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Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 48
Some awesome historical RPF ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
candyheartsex stories for meeeeee (or by me, in one tiny case) with historical characters! I'm just going to note whom the stories are about here. They are all so good!!
Anne Boleyn/Catherine of Aragorn
Frances Howard and Frances Coke (or: James I's court was basically a HOTBED of scandal, omg)
And two that are also historical RPF but also consistent with the Jude Morgan novel The King's Touch, which is an excellent historical novel narrated by James ("Jemmy") Scott, Duke of Monmouth, Charles II's illegitimate son.
Princess Henrietta of England (Charles II's sister and wife of Philippe I duc d'Orleans)
James of Monmouth/William/Mary
candyheartsex stories for meeeeee (or by me, in one tiny case) with historical characters! I'm just going to note whom the stories are about here. They are all so good!!Anne Boleyn/Catherine of Aragorn
Frances Howard and Frances Coke (or: James I's court was basically a HOTBED of scandal, omg)
And two that are also historical RPF but also consistent with the Jude Morgan novel The King's Touch, which is an excellent historical novel narrated by James ("Jemmy") Scott, Duke of Monmouth, Charles II's illegitimate son.
Princess Henrietta of England (Charles II's sister and wife of Philippe I duc d'Orleans)
James of Monmouth/William/Mary
Re: Marie Adelaide of Savoy
Well, this is certainly the kind of gossipy sensationalism I come to salon for :P
The whole episode where he's flirting with her gets even weirder when you realize that she's his godmother. That's Richelieu for you.
Ha.
Her "Hot or Not?" portrait, by Saint-Simon, goes like this:
Every time we get one of these I laugh :)
She's the one who, when the French royal family fell like dominoes in the 1711-1715 period, got measles, and her husband loved her so much that he insisted on staying with her and nursing her while she was sick, and not wanting to outlive her when she died, just 26.
Oh, I'd forgotten about this! *shakes fist at bleeding physicians*
Re: Marie Adelaide of Savoy - I
Speaking of closely related marriages: I had forgotten that Adelaide was in fact Philippe the Gay's biological granddaughter, one of two surviving kids from his first marriage to poor Minette. (The other surviving daughter gets married to Charles the Genetic Wonder of Spain, as a reminder to
Adelaide, like after her the other moppets, will show up only to get undressed and redressed in French clothing and forced to leave everything Savoyard behind in the official border crossing ceremony. (Incidentally: while nationalist 19th century French historian Michelet suspects her of having secret Savoy over France sympathies later on, her letters to her grandmother home in Savoy show her utterly loyal to France and just said whenever Dad is at war with same.) The kerfuffle happens when Philippe the Gay, seeing as this is his and Minette's oldest granddaughter, wants to greet her first, and finds that his nephew the Dauphin, Louis XIV's son who will be Adelaide's new father-in-law, claims and is given precedent. Ellbows are exchanged, but the Dauphin outranks Monsieur. (He's so passive usually it's rare to see him want anything.) Seems everyone wants to greet the adorable moppet, especially the King, Louis XIV, who after being told by her this is the greatest moment of her life (she's been schooled well) is utterly charmed by her. Because she's still very small for her age, doll-sized, the impression, memoirist Saint-Simon writes, is that he carries her in his pocket. Saint-Simon, who of course was born in Louis' reign and never consciously knew the King as a young man, thinks Adelaide is the only person Louis really deeply truly loved. Antonia Fraser thinks he loved her and his mother most in his life and more than his mistresses and wives. She manages to end the period of crisis between him and Madame de Maintenon immediately and solves the problem of how to address the King's official mistress and unofficial second wife by addressing her as "Tante" (i.e. aunt), which manages to be respectful and intimate without using a title at all, or implying a definite form of relation, since "Auntie" is and was as general a term then for older female person close to the family as it is now. (For a contrast, think of the teenage Marie Antoinette versus Madame