So! The six people is an interesting list. It never made any sense to me until I went and read the original letter. It's not a list of the six people Frederick the Great loved most over the course of his life, as it's usually presented. It's a list of men living and serving in 1741 (i.e., not even halfway through his life, though I feel like the list is front-loaded in any case, so that may not matter too much) whose services he was recommending to his brother and heir presumptive in case he died in battle, and about whom he added the note "whom I have loved the most in my life". That explains why, for instance, Wilhelmine doesn't make the top six.
For this reason, the names won't mean anything to you, Cahn, but they're Keyserlingk, Jordan, Wartensleben, Hacke, Fredersdorf, & Eichel. (Funnily enough, I had the letter in question in my Chrome bookmarks, so I was able to pull it right up.)
Disclaimer: it's always possible he was het-posing for Voltaire, of course, but given how insulting he could be about most people, especially women, this is still a remarkable Quote imo.
Remarkable, but not totally out of character. Friedrich, in between vast amounts of misogyny, did sprinkle in some complimentary words about individual women (including ones he wasn't related to) with whom he had good relationships.
Of course, het-posing was also a thing that I'm pretty sure he did from time to time. Especially regarding his wife while his father was alive. It all makes it super hard to tell what's real and what's not.
My own guess is that he experimented with women when he was younger, possibly including the Countess, and decided against. Of course, he may have done the same with men and just taken longer to decide he was homoromantic and asexual. I am agnostic on whether his marriage was ever consummated. My guess is no, but I have low confidence in that guess. Pretty high confidence that EC would not have told on him, though, which makes it more plausible.
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For this reason, the names won't mean anything to you, Cahn, but they're Keyserlingk, Jordan, Wartensleben, Hacke, Fredersdorf, & Eichel. (Funnily enough, I had the letter in question in my Chrome bookmarks, so I was able to pull it right up.)
Disclaimer: it's always possible he was het-posing for Voltaire, of course, but given how insulting he could be about most people, especially women, this is still a remarkable Quote imo.
Remarkable, but not totally out of character. Friedrich, in between vast amounts of misogyny, did sprinkle in some complimentary words about individual women (including ones he wasn't related to) with whom he had good relationships.
Of course, het-posing was also a thing that I'm pretty sure he did from time to time. Especially regarding his wife while his father was alive. It all makes it super hard to tell what's real and what's not.
My own guess is that he experimented with women when he was younger, possibly including the Countess, and decided against. Of course, he may have done the same with men and just taken longer to decide he was homoromantic and asexual. I am agnostic on whether his marriage was ever consummated. My guess is no, but I have low confidence in that guess. Pretty high confidence that EC would not have told on him, though, which makes it more plausible.