Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 39

[cahn]

Last post, along with the usual 18th-century suspects, included the Ottonians; changing ideas of conception and women's sexual pleasure; Isabella of Parma (the one who fell in love, and vice versa, with her husband's sister); Henry IV and Bertha (and Henry's second wife divorcing him for "unspeakable sexual acts"). (Okay, Isabella of Parma was 18th century.)

Comments

Re: Trenck's "Blutbibel"

[mildred_of_midgard]

It would be like Trenck to blow up two or three friendly encounters into a passionate forbidden love affair!

It would! It would be entirely in character.

And to be fair to Trenck: if nothing else, he really must have had tremendous energy and determination which carried him through bad circumstances.

Oh, definitely. Very much a larger-than-life character.

But if I had to put an 18th Century Team of Rogues and Con Men together, I'd certainly enlist him together with Klement and Casanova!

Heee! That would make an amazing super(anti)hero team! Someone should make a movie.

Huh, possibly? Alas I don't have the time right now to check the later end of the memoirs.

From the person who's not working (much), or celebrating the holidays, or doing Yuletide, and has plenty of time :D, interesting findings!

He says nothing happens in the first year, 1765, but then several years later, in the early 1770s, he is subject to religious persecution, and he has this WHOLE ADVENTURE in vintage Trenck style:

It is astonishing how I preserved my life so long in such a country, and in a town totally governed by monks, and where they are revered as gods.

I was suddenly preached against upon a Sunday by the archpriest and nine others, who named me, and avowed that I was a conjurer and free-thinker, whom every one that honored God and the church, might murder with impunity. A Jesuit, named Pater Zunder, declared me an outlaw; and the day was fixed, on which my writings were to be burnt in front of my house, which was to be demolished, and all the inhabitants of it destroyed.

Letters were sent to my wife, desiring her to fly with her children, and seek a place of safety. This she did, with fear and trembling; but I remained at home, with two jagers and eighty-four loaded muskets, which I placed in the gallery below the window, that there might arise no doubts of my serious defence.

The day of battle arrived, and Pater Zunder, with my works in his hands, and accompanied by all the students of the town, were ready to commence an attack. I stood prepared for them in my gallery, which was crowded with arms, and there was not a single man who had courage enough to approach me:—thus passed the day and night.

The next morning accidentally a fire broke out in the town. Instead of being terrified, or staying away, I hastened with my two jagers to the good people's assistance; but not without being secretly armed. I formed an espalier with water pails; and every one was perfectly obedient. Pater Zunder, and his students, on the other side, did the same thing. By degrees I got near him, and struck him with a leathern water bucket upon his holy ears, as if by accident: nobody offered to attack me; I went through the crowd without evincing the smallest fear; they all took off their hats, smiled, and bid me good morning. Thus the mob always think and act, where they see they are not feared. The people of Aix-la Chapelle are ignorant fanatics, but too cowardly to murder any one who has his hands to defend himself. After this adventure every thing was quiet. Not far from Heerlen, on the road to Mastrich, a ball whistled past my ear in a hollow way: no doubt it came from a priest, or some body urged on by them.

Near the convent of Schwarzenbruck, where I was hunting, three Dominicans watched me from behind a hedge—the place was discovered to me by one of their colleagues, who often went with me to the chace. I had my double-barrel gun, and was upon my guard; drew near, perceived them, and called out—“Fire, villains, but if you “do not kill me, mark the consequence.” They all ran away in a fright; one of them fired, and carried off a piece of my hat; I returned the salute, and one dropped; he was taken away by his companions, dangerously wounded: however, he recovered, and soon disappeared with a milk maid.

They could not dispatch me by poison, for I ate only at home. But in the year 1774, I was attacked on my road to Spa, by eight robbers; it was rainy weather, my gun was in its case, and the cord was accidentally tied about the handle of my Turkish sabre, so that not being able to draw it in a hurry, I was obliged to defend myself with the sheath. I leaped from the coach, knocked those down who were near me; my faithful jager protected me from behind. I made way, sprung again into the coach, and drove off as fast as possible. Shortly after this one of these fellows was hanged, and declared before his death, that their confessor had promised them eternal absolution, if they would beat me to death, for nobody could shoot me, because the devil had rendered me musket-proof.

Now, that's all very interesting, because Catholic ambushes of Protestants trying to go to church (remember, they had to leave Aachen/Aix-la-Chapelle to do this, because there was no church in that extremely Catholic city) were happening during this period. I checked, and after Father Bosten (the guy who was convicted and possibly framed for the Cunegonde kidnapping incident) was exiled in 1768, his brother took over, and what the author of this book says is, "Thus in return for their troubles, the Calvinist magistrates of Vaals got a more combative priest, a genuinely nasty man, to deal with as head of the local Catholic parish."

And this author reports Catholics setting their dogs on passing Protestants and beating them with pitchforks and clubs in 1769 and 1770, and this apparently happened often enough that it was seen as a regular thing.

When exactly such attacks ceased is unclear, but eventually they did. By some time in the 1780s, an anonymous chronicler could report of his fellow Protestants that “the molestation and abuse to which they had previously been exposed have ended; they can travel to church undisturbed.”

In the early 1770s, when Trenck is setting his adventures, definitely still a thing.

So given that Trenck is a lying liar who lies, his Aachen adventures may not have been quite as full of one-sided heroism as he tells them, but I'm willing to believe he was accosted by Catholics, and if he wasn't, he saw it happening to other Protestants and he really wanted everyone to believe it had happened to him!

Another one of those "Trenck's exaggerations have a kernel of truth" situations, probably.