![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnBackground: The kids' school has a topic for "Unit" every trimester that a lot of their work (reading, writing, some math) revolves around. These topics range from time/geographic periods ('Colonial America') to geography ('Asia') to science ('Space') to social science ('Business and Economics'). (I have some issues with this way of doing things, but that's a whole separate post.) Anyway, for Reasons, they have had to come up with a new topic this year, and E's 7/8 class is doing "World Fairs" as their new topic.
Me: I know E's teacher is all about World Fairs and I know she is great and will do a good job. But I feel like if we had a different teacher who wasn't so into World Fairs, they wouldn't do such a good job and another topic would be better.
Me: Like... the Enlightenment!
D: Heh, you could teach that! But you'd have to restrain yourself from making everything about Frederick the Great.
Me: But that's the thing! Everyone does relate to each other in this time period! Voltaire -- and his partner Émilie du Châtelet, who was heavily involved in the discourse of conservation of energy and momentum -- well, I've told you Voltaire had a thing with Fritz -- and then there's Empress Maria Theresa, who went to war with him a few times -- and Catherine the Great --
D, meditatively: You know --
Me: *am innocently not warned even though this is the same tone of voice that is often followed by, say, a bad pun*
D: -- it's impressive how everyone from this 'the Great' family is so famous!
Me: *splutters*
D, thoughtfully: But of course there's probably selection bias, as the ones who aren't famous don't get mentioned. You never see 'Bob the Great' in the history books...
Me: *splutters more*
Me: I know E's teacher is all about World Fairs and I know she is great and will do a good job. But I feel like if we had a different teacher who wasn't so into World Fairs, they wouldn't do such a good job and another topic would be better.
Me: Like... the Enlightenment!
D: Heh, you could teach that! But you'd have to restrain yourself from making everything about Frederick the Great.
Me: But that's the thing! Everyone does relate to each other in this time period! Voltaire -- and his partner Émilie du Châtelet, who was heavily involved in the discourse of conservation of energy and momentum -- well, I've told you Voltaire had a thing with Fritz -- and then there's Empress Maria Theresa, who went to war with him a few times -- and Catherine the Great --
D, meditatively: You know --
Me: *am innocently not warned even though this is the same tone of voice that is often followed by, say, a bad pun*
D: -- it's impressive how everyone from this 'the Great' family is so famous!
Me: *splutters*
D, thoughtfully: But of course there's probably selection bias, as the ones who aren't famous don't get mentioned. You never see 'Bob the Great' in the history books...
Me: *splutters more*
Chevalier d'Eon II: England and the King's Secret
Date: 2023-12-10 03:34 pm (UTC)Broglie: Holy cow, one of the best spies in the King's Secret is doing a bang-up job in England! I see a golden opportunity here to two-time the English and plan an attack on them while we're making peace! Plus, I'd love to do what we did in Poland and Sweden: bribe one of the parties in Parliament to be our voting minions. Let's make sure we don't tell our ministers about this plan, because, to quote Kates, "Even an unprincipled Machiavellian like Choiseul would never have approved a plan for a direct attack on England at the very moment a peace treaty was being signed by the two kings."
Chevalier d'Eon: Great, I can again be in the position of having to please two sets of masters. As we know, that always goes well.
Kates: This is one reason people were so willing to believe Chevalier d'Eon was actually a woman. Every time anyone learned anything about what was really going on with French diplomacy, it was at least that weird.
Mildred: Like the time when I announced I was engaged to my shocked coworkers, and that was considered so implausible that one of them joked that he was pregnant.
Chevalier d'Eon: So here I am, in England, bribing everyone with wine. So much wine. Hey, I'm from Burgundy, we have the best wines! In fact, I import so much wine that the British government starts protesting diplomatic immunity and the prime minister threatens to impose tariffs. I make a big enough stink to win this round, and wine becomes my trademark.
Chevalier d'Eon: Unfortunately, this, and other efforts that contribute to my success as a diplomat and spy, add up to a lot of expenses, which the French government is not happy with. I write increasingly testy letters. They're even less happy with testy letters.
In 1763:
French foreign minister Praslin: You're fired! Come back to France, but not to court.
Chevalier d'Eon: You mean my political career is at an end? Well, I'm not coming back to France, and you can't make me.
Louis XV: Oh, yes I can! I have written to the British, and they will extradite you for me.
British: Uh, actually, we can't do that.
Louis: ???
British: He hasn't broken any laws. This is a free country. We won't treat him as an ambassador anymore, but he's a private citizen not doing anyone any harm, so we can't arrest him or deport him or anything.
Chevalier d'Eon: Neener neener neener!
French ministers: This is treason!
Broglie: Eh, I don't know, I pulled similar stunts when I was a diplomat and y'all gave me orders I didn't want to follow. I will write a letter explaining that he's being obnoxious, yes, but forgivably so.
