May 3, 2023 • 33 mins
Jean-Baptistle Lully is perhaps best known for the unusual circumstances of his death. But he lived a fascinating life that would rival any fictional rags-to-riches story.
Research:
- James R. Anthony. “Lully’s Airs. French or Italian?” The Musical Times, vol. 128, no. 1729, 1987, pp. 126–29. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/964491
- Brett, Philip. “Issues in Music and Sexuality in the Long Eighteenth Century.” Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques, vol. 33, no. 1, 2007, pp. 69–77. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41299400
- Fairleigh, James P. “Lully as ‘Secrétaire Du Roi.’” Bach, vol. 15, no. 4, 1984, pp. 16–22. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41640222
- Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Baroque music". Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 Mar. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/art/Baroque-music.
- Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "the Fronde". Encyclopedia Britannica, 5 Feb. 2014, https://www.britannica.com/event/The-Fronde
- Anthony, James R. “The New Grove French Baroque Masters: Lully, Charpentier, Lalande, Couperin, Rameau.” New York. Norton. 1986. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/newgrovefrenchba00anth/page/30/mode/2up?view=theater
- “The Sun King’s Musician, 1632-1687.” Chateau de Versailles. https://en.chateauversailles.fr/discover/history/great-characters/lully
- “Jean Baptiste Lully.” New World Encyclopedia. https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Jean_Baptiste_Lully
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And today's topic is
one that has been on my list for quite a while,
but I hadn't thought about him for a bit until
(00:23):
I was watching the movie Tar and his name came up.
That's another thing related to my travels that was on
a flight. We watch this on an airplane. Yes, it
comes up in passing very early on in the film.
So outside of music circles, Jean Baptiste Lulie is perhaps
best known for the unusual circumstances of his death, but
(00:44):
he lived a really fascinating life that would rival just
about any fictional rags to riches story. The Chateau de
Versailles website has a little anecdotal sidebar about him that reads,
despite his Italian origins, Lulie was the most ardent defender
of French music and the founder of the French operatic tradition.
So today we're going to talk about how an Italian
(01:07):
kid landed in France and became so deeply ingrained in
both the royal court and the country's cultural history. So
Giovanni Battista Luli was born November twenty ninth, sixteen thirty
two in Florence, Italy. We don't really know a whole
lot about his childhood, although he later claimed that a
Franciscan monk had taught him a little bit of guitar.
(01:30):
He also later claimed that his parents had been part
of Florence's noble class, but it really appears that his father,
Lorenzo Dimaldo Lulli, was actually a miller. His mother was
Katerina del Sera, and she was also from a miller's family.
Giovanni had an older brother and sister who died when
he was still very young, and he was his parent's
(01:52):
only surviving child. When Giovanni was just eleven, he was
spotted performing allegedly during carnival festivities by the Duke de
guise or possibly a member of the Duke's family. Giovanni's
mother had died around this same time, and so it
appears that when the offer was made for the Duke
de Guisee to take the young boy away to France,
it was not met with resistance, so soon Givanni was
(02:16):
going by the French version of his name Jean Baptiste Lullie,
and he did legally take that name, but he did
that when he became a naturalized French citizen, which did
not happen for almost two decades after this. The first
job that young Loulie had in France was serving as
garson de chambre and conversational companion to the young Mademoiselle
(02:37):
de Montpencier. This was Anne Marie Louise d'rleon, Duchess of Montponcier,
who was fourteen at the time that young Lili appeared
in France. She had in him a native Italian speaker
that she could practice learning that language with. He was
paid one hundred and fifty livres a year for this position,
(02:57):
but this also meant that Loulie had access to educational
opportunities of his own. He was exposed to a lot
of different music of all kinds, which he really loved.
He started learning music more formally with a string ensemble
who played for the young Royal. There are two different
versions of how Louli's time in the Montpencier household. Ended.
(03:20):
One is that he showed a lot of promise musically
but was abruptly let go from his position when he
wrote some verses set to music that were very scandalous
and full of innuendo. The other version is much less salacious,
at least for Lulie. When the series of French civil
wars that came to collectively be known as La Fronde
(03:41):
took place over the years of sixteen forty eight to
sixteen fifty three, Mademoiselle de Montpensier was caught up in it.
At this point, Louis the fourteenth had not yet fully
assumed the throne. His mother Anne of Austria, and Jules
Cardinal Mazarin, her Italian chief minister, were running that did
not sit well with the French nobility or the parlement. Initially,
(04:06):
Mademoiselle de Montpensier's involvement in Lafrand seemed kind of minimal.
She became friends with participants in the Frande desnoble, that
was the segment of the conflict that involved the nobility
opposing a reduction in their influence and power. But then
she kind of got right in the middle of it
when she tried to intercede with the City of Orleans,
(04:27):
attempting to stay neutral in all of this, and things
kind of spiraled from there, and she did become much
more involved. She was ultimately exiled for her part in
the conflict, and in this version of Jean Baptiste, Lullie
no longer working for her, he simply asked to be
let go because he did not want to live in
the country. Of course, the relationship that most influenced the
(04:50):
course of Loulie's life was the one that he had
with the King, Louis the fourteenth. The two men appeared
on stage together on February twenty third, sixteen fifty three,
in the Le Royale de la Nui. In our two
part episode on the history of ballet, which came out
in twenty nineteen, we talked about how Louis the fourteenth
had formalized ballet, shifting it from being a social activity
(05:13):
to a performative art, and Loulis was instrumental in that,
although his real power as a leader in the arts
came later, But Louli and the King really hit it
off from the start. Louis's appointments to various creative roles
in the arts that the king's command began not long
after they met in the summer of sixteen fifty three,
(05:33):
Louis became head of Louis the fourteenth's personal orchestra, nicknamed
Peti violon durois a little violins. This was the first
step in a historic rise to fame and power. For context,
Loulis was six years older than the king, and Louis
the fourteenth was still a teenager at this time. He
was fourteen or fifteen, so right at the age when
(05:55):
having a witty friend in his twenties would probably seem
really alluring. From early on, Louis the fourteenth had in
Loulie a friend who would devote himself to keeping the
monarch entertained and amused and delighted. Louie, of course, benefited
from the favor bestowed on him by one of the
most powerful men in Europe and really of the world.
(06:18):
Although that felt weird to type, so I typed it
and deleted it many times. In his role as the
king's composer, Loulie started writing music for court ballets, and
he also performed in them, and he quickly made a
name for himself as a dancer and composer, but also
because of his fantastic comedic performances, so he was also
considered a comedian he gained the nickname Baptiste as his
(06:43):
stage name and became something of a Celebrity's Baptiste is
mentioned in a lot of writing of the day as
being this amazing performer, and it was Loulie. During this time,
Louie had developed the Little Violins into a group so
exceptional that it was soon seen is far superior to
the Royal Orchestra that it was technically an offshoot of.
