18th century Fan Flirting verses Chat Abbreviations... FYA (For your amusement)

You probably have heard about the latest phenomenon in online chatting - Chatroulette. Basically, it is speed dating on the internet where you click from one stranger to the next. All you need is a webcam and an internet connection. No age limits. No restrictions. Just type the usual cryptic chat abbreviations and move to the next person. Ugh. Where is the romance?

(switching to my patronizing old lady voice now...)
Teenagers today may think that they are the first generation to use a coded language to chat with their peers, but they don't have anything on 18th century fan flirting.

The following are the fan signals and their text messaging equivalents:

Hush...we might be overheard:

Text abbreviation: MOS (Mother over shoulder)
Fan abbreviation: Fan closed, place tip to lips

Keep our secret

Text abbreviation: BM&Y (Between me and you)

Fan abbreviation: Cover left ear with closed fan

If you mistrust the person:
Text abbreviation: TILIS (Tell it like it is)
Fan abbreviation: Fan closed, place tip to nose.

If someone’s conversation is not stimulating:
Text abbreviation: BOOMS (Bored out of my skull)
Fan abbreviation: Yawn behind a closed fan

If you want him to get lost:
Text abbreviation: BIH! (Burn in hell) or BOB (Back off buddy)
Fan abbreviation: Lower an open fan and point it at the ground

If you don't believe his compliments
Text abbreviation: GIAR (Give it a rest)
Fan abbreviation: Place your chin on the tip of the fan

To let him down gently:
Text abbreviation: NFM (Not for me)
Fan abbreviation: Open your fan and make a brushing movement like you are swatting an annoying fly

If you are interested:
Text abbreviation: BG (Big grin) or G (Giggle) or more to the point -  URH (You are hot)
Fan abbreviation: Open your fan and use it to coquettishly hide your eyes

If you are really interested
Text abbreviation: ILU, ILY (I love you)
Fan abbreviation: Place the tip of your fan to your heart

You are interested enough for a tryst
Text abbreviation: BTYCL? (Bootycall)
Fan abbreviation: Open fan slightly over heart and flutter it to indicate the time of your rendez-vous

Not only could a girl use her fan to communicate quick emotions, but have whole conversations in a sort of fan Morse code. Charles Francis Bandini's "fanology" taught the subtle art of fan flirting and much like today's text abbreviations, fanology promised to "Improve the Friendship and set forth a plan for ladies to chit chat and hold the tongue."

Below is the teaching device for "Fanology" or "The Ladies Conversation Fan."

Here is how it worked:
To chat with your buddies, you would place your fan in the correct letter position using a 2 combination number. Letters were first broken up into five different fan positions similiar to how the keys on some cell phones are grouped with 3 letters on one key (ok...I have a really old phone).

Position 1 was A-E.
Position 2 was F-K.
Position 3 was L- P.
Position 4 was Q-U.
Position 5 was V-Z
"J" was eliminated.

The second number would indicate the letter postion from within that group. So for example, if you wanted to spell L * O * V * E, you would put your fan in position 3 and 1 to indicate "L". Then you would put your fan in position 3 and postion 4 to sign "O". And so on. This would work wonders to flirt with your man across a crowded room....unless he was nearsighted, in which case all that incessant flapping would just cool your ardor.*

This fan language was not something to take lightly. If a girl didn’t know the correct fan signals then she could make some serious social blunders. Such was the case when Baroness Oberkirch leaned over to show Marie Antoinette her bracelet and accidentally opened her fan (gasp!...a fan was never to be opened in the presence of the queen in Versailles unless used as a tray.) But at least with fan flirting, there was not a Tiger Woods digital record of your social faux pas. FRT! (For Real Though)

Unfortunately, 18th century fan flirting was probably not as quixotic as the movies and bodice ripper novels portray it. Fans also allowed women to conceal their rotting teeth behind fluttering pictorials or at least keep a safe distance from her beau without knocking him out with her bad breath. Still, you have to love the delicate details in these fans. You can purchase this 18th century tortoise shell fan for $1,600. Isn't it beautiful? sigh. A girl can dream.

Now that video chatting has become so popular, maybe teens could at least skip the text abbreviations and get out their fans? No?? Feel free to share these fan flirting tips with an angst ridden teen. Don’t expect them to be impressed.

*By the 19th century, the Victorians had completely rewrote the fan language etiquette so you better have the most recent code book or you might tell the object of your desire to beat it when you really meant you make my heart beat.

Sources and Further Reading:
Wikipedia has more chat abbreviations here.
Images from V&A Collections
Picard, Liza. Dr. Johnson's London : coffee-houses and climbing boys, medicine, toothpaste, and gin, poverty and press-gangs, freakshows and female education, New York : St. Martin's Press, 2001.
Stabile, Susan. Memory's Daughters: The Material Culture of Remembrance in Eighteenth-Century America, Cornell University Press, 2004

Wear a wig? I would rather keep my head

Congratulations to Kary...Winner of the Royal Affairs wigged out giveaway. Only two people got the question right. So here was my very scientific process for choosing a winner - I asked my husband to pick a number between 1 and 2. He picked 2. voila. my winner. The winner just needs to email me your mailing address - info@CarlynBeccia.com

Answer: All wore wigs...except George Washington

1. Marguerite de Valois was born with the Medici dark hair in an era when women went to great lengths to dye their hair blond. Marguerite’s blond wig became so vital to her beauty regime that she only employed blond page boys. The boys would grow their hair long and then cut their hair to be donated to the queen’s coiffure.

2. Towards the end of her reign, Elizabeth I wore wigs to disguise her thinning hair. She owned more than 80 wigs including some blond wigs.

3. Mary Queen of Scots wore an auburn wig. If you got this one wrong, don’t feel bad. Most people living in the 16th century did not know she wore a wig until her executioner was left holding on to her wig instead of her head.

4. Louis XIII wore wigs, called perruques, in his early twenties to cover up his prematurely thinning hair. Out of respect, his courtiers followed suit and the age of wig wearing aristocrats became the norm.

