guys, I am a bit lost, "auf Werbung gehen" could mean going to woo, or going to recruit, or going to advertise, but I'm going with "recruit because when in doubt, assume a military context in Prussia
In numerous secondary sources, I've seen references to Katte trying and failing to get leave to go recruiting in the western domains, as a ploy to get himself close to the French or Dutch border, so I think you're spot on here.
before I even knew I'd join the trip to Saxony
cahn, this is the "pleasure camp" at Zeithain (also called the camp of Mühlberg), where Augustus the Strong showed that he knew how to throw a party. It lasted the entire month of June 1730, and the purpose was to do a review of the troops to show off the military prowess of Saxony, while simultaneously throwing a really, really big party (think entire opera house built for the purpose) to show off the wealth and high culture of Saxony.
Remember that Saxony, like Prussia, had started out a third-rate power that had only recently become a second-rate one, with Augustus and F1 getting royal titles. Conspicuous consumption played just as big a role in Augustus's plans to get taken seriously by the first-rate powers like France as it had for spendthrift F1 (despised by son FW and grandson Fritz for just this reason). If you're aware that Saxony was one of Prussia's biggest rivals, as well as next-door neighbor, it puts both FW's actions in the War of the Polish Succession as well as Fritz's war crimes into context.
He wanted to talk to Count Hoym
cahn, this is a different Count Hoym than the one you'll see in Blanning as the corrupt minister of Silesia. Wikipedia tells me this was the Saxon ambassador to Versailles, who had recently returned to Saxony. He apparently had many enemies there and in other courts (including Berlin and Vienna), and was imprisoned three times, before finally committing suicide in prison in 1736. Wikipedia tells me one of the charges, which it believes is trumped-up, was impregnating his niece--which goes some way toward answering my question as to how scandalous Voltaire and (the non-impregnated) Madame Denis would have been to contemporaries!
about a journey I should make to Leipzig incognito
Geography is important here: Leipzig is in Saxony, so outside FW's domains and in the domains of the somewhat-friendlier-to-Fritz Elector-King Augustus, and located due west of the pleasure camp, so on the way to France.
Chronology is also important:
June 1730: month-long extravagant military-review-cum-pleasure-camp in Saxony, where FW gives Fritz his most public humiliation. Katte recounts in the species facti how Fritz was already making plans to escape via Leipzig. July 12, 1730: Hotham gives up on the double marriage project and goes back to England. August 5, 1730: Fritz snaps and makes his escape attempt near the French border (but not near enough), while he and FW are on a royal tour in the west. August 15, 1731: FW tells Fritz he abused him especially badly in the camp at Saxony to get him to love him! As recounted in the Grumbkow-Seckendorff submission protocol recently given in full by selenak.
I remained in the camp with Colonel Katte - this would be his cousin, who'd later forward the letter to FW
Would it? Everyone gives letter-forwarder's rank as Rittmeister (captain), not Oberst (colonel), in the secondary biographies, and Wikipedia agrees that he wasn't an Oberst until 1743, or even an Oberstleutnant (which is sometimes called Oberst for short by contemporaries) until 1739.
But I can't find any of the other cousins being that highly ranked in 1730; they're all much too young. And Hans Heinrich got promoted from Oberst to Generalmajor in 1718, so it can't be him. I'm not sure who this is. One more distant cousin, David Levin von Katte, will join the Danish service as a major in 1739, then become a colonel, but that's too late. Okay, his older brother, Christoph Friedrich, is also in the Danish service and makes it as far as Obristleutnant, but my source doesn't say when he gets that rank. He may be old enough, born in 1678.
Oh, wait. There's a Saxon-Polish Obrist Hans Christoph von Katte, who's doing something (without using Google Translate, my guess is completing the building of some baroque manor?) in 1727. I wish I could be certain they're using his rank of 1727 and not his final rank, because a Saxon colonel would definitely be on site at the pleasure camp.
Ooh, I think it's him. Kloosterhuis has a mention of him, also gives him the title Obrist, and he's the guy who later recounts the anecdote that at the pleasure camp, Fritz and Katte were talking about the mistress of the Saxon officer who was murdered for his sake, and that's when Fritz and Katte have the "Se non fu vero, fu bene trovato" exchange where Katte says, "Of course, death is the fruit of loyalty."
