Duhan

[mildred_of_midgard]

Jacques Duhan de Jandun, called Duhan, was Fritz's childhood tutor. He distinguished himself by his bravery at the siege of Stralsund, came to FW's attention, and was appointed tutor. Unfortunately for FW and fortunately for Fritz, he believed in the study of literature, history, and philosophy, and was well-educated. He secretly taught Fritz all the forbidden topics and helped him acquire a large secret library.

In the 1730 investigations of the escape attempt, FW found out about the secret library and banished Duhan to Memel in East Prussia. Fritz helped get him funding in exile, and summoned him back to Berlin as soon as he became king. Duhan died in 1746.

felis's write-up of the Fritz-Duhan correspondence, with selenak and mildred_of_midgard commentary:

In parallel with the French originals at Trier, I've been checking out this German edition of their correspondence from 1791, which itself is a translation of an earlier French edition. [With the result that the German translator writes opinionated footnotes about the French editor's strange opinions on Fritz.] Both Trier and this edition have the same 25 letters from Fritz (some of them rather short) and 2 letters from Duhan, so it's not very extensive. (The state archive seems to have two or three more from Duhan, but all from 1745, which makes me wonder if his pre-1740 letters might have been destroyed by Fritz for safety reasons. The book edition also includes the two versions of Duhan's eulogy, one written by Formey (I assume? if he was writing academy eulogies in 1745 already) and one by Fritz himself.)

[mildred_of_midgard: Indeed, yes, and it's in the same volume in our library as the Peter Keith one. In fact, Formey refers to the Duhan eulogy in his Keith eulogy, saying that he got caught up in the same events of 1730 as those already mentioned (extremely allusively!) in the "Du Han" (Formey's spelling) eulogy.

felis: Yeah, extremely allusively = "the storm that came over the Crown Prince and almost everyone close to him". In his own eulogy, Fritz describes Duhan's exile and its reasons as follows: Constant and lasting happiness is not the prerogative of humanity. Mr. Duhan was relegated to Prussia. But the cause for which he suffered, far from robbing him of public esteem or causing him remorse, could on the contrary have excited his vanity and animated his hopes. He loved the cause of his sorrows too much to complain about it, and he always retained the tranquility inseparable from good conduct, which, in the different situations of life, can be regarded as the touchstone of true philosophy.]

The correspondence starts with an endearing one-liner you probably know, 15-year-old!Fritz's letter from 1727, when his education was deemed finished and they had to part ways: I promise you that, when I have my own money in hand, I will give you two thousand four hundred ecus annually, and I will always love you a little more than at this hour, if this is possible. [Signed "Frideric Pr.R. (L.S.)" and I have no idea what the L.S. stands for...]

[mildred_of_midgard: Googling suggests maybe "locus sigilli": place for the seal.]

After that, the letters are basically split in two halves, pre- and post-1740, with the post ones all written when Fritz was away during wartime, and mostly in 1745. As with other people, there's a tonal change, and particularly the 1745 letters are clingy "write me more often!" ones, so much so that I was a bit surprised, until Fritz mentioned that Jordan and Keyserlingk had just died, and I remembered that he was also on the outs with Wilhelmine and Voltaire during that time.

The 1730s letters are very affectionate, with lots of promises to do more for Duhan once he's able to, full of encouragement (it sounds like Duhan was struggling a bit in exile, possibly with depression), but also occasionally quite cryptic when referencing past events. Case in point, the marble quote in context, July 15th, 1733, because I have to admit, without Mildred's comment, I would not necessarily have made that connection:

[mildred_of_midgard: (The bit where Fritz says "They have cut deeply into the marble [with Katte and Küstrin], and that stays forever," has always stuck with me.)

MacDonogh's exact translation: 'You know that my situation has greatly improved, but what you possibly don’t realise is that they have cut deeply into the marble, and that stays for ever.'

felis: Looks like he changed pronoun and tense of the original "que l'on grave", which directs the interpretation a bit to make it clearer.

mildred_of_midgard: Yeah, and I would say he didn't "change the pronoun" so much as translate it fluently, because the French use "on" impersonally far beyond what English speakers, even British ones, do. Furthermore, "on" is a way I've seen Fritz, and later his siblings and subjects, write about the King, especially when they're talking about the King as abuser and/or potential abuser.

