Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 47

[cahn]

We haven't had a new post since before December 25, so obligatory Yuletide link to this hilarious story of Frederick the Great babysitting his bratty little brother, with bonus Fritz/Fredersdorf!

Comments

Re: Two Philippes, no waiting, redux

[mildred_of_midgard]

More details on Philippe: remember how the French royal family started falling like a row of dominoes. and Philippe was suspected of having poisoned them to bring himself closer to the throne?And his interest in chemistry played a role in his being seen as a likely poisoner?

All this happened much closer in time to other events than I had realized. The chronology is really quite compact.

1709: Philippe is suspected of having conspired with the British to put him on the throne of Spain in place of Philip V. He becomes a pariah at court.

1710: Philippe breaks up with his unpopular mistress, in order to regain favor at court.

1710: Philippe is in favor enough that his favorite daughter (the one he's accused of incest with) is married to Louis XIV's youngest grandson, the Duc de Berry.

1711: Louis's son, Philip the Frog's father, who hates Philippe for having conspired to get the throne of Spain, dies. Now his son, who actually likes Philippe, is heir to the throne. Everyone thinks Philippe has it made!

1712: The new dauphin, his wife, and his son, all die from the same measles outbreak. On the one hand, the new heir is a 2-year-old kid, future Louis XV, and the obvious regent is the Duc de Berry, who is seen as inexperienced with a weak personality, and it's widely believed that he will defer to his father-in-law, Philippe, a lot. So it looks like Philippe has it made! On the other hand, Philippe is widely suspected having poisoned everyone to bring about this exact outcome. It gets so bad he offers to check himself into the Bastille for an interrogation to prove his innocence. Louis XIV is like, "No. The Bastille is not where princes of your rank go."

1714: The Duke of Berry dies from a hunting accident, leaving Philippe the obvious candidate as regent. Since, uh, we're not exactly letting the unstable king of Spain take over France*.

1715: Louis XIV dies, leaving Philippe as regent.

It's enough to make you believe in the wheel of fortune! (And, of course, this is not taking into account the topsy-turvy developments of how Philippe became regent, which Horowski tells us about.)

* ETA: Nope, I have read a bit further, and one of Louis' advisors thinks the unstable king of Spain is just the guy to be regent of France! All he has to do, says the advisor, is have a delegate in France to carry out his wishes.

This argument does not fly.

Something I had forgotten or not learned, btw, is that while Philip V is renouncing all claims to France (and clearly crossing his fingers behind his back as he does), Philippe and the Duc de Berry have to renounce *their* claims to Spain. This is all part of the Treaty of Utrecht, which was fought to keep the Bourbons from owning France *and* Spain *and* Spain's giant empire, so it makes sense that the British are demanding these renunciations as part of the peace agreements.