At one point when Wilhelmine's daughter Friederike, age 16, takes off with her new husband to Italy on a whim with no advance warning (this was before Wilhelmine's own journey south), Wilhelmine writes ruefully to Fritz wen reporting this that this is what they should have done at that age (running off to Italy together). "We have wasted our youth trying so hard to be dutiful and good."
Have relistened further, and post-reconciliation (quoth Fritz "in an argument between head and heart, my heart will always argue in your favor", and hence he accepts she didn't mean to betray him and really loves him), they've fallen in their old co-dependence. He's actually rather sweet when she finally does come clean about her reasons for the Marwitz debacle. Which she has to, because Marwitz, whose first name was Wilhelmine Dorothee (this, like the Margrave being called Friedrich, is just mean to future fiction writers and readers!), upped the ante. Background: her father, who was old Prussian nobility and once was left for dead after a Fritzian battle but came back from that, had died. Because Wilhelmine had arranged the Marwitz/Burghaus Austrian marriage, Fritz refused to let Marwitz have her inheritance (no Prussian money or Prussian goods go to the Austrians!). Given Marwitz' Austrian husband, it then turned out, had counted on that money - he was a gambler -, Marwitz remained in Bayreuth and continued to be the Margrave's mistress. Post sibling reconciliation, she point blank told Wilhelmine that if Wilhelmine wanted her to go to Vienna as opposed to spending her mornings fucking the Margrave, she'd better get her that inheritance money. (Marwitz is totally played by Joan Collins in my head.)
Fritz: after that explanation, provides the money without a single "I told you so" and only warns Wihelmine that Marwitz and her husband the gambler are just the types to ask for more later.
(She did go to Vienna, and was quite succesful in creating a salon there, attended, among others by young Joseph, eagerly listening to stories about the Prussian court.)
Some years later, when Fritz has the impression the Margraves cheats again, he tries marriage counselling by creating a fable about a butterfly which can't help visiting all the flowers, and so our heroine who loves the butterfly is only making herself sad when wishing it not to be a butterfly (thus says a fairy he names "Moral"). To which Wilhelmine responds with: "Love your fable, but it doesn't apply right now: luckily my own butterfly is finding the local flowers to be roses, with thorns." (This was during their long journey.)
Meanwhile, Wilhelmine tries her best to reconcile him with his frenemy. Incidentally, his reaction to Wilhelmine's Voltaire letter is "I'm not surprised at the comedy he played for you. Why oh why has such a genius to be such a jerk!" (All of Europe: starts coughing.)
I think for a Wilhelmine fix-it (which alas would make our Franconian landscape poorer - it's my home province she contributed a lot of nice buildings and nature parks to), it would have needed someone who accomplished such a myriad of feats: being trustworthy, in love with her, interesting, able to outshine or at least equal Fritz in her eyes, with patience and understanding, and at least a noble because she definitely wasn't ahead of her time enough to go for a citizen, that no candidate among her ontemporaries comes to mind. Not to have married at all might have worked for her in that she never appears to have considered cheating on the Margrave on return and once writes to Fritz when he does his thing about female virtue again (i.e. she's one of the few, everyone else at the spa where she's currently staying is a slut) that it's no virtue without temptation and her passion is for music, not guys. But otoh, this is a girl who's been told her purpose in life was to be a royal spouse and mother and only married woman who procreate are pleasing in God's eyes from toddlerdom onwards by both parents (who just disagreed on whose spouse she was supposed to be), and no matter her own inclination, she probably would have felt like a failure if she hadn't gotten married at all.
A romantic friendship with another woman would have been a plausible non-anachronistic way to be happy, perhaps, but alas for Marwitz' nature (that letter where Wilhelmine finally explains about her also has her writing "I truly thought I had found a friend, a true and beloved friend in her"). No other lady-in-waiting ever seems to have gained similar stature in her eyes, other than her beloved "Sonsine" - i.e. Fräulein von Sonsfeld, her governess (the non-abusive one) who'd come with her to Bayreuth and remained with her until her death, but that's a very different type of relationship.
