cahn | 18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 37

More diaries of our favorite 18th-century Prussian diary-keeper have been unearthed and have been synopsized!

January 18th: Blessed be thou to me! Under your light, my Prince Heinrich was born!

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From:

selenak

I was in the same position you were in, i.e. assuming there never was a definite reply before reading Horowski. English wiki and German wiki (in their "Man with the Iron Mask" articles) disagree about this, btw; English wiki seems to believe that while the "Servant Eustache" theory isn't 100% proven, it's the most likely, while German wiki says both the "it was a family member of Louis XIV" and "it was a servant whom a bored Saint-Mars upgraded" theory are unlikely, the second one because a servant who saw something he shouldn't have could simply have been killed, since no one (of influence) would have minded or noticed one way or the other. Which isn't wrong. However:

And while Ancien Regime France was happy to lock you up for life or murder you brutally, the one thing they WOULD NOT DO was force someone highborn to act as a SERVANT, omg, can you IMAGINE. The degradation! It would endanger the foundation on which society was built!

See, this I also completely believe. It's so very ancien regime. (Well, unless we're talking FW. FW I think would have been entirely capable to let one of his kids or a noble he was enraged with perform servant-like services for a while to make a point.) Still: if Eustache saw the Secret Treaty of Dover - which I agree was at the time something both Louis and Charles would have done almost anything to keep secret - why the hell wasn't Eustache simply killed? If not via murder, then due to a trumped up charge for another matter?

This is what happens to a main character of the Angelique novels right in the first volume. Angelique, our heroine, as a kid comes across evidence that several nobles involved in the Fronde -the uprising against Mazarin and Queen Anne when future Sun King Louis was still a child - want to poison Louis and brother Philippe the future Gay so that Uncle Gaston the eternal schemer becomes King. She hides it. As an adult woman, she married Joffrey, the Comte de Peyrac, her first great love and a passionate free thinker. The former conspirators figure out she still has that old evidence, only now Louis is adult and could do very harmful things to them if it comes to light, so Joffrey as her husband gets accused of being a sorceror and has a witch trial against him. Louis, who isn't keen on Joffrey because Joffrey is an independent minded peer not bothering to pay court at Versailles and because he's paranoid about independent minded nobles due to his childhood, okays this somewhat ridiculous charge for his own reasons. The trial goes ahead, Joffrey despite our heroine's best endeavours to save her husband gets burned (not really, but we don't find that out until a later novel), his property gets confiscated, and she ends up in the streets for a while. These were among the earliest historical novels I've read, I imprinted on them, and so I really have to ask: if Eustache knew about the Treaty of Dover, why then neither a death sentence on a trumped up charge (if it was good enough for Joffrey de Peyrac...) or plain old murder?

On the non existing third hand, I do love the idea that the whole tale came about because of a bored official. Not least because one of the 20th century's most popular conspiracy theories, the Paul Is Dead craze, came about because of a bored DJ who made it up, and never could take it back once it caught on.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

(Well, unless we're talking FW. FW I think would have been entirely capable to let one of his kids or a noble he was enraged with perform servant-like services for a while to make a point.

I had the same thought, but I remembered that even during the worst days of the Küstrin imprisonment, Fritz had a servant. The servant wasn't allowed to sleep in the same room with him, and they weren't allowed to talk, but he had a guy to shave him and carry his waste away. Thus proving that even Wretched Son fit into the class structure!

(Also,

cahn, just a reminder that 'member of the servant class' and 'person who waits on a royal' are two different things: the latter was something high nobility would fight over, and is different from scrubbing floors.)

if Eustache saw the Secret Treaty of Dover - which I agree was at the time something both Louis and Charles would have done almost anything to keep secret - why the hell wasn't Eustache simply killed? If not via murder, then due to a trumped up charge for another matter?

Horowski doesn't really have a good answer for this. After talking at length about how brutal the Ancien Regime was and how Louis could totally have killed Danger if he wanted, he says that it says a lot for the Ancien Regime that he didn't, and that killing a relatively innocent (!) defenseless person would have been a blameworthy excess, so Danger ended up in prison.

But as you point out, that's not really a rock-solid case.

