cahn | Frederick the Great discussion post 9

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...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 :)

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From:

selenak

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?

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.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

No, I was referring to this guy, but I couldn't find any evidence that he and FW had been in the same place at the same time as children. Whereas your guy was. It was probably your guy. (There were a lot of princes of Courlande.)

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.

cahn, it goes like this:

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.)