![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mildred_of_midgard posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
rheinsbergMaterial relating to Fritz's death that I've gathered from a number of secondary sources and cannot vouch for the accuracy of every detail:
In the middle of 1785, Fritz's health took a sharp turn for the worse. He hadn't been able to play the flute since 1779, which was also the year of his last war, but he'd been pretty well hanging in there. After that point, it started to become increasingly clear that he was dying, and he gradually got worse and worse. Around the beginning of 1786, Heinrich started checking his mail every day for the announcement that Fritz was dead already and he could get to work on making that obelisk happen.
Fritz was no longer able to breathe while lying down, due to his worsening asthma, so he slept sitting up in his chair that last year. He occasionally able to ride his favorite horse around Sanssouci for short periods during the summer of 1786, but was mostly confined to his chair...working, working, working.
Naturally, he didn't stop being autocratic for one minute, and he continued being a workaholic whenever possible, which was most of the time. Despite periodic acute bouts of illness where it wasn't possible, he said he intended to die at his desk, and he very nearly did.
He was in enough pain his last year that celebrity seekers and other visitors kept remarking how impressed they were at the stoic (or Stoic) way he endured his suffering. First he stopped being able to read for pleasure on his own and had to be read to, and then in the last month he stopped being able to listen to his reader due to the pain...but he kept working. In those last few days, it was taking all his willpower to fight through the pain when reviewing and annotating reports, and his subordinates recorded that his concentration was impaired by the effort and he was having to rush through...but he kept working.
He worked all the way through August 15, keeping one of his ridiculously brutal workday schedules. Then he slept until midday on August 16--an almost unprecedented event from the man who woke up at 3 am every day on campaign and 4 in peacetime, and slept till 5 am in winter.
He spent that last day, August 16, fading in and out of consciousness. In the afternoon, he summoned an officer to give orders to, but then couldn't manage to speak. He finally gave up after three tries, with a wry look like "What can you do?"
At that point, the palliative care began.
As noted, he was having such trouble breathing that he had to sleep sitting up, but he kept slumping over in his sleep, which would compress his airways and wake him up gasping and coughing. Many nights he didn't sleep at all, or barely slept. In one of his letters late in life, Fritz joked to someone that if they were looking for a night watchman, he would like to apply for the job, seeing as he was an old hand at staying awake all night. So on the night of the 16th, one of his staff knelt beside his chair for hours and physically held Fritz upright so he could breathe as easily as possible and get some sleep.
The last order Fritz is known to have given was to cover up his dog, who was shivering. Italian greyhounds have very short coats and little body fat, so they're very susceptible to the cold. At 11 pm, he asked what time it was. Then he announced that he intended to get up at 4 am, as per usual.
Sometime between 11 pm and 2 am, a coughing fit brought up some phlegm that relieved his breathing somewhat. He said, "The mountain is passed; now we will go easier." Those were reported to be his last words: "La montagne est passée, nous irons mieux."
At 2:19 or 2:20 am on August 17, 1786, he died sitting up in his chair in his bedroom-cum-study at Sanssouci, in his valet's arms, his dog Superbe sleeping by his feet.
The room has since been renovated from his rococo into the Neoclassical style he hated (oh, Fritz); the chair is still there; and legend has it that the clock that was present at his death, and is still there, stopped at 2:20 when he drew his last breath and hasn't been wound since. Personally, I'm pretty sure if that's true, a human was involved, but hey, it makes a good story.
Oh, and I forgot to mention there's a death mask, so we can get a rough sense of what he looked like (in 1786, with no teeth, and probably having lost some weight). He didn't actually sit for his portraits after he became king (man after my own heart), so they represent best attempts from people working from memory and may be less accurate than most such portraits? On the other hand, the older he got, the less they were probably trying to flatter him, so who knows? "Grumpy old king who won't even sit for the portrait can take what he gets." :P
The salon speculates about what happened to his dogs after his death
selenak: The last order Fritz is known to have given was to cover up his dog, who was shivering.
That detail kills me. Incidentally, do we know who took care of the dogs afterwards, or even if someone did?
mildred_of_midgard: I was hoping you knew! It's something I often wonder about. I have read in multiple places that the dogs had their own dedicated servant (who had to Sie/vous them, of course), so I'd like to think said servant continued to get paid and to take care of the dogs? I know there's a Superbe buried next to Fritz, but he also reused names, so idk if it's the one who was there when he died, or an earlier one. At any rate, I hope she (and any others who were with him until the end) was well cared for until her end.
