A Wife Who Tickled the Cook
June 8, 2011
Still Life with Bowl, Giovanna Garzoni
MARGUERITE LOUISE D ′ORLÉANS, the 17th century Grand Duchess of Tuscany, was a difficult spouse. Her husband, the Grand Duke Cosimo III de ‘Medici, was so frustrated by her behavior that he eventually had her banished to a convent in France. While at the convent, she had affairs and gambled at the court at Versailles. She also tried to burn the convent down, an act said to have greatly irritated her husband.
I bring up the Grand Duchess for no reason other than to relay the following story of marital conflict. Most stories of marital conflict are interesting, but this one is particularly so. Whether it has any lessons for us who live in a highly scientific and egalitarian age – a time generally devoid of palace cooks and princesses and convents that accept banished wives – I prefer not to say. The anecdote comes verbatim from the wonderful 1905 book Florentine Palaces and Their Stories by Janet Ross. (I have divided it up into several paragraphs to make it easier to read online.)
In honour of the visit of the Princess Anna de’Medici with her husband, the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and his two brothers, and of the Duke of Mantua and his wife, who was a Medici, splendid festivals were given in the Palazzo Pitti, while a ballet on horseback, led by Cosimo, the youthful heir to the throne, was performed in the amphitheatre in the Boboli gardens by fifty-two cavaliers magnificently dressed and mounted on well-broken horses. Little did the spectators think that the young prince, who made his barb curvet so proudly, would become an odious bigot and the laughing-stock of Europe, on account of his dissensions with his wife, Marguerite Louise of Orleans. The old palace has witnessed many strange scenes, but few stranger than that of a French princess amusing herself by tickling her cook.
Vincenzio Martinelli, in letters written in Italian chiefly to English friends, and published in London in 1758, gives a curious description of the tomboy games of Marguerite Louise. “Cosimo had obliged the Grand Duchess to send back to France all the gentlemen and ladies of her court, and only one Frenchman, a cook, remained. The Grand Duke gave himself up to devotionand solitude and governed his family, as he did his state, like Tiberius, and allowed his wife no amusement save a small concert for two or three hours every evening.The Grand Duchess, who was very young, found these concerts monotonous, or perhaps, being born in France, did not care for Italian music, so as a diversion she used to send for her French cook, who came with his long apron and white cap, just as he was dressed for cooking the dinner. Now this cook either dreaded, or pretended to dread, being tickled, and the princess, aware of his weakness, took great pleasure in tickling him, while he made all those contortions, screams and cries proper to people who cannot bear to be tickled. Thus the princess tickled the cook, and he defended himself, shouting and running from one side of the room to the other, which made her laugh immoderately.
When tired of such romps she would take a pillow from her bed and belabour the cook on the face and on the body, whilst he, shouting aloud, hid himself now under, now on, the very bed of the princess, where she continued to beat him, until tired out with laughing and beating she sank exhausted into a chair. While these games were going on the musicians stopped their music, and as soon as the princess sat down they recommenced.
This noble amusement continued for some time before the Grand Duke knew of it; but one evening it happened that the cook was very drunk, and therefore shouted louder than usual, and the Grand Duke, whose apartments were five or six rooms distant from those of the Grand Duchess, heard the noise and went to discover the cause. As he entered the room the Grand Duchess was just beating her cook with a pillow on the grand-ducal bed, and the Prince, horrified at so novel a sight, instantly condemned the cook to the galleys (but I believe he was eventually pardoned), and scolding the lady with the utmost severity, with a bearing more princely than marital, he forbad her ever again to indulge in such conduct. The princess resented being thus taken to task in the presence of the musicians, perchance with less consideration than she thought due to her high rank, and was exceedingly angry. After passing the whole night in fury and in tears she determined to return to France, and sent one of her gentlemen to the Grand Duke to inform him of her resolution. He, who desired nothing better, as he feared his family might multiply like that of Priam, coldly replied that the Grand Duchess had better reflect on the consequences of such a step, which he would in no way oppose.” It ended by the Grand Duchess returning to France, leaving two sons and a daughter, who were the last of the great house of Medici. (pp. 197-198)
