Yeah, well, he and big bro both have a lot to prove to their respective father figures, living and dead. PLUS big bro gets on your case if you're an officer and you're not ready to risk your life in battle.
Verily. But also if you're stupid enough to get yourself killed. (Like brother in law from Braunschweig. Btw, I notice that other brother-in-law, Ferdinand, whom most of EC's and Louise's letters are adressed to, and who will survive the war, gets dissed by Fritz and Mitchell's reports a lot about being a drag who prevents Fritz' genius vision from being carried out completely.)
Did you notice any examples of him criticizing his father implicitly through an impersonal or passive in the Mitchell memoirs?
As I said, I don't read chronologically but here and there, whenever I find the time, and with this caveat; haven't spotted one yet, but that one occasion with the Katte mention aside, he doesn't seem to talk to Mitchell about his parents. Though that one big conversation after SD's death also contains this Fritizian assessment of Hohenzollern family relationships:
He observed that the harmony that had been maintained in his family was greatly owing to the education they had had, imperfect and defective in many things, but good in this, that all the children had been brought up, not as princes, but as the children of private persons. He mentioned the differences there had been between their family and that of Hanover, and spoke of the late King's testament, but with great moderation.
Now, while I'm the first to point out Hannover dysfunctionality, this is rich. Fritz, a) what harmony?, and b) you weren't educated like private people, and if you'd ever seen a private person educate their kids.
Though maybe he means that as opposed to the Hannover cousins, FW left them all with a hardcore work ethic? This is indeed the one key difference.
BTW, what with Mitchell being a Scot and bff with James Keith, what are the odds he's none too keen on the Hannover clan himself?
Re: so did Fritz talk to Catt about Katte/Küstrin at all in their 20 plus years together? Given he talked to Mitchell and Voltaire, and to Grumbkow via letter, and Catt was explicitly hired to be his friend on call, I'd say chances are good that he did, with the caveat that if he didn't, Catt, who is invested in making himself look like the primary confidant, WOULD have inserted it given all else he inserted.
ETA: and of course the big one - Fritz and the „Katte remained for a girl“ story, now that we‘re reasonably sure this is what Fritz told Mitchell.
My current take, if, that is, my half serious „Katte tarried because he was worried for Wilhelmine“ theory is true at all, and Fritz didn‘t invent the explanation for whatever reason, or there was really a Fräulein X we have no idea about, one of two things might have happened:
A) Danish ambassador: Katte, why the hell are you still in Berlin? Katte: *not wanting to incriminate Wilhelmine any further than she has been as Fritz‘ confidante and through the double portrait*: Err, I‘ve got a girl here. *does not name names at all* *a year or years later* Fritz: So, I hear you talked to Katte that fateful day. Did he ever mention why he didn‘t use the head start? Danish ambassador: Yeah, he said he had a girl he needed to look out for. Fritz: ?!? ...?!? Who? Danish Ambassador: Damned if I know. Fritz:!!!! Thanks. *bitterly wonders but has no clue*
B) Danish Ambassador: Katte, what the hell? Why are you still there? Katte: Gotta burn those documents. Also, I‘m worried about the Princess in general. *a year or years later* Danish Ambassador: So, your highness/ your majesty, I just wanted to say, your mate Katte, loyal to the death. To you and your sister. Fritz: ?!? Danish Ambassador: Why, he tarried with his departure because he wanted to ensure she wasn‘t too compromised. He told me. Fritz: *is incredibly torn to hear this* Fritz: *does not want to talk to Willhelmine about this ever* Fritz: *has no intention of naming Wilhelmine to Mitchell and thus supplies *a girl*
Now, while I'm the first to point out Hannover dysfunctionality, this is rich. Fritz, a) what harmony?, and b) you weren't educated like private people, and if you'd ever seen a private person educate their kids.
a) People are really, really bad at evaluating their families. It's extremely common for people in dysfunctional families with love-hate relationships to look at things other families do, go, "Look, my family doesn't do that!" and conclude that their family is utterly normal and harmonious. Even when they have enough data to conclude otherwise! I speak from my own and my wife's respective personal experiences, as well as extensive reading on child trauma.
