cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 45

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Unfortunately, there was then at Berlin a King who pursued one policy only, who deceived his enemies, but not his servants, and who lied without scruple, but never without necessity.

(from The King's Secret - by Duke de Broglie, grand-nephew of the subject of the book, Comte de Broglie, and grandfather of the physicist) )

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From:

selenak

presumably singing master is a more genteel profession?

Only a bit. I'm reminded of how Hester Thrale, a friend of Dr. Samuel Johnson's, went down in everyone's esteem for her second marriage to an Italian music teacher, causing all kinds of crude jokes. (And in her turn was very cruel and slighting to the white woman married to Johnson's black servant, calling the marriage every racist trope you can think of, and to the black servant himself.) Otoh, Hester Thrale's second husband was an Italian, and this for xenophobic Brits might have mattered as much as the music teacher part.

It also depends on your original rank. For middle class composers and musicians, being appointed as music teachers to royals isn't just a regular income but also a great honor, see also Quandt and Fritz, and hence Salieri in Amadeus ensuring Mozart doesn't get the job of teaching Joseph's niece (who was actually his niece-in-law, the first wife of Leopold's son Franz whom Joseph grew very fond of and who was pregnant when he was dying so for their last meeting he had himself be painted and the lights dimmed so she wouldn't be frightened - he was, correctly as it turned out, very afraid that the same thing that happened to his wife would happen to her). Being a singing teacher to a member of the nobility, like the fictional Almavivas, is respectable to good if you're a professional musician, especially if your noble actually pays you. But if you are nobility yourself, it's definitely a sign of having fallen in rank.

Going back to Poniatowski, while he owed his throne very much to Russia's influence, he wouldn't even have been considered as a candidate if his family hadn't been one of most important and oldest Polish noble families. Respectable jobs for offspring from such a family:

- being an officer in any army (doesn't have to be the Polish one) - THE job for young nobles, and while some of Poniatowski's brothers went that way, he himself did not

- working in the diplomatic service (that's what he did for a while)

- joining the clergy (especially in Poland)

- being a gentleman of leisure with scholarly interests; publication of scholarly works are cool as long as you don't give the impression of actually needing to earn your living this way

But certainly not being a dancing master or a music teacher.

From:

luzula

I guess this is a little late, given that I have already written and posted this story, but what about the status of fencing masters? I had an army officer (a gentleman's son with no means of independence) briefly consider this as a career when he left the army, but ultimately he trained as a surgeon instead. (Which I know is a lower status job than physician, but he was in exile in France at the time and could not really study at university due to being a Protestant.)

From:

selenak

Honestly, I don't know. My instinct is to say that fencing master is more repectable because it's a manly occupation directly connected to soldier-ness (even though no one fences in wars anymore the later the century gets), and presumably often is a job for former soldiers. But that's just me guessing. Mildred is the one reading a biography of the Chevalier d'Eon right now, she should know!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Well, I don't *know*, but I wouldn't disagree. I did a search through the bio for "fenc", and most of the hits had to do with gender, not social class. I only saw one mention of the Chevalier giving fencing lessons; otherwise, they make their money in fencing tournaments.

Given the lack of mention of horror at crossing class boundaries, I would assume that a gentleman's son (but not daughter :P) could take up a respectable job as a fencing master! (But it would still be an insult if someone implied that Louis XV could do it when he lost his day job as king. Frankly, I think that would get you thrown in the Bastille for lese majeste.)

From:

cahn

Being a singing teacher to a member of the nobility, like the fictional Almavivas, is respectable to good if you're a professional musician, especially if your noble actually pays you. But if you are nobility yourself, it's definitely a sign of having fallen in rank.

Ah, that makes sense. I was thinking about Mozart and Salieri, and not making the connection taht they weren't nobility.

he was, correctly as it turned out, very afraid that the same thing that happened to his wife would happen to her

Oh noooooo :((((

Respectable jobs for offspring from such a family:

Heh. This reminded me of what we used to say, if you go to an Ivy League university, it's only really acceptable for you to have a job in law, medicine, business, academia, management, technology, or consulting. Plumbing is right out!