5. In Louis XIV’s early reign he was very proud of his thick, dark mane. Unfortunately, he began to lose his hair later in his reign. He employed 40 wig makers at the court of Versailles during the golden age of wig wearing.

6. Charles II was blessed with great rocker hair and proudly displayed his long, dark locks in the big headed styles of the time. But later when his hair began to thin, he also succumbed to the wig wearing cognoscenti. Charles was even rumored to have had a wig made from the pubic hair of his mistresses.

7. Marie Antoinette preferred her towering hair dos to be created with her own hair. Unfortunately, she began to lose her hair after child birth and was forced to substitute false hair.

8. George III started his reign au natural with his own hair pulled back in a queue (Shown above. Tied back in a pony tail with a ribbon). The wig makers feared that the king’s choice to wear his own locks would put them out of business if others were to copy the king’s example. In response to this fear, they petitioned the king to insist all gentlemen be properly wigged. The petition was viewed as so ludicrous that the guild of wooden leg makers petitioned the king to insist everyone wear a wooden leg.

Later in life, George sported a brown wig that became known as the ‘brown George.’


9. It was probably unfair of me to include George Washington. First, no one's hair should do that naturally (although he did powder it). Second, he certainly was not royalty....which is why he would have never worn a wig. He vociferously supported the ideals of the French Revolution, and preferring to keep his head, was very careful not to copy the styles of headless kings and queens in an age when Americans wanted nothing to do with a monarchy. So like George III, he also wore his own hair in a queue. Poor George probably had enough problems trying to keep his fake teeth in his mouth without the hassles of wearing a wig.

Wigs/false hair are definitely back in vogue today. I am pretty certain that half of Hollywood is wearing fake hair and its only a matter of time before we see kids asking for hair extensions for Christmas. (Don't I sound like one of those crotchety, old bitties that doesn't understand fashion trends? Don't answer that.)

Everyone have a Happy Thanksgiving and wear those hair pieces with pride!

Sources and Further Reading:
Images from the Lewis Walpole Library
Sherrow, Victoria. The Encyclopedia of Hair: A Cultural History,Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 2006.
Bryer, Robin. The history of hair : fashion and fantasy down the ages, London : Philip Wilson ; Wappinger Falls, N.Y. : Distributed in the USA and Canada by Antique Collectors' Club, 2000.
Corson, Richard. Fashions in Hair, London : P. Owen, 1980.

Let Them Eat Hair Garnishes

(I am on the countdown to my next book deadline so I am recycling a old guest post this week....)

We tend to associate the potato more with Ireland and England than we do with France and that may because the humble spud had a very rocky start with French Parisians. Although already widely accepted in England, the potato did not come to France until around 1600.(1) Still, no respectable royal would dare to eat the strange, dirty, lumpy looking spud. The potato became so feared that in 1619 it was banned from Burgundy, France because it was rumored to cause leprosy. It all made perfect sense to 16th century scholars. A potato looked like leprosy so therefore it must cause leprosy.(2)

The leprosy spud finally got an image makeover in the 18th century with the help from a potato propagandist and French chemist named Antoine-Auguste Parmentier. Parmentier threw some fabulous parties and invited the French upper class to taste his potato creations. At one of these parties, Parmentier gave Louis XVI a bouquet of potato flowers. Knowing his wife's proclivity for putting vegetables in her hair, Louis thoughtfully placed one delicate, purple sprig in Marie Antoinette's pouf. Thereafter, the potato may not have become a fashion accessory, but it did become the new, hot food delicacy among the upper class.

The potato then went on to feed the French peasants and everyone loved their queen and...lived happily ever after. Ok not exactly. Unfortunately, it took a few bread shortages, a nasty revolution, and some beheaded monarchs for the government to finally see the potato's full potential for feeding the rest of the starving country. In 1794, a year after Marie Antoinette was beheaded, the queen's beloved flowerbeds in the Tuileries were plowed over to make way for the purple blossoms that would feed a nation and become one of France's biggest exports.

Notes:

(1) Some historians have blamed the slower populations grown of France in the 18th century to their dependence of grain while other countries had the starchy potato to fall back on. In reverse to France’s grain dependency, reliance on the potato backfired in Ireland during the Great Potato Famine.

(2) This was at a time when walnuts were eaten to treat headaches because they looked like a brain and eating the brains of another animal would make you smarter.

Sources and further reading:

Langer L. William, "American Foods and Europe's Population Growth 1750-1850." Journal of Social History 8.2 (1975): 51-66.

Salaman N. Redcliffe, The History and Social Influence of the Potato, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Madame Tussaud: Lies, Fables and a Ball of wax

In last week’s post, I featured the riveting and almost unbelievable tale of Marie Tussaud and asked readers to guess if it was true. Although certainly a dramatic tale, much of what I wrote is complete rubbish. I really hope you didn't believe any of it. Let’s take a closer look at fact vs. fiction...

Royal Connections
Not a single piece of written evidence exists to show Marie ever lived at Versailles. She wasn’t even on the royal payroll. Most likely, Marie’s claimed connection to Madame Elizabeth was not a complete lie, but a tiny fib. Madame Elizabeth was known to make wax effigies of religious characters so it is very probable that she asked Marie to stop by now and then for instruction.

Marie also speaks of the court gossip, Madame Campan (shown here) as if they were best friends. Interestingly, Madame Campan never bothers to mention Marie Tussaud in her Memoirs of Marie Antoinette. This is very curious coming from someone who recorded daily life at Versailles with such detail.

Marie’s Death Mask
Many of the details of how Marie made her death masks may be complete fabrication. Marie relates how she was forced to take a death mask of Foulon's severed head with the angry mob standing over her. This ghoulish relic became very popular in her later exhibitions. In the memoirs of Chateaubriand, he describes how Foulon's head was pushed into his carriage and he was forced to look upon the grisly remains. His exact words were, "an eye in one head had been pushed from its socket and was dangling on the corpse's face, the pike sticking through the gaping mouth, the teeth clenched on the iron.' (1) How did Marie make a mask directly from De Launay’s face if it was so poorly mutilated? A mask taken from the scene that Chateaubriand describes would have probably looked more like a smashed grapefruit than a severed head.