Maybe they just needed more servants in prison? Horowski says it was hard to get good help with volunteers, since serving a noble in a prison like Pignerol basically meant being imprisoned yourself. (A bit different situation from Küstrin.)

On the non existing third hand, I do love the idea that the whole tale came about because of a bored official.

I knoooow, it's my favorite part! I gave my wife a very abbreviated account of this story, and we agreed the "bored official" version is a much better story from a modern perspective than "half-brother of Louis" or whatever. It's just so unexpected!

Edited Date: 2022-07-31 08:53 pm (UTC)

From:

selenak

Incidentally, our buddy Voltaire is credited with popularizing the "it was the secret brother!" theory, though I don't think he invented it, he just helped it spread. Though in his version, unlike Dumas' later - who has it be the secret twin brother - it's a secret half brother courtesy of the Queen Anne/Cardinal Mazarin affair. Meanwhile, Versailles the tv show went with the "it was the secret bio dad of both Louis and Philippe the Gay, because Louis XIII. and Anne clearly could not reproduce, and so Richelieu organized a bio dad for an heir and a spare who then got locked up" theory. And you know I think Wilhelmine was pleased as punch to come across a "it was really the WOMAN in the Iron Mask" version. But seriously, "it was a bored noble" is the awesomest.

(Also more likely than all the secret relations, because the birth of Louis XIV had been so long awaited and was an event with so many people in addition to Anne in the room that disguising the arrival of a twin brother would have been impossible, and for Anne as Regent later to hide a pregnancy and birth when her nobility was watching her every step and gossipping about her relations with Mazarin anyway would have been near impossible as well. AS for Louis XIII, of all the people, agreeing to a secret bio dad to impregnate his wife, where do I even start? Not to mention that both Louis and Philippe show their share of the dark Medici coloring inherited from Louis XIII - their (Habsburg) mother Anne was a blonde - , and you can see some resembmlance to cousin Charles II in the portraits.)

However....

Horowski doesn't really have a good answer for this. After talking at length about how brutal the Ancien Regime was and how Louis could totally have killed Danger if he wanted, he says that it says a lot for the Ancien Regime that he didn't, and that killing a relatively innocent (!) defenseless person would have been a blameworthy excess, so Danger ended up in prison.

Yeah, no. I mean. I don't think Le Roi Soleil was the worst or most ruthless French King ever, but do I think he'd have balked at getting (lethally) rid of a (spying) servant to protect the secrecy of the Treaty of Dover? No way.

Otoh, how's this for an explanation: Eustache was a servant of Minette's whom she really liked and she pleaded for his life. Both Louis and Charles would have granted that wish because of their emotional connection to her, while Louis would still wanted to ensure Eustache kept his mouth shut from now on.

There's just one fly in an otherwise perfect ointment: if Eustache saw the treaty of Dover, you'd think Saint Mars would have been ordered to keep him away from ambitious nobles like Fouquet and Lauzun, even if at the time Fouquet was not supposed to be released again. After all, Fouquet as far as I know was allowed to write letters.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

And you know I think Wilhelmine was pleased as punch to come across a "it was really the WOMAN in the Iron Mask" version.

I think she was!

AS for Louis XIII, of all the people, agreeing to a secret bio dad to impregnate his wife, where do I even start?

Louis: What do you think this is, Sweden?

:P

(Lest we forget the Finnish sex machine. ;))

[ETA:

luzula, if you're following along, context is here, tell us if you've heard this story before!)

I don't think Le Roi Soleil was the worst or most ruthless French King ever

Who was the most ruthless French King ever, do you think? Of the ones I personally know something about, Louis XI comes to mind, but I have way too many gaps in my knowledge to be able to say.

Eustache was a servant of Minette's whom she really liked and she pleaded for his life.

Ooh, could be! I like your reasoning.

After all, Fouquet as far as I know was allowed to write letters.

Horowski says Fouquet was "occasionally" allowed a letter to his family, after promising not to talk about anything he had learned in prison (i.e. Eustache's secret), but even so, his letters would have been censored first, surely? Censorship of letters was pretty common in France.

Besides, if Eustache has any secret at all, we still have to account for why he was allowed to talk to Fouquet, regardless of what the secret is.

