Moses Mendelsohn was introduced to the Marquis via Nicolai and they became friends. The saga of the Schutzbrief unfolded, and it's worth giving in totem, not least because it shows the status quo of Jewish citizens in Frederician Prussia, so, translation time again.
My late friend Moses Mendelsohn met the Marquis through me around the year 1760, and became very fond of him due to hte later's good nature and naivite. For the Marquis' part, he esteemed the worthy Moses very highly, and they occasoinally had interesting discussions about philosophical subjects as well.
Now back then in Berlin lived a Jew named Raphael, a friend of Moses Mendelsohn's. He wasn't working in trade but solely as a teacher of languages, for he was fluent in French, Italian and English. Through various open speeches against some Jewish superstitons, he incurred the wrath of the rabbis and senior Jews, who wanted to expell him from Berlin. In order to get him some protection, Moses Mendelsohn introduced him to the Marquis, who became very fond of him, engaged him as a teacher of Hebrew, talked with him about literature on an almost daily basis, especially of German literature, and referred to him as his "angel Raphael". This was enough so that the Jewish Elders did not try to attack him outright.
During the conversations with Raphael, the Marquis also talked about tolerance. He expressed his amazement that intolerance should still exist in the state of Frederick the Great. He believed that the Jewish Elders had wanted to exploit the King's absence in order to banish Raphael from Berlin. He was therefore not a little amazed to learn that the Jewish Elders didn't just have the right but indeed the obligation by law to expell any Jew who did not either have a Schutzbrief or was working for a Jew with a Schutzbrief, without any other recourse to the law, within an hour of the police having received the first complaint about him.
(Footnote here from Nicolai: This happens in every city where a Jew does not have a protection privilege - Schutzprivilegium -, and so every foreign Jew is brought to the borders of the country at last. The point of the law is to make the Jew return to his place of birth where he has that protection. Raphael used to tell me: "I was born in a Polish village which was burned down. So I don't have a place of birth.")
The Marquis still couldn't understand that this law should be used without differentiation, and at last asked: "But our dear Moses surely would not fall prey to this?" Raphael replied: "Indeed he would. He only is currently tolerated because he's in the service of the Widow Bernhard. If she were to dismiss him, and he can't find another Jew with a Schutzbrief who takes him into their service, then he'd have to leave the city today if the Jewish Elders should denounce him to the police." The Marquis was indignant. The noble Marquis could not bear the thought: that a philosophher, such a wise and learned man whom every man should highly esteem should be in daily danger to be humiliated in such a fashion. He did not want to believe it until Moses himself confirmed it to him, adding in the calm, noble manner that was his: "Socrates proved to his friend Kriton, too, that a wise man has the duty to die if the laws of the state demand it. I thus have to consider the laws of the state in which I live as benign by comparison, since they would only expell me, if in lack of another Jew with protection one of the trade Jews plying their trade in the Reezengasse won't take me into their service."
The Marquis was stunned to the utmost by this matter; and he resolved to write to the King about it even while the 7 Years War was still going on. He could barely be kept from doing so but at last accepted that this was not the time.
Once peace had been made, the Marquis thought about the matter and demanded that Moses Mendelsohn himself should write a petition which he would then personally give to the King, even though he otherwise never handed over petitions. Moses at first didn't want to do it. He said: "It pains me that I should have to ask for the right of my existence, which should be given to every human being living as a decent citizen. If the state sees cause to tolerate people of my nation only in very limited numbers, why should I be privileged among my brethren to demand an exception?" However, Moses Mendelsohn's friends pointed out to him that he was the head of a family who had to take this step for their sake, as they depended on him. He finally was persuaded.
(Nicolai gives the full text of the petition.)
The Marquis handed over this petition himself in April 1763; but Moses received no reply. We were all thunderstruck by this; and I have to admit that the otherwise very gentle Moses was bristling, and accused us who had talked him into making this step of having acted wrongly. The matter kept hanging for a few months as the Marquis assumed the favour had already been granted, while Moses didn't want to do anything more, and didn't want to tell the Marquis about it, either, who was living in Potsdam. At last, in July 1763, the Marquis talked to one of Moses' friends about the matter and of the protection privilege which surely had been granted to Moses by now. The friend just shrugged and said that the King hadn't even bothered to reply to his petition. The Marquis didn't want to believe this; and when others confirmed it to him, he became very angry and exclaimed with his usual vivaciousness: "This is too much! That's not how I know him! But if he did this, he won't have done so without consequence from me!"
