August 6, 2012 • 19 mins
Marguerite-Louise d'Orléans was the grandchild of the King of France, cousin of Louis XIV and eventually betrothed to Cosimo III de Medici. Her marriage was (to say the least) unstable. But how did she finally find herself back in France?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from housetof
works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Sarah Downy and I'm doublin a Charkerboarding and this summer,
as a special treat to all of our royal loving listeners,
(00:20):
we're going to be focusing on some of the shenanigans
of some notable princesses in history. And last time we
discussed Sophia Dorothea of Selah, who was a pretty sympathetic
character in her story. I would say she was married
off to an incompatible cousin at a young age, was
manipulated by her father in law's mistress, who may or
(00:41):
may not have been responsible for the murder of her
own Swedish boyfriend, and to top all of that off,
she spent nearly half of her life held prisoner in
a castle. I mean that really does top it off,
isn't it. So we can definitely feel sorry for her. Yeah,
even her husband's own subjects, both in Hanover and or
in England felt kind of sorry for her. But today's
(01:03):
subject is going to be a little more divisive. I think. Yeah,
we're gonna be talking about Marguerite Louise dor Leon, who
was a near contemporary of Sophia Dorothea, and she was
also a dynastic pond for her powerful family. She also
made an unsuitable match in her mid teens and was
held prisoner by her in laws. But whereas Sophia Dorothea
(01:26):
comes across as unlucky and maybe somewhat naive, Marguerite Louise
seems like she would have been hell on wheel. He
really does. She was a firecracker. Just to give you
a sense of what other people have said about her,
eleanor Herman, who wrote Sex with the Queen, said she
was quote born with an uncontrollable temperament, ill suited to
(01:47):
her royal position, you know, a position where you kind
of need to keep your mouth shut most of the time.
She also said she had a fearless, toxic nastiness. Encyclopedia
Britannica called her a frivolous consort, and the Women in
World History Encyclopedia notes that quote she showered invective on
all within reach. So fun times here. But best of all,
(02:10):
I think discussing Marguerite Louise is going to allow us
to revisit our old friends. The Medici family and her
popular people love the Medici family, and we're going to
get to find out how exactly that illustrious line finally
died out. Since way back when the Medici series began
so long ago, we did discuss how they started so
(02:31):
full circle. But before we get to that, we're going
to talk a little bit about Marguerite Louise's early life.
So she was born in sixteen forty five, or they're
about to Gaston, Duke do Leon and his wife Marguerite
de Lorraine, and Gaston was the son of King Henry
the fourth of France and Marie de Medici, and the
younger brother of Louis the thirteenth, and because he ended
(02:52):
up being the only surviving younger brother, he was called
monsieur from a very young age. But it seems like
Marguerite Loui He's is daring and her impulsiveness that we're
going to discuss later weren't exactly unique to her her alone,
and it wasn't a unique family trait. No, her father
started participating in plots against his brother the king at
(03:14):
a pretty young age, including one to assassinate our old
friend Cardinal Rishi lou We talked about him during the
Bourbon series. Being the heir to the throne, however, usually
got him out of trouble, got him out of losing
his head at least right. I remember, Louis the thirteenth
and his wife didn't have children until decades into their marriage,
and their son, the eventual Louie fourteenth, was truly considered
(03:37):
a miracle for a long time. Will Sara was the
only option out there. You had to deal with them, right,
so we had to stick around a while. Possible treason
wasn't Gaston's only business, though, After his first wife died
giving birth to their daughter, he eloped with Marguerite de
Lorraine without permission from his brother. The King and Marguerite's
father were actually enemies, and they were finally given the
(03:58):
King's blessing. However, as their eldest daughter together, Marguerite Louise
was groomed to be the Sunday wife of her cousin
Louis the fourteen and Queen of France, so she had
a bright future ahead of her at that point. She did,
or at least her parents were hoping she would have
that future, and she did seem well suited to the
part Herman notes that she had turquoise I she had
(04:19):
chestnut curls. She calls her quote voluptuous, and according to
the Women in World History Encyclopedia, she also was accomplished.
