cahn | Frederick the Great reveal post / discussion post 8

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Frederick the Great reveal post / discussion post 8

In the last several months, as anyone who reads this DW knows,

selenak and I have been part of this quite frankly amazing Frederick the Great fandom, and I sort of assumed that the two people in this fandom who actually knew anything, mildred and selenak, were going to write fics for Yuletide, and I (who know nothing except what they've told me in the last several months) was going to awesomely enjoy reading them. In fact, mildred wrote a Fredersdorf fic for selenak's prompt which I betaed, but then mildred's medical issues got bad enough to interfere with her writing fic (making the beta edits would have involved a substantial amount of rewrite), and she wrote a post lamenting she wasn't going to be able to produce any yuletide fic. Meanwhile, I had two fics that I was pretty sure were from

selenak, and I thought it would be a shame for her to write us fic and for her not to get any :(

So then mildred and I had this (very paraphrased) conversation (

mildred_of_midgard has her own account here, and she has promised to reproduce the actual conversation in comments to this post):

me: You know, we should really write something for selenak! Now that I've read what you wrote about Fredersdorf, I think I could take a stab at her Fredersdorf prompt, if you edited and otherwise helped me out with historical stuff and also if you don't mind it being way more about music than something you would write.
mildred: YES GOD YES ~~and also oh you sweet summer child thinking you know enough to write this~~. [Mildred was far FAR nicer than this in real life.] For starters, here are 3500 words [really!] of things I know for a fact you don't know about Fredersdorf.
me: ...I was clearly overoptimistic. But I can work with this. Um, also, all the creativity-generating bits of my brain are already being used for my assignment, so can you also come up with an idea for the fic and also answer all my historical questions?
mildred: Sure! While I'm thinking about this, have 2k more words of historical grounding! Ok, and here are some ideas too. In fact, here's a whole plot for you!
me: Great! *writes 4k words of the plot*
mildred and me, more-or-less in unison: You did all the hard parts!

Then mildred fixed all my extensive historical errors and was fortunately able in between various medical woes to add various parts like the entire Wilhelmine subtheme and the entire last scene, and we deleted some of my words, and then I wrote some more paragraphs about music at her request and edited some of her stuff. I estimate that I probably ended up writing ~4.5k of the final fic, and mildred ended up writing ~ 2k of it (does that sound about right?) Of course that does not count the... I have no idea how much historical consultantcy stuff mildred ended up writing in the end, but I imagine it was significantly upwards of 10k :P And of course she wrote the detailed endnotes :D It also does not count all the words written in comments to the google document where we argued things like that Fredersdorf should be more zen than mildred wanted to write him and less zen than I wanted to write him :)

Although mildred and I mostly agreed on things, I had final veto power (and I did wield it a couple of times), so any remaining problems should be thought of as mine :) I'm very curious, though, as to how evident the collaboration was, and how evident the seams were, as I think mildred and I have very different writing styles, but it went through enough editing passes and discussion that I suspect much of the differences got at least somewhat smoothed out?

Counterpoint for Two Flutes

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Though I think it's more likely Pöllnitz was the Ur-source for W and T.

From external evidence you'd think so, but look more closely at the linguistic similarities exclusively between W and T. They pretty much never have different things in common with P that they don't have with each other, and aside from the fact that P and T but not W talk about Katte's family here, T never has things in common with P that he doesn't have with W. But T and W are overwhelmingly similar to each other.

Look especially at the description of Fritz's reaction to Katte's death, at the end of the "W/T shared innovations" comment, and tell me how W and T can be independently drawing on P.

The comparative method tells me that T and W are more closely related to each other than either is to P. And I agree that going purely from external facts, that is a surprising conclusion. It was definitely surprising to me when I sat down and typed up every passage word for word.

W consulting P and them more or less independently creating their memoirs from a shared agreement of what the facts were makes sense, both from linguistic and external evidence. But the stronger similarities between T and W still have to be accounted for.

