Count Rothenburg (the French one)
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rheinsbergThere are two Count Rothenburgs. Prussian Count Rothenburg, the more famous one, was a close friend of Fritz, gave him his dog Biche, is included in Menzel's famous Tafelrunde in Sanssouci painting, and died in Fritz's arms. The less famous one was his cousin, French envoy to Prussia and Spain, and subject of this post.
The Man
Conrade-Alexandre de Rottembourg in French, von Rothenburg in German. The hybrid spelling Rothenbourg is also used.
He was French envoy to Berlin off and on during the 1710s and 1720s. Very cultured. BFFs with Katte. Wilhelmine credits Katte's polished manners to his association with Rothenburg. Hated FW. Was petitioning Versailles for his recall as early as 1719. According to one of my sources, he claimed it was the climate in 1719, but I'm betting he also just didn't like the court. :P Tried to support a coup in Prussia to have FW declared insane and Fritz put on the throne. He and 14-yo Fritz used to pass information to each other via an intermediary (Knyphausen), while pretending to have no interest in each other.
Successfully got recalled in 1727. It was supposed to be to take care of his domestic affairs, and he was supposed to go back as soon as possible. Sauveterre, his secretary, was left behind. (This explains my confusion over why there was no French envoy to replace him and yet Sauveterre was there, and also possibly explains why Sauveterre is apparently dependent on Dickens for his info in November 1730, and why my sources say Sauveterre was kind of lackadaisical.)
However, Rothenburg then got sent on a mission to Spain in 1727-1728, which then turned into a more permanent post. I'm a little fuzzy on what happened between 1728 and 1730. According to various summaries of his life, he left Spain in 1728 and returned in early 1731, but Kloosterhuis gives an account of Katte making a trip to Madrid just to see his old friend Rothenburg, in late 1728 or early 1729.
When he was sent back in 1730. He helped negotiate the Family Compact between the Bourbon monarchs of France and Spain (1733). He was recalled to Paris on May 25, 1734 because of bad health. He died in April of 1735, childless, very rich, and either never having been married or having married Jeanne-Madelene d'Helmstat on April 10, 1721, depending on which source you believe. He's the subject of my extremely specific question about legal inheritance on little_details. Where, as you'll see before, I was wrong about both sisters being childless.
His father was originally from Brandenburg, moved to France, and was made a field marshal by Louis XIV.
The Estates
When Fritz made his escape attempt and was trying to hide the fact that he had been having dealings with the English, he confessed "that he was planning to flee to Strasbourg (where he seemed to have his eyes on a stay on the Alsatian estate of the French envoy, comte Rothenbourg)." Quote MacDonogh. I've also seen other sources state that Katte had suggested Rothenburg's estate as a safe haven, and that this was one of the pieces of evidence used to convict of Katte of being up to his ears in this plot and helping advance it further than it would have without him.
Being me, I've been wanting and wanting to track down this estate, just like I did with Peter Keith's.
Well, I finally turned it up, and one reason it took so long is that it's not nearly as close to Strasbourg as that sentence had led me to believe. Comte Rothenburg was feudal lord of the seigneury of Masevaux, 120 km south and east of Strasbourg in Alsace, and about 40 km from the modern French border.
It also gets a bit more complicated than this. Rothenburg was descended from Conrad de Rosen, who was a field marshal and a member of a prominent family. Conrad bought this property from the Fuggers (famous German banking family), then sold it in 1684 to his son-in-law, who was our Comte Rothenburg's father.
Conrad meanwhile hung on to the Dettwiller, Herrenstein, and Bollwiller estates, though Bollwiller had been pawned to the Fuggers by his father-in-law, and Conrad had to pay that debt. These estates were passed down the Rosen line.
Comte Rothenburg, during his lifetime, acquired the nearby estate of Rougemont. I also see some other estates, of which I do not know the history, listed as belonging to him at the time of his death: Keivenheim, Seintein, and Oberbruck. On his death, his estates went to one of his sisters.
Now, I had thought both his sisters were childless, but it turns out not, because the inheriting sister had a daughter. The daughter inherited the Rothenburg estates, and married the Rosen heir of old Conrad's estates. Thus the Rosen family became one of the largest landowners in Alsace.
Here are Bollwiller, Masevaux, and Rougemont situated on the map in relation to each other and Strasbourg. I hadn't yet found the other estates when I took this snapshot, but Oberbruck is just northeast of Masevaux, so that checks out. Keivenheim looks like a German name, and the only thing I can find remotely similar, Kaifenheim, is near Bonn. And Seintein is right on the Spanish border.
For Voltaire and Émilie fans, Cirey's not too far!
Parts of the original manor house in Masevaux remain standing and are protected as a historic monument. I couldn't get any good pictures because of its location and obscurity, but I've found it on the map and looked at what I can.
The Library
I also ran across a cool piece of information that I wasn't looking for, namely that our Comte Rothenburg's library was assessed after his death. I thus know that it contained 156 books, most of which were in French, and, amazingly, I know the distribution of these books as well:
Religion: 5%
Law: 8%
History: 22%
Belles-lettres: 43%
Sciences & arts: 13%
Various: 9%
This is only the books of value, because smaller books were not recorded.
Rottembourg in Spain
selenak, remember when you told us that Morgenstern said Rottembourg said he missed FW's Prussia when he was in Madrid? And we decided it was one of Morgenstern's sarcasms? I now actually believe it! Not that he loved Prussia so much--I've just confirmed he asked for his leave on all three of his missions, in one case within a few months of arrival--but I didn't realize that both Rottembourg's missions to Spain corresponded with the absolute nadir of Philip's mental health, and the effect was torture on ambassadors:
First mission (October 1727-April 1728)
Rottembourg appears to have escaped before matters peaked in June, but I also don't know exactly when certain symptoms began. What I've got is this:
May 1727 - end of 1727: Philip V severely depressed, unwilling to speak to his ministers. Will listen to reports, but "no sign of hearing other than a gesture now and then or a fleeting smile."
Early 1728: Back in business, but severe attacks. Doesn't see ministers for weeks at a time, and then will only see them at night, and will keep them up until dawn. Audiences with ambassadors are held at midnight.
June is when he starts wanting to abdicate for the second time. (Remember, he abdicated once, gave the throne to his son, and his son died of smallpox after about 7 months.) His wife, Isabella, tries to prevent him. She has all writing implements removed, and keeps a close guard on him. So Philip tries escaping by sneaking out at 5 am, while she's asleep, and flees the palace in his nightshirt. She has the guards stop him, changes the locks, and gives the guards orders not to let him escape, but he tries this several times.
Finally, on June 28, he sneaks some paper while Isabella's in another room for a minute, writes out his abdication, and has his most trusted servant smuggle it into the council. The council session is discussing it when Isabella's messenger arrives, confiscates the piece of paper, and destroys it.
During this summer, and I don't know how early it started and whether some of them would have been affecting Rottembourg by April, but we've got these symptoms:
* Giving audiences to ambassadors either in his nightshirt or almost naked.
* Paranoia, delusions, and hallucinations.
* Biting himself.
* Screaming and/or singing.
* Urinating and defecating in bed.
* Believing he's a frog (July). (Rottembourg's replacement as ambassador arrived in June. Man, I don't envy him.)
* Believing that he's dead.
* Bulimia.
Rottembourg gets the hell out just in time, it seems. But he's back in 1730, which is when things are really crazy, and for a much longer time.
Second mission: (December 1730-April 1734)
During most of this time, the court isn't in Madrid, it's in Andalusia, and it's peripatetic. This is Isabella's idea for how to make Philip's mental health improve: change of scenery.
This means tons of expenses for the ambassadors. Ambassadors were notoriously in arrears for their salaries, and most were rich and the rest supported by their families. Random expenses like "The King decided to move his court" have to be covered out of pocket. So Rottembourg, who was himself very rich, had to sell property to cover these years.
And then there's the part where summer 1730 is when Philip's mental health crashes again. He's severely depressed, bulimic, and consuming vast amounts of poison antidotes (I don't know the details) because of his paranoia. He's convinced that his stools contain blood; when he inspects them and they aren't, he accuses the doctors of concealing the blood. His toenails get so long it's difficult to walk. He won't let anyone do his hair, so it turns into a complete mess. He smells terrible. His only entertainment is fishing...in his garden...at night...from a bowl that his attendants have placed fish in.
But he won't give up power, either. He walks around muttering, "I'm the boss here" (Je suis le maître), and making things difficult to prove it. If you give him a stack of papers to be signed in a certain order, he'll rearrange the papers when you're not looking.
And, of course, he's conducting all business at night. Upon arriving, Rottembourg describes the situation as "incomprehensible", and complains about being kept in meetings until 6 am. Meanwhile, Isabella is trying to conduct a normal life during the day and take care of her husband and help him with state business at night.
June 1731: Rottembourg reports that he shows up for an audience at night, but the queen has collapsed from exhaustion and is fast asleep, and Philip hasn't slept in 48 hours. So Rottembourg waits until 7 am, at which point he's told they can't see him until 5:30 pm.
By July, Philip is getting one hour of sleep a night, his legs are swollen, and everyone's convinced he's going to die.
A year later, after a brief manic episode, he's back to depressed, with no hygiene, and refusing to talk to anyone because he's dead. Also, he's extremely concerned that because he had abdicated, then became king again after his son died, his rule is invalid. By not talking, he can avoid ruling!
