For the King

Five copies, no less! Check out this wonderful site, which invites you to frenchify your life (always a good idea, needless to say.) For the giveaway rules, see here.

Best of luck!

Sir William Hamilton, the British Ambassador to Naples, came to me and begged that my first portrait in this town should be that of the splendid woman he presented to me. This was Madame Hart, who soon after became Lady Hamilton, and who was famous for her beauty… I then painted Madame Hart as a bacchante reclining by the edge of the sea, holding a goblet in her hand. Her beautiful face had much animation… she had a great quantity of fine chestnut hair, sufficient to cover her entirely, and thus, as a bacchante with flying hair, she was admirable to behold.

Vigee-Lebrun: Lady Hamilton as Ariadne

The life of Lady Hamilton is a romance. Her maiden name was Emma Lyon. Her mother, it is said, was a poor servant, and there is some disagreement as to her birthplace. At the age of thirteen she entered the service of an honest townsman of Hawarden as a nurse, but, tired of the dull life she led, and believing she could obtain a more agreeable situation in London, she betook herself thither. The Prince of Wales told me that he had seen her at that time in wooden shoes at the stall of a fruit vendor, and that, although she was very poorly clad, her pretty face attracted attention.

A shopkeeper took her into his service, but she soon left him to become housemaid under a lady of decent family – a very respectable person. In her house she acquired a taste for novels, and then for the play. She studied the gestures and vocal inflections of the actors, and rendered them with remarkable facility. These talents, neither of which pleased her mistress in the very least, were the cause of her dismissal. It was then that, having heard of a tavern where painters were in the habit of meeting, she conceived the idea of going there to look for employment. Her beauty was then at its height.

She was rescued from this pitfall by a strange chance. Doctor Graham took her to exhibit her at his house, covered with a light veil, as the goddess Hygeia [the goddess of health]. A number of curious people and amateurs went to see her, and the painters were especially delighted. Some time after this exhibition, a painter secured her as a model; he made her pose in a thousand graceful attitudes, which he reproduced on canvas. She now perfected herself in this new sort of talent which made her famous. Nothing, indeed, was more remarkable than the ease Lady Hamilton acquired in spontaneously giving her features an expression of sorrow or of joy, and of posing marvelously to represent different people. Her eyes a-kindle, her hair flying, she showed you a bewitching bacchante; then, all of a sudden, her face expressed grief, and you saw a magnificent repentant Magdalen. The day her husband presented her to me, she insisted on my seeing her in a pose. I was delighted, but she was dressed in everyday clothes, which gave me a shock. I had gowns made for her such as I wore in order to paint in comfort, and which consisted of a kind of loose tunic. She also took some shawls to drape herself with, which she understood very well, and then was ready to render enough different positions and expressions to fill a whole picture gallery. There is, in fact, a collection drawn by Frederic Reimberg, which has been engraved.

Vigee-Lebrun: Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante

To return to the romance of Emma Lyon. It was while she was with the painter I have mentioned that Lord Greville fell so desperately in love with her that he intended to marry her, when he suddenly lost his official place and was ruined. He at once left for Naples in the hope of obtaining help from his Uncle Hamilton, and took Emma with him so that she might plead his cause. The uncle, indeed, consented to pay all his nephew’s debts, but also decided to marry Emma Lyon in spite of his family’s remonstrances. Lady Hamilton became as great a lady as can be imagined. It is asserted that the Queen of Naples was on an intimate footing with her. Certain it is that the Queen saw her often – politically, might perhaps be said. Lady Hamilton, being a most indiscreet woman, betrayed a number of little diplomatic secrets to the Queen, of which she made use to the advantage of her country.

Lady Hamilton was not at all clever, though she was extremely supercilious and disdainful, so much so that these two defects were conspicuous in all her conversation. But she also possessed considerable craftiness, of which she made use in order to bring about her marriage. She lacked style, and dressed very badly when it was a question of everyday attire.

Vigee-Lebrun: Lady Hamilton as the Persian Sibyl

I remember that when I did my first picture of her, as a sibyl, she was living at Caserta, whither I went every day, desiring to progress quickly with the picture. The Duchesse de Fleury and the Princesse Joseph Monaco were present at the third sitting, which was the last. I had wound a scarf round her head in the shape of a turban, one end hanging down in graceful folds. This head-dress so beautified her that the ladies declared she looked ravishing. Her husband having invited us all to dinner, she went to her apartment to change, and when she came back to meet us in the drawing-room, her new costume, which was a very ordinary one indeed, had so altered her to her disadvantage that the two ladies had all the difficulty in the world in recognising her.

