Re: Algarotti/Glasow??? - Translation

Date: 2023-04-19 11:19 am (UTC)
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)
Thank you for the translation! I am hard at work on another letter that may or may not be ready today.

As I said in the other comment, I think most likely Glasow handled payments to Algarotti

I note from our library's chronology that the Algarotti's salary was cut off in 1754, i.e. 3 years earlier. Which is not to say there couldn't be any other financial matters between them, or even just a salary 3 years in arrears (though I submit that if you weren't getting money from Fritz between 1754 and 1756, your odds of getting it between 1756 and 1763 were slim).

and was also a convenient mailing address - also, sending letters is very expensive* if you're not a royal with your own couriers, so of course Algarotti would include his financial mail, his personal mail to Fritz and mail to the Abbe de Prades in the same post - just like previous letters might have gone to Fredersdorf, and now the letters to go Leining.

Very true, makes sense.

if you're not a royal with your own couriers

Or a soldier in the Prussian army. Fritz made sure the soldiers had a post for letters back home that I think was free, but at least was affordable.

All this said, there's still the fact that Leining asks Fredersdorf what to do about the Algarotti letter in the first place if it's that straightforward, and here I think it's entirely possible that Leining did wonder whether Algarotti might possibly have been entangled in one way or the other with Glasow and that this was above his paygrade.

Yeah, as you know, Leining freaking out was what triggered my minor freakout ;).

Presumably Fredersdorf calmed him down and reminded him that international mail can easily be delayed or get lost, especially with a war going on

Yeah, I mean, Algarotti died on May 3, 1764, and Fritz was still writing to him on June 1, because the notification of his death didn't reach Fritz until June 12. And that wasn't even with a war on! Calm down, Leining.

But in all sympathy, this really must have been a baptism of fire for Leining: taking over after an embezzlement scandal during war for a king with a touchy temper. *And* he was apparently pulled out of the army and not the civil service. No wonder he's writing to Fredersdorf all the time!
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