(07:05):
But eventually the two of them did merge for court ballets.
Starting in sixteen sixty one, Jean Baptiste Louie went through
a particularly important stretch, lasting a couple of years. This
was the year he became a French citizen and took
this French version of his name legally. He became Superintendent
of Music and Court Composer to the King on May sixteenth,
(07:27):
sixteen sixty one. He was not the sole holder of
that position. Composer Jean Baptiste was set also held that title.
In sixteen sixty two, just before he turned thirty, Louis married.
His bride was Madeleine Lambert, who's the daughter of composer
Michel Lambert, who was an influence and possibly a teacher
(07:47):
of Loulie in his early years in France. This wedding
was attended by King Louis the fourteenth, then Queen Maria Theresa.
Lee and Madeline went on to have ten children together.
Seen sixty four, Loulie began collaborating with Moliere. The two
of them produced many comedie ballet pieces over the next
several years, including Lamour Medsin Love Medicine or Medical Love
(08:11):
in sixteen sixty five, l Sicilian in sixteen sixty seven,
and Monsieur de Porsignac in sixteen sixty nine. The duo's
final collaboration was Le Bourgeoise gen Dillome in sixteen seventy.
The years of sixteen seventy three to sixteen eighty seven
are considered Lulie's most productive as a composer. He wrote
(08:34):
an opera every year during this time, so fourteen in total.
During this time, his collaborator was Lebrest Philippe Killon, and
in this phase of Luie's career he tended to focus
primarily on tragic opera. There are only a few comedies
sprinkled in. Working with Quinon, Lili produced, among other operas, Isis.
(08:55):
In sixteen seventy seven, Psyche in sixteen seventy eight, La
Tempted pet in sixteen eighty five. His collaborations with other
librettists were often pretty fraught. Louie was really picky, he
wanted to rewrite things himself sometimes, and he was also
very frank with his criticisms. These traits, combined with the
(09:15):
fact that he had basically taken over all of music
in France, led to just a lot of tension within
the arts community. At one point, this turmoil actually resulted
in one of his rivals trying to have Louie assassinated
with arsenic which was planned to be mixed into his tobacco.
And that plot came to light when opera singer Marie Aubrey,
(09:36):
who worked with Loulie, told him about it. Her brother
had been the man asked to commit the murder. There
was a big trial, It went back and forth, there
was an appeal, but Lili was never actually nobody attempted
to kill him, so it was kind of a trying
to prove a plot, which is tricky. In a moment,
we'll talk about how Lui monopolized the musical life of France,
(09:59):
but first we will hear from our sponsors. During that
particularly productive time of his life, Lulie also achieved an
incredible coup of sorts for opera in France. He had
(10:19):
used his various positions, power and money to basically become
the sole arbiter of what was performed on the operatic
stage in the country. In addition to having achieved the
highest rank possible within the monarch's power structure, he had
also purchased the performing rites of librettiest Pierre Perin and
composer Robert Cambert. This meant that Lulie was the opera
(10:43):
composer of France. No one could produce any operas in
the country without his permission. Par have been granted a
twelve year permit in sixteen sixty nine to build opera
academies anywhere in France, and Louis had been fighting that
from the beginning. Initially he insisted that the French language
(11:04):
wasn't really a good language for longer form opera. He
thought Italian was superior. He would change his opinion on that, though,
we'll get to that in a moment. But just a
few years after Parenz started this endeavor, he found himself
in financial straits, and that was when Louise seized the
moment and bought him out. Loulie's offer to Parentz paid
(11:28):
off all of his immediate debts and gave him a
pension for the rest of his life. In return, Louie
was able to parlay the academy rights to an exclusivity
deal with the king to create the Academy Royalty Musique,
with no one else allowed to open an academy of
that nature in France. Although Loulis and Moliere had been
(11:50):
colleagues with a lot of success together, Moliere tried to
block this whole thing, as did other composers. By the
time Loui's machinations were complete, he had managed to cut
off all of his competition through one legal arrangement after another,
and he profited from it as well. We're talking a
bit more about that in a moment. He even managed
(12:12):
to seize control over Moliere's theater within weeks of the
playwright's death, and he received a royal grant to convert
it into the home of the Academy Royal de Musique.
When Loulie started working on operas in the sixteen seventies,
Italy was considered to be the center of opera He
may well have continued to work in ballets were it
(12:35):
not for the wavering enthusiasm of Louis the fourteenth. When
the King and Louie had met and Louis was a teenager,
performing ballet was easy and enjoyable for him. But as
the king got older, time gets us all and ballet
got more demanding, he didn't want to participate as much,
and it stopped being his favorite of the arts, Thus
(12:55):
the transition to opera. Many of Louliy's works borrowed from
the Italian opera tradition, taking styles that had been popular
earlier in his life and then giving them new life
by pairing them with French verse and with the French
ballet styles that had risen to prominence. Was using the
balletic elements as a chorus of sorts. We said just
(13:18):
a moment ago that Louli thought that French was not
really going to work out for opera, but he challenged himself,
probably with some encouragement from Louis the fourteenth, to work
with the French language to make a new style of
delivery that would work with opera. Some of this involved
working with the way verse was spoken and sung by performers,
(13:40):
but he also approached the problem from the opposite angle,
and it was something that Louis was quite academic about.
He's said to have studied the way French stage dramas
were performed and then mimicked the patterns of speech musically.
This way he innovated the French opera to have a
greater continuity from segment to segment. In sixteen eighty one,
(14:03):
Loulie made a really interesting move. So he had, as
we said, initially performed in the comedy ballet that he
wrote for performances at the King's Court. But over the
years his appearances on stage had waned to nothing. But
that year he returned to perform Monsieur de Porsignac, a
ballet that included sections of spoken dialogue written by Moliere.
(14:25):
This was not a new ballet. It had first been
performed twelve years earlier, but it was popular and it
had gone back into rotation. In addition to writing the
music for it, Loulie had originated the role of a
doctor in the comedy who performed in a dance segment
called the Dance of the Enemas. This was pretty broad comedy,
and in the sixteen eighty one performance, where Loulie decided
(14:48):
to return. He went all out, which included surprising everyone
by basically stage diving from the stage into the orchestra pit.
Near his part's conclusion, he destroyed a harpsichord in the process.
