Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 21
Nov. 13th, 2020 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnMuch slower because of world-events/Life-in-general/Yuletide/holidays, but still going!
End of Yuletide signups:
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2 requests for Circle of Voltaire RPF, 2 offers (I hope we did not scare you off, third offer!)
End of Yuletide signups:
4 requests for Frederician RPF :D :D 2 offers
2 requests for Circle of Voltaire RPF, 2 offers (I hope we did not scare you off, third offer!)
Versailles
Date: 2020-11-14 09:40 am (UTC)Water fountains as the big challenge to engineers: okay, this made me look up Herrenchiemsee, aka the palace Bavarian King Ludwig II. (yes, the one from Neuschwanstein, the Wagner fanboy) built in late imitation of Versailles. Turns out the waterworks were practically the only thing about it finished and working when he died. But given Herrenchiemsee is build on an island in the middle of the largest Bavarian lake - large as in nearly as large as American lakes - , the water supply was no problem!
Louis the patient, wry-humored in the endearing anecdotes: I think that's one reason why Louis XIV.' working schedule worked for Louis, and for none of his successors. He was a despot, but for all his love of opulence a hard-working one, and one able to submit himself to the micromanagement of his time and the incredible amount of etiquette he himself had created instead of freaking out and venting the pressure by making life hell for those serving him, or not working at all and making someone else do it.
Re: Versailles
Date: 2020-11-14 03:43 pm (UTC)Indeed! Also, Ludwig lived in the second half of the 19th century, which is when engineers finally developed the technology to get the fountain at Sanssouci working. So he had a number of advantages over Louis and Fritz. I also wonder about the elevation of his gardens relative to his abundant water supply--that was a problem both at Versailles and Sanssouci.
Louis: But Louis the chill of those anecdotes was Louis XV. The author goes on to give illustrations of Louis XIV reprimanding his courtiers for lack of etiquette, including one guy (a prince de Turenne, evidently this one, not the famous one) being banished after a series of repeat offenses culminated in him accidentally hitting Louis in the face with the fringe of his glove, because he hadn't removed his gloves before handing the King his shirt. No citation given, though, unlike the Louis XV anecdotes. The author also doesn't say whether these two sets of anecdotes were representative of how the respective monarchs handled etiquette violations.
Re: Versailles
Date: 2020-11-15 08:30 pm (UTC)The first thing to note is that Saint-Simon is the Versailles equivalent of Lehndorff and Hervey, i.e., a courtier who left vivid and detailed (several thousand pages) memoirs that are a treasure trove for court life of the period (1691-1723). I notice that he has at least one chapter named after him in Horowski, which I haven't yet read but intend to.
So, remember when I talked about how protocol around seating was a Big DealTM at Versailles? In the words of Spawforth, the author of the Versailles book I'm reading, The pages of Saint-Simon are full of incidents that hinged, as it were, on doors or stools. Today they seem funny or simply baffling, like a report by an anthropologist from a faraway land. But for Saint-Simon these episodes were no laughing matter.
Three examples:
Anecdote 1: Some women of the Lorraine family try to sit above the duchesses by arriving there first, but one duchess beats them to it. One of the Lorraine women physically wrestles the duchess off her seat. They then bitch at Saint-Simon's wife, a duchess, for sitting above them. Saint-Simon, when he finds out, complains to the king, which was not something one did casually.
Anecdote 2: Madame de Léon is trying to move up the social ladder. She plans a maneuver in which she will pay a visit to one of the royal princesses and enter the room with two higher ranked women, so that when the princess rises to greet the other two, it'll look like she rose for Madame de Léon.
But the usher forces the three women to enter the room separately, thus giving the princess the opportunity to remain "firmly seated" when the Madame de Léon arrives. Foiled!
Anecdote 3: For context, the Duchess d'Orleans is the legitimized daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, and she's the wife of her first cousin the Regent (Philippe d'Orleans, son of famously gay husband of Liselotte by the same name). So she's not exactly a nobody. But, she's technically illegitimate. This will become a plot point.
One day, as she's entering a room, the usher accidentally opens *both* doors to her. Now, this is something you're only supposed to do for legitimate children of the monarch. Illegitimate offspring only merit one door open.
