Suhm and Fritz
Mar. 11th, 2023 12:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mildred_of_midgard posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
rheinsbergNothing new here, just a set of "best of" excerpts from the more comprehensive Suhm post here.
Ulrich Friedrich von Suhm, born 1691, was the Saxon envoy to Berlin from 1720 - 1730. His nickname was "Diaphane", meaning transparent, letting light through. The reason for this name is unknown.
He married Charlotte von der Lieth on November 1, 1721. In 1727, FW threatened to hang him because he was mad at actions of the Saxon ministers, who were mad at him over illegal recruiting practices. Suhm fled Prussia, and Augustus made him go back.
In October 1728, Suhm witnessed the episode at the St. Hubertus feast where FW forced Fritz to get drunk. He is our main source for this episode, in the form of two dispatches he wrote to August.
During this episode, Fritz is hanging onto Suhm's arm quite tightly, telling him that he hates drinking, and later Suhm is one of the people who puts him to bed.
Some time in 1730, Suhm's wife died. In January of that same year, he was released from service and gets a pension. Judging by his correspondence, he divides his time between Berlin and Dresden during this period.
Between 1732 and 1736, after Fritz was released from Küstrin and given his own regiment at Ruppin, Fritz used to come for a few weeks during the winter holidays to stay at Berlin. During this time, Fritz and Suhm used to sit by the fireside, talking late into the night about philosophy and the like.
Their extant Trier correspondence starts with Suhm responding to Fritz's request for a translation of Wolff's Metaphysics (the one Voltaire thought Fritz had translated, lol). Much of their early correspondence centers on the contents of Wolff, and the translation process. This is the manuscript that Mimi the monkey sets on fire, which we learn about because Fritz recounted the episode in a letter to Suhm. Fortunately, there was another copy! Unfortunately, someone had to recopy it for Fritz. Said copyist wasn't happy.
Then in 1737, shortly after Fritz moved into Rheinsberg, Suhm got an assignment to go be Saxon envoy to St. Petersburg. He really didn't want to go. But he convinced himself it was the right thing to do. Fritz really didn't want him to go. He failed to talk him out of going. They never saw each other again.
Once he gets to St. Petersburg, a lot of their correspondence centers on the loans Suhm's able to get Fritz from the Russians. They use the same code that Fritz uses with Seckendorff and the Austrians: books. Any time you see Fritz asking for a book not by Wolff in the second half of the correspondence, he's asking for money. If he's asking for 12 copies, he wants 12 times that amount. There are also other code words for loans in the form of other things he wants to obtain from the Russians. Oh, and also algebraic problems. Any algebraic problem is just code for "Solve for x, where x is the amount of money I want this time."
Amazingly, one of my sources says Fritz paid it all back within a few months of becoming king, and indeed, one of the postscripts to Suhm after he becomes king is "Ask the Duke (the de facto ruler of Russia at the time, who'd been lending Fritz money for years) where he'd like the money sent." I guess when your boyfriend is getting you money from the Russians, you're in a bigger hurry to pay it back than when Seckendorff is getting you money from the Austrians!
Then FW dies, and Fritz writes to Suhm the same message he writes to all his favorite people: "Dad just kicked it; come be an intellectual at my court!"
Sadly, Suhm had been having health problems for a few years, was very sick when he set out from St. Petersburg to Berlin, made it as far as Warsaw, lingered there for a month--excused from attending the court (remember, his boss Augustus* the Elector of Saxony is also the King of Poland) because of how sick he was--then finally realized he was dying, wrote to Fritz to ask him to take care of his kids, and died, November 8, 1740, without ever seeing Fritz. Not as tragic as Fritz/Katte, not as frustrating as Fritz/Peter Keith, still sad.
This is Fritz writing to Algarotti on Suhm's death: "I have just learned of Suhm's death, my close friend, who loved me as sincerely as I loved him, and who showed me until his death the confidence he had in my friendship and in my tenderness, of which he was convinced. I would rather have lost millions. We hardly find people who have so much spirit joined with so much candor and feeling. My heart will mourn him, and this in a way deeper than for most relatives. His memory will last as long as a drop of blood flows through my veins, and his family will be mine. Farewell; I cannot speak of anything else; my heart is bleeding, and the pain is too great to think of anything other than this wound."
The Fritz correspondence:
Wolff
Translation
So the first part of the correspondence we have is all about the translation of Wolff (*the* major German philosopher of the period, post-Leibniz) that Suhm is producing at Fritz's the translation of Wolff's Metaphysics. You can hear Suhm's gulp, as he immediately plays up how hard it will be but how willing he is to do literally anything for Fritz, and he only hopes it will be good enough.
Fritz: Nah, it'll be great! Look, I checked out the chapter you already sent, looked at the German original, and yours is clearly the best.
Partway through this process, Suhm tries to convince Fritz that German is actually superior to French for metaphysical topics, because it has more vocabulary and less ambiguity.
Fritz: Okay, you've convinced me German has its virtues, but you will never convince me that it's superior to French. Forty years from now, I will dig up a pamphlet that I'm writing here at Rheinsberg, tack on some more anti-German comments, and send it out to join the fray.
Fritz: BESIDES. You're missing the point. Even if German were superior to French, WHICH IT'S NOT, I would still prefer to read it in French, because reading French translations of Wolff means getting letters from you, and letters from you give me warm and fuzzies. You don't seem to understand that if you suddenly decided to stop communicating in anything but Chinese, I would man up and learn Chinese just so I could keep talking to you.
Says the man who speaks and writes German to Fredersdorf.
Monkey business
Partway through this, Mimi decides to set the thing on fire, which Fritz recounts with hilarity. As detailed here, where the subthread has some more info on Wolff as well.
