Ahhh, this is cool, because that's one of the most famous anecdotes to include Katte (I even got Mobster AU author to include a modern AU variant in her backstory!), but I didn't know where we got it from. I mean, I knew it was a story Quantz told later, but not who he told or how it came down to us. Via Nicolai, who had a lot of contact with Quantz and names his sources is pretty good! (I mean, not necessarily for every single detail, but for this event happening.)
Also, I did not know about the Haarbeutel! I knew that Fritz's hair was done up in a fancy French style as opposed to the Prussian pigtail, but not the detail of what it looked like.
while red as you probably know was what the Brits wore in this era
I don't know about Cahn, but if I'd never read a page of history voluntarily on my own, I would still have had the redcoats drummed ineradicably into my head from year after year of covering the American Revolution in school!
The later kept the books as a service to the Crown Prince, who ordered them to be taken to him one by one, according to his needs, until his complete library could be restored to him.
<333
See, Fritz had lots of people being kind to him, he just learned that kindness didn't come from the person in power. (People like his mother and the Münchows obviously had some power over him, and could have chosen to make life worse instead of better for him, but they just as obviously had very, very little power.)
Quantz finally was freed from his tight corner once the King had left; but he was extremely careful during his subsequent visits to Berlin; he especially took care never to wear a red coat again, but only a grey or a blue one.
This is interesting, because I always learned that it was Fritz who was wearing a red dressing gown! Ah, look at this, Blanning reports this anecdote and says that Fritz was wearing "a sumptuous red silk dressing gown covered in gold brocade." Not a word about Quantz's coat being red. And his end note (which I had clearly never clicked on before) references Nicolai for the anecdote, with an addendum of "Nicolai was told all this by Quantz. It certainly has the ring of authenticity."
With which I agree, but that's not exactly what Nicolai said. I suspect Blanning did the thing again where he read the source and wrote it up from memory, which we've all been guilty of, and which we've caught him in before (at least that's what I think accounts for his report that Richter spends 9 pages ranting on how Fritz and Fredersdorf just had an intense rococo friendship, when Selena says he does no such thing.
Another minor discrepancy (not Blanning's) is that I keep seeing Katte described as posted outside the door standing guard. (On AO3, for example.) But you can't tell from this account whether he was keeping an eye out at his boyfriend's request, or happened to be hanging around in the palace, got wind of FW's approach, and went running to warn Fritz.
Katte took the boxes with the flutes in the greatest hurry, and the scores, took the extremely frightened Quantz by the hand and jumped with him and the boxes in a small cabinet where they usually stored material to heat the stoves with.
Nice bit of characterization, though. Quantz is frozen with panic (it sounds like), and Katte is ON IT. Just what I would expect of him. <3 And that's even more interesting given that Quantz is the narrator and has no incentive to make Katte sound better at his own expense.
Re: The FW-Fritz-Quantz-Katte tale (Nicolai version)
Via Nicolai, who had a lot of contact with Quantz and names his sources is pretty good! (I mean, not necessarily for every single detail, but for this event happening.)
Indeed. knew you'd be happy this is not a headcanon you have to abandon. :)
I did not know about the Haarbeutel! I knew that Fritz's hair was done up in a fancy French style as opposed to the Prussian pigtail, but not the detail of what it looked like.
Der Thronfolger, which restages this scene pretty faithfully, nonetheless drew the line at a Haarbeutel, I realise retrospectively, and so FW having a go at Fritz' hairstyle in addition to everything else sort of comes out of nowwhere because Fritz' hair doesn't look so different from how it does in other scenes (except he's not wearing a wig, which he usually does when with Dad).
This is interesting, because I always learned that it was Fritz who was wearing a red dressing gown!
So have I, and I think what happened is the similar as with the MT quip made by someone else and then attributed to Fritz; at some point in the retelling, someone decided that no one cares what Quantz wore on that occasion, red or not, the point is what Fritz wears, so instead of just a golden brocade dressing gown, he gets a golden-brocade-and-red-silk dressing gown.
