THE PRIMACY OF HEREDITARY RANK IN OLD REGIME FRANCE

"UPSTART! YOUR GREAT-GRANDFATHER WAS A MONEY-GRUBBING MEDICI BANKER, WHILE MY ANCESTORS HAVE BEEN FEUDAL LORDS SINCE THE NINTH CENTURY!"

So exclaimed Madame de Montespan,* Louis XIV's most famous favorite, in a quarrel with the king. He would feel humble before her.

                                                                                                   -- Paraphrase of a widely-known incident

* She who was accused of poisonings and black masses. 

Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart, Marquise de Montespan, workshop of Pierre Mignard, undated, zoom

# # #

A century later, Louis XV's daughters were officially called "Madame Première, Madame Seconde, Madame Troisième and Madame Quatrième,*" terms that referred to their rank by birth.

*Madame First, Second, Third, Fourth

When he began the day with coffee in the apartment of Madame Adélaïde, the eldest, she would... 

 "tirait le cordon de sonnette qui avertissaient Madame Victoire de la visite du roi ; Madame Victoire en so levant pour aller vers sa sœur sonnait Madame Sophie, qui, à son tour, sonnait Madame Louise. Les appartements des princesses étaient très vastes. Madame Louise logeait dans l'appartement le plus reculé. Cette dernière fille du roi était contrefaite et très petite ; pour se rendre à la réunion quotidienne, la pauvre princesse traversait, en courant à toutes jambes, un grand nombre de chambres, et malgré son empressement elle n'avait souvent que le temps d'embrasser son père qui partait pour la chasse."

--Mémoires de Madame Campan, première femme de chambre de Marie-Antoinette, 

original publication 1822, this edition 1988, pp. 22-23.

# # #

The humble too accepted rank: 

An insult —"Your father was a valet!" 

-- Voltaire, Le Siècle de Louis XIV

*    *    *

Next,

II.6.2. 

Everything braces the overclass

2.6.2. EVERYTHING HELPS THE OVERCLASS

NOBLES' SUPERIORITY IS TAKEN FOR GRANTED BECAUSE ALL ASPECTS OF LIFE REINFORCE IT  

Rising commoners often use their revenues to purchase a title, acquire land to which a title is attached or marry their daughters to lords seeking dowries. Such practices siphon off investible profits, slowing capitalism's rise.

As well: nobles...

• Lead a hierarchy thought willed by God. 

• Hold the main positions in the State, the Church and especially the army. 

 

• Are exempted from most taxes.

• Control sales taxes and tolls, often gifts from the king. 

 

• Monopolize hunting, fight duels only between themselves, may alone purchase the most luxurious wares (which explains the location of the modern garment center).

• Have identifying liveries for servants, a coat of arms, a reserved pew at church and often a name whose prefix "de" indicates nobility (it is still considered a joli nom, "pretty name").

• Are ceremoniously decapitated and buried if condemned of crime, while bodies of ignominiously hanged commoners remain on the gallows until they decompose.

  Executions of a noble (zoom) and a commoner (zoom)

• Own gibbets. The gibbets themselves show rank by the number of beams from which to hang the condemned (two to eight, the king having nine). The corpse of the highest-born (commoner) victim hangs from the top.

• Might lead popular revolts because of their prestige and because they are trained to fight. Royals legitimize rebellions by heading them.

• The French word for "bad" — villain — originally meant "peasant," and we still say "noble" and "ignoble."

# # #

The valet Figaro's famous question to his noble master, "What have you done for all that wealth? You took the trouble to be born! Whereas I..." shows that at the end of the 18th century that belief was changing.

-- Figaro's question, The Marriage of Figaro by Pierre Beaumarchais, 1778

So was the economy.   

# # #

In our society of advanced capitalism, everything is monetized. Competition rather than solidarity is at the heart of our culture, "success" usually means financial success, we are consumers rather than citizens and may even see ourselves as "brands." 

*    *    *

Next,

II.6.3.

 Allegory as weapon

II.6. NOBLES VS. CAPITALISTS AT THE LOUVRE

MENU: 2.6. Nobles vs. capitalists at the Louvre 

TOWARD 1500, EXPLORERS' DISCOVERIES LEAD TO NEW SOURCES OF INCOME AND SO TO A BOOM THAT UNDERMINES THE SOCIAL SYSTEM 

          Discoveries in 1502 /zoom 

The earliest known map of the Age of Discovery

Nobles — hereditary landowners who make up the ruling class — are a warrior caste that draws its wealth from peasant labor.

