I'm behind on everything, but I used my time off well! You may or may not recall that both Peter and Fredersdorf (well, Pfeiffer, really, but it's part of the justice for Fredersdorf essay) come with thousands of pages of archival material, of which there is still much I haven't read.
Well, I still haven't read all of it, but I read quite a bit more in the last two weeks, after practicing my handwriting, and lo and behold! I have the answer to one major question, confirmed some things I strongly suspected, and made new discoveries.
Young Friedrich's death The thing that was driving me crazy: Peter's younger son, Friedrich, died at age 19, and we didn't know why! I spent years thinking, "Surely in all this correspondence, someone talked about what he died of!"
Well, not one but two letters do!
Most of the correspondence is from Uncle Hertzberg, the prominent foreign minister who married one of Oriane's sisters. Hertzberg wrote, on November 10, 1764:
Madame de Keith has just this night lost her younger son, who had become emaciated, because of an abscess that he [had developed] in his lungs. It's too bad, he was a young man with a lot of esprit, an exemplary conduct, and a very considerate figure. I believe that if, on this occasion, you wanted to write something to Madame de Keith, she would receive it with pleasure.
So now we know that he died of an illness and not from, say, a riding accident.
Even more touchingly, we have his mother's reaction, also November 10, 1764:
My very honored brother,
I believe it is my duty to inform you that it has pleased the All-Powerful Sovereign, Arbiter of our Destinies, to call to him on this night, by a sweet and Christian death, the younger of my sons, aged 19 and 3 months, after a long and painful illness of the chest. I lose in him a child whom I cherished tenderly, and who deserved to be, that his precocious mind and his virtuous feelings, made me regard him as a sure and solid friend.
I'm not fluent in French, but the second half of that sentence does strike me as ungrammatical in French, like she lost track of the syntax partway through, because she was in such distress. But I could be wrong.
Anyway, now I have a cause of death for all 4 members of the Keith family: 2 lung diseases (Oriane and Friedrich) and 2 strokes (Peter and Karl)!
Also, Peter, I'm sorry you died at age 45, but at least you didn't have to watch your teenage son slowly waste away. :(
Karl's burial In related news, I also now know for sure why Karl was buried in the Parochialkirche with his mother and not the Nikolaikirche with his father and brother. You may recall that he asked to be buried in the Nikolaikirche with his father, brother, and members of his mother's family, and there was a postscript from his executor that I couldn't quite decipher but seemed to be saying that he was mistaken, and that he would be buried in the Parochialkirche.
Well, I can read it with more confidence now, and it does say that: "Herr Baron von Keith was mistaken about the church, his relatives are buried in the Parochialkirche, and therefore he is likewise buried there."
He was not mistaken! He correctly listed everyone who was buried there, and omitted the one person who wasn't--his mother! She was only in the Parochialkirche because that's where great governesses to the queen go; the family vault was in the Nikolaikirche. But as I said before, it worked out, because the Nikolaikirche got destroyed in the war and all the remains obliterated, while Karl's and Oriane's remains are still hanging out in the Parochialkirche in vault 5, perfectly intact.
Karl's duel Then the most exciting thing I found: remember when Karl got posted as envoy to Turin from 1774-1778? Guess why he was recalled?
HE GOT INTO A DUEL.
I found this in the personal correspondence from Uncle Hertzberg, and then I thought, "This HAS to be in Fritz's political correspondence on Trier," and sure enough, when I started browsing the letters that came a few weeks after the incident, it was there!
Hertzberg and Finckenstein wrote to Fritz:
The Marquis de Rossignan has received a courier from his court, who has come to bring us complaints against Mr. Keith, who, having quarreled with a Piedmontese officer, the Chevalier Fresia, had fought a duel with him at the house of an officer of the royal house; that the king of Sardinia had arrested the Chevalier Fresia; but that, Mr. Keith having failed him so badly, he could only request that he not appear at court until Your Majesty had been informed of this affair, and that this prince requests that Your Majesty recall him.
Fritz replied:
It's necessary to recall him. These are the follies and the crazy heads that all your young people.
(Again, not sure the grammar is correct there, but the meaning is clear.)
I can't believe this tidbit was in the published political correspondence the whole time! Of course: 46 volumes, only the first 20 searchable, in French and German, mostly boring (or at least lacking enough context to make them interesting).
Then Hertzberg had to write to his brother-in-law:
The family has just [caused] another very strong distress for Madame de Keith. Her son, who, through the fault of being too sensitive and fiery, on January 24 [1778] quarreled with a Piedmontese officer at Turin, fought with him, lightly wounded him, [drew attention to himself there?] that the king forbade him the court, and sent a courier to his minister to demand the recall of Mr. Keith. I have represented the matter to the king in a report from the Ministry in such a fashion that he had to recall him, but that he has not given evidence of greater displeasure than the fault that our young people have of follies and crazy heads. However that may be, his [Keith's] good fortune is lost forever, or at least for a long time, and it will be a great piece of good luck if I can save him the position that he previously had, which was worth 2000 ecus. Fortunately, this happened at a time when all the King's attention is on the famous affair of the Bavarian Succession.
cahn, 1778 is when Vienna Joe decides to try to claim Bavaria for the Habsburgs and occupy it, and Fritz goes to war against him, a war that ends up not having much action, and eventually Catherine and MT work out a peace.
So I always strongly suspected that Hertzberg was the reason Karl Keith got the position he did, because that's how nepotism worked in those days, but I couldn't prove it. However, I've now found that Hertzberg's correspondence is *full* of him pulling strings for Karl: he got him his first job in the civil service, then tried to get him sent to Vienna (but Fritz thought he was too inexperienced), then got him this position at Turin, and now is doing damage control.
After reading all of this, I remembered that I had Karl's diplomatic correspondence from Turin. which I had ordered in 2023 but not yet read. I looked it up, and sure enough, April 1778, there's a letter from him to Fritz. It's profoundly apologetic, but it emphasizes that honor required him to do what he did, even though it was incompatible with his position as envoy. It's kind of an apology in the older, "defense" sense of the word, more than the modern "I take it back" sense. And he hopes that he hasn't lost all of Fritz's trust and is still worthy of being employed.