Your hypothesis that maybe T knew about the memoirs but Fritz didn't is interesting. The timing definitely works, since crazy uncle Christian inherited in 1763, and T started to work for Fritz in 1765.

I could also see how there could be unanimity among everyone who took one look at that manuscript on the subject of: "Uh, maybe don't tell Fritz. By which I mean, definitely don't tell Fritz. In fact, voluntarily rip out your own tongue and eyes with hot pincers before you tell Fritz." In 1763, Wilhelmine was only 4, 5 years dead, he'd just come out of a long war that had ruined his physical and mental health, and his country's economy wasn't in the greatest state.

It's possible that T heard about W secretly in the 1760s, and then when he was writing his memoirs (I don't know when he composed them, but he left Fritz in 1784 to return to France, and the memoirs weren't published until 1804), got a copy of the manuscript.

"Seckendorf also wanted to save..." etc. definitely sounds like an almost verbatim transcription, you're right.

I could also see how there could be unanimity among everyone who took one look at that manuscript on the subject of: "Uh, maybe don't tell Fritz. By which I mean, definitely don't tell Fritz. In fact, voluntarily rip out your own tongue and eyes with hot pincers before you tell Fritz."

Quite. And handwritten copies were a thing. (That's how the Dowager Duchess of Würtemberg got a copy of Voltaire's Pucelle before Fritz did, and, in fact, why we have an Urfaust, i.e. a version of Faust I before Goethe ever published it - a lady-in-waiting to Anna Amalia head him read it out loud and transcribed it for the Duchess. If one of those Bayreuth scholars who ended up in Berlin got chummy with Thiébault and told him about the memoirs in confidence, he could have both made a copy and had a very good reason why he didn't tell Fritz (or anyone else of the royal family, for that matter).

Wilhelmine'd daughter might have known, as some of Wilhelmine's last letters when she had trouble holding a pen were dictated to her, but I don't think so, not least because Wilhelmine didn't seem to have touched the manuscript again after the mid 40s - when said daughter was in Würtemberg being miserable with husband Carl Eugen - , and her daughter didn't return to Bayreuth until the early 1750s.

I briefly wondered whether Wilhelmine could have written the memoirs without anyone in her immediate surroundings noticing, but she totally could have, since she was not only an avid and passionate letter writer (Fritz was her primary correspondant but by no means her only one) but a composer and libretto writer, and she could have just claimed she was busy with letters and/or a new composition. (When the memoirs got published and the first reaction was "anti Prussian forgery!", the fact that there was a manuscript in her recognizable handwriting settled that she was indeed the author, so she did not dictate any of it. Still, she might have said something or let something slip in the presence of a librarian or scholar. Espeically if she tried to find some histories and chronicles for the whole business between, say, her father and the Austrians, or the convoluted English marriage negotiations, and of course the holy grail, anything to do with 1730; going to Berlin was not an option in the early 1740s, so asking a scholar/historian from or around Bayreuth would have been a logical step to take, and even if she didn't tell that person just why she wanted the info, they might have guessed.

I read a Fontane biography last year (he had a big anniversary year in 2019, so there were a lot of Fontane related publications), but alas I don't think it mentioned in detail where he got the Katte related material from. For obvious reasons, biographers put their emphasis on him as a novelist.

I briefly wondered whether Wilhelmine could have written the memoirs without anyone in her immediate surroundings noticing, but she totally could have

I mean, Émilie managed to compose a secret submission to the Academy of Sciences *and* submit it by mail without anyone finding out, just by pretending she was tired and going to bed early. I'm sure composing your memoirs without mailing them is equally doable.

so asking a scholar/historian from or around Bayreuth would have been a logical step to take, and even if she didn't tell that person just why she wanted the info, they might have guessed.

That makes absolute perfect sense, especially since Wilhelmine has a lot of information that isn't in Pöllnitz. For example, she's transcribed Katte's letter to his grandfather, and an inscription on the window of the cell he wrote while he was imprisoned there. She must have gotten access to something, if she isn't totally making it up. And yes, that's the sort of thing where someone could totally catch on if you asked enough questions.