When I went to London in 1802 Lady Hamilton had just lost her husband. I left a card for her, and she soon came to see me, wearing deep mourning, with a dense black veil surrounding her, and she had had her splendid hair cut off to follow the new “Titus” fashion. I found this Andromache enormous, for she had become terribly fat. She said that she was very much to be pitied, that in her husband she had lost a friend and a father, and that she would never be consoled. I confess that her grief made little impression upon me, since it seemed to me that she was playing a part. I was evidently not mistaken, because a few minutes later, having noticed some music lying on my piano, she took up a lively tune and began to sing it.

As is well known, Lord Nelson had been in love with her at Naples; she had maintained a very tender correspondence with him. When I went to return her visit one morning, I found her radiant with joy, and besides she had put a rose in her hair, like Nina. I could not help asking her what the rose signified. “It is because I have just received a letter from Lord Nelson,” she answered.

The Duc de Bern and the Duc de Bourbon, having heard of her poses, very much desired to witness a spectacle which she had never been willing to offer in London. I requested her to give me an evening for the two princes, and she consented. I also invited some other French people, who I knew would be anxious to see this sight.

On the day appointed I placed in the middle of my drawing-room a very large frame, with a screen on either side of it. I had had a strong limelight prepared and disposed so that it could not be seen, but which would light up Lady Hamilton as though she were a picture. All the invited guests having arrived, Lady Hamilton assumed various attitudes in this frame in a truly admirable way. She had brought a little girl with her, who might have been seven or eight years old, and who resembled her strikingly. One group they made together reminded me of Poussin’s “Rape of the Sabines.” She changed from grief to joy and from joy to terror so rapidly and effectively that we were all enchanted. As I kept her for supper, the Duc de Bourbon, who sat next to me at table, called my attention to the quantity of port wine she drank. I am sure she must have been used to it, for she was not tipsy after two or three bottles.

Long after leaving London, in 1815, I heard that Lady Hamilton had ended her days at Calais, dying there neglected and forsaken in the most awful poverty.

A&E Instant History Expert: Ther French Revolution

A&E Home Entertainment has just released a new line of six titles – HISTORY INSTANT EXPERT, offering “on-the-spot knowledge to students and lifelong learners on a wide variety of topics. Each DVD has bonus features – quizzes, study guides, activities and more.” Here is more information on each title, provided by A&E:

FRENCH REVOLUTION: The story of THE FRENCH REVOLUTION is an epic tale of political rebellion and economic upheaval. From the grandeur of Versailles and the marriage of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, to the disintegration of the revolution nearly a decade later, THE FRENCH REVOLUTION details this pivotal period in European history.

BEN FRANKLIN: Narrated in a straightforward, conversational tone, BEN FRANKLIN features in-depth interviews with renowned biographers and historians, as well as on-location reenactments shot in high-definition, for a truly remarkable walk in this founding father’s footsteps.

BEOWULF: The legend of Beowulf, the Viking world’s most famous warrior, is the ultimate tale of courage. Pit against thirsty invaders, barbaric monsters, and a fire-breathing dragon, BEOWULF emerged as Norse mythology’s greatest hero.

THE MAYFLOWER: The epic saga of the pilgrims and their journey to and colonization of the New World is one of the fundamental narratives of our nation. THE MAYFLOWER explores the true story of the pilgrims and how the colony’s saga continued in the decades after their fateful voyage.

EGYPT: Through cutting-edge digital graphics and interviews with noted Egyptologists, EGYPT explores the civilization’s awe-inspiring engineering accomplishments, chronicling the pharaohs and feats that helped build the world’s first superpower.

THE STORY OF OIL: An energy source unrivaled in efficiency and power, oil is the driving force behind today’s industries and economies. THE STORY OF OIL traces the story of oil through the centuries, from its birth deep in the dinosaur-inhabited past to its ascendancy as an indispensable ingredient of modern life.

Now A&E is kindly offering one of the readers of Versailles and more the entire series. Two of its installments, the French Revolution and Ben Franklin, should be of direct interest to 18th century enthusiasts.

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Rubens: The Assumption of the Virgin

Today if the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. I would like to share two musical renditions of the great marial prayer, the Ave Maria.

By Schubert, sung by Barbara Bonney:

And by Gounod, inspired by Bach, and sung here by Cecilia Bartoli:

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

Or in English:

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

And in French:

Je vous salue, Marie, pleine de grâce,
Le Seigneur est avec vous.
Vous êtes bénie entre toutes les femmes et Jésus,
Le fruit de vos entrailles, est béni.
Sainte Marie, Mère de Dieu,
Priez pour nous pauvres pécheurs,
Maintenant et à l’heure de notre mort.
Amen.

Happy Assumption!