Okay, if he was both on site and hanging out with Fritz and Katte during the camp, and both my sources give him as an Obrist, I'm going with: it was Hans Christoph von Katte, the Saxon colonel, not Johann Friedrich von Katte, the Prussian captain, that Katte was staying with that evening.
Now the obvious question: how does this guy fit into the Katte family tree? And sadly, I haven't yet found that out. There are apparently 5 Hans Christophs in Martin Katte's family tree, of which he only carries over 3 that I can see in his memoirs.
Hmm. There's one genealogy site that gives me a Hans Christoph von Katte who dies in Berlin in 1766. He is a...5th cousin once removed of Hans Hermann. But I have no way of knowing if it's the same guy.
Okay, I've done what I can! Moving on.
Katte was threatened by torture if he didn't confess all, and of course he knew the punishment for desertion under FW if this was what it was judged to be and wanted to live, so with that caveat, here's what he said happened:
Yeah, he protests his innocence about as much as Trenck. :P When I was tracking this down, some 19th or 20th historian said it seemed basically accurate, except for overstating the extent to which Katte wanted NO PART in all this, no sir, no part at all.
If you're aware that Saxony was one of Prussia's biggest rivals, as well as next-door neighbor, it puts both FW's actions in the War of the Polish Succession as well as Fritz's war crimes into context.
There was a GDR tv miniseries called "Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria" about the few decades where there was actually a rivalry, and the title - "Saxony's Splendour and Prussia's Glory" sums up why they were thought of as the Athens and Sparta of their day. In FW's day the division was clear cut, and August had all the top artists, the art galleries, the musicians (Quantz!), the composers - both Bach and Händel were Saxons, after all, though Händel had his big career mostly abroad, in Italy and England respectively, while Bach remained at home in Leipzig -, and the scholars (hello, Wolff). And of course drop dead gorgeous architecture, the famous porcellain in Meißen, and Poland due to the union of being the Prince Elector of Saxony and the elected King of Poland. FW and Fritz visiting the first time really must have felt like the poor relations coming to town, so during the camp at Zeithain, FW made sure that he at least brought along the one thing where he outshone all other German princes - a modern army.
Presumably it's also a(nother) reason why Fritz was snippy with Algarotti for taking the job with August III when being bored in Berlin in the early 1740s and there were a few years of silence between them. The one thing he could have done that was worse would have been accepting a job in Vienna. At least there, Algarotti limited himself to designing MT's tablewear.
Incidentally, Grumbkow-Seckendorff protocol: do you want me to post it at rheinsberg, or do you want to include it in one of yours? That's why I've held off for now.
--which goes some way toward answering my question as to how scandalous Voltaire and (the non-impregnated) Madame Denis would have been to contemporaries!
Meanwhle, Catherine's mother "saw in me her futher sister-in-law" and let brother Georg Ludwig paw 13 and 14 years old Sophie, according to her memoirs. But then, Voltaire and Madame Denis were not only non-nobles but (nominal) Catholics. (Was Hoym? As a Saxon, it could have been either way.) (ETA: I mention the religion because evidentallly Ferdinand, as a (nominal) Calvinist, didn't need anyone but Fritz' okay for the marriage to their niece. Whereas you needed to be a ruling Spanish Habsburg or a French Bourbon bribing the Vatican massively if you wanted to get niece marriage okay'd by the Pope, and the artist formerly known as Monsieur Arouet, citizen, certainly did not fall under that category, meaning he might even have been acted criminally according to (some) French law.
the title - "Saxony's Splendour and Prussia's Glory" sums up why they were thought of as the Athens and Sparta of their day.
That's interesting, because what that actually reminds me of is the famous Edgar Allen Poe line (I had to look up the attribution): "The glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome."
Presumably it's also a(nother) reason why Fritz was snippy with Algarotti for taking the job with August III when being bored in Berlin in the early 1740s and there were a few years of silence between them.
Agreed!
Incidentally, Grumbkow-Seckendorff protocol: do you want me to post it at [community profile] rheinsberg, or do you want to include it in one of yours? That's why I've held off for now.
Go ahead and post it. There's no particular post of mine I want to fit it into.
Meanwhle, Catherine's mother "saw in me her futher sister-in-law" and let brother Georg Ludwig paw 13 and 14 years old Sophie, according to her memoirs.
Wow. If I knew this, I had forgotten. This fandom: never boring!