He ALSO said that he did a complete write-up of the affair in a report he made to the Ministry, but I can't find it! I bet it's in the archives, though. I swear if I can fix my back pain, I'm going to Europe; there are so many archives (Prussia, Brandenburg, Dresden, London, Copenhagen, Paris) where it would be more cost-effective to browse the material for free than to start guessing at what (often large) sets of documents might contain what I'm looking for and just ordering scan after scan. But right now, I physically can't sit and handle papers for long enough to make it worth it.
Karl's personality What makes this episode even funnier is that when Karl went off to Turin in the first place, one of his Knyphausen uncles wrote, "He is a very 'joli sujet'* with all the essential traits, full of application and honesty, but a little slow and phlegmatic, like his father."
* Joli sujet: I found a dictionary defining this as "said of a young man who distinguishes himself and makes himself esteemed by his good conduct, by his merit."
When I read "slow and phlegmatic, like his father," I thought immediately of 1) Formey saying that Peter was a bit reserved, unless he knew you well enough to open up to you, and I concluded that this Knyphausen brother-in-law didn't know Peter that well, and 2) that letter that Peter wrote to Fritz, demanding to be in the army, which everyone thought was "too strong" and which he lived to regret.
I'm getting the impression that father and son were both quiet until they got worked up about something, and then it was up with the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee. :D
I think I also found something saying that Karl was frugal, which Peter also was, but I need to properly decipher the word that I think means "frugal," because I'm just going by context right now.
Karl's travels Oh, in lesser news, I also discovered that Karl got to make a trip to Paris in the early 1770s, with Fritz's permission. He then also got permission to make the grand tour in Italy when he was assigned there. I assume Karl told Fritz that it would help him as a diplomat to get up to speed on Italian affairs, but I assume Karl was also there for the art, given his lifelong interests in art.
Conclusion: Handwriting decipherment is the BEST!
I made notes on letters to follow up with, as they require more careful decipherment, and I'll let you know if anything interesting comes up. But that's what I have for now. I'm going to try to spend some time this week actually writing, both Peter and Fredersdorf.
Also, Peter, I'm sorry you died at age 45, but at least you didn't have to watch your teenage son slowly waste away. :(
Alas, yes. Figures it would be something like this; I think we still underestimate how many were killed by TB and all its variants until the 20th century started to come up with some efficient medication. ...didn't one of Lehndorff's kids (or several) also die this way?
A duel! At least Karl didn't kill anyone (or got killed himself), unlike certain members of the Katte family, ahem. (And it wasn't about being greedy for money.) BTW, the fact that Karl getting into a duel is regarded as shameful tells us something about changing Prussian mentality, because while duels were also illegal in the 19th century, you were almost expected to get into least one as a member of the nobility and we let off with a slap on the wrist and it was shameful to avoid a duel (big, big plot point in Fontane's novel Effi Briest where Effi's husband Innstetten despite being fully aware it's ridiculous to fight a duel about an affair a decade past and that he'll ruin three lives by doing so and doesn't want to still feels obliged to do so because of the Prussian honour code. Meanwhile in the 18th century....
FW & G2: we thought a duel was honorable! For us! Not for our nobles! We would have totally beaten the other guy if our courtiers only would have let us! En garde!
Lord Hervey: I fought a duel because the other guy attacked me in print as a gay pervert at a time when gays were executed in droves in the Netherlands, I won the damn duel, and still got ridiculed for my lack of manliness by bloody Alexander Pope. In retrospect: not worth it.
Heinrich: I tried my best to keep my last lover from fighting a duel with my favourite nephew after the later had snogged the former's wife; they were essentially 19th century people, of course, but thankfully I didn't lose either of them and cooler heads prevailed. Not a big fan of duels, me. Mind you, in a sense Fritz and I were duelling mentally and emotionally for most of my life, so...
I'm getting the impression that father and son were both quiet until they got worked up about something, and then it was up with the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee. :D
Indeed, and of course Peter was impulsive enough to sign on to not one but several mad escape schemes.
Oh, in lesser news, I also discovered that Karl got to make a trip to Paris in the early 1770s, with Fritz's permission.
Heinrich: Well, naturally he didn't have to wait, he wasn't related to him.
This is all amazing detective work, and you're awesome!
Alas, yes. Figures it would be something like this; I think we still underestimate how many were killed by TB and all its variants until the 20th century started to come up with some efficient medication. ...didn't one of Lehndorff's kids (or several) also die this way?
Maybe? The only cause of death given in the chronology in the Frederician library is the flu, for a son and a daughter. But I wouldn't be surprised. I know Wilhelmine and Algarotti both died of tuberculosis.
A duel! At least Karl didn't kill anyone (or got killed himself), unlike certain members of the Katte family, ahem. (And it wasn't about being greedy for money.)
Exactly what I told my partner immediately after making the discovery! "Tragic boyfriend's younger brothers both killed each other over the inheritance."
BTW, the fact that Karl getting into a duel is regarded as shameful tells us something about changing Prussian mentality, because while duels were also illegal in the 19th century, you were almost expected to get into least one as a member of the nobility and we let off with a slap on the wrist and it was shameful to avoid a duel
Keith clearly thought it would be shameful to avoid a duel! Speaking of the hypocrisy, remember luzulatelling us about the British navy court-martialing officers who didn't get into duels when they were supposed to, even though dueling was against the law?
FW & G2: we thought a duel was honorable! For us! Not for our nobles! We would have totally beaten the other guy if our courtiers only would have let us! En garde!
And we all wish you had!
Mind you, in a sense Fritz and I were duelling mentally and emotionally for most of my life, so...
Hahahaha.
Indeed, and of course Peter was impulsive enough to sign on to not one but several mad escape schemes.
Very true!
Heinrich: Well, naturally he didn't have to wait, he wasn't related to him.
LOL, that is exactly what I thought and almost included in my write-up!
This is all amazing detective work, and you're awesome!