Then I must admit to a mistake I made. It is not Fritz who says, "With all my powers of reason, I would have done the same (burn a manuscript if my master were ignoring me)," it's Suhm! So that's hilarious in a completely different way. Suhm is saying, as I understand it, that he would burn the fruits of his own hard labor if Fritz were ignoring him to read it. And that's sweet.
Immortal soul
Their discussions of the content are also interesting. At this early date, Fritz reads Wolff and and announces that he, Fritz, his now convinced that 1) he exists, 2) he has an immortal soul. And he thanks Suhm for making this possible by means of his translation.
Shortly thereafter, Fritz starts to read more widely and ceases to believe in an immortal soul. But at this point, their correspondence is full of Fritz coming up with reasons to believe in the immortality of the soul. At one point, he tells Suhm that he, Suhm, is one good argument for immortality of the soul. Namely, it's okay for most of humanity to be snuffed out at death, but not geniuses like Wolff, Newton, Voltaire, and Suhm.
Now, I get the impression this is something like Lehndorff calling Heinrich "as beautiful as an angel." Not exactly: Suhm seems to have been quite intelligent, whereas Heinrich was downright unattractive. But Suhm was evidently intelligent like you or me, not intelligent like Newtonor Émilie. Anyway, Fritz is head over heels.
Franz Stephan
So there are several letters which involve Fritz getting his hands on some really good and expensive smoked salmon from the Rhine and sending it to the Duke of Lorraine. I.e. Franz Stephan, MT's new husband! Huh, I was looking to see how new, and the letter dates to March 22, 1736, and Wikipedia tells me they got married February 14, 1736. So this is basically a wedding gift.
Anyway, Fritz uses Suhm as his intermediary to get the salmon to Vienna and to handle all the communications around same.
This results in Suhm writing to Fritz that FS LOVED the salmon, all the more so because he knows how expensive it is, and in recognition of Fritz's generosity, he wants to swear eternal friendship, using Suhm as a go-between.
Which leads to this line from Fritz that I, at least, found hilarious:
Fritz: I certainly did not expect that the salmon I sent to the Duc de Lorraine would be as pleasant to him as it was.
From salmon to eternal friendship, Franzl, that was fast!
Well, enjoy the salmon while you have it, Vienna: future deliveries from Fritz over your borders might not be so pleasant.
selenak's addition: Well, firstly, he had already warmed up to Fritz after their engagement party meeting, secondly, Habsburgs and Lorraines can effuse and go into verbal hyperbole with the best of the Hohenzollern. :) Fritz in his first letter to Franzl after MT's dad is dead is so full of tender concern for a prince whose bff he swears himself forever and all the burdens that prince will carry (since it's clearly not the prince's wife who will do the governing), it brings out tears in one's eyes. (He's totally willing to lift some of those burdens, of course, as well we know.)
Russia
Baby, it's cold outside!
In late 1736, Fritz gets the bad news that Suhm has accepted a commission to go to St. Petersburg as Saxon envoy. He doesn't want to go, and Fritz doesn't want him to go.
Fritz: Normally letters from you are the best part of my day, but this is THE WORST. Can I convince you to stay by telling you how awful it's bound to be? You're going to freeze to death! Your health! How will I live without you? How will you live without me?
Suhm: Please don't. You're only making it harder to do what I know I need to do. Duty and honor call. OH GOD I'M GOING TO MISS YOU SO MUCH.
Fritz: Also, you're totally the wrong person for this job. This barbarous court needs those men who know how to drink well and fuck vigorously. I don't think you'd recognize yourself in this description. Your delicate body is the custodian of a fine soul, spiritual and penetrating. [Actual quote, the first line of which I had seen before in biographies.]
Fritz: Also, I'm pretty sure this means I'm never going to see you again. WOE IS ME.
Fritz: But okay. Go, cross the seas, look for another sky and, if it were possible, another world: my friendship will follow you everywhere, and I will tell myself that the universe has no space that does not become sacred in containing you. Russia will become my Greece, and Saint Petersburg, a place I never deigned to think of, the object of my best wishes. [Actual quote.]
And then Fritz tells Suhm to start numbering his letters so they can keep track of which letter is in reply to which. "This one is letter number 1!" he says.
Money, politics, and the military
In Russia, there's a lot of politics and some warfare, which I'll spare you, and also, since Fritz has a regiment, he has his recruiting quotas to meet, so Suhm does some recruiting in Russia for him. Everybody in the Prussian army had a hard time meeting FW's quotas, especially for tall men, seeing as how they are running out of tall men in Europe, and especially tall men willing to hang out in Potsdam and be paraded around.
Suhm also devotes much of their correspondence to getting Fritz loans, because Fritz goes through money like water at this period in his life. He's been getting money from the Imperial court at Austria via Seckendorff, but he doesn't like it:
Since you are willing to be my agent in Russia, have the kindness to let me have the new edition of the Life of Prince Eugene that is printed there; it will be shorter, the arrangement of the sending will be easier, the agreement with the bookseller, safer, and I will find my account there much better than with these booksellers of Vienna, which print slowly, which give no credit to those who subscribe, and who, in a word, do not suit me.
Remember, books are code for money. One biographer said that the first payment from Seckendorff was like the first drink for an alcoholic, an analogy that I can't see any reason to disagree with. Half his letters to Suhm after his arrival in Russia are "MORE MONEY PLZ," and you know he's simultaneously doing the same thing to EC and Seckendorff.
OH. And early on in the Suhm correspondence, Suhm is doing a bit of "woe is me," and Fritz tells Suhm to count himself lucky he's in Dresden and to read Seneca's chapter on the contempt for riches, I kid you not. Knowing what the second half of their correspondence looks like, I literally choked. Of course, he does say, in effect, "You're so lucky to be in a civilized court, we have to have compensations out here," BUT STILL.
Baby, I thought it was cold outside??
