Continuing with my glacial reread of the Suhm letters...
1. Tongue in cheek, but my gossipy sensationalist 21st century self has a hard time not reading this as gay for Fritz:
[Suhm waxes enthusiastic about how awesome Fritz is and how he's only getting better with each passing year.]
Excuse, My Lord, this digression — It has flowed so naturally from me, that may it be looked upon as the necessary effect of the union and harmony of a soul incessantly taken up in the contemplation of your Royal person, with a body ever ready to obey the impressions it receives from you, and always disposed to express its willingness.
Yeah, Diaphane, we all know about the impressions your body receives from Fritz and how willing it is. :P
2. In March 1736, Fritz is getting his first translations from Suhm and getting excited by the fact that he's now convinced he has an immortal soul; by November, he's already questioning Wolff:
I seem to see you again by my fire side, and hear you converse agreeably on subjects which neither of us comprehend too clearly, but which have nevertheless in your mouth an air of probability. Wolf undoubtedly says fine and good things, but they may, however, be combated, and as soon as we refer to first principles nothing remains to us but to confess our ignorance. We do not live long enough to become very able; moreover we have not capacity sufficient to examine matters to the bottom; and other wise there are objects which it seems the Creator has placed at a distance, that we may have but a slender knowledge of them.
3. While Suhm is still living in Berlin, I see them complaining about letters going astray because of poorly chosen messengers, of the "circuits" by which the letters have to travel, which lead to delays...it seems to me that, even when they're two topics of conversation are Wolff and "I love you more! No, I love you more!", they're still keeping their correspondence a secret. If FW doesn't even want them corresponding, it does make sense of why Suhm never goes to visit him and certainly not to live with him. :(
4. When Suhm is breaking the news to Fritz about having to move to St. Petersburg, he says that when they meet in person during the upcoming winter holidays in Berlin, he'll explain to Fritz why this was an offer he couldn't refuse:
I fear not but I shall then be able to make your Royal Highness approve of the reasons which have induced me not to refuse the employ which is offered to me; and your Royal Highness, will, I hope, be as easily persuaded, when you shall be informed of the whole, that my inviolable attachment to you, has at the bottom, a greater part therein than you have been able to imagine.
And the next thing we know, Suhm is carrying out commissions to get Fritz money, first from Vienna and then from St. Petersburg, commissions that everyone agrees were given orally, in Berlin.
...Did Suhm decide to go to St. Petersburg in part because it was a chance to play sugar daddy? Or was that just how he tried to reconcile Fritz to it? (Note that Fritz continues to try to get Suhm to come home even after the money starts coming in. That's how you know it's love.)
5. Remember how we gave MacDonogh a hard time for male Mimi? 1787 editor also translates "il" as "he"!
6. Hahaha, so Fritz, back when Suhm is looking for a job, says that he wouldn't wish to be king out of ambition, and the only thing that could make him want it is friendship, because then he could offer Suhm an income.
And now, when Suhm is saying it's going to be a while before he can answer Fritz's questions about Russia (remember, Voltaire wants to know!), because he has to learn more about Russia, and especially since he needs to find a safe way of sending his answers so that the Russians who read his mail don't get their hands on this one, he says,
I beseech your Royal Highness, to give me time only to inform myself well of all these things, and especially to let me chuse an occasion to send you my observations. I hope you will have the goodness to do this, as nothing is pressing. Would to God you had reasons to be more anxious in this respect!
I can only read this as, "I wish to God your dad had kicked the bucket already, and you were asking out of foreign policy reasons, because that would mean you were king and we could be together forever!"
7. Did Suhm take his kids to Russia? Maybe! There's a distinct lack of mention of his kids in his letters to Fritz except when he's dying and needs someone to take care of them, and while envoys do often take their kids, we had been unsure and decided that maybe he didn't take them all the way to St. Petersburg.
