Before I share anything else, mes amies, I have to share this extraordinary gem. It's not a German but a French passage, but if you read it, you'll know why I just HAD to. To recapitulate: Mantteuffel, aka Le Diable, the Devil = in Austrian pay, is supposed to get close to Fritz and report on him. According to the German editor of the Trier letter to Grumbkow where Katte gets mentioned, Fritz is aware of this at least at the point where he writes the "You know what I did for Katte" letter, when Mantteuffel is in disgrace by FW. Whether or not he already was aware of it when he makes the following statements to the guy, I leave to you to judge. But on page 144,ff July 2nd 1736: Mantteuffel - le Diable - reports that Fritz after dinner after showing him "all the tendernesses imaginable", took him into his room afterwards and there confided in him about this family:
Dad: About his Father, Iunior is always very unhappy, since he lets him suffer so much and doesn't give him enough to live in dignity and according to his fancy. Because Iunior frankly confessed to the Devil, that there were days when he doesn't have a penny in his pocket, and that with all of that, in addition to the ordinary expenses, a lot of extraordinary expenses to be made, for example more than five to six hundred ECU per year in small gifts for the servants of the king (..)
Meaning: Gimme more money, Austrians!
Mom:
To Olympia Junior does the justice that she raised her children worthily, as much as the King had left this in her hands to do so, and besides, the she does everything in the world to please him, Junior.
AW:
Of his brother Wilhelm, he says that the later has a good nature and a lot of common sense, and should do something good, if he can still get into good hands; but that the bad education he receives endeavours to make him stupid like a real peasant, with the result that you can't look at him without feeling pity. He fears that if this goes on for four or five years more, the bad result will become second nature, and (Wilhelm) will become a truly bitter man because it will be impossible to correct later on.
Heinrich and Ferdinand:
Of his two younger brothers, Heinrich and Ferdinand, he has an even worse opinion, since he judges that they don't have the same good nature that Wilhelm has, and thus they will take all the more easily the bad form which must result from the education given to them. Especially from Ferdinand he says that he has all the bad qualities of the father and that when this great childlike vivacity that he inherited from his progenitor, will have passed, he will become the most wicked child of the king.
Let's pause here for the only moment good old Ferdinand, age six at this point (Heinrich is ten), gets singled out for the prediction he'll exceed in anything. Ferdinand, coming menace, this was your day! Also, Heinrich, what did you do that Fritz deemes you not as good natured as AW? (One hopes for a kick under the table during the winter holidays.)
And what about his sisters?
Between his sisters Iunior gives preference to that of Bayreuth for the strength of her mind, in saying: "She's a fine fly, who knows more "Long than you think".
I venture to guess this is an allusion to a French saying unknown to us.
He is corresponding with her on literary matters. The Margravine tends to take the party of the philosopher Descartes and Iunior that of Wolff. He promised to show the Devil this correspondance.
For the Duchess of Wolffenbuttel - of Braunschweig-Wolffenbüttel, i.e. Charlotte - he esteems her also very much because of the liveliness of her manners and her laughter. He says: „She is a true Harlequin, who also expresses by her letters her humor and will die joking etc."
Princess Sophie, Iunior judges to have the best heart of the world, and beautiful common sense, but he fears she will be ruined by her husband, the margrave of Schwedt, whom he regards as the greatest fool and the greatest villain of the king's states.
For the Duke of Wolffenbuttel - i.e. Charlotte's husband, EC's brother - Iunior esteems him genuinely, saying he is a good sort. „He is not a big genius," he continued, "but a prince who does not know what it is to act badly, and as a mark of his good heart, you can see that when his fortune changed by his becoming reigning Duke, he did not change his behavior in any way."
For the margrave of Bayreuth, he puts him beneath the Duke of Wolffenbuttel in his esteem, and the other princesses there was not discussed this time. (...)
And now comes something that's especially delicious if, like me, you've read the Pleschinski translated Voltaire correspondance relatively recently. Because remember, Fritz had send Voltaire, in the year 1736, a Socrates head - which Émilie reported to Voltaire as showing Fritz, and then they had the Socrates/Alkibiades exchange? I later fund out what this actually was was not a bust but a golden knob for a walking stick. So imagine my cackling when I came across this gem, just a few lines after the sibling assessments:
Iunior showed the Devil a small present that he intends for him. It's a golden apple for a cane that he had comissioned to be made. It represents the image of Socrates and there are engraved French verses above, which Iunior composed himself. This composition is most flattering for the Devil: because Iunior in these verses represents himself as Alcibiades and looks at the Devil like Socrates.
Oooookay. *wipes tears from eyes*
So:
1.) Fritz, cheating on Voltaire this early on in the relationship? Also, did you have multiple Socrates images made? I thought you were practically broke? Who was the original intended recipient, Voltaire or Mantteuffel?
2.) Heinrich totally kicked him under the table. Or Ferdinand did, since he gets to be the coming menace. I mean, it's totally true that Heinrich isn't as good natured as AW, but he's also ten at this point, so it's remarkable Fritz gets this opinion of him. Alternate possibility: Heinrich wondered out loud whether Fritz cultivating AW was because Fritz wanted to use AW to cajole favors from Dad?
