And surprise, surprise, history, and the gossipy editor of Miss Frances Williams Wynn's papers, were more interested in linking her to the sexual slurs around Catherine the Great. "She was popularly supposed to have been entrusted with the momentous duty of subjecting the empress’s male favourites to a kind of competitive examination or qualifying test; whence her name of l’eprouveuse, which was also given to another lady who succeeded her."
The Princess's translated memoirs were republished in 1995, reviewed here. Also on the web there's a letter about one of her visits to Voltaire.
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Article comments
1 - diana hartman
this has made for some very interesting reading...thanks for sharing her diary!