Do you know how FW 2 felt about dogs?
selenak: No, I haven't seen it mentioned somewhere. Checked the wiki just in case it's mentioned...I'd say FW 2 could hold a grudge. But nothing I've read about him makes it sound like he was the type to take said grudge out on animals. Also, Heinrich was still alive and well at that point, and I dare say would have objected. If I were to make stuff up, I'd go for the irony of Heinrich ending up with the dogs. Or Wilhelmine the mistress does, who is depicted with dogs (though little ones) in some of her portraits and definitely liked them.
mildred_of_midgard: If I were going to make something up, I'd go with EC ending up with them. It seems like the kind of thing she would do regardless of whether she was a dog or a cat person (do we know?), and that might bring her some comfort.
But nothing I've read about him makes it sound like he was the type to take said grudge out on animals.
I'm less worried that he gave the orders to let the dogs starve, and more worried that they fell through the cracks in the transition from old King to new King. Another possibility is that they had their basic needs met after August 17, but not their emotional needs. I really hope they ended up in the hands of someone who actually liked dogs and would interact with them (or EC, who would probably make sure they got attention even if just for Fritz's sake).
selenak: I hear you. Yes, it's not just the feeding. Here's hoping, then, EC got the dogs!
mildred_of_midgard: Headcanon! I mean, the ideal outcome is that Fritz designated a trusted dog lover and they got the dogs, but second best, if no provisions were made (or if FW 2 juggled things so that wasn't an option), EC took care of them. I suspect she'd be allowed if she spoke up.
Alcmene buried in the same vault with Fritz
Courtesy offelis:
I found an article in "Communications from the Society for the History of Potsdam" (1864), Die Gruft auf Sanssouci (The Vault at Sanssouci), which talks about the two 19th century cave-ins. It says the first one happened between 1830 and 1840, the second one January 24th, 1860, which I'm side-eyeing, given how very convenient that date is. (On the other hand, maybe there were more people running around on that day specifically and that's why the cave-in happened? Who knows.)
Anyway, the author - A. Bethge, secretary of the garden administration - says he used the 1860 cave-in to go inside the vault! There was only a small hole so it was pretty dark, but he says he found a small pile of calcified bones that he thinks must have belonged to the one dog who got buried in there. And he took a piece of these bones as a souvenir. (He gives a source for his dog information, Manger, from 1789, who does indeed have a half-sentence saying that the favourite dogs were buried next to and the last one inside the vault, but there's no mention of his source for that and no name for the dog. Wiki tells me that Manger was an architect and construction official/building director, who seems to have worked on the New Palais, and actually got imprisoned shortly before Fritz' death for bad management and possible embezzlement, but then rehabilitated and promoted by FWII. Wiki also says that he kept a lot of building related records that Fritz told him to destroy.)
Bethge also cites the report of a guard who was there when the first cave-in happened, and who said that he saw a wooden box with a dog skeleton in the vault. Also, both cave-ins were due to rotting beams, and the vault itself was very simple, with whitewashed brick walls.
Make of that what you will. :)
FW2 digressionFW2 digression
selenak: Checked the wiki just in case it's mentioned, and it struck me that in this case, the German and English wiki entries on FW2 are utterly different. Not just because the German wiki entry is way more detailed (though no mention of dogs), but because the English entry is all "Fritz' concerns about his successor proved themselves to be justified" (i.e. traditional 19th century take), whereas the German entry is "Fritz systematically non-stop humiliated his successor and destroyed his reputation before he ever had the chance to acquiring it because, like Robert Graves' version of the Julian-Claudian emperors, he wanted his own glory to shine all the brighter", with FW2 pointedly not being allowed near his dying uncle, as would have been the custom even with estranged princes, one last deliberate humiliation. (He also had not been taught statecraft or allowed to participate in government in any way - he did have duties, just not those - and thus in this regard was as unprepared as MT had been when taking over.)
Now, the one thing Fritz and FW2 appeared to have in common is love of music; FW2's instrument of choice was the cello, which practiced sometimes up to four hours a day, belying the idea he was unable to focus on anything. But his working state business hours were ridiculously low compared with workaholic Fritz's, that's true, one of many ways he fashioned himself as the opposite of his uncle, and they were so many that I wouldn't be surprised if FW2 was a cat person just because of that.
It has to be said, though, that Fritz came by this nephew dislike honestly. The kid was taken from AW & wife & household of same at age 3 because it was the future crown prince, and raised by Fritz-appointed people exclusively. His schedule at age 4 were verbal German and French lessons in the morning, reception of courtiers at noon, writing French and German lessons in the afternoon, then play time but play time consisting of having to replay the lessons received during the day with dolls, then public dinner with courtiers. (A few years later, maths, history, geography, military drill and law were added.) When Fritz was told little FW was shy, he said the courtiers were to tease him as often as possible, so he'd get rid of that shyness post haste. (German wiki quotes from a letter from Fritz to AW to that effect, with Fritz telling his brother what he's ordered for his brother's son.) Then AW's own public humiliation and early death happen.
