cahn | Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 30

In which, despite the title, I would like to be told about the English Revolution, which is yet another casualty of my extremely poor history education :P :)

Also, this is probably the place to say that RMSE opened with three Fritz-fics, all of which I think are readable with minimum canon knowledge:

The Boy Who Lived - if you knew about the doomed escape-from-Prussia-that-didn't happen and tragic death of Fritz's boyfriend Hans Hermann von Katte, you may not have known about Peter Keith, the third young man who conspired to escape Prussia -- and the only one who actually did. This is his story. I think readable without canon knowledge except what I just said here.

Challenge Yourself to Relax - My gift, I posted about this before! Corporate AU with my problematic fave, Fritz' brother Heinrich, who's still Fritz's l'autre moi-meme even in corporate AU. Readable without canon knowledge if one has familiarity with the corporate world and the dysfunctions thereof.

The Rise and Fall of the RendezvousWithFame Exchange - Fandom AU with BNF fanfic writer Voltaire, exchange mod Fritz, and the inevitable meltdown. (I wrote this one and am quite proud of the terrible physics-adjacent pun contained within.) Readable without canon knowledge if one has familiarity with fandom and the dysfunctions thereof :P

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

mildred_of_midgard

he says "better mounted than you are" instead "you all", which is what is in Mahan's source Coxe, i.e. the Robinson letter.

Aaahhh, good catch!

Also, I'm unclear on who the quote was supposed to be directed at in Goldstone's version. Because I found a couple of German sources and those all take it as him allegedly talking to the Austrian Hussars who had occupied Oppeln and were trying to chase him, not his own companions.

Goldstone:

No sooner did he witness the violent charge of the Austrian cavalry than he turned tail and fled. As his horse was acknowledged to be the fastest in the Prussian cavalry, he shouted back over his shoulder at the men for whom he was responsible, and whom he was deserting in their hour of need, "Farewell, friends, I am better mounted than you are!"

So that is how I was primed to read the letter you found (especially since the lead-in was Maupertuis talking about his less fast horse). And that's why I said the characterization was strange: if the guy who reluctantly had to be talked into leaving the field because he was putting himself in danger (without doing the right things to win the battle) started mocking his companions that he was better at escaping than they were...that struck me as "Well, does he feel bad about leaivng his men to danger or not?"

BUT. If he was actually mocking the hussars, then that is 100% a thing I could see Fritz doing. This is the guy who showed up at the Austrian headquarters after Leuthen and went, "Hello, gentlemen. I know you weren't expecting to see me today."

Also, Fritz taunting the person he's trying to escape from was a thing; he was taunting FW circa August 5, 1730 about how he could totally be in France now if he wanted to. I think his fight-or-flight instinct was geared hard toward fight, not flight, and so running away, even when he did it, went so much against the grain that he had to do at least some verbal fighting.

Aaand, I can also totally see how if Fritz was taunting the hussars, and Maupertuis, who was captured because of his slower horse, overheard this remark, would resent it hard, even if he knew it was aimed at the hussars. Though rereading that letter, I still can't tell whether Maupertuis thought it was aimed at him or at the hussars. I could see either interpretation. And I could totally see Maupertuis taking it as aimed at him even if it wasn't. Especially if right at that moment he was worried for his safety and cursing his slow horse.

Anyway, you are awesome, thank you.

Unrelated topic, since we're here, one thing I've been wondering about for a long time is where the name Robert Keith for Peter's younger brother, page who confessed to FW, came from. It's in Wikipedia, and Wikipedia is getting it from MacDonogh, but I can't trace it further back than MacDonogh. MacDonogh may have made the mistake himself, I don't know, but if you run into it in a pre-1999 source, I would be super interested.

(I have a particular interest in this one because I told raven_aorla (author of the Fritz-as-mob-boss AU) that the brother was named Robert, and while it's fine that she put that in her fic (gotta call him something), her author's notes say that Mildred said the historical person was named Robert!)