On a more personal note, Suhm sends two accounts of fires to Fritz. One started in his own house, which he inherited from his predecessor. He says if it had happened at night, he and all the neighbors would have killed, but because it was daytime, it was caught quickly, and he only lost some furniture.
Fritz: Who would believe that a house could burn in a country where one would rather be led to believe that everything would perish from cold? [Actual quote]
Then, not long after, there's another fire that burns down much of the neighborhood and stops two houses down from Suhm's.
Fritz: Isn't it enough that it's cold all the time there? Does everything have to keep catching on fire too?? Please come back to the sensible and safe country where I can show you how much I love you.
In Sickness and in Health
Home remedies
Like the Fredersdorf correspondence--like much of Fritz's correspondence--significant page time is devoted to discussions of health. Not quite as much as Fredersdorf's, is my impression, but still noticeable amounts here and there.
Fritz does his usual "Let me teach you medicine; I know all about it, seeing as how I am 1) constantly sick, 2) smarter than everyone else." Suhm, ever the diplomat, responds to that one with, "I'm sure that remedy works great for you, but fortunately for me, my problems are not nearly as bad as yours [exactly what Fritz wants to hear], so I will not be doing that at all. But good for you!"
Fritz is immediately reassured and not at all offended and just says, "Thank goodness! I wouldn't want you to have problems as bad as mine."
Suhm's life expectancy at this point: 1 year.
Fritz's: 47 years.
Suhm, like Fredersdorf, clearly knows how to manage Fritz.
Colic
At one point, Fritz has a bad colic, and Suhm sends sympathies, and then shortly thereafter, Suhm is attacked by a bad colic. And he writes the very sweet, "I wish that my colic could have been in place of yours, because that would totally be worth it. It doesn't seem fair that both of us have to suffer, when I would gladly suffer for you. But then I tell myself that if great kings and princes aren't spared, how could a lowly mortal such as myself expect to be spared. And the thought of being united in suffering with you does make me feel better, so that's something, at least."
Sleep
Very early on in the correspondence, when Fritz gets his first installment of Wolff, he and Suhm have this exchange:
Fritz: I'm so busy with my regiment you wouldn't believe it, ugh. And then I've been sick, so my doctor says I need to get some exercise, get the blood moving. So now I don't have any time for study. But never fear! I have a solution. I will give up sleep!
Suhm: I love how excited you are about my translation. Maybe not do without sleep, though?
Fritz: Give up learning?? Never! What a dastardly suggestion.
Suhm: No! Not give up learning! Keep learning. Just...look after your health while you do? Only because I love you so much!
Fritz: It's so sweet that you care about my health, but don't worry about me. I know what I'm doing.
Kids
Part way through their correspondence, Suhm has an acute episode of bad health and is convinced he's on his deathbed. He makes up his will and takes the liberty of naming Fritz as he one the wants to take care of his kids. Not King Fritz, Crown Prince Fritz, who has no money except what he's getting from foreign courts.
He recovers, but a few years later, when he is actually on his deathbed, he again asks Fritz to take care of the kids, this time King Fritz. Who does.
Till death do us part
When Fritz invites Suhm to Berlin at the end of June, one month after he becomes king, Suhm asks for permission to be relieved from his duties as Saxon ambassador. He gets permission, and he sets out some time in late August or early September.
It's a slow trip, during which he has to stop and rest, and write letters explaining what's taking so long. Fritz is wonderful and understanding and all "I can't wait to see you, but please take care of yourself."
He arrives in Warsaw at the end of September or early October. He writes to Fritz that he got suddenly much sicker right before leaving St. Petersburg, and knew an arduous journey might be a really bad idea, but he wanted to see Fritz so much that he couldn't wait, and he was sure that actually seeing him in person would cure all his ills.
Then we get a series of letters giving updates on how he's trying to get better but it's not working. One particularly touching note says, "I'm afraid that you're going to tell me to take it slow and arrive when I can, but I want to see you so badly that I would give up half my life if it meant I could spend the other half with you."
Fritz, right on cue: I think it might be a good idea to travel slowly!
Finally, on November 3, Suhm writes that he's been holding out as long as he could, among other things not wanting to break bad news to Fritz, but he also knows that wouldn't be fair to Fritz, so here he is. He has only a few days, maybe only hours, to live, and it's not fair because they were just about to be reunited, Fritz was king and everything was going to be great, and he almost made it, but the will of Heaven was against their happiness. Suhm describes himself as "ship-wrecked at port" [naufrage au port].
He asks Fritz to take care of the kids, and to treat his sister, who's been acting as the kids' mother in the absence of their mother, as he would Suhm's widow. Fritz does.
Then religious consolation, and finally, The hour is approaching, I already feel that my strength is abandoning me; I have to depart. Farewell. Another tear, it wets your feet. Oh! deign to look at it, great king, as a pledge of the tender and unalterable attachment with which your faithful Diaphane was devoted to you until his last sigh.
He dies five days later, age 49.
Shipping Mode
Saving the best for last: rococo emo, or, "the language of romantic friendship."
The early letters
I will tell you this: the opening letters from Fritz and Suhm are like the opening letters between Fritz and Voltaire--they spend so much time professing eternal devotion that, as sweet as it is, eventually you're relieved when they talk about something else. They have two kinds of exchanges. One goes like this.
Suhm: You're perfect! Sublime! Divine!
Fritz: Stop saying that!
Suhm: But it's true! For once, you can tell a prince this and it's not flattery!*
Fritz: But I don't even recognize myself in those descriptions! And then I feel like you must be writing to someone else!
Suhm: Okay, I'll TRY! But you must forgive me the occasional lapse, because I can't help it!
Then every so often for the remainder of the letters, he starts gushing about Fritz, and then goes, "Sorry! Sorry. I can't help it."