Net result: young FW is into women, forms life long attachment to later maitresse en titre Wilhelmine Encke (we talked about her), finds religion and spiritism for good measure, changes the theatre program in Berlin from French plays to Schiller plays soon as Fritz has breathed his last, stops French as the official court language in favour of German, stops the Hohenzollern/Habsburg dualism in favour of an alliance (due to the French Revolution as much as because of any uncle issues, though), has all 29 royal rooms in the Berlin Hohenzollern palace (i.e. the one in the city itself, not Potsdam or Sanssouci) refurnished from Rokoko into neoclassical), and ignores Fritz' orders re: burial in favour of a daylight pomp and circumstance funeral ending with Fritz getting buried next to FW1. So yes, I'd say FW 2 could hold a grudge.
ETA: This detailed account of Fritz's death, written by Johann Gottfried Kletschke in 1786, has since turned up.selenak summarizes:
Last Hours and Funeral
Having browsed through it, it is incredibly detailed, includes stuff like the exact clothing dead Fritz was dressed in, or that his "thin grey hair" was combed and powdered into "loose curls", and the name of the servant who held him when he died. (I'll translate the passage for you.) The whole tone is legic and hyperpatriotic, and this means the author runs into an obvious problem, to wit, that the whole funeral arrangements and procedure which he describes in loving detail was something the "Hochseliger" as he refers to Fritz, the late King of blessed memory, would explicitly not have wanted. At which point our author commits a blatant falsehood and goes (paraphrased): "Dear readers, you may have heard the story that Fritz wanted to be buried in Sanssouci. Well, maybe the whim struck him on one of those lovely evenings sitting out there, and he made a remark to that effect to a visitor, but I can assure you it really was no more than that, no written instructions anyway, and so our noble new king, who just couldn't know for sure one way or the other, decided to bury him worthily in royal style!"
The only point where he says something critical about the funeral arrangements etc. at all is when in the memorial service they play a new composition with Latin text by Lucchesini, and the author chides that it being in Latin means that most of the people assembled in the Garnisonskirche would have understood a word, and provides the text with German translation in an appendix. (It's basically "Who was the greatest? FRITZ! Fuck Yeah!" in Latin, in several verses, listing individual accomplishments - the land winning by river draining projects, Silesia, making his enemies quail in the 7 Years War, philosopher and writer.)
The death scene, starting in the evening: They say the King had asked about the time, and when he was told that it was 9 pm, he supposedly said then it was time for him to retire. There are a lot of other stories, the veracity of which I can't swear to, so I won't repeat them here. Finally, his breath became shorter and shorter, the moaning sound became softer and softer, as is the habit with a marusmus senilis, and at last, he took his last breath on Thursday morning at 2 am 19 minutes, leaning forwards to one side, with the head pressed against the body of the chamber servant ("Kammerlakei") Strizky.
Present during the death of this great monarch were, aside from the two royal chamber hussars, Mr. Neumann and Mr. Schöning, various other servants. His excellency the state and cabinet minister Baron von Herzberg, Generallieutenant Count von Görtz, and General Major and Master of the Horse Schwerin were situated in the side chambers next door. The royal physician, Dr. Selle, immediately called his excellency state and cabinet minister von Herzberg, who then signalled to the stableboy waiting at the ramp of Sanssouci that the King was dead, and the later immediately brought the news to his excellency Generallieutenant von Röddich and to the Prince of Prussia, now the current King's Majesty.
FW2 was in Sanssouci within hours. (And moved in one of the rooms for the next few days until everything administrative was transferred to the Berlin town palace, though he resided in one of the guest rooms; Fritz' chamber was sealed off.) Because Fritz had strictly forbidden an autopsy and an embalming (his mother had done the same thing; AW was the outlier with explicitly requesting an autopsy after his death), and it was August, the funeral really happened very quickly because of the threatening decay, and the death mask was also taken quickly for that reason. Otoh, the three coffins Fritz was put in were all opened again before they found their final place in case the body had been shaken and moved through the transport and had to be put back into dignified position.
Alas, no mentioning as to what became of the dogs in the entire text that I could see! (Though maybe I overlooked it, it was a very quick reading on my part.) I remember this was one of our old questions.
felis comments:
the author runs into an obvious problem, to wit, that the whole funeral arrangements and procedure which he describes in loving detail was something the "Hochseliger" as he refers to Fritz, the late King of blessed memory, would explicitly not have wanted
I noticed that! Manger had a similar problem when describing the Sanssouci vault and Fritz' wish to be buried there, but was a bit less embellishing: It's possible that he changed his mind over time, or that one didn't think it necessary to follow his instruction.
