Sophia of Hanover: Memoirs
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rheinsbergSophie, the Queen England never had and one of the grand dames of the Baroque, wrote these memoirs in 1680, going through a midlife crisis, to put it mildly - her favourite sister and brother both died that year, she turned 50, and her husband took off for the half year debauchery in Venice, and like her great granddaughter, she chose memoir writing as a method to cope and vent. She had more than thirty years more to live - she only died in 1714, just a few weeks before thirtyfive years younger Cousin Anne in Britain, so missed out being Queen of England by said weeks - , and they were very eventful indeed, for her and others, but Sophie writing these memoirs doesn't know this yet. There's nothing about Prussia in them; her daughter's marriage and all this is still ahead. The memoirs' big climax therefore is the visit to Versailles Sophie and young Sophie Charlotte undertook, which does deliver on various fronts - it's an entertaining look at Versailles at that time, a big spectacle, and lots of snark (though not, interestingly enough, about Monsieur; Philippe d'Orleans, husband to Sophie's niece Liselotte, has rarely been described as sympathetic in any other contemporary document I've read. Now you could argue this is because he is her niece's husband, but Sophie is pretty sharp tongued about lots of other people she's related to. She didn't write for publication. The memoirs' existence wasn't known until the mid 19th century. The only manuscript still in existence is a hand written copy Leipniz made for himself, who was given the memoirs when getting the official job of writing the history of the Welfs in 1685. (We don't just know he got the manuscript from her because he says so, there's also a letter in existence.) Sophie's memoirs are much shorter than Wilhelmine's memoirs (not even 200 pages in the edition I have), and that has a preface and afterword, and covers a lot of people not in our focus, but here are a few highlights that would indicate that not just the intellectual streak but also the snark in her great grandson might hail from her.
Kontext for the first quote: Sophie was born the twelfth child of Elizabeth Stuart the Winter Queen and her husband Friedrich the Winter King. These poetic names were actually meant as mocking taunts of these two, supposed to ridicule her parents for having ruled only for a winter, enough to kick start the 30 Years War by accepting the crown of Bohemia. Her parents spent their remaining years in exile, with her father dying relatively young and tragically of the plague after siring 13 kids (the only one younger than Sophie died as a child), and her mother living in the Netherlands in exile for 40 years until the Restoration; Elizabeth returned to England to die (and be buried in Westminster Abbey) then. Now, Elizabeth, who was the daughter of James VI. and I. and the sister of Charles I., did with her children what not just British monarchs, but expecially them, had been doing for eons - have them raised not just by other people, but in a different place altogether, and only seeing them on special occasions until they were teenagers. (See Elizabeth I. famously spending much of her childhood and youth at Hatfield, for example.) But Elizabeth Stuart was a Queen in name only (and for the Catholics not even that - in Catholic documents, she's the Countess of the Palatinate only), and Sophie wasn't impressed by this distant raising when they all lived on a tiny budget with the Dutch anyway. Therefore, the memoirs open with parents snark:
I think the only reason why my birth might have brought them joy was because I inhabited another place after it than I had before. (...) When I was old enough to be brought away, my mother the Queen sent me to Leyden, which is only a three hours away from The Hague and where Her Majesty let all her children be raised far from herself, for she decidedly preferred the sight of her dogs and long-tailed monkeys to ours.
Sophie's education: I was taught the Heidelberg catechism, which was written in the German language. I knew it by heart without understanding a word of it. At seven in the morning I rose and had to present myself each day in a house dress to Mademoiselle von Quadt (...), who let me pray to God and read the bible. She taught me Pibrac's verses while rinsing her mouth and brushing her teeth which direly needed it. The grimaces she made while doing so I remember better than anything she wanted to teach me. Then I was dressed up. This happened at half past eight, and I then saw one teacher after the other until around ten, unless God sent them a cold to spare me. Now it was time for the dancing master, who taught me until eleven, the time for lunch. Which happened always with great ceremony at a long table. When I entered the hall, all my brothers were standing in line with their governors and their cavaliers, always in the same order. Court etiquette demanded of me to first make a deep curtsey to the princes, then a less deep one to everyone else, then another very deep one when taking my place opposite of them, then a small one in front of my governess whose daughters in turn curtseyed to me after having entered the room.
Young Sophie thinks all this is dull. Being the youngest but one, she remains in Leyden with her little brother when everyone else is with Mom or already married.
I remember when the Queen ordered us both one afternoon to the Hague, in order to present us to her cousin, the Princess of Nassau, as horses are presented if one wants to sell them, and that Madame Gorin, when she saw my little brother and myself, said: "He is very pretty, but she's thin and ugly. I hope she doesn't understand our English."
In fact, I understood it all too well, and was saddened by it for I believed there was no remedy for my affliction. However, it wasn't as bad as my poor little brother's, who soon after died among the most terrible pain, which touched and frightened me deeply.
(Languages: all in all, Sophie was fluent in Dutch, German, French, Latin and English, and she would pick up some Italian, too.)
