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cahnMore 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!
January 18th: Blessed be thou to me! Under your light, my Prince Heinrich was born!
The Man in the Iron Mask: Fouquet and censorship
Date: 2022-08-06 04:27 pm (UTC)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]."
Re: The Man in the Iron Mask: Fouquet and censorship
Date: 2022-08-09 04:50 am (UTC)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
Re: The Man in the Iron Mask: Fouquet and censorship
Date: 2022-08-09 01:31 pm (UTC)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.
Re: The Man in the Iron Mask: Fouquet and censorship
Date: 2022-08-09 01:37 pm (UTC)To me, the more intriguing thing is that Louis waited with the workoholic powermongering until Mazarin had died. Before, you had two de facto Prime Ministers consolodating very much power in their hands, first Richelieu, then Mazarin, and only after Mazarin had died and Louis was asked who would now do Mazarin's job did he reply with "I will" and L'etat, c'est moi. Not retiring the Cardinal as soon as he could have was either tact or affection or both, but it also meant he had a few years as a teenage King where he didn't have the gigantic work load he later acquired out of his own volition.
Re: The Man in the Iron Mask: Fouquet and censorship
Date: 2022-08-10 06:37 pm (UTC)This is very true and a good point.
It's also worth adding some context for you,
Not retiring the Cardinal as soon as he could have was either tact or affection or both
Or possibly just him being a teenager. The cognitive ability to choose delayed gratification over instant gratification, along with certain other features of a mature brain, is one that, on average, doesn't finish developing until your mid-twenties. While salon probably selects for people who, like me, were workaholics as teenagers, that's not the norm. Remember that even Fritz was writing to Duhan in his 20s that he regretted all the time spent in dissolute pleasures when he could have been studying, and he was trying to make up for lost time.
Maybe teenage Louis just had more interesting things to do, and it wasn't until his 20s that his willingness to do tedious work met with the opportunity to do it--maybe in his teens, he didn't want it badly enough to oust the guy who was sparing him the time-sucking tedium. Maybe.
Re: The Man in the Iron Mask: Fouquet and censorship
Date: 2022-08-11 06:21 am (UTC)Maybe teenage Louis just had more interesting things to do, and it wasn't until his 20s that his willingness to do tedious work met with the opportunity to do it--maybe in his teens, he didn't want it badly enough to oust the guy who was sparing him the time-sucking tedium. Maybe.
Excellent point. Would make sense, especially since teenage Louis while having his own hang-ups did not suffer from a FW like figure in his life who told him that if he didn't work until and including his death bed, he was a lazybones and unworthy to take the crown. As parent figures go, the combination of Anne and Mazarin was actually a pretty good one for the period. (One of the reasons why I was stunned when Le Roi Danse decided to make Anne into Mean Mom.) (Good for Louis, that is. Philippe is arguable, depending on whether or not you believe Saint Simon - who of course wrote this decades later, knowing the end result and without ever having met Anne - in his assertion Anne deliberately raised Philippe in a way guaranteed to ensure he'd never be a rival to Louis, since she had her brother-in-law Gaston as a warning example of what a scheming King's brother could do.)
Anne and Philippe
Date: 2022-08-13 05:17 am (UTC)Re: Anne and Philippe
Date: 2022-08-13 12:41 pm (UTC)As to a first person testimony from Anne re: her second son, alas the only quotes I know are from arranging his marriage to Minette with her sister-in-law Henrietta Maria. There's no "I decidedt hat the way to prevent Philippe becoming like Gaston is to make him as effeminate as possible" quote that I know of - though with our luck, such a quote exists SOMEWHERE and is just waiting for me to deny it - but that's what she was thinking according to Saint-Simon, who never met her. (Liselotte and Philippe the Regent didn't meet her, either, since she was already dead when Philippe the Gay married a second time.)
Re: Anne and Philippe
Date: 2022-08-13 12:47 pm (UTC)And more generally: "Not conforming to social rules." In addition to being a snob, he was a stickler for etiquette in a way that stuck out at Versailles. Versailles. !!
Among his intense likes would be listed: "Being consulted on the etiquette for any given social occasion." Because 1) he knew all the rules and enjoyed being the expert, 2) nothing more satisfying than seeing an event go the way it's supposed to!
though with our luck, such a quote exists SOMEWHERE and is just waiting for me to deny it
AHAHAHA. It's true, we've all been burned in salon. :D
Re: Anne and Philippe
Date: 2022-08-16 04:48 am (UTC)though with our luck, such a quote exists SOMEWHERE and is just waiting for me to deny it
I mean. Part of me is like "yes, please, deny it!" because this seems to be a good way of getting more delicious gossip :D
But... from what I know about Philippe, really, this seems like the sort of thing where no matter what Anne did Philippe was going to turn out SRSLY GAY, so it seems like Occam's razor to postulate she didn't do much :P
Re: Anne and Philippe
Date: 2022-08-16 10:45 am (UTC)Lol, I had the exact same thought! "Quick, someone deny it!"
But... from what I know about Philippe, really, this seems like the sort of thing where no matter what Anne did Philippe was going to turn out SRSLY GAY, so it seems like Occam's razor to postulate she didn't do much :
I was also thinking this, namely that no matter what Anne did, if Philippe hadn't already been inclined that way...I don't think he would have been so enthusiastic about swimming upstream against societal expectations.