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Announcing Rheinsberg: Frederick the Great discussion post 10
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,![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rheinsberg, that has quite a lot of the interesting historical content (and more coming regularly), organized nicely with lots of lovely tags so if there's any subject you are interested in it is easy to find :D
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rheinsberg, that has quite a lot of the interesting historical content (and more coming regularly), organized nicely with lots of lovely tags so if there's any subject you are interested in it is easy to find :D
Re: MacDonogh Reread I
I'm still having a quick look at the journal, which is indeed a wild mixture of two thirds French, one third German phrases, and btw also the source for Fritz' "entertaining during dinner, to be locked up after dinner" remark about Pöllnitz. Made to Grumbkow, and told by him to Seckendorff. Just for added confusion, though, it appears the journal writer is NOT, repeat, NOT Seckendorff the old schemer, later to be kidnapped by mobster boss Fritz so he has someone to trade to the Austrians, but a nephew or cousin. (In the page longe conversation with FW in German, he says "mein Onkel", but in French it's either mon oncle or mon cousin. Which fits with (Friedrich Heinrich von) Seckendorff the old schemer's wiki entry reporting him as governor of Mainz and fighting the French in the Polonian war of succession, and then still in the field in the Russian-Austrian-Turkish war from 1736 - 1739, no longer ambassador to Prussia in 1734, and this journal starting thereafter. I mean, even Seckendorff can't be in two places at the same time.
Other Seckendorff, at a guess, might be Christoph Friedrich von Seckendorff-Adebar, but that's just because the birthdates and dying dates make it possible.
Other Seckendorff does, however, use all the familiar code names - Olympia for SD, Biberius for Grumbkow (I know McDonogh says that's Fritz' nickname for him, but the Austrians definitely got their first), Le Diable for Mantteuffel (ditto). Fritz is, I kid you not, "Junior", if he isn't the Crown Prince.
More in another comment.
Re: MacDonogh Reread I
:D I have to say, I'm much more motivated to go digging through German sources when I know I have someone who can help me get the most out of them!
And Lavisse is turning out to be a cache of small gems. Remember, he's the one who quoted the letter from FW to Lepel ordering Fritz to watch the execution, which allowed us to definitively refute Münchow's claim that there was no such order.
I'm definitely keeping a list of entertaining Lavisse quotes to pass on once I'm done reading, just like with MacDonogh.
which is indeed a wild mixture of two thirds French, one third German phrases
You think that's wild, you should see Catt's diary. Partway through, he decides he's going to start switching between French and Latin in the same sentence. Swear to God he writes "Le Rex voulut," "s'ils nous aggressi erant," and "adjutorem principis Ferdinand, pour voir comme il percuteret Russianos." You can add that to the list of things I was not expecting from the diary.
About 1/3 of the way through the manual cleanup, partly because I keep stopping to read as I go. I've found that Fritz does talk to him about not being allowed to learn Latin! It's not the full direct discourse that's in the memoirs, but the topic of discussion came up. Meaning that he did at least allude to his childhood abuse when talking to Catt.
Just for added confusion, though, it appears the journal writer is NOT, repeat, NOT Seckendorff the old schemer, later to be kidnapped by mobster boss Fritz so he has someone to trade to the Austrians, but a nephew or cousin.
That is in fact far more complicated than I anticipated. I admit I dropped it in the library as soon as I found it and went back to alternating between Lavisse and Catt, hoping that the Royal Reader would pick it up. And indeed, the Royal Reader reads at a truly royal pace!
I know McDonogh says that's Fritz' nickname for him, but the Austrians definitely got their first
To be fair to MacDonogh (who, now that I check his endnotes, cites this journal extensively), he never says Fritz invented the nickname, only that he used it. Much like Algarotti the swan, Fritz is using an existing nickname. Well before Fritz comes onto the scene, MacDonogh writes,
What brought together all three of the main protagonists [FW, Grumbkow, Seckendorff] in Prussian foreign policy and the marriage affair was drink. Seckendorff was a great toper, and his nephew claims that Grumbkow's consumption was no less 'astonishing', a fact generally recognised at the time, for he was known as 'Biberius' to his friends. Seckendorff had the harder head though, and was able to wheedle secrets out of the Prussian minister in his cups; and better still, remember them the next morning.
MacDonogh also says, of the tobacco parliament,
...the Tabakscollegium, where Seckendorff endured countless sessions to find the right opportunities to get his own way. Like Pöllnitz and the Alte Dessauer, Seckendorff did not actually smoke, but stuck a pipe in his mouth all the same and occasionally pressed his lips together to give the impression he was puffing on it.
Fritz is, I kid you not, "Junior", if he isn't the Crown Prince.
OMG. This is SUCH a mobster film! Okay, on to your write-ups in their full glory.
Re: MacDonogh Reread I
Blanning to the rescue: he names the author as Baron Christophe Louis de Seckendorff. Preuss agrees. Apparently, Blanning talks at length about Manteuffel and the Seckendorff diary (and even "Junior"!), and it all went whoosh! over my head at the time. That's why rereading him is next on my list after Lavisse.
We've come so far in so few months!
Re: MacDonogh Reread I
BTW, if the Abbé de Prades was able to clean out his fellow prisoners of their money by gambling, and Lehndorff could visit the legendary schemer Seckendorff as if it was a social call, I assume if you weren't Trenck, Magdeburg imprisonment conditions (for nobles at least) weren't too harsh...