BTW, since Quantz at this point has a well paid job in Saxony and is making these trips to Berlin solely for Fritz' sake, you can tell how emotionally invested he must have been, to put up with the prospect of angry FW. (Who'd have thought nothing of beating up a mere commoner and musician, one assumes.)
when Selena says he does no such thing
The way I recall it is that he says Fritz loved Fredersdorf like a father loves his son, full stop; he definitely does not say intense rocco friendship (that's more Schmidt-Lötzen's approach to Lehndorff's everything in his introduction), not least because Fredersdorf of course is in no way Fritz' equal and not interesting in himself, etc, but he can be loved like a son (by nineteen years old Fritz, when Fredersdorf is three years older). And at a different point in the book Richter rants somewhat about the modern tendency to Freudianize and sexualize everything, but not related to Fritz/Fredersdorf. The one several pages (might be nine) lecture we get is on Fritz/EC, i.e. Fritz' bad behavior towards her, which is the sole thing he critiques Fritz for, but explains as being the result of FW "raping his young soul" - he does say vergewaltigen, rape - into this marriage. The rant against the modern psychonalytic approach becomes hypocritcal when at yet another point, he diagnoses Wilhelmine as suffering from hysteria.
Quantz is frozen with panic (it sounds like), and Katte is ON IT. Just what I would expect of him. <3 And that's even more interesting given that Quantz is the narrator and has no incentive to make Katte sound better at his own expense.
Quite! It heightens the plausibility of the whole event and the reliability of Quantz as a narrator to no end.
Re: The FW-Fritz-Quantz-Katte tale (Nicolai version)
Quantz is frozen with panic (it sounds like), and Katte is ON IT. Just what I would expect of him. <3 And that's even more interesting given that Quantz is the narrator and has no incentive to make Katte sound better at his own expense.
Quite! It heightens the plausibility of the whole event and the reliability of Quantz as a narrator to no end.
Okay, this is really cool and also not something I had got from it on a first reading, so thank you both <3
Re: The FW-Fritz-Quantz-Katte tale (Nicolai version)
So have I, and I think what happened is the similar as with the MT quip made by someone else and then attributed to Fritz; at some point in the retelling, someone decided that no one cares what Quantz wore on that occasion, red or not, the point is what Fritz wears, so instead of just a golden brocade dressing gown, he gets a golden-brocade-and-red-silk dressing gown.
That makes sense, and also, if you, who haven't read Blanning, have also read it elsewhere, then Blanning might well have not only been going from memory of Nicolai but also remembering another source he had read.
BTW, since Quantz at this point has a well paid job in Saxony and is making these trips to Berlin solely for Fritz' sake, you can tell how emotionally invested he must have been, to put up with the prospect of angry FW.
Indeed, and you can also tell that he was completely unprepared. I have the impression that Katte is either a very quick thinker, or else he's done something like this before, and the latter seems quite likely.
Quite! It heightens the plausibility of the whole event and the reliability of Quantz as a narrator to no end.
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Re: The FW-Fritz-Quantz-Katte tale (Nicolai version)
Also, I did not know about the Haarbeutel! I knew that Fritz's hair was done up in a fancy French style as opposed to the Prussian pigtail, but not the detail of what it looked like.
while red as you probably know was what the Brits wore in this era
I don't know about Cahn, but if I'd never read a page of history voluntarily on my own, I would still have had the redcoats drummed ineradicably into my head from year after year of covering the American Revolution in school!
The later kept the books as a service to the Crown Prince, who ordered them to be taken to him one by one, according to his needs, until his complete library could be restored to him.
<333
See, Fritz had lots of people being kind to him, he just learned that kindness didn't come from the person in power. (People like his mother and the Münchows obviously had some power over him, and could have chosen to make life worse instead of better for him, but they just as obviously had very, very little power.)
Quantz finally was freed from his tight corner once the King had left; but he was extremely careful during his subsequent visits to Berlin; he especially took care never to wear a red coat again, but only a grey or a blue one.
This is interesting, because I always learned that it was Fritz who was wearing a red dressing gown! Ah, look at this, Blanning reports this anecdote and says that Fritz was wearing "a sumptuous red silk dressing gown covered in gold brocade." Not a word about Quantz's coat being red. And his end note (which I had clearly never clicked on before) references Nicolai for the anecdote, with an addendum of "Nicolai was told all this by Quantz. It certainly has the ring of authenticity."
With which I agree, but that's not exactly what Nicolai said. I suspect Blanning did the thing again where he read the source and wrote it up from memory, which we've all been guilty of, and which we've caught him in before (at least that's what I think accounts for his report that Richter spends 9 pages ranting on how Fritz and Fredersdorf just had an intense rococo friendship, when Selena says he does no such thing.
