cahn | Frederick the Great discussion post 15

cahn

...I have nothing clever to say here, just really pleased this is still going :)

rheinsberg

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From:

mildred_of_midgard

In the interests of me doing more German, I'm trying again with books that

cahn wants to read in English, which worked really well last time, instead of books that are at the top of my to-read list, which doesn't seem to be working nearly as well. So! In addition to the remaining Ziebura books, I have managed to interest her in reading some Lehndorff. :D

Now,

selenak, royal reader extraordinaire, you have told me that the first volume of his diary was reprinted in 2007. Before I spend $50, can you confirm whether this was reprinted in a modern font and not the 1907 blackletter font? I want to make sure Google's OCR API can handle it.

And speaking of Lehndorff, something that occurred to me I don't know: religious belief. I didn't get a sense of him being especially devout from your summaries, but could you tell: casual Christian, nominal Christian, questioning, confirmed nonbeliever? I'm always curious where 18th century individuals stood on this point, especially the upper class ones where "confirmed nonbeliever" was a feasible option.

From:

selenak

It's reprinted in modern font. The text is identical, but the font is modern.

Religious belief: mellow Protestant. He mentions going to church a couple of times, and not just when there's a victory Te Deum to be sung during the 7 Years War; he also does things like holding his servants' children during their baptism. Not to mention in his later years the occasional "Kaphengst + double chin = divine justice!" type of observation. Otoh, he clearly sees no conflict between that and reading lots of Voltaire and Rousseau, hence the "mellow", and is cool with the occasional Catholic instead of going "no Popery!" When he's visiting Austrian territory in the early 1780s and writes about how everyone is shocked by how Joseph treats the (Catholic) church in his reforms, his sympathies seem to be with the shocked priests, even.

What is utterly lacking is a sense of religious guilt, though. When we find out that a friend advised him to try a prostitute in his post-Hotham depression, and he, L, later regrets it, this isn't because he's had extramarital sex (of either variety), but because he's checked out the STD patients at the Berlin Charité, and OMG, no more prostitutes ever! Also it's awkward because you don't know whether to send them away directly afterwards or wait a while, which is the polite thing to do? There is no "I have sinned, oh Lord!" going on.

Otoh, when he has trouble with his mother, he does tell himself Gods wants us to respect our parents, even if they are harsh and unreasonable to us.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yay, Lehndorff in our future! :D

And thank you for the executive summary. (Would have actual comments but typing on phone.)

From:

cahn

That makes a lot of sense! I imagine in those days going to church was a fairly social thing that people didn't necessarily think a lot about. Though I'm kind of impressed that he didn't have any religious guilt, even so!

because he's checked out the STD patients at the Berlin Charité, and OMG, no more prostitutes ever! Also it's awkward because you don't know whether to send them away directly afterwards or wait a while, which is the polite thing to do?

LOLOLOLOL I <3 Lehndorff so much. It's amazing to me that you can still come up with new stories about this guy that I find totally endearing :D

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I <3 Lehndorff so much. It's amazing to me that you can still come up with new stories about this guy that I find totally endearing :D

So while she had told us this story already--and I don't at all blame you for forgetting, there is just TOO MUCH--I'm glad you forgot! Because looking up her original comment led me to google something (Katte-related, of course), and I found that Mina, Heinrich's wife, kept a diary, which Volz published in 1908, along with a bunch of letters, as part of a series on the house of Hohenzollern which looks like it has some other goodies.

Now, he and his co-editor didn't bother translating from French to German so

selenak could read it to us (though the preface is in German), but she's kind of busy anyway, and translating from French automatically is something I can do as soon as I'm either not so limited on computer time or required by the muses to spend so much of that time on fanfic. :P

Anyway, I've dropped the Mina volume into the library, and will start looking up other works in this series when I have time. There seems to be one on Heinrich as politician and one on the letters between Heinrich and AnhaltSophie, I mean Catherine the Great.

Man. How did we not know Mina had a diary? Oh, and it's specifically during the Seven Years' War, or at least this volume is. I haven't checked to see whether the series includes a multi-volume diary or this is it.

Edited Date: 2020-07-04 02:53 am (UTC)

From:

selenak

Re: Mina's diary, we did know, that is, I did, and you must have passively done, because Ziebura quotes from it a couple of times in both her Heinrich and her AW biographies, and of course in the one about the trio of unwanted wives. However, these are always the same quotes - prominently the one lamenting the death of AW, and the one about Ferdinand suddenly changing his behavior towards her from warm friend to coldly distant thereafter - and I think at least the Ferdinand quote I might have mentioned in one of my original write ups.

