Now I think you brought this up before, but it does point towards the escape idea originally being hashed out between Fritz and Peter, and modified later once Katte came on board.
I don't think there was an "original plan"; there were the impulses of a scared and angry abused teenager changing from day to day. The following is all off the top of my head, so slight details may be wrong, but I think the basic outline is correct.
What we know from the 1730 trial protocols is that in November 1729, Fritz was making plans to escape that involved Peter (and Ingersleben, I think?), but not yet Katte. In January 1730, FW was tipped off by anonymous note (curse you, anonymous!), and that was why Peter was sent to Wesel.
Wilhelmine depicts Fritz coming to her with a different plan on multiple occasions and getting talked out of them (dates unknown).
Then in June 1730, Fritz wanted to escape from Zeithain with Katte, who obtained a list of post stations for horse changes, and was supposed to disguise himself as a postillion. Either on this occasion or the November 1729, Ingersleben (and Spaen?) had gotten as far as ordering carriages.
When Fritz finally left on the fatal trip with FW, Katte (and others? Wilhelmine?) were trying to talk him into at least waiting until Wesel, but Fritz refused. He tried to escape the royal party on multiple occasions in southwest Germany before not!Robert finally fessed up.
On that occasion, Katte was supposed to get leave to go recruiting in the Rhineland, and was supposed to meet Fritz in Stuttgart, but his request for leave was denied (by Natzmer or Pannewitz, I forget).
Fritz gave conflicting messages to Katte and Keith as to where to meet him (the Hague, Stuttgart, Leipzig?, England) as the situation evolved.
It was a mess.
For all we know, Katte wrote to Peter saying, "Look, I'm trying to get him to leave from Wesel, so if he shows up, have the horses and disguises ready to go! Also, FW will be with him, so *facepalm* do your best."
in the interrogations Fritz says that he wanted to go to France first because he knew that if he went to England directly, then FW would blame SD (and Wilhelmine) as conspirators. (BTW: he had to know FW would blame them anyway.)
Agreed. Though I think it arguably would have been slightly less bad for them, as it would have looked less like an international conspiracy to overthrow FW. This is the plot point in my fix-it fic that leads to Fritz staying in France longer than intended, because FW is making loud threats about what he's going to do to the hostages if his Wretched Son turns up in England or Hanover. And then, thanks to Rottembourg's machinations, that just turns into staying there and living happily ever after, because the author said so. :P
Conversely, it doesn't necessarily contradict Fritz telling Mitchell that he heard from the Danish envoy Katte remained because of "some girl", because that might have been the reason Katte gave to the Dane when talking to him before his arrest, especially if we're right and Katte actually meant that he needed to burn all the stuff incriminating Wilhelmine.
This could be! I like your theory that his regimental comrades would have been very surprised to hear about a girl (though I imagine that's the kind of thing you could keep under wraps, especially if the relationship was inappropriate in some way).
At any rate, the 8 am detail in the anecdote matches the protocol's 6-7 am quite closely. With all the back and forth, I could see an hour passing before Hertefeld was notified. That means at least one detail of this anecdote, and a surprisingly specific one, is attested.
Yes, and since Dad Hertefeld had no way of looking that up while narrating the story to Hertefeld Jr., I think that makes it canon that Hertefeld was the guy on guard duty that day and did receive Katte etc.
Yep, exactly. Lehndorff! You could have gotten these stories! He's clearly willing to talk when asked!
But inside Prussia, criticism of FW even in the age of FW3, two generations removed, is not a given thing, and the takes at the time Nicolai publishes this Hertefeld letter that I've read so far toe the line of "very tragic, this fallout between FW and Fritz, but thankfully, they made up later and we can root for both Kings!" And the description of Katte before his death all focus on what a model prisoner he was and how he died in the faith. So this quote is really bucking the trend and risking censorship tickling here, which makes me believe it is authentic.
That is an interesting point, like Quantz making Katte look good at his own expense, and so I'm now adopting this as headcanon.
I mean, it's also psychologically plausible that Katte wasn't *too* happy about the abusive father he'd pitied Fritz for living with, enough to risk his life trying to rescue him, deciding to chop off Katte's head in the face of the official verdict. (Even little AW had objections!)
Just like it was plausible that Hans Heinrich, before we saw the full context of his letters, was struggling to forgive FW rather than Fritz.