Another minor discrepancy (not Blanning's) is that I keep seeing Katte described as posted outside the door standing guard. (On AO3, for example.) But you can't tell from this account whether he was keeping an eye out at his boyfriend's request, or happened to be hanging around in the palace, got wind of FW's approach, and went running to warn Fritz.
Katte took the boxes with the flutes in the greatest hurry, and the scores, took the extremely frightened Quantz by the hand and jumped with him and the boxes in a small cabinet where they usually stored material to heat the stoves with.
Nice bit of characterization, though. Quantz is frozen with panic (it sounds like), and Katte is ON IT. Just what I would expect of him. <3 And that's even more interesting given that Quantz is the narrator and has no incentive to make Katte sound better at his own expense.
Re: The FW-Fritz-Quantz-Katte tale (Nicolai version)
Indeed. knew you'd be happy this is not a headcanon you have to abandon. :)
I did not know about the Haarbeutel! I knew that Fritz's hair was done up in a fancy French style as opposed to the Prussian pigtail, but not the detail of what it looked like.
Der Thronfolger, which restages this scene pretty faithfully, nonetheless drew the line at a Haarbeutel, I realise retrospectively, and so FW having a go at Fritz' hairstyle in addition to everything else sort of comes out of nowwhere because Fritz' hair doesn't look so different from how it does in other scenes (except he's not wearing a wig, which he usually does when with Dad).
This is interesting, because I always learned that it was Fritz who was wearing a red dressing gown!
So have I, and I think what happened is the similar as with the MT quip made by someone else and then attributed to Fritz; at some point in the retelling, someone decided that no one cares what Quantz wore on that occasion, red or not, the point is what Fritz wears, so instead of just a golden brocade dressing gown, he gets a golden-brocade-and-red-silk dressing gown.
BTW, since Quantz at this point has a well paid job in Saxony and is making these trips to Berlin solely for Fritz' sake, you can tell how emotionally invested he must have been, to put up with the prospect of angry FW. (Who'd have thought nothing of beating up a mere commoner and musician, one assumes.)
when Selena says he does no such thing
The way I recall it is that he says Fritz loved Fredersdorf like a father loves his son, full stop; he definitely does not say intense rocco friendship (that's more Schmidt-Lötzen's approach to Lehndorff's everything in his introduction), not least because Fredersdorf of course is in no way Fritz' equal and not interesting in himself, etc, but he can be loved like a son (by nineteen years old Fritz, when Fredersdorf is three years older). And at a different point in the book Richter rants somewhat about the modern tendency to Freudianize and sexualize everything, but not related to Fritz/Fredersdorf. The one several pages (might be nine) lecture we get is on Fritz/EC, i.e. Fritz' bad behavior towards her, which is the sole thing he critiques Fritz for, but explains as being the result of FW "raping his young soul" - he does say vergewaltigen, rape - into this marriage. The rant against the modern psychonalytic approach becomes hypocritcal when at yet another point, he diagnoses Wilhelmine as suffering from hysteria.
Quantz is frozen with panic (it sounds like), and Katte is ON IT. Just what I would expect of him. <3 And that's even more interesting given that Quantz is the narrator and has no incentive to make Katte sound better at his own expense.
Quite! It heightens the plausibility of the whole event and the reliability of Quantz as a narrator to no end.
Re: The FW-Fritz-Quantz-Katte tale (Nicolai version)
Quite! It heightens the plausibility of the whole event and the reliability of Quantz as a narrator to no end.
Okay, this is really cool and also not something I had got from it on a first reading, so thank you both <3
Re: The FW-Fritz-Quantz-Katte tale (Nicolai version)
That makes sense, and also, if you, who haven't read Blanning, have also read it elsewhere, then Blanning might well have not only been going from memory of Nicolai but also remembering another source he had read.
BTW, since Quantz at this point has a well paid job in Saxony and is making these trips to Berlin solely for Fritz' sake, you can tell how emotionally invested he must have been, to put up with the prospect of angry FW.
Indeed, and you can also tell that he was completely unprepared. I have the impression that Katte is either a very quick thinker, or else he's done something like this before, and the latter seems quite likely.
Quite! It heightens the plausibility of the whole event and the reliability of Quantz as a narrator to no end.
Exactly!