In October 1732, he decides he's going to talk, but only to his valet. He then starts explaining how he's going to unite the crowns of France and Spain to his valet...but no one else.
In November, he breaks his streak of not talking to ministers and ambassadors by insisting that he needs to talk to Rottembourg. "The startled count was presented with the spectacle of a king with clothing completely disordered, with a long and filthy beard, and wearing no trousers or shoes, his legs and feet naked."
This is the kind of thing that could make you miss FW forcing you to get drunk!
In conclusion, Rottembourg may well have been quoted as saying, "However bad Berlin was, it was better than Madrid!" (At least there was the SD court in Berlin when FW was away.)
Rottembourg's Health or "Health"
Rottembourg's health, btw, is bad; in 1733 he starts requesting his recall, in 1734 it's granted, and in 1735 he dies. Did the stay in Spain make it worse? Who knows, but it can't have helped.
Speaking of his health, I've now refreshed my memory that during his first two missions to Berlin, he requested recall on the grounds of his health and the Berlin climate, and the third time, he requested permission for a short leave to take care of some personal affairs, which turned into a permanent absence. But as we've seen, most Frexits proceeded officially by complaining about the climate of Berlin, not complaints about the King!
Katte Visits Rottembourg??
Also, also, I have found a crux that I had noticed ages ago, but wasn't confident was a crux, because I wasn't sure which sources to trust. I now have confidence in saying that the claim in Kloosterhuis that Martin von Katte says that Hans Heinrich says that Hans Hermann went to Madrid in late 1728/early 1729 (exact date not given), and that he met Rottembourg there, is weird!
What Kloosterhuis says: "He went in October 1728 initially to Paris on a mission for his father, then on his own initiative to Madrid, in order to visit Count Rottembourg, who'd meanwhile been stationed there, and finally to London, where he crushed on Petronella."
But I am now quite confident that Rottembourg was sent to Spain in late 1727 to negotiate the end of the Anglo-Spanish War, and that when the Convention of El Pardo was signed on March 6, 1728, Rottembourg's work was done. He announced his departure on March 28, took his leave at court on April 3, and set off for France on April 7. The multi-volume collection of instructions to ambassadors from the French archives that is of such high quality that I found an expert on British diplomacy of the 1720s envying it, says that in October 1730, when he got his new mission to Spain, it had been 2.5 years since his return from Spain.
And though I don't have a date for his arrival in Paris, it only took him 3 weeks to get back in 1734, while traveling extremely sick. Even if you double that time because in 1728, he's in Madrid and 1734, he's in Andalusia, which is closer to the coast (we know that he traveled by Barcelona on his way to Seville in 1730), by, say, November or December 1728, it should be really obvious to Katte in Paris that Madrid is not where Rottembourg is. Based on the time for mail, and the fact that they may not have kept in super close touch, I'm willing to believe that when he set out from Berlin, Katte thought Rottembourg was in Madrid, but I'm very surprised that after visiting Paris he didn't. Even if Rottembourg wasn't in Paris, and I suspect he was, even if he was taking the waters somewhere, surely you'd ask around before setting off to Madrid!
Incidentally, depending on how long Katte stayed in Paris and how long it took him to travel to Spain, he might have arrived to find the court wasn't in Madrid; they arrived in Seville on February 3, 1729.
Anyway, this is kind of hilarious, because one plot twist in my fix-it fic was that Katte would set off from Edinburgh, kind of out of the loop, in late 1730, looking for Rottembourg in Madrid, and find that he wasn't there, but had been recalled to France. (This is because I was getting conflicting info on Rottembourg's dates in Spain; I now feel pretty clear on the ones I have and have updated the chronology in our library.)
So, what happened in late 1728? Our sources are mistaken? Katte left without adequate research and arrived in Madrid to an unpleasant surprise? Katte and Rottembourg did or didn't actually meet up, in Paris, in Madrid, or in Seville?
I should add that in addition to the Philip V bio, which I'm almost finished with and will have some Philip V updates on when I am, I have read two articles on diplomacy in Spain at the time that Rottembourg was present, found a dissertation and hunted for all the occurrences of his name, and skimmed the instructions given to him for his two missions to Spain, as well as my usual detective work across a few Google books hits, so I now have a much better idea of what Rottembourg was up to when and why in Spain. He actually got in (a little) trouble in 1727!
selenak: Yowsers. In this case, Morgenstern really wasn't kidding. I guess in our fictional 18th century envoys get together, we just have come across a new category to compete in: worst posting ever? Also, the otherwise thorough Kloosterhuis clearly didn't trouble to check and compare dates on Philip V. with the story of Katte's visit. I'm not surprised Martin von Katte didn't, he wasn't a professional historian and repeating a family story. It would be good to have Hans Heinrich's original letter and/or wording about this visit - maybe he just said that on what was supposed to be just a journey to France and back, Hans Herrmann met Rottembourg, the French envoy to Spain, and then proceeded to Britain. Which made Martin v. K. and after him Kloosterhuis draw the easy conclusion that the meeting in question had taken place in Spain, not France. But it also makes geographical sense if Katte went to Paris, met Rottembourg there, and then went on to London, without the major detour of a trip to Spain!
mildred_of_midgard: Also, in keeping of my theme that chronology is not just plot but characterization, the discovery that Katte might not have gone to Madrid is interesting. Given the difficulties of travel in the 18th century, if he did go to Madrid, that demonstrates an attachment to Rottembourg that's really above and beyond. I always explained it as Katte having an early-career crisis and really wanting some advice and a face-to-face talk, maybe a favor, that letters wouldn't suffice for.
My evidence being that he traveled to London on the same trip and considered leaving Prussian service, then let his father talk him into coming back, but got reprimanded by his superior in the army because he'd overstayed his leave. He might really have been trying to decide what he wanted to do with his life, and was desperate to talk to his French mentor. And I let the Madrid trip influence how I thought of the closeness between them. If Katte really met up with him in Paris, then maybe they were still super close, but it's no longer evidence for that, nor for the strength of the apparent crisis.
Maybe Katte traveled somewhere outside of Paris but not so far away, like Alsace or Aachen, who knows. I really wish we had the letter or at least the manuscript--we're playing a game of telephone here.
Oh, another minor chronological point: although Rottembourg had left Berlin in early 1727, he was due to come back, and not until October 1728 did he officially step down as envoy and say he wasn't coming back (the many-volumed series of instructions to French ambassadors is *really* detailed, and I am forever grateful, and understand the English scholar's envy). So Katte might well have set off thinking that he'd get to hang out with R in Berlin again, and only in Paris did he discover that wasn't going to be a thing, so he made a point of looking him up (wherever he was).
Name Spelling
The collection of instructions to French ambassadors says that despite the varied spellings of the name Rottembourg (because it's of German origin; he was from Berlin and is cousin to Prussian count Rothenburg), the envoy himself always spelled it 'Rottembourg.'
Marital Status: Unknown
Incidentally, our source, or one of our sources, on Rottembourg dying unmarried (remember, some of my sources give a marriage date and a wife's name and genealogy; others say never married): Saint-Simon, who was a contemporary, at Versailles with him, and ambassador to Spain in 1721. So you'd think he would know. In contrast to the source I've found for him being married, which is a 1733 genealogical history. On the other hand, the memoirs were published in 1886, which means who knows what's been done to them by the editor! So I'm still unclear, but leaning more toward unmarried than married.
Birthplace: Unknown
Whitworth biographer says Rottembourg was born in Italy, but then also says he was a Brandenburger who entered French service, when the Chance volume agrees with all my other sources that it was his father who did that. So grain of salt.
Whitworth and Rottembourg overlapped in Berlin: a couple months in 1716, and then mid 1719 to late 1720. The latter was, if you know your dates, right as the Great Northern War was ending and the peace was being negotiated, so they were not idle. Britain was trying to push a treaty with Sweden and Prussia, and, if I'm recalling correctly, France was acting as guarantor. And FW was dragging his feet on signing it. (This is the treaty where Prussia got most of Swedish Pomerania, but FW was trying to hold out for more stuff and the exact terms of Stettin he wanted.)
Turns out, Whitworth and Rottembourg were, if not BFFs, at least good working buddies:
He was also able to establish cordial relations with Count Conrad Rottembourg, the French ambassador, which lasted for the rest of his diplomatic career.
When FW was dragging his feet:
Whitworth was aware that everything could be lost at this moment. He decided to approach Frederick William personally, with Rottembourg at his side.
The treaty did eventually get signed, with some pushing and backdating by Whitworth.
But not before this happened:
A further complication arose through an almost comic incident in September when Whitworth became aware of a secret negotiation between the Prussian and Russian ministers concerning Poland. Ilgen [Prussian Foreign minister] had sent a servant with two packets to be delivered, one for Rottembourg, the French minister, and the other for Golovkin. The servant, however, delivered the wrong packages with the result that Rottembourg discovered the draft of a proposed Russian-Prussian treaty, intended for Golovkin, which he duly revealed to Whitworth. The proposed Russian-Prussian treaty thus came to nothing and poor Ilgen was left ‘in the agony of his mistake’.
So Rottembourg is totally passing on secrets to his buddy Whitworth, the English diplomat.