But this whole thing delighted King Louis the fourteenth utterly,
who broke out into loud laughter in the theater. One
(15:09):
of the reasons it was so odd for Loulie to
engage in this kind of just clownery was that he
had been working to rise even higher in the ranks
of the court. He wanted to become a secretary to
the King. So, as a brief explainer, the secretary's zufra
were men in service to the king who either served
(15:30):
as advisor notary secretary to the King and Household and
Crown of France and its finances, or just advisor notary
Secretary of the King, House and Crown of France. So
that distinction of and its finances in that first description
put those secretaries in the Grand chancellery. It meant that
they benefited from the country's wealth but were also on
(15:53):
the hook for it. This was an office that offered
a chance for a common born civil servant to really
gain ranking of nobility which could then be inherited by
heirs if the secretary served for twenty years or more,
or if they died while in office. So this was
a really ambitious move for Lolie. So back to that
(16:15):
performance of Monsieur de Porsignac and the stage diving. The
king's other secretaries did not find vamping around and jumping
off the stage to be the kind of behavior suitable
for someone who might gain such a position, and their
feelings on the matter got Toluli's ears almost instantly, allegedly
as he was leaving the stage to change out of costume,
(16:39):
but he also received word that he was to return
to the stage to give the king another bow and
receive the monarch's appreciation. Loulie did something rather bold. He
took the opportunity to tell the king what had been
going on with the other secretaries, saying from the stage,
but Sire, I want to become a secretary of the king.
(17:01):
Your secretaries will not receive me, and they may not
want to receive you. The implication here was that in
openly associating with Louis, the king might be tarnished. It
also made very clear to the men who had just
called him undignified that they were insulting the King's taste.
So this was a little daggery, and the King replied
(17:21):
with they will no longer want to receive it will
be a great honor for them. If I'm interpreting this
direct translation correctly, the implication here is that Louis the
fourteenth was essentially telling Louie and everyone else there that
it would be an honor to the other secretaries for
Louie to become one of their number. This feud over
Louie and his rise to power continued. Louie was even
(17:45):
confronted over the issue by the French Minister of War,
Francois Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois. Louvois had been
approached by the other secretaries to intercede on their behalf,
and he explained to Loulie it really was not appropriate
for him, a performer and comedian, to try to rise
to such a station, making a note that Loui's only
(18:09):
real skill was making Louis the fourteenth laugh, so that
was sort of comparing him to being nothing more than
a jester. I feel like gesters can be really powerful,
but that was not the It's not the implication here.
Louise replied rather indignantly that Louvois would do the exact
(18:29):
same thing if he could, implying that the minister had
no sense of humor. Things escalated to the point where
King Louis the fourteenth made clear to the secretaries through
an intermediary that they were the ones who were behaving badly,
and that they should see Louise's desire to become a
secretary as an honor. At some point, though it's not
(18:50):
entirely clear when the king had already given Louie the
required lettre de noblesse that made him part of the
French nobility, and should have given him enough credentials that
he could pursue the office of secretary without issue, although
the letters would not have been a requirement for it. Finally,
in December sixteen eighty one, Loulie purchased the title of
(19:13):
Esquire Advisor Secretary to the King, Household, Crown of France
and his finances. He purchased that office from the widow
of the prior holder, Joseph Clozel, as would have been
customary at the time, basically he was buying out their
family's inheritance. Madame Clozell received sixty three thousand livre in
exchange for Louie's assumption of the position, having been admonished
(19:36):
by the throne. The other secretaries accepted Loulie, at least
on the surface, and for his part, Louie invited many
of them to a feast in an evening of opera
to celebrate the role of secretary was clearly important to Loulie.
All of his scores after this had printed at the
top by Monsieur Lellie Esquire Adviser, Secretary to the king
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House Crown of France and its finances, and superintendent of
His Majesty's music, just in case she wanted a really
long title end business card every time. In just the moment,
we will talk about how lucrative becoming a king's secretary
was for the composer and where the rest of his
wealth came from. First, though, we will hear from the
(20:20):
sponsors that keeps stuffy miss in history class going. James P. Fairleie,
writing for the periodical Bach in nineteen eighty four, noted
that Lulie was through his position as secretary collecting an
(20:42):
estimated sixteen hundred livre a year in addition to the
money he was being paid for his various other offices.
His positions as the master of music to the royal
family and the composer to the King would have gotten
him an estimated thirty thousand livre a year. Addition, in
instances where anyone wished to perform in the country using
(21:04):
more than two singers and more than six violins, it
was now considered an opera, and Loulie was to be
paid a fee in exchange for permission to perform. In
This control over who could perform and where in the
country really became a rather ruthless pursuit for Loulie, and
one that he approached strategically. In sixteen eighty four, Louis
(21:27):
the fourteenth granted him the power to approve or deny
requests for building opera houses anywhere in the country, and
his approval came with a fee. Of course, when Louie's
daughter Catherine Madeline married one of the king's household staff,
Nicholas Francine, in sixteen eighty four, the composer let his
new son in law manage some of the non creative
(21:48):
day to day elements of the Academy Royaley musique. This
offered him some breathing room and what was a really
packed schedule because Louie was not just writing operas, he
was also staging, the running rehearsals, training new talent, and
by all accounts was kind of a backbreaker in all
of it. He was incredibly exacting in his staging and arrangement.
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There were accounts of him having a violent temper when
his performers weren't working as hard as he wanted them to. Audiences, though,
saw none of this. They just saw excellence. Almost equivalent
to Lulie's excellence in his work and his ambition was
his astute accumulation of real estate to ensure that his
wealth continued to grow. He purchased multiple properties as he
(22:34):
got more and more money, and in sixteen eighty two
he moved his family to a huge house outside of
Paris that was surrounded by gardens. He even attempted to
purchase the entire county of Gregnon, near the Swiss border,
and this particular effort caused friction with other nobles for
a couple of reasons. One someone else had already been
(22:55):
on it when Lulie swooped in and offered fifty percent
more than the existing bid, which by most estimations was
more than it was worth. So it kind of just
seemed like he wanted to be a jerk. There was
really like this air of dishonor about the whole thing,
like you wouldn't do that to a colleague or an equal.
But it also really riled the aristocracy in general, who
just thought Loulie was being really showy with his cash.
(23:19):
That was to them extra ghosh, because he wasn't even
French to begin with. One letter that passed between two
members of the nobility read quote, must a wanderer have
the temerity to have such land? The wealth of a
man of this quality is greater than that of the
prime ministers and the other princes of Europe. Lilie did
(23:40):
not get Grignond, but he sure did keep on buying
properties in Paris. There was more drama in the composer's
life in sixteen eighty five, when Lulie's page named Brune
was removed from the composer's household. Lilly's romance with Brune
has been described by some historians as kind of an
(24:01):
open secret in the Journal Historical Reflections. In two thousand
and seven, Philip Brett wrote an article titled Issues in
Music and Sexuality in the Long eighteenth Century, and in
this article Brett mentions that Louis was part of a
circle of men within the court of Louis the fourteenth
who were known to have affairs with other men, and
this was something that was mentioned in the writing of
(24:23):
the day. One account of Louie's contemporaries mentions that the
king was growing tired of Louie's conduct with other men,
particularly because he was becoming less and less covert about
such things, and in the case of Brune, it appears
that things had become really too obvious they had to
be ended by external forces. This was also happening as
(24:47):
Louis the fourteenth was becoming more devout himself following Queen
Maria Theres's death and his marriage in secret to Francoise
d'aubigna Madame de Matino. Eight was also when Louie composed
most of his religious music. This was partially a response
to the clergy's critiques of Louie's operas, as well as
(25:09):
shifting attitudes at court, so he had gone from ballets
to operas because the king wanted it, And now he
was kind of getting into sacred music because that was
what the king was into. Then it was also probably
helping to revise Loui's public persona. The king had kind
of turned on opera, and Louie did not enjoy royal
(25:29):
favor the way he once had, although he did retain
his various titles. I read one account that said he
kept making Louis the fourteenth angry because of his affairs
and his behavior, but he always forgave him in the end.