Anyway: hadn't seen the diary anywhere in German, hence have not read it (other than the quotes), considering all else I had to read. Have now quickly scanned Volz' preface. In which he takes a swipe at the editor of the Voss diary about the same thing I noticed when, upon seeing you have uploaded it as well, I just know read the preface there, too, to which, the editor of the Voss diary sucks in details, not realising that the "Frau von Pannewitz" which Wilhelmine mentions as the FW puncher in her memoirs is the mother of the diarist Fräulein von Pannewitz and later Frau von Voss (and object of AW's crush); instead, he assumes FW lusted after 11 years old Fräulein von Pannewitz, and wonders why she doesn't mention this anywhere in her diary, which, no. There are so many things you can accuse FW of, but pedophilia seriously was not one of them. Volz also chides the editor of the Voss diaries for confusing Mina's "Beautiful Fairy" nickname with another court beauty who was nicknamed "Bella Dea", and so forth and so on.

The Volz preface explains who was who among Mina's courtiers and household members, and among the courtiers she was otherwise close to and mentions in her diary, and gives an overview of the depressing tale of her marriage, which is as well as you can do it without mentioning homosexuality at once. It goes thusly: "So, we don't really know what exactly went wrong between Heinrich and Mina. What is sure is that Fritz thought his brother could only benefit from the education marriage would provide, see Fritz-Wilhelmine letter "marriage to a woman will do him good", my edition page XXX. That was after all arguing with young Heinrich. And look, Fritz let Heinrich choose which of the Hessian princessess he wanted! Also Mina was a great success when she first arrived at court. Everyone loved her. Heinrich for some reason seems to have regarded the marriage as some kind of sacrifice he made in order to get some more freedom from Big Bro, see Lehndorff's diary as translated by my buddy Schmidt-Lötzen, entry about Lehndorff attending Heinrich's wedding. But still, there were some happy years in the marriage. I mean, sure, Kalckreuth claims Heinrich never loved her, but we're all clear on Kalckreuth being a jerk, right? The Mina-AW and Mina-Ferdinand correspondance following these diaries further prove how happy those early years were. For Mina and her brothes-in-law, that is. And then the war happened, and then AW died, and then Heinrich got colder and colder to Mina, and then in the mid 60s they completely separated. But here's my theory: the turning point wasn't AW's death but SD's. Clearly, SD was the one holding the family together! And Heinrich felt free to be enstranged from his wife once his mother wasn't there anymore. You know, like Fritz with EC once FW had kicked it. No, I don't think Mina was at fault. But I'm not going to mention gayness in this preface. I would just like to add I don't think she had sex with Kalckreuth, because Kalckreuth, see above. Also, here's a quote from Ulrike when she was visiting in 1770: she wrote, paraphrased, that she managed to be on good terms with Mina and Heinrich both, but being Ulrike the former recipient of Voltairian love poetry, she naturally did this via quoting form Voltaire's Henriade - "I am on good terms with both Rome and Geneva". Yes, dear reader, I as a Fritz scholar do know my Voltaire by now and can recognize even a casual quote.
One more thing regarding the Mina/AW and Mina/Ferdinand letters: the Mina/AW letters show how completely he trusted her, and it can sound quite touching, but pray take all that venting about Fritz in the knowledge that he was wrong and Fritz was right, see my edition of the Fritz/AW correspondance. The Mina/Ferd letters before their fallout demonstrate further that Ferdinand had no thoughts of his own but just repeated Heinrich's opinions on his great brother, because how else to explain all the Fritz critique? Mina, incidentally, does not critisize her noble oldest brother-in-law at all, but sadly despite all the applause he had for her when she married Heinrich, they never seem to hit it off enough for him to correspond with her beyond two or three letters. No, I don't know why. In conclusion: poor Mina. P.S. It's not that I'm no-homo'ing, dear reader, for I do not deny anything, it's just that I don't mention even the possibility, despite simultanously helping my buddy Schmidt-Lötzen decypher Lehndorff's handwriting and French. Look: Fritz scholarship is my chosen calling in life, and I really don't want to piss off the Prussian State Archive in general and the current Hohenzollern family in particular."

