Wolfgang's naughty cousin

Another interesting woman looms large in the Mozart legend. Maria Anna Thekla Mozart, (Mozart called her "Das Bäsle"), Wolfgang's first cousin on his father's side, lived in Augsburg. Mozart met her for the first time when he traveled to Augsburg with his mother in 1777. While there, he struck up a friendship that is believed by many to have been more than platonic. Many were under the impression, including Bäsle, that Mozart had intentions to marry her. Between the years of 1777 and 1781 Mozart and Bäsle wrote a series of letters to one another that were full of obscenities, anal-erotic language, and perhaps even code words and phrases that only they understood. Nine of these letters survive and have become some of the most defining letters of this period in Mozart's life. Their relationship ended very abruptly when Wolfgang announced his engagement to Constanze Weber of Mannheim. Bäsle never married and had one illegitimate child, a daughter, Maria Josepha, by canon Dr. Theodor Franz de Paula Maria Baron of Reibeld.