Agathe is a revolutionist with very firm and harsh ideals. She grew up envying the nobles in their frilly dresses and dances while she didn't have the chance to even eat a crumble of bread daily. She used to dream of becoming rich, but reality soon shattered upon her making her realise that what was needed was equality, obtainable only through a revolution in her eyes. She is very strong‐willed, serious and respected amongst the other revolutionists.
She wears male clothing to rebel and show her strength and intelligence are equal to those of men.
One day she fell in love with Jeanne Aphrodite Augustine, one of the Orleans Duke's daughters who is a very rich aristocrat. I still have to choose how they met (because it would be hard for a noble like her to randomly see her) but I am sure that even though Jeanne Aphrodite is a lesbian, she doesn't love Agathe. Not because she is poor — Jeanne Aphrodite is a very open‐minded woman as strange as it is for the situation — simply because she sees her as an acquaintance.
Hylas and the Nymphs, (Detail), (1896), by John William Waterhouse RA (English, 1849 – 1917), oil on canvas, 98.2 cm × 163.3 cm, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester
We don’t know a whole lot about Dubois’ parents, but we DO know he wrote to his mother somewhat regularly! As for his father, a letter sent by Dubois to an old friend regarding this thing about the priory hints that Jean Dubois could be a little intense! Paraphrasing, but the sentence “if I don’t get the priory I think he might die” is… pretty close to the original text, honestly.
What amused me about this whole priory affair is that later on plenty of people will complain (not without reason, let's be real) that Dubois is acquiring all these abbeys and important jobs to enrich himself. This particular case stands out in comparison because while obviously the money is a nice bonus, you can tell Dubois wants this priory for personal reasons: to please his family, but also because most likely he still had some attachment to the place (he wrote so, at least!). Amusingly, he writes that it might be nice to have a place he can go back to one of these days, when he's older... Of course, he might've only written that to pull at some heartstrings, but let's be real, at this point he had no way to tell which direction his career might take!
La VF est juste en dessous, comme toujours!
On sait au final assez peu de choses sur les parents de Dubois. On sait qu’il écrivait à sa mère assez régulièrement! Quant au père, une lettre de Dubois adressée à un vieil ami concernant l’affaire du prieuré laisse entendre que Jean Dubois pouvait effectivement être un peu intense lorsqu’il s’agissait des honneurs accordés à son fils:
Ce qui m’amusait avec toute cette affaire du prieuré de Brive, c’est que l’on reprochera souvent (sans doute avec raison!) à Dubois d’avoir demandé de nombreux bénéfices dans le but de s’enrichir. Ce cas-ci est toutefois particulier; il y a clairement un enjeu qui est beaucoup plus sentimental. Il souhaite plaire à sa famille, et il est difficile d’imaginer que toute l’affaire n’ait pas aussi évoqué une certaine nostalgie! Il mentionne bien aimer l'idée d'avoir un endroit auquel retourner pour ses vieux jours... Plutôt amusant, considérant la direction que prendra sa carrière. Il est difficile d'imaginer Dubois, qui se dévouera entièrement à son travail jusqu'à la fin de ses jours, retourner à Brive pour une retraite paisible! Mais il faut bien avouer qu'en 1691, il n'avait sans doute pas encore la moindre idée de ce qui lui arriverait une fois que Philippe de Chartres n'aurait plus besoin de lui.
One endearing (or annoying, depending on who you ask!) trait of Dubois is that, in the end, the man was a worrier. In his letters, you get to constantly see him worry about everything and anything; often with good reasons…. but also often for unimportant ones. The complete opposite of Philippe, who wasn’t as nonchalant as Saint-Simon wrote, but who certainly didn’t fuss over things nearly as much as his old preceptor did. In some letter exchanges, notably during Dubois’ diplomatic missions, while he's away and Philippe is still in Paris, you can hear the annoyed teacher voice while reading, it’s great.