In November of sixteen eighty six, Louis the fourteenth underwent
surgery for an anal fistula. The surgery was painful and
(25:51):
the recovery process was long. Finally, in early sixteen eighty seven,
the king was feeling well and Louie planned a celebratory
performance of his piece to Damn. During the concert, which
took place on January eighth, he conducted an orchestra of
more than one hundred and fifty musicians in the couvon
diff Weel, the royal monastery of sam Bernard for that occasion.
(26:14):
As part of his renowned perfectionism, Louie was known to
beat time with a sharpened cane that also served as
his conductor's baton. But during this event, he accidentally brought
the sharp end of this cane down on his own
foot instead of the stage while marking time, and he
pierced through the shoe into his toe. Over the next weeks,
(26:38):
that toe became infected and gangrene set in. Loulie's physicians
wanted to amputate, but he refused. There are accounts that
indicate that he said that he would no longer be
able to dance if he submitted to an amputation. But
surely he was aware that even if he didn't have
an amputation in his foot heeled, his dancing days were
(26:58):
probably over. But he became sicker and sicker, and he
must have known that he had basically doomed himself because
he made various end of life legal arrangements. Jean Baptiste
Lui died on March twenty second of sixteen eighty seven.
He was buried in the church of Notre Dame de Victoire.
To be clear that it is not the same as
Notre Dame Cathedral. When Luley died, he left behind an
(27:22):
impressive fortune for his heirs. His holdings were estimated to
be worth about eight hundred thousand livres, although in some
accounts it's closer to a million. He had five homes
in Paris, the very large and opulently decorated home he
lived in during his last years in the suburb of
Villa Leveque, two country houses, one at Puteaux and one
(27:45):
at seven. He also had two blocks of apartments in
the Rue Royale and Rue de PETITCHMP. As a landlord
he had a steady stream of income from those properties alone. Yeah,
he did what he set out to do, which was
to set up, you know, a name for himself, create
family wealth, make his family noble, his children inherited all
(28:07):
of that. So he kind of, you know, he set
a goal and he achieved it. Today, Loli is often
credited with founding the French opera, although we should note
there were certainly other composers contributing to the field at
the same time, even though Louie did try to have
them silenced with his legal maneuvering. The range of feelings
about him, bookended by his own time in the modern world,
(28:29):
can perhaps be summed up best in two quotes. The
first is from James P. Firleigh, who we mentioned earlier.
In his nineteen eighty four writing, he said of Loulie quote,
he was one of the few men of genius belonging
to the company of royal secretaries. Despite his many shortcomings,
he was among the brightest lights in the reign of
Louis the fourteenth and then the next is a comment
(28:51):
from one of Louie's contemporaries, the librettist Jean de la Fontaine,
who once stated in the Papers of the day about
Louie quote, he is lewde and I'm evil minded, and
he devours all. So the good news is if people
think you're a monster today, eventually you might be lauded.
Is amazing. Yeah, we have some listener mail for us,
(29:16):
I do, and unsurprisingly to me, we got emails about
hot doctor Pepper. Yeah we did, we did. Uh. The
one I'm reading today is from our listener Laura, who writes, Hi,
Dracy and Holly. I've been waiting for an excuse to
write you to for a long time, and I know
I don't need an excuse to tell you how wonderful
y'all are, and this week gave me two. I grew
(29:38):
up in a very teetotaler household where my father was
very anti alcohol in any form. He is loosened up
as he's aged. And one of our Christmas winter holiday
drinks was mould doctor pepper. My stepmom would heat it
on the stove with spices like you do a mould wine,
and we would have that on special winter occasions. Maybe
it does not sound good to you, but I have
fond memories of hot mold Doctor p and Christmas or
(30:01):
New Year's celebrations. As for hot doctor pepper from a
bottle of heated in a car, I agreed that is gross.
Hot plastic does not impart good flavor. Second thing I
wanted to write to you about is Anne Hutchinson, which
is from the episode Tracy Research. That week I've been
meaning to write to ask for an episode about her.
Time always gets away from me. It was very excited
that she is a big part of the Mary Dier episode.
(30:22):
I live for twelve years in the Bronx, New York,
right next to the Hutchinson River Parkway, which everyone calls
the hutch which is named for Anne Hutchinson. I find
her to be very interesting and loved learning about her
and Mary Dyer from you. Two. I love stuff you
missed in history class and have listened to all the
back episodes. I think I started listening in twenty nine
or twenty ten. I also listened to all of pop
(30:43):
stuff back when that was on. Thank you for all
you've taught me, and I'm always excited to listen to
a new episode. I love you too, and the previous
host too much love Laura. What a sweet sweet email,
hot doctor Pee listen. So I do like a Muld
wine or a muld cider. Those can be great. No,
they're not for you. I don't. I really struggle. I
(31:10):
really struggle with hot punches. Sure, I mean I drink
hot coffee with sweeteners. So it's not a hot sweet issue.
I don't know what it is. It might be a
level of sweetness like a hot fruity drinks of any kind. No,
but I'm willing to try it. Look, I'm never now
I'm like, oh, maybe maybe we'll try a doctor Pepper situation.
(31:33):
I would be willing to try kind of like hot
muld doctor Pepper. I would try that too. I would
probably put alcohol in it. The way my brain auto
filled that sentence was, I would probably put it over
ice with some vodka that was fun. I was like,
(31:54):
that would defeat the purpose of it being able to
do it. I'll do it warm with vodka. That's fun. Uh.
We have some other doctor Pepper emails we might read
because there's some interesting ones, and I appreciate it and
I listen. I want everyone to stand up for the
things they love, even if I'm like, oh, yuck, because
(32:15):
that's one ding dong's opinion. I also think that sometimes
people get very uh they will take personally other people's
like food and beverage perference, and I'm like, it's okay,
It is okay if you personally don't like a particular
flavor or texture or whatever that is not that's not
a judgment on anybody else's use of that flavor or
(32:38):
texture unless you are literally like people who like this
are bad. And nobody's saying that this is indicative of
moral family. No, everybody eat and drink what you like,
so long as it is you know, safe and not
gonna hurt anybody. Yeah, Like I know there's a whole
like people can make value judgments about like foods and
(33:00):
beverages and things that are like racist or classist or whatever.