Thank you! Learning how to decipher handwriting (in combination with being able to afford to order archival material) has really upped my detective game! That was one of the best things that happened to me last year.
Keith clearly thought it would be shameful to avoid a duel! Speaking of the hypocrisy, remember luzula telling us about the British navy court-martialing officers who didn't get into duels when they were supposed to, even though dueling was against the law?
Ha ha, I'm glad you came in to say that--I had the tab open and meant to do it...
To me it seems off that there would have been more social pressure to duel in the 19th century than in the 18th, but that is no doubt because I know more about British social norms, where dueling really declined in the turn of the 18th/19th century.
Dueling stuck around so long in Germany that even in the early 20th century, anyone who'd been to university [ETA: Or just those who were members of the upper classes? selenak?] had been basically required to acquire a dueling scar to prove their honor and courage. Academic fencing was different from "I need to fight you because you shamed me publicly," but it obviously grew out of that culture, which was alive and well in the nineteenth century.
When I learned this, it finally made sense out of one of my favorite books, a WWII historical novel I had first read in college, in which one of the German characters is so casually mentioned to have a dueling scar that I didn't originally understand why the author would be that casual about it. Nope, dueling scars were just a thing among the character's class! Nothing to see here, moving on.
But yes, the reason that was so confusing to me is that the practice of dueling died out much earlier in the British and American world!
Oh, one of the features of academic dueling that's always entertained me:
During the first half of the 19th century and some of the 18th century, students believed the character of a person could easily be judged by watching him fight with sharp blades under strict regulations. Academic fencing was more and more seen as a kind of personality training by showing countenance and fairness even in dangerous situations. Student corporations demanded their members fight at least one duel with sharp blades during their university time. The problem was that some peaceful students had nobody to offend them. The solution was a kind of formal insult that did not actually infringe honour, but was just seen as a challenge for fencing. The standard wording was dummer Junge (German for "stupid boy.")
Emphasis mine. :D If you're too nice to make enemies, how are we going to judge you?!
There's a movie someone recced to me which I've been wanting to see some day, which is called The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, which apparently starts with a British army officer having to duel with a German officer in the beginning of the 20th century.
BTW, the fact that Karl getting into a duel is regarded as shameful tells us something about changing Prussian mentality, because while duels were also illegal in the 19th century, you were almost expected to get into least one as a member of the nobility and we let off with a slap on the wrist and it was shameful to avoid a duel
Out of curiosity, since Keith (iirc) says that his actions were incompatible with his position as envoy: how did 19th century Prussians feel about their diplomats fucking up negotiations by getting into duels with members of the foreign court they were assigned to? That seems like a very specific problem.
Also, the nineteenth century seems to have been ashamed of duels for money rather than honor, if the cover-up over the fratricidal Katte brothers is anything to go by.
FW & G2: we thought a duel was honorable! For us! Not for our nobles! We would have totally beaten the other guy if our courtiers only would have let us! En garde!
Hee!
Not a big fan of duels, me. Mind you, in a sense Fritz and I were duelling mentally and emotionally for most of my life, so...
Of course he wasn't, good for him. But, now, those duels only made you wish you were dead, they didn't actually kill you...
Indeed, and of course Peter was impulsive enough to sign on to not one but several mad escape schemes.
Also, Peter, I'm sorry you died at age 45, but at least you didn't have to watch your teenage son slowly waste away. :(
:(((( I'm also sad that his mother did have to watch it, although I suppose maybe that beats also being dead?
Yeah, "unlike your wife" was definitely the subtext of my remark, though I agree I'd rather not be dead!
HE GOT INTO A DUEL.
ahhhhhh! I do find Fritz's response funny, though.
Same! I'm also super glad I had a last minute change of plans and decided to spend December going over archive papers that I had decided I had done as much with as I was going to.
Karl, 1779 or 1780, 1 or 2 years post-duel, being written about by one of his Knyphausen uncles or cousins, I think (I hate undated, unsigned letters):
Madame de Keith is here with her princess and complains a lot about the inconvenience and that there is no happiness in the world. Her son has also completely withdrawn from society to a small neighborhood, sees no one except his paintings and a few painters, almost always refuses me when I ask him to, and thinks a lot about buying land without actually doing so. The King has just appointed a certain young Chambrier of Neufchatel to go to Turin in his place.
This one is signed but hard to read; I think it's his mother's sister's husband Count Rothenburg, though if so, he's spelling it "Rottenberg" (so it might be Hertzberg, although it looks very different from his normal signature).
Her son, on his return from Turin, withdrew from the world, went/goes about his little job a bit, and does not talk about getting married.
And then something that I think is a prediction that this branch of the family will die out. And by "this branch" I think he means Oriane and all of her siblings. Which is impressive, considering there are 8 of them. But I can find no evidence that any of them had children (or at least sons) except Oriane and Peter, and their line died out with Karl.
In 1790, a book called "La Prusse litteraire" that we had found years ago was published, which said that Karl lived retired from the world and was not married. Now we find his family commenting on these fact 10 years before. I strongly suspected already, and now I suspect even more, that the author of that book was unable to reach Karl for comment and had to find out what he was up to from his family. If he's refusing to see family in 1780, he's almost certainly refusing to see random authors for interviews in 1790.
(I will get back to writing up yesterday's Tido letters soon; right now I'm just deciphering new letters. I realize Tido is way more interesting. ;))
And then something that I think is a prediction that this branch of the family will die out. And by "this branch" I think he means Oriane and all of her siblings. Which is impressive, considering there are 8 of them. But I can find no evidence that any of them had children (or at least sons) except Oriane and Peter, and their line died out with Karl.
:/
If he's refusing to see family in 1780, he's almost certainly refusing to see random authors for interviews in 1790.
Huh. I suppose without any more evidence there's no way to find out why.
Depression caused by humiliation? I'm going to compare it to Peter never leaving his room in Dublin, just reading books all the time. Yes, he was in hiding, but you get the impression from his memoirs that he also just *really* wanted to read books all day. You likewise get the impression from all these letters that Karl was something of an introvert. Maybe a clinically depressed one, idk! But later on, post 1790s, they will say he devoted himself to the sciences, which is very much something Peter was doing.
