how do you think he'd regard Frankie? Case of the guy was emperor in all but name, but then willingly "retired" from his role (à la Cincinnatus) once his term is over (not unlike a republican of a president leaving office when his term is up). Although Frankie's pseudo-liberalism and some other character traits (pro-papist, even if Frankie himself might not be the most devout Catholic) might put he and his cousin on a similar course to Plon-Plon and Eugènie, no?
Frankie Goes to the Hofburg, or Napoléon II, Regent of Austria?
Playing catch up on the TL as am marginally behind but loving visualising this in an HBO produced production
They might disagree on some policy issues, but as long as Frankie is head of the Bonaparte's clan, he will respect his leadership. Plon-Plon was not the kind of guy to plot in your back, even though Napoléon III and Eugénie might have liked to think so. He was almost Churchill-esque.
He was not shy from using his position as Napoléon III's cousin to shield/protect people who might not be so regarding. He got Hugo's sons out of jail for instance, helped finance a workers delegation's travel to the First Internationale in London, welcomed Proudhon in his circle...
I forgot one very important thing, in this period the first incomplete fossils of Archeopteryx were found, mainly feathers ( the first complete fossil was found only in 1861 ) furthermore we must not forget the Messel Well ( near Frankfurt ), which in Otl only came into operation in 1859 for extract lignite and subsequently oil shale but which over the years gave birth to a large quantity of fossils from the early Eocene ( including the first horses ( Propalaeotherium ), an ancient primate ( Darwinius masillae ), the Leptictidium ( a hopping mammal which had a small proboscis ) and at least 10 thousand new species of fish, as well as much more ) nothing prevents the fact that in Frankie TL the quarry came into operation earlier than in Otl, allowing many new paleontological discoveries to be brought to light, maybe even some of these fossils could be present at the congress, I'm already imagining Henry, Louise and Darwin drooling over these fantastic finds 🤣🤪
Health and Wealth
Soundtrack: Verdi - Il Corsaro - Audace cotanto mostrarti pur sai? [1]
*exterior* *Trieste* *we see Frankie leaving the Trieste train station with Amalie and the children in tow*
*the city looks far more like a port that is clearly doing well- thriving even- rather than just surviving* *the carriage passes a building marked Spedale Ludovica [2]* *we see some nurses arriving for work*
Karoline: *re: the hospitals* will you ask the hospitals to implement what Doctor Semmelweis has written, pappa?
Frankie: *looks up from his notebook* and what has he written?
Karoline: his study that he conducted last year...about how doctors' hands should be cleaned before and after working with each patient [3].
Frankie: *half amused* I seem to remember teaching you that as a child that you wash your hands before eating. Will you have me implement that they should all say please and thank you, next?
Karoline: *long-sufferingly* Pappa...I was talking to Baroness Perin-Gradenstein [4] and she was saying that she is going to require all her nurses to do do so.
Frankie: I'm not involved with running those hospitals, Karoline...there's a reason for that-
Karoline: *in tone like they've had this conversation before* a political reason. Because you do not wish to upset the powers that be by seemingly infesting their countryside with little outposts of your regime. Because you do not wish for the people who need those hospitals to be unfairly targetted by someone like Metternich.
Frankie: *nods* exactly.
Karoline: but this is not a political matter, pappa. It is hardly as though you are telling the hospitals to arm themselves and march on Vienna.
Frankie: *chuckles at the imagery* the sick, lame and lazy brigade storm the battlements of Vienna? Metternich will quiver in his boots.
Karoline: he can hardly object to you wishing to implement an idea-
Frankie: he can and he will. To him any idea I have- regardless of any politicity or not- is a political idea. It is me greedily seeking to snatch power away
Karoline: he can't blame you for an idea that isn't yours, then.
Frankie: to Metternich, Henri, Albert, Franzi, even D. Carlos and D. Sebastiao, all have a brain named "Francis Napoleon Bonaparte". He's already having a fit about Stephan's stay in Brussels. Sees it as me trying to expand my influence. Doesn't he know I'm retired? That thing that he should be?
