Interesting that the Fredersdorf embezzling story dates after this time! Hmm.
Fact is: Fritz got all the affection he needed via FRIENDSHIP. Marriage, as a social construct, was far too confining for his independent soaring spirit
LOLOLOLOLOL. Um. That's... one way of putting it? :D
Oh, and why isn't there more about Fredersdorf's role in the Voltaire showdown if you print the Voltaire-to-Fredersdorf's letter, Richter?
Um - can you remind me about this? I know Orieux blamed Fredersdorf for that whole thing where Voltaire and Madame Denis were detained (and I know, from your writeup, wrongly), or is this talking about some other role by Fredersdorf?
Interesting that the Fredersdorf embezzling story dates after this time! Hmm.
I was surprised, too. My making a bit fun of Volz not withstanding, he was a life long Fritz researcher who really knew his sources. So if he writes in the late 1920s that Fredersdorf has an impeccable record of being loyal and uncorruptible till the end, I trust he is speaking as someone on top of all the research up to this point. And Volz may edit and cut stuff from correspondences, but he doesn't strike me as being into deliberate falsehoods. For example, it was Volz who pointed out in his edition of Luccessini's diary via a footnote that Fritz' claim about a MT/Pompadour "dearest sister" letter was just a propaganda lie, as was evident at the latest when in the 1880s the entire MT era correspondence in Austrian state archives became accessible. He also is the one, according to Ziebura's footnote in her Heinrich biography, among the German Fritz researches who first read Catherine's correspondence with her envoy Golizyn, found the stuff about Heinrich arranging for an invite there and realised that the traditional version of Fritz masterplanning Heinrich's mission to Catherine and having to drag a very unwilling Heinrich into this visit was entirely wrong. And despite being primarily a Fritz fan, he said so.
Now, of course it's still possible that someone found new material at some point from the 1930s onwards that incriminates Fredersdorf. These things happen. For example: Volz in his book about Trenck deconstructed a lot of Trenck's claims from his memoirs, but then a letter from Trenck to his wife showed up within the last decades that shows at least that Trenck did meet Amalie shortly before her death (as he claimed he did). But it's rare, after all those centuries of Fritzian research!
Um - can you remind me about this? I know Orieux blamed Fredersdorf for that whole thing where Voltaire and Madame Denis were detained (and I know, from your writeup, wrongly), or is this talking about some other role by Fredersdorf?
Well, I can't speak for Volz, he was the one who said "why didn't Richter write more about Fredersdorf's role if he includes the Voltaire letter?". But at a guess, there are several possibilities:
1.) As we've seen by compaing Henri de Catt's memoirs with his diary, in the original version of the diary, Fritz tells Catt that he sent Fredersdorf to Voltaire (when Voltaire was still in Potsdam), with Voltaire ranting about Maupertuis etc., which made me wonder in which language Fredersdorf and Voltaire communicated, since Fredersdorf didn't officially speak any French, and Voltaire didn't officially speak any German. (In the Memoirs, Fritz sends the Abbe de Prades, which makes this a non-issue.) gambitten then produced an entire post worth of possible explanations. So Volz might be referring to this, or:
2.) The Frankfurt Affair. Here Fritz told Fredersdorf to get his incriminating poems back, Fredersdorf wrote to Freytag, the Prussian Resident in Frankfurt am Main, to get the poem back by all means, and Freytag acted with detainments etc. What I chided Orieux for in my write up wasn't just giving Fredesdorf the wrong job title (Frederdorf wasn't Fritz' private secretary), but also for presenting speculation as fact, as Orieux in the biography just states, no ifs, no buts, that Fredersdorf hated Voltaire and acted out jealousy. Now, fact is: we have no idea how Fredersdorf felt about Voltaire. He may have hated his guts. He may have just felt irritated or annoyed. He may even have felt nothing at all, or may have liked him (unlikely, but possible). Why do we not know? Because there is no letter from Fredersdorf stating his emotions about Voltaire, and there is no letter or diary quote from someone else who spoke to him about Voltaire containing any such information. Now if Orieux had written "in my opinion, Fredersdorf must have hated Voltaire", this would not have been a problem for me. But "Frederdorf hated Voltaire" in a biography, not a novel, is a statement without any source back up and therefore sloppy.
ETA: in terms of speculation, btw, Orieux would have been on somewhat sounder ground when assuming Voltaire was at least a bit jealous of Frederdorf, given the description in both the 1750s anonymous pamphlet and later in the memoirs. I.e. there's actual text on that. :)
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Volz on Richter: The Review
Date: 2021-04-03 05:36 am (UTC)Interesting that the Fredersdorf embezzling story dates after this time! Hmm.