But then, Voltaire and Madame Denis were not only non-nobles but (nominal) Catholics. (Was Hoym? As a Saxon, it could have been either way.)
I can't find anything definitive, as as you say, it could go either way.
ETA: I mention the religion because evidentallly Ferdinand, as a (nominal) Calvinist, didn't need anyone but Fritz' okay for the marriage to their niece. Whereas you needed to be a ruling Spanish Habsburg or a French Bourbon bribing the Vatican massively if you wanted to get niece marriage okay'd by the Pope
And we all know how the Church of England got its start! cahn, do we? Combination of political and religious considerations meaning Henry VIII had to be head of his own church in order to authorize his annulment from his first wife? Because the Pope, operating in a context of complicated Continental politics, kept refusing?
the artist formerly known as Monsieur Arouet, citizen, certainly did not fall under that category, meaning he might even have been acted criminally according to (some) French law.
That's actually a really interesting question. Especially with French law varying from region to region, and the fact that just because the church wouldn't give you permission to marry someone doesn't necessarily (but can) mean that it's illegal to have sex with them, or that if there is technically something on the books, anyone will care. Example: if you're a married man, you can't legally marry another woman, and extramarital sex is certainly a sin in the eyes of the Church, but was it technically against French civil law to have a mistress? I'm not actually sure.
iberiandoctor, we have a legal question! Was having non-impregnating sex with your niece illegal in all or part of France in the mid 18th century? As opposed to it not being possible to get a Catholic marriage under most circumstances?
Was having non-impregnating sex with your niece illegal in all or part of France in the mid 18th century? As opposed to it not being possible to get a Catholic marriage under most circumstances?
Non-impregnating sex with a niece in her 30s who is a widow, if that makes a legal difference. (I.e. no virginity lost, also no husband or parents' authority gone against. I'm just recalling that there were legal systems where the problem of extramarital sex was basically the hurting of another man's property rights.
That's interesting, because what that actually reminds me of is the famous Edgar Allen Poe line (I had to look up the attribution): "The glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome."
Ah, but Poe's poetry, as opposed to Poe's short stories, were and are fairly unknown in Germany, due to not having found adequate translations. (Whereas the short stories really were a hit here from the later 19th century onwards.) And the GDR teaching schedule didn't exactly emphasize US literature, so I doubt those East German tv writers were thinking of Poe. If you want to try google translate, here is the German wiki entry about the tv series, which was based on three novels by a Polish writer, and became an East German tv classic of sorts. Since most movies and tv shows of the era focus on Prussia and the Prussian pov, this is the rare exception.
I'm just recalling that there were legal systems where the problem of extramarital sex was basically the hurting of another man's property rights.
Indeed, married vs. unmarried is a very important distinction. Also the virgin aspect (not ruining her future marriage prospects). There are many times and places in which if you were a woman, being a widow got you more freedom (not just sexual) than many of your other options. (Of course, "freedom" also depends on which specific freedoms you personally were most interested in.)
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Katte - Species Facti 1
Date: 2020-03-20 12:46 am (UTC)In numerous secondary sources, I've seen references to Katte trying and failing to get leave to go recruiting in the western domains, as a ploy to get himself close to the French or Dutch border, so I think you're spot on here.
before I even knew I'd join the trip to Saxony
Remember that Saxony, like Prussia, had started out a third-rate power that had only recently become a second-rate one, with Augustus and F1 getting royal titles. Conspicuous consumption played just as big a role in Augustus's plans to get taken seriously by the first-rate powers like France as it had for spendthrift F1 (despised by son FW and grandson Fritz for just this reason). If you're aware that Saxony was one of Prussia's biggest rivals, as well as next-door neighbor, it puts both FW's actions in the War of the Polish Succession as well as Fritz's war crimes into context.
He wanted to talk to Count Hoym
about a journey I should make to Leipzig incognito
Geography is important here: Leipzig is in Saxony, so outside FW's domains and in the domains of the somewhat-friendlier-to-Fritz Elector-King Augustus, and located due west of the pleasure camp, so on the way to France.
Chronology is also important:
June 1730: month-long extravagant military-review-cum-pleasure-camp in Saxony, where FW gives Fritz his most public humiliation. Katte recounts in the species facti how Fritz was already making plans to escape via Leipzig.
