Bretagne for Anjou

The thing with purposefully catching the disease with possible respiratory complications bugged me slightly, though the generation of my (great)grandparents weren't the idiots to exchange measles for ARVI which can promptly develop into bacterial sinusitis/bronchitis given proper conditions.
Kids tend to get running nose in spring or autumn any time, that's why it's a route towards complications with such attitude.

So in general the thing sounds plausible (if slightly odd and involving massive amount of luck).
 

Flubber

Banned
The thing with purposefully catching the disease with possible respiratory complications bugged me slightly...


My childhood was during the early 60s and what Mr. Stott described being done with measles was routinely done with chicken pox. Once one kid in a family got it, the parents made sure all the rest did too to get the whole mess over with. I remember mothers purposely sending their children to a house with an infection and even borrowing bed linens.

So in general the thing sounds plausible (if slightly odd and involving massive amount of luck).

It was a roll of the dice but the percentages were in Mr. Stott's favor. If complications arose they'd hopefully be recognized and treated in time. And unlike the people measles killed in the past and continues to kill today, Mr. Stott was not malnourished, was reasonably clothed, and was not suffering from other endemic diseases.
 
I thought the same. Only I'm used to more formal English term "varicella" for chicken pox. As it was the same in my childhood in 1980ies-early 1990ies (I got chicken pox the same year USSR ceased to exist).

And you're right about nutrition.
As for luck I'm referring to "sending children to infected household routinely and nobody ever getting complications" part of story and not to Mr.Stott personally, even though a bad case of running nose can be source of those complications. Guess parents were extra careful.
 
While I am thoroughly enjoying this spirited discussion of measles vs German measles vs smallpox vs chicken pox:D Louis XV wouldnt have caught whatever it was since Mme de Ventadour refused to allow the doctors near him after his parents died.

That said, I'm not sure how the succession would've been more secure, since according to the one biography of Louis I read, he was rather sickly as a child (which was one of the reasons the succession was unstable in the first place).

P.S. I would be more inclined to think it was smallpox, since in all three biographies of Adélaïde de Savoie I've read, they speak of her having had measles on an earlier occasion when she played cards at Marly with the duc de Vendôme and others a darkened room.
 
I must apologise for the OT digression. Returning to our muttons, could it have been both? After all the presence of one disease does not preclude others.

Smallpox seems to have been low level endemic in the royal household. The child catches measles. Concurrently, the mother catches smallpox, and passes it to her husband. She dies , husband dies, child dies. The other child is kept separate and does not catch smallpox. Maybe catches measles, but recovers. There does seem some evidence that Louis did have some sort of illness.

As to the implications of the petit dauphin surviving: he seems to have been well thought of with a reputation for intelligence and capability , insofar as any weight can be placed on that in such sycophantic conditions. So maybe if he lived he would have done better than Louis XV, maybe avoided the revolution. Maybe.

And a possible other Bourbon line could have had implications in the 19C
 
No apology required, it is always interesting for me to see how others argue and defend their poibts. And in 'Princess over the Water' I learned much I didnt know.
 
Getting back on topic, would a POD in 1712 allow the Duc d'Orleans (aka Monseigneur le Regent) to live longer? Cause to me he seemed to have Louis XV's best interests at heart, unlike the Duc de Bourbon. So maybe this could lead to a better relationship between the Bourbon main line and the House of Orleans. Also, who would the Duc de Anjou (OTL Louis XV) marry in such a scenario? An Austrian Archduchess? A Bavarian Princess? Or maybe a Saxon bride?
 
Getting back on topic, would a POD in 1712 allow the Duc d'Orleans (aka Monseigneur le Regent) to live longer? Cause to me he seemed to have Louis XV's best interests at heart, unlike the Duc de Bourbon. So maybe this could lead to a better relationship between the Bourbon main line and the House of Orleans. Also, who would the Duc de Anjou (OTL Louis XV) marry in such a scenario? An Austrian Archduchess? A Bavarian Princess? Or maybe a Saxon bride?

One needs to remember in 1712, Berri bon-Coeur was still alive, if he lives longer, HE will be Regent rather than Orléans. That said, Berri, according to Antonia Fraser "if the crown fell on his head, it would fall right off again", so he might be the nominal head of the Regency, but his father-in-law might be the brains in a secondary position.

As to OTL Louis XV marrying, a Lorraine princess might be the least flammable option in Europe. There are no Austrian/Bavarian princesses of suitable age (since by 1712 Karl VI still had no children, and Josef I's daughters won't be engaged to a Bourbon). And Saxony has no princesses until the mid-1720s.

Also, I wonder if Marie Leszczynska will rather marry the margrave of Baden, which would still tie her indirectly to the French court (since Baden's sister was the Regent's daughter-in-law). Baden wanted to marry her, only to lose out to France. AFAIK his mother was supportive of it, but then settled on Maria Anne of Schwarzenberg when it became clear that France would win.

The only loser I could see is D. José I of Portugal, since if la reine-infante marries TTL Louis XV he'll need a new queen. Maybe his sister Barbara marries Anjou instead of Ferdinand VI who gets consoled with another of the OTL Regent's daughters.
 
Top