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cahnIn the previous post Charles II found AITA:
Look, I, m, believe in live and let live. (And in not going on my travels again. Had enough of that to last a life time.) Why can't everyone else around me be more chill? Instead, my wife refuses to employ my girlfriend, my girlfriend won't budge and accept another office, my brother is set on a course to piss off everyone (he WILL go on his travels again), and my oldest kid shows signs of wanting my job which is just not on, sorry to say. And don't get me started about Mom (thank God she's living abroad). What am I doing wrong? AITA?
Look, I, m, believe in live and let live. (And in not going on my travels again. Had enough of that to last a life time.) Why can't everyone else around me be more chill? Instead, my wife refuses to employ my girlfriend, my girlfriend won't budge and accept another office, my brother is set on a course to piss off everyone (he WILL go on his travels again), and my oldest kid shows signs of wanting my job which is just not on, sorry to say. And don't get me started about Mom (thank God she's living abroad). What am I doing wrong? AITA?
Louis XIV gossip
Date: 2022-03-19 10:17 pm (UTC)1. Louis is playing dice at a party. He makes a throw. A debate ensues as to whether it's a legal throw. Louis calls over the Comte de Gramont, who arranged the feast, to judge.
Gramont: Sire, you're the one who's wrong.
Louis: But how can you say that when I haven't even told you what the question is yet?
Gramont: Don't you see that if there were even the slightest doubt, everyone would have given in by now?
I applaud his reasoning! And his truth-telling-to-power, even on something as minor as this.
2. Continuing with the theme of "you couldn't pay me to live in the past," Louis had an operation to remove several of his decayed teeth. Part of his jaw and his gum/palate ended up being removed too. He ended up with a tunnel between his mouth and nose that shouldn't have been there.
This had the effect that when he swallowed wine, it was prone to coming out his nose. And when he ate food, particles would get stuck in this inaccessible tunnel, where it would rot, causing him to have truly bad breath.
And this is the medical care of the Sun King!
3. Remember when McKay told us that Liselotte was the only one who ever "accused" Eugene of Savoy of being gay, and only after she was mad at him for defeating France? Schultz cites the Brandenburg envoy, Ezechiel Spanheim, writing back home about Eugene before Eugene even left France:
It is certain that there is no bigger sodomite in France than him, and that is a bad beginning for a young prince, to begin his life with the worst dissolutions.
Wikipedia tells me that when envoy in Paris, he maintained close contact with the daughter of the Palatinate Elector, Liselotte von der Pfalz, married Duchess of Orléans, whom he knew well from Heidelberg and who introduced him to her brother-in-law Louis XIV . Maybe she was his source!
(Schultz's source is of course a 2005 modern biographer who I see is also a novelist, but hey, a quote from an envoy is at least somewhat likely to be genuine.)
Also in this paragraph: [Eugene] let himself be lured into the famous homosexual circle "Cabanes du temple", which Monsieur [gay Philippe] had formed around himself and to which the nobles Commercy, Vaudemont, and Conti belonged.
Unfortunately, I can't find anything for "cabanes du temple" or variations when googling, and there is no source for this claim. (Though given all the ibids in this section, it's probably the same 2005 bio.)
4. Lots of trouble with fountains. Lots and lots of trouble with fountains. Attempts to divert entire rivers to Versailles. Still no luck. The fountains only go off at scheduled times to impress important visitors, sometimes not even then. The water does what no courtier would dare to: fail to be at Louis's disposal at all times.
Fritz: I feel your pain.
Re: Louis XIV gossip
Date: 2022-03-20 09:05 am (UTC)And this is the medical care of the Sun King!
Yikes. Not entirely surprised, though, since I was familiar with the story of his long and painful dying largely due to medical incompentence. (Though his age and state didn't help.)
Remember when McKay told us that Liselotte was the only one who ever "accused" Eugene of Savoy of being gay, and only after she was mad at him for defeating France? Schultz cites the Brandenburg envoy, Ezechiel Spanheim, writing back home about Eugene before Eugene even left France
Ha. Yet again we see the result of biographers copying each other instead of doing primary sources research with the "the only one who ever said this was Liselotte!" statement. Reminds me of "only Voltaire ever accused Fritz of gayness!" from writers as late as Charlotte Panglatz, all the "she cried but she took" quotes, de Ligne's Eugene RPF getting quoted in Eugene's English wiki entry as a genuine memoirs quote, etc., etc. Oh, and "FW would never!" re: burying Gundling in a wine barrel also being an argument in some current day publications when the publication of Disney!Envoy Stratemann's letters in the late 19th century, including a report on Gundling's funeral, had already proven this wrong, and then in the 20th century there was the added testimony of the pastors once their letters were discovered. And you can understand the mechanism: if you, the writer, find several biographies stating something - in this case "only Liselotte...", you take it as fact and don't wonder whether they've copied from each other.
At any rate, congrats on Schultz and you re: finding Ezechiel Spanheim, proving again that envoy reports are where it's at! Following your wiki link, I see Spanheim was a study buddy of Liselotte's father.
Maybe she was his source!