When the Marquis visited the King that evening, he started to chide him as soon as he had stepped into the room. The King, who didn't know what he was talking about, showed his amazement. "Oh!", the Marquis exclaimed, "Sire, you are otherwise known to keep your word! You know I demand so rarely something from you. Now I have asked a favour from you, not for me, but for the most righeous worthiest man. You promised to grant it! This is too wrong! I must be discontent!"
The King assured him that Moses had received the protection privilege. The Marquis swore Moses had never received an answer to his petition. At last, it became known that a mere misunderstanding was at the bottom of this. The King said that the petition had to have been lost through an unusual accident. Moses should write another petition, and he would order the protection letter to be written for him. "Very well, Sire," said the Marquis, "I will create this petition with my own hand. But don't lose it again." So Moses after the Marquis' repeated requests wrote another draft of his petition on July 19th, and the Marquis added to it in his own name: "Un philosophe mauvais catholique supplie un philosophe mauvais protestant, de donner le privilege a un philosophe mauvais juif. Il y a dans tout ceci trop the de philosophie, pour que la raison ne soit pas du coté de la demande."
Consequently, Moses received his letter of privilege on October 26th. The administrative treasury demanded a thousand Reichstaler of him as expenditure according to law. The King handwaved this sum in the following year, 1764. In the year 1779 Moses out of love for his children supplicated the King (to extend the privilege to them).(...) This, the King denied him. But King Friedrich Wilhelm II. has granted it upon the petition of the philosopher's widow in the year 1787.
The most depressing aspect? The only one aware that the law itself is wrong (i.e. that the crux isn't that exceptions for great thinkers should be made) is Moses Mendelsohn. :(
In order not to finish on this note, here's one last Nicolai anecdote from volume 1:
In the year 1785, the King talked with a worthy man about the manner in which a young prince should be raised so that he could become a good regent. Among other things about how a future regent had to learn early how to use his power, but also how not to abuse it. He added: "Several things by their very nature are of a matter that a regent must never extend his power to influence them. Chief among these: Religion and love!" This is in my opinion one of the truest and most noble thoughts the regent of a great realm has thought or said.
(Or, as Voltaire expressed it: The freedom of thought and of the penis.)
This was a fascinating read. I didn't realize that Mendelssohn had an advocate so close to Fritz.
Re: the great "not so catholic philosopher..." quote, I just saw that the second sentence is slightly different at Trier! (Was looking for possible Mendelssohn mentions there.) Preuss gives Il y a dans tout ceci trop peu de religion pour que la raison ne soit pas du côté de la demande., even saying that it's slightly different from Nicolai. The meaning is almost the same, but with "little enough religion" vs. "enough philosophy", the emphasis is different. Preuss says he copied it from the original, owned by an unnamed individual during his time. Huh.
But yeah, the precariousness of living as a Jew comes through very clearly, and the prevalence of "that's just the law / how it's done" even among people who are themselves very much pro-enlightenment. Your addendum on the other hand emphasizes why I feel like this was such a missed chance, because it's not like Fritz' principles wouldn't have allowed him to take the necessary steps.
Aside from that, this also gives quite a vivid picture of D'Argens, which I appreciate.
petition had to have been lost through an unusual accident
Like the flute was at fault for the wrong notes? I mean I get that Fritz didn't want his friends involved in his politics, but, well. *side-eyes* (On the other hand, I have wondered before just how much got lost on his way to or from Fritz with his style of government.)
Nevertheless, this part -
When the Marquis visited the King that evening, he started to chide him as soon as he had stepped into the room.
- made me smile. Probably a tale that became a bit bigger in the telling, but still, it's a great scene.
It is, and D'Argens comes across vividly and very well in it. For another very likable take on the Marquis, see Casanova's memoirs (he met him after D'Argens had returned to France), as quoted here.
But yeah, the precariousness of living as a Jew comes through very clearly, and the prevalence of "that's just the law / how it's done" even among people who are themselves very much pro-enlightenment. Your addendum on the other hand emphasizes why I feel like this was such a missed chance, because it's not like Fritz' principles wouldn't have allowed him to take the necessary steps.
