If my memories are correct, Fritz desperately wanted to play Cyrano, and Catt was kinda hesitating to go along with this. I imagined him sitting there with a deer-in-the-headlights look.
I don't blame him. I mean, Ulrike didn't have serious intentions towards Voltaire, so no problem with Fritz taking over there, but young Catt wanted to score, for which perhaps Fritzian poetry wasn't the ideal method. But there's no way you can tell that to your boss.
Hille to Grumbkow: LOL. Now we have the true reason why the Küstrin staff was ready to supply Fritz with Fredersdorf - at least this stopped him from reciting more poetry at them!
Speaking of Fredersdorf, the "Youth of FtG" appendices have the letter from Fritz to Grumbkow, dated 27th December 1731, in which he writes, about his visit to Frankfurt (an der Oder):
Also, the students have performed a serenade for me; you are familiar with these free-spirited minds and know I could not have avoided this happening. Naturally, I will write to the King who I hope will not hold this matter against me, for which I am not to blame, and which I would not have permitted, since I know it might displease him.
Given that Preuss says Fritz spotted Fredersdorf first as part of a student performance for Fritz in Frankfurt, I thought it's good to have it confirmed such a performance did indeed take place. Now Fritz doesn not mention having noticed the flutist in particular, but he wouldn't, not being stupid and needing to continue to placate Dad and bff of Dad.
if Voltaire thinks winning a war doesn't take any kind of skill, he's on crack.
That’s not what he says, though? (Err, is quoted saying by Fritz.) He says, according to Fritz, that he, V, is not learning anything from reading about battles. And seems regard all battles as the same. Which isn’t the same as saying „anyone can fight a successful battle, it takes no skill“.
(Incidentally, of course the last isn’t true, and given the sheer number of French military disasters in, oh, the last two decades – not just against Fritz, mind, let’s not forget Austrian Field Marshal Traun – who von Krockow says became Heinrich’s role model for how to be a good general without encurring heavy losses - pushing the French back across the Rhine, just as he got the Prussians out of Bohemia, in the second Silesian war – I’m sure Voltaire is aware of that.)
What is undoubtedly true is that Voltaire doesn’t rate military skills very highly, or doesn’t regard them as something to be admired, and that Fritz is irked or even hurt by that. What I find fascinating is that in terms of their own epoch, Voltaire is definitely voicing a minority opinion there. I mean, there’s a reason why Fritzmania has grasped England and why young Goethe and so many other Germans in all the principalities are Fritz fanboys at this point. He’s universally regarded as the military genius of his generation in Europe, even by his enemies. That's why they're already calling him Frederick the Great, in his life time. And his military skills are seen as a great, great virtue for a King to have. Now, given that FW has drummed into his sons that military skills are the best thing a prince can have – see also AW’s letter to Fritz post casheering -, and given that this very area, the military, was where FW most doubted Fritz to be capable in, it makes sense that this is a quality/skill of his that Fritz is particularly proud of. And for which he wants praise from his favourite author, not criticism re: the morality of same.
Let's remember 4-yo Henry was the youngest of the siblings (I assume 4-month old up-and-coming menace Ferdinand had nothing to contribute and was spared this scene) and was possibly the last to get under the table. He may even have been grabbed and pulled under by one of the older siblings who was quicker to grasp the danger. Or he, as the smallest, may have just been being squeezed by the others in a tight space.
Yep, lucky baby Ferdinand was probably sleeping in the nursery through all of this. BTW, every single German biography I've (re)read in the last six months which quotes Wilhelmine's description of this event takes her to task for writing "my siblings, the youngest of which was but four" and says "she's totally forgetting baby Ferdinand!" I mean, lesser readers like myself naturally assume Wilhelmine means the youngest of the siblings present, but hey.
Anyway: so we're in agreement that Heinrich, either directly or indirectly (i.e. via boyfriend) is a likely source for this version of the story?
I got was that Catt's main job was to give Fritz a civilian friend to talk to
*nods* Yes, that's, unflippantly, my impression, too. I mean, Fritz gets the occasional visit from civilians like D'Argens, or Mitchell, or Amalie, but that's not the same as having someone on call whom you can rely on to be there all the time you need him to be, and the longer the war takes, the stronger the need must have been.