Edited Date: 2022-08-01 08:15 pm (UTC)

From:

luzula

(Lest we forget the Finnish sex machine. ;))

[ETA: [personal profile] luzula, if you're following along, context is here, tell us if you've heard this story before!)

Ha ha, no, I had not! Thanks for sharing, that's great. : D

But my eye was caught by this, because WHAT?
Gustav IV Adolf *in exile*: So, I'm not good enough because I'm possibly the son of a Finnish sex machine, but a French commoner who has "death to kings" tattooed on his arm is?

I mean, obviously I know about Bernadotte, but I did NOT know that he had "death to kings" tattooed on his arm? Awesome, if true. But do you have a source for this? I found a Swedish site saying that this is a myth, and that it arose from the 1833 play Le Camarade de lit, where this happens:

... The ex-grenadier reminds the King that he had once tattooed his arm with gunpowder. Carried away by old associations the King pulls up his sleeve and displays the indelible imprint of a Phrygian Cap and of a revolutionary motto, which is said to have been Mort aux Rois. The disclosure of this secret is the turning-point of the piece. The King is placed in such a dilemma by this compromising discovery that, in order to save himself from the necessity of abdication, he is compelled to give his consent to the marriage of the hero and the heroine, thus bringing the curtain down upon a happy ending to the play.

The same site does say that he said in a 1797 letter that he is a republican by principle and would fight royalists to his dying day, but only has a second-hand source for it that I can't access.

From:

selenak

No, I don’t have a source other than the legend for the “Death to Kings!” Tattoo, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it solely hails from a popular play. As we’ve seen all too often in this fandom, once an idea catches on, a lot of people centuries later regard it as fact.

I also wrote an emojii version of the Swedish Scandal for Mildred, which got reposted here:

https://rheinsberg.dreamwidth.org/33616.html#cutid1

From:

cahn

Otoh, how's this for an explanation: Eustache was a servant of Minette's whom she really liked and she pleaded for his life. Both Louis and Charles would have granted that wish because of their emotional connection to her, while Louis would still wanted to ensure Eustache kept his mouth shut from now on.

Ohhhh, I like that a lot.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I don't think Le Roi Soleil was the worst or most ruthless French King ever

Using this as a jumping off point for a loosely related quote I wanted to share.

Context: William III is invading England. James II is trying to smuggle his wife (Mary of Modena) and kid (James Francis Edward Stuart aka future "James III" to Jacobites aka "the warming pan baby" to his enemies) to safety in France. Italian guy Riva and French guy Lauzun (yes, that one) are helping doing the smuggling. The entire chapter so far has been about how cold and wet and miserable it is (London in December in the Little Ice Age), as well as stressful trying not to get caught.

Finally, they get to an inn where they meet up with their co-conspirators. Horowski writes:

Riva was almost in tears as he said that the good king had thought to provide him not only with a horse but an extra pair of riding boots. From Lauzun's perspective, on the other hand, it was just like James II to have nothing better to do at a time like this. Since James's cousin Louis XIV of an entirely different caliber. He went walking in the rain, while being the only one allowed to wear a hat, because of his rank, and he asked his companions if it wasn't unpleasant, having to go without a hat in the rain. And precisely because of that attitude, France was now the greatest power in Europe.

*eg* Horowski continues to be readable the second time around too.

The Man in the Iron Mask book is also interesting and contains some more details. I'll try to do a write-up after I finish it.

From:

cahn

Hee! Though, uh, that's one of the nicer things I've heard of James II :P

So as you all know it takes me forever to get to books, but I did say I should read the Three Musketeers one of these days, and apparently this week is it? I'm about a quarter of the way through, and it is great fun. I'd forgotten how hilarious Dumas is :D (But also, awwwww Anne of Austria and Louis XIII :( )

Mostly, though, I would like to ask if there's a reasonably readable bio of Cardinal Richelieu? As promised (and as I knew he would be from

selenak's previous recaps), he is definitely the most interesting person in the book, despite only having showed up for one scene so far. (I apologize if there was one recced before that I missed -- I feel like I've asked this before, but I have no recollection of what the answer was!)

