Was thinking of that, but I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere that he already had people helping him with his French, and if you think about who he had with him at Rheinsberg, it's plausible.
That said, *everyone* agrees he was an entertaining and witty conversationalist, even people who don't approve of his politics, so there's that in his favor.
For what it's worth, in the German translation, the writer of the Fritz letters does have a distinct voice, so to speak, it doesn't sound like several people writing.
That's one thing I was wondering about. I'm still not sure how strong a conclusion we could draw based on that even if it's true of the French original, but it is good to know. I'm just going to leave a mental question mark around the question of how much of Fritz's style is his own.
To quote Voltaire, "Vanity, as the other Solomon, the one not from the North, said, all is vanity".
Haha, omg, I was reading your line just above about how Catt could have just named his sources, and I thought, "But it wouldn't have suited his vanity nearly as much!" Then I saw you were quoting Voltaire on vanity and nodded approvingly, and then...
the other Solomon, the one not from the North
And then I died. Laughing. What year is this quote from? I'm going to guess post 1753, but you tell me.
On Catt's vanity: "Thus inevitably the author knows the King basically much better and can judge him much better than he knows himself," is extremely true, and I now have to reevaluate my sense of Fritz's self-awareness, which is partly based on Catt patting-self-on-back quotes.
I even started to question whether his account of the Voltaire letters is accurate. Now, we know from Fritz's actions and his correspondence that Fritz definitely trash-talked Voltaire's personality and was hopelessly smitten with him anyway. I'm betting Catt both heard Fritz trash-talk Voltaire, and saw him passionately read letters from and write letters to Voltaire. But how much do you want to bet Catt moved up the timing to make it more dramatic? "No sooner had the king finished telling me that Voltaire was absolute scum, than he got a letter and I watched him devour it with his eyes." Especially since the context here is Catt patting himself on the back for knowing the King better than he knew himself.
One thing I have to say I've *always* been highly skeptical of is Catt's reports of Fritz's uncertainty around the idea of immortality of the soul, prophecy, etc. This is coming from a diehard Protestant who would *love* to believe Fritz wasn't *really* convinced of his materialism.
So I can see I'm going to be doing some extensive historical revisionism now that Catt's shortcomings as a source have come to light. I'm glad we stuck around in this fandom long enough to be turning up all these things we had no idea about back in August, or even November!
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Re: Henri de Catt
Date: 2020-01-27 08:09 pm (UTC)Was thinking of that, but I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere that he already had people helping him with his French, and if you think about who he had with him at Rheinsberg, it's plausible.
That said, *everyone* agrees he was an entertaining and witty conversationalist, even people who don't approve of his politics, so there's that in his favor.
For what it's worth, in the German translation, the writer of the Fritz letters does have a distinct voice, so to speak, it doesn't sound like several people writing.
That's one thing I was wondering about. I'm still not sure how strong a conclusion we could draw based on that even if it's true of the French original, but it is good to know. I'm just going to leave a mental question mark around the question of how much of Fritz's style is his own.
To quote Voltaire, "Vanity, as the other Solomon, the one not from the North, said, all is vanity".
Haha, omg, I was reading your line just above about how Catt could have just named his sources, and I thought, "But it wouldn't have suited his vanity nearly as much!" Then I saw you were quoting Voltaire on vanity and nodded approvingly, and then...
the other Solomon, the one not from the North
And then I died. Laughing. What year is this quote from? I'm going to guess post 1753, but you tell me.
On Catt's vanity: "Thus inevitably the author knows the King basically much better and can judge him much better than he knows himself," is extremely true, and I now have to reevaluate my sense of Fritz's self-awareness, which is partly based on Catt patting-self-on-back quotes.
I even started to question whether his account of the Voltaire letters is accurate. Now, we know from Fritz's actions and his correspondence that Fritz definitely trash-talked Voltaire's personality and was hopelessly smitten with him anyway. I'm betting Catt both heard Fritz trash-talk Voltaire, and saw him passionately read letters from and write letters to Voltaire. But how much do you want to bet Catt moved up the timing to make it more dramatic? "No sooner had the king finished telling me that Voltaire was absolute scum, than he got a letter and I watched him devour it with his eyes." Especially since the context here is Catt patting himself on the back for knowing the King better than he knew himself.
One thing I have to say I've *always* been highly skeptical of is Catt's reports of Fritz's uncertainty around the idea of immortality of the soul, prophecy, etc. This is coming from a diehard Protestant who would *love* to believe Fritz wasn't *really* convinced of his materialism.
So I can see I'm going to be doing some extensive historical revisionism now that Catt's shortcomings as a source have come to light. I'm glad we stuck around in this fandom long enough to be turning up all these things we had no idea about back in August, or even November!