Speaking of the kids, I observed yesterday that one of the sons was born in 1773, when Moltke was 62 and his second wife was 41! I mean, my mother also had her last child at 41, but not in the 18th century and after 8 other kids.
Quite. And even in the 18th century, there were methods to have sex that didn't involve the risk of procreation. Now, MT was nearly that old when she had her last pair of kids (Marie Antoinette in 1755, Max the future Cologne guy in 1756, and MT was born in 1717), number 15 and 16 respectively, but MT was a Catholic monarch with an iron constitution and presumably was the one to make the decision of risking pregnancy. One wonders why it didn't occur to Moltke to try, well, alternate sex methods rather than risking his wife's life at this point. My instinctive guess is that not just family life but marital life, including sex, was his time away from Frederik and he felt he needed the relief in order to be otherwise constantly available, and wasn't the type ot cheat on his wife.
I saw that! So we have SD, Sophie Charlotte ("Figuelotte"), and Sophie von Moltke. Am I missing any?
Not in canon, but in that novel where brothers Thomas and Heinrich Mann collaborate on a Fritz and Heinrich novel which manages to squander this great premise after a promising beginning, Heinrich does think of his childhood bff and current Empress of Russia as "Fieke" at one point when he wonders how she's doing.
Re: Danish kings and their favorites: Frederik V and Moltke
Quite. And even in the 18th century, there were methods to have sex that didn't involve the risk of procreation. Now, MT was nearly that old when she had her last pair of kids (Marie Antoinette in 1755, Max the future Cologne guy in 1756, and MT was born in 1717), number 15 and 16 respectively, but MT was a Catholic monarch with an iron constitution and presumably was the one to make the decision of risking pregnancy. One wonders why it didn't occur to Moltke to try, well, alternate sex methods rather than risking his wife's life at this point. My instinctive guess is that not just family life but marital life, including sex, was his time away from Frederik and he felt he needed the relief in order to be otherwise constantly available, and wasn't the type ot cheat on his wife.
I saw that! So we have SD, Sophie Charlotte ("Figuelotte"), and Sophie von Moltke. Am I missing any?
Not in canon, but in that novel where brothers Thomas and Heinrich Mann collaborate on a Fritz and Heinrich novel which manages to squander this great premise after a promising beginning, Heinrich does think of his childhood bff and current Empress of Russia as "Fieke" at one point when he wonders how she's doing.