The tense *is* interesting. MacDonogh doesn't actually say "Katte and Küstrin," that was my interpretation given the past tense (what recent event could be described as cutting deeply into the marble?), and Fritz may actually be referring to, or at least including, his marriage. (Note the date: July 15, 1733 for the letter, June 12, 1733 for the wedding.)]

The letter with the marble quote:

It was not for want of will but of opportunity that I could not assure you, my dear, of my constant friendship. I purposely pass by the times when fate persecuted us both equally, and I believe that in these kinds of cases one must think of a happy future, and forget all that was disastrous and unfortunate in the past. However, my dear friend, I can assure you that your misfortunes have affected me more than my own; and since you know that when I am a friend, I am so truly, you can judge what I have suffered on your behalf. But let us break away from a matter as odious as it is distressing, and return to the present. You know my situation has changed a lot to my advantage; but you do not know, perhaps, that one cuts very deeply into marble, and that it always remains. I don't need to tell you more, because from there you can roughly understand the state of what concerns us. As far as I'm concerned, you can count on my esteem, my friendship, and my assistance. I still have the feelings towards you that I had of old. I hope that a time will come that will open up opportunities for me to prove this to you.

[...]

Attach yourself to the bearer of this letter, who is my very faithful friend.

No footnote telling me who the faithful friend was, unfortunately. But it shows that the letter writing had to happen secretly, which keeps being the case, so Charlotte becomes a go-between:

March 19th, 1734, written in Berlin:

You know the risk you run when you can only do things while trembling. This is why I have only been able to answer you now, having a good opportunity through my sister. She will tell you everything I think about you. I am still the same, but similar to a mirror, which is obliged to mirror all the objects in front of it. I mean to say, not daring to be what nature made it, it is unfortunately subjected to the sad need to conform to the bizareness of the objects that present themselves --- --- I say too much, and I would say even more when speaking to a faithful friend, if I did not remember the principle of the wise man, who wants a seal to be put on his tongue. Farewell, my dear, until the time when I can see you again and speak to you without fear and without anxiety, and when I will reiterate to you the assurance of my perfect esteem, and how I am all yours.

[selenak: Charlotte smuggling Fritz/Duhan letters: this is fascinating, since Charlotte has as good a claim as any of the daughters to being FW's favourite. It varied, but Charlotte always bounced back to the No.1 spot. I've seen several biographers declare one reason for this is that Charlotte had the best sense of humor in the family and thus was able to take, say, his "another girl? We should drown them like kittens" type of statements as jokes, even reporting the arrival of her daughter Anna Amalie in the same manner. (Which Anna Amalie somehow found out later and did not take as a joke. Since she went on to become the Duchess of Weimar, the mother of Carl August and Goethe's patroness, her decision to raise her kid exactly NOT like her mother (and her mother's parents) had done was to have far reaching consequences.) While Charlotte's status as family clown is something Fritz mentions favourably now and then - as in the Mantteuffel/Seckendorff report in the mid 1730s (on the same occasion, he does say Charlotte's husband is his favourite brother-in-law, so much for you, BayreuthFriedrich) - I can't help but recall that the most prominent joke of hers we know, from Wilhelmine's memoirs, is that malicious crack about EC during the infamous 1732/1733 holidays, made in a context designed to gain SD's approval. So my impression was that Charlotte was one for playing it safe, punching downwards and submitting upwards. Which is why I'm intrigued she played courier for Fritz and Duhan. Of course, the personal risk for her isn't that great - she's not financially dependent on FW the way Wilhelmine still is, Braunschweig is a duchy with blood ties to the Habsburgs as well as the Hohenzollern, so if FW finds out, he's not able to harm her or her husband as a consequence - and since Fritz will be the next King, it could be a way to cement her standing with him.]

October 2nd, 1736, he has things to say about Duhan vs. FW:

Unless I have such sure opportunities as this, I don't dare to write to you. I hope you know me well enough not to suspect me of superficiality, nor to believe me capable of forgetting the gratitude I owe to a man of honor and integrity, who has employed all the wisdom of his mind to raise and educate me. I constantly remember the illustrious testimony that Alexander the Great gave to his teacher, in declaring that he was, in a certain sense, more indebted to him than to his father himself. I recognize myself as much inferior to this great prince, but I do not think it unworthy to imitate his good traits. So allow me, my dear Duhan, to tell you the same thing. My father only gave me life; are the talents of the mind not preferable?

