other than Henri de Catt, is he on the record with talking about Katte to anyone?
Not that I'm aware of. And I had considered that Katte and Fredersdorf are the two he doesn't talk about. If that's the case, I feel like class must play a role, because if he doesn't talk about Katte, or if he doesn't talk more about Katte, surely the acute trauma aspect is the biggest factor. And that wouldn't be there with Fredersdorf. (Unless Fredersdorf *did* do something financially less than aboveboard in Fritz's eyes, which I have considered as a possibility for why Fritz won't talk about him, but atm we have no evidence for that and I hope we never do, so I can't exactly invoke it as a reason.)
The problem is that so much of our evidence is indirect. Do we believe Catt? If so, then we can take Voltaire's memoirs as circumstantial evidence that Fritz also talked to Voltaire. In which case he almost certainly wrote or talked to Wilhelmine. But if we don't believe Catt, then maybe Catt was putting a first-person account into the mouth of Fritz, based on a third-person account that Voltaire had come up with (the timing works), and then maybe Wilhelimine was working exclusively from third-person accounts too.
Because I feel like there's an if-then here: *if* he talked to C + V, *then* he surely talked to Wilhelmine at some point. And it would be entirely consistent with the evidence we have to suppose that he wrote to her from Küstrin, she burned the letters immediately, and then when writing her memoirs, she reconstructed events from a combination of accounts that were floating around at the time plus her memories of those long-ago burned letters. Or perhaps he talked to her in person during that visit home he was allowed in 1731. He's clearly not her only source, but his 1731 self may be one of her sources.
But maybe she's going exclusively from rumor and he talked to *no one*, ever (or only Fredersdorf in private?), and Catt's making stuff up again. You're right that the Katte and Küstrin episode would be the Holy Grail, and it is incredibly soon after Catt starts working for him, for a topic Fritz isn't known for sure to have talked about with anyone. I raised an eyebrow the first time I saw Fritz talking about it with Catt, and then both eyebrows when I realized it was a month after Catt started his new job. Either Fritz had a standard account he ran through with people he either didn't want relying exclusively on the many rumors he no doubt knew were floating about, or felt like venting to, or else Catt is a freaking liar. It's just so hard to tell.
(Though the century where everyone is on opium in one form or another is the 19th. Seriously. They even put it in calming syrups for children.)
Yes, exactly. I associate laudanum and other forms of ubiquitous opium with the 19th century.
But waybe it was just something like waterpipes, to clean out the lungs and nostrils with steam.
Perhaps. But I still want to know which "certain herbs" are used for that!
Re: Fritz and Wilhelmine Correspondance, Trier Version III - Three Funerals and a Wedding
Not that I'm aware of. And I had considered that Katte and Fredersdorf are the two he doesn't talk about. If that's the case, I feel like class must play a role, because if he doesn't talk about Katte, or if he doesn't talk more about Katte, surely the acute trauma aspect is the biggest factor. And that wouldn't be there with Fredersdorf. (Unless Fredersdorf *did* do something financially less than aboveboard in Fritz's eyes, which I have considered as a possibility for why Fritz won't talk about him, but atm we have no evidence for that and I hope we never do, so I can't exactly invoke it as a reason.)
The problem is that so much of our evidence is indirect. Do we believe Catt? If so, then we can take Voltaire's memoirs as circumstantial evidence that Fritz also talked to Voltaire. In which case he almost certainly wrote or talked to Wilhelmine. But if we don't believe Catt, then maybe Catt was putting a first-person account into the mouth of Fritz, based on a third-person account that Voltaire had come up with (the timing works), and then maybe Wilhelimine was working exclusively from third-person accounts too.
Because I feel like there's an if-then here: *if* he talked to C + V, *then* he surely talked to Wilhelmine at some point. And it would be entirely consistent with the evidence we have to suppose that he wrote to her from Küstrin, she burned the letters immediately, and then when writing her memoirs, she reconstructed events from a combination of accounts that were floating around at the time plus her memories of those long-ago burned letters. Or perhaps he talked to her in person during that visit home he was allowed in 1731. He's clearly not her only source, but his 1731 self may be one of her sources.
But maybe she's going exclusively from rumor and he talked to *no one*, ever (or only Fredersdorf in private?), and Catt's making stuff up again. You're right that the Katte and Küstrin episode would be the Holy Grail, and it is incredibly soon after Catt starts working for him, for a topic Fritz isn't known for sure to have talked about with anyone. I raised an eyebrow the first time I saw Fritz talking about it with Catt, and then both eyebrows when I realized it was a month after Catt started his new job. Either Fritz had a standard account he ran through with people he either didn't want relying exclusively on the many rumors he no doubt knew were floating about, or felt like venting to, or else Catt is a freaking liar. It's just so hard to tell.
(Though the century where everyone is on opium in one form or another is the 19th. Seriously. They even put it in calming syrups for children.)
Yes, exactly. I associate laudanum and other forms of ubiquitous opium with the 19th century.
But waybe it was just something like waterpipes, to clean out the lungs and nostrils with steam.
Perhaps. But I still want to know which "certain herbs" are used for that!