For obvious reasons, biographers put their emphasis on him as a novelist.

Don't they know they need to put their emphasis on Katte?? ;)

Possibly no longer relevant, but while looking up some tidbits from Lehndorff again, I came across an entry on November 16th 1753 where (after reporting that AW and Heinrich have started their RPG) he mentions he‘s just read a „History of our last four Kings“ by Pöllnitz. (Because it covers „four“ , he can’t mean one of the earlier memoirs.) (Though I assume Pöllnitz updated after the Seven Years War.) This is also only four days after Wilhelmine and the Margrave leave Berlin after their visit, and Pöllnitz is mentioned as around, quipping and socializing throughout the entire visit. Lehndorff doesn‘t say whether he read a handwritten copy or a private print, but he gives as title „History of (our last) four kings“ (of the House of Brandenburg“, and he was by no means a close friend of Pöllnitz, so that book must have been available at the Prussian court if you wanted it, and possible beyond.

That is interesting. It seems unlikely that T was using it, but W may have been. The earliest date I have for that manuscript was 1754; now we have late 1753, which moves it back closer in time to 1745. At the very least, as I mentioned originally, anything of that size and scope, requiring that much research, completed by 1753 may have been in the making in 1745, or at least some of the topics may have been fresh in the author's mind.

One thing that isn't in my write-up, and I may at some point actually type up the passages in question, is that W and P describe Katte, when they introduce him, use such similar language that I don't think they can both be independently recording their personal impressions of him. And that's interesting, because unlike with Küstrin, where neither of them was there, Katte was in Berlin and
I always assumed Wilhelmine was just writing down what she remembered, of course with the benefit of hindsight. And then I wondered...how well did Pöllnitz know Katte? Judging by his letters, he was only passing through Berlin briefly in 1729, long enough to record some things about the royal family, but long enough for Katte to make an impression? I doubt it, unless Fritz was already making a spectacle of himself over his new bf (as far as I know, we don't know exactly when they met).

I've kind of thought all along that Pöllnitz might be getting his info on Katte's appearance and personality from Wilhelmine. Which suggests that it's not that she had a copy of his manuscript when composing her memoirs, but that they were communicating with each other, in person or by letter. Which is kind of what we
anyway suspected, but this might be independent corroborating evidence.

What I really should do is beef up my French enough to read Pöllnitz and Thiébault and see how closely they and Wilhelmine all follow each other in other episodes. My kingdom for a working brain and more time.

Greetings to you! This is Beginning_Returner.

From the looks of it, you've laid some pretty solid groundwork for your subject of interest. Now if you want to take your research further, I'd say you should cast your net further and check if scholars have conducted similar comparisons and what their conclusions were regarding the source texts you examine. Your work is clear and well put together, as to be expected from a fellow academic!

Catt and Voltaire do have a common thread: Fritz. He could have verbally recounted to them the same rendition of the story-- as time goes on, people tend to solidify a certain rendition of a memory in their minds.

As for the nephew and heir, it seems as though Selena is correct in her evaluation. I assume you've gone through mentions of the future FW II in Fritz's published letters here as well:

http://friedrich.uni-trier.de/de/oeuvres/

Now if you want to take your research further, I'd say you should cast your net further and check if scholars have conducted similar comparisons and what their conclusions were regarding the source texts you examine. Your work is clear and well put together, as to be expected from a fellow academic!

Thanks! Next up would definitely be a literature survey, but as I mentioned to

iberiandoctor in a different thread on this post, "I would definitely need a German [I meant to say German-speaking] co-author, for things like the literature survey, and inspecting primary materials."

Catt and Voltaire do have a common thread: Fritz. He could have verbally recounted to them the same rendition of the story-- as time goes on, people tend to solidify a certain rendition of a memory in their minds.

