cahn

In 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?

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From:

cahn

Will continue to be scarce this week and next, but the Chevalier! and Monsieur!

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

rheinsberg post to get them straight, though)

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!

From:

selenak

I thought you might like the Monsieur-sponsored canon opera slash. ;) Mind you, David and Jonathan are a gift of a story in this regard however you tell their story (except in the tv show Kings, where the Jonathan character is canon gay but has zero chemistry with David whose most interesting relationship is actually with the Saul character).

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.)

From:

cahn

Ha! Well, yes, David/Jonathan canon is rather... let's say that small!me didn't know I was shipping it, but I totally did :)

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... I think there were limits of what he could have reached for with Monsieur, let alone Louis.

...that makes total sense! (That it changed her relationship with the Chevalier, I mean.)

So I think what the Chevalier did, nasty as it was, was from his pov a pre-emptive strike.

*nods* In my family-of-origin there's a lot of fear of stepmothers, and I could totally see this kind of pre-emptive strike thing happening.

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.

I can see how that would work. Thank you! :) I've been wondering about that for a while.

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.

I'm glad that Liselotte didn't have to go! Though now of course I am wondering what she said about Maintenon :)

From:

selenak

Though now of course I am wondering what she said about Maintenon :)

A lot. Keep in mind that Madame de Maintenon's ascendancy to exclusive maitresse en titre happenened simultanous to Louis invading Liselotte's home, and the Chevalier and friends are on the attack, so yes, she's in a terrible mood.

The King imagines himself to be devout now because he doesn't have sex with young women anymore, but all his piety consists of is being awful, having spies everywhere, to flatter his brother's lovers and to plague all humanity in general. The old bitch Maintenon has fun making all the members of the royal family hated by the King, and thus to rule unchallenged, except for Monsieur, whom she flatters. (...) But afterwards the old woman is afraid that people should believe she actually esteems Monsieur, and thus as soon as someone at court talks to her about him, she demonnizes (literally: makes a devil of)him: says he's of no use to anyone, that he's the most debauched man at court, unable to keep a secret, faithless and disloyal.

(You can imagine that at this point if his spies made a copy of this letter, Louis stopped being charmed by Liselotte's frankness.)

Another example:

That the woman as your Grace says should have become pregnant by a fart, by your leave, by your leave, doesn't divert me; on the contrary, I can't believe there to be a worse devil in the world than her with all her devoutness and hypocrisy, and I find she proves the truth of the old German saying that where the devil can't go, he sends an old woman towards.

Maintenon wasn't pregnant. It's also worth remembering that like Liselotte, she had started out as a Protestant, but unlike Liselotte, who had converted solely because that's what you did if marrying a Catholic prince and remained an only nominal Catholic with no liking for the religion for the rest of her life, the former Francoise Scarron converted out of her own free will and was full of the zeal of the converted, which is another reason for the bad blood between the two women.

On a more cheerful note, before settling into pious monogamy with Madame de Maintenon, Louis' breakup with his previous Maitresse en titre, Madame de Montespan, came in various steps, one of which illustrates why Athenais de Montespan was so famed for both her wit and her charm. So, imagine at this point, she and Louis are already technically broken up and "just friends", and Maintenon is in the ascendancy. Then, according to Antonia Fraser (Bossuet is the priest with high hopes on Maintenon reforming Louis' character.)

Great care was taken that 'respectable ladies' should be present as chaperones, and at first Louis spoke to his former mistress in grave tones as though he was some kind of cleric - a Boussuet, Athenais interrupted him: "It's useless to read me a sermon; I understand that my time is over.' then gradually the pair - who had not been alone together for fifteen months - withdrew to a windowed alcove, while the courtiers, including the respectable ladies, remained at a respectful distance. The conversation grew more intense, and later still more tender. "You're mad," said Athenais. "Yes, I am mad," replied Louis ardently, "since I still love you." After this avowal, both King and Athenais "made together profound reverence to these venerable matrons". Then they withdrew to her bedroom. This was the moment feared by Bossuet and Madame de Maintenon alike.

Presumably that's when Madame de Maintenon decided to become Louis' mistress and make her bedroom a chapel after all.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Because Aurora somewhat accidentally gave birth to her son Maurice de Saxe/Moritz von Sachsen, the famous general and future defeater of "Butcher Billy" Cumberland, in small town Goslar, Saxony, on a trip, as opposed to in state in a proper palace in Dresden or somesuch, Liselotte felt called upon to comment, "This Aurora of Königsmarck must be a strange creature, to make the mayors and syndics in a city witnesses when she brings a bastard into the world."

From:

cahn

Heh. Liselotte in a terrible mood is something else.

But afterwards the old woman is afraid that people should believe she actually esteems Monsieur, and thus as soon as someone at court talks to her about him, she demonnizes (literally: makes a devil of)him:

Yes, I can see why Louis might not... be overly charmed by this! (But I'm charmed :) )

"You're mad," said Athenais. "Yes, I am mad," replied Louis ardently, "since I still love you." After this avowal, both King and Athenais "made together profound reverence to these venerable matrons". Then they withdrew to her bedroom.

Hee! Go Madame de Montespan :D