Kletschke, by the way, is this guy, military and court chaplain, and also responsible for and invested in reforming the military schools and the military orphanage in Potsdam during Fritz' last years, continuing that under FWII.
Because Fritz had strictly forbidden an autopsy and an embalming (his mother had done the same thing; AW was the outlier with explicitly requesting an autopsy after his death), and it was August, the funeral really happened very quickly because of the threatening decay, and the death mask was also taken quickly for that reason.
Yeah. FWIII wrote his own description of the day (which can be found in Vol. 3 of Volz' "Spiegel") - he was woken during the night, arrived shortly after his father, and mentions that two servants kept away the flies with green branches while Fritz' body was still in Sanssouci (the music room) and before he was washed with spirit alcohol. (No embalming, as we know, but they did make a couple of incisions to get rid of the water, and FWIII comments that if they could have done that when he was still alive, he might not have died.) Also: It has been said that the king probably never rested as gently as he does now that he is dead; for it must be remembered that the most blessed king lay on mattresses at all times during his lifetime and that the pillows in the coffin are extremely soft.
No mention of the dogs from him either. Which is almost surprising, given that he spent so much time in Sanssouci that day, but I guess they were brought away pretty quickly after Fritz' death, as to not be underfoot during the proceedings.
Mourning
felis:
These orders from June 1st, 1740, say that royals, royal servants, nobility, and ministers had to wear specific black clothing for six weeks after FW's death, starting June 15th. (To give them time for ordering/tailoring I guess. Until then, everybody was supposed to wear any black clothing they already had.) Royal carriages had to be clad in black, but nobody else's. Envoys could do what they wanted on their own time but had to appear in black at court. I suspect it might have been similar after Fritz' death regarding the "deep mourning" period, i.e. the black clothes, which I think is different from a general mourning period. I also found this FW edict from 1734, which specifies the different mourning periods after the deaths of ordinary citizens, and it also says that when a royal dies, there will be individual orders every time, which we see above. So FWII must have given his own, but I couldn't find a copy so far.
selenak adds:
Mildred,cahn, the FW micromanaging orders for mourning for ordinary citizens are fascinating and very FW/Prussian. Since they are written in the font you like to much, I shall translate:
Parents for children who were older than twelve years: three months. For children younger than twelve years: no mourning.
Biological parents, grandparents, great-gandparents: are to be mourned for six months. Adopted or stepparents as well as aunts: only thirty days.
Widow for her husband: exactly a year and no more.
Widower for his wife: half a year and no more.
Parents-in-law: half a year, no more.
People who made you their universal heir, even if they're not related to you: six months, if you like.
Brother, Sister, brother-in-law, sister-in-law: no more than three months.
mildred_of_midgard: So I'm a bit confused: does the six week rule only apply to FW qua monarch, so the servants and nobility are done after six weeks, but his wife and children have to abide by the family rules? Or is it six weeks across the board?
felis: I was wondering that as well, and also inhowfar position trumps personal relation, as in: surely Fritz himself as the new king did not actually wear black for six months. (Or even the six weeks??) The one thing I found at Trier were two entries in Droysen's itinerary, who marks the beginning of the deep mourning ("große Trauer") on June 15th, and then has an entry on June 1st, 1741, which says "Die Königin-Mutter legt die Trauer ab.", which would indicate that the family rules did indeed apply to royals. Or at least some of them, as I have a feeling that the rules for the women (and in another way, also for the military possibly) might have been their own thing, particularly because I just realized that I translated inaccurately in my initial comment: It doesn't actually say "royals", it says "royal princes"! Sorry about that. I don't know if that means that the guys got away with six weeks and the women didn't, though.
felis: Finally found FWII's order in this. The mourning details start page 31, and it says that the higher officers wore black waistcoats and trousers and black hats with mourning bands, captains the same minus the hat, everyone else just a mourning band. (Lots more details concerning how and where to wear the mourning band, and also about sashes and port d'epees etc.)
And I was totally wrong about the six weeks probably being the same for Fritz! Not only that, I think I was totally wrong about the six weeks entirely and didn't read closely enough. Sigh. My head is not in the game today. So. FWII's order, August 19th, 1786, has the same nobility/royal servants/ministers thing (minus the "royal princes" for some reason), but it's six months instead of weeks. Which made me go back to the document I linked earlier and I think the six weeks there are not for the entirety of the "wearing black" part, but only for the "carriages clad in black without crest" part. There is no other mention of a time period, though. It might have been six months back then as well, because I've read repeatedly that FWII went for "do things as they were done for FW" when it came to the burial and it would make sense that the same is true for the mourning period. Which means it would render the "family" vs. "royal" mourning moot, because it'd be the same except for SD, which is the one thing that's menioned separately by Droysen.