Could be, or the reverse, since he would have been able to go to all-male outings she did not. I note he was present at James II' coronation in London and later had a longer stint there when F1 was King of Prussia, i.e. in the William & Mary era, as well, which reminds me that Liselotte includes some gossip about William in her letters, too. However, even if she was his primary or only source on young Eugene, she hardly has a motive for making up stuff about the sexual inclinations of a young minor product of the French nobility whom Louis refuses to give a job to and who isn't her husband's fave, either. This is long before Eugene defeats anyone on the battlefield, and if Spanheim mentions it in his report from Versailles, he's not writing with the benefit of hindsight. Speaking of Louis not giving Eugene a job, your question about the "cabanes du temple" made me google myself, and I came up with a very article about the Chevalier du Lorraine, which includes among other things this quote from memoirist Primi Visconti:
Primi Visconti relates a good example, if genuine, of how gender and sexuality could have figured in the decisions made regarding court placement and offices. Châtillon’s elder brother was a member of the royal bodyguard, and used his proximity to plead before the king how unfair he thought it was that his career (as the elder son) had not been advanced in the service of the king, while that of his younger brother had in the service of Monsieur. The king replied, “One makes his fortune in my brother’s service by certain means which would make one lose favour if employed in mine”.
=> Maybe Louis' job refusal wasn't just because of lingering bad feeling re: Eugene's mother.
Lots of trouble with fountains. Lots and lots of trouble with fountains. (...)
Fritz: I feel your pain.
Hannover cousins, thinking of the spectacular fountains at Herrenhausen: We don't.
Wilhelmine, thinking about the functioning fountain at the Eremitage: *stays tactfully silent*
Re: Louis XIV gossip
Date: 2022-03-20 03:16 pm (UTC)Nice, thanks. I'll add it to my ever-growing list. Though it may make you laugh to know that in the Louis bio I'm reading, I've been impatiently reading the personal life parts and/or skipping ahead to the military/geopolitical chapters. I really just want to know more about the Nine Years' War! :P (There's a whole book on the sack of Heidelberg that I've read the sample for and that I'm eyeing.)
Reminds me of "only Voltaire ever accused Fritz of gayness!" from writers as late as Charlotte Panglatz,
Yep, me too! I first encountered this in MacDonogh, who is a faithful student of the Pangels school.
ETA: I might add that MacDonogh's bio was published in 1999, thus some 20 years *later* than Pangels.
Yet again we see the result of biographers copying each other instead of doing primary sources research
I mean, ALL Schultz ever does is copy other biographers, but in this case, at least he's in the position to copy biographers writing in 2005, unlike 197-something McKay.
proving again that envoy reports are where it's at!
Indeed! Envoy reports are a gold mine.
Maybe she was his source!
Could be, or the reverse, since he would have been able to go to all-male outings she did not
Ah, yes, you're right. Just because I encountered her as a source first doesn't mean she has primacy in any other sense!
The king replied, “One makes his fortune in my brother’s service by certain means which would make one lose favour if employed in mine”.
=> Maybe Louis' job refusal wasn't just because of lingering bad feeling re: Eugene's mother
OOH. Very interesting! See, this is why
Hannover cousins, thinking of the spectacular fountains at Herrenhausen: We don't.
Wilhelmine, thinking about the functioning fountain at the Eremitage: *stays tactfully silent*
Hee, yep, I was thinking of them! It all depends on where you build your palace vis-a-vis a major source of water. Too high or too far away and the technology doesn't exist until the 19th century. Close enough, and it does.
Re: Louis XIV gossip
Date: 2022-03-20 05:55 pm (UTC)ETA: I might add that MacDonogh's bio was published in 1999, thus some 20 years *later* than Pangels.
He really has no excuse. Incidentally, does he quote Zimmermann and the broken penis theory? Because Zimmermann - in his mind - defending Fritz against the "accusation" of gayness by declaring it was all a cunning strategy involving pretending to be gay that even fooled Zimmermann himself for a while to disguise the horrible STD and penis operation trauma would not make sense if there weren't a bunch of contemporaries convinced that Fritz is less than straight that he needed "defending" from.
OOH. Very interesting!
I thought so.:) I only browsed through the Chevalier de Lorraine article, but it's very interesting in general, and I'll read it more slowly for a second time now and will probably find more to report. I ssee the author footnotes all his quotes very well. Even the footnotes look like they contain new-to-me info, like the fact that the Chevalier, when he was briefly in exile because he had pissed off Louis too much (and when Philippe made Minette's life hell on the general princple of blaming her for this state of affairs and thought she could make Louis call the Chevalier back), the Chevalier actually had a great time in Rome, which included an affair with.... drumroll.... Marie Mancini, aka Louis' first love (and as the sister of Eugene's mother Olympe the aunt of Eugene; source for this: Marie Mancini, who also said he was feted in Roman society). I mean, I was already amused when Versailles in its first season depicted the royal disgrace interlude as the Chevalier suffering in the Bastille, and I knew he hadn't actually been living badly (not with all the money Philippe was always giving him!), but I hadn't expected the fling with Louis' ex!
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Date: 2022-03-21 05:09 am (UTC)I was familiar with the story of his long and painful dying largely due to medical incompentence.
Didn't you link me to a recent movie trailer about this? Or am I totally confusing this with some other French monarch? (To be fair to myself, I can usually tell the Sun King apart from other monarchs :P I just can't remember whom the movie was about.)
And you can understand the mechanism: if you, the writer, find several biographies stating something - in this case "only Liselotte...", you take it as fact and don't wonder whether they've copied from each other.