Dubarry showdown.) Adelaide is cheerful and joking and charming and, going by everyone's memoirs and her own correspondence back home, utterly focused on Louis XIV and not on her future husband Bourgogne. (Who is a pious shy teen. Foreshadowing of Louis XVI?) They will eventually have a surprisingly succeessful marriage, but while they are kids and teens, they don't spend much time in each other's company, while Adelaide enlivens the entire court (who picks up that the King likes her and accordingly swoons over her. Liselotte comments a bit tartly that"everyone is busy becoming a child again". She herself likes the adorable moppet at first but then thinks she's a bit of a spoiled brat until coming around to her again when Adelaide is nearing thirty, just in time to be crushed at her death. But back to proper chronology. When Adelaide mentions missing her Savoyard dolls, Louis orders the most beautiful dolls being brought from Paris (since any French doll will automatically be superior), and Adelaide either is or is clever enough to be delighted. Adelaide is allowed to skip and dance through tihe stately gardens of Versailles, to "rumple" the King and Madame de Maintenon while she's chattering away at them, she even "sledges" through the polished corridors. When she's twelve, the marriage to Bourgogne takes place, complete with ballet in which young Bourgogne dances Apollo and Adelaide dances a Muse. Antonia Frasers notes these are the exact same roles in the same ballet young Louis XIV danced decades earlier - with young Minette as the Muse. Young Bourgogne didn't have a passion for ballet, he only danced it because it was Granddad's thing, but Adelaide is described as being as graceful a dancer as her grandmother had been. Did Louis think of Bourgogne and Adelaide as the "might have been"/second chance of himself and Minette? Who knows. Teen Adelaide continues to be thought as adorable and even gets away with being nosy and reading through the King's and Madame de Maintenon's papers. (Madame de Maintenon, who started out, lest we forget, as the governess of the King's illegitimate children with Madame de Montespan, has an educational way of putting an end to this. She leaves a letter in which a high ranking noble has lots of vicious biting things to say about Adelaide's current flirt (more about this later), which reduces Adelaide to tears but means she leaves Madame de Maintenon's papers alone. (Not those of the King, though.)
Anyway, the next important thing is that Charles "The Genetic Wonder" of Spain dies and Louis takes the chance to pomote Bourgogne's younger brother Anjou to become Philipp the Frog. Thereby ensuring war for years and years to come, aka The War of the Spanish Succession. Meaning politically, things continue to get worse for France. Now that she's married and post puberty, Adelaide is supposed to reproduce (and when she's 15, in the year 1700, starts already getting pointed gifts in the form of babies made of coral because it hasn't happened yet). But Bourgogne seems to have had at least an idea of how to do the job (unlike Louis XVI decades later), because in 1702, Adelaide gets pregnant for the first time and miscarries, and in 1704, at age eighteen, she produces her first living son. Everyone is ecstatic. But alas, the kid only lives for a year. (Liselotte, proving not for the first time she's the most sensible member of the royal family, blames the doctors. Adelaide's gaity now is interrupted by brief bouts of depression. They are brief because her main purpose at this court, especially before producing a living child again, is still to amuse Louis XiV. She still drives her little cart through the gardens of Versailles, climbs like a cat over the rocks of Fontainebleau and whirls through the corridors, but sometimes it feels forced. She laments getting old in 1702 (i.e. at age 17!), and she's expected to reproduce for France, but she also is expected to remain the adorable moppet, the joy of Louis XIV later years, the endlessly funny child he fell in love with. It's interesting which pranks he let her get away wiith and which not: planting firecrackers underneath the stool of a grand dame while a page fastened that unfortunate lady's skirts and sleeves to it was cool, grimacing at the ugliness of one particular musketeer was not, earning her a sharp reproof as Louis said he found the man to be one of the kingdom's best looking because he was one of the bravest.