From:

selenak

There’s a lot of fun in Dumas which usually gets lost in the movies; in the case of the Musketeers the Richard Lester movies are the honorable exception. (Mind you, Lester’s 1960s humor also has a lot of slapstick in it which is slightly different, but his two part movie(s) is still for my money the best and most Dumasian screen version we have of that story. Faye Dunaway, Milady, Michael York, D’Artagnan, Oliver Reed, Athos, Christopher Lee, Rochefort, and cast against type and actually amazingly good in it, Charlton Heston as Richelieu.)

Alas all the Richelieu books I read back in the day were in German, except for one which in French, and even if they were in English, I can’t say one impressed me much in terms of narrative readability. They were usually dense and did the job of informing me, but they weren’t exactly entertainingly written, more’s the pity.

Mildred, you asked me about the most ruthless and worst French King: like you, I don’t have detailed knowledge of all of them, but of those I know about, I would differentiate between “worst” and “most ruthless”. Louis XI “The Spider King” would be my nomination for “most ruthless” as well, but his tactics worked for him and France, he got what he wanted out of them, and got the better of England and the HRE both for the most part, no mean feat if both are at your borders and at times allied with each other. (He certainly outdid Napoleon in that department.) Now he was undoubtedly a terrible person, but “worst king” - no. At least not if you define “worst” as “worst for France”, in which case, hm, sorry, Louis XV, you’re at least getting into the close competition with your debts and creating/speeding along much of what your grandson would die for, along with Philip VI for starting the 100 years war, Charles VI “the Mad”, though one could argue genuine mental illness which isn’t his fault should take him out of the competition, and Catherine de’ Medici’s two boys on the throne, Charles IX and Henri III both (any of Catherine’s daughers would have been SO MUCH MORE COMPETENT at ruling than any of her sons, alas). Either sucked at the job.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yeah, I had much the same thoughts as you, especially re Charles VI. At some point, if you think you're ~~a frog~~ made of glass, some personal responsibility for your kingdom going to hell in a handbasket isn't on your shoulders.

But speaking of ruthless monarchs! I have to share this quote from Franz Szabo. He's a twenty-first century historian who wrote a history of the Seven Years' War, which Blanning relies on for the demythologizing-Fritz aspects of his own book. Szabo's book been on my radar for a while now, including the many, many reviews on Amazon by readers that say, in sum, "Look, I'm all for demythologizing Fritz, but Szabo hates him so much that he can't stay on topic, and it ends up being more an anti-Fritz diatribe than a book about the Seven Years' War."

Well, this week I read the Kindle sample (I'm probably going to end up reading the book on Perlego, because of the cost), and check out this passage from page 1:

Goebbels did all he could to reinforce the parallels between the two [Fritz and Hitler] in Hitler's mind, even if he privately confessed to his diary that the Führer was unfortunately simply not 'Fritzish' enough. In his view Hitler was too soft and lacked the utter and complete ruthlessness of Frederick.

I see we're off to a strong start with the theme of the book!

(I'm also planning to read Füssel's take on the Seven Years' War soon, maybe next, but first I want to finish Beuys' Sophie Charlotte bio. Slowly following in

cahn

Oh gosh, I hadn't even thought about watching a movie of it, buuuut that cast looks amazing. (About halfway through the book now!)

Alas! -- well, maybe I'll go look for an entertaining English book, under mildred's principle that one has to start somewhere :)

Edited Date: 2022-08-09 04:48 am (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Alas, like Selena, I have only read about Richelieu in German (and only one dedicated bio in my case). And while Uwe Schultz writes serviceable bios that I can't complain about, I also don't go around enthusiastically reccing learning German in order to read him or paying for a Google translation.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

So I finished Josephine Wilkinson's 2021 book on the Man in the Iron Mask, which is basically the same as Horowski's chapter, but book-length, so a whole lot more detail. And I have a few findings.

One, not only was I right about the censorship of Fouquet's letters, it was stricter than I thought. From 1665 - 1674, letters were an exception. In the autumn of 1672, his wife wrote to Louis XIV to ask permission to send her husband a letter and a report/bill to her husband. She got permission, but the security protocols were tight: she had to send her letter to Louvois, who read it aloud to Louis, who decided whether or not to allow it. Then Fouquet was allowed to read the letter in Saint-Mars' presence. Then he was allowed to think about his response for a few hours. Then he was given writing materials to compose a response under Saint-Mars' supervision. Then that reply would go to Louvois, who would read it aloud to Louis, who would decide whether or not to forward it on to Madame Fouquet.