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Mina's diary, we did know, that is, I did, and you must have passively done, because Ziebura quotes from it a couple of times in both her Heinrich

Touché! Well, that's the sort of thing I easily miss, even when I'm reading in a language I actually know. I mean, having read Blanning, I theoretically passively knew about Other Seckendorff and his diary, and yet had to rediscover it through a completely circuitous route, and then be shocked later to find it had been in Blanning all along. I barely knew Lehndorff had a diary before

cahn started asking questions. :P

"Did [Lehndorff] write about Heinrich in his diary??": still the best question asked yet in this fandom. :D

of course in the one about the trio of unwanted wives

Which arrived in the mail today,

cahn! (Alongside the letter I very much did not want and vented about in my blog.) And which I will translate when the reading group gets to that point on our reading list. Just wanted to let you know it's been obtained. :D Now just waiting for the sons book. (Seriously, both No Pity for the Wives and No Pity for the Sons could have just been titled: Punching Down: A Hohenzollern Specialty.)

the editor of the Voss diary sucks in details, not realising that the "Frau von Pannewitz" which Wilhelmine mentions as the FW puncher in her memoirs is the mother of the diarist Fräulein von Pannewitz and later Frau von Voss (and object of AW's crush); instead, he assumes FW lusted after 11 years old Fräulein von Pannewitz, and wonders why she doesn't mention this anywhere in her diary, which, no.

Yep, that jumped out at me too. I was going to say something about it the next time I had computer time to talk about the recent uploads (which of course you're on top of already!).

FW as pedophile, yes; also--the timing is wrong! I mean, Wilhelmine is bad at dates, but if she's our only source on this, the date she gives is Fritz's wedding, i.e. 1733, i.e. when little Sophie was 4 years old! The 11 years old thing is simply the last possible date it could be FW. Apparently groping her on his deathbed.

But here's my theory: the turning point wasn't AW's death but SD's. Clearly, SD was the one holding the family together!

Yes, clearly! SD, the writer of "Everyone see what your idiot sister did? Having lunch with that WOMAN?!" letters to her children.

See, Volz, you may be better than the Voss editor at details, but like Koser and Preuss, you have some of the worst theories/opinions.

Look: Fritz scholarship is my chosen calling in life, and I really don't want to piss off the Prussian State Archive in general and the current Hohenzollern family in particular."

Attention Prussia and Prussian rulers! Fritz is always right! *cough*

...I'm so glad we're having our salon in 2020, for a number of reasons.

Thank you for the write-up!

From:

selenak

"Did [Lehndorff] write about Heinrich in his diary??": still the best question asked yet in this fandom. :D

Indeed it was. And I'm still bemused at the fact that not a single review of the 2007 re-edition of volume 1 mentions Heinrich anywhere. I mean. Even the censured volume 1 has "what a man to be worshipped!" and "Beautiful like an angel in his riding pants!"

FW as pedophile, yes; also--the timing is wrong! I mean, Wilhelmine is bad at dates, but if she's our only source on this, the date she gives is Fritz's wedding, i.e. 1733, i.e. when little Sophie was 4 years old! The 11 years old thing is simply the last possible date it could be FW. Apparently groping her on his deathbed.

Behold us, being sure of FW's innocence in something. ;) Seriously though, that guy is bad at both maths and logistics. Re: Wilhelmine being bad with dates; in this particular case, I think the fact she was in Berlin for eight months in late 1732/early 1733 would augur that if it wasn't on the wedding (summer of 1733) exactly, it was likely earlier, not later than that, because it's the kind of gossip Wilhelmine would more likely pick up when she's present as opposed to being told about it in Bayreuth via letter. And she describes FW's stalking of Frau von Pannewitz as something that had been going on for a while, so she might have observed something of it during those months in Berlin. (WHere she did need some distraction from Mom constantly dressing her down and Dad humiliating her husband.)

I'm so glad we are having it now, too. Another thing from the Voss diaries editor - or English translator, I haven't seen from my very quick skimming of the introduction whether it hails from the English translator or the original German editor - is that apparantly a female friend wrote to Sophie about AW's last month of life and death. Which the introduction text then quotes from. And the way she describes it sounds pretty familiar with all the other sources (Amalie's letters, Lehndorff's diary) except for one thing. The letter says that Fritz, upon hearing AW was ill, wrote tenderly to Amalie to convey his best wishes and love to AW. Which - what? Not in any of the preserved letters I've seen, and I should think that if there was such a letter, Preuss and his successors would have printed it poste haste to refute all the voiced and unvoiced accusations about Fritz' attitude towards AW until his death. It also doesn't fit with the letters Fritz simultanously wrote to Wilhelmine and the ones he did write to AW. Like, at all.
(ETA: also in the infamous "condolence" letter to Heinrich Fritz starts with saying these death news came as a total surprise to him, i.e. he hadn't known AW was ill.)