There are a couple of deaths: her maternal grandfather, Monsieur, Philippe the Gay, and the exiled James II (which is important because Louis recognizes the never to be James III aka "the Pretender", and if England had needed another reason to side with Austria in the Spanish situation, well...) Adelaide's father, Victor Amadeus, switches sides and teams up with his cousin Eugene (who currently proves himself a brilliant general for Team Habsburg), but Louis doesn't let this influence his regard for Victor Amadeus' daughter, his fave. Adelaide is very aware she's not allowed to show distress to Louis, but she shows it to "Tante", Madame de Maintenon, and in her correspondance with younger sister Louison, wife of Philippe the not yet Frog, Queen of Spain, via that same Princesse de Ursins/Orsini who will get unceremoniously fired by Philippe the Frog's second wife, Isabella. She also had three flirtations. Her husband, Bourgogne, was currently busy being sent on campaign in the war, and at any rate she wasn't yet in love with him. According to Saint Simon the memoirist, Adelaide had three flirtations serious enough for him to note down (and none with young Richelieu), but Antonia Fraser doesn't think any of the three got physical. Why not? Because Liselotte, Our Woman In Verssailles and reliable source for spicy gossip, doesn't mention any of the three. And Liselotte was at that point no longer charmed by the no longer moppet, so if Adelaide had had actual affairs, one assumes she'd have mentioned them in her letters. Anyway, the three guys were: the Marquis the Nangis, born the same year as Bourgogne, with a "pleasant enough countenance". He already had an offisical mistress of his own, but that didn't stop him from flirting wiht Adelaide, especially when he returned from the wars a wounded man and was admired as a hero. Then there was the Marquis the Maulévrier, ten years older than Adelaide and a more dangerous man, and emotionally unbalanced. He was violently jealous of Nanges and committed suicide at Easter 1706. And finally, ther was a hot priest, the Abbé Melchior de Po9lignac, at forty-five the oldest of her beaus, a sophisticated man with an interest in the sciences. Adelaide's husband Bourgogne, when he was at home, as a pious young man liked the Abbé's company, tool. Louis and Madame de Maintenon seem to have regarded Polignac as dangerous enough to dispatch him to Rome. When Nangis, too, was returned to the front after his wounds were healed, Adelaide's filirts had all come to an end. She also became pregnant again, with yet another boy born in 1707. This one showed good signs to living. Maternal love, though, was not how Adelaide grew up. She was a noble woman of her time and had few actual interactions with any of her children after giving birth. In a letter home to her grandmother in Savoy, she critisizes the governess, Madame de Ventadour (future heroine), for spoiling this latest child, but also admits: "I only go and see my son very rarely in order not to be too attached to him." (Given all her other babies had died, and she's still in her 20s, can you blame her?)
She was still the King's favourite person, while he got constant reminders of his mortality. Two of his most important mistresses, Athenais de Montespan and Louise de la Valliere, died. When Louis got the Montespan news, he returned from the hunt to his own room and told the courtiers he wanted to be left alone. They could hear him pace through the night. But when Adelaide - the only one who dared - asked him the next morning whether there was to be mourning for Madame de Montespan, Louis replied that hte Marquise de Montespan had been dead to him ever since she had left Versailles. (Apropos the Affair of the Poisons.) And here's a dark story illustrating what it could mean to be the King's favourite person and how decades of being fawned upon as the centre of the universe had warped Louis: when in 1708 Adelaide was pregnant again (with little Bretagne, her surviving kid, a year old)), and her ladies wanted her to stay at home, Louis ordered her to be with him at Marly (basically the more relaxed home away from home for the royal family at this point). "Then, as he was feeding the carp in his fish pond after Masss, awaiting Adelaide in order to go on to Fontainebleau, a message was whispered in his ear: the Duchesse de Bourgogne was 'injured' (the contemporary euphemism for a miscarriage). After a short pause, the King made a brief announcement as to whaqt had happened. Then a group of genttlemen with mor etemerity than tact made noises to the effect that this was 'the greatest misfortune in the world', since the Duchesse had already experienced such dififculty in bearing chldren and might now not be able to have any more. The King exploded. "What do I care about who succeeds me? Even if the Duchesse de Bourgogne never has another child, the Duc de Berry is of an age to have children? As to the miscarriage, since it was going to happen, thank God it is over! I shall no longer be n agged by doctors and old women! I shall come an dgo at my pleasure and be left in peace.'" Saint-Simon says you could have heard an ant walk after this appalling outburst. Antonia Fraser points out Louis wanted Adelaide simultanously to remain the perfect little girl who had so charmed him and could be relied upon to cheer him up whenever he called her, with no physical problems and to produce heirs for France, and consider himself the injured party if she failed to achieve both at the same time.
Re: Marie Adelaide of Savoy - I
Abbé Fénelon, author of Telemache, aka everyone's Favourite How To Be A Great Prince And Choose Your Own Adventure story for two more generations
I remember reading about this somewhere... but I don't think I actually know that much about Telemache (I mean, the book, not the character from the Odyssey) and this was tantalizing -- more? :)
Antonia Fraser thinks he loved her and his mother most in his life and more than his mistresses and wives.
