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

[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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The Damiens assassination attempt

[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.

Re: The Damiens assassination attempt

[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.

Re: The Damiens assassination attempt

[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.

Re: The Damiens assassination attempt

[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.

Re: The Damiens assassination attempt

[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 :(