WEBVTT - The Pretty Prime Minister (with Jennifer Wright) 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:04.640 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim 0:00:04.680 --> 0:00:07.920 and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:20.279 Hello, this is Danish Schwartz and this is a very 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:23.320 special episode of Noble Blood because I am joined by 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:27.880 my very good friend, the incredibly talented, truly brilliant writer 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:31.880 Jennifer Wright. Dana, I am so happy to be here. Jennifer, 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:35.360 you are just an incredible history writer. You've written a 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:38.640 few of my favorite books, get Well Soon, which is 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:40.040 a book about. 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:42.920 History's worst plagues and the heroes that fought. 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:45.640 Really, I was going to say a very topical pre 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:46.720 pandemic subject. 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:52.559 Yeah, in retrospect, I should not have leaked the Wuhan virus. Yeah, 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:55.440 it was too much viral marketing. Yeah, in my part, I. 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:57.320 Was going to say, but it did probably boost book sales. 0:00:57.400 --> 0:00:57.600 Yeah. 0:00:57.640 --> 0:00:59.520 Also, just to be clear that that was a joke. 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:01.600 That's not how anyhing actually happened. 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:04.320 Jennifer is a little human being who is not involved 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:07.960 in anything COVID related. You wrote the book It ended Badly, 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:11.039 thirteen of the worst historical breakups. Yes, one of my 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:14.640 favorite books because it covers one of my favorite historical couples. 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:16.080 Caroline Lamb and Lord Byron. 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:18.360 I was going to say, I remember years ago talking 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:21.640 about Carolyn Lamb chopping off for pubic hair and sending 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:23.640 it to Lord Byron to try to win him back. 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.959 It's that move. What I relate to so profoundly is 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:29.840 when you're so in love with someone who clearly is 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:32.760 not interested, but you're like, you keep having to up 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:34.000 the stakes to get their attention. 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:35.720 You've got to go for broke. You've got to chop 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:37.560 off all your pubic hair and send it to them 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:38.000 in the mail. 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:40.200 It's the equivalent. If I could show you some of 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:43.280 the emails I wrote to like a boy when I 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:46.280 was like twenty two, stopped responding to my text Like, 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:48.480 some of the emails that I wrote are just like 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:50.440 I never want to see them again. I hope that 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:52.160 they are the equivalent of pubic hair. Oh. 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.680 I wrote like multi thousand word emails to people i'd 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:58.360 just broken up with, just trying to like break down 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.960 every part of our relationship but also get back together. 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:03.920 Why did I think that would work? 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:07.000 Yeah? That's always the secret is they want a well 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:07.840 written email. 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:10.639 That's what they want, A really long email. 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:14.880 That is the equivalent. But I'm so excited. Your most 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:19.200 recent book is Madame Marstelle, and it's a story that, 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.160 to be totally honest, I had no idea what it 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:24.160 was who she was until I started talking. 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.040 Well, that is because I think she has been very 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:32.079 deliberately written out of history. She was a very successful 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:37.200 female abortionist operating in mid nineteenth century America, and when 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:40.880 she started performing abortions in the eighteen thirties, it was 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:43.880 still classified as a misdemeanor if you performed the abortion 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:46.520 before the fourth or fifth month, and by the end 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:49.519 of Madame Marstelle's life in the eighteen seventies, the Comstock 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:56.079 Acted passed and the Comstock Act forbade sending anything obscene 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:59.440 through the mail, which included say, written descriptions of birth 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:04.080 control abortion, to say nothing of actually sending birth control 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:08.440 medication through the mail. And sadly, that is something we 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:11.440 are seeing revive now today. 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:15.400 Another sadly topical book. You're like the history, Cassandra at 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:15.880 this point. 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:17.880 Yeah, I swear the next one is just going to 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:20.280 be about parties or something like. It's gonna be about 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:22.040 how everybody is nice and gets along. 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:25.520 It would be so nice, can you I know, we're 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:27.720 going to move on to the subject of the main 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:31.240 subject of the podcast, which is a fascinating figure of 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:35.120 the French Versailles culture. But can you tell us a 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:37.920 little bit about Madame Morstelle, even though she's not a noble. 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:41.200 You can tell everything about Madam Moistelle. There is indeed 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:44.920 a whole book about it. But you know, Madamistelle began 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:49.400 her life in written She was born antrou in eighteen 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:53.600 twelve in Painswick, England, and she came from a very large, 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:57.000 very poor family. She was a mate of all work 0:03:57.080 --> 0:03:59.040 for a butcher, which meant that she would have been 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:03.240 doing pretty back breaking work, doing things like fetching any 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:06.120 water from the well and dumping out the chamber pots, 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:08.600 and beating all the rugs to make sure they were clean, 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:12.360 and cleaning out the fireplaces. And that was also a 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:16.000 time where if you were a maid, you were open 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:19.920 to a horrifying number of sexual advances from any man 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:25.000 in the house. Jonathan Swift Actuley wrote advice to maids, 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:28.080 saying that you have to beware of the eldest son, 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:30.120 because you're going to get nothing from him but a 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:32.960 big belly in the clap at least you can get 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:34.160 money from the master. 