Re: Henri de Catt Unplugged - I
I don't blame him. I mean, Ulrike didn't have serious intentions towards Voltaire, so no problem with Fritz taking over there, but young Catt wanted to score, for which perhaps Fritzian poetry wasn't the ideal method. But there's no way you can tell that to your boss.
Hille to Grumbkow: LOL. Now we have the true reason why the Küstrin staff was ready to supply Fritz with Fredersdorf - at least this stopped him from reciting more poetry at them!
Speaking of Fredersdorf, the "Youth of FtG" appendices have the letter from Fritz to Grumbkow, dated 27th December 1731, in which he writes, about his visit to Frankfurt (an der Oder):
Also, the students have performed a serenade for me; you are familiar with these free-spirited minds and know I could not have avoided this happening. Naturally, I will write to the King who I hope will not hold this matter against me, for which I am not to blame, and which I would not have permitted, since I know it might displease him.
Given that Preuss says Fritz spotted Fredersdorf first as part of a student performance for Fritz in Frankfurt, I thought it's good to have it confirmed such a performance did indeed take place. Now Fritz doesn not mention having noticed the flutist in particular, but he wouldn't, not being stupid and needing to continue to placate Dad and bff of Dad.
if Voltaire thinks winning a war doesn't take any kind of skill, he's on crack.
That’s not what he says, though? (Err, is quoted saying by Fritz.) He says, according to Fritz, that he, V, is not learning anything from reading about battles. And seems regard all battles as the same. Which isn’t the same as saying „anyone can fight a successful battle, it takes no skill“.
(Incidentally, of course the last isn’t true, and given the sheer number of French military disasters in, oh, the last two decades – not just against Fritz, mind, let’s not forget Austrian Field Marshal Traun – who von Krockow says became Heinrich’s role model for how to be a good general without encurring heavy losses - pushing the French back across the Rhine, just as he got the Prussians out of Bohemia, in the second Silesian war – I’m sure Voltaire is aware of that.)
What is undoubtedly true is that Voltaire doesn’t rate military skills very highly, or doesn’t regard them as something to be admired, and that Fritz is irked or even hurt by that. What I find fascinating is that in terms of their own epoch, Voltaire is definitely voicing a minority opinion there. I mean, there’s a reason why Fritzmania has grasped England and why young Goethe and so many other Germans in all the principalities are Fritz fanboys at this point. He’s universally regarded as the military genius of his generation in Europe, even by his enemies. That's why they're already calling him Frederick the Great, in his life time. And his military skills are seen as a great, great virtue for a King to have. Now, given that FW has drummed into his sons that military skills are the best thing a prince can have – see also AW’s letter to Fritz post casheering -, and given that this very area, the military, was where FW most doubted Fritz to be capable in, it makes sense that this is a quality/skill of his that Fritz is particularly proud of. And for which he wants praise from his favourite author, not criticism re: the morality of same.
Let's remember 4-yo Henry was the youngest of the siblings (I assume 4-month old up-and-coming menace Ferdinand had nothing to contribute and was spared this scene) and was possibly the last to get under the table. He may even have been grabbed and pulled under by one of the older siblings who was quicker to grasp the danger. Or he, as the smallest, may have just been being squeezed by the others in a tight space.
Yep, lucky baby Ferdinand was probably sleeping in the nursery through all of this. BTW, every single German biography I've (re)read in the last six months which quotes Wilhelmine's description of this event takes her to task for writing "my siblings, the youngest of which was but four" and says "she's totally forgetting baby Ferdinand!" I mean, lesser readers like myself naturally assume Wilhelmine means the youngest of the siblings present, but hey.
Anyway: so we're in agreement that Heinrich, either directly or indirectly (i.e. via boyfriend) is a likely source for this version of the story?
I got was that Catt's main job was to give Fritz a civilian friend to talk to
*nods* Yes, that's, unflippantly, my impression, too. I mean, Fritz gets the occasional visit from civilians like D'Argens, or Mitchell, or Amalie, but that's not the same as having someone on call whom you can rely on to be there all the time you need him to be, and the longer the war takes, the stronger the need must have been.