cahn | Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 20

until I chanced to discover the person who had adroitly inserted it in to his brain for the occasion.

I take it she doesn't specify who this is? Because it can't exactly be Fritz, he and P(R)ussian Pete aren't communicating yet.

Also, devil's advocate: I'm not sure this has to be a Fritz quote? It could easily have been a saying going around. Googling turns up a few hits for a metaphorical use of "squeeze the orange and throw away the peel/rind." Admittedly all 20th and 21st century, but in very disparate genres, and I could see people coming up with it independently. Though I suppose it's possible Arthur Miller got it from Voltaire, and then everyone else got it from "Death of Salesman" (read this in school, had totally forgotten about the "You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away- a man is not a piece of fruit!" quote.)

Ah, wait, rephrasing to "throw the peel away," I get a late 19th century book of common-man proverbs/cliches. "Those who make so very much of you either mean to cheat you, or else are in need of you: when they have sucked the orange they will throw the peel away." John Ploughman's Talk, 1867, published in a religious magazine. Does not read like the author knows his Voltaire.

Hmm, looks like a move called The Sword of Gideon (1986) popularized the same analogy with lemons: A father cautions his son against the Israeli secret service. The father plucks a fresh lemon from the tree and squeezes it while the son is watching attentively. He then says to his son: ‘this is what they’re going to do to you. When they’re done with you, they will discard you just like this lemon’, he said, while throwing the fruit away, and I get quite a few hits for "squeezed lemon syndrome."

Could be Fritz, of course! Though, wouldn't Fritz's supposed quote and Peter's use of it be at odds with Peter's Fritz-worship? Or would he take the phrasing while disbelieving that Fritz would do such a thing? Or was his hero-worship compatible with Fritz being a great wit who squeezes the orange? Or did someone give him the quote without telling him it was attributed to Fritz? Fritz, after all, is not a great wit or even a writer of poetry or player of the flute! He likes to smoke and hunt, as we all know. :P

Which means the answer as to whether Peter actually said this to a young Dashkova, thereby using a quip attributed to his hero, is... maybe?

And, of course, there's always the "Dashkova invented it" option.

It would be interesting to find a version of this saying that predates, say, 1740, but so far I haven't turned any up.

I take it she doesn't specify who this is?

Alas no, she does not. BTW, keep in mind that this is a two edged anecdote. Yes, she's snarky about Peter, but given she feels Catherine was ungrateful to her thereafter, she also does a bit of shading and burning in the guise of letting Catherine's loathed husband predict this.*

Anyway, assuming she didn't make the story up entirely:

Though, wouldn't Fritz's supposed quote and Peter's use of it be at odds with Peter's Fritz-worship?

Not necessarily? Because of the context, i.e. Fritz saying this about Voltaire. Given Catherine really was a Voltaire fan even before getting on the throne and needing him for good publicity - there are enough letters from her in her Grand Duchess days referencing his works and praising them to testify to this - I could imagine Peter feeling satisfied about his wife's hero getting properly dissed and put in his place by a superior monarch.

*Not that old Dashkova has softened on Peter in general. She's still 100% Team Disposing Him Was A Patriotic Necessity. (And Team He Was a Russia-Hating, Fritz-Fawning Idiot.) However, whom she really hates are the Orlovs, Grigorij and Alexej both. She claims she had no idea that Grigorij Orlov and Catherine were an item before the coup, and says Alexej Orlov murdering Peter would have nearly ruined Catherine and almost destroyed the achievement of what had until then been a bloodless revolution carried by public acclaim. She insists that Catherine herself was innocent, however, as proven by the letter Alexej Orlov wrote to her after the deed was done which didn't come to light until after Catherine's death (when her son Paul found it among her papers and exclaimed he was very relieved to finally have it settled in his mind his mother didn't kill his father).

I could imagine Peter feeling satisfied about his wife's hero getting properly dissed and put in his place by a superior monarch.

True, but that's why I included "Peter's use of it": he's presenting the practice of throwing away orange peels as reflecting badly on the person who does it. I still consider it at least possible he doesn't know this is Fritz (if it is), and that it's come to him through an intermediary.

when her son Paul found it among her papers and exclaimed he was very relieved to finally have it settled in his mind his mother didn't kill his father

I should learn Russian someday so we can evaluate all the evidence properly. *g* #EternalOptimist

Eh, Alexeji Orlov might have written in French, in which case you're good already. :) (Daskhova in her memoirs mentions she spoke Russian as a child and young woman about as well as Fritz and Wilhelmine spoke German.)

On a Voltairian note, while looking up quotes to type them again elsewhere I was reminded that Voltaire wrote the following to his other niece, Madame de Fontaine, i.e. not Madame Denis and hence presumably not part of the reworked correspondance:

Berlin, September 23rd, 1750: I wish I could sacrifice the King of Prussia for your benefit, but I can't. He's a King, but it's a sixteen-years-long passion that connects us; he's swept me away. I imagine nature has created me for him. Our taste is so eerily alike that I forgot he's master over half of Germany. And that the other half trembles in front of him, that he's won five battles and is the greatest general of Europe, that he's surrounded by six foot tall professional killers. All of this should have caused me to run a thousand miles in the other direction, but the philosopher in him has reconciled me with the monarch, and I have only found him to be a great man who is good and sociable.

Eh, Alexeji Orlov might have written in French

Oh, sure, but I was thinking of modern scholarship evaluating the evidence, for the same reason I have to learn German to study people who wrote in French. Imagine if you only knew French and read Catt's memoirs! ;)

he's swept me away.

Swept you off your feet, you say? ;)

I have only found him to be a great man who is good and sociable.

Ah, the honeymoon phase.

That's a great quote to remember, thank you. Filing that one away.

I imagine nature has created me for him.

Oh man. This is great!

Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 20

Re: Return of the Orange Peel (in unexpected places)

Re: Return of the Orange Peel (in unexpected places)

Re: Return of the Orange Peel (in unexpected places)

Re: Return of the Orange Peel (in unexpected places)

Re: Return of the Orange Peel (in unexpected places)

Re: Return of the Orange Peel (in unexpected places)