It's *also* normal for people to present their family as completely normal to outsiders even when they know better.
b) In Fritz's defense, he talks a lot about this in Catt's memoirs, and what he means by "like a private person" is not flattering the young prince excessively and teaching him to think of himself as a minor god, infallible and flawless, when he's still a child. Which I have to admit was one feature of Fritz's hyper-abusive childhood! At least he didn't think everyone thought he was perfect!
...At the cost of constant pain and humiliation that messed him and his siblings up for life. :-(
There was also the spartan aspect of his upbringing, which, again, was abusive, but doesn't fit Fritz's idea of princely luxury. And, of course, the work ethic.
Re: so did Fritz talk to Catt about Katte/Küstrin at all in their 20 plus years together? Given he talked to Mitchell and Voltaire
Voltaire is a guess! We have no confirmation on that. It's a guess that got weakened when we discovered Catt's extreeeme economy with the truth, and strengthened when we discovered Mitchell.
Also, I turned up that passage last night that makes me think Catt was both willing and able to rip off Voltaire for the memoirs.
That said, I agree with you that if he talked to Mitchell, Fritz very very likely gave the same spiel to Catt some time in 20+ years, just not remotely on the date that Catt gives.
Now, if Fritz *did* talk to Catt, and the memoirs reflect anything like the real conversation, he told Catt that the reason Katte didn't escape is that Fritz wasn't able to warn him in time. Which means he's giving two different accounts to two different people.
Catt, do you KNOW how helpful it would be if I could believe ANYTHING you said?? I'm trying to build an account on a house of cards here. Voltaire: maybe horse's mouth, maybe rumor mill. Catt: maybe horse's mouth, maybe Voltaire + rumor mill. Thiebault: in a position to get it from the horse's mouth, but significant shared innovations with Voltaire. Wilhelmine: who on earth knows what Fritz told her and when? 1730 by smuggled letter? 1732 during the awful visit home? Never? (Seems unlikely if he told Mitchell, but who knows.) Pöllnitz: most detail probably from Wilhelmine and/or rumor mill, although Fritz may have given him the brief rundown he gave Mitchell.
Of six memoirists, there is only ONE reasonably reliable one! And of course, that's the one that has one sentence on the imprisonment and execution, and one on Katte's failure to escape. At least it's one of the ones that claims to be from the horse's mouth. Imagine if Mitchell had just put down what he'd learned without naming Fritz as his source. I'd never believe Fritz talked to anyone except possibly Wilhelmine, and she's got a very flawed picture of what happened, by the mid 1740s.
one of two things might have happened:
Those were pretty much my theories too, assuming that account is based on anything like fact. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Fritz had a hard time learning that Katte delayed to protect Wilhelmine, which could put him in the position of feeling like he has to choose which he would rather have happened: Katte protect his favorite sister (and best of all possible mothers), or Katte get away and not be executed in front of him?
"GIRL. TOTALLY random girl."
Fritz:!!!! Thanks. *bitterly wonders but has no clue*
This, if anything, is even more painful in a completely different way. Katte being loyal to Fritz and favorite sister at least means Katte loved him more than life, though it does add to his guilt. Katte getting distracted by random love affair that Fritz didn't even know about, at a time when he was supposed to be focusing on getting out of Prussia with Fritz?
Fritz: Well, no wonder he tried to talk me out of going. Didn't want to leave that WOMAN, whoever she was. Guess *that* was the most important thing in his life in August 1730.
ABORT! ABORT! Anti-headcanon. NEVER HAPPENED.