They usually wear armor for their portraits (as also shown here, here and here). 

 Portrait of a knight in armor, end 16th century / zoom

The baton indicates command and the curtain underscores grandeur.

Portrait of a young general by Van Dyck, 1624 / zoom

Same idea, plus ornamented armor and lace collar.

Their martial upbringing and values of personal honor and loyalty are irrelevant to commerce. As well, they lose their privileges should they engage in "trade," for which in any case most lack the capital.

For more about such constraints, please click and scroll down.

Nobles cannot adapt to the budding capitalist society.

But for three centuries all classes

 take their innate superiority for granted

 because innumerable aspects of daily life

reinforce that belief.

*    *    *

In brief

• The primacy of hereditary rank in Old Regime France

• Everything braces the overclass 

• Allegory as weapon

• Detour: History — anecdotes or the economy?

• The gods' modernity

*    *    *

Next,

2.6.1.

The primacy of hereditary rank in Old Regime France

II.6.3. ALLEGORY AND NOBLES THREATENED BY CHANGE

ALLEGRIES THAT ASSOCIATE NOBLES WITH PAGAN GODS OF ANTIQUITY, FIGURES OF THE HEBREW BIBLE OR ROMANS PROCLAIM AN ESSENCE THAT UPSTARTS CANNOT MATCH  

Diane de Poitiers was a member of the top nobility and the favorite of Henri II (1547-59). Nudity, the clothing of the gods, underscores her power: "Take me for a goddess!" this work trumpets.

            Diane de Poitiers as Diana, goddess of the hunt, anonymous, toward 1550 / zoom

Biblical figures are clothed, but have the bodies and faces of gods. They too are associated with nobles. 

The Reconciliation of Jacob and Ésaü by Arnould De Vuez toward 1678, Baulme Fine Arts

Royals identify with those superhumans: 

Philip of France in costume of antiquity by Jean Nocret, toward 1650 / zoom; Maurice Leloir in Le Roy-Soleil by T. Cahu, 1931

Take decor

• Gods and decor

• Rubens's decor for a queen

• Allegory depicts immediate politics: a plea for peace and a threat of revolt

*    *    *

Next,

Gods and decor

GODS AND DECOR

THE ART OF THE NOBILITY ASSSOCIATES IT WITH GODS OR HEROES OF ANTIQUITY, OR FIGURES OF THE HEBREW BIBLE

A superiority obtained by birth alone, and that was the opposite of the money-oriented challengers' ideal.

# # #

The images linked nobles with their spiritual or political overlords: 

• The mansion of the Minister of Finance (toward 1600)  

The Hotel de Sully, on the first trade route (rue Saint-Antoine) and next to the first royal place (place des Vosges). 

• In provincial chateaux mantelpieces, the most prestigious sites of glacial halls:

• At Écouen* north of Paris, Jacob sins, leaves, returns and is forgiven, like the owner** who offends Diane de Poitiers, leaves the court and eventually reconciles with the king.

*Now the Renaissance Museum

**The Constable of Montmorency (1493-1567) 

Esau's hunt, museum publication

• At Condé en Brie in Champagne a god carries off a woman. The work alludes to the owner* making a married woman his mistress as Louis XIV had done with Madame de Montespan, and imitates the statue below, on the grounds of Versailles.

*The Marquis de la Faye, private secretary to Louis XIV

Claude Abron

Château de Condé - Aymeri de Rochefort; Pluto carries off Prosperine by François Girardon, toward 1690, Versailles / zoom

That mistress, the marquise de Montespan — the one suspected of black masses — chose the story of Helen of Troy as decor for her chateau.

-- Athénaïs, the real queen of France by Lisa Hilton, 2002

# # #

The clergy could not accept a pagan decor, but could give the humble the appearance of gods. Here, 11th-and 16th-century views of the shepherds at Christ's birth:

Zoom

Zoom

# # #

The most important decor

is Rubens's celebration of queen Marie de Medici

for her palace.

The 24 life-size paintings are now at the Louvre.

The first modern biography 

uses allegory and mythology to tell her story.

