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cahnBackground: The kids' school has a topic for "Unit" every trimester that a lot of their work (reading, writing, some math) revolves around. These topics range from time/geographic periods ('Colonial America') to geography ('Asia') to science ('Space') to social science ('Business and Economics'). (I have some issues with this way of doing things, but that's a whole separate post.) Anyway, for Reasons, they have had to come up with a new topic this year, and E's 7/8 class is doing "World Fairs" as their new topic.
Me: I know E's teacher is all about World Fairs and I know she is great and will do a good job. But I feel like if we had a different teacher who wasn't so into World Fairs, they wouldn't do such a good job and another topic would be better.
Me: Like... the Enlightenment!
D: Heh, you could teach that! But you'd have to restrain yourself from making everything about Frederick the Great.
Me: But that's the thing! Everyone does relate to each other in this time period! Voltaire -- and his partner Émilie du Châtelet, who was heavily involved in the discourse of conservation of energy and momentum -- well, I've told you Voltaire had a thing with Fritz -- and then there's Empress Maria Theresa, who went to war with him a few times -- and Catherine the Great --
D, meditatively: You know --
Me: *am innocently not warned even though this is the same tone of voice that is often followed by, say, a bad pun*
D: -- it's impressive how everyone from this 'the Great' family is so famous!
Me: *splutters*
D, thoughtfully: But of course there's probably selection bias, as the ones who aren't famous don't get mentioned. You never see 'Bob the Great' in the history books...
Me: *splutters more*
Me: I know E's teacher is all about World Fairs and I know she is great and will do a good job. But I feel like if we had a different teacher who wasn't so into World Fairs, they wouldn't do such a good job and another topic would be better.
Me: Like... the Enlightenment!
D: Heh, you could teach that! But you'd have to restrain yourself from making everything about Frederick the Great.
Me: But that's the thing! Everyone does relate to each other in this time period! Voltaire -- and his partner Émilie du Châtelet, who was heavily involved in the discourse of conservation of energy and momentum -- well, I've told you Voltaire had a thing with Fritz -- and then there's Empress Maria Theresa, who went to war with him a few times -- and Catherine the Great --
D, meditatively: You know --
Me: *am innocently not warned even though this is the same tone of voice that is often followed by, say, a bad pun*
D: -- it's impressive how everyone from this 'the Great' family is so famous!
Me: *splutters*
D, thoughtfully: But of course there's probably selection bias, as the ones who aren't famous don't get mentioned. You never see 'Bob the Great' in the history books...
Me: *splutters more*
Re: Maupertuis, my nemesis
Date: 2023-12-28 05:45 am (UTC)Thursday evening, the 23rd, there will take place an event in the Academy that [affects me]; I hope Monsieur and dear friend will find himself there. I have wanted to warn you in advance, so that nothing can prevent you from rendering me this service, not in the countryside, not at court, and not in town. I would very much like to see you Wednesday or Thursday morning; I would go to your place if I dared to go out, but my chest does not permit it.
[You have informed me?] of the politeness with which Monsieur de Tyrconnell has received your packet. Farewell. My respects to Madame de Keith and to [all your dear ones?].
ETA: Oh, I should also point out that the chronology tells us this is right around the time of the principle of least action, and I'm assuming that the affair at the Academy that Maupertuis reeeeally wants Peter there for, is the vote on König's document claiming to be from Leibniz and whether it's a forgery or not. Peter, as we know, read Maupertuis's letter aloud to the gathering and collected the vote.
Though interestingly, salon chronology tells me the vote took place on April 13, 1752, and Wikipedia tells me Tyrconnell died March 12, 1752. And this is dated "Lundy 20". So either Tyrconnell is dead and Maupertuis is referring to someone who died a week ago, or else it's February and the vote got pushed off over a month, to April. Well, bureaucracy: my performance review with my boss was supposed to take place in early November, and is now scheduled for next week. :P And Maupertuis did say his has been postponed already.
Next letter:
I have carried out your commission, and if you send the letter [and want?] the king to take it well, I will say to you that your cousin will surely pay court to the king in writing in French; and we do not finish our letters [as if to an equal, but by a respectful formula that is at least a little respectful]. To the king, it's necessary to show very profound respect. You understand, of course, that this remark doesn't come from our monarch, who is of all the kings in the world the one who pays the least attention to these things; it is the advice of a friend that I give to your relative; more for the public than for the king.
You are very lucky to be at Britz with your wife and children, very lovable and who love you. Enjoy, dear friend, this good fortune and [...]. My respects to everyone, and give a little friendship to them from me.
