Little Po

Everything about and related to Yolande Martine Gabrielle de Polastron, Duchesse de Polignac; the favourite of queen Marie Antoinette; nicknamed Little Po. (More)

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Happy birthday!

On this day (8th Sep), the Duchesse de Polignac, a favourite of queen Marie Antoinette, was born in Paris. The queen’s other favourite, the Princesse de Lamballe, was also born on the same day.

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Keyboard Sonata In D-Minor, K.9, L.413 - Allegro

By Composer Domenico Scarlatti

Mark Swartzentruber, Pianist

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This brings back so much memory of my piano lessons. It was one of my exam pieces.

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Mozart : Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K.466

I. Allegro

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Paris and Versailles 2015 Pictures by MHilarius

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Paris and Versailles 2015 Pictures by MHilarius

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Marie Antoinette behind the scenes

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Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia (1723-1787, Germany)

Flute Sonata - II. Allegretto

                        Flute: Ana Ioana Oltean                           Piano: Simon Bucher

Happy birthday, Anna Amalia!

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Madame de Polignac

Queen Marie-Antoinette’s confidant (1749-1793)

With her charming good looks and “the most attractive and most solid” mind, Yolande de Polastron, who married Count Jules de Polignac, the nephew of “Madame Etiquette”, in 1767, met the dauphine Marie-Antoinette for the first time at her wedding at Versailles in 1770.

Marie-Antoinette was taken by the lively and cheerful Madame de Polignac, and the two developed a close friendship starting in 1774. She became part of the Queen’s inner circle. With her, Marie-Antoinette abandoned the protocol and etiquette of the Court and loved to get away from it by going to the Petit Trianon. A painting by the Queen’s official portraitist, Madame Vigée-Lebrun, shows Madame de Polignac dressed in a gaulle dress, a light, aerial fabric, and wearing a flowery hat, a testimonial to the carefree, simple life at the Trianon.

Madame de Polignac received the title of duchess in 1780 and, much to the Court’s surprise, was named Governess of the Children of France in 1782, a position that had been held by other noble families and was handed down from mother to daughter. She left her apartments, which were considered to be “the most beautiful apartments at Versailles” among those made available to the Court, to take up residence at the Governesses’ apartments, where she undertook renovation work.

But in 1789, the French Revolution forced her into exile, a victim of the libels against the Queen and her inner circle, notably criticising their lavish spending. She left Marie-Antoinette with deep sadness and continued to correspond with the Queen from Switzerland, Italy and then Austria. Marie-Antoinette was also pained by the absence of her good friend: “Farewell my most tender friend; it is terrible to say, but I must; I barely have enough strength left to send you a kiss,” she wrote. The Duchess of Polignac died in Vienna on 5 December 1793, fifty days after the Queen.

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791).

After finally returning with his father from Italy on 13 March 1773, Mozart was employed as a court musician by the ruler of Salzburg, Prince-Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo. The composer had a great number of friends and admirers in Salzburg and had the opportunity to work in many genres, including symphonies, sonatas, string quartets, masses, serenades, and a few minor operas.

The Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major, K. 216, was composed in Salzburg in 1775, Mozart was only 19 at the time. He had developed an enthusiasm for violin concertos, producing a series of five (the only ones he ever wrote), which steadily increased in their musical sophistication.

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The Duchesse was a contemporary of Mozart’s.

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Happy birthday!

On this day (8th Sep), the Duchesse de Polignac, a favourite of queen Marie Antoinette, was born in Paris. The queen’s other favourite, the Princesse de Lamballe, was also born on the same day.

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Paris and Versailles 2015 Pictures by MHilarius

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Versailles, July 2015. 

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women in history in no order whatsoever

Marie Antoinette – I know these crowds have come from Paris to demand my head. I learned from my mother not to fear death, and I will wait for it with firmness.

(born November 2, 1755, Vienna, Austria—died October 16, 1793, Paris, France), queen consort of King Louis XVI of France (1774–93). Imprudent and an enemy of reform, she helped provoke the popular unrest that led to the French Revolution and to the overthrow of the monarchy in August 1792. The 11th daughter of the Holy Roman emperor Francis I and Maria Theresa, Marie-Antoinette was married in 1770 to the dauphin Louis, grandson of France’s King Louis XV. The timid, uninspiring Louis proved to be an inattentive husband; by the time he ascended the throne in 1774, Marie-Antoinette had withdrawn into the companionship of a small circle of court favourites. Her extravagant court expenditures contributed—though to a minor degree—to the huge debt incurred by the French state in the 1770s and ’80s. Louis XVI’s inability to consummate their marriage and the queen’s resultant childlessness in the 1770s inspired rivals—including the king’s own brothers, who stood to inherit the throne if she did not produce a legitimate heir—to circulate slanderous reports of her alleged extramarital affairs. These vilifications culminated in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace (1785–86), in which the queen was unjustly accused of having formed an immoral relationship with a cardinal. The scandal discredited the monarchy and encouraged the nobles to oppose vigorously (1787–88) all the financial reforms advocated by the king’s ministers. During these crises, as in those to come, Marie-Antoinette proved to be stronger and more decisive than her husband. [read more]

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La Duchesse de Polignac is my favourite character in the movie. If you ever have a chance to to make a gif set of her laughing, that would be lovely.

I have a gifset of Duchess de Polignac here.