Fact is: Fritz got all the affection he needed via FRIENDSHIP. Marriage, as a social construct, was far too confining for his independent soaring spirit
LOLOLOLOLOL. Um. That's... one way of putting it? :D
Oh, and why isn't there more about Fredersdorf's role in the Voltaire showdown if you print the Voltaire-to-Fredersdorf's letter, Richter?
Um - can you remind me about this? I know Orieux blamed Fredersdorf for that whole thing where Voltaire and Madame Denis were detained (and I know, from your writeup, wrongly), or is this talking about some other role by Fredersdorf?
Re: Volz on Richter: The Review
Date: 2021-04-03 07:50 am (UTC)I was surprised, too. My making a bit fun of Volz not withstanding, he was a life long Fritz researcher who really knew his sources. So if he writes in the late 1920s that Fredersdorf has an impeccable record of being loyal and uncorruptible till the end, I trust he is speaking as someone on top of all the research up to this point. And Volz may edit and cut stuff from correspondences, but he doesn't strike me as being into deliberate falsehoods. For example, it was Volz who pointed out in his edition of Luccessini's diary via a footnote that Fritz' claim about a MT/Pompadour "dearest sister" letter was just a propaganda lie, as was evident at the latest when in the 1880s the entire MT era correspondence in Austrian state archives became accessible. He also is the one, according to Ziebura's footnote in her Heinrich biography, among the German Fritz researches who first read Catherine's correspondence with her envoy Golizyn, found the stuff about Heinrich arranging for an invite there and realised that the traditional version of Fritz masterplanning Heinrich's mission to Catherine and having to drag a very unwilling Heinrich into this visit was entirely wrong. And despite being primarily a Fritz fan, he said so.
Now, of course it's still possible that someone found new material at some point from the 1930s onwards that incriminates Fredersdorf. These things happen. For example: Volz in his book about Trenck deconstructed a lot of Trenck's claims from his memoirs, but then a letter from Trenck to his wife showed up within the last decades that shows at least that Trenck did meet Amalie shortly before her death (as he claimed he did). But it's rare, after all those centuries of Fritzian research!
Um - can you remind me about this? I know Orieux blamed Fredersdorf for that whole thing where Voltaire and Madame Denis were detained (and I know, from your writeup, wrongly), or is this talking about some other role by Fredersdorf?
Well, I can't speak for Volz, he was the one who said "why didn't Richter write more about Fredersdorf's role if he includes the Voltaire letter?". But at a guess, there are several possibilities:
1.) As we've seen by compaing Henri de Catt's memoirs with his diary, in the original version of the diary, Fritz tells Catt that he sent Fredersdorf to Voltaire (when Voltaire was still in Potsdam), with Voltaire ranting about Maupertuis etc., which made me wonder in which language Fredersdorf and Voltaire communicated, since Fredersdorf didn't officially speak any French, and Voltaire didn't officially speak any German. (In the Memoirs, Fritz sends the Abbe de Prades, which makes this a non-issue.)
2.) The Frankfurt Affair. Here Fritz told Fredersdorf to get his incriminating poems back, Fredersdorf wrote to Freytag, the Prussian Resident in Frankfurt am Main, to get the poem back by all means, and Freytag acted with detainments etc. What I chided Orieux for in my write up wasn't just giving Fredesdorf the wrong job title (Frederdorf wasn't Fritz' private secretary), but also for presenting speculation as fact, as Orieux in the biography just states, no ifs, no buts, that Fredersdorf hated Voltaire and acted out jealousy. Now, fact is: we have no idea how Fredersdorf felt about Voltaire. He may have hated his guts. He may have just felt irritated or annoyed. He may even have felt nothing at all, or may have liked him (unlikely, but possible). Why do we not know? Because there is no letter from Fredersdorf stating his emotions about Voltaire, and there is no letter or diary quote from someone else who spoke to him about Voltaire containing any such information. Now if Orieux had written "in my opinion, Fredersdorf must have hated Voltaire", this would not have been a problem for me. But "Frederdorf hated Voltaire" in a biography, not a novel, is a statement without any source back up and therefore sloppy.
ETA: in terms of speculation, btw, Orieux would have been on somewhat sounder ground when assuming Voltaire was at least a bit jealous of Frederdorf, given the description in both the 1750s anonymous pamphlet and later in the memoirs. I.e. there's actual text on that. :)