cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 48

Some awesome historical RPF

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

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From:

selenak

His posthumous memoirs are fake, published during the French Revolution (he died in 1788, aged 92), to discredit him and French nobility in general.

Given the fake celebrity memoirs genre popularity in the entire century, long before the French Revolution (see also Eugene, Madame de Maintenon and Austrian but not Prussian Trenck), I wonder when this trend stopped? Not in the first half of the 19th century, because there are still such things as fake Emma Hamilton memoirs. (And as repeateadly mentioned, when Wilhelmine's memoirs were first published in the early 19th century a good many people tried to dismiss them as yet another of these RPF things, written as anti Prussian propaganda.) But in the later half, I can't think of any celebrity memoirs that were exposed as frauds right now, I mean, where are the fake Bismarck memoirs getting into his university wild days or his affair with a sexy French countess? You'd think his foreign and domestic enemies who surely had some writers at their command would get into that.

But to return to the Duc de Richelieu, I'm slightly baffled why they'd bother as late as the French Revolution. Firstly because he's been dead for a while, secondly because he's not an A List celebrity, so to speak, nor an idol of the royalist cause to be attacked, and thirdly because fake memoirs seem to be almost tame at a time where you get pornographic attacks on the Queen in print.

Richelieu also used the time to improve his education, which had been rather lackluster up to this point. He could at least somewhat read Latin now!

So he wasn't a good student at that elite grammar school young Francois Arouet also visited (and one and a half generations later Camille Desmoulins and Maximilien Robespierre)? BTW, are there any school stories?

By the age of 23, Richelieu had spent over 2 years in the Bastille.

Maybe he gave Voltaire rooming tips....

In Vienna, Richelieu gets along reasonably well by pretending to be pious, because Charles VI is so pious. But even there, surprisingly little of interest happens, at least as reported by his biographer, who is eager to get back to recounting his affairs upon his return to France. There is a brief comment by the author that it was surprising that so inexperienced a diplomat would be sent to such a sensitive court...but no mention of how diplomacy was often left up to amateurs on the assumption that it didn't require specialized knowledge.

Boo in the lack of context. Re: Vienna, on the one hand, isn't that the same time when Lady Mary is passing through en route to Istambul and reports rather every woman having her official gallant (unlike later in MT's day)? On the other hand, if you're a guy from Regency France where the Regent is accused of taking his daughter to orgies, plain old adultery looks boring, I'm sure. Also, given the super piety of Louis XIV's last few years (which wasn't the case any more under Philippe the Regent, but Richelieu had grown up in the Louis Quatorze years, right?), I bet he should have no difficulty faking it with Charles VI.

I'm sorry the book is such a bore. Making a string of affairs interesting is far more difficult than people assume, and to point to the most obvious example, Casanova's memoirs aren't entertaining because he keeps having a lot of sex but because he's interested in people, full stop, and can describe a lot of entertaining ones (female or male), plus he's not afraid of making fun of himself occasionally.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I wonder when this trend stopped?

No idea!

But to return to the Duc de Richelieu, I'm slightly baffled why they'd bother as late as the French Revolution. Firstly because he's been dead for a while, secondly because he's not an A List celebrity, so to speak, nor an idol of the royalist cause to be attacked, and thirdly because fake memoirs seem to be almost tame at a time where you get pornographic attacks on the Queen in print.

I feel like 2 years isn't a terribly long time, though? And even if he's not A-list, he did have a certain notoriety for specifically being depraved, and if that's what the bourgeoisie wanted to attack the Ancien Regime for, he's a good candidate! Decades of material to work with! And all it takes is one guy with a beef against him; the entire French Revolution doesn't have to vote that this is a priority to use their scarce publication resources on. In short, I'm less surprised if 2 years after he died, someone decided that he was an excellent example of how depraved French aristocrats were.

So he wasn't a good student at that elite grammar school young Francois Arouet also visited (and one and a half generations later Camille Desmoulins and Maximilien Robespierre)? BTW, are there any school stories?

The reader of this book cannot tell he went to school at all. These are the events of his childhood, as recounted by his biographer:

- Miracle child of his parents.
- Astrological forecasts at his birth.
- Mother dies when he's 2.
- Baptism.
- The War of the Spanish Succesion is on.
- "No doubt the little Duke of Fronsac, having passed from women's skirts to the rule of a rather mediocre tutor, heard about these fights and already dreamed much more of military glory than of Latin, because his contemporaries agree that his education was particularly neglected."
- His father remarries when he's 6.
- His father agrees that little 6-year-old future Louis-Armand will marry his stepmother's daughter when he gets old enough.
- Goes to court at age 14.
- Flirts too much with his godmother, Marie-Adelaide of Savoy, at court.
- Forced to marry at age 14, resents and avoids his wife.
- Runs up debts.
- Ends up in the Bastille at age 15.
- Gets a chance to make up some deficiencies in his education, like Virgil translation, in the Bastille.

And it's all Bastilles, duels, and affairs from there.

Re: Vienna, on the one hand, isn't that the same time when Lady Mary is passing through en route to Istambul and reports rather every woman having her official gallant (unlike later in MT's day)? On the other hand, if you're a guy from Regency France where the Regent is accused of taking his daughter to orgies, plain old adultery looks boring, I'm sure.

Lol! Yeah, I could see that. And I'd forgotten this was the same time as Lady Mary's remark about the official gallant (actually, I had misremembered that as not being Vienna, but I checked and you're right), thank you for the reminder.

Richelieu had grown up in the Louis Quatorze years, right?

Yep, he was 19 when Louis died. His once dissolute father had also gotten pious in his old age.

Boo in the lack of context...I'm sorry the book is such a bore.

It definitely had the potential to be much more interesting than this.

Oh, one thing that got tiresome real fast was the repetitive slamming of Madame Graffigny. I know she has a bad rap, but it's not just once, but every time she comes up in this book, an obligatory dig happens. To the point where I started asking what his particular problem with her was.

For now, I've switched to a bio of the Cardinal Dubois by the author of the Philippe d'Orleans bio, which was next on my list after this.

Edited Date: 2024-03-27 02:41 am (UTC)

From:

selenak

Oh, one thing that got tiresome real fast was the repetitive slamming of Madame Graffigny.

Sigh. I know a lot of people used to do this, until the last twenty years or so when writers started to say, hang on, she's a woman who got out of an abusive marriage against all the odds, then struggled financially but just about managed to maintain herself, then actually wrote a bestseller which presents a female take on that ""Foreigner describes in letters home writer's own homeland" trope with a heroine who does not want to marry, and DOES NOT, she's cool, too! But I'm not surprised anti Graffigny prejudice lingers in some authors. I mean, even the author of the otherwise fabulous play about Émilie makes her into a stupid rich (!!!) woman interrupting Émilie's and Voltaire's idyll at Cirey, becaus evidently she can't think of another reason why Mme de Graffigny would have clashed with Émilie. (Who was great but did not behave well vis a vis Francoise de Graffigny, who was right to take offense. We're all better off if we can acknowledge our faves are flawed.)

Re: why the Richelieu author attacks her - didn't she work as Richelieu's wife's companion for a while and completely sided with his wife?