After her brother's death, nine or ten years old Sophie (she's not sure) goes to live with her mother, because maintaining the Leyden estate for just one child is too expensive. Since her sisters are seen as the pretty ones, she decides to become the witty one. By now, the fortunes of the House of Stuart are on the decline. England had a Civil War, Charles I. has been captured, and most o his family are already on the continent in exile, including his wife, Henrietta Maria, who visits her sister-in-law. In better times, Van Dyck had portrayed the English royals, that's what Sophie is alluding to when noting down her impressions on her aunt:
Through the Van Dyck portraits I had such a beautiful idea of English ladies that I was suprrised to find the Queen, who had appeared so pretty to me on her paintings, a small person sitting on her chair, with long, thin arms, bent shoulders and teeth which emerged from her mouth like canons from a fortress. When I regarded her more closely, I found her to have very beautiful eyes, a well formed nose and great skin. She honored me by saying that I resembled her daughter somewhat; this pleased me so much that I decided she was pretty after all from this point onwards.
I was told that some Mylords flattered me by declaring I would surpass all my sisters in beauty once I had grown up. This immediately jumpstarted my affection for their entire nation, for when one is young, one loves being regarded as pretty.
Sophie's newfound affection for the Brits doesn't mean she's willing to marry Cousin Charles (the soon to be II), who's just one year older than her, though. Sure, he's charming, but he's also broke, and using her to get money from his creditors.
Sophie then lucks out because her oldest brother - fourteen years older, in fact - who has gotten the Palatinate as a part of the peace treaty after the 30 Years War, invites her. This brother is her fave and about to become Liselotte's father, and the reason why Liselotte and Sophie have a life long intense relationship is that Sophie co-raises Liselotte. First in the Palatinate, then in Lower Saxony, because Sophie's brother and sister-in-law have a really bad marriage with non stop arguments. Case in point, when Sophie's sister-in-law already suspects Sophie's brother to have a mistress (and btw, Sophie is entirely on her brother's the Prince Elector's side; Degenfeld is her brother's mistress):
One night, the Princess Elector received certainty when she woke up and saw that the Prince Elector was with the girl. The noise she made due to her stormy temper was incredible. The Prince Elector had a great deal of trouble to protect his mistress from his wife grabbing at her; in the end, she only caught the girl's little finger and in her rage bit into it. When her rage had calmed down somewhat, her ladies talked her into moderation. (...) In order to amuse the Princess Elector, the balls and comedies started happening again, and it would have all continued if not for the Princess Elector to do such evil things. When she searched Degenfeld's cabinet she didn't just find all the Prince Elector's love letters but also the jewelry which he had given his mistress. This enraged her so much that she caused a terrible noise once more. She summoned me and my sister, while Degenfeld called the Prince Elector, and when we entered, we were witnesses to an extraordinary scene. The Prince Elector stood in front of his mistress and protected her from the beatings which Madame his wife was attempting to give her. The Princess Elector marched up and down in the room with Degenfeld's jewelry in her hands. Full of rage, she approached us and cried: "Princesses, look at a whore's reward! Doesn't all of this belong to me?"
I couldn't help myself, I had to laugh at this lament, I just burst into laughter, so much so that the Princess Elector got infected and started to laugh as well. But within moments, her rage erturned, when Monsieur the Prince Elector told her she should return the jewelry to its owner. She threw them across the entire room and cried: "If they don't belong to me, well, here they are!"
Sophie's brother , Liselotte's father, ended up doing a Henry VIII and deciding since he was the nominal head of his Protestant principalities church, he could divorce himself unilaterally and morganatically marry his mistress. However, his (first) wife refused to move out, and he didn't have Henry's power. So he lived with two wives and the children from two marriages, and that's why Liselotte ended up with Sophie for years.
The Hannover brothers show up in Sophie' life as suitors as her brother's marriage goes from bad to worse. First Georg Wilhelm, who, however, gets Syphilis. Here's Sophie's way of putting it:
In the meantime, the Duke of Hannover had arrived in Venice, and enjoyed himself with the first courtisan available, a Greek woman who had nothing beautiful to recommend her other than her dresses. However, she immediately put him in a condition which is less than advantageous for a marriage, and he thought no longer of me.
Georg Wilhelm gives it in writing - a document Sophie reproduces in her memoirs - that if Sophie marries younger brother Ernst August, he swears he himself won't marry and have children, and Ernst August will be his heir. Why does Sophie reproduce this document? Because wouldn't you know it, once Georg Wilhelm realised he wasn't dying of Syphilis just yet, he didn't just go back to debauching, but ended up with a mistress he wanted to marry. And have (legal) children with. Sophie and Ernst August were thrilled, as you can imagine. In the end, the marriage was a morganatic one, there was no son, and Ernst August did become Duke of Hannover after Georg Wilhelm's death, but by then he'd gotten the "go to Venice for half the year, have fun" habit himself.
Now, like I said, the big showcase climax is years later, when Sophie and young daughter Sophie Charlotte visit France. This is both a family trip - to visit Liselotte, now Madame, the Duchess of Orleans, and to visit Sophie's older sister who is the Abbess of Maubuisson - and a matchmaking pitch, as Sophie hopes to marry Sophie Charlotte to the Dauphin, son of Louis XIV. (Doomed to die of smallpox, also hardly able to get a word out.) Moreover, there's a wedding to be celebrated, since Philippe's oldest daughter, from his first marriage to Henriette "Minette" of England, Marie Louise, is about to marry the genetic wonder of Spain, the last Spanish Habsburg. So: Madame = Liselotte; Monsieur = Philippe; Mademoiselle = Marie Louise, about to become Queen of Spain. "Little Mademoiselle" = Elisabeth Charlotte the younger, daughter of Liselotte and Philippe, later to marry the Duke of Lorraine and become mother to Franz Stephan.