3.) Younger brothers, your educational day will come. Junior is a man with a mission here, clearly.
4.) So did he have sex with Mantteuffel, and do we count Mantteuffel among the boyfriends or the witty pretties?
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Fritz Tells All: The Austrian Dossier (Seckendorff I)
Date: 2020-02-01 07:34 am (UTC)Dad:
About his Father, Iunior is always very unhappy, since he lets him suffer so much and doesn't give him enough to live in dignity and according to his fancy. Because Iunior frankly confessed to the Devil, that there were days when he doesn't have a penny in his pocket, and that with all of that, in addition to the ordinary expenses, a lot of extraordinary expenses to be made, for
example more than five to six hundred ECU per year in small gifts for the servants of the king (..)
Meaning: Gimme more money, Austrians!
Mom:
To Olympia Junior does the justice that she raised her children worthily, as much as the King had left this in her hands to do so, and besides, the she does everything in the world to please him, Junior.
AW:
Of his brother Wilhelm, he says that the later has a good nature and a lot of common sense, and
should do something good, if he can still get into good hands; but that the bad education he receives endeavours to make him stupid like a real peasant, with the result that you can't look at him without feeling pity. He fears that if this goes on for four or five years more, the bad result will become second nature, and (Wilhelm) will become a truly bitter man because it will be impossible to correct later on.
Heinrich and Ferdinand:
Of his two younger brothers, Heinrich and Ferdinand, he has an even worse opinion, since he judges that they don't have the same good nature that Wilhelm has, and thus they will take all the more easily the bad form which must result from the education given to them. Especially from Ferdinand he says that he has all the bad qualities of the father and that when this great childlike vivacity that he inherited from his progenitor, will have passed, he will become the most wicked child of the king.
Let's pause here for the only moment good old Ferdinand, age six at this point (Heinrich is ten), gets singled out for the prediction he'll exceed in anything. Ferdinand, coming menace, this was your day! Also, Heinrich, what did you do that Fritz deemes you not as good natured as AW? (One hopes for a kick under the table during the winter holidays.)
And what about his sisters?
Between his sisters Iunior gives preference to that of Bayreuth for the strength of her mind, in
saying: "She's a fine fly, who knows more "Long than you think".
I venture to guess this is an allusion to a French saying unknown to us.
He is corresponding with her on literary matters. The Margravine tends to take the party of the philosopher Descartes and Iunior that of Wolff. He promised to show the Devil this correspondance.
For the Duchess of Wolffenbuttel - of Braunschweig-Wolffenbüttel, i.e. Charlotte - he esteems her also very much because of the liveliness of her manners and her laughter. He says: „She is a true Harlequin, who also expresses by her letters her humor and will die joking etc."
Princess Sophie, Iunior judges to have the best heart of the world, and beautiful common sense, but he fears she will be ruined by her husband, the margrave of Schwedt, whom he regards as the greatest fool and the greatest villain of the king's states.
For the Duke of Wolffenbuttel - i.e. Charlotte's husband, EC's brother - Iunior esteems him genuinely, saying he is a good sort. „He is not a big genius," he continued, "but a prince who does not know what it is to act badly, and as a mark of his good heart, you can see that when his fortune changed by his becoming reigning Duke, he did not change his behavior in any way."
For the margrave of Bayreuth, he puts him beneath the Duke of Wolffenbuttel in his esteem, and the other princesses there was not discussed this time. (...)
And now comes something that's especially delicious if, like me, you've read the Pleschinski translated Voltaire correspondance relatively recently. Because remember, Fritz had send Voltaire, in the year 1736, a Socrates head - which Émilie reported to Voltaire as showing Fritz, and then they had the Socrates/Alkibiades exchange? I later fund out what this actually was was not a bust but a golden knob for a walking stick. So imagine my cackling when I came across this gem, just a few lines after the sibling assessments:
Iunior showed the Devil a small present that he intends for him. It's a golden apple for a cane
that he had comissioned to be made. It represents the image of Socrates and there are engraved French verses above, which Iunior composed himself. This composition is most flattering for the Devil: because Iunior in these verses represents himself as Alcibiades and looks at the Devil like Socrates.
Oooookay. *wipes tears from eyes*
So:
1.) Fritz, cheating on Voltaire this early on in the relationship? Also, did you have multiple Socrates images made? I thought you were practically broke? Who was the original intended recipient, Voltaire or Mantteuffel?
2.) Heinrich totally kicked him under the table. Or Ferdinand did, since he gets to be the coming menace. I mean, it's totally true that Heinrich isn't as good natured as AW, but he's also ten at this point, so it's remarkable Fritz gets this opinion of him. Alternate possibility: Heinrich wondered out loud whether Fritz cultivating AW was because Fritz wanted to use AW to cajole favors from Dad?
3.) Younger brothers, your educational day will come. Junior is a man with a mission here, clearly.
4.) So did he have sex with Mantteuffel, and do we count Mantteuffel among the boyfriends or the witty pretties?