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:34.520 Of the house. 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:37.880 So I think that may have been one of the 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:41.359 reasons that Madame Ristelle always worked on a sliding scale 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:45.400 when she charged people later, and why she tended to 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:50.479 charge servants less. And in when she was sixteen, she 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:53.800 married a taylor. The tailor was unfortunately an alcoholic. 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:55.600 Is this where she got the name Restelle? 0:04:55.839 --> 0:05:00.440 Oh? No, the tailor was unfortunately an alcoholic, and she 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:03.000 took over his work very quickly. And this is a 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:05.320 running trend in made Moistelle's life. She kind of meets 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:07.520 a man, sees how he does his job, and then 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:10.520 figures out how to do it better. Ye, but she 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:14.560 convinced him to move with their newborn daughter to America 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:17.640 so they could become rich. Then she gets to the 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:22.000 Lower East Side, her alcoholic husband dies almost immediately and 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.159 she is now a single mother on the Lower East 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:26.920 Side of New York. If you've seen Gangs of New York, 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:29.840 that's not accurate, but keep that picture in your mind. 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:31.159 That's where Madame Ristelle is. 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.160 And I remember a detail in your book that seamstresses 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:36.040 was like they were literally a down diamond. 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:39.720 Yes, yes, it made me understand I've read so many 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:43.400 novels from this period where the main character will be like, 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:45.839 I have thousands of dollars of debts to my dressmaker, 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:48.400 and I've always thought them, Why is your dressmaker still 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:51.280 making you dresses? She should have cut you off ages ago. 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:54.000 It's because there are so many of them that you 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:57.360 have to operate on even the hope of payment. Yeah. 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:00.599 So, yeah, it's a time. 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:05.240 A prostitution is everywhere because working in a factory means 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.520 working sixteen hour days, and if you have a child, 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:12.080 then you don't have enough money for childcare. The factory 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:14.960 doesn't pay enough. Women would drug their children with laud 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:17.119 of them so they would sleep while they were at work. 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:22.520 In one especially horrifying Dickensian note that I found, there 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:25.279 was a woman who was a single mother worked in 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:27.520 a factory, had a four year old and a newborn, 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:29.760 and she told the four year old to take care 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:32.600 of the newborn while she was at work. And when 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.240 she came back, the four year old and if you 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:37.760 have a toddler, you can imagine how proudly the four 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:40.200 year old would say this, said that the baby had 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:43.279 been crying but they had stopped him, and the mother 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:46.200 praised him, and then she went to see the baby 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:48.800 and he had stopped him by beating him over the 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:53.080 head with a hammer until he died. Oh so, so 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:56.080 this was a terrible dime to be a single mother 0:06:56.279 --> 0:07:00.960 or have an unplanned pregnancy of any kind. And Madame 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:04.760 Restelle really might have fallen into this situation very easily. 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:07.720 But she lived down the street from a pill compounder 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:13.320 named doctor Evans, and doctor Evans provided all manner of pills. 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.440 There was no oversight. You could smash any herbs together 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:20.760 and say this will cure your headaches, or this it 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:22.679 might give it a shop. What have you got to lose? 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:28.280 And he probably also provided birth control pills. But Madame 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:32.640 Rostelle started making what must have been incredibly effective birth 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:36.680 control pills. She was using ingredients like tansy oil and 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:41.880 turpentine and mixing them together. And those are unbelievably dangerous ingredients. 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:45.160 You should never ever use. Some although paint center in 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:48.960 your like paint centner. Yes, unfortunately, they still do get used. 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:52.680 In the nineteen seventies, doctor said turpentine is a harrowing 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:54.560 motif into it yourself abortions. 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:58.000 So these are things that will work. 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:01.720 They will just also kill their female patient. And Madame 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:05.560 Roselle is pretty remarkable in that she mixed them together 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:09.600 without killing people's. People in the neighborhood started saying that 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:12.760 they had had five abortions this way and they were 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:16.560 coming back for more. She could also perform surgical abortions 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:20.360 with a sharpened piece of whalebone. Now if her hand slipped, 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:22.600 she could punch her a woman's bladder and kill her. 