James Stanhope, who was generally friendly with Dubois but also had to negotiate with him during the Régence, describes the way he would kinda ramble a lot when nervous… It’s something Dubois likely learned to control better over time, as he got used to all these important meetings, but early on he very much struggled to hide how he felt about things!
La VF est sous le cut, comme toujours!
Un trait qui rend Dubois plutôt attachant (ou exaspérant, c’est selon!), c’est qu’au final, le type était un grand anxieux. Au fil de sa correspondance, on le voit souvent s’inquiéter, parfois avec raison… mais aussi souvent pour pas grand-chose. Le contraste avec Philippe d’Orléans, qui semblait plus souvent qu’autrement imperturbable, est très marrant! Ça donnera lieu à quelques passages de lettres marrants lors des missions diplomatiques de Dubois, où évidemment il s’inquiète de tout ce qui se passe à Paris dans son absence… Et où on sent, par moment, qu’il s’impatiente peut-être juste un peu face à son ancien élève:
“Souvenez-vous, monseigneur, que la chandelle brûle, et que les pieds me grillent… Ces lenteurs m’ont coûté plus de larmes qu’il n’en tiendrait dans un seau.”
Et ma préférée, qui en dit long...
"J’espère que l’habitude que votre Altesse Royale a d’être tranquille dans le péril ne la conduira pas jusqu’à s’endormir dans celui-ci…"
James Stanhope, le ministre anglais avec lequel Dubois fera affaire lors de ces missions diplomatiques, décrit dans ses rapports comment Dubois était visiblement très nerveux lors de leurs premières négociations et comment cette nervosité devenait particulièrement évidente dans sa manie de parler beaucoup trop. Au fil des négociations et des voyages, Dubois deviendra un diplomate beaucoup plus aguerri!
An utterly pious quadruple abbot if there ever was one: the chevalier de Lorraine himself!
Since the infamous story of chev and his abbeys never fails to crack me up, I wanted to make a little illustration for it. More info below the cut, as well as some more details about the relationship of both Philippe's with religion!
For those who don't know, good old Chev ended up abbot of no less than FOUR abbeys: Tiron, Saint-Pierre-sur-Chartres, Saint-Jean-des-Vignes de Soissons, and Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire.
The main reason behind this, besides his absolute devotion to God (LOL) was of course: money. All jokes aside, as a chevalier, despite not actually being in the orders, he technically couldn't marry and was deprived from a bunch of positions that could have turned into a source of income---however, he could claim to the management of abbeys, regardless of the fact that he was actually a blasphemous atheist in practice. (I'm simplifying a bit: he did have to request a derogation from the church to be allowed to become an abbey etc, but in theory it was okay)
Philippe de France, his protector, knew that as well, and both campaigned relentlessly to get him abbeys, first in the late 60's. The two of them borderline harassing Louis XIV over it is one of the main reasons that lead to Chev's first exile, as Louis hated being pressured into anything.
In the end, however, he did manage to land not only these first two abbeys, but two more later on. While not being the actual owner of the places, as the abbot, he was the manager of sorts, renting out the land, managing the personnel, and collecting a portion of the revenues from these abbeys. Contrary to what could have been expected, he was rather decent at it and treated his personnel fairly, although he was described as their neighbors as an "extremely annoying neighbor" because of how anal he was about boundaries and rules. Given that the 80s and 90s are what I now like to call chev's "janitor era", it isn't surprising.
Needless to say that many people found quite scandalous that this guy, of all people, was functionally a man of God. Nevertheless, none of the people who ended up doing business with him had any complains (aside from one guy he feuded with, but what's new), and his only reason for ultimately reselling his rights was to pay off his debts at the very end of his life.
As for Philippe de France, represented as sort of a heavenly figure here because, well, he was chev's benefactor during his entire life, I wanted to add a little note about his relationship to religion, since I just discussed it a little with Zennie.
While we all know Phil was a confirmed and practicing catholic, and that he was very enthusiastic about rituals and ceremonies, Elisabetta Lurgo has recently published a couple of papers about his relationship to religion that happens to be far more nuanced and interesting than what we're typically told.