Sophie and entourage have just arrived at Maubuisson, where they expect to meet Sophie's sister the Abbess, not yet the French royals, when:
We were all still wearing our travelling dresses in order to get into the nunnery unnoticed and were very surprised to learn that Monsieur, Madame and Mademoiselle along with their entire court were already there. (...) When we drove into the courtyard, the Duchess of Orleans came running, Mademoiselle behind her, in order to receive me. I could hardly get out of the carriage to do justice to all. The good princess kissed me, crying with joy to see me again, and kept holding me in her arms. She only let me go for a moment so I could greet Mademoiselle while she herself greeted Frau von Harling, who had been her governess, very tenderly. Then she took my arm again and introduced me to the Duke of Orleans whom I saw standing with my sister the abbess at the nunnery's gate. This prince received me very considerately and interacted with me as if he'd known me all his life.
Monsieur and Mademoiselle return to Paris for the night while Liselotte remains to dine with Sophie, her sister and little Sophie Charlotte. The next day, they all drive to Paris, which is when Sophie has an experience familiar to anyone who has to take taxis often:
I was surprised Madame's horses were driving so slowly. She kept saying "drive faster!" It was of no use, because Monsieur's master of the horses, who was paid by the hour to deliver her, took very great care with her for that reason.
When Sophie arrives at the Orleans' Paris residence, she gets introduced to Philippe's main boyfriend and favourite, the Chevalier de Lorraine. Sophie has nice things to say about the Chevalier as well: "I very much enjoyed watching the beautiful paintings from the Chevalier de Lorraine's gallery, which are exquisite." (Note she doesn't say anything about the Chevalier being exquisite as well.)
Next, Philippe shows Sophie all the wedding dresses he's had made for his daughter and the jewelry he intends to give her, which he has personally selected and designed. "And since he has great talent for these things, he took the trouble to improve all my jewelry as well, and wanted me to change it according to fashion , which he ordered and organized in great detail." Philippe tells Sophie his brother, King Louis, would be cool with meeting her incognito and that she can attend the wedding incognito as well. (Incognito because it's less trouble that way with etiquette. So, off to Fontainebleau!
After my arrival, I first went to Madame where I met Monsieur and a great many people. Monsieur had me enter his little cabinet in order to show me the tight frock he'd had tailored and stitched with diamonds for himself on the occasion of Mademoiselle's wedding. Then he led me to my room and asked for forgiveness that it wasn't better, and said Madame de Montespan had the best rooms, but these were appropriate to my Incognito. They were indeed pretty bad, for I had only two rooms for my daughter, myself, our two ladies-in-waiting and all our maids.
Sophie gets to witness the official signing of the wedding contract between Mademoiselle and the genetic wonder (himself not present, of course, the Spanish envoy signs for him). On the French side, every member of the Royal family present and every bastard of Louis present sign the contract as well. Sophie finds this tiring after a while:
I wanted to return to my room, since I had seen everything, but Monsieur said that I had to await the ending, which caused a very good looking man unknown to me to observe: "Monsieur believes everybody loves ceremony as much as he does."
The official ending consisted of all the princesses making their curtsey to Louis and leaving, then the Queen doing that as well, and then Sophie gets introduced by Philippe and hears some gracious words about how Liselotte always sings her praises from Louis. "Madame d'Osnabrück" is in fact one of Sophie's titles; while her brother-in-law was still alive, her husband was (Protestant) Prince Bishop of Osnabrück.
From there, I was led to the French comedy. I was so much incognito there that it got shouted all over the place "Make room for Madame d'Osnabrück!" when in fact the chair reserved for me should have made it clear that I wanted to be (incognito); it was far from the King and the entire royal family who sat down below opposite the stage. I was so busy observing people that I ignored the actors. I saw Madame de Fontanges (Louis' latest mistress) who was then in the King's favor. She sat wide away from him, near the door in order to be able to escape if she should fall sick due to her pregnancy. For the crowd was large, and the heat was terrible, and I thought that the pleasures of the French court were tied to a great deal of inconvenience. People drank lemonade to refresh themselves. When I asked to have one, it was loudly shouted again: "Something to drink for Madame d'Osnabrück!", which I thought was disgraceful in the King's presence.
At last, that play is over, too. Sophie withdraws to her tiny two rooms.: After dinner, I wanted to see Madame again before going to bed, despite it being rather late by now. I found her in her dressing gown, and Monsieur, too, wore his nightcap already, which was held in place by a red ribbon; he was busy organizing jewelry for Madame, himself and his two daughters. He was terribly embarassed to present himself to me in this state and always turned the head to the other side, but I calmed him down and helped to get his jewelry into order, and bound a ribbon on his hat, which he seemed to be very content with. After I had accomplished a work of such major importance, I could rest and thus withdrew in order to get into my bed.
The best dig comes when Sophie is presented to the Queen. Now, remember whatmildred_of_midgard had said about arm chairs versus chairs versus taborets?