Ha. Well, I doubt whether this is *why*, but it may be relevant:
One of Karl's uncles wrote to him in 1768 telling him to enjoy his liberty and be like him, enjoy a moderate lifestyle and don't get caught up in chasing positions. That is what a wise man does.
"Please don't communicate this to your mother or to [your aunt who's married to Hertzberg], they will think I'm steering you away from the ambition to which your state and above all your age inspire you."
But when he thinks of his father and paternal grandfather, both of whom had a reputation for competence and probity, and died chagrined in disgrace, and his uncle who lived on his estates and died happy, and his uncle's son who is now doing the same thing, he thinks the latter is the better example to follow.
Well, the moderate lifestyle, not climbing the ladder, is definitely what Karl did after getting burned in Turin!
That said, I don't think "And isolate yourself and refuse to see your family" was part of the advice, so maybe he was *also* clinically depressed. Or maybe he was just feeling pressured to climb the ladder!
ETA: Oh, and I meant to add that I recently found, hunting through the archive catalogues, that just as Oriane's father was dismissed in 1730 in connection with Fritz's escape attempt, *his* father got fired too:
The transformation of the old, casual, natural economy administration system, which hardly produced any surpluses, into a modern monetary lease system took place very slowly. Milestones in this development were the founding of the Office Chamber in 1615 and the establishment of the Secret Court Chamber, a collegial central authority for the domain administration in all provinces in 1689, whose intellectual originator was Dodo Baron von Knyphausen. However, this authority soon fell into disrepair again, as its president, Knyphausen, was involved in the downfall of Minister von Danckelmann. It was replaced by the Upper Domain Directorate under the leadership of the Chief Treasurer Count Kolbe Wartenberg, who irresponsibly saw the domains as an inexhaustible source of finance without doing anything to maintain them.
Huh! I guess I can imagine someone who is naturally introverted taking the advice to its natural limit and isolating himself... maybe? Thanks for the informed guesses!
So what's interesting is that I *think* this is the same uncle who actually didn't like him. Now, they hadn't had their run-in in Paris yet, but the guy did say he'd *never* liked this nephew, ever since his first impression of him. That doesn't mean he can't correspond with him, of course, but the letter generally reads like he's practically begging Keith to write to him as often as he can. It doesn't read like a formulaic politeness, it reads like a plea: "Nobody in the family ever writes to me! I have no news! Everybody is too busy for me. Please make time to write to me!"
I thiiink he's living/staying in Paris, and dependent on letters for news from back home.
Well, maybe he had a bad first impression but was willing to give him a chance, but then Karl blew it with the (alleged--maybe Karl's side of the story is different) letter-reading a couple years later.
Of course, it's also possible they haven't properly met as adults yet; that this guy moved to Paris before Karl became an adult, and Karl's trip to France was the first real impression this particular uncle got of him.
I need to work out the chronology of these people better, including some handwriting comparison to see who's who. My kingdom for more hours in the day!
Ah, interesting! I just found Hertzberg, back in 1764, saying that young Karl hardly ever leaves his house or his aunts'. There's more on his career ambitions, but I'll have to mark this letter to come back to finish transcribing.
Sadly, brother Friedrich is dying. In May, Hertzberg wrote that he was spitting blood, so much that his life was in danger. Now it's June and he's no longer coughing blood, but suffering from so much languor that Hertzberg doesn't think he'll recover (he's correct, the boy has 5 more months to live).
Hertzberg says much the same thing as when he eulogizes Friedrich, but with more compare and contrast with the older brother:
It is a pity, because he is a young man, who had a very handsome face, a lot of spirit and of achivements. The elder has less vivacity, but he is very well accomplished in his studies, and is of an almost excessive sagesse, not going far from home or from his aunts'.
Now, I originally translated "sagesse" as "studiousness", but a little digging shows it can mean "good behavior", "quietness", or "modesty", so I'm now thinking it goes with "never leaves home" more than "accomplished in his studies." Of course, as I am living proof, these two things go together! So it's probably along the lines of "quiet, studious homebody, not the life of the party like his brother."
Incidentally, I think I can narrow down when Friedrich got sick: Hertzberg's last letter before he mentions Friedrich being sick dates to January, and in May, he says the last letter he received from his correspondent (I think Oriane's youngest brother, the modest-lifestyle non-diplomat one) was February 29th. So I think Friedrich fell sick sometime between January and May of 1764, and then he died in November 1764.
More details on the development of Karl's thoughts on what he wanted to do with his career when I have time!
(Also, I think Oriane is able to rent out rooms in the Jägerhof, contrary to what we thought back in early salon, but I could be wrong. I sight-read and didn't transcribe and translate the whole thing. So much to read, so little time!)
(Also, I think Oriane is able to rent out rooms in the Jägerhof, contrary to what we thought back in early salon, but I could be wrong. I sight-read and didn't transcribe and translate the whole thing. So much to read, so little time!)
Yes! She has been renting out the first floor to Hertzberg, for 500 units of currency (I hate abbreviations :P). According the address books, he moved there sometime between 1758 and 1760 (I don't see where he's living in 1759).
Also, Fritz only gave Oriane 2 weeks' notice to move out of the Jägerhof so he could found his bank.
This is good, because it's relevant to the stuff I put in about why Oriane and sons moved to the Jägerhof, her financial situation after Peter's death, etc. I *thought* she was renting space in it, I just couldn't prove it!
Oh, now Hertzberg is complaining that he, Madame de Keith, and...20 disabled hunters? are being thrown out to make way for some little banker merchants. (The class snobbery is rising off the page.)
He's in luck, he can rent a floor from the house of something for 600 (I think it's Reichstalers), and Madame de Keith is still without (tear and hole in the page).
1763: the Keith boys are home from university and looking for jobs. Per Hertzberg:
Madame de Keith says that she decided to go to court because she no longer had the means to support herself and to promote her sons. I proposed them as counsellors and secretaries of the embassies to Vienna and Paris; but I was told that they had no use for children.