Karoline: I meant if you were to appoint someone else as director of the hospital. And they were to implement the idea.
Frankie: *laughs* appoint you? It'll be painfully obvious. As for your friend, Baronss Perin-Gradenstein, it would be a faster way to give Metternich an excuse to shut those hospitals down than if I'd ordered my name be displayed on every building-
Karoline: Doctor Semmelweis. He could serve as director. Give the order. Metternich would have no reason to accuse him.
Frankie: *as carriage rumbles to a stop* there are days I think that my father was right about women and education.
Karoline: *frowns*
Frankie: *jams hat on head as he climbs out* and then I remember that it was my father who said it and I ignore that thought.
*we see they have stopped in front of a large mansion*
*cut to the interior* *Frankie is standing in the entrance hall* *a liveried chamberlain arrives*
Chamberlain: *looks askance at the children between ages seventeen and eight cluttering up the entrance hall* the king will see your Majesty now.
Frankie: how magnanimous of him.
Chamberlain: only your Majesty...he's given instructions that the children and the... *looks at Amalie* lady best retire to the drawing room with Madame Benton [5].
Frankie: *without missing a beat* then you may tell his Majesty that that is where I will be.
*cut to drawing room* *it looks like a zoo with the children [6]* *Frankie is sitting sprawled in an armchair, listening to Betsey Patterson, her grandson, Bo, and Madame Benton talking to Amalie, Karoline and Therese*
Madame Benton: it was after the ironworks that Zebulon tried to start failed [7] that I decided no more. I found out that her Majesty [8] was departing for England and I asked if I could travel with her. It was too late, by then, I...didn't know I was pregnant with my son yet. But Louis Joseph Thomas [9] was born in Paris in March- with the duchesse de Polignac and her brother as his godparents [10].
Frankie: *to Betsy* and naturellement, your Majesty thought that who could be more interested in helping family than myself?
Betsy: I simply thought that your Majesty's school in Venice could be a good place to have dear Caroline's children educated...your Majesty can count yourself fortunate that you know nothing of the...savagery of an American schoolroom.
Frankie: of course. *to Bo* I am told congratulations are in order, sir. I am told that you are engaged to the duc de Wagram's daughter [11]?
Bo: thank you sir-
Footman: His Majesty, the King of Westphalia
*Jérôme Bonaparte swaggers into the room*
Frankie: *immediately cutting him down to size* uncle, if this is how you receive your emperor, I'm appalled to think how you receive any other guests.
Jérôme: *walks over to Frankie*
Frankie: *presents his hand to be kissed*
Jérôme: *does so*
Frankie: *motions for his uncle to remain standing* *holds the tip of his walking stick under his uncle's chin, like a sword point* if you ever presume, uncle, to disrespect the mother of my children in such a way again, uncle, I am sure that it can be arranged that Prince Metternich can find a new overseer for the port of Trieste. This is not Paris. I am not my father. Amalie is not Empress Josèphine or Lucien's wife that I will tolerate such tomfoolery. Do I make myself clear?
Jérôme: sire, I am an old man, things are not as clear as they once were.
Betsey: oh, stop it, Jérôme, you'll outlive us all. Try to wring one last ducat from the Grim Reaper before he can take you away.
*several of the younger crowd have church giggles as Jérôme huffily sits down*
Frankie: where is my cousin? Dame Rumour tells me I have him more to thank for the competency I see in town than I do you.
Jérôme: he's gone out, Majesty.
Frankie: out where...out of town...out of the country...out of-
Footman: His Royal Highness, Prince Jérôme of Westphalia
*Plon-Plon walks in* *he's dressed like a coal stoker on a train*
Frankie: *half to himself* out of his wits, apparently.
*cut to study*
Frankie: as I was saying to your father, Jérôme, I have heard that Trieste owes its good management more to you than to him.