And then the second kind of exchange:
Fritz: I really want to see you! Hearing from you brightens my day, and your absence keeps Rheinsberg from being perfect.
Suhm: I miss you so much! I can't live without you! May my job situation one day allow me to join you there.
Me, knowing how it's going to turn out: *cries*
Classics
Fritz, of course, invokes the standard classical comparisons: "Orestes and Pylades, the good Pirithoüs, the tender Nisus and the wise Achates," right after Suhm arrives in Russia, telling Suhm that no matter how far away he goes, Fritz will never forget him.
Then, after their next major life event, when Fritz is on the verge of becoming king, he again assures Suhm that he won't forget him: you will find in me everything that Orestes ever found in Pylades. [Actual quote.]
Yes, that's right. Fritz as Pylades and Suhm as Orestes, not the other way around.
To which Suhm replies, What! the greatest of kings wants to become Pylades for Orestes! Oh! who will ever be able to say all that is sublime and touching about such feelings?
Love is all you need
When Fritz's brother [unnamed, but we suspect AW] shows up with some companions at Ruppin, Fritz bitches about how inane their conversation was, and how he had to entertain them, when he really wanted to be reading the next installment of the Wolff translation, and how he would gladly have gone two days without food if it meant he could talk to Suhm instead of these nitwits.
PEOPLE ARE STUPID WHY ARE PEOPLE SO STUPID I JUST WANT TO READ BOOKS AND TALK BOOKS
And then there was the time Suhm wrote, "I was planning to work on the next installment of the translation for you, but instead I read and reread your last letter a thousand times without being able to get enough of it."
Poetic one-liners
After Suhm moves to Russia, Fritz writes:
When will I see you again, my dear Diaphane? When can we go for a walk under the beech trees and under the elms?
Also, remember how Fritz used to visit Berlin in the winters, and that's when he would see Suhm, and they would sit by the fire and talk for hours? After Suhm moves to Russia, Fritz writes, that first winter without him:
We are leaving next week for Berlin. I will find my chimney fire there, but I will not find there the one whose conversation charmed my soul.
And then he continues:
Remember, my dear Diaphane, that there is in Germany a small country situated in a pretty laughing valley and all surrounded by woods, where your name and your memory will not perish, as long as I live in it.
Live for me
When Suhm is so sick he thinks he's going to die, Fritz writes his usual, "Don't die! Live for me! Think how upset I will be if you die! You're the best proof of immortality of the soul I've got! Losing you forever would be a blow to humanity akin to losing Newton or Voltaire!" [Whenever someone is sick or upset or grieving, Fritz urges them to feel better for *his* sake, even when this is emotionally tone-deaf and outright offensive.]
Only this time, Fritz's "get well soon" approach works. Suhm writes, after he recovers, writes:
When my life is odious to me, the interest you deign to take in it would be enough to make it dear to me. I therefore come back with joy to life, since heaven wants it, and Your Royal Highness wants it; but, my lord, suffer it to be henceforth to live only for you, to enjoy the only good that I aspire to, that of possessing your good graces, to be a witness, finally, of your virtues and your glory.
Yes, I said to myself, whatever my fate, I will always be the envy of everyone, as long as Your Royal Highness deigns to keep me with such feelings. You have restored my health, my lord, perhaps life; so it is to you that I owe it, and that I make a vow to consecrate it. Take possession of me, as of property which belongs to you by the most sacred rights. You have given me a peace of mind that nothing in the world is capable of altering, a firmness that nothing can shake, and I feel intimately that I can now be happy in spite of fate. The only thing that can still afflict me is the distance in which the circumstances still condemn me to live away from Your Royal Highness. You are, monseigneur, to express myself figuratively, you are my sun; for, as soon as I am no longer in a position to experience the gentle influence of your rays, I feel a cold creep so deep into my soul, that nothing is capable of warming it.
A couple months later, Fritz gives Suhm a watch, inspiring Suhm to new heights of emotion:
In the transports of joy with which my heart is so intoxicated, what expression would I have left that could respond to the ardor of the feeling with which I feel my soul burning? It's a passion, it's a love. My poor body is too weak to support such a powerful emotion, too weak to feed such a burning fire, capable of consuming it; and the moment when my calm soul is in a peaceful state is the moment when I begin to be able to express weakly, as I do, a slight shadow of the ineffable feelings with which my soul was filled.
1740 chronology
Reading the 1740 letters, you can watch Suhm set out from St. Petersburg immediately, drag himself mile by painful mile in the letters, going as fast as he can, against all medical advice and the demands of his body, and only stopping for good when he reports himself being unable to get out of bed and being excused from attending court. He also, if I'm reading the correspondence correctly, decided to submit his request to resign his position at St. Petersburg *before* he even had an offer in hand from Fritz. Wow, rereading more closely, before he'd heard from Fritz at all.
May 31: FW dies.
June 14: Fritz writes a letter to Suhm telling him that he's king now and would Suhm like to come?
~June 15: The news reaches St. Petersburg. Fritz's June 14 letter is still on the way.
~June 15: Suhm writes to Dresden asking permission to leave St. Petersburg and go live with Fritz.
June 15: Suhm writes a letter congratulating and praising Fritz. He hasn't received Fritz's June 14 letter yet.
June 29: Fritz gets Suhm's June 15 letter. He thanks Suhm for the compliments, but says what he really was hoping for from the letter was to find out if Suhm wanted to join him. He sounds a little hurt.
July 2: Suhm gets Fritz's June 14 letter. He replies that he hadn't even waited for the formal invitation from the King but rather, relying on the Crown Prince's promises, immediately started trying to quit his job and is still waiting to hear back on that. Translation: "DUH, I want to be with you. I thought that went without saying."
July 15: Fritz gets Suhm's July 2 DUH letter. He is delighted.