Ha. In another letter, in 1764, he says the same thing, but this time specifies who did the telling: predictably, it was our sarcastic Fritz who said he had no use for children.
And then Hertzberg goes on to say that the Grand Directory proposed Karl as a refendarius (I think that's what Friedrich was when he died), but the final decision was that it wasn't a good fit, because Karl might join the military. Since that would be contrary to Karl's taste and constitution, Karl didn't know *what* he should do. Also his health was getting worse, and Hertzberg says that he fears that the numerous family will die out, "unless you or your brothers marry soon." Interesting that he uses the plural; Wikipedia gives me 3 living brothers at this point: Tido, who I didn't think was in the picture, so given that he's writing to one of the brothers, either Tido *is* in the picture and they know he hasn't married, or there's another brother.
Given that this is just after the 7 Years War, I can well believe no one wants young and untried personnel in the hot seats of France and Vienna. And it's ic for Fritz to phrase it like that.
BTW: Is this Hertzberg the same guy who later will prove Heinrich's doom in the reign of FW2?
Yes, same guy. There's a lot of Heinrich discussion in these letters that I might come back to someday, I just have limits on how much I can decipher at once. (I'm already behind on all my other projects because of how much deciphering I'm doing already!) I think most of the Heinrich discussion is because Dodo Heinrich, Oriane's envoy brother (sent to London during the Seven Years' War), according to Wikipedia, "enjoyed Heinrich's trust," and I see a lot of him spending time at Rheinsberg in these letters. Who knows, maybe there's gossip that we'll find out someday!
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timeasmymeasure
Peter's sons
Date: 2024-12-30 12:58 pm (UTC)Well, I still haven't read all of it, but I read quite a bit more in the last two weeks, after practicing my handwriting, and lo and behold! I have the answer to one major question, confirmed some things I strongly suspected, and made new discoveries.
Young Friedrich's death
The thing that was driving me crazy: Peter's younger son, Friedrich, died at age 19, and we didn't know why! I spent years thinking, "Surely in all this correspondence, someone talked about what he died of!"
Well, not one but two letters do!
Most of the correspondence is from Uncle Hertzberg, the prominent foreign minister who married one of Oriane's sisters. Hertzberg wrote, on November 10, 1764:
Madame de Keith has just this night lost her younger son, who had become emaciated, because of an abscess that he [had developed] in his lungs. It's too bad, he was a young man with a lot of esprit, an exemplary conduct, and a very considerate figure. I believe that if, on this occasion, you wanted to write something to Madame de Keith, she would receive it with pleasure.
So now we know that he died of an illness and not from, say, a riding accident.
Even more touchingly, we have his mother's reaction, also November 10, 1764:
My very honored brother,
I believe it is my duty to inform you that it has pleased the All-Powerful Sovereign, Arbiter of our Destinies, to call to him on this night, by a sweet and Christian death, the younger of my sons, aged 19 and 3 months, after a long and painful illness of the chest. I lose in him a child whom I cherished tenderly, and who deserved to be, that his precocious mind and his virtuous feelings, made me regard him as a sure and solid friend.
I'm not fluent in French, but the second half of that sentence does strike me as ungrammatical in French, like she lost track of the syntax partway through, because she was in such distress. But I could be wrong.
Anyway, now I have a cause of death for all 4 members of the Keith family: 2 lung diseases (Oriane and Friedrich) and 2 strokes (Peter and Karl)!
Also, Peter, I'm sorry you died at age 45, but at least you didn't have to watch your teenage son slowly waste away. :(
Karl's burial
In related news, I also now know for sure why Karl was buried in the Parochialkirche with his mother and not the Nikolaikirche with his father and brother. You may recall that he asked to be buried in the Nikolaikirche with his father, brother, and members of his mother's family, and there was a postscript from his executor that I couldn't quite decipher but seemed to be saying that he was mistaken, and that he would be buried in the Parochialkirche.
Well, I can read it with more confidence now, and it does say that: "Herr Baron von Keith was mistaken about the church, his relatives are buried in the Parochialkirche, and therefore he is likewise buried there."
He was not mistaken! He correctly listed everyone who was buried there, and omitted the one person who wasn't--his mother! She was only in the Parochialkirche because that's where great governesses to the queen go; the family vault was in the Nikolaikirche. But as I said before, it worked out, because the Nikolaikirche got destroyed in the war and all the remains obliterated, while Karl's and Oriane's remains are still hanging out in the Parochialkirche in vault 5, perfectly intact.
Karl's duel
Then the most exciting thing I found: remember when Karl got posted as envoy to Turin from 1774-1778? Guess why he was recalled?
HE GOT INTO A DUEL.
I found this in the personal correspondence from Uncle Hertzberg, and then I thought, "This HAS to be in Fritz's political correspondence on Trier," and sure enough, when I started browsing the letters that came a few weeks after the incident, it was there!
Hertzberg and Finckenstein wrote to Fritz:
The Marquis de Rossignan has received a courier from his court, who has come to bring us complaints against Mr. Keith, who, having quarreled with a Piedmontese officer, the Chevalier Fresia, had fought a duel with him at the house of an officer of the royal house; that the king of Sardinia had arrested the Chevalier Fresia; but that, Mr. Keith having failed him so badly, he could only request that he not appear at court until Your Majesty had been informed of this affair, and that this prince requests that Your Majesty recall him.
Fritz replied:
It's necessary to recall him. These are the follies and the crazy heads that all your young people.
(Again, not sure the grammar is correct there, but the meaning is clear.)
I can't believe this tidbit was in the published political correspondence the whole time! Of course: 46 volumes, only the first 20 searchable, in French and German, mostly boring (or at least lacking enough context to make them interesting).
