Yep, I agree him having time to think about it lowers the odds. FW was in some ways someone who could be talked out of his initial impulses. But there's always the chance!
Re Mosel, is there any evidence for this episode outside Wilhelmine's memoirs? (I don't count Pöllnitz as an independent source, since he wasn't even in Prussia at the time, and they obviously conferred on their memoir writing.) It made a fantastic "what if?" for fiction, of course, but MacDonogh doubts whether it ever happened, because there's no contemporary evidence. And while it's the kind of thing you might try to hush up, is it the kind of thing you would be successful at hushing up?
Re: Peter Keith
Re Mosel, is there any evidence for this episode outside Wilhelmine's memoirs? (I don't count Pöllnitz as an independent source, since he wasn't even in Prussia at the time, and they obviously conferred on their memoir writing.) It made a fantastic "what if?" for fiction, of course, but MacDonogh doubts whether it ever happened, because there's no contemporary evidence. And while it's the kind of thing you might try to hush up, is it the kind of thing you would be successful at hushing up?