Do we know how much Seckendorff offered Grumbkow a few years later?
Ran into this in Förster, part of Seckendorff's Gesandschafts-Rechnungen (Bd. 3, p. 231, also has some sums that Fritz and Wilhelmine got):
General Grumbkow got paid his previously had pension of 1000 ducats for the year 1732. So if the same should be continued despite the continuous highest grace of 40,000 Gulden [!?] now received, he is due 1000 ducats per anno 1733. If anyone in the world deserves grace, it is this man.
Also: The pension of 6000 Gulden for the year 1732 was only paid to the Electoral Saxon Minister, Count Manteufel, on August 15, 1733, and therefore the pension of 6000 Gulden per anno 1733 is due to him, which is very much deserved due to his diligence, zeal and varied secret correspondence.
So, we have some numbers, but all in different currencies! I think Dukaten are more than Gulden, but I have no idea by how much, let alone how the French Livres would fit in there.
Oh, nice find! *applauds* And thank goodness for Selena's find. I remember researching currencies a couple years ago to compare Algarotti's salary to someone else's (Maupertuis? I forget), and it was a pain! Euro ftw.
As the resident numbers person, I'll try to do the math if no one else does, but might not be till this weekend. German is calling!
I can do numbers, I just am not sure about the German or the history :P That is to say, I'm assuming that the Rhenish Gulden is the same as the Reichsgulden, and then the conversion isn't bad given Selena's sheet. It's 4 ducats to the imperial gulden, and 2.2 to 2.5 silver livres to the Rhenish Gulden (which hopefully is the same thing).
So that would make Grumbkow's yearly bribe 4000 guldens, less than Manteuffel's, but then again he had that 40,000... I couldn't figure out what that meant from your translation, felis? Was it a lump sum payment in the past or how much he'd collected so far?
To procure success, Rottembourg might offer to Grumbkow, if he found fit opportunity, a pension of 15,000 livres, and annual "gratifications" to Ilgen and Printz of 12,000, but this must be done very cautiously.
So this would be between ~6000-6800 guldens Rottembourg might offer to Grumbkow, and ~4800-5500 guldens to Ilgen and Printz. (Depending on what the silver to gold exchange rate was at that time, I suppose; and I'm rounding to the nearest hundred.)
(This was a fascinating sheet, by the way -- thank you Selena! I'm so used to reading about currencies in books and having no idea how much any of them actually are with respect to everything else.)
I couldn't figure out what that meant from your translation, felis? Was it a lump sum payment in the past or how much he'd collected so far?
If only I knew! This is the original German: Wenn also selbige [1000 ducats], ohngeachtet der nunmehr empfangenen beständigen allerhöchsten Begnadigung von 40,000 Gulden, dennoch sollte continuieret werden. Without the "beständigen" (= steady/constant/continuous) in there, I might have said it was a one-off payment, but this way, I guess it's "this is how much's gotten so far" after all. On the other hand, it looks like Seckendorff wants him to keep getting money, so why would he bring up "he already accumulated this much over the years" and in a different currency no less? Beats me.
re: Reichsgulden/Rheinischer Gulden/Gulden (Fl.) - again, no idea. Seckendorff seems to use Gulden and Fl. interchangeably but definitely has them as silver money (and Ducats as gold). I tried to read the German wiki entries on the different Guldens and got lost very quickly, but I do think that for our time period they might indeed be roughly in the exchange ballpark that Selena's link had, and that it's basically the southern equivalent to the Reichsthaler, which was used mostly in the northern countries of the Empire. (As in: the Reichthaler (Rth.) is the usual currency in Prussia and the salaries Fritz pays tend to be in Rth., as are all his box bills. Exchange rate, just so we have it all in one place: 1 Reichsthaler = 1.5 Gulden.)
Also, taking a closer look at Förster, I found more interesting bribery facts, in a handy list, with a couple of names we know:
Count Manteuffel: 6000 Gulden Reichenbach [Prussian Resident in London, for furthering a bad relationship between England and Prussia]: 900 Gulden Irishman Murnay in Potsdam [?]: 60 Gulden Duhan [!]: 1200 Gulden [for two years, he got 600 per year, from 1732 on]
Reading some of Seckendorff's accompanying letters, it seems like it's actually true that he was involved in getting Duhan the position in Wolfenbüttel and that he payed him money, because he thought he'd have influence on Fritz after FW's death. (Same goes for Wilhelmine.)