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:26.040 Another amazing thing is that, despite a lot of people 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.640 trying very hard to prove that Madame Ristelle was killing people, 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:32.800 there are no records that indicate that she ever killed 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:37.720 a patient. Oh, so Restelle must have had a very 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:41.800 steady hand and a real genius for mixing ingredients. Around 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:44.720 this time she met her second husband, Charles Lowman, who 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:47.280 was a printer, and he was really familiar with the 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:52.880 bombastic personalities that advertised in newspapers, and together they came 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:56.560 up with this persona of Madame Rostelle, and they talked 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:59.680 about how she was and her grandmother was a famous 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:02.920 mid wife, and she had been training in Paris and 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:06.360 bringing her skills to America. And this was a time 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:10.719 when medical innovation was happening in Paris. In a way 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:13.840 it wasn't in America. So this was a great persona 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:16.440 to craft. It's glamorous, man, it's glamorous. 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:18.480 If anyone came and said that her grandma was a 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:19.680 famous parish and his. 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:22.959 Wife, exactly, it sounds sexy too. People thought that French 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:27.199 people were more sexually sophisticated in addition to having better 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:31.960 medical skills. So that's how this persona of Madame Riistelle 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:32.400 was born. 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:36.360 And someone not rich people, doctor Muter. This is my 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:40.440 my anatomy research shelf down there. Doctor Mutter, who was 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:43.240 has If you've been to Philadelphia, there's a Muter music. 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:45.319 I'm dying to go. I mean too, we should go 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:49.319 together to go girls. He trained for in French surgeries. 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:51.520 That's where all the surgery was was. 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:55.200 Exactly, Yes, go to France. One of the reasons that 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:58.960 they drove female midwives out of business in America is 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:02.600 because they started trying to open up schools for doctors 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:06.120 in America. But they were terrible. You couldn't walk the 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.800 hospitals the way you could in France. So they would 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:13.439 rent out a lecture hall, charge young men like fifty 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:16.400 dollars and in six months if you showed up to 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:18.480 most of the classes where you would never see an 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:21.079 actual patient. Usually there was just like a skeleton or 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:24.880 a box of bones. At the end, you got your diploma. 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:25.120 Sure. 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:29.400 And as a result, it's estimated that in the mid 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:33.000 eighteen hundreds there were suddenly four times as many doctors 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:36.400 as pounds needed, and they had to find a new 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:39.360 source of income, and that is one of the reasons 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:43.120 that they started pushing in on midwives trade. 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.280 Wow, And I do love I think like the interest 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:52.000 of like when midwiffery became obcentrics and like more male 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:55.360 dominated doctors is fascinating to me because I love the 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:59.760 story of how Princess Charlotte of Wales in the early 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:03.320 eighteen hundreds, who's a character in Immortality, but she in 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:07.360 real life was pregnant and it was very fashionable to 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:10.040 have a male doctor. At this time. 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:13.240 They were worse, you know, they were there right there, died. 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:17.079 There was an average of one us in two hundred 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:19.280 was a female midwife in this period, and it was 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:21.880 ten to twenty times higher if you had a male doctor. 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:22.880 They were so much worse. 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:24.960 They were so much worse, and she died and it 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:27.640 was just considered fashionable to have a male doctor because 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:29.680 she was a princess. She had to do it. Yep. 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:31.480 And she died and it was bad yep. 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:34.880 And the American Medical Society made such a big deal 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:40.760 out of how midwives are barbaric relics, and of course 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:44.679 midwives hands were actually clean, whereas doctors were digging them 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:47.000 into a corpse and then pulling them out and then 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:48.920 sticking them into a woman's birth canal. 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:51.400 Yeah, they would treat an infected abscess and then be 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:53.240 like perfect, but inside of it, oh my gosh, the 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:55.360 one that killed me the most. I'm sorry. 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:57.720 I know we have to talk about nobility because this 0:11:57.800 --> 0:11:58.480 is noble blood. 0:11:58.559 --> 0:11:58.839 Please. 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:03.880 But after Ignat Similfies, oh God bless him, God may 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:08.640 he rest in peace. But after Ignacemolies suggested that maybe 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:11.440 the reason so many women are dying are because doctors 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:14.080 need to wash their hands. And by the way he 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:16.520 tested this, he found out that it worked. He could 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:19.640 bring the death rate for female patients down on par 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:20.120 with mid. 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:25.160 Talk and Charles Miggs replied. 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:30.120 That this was absurd because quote unquote, doctors are gentlemen, 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:32.320 and gentlemen have clean hands. 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:37.000 It's the ego on them. I'm so furious about it. 