Then Hertzberg had to write to his brother-in-law:
The family has just [caused] another very strong distress for Madame de Keith. Her son, who, through the fault of being too sensitive and fiery, on January 24 [1778] quarreled with a Piedmontese officer at Turin, fought with him, lightly wounded him, [drew attention to himself there?] that the king forbade him the court, and sent a courier to his minister to demand the recall of Mr. Keith. I have represented the matter to the king in a report from the Ministry in such a fashion that he had to recall him, but that he has not given evidence of greater displeasure than the fault that our young people have of follies and crazy heads. However that may be, his [Keith's] good fortune is lost forever, or at least for a long time, and it will be a great piece of good luck if I can save him the position that he previously had, which was worth 2000 ecus. Fortunately, this happened at a time when all the King's attention is on the famous affair of the Bavarian Succession.
So I always strongly suspected that Hertzberg was the reason Karl Keith got the position he did, because that's how nepotism worked in those days, but I couldn't prove it. However, I've now found that Hertzberg's correspondence is *full* of him pulling strings for Karl: he got him his first job in the civil service, then tried to get him sent to Vienna (but Fritz thought he was too inexperienced), then got him this position at Turin, and now is doing damage control.
After reading all of this, I remembered that I had Karl's diplomatic correspondence from Turin. which I had ordered in 2023 but not yet read. I looked it up, and sure enough, April 1778, there's a letter from him to Fritz. It's profoundly apologetic, but it emphasizes that honor required him to do what he did, even though it was incompatible with his position as envoy. It's kind of an apology in the older, "defense" sense of the word, more than the modern "I take it back" sense. And he hopes that he hasn't lost all of Fritz's trust and is still worthy of being employed.
He ALSO said that he did a complete write-up of the affair in a report he made to the Ministry, but I can't find it! I bet it's in the archives, though. I swear if I can fix my back pain, I'm going to Europe; there are so many archives (Prussia, Brandenburg, Dresden, London, Copenhagen, Paris) where it would be more cost-effective to browse the material for free than to start guessing at what (often large) sets of documents might contain what I'm looking for and just ordering scan after scan. But right now, I physically can't sit and handle papers for long enough to make it worth it.
Karl's personality
What makes this episode even funnier is that when Karl went off to Turin in the first place, one of his Knyphausen uncles wrote, "He is a very 'joli sujet'* with all the essential traits, full of application and honesty, but a little slow and phlegmatic, like his father."
* Joli sujet: I found a dictionary defining this as "said of a young man who distinguishes himself and makes himself esteemed by his good conduct, by his merit."
When I read "slow and phlegmatic, like his father," I thought immediately of 1) Formey saying that Peter was a bit reserved, unless he knew you well enough to open up to you, and I concluded that this Knyphausen brother-in-law didn't know Peter that well, and 2) that letter that Peter wrote to Fritz, demanding to be in the army, which everyone thought was "too strong" and which he lived to regret.
I'm getting the impression that father and son were both quiet until they got worked up about something, and then it was up with the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee. :D
I think I also found something saying that Karl was frugal, which Peter also was, but I need to properly decipher the word that I think means "frugal," because I'm just going by context right now.
Karl's travels
Oh, in lesser news, I also discovered that Karl got to make a trip to Paris in the early 1770s, with Fritz's permission. He then also got permission to make the grand tour in Italy when he was assigned there. I assume Karl told Fritz that it would help him as a diplomat to get up to speed on Italian affairs, but I assume Karl was also there for the art, given his lifelong interests in art.
Conclusion: Handwriting decipherment is the BEST!
I made notes on letters to follow up with, as they require more careful decipherment, and I'll let you know if anything interesting comes up. But that's what I have for now. I'm going to try to spend some time this week actually writing, both Peter and Fredersdorf.
Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2024-12-31 08:53 am (UTC)Alas, yes. Figures it would be something like this; I think we still underestimate how many were killed by TB and all its variants until the 20th century started to come up with some efficient medication.
...didn't one of Lehndorff's kids (or several) also die this way?
A duel! At least Karl didn't kill anyone (or got killed himself), unlike certain members of the Katte family, ahem. (And it wasn't about being greedy for money.) BTW, the fact that Karl getting into a duel is regarded as shameful tells us something about changing Prussian mentality, because while duels were also illegal in the 19th century, you were almost expected to get into least one as a member of the nobility and we let off with a slap on the wrist and it was shameful to avoid a duel (big, big plot point in Fontane's novel Effi Briest where Effi's husband Innstetten despite being fully aware it's ridiculous to fight a duel about an affair a decade past and that he'll ruin three lives by doing so and doesn't want to still feels obliged to do so because of the Prussian honour code. Meanwhile in the 18th century....
FW & G2: we thought a duel was honorable! For us! Not for our nobles! We would have totally beaten the other guy if our courtiers only would have let us! En garde!
Lord Hervey: I fought a duel because the other guy attacked me in print as a gay pervert at a time when gays were executed in droves in the Netherlands, I won the damn duel, and still got ridiculed for my lack of manliness by bloody Alexander Pope. In retrospect: not worth it.
Heinrich: I tried my best to keep my last lover from fighting a duel with my favourite nephew after the later had snogged the former's wife; they were essentially 19th century people, of course, but thankfully I didn't lose either of them and cooler heads prevailed. Not a big fan of duels, me. Mind you, in a sense Fritz and I were duelling mentally and emotionally for most of my life, so...
I'm getting the impression that father and son were both quiet until they got worked up about something, and then it was up with the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee. :D
Indeed, and of course Peter was impulsive enough to sign on to not one but several mad escape schemes.
Oh, in lesser news, I also discovered that Karl got to make a trip to Paris in the early 1770s, with Fritz's permission.
Heinrich: Well, naturally he didn't have to wait, he wasn't related to him.
This is all amazing detective work, and you're awesome!
Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2024-12-31 12:42 pm (UTC)...didn't one of Lehndorff's kids (or several) also die this way?
Maybe? The only cause of death given in the chronology in the Frederician library is the flu, for a son and a daughter. But I wouldn't be surprised. I know Wilhelmine and Algarotti both died of tuberculosis.
A duel! At least Karl didn't kill anyone (or got killed himself), unlike certain members of the Katte family, ahem. (And it wasn't about being greedy for money.)
Exactly what I told my partner immediately after making the discovery! "Tragic boyfriend's younger brothers both killed each other over the inheritance."