Starting in 1674, Mme Fouquet gets permission to send her husband two letters a year regularly, but they still have to go through that laborious process.

1675 is when Eustache becomes Fouquet's valet. He does *not* have permission to talk to Lauzun, and never will. In fact, everyone freaks out when they find out that Lauzun has been sneaking into Fouquet's room and has met with Eustache and possibly learned his secret.

In 1679, Fouquet gets permission to write to his family whenever he likes, but Saint-Mars is to take all possible precautions to ensure that Eustache's secret doesn't get out. Indeed, Louis expected Foucquet's cooperation in this matter because, as Louvois wrote, the former superintendent was aware of how important it was that no one should know what Eustache knew.

But going back in time a bit, I have to share this delightful episode from shortly after Fouquet's arrival in prison.

One day, there's a storm. Lightning strikes the fortress. It happens to hit the place where the gunpowder is stored. There is a big explosion. Part of the fortress collapses. People die. Fouquet and his valet are protected by the thickness of the wall that they were standing next to from more than a few bruises, but his apartment is destroyed.

When the authorities go through the ruins of the apartment, they find a handkerchief hidden in the back of a (now broken) chair. The handkerchief is covered in writing. Apparently has been improvising chicken bones as pens and soot mixed with wine as ink to write on a handkerchief, which he then hides. (What he wrote is frustratingly not reported in this book. I'm guessing was probably sent directly to Louis and destroyed without being written down, because secret.)

Furthermore! One of the books Fouquet's been allowed to have turns out to have invisible ink writing in the margins. Because Fouquet was a noble who didn't just collect books for show, but actually read them, and he had an interest in practical chemistry. He had made invisible ink and wrote in his book, and the ink showed up when the book was warmed up by the fire caused by the explosion, which, remember, was caused by a lightning strike hitting the arsenal full of gunpowder.

I could not make this stuff up!

And even after the authorities confiscate these writing materials and report to Louis, Fouquet keeps finding ways to defeat the increased security precautions and writes to himself in invisible ink.

Of course, later on, Lauzun is sent to this prison, and he causes so much trouble (like setting his floor on fire, and digging the passage between the chimneys, and sneaking out), that Saint-Mars writes, "I believed that M. Foucquet was one of the wickedest prisoners to guard that could be found, but now I say that he is a lamb compared to [Lauzun]."

From:

cahn

From 1665 - 1674, letters were an exception. In the autumn of 1672, his wife wrote to Louis XIV to ask permission to send her husband a letter and a report/bill to her husband. She got permission, but the security protocols were tight: she had to send her letter to Louvois, who read it aloud to Louis, who decided whether or not to allow it. Then Fouquet was allowed to read the letter in Saint-Mars' presence. Then he was allowed to think about his response for a few hours. Then he was given writing materials to compose a response under Saint-Mars' supervision. Then that reply would go to Louvois, who would read it aloud to Louis, who would decide whether or not to forward it on to Madame Fouquet.

This seems to me to be a failure of centralization! Do you mean to tell me this is the kind of thing Louis XIV did?? If I were the Sun King I would have gotten someone else to do this!

One of the books Fouquet's been allowed to have turns out to have invisible ink writing in the margins. Because Fouquet was a noble who didn't just collect books for show, but actually read them, and he had an interest in practical chemistry. He had made invisible ink and wrote in his book, and the ink showed up when the book was warmed up by the fire caused by the explosion, which, remember, was caused by a lightning strike hitting the arsenal full of gunpowder.

...this is AMAZING. Okay, I'm a fan of Fouquet now :D

From:

mildred_of_midgard

This seems to me to be a failure of centralization! Do you mean to tell me this is the kind of thing Louis XIV did??

Yes! Like Fritz and Catherine and Joseph (okay, maybe not to Joseph's extreme) and other absolute monarchs, Louis XIV managed to consolidate power in his hands by doing a bunch of unpleasant work that you or I would have gotten someone else to do. Remember that Louis was a kid when the Fronde happened and rebellious nobles were marching through his bedroom while he pretended to sleep, it was deeply traumatic, and I can see why he'd be willing to do a lot of paperwork if it meant everyone agreed he got to make all the decisions.