So it seems to me like Suhm was motivated by love rather than a search for a position. Perhaps idealized love, and certainly not love that predicted the next 46 years, but one that was based on something real during the last 20.
Ulrich Friedrich von Suhm, born 1691, was the Saxon envoy to Berlin from 1720 - 1730. His nickname was "Diaphane", meaning transparent, letting light through. The reason for this name is unknown.
He married Charlotte von der Lieth on November 1, 1721. In 1727, FW threatened to hang him because he was mad at actions of the Saxon ministers, who were mad at him over illegal recruiting practices. Suhm fled Prussia, and Augustus made him go back.
In October 1728, Suhm witnessed the episode at the St. Hubertus feast where FW forced Fritz to get drunk. He is our main source for this episode, in the form of two dispatches he wrote to August.
During this episode, Fritz is hanging onto Suhm's arm quite tightly, telling him that he hates drinking, and later Suhm is one of the people who puts him to bed.
Some time in 1730, Suhm's wife died. In January of that same year, he was released from service and gets a pension. Judging by his correspondence, he divides his time between Berlin and Dresden during this period.
Between 1732 and 1736, after Fritz was released from Küstrin and given his own regiment at Ruppin, Fritz used to come for a few weeks during the winter holidays to stay at Berlin. During this time, Fritz and Suhm used to sit by the fireside, talking late into the night about philosophy and the like.
Their extant Trier correspondence starts with Suhm responding to Fritz's request for a translation of Wolff's Metaphysics (the one Voltaire thought Fritz had translated, lol). Much of their early correspondence centers on the contents of Wolff, and the translation process. This is the manuscript that Mimi the monkey sets on fire, which we learn about because Fritz recounted the episode in a letter to Suhm. Fortunately, there was another copy! Unfortunately, someone had to recopy it for Fritz. Said copyist wasn't happy.
Then in 1737, shortly after Fritz moved into Rheinsberg, Suhm got an assignment to go be Saxon envoy to St. Petersburg. He really didn't want to go. But he convinced himself it was the right thing to do. Fritz really didn't want him to go. He failed to talk him out of going. They never saw each other again.
Once he gets to St. Petersburg, a lot of their correspondence centers on the loans Suhm's able to get Fritz from the Russians. They use the same code that Fritz uses with Seckendorff and the Austrians: books. Any time you see Fritz asking for a book not by Wolff in the second half of the correspondence, he's asking for money. If he's asking for 12 copies, he wants 12 times that amount. There are also other code words for loans in the form of other things he wants to obtain from the Russians. Oh, and also algebraic problems. Any algebraic problem is just code for "Solve for x, where x is the amount of money I want this time."
Amazingly, one of my sources says Fritz paid it all back within a few months of becoming king, and indeed, one of the postscripts to Suhm after he becomes king is "Ask the Duke (the de facto ruler of Russia at the time, who'd been lending Fritz money for years) where he'd like the money sent." I guess when your boyfriend is getting you money from the Russians, you're in a bigger hurry to pay it back than when Seckendorff is getting you money from the Austrians!
Then FW dies, and Fritz writes to Suhm the same message he writes to all his favorite people: "Dad just kicked it; come be an intellectual at my court!"
Sadly, Suhm had been having health problems for a few years, was very sick when he set out from St. Petersburg to Berlin, made it as far as Warsaw, lingered there for a month--excused from attending the court (remember, his boss Augustus* the Elector of Saxony is also the King of Poland) because of how sick he was--then finally realized he was dying, wrote to Fritz to ask him to take care of his kids, and died, November 8, 1740, without ever seeing Fritz. Not as tragic as Fritz/Katte, not as frustrating as Fritz/Peter Keith, still sad.
This is Fritz writing to Algarotti on Suhm's death: "I have just learned of Suhm's death, my close friend, who loved me as sincerely as I loved him, and who showed me until his death the confidence he had in my friendship and in my tenderness, of which he was convinced. I would rather have lost millions. We hardly find people who have so much spirit joined with so much candor and feeling. My heart will mourn him, and this in a way deeper than for most relatives. His memory will last as long as a drop of blood flows through my veins, and his family will be mine. Farewell; I cannot speak of anything else; my heart is bleeding, and the pain is too great to think of anything other than this wound."
The Fritz correspondence:
Wolff
Translation
So the first part of the correspondence we have is all about the translation of Wolff (*the* major German philosopher of the period, post-Leibniz) that Suhm is producing at Fritz's the translation of Wolff's Metaphysics. You can hear Suhm's gulp, as he immediately plays up how hard it will be but how willing he is to do literally anything for Fritz, and he only hopes it will be good enough.
Fritz: Nah, it'll be great! Look, I checked out the chapter you already sent, looked at the German original, and yours is clearly the best.
Partway through this process, Suhm tries to convince Fritz that German is actually superior to French for metaphysical topics, because it has more vocabulary and less ambiguity.
Fritz: Okay, you've convinced me German has its virtues, but you will never convince me that it's superior to French. Forty years from now, I will dig up a pamphlet that I'm writing here at Rheinsberg, tack on some more anti-German comments, and send it out to join the fray.
Fritz: BESIDES. You're missing the point. Even if German were superior to French, WHICH IT'S NOT, I would still prefer to read it in French, because reading French translations of Wolff means getting letters from you, and letters from you give me warm and fuzzies. You don't seem to understand that if you suddenly decided to stop communicating in anything but Chinese, I would man up and learn Chinese just so I could keep talking to you.
Says the man who speaks and writes German to Fredersdorf.
Monkey business
Partway through this, Mimi decides to set the thing on fire, which Fritz recounts with hilarity. As detailed here, where the subthread has some more info on Wolff as well.
