cahn | 18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 35

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:

mildred_of_midgard

Out with Louis XIV, in with Madame de Pompadour! I.e. I have started a new biography, though I'm only a few pages in because of SLEEEEEP. (WHY is it not a thing, I ask you.)

Anyway, even the first ten pages have yielded up two gems already.

1. Louis XV and Pompadour have a, not exactly meet-cute, because they've technically met already, but a hookup-cute.

There's a masked ball to celebrate the marriage of the Dauphin to the Spanish Infanta (daughter of Philip "the Frog" V and Isabella Farnese).

Louis comes dressed as a TREE. I kid you not. He and seven other courtiers are dressed as yew trees, thus forcing me to second-guess my German vocabulary. ("I could have sworn that meant 'yew'...*google*...yep, it means yew. Huh.")

One of the ladies, trying to guess which tree is the king, goes into all out reverence mode to one of the trees, only to find out that it wasn't the king. Which meant she committed a faux-pas, which is a catastrophe that she will never forgive.

Versailles.

But meanwhile, a different tree is talking to Madame de Pompadour, and that tree really is the king. His latest maitresse en titre has recently died, and he's on the market. He and Pompadour agree to hook up later secretly at her place. He's already conveniently arranged for her husband to be out of town, so no worries there. Rank hath its privileges.

So after the masked ball, Louis changes into I'm-totally-a-normal-person, nothing-to-see-here clothes, and heads with a courtier and some clothes out onto the streets where everyone is partying.

But it's extremely crowded and also a long way to walk for an incognito monarch, so Louis tells the courtier, who's got the purse, to take out a Louis d'or and offer it to the next carriage driver who comes along.

But the courtier, who's probably thinking, "This is why you don't let the monarch carry the purse, they will blow their cover, good lord," goes, "No, if you go waving around a gold louis d'or in public, everyone will know you're the king." And he takes out a single ecu, which I imagine is like not asking the convenience store cashier to break your $100 for a pack of chewing gum.

:P

Fritz: I feel your incognito pain.

From:

selenak

If we‘re talking of faux-pas with masked royalty (or lack of same), well, at least it wasn‘t as fateful to history as Henry VIII/Anne of Cleves. Where in recent decades both Tudor fiction and Tudor biographies have concluded that since other than Henry, who only insisted on Anne of Cleves‘ lack of beauty when he wanted to get rid of her, no one found her objectionable, the true problem was more what happened when she arrived on English shores - Henry wanted to play out a romantic masque the way he had done as a young man with his first wife, so he didn‘t await her arrival but wanted to surprise her en route. Only Anne of Cleves, as a foreigner, unlike everyone else really did not recognize the King, so when a middle-aged fat guy showed up unceremoniously bursting into her room and trying to kiss her, she made no secret of her disgust and pushed him back. And suddenly Henry was confronted with something which had not happened to him, ever: getting an honest reaction of how a woman not knowing who he was would respond to him. He didn‘t like it one bit. No wonder he felt unable to have sex with her thereafter.

(Additionally, there was the problem that until this fourth marriage, Henry, unlike most princes of his era or most eras, had known all three of his previous wives for years before marrying them, he had had the opportunity to fall in love with them, and he had chosen each of the three, and yes, that includes the first marriage with Katherine of Aragon. (Her marriage with his brother had been arranged. Young Henry, otoh, very much wanted to marry her.) The Anne of Cleves marriage was his first experience with marriage to a stranger which was the standard for most royalty.)

LOL about incognito kings and their inability to maintain their cover when it comes to Louis XV and Fritz, though.

Lehndorff: Heinrich maintained his cover when pretending to be my cousin from the countryside at his 30th birthday, though! That was the time we spent together which ended in my apartment with the phosphor inscription on my wallpaper. We were ever so discreet!

Re: Yew Tree costume, I bet a rokoko yew tree was nothing like anything District 12 would have worn at the Hunger Games, though….

From:

cahn

Oh! Having read about Henry VIII as an impressionable child with poor access to modern historical takes, I only knew the "Henry didn't think she was pretty enough" take. Which isn't particularly flattering towards Henry, I suppose (although young!me also did not realize that Anne wasn't particularly not pretty, so I guess Henry won that round, although I had always felt rather pleased that she, well, got away) but this:

Only Anne of Cleves, as a foreigner, unlike everyone else really did not recognize the King, so when a middle-aged fat guy showed up unceremoniously bursting into her room and trying to kiss her, she made no secret of her disgust and pushed him back. And suddenly Henry was confronted with something which had not happened to him, ever: getting an honest reaction of how a woman not knowing who he was would respond to him.

is fantastic. LOLOLOLOL oh Henry SERVES YOU RIGHT!

