While I was putting together that outline, I ran into some parts that I thought were worth sharing.
There's another impersonal passive in the diary when Fritz says he was raised as if "one wanted to make a theologian of him," which does suggest that Fritz does sometimes refrain from naming his father when talking about his childhood, even when it's obvious who he's talking about. This means the "if they had raised me instead of humiliating me, I would be a better person" *might* be self-awareness and not Catt's armchair psychology, but we'll never know (thanks, Catt!).
The diary has Fritz wanting to take a "rest" after each act when reading something. The memoirs have him taking a pinch of snuff. (The diary may also have it, but I missed it, if so.)
Hahaha, after the whole waking Catt up episode turned out to be massively rewritten to make Catt look good and Fritz look bad, I no longer know whether to believe this exchange from the memoirs:
"Have you often read this charming Gresset?"
"Yes, Sire, very often. He is one of my favourite poets. When I am down-hearted, I read his Chartreuse, and my melancholy disappears."
"You are sometimes downhearted? You don't know what you say. It is I alone who am downhearted, and who have the right to be so."
Der einzige again!
It's interesting how extremely critical Fritz is of Wolff by this point in his life. Catt even points out that Voltaire says that Fritz used to praise Wolff, and Fritz says, "Yes, well, I was younger and less well read then."
Even more interesting, Catt has Fritz take credit for his father's about-face on Wolff. Now, I don't know that this isn't true, but I know what we have is one history-rewriter writing about another history-rewriter, and Fritz seemed pretty shocked about FW's about-face in the letter to Suhm. (I mean, he'd been trying to change his father's mind for his entire life, so it must have come as quite a shock if it worked, but you'd think he'd take some credit with Suhm if there was credit to be taken.) But I woudl be glad of any evidence outside of Catt that Fritz actually changed FW's mind on something in the last few months of his life. It must have felt good if so!
I don't know if you guys will find this anecdote as endearing as I do, but Fritz gets some shirt ruffles in the mail, grumps that they're twice as long as he needs, cuts them in half to make twice as many, and says, "Look how frugal I am!" And then tells Catt that in addition to not wanting them unnecessarily long, he doesn't like them too beautiful either, because that interferes with him using them to wipe his pen on. Which he admits isn't the greatest thing in the world to be doing, but, "You gotta do what you gotta do."
Now here we come to something that I'm HIGHLY SKEPTICAL about, O Catt of the rewriting history to make yourself look good and massively plagiarizing other people's works for your memoirs.
"Let us see if you have put that all down accurately on your tablets. You would not believe that this interests me, and that one day I shall very likely have recourse to it."
"What, Sire, have recourse to me?"
"Yes, sir, and this is how. I propose to write the history of this war, if I ever see its end. I have already written the history of ’40 and ’44, for myself and my successor solely. I will read it to you with my foreword. I made notes for myself of my two preceding campaigns, but I often mislay them, and, more often still, I write so small that I cannot decipher what I have written. Thus your tablets will rectify my scrawl; and thus you and I will pass into immortality. So do not mislay your writings."
Fritz's memoirs are now based partly on Catt's diary, according to Catt!
If you had half the credibility of a Mitchell, Catt, that would be one thing, but as it is, I need to see some external evidence.
1916 translator silently turns "I have had to work like a Basque" into "I have had to work like a nigger." Yes, that line forced me to look up the original. Sigh.
I don't know if this next one is real, but it's funny and it's true even if Fritz never said it:
If I had lived in the times of those ancient sophists, I might like them have disputed for and against every proposition, and I should have stood no jesting; I should have shouted like an ogre, when arguments failed me.
Yes. Yes, you would have. And I would have loved to have seen it.
Now for Catt being classist. A general tells Catt it's easier to get news when he's in the King's camp; if official channels don't get him the info fast enough, he can ask his groom! (I told you, servants have their own grapevine, and it notoriously moves fast.) Catt's reply:
"You are certainly joking, General; if this were as you say, you would hide it from me and from yourself, for this is not treating with proper respect those whose duty it is to be cognisant of the operations which are to be carried out; and it is doing too great an honour to the grooms, who get the idea that they are important persons."
No, we wouldn't want *that*, Monsieur Catt.
Beautiful part where the Maxen disaster (the one Finck will get cashiered over, making even Eichel shake his head) has just happened, and no one dares be the messenger who brings the bad news to Fritz...except our hero Catt!
I was always skeptical of this, but it's actually in the diary. Go Catt? I guess being a civilian has its advantages.
Found the source for this quote, on Fritz doing art therapy, i.e. writing poetry to cheer himself up/quiet his inner child:
"These, my friend, are the songs with which I lull my poor little child to prevent him from crying, to soothe the pains he feels, and to send him to sleep, if it is possible."
A close variant of the same line apparently also occurs in a letter written at the same time to d'Argens:
You see, my dear, the silliness with which I console myself for real misfortunes, or rather you see the songs with which I quiet my child to prevent him from crying and get him to sleep.
Somebody needs a real therapist... :-( And by "somebody" I mean "everybody."