Then there is the story of the Princesse de Lamballe’s murder (shown on the right) –a well-documented event with many first hand accounts. They also basically repeat the same grisly details – tortured and murdered, head on a pike, paraded in front of Marie Antoinette etc. etc. I have yet to find a single eye-witness that mentions Marie ever being there. Kate Bertridge poses many of these questions in her fascinating book - why did the angry mob want a wax effigy of the Princess as a memento? Why not take a lock of hair? Hmmmm suspicious.

Art Inspires Life or Life inspires Art
The ghastly realistic heads modeled from Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI, Robespierre, and Madame Lambelle can be found in Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors in London today (shown below). In Marie’s memoirs she claims that she would take her bag of sculpting tools and tip toe into Madeline Cemetery to pick through the rolling heads. During her work, members of the National Assembly stood over her as she was forced to make wax molds from the decapitated victims that she once knew personally. The image of Marie forced into her profession, a victim of the revolution herself, certainly casts her in a sympathetic light. Unfortunately, the truth may not be as tragic.


At the time, an unconfirmed rumor existed that the executioner Charles-Henri Sanson was proffering Revolutionary heads for Curtis and Marie for a fee. Supposedly, Curtis would make wax molds from the purchased heads and then return them to trunks in the Madeline cemetery. It wouldn’t be the only example of Sanson profiting from revolutionary relics. One of Sanson’s ingenious marketing ventures was to sell the fat from the guillotined corpses as a cure for rheumatic pains. After the death of King Louis XVI, he also auctioned off the dead king’s hat and had a profitable business in buttons and locks of royal hair. Selling these items were the perks of being an executioner and were well in the rights of the executioner, but the king’s body was an entirely different story.

Authorities were so careful about destroying the king’s remains that they used a double dose of quicklime to decompose it. One layer of quick lime would have really got the job done, but The National Assembly wanted to make sure that relics of the king were not made. They even ordered all of the king’s possessions from the Temple to be burned. So how did Marie creep into Madeline Cemetery to make a mold of the king’s head when authorities were taking every means possible to destroy any memory of the monarch? Was Marie really a shrewd businesswoman who profited from an illegal racket of decapitated heads? We will never know the truth, but the fact that authorities were so adamant about destroying royal remains is a curious contradiction to Marie’s version of events.(2)

The Guillotine that killed Marie Antoinette
The guillotine located in the Chambers of Horrors today claims that it is the original knife that lopped off Marie Antoinette’s head, but these claims cannot be confirmed. The original catalog listing describes this relic as, ‘purchased by Madame Tussaud herself, together with the lunette, which held the victim’s head in position and the chopper which the executioner kept at hand for use should the guillotine knife fail. The executioner, Sanson vouched for the authenticity of these articles and gave them to his grandson.’(3)

Executions were a family business to the Sanson family and Charles-Henri Sanson passed down the trade to his son, Clement-Henri. After the revolution, it was obviously a lot harder to find work as an executioner and Clement-Henri fell into debt. He tried to remedy his solvency by opening up a bawdy Chamber of Horrors in the Sanson home. Unfortunately, the home-based chambers of horrors just didn't have the same ghoulish appeal as the real thing. For one, Sanson tried using the famous guillotine to decapitate unfortunate sheep. Most people were not amused. He then tried to sell the "national razor," but was unsuccessful finding a buyer. The guillotine and symbol of radical bloodshed soon disappeared. 4 Clement-Henri did sell the original plans used to make the guillotine to the Tussauds and from those plans a replica was made. Most likely, the original guillotine was destroyed by the Justice Ministry after the Revolutionary fires cooled. Keeping the guillotine would have been tantamount to Americans preserving slave ships. I find it hard to believe that it wouldn't have been destroyed.

Pals with Josephine and Napoleon
Marie claims that she was in La Forte Prison at the same time as Josephine, but no record exists of Josephine being imprisoned there. (She was imprisoned in Carmes prison.) In fact, no records exists of Marie ever being imprisoned there either. Marie even goes so far as to say that her friendship with Josephine secured her an intriguing assignment making a life mask from Napoleon Bonaparte. The wax model of Napoleon became the most popular exhibit amongst the British who viewed Napoleon as more myth than man. This story seems absurd when we remember that Napoleon was a man who could never sit still. He dictated to his artists the pose, the props, even the frame of the painting. He left nothing to chance. Jacque Louis David begged him to pose for a formal sitting and Napoleon always refused. So it seems odd that he would sit for wax being poured on his face when he wouldn’t sit for a state portrait.

Napoleon certainly had a utilitarian appreciation for wax sculpture. In 1796, he purchased models from the famous wax anatomical sculptor, Felice Fontana to be used in anatomical studies for his army surgeons. In 1806, he even set up a school in Rouen to teach artists the art of wax modeling. (4) With his usual quest for knowledge, especially knowledge that would help in his military campaign, Napoleon valued wax as a teaching medium. But as art….wax held less allure for the pragmatic emperor.

More slippery than a ball of wax.
Marie’s memoirs become problematic when these incongruities are exposed. For one, if she lied about people she knew and events…what else did she lie about? Do we throw the whole memoirs out or choose to believe some of it? I will confess that I am being hard on Marie. Her memoirs do provide a first hand account into a very dramatic period in history and we must also remember that Marie’s legacy was born out of the dime museum era in entertainment. This was an age when P.T. Barnum displayed the first “Fejee Mermaid” - captured off the coast of Fejee island and Joice Heth - a women over 160 years old. A good hoax was an art and deception was part of the entertainment. In other words, audiences knew that they were being tricked and that was half the fun. Marie indulged in the same humbug as her fellow showman while blurring the line between entertainment and history. So we must take her memoirs with the proverbial grain of salt and remember that Marie Tussaud was a showman first and a historian second.