(Also I think the Voltaire icon for this is great, I can just imagine what he would have had to say about it)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Henry VIII: That story was always one that stuck with me, not because of anything it said about Henry or Anne, but because it was what made young, just-starting-to-study-history, me realize that in the pre-photograph and -television days, a celebrity, even a monarch, had a chance of actually going incognito!

And that made me realize that portraits, including coins, were all most people would ever see of their monarch, and so it actually mattered what you put on them. And that meant you had a chance to spin your depiction various ways. To create an image, literally.

LOL about incognito kings and their inability to maintain their cover when it comes to Louis XV and Fritz, though.

ViennaJoe: Everyone knew who I was, that was the point. I enjoyed Catherine having her Hanoverian gardener roleplay an innkeeper for me, though, for the authentic German inn experience even in Russia!

That was the time we spent together which ended in my apartment with the phosphor inscription on my wallpaper. We were ever so discreet!

Inscribing your love on your wallpaper is very discreet, Lehndorff. Good job. *pats head*

From:

cahn

Why... were they dressed as trees. I suppose this is one of those things I will never know (because even if salon detectives find out why and tell me, I still will be like BUT THEY WERE DRESSED AS TREES)

Fritz: I feel your incognito pain.

Hee! Fair!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I will never know (because even if salon detectives find out why and tell me, I still will be like BUT THEY WERE DRESSED AS TREES)

ROTFL! This is why telling you about history is so much fun! :D

BUT THEY WERE DRESSED AS TREES

Because right???

From:

cahn

Right!!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

So we all know about the time this guy named Damiens stabbed Louis XV (mildly) and got gruesomely executed in a way that raised eyebrows across enlightened Europe.

What I didn't realize was how his assassination attempt affected Louis or Pompadour.

So Louis was stabbed but not deeply. It bled, and at first he thought he was dying. He immediately sent for a priest to confess to. Then they realized there wasn't that much blood. So if he felt this bad, the knife must have been poisoned!

Then they captured Damiens and inspected the knife and determined that it wasn't poisoned.

And Louis' doctor inspected the wound, found that it wasn't that bad, and said with some annoyance that if it were anyone else, Louis could go to a freaking ball that night. But Louis stayed in bed and hid behind his curtains and only let his servants pass in some bouillon, for several days.

He was devastated to think that his people hated him so much that they decided to assassinate him.

Madame de Pompadour actually intervened with the officials who were compiling reports on the investigation and said, "Look, for the sake of his mental health, we absolutely have to keep from him any reports of evidence that Damiens had accomplices or that there was a conspiracy or anything. There was one deranged madman acting on his own, got it?"

And apparently that's how it got presented to Louis.

Now, Schultz said that in the end, no concrete evidence of any accomplices was found, and Damiens denied it (although originally he hinted at accomplices? but the officials decided that was just the off-the-cuff remark made to make himself sound more important) under torture. So it really does seem to have been one guy acting on his own. But, for a long time, none of the investigators wanted to believe that. They were looking hard for evidence of a conspiracy. 'Cause, you know, that's what you do when your absolute monarch has just been stabbed, you assume the worst just in case.

But they kept that information from poor, hiding in bed, "What did I dooo?" Louis.

MEANWHILE

In order to be qualified to receive extreme unction, Louis had to stop living in sin. Which meant with his double-adulterous mistress. So when Damiens stabbed Louis, for several days, Pompadour's position was extremely tenuous.

AND

The monarch is out of commission. So who's running things? His extremely pious son, the Dauphin also named Louis. So he's like, "Byyyeeee, Dad's mistress with whom he's cheating on Mom!"

So Pompadour is kind of also hiding in her room for several days, packing her belongings, preparing for the end of all things.

Then she gets an order from acting-king Monsieur Dauphin that she needs to leave. She's about to leave when one of her friends/advisors comes in and asks what she's doing.

Her: "Leaving? 'Cause the Dauphin says I have to."

Him: "And the King?"

Her: "He agrees I have to leave."

Him: "DON'T. Say you're leaving, keep your head down, act like you're leaving any moment now, but at all costs, whatever you do, do not leave. The King isn't dead yet, and whoever leaves the court in this game of power-behind-the-thrones, loses."

It turns out to be good advice. For lo, after several days of hiding in bed, Louis puts on a dressing gown and a nightcap and walks, with a hangdog look, into Madame de Pompadour's room. He sends everyone else away.

An hour later, he's cheerfully walking out of the room, cracking jokes, and smiling again. Whatever Pompadour said when she had him alone, she convinced him. The mistress is here to stay, and the Church and the pious faction at court* can just suck it up.