Certainly before salon I would not have wondered!
“One makes his fortune in my brother’s service by certain means which would make one lose favour if employed in mine”.
This is hilarious. :D
Re: Louis XIV gossip
Date: 2022-03-21 08:21 am (UTC)I did, and you do not. The film, helpfully, is called "The Death of Louis XIV." It's ever so slow - covering the last three days of Louis' life in agonizing two hours plus detail - and Louis is played by a legendary French actor who was, in fact, in his last year of life while shooting - and even I had trouble sitting through it at the Munich Film Festival because of the slowness. (Also because I expected the movie to cut away to the scheming courtiers now and then which would have enlivened the scene, but no, after the first few minutes when he's still outside, we stay with Louis in his bedroom and in the antechambre of same. But the trailer captures the point it makes very well, in only a few minutes, and here it is again.
Re: Louis XIV gossip
Date: 2022-03-21 10:36 pm (UTC)Gah! I feel you here. And now I have TWO piles! (And my reading rate is 5x slower in one than the other. :P)
Speaking of which, back to Louis XIV...
Re: Louis XIV gossip
Date: 2022-03-20 03:37 pm (UTC)I realized I wrote this sentence badly. "It" here is the "food" rotting, not the tunnel. I should have written "they would rot," but had "food" in my head as the antecedent.
Either way, though, UGH UGH UGGGHHH.
Re: Louis XIV gossip
Date: 2022-03-21 05:05 am (UTC)Okay, that is awesome!
2: Not quoting because ewww gross, but, well: ewww gross! SO glad that I don't live in the past :P
3. and 4.: hee!
Re: Louis XIV gossip
Date: 2022-03-21 10:34 pm (UTC)Okay, that is awesome!
I included that one because I immediately thought it was the kind of anecdote that you enjoy. :)
Re: Louis XIV gossip
Date: 2022-03-21 09:34 am (UTC)Bits and pieces: Spangler knows how to start a story/essay, to wit, thusly:
In June 1701, the only brother of Louis XIV of France, Philippe, Duke of Orléans, passed away in his château in Saint-Cloud just outside of Paris. He left behind a widow and a son, but also a significant male favourite, with whom he had shared his life for nearly forty years: Philippe, Chevalier de Lorraine. The new Duke of Orléans offered to continue his late father’s gift to the Chevalier of a pension (about 10,000 écus, or 30,000 livres), and to allow him to keep his apartments at the Palais-Royal. Several contemporaries noted the gesture, and added that the Chevalier retained the rooms, but refused the pension. Dangeau quotes the young Orléans as offering it because, “I inherit the totality of his wealth, thus it will always be him who gives it to you”. With a similar gesture towards fidelity and generosity of spirit, Saint-Simon says the Chevalier’s refusal was made “with grandeur, since by grandeur it had been offered”. Sourches adds that in addition to the apartment, the Chevalier wished only to retain the honour of the young duke’s protection. The Chevalier outlived his long-term patron and partner by only a year, dying in his apartments at the Palais-Royal in December 1702.
Had not known Philippe the Regent had acted thus towards his Dad's boyfriend, but, despite neither Monsieur nor the Chevalier being nice people: awww.
In case anyone was wondering how and whether the Chevalier was related to FS: the Chevalier (whose first name was Philippe which is why no one refers to him that way, there are just too many Philippes in this story already) was the younger son of a younger son of a Duke of Lorraine, meaning he was a distant cousin to the Lorraine main line, but this still made him a prince - as opposed to, say, Philippe's previous favourite, de Guiche, who had been a noble but not in the prince category, which mattered in status-obsessed Versailles, and so initially Lorraine was seen as a more suitable companion for a King's brother. The "Chevalier" title was due to the fact that this particular younger son to a younger son was supposed to become a Knight of Malta, only he never bothered to show up, as opposed to one of his brothers who actually did fight for the order in some battles. Otoh the Chevalier did distinguish himself in battle for France a couple of times during the phase when Philippe d'Orleans also reaped some laurels as a general, before Louis, supposedly because he himself had not won a single battle as the main general (he won plenty of battles in his capacity as King, but other generals had the primary command in those), arranged it so his brother had no supreme command of a battle agian
- the Chevalier being physically gorgeous is universally testified to, including by both of Philippe's wives (neither of whom had good things to say about his character), Madame de Sevigné the letter writer and the various memoirists like Saint Simon who couldn't stand him; his looks and charm (along with his high birth) certainly gave him an entry (he had no money at all when starting at court and died rich), but don't explain that he and Philippe remained an item - with him as the primary favourite - for forty years, especially since neither man was monogamous, and his control over the Orleans household; Spangler more than once compares him to Madame de Pompadour, who also managed to make herself indispensible to her royal and retain control until her death far beyond the early phase of phsysical fashion
- on a note that makes you, well, me, exclaim "Vive la Revolution" and wish it had started a century earlier: I had known that the event that ultimately triggered the Chevalier's brief banishment (a two years exile in Rome where he had a fling with Louis' first love Marie Mancini) was Philippe demanding benefices for his boyfriend, i.e. the income (and titular abbotship) of various high prestige abbeys, and Louis saying no way was a guy of the Chevalier's character qualified for this; what I hadn't known was that the Chevalier actually did get the abbeys in question once his brief Roman holiday had ended; to show just how high prestige and rich they were, Spangler points out that previous titular abbots had included Cardinal Richelieu
- while Philippe d'Orleans the first, Monsieur, comes across as a homosexual in the modern sense - i.e. his preference is consistently for men, and the only two sexual relationships with women that he demonstrably had were with his wives, i.e. a social obligation, not a choice -, the Chevalier had female lovers as well as male ones, some for career reasons (early on, for example, he had an affair with one of Minette's ladies-in-waiting, whom he used a spy and then discarded9, others seem to have been because he could, so he probably was a bisexual in the modern sense; he also had some illegitimate children
- here's a footnote story about one of his illegitimate sons: There is more to this story than is fully known: Dangeau states that Beauvernois defected from the army in 1690, and he is later found at the court of Hanover, where he had married into the circle of prominent Hanoverian courtly and ministerial families. Perhaps ironically, these Hanoverian nobles were closely connected to one of the second Madame’s favourites, Frau von Harling. One can only speculate on the relationship between the illegitimate child of Madame’s nemesis and the court of her favourite aunt, the Electress Sophia. Would Madame have patronized him to show favour to her rival, to please her husband, or perhaps to spite him?