She rode well, she hunted, she was smart, she was witty,
a brilliant conversationalist. And that last point you got me
thinking a little bit. It's a label you see applied
to a lot of nobles and royals, and I always
find it it's a little hard to imagine what exactly means,
(04:41):
because I just dumped to somebody like Mark Twain, and
I'm sure that's not what they were talking about. Antonia Fraser, though,
writing in Love in the Life of Louis the fourteen
helped me understand a little bit why this last accomplishment
was considered so very important in this era. I mean,
of course it's still important today a but why it
(05:01):
was crucial in this age. Apparently, upper class women in
France in this era were very, very poorly educated in
the traditional sense. Only an estimated fourteen to thirty four
percent could even sign their own names. But conversational training
almost took the place of formal reading and writing training,
and um Frasier quoted a Madeline Discutari, who detailed the
(05:26):
ideal in feminine conversational ability at the time, and she said, quote,
a woman in conversation should demonstrate a marvelous rapport between
her words and her eyes. While she should, of course
be careful not to sound quote like a book talking.
She should rather speak quote worthily of everyday things and
simply of grand things. So it's a lot to live
(05:47):
up to, I'd say it is. And but unfortunately for
Margaret Louise, or at least for her parents ambitions for
her report, between turquoise eyes and worthy speaking wasn't enough
to make a marriage between her and Louis. Now conversation
wasn't going to cut it. He had a lot of prospects,
mostly cousins, and ended up with his double first cousin.
(06:08):
We've talked about this before, to Maria Theresa, since their
alliance could promise peace between Spain and France, who were
warring at the time. Marguerite Louise meanwhile, would marry Costomo
the third de Medici, heir to Ferdinand the second Grand
Duke of Tuscany. But by this point Marguerite Louise herself
had fallen in love with another cousin of hers, one
(06:29):
on her maternal side, Prince Charles of Lorraine. And he
was eighteen and a dashing soldier fresh out of Spanish prison.
And this was actually it would have been considered a
really good match for the two of them, and Marguerite,
Louisa's now widowed mother even approved of the idea. But
Louis just forged right ahead with the Medici alliance. He
(06:51):
was working, according to the Women in World History Encyclopedia,
under the advice of Cardinal Jules Mazarin, again, you know,
hoping to make some sort of a liliance here rather
than just helping the family all marry each other. And plus,
it might be worth noting to Louis had himself given
up his youthful love uh to make this dynastic marriage,
so he probably wasn't about to make concessions for his
(07:13):
young cousins. Wanted everyone to suffer as he had. That's
not nice. Well I don't know about that, but he
was acting as king rather than loving cousin. But anyway,
cosomo it is, that's going to be the groom. And
in sixteen sixty one, at age sixteen, Margaret Louise was
married by proxy to Costomo at the Luve Chapel, and
(07:34):
she had already given her engagement right away. That's how
not into this match she was. And while she was
traveling to Tuscany to meet her husband and be married
in person, she really took her sweet time, stopping too
long at every every city she went through to upset
this tightly controlled pageant schedule for her progress. We've talked
(07:55):
about that sort of thing before, the grand slow pace travel.
She made it too slow, and things didn't get better
when she actually met her groom too. I mean, in
case you were hoping for some sort of stunning like,
actually I do like you at all. Um, he's an
unfortunate looking fellow. He had Popeye's really oversized features and um.
(08:16):
The main issue, though, was just their temperaments were completely incompatible.
He was somber serious, he was extremely devout. The Papal
Nuncio described their incompatibility thank quote, the Prince is all gravity,
but the Princess loves nothing more than laughing. So not
a great couple maybe, And it was probably emphasized that
(08:38):
disparity between their temperaments was probably emphasized by the type
of entertainments cost most stage to try to make his
new wife happy, ballets and balls and feasts, things that
probably wouldn't show him off to his best advantage. But
despite these attempts to win her over, Costomo didn't seem
that into her at all, at least as far as
(08:58):
producing an air was concerned, and so probably this, combined
with her homesickness for the French court, meant that she
tried to get out of the marriage early and actually
requested permission to have it annulled and enter a convent
back home no dice, though they wouldn't allow this at all.