In the middle of 1785, Fritz's health took a sharp turn for the worse. He hadn't been able to play the flute since 1779, which was also the year of his last war, but he'd been pretty well hanging in there. After that point, it started to become increasingly clear that he was dying, and he gradually got worse and worse. Around the beginning of 1786, Heinrich started checking his mail every day for the announcement that Fritz was dead already and he could get to work on making that obelisk happen.
Fritz was no longer able to breathe while lying down, due to his worsening asthma, so he slept sitting up in his chair that last year. He occasionally able to ride his favorite horse around Sanssouci for short periods during the summer of 1786, but was mostly confined to his chair...working, working, working.
Naturally, he didn't stop being autocratic for one minute, and he continued being a workaholic whenever possible, which was most of the time. Despite periodic acute bouts of illness where it wasn't possible, he said he intended to die at his desk, and he very nearly did.
He was in enough pain his last year that celebrity seekers and other visitors kept remarking how impressed they were at the stoic (or Stoic) way he endured his suffering. First he stopped being able to read for pleasure on his own and had to be read to, and then in the last month he stopped being able to listen to his reader due to the pain...but he kept working. In those last few days, it was taking all his willpower to fight through the pain when reviewing and annotating reports, and his subordinates recorded that his concentration was impaired by the effort and he was having to rush through...but he kept working.
He worked all the way through August 15, keeping one of his ridiculously brutal workday schedules. Then he slept until midday on August 16--an almost unprecedented event from the man who woke up at 3 am every day on campaign and 4 in peacetime, and slept till 5 am in winter.
He spent that last day, August 16, fading in and out of consciousness. In the afternoon, he summoned an officer to give orders to, but then couldn't manage to speak. He finally gave up after three tries, with a wry look like "What can you do?"
At that point, the palliative care began.
As noted, he was having such trouble breathing that he had to sleep sitting up, but he kept slumping over in his sleep, which would compress his airways and wake him up gasping and coughing. Many nights he didn't sleep at all, or barely slept. In one of his letters late in life, Fritz joked to someone that if they were looking for a night watchman, he would like to apply for the job, seeing as he was an old hand at staying awake all night. So on the night of the 16th, one of his staff knelt beside his chair for hours and physically held Fritz upright so he could breathe as easily as possible and get some sleep.
The last order Fritz is known to have given was to cover up his dog, who was shivering. Italian greyhounds have very short coats and little body fat, so they're very susceptible to the cold. At 11 pm, he asked what time it was. Then he announced that he intended to get up at 4 am, as per usual.
Sometime between 11 pm and 2 am, a coughing fit brought up some phlegm that relieved his breathing somewhat. He said, "The mountain is passed; now we will go easier." Those were reported to be his last words: "La montagne est passée, nous irons mieux."
At 2:19 or 2:20 am on August 17, 1786, he died sitting up in his chair in his bedroom-cum-study at Sanssouci, in his valet's arms, his dog Superbe sleeping by his feet.
The room has since been renovated from his rococo into the Neoclassical style he hated (oh, Fritz); the chair is still there; and legend has it that the clock that was present at his death, and is still there, stopped at 2:20 when he drew his last breath and hasn't been wound since. Personally, I'm pretty sure if that's true, a human was involved, but hey, it makes a good story.
Oh, and I forgot to mention there's a death mask, so we can get a rough sense of what he looked like (in 1786, with no teeth, and probably having lost some weight). He didn't actually sit for his portraits after he became king (man after my own heart), so they represent best attempts from people working from memory and may be less accurate than most such portraits? On the other hand, the older he got, the less they were probably trying to flatter him, so who knows? "Grumpy old king who won't even sit for the portrait can take what he gets." :P
The salon speculates about what happened to his dogs after his death
selenak: The last order Fritz is known to have given was to cover up his dog, who was shivering.That detail kills me. Incidentally, do we know who took care of the dogs afterwards, or even if someone did?
mildred_of_midgard: I was hoping you knew! It's something I often wonder about. I have read in multiple places that the dogs had their own dedicated servant (who had to Sie/vous them, of course), so I'd like to think said servant continued to get paid and to take care of the dogs? I know there's a Superbe buried next to Fritz, but he also reused names, so idk if it's the one who was there when he died, or an earlier one. At any rate, I hope she (and any others who were with him until the end) was well cared for until her end.Do you know how FW 2 felt about dogs?
selenak: No, I haven't seen it mentioned somewhere. Checked the wiki just in case it's mentioned...I'd say FW 2 could hold a grudge. But nothing I've read about him makes it sound like he was the type to take said grudge out on animals. Also, Heinrich was still alive and well at that point, and I dare say would have objected. If I were to make stuff up, I'd go for the irony of Heinrich ending up with the dogs. Or Wilhelmine the mistress does, who is depicted with dogs (though little ones) in some of her portraits and definitely liked them.mildred_of_midgard: If I were going to make something up, I'd go with EC ending up with them. It seems like the kind of thing she would do regardless of whether she was a dog or a cat person (do we know?), and that might bring her some comfort.But nothing I've read about him makes it sound like he was the type to take said grudge out on animals.