=> I'm wondering this as well, Spangler. Frau von Harling, btw, wasn't just a favourite of Liselotte's, it was the governess who raised her, and she loved her as dearly as Wilhelmine did Sonsine or MT Frau von Fuchs. So, what do you think, why did she help the Chevalier's bastard son?
- back when Mildred was reading Horowski, she ocmmented on Horowski's assumption that the existence of Louis' very gay brother meant that in Paris at least, gay men in general could not be prosecuted, and she and I both agreed that this would be true only for the nobles of Philippe's social circle, not for, say, a gay baker caught by the police; Spangler provides a bit of justification for Horowski's assumption with the following story:
According to the memoirs of the curé of Versailles, François Hébert, when he asked Madame de Maintenon what she thought the king should do about “those detestable vices” at the court, she responded that she had urged the king to set things right and punish this criminal behaviour, but that the king had answered, “So I must begin with my brother?”
=> gay bakers still have no luck, imo, but it seems that Philippe's orientation did provide cover for anyone gay at court because Louis thought it would be unfair otherwise
- Louis probably had mixed feelings about the Chevalier; in later years, he did grant him occasionally a one on one audience, which is an cinredible mark of favour because those were otherwise reserved for the royal family (and of those, for the innermost circle; for example, in this article I learned Philippe d'Orleans visited his brother every day for an hour in which they were alone), but the memoirs-writing courtiers at least never thought he liked the Chevalier as such; whereas Spangler concludes:
Though we certainly do not have to go as far as historians of previous generations in condemning Monsieur out of hand as effeminate and weak, easy (or even craving) to be dominated, the evidence does seem clear that Louis XIV recognized the benefits of supporting a clever and secure favourite for his brother, someone from the most respected rank in society, someone he had known all his life, through whom he could watch over and control both him and his household.
- Spangler repeatedly points out that Liselotte's problem with the Chevalier or the many other guys her husband had sex with wasn't that he had sex with them but that a) he spend a great amount of money on them, some of which was hers, some of which was the "Orleansgeld" which Louis had pressed from the sacked Palatinate in Liselotte's name to her horror, and of which she never saw a dime, and b) the Chevalier and the Marquis d'Effiat (the second best consistent favourite who at times formed a triangle with Monsieur and the Chevalier) at times schemed against her (till the 1690s, when Liselotte and de Lorraine came to something of a lsting truce); she also was horrified when the Marquis d'Effiat, whom she believed to have poisoned the first Madame, Minette, was considered as governor of her son, and she hated that the Chevalier had the power to dismiss people from her personal household if he wanted to, no matter how much she wanted to keep them (so not only had her husband the usual times inherent social power over her, but also her husband's boyfriend). Says Spangler:
In her letters, Madame frequently rails against the “cabale de Lorraine”, ranged against her in Monsieur’s household: she blamed the triumvirate of Lorraine, Effiat and Madame de Grancey for the removal of one of her few confidantes at the French court, Mademoiselle de Théobon. She was convinced that Effiat was among those responsible for the death of the first Madame, remarking sarcastically that, true or not, “poisoner” was a “fine title of honour for someone to whom I entrust my son”, when he was proposed as her son’s governor. Again it seems that Madame did not dislike one of her husband’s favourites for his sodomy, but for standing between herself and Monsieur, and for “poisoning his soul” towards her.
- another quote: Madame’s strongest condemnatory words seem to have been towards a man foisted on her as her own premier maître d’hôtel. Antoine Morel de Volonne was in charge of her household from 1673 to 1683, and was an active part of the male patronage network of her husband and the Chevalier. She described in a letter how the Chevalier de Lorraine delegated some of his “recruitment details” to Morel, who with the spirit of the devil, “soulless and lawless”, sold boys like horses, going to the pit at the opera to conduct his deals.
