A Very FL-ish Story of The Dueling Princess

I love this so much. :heart:

[font=arial, sans-serif]Today Reddit taught me that Princess Pauline von Metternich and Countess Anastasia Kielmannsegg fought a topless duel with swords in August 1892 after arguing about flower arrangements. Baroness Lubinska, who had a medical degree, insisted they fight topless so clothing couldn’t get into a wound and cause sepsis.

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ETA: Oops, blame the good ol’ Reddit hug of death for that one. I’ll leave the original link because I’m sure it will come back soon, but here’s another blog telling the tale:

edited by Vivienne Thursday on 2/12/2018

The link you posted isn’t working on my computer, but I did some digging and absolutely ADORE this! Thank you for sharing this amazing bit of history, Vivienne!

On the same subject, I found a story about Lady Braddock having tea with a woman named Mrs. Elphinstone, who made a snide remark about Braddock’s fading looks. Outraged beyond belief, she challenged Elphinstone to a duel with pistols in Hyde Park. After shooting the hat off Elphinstone’s head, Braddock then stabbed her in the arm and forced her to write a letter of apology while using her bad arm. I can guarantee you nobody ever gave Lady Braddock flack about her looks again.

Hot damn, I love history! <3

Ooh, I love history too, and if I wasn’t already doing twenty-eight-hundred things all at once right now, I would love to make this notion of historical women worth misbehavin’ for into a whole thread of its own, but instead I will just share this other weirder-than-fiction story I learned of just the other day: