King Louis XV and his family

[pers]

I wonder whether it was just painted in a similar style, or that the painting of ML was basically just done with a sketch of her features as the basis, and that the rest all fake?  You're right they are VERY similar.  Even the page boy carrying the train looks the same!

[REMI]

Louis XV had given nicknames to his daughters. Thus Elisabeth called "Babette"; Adélaïde, "Loque";   Victoire, "Coche"; Sophie, "Graille"; Louise, "Chiffe"....Funny too!

REMI

[Mari]

Somewhere I have read the reason behind the nicknames. I know that coche is couch or bed and suppose this to be a joke on laziness. Bearne tells us that a writer of the period stated that Louis XV was not an unkind Father. He loved his Daughters but is was utterly selfish. When they were present he was a loving Father who was affectionate and tender and when they were out of sight he never thought of them.   Loved them like a Bourgeois is one phrase used.

http://books.google.com/books?id=r0QQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA240&dq=madame+adelaid+by+bearne&ei=zaV0SL_CNY_-sQP_tMTTCQ#PPA156,M1

[REMI]

Louis XV gave the nickname Coche to Victoire  because she was a very stout woman... like a coche!
(In english, coche=sow)

REMI

[Mari]

Thanks REMI I looked in my notes and I could not find it anywhere. I tried to go into the Dictionary and that is the definition I got. What do some of the other nicknames mean?

[REMI]

Graille means "corneille" in old french (corneille= crow in english)
Madame Sophie was nicknamed "Graille" because her voice was shrill and sounds like a crow!
I don't know why Louis XV nicknamed Madame Adélaïde "Loque" and Madame Louise "Chiffe"...These two nicknames are not pleasant at all...They mean...old rags!

REMI

[CountessKate]

Bearne tells us that a writer of the period stated that Louis XV was not an unkind Father. He loved his Daughters but is was utterly selfish. When they were present he was a loving Father who was affectionate and tender and when they were out of sight he never thought of them.   Loved them like a Bourgeois is one phrase used.

Part of the judgement of being bourgeois was because of the nicknames he gave them.  It was considered incredibly middle-class. 

It's hard to know whether the 'selfish father' view is justified or not.  Louis XV was brought up to be the centre of his universe, and it's hard to know how any of us would be if we were in the same position - from whom would we learn sensitivity when no one teaches us to recognise it or shows displeasure when we withhold it?  He was quite indulgent to his daughters, but they were naturally opposed to his mistresses and it's hard to see how these women, who did not appear to share many of his interests or tastes, could compete for his time with women like Madame de Pompadour.  Also, in many ways they actively worked to undermine their father - for the most virtuous of reasons, of course.  For example, they worked on Marie Antoinette to set her against the reigning mistress, Madame du Barry, which put her very dangerously in opposition to Louis XV, and worse, in opposition to Madame du Barry.  It's perhaps not entirely surporising that Louis XV tended to look elsewhere than his family for daily companionship and amusement.

[Mari]

Bearne in her statement of selfish love gives many instances.  "Indulgent while there... but out of sight out of mind" is her qualifier. So out of sight, We might look at the fact the four younger daughters were sent to the Abbey Fontevrault Religious Convent in Anjou at the age of four, three, two, and one. Their Father did not trouble to come and see them off. Although treated with great honor and kindness... there was also the fact that  Madames Victoire and Sophie used to attribute their later terrors to the ill chosen punishments chosen for them such as repeating their evening prayers in the Vaults where the Nuns were buried. Their Education was shamefully neglected to the point that Madame Louise only just knew the alphabet and could barely read. And for the next twelve years they were not visited, even when the eight year old, Madame Felicite died of small pox. Comparing that to the care and judgement of Louis XIV and Mme de Maintenon in the strictness of the regulation, the wise judgement of the People placed over them, the anxious affection, the constant interest in which they superintended the details of the Children of France's life and compare to the neglect, indifference and folly of Louis XV over his children.