Yeah, idk about "truly," given the massively awful things you report he said to/about her, but more than his mistresses and wives, I would buy that.
She manages to end the period of crisis between him and Madame de Maintenon immediately
How did she do that?
and solves the problem of how to address the King's official mistress and unofficial second wife by addressing her as "Tante" (i.e. aunt)
Ha, that is a good solution!
(For a contrast, think of the teenage Marie Antoinette versus Madame Dubarry showdown.)
Why did Adelaide do so much better? Natural talent, and/or was she coached extremely well? And if the latter, by whom and why wasn't Toinette coached like that?
Did Louis think of Bourgogne and Adelaide as the "might have been"/second chance of himself and Minette? Who knows.
Ohhhhh, oof. I could see that.
Liselotte, proving not for the first time she's the most sensible member of the royal family, blames the doctors.
She really is intensely sensible! :PP
Saint-Simon says you could have heard an ant walk after this appalling outburst.
...at least everyone else realized how awful this was :P :(
Antonia Fraser points out Louis wanted Adelaide simultanously to remain the perfect little girl who had so charmed him and could be relied upon to cheer him up whenever he called her, with no physical problems and to produce heirs for France, and consider himself the injured party if she failed to achieve both at the same time.
:(
Re: Marie Adelaide of Savoy - I
France, err, Ithaca. The wiki entry is here. In the German two parter "Der Thronfolger", the first part has Fritz and Wilhelmine reading as kids from this book transition to them reading it as teenagers to each other with the adult actors, but that's the only excerpt I'm familiar with, I haven't read it myself.Yeah, idk about "truly," given the massively awful things you report he said to/about her, but more than his mistresses and wives, I would buy that.
To be fair, he usually praised her and indulged her from the moment he met her (when he wrote to Madame de Maintenon, who wasn't there because of the stress factor in their relationship right then, how wonderful this new princess was), hence the "you could have heard an ant walk" outburst standing out so much. Also, one can always quote Citizen Kane on this subject. (Charles Foster Kane has A LOT in common with Louis XIV.) What I'm thinking of is this bit of dialogue in a key scene between our antihero (Orson Welles) and his disillusioned slashy bff (Joseph Cotten) when they're both already middle aged:
Jed: It's all about you. You want to persuade people you love them so they ought to love you back. Love on your own terms.
CFK *raises glass*: To love on my own terms then, Jedediah. Which are the only terms anyone ever knows. Their own.
She manages to end the period of crisis between him and Madame de Maintenon immediately
How did she do that?
Just by being herself. As mentioned, Louis wrote an enthusiastic letter about her to his mistress/secret wife, and when they all were back at Versailles and Adelaide greeted "Tante", they found they could raise and spoil this adorable little girl together. Basically, it's the "child to save the marriage" principle, only with "grandchild", and it actually worked.
Why did Adelaide do so much better? Natural talent, and/or was she coached extremely well? And if the latter, by whom and why wasn't Toinette coached like that?
Adelaide had been coached by her paternal grandmother, who was Jeanne-Baptiste de Savoie-Nemours, herself a descendent of Henri IV and born in Paris, and a big life long influence and correspondent for Adelaide, and of course her mother, daughter of Minette and Philippe the Gay, Anne-Marie d'Orleans, who had of lived in Versailles until she (Anne-Marie, that is) was fourteen and so knew all things Versailles first hand. Since Victor Amadeus the Machiavellian had official mistresses as well, their existence wouldn't have struck little Adelaide as unusual.
As for Toinette, she had been coached as well, and had the Austrian Ambassador (Mercy, remember him, he shows up a lot in her biographies) at her side to remind her of this and deliver letters from Mom urging her to let the matter be and talk to the woman already, but of course there were some key differences:
1) Adelaide was ten, MA was fourteen when they arrived in France. A teenager is more headstrong.
2) Toinette had the bad luck of getting into an already existing feud and being used in it. Remember, Louis XV's unmarried daughters, who HATED Dubarry, were the ones telling her how she as the daughter of the Empress should not talk to the ex prostitute and kept encouraging her in this. No such influence existed on young Adelaide.