Heinrich Heine: And this is why I'm anti-Prussian, and my despot of choice to fanboy is Napoleon. Vive l'Empereur!
cahn and mildred_of_midgard, the Code Napoleon, which became the foundation of German state laws during the time Napoleon was more or less boss of continental Europe, did abolish these restrictions for Jews, and young Harry Heine from Düsseldorf was directly affected by this. By the time he was an adult who needed a job, otoh, Napoleon was gone and several of those restrictions were back (though thankfully not the Schutzjuden-ones). Heine had a life long soft spot for Napoleon, larger than any freedom-loving poet should have. And his instense dislike of all things Prussian leads to some hilarious verses in Deutschland: Ein Wintermärchen, among other works.
Back to the Marquis D'Argens: in addition to being friends with Mendelsohn and Raphael, he also employed a Jewish secretary for a while, Aaron Salomon Gumpertz.
Casanova: The Marquis, who got famous more through his steady friendship with the late Frederick II. than through his works, which aren't read by anyone these days [...]
Aw. But that reminds me, has anyone read the Lettres Juives? I know Fritz did, and I'm kind of curious.
D'Argens: Listen to me, never make the mistake and write your memoirs.
Ha. Love that Casanova then spends a whole paragraph explaining why he's doing just that and that he hopes he'll burn them before his death.
Lettres Juives: I haven't read them yet, but I see Nicolai's advertised translation is completely online, so I might if I can find the time. From the descriptions I've read, the basic premise is one popular at the time, a letter novel written from the pov of a fictional outsider - D'Argens in addition to the Lettres Juives also wrote the Lettres Chinoises - commenting on the manners of the writers' own country, or continent. Madame de Graffigny used the same premise for her Lettres Peruviens, where the letter writing outsider is a Peruvian (an Indian one, not a Spanish one), and she's bound to have read D'Argens bestseller. And amazingly, the concept survives into the 20th century - if you've ever read Herbert Rosendorfer's "Briefe in die chinesische Vergangenheit", they're a case in point. Lettres Juives has a Jew as the letter writer, commenting on first France, then other European countries.
Mind you, depressingly for D'Argens, Casanova isn't wrong (and it's telling that this became true even within D'Argens' own life time). The only member of the Sanssouci table round who didn't need Fritz either to become famous or stay famous, and whom people today can still discuss without as much as mentioning Fritz, remains Voltaire.
As more then one historian and biographer has observed, this tells you something. Mind you, it's not that Fritz didn't try to get the best and the brightest of his time when he was young, in 1740. It's that later on, he stopped being approachable for new cultural developments, and where he did read newer first class writers and invited them to Prussia, like Diderot and D'Alembert, they either didn't stay (D'Alembert) or didn't come in the first place (Diderot). And of course, by ignoring the entirety of German literature exploding around him in the second half of his life, he ensured not befriending any of its representatives, either.
The only member of the Sanssouci table round who didn't need Fritz either to become famous or stay famous, and whom people today can still discuss without as much as mentioning Fritz, remains Voltaire.
Huh. Maybe? But my first reaction was that that doesn't really seem like Fritz's style. Namely not doing something, and then pretending like he'd done it all along when badgered. Fritz isn't that conflict-avoidant: if he's refusing to do something on principle, he'll usually either die on that hill, or after enough wearing down, go, "Fine, I'll do it, are you happy now?" Maybe you'll find counterexamples (you and Selena did turn up examples of Fritz writing vaingloriously about himself in the third person circa 1745!), but I would need more evidence to believe this was in character.
Tacitly refusing a petition? Yes, I'm told this is what he did with Mendelssohn's' Academy membership, and it seems to have been standard royal practice, in that Stollberg-Rilinger tells me MT did the same thing with petitions she didn't want to grant.
Scapegoating? Absolutely, but usually on matters where Fritz felt strongly about something getting done the right way and couldn't admit to having been at fault for it going wrong (like blaming the flute because he very much cared about the quality of the music, and choosing to die on that hill for a week, then finally giving in).
Trying to get away with something in hopes no one notices and then lying through his teeth when caught? This strikes me as how he interacted with people who had power over him, i.e. FW, not with people he had power over.
I welcome counterevidence!
On the other hand, I have wondered before just how much got lost on his way to or from Fritz with his style of government.
I feel like that must have been pretty inevitable. I mean, are there bureaucracies in which that doesn't happen? And I don't feel a micromanaging monarch would eliminate that problem.
- made me smile. Probably a tale that became a bit bigger in the telling, but still, it's a great scene.