- on a more positive note, Philippe and the Chevalier travelled to Bretagne when there was a famine there and personally oversaw relief efforts! (This was one of the things Louis let his brother do once he didn't allow him to be general anymore)
- perhaps in case there's someone among his readers who wants to know whether anyone other than Liselotte explicitly describes her husband as gay, and the relationship with the Chevalier as a romantic one, Spangler not only quotes Queen Anne's envoy to the effect (he also could have quoted from the earlier letters between Minette and brother Charles), but a mocking song in which the Parisians both lampooned Louis/Madame de Maintenon and Philippe/his boyfriends
- and then there's the art of the time: It remains however, to search further for other indications of public opinion towards the relationship of Monsieur and the Chevalier de Lorraine. In the arts was there any element of playing off popular classical themes, the ancient Greek heroes with known male favourites like Alexander or Achilles? Monsieur had been compared to Achilles in a song written for him after his victory at Cassel in 1677 (“on the field of Mars, Philippe is an Achilles”). And biblical references? The year of the promotion to the Order of the Saint-Esprit, 1688, was also the year of the premiere of the opera David et Jonathas by a composer, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, whose very career had been built and nurtured by the family of the Chevalier de Lorraine. Is it too much of a stretch to conceive that the openly romantic arias between the two male protagonists were in any way meant to represent a same-sex love affair at the Palais-Royal? In Act 4, Scene 2, they sing together: “Parmi de mortelles horreurs, / Malgré d’inutiles fureurs, J’irai, j’irai chercher & sauver ce que j’aime.” Then in Scene 3, Jonathan declares: “Ne pourrai-je accorder le devoir & l’Amour?” (capitalized in the published seventeenth-century edition). And in Act 5, Scene 4 (dying in David’s arms): “Malgré la rigueur de mon sort, / Du moins je puis vous dire encor que je vous aime.” David responds by naming Jonathan as, “L’objet le plus doux de mes voeux.”165 Monsieur was a very public supporter of Charpentier’s music, often in the face of his rivals (and indeed, the king’s favourite, Lully). This was made evident through the composer’s collaborations with Molière and the Comédie Française at the Palais-Royal; his appointment as music tutor to Monsieur’s son; Monsieur’s attendance at four of the eight performances of Médée in 1693 (possibly to quash a plot being mounted against the opera); and particularly in the pressure applied on his behalf to obtain the post of master of music at the Sainte-Chapelle in 1698.166 The household shared by Monsieur and the Chevalier de Lorraine was thus connected to cultural and political patronage at the highest levels.
Re: Louis XIV gossip
Date: 2022-03-23 09:16 pm (UTC)Spangler / the Chevalier
Date: 2022-03-24 04:56 am (UTC)despite neither Monsieur nor the Chevalier being nice people: awww.
Hee, this is what I thought! :)
that he and Philippe remained an item - with him as the primary favourite - for forty years, especially since neither man was monogamous, and his control over the Orleans household; Spangler more than once compares him to Madame de Pompadour, who also managed to make herself indispensible to her royal and retain control until her death
That is really interesting -- it's fascinating to me when that kind of thing happens, especially when the person isn't perhaps very nice, much more so than the jerk getting dumped after the first infatuation.
Kalckreuth: Why are you looking at me?
Kaphengst: I was indispensable enough to get a nice palace, anyway.
Mara: What?
(I still have to look up the
what I hadn't known was that the Chevalier actually did get the abbeys in question once his brief Roman holiday had ended
lol!
According to the memoirs of the curé of Versailles, François Hébert, when he asked Madame de Maintenon what she thought the king should do about “those detestable vices” at the court, she responded that she had urged the king to set things right and punish this criminal behaviour, but that the king had answered, “So I must begin with my brother?”
Heh. Well, he has a point there :P
Spangler repeatedly points out that Liselotte's problem with the Chevalier or the many other guys her husband had sex with wasn't that he had sex with them but that a) he spend a great amount of money on them, some of which was hers, some of which was the "Orleansgeld" which Louis had pressed from the sacked Palatinate in Liselotte's name to her horror, and of which she never saw a dime, and b) the Chevalier and the Marquis d'Effiat (the second best consistent favourite who at times formed a triangle with Monsieur and the Chevalier) at times schemed against her (till the 1690s, when Liselotte and de Lorraine came to something of a lsting truce)
These... seem like good reasons not to like him (them)! How did they come to a truce?
on a more positive note, Philippe and the Chevalier travelled to Bretagne when there was a famine there and personally oversaw relief efforts!
okay, this is cool! I always like finding out good things about people I thought were villains :P
And in Act 5, Scene 4 (dying in David’s arms): “Malgré la rigueur de mon sort, / Du moins je puis vous dire encor que je vous aime.”
...okay, I did actually laugh at this. Opera slash fandom a thing even in the 17th C!
Re: Spangler / the Chevalier
Date: 2022-03-24 07:47 am (UTC)okay, this is cool! I always like finding out good things about people I thought were villains :P
It definitely helps making them more dimensional and human!
How did they come to a truce?
I'm speculating here, but: if it's the 1690s, this is also when Liselotte, for whatever reason, does the Chevalier a big favor by arranging for his illegitimate son the army deserter to get a place at the Hannover court with her aunt and marry into her governess' family. Bear in mind that while Louis wasn't FW, deserting from the army was presumably not handwaved in 17th France, either, and at the very least the guy would not have had a career to look for in France during Louis' lifetime. (Which was reaaaaaally long as you might recall.) Now the Chevalier scored big advantages for his family on his own, but that was his legitimate family, the Lorraine dynasty of which he was the younger son of a younger son. His biggest coup being that Liselotte's and Philippe's daughter married the reigning Duke of Lorraine (and thus became FS' mother, making Monsieur the ancestor of all the post MT Habsburgs). But for a bastard, who wasn't there to keep up the family name and only demonstrated that hey, the Chevalier voluntarily slept with a woman, I think there were limits of what he could have reached for with Monsieur, let alone Louis.