[...]

I confess that I would very much like to see you again; but, knowing too well the disposition of minds, I can't flatter myself to have this satisfaction any time soon. When one indulges blindly in one's prejudices, and without examining things thoroughly, one is often prone to be seriously mistaken; hence most of the mistakes that men make. This is why it would be hoped that Father Malebranche's treatise 'The Search after Truth' was better known and read. Blood ties impose silence on me on a subject where I could explain myself more clearly, and where the subtle distinction between hating a bad deed and loving the one who commits it might vanish. These are the occasions when respect commands us to give bad things a twist that makes them less odious, and when charity wants us to paint the faults of the fellow man in the best colors we can.

March 13th, 1737 - Duhan's father has died and Fritz writes a condolence letter...

It is certain that the most severe tests, which we are obliged to pass in this world, are when we lose people forever who are dear to us. Constancy, steadfastness, and reason seem little help to us in these sad circumstances, and we only listen to our pain in these moments. I feel sorry for you with all my heart, seeing you in such a situation. [...] What is more common than being born and dying? However, we are always astonished at death, as if it were something foreign to us, and uncommon.

Console yourself, my dear Duhan, as best you can. Consider that there is a necessity which determines all events, and that it is impossible to fight what is resolved. We only make ourselves unhappy, without changing anything in our condition, and we spread bitterness over the happiest days of our life, the brevity of which should invite us not to grieve so much with unhappiness.

There is nothing more flattering to me than the confidence you show in me and the recourse you want to have in me. [...] How happy I would be if I could lessen your pain and find a proper balm to heal the wound this sorrow caused you! If my friendship can be of any help to you, please count on it and make use of the feelings I have for you.

We are about fifteen friends, retired here, who taste the pleasures of friendship and the sweetness of rest. It seems to me that I would be perfectly happy if you could come and join us in our solitude. We know no violent passions, and we only apply ourselves to making use of life. [...]

June 22nd, 1737, Fritz and his eternal enemy: ingratitude ;) - Ingratitude is a vice to which I feel an aversion of temperament, and I dare say, without hurting the laws of modesty, that gratitude has always been my favorite virtue.

May a happy fate join us, after a certain action [i.e. FW's death] has passed! I'm in your debt, and I'm dying to pay it off.

October 9th has the poem dedicated to Duhan, in which Fritz praises him as a mentor and as someone he should have listened to earlier instead of seeking pleasures in his youth, and then calls him his "seul père":

I owe you more, finally, than the author of my days:
He gave me life in his young love;
But he who teaches me, whose reason enlightens me,
He is my nurturer, and my only father.

[mildred_of_midgard: Ooh, interesting. Because Wilhelmine, in her memoirs, says that once Duhan left, Fritz started leading a dissipated life, which wouldn't have happened if Duhan was there. I was wondering to what extent she was struggling to come to terms with the fact that Fritz was growing up and away from her and had boyfriends now, but considering this is also the time of the Dresden trip, and Fritz was a teenage boy living in a very repressive environment, the lure of the forbidden may have been strong.

felis: Interesting! And possibly on point - here's the relevant part of the poem:

Ah! if, always following your scholarly lessons,
I had been able to get away from my distractions!
But this monster, rival of a wise intention,
To make it fail, endlessly disguises itself.
In a siren's voice and an impostor's tone,
It fills our minds with a flattering lie;
And when, without knowing it, its bait sweeps us away,
Foolishly, our care is wasted, and our study is in vain.
Therefore, my dear Duhan, in the age of pleasures
I was the vile toy of impetuous desires.
In the summer of my days, grown stronger,
Minerva should be the guide of my steps;
But unfortunately! wisdom is seldom the fruit
Of an overwhelming competition of tumult and noise.
That's why, withdrawn in the shadow of silence,
I seek, albeit late, virtue and science.]

February 10th, 1738, still secret letters, plus improving himself:

I neither could nor dared to answer your penultimate letter. All I can say about it is that the verses are charming, that they breathe freedom, playfulness and grace. If you write more, don't be stingy; send some fragments to me; but use my sister's intermediary, and do not risk any letter by post.