Louis: Are you seriously defending this guy and his pissy letters to his monarch?
Broglie: Psst, Louis, remember, he's got all the papers about the secret invasion of England we're planning. Do you want to provoke him into selling those papers to the English and starting a war?
Louis: I don't think they'll go to war even if they find out.
Broglie: International incident? Reputational damage for us?
Louis: Yeah, I see your point.
Broglie: May I propose that we leave him in England and pay him to continue spying for us?
Louis: I suppose I can live with that.
French foreign ministry: He still owes us money from all those expenses he wasn't supposed to run up, though!
Chevalier d'Eon: No, you owe *me* money for all the expenses I advanced out of my own pocket for *your* foreign policy!
Everybody: *writes anonymous pamphlets trashing each other*
Meanwhile, in 1764:
Pompadour: *dies*
Broglie: Now that my most powerful enemy is dead, can I come back to court? Maybe run the King's Secret?
Louis: Sure!
Chevalier d'Eon: Oh, wow! My most dedicated patron is now super influential! Surely this means good things for my career.
Broglie: *crickets*
Chevalier d'Eon: …I feel like I'm being scapegoated for the latest failures in French policy. Those anonymous pamphlets trashing my name are making me nervous. If no one promises me that I'm in good standing, then I'm sorry but I'm going to have to start selling secret papers to the British.
Chevalier d'Eon: Just to prove I'm not bluffing, I've published 200 pages of the least sensitive but still secret diplomatic correspondence already.
Kates:
The book naturally sent shock waves through the French government and transformed the nature of the affair. For weeks, diplomats on both sides of the Channel could talk of little else…It is impossible to overstate the sensational reception this book received. Within five days of its publication even King George III could talk of little else. "When Mr. Grenville went to the King," the British Prime Minister wrote about himself, "he found him very uneasy, and expressing great eagerness upon the publication of M. d'Eon's book." Indeed, Guerchy's prediction that it would become the topic everywhere in London was proven to be entirely too restrictive; it became the topic of conversation anywhere in Europe where politics was discussed…
The publication of the Lettres transformed d'Eon from someone known primarily among the intelligentsia and in diplomatic circles to a household name- at least in aristocratic households. Infamous or otherwise, few statesmen were as well known as d'Eon after the spring of 1764. Within a few months of its publication, d'Eon's book wasn't simply debated by powerful men at court, or even by the bourgeoisie in their cafés and newspapers, it was even discussed at home between mothers and daughters, as this fascinating excerpt from a letter from a sixteen-year-old
aristocratic girl to a teenage friend testifies. (Because so many of us in the twentieth century would doubt that teenage girls during the eighteenth century would be interested in politics and intellectual life, the reader will forgive me for including such a lengthy citation. [Mildred: the reader will forgive me as well, because I thought this passage was cool.])
"After lunch I took my design lesson, finished Locke and started Spinoza. After the lesson , I finished my writing assignment, and we took a walk on the rampart where we go practically every day. Yesterday, after Mass, unhappy at not having seen you, I practiced writing in Spanish and Italian, and then came lunch. I stayed in my mother's apartment until five o'clock. When everyone started to play, I retired. I worked on a play about the power of education and read [Montesquieu's] Spirit of the Laws until six o'clock. ... This morning I took my Italian and Spanish lessons and read twenty-three pages of Plato. We ate lunch, and now I am taking the most comforting recreation in writing to you. At this moment my mother is reading the memoirs of M. d'Eon. What insanity! Or even more, what treasonous impudence! This work is forbidden and can't be found in Paris; one is obliged to order it from England. He promises five volumes, of which the first has appeared. There he limits himself to mocking the conduct of M. de Guerchy, but they say that in the other volumes he clearly divulges state secrets."
John Wilkes, British radical: I too am having problems with my government due to publications in which I criticize the King and leading ministers. Let us become best friends, and maybe you can help out me and my colleagues in the British opposition with your secret papers.
Louis XV: On the one hand, traitor!
Louis XV: On the other hand, I've been interested in this radical Wilkes guy for a while now, as I'd love to start a rebellion in England. D'Eon, why don't you stay BFFs with him and play double agent for us? I notice you didn't actually publish anything incriminating against us, just critical.
Chevalier d'Eon: Can do!
Louis XV: None of which is going to stop me from continuing to extradite you, though. I'm very confused about how a MONARCH can't do something as simple as this. I'm a monarch, I know how these things work. You can't fool me about it not being possible, George III!
Kates:
Over supper one evening in Paris, Broglie talked for hours with David Hume, then secretary to the British ambassador to France, about why the British government could not simply deport d'Eon. In France, Broglie argued, nothing could stop the will of the King in a matter of this kind. The famous philosopher reminded Broglie that in England the King was not sovereign, the laws were, and while everyone who lived in the kingdom was subject to those laws, no one could be held against his will unless there was evidence that some law had been violated. Broglie went home that night amazed that a monarchy could develop strong political institutions based on such strange notions.
