Undoubtedly the Emperor, like the other crowned heads of Europe, wrote a letter to FW pleading with him not to kill his son. This was announced in newspapers at the time, and Nicolai has found some articles mentioning it.
Indeed, we not only have the letter, and we know that it was only handed over on October 31, when the court martial had met and it had become clear (to Seckendorff) FW was going to pardon Fritz, but the modern editor says that the letter was composed by Seckendorff in the Emperor's name. (I don't know what the evidence for that claim is.)
This means Nicolai while saying Mrs. Thrale Piozzi writes entertainingly is busy being indignant that everyone - Johnson, Hawkins, Thrale - gets it so wrong about Fritz (and also FW), good intentions or not, about Prussian customs and law, and what rubbish is this!
Hee. I had found Johnson's essay on Fritz a long time ago, and never brought it up as it seemed woefully uninformed (and not nearly as entertaining as the likewise uninformed Macaulay). It does clarify where the "Karl Frederick" in the Orzelska Wikipedia article might come from!
Looking at it again now, I notice the following:
1784: Johnson dies. Voltaire's memoirs are published. 1786: Fritz dies. Johnson's essay on Fritz is published.
To wit, I notice that 1) this is a good time to cash in on some celebrity, 2) the editor of Johnson's essay adds footnotes that clearly draw on Voltaire's memoirs: Wilhelmine being thrown out of the window, FW being present at Katte's execution, etc. It's even the editor who adds that Charles VI saved Fritz's life by arguing that Fritz was a prince of the empire and could only be condemned to death by the Diet. (Which might or might not be in Voltaire, I forget.) Ah, yes, that's in Voltaire. Yeah, the footnotes to the Johnson essay are almost verbatim from Voltaire. (And I might add that the English translation of Voltaire was published already in 1784.)
And that's aside from Johnson's own mistakes! I can see why Nicolai would have to dedicate some page time to eviscerating these English publications.
I've gone ahead and put it in the library, though--even if it's not useful as a source on Fritz, it might be relevant to your Johnsonian interests.
Meanwhile, yours truly has been to Sanssouci and yes, there's a lot of nymphs and satyrs there, enough to my my AP go "are you sure he was gay?"
Every time I see those paintings, I think of your AP! (And as I've mentioned, the naked breasts on the Flora statue on his grave certainly had me ?? when I was there many years ago.)
who now, with broken penis, can't anymore but still wants to.
To clarify, Zimmermann's theory, as I recall, is the far more convoluted "with disfigured but fully functional penis, thinks he can't but actually can, because our great king couldn't be *impotent*, now!"
Voltaire just straight up says he was impotent (*and*, of course, that he bottomed for his page boys, oh the shame). :P
Nicolai at some other point says that Fritz did come around in his late years to believing in the immortality of the soul, because he hoped to see his sister again.
Huh. That's in Catt (memoirs, not sure about the diary). Might his source be Catt, directly or indirectly? (I've always been a bit skeptical, because devout Catt is always insisting that Fritz was actually very superstitious, and that Fritz kept bringing up arguments against the immortality of the soul because he was very unsure of himself and wanted to be talked out of them. But then again, I was skeptical about the sincerity of Katte's sudden piety before death, and I've had to revise my opinion on that!)
Okay, I'm signing off for the night, but I hope to have a productive weekend catching up on my salon backlog! :D
Huh. That's in Catt (memoirs, not sure about the diary). Might his source be Catt, directly or indirectly?
Directly. He does say he talked to Catt. And yes, Catt is less than reliable, but Nicolai doesn't know that.
I can see why Nicolai would have to dedicate some page time to eviscerating these English publications.
Quite. BTw, I note that with all his railing against Voltaire the ungrateful wretch, it's half a volume rant about how Fritz would never go for painted porn, but exactly zero comments on the "bottoming for page boys and soldiers" allegation. (As opposed to Zimmermann in his Fragments, who of course has "Fritz wasn't gay!" as the key thesis of the work.
Okay, then I think we have our source for Nicolai. Will take it with a grain of salt pending further evidence. (Naturally, Fritz *wished* he could see his mother and sister after death; whether he actually believed there was a possibility is another question.)
exactly zero comments on the "bottoming for page boys and soldiers" allegation.
Ah good, I was about to ask if Fritz coming to believe in the immortality of the soul was possibly true, because that really went against a lot I thought I understood about him, but if Nicolai got it from Catt :P
If you read Catt's memoirs, you can see him *insisting* repeatedly that there's no way Fritz is really, *really* sure about his convictions (and also that he was totally superstitious, because that's what happens when you don't have religion to show you the light), so *major* grain of salt here, and I said that before we learned anything about Catt's unreliability. (Actually, part of my argument then was that just as I was biased toward hoping Katte was faking, Catt would have been biased toward believing that Fritz would come around to agreeing with Christianity! (I do try to at least be aware of my biases at a scholarly level, though at a fannish level it's no fun not having them.))