Also, I've been wondering why the Chevalier, the Marquis d'Effiat and assorted minions gave Liselotte such a hard time at first anyway, because it wasn't like she tried to end their relationships with Philippe, or could have been a serious rival for his love. And as opposed to Minette, she wasn't the sister of a reigning foreign King; her political use to Louis was that she provided him with an excuse to invade and sack the Palatinate, but that was it, and he could have done that even if she had died once she had provided his brother with living children who were her heirs. HOWEVER, one must avoid hindsight, and consider it from the perspective of professional courtiers. And then I thought of something which would also explain why a later truce came to be. So, in the first few years, Louis was actually very fond of Liselotte, whose candour he found refreshing. (Despots always like candour until it turns towards and wounds them.) They were both enthusiastic hunters, and spend a lot of time together. Time with the King is influence in an absolute monarchy. So, if you're the Chevalier (and his clique), and remember the quarrels with the previous Madame who also had a connection to Louis (if of another sort), you're bound to be a bit paranoid. Especially once Liselotte has produced living offspring, because that means an annulment of the marriage is out, she's there to stay. And Philippe's and Louis' mother, Queen Anne, certainly was an example of a woman influencing her sons, big time. So I think what the Chevalier did, nasty as it was, was from his pov a pre-emptive strike. He went for minimizing Liselotte's leverage with the King by encouraging Monsieur to badmouth her to Louis. He kept control of her household, and insisted on the choice of teachers for her son, so that said son would not be influenced by his mother against the Cevalier et al. but would rather favour them.
However, once we're in the 1690s, all this kind of scheming is superflous, because by then, the reigning mistress (and secret morganatic wife) of Louis is Madame de Maintenon, and she and Liselotte hate each other, which already means an automatic distance between Liselotte and Louis. It's clear that she will never be in a position to push Louis to do something about her husband's boyfriends, even if she wanted to. And her son is old enough to demonstrate he likes the Chevalier and won't be a mother avenger once the power is his. So the Chevalier has no more reason to make trouble for Liselotte. (Whose way of describing the Chevalier's famed looks, btw, was tartly declaring that if his character had matched his exterior, she'd never had a single objection to him at all.) Added to which: she does him the above named favor. Presto, truce. At least that's my current speculation.
Incidentally, I just recalled that you asked about the farting competition - that was a reference to this letter of Liselotte's to her aunt Sophie about a lighthearted moment chez Orleans from a letter dated January 1st, 1693:
I won't hide a recent conversation between Monsieur and myself to your Grace, and I hope your Grace will as heartily laugh about it as my two children have done. The other day the four of us - that is Monsieur, myself, and my son and daughter - were all having dinner in the cabinet. Monsieur, whom our company doesn't always inspire to actually talk with us after a long silence let go a fart, by your leave, by your leave, turned towards me and said: »qu'est que cela, Madame?" I turned my backside towards him, let one go in the same fashion and said: "C'est cela, Monsieur!"
My son said: "S'il ne tient que cela j'en ay auttant d'envy que Monsieur et Madame", and also let loose a brave shot. Then we all started to laugh, and walked out of the room. So these are our princely conversations, Your Grace, and if anyone should be curious enough to open my letters before they reach your Grace, I offer the same sweet incense as a new year's greeting to that person!
Her letters were indeed all read, which is why she wrote the majority of them in German, but that also ensured her opinion of Madame de Maintenon was known to both Louis and Madame. After Monsieur's death, Liselotte's big fear was that she would be forced into a nunnery, since nunneries were the standard retirement for royal widows (unless they were regents for their sons, of course), and that's when Madame de Maintenon took her revenge, by confronting Liselotte with some of her letters. Liselotte then was reduced to saying that her expressed loathing of Maintenon in these letters were triggered by her fear that Maintenon would influence the King against her. (Which as Antonia Fraser points out might even have been true, in addition to the two other reasons, a) the fundamentalist Catholicism - Liselotte blamed her nemesis for Louis' hardcore policies in his later reign - , and b) the aristocratic snobbery.) Having thus reduced her enemy to an apology, Madame de Maintenon accepted it and Liselotte wasn't ordered into a nunnery but remained free of same. (And even had a late life kind of first lady position once her son became Regent.)
Re: Spangler / the Chevalier
From:Liselotte about Maintenon
From:Re: Liselotte about Aurora von Königsmarck
From:Re: Liselotte about Maintenon
From:Re: Louis XIV gossip
Date: 2022-03-26 10:45 pm (UTC)Thirding "awww"!
had known that the event that ultimately triggered the Chevalier's brief banishment (a two years exile in Rome where he had a fling with Louis' first love Marie Mancini) was Philippe demanding benefices for his boyfriend,
See, I'm glad you read this, because Schultz, like Wikipedia, says it was Minette working together with her brother Charles II to get the Chevalier banished, but Spangler says, "Some historians hold to older ideas that it was solely through the efforts of Madame that the Chevalier was exiled."