The Queen sat down in an arm chair, Monsieur took a taboret and indicated to me I should do likewise. But I was careful not to obey him. I told the Queen that Madame had asked me to see her, made a deep curtsey and left. Monsieur took my hand and asked me why I had not sat down; of course I could claim a different seating opportunity at Madame's than at the Queen's. I replied to him that I hadn't dared to accept a taboret from the Queen of France since the Empress (of the Holy Roman Empire) had offered me an arm chair.
So much for royal etiquette. Sophie also gets to meet the young man her daughter won't marry, the Dauphin, and has a longer encounter with his father when she's sitting with Liselotte.
Afer a while, the Dauphin entered. I rose and approached him, but he didn't say a word. I could try what I wanted in order to start a conversation, he just replied with yes or no, despite my rallying again and again. I was therefore incredibly relieved when I was notified that the King was arriving. Madame approached His Majesty, as did I. He said with a loud voice: "Madame, today I am visiting Madame d'Osnabrück, not yourself." He first asked whether the Queen wasn't here, thus signalling to me that it had been his intention for her to be present as well. But her Spanish pride hadn't allowed it. The King spared no care in either his words or his behavior to demonstrate that he is one of the most polite princes this world has to offer. Monsieur wanted to whisper something in his ear, but His Majesty said out loud to him: "It isn't polite to talk softly in Madame's presence." Monsieur wanted me to notice this and thus see the King's wish to behave amiably towards me.
Indeed his Majesty did not leave out anything that could have helped showing himself thus, and to please me he said all kind of agreeable things. He even reminded me of the battle the Dukes had won against him, and said that he had taken note of having them as enemies. I replied that since they hadn't been so fortunate as to possess his favor, they had instead tried to earn his respect. The King returned that there had been times in which he would not have dared to ask for their friendship. I replied that I was glad these times were over now, and that he'd sworn to keep peace. He said that there was always the clause that the peace should last as long as it benefited the welfare of his state. I said that I hoped this would be the case for a long time. He returned, tossing his head: "Oh, I believe the German princes won't fight me again any time soon."
Following this, he spoke of his troops, of the many he had already dismissed and of the great power he possessed. Monsieur aided him in this and exaggarated even more. (Louis) also wanted to compliment my daughter whom he found to be pretty, and whose wit he had heard praised. He asked me whether he should call her Madame or Mademoiselle, since he believed the term "Madame" to have grown in popularity in Germany right now. After a few more words, he left again.
Footnotes: The two Dukes = the Hannover brothers, Georg Wilhelm and Ernst August. They defeated Louis' army in the "Schlacht an der Conzer Brücke", August 11th 1675. (Military situation: Trier was occupied by the French, an HRE army was laying siege to the French occupation, a second French army was supposed to get rid of the siege, it got defeated, the French then had to surrender Trier back to the HRE in September.)
The term "Madame" being popular in Germany right now: a compliment to his sister-in-law, Liselotte, since "Madame" was her official title.
(Actually, Liselotte was mortified by the way Louis had used her to claim the Palatinate after her father's death, and make war against her countrymen, and there are some vivid letters of hers angsting about how people back home must curse her now.)
Sophie then leaves Paris with the Orleans clan to visit their summer residence, Saint-Cloud.
At the very front of the palace, the carriage overturned. Monsieur and Madame, the Queen of Spain, Mademoiselle and the entire court hurried outside in order to help us. Monsieur took me by the hand, led me to my room and cried out loud "pisspotts!", for he was convinced they were needed due to the shock. He showed me around in his palace and always led me by the hand, even ahead of the new Queen of Spain, since there was no consequence to etiquette. I admired his beautiful gallery, his splendid salon and the practical order of everything, for he is rather good at designing a house. I was given a room from which I could step outside into the garden, which is the most beautiful garden in the world, both by its design and its water arts. I did not grow tired from walking through it with Monsieur and Madame, who both were so kind of me that I shall be grateful for the rest of my life.
Monsieur always ate with the Queen of Spain, and Madame honored me by eating with me in the antechambre. (...) Monsieur had me kiss the Chevalier de Lorraine, who is the only man I kissed in France other than the King and Monsieur, despite the etiquette of country which would have demanded of me to kiss all the Dukes and Peers, as poor Madame has to. But they had the decency not to insist on it.
Then, Sophie visits Versailles itself (all the previous events have taken place in Parisian palaces and Saint-Cloud), and wins Philippe's heart forever with the following reaction:
Monsieur escorted me to show me the beauty of Versailles, where money has accomplished more miracles than nature. Personally, if I had to choose, I would prefer Saint-Cloud. After being shown everything, I found a picknick prepared to keep up my strength, which was as much worth to me as the waterworks which they had tried very hard to get going earlier.
Alas, the day comes when the new Queen of Spain actually has to leave for Spain:
When we left the opera, the Queen of Spain said goodbye to us all since she was supposed to leave Paris forever the following day, which caused such great despair in her that she could not restrain her sobs and tears. One couldn't help but crying with her. And I was even more touched than the rest. For this amiable princess had won my heart through the charm of her personality and through a thousand attentions she showed towards me and my daughter (Sophie Charlotte, future wife of F1); for the later had captivated her so much that she wished to be a prince so that the two of them could have married instead.