So unable to simply leave the situation, she took up
(09:19):
a more passive, aggressive way of showing her unhappiness, or
actually aggressive ways yet sometimes just not so nice. For example,
she refused to learn Italian. Okay, maybe that's not so bad.
But then sometimes she would refuse to eat, and other
times she would run a daily food bill that was
ten times that of her husband. When she was eating,
(09:41):
she was spending. Sometimes she would just use the silent
treatment for everybody. And that's my favorite when she started
to talk again. That especially for a brilliant conversationalist. Right
when she started to talk again, though it wasn't I
would imagine they'd almost wish she just was still violent,
because she would mock her husban been at court um,
and we've already included that quote about showering invectives though
(10:05):
she wasn't saying nice things when she was talking. Her
father in law, the Grand Duke, tried to rein in
her out range of spending and her behavior by dismissing
her French retinue. She sent them off smuggling the Tuscan
Crown jewels, so she kind of got back at him
and they didn't get them back ultimately, but still, I mean,
that's that's a bold move Marguerite Louise. To stop her
(10:28):
from coming and going as she pleased, her father in
law put bolts on her doors and only allowed her
out for promenades and court events, And she would also
spend a lot of time just away from the main court,
out of public eye, where everybody could hear her making
fun of her new family. At one point, while she
was staying at one of these medici villas, she said
(10:49):
her husband a note threatening to throw a missile at
his head should he attempt to follow her go bring
her home, visit her at all, probably didn't help any
whole child creating department. And when she caught malaria, she
tried to blame it on the Medici penchant for poisoning.
(11:11):
Louis basically told her to knock it off and asked
the Pope to threaten her with excommunication. And when her
in laws finally had her imprisoned in one of their
palaces and pizza, she tried to escape with gypsies. I mean,
if you're going to get out somehow, that's the way
to go, I guess, according to G. F. Young in
the Medici quote, finding her circumstances becoming us ever more
(11:34):
intolerable and that she could get no help from her
relatives in France, she evolved the idea of escape from
the contemptible Cosmo by joining a party of gypsies, with
whom she was discovered one night, settling all the arrangements
from a window of the palace at pizza, whereupon that
mode of escape was made impossible. But since the couple
(11:55):
would reconcile occasionally, it's hard to believe with all this
going on that they ever would, but they did end
up having three children. Ferdinand was born in sixteen sixty three.
Anna Maria Louisa de Medici was born in sixteen sixty seven,
and Giovanne or gian Gaston was born in sixteen seventy one.
Marguerite Louise also found time to entertain her cousin and
(12:17):
old friend Charles of Lorraine, who was a frequent visitor
at court and her lover incidentally another another ranch in
this next year. But in sixteen seventy fernand the second died,
leaving Cosomo the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Margaret Louise
I think at this point was hoping, well, maybe if
(12:37):
I have some little portion to govern myself, we can
work this out. She was forbidden from taking any role
in government, though by Cosomo and his mother, and so
she went back to one of the villas, and within
two years she decided that enough was enough. She was
tired of hanging around just threatening her husband, and while
she was visiting a small Tuscan town, wrote to him
(13:01):
saying that she considered their marriage essentially over. She wrote
to her cousin Louie, explaining that since both parties had
had multiple affairs, she really didn't stay any point in
staying in Tuscany and playing sort of prisoner slash Grand
duchess anymore, and Louie initially told her, well, okay, you're
welcome to be a prisoner in France instead, But finally
(13:22):
herr husband and her cousin worked things out and by
sixteen seventy five she was allowed to return to France
to a convent outside of Paris, but it was understood
that there would be certain restrictions on her. She chose
to spend her time entertaining at court, attending parties and balls,
and of course continuing to harass her husband Costomo. I
(13:46):
mean I shouldn't say. Of course, you would think that
she had escaped him and would just kind of leave
that life behind. But but no, she actually chose to
sort of stay in his life by by staying at
his throat a According to herman, at one point she
wrote to him, quote, no hour of the day passes
when I do not desire your death and wish that
(14:07):
you were hanged. What aggravates me most of all is
that we shall both go to the devil, and then
I shall have the torment of seeing you even there.