But then I found this passage. Suhm is describing the sheer horror of trying to get from Dresden to St. Petersburg in the 18th century:
Sometimes the sand, or the sea above the axle-tree; sometimes in a miserable shallop, in hard blowing weather, the sport of the winds and waves, at the mercy of the sea and rocks; afterwards passing on foot half frozen rivers, holding a child in each hand, and seeing myself at every step in danger of being swallowed up with them under the ice; finally overtaken by a frightful snow, which threatened to bury us in places where it was impossible to procure sledges; this is enough to give you some idea of the fatigue and anguish I suffered on my journey.
And his surviving kids at the turn of 1736/1737 would have been 8, 10, 11, 13, and 14 (no, I don't envy his poor wife), more than young enough for two of them to need their hands held when crossing a river.
So maybe our guess was wrong and the kids were there, and thus they were on that slow and painful journey back from St. Petersburg, watching Dad die slowly. :( At least they (and sister Hedwig) would have gotten to say goodbye, I guess.
But it's interesting because Suhm always refers to "I" and "my" in terms of the house where he lives in St. Petersburg, the house almost burning down, etc. So if he's got his family with him, then he is consciously avoiding talking about them with Fritz (who, in contrast, is more than happy to bitch about his brother showing up, for example), unless he needs them taken care of. Which Fritz is more than willing to do, and even the grandkids 50 years later. But apparently they do not form part of his relationship with Suhm when the latter's alive.
Unless there are other kids on the journey, and Suhm is just pitching in and helping out with the river crossing...idk. My first guess would be his kids, but then their absence during the two fires is *really* noticeable. It's not even "'we' could have died," it's "me, I," like he lives alone with some invisible servants.
8. 1787 editor includes the cipher by which Fritz and Suhm communicated about moneylending when Suhm was in Russia! If Preuss includes this, I haven't found it (admittedly I haven't looked very hard).
Every letter is assigned four numerical values, and the whole is presented as a mathematical problem. The details of the math problem(s) aren't included, but the letter-number mapping is.
Notice how 'a' starts at 15, then 'b' is 16, 'c' 17, and so on until 'z', then 'a' picks back up where 'z' left off, so each letter's four values are always 25 apart. 25 rather than 26 because 'i' and 'j' are the same letter, which was not uncommon in the past (though becoming increasingly uncommon in the 18th century). They were originally the same letter and only started to be distinguished in the Renaissance.
9. Per Suhm, East Russia is poorly understood geographically. Professors have been sent to explore it. It's probable that Russia joins America somewhere in the east. (!!)
I knew that Alaska was settled by Russia under Catherine the Great, but I didn't know that in 1737, they hadn't yet figured out that the Bering land bridge was no more! Per Wikipedia,
The first European vessel to reach Alaska is generally held to be the St. Gabriel under the authority of the surveyor M. S. Gvozdev and assistant navigator I. Fyodorov on August 21, 1732, during an expedition of Siberian cossack A. F. Shestakov and Russian explorer Dmitry Pavlutsky (1729–1735). Another European contact with Alaska occurred in 1741, when Vitus Bering led an expedition for the Russian Navy aboard the St. Peter. After his crew returned to Russia with sea otter pelts judged to be the finest fur in the world, small associations of fur traders began to sail from the shores of Siberia toward the Aleutian Islands. The first permanent European settlement was founded in 1784.
I guess the Bering Strait is about to be named!
10. Possibly the most interesting point so far is the one I just encountered last night. In a ciphered letter that Fritz sent to Suhm, without a signature and without a date, but probably late 1737, he writes,
If I can have fourteen thousand crowns in the month of April or May, they will be sufficient, and give me much satisfaction. I shall always have a great obligation to the Duke [of Courland] for them , and which I will endeavour to prove to him hereafter. Suffice it for the present that I am not ungrateful. If sureties be required, I offer one signed by my brother, without his knowing, as you may imagine, any thing of the business, in any manner whatsoever, or his being able to guess even at it. These are my affairs [cosa nostra? :P], and you may naturally suppose that I will use all possible prudence. If you do not think him necessary, so much the better; but it is only in case of my death that I propose his security. Adieu my dear Diaphane, it is midnight. Good night, I am, wholly your's [sic]
Two things here, aside from my snide mobster joke.