But air guns predate Sherlock Holmes by more than a century. They were invented in the 1780s by an Italian engineer, Girandoni. The same size as the regular muskets of the time, they used a completely different technology.

Girandoni air gun

They were revolutionary weapons, powerful, noiseless, and smokeless, for the bullets were propelled not by the explosion of gunpowder, as in a musket, but by a removable compressed-air reservoir that gave the rifles their distinctive club-shaped butts. An automatic magazine, loaded from the breech, could shoot twenty bullets a minute.

They were extremely expensive, rather fragile, and not widely used by regular armies, except for the Austrians. However, they were certainly available—for the right amount of money—to anyone determined enough to acquire them. The Lewis and Clark Expedition may have been equipped with one such air rifle, in addition to muskets. Air guns were also much sought after by those bent on assassinating Napoléon Bonaparte, in particular the Chouans..

Napoléon traveled accompanied by a military escort, but he did not give much thought to his personal safety. He was, for one thing, a firm believer in his own lucky star and was used to facing death at close range on the battlefield. It is also possible that he, as an artillery specialist, was unconvinced of the threat of air gun technology.

Thus he apparently never considered equipping his guards with air guns, though he was well aware of the fact that his most determined enemies were purchasing these weapons. It turned out he was right: Air guns were never actually used in any assassination attempt, though they were purchased for that purpose.

I was so fascinated by these rifles that I could not resist giving them a part in the plot of For the King, both as a testimony to the ingenuity of 18th century inventors and as a modest tribute to Conan Doyle.

Thanks to Beth Fish Reads for hosting this guest post! Follow the link for a giveaway…

The Tower of the Temple in 1795

For the King relates the circumstances of the Rue Nicaise conspiracy, a failed attempt to assassinate Napoléon Bonaparte on Christmas Eve 1800. Indeed Napoléon had a surfeit of political enemies. They fell into two opposite camps: the Chouans were Royalists and wanted to restore King Louis XVIII to the throne, while the Jacobins yearned to return the ideals of liberty and equality promoted by the Revolution.

Their ultimate goals couldn’t have been further apart, but their immediate aim was the same: they wanted to rid France of Napoléon Bonaparte. Thus, after the Rue Nicaise attack, it was not obvious at all who, of those two factions, were the culprits.

Many Royalists and Jacobins were jailed together at the Tower of the Temple, named after its first owners, the Templars. Within its grim walls had been jailed the royal family: Louis XVI until his execution on January 21, 1793, Marie-Antoinette until her transfer to La Conciergerie in August of the same year. Madame Elisabeth, Louis XVI’s devoted sister, had stayed behind until her turn had come to face the guillotine. There too had poor little Louis XVII died in 1795. His elder sister Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte had stayed there until she was exchanged against other prisoners and freed a few months later.

In 1800, all royal prisoners were long gone, but the medieval Tower of the Temple, with its pointed turrets, remained the political jail of choice for all prominent opponents to Bonaparte’s regime. Many of them were held there indefinitely without trial. Some only left the Temple the face the summary proceedings of a Military Commission and, later the same night, the guns of a firing squad.

In FOR THE KING, I have my protagonist’s father, Old Miquel, an imprudently outspoken former Jacobin, jailed at the Temple after his arrest. I describe the camaraderie between him and the Royalist prisoners. Old Miquel is a fictional character, but I didn’t make this up.

I based it upon the Memoirs of the Marquis de La Maisonfort, a Royalist secret agent who spent much time at the Temple himself. Unlikely as it may sound, the shared loathing of the Royalists and Jacobins for Bonaparte brought them together at the Temple.

The tower, convenient as it was as a jail in the heart of Paris, still made Napoléon uneasy. It had become a focal point of Royalist sentiment, a reminder of the tragic ends of the royal family, a place of pilgrimage. The very existence of the ancient building was a political threat to the regime.

In 1808 Napoléon ordered its demolition. Only the outlines of the turrets remain now, next to the City Hall of the 3^rd Arrondissement of Paris.

Outline of the Tower of the Temple in Paris

My thanks go to She Read A Book for hosting this post!

Photograph of the outline of the Tower of the Temple by Parisette via Wikimedia Commons.

For the King: audio book cover

I received my copies of the audio book, and couldn’t resist listening to the voice of Steven Crossley reading my novel. I will not lie to you: it is a strange feeling to hear my own words read back to me! And what about Roch and his father speaking in British-accented tones?

But within minutes the voice drew me in, and I caught myself listening to it with bated breath, as though I did not know what what was coming…

Man wearing cadenettes

Some characters in For the King, including the would-be assassin Pierre de Saint-Régent, wear cadenettes. What were they?