Yep, that's exactly what I think! I put that forward as the most likely scenario in my introduction to the Catt & Voltaire comment. I also mentioned, in a different thread that I didn't link you to, that Fritz might have had a set version of events he ran through when he wanted to talk about it. That's not unusual, especially for trauma.

As for the nephew and heir, it seems as though Selena is correct in her evaluation. I assume you've gone through mentions of the future FW II in Fritz's published letters here as well:

I think Selena's question was: in his diary, does Catt record Fritz saying nice things about FW2? Or are these possibly words Catt put in his mouth later, after FW2 was king? Because the rest of what Fritz has to say about FW2 is not so complimentary, and Catt doesn't seem to have a problem putting words into Fritz's mouth.

The letters: we have definitely read extensive excerpts quoted by other sources, Selena has access to some of the letters in German translation, I've Google-translated chunks of correspondents I'm interested in, but none of us have the French to have read them all beginning to end. However! This may change, as last week I wrote a program that will generate a single file containing all the letters for a given correspondent, with French and Google-translated English interleaved, which is making reading his correspondence muuuch easier for those of us who don't have adequate French for the original. (We all had about 2-3 years' worth of French in school.)

selenak, if you have requests for any correspondents, let me know! I've sent Wilhelmine to

cahn, and am starting on Suhm myself, as my concentration permits. There will hopefully be a Suhm write-up soon.

I think Selena's question was: in his diary, does Catt record Fritz saying nice things about FW2? Or are these possibly words Catt put in his mouth later, after FW2 was king? Because the rest of what Fritz has to say about FW2 is not so complimentary, and Catt doesn't seem to have a problem putting words into Fritz's mouth.

Yes, that's what I meant, though considering FW2 died in 1797, and his son FW3 was as fond of him as FW2 was of Fritz (surprise!), Catt, who as I understand it wrote his memoirs much later than 1797, has at least not the reason of wanting favor from (dead) FW2. Unless he feels sorry for him after the fact, since in the 19th century FW2's reputation was as Fritz had declared it to be when alive (he didn't start to get good press until the 20th century got more Fritz-sceptical).

Correspondants: AW and Heinrich come to mind...

No, Catt died in 1795, at least according to Wikipedia. (I suppose I could check his memoirs, but I'm multitasking rn.) Wikipedia says he also died in Potsdam, which suggests the memoirs may have been written, or at least edited, while FW2 was king.

AW & Heinrich: will get on it!

Okay, if Catt died before FW2 did, and in Potsdam, to boot, then he DEFINITELY has a motive for letting Fritz be complimentary about young FW.

(In fairness: again, maybe Fritz was feeling both guilty on AW‘s behalf and sentimental. Lehndorff, btw, is very fond of young FW, and says a lot of nice things about him, too, but then Lehndorff isn‘t on the record for dissing him all the time, either, and is consistent there. (He does diss Borck, the man Fritz put in charge of young FW‘s education, though, for making fun of him (FW) all the time when he‘s clumsy and teaching him to make fun of other people when they make mistakes instead of encouraging him to be kind.)

No need to rush, take your time.

he DEFINITELY has a motive for letting Fritz be complimentary about young FW

I agree!

Now, the chronology is that the diary would have been written 1758-1760; the memoirs we don't know when they were composed, but 1786 is suggested as a possible date for the composition or revision; Catt is estranged from Fritz in 1782; Catt dies in 1795 in Potsdam; the memoirs weren't published until 1885.

So there's a very good chance editing was happening when Catt was 1) pissed off at Fritz, 2) sucking up to FW.

So that's why the question is: do the diaries contain these mentions of 1758-1760 Fritz being nice to FW2 when speaking of him to Catt?

teaching him to make fun of other people when they make mistakes instead of encouraging him to be kind

The traumatized previous generation traumatizing the next generation, and on and on it goes.

So there's a very good chance editing was happening when Catt was 1) pissed off at Fritz, 2) sucking up to FW.

