ABSTRACT
This article focuses on an extraordinary female ego document from the early eighteenth century. During a trial for espionage in 1689/1690, the Bernese patrician Katharina Franziska von Wattenwyl (1645–1714) was so severely tortured that, 24 years later, she was unable to write and had to dictate her life story, conceived to a certain extent as a petition to the French ambassador. The text arranges various biographi- cal episodes to express her personal rebellion against the ascription of gender roles in family, society, and politics, styling herself as an Amazon. The article discusses how the writing situation and the addressee(s), in addition to narrative conventions, shaped the form and content of her mémoires and what role the body played in constructing the narrative identity.