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timeasmymeasure
Re: More Nicolai
Date: 2021-02-20 01:12 am (UTC)Indeed, we not only have the letter, and we know that it was only handed over on October 31, when the court martial had met and it had become clear (to Seckendorff) FW was going to pardon Fritz, but the modern editor says that the letter was composed by Seckendorff in the Emperor's name. (I don't know what the evidence for that claim is.)
This means Nicolai while saying Mrs. Thrale Piozzi writes entertainingly is busy being indignant that everyone - Johnson, Hawkins, Thrale - gets it so wrong about Fritz (and also FW), good intentions or not, about Prussian customs and law, and what rubbish is this!
Hee. I had found Johnson's essay on Fritz a long time ago, and never brought it up as it seemed woefully uninformed (and not nearly as entertaining as the likewise uninformed Macaulay). It does clarify where the "Karl Frederick" in the Orzelska Wikipedia article might come from!
Looking at it again now, I notice the following:
1784: Johnson dies. Voltaire's memoirs are published.
1786: Fritz dies. Johnson's essay on Fritz is published.
To wit, I notice that 1) this is a good time to cash in on some celebrity, 2) the editor of Johnson's essay adds footnotes that clearly draw on Voltaire's memoirs: Wilhelmine being thrown out of the window, FW being present at Katte's execution, etc. It's even the editor who adds that Charles VI saved Fritz's life by arguing that Fritz was a prince of the empire and could only be condemned to death by the Diet. (Which might or might not be in Voltaire, I forget.) Ah, yes, that's in Voltaire. Yeah, the footnotes to the Johnson essay are almost verbatim from Voltaire. (And I might add that the English translation of Voltaire was published already in 1784.)
And that's aside from Johnson's own mistakes! I can see why Nicolai would have to dedicate some page time to eviscerating these English publications.
I've gone ahead and put it in the library, though--even if it's not useful as a source on Fritz, it might be relevant to your Johnsonian interests.
Meanwhile, yours truly has been to Sanssouci and yes, there's a lot of nymphs and satyrs there, enough to my my AP go "are you sure he was gay?"
Every time I see those paintings, I think of your AP! (And as I've mentioned, the naked breasts on the Flora statue on his grave certainly had me ?? when I was there many years ago.)
who now, with broken penis, can't anymore but still wants to.
To clarify, Zimmermann's theory, as I recall, is the far more convoluted "with disfigured but fully functional penis, thinks he can't but actually can, because our great king couldn't be *impotent*, now!"
Voltaire just straight up says he was impotent (*and*, of course, that he bottomed for his page boys, oh the shame). :P
Nicolai at some other point says that Fritz did come around in his late years to believing in the immortality of the soul, because he hoped to see his sister again.
Huh. That's in Catt (memoirs, not sure about the diary). Might his source be Catt, directly or indirectly? (I've always been a bit skeptical, because devout Catt is always insisting that Fritz was actually very superstitious, and that Fritz kept bringing up arguments against the immortality of the soul because he was very unsure of himself and wanted to be talked out of them. But then again, I was skeptical about the sincerity of Katte's sudden piety before death, and I've had to revise my opinion on that!)
Okay, I'm signing off for the night, but I hope to have a productive weekend catching up on my salon backlog! :D
Re: More Nicolai
Date: 2021-02-20 07:41 am (UTC)Directly. He does say he talked to Catt. And yes, Catt is less than reliable, but Nicolai doesn't know that.
I can see why Nicolai would have to dedicate some page time to eviscerating these English publications.
Quite. BTw, I note that with all his railing against Voltaire the ungrateful wretch, it's half a volume rant about how Fritz would never go for painted porn, but exactly zero comments on the "bottoming for page boys and soldiers" allegation. (As opposed to Zimmermann in his Fragments, who of course has "Fritz wasn't gay!" as the key thesis of the work.
Re: More Nicolai
Date: 2021-02-20 01:22 pm (UTC)Okay, then I think we have our source for Nicolai. Will take it with a grain of salt pending further evidence. (Naturally, Fritz *wished* he could see his mother and sister after death; whether he actually believed there was a possibility is another question.)
exactly zero comments on the "bottoming for page boys and soldiers" allegation.
LOLOLOL.
Re: More Nicolai
Date: 2021-02-20 06:21 pm (UTC)I knew you guys would be on top of it! :D
Re: More Nicolai
Date: 2021-02-20 06:26 pm (UTC)