*     *     * 

Next,

Rubens's decor for a queen

RUBENS'S DECOR FOR A QUEEN

THE LOUVRE DEVOTES AN ENTIRE ROOM TO THE MOST EXUBERANT PROPAGANDA EVER IMAGINED

Marie de Medici returns to power* and as a true Medici, hires the time's leading painter to present her life as she wants it told.

(Made in 1624-26)

*In 1621-1630. For the start of her story, please click.

The room is almost empty — most visitors head to the publicized works —  so you will have it almost to yourself.

       The Regent militant. The Victory at Julich / zoom

 A white horse, symbol of royalty

How Marie might have been remembered had she not lost her temper : Please continue.

# # #

If you come with children, tell them about the conflict between Marie and her son Louis XIII, who at age 15 took power through a plot and an assassination (the link above). There's the queen, the prince,  the wickedness and intrigues of a royal court...

Then have them look for:

• Louis XIII, the teen-age prince. In 24 paintings he appears only seven times, and never in a commanding way. Marie wants to keep on ruling: 

    The Consignment of the regency to the queen / zoom

Marie dominates. As he grows older Louis pretends to be retarded and almost everyone ignores him They regret that mistake for the rest of their lives, which might be short.

• The 14-year-old French and Spanish princesses, exchanged at the border

          The Exchange of the princesses / zoom 

 The girl in white is Anne, Louis's bride

If your little girl dreams of being a princess and marrying a prince, tell her she would never see her family again. Plus, as a foreign princess the court might think she was a spy (as Anne really was). 

A queen's sole path to influence: becoming regent should the king die and leave a son too young to rule. That was how both Marie and Anne came to exert 17th-century Europe's most important regencies. 

• Dogs, a way to fill empty space 

    The Coronation of Marie de Medici at Saint-Denis on May 13, 1610 / zoom

• Monsters: Marie's enemies, neutralized or defeated

    Louis XIII comes of age / zoom                    The Queen reconciles with her son / zoom

You can mention what's left out: the servant Leonora, the hustler Concini, Marie's banishment and imprisonment... (click if you haven't yet).

   The Expulsion from Paris/ zoom

The rejected sketch for the work on her disgrace

The series is important for itself, for its influence...

• David studied The Coronation of Marie de Medici, above, before beginning his most famous work:

The Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon I and the crowning of the Empress Josephine in Notre-Dame Cathedral on December 2, 1804 by Jacques-Louis David / zoom

• The series' color and action influenced Eugène Delacroix, leader of the Romantics and creator of the most famous painting produced in France (please read on):

        The Death of Sardanapolus by Eugène Delacroix, 1827 / zoom

And for showing how 

leaving out the inconvenient

 is an age-old practice.

*     *     *

Next,
Allegory depicts immediate politics: 

A plea for peace and a threat of revolt

ALLEGORY DEPICTS IMMEDIATE POLITICS: A PLEA FOR PEACE AND A THREAT OF REVOLT

NOBLES' ART GLORIFIES WAR, BUT THESE WORKS INSIST ON PEACE...

A caduceus (two serpents coiled around a baton) symbolizes the accord of opposites, so wisdom and harmony. In paintings where every detail is politically charged Rubens associates it with Marie alone.

-- Heroic Deeds and mystic figures by R.F. Miflin and R.E. Wolf, 1989,

analyzes the series in depth.

In the first work Mercury points the caduceus toward the line that joins the right hands of Apollo, Minerva and Marie with the abdomens of the Three Graces: Marie unites wisdom, culture and fertility, characteristics that fit her policy of peace and ardent opposition to Richelieu's demand for war.

     The Education of the princess / zoom

One of the next paintings evokes the choice of entering or staying out of the Thirty Years' War (of 1618-1648):

The Meeting in Lyons / zoom 

• Louis carries his scepter like a musket and turns away from his mother, while his charming little brother, Gaston d'Orleans, looks up at her adoringly. Junior princes who led revolts legitimized them and when this work was painted, in 1626, Gaston had rebelled. The scene implies that should Louis refuse Marie's demand for peace, she might back him should he revolt again. 

 He would revolt, four times.  

• The intrepid queen had already escaped imprisonment and led two rebellions. So the threat was not an empty one. 

The king studied the paintings, had them explained to him and left without a word. They may have contributed to Marie's fall. 

# # #

But a dramatic mistake

 was the immediate reason for her eclipse.

*     *     *

Next,

 II.6.4.

Detour:

History, anecdotes or economics?