Ilgen, btw, is Ariane's mother's (the Baroness who gets a cameo at the beginning of "Lovers lying two and two") father. Remember, Ariane's father Knyphausen is a diplomat and Minister of War, and he marries the daughter of the foreign minister Ilgen. (Peter totally married up.)
And then, a few years later, in 1723-1725, Whitworth and Rottembourg are posted to the Congress of Cambrai together!
On a personal level, Whitworth had excellent relations with Count Rottembourg, the French Plenipotentiary, whom he had known from his mission to Berlin and liked as ‘a man of very great Judgment, and Experience … one of the best heads they have now left in France’. But he also suspected that Rottembourg was kept in the dark as to the true intentions and policies of the French court now there had been a change in leadership. [The Regent died in late 1723 and was replaced by the Duc de Bourbon.]
Unfortunately, nothing happens at Cambrai, because the real negotiation is happening in Paris. Whitworth is extremely frustrated.
But, what this quote about Rottembourg suggests to me that is of interest to my hypothetical fic is that Rottembourg may not have been a stickler/hypersensitive about etiquette by the standards of the time, because there was very little Whitworth could stand less on his missions than unnecessary ceremony. Those informal Brits! Or possibly Rottembourg just had other qualities that made up for it (he was French, after all).
But we'll just say Rottembourg got along with the guy whose letters are constantly like, "Oh my gooooood, I had to enter Cambrai as part of a formal procession, just like I did in Moscow, there is no neeeeed for this. Fucking hell. Now I'm trying to do real work, but nothing is getting done, because everyone's just arguing about precedence. Whyyyyyy." Only more politely. :P
selenak: So Rottembourg is totally passing on secrets to his buddy Whitworth, the English diplomat.
Given that French/English relations were no warmer in this century than they were in most centuries, I find this extra remarkable. Was Withworth financially sound, or could his sympathy for Rottembourg have come with some financial encouragement?
mildred_of_midgard: He was definitely always the opposite of financially sound, so we can't rule this out, but I don't think that's what we're seeing here.
Given that French/English relations were no warmer in this century than they were in most centuries, I find this extra remarkable.
This century, no, but this decade was special! The entire diplomatic picture of Europe in approximately 1716-1731 was so topsy-turvy that it's been called a diplomatic revolution of its own. France and England were allied, and eventually so were Austria and Spain. These were very unstable alliances, everyone knew they were unstable, governments planned their diplomatic strategies around trying to remind country A that their ally Country B was their natural enemy, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief when things went back to normal in the 1730s.
1715-1720: The South
The War of the Spanish Succession ends in 1714. As a (simplified) reminder, that's England, Austria, and the Dutch against France and Spain.
In 1716, Britain and France form an alliance.
In Spain, Philip V wants the territory Spain lost in the recent war back. He invades Sardinia and Sicily in 1717-1718, and briefly recaptures them.
In 1717-1718, the British and French get together with the Dutch and the Austrians in the Quadruple Alliance to retake Sardinia and Sicily. This is when Berwick is reluctantly forced to invade Spain, the place where his son is in service and the place where he fought for 10 years to help Philip V keep his throne. This is seen as a highly unnatural war by both Spain and France, where it's unpopular.
By 1720, the War of the Quadruple Alliance has been won, and Philip has been forced to give back all the territory he reconquered.
Just to connect the dots, this is when Philip's mental health really tanks and he starts talking abdication. In 1724, he finally abdicates. Then he resumes power, tries to abdicate again, Isabella won't let him, and then the really terrible symptoms of which we know start happening in 1727 (year of Rottembourg's first arrival).
1715-1720: The North
Mewanwhile, the Great Northern War is still going on (since 1700). Prussia has recently entered the war and is allied with Russia, trying to get territory from Sweden (so Fredersdorf can become Prussian).
Britain is busy switching sides. Part of the problem (not the whole problem) is conflicting British and Hanoverian interests. Since the British minister, Stanhope, wins against his Hanoverian rival, we'll simplify matters by presenting this from his POV. (Stanhope is a distant cousin of the Chesterfield Stanhopes. He was most famous for being the leader of the British forces in Spain during the Spanish Succession).
He wants to pry Prussia away from Russia, by creating an anti-Russian bloc in the Baltic: Sweden, Prussia, Britain (navy). Britain is trying to pressure Prussia into signing a treaty. France is acting as the neutral guarantors of peace in the north.
Stanhope is pro-alliance with France:
Stanhope believed that peace in the north (which he deemed necessary for peace in the south) could best be achieved by working with France rather than with Austria and Saxony; France, in turn, urged the importance of co-operation with Prussia.
(France and Prussia had signed a secret alliance in 1716, during Whitworth's first, brief posting in Berlin. Rottembourg was there as French ambassador.)
1718-1720: Whitworth in Berlin
In order to try to make the Anglo-Swedish-Prussian treaty happen, Stanhope sent Whitworth to Berlin, and with orders "seek an alliance with Prussia for George as King of Britain, in full communication with the French minister in Berlin." Unless there's another French minister in Berlin, that's Rottembourg.
Now, at this point, before he's left for Berlin, Whitworth is very very skeptical about the new French alliance:
you will see how slippery our new friends on the other side of the water are like to prove … thô they have peace in their mouths they have war in their hearts and encourage Spain to keep their broils on foot … a false friend is often more dangerous than an open Enemy
Then he arrives in Berlin and makes friends with Rottembourg. Who may be bribing him--Whitworth was one of the rare ambassadors not to be independently wealthy (remember that Fritz uses this as an argument for why Peter is not a suitable candidate for envoy), his salary is constantly in arrears, and he's constantly writing apologetic letters to his family asking them to support him and writing angry letters to the government telling them to pay his overdue salary already. But, let's remember:
1. Their countries are allied.
2. Whitworth's under orders from Chief Minister Stanhope to work in concert with Rottembourg.
3. The two instances of him and Rottembourg working in concert are Rottembourg helping *him* rather than the other way around:
3a. Rottembourg passing secret information to Whitworth.
3b. Whitworth trying to pressure FW into signing the treaty by confronting him directly, with Rottembourg (whose government wants France to be the guarantors of this treaty) at his side.
So the only thing I have evidence for here is Rottembourg bribing Whitworth into letting Rottembourg help him. ;)
1722-1725: The Congress of Cambrai
It's a few years later, and everyone is still at each other's throats. The Congress of Cambrai is called so that Britain and France can mediate between Spain and Austria and get them to accept the distribution of territory that was agreed on in Utrecht at the end of the Spanish Succession.
Both Whitworth and Rottembourg are posted by their governments to Cambrai.
Unfortunately, the Congress is a dismal failure. Charles VI is determined to drag things out as long as possible, because he has everything to lose in a settlement (his Italian territories), and everything to gain by waiting (the Anglo-French alliance is considered unnatural and fragile, and by waiting, he hopes to drive a wedge between them). Both the French and the British have decided that nothing useful is going to happen at Cambrai, and the real negotiation is happening in Paris. It totally doesn't help that Philip V picks 1724 to abdicate.
Whitworth is trying to get actual work done, but his hands are tied. He writes that he likes Rottembourg personally, but the French government isn't keeping R in the loop, and Versailles is being sneaky and is going to screw the British over.
Now, Stanhope died in 1721, and the new British ministers are Townshend and Newcastle. Both are very pro-French alliance. (Not pro-French interests, mind you. Just think that working with France is the way to go.)
Newcastle tells Whitworth and his fellow ambassador that they are not to take any initiative at Cambrai, just let the French take the lead. He repeats this in every single dispatch. Whitworth and his companion find this humiliating. Keep in mind Whitworth has been ambassador for almost twenty-five years now, to the Imperial Diet, St. Petersburg, the Hague, and Berlin, and he's used his initiative a number of times.
The ambassadors have a little scuffle with the ministers back home, but the message from Newcastle and Townshend prevails: "You must let the French take the initiative and follow their lead."
They're nooooot happy.
Btw, just to emphasize the importance of the Anglo-French alliance during this period:
The Jacobites, in fact, had great hopes of armed support from Peter [the Great] in 1723 and 1724 but this never came to anything, not least because Peter valued French friendship in this period and the French, in turn, saw good relations with Britain as their main priority.
1725-1726: Where do I even start?
Okay, so 1725-1726 is an eventful time.
Spain and Austria enter an alliance (called a diplomatic revolution by later historians, not sure about contemporaries). But remember, Charles VI still wants to be King of Spain! (He's officially given up, but he still wants to. And while the war may have ended ~1715, he didn't make peace with Spain until 1720.)
There's talk of marrying one of the archduchesses (like maybe MT) to one of the Spanish kids of Philip V and Isabella Farnese.
Prussia, France, Britain, and Hanover are allied against Austria and Spain, because they perceive Austria + Spain as a very threatening alliance, especially if the marriage happens. Yes, this is FW allied against his boss Charles VI. Remember this passage from Lavisse:
When he became allied to France and England, in 1725, he reserved to himself the right to furnish to the Emperor the contingent that he owed, in his quality of Elector, at the same time that he assisted the King of France with the number of troops fixed by the treaty. It certainly is to be regretted that this clause had not been put into action, and that Europe had not witnessed this spectacle of the King of Prussia fighting the Elector of Brandenburg.
