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rheinsbergWrite-up by felis:
Okay, so, one more perspective on the final years, because I enjoyed this little book and it was a really soothing read after all the feuding. :)
Friedrich der Einzige in seinen Privat- und besonders literarischen Stunden betrachtet by Charles Dantal (original French: Les délassements littéraires, ou Heures de lecture de Frédéric II)
Dantal (born 1759, death 1799) was Fritz' last reader and the one who actually got to read instead of being read to. Unlike all the others, he was a Prussian citizen from the local French colony, and also a French teacher at the Potsdam orphanage before getting the job as reader. He first met Fritz in October 1784 and started reading in November, usually in the evening / late afternoon and for up to three hours. The last session was on July 30th, 1786, because Fritz was in too much pain from then on.
His account was written and published in 1791, but he clearly based it on notes he took during his time with Fritz. The book is split into two parts: first a prose part that contains a general description of his job, Fritz' comments and/or short yay/nay reviews for each of the books, plus a few anecdotes; second a complete list of the books read with reading times, places, and dates. (So if you want to know which book and chapter he was reading to Fritz on any given day between November 1784 and July 1786, this is your source.)
General comments:
He reports that Fritz had a lot to say about pronunciation, kept correcting him and generally had his own ideas on the topic. If Fritz himself wasn't sure how to pronounce certain words, he tried to say them quietly to himself at first [...]. I was surprised that the King didn't let go of a wrong pronunciation of certain words once he'd settled on it, even though I told him my reasons with all the reverence I owed him. [...] Other mistakes, probably due to a failing memory, he never begrudged when pointed out to him; one day he even told me that a young man was allowed to correct an old one [Greis] if he was wrong.
Occasionally, Fritz did get annoyed and angry because of his own memory lapses, though. One of the few anecdotes is about this: he couldn't remember the author of a book he wanted to read, Dantal suggested the right one but Fritz didn't hear/register and therefore grumpily dismissed it, then sent Dantal, who didn't dare to mention it again, away to do research. Dantal had just reached the city gate, when he was called back because Fritz had remembered the name at last and all was right with the world: "Now he was completely content again and the gentle tone with which he said "c'est fort bien", gave me back the trust/confidence [Zutrauen], which the critical moment had taken away before."
Dantal also mentions the order that was kept in Fritz' libraries, and that they were sorted by content, not looks, i.e. without regard for different sizes next to each other, which some owners of libraries care for the most (ha). He describes the way the books were bound (with the letters on the covers - "S" for the New Palais (the Palace of Sanssouci) for example, and of course Sanssouci had a "V" because Fritz always called it Vignes) and also mentiones that nobody was allowed to move the books in Fritz' room.
Some reading details, chronologically:
1. Early on, they are reading a book of speeches by Isocrates and others and Fritz comments on and dissects the arguments in every speech; for example, he was never happy with the ones that were given before big events/undertakings, because he thought they just delayed the point where somebody took action. He also spent quite some time on the speech in which Isocrates is trying to convince Philippos to wage war against the barbarians [the Persians I think] to free Greece, and he didn't find Isocrates' reasons convincing enough. (I could not help but think of Crusader!Voltaire in this context, although there's no mention of Fritz doing the same.)
[mildred_of_midgard: The Persians, yes. Isocrates had a bee in his bonnet about crusading against the Persians for the sake of uniting the squabbling Greek city-states. ("Free Greece" is...well, I see it's a direct translation of Dantal, but we'll call it a euphemism for "aggressive war for ulterior motives couched as freeing Ionia, a gambit which Philip declined but Alexander took up, not because he gave a shit about Greece, but because it gave the first stage of his rendezvous with fame a veneer of respectability, a la freeing the Silesian Protestants something something :P").