July 12, 1730: Hotham gives up on the double marriage project and goes back to England.
August 5, 1730: Fritz snaps and makes his escape attempt near the French border (but not near enough), while he and FW are on a royal tour in the west.
August 15, 1731: FW tells Fritz he abused him especially badly in the camp at Saxony to get him to love him! As recounted in the Grumbkow-Seckendorff submission protocol recently given in full by
I remained in the camp with Colonel Katte - this would be his cousin, who'd later forward the letter to FW
Would it? Everyone gives letter-forwarder's rank as Rittmeister (captain), not Oberst (colonel), in the secondary biographies, and Wikipedia agrees that he wasn't an Oberst until 1743, or even an Oberstleutnant (which is sometimes called Oberst for short by contemporaries) until 1739.
But I can't find any of the other cousins being that highly ranked in 1730; they're all much too young. And Hans Heinrich got promoted from Oberst to Generalmajor in 1718, so it can't be him. I'm not sure who this is. One more distant cousin, David Levin von Katte, will join the Danish service as a major in 1739, then become a colonel, but that's too late. Okay, his older brother, Christoph Friedrich, is also in the Danish service and makes it as far as Obristleutnant, but my source doesn't say when he gets that rank. He may be old enough, born in 1678.
Oh, wait. There's a Saxon-Polish Obrist Hans Christoph von Katte, who's doing something (without using Google Translate, my guess is completing the building of some baroque manor?) in 1727. I wish I could be certain they're using his rank of 1727 and not his final rank, because a Saxon colonel would definitely be on site at the pleasure camp.
Ooh, I think it's him. Kloosterhuis has a mention of him, also gives him the title Obrist, and he's the guy who later recounts the anecdote that at the pleasure camp, Fritz and Katte were talking about the mistress of the Saxon officer who was murdered for his sake, and that's when Fritz and Katte have the "Se non fu vero, fu bene trovato" exchange where Katte says, "Of course, death is the fruit of loyalty."
Okay, if he was both on site and hanging out with Fritz and Katte during the camp, and both my sources give him as an Obrist, I'm going with: it was Hans Christoph von Katte, the Saxon colonel, not Johann Friedrich von Katte, the Prussian captain, that Katte was staying with that evening.
Now the obvious question: how does this guy fit into the Katte family tree? And sadly, I haven't yet found that out. There are apparently 5 Hans Christophs in Martin Katte's family tree, of which he only carries over 3 that I can see in his memoirs.
Hmm. There's one genealogy site that gives me a Hans Christoph von Katte who dies in Berlin in 1766. He is a...5th cousin once removed of Hans Hermann. But I have no way of knowing if it's the same guy.
Okay, I've done what I can! Moving on.
Katte was threatened by torture if he didn't confess all, and of course he knew the punishment for desertion under FW if this was what it was judged to be and wanted to live, so with that caveat, here's what he said happened:
Yeah, he protests his innocence about as much as Trenck. :P When I was tracking this down, some 19th or 20th historian said it seemed basically accurate, except for overstating the extent to which Katte wanted NO PART in all this, no sir, no part at all.
Poor Katte. :(
Re: Katte - Species Facti 1
Date: 2020-03-20 08:03 am (UTC)There was a GDR tv miniseries called "Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria" about the few decades where there was actually a rivalry, and the title - "Saxony's Splendour and Prussia's Glory" sums up why they were thought of as the Athens and Sparta of their day. In FW's day the division was clear cut, and August had all the top artists, the art galleries, the musicians (Quantz!), the composers - both Bach and Händel were Saxons, after all, though Händel had his big career mostly abroad, in Italy and England respectively, while Bach remained at home in Leipzig -, and the scholars (hello, Wolff). And of course drop dead gorgeous architecture, the famous porcellain in Meißen, and Poland due to the union of being the Prince Elector of Saxony and the elected King of Poland. FW and Fritz visiting the first time really must have felt like the poor relations coming to town, so during the camp at Zeithain, FW made sure that he at least brought along the one thing where he outshone all other German princes - a modern army.
Presumably it's also a(nother) reason why Fritz was snippy with Algarotti for taking the job with August III when being bored in Berlin in the early 1740s and there were a few years of silence between them. The one thing he could have done that was worse would have been accepting a job in Vienna. At least there, Algarotti limited himself to designing MT's tablewear.