I swear by what I loathe above all else. That
is yourself that I shall make a pact with the
devil to enrage you and to escape your madness. Enough
is enough. I shall engage in any extravagance I so
(14:30):
wish in order to bring you unhappiness. If you think
you can get me to come back to you, this
will never happen. And if I came back to you, beware,
because you would never die. But by my hand me
and mean letter. Um. For his part, Kosmos did very
much interested in her too. I mean, not just because
he was paying a lot of her bills, but um,
(14:52):
they were still very much involved in each other's life.
But uh, this convent situation, we should mention one more
thing about it too. Sense she clearly wasn't living a
retired life. Is Deplana mentioned going out to parties and everything.
When the convents knew, Prioris tried to really enforce the
rules and keep her home like she was she was
(15:12):
supposed to be under the terms of this arrangement. She
supposedly threatened the woman with an axe and a pistol
and then threatened to set the place on fire. So, UM,
think thinking we're starting to see some signs of more
serious serious behavioral problems. But yeah, she was. She was
not about to be reined in. Eventually, though, her outrageous
(15:35):
behavior was too much for even all these amusing stories
about Tuscany and Cosmo to be worth it anymore, and
so Louis the fourteenth finally banned her from court, and
in seventeen twenty one she died at the age of
seventy six. I think by then actually finally living sort
of a retired life and and um, trying to take
(15:56):
things down a notch. Cosmo, though, was equally long lived.
I always think that's sort of that's what happened to it.
She couldn't get him in time. Um. Yeah. He died
in seventeen twenty three, after a reign of fifty three years,
which incidentally was the longest reign of any Medici, even
though during that time his duchy lost a lot of
(16:19):
its prestige. He was succeeded by his youngest son, Gianne,
who was already into his fifties, unhealthy and childless, and
with him the Medici line of grand dukes ended, and
he was succeeded by Francis, the grandson of Margherite Louise's
Duke of Lorraine, who we mentioned earlier in the podcast,
and the father of Marie Antoinette, so strange connections on
(16:40):
both sides. I feel like this episode has tied into
almost every royal person we've ever talked to, every series
that we've done, in some way one somewhat touching note
to this bizarre story. In the early twentieth century, two
silver coins belonging to Marguerite Louise were found to actually
be hollow like little gets her boxes, and one had
(17:01):
a miniature of Charles of Lorraine as a young man,
and something that's kind of sweet. Maybe if she just
married her cousin, none of these nasty letters had to happen.
Um And kind of a fun fact to something decidedly
good that did come out of this poor coupling. Her
eldest son with Cosmo Fernando, who was also the child
(17:23):
she was closest to. Um. He had died before his father, obviously,
that's why he didn't become the grand Duke himself. He
was the patron of a man called Bartolomeo Christophy and
christophery is the man who invented the piano. So you know,
it's a little connection there, some sort of some sort
(17:44):
of positive note for us to end on rather than um,
you won't die by any hand but mine. Maybe he
could have put music to her letters. I feel like
they were maybe the classical historical iterations of the precursors
to a lot of small sets songs or something like
breakup music. I mean, I was thinking they were kind
(18:05):
of an operatic seeming couple. It seems like this would
be a uh, if not an opera from from many
years ago, then I guess some sort of lifetime movie today.
