Nicolai's "Anecdotes"
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rheinsbergFriedrich Nicolai (1733 - 1811) , bookseller, author and key figure of the early German Enlightenment, was also among many other things the author of a six-volume collection of Frederician anecdotes "Anekdoten von König Friedrich II. von Preussen, und von einigen Personen, die um ihn waren", published between 1788 (i.e. two years after Fritz' death) and 1792. They were part of a general rush of memoirs and anecdote colllections that went with a celebrity's death, but due to a life long passionate interest of Nicolai's better researched (in terms of what was available at the time) than most. Helpfully, Nicolai in 90% of the cases names his sources, and he was friends with three people who could boast of a decades long relationship with Fritz: Quantz the flute specialist and composer, the Marquis d'Argens and Quintus Icilius. Also, to his credit, if Nicolai between volumes got new information contradicting what he had published earlier, he brought this up in the next volume. Unsurprisingly given the sheer length of Fritz' life and the time of publication, a great many of the anecdotes hail from the later half of his life and/or from the wars, but in six volumes, there are enough of interest from the first half as well to make the reading worth one's while. Volume I is dedicated to Fritz' sister Charlotte, and the dedication mentions having talked to her, too, about her noble brother. Reminder: Niicolai was bff with Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, writer of some of German's most enduring classic plays and theoretical essays, who had ended up as Charlotte's librarian in Wolfenbüttel. The preface also mentions his buddy Dr. Zimmermann encouraging to publish, which is of deeply ironic in hindsight, since they're about to fall out, which is the subject of another post. Another motive for being a Fritz fan, err, an intense scholar of the late King's character and life, Nicolai gives is that he grew up in Fritz' Prussia, all the ideas he has about enlightenment etc. were formed there, he would not be who he became without Fritz. Aw. As for Charlotte, she even provided Nicolai with two of Fritz' letters, one he wrote to her after the death of her son Leopold, and the other just six days before his own death, which Nicolai prints here for the first time. (In the French original.) He promises to the readers that if he gets new information contradicting anything he tells in his first volume, he'll include it in the subsequent ones (and will keep the promise.)
The condoling letter is very Fritz (in a mild way way, I hasten to add): we must all die, alas, be a philosopher, accept it, even though I totally feel your pain as a tender mother, live for me, you are the happiness of my life. On to the juicy parts. The following text excerpts mostly hail from volumes 1, 2 and 6.
Perhaps the most famous anecdote involving Katte which isn't related to his death is the following, which Nicolai had directly from Quantz:
In the summer of the year 1730, shortly before the King undertook the journey with the Crown Prince which was to lead them through the Empire until Wesel, where the Crown Prince had intended to escape to England, followed by the known unfortunate results, Quantz - - Nicolai spells it Quanz all the time, btw - , too, was in Berlin, in order to play with the Crown Prince sometimes early in the morning around 6 am, but usually always in the afternoon from 4 until 7 pm. The discontent between the King and the Crown Prince was already very high at that point, and the Prince back then sought to be the opposite of what his father was in most things. In the morning, he had to submit to force as far as his exterior was concerned. The tight uniform, the simple curled hair, the stiff tail, the serious soldier's step weren't to his taste, but he had to accept them. Only after lunch, once he was left in his rooms on his own, he wanted to live there as he pleased. Thus, he usually had his hair styled according to the then current fashion, used a Haarbeutel and wore a dressing gown made of golden brocade; and thus he studied and played the flute.
The Crown Prince was dressed in this fashion one day, and Quantz was playing with him, when suddenly the later doomed Herr von Katte, the Crown Prince's favourite, hurried into the room and frightened reported that the King was coming and was already very close. Now the Crown Prince's passion for books and music had not been hidden to the King. Both were repellent to him, and he wanted to surprise the Crown Prince. Katte took the boxes with the flutes in the greatest hurry, and the scores, took the extremely frightened Quantz by the hand and jumped with him and the boxes in a small cabinet where they usually stored material to heat the stoves with. Here, they had to remain for over an hour, and Quantz, who told me the whole story himself, trembled, even more so since he was wearing a red coat; a color which the King hated. The Crown Prince had dressed into the uniform in the greatest hurry, but he couldn't get rid of the Haarbeutel as quickly, and thus it is easy to guess how disturbing this encounter must have been. The King soon discovered the hidden shelves behind the tapestry where the books and the dressing gowns were kept. The later, he had thrown into the fireplace at once, as for the books, he ordered them to be sold to the bookstore owner Haude. The later kept the books as a service to the Crown Prince, who ordered them to be taken to him one by one, according to his needs, until his complete library could be restored to him.
Quantz finally was freed from his tight corner once the King had left; but he was extremely careful during his subsequent visits to Berlin; he especially took care never to wear a red coat again, but only a grey or a blue one.
Note that in many subsequent renderings, it became Fritz who was wearing red, not Quantz. But this is the original version. Regarding the relationship between Quantz and Fritz as King, perhaps the most telling one is a story that goes thusly: Quantz makes a new flute for Fritz, Fritz plays but makes mistakes, promptly blames the flute, Quanz checks the flute again and says no, the flute is good, Fritz says it's not true and shouts, they don't talk for a week during which Quanz withholds applause and approval, after eight days, Fritz caves and says okay, yes, it was him, not the flute, Quanz is "okay, then let's practice". Also, Quantz once said ruefully about Fritz as a person and why despite their ups and downs he can't bring himself to leave him, that he'd miss him if he left: Ich hätte nicht gedacht,dass mir der Mensch so nötig wäre. ("I wouldn't have thought that I need this man so much.")
(mildred_of_midgard: Ahhh, this is cool, because that's one of the most famous anecdotes to include Katte (I even got Mobster AU author to include a modern AU variant in her backstory!), but I didn't know where we got it from. I mean, I knew it was a story Quantz told later, but not who he told or how it came down to us. Via Nicolai, who had a lot of contact with Quantz and names his sources is pretty good! (I mean, not necessarily for every single detail, but for this event happening.)
Katte took the boxes with the flutes in the greatest hurry, and the scores, took the extremely frightened Quantz by the hand and jumped with him and the boxes in a small cabinet where they usually stored material to heat the stoves with.
Nice bit of characterization, though. Quantz is frozen with panic (it sounds like), and Katte is ON IT. Just what I would expect of him. <3 And that's even more interesting given that Quantz is the narrator and has no incentive to make Katte sound better at his own expense.
selenak: Quite! It heightens the plausibility of the whole event and the reliability of Quantz as a narrator to no end. (...)BTW, since Quantz at this point has a well paid job in Saxony and is making these trips to Berlin solely for Fritz' sake, you can tell how emotionally invested he must have been, to put up with the prospect of angry FW. (Who'd have thought nothing of beating up a mere commoner and musician, one assumes.)
mildred_of_midgard: Indeed, and you can also tell that he was completely unprepared. I have the impression that Katte is either a very quick thinker, or else he's done something like this before, and the latter seems quite likely.
Quite! It heightens the plausibility of the whole event and the reliability of Quantz as a narrator to no end.
Exactly!)
Nicolai's version of the 1730 escape attempt, in which he refutes some other versions as told in 1792 (this story is from the last volume, VI), consists of a letter written to him by a son of one of Katte's regiment comrades, Hertefeld, narrating his father's story. More about who said father was below, but first, the letter itself and Nicolai's introduction.
Nicolai speaking: I previously didn't dare to protest against the commonly shared tale that (Katte) had been with the King and the Crown Prince in Wesel. But now Landrat Baron v. Hertefeld zu Boetzelaar near Xanten has been kind enough to share with me from the trustworthy narration of his late father the true circumstances of the arrest of the unfortunate Herr v. Katte. I believe my readers will thank me for sharing the both interesting and trustworthy news in this gentleman's own words.
"My father, born in the year 1709, served in the year 1730 with the Gens d'Armes at a Lieutenant, together with his unfortunate friend, Lieutenant von Katte. The later, Lieutenant von Keith and Lieutenant von Spaen were the confidants of the then crown prince, who were meant to support his escape to England. Katte remained in Berlin and was supposed to follow the Crown Prince via Leipzig through the HRE. Keith, who was stationed in Wesel, had the task to prepare the flight. Spaen, then a Lieutenant with the tall guard at Potsdam, knew about the plans but had no active part in them. The escape of the Crown Prince was supposed to happen in the moment when the King departed from Wesel; for as the Crown Prince usually travelled behind the King from their various stops, he would have won a few hours before his escape became known to the King.
Katte had taken a leave of absence when the King had departed from Berlin in order to visit the countryside. He delayed his departure to the date when he supposed the King would arrive at Wesel, and the need to repair his carriage kept him a day longer than he wanted in Berlin. At the evening of his departure he met Major v. Asseburg from the Gens d'Armes who told him with a frightened face: "Are you still here? I am amazed!"
Katte replied to him: I travel this very night. Asseburg knew that a courier had brought the news of the Crown Prince's arrest, but he couldn't say more due to the distrust which was then dominating in Berlin. At night, Colonel von Pannewitz, the commander of the Gens d'Armes, received the order to arrest Lieutenant von Katte; he delayed this until morning in the hope Katte would have been escaped by then, then he sent the regiment's AD to him who still found him and brought him the order to immediately report to the Colonel. At 8 o'clock in the morning my father, who had then guard duty, the order to send a subaltern officer and four men to the Colonel's quarters; and at half past 8 Katte was brought in the Colonel's carriage in the company of the AD and the guard to my father in the Gens d'Armes guards house, with the order: he was now responsible for the prisoner with his head, to be transmitted from one officer on guard's duty to the next.