In conclusion, I always thought the Damiens assassination attempt was no big deal (except for Damiens, of course), because mild wound, culprit apprehended immediately, no accomplices. But I had no idea how tense everything was for about ten days!

* Keep in mind, the pious faction at court includes: his son and heir, his wife, his daughter-in-law, and his daughters (the future "aunts" who will inspire Marie Antoinette to shun Madame du Barry and nearly create an international incident, saved only by MT's pragmatism). So the battle lines have been drawn across the family, which does not make for an easy situation for anyone.

From:

cahn

But Louis stayed in bed and hid behind his curtains and only let his servants pass in some bouillon, for several days.

I gotta say I'm wondering if he's one of these guys who, when he gets a cold, announces that he's dying :)

In order to be qualified to receive extreme unction, Louis had to stop living in sin. Which meant with his double-adulterous mistress. So when Damiens stabbed Louis, for several days, Pompadour's position was extremely tenuous.

When I got to the point in Zweig where Louis actually dies, I enjoyed how opinionated Zweig was on "look, guy is dying, why separate him from the person who he actually cares for and vice versa?"

Him: "DON'T. Say you're leaving, keep your head down, act like you're leaving any moment now, but at all costs, whatever you do, do not leave. The King isn't dead yet, and whoever leaves the court in this game of power-behind-the-thrones, loses."

...yeah, sounds like pretty good advice in general -- and in this case in particular! Especially since the King was actually OK, though wow, that sounds like a very (sort of needlessly??) tense situation.

From:

selenak

I gotta say I'm wondering if he's one of these guys who, when he gets a cold, announces that he's dying :)

Well, if your entire family (minus Great-Grandpa) got wiped out by a combination of measles and smallpox within days and you only survived due to her governess locking herself up with you in the bedrooom, and four of your first few mistresses died in a row, too, you'd be nervous as well...

When I got to the point in Zweig where Louis actually dies, I enjoyed how opinionated Zweig was on "look, guy is dying, why separate him from the person who he actually cares for and vice versa?"

Ah yes, poor Dubarry. Mind you, I'm trying to think of an example where the mistress was allowed to remain at the deathed (once it's clear the sickness is actually lethal), not just among the Catholic but also the Protestant royalty of the era, and failing.

(Royalty, that is. As we know, Émilie had her husband, her current lover and her ex lover around in her dying days.)

Incidentally, Louis XIV took his leave of Madame de Maintenon three times because his dying took so long, but despite them being morganatically married, she wasn't allowed to permanently stay at his side, either, every time after these supposed final goodbyes she left.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

What

selenak said about losing your entire family to illness, plus Schultz makes the case that Louis was devastated to learn that he was not universally beloved. He seems to have been prone to "melancholy," which I think is understandable if everyone you loved sequentially died or you were taken away from them over and over again in your childhood. Even Horowski says that those childhood experiences emotionally messed with Louis. Which again, I believe.

Mind you, I'm trying to think of an example where the mistress was allowed to remain at the deathed (once it's clear the sickness is actually lethal), not just among the Catholic but also the Protestant royalty of the era, and failing.

I only have a brief summary, not the full story, so this may not be an example, but from my Schultz reading last night (bio of Henri IV), Henri's father, King Antoine of Navarre, may have been allowed to keep his mistress with him as he was dying:

Badly wounded, he was brought by ship to Paris, with Louise de La Béraudière [his mistress] constantly at his side. But death overtook him four weeks later in Andelys...Jeanne d'Albret [his wife], who was not unaware of her husband's wounding, did not go to him--she certainly also feared a confrontation with his mistress.

Now, maybe in those four weeks she was sent away for the extreme unction too, but this at least seems like a possible 16th century candidate.

Edited Date: 2022-04-09 02:49 pm (UTC)

From:

cahn

Oh! I'd forgotten that was Louis XV. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense :(

I'm glad Émilie had her guys with her :(

From:

mildred_of_midgard

More gossip!

1. I had forgotten that at the meet-cute where Louis was a yew tree, Pompadour was a much more explicable goddess Diana.

2. Among Louis' first mistresses were a series of sisters, one after the other, until he'd collected 4 of the 5. This was considered so weird that the following rhyme (which in my translation does not rhyme) was made:

The first one is almost forgotten, the other has hardly become dust,
the third follows in her footsteps, the the fourth is already waiting.
To choose an entire family--
Is that called being faithful or unfaithful?

To make things even more fun, their maternal grandmother was one of the Mancini nieces (Hortense).