One, how do I put this...wow, this family. I know your father's put you in a shitty situation, Fritz, but way to pass it down the chain.
I wonder if AW ever figured out what was going on. Did Fritz forge his signature, or did he get trusting younger bro to sign a piece of paper without letting on what he was really signing up for?
Two, "my brother," unmarked, is AW. This makes me think that in 1736, it's AW who shows up at Ruppin and is more interested in eating than reading. I'm still happy to read a babysitting fic where it's Heinrich followed by Ferdinand, mind you!
ETA: I just settled down to read a few more pages, and what should I find but another editor footnote that I was !! at.
Specifically, Fritz rants for a page about how Seckendorff, THE WORST (except a good general, granted), has just been arrested, and "One thing is certain, and upon which you may rely, that his career is ended, and that the name of Seckendorf, will never more be heard spoken of." Then he says, "The Cardinal Nepote, has left Berlin, and is going to enter the service of Anspach." Then two more pages about Seckendorff.
I was like, "Oh, Cardinal Nepote must be Other Seckendorff, author of the secret journal and nephew of arch-schemer Seckendorff."
Then the editor writes, in a footnote, "It is not well known who this Cardinal Nepote is; it is believed to be a supposed name. There has never been at Berlin any cardinal but the Cardinal de Zinzendorf." I want to send a message back in time and tell him, we know who this is! And sure enough, I checked and Other Seckendorff's bio says it was in 1737 that he moved to Ansbach.
It's nice having access to people's secret diaries. :D
But also, 1787 editor, context! It's smack dab in the middle of a 3-page rant about Seckendorff, who do you think it is but a *Seckendorff* *nephew*?!
Also, I'm amused that, just as Seckendorff calls Fritz "Junior", Junior calls him in return "Cardinal Nepote". Not sure about the Cardinal; any guesses? (I doubt he's saying he's actually Seckendorff's son, which is how it usually worked with popes and their "nephews" who were made cardinals, which is how we got the word "nepotism". But that is the first thing that comes to mind for me when you juxtapose "cardinal" and "nephew".)
Suhm letters II
1. Tongue in cheek, but my gossipy sensationalist 21st century self has a hard time not reading this as gay for Fritz:
[Suhm waxes enthusiastic about how awesome Fritz is and how he's only getting better with each passing year.]
Excuse, My Lord, this digression — It has flowed so naturally from me, that may it be looked upon as the necessary effect of the union and harmony of a soul incessantly taken up in the contemplation of your Royal person, with a body ever ready to obey the impressions it receives from you, and always disposed to express its willingness.
Yeah, Diaphane, we all know about the impressions your body receives from Fritz and how willing it is. :P
2. In March 1736, Fritz is getting his first translations from Suhm and getting excited by the fact that he's now convinced he has an immortal soul; by November, he's already questioning Wolff:
I seem to see you again by my fire side, and hear you converse agreeably on subjects which neither of us comprehend too clearly, but which have nevertheless in your mouth an air of probability. Wolf undoubtedly says fine and good things, but they may, however, be combated, and as soon as we refer to first principles nothing remains to us but to confess our ignorance. We do not live long enough to become very able; moreover we have not capacity sufficient to examine matters to the bottom; and other wise there are objects which it seems the Creator has placed at a distance, that we may have but a slender knowledge of them.
3. While Suhm is still living in Berlin, I see them complaining about letters going astray because of poorly chosen messengers, of the "circuits" by which the letters have to travel, which lead to delays...it seems to me that, even when they're two topics of conversation are Wolff and "I love you more! No, I love you more!", they're still keeping their correspondence a secret. If FW doesn't even want them corresponding, it does make sense of why Suhm never goes to visit him and certainly not to live with him. :(
4. When Suhm is breaking the news to Fritz about having to move to St. Petersburg, he says that when they meet in person during the upcoming winter holidays in Berlin, he'll explain to Fritz why this was an offer he couldn't refuse:
I fear not but I shall then be able to make your Royal Highness approve of the reasons which have induced me not to refuse the employ which is offered to me; and your Royal Highness, will, I hope, be as easily persuaded, when you shall be informed of the whole, that my inviolable attachment to you, has at the bottom, a greater part therein than you have been able to imagine.
