I managed to read just a few more pages of Montesquieu, and I found the answer to one thing we'd been wondering about. Remember when Fritz says in 1731 that he should marry MT because FS is out of favor with the Emperor anyway? And we were wondering where on earth he was getting his intelligence, because FS remained solidly in favor as far as we could tell, and of course did end up marrying MT a few years later?
Montesquieu reports in 1728 that FS is out of favor because the Empress (MT's mother) gave birth to a daughter, and he couldn't resist showing his pleasure. So whatever intelligence Fritz is relying on is apparently a rumor that's been going around for a few years. (Wishful thinking?)
I would think it might be true, but the last daughter Wikipedia reports is from 1725, and it's unlikely FS would have been out of favor for *that* long without us knowing about it. A couple years I'd believe, but 6 is too many.
But if there was this rumor going around already in 1728, and then FS was in Lorraine from 1729-1731 (because he had just inherited) and thus not at court, I could see where Fritz got the idea he was out of favor in 1731.
Speaking of the 1725 baby, Wikipedia tells me this about Elisabeth Christine the mother of MT:
Three years after her marriage, court doctors prescribed large doses of liquor to make her more fertile, which gave her face a permanent blush. During her 1725 pregnancy, Charles unsuccessfully had her bedchamber decorated with erotic images of male beauty so as to make her expected baby male by stimulating her fantasy. After this, the court doctors prescribed a rich diet to increase her fertility, which made her so fat that she became unable to walk, experienced breathing problems, insomnia and dropsy and had to be lowered into her chairs by a specially constructed machine.
You were saying about not wanting to be a woman in the past, cahn? Ay ay ay. (Though the erotic images part sounds hilarious.)
Also, about the liquor stimulating fertility part, I wonder if they had noticed a correlation between pregnancies and alcohol and decided that alcohol increased your fertility rather than, say, affected your judgment.
Re: Montesquieu in Germany
Montesquieu reports in 1728 that FS is out of favor because the Empress (MT's mother) gave birth to a daughter, and he couldn't resist showing his pleasure. So whatever intelligence Fritz is relying on is apparently a rumor that's been going around for a few years. (Wishful thinking?)
I would think it might be true, but the last daughter Wikipedia reports is from 1725, and it's unlikely FS would have been out of favor for *that* long without us knowing about it. A couple years I'd believe, but 6 is too many.
But if there was this rumor going around already in 1728, and then FS was in Lorraine from 1729-1731 (because he had just inherited) and thus not at court, I could see where Fritz got the idea he was out of favor in 1731.
Speaking of the 1725 baby, Wikipedia tells me this about Elisabeth Christine the mother of MT:
Three years after her marriage, court doctors prescribed large doses of liquor to make her more fertile, which gave her face a permanent blush. During her 1725 pregnancy, Charles unsuccessfully had her bedchamber decorated with erotic images of male beauty so as to make her expected baby male by stimulating her fantasy. After this, the court doctors prescribed a rich diet to increase her fertility, which made her so fat that she became unable to walk, experienced breathing problems, insomnia and dropsy and had to be lowered into her chairs by a specially constructed machine.
You were saying about not wanting to be a woman in the past,
Also, about the liquor stimulating fertility part, I wonder if they had noticed a correlation between pregnancies and alcohol and decided that alcohol increased your fertility rather than, say, affected your judgment.
Lol.