wikkidpissah
Footballguy
The next-to-last Bourbon King of France in consecutive line was not a nice man. Louis the XV was as grandiose as the man he succeeded, his great-grandfather, the Sun King Louis Quatorze, without anywhere near the achievements. He prided in ruinous extravagance, to the point of literally (but legally) hijacking French citizens into slavery to improve his estates, spending as much on pleasure as his predecessor did on grandeur and proudly envisioning the revolution his regal excesses might cause with the famously insouciant phrase, "Apres moi, le deluge (After me, the flood)".
Perhaps his greatest prodigality was sexual. The advance of years did not lessen his appetite the way it had his adventurism and he eventually became paranoid of contracting syphilis. His acknowledged mistress, Madame de Pompadour, came up with the answer for dealing with both.
I'm sure many of you have seen scenes in movies of aristocrats standing in a field where game is pointed their way, huntsman handing loaded to guns to their nobles so they can almost literally shoot fish in a barrel. Well, there was such a meadow on the grounds of Versailles called the parc-aux-cerfs (stag park). It is where the last Bourbon king, Louis the XVI, spent Bastille Day (his diary for July 14.1779 noted only his shooting yield) and included an elegantly appointed hunting lodge. Mme Pompadour considered this the perfect spot to set up a seraglio for her beloved (points for sense of humor). Over the years, dozens if not hundreds of virgins were installed there to ensure a ready supply of STD-free poking vessels, who were discarded as soon as the monarch tired of them (with handsome pensions only if they carried the royal seed to otherwise-unacknowledged term).
I know about this through research on one of my myriad unfinished writing projects which tells the story of the French Revolution and Napoleon's reign through the eyes of a courtesan who entertained everyone from Louie XV to de Sade to Marat to Talleyrand to the Little Corporal etc etc. I have learned that the best way to research an olden time is to read its contemporary letters. It's not only a fresh & informative way to understand an age, but a lot more fun.
The letter gossip on parc-aux-cerfs is outrageous. Details of the procurement & usage are almost inconceivable, to the point that it was speculated that, towards the end, there was a valet for the royal bidness and the girls would be lined up, the King would be installed and rocked back & forth til he tired of a particular pudenda, at which point he would be moved down the line to another menu item.
Alas, even such measures could not protect His Majesty. He was bedded with a fever in his 65th year and soonafter, his skin began to blister with postules of smallpox. You see, virgins protected one from syphilis but teenagers were also the most prodigious carriers of the Disease of the Age and it is speculated that the King contracted the disease which covered him black with painful sores for days before he died from one of the parc-aux-cerfs girls. Have you ever heard of a more ironic demise for a monarch?!
Perhaps his greatest prodigality was sexual. The advance of years did not lessen his appetite the way it had his adventurism and he eventually became paranoid of contracting syphilis. His acknowledged mistress, Madame de Pompadour, came up with the answer for dealing with both.
I'm sure many of you have seen scenes in movies of aristocrats standing in a field where game is pointed their way, huntsman handing loaded to guns to their nobles so they can almost literally shoot fish in a barrel. Well, there was such a meadow on the grounds of Versailles called the parc-aux-cerfs (stag park). It is where the last Bourbon king, Louis the XVI, spent Bastille Day (his diary for July 14.1779 noted only his shooting yield) and included an elegantly appointed hunting lodge. Mme Pompadour considered this the perfect spot to set up a seraglio for her beloved (points for sense of humor). Over the years, dozens if not hundreds of virgins were installed there to ensure a ready supply of STD-free poking vessels, who were discarded as soon as the monarch tired of them (with handsome pensions only if they carried the royal seed to otherwise-unacknowledged term).
I know about this through research on one of my myriad unfinished writing projects which tells the story of the French Revolution and Napoleon's reign through the eyes of a courtesan who entertained everyone from Louie XV to de Sade to Marat to Talleyrand to the Little Corporal etc etc. I have learned that the best way to research an olden time is to read its contemporary letters. It's not only a fresh & informative way to understand an age, but a lot more fun.
The letter gossip on parc-aux-cerfs is outrageous. Details of the procurement & usage are almost inconceivable, to the point that it was speculated that, towards the end, there was a valet for the royal bidness and the girls would be lined up, the King would be installed and rocked back & forth til he tired of a particular pudenda, at which point he would be moved down the line to another menu item.
Alas, even such measures could not protect His Majesty. He was bedded with a fever in his 65th year and soonafter, his skin began to blister with postules of smallpox. You see, virgins protected one from syphilis but teenagers were also the most prodigious carriers of the Disease of the Age and it is speculated that the King contracted the disease which covered him black with painful sores for days before he died from one of the parc-aux-cerfs girls. Have you ever heard of a more ironic demise for a monarch?!