I dare say Sophie Charlotte/Marie Louise would have been more fun than Marie Louise's actual marriage. Anyway, after the visit of Versailes is over, the memoirs end on a series of downers (Sophie's siblings die, and her husband takes off to Venice anyway, and she wonders whether she'll follow her siblings into the grave. Which she won't. Instead, she'll become the matriarch of two royal houses, with even 19th century historians calling her "the greatest of the three Hannover Sophies". Supposedly, one reason why Queen Anne forbade any of the Hannover relations, but especially Sophie, to put one foot on British shore as long as she was still alive was because she was aware that there would be a rival court (as there always is around a successor) , because for all that Sophie was 35 years older than Anne, she had such a vivid personality, and showed no bit of senility, remaining sharp and witty till the end, that Anne would have been overshadowed. And I think these excerpts demonstrate something of that.
Kontext for the first quote: Sophie was born the twelfth child of Elizabeth Stuart the Winter Queen and her husband Friedrich the Winter King. These poetic names were actually meant as mocking taunts of these two, supposed to ridicule her parents for having ruled only for a winter, enough to kick start the 30 Years War by accepting the crown of Bohemia. Her parents spent their remaining years in exile, with her father dying relatively young and tragically of the plague after siring 13 kids (the only one younger than Sophie died as a child), and her mother living in the Netherlands in exile for 40 years until the Restoration; Elizabeth returned to England to die (and be buried in Westminster Abbey) then. Now, Elizabeth, who was the daughter of James VI. and I. and the sister of Charles I., did with her children what not just British monarchs, but expecially them, had been doing for eons - have them raised not just by other people, but in a different place altogether, and only seeing them on special occasions until they were teenagers. (See Elizabeth I. famously spending much of her childhood and youth at Hatfield, for example.) But Elizabeth Stuart was a Queen in name only (and for the Catholics not even that - in Catholic documents, she's the Countess of the Palatinate only), and Sophie wasn't impressed by this distant raising when they all lived on a tiny budget with the Dutch anyway. Therefore, the memoirs open with parents snark:
I think the only reason why my birth might have brought them joy was because I inhabited another place after it than I had before. (...) When I was old enough to be brought away, my mother the Queen sent me to Leyden, which is only a three hours away from The Hague and where Her Majesty let all her children be raised far from herself, for she decidedly preferred the sight of her dogs and long-tailed monkeys to ours.
Sophie's education: I was taught the Heidelberg catechism, which was written in the German language. I knew it by heart without understanding a word of it. At seven in the morning I rose and had to present myself each day in a house dress to Mademoiselle von Quadt (...), who let me pray to God and read the bible. She taught me Pibrac's verses while rinsing her mouth and brushing her teeth which direly needed it. The grimaces she made while doing so I remember better than anything she wanted to teach me. Then I was dressed up. This happened at half past eight, and I then saw one teacher after the other until around ten, unless God sent them a cold to spare me. Now it was time for the dancing master, who taught me until eleven, the time for lunch. Which happened always with great ceremony at a long table. When I entered the hall, all my brothers were standing in line with their governors and their cavaliers, always in the same order. Court etiquette demanded of me to first make a deep curtsey to the princes, then a less deep one to everyone else, then another very deep one when taking my place opposite of them, then a small one in front of my governess whose daughters in turn curtseyed to me after having entered the room.
Young Sophie thinks all this is dull. Being the youngest but one, she remains in Leyden with her little brother when everyone else is with Mom or already married.
I remember when the Queen ordered us both one afternoon to the Hague, in order to present us to her cousin, the Princess of Nassau, as horses are presented if one wants to sell them, and that Madame Gorin, when she saw my little brother and myself, said: "He is very pretty, but she's thin and ugly. I hope she doesn't understand our English."
In fact, I understood it all too well, and was saddened by it for I believed there was no remedy for my affliction. However, it wasn't as bad as my poor little brother's, who soon after died among the most terrible pain, which touched and frightened me deeply.
(Languages: all in all, Sophie was fluent in Dutch, German, French, Latin and English, and she would pick up some Italian, too.)
After her brother's death, nine or ten years old Sophie (she's not sure) goes to live with her mother, because maintaining the Leyden estate for just one child is too expensive. Since her sisters are seen as the pretty ones, she decides to become the witty one. By now, the fortunes of the House of Stuart are on the decline. England had a Civil War, Charles I. has been captured, and most o his family are already on the continent in exile, including his wife, Henrietta Maria, who visits her sister-in-law. In better times, Van Dyck had portrayed the English royals, that's what Sophie is alluding to when noting down her impressions on her aunt:
Through the Van Dyck portraits I had such a beautiful idea of English ladies that I was suprrised to find the Queen, who had appeared so pretty to me on her paintings, a small person sitting on her chair, with long, thin arms, bent shoulders and teeth which emerged from her mouth like canons from a fortress. When I regarded her more closely, I found her to have very beautiful eyes, a well formed nose and great skin. She honored me by saying that I resembled her daughter somewhat; this pleased me so much that I decided she was pretty after all from this point onwards.
I was told that some Mylords flattered me by declaring I would surpass all my sisters in beauty once I had grown up. This immediately jumpstarted my affection for their entire nation, for when one is young, one loves being regarded as pretty.
