Vanishing Rogue

For those who don't know, good old Chev ended up abbot of no less than FOUR abbeys: Tiron, Saint-Pierre-sur-Chartres, Saint-Jean-des-Vignes de Soissons, and Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire.

The main reason behind this, besides his absolute devotion to God (LOL) was of course: money. All jokes aside, as a chevalier, despite not actually being in the orders, he technically couldn't marry and was deprived from a bunch of positions that could have turned into a source of income---however, he could claim to the management of abbeys, regardless of the fact that he was actually a blasphemous atheist in practice. (I'm simplifying a bit: he did have to request a derogation from the church to be allowed to become an abbey etc, but in theory it was okay)

Philippe de France, his protector, knew that as well, and both campaigned relentlessly to get him abbeys, first in the late 60's. The two of them borderline harassing Louis XIV over it is one of the main reasons that lead to Chev's first exile, as Louis hated being pressured into anything.

In the end, however, he did manage to land not only these first two abbeys, but two more later on. While not being the actual owner of the places, as the abbot, he was the manager of sorts, renting out the land, managing the personnel, and collecting a portion of the revenues from these abbeys. Contrary to what could have been expected, he was rather decent at it and treated his personnel fairly, although he was described as their neighbors as an "extremely annoying neighbor" because of how anal he was about boundaries and rules. Given that the 80s and 90s are what I now like to call chev's "janitor era", it isn't surprising.

Needless to say that many people found quite scandalous that this guy, of all people, was functionally a man of God. Nevertheless, none of the people who ended up doing business with him had any complains (aside from one guy he feuded with, but what's new), and his only reason for ultimately reselling his rights was to pay off his debts at the very end of his life.

As for Philippe de France, represented as sort of a heavenly figure here because, well, he was chev's benefactor during his entire life, I wanted to add a little note about his relationship to religion, since I just discussed it a little with Zennie.

While we all know Phil was a confirmed and practicing catholic, and that he was very enthusiastic about rituals and ceremonies, Elisabetta Lurgo has recently published a couple of papers about his relationship to religion that happens to be far more nuanced and interesting than what we're typically told.

For one, we know that Philippe's entourage was remarkably diverse, even leaning quite... heavily into atheism. Chev, d'Effiat, Armand, Marsan and many others were all atheists. Phil was also very close to a jansenist canon, despite jansenism being a very controversial and even rejected branch of catholicism, and he was even known to close his eyes on protestants staying in Saint-Cloud. His close proximity to people denying God's existence is already an interesting indicator of his laissé-faire, and combined with his frequent attendance to salons, may also indicate that he could enjoy faith-challenging discussions (or at least, listening to them).

He was also described as praying silently, as opposed to his brother who was always praying out loud. It's reported that when he was told to pray out loud as well, Philippe replied that "God was more receptive to the voice of the heart than that of the mouth", which may hint at a very personal relationship to religion and God.

Overall, while again being very diligent in the ceremonial department, in a very Spanish catholic fashion inherited from Anne of Austria, it seems that when it came to spirituality itself and other day-to-day practices, he seemed far looser in his approach, as is attested by his recurring tendencies to skip Lent, his lifestyle in general, or a couple of interesting interactions such as these:

Nicolas Feuillet, Saint-Cloud's jansenist canon, reported that Philippe, whom he was rather close to (yet was always chastising), once came up to him showing off his gorgeous new bracelet. When Feuillet scolded him on how one shouldn't flaunt wealth and be so ostentacious, Philippe's response was: "then why did God create diamonds, if not for us to wear them?"

I love this anecdote, as it depicts an independent logic and spirit, of Philippe according God to his own understanding of the world, which likely extended to his lifestyle and preferences as well.

The next one is much more grim and sad, but also very interesting in how it highlights the irony that Philippe could perceive in religion, and how he expressed that:

One day, not too long after Philippe's outstanding victory in Cassel, Feuillet scolded him about all of his and Louis' successes and prosperity, expressing his concern, as God typically isn't charitable with those he loves, instead rewarding them with suffering; quite bluntly, he told Philippe that God must not love them. Philippe didn't seem too phazed, only musing "prosperity, prosperity..." out loud a couple of times, not saying much more. A couple of months later, though, his and Liselotte's son unfortunately passed away, and when Feuillet came to see him, Philippe said, "See? God does love me, after all."