(Later, FW will leave the alliance and go back to hating on Hanover and supporting the Emperor. Up until he supports the French candidate for the Polish throne and has Hans Heinrich host him, while fighting the French alongside Eugene. Because HRE politics are really something else.)
The Duc de Bourbon sends the Spanish princess back so he can marry Louis to Marie Leszczynska, the Spanish get offended and send the French princess back, Spain and France stop speaking to each other.
The Duc de Bourbon falls from power; Fleury takes over.
Spain and England are in a state of semi-war that's threatening to explode into something bigger, etc.
Isabella Farnese really really really wants Parma and Tuscany for her kids.
1727-1728: Rottembourg in Spain
So in 1727, frantic diplomacy is happening. Britain, the Netherlands, Austria, and France, sign preliminary peace agreements, in Paris and in Vienna. But since the Spanish aren't speaking to the French, due to the offense taken over the sending back of the princesses, and are in a state of lowkey war with Britain, there're no Spanish ambassadors around to sign treaties in France or Britain.
So Fleury sends an ambassador to Spain in late 1727 and tells him, "You get Philip and Isabella to agree to this peace!"
That ambassador is Rottembourg. (Whitworth died in 1725, btw, still poor enough that he was lamenting that despite his decades of faithful service to his country, his wife was going to have to petition the crown for support. If Rottembourg gave him money, it was not a lot.)
The British don't have an ambassador in Spain. They have a "consul", Benjamin Keene. This is fairly usual, btw; if you're not on speaking terms with a country, or if you're just not interested in negotiating something specific, you might not pay an ambassador to hang out fiddling his thumbs (Whitworth would argue that they don't pay you even when you are negotiating); but leave his secretary or somesuch there to be your lower-paid point of contact and send you info. But because this secretary isn't credentialed, they don't have authority to negotiate. France did this with Prussia after Rottembourg left the last time. It's what Fritz was doing when he refused to replace the ambassador in Britain with Peter Keith and left the guy who probably hadn't even sworn loyalty to Prussia there; he was not saying, "I prefer this guy to Peter," he was saying, "I prefer no diplomatic representation in Britain because I'm more interested in insulting them this year than negotiating with them." When he wanted subsidies, he sent a credentialed Knyphausen authorized to negotiate.
Anyway. Keene, the British consul, will later play a significant role as diplomat, but right now he's extremely tentative and not sure what on earth is going on or what he's allowed to do. He knows he's not an ambassador.
So Rottembourg takes the initiative, negotiates, gets Keene introduced at court, and presents Philip and Isabella with terms that are favorable to Spain. The Spanish sign off on it, and everyone's happy...until the British ministers, who've been letting the French take the lead in the negotiations in Spain again, find out that Rottembourg granted Spain concessions at British's expense, and that Keene was present at the audience, and that he gave the impression that the British had agreed to this.
Horace Walpole, currently British ambassador to France: Hey, Newcastle, did you hear what just went down in Spain? Can you *believe* the fucking French?
Newcastle: Omg, Keene, you pull anything like that ever again...
Keene: But I'm not even an ambassador! I assumed since we were letting the French take the lead, and they had an actual ambassador who acted like he knew what he was doing, that whatever he did was what I was supposed to do!
Newcastle: Okay, yeah, fair. Fleury, WTF was your guy up to?
Fleury: Fuck. As long as Spain and Austria are still allies, I need the English. Okay, Newcastle, sorry, Rottembourg was *totally* unauthorized to make those concessions! Rottembourg, slap on the wrist, treaty void, start over again.
It's unclear how mad Fleury actually was at Rottembourg; he got publicly reprimanded, but some of my sources indicate the French were actually mad at the English but their hands were tied. And at least the French Secretary of State thought Rottembourg had been unfairly scapegoated, so he insisted the new treaty had to be signed by Rottembourg (i.e. as a sign that he was not in total disgrace).
In March 1728, the Spanish sign the Peace of Pardo on terms that everyone has agreed to. In April, Rottembourg leaves Spain. In July, Philip starts thinking he's a frog. In October, Katte shows up in Paris. (Which is how I totally know Rottembourg was not in Spain when Katte was supposed to be traveling there.)
In conclusion:
- Everything is upside down and inside out in the late 1710s and 1720s.
- The tendency of the English ministers for a decade to tell their ambassadors to work with the French and to let the French take the lead is why I don't think we have evidence that Rottembourg was bribing Whitworth in 1718-1720.
My impression is that Whitworth liked Rottembourg personally but really didn't like working with the French, and was having a French alliance shoved down his throat by his bosses. (Btw, Newcastle was almost 20 years younger than Whitworth, which was one reason it was so insulting when Newcastle's every letter to Whitworth at Cambrai was like, "And don't take any diplomatic initiative!" "Fuck you, Newcastle, I've been taking diplomatic initiative since you were in petticoats.")
Addendum:
Apparently, according to Whitworth, Rottembourg said that during the episode in which he got his hands on a draft of the proposed secret treaty between Prussia and Russia, he told Ilgen that if it contained anything against the king of England, according to his instructions from Versailles, he would have to tell Whitworth.
And Whitworth wrote all this to Stanhope and requested extreme secrecy, because if word got out that Rottembourg was passing him info, R would be compromised and unable to pass any more info on.
Also, apparently Rottembourg was in his bed and half asleep when he got the delivery meant for the Russian minister, saw what it was, closed it again, and sent it to the Russian minister.
The fork anecdote
I found the source for a story I'd encountered in several places: the memoirs of Marshal Villars (French commander at Malplaquet) say that it was Rottembourg who reported that FW beat Fritz for a "surprising reason": FW had ordered his family to eat with iron forks with two prongs, and he caught Fritz eating with a three-pronged silver fork, which enraged him and caused him to beat Fritz. This is 1727, btw, in case anyone tries to tell you FW only beat him in 1730. He'd been beating Fritz for quite some time at that point.
selenak: Allow me to doubt not that he'd been beating Fritz but the iron forks with two prongs vs three pronged silver fork thing, because as far as I recall the three pronged fork first was introduced to the German territories in the reign of Maximilian I., several centuries earlier. (Luther bitched about it as Latin decadence.) Which makes me feel a two forked iron vs three forked silver conflict in 1727 would have been pretty late. Otoh, I can imagine a French envoy making that crack on a similar note like reporting AW didn't know to read or write before Fritz came on the throne (which we know for sure not to be true, not least because there are letters from child AW available); he's making a point about FW being an uncultured barbarian.
I could be wrong, of course; googling tells me that the use of the fork among wider swathes of the population in Germany only happened near the end of the 17th century, though it was earlier used in court circles. Which could, in theory, mean that wanting-to-live-as-a-burgher FW could insist on his family using two pronged iron forks over three pronged silver forks thirty years later. But it still sounds a bit fake to me.
The forks, to make that once more clear, NOT that FW was already hitting Fritz in 1727. But honestly, I think a more likely cause would be something like finding Fritz' table manners or hygiene sloppy. Which would also be easier to blame Fritz for, using FW type of logic, than which table wear he uses, because that's actually not a decision for fifteen years old Fritz to make. It's something decided by whoever is in charge of the household where he's staying, Wusterhausen, Potsdam and Monbijou alike. Who wouldn't have been Fritz. Like I said: I suspect Rottembourg heard something about FW hitting Fritz because he objected to his table manners and changed that into an anecdote for the French court that also made FW look even worse.
mildred_of_midgard: I could be wrong, of course; googling tells me that the use of the fork among wider swathes of the population in Germany only happened near the end of the 17th century, though it was earlier used in court circles. Which could, in theory, mean that wanting-to-live-as-a-burgher FW could insist on his family using two pronged iron forks over three pronged silver forks thirty years later. But it still sounds a bit fake to me.
All my googling of random unreliable websites is telling me that the upper classes tried to introduce the three-tined fork, and then there was a lag of centuries before it caught on with everyone. But I'm getting wildly different dates on when the three tines caught on in Germany. Everyone agrees, though, that the farther north you go, the longer it took to catch on. It was a sign of Italian effeminacy for a long time. (In the British lower classes, apparently as late as 1897!)
Also, apparently forks were used for different purposes at different times, and using a fork the way we would use it, to put food on and stick in your mouth, rather than just stabbing your meat while carving, took much longer to catch on, and that the usage was tied to the number of tines.
One site claims, "As Ferdinand Braudel notes in The Structure of Everyday Life, around the beginning of the 18th century, Louis XIV forbade his children to eat with the forks that their tutor had encouraged them to use."
But I'm already questioning that, because by the early 18th century, Louis XIV's children had children who had children!
But yeah, since our source isn't even a dispatch by Rottembourg, but a memoir by Villars, I'm fully prepared for the story to have grown in the telling, even if Rottembourg said something completely different. And if Rottembourg did exaggerate, as you noted, he was no fan of FW!
So possibly true, possibly fake.
Which would also be easier to blame Fritz for, using FW type of logic, than which table wear he uses, because that's actually not a decision for fifteen years old Fritz to make. It's something decided by whoever is in charge of the household where he's staying, Wusterhausen, Potsdam and Monbijou alike.
This is the part I don't find totally convincing: FW is an abuser, and punishing people for things they weren't strictly responsible for is part of abuse. Even if you assume the account in Wilhelmine where she and Fritz got plates thrown at them for Friederike Luise's backtalk is an exaggeration, and Catt's account of how FW beat both the tutor and small child Fritz for Fritz learning Latin is Catt making things up, I'd be surprised if FW never hit Fritz for the adults having him do things FW didn't want him doing.
