Frederick the Great discussion post 11

[cahn]

In our last installment, our heroes found that Henri de Catt's memoirs, a major source for current biographers of Frederick the Great, are not to be trusted!!

rheinsberg

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Catt

[mildred_of_midgard]

Due to the fact that I'm constantly wanting to look things up in Catt's memoirs, and can never find them because it's a bunch of conversations that don't have an intrinsic logical order, I decided to make an outline of all the things I'm interested in and the order in which they occur, so when I'm navigating through the volume, I can close in on what I'm looking for.

I may or may get around to fleshing these out into sentences that make sense to other people and adding page numbers, but for now, this has already been tremendously useful to me just in the one day since I finished volume 1.

Volume 1
Fritz has lost weight
D'Argens gives Catt advice
Mitchell gives Catt advice
Fritz starts telling Catt about his ADCs and other people he associates with
Strasbourg anecdote
Guichard recounts an anecdote about saving a woman from rape
Guichard and Roman soldiers carrying more weight than Prussians
Voltaire and Maupertuis
Catt and Fritz disagree on religion
Voltaire letter arrives, Fritz devours with his eyes
Fritz wants to send Voltaire a poem, Catt advises against.
Maupertuis, Algarotti, La Mettrie, Jordan, d'Argens, de Prades, Darget, the Palladion, d'Arnaud
Fritz's snuff habit
Voltaire and Fritz argue about war
Fritz would like to live a civilian life
Fritz makes Guichard wear the gear of a grenadier
Catt is accused of overloading his packhorse
Childrearing
Lentulus and Schwerin
Poetry
Priests
Fritz's dream about being taken to Magdeburg
FW
Fritz beaten for learning Latin
Henry's the favorite son
Katte
Siblings beaten up
Reading records relating to his trial after becoming king
How terrible Fritz's life is
Rebuilding a town in the Italian style
Sanssouci, how much it cost, draws a picture of it
Count Hoditz
"Am I a Trenck that I should pillage you?"
Rousseau
Eugene
Immortality of the soul
Hussar buried alive
Ingratitude
Crying over Racine
Fritz foresaw the 7 Years' War 6 years in advance.
Women
MT
Montezuma
Fritz has an ADC steal from him, lets him keep the money, but dismisses him
Free will discussion
Ghost-writing love poetry
Epaminondas
Mitchell
Grant
Reading, Rheinsberg, dancing
Raising princes
Recites Cicero, importance of trained memory
Maupertuis and Voltaire
More ghost-writing
Voltaire, d'Argens, Algarotti
Wilhelmine encouraged Fritz to read
Fritz snuck out at night to read
FW tried to make him a hunter, opposed to dancing
Fritz hasn't danced since 1750, still likes to see young people dancing
Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt
Wolff deeply flawed
FW intelligent and good sense but hates learning, literature, philosophy
FW, SD, AW, Wilhelmine dream
Dreams and prophets
Existence of spirits, ghosts, prophecy, souls
Catt very sick
Fritz very good at medicine
Bookbinding
Seydlitz
Charles XII
Poetry, Marquis d'Argens
Swinish, snuff, mother used to send shirts
Colic
"I would sell Prussia and live in France."
Fritz has a bad temper but only when provoked
If they had tried to raise me instead of humiliating me, I would be a better person. Have to be won with praise, like Voltaire did.
Catt chats with Mitchell
The Keiths
Fritz accidentally opens letters belonging to other people
One is Catt's, in which a Swiss friend has criticized Fritz
Tries to ask a Bohemian peasant a question in his own language, can't understand the answer
Tells Catt to keep his diary around so Fritz can plagiarize from it later
Catt insists on joining the King, August 10, gets told he'll get in trouble for going uninvited, doesn't get in trouble
Turenne says anyone who hasn't made mistakes hasn't waged war
Watchmaker Deist argument
Küstrin destroyed by Russians
Fritz makes verses on the eve of Zorndorf
Pose-dam
Lesson on Zorndorf
The Wreeches
Peasant woman wants a place for her son
Lucretius, religion, Catt thinks Fritz's opinions aren't firm because he speaks of them so often

