Engel gives Denina's La Prusse Litteraire as a source on Peter, which has a couple pages (331ff) that seem to be a paraphrase of Formey's eulogy.
Meant to say, thank you for this! At the end it has a couple things on his son that were in Formey's future. One I'd seen but didn't have a source for: namely that the son of Peter who was an envoy to Turin in 1776-1777 (the one I've seen three different first names for) lived a life entirely retired from society after withdrawing from politics. Now I have a 1790 source for that! So it's looking quite likely. I also learned that he hadn't married as of 1790. Since he's in his mid-forties, it's just possible that he did eventually marry, but looking less likely.
Still no idea about the other son, not even a death date. The last I hear of him, Ariane was taking him to join his brother at university circa 1760.
Oh, Denina also says Envoy Son was, albeit withdrawn from society, nevertheless attached to the Prussian minister of foreign affairs. That seems to be this Hertzberg, who's shown up a couple times in salon.
Oh, lol, he has some correspondence with Fritz in Trier, in 1779-1781, and just from my quick glance at the French, they are, you guessed it, arguing about the virtues of German vs. French. Fritz is being very...Fritzian. :'D
ETA: Oh, yeah, his wiki page says, "In 1780 he boldly took up the defence of German literature, which had been disparaged by Frederick the Great in his famous writing De la literature allemande."
Polish your rusty armor and stop talking about things you have no idea about, Fritz. :P (Except don't, I love your flaws as much as your virtues, that's why you're endlessly fascinating to me...from a safe distance. But if you come into my house and start telling me how to administer databases, you will see Knobelsdorff has nothing on me when it comes to dispensing with social niceties. :P (CorporateAU!Heinrich is gritting his teeth right now.))
So anyway, Hertzberg + Envoy Son of Peter = BFFs. Probably a connection that helped get Envoy Son that envoy position.
(Hertzberg shows up in Ziebura during FW2's reign, doesn't he? Or am I thinking of someone else?)
Hertzberg does indeed; he and Heinrich hated each other's guts, and Hertzberg was one of the key factors why FW2 froze Heinrich out politically pretty much from the get go. He even tried to make trouble on a personal, non political level when it came to Fritz' legacy. Now, FW, as early as 1733, had put it in writing in a donation act dated September 1st 1733 that if AW or his descendants became King, Wusterhausen (until then a crown possession) would go to Heinrich, and if Heinrich died without children, to Ferdinand and his children. Fritz did nothing to gainsay that, but Hertzberg told FW2 that this was vague enough and Wusterhausen should remain with the crown. FW2 showed that letter to Heinrich, who commented the intention of the author was easily discernable, i.e. enstrange him and his nephew, and since he, Heinrich had no children, he'd never sue his beloved nephew and would of course step back, despite the fact that FW's intentions re: Wusterhausen had been legally clear. That basically did it in terms of Wusterhausen. But not so much in terms of politics. (Looking up Ziebura again for this, btw, shows me that Lehndorff, who'd always liked FW2 a lot, had come to Berlin and like Heinrich had hoped to a return to office (well not Queen's Chamberlain office! an interesting office!), but was also sent home disappointed, and I guess (Ziebura doesn't say so) this might have been because he was known as Heinrich's friend and Hertzberg, Bischofswerder and possibly FW2 himself were paranoid about Heinrich making a power grabbing move.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Manger, Knobelsdorff - and Peter Keith!
Date: 2021-03-19 09:30 pm (UTC)Meant to say, thank you for this! At the end it has a couple things on his son that were in Formey's future. One I'd seen but didn't have a source for: namely that the son of Peter who was an envoy to Turin in 1776-1777 (the one I've seen three different first names for) lived a life entirely retired from society after withdrawing from politics. Now I have a 1790 source for that! So it's looking quite likely. I also learned that he hadn't married as of 1790. Since he's in his mid-forties, it's just possible that he did eventually marry, but looking less likely.
Still no idea about the other son, not even a death date. The last I hear of him, Ariane was taking him to join his brother at university circa 1760.
Oh, Denina also says Envoy Son was, albeit withdrawn from society, nevertheless attached to the Prussian minister of foreign affairs. That seems to be this Hertzberg, who's shown up a couple times in salon.
Oh, lol, he has some correspondence with Fritz in Trier, in 1779-1781, and just from my quick glance at the French, they are, you guessed it, arguing about the virtues of German vs. French. Fritz is being very...Fritzian. :'D
ETA: Oh, yeah, his wiki page says, "In 1780 he boldly took up the defence of German literature, which had been disparaged by Frederick the Great in his famous writing De la literature allemande."
Polish your rusty armor and stop talking about things you have no idea about, Fritz. :P (Except don't, I love your flaws as much as your virtues, that's why you're endlessly fascinating to me...from a safe distance. But if you come into my house and start telling me how to administer databases, you will see Knobelsdorff has nothing on me when it comes to dispensing with social niceties. :P (CorporateAU!Heinrich is gritting his teeth right now.))
So anyway, Hertzberg + Envoy Son of Peter = BFFs. Probably a connection that helped get Envoy Son that envoy position.
(Hertzberg shows up in Ziebura during FW2's reign, doesn't he? Or am I thinking of someone else?)
Re: Manger, Knobelsdorff - and Peter Keith!
Date: 2021-03-20 01:26 am (UTC)MinistRY I think? It say "ministère" not "ministre" in French.
Fritz is being very...Fritzian.
:D (<3)
Re: Manger, Knobelsdorff - and Peter Keith!
Date: 2021-03-20 01:35 am (UTC)(Like the time I accidentally solved the mystery of Lehndorff's cousin by confusing "Vetter" and "Base". :D)
Off to bed!
Hertzberg
Date: 2021-03-20 06:47 am (UTC)