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

[cahn]

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!

Comments

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

[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

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yeah, I'm not convinced by the arguments that Louis *couldn't* have killed Eustache, but the fact that he locked up Fouquet's other valet instead of having him killed makes me more willing to believe for the argument that he *wouldn't* have killed Eustache. (Doesn't mean he wouldn't have done it under other circumstances, but that in these circumstances, he was locking up even valets who learned sensitive secrets rather than have them killed.)

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

[cahn]

Yes, I'm quite willing to believe there were reasons why you couldn't execute your high nobility just because you felt like it. But (like you say) I wouldn't think that those reasons would apply to Eustache.

But Mildred, thanks for pointing out that he also locked up Fouquet's other valet instead of having him killed, that seems more convincing to me too (that is, that he wouldn't have killed Eustache, as you say).