And the next thing we know, Suhm is carrying out commissions to get Fritz money, first from Vienna and then from St. Petersburg, commissions that everyone agrees were given orally, in Berlin.
...Did Suhm decide to go to St. Petersburg in part because it was a chance to play sugar daddy? Or was that just how he tried to reconcile Fritz to it? (Note that Fritz continues to try to get Suhm to come home even after the money starts coming in. That's how you know it's love.)
5. Remember how we gave MacDonogh a hard time for male Mimi? 1787 editor also translates "il" as "he"!
6. Hahaha, so Fritz, back when Suhm is looking for a job, says that he wouldn't wish to be king out of ambition, and the only thing that could make him want it is friendship, because then he could offer Suhm an income.
And now, when Suhm is saying it's going to be a while before he can answer Fritz's questions about Russia (remember, Voltaire wants to know!), because he has to learn more about Russia, and especially since he needs to find a safe way of sending his answers so that the Russians who read his mail don't get their hands on this one, he says,
I beseech your Royal Highness, to give me time only to inform myself well of all these things, and especially to let me chuse an occasion to send you my observations. I hope you will have the goodness to do this, as nothing is pressing. Would to God you had reasons to be more anxious in this respect!
I can only read this as, "I wish to God your dad had kicked the bucket already, and you were asking out of foreign policy reasons, because that would mean you were king and we could be together forever!"
7. Did Suhm take his kids to Russia? Maybe! There's a distinct lack of mention of his kids in his letters to Fritz except when he's dying and needs someone to take care of them, and while envoys do often take their kids, we had been unsure and decided that maybe he didn't take them all the way to St. Petersburg.
But then I found this passage. Suhm is describing the sheer horror of trying to get from Dresden to St. Petersburg in the 18th century:
Sometimes the sand, or the sea above the axle-tree; sometimes in a miserable shallop, in hard blowing weather, the sport of the winds and waves, at the mercy of the sea and rocks; afterwards passing on foot half frozen rivers, holding a child in each hand, and seeing myself at every step in danger of being swallowed up with them under the ice; finally overtaken by a frightful snow, which threatened to bury us in places where it was impossible to procure sledges; this is enough to give you some idea of the fatigue and anguish I suffered on my journey.
And his surviving kids at the turn of 1736/1737 would have been 8, 10, 11, 13, and 14 (no, I don't envy his poor wife), more than young enough for two of them to need their hands held when crossing a river.
So maybe our guess was wrong and the kids were there, and thus they were on that slow and painful journey back from St. Petersburg, watching Dad die slowly. :( At least they (and sister Hedwig) would have gotten to say goodbye, I guess.
But it's interesting because Suhm always refers to "I" and "my" in terms of the house where he lives in St. Petersburg, the house almost burning down, etc. So if he's got his family with him, then he is consciously avoiding talking about them with Fritz (who, in contrast, is more than happy to bitch about his brother showing up, for example), unless he needs them taken care of. Which Fritz is more than willing to do, and even the grandkids 50 years later. But apparently they do not form part of his relationship with Suhm when the latter's alive.
Unless there are other kids on the journey, and Suhm is just pitching in and helping out with the river crossing...idk. My first guess would be his kids, but then their absence during the two fires is *really* noticeable. It's not even "'we' could have died," it's "me, I," like he lives alone with some invisible servants.
8. 1787 editor includes the cipher by which Fritz and Suhm communicated about moneylending when Suhm was in Russia! If Preuss includes this, I haven't found it (admittedly I haven't looked very hard).
Every letter is assigned four numerical values, and the whole is presented as a mathematical problem. The details of the math problem(s) aren't included, but the letter-number mapping is.
Notice how 'a' starts at 15, then 'b' is 16, 'c' 17, and so on until 'z', then 'a' picks back up where 'z' left off, so each letter's four values are always 25 apart. 25 rather than 26 because 'i' and 'j' are the same letter, which was not uncommon in the past (though becoming increasingly uncommon in the 18th century). They were originally the same letter and only started to be distinguished in the Renaissance.