Mildred: Yeah, this is why I was always convinced BPC *was* risking his neck with that invasion. This isn't the Continent, where the royal bro code takes precedence. I'm also reminded of how Philip the Frog in the 1720s could never be convinced that G1 wasn't just playing with him when he said he couldn't give back Gibraltar to Spain. "I'm a monarch! I know monarchs can do this sort of thing!" "I'm not an absolute monarch, you idiot. Parliament makes the rules."
Louis XV: So failing extradition by the wilfully defiant British king, I'm going to try to have you kidnapped.
Guerchy: I, the French ambassador in England who replaced you, am furious at you trashing me, d'Eon, and I am going to try to have you assassinated!
British government: We will indict you for attempted murder, Guerchy!
Kates:
For the French, everything about the indictment was insulting that the official representative of the French king could be tried for attempted murder seemed a clear violation of diplomatic immunity. Besides, in France, where indictments were controlled by the crown, the prosecution of a diplomat could happen only if the monarch intended it as an act of war. David Hume again patiently explained to a skeptical Broglie that the English political system was different from the French. Laws in England were immutable. If a law was violated, Hume boasted, the government had the obligation to prosecute the criminal, no matter his status. In contrast to France, whose Old Regime was based on the notion of privilege–literally, private law–in England, no one, at least in theory, was above the law.
George III: Okay, but this is still awkward, I get that. Louis's taking it as a personal insult, whether we mean it that way or no. Let's maybe dial down the publicity on this trial a little?
Louis: *Meanwhile*, I want my spy and his papers back!
Broglie: I agree the papers are necessary, but I really think we should keep d'Eon in England and make use of his contacts and skills for our
nefariouspurposes.1765-1766:
Louis: FINE. He can have a pension. But you can't come back to France, d'Eon, you hear?
Chevalier d'Eon: I hear you. And I'm not too happy about permanent exile. The whole point of getting prestigious appointments abroad is to parlay them into even more prestigious ministerial appointments at home. I like England's system of government, and I think ours sucks, and the more I see of the sausage-making the more I realize how *much* it sucks, but I don't want to be stuck here forever. I wish I could come home again, but without being arrested.
Re: Chevalier d'Eon II: England and the King's Secret
Date: 2023-12-12 09:11 am (UTC)Why should Fritz and Voltaire have all the fun?
Great write-up. Does the biography mention the show duel D'Eon had with Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier St. George (= mixed race genius composer, violinist and master duelist, a generation younger) when the later was visiting England?
re: John Wilkes: Boswell, because he's Boswell, managed to befriend Wilkes, too, when making his European grand tour in the mid 1760s (aka the one where we have the German and Swiss part quotes from), which was especially dicey because Wilkes was anathema to beth Boswell's real Dad and to his chosen mentor Dr. Johnson.
Re: Chevalier d'Eon II: England and the King's Secret
Date: 2023-12-12 02:51 pm (UTC)Clearly they don't! Though I would need to double-check the anonymous part; I'm going from memory, but could be being influenced by all the other anonymous pamphlets out there (not just Fritz and Voltaire's).
Great write-up. Does the biography mention the show duel D'Eon had with Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier St. George (= mixed race genius composer, violinist and master duelist, a generation younger) when the later was visiting England?
Doesn't look like it, from searching through the book.
Re: Chevalier d'Eon II: England and the King's Secret
Date: 2023-12-12 04:40 pm (UTC)Re: Chevalier d'Eon II: England and the King's Secret
Date: 2023-12-13 03:42 am (UTC)Re: Chevalier d'Eon II: England and the King's Secret
Date: 2023-12-13 03:41 am (UTC)LOLOLOLOL, I laughed out loud. (Also LOLed at your aside, Mildred.)
Chevalier d'Eon: Neener neener neener!
LOL!
Everybody: *writes anonymous pamphlets trashing each other*
because of course they did! LOL.
Broglie went home that night amazed that a monarchy could develop strong political institutions based on such strange notions.
LOL again. This writeup is very amusing, what can I say?
Re: Chevalier d'Eon II: England and the King's Secret
Date: 2023-12-13 04:08 am (UTC)Re: Chevalier d'Eon II: England and the King's Secret
Date: 2023-12-14 11:23 am (UTC)The famous philosopher reminded Broglie that in England the King was not sovereign, the laws were, and while everyone who lived in the kingdom was subject to those laws, no one could be held against his will unless there was evidence that some law had been violated.
Oh right. So I guess England will never suspend habeas corpus, then?
Laws in England were immutable. If a law was violated, Hume boasted, the government had the obligation to prosecute the criminal, no matter his status.
Allow me to express some polite skepticism of this statement, too...I mean, not that I doubt that France was worse.
Re: Chevalier d'Eon II: England and the King's Secret
Date: 2023-12-14 03:55 pm (UTC)