What do you think about Marie’s account of history? How much of it should we believe? And I will pose a deeper question for the more philosophically inclined – is the modern day Madame Tussauds a reflection of who we revere in society today? You certainly won’t find firefighters, police officers, teachers or even many examples of royalty drawing crowds to Madame Tussauds.

Notes:
(1) Bertridge. p. 113
(2) Pilbeam p. 62,
(3) Bertridge. p. 132.
(4) Pilbeam p. 109

Sources and Further Reading:
Tussaud, Marie. The Memoirs of Madame Tussaud, Saunders and Otley, 1838. Bertridge, Kate.
Marie Tussaud: A Life in Wax, New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2007.
Pilbeam, Pamela. Madame Tussaud and the History of Waxworks, London and New York: Hambledon & London, 2003.
Madame Tussaud and Sons' Exhibition, Biographical and Descriptive Sketches of the Distinguished Characters which Compose the Unrivalled Exhibition and Historical Gallery of Madame Tussaud and Sons ... G. Cole by W.S. Johnson, 1866
Time Magazine, Heirs of the Widows, Monday October 15, 1951
Chateaubriand, FrancÌois-ReneÌ, The memoirs of Chateaubriand, New York, NY: Knopf, 1961.

Madame Tussaud: Witness to the Revolution

When you mention the name "Madame Tussaud" most people think of the wax replicas of celebrities and politicians housed in the infamous tourist trap, Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Each sculpture’s eerie realism holds the key to their allure. Not only can you get two inches from a live model of Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie, but you can also stare rudely at their wax twin without censure. It’s this last aspect that has fascinated visitors of Madame Tussauds for over 200 years. We all have the urge to look. Yet behind the glossy complexions of wax starlets, lies a story of a woman who survived the French Revolution to become one of the most famous makers of the dead.

Marie’s story is so shocking that I have to put a parental advisory before continuing. Some of this content is of a violent nature.

Marie Tussaud was born Marie Grosholtz in 1761 in Strasbourg, France. Her mother, Anne Made, took her to work as a housekeeper in the Berne home of Dr. Philippe Curtis who was highly skilled at wax modeling. Marie called Curtis her “uncle”, but rumors of the time implied that he may have actually been her father. Whether niece or daughter, Marie certainly inherited a talent for sculpting wax and Curtis nurtured this talent. Curtis and Marie re-located to Paris in 1765 and Marie’s skill secured her a position teaching art to Louis XVI’s sister, Madame Elizabeth. It didn't take long for Marie to get an invitation to live in the splendid court of Versailles. From daughter of a humble housekeeper to instructor to the king’s sister, Marie’s star was rising.

Wax Fruit
In an age without photography, wax artists were the Papa Razzi of their day and Curtis’s Wax Salon was the leader in this new form of entertainment. Located at the heart of the burgeoning Paris entertainment district –20 Boulevard du Temple, Curtis had two sections to his exhibition. The first section contained wax models of the most glamorous Parisians. His most popular tableau by far was “Marie Antoinette and her family eating dinner”. Of course, spectators properly attired could already watch the real Marie Antoinette eat her dinner at Versailles for free, but society ladies and commoners alike chose to see Curtis’s show instead. Why? Probably because watching the real queen nervously put tiny morsels of food into her mouth was not as titillating as it seemed. Curtis’s show offered visitors something the real queen could not – a chance to stare. Just as the barker outside the exhibition promised ‘Come and see the royal family at dinner! Exactly as at Versailles,’ ¹ visitors could get all the details of a Versailles dinner without the uncomfortable feeling of invading the queen’s privacy. Visitors could even see the far more salacious display of the queen in a low cut nightgown preparing for bed. Sadly, Marie Antoinette was far more enticing as a carnival peep show than a real person and Curtis was savvy enough to realize the public’s voyeuristic desires.

Wax Criminals
The second section contained the Caverne des Grands Voleurs or what we know today as The House of Horrors. Much like today, the original show was a ghastly smattering of tortured criminals. Unlike today, The Caverne also provided one-stop shopping for citizens looking for the latest news. The Caverne was sort of like TiVo for executions. Visitors who happened to miss the latest hanging could stop by Curtis’s show to watch the executions up-close and personal with the added benefit of getting a much longer look. You can still visit the Chamber of Horrors today and even see the real guillotine that killed Marie Antoinette. 2

Wax Fashion
Most of the details of Curtis’s exhibition survive through catalogs and guide books published annually. The wax faces certainly shared the same goal of hyper realism as they do today, but the bodies were usually rougher interpretations made from wood or leather and clothed in the latest fashion. The subjects were made from both life and death. Curtis and Marie would rub oil on the face and pomade on the hair so that the plaster would not stick. Then they would stick straws in the person’s nostrils so that they could breath. (This step was skipped if they were dead). Next, they would pour the plaster of Paris over the face that would later be used as a mold for the wax. Finishing touches were added with glass for eyes, real hair and yes….even real human teeth. This process is very similar to the death masks made in the 16th century discussed in a previous post.

By far the most important detail of Curtis’s wax models was what they were wearing. Women all over France, England and neighboring countries would visit Curtis’s Salon to see Marie Antoinette’s favorite dress made by her personal stylist, Rose Bertin or the King's mistress, Madame du Barry lounging in all her finery. Just as we look at mannequins in store windows or read fashion magazines today, Parisians stopped by Curtis’s Salon to see what the fashion cognoscenti were wearing.