Though I believe it was a letter rather than a speech--ah, I see the French has "harangue" and the German translator has chosen to translate it "Rede". Which I guess can mean "address" as well as "speech", but I see why "speech" was the obvious choice. The thing about Isocrates is that none of his works, even the ones today called "speeches", were ever delivered orally. He was a written rhetorician only, in contrast to people like Demosthenes and Aeschines. (Was 4th century Athenian oratory what I was in the middle of studying in 2019 when I got sucked into full-time Fritz? You bet it was! :'D)
Oh, the other thing is that I'm like...90?...percent sure that Isocrates, unlike the aforementioned orators, never met Philip in person. Which is not to say that there wasn't a genre of things called "speeches" that were never presented in person. (To what extent the published speeches by actual orators who did deliver something along the lines of what they wrote in the Assembly actually resemble what they said out loud is hugely up for debate).
But in any case, Isocrates was constantly writing, "Let's all stop killing each other and go kill some Persians instead! It'll be great, just like the olden, golden days of our ancestors! Panhellenic crusade fuck yeah!" and being ignored by like everyone. :P]
2. Fritz did crossreferencing - reading Tacitus and Sueton in parallel to compare their take on the same events - and read/commented on editor's notes. (:D)
3. In March 1785, Fritz got sick with fever and so they switched to less challenging and more entertaining stuff = Voltaire. Le Taureau Blanc and Candide on this occasion, both of which made him laugh a lot.
4. Fritz gets annoyed with Rollin for connecting everything to religion and Christ, quote: as if the heathens couldn't be just as virtuous as the Christians.
5. Fritz' very own theory on Socrates death: It's the sculptors' fault! They feared for their income because Socrates spoke against polytheism, so they accused him of various political offenses and got him killed.
6. Spring/Summer 1785: Because of frequent breaks during revue season, they read Moliere's comedies. No reading during a July week when Amelie and Charlotte were visiting.
7. Fritz returned from Silesia on August 30th; Dantal notes that he got sick and almost died on September 19th, because of an asthma attack (that's what "Steckfluss" is, right? I'm not sure how the fact that he got an emetic plays into it, though); the reading sessions continued September 24th.
[mildred_of_midgard: Either asthma or pulmonary edema, aka water in the lungs. Since Fritz had dropsy (edema, water retention) at the end and a severe cough in that last year, I think he had congestive heart failure, his lungs were filled with fluid, and the emetic might have been intended to eliminate some of the water.]
8. On January 1st, 1786, they are in the middle of reading Bayle, an excerpt from the Dictionnaire that Fritz made himself [as in: he had the stuff he was interested in reprinted and bound in octave for his convenience] and this is where we get a favourite dog mention!
I want to include a short monologue, which the King adressed to his favourite dog, Arsinoé, whom he was holding on his lap at that point. Because when I read the following words - [about animals not being capable of reasoning] - the King turned to his favourite dog and said: "Do you hear, my mignonne, they are talking about you and claiming that you don't have reason [esprit], but you do have it, my little mignonne!"
So, favourite dog half a year before his death: Arsinoé, not Superbe. Doesn't have to mean that it was still Arsinoé when he died, but it's a data point. Also: we have a pet name he used, Mignonne, i.e. sweet, cute, lovely.
9. February 4th, 1786: While Dantal was reading about Turenne, Fritz fell into a deep sleep, which Dantal thinks was the start of his last and enduring illness, so I guess he observed that Fritz was consistently worse from that point on.
10. During the last months, they go back to a lot of Voltaire, mostly the history works (Louis XIV and XV), and Fritz, although pretty sick, has comments, for example, as late as July:
When I read the following words about the battle at Rossbach - "Friedrich, surrounded by so many enemies, decided to die with a weapon in his hand, in the middle of the army of the Prince of Soubise" - the King, as sick as he was that day, could not help but call out: "Oh, oh! There was no reason to die yet!"