For one, we know that Philippe's entourage was remarkably diverse, even leaning quite... heavily into atheism. Chev, d'Effiat, Armand, Marsan and many others were all atheists. Phil was also very close to a jansenist canon, despite jansenism being a very controversial and even rejected branch of catholicism, and he was even known to close his eyes on protestants staying in Saint-Cloud. His close proximity to people denying God's existence is already an interesting indicator of his laissé-faire, and combined with his frequent attendance to salons, may also indicate that he could enjoy faith-challenging discussions (or at least, listening to them).
He was also described as praying silently, as opposed to his brother who was always praying out loud. It's reported that when he was told to pray out loud as well, Philippe replied that "God was more receptive to the voice of the heart than that of the mouth", which may hint at a very personal relationship to religion and God.
Overall, while again being very diligent in the ceremonial department, in a very Spanish catholic fashion inherited from Anne of Austria, it seems that when it came to spirituality itself and other day-to-day practices, he seemed far looser in his approach, as is attested by his recurring tendencies to skip Lent, his lifestyle in general, or a couple of interesting interactions such as these:
Nicolas Feuillet, Saint-Cloud's jansenist canon, reported that Philippe, whom he was rather close to (yet was always chastising), once came up to him showing off his gorgeous new bracelet. When Feuillet scolded him on how one shouldn't flaunt wealth and be so ostentacious, Philippe's response was: "then why did God create diamonds, if not for us to wear them?"
I love this anecdote, as it depicts an independent logic and spirit, of Philippe according God to his own understanding of the world, which likely extended to his lifestyle and preferences as well.
The next one is much more grim and sad, but also very interesting in how it highlights the irony that Philippe could perceive in religion, and how he expressed that:
One day, not too long after Philippe's outstanding victory in Cassel, Feuillet scolded him about all of his and Louis' successes and prosperity, expressing his concern, as God typically isn't charitable with those he loves, instead rewarding them with suffering; quite bluntly, he told Philippe that God must not love them. Philippe didn't seem too phazed, only musing "prosperity, prosperity..." out loud a couple of times, not saying much more. A couple of months later, though, his and Liselotte's son unfortunately passed away, and when Feuillet came to see him, Philippe said, "See? God does love me, after all."
It isn't surprising to see that he can have this outlook, express that irony, when he's always been an outcast from the perspective of his religious upbringing, de facto likely forcing him to question religion and dogma rather than blindly follow it--it seems to me like his mechanism to overcome this potential feeling of alienation was to simply re-appropriate his own faith and religiosity for it to make sense to himself. On top of that, while making a point of teaching him religion, his first preceptor was also a skeptic and libertine thinker, who may have transmitted some of that to him from an early age.
Finally, while he wasn't really prone to donate to church charity, he was much more encline to regularly donate to other groups and organizations, to fund enterprizes or simply donate to individual inhabitants of Saint-Cloud (not counting his favorites ofc) etc.; hereby also showing his lack of affiliation to the church outside of his princely responsibilities as a religious figure.
All of this, I find, makes for a very interesting and nuanced portrait of his religious side, and I vastly recommend reading Lurgo's papers about it if you can (available on her academia.edu page for free). It also gives more sense to the over-representation of atheists around him, or rather him being so at ease with him, outside the fact that of course, the reputation and practices of his house made it a much safer haven for atheists than Louis' court was.
and hey, his life-long boyfriend was a quadruple abbot, so...
At this point Dubois is no longer Philippe’s preceptor, and that means he didn’t have to sleep in his student’s bedroom anymore. We don’t know where he lived, but most likely he had a small apartment somewhere near the Palais-Royal or something (although a few years later there's a whole saga about a little house he owned... Maybe we'll get to that someday). In the following years, Dubois’ position remains ambiguous; obviously Philippe appreciates his company and wants to keep him around… But Dubois isn’t really given any important charges either.
