cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 44

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Not only are these posts still going, there is now (more) original research going on in them deciphering and translating letters in archives that apparently no one has bothered to look at before?? (Which has now conclusively exonerated Fritz's valet/chamberlain Fredersdorf from the charge that he was dismissed because of financial irregularities and died shortly thereafter "ashamed of his lost honor," as Wikipedia would have it. I'M JUST SAYING.)

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From:

selenak

Bother. Your disappointment has inspired me to do the Freylinghausen summary and translations as consolation, though.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Awww. <3 Your generosity is much appreciated.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Brief notes on the first batch, which is letters from Fritz, mostly in French, which is why I started there. :P

January 1749, Peter asks Fritz to reimburse him for the goods belonging to him that were confiscated in Wesel in 1730. Fritz recompenses him by giving him a canonicat in Xanten (which, as we learned earlier in salon, is near Wesel) that has recently become vacant.

In 1755, when Samuel Cocceji (major minister who reformed the Prussian legal system and became the father-in-law of Barberina) died, Fritz put Peter in charge of supervising the work on a marble bust he'd commissioned to commemorate Cocceji.

In mid November 1756, as we know, Peter has a stroke and spends his last weeks arranging his affairs. We have a letter (in French) from Fritz to Peter on December 3, saying formally but warmly that he's sorry to hear the news and hopes Peter recovers, that of course he, Fritz, will grant the favor Peter asked and has given the General Directory his orders, and that it's always a pleasure to have Peter's family under his protection and give them signs of his goodwill.

We also have the letter (in German) to the General Directory, which tells us the favor is exactly what I anticipated: Peter asked if his family could keep living in the Jägerhof after his death, and Fritz said yes. As we know from Lehndorff, but now we know this was something Peter asked for, and not something Fritz and Ariane worked out after Peter's death.

There's also a random letter in German. It's signed by Fritz (the signature matches the Gröben letters), has no date and no recipient, but is in the middle of about 1 dozen letters from Fritz to Peter, but it's the only one in German. I want to do a second pass at the transcription before I say more, but the tone strikes me as markedly more personal. The others, all in French, are formal business letters, usually of the "I need money," "Yes, please wait until it's convenient for me" type that we've seen already.

From:

selenak

Peter asked if his family could keep living in the Jägerhof after his death, and Fritz said yes. As we know from Lehndorff, but now we know this was something Peter asked for, and not something Fritz and Ariane worked out after Peter's death.

In either case, it's good Fritz granted it, but in this scenario, it's extra touching - also on a "Peter looking out for his wife and kids" front.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yesss. I mean, that's what Formey said he did in his last weeks, but it's good to have concrete evidence! Plus awww at Fritz knowing Peter was sick/dying--we didn't know if he only found out when he came back to Berlin after Peter's funeral had already taken place.

I will also add that if Peter's letter went out from Berlin on November 30, and Fritz was replying (albeit via secretary) on December 3 in Dresden, that's a pretty quick reply from Fritz. Looks like he didn't put that response off, despite being busy with war ~~crimes in Saxony.~~

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Oh, fun. When Ariane's mother died, one of her Knyphausen uncles in Groningen wrote her a condolence letter in Dutch. And yes, this means I can eyeball (I did not transcribe anything!) a letter in handwritten 18th century Dutch well enough to tell it's a condolence letter to Ariane on her mother's death. Which is not a thing I could do before salon!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

There seems to be a letter to Ariane from Algarotti in 1751, and a few undated ones from Maupertuis to Ariane and/or Peter. Maupertuis has the WORST handwriting in French. It's gonna be rough. I'd rather have well-written Kurrent. :P

*some time later*

Oh, hey, Leining's signature is showing up on official documents giving Carl Ernst aka Peter Carl jobs.

There's also a genealogy that at least answers one outstanding question I had about the gaps in the other two! Both Formey and the document from the Prussian archive agree that a George Keith married a Stuart, but neither would tell me who. This one tells me it was the daughter of Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox.

Beautiful, that's been bugging me since I turned up the eulogy in June of 2020. ;)

From:

selenak

Maupertuis has the WORST handwriting in French. It's gonna be rough. I'd rather have well-written Kurrent. :P

And there's an explanation as to why Maupertuis' biography reads so much more drily - his biographers had so much trouble decyphering his letters and only bothered with a few! :)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Ha! Clearly. :P

I should be fair to Peter, the handwriting's not *that* bad. It's partly a function of me not being fluent in French, and partly a function of the blotches and crossing out and squeezing the new words over the scribbled out words/blotches in between lines. The handwriting per se not nearly as bad as Maupertuis'. :P But unlike Peter's letters to Fritz, I can't eyeball this, and unlike Suhm's letters, I can't even fully sight-read it with concentration. I have to transcribe with lots of Xs, and hope it makes sense when I come back for a second pass.

Whereas with Maupertuis, I'm afraid it will be entirely X's by the time I'm done. :P Peter's is better, though I expect there will still be some Xs if I don't want to spend 30 minutes on single words.

Really, the most useful thing I could do if I want to really do archival research, is take another 1-2 years of studying French and German; so much handwriting is easier if you can immediately think of all the possibilities, than if you have to go character by character.