11. During the last weeks, Fritz often fell asleep while Dantal was reading - by then, he would be wearing his nightclothes already so he could just stay asleep if he wanted - and Dantal therefore stayed until 10 at night, when he would quietly leave the room because he assumed that Fritz wouldn't want any more reading this late, even if he woke up again. Dantal also says that Fritz still read by himself during that last year: "His habit was to read out loud to himself, especially verse, and I believe to have noticed by the quiet voice with which he was often reading when I entered, that it exhausted him a lot."
felis:Okay, so, one more perspective on the final years, because I enjoyed this little book and it was a really soothing read after all the feuding. :)
Friedrich der Einzige in seinen Privat- und besonders literarischen Stunden betrachtet by Charles Dantal (original French: Les délassements littéraires, ou Heures de lecture de Frédéric II)
Dantal (born 1759, death 1799) was Fritz' last reader and the one who actually got to read instead of being read to. Unlike all the others, he was a Prussian citizen from the local French colony, and also a French teacher at the Potsdam orphanage before getting the job as reader. He first met Fritz in October 1784 and started reading in November, usually in the evening / late afternoon and for up to three hours. The last session was on July 30th, 1786, because Fritz was in too much pain from then on.
His account was written and published in 1791, but he clearly based it on notes he took during his time with Fritz. The book is split into two parts: first a prose part that contains a general description of his job, Fritz' comments and/or short yay/nay reviews for each of the books, plus a few anecdotes; second a complete list of the books read with reading times, places, and dates. (So if you want to know which book and chapter he was reading to Fritz on any given day between November 1784 and July 1786, this is your source.)
General comments:
He reports that Fritz had a lot to say about pronunciation, kept correcting him and generally had his own ideas on the topic. If Fritz himself wasn't sure how to pronounce certain words, he tried to say them quietly to himself at first [...]. I was surprised that the King didn't let go of a wrong pronunciation of certain words once he'd settled on it, even though I told him my reasons with all the reverence I owed him. [...] Other mistakes, probably due to a failing memory, he never begrudged when pointed out to him; one day he even told me that a young man was allowed to correct an old one [Greis] if he was wrong.
Occasionally, Fritz did get annoyed and angry because of his own memory lapses, though. One of the few anecdotes is about this: he couldn't remember the author of a book he wanted to read, Dantal suggested the right one but Fritz didn't hear/register and therefore grumpily dismissed it, then sent Dantal, who didn't dare to mention it again, away to do research. Dantal had just reached the city gate, when he was called back because Fritz had remembered the name at last and all was right with the world: "Now he was completely content again and the gentle tone with which he said "c'est fort bien", gave me back the trust/confidence [Zutrauen], which the critical moment had taken away before."
Dantal also mentions the order that was kept in Fritz' libraries, and that they were sorted by content, not looks, i.e. without regard for different sizes next to each other, which some owners of libraries care for the most (ha). He describes the way the books were bound (with the letters on the covers - "S" for the New Palais (the Palace of Sanssouci) for example, and of course Sanssouci had a "V" because Fritz always called it Vignes) and also mentiones that nobody was allowed to move the books in Fritz' room.
Some reading details, chronologically:
1. Early on, they are reading a book of speeches by Isocrates and others and Fritz comments on and dissects the arguments in every speech; for example, he was never happy with the ones that were given before big events/undertakings, because he thought they just delayed the point where somebody took action. He also spent quite some time on the speech in which Isocrates is trying to convince Philippos to wage war against the barbarians [the Persians I think] to free Greece, and he didn't find Isocrates' reasons convincing enough. (I could not help but think of Crusader!Voltaire in this context, although there's no mention of Fritz doing the same.)
[
mildred_of_midgard: The Persians, yes. Isocrates had a bee in his bonnet about crusading against the Persians for the sake of uniting the squabbling Greek city-states. ("Free Greece" is...well, I see it's a direct translation of Dantal, but we'll call it a euphemism for "aggressive war for ulterior motives couched as freeing Ionia, a gambit which Philip declined but Alexander took up, not because he gave a shit about Greece, but because it gave the first stage of his rendezvous with fame a veneer of respectability, a la freeing the Silesian Protestants something something :P").Though I believe it was a letter rather than a speech--ah, I see the French has "harangue" and the German translator has chosen to translate it "Rede". Which I guess can mean "address" as well as "speech", but I see why "speech" was the obvious choice. The thing about Isocrates is that none of his works, even the ones today called "speeches", were ever delivered orally. He was a written rhetorician only, in contrast to people like Demosthenes and Aeschines. (Was 4th century Athenian oratory what I was in the middle of studying in 2019 when I got sucked into full-time Fritz? You bet it was! :'D)
Oh, the other thing is that I'm like...90?...percent sure that Isocrates, unlike the aforementioned orators, never met Philip in person. Which is not to say that there wasn't a genre of things called "speeches" that were never presented in person. (To what extent the published speeches by actual orators who did deliver something along the lines of what they wrote in the Assembly actually resemble what they said out loud is hugely up for debate).