Jérôme: *now dressed in "more suitable" attire* thank you, your Majesty.
Frankie: may I ask what was the purpose of the outfit this morning?
Jérôme: a Bonaparte should work to better his country, your Majesty. I have no country to speak of, and I cannot do much, but I have attempted to improve the lives of the railway and dockyard workers wherever possible. It is why I petitioned your Majesty to allow us to establish one of your hospitals that they can access. Being better cared for, the prosperity that your Majesty's use of the port, the shipyards, have brought to the city, have done much to avert them siding with the radicals-
Frankie: the radicals?
Jérôme: ones who would call for a republic.
Frankie: I understood that you are a republican? You signed your petition "Citoyen Bonaparte" [12].
Jérôme: I might not particularly like the Habsburgs or the Bourbons, your Majesty. I hope that your Majesty doesn't hold that against me. And I certainly don't entirely approve of Metternich or whatever plans he has on principle. However, regardless of my father's opinions, I am your Majesty's most loyal subject, first and foremost. A threat to the government- such as the radicals who wish for Trieste to become part of Hungary, or their Slavic brethren who wish to avoid that at all cost- is also a threat to the workers' prosperity. Their security. Nobody wishes for a war. Certainly not a civil war. And, since your Majesty appointed my father as overseer of the port in 1844, I have done my level best to attempt to keep tensions from boiling over wherever possible.
*fade to black*
[1] Il Corsaro was one of the most bedevilled of Verdi's early operas. Even if the composer himself started out with enthusiasm, political events (the 1848 in Lombardy), constantly shifting casts because of people - both writers and musicians - fleeing to that great land of political exiles (better known as Switzerland), money matters (with London and Florence both being more interested in Macbeth and I Masnadieri). Finally, it was premiered in Trieste in late 1848, and even the public received it poorly, it vanishing from the repertoire until the 1960s
TTL, with a more "stable" Italy, Verdi has had fewer headaches and interruptions. Allowing him and librettist to "fully flesh out" the eponymous Byron poem into a suitable grand opera (the main criticism of the current version is the weak plot)
[2] one of Frankie's "free clinics" for the poor
[3] it was published in both December 1847 and April 1848
[4] president of the Viennese Women’s Democratic Association. Part of the society's "duties" was administering to the wounded
[5] née Charlotte/Caroline Catherine Delafolie, daughter of Joseph Bonaparte and Annette Savage
[6] Caroline has three daughters: Josephine (b.1840), Sophie (b.1841), Zénaïde (b.1846). Her voyage to Europe is driven by the fact that her husband (Zebulon Howell Benton) was involved in some very costly (and unlucky) business ventures. He squandered her $30 000 dowry, and she was forced to resort to teaching French. OTL she separated from him on grounds of his fiscal irresponsibility, but by then it was too late.
[7] OTL
[8] in the wake of his grandmother, Madame Mére's death, Frankie recognized Betsy as Jérôme's wife. Although with their son coming after his children with Katharina of Württemberg
[9] OTL Caroline's son, born on 7 March 1848, is listed variously as "Louis Napoleon", "Louis Joseph" and "Thomas Zebulon", I figured she wouldn't want to name a son after her no-good husband
[10] since 1845, the duc de Polignac has been married to Julie Josephine Bonaparte (b.1827), only daughter of Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, Comte de Saint-Leu, and Caroline's half-sister, Charlotte. Her brother, Louis Joseph (b.1830) is the Bonaparte premier prince du sang should Frankie remain unwed
[11] Malcy Louise Caroline Berthier de Wagram (b.1832), married OTL Prince Murat. However, with his brother being in Berlin, I suspect he's not a "good match". However, Betsy is too much of an operator (she tried with her son and both her grandsons) to not seize the opportunity
[12] Jérôme a.k.a. Plon-Plon did this OTL
*exterior* *Trieste* *we see Frankie leaving the Trieste train station with Amalie and the children in tow*
*the city looks far more like a port that is clearly doing well- thriving even- rather than just surviving* *the carriage passes a building marked Spedale Ludovica [2]* *we see some nurses arriving for work*
Karoline: *re: the hospitals* will you ask the hospitals to implement what Doctor Semmelweis has written, pappa?