3) Madame de Maintenon had her share of enemies (Liselotte waves an enthusiastic hand), and there were no lack of snobbish remarks on her having been the widow of a playwright and an ex Huguenot (who turned into a hardcore Catholic fundamentalist post conversion) to boot, BUT she was of minor nobility by birth, and if she ever had sex with anyone other than her first husband and Louis XIV (whom she did marry in a morganatic marriage), no one found out about it. The Marquise Dubarry wasn't just a born commoner, she really had been a prostitute, no ifs, no buts about it. Toinette had just come from her mother's court where extramarital sex was frowned on and prostitutes currently were facing law penalities. The "Aunts", i.e. Louis XV's daughters, wouldn't have found it difficult to make her believe she was doing the right and moral thing to scorn this woman.
...at least everyone else realized how awful this was :P :(
Quite. I mean, no one would have said anything out loud, but imagine a lot of silent thunderstruck courtiers standing around.
Re: Marie Adelaide of Savoy - I
<3 That's excellent! I'm adding "fannish heart" to my conception of Leopold Mozart :D
and to have Mentor/Athena deliver some lectures of all Louis XIV does wrong, err, why war's bad, spending all your money on creating the perfect palace while the peasants starve is awful, and autocratic rule of one single monarch and no one else sucks, and we should totally have a constitutional monarchy in France, err, Ithaca.
ahahahaha this is great!
Basically, it's the "child to save the marriage" principle, only with "grandchild", and it actually worked.
Well, this is about the only time I've ever known this principle to work! :P
The "Aunts", i.e. Louis XV's daughters, wouldn't have found it difficult to make her believe she was doing the right and moral thing to scorn this woman.
(Plus what you say about the existing feud) -- oh wow, yeah. And ugh, it's unnerving that these little kids had to be so politically savvy to survive! (Or, I mean, not.)
Re: Marie Adelaide of Savoy - I
(Incidentally: while nationalist 19th century French historian Michelet suspects her of having secret Savoy over France sympathies later on, her letters to her grandmother home in Savoy show her utterly loyal to France and just said whenever Dad is at war with same.)
Just like her sister in Spain, then. I imagine they were both like, "Dad, why you gotta be like this?"
Adelaide is the role model here and what everyone was hoping for.
Yeah, and as much as we know now about child development and that uprooting a young child and that uprooting them like this would probably count as an adverse childhood event, the ideal case was exactly this: the child learns the customs of their new home, forms emotional bonds to the people around her, speaks the language (if relevant), and develops loyalties. Instead of showing up as an already-formed adult going, "You're doing it wrong!" about everything that's unfamiliar, hating it, bringing in foreign influences, and trying to influence politics in favor of her homeland.
Unfortunately, you get children who are transplanted and traumatized and hate it, and you get adults who make the transition more easily. I think it's much the same as forming marriage alliances, or putting someone you think will be loyal to you in charge of a neighboring or enemy country (or the Archbishopric of Canterbury): sometimes it works, but very often the transplantee knows exactly which side their bread is buttered on, and the conflict goes on.
solves the problem of how to address the King's official mistress and unofficial second wife by addressing her as "Tante" (i.e. aunt), which manages to be respectful and intimate without using a title at all, or implying a definite form of relation, since "Auntie" is and was as general a term then for older female person close to the family as it is now.
Clever girl!
They will eventually have a surprisingly succeessful marriage, but while they are kids and teens, they don't spend much time in each other's company
That's probably for the best. Sometimes it's easier to be attracted to someone if they're not like a sibling.
Adelaide is allowed to skip and dance through tihe stately gardens of Versailles, to "rumple" the King and Madame de Maintenon while she's chattering away at them, she even "sledges" through the polished corridors.
Hmm. If this was the behavior that got her favored treatment as a child, and entertained the al-powerful king, and she was still doing similar things as an adult (per my Richelieu bio)...I'm thinking of child actresses ending up with body image issues when Hollywood keeps costuming them to look as young as possible, when they're ready to become women.
She still drives her little cart through the gardens of Versailles, climbs like a cat over the rocks of Fontainebleau and whirls through the corridors, but sometimes it feels forced.
Ha! Called it.
but also admits: "I only go and see my son very rarely in order not to be too attached to him." (Given all her other babies had died, and she's still in her 20s, can you blame her?)