I am buried among books more than ever. I run after the time that I wasted so thoughtlessly in my youth, and I amass, as much as I can, a store of knowledge and truth. You will not condemn, I hope, the pains I am giving myself; they are a result of the knowledge that I have of myself. We must make up for all the faults of nature; we must take art for help, and draw even from the most remote antiquity to rectify what we find faulty in ourself.

The letter that was clearest on the depression, from August 14th, 1738:

[...] Make the situation your destiny has placed you in bearable, as much as possible. Erase my memory from your mind, if it is an obstacle to your rest, and think only of making yourself as happy as you can imagine; it is the choice of wisdom, and it must be yours. Ban, for this purpose, any idea of ​​exile, of fatherland and of penate[?] gods; talk a lot with books, and not with people of the world. As you can find this ancient company anywhere, you won't notice the change of location so much as you would without their help. Finally, lift your thoughts above anything that can make them melancholy or hypochondriac. [...]

[mildred_of_midgard: Classics alert! The Penates are the Roman household gods, and metonymously used for the household. Most often used today in "lares and penates," where "Lares" are another set of protective Roman gods, and can also mean "household goods" by extension.]

Also has the "calm yourself to calm me" figure at the end - which, as Mildred pointed out before, seems to have been the family's go-to for encouragement - despite the "erase me" here. :)

The 1740 summons was quoted already, so let's skip to March 18th, 1744, from Breslau, Fritz keeps making good on his debts and his gratitude: You ask me what is your job as director of the Liegnitz Academy. It is to calmly draw your pension, to love me, and to enjoy yourself. These are duties which I hope you will not deny yourself, and which will be all the less painful to you as they are all that is required of you. Live happily in Berlin, dear Duhan, and enjoy, in age, the advantages owed to your merits, which fate denied you in your youth.

An example of the aforementioned 1745 letters, from Neisse: He starts with a poem lamenting Jordan and then says:

I make no reparation to you, for you do not deserve it; and I will call you ungrateful, fickle and treacherous, until the moment when I will enjoy your pleasant company more often, and when I will see that, living in the same city, you will not live as if you were separated by a hundred miles from me. Jordan did not do so, and the friendship he had for me was sociable and bonding. I saw him every day, and when he was not sick, we lived together constantly.
Farewell, my dear Duhan; correct yourself, and become less sedentary.

September 24th, 1745, grieving Fritz:

Think how unfortunate I am to have lost, almost at the same time, my poor Jordan and my dear Keyserlingk. They were my family, and I think I am now a widower, an orphan, and in a mourning of heart more dismal and more serious than that of black clothes.

[...]

Keep your health, and think that you are now almost the only old friend of mine I have left; and, if it doesn't ruin you on ink and paper, write to me more often. I will beg you again to be willing to accept errands for books and such things which I need sometimes. I believe my friends think like me, so I never dream of being able to bother them.

On the topic of errands, immediately after Soor - I'm completely plundered - he sends Duhan a list of the books he lost and asks him to send replacements, mostly from Jordan's library, which makes him cry over them in the next letter.

Nov 22nd, 1745, the first of the two available Duhan letters shows how religious he was, which kind of surprised me tbh (although it's kind of hard to judge tone when there are only two very short letters to go by):

Believing Your Majesty to be on the eve of some battle, I confess to him that I do not have enough peace of mind to write to him philosophically, as he had ordered me. My whole philosophy now consists in praying to God to lead YM, to protect him from any accident, and to grant him such advantages over his enemies, that they are obliged to ask him for peace. I am convinced, Sire, that YM implores with all his soul the assistance of his Creator, that he begs him to forgive the errors into which he may have fallen, and that, in a firm resolution to cling to him, YM will give his orders with his usual intrepidity, and will expect everything from heaven's blessing.
Forgive me, Sire, for the brevity of this letter. I will write to you as a philosopher when you are victorious; now I can only speak as a Christian [...]

The second one, Nov 30th, contains a couple of thoughts on glory and virtue, but [...] I will admit to him that I find it difficult to speak alone of morality while the world speaks only of your exploits; and further, would it be possible that YM was thinking of philosophy while taking on the Austrians?

