LOUIS XIV'S MOST FAMOUS FAVORITE, MADAME DE MONTESPAN, WOULD INSULT HIM AS AN UPSTART BECAUSE HIS GREAT-GRANDFATHER WAS A MEDICI BANKER, WHEREAS HER ANCESTORS HAD SINCE THE 9TH CENTURY BEEN FEUDAL LORDS
He would feel humble before her.
Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart, Marquise de Montespan, workshop of Pierre Mignard, undated, zoom
An insult among commoners: "Your father was a valet!"
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So ingrained was the belief in nobles' superiority that many rising commoners used their funds to buy land, acquire titles or have their descendants enter the aristocracy by marrying their daughters to impoverished lords seeking important dowries.
The next pages show how emphasis on Romans, mythology and Old Testament figures set nobles apart. As well, they...
- Held the main positions in the State, the Church and especially the army.
- Were exempt from taxes.
- Controlled sales taxes and tolls.
- Monopolized the hunt of large animals, fought duels only between themselves, alone might buy the most luxurious wares.
- Were ceremoniously decapitated if condemned of crime, rather than abjectly hanged or burned.
- Had identifying liveries for the servants, a coat of arms, a name whose prefix "de" indicated nobility, a reserved pew at church.
- Owned gibets, which showed their domination of the peasantry even as the power to kill became rulers' prerogative. The gibets themselves showed the nobles' rank by the number of the beams from which to hang the condemned (from two to eight, the king having nine).
- The belief in a God-willed hierarchy exists in modern language: 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!"
shows that at the end of the 18th century
that belief was changing.
So was the economy.
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The idea that all elements of a society strengthen the ruling class is not original with me.
Alexis de Toqueville uses it to explain commoners' belief in nobles' intrinsic superiority. Anthropologists and sociologists have shown it for primal communities and cults. An American cartoonist notes the tie between gun violence, the healthcare system, billionaire control and media silence:
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Daily Kos, a progressive publication, December 24, 2024 |
The omissions and billboards mentioned at the start are part of such interconnection.
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Now,
how nobles used antiquity in the arts:
Next,
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