3. Louis XIV slept in the state bed no matter how cold it was. But since the giant room was impossible to heat, Louis XV would go through the formal coucher (where the courtiers gathered around and it was a mark of favor to be the one who took off his boots or his gloves or whatever, and it was all extremely regimented who got to do what) in the state bed, then as soon as the last candle was snuffed out, he would slip out of bed and sneak into a more comfortable bedroom with a stove and warm blankets. Then the next morning, having announced what time he was "getting up," he'd slip back into the state bed and be "woken up" a second time.

I like the way Schultz put it: "The great-grandson of the Sun King fled from such a lordly as well as heroic (so herrischen wie heroischen) lifestyle." :D

4. More forced remarriages! Remember when the Dauphin was getting married to the daughter of Philip "the Frog" V and Isabella Farnese? Well, she died in childbed after just 2 years. He was devastated with grief, but he and his first wife hadn't produced a son, so he was forced to remarry as soon as possible.

When his new wife, Maria Josepha, daughter of August III of Saxony, showed up, they were put to bed publicly as part of the wedding ceremony*. He buried his face in the cushions, crying, and refused to have sex with her.

She was very patient with him and didn't push it, which he appreciated. They consummated the marriage the next night, and she gradually won him over.

Per Wikipedia, she was also great about the kid his first wife had died giving birth to:

Despite Maria Josepha being the patient wife, the Dauphin's grief worsened in April 1748 when his only child with the Infanta died at the age of two. The Dauphin was deeply affected by the child's death. Maria Josepha later commissioned a painting (now lost) of her stepdaughter to be left over her cradle.

</3 :-(

* This was a part of every royal wedding in France, necessary to make it official. If no offiical witnesses to the "lying together," no marriage! If the newlyweds were too young for actual sex, they were just made to lie next to each other, under supervision to make sure nothing happened. So it was the sharing of the bed that had to be witnessed, not the sex.

4. Speaking of assassination attempts, one time, some guy in the royal guard showed up with bloody wounds, claiming that he had just fought off two assailants who were trying to get to Louis XV to assassinate him. But he, brave bodyguard, defended his king loyally with his body!

...Only it turned out he had stabbed himself in hopes of getting a reward.

His reward was to be hanged.

Pompadour said it was harsh to hang a madman instead of sending him to an asylum, but no one listened to her.

5. Speaking truth to power without speaking:

Louis XV: "Hey, Pompadour and I are coming to visit your territory, Archbishop of [somewhere.] You can show us around!"

Disapproving archbishop: *bows very deeply*

Disapproving archbishop: *does not say a word*

Louis XV: "Uh, did you hear me? I said I'll be coming to visit you."

Disapproving archbishop: *bows very deeply*

Disapproving archbishop: *does not say a word*

Louis XV, getting the point: "Correction. I am not coming to visit you."

[ETA: To be clear, he didn't cancel his travel plans because the Church disapproved of his adultery. He still went to visit the territory, he just didn't expect the Archbishop to throw him a party while he was there.]

6. MT negotiating the Diplomatic Revolution offered to trade the Austrian Netherlands for Parma+Piacenza. Everyone wanted to trade the Austrian Netherlands, not just ViennaJoe! (Remember that either Charles VI or his brother and predecessor Joseph I, I forget, also did, almost immediately after Austria first got them in the War of the Spanish Succession.)

7. During the Seven Years' War, Madame de Pompadour wanted to found a school for young men to be trained in the military, similar to how Maintenon had once founded a religious school for young women without property, so they had a chance at a decent life. It was going to be her legacy! It was going to be named after her!

(Mildred: Interesting. Never heard of her founding any military schools.)

So Pompadour did the marketing and project management and got Louis to fund it* and everything. And then, when the big announcement was made...her name got left off it entirely.

Damn. (But that explains why I never heard of it!)

* With a special tax, of course, which was the last thing this financially shaky country needed when already at war, but hey, the war was the justification for the patriotic military school!

8. So I remember reading Diderot's bio back in the day, and discovering that he was locked up in the prison of Vincennes, and the the governor of the prison was one Marquis du Châtelet. My interest was immediately piqued! Émilie's husband?

The author of the Diderot bio gives the Marquis in question the first names of her husband. Which made me totally wonder whether Émilie knew what was going on, or if she was too busy being pregnant and finishing the Newton commentary and dying (Diderot was imprisoned in the autumn of 1749).

But then, in Schultz's Pompadour bio, I ran into a mention of Émilie writing a letter to the governor of the Vincennes prison, asking him to please let Diderot go. Enlightenment types sticking together!

But no mention of whether this was her husband or not.

So I checked Zinsser, and Zinsser says it was actually a cousin of her husband, and all my googling, including Wikipedia, agrees.