Now, I can imagine thath Sophie von Voss, née Pannewitz, had a friend who wanted to convey the bad news to her in a comforting manner, and assure here AW died sort of reconciled to the King. But that's still an extraordinary thing to claim and invent, since it's so easy to refute. (Even Fritz in his own rewriting of the past to Henri de Catt doesn't claim he wrote to give AW his love and get well wishes!) So my alternate theory is that no such letter existed and it was a 19th century addition when the Voss diaries were published to make the national hero look better.

Edited Date: 2020-07-04 12:53 pm (UTC)

From:

cahn

"Beautiful like an angel in his riding pants!"

Still one of my favorite quotes from Lehndorff :D well, gosh, I have so many, but I mean. That one it is sort of hard to misinterpret. Unless you are, I guess, an editor... I also love it because of the evidence Heinrich wasn't conventionally beautiful :D

Wow, that's... an interesting letter. I mean, not only easily refutable, but unless Sophie and AW were a lot closer than I imagine they were, I don't really see why this friend would bother to say something like that to her? Like, wouldn't Sophie be more interested in it as (unfortunately tragic) gossip about old acquaintances than as something with marked emotional impact? And now we've seen enough adulteration of primary sources that... yeah, I kinda am going with your alternate theory as well.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

unless Sophie and AW were a lot closer than I imagine they were

Well, AW was passionately in love with Sophie and fainted at her wedding, and Sophie had agreed to marry him, only Fritz said no, and rather than have extramarital sex, she decided to tell him no and marry someone else. See here for

selenak's writeup. So I could see AW's public humiliation and death having marked emotional impact, even a few years after she married her second choice. Of course, I haven't actually read up to that point in her diary, so I don't know what her feelings were at that point.

From:

cahn

Oh riiiiiight, THAT Sophie! I did remember that writeup, I just got confused. OK, thanks :) Yeah, in that case I guess I could see it, though it does still seem a little weird (I mean, the insistence on Fritz making up through Amalie, not writing about AW in general).

From:

cahn

"Did [Lehndorff] write about Heinrich in his diary??": still the best question asked yet in this fandom. :D

I am so delighted by the results of this :D

From:

cahn

Eeeeeee one of my Favorite Things Ever is your awesome synopses :DDDDDDD

I mean, sure, Kalckreuth claims Heinrich never loved her, but we're all clear on Kalckreuth being a jerk, right?

LOLOLOLOL

Clearly, SD was the one holding the family together!

That is... sure a theory, there.

No, I don't think Mina was at fault. But I'm not going to mention gayness in this preface. I would just like to add I don't think she had sex with Kalckreuth, because Kalckreuth, see above.

HAHAHAHAHAHA and also wow to all the dancing around.

P.S. It's not that I'm no-homo'ing, dear reader, for I do not deny anything, it's just that I don't mention even the possibility, despite simultanously helping my buddy Schmidt-Lötzen decypher Lehndorff's handwriting and French. Look: Fritz scholarship is my chosen calling in life, and I really don't want to piss off the Prussian State Archive in general and the current Hohenzollern family in particular."

Wow, you have gotten me both to laugh uncontrollably and to make me feel for Volz. That is an accomplishment <3

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Oh, the other recent addition to the library worth mentioning is in the restricted section: a collection of letters from European monarchs in 1730 to FW all about how not killing your son is totally the "in thing" this year, and FW going "If there were 100,000 Kattes like that I'd make all their heads roll" in the famously incoherent unpunctuated letter. We've seen that one before, but evidently some of the monarch letters were published for the first time in this 1965 publication (I didn't realize that there was one from Tzarina Anna!), so I couldn't resist buying it for my collection of "everything even remotely related to the 1730 trial."

It's only a few pages long*, but I haven't had time/inclination to pick through the (mostly) German and (some) French yet. But I have admired the facsimile of the one in Cyrillic!

* I knew this when I paid $30 for it; you guys should admire my dedication. :P

From:

cahn

a collection of letters from European monarchs in 1730 to FW all about how not killing your son is totally the "in thing" this year

Hee!

I do admire your dedication!

From:

selenak

I didn't realize that there was one from Tzarina Anna!

And if a Romanov, niece of Peter the Great writes that you shouldn't kill your son, she knows what she's talking about, ahem.

Also, I do admire your dedication!

From:

cahn

And if a Romanov, niece of Peter the Great writes that you shouldn't kill your son, she knows what she's talking about, ahem.