Sophie's newfound affection for the Brits doesn't mean she's willing to marry Cousin Charles (the soon to be II), who's just one year older than her, though. Sure, he's charming, but he's also broke, and using her to get money from his creditors.
Sophie then lucks out because her oldest brother - fourteen years older, in fact - who has gotten the Palatinate as a part of the peace treaty after the 30 Years War, invites her. This brother is her fave and about to become Liselotte's father, and the reason why Liselotte and Sophie have a life long intense relationship is that Sophie co-raises Liselotte. First in the Palatinate, then in Lower Saxony, because Sophie's brother and sister-in-law have a really bad marriage with non stop arguments. Case in point, when Sophie's sister-in-law already suspects Sophie's brother to have a mistress (and btw, Sophie is entirely on her brother's the Prince Elector's side; Degenfeld is her brother's mistress):
One night, the Princess Elector received certainty when she woke up and saw that the Prince Elector was with the girl. The noise she made due to her stormy temper was incredible. The Prince Elector had a great deal of trouble to protect his mistress from his wife grabbing at her; in the end, she only caught the girl's little finger and in her rage bit into it. When her rage had calmed down somewhat, her ladies talked her into moderation. (...) In order to amuse the Princess Elector, the balls and comedies started happening again, and it would have all continued if not for the Princess Elector to do such evil things. When she searched Degenfeld's cabinet she didn't just find all the Prince Elector's love letters but also the jewelry which he had given his mistress. This enraged her so much that she caused a terrible noise once more. She summoned me and my sister, while Degenfeld called the Prince Elector, and when we entered, we were witnesses to an extraordinary scene. The Prince Elector stood in front of his mistress and protected her from the beatings which Madame his wife was attempting to give her. The Princess Elector marched up and down in the room with Degenfeld's jewelry in her hands. Full of rage, she approached us and cried: "Princesses, look at a whore's reward! Doesn't all of this belong to me?"
I couldn't help myself, I had to laugh at this lament, I just burst into laughter, so much so that the Princess Elector got infected and started to laugh as well. But within moments, her rage erturned, when Monsieur the Prince Elector told her she should return the jewelry to its owner. She threw them across the entire room and cried: "If they don't belong to me, well, here they are!"
Sophie's brother , Liselotte's father, ended up doing a Henry VIII and deciding since he was the nominal head of his Protestant principalities church, he could divorce himself unilaterally and morganatically marry his mistress. However, his (first) wife refused to move out, and he didn't have Henry's power. So he lived with two wives and the children from two marriages, and that's why Liselotte ended up with Sophie for years.
The Hannover brothers show up in Sophie' life as suitors as her brother's marriage goes from bad to worse. First Georg Wilhelm, who, however, gets Syphilis. Here's Sophie's way of putting it:
In the meantime, the Duke of Hannover had arrived in Venice, and enjoyed himself with the first courtisan available, a Greek woman who had nothing beautiful to recommend her other than her dresses. However, she immediately put him in a condition which is less than advantageous for a marriage, and he thought no longer of me.
Georg Wilhelm gives it in writing - a document Sophie reproduces in her memoirs - that if Sophie marries younger brother Ernst August, he swears he himself won't marry and have children, and Ernst August will be his heir. Why does Sophie reproduce this document? Because wouldn't you know it, once Georg Wilhelm realised he wasn't dying of Syphilis just yet, he didn't just go back to debauching, but ended up with a mistress he wanted to marry. And have (legal) children with. Sophie and Ernst August were thrilled, as you can imagine. In the end, the marriage was a morganatic one, there was no son, and Ernst August did become Duke of Hannover after Georg Wilhelm's death, but by then he'd gotten the "go to Venice for half the year, have fun" habit himself.
Now, like I said, the big showcase climax is years later, when Sophie and young daughter Sophie Charlotte visit France. This is both a family trip - to visit Liselotte, now Madame, the Duchess of Orleans, and to visit Sophie's older sister who is the Abbess of Maubuisson - and a matchmaking pitch, as Sophie hopes to marry Sophie Charlotte to the Dauphin, son of Louis XIV. (Doomed to die of smallpox, also hardly able to get a word out.) Moreover, there's a wedding to be celebrated, since Philippe's oldest daughter, from his first marriage to Henriette "Minette" of England, Marie Louise, is about to marry the genetic wonder of Spain, the last Spanish Habsburg. So: Madame = Liselotte; Monsieur = Philippe; Mademoiselle = Marie Louise, about to become Queen of Spain. "Little Mademoiselle" = Elisabeth Charlotte the younger, daughter of Liselotte and Philippe, later to marry the Duke of Lorraine and become mother to Franz Stephan.
Sophie and entourage have just arrived at Maubuisson, where they expect to meet Sophie's sister the Abbess, not yet the French royals, when:
We were all still wearing our travelling dresses in order to get into the nunnery unnoticed and were very surprised to learn that Monsieur, Madame and Mademoiselle along with their entire court were already there. (...) When we drove into the courtyard, the Duchess of Orleans came running, Mademoiselle behind her, in order to receive me. I could hardly get out of the carriage to do justice to all. The good princess kissed me, crying with joy to see me again, and kept holding me in her arms. She only let me go for a moment so I could greet Mademoiselle while she herself greeted Frau von Harling, who had been her governess, very tenderly. Then she took my arm again and introduced me to the Duke of Orleans whom I saw standing with my sister the abbess at the nunnery's gate. This prince received me very considerately and interacted with me as if he'd known me all his life.
