Oh right! We did have that discussion re: pamphlet vs memoirs when it comes to STD + surgery = impotence. *facepalms* Okay, that makes Boswell's journal entry then the earliest recording of the rumor I've seen so far. Considering Boswell hears it when hanging out with the Swedish ambassador, a few months before his meeting(s) with Voltaire, I would speculate that maybe Voltaire heard about this rumor this way, except no, because Boswell's record of his Voltaire encounters is pretty thorough, and other than that Johnson quote, Fritz doesn't come up. Still, if the Swedes have heard it, who weren't even represented in Berlin during the war due to being on the other side, it must have been making the rounds for a while already. (BTW: has Ulrike heard?)
With the slight difference that Zimmermann says he avoided ladies of the court, at least according to your write-up. But yes, the brothels are clearly already making the rounds in the rumor mill.
True, not just ladies of the court, though - any "good" woman, because Zimmerann's Fritz is so deeply shocked by what happened to (definitely not a court lady, but a middle class lass) Doris Ritter that from this point onwards, he won't endanger any "good" woman anymore, and it's whores, whores, whores all the way.
Incidentally, other than Orzelska and Wreech, do we know of any noble lady rumor tied to young Fritz?
Funny, the same thing happened to Andrew Mitchell. Oh, Fritz.
Mitchell, of course, experienced it "live", so to speak, which must have been even worse, but he also experienced it after several years of campaigning, which supposedly hardens people.And yet. For Boswell, this and the other reminders of the recent wra, like the destroyed buildings in Wittenberg, were a first, since he was born in 1740, and was a lowland Scot, which means he didn't see such stark visual results of warfare before this journey. He had a glamorized idea of what being a soldier meant until then, too. (One entry I didn't copy was Boswell watching as a soldier gets punished the Prussian way and going !!!!!!) (Not, I hasten to add, that he couldn't have seen the same thing in the British marine, but he wasn't romantisizing sailors before.)
Re: Boswell in Prussia: All Things Fritz
With the slight difference that Zimmermann says he avoided ladies of the court, at least according to your write-up. But yes, the brothels are clearly already making the rounds in the rumor mill.
True, not just ladies of the court, though - any "good" woman, because Zimmerann's Fritz is so deeply shocked by what happened to (definitely not a court lady, but a middle class lass) Doris Ritter that from this point onwards, he won't endanger any "good" woman anymore, and it's whores, whores, whores all the way.
Incidentally, other than Orzelska and Wreech, do we know of any noble lady rumor tied to young Fritz?
Funny, the same thing happened to Andrew Mitchell. Oh, Fritz.
Mitchell, of course, experienced it "live", so to speak, which must have been even worse, but he also experienced it after several years of campaigning, which supposedly hardens people.And yet. For Boswell, this and the other reminders of the recent wra, like the destroyed buildings in Wittenberg, were a first, since he was born in 1740, and was a lowland Scot, which means he didn't see such stark visual results of warfare before this journey. He had a glamorized idea of what being a soldier meant until then, too. (One entry I didn't copy was Boswell watching as a soldier gets punished the Prussian way and going !!!!!!) (Not, I hasten to add, that he couldn't have seen the same thing in the British marine, but he wasn't romantisizing sailors before.)