Frankie: *looks up from his notebook* and what has he written?
Karoline: his study that he conducted last year...about how doctors' hands should be cleaned before and after working with each patient [3].
Frankie: *half amused* I seem to remember teaching you that as a child that you wash your hands before eating. Will you have me implement that they should all say please and thank you, next?
Karoline: *long-sufferingly* Pappa...I was talking to Baroness Perin-Gradenstein [4] and she was saying that she is going to require all her nurses to do do so.
Frankie: I'm not involved with running those hospitals, Karoline...there's a reason for that-
Karoline: *in tone like they've had this conversation before* a political reason. Because you do not wish to upset the powers that be by seemingly infesting their countryside with little outposts of your regime. Because you do not wish for the people who need those hospitals to be unfairly targetted by someone like Metternich.
Frankie: *nods* exactly.
Karoline: but this is not a political matter, pappa. It is hardly as though you are telling the hospitals to arm themselves and march on Vienna.
Frankie: *chuckles at the imagery* the sick, lame and lazy brigade storm the battlements of Vienna? Metternich will quiver in his boots.
Karoline: he can hardly object to you wishing to implement an idea-
Frankie: he can and he will. To him any idea I have- regardless of any politicity or not- is a political idea. It is me greedily seeking to snatch power away
Karoline: he can't blame you for an idea that isn't yours, then.
Frankie: to Metternich, Henri, Albert, Franzi, even D. Carlos and D. Sebastiao, all have a brain named "Francis Napoleon Bonaparte". He's already having a fit about Stephan's stay in Brussels. Sees it as me trying to expand my influence. Doesn't he know I'm retired? That thing that he should be?
Karoline: I meant if you were to appoint someone else as director of the hospital. And they were to implement the idea.
Frankie: *laughs* appoint you? It'll be painfully obvious. As for your friend, Baronss Perin-Gradenstein, it would be a faster way to give Metternich an excuse to shut those hospitals down than if I'd ordered my name be displayed on every building-
Karoline: Doctor Semmelweis. He could serve as director. Give the order. Metternich would have no reason to accuse him.
Frankie: *as carriage rumbles to a stop* there are days I think that my father was right about women and education.
Karoline: *frowns*
Frankie: *jams hat on head as he climbs out* and then I remember that it was my father who said it and I ignore that thought.
*we see they have stopped in front of a large mansion*
*cut to the interior* *Frankie is standing in the entrance hall* *a liveried chamberlain arrives*
Chamberlain: *looks askance at the children between ages seventeen and eight cluttering up the entrance hall* the king will see your Majesty now.
Frankie: how magnanimous of him.
Chamberlain: only your Majesty...he's given instructions that the children and the... *looks at Amalie* lady best retire to the drawing room with Madame Benton [5].
Frankie: *without missing a beat* then you may tell his Majesty that that is where I will be.
*cut to drawing room* *it looks like a zoo with the children [6]* *Frankie is sitting sprawled in an armchair, listening to Betsey Patterson, her grandson, Bo, and Madame Benton talking to Amalie, Karoline and Therese*
Madame Benton: it was after the ironworks that Zebulon tried to start failed [7] that I decided no more. I found out that her Majesty [8] was departing for England and I asked if I could travel with her. It was too late, by then, I...didn't know I was pregnant with my son yet. But Louis Joseph Thomas [9] was born in Paris in March- with the duchesse de Polignac and her brother as his godparents [10].
Frankie: *to Betsy* and naturellement, your Majesty thought that who could be more interested in helping family than myself?
Betsy: I simply thought that your Majesty's school in Venice could be a good place to have dear Caroline's children educated...your Majesty can count yourself fortunate that you know nothing of the...savagery of an American schoolroom.
