Ferdinand of Brunswick as the superior general historian: I think it was Jürgen Luh. BTW, Boswell meets him when visiting Braunschweig (which he did before visiting Berlin and Potsdam) and was suitably awed, since among Brits FoB's reputation directly after the war was very high, not least since he'd taken over from Butcher Cumberland and had made a far better job of it, specifically in the battle of Minden.
Te Deum: I seem to recall Fritz mentions this in a couple of his letters as well. He notably ordered one after Mollwitz, complete with letting the field preacher afterwards preach on the subject of St. Paul's "Let women be silent". And of course during the 7 Years War he'd used the "defender of free Protestants everywhere" propaganda to the hilt, which came with attending services and Te Deums after battles.
LOL on the Journal de Trevaux. re: footnotes - pretending to be just the editor for an unknown author was a literary device very popular in the 18th century, though usually in epistolary novels. Goethe did it in "Werther", for example, and Chloderos de Laclos in Les Liasons Dangereuses. It wasn't meant seriously. (EXcept in cases as when Voltaire used it when publishing pamphlets which could get him arrrested.) (And by MacPherson, the guy who wrote the Ossian poems.) Umberto Eco pays homage to the custom in The Name of the Rose which has an opening narration of him finding Adson von Melk's original manuscript.
Re: Candide (first half)
Te Deum: I seem to recall Fritz mentions this in a couple of his letters as well. He notably ordered one after Mollwitz, complete with letting the field preacher afterwards preach on the subject of St. Paul's "Let women be silent". And of course during the 7 Years War he'd used the "defender of free Protestants everywhere" propaganda to the hilt, which came with attending services and Te Deums after battles.
LOL on the Journal de Trevaux. re: footnotes - pretending to be just the editor for an unknown author was a literary device very popular in the 18th century, though usually in epistolary novels. Goethe did it in "Werther", for example, and Chloderos de Laclos in Les Liasons Dangereuses. It wasn't meant seriously. (EXcept in cases as when Voltaire used it when publishing pamphlets which could get him arrrested.) (And by MacPherson, the guy who wrote the Ossian poems.) Umberto Eco pays homage to the custom in The Name of the Rose which has an opening narration of him finding Adson von Melk's original manuscript.