And given the Eversmann payment, I'm sure wondering if Fredersdorf ever showed up on any lists... (Selena's "Learning Frederick" makes a good case for it! :D)
Duhan being on the payroll was news to me; I mean, good for him, since exiles are notoriously short of money. I do wonder, though, whether MT ever got to see that expense sheet with all the money paid for future influence on Fritz once she was on the throne. If so, it could be the reason why she freed Seckendorff from prison but didn't offer him a job herself (which his 18th century biographer claims was the reason why he offered his services to her Wittelsbach rival instead). Also whether Manteuffel lost his pension once Fritz kicked him out of the country. (Though otoh he clearly had enough connections within Prussia to report accurately about Fritz' aborted trip to France within record time, so they might have considered it worth keeping him on the payroll.)
Irishman Murnay in Potsdam is a man of mystery! Who might he have been, servant or courtier?
Also, I have to say I'm with Seckendorff in his "ursurer my ass" reaction to Fritz' diatribe in the "Histoire de la Maison de Brandenburg".
Murnay: googled some more and saw that in another book, Förster says that he was one of FW's guards in Potsdam, i.e. Leibgrenadier ... so I guess there's one more thing we know about him: he was probably quite tall.
And one more thing from Förster: a 1727 letter from Eugen to Seckendorff, which already talks about the 1000 ducats per year for Grumbkow and discusses how he would get the money, speculating that he might not be happy to be caught with freshly pressed imperial ducats, because it would be easy to guess where they came from. Also, same letter references an imperial medal set with diamonds that Gundling got. (Good for him I say.)
Seckendorff seems to use Gulden and Fl. interchangeably but definitely has them as silver money (and Ducats as gold).
Huh, Selena's sheet said it was gold -- Oh WAIT the problem is I can do math but I can't read! So under "Gulden (fl)" it says "Im 16. Jahrhundert wird hier der Silbergulden eingeführt, welcher als Reichsgulden bis ins 19. Jahrhundert Münzeinheit ist," which apparently I just completely missed the first time (...I was just looking for conversion numbers, okay.) So, okay, I think the sheet is saying that the gold gulden(Fl.) was replaced (?) by the silver gulden which is now called the imperial gulden, which agrees with what Seckendorff says. Ugh, I still don't know what the relationship between the imperial gulden and the Rhenish gulden is, though, unless we can assume they're vaguely equivalent. But in any case we should be able to convert between ducats and imperial gulden at a ratio of 1 to 4.
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Re: Rottembourg's bribery attempts
Ran into this in Förster, part of Seckendorff's Gesandschafts-Rechnungen (Bd. 3, p. 231, also has some sums that Fritz and Wilhelmine got):
General Grumbkow got paid his previously had pension of 1000 ducats for the year 1732. So if the same should be continued despite the continuous highest grace of 40,000 Gulden [!?] now received, he is due 1000 ducats per anno 1733. If anyone in the world deserves grace, it is this man.
Also: The pension of 6000 Gulden for the year 1732 was only paid to the Electoral Saxon Minister, Count Manteufel, on August 15, 1733, and therefore the pension of 6000 Gulden per anno 1733 is due to him, which is very much deserved due to his diligence, zeal and varied secret correspondence.
So, we have some numbers, but all in different currencies! I think Dukaten are more than Gulden, but I have no idea by how much, let alone how the French Livres would fit in there.
Re: Rottembourg's bribery attempts
A helpful website.
Re: Rottembourg's bribery attempts
As the resident numbers person, I'll try to do the math if no one else does, but might not be till this weekend. German is calling!
Re: Rottembourg's bribery attempts
So that would make Grumbkow's yearly bribe 4000 guldens, less than Manteuffel's, but then again he had that 40,000... I couldn't figure out what that meant from your translation, felis? Was it a lump sum payment in the past or how much he'd collected so far?
To procure success, Rottembourg might offer to Grumbkow, if he found fit opportunity, a pension of 15,000 livres, and annual "gratifications" to Ilgen and Printz of 12,000, but this must be done very cautiously.