The duchess of Berry, the daughter of the Duchess d'Orleans, "weeping with rage," demands that the usher be sacked for accidentally showing her mother too much honor.
Because...what is filial piety compared to court etiquette, I guess.
So all this is the context in which Wilhelmine and the pre-MT empress can't meet until their people spend a whole day negotiating seating arrangements.
Wilhelmine: I am the daughter of a king and expect to be treated like it.
Empress: But you're in town incognito specifically so you can avoid all the duties of a margravine.
Wilhelmine: But I want to have my cake and eat it too!
Empress: I will have the least fancy chair I can get away with, and you will have the fanciest chair I can give you, with a high back, but my chair will have arms and yours won't, sorry, that's how it's gonna be.
Wilhelmine: FINE.
Also, per Horowski, this was a thing at court in London as well: in the first gathering with his family and new wife, Fritz of Wales gave his wife a chair with arms and his "astonished" sisters only chairs with backs but no arms. The sisters, iirc, had their servants bring better chairs, but they left before coffee, because they'd been warned that even worse insults of precedence were to come.
My wife, hearing these stories: These people need a hobby!
Me: I think this is their hobby
or possibly their religion.My wife: They need a less toxic hobby!
On a lighter note, this dirty joke:
Perhaps the knack when speaking frankly to royalty was to do so in such a way that the monarch could not be sure whether or not he should be offended. Once, at one of Louis XVI’s suppers at Versailles, the young Marie-Antoinette was playfully pelting the monarch with bread. Turning to the comte de Saint-Germain (not to be confused with the supposedly immortal alchemist), an old soldier, the king asked him how he would comport himself on campaign if under attack from projectiles. “Sire, I would spike the cannon” came the brusque reply.
Louis kept smiling. But others present were sure they had just heard a none-too-veiled reference to the childless state of the royal marriage.
The Comte de Saint-Germain is presumably this one, not to be confused with the more famous supposedly immortal alchemist.
Re: Versailles
Date: 2020-11-16 03:11 pm (UTC)Some women of the Lorraine family
Which ones, enquiring minds want to know? Given that FS' mother (Liselotte's daughter) was the Duchess of Lorraine, I mean. Of course, Lorraine is a very special case anyway, since it it used to be an independent realm only intermittently belonging to France.
The Duchess of Berry is the same woman whom young Voltaire in the satire/pamphlet that got him locked up in the Bastille for the first time claims to have had an affair with her father the Regent, so her putting etiquette before consideration for her mother might not be quite such a surprise...
Another thing in this context of etiquette to consider is teenage Marie Antoinette's famous refusal to speak to Dubarry, and the reason why Dubarry kept insisting that she would, why this was so important to her.
Re: Versailles
Date: 2020-11-17 05:16 am (UTC)Oooooh, right! I remember when you explained this to me <3 I don't think I really got why it was so important at the time, though it was still an awesome story.
Re: Versailles
Date: 2020-11-17 05:15 am (UTC)One of the Lorraine women physically wrestles the duchess off her seat.
LOL omg!
She plans a maneuver in which she will pay a visit to one of the royal princesses and enter the room with two higher ranked women, so that when the princess rises to greet the other two, it'll look like she rose for Madame de Léon.
Heeee. I... kind of don't get this, honestly. I mean, I get the idea of it, there is just this visceral disconnect for me that this could make any sense whatsoever, lol.
“Sire, I would spike the cannon” came the brusque reply.
HAHAHAHA
Re: Versailles
Date: 2020-11-17 06:50 am (UTC)I'm only familiar with Saint-Simon via quotes in other people's works, but based on other people's assessment and said quotes, the answer is probably "very readable, and an incredible snob". As for endearing, I have to point to the other French diarist/memoir writer at Versailles, a generation younger than Saint-Simon, to wit, the Duc de Croy, because remember: #saveJamesCook! (Seriously, I remain charmed by the fact old Croy reads of Cook's exploits and in the middle of the American War of Independence decides he needs to ensure the good (British) Captain will be able to continue exploring unbothered by writing to the French Admiralty and besieging envoy Benjamin Franklin so the Americans promise not to harm a hair on Cook's head, either.