I'm less worried that he gave the orders to let the dogs starve, and more worried that they fell through the cracks in the transition from old King to new King. Another possibility is that they had their basic needs met after August 17, but not their emotional needs. I really hope they ended up in the hands of someone who actually liked dogs and would interact with them (or EC, who would probably make sure they got attention even if just for Fritz's sake).
selenak: I hear you. Yes, it's not just the feeding. Here's hoping, then, EC got the dogs!mildred_of_midgard: Headcanon! I mean, the ideal outcome is that Fritz designated a trusted dog lover and they got the dogs, but second best, if no provisions were made (or if FW 2 juggled things so that wasn't an option), EC took care of them. I suspect she'd be allowed if she spoke up.Alcmene buried in the same vault with Fritz
Courtesy of
felis:I found an article in "Communications from the Society for the History of Potsdam" (1864), Die Gruft auf Sanssouci (The Vault at Sanssouci), which talks about the two 19th century cave-ins. It says the first one happened between 1830 and 1840, the second one January 24th, 1860, which I'm side-eyeing, given how very convenient that date is. (On the other hand, maybe there were more people running around on that day specifically and that's why the cave-in happened? Who knows.)
Anyway, the author - A. Bethge, secretary of the garden administration - says he used the 1860 cave-in to go inside the vault! There was only a small hole so it was pretty dark, but he says he found a small pile of calcified bones that he thinks must have belonged to the one dog who got buried in there. And he took a piece of these bones as a souvenir. (He gives a source for his dog information, Manger, from 1789, who does indeed have a half-sentence saying that the favourite dogs were buried next to and the last one inside the vault, but there's no mention of his source for that and no name for the dog. Wiki tells me that Manger was an architect and construction official/building director, who seems to have worked on the New Palais, and actually got imprisoned shortly before Fritz' death for bad management and possible embezzlement, but then rehabilitated and promoted by FWII. Wiki also says that he kept a lot of building related records that Fritz told him to destroy.)
Bethge also cites the report of a guard who was there when the first cave-in happened, and who said that he saw a wooden box with a dog skeleton in the vault. Also, both cave-ins were due to rotting beams, and the vault itself was very simple, with whitewashed brick walls.
Make of that what you will. :)
FW2 digressionFW2 digression
selenak: Checked the wiki just in case it's mentioned, and it struck me that in this case, the German and English wiki entries on FW2 are utterly different. Not just because the German wiki entry is way more detailed (though no mention of dogs), but because the English entry is all "Fritz' concerns about his successor proved themselves to be justified" (i.e. traditional 19th century take), whereas the German entry is "Fritz systematically non-stop humiliated his successor and destroyed his reputation before he ever had the chance to acquiring it because, like Robert Graves' version of the Julian-Claudian emperors, he wanted his own glory to shine all the brighter", with FW2 pointedly not being allowed near his dying uncle, as would have been the custom even with estranged princes, one last deliberate humiliation. (He also had not been taught statecraft or allowed to participate in government in any way - he did have duties, just not those - and thus in this regard was as unprepared as MT had been when taking over.)Now, the one thing Fritz and FW2 appeared to have in common is love of music; FW2's instrument of choice was the cello, which practiced sometimes up to four hours a day, belying the idea he was unable to focus on anything. But his working state business hours were ridiculously low compared with workaholic Fritz's, that's true, one of many ways he fashioned himself as the opposite of his uncle, and they were so many that I wouldn't be surprised if FW2 was a cat person just because of that.
It has to be said, though, that Fritz came by this nephew dislike honestly. The kid was taken from AW & wife & household of same at age 3 because it was the future crown prince, and raised by Fritz-appointed people exclusively. His schedule at age 4 were verbal German and French lessons in the morning, reception of courtiers at noon, writing French and German lessons in the afternoon, then play time but play time consisting of having to replay the lessons received during the day with dolls, then public dinner with courtiers. (A few years later, maths, history, geography, military drill and law were added.) When Fritz was told little FW was shy, he said the courtiers were to tease him as often as possible, so he'd get rid of that shyness post haste. (German wiki quotes from a letter from Fritz to AW to that effect, with Fritz telling his brother what he's ordered for his brother's son.) Then AW's own public humiliation and early death happen.