When Katte was transported to Küstrin, my father took leave of him with the words: j'espére de vous revoir bientot; and (Katte) replied: Non, mon ami, le Tyran demande du sang. He gave my father some books as presents in which he'd written his name, as a souvenir, and I still own some of them.
Spaen was arrested the very same day at Potsdam by Colonel von Kneseback. After Katte's death, he was casheered, and brought to Spandau for a yar; immedately after his release, he went to the Netherlands to serve there, and died in the year 1768 at his country estate Bellevue near KLeve, as a Generalmajor in Dutch service. He told everyone that the Crown Prince had planned to go to England in order to marry an English Princess; and that, if Katte had managed to escape, he himself would have lost his head for sure, since the raging King would have demanded another sacrifice. Frederick the Great had done nothing for Spaen after his ascension; but when he travelled to Kleve in the year 1763, he did take lodgings with General von Spaen, was very gracious and confidential towards him, reminded him of stories of their shared youth, but did not mention the year 1730 with one word; which is why General von Spaen used to joke that the King had an excellent memory right up to 1730.
Keith had been in Wesel when the Crown Prince was arrested. The later found means and ways to send a note to him, on which he'd written with a pencil: Sauvez-vous, tout es découvert. Keith recognizes the handwriting, goes to his stable, puts his saddle on his horse himself and under the pretense of a leisurely ride he happily leaves through the Brün Gate, from which he gallops until Dingden, the first village belonging to Münster, one mile away from Wesel; from there, he hurries through upper Wesel county straight the The Hague, where he goes to an ambassador - I forgot whether my father said it was the English or the French ambassador -, tells him of his fate, and pleads for his protection. The envoy promises said protection to him, and escorts him personally to the mansard roof, and orders his valet to serve this gentleman exclusively, and not to tell anyone else that there is a stranger lodging in this house. The envoy advised Keith to go to England and from there to Portugal, where foreign officers were sought after.
Meanwhile, the King was angry to the utmost degree that Keith had escaped him. At once Colonel von Dumoulin, later General lieutenant von Dumoulin, had to take up the pursuit of Keith, and he was given a letter to the King's envoy at the Hague, which ordered the later to assist Dumoulin in demanding Keith should be surrendered. Dumoulin and Meinertzhagen learned that one day a foreign officer had arrived and had gone to the envoy in question, without ever having been seen again. Their spies told them that in the mansard roof of the envoy's house, light was burning late at night, and that this room had not been used before. From these circumstances they concluded that Keith was hiding at the envoy's, and now their spy didn't let the envoy's house out of his sight. The envoy learned of this and that Keith's habit of reading late at night had given him away.
The following morning, the envoy came to Keith and told him: You are betrayed. Your King has spies after you, so be ready, I'll bring you to Scheveningen today, and everything there is ready for your transport to England. In the evening, he brought Keith in his own carriage to Scheveningen, and gave him letters of reccomendation for London, and didn't leave him until he saw him depart on a fisherman's boat. Keith happily arrived in England, from where he went into Portueguese service armed with reccommendations from the court. A few days later, Dumoulin learned by accident that Keith had escaped. He had gone to Scheveningen in order to see the fishermen arrive and was surprised that they dared to brave the sea in such little boats. One of the fishermen told him: With such a boat, we even make the trip to England; I'm just returning from there, and have transported a foreign officer. Dumoulin demanded a description of the officer, and from the circumstance that said man had been crosseyed, he concluded that it had been Keith.
Keith returned to Berlin in the year 1741, was appointed Colonel lieutenant and Master of the Horse, and became curator at the Academy of Sciences. My father knew Herr von Keith very well, and was told by him the way of his escape.
V. Hertefeld."
felis: Okay, so I think Nicolai's source is Friedrich Leopold von Hertefeld, son of Ludwig Casimir von Hertefeld. Who doesn't have wiki entry of his own, but Fontane is helpful in this case, see these excerpts, which cover Ludwig Casimir. Most important bit translated:
Ludwig Casimir was born in 1709 and joined the Gensdarmes regiment in 1728, so he was a regimental comrade of Hans Hermann von Katte for two more years. In 1743, after having participated in the First Silesian War, he resigned from the service. Again seven years later, in 1750, he became chamberlain to the widowed Queen Sophie Dorothee, mother of Frederick the Great, and remained in this position until her death in 1757.
Fontane also says he was into books and built a library building on his Liebenberg estate. He went back to Boetzlaer (near Xanten and Kleve) in 1777 and died in 1790.
So I strongly suspect that he got to know Peter while he was chamberlain for SD.
Lehndorff by the way? Not impressed:
April 15th, 1753. I get up at three to go to Potsdam; a journey I would dislike if I wouldn't find my dear Prince Heinrich there. My travelling companion is Herr v. Hertefeld, chamberlain of the queen-mother, a very unpleasant man and a babbler ["Schwätzer"] like a woman.
and:
April 4th, 1756. [...] He is a guy who is judged unfavourably by people. He left service during the war und spent six years living quietly on his estate. Finally the queen-mother chose him for chamberlain on recommendation of Chancellor [Cocceji]'s wife, who is his wife's sister, an excellent, witty, and amiable woman, only her voice has something from a dragoon.
Von Hertefeld's wife = Susanne von Bechefer (see this wiki article about v. Hertefeld's father Samuel, who himself held a couple of positions during FW's time).
I think Lehndorff is still talking about Cocceji's wife with his description, it's a bit ambiguous even in German, but he definitely likes v. Hertefeld's wife a lot more than the guy, see also this entry from September the same year: Hertefeld with his special gift to bore his listeners only likes those who have the patience to listen to him. and again in December: the man is as unpleasant as his wife is the opposite. One of their daughters seems to have been lady-in-waiting with EC, Lehndorff mentions her quite a lot. Fontane says that's the only daughter they had, so I'm not sure how and if they are also related to the young lady who was with Amalie and died young of tuberculosis, which apparently inspired Fritz to write a poem to Amalie in 1770. ETA: Oh, I just realized that Fontane said they only had one daughter by the time Luwdig Casimir died, so I guess the woman who died in 1770 might have been his daughter as well.
Lehndorff also lists v. Hertefeld as one of the guys who carried AW's coffin.
mildred_of_midgard used this and other information to reconstruct Peter von Keith's succesful escape from Wesel on a map:
mildred_of_midgard: between this source, Seckendorff, and the Mylius report, I've got the following itinerary for Peter's flight!
Brün Gate (Wesel) - Dingden - Nijmegen - Rhenen - Utrecht - Hague (and of course the nearby port at Scheveningen, where everyone agrees he was smuggled to England from).
Also worth noting that Baron v. Hertefeld zu Boetzelaar near Xanten's family is from the area. Here's their family seat, and Xanten is just 15 km west of Wesel, just across the Rhine.
And the Brün gate (Brüner Tor) took some hunting, but I turned it up in this picture (upper right) on this page, which has great old black-and-white photos and maps and citadel plans of the old town!
Oh, wait, knowing exactly where to look, I found it on Google maps. Or at least a daycare centre named after it, because the gate is no longer there (the nearby Berliner Gate still stands). Kita Brüner Tor.
You can see the Rhine off to the lower left, and a horizontal dotted line just north of the Kita Brüner Tor that outlines that segment of the old city wall.
Now, just because Nicolai has eye witnesses doesn't, of course, mean what they say is 100& true. Not least because everyone is subjective as hell. Nowhere is this more evident than in Nicolai's Marquis D'Argens' based take on Friedrich's Sanssouci tableround, which is in volume 1.
After reprinting the two letters to Charlotte at the beginning of Volume 1, Nicolai tells the reader all about D'Argens, how much he rocked, and why he was Fritz' worthiest friend. Nicolai admits D'Argens was an excentric and a hypochondriac, but chides the people laughing at the Marquis for all the clothing he put on himself, saying they should consider how someone born in warm, sunny Provence would feel in freezing Berlin. He also praises the Marquis as a tender husband and the Marquise as a wonderful wife and attacks one Councillor Adelung, who recently published an encyclopedia about learned men, who claims that D'Argens had separated from his wife the ex ballet dancer. Nicolai (correctly) says this is pure slander and that the Marquise was with D'Argens till his death and still lives in Provence as an honored part of his family. (Correct. Also, we've seen EC reply to her condolence letter upon Fritz' death.) After some more general D'Argens characterisation, we get the dissing of everyone else from the "best and brightest" collection of Fritzian friends from the first 15 years. Here it is, and it's probably fair to say that this must be what D'Argens himself thought about his fellow knights of the Sanssouci table round:
Darget was an honest man who however felt burdened by having to stay near the King, and who was homesick for France; he highly esteemed the King, but he did not love him. De La Mettrie wasn't really held in high regard by the King. Instead, (Fritz) regarded him as a Clown who could amuse him entre deux vins now and then. De La Mettrie behaved very undignified towards the King; not only did he blab everywhere in Berlin about everything that was talked about at the King's table, he also narrated everything twistedly, with malicious addenda.
(Reminder: according to Voltaire, De La Mettrie was his source for the orange quote from Fritz.)
He especially liked to do this while dining with the then French envoy, Lord Tyrconnel, at whose table he died.
Algarotti, a very subtle man and very subtle politician, was pleased by Friedrich's company because the later was a King and a man of wit. The King held him in high regard and loved him very much for his good qualities; but Algarotti was more concerned with the esteem he gained by the King's friendship and did not love the King, which the later eventually realized.