Volume 2
Seydlitz and Zorndorf
Amelia visit
AW's terrible medical care and how it killed him, plus bad advisors
Fritz used to listen to flattering friends too
Importance of not being led
d'Argens
Sanssouci
Letter of Pompadour to the Queen of Hungary
Apostolic Hag
Catt meets Heinrich, Fritz speaks well of him
Fritz needs help with basic Latin
Fritz wants to send an ode on the French to Voltaire, Catt advises against it
Worried that Voltaire may have made a copy of the book of poems that was retrieved at Frankfurt
Voltaire exaggerated Frankfurt
Hochkirch
Worried about Wilhelmine, who taught him to work and to moderate his temper
Trying to write a letter with an ode for her
Battle of Hochkirch starts
Catt says Fritz exposes himself too much
Shows Catt opium
Fritz didn't listen to advice
Opium again
Wilhelmine dies
Catt consoles him
Heinrich visits, Fritz and Heinrich have a good cry
Fritz eavesdrops on Marwitz, who complains about Fritz berating him for how he pitched his camp
Seydlitz: "Well, win it then, Your Majesty."
Finally sleeps a little
Depressed, doesn't want cheering up, wants some sympathy
Torments Guichard by not letting him eat when he's hungry
Feverish
Makes fun of guy who believes in prophets
Refuses to ride in carriage, despite being sick and having a rash
Misses Wilhelmine, wants Catt to speak of her often
Doesn't like sitting in high, royal chairs
Mocks the King of Poland
Writing his memoirs, hopes his family will be pleased
Sends instructions to his generals to Fouque
Hochkirch not entirely his fault, but an unfortunate stone in his garden
Dog keeps jumping up and interrupting him
Hopes to see mother and sister after death
Doesn't like Voltaire's ode to his sister
Voltaire given credit for Fritz's history of Brandenburg
Fritz thinks Voltaire gave himself credit and pretends to be outraged
Prince of Brunswick wants promotion, Fritz refuses to be pressured
Voltaire
MT hates whores
Thinks Wedell is the greatest, makes snap judgments, sometimes goes back on them
Colic
Misses Wilhelmine and SD
FW anecdotes: knocks down girl, tells Grumbkow a secret,
Rheinsberg, Mollwitz, no opium at Mollwitz
Wedell defeated by Russians
Studied geometry more for logic and math, forgot most of the math, kept the reasoning abilities
Leaves Catt with Heinrich
Catt doesn't think you should get information from grooms
Praise of Heinrich
Kunersdorf, Fritz saved by gold case from bullet
Charles XII
Maxen
Nobody except Catt dares inform Fritz
Brief allusion to Küstrin
Wishes he had been laid up with gout longer so he could have prevented this
Wants to retire
Compares himself to Voltaire, Catt says Fritz writes for a distraction, Fritz says genius even bigger difference
Religion, immortality of the soul
Bother-free Voltaire visits
Individual vs. general maps
Fritz can't draw up retreat plan after Kolin
Discussion of Kunersdorf
Jesuits and education
Training memory
Wilhelmine and Keith
Gout
FW2 positive appraisal
Anonymous letter, Fritz's secret poems published
Fritz sick
Rewrites offensive poems
Doesn't believe in turning the other cheek either
Voltaire, D'Alembert
Lulls inner child
Catt tells Fritz he usually guesses wrong about how things are going to turn out
Wet behind the ears but old in courage
Misbehaved as a child, but would have been better with more gentleness. Hard to undo upbringing.
Anecdote about minister of state beating coachman
Voltaire, letters
Voltaire yelling "warmth" in theater
Classical education
Vengeance is sweet
Peasant won't spy on Austrians
Very bad mood, impatient with everyone, talks about hanging himself
Fouqué captured
Dreams of father, wants his approval, asks Old Dessauer if he should attack

Re: Catt

[mildred_of_midgard]

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."

Re: Catt

[selenak]

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!

True. I'm also reminded of Voltaire asking Fritz via letter whether FW at last appreciated him, Fritz, for who he was, and Fritz never answering this in his " he died bravely and with me and Mom at his side" reply.

I'm also trying to think of issues FW provenly changed his mind about, other than Wolff. (Not) Executing that one Potsdam Giant because toddler AW asked for mercy, I suppose. Also, not being pious enough for some weeks pre Dresden visit, when he was considering retirement. And poor other Friedrich (of Bayreuth), who was fine as long as he was just a faceless name to marry Wilhelmine to, thereby punishing SD's ambition and Wilhelmine herself, but once he turned out to be a flute playing French language loving not into drinking heavily wasa the worst son-in-law and a disappointment. Oh, and of Course wether or not Fritz would be a worthy successor, but there FW didn't as much change his mind as he declared he'd always been right about original vintage Fritz but had now reshaped him into worthy successor Fritz.

Re: Catt

[mildred_of_midgard]

So, a long time ago, when we were all younger and much more innocent, in the salad days of our fandom, I commented with surprise on how the Katte conversation went, Catt's failure to say anything at all, and the abrupt transition to talking about the war. We agreed that it might have been tricky to know what to say, and that Fritz might have signaled that he didn't want to discuss it and then moved on to less painful topics.