:(
Saint-Simon says you could have heard an ant walk after this appalling outburst. Antonia Fraser points out Louis wanted Adelaide simultanously to remain the perfect little girl who had so charmed him and could be relied upon to cheer him up whenever he called her, with no physical problems and to produce heirs for France, and consider himself the injured party if she failed to achieve both at the same time.
Ooofff. Yeah, I'm reminded of Horowski quipping that James II being considerate of other people's needs was not a thing Louis XIV would have wasted time on, and that was exactly why France was so dominant. (Not that James has an flawless track record, as we of salon know, but at least once he did waste time in a crisis being considerate of someone else!)
Re: Marie Adelaide of Savoy - I
Child actresses aren't a bad comparison, and there of course we have the full range from getting-their-lives-ruined (Judy Garland) to survivor types like Jodie Foster. Though we shouldn't ignore Adelaide might have been expected to continue with her childlike, charming-the-King behaviour, but she was simultanously very much excpected to be a woman and reproduce. Though come to think of it, she's also described as on the slender, thin side (like her grandmother Minette). (Mind you, in terms of what was fashionable at Louis' court, a case can be made for either baroque voluminousness or slenderness at any given point. For every La Valliere (thin) there was a Montespan (baroque woman in every sense!).
Here's another point and compare and contrast to consider: under Louis XV, it would have been the mistress of the day who would have to do the entertaining, distracting, charming etc., both when Louis XV was young and when he was old and had grandkids (with and without wives). Whereas with Louis XIV, there's a difference in his later years, because while he did expect interesting conversation from Madame de Maintenon, he never expected to be cheered up. She was the religious, serious mistress/secret wife. But Louis very much still wanted to be amused. (One of the reasons why he got along very well with Liselotte originally was that he found her and her frankness amusing. As Antonia Fraser puts it, autocrats do that, right up to the point when the frank person actually says something they consider hurtful or disloyal, and then they're not amusing anymore. In Liselotte's case, this was her being decidedly unthrilled about her home country getting destroyed by the French army.) And unlike his great-grandson, he seems to have been able to transfer that need out of the romantic department and into the familial one. (Even the most fervent Louis XIV haters ever suspected him of having had unsavoury designs on his grandson's wife.) But my point is, Adelaide as an adult in addition of being married to Bourgogne with all the representative duties, childbearing and fighting-for-her-husband (eventually) that brought with it also had to do some of the functions that usually went to the Maitresse en Titre, i.e. be always on call whenever the King wanted to be cheered up and distracted. It must have been incredibly exhausting!
Re: Marie Adelaide of Savoy - II
As the war continues, French victories fail to happen and after the coldest winter in anyone's memory further crushes the French population, Louis is at his most unpopular. There's a satiric pamphlet that goes "Our father that art in Versailles/Thy name is no longer hallowed/ Thy Kingdom is no longer so great/ Thy will is no longer done either on earth or sea/Give us our daily bread which we can no longer obtain/Forgive our enemies who have beaten us..." Adelaide's job of being the embodiment of cheer in Versailles grows correspondingly trickier and also more important. In 1710, she produces another living boy (that 's future Louis XV). And then, in 1711, her father-in-law the Dauphin dies, which makes her husband Bourgogne the new Dauphin and herself the official Second Lady of France. (The Dauphin as described by Saint-Simon: He had been "without vice, virtue, knowledge or understanding" , and "Nature fashioned him as a ball to be rolled hither and thither". ) Adelaide rises to the occasion even when her cousin the Duchesse de Berry (that's the daughter of Philippe the future Regent whom he was gossipped to have an incesteous relationship with) deliberately waited to hand her her chemise at the morning ceremony and left her standing basically in the nude. (The Duchesse was miffed because until the Dauphin's death, she and Adelaide had been more or less of the same rank.) But she still peformed her pranks and jokes that had won her Louis' favour, and that's when the enema story comes in. According to Antonia Fraser, Adelaide loved to get the confidential servant Nanon to give her a "lavement" (enema) before a theatrical performance; she then spent the whole performance in a state of wicked g lee at the thought of her secret condition before Nanon attended to her relief. Talking to Louis XIV through getting a lavement was nothing in comparison. She also once grabbed the arms of Saint-Simon's wife and that of another court lady, pointed at the Duchesse de Berry and Madame de Conti (another very high born lady) who'd just scoffed at her diverting the King by pretending to chatter in a dozen different, made- up languages to amuse him, and, according to Saint-Simon, she began to laugh and sing: Ha-Ha! I can laugh at them because I will be their queen. I need not to mind them now or ever, but they will have to reckon with me, for I shall be their queen", and she shouted and sang and hoopped an dlaugh as high as loud as she dared. When the two ladies tried to hush her in case the princesses heard, she only skipped and sang the more: "What do I care for them? I'm going to be their queen."