I was thinking more that he did indeed lose it, i.e. that he made a mistake/forgot, and didn't want to own up to that, not that he was strongly opposed and lied about it. But looking back at my comment, the politics line doesn't entirely fit with that interpretation, so I clearly didn't think it through. :P But yeah, I agree that if he felt strongly about not wanting to do it, he wouldn't have bothered to lie.
Ah, yeah, if that's what you meant, then "It got lost? I can't have lost it, someone else must have lost it!" would have been totally in character. Though it could just as easily have actually been someone else who lost it, we just don't know.
He expressed his amazement that intolerance should still exist in the state of Frederick the Great.
Thus proving that you can reject the religion of your childhood, without necessarily seeing through millennia of prejudices engendered by that religion's dominance. Fritz!
April 1763
cahn, note that the Treaty of Hubertusburg ending the Seven Years' War was finalized in February 1763.
This, the King denied him.
Fritz! You can do better than this. Nazis are going to be fanboying you in a hundred and fifty years, just you wait.
But King Friedrich Wilhelm II. has granted it upon the petition of the philosopher's widow in the year 1787.
I will say "Go FW2", with the awareness that this might be like freeing Manger: just undoing Fritz's decisions as a matter of principle and sometimes getting it right and sometimes wrong.
The most depressing aspect? The only one aware that the law itself is wrong (i.e. that the crux isn't that exceptions for great thinkers should be made) is Moses Mendelsohn. :(
Oh wow, that's a stunning story. (In both good and bad ways.)
Moses at first didn't want to do it. He said: "It pains me that I should have to ask for the right of my existence, which should be given to every human being living as a decent citizen. If the state sees cause to tolerate people of my nation only in very limited numbers, why should I be privileged among my brethren to demand an exception?" However, Moses Mendelsohn's friends pointed out to him that he was the head of a family who had to take this step for their sake, as they depended on him. He finally was persuaded.
The most depressing aspect? The only one aware that the law itself is wrong (i.e. that the crux isn't that exceptions for great thinkers should be made) is Moses Mendelsohn. :(
Yeah. :( I gotta say I'm super impressed by Mendelssohn, though!
Like felis, I also appreciate the portrait of D'Argens, who does as you say seem super likeable <3
Okay, question that may hinge on translation:
Un philosophe mauvais catholique supplie un philosophe mauvais protestant, de donner le privilege a un philosophe mauvais juif.
I get the philosophe mauvais catholique and the philosophe mauvais protestant (also, I assume that "mauvais" modifies "catholique" rather than "philosophe"?), but is he just being clever/ironic/parallel by referring to Mendelssohn as un philosophe mauvais juif? I didn't get the impression that Mendelssohn was particularly non-devout, but maybe D'Argens is just making a joke there about his and Fritz's lack of piety, and just assumed Mendelssohn was the same?
I suspect so. Mendelsohn was a practicing Jew who did, for example, keep the laws re: food to the letter, and who later was claimed by both the orthodox and the reform movement in German-Jewish circles; however, he did also speak against some parts of Jewish orthodoxy, such as saying that the rabbinate should not have the right to punish Jews deviating form orthodoxy by legal measures (such as the expellation discussed above), and statements like Mendelsohn's saying that Judaism was less a "divine need, than a revealed life" were why later, younger German-Jewish writers like Heine saw him as a kind of Luther figure. However, I can see D'Argens making assumptions simply because Mendelssohn was an enlightenment philosopher. Or maybe he thought it would play better with Fritz than explaining Mendelsohn's more complicated brand of faith?
Btw, I assume you know about Moses' grandson Felix the composer, but do you know about his granddaughter Fanny, Felix' sister, also a composer? (And an illustration as to why the "there were no female Mozarts, were there?" argument is stupid, because Fanny is a rl illustration to Virginia Woolf's "Shakespeare's sister" essay?
I did know that Fanny was a composer, though I'd never played anything by her (hm, checking out your wiki link, probably because a lot of what she wrote was lieder or piano, and my piano repertoire is pretty limited), but I didn't know all that (or anything really) about her life. Wow. That's really interesting, and rather depressing in many ways, although according to the wiki article at least her husband seems to have supported her composing and publishing.
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Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
My late friend Moses Mendelsohn met the Marquis through me around the year 1760, and became very fond of him due to hte later's good nature and naivite. For the Marquis' part, he esteemed the worthy Moses very highly, and they occasoinally had interesting discussions about philosophical subjects as well.
