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cahnNot 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.)
Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter?
Date: 2023-06-23 09:26 am (UTC)1727: in Wusterhausen from September 2nd until at least October 23rd (which covers both Freilinghausen's visit in September and Francke's in October), then there's an inconvenient gap, next letter is December 30th from Berlin
ETA: By the way, do we know for sure that Peter was already FW's page in 1727?
1728: letters from Wusterhausen September 10th and October 14th (this one includes plans to visit Dessau October 27th), letter from Potsdam November 4th, then back and forth between Berlin and Potsdam until he's in Wusterhausen again December 14th
Stratemann mentions that FW and Fritz returned to Potsdam middle of October and that FW went on a journey to Dessau/Halle/Sachsen afterwards
ETA2: Consulting our chronology tells me that they must have returned pretty much immediately after the Hubertus disaster, which was October 19th. (And then during the following trip, the Antisobres were founded.)
/sidenote: November 24th letter from Berlin has this: You'll be so good as to sent ["Keut"] back to me, he is supposed to go before the two Doctors [?], tell him he has order to order the relay horses. The footnote identifies Keut as Keith, a.k.a. Peter - if so, that would mean he accompanied FW on his journey and stayed behind in Dessau for some reason.
1729: Wusterhausen letters September 30th and October 11th, Stratemann says both FW and Fritz visit Berlin for a marriage October 13th/14th, then back to Wusterhausen, letter from Potsdam October 25th (Stratemann: FW only left Wusterhausen for a couple of days, then went back and he and the rest of the family return mid-November), Wusterhausen letters from November 1st and 16th, Stratemann say FW and Fritz visited Frankfurt on the 14th, then returned to Potsdam and stayed there for weeks, letters are from Potsdam for most of December
Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter?
Date: 2023-06-23 01:55 pm (UTC)/sidenote: November 24th letter from Berlin has this: You'll be so good as to sent ["Keut"] back to me, he is supposed to go before the two Doctors [?], tell him he has order to order the relay horses. The footnote identifies Keut as Keith, a.k.a. Peter - if so, that would mean he accompanied FW on his journey and stayed behind in Dessau for some reason.
I remember this from Kloosterhuis, and he's not 100% sure it's Peter, but it may be. There are a bunch of Keiths, after all!
ETA: By the way, do we know for sure that Peter was already FW's page in 1727?
We do not. We don't have a start date. The only pre-1730 mentions we have are the letter you found, and a June 1729 letter from FW asking an officer in Magdeburg to send "your page Keith" to Potsdam. Kloosterhuis says that *if* 1728 Keith refers to Peter, 1729 Keith is probably the younger brother.
But looking through his memoirs, they say what Formey said: that Peter's father introduced him to FW and FW took him as page. They're so short that maybe he elided over working his way up as page from someone else, but if they can be taken at face value, then 1728 Keith is probably Peter, and thus he may have been around in 1728 or even 1727.
(Yes, I will share the memoirs at some point, I'm just trying to do a first pass through the whole thing to get used to the handwriting and to put off the most difficult spots until the end, and I keep getting side-tracked by things like "which Robert Keith is this?" and "what is up with that letter in German anyway?"
letter from Potsdam October 25th (Stratemann: FW only left Wusterhausen for a couple of days, then went back and he and the rest of the family return mid-November), Wusterhausen letters from November 1st and 16th, Stratemann say FW and Fritz visited Frankfurt on the 14th, then returned to Potsdam and stayed there for weeks, letters are from Potsdam for most of December
Yeah, this is what I found, and it's consistent with Fritz already being in Potsdam in November in time to escape. Now, maybe he didn't *know* he'd be returning so soon when he wrote the letter and was depressed at the thought of being stuck there more, but it's more evidence for 1729 being the wrong year.