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Frederick the Great discussion post 9
...I leave you guys alone for one weekend and it's time for a new Fritz post, lol!
I'm gonna reply to the previous post comments but I guess new letter-reading, etc. should go in this one :)
Frederick the Great links
I'm gonna reply to the previous post comments but I guess new letter-reading, etc. should go in this one :)
Frederick the Great links
Random things
Okay, fair, Fritz and Algarotti talked a lot about Voltaire, who's super famous and whom Algarotti has met and stayed at his house.
But then I was like, "Wasn't that quote from the Suhm letters?" And sure enough, Fritz writes to Suhm,
"We have had here Mylord Baltimore and the young Algarotti, both men who, by their knowledge, must reconcile the esteem and consideration of all who see them. We talked a lot about you, about philosophy, about science, about the arts, finally about everything that must be understood in the taste of honest people."
And I had been wondering why "a lot" about Suhm and if that was maybe a mere politeness for "you came up when we talked about Wolff." Because Suhm is just not that famous.
But I just checked the chronology, and yes, Algarotti was on his way back from St. Petersburg to England when he hit Rheinsberg. I knew they were both 1739, couldn't remember if it went St. Petersburg - Rheinsberg, or Rheinsberg - St. Petersburg.
So when Fritz met Algarotti, Algarotti must have just met Suhm at court in St. Petersburg and had him fresh on his mind during their conversation.
I'm also struck by the parallels in the two passages, written about 10 days apart.
2) This hilarious anecdote from Lavisse about tiny terror FW.
From the age of four, he was a formidable youngster. One day, while they were dressing him, he tore a buckle from his shoe, and put it into his mouth. When they wished to take it away from him, he swallowed it. His mother uttered cries that would have "melted rocks"; his father, majestic as he was, came near losing his senses. The physicians, however, prescribed a purgative and the buckle is on exhibition in a glass case, at the Hohenzollern Museum, in Berlin. (Lavisse is writing in 1891.)
Never doing things by halves indeed.
Lavisse also says in this paragraph that it wasn't just George that FW beat up while staying with his grandparents, but the "Prince of Courlande" he had to be pried away from because he had him by the hair and wouldn't let go. Now I have to wonder which prince of Courlande. Future (in)famous de facto ruler of Russia who was 2 years younger than FW? Or some other one?
Re: Random things
You mean this guy? Sounds about right, seeing that he spent part of his childhood in the Prussia of F1.
Also, lol about tiny terror FW. Clearly, everyone lucked out that him and Peter I weren't quite the same generation and never met as Children, only as adults.
The very similar phrasing: must admit I've done that in some letters, too. Though it does show how highly Fritz thinks of Suhm. Having had a brief glance at the Algarotti letters, I see he also writes to A. about Suhm's death, very touchingly.
Re: Random things
Though it does show how highly Fritz thinks of Suhm.
Indeed! Exactly what I was thinking.
I see he also writes to A. about Suhm's death, very touchingly.
He does! I gave the full quote in my Suhm writeup here.
This is Fritz writing to Algarotti on Suhm's death: "I have just learned of Suhm's death, my close friend, who loved me as sincerely as I loved him, and who showed me until his death the confidence he had in my friendship and in my tenderness, of which he was convinced. I would rather have lost millions. We hardly find people who have so much spirit joined with so much candor and feeling. My heart will mourn him, and this in a way deeper than for most relatives. His memory will last as long as a drop of blood flows through my veins, and his family will be mine. Farewell; I cannot speak of anything else; my heart is bleeding, and the pain is too great to think of anything other than this wound."
"Who showed me until his death the confidence he had in my friendship and in my tenderness, of which he was convinced" is true, if you remember he twice on his deathbed or apparent deathbed left his kids to Fritz (once to Crown Prince Fritz, which is much more impressive), and also that he immediately started trying to quit his job as soon as FW died, on the assumption that of *course* he had a place at Fritz's court, where he'd much rather be. (God, the chronology of letters I worked out is so touching and heartbreaking, cynicism about the devil entering one aside.)
Re: Random things
Re: Random things
I can't help dropping these two passages I ran across as I clean up (getting closer!):
1776: Les Anglais ont battu leurs colonies à l'ile de Terre-Longue, près de la Nouvelle - York; les colonies ont perdu 3000 hommes et les Anglais 300. S'ils continuent ainsi, ils pourront peut - être subjuguer les Américains dans une couple d'années. Tout cela peut nous être très indifférent; en attendant, le tabac hausse prodigieusement de prix, ce qui ne m'accommode pas.
Fritz, we're just trying to help you cut down on that tobacco consumption! Like Mara and Cocceji and Marwitz and Kaphengst etc., it's for your own good!
1777: L'apothicaire, devenu bibliothécaire, est partide Berlin en répandant de petites larmes. Je ne sais, mon cher frère, si elles étaient d'amour pour quelque belle qu'il quitte, ou de dépit de quitter ce pays, sans l'avoir vu détruit. Lorsqu'on proposait dans le Sénat de l'ancienne Rome quelque grande affaire, Caton le Censoeur, après avoir opiné, ajoutait toujours: „Mon avis est qu'on détruise Carthage." Il y a beaucoup de ces soi-disants Catons à Vienne, qui, changeant la phrase, au lieu de nommer Carthage,
la remplacent par Berlin.
The innocent, self-pitying victim of his neighbors strikes again. I know Fritz was INNOCENT! I tell you, INNOCENT! of the Seven Years' War from day one until his dying breath, but I'm still struck by one of the letters to Wilhelmine (I think?) that I ran into while checking for bugs in my script, the letter in which he points out that if three private individuals ganged up and assaulted some poor schmuck minding his own business, it would be a matter for the law courts! Um, yes, Fritz, as would it be if one neighbor stole another neighbor's property in the first place. It's because there is no international court of law that your neighbors are having to try to restore the status quo ante 1740 on their own. Yes, with interest.
Okay, back to work. Almost there!
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(Heh, your being at work on this has given me a chance to actually catch up!)
Re: Random things
And now I'm behind! I still need to check it for bugs, reply to your Émilie write-ups, and in that time, there's been a post 10 with new comments I haven't even *read*, and I've gotten a gift fic from
And I still need to compile all the new Peter Keith info into a Rheinsberg post, which will have to wait until tomorrow. Depending on whether you guys slow down enough to let me catch up, I also want to put together that intro chronology for Rheinsberg that I haven't forgotten about. (I also have more stuff I want to OCR, but man, I need a break from manual cleanup and possibly more bribes. :P That was some tedium.)