Le Diable: The Political Biography

[selenak]

Thea von Seydewitz' " Ernst Christoph Graf von Manteuffel, Kabinettsminister Augusts des Starken. Persönlichkeit und Wirken (Aus Sachsens Vergangenheit 5), Dresden 1926 filled in those gaps about Manteuffel's political career, for the first explained to me where the weird "that time Grumbkow was in a scheme to assassinate FW" story from Wilhelmine's memoirs hails from, actually mentions Suhm a couple of times, and does a good job presenting a picture of its subject based on the sources available at the time (which include Other Seckendorff's diary, since this was published in 1926).

On the downside, there's that early 20th century... everything. She's not as nationalistic as, say, Richter, and thankfully there isn't an anti semitic remark in sight, but between describing the German nobility's habit of raising their kids bilingual, with French as the dominating language, which is described as "unfortunate" at the beginning and in her final "Manteuffel: Pros and Cons" summary listing as a pro that he tried to wrest Fritz out of the arms of the perfidious French (that's one way of putting it...), you definitely get the impression she didn't care for our neighbour across the Rhine. (Not withstanding presenting all the longer quotes in French and translating only the shorter ones in to German, which means I still haven't worked my way through the longer quotes.) She also while noting Manteuffel had a pretty good idea of the genius that was Fritz regrets he didn't quite realize the genius that was misunderstood FW, allowing the Tall Guys fetish and some of the "rougher" attitudes to blind Manteuffel for his true greatness.

Oh, and then there's this bit which made me go ????.

Seydewitz: Wilhelmine says Manteuffel and Frau von Blaspiel were lovers, but her memoirs aren't always reliable, and also Wilhelmine is a malicious gossip.

Self: Okay?

Seydewitz: Though Manteuffel was totally in love with Blaspiel. In fact, she may have been the only woman he truly loved, as evidenced in this lengthy French passage from a letter of his to Flemming which I'll now quote. All his other relationships with women were shallow or, like his marriage, for money and continuation of the family, but he was really into this one.

Self: So what is the malicious gossip part of Wilhelmine's take on the relationship again?

(Probable reason, though I'm speculating here in letting our author reply: Seydewitz: Sex. Just because he loved her and she loved him, there's no proof they ever had it. They were both married, after all. Wilhelmine says they were lovers, thus insinuating they had sex.)

With this advance warning and with an emphasis on the parts of Manteuffel's life not already covered by Bronisch (i.e. no Wolff saga, he had that investigated much more thoroughly than Seydewitz does here), let's have a look and the life and times of Le Diable: the political side.


( Family background )

( Finding a mentor and a first job: something is rotten in the state of Denmark )

( Manteuffel as Saxon envoy in Berlin )

Hanging out with August directly means more drinking, so it's a good thing Manteuffel is FW-trained by now. It also means not handing over a note from one of August's many one night stands to August when he's in the company of the current Maitresse en titre, Countess Dönhoff. And it means working towards an ever closer Saxony-Prussia-Austria alliance within the HRE, a long term goal which sufferes a temporary heavy blow when the Clement Affair happens in 1719. Which is when I get my explanation as to where Wilhelmine got her story about a near FW assassination from. Not, as I guessed, from Mom, or not only; most likely, she got it from Dad. How so? Well, brace yourself. It's going to be wild ride...

( The Utterly Bonkers Clement Affair )

( Founding of a Society againt Sobriety and Fall of a Minister )

( How to infiltrate the social circle of a Crown Prince )

Bronisch covered the rest. Three things in Seydewitz which he either didn't mention, or not in detail, or I skipped re: the Manteuffel/Fritz breakup in the fall of 1736:

( Possible breakup factors )

Oh, one more Seydewitz trivia: she claims Manteuffel was nominated by Fritz of Wales to the Royal Society in the 1740s. I'm going to trust the latest Andrew Mitchell dissertation has done its homework on this and that it was Andrew M., not Fritz of Wales. At any event, she says this does show that while Manteuffel was not a power factor anymore in the 1740s, he had become a name in the world of letters and scholars. Also, while a lousy husband, he had his daughters (his sole son didn't survive; the title went to a distant relation he adopted) educated very well and the surviving letters show he enjoyed debating with them on a high level. Basically, Manteuffel in his silver fox years comes across as good with young people in general (see also Formey still being starry eyed about him decades later), only with Fritz he'd bitten off more than he could chew.

Friedrich Wilhelm and Samuel Jacob Morgenstern

[selenak]

Samuel Jacob Morgenstern's Über Friedrich Wilhelm I. was published postumously in 1793. He died in 1785, one year before Fritz, and it's not entirely clear when this memoir was written, but Richard Leineweber, who wrote his doctoral thesis about Morgenstern and this FW biography, narrowed it down to not earlier than 1766 and not later than 1782, due to various references in the text. More about this later. Morgenstern had a very interesting life, about which more below in the review of Leineweber's doctoral work; the preface to Morgenstern's biopgrahy by an anoymous editor yet to be identified touches on that, but manages to get most of it wrong, including the date of Morgenstern's journey to England, which the preface puts in the year 1739, and the reason for the journey, which the preface declares to have been making peace between a Prussia and Britain on the brink of war. (They weren't, not then.) The preface concludes that in his private life, Morgenstern distinguished himself by being a miser, stubborn, a cynic and through some excentricities as well as through considerable scholarly knowledge, and that one could add some well known anecdotes about him but won't because de mortuis nihil nisi bene. After this introduction, and given the key fact that Morgenstern was a successor to the unfortunate Jacob Paul Gundling (i.e. originally a scholar, hired by FW and treated as a court fool during the last four years of FW's life), you'd expect something critical. On the face of it, you'd be wrong. Leineweber has a fascinating theory about that, which he backs up, but first, my original impressions.


( FW: Misunderstood soul with a love tragically lost along with a crown, both to the same man )

( It's the parents' fault! )

( What FW looked for in a friend )

( Why FW wasn't cruel )

Now, at this point I thought I had Morgenstern's number, but he will surprise us, gentle readers, somewhat later, and massively so.

Keep also in mind Morgenstern only knew FW during the last four years of his life, too. Everything else he describes, he describes from hearsay. But what he writes about FW's daily routine and personnel in his last years, for example, I guess we can take at face value, and since it's the obvious model and yet a contrast to Fritz' daily routine, here you go:

( Days in the Life of FW )

And now we get to the surprise, i.e. where Morgenstern suddenly sounds... downright FW critical. Which made me wonder about my original estimation, because the following passage is anything but hagiographic:

( Attend the Tale of Gundling )

( FW as a father and some trivia )

Having finished the biography, I was in two minds; if it was simply meant as a hagiography, why then more than enough material for the FW prosecution along with all the praise, sometimes directly contradicting the praise? Mildred then discovered the estimable Richard Leineweber, whose dissertation proved to be quite illuminating. Starting with the biographical background on Morgenstern.

( The Life and Times of Jacob Samuel Morgenstern )

( Leineweber's critique of the FW biography as biography )

So: FW hagiography or subversive FW critique? Both, says Leineweber.