The Man
Conrade-Alexandre de Rottembourg in French, von Rothenburg in German. The hybrid spelling Rothenbourg is also used.
He was French envoy to Berlin off and on during the 1710s and 1720s. Very cultured. BFFs with Katte. Wilhelmine credits Katte's polished manners to his association with Rothenburg. Hated FW. Was petitioning Versailles for his recall as early as 1719. According to one of my sources, he claimed it was the climate in 1719, but I'm betting he also just didn't like the court. :P Tried to support a coup in Prussia to have FW declared insane and Fritz put on the throne. He and 14-yo Fritz used to pass information to each other via an intermediary (Knyphausen), while pretending to have no interest in each other.
Successfully got recalled in 1727. It was supposed to be to take care of his domestic affairs, and he was supposed to go back as soon as possible. Sauveterre, his secretary, was left behind. (This explains my confusion over why there was no French envoy to replace him and yet Sauveterre was there, and also possibly explains why Sauveterre is apparently dependent on Dickens for his info in November 1730, and why my sources say Sauveterre was kind of lackadaisical.)
However, Rothenburg then got sent on a mission to Spain in 1727-1728, which then turned into a more permanent post. I'm a little fuzzy on what happened between 1728 and 1730. According to various summaries of his life, he left Spain in 1728 and returned in early 1731, but Kloosterhuis gives an account of Katte making a trip to Madrid just to see his old friend Rothenburg, in late 1728 or early 1729.
When he was sent back in 1730. He helped negotiate the Family Compact between the Bourbon monarchs of France and Spain (1733). He was recalled to Paris on May 25, 1734 because of bad health. He died in April of 1735, childless, very rich, and either never having been married or having married Jeanne-Madelene d'Helmstat on April 10, 1721, depending on which source you believe. He's the subject of my extremely specific question about legal inheritance on little_details. Where, as you'll see before, I was wrong about both sisters being childless.
His father was originally from Brandenburg, moved to France, and was made a field marshal by Louis XIV.
The Estates
When Fritz made his escape attempt and was trying to hide the fact that he had been having dealings with the English, he confessed "that he was planning to flee to Strasbourg (where he seemed to have his eyes on a stay on the Alsatian estate of the French envoy, comte Rothenbourg)." Quote MacDonogh. I've also seen other sources state that Katte had suggested Rothenburg's estate as a safe haven, and that this was one of the pieces of evidence used to convict of Katte of being up to his ears in this plot and helping advance it further than it would have without him.
Being me, I've been wanting and wanting to track down this estate, just like I did with Peter Keith's.
Well, I finally turned it up, and one reason it took so long is that it's not nearly as close to Strasbourg as that sentence had led me to believe. Comte Rothenburg was feudal lord of the seigneury of Masevaux, 120 km south and east of Strasbourg in Alsace, and about 40 km from the modern French border.
It also gets a bit more complicated than this. Rothenburg was descended from Conrad de Rosen, who was a field marshal and a member of a prominent family. Conrad bought this property from the Fuggers (famous German banking family), then sold it in 1684 to his son-in-law, who was our Comte Rothenburg's father.
Conrad meanwhile hung on to the Dettwiller, Herrenstein, and Bollwiller estates, though Bollwiller had been pawned to the Fuggers by his father-in-law, and Conrad had to pay that debt. These estates were passed down the Rosen line.
Comte Rothenburg, during his lifetime, acquired the nearby estate of Rougemont. I also see some other estates, of which I do not know the history, listed as belonging to him at the time of his death: Keivenheim, Seintein, and Oberbruck. On his death, his estates went to one of his sisters.
Now, I had thought both his sisters were childless, but it turns out not, because the inheriting sister had a daughter. The daughter inherited the Rothenburg estates, and married the Rosen heir of old Conrad's estates. Thus the Rosen family became one of the largest landowners in Alsace.
Here are Bollwiller, Masevaux, and Rougemont situated on the map in relation to each other and Strasbourg. I hadn't yet found the other estates when I took this snapshot, but Oberbruck is just northeast of Masevaux, so that checks out. Keivenheim looks like a German name, and the only thing I can find remotely similar, Kaifenheim, is near Bonn. And Seintein is right on the Spanish border.
For Voltaire and Émilie fans, Cirey's not too far!
Parts of the original manor house in Masevaux remain standing and are protected as a historic monument. I couldn't get any good pictures because of its location and obscurity, but I've found it on the map and looked at what I can.
The Library
I also ran across a cool piece of information that I wasn't looking for, namely that our Comte Rothenburg's library was assessed after his death. I thus know that it contained 156 books, most of which were in French, and, amazingly, I know the distribution of these books as well:
Religion: 5%
Law: 8%
History: 22%
Belles-lettres: 43%
Sciences & arts: 13%
Various: 9%
This is only the books of value, because smaller books were not recorded.
Rottembourg in Spain
selenak, remember when you told us that Morgenstern said Rottembourg said he missed FW's Prussia when he was in Madrid? And we decided it was one of Morgenstern's sarcasms? I now actually believe it! Not that he loved Prussia so much--I've just confirmed he asked for his leave on all three of his missions, in one case within a few months of arrival--but I didn't realize that both Rottembourg's missions to Spain corresponded with the absolute nadir of Philip's mental health, and the effect was torture on ambassadors:First mission (October 1727-April 1728)
Rottembourg appears to have escaped before matters peaked in June, but I also don't know exactly when certain symptoms began. What I've got is this:
May 1727 - end of 1727: Philip V severely depressed, unwilling to speak to his ministers. Will listen to reports, but "no sign of hearing other than a gesture now and then or a fleeting smile."
Early 1728: Back in business, but severe attacks. Doesn't see ministers for weeks at a time, and then will only see them at night, and will keep them up until dawn. Audiences with ambassadors are held at midnight.
June is when he starts wanting to abdicate for the second time. (Remember, he abdicated once, gave the throne to his son, and his son died of smallpox after about 7 months.) His wife, Isabella, tries to prevent him. She has all writing implements removed, and keeps a close guard on him. So Philip tries escaping by sneaking out at 5 am, while she's asleep, and flees the palace in his nightshirt. She has the guards stop him, changes the locks, and gives the guards orders not to let him escape, but he tries this several times.
Finally, on June 28, he sneaks some paper while Isabella's in another room for a minute, writes out his abdication, and has his most trusted servant smuggle it into the council. The council session is discussing it when Isabella's messenger arrives, confiscates the piece of paper, and destroys it.
During this summer, and I don't know how early it started and whether some of them would have been affecting Rottembourg by April, but we've got these symptoms:
* Giving audiences to ambassadors either in his nightshirt or almost naked.
* Paranoia, delusions, and hallucinations.
* Biting himself.
* Screaming and/or singing.
* Urinating and defecating in bed.
* Believing he's a frog (July). (Rottembourg's replacement as ambassador arrived in June. Man, I don't envy him.)
* Believing that he's dead.
* Bulimia.
Rottembourg gets the hell out just in time, it seems. But he's back in 1730, which is when things are really crazy, and for a much longer time.
Second mission: (December 1730-April 1734)
During most of this time, the court isn't in Madrid, it's in Andalusia, and it's peripatetic. This is Isabella's idea for how to make Philip's mental health improve: change of scenery.
This means tons of expenses for the ambassadors. Ambassadors were notoriously in arrears for their salaries, and most were rich and the rest supported by their families. Random expenses like "The King decided to move his court" have to be covered out of pocket. So Rottembourg, who was himself very rich, had to sell property to cover these years.
And then there's the part where summer 1730 is when Philip's mental health crashes again. He's severely depressed, bulimic, and consuming vast amounts of poison antidotes (I don't know the details) because of his paranoia. He's convinced that his stools contain blood; when he inspects them and they aren't, he accuses the doctors of concealing the blood. His toenails get so long it's difficult to walk. He won't let anyone do his hair, so it turns into a complete mess. He smells terrible. His only entertainment is fishing...in his garden...at night...from a bowl that his attendants have placed fish in.
But he won't give up power, either. He walks around muttering, "I'm the boss here" (Je suis le maître), and making things difficult to prove it. If you give him a stack of papers to be signed in a certain order, he'll rearrange the papers when you're not looking.
And, of course, he's conducting all business at night. Upon arriving, Rottembourg describes the situation as "incomprehensible", and complains about being kept in meetings until 6 am. Meanwhile, Isabella is trying to conduct a normal life during the day and take care of her husband and help him with state business at night.
June 1731: Rottembourg reports that he shows up for an audience at night, but the queen has collapsed from exhaustion and is fast asleep, and Philip hasn't slept in 48 hours. So Rottembourg waits until 7 am, at which point he's told they can't see him until 5:30 pm.
By July, Philip is getting one hour of sleep a night, his legs are swollen, and everyone's convinced he's going to die.
A year later, after a brief manic episode, he's back to depressed, with no hygiene, and refusing to talk to anyone because he's dead. Also, he's extremely concerned that because he had abdicated, then became king again after his son died, his rule is invalid. By not talking, he can avoid ruling!
In October 1732, he decides he's going to talk, but only to his valet. He then starts explaining how he's going to unite the crowns of France and Spain to his valet...but no one else.
