cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 42

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Last post, we had (among other things) Danish kings and their favorites; Louis XIV and Philippe d'Orléans; reviews of a very shippy book about Katte, a bad Jacobite novel, and a great book about clothing; a fic about Émilie du Châtelet and Voltaire; and a review of a set of entertaining Youtube history videos about Frederick the Great.

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From:

selenak

Hooray for everything!

I notice, browsing through, that Leining continues to correspond with Fredersdorf and to address him as "Monsieur et tres chere compere" until July. In one early letter, he's "Monsieur mon tres chere ami et tres chere compere." Maybe this is how you address your predecessor who has just been dismissed and is dying of disgrace, but I think MAYBE NOT. :P

It does sound unlikely. What intrigues me is the French address. Is it just the address and the rest is in German (which is how Wolfgang Mozart often corresponded with Dad Leopold), or is the entire letter in French? If the later, it would be a strong indicator that Fredersdorf did learn French at least well enough to exchange professional letters in it with people not Fritz, and that would make Fritz writing to him exclusively in German even more of an affectionate gesture and remarkable than it already is.

AND, Nicolas Suhm has lovely, Peter Keith-like handwriting!!

Good for him (and us)!

I think "pour ou" and "ces" means he's setting out from Warsaw to Saxony with the kids in tow, not that he's going to Saxony to meet the kids there.

Same here. And yes, that means that while Suhm doesn't see his brother or Fritz again, he does have his children (and very likely sister) with him when he dies. As I said elsewhere, I'm unsurprised they don't come up in the Fritz correspondence more often, between the Fritz need to be the emotional priority and the practice of editors to cut out to them irrelevant family stuff is the family members aren't famous royals, see also the first volume of Lehndorff's diaries vs the rest.

What was Nicholas Suhm's day job?

From:

mildred_of_midgard

What intrigues me is the French address. Is it just the address and the rest is in German (which is how Wolfgang Mozart often corresponded with Dad Leopold), or is the entire letter in French?

It intrigued me too! But no, it's just the address that's in French. If the entire letter had been, I would have said so immediately (and I would have begun trying to read the letter). What few words I can make out are in German, and there are too many umlauts in the rest for French.

Speaking of deciphering, I made some headway yesterday on the Algarotti letter. Everything I can read off the top of my head is Fritz flattery: we're sad Algarotti died, of course, but the most important thing is that Algarotti was a Fritz fan, and so is the guy writing this letter to the "Alexander of the North". By the end of the letter, we're still discussing Fritz's exploits in war, so I'm guessing the middle bit that I can't read without a lot more effort than I've put in yet is a case of "second verse, same as the first." I haven't found anything interesting about Algarotti, though of course I will keep trying and report back if I find anything.

Keep in mind it's May 1764, meaning one year after Fritz won the Seven Years' War and acquired a lot of fanboys across Europe.

he does have his children (and very likely sister)

Since he tells Fritz she's been acting as a mother to them and to treat her as his widow, I'm assuming she's with them, yeah.

I'm unsurprised they don't come up in the Fritz correspondence more often, between the Fritz need to be the emotional priority

His Weasleys they are not!

and the practice of editors to cut out to them irrelevant family stuff is the family members aren't famous royals

Yeah, this is what I'm hoping: that interesting stuff about Suhm got cut, and that I'm able to master his handwriting well enough to figure it out and tell salon about it.

And lol, yes, my archive-ordering is very boyfriend-oriented: Peter Keith, Fredersdorf, Algarotti, Suhm, and this mysterious Lt. Groeben. :D

What was Nicholas Suhm's day job?

Mostly envoy! Though in 1740, he's Legationsrat in the secret cabinet, then he'll go back to being an envoy. It runs in the family: their father Burchardt was an envoy too.

Edited Date: 2023-03-21 02:17 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Same here. And yes, that means that while Suhm doesn't see his brother or Fritz again, he does have his children (and very likely sister) with him when he dies. As I said elsewhere, I'm unsurprised they don't come up in the Fritz correspondence more often

I just got confirmation that I wasn't crazy when I thought it was at least a possibility for an envoy to leave his family back home. I just read that Goodricke, the British envoy to Sweden I've been telling you about, didn't see his wife for eleven years between when he set out for Stockholm and when she came to join him. And St. Petersburg seems like especially a place where you might not drag your whole family. Mind you, I still think the evidence is Suhm did! But at least it wasn't out of the question that he might not have.