So this would be between ~6000-6800 guldens Rottembourg might offer to Grumbkow, and ~4800-5500 guldens to Ilgen and Printz. (Depending on what the silver to gold exchange rate was at that time, I suppose; and I'm rounding to the nearest hundred.)
(This was a fascinating sheet, by the way -- thank you Selena! I'm so used to reading about currencies in books and having no idea how much any of them actually are with respect to everything else.)
Re: Rottembourg's bribery attempts
If only I knew! This is the original German: Wenn also selbige [1000 ducats], ohngeachtet der nunmehr empfangenen beständigen allerhöchsten Begnadigung von 40,000 Gulden, dennoch sollte continuieret werden. Without the "beständigen" (= steady/constant/continuous) in there, I might have said it was a one-off payment, but this way, I guess it's "this is how much's gotten so far" after all. On the other hand, it looks like Seckendorff wants him to keep getting money, so why would he bring up "he already accumulated this much over the years" and in a different currency no less? Beats me.
re: Reichsgulden/Rheinischer Gulden/Gulden (Fl.) - again, no idea. Seckendorff seems to use Gulden and Fl. interchangeably but definitely has them as silver money (and Ducats as gold). I tried to read the German wiki entries on the different Guldens and got lost very quickly, but I do think that for our time period they might indeed be roughly in the exchange ballpark that Selena's link had, and that it's basically the southern equivalent to the Reichsthaler, which was used mostly in the northern countries of the Empire. (As in: the Reichthaler (Rth.) is the usual currency in Prussia and the salaries Fritz pays tend to be in Rth., as are all his box bills. Exchange rate, just so we have it all in one place: 1 Reichsthaler = 1.5 Gulden.)
Also, taking a closer look at Förster, I found more interesting bribery facts, in a handy list, with a couple of names we know:
Secret Expenses [partly 1733, partly 1734]
Ducaten
Crown Prince: 3000 Ducaten
Hereditary Princess of Bayreuth: 1000 Ducaten
Grumbkow: 1000 Ducaten
Eversmann: 100 Ducaten
Silver Money
Count Manteuffel: 6000 Gulden
Reichenbach [Prussian Resident in London, for furthering a bad relationship between England and Prussia]: 900 Gulden
Irishman Murnay in Potsdam [?]: 60 Gulden
Duhan [!]: 1200 Gulden [for two years, he got 600 per year, from 1732 on]
Reading some of Seckendorff's accompanying letters, it seems like it's actually true that he was involved in getting Duhan the position in Wolfenbüttel and that he payed him money, because he thought he'd have influence on Fritz after FW's death. (Same goes for Wilhelmine.)
And given the Eversmann payment, I'm sure wondering if Fredersdorf ever showed up on any lists... (Selena's "Learning Frederick" makes a good case for it! :D)
Re: Rottembourg's bribery attempts
Irishman Murnay in Potsdam is a man of mystery! Who might he have been, servant or courtier?
Also, I have to say I'm with Seckendorff in his "ursurer my ass" reaction to Fritz' diatribe in the "Histoire de la Maison de Brandenburg".
Re: Rottembourg's bribery attempts
And one more thing from Förster: a 1727 letter from Eugen to Seckendorff, which already talks about the 1000 ducats per year for Grumbkow and discusses how he would get the money, speculating that he might not be happy to be caught with freshly pressed imperial ducats, because it would be easy to guess where they came from. Also, same letter references an imperial medal set with diamonds that Gundling got. (Good for him I say.)
Re: Rottembourg's bribery attempts
Huh, Selena's sheet said it was gold -- Oh WAIT the problem is I can do math but I can't read! So under "Gulden (fl)" it says "Im 16. Jahrhundert wird hier der Silbergulden eingeführt, welcher als Reichsgulden bis ins 19. Jahrhundert Münzeinheit ist," which apparently I just completely missed the first time (...I was just looking for conversion numbers, okay.) So, okay, I think the sheet is saying that the gold gulden(Fl.) was replaced (?) by the silver gulden which is now called the imperial gulden, which agrees with what Seckendorff says. Ugh, I still don't know what the relationship between the imperial gulden and the Rhenish gulden is, though, unless we can assume they're vaguely equivalent. But in any case we should be able to convert between ducats and imperial gulden at a ratio of 1 to 4.