Undocumented history rant

Wild speculation, as good as any rag sheet anywhere.

Finding primary sources seems to be not the easiest thing to do for Louis XV and his ladies. 

There must be some way to find better information about these people and this age.  

I can find nothing much about Imbert de Saint-Amand, Arthur Léon, baron, 1834-1900. 

Madame du Pompadour died in 1776. Imbert, who maybe actually have been Arthur Leon, and I can't say that using a pen name really strikes as the most respectable behavior for a historian, but in any case, he was born seventy years after Pompadour died. His writings are laced with the sentiments of the nineteen century. His writing echos some of the worst propaganda that was put out about her and her king during the reign of Louis XV. Such writings were scandalous at the time of their creation and meant to libel and defame the targets of their songs and prose. 

I suspect he wrote sensational books for the purpose of notoriety and financial gain. He'd hardly have said that Madame du Pompadour was an elegant, intelligent human being who virtually ran France for some time, arranged international treaties, sponsored the enlightenment, and nurtured a gentle and kind many who doubted the doctrine and spectacle of his father. 

Louis XV became king at the age of five. I have read translated letters of his, from a source that did his research in the Bibliothque Nationale of France that show him as a king who, even after he'd won battles, made arrangements for the wounded on both sides. 

On his death, he was a man who came to the conclusion that he had small pox, even though everyone feared to tell him. He is said to have reqretted exposing Madame de Barry, who had never had small pox. From his own letters, when he struggled to have this last mistress accepted, he wrote of trust and gave his reasons simply that she made him happy. 

I understand that one of the jobs of an historian is to look at primary sources, to look at events and facts, the words of those who have preceded us and to understand them as seen through the eyes of our own times and experiences. 

Louis XV likely read Voltaire. Could have known David Hume... I'd be surprised if he had not read John Locke, Livy, Herodotus, perhaps Sappho?  Shakespeare.. do you really believe that if you were Louis XV, with the wealth of the world, every brilliant mind flocking to your court and a love of theater you had not seen every play of Shakespeare produced or read? I wonder what he thought of Henry IV, one of my favorites.  "And once more into the fray, on this Saint Crispen's Day!" I don't know that he understood English, though he'd probably be a fool not to have at least the basics.. and I see nothing in any of the reputable sources I've found to suggest that he was a fool.  All sources though agree that he was rich and a translator won't have been too expensive. There had to be quite a few decent speakers of English in the Palace of Versailles, a palace which could hold twenty thousand nobles...

It is said that du Pompadour had a library over over three thousand books. 

We have a man and a woman in Louis XV and de Pompadour who had access to the history of Western civilization, the music, ballet, poetry, theater, art of a myriad varieties...

A man who finds love and kindness to be paramount values, who will go against four hundred years of tradition to have the love and companionship he desires is neither weak nor incapable of making decisions. A man who can quietly chose humanist values, while holding stable what was probably the most powerful country in Europe, at that time, is not weak. To seek out and listen to sound advice without regard to the advisors genitalia is a sign of intelligence. He did not love war. He did not love misery. He did not love arrogance and brutality. 

I have only begun my study of Louis XV,  de Pompadour, du Barry, Voltaire, and their whole age. They are a breath of life to me. 

Also...I found this pic of Louis XVI

http://www.visitvoltaire.com/v_louis_xvi.htm 

Does  he not seem like the poster child for arrogance? Lips drawn tight, staring down his nose...

Here's another of him: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist255/kat_anna/louis.html

The spellings on the site are not what I'm used to.. but it seems to be an educational site. 

So much work and study to do! Isn't it invigorating!?

Nix

Jeanne Becu; a life too short

Jeanne Bécu:

A Life Too Short

Nix Winter

August 11, 2010

We fear that which we desire. That which we fear, we strive to diminish.  As much as human beings have achieved a position of top predator in our environment, we are still, in our individual  and undefended-from-the-hungry-night vulnerabilities as much prey as we ever have been.  The life and death of Madame du Barry etch a story of social achievement, predatory rivalries, and a life ended without acquiescence.  

Jeanne Bécu came into this world on April 19, 1743. Her mother, Anne, declined marriage, even after she became a single parent.  While many members of her family took employment in established households, Anne continued a path of independence and flirtatious opportunistic survival.

 Joan Haslip's biography of Jeanne paints a picture of a young girl raised in non-conventional environment where she was loved, protected, and encouraged by non-family members, outside of  proper family organization.  She came of age in a convent, but in a world filled with new and daring ideas.