HA!

From:

cahn

Mina's diary?? Yay!! Hey, when you're ready to start French we could do it in French, if you want.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Will keep that in mind, thank you! (OMG, I need to get back to German. Promise to yell at me as soon as the fanfic muses let up!)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Random Lehndorff-adjacent things, just to reuse the thread...

* If we ever do that Heinrich playlist, I heard Who Needs You, Baby today, and it occurred to me: it's het, but otherwise, it's Heinrich/all of Lehndorff's least favorite people. Lol.

* I can't find it, but didn't we say a while back that Lehndorff's belief that cousin du Rosey, aka Frau von Katte, aka The One Who Got Away, was trapped in an unhappy marriage to a man she despised was corroborated by the fact that he couldn't know it at the time, but the two children that died young were all she was ever going to give him? Well, Wikipedia, which has seen an astonishing amount of activity in the last few weeks on a number of our minor characters, like Peter Keith and the Kattes, now has Ludolf von Katte and cousin du Rosey having six kids, at least three of whom were born with a 10-15 year gap after the two who died. Wikipedia also, I notice, now has a plausible death date for her that isn't contradicted by Lehndorff talking to her a decade after she supposedly died.

* Interestingly, Wikipedia is telling me that her birth date is 1738. I just turned up our discussion about her dates, and,

selenak, you expressed skepticism about the 1755 marriage date and said that it might be extrapolated, by Kloosterhuis or Martin von Katte, from the 1756 birthdate of the first child. Surely 1738 is wrong if Lehndorff was proposing in 1749! Kloosterhuis isn't the source for 1738, btw, though he is for 1755.

I also see that your exact words were, BTW, one reason why I think Lehndorff isn't just talking out of his own bias when saying his cousin is unhappily married is that he writes down that one of her two children dies, she's in despair and doubly so because she despises her husband too much to have another child with him. And Ludolf von K. indeed had only two children, which Lehndorff, writing this in the middle of the 7 Years War, can't have known.

But I'm not seeing sources for Wikipedia's claims for the subsequent children. So grain of salt. (Katte genealogist wants to know, dammit!)

* I also notice in that comment you wrote, If all of this sounds like a quick to the Leipzig State Archive would be great: yeah, if one were able to read unorthodox spelling in Rokoko era French hand written letters and note books with the occasional German sentence! As it is, I am really profoundly grateful for Schmidt-Lötzen's translations and editions.

And now we know we have Volz to be grateful to for helping Schmidt-Lötzen's with the unorthodox spelling in Rokoko era French handwritten letters and notebooks with the occasional German sentence!

From:

selenak

it's het, but otherwise, it's Heinrich/all of Lehndorff's least favorite people. Lol.

Having listened to it right now, true enough!

Ludolf August von Katte/Katherina du Rosey marriage: the plot thickens! I think I had the overall two kids from a previous wiki entry (which however als had her dying in the 1770s as opposed to surviving to have tea with Lehndorff in the 1780s), but I'm not completely sure. The 1749 date for Lehndorff's proposal is based on the Leipzig state archive dating the box containing the Lehndorff correspondance on that matter to this year, but that's the archive dating, and not having seen the contents of the box, I don't know whether they're basing it on dated letters or just assumptions. They just give it in their online catalogue, which is how I came across it. (Lehndorff himself gives us only the date of 1751 as for when they were supposed to marry - in the diary entry when he meets her again as Frau von Katte - , and a one year or more gap for an engagement among nobles is normal.) And no, I can't see a proposal to an eleven years old being done at that time, either. These weren't the Middle Ages anymore, and the extended Lehndorff-du Rosey-tribe were East Prussian nobility, not royalty. (I'm making that royalty qualification because Fritz insisted on the plans for a marriage between Wilhelmine's daughter and young Carl Eugen von Würtemberg being made definite when his niece was eight, and of course SD had her plans for Wilhelmine as future Queen of England first documented in a letter written by her when Wilhelmine was all of six months.) Now Klosterhuis has his Katte family data from Martin von Katte as I recall. I scanned those family trees from Martin for you, do they have something? (Either in the way of kids or birthdays?)