Monsieur and Mademoiselle return to Paris for the night while Liselotte remains to dine with Sophie, her sister and little Sophie Charlotte. The next day, they all drive to Paris, which is when Sophie has an experience familiar to anyone who has to take taxis often:
I was surprised Madame's horses were driving so slowly. She kept saying "drive faster!" It was of no use, because Monsieur's master of the horses, who was paid by the hour to deliver her, took very great care with her for that reason.
When Sophie arrives at the Orleans' Paris residence, she gets introduced to Philippe's main boyfriend and favourite, the Chevalier de Lorraine. Sophie has nice things to say about the Chevalier as well: "I very much enjoyed watching the beautiful paintings from the Chevalier de Lorraine's gallery, which are exquisite." (Note she doesn't say anything about the Chevalier being exquisite as well.)
Next, Philippe shows Sophie all the wedding dresses he's had made for his daughter and the jewelry he intends to give her, which he has personally selected and designed. "And since he has great talent for these things, he took the trouble to improve all my jewelry as well, and wanted me to change it according to fashion , which he ordered and organized in great detail." Philippe tells Sophie his brother, King Louis, would be cool with meeting her incognito and that she can attend the wedding incognito as well. (Incognito because it's less trouble that way with etiquette. So, off to Fontainebleau!
After my arrival, I first went to Madame where I met Monsieur and a great many people. Monsieur had me enter his little cabinet in order to show me the tight frock he'd had tailored and stitched with diamonds for himself on the occasion of Mademoiselle's wedding. Then he led me to my room and asked for forgiveness that it wasn't better, and said Madame de Montespan had the best rooms, but these were appropriate to my Incognito. They were indeed pretty bad, for I had only two rooms for my daughter, myself, our two ladies-in-waiting and all our maids.
Sophie gets to witness the official signing of the wedding contract between Mademoiselle and the genetic wonder (himself not present, of course, the Spanish envoy signs for him). On the French side, every member of the Royal family present and every bastard of Louis present sign the contract as well. Sophie finds this tiring after a while:
I wanted to return to my room, since I had seen everything, but Monsieur said that I had to await the ending, which caused a very good looking man unknown to me to observe: "Monsieur believes everybody loves ceremony as much as he does."
The official ending consisted of all the princesses making their curtsey to Louis and leaving, then the Queen doing that as well, and then Sophie gets introduced by Philippe and hears some gracious words about how Liselotte always sings her praises from Louis. "Madame d'Osnabrück" is in fact one of Sophie's titles; while her brother-in-law was still alive, her husband was (Protestant) Prince Bishop of Osnabrück.
From there, I was led to the French comedy. I was so much incognito there that it got shouted all over the place "Make room for Madame d'Osnabrück!" when in fact the chair reserved for me should have made it clear that I wanted to be (incognito); it was far from the King and the entire royal family who sat down below opposite the stage. I was so busy observing people that I ignored the actors. I saw Madame de Fontanges (Louis' latest mistress) who was then in the King's favor. She sat wide away from him, near the door in order to be able to escape if she should fall sick due to her pregnancy. For the crowd was large, and the heat was terrible, and I thought that the pleasures of the French court were tied to a great deal of inconvenience. People drank lemonade to refresh themselves. When I asked to have one, it was loudly shouted again: "Something to drink for Madame d'Osnabrück!", which I thought was disgraceful in the King's presence.
At last, that play is over, too. Sophie withdraws to her tiny two rooms.: After dinner, I wanted to see Madame again before going to bed, despite it being rather late by now. I found her in her dressing gown, and Monsieur, too, wore his nightcap already, which was held in place by a red ribbon; he was busy organizing jewelry for Madame, himself and his two daughters. He was terribly embarassed to present himself to me in this state and always turned the head to the other side, but I calmed him down and helped to get his jewelry into order, and bound a ribbon on his hat, which he seemed to be very content with. After I had accomplished a work of such major importance, I could rest and thus withdrew in order to get into my bed.
The best dig comes when Sophie is presented to the Queen. Now, remember what
mildred_of_midgard had said about arm chairs versus chairs versus taborets?The Queen sat down in an arm chair, Monsieur took a taboret and indicated to me I should do likewise. But I was careful not to obey him. I told the Queen that Madame had asked me to see her, made a deep curtsey and left. Monsieur took my hand and asked me why I had not sat down; of course I could claim a different seating opportunity at Madame's than at the Queen's. I replied to him that I hadn't dared to accept a taboret from the Queen of France since the Empress (of the Holy Roman Empire) had offered me an arm chair.
So much for royal etiquette. Sophie also gets to meet the young man her daughter won't marry, the Dauphin, and has a longer encounter with his father when she's sitting with Liselotte.