I'm just talking about if you don't like the way
something tastes in your mouth, nobody needs to be offended
about that. Listen. I eat lots of stuff that I'm
sure other people find horrifying. Fine, no big. If you
would like to try to us about your hot Doctor
(33:20):
Pepper desires or memories, you can do that at Historypodcast
at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also find us on
social media at mist in History, and you can subscribe
to the show on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you
listen to your favorite podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History
(33:42):
Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And today's topic is
one that has been on my list for quite a while,
but I hadn't thought about him for a bit until
(00:23):
I was watching the movie Tar and his name came up.
That's another thing related to my travels that was on
a flight. We watch this on an airplane. Yes, it
comes up in passing very early on in the film.
So outside of music circles, Jean Baptiste Lulie is perhaps
best known for the unusual circumstances of his death, but
(00:44):
he lived a really fascinating life that would rival just
about any fictional rags to riches story. The Chateau de
Versailles website has a little anecdotal sidebar about him that reads,
despite his Italian origins, Lulie was the most ardent defender
of French music and the founder of the French operatic tradition.
So today we're going to talk about how an Italian
(01:07):
kid landed in France and became so deeply ingrained in
both the royal court and the country's cultural history. So
Giovanni Battista Luli was born November twenty ninth, sixteen thirty
two in Florence, Italy. We don't really know a whole
lot about his childhood, although he later claimed that a
Franciscan monk had taught him a little bit of guitar.
(01:30):
He also later claimed that his parents had been part
of Florence's noble class, but it really appears that his father,
Lorenzo Dimaldo Lulli, was actually a miller. His mother was
Katerina del Sera, and she was also from a miller's family.
Giovanni had an older brother and sister who died when
he was still very young, and he was his parent's
(01:52):
only surviving child. When Giovanni was just eleven, he was
spotted performing allegedly during carnival festivities by the Duke de
guise or possibly a member of the Duke's family. Giovanni's
mother had died around this same time, and so it
appears that when the offer was made for the Duke
de Guisee to take the young boy away to France,
it was not met with resistance, so soon Givanni was
(02:16):
going by the French version of his name Jean Baptiste Lullie,
and he did legally take that name, but he did
that when he became a naturalized French citizen, which did
not happen for almost two decades after this. The first
job that young Loulie had in France was serving as
garson de chambre and conversational companion to the young Mademoiselle
(02:37):
de Montpencier. This was Anne Marie Louise d'rleon, Duchess of Montponcier,
who was fourteen at the time that young Lili appeared
in France. She had in him a native Italian speaker
that she could practice learning that language with. He was
paid one hundred and fifty livres a year for this position,
(02:57):
but this also meant that Loulie had access to educational
opportunities of his own. He was exposed to a lot
of different music of all kinds, which he really loved.
He started learning music more formally with a string ensemble
who played for the young Royal. There are two different
versions of how Louli's time in the Montpencier household. Ended.
(03:20):
One is that he showed a lot of promise musically
but was abruptly let go from his position when he
wrote some verses set to music that were very scandalous
and full of innuendo. The other version is much less salacious,
at least for Lulie. When the series of French civil
wars that came to collectively be known as La Fronde
(03:41):
took place over the years of sixteen forty eight to
sixteen fifty three, Mademoiselle de Montpensier was caught up in it.
At this point, Louis the fourteenth had not yet fully
assumed the throne. His mother Anne of Austria, and Jules
Cardinal Mazarin, her Italian chief minister, were running that did
not sit well with the French nobility or the parlement. Initially,
(04:06):
Mademoiselle de Montpensier's involvement in Lafrand seemed kind of minimal.
She became friends with participants in the Frande desnoble, that
was the segment of the conflict that involved the nobility
opposing a reduction in their influence and power. But then
she kind of got right in the middle of it
when she tried to intercede with the City of Orleans,
(04:27):
attempting to stay neutral in all of this, and things
kind of spiraled from there, and she did become much
more involved. She was ultimately exiled for her part in
the conflict, and in this version of Jean Baptiste, Lullie
no longer working for her, he simply asked to be
let go because he did not want to live in
the country. Of course, the relationship that most influenced the
(04:50):
course of Loulie's life was the one that he had
with the King, Louis the fourteenth. The two men appeared
on stage together on February twenty third, sixteen fifty three,
in the Le Royale de la Nui. In our two
part episode on the history of ballet, which came out
in twenty nineteen, we talked about how Louis the fourteenth
had formalized ballet, shifting it from being a social activity
(05:13):
to a performative art, and Loulis was instrumental in that,
although his real power as a leader in the arts
came later, But Louli and the King really hit it
off from the start. Louis's appointments to various creative roles
in the arts that the king's command began not long
after they met in the summer of sixteen fifty three,
(05:33):
Louis became head of Louis the fourteenth's personal orchestra, nicknamed
Peti violon durois a little violins. This was the first
step in a historic rise to fame and power. For context,
Loulis was six years older than the king, and Louis
the fourteenth was still a teenager at this time. He
was fourteen or fifteen, so right at the age when
(05:55):
having a witty friend in his twenties would probably seem
really alluring. From early on, Louis the fourteenth had in
Loulie a friend who would devote himself to keeping the
monarch entertained and amused and delighted. Louie, of course, benefited
from the favor bestowed on him by one of the
most powerful men in Europe and really of the world.
(06:18):
Although that felt weird to type, so I typed it
and deleted it many times. In his role as the
king's composer, Loulie started writing music for court ballets, and
he also performed in them, and he quickly made a
name for himself as a dancer and composer, but also
because of his fantastic comedic performances, so he was also
considered a comedian he gained the nickname Baptiste as his
(06:43):
stage name and became something of a Celebrity's Baptiste is
mentioned in a lot of writing of the day as
being this amazing performer, and it was Loulie. During this time,
Louie had developed the Little Violins into a group so
exceptional that it was soon seen is far superior to
the Royal Orchestra that it was technically an offshoot of.
(07:05):
But eventually the two of them did merge for court ballets.
Starting in sixteen sixty one, Jean Baptiste Louie went through
a particularly important stretch, lasting a couple of years. This
was the year he became a French citizen and took
this French version of his name legally. He became Superintendent
of Music and Court Composer to the King on May sixteenth,
(07:27):
sixteen sixty one. He was not the sole holder of
that position. Composer Jean Baptiste was set also held that title.
In sixteen sixty two, just before he turned thirty, Louis married.
His bride was Madeleine Lambert, who's the daughter of composer
Michel Lambert, who was an influence and possibly a teacher
(07:47):
of Loulie in his early years in France. This wedding
was attended by King Louis the fourteenth, then Queen Maria Theresa.