Then I must admit to a mistake I made. It is not Fritz who says, "With all my powers of reason, I would have done the same (burn a manuscript if my master were ignoring me)," it's Suhm! So that's hilarious in a completely different way. Suhm is saying, as I understand it, that he would burn the fruits of his own hard labor if Fritz were ignoring him to read it. And that's sweet.
Immortal soul
Their discussions of the content are also interesting. At this early date, Fritz reads Wolff and and announces that he, Fritz, his now convinced that 1) he exists, 2) he has an immortal soul. And he thanks Suhm for making this possible by means of his translation.
Shortly thereafter, Fritz starts to read more widely and ceases to believe in an immortal soul. But at this point, their correspondence is full of Fritz coming up with reasons to believe in the immortality of the soul. At one point, he tells Suhm that he, Suhm, is one good argument for immortality of the soul. Namely, it's okay for most of humanity to be snuffed out at death, but not geniuses like Wolff, Newton, Voltaire, and Suhm.
Now, I get the impression this is something like Lehndorff calling Heinrich "as beautiful as an angel." Not exactly: Suhm seems to have been quite intelligent, whereas Heinrich was downright unattractive. But Suhm was evidently intelligent like you or me, not intelligent like Newton
Franz Stephan
So there are several letters which involve Fritz getting his hands on some really good and expensive smoked salmon from the Rhine and sending it to the Duke of Lorraine. I.e. Franz Stephan, MT's new husband! Huh, I was looking to see how new, and the letter dates to March 22, 1736, and Wikipedia tells me they got married February 14, 1736. So this is basically a wedding gift.
Anyway, Fritz uses Suhm as his intermediary to get the salmon to Vienna and to handle all the communications around same.
This results in Suhm writing to Fritz that FS LOVED the salmon, all the more so because he knows how expensive it is, and in recognition of Fritz's generosity, he wants to swear eternal friendship, using Suhm as a go-between.
Which leads to this line from Fritz that I, at least, found hilarious:
Fritz: I certainly did not expect that the salmon I sent to the Duc de Lorraine would be as pleasant to him as it was.
From salmon to eternal friendship, Franzl, that was fast!
Well, enjoy the salmon while you have it, Vienna: future deliveries from Fritz over your borders might not be so pleasant.
selenak's addition: Well, firstly, he had already warmed up to Fritz after their engagement party meeting, secondly, Habsburgs and Lorraines can effuse and go into verbal hyperbole with the best of the Hohenzollern. :) Fritz in his first letter to Franzl after MT's dad is dead is so full of tender concern for a prince whose bff he swears himself forever and all the burdens that prince will carry (since it's clearly not the prince's wife who will do the governing), it brings out tears in one's eyes. (He's totally willing to lift some of those burdens, of course, as well we know.)Russia
Baby, it's cold outside!
In late 1736, Fritz gets the bad news that Suhm has accepted a commission to go to St. Petersburg as Saxon envoy. He doesn't want to go, and Fritz doesn't want him to go.
Fritz: Normally letters from you are the best part of my day, but this is THE WORST. Can I convince you to stay by telling you how awful it's bound to be? You're going to freeze to death! Your health! How will I live without you? How will you live without me?
Suhm: Please don't. You're only making it harder to do what I know I need to do. Duty and honor call. OH GOD I'M GOING TO MISS YOU SO MUCH.
Fritz: Also, you're totally the wrong person for this job. This barbarous court needs those men who know how to drink well and fuck vigorously. I don't think you'd recognize yourself in this description. Your delicate body is the custodian of a fine soul, spiritual and penetrating. [Actual quote, the first line of which I had seen before in biographies.]
Fritz: Also, I'm pretty sure this means I'm never going to see you again. WOE IS ME.
Fritz: But okay. Go, cross the seas, look for another sky and, if it were possible, another world: my friendship will follow you everywhere, and I will tell myself that the universe has no space that does not become sacred in containing you. Russia will become my Greece, and Saint Petersburg, a place I never deigned to think of, the object of my best wishes. [Actual quote.]
And then Fritz tells Suhm to start numbering his letters so they can keep track of which letter is in reply to which. "This one is letter number 1!" he says.
Money, politics, and the military
In Russia, there's a lot of politics and some warfare, which I'll spare you, and also, since Fritz has a regiment, he has his recruiting quotas to meet, so Suhm does some recruiting in Russia for him. Everybody in the Prussian army had a hard time meeting FW's quotas, especially for tall men, seeing as how they are running out of tall men in Europe, and especially tall men willing to hang out in Potsdam and be paraded around.
Suhm also devotes much of their correspondence to getting Fritz loans, because Fritz goes through money like water at this period in his life. He's been getting money from the Imperial court at Austria via Seckendorff, but he doesn't like it:
Since you are willing to be my agent in Russia, have the kindness to let me have the new edition of the Life of Prince Eugene that is printed there; it will be shorter, the arrangement of the sending will be easier, the agreement with the bookseller, safer, and I will find my account there much better than with these booksellers of Vienna, which print slowly, which give no credit to those who subscribe, and who, in a word, do not suit me.
Remember, books are code for money. One biographer said that the first payment from Seckendorff was like the first drink for an alcoholic, an analogy that I can't see any reason to disagree with. Half his letters to Suhm after his arrival in Russia are "MORE MONEY PLZ," and you know he's simultaneously doing the same thing to EC and Seckendorff.
OH. And early on in the Suhm correspondence, Suhm is doing a bit of "woe is me," and Fritz tells Suhm to count himself lucky he's in Dresden and to read Seneca's chapter on the contempt for riches, I kid you not. Knowing what the second half of their correspondence looks like, I literally choked. Of course, he does say, in effect, "You're so lucky to be in a civilized court, we have to have compensations out here," BUT STILL.
Baby, I thought it was cold outside??
On a more personal note, Suhm sends two accounts of fires to Fritz. One started in his own house, which he inherited from his predecessor. He says if it had happened at night, he and all the neighbors would have killed, but because it was daytime, it was caught quickly, and he only lost some furniture.
