cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 41

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Now, thanks to interesting podcasts, including characters from German history as a whole and also Byzantine history! (More on this later.)

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From:

felis

long time use of Arsenic is a key plot point there. In the Angelique novels, our heroine's first husband, Joffrey, who is among other things a genius level scientist, has her consume a tiny dose of Arsenic on a regular leve, as he does himself, in order to immunize herself against being poisoned. It does save her life later on. But you really have to get the dose right to use it like that. (I think. I'm anything but a scientist.)

See also: Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers! The bad guy takes small doses over a long time so that he can eat the same meal as his victim later on (the question of when the poison was administered and who did it being the key question in the case). The immunization does apparently work, but you can still expect some bad consequences for your health after a while, see this interesting blog post about the book and about arsenic poisoning in general by Deborah Blum, who wrote a whole book about poisons. /tangent

From:

cahn

That's such an interesting blog post, thank you for linking it! It's fascinating that having a reliable test for arsenic was so important -- of course that makes total sense, but I had never thought about it. And also interesting that Sayers and presumably Golon knew the idea of the poison immunization, but not the further/later research that it would probably not be very good for you!

From:

selenak

On a more cheerful note, I was now able to crosscheck Horowski's book re: Madame de Monaco/both Madames. Horowski is 100% certain Minette/Monaco was real. He doesn't provide a footnote or a quote, but he has read way more about the court of Louis XIV than I have, so I trust him on this. Otoh, he does provide the Liselotte quote re: the failed pass Madame de Monaco made at her.

Horowski: It was observedhow (Madame de Monaco) approached the new Madame with the same tender gestures she had used on the first one, but aside from a few excited incognito walks through Paris, this didn't go anywhere. Much later, as an old woman, Madame herself describes it to an interested niece thusly: "It's true that Madame de Monaco loved women. She would have liked to introduce me to this, but she didn't win me over, which grieved her so much that she cried."

Alas, the Princess of Monaco was permanently damaged by a botched blood letting in 1772, her health got increasingly worse from 1775, which made courtiers suspect anything from STD to poison (by her husband), and she died in 1778 at age 39. But if the her/Minette affair was real, at least we can say Minette had some enjoyable hours in between marital warfare with Monsieur.

From:

cahn

...okay this is amazing, thank you for looking this up! :D

"It's true that Madame de Monaco loved women. She would have liked to introduce me to this, but she didn't win me over, which grieved her so much that she cried."

LOLOLOLOL I love this.

I love even more the idea that Monaco/Minette might have been real <3

Ugh for blood letting! I am now imagining using this hypothetical time machine to go around and yell at people not to get bled!