But in any case, Isocrates was constantly writing, "Let's all stop killing each other and go kill some Persians instead! It'll be great, just like the olden, golden days of our ancestors! Panhellenic crusade fuck yeah!" and being ignored by like everyone. :P]
2. Fritz did crossreferencing - reading Tacitus and Sueton in parallel to compare their take on the same events - and read/commented on editor's notes. (:D)
3. In March 1785, Fritz got sick with fever and so they switched to less challenging and more entertaining stuff = Voltaire. Le Taureau Blanc and Candide on this occasion, both of which made him laugh a lot.
4. Fritz gets annoyed with Rollin for connecting everything to religion and Christ, quote: as if the heathens couldn't be just as virtuous as the Christians.
5. Fritz' very own theory on Socrates death: It's the sculptors' fault! They feared for their income because Socrates spoke against polytheism, so they accused him of various political offenses and got him killed.
6. Spring/Summer 1785: Because of frequent breaks during revue season, they read Moliere's comedies. No reading during a July week when Amelie and Charlotte were visiting.
7. Fritz returned from Silesia on August 30th; Dantal notes that he got sick and almost died on September 19th, because of an asthma attack (that's what "Steckfluss" is, right? I'm not sure how the fact that he got an emetic plays into it, though); the reading sessions continued September 24th.
[
mildred_of_midgard: Either asthma or pulmonary edema, aka water in the lungs. Since Fritz had dropsy (edema, water retention) at the end and a severe cough in that last year, I think he had congestive heart failure, his lungs were filled with fluid, and the emetic might have been intended to eliminate some of the water.]8. On January 1st, 1786, they are in the middle of reading Bayle, an excerpt from the Dictionnaire that Fritz made himself [as in: he had the stuff he was interested in reprinted and bound in octave for his convenience] and this is where we get a favourite dog mention!
I want to include a short monologue, which the King adressed to his favourite dog, Arsinoé, whom he was holding on his lap at that point. Because when I read the following words - [about animals not being capable of reasoning] - the King turned to his favourite dog and said: "Do you hear, my mignonne, they are talking about you and claiming that you don't have reason [esprit], but you do have it, my little mignonne!"
So, favourite dog half a year before his death: Arsinoé, not Superbe. Doesn't have to mean that it was still Arsinoé when he died, but it's a data point. Also: we have a pet name he used, Mignonne, i.e. sweet, cute, lovely.
9. February 4th, 1786: While Dantal was reading about Turenne, Fritz fell into a deep sleep, which Dantal thinks was the start of his last and enduring illness, so I guess he observed that Fritz was consistently worse from that point on.
10. During the last months, they go back to a lot of Voltaire, mostly the history works (Louis XIV and XV), and Fritz, although pretty sick, has comments, for example, as late as July:
When I read the following words about the battle at Rossbach - "Friedrich, surrounded by so many enemies, decided to die with a weapon in his hand, in the middle of the army of the Prince of Soubise" - the King, as sick as he was that day, could not help but call out: "Oh, oh! There was no reason to die yet!"
11. During the last weeks, Fritz often fell asleep while Dantal was reading - by then, he would be wearing his nightclothes already so he could just stay asleep if he wanted - and Dantal therefore stayed until 10 at night, when he would quietly leave the room because he assumed that Fritz wouldn't want any more reading this late, even if he woke up again. Dantal also says that Fritz still read by himself during that last year: "His habit was to read out loud to himself, especially verse, and I believe to have noticed by the quiet voice with which he was often reading when I entered, that it exhausted him a lot."