Well! Now having looked at the evidence more closely, I still don't know whether Fritz told him about Katte or Catt's recounting what he heard elsewhere, but I can tell you in much better detail what's going on in this so-called conversation.

Long story short: Catt is stitching together thematically related but chronologically disparate episodes to make one intellectually dishonest conversation with Fritz. Behold.

It starts with Fritz's dream about being taken to Magdeburg for not loving his father enough. Aside from the fact that the diary has "his sisters" and the memoirs makes it the more moving "sister of Bayreuth," the diary records this dream in January 1760. The memoirs place it in April 1758!

Recurring dream? Sure, but given the vast numbers of other disparate things he's going to weave into this conversation, I don't buy it. Especially since it's conveniently one month after he starts working for Fritz. This may, by the way, be as much about front-loading the most exciting parts of his memoirs as much as by making him appear the immediate confidant.

Now Fritz talks about how great Dad was as a king, and how morally upstanding, but wow that parenting. /o\ Especially the part where he didn't want Fritz to learn Latin. Well, not learning Latin is in the diary...from July 16, 1758. Without the exciting detail of hiding under the table, although given it's FW, I totally buy it.

Then Fritz says he was raised as if to be a theologian, the way he wasn't supposed to read anything except religious material. The diary has this in June, 1759.

Does Fritz comment on this more than once? I'm sure he does. Does he work *all* these topics into this one April 1758 conversation? No way.

Now we come to the Katte episode, which we have no known written source for, unless it's possibly Voltaire. It could be Fritz. But I doubt it's from the period of the diary if so.

Then that episode about Sydow and the deserting soldier, which according to the diary, Catt learns around camp in July 1759, when he's left with Heinrich after Fritz heads off to get his butt kicked at Kunersdorf. But now it's in Fritz's mouth.

Funnily enough, that one, which we know he heard from a non-Fritz source, is the only part of this monologue in which Catt manages to interject a word sideways. Normally there's more back-and-forth, where Catt gets to say things.

I am 100% sure he is just pasting a bunch of separate accounts together, at least two of which are not from Fritz, and he never polished it, and that's why this is a monologue instead of a conversation.

Then we get the story about the younger siblings hiding under the table, which as we know, Catt also learned in 1759 from someone in Heinrich's camp, not from Fritz.

Then Fritz opens up the archives after becoming king. Haven't found a source for this.

And then this amazing segue, non sequitur to surpass all non sequiturs, happens:

"On coming to the throne, I was curious to see all that had been done during my detention at Küstrin. I sent for the minutes of the deliberations concerning me and for all the documents in this strange case. I read them carefully, and extracted a few sheets, so that they might not be speaking witnesses for future centuries of the barbarities of an unheard-of conduct towards me. After having torn up these atrocious and sanguinary pages, I had the rest carefully sealed and placed in the archives of the cabinet.

"To continue your brief military course, you should know that I made my plan for the campaign at Breslau. I began it by the taking of Schweidnitz, and I shall march into Moravia with my army, which consists of 65 battalions and of 118 squadrons. I shall besiege Olmütz, and, having taken that town, I will then tell you where I shall lead you. General Fouqué is following me with the supply column, the heavy artillery, munitions and everything necessary for a siege ; and the corps he commands is intended for that purpose."

Honest to god, that reads like Catt meant to fix it later and never did. In fact, all the separate anecdotes read like that, with Fritz jumping from topic to topic without a pause, except at least the topics are thematically related so you don't notice as much. Catt's seams are showing, and it reads very much like a rough draft of raw material that he was planning to rework. cahn, if it's not obvious just how much whiplash is in that transition, he's jumping from 1740 to the campaigns of the present day, 1756-1758.

Inescapable conclusion: this conversation did nooooot happen like that.

It's still 50/50 in my mind whether Catt heard the Katte episode from Fritz, but I can tell you nothing remotely like that one topic-jumping monologue happened, and certainly not in April 1758.

Re: Catt

[selenak]

Honest to god, that reads like Catt meant to fix it later and never did.

Didn't he go blind in his old age? So I bet this was literally the case - he couldn't fix it, and the memoirs remained unpublished in his life time.

Re: Catt

[mildred_of_midgard]

I've only ever seen that in Wikipedia (unless it was in Rosebery's preface and I forgot), but yes, that is what I've been told. So you're right, especially if he was composing/editing after 1784 (i.e. the Voltaire memoir year), he was getting pretty close to blindness years, and he might well have run out of time. I mean, he probably could have gotten an amanuensis, but it might not have been his top priority.

But seriously, scholars need to call more attention to the visible seams and general unreliability of these memoirs.

Re: Catt

[cahn]

Wow, lol yeah. I didn't realize he was jumping so much in time until you said so, but certainly the topics were... completely unrelated, ha.