It does sound like something fit for lifetime, I think,
but also fit for a good series. So it's been
fun to do these over the summer, and maybe we'll
(18:25):
have some more coming up soon, some more princess stories,
but if you have any suggestions for some that you'd
like for us to cover. I feel like we've covered
a lot of royalty over the years, but there are
some key figures that get suggested all the time that
we haven't gone a chance to cover yet. So if
you have any especially want to hear about, feel free
to write to us. We're at History Podcast at Discovery
(18:46):
dot com. You can also find us on Facebook and
we're on Twitter at Miston History and in the meantime,
if you want to learn a little bit about royalty
in a more general sense, we do have an article
called how Royalty Works. You can check it out by
searching on our on page www dot how stuff works
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(19:09):
Is it how stuff works dot com. M
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from housetof
works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Sarah Downy and I'm doublin a Charkerboarding and this summer,
as a special treat to all of our royal loving listeners,
(00:20):
we're going to be focusing on some of the shenanigans
of some notable princesses in history. And last time we
discussed Sophia Dorothea of Selah, who was a pretty sympathetic
character in her story. I would say she was married
off to an incompatible cousin at a young age, was
manipulated by her father in law's mistress, who may or
(00:41):
may not have been responsible for the murder of her
own Swedish boyfriend, and to top all of that off,
she spent nearly half of her life held prisoner in
a castle. I mean that really does top it off,
isn't it. So we can definitely feel sorry for her. Yeah,
even her husband's own subjects, both in Hanover and or
in England felt kind of sorry for her. But today's
(01:03):
subject is going to be a little more divisive. I think. Yeah,
we're gonna be talking about Marguerite Louise dor Leon, who
was a near contemporary of Sophia Dorothea, and she was
also a dynastic pond for her powerful family. She also
made an unsuitable match in her mid teens and was
held prisoner by her in laws. But whereas Sophia Dorothea
(01:26):
comes across as unlucky and maybe somewhat naive, Marguerite Louise
seems like she would have been hell on wheel. He
really does. She was a firecracker. Just to give you
a sense of what other people have said about her,
eleanor Herman, who wrote Sex with the Queen, said she
was quote born with an uncontrollable temperament, ill suited to
(01:47):
her royal position, you know, a position where you kind
of need to keep your mouth shut most of the time.
She also said she had a fearless, toxic nastiness. Encyclopedia
Britannica called her a frivolous consort, and the Women in
World History Encyclopedia notes that quote she showered invective on
all within reach. So fun times here. But best of all,
(02:10):
I think discussing Marguerite Louise is going to allow us
to revisit our old friends. The Medici family and her
popular people love the Medici family, and we're going to
get to find out how exactly that illustrious line finally
died out. Since way back when the Medici series began
so long ago, we did discuss how they started so
(02:31):
full circle. But before we get to that, we're going
to talk a little bit about Marguerite Louise's early life.
So she was born in sixteen forty five, or they're
about to Gaston, Duke do Leon and his wife Marguerite
de Lorraine, and Gaston was the son of King Henry
the fourth of France and Marie de Medici, and the
younger brother of Louis the thirteenth, and because he ended
(02:52):
up being the only surviving younger brother, he was called
monsieur from a very young age. But it seems like
Marguerite Loui He's is daring and her impulsiveness that we're
going to discuss later weren't exactly unique to her her alone,
and it wasn't a unique family trait. No, her father
started participating in plots against his brother the king at
(03:14):
a pretty young age, including one to assassinate our old
friend Cardinal Rishi lou We talked about him during the
Bourbon series. Being the heir to the throne, however, usually
got him out of trouble, got him out of losing
his head at least right. I remember, Louis the thirteenth
and his wife didn't have children until decades into their marriage,
and their son, the eventual Louie fourteenth, was truly considered
(03:37):
a miracle for a long time. Will Sara was the
only option out there. You had to deal with them, right,
so we had to stick around a while. Possible treason
wasn't Gaston's only business, though, After his first wife died
giving birth to their daughter, he eloped with Marguerite de
Lorraine without permission from his brother. The King and Marguerite's
father were actually enemies, and they were finally given the
(03:58):
King's blessing. However, as their eldest daughter together, Marguerite Louise
was groomed to be the Sunday wife of her cousin
Louis the fourteen and Queen of France, so she had
a bright future ahead of her at that point. She did,
or at least her parents were hoping she would have
that future, and she did seem well suited to the
part Herman notes that she had turquoise I she had
(04:19):
chestnut curls. She calls her quote voluptuous, and according to
the Women in World History Encyclopedia, she also was accomplished.