So it still makes sense that Émilie was interceding with her cousin-in-law, because that was totally how you networked back then.

But now we know that one of the last things Émilie did (August 1749) before she died (September 10) was argue for Diderot to get better treatment in prison. Wikipedia tells me she succeeded.

You go, Émilie. Also, biographers, come on. You should connect the dots for me and also get names right! I can't be relying on Wikipedia for everything. :P

9. Pompadour called Fritz the "Attila of the North." Schultz then informs the non-Frederician-salon members of his readership that her friend Voltaire called Fritz "the Solomon of the North."

Me: This reminds me of how Voltaire described Fritz's court as "Sparta in the morning, Athens in the afternoon." Attila of the North in the morning, Solomon of the North in the afternoon. :D

10. MT wrote to her pen pal Maria Antonia of Saxony at the end of the Seven Years' War going, "No, I NEVER was nice to Pompadour, NEVER wrote to her, NEITHER did my ministers, we just had to have our ambassadors make nice to her at court, unfortunately, just like EVERYONE ELSE had to."

Schultz: *quotes letters from Kaunitz*

Schultz: "Also, what about that portrait of yourself you sent her?"

MT: "Hey, Fritz has a portrait of me in his bedroom, that says nothing!" (

selenak, I know Fritz asked for her portrait and sent his own, but did she ever actually send him one of her, or did he have to acquire it on his own?)

Reminder for

cahn:

Earlier that year [1753], though, Fritz asked the Austrian Ambassador for a MT portrait, I kid you not, and provides one of his own. How that went down in Vienna, I have no idea.

Secretary: …and our ambassador writes the King of Prussia wants to have your portrait. Will send you his own.
MT: To throw darts at?

:DDD

Also also, I had forgotten that it was Wilhelmine (at least according to Schultz) who reported (erroneously) to Fritz that MT was writing to Pompadour and calling her "dear friend," thus inspiring his fit of satire.

11. SPEAKING of satire, okay, I have to quote this whole thing (Google translated and only lightly touched up because time):

In March 1758, Frederick II, whose joy in writing verses did not flag even during the war, wrote an "Ode au Prince Ferdinand sur la retraite des Francais en 1758" with all frankness and impudence.

The verses with the title "Epître" reached Voltaire, who was striving for neutrality, in his Swiss exile "Les Délices" in Ferney, where he, having lived for four years, always had to fear observation and arrest by his compatriots. The post from Potsdam also provided the piquant task of correcting the stylistic precision.

The Prussian king desired nothing less than that Voltaire sharpen his weapons against his own king and his favourite, both of whom had long and generously bestowed their favor on him:

See, your weak monarch,
Toy of the Pompadour
Stained with more than
a love scandal,
He, who abhors exertion,
Just happens to grab the reins again
of his afflicted empire,
This slave speaks as a master!
This porcelain figurine under a beech tree
Believed to determine the fate of kings.

Voltaire, immediately aware of the danger of being convicted of high treason against his king, wrote immediately to the minister of France, who had risen from count to duke de Choiseul and was now all-powerful, that he was distancing himself from the verses of the Prussian king and was therefore enclosing them. Choiseul reassured the writer that Madame de Pompadour had not seen the offending poem and that a scathing reply had been commissioned from the poet Charles Palissot, which would scourge the homosexuality of Frederick II. - nor would they hesitate to circulate the counter-poem in Europe.

A verse front was opened next to the military one, since Choiseul's threat consisted of having Voltaire tell Frederick II. that France would only launch a lyrical counterattack if the Prussian king opened his satirical attack.

The writer had always wanted this role of secret diplomat after he had been denied a career as an envoy, but in the business of mutual blackmail he would hardly have welcomed the role of mediator. It didn't stop with threats, and both releases followed. Palissot's poetic polemic took up the rhyme of "pompadour" with "tambour":

Can you condemn the tenderness
of nature and love,
you, who only got to know intoxication
in the arms of your drummers?

De la nature et des amours
Peux-tu condammer la tendresse,
Toi, qui ne connus l'ivresse
Que dans les bras de tes tambours ?

Lol forever! So we knew about the first part of this episode (Catt claims to have tried to stop Fritz, and Voltaire complains in his memoirs), but I didn't know or had forgotten about the French counterattack! The Seven Years' Poetry War! :DDD

Edited Date: 2022-03-30 01:36 am (UTC)

From:

selenak

Among Louis' first mistresses were a series of sisters, one after the other, until he'd collected 4 of the 5.