If Fritz ever *did* get told Katte said something about a girl, I sincerely hope he decided that either 1) Katte was lying to try to cover something else up, 2) something got lost in translation. But I would hate for him to even have that question in his mind for the rest of his life, especially given his later attitude toward his friends getting married.
re: b) - I know that "kid surrounded by fawning sycophants, gets told whatever he does is perfect" is the standard bad upbringing cliché for a prince - which Fritz and siblings definitely did not get - but I do wonder which of his contemporaries did, at least among the top players. Other than the obvious suspect, i.e. Louis XV, Louis the well beloved indeed. Because the Habsburgs didn't; we don't know as much about MT's raising as we do about her kids' raising, but what we do know was those kids is that they had a great deal to learn and definitely got chided if they weren't good in something. (Marie Antoinette with languages, for example.) Just not FW style chided, OMG. And all the Hannover Georges famously despised their male offspring and weren't that keen on some of the female ones, either. Catherine when still Sophie von Anhalt Zerbst had a very critical mother as I recall who had something of the SD Syndrome of wanting to live her ideal life through her daughter. With the result that when sycophants do show up, which happens during the princes' teenage days at the latest, all those teenage royals, not just Fritz, eat the that praise up with a spoon.
And then, of course, there's (P)Russian Pete. An example of Mitchell being a good judge of character and seeing through hyperbole in either direction is when he has his first chat with the Russian envoy post coup, on August 6th, 1762, and writes:
I think it unnecessary to repeat the account he gave me of the late revolution, nor of the death of the Emperor, which happened the 17th July, on the roadvto Slusselburg—a fortress—where he was to be imprisoned, and which, it is said, was occasioned par une cholique hemeroidale, to which his Imperial Majesty was subject, but which was increased by his intemperance; nor shall I mention the reports which havecbeen spread of the Emperor's intention to poison his wife, and to marry his mistress the Countess Elizabeth Woronzow, who, it is said, is with child, for this unfortunate Prince is even charged with a design of altering the succession, in prejudice to his own son and in favour of this unborn child; all those reports, and many others not worth mentioning, seem to me highly improbable, and greatly exaggerated in order to justify the late revolution (for which a reason mustbe given to the people). His real crime was a contempt for the nation he was to govern, which he showed too openly on every occasion, and thereby made himself a number of enemies; add to this, infinite conceit of himself, imagining that he was capable to execute every project which Peter the Great had formed, and that by a servile imitation he was instantaneously to become as formidable a warrior as the King of Prussia, whom he had chose for his model. His bad conduct with regard to his wife, his natural weakness and levity and precipitation with which he acted in the most important affairs, afforded more than sufficient handles for his destruction, without supposing him either criminal or malicious, yet hints of this kind are thrown out by authority, but do not acquire thereby any degree of credibility.
but I do wonder which of his contemporaries did, at least among the top players.
Louis the Well-beloved was the one who came to mind for me too. However, I think more interesting would be to look at the *previous* generations, because those are the examples that would lead Fritz to expect his parents' generation to go about raising their children a certain way.
I also think, again from Catt's context, that he's talking less about the parents themselves indulging their children, than the parents doing their best to make sure the people around the children aren't flattering them.
With the result that when sycophants do show up, which happens during the princes' teenage days at the latest, all those teenage royals, not just Fritz, eat the that praise up with a spoon.
Yeah, Catt has Fritz saying that when the flatterers showed up, Fritz ate it up with a spoon, but then he learned not to trust people, and now he doesn't let anyone influence him, so it's all good!
Self: *clears throat*
If Catt plus various other quotes + FW2's upbringing are anything to go by, Fritz has several of the pieces of good child psychology, but is not quite seeing the whole picture, and putting them together wrong.
An example of Mitchell being a good judge of character and seeing through hyperbole in either direction
That *is* a pretty good character evaluation! It basically summarizes modern scholarship, after centuries of swallowing the post-coup rationalizations whole. (As Lehndorff witnessed everyone doing.)
yet hints of this kind are thrown out by authority, but do not acquire thereby any degree of credibility.
Well done, Mitchell! That's a healthy skepticism to have when you work with heads of state.