All Fun and Games until someone loses a head…
If it had not been for the Revolution, Marie might have lived a charmed life circulating amongst the French court and be forgotten today. Instead, her life was to take a drastic turn. On July 14, 1789, not far from the Boulevard du temple, the Bastille prison was attacked by a group of disaffected soldiers and seriously angry citizens. The initial goal was to get the Bastille’s ammunition, but like all good historical events, meaning was attached in the aftermath. The Bastille became the towering symbol of injustice that swallowed the rights of man within its gothic walls. (insert creepy organ music here). Yet to government officials, it was just an eye soar. In fact, the Bastille was scheduled for demolition before the Revolution had begun and only housed 7 confused prisoners. Citizens got a jump-start on the demolition (and a chance to vent their anger) by tearing the Bastille Fortress down brick by brick. The governor, De Launay, surrendered and was taken to Hotel de Ville where he was beaten to an unrecognizable pulp. His head was hoisted upon a pike and displayed to the mob. The gory details are captured in the above print.

Madame Tussaud’s Art Debut
Soon the crowd tired of the real head and decided that a wax head was needed to continue the revelries. De Launay’s head was brought to a shocked Marie and while she sat on the steps of her exhibition, the mob forced her to make an impression of the face. ³ Nine days after the fall of the Bastille, Curtis got two more assignments – the severed heads of Foulon and his son-in-law. Foulon had been named to replace the much loved finance minister Necker, but had the misfortune of making a badly timed comment suggesting the starving peasants, "eat hay". For this remark, the mob lopped off his head, put it on a pike and added in the extra embellishment of hay in his mouth. Things were getting ugly.

Wax CNN
The violence continued for years while Marie and Curtis recorded details of the dead in wax effigy. One of the most grotesque blood baths occurred on September 2nd, 1792 when Marie-Louise, Princess de Lamballe was attacked by an angry mob. After her death, her head was decapitated and...you guessed it.... put on a pike. The manic crowd then took her pubic hair and used it to make a mustache. Amongst the carnage the bloody head was carried to Madame Tussaud and she was forced to apply makeup to the face. The mob then took their trophy art and paraded it outside Marie Antoinette’s window. The queen fainted when she saw her friend’s mutilated face.

Curtis now had the opportunity to reinvent his business. Gone were the days of wax figures as fashion plates. Now, Curtis’s wax figures became the Revolution’s news snapshots. Wondering who was sent to the guillotine? Just stop by Curtis wax works for the latest news. And unlike print, the medium of wax was much harder to censor.

A “hands on” Worker
Marie Tussaud would go on to make death masks of Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI, Charlotte Corday, scary Robespierre (shown here), Marat and sadly her former employer – the selfless Madame Elizabeth. After an execution took place, Marie crept into Madeline Cemetery with her carpet bag of tools and set to work making her effigy of the famously dead. Whenever you think your job is tough, think what it would have been like to pick through decapitated heads in a graveyard and make molds from their faces. Then think what it would have been like to pick through decapitated heads of people that you once knew. Worst of all, Marie had no choice. It was a life full of danger because she never knew when the mob would turn on her.

Marie’s day came when she was suspected of being a royalist sympathizer and was thrown into La Forte Prison. Her hair was hacked off as she awaited her execution. Only a miracle could save her. That miracle came when Curtis pulled some strings and secured her release. Interestingly, during her stay at La Forte, Marie met a frail lady awaiting the same fate, Josephine Beahnarais who would also survive to become Empress Josephine Bonaparte. Years later Josephine would introduce Marie to Napoleon to take a wax model of the emperor. 4

Life after the Revolution
Marie’s life after the Revolution is less dramatic. She married a deadbeat speculator named Francois Tussaud in 1795. In 1802, she left the horrors of the Revolution behind her (and also her husband and youngest child), and spent the rest of her life traveling throughout England displaying her wax models. Marie Tussaud never returned to France. She died in 1850, at the age of 88. Her sons carried on her legacy by displaying her wax models and growing the enterprise that has become Madame Tussauds Wax Museum today. Many of Marie’s models can still be seen today in Madame Tussauds, London including the deaths’ heads of Robespierre, Louis XIV, Marie Antoinette, Marat in his bath and even the guillotine that killed Marie Antoinette.

Wow. What a life right? It’s a pretty unbelievable tale. Hollywood could make a movie out of it. And it must be true because you read it on the internet. It’s even written by a fairly sane person. Or wait….I think she is sane? No, she has to be sane. She writes children’s books. They don’t let insane people write children’s book.

The information in this post comes from the very pen of Marie - The Memoirs of Madame Tussaud published in 1838. So then it has to be true. Right? Stay tuned for part II to find out...

(1) Pilbeam, p 29.
(2) Or at least that is what the museum claims. Stay tuned for next post to find out if it that is complete rubbish.
(3)Pilbeam claims that this account comes from Madame Tussaud and Circus owner Philip Astley but no footnote is provided. Marie Tussaud makes no mention of De Launey’s murder in her memoirs.
(4) At least that is what Marie Tussaud claims.

Sources and Further Reading:
Tussaud, Marie. The Memoirs of Madame Tussaud, Saunders and Otley, 1838.
Bertridge, Kate. Marie Tussaud: A Life in Wax, New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2007.
Pilbeam, Pamela. Madame Tussaud and the History of Waxworkds, London and New York: Hambledon & London, 2003.
Madame Tussaud and Sons' Exhibition, Biographical and Descriptive Sketches of the Distinguished Characters which Compose the Unrivalled Exhibition and Historical Gallery of Madame Tussaud and Sons ... G. Cole by W.S. Johnson, 1866

Copernicus Look-a-likes

I have blogged in the past about misidentified portraits. Identifying portraits is a tricky business. Often art historians will look at the costume, jewelry and props surrounding the portrait. To determine dates, x-rays and carbon dating can be employed. But even after science and the most knowledgeable art historians weigh in, we often still get it wrong. Examples of famous people misidentified include the painting of Lady Jane Grey by Master John (shown here). Susan James was the first to identify this painting as Katherine Parr (The sixth wife of Henry VIII) and not the tragic nine day queen.