She rode well, she hunted, she was smart, she was witty,
a brilliant conversationalist. And that last point you got me
thinking a little bit. It's a label you see applied
to a lot of nobles and royals, and I always
find it it's a little hard to imagine what exactly means,
(04:41):
because I just dumped to somebody like Mark Twain, and
I'm sure that's not what they were talking about. Antonia Fraser, though,
writing in Love in the Life of Louis the fourteen
helped me understand a little bit why this last accomplishment
was considered so very important in this era. I mean,
of course it's still important today a but why it
(05:01):
was crucial in this age. Apparently, upper class women in
France in this era were very, very poorly educated in
the traditional sense. Only an estimated fourteen to thirty four
percent could even sign their own names. But conversational training
almost took the place of formal reading and writing training,
and um Frasier quoted a Madeline Discutari, who detailed the
(05:26):
ideal in feminine conversational ability at the time, and she said, quote,
a woman in conversation should demonstrate a marvelous rapport between
her words and her eyes. While she should, of course
be careful not to sound quote like a book talking.
She should rather speak quote worthily of everyday things and
simply of grand things. So it's a lot to live
(05:47):
up to, I'd say it is. And but unfortunately for
Margaret Louise, or at least for her parents ambitions for
her report, between turquoise eyes and worthy speaking wasn't enough
to make a marriage between her and Louis. Now conversation
wasn't going to cut it. He had a lot of prospects,
mostly cousins, and ended up with his double first cousin.
(06:08):
We've talked about this before, to Maria Theresa, since their
alliance could promise peace between Spain and France, who were
warring at the time. Marguerite Louise meanwhile, would marry Costomo
the third de Medici, heir to Ferdinand the second Grand
Duke of Tuscany. But by this point Marguerite Louise herself
had fallen in love with another cousin of hers, one
(06:29):
on her maternal side, Prince Charles of Lorraine. And he
was eighteen and a dashing soldier fresh out of Spanish prison.
And this was actually it would have been considered a
really good match for the two of them, and Marguerite,
Louisa's now widowed mother even approved of the idea. But
Louis just forged right ahead with the Medici alliance. He
(06:51):
was working, according to the Women in World History Encyclopedia,
under the advice of Cardinal Jules Mazarin, again, you know,
hoping to make some sort of a liliance here rather
than just helping the family all marry each other. And plus,
it might be worth noting to Louis had himself given
up his youthful love uh to make this dynastic marriage,
so he probably wasn't about to make concessions for his
(07:13):
young cousins. Wanted everyone to suffer as he had. That's
not nice. Well I don't know about that, but he
was acting as king rather than loving cousin. But anyway,
cosomo it is, that's going to be the groom. And
in sixteen sixty one, at age sixteen, Margaret Louise was
married by proxy to Costomo at the Luve Chapel, and
(07:34):
she had already given her engagement right away. That's how
not into this match she was. And while she was
traveling to Tuscany to meet her husband and be married
in person, she really took her sweet time, stopping too
long at every every city she went through to upset
this tightly controlled pageant schedule for her progress. We've talked
(07:55):
about that sort of thing before, the grand slow pace travel.
She made it too slow, and things didn't get better
when she actually met her groom too. I mean, in
case you were hoping for some sort of stunning like,
actually I do like you at all. Um, he's an
unfortunate looking fellow. He had Popeye's really oversized features and um.
(08:16):
The main issue, though, was just their temperaments were completely incompatible.
He was somber serious, he was extremely devout. The Papal
Nuncio described their incompatibility thank quote, the Prince is all gravity,
but the Princess loves nothing more than laughing. So not
a great couple maybe, And it was probably emphasized that
(08:38):
disparity between their temperaments was probably emphasized by the type
of entertainments cost most stage to try to make his
new wife happy, ballets and balls and feasts, things that
probably wouldn't show him off to his best advantage. But
despite these attempts to win her over, Costomo didn't seem
that into her at all, at least as far as
(08:58):
producing an air was concerned, and so probably this, combined
with her homesickness for the French court, meant that she
tried to get out of the marriage early and actually
requested permission to have it annulled and enter a convent
back home no dice, though they wouldn't allow this at all.
