It's a PITY a certain Academy secretary felt the need to gloss over the account in the memoirs!
It's a pity we don't have the memoirs themselves. Along with a print out of AW's account of his youthful life. :)
It occurs to me that Fritz might have spent 10 years believing his note saved Peter, telling everyone that, only found out otherwise in 1740 when he went through the archives, and didn't want to change his story.
Two words: Quintus Icilius.
I think we have to assume everyone resents everyone at least a little in this story.
Well, yes. Which is why I nominated them at [Bad username or unknown identity: unsent letters]; letters are good for venting. :) More seriously, it must have been extra hard on them because having mixed feelings about a loved one was so not the done thing in this era. It's funny if it's contemporaries wondering how Voltaire and Fritz can cure and praise each other within two breaths, but it's heartbreaking if it's Fritz and Wilhelmine, or Fritz and Peter Keith, unable to to admit that they have these particular resentments. (I think that's why Wilhelmine pounces so on the "he doesn't love me anymore!" theory in her memoirs. That, she can complain about. "I resent that he was able to leave me in hell with Mom and Dad", otoh? Not so much. And Fritz can complain about Erlangen journalists, Austrian marriages for female Marwitzes and lunch with MT, but he can't say "you should have supported my wish to escape, you who knew better than anyone how terrible every day there was for me". As for Peter, he has the additional problem that he's a subject and Fritz is a King and he can't say anything to anyone other than his wife without having to be aware it could get back to Fritz sooner or later.
And poor Katte is dead, so he can't resent or not resent anyone, and while he was alive he evidently tried to repress resentment sensations by falling back on the faith of his childhood and by telling himself at least Fritz would live. But if FW hadn't intervened and he had spent those ten years in prison, well....
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Re: Sauvez-Vous!
Date: 2021-02-25 05:29 pm (UTC)It's a pity we don't have the memoirs themselves. Along with a print out of AW's account of his youthful life. :)
It occurs to me that Fritz might have spent 10 years believing his note saved Peter, telling everyone that, only found out otherwise in 1740 when he went through the archives, and didn't want to change his story.
Two words: Quintus Icilius.
I think we have to assume everyone resents everyone at least a little in this story.
Well, yes. Which is why I nominated them at [Bad username or unknown identity: unsent letters]; letters are good for venting. :) More seriously, it must have been extra hard on them because having mixed feelings about a loved one was so not the done thing in this era. It's funny if it's contemporaries wondering how Voltaire and Fritz can cure and praise each other within two breaths, but it's heartbreaking if it's Fritz and Wilhelmine, or Fritz and Peter Keith, unable to to admit that they have these particular resentments. (I think that's why Wilhelmine pounces so on the "he doesn't love me anymore!" theory in her memoirs. That, she can complain about. "I resent that he was able to leave me in hell with Mom and Dad", otoh? Not so much. And Fritz can complain about Erlangen journalists, Austrian marriages for female Marwitzes and lunch with MT, but he can't say "you should have supported my wish to escape, you who knew better than anyone how terrible every day there was for me". As for Peter, he has the additional problem that he's a subject and Fritz is a King and he can't say anything to anyone other than his wife without having to be aware it could get back to Fritz sooner or later.
And poor Katte is dead, so he can't resent or not resent anyone, and while he was alive he evidently tried to repress resentment sensations by falling back on the faith of his childhood and by telling himself at least Fritz would live. But if FW hadn't intervened and he had spent those ten years in prison, well....