Fritz: Who would believe that a house could burn in a country where one would rather be led to believe that everything would perish from cold? [Actual quote]
Then, not long after, there's another fire that burns down much of the neighborhood and stops two houses down from Suhm's.
Fritz: Isn't it enough that it's cold all the time there? Does everything have to keep catching on fire too?? Please come back to the sensible and safe country where I can show you how much I love you.
In Sickness and in Health
Home remedies
Like the Fredersdorf correspondence--like much of Fritz's correspondence--significant page time is devoted to discussions of health. Not quite as much as Fredersdorf's, is my impression, but still noticeable amounts here and there.
Fritz does his usual "Let me teach you medicine; I know all about it, seeing as how I am 1) constantly sick, 2) smarter than everyone else." Suhm, ever the diplomat, responds to that one with, "I'm sure that remedy works great for you, but fortunately for me, my problems are not nearly as bad as yours [exactly what Fritz wants to hear], so I will not be doing that at all. But good for you!"
Fritz is immediately reassured and not at all offended and just says, "Thank goodness! I wouldn't want you to have problems as bad as mine."
Suhm's life expectancy at this point: 1 year.
Fritz's: 47 years.
Suhm, like Fredersdorf, clearly knows how to manage Fritz.
Colic
At one point, Fritz has a bad colic, and Suhm sends sympathies, and then shortly thereafter, Suhm is attacked by a bad colic. And he writes the very sweet, "I wish that my colic could have been in place of yours, because that would totally be worth it. It doesn't seem fair that both of us have to suffer, when I would gladly suffer for you. But then I tell myself that if great kings and princes aren't spared, how could a lowly mortal such as myself expect to be spared. And the thought of being united in suffering with you does make me feel better, so that's something, at least."
Sleep
Very early on in the correspondence, when Fritz gets his first installment of Wolff, he and Suhm have this exchange:
Fritz: I'm so busy with my regiment you wouldn't believe it, ugh. And then I've been sick, so my doctor says I need to get some exercise, get the blood moving. So now I don't have any time for study. But never fear! I have a solution. I will give up sleep!
Suhm: I love how excited you are about my translation. Maybe not do without sleep, though?
Fritz: Give up learning?? Never! What a dastardly suggestion.
Suhm: No! Not give up learning! Keep learning. Just...look after your health while you do? Only because I love you so much!
Fritz: It's so sweet that you care about my health, but don't worry about me. I know what I'm doing.
Kids
Part way through their correspondence, Suhm has an acute episode of bad health and is convinced he's on his deathbed. He makes up his will and takes the liberty of naming Fritz as he one the wants to take care of his kids. Not King Fritz, Crown Prince Fritz, who has no money except what he's getting from foreign courts.
He recovers, but a few years later, when he is actually on his deathbed, he again asks Fritz to take care of the kids, this time King Fritz. Who does.
Till death do us part
When Fritz invites Suhm to Berlin at the end of June, one month after he becomes king, Suhm asks for permission to be relieved from his duties as Saxon ambassador. He gets permission, and he sets out some time in late August or early September.
It's a slow trip, during which he has to stop and rest, and write letters explaining what's taking so long. Fritz is wonderful and understanding and all "I can't wait to see you, but please take care of yourself."
He arrives in Warsaw at the end of September or early October. He writes to Fritz that he got suddenly much sicker right before leaving St. Petersburg, and knew an arduous journey might be a really bad idea, but he wanted to see Fritz so much that he couldn't wait, and he was sure that actually seeing him in person would cure all his ills.
Then we get a series of letters giving updates on how he's trying to get better but it's not working. One particularly touching note says, "I'm afraid that you're going to tell me to take it slow and arrive when I can, but I want to see you so badly that I would give up half my life if it meant I could spend the other half with you."
Fritz, right on cue: I think it might be a good idea to travel slowly!
Finally, on November 3, Suhm writes that he's been holding out as long as he could, among other things not wanting to break bad news to Fritz, but he also knows that wouldn't be fair to Fritz, so here he is. He has only a few days, maybe only hours, to live, and it's not fair because they were just about to be reunited, Fritz was king and everything was going to be great, and he almost made it, but the will of Heaven was against their happiness. Suhm describes himself as "ship-wrecked at port" [naufrage au port].
He asks Fritz to take care of the kids, and to treat his sister, who's been acting as the kids' mother in the absence of their mother, as he would Suhm's widow. Fritz does.
Then religious consolation, and finally, The hour is approaching, I already feel that my strength is abandoning me; I have to depart. Farewell. Another tear, it wets your feet. Oh! deign to look at it, great king, as a pledge of the tender and unalterable attachment with which your faithful Diaphane was devoted to you until his last sigh.
He dies five days later, age 49.
Shipping Mode
Saving the best for last: rococo emo, or, "the language of romantic friendship."
The early letters
I will tell you this: the opening letters from Fritz and Suhm are like the opening letters between Fritz and Voltaire--they spend so much time professing eternal devotion that, as sweet as it is, eventually you're relieved when they talk about something else. They have two kinds of exchanges. One goes like this.
Suhm: You're perfect! Sublime! Divine!
Fritz: Stop saying that!
Suhm: But it's true! For once, you can tell a prince this and it's not flattery!*
Fritz: But I don't even recognize myself in those descriptions! And then I feel like you must be writing to someone else!
Suhm: Okay, I'll TRY! But you must forgive me the occasional lapse, because I can't help it!
Then every so often for the remainder of the letters, he starts gushing about Fritz, and then goes, "Sorry! Sorry. I can't help it."
And then the second kind of exchange:
Fritz: I really want to see you! Hearing from you brightens my day, and your absence keeps Rheinsberg from being perfect.