Maupertuis, whom the King esteemed for his scientific abiliities and pleasant manners, was full of quirks and pretensions, and envious of everyone for whom the King had as much as a kind word, for he thought he'd lose whatever the other gained. He was never satisfied, and consequently caused great irritation to the King whom he annoyed with his quirks and who would have liked to see him content.
Voltaire, although the greatest writer of them all by far, was the most ungrateful towards the King. He was jealous of everyone whom the King preferred. His utmost bitterness resulted from believing the King didn't distinguish him enough from the other scholarly favourites. Full of pride and petulance, he often when everyone was in great spirits lashed out against the others in the King's company, which displeased the King himself not a few times; two times, when Voltaire had been too insolent, the King had to speak as a King, and Voltaire, as proud as he'd been, was now immediately humbled. But he avenged himself through impudent and partially false stories he spread behind the King's back.
(Footnote from Nicolai here: D'Argens once told me with the vivaciousness of a Provence man about Voltaire: Le Bastard a de l'esprit come trente, mais il est malicious come un vieux singe.)
(Only partially false stories, though, Nicolai? I can't help but note which ones you don't go on to refute....)
He boasted about correcting the King's writings, which as D'Argens has assured me wasn't true, except for individual words or sayings very occasionally, and yet (Voltaire) talked with contempt about said work.* It is certain that Voltaire made secret copies of the King's poems which had been entrusted to him in the strictest confidence, and that these poems first became known through him against the King's strict will. Thus, the King hasn't been wrong to have taken these copies from him in Frankfurt, for otherwise even more of them would have become known. The King did appreciate his extraordinary talent and loved him more than he ever deserved. As early as the Seven Years War, the King was corresponding with him again, and apparantly on good footing. From a distance of a hundred miles, this seems to have worked; but close up, it would have soon be over, and not through the King's fault, but solely Voltaire's. D'Argens said: Le Roi veut tacher de se faire aimer de lui, mais il ne réussira pas. It is telling of the Marquis D'Argens benevolent and agreeable character that he did not argue once with that impudent man while they were both around the King.
(* Physical evidence of Voltaire's thorough beta-reading rather argues against Nicolai and D'Argens here.)
And then we get Nicolai going on some more about how all these foreigners of the first 15 years (except for D'Argens) were purely exploitative and unworthy of poor, poor Fritz, who thought he could recover with them from the burdens of rulership. In his assurance that D'Argens was worthy and best beloved, Nicolai has to navigate around the fact that Fritz mocked D'Argens, too, and not a few times, but he assures his readers this had nothing to do as to why D'Argens eventually left, that was just for his health, and he's also sure that Fritz had resolved never to make jokes at D'Argens' expense again and D'Argens totally would have returned to the King's side when, alas, he died. Nicolai argues that the fact Fritz kept corresponding with D'Argens throughout his greatest trial, the 7 Years War, on a nearly daily basis shows how close the two men were, and how Fritz trusted him more than any other, while the fact D'Argens never schemed against anyone else, and kept all that Fritz entrusted to him secret, shows his worthy character. According to Nicolai, he locked himself in a room whenever a Fritzian letter arrived to read it on his own, and also that people peeping through keyholes (?!) saw repeatedly that D'Argens took off his two caps which he was otherwise wearing all the time before reading the letters.
Among the D'Argens anecdotes Nicolai tells is also the one about Fritz' non- public arrival in Berlin post war and D'Argens reaction to it, which Lehndorff writes about at the time, and the quote Nicolai gives of D'Argens' comment is literally the same Lehndorff notes down in his diary (which Nicolai can't have looked up); it's always neat when two independent sources back each other up on something.
Here's a story I hadn't seen anywhere else: When the new palace next to Sanssouci had been finished, the King had prepared an apartment there for the Marquis. One day he said very gracefully: he wanted to show the new apartment to (D'Argens) and the Marquise himself, and therefore invited them over for tea. Thus it happened; the King was in high spirits, showed them every detail of how comfortable their new rooms were, and at last said in the bedroom: he didn't want to stay too long, but wanted to leave the Marquis to his comfort and his nightcaps; and with a funny compliment, took his leave. Here Nicolai adds a footnote: As the Marquise was the sole woman to actually live in one of the King's palaces with her family, he wished her a new heir in this new apartment.
(In conclusion: frat boys are eternal.)
Then Nicolai gets nationalistic and swears that not only did D'Argens clue into the fact that German literature had started to happen (unlike Fritz), but that whenever someone French showed up in the hope D'Argens would get him a job with Fritz just because they were countryman, D'Argens said he wasn't French but had the honor of being German.
Finally, Nicolai uses the opportunity to pitch a work of his own. Due to his friendship with D'Argens, he had translated D'Argens Lettres Juives into German, which he said pleased the Marquis muchly, so much so he even when getting the proofs added some new passages. So the German edition of Lettres Juives has exlusive new text material, readers! Buy it!
(Book selling tactics are also eternal.)
One story in which the Marquis plays an undeniable noble part, but which is depressing and frustrating in what it says about the status of Jewish citizens in Frederician Prussia, is the tale of how Moses Mendelssohn, one of the foremost philosophers of his age, the likely model of Lessing's Nathan the Wise and grandfather of Felix the composer, got the "letter of protection", the Schutzbrief necessary for Jews to live in Berlin for reasons detailed in the story itself.
Moses Mendelsohn was introduced to the Marquis via Nicolai and they became friends.
My late friend Moses Mendelsohn met the Marquis through me around the year 1760, and became very fond of him due to hte later's good nature and naivite. For the Marquis' part, he esteemed the worthy Moses very highly, and they occasoinally had interesting discussions about philosophical subjects as well.
Now back then in Berlin lived a Jew named Raphael, a friend of Moses Mendelsohn's. He wasn't working in trade but solely as a teacher of languages, for he was fluent in French, Italian and English. Through various open speeches against some Jewish superstitons, he incurred the wrath of the rabbis and senior Jews, who wanted to expell him from Berlin. In order to get him some protection, Moses Mendelsohn introduced him to the Marquis, who became very fond of him, engaged him as a teacher of Hebrew, talked with him about literature on an almost daily basis, especially of German literature, and referred to him as his "angel Raphael". This was enough so that the Jewish Elders did not try to attack him outright.
During the conversations with Raphael, the Marquis also talked about tolerance. He expressed his amazement that intolerance should still exist in the state of Frederick the Great. He believed that the Jewish Elders had wanted to exploit the King's absence in order to banish Raphael from Berlin. He was therefore not a little amazed to learn that the Jewish Elders didn't just have the right but indeed the obligation by law to expell any Jew who did not either have a Schutzbrief or was working for a Jew with a Schutzbrief, without any other recourse to the law, within an hour of the police having received the first complaint about him.
(Footnote here from Nicolai: This happens in every city where a Jew does not have a protection privilege - Schutzprivilegium -, and so every foreign Jew is brought to the borders of the country at last. The point of the law is to make the Jew return to his place of birth where he has that protection. Raphael used to tell me: "I was born in a Polish village which was burned down. So I don't have a place of birth.")
The Marquis still couldn't understand that this law should be used without differentiation, and at last asked: "But our dear Moses surely would not fall prey to this?" Raphael replied: "Indeed he would. He only is currently tolerated because he's in the service of the Widow Bernhard. If she were to dismiss him, and he can't find another Jew with a Schutzbrief who takes him into their service, then he'd have to leave the city today if the Jewish Elders should denounce him to the police."
The Marquis was indignant. The noble Marquis could not bear the thought: that a philosophher, such a wise and learned man whom every man should highly esteem should be in daily danger to be humiliated in such a fashion. He did not want to believe it until Moses himself confirmed it to him, adding in the calm, noble manner that was his: "Socrates proved to his friend Kriton, too, that a wise man has the duty to die if the laws of the state demand it. I thus have to consider the laws of the state in which I live as benign by comparison, since they would only expell me, if in lack of another Jew with protection one of the trade Jews plying their trade in the Reezengasse won't take me into their service."
The Marquis was stunned to the utmost by this matter; and he resolved to write to the King about it even while the 7 Years War was still going on. He could barely be kept from doing so but at last accepted that this was not the time.
Once peace had been made, the Marquis thought about the matter and demanded that Moses Mendelsohn himself should write a petition which he would then personally give to the King, even though he otherwise never handed over petitions. Moses at first didn't want to do it. He said: "It pains me that I should have to ask for the right of my existence, which should be given to every human being living as a decent citizen. If the state sees cause to tolerate people of my nation only in very limited numbers, why should I be privileged among my brethren to demand an exception?"
However, Moses Mendelsohn's friends pointed out to him that he was the head of a family who had to take this step for their sake, as they depended on him. He finally was persuaded.
(Nicolai gives the full text of the petition.)
The Marquis handed over this petition himself in April 1763; but Moses received no reply. We were all thunderstruck by this; and I have to admit that the otherwise very gentle Moses was bristling, and accused us who had talked him into making this step of having acted wrongly. The matter kept hanging for a few months as the Marquis assumed the favour had already been granted, while Moses didn't want to do anything more, and didn't want to tell the Marquis about it, either, who was living in Potsdam. At last, in July 1763, the Marquis talked to one of Moses' friends about the matter and of the protection privilege which surely had been granted to Moses by now. The friend just shrugged and said that the King hadn't even bothered to reply to his petition. The Marquis didn't want to believe this; and when others confirmed it to him, he became very angry and exclaimed with his usual vivaciousness: "This is too much! That's not how I know him! But if he did this, he won't have done so without consequence from me!"
