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: Louis XIII

[cahn]

Eeee, thank you! :D I actually forgot that I had asked you about Louis because your writeup of Richelieu was so fascinating. Okay, I am sold on Richelieu, and also Richelieu & Louis XIII; is there a readable biography you'd recommend?

Someone who watched this and never forgot it was young Armand du Plessis, bishop of Lucon

Oh wow. This whole story is just fascinating and I'm just imagining Armand/Richelieu thinking of Concini the whole time.

This all led to a showdown at the so called "Day of Dupes" where Maria de' Medici gave her son a "Richelieu or me!" ultimatum, and thought she'd won. So did a lot of courtiers who promptly showed their hostility against Richelieu. Except that as it turned out, the Cardinal had won, Louis picked him. Cue again and forever exiled Queen Mother and a lot of scrambling courtiers.

! and this is epic!

Louis had started out disliking not-yet-Richelieu, and he was won over by the sheer competence. Otoh, he was very aware people said Richelieu was the true King and resented that.

...maybe this doesn't have a trope name, but I really like it! (I am just a sucker for all-out competence in any form, really.)

They were fifteen years apart, which isn't quite enough for a father/son relationship, but ensured they weren't really of the same generation, either, though Louis at times confided in Richelieu about very personal stuff, too.

...this is great. So they don't even quite fall into the uneasy friends/almost enemies trope, although it sounds like it's also time-dependent.

Louis said "He's a Cardinal, I'd be excommunicated", whereupon de Treville, the boss of the Musketeers, said it would be his honor to go to Rome and get a papal forgiveness for the King. Louis didn't say anything anymore

LOUIS

The lethal irony as that both Richelieu and Louis were already very sick at that point.

Ohhhhh, that really is lethal irony.

Richelieu: one of the very few men of power not afraid to find and train a gifted successor to take their place, which meant that after his death, the system they'd built around them didn't collapse.

Yay! I remember you'd mentioned this before (but not until you mentioned it again, thank you as usual for being patient with me!)