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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?
Re: Pompadour gossip
Date: 2022-04-07 05:13 am (UTC)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."
Re: Pompadour gossip
Date: 2022-04-09 04:05 pm (UTC)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).
Re: Pompadour gossip
Date: 2022-04-09 04:19 pm (UTC)It is. For example, if in the Renaissance someone married by proxy- say, Elisabeth de Valois/Philip of Spain, who were married by the Duke of Alba standing in for Philip before Elisabeth set off to Spain and became the stepmother of Don Carlos - then there was also a symbolic act where the leg of the proxy touched the leg of the actual spouse to simulate consumation, and that was it. Ditto if it was a marriage where one party was still a child, as in the Jeanne d'Albret case. (Btw, I was referencing Sarah Gristwood's book about the Renaissance Queens, which
.But nobody actually wants to watch the sex take place
I don't know about "want", but Francis I. was definitely present in the room when teenage son Henri consumed the marriage to equally teenage Catherine de' Medici, and described the consumation as a "valiant joust" to the court therafter.
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.
See also Catherine of Aragon insisting there had not been any sex with first husband Arthur while Henry in the long lawsuit for an annulment produced by now middleaged buddies of his brother who supposedly had heard Arthur declare "he spent the night in Spain" the morning after. Note that Catherine's mother Isabella the Catholic, no fool she, had been thoughtful enough to get a papal dispensation for the Catherine/Henry marriage even if the Catherine/Arthur marriage had been consumated, just in case, so the point was actually academic. But I don't recall anything so drastic in the 18th century. Note that famously in the MA/Louis XVI case, there was consumation...technically...but there was no proper ejaculation for seven years. Whether this would have allowed an annulment had either France or Austria pushed for one - who knows.
Re: Pompadour gossip
Date: 2022-04-10 02:28 pm (UTC)Ha! I'm sure I will encounter that anecdote soon, as my next planned bio is one of Catherine. :D
I'm thinking that wasn't the norm, though? At least all the examples I can think of are ones where the sex or lack thereof wasn't witnessed, only putting them in bed together.
Re: Pompadour gossip
Date: 2022-04-10 03:19 pm (UTC)(Well, not of an arranged royal marriage being consumated in front of a witness or witnesses. I could tell you which Beatle lost his virginity in Hamburg with the rest present in the same room - George Harrison. Which we know because George said so.)
Beatles gossip
Date: 2022-04-12 04:47 am (UTC)Wait, really? That sounds really unpleasant!
Re: Beatles gossip
Date: 2022-04-12 07:26 am (UTC)In the late Fifties in England it wasn't that easy to get it. The girls would all wear brassieres and corsets which seemed like reinforced steel. You could never actually get in anywhere. You'd always be breaking your hand trying to undo everything. I can remember parties at Pete Best's house, or wherever; there'd be these all-night parties and I'd be snogging with some girl and having a hard-on for eight hours till my groin was aching - and not getting any relief. That was how it always was. Those weren't the days. There's that side of it which will always be there, with the different sexes and their desires and all that Testa Rossa-terone bubbling up. And there's the other side of it - the peer-group pressure: 'What, haven't you had it yet?' It becomes, 'Oh, I've got to get it,' and everyone would be lying: 'Yeah, I got it.' - 'Did you get some tit?' - 'I got some tit.' - 'Well, I got some finder pie!' I certainly didn't have a stripper in Hamburg. I know Pete met one. There were young girls in the clubs and we knew a few, but for me it wasn't some big orgy. My first shag was in Hamburg - with Paul and John watching. We were in bunkbeds. They couldn't really see anything because I was under the covers, but after I'd finished they all applauded and cheered. At least they kept quiet whilst I was doing it.
Re: Beatles gossip
Date: 2022-04-14 05:36 am (UTC)Re: Pompadour gossip
Date: 2022-04-12 04:46 am (UTC)then there was also a symbolic act where the leg of the proxy touched the leg of the actual spouse to simulate consumation, and that was it.
Oh huh! Usually I'm not surprised at not knowing things, but I'm actually sort of surprised I hadn't known this (I've read enough historical fiction that I feel like it should have come up).
Re: Pompadour gossip
Date: 2022-04-12 07:32 am (UTC)Re: Pompadour gossip
Date: 2022-04-14 05:38 am (UTC)Re: Pompadour gossip
Date: 2022-04-12 04:07 pm (UTC)But if you want another book rec, I managed to start a book I was really enjoying: Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution, by Mike Duncan. I stalled out about 25% of the way through, because it's not in German (I checked :P), but I plan to finish it when my brain lets me! No idea how accurate it is, but it's Goldstone levels of readability, and the topic may be of interest to you.
Re: Pompadour gossip
Date: 2022-04-14 05:08 am (UTC)Re: Pompadour gossip
Date: 2022-04-12 04:43 am (UTC)WELL GOOD FOR THEM. :P They're not wrong! Like you say :P
Re: Pompadour gossip
Date: 2022-04-10 02:11 pm (UTC)-"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:
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.
Re: Pompadour gossip
Date: 2022-04-10 03:23 pm (UTC)Re: Pompadour gossip
Date: 2022-04-12 04:51 am (UTC)heeeeee!
Re: Pompadour gossip
Date: 2022-04-12 01:26 pm (UTC)Re: Pompadour gossip
Date: 2022-04-12 02:34 pm (UTC)Re: Pompadour gossip
Date: 2022-04-14 05:07 am (UTC)Re: Pompadour gossip
Date: 2022-04-12 04:50 am (UTC)