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

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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:

selenak

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."

I know what you mean. It should also be said that Liselotte probably expected Sophie and her other correspondents to do with her letters what she did with theirs (and Monsieur's after his death) after a while - burn them for discretion's sake. (Also against spies.) (This is why we don't have any of the answering Sophie letters to Liselotte, alas.) Thankfully, her German relations evidently decided all the juicy gossip had to be preserved for posterity instead of being treated discreetly.

But also, I can see why Philippe got along much better with Liselotte. I can't imagine that conversation taking place with Minette.

You would be right, not least since there's actual canon on this, i.e. we know that far from laughing together, Philippe's wedding night with Minette featured him being angry that she had her monthly bleedings. (How do we know? Because so did Catherine of Braganza in her wedding night with Minette's brother Charles, who wrote to his sister: "(A)and though I am not as furious as Monsieur was but I am content to let those pass over before I go to bed to my wife, yet I hope I shall entertain her at least better the first night than he did you.")

The irony is of course that Minette and Philippe actually had known each other for years before marrying - she grew up at the French court, after all!, sharing an identical cultural background - whereas Liselotte and Philippe were complete strangers from vastly different worlds.

Here's something else to amuse you. So, relations between Liselotte and her royal brother-in-law, hitherto good, go haywire when he invades her homeland and can't understand why she's not cheering him on. Plus however many of her letters his censors read and translated with their unflattering descriptions of his mistress and himself. And his religious fervor has increased. Louis decides to give Liselotte a reproof by making his confessor talk to her confessor (nominal Catholic, remember)and list a variety of failings she needs to improve. Says Fraser:

Her language was vulgar: she had for exmaple told the Dauphin that even if she saw him bollock-naked from the soles of his feet up, she would not be tempted by him (nor anyone else). She had allowed her ladies to indulge in gallantries, and had merely laughed with the wayward Marie-Anne de Conti about her own behaviour instead of reprimanding her. Liselotte was privately furious. She was not 'a chambermaid', she told her aunt Sophia, to be treated like this, unlike the King's precious Maintenon 'who was born to it'. She was not the Princesse de Conti's governess, eitiher, to stop her having lovers if she wanted them. Her frank language - and with her talk of crapping and pissing it was frank - she blamed on the King: he had said a hundred time sthat in the family one could say anything. And as for her ladies' gallantries, 'such conduct was not without precedent' and in fact 'quite usual at any court'. Liselotte certainly had a point there.)

For Louis, with his past love life, to complain that his sister-in-law (who never had sex with anyone but his brother and that had ceased years earlier) wasn't moral enough because she didn't prevent her ladies-in-waiting from having affairs is certainly rich, and you can see why Liselotte thought this was Madame de Maintenon talking through him. (Whether or not she was. It's just as possible Louis didn't want to say "you're supposed to cheer me on, you're French now, not be bitter about this, and also, how dare you say my piety consists of not having sex with young women anymore?!?)

Edited Date: 2022-03-31 07:49 am (UTC)

From:

luzula

She had allowed her ladies to indulge in gallantries

I love this phrasing! I mean, most often you would read phrasing like that applied to men, so I'm glad women get to use it as well.

It really seems like the word "gallant/galant" as applied to love affairs or sleeping around (with various other connotations as well) is a very 18th century thing, in a lot of languages! English, French, German and Swedish have it, though I don't know enough about German and French to know if it's a specifically 18th century thing there? It definitely is in Swedish. Some use of Google translate shows that the word exists in Spanish, Romanian and Russian too, though obviously I don't know its cultural history there.

ETA: I just asked my Spanish flatmate, and it's the same there...

Edited Date: 2022-03-31 06:16 pm (UTC)

From:

selenak

"Galante Abenteuer" is a 17th and 18th century kind of thing in German, too, yes, as is "Galanterie". Re: application towards women, I seem to recall it used specifically for Liselotte's contemporary Ninon de Lenclos, whom it fitted very well, and that was the first time I saw it used as a child, too!

From:

cahn

Thankfully, her German relations evidently decided all the juicy gossip had to be preserved for posterity instead of being treated discreetly.

Hee, yes. And, I mean, I suppose Philippe hardly cares now, and we definitely do :)

Philippe's wedding night with Minette featured him being angry that she had her monthly bleedings.

Oh right! Ugh, Philippe. No one's fault that started out on the wrong foot, but... (And of course, very much Philippe's fault that he was angry about something she couldn't at all help and also super natural, though that quote Mildred mentioned before about having to marry makes me a very small bit more sympathetic. Argh, human beings.) And presumably either Liselotte's marriage didn't start off on that particular wrong foot, or if it did Philippe, being older and having gone through it once already, was a little more blase about it, or else Liselotte made a vulgar joke about it which went over well :P :)

she had for exmaple told the Dauphin that even if she saw him bollock-naked from the soles of his feet up, she would not be tempted by him (nor anyone else).

Aw, I am charmed by this :P (And, like, isn't the sentiment a good one? :) )

She had allowed her ladies to indulge in gallantries

Oh noooooo! Anything but that!

It's just as possible Louis didn't want to say "you're supposed to cheer me on, you're French now, not be bitter about this, and also, how dare you say my piety consists of not having sex with young women anymore?!?

Heh! this seems extremely plausible.

Edited Date: 2022-04-07 05:22 am (UTC)