The future regent’s love for music is well-known. He loved singing and playing instruments, but also enjoyed doing composition. We know he played the harpsichord, the flute and the viola da gamba… Here he’s playing some kind of old-timey guitar because the dumb joke wouldn’t leave my head, but it’s not completely impossible that he knew how to play that too: while Liselotte never had any serious musical training, we know she occasionally played the guitar!
La VF est ici!
À ce point-ci, comme Philippe de Chartres est assez vieux, Dubois n’est plus son précepteur. Et donc celui-ci n’a plus à dormir dans la chambre de son ancien élève. On ne sait pas trop où il vivait, mais vraisemblablement il devait avoir une petite chambre quelque part, sans doute pas très loin du Palais-Royal (quoique. il y aura aussi toute une saga concernant une petite maison qui viendra plus tard. On en parlera peut-être un de ces jours...). Pendant les années qui suivront, son rôle auprès du prince demeurera un peu flou: Philippe apprécie clairement sa compagnie et souhaite le garder à ses côtés, mais il faudra bien longtemps avant que lui soit offerte la moindre charge!
L’amour du futur Régent pour la musique ne le quittera jamais. On sait qu’il jouait de la viole de gambe, du clavin et de la flûte, et qu’il savait très bien chanter! Bon, ici pour la blague il joue d’un genre de guitare, mais comme sa mère Liselotte, elle, savait en jouer un peu, on peut supposer qu’il avait peut-être appris aussi…
A continuation of my comic about Philippe's high heels, which you can find here! Next pages below the cut! (Ainsi, comme d'habitude, de la version française, sous la coupure donc !)
This isn't based on any historical anecdote, me and Zennie just thought it'd be funny if Chev happened to want to buy very high heels as well just to mess with Phil, except, well... he definitely doesn't have the balance to pull it off :P
(also, in my head, this is pre-relationship, so they're good friends but not there yet, which is why Phil is so flustered by the proximity lol)
FR
Comme je le disais pour la version anglaise, ceci n'est pas basé sur une véritable anecdote, mais simplement le produit d'une discussion avec zennie sur le fait que Chev aurait bien été du genre à s'acheter des talons très hauts juste pour ennuyer Phil, mais qu'il n'aurait pas vraiment eu l'adresse nécessaire pour les assumer :P
(dans ma tête on est dans du pré-relation à ce stade, donc ils sont très amis mais il ne s'est encore rien passé, ce qui explique l'émoi de Phil quant à leur proximité physique)
Philippe really did leave a positive impression to everyone who had to deal with him during this campaign, but truth be told it’s only during the later ones that he really got to dive into the action (including the cavalry charge depicted here!). For now, while his zeal and desire to please were evident, he had to be kept away from anything important, as ordered by Louis XIV… who wanted his own son to play the bigger role, of course.
The two gifts offered to Dubois here are real, but it’s entirely possible that he got them for a different reason! In 1691, Philippe de Chartres’ marriage with one of Louis’ daughters is still fairly recent, and while we don’t have any hard proof of it, it’s very, very, very plausible that Dubois was asked to convince the king’s nephew to agree to it. The Saint-Honoré canonry briefly mentioned here won’t remain on the list of Dubois’ honors for very long though, for reasons that will later be explained…
S’il est vrai que Philippe fit des débuts prometteurs et se montra très zélé durant cette campagne, en vérité c’est plutôt durant les suivantes qu’il put vraiment montrer de quoi il était capable (et mena la charge avec la cavalerie!). Pour celle-ci, on dût surtout tenir à l’oeil, puisqu’il avait été demandé par Louis XIV que son neveu soit gardé loin de l’action… Le beau rôle devait, après tout, être pour le duc du Maine.