In November, he breaks his streak of not talking to ministers and ambassadors by insisting that he needs to talk to Rottembourg. "The startled count was presented with the spectacle of a king with clothing completely disordered, with a long and filthy beard, and wearing no trousers or shoes, his legs and feet naked."
This is the kind of thing that could make you miss FW forcing you to get drunk!
In conclusion, Rottembourg may well have been quoted as saying, "However bad Berlin was, it was better than Madrid!" (At least there was the SD court in Berlin when FW was away.)
Rottembourg's Health or "Health"
Rottembourg's health, btw, is bad; in 1733 he starts requesting his recall, in 1734 it's granted, and in 1735 he dies. Did the stay in Spain make it worse? Who knows, but it can't have helped.
Speaking of his health, I've now refreshed my memory that during his first two missions to Berlin, he requested recall on the grounds of his health and the Berlin climate, and the third time, he requested permission for a short leave to take care of some personal affairs, which turned into a permanent absence. But as we've seen, most Frexits proceeded officially by complaining about the climate of Berlin, not complaints about the King!
Katte Visits Rottembourg??
Also, also, I have found a crux that I had noticed ages ago, but wasn't confident was a crux, because I wasn't sure which sources to trust. I now have confidence in saying that the claim in Kloosterhuis that Martin von Katte says that Hans Heinrich says that Hans Hermann went to Madrid in late 1728/early 1729 (exact date not given), and that he met Rottembourg there, is weird!
What Kloosterhuis says: "He went in October 1728 initially to Paris on a mission for his father, then on his own initiative to Madrid, in order to visit Count Rottembourg, who'd meanwhile been stationed there, and finally to London, where he crushed on Petronella."
But I am now quite confident that Rottembourg was sent to Spain in late 1727 to negotiate the end of the Anglo-Spanish War, and that when the Convention of El Pardo was signed on March 6, 1728, Rottembourg's work was done. He announced his departure on March 28, took his leave at court on April 3, and set off for France on April 7. The multi-volume collection of instructions to ambassadors from the French archives that is of such high quality that I found an expert on British diplomacy of the 1720s envying it, says that in October 1730, when he got his new mission to Spain, it had been 2.5 years since his return from Spain.
And though I don't have a date for his arrival in Paris, it only took him 3 weeks to get back in 1734, while traveling extremely sick. Even if you double that time because in 1728, he's in Madrid and 1734, he's in Andalusia, which is closer to the coast (we know that he traveled by Barcelona on his way to Seville in 1730), by, say, November or December 1728, it should be really obvious to Katte in Paris that Madrid is not where Rottembourg is. Based on the time for mail, and the fact that they may not have kept in super close touch, I'm willing to believe that when he set out from Berlin, Katte thought Rottembourg was in Madrid, but I'm very surprised that after visiting Paris he didn't. Even if Rottembourg wasn't in Paris, and I suspect he was, even if he was taking the waters somewhere, surely you'd ask around before setting off to Madrid!
Incidentally, depending on how long Katte stayed in Paris and how long it took him to travel to Spain, he might have arrived to find the court wasn't in Madrid; they arrived in Seville on February 3, 1729.
Anyway, this is kind of hilarious, because one plot twist in my fix-it fic was that Katte would set off from Edinburgh, kind of out of the loop, in late 1730, looking for Rottembourg in Madrid, and find that he wasn't there, but had been recalled to France. (This is because I was getting conflicting info on Rottembourg's dates in Spain; I now feel pretty clear on the ones I have and have updated the chronology in our library.)
So, what happened in late 1728? Our sources are mistaken? Katte left without adequate research and arrived in Madrid to an unpleasant surprise? Katte and Rottembourg did or didn't actually meet up, in Paris, in Madrid, or in Seville?
I should add that in addition to the Philip V bio, which I'm almost finished with and will have some Philip V updates on when I am, I have read two articles on diplomacy in Spain at the time that Rottembourg was present, found a dissertation and hunted for all the occurrences of his name, and skimmed the instructions given to him for his two missions to Spain, as well as my usual detective work across a few Google books hits, so I now have a much better idea of what Rottembourg was up to when and why in Spain. He actually got in (a little) trouble in 1727!
selenak: Yowsers. In this case, Morgenstern really wasn't kidding. I guess in our fictional 18th century envoys get together, we just have come across a new category to compete in: worst posting ever? Also, the otherwise thorough Kloosterhuis clearly didn't trouble to check and compare dates on Philip V. with the story of Katte's visit. I'm not surprised Martin von Katte didn't, he wasn't a professional historian and repeating a family story. It would be good to have Hans Heinrich's original letter and/or wording about this visit - maybe he just said that on what was supposed to be just a journey to France and back, Hans Herrmann met Rottembourg, the French envoy to Spain, and then proceeded to Britain. Which made Martin v. K. and after him Kloosterhuis draw the easy conclusion that the meeting in question had taken place in Spain, not France. But it also makes geographical sense if Katte went to Paris, met Rottembourg there, and then went on to London, without the major detour of a trip to Spain!mildred_of_midgard: Also, in keeping of my theme that chronology is not just plot but characterization, the discovery that Katte might not have gone to Madrid is interesting. Given the difficulties of travel in the 18th century, if he did go to Madrid, that demonstrates an attachment to Rottembourg that's really above and beyond. I always explained it as Katte having an early-career crisis and really wanting some advice and a face-to-face talk, maybe a favor, that letters wouldn't suffice for.My evidence being that he traveled to London on the same trip and considered leaving Prussian service, then let his father talk him into coming back, but got reprimanded by his superior in the army because he'd overstayed his leave. He might really have been trying to decide what he wanted to do with his life, and was desperate to talk to his French mentor. And I let the Madrid trip influence how I thought of the closeness between them. If Katte really met up with him in Paris, then maybe they were still super close, but it's no longer evidence for that, nor for the strength of the apparent crisis.
Maybe Katte traveled somewhere outside of Paris but not so far away, like Alsace or Aachen, who knows. I really wish we had the letter or at least the manuscript--we're playing a game of telephone here.
Oh, another minor chronological point: although Rottembourg had left Berlin in early 1727, he was due to come back, and not until October 1728 did he officially step down as envoy and say he wasn't coming back (the many-volumed series of instructions to French ambassadors is *really* detailed, and I am forever grateful, and understand the English scholar's envy). So Katte might well have set off thinking that he'd get to hang out with R in Berlin again, and only in Paris did he discover that wasn't going to be a thing, so he made a point of looking him up (wherever he was).
Name Spelling
The collection of instructions to French ambassadors says that despite the varied spellings of the name Rottembourg (because it's of German origin; he was from Berlin and is cousin to Prussian count Rothenburg), the envoy himself always spelled it 'Rottembourg.'
Marital Status: Unknown
Incidentally, our source, or one of our sources, on Rottembourg dying unmarried (remember, some of my sources give a marriage date and a wife's name and genealogy; others say never married): Saint-Simon, who was a contemporary, at Versailles with him, and ambassador to Spain in 1721. So you'd think he would know. In contrast to the source I've found for him being married, which is a 1733 genealogical history. On the other hand, the memoirs were published in 1886, which means who knows what's been done to them by the editor! So I'm still unclear, but leaning more toward unmarried than married.
Birthplace: Unknown
Whitworth biographer says Rottembourg was born in Italy, but then also says he was a Brandenburger who entered French service, when the Chance volume agrees with all my other sources that it was his father who did that. So grain of salt.
Whitworth and Rottembourg overlapped in Berlin: a couple months in 1716, and then mid 1719 to late 1720. The latter was, if you know your dates, right as the Great Northern War was ending and the peace was being negotiated, so they were not idle. Britain was trying to push a treaty with Sweden and Prussia, and, if I'm recalling correctly, France was acting as guarantor. And FW was dragging his feet on signing it. (This is the treaty where Prussia got most of Swedish Pomerania, but FW was trying to hold out for more stuff and the exact terms of Stettin he wanted.)
Turns out, Whitworth and Rottembourg were, if not BFFs, at least good working buddies:
He was also able to establish cordial relations with Count Conrad Rottembourg, the French ambassador, which lasted for the rest of his diplomatic career.
When FW was dragging his feet:
Whitworth was aware that everything could be lost at this moment. He decided to approach Frederick William personally, with Rottembourg at his side.
The treaty did eventually get signed, with some pushing and backdating by Whitworth.
But not before this happened:
A further complication arose through an almost comic incident in September when Whitworth became aware of a secret negotiation between the Prussian and Russian ministers concerning Poland. Ilgen [Prussian Foreign minister] had sent a servant with two packets to be delivered, one for Rottembourg, the French minister, and the other for Golovkin. The servant, however, delivered the wrong packages with the result that Rottembourg discovered the draft of a proposed Russian-Prussian treaty, intended for Golovkin, which he duly revealed to Whitworth. The proposed Russian-Prussian treaty thus came to nothing and poor Ilgen was left ‘in the agony of his mistake’.
So Rottembourg is totally passing on secrets to his buddy Whitworth, the English diplomat.
Ilgen, btw, is Ariane's mother's (the Baroness who gets a cameo at the beginning of "Lovers lying two and two") father. Remember, Ariane's father Knyphausen is a diplomat and Minister of War, and he marries the daughter of the foreign minister Ilgen. (Peter totally married up.)