Btw, Hans "My son has forgiven, so must I" Heinrich? Your son may well have said, "The tyrant demands blood" when he was being honest, and so the forgiveness may have been the facade of appeasement that I originally thought the sudden piety was. :P
(Also: Lehndorff's negative descriptions of Hertefeld focus on him being boring; he doesn't say he thinks Hertefeld is a liar or prone to exaggaration.)
True!
Hmm. Maybe Hertefeld did tell stories about Katte? And Lehndorff was so firmly Team Keith that Katte was "that other guy, the one who lost his head" (the only mention in his diaries that I remember), and that's why Lehndorff thought the Katte arrest stories were boring? Especially if they recounted in excruciating detail the time of arrest and the presence of a subaltern officer and four men, etc., etc. Lehndorff might have tuned out instead of taking notes like he should have Nicolai did. :P
Kita is short for Kindertagesstätte, so it's a daycare centre.
Aha! I was seeing both and figured it was one or the other. And now I've learned a new word in German!
Since Hertefeld Jr. isn't sure about the English or the French envoy, I think it's even more likely he just recalled about Peter's ten years of absence that he ended up serving in Portugal on recommendation of some British nobles, and simplified this to the rec having been given by the English envoy himself in the Hague. It's an obvious mistake to make.
Agreed. I once made the same mistake, before we dug into the details. Lehndorff, btw, has Peter going to Scotland and Ireland, which implies he knows the story better, either from Peter directly or from Ariane. Scotland is not something I've seen mentioned anywhere else (it's not in Formey), but I can imagine Peter passed through on his way to Dublin, since his family originates from there.
See above to my take on the "le tyran" quote and the "why did Katte stay in Berlin" question, as well as "was Fritz escaping from Wesel the original plan, and if so, why then did Peter leave before Fritz was supposed to get there?". Yours?
I suspect Peter was getting conflicting messages from Fritz (and speculatively from Katte), but I believe Peter knew Fritz was writing to him to meet him somewhere else (the Hague and/or London), and that's what he did. It's a lot safer than waiting until FW arrives, and since those were Fritz's orders, that's what I would do too. That's why I'm surprised that Hertefeld's story includes Peter being supposed to prepare the way; if that happened, I suspect it was the result of Fritz changing his mind from day to day.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: The Escape Attempt (Nicolai Version)
I don't think there was an "original plan"; there were the impulses of a scared and angry abused teenager changing from day to day. The following is all off the top of my head, so slight details may be wrong, but I think the basic outline is correct.
What we know from the 1730 trial protocols is that in November 1729, Fritz was making plans to escape that involved Peter (and Ingersleben, I think?), but not yet Katte. In January 1730, FW was tipped off by anonymous note (curse you, anonymous!), and that was why Peter was sent to Wesel.
Wilhelmine depicts Fritz coming to her with a different plan on multiple occasions and getting talked out of them (dates unknown).
Then in June 1730, Fritz wanted to escape from Zeithain with Katte, who obtained a list of post stations for horse changes, and was supposed to disguise himself as a postillion. Either on this occasion or the November 1729, Ingersleben (and Spaen?) had gotten as far as ordering carriages.
When Fritz finally left on the fatal trip with FW, Katte (and others? Wilhelmine?) were trying to talk him into at least waiting until Wesel, but Fritz refused. He tried to escape the royal party on multiple occasions in southwest Germany before not!Robert finally fessed up.
On that occasion, Katte was supposed to get leave to go recruiting in the Rhineland, and was supposed to meet Fritz in Stuttgart, but his request for leave was denied (by Natzmer or Pannewitz, I forget).
Fritz gave conflicting messages to Katte and Keith as to where to meet him (the Hague, Stuttgart, Leipzig?, England) as the situation evolved.
It was a mess.
For all we know, Katte wrote to Peter saying, "Look, I'm trying to get him to leave from Wesel, so if he shows up, have the horses and disguises ready to go! Also, FW will be with him, so *facepalm* do your best."
in the interrogations Fritz says that he wanted to go to France first because he knew that if he went to England directly, then FW would blame SD (and Wilhelmine) as conspirators. (BTW: he had to know FW would blame them anyway.)