- on a more positive note, Philippe and the Chevalier travelled to Bretagne when there was a famine there and personally oversaw relief efforts!
Yes, good for them! But I enjoy the quote from Spangler's source: "This solidly bought the heart of the people for this prince."
It's hard to say without more context, but "bought" feels a bit barbed to me?
“So I must begin with my brother?”
=> gay bakers still have no luck, imo, but it seems that Philippe's orientation did provide cover for anyone gay at court because Louis thought it would be unfair otherwise
Ha! Look at Horowski knowing things. I agree about the baker, though (sadly).
What this episode most reminds me of is Ferdinando II of Tuscany (grandfather of Gian Gastone). Reminder for
On a cold winter's evening he was warming himself by a fire in his apartment, when his mother, the Archduchess Maria-Maddalena, paid him an impromptu visit. She told him with dismay that she had suddenly discovered the existence of a particular carnal abuse in Florence ; among people, more over, of distinct parts, power and social standing. In spite of whatsoever virtues they might possess, she was determined to have them all severely punished, and submitted a long list of offenders to his scrutiny.
When the Grand Duke had read it, he remarked that this information did not suffice. There were others of similar tendencies he could append to her list. And taking a quill, he added his name in capitals.
The Archduchess said he had done this merely to save the guilty, but that she would have them chastised all the same. The Grand Duke inquired to what punishment she chose to condemn them, and she replied with some vehemence: 'They must be burned.' So the Grand Duke, flinging the list into the fire, said: 'There they are, Madame, punished just as you have condemned them.'
Schultz also says that Louis was reluctant to punish courtiers who practiced the "ultramontane" (lol) sin, unless, like the Chevalier, they were also a political nuisance. (He also agrees with Spangler that the reason the Chevalier was brought back and tolerated by Louis was that he was a useful spy and check on Monsieur.)
By the way, the book Sodomites, Pederasts and Tribades in Eighteenth Century France that I've been dipping into says that executions and persecution of sodomy in France declined in the latter part of the pre-revolutionary 18th century, and that part of the reason may relate to a view expressed by contemporaries that big scary public executions acted as a deterrent for some people, but gave other people ideas. Which you may remember was Fritz's rationale for not executing Prussians for sodomy.
Re: Louis XIV gossip
Date: 2022-03-28 12:30 pm (UTC)Unfortunately stories where same-sex partners are disregarded or treated badly by the biological family of their beloved are still so common that a story set several centuries earlier in a country what was far from progressive in general where the family member in question behaved very differently, with respect and kindness, is definitely worthy an aww and then some.
(Incidentally, the Chevalier turning down the continued pension and just wanting to keep his living quarters is the first time I‘ve read of him NOT taking offered money. I wonder whether he had a feeling he would not survive Monsieur for long, and/or whether it was plain old depression and grief. After all, spouses who have spent decades together dying shortly after another isn‘t exactly unheard of.)
If I recall the editor of the Minette/Charles correspondence correctly, it was mentioned there, too that was finally pushed Louis into action were Monsieur demanding the benefices in combination with the Chevalier reacting badly (and publically so) when not getting them, but also that Charles did try to help his sister re: the Chevalier before, though diplomatically rather than by direct demands - for example, he offered the Chevalier an honored place at his own court if only he‘d leave the Orleans household. (Can‘t blame the Chevalier for not going for that. After all, how was he to know Charles would keep his word beyond maybe a few months? Then he‘d be stranded at a place where he didn‘t speak the language of and where he had no influence and would have to start again, and Monsieur would feel he‘d been sold out and would not take him back.)
Re: Louis XIV gossip
From:Re: Louis XIV gossip
Date: 2022-03-29 02:36 am (UTC)Re: Louis XIV gossip
Date: 2022-03-26 11:12 pm (UTC)1. So Louis is courting one of his mistresses, Louise de La Vallière. He wants to write love letters, but he's not the most poetic guy around. So he employs the Marquis de Dangeau, whose well known for his wonderful epistolary style. And of course, his absolute discretion is required here, since Louis is married and not really supposed to be having an affair.
But Louise also wants to make sure she stays in royal favor, so she employs Dangeau as well!
This goes on for a year, until one day, Louis praises Louise's wit, and she confesses that her letters were ghostwritten by Dangeau. And at the end of this conversation, "both admired his discretion."
Cyrano step aside, Dangeau is here!
2. So speaking of Louis and his adulterous affairs, fast-forward and he's been having an affair with a married woman (Marquise de Montespan), thus committing not just adultery but double adultery. This is not going over especially well with the devout faction at court.
But fast-forward again, and now he's taking an interest in the governess of his children with Montespan, to wit, Madame de Maintenon. Maintenon is herself pretty pious, and on a serious guilt trip about having an affair. She considers retiring into a convent.
But her confessor is like NO NO NO. In what Schultz calls a piece of "ecclesiastical casuistry," he convinces her that GOD wants her to sleep with Louis, because at least she's ummarried and then Louis won't be committing DOUBLE adultery.
