Omissions & Changes
In a life that spanned four action packed decades, there was a lot about Pompadour that couldn’t be included in one book. My focus, and the focus of this trilogy, is on Jeanne's private life - on those moments that, as surely as battles and treaties, make history but are largely ignored by it, and often get relegated to the “fluff pile”.
Some of the omissions in The Rivals of Versailles, in roughly chronological order:
- Jeanne's father did return to France and was a figure in her life. I already had Norman as the father / father figure so didn't introduce him, but apparently they were quite close. He never went to Court and died shortly after his granddaughter Alexandrine's death, mostly of grief.
- Jeanne's brother Abel was an important figure in her life, but he never really came alive for me and didn't get a lot of time in the book. Interestingly, he later married one of the bastard children of Louis XV, so became a sort of son-in-law (though never acknowledged). He features briefly in the third book in the trilogy.
- Before the birth of Alexandrine, Jeanne had a son who died as an infant.
- The Comte d'Argenson, who features quite heavily in the book, had a brother, the Marquis d'Argenson, also a minister. He was exiled by Pompadour in one of her first political coups.
- Jeanne had many more houses than I gave her, and had more of a role in the development of French artistry and culture than I think I was able to provide her.
- There were a LOT of "little mistresses" that couldn't even get a mention, as well as a lot more illegitimate children. See the complete (mind-boggling) list here.
- A couple of political strands got rather short shrift in the book, including scheming to place the Prince de Conti on the throne of Poland, and a whole strand around Jansenism and the right to deliver last rites, which was one of the most important religious and political developments of the 1750s, but one which is very alien to us from our modern and mostly agnostic point of view.
- 1752 was a Jubilee Year - a special year, called by the church, to receive blessing and pardon from God and remission of sins. This was important because it was a period of heightened religious feeling, and there was a lot of concern (or hope, depending on which side you were on) that Louis would confess and banish Jeanne. It's a concept familiar to Catholics and in fact we are in the middle of a Jubilee Year right now (2016).
- Apparently Elisabeth and the king had a moment (one night when he was very drunk)! Try as I did, I could never find a way to work that one in.
Changes
I made several little changes for the flow of the story. For example, in reality Minister Orry was dismissed in 1745; in the book I have him being dismissed in 1747, giving Jeanne time to settle in at Versailles and start flexing her political powers more gradually.
It was Thomas Carlyle who called Madame de Pompadour a “high-rouged unfortunate female, of whom it is not proper to speak without necessity,” not Frederick of Prussia as I have in the book. But Frederick really did call one of his greyhounds after her, and also called her Cotillion II (which I have yet to discover the meaning of).
The major change that I made in the story was around the dismissal of Morphise. According to the only version circulating, it was the Maréchale (Comtesse) d'Estrées who tried to incite the young girl to demand the dismissal of the Pompadour, not Elisabeth as in Rivals. The only possible candidate I could find for this woman was Adélaïde Félicité de Brûlart de Sillery, who married the Comte d'Estrées in 1744 - he was promoted to the rank of Maréchal in 1757. This woman was the daughter of Louis Philogene, the Marquis de Puysieux, one of Pompadour's closest allies and an important minister (and also the old lover of Louise in The Sisters of Versailles). It doesn't make sense that someone so closely allied to the Pompadour cause would try what she did, and in addition her husband was given command of the King's armies at the beginning of the Seven Years' War - a position it he wouldn't have obtained had his wife been in such bad disgrace with Pompadour only a few years earlier.
According to the Memoires of Madame du Hausset (which seem **fairly** reliable, though she does have the uncanny knack, common among memoirists, of ALWAYS being at the center of whatever important action is going on!), Elisabeth was banished after Jeanne caught her reading some letters the king had left for Jeanne. Rather than introduce an unknown (and possibly apocryphal) Countess to urge Morphise to banish the Pompadour, I instead gave Elisabeth that role. Since she'd already tried to get Rosalie to displace Jeanne, it seemed very in character! The timing was pretty close, too - according to Hausset, Elisabeth was banished in 1755, while Morphise left in November 1754.
