Catharina Woesthoven

During the time when Bilderdijk was a successful lawyer in The Hague, he had his eye on Catharina Rebecca Woesthoven, or rather: she had his eye on him. She was a beautiful person with her long curls, blue eyes, slender figure and lovely blushes on the cheeks, as can be seen in the pastel portrait that Charles Howard Hodges made of her around 1793. Bilderdijk could not resist her and buried her in high-minded love letters, with sentences such as: ‘Why was I not allowed to learn to form the first idea of ​​all happiness at your feet? Why - ? ah! in one word, why did I have to be miserable!’

Soon it was no longer just words. Bilderdijk paid her nighttime visits as often as he could. He acclaimed her enchanting lips and her toiling bosom, and complimented her on her spirit, judgment and sublime soul. Love brought the poet into ecstasy: ‘tender, pure, Heavenly soul! never was I a moment without breathing for you; without worshiping you.’ Soon Catherine became pregnant, which forced them to get married. On June 21, 1785 they married in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam.

It was not a happy marriage. In 1786 the family moved to the Prinsengracht, number 32, in The Hague. Bilderdijk would stay here until 1795. During this period, he constantly lived on the edge of a burnout and showed the worst side of himself as a husband. Small incidents could inflame him with great anger. Catharina Rebecca was especially the victim of this. According to the maid, not a day went by without Catherine being mistreated by swearing, name-calling, hitting, kicking, locking up and withholding food. Bilderdijk’s exile in 1795 saved both spouses from a very unhappy marriage.