Net result: young FW is into women, forms life long attachment to later maitresse en titre Wilhelmine Encke (we talked about her), finds religion and spiritism for good measure, changes the theatre program in Berlin from French plays to Schiller plays soon as Fritz has breathed his last, stops French as the official court language in favour of German, stops the Hohenzollern/Habsburg dualism in favour of an alliance (due to the French Revolution as much as because of any uncle issues, though), has all 29 royal rooms in the Berlin Hohenzollern palace (i.e. the one in the city itself, not Potsdam or Sanssouci) refurnished from Rokoko into neoclassical), and ignores Fritz' orders re: burial in favour of a daylight pomp and circumstance funeral ending with Fritz getting buried next to FW1. So yes, I'd say FW 2 could hold a grudge.
ETA: This detailed account of Fritz's death, written by Johann Gottfried Kletschke in 1786, has since turned up.
selenak summarizes:Last Hours and Funeral
Having browsed through it, it is incredibly detailed, includes stuff like the exact clothing dead Fritz was dressed in, or that his "thin grey hair" was combed and powdered into "loose curls", and the name of the servant who held him when he died. (I'll translate the passage for you.) The whole tone is legic and hyperpatriotic, and this means the author runs into an obvious problem, to wit, that the whole funeral arrangements and procedure which he describes in loving detail was something the "Hochseliger" as he refers to Fritz, the late King of blessed memory, would explicitly not have wanted. At which point our author commits a blatant falsehood and goes (paraphrased): "Dear readers, you may have heard the story that Fritz wanted to be buried in Sanssouci. Well, maybe the whim struck him on one of those lovely evenings sitting out there, and he made a remark to that effect to a visitor, but I can assure you it really was no more than that, no written instructions anyway, and so our noble new king, who just couldn't know for sure one way or the other, decided to bury him worthily in royal style!"
The only point where he says something critical about the funeral arrangements etc. at all is when in the memorial service they play a new composition with Latin text by Lucchesini, and the author chides that it being in Latin means that most of the people assembled in the Garnisonskirche would have understood a word, and provides the text with German translation in an appendix. (It's basically "Who was the greatest? FRITZ! Fuck Yeah!" in Latin, in several verses, listing individual accomplishments - the land winning by river draining projects, Silesia, making his enemies quail in the 7 Years War, philosopher and writer.)
The death scene, starting in the evening: They say the King had asked about the time, and when he was told that it was 9 pm, he supposedly said then it was time for him to retire. There are a lot of other stories, the veracity of which I can't swear to, so I won't repeat them here. Finally, his breath became shorter and shorter, the moaning sound became softer and softer, as is the habit with a marusmus senilis, and at last, he took his last breath on Thursday morning at 2 am 19 minutes, leaning forwards to one side, with the head pressed against the body of the chamber servant ("Kammerlakei") Strizky.
Present during the death of this great monarch were, aside from the two royal chamber hussars, Mr. Neumann and Mr. Schöning, various other servants. His excellency the state and cabinet minister Baron von Herzberg, Generallieutenant Count von Görtz, and General Major and Master of the Horse Schwerin were situated in the side chambers next door. The royal physician, Dr. Selle, immediately called his excellency state and cabinet minister von Herzberg, who then signalled to the stableboy waiting at the ramp of Sanssouci that the King was dead, and the later immediately brought the news to his excellency Generallieutenant von Röddich and to the Prince of Prussia, now the current King's Majesty.
FW2 was in Sanssouci within hours. (And moved in one of the rooms for the next few days until everything administrative was transferred to the Berlin town palace, though he resided in one of the guest rooms; Fritz' chamber was sealed off.) Because Fritz had strictly forbidden an autopsy and an embalming (his mother had done the same thing; AW was the outlier with explicitly requesting an autopsy after his death), and it was August, the funeral really happened very quickly because of the threatening decay, and the death mask was also taken quickly for that reason. Otoh, the three coffins Fritz was put in were all opened again before they found their final place in case the body had been shaken and moved through the transport and had to be put back into dignified position.
Alas, no mentioning as to what became of the dogs in the entire text that I could see! (Though maybe I overlooked it, it was a very quick reading on my part.) I remember this was one of our old questions.
felis comments: the author runs into an obvious problem, to wit, that the whole funeral arrangements and procedure which he describes in loving detail was something the "Hochseliger" as he refers to Fritz, the late King of blessed memory, would explicitly not have wanted
I noticed that! Manger had a similar problem when describing the Sanssouci vault and Fritz' wish to be buried there, but was a bit less embellishing: It's possible that he changed his mind over time, or that one didn't think it necessary to follow his instruction.