Lee and Madeline went on to have ten children together.
Seen sixty four, Loulie began collaborating with Moliere. The two
of them produced many comedie ballet pieces over the next
several years, including Lamour Medsin Love Medicine or Medical Love
(08:11):
in sixteen sixty five, l Sicilian in sixteen sixty seven,
and Monsieur de Porsignac in sixteen sixty nine. The duo's
final collaboration was Le Bourgeoise gen Dillome in sixteen seventy.
The years of sixteen seventy three to sixteen eighty seven
are considered Lulie's most productive as a composer. He wrote
(08:34):
an opera every year during this time, so fourteen in total.
During this time, his collaborator was Lebrest Philippe Killon, and
in this phase of Luie's career he tended to focus
primarily on tragic opera. There are only a few comedies
sprinkled in. Working with Quinon, Lili produced, among other operas, Isis.
(08:55):
In sixteen seventy seven, Psyche in sixteen seventy eight, La
Tempted pet in sixteen eighty five. His collaborations with other
librettists were often pretty fraught. Louie was really picky, he
wanted to rewrite things himself sometimes, and he was also
very frank with his criticisms. These traits, combined with the
(09:15):
fact that he had basically taken over all of music
in France, led to just a lot of tension within
the arts community. At one point, this turmoil actually resulted
in one of his rivals trying to have Louie assassinated
with arsenic which was planned to be mixed into his tobacco.
And that plot came to light when opera singer Marie Aubrey,
(09:36):
who worked with Loulie, told him about it. Her brother
had been the man asked to commit the murder. There
was a big trial, It went back and forth, there
was an appeal, but Lili was never actually nobody attempted
to kill him, so it was kind of a trying
to prove a plot, which is tricky. In a moment,
we'll talk about how Lui monopolized the musical life of France,
(09:59):
but first we will hear from our sponsors. During that
particularly productive time of his life, Lulie also achieved an
incredible coup of sorts for opera in France. He had
(10:19):
used his various positions, power and money to basically become
the sole arbiter of what was performed on the operatic
stage in the country. In addition to having achieved the
highest rank possible within the monarch's power structure, he had
also purchased the performing rites of librettiest Pierre Perin and
composer Robert Cambert. This meant that Lulie was the opera
(10:43):
composer of France. No one could produce any operas in
the country without his permission. Par have been granted a
twelve year permit in sixteen sixty nine to build opera
academies anywhere in France, and Louis had been fighting that
from the beginning. Initially he insisted that the French language
(11:04):
wasn't really a good language for longer form opera. He
thought Italian was superior. He would change his opinion on that, though,
we'll get to that in a moment. But just a
few years after Parenz started this endeavor, he found himself
in financial straits, and that was when Louise seized the
moment and bought him out. Loulie's offer to Parentz paid
(11:28):
off all of his immediate debts and gave him a
pension for the rest of his life. In return, Louie
was able to parlay the academy rights to an exclusivity
deal with the king to create the Academy Royalty Musique,
with no one else allowed to open an academy of
that nature in France. Although Loulis and Moliere had been
(11:50):
colleagues with a lot of success together, Moliere tried to
block this whole thing, as did other composers. By the
time Loui's machinations were complete, he had managed to cut
off all of his competition through one legal arrangement after another,
and he profited from it as well. We're talking a
bit more about that in a moment. He even managed
(12:12):
to seize control over Moliere's theater within weeks of the
playwright's death, and he received a royal grant to convert
it into the home of the Academy Royal de Musique.
When Loulie started working on operas in the sixteen seventies,
Italy was considered to be the center of opera He
may well have continued to work in ballets were it
(12:35):
not for the wavering enthusiasm of Louis the fourteenth. When
the King and Louie had met and Louis was a teenager,
performing ballet was easy and enjoyable for him. But as
the king got older, time gets us all and ballet
got more demanding, he didn't want to participate as much,
and it stopped being his favorite of the arts, Thus
(12:55):
the transition to opera. Many of Louliy's works borrowed from
the Italian opera tradition, taking styles that had been popular
earlier in his life and then giving them new life
by pairing them with French verse and with the French
ballet styles that had risen to prominence. Was using the
balletic elements as a chorus of sorts. We said just
(13:18):
a moment ago that Louli thought that French was not
really going to work out for opera, but he challenged himself,
probably with some encouragement from Louis the fourteenth, to work
with the French language to make a new style of
delivery that would work with opera. Some of this involved
working with the way verse was spoken and sung by performers,
(13:40):
but he also approached the problem from the opposite angle,
and it was something that Louis was quite academic about.
He's said to have studied the way French stage dramas
were performed and then mimicked the patterns of speech musically.
This way he innovated the French opera to have a
greater continuity from segment to segment. In sixteen eighty one,
(14:03):
Loulie made a really interesting move. So he had, as
we said, initially performed in the comedy ballet that he
wrote for performances at the King's Court. But over the
years his appearances on stage had waned to nothing. But
that year he returned to perform Monsieur de Porsignac, a
ballet that included sections of spoken dialogue written by Moliere.
(14:25):
This was not a new ballet. It had first been
performed twelve years earlier, but it was popular and it
had gone back into rotation. In addition to writing the
music for it, Loulie had originated the role of a
doctor in the comedy who performed in a dance segment
called the Dance of the Enemas. This was pretty broad comedy,
and in the sixteen eighty one performance, where Loulie decided
(14:48):
to return. He went all out, which included surprising everyone
by basically stage diving from the stage into the orchestra pit.
Near his part's conclusion, he destroyed a harpsichord in the process.
But this whole thing delighted King Louis the fourteenth utterly,
who broke out into loud laughter in the theater. One
(15:09):
of the reasons it was so odd for Loulie to
engage in this kind of just clownery was that he
had been working to rise even higher in the ranks
of the court. He wanted to become a secretary to
the King. So, as a brief explainer, the secretary's zufra
were men in service to the king who either served
(15:30):
as advisor notary secretary to the King and Household and
Crown of France and its finances, or just advisor notary
Secretary of the King, House and Crown of France. So
that distinction of and its finances in that first description
put those secretaries in the Grand chancellery. It meant that
they benefited from the country's wealth but were also on
(15:53):
the hook for it. This was an office that offered
a chance for a common born civil servant to really
gain ranking of nobility which could then be inherited by
heirs if the secretary served for twenty years or more,
or if they died while in office. So this was
a really ambitious move for Lolie. So back to that
(16:15):
performance of Monsieur de Porsignac and the stage diving. The
king's other secretaries did not find vamping around and jumping
off the stage to be the kind of behavior suitable
for someone who might gain such a position, and their
feelings on the matter got Toluli's ears almost instantly, allegedly
as he was leaving the stage to change out of costume,
(16:39):
but he also received word that he was to return
to the stage to give the king another bow and
receive the monarch's appreciation. Loulie did something rather bold. He
took the opportunity to tell the king what had been
going on with the other secretaries, saying from the stage,
but Sire, I want to become a secretary of the king.