They were also from the uppercrust of the aristocracy, very much in contrast to Pompadour later, and never got over losing their influence once Louis switched preferences. For example, the French prisoner whom Heinrich befriends and sends back to France in a (Fritz-authorized) attempt to get a separate peace was a member of that family and considered reliable for that reason (i.e. he already had a grudge against Reinette and thus a reason to work for a policy different from the one she supported). (For what it's worth, he did try. And failed.)

Awwwww on Maria Josepha. Joseph would empathize on the remarriage enforcement but dealt far worse with his second wife.

selenak, I know Fritz asked for her portrait and sent his own, but did she ever actually send him one of her, or did he have to acquire it on his own?)

I don't know or don't remember. What I dimly remember is that the portrait exchange proposal (by Fritz) comes up with in Lehndorff's diaries and in some envoy letters, because the Austrian envoy to whom Fritz talked about this was the guy he liked (despite his being the Austrian envoy) way better than Charles Hanbury-Williams (and so did tout Berlin - Lehndorff later mentions that his, the envoy's, mistress still had his portrait in her salon even after the war had started and he had left). But whether I read the letters in a Volz edited collection or in the "MT and Fritz in the eyes of their contemporaries" collection, I don't know, and I don't have the time to check.

Also also, I had forgotten that it was Wilhelmine (at least according to Schultz) who reported (erroneously) to Fritz that MT was writing to Pompadour and calling her "dear friend," thus inspiring his fit of satire.

If it originated with her, it's news to me (doesn't mean it can't have). I do know she mentions it indignantly - Stollberg-Rillinger quotes from that letter, too -, but from what I recall of the quote not as something she reports for the first time to someone who has never heard of it before, i.e. no "guess what I just found out/heard", as opposed to stating something the way one does a "fact" already known to both parties (I think it comes in a "your/his enemies are awful" list - I'm not even sure it was a letter to Fritz, as opposed to a letter to Voltaire.

At any rate, I think it's worth pointing out here that "MT wrote to Pompadour a "dearest sister" letter" was reported by Fritz and Prussians thereafter as a fact, not a satire, and formed an important part of their propaganda. Fritz did write a "reply letter" from Madame de Pompadour petitioning on behalf of all whores to MT to change her laws re prostitutes which was clearly meant as satire, though decades letter he tries to sell it to Lucchesini as authentic, too. (Causing Volz to regretfully footnote that not only was this rubbish because Fritz had written the "Pompadour" letter himself but also the supposed MT "Dearest Sister" letter never existed as had to be conceeded after the Austrian archives were opened.

Anyway, in order to find out whether the story originated with Wilhelmine or was repeated by her, I guess one would have to compare the dates of the relevant letters and pamphlets.

Incidentally, re: the portrait, Madame de Pompadour did ask for one, and received it, as well as permission to write "thank you for the furniture" letter, because if you really want to make a case for MT pussyfooting around the fact they tried their best to get the mistress on their side, Schultz should have brought up instead that they sent her a very beautiful and expensive secretary. (Er, a table,

cahn, not a guy.) (This, btw, was an excellent choice on Kaunitz' part, because it came across as a personal present fitting Madame de Pompadour's image of herself rather than a crude bribe.)

So we knew about the first part of this episode (Catt claims to have tried to stop Fritz, and Voltaire complains in his memoirs), but I didn't know or had forgotten about the French counterattack!

I hadn't known, either! ROTFLOL. Nor did anyone of the "no comtemporary but Voltaire ever accused Fritz of gayness" party, clearly. (I did know about another French satiric verse because Lehndorff quotes it indignantly in his diaries. It was penned after Fritz lost his first big battle at Kolin and rhymed "Schwerin" with "rien", claiming that with Schwerin died Fritz' military craft, proving it had been him all along. (In all fairness, the French also immediately made satiric poetry against Soubise who lost the battle of Rossbach against Fritz later that year.)

From:

cahn

the French prisoner whom Heinrich befriends and sends back to France in a (Fritz-authorized) attempt to get a separate peace was a member of that family and considered reliable for that reason (i.e. he already had a grudge against Reinette and thus a reason to work for a policy different from the one she supported).

Oh wow, that's interesting -- I really like when dots like this get connected for me :)

Schultz should have brought up instead that they sent her a very beautiful and expensive secretary. (Er, a table, [personal profile] cahn, not a guy.)

Lol! I did know the table/desk definition, but I absolutely just thought of the person on first look and was really confused before reading the parenthetical :) ("Why... would MT need a beautiful secretary?")

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Schultz should have brought up instead that they sent her a very beautiful and expensive secretary.

He did! However, he says that the Austrian ambassador reports that Pompadour complained that it was *so* beautiful and expensive that she had to keep it a secret, lest people get the wrong idea.

She did at least accept it, unlike Fritz's actual crude bribes.