When the Marquis visited the King that evening, he started to chide him as soon as he had stepped into the room. The King, who didn't know what he was talking about, showed his amazement. "Oh!", the Marquis exclaimed, "Sire, you are otherwise known to keep your word! You know I demand so rarely something from you. Now I have asked a favour from you, not for me, but for the most righeous worthiest man. You promised to grant it! This is too wrong! I must be discontent!"
The King assured him that Moses had received the protection privilege. The Marquis swore Moses had never received an answer to his petition. At last, it became known that a mere misunderstanding was at the bottom of this. The King said that the petition had to have been lost through an unusual accident. Moses should write another petition, and he would order the protection letter to be written for him. "Very well, Sire," said the Marquis, "I will create this petition with my own hand. But don't lose it again." So Moses after the Marquis' repeated requests wrote another draft of his petition on July 19th, and the Marquis added to it in his own name: "Un philosophe mauvais catholique supplie un philosophe mauvais protestant, de donner le privilege a un philosophe mauvais juif. Il y a dans tout ceci trop the de philosophie, pour que la raison ne soit pas du coté de la demande."
Consequently, Moses received his letter of privilege on October 26th. The administrative treasury demanded a thousand Reichstaler of him as expenditure according to law. The King handwaved this sum in the following year, 1764. In the year 1779 Moses out of love for his children supplicated the King (to extend the privilege to them).(...) This, the King denied him. But King Friedrich Wilhelm II. has granted it upon the petition of the philosopher's widow in the year 1787.
The most depressing aspect? The only one aware that the law itself is wrong (i.e. that the crux isn't that exceptions for great thinkers should be made) is Moses Mendelsohn. :(
In order not to finish on this note, here's one last Nicolai anecdote from volume 1:
In the year 1785, the King talked with a worthy man about the manner in which a young prince should be raised so that he could become a good regent. Among other things about how a future regent had to learn early how to use his power, but also how not to abuse it. He added: "Several things by their very nature are of a matter that a regent must never extend his power to influence them. Chief among these: Religion and love!" This is in my opinion one of the truest and most noble thoughts the regent of a great realm has thought or said.
(Or, as Voltaire expressed it: The freedom of thought and of the penis.)
Nicolai volume 2: opens with another promise to be truthful and correct when necessary in the preface, which also says if he'd known Unger would provide the public with so much of the Prince de Ligne's Fritz-meets-Joseph memoir (you know, the one which contains among other things the priceless "Fritz dressed in white to spare Austrian feelings" story) , he wouldn't have included his own translation here, especially since Unger didn't cut as much as he, Nicolai, had to. (BTW, Unger's translation is in the volume 17-19 Mildred just put up in the library.)
Then we get the volume proper which opens with the Ligne memoir in edited form, with Nicolai's annotations. The best bits were already in both Volz and the "Fritz and MT as seen by their contemporaries" collection, so I already quoted them for you.
Nicolai has a major section about FW and music, opening by telling the readers that they may be surprised to learn FW didn't hate music per se, there was some music he liked.
True, he fired all the royal musicians he inherited from F1 except for Gottfried Pepusch, whom he made head of the regiment's choir of the Tall Fellows. Said regiment musicians were also the ones he had playing for him if he wanted to listen to music.
(FW: finding a way to save money, look at Tall Men and enjoy music at the same time. Gotta respect that.)
Nicolai next says FW loved Händel, which I had heard before - "Der Thronfolger" has Fritz mention this followed by the sarcastic remark that what this means is that FW can fall asleep when listening to Händel - , but not Händel's operas (opera performance in FW's Prussia? Hell to the no!) per se, just individual arias and choir pieces, which, however, he didn't want to be sung to him but played in an arrangement on the oboe. His favourites were the arias and choir pieces from Händel's operas "Alessandro" and "Siroe", which had to be played for him over a hundred times. And now I have to quote Nicolai directly.
The way these pieces were performed as that the main oboists and their conductor, with the necessary pults and candles, were standing at one end of a very large room, and the King was sitting on the other, completely alone. Now sometimes it happened that he started to fall asleep in the evening, especially if he'd eaten well or if he'd drunk a bit too strongly while the music played. However, one couldn't trust him. For often the musicians, upon noticing he'd fallen asleep, skipped several arias in order to finish earlier. No sooner did they try that he opened his eyes and called "But you're leaving something out". Or he called "The aria - is missing" and sang the beginning of this aria." That's how well he knew Händel's operas by heart. But if he didn't notice, the musicians used to play the final choir especially loudly and strongly so that the King had to wake up for the finale. If he didn't order any further music, the performance was over. But if upon awaking he thought that the music hadn't lasted long enough, he ordered the already performed opera to be played from the beginning, and then they really didn't dare to leave something out.
(Source for these and other stories: Fritz via Quantz who told Nicolai.)
Nicolai mentions Fritz' depressed poems from the 7 Years War (among others, one to D'Argens) and since some of Voltaire's letters have now been printed, including two from that era where he urges Fritz to live, says that a sensitive heart could almost forgive Voltaire his dastardly behavior towards Fritz for the sake of these letters.
Otoh, he attacks "the author of the Vie Privée du Roi de Prusse, most likely Voltaire" for slandering Fritz re: the Battle of Mollwitz, and for others following suit. Reminder: the issue here is that Fritz was persuaded by Schwerin to retire from the battlefield and the battle was one without him. Nicolai furiously defends Fritz from the charge of cowardice and says geography alone proves he can't have gotten as far as Ratibor, and anyway, everyone knows Fritz was the bravest! Nicholai then gives an account of the battle and does say Fritz never forgave Schwerin for having made the suggestion or himself for listening, which strikes me as accurate.
As Nicolai likes the Prince du Ligne's memoir about Fritz very much, he only has two mild corrections: one, that of course Prussian officers were all fluent in French and if some spoke German with the Marchese de Lucchessini, it's not because they didn't know French but because Lucchessini is fluent in German, and two, about the Antinuous statue. (For the full story of the "Antinous" statue as relating to Friedrich II. and Katte, see Mildred's write up here. )
Regarding the arbor in which the beautiful antique bronze statue of Antinuous that originally was brought from Vienna used to stand*
*here Nicolai makes a footnote, correctly stating the previous owners were Joseph Wenzel von Lichtenstein and Prince Eugene, and another footnote to explain that "the now ruling King did not want to expose this statue as well as the two beautiful antique copies from Bouchardon which used to stand near the Japanese house to the weather any longer and thus had them brought to the new rooms in the Berlin town palace"
there is no doubt that the King on hot summer afternoons, when he sacrificed to the muses, often has sat in front of the beautiful antique statue in this cool harbor. But the Prince de Ligne seems to insinuate upon mentioning this statue as well as at other times that the relaxations of the King were solely of a cheerful and sensual manner. One would wrong this great man if one were to assume he'd found his enjoyment mainly in this. True, the merrry spirit of the King, which expresses itself in his writings and especially in his youthful correspondences, would not contradict this assumption. He himself says -
(Nicolai quotes from several Fritz poems praising Epicure)
It was this cheerful mindset which, as I have observed repeatedly, enabled the mind of the great man to endure through the greatest misfortunes and under the strongest concerns. It is perhaps, understood correctly, no more noble philosophy of the enjoyment of life than to open the heart to pleasure and what Horace calls "Dulce desipere in loco", but only to enjoy it on the surface, while going deeply in serious matters. Frederick the Great was able to unite both approaches to a large extent. He knew to enjoy pleasures of all types, but he also could at the appropriate time res severa gaudium. Serious thoughts were with him even in his most cheerful and high spirited hours, for these were only the spice to his serious ponderings. Even the above named statue of Antinous may serve as an example of this. It was there, and he enjoyed the beauty of this wonderful monument now and then; but it wasn't this statue which was the focus of his main attention in this particular area.
Nicolai now explains Sanssouci geography to everyone who hasn't visited and points out that Fritz would have looked at his chosen grave. Which he feels entitled to talk about since Büsching mentioned it first. Nicolai correctly describes the vault and the Flora statue with it and says D'Argens had told him 20 years ago already that Fritz wanted to be buried there, but he, Nicolai, kept mum until Büsching's publication. He then reports that this vault was probably the reason why Fritz called Sanssouci Sanssouci to begin with, and tells the anecdote of Fritz saying to D'Argens "Quand je serai là, je serai Sanssouci". (I.e. this is the original source for that story, mes amies.)
It takes not a little strength of mind to build one's grave in front of one's eyes at one's lonely and peaceful summer house, without letting anyone know and thus without pretensions, and to hide it beneath the statue of the flower goddess. Friedrich thus had always his death in front of him during his lonely summer pleasures, and thus knew how to unite his idea of it with both the cheeful enjoyment of life and the consideration of his duties. He didn't bring the statue of Antinous to this place until long after he had built his vault there. The later thus was much more in his regard than the former, as were his duties more than his pleasures.
Now, Nicolai saying Antinous comes up in Ligne's Fritz memoir made me check out Unger's rendition of same, and the passage in question which Nicolai took as an occasion to correct is:
The King was used to chat with the Marchese Lucchesini in the presence of four or five generals who didn't speak French, and he rewarded himself for the hours in which he worked, pondered and read by visiting his garden, where opposite of the door was the statue of the young and beautiful Antinous.
That's it, and Ligne doesn't say whether he learned this from Fritz while talking to him (he met him more than that one time at Neisse) or whether he observed it himself.
