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?

Comments

Re: Pompadour gossip

[selenak]

I'm speculating here, but I'm guessing it's symbolic of sex.

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 cahn has read.)

.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

[mildred_of_midgard]

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.

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

[selenak]

I don't think it was the norm, no. But I seem to recall that it did happen to other unfortunate young couples, rarely, but it did, though I couldn't give you an immediate second example out of my head.

(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

[cahn]

(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.)

Wait, really? That sounds really unpleasant!

Re: Beatles gossip

[selenak]

Once upon a time there was a group of late teens and barely 20s, two of whom were still underage, who got their first foreign gig in Hamburg. In a seedy club owned by a guy namned Koschmider who also owned a cinema. So rather than pay his musicians enough for them to rent rooms during their months in Hamburg, he stored them in two tiny rooms behind the big screen of the cinema. Neither room had a bath, of course - they had to use the cinema's toilet for anything related to hygiene care, which was one reason why once they made friends with some Germans, they used said friends' showers a lot. Private space certainly was not to be had during that Hamburg trip, and so here's George Harrison, looking back decades later on the travails of losing one's virginity (he was 17, Paul was 18, John was 20):

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

[cahn]

!! Oh wow. That's, uh. Well, the late 50's was a different time too, that's all I'm saying :P

Re: Pompadour gossip

[cahn]

Yes! I remembered Jeanne d'Albret from that book, once mildred_of_midgard and you brought it up :)

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

[selenak]

Tsk. If you had read the Elizabeth Tudor/Philip of Spain AU I linked to you some months ago, you'd have come across it. In that story, Elizabeth has to do it with the Duke of Alba as proxy for Philip, which is modelled on rl Elisabeth de Valois's marriage where Alba was also Philip's stand-in who had to to the leg-to-leg touching when the marriage took place in France.

Re: Pompadour gossip

[cahn]

Argh, I did read it! And liked it! Idk why the leg-to-leg touching didn't stay with me. I did remember the Duke of Alba showing up, maybe I was too busy thinking about that?? Hmph.

Re: Pompadour gossip

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh right, you have read that book! It's on my someday list, but I checked and it's not in German, so I can't read it now. :P (It's so funny how my brain refused to read any German in November-December, no matter how hard I tried to make it, and it's refused to read English since January 1, no matter how hard I've tried.)

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

[cahn]

Sure! Yay readable history books! Uhh, as soon as I finish all these other books (Hugos season has also started, so I've got a bunch of reading for that in the queue).