(17:01):
Your secretaries will not receive me, and they may not
want to receive you. The implication here was that in
openly associating with Louis, the king might be tarnished. It
also made very clear to the men who had just
called him undignified that they were insulting the King's taste.
So this was a little daggery, and the King replied
(17:21):
with they will no longer want to receive it will
be a great honor for them. If I'm interpreting this
direct translation correctly, the implication here is that Louis the
fourteenth was essentially telling Louie and everyone else there that
it would be an honor to the other secretaries for
Louie to become one of their number. This feud over
Louie and his rise to power continued. Louie was even
(17:45):
confronted over the issue by the French Minister of War,
Francois Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois. Louvois had been
approached by the other secretaries to intercede on their behalf,
and he explained to Loulie it really was not appropriate
for him, a performer and comedian, to try to rise
to such a station, making a note that Loui's only
(18:09):
real skill was making Louis the fourteenth laugh, so that
was sort of comparing him to being nothing more than
a jester. I feel like gesters can be really powerful,
but that was not the It's not the implication here.
Louise replied rather indignantly that Louvois would do the exact
(18:29):
same thing if he could, implying that the minister had
no sense of humor. Things escalated to the point where
King Louis the fourteenth made clear to the secretaries through
an intermediary that they were the ones who were behaving badly,
and that they should see Louise's desire to become a
secretary as an honor. At some point, though it's not
(18:50):
entirely clear when the king had already given Louie the
required lettre de noblesse that made him part of the
French nobility, and should have given him enough credentials that
he could pursue the office of secretary without issue, although
the letters would not have been a requirement for it. Finally,
in December sixteen eighty one, Loulie purchased the title of
(19:13):
Esquire Advisor Secretary to the King, Household, Crown of France
and his finances. He purchased that office from the widow
of the prior holder, Joseph Clozel, as would have been
customary at the time, basically he was buying out their
family's inheritance. Madame Clozell received sixty three thousand livre in
exchange for Louie's assumption of the position, having been admonished
(19:36):
by the throne. The other secretaries accepted Loulie, at least
on the surface, and for his part, Louie invited many
of them to a feast in an evening of opera
to celebrate the role of secretary was clearly important to Loulie.
All of his scores after this had printed at the
top by Monsieur Lellie Esquire Adviser, Secretary to the king
(19:58):
House Crown of France and its finances, and superintendent of
His Majesty's music, just in case she wanted a really
long title end business card every time. In just the moment,
we will talk about how lucrative becoming a king's secretary
was for the composer and where the rest of his
wealth came from. First, though, we will hear from the
(20:20):
sponsors that keeps stuffy miss in history class going. James P. Fairleie,
writing for the periodical Bach in nineteen eighty four, noted
that Lulie was through his position as secretary collecting an
(20:42):
estimated sixteen hundred livre a year in addition to the
money he was being paid for his various other offices.
His positions as the master of music to the royal
family and the composer to the King would have gotten
him an estimated thirty thousand livre a year. Addition, in
instances where anyone wished to perform in the country using
(21:04):
more than two singers and more than six violins, it
was now considered an opera, and Loulie was to be
paid a fee in exchange for permission to perform. In
This control over who could perform and where in the
country really became a rather ruthless pursuit for Loulie, and
one that he approached strategically. In sixteen eighty four, Louis
(21:27):
the fourteenth granted him the power to approve or deny
requests for building opera houses anywhere in the country, and
his approval came with a fee. Of course, when Louie's
daughter Catherine Madeline married one of the king's household staff,
Nicholas Francine, in sixteen eighty four, the composer let his
new son in law manage some of the non creative
(21:48):
day to day elements of the Academy Royaley musique. This
offered him some breathing room and what was a really
packed schedule because Louie was not just writing operas, he
was also staging, the running rehearsals, training new talent, and
by all accounts was kind of a backbreaker in all
of it. He was incredibly exacting in his staging and arrangement.
(22:10):
There were accounts of him having a violent temper when
his performers weren't working as hard as he wanted them to. Audiences, though,
saw none of this. They just saw excellence. Almost equivalent
to Lulie's excellence in his work and his ambition was
his astute accumulation of real estate to ensure that his
wealth continued to grow. He purchased multiple properties as he
(22:34):
got more and more money, and in sixteen eighty two
he moved his family to a huge house outside of
Paris that was surrounded by gardens. He even attempted to
purchase the entire county of Gregnon, near the Swiss border,
and this particular effort caused friction with other nobles for
a couple of reasons. One someone else had already been
(22:55):
on it when Lulie swooped in and offered fifty percent
more than the existing bid, which by most estimations was
more than it was worth. So it kind of just
seemed like he wanted to be a jerk. There was
really like this air of dishonor about the whole thing,
like you wouldn't do that to a colleague or an equal.
But it also really riled the aristocracy in general, who
just thought Loulie was being really showy with his cash.
(23:19):
That was to them extra ghosh, because he wasn't even
French to begin with. One letter that passed between two
members of the nobility read quote, must a wanderer have
the temerity to have such land? The wealth of a
man of this quality is greater than that of the
prime ministers and the other princes of Europe. Lilie did
(23:40):
not get Grignond, but he sure did keep on buying
properties in Paris. There was more drama in the composer's
life in sixteen eighty five, when Lulie's page named Brune
was removed from the composer's household. Lilly's romance with Brune
has been described by some historians as kind of an
(24:01):
open secret in the Journal Historical Reflections. In two thousand
and seven, Philip Brett wrote an article titled Issues in
Music and Sexuality in the Long eighteenth Century, and in
this article Brett mentions that Louis was part of a
circle of men within the court of Louis the fourteenth
who were known to have affairs with other men, and
this was something that was mentioned in the writing of
(24:23):
the day. One account of Louie's contemporaries mentions that the
king was growing tired of Louie's conduct with other men,
particularly because he was becoming less and less covert about
such things, and in the case of Brune, it appears
that things had become really too obvious they had to
be ended by external forces. This was also happening as
(24:47):
Louis the fourteenth was becoming more devout himself following Queen
Maria Theres's death and his marriage in secret to Francoise
d'aubigna Madame de Matino. Eight was also when Louie composed
most of his religious music. This was partially a response
to the clergy's critiques of Louie's operas, as well as
(25:09):
shifting attitudes at court, so he had gone from ballets
to operas because the king wanted it, And now he
was kind of getting into sacred music because that was
what the king was into. Then it was also probably
helping to revise Loui's public persona. The king had kind
of turned on opera, and Louie did not enjoy royal
(25:29):
favor the way he once had, although he did retain
his various titles. I read one account that said he
kept making Louis the fourteenth angry because of his affairs
and his behavior, but he always forgave him in the end.
