The Mistresses: Domestic Scandals of 19th-Century Monarchs

by Betty Kelen

Hardcover book with dust jacket. Mistresses of Napoleon III; Ludwig of Bavaria; etal. 341 pages, notes, bibliography.

Genres: History

341 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1966

Reviews

[Wealhtheow · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of scandals and mistresses of nineteenth century European monarchs. Kelen has a wonderful ability to inject life and feeling into history; here's her description of royal life: "Ladies- and gentlemen-in-waiting, as well as aides-de-camp, equerries, and bodyguards followed their personages about with fanatical diligence, the more so becuase a nimble royal might easily dodge away from them if he saw the chance. What is more, they really waited. They waited and stared while a king played tennis or croquet, storing away every inane word or action of his to write in their diaries; they waited, shuffling and scraping, in his anteroom while he tried to write a letter or read a book; they waited in the drawing-room of his mistress while he made love." Also, this imagination of hers can be used to ill effect. She is incredibly partisan. She loves some historical personages, to the extent of going out of her way to minimize Leopold II of Belgium's actions in the Congo and his beggaring his own daughters. Others she hates, and this seeps into her pretense toward objectivity. Here's how she describes one mistress: "this soft, gelatinous Draga Mashin" "a youngish woman, running to fat, with pretty delicate features rather heavily framed with peasant bones and pads of flesh. She has huge soft eyes, but they hold no active sparkle or intelligence; they are indolent, even stagnant. Like a person lost in the world's stage machinery, she holds her head habitually to one side with a saccharine smile...She seems like a harmless, sluggish animal" The author gets all this from a single photograph! Of Queen Victoria, Kelen has only this to say: "Gently and persuasively, but nonetheless coldly, these two intelligent gentlemen, Leopold and Albert, went about changing the nature of sovereignty in the person of the little queen. They tamed her wilfulness, cried shame on her weaknesses, plucked away her silly Georgian feathers, rattled her until she did not know whether she was a Whig or as Tory, and set her beaky nose toward a future world..."

Fascinating stuff, but since I couldn't trust the author to be objective I couldn't entirely enjoy the histories.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved European history and was well-read enough in 6th grade that I knew what a "mistress" was!
When I tried to check this book out of the library, I was told I needed my parents permission to read it which my Mom promptly gave! I remember the sections on Alexander II of Russia and Franz Josef of
Austria Hungary in particular.