Now back then in Berlin lived a Jew named Raphael, a friend of Moses Mendelsohn's. He wasn't working in trade but solely as a teacher of languages, for he was fluent in French, Italian and English. Through various open speeches against some Jewish superstitons, he incurred the wrath of the rabbis and senior Jews, who wanted to expell him from Berlin. In order to get him some protection, Moses Mendelsohn introduced him to the Marquis, who became very fond of him, engaged him as a teacher of Hebrew, talked with him about literature on an almost daily basis, especially of German literature, and referred to him as his "angel Raphael". This was enough so that the Jewish Elders did not try to attack him outright.
During the conversations with Raphael, the Marquis also talked about tolerance. He expressed his amazement that intolerance should still exist in the state of Frederick the Great. He believed that the Jewish Elders had wanted to exploit the King's absence in order to banish Raphael from Berlin. He was therefore not a little amazed to learn that the Jewish Elders didn't just have the right but indeed the obligation by law to expell any Jew who did not either have a Schutzbrief or was working for a Jew with a Schutzbrief, without any other recourse to the law, within an hour of the police having received the first complaint about him.
(Footnote here from Nicolai: This happens in every city where a Jew does not have a protection privilege - Schutzprivilegium -, and so every foreign Jew is brought to the borders of the country at last. The point of the law is to make the Jew return to his place of birth where he has that protection. Raphael used to tell me: "I was born in a Polish village which was burned down. So I don't have a place of birth.")
The Marquis still couldn't understand that this law should be used without differentiation, and at last asked: "But our dear Moses surely would not fall prey to this?" Raphael replied: "Indeed he would. He only is currently tolerated because he's in the service of the Widow Bernhard. If she were to dismiss him, and he can't find another Jew with a Schutzbrief who takes him into their service, then he'd have to leave the city today if the Jewish Elders should denounce him to the police."
The Marquis was indignant. The noble Marquis could not bear the thought: that a philosophher, such a wise and learned man whom every man should highly esteem should be in daily danger to be humiliated in such a fashion. He did not want to believe it until Moses himself confirmed it to him, adding in the calm, noble manner that was his: "Socrates proved to his friend Kriton, too, that a wise man has the duty to die if the laws of the state demand it. I thus have to consider the laws of the state in which I live as benign by comparison, since they would only expell me, if in lack of another Jew with protection one of the trade Jews plying their trade in the Reezengasse won't take me into their service."
The Marquis was stunned to the utmost by this matter; and he resolved to write to the King about it even while the 7 Years War was still going on. He could barely be kept from doing so but at last accepted that this was not the time.
Once peace had been made, the Marquis thought about the matter and demanded that Moses Mendelsohn himself should write a petition which he would then personally give to the King, even though he otherwise never handed over petitions. Moses at first didn't want to do it. He said: "It pains me that I should have to ask for the right of my existence, which should be given to every human being living as a decent citizen. If the state sees cause to tolerate people of my nation only in very limited numbers, why should I be privileged among my brethren to demand an exception?"
However, Moses Mendelsohn's friends pointed out to him that he was the head of a family who had to take this step for their sake, as they depended on him. He finally was persuaded.
(Nicolai gives the full text of the petition.)
The Marquis handed over this petition himself in April 1763; but Moses received no reply. We were all thunderstruck by this; and I have to admit that the otherwise very gentle Moses was bristling, and accused us who had talked him into making this step of having acted wrongly. The matter kept hanging for a few months as the Marquis assumed the favour had already been granted, while Moses didn't want to do anything more, and didn't want to tell the Marquis about it, either, who was living in Potsdam. At last, in July 1763, the Marquis talked to one of Moses' friends about the matter and of the protection privilege which surely had been granted to Moses by now. The friend just shrugged and said that the King hadn't even bothered to reply to his petition. The Marquis didn't want to believe this; and when others confirmed it to him, he became very angry and exclaimed with his usual vivaciousness: "This is too much! That's not how I know him! But if he did this, he won't have done so without consequence from me!"
When the Marquis visited the King that evening, he started to chide him as soon as he had stepped into the room. The King, who didn't know what he was talking about, showed his amazement. "Oh!", the Marquis exclaimed, "Sire, you are otherwise known to keep your word! You know I demand so rarely something from you. Now I have asked a favour from you, not for me, but for the most righeous worthiest man. You promised to grant it! This is too wrong! I must be discontent!"
