Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy, future King of Sardinia (it's complicated, we'll get there), born 1666, became duke in 1675, abdicated 1730, died 1732.
We know very little about his personal life or what went on inside his head. He was extremely secretive, and did not like talking or writing about himself. Mostly what we know about him is his policy. Descriptions of him as a person mostly come from foreign envoys, who were both biased and kept out of the loop (court etiquette severely restricted who they could talk to and when).
Most of what I'm about to report in this section comes from Geoffrey Symcox's bio of VA, so I'm usually reporting his conclusions and speculations based on no independent data of my own. Take with the usual grain of salt.
His number one goal was for him to have all the power, all the time. He was strong-willed, domineering, even brutal. Mom ignored him, Dad alternated indulging him with beating him to break his will.
Then Dad died and Mom became regent. Mom had one goal: enjoy power as long as possible. This meant keeping VA away from power, and spying on him and limiting his movements a lot, the older he got.
Symcox: This is why VA became so secretive! He put on a mask that he never took off!
[Mildred: And this is a perfect example of nature interacting with nurture! Clearly secretiveness and not talking about his emotions or opinions or visibly having friends or anything came really, really naturally to him. Because I know a guy in Prussia who also had a damaging childhood that pushed him in the direction of not trusting anyone and keeping everything to himself, and he a) could not stop talking about what was going on in his head, b) had a visible personal life all over the place, c) struggled with the whole secret-keeping thing.
I was telling cahn just a few days ago, by email, about Tyrconnell, the Jacobite envoy from France to Prussia, who reported that meetings with Fritz consisted of Fritz monologuing, occasionally realizing he'd said something he didn't mean to let on about, and then saying something that contradicted that to try to muddy the waters. Now, this is an envoy trying to convince his superiors that he's doing a great job of gathering information about what Fritz is up to, but given Fritz's volubility and the fact that secret-keeping clearly didn't come naturally to him (see also the escape plan), I believe it happened to Tyrconnell at least twice. :P
So in conclusion, I'm sure VA had an unenviable childhood that left scars, but I think his failure to leave volumes of personal correspondence also reflects his innate personality as well. You can see the same "I believe in keeping my feelings to myself" approach in VA's cousin Eugene of Savoy, and while he may have had a stressful youth (he was 14 when the affair of the poisons happened), his biographers don't feel the need to attribute his personality solely to his childhood.
Another person, who happened to be a voluminous writer, about whose personal life and feelings or opinions outside of politics we know almost nothing, is Whitworth. His biography pretty much reads, "Okay, we're going to talk about politics, because that's all we know about him!"]
So, VA appears to have strong, violent emotions that he attempted to control with iron self-discipline, but which broke out sometimes. Example:
VA loved his oldest son, was devastated when he died of smallpox (age 15).
When his cherished elder son died, Blondel records, Victor Amadeus was beside himself for a week, wandering in a frenzy through the palace until in a paroxysm of rage and grief he took his sword and butchered a horse as it stood in the stable. Then at last he became calm again.
Younger son?
The young Charles Emanuel never aroused his affection; Victor Amadeus treated him with cold disdain, called him dull-witted, and neglected him until the elder son’s death compelled him, reluctantly, to concern himself with this despised second son.
Younger Son is the one who succeeds him, naturally, thus ensuring that we continue the pattern where most people in Europe live under a head of state who had an abusive or otherwise traumatic childhood.
In his early youth, VA has a string of mistresses, complete with a really dysfunctional one of always fighting and breaking up and getting back together.
This suggests that for Victor Amadeus the relationship with madame de Verrue rested on some form of psychological dependence, in contrast to his habitual imperviousness and self-sufficiency, and that the endless cycle of scenes and reconciliations was both frustrating and deeply satisfying to him at the same time.
(I'm having flashes of Heinrich and Kalckreuth, Heinrich and Mara here.)
When this woman finally left VA for good (fled the country and sought refuge elsewhere), he did not take subsequent mistresses that we're aware of, unless his final morganatic wife was his mistress before their marriage.
And that's pretty much all I've got on his personal life, until the very end. On to politics!
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Victor Amadeus II: Who is he?
Date: 2022-01-03 12:22 am (UTC)We know very little about his personal life or what went on inside his head. He was extremely secretive, and did not like talking or writing about himself. Mostly what we know about him is his policy. Descriptions of him as a person mostly come from foreign envoys, who were both biased and kept out of the loop (court etiquette severely restricted who they could talk to and when).
Most of what I'm about to report in this section comes from Geoffrey Symcox's bio of VA, so I'm usually reporting his conclusions and speculations based on no independent data of my own. Take with the usual grain of salt.
His number one goal was for him to have all the power, all the time. He was strong-willed, domineering, even brutal. Mom ignored him, Dad alternated indulging him with beating him to break his will.
Then Dad died and Mom became regent. Mom had one goal: enjoy power as long as possible. This meant keeping VA away from power, and spying on him and limiting his movements a lot, the older he got.
Symcox: This is why VA became so secretive! He put on a mask that he never took off!
[Mildred: And this is a perfect example of nature interacting with nurture! Clearly secretiveness and not talking about his emotions or opinions or visibly having friends or anything came really, really naturally to him. Because I know a guy in Prussia who also had a damaging childhood that pushed him in the direction of not trusting anyone and keeping everything to himself, and he a) could not stop talking about what was going on in his head, b) had a visible personal life all over the place, c) struggled with the whole secret-keeping thing.
I was telling
So in conclusion, I'm sure VA had an unenviable childhood that left scars, but I think his failure to leave volumes of personal correspondence also reflects his innate personality as well. You can see the same "I believe in keeping my feelings to myself" approach in VA's cousin Eugene of Savoy, and while he may have had a stressful youth (he was 14 when the affair of the poisons happened), his biographers don't feel the need to attribute his personality solely to his childhood.
Another person, who happened to be a voluminous writer, about whose personal life and feelings or opinions outside of politics we know almost nothing, is Whitworth. His biography pretty much reads, "Okay, we're going to talk about politics, because that's all we know about him!"]
So, VA appears to have strong, violent emotions that he attempted to control with iron self-discipline, but which broke out sometimes. Example:
VA loved his oldest son, was devastated when he died of smallpox (age 15).
When his cherished elder son died, Blondel records, Victor Amadeus was beside himself for a week, wandering in a frenzy through the palace until in a paroxysm of rage and grief he took his sword and butchered a horse as it stood in the stable. Then at last he became calm again.
Younger son?
The young Charles Emanuel never aroused his affection; Victor Amadeus treated him with cold disdain, called him dull-witted, and neglected him until the elder son’s death compelled him, reluctantly, to concern himself with this despised second son.
Younger Son is the one who succeeds him, naturally, thus ensuring that we continue the pattern where most people in Europe live under a head of state who had an abusive or otherwise traumatic childhood.
In his early youth, VA has a string of mistresses, complete with a really dysfunctional one of always fighting and breaking up and getting back together.
This suggests that for Victor Amadeus the relationship with madame de Verrue rested on some form of psychological dependence, in contrast to his habitual imperviousness and self-sufficiency, and that the endless cycle of scenes and reconciliations was both frustrating and deeply satisfying to him at the same time.
(I'm having flashes of Heinrich and Kalckreuth, Heinrich and Mara here.)
When this woman finally left VA for good (fled the country and sought refuge elsewhere), he did not take subsequent mistresses that we're aware of, unless his final morganatic wife was his mistress before their marriage.
And that's pretty much all I've got on his personal life, until the very end. On to politics!