Re: Prussian sibling correspondance
Have relistened further, and post-reconciliation (quoth Fritz "in an argument between head and heart, my heart will always argue in your favor", and hence he accepts she didn't mean to betray him and really loves him), they've fallen in their old co-dependence. He's actually rather sweet when she finally does come clean about her reasons for the Marwitz debacle. Which she has to, because Marwitz, whose first name was Wilhelmine Dorothee (this, like the Margrave being called Friedrich, is just mean to future fiction writers and readers!), upped the ante. Background: her father, who was old Prussian nobility and once was left for dead after a Fritzian battle but came back from that, had died. Because Wilhelmine had arranged the Marwitz/Burghaus Austrian marriage, Fritz refused to let Marwitz have her inheritance (no Prussian money or Prussian goods go to the Austrians!). Given Marwitz' Austrian husband, it then turned out, had counted on that money - he was a gambler -, Marwitz remained in Bayreuth and continued to be the Margrave's mistress. Post sibling reconciliation, she point blank told Wilhelmine that if Wilhelmine wanted her to go to Vienna as opposed to spending her mornings fucking the Margrave, she'd better get her that inheritance money. (Marwitz is totally played by Joan Collins in my head.)
Fritz: after that explanation, provides the money without a single "I told you so" and only warns Wihelmine that Marwitz and her husband the gambler are just the types to ask for more later.
(She did go to Vienna, and was quite succesful in creating a salon there, attended, among others by young Joseph, eagerly listening to stories about the Prussian court.)
Some years later, when Fritz has the impression the Margraves cheats again, he tries marriage counselling by creating a fable about a butterfly which can't help visiting all the flowers, and so our heroine who loves the butterfly is only making herself sad when wishing it not to be a butterfly (thus says a fairy he names "Moral"). To which Wilhelmine responds with: "Love your fable, but it doesn't apply right now: luckily my own butterfly is finding the local flowers to be roses, with thorns." (This was during their long journey.)
Meanwhile, Wilhelmine tries her best to reconcile him with his frenemy. Incidentally, his reaction to Wilhelmine's Voltaire letter is "I'm not surprised at the comedy he played for you. Why oh why has such a genius to be such a jerk!" (All of Europe: starts coughing.)
I think for a Wilhelmine fix-it (which alas would make our Franconian landscape poorer - it's my home province she contributed a lot of nice buildings and nature parks to), it would have needed someone who accomplished such a myriad of feats: being trustworthy, in love with her, interesting, able to outshine or at least equal Fritz in her eyes, with patience and understanding, and at least a noble because she definitely wasn't ahead of her time enough to go for a citizen, that no candidate among her ontemporaries comes to mind. Not to have married at all might have worked for her in that she never appears to have considered cheating on the Margrave on return and once writes to Fritz when he does his thing about female virtue again (i.e. she's one of the few, everyone else at the spa where she's currently staying is a slut) that it's no virtue without temptation and her passion is for music, not guys. But otoh, this is a girl who's been told her purpose in life was to be a royal spouse and mother and only married woman who procreate are pleasing in God's eyes from toddlerdom onwards by both parents (who just disagreed on whose spouse she was supposed to be), and no matter her own inclination, she probably would have felt like a failure if she hadn't gotten married at all.
A romantic friendship with another woman would have been a plausible non-anachronistic way to be happy, perhaps, but alas for Marwitz' nature (that letter where Wilhelmine finally explains about her also has her writing "I truly thought I had found a friend, a true and beloved friend in her"). No other lady-in-waiting ever seems to have gained similar stature in her eyes, other than her beloved "Sonsine" - i.e. Fräulein von Sonsfeld, her governess (the non-abusive one) who'd come with her to Bayreuth and remained with her until her death, but that's a very different type of relationship.