In November of sixteen eighty six, Louis the fourteenth underwent
surgery for an anal fistula. The surgery was painful and
(25:51):
the recovery process was long. Finally, in early sixteen eighty seven,
the king was feeling well and Louie planned a celebratory
performance of his piece to Damn. During the concert, which
took place on January eighth, he conducted an orchestra of
more than one hundred and fifty musicians in the couvon
diff Weel, the royal monastery of sam Bernard for that occasion.
(26:14):
As part of his renowned perfectionism, Louie was known to
beat time with a sharpened cane that also served as
his conductor's baton. But during this event, he accidentally brought
the sharp end of this cane down on his own
foot instead of the stage while marking time, and he
pierced through the shoe into his toe. Over the next weeks,
(26:38):
that toe became infected and gangrene set in. Loulie's physicians
wanted to amputate, but he refused. There are accounts that
indicate that he said that he would no longer be
able to dance if he submitted to an amputation. But
surely he was aware that even if he didn't have
an amputation in his foot heeled, his dancing days were
(26:58):
probably over. But he became sicker and sicker, and he
must have known that he had basically doomed himself because
he made various end of life legal arrangements. Jean Baptiste
Lui died on March twenty second of sixteen eighty seven.
He was buried in the church of Notre Dame de Victoire.
To be clear that it is not the same as
Notre Dame Cathedral. When Luley died, he left behind an
(27:22):
impressive fortune for his heirs. His holdings were estimated to
be worth about eight hundred thousand livres, although in some
accounts it's closer to a million. He had five homes
in Paris, the very large and opulently decorated home he
lived in during his last years in the suburb of
Villa Leveque, two country houses, one at Puteaux and one
(27:45):
at seven. He also had two blocks of apartments in
the Rue Royale and Rue de PETITCHMP. As a landlord
he had a steady stream of income from those properties alone. Yeah,
he did what he set out to do, which was
to set up, you know, a name for himself, create
family wealth, make his family noble, his children inherited all
(28:07):
of that. So he kind of, you know, he set
a goal and he achieved it. Today, Loli is often
credited with founding the French opera, although we should note
there were certainly other composers contributing to the field at
the same time, even though Louie did try to have
them silenced with his legal maneuvering. The range of feelings
about him, bookended by his own time in the modern world,
(28:29):
can perhaps be summed up best in two quotes. The
first is from James P. Firleigh, who we mentioned earlier.
In his nineteen eighty four writing, he said of Loulie quote,
he was one of the few men of genius belonging
to the company of royal secretaries. Despite his many shortcomings,
he was among the brightest lights in the reign of
Louis the fourteenth and then the next is a comment
(28:51):
from one of Louie's contemporaries, the librettist Jean de la Fontaine,
who once stated in the Papers of the day about
Louie quote, he is lewde and I'm evil minded, and
he devours all. So the good news is if people
think you're a monster today, eventually you might be lauded.
Is amazing. Yeah, we have some listener mail for us,
(29:16):
I do, and unsurprisingly to me, we got emails about
hot doctor Pepper. Yeah we did, we did. Uh. The
one I'm reading today is from our listener Laura, who writes, Hi,
Dracy and Holly. I've been waiting for an excuse to
write you to for a long time, and I know
I don't need an excuse to tell you how wonderful
y'all are, and this week gave me two. I grew
(29:38):
up in a very teetotaler household where my father was
very anti alcohol in any form. He is loosened up
as he's aged. And one of our Christmas winter holiday
drinks was mould doctor pepper. My stepmom would heat it
on the stove with spices like you do a mould wine,
and we would have that on special winter occasions. Maybe
it does not sound good to you, but I have
fond memories of hot mold Doctor p and Christmas or
(30:01):
New Year's celebrations. As for hot doctor pepper from a
bottle of heated in a car, I agreed that is gross.
Hot plastic does not impart good flavor. Second thing I
wanted to write to you about is Anne Hutchinson, which
is from the episode Tracy Research. That week I've been
meaning to write to ask for an episode about her.
Time always gets away from me. It was very excited
that she is a big part of the Mary Dier episode.
(30:22):
I live for twelve years in the Bronx, New York,
right next to the Hutchinson River Parkway, which everyone calls
the hutch which is named for Anne Hutchinson. I find
her to be very interesting and loved learning about her
and Mary Dyer from you. Two. I love stuff you
missed in history class and have listened to all the
back episodes. I think I started listening in twenty nine
or twenty ten. I also listened to all of pop
(30:43):
stuff back when that was on. Thank you for all
you've taught me, and I'm always excited to listen to
a new episode. I love you too, and the previous
host too much love Laura. What a sweet sweet email,
hot doctor Pee listen. So I do like a Muld
wine or a muld cider. Those can be great. No,
they're not for you. I don't. I really struggle. I
(31:10):
really struggle with hot punches. Sure, I mean I drink
hot coffee with sweeteners. So it's not a hot sweet issue.
I don't know what it is. It might be a
level of sweetness like a hot fruity drinks of any kind. No,
but I'm willing to try it. Look, I'm never now
I'm like, oh, maybe maybe we'll try a doctor Pepper situation.
(31:33):
I would be willing to try kind of like hot
muld doctor Pepper. I would try that too. I would
probably put alcohol in it. The way my brain auto
filled that sentence was, I would probably put it over
ice with some vodka that was fun. I was like,
(31:54):
that would defeat the purpose of it being able to
do it. I'll do it warm with vodka. That's fun. Uh.
We have some other doctor Pepper emails we might read
because there's some interesting ones, and I appreciate it and
I listen. I want everyone to stand up for the
things they love, even if I'm like, oh, yuck, because
(32:15):
that's one ding dong's opinion. I also think that sometimes
people get very uh they will take personally other people's
like food and beverage perference, and I'm like, it's okay,
It is okay if you personally don't like a particular
flavor or texture or whatever that is not that's not
a judgment on anybody else's use of that flavor or
(32:38):
texture unless you are literally like people who like this
are bad. And nobody's saying that this is indicative of
moral family. No, everybody eat and drink what you like,
so long as it is you know, safe and not
gonna hurt anybody. Yeah, Like I know there's a whole
like people can make value judgments about like foods and
(33:00):
beverages and things that are like racist or classist or whatever.
I'm just talking about if you don't like the way
something tastes in your mouth, nobody needs to be offended
about that. Listen. I eat lots of stuff that I'm
sure other people find horrifying. Fine, no big. If you
would like to try to us about your hot Doctor
(33:20):
Pepper desires or memories, you can do that at Historypodcast
at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also find us on
social media at mist in History, and you can subscribe
to the show on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you
listen to your favorite podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History
(33:42):
Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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