Yeah, Catt has Fritz saying that when the flatterers showed up, Fritz ate it up with a spoon, but then he learned not to trust people, and now he doesn't let anyone influence him, so it's all good!
Meanwhile, Mitchell in the year 1766, to a new English secretary of foreign affairs, about Fritz:
The duty of my station, as well as the affection I bear to your Lordship as a friend, oblige me to disclose to you some of the weaknesses of my hero. Great men have their failings; if they had not, they would be too much for humanity. His is that of vanity, and a desire on every occasion to have the lead, or, at least, to seem to have it. The first might be dangerous; the second, I mean the appearance of leading, may be yielded with advantage, in order to draw him into such measures as are for his interest, but without shocking his vanity.
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Re: Andrew Mitchell: First Impressions
Verily. But also if you're stupid enough to get yourself killed. (Like brother in law from Braunschweig. Btw, I notice that other brother-in-law, Ferdinand, whom most of EC's and Louise's letters are adressed to, and who will survive the war, gets dissed by Fritz and Mitchell's reports a lot about being a drag who prevents Fritz' genius vision from being carried out completely.)
Did you notice any examples of him criticizing his father implicitly through an impersonal or passive in the Mitchell memoirs?
As I said, I don't read chronologically but here and there, whenever I find the time, and with this caveat; haven't spotted one yet, but that one occasion with the Katte mention aside, he doesn't seem to talk to Mitchell about his parents. Though that one big conversation after SD's death also contains this Fritizian assessment of Hohenzollern family relationships:
He observed that the harmony that had been maintained in his family was greatly owing to the education they had had, imperfect and defective in many things, but good in this, that all the children had been brought up, not as princes, but as the children of private persons. He mentioned the differences there had been between their family and that of Hanover, and spoke of the late King's testament, but with great moderation.
Now, while I'm the first to point out Hannover dysfunctionality, this is rich. Fritz, a) what harmony?, and b) you weren't educated like private people, and if you'd ever seen a private person educate their kids.
Though maybe he means that as opposed to the Hannover cousins, FW left them all with a hardcore work ethic? This is indeed the one key difference.
BTW, what with Mitchell being a Scot and bff with James Keith, what are the odds he's none too keen on the Hannover clan himself?
Re: so did Fritz talk to Catt about Katte/Küstrin at all in their 20 plus years together? Given he talked to Mitchell and Voltaire, and to Grumbkow via letter, and Catt was explicitly hired to be his friend on call, I'd say chances are good that he did, with the caveat that if he didn't, Catt, who is invested in making himself look like the primary confidant, WOULD have inserted it given all else he inserted.
ETA: and of course the big one - Fritz and the „Katte remained for a girl“ story, now that we‘re reasonably sure this is what Fritz told Mitchell.
My current take, if, that is, my half serious „Katte tarried because he was worried for Wilhelmine“ theory is true at all, and Fritz didn‘t invent the explanation for whatever reason, or there was really a Fräulein X we have no idea about, one of two things might have happened:
A) Danish ambassador: Katte, why the hell are you still in Berlin?
Katte: *not wanting to incriminate Wilhelmine any further than she has been as Fritz‘ confidante and through the double portrait*: Err, I‘ve got a girl here. *does not name names at all*
*a year or years later*
Fritz: So, I hear you talked to Katte that fateful day. Did he ever mention why he didn‘t use the head start?
Danish ambassador: Yeah, he said he had a girl he needed to look out for.
Fritz: ?!? ...?!? Who?
Danish Ambassador: Damned if I know.
Fritz:!!!! Thanks. *bitterly wonders but has no clue*
B) Danish Ambassador: Katte, what the hell? Why are you still there?
Katte: Gotta burn those documents. Also, I‘m worried about the Princess in general.
*a year or years later*
Danish Ambassador: So, your highness/ your majesty, I just wanted to say, your mate Katte, loyal to the death. To you and your sister.
Fritz: ?!?
Danish Ambassador: Why, he tarried with his departure because he wanted to ensure she wasn‘t too compromised. He told me.
