hand...
Now, here is how fiction ought to present what set Karl off, and why he couldn't get into specifics other than "honor required...":
Turin person: "Say, is it true you got the job just because your father was your King's boytoy for a brief time?"
LOL forever!! Okay, yeah, that would explain why he couldn't get into specifics, for sure!!
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timeasmymeasure
Re: A duel for science...or insanity??
Date: 2025-05-29 11:23 pm (UTC)You should have seen me exclaiming out loud yesterday morning as I was reading it! I may be addicted to ordering scans from archives. :D
As the duel not being about science, this reminds me, didn't Maupertuis at some point contemplate duelling Voltaire in non-writerly fashion?
I had forgotten this, but yes, he did!
(I mean, not that Fritz would have allowed that;
I doubt they would have waited for his approval. Dueling had been illegal in France for over a hundred years at that point, so Frenchmen were accustomed to doing their dueling in secret.
FW certainly qualifies for well testified "poor anger management", to put it mildly, from early childhood onwards.
Me when I first read this: You mean the guy whose outbursts have been attributed to porphyria by some scholars? ;)
do we think FW was genuinely mentally ill, or was he simply a bad combination of temper plus absolute power with no higher authority checks once his father was dead?
The problem with the framing of this question is that there's no clear, agreed-upon distinction between "mentally ill" and "personality," nor what constitutes free will. Neuroscientists and philosophers are *still* debating it. I think we can all agree Fritz had PTSD. According to the DSM and whatever the German equivalent is, that means he was mentally ill. Does that mean that he didn't have a bad combination of temper plus absolute power with no higher authority checks once his father was dead? Obviously not. Would he have been less likely to assault his servants without the PTSD? Probably. Do we generally consider that to mean that he had completely taken leave of his senses, in the sense that, for example, we attribute to a psychotic break? We do not.
Very few mental illnesses strip you of free will in the way that epilepsy does. How accountable was FW for his actions? He always seemed to know where he was and what was going on, and to act according to some kind of internally consistent logic. So I would say he had a set of values, and one of his values was that he should be able to enforce his values with his fists and his cane.
Karl: Well, one reading of the evidence we have is that he had some kind of seizure out of the blue that manifested as aggression, similar to Springer Rage in dogs. Another reading is that he was acting according to the dictates of honor, and he believed he was justified in his actions. Maybe he had a really bad temper, and he invoked insanity as a defense to avoid a worse punishment.
Of course, a major possibility is that we're hearing gossip passed on largely by Italians about how an Italian was totally the defenseless and innocent victim of some crazy Prussian. We are *in* Italy, after all, and I bet the game of telephone is dominated by people who would see the Chevalier Fresia as one of them and Karl as an outsider.
Of course, Karl becoming so very hermit like does look like he might have considered himself as unsafe in society and that this was his way of dealing with it, certainly a better one for him and others than being locked up. (Though of course we don't know what he was doing to his servants.)
Entirely possible! Of course, he had hermit-like tendencies as early as 1764, and maybe he was clinically depressed!
I really wish we had his side of the story. But we do have him saying that honor required him to act as he did. Which makes me think he didn't have random attacks of pure psychosis, but overreacted to some provocation.
In any case, after all the bills and invoices and contracts and loans and interest I've had to decipher, this is a breath of fresh air! (And not just because I didn't have to decipher it. ;)
Re: A duel for science...or insanity??
Date: 2025-05-30 07:02 am (UTC)Very few mental illnesses strip you of free will in the way that epilepsy does. How accountable was FW for his actions? He always seemed to know where he was and what was going on, and to act according to some kind of internally consistent logic. So I would say he had a set of values, and one of his values was that he should be able to enforce his values with his fists and his cane.
Mostly yes, with the caveat that there is the occasional "I am a bad man" in conversation with Pastors, meaning not that he didn't feel himself entitled to physical violence as punishment but that he was on some level aware he went above and beyond and that this conflicted with his idea of himself as a good Christian monarch anad father. Also, the fact that on two famous occasions, he could be talked out of the violence - after having applied some of it already to Wilhelmine, granted - (the "don't be a Peter the Great or Philip of Spain!" homecoming scene from August 15th 1730), and if it happened the earlier time where General Mosel stopped him from attacking Fritz with a sword directly which I used as the springboard for my AU Fiat Justitia) - would indicate he had enough self control and self awareness during those rage times to stop IF he wanted to.
(Whereas, say, G3 during his mental breakdowns - both the earlier ones he recovered from and the final one he never did - was not able to stop out of his own free will.)
Of course, a major possibility is that we're hearing gossip passed on largely by Italians about how an Italian was totally the defenseless and innocent victim of some crazy Prussian. We are *in* Italy, after all, and I bet the game of telephone is dominated by people who would see the Chevalier Fresia as one of them and Karl as an outsider.
That is very true, and leaving aside the example of the Guy-Dickens reports of prisoner!Fritz growing a long beard and being chained to the wall when no such thing happened or the "Wilhelmine gets thrown out of a window" story from Voltaire which grew out of FW slapping and dragging her, but certainly not attempting murder, there is another FW era example I can now think of, i.e. the quarrel he had with Denmark where we have the conflicting reports about the abduction and counter abduction/liberation of a tall guy, where the Prussian report has the Prussian recruiters being entirely peaceful and just hanging their wet socks up to dry at the fire in the inn when these violent peasants storm in and beat them up and leave with their voluntarily recruited soldier and the Danish report is full of abusive Prussians and a heroically saved shephard.
Now, here is how fiction ought to present what set Karl off, and why he couldn't get into specifics other than "honor required...":
Turin person: "Say, is it true you got the job just because your father was your King's boytoy for a brief time?"
Re: A duel for science...or insanity??
Date: 2025-05-31 07:27 pm (UTC)(Whereas, say, G3 during his mental breakdowns - both the earlier ones he recovered from and the final one he never did - was not able to stop out of his own free will.)
Totally agree, there's a big difference between the two. And I suspect, mentally ill or not, Karl falls into the FW category.
Now, here is how fiction ought to present what set Karl off, and why he couldn't get into specifics other than "honor required...":
Turin person: "Say, is it true you got the job just because your father was your King's boytoy for a brief time?"
ROFL! I was actually trying to think of ideas for how one might handle this in fiction, but I didn't come up with this one! You are truly the best.
(I think, though, that Karl *did* get into specifics, just not in the document we have, since he mentions writing and submitting a full account. However, if it *did* involve his father, I can see why Hertzberg would disappear that document real fast! :D)
Re: A duel for science...or insanity??
Date: 2025-06-01 03:06 am (UTC)(Whereas, say, G3 during his mental breakdowns - both the earlier ones he recovered from and the final one he never did - was not able to stop out of his own free will.)
*nods* Yeah, the thing one sees with many abusive people is that they don't act abusively, or at least less obviously so, when it would have bad consequences for them. They break other people's stuff, not their own :P It's not absolutely clear to me from this description which Karl falls into, since obviously this did have bad consequences, but maybe he didn't fully understand that it would? On the other hand...
Now, here is how fiction ought to present what set Karl off, and why he couldn't get into specifics other than "honor required...":
Turin person: "Say, is it true you got the job just because your father was your King's boytoy for a brief time?"
LOL forever!! Okay, yeah, that would explain why he couldn't get into specifics, for sure!!