Incidentally, Grumbkow-Seckendorff protocol: do you want me to post it at
--which goes some way toward answering my question as to how scandalous Voltaire and (the non-impregnated) Madame Denis would have been to contemporaries!
Meanwhle, Catherine's mother "saw in me her futher sister-in-law" and let brother Georg Ludwig paw 13 and 14 years old Sophie, according to her memoirs. But then, Voltaire and Madame Denis were not only non-nobles but (nominal) Catholics. (Was Hoym? As a Saxon, it could have been either way.) (ETA: I mention the religion because evidentallly Ferdinand, as a (nominal) Calvinist, didn't need anyone but Fritz' okay for the marriage to their niece. Whereas you needed to be a ruling Spanish Habsburg or a French Bourbon bribing the Vatican massively if you wanted to get niece marriage okay'd by the Pope, and the artist formerly known as Monsieur Arouet, citizen, certainly did not fall under that category, meaning he might even have been acted criminally according to (some) French law.
Re: Katte - Species Facti 1
Date: 2020-03-20 09:39 pm (UTC)That's interesting, because what that actually reminds me of is the famous Edgar Allen Poe line (I had to look up the attribution): "The glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome."
Presumably it's also a(nother) reason why Fritz was snippy with Algarotti for taking the job with August III when being bored in Berlin in the early 1740s and there were a few years of silence between them.
Agreed!
Incidentally, Grumbkow-Seckendorff protocol: do you want me to post it at [community profile] rheinsberg, or do you want to include it in one of yours? That's why I've held off for now.
Go ahead and post it. There's no particular post of mine I want to fit it into.
Meanwhle, Catherine's mother "saw in me her futher sister-in-law" and let brother Georg Ludwig paw 13 and 14 years old Sophie, according to her memoirs.
Wow. If I knew this, I had forgotten. This fandom: never boring!
But then, Voltaire and Madame Denis were not only non-nobles but (nominal) Catholics. (Was Hoym? As a Saxon, it could have been either way.)
I can't find anything definitive, as as you say, it could go either way.
ETA: I mention the religion because evidentallly Ferdinand, as a (nominal) Calvinist, didn't need anyone but Fritz' okay for the marriage to their niece. Whereas you needed to be a ruling Spanish Habsburg or a French Bourbon bribing the Vatican massively if you wanted to get niece marriage okay'd by the Pope
And we all know how the Church of England got its start!
the artist formerly known as Monsieur Arouet, citizen, certainly did not fall under that category, meaning he might even have been acted criminally according to (some) French law.
That's actually a really interesting question. Especially with French law varying from region to region, and the fact that just because the church wouldn't give you permission to marry someone doesn't necessarily (but can) mean that it's illegal to have sex with them, or that if there is technically something on the books, anyone will care. Example: if you're a married man, you can't legally marry another woman, and extramarital sex is certainly a sin in the eyes of the Church, but was it technically against French civil law to have a mistress? I'm not actually sure.
Re: Katte - Species Facti 1
Date: 2020-03-21 03:09 pm (UTC)Non-impregnating sex with a niece in her 30s who is a widow, if that makes a legal difference. (I.e. no virginity lost, also no husband or parents' authority gone against. I'm just recalling that there were legal systems where the problem of extramarital sex was basically the hurting of another man's property rights.
That's interesting, because what that actually reminds me of is the famous Edgar Allen Poe line (I had to look up the attribution): "The glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome."
Ah, but Poe's poetry, as opposed to Poe's short stories, were and are fairly unknown in Germany, due to not having found adequate translations. (Whereas the short stories really were a hit here from the later 19th century onwards.) And the GDR teaching schedule didn't exactly emphasize US literature, so I doubt those East German tv writers were thinking of Poe. If you want to try google translate, here is the German wiki entry about the tv series, which was based on three novels by a Polish writer, and became an East German tv classic of sorts. Since most movies and tv shows of the era focus on Prussia and the Prussian pov, this is the rare exception.
Re: Katte - Species Facti 1
Date: 2020-03-21 11:13 pm (UTC)Indeed, married vs. unmarried is a very important distinction. Also the virgin aspect (not ruining her future marriage prospects). There are many times and places in which if you were a woman, being a widow got you more freedom (not just sexual) than many of your other options. (Of course, "freedom" also depends on which specific freedoms you personally were most interested in.)