It isn't surprising to see that he can have this outlook, express that irony, when he's always been an outcast from the perspective of his religious upbringing, de facto likely forcing him to question religion and dogma rather than blindly follow it--it seems to me like his mechanism to overcome this potential feeling of alienation was to simply re-appropriate his own faith and religiosity for it to make sense to himself. On top of that, while making a point of teaching him religion, his first preceptor was also a skeptic and libertine thinker, who may have transmitted some of that to him from an early age.

Finally, while he wasn't really prone to donate to church charity, he was much more encline to regularly donate to other groups and organizations, to fund enterprizes or simply donate to individual inhabitants of Saint-Cloud (not counting his favorites ofc) etc.; hereby also showing his lack of affiliation to the church outside of his princely responsibilities as a religious figure.

All of this, I find, makes for a very interesting and nuanced portrait of his religious side, and I vastly recommend reading Lurgo's papers about it if you can (available on her academia.edu page for free). It also gives more sense to the over-representation of atheists around him, or rather him being so at ease with him, outside the fact that of course, the reputation and practices of his house made it a much safer haven for atheists than Louis' court was.

This isn't based on any historical anecdote, me and Zennie just thought it'd be funny if Chev happened to want to buy very high heels as well just to mess with Phil, except, well... he definitely doesn't have the balance to pull it off :P

(also, in my head, this is pre-relationship, so they're good friends but not there yet, which is why Phil is so flustered by the proximity lol)

FR

Comme je le disais pour la version anglaise, ceci n'est pas basé sur une véritable anecdote, mais simplement le produit d'une discussion avec zennie sur le fait que Chev aurait bien été du genre à s'acheter des talons très hauts juste pour ennuyer Phil, mais qu'il n'aurait pas vraiment eu l'adresse nécessaire pour les assumer :P

(Analysis here, and français tout en bas)

The other day, at random, I stumbled upon this page which allows us to behold an authentic pair of shoes owned by Philippe, and currently preserved at the Louvres' labs. It is no surprise that the heels are fairly high, as Philippe was indeed famous for his humongous, stilt-like heels. To quote Madame de Montespan, Philippe was "very embarrassed by his small stature, and therefore had two big extra inches added to most of his heels." (😔😔😔)

As it so happens, I am currently in this mood where I feel like I need to know anything and everything I can about him, and decided, thanks to the provided measurement of the heel on the website (8,6cm), to find out his shoe size.

(measurements in centimeters)

Following the curve and shape of the shoe, I tried to approximate a foot size in it, and given the flatness of the tip that we can see on the picture, I figured the toes likely weren't reaching. This leaves us with a whopping size 4~5, or 35.5 in EU sizes.

Those weren't necessarily his highest heels either, as I saw a couple of sources bring up around 4 inches (mind you, inches were a bit bigger back in XVIIth century France; nowaday 1 inch ((pouce)) is 2,54cm, however it used to be 2,72cm)

So Philippe had tiny feet, which also concurs the contemporary descriptions of his remarkably short stature.

Now, for those, like me, who really need to know everything, how tall, or rather how short was he? We don't have a precise account, but here is the result of my findings:

Let's first list everything we know.

Philippe is described as either "short" (Saint-Simon), "very short" (Liselotte), or "princess sized" (Madame de La Fayette), which seems to indicate that he was much shorter than average if it's that visible

He was described by Liselotte as shorter than the king, who was estimated to be around 163cm (5"4) as attested by his armor (and mind you, he also wore rather high heels to make himself taller...)

The average male height in the 17th century was the lowest it ever was in France: 161cm / 5ft3 (source)

From this, combined with Philippe's shoe size (while there isn't an absolute correlation between shoe size and height, it's still indicative of a short stature), we can estimate that he was probably around 10cm/4inch below average, as any less than that is typically not very noticeable. I thus evaluate his height as approximately 151cm / 4ft11, which corroborates La Fayette's description of "princess sized" as 151 was closer to women's average height. (again, this is an estimate, it isn't proven or validated)

Of course, 151 is remarkably short for a man nowadays, but let's again keep in mind that the average height was barely 10cm above that, that Louis himself was barely taller than average, that the marquis d'Effiat was described by Saint-Simon as being of "mediocre size" (so likely around 160cm as well), and that despite being described as "tall", the Chevalier may as well have been around 168cm (5"6) that it would already have counted as such.

Anyway, so yeah, we're stanning short kings and princes here 🙌🙌🙌

(a little extra note: the reference to China is deliberate, as Philippe was very passionate about Chinese art and furniture, and was even a precursor in that regards; I thought it could be funny that he could use that as some form of excuse since nobody could really verify the information)

FR