Historical TMI

It has occurred to me that, should I happen to meet certain historical figures in the afterlife, our conversations might prove a bit awkward.

It’s the TMI factor, you see. What do you say to a man when you’ve seen the love letters he sent to his wife in the early days of their marriage? Letters which contain such revealing passages as:

"Come soon; I warn you, if you delay, you will find me ill. Fatigue and your absence are too much. You are coming, aren't you? You are going to be here beside me, in my arms, on my breast, on my mouth? Take wing and come, come! A kiss on your heart, and one much lower down, much lower!"

Well, all right, then. Good to know this guy--we’ll call him General X--could be so generous and amorous when his passions were engaged.

And then there’s General Y. A more circumspect soul, he left us no correspondence allowing us to deduce just what he planned to do to his woman of the moment next time he got her into bed. And when one of his brothers was being a bit too scandalous in his womanizing, General Y complained in a letter to another brother that he wished their errant sibling was ”castrated, or that he would like other people attend to his business & perform too. It is lamentable to see Talents & character & advantages such as he possesses thrown away upon Whoring.”

Though don’t let that fool you into thinking General Y was any kind of model of chastity. Among other things, he had at least two mistresses in common with General X, one of whom was generous enough to the salacious curiosity of posterity to publicly state that Y was better in bed.



And who are our amorous generals? X is Napoleon and Y is Wellington--and speaking as someone who’s read stacks of biographies of both, it’s amazing how much of their personalities and voices come through in those two brief quotes above.



Do you know any good historical TMI? And would you prefer Napoleon or Wellington for your Valentine? (I’m on Team Wellington all the way--he’s much better-looking by my tastes, I like cool-headed, reserved, snarky personalities like his, and on the whole I prefer my Secret Historical Boyfriends to NOT try to take over the world.)



Susanna Fraser is the author of The Sergeant's Lady (available now) and A Marriage of Inconvenience (April 11, 2011). The lovely lady in the picture is NOT her, but the French actress Mademoiselle George, our informant on the relative sexual prowess of Napoleon and Wellington. You can visit Susanna's website here.

Very Superstitious...

I always claim I’m not a superstitious person.

Oh, I have a few rituals, especially when it comes to watching sports. When my Auburn Tigers play for the national championship tomorrow evening, I’ll be in the same chair in the den where I’ve watched all their televised games this year. Why shake things up by sitting on the couch when the chair has worked so well so far? And every time Felix Hernandez of the Mariners flirts with a no-hitter, I studiously observe the rules about not actually SAYING “no-hitter.” The closest I’ve come is to hint that my husband might want to come downstairs and watch the game, because Felix is pitching REALLY WELL. The fact that so far the closest Felix has come is a couple of one-hitters surely isn’t because the superstition is meaningless, but because of all those OTHER people talking about it openly.

Do I really believe my choice of chair impacts Cam Newton’s passing efficiency or my avoidance of “no-hitter” actually makes King Felix’s curve ball any tougher to hit? No, not really. My rituals just make me feel like a tiny bit of a participant in my teams’ success.

But when I had a run of bad days right around Jan. 1, which also happens to be my birthday, I found myself thinking, “This just doesn’t seem like a good sign. Does this mean 2011 is going to be all about being kinda sick and wrestling with minor but annoying personal setbacks and bureaucratic glitches?” At the time it didn’t even occur to me that I never would’ve taken the same events in, say, mid-May, as a sign the next 365 days were going to be bad ones.

You’re probably wondering what any of this has to do with history. I’m getting there, I promise. Eventually I got over my bad cold and moved past the setbacks and glitches, but I still had a niggling feeling that 2011 was just NOT looking all that good for me.



Then last week I was reading Napoleon: The Final Verdict as part of a research reading challenge I set myself. One of the authors mentioned how Napoleon was fond of omens, e.g. liking to fight a battle on the anniversary of a previous victory. I thought, “That’s incredible, that a man as intelligent and rational as Napoleon could at the same time be so superstitious and illogical.”

Then a voice in the back of my head, one that sounded a little like I imagine Napoleon must have sounded said, “What’s that? Aren’t you the one who’s been covered in gloom because you weren’t happy on your birthday/New Year’s Day, even though you too consider yourself intelligent and rational?”

OK. Imaginary Napoleon has a point. 2011 may be good or bad, but it hasn’t been determined already by a few annoying days in early January. And every once in awhile the lessons history teaches me aren’t the ones I expect to learn.

What about you? What unexpected lessons have you learned from history? And what are your superstitions?

-----

Susanna Fraser writes Regency romance with a focus on the Napoleonic Wars. The Sergeant's Lady is available now from Carina press, and its prequel, A Marriage of Inconvenience, will be released April 11.