Agreed. Though I think it arguably would have been slightly less bad for them, as it would have looked less like an international conspiracy to overthrow FW. This is the plot point in my fix-it fic that leads to Fritz staying in France longer than intended, because FW is making loud threats about what he's going to do to the hostages if his Wretched Son turns up in England or Hanover. And then, thanks to Rottembourg's machinations, that just turns into staying there and living happily ever after, because the author said so. :P
Conversely, it doesn't necessarily contradict Fritz telling Mitchell that he heard from the Danish envoy Katte remained because of "some girl", because that might have been the reason Katte gave to the Dane when talking to him before his arrest, especially if we're right and Katte actually meant that he needed to burn all the stuff incriminating Wilhelmine.
This could be! I like your theory that his regimental comrades would have been very surprised to hear about a girl (though I imagine that's the kind of thing you could keep under wraps, especially if the relationship was inappropriate in some way).
At any rate, the 8 am detail in the anecdote matches the protocol's 6-7 am quite closely. With all the back and forth, I could see an hour passing before Hertefeld was notified. That means at least one detail of this anecdote, and a surprisingly specific one, is attested.
Yes, and since Dad Hertefeld had no way of looking that up while narrating the story to Hertefeld Jr., I think that makes it canon that Hertefeld was the guy on guard duty that day and did receive Katte etc.
Yep, exactly. Lehndorff! You could have gotten these stories! He's clearly willing to talk when asked!
But inside Prussia, criticism of FW even in the age of FW3, two generations removed, is not a given thing, and the takes at the time Nicolai publishes this Hertefeld letter that I've read so far toe the line of "very tragic, this fallout between FW and Fritz, but thankfully, they made up later and we can root for both Kings!" And the description of Katte before his death all focus on what a model prisoner he was and how he died in the faith. So this quote is really bucking the trend and risking censorship tickling here, which makes me believe it is authentic.
That is an interesting point, like Quantz making Katte look good at his own expense, and so I'm now adopting this as headcanon.
I mean, it's also psychologically plausible that Katte wasn't *too* happy about the abusive father he'd pitied Fritz for living with, enough to risk his life trying to rescue him, deciding to chop off Katte's head in the face of the official verdict. (Even little AW had objections!)
Just like it was plausible that Hans Heinrich, before we saw the full context of his letters, was struggling to forgive FW rather than Fritz.
Btw, Hans "My son has forgiven, so must I" Heinrich? Your son may well have said, "The tyrant demands blood" when he was being honest, and so the forgiveness may have been the facade of appeasement that I originally thought the sudden piety was. :P
(Also: Lehndorff's negative descriptions of Hertefeld focus on him being boring; he doesn't say he thinks Hertefeld is a liar or prone to exaggaration.)
True!
Hmm. Maybe Hertefeld did tell stories about Katte? And Lehndorff was so firmly Team Keith that Katte was "that other guy, the one who lost his head" (the only mention in his diaries that I remember), and that's why Lehndorff thought the Katte arrest stories were boring? Especially if they recounted in excruciating detail the time of arrest and the presence of a subaltern officer and four men, etc., etc. Lehndorff might have tuned out instead of taking notes like
he should haveNicolai did. :PKita is short for Kindertagesstätte, so it's a daycare centre.
Aha! I was seeing both and figured it was one or the other. And now I've learned a new word in German!
Since Hertefeld Jr. isn't sure about the English or the French envoy, I think it's even more likely he just recalled about Peter's ten years of absence that he ended up serving in Portugal on recommendation of some British nobles, and simplified this to the rec having been given by the English envoy himself in the Hague. It's an obvious mistake to make.
Agreed. I once made the same mistake, before we dug into the details. Lehndorff, btw, has Peter going to Scotland and Ireland, which implies he knows the story better, either from Peter directly or from Ariane. Scotland is not something I've seen mentioned anywhere else (it's not in Formey), but I can imagine Peter passed through on his way to Dublin, since his family originates from there.
See above to my take on the "le tyran" quote and the "why did Katte stay in Berlin" question, as well as "was Fritz escaping from Wesel the original plan, and if so, why then did Peter leave before Fritz was supposed to get there?". Yours?
I suspect Peter was getting conflicting messages from Fritz (and speculatively from Katte), but I believe Peter knew Fritz was writing to him to meet him somewhere else (the Hague and/or London), and that's what he did. It's a lot safer than waiting until FW arrives, and since those were Fritz's orders, that's what I would do too. That's why I'm surprised that Hertefeld's story includes Peter being supposed to prepare the way; if that happened, I suspect it was the result of Fritz changing his mind from day to day.