BTW, the fact that Karl getting into a duel is regarded as shameful tells us something about changing Prussian mentality, because while duels were also illegal in the 19th century, you were almost expected to get into least one as a member of the nobility and we let off with a slap on the wrist and it was shameful to avoid a duel
Keith clearly thought it would be shameful to avoid a duel! Speaking of the hypocrisy, remember
FW & G2: we thought a duel was honorable! For us! Not for our nobles! We would have totally beaten the other guy if our courtiers only would have let us! En garde!
And we all wish you had!
Mind you, in a sense Fritz and I were duelling mentally and emotionally for most of my life, so...
Hahahaha.
Indeed, and of course Peter was impulsive enough to sign on to not one but several mad escape schemes.
Very true!
Heinrich: Well, naturally he didn't have to wait, he wasn't related to him.
LOL, that is exactly what I thought and almost included in my write-up!
This is all amazing detective work, and you're awesome!
Thank you! Learning how to decipher handwriting (in combination with being able to afford to order archival material) has really upped my detective game! That was one of the best things that happened to me last year.
Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-01 11:57 am (UTC)Ha ha, I'm glad you came in to say that--I had the tab open and meant to do it...
To me it seems off that there would have been more social pressure to duel in the 19th century than in the 18th, but that is no doubt because I know more about British social norms, where dueling really declined in the turn of the 18th/19th century.
Dueling
Date: 2025-01-01 01:04 pm (UTC)When I learned this, it finally made sense out of one of my favorite books, a WWII historical novel I had first read in college, in which one of the German characters is so casually mentioned to have a dueling scar that I didn't originally understand why the author would be that casual about it. Nope, dueling scars were just a thing among the character's class! Nothing to see here, moving on.
But yes, the reason that was so confusing to me is that the practice of dueling died out much earlier in the British and American world!
Oh, one of the features of academic dueling that's always entertained me:
During the first half of the 19th century and some of the 18th century, students believed the character of a person could easily be judged by watching him fight with sharp blades under strict regulations. Academic fencing was more and more seen as a kind of personality training by showing countenance and fairness even in dangerous situations. Student corporations demanded their members fight at least one duel with sharp blades during their university time. The problem was that some peaceful students had nobody to offend them. The solution was a kind of formal insult that did not actually infringe honour, but was just seen as a challenge for fencing. The standard wording was dummer Junge (German for "stupid boy.")
Emphasis mine. :D If you're too nice to make enemies, how are we going to judge you?!
Re: Dueling
Date: 2025-01-01 06:45 pm (UTC)There's a movie someone recced to me which I've been wanting to see some day, which is called The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, which apparently starts with a British army officer having to duel with a German officer in the beginning of the 20th century.
Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-02 03:39 pm (UTC)Out of curiosity, since Keith (iirc) says that his actions were incompatible with his position as envoy: how did 19th century Prussians feel about their diplomats fucking up negotiations by getting into duels with members of the foreign court they were assigned to? That seems like a very specific problem.
Also, the nineteenth century seems to have been ashamed of duels for money rather than honor, if the cover-up over the fratricidal Katte brothers is anything to go by.
Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-05 06:00 am (UTC)Hee!
Not a big fan of duels, me. Mind you, in a sense Fritz and I were duelling mentally and emotionally for most of my life, so...
Of course he wasn't, good for him. But, now, those duels only made you wish you were dead, they didn't actually kill you...
Indeed, and of course Peter was impulsive enough to sign on to not one but several mad escape schemes.
Oh, oof, that's true.
Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-05 05:57 am (UTC)Also, Peter, I'm sorry you died at age 45, but at least you didn't have to watch your teenage son slowly waste away. :(
:(((( I'm also sad that his mother did have to watch it, although I suppose maybe that beats also being dead?
HE GOT INTO A DUEL.
ahhhhhh! I do find Fritz's response funny, though.
Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-06 12:44 pm (UTC)Heee! Speaking of which, there were a few threads in September to which you never replied, so I wanted to make sure you saw them: Keith family drama, Paintings of Fredersdorf?, Lehndorff is so emo.
Also, Peter, I'm sorry you died at age 45, but at least you didn't have to watch your teenage son slowly waste away. :(
:(((( I'm also sad that his mother did have to watch it, although I suppose maybe that beats also being dead?
Yeah, "unlike your wife" was definitely the subtext of my remark, though I agree I'd rather not be dead!
HE GOT INTO A DUEL.
ahhhhhh! I do find Fritz's response funny, though.
Same! I'm also super glad I had a last minute change of plans and decided to spend December going over archive papers that I had decided I had done as much with as I was going to.
Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-09 03:58 am (UTC)Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-09 01:59 pm (UTC)Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-13 11:07 am (UTC)Madame de Keith is here with her princess and complains a lot about the inconvenience and that there is no happiness in the world. Her son has also completely withdrawn from society to a small neighborhood, sees no one except his paintings and a few painters, almost always refuses me when I ask him to, and thinks a lot about buying land without actually doing so. The King has just appointed a certain young Chambrier of Neufchatel to go to Turin in his place.
This one is signed but hard to read; I think it's his mother's sister's husband Count Rothenburg, though if so, he's spelling it "Rottenberg" (so it might be Hertzberg, although it looks very different from his normal signature).
Her son, on his return from Turin, withdrew from the world, went/goes about his little job a bit, and does not talk about getting married.
And then something that I think is a prediction that this branch of the family will die out. And by "this branch" I think he means Oriane and all of her siblings. Which is impressive, considering there are 8 of them. But I can find no evidence that any of them had children (or at least sons) except Oriane and Peter, and their line died out with Karl.
In 1790, a book called "La Prusse litteraire" that we had found years ago was published, which said that Karl lived retired from the world and was not married. Now we find his family commenting on these fact 10 years before. I strongly suspected already, and now I suspect even more, that the author of that book was unable to reach Karl for comment and had to find out what he was up to from his family. If he's refusing to see family in 1780, he's almost certainly refusing to see random authors for interviews in 1790.
(I will get back to writing up yesterday's Tido letters soon; right now I'm just deciphering new letters. I realize Tido is way more interesting. ;))
Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-15 05:58 am (UTC):/
If he's refusing to see family in 1780, he's almost certainly refusing to see random authors for interviews in 1790.