(Er, a table, [personal profile] cahn, not a guy.)

LOLOL! No, that was Darget, whom the French sent to Fritz. :P

I hadn't known, either! ROTFLOL. Nor did anyone of the "no comtemporary but Voltaire ever accused Fritz of gayness" party, clearly.

Rereading MacDonogh, he actually is slightly more nuanced than I had given him credit for:

What makes one reluctant to fall in with this view is that so much of their evidence is culled from one source alone, namely Voltaire; and that Voltaire was definitely seeking revenge for the slights he felt he had suffered at Frederick’s hands in Berlin and Frankfurt. Still, Roger Peyrefitte and others are right to point out how much Frederick, and indeed Voltaire, used the language of Greek love in their correspondence, and that Frederick made constant allusions to it in his poetry.

To play devil's advocate, I can't imagine a second French poet seeking revenge for slights to the king and mistress during wartime would count as much more reliable than the first French poet, but it does indicate that this was the widely known weak point of Fritz's sexual reputation. (For which salon also has an abundance of evidence that MacDonogh is *not* listing.)

Also, can I just say that I love how Fritz's response to the counterthreat is to go ahead and release his satire? "Do your worst! I am out and proud!" I imagine him thinking. :DDD

(I told my partner about this battle of poetry and she laughed. "We see your misogyny and we raise you homophobia!")

From:

cahn

lol!

Also, can I just say that I love how Fritz's response to the counterthreat is to go ahead and release his satire?

I must say that this seems wildly in character :D

Re: Pompadour gossip

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-04-12 01:28 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

luzula

Thanks for all the fun anecdotes! *eats popcorn and follows along*

From:

cahn

Gah, so my parents have gone but now I am madly catching up to everything I didn't do when they were here, plus my ward and stake have decided after years of Easter neglect that they actually DO want to do music for Easter. But dropping in tonight for a few comments!

Yeah, I'm gonna say that I think that hitting four out of five sisters is pretty weird too!

Then the next morning, having announced what time he was "getting up," he'd slip back into the state bed and be "woken up" a second time.

Hee. Yeah, I'd do that too :)

Philip "the Frog" V

Me, every single time:
-"Philip": Oh no, there are so many Philips! Which one is this one?
-"'the frog' V": Oh, THAT one.
That is to say, thanks! :) One day I'll figure it out :)

She was very patient with him and didn't push it, which he appreciated. They consummated the marriage the next night, and she gradually won him over.

Per Wikipedia, she was also great about the kid his first wife had died giving birth to

Aw, this is great. I have been reading about evil stepmothers (or at least one of them) lately and this is so much better. Except,

Maria Josepha later commissioned a painting (now lost) of her stepdaughter to be left over her cradle.

:( <3

So it was the sharing of the bed that had to be witnessed, not the sex.

This seems kind of random to me! Why would you have to share a bed to be married? I suppose you could say the same thing about sex, but drawing the line at the bed specifically, particularly when it was weird to actually share a bed overnight with your spouse, seems odd to me! I know this is probably just an outgrowth of making the traditions palatable, but still.

...Only it turned out he had stabbed himself in hopes of getting a reward.

His reward was to be hanged.

!

Speaking truth to power without speaking:

Hee! (And, thank you for the clarification, i was a bit confused.)

So Pompadour did the marketing and project management and got Louis to fund it* and everything. And then, when the big announcement was made...her name got left off it entirely.

Damn. (But that explains why I never heard of it!)

Aw man!

You go, Émilie. Also, biographers, come on. You should connect the dots for me and also get names right! I can't be relying on Wikipedia for everything. :P

Agreed on all counts!

Schultz: "Also, what about that portrait of yourself you sent her?"

MT: "Hey, Fritz has a portrait of me in his bedroom, that says nothing!"

Heeee. I have a headcanon of everyone trolling future historians by sending portraits and hanging portraits in bedrooms (althoguh I thought someone in salon found it wasn't actually in Fritz's bedroom?)

The Seven Years' Poetry War!

This is amaaaaazing. I also am dying at the rhyming of "pompadour" and "amour" and "tambour."

From:

mildred_of_midgard

This seems kind of random to me! Why would you have to share a bed to be married? I suppose you could say the same thing about sex, but drawing the line at the bed specifically, particularly when it was weird to actually share a bed overnight with your spouse, seems odd to me! I know this is probably just an outgrowth of making the traditions palatable, but still.

I'm speculating here, but I'm guessing it's symbolic of sex. If a marriage wasn't consummated, it could be annulled later. Much harder if it's been consummated. So part of witnessing that the marriage was valid was witnessing that the married couple had slept together. "Putting the couple to bed" has historically been part of marriage ceremonies, both royal and non-royal.

