Still, he reported that the royals visited a "Moorish woman" - Moor was used as a broad term for those of North African descent. During these visits, it was reported that the women in question was doing quite well for herself. These visits were very mysterious, and led many to wonder about the source of the relationship between the royal family and the dark-skinned nun. Though she was not present at the birth, her cousin - the king's brother - was, and allegedly told her of the event.
In her memoirs , she wrote:. When it was remarked that her baby resembled [the Moor], he was removed; that the little girl was horrible; that she would not live; that I must take care not to say so to the queen, nor that [the baby] would die. It is believed that the artist who made the portrait was the same who made 22 pastel portraits of various kings of France, from Louis IX to Louis XIV, during the years to She was whisked away from court and hidden away from others.
It was reportedly the king's idea to send her to a convent. Her carriage is exactly that of the King; her body is built to perfection, and were it not for her color, the Black of which diminishes day by day, she would be one of the loveliest persons in France; she is sad and melancholy by temperament, but as I have succeeded in attracting her confidence, and diverting her as much as one can do in a purgatory like this, we dance sometimes in secret, and then you would think you saw Mademoiselle de Nantes dance and pirouette.
Courtiers may have heard about her tall tale and spread the gossip among themselves and others. This, in turn, may have led Saint-Simon to put the rumors in writing, because he too loved gossip.
He could have even embellished things himself, as he was rarely present for the events on which he reported. We may never know for sure whether the nun was the child of royalty, but evidence from sources both reputable and unreliable certainly hint at the possibility. By all accounts, Queen Maria Theresa was in love with her husband. And they were White. So when I go into the audition I say, 'I don't know what part I'm auditioning for but I know it can't be his wife because I've seen his kids.
I just thought it was hilarious, and that Louis [C. To make matters more confusing on the show, the "Janet" character was played by white actress B rooke Bloom in a season four flashback sequence.
Casting director Keller says she auditioned African-American, Caucasian, and Asian actresses for the flashback role. Louie and Janet are both played by white actors in a flashback scene in season four. All of the actors who come in to audition go on tape and they only get the material when they get to the audition. Everything is a cold reading because Louis likes when actors are not that prepared and forced to go with their instincts.
Louie vaguely responds by saying that Janet is biracial, giving no real explanation for his very white children. While writer Dustin Rowles says Louis C. If you follow the show you understand that there's no real continuity, and that Louis is a bit of a maverick in terms of not having any allegiance to doing something one way.
People see it and go, 'What? This makes no sense. Since they were more or less children at the time, we would not be surprised today that nothing much happened at first when Louis and Marie were thrust together. One of the key reasons for royal marriages, however, was to produce heirs, and this was expected to happen with some alacrity.
In the case of the royal couple, a long night stretched into seven years, a situation that not only personally distressed the members of the royal household, but which in time became a political liability.
Several reasons have been proposed for the fact that the marriage went unconsummated for seven years. Louis, self-conscious and insecure, may not have been very interested in sex, unlike his licentious grandfather, who lambasted him for his reluctance. Marie, who was interested in sex, became increasingly frustrated with this state of affairs. Some ill-advised policies advanced by Louis did nothing to contradict this point of view. Unencumbered with learning how to be kingly at a young age, Louis found himself drawn to the solitary pursuits of lock making and carpentry.
On the other hand, being king allowed Louis to explore his interests on an extravagant level, given that the palace at Versailles was his playground.
Once, Louis attempted to use his talents to reach out to his wife. He crafted her a spinning wheel, a considerate present for a clotheshorse like Marie Antoinette, who averaged over new dresses per year.
The story goes that Marie thanked him courteously and then gave it away to one of her attendants. Later on, Louis had much worse luck with his old friend from the locksmith shop. Nervous about the revolutionary fervor bubbling up in France, Louis asked Gamain to craft an iron chest with a special lock to protect important papers.
By this time, Gamain had secretly joined the revolutionary cause. Marie warned Louis that Gamain might be untrustworthy, but Louis could not believe that his friend of 20 years would betray him.
He did, and the betrayal led to the discovery of the iron chest by the ministers seeking to overthrow the king. While Louis was busy making locks and spinning wheels, Marie was indulging her taste for luxury. She became notorious for her pricey fashions and expensively sculpted hair.
A party girl, she planned and attended innumerable dances, once famously playing a trick on her homebody husband to get out the door sooner. Louis usually went to bed at 11 p. Flowers were almost an obsession with the queen, who papered her walls with flowered wallpaper, decorated all of her commissioned furniture with flower motifs perhaps Louis should have put a daisy or two on that spinning wheel , and tended the real thing in her own personal flower garden on her mini-estate at Versailles, Petit Trianon.
She even commissioned a unique perfume, whose floral sent was a mixture of orange blossom, jasmine, iris, and rose. Some historians have contended that this unique scent aided in the capture of the king and queen when they tried to flee to Austria during the height of the revolution.
As for chocolate, Marie had her own chocolate maker on the premises at Versailles. A special tea set was dedicated to the purpose. Chocolate was still largely a luxury item in 18th century France, so a steady diet of chocolate was the kind of luxury only available to a queen.
Such personal indulgences no doubt added fire to the ire of the revolutionaries. As the story about the clock makes clear, Louis was not exactly a party animal. Louis XVI had one of the most impressive personal libraries of his day, almost 8, carefully arranged volumes of bound leather.
Unlike Marie, whose education was spotty, Louis was well-educated and continued to be interested in learning once he became king. Although he no doubt read the philosophy and political thinking that was current, he was a big fan of history and even read fiction.
Robinson Crusoe was one of his favorite fictional works. The choice is not that surprising for a man who probably wished he were on a desert island at times. He advocated the abolition of serfdom, an increase in religious tolerance, and fewer taxes on the poor.
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