And then, a few years later, in 1723-1725, Whitworth and Rottembourg are posted to the Congress of Cambrai together!
On a personal level, Whitworth had excellent relations with Count Rottembourg, the French Plenipotentiary, whom he had known from his mission to Berlin and liked as ‘a man of very great Judgment, and Experience … one of the best heads they have now left in France’. But he also suspected that Rottembourg was kept in the dark as to the true intentions and policies of the French court now there had been a change in leadership. [The Regent died in late 1723 and was replaced by the Duc de Bourbon.]
Unfortunately, nothing happens at Cambrai, because the real negotiation is happening in Paris. Whitworth is extremely frustrated.
But, what this quote about Rottembourg suggests to me that is of interest to my hypothetical fic is that Rottembourg may not have been a stickler/hypersensitive about etiquette by the standards of the time, because there was very little Whitworth could stand less on his missions than unnecessary ceremony. Those informal Brits! Or possibly Rottembourg just had other qualities that made up for it (he was French, after all).
But we'll just say Rottembourg got along with the guy whose letters are constantly like, "Oh my gooooood, I had to enter Cambrai as part of a formal procession, just like I did in Moscow, there is no neeeeed for this. Fucking hell. Now I'm trying to do real work, but nothing is getting done, because everyone's just arguing about precedence. Whyyyyyy." Only more politely. :P
selenak: So Rottembourg is totally passing on secrets to his buddy Whitworth, the English diplomat.Given that French/English relations were no warmer in this century than they were in most centuries, I find this extra remarkable. Was Withworth financially sound, or could his sympathy for Rottembourg have come with some financial encouragement?
mildred_of_midgard: He was definitely always the opposite of financially sound, so we can't rule this out, but I don't think that's what we're seeing here.Given that French/English relations were no warmer in this century than they were in most centuries, I find this extra remarkable.
This century, no, but this decade was special! The entire diplomatic picture of Europe in approximately 1716-1731 was so topsy-turvy that it's been called a diplomatic revolution of its own. France and England were allied, and eventually so were Austria and Spain. These were very unstable alliances, everyone knew they were unstable, governments planned their diplomatic strategies around trying to remind country A that their ally Country B was their natural enemy, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief when things went back to normal in the 1730s.
1715-1720: The South
The War of the Spanish Succession ends in 1714. As a (simplified) reminder, that's England, Austria, and the Dutch against France and Spain.
In 1716, Britain and France form an alliance.
In Spain, Philip V wants the territory Spain lost in the recent war back. He invades Sardinia and Sicily in 1717-1718, and briefly recaptures them.
In 1717-1718, the British and French get together with the Dutch and the Austrians in the Quadruple Alliance to retake Sardinia and Sicily. This is when Berwick is reluctantly forced to invade Spain, the place where his son is in service and the place where he fought for 10 years to help Philip V keep his throne. This is seen as a highly unnatural war by both Spain and France, where it's unpopular.
By 1720, the War of the Quadruple Alliance has been won, and Philip has been forced to give back all the territory he reconquered.
Just to connect the dots, this is when Philip's mental health really tanks and he starts talking abdication. In 1724, he finally abdicates. Then he resumes power, tries to abdicate again, Isabella won't let him, and then the really terrible symptoms of which we know start happening in 1727 (year of Rottembourg's first arrival).
1715-1720: The North
Mewanwhile, the Great Northern War is still going on (since 1700). Prussia has recently entered the war and is allied with Russia, trying to get territory from Sweden (so Fredersdorf can become Prussian).
Britain is busy switching sides. Part of the problem (not the whole problem) is conflicting British and Hanoverian interests. Since the British minister, Stanhope, wins against his Hanoverian rival, we'll simplify matters by presenting this from his POV. (Stanhope is a distant cousin of the Chesterfield Stanhopes. He was most famous for being the leader of the British forces in Spain during the Spanish Succession).
He wants to pry Prussia away from Russia, by creating an anti-Russian bloc in the Baltic: Sweden, Prussia, Britain (navy). Britain is trying to pressure Prussia into signing a treaty. France is acting as the neutral guarantors of peace in the north.
Stanhope is pro-alliance with France:
Stanhope believed that peace in the north (which he deemed necessary for peace in the south) could best be achieved by working with France rather than with Austria and Saxony; France, in turn, urged the importance of co-operation with Prussia.
(France and Prussia had signed a secret alliance in 1716, during Whitworth's first, brief posting in Berlin. Rottembourg was there as French ambassador.)
1718-1720: Whitworth in Berlin
In order to try to make the Anglo-Swedish-Prussian treaty happen, Stanhope sent Whitworth to Berlin, and with orders "seek an alliance with Prussia for George as King of Britain, in full communication with the French minister in Berlin." Unless there's another French minister in Berlin, that's Rottembourg.
Now, at this point, before he's left for Berlin, Whitworth is very very skeptical about the new French alliance:
you will see how slippery our new friends on the other side of the water are like to prove … thô they have peace in their mouths they have war in their hearts and encourage Spain to keep their broils on foot … a false friend is often more dangerous than an open Enemy
Then he arrives in Berlin and makes friends with Rottembourg. Who may be bribing him--Whitworth was one of the rare ambassadors not to be independently wealthy (remember that Fritz uses this as an argument for why Peter is not a suitable candidate for envoy), his salary is constantly in arrears, and he's constantly writing apologetic letters to his family asking them to support him and writing angry letters to the government telling them to pay his overdue salary already. But, let's remember:
1. Their countries are allied.
2. Whitworth's under orders from Chief Minister Stanhope to work in concert with Rottembourg.
3. The two instances of him and Rottembourg working in concert are Rottembourg helping *him* rather than the other way around:
3a. Rottembourg passing secret information to Whitworth.
3b. Whitworth trying to pressure FW into signing the treaty by confronting him directly, with Rottembourg (whose government wants France to be the guarantors of this treaty) at his side.
So the only thing I have evidence for here is Rottembourg bribing Whitworth into letting Rottembourg help him. ;)
1722-1725: The Congress of Cambrai
It's a few years later, and everyone is still at each other's throats. The Congress of Cambrai is called so that Britain and France can mediate between Spain and Austria and get them to accept the distribution of territory that was agreed on in Utrecht at the end of the Spanish Succession.
Both Whitworth and Rottembourg are posted by their governments to Cambrai.
Unfortunately, the Congress is a dismal failure. Charles VI is determined to drag things out as long as possible, because he has everything to lose in a settlement (his Italian territories), and everything to gain by waiting (the Anglo-French alliance is considered unnatural and fragile, and by waiting, he hopes to drive a wedge between them). Both the French and the British have decided that nothing useful is going to happen at Cambrai, and the real negotiation is happening in Paris. It totally doesn't help that Philip V picks 1724 to abdicate.
Whitworth is trying to get actual work done, but his hands are tied. He writes that he likes Rottembourg personally, but the French government isn't keeping R in the loop, and Versailles is being sneaky and is going to screw the British over.
Now, Stanhope died in 1721, and the new British ministers are Townshend and Newcastle. Both are very pro-French alliance. (Not pro-French interests, mind you. Just think that working with France is the way to go.)
Newcastle tells Whitworth and his fellow ambassador that they are not to take any initiative at Cambrai, just let the French take the lead. He repeats this in every single dispatch. Whitworth and his companion find this humiliating. Keep in mind Whitworth has been ambassador for almost twenty-five years now, to the Imperial Diet, St. Petersburg, the Hague, and Berlin, and he's used his initiative a number of times.
The ambassadors have a little scuffle with the ministers back home, but the message from Newcastle and Townshend prevails: "You must let the French take the initiative and follow their lead."
They're nooooot happy.
Btw, just to emphasize the importance of the Anglo-French alliance during this period:
The Jacobites, in fact, had great hopes of armed support from Peter [the Great] in 1723 and 1724 but this never came to anything, not least because Peter valued French friendship in this period and the French, in turn, saw good relations with Britain as their main priority.
1725-1726: Where do I even start?
Okay, so 1725-1726 is an eventful time.
Spain and Austria enter an alliance (called a diplomatic revolution by later historians, not sure about contemporaries). But remember, Charles VI still wants to be King of Spain! (He's officially given up, but he still wants to. And while the war may have ended ~1715, he didn't make peace with Spain until 1720.)
There's talk of marrying one of the archduchesses (like maybe MT) to one of the Spanish kids of Philip V and Isabella Farnese.
Prussia, France, Britain, and Hanover are allied against Austria and Spain, because they perceive Austria + Spain as a very threatening alliance, especially if the marriage happens. Yes, this is FW allied against his boss Charles VI. Remember this passage from Lavisse:
When he became allied to France and England, in 1725, he reserved to himself the right to furnish to the Emperor the contingent that he owed, in his quality of Elector, at the same time that he assisted the King of France with the number of troops fixed by the treaty. It certainly is to be regretted that this clause had not been put into action, and that Europe had not witnessed this spectacle of the King of Prussia fighting the Elector of Brandenburg.
(Later, FW will leave the alliance and go back to hating on Hanover and supporting the Emperor. Up until he supports the French candidate for the Polish throne and has Hans Heinrich host him, while fighting the French alongside Eugene. Because HRE politics are really something else.)