Les deux récompenses offertes à Dubois ici lui ont bel et bien été données, mais à vrai dire c’est tout à fait possible qu’il les ait plutôt reçues pour une tout autre raison! En 1691, le mariage de Philippe de Chartres est encore très récent, et si on n’a pas de preuve définitive que Dubois ait reçu l’ordre de convaincre son élève de s’y plier, c’est très, très, très probable. Le canonicat de Saint-Honoré dont il est question ici ne restera toutefois pas sur la liste des honneurs accordés à Dubois bien longtemps, pour des raisons dont on reparlera…
A little comic based on an anecdote by my dearly hated Cosnac, LOL. More below the cut, ainsi que la version française, comme d'hab.
This one is based on Cosnac's amazing, incredible memoirs, that are a delightful read not only for the awesome anecdotes it gives us, and also because of how unhinged and delusional this guy was. For the reminder, Cosnac was Philippe's almoner during the 1660's, but was far more interested in the crazy intrigues of his court than he was in his religious duties. By his own admission, he initially didn't want to be in Philippe's service because he thought he was a useless jackass (paraphrasing but you know) until he heard about Philippe throwing a bowl of mash at Louis which prompted him to think that "there was still some hope (=virility) in him" and thus accept the job.
Later on, not only did he attribute most of the credit of the few of Philippe's actions he approved to himself, he also kept calling him a dumbass and criticizing him while, sorry for the crude language, gargling on Louis' balls and making shit up to stir the pot of the Orleans Wars even harder. Amazing guy, really, LOL (but funny as hell).
This specific anecdote, from page 305-306-307 of Cosnac's memoirs, relates how he tried to instill some "good" in Philippe and teach him how to properly submit to the king and come back in his good graces (after some fight they had), only for Philippe to interrupt him between 10 to 12 times and even leave several times over the course of 30 minutes "for inane bullshit" according to Cosnac.
I said all these things in much of a hurry, as Monsieur left about ten to twelve times in about half an hour to give way to inane stupidities. I was still keeping hopes that he would think about his conduct more seriously than he had in the past. What convinced me is that, by the end of each conversation, he asked me to deepen the subject with him again next time. I also thought that I should write all of these to him, so he could better commit them to memory.
I'm gonna paraphrase the next part, as Cosnac is pointlessly verbose, but it is funny:
I had the letter sent to him by M. Meril, elaborating on how he was to behave with the king's ministers. I wrote as a very zealous, very devoted subject. [...] He later replied (something along the lines of) "I was very happy to receive your letter, I know they come from a good place and out of appreciation for me and my reputation. It aligns with my intentions, and should it not, I know it still comes from a good place. I would tell you about my progress [in his relationship with the king] but then I should say nothing at all, as I have committed to laying low for a while, as I said I would. I give you my deepest thanks and compliments, I genuinely appreciate you, and hope you can continue appreciating me and my honor."
Then, I regretted sending him this letter and speaking so freely, because who knows to what purpose it could have been used [against him] for? But as it was a done deed, I decided to turn this into a merit and told Monsieur I was happy he kept my letter. He told me that he found the letters really useful and didn't suspect it had any ulterior motive. I told him that I never thought this letter could ever desserve me.
Cosnac you crazy bastard
Anyway--of course, the funny part in all this, aside from Cosnac constantly flip-flopping, is Philippe's disastrous attention span, at least when he isn't really interested in the subject. Given said subject, it's not very surprising (and I'm sorry but, well deserved, Cosnac). Unfortunately, that anecdote, among many others, has been used by many historians to once again discredit Philippe's intellect and seriousness (or lackthereof). Lately, I've been really baffled to witness how comfortable many of these historians and writers were with openly shitting on Philippe's alleged lousiness and alleged stupidity, a lot of which stems from misogyny as, according to them, whatever is of Philippe's interest is "futile and uninteresting", as opposed to latin philosophy and politics. It makes me want to try and highlight all the ways Philippe manages to shine in what interests him, as I have admittedly focused on his siller sides a lot since I find them very endearing.
Anyway, that's it for today, suck it Cosnac I still hate your ass even if you make me laugh 🫵🫵🫵🫵
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