Alas.
The first serious health problem had nothing to do with why she would never be queen. She'd always had bad teeth, as was noticed even when the child Adelaide arrived in France, but by Januar 1712, they were well and truly black and hurt terribly. Her face was so swollen she had to play cards with the King in a hood. And she was pregnant again. So her immune system had to cope with rotting teeth, and a pregnancy, when the measles struck in February. The King, Madame the Maintenon and Bourgogne were with her near constantly. On Thursday February 11 the King asked publicly for the aide of St. Geneviève, patron saint of Paris. The coffin containing the saint's remains was to be uncovered at daybreak for the faithful implore her protection. This was usually only done in times of the most extreme national emergencies and hadn't, for example, been done after any of the lost battles, but Louis ordered it to happen now for Adelaide. The doctors were worse than useless and bled her five extensive times all in all. Because the Kings of France were not supposed to be present at death other than their own, Louis left a few minutes before she died, but until then, he was there along with his grandson. When Adelaide was asked why she didn't speak to Louis, she said she was afraid of crying and would not upset the King, her training to never, ever displease him holding up even now. Madame de Maintenon remained till the end, and was the last person to talk to her: "Madame, you go to God." "Yes, Tante, I go to God." And thus she died, to be followed by her entire family except for the two years old child Madame de Ventadour locked herself up with so doctors could not come near him. For what remained of Louis XIV's reign, supposedly no one laughed at Versailles again.
Re: Marie Adelaide of Savoy - II
Aw, that's really cute. (And I feel like there needs to be some sort of HP crossover fic about it...)
So her immune system had to cope with rotting teeth, and a pregnancy, when the measles struck in February.
:(
The doctors were worse than useless and bled her five extensive times all in all.
Honestly, it's a miracle when anyone survives the freaking doctors!
When Adelaide was asked why she didn't speak to Louis, she said she was afraid of crying and would not upset the King, her training to never, ever displease him holding up even now.
That's... that seems terrible to me (even after factoring in the terribleness that she was about to die).
Thank you -- you've really made Adelaide come alive. (And thank you to Mildred for introducing me!)
Re: Marie Adelaide of Savoy - II
No kidding. When I read in the Duc de Croy's diaries of how the doctors repeatedly bled Marie Antoinette during her labour with her first baby (her daughter) and "saved her life" this way, I thought that clearly, this means MA must have inherited MT's iron constitution if she survived that one.
That's... that seems terrible to me (even after factoring in the terribleness that she was about to die).
I know, that's why I included it. If something summons up the artificiality of life at Versailles and the warpendness of living in an absolute monarchy in devastating way...
I checked my edition of Liselotte's letters and it turns out the letter where she writes to her aunt Sophie (of Hannover) about Adelaide's death is the very same she congratulates her to the birth of grandson Fritz. I hadn't thought about it, but it fits. Fritz was born on January 24, 1712, Adelaide died on February 12th, 1712, and Liselotte writes this letter on February 14th. (From Marly.)
We're all very sad here because two days ago in the evening around a quarter to nine, Madame la Dauphine has died. I am so convinced the doctors murdered this poor princess that I'm telling Your Grace this. They've given her some medicine and a lot of rubbish, and she started sweating, and then they didn't have the patience to outwait the sweating; in the middle of all the sweating, when she was red and the measles were all over her skin, she was put into warm water and bled for the fourth time (....). Now it's all over. I can't look at the King without getting tears into my eyes; he's in such a sad state that a stone would feel pity.