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Re: Catt
Date: 2020-02-11 06:21 am (UTC)There's another impersonal passive in the diary when Fritz says he was raised as if "one wanted to make a theologian of him," which does suggest that Fritz does sometimes refrain from naming his father when talking about his childhood, even when it's obvious who he's talking about. This means the "if they had raised me instead of humiliating me, I would be a better person" *might* be self-awareness and not Catt's armchair psychology, but we'll never know (thanks, Catt!).
The diary has Fritz wanting to take a "rest" after each act when reading something. The memoirs have him taking a pinch of snuff. (The diary may also have it, but I missed it, if so.)
Hahaha, after the whole waking Catt up episode turned out to be massively rewritten to make Catt look good and Fritz look bad, I no longer know whether to believe this exchange from the memoirs:
"Have you often read this charming Gresset?"
"Yes, Sire, very often. He is one of my favourite poets. When I am down-hearted, I read his Chartreuse, and my melancholy disappears."
"You are sometimes downhearted? You don't know what you say. It is I alone who am downhearted, and who have the right to be so."
Der einzige again!
It's interesting how extremely critical Fritz is of Wolff by this point in his life. Catt even points out that Voltaire says that Fritz used to praise Wolff, and Fritz says, "Yes, well, I was younger and less well read then."
Even more interesting, Catt has Fritz take credit for his father's about-face on Wolff. Now, I don't know that this isn't true, but I know what we have is one history-rewriter writing about another history-rewriter, and Fritz seemed pretty shocked about FW's about-face in the letter to Suhm. (I mean, he'd been trying to change his father's mind for his entire life, so it must have come as quite a shock if it worked, but you'd think he'd take some credit with Suhm if there was credit to be taken.) But I woudl be glad of any evidence outside of Catt that Fritz actually changed FW's mind on something in the last few months of his life. It must have felt good if so!
I don't know if you guys will find this anecdote as endearing as I do, but Fritz gets some shirt ruffles in the mail, grumps that they're twice as long as he needs, cuts them in half to make twice as many, and says, "Look how frugal I am!" And then tells Catt that in addition to not wanting them unnecessarily long, he doesn't like them too beautiful either, because that interferes with him using them to wipe his pen on. Which he admits isn't the greatest thing in the world to be doing, but, "You gotta do what you gotta do."
Now here we come to something that I'm HIGHLY SKEPTICAL about, O Catt of the rewriting history to make yourself look good and massively plagiarizing other people's works for your memoirs.
"Let us see if you have put that all down accurately on your tablets. You would not believe that this interests me, and that one day I shall very likely have recourse to it."
"What, Sire, have recourse to me?"
"Yes, sir, and this is how. I propose to write the history of this war, if I ever see its end. I have already written the history of ’40 and ’44, for myself and my successor solely. I will read it to you with my foreword. I made notes for myself of my two preceding campaigns, but I often mislay them, and, more often still, I write so small that I cannot decipher what I have written. Thus your tablets will rectify my scrawl; and thus you and I will pass into immortality. So do not mislay your writings."
Fritz's memoirs are now based partly on Catt's diary, according to Catt!
If you had half the credibility of a Mitchell, Catt, that would be one thing, but as it is, I need to see some external evidence.
1916 translator silently turns "I have had to work like a Basque" into "I have had to work like a nigger." Yes, that line forced me to look up the original. Sigh.
I don't know if this next one is real, but it's funny and it's true even if Fritz never said it:
If I had lived in the times of those ancient sophists, I might like them have disputed for and against every proposition, and I should have stood no jesting; I should have shouted like an ogre, when arguments failed me.
Yes. Yes, you would have. And I would have loved to have seen it.
Now for Catt being classist. A general tells Catt it's easier to get news when he's in the King's camp; if official channels don't get him the info fast enough, he can ask his groom! (I told you, servants have their own grapevine, and it notoriously moves fast.) Catt's reply:
"You are certainly joking, General; if this were as you say, you would hide it from me and from yourself, for this is not treating with proper respect those whose duty it is to be cognisant of the operations which are to be carried out; and it is doing too great an honour to the grooms, who get the idea that they are important persons."
No, we wouldn't want *that*, Monsieur Catt.
Beautiful part where the Maxen disaster (the one Finck will get cashiered over, making even Eichel shake his head) has just happened, and no one dares be the messenger who brings the bad news to Fritz...except our hero Catt!
I was always skeptical of this, but it's actually in the diary. Go Catt? I guess being a civilian has its advantages.
Found the source for this quote, on Fritz doing art therapy, i.e. writing poetry to cheer himself up/quiet his inner child:
"These, my friend, are the songs with which I lull my poor little child to prevent him from crying, to soothe the pains he feels, and to send him to sleep, if it is possible."
A close variant of the same line apparently also occurs in a letter written at the same time to d'Argens:
You see, my dear, the silliness with which I console myself for real misfortunes, or rather you see the songs with which I quiet my child to prevent him from crying and get him to sleep.
Somebody needs a real therapist... :-( And by "somebody" I mean "everybody."