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Last post, we had (among other things) Danish kings and their favorites; Louis XIV and Philippe d'Orléans; reviews of a very shippy book about Katte, a bad Jacobite novel, and a great book about clothing; a fic about Émilie du Châtelet and Voltaire; and a review of a set of entertaining Youtube history videos about Frederick the Great.

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From:

luzula

I have told you before about the Oglethorpe sisters, who were Jacobite spies and agents, and sisters to James Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia. At that time, I mostly told you about Anne and Fanny, but now I’ve read some more about their sister Eleanor in the essay ‘Queen Oglethorpe’ by Andrew Lang from 1904 (but the foreword notes that a Miss Alice Shield did most of the research).

None of the sisters had much money, but Eleanor was apparently very beautiful and married the Marquis de Mézières, a much older French aristocrat. Two of their daughters also made brilliant marriages, of which more later. Fanny apparently took part in a money-making scheme in Paris in the late 1710’s, something called the Mississippi Scheme, where they bought cheap stock and sold it when the market was high. In that way, she managed to get a large dowry and could marry the Marquis des Marches. The essay notes that this was also around the time when the Keith brothers fled to Paris from Scotland after the ’19, but that they didn't buy any shares in this scheme. So the Oglethorpe sisters did pretty well, for penniless exiles.

So, the eldest daughter of Eleanor (Eléonore Eugénie) married Charles de Rohan, Prince de Montauban, younger brother of the Duc de Montbazon, whose wife was the daughter of the Duc de Bouillon and Princess Caroline Sobieska, and so first cousin to the sons of James III. Another of Eleanor's daughters died tragically: ‘She had recently become a canoness of Povesay, a very noble foundation, indeed, in Lorraine, where the sisters wore little black ribbons on their heads which they called ‘husbands’. She was 25, very pretty, and most irreligiously devoted to shooting and hunting. Though these chapters of noble canonesses are not by any means strict after the use of ordinary convents, there were serious expostulations made when the novice insisted upon constantly carrying a gun and shooting. She fell one day when out with her gun as usual. It went off and killed her on the spot.’

Eleanor's son (the Chevalier de Mézières) was all set to embark with Saxe to England in ’44, and was later wounded at Fontenoy. Eleanor herself was deeply involved in Jacobite plotting, urged BPC to convert to Anglicanism though she was a Catholic, and was secretly in England around the time of the Elibank plot. Another of her daughters, now Princesse de Ligne, was involved in the 1759 Jacobite attempt.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Fanny apparently took part in a money-making scheme in Paris in the late 1710’s, something called the Mississippi Scheme, where they bought cheap stock and sold it when the market was high.

Okay, so, some context about the Mississippi Scheme!

When Louis XIV died in 1715, the War of the Spanish Succession, on top of all his other wars, had economically ruined the country. His de facto successor, Philippe d'Orleans, regent for young Louis XV, was something of an Anglophile and had noticed the English were doing quite well with their Bank of England. So he worked with some finance ministers, the most famous of whom was the Scot John Law, to introduce paper money and a stock market into France. The Mississippi Company got a royal monopoly in 1717, and people believed it had access to vast wealth in the Louisiana territory. By combining with the stock market, John Law was able to drive speculation of shares in the Mississippi Company very high, starting in 1719, which he wanted to use to restore French finances.

Much like with the contemporary South Sea Bubble in England (which *also* developed out of the War of the Spanish Succession, but differently), it had a good run for a few years (almost the identical same few years), then the bubble burst, there was a stock market crash, and a few people made off well from the speculation, but most were impoverished.

The French attempt to adopt the English financial model was abandoned, paper money got a bad name, and the French economy remained wobbly throughout the mid-eighteenth century. They still hadn't figured out a solution when the economy *really* bad after the Seven Years' War and the financing of the American Revolution. Though Louis XVI and his ministers tried desperately to solve that problem, they failed, and then all it took was a few bad 1780s harvests to result in the famines that would kick off the French Revolution.

Across the Channel, they had the South Sea Bubble. A little history: one of the things Britain had gone to war over in the War of the Spanish Succession was to keep France from getting all the economic benefits of the Spanish empire. In particular, Britain wanted the "asiento", the contract to supply slaves to the Spanish colonies. Britain won this and was granted the asiento as part of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Much like with Louisiana and the Mississippi Company, the whole idea of a vast overseas empire made people think "$$$!!!!" all out of proportion to reality, and they invested like crazy. The bubble burst in 1720.

But unlike the French, the more modern English economy was able to weather it. England got into a positive feedback loop in which the economy supported the military, which supported imperialism, which supported the economy, and the French got into a negative feedback loop where the military sucked up money from the economy, which became inadequate to fund an army that would win the military victories needed to support the economy...and thus you have the 18th century, and the English ability to weather a defeat in the American Revolution and the French inability to weather a victory, and eventually the French Revolution (as mentioned) and the British empire on which the sun never set.

Though these chapters of noble canonesses are not by any means strict after the use of ordinary convents

Yeah, that was definitely how it went! Marguerite Louise d'Orleans could tell you a thing or two about that.

Fontenoy

cahn, this was a victory of Maurice de Saxe (illegitimate son of August the Strong and Aurora von Königsmarck) over future "Butcher" Cumberland in the War of the Austrian Succession. Voltaire, as Louis XV's court historian, got a commission to write a poem glorifying the victory. Louis himself had been present but not especially responsible for the victory.