Jump to content

Talk:Château de la Muette

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Off topic

[edit]

What exactly does:
"When welcoming the Russian emperor, the Duchess appeared "stout as a tower" (“puisssante comme une tour”). The royal princess had been nicknamed “Joufflotte” (“chubby”) because of her generous proportions. By the spring of 1717, her increasing corpulence had begun to cause her serious inconvenience so that she had given up hunting and sold her saddle-horses. But the prodigious quantities of food she devoured, washed away with wine and strong liquors was not the main cause for her distressing embonpoint. Early July, Madame de Berry, who by then kept fully secluded in her castle at La Muette, was being “inconvenienced”, “having grown so big” that it was feared for her life ! By the end of July, the Duchess had recovered but she had been in critical condition a few days earlier when giving birth. Which is why two months earlier, the princess, already quite heavy with child, had seemed "stout as a tower" in presence of Peter the Great. This clandestine pregnancy was really an open secret. Arouet (Voltaire) was arrested in May 1717 after telling to a police informer that the Regent's daughter had retired to La Muette to wait for the time of her delivery. After the death of her husband in 1714 and of the Sun King in 1715, the young princess was said to have lost all semblance of restrain in her quest for lustful pleasures. In January 1716, she had secretly borne a girl at her Luxembourg palace. Satirical songs had then lampooned the confined young widow and her amours."
..have to do with the Chateau de la Muette? Clearly this is off topic having more to do with Berry than with the chateau. --Kansas Bear (talk) 02:51, 30 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]