The Duc de Bourbon sends the Spanish princess back so he can marry Louis to Marie Leszczynska, the Spanish get offended and send the French princess back, Spain and France stop speaking to each other.
The Duc de Bourbon falls from power; Fleury takes over.
Spain and England are in a state of semi-war that's threatening to explode into something bigger, etc.
Isabella Farnese really really really wants Parma and Tuscany for her kids.
1727-1728: Rottembourg in Spain
So in 1727, frantic diplomacy is happening. Britain, the Netherlands, Austria, and France, sign preliminary peace agreements, in Paris and in Vienna. But since the Spanish aren't speaking to the French, due to the offense taken over the sending back of the princesses, and are in a state of lowkey war with Britain, there're no Spanish ambassadors around to sign treaties in France or Britain.
So Fleury sends an ambassador to Spain in late 1727 and tells him, "You get Philip and Isabella to agree to this peace!"
That ambassador is Rottembourg. (Whitworth died in 1725, btw, still poor enough that he was lamenting that despite his decades of faithful service to his country, his wife was going to have to petition the crown for support. If Rottembourg gave him money, it was not a lot.)
The British don't have an ambassador in Spain. They have a "consul", Benjamin Keene. This is fairly usual, btw; if you're not on speaking terms with a country, or if you're just not interested in negotiating something specific, you might not pay an ambassador to hang out fiddling his thumbs (Whitworth would argue that they don't pay you even when you are negotiating); but leave his secretary or somesuch there to be your lower-paid point of contact and send you info. But because this secretary isn't credentialed, they don't have authority to negotiate. France did this with Prussia after Rottembourg left the last time. It's what Fritz was doing when he refused to replace the ambassador in Britain with Peter Keith and left the guy who probably hadn't even sworn loyalty to Prussia there; he was not saying, "I prefer this guy to Peter," he was saying, "I prefer no diplomatic representation in Britain because I'm more interested in insulting them this year than negotiating with them." When he wanted subsidies, he sent a credentialed Knyphausen authorized to negotiate.
Anyway. Keene, the British consul, will later play a significant role as diplomat, but right now he's extremely tentative and not sure what on earth is going on or what he's allowed to do. He knows he's not an ambassador.
So Rottembourg takes the initiative, negotiates, gets Keene introduced at court, and presents Philip and Isabella with terms that are favorable to Spain. The Spanish sign off on it, and everyone's happy...until the British ministers, who've been letting the French take the lead in the negotiations in Spain again, find out that Rottembourg granted Spain concessions at British's expense, and that Keene was present at the audience, and that he gave the impression that the British had agreed to this.
Horace Walpole, currently British ambassador to France: Hey, Newcastle, did you hear what just went down in Spain? Can you *believe* the fucking French?
Newcastle: Omg, Keene, you pull anything like that ever again...
Keene: But I'm not even an ambassador! I assumed since we were letting the French take the lead, and they had an actual ambassador who acted like he knew what he was doing, that whatever he did was what I was supposed to do!
Newcastle: Okay, yeah, fair. Fleury, WTF was your guy up to?
Fleury: Fuck. As long as Spain and Austria are still allies, I need the English. Okay, Newcastle, sorry, Rottembourg was *totally* unauthorized to make those concessions! Rottembourg, slap on the wrist, treaty void, start over again.
It's unclear how mad Fleury actually was at Rottembourg; he got publicly reprimanded, but some of my sources indicate the French were actually mad at the English but their hands were tied. And at least the French Secretary of State thought Rottembourg had been unfairly scapegoated, so he insisted the new treaty had to be signed by Rottembourg (i.e. as a sign that he was not in total disgrace).
In March 1728, the Spanish sign the Peace of Pardo on terms that everyone has agreed to. In April, Rottembourg leaves Spain. In July, Philip starts thinking he's a frog. In October, Katte shows up in Paris. (Which is how I totally know Rottembourg was not in Spain when Katte was supposed to be traveling there.)
In conclusion:
- Everything is upside down and inside out in the late 1710s and 1720s.
- The tendency of the English ministers for a decade to tell their ambassadors to work with the French and to let the French take the lead is why I don't think we have evidence that Rottembourg was bribing Whitworth in 1718-1720.
My impression is that Whitworth liked Rottembourg personally but really didn't like working with the French, and was having a French alliance shoved down his throat by his bosses. (Btw, Newcastle was almost 20 years younger than Whitworth, which was one reason it was so insulting when Newcastle's every letter to Whitworth at Cambrai was like, "And don't take any diplomatic initiative!" "Fuck you, Newcastle, I've been taking diplomatic initiative since you were in petticoats.")
Addendum:
Apparently, according to Whitworth, Rottembourg said that during the episode in which he got his hands on a draft of the proposed secret treaty between Prussia and Russia, he told Ilgen that if it contained anything against the king of England, according to his instructions from Versailles, he would have to tell Whitworth.
And Whitworth wrote all this to Stanhope and requested extreme secrecy, because if word got out that Rottembourg was passing him info, R would be compromised and unable to pass any more info on.
Also, apparently Rottembourg was in his bed and half asleep when he got the delivery meant for the Russian minister, saw what it was, closed it again, and sent it to the Russian minister.
The fork anecdote
I found the source for a story I'd encountered in several places: the memoirs of Marshal Villars (French commander at Malplaquet) say that it was Rottembourg who reported that FW beat Fritz for a "surprising reason": FW had ordered his family to eat with iron forks with two prongs, and he caught Fritz eating with a three-pronged silver fork, which enraged him and caused him to beat Fritz. This is 1727, btw, in case anyone tries to tell you FW only beat him in 1730. He'd been beating Fritz for quite some time at that point.
selenak: Allow me to doubt not that he'd been beating Fritz but the iron forks with two prongs vs three pronged silver fork thing, because as far as I recall the three pronged fork first was introduced to the German territories in the reign of Maximilian I., several centuries earlier. (Luther bitched about it as Latin decadence.) Which makes me feel a two forked iron vs three forked silver conflict in 1727 would have been pretty late. Otoh, I can imagine a French envoy making that crack on a similar note like reporting AW didn't know to read or write before Fritz came on the throne (which we know for sure not to be true, not least because there are letters from child AW available); he's making a point about FW being an uncultured barbarian.I could be wrong, of course; googling tells me that the use of the fork among wider swathes of the population in Germany only happened near the end of the 17th century, though it was earlier used in court circles. Which could, in theory, mean that wanting-to-live-as-a-burgher FW could insist on his family using two pronged iron forks over three pronged silver forks thirty years later. But it still sounds a bit fake to me.
The forks, to make that once more clear, NOT that FW was already hitting Fritz in 1727. But honestly, I think a more likely cause would be something like finding Fritz' table manners or hygiene sloppy. Which would also be easier to blame Fritz for, using FW type of logic, than which table wear he uses, because that's actually not a decision for fifteen years old Fritz to make. It's something decided by whoever is in charge of the household where he's staying, Wusterhausen, Potsdam and Monbijou alike. Who wouldn't have been Fritz. Like I said: I suspect Rottembourg heard something about FW hitting Fritz because he objected to his table manners and changed that into an anecdote for the French court that also made FW look even worse.
mildred_of_midgard: I could be wrong, of course; googling tells me that the use of the fork among wider swathes of the population in Germany only happened near the end of the 17th century, though it was earlier used in court circles. Which could, in theory, mean that wanting-to-live-as-a-burgher FW could insist on his family using two pronged iron forks over three pronged silver forks thirty years later. But it still sounds a bit fake to me.All my googling of random unreliable websites is telling me that the upper classes tried to introduce the three-tined fork, and then there was a lag of centuries before it caught on with everyone. But I'm getting wildly different dates on when the three tines caught on in Germany. Everyone agrees, though, that the farther north you go, the longer it took to catch on. It was a sign of Italian effeminacy for a long time. (In the British lower classes, apparently as late as 1897!)
Also, apparently forks were used for different purposes at different times, and using a fork the way we would use it, to put food on and stick in your mouth, rather than just stabbing your meat while carving, took much longer to catch on, and that the usage was tied to the number of tines.
One site claims, "As Ferdinand Braudel notes in The Structure of Everyday Life, around the beginning of the 18th century, Louis XIV forbade his children to eat with the forks that their tutor had encouraged them to use."
But I'm already questioning that, because by the early 18th century, Louis XIV's children had children who had children!
But yeah, since our source isn't even a dispatch by Rottembourg, but a memoir by Villars, I'm fully prepared for the story to have grown in the telling, even if Rottembourg said something completely different. And if Rottembourg did exaggerate, as you noted, he was no fan of FW!
So possibly true, possibly fake.
Which would also be easier to blame Fritz for, using FW type of logic, than which table wear he uses, because that's actually not a decision for fifteen years old Fritz to make. It's something decided by whoever is in charge of the household where he's staying, Wusterhausen, Potsdam and Monbijou alike.
This is the part I don't find totally convincing: FW is an abuser, and punishing people for things they weren't strictly responsible for is part of abuse. Even if you assume the account in Wilhelmine where she and Fritz got plates thrown at them for Friederike Luise's backtalk is an exaggeration, and Catt's account of how FW beat both the tutor and small child Fritz for Fritz learning Latin is Catt making things up, I'd be surprised if FW never hit Fritz for the adults having him do things FW didn't want him doing.