9. Per Suhm, East Russia is poorly understood geographically. Professors have been sent to explore it. It's probable that Russia joins America somewhere in the east. (!!)
I knew that Alaska was settled by Russia under Catherine the Great, but I didn't know that in 1737, they hadn't yet figured out that the Bering land bridge was no more! Per Wikipedia,
The first European vessel to reach Alaska is generally held to be the St. Gabriel under the authority of the surveyor M. S. Gvozdev and assistant navigator I. Fyodorov on August 21, 1732, during an expedition of Siberian cossack A. F. Shestakov and Russian explorer Dmitry Pavlutsky (1729–1735). Another European contact with Alaska occurred in 1741, when Vitus Bering led an expedition for the Russian Navy aboard the St. Peter. After his crew returned to Russia with sea otter pelts judged to be the finest fur in the world, small associations of fur traders began to sail from the shores of Siberia toward the Aleutian Islands. The first permanent European settlement was founded in 1784.
I guess the Bering Strait is about to be named!
10. Possibly the most interesting point so far is the one I just encountered last night. In a ciphered letter that Fritz sent to Suhm, without a signature and without a date, but probably late 1737, he writes,
If I can have fourteen thousand crowns in the month of April or May, they will be sufficient, and give me much satisfaction. I shall always have a great obligation to the Duke [of Courland] for them , and which I will endeavour to prove to him hereafter. Suffice it for the present that I am not ungrateful. If sureties be required, I offer one signed by my brother, without his knowing, as you may imagine, any thing of the business, in any manner whatsoever, or his being able to guess even at it. These are my affairs [cosa nostra? :P], and you may naturally suppose that I will use all possible prudence. If you do not think him necessary, so much the better; but it is only in case of my death that I propose his security. Adieu my dear Diaphane, it is midnight. Good night, I am, wholly your's [sic]
Two things here, aside from my snide mobster joke.
One, how do I put this...wow, this family. I know your father's put you in a shitty situation, Fritz, but way to pass it down the chain.
I wonder if AW ever figured out what was going on. Did Fritz forge his signature, or did he get trusting younger bro to sign a piece of paper without letting on what he was really signing up for?
Two, "my brother," unmarked, is AW. This makes me think that in 1736, it's AW who shows up at Ruppin and is more interested in eating than reading. I'm still happy to read a babysitting fic where it's Heinrich followed by Ferdinand, mind you!
ETA: I just settled down to read a few more pages, and what should I find but another editor footnote that I was !! at.
Specifically, Fritz rants for a page about how Seckendorff, THE WORST (except a good general, granted), has just been arrested, and "One thing is certain, and upon which you may rely, that his career is ended, and that the name of Seckendorf, will never more be heard spoken of." Then he says, "The Cardinal Nepote, has left Berlin, and is going to enter the service of Anspach." Then two more pages about Seckendorff.
I was like, "Oh, Cardinal Nepote must be Other Seckendorff, author of the secret journal and nephew of arch-schemer Seckendorff."
Then the editor writes, in a footnote, "It is not well known who this Cardinal Nepote is; it is believed to be a supposed name. There has never been at Berlin any cardinal but the Cardinal de Zinzendorf." I want to send a message back in time and tell him, we know who this is! And sure enough, I checked and Other Seckendorff's bio says it was in 1737 that he moved to Ansbach.
It's nice having access to people's secret diaries. :D
But also, 1787 editor, context! It's smack dab in the middle of a 3-page rant about Seckendorff, who do you think it is but a *Seckendorff* *nephew*?!
Also, I'm amused that, just as Seckendorff calls Fritz "Junior", Junior calls him in return "Cardinal Nepote". Not sure about the Cardinal; any guesses? (I doubt he's saying he's actually Seckendorff's son, which is how it usually worked with popes and their "nephews" who were made cardinals, which is how we got the word "nepotism". But that is the first thing that comes to mind for me when you juxtapose "cardinal" and "nephew".)