Frankie: of course. *to Bo* I am told congratulations are in order, sir. I am told that you are engaged to the duc de Wagram's daughter [11]?
Bo: thank you sir-
Footman: His Majesty, the King of Westphalia
*Jérôme Bonaparte swaggers into the room*
Frankie: *immediately cutting him down to size* uncle, if this is how you receive your emperor, I'm appalled to think how you receive any other guests.
Jérôme: *walks over to Frankie*
Frankie: *presents his hand to be kissed*
Jérôme: *does so*
Frankie: *motions for his uncle to remain standing* *holds the tip of his walking stick under his uncle's chin, like a sword point* if you ever presume, uncle, to disrespect the mother of my children in such a way again, uncle, I am sure that it can be arranged that Prince Metternich can find a new overseer for the port of Trieste. This is not Paris. I am not my father. Amalie is not Empress Josèphine or Lucien's wife that I will tolerate such tomfoolery. Do I make myself clear?
Jérôme: sire, I am an old man, things are not as clear as they once were.
Betsey: oh, stop it, Jérôme, you'll outlive us all. Try to wring one last ducat from the Grim Reaper before he can take you away.
*several of the younger crowd have church giggles as Jérôme huffily sits down*
Frankie: where is my cousin? Dame Rumour tells me I have him more to thank for the competency I see in town than I do you.
Jérôme: he's gone out, Majesty.
Frankie: out where...out of town...out of the country...out of-
Footman: His Royal Highness, Prince Jérôme of Westphalia
*Plon-Plon walks in* *he's dressed like a coal stoker on a train*
Frankie: *half to himself* out of his wits, apparently.
*cut to study*
Frankie: as I was saying to your father, Jérôme, I have heard that Trieste owes its good management more to you than to him.
Jérôme: *now dressed in "more suitable" attire* thank you, your Majesty.
Frankie: may I ask what was the purpose of the outfit this morning?
Jérôme: a Bonaparte should work to better his country, your Majesty. I have no country to speak of, and I cannot do much, but I have attempted to improve the lives of the railway and dockyard workers wherever possible. It is why I petitioned your Majesty to allow us to establish one of your hospitals that they can access. Being better cared for, the prosperity that your Majesty's use of the port, the shipyards, have brought to the city, have done much to avert them siding with the radicals-
Frankie: the radicals?
Jérôme: ones who would call for a republic.
Frankie: I understood that you are a republican? You signed your petition "Citoyen Bonaparte" [12].
Jérôme: I might not particularly like the Habsburgs or the Bourbons, your Majesty. I hope that your Majesty doesn't hold that against me. And I certainly don't entirely approve of Metternich or whatever plans he has on principle. However, regardless of my father's opinions, I am your Majesty's most loyal subject, first and foremost. A threat to the government- such as the radicals who wish for Trieste to become part of Hungary, or their Slavic brethren who wish to avoid that at all cost- is also a threat to the workers' prosperity. Their security. Nobody wishes for a war. Certainly not a civil war. And, since your Majesty appointed my father as overseer of the port in 1844, I have done my level best to attempt to keep tensions from boiling over wherever possible.
*fade to black*
[1] Il Corsaro was one of the most bedevilled of Verdi's early operas. Even if the composer himself started out with enthusiasm, political events (the 1848 in Lombardy), constantly shifting casts because of people - both writers and musicians - fleeing to that great land of political exiles (better known as Switzerland), money matters (with London and Florence both being more interested in Macbeth and I Masnadieri). Finally, it was premiered in Trieste in late 1848, and even the public received it poorly, it vanishing from the repertoire until the 1960s
TTL, with a more "stable" Italy, Verdi has had fewer headaches and interruptions. Allowing him and librettist to "fully flesh out" the eponymous Byron poem into a suitable grand opera (the main criticism of the current version is the weak plot)
[2] one of Frankie's "free clinics" for the poor
[3] it was published in both December 1847 and April 1848
[4] president of the Viennese Women’s Democratic Association. Part of the society's "duties" was administering to the wounded
[5] née Charlotte/Caroline Catherine Delafolie, daughter of Joseph Bonaparte and Annette Savage
[6] Caroline has three daughters: Josephine (b.1840), Sophie (b.1841), Zénaïde (b.1846). Her voyage to Europe is driven by the fact that her husband (Zebulon Howell Benton) was involved in some very costly (and unlucky) business ventures. He squandered her $30 000 dowry, and she was forced to resort to teaching French. OTL she separated from him on grounds of his fiscal irresponsibility, but by then it was too late.