(Therapy for everyone.)

Also, when you have your #1 most powerful noble locked up for treason and because he has access to some of your most sensitive secrets, I can see why you want to keep a close and personal eye on what he's communicating. Remember that Louis has every reason to fear conspiracies directed against him--it's not like me refusing to delegate a database upgrade.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

More details from Wilkinson, on Eustache's identity and secret.

The initial letter from Louvois (written on behalf of Louis) to Saint-Mars says Eustache is "only a valet." He could be lying! But this is the documentary evidence we have.

We also have, as Fouquet's and Lauzun's valets keep getting sick and dying off, Saint-Mars writing repeatedly, "I can't find any volunteers in the town to replace these valets! How about that prisoner you said was a valet?" More precisely:

It was almost impossible to find a replacement, he wrote to the minister. None of his own valets would do the job if he paid them a million: "They have seen that those I have placed with M. Foucquet never come out."

In other words, not only do you give up your freedom to be in prison while you're serving as valet to an imprisoned noble, but prison conditions are far from healthy.

Louvois refuses to allow Eustache to serve the more dangerous Lauzun, but eventually allows him to serve Fouquet, on the condition that Eustache not be allowed to talk to anyone else.

All the security precautions that Louis and Louvois insist on, from even before Eustache is captured, have to do with keeping him from talking, not from being recognized. "Kill him if he talks about anything but his basic needs." "Make Fouquet promise not to tell anything he learns." "Don't let Eustache be alone with anyone." Etc. There are no masks until very, very late in the game, and no records of anyone above Saint-Mars ordering any masks.

At one point, Louvois writes a letter to Fouquet saying, in effect, Louis wants to know if Eustache has said anything in front of Fouquet's other valet about "~~strike what he has seen~~ how he has been employed" before prison.

It's hard to say what Louvois was thinking when he struck out the one phrase, but it seems like he instinctively wrote down the actual thing he and Louis were concerned about, and then crossed it out and wrote something more generic that wouldn't give as much away. Unfortunately, Wilkinson doesn't say anything about how legibile the phrase after being struck out--would Fouquet have been able to read it and figure out the real thing everyone was worried about, or was this the result of modern research? She does say it's clear Fouquet knew something about Eustache and it was guaranteed he would keep quiet about it, but it's not clear if he knew the full story.

Only once Fouquet assures Louvois that his other valet knows nothing about Eustache's secret, is Fouquet allowed to write regular leters to his family in 1679. (Letters which still have to be read by Louvois to Louis and approved before being sent on.)

But in 1680, after Fouquet dies, things change. Fouquet's other valet, La Rivière, who is not a prisoner, should be allowed to go free. But, evidence has emerged that he might have learned Eustache's secret. Plus he didn't tell anyone about the hole Lauzun dug between his chimney and Fouquet's. So La Rivière is kept locked up until his death, partly to keep Eustache's secret from getting out.

Interestingly, part of the reason Fouquet himself was locked up in a top-secret prison instead being allowed to go into exile, like many nobles who fell out of favor did, was because he had been privy to secret treaty negotiations for Louis (ones so secret Louis didn't even trust his ambassadors), as well as the secret workings of French finances, and Louis didn't want that information falling into the hands of his enemies.

As for why not just kill Eustache, Wilkinson writes:

Marcel Pagnol has argued though that Louis could simply have hanged Eustache rather than spend good money to maintain him in prison. However, executions did not just happen in the ancien régime. Not even Louis was above the law, and he was not able to break the law. Had this not been the case, Foucquet would never have been sent to Pignerol, but would have been executed on the Place de Grève instead.

That last sentence refers to something Wilkinson reminds me of that I had learned from Schultz but forgotten: Louis tried *really hard* to get a death sentence for Fouquet, but couldn't. The sentence was exile, and Louis changed it to life imprisonment. Could he have done what FW did to Katte and change it to death? Presumably, but either way, it's at least precedent for Louis not judicially murdering someone that he wanted dead. A high-ranking noble, admittedly! Not a valet. And as

selenak points out, there are trumped-up charges.

But in my mind, it at least says that it wouldn't have been out of character for Louis to decide to imprison someone for knowing too much, even if he had the ability to have them killed. Especially since the same thing happens to La Rivière, who was himself a valet who learned too much. He was not killed, he was locked up.

