Announcing Rheinsberg: Frederick the Great discussion post 10

[cahn]

So for anyone who is reading this and would like to learn more about Frederick the Great and his contemporaries, but who doesn't want to wade through 500k (600k?) words worth of comments and an increasingly sprawling comment section:

We now have a community, rheinsberg, that has quite a lot of the interesting historical content (and more coming regularly), organized nicely with lots of lovely tags so if there's any subject you are interested in it is easy to find :D

Comments

Re: Henri de Catt

[selenak]

Speaking of readers, I'm now questioning everything. "If they had raised me instead of humiliating me, I would be a better person"--is that Fritz's self-awareness or Catt's commentary?

CAAAATTTT! Why you do this to me??

I know. It's such a good quote. But it could almost be too good, and the result of Catt having had 20 years to contemplate Fritz. Otoh, this is the kind of thing which should be counter check-able with the diary.

One thing that argues for it being authentic, imo, is the use of "They". If Catt had invented the quote, writing after Fritz' death, he would have let him say "my father". FW is dead for many decades, his fame has long since been eclipsed by his son's, who is everyone's One And Only King, so no trouble to be expected there. Otoh, Fritz to young new reader Henri de Catt would say they, despite it being clear whom he meant.