[7] OTL
[8] in the wake of his grandmother, Madame Mére's death, Frankie recognized Betsy as Jérôme's wife. Although with their son coming after his children with Katharina of Württemberg
[9] OTL Caroline's son, born on 7 March 1848, is listed variously as "Louis Napoleon", "Louis Joseph" and "Thomas Zebulon", I figured she wouldn't want to name a son after her no-good husband
[10] since 1845, the duc de Polignac has been married to Julie Josephine Bonaparte (b.1827), only daughter of Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, Comte de Saint-Leu, and Caroline's half-sister, Charlotte. Her brother, Louis Joseph (b.1830) is the Bonaparte premier prince du sang should Frankie remain unwed
[11] Malcy Louise Caroline Berthier de Wagram (b.1832), married OTL Prince Murat. However, with his brother being in Berlin, I suspect he's not a "good match". However, Betsy is too much of an operator (she tried with her son and both her grandsons) to not seize the opportunity
[12] Jérôme a.k.a. Plon-Plon did this OTL
Thank you. It was a beast to write (in the sense of I must've started writing it a dozen times and deleted it)
Honestly I like ttl’s sidequesting Frankie more. He’s just like “aight, bet” the whole time hahah
Thank you
Thing with marrying Amalie is that there is no incentive to do so. In fact, just the opposite could be true. Mostly because with a legitimate marriage, Frankie's kids become legitimate threats to not JUST European powers (making it look like he was waiting for the opportunity to throw off the mask) but it also makes them enemies of the Bonapartes. ATM, the "acknowledged" heir is Louis Bonaparte, Duc de Saint-Leu (OTL Napoléon III's older brother). Louis is in Paris with his sons and daughter (Princesse de Polignac) keeping his head down and his nose clean (one miraculous escape-engineered by Queen Hortense from a July Monarchy firing squad is enough adventure for a lifetime). Aka, someone who's been "worked in at the seams" of the Légitimiste cause. If Saint-Leu is still alive when Frankie goes, the chances that he (or his son) will claim the imperial title are "slim". AIUI By not marrying Amalie, Frankie also maintains the privilege of the head of the imperial house that he can adopt as his heir whoever he chooses in the family (he can choose Saint-Leu or he can choose whichever of his brood he feels "most suitable" *). This is, in effect, the rich relative threatening to leave whoever doesn't toe the line out of the will. So it keeps an order of sorts in the family.
*given that officially, two of Henri's bastards are ascribed Frankie as a father, I wouldn't put it past him to cause utter chaos and name Henri's son as heir to the imperial house. This is another problem of marrying Amalie, only Léopold and Eugène are covered by it, it still leaves Karoline and Thérèse as well as Henri's kids as illegitimate. ATM, with all of them being illegitimate, all the kids are "equal". Marriage (and subsequent legitimation) will prove problematic. Since it leaves the girls out, but also because it will have to force Frankie to come clean about who Henri's kids' dad really is. And given French history of royal bastards who behave as if they're owed more than they got (Maine, Vendôme) as well as Frankie's own experiences with his half-brother, Comte Léon, NOT getting married makes the most sense for everyone involved
That book sounds interesting. Do you remember the title?
Hope you enjoy the post over on my thread Napoléon II :Bourbon Hostage
I did! I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for XVIII heh