polymathy

Reinhold Koser drew our attention to the report of the Danish ambassador, Johnn, by saying that it resembled the 1731 anonymous pamphlet so closely that it was an important clue to the origin.

They are the only two accounts I'm aware of that have Katte invoking the King in his last words. They're also the only two that have him saying "If I had ten lives" instead of "a thousand." There are numerous other details that we find nowhere else, such as the coffin being made of four planks. (In the actual pictures I've seen of it, it appears to have five: bottom, two sides, and a V-shaped top. Not counting, of course, the two short sides.)

Since the 1731 pamphlet contains the letters from Katte to his family and the King, the Danish ambassador most likely had someone with access to the Prussian archives in their pay.

The date and time of the execution being wrong are attributed by Koser to printer's errors. In a text that includes a hand-foot (Hand-Fuß) instead of a hand-kiss (Hand-Kuß), this seems likely.

It's worth knowing that both Wilhelmine, in her memoirs, and Friedrich, in Mitchell's memoirs, credited the Danish envoy Løvenørn, Johnn's colleague, with giving Katte warning of his impending arrest, warning that Katte did not act on in time.

Now, if Wikipedia is to be trusted, Løvenørn was recalled to Denmark in October, so he was not in Berlin when the execution took place, and was probably not the one responsible for leaking the letters in the Cologne pamphlet. This would imply that both envoys, Johnn and Løvenørn, were highly sympathetic to Katte, and perhaps acted out of personal sympathy and not only their diplomatic mandate to advance the cause of Denmark at Friedrich Wilhelm's court.

Koser also tells us that the order to arrest Katte arrived on the evening of August 15, but was not delivered by the postmaster to Natzmer until the morning of August 16, despite the fact that it was sent by urgent post. We are speculating that the delay might have been deliberate and the postmaster might have been in the pay of one of the envoys, perhaps Danish or English.

Koser was also the one who brought to our attention the fact that there were two Münchow letters that contained similar but contradictory information, and that Münchow's age is a thorny topic.

In the 1886 first edition of his biography of Friedrich as crown prince, Koser quotes the contradictions, then says, "One won't want to trust this witness anymore." In his 1901 second edition, he deletes that sentence. Hoffbauer, in 1905, takes this to mean that Koser changed his mind and considered Münchow a reliable witness as far as the layout of Küstrin was concerned. Since he also, in the second edition, concludes even more strongly that Münchow is probably wrong about his age in every statement he made about it, and that he was thus probably only four at the time of execution, I have to wonder how reliable Koser really thought Münchow was.

What's interesting to me is that both Johnn and the pamphlet have Friedrich being informed of the impending execution at 5 am. This matches the report given by Lepel to Friedrich Wilhelm on November 8, which was probably delivered to Berlin by express post on November 9. Johnn's letter is dated November 11. This means he has accurate information that couldn't have been witnessed by any of the 150 soldiers that were standing outside during the execution.

I think it's therefore likely that Johnn had access to the letter in the archives a scarce day or two after it was delivered.

What's interesting is that Lepel, in his November 8 account, which is likely doctored to at least some extent to keep the King happy, reports a captain and a colonel reporting the news to Friedrich, but not either himself or Münchow Sr. The 1731 pamphlet has "two captains," which is extremely close. Münchow Jr. says his father was present, which is slightly more reliable than Wilhelmine's account that Münchow and Lepel were present. Catt and Voltaire both agree there were two officers delivering the news, and some grenadiers who were responsible for dragging Fritz to the window.

I still consider it possible that Lepel and Münchow were both present in the room when the news was delivered.

Of interest probably only to me, but this came up while doing fic research.

When Fritz made his escape attempt and was trying to hide the fact that he had been having dealings with the English, he confessed "that he was planning to flee to Strasbourg (where he seemed to have his eyes on a stay on the Alsatian estate of the French envoy, comte Rothenbourg)." Quote MacDonogh. I've also seen other sources state that Katte had suggested Rothenburg's estate as a safe haven, and that this was one of the pieces of evidence used to convict of Katte of being up to his ears in this plot and helping advance it further than it would have without him.

Being me, I've been wanting and wanting to track down this estate, just like I did with Peter Keith's.

Well, I finally turned it up, and one reason it took so long is that it's not nearly as close to Strasbourg as that sentence had led me to believe. Comte Rothenburg/Rottembourg (however you want to spell his name) was feudal lord of the seigneury of Masevaux, 120 km south and east of Strasbourg, and about 40 km from the modern French border.

