Frederick the Great, discussion post 16

[cahn]

We have slowed down a lot, but are still (sporadically) going! And somehow filled up the last post while I wasn't looking!

...I was asked to start a new thread so that STDs could be discussed. Really! :D

Comments

Re: AW readthrough

[selenak]

Ziebura says that AW had to keep FW from finding out that he was reading. (Whether this is a recorded fact or an inference, I'm not sure.)

Having just checked and reread the passage, it sounds like inference to me, based on the fact Wolff was still on the Prussian index.

Did AW read some Wolff at Fritz's suggestion and then tell FW that it was full of things he would agree with, and FW decided to give it a try on the basis of his favorite, not very bookish, son liking it?

This sounds very plausible to me! Especially if AW managed to keep it hidden from Dad how he'd come across Wolff to begin with. The timing fits, and I salute your detective skills once more.

Re: AW readthrough

[mildred_of_midgard]

Having just checked and reread the passage, it sounds like inference to me, based on the fact Wolff was still on the Prussian index.

It read like an inference, but I couldn't tell if it was backed by a documentary fact.

Have we explained the index to cahn? Are you familiar with this? It was the index of forbidden books, Index Librorum Prohibitorum, put out by the Pope/Catholic Church. Other states, like France and Spain, were theoretically bound by it, but the civil authorities also got to set their their own standards for legally enforceable censorship, so your work could end up banned in, say, France but not on the Index with a capital I, or vice versa. Or, as often happened, both. This is why a lot of publication happened in the Netherlands and England (and eventually Fritz's Prussia, as long as he didn't feel personally threatened by your work--freedom of speech ideals notwithstanding, he wasn't very consistent about how he dealt with criticisms of his own leadership¹. But you could at least challenge the Catholic Church there! Which was a huge boon to much of Europe.)

1: For example, the one selenak likes to tell us about:

Fritz: ARREST that scoundr--oh, wait, I'm an enlightened monarch, aren't I? Darn.
Wilhelmine: Oh, good, because I was about to have to report his regrettable and totally unpreventable escape.

This sounds very plausible to me! Especially if AW managed to keep it hidden from Dad how he'd come across Wolff to begin with.

Oh, good point!

AW: Dad, I totally heard about this from some very respectable visiting officer from another country, who says he uses Wolff's arguments to argue for obedience to authority.
FW: Really? I thought people used him to argue that everything was predestined, so if you disobeyed your monarch and deserted the army, you weren't at fault. So that's why I kicked him out of the country without reading him.
FW: *reads Wolff*
FW: This is not at all what I thought he said. Mandatory reading for everyone! Money for Wolff!
Fritz to Suhm: That I should have lived to see the day! Triumph of reason and AW's ability to get things out of Dad since the age of 5.