Glad you liked it! Credit to you for finding Czernin and pointing me in that direction.
I think you would like the whole work, it's only 200 pages, and it is at the Stabi. Before I bought it, I was naturally checking to see if you could get it in e-book form on the Stabi website, because it's so recent, but alas, no. But what I did find is the "people who research this book are also interested in" item description that read:
Grösse und Niedergang Roms: (1734) = Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence; Montesquieu. Mit den Randbemerkungen Friedrichs des Grossen. Übers. und hrsg. von Lothar Schuckert. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verl., Frankfurt am Main, 1980
In other words, the greatness and decline of Rome, by Montesquieu, with marginal notes by our Fritz! Since the publication date is 1980 and the text is translated, I'm guessing that means Schuckert translated not just the work but also the Fritzian notes into German. I would be super interested to know what Fritz thought of Montesquieu's take on the greatness and decline of Rome! As we've seen, Fritz has some iiiiinteresting Classics opinions! (Socrates was killed? All the sculptors' faults!)
Meaning: the very guy who was getting the Disney reports on FW from Stratemann,
What.
Now either Montesquieu is employing liberal dramatization of what he’s heard, or Stain had other informants than Stratemann, or….?
Well, he can't just be liberally dramatizing what he got from Stratemann via Stain, because his take on FW matches too many other people's. Especially FW starving his family--one of the sentences reads like it could have come straight out of Wilhelmine.
Montesquieu:
One dies of hunger there [at FW's table]. Only one dish is served at a time, which is passed around, and often almost all of it is consumed before the round is over.
Wilhelmine:
There were constantly twenty-four persons at table, eighteen of whom were kept fasting, because our ordinary consisted but of six dishes, and those very sparingly filled.
Whether or not this is an exaggerated anti-FW take like Rottembourg and his two-pronged fork accusation, it's unlikely Montesquieu independently made it up based on Mr. Disney.
Also, I didn't recognize Stain's name, and sure enough, the Stratemann volume's preface names Minister Hieronymus von Münchhausen as the intended recipient of his reports. Doesn't mean von Stain didn't see them, but it would help account for a discrepancy. I imagine one or both of Münchhausen and Stain had other sources.
directed the business of the negotiations conducted in Braunschweig in 1729 under the mediation of the Dukes of Braunschweig and Gotha, which resulted in a settlement of the disputes pending between Prussia and England at the time.
So I imagine he 1) didn't see FW as a saint, 2) had more than one source on him!
it seems Montesquieu spotted future federalism in the HRE structure and liked it
I saw that from the table of contents! I was really hoping to read a lot more, including this, last week, before I did my first post, but reading a lot of German last week did not happen.
also thought Germans in general were somewhat thick and not capable of intellectual thought and not even that well suited as servants.
...Did not catch that. Sigh.
Finally: lovely pictures, thank you for sharing! And lucky you and lucky Georges!
Re: Montesquieu in Germany
Glad you liked it! Credit to you for finding Czernin and pointing me in that direction.
I think you would like the whole work, it's only 200 pages, and it is at the Stabi. Before I bought it, I was naturally checking to see if you could get it in e-book form on the Stabi website, because it's so recent, but alas, no. But what I did find is the "people who research this book are also interested in" item description that read:
Grösse und Niedergang Roms: (1734) = Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence; Montesquieu. Mit den Randbemerkungen Friedrichs des Grossen. Übers. und hrsg. von Lothar Schuckert. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verl., Frankfurt am Main, 1980
In other words, the greatness and decline of Rome, by Montesquieu, with marginal notes by our Fritz! Since the publication date is 1980 and the text is translated, I'm guessing that means Schuckert translated not just the work but also the Fritzian notes into German. I would be super interested to know what Fritz thought of Montesquieu's take on the greatness and decline of Rome! As we've seen, Fritz has some iiiiinteresting Classics opinions! (Socrates was killed? All the sculptors' faults!)
Meaning: the very guy who was getting the Disney reports on FW from Stratemann,
What.
Now either Montesquieu is employing liberal dramatization of what he’s heard, or Stain had other informants than Stratemann, or….?
Well, he can't just be liberally dramatizing what he got from Stratemann via Stain, because his take on FW matches too many other people's. Especially FW starving his family--one of the sentences reads like it could have come straight out of Wilhelmine.
Montesquieu:
One dies of hunger there [at FW's table]. Only one dish is served at a time, which is passed around, and often almost all of it is consumed before the round is over.
Wilhelmine:
There were constantly twenty-four persons at table, eighteen of whom were kept fasting, because our ordinary consisted but of six dishes, and those very sparingly filled.
Whether or not this is an exaggerated anti-FW take like Rottembourg and his two-pronged fork accusation, it's unlikely Montesquieu independently made it up based on Mr. Disney.
Also, I didn't recognize Stain's name, and sure enough, the Stratemann volume's preface names Minister Hieronymus von Münchhausen as the intended recipient of his reports. Doesn't mean von Stain didn't see them, but it would help account for a discrepancy. I imagine one or both of Münchhausen and Stain had other sources.
Incidentally, the ADB says that von Stain in 1729
directed the business of the negotiations conducted in Braunschweig in 1729 under the mediation of the Dukes of Braunschweig and Gotha, which resulted in a settlement of the disputes pending between Prussia and England at the time.
So I imagine he 1) didn't see FW as a saint, 2) had more than one source on him!
it seems Montesquieu spotted future federalism in the HRE structure and liked it
I saw that from the table of contents! I was really hoping to read a lot more, including this, last week, before I did my first post, but reading a lot of German last week did not happen.
also thought Germans in general were somewhat thick and not capable of intellectual thought and not even that well suited as servants.
...Did not catch that. Sigh.
Finally: lovely pictures, thank you for sharing! And lucky you and lucky Georges!