So unable to simply leave the situation, she took up
(09:19):
a more passive, aggressive way of showing her unhappiness, or
actually aggressive ways yet sometimes just not so nice. For example,
she refused to learn Italian. Okay, maybe that's not so bad.
But then sometimes she would refuse to eat, and other
times she would run a daily food bill that was
ten times that of her husband. When she was eating,
(09:41):
she was spending. Sometimes she would just use the silent
treatment for everybody. And that's my favorite when she started
to talk again. That especially for a brilliant conversationalist. Right
when she started to talk again, though it wasn't I
would imagine they'd almost wish she just was still violent,
because she would mock her husban been at court um,
and we've already included that quote about showering invectives though
(10:05):
she wasn't saying nice things when she was talking. Her
father in law, the Grand Duke, tried to rein in
her out range of spending and her behavior by dismissing
her French retinue. She sent them off smuggling the Tuscan
Crown jewels, so she kind of got back at him
and they didn't get them back ultimately, but still, I mean,
that's that's a bold move Marguerite Louise. To stop her
(10:28):
from coming and going as she pleased, her father in
law put bolts on her doors and only allowed her
out for promenades and court events, And she would also
spend a lot of time just away from the main court,
out of public eye, where everybody could hear her making
fun of her new family. At one point, while she
was staying at one of these medici villas, she said
(10:49):
her husband a note threatening to throw a missile at
his head should he attempt to follow her go bring
her home, visit her at all, probably didn't help any
whole child creating department. And when she caught malaria, she
tried to blame it on the Medici penchant for poisoning.
(11:11):
Louis basically told her to knock it off and asked
the Pope to threaten her with excommunication. And when her
in laws finally had her imprisoned in one of their
palaces and pizza, she tried to escape with gypsies. I mean,
if you're going to get out somehow, that's the way
to go, I guess, according to G. F. Young in
the Medici quote, finding her circumstances becoming us ever more
(11:34):
intolerable and that she could get no help from her
relatives in France, she evolved the idea of escape from
the contemptible Cosmo by joining a party of gypsies, with
whom she was discovered one night, settling all the arrangements
from a window of the palace at pizza, whereupon that
mode of escape was made impossible. But since the couple
(11:55):
would reconcile occasionally, it's hard to believe with all this
going on that they ever would, but they did end
up having three children. Ferdinand was born in sixteen sixty three.
Anna Maria Louisa de Medici was born in sixteen sixty seven,
and Giovanne or gian Gaston was born in sixteen seventy one.
Marguerite Louise also found time to entertain her cousin and
(12:17):
old friend Charles of Lorraine, who was a frequent visitor
at court and her lover incidentally another another ranch in
this next year. But in sixteen seventy fernand the second died,
leaving Cosomo the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Margaret Louise
I think at this point was hoping, well, maybe if
(12:37):
I have some little portion to govern myself, we can
work this out. She was forbidden from taking any role
in government, though by Cosomo and his mother, and so
she went back to one of the villas, and within
two years she decided that enough was enough. She was
tired of hanging around just threatening her husband, and while
she was visiting a small Tuscan town, wrote to him
(13:01):
saying that she considered their marriage essentially over. She wrote
to her cousin Louie, explaining that since both parties had
had multiple affairs, she really didn't stay any point in
staying in Tuscany and playing sort of prisoner slash Grand
duchess anymore, and Louie initially told her, well, okay, you're
welcome to be a prisoner in France instead, But finally
(13:22):
herr husband and her cousin worked things out and by
sixteen seventy five she was allowed to return to France
to a convent outside of Paris, but it was understood
that there would be certain restrictions on her. She chose
to spend her time entertaining at court, attending parties and balls,
and of course continuing to harass her husband Costomo. I
(13:46):
mean I shouldn't say. Of course, you would think that
she had escaped him and would just kind of leave
that life behind. But but no, she actually chose to
sort of stay in his life by by staying at
his throat a According to herman, at one point she
wrote to him, quote, no hour of the day passes
when I do not desire your death and wish that
(14:07):
you were hanged. What aggravates me most of all is
that we shall both go to the devil, and then
I shall have the torment of seeing you even there.