Spreaking of Friedrich's lonely hours, volume 2 also contains the inevitable dog anecdote:
Just like the King chose among his snuff boxes those he liked best, he chose among his greyhounds the companions of his lonely hours. Those who conducted themselves best were taken with him during the carnival times to Berlin.
(Reminder: The carnival lasted from December til March in Frederician Prussia. As Sanssouci was a summer palace, Fritz spent that time in the city palace in Berlin.)
They were driven to Berlin in a six hourse equipage supervised by a so called royal little footman who was in charge of their feeding and care. One assures us that this footman always took the backseat so the dogs could take the front seat, and always adressed the dogs with "Sie", as in: "Biche, seien Sie doch artig!" (Biche, be good), and "Alcmene, bellen Sie doch nicht so" (Alcmene, don't bark so much!)"
Nicolai finishes the volume by dissing Zimmermann's first Fritz publication; this, and the war between them is the subject of another post.
The condoling letter is very Fritz (in a mild way way, I hasten to add): we must all die, alas, be a philosopher, accept it, even though I totally feel your pain as a tender mother, live for me, you are the happiness of my life. On to the juicy parts. The following text excerpts mostly hail from volumes 1, 2 and 6.
Perhaps the most famous anecdote involving Katte which isn't related to his death is the following, which Nicolai had directly from Quantz:
In the summer of the year 1730, shortly before the King undertook the journey with the Crown Prince which was to lead them through the Empire until Wesel, where the Crown Prince had intended to escape to England, followed by the known unfortunate results, Quantz - - Nicolai spells it Quanz all the time, btw - , too, was in Berlin, in order to play with the Crown Prince sometimes early in the morning around 6 am, but usually always in the afternoon from 4 until 7 pm. The discontent between the King and the Crown Prince was already very high at that point, and the Prince back then sought to be the opposite of what his father was in most things. In the morning, he had to submit to force as far as his exterior was concerned. The tight uniform, the simple curled hair, the stiff tail, the serious soldier's step weren't to his taste, but he had to accept them. Only after lunch, once he was left in his rooms on his own, he wanted to live there as he pleased. Thus, he usually had his hair styled according to the then current fashion, used a Haarbeutel and wore a dressing gown made of golden brocade; and thus he studied and played the flute.
The Crown Prince was dressed in this fashion one day, and Quantz was playing with him, when suddenly the later doomed Herr von Katte, the Crown Prince's favourite, hurried into the room and frightened reported that the King was coming and was already very close. Now the Crown Prince's passion for books and music had not been hidden to the King. Both were repellent to him, and he wanted to surprise the Crown Prince. Katte took the boxes with the flutes in the greatest hurry, and the scores, took the extremely frightened Quantz by the hand and jumped with him and the boxes in a small cabinet where they usually stored material to heat the stoves with. Here, they had to remain for over an hour, and Quantz, who told me the whole story himself, trembled, even more so since he was wearing a red coat; a color which the King hated. The Crown Prince had dressed into the uniform in the greatest hurry, but he couldn't get rid of the Haarbeutel as quickly, and thus it is easy to guess how disturbing this encounter must have been. The King soon discovered the hidden shelves behind the tapestry where the books and the dressing gowns were kept. The later, he had thrown into the fireplace at once, as for the books, he ordered them to be sold to the bookstore owner Haude. The later kept the books as a service to the Crown Prince, who ordered them to be taken to him one by one, according to his needs, until his complete library could be restored to him.
Quantz finally was freed from his tight corner once the King had left; but he was extremely careful during his subsequent visits to Berlin; he especially took care never to wear a red coat again, but only a grey or a blue one.
Note that in many subsequent renderings, it became Fritz who was wearing red, not Quantz. But this is the original version. Regarding the relationship between Quantz and Fritz as King, perhaps the most telling one is a story that goes thusly: Quantz makes a new flute for Fritz, Fritz plays but makes mistakes, promptly blames the flute, Quanz checks the flute again and says no, the flute is good, Fritz says it's not true and shouts, they don't talk for a week during which Quanz withholds applause and approval, after eight days, Fritz caves and says okay, yes, it was him, not the flute, Quanz is "okay, then let's practice". Also, Quantz once said ruefully about Fritz as a person and why despite their ups and downs he can't bring himself to leave him, that he'd miss him if he left: Ich hätte nicht gedacht,dass mir der Mensch so nötig wäre. ("I wouldn't have thought that I need this man so much.")
(
mildred_of_midgard: Ahhh, this is cool, because that's one of the most famous anecdotes to include Katte (I even got Mobster AU author to include a modern AU variant in her backstory!), but I didn't know where we got it from. I mean, I knew it was a story Quantz told later, but not who he told or how it came down to us. Via Nicolai, who had a lot of contact with Quantz and names his sources is pretty good! (I mean, not necessarily for every single detail, but for this event happening.)Katte took the boxes with the flutes in the greatest hurry, and the scores, took the extremely frightened Quantz by the hand and jumped with him and the boxes in a small cabinet where they usually stored material to heat the stoves with.
Nice bit of characterization, though. Quantz is frozen with panic (it sounds like), and Katte is ON IT. Just what I would expect of him. <3 And that's even more interesting given that Quantz is the narrator and has no incentive to make Katte sound better at his own expense.
selenak: Quite! It heightens the plausibility of the whole event and the reliability of Quantz as a narrator to no end. (...)BTW, since Quantz at this point has a well paid job in Saxony and is making these trips to Berlin solely for Fritz' sake, you can tell how emotionally invested he must have been, to put up with the prospect of angry FW. (Who'd have thought nothing of beating up a mere commoner and musician, one assumes.) mildred_of_midgard: Indeed, and you can also tell that he was completely unprepared. I have the impression that Katte is either a very quick thinker, or else he's done something like this before, and the latter seems quite likely.Quite! It heightens the plausibility of the whole event and the reliability of Quantz as a narrator to no end.
Exactly!)
Nicolai's version of the 1730 escape attempt, in which he refutes some other versions as told in 1792 (this story is from the last volume, VI), consists of a letter written to him by a son of one of Katte's regiment comrades, Hertefeld, narrating his father's story. More about who said father was below, but first, the letter itself and Nicolai's introduction.
Nicolai speaking: I previously didn't dare to protest against the commonly shared tale that (Katte) had been with the King and the Crown Prince in Wesel. But now Landrat Baron v. Hertefeld zu Boetzelaar near Xanten has been kind enough to share with me from the trustworthy narration of his late father the true circumstances of the arrest of the unfortunate Herr v. Katte. I believe my readers will thank me for sharing the both interesting and trustworthy news in this gentleman's own words.
"My father, born in the year 1709, served in the year 1730 with the Gens d'Armes at a Lieutenant, together with his unfortunate friend, Lieutenant von Katte. The later, Lieutenant von Keith and Lieutenant von Spaen were the confidants of the then crown prince, who were meant to support his escape to England. Katte remained in Berlin and was supposed to follow the Crown Prince via Leipzig through the HRE. Keith, who was stationed in Wesel, had the task to prepare the flight. Spaen, then a Lieutenant with the tall guard at Potsdam, knew about the plans but had no active part in them. The escape of the Crown Prince was supposed to happen in the moment when the King departed from Wesel; for as the Crown Prince usually travelled behind the King from their various stops, he would have won a few hours before his escape became known to the King.
Katte had taken a leave of absence when the King had departed from Berlin in order to visit the countryside. He delayed his departure to the date when he supposed the King would arrive at Wesel, and the need to repair his carriage kept him a day longer than he wanted in Berlin. At the evening of his departure he met Major v. Asseburg from the Gens d'Armes who told him with a frightened face: "Are you still here? I am amazed!"
Katte replied to him: I travel this very night. Asseburg knew that a courier had brought the news of the Crown Prince's arrest, but he couldn't say more due to the distrust which was then dominating in Berlin. At night, Colonel von Pannewitz, the commander of the Gens d'Armes, received the order to arrest Lieutenant von Katte; he delayed this until morning in the hope Katte would have been escaped by then, then he sent the regiment's AD to him who still found him and brought him the order to immediately report to the Colonel. At 8 o'clock in the morning my father, who had then guard duty, the order to send a subaltern officer and four men to the Colonel's quarters; and at half past 8 Katte was brought in the Colonel's carriage in the company of the AD and the guard to my father in the Gens d'Armes guards house, with the order: he was now responsible for the prisoner with his head, to be transmitted from one officer on guard's duty to the next.
When Katte was transported to Küstrin, my father took leave of him with the words: j'espére de vous revoir bientot; and (Katte) replied: Non, mon ami, le Tyran demande du sang. He gave my father some books as presents in which he'd written his name, as a souvenir, and I still own some of them.
Spaen was arrested the very same day at Potsdam by Colonel von Kneseback. After Katte's death, he was casheered, and brought to Spandau for a yar; immedately after his release, he went to the Netherlands to serve there, and died in the year 1768 at his country estate Bellevue near KLeve, as a Generalmajor in Dutch service. He told everyone that the Crown Prince had planned to go to England in order to marry an English Princess; and that, if Katte had managed to escape, he himself would have lost his head for sure, since the raging King would have demanded another sacrifice. Frederick the Great had done nothing for Spaen after his ascension; but when he travelled to Kleve in the year 1763, he did take lodgings with General von Spaen, was very gracious and confidential towards him, reminded him of stories of their shared youth, but did not mention the year 1730 with one word; which is why General von Spaen used to joke that the King had an excellent memory right up to 1730.