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:40.479 I'm furious two hundred years later about. 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:42.480 How many women had unnecessary death. 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:47.520 Yes, yeah, well, speaking of one day for bird control 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:48.840 in America, you got. 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:53.040 Luckily that it's not something we need to deal with anymore. Yeah. 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:55.960 But if we're talking about women in positions of power 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.040 that I think sometimes people think are anachronistic, like women 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:02.199 didn't have any power or influence in the seventeen hundreds. 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:05.160 One of my favorite figures, and I think a figure 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:07.000 that you love is Madame de Pompadour. 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:10.760 I am so happy to talk about her. No one 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:14.079 as the pretty prime Minister at the Court of Versailles. 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:17.199 So for someone who has no idea who she is 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:20.320 outside perhaps of a single Doctor Who episode, there. 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:22.080 Is a Doctor Who episode, really good one. It's the 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:22.760 only one I've seen. 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:25.240 It's a good one. Yeah, it's nice. Yeah, it's sweet. 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:26.520 I don't like the robots. 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:30.480 I like where it's just about Madame Pompadour. That is 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:33.240 also kind of my I I've watched a little bit 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:35.600 more Doctor Who. I've fallen off a little bit. I 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:39.600 like when it's like historical characters and fine, I like. 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:41.959 When they meet Vincent Bengo. Yeah, I like it if 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:45.200 it was just some people meeting Vincent, I love. 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:48.400 I love when they just meet historical figures too. I 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:50.360 don't need a distant planet. No, I don't. 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:54.960 I sorry. I know people love it. It's a good show. 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:57.200 I get it. I know it's very special to people. 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:00.679 Yeah, but there's a wonderful Madame de Pompadoor episode. But 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:03.640 for people who maybe have only seen that episode or nothing, 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:05.680 who was the pretty frid Minister? 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:10.520 The pretty friend minister was Louis the fifteenth Mistress, and 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:13.880 she was one of the most famous mistresses of this 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:17.559 era because she was the mistress at Versailles for about 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:18.280 twenty years. 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.480 When you say mistress you mean the official position, I. 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:23.320 Mean the official mistress. 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:27.920 Yes, for context, in case you're less familiar. Mistress in 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:31.560 this case doesn't just mean, you know, was having a 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:35.680 sexual relationship with a king. Mistress was a court position. 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:37.760 Mistress was a court position, and it was a very 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:43.320 important court position. The queen was really just there to 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:48.400 provide children. Louis the fifteenth had a very lovely wife, 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:52.720 Queen Marie Lesinka. She produced children, but she was also 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:56.520 very religious. She was very retiring. She did gamble, but 0:14:56.600 --> 0:15:00.360 she played a game but nobody liked so she had 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:03.200 a hard time getting people to play her very old 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:04.400 fashioned gambling game. 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:06.800 Ian doesn't like to play scrabble with me because I 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:07.480 always beat him. 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:10.400 Oh hurtful. I know Daniel and I to play scrabble 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:12.840 every night. That sounds so nice. Do we watch a movie, 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:13.720 we play scrabble? 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:16.080 I love I would love that. 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:17.560 It's a lovely way to end the desk. 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.080 Ian has taken to refusing to play scrabble with me 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:21.840 because I'll be like a hundred points up and have 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:22.880 done with this. 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:25.000 Well, I mean, you've got to know all the two 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:28.840 letters got in za key gi like those the winners. 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:31.280 Guys, Well that's it. I play for strategy. He plays 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:34.040 for showman QT. Yeah yeah, work that in. 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:40.560 But anyhow, Queen Marie out there trying to get people 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:44.040 to play Lettlers of Katan with her every night. And uh, 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:46.880 Louis the fifteen that had a bit of a more 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:50.960 bomb vivent personality. He was prone to boredom, but he 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:54.520 was also somebody who really enjoyed consistency. I think something 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:58.640 that you see with Louis the Fifteenth is that Madame 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:01.280 Pompadour essentially became his wife. 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:03.120 I mean, the mistress for twenty years and then like 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:05.840 friend the king that years after. 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:08.280 Fascinating to me, So can we begin with the beginning 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:12.760 of her life? Of course, Madame Pompadour, and it's something 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:16.760 that differed her a lot from other royal mistresses was 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:18.200 born to the bourgeois. 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:20.520 Class, so she was wealthy but not noble. 