I compliment Your Grace on the happy arrival of your grandson, the Crown Prince of Prussia. May God give this prince many long years to live! The King in Prussia must be doubly pleased, firstly to have a new grandson, and secondly for having a new opportunity to organize a grand ceremony, for the baptism won't fail to provide this. I marvel of how different events can go in the world; while everyone is full of happiness in Berlin, everything is loneliness and sadness over here. (...) The Crown Princess didn't have to suffer long in her labours; three and a half hours, it could hardly have been less, especially since the outcome was such a happy one. Of course one can't be sure about anything, who wouldn't have bet on Madame la Dauphine, and now she is gone. Monsieur le Dauphin is completely devastated, but he is young, in time he can marry again and heal his wound, whereas the loss to Madame de Savoy* is eternal, as is the one to the King, for she had been raised entirely to please him, she was his comfort and his joy, and of such a merry disposition that she could always cheer him up.
*Madame de Savoy: Adelaide's mother, Liselotte's stepdaughter, whom, lest we forget, she has raised, since Anne Louise d'Orleans was still in her diapers when Minette died. (Minette's older daughter, married to the genetic wonder later, was 8 when Minette died and thus old enough to remember her. Liselotte and both of her stepdaughters got on well, and remained in contact when they were married off abroad.)
Re: Marie Adelaide of Savoy - II
Oh yes, I remember you mentioning this. GAH.
If something summons up the artificiality of life at Versailles and the warpendness of living in an absolute monarchy in devastating way...
THIS.
I am so convinced the doctors murdered this poor princess that I'm telling Your Grace this.
You were right, Liselotte, and you should say it!
The King in Prussia must be doubly pleased, firstly to have a new grandson, and secondly for having a new opportunity to organize a grand ceremony, for the baptism won't fail to provide this.
Hee!
(Meanwhile, FW is taking notes that he won't have expenses like this! ;) )
Re: Marie Adelaide of Savoy - II
You were right, Liselotte, and you should say it!
You know, that would make an interesting study: did the mortality rate of measles drop off noticeably after doctors stopped bleeding people?
(Meanwhile, FW is taking notes that he won't have expenses like this! ;) )
Which is good, because he and SD have 14 children! Which is not a problem F1 had.
Re: Marie Adelaide of Savoy - II
How old was the Duchesse at this point? And do you get a sense of whether the incest accusation was political, or if there was something behind it?
(She has long been on my list of people who, were I a time traveller, I would tactfully introduce to contraception.)
Thank you for all this on Adelaide, the poor manic pixie dream girl.
Marie Louise Elisabeth d'Orleans, Duchesse de Berry
Otoh: this is also a society where you get the impression everyone tried out everything. I mean, Liselotte - who re: other people had that memorable quote about how one guy boasted of having had sex with literally anything that moved, including toads - thought it was all evil rumours by Philippe's enemies, but then these were her son and granddaughter, she would want to believe these were just rumours. In conclusion, I have no idea whether there was any truth to it or not.
Re: age - she was fifteen when marrying the Duc de Berry, sixteen when the Dauphin died, and seventeen when Adelaide died.
Re: Marie Adelaide of Savoy - II
Re: Marie Adelaide of Savoy - II
Wow. No wonder he insisted on nursing her at risk to his own life!
the grateful Bourgogne nicknames her Draco (not after a dragon, after the severe Athenian legislator with his "Draconian" code, and writes to her: "Draco, how sweeit is is to be your slave..."
Wow! Lol.
As Adelaide is determined not to have her husband presented as a bad general again, she makes it her business to study military tactics with him. One sees them poring over maps and reading books on the subject together.
Amazing! Good for her.
Everyone concludes that while Bourgogne might make a bit of a weak King, he'll have a strong Queen at his side to make up for it.
Not long after, when his father dies and Louis isn't getting any younger, they'll also conclude he'll have a strong (and wildly unpopular and suspected of poisoning people) Duc d'Orleans at his side, as he and Philippe were pretty close, and Philippe was believed to have a lot of influence over the weak Bourgogne.
The first serious health problem had nothing to do with why she would never be queen. She'd always had bad teeth, as was noticed even when the child Adelaide arrived in France, but by Januar 1712, they were well and truly black and hurt terribly. Her face was so swollen she had to play cards with the King in a hood. And she was pregnant again. So her immune system had to cope with rotting teeth, and a pregnancy, when the measles struck in February.
I keep saying "Ooofff" about this poor woman!
For what remained of Louis XIV's reign, supposedly no one laughed at Versailles again.
Yeah, it's part of the reason the Regency has such a reputation for decadence: you were allowed to have fun again! It wasn't all mourning, all the time.