By far, the most useless technique in identifying portraits is sometimes our own eyes. It is not enough to say, “portrait A looks like portrait B so they must be the same person.” (I admit that I catch myself doing this sometimes too.) To prove this point, come play one of my favorite games…

The History/Celebrity Look-a-Like Game
What is History Celebrity Look-a-Like you ask? It is only the most entertaining museum game in the history of the art world. The rules are as follows:

Players: 2+

Object: To find people in portraiture that look like celebrities.

Points:
6 points for major celebrities
5 points if their dead
2 points for B- list celebrities

Play: Once a famous person is identified in a portrait, the other player has the right to “contest” the call. Contesting a call requires enlisting the help of a “judge” in the form of a stranger, museum curator or 3rd party not involved in the game. The judge must determine if the celebrity look-a-like call is a bad match. If the match is determined a bad call then the player who made the call loses 6 points. You can only contest 3 calls in one game.

Winner: The person with the most points at the end of the museum trip.

Now that you know the rules, here are some examples that I have found:

Marie Antoinette and Nicole Kidman

I have always thought Nicole Kidman was a dead ringer for Marie Antoinette. This portrait by Austrian painter, Martin van Meytens portrays Marie Antoinette at the age of 12. Nicole's forehead is not as high and she is certainly missing the Hapsburg chin, but there is something oddly Marie Antoinette-like about the Aussie star.

Louis XIV and Paul Stanley


OK I am going to date myself on this one, but Paul Stanley (from the rock band KISS) IS Louis XIV reincarnated.

Nicolaus Copernicus and James Cromwell

I found this one recently on Tudor History.org. It turns out that some sly archaeologists found the remains of Nicolaus Copernicus and used forensic facial reconstruction to make this image of the famed astronomer. I think that they really stole James Cromwell's DNA.

Martin Luther and Bob the Bachelor

Despite the fact that this one is worth only 2 points, I still think it is a good call. Most of you probably won't know who this Reality TV star is unless you watch ABC's The Bachelor. This was Bob The Bachelor (Yes they really called him that) and now I have lost all credibility by admitting that I watch The Bachelor.

Madame de Pompadour and Drew Barrymore

This one got "contested" and I think wrongly so. There is something about these two femme fatales that makes them seem like they could be related in a past life. To prove this point, I have added the Vermilion cheeks and a little grey powder to Miss Barrymore's picture.

Anne Boleyn and Audrey Hepburn


Although no one knows what Henry VIII's second wife really looked like, in this painting, she is screaming Breakfast at Tiffany's.

I will admit that some of these examples are better than others. But you can see how easy it is for two unrelated people to look similar.

What are your favorite Celebrity/History look-a-like?

How Royals Squashed a Rumor

A few weeks ago, I read an interesting article about the Science of Rumors concluding that the worst way to fight a rumor is to ignore it. It is an interesting study because it leads me to my next question: How much of a past ruler's image is affected by their ability to squash rumors?

Obviously the biggest invention to change how rumors were spread was the invention of the printing press around 1440. You may guess that religious material would be the hottest reads to roll off the presses, but that was not the case. Pamphlets and libels ridiculing the elite were the first best sellers. Instead of disseminating rumors through word of mouth, a deluge of printed material could now reach the masses. As a result, Kings and Queens were forced to make a painful decision….do they ignore the printed slander or punish the authors?

Queen of France, Catherine de Medici, best remembered for being responsible for the The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, chose to ignore polemic pamphlets. Around 1575, after the death of her son Charles IX, an especially misogynistic pamphlet was printed entitled Discours Merveilleux de la vie, actions et deportements de Catherine de Medicis Royne. In it, Catherine was blamed for the St. Bart ‘s ruckus and ordering the murders that sparked the violence. (The basic gist of it was that she was the female devil incarnate sent to seduce the people of France.) This pamphlet was more than just tabloid trash. It was distributed widely and translated into German, English and Latin. It became so popular that it was even used to later discredit future female rulers, Marie de Medici and Marie Antoinette.


What did Catherine do when she read it? She laughed herself silly. She even had the audacity to further quip that the author left so much out and remarked that if he had gone to her directly… then she could have given him much more juicy tidbits. Yet, Catherine is not remembered for her sense of humor. Her name has unjustly become synonymous with bloodshed.

During the same time period, Elizabeth I of England would not tolerate any slanderous pamphlets attacking the crown. The zealous puritan, John Stubbs wrote a book entitled, The Discoverie of a Gaping Gulf whereinto England is like to be Swallowed by another French Marriage. You can pretty much figure out from the title how Stubb’s felt about Elizabeth’s possible marriage to Catherine de Medici’s son, The Duke of Anjou. The queen was not enlightened by Stubb's work and she promptly ordered the public removal of his right hand.¹ Ouch! Today, this may seem like a draconian punishment for a little free speech, but Elizabeth (and certainly her advisers) understood the importance of royal image making. A weak monarch was a matter of appearances.

What do you think about the power of rumors? With the election just days away, how much of our voting decision is based on rumors?

(1) Elizabeth may have not found the book amusing, but Stubbs kept his sense of humor to the end. Before his hand was chopped off, he delivered one last bad pun and said, “Pray for me now my calamity is at hand.” Then after they chopped off his hand, he managed to retain his composure enough to get out a “God save the queen” before fainting.

Sources and Further Reading:
Pamphlet from The Gordon Collection.
Strage, Mark. Women of Power: The Life and Times of Catherine de Medici. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanowich, 1976.
Lancelott, Francis. The Queens of England and Their Time, D. Appleton and Co., 1858.

Royal Ghost Tales

This is the end to this terrifying Halloween month and the point where I feel obliged to take all the fun out of what could have been spooky tales. The following just might be the least scary ghost tales you have ever heard.



The Ghost of Anne Boleyn

The Scary:
Visit the Tower of London and you might spot a very famous ghost. Several eyewitnesses have reported the ghostly apparition of Henry VIII’s second wife clad in white roaming the Green Tower with her head in her hands.

And if Anne’s tower haunting is not spooky enough then take a trip over to Blickling Hall. Anne’s ghost has been spotted drawing up to the stately home in a coach pulled by four headless horses driven by a headless coachman.

