![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnAnd, I mean, it doesn't have to be just 18th century characters, either!
(also, waiting for Yuletide!)
(also, waiting for Yuletide!)
cahncahn
Profile
cahn
Page Summary
Active Entries
Style Credit
- Style: by timeasmymeasure
Expand Cut Tags
No cut tags
Re: Cornelia Naumann: Scherben des Glücks ("Shards of Happiness" - a novel about Wilhelmine)
Date: 2022-01-03 08:13 pm (UTC)Ahaha. That's most
unimaginativeinconsiderate, novel author!he gets a modern coming out scene with Wilhelmine in early 1732 (the novel lets him accompangny her and Bayreuth Friedrich a bit on the way to Bayreuth)
Yeah, not a fan of this kind of on-the-nose anachronism. Also, I don't think FW would have LET Fritz accompany Wilhelmine anywhere in 1732, would he?
after Orzelska infected me with syphilis
What! Poor Orzelska, lies and slander. (Or did she in fact have syphilis? If so, I didn't know.)
fully intending to escape along with Fritz
Everything else that you and Mildred said aside, I'm also not sure how they'd have pulled this off logistically.
on the premise that if Fritz finds out his favourite sister, that exception to the female sex and honorary man, has a lover, he will be v.v.v. angry with her indeed.
I feel like somebody was not aware of Fritz's multiple comments on this question in general, although I'll concede that with Wilhelmine in particular it might have been a bit different emotionally. But not on the "exception to the female sex" basis.
new subtext for Superville's Fritz hate-on and keeping of Wilhelmine's last memoirs manuscript
Huh. I can't see it from Wilhelmine's side tbh, but from his angle it would be interesting subtext indeed.
the novel's Wilhelmine has a very modern abhorrence of war in general. Not buying it for historical Wilhelmine.
she definitely tried to make a separate peace with France happen as hard as she could in the last two years of her life
I think part of the peace-making effort and her attitude in general was definitely the desire to do something and to help Fritz in any way possible. I certainly remember several letters along the lines of "I wish I was a man / an Amazon, so I could help you and fight at your side, because that would be much better than just sitting around and worrying". Not to mention that the war wasn't exactly great for Bayreuth either. On the other hand, June 1756: je pense come Sancho qui etoit une creature tres pacifique et je voudrois fort qu’on l’erige en Docteur pour mettre fin au Carnage et a La Fureur qu’on a de se detruire. (Which is from an apparently unpublished letter quoted in this article on the topic at hand. Also this quote, which is in Volz as well: Why is the age of the Amazons over! Then the guiding star of your army would not be the desire for glory, but the heartfelt love. Your good spirit would protect me from the clutches of your two diabolical opponents. What's interesting here is the glory vs. love thing, which suggests to me that her support for him and his battles and wars is very much due to personal love and not so much on a political level.)
Re: Cornelia Naumann: Scherben des Glücks ("Shards of Happiness" - a novel about Wilhelmine)
Date: 2022-01-04 12:20 am (UTC)I'm going with hard no. Fritz was allowed to do some traveling in late 1731 for work-related purposes (how he met Fredersdorf), but FW was very suspicious of the sibling bond and tried to keep them apart as much as possible. This is how you get the Grumbkow "Boundaries!" letter.
What's interesting here is the glory vs. love thing, which suggests to me that her support for him and his battles and wars is very much due to personal love and not so much on a political level.)
I haven't read a fraction of the correspondence that you have, but from what I have read and what you and
what do you mean that doesn't include lunch with MT," I would. (Like Charlotte, who I totally buy is more of the "Come back with your shield or on it" type.)Re: Cornelia Naumann: Scherben des Glücks ("Shards of Happiness" - a novel about Wilhelmine)
Date: 2022-01-08 05:07 pm (UTC)Meant to say: no, I'm not aware that she did. Which is not to say that she didn't, but like you, I've missed it if so.
Who has STD and who does not?
Date: 2022-01-09 09:05 am (UTC)1) Young Fritz got infected with some kind of STD, which is the big explanation for his mistress-less state in later years, and
2) Young Fritz briefly had something going on with Orzelska
combine with
3) The Dresden court was famously loose-lived, and while the August/Orzelska incest story could have just been malicious gossip, she did have several affairs
to conclude that:
4) Orzelska was the one infecting him with an STD/syphilis.
I've even seen a chatty article of pop culture history speculating that the Scouring of Saxony in the 7 Years War is Fritz' long term revenge for the STD and the breaking of his young heart by infectious Orzelska which, just, no. As for Orzelska, if she did have an STD, she must have managed to be super discreet about it, because I don't recall Pöllnitz or another gossipy memoirist/anecdotist of the time mentioning it. And decades later, when the story of young Fritz catching STD as the explanation for Old Fritz' lack of a visible sex life is making the rounds, the version which Boswell hears in 1764 definitely has young Fritz going to whores, not catching it from a lady of the nobility.
Now before I read the Manteuffel biographies, I'd have been inclined to write off the "whores" part to misinformation/bad guesswork, but the thing is, Manteuffel's letters to Brühl do mention not just young Fritz using prostitutes in Ruppin but that he and La Chetardie try to pay one and the same prostitute for information. Now later, Manteuffel comes to the conclusion that the guys from Fritz' social circle are better sources, and once he's in himself, he drops the prostitutes-as-sources idea completely and mades Hadrian comparisons instead o Seckendorff the Nephew, but I can see newly stationed at Ruppin Fritz who is in a frat boy mode and bonding with his officers (see Gröben letters) share brothel visits a few times as a form of male bonding (and also rebellion against the marriage Dad forced on him), even if he's not that keen on het sex. Did he get infected on those occasions? Could be, especially given all the STD jokes he later makes, especially towards younger men like Heinrich (in the Marwitz letters) and even Carel the Page (telling him the acne on his face is STD). It's just that the later gossip's conclusion that this is the cause for his lack of a het sex life is wrong. There's also young Münchow's certainty that Fritz didn't have a crippled penis in his indignant letters which originally came to our attention because of the Katte execution content but which also adress Zimmermann's by then publisized theory, and where he says that in addition to what he himself witnessed as a page in the 30s (where Fritz going upstairs to his wife in the night was surely not to pray with her), there's a third party who could swear that Fritz did have sex post 1734, and the phrasing made us thinking maybe he means a medic who had to treat Fritz or a servant witnessing that.
In conclusion: did young Fritz at some point catch STD? (Though not one to cripple his penis.) Likely. Did he catch it from the Countess Orzelska? Very unlikely.
Re: Who has STD and who does not?
Date: 2022-01-09 05:18 pm (UTC)Yeah, I'm increasingly convinced by the weight of evidence that this probably happened, and that he probably had more sex than I realized when I started salon. Definitely in his younger years, possibly later on too, with candidates like Marwitz and Glasow.
In conclusion: did young Fritz at some point catch STD? (Though not one to cripple his penis.) Likely.
Yeah, you're convincing me. :)
Re: Who has STD and who does not?
Date: 2022-01-11 06:22 am (UTC)this is the kind of high-minded content I absolutely come to salon for