As for whose valet Eustache was (assuming he was a valet), Minette is indeed one of the candidates! But for the opposite reasons that Selena speculated:

In July 1669, with the negotiation with Charles well underway, Louis suddenly and inexplicably fell out with Henriette. This was an unexpected development since the two had previously been very close, and it did not go unnoticed. On July 23, Henriette withdrew from Saint-Germain to go to Saint-Cloud to prepare for the birth of her child. Three days later, on July 26, Ralph Montagu wrote in her defense to Lord Arlington:

She is the most that can be beloved in this country by everybody but the King and her husband. She has too great a spirit I believe ever to complain, or to let the King her brother know of it, but I tell your Lordship of it, that you may take all the occasions wherein the King can, of putting his Majesty upon supporting her, both as his sister, and as a sister that deserves it from him by her real concern in everything that relates either to his honor or interest.

Some weeks after this, Henriette wrote to Lord Arlington about some “suspicions” she had, which were:

founded on reasons of which I informed the King some time ago by a Page of the Backstairs to the Queen. He may have told you of them, and I gave some credence to them, because at the same time I had perceived a coldness in the feelings of the King of France for me, which made me think that, fearing that I might discover that he was not acting in good faith, he wished to remove me from the business [of the negotiations], for fear that I might warn the King my brother of it, as assuredly I should have done.

What had caused this coldness is not known. Hartmann thought it stemmed from Louis’s belief that Henriette was favoring Charles’s interests over those of France.

Henriette’s biographer, Jacqueline Duchêne, believed that Henriette, a former lover of Louis’s, was jealous of Madame de Montespan, who was expecting the king’s child. While either of these suggestions is plausible, Petitfils had suggested a third, which is that Louis’s coldness toward Henriette originated with some indiscretion on the part of one of her servants, which threatened to compromise relations between Louis and Charles. Had Eustache been that servant, it would explain his arrest and subsequent imprisonment without trial in July 1669. Petitfils points out that Louvois, having announced Eustache’s imminent arrival at Pignerol to Saint-Mars on July 19, waited until July 23, the date Henriette left Saint-Germain, to set a trap for Eustache with a view to having him arrested at Calais.

It's also worth mentioning, re Eustache's job title, that Saint-Mars told Louvois that when people would ask about Eustache, he (S-M) would make up "fairy tales" to make fun of them and lead them off the track. Saint-Mars is thus extremely likely to be behind a bunch of the rumors about Eustache's identity.

From:

cahn

This is all fascinating!

However, executions did not just happen in the ancien régime. Not even Louis was above the law, and he was not able to break the law.

Wow... really? Like, couldn't you just get a corrupt judge to order an execution? (Jean Calas would like a word...) Or is that only a post-ancien régime thing? (Which seems implausible to me?)

From:

selenak

Jean Calas is a good point, and I thnk Voltaire would generally disagree with Wilkinson’s statement re: Ancient Regime justice. Mind you - Fouquet is high nobility, his fall caused quite a stir, Louis was still a relatively young King who remembered a childhood where his nobles had conducted war against Mom and Mazarin and he, Philippe and Mom had to flee at one point (escorted to safety by historical D’Artagnan, no less). So not overriding the judges the way FW would in Katte’s case in order to get a death sentence I think has to be seen in that context.

Meanwhile, Calas was every day judical and police corruption, religious hatred (partly thanks to Louis revoking the Edict of Nantes, btw), and no one other than his family cared about his death in a provincial town until Voltaire got interested. And, of course, it happened a near century later. But I still doubt many people would have gotten upset if Louis had Eustache executed on a trumped up charge if he’d wanted to do that, and his NOT executing Fouquet doesn’t prove to me he had too many scruples to (unjustly) kill in general.

Thinking of legal cases with and without the death penalty in Louis’ life time, well, there was the Affair of the Poisons, and it was certainly execution time for La Voisin but not so much for Madame de Montespan, though the extent of her involvement is still contested, and the Marquise de Brinvillieres did die. My point being that death sentences for non-nobles were way easier and faster to get.