German wiki - but not English wiki - tells me about Catt that „1789 ernannte ihn der König Friedrich Wilhelm II. zum Kantor der Stiftskirche St. Sebastian in Magdeburg“, so basically: gave him a job after the memoirs were written. German wiki also tells me that Catt‘s brother in law Pierre Jerèmie Hainchelin, who died in 1787, was, before becoming a highly regarded and high ranking Prussian civil servant, the personal secretary of, wait for it, AW until AW‘s death. Which presumably is why in the memoirs, Fritz just happens to declare that if AW instead of „evil advisors“ would have had only honest folk like Hainchelin with him, his life would have been calmer and his mind would not have been set against Fritz at all.

*am not sure whether I‘m side-eying Catt or Fritz more now*

You can side-eye both of them! It's legit!

Also, wow, missed that about Hainchelin. See, the more we dig, the more we find!

*side-eyes everyone*

According to wiki, Hainchelin's family was a member of the "French Colony", i.e. those Huguenots who'd been kicked out by Louis XIV and had come to Prussia thanks to the Great Elector. (Same for the much later Fontane, btw, for both of his parents.) So despite the name, he was actually a born Prussian. After AW's death, went on to have a good career in the civil service, as I said, and died in office 40 years later. Now, what I'm assuming Catt did was recording an original Fritz remark like "if he didn't have evil advisors" (tm), and in the memoirs beefing it up to "if he only had good guys around him like my bro-in-law instead of evil advisors!" The evil advisors bit was something Fritz resorted to in other letters as well as an excuse, so that bit rings authentic.

Incidentally, on the other end of the scale, blaming "evil advisors" for Fritz' behavior towards AW was also a thing for Lehndorff, who cast Winderfeldt as evil advisor (tm), presumably because Winterfeldt was the one reading out the charges against AW at the casheering. (Also Heinrich couldn't stand him, which was bound to influence Lehndorff's opinion.) "Evil advisors" are really such a useful trope if you want to deflect blame.

But going back to Catt, the list of examples of him being, hm, somewhat economic with the truth keep growing, so I wonder why modern biographers point out Wilhelmine is not always reliable (due to writing from memory, dramatic exaggaration or what not) but not Catt? Why is he always accepted as the horse's mouth? Or did I miss him being presented as flawed as well?

I've seen him presented as flawed (I'm forgetting where), but I definitely overestimated the extent to which he is actually the horse's mouth, and you're right that others have too. Sexism aside, the general perception may be because we know Wilhelmine was writing when she was estranged from Fritz and had limited access to sources, and often about events for which she was not present, whereas Catt keeps talking in his memoirs about the extensive and detailed diary he kept for events at which he was present. The number of people who've done the "waaait a minute!" line by line comparison between diary and memoirs is probably less than ideal.

ETA: I think there's also the fact that there's a long tradition of pointing out that Wilhelmine (and Pöllnitz) are inaccurate: e.g. Carlyle and Fontane do it, whereas Catt's memoirs weren't published until almost the twentieth century. So I think modern biographers are also copying older biographers with W and P.

Edited 2020-01-08 08:54 (UTC)

Yessss Heinrich was totally going to be my next ask :D Mildred, I demand these too when they're done :D Voltaire also came to mind, of course!

Haha, I knew Heinrich was next on your list!

I will generate the files, put everything I have on Google Drive, and make sure you both have access. :D I'm also going to try to dump some other files there as soon as I can get my hands on them.

I really enjoyed all of this but I don't have anything to contribute? Except that this all sounds very plausible :)

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Frederick the Great reveal post / discussion post 8

Re: Katte Textual Criticism: Discussion (REPLY HERE)

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Re: Katte Textual Criticism: Discussion (REPLY HERE)

Re: Katte Textual Criticism: Discussion (REPLY HERE)

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Correspondents

Re: Correspondents

Re: Katte Textual Criticism: Discussion (REPLY HERE)