Suhm: I miss you so much! I can't live without you! May my job situation one day allow me to join you there.
Me, knowing how it's going to turn out: *cries*
Classics
Fritz, of course, invokes the standard classical comparisons: "Orestes and Pylades, the good Pirithoüs, the tender Nisus and the wise Achates," right after Suhm arrives in Russia, telling Suhm that no matter how far away he goes, Fritz will never forget him.
Then, after their next major life event, when Fritz is on the verge of becoming king, he again assures Suhm that he won't forget him: you will find in me everything that Orestes ever found in Pylades. [Actual quote.]
Yes, that's right. Fritz as Pylades and Suhm as Orestes, not the other way around.
To which Suhm replies, What! the greatest of kings wants to become Pylades for Orestes! Oh! who will ever be able to say all that is sublime and touching about such feelings?
Love is all you need
When Fritz's brother [unnamed, but we suspect AW] shows up with some companions at Ruppin, Fritz bitches about how inane their conversation was, and how he had to entertain them, when he really wanted to be reading the next installment of the Wolff translation, and how he would gladly have gone two days without food if it meant he could talk to Suhm instead of these nitwits.
PEOPLE ARE STUPID WHY ARE PEOPLE SO STUPID I JUST WANT TO READ BOOKS AND TALK BOOKS
And then there was the time Suhm wrote, "I was planning to work on the next installment of the translation for you, but instead I read and reread your last letter a thousand times without being able to get enough of it."
Poetic one-liners
After Suhm moves to Russia, Fritz writes:
When will I see you again, my dear Diaphane? When can we go for a walk under the beech trees and under the elms?
Also, remember how Fritz used to visit Berlin in the winters, and that's when he would see Suhm, and they would sit by the fire and talk for hours? After Suhm moves to Russia, Fritz writes, that first winter without him:
We are leaving next week for Berlin. I will find my chimney fire there, but I will not find there the one whose conversation charmed my soul.
And then he continues:
Remember, my dear Diaphane, that there is in Germany a small country situated in a pretty laughing valley and all surrounded by woods, where your name and your memory will not perish, as long as I live in it.
Live for me
When Suhm is so sick he thinks he's going to die, Fritz writes his usual, "Don't die! Live for me! Think how upset I will be if you die! You're the best proof of immortality of the soul I've got! Losing you forever would be a blow to humanity akin to losing Newton or Voltaire!" [Whenever someone is sick or upset or grieving, Fritz urges them to feel better for *his* sake, even when this is emotionally tone-deaf and outright offensive.]
Only this time, Fritz's "get well soon" approach works. Suhm writes, after he recovers, writes:
When my life is odious to me, the interest you deign to take in it would be enough to make it dear to me. I therefore come back with joy to life, since heaven wants it, and Your Royal Highness wants it; but, my lord, suffer it to be henceforth to live only for you, to enjoy the only good that I aspire to, that of possessing your good graces, to be a witness, finally, of your virtues and your glory.
Yes, I said to myself, whatever my fate, I will always be the envy of everyone, as long as Your Royal Highness deigns to keep me with such feelings. You have restored my health, my lord, perhaps life; so it is to you that I owe it, and that I make a vow to consecrate it. Take possession of me, as of property which belongs to you by the most sacred rights. You have given me a peace of mind that nothing in the world is capable of altering, a firmness that nothing can shake, and I feel intimately that I can now be happy in spite of fate. The only thing that can still afflict me is the distance in which the circumstances still condemn me to live away from Your Royal Highness. You are, monseigneur, to express myself figuratively, you are my sun; for, as soon as I am no longer in a position to experience the gentle influence of your rays, I feel a cold creep so deep into my soul, that nothing is capable of warming it.
A couple months later, Fritz gives Suhm a watch, inspiring Suhm to new heights of emotion:
In the transports of joy with which my heart is so intoxicated, what expression would I have left that could respond to the ardor of the feeling with which I feel my soul burning? It's a passion, it's a love. My poor body is too weak to support such a powerful emotion, too weak to feed such a burning fire, capable of consuming it; and the moment when my calm soul is in a peaceful state is the moment when I begin to be able to express weakly, as I do, a slight shadow of the ineffable feelings with which my soul was filled.
1740 chronology
Reading the 1740 letters, you can watch Suhm set out from St. Petersburg immediately, drag himself mile by painful mile in the letters, going as fast as he can, against all medical advice and the demands of his body, and only stopping for good when he reports himself being unable to get out of bed and being excused from attending court. He also, if I'm reading the correspondence correctly, decided to submit his request to resign his position at St. Petersburg *before* he even had an offer in hand from Fritz. Wow, rereading more closely, before he'd heard from Fritz at all.
May 31: FW dies.
June 14: Fritz writes a letter to Suhm telling him that he's king now and would Suhm like to come?
~June 15: The news reaches St. Petersburg. Fritz's June 14 letter is still on the way.
~June 15: Suhm writes to Dresden asking permission to leave St. Petersburg and go live with Fritz.
June 15: Suhm writes a letter congratulating and praising Fritz. He hasn't received Fritz's June 14 letter yet.
June 29: Fritz gets Suhm's June 15 letter. He thanks Suhm for the compliments, but says what he really was hoping for from the letter was to find out if Suhm wanted to join him. He sounds a little hurt.
July 2: Suhm gets Fritz's June 14 letter. He replies that he hadn't even waited for the formal invitation from the King but rather, relying on the Crown Prince's promises, immediately started trying to quit his job and is still waiting to hear back on that. Translation: "DUH, I want to be with you. I thought that went without saying."
July 15: Fritz gets Suhm's July 2 DUH letter. He is delighted.
So it seems to me like Suhm was motivated by love rather than a search for a position. Perhaps idealized love, and certainly not love that predicted the next 46 years, but one that was based on something real during the last 20.
