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cahnLast post, we had (among other things) Danish kings and their favorites; Louis XIV and Philippe d'Orléans; reviews of a very shippy book about Katte, a bad Jacobite novel, and a great book about clothing; a fic about Émilie du Châtelet and Voltaire; and a review of a set of entertaining Youtube history videos about Frederick the Great.
Re: Braubach on Eugene and Olympia
Date: 2023-03-16 05:26 pm (UTC)Right, yes, thank you!
Braubach appears to be better at translating Louvois than Pigaillem.
Which is ironic because one is a German translating French into German and the other is a Frenchman rendering French into French. I do not trust this Pigaillem. Unless maybe he had another source he's not telling us about, but given the nature of the detail and how few witnesses there were, I doubt it.
The Postillon thought they were women. (Meaning at the very least young Eugene and young Conti were shaved and not into moustaches, btw.)
Oh, yes, you're right, that's another implication of what they looked like. I'm going with "feminine-looking in riding breeches."
I believe some of your Fritzian No-Homo'ing English language biographers published later than the 60s as well.
1999. :( Relies heavily on Charlotte Pangels, too.
But for a five volumes biography of Eugene, a later publication date would have been somewhat unlikely. (Though of course not impossible.)
Haha, reading it, I remembered Hatton saying she only wished she thought a five-volume bio of Karl XII would sell, but unfortunately she only had the confidence to publish one volume, and after seeing all the amazing detail that's in Braubach, I wished even harder she'd copied Braubach and done five volumes on Karl XII! I will buy it, Hatton!
Incidentally, I seem to recall, though alas I don't know where I've read it, that Seckendorff (the older, the Grumbkow buddy) asked Eugene whether he still gets erections
Oh, I'd forgotten about this, but yes, I remember now! Thank you for reminding me. I think I was the one who reported it. Yeah, searching through salon tells me I reported Blanning wrote:
Christoph Ludwig von Seckendorf wrote in his secret diary for 1734 that Frederick was imitating Eugene’s laconic manner. He also recorded the following conversation: “The Prince of Anhalt-Dessau: ‘Does Your Highness still get an erection?’ Prince Eugene, taking a pinch of snuff: ‘No, I do not get an erection.’
which means you would have read it later when you read younger Seckendorff.
Which would imply that (Seckendorff thinks that) Eugene is familiar with the sensation and not from decades ago at least...
Technically he could be getting erections without acting on them, but yeah, the more likely implication is that Seckendorff is asking in the context of being sexually active. (Though he could be asking about nocturnal emissions, that doesn't strike me as really implausible for two men to discuss.)
Re: Braubach on Eugene and Olympia
Date: 2023-03-17 07:12 am (UTC)I just checked, and it seems Eugene remained moustache-less throughout his life. At quick googling, this was about the youngest portrait I could find:
And okay, a few years younger still and in a different outfit, maybe the postillon wasn't lying to cover his behind with Louvois...
Erection dialogue: thanks for refreshing my memory, though in this case, it sounds like old Dessauer was the one to quiz Eugene about his erections (or lack of same), and Seckendorff just reported it/noted it down.
Though he could be asking about nocturnal emissions, that doesn't strike me as really implausible for two men to discuss.
Same here. The 18th century: where you could ask one one the most famous generals of his day about his erections and where there was a mighty fanboy argument in print about the state of Fritz' penis. Talk about too many dicks on the dancefloor....
(Okay, to be fair, and bearing Morgenstern's FW biography and Wilhelmine's unbowlderized memoirs in mind: also the century where the a King could discuss vagina smells with his buddies and a Queen could slander her future daughter-in-law by claiming she had ulcers in her posterior...)
19th century: OUR READERS MUST BE PROTECTED!
Georg Schnath in the Roaring 1920s: I'm with you, 19th century guys. THIS IS JUST TOO MUCH.
I forgot to say about Olympia Mancini, Eugene's mother, and Saint-Simon: otoh, Saint-Simon decades later became Ambassador in Spain (where he had to cope with Philippe the Regent's teenage daughter determined to piss off the entire royal family), so he might have heard some actual gossip, otoh, doesn't mean said gossip is true, and also, Saint-Simon providing an entire dialogue scene for Louis XIV to quiz the Marquis d'Effiat about the later having poisoned Minette on the Chevalier de Lorraine's orders, something for which supposedly only Louis and the Marquis were present, and which also happened decades earlier, makes me conclude Saint-Simon is not above fleshing out poison rumors for greater drama despite having no way of knowing whether they were true.
(Unless we assume the Marquis d'Effiat told Philippe the Regent who told Saint-Simon, but somehow I can't see d'Effiat going, so, about the time I poisoned your Dad's first wife - which btw don't worry, I'm not going to do to your Mom...)