Afer a while, the Dauphin entered. I rose and approached him, but he didn't say a word. I could try what I wanted in order to start a conversation, he just replied with yes or no, despite my rallying again and again. I was therefore incredibly relieved when I was notified that the King was arriving. Madame approached His Majesty, as did I. He said with a loud voice: "Madame, today I am visiting Madame d'Osnabrück, not yourself." He first asked whether the Queen wasn't here, thus signalling to me that it had been his intention for her to be present as well. But her Spanish pride hadn't allowed it. The King spared no care in either his words or his behavior to demonstrate that he is one of the most polite princes this world has to offer. Monsieur wanted to whisper something in his ear, but His Majesty said out loud to him: "It isn't polite to talk softly in Madame's presence." Monsieur wanted me to notice this and thus see the King's wish to behave amiably towards me.
Indeed his Majesty did not leave out anything that could have helped showing himself thus, and to please me he said all kind of agreeable things. He even reminded me of the battle the Dukes had won against him, and said that he had taken note of having them as enemies. I replied that since they hadn't been so fortunate as to possess his favor, they had instead tried to earn his respect. The King returned that there had been times in which he would not have dared to ask for their friendship. I replied that I was glad these times were over now, and that he'd sworn to keep peace. He said that there was always the clause that the peace should last as long as it benefited the welfare of his state. I said that I hoped this would be the case for a long time. He returned, tossing his head: "Oh, I believe the German princes won't fight me again any time soon."
Following this, he spoke of his troops, of the many he had already dismissed and of the great power he possessed. Monsieur aided him in this and exaggarated even more. (Louis) also wanted to compliment my daughter whom he found to be pretty, and whose wit he had heard praised. He asked me whether he should call her Madame or Mademoiselle, since he believed the term "Madame" to have grown in popularity in Germany right now. After a few more words, he left again.
Footnotes: The two Dukes = the Hannover brothers, Georg Wilhelm and Ernst August. They defeated Louis' army in the "Schlacht an der Conzer Brücke", August 11th 1675. (Military situation: Trier was occupied by the French, an HRE army was laying siege to the French occupation, a second French army was supposed to get rid of the siege, it got defeated, the French then had to surrender Trier back to the HRE in September.)
The term "Madame" being popular in Germany right now: a compliment to his sister-in-law, Liselotte, since "Madame" was her official title.
(Actually, Liselotte was mortified by the way Louis had used her to claim the Palatinate after her father's death, and make war against her countrymen, and there are some vivid letters of hers angsting about how people back home must curse her now.)
Sophie then leaves Paris with the Orleans clan to visit their summer residence, Saint-Cloud.
At the very front of the palace, the carriage overturned. Monsieur and Madame, the Queen of Spain, Mademoiselle and the entire court hurried outside in order to help us. Monsieur took me by the hand, led me to my room and cried out loud "pisspotts!", for he was convinced they were needed due to the shock. He showed me around in his palace and always led me by the hand, even ahead of the new Queen of Spain, since there was no consequence to etiquette. I admired his beautiful gallery, his splendid salon and the practical order of everything, for he is rather good at designing a house. I was given a room from which I could step outside into the garden, which is the most beautiful garden in the world, both by its design and its water arts. I did not grow tired from walking through it with Monsieur and Madame, who both were so kind of me that I shall be grateful for the rest of my life.
Monsieur always ate with the Queen of Spain, and Madame honored me by eating with me in the antechambre. (...) Monsieur had me kiss the Chevalier de Lorraine, who is the only man I kissed in France other than the King and Monsieur, despite the etiquette of country which would have demanded of me to kiss all the Dukes and Peers, as poor Madame has to. But they had the decency not to insist on it.
Then, Sophie visits Versailles itself (all the previous events have taken place in Parisian palaces and Saint-Cloud), and wins Philippe's heart forever with the following reaction:
Monsieur escorted me to show me the beauty of Versailles, where money has accomplished more miracles than nature. Personally, if I had to choose, I would prefer Saint-Cloud. After being shown everything, I found a picknick prepared to keep up my strength, which was as much worth to me as the waterworks which they had tried very hard to get going earlier.
Alas, the day comes when the new Queen of Spain actually has to leave for Spain:
When we left the opera, the Queen of Spain said goodbye to us all since she was supposed to leave Paris forever the following day, which caused such great despair in her that she could not restrain her sobs and tears. One couldn't help but crying with her. And I was even more touched than the rest. For this amiable princess had won my heart through the charm of her personality and through a thousand attentions she showed towards me and my daughter (Sophie Charlotte, future wife of F1); for the later had captivated her so much that she wished to be a prince so that the two of them could have married instead.
I dare say Sophie Charlotte/Marie Louise would have been more fun than Marie Louise's actual marriage. Anyway, after the visit of Versailes is over, the memoirs end on a series of downers (Sophie's siblings die, and her husband takes off to Venice anyway, and she wonders whether she'll follow her siblings into the grave. Which she won't. Instead, she'll become the matriarch of two royal houses, with even 19th century historians calling her "the greatest of the three Hannover Sophies". Supposedly, one reason why Queen Anne forbade any of the Hannover relations, but especially Sophie, to put one foot on British shore as long as she was still alive was because she was aware that there would be a rival court (as there always is around a successor) , because for all that Sophie was 35 years older than Anne, she had such a vivid personality, and showed no bit of senility, remaining sharp and witty till the end, that Anne would have been overshadowed. And I think these excerpts demonstrate something of that.
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