The not-so-scary:
If Anne was to haunt the tower wouldn’t she have the dignity to put her head back on her shoulders? That hussy Katheryn Howard might prance around without a head….but not our lovely Anne. And I really can’t understand why Anne would choose to use a horse drawn coach considering that they didn’t exist in England at the time. If she was really going to pull up in an anachronistic vehicle…why not something a bit fancier, like a Porsche?

The Ghost of Marie Antoinette

The Scary:
You don’t have to travel all the way to Paris to see Marie Antoinette’s ghost. In a house on the coast of Maine in North Edgecombe, a phantom appears decked out in a towering headdress and a satin dress. The ghost sightings have become so common that the house is called the “Marie Antoinette House”. According to legend, there was a plot to rescue Marie Antoinette in a ship called the Sally with the intention of taking her to Maine. But alas, the rescue attempt failed and Marie Antoinette was beheaded and never forgave the French. For this reason, Marie Antoinette’s ghost has chosen to haunt the coast of Maine. If you see this ghost, you must bow deeply while backing away. If you don’t follow this royal etiquette then the ghost will have a royal tantrum and will curse like a Maine truck driver.

The not-so-scary:
Marie Antoinette was well-known for eschewing royal protocol. She got her husband to abolish the custom of dining in public daily and thought it was downright silly for her ladies-in-waiting to serve her while kneeling. And swearing would never have happened. Marie Antoinette was so polite that she apologized for accidentally stepping on her executioner’s toe. But most importantly, if any self-respecting ghost was to arrive in Maine, they would stick around for maybe one winter and then head straight for Florida to never return again.


The Ghost of Mary Queen of Scots

The Scary
Mary is believed to haunt at least 5 Scottish landmarks including Stirling, Craignethan, Borthwick and Lockleven Castle and also the Palace of the Holyrood House. Wheeeeew! When it comes to castle haunting, Mary really gets around. And if that was not enough to keep Mary’s ghost busy you can also visit the ghost of a young boy believed to be her servant at Glamis Castle.

Legend has it that there is a blood stain on the floor of Holyrood House from when Mary’s secretary David Rizzio was butchered. People have tried to clean the blood stain but it keeps…reappearing.

The Not-So Scary
It’s ironic that Mary has chosen to haunt Scottish castles considering that she was confined in English castles for the majority of her life (19 years). Why not float over to Buckingham and try to scar the queen? She is at least the namesake of the women who sentenced her to death? And why not haunt some castles in France? She certainly spent the happiest years of her life in France. Those raucous Scotsmen seem to be very possessive of Mary. With all this talk about the Scottish government digging up the poor woman’s body and shipping it back to Scotland, they can at least be satisfied that they got her ghost.

And as far as the bloodstain goes - have they tried Pine-Sol? That stuff works wonders and smells like Christmas trees.

Royal Bitches: How Dogs Ruled the Palace

Throughout history, kings and queens have often shown their dogs far greater love and affection than their spouses or children. Here are just a few examples where dogs ruled.


Dogs first, People Second
Frederick the Great showed little attraction toward women and had no children. His beloved greyhounds were his real babies. His dogs had free reign of the palace including their own gallery where they could run amuck tearing the furniture to shreds and pooping in every corner. Frederick even erected a magnificent white marble mausoleum to his greyhounds after their death with plans for his own tomb to lie between them. His blatantly, ignored wife, Elizabeth Christine, could only hope for such honors.

Queen Victoria is famous for being "amused" by her dogs, but not so much by her children. To punish her grandson, George V, for his poor table manners, Victoria commanded him to eat under the table like a dog. In an effort to emulate the canine competitor for his mother's affections, George proceeded to remove all his clothing so that he could be (like a dog) unburdened by clothing in his punishment. It doesn’t take a psychologist to discern that Victoria’s children may have felt that they came in second place. Her own emotions toward those bundles of joy were expressed when she said of her babies,

'til they have become a little human; an ugly baby is a very nasty object...and the prettiest is frightful when undressed...as long as they have their big body and little limbs and that terrible frog-like action.' ¹

Perhaps if her babies had been born with fur than her affections may have been different.

Peter the Great was also not much of a family man except when it came to his dogs. He showed little remorse after locking his sisters up in a nunnery and murdering his son, but his beloved dog, Finette was by his side every second of the day.

Dogs in the Bedroom
Dogs were often afforded luxuries that pandering courtiers could only hope for, including coveted access to the monarch’s bedchamber. Peter the Great’s miniature greyhounds slept in his bed sharing vermin and covers.

Catherine the Great’s boudoir was overrun with her husband, Peter’s 8-10 hunting dogs. She complained in her letters of the stench and the little presents they left on her pillow in the form of dog poop.

Napoleon was forced to share his bed with Josephine’s beloved pug, Fortune. During the Revolution, Fortune aided his mistress during her imprisonment in Carmes. The pugnacious pug smuggled secret messages hidden in his collar to Josephine’s children. Later, Napoleon would have to compete for Josephine’s affections with her loyal dog and complained,

‘As if a pretty woman could give up her routine, her friends, her Madame Tallien or a dinner-party at Barras’ house and the performance of a new play of Fortune, yes! Fortune! You love them all more than your husband…’ ²

Fortune put the jealous husband in his place by biting him on the leg.

Doctors in the Tudor age even prescribed putting a dog in bed with their monarch as the cure for stomach cramps. These dogs were called “comforters.” A puppy as a cure may sound like quack medicine, but you could actually view it as the forerunner of the hot water bottle. I personally would take a warm puppy over a hot water bottle or heated pad any day.


Throughout the 16th –19th century, dogs also controlled vermin in the palace and bedroom. (Cats had a hard time finding work because they were considered vermin themselves.) Louis XI took great pride in watching his mice-catching dogs working while he lay in his bed. Queen Victoria had a legendary rat catcher – a Dachshund named Dackel.

