Yep, those were exactly my questions when I first learned of the existence of this list of six.
If it were a list from the set of everyone, in service and not, living and dead, male and female, that he loved during his entire life, I personally would fully expect Sophia Dorothea and Wilhelmine to be on the list. Possibly Katte--Fritz virtually never *talks* about Katte, which makes it hard to know where he stood other than "deeply traumatized." He loved him a lot and always remembered him with love and pain. Still top six in 1786? That I don't know.
Other than that, Fredersdorf? Algarotti? Is Catt on the list? Anyone else from the existing list of six in the letter? Don't know. Definitely some dogs, though. <3 (11 buried beside him.) And he did have a nephew who died young (smallpox) whom he is said to have loved very much. All I have are guesses, and there are other plausible candidates I haven't named. (ETA: Marischal! I knew I was forgetting a major candidate.)
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Date: 2019-08-20 04:21 am (UTC)If it were a list from the set of everyone, in service and not, living and dead, male and female, that he loved during his entire life, I personally would fully expect Sophia Dorothea and Wilhelmine to be on the list. Possibly Katte--Fritz virtually never *talks* about Katte, which makes it hard to know where he stood other than "deeply traumatized." He loved him a lot and always remembered him with love and pain. Still top six in 1786? That I don't know.
Other than that, Fredersdorf? Algarotti? Is Catt on the list? Anyone else from the existing list of six in the letter? Don't know. Definitely some dogs, though. <3 (11 buried beside him.) And he did have a nephew who died young (smallpox) whom he is said to have loved very much. All I have are guesses, and there are other plausible candidates I haven't named. (ETA: Marischal! I knew I was forgetting a major candidate.)
But Voltaire without doubt is #1 frenemy. :P