The King assured him that Moses had received the protection privilege. The Marquis swore Moses had never received an answer to his petition. At last, it became known that a mere misunderstanding was at the bottom of this. The King said that the petition had to have been lost through an unusual accident. Moses should write another petition, and he would order the protection letter to be written for him. "Very well, Sire," said the Marquis, "I will create this petition with my own hand. But don't lose it again." So Moses after the Marquis' repeated requests wrote another draft of his petition on July 19th, and the Marquis added to it in his own name: "Un philosophe mauvais catholique supplie un philosophe mauvais protestant, de donner le privilege a un philosophe mauvais juif. Il y a dans tout ceci trop the de philosophie, pour que la raison ne soit pas du coté de la demande."
Consequently, Moses received his letter of privilege on October 26th. The administrative treasury demanded a thousand Reichstaler of him as expenditure according to law. The King handwaved this sum in the following year, 1764. In the year 1779 Moses out of love for his children supplicated the King (to extend the privilege to them).(...) This, the King denied him. But King Friedrich Wilhelm II. has granted it upon the petition of the philosopher's widow in the year 1787.
The most depressing aspect? The only one aware that the law itself is wrong (i.e. that the crux isn't that exceptions for great thinkers should be made) is Moses Mendelsohn. :(
In order not to finish on this note, here's one last Nicolai anecdote from volume 1:
In the year 1785, the King talked with a worthy man about the manner in which a young prince should be raised so that he could become a good regent. Among other things about how a future regent had to learn early how to use his power, but also how not to abuse it. He added: "Several things by their very nature are of a matter that a regent must never extend his power to influence them. Chief among these: Religion and love!" This is in my opinion one of the truest and most noble thoughts the regent of a great realm has thought or said.
(Or, as Voltaire expressed it: The freedom of thought and of the penis.)
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Re: the great "not so catholic philosopher..." quote, I just saw that the second sentence is slightly different at Trier! (Was looking for possible Mendelssohn mentions there.) Preuss gives Il y a dans tout ceci trop peu de religion pour que la raison ne soit pas du côté de la demande., even saying that it's slightly different from Nicolai. The meaning is almost the same, but with "little enough religion" vs. "enough philosophy", the emphasis is different. Preuss says he copied it from the original, owned by an unnamed individual during his time. Huh.
But yeah, the precariousness of living as a Jew comes through very clearly, and the prevalence of "that's just the law / how it's done" even among people who are themselves very much pro-enlightenment. Your addendum on the other hand emphasizes why I feel like this was such a missed chance, because it's not like Fritz' principles wouldn't have allowed him to take the necessary steps.
Aside from that, this also gives quite a vivid picture of D'Argens, which I appreciate.
petition had to have been lost through an unusual accident
Like the flute was at fault for the wrong notes? I mean I get that Fritz didn't want his friends involved in his politics, but, well. *side-eyes* (On the other hand, I have wondered before just how much got lost on his way to or from Fritz with his style of government.)
Nevertheless, this part -
When the Marquis visited the King that evening, he started to chide him as soon as he had stepped into the room.
- made me smile. Probably a tale that became a bit bigger in the telling, but still, it's a great scene.
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
But yeah, the precariousness of living as a Jew comes through very clearly, and the prevalence of "that's just the law / how it's done" even among people who are themselves very much pro-enlightenment. Your addendum on the other hand emphasizes why I feel like this was such a missed chance, because it's not like Fritz' principles wouldn't have allowed him to take the necessary steps.
Heinrich Heine: And this is why I'm anti-Prussian, and my despot of choice to fanboy is Napoleon. Vive l'Empereur!
Back to the Marquis D'Argens: in addition to being friends with Mendelsohn and Raphael, he also employed a Jewish secretary for a while, Aaron Salomon Gumpertz.
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Aw. But that reminds me, has anyone read the Lettres Juives? I know Fritz did, and I'm kind of curious.
D'Argens: Listen to me, never make the mistake and write your memoirs.
Ha. Love that Casanova then spends a whole paragraph explaining why he's doing just that and that he hopes he'll burn them before his death.
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Mind you, depressingly for D'Argens, Casanova isn't wrong (and it's telling that this became true even within D'Argens' own life time). The only member of the Sanssouci table round who didn't need Fritz either to become famous or stay famous, and whom people today can still discuss without as much as mentioning Fritz, remains Voltaire.