 We might also look at the elder Daughters who held their first Ball by March 30, 1737 not to other Children but to the Court Circle.  They were admitted to the formal suppers of the King, accompanied the Court to Marly even joining in the cavagnole at night, Ladies of the Court were presented to them, they received foreign Princes and Ambassadors at an age when they should have been playing with dolls according to M. de Barthelemy. "His young Daughters were constantly to be seen at the Royal Box at the Opera, in the Royal Carriages on Hunting Parties with the King's Mistresses." M. de Barthelemy continues "one recognizes the thoughtlessness of his character,his want of any moral sense, his indifference to or ignorance of the most ordinary convenances.

[CountessKate]

I think one should be careful of accepting either the 19th century morality of Mrs Bearne or that of l'abbe Barthelemy.  Growing up at a convent was pretty standard for aristocratic young women at the time, it was only unusual for royal girls to go there - and it was done at the urging of Cardinal Fleury, to save the huge expense of keeping the individual households for what was a large family of girls for those days, not out of their father's indifference.  The comparison with Madame de Maintenon is hardly valid - the comparison must be with Louis XIV, not a woman of modest birth who was charged with bringing up his bastards and later became his mistress, and later still, his wife.  How could Louis XV be expected to model himself on her?  Louis XIV was hardly a model of parental concern, and was demonstrably extremely selfish in his relationship even with his beloved Marie Adelaide, Louis XV's mother, insisting she travel when pregnant and causing her to have a miscarriage.  While at Fontevrault the princesses were hardly neglected - their regime might have been misguided but it was not neglectful.  (And by the way, Madame de Maintenon lost several of the royal bastards under her charge through illness - despite that anxious care).  As for the court life of his daughters, it is difficult to see how it differed from the life of Marie Adelaide, or Louis XIV's daughters at their court debuts - and marriages at very early ages. 

I think it is actually quite true that Louis XV was a selfish father, but for his times, not especially selfish compared to anyone else of his status and upbringing.  Both Mrs Bearne and l'abbe Barthelemy were coming from the strong anti-Louis XV angle, discerning a decline in moral standards which would eventually lead to the serious problems of the French state (for l'abbe Barthelemy) and the revolution (for Mrs Bearne), which was epitomised by Louis XV's personal relationships - i.e., his purported indifference to his virtuous wife and children, and his greater affection for his mistresses.   Essentially they were attempts to define the French royal family as a microcosm of the French state.  All history is of course filtered through our own sensibilities, but I think we should be wary of filtering them through those of the 18th and 19th centuries.

[Yelena Aleksandrovna]

I think that in that days the beauty wasn't one of the most important things for be choosen the wife
of a royal (but of course that was important) I think that wealth or other kind of things were even more
important for them

[CountessKate]

I think that wealth or other kind of things were even more
important for them

I think it was the 'other kinds of things', i.e. politics, which were most important in the marriage of Louis XV - Maria Leszczynska was plain, poor and barely royal.

[Marc]

But was healthy...

[CountessKate]

However, she only had two sons, one of whom died in infancy, and as far as fertility goes, her daughters didn't count as they could not inherit the throne.  Indeed, when her daughter-in-law died in childbirth, her son the Dauphin had to be rushed into a second marriage as fast as possible although he was by no means ready, as the royal line was dangerously close to extinction.  Her second daughter-in-law, Maria Josefa of Saxony, was much more satisfactory because she had 4 sons, of whom 3 survived to adulthood.

[Yelena Aleksandrovna]

Yes, wealthy was important, but sometimes fertility didn't help several royal couples

[duchesse de Chartres]

Yes, wealthy was important, but sometimes fertility didn't help several royal couples

this is truee..especially in france, as noted Louis XV and la bonne reine Marie had more daughters then sons, a 'potential' bad situation in France where they used to follow the [i my opinion] unfair Salic Law! :O