Aw, Lehndorff, we agree they're no good! Just... also we think Heinrich found them hot :P
I keep being amazed we actually have one of the no-good guys in question (Mara) tell this to Lehndorff point blank on June 1st 1777:
This - Heinrich spending all this money on Kaphengst while overlooking TRULY LOYAL people - reminds me that one day, I strongly remonstrated with Mara, a strong favourite of the Prince’s, because he had behaved very impudently towards his Highness. The creature replied to me: „Oh, you don’t know this Prince as I do. If you don’t behave like a bastard towards him, you’re not getting anywhere.“
But yes. Short of changing Heinrich's entire sexual taste, at least up to his old age (there's no sign that the Come was in any way a bastard towards Heinrich), Lehndorff doesn't stand a chance for becoming the favourite. (I think it's significant that the time when the Heinrich and Lehndorff relationship was at its most intense in the romantic sense, 1752/ early 1753, was just after Heinrich got married. Lehndorff wasn't the only one even then (that was the time of Reisewitz the money waster and Lamberg the sort of okay guy as well), but he did see Heinrich on an almost daily basis and considered it the height of inhumanity when Heinrich had to go to Potsdam for three days. Given all the marriage symbolized and the way Heinrich really hated being married, I think he must have found Lehndorff's tenderness and sweetness very soothing. And it's not that he didn't care for Lehndorff beyond that time - after all, they kept reconnecting whenever they had a fallout, Heinrich kept inviting Lehndorff to Rheinsberg at least once a year after Lehndorff's retirement, offered to take him on both the second Russia and the first France trip (which Lehndorff had to decline for family reasons) etc. - but it does come across that he simply doesn't find Lehndorff an exciting lover in the way he does the dastardly boyfriends.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2023-01-07 08:57 am (UTC)I keep being amazed we actually have one of the no-good guys in question (Mara) tell this to Lehndorff point blank on June 1st 1777:
This - Heinrich spending all this money on Kaphengst while overlooking TRULY LOYAL people - reminds me that one day, I strongly remonstrated with Mara, a strong favourite of the Prince’s, because he had behaved very impudently towards his Highness. The creature replied to me: „Oh, you don’t know this Prince as I do. If you don’t behave like a bastard towards him, you’re not getting anywhere.“
But yes. Short of changing Heinrich's entire sexual taste, at least up to his old age (there's no sign that the Come was in any way a bastard towards Heinrich), Lehndorff doesn't stand a chance for becoming the favourite. (I think it's significant that the time when the Heinrich and Lehndorff relationship was at its most intense in the romantic sense, 1752/ early 1753, was just after Heinrich got married. Lehndorff wasn't the only one even then (that was the time of Reisewitz the money waster and Lamberg the sort of okay guy as well), but he did see Heinrich on an almost daily basis and considered it the height of inhumanity when Heinrich had to go to Potsdam for three days. Given all the marriage symbolized and the way Heinrich really hated being married, I think he must have found Lehndorff's tenderness and sweetness very soothing. And it's not that he didn't care for Lehndorff beyond that time - after all, they kept reconnecting whenever they had a fallout, Heinrich kept inviting Lehndorff to Rheinsberg at least once a year after Lehndorff's retirement, offered to take him on both the second Russia and the first France trip (which Lehndorff had to decline for family reasons) etc. - but it does come across that he simply doesn't find Lehndorff an exciting lover in the way he does the dastardly boyfriends.