Fritz' last letter is a response to that from December 7th, in which he ruminates on the topic Duhan mentioned:

[...] You are so laconic, my dear Duhan, in your morals, that you only indicate sentences on which the ignorant and I can write commentaries. [...] Among men of merit, the first are, without a doubt, those who do good for the love of good itself, who follow virtue and justice out of sentiment, and whose actions in life are the most consistent; and those of a lower order do great deeds out of vanity. Their virtue is less certain than that of the former: but, however impure this source may be, if the public good results from it, they can be granted a place among great men. Cato was of this first order, Cicero, of the second; so we see that the soul of the stoic is infinitely superior to the soul of the academician.

But I do not know why I amuse myself with giving you a great moral sermon, you, to whom I should only speak of the esteem which your virtue inspires in me, always equal and always certain. I hope to assure you of this soon myself, when, once heaven allows me to end the horrors of war, I may, in the bosom of my homeland and my family, enjoy the sweetness of company with my friends, and give the sciences the moments that I do not owe to the state.

Farewell, dear Duhan: be sure that I love you with all my heart.

And then Duhan died not even a month later. :(

mildred_of_midgard, quoting MacDonogh:

Frederick, with all three of his brothers, rode straight round to Duhan’s house. 'It was a noble sight, to see a dying man surrounded by princes, and by a triumphant monarch, who in the midst of the incessant clamour of exultation, sought only to alleviate the sick man’s pains.' Frederick was indeed touchingly fond of the man who, despite the most fervent opposition imaginable, had first incited his love of art, poetry and philosophy. Duhan died the next day and Frederick agreed to look after his old teacher’s family. His sister was given a pension, married a French nobleman, and lived next door to Princess Amalia on the Linden.

The citation given is Bielfeld. The full passage:

[A triumphant Fritz has just ridden through Berlin and been hailed as "the Great" for the first time, when...]

His majesty was scarce seated when news was brought, that his old preceptor, M. Duhan von Jandun, lay at the point of death. As the king had an uncommon regard for this truly venerable person, founded on a long familiarity, and a sense of real obligation, the news affected him greatly; and his majesty expressd a strong desire to see him, and to give him the greatest comfort which it was possible, for a man who was on the threshold of life, to receive; and which the sight of his roial pupil, a prudent conqueror, and a philosophic hero, who brought back peace to his country and was at that moment in the midst of a glorious triumph, must necessarily afford.

By six in the evening the whole city was illuminated. The king went into his coach, attended by the prince of Prussia, and prince Henry: prince Ferdinand followed him. His majesty orderd the- pages to conduct him to M. Duhans, who livd in a sort of court, the houses, of which were so crowded with lamps, that they were obligd to open the windows of the chambers where the sick lay, to prevent their being suffocated by the heat. It was a noble sight, to see a dying man surrounded by princes, and by a triumphant monarch, who in the midst of the incessant clamor of exultation, sought only to alleviate the sick mans pangs; participating of his distress; and reflecting on the vanity of all human fame and grandeur. When his majesty had taken a tender adieu of M. Duhan, who livd but till the next day, he went again into his coach, and completed the tour of the city.

Now, Bielfeld is supposed to have (re)written his letters after the fact as a sort of memoir (we've seen some precedents), and the chronology doesn't quite work here, as Fritz arrived on December 28, according to my other sources (and if he was in Dresden on the 25th, that checks out) and Duhan died on the 6th, so Fritz can't literally have arrived, been feted, walked into his palace, sat down, gotten news that Duhan was dying, visited him, and Duhan died the next day. But, you can see what Bielfeld's getting at here by compressing the chronology, because he opens the passage with the moral of the story:

It should seem as if, in the highest enjoyments of human life, there were still some mixture of bitterness: for on this day of supreme festivity, the king could not prevent, anxiety and grief from stealing in upon him. His majesty was scarce seated...

Comments

[felis]

Two little additions for completeness sake:

The 1740 summons was quoted already

See this earlier comment for the relevant info.

And here's the link to the German version of the correspondence/eulogies, because I think that one isn't quite as easy to find as Trier:
http://diglib.hab.de/drucke/gm-771/start.htm?image=00001