Huh. I suppose without any more evidence there's no way to find out why.
Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-15 10:51 am (UTC)Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-17 11:31 pm (UTC)One of Karl's uncles wrote to him in 1768 telling him to enjoy his liberty and be like him, enjoy a moderate lifestyle and don't get caught up in chasing positions. That is what a wise man does.
"Please don't communicate this to your mother or to [your aunt who's married to Hertzberg], they will think I'm steering you away from the ambition to which your state and above all your age inspire you."
But when he thinks of his father and paternal grandfather, both of whom had a reputation for competence and probity, and died chagrined in disgrace, and his uncle who lived on his estates and died happy, and his uncle's son who is now doing the same thing, he thinks the latter is the better example to follow.
Well, the moderate lifestyle, not climbing the ladder, is definitely what Karl did after getting burned in Turin!
That said, I don't think "And isolate yourself and refuse to see your family" was part of the advice, so maybe he was *also* clinically depressed. Or maybe he was just feeling pressured to climb the ladder!
ETA: Oh, and I meant to add that I recently found, hunting through the archive catalogues, that just as Oriane's father was dismissed in 1730 in connection with Fritz's escape attempt, *his* father got fired too:
The transformation of the old, casual, natural economy administration system, which hardly produced any surpluses, into a modern monetary lease system took place very slowly. Milestones in this development were the founding of the Office Chamber in 1615 and the establishment of the Secret Court Chamber, a collegial central authority for the domain administration in all provinces in 1689, whose intellectual originator was Dodo Baron von Knyphausen. However, this authority soon fell into disrepair again, as its president, Knyphausen, was involved in the downfall of Minister von Danckelmann. It was replaced by the Upper Domain Directorate under the leadership of the Chief Treasurer Count Kolbe Wartenberg, who irresponsibly saw the domains as an inexhaustible source of finance without doing anything to maintain them.
Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-20 05:25 am (UTC)Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-20 05:16 pm (UTC)I thiiink he's living/staying in Paris, and dependent on letters for news from back home.
Well, maybe he had a bad first impression but was willing to give him a chance, but then Karl blew it with the (alleged--maybe Karl's side of the story is different) letter-reading a couple years later.
Of course, it's also possible they haven't properly met as adults yet; that this guy moved to Paris before Karl became an adult, and Karl's trip to France was the first real impression this particular uncle got of him.
I need to work out the chronology of these people better, including some handwriting comparison to see who's who. My kingdom for more hours in the day!
Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-21 01:08 pm (UTC)Sadly, brother Friedrich is dying. In May, Hertzberg wrote that he was spitting blood, so much that his life was in danger. Now it's June and he's no longer coughing blood, but suffering from so much languor that Hertzberg doesn't think he'll recover (he's correct, the boy has 5 more months to live).
Hertzberg says much the same thing as when he eulogizes Friedrich, but with more compare and contrast with the older brother:
It is a pity, because he is a young man, who had a very handsome face, a lot of spirit and of achivements. The elder has less vivacity, but he is very well accomplished in his studies, and is of an almost excessive sagesse, not going far from home or from his aunts'.
Now, I originally translated "sagesse" as "studiousness", but a little digging shows it can mean "good behavior", "quietness", or "modesty", so I'm now thinking it goes with "never leaves home" more than "accomplished in his studies." Of course, as I am living proof, these two things go together! So it's probably along the lines of "quiet, studious homebody, not the life of the party like his brother."
Incidentally, I think I can narrow down when Friedrich got sick: Hertzberg's last letter before he mentions Friedrich being sick dates to January, and in May, he says the last letter he received from his correspondent (I think Oriane's youngest brother, the modest-lifestyle non-diplomat one) was February 29th. So I think Friedrich fell sick sometime between January and May of 1764, and then he died in November 1764.
More details on the development of Karl's thoughts on what he wanted to do with his career when I have time!
(Also, I think Oriane is able to rent out rooms in the Jägerhof, contrary to what we thought back in early salon, but I could be wrong. I sight-read and didn't transcribe and translate the whole thing. So much to read, so little time!)
Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-22 12:23 pm (UTC)Yes! She has been renting out the first floor to Hertzberg, for 500 units of currency (I hate abbreviations :P). According the address books, he moved there sometime between 1758 and 1760 (I don't see where he's living in 1759).
Also, Fritz only gave Oriane 2 weeks' notice to move out of the Jägerhof so he could found his bank.
This is good, because it's relevant to the stuff I put in about why Oriane and sons moved to the Jägerhof, her financial situation after Peter's death, etc. I *thought* she was renting space in it, I just couldn't prove it!
Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-22 12:33 pm (UTC)He's in luck, he can rent a floor from the house of something for 600 (I think it's Reichstalers), and Madame de Keith is still without (tear and hole in the page).
Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-15 11:46 pm (UTC)Madame de Keith says that she decided to go to court because she no longer had the means to support herself and to promote her sons. I proposed them as counsellors and secretaries of the embassies to Vienna and Paris; but I was told that they had no use for children.
Ouch.
Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-22 11:59 am (UTC)And then Hertzberg goes on to say that the Grand Directory proposed Karl as a refendarius (I think that's what Friedrich was when he died), but the final decision was that it wasn't a good fit, because Karl might join the military. Since that would be contrary to Karl's taste and constitution, Karl didn't know *what* he should do. Also his health was getting worse, and Hertzberg says that he fears that the numerous family will die out, "unless you or your brothers marry soon." Interesting that he uses the plural; Wikipedia gives me 3 living brothers at this point: Tido, who I didn't think was in the picture, so given that he's writing to one of the brothers, either Tido *is* in the picture and they know he hasn't married, or there's another brother.
Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-22 12:25 pm (UTC)BTW: Is this Hertzberg the same guy who later will prove Heinrich's doom in the reign of FW2?
Re: Peter's sons
Date: 2025-01-22 12:29 pm (UTC)And it's ic for Fritz to phrase it like that.
Extremely. I suspected it was him.