Look, look what this abbot comes up with:
«Because God does not want [Louis] caught in the snares of the devil, because he wants to stand in [Louis'] way and sanctify him. If Louis withdraws from you and if you withdraw from him, [God's] intention would not be fulfilled (...). Your chamber is his refuge (...). Your room can be compared to the private chapel to which God leads [Louis] to preserve and sanctify him without his realizing it (...). God sees in you not only [Louis'] servant, but also his friend, his confidante and his wife.» The normal sin was thus transformed into a sacred act: «What grace to do as pure virtue what so many other women do without merit and only out of passion.»
(Emphasis and disambiguating proper names mine.)
That is certainly a creative ship manifesto for your OTP!
And of course, Louis' wife died not long after, and he married Maintenon morganatically and secretly, so that all worked out as the abbot planned, I guess.
Re: Louis XIV gossip
Date: 2022-03-28 12:43 pm (UTC)ROTFLOL about the abbot‘s shipping manifesto. Well, not so much if you‘re Liselotte and blame Maintenon for Louis‘ increasingly hardcore Catholicism and kicking the Huguenots out. Our Lehndorff wasn‘t a fan, either, as he noted after having read the fake memoirs of Madame de Maintenon‘s which were making the rounds for a while.
Re: Louis XIV gossip
Date: 2022-03-28 09:59 pm (UTC)Yeah, the rationalization was clearly strong with that one. "The woman I have influence over might have influence over the King?? Clearly this is God's will! (*Work backwards from there*)"
Re: Louis XIV gossip
From:Re: Louis XIV gossip
Date: 2022-03-28 01:21 pm (UTC)Re: Louis XIV gossip
Date: 2022-03-29 02:49 am (UTC)Loooool, that is hilarious!
In what Schultz calls a piece of "ecclesiastical casuistry,"
!! I mean... he's not wrong!
Your room can be compared to the private chapel
Holy cow!
Re: Louis XIV gossip
From:Philippe and Liselotte gossip
Date: 2022-03-27 12:32 am (UTC)Marriages are like death.The day and hour are determined; one cannot escape them. As our lord wants it, so must it happen.
Heinrich: I feel your pain.
2. Philippe actually getting remarried:
Remember when
"He made me laugh heartily, for he always wore a rosary to bed, to which were attached a large number of medals, which caused a great tinkle under the covers. Assuming, probably correctly, that he was leaving for a country unknown to him with his relics and the images of the Blessed Virgin, I got up gently one evening, pulled his arm and said, laughing: 'I will touch you there. You won't be able to turn it down.' He burst out laughing and said: 'You who have been Huguenots, you do not know the effectiveness of the images and relics of the Blessed Virgin; they guarantee liberation from any enchantment on those parts of the body that are rubbed with them.' 'I beg your pardon,' I said, 'but you're not going to convince me that to let her image wander over those parts of the body destined to remove virginity is to honor the Blessed Virgin. He couldn't help but burst out laughing himself and said, 'Please don't talk to anyone about this.'"
3. Remember how Louis uses Liselotte as an excuse to invade the Palatine and try to claim it (much to her horror)? This is after her brother dies childless. According to Schultz, his dying childless was guaranteed by this obsessive mania he had with the idea that when he consummated his marriage, he would die.
...I did not know that.
Though Wikipedia doesn't mention that and says instead, "During the wedding celebrations, Karl had to seek advice on what to do as a man on the wedding night." I suppose it's possible he got the advice, was horrified at the answer, and decided never to do it?
Idk, nothing makes me 100% trust Schultz. But I'm reporting it with the usual grain of salt.
Re: Philippe and Liselotte gossip
Date: 2022-03-28 12:56 pm (UTC)And ah yes, the tale of the rosary and medals. :) But hey, it seems to have worked for Philippe. After all, if one counts all the pregnancies from both Minette and Liselotte, he had successfully fruitful intercourse with them at least eleven times, and since I doubt it was only eleven given the odds that every bit of marital sex resulted in a pregnancy, probably more often than that.
(In Versailles, the way Liselotte gets Philippe to successfully have sex with her isn‘t via religious kink but roleplaying and indulging his fantasies of ravishing another soldier after battle. Methinks the producers knew that if they brought out rosaries and medals, they‘d have lost their viewership right then. *g*)
Re: Philippe and Liselotte gossip
From:Re: Philippe and Liselotte gossip
From:Re: Philippe and Liselotte gossip
Date: 2022-03-29 02:55 am (UTC)Heh. That does sound awfully familiar. Though I feel way more sympathetic towards Heinrich than Philippe (I guess just because Heinrich is a more sympathetic character in general)
he always wore a rosary to bed, to which were attached a large number of medals, which caused a great tinkle under the covers.
LOLOLOLOL
'I beg your pardon,' I said, 'but you're not going to convince me that to let her image wander over those parts of the body destined to remove virginity is to honor the Blessed Virgin.
HEE, Liselotte is totally the best, y/y??
He couldn't help but burst out laughing himself and said, 'Please don't talk to anyone about this.'"
I'm a little divided here -- part of me is like "but the first thing you did was write a letter about this!" but most of me is like "YES THANK YOU FOR WRITING THIS DOWN FOR US."
But also, I can see why Philippe got along much better with Liselotte. I can't imagine that conversation taking place with Minette.
Re: Philippe and Liselotte gossip
From:Re: Philippe and Liselotte gossip
From:Re: Philippe and Liselotte gossip
From:Re: Philippe and Liselotte gossip
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