Fritz: *is incredibly torn to hear this*
Fritz: *does not want to talk to Willhelmine about this ever*
Fritz: *has no intention of naming Wilhelmine to Mitchell and thus supplies *a girl*
Re: Andrew Mitchell: First Impressions
a) People are really, really bad at evaluating their families. It's extremely common for people in dysfunctional families with love-hate relationships to look at things other families do, go, "Look, my family doesn't do that!" and conclude that their family is utterly normal and harmonious. Even when they have enough data to conclude otherwise! I speak from my own and my wife's respective personal experiences, as well as extensive reading on child trauma.
It's *also* normal for people to present their family as completely normal to outsiders even when they know better.
b) In Fritz's defense, he talks a lot about this in Catt's memoirs, and what he means by "like a private person" is not flattering the young prince excessively and teaching him to think of himself as a minor god, infallible and flawless, when he's still a child. Which I have to admit was one feature of Fritz's hyper-abusive childhood! At least he didn't think everyone thought he was perfect!
...At the cost of constant pain and humiliation that messed him and his siblings up for life. :-(
There was also the spartan aspect of his upbringing, which, again, was abusive, but doesn't fit Fritz's idea of princely luxury. And, of course, the work ethic.
Re: so did Fritz talk to Catt about Katte/Küstrin at all in their 20 plus years together? Given he talked to Mitchell and Voltaire
Voltaire is a guess! We have no confirmation on that. It's a guess that got weakened when we discovered Catt's extreeeme economy with the truth, and strengthened when we discovered Mitchell.
Also, I turned up that passage last night that makes me think Catt was both willing and able to rip off Voltaire for the memoirs.
That said, I agree with you that if he talked to Mitchell, Fritz very very likely gave the same spiel to Catt some time in 20+ years, just not remotely on the date that Catt gives.
Now, if Fritz *did* talk to Catt, and the memoirs reflect anything like the real conversation, he told Catt that the reason Katte didn't escape is that Fritz wasn't able to warn him in time. Which means he's giving two different accounts to two different people.
Catt, do you KNOW how helpful it would be if I could believe ANYTHING you said?? I'm trying to build an account on a house of cards here. Voltaire: maybe horse's mouth, maybe rumor mill. Catt: maybe horse's mouth, maybe Voltaire + rumor mill. Thiebault: in a position to get it from the horse's mouth, but significant shared innovations with Voltaire. Wilhelmine: who on earth knows what Fritz told her and when? 1730 by smuggled letter? 1732 during the awful visit home? Never? (Seems unlikely if he told Mitchell, but who knows.) Pöllnitz: most detail probably from Wilhelmine and/or rumor mill, although Fritz may have given him the brief rundown he gave Mitchell.
Of six memoirists, there is only ONE reasonably reliable one! And of course, that's the one that has one sentence on the imprisonment and execution, and one on Katte's failure to escape. At least it's one of the ones that claims to be from the horse's mouth. Imagine if Mitchell had just put down what he'd learned without naming Fritz as his source. I'd never believe Fritz talked to anyone except possibly Wilhelmine, and she's got a very flawed picture of what happened, by the mid 1740s.
one of two things might have happened:
Those were pretty much my theories too, assuming that account is based on anything like fact. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Fritz had a hard time learning that Katte delayed to protect Wilhelmine, which could put him in the position of feeling like he has to choose which he would rather have happened: Katte protect his favorite sister (and best of all possible mothers), or Katte get away and not be executed in front of him?
"GIRL. TOTALLY random girl."
Fritz:!!!! Thanks. *bitterly wonders but has no clue*
This, if anything, is even more painful in a completely different way. Katte being loyal to Fritz and favorite sister at least means Katte loved him more than life, though it does add to his guilt. Katte getting distracted by random love affair that Fritz didn't even know about, at a time when he was supposed to be focusing on getting out of Prussia with Fritz?
Fritz: Well, no wonder he tried to talk me out of going. Didn't want to leave that WOMAN, whoever she was. Guess *that* was the most important thing in his life in August 1730.
