ANOTHER WAY IN WHICH THE PAST STEPPED IN: THE THREAT FROM OTHER ROYALS

REVOLTS ENDED TRAGICALLY FOR THE POOR...

The Massacre of the Innocents by Pieter Breughel the Elder, toward 1567 /  zoom

A scene infinitely repeated.

But they threatened rulers only if a royal's leadership legitimized them.* Then discontented people of all kinds joined in and they were much harder to repress.

*Not in France only, and not by a genuine royal necessarily. In Russia toward 1770 over 20 revolts were headed by men stating that they were the slain tsar Paul I. That of Pugachev menaced the throne. 

• Danger could come from any royal, women included. For Louis XIV female cousin, please scroll down. And Queen Marie de Medici, mother of Louis XIII, escaped from the château where he had imprisoned her* and rebelled against him twice (in 1621-1622). 

*After the assassination by which he seized power (in 1617).

Marie Escapes from Blois Château (in 1619), by Maurice Leloir in Théodore Cahu's "Richelieu," 1901

They reconciled because she was less dangerous in Paris with a degree of power than making trouble in the provinces.  

# # #

But younger brothers and their descendants were the usual threat. The Duke of Alençon rebelled against his brother Henri III (in 1575), extorted concessions and remained leader of the opposition until his death (in 1584).

      Prince Hercule-François, Duke of Alençon, anonymous, 1572 / zoom 

Gaston Duke of Orleans, Louis XIII's brother, rebelled  five times (between 1626 and 1642). He always back-pedaled, betraying allies, but reminding of the threat that a more determined leader could bring.

Maurice Leloir in Richelieu

The Countess of Montmorency pleads for her son, who had followed Gaston's revolt in 1632. Louis XIII and Richelieu pay no attention, and the rebel will be decapitated.

        

              Portrait of Gaston, Duke of Orleans by Anthony van Dyck, 1634  / zoom

The portrait reflects his ambiguity: He wears armor as a breastplate and rests his arm on a helmet, but his sumptuous attire is civil. That choice differs from the full armor in which male aristocrats were usually presented: For the reason, please click.

 Portrait of a Knight in Armor, end 16th century / zoom; Portrait of a Young General, by Van Dyck, 1624 / zoom

He was the on-and-off again leader of the five years of civil war that led to the independent nobility's demise (in 1648-1653).

• Even the royals suffered: The queen of England (the widow of beheaded Charles I) stayed in bed because of the cold and little king Louis slept in torn sheets. As for the poor, I remember an account of a mother and her two children dead of starvation on pont Neuf.

• Louis XIV was 12 when partisans of nobles broke into the Louvre to check on his presence: He never forgot his terror as he pretended to sleep.   

Maurice Leloir in Le Roy Soleil ("The Sun King") by Gustave Toudouze, 1931

• As fighting raged outside the walls of the Bastille fortress, Gaston's daughter ordered its cannoneers to bombard the royal troops: 

 Episode of the Fronde by the Walls of the Bastille, anonymous / zoom with analysis (in French) 

       Internet, no source named

For a fuller story, please click again.

# # #

That is the background to the tragic story of Philip, Duke of Orleans, younger brother of Louis XIV and founder of the "Orleanist" junior branch of the Bourbon dynasty.

He was brought up to be a frivolous, gossiping weakling, incapable of being an opponent. "A child would not have more blind obedience to his parents than that of Monsieur [title of second sons] for the King."

-- The Princess Palatine, his second wife, in Monsieur, Brother of the King, 1953 (in French)

• Trained to subservience, he was dressed as a girl and encouraged to be gay.

 Philip looks like a pretty woman.

The Duke of Lorraine, his great love, wears a knot that is red, color of the Orleanists. (Notice the armor, nobles' uniform in portraits.)

-- Portrait in the shop of Marion Chalvignac, antiquarian 

• He turned out to be a more courageous combattant and better military leader than the king, though that could not be said. His bravery in the battle shown below brought French victory but Louis, who was not present, is inserted in the painting, and Philip relegated to the background:

Monsieur at the Battle of Cassel by Joseph Parracel, 1677 / zoom

He supplied and paid his troops rather than let them pillage, built a hospital for the poor and instead of hunting animals, let them wander in his park. The soldiers adored him and his popularity in Paris was an implicit reproach to Louis, who relegated him to his chateau and the intrigues of his "mignons" (cutie-pies).

Philip contested Louis only once: When the king reneged on his promise of a governor's post to his son as part of the deal for marrying his daughter, courtiers the cries of their dispute resonated so much that the courtiers heard them.   

He died of a stroke that night.

# # #

Memories of that past led later kings

to keep their Orleanist cousins at arm's length. 

That explains why Philip's great-grandson 

let Palais-Royal become the Revolution's cradle.

*    *    *

Next,

The libertarian gardens where modern times began