I swear by what I loathe above all else. That
is yourself that I shall make a pact with the
devil to enrage you and to escape your madness. Enough
is enough. I shall engage in any extravagance I so
(14:30):
wish in order to bring you unhappiness. If you think
you can get me to come back to you, this
will never happen. And if I came back to you, beware,
because you would never die. But by my hand me
and mean letter. Um. For his part, Kosmos did very
much interested in her too. I mean, not just because
he was paying a lot of her bills, but um,
(14:52):
they were still very much involved in each other's life.
But uh, this convent situation, we should mention one more
thing about it too. Sense she clearly wasn't living a
retired life. Is Deplana mentioned going out to parties and everything.
When the convents knew, Prioris tried to really enforce the
rules and keep her home like she was she was
(15:12):
supposed to be under the terms of this arrangement. She
supposedly threatened the woman with an axe and a pistol
and then threatened to set the place on fire. So, UM,
think thinking we're starting to see some signs of more
serious serious behavioral problems. But yeah, she was. She was
not about to be reined in. Eventually, though, her outrageous
(15:35):
behavior was too much for even all these amusing stories
about Tuscany and Cosmo to be worth it anymore, and
so Louis the fourteenth finally banned her from court, and
in seventeen twenty one she died at the age of
seventy six. I think by then actually finally living sort
of a retired life and and um, trying to take
(15:56):
things down a notch. Cosmo, though, was equally long lived.
I always think that's sort of that's what happened to it.
She couldn't get him in time. Um. Yeah. He died
in seventeen twenty three, after a reign of fifty three years,
which incidentally was the longest reign of any Medici, even
though during that time his duchy lost a lot of
(16:19):
its prestige. He was succeeded by his youngest son, Gianne,
who was already into his fifties, unhealthy and childless, and
with him the Medici line of grand dukes ended, and
he was succeeded by Francis, the grandson of Margherite Louise's
Duke of Lorraine, who we mentioned earlier in the podcast,
and the father of Marie Antoinette, so strange connections on
(16:40):
both sides. I feel like this episode has tied into
almost every royal person we've ever talked to, every series
that we've done, in some way one somewhat touching note
to this bizarre story. In the early twentieth century, two
silver coins belonging to Marguerite Louise were found to actually
be hollow like little gets her boxes, and one had
(17:01):
a miniature of Charles of Lorraine as a young man,
and something that's kind of sweet. Maybe if she just
married her cousin, none of these nasty letters had to happen.
Um And kind of a fun fact to something decidedly
good that did come out of this poor coupling. Her
eldest son with Cosmo Fernando, who was also the child
(17:23):
she was closest to. Um. He had died before his father, obviously,
that's why he didn't become the grand Duke himself. He
was the patron of a man called Bartolomeo Christophy and
christophery is the man who invented the piano. So you know,
it's a little connection there, some sort of some sort
(17:44):
of positive note for us to end on rather than um,
you won't die by any hand but mine. Maybe he
could have put music to her letters. I feel like
they were maybe the classical historical iterations of the precursors
to a lot of small sets songs or something like
breakup music. I mean, I was thinking they were kind
(18:05):
of an operatic seeming couple. It seems like this would
be a uh, if not an opera from from many
years ago, then I guess some sort of lifetime movie today.
It does sound like something fit for lifetime, I think,
but also fit for a good series. So it's been
fun to do these over the summer, and maybe we'll
(18:25):
have some more coming up soon, some more princess stories,
but if you have any suggestions for some that you'd
like for us to cover. I feel like we've covered
a lot of royalty over the years, but there are
some key figures that get suggested all the time that
we haven't gone a chance to cover yet. So if
you have any especially want to hear about, feel free
to write to us. We're at History Podcast at Discovery
(18:46):
dot com. You can also find us on Facebook and
we're on Twitter at Miston History and in the meantime,
if you want to learn a little bit about royalty
in a more general sense, we do have an article
called how Royalty Works. You can check it out by
searching on our on page www dot how stuff works
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(19:09):
Is it how stuff works dot com. M
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