Re: The Man in the Iron Mask: Eustache as valet with a secret

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-08-09 01:34 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: The Man in the Iron Mask: Eustache as valet with a secret

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-08-13 04:34 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Assorted tidbits, because as you know, I'm better at those than at coherent write-ups:

1. I found Lauzun asking Louis permission to make a trip to Holland, but that could be because he needed to be released from his job duties for the trip, not because it would have been illegal for him to leave the country.

One thing that I was reminded of was Voltaire's memoirs, where he's all appalled at Alexei and Fritz being given or threatened with the death penalty for leaving the country, and acts like it's unheard of--but given that this is Voltaire and the genre is snark, nobles leaving without permission could have been illegal in France too, there just weren't any monarchs whose heirs got embroiled in major scandals. (I mean, not in recent memory, at least--there was always Louis XI fleeing Dad (Charles VII) and going to Burgundy. Where, hilariously, the Burgundians were like, "We'll be super nice to him and he'll be super grateful to us when he comes to the throne!!" AND THEN it turns out just like 1740 in Prussia. :PPP)

2. Things that FW and Louis did have in common: when one of Fouquet's valets who had *not* followed him into prison, faithfully but unsuccessfully tried to break his former master out from prison, said valet was executed on a scaffold that could be seen from Fouquet's window. The valet's name was La Forêt.

:(

3. When the restrictions on Fouquet and Lauzun are lightened up in later years, they're allowed to eat with each other. Social commentary:

Moreover, if they liked, Saint-Mars could eat with them. Here we see one of the niceties of the prison system: the preservation of rank. Saint-Mars the jailer, although recently ennobled, was of lower rank than either Foucquet or Lauzun. Even in a prison setting, in order for him to share their table, the two aristocrats had to invite him.

4. Eustache's name. Where Horowski just says some historians carelessly wrote "Dauger" instead of "Danger" or "d'Angers" for many years, Wilkinson elaborates:

As it is written on the original letter de cachet, his name is given as Eustache, but what appears to be his surname is disputed, with some scholars reading it as Dauger, with a u, and others as Danger, with an n. In the letter in which he warned Saint-Mars to prepare for the arrival of a new prisoner, Louvois gave the prisoner’s name as Eustache d’Auger, and this, or more usually the variant Dauger, is the name by which this mysterious man has been best known ever since. However, Eustache’s name would have several variations in the official correspondence as time went on: Eustache Danger (February 15, 1679), Dangers (September 13, 1679), d’Angers (April 8, 1680), or even simply ‘the man Eustache (December 23, 1678; January 20, 1680; July 10, 1680). In his paper presented at a colloquium at Pignerol in 1987, historian Bernard Caire convincingly demonstrated that the prisoner’s name was Danger, Dangers, or d’Angers.

From:

selenak

Saint-Mars needing to be invited by his prisoners since they outranked him is the most Ancient Regime thing ever. (And one of many reasons why I found the s1 of Versailles tv show scene where the Chevalier de Lorraine is temporarily in prison because Louis is upset with his brother’s fave so involuntarily funny, what with the Chevalier sharing his cell with other (common) prisoners. Louis would never.

Cahn, Louis XI’s Dad whom he’s running away from because they have such a bad relationship is none other than the former Dauphin crowned by Jeanne d’Arc. In Shaw’s St. Joan, when Joan persuades Charles to give her what she wants and let her relieve the siege of Orleans, one of the early arguments she uses is asking him whether he doesn’t want to restore France for his son, and Charles immediately replies: “No: he’s a horrid little boy”. Given Charles ends up starving to death and aware his nobility is already with the Rising Sun, one can see where that’s coming from, I guess.

From:

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-08-16 04:49 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

cahn

Oh man, I'd forgotten about the Angelique books. I actually remember almost nothing about them, though I really liked them! -- but I do remember Joffrey getting "burned" and showing up again later in a different novel, though I didn't remember why. Thanks for the recap! <3

From:

selenak

I once wrote an entire post in praise of the Angelique novels here:

https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/565628.html

Joffrey is still alive because Louis actually did have scruples nr: the burning of an innocent man, so he replaced him with another condemned prisoner at the last moment and sent him to the galleys as an anonymous prisoner instead. Joffrey then escaped and became a Medierranean pirate called the Rescator for a while (wearing a black mask in order not to be identified, btw).