Anyway, there's another possibility for a mistaken birth date though that's stretching things, and it's this: as I recall dates of baptism are registered far more frequently than birth dates, especially for female babies who wouldn't have been of much dynastic importance to a family. (Not just true for German speaking principalities; I seem to remember this is why we don't have Shakespeare's actual birthday on record, just the knowledge it probably was in April because his baptism is registered in this month, and why Shakespeare's registered death day is used as a double for his birthday.) If for some reason baby du Rosey remained unbaptized until she was toddler du Rosey, that might account for perhaps two years. Still, it would be an awfully young age, and you wouldn't need "family intrigues" as an explanation for why the du Rosey clan said no. Nor would it account for the fact that Lehndorff's diary description reads as if she was married to Ludolf von Katte instead of him, not with a four or five years gap between the two (non) events. And he's writing in the later 1750s, so not with decades distance which could have caused some confusion.

Easiest possibility: some clerk made a mistake about her birth date when registering her death. I just remembered: Ellen Ternan, the actress with whom Dickens was in love, in her later years took a whole decade from her age and had in fact that wrong date written on her tombstone, and it took more modern biographers some research and checking of her mother's papers to realise what she'd done. (And let's not forget, East Prussia was a war zone during the 7 Years War, which included the usual burnings of churches which would have the registry.) In the 18th and even the 19th century, confusion about birth dates must have been awfully easy. Maybe she did want to do as Ellen did and cut off some years in her later years; or maybe whoever gave the information to the person registering her death (who'd then also have to register when she was born) honestly believed her to be younger than she'd been, or was guessing.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I think I had the overall two kids from a previous wiki entry (which however als had her dying in the 1770s as opposed to surviving to have tea with Lehndorff in the 1780s), but I'm not completely sure.

No, I remember it too, both the 2 kids and the impossibly early death date. Like some other entries, it's been recently updated (it seems one of the Wiki contributors recently discovered Kloosterhuis, among other things).

I scanned those family trees from Martin for you, do they have something? (Either in the way of kids or birthdays?)

No, unfortunately, that branch of the family tree stops with Heinrich Christoph (Hans Heinrich's brother), None of his kids or their spouses or kids.

Easiest possibility: some clerk made a mistake about her birth date when registering her death.

Or Wikipedia being wrong! I still have no source on her birthday (it's not Kloosterhuis).

I just remembered: Ellen Ternan, the actress with whom Dickens was in love, in her later years took a whole decade from her age and had in fact that wrong date written on her tombstone

Laura Ingalls Wilder's husband Almanzo evidently raised his age by 2 years, which can only be confirmed by very early census records. His tombstone, his wife, and every other source give the older age. So definitely not impossible! If du Rosey was really born in 1733 and later subtracted 5 years from her age, she'd have been 16 in 1749, which is a reasonable age for a proposal from a 26-yo, given the time, especially if, as you speculated, her parents thought she was too young.

Or there could have been a clerkly error or guess, similarly off by about 5 years.

And no, I can't see a proposal to an eleven years old being done at that time, either. These weren't the Middle Ages anymore, and the extended Lehndorff-du Rosey-tribe were East Prussian nobility, not royalty.

Indeed, and a dynastic marriage to an eleven-year-old arranged by parents is different from Lehndorff proposing out of love and being deeply disappointed. Even if we take his 1751 year and assume the archive is wrong, thirteen years old seems a bit much, even for the times! His two actual marriages, assuming the dates in Wikipedia are correct, are to a 17-yo and an 18-yo.

The extra kids are interesting, though, especially the dates. Did she relent eventually? None of the sources I'm seeing are indicating that Ludolf had those kids, though--we still only have Wikipedia's word for that.

but that's the archive dating, and not having seen the contents of the box

So, I'm thinking, learning to master hand-written Rokoko French would be an excellent next project for you! You can start with German: we do have all those Fredersdorf letters to look up, after all. ;)

From:

cahn

ahahahaha that song sure does fit!

Wait, so is one of you responsible for this wikipedia activity??

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Oh, no no no! I mean, I can't say for sure

selenak hasn't done *any* Wikipedia updating (though I doubt she's had the time), but I personally

1) don't make Wikipedia contributions ever,
2) don't have enough German to update articles for people who aren't notable enough to qualify for English Wikipedia!

Plus, these particular updates came as a surprise for both of us, we're still looking for sources for some of them, and we're reeeeaallly skeptical about that 1738 date, and somewhat skeptical about 1755.

I mean, much of the recent activity has been an improvement, in part thanks to Kloosterhuis, but neither she nor I would have written many of these inadequately cited and occasionally suspicious looking claims.

What one of us who speaks German should do (*looks hintingly in the direction of our German speaker*) is add a "citation needed" in the Fredersdorf article for the embezzlement claim! I don't contribute to Wikipedia articles, but I have been known to ask for citations.