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:23.160 She was wealthy but not noble. Her father was a 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:28.680 financier who had been exiled for fraud. Her mother had 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:32.960 a sparkling personality, which, reading between the lines on Saint 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:36.600 Nancy Medford's biography of Madame Pompadour, meant that her mother 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:39.800 was sleeping around a lot. A lot of people felt 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:45.280 that they could not receive Madame Pompadour's mother, but everybody 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:49.840 loved Madame Pompadour pretty much from birth. Her mother's special 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:55.360 friend helped finance her education. She spent two years with nuns, 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.560 who said that she charmed everyone at the abbey. She 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:02.640 was just such a delight. And then she returned home 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:05.320 and she was educated in all the arts of the day, 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:10.119 in art, in dancing, in playing music. She was a 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:16.280 successful harpist, so she was this delightful person and everybody 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.320 was also really nice to her, which is one of 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:23.240 the reasons that I really enjoyed reading her story, because 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:26.800 usually you read stories about these people and it will 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:28.920 be a story about like she was first raped by 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.959 her stepfather at the age of seven. After that, her 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:36.120 mother died of smallpox, and Mina Popadour is just hanging 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:41.399 out with her somewhat licentious, extended family, plenty of money, 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:44.600 playing the harp. Everybody loves her, Everybody says she's great. 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:47.920 Her mother's special friend like doats on her and talks 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:52.440 about how wonderful she is. And when she was about ten, 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:55.320 her mother took her to visit a fortune teller and 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:57.440 the fortune teller told her that she was not going 0:17:57.480 --> 0:17:59.919 to be queen, but almost queen. 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:02.760 She freaking nailed it. She nailed it. 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:06.320 Medame Pompadour sent her money much later life for nailing 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:09.879 it so well, and everyone in her family started calling 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:16.399 her Raynette, which means little Queen, and Madame Pompadour fully 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:17.240 fully believed this. 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:19.400 Reynette is a great name for a cat. 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.800 It is, yeah, she fully believed that, all right, I 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:24.439 am going to be the royal mistress, we are going 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:26.240 to do it, and her family was kind of on 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:28.240 board with that. It kind of seemed like, yeah, sure, 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:30.320 you're going to be an astronaut, do it. Why not 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:35.119 do it now. At the time, bourgeois women weren't royal mistresses. 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:40.040 The king would select somebody from court, and court had 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:45.680 become unbelievably important under the reign of Louis fourteen Louis 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:50.440 the fourteenth, because nobles had been feuding so much and 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:55.320 for so long that Louis fourteenth Louis the fourteenth really 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:57.800 figured out, all right, you keep them all at court, 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:00.399 you give them an less round of plays, sure, and 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.560 you gamify every aspect of their lives. There was a 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:06.439 special ballot court for women who had a good cook. 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:12.159 So I guarantee you if there were like that many 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.960 little things I could win on as somebody who thinks 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:19.879 of themselves as only mildly competitive, I would need to 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:22.480 have the best cook. It would become like a dominating 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:26.000 thought that I had on a day to day basis. 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:30.320 So everybody was gathered at court and it was an 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:35.679 incredibly ritualized society. It was a society where you know, 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:40.840 every tiny move could be interpreted the wrong way. And 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:42.840 it was really thought that if you just grew up 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:47.280 in wealthy Parussian society, you could never understand the rules 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:48.119 of this world. 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:50.320 But of Madame. 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:55.080 Pompadour, you know, married a very nice, wealthy man, her 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:58.000 mother's I don't want to say stepfather, I keep calling 0:19:58.080 --> 0:19:58.880 him a special friend. 0:19:59.240 --> 0:19:59.480 Friend. 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:04.480 Her mother's special friend helped arrange the marriage, and it 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:08.800 was a young man who had not wanted to marry. 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:12.280 He definitely didn't like the idea of marrying this woman 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:15.960 who had kind of a vaguely scandalous family, and supposedly 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:18.679 the first day he met her, he fell completely in 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:21.639 love with her. And this was actually really hard for 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:25.040 Madame Pompadour, because she made it clear to him that 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:26.879 she was going to leave him when she got an 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.800 opportunity to sleep with the king. And she wrote about 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:35.159 how actually it's very hard to be the beloved in 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:38.960 a relationship with somebody that you are not in love with. 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:42.880 Because and I think that's interesting. We don't we hear 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:46.000 a lot about the pain of unrequited love, but we 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:48.920 don't hear about the kind of day to day discomfort 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:53.760 of being the object of unrequited love, especially when you 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:55.800 are in a marriage with that person. 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:59.320 Very sweet that she let him know up friends. 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:03.000 I think he thought she was joking. I think he 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:05.880 did not think that this was ever actually. 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:07.560 Going to happen. He's like, okay, sweetheart. 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:10.000 Yeah, of course, yes, when you meet an astronaut. Yes, 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:13.840 it was like I am okay house with George Clooney. 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:15.359