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: (Anonymous)

Guys, I can recognize Suhm's handwriting in preview mode!

You're awesome, but we knew that. :)

So after downloading the whole volume, it turns out that I am awesome, but in a different way than we thought.

None of the letters in this volume are by our Suhm, all are by Nicolas. It's just that:

1. I was apparently right that Nicolas will break out his best handwriting when making an effort. Which means I think I was right that Hedwig and Peter Keith are doing the same, even though I don't have other handwriting samples in their case.
2. These two Suhm brothers have very similar handwriting when not making an effort. Maybe they had the same tutor growing up! (They were 6 years apart in age, so it's not impossible.)

So what this means is:
1. I don't actually know what Nicolaus was writing about in 1736 that made it look to me like he was repeatedly soliciting a position and there was talk of pensions (and Ruppin!), but it doesn't surprise me there's some overlap in the vocabulary. There is a fair bit of talk about FW (le roi de Prusse).
2. We don't actually have our Suhm's letters.

selenak, have you returned the Brühl book yet? If not, can you look to see if the author provides an archive signature in a citation for any of the Suhm letters (like his realpolitik proposal) that would tell me where in the archive to look? Maybe we can still get his letters!

I might still see what I can do with the Nicolaus letters at some point: there is a lot of talk of Prussia, and maybe it will give us some interesting insights.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

That was me, obviously. (It's giving me a lot of trouble rn, we'll see if it even lets me post this one under my user name. I suspect it's related to Denise's latest post.)

- Mildred, obviously

From:

selenak

I still have the Brühl book, but alas it will have to wait till Monday. I’ve just gone from Munich (where the book is) to Bamberg to spend the Easter Holidays with my parents.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Monday is great, thanks!

Enjoy your holidays with your family. :)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I was in such a hurry yesterday I forgot to joke that while I apparently can't recognize Suhm's handwriting after all, I can recognize *a* Suhm's handwriting! ;)

From:

selenak

Okay, here are some Suhm relevant footnotes from AvB:

Brühl's original instructions to Suhm: Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, Loc. 3026, Vo. I.

Suhm's short note from September 15th where he says he had a extrarordinarily successful conversation with Biron but wants to report the content verbally to his brother is alas only paraphrased, not quoted, and thus not footnoted.

Suhm to Brühl about Anna Leopoldovna declaring she'd rather die than marry Anton Ulrich, otoh, is quoted and thus we have:

Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, Loc. 3026

Suhm's letter from Dec. 18th 1739 where he prophecies the Russians will go after Poland one day and develops his own Realpolitik plan for Poland: Also

Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, Loc. 3026.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Awww, man. There are 7 volumes and none of them are digitized!

Well, the plan is for me to finish reading up on the Danes, then go back to French, then acquire the ability to read handwritten French a whole lot faster. Then it might make sense to check out 7 volumes of Suhm correspondence. Maybe by then they'll have digitized it.

Thanks anyway!