As more then one historian and biographer has observed, this tells you something. Mind you, it's not that Fritz didn't try to get the best and the brightest of his time when he was young, in 1740. It's that later on, he stopped being approachable for new cultural developments, and where he did read newer first class writers and invited them to Prussia, like Diderot and D'Alembert, they either didn't stay (D'Alembert) or didn't come in the first place (Diderot). And of course, by ignoring the entirety of German literature exploding around him in the second half of his life, he ensured not befriending any of its representatives, either.
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
And Euler, but your point stands.
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Huh. Maybe? But my first reaction was that that doesn't really seem like Fritz's style. Namely not doing something, and then pretending like he'd done it all along when badgered. Fritz isn't that conflict-avoidant: if he's refusing to do something on principle, he'll usually either die on that hill, or after enough wearing down, go, "Fine, I'll do it, are you happy now?" Maybe you'll find counterexamples (you and Selena did turn up examples of Fritz writing vaingloriously about himself in the third person circa 1745!), but I would need more evidence to believe this was in character.
Tacitly refusing a petition? Yes, I'm told this is what he did with Mendelssohn's' Academy membership, and it seems to have been standard royal practice, in that Stollberg-Rilinger tells me MT did the same thing with petitions she didn't want to grant.
Scapegoating? Absolutely, but usually on matters where Fritz felt strongly about something getting done the right way and couldn't admit to having been at fault for it going wrong (like blaming the flute because he very much cared about the quality of the music, and choosing to die on that hill for a week, then finally giving in).
Trying to get away with something in hopes no one notices and then lying through his teeth when caught? This strikes me as how he interacted with people who had power over him, i.e. FW, not with people he had power over.
I welcome counterevidence!
On the other hand, I have wondered before just how much got lost on his way to or from Fritz with his style of government.
I feel like that must have been pretty inevitable. I mean, are there bureaucracies in which that doesn't happen? And I don't feel a micromanaging monarch would eliminate that problem.
- made me smile. Probably a tale that became a bit bigger in the telling, but still, it's a great scene.
Yeah. :)1
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
- made me smile. Probably a tale that became a bit bigger in the telling, but still, it's a great scene.
Yes!
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Thus proving that you can reject the religion of your childhood, without necessarily seeing through millennia of prejudices engendered by that religion's dominance. Fritz!
April 1763
This, the King denied him.
Fritz! You can do better than this. Nazis are going to be fanboying you in a hundred and fifty years, just you wait.
But King Friedrich Wilhelm II. has granted it upon the petition of the philosopher's widow in the year 1787.
I will say "Go FW2", with the awareness that this might be like freeing Manger: just undoing Fritz's decisions as a matter of principle and sometimes getting it right and sometimes wrong.
The most depressing aspect? The only one aware that the law itself is wrong (i.e. that the crux isn't that exceptions for great thinkers should be made) is Moses Mendelsohn. :(
Yep. :(
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Moses at first didn't want to do it. He said: "It pains me that I should have to ask for the right of my existence, which should be given to every human being living as a decent citizen. If the state sees cause to tolerate people of my nation only in very limited numbers, why should I be privileged among my brethren to demand an exception?"
However, Moses Mendelsohn's friends pointed out to him that he was the head of a family who had to take this step for their sake, as they depended on him. He finally was persuaded.
The most depressing aspect? The only one aware that the law itself is wrong (i.e. that the crux isn't that exceptions for great thinkers should be made) is Moses Mendelsohn. :(
Yeah. :( I gotta say I'm super impressed by Mendelssohn, though!
Like
Okay, question that may hinge on translation:
Un philosophe mauvais catholique supplie un philosophe mauvais protestant, de donner le privilege a un philosophe mauvais juif.
I get the philosophe mauvais catholique and the philosophe mauvais protestant (also, I assume that "mauvais" modifies "catholique" rather than "philosophe"?), but is he just being clever/ironic/parallel by referring to Mendelssohn as un philosophe mauvais juif? I didn't get the impression that Mendelssohn was particularly non-devout, but maybe D'Argens is just making a joke there about his and Fritz's lack of piety, and just assumed Mendelssohn was the same?
Re: Moses Mendelsohn (aka Nicolai, Volume I, b)
Btw, I assume you know about Moses' grandson Felix the composer, but do you know about his granddaughter Fanny, Felix' sister, also a composer? (And an illustration as to why the "there were no female Mozarts, were there?" argument is stupid, because Fanny is a rl illustration to Virginia Woolf's "Shakespeare's sister" essay?
Fanny Mendelssohn