In England, the Henry's Anglican's defied the weight and might of the Catholic church. Newton dared describe the order of the universe. A completely new land was solid in the imagination of those living when she was born.  The New World was  land of savages, strange beasts, from whence came exquisite poisons like sugar and cocoa came from. Thomas Jefferson was born in the same year as Anne Bécu.  Her age was a time of the ascendancy of  human freedom and self-determination. That she would reach for all that she could attain only made her a person of her age. 

Louis XV did not sparkle like 'The Sun King'. He didn't die like his grandson, Louis XVI.  He supported the arts primarily through the efforts of Madame de Pompadour, not from any driving need of his own passions.

   He seems to have been a mild man, less inclined to winning battles by degree and more inclined to simply reasoning with people. Choiseul, who governed France for twelve years, even if he were Chief Minister in everything except the official title, opposed Madame du Barry with his strongest efforts.

 Even though Louis XV was king and his minister was simply a minister, Louis XV wrote him reassuring him that he trusted him, pleading in away for Choiseul to accept du Barry on the grounds that the king liked her company.

 Cowardice is not the only motive to prompt negotiation. Sometimes negotiation arises from internalized values that recognize the equality and value of others. The attempt to achieve consensus, to esteem practical pleasures above the need to support the absurdities of previous generations seems to echo a modern mind. 

In du Barry there was not to be found the powerful and managerial mind of du Pompadour. Critics of du Barry accused her of being a small minded creature longing only for extravagant pleasures, treasures, and comforts. At various times she has been written about in the most disparaging ways.  In 'the Women of the Court of Louis XV' .... writes about Louis XV's mistresses, of which du Barry was the last one, "...on all sides I see dissipation and debauchery, no signs of real love."

  That this book is titled, 'The Women of the Court of Louis XV,' it is a morality tale of lurid accusations put into print in Boston, of all places, in 1892.  The French nobility had long since lost what hold they had to 'the divine right of kings', they were a  continent away at a time when that meant something, and the dead mistresses of a seemingly unimpressive king were easy targets to complain about the morality of a different time. It is useful to point out the appropriation of characters in one time for the use of another time's myths and morality because that is what history is made of. If the history read is not written in the hand of the person who lived it, we are likely to know as much about the person who writes the history as we do about the events and personages they write about. 

At her trial, Jeanne Bécu, who was listed as 'the woman called La Dubarry' she struggled and maintained hope, attempting with all her resources and creativity to find a path to continued life.

 The woman born to a willful seamstress and a handsome monk, who had married the brother of her pimp, and nurtured the heart of a king, she embraced life in a most human of ways, through sexuality, companionship, and survival.

  She may well have been guilty of the  royalist sympathies which contributed to her death, but the life she lead, sensual, hedonistic, kind, loyal, and daring epitomizes the willful and chaotic spirit of the age which was to follow her.  France would not settle into a steady government until de Gaul's presidency after WWII. Each struggling movment in the soul that was France could have claimed Jeanne's supposed last words, "Encore un moment, monsieur le bourreau, un petit moment." 

One more moment, please.  Far from casting her as a harlot or dismissing her successes in life or her desire for life to continue as that of a mere woman or of an unbeliever, she a genuine voice for the human condition. A person can rise from nothing to the pinnacles of power, only to fall into danger again and what is most desirable is simply one more moment of life. 

  

Bibliography

Bernier, Oliver. Louis the Beloved.  New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1984.

Caffieri, Jean Jacques. Portrait of Madam Du Barry.  The Hermitage Museum. Photo of a sculpture, marble.  http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/fcgi-bin/db2www/descrPage.mac/descrPage?selLang=English&indexClass=SCULPTURE_EN&PID=N.SK.-376&numView=1&ID_NUM=1&thumbFile=%2Ftmplobs%2FIZGB865NLWHXNT3Q6.jpg&embViewVer=noEmb&comeFrom=quick&sorting=no&thumbId=6&numResults=2&tmCond=du+barry&searchIndex=TAGFILEN&author=Caffieri%2C%26%2332%3BJean%26%2332%3BJacques  (August 11, 2010)

de Saint-Amand, Imbert. The Women of the Court of Louis XV. Cambridge: University Press,1892. 

G. Goyau. Etienne-François, Duc de Choiseul. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03694a.htm  (August 12, 2010)

Haslip, Joan. Madam du Barry: The Wages of Beauty. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991.

de Saint-Amand, Imbert.  The Women of the Court of Louis XV. Cambridge: University Press, 1892.

Sainte-Beuve, C. A.. Portraits of the Eighteenth Century Historic and Literary. Translated by Katharine P. Wormeley.  New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1906.

Spawforth, Tony. Versailles A Biography of a Palace. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2008. 

Williams, H. Noel. Madam du Berry. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909.