cahn | 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,

rheinsberg, that has quite a lot of the interesting historical content (and more coming regularly), organized nicely with lots of lovely tags so if there's any subject you are interested in it is easy to find :D

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

mildred_of_midgard

he didn't have them yet when he was crown prince.

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!

From:

cahn

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.

But, but!! Selenak just posted us that lovely set of Fritz-Wilhelmine letters where he seems pretty certain that he doesn't have an immortal soul. Like, certain enough that he doesn't even need to be particularly vehement about it, which to me is a pretty big indicator.

That is to say, (a) yup yup Catt seems to be an incredibly unreliable source, and (b) all hail

rheinsberg, omg this is making finding things SO much easier.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

In Catt's defense, Fritz has changed his mind twice before, and people do, and he also represents Fritz as being motivated to question his convictions by the desire to see his recently deceased mother and sister again. Which is the kind of emotional thinking that many people do.

That said, no, I didn't believe Catt before (partly, I admit, because of my own biases which run counter to his, but partly because he was my only source on this and his wishful thinking motivations were writ large in red ink), and I don't believe him more now (with even better reason).

In any case, all hail

rheinsberg! and also your continuing education that is making you more and more able to be an active participant in these discussions! \o/

From:

cahn

Huh. Interesting. When did he change his mind?

(Yay Rheinsberg! :D )

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Much earlier, when he was in his mid twenties (the younger people are, of course, the more fluid their religious/spiritual beliefs). As we saw in the Suhm write-up, he went from not being sure he had an immortal soul, to being convinced by Wolff via Suhm's translation in 1736 that he did, and then just a couple years later, after reading more widely of skeptical philosophy, switching to definitely not believing in an immortal soul.

I don't see any evidence that he changed his mind or even had uncertainty after 1740; that reads like 100% wishful thinking on Catt's part. Especially since so much of his argument is "Well, *I* think he sounded uncertain, mostly because he sounded so extremely certain and vehement that I don't think he'd keep arguing with me unless he wanted to be convinced."

Riiiight. Works both ways, Catt. Maybe you're uncertain, did you think of that? No, of course you didn't.

From:

selenak

And then I died. Laughing. What year is this quote from? I'm going to guess post 1753, but you tell me.

It's from this letter which I unearthed when looking for context re: Voltaire's reaction re: de Prades. Voltaire is writing in June 1759, among other things:

You are a legislator, a warrior, a historian, a poet; but you are also a philosopher. After having dabbled all your life in heroism and in the arts, what do you take to the tomb? An empty name that no longer belongs to us. Everything is vanity, as the other Solomon said, the one not from the North. To Sans-Souci, to Sans-Souci, as soon as you can.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I knew it! Thanks for reminding me (and you can tell I was seriously distracted by Heinrich when I read that post the first time).

Fritz, for the sake of a man who can knock out one one-liner after another like this, I will forgive you all the boyfriend bad judgment in the world. 5 out of 6 is not bad, and the 6th had serious redeeming qualities.

(Please work on your readers and batmen, though, seriously.)

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??

From:

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.