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Lying Liars Who Lie
Sep. 14th, 2020 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mildred_of_midgardAka, sources that biographers will treat as reliable, but that are even more unreliable than usual.
Catt's memoirs are basically self-insert fanfic. He plagiarized from a number of sources and put their words into Fritz's mouth and claimed that Fritz said those things to him. Only his diary can be trusted as much as diaries usually can. Despite the damning evidence presented by Reinhold Koser in 1884, most biographers take his memoirs at face value, even today. Seeselenak's write-up of Koser's takedown of the Catt memoirs here, and supplements by mildred_of_midgard in the comments and here.
Trenck's memoirs were found in the early 20th century to be frequently contradicted by the documentary evidence. For example, he claims to have been Frederick's personal batman at the battle of Soor. However, by the time Soor happened, he was in prison. It's no longer clear whether he even knew Frederick personally at all. Seeselenak's write-up of Gustav Volz's takedown of the Trenck memoirs here.
Voltaire's letters to his mistress-cum-niece Madame Denis between 1750 and 1753 were written or heavily doctored in 1754-1755 as a smear campaign against Frederick. They are not actual letters from Voltaire's stay in Prussia. This was discovered by André Magnan only in 1989. It took a while for this to permeate French scholarship, and even longer for English and German scholarship. You will see otherwise good scholars like Eva Ziebura quoting doctored Voltaire letters in the 2000s. Readgambitten's description of the discovery here.
Eugene's memoirs were written by the Prince de Ligne as basically first-person fanfic, never published during his lifetime, and found in his desk.
Austrian Trenck's memoirs were not written by him either.
Catt's memoirs are basically self-insert fanfic. He plagiarized from a number of sources and put their words into Fritz's mouth and claimed that Fritz said those things to him. Only his diary can be trusted as much as diaries usually can. Despite the damning evidence presented by Reinhold Koser in 1884, most biographers take his memoirs at face value, even today. See
selenak's write-up of Koser's takedown of the Catt memoirs here, and supplements by mildred_of_midgard in the comments and here.Trenck's memoirs were found in the early 20th century to be frequently contradicted by the documentary evidence. For example, he claims to have been Frederick's personal batman at the battle of Soor. However, by the time Soor happened, he was in prison. It's no longer clear whether he even knew Frederick personally at all. See
selenak's write-up of Gustav Volz's takedown of the Trenck memoirs here.Voltaire's letters to his mistress-cum-niece Madame Denis between 1750 and 1753 were written or heavily doctored in 1754-1755 as a smear campaign against Frederick. They are not actual letters from Voltaire's stay in Prussia. This was discovered by André Magnan only in 1989. It took a while for this to permeate French scholarship, and even longer for English and German scholarship. You will see otherwise good scholars like Eva Ziebura quoting doctored Voltaire letters in the 2000s. Read
gambitten's description of the discovery here.Eugene's memoirs were written by the Prince de Ligne as basically first-person fanfic, never published during his lifetime, and found in his desk.
Austrian Trenck's memoirs were not written by him either.