Kletschke, by the way, is this guy, military and court chaplain, and also responsible for and invested in reforming the military schools and the military orphanage in Potsdam during Fritz' last years, continuing that under FWII.
Because Fritz had strictly forbidden an autopsy and an embalming (his mother had done the same thing; AW was the outlier with explicitly requesting an autopsy after his death), and it was August, the funeral really happened very quickly because of the threatening decay, and the death mask was also taken quickly for that reason.
Yeah. FWIII wrote his own description of the day (which can be found in Vol. 3 of Volz' "Spiegel") - he was woken during the night, arrived shortly after his father, and mentions that two servants kept away the flies with green branches while Fritz' body was still in Sanssouci (the music room) and before he was washed with spirit alcohol. (No embalming, as we know, but they did make a couple of incisions to get rid of the water, and FWIII comments that if they could have done that when he was still alive, he might not have died.) Also: It has been said that the king probably never rested as gently as he does now that he is dead; for it must be remembered that the most blessed king lay on mattresses at all times during his lifetime and that the pillows in the coffin are extremely soft.
No mention of the dogs from him either. Which is almost surprising, given that he spent so much time in Sanssouci that day, but I guess they were brought away pretty quickly after Fritz' death, as to not be underfoot during the proceedings.
Mourning
felis:These orders from June 1st, 1740, say that royals, royal servants, nobility, and ministers had to wear specific black clothing for six weeks after FW's death, starting June 15th. (To give them time for ordering/tailoring I guess. Until then, everybody was supposed to wear any black clothing they already had.) Royal carriages had to be clad in black, but nobody else's. Envoys could do what they wanted on their own time but had to appear in black at court. I suspect it might have been similar after Fritz' death regarding the "deep mourning" period, i.e. the black clothes, which I think is different from a general mourning period. I also found this FW edict from 1734, which specifies the different mourning periods after the deaths of ordinary citizens, and it also says that when a royal dies, there will be individual orders every time, which we see above. So FWII must have given his own, but I couldn't find a copy so far.
selenak adds:Mildred,
cahn, the FW micromanaging orders for mourning for ordinary citizens are fascinating and very FW/Prussian. Since they are written in the font you like to much, I shall translate:Parents for children who were older than twelve years: three months. For children younger than twelve years: no mourning.
Biological parents, grandparents, great-gandparents: are to be mourned for six months. Adopted or stepparents as well as aunts: only thirty days.
Widow for her husband: exactly a year and no more.
Widower for his wife: half a year and no more.
Parents-in-law: half a year, no more.
People who made you their universal heir, even if they're not related to you: six months, if you like.
Brother, Sister, brother-in-law, sister-in-law: no more than three months.
mildred_of_midgard: So I'm a bit confused: does the six week rule only apply to FW qua monarch, so the servants and nobility are done after six weeks, but his wife and children have to abide by the family rules? Or is it six weeks across the board?felis: I was wondering that as well, and also inhowfar position trumps personal relation, as in: surely Fritz himself as the new king did not actually wear black for six months. (Or even the six weeks??) The one thing I found at Trier were two entries in Droysen's itinerary, who marks the beginning of the deep mourning ("große Trauer") on June 15th, and then has an entry on June 1st, 1741, which says "Die Königin-Mutter legt die Trauer ab.", which would indicate that the family rules did indeed apply to royals. Or at least some of them, as I have a feeling that the rules for the women (and in another way, also for the military possibly) might have been their own thing, particularly because I just realized that I translated inaccurately in my initial comment: It doesn't actually say "royals", it says "royal princes"! Sorry about that. I don't know if that means that the guys got away with six weeks and the women didn't, though.felis: Finally found FWII's order in this. The mourning details start page 31, and it says that the higher officers wore black waistcoats and trousers and black hats with mourning bands, captains the same minus the hat, everyone else just a mourning band. (Lots more details concerning how and where to wear the mourning band, and also about sashes and port d'epees etc.)And I was totally wrong about the six weeks probably being the same for Fritz! Not only that, I think I was totally wrong about the six weeks entirely and didn't read closely enough. Sigh. My head is not in the game today. So. FWII's order, August 19th, 1786, has the same nobility/royal servants/ministers thing (minus the "royal princes" for some reason), but it's six months instead of weeks. Which made me go back to the document I linked earlier and I think the six weeks there are not for the entirety of the "wearing black" part, but only for the "carriages clad in black without crest" part. There is no other mention of a time period, though. It might have been six months back then as well, because I've read repeatedly that FWII went for "do things as they were done for FW" when it came to the burial and it would make sense that the same is true for the mourning period. Which means it would render the "family" vs. "royal" mourning moot, because it'd be the same except for SD, which is the one thing that's menioned separately by Droysen.