ABORT! ABORT! Anti-headcanon. NEVER HAPPENED.
If Fritz ever *did* get told Katte said something about a girl, I sincerely hope he decided that either 1) Katte was lying to try to cover something else up, 2) something got lost in translation. But I would hate for him to even have that question in his mind for the rest of his life, especially given his later attitude toward his friends getting married.
Re: Andrew Mitchell: First Impressions
And then, of course, there's (P)Russian Pete. An example of Mitchell being a good judge of character and seeing through hyperbole in either direction is when he has his first chat with the Russian envoy post coup, on August 6th, 1762, and writes:
I think it unnecessary to repeat the account he gave me of the late revolution, nor of the death of the Emperor, which happened the 17th July, on the roadvto Slusselburg—a fortress—where he was to be imprisoned, and which, it is said, was occasioned par une cholique hemeroidale, to which his Imperial Majesty was subject, but which was increased by his intemperance; nor shall I mention the reports which havecbeen spread of the Emperor's intention to poison his wife, and to marry his mistress the Countess Elizabeth Woronzow, who, it is said, is with child, for this unfortunate Prince is even charged with a design of altering the succession, in prejudice to his own son and in favour of this unborn child; all those reports, and many others not worth mentioning, seem to me highly improbable, and greatly exaggerated in order to justify the late revolution (for which a reason mustbe given to the people). His real crime was a contempt for the nation he was to govern, which he showed too openly on every occasion, and thereby made himself a number of enemies; add to this, infinite conceit of himself, imagining that he was capable to execute every project which Peter the Great had formed, and that by a servile imitation he was instantaneously to become as formidable a warrior as the King of Prussia, whom he had chose for his model. His bad conduct with regard to his wife, his natural weakness and levity and precipitation with which he acted in the most important affairs, afforded more than sufficient handles for his destruction, without supposing him either criminal or malicious, yet hints of this kind are thrown out by authority, but do not acquire thereby any degree of credibility.
Re: Andrew Mitchell: First Impressions
Louis the Well-beloved was the one who came to mind for me too. However, I think more interesting would be to look at the *previous* generations, because those are the examples that would lead Fritz to expect his parents' generation to go about raising their children a certain way.
I also think, again from Catt's context, that he's talking less about the parents themselves indulging their children, than the parents doing their best to make sure the people around the children aren't flattering them.
With the result that when sycophants do show up, which happens during the princes' teenage days at the latest, all those teenage royals, not just Fritz, eat the that praise up with a spoon.
Yeah, Catt has Fritz saying that when the flatterers showed up, Fritz ate it up with a spoon, but then he learned not to trust people, and now he doesn't let anyone influence him, so it's all good!
Self: *clears throat*
If Catt plus various other quotes + FW2's upbringing are anything to go by, Fritz has several of the pieces of good child psychology, but is not quite seeing the whole picture, and putting them together wrong.
An example of Mitchell being a good judge of character and seeing through hyperbole in either direction
That *is* a pretty good character evaluation! It basically summarizes modern scholarship, after centuries of swallowing the post-coup rationalizations whole. (As Lehndorff witnessed everyone doing.)
yet hints of this kind are thrown out by authority, but do not acquire thereby any degree of credibility.
Well done, Mitchell! That's a healthy skepticism to have when you work with heads of state.
Re: Andrew Mitchell: First Impressions
*chokes* Um.
Re: Andrew Mitchell: First Impressions
The duty of my station, as well as the affection I bear to your Lordship as a friend, oblige me to disclose to you some of the weaknesses of my hero. Great men have their failings; if they had not, they would be too much for humanity. His is that of vanity, and a desire on every occasion to have the lead, or, at least, to seem to have it. The first might be dangerous; the second, I mean the appearance of leading, may be yielded with advantage, in order to draw him into such measures as are for his interest, but without shocking his vanity.
Re: Andrew Mitchell: First Impressions