They consisted in two side braids worn in front of the ears, while the rest of the hair was gathered in two more braids behind the ears. Those were tied on the nape to form a queue. Odd male fashions? In fact there was far more to them that mere looks.

The cadenettes, often reinforced with small wooden rods at the center of the braids, protected the cheeks and back of the neck in close combat. They were sturdy enough to ward off the blade of a saber, and could mean the difference between life and death, or at least avoid a disfiguring injury.

Thus they were quite popular with soldiers, or those who wished to give themselves a martial allure. Saint-Régent, described by certain witnesses as wearing cadenettes in the weeks that led to the assassination attempt on Napoléon, may have been used to wearing them during his years as a Chouan insurgent. He later cut them off, probably to change his appearance, because at the time of his trial, he is shown as wearing his hair cropped short, in the fashion popular with civilians at the time (and to this day.)

Cadenettes have remained associated with the soldiers of Napoléon’s armies. If you visit the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, you will notice that the frieze that goes around the monument depicts many of them wearing their hair in this manner. All fashions, regardless of time and place, are in some way odd and arbitrary, but this particular one happens to make more sense than most…

Thanks to Jenn’s Bookshelves for hosting this guest post!

Jean Cottereau, known as Jean Chouan

First the name comes from one of the early leaders of the insurgency, Jean Cottereau, nicknamed Jean Chouan (left). Chouan was a colorful character, already in trouble with the law years before the French Revolution for, among other misdeeds, killing a tax collector. Then the Revolution brought many changes.

The Constitution Civile du Clergé required priests and nuns to pledge allegiance to the new Constitution of the kingdom, a step many considered a violation of their religious vows. Then King Louis XVI was guillotined on the 21st of January 1793. The war against the Austrians and their Prussian allies was off to a disastrous start. Soon the French armies were outnumbered, requiring the legislative body that ruled the country to decree a draft. That was the real trigger for the insurgency.

Peasants from the western provinces, already outraged by the persecution of their priests and the execution of their King downright refused to go die in faraway lands for a Republic they loathed. Fight they would, but against it, and from home.

The insurrection turned into a full-blown civil war. Soon the Republic had to fight not only the foreign war, but the Chouannerie in the West. The Chouans called themselves the Catholic and Royal Army. Atrocities were committed aplenty by both sides, but civilian populations bore the brunt of the hostilities. Entire villages were razed, churches burned to the ground, tens of thousands became refugees in their own country. The war raged on for years, with much British gold financing the Chouans, until Bonaparte put an end to the Revolution by the bloodless coup of the 18th Brumaire in 1799.

Bonaparte presented himself as the bearer of national reconciliation after the bloodshed of the Revolution. He offered the Chouans a full amnesty if they would lay down their arms, and he proclaimed the West pacified. Prominent leaders of the Catholic and Royal Army rallied to the new regime, but its most charismatic leader, George Cadoudal, scornfully declined Bonaparte’s offers.

Some Chouans went on fighting, engaging Bonaparte’s troops in skirmishes, attacking stagecoaches to steal the hated Republic’s gold, and also rob travelers. In 1800, at the time of FOR THE KING, the West was “pacified” in name only. Towards the fall of 1800, hundreds of Chouans converged on Paris, with the design of assassinating Bonaparte (read more at Devourer of Books)

Chouans in ambush

Mark Twain in 1871

I have mixed feelings towards Mark Twain. This is, after all, the man who dared write of Jane Austen, “Every time I read Pride and Prejudice, I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone.” Shocking.

Yes, I know, now some will tell us that he didn’t really mean it, that he was a “closet Janeite”… And why did he bother to reread Pride and Prejudice if every time it awakened his tomb-robbing instincts?

It remains that Mark Twain, whatever one thinks of his literary taste, was a well-traveled man and a remarkable journalist. And he visited France. There too his judgment was provincial, not to say puritanical, abrupt and dismissive: “France has neither winter nor summer nor morals–apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.”

Gimme a break, Mr. Clemens! France has winter AND summer AND morals. And it’s not a “fine” country. It is maddening and beautiful. Maddeningly beautiful, you could say.

But at Versailles, Twain changed his tune. Suddenly he was awed, stupefied, mesmerized. Listen to him:

VERSAILLES! It is wonderfully beautiful! You gaze and stare and try to understand that it is real, that it is on the earth, that it is not the Garden of Eden–but your brain grows giddy, stupefied by the world of beauty around you, and you half believe you are the dupe of an exquisite dream.”

Read more at History Hoydens,where fellow writer Leslie Carroll has a great post on Twain’s impressions of Versailles. And thanks to Susan Holloway Scott for bringing this to my attention!

Versailles, panoramic view