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We now have a community, rheinsberg, that has quite a lot of the interesting historical content (and more coming regularly), organized nicely with lots of lovely tags so if there's any subject you are interested in it is easy to find :D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

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.

Re: Henri de Catt

[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??

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.