Some of the omissions in The Rivals of Versailles, in roughly chronological order:
- Jeanne's father did return to France and was a figure in her life. I already had Norman as the father / father figure so didn't introduce him, but apparently they were quite close. He never went to Court and died shortly after his granddaughter Alexandrine's death, mostly of grief.
- Jeanne's brother Abel was an important figure in her life, but he never really came alive for me and didn't get a lot of time in the book. Interestingly, he later married one of the bastard children of Louis XV, so became a sort of son-in-law (though never acknowledged). He features briefly in the third book in the trilogy.
- Before the birth of Alexandrine, Jeanne had a son who died as an infant.
- The Comte d'Argenson, who features quite heavily in the book, had a brother, the Marquis d'Argenson, also a minister. He was exiled by Pompadour in one of her first political coups.
- Jeanne had many more houses than I gave her, and had more of a role in the development of French artistry and culture than I think I was able to provide her.
- There were a LOT of "little mistresses" that couldn't even get a mention, as well as a lot more illegitimate children. See the complete (mind-boggling) list here.
- A couple of political strands got rather short shrift in the book, including scheming to place the Prince de Conti on the throne of Poland, and a whole strand around Jansenism and the right to deliver last rites, which was one of the most important religious and political developments of the 1750s, but one which is very alien to us from our modern and mostly agnostic point of view.
- 1752 was a Jubilee Year - a special year, called by the church, to receive blessing and pardon from God and remission of sins. This was important because it was a period of heightened religious feeling, and there was a lot of concern (or hope, depending on which side you were on) that Louis would confess and banish Jeanne. It's a concept familiar to Catholics and in fact we are in the middle of a Jubilee Year right now (2016).
- Apparently Elisabeth and the king had a moment (one night when he was very drunk)! Try as I did, I could never find a way to work that one in.
Changes
I made several little changes for the flow of the story. For example, in reality Minister Orry was dismissed in 1745; in the book I have him being dismissed in 1747, giving Jeanne time to settle in at Versailles and start flexing her political powers more gradually.
It was Thomas Carlyle who called Madame de Pompadour a “high-rouged unfortunate female, of whom it is not proper to speak without necessity,” not Frederick of Prussia as I have in the book. But Frederick really did call one of his greyhounds after her, and also called her Cotillion II (which I have yet to discover the meaning of).
The major change that I made in the story was around the dismissal of Morphise. According to the only version circulating, it was the Maréchale (Comtesse) d'Estrées who tried to incite the young girl to demand the dismissal of the Pompadour, not Elisabeth as in Rivals. The only possible candidate I could find for this woman was Adélaïde Félicité de Brûlart de Sillery, who married the Comte d'Estrées in 1744 - he was promoted to the rank of Maréchal in 1757. This woman was the daughter of Louis Philogene, the Marquis de Puysieux, one of Pompadour's closest allies and an important minister (and also the old lover of Louise in The Sisters of Versailles). It doesn't make sense that someone so closely allied to the Pompadour cause would try what she did, and in addition her husband was given command of the King's armies at the beginning of the Seven Years' War - a position it he wouldn't have obtained had his wife been in such bad disgrace with Pompadour only a few years earlier.
According to the Memoires of Madame du Hausset (which seem **fairly** reliable, though she does have the uncanny knack, common among memoirists, of ALWAYS being at the center of whatever important action is going on!), Elisabeth was banished after Jeanne caught her reading some letters the king had left for Jeanne. Rather than introduce an unknown (and possibly apocryphal) Countess to urge Morphise to banish the Pompadour, I instead gave Elisabeth that role. Since she'd already tried to get Rosalie to displace Jeanne, it seemed very in character! The timing was pretty close, too - according to Hausset, Elisabeth was banished in 1755, while Morphise left in November 1754.