It also gets a bit more complicated than this. Rothenburg was descended from Conrad de Rosen, who was a field marshal and a member of a prominent family. Conrad bought this property from the Fuggers (famous German banking family), then sold it in 1684 to his son-in-law, who was our Comte Rothenburg's father.

Conrad meanwhile hung on to the Dettwiller, Herrenstein, and Bollwiller estates, though Bollwiller had been pawned to the Fuggers by his father-in-law, and Conrad had to pay that debt. These estates were passed down the Rosen line.

Comte Rothemburg, during his lifetime, acquired the nearby estate of Rougemont. On his death, his estates, Masevaux and Rougemont, went to his sister.

Now, I had thought both his sisters were childless, but it turns out not, because sister had a daughter. Daughter inherited the Rothenburg estates, and married the Rosen heir of Conrad's estates. Thus the Rosen family became one of the largest landowners in Alsace.

Here are Bollwiller, Masevaux, and Rougemont situated on the map in relation to each other and Strasbourg.



Parts of the original manor house in Masevaux remain standing and are protected as a historic monument.

I also found out that our Comte Rothenbourg's library was assessed after his death, and thus I know that it contained 156 books, most of which were in French, and, amazingly, I know the distribution of these books as well:

Religion: 5%
Law: 8%
History: 22%
Belles-lettres: 43%
Sciences & arts: 13%
Various: 9%

Now, this is only the books of value, because smaller books were not recorded, but even so, I have to say...this is not going to be enough for Fritz in my AU. That library's going to have to be expanded once he decides he's moving in permanently. :P

Otto Gustav von Lepel was the commandant and governor of the fortress at Küstrin in 1730. He was the one charged by Friedrich Wilhelm with Friedrich's imprisonment and Katte's execution.

On November 6, he wrote the following note to Friedrich Wilhelm, stating that the execution had been carried out. This report is given by Hoffbauer on page 42 of his 1905 monograph Die Kattetragödie in Cüstrin und ihre Stätte. Translation mine.

( Text )

( Translation )

Hoffbauer reports that on November 7, Friedrich Wilhelm wrote a letter to Lepel demanding more detail. Lepel then replied on November 8 with the following more detailed account, given by Hoffbauer on pages 45-46. Translation mine.

( Text )
( Translation )

August Friedrich von Johnn was the Danish envoy to Prussia in 1730. He was in Berlin when the execution was taking place at Küstrin. On November 11, 1730, he wrote an account of the execution in his formal report back to Denmark. This report, translated into German, was published in 1803 in Neue Berlinische Monatsschrift, vol. 9, pp. 342-344. The translation into English is mine.

( Text )

( Translation )

Since the last round of textual criticism was posted, several new developments have turned up. In this post, I'm going to report on these developments and how they've affected the conclusions of the previous posts. I will stop short of doing a polished write-up of each new source in this post, especially since producing the necessary evidence for similarities would involve adding new excerpts from existing sources.

( Thiébault overview )

( Thiébault summary )

( Thiébault analysis )

We then turned up a Katte passage in the memoirs of Andrew Mitchell.

( Mitchell overview )

( Mitchell summary )

( Mitchell analysis )

We then turned up an anonymous pamphlet that was published shortly after Katte's execution.

( Pamphlet overview )

( Pamphlet summary )

( Pamphlet analysis )

But by far the most earth-shattering discovery has been just how unreliable Catt is. He is basically a historical novelist. You can read a detailed account of the evidence here. In sum, Catt is unreliable in three main ways:

- Taking anecdotes he read in books, or heard from other people, and putting them in Fritz's mouth.
- Changing the dates on which he had conversations with Fritz, and combining unrelated conversations.
- Rewriting entire episodes to make himself look better, even if it makes Fritz look worse.

It's entirely possible that twenty-years' worth of conversations with Fritz are packed into this memoir supposedly covering the first two years.

Below the cut, a dissection of the passage in which Fritz supposedly tells Catt about his escape attempt, imprisonment, and Katte's execution. To make a long story short, it purports to be a single conversation, but is really a composite of conversations that took place on different days, including conversations that weren't with Fritz.

( Deconstructing Catt )

So here's my current thinking on the subject.

( External and textual evidence for source relationships )

( Evidence for source relationships from their content )

And now, for my tentative conclusions on what happened and who said what when.

( How it (probably maybe idk) happened )

( Notes for consolidated write-up )