Keith had been in Wesel when the Crown Prince was arrested. The later found means and ways to send a note to him, on which he'd written with a pencil: Sauvez-vous, tout es découvert. Keith recognizes the handwriting, goes to his stable, puts his saddle on his horse himself and under the pretense of a leisurely ride he happily leaves through the Brün Gate, from which he gallops until Dingden, the first village belonging to Münster, one mile away from Wesel; from there, he hurries through upper Wesel county straight the The Hague, where he goes to an ambassador - I forgot whether my father said it was the English or the French ambassador -, tells him of his fate, and pleads for his protection. The envoy promises said protection to him, and escorts him personally to the mansard roof, and orders his valet to serve this gentleman exclusively, and not to tell anyone else that there is a stranger lodging in this house. The envoy advised Keith to go to England and from there to Portugal, where foreign officers were sought after.
Meanwhile, the King was angry to the utmost degree that Keith had escaped him. At once Colonel von Dumoulin, later General lieutenant von Dumoulin, had to take up the pursuit of Keith, and he was given a letter to the King's envoy at the Hague, which ordered the later to assist Dumoulin in demanding Keith should be surrendered. Dumoulin and Meinertzhagen learned that one day a foreign officer had arrived and had gone to the envoy in question, without ever having been seen again. Their spies told them that in the mansard roof of the envoy's house, light was burning late at night, and that this room had not been used before. From these circumstances they concluded that Keith was hiding at the envoy's, and now their spy didn't let the envoy's house out of his sight. The envoy learned of this and that Keith's habit of reading late at night had given him away.
The following morning, the envoy came to Keith and told him: You are betrayed. Your King has spies after you, so be ready, I'll bring you to Scheveningen today, and everything there is ready for your transport to England. In the evening, he brought Keith in his own carriage to Scheveningen, and gave him letters of reccomendation for London, and didn't leave him until he saw him depart on a fisherman's boat. Keith happily arrived in England, from where he went into Portueguese service armed with reccommendations from the court. A few days later, Dumoulin learned by accident that Keith had escaped. He had gone to Scheveningen in order to see the fishermen arrive and was surprised that they dared to brave the sea in such little boats. One of the fishermen told him: With such a boat, we even make the trip to England; I'm just returning from there, and have transported a foreign officer. Dumoulin demanded a description of the officer, and from the circumstance that said man had been crosseyed, he concluded that it had been Keith.
Keith returned to Berlin in the year 1741, was appointed Colonel lieutenant and Master of the Horse, and became curator at the Academy of Sciences. My father knew Herr von Keith very well, and was told by him the way of his escape.
V. Hertefeld."
felis: Okay, so I think Nicolai's source is Friedrich Leopold von Hertefeld, son of Ludwig Casimir von Hertefeld. Who doesn't have wiki entry of his own, but Fontane is helpful in this case, see these excerpts, which cover Ludwig Casimir. Most important bit translated:Ludwig Casimir was born in 1709 and joined the Gensdarmes regiment in 1728, so he was a regimental comrade of Hans Hermann von Katte for two more years. In 1743, after having participated in the First Silesian War, he resigned from the service. Again seven years later, in 1750, he became chamberlain to the widowed Queen Sophie Dorothee, mother of Frederick the Great, and remained in this position until her death in 1757.
Fontane also says he was into books and built a library building on his Liebenberg estate. He went back to Boetzlaer (near Xanten and Kleve) in 1777 and died in 1790.
So I strongly suspect that he got to know Peter while he was chamberlain for SD.
Lehndorff by the way? Not impressed:
April 15th, 1753. I get up at three to go to Potsdam; a journey I would dislike if I wouldn't find my dear Prince Heinrich there. My travelling companion is Herr v. Hertefeld, chamberlain of the queen-mother, a very unpleasant man and a babbler ["Schwätzer"] like a woman.
and:
April 4th, 1756. [...] He is a guy who is judged unfavourably by people. He left service during the war und spent six years living quietly on his estate. Finally the queen-mother chose him for chamberlain on recommendation of Chancellor [Cocceji]'s wife, who is his wife's sister, an excellent, witty, and amiable woman, only her voice has something from a dragoon.
Von Hertefeld's wife = Susanne von Bechefer (see this wiki article about v. Hertefeld's father Samuel, who himself held a couple of positions during FW's time).
I think Lehndorff is still talking about Cocceji's wife with his description, it's a bit ambiguous even in German, but he definitely likes v. Hertefeld's wife a lot more than the guy, see also this entry from September the same year: Hertefeld with his special gift to bore his listeners only likes those who have the patience to listen to him. and again in December: the man is as unpleasant as his wife is the opposite. One of their daughters seems to have been lady-in-waiting with EC, Lehndorff mentions her quite a lot. Fontane says that's the only daughter they had, so I'm not sure how and if they are also related to the young lady who was with Amalie and died young of tuberculosis, which apparently inspired Fritz to write a poem to Amalie in 1770. ETA: Oh, I just realized that Fontane said they only had one daughter by the time Luwdig Casimir died, so I guess the woman who died in 1770 might have been his daughter as well.
Lehndorff also lists v. Hertefeld as one of the guys who carried AW's coffin.
mildred_of_midgard used this and other information to reconstruct Peter von Keith's succesful escape from Wesel on a map: mildred_of_midgard: between this source, Seckendorff, and the Mylius report, I've got the following itinerary for Peter's flight!Brün Gate (Wesel) - Dingden - Nijmegen - Rhenen - Utrecht - Hague (and of course the nearby port at Scheveningen, where everyone agrees he was smuggled to England from).
Also worth noting that Baron v. Hertefeld zu Boetzelaar near Xanten's family is from the area. Here's their family seat, and Xanten is just 15 km west of Wesel, just across the Rhine.
And the Brün gate (Brüner Tor) took some hunting, but I turned it up in this picture (upper right) on this page, which has great old black-and-white photos and maps and citadel plans of the old town!
Oh, wait, knowing exactly where to look, I found it on Google maps. Or at least a daycare centre named after it, because the gate is no longer there (the nearby Berliner Gate still stands). Kita Brüner Tor.
You can see the Rhine off to the lower left, and a horizontal dotted line just north of the Kita Brüner Tor that outlines that segment of the old city wall.
Now, just because Nicolai has eye witnesses doesn't, of course, mean what they say is 100& true. Not least because everyone is subjective as hell. Nowhere is this more evident than in Nicolai's Marquis D'Argens' based take on Friedrich's Sanssouci tableround, which is in volume 1.
After reprinting the two letters to Charlotte at the beginning of Volume 1, Nicolai tells the reader all about D'Argens, how much he rocked, and why he was Fritz' worthiest friend. Nicolai admits D'Argens was an excentric and a hypochondriac, but chides the people laughing at the Marquis for all the clothing he put on himself, saying they should consider how someone born in warm, sunny Provence would feel in freezing Berlin. He also praises the Marquis as a tender husband and the Marquise as a wonderful wife and attacks one Councillor Adelung, who recently published an encyclopedia about learned men, who claims that D'Argens had separated from his wife the ex ballet dancer. Nicolai (correctly) says this is pure slander and that the Marquise was with D'Argens till his death and still lives in Provence as an honored part of his family. (Correct. Also, we've seen EC reply to her condolence letter upon Fritz' death.) After some more general D'Argens characterisation, we get the dissing of everyone else from the "best and brightest" collection of Fritzian friends from the first 15 years. Here it is, and it's probably fair to say that this must be what D'Argens himself thought about his fellow knights of the Sanssouci table round:
Darget was an honest man who however felt burdened by having to stay near the King, and who was homesick for France; he highly esteemed the King, but he did not love him. De La Mettrie wasn't really held in high regard by the King. Instead, (Fritz) regarded him as a Clown who could amuse him entre deux vins now and then. De La Mettrie behaved very undignified towards the King; not only did he blab everywhere in Berlin about everything that was talked about at the King's table, he also narrated everything twistedly, with malicious addenda.
(Reminder: according to Voltaire, De La Mettrie was his source for the orange quote from Fritz.)
He especially liked to do this while dining with the then French envoy, Lord Tyrconnel, at whose table he died.
Algarotti, a very subtle man and very subtle politician, was pleased by Friedrich's company because the later was a King and a man of wit. The King held him in high regard and loved him very much for his good qualities; but Algarotti was more concerned with the esteem he gained by the King's friendship and did not love the King, which the later eventually realized.
Maupertuis, whom the King esteemed for his scientific abiliities and pleasant manners, was full of quirks and pretensions, and envious of everyone for whom the King had as much as a kind word, for he thought he'd lose whatever the other gained. He was never satisfied, and consequently caused great irritation to the King whom he annoyed with his quirks and who would have liked to see him content.
Voltaire, although the greatest writer of them all by far, was the most ungrateful towards the King. He was jealous of everyone whom the King preferred. His utmost bitterness resulted from believing the King didn't distinguish him enough from the other scholarly favourites. Full of pride and petulance, he often when everyone was in great spirits lashed out against the others in the King's company, which displeased the King himself not a few times; two times, when Voltaire had been too insolent, the King had to speak as a King, and Voltaire, as proud as he'd been, was now immediately humbled. But he avenged himself through impudent and partially false stories he spread behind the King's back.
(Footnote from Nicolai here: D'Argens once told me with the vivaciousness of a Provence man about Voltaire: Le Bastard a de l'esprit come trente, mais il est malicious come un vieux singe.)
(Only partially false stories, though, Nicolai? I can't help but note which ones you don't go on to refute....)