Even more important than vermin controllers and bed companions, dogs also protected their owners while they slept. In 1549, the power-hungry Thomas Seymour was planning to marry Princess Elizabeth I and kidnap his nephew, King Edward VI (son of Henry VIII). When Seymour crept into the king's bedchamber, Edward’s loyal guard dog barked furiously alerting his master of his uncle’s evil intentions. Seymour silenced the yapping dog by shooting him dead, but the guards had already been alerted in the melee. Edward might have even pardoned Seymour for his silly rouse, but killing his favorite guard dog was unforgivable. Thomas Seymour lost his head on Tower Green two months later in 1549.

Marie Antoinette’s spaniel Thisbee also slept in her room to alert her of intruders. Thisbee accompanied the family after they were transferred to the Temple. What became of the dog is still unknown.

Dogs at the Dinner table
Louis XIV fed his dogs personally with biscuits baked by his pastry cook. Queen Victoria’s dogs often shared the dining table with her guests. Prince Albert’s favorite greyhound, Eos ate with a fork like a true regal dog.

The painting to the left may look like a typical medieval banquet with rambunctious dogs climbing all over the table, but these dogs were actually food tasters, called chiens-gouteurs. If the dog didn’t die from the royal fare than everyone went ahead and enjoyed their meal. Can you picture it?…”ahh my dog appears to be still breathing. Everyone eat up.”

Dogs in the Stateroom
Dogs could also change the course of politics. Pope Clement VII did not share history’s fondness for the greyhound. Legend has it that Clement was ready to sign Henry’s divorce papers until the English envoy’s greyhound knocked over the stool supporting the pope’s gouty foot. Screaming like Andy Rooney on a rant, the ornery Clement abruptly refused to discuss Henry’s divorce.

Peter the Great forbid any petitions to be presented to him under pain of death. When a courtier was sentenced to the knot, Peter’s wife, Catherine, had the poor man’s petition presented to Peter by attaching it to the collar of the Czar’s favorite dog, Finette. The industrious Catherine knew that only an appeal from Peter’s dog would be granted.

Dogs as Accessories
We may balk at Hollywood’s trend to carry a dog around like a matching pocketbook, but queens were the first to invent the dog accessory. Royalty often got so attached to their lap dogs that they were literally joined at the hip. Mary Queen of Scot’s executioners was certainly surprised to find her small, Maltese hiding under her skirts after she was beheaded. The dogs of Versailles were taught to carry the noble ladies’ long trains. Not to be undone in the fashion department, dogs also wore regal coats and were heavily perfumed as to not offend delicate noses. And here is a trend that should surely come back amongst Hollywood’s pop princesses….doggy earrings. The poor pooch in this picture of Henriette Anne of England is wearing bright red dangly ones.

Without a doubt, these pampered pets ruled the palace. I have always had the belief that how people treat their pets is very indicative of their true nature. If you are interested in more information about dogs and cats in royal society then I highly recommend MacDonough's Reigning Cats and Dogs. MacDonough's work provides an intriguing look into the courts of some of our most raucous royals illustrated from the perspective of how they interacted with their pets.

Stay tuned for next week when cats get their say on how they ruled.

Source Notes:
(1) p. 120. Farquhar, Michael. A Treasury of Royal Scandal. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2001
(2)p. 180. MacDonogh Katherine. Reigning Cats and Dogs. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1999.

What to Wear to Your Execution

I know this is a macabre subject, but it has always intrigued me. What did royals choose to wear before they lost their heads?

Think about it. You are most likely going to be buried in it and it will be your last public viewing. How do you decide which outfit to wear for such a momentous historical occasion? I think the last choice of clothing says a lot about how royals chose to be remembered.

Here are a few examples:

King Charles I
Charles decided to dress warm for the occasion and broke out two heavy shirts. He was worried that he would shiver in the cold and consequently look fearful. Charles had always been viewed as the weakling in the shadow of his stronger, older brother, Henry so even at his death he was concerned about appearing brave.

Charles also worried that his hair would get in the way of the messy business of execution and asked his executioner, ‘Is my hair well?’

Charles I strikes me as the kind of ruler who focuses on the details instead of seeing the big picture. During the parliamentary uprisings, he seemed to agree to one demand after another while failing to see the long term consequences and larger significance of a political revolution. And now at his death, he is worried more about his hair than the head he is about to lose.

Queen Anne Boleyn
Anne traded in her square plunging necklines and went to her execution with a conservative make-over. She chose to wear a loose dark, gray gown of damask trimmed in fur with a matronly mantle of ermine covering her regal shoulders and decolletage. More interestingly, she adorned her soon-to-be-missing head with the simple, gabled head-dress which was frequently worn by her demure predecessor Jane Seymour (shown on the right). This hairstyle choice is an obvious contradiction to her signature, and far more risque French hood (shown on the left) which all her attendants had once copied. With one swipe of the executioner’s sword…French hoods were out and making your head look like a church steeple was back in vogue.

Mary Queen of Scots
Mary chose a crimson petticoat – a clear symbol of a catholic martyr. When Mary was convicted of plotting Queen Elizabeth's assassination, she knew her death would bring outcries from Catholic nations such as Spain and France. By her simple choice of clothing, Mary shifted the cause of her downfall from treason to religious persecution. Although religion was undeniable a huge factor in her death, that blazing red petticoat was one last stir of the pot from a tragic queen.

After her death, Mary’s red petticoat was burned for the fear that it would become another saint’s relic.

Queen Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette didn’t get much say in the matter. She was even forbidden to wear the tattered and torn, black mourning dress she had been wearing for two months straight, most likely because the revolutionaries did not want any public sympathy for her. Instead, Marie Antoinette climbed into an old, rubbish cart wearing a clean, white chemise that she had saved for the occasion and a fichu (large, squarish kerchief) over her shoulders. A pleated white cap adorned her famed hair which had been cropped at the neck.

Image Credits: Charles I - FCIT http://etc.usf.edu/clipart