From:

felis

Oh, wow. That is some confidently biased tale by Goldstone, which can't be derived from the Robinson letter at all - but taking another look at Mahan, I see that she got that take mostly from him, although she made it look worse and doesn't mention the Schwerin part (?), which Mahan does include. Mahan totally misrepresents Coxe/Robinson, though, since neither Arneth nor Carlyle - his other two sources in the footnote - say anything of the sort.

Looking at Carlyle, I see that he does not believe Maupertuis, though! That's probably why he doesn't give the quote - he thinks Maupertuis made himself bigger by saying he was with the King's suite when he wasn't, and refers to Robinson calling it a "blind story" as evidence - which I think must be the "blind account" Robinson mentions, and which Carlyle misinterprets IMO, because I think Robinson means that Maupertuis did not give any details the first time around, not that he told a fairytale. (Carlyle also calls Fritz' whole adventure his "Disappearance into Fairy-land", because there were so many fables being told about it, ha.)

Otherwise, I'm totally with you re: Fritz taunting the hussars and the lack of clarity in the Robinson letter / Maupertuis' tale and why Maupertuis might have taken it differently than intended.

re: Robert Keith - I sorted out the three different Robert Keiths a while ago, but I don't remember if I came across the wrong younger brother one in that context. Will try to keep in mind that you are looking for a pre-1999 instance, though.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Oh, wow. That is some confidently biased tale by Goldstone

Why do you think we're getting so salty about her, lol! This is the one where

cahn was like, "Even *I* know how whacked that is!" and I was like, "Is there a point to reading this book?"

Here's what Goldstone goes on to say about Schwerin's role in all this:

By rights, that should have been the end of any future dreams of glory the Prussian king was harboring, but fortunately for Frederick, his soldiers did not have the same option. His general knew quite well that if he abandoned his post as his sovereign had, he would be executed for treason. Also, he had faith in his infantry.

Schwerin talk Fritz into leaving? Never! Schwerin was innocently abandoned by his cowardly monarch, who had never seen combat before.

and refers to Robinson calling it a "blind story" as evidence - which I think must be the "blind account" Robinson mentions, and which Carlyle misinterprets IMO, because I think Robinson means that Maupertuis did not give any details the first time around, not that he told a fairytale.

I wasn't familiar with the phrase "blind story," so I looked it up. The definition given by the OED is "a story without point," (also repeated in other 19th century dictionaries), but the examples seem to involve unsubstantiated stories:

He insinuates a blind story about something and some body.
This story which in truth is but a blind one.

Then I found an English-Dutch dictionary from 1749, and it defines "blind story" as "een sprookje, een vertelling, daar geen hoofd noch staert aan is," which Google helpfully translates back into English for me as "a fairy tale, a tale to which there is neither head nor tail." (I've got to say, my Dutch and Swedish are getting a whole lot better thanks to German! I got all of that except "sprookje".) Oh, and an English dictionary for French speakers from 1793, which translates "blind story" as "une conte borgne," which Google tells me is "a one-eyed story, a ridiculous, improbable tale in which we don't believe."

But rereading the footnote for the umpteenth time, I agree that it's hard for me to read Robinson as not believing the second part, as opposed to saying Maupertuis left out all the incriminating parts the first time.

(Carlyle also calls Fritz' whole adventure his "Disappearance into Fairy-land", because there were so many fables being told about it, ha.)

Carlyle is hilarious, I'll give him that. I would give anything for him not to be so unreadable (particularly the Gutenberg version I have, which replaces italics with capslock.)

Oh, speaking of capslock, I was lolling at Goldstone's account of the 1738 Austrian encounter with the Ottomans near Belgrade: "The Imperial side WON."

Tell us how you really feel, Goldstone.

Will try to keep in mind that you are looking for a pre-1999 instance, though.

Thanks! You found me so many Peter Keith occurrences, I figure you're the best person to ask to keep an eye out for a Robert Keith.