He boasted about correcting the King's writings, which as D'Argens has assured me wasn't true, except for individual words or sayings very occasionally, and yet (Voltaire) talked with contempt about said work.* It is certain that Voltaire made secret copies of the King's poems which had been entrusted to him in the strictest confidence, and that these poems first became known through him against the King's strict will. Thus, the King hasn't been wrong to have taken these copies from him in Frankfurt, for otherwise even more of them would have become known. The King did appreciate his extraordinary talent and loved him more than he ever deserved. As early as the Seven Years War, the King was corresponding with him again, and apparantly on good footing. From a distance of a hundred miles, this seems to have worked; but close up, it would have soon be over, and not through the King's fault, but solely Voltaire's. D'Argens said: Le Roi veut tacher de se faire aimer de lui, mais il ne réussira pas. It is telling of the Marquis D'Argens benevolent and agreeable character that he did not argue once with that impudent man while they were both around the King.
(* Physical evidence of Voltaire's thorough beta-reading rather argues against Nicolai and D'Argens here.)
And then we get Nicolai going on some more about how all these foreigners of the first 15 years (except for D'Argens) were purely exploitative and unworthy of poor, poor Fritz, who thought he could recover with them from the burdens of rulership. In his assurance that D'Argens was worthy and best beloved, Nicolai has to navigate around the fact that Fritz mocked D'Argens, too, and not a few times, but he assures his readers this had nothing to do as to why D'Argens eventually left, that was just for his health, and he's also sure that Fritz had resolved never to make jokes at D'Argens' expense again and D'Argens totally would have returned to the King's side when, alas, he died. Nicolai argues that the fact Fritz kept corresponding with D'Argens throughout his greatest trial, the 7 Years War, on a nearly daily basis shows how close the two men were, and how Fritz trusted him more than any other, while the fact D'Argens never schemed against anyone else, and kept all that Fritz entrusted to him secret, shows his worthy character. According to Nicolai, he locked himself in a room whenever a Fritzian letter arrived to read it on his own, and also that people peeping through keyholes (?!) saw repeatedly that D'Argens took off his two caps which he was otherwise wearing all the time before reading the letters.
Among the D'Argens anecdotes Nicolai tells is also the one about Fritz' non- public arrival in Berlin post war and D'Argens reaction to it, which Lehndorff writes about at the time, and the quote Nicolai gives of D'Argens' comment is literally the same Lehndorff notes down in his diary (which Nicolai can't have looked up); it's always neat when two independent sources back each other up on something.
Here's a story I hadn't seen anywhere else: When the new palace next to Sanssouci had been finished, the King had prepared an apartment there for the Marquis. One day he said very gracefully: he wanted to show the new apartment to (D'Argens) and the Marquise himself, and therefore invited them over for tea. Thus it happened; the King was in high spirits, showed them every detail of how comfortable their new rooms were, and at last said in the bedroom: he didn't want to stay too long, but wanted to leave the Marquis to his comfort and his nightcaps; and with a funny compliment, took his leave. Here Nicolai adds a footnote: As the Marquise was the sole woman to actually live in one of the King's palaces with her family, he wished her a new heir in this new apartment.
(In conclusion: frat boys are eternal.)
Then Nicolai gets nationalistic and swears that not only did D'Argens clue into the fact that German literature had started to happen (unlike Fritz), but that whenever someone French showed up in the hope D'Argens would get him a job with Fritz just because they were countryman, D'Argens said he wasn't French but had the honor of being German.
Finally, Nicolai uses the opportunity to pitch a work of his own. Due to his friendship with D'Argens, he had translated D'Argens Lettres Juives into German, which he said pleased the Marquis muchly, so much so he even when getting the proofs added some new passages. So the German edition of Lettres Juives has exlusive new text material, readers! Buy it!
(Book selling tactics are also eternal.)
One story in which the Marquis plays an undeniable noble part, but which is depressing and frustrating in what it says about the status of Jewish citizens in Frederician Prussia, is the tale of how Moses Mendelssohn, one of the foremost philosophers of his age, the likely model of Lessing's Nathan the Wise and grandfather of Felix the composer, got the "letter of protection", the Schutzbrief necessary for Jews to live in Berlin for reasons detailed in the story itself.
Moses Mendelsohn was introduced to the Marquis via Nicolai and they became friends.
My late friend Moses Mendelsohn met the Marquis through me around the year 1760, and became very fond of him due to hte later's good nature and naivite. For the Marquis' part, he esteemed the worthy Moses very highly, and they occasoinally had interesting discussions about philosophical subjects as well.
Now back then in Berlin lived a Jew named Raphael, a friend of Moses Mendelsohn's. He wasn't working in trade but solely as a teacher of languages, for he was fluent in French, Italian and English. Through various open speeches against some Jewish superstitons, he incurred the wrath of the rabbis and senior Jews, who wanted to expell him from Berlin. In order to get him some protection, Moses Mendelsohn introduced him to the Marquis, who became very fond of him, engaged him as a teacher of Hebrew, talked with him about literature on an almost daily basis, especially of German literature, and referred to him as his "angel Raphael". This was enough so that the Jewish Elders did not try to attack him outright.
During the conversations with Raphael, the Marquis also talked about tolerance. He expressed his amazement that intolerance should still exist in the state of Frederick the Great. He believed that the Jewish Elders had wanted to exploit the King's absence in order to banish Raphael from Berlin. He was therefore not a little amazed to learn that the Jewish Elders didn't just have the right but indeed the obligation by law to expell any Jew who did not either have a Schutzbrief or was working for a Jew with a Schutzbrief, without any other recourse to the law, within an hour of the police having received the first complaint about him.
(Footnote here from Nicolai: This happens in every city where a Jew does not have a protection privilege - Schutzprivilegium -, and so every foreign Jew is brought to the borders of the country at last. The point of the law is to make the Jew return to his place of birth where he has that protection. Raphael used to tell me: "I was born in a Polish village which was burned down. So I don't have a place of birth.")
The Marquis still couldn't understand that this law should be used without differentiation, and at last asked: "But our dear Moses surely would not fall prey to this?" Raphael replied: "Indeed he would. He only is currently tolerated because he's in the service of the Widow Bernhard. If she were to dismiss him, and he can't find another Jew with a Schutzbrief who takes him into their service, then he'd have to leave the city today if the Jewish Elders should denounce him to the police."
The Marquis was indignant. The noble Marquis could not bear the thought: that a philosophher, such a wise and learned man whom every man should highly esteem should be in daily danger to be humiliated in such a fashion. He did not want to believe it until Moses himself confirmed it to him, adding in the calm, noble manner that was his: "Socrates proved to his friend Kriton, too, that a wise man has the duty to die if the laws of the state demand it. I thus have to consider the laws of the state in which I live as benign by comparison, since they would only expell me, if in lack of another Jew with protection one of the trade Jews plying their trade in the Reezengasse won't take me into their service."
The Marquis was stunned to the utmost by this matter; and he resolved to write to the King about it even while the 7 Years War was still going on. He could barely be kept from doing so but at last accepted that this was not the time.
Once peace had been made, the Marquis thought about the matter and demanded that Moses Mendelsohn himself should write a petition which he would then personally give to the King, even though he otherwise never handed over petitions. Moses at first didn't want to do it. He said: "It pains me that I should have to ask for the right of my existence, which should be given to every human being living as a decent citizen. If the state sees cause to tolerate people of my nation only in very limited numbers, why should I be privileged among my brethren to demand an exception?"
However, Moses Mendelsohn's friends pointed out to him that he was the head of a family who had to take this step for their sake, as they depended on him. He finally was persuaded.
(Nicolai gives the full text of the petition.)
The Marquis handed over this petition himself in April 1763; but Moses received no reply. We were all thunderstruck by this; and I have to admit that the otherwise very gentle Moses was bristling, and accused us who had talked him into making this step of having acted wrongly. The matter kept hanging for a few months as the Marquis assumed the favour had already been granted, while Moses didn't want to do anything more, and didn't want to tell the Marquis about it, either, who was living in Potsdam. At last, in July 1763, the Marquis talked to one of Moses' friends about the matter and of the protection privilege which surely had been granted to Moses by now. The friend just shrugged and said that the King hadn't even bothered to reply to his petition. The Marquis didn't want to believe this; and when others confirmed it to him, he became very angry and exclaimed with his usual vivaciousness: "This is too much! That's not how I know him! But if he did this, he won't have done so without consequence from me!"
When the Marquis visited the King that evening, he started to chide him as soon as he had stepped into the room. The King, who didn't know what he was talking about, showed his amazement. "Oh!", the Marquis exclaimed, "Sire, you are otherwise known to keep your word! You know I demand so rarely something from you. Now I have asked a favour from you, not for me, but for the most righeous worthiest man. You promised to grant it! This is too wrong! I must be discontent!"
The King assured him that Moses had received the protection privilege. The Marquis swore Moses had never received an answer to his petition. At last, it became known that a mere misunderstanding was at the bottom of this. The King said that the petition had to have been lost through an unusual accident. Moses should write another petition, and he would order the protection letter to be written for him. "Very well, Sire," said the Marquis, "I will create this petition with my own hand. But don't lose it again." So Moses after the Marquis' repeated requests wrote another draft of his petition on July 19th, and the Marquis added to it in his own name: "Un philosophe mauvais catholique supplie un philosophe mauvais protestant, de donner le privilege a un philosophe mauvais juif. Il y a dans tout ceci trop the de philosophie, pour que la raison ne soit pas du coté de la demande."