...But nobody actually wants to watch the sex take place or wants to be watched--or if they do, they don't want to admit it publicly :PP--so what gets witnessed formally is "We put them to bed, now it's going to be harder to get the marriage annulled." They were in a compromising situation together, so they'd better have been married.

Mind you, it's still possible for the married couple to deny later that anything sexual took place (hence SD telling Wilhelmine not to have sex), but it's slightly less plausible.

And for child marriages, it was purely symbolic, since society believed that it was detrimental to children's health to have sex before the age of about 12-13 (they're not wrong!), so the adults would put the bride and groom to bed and witness that they shared a bed, but actual sex had to wait a few years. (This did make it easier to annull the marriage later, but hey. It's symbolic. Just think of how many aspects of wedding ceremonies, even today, are symbolic.)

Reading about Henri IV last night, I encountered this account of his mother's first marriage.

Jeanne d'Albret was thirteen and didn't want to get married. Her mother beat her into it (Selena said once that it may or may not have happened like that, but Jeanne at least later said she was beaten into it). During the public witnessing of the lying together, Jeanne was sobbing and raging and defending herself against her husband.

Indignant, the young husband just stretched his bare leg under the bedclothes, thereby consummating the marriage, at least per procurationem. [Since the political goals of this marriage weren't being achieved either], Francis I. soon arranged for the annulment of the marriage, which Pope Paul III granted quickly because of the small foot contact.

So: symbolic consummation, still possible to annul later (on grounds of non-consummation and non-consent).

From:

selenak

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-04-14 05:08 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

cahn

since society believed that it was detrimental to children's health to have sex before the age of about 12-13 (they're not wrong!)

WELL GOOD FOR THEM. :P They're not wrong! Like you say :P

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Me, every single time:
-"Philip": Oh no, there are so many Philips! Which one is this one?
-"'the frog' V": Oh, THAT one.
That is to say, thanks! :) One day I'll figure it out :)

Lol! I wasn't sure if I still needed to clarify, but I figured it was funny enough that I might as well anyway. Good to know I should keep doing it! :D

althoguh I thought someone in salon found it wasn't actually in Fritz's bedroom?

Oh, maybe! It's been three years and nearly 3 million words and I have forgotten much.

I also am dying at the rhyming of "pompadour" and "amour" and "tambour."

Me too, especially because of the drummer bit. It reminded me that this happened:

selenak: Unexpectedly, Mr. Büsching has delivered a suicidal hussar... from 1775. When Fredersdorf was long dead. Büsching writes thusly:

He had intentionally ignorant people who couldn't read or write as his servants, and not for the usual use, believing that nothing disadvantagegous or dangerous was to fear from them; he was however wrong about this. A case in point was the Chamber Hussar Deesen, for whom he had much favour and grace, but whom he, I don't know why, eventually put in such a great disgrace that the man grew desperate over it. If I'm not mistaken, both (disgrace and desperation) reached their peak in the July of 1775. The King was back then visited by family members, and during this visit he'd ordered that the man shouldn't appear in front of him. When the visited had ended, and the King was back at Sanssouci, he'd ordered the man to him one morning and gave him to the aide who'd read the rapport with the command that he'd be used as a drummer at the corps. The man fell to his feet, but he kicked him away, and when the man clung to his knees again, (the King) had him pulled away by force. Deesen asked the aide who went with him whether he was allowed to pick up his hat; and when he'd gone to his room, he shot himself with a prepared and loaded pistol he'd kept for such a case. When this was reported to the King, he first said "but where did he get the loaded gun from?" and then "I wouldn't have expected such courage from him". But one noticed much disturbance of the temper from the King about this event, and from the questions he put to his people afterwards, one could see this event had been very disagreeable to him. This man had not known how to read or write, but he had someone else read to him something which had been lying on the King's table.

1.) One suicidal hussar might be regarded as a misfortune. Two looks like carelessness, misquote Oscar Wilde.

2.) Yep, that's FW's son, alright.

3.) So clearly this had nothing to do with Fredersdorf, what with him being dead, and Old Fritz in 1775 isn't necessarily like young Fritz in 1741, but presumably this is the kind of thing Georgii might have been afraid would happen, quite independent from what Frederdorf did or did not do?

So not that he was having sex with a drummer here, but he was threatening to demote his favored chamber hussar into a drummer, almost 20 years after this poem.

From:

selenak

Ah yes, the unfortunate Dessen and the threat by the loss of amour to become a tambour. Didn't we also find this story referenced by the SECOND Chamber Hussar's memoirs? (Who was a source for Büsching and Nicolai, of course.)