cahn | Announcing Rheinsberg: Frederick the Great discussion post 10

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rheinsberg, that has quite a lot of the interesting historical content (and more coming regularly), organized nicely with lots of lovely tags so if there's any subject you are interested in it is easy to find :D

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From:

selenak

Just hit the Küstrin episode (where the kids are lined up by Mom and beaten by Dad). In the immediately preceding paragraphs, Catt is listening to stories around camp. This general says this, that baron says that. Fritz left yesterday, when Heinrich arrived, if I'm not mistaken.

So is this pre Kunersdorf, since the German preface writer said Fritz left De Catt there with Heinrich's army and that's where some of the key stories come from?

Pity the preface writer also says De Catt and Heinrich didn't get along, otherwise I'd have wondered whether he tried pumping him for stories, too. But no love lost there, ergo no likelihood of Heinrich telling him the gory tale of Dad's return home.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

So is this pre Kunersdorf, since the German preface writer said Fritz left De Catt there with Heinrich's army and that's where some of the key stories come from?

Yes, indeed. The entry in question is July 29, 1759, and Kunersdorf is August 12.

Pity the preface writer also says De Catt and Heinrich didn't get along, otherwise I'd have wondered whether he tried pumping him for stories, too. But no love lost there, ergo no likelihood of Heinrich telling him the gory tale of Dad's return home.

Interesting! I only recall positive things from the memoirs about Heinrich, both from Catt and from the words that Catt puts in Fritz's mouth. Maybe I'm misremembering, or maybe we have another source on them not getting along. Does the preface writer name one?

From:

selenak

The memoirs are indeed positive about Heinrich, though there's a slight bit of shade in the way Catt manages his introduction. He has Fritz give a very positive description of his brother, and then says something to the effect "Prince Heinrich arrived x days later; as to his character, I leave the judgment to his brother".

(BTW, courtesy of your algorithms, I can see the diary does include a Shorter version of Fritz being complimentary about Heinrich before he arrives. This is in September, i.e. post Heinrich's visit to Wilhelmine, pre her death, the "day" Fritz will later thank Heinrich in writing for. Writes diariest Catt:

17. Yesterday Prince Henry came to the King. I was introduced to him by General Lentulus. "Have you seen my brother," said the King to me; "He is a kind (aimable) man. I tell you without prevention. We don't see a war like this. It is true that, since the battle of Hochstädt, there have not been any more bloody than those I have given. It is true that the Turks are making movements. It will be a battle for me, if they really work."

I wouldn't translate "aimable" with "kind" - it's "liebenswürdig" in German, but "lovable" in English is not the same thing. "Charming" is better, imo. (Lehndorff calls Heinrich "liebenswürdig" a couple of times in his diaries and I always concluded the original word must have been "aimable".)

Anyway, the Catt Diary preface writer from 1884 cites Thiébault as the source for Heinrich and Catt not getting along, with "volume I, page 209"as reference in his footnote, but I just checked both the original French and the German edition at the Bayrische Staatsbibliothek, and can't find a remark to that effect. I also had entered "Catt" into the search machine and didn't come up with something in case it wasn't in the Heinrich chapter of Thiebault's memoirs, but no luck. Maybe I'm missing something, or there's a glitch. However, I see that the writer of the Seydlitz and Zieten fanfiction also has Heinrich frowning at Catt, so Maybe she has found something?

At a guess, it probably was at heart a case of The Anti versus The Devoted Fan (which Catt pre breakup certainly was).