Consequently, Moses received his letter of privilege on October 26th. The administrative treasury demanded a thousand Reichstaler of him as expenditure according to law. The King handwaved this sum in the following year, 1764. In the year 1779 Moses out of love for his children supplicated the King (to extend the privilege to them).(...) This, the King denied him. But King Friedrich Wilhelm II. has granted it upon the petition of the philosopher's widow in the year 1787.
The most depressing aspect? The only one aware that the law itself is wrong (i.e. that the crux isn't that exceptions for great thinkers should be made) is Moses Mendelsohn. :(
In order not to finish on this note, here's one last Nicolai anecdote from volume 1:
In the year 1785, the King talked with a worthy man about the manner in which a young prince should be raised so that he could become a good regent. Among other things about how a future regent had to learn early how to use his power, but also how not to abuse it. He added: "Several things by their very nature are of a matter that a regent must never extend his power to influence them. Chief among these: Religion and love!" This is in my opinion one of the truest and most noble thoughts the regent of a great realm has thought or said.
(Or, as Voltaire expressed it: The freedom of thought and of the penis.)
Nicolai volume 2: opens with another promise to be truthful and correct when necessary in the preface, which also says if he'd known Unger would provide the public with so much of the Prince de Ligne's Fritz-meets-Joseph memoir (you know, the one which contains among other things the priceless "Fritz dressed in white to spare Austrian feelings" story) , he wouldn't have included his own translation here, especially since Unger didn't cut as much as he, Nicolai, had to. (BTW, Unger's translation is in the volume 17-19 Mildred just put up in the library.)
Then we get the volume proper which opens with the Ligne memoir in edited form, with Nicolai's annotations. The best bits were already in both Volz and the "Fritz and MT as seen by their contemporaries" collection, so I already quoted them for you.
Nicolai has a major section about FW and music, opening by telling the readers that they may be surprised to learn FW didn't hate music per se, there was some music he liked.
True, he fired all the royal musicians he inherited from F1 except for Gottfried Pepusch, whom he made head of the regiment's choir of the Tall Fellows. Said regiment musicians were also the ones he had playing for him if he wanted to listen to music.
(FW: finding a way to save money, look at Tall Men and enjoy music at the same time. Gotta respect that.)
Nicolai next says FW loved Händel, which I had heard before - "Der Thronfolger" has Fritz mention this followed by the sarcastic remark that what this means is that FW can fall asleep when listening to Händel - , but not Händel's operas (opera performance in FW's Prussia? Hell to the no!) per se, just individual arias and choir pieces, which, however, he didn't want to be sung to him but played in an arrangement on the oboe. His favourites were the arias and choir pieces from Händel's operas "Alessandro" and "Siroe", which had to be played for him over a hundred times. And now I have to quote Nicolai directly.
The way these pieces were performed as that the main oboists and their conductor, with the necessary pults and candles, were standing at one end of a very large room, and the King was sitting on the other, completely alone. Now sometimes it happened that he started to fall asleep in the evening, especially if he'd eaten well or if he'd drunk a bit too strongly while the music played. However, one couldn't trust him. For often the musicians, upon noticing he'd fallen asleep, skipped several arias in order to finish earlier. No sooner did they try that he opened his eyes and called "But you're leaving something out". Or he called "The aria - is missing" and sang the beginning of this aria." That's how well he knew Händel's operas by heart. But if he didn't notice, the musicians used to play the final choir especially loudly and strongly so that the King had to wake up for the finale. If he didn't order any further music, the performance was over. But if upon awaking he thought that the music hadn't lasted long enough, he ordered the already performed opera to be played from the beginning, and then they really didn't dare to leave something out.
(Source for these and other stories: Fritz via Quantz who told Nicolai.)
Nicolai mentions Fritz' depressed poems from the 7 Years War (among others, one to D'Argens) and since some of Voltaire's letters have now been printed, including two from that era where he urges Fritz to live, says that a sensitive heart could almost forgive Voltaire his dastardly behavior towards Fritz for the sake of these letters.
Otoh, he attacks "the author of the Vie Privée du Roi de Prusse, most likely Voltaire" for slandering Fritz re: the Battle of Mollwitz, and for others following suit. Reminder: the issue here is that Fritz was persuaded by Schwerin to retire from the battlefield and the battle was one without him. Nicolai furiously defends Fritz from the charge of cowardice and says geography alone proves he can't have gotten as far as Ratibor, and anyway, everyone knows Fritz was the bravest! Nicholai then gives an account of the battle and does say Fritz never forgave Schwerin for having made the suggestion or himself for listening, which strikes me as accurate.
As Nicolai likes the Prince du Ligne's memoir about Fritz very much, he only has two mild corrections: one, that of course Prussian officers were all fluent in French and if some spoke German with the Marchese de Lucchessini, it's not because they didn't know French but because Lucchessini is fluent in German, and two, about the Antinuous statue. (For the full story of the "Antinous" statue as relating to Friedrich II. and Katte, see Mildred's write up here. )
Regarding the arbor in which the beautiful antique bronze statue of Antinuous that originally was brought from Vienna used to stand*
*here Nicolai makes a footnote, correctly stating the previous owners were Joseph Wenzel von Lichtenstein and Prince Eugene, and another footnote to explain that "the now ruling King did not want to expose this statue as well as the two beautiful antique copies from Bouchardon which used to stand near the Japanese house to the weather any longer and thus had them brought to the new rooms in the Berlin town palace"
there is no doubt that the King on hot summer afternoons, when he sacrificed to the muses, often has sat in front of the beautiful antique statue in this cool harbor. But the Prince de Ligne seems to insinuate upon mentioning this statue as well as at other times that the relaxations of the King were solely of a cheerful and sensual manner. One would wrong this great man if one were to assume he'd found his enjoyment mainly in this. True, the merrry spirit of the King, which expresses itself in his writings and especially in his youthful correspondences, would not contradict this assumption. He himself says -
(Nicolai quotes from several Fritz poems praising Epicure)
It was this cheerful mindset which, as I have observed repeatedly, enabled the mind of the great man to endure through the greatest misfortunes and under the strongest concerns. It is perhaps, understood correctly, no more noble philosophy of the enjoyment of life than to open the heart to pleasure and what Horace calls "Dulce desipere in loco", but only to enjoy it on the surface, while going deeply in serious matters. Frederick the Great was able to unite both approaches to a large extent. He knew to enjoy pleasures of all types, but he also could at the appropriate time res severa gaudium. Serious thoughts were with him even in his most cheerful and high spirited hours, for these were only the spice to his serious ponderings. Even the above named statue of Antinous may serve as an example of this. It was there, and he enjoyed the beauty of this wonderful monument now and then; but it wasn't this statue which was the focus of his main attention in this particular area.
Nicolai now explains Sanssouci geography to everyone who hasn't visited and points out that Fritz would have looked at his chosen grave. Which he feels entitled to talk about since Büsching mentioned it first. Nicolai correctly describes the vault and the Flora statue with it and says D'Argens had told him 20 years ago already that Fritz wanted to be buried there, but he, Nicolai, kept mum until Büsching's publication. He then reports that this vault was probably the reason why Fritz called Sanssouci Sanssouci to begin with, and tells the anecdote of Fritz saying to D'Argens "Quand je serai là, je serai Sanssouci". (I.e. this is the original source for that story, mes amies.)
It takes not a little strength of mind to build one's grave in front of one's eyes at one's lonely and peaceful summer house, without letting anyone know and thus without pretensions, and to hide it beneath the statue of the flower goddess. Friedrich thus had always his death in front of him during his lonely summer pleasures, and thus knew how to unite his idea of it with both the cheeful enjoyment of life and the consideration of his duties. He didn't bring the statue of Antinous to this place until long after he had built his vault there. The later thus was much more in his regard than the former, as were his duties more than his pleasures.
Now, Nicolai saying Antinous comes up in Ligne's Fritz memoir made me check out Unger's rendition of same, and the passage in question which Nicolai took as an occasion to correct is:
The King was used to chat with the Marchese Lucchesini in the presence of four or five generals who didn't speak French, and he rewarded himself for the hours in which he worked, pondered and read by visiting his garden, where opposite of the door was the statue of the young and beautiful Antinous.
That's it, and Ligne doesn't say whether he learned this from Fritz while talking to him (he met him more than that one time at Neisse) or whether he observed it himself.
Spreaking of Friedrich's lonely hours, volume 2 also contains the inevitable dog anecdote:
Just like the King chose among his snuff boxes those he liked best, he chose among his greyhounds the companions of his lonely hours. Those who conducted themselves best were taken with him during the carnival times to Berlin.
(Reminder: The carnival lasted from December til March in Frederician Prussia. As Sanssouci was a summer palace, Fritz spent that time in the city palace in Berlin.)
They were driven to Berlin in a six hourse equipage supervised by a so called royal little footman who was in charge of their feeding and care. One assures us that this footman always took the backseat so the dogs could take the front seat, and always adressed the dogs with "Sie", as in: "Biche, seien Sie doch artig!" (Biche, be good), and "Alcmene, bellen Sie doch nicht so" (Alcmene, don't bark so much!)"
Nicolai finishes the volume by dissing Zimmermann's first Fritz publication; this, and the war between them is the subject of another post.
Tags:
- alexander sweder von spaen,
- antinous statue,
- claude étienne darget,
- dogs,
- ernst ahasverus von lehndorff,
- francesco algarotti,
- frederick the great,
- friedrich nicolai,
- friedrich wilhelm i.,
- hans hermann von katte,
- johann joachim quantz,
- julien offray de la mettrie,
- ludwig casimir von hertefeld,
- marquis d'argens,
- moses mendelssohn,
- peter karl christoph von keith,
- voltaire
