It was on this day 300 years ago, on 30 November, 1718, that Charles XII of Sweden, one of the heroes of the Versailles Century (1682-1789), was killed in action. He was only 36.

Charles XII came to the throne early, succeeding his father, Charles XI, in 1697. He was only fifteen at the time. As a young man, we was nordically handsome, with a lush mane and piercing blue eyes. Charles initially reigned under a regency, but only 7 months after his accession he assumed full power.

Charles XII in his youth. Credit — by Michael Dahl — Nationalmuseum, Domaine public, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52121845

Charles XII was a dedicated soldier who soon led Sweden into the Great Northern War (1700-1721), a lengthy and ultimately ruinous conflict. In the early stages, it went well for Charles and Sweden. The young king won a number of brilliant victories and managed to impose the king of his choice on Poland — Louis XV’s future father-in-law Stanislas Lesczcynski — as well as strengthening his position in the Baltics. In 1709, however, he was decisively defeated by Peter the Great at Poltava, in what we now call Ukraine. This defeat was to mark a watershed in the history of eastern and northern Europe: the Swedish empire, which had dominated the lands around the Baltic Sea for 200 years, came to end, and the Russian empire took its place as the regional hegemon.

It was on this day  288 years ago that the fabled French actress Adrienne Lecouvreur died in Paris.

Adrienne Lecouvreur at the time of her Comédie Française debut. Credit: Wikimedia.

During the evening the Chevalier said, insultingly and several times: ‘M. de Voltaire, M. Arouet or whatever you call yourself.’ In the end, Voltaire lost his temper and said that he was the first of his name while the Chevalier was the last of his.  This stung Rohan-Chabot on the raw. His grandmother had been the only child of the Duc de Rohan, an ancient family descended from the Kings of Brittany. She had married a Chabot; the family was no longer Rohan at all. The Chevalier, furious, lifted his cane and and said that such an insult could only be wiped out by a good hiding. Voltaire put his hand to his sword; Mlle Lecouvreur tactfully fainted away and the Chevalier left the box. (pp 43-44)

Poster for Cilea’s opera Adriana Lecouvreur. Credit: Aleardo Villa – http://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/aleardo-villa-italian,-1865-1906-16-c-9j6cisvnfcMore information at Getty Images, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31296907.

Sources: The Wikipedia article “Adrienne Lecouvreur” and Voltaire in Love by Nancy Mitford.

At last!  It’s taken decades, but my Mitford collection is now complete.  I’m referring to Nancy Mitford’s 4 historical biographies, rather than her novels.  In order of publication, the biographies are: Madame de Pompadour (1954), Voltaire in Love (1957), The Sun King (1966), and Frederick the Great (1970).

Attentive readers might remember this photo from an early post on this blog:

Madame de Pompadour and The Sun King, both by Nancy Mitford.  These are the lavish American editions published by Harper & Row.

At the time, these were the only items in my Mitford collection.  They’ve followed me from home to home through 4 countries over the last 30-odd years, which is why the dust jackets are slightly the worse for wear.  I had once owned a hard cover copy of Frederick the Great, but I donated it to a library that one of my former professors was setting up at Western University (my alma mater, formerly known as the University of Western Ontario).  It’s called the Pride Library.  You can visit its website here: http://www.uwo.ca/pridelib/.

Having grasped that Versailles, as the embodiment of elite French culture, was the key to understanding 18th century Europe, I soon realized that knowledge of the French language was indispensable.  Not only was it the tongue of the most admired court in Europe, it was the lingua franca of the entire European elite from London to St. Petersburg.

French dictionary

My new hero, Frederick the Great, for instance, spoke and wrote French in preference to German.  Even when he spoke German, he is said to have spoken a Frenchified version of it.  Legend has it that he once galloped up to a group of officers who were holding their troops back during battle and barked, “Messieurs!  Warum attaquieren Sie nicht?” (“Gentlemen!  Why are you not attacking?”).  The point is that attaquieren is not a German verb, but one invented for the occasion from the French attaquer.

Frederick in the field

Furthermore, French was the language of the ‘Republic of Letters’, that group of what we would now call public intellectuals who lead the Enlightenment.  Many of the most eminent of them were francophones, like Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot, of course.  However, even if the non-francophones published in their native languages, like, say, Hume in English, or Vico in Italian, they used French to correspond with their foreign peers.  They also used French when they met in person, which was not often in those days before planes and trains, as did Frederick and Voltaire when the latter took up the former’s invitation to live — temporarily, as it turned out — in Potsdam.  When Diderot went to St. Petersburg to meet his benefactress, Catherine the Great, they conversed in French.  The Empress, however, was disconcerted at their first interview by the fact Diderot would thump her on the knee whenever he agreed with what she said.  At their next meeting, he found that a table had been inserted between their chairs.

Catherine the Great

Having devoured Nancy Mitford’s Frederick the Great, which gave me a burning desire to visit Potsdam, the site of Frederick’s beloved palace of Sans Souci, I became curious about the  other people and places mentioned in the book.  For instance, this man Voltaire.  Who was he?  And Madame de Pompadour?  Cardinal de Fleury?  None of these people were showing up in our weekly viewings of The Remarkable Life of Friedrich von der Trenck.

Sans Souci

It occurred to me that Miss Mitford might have written other books.  Returning to the library, I looked up her other works in the card catalogue.  Sure enough, it listed Madame de Pompadour and The Sun King.

I loved the sparkle and wit of her prose, even as a 10-year-old.  Of course, a good deal of her wit went over my head.  I also loved her personal insights.  I noticed, for instance, that in The Sun King she was able to offer a first-hand comparison of the toilet facilities at Versailles and Buckingham Palace, which then, unlike now, was not open to the general public.

Since the great courtesan was Frederick’s contemporary, I decided to borrow Madame de Pompadour first.  Thus it was that I discovered the teeming, scheming labyrinth of Versailles in the mid-18th century.