Britz is the Knyphausen estate that Ariane inherited from her mother, and which was sold soon after, but remained in the family.
So! I wonder which cousin this was. Clearly Peter's relatives are minor nobility who write in German and don't know how to address a king (remember Peter's mother writing in German).
Btw, the bit about Fritz not caring is probably Fritz caring, or at least Maupertuis wanting to be on the safe side. From everything I've read, Fritz made a big show of not caring about ceremony, but then wasn't totally consistent on that point. He didn't care, except when he did.
P.S. The trick to reading his handwriting is to stare at the page directly above the word you're trying to read and look at that word with your peripheral vision. This forces your brain to parse it holistically, and then sometimes the shape of a whole word that makes sense in context emerges. Whereas individual characters are so indecipherable that they would never add up to a whole word. This technique is responsible for about 50% of the words I deciphered, and is basically the exact opposite of the way I read Kurrent, where I go character by character.
TL;DR: I am asking everyone to be impressed with my dedication to the cause. :P
P.P.S. And a shout-out to
Re: Maupertuis, my nemesis
Date: 2023-12-28 08:36 am (UTC)Anyway, it makes sense that Maupertuis wants to ensure Peter (and all his other supporters) are there for the König showdown, and yes, I can see it being postponed and delayed for any number of reasons. Re: the death of Tyrconnel, wasn't Tyrconnel (along with LaMettrie) also a source through which Fritz and Voltaire learned of the respective "dirty laundry" and "squeezing like an orange" remarks.
From everything I've read, Fritz made a big show of not caring about ceremony, but then wasn't totally consistent on that point. He didn't care, except when he did.
Like Dad in that way. And yes, I'm with Maupertuis, better to be on the safe side. BTW, that Peter's family writes in German, not French, really is a marker of them as being minor and countryside nobility, without the access to Huguenot French servants that nobles with residences in the capital and more status have. And it underlines again the extraordinariness of Fredersdorf corresponding and talking with Fritz in German throughout his life. Everyone else who wants something from Fritz (if they're not an army soldier or a country judge somewhere) is supposed to make the effort with the French. (All FW's fault.)
Re: Maupertuis, my nemesis
Date: 2023-12-28 09:13 am (UTC)Thank you to you as well, for prodding me by email to return to my Peter and Fredersdorf essay work!
I would have given up on Maupertuis ages ago. A dull written biography and terrible handwriting - truly, has Voltaire cursed him?
Lol! To be fair to Maupertuis, his handwriting is probably perfectly legible if you're fluent; I'm just not. And there's a big difference between a command of French that allows you to look at 'p-o-i-t-r-i-n-e' and know it means "chest", and a command of French that allows you to look at a sprawl of ink and think, "Obviously that's 'poitrine'!"
Re: the death of Tyrconnel, wasn't Tyrconnel (along with LaMettrie) also a source through which Fritz and Voltaire learned of the respective "dirty laundry" and "squeezing like an orange" remarks.
I think so, yes. Sounds right.
Everyone else who wants something from Fritz (if they're not an army soldier or a country judge somewhere) is supposed to make the effort with the French.
One of the scholarly essays I read on Prussian diplomacy earlier this year said he made exceptions for some envoys. On the one hand, there was:
...the decision, on the second day of the new reign, that Prussian diplomats should henceforth correspond with their superiors in French and not in German.
But on the other hand,
This was, however, far from universally enforced in Prussian diplomacy. Throughout Frederick's reign, favoured individuals (often from a military background) who knew little or no French were allowed to correspond in German, which seems also to have been extensively used - logically enough for policy in the Reich. See, for one example, the 'Instructions' for Friedrich Sebastian Wunibald Graf von Waldburg-Zeil, who went on a mission to George II when he was at Hanover: these were drawn up in German, dated 10 June 1740, and are in GStPK, Rep. 96.31A.
Peter's cousin, though, is not a favored individual. Sorry, Peter!
Re: Maupertuis, my nemesis
Date: 2023-12-28 11:48 am (UTC)Forgot to say: this probably goes without saying, but I would have given up on him too, if the letters were to anyone but Peter! (Or Fredersdorf, I suppose.)
Also probably goes without saying, but: lots of guesses, I reserve the right to revise any of my readings. Also, anything in [] is not so much a reading, as me filling in words that make sense, so that you can read the letter and get the gist.
Re: Maupertuis, my nemesis
Date: 2023-12-31 04:34 pm (UTC)Heh, Maupertuis strikes me as one of those plodders you find in academia -- it's not that one does bad research, but it's not particularly inspired and really nothing one does is particularly inspired, although one would like it to be... though one is potentially very good at threading bureaucracy and hierarchies.