The Mozarts, Who They Were Volume 2. Diego Minoia
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only that: the shops were open to for viewing by all passers-by and are illuminated in the evening with numerous lamps or appliques fixed to the walls, if not a beautiful chandelier in the middle of the room. Lighting was necessary because, as Leopold is astonished, these Parisian shops remained open in the evening until 10pm, and food shops until 11pm. The women in the house use warmers that they keep under their feet, made up of wooden boxes covered with tin provided with holes from which the heat came out, inside which were placed bricks or embers red-hot in the fire. The cold certainly did not stop Parisians of both sexes from taking walks and showing off in the Tuileries gardens, at the Palais-Royal or on the boulevards. In March, Leopold receives news from Salzburg: the court organist Adlgasser had been financed by the Archbishop to go to Italy to study the musical style that was so successful in Europe.
Leopold had certainly already thought that such an experience would also be necessary for little Wolfgang but this news probably confirmed his idea that the Archbishop, as he had done for Adlgasser (and for other Salzburg musicians, such as the singer Maria Anna Fesemayer on leave to study in Venice) would have financed at least part of the trip and allowed him to abstain again from the duties of his musical role at Court. On 3 March 1764, the Mozarts "lost" (much to the chagrin of the little Wolfgang of whom he was very fond) Sebastian Winter, the servant who had accompanied them from Salzburg for the whole journey to Paris. In fact, he had found a way to enter the service of Prince von Furstenberg as a hairdresser and left Paris to go to Donaueschingen where the Furstenbergs had their residence (which can still be visited today together with the brewery of the same name). Of course, one could not stay in Paris and frequent the beautiful world without a personal hairdresser-waiter, so the Mozarts hastened to find a replacement, a certain Jean-Pierre Potevin, an Alsatian who, given his origins, spoke both German and French well. However, the new waiter had to be suitably dressed, hence new expenses of which Leopold complains.
Providing some information especially addressed to Mrs. Hagenauer, Leopold Mozart takes the opportunity to display all of his opposition (perhaps a little underlined to highlight the sobriety of his ideas and of his modus vivendi) regarding French customs. Meanwhile, for Leopold, the French love only what pleased them and abhorred any kind of renunciation or sacrifice; in the poor times you could not find food that respected the precepts of the Catholic Church and the Mozarts, who ate in inns, were forced to break the ban by eating meat broth or spending a lot on fish dishes, which were very expensive. Fasting was not practiced by Parisians and Leopold, ironically, was anxious to ask for an official dispensation that allows his conscience to be calm while not respecting Catholic prescriptions relating to food.
Even the customs in religious practices are different than in Salzburg: no one in Paris used the rosary in church and the Mozarts are forced to use it hiding it inside the fur muffs that keep their hands warm, so as not to be subjected to curious or annoyed glances. The beautiful churches were few but on the other hand the noble palaces abound that highlight luxury and wealth. Even the carriages are symbols of extreme luxury, completely lacquered in laque Martin (the same one we have seen used for the snuffboxes) and embellished with paintings that would not disfigure in the best picture galleries. In the period of Lent then, unlike the German traditions that provide for the suspension of shows and dances, in Paris the period of reflection and penance is interrupted by inventing the "Ball of the virgins" also known as the "Carnival of the virgins". And here Leopold Mozart makes it clear what he thinks of the morality of the French.
Sex in France and Europe at the time of the Mozarts
While the concept was gaining ground that sexual pleasure was not the exclusive prerogative of man, but must also fall within the female sphere, erotic activity (both literary and practical) spread like wildfire and without the moral restraints that in the past was relegated to the secret of the bridal bed.
Of course, moral rules and laws still condemned promiscuity and prostitution was punished. In Vienna for example, by forcing the guilty girls (the poor ones, of course) to clean the city streets of horse excrement.
Love and sex are talked about and practiced throughout Europe but especially in Paris and Venice, the only city that, despite the ongoing decline of its power, could compete for the "dolce vita" with the French capital.
The search for pleasure as an end to itself became, first in the aristocratic world, but soon also in the bourgeois sections of the population, a way of thinking and living that for some even became an obsession.
To love, even outside of marriage (with discretion but without false modesty) became normal, as well as leaving without too many sorrows in view of a new "game" that led to other conquests.
Sex became an experience, for men and women (despite the permanent situation of social minority with respect to man), an achievement to be enumerated and cataloged (think of Mozart's Don Giovanni and his catalog, the perfect representative of that world that was about to disappear end of the century).
The 18th century is the century of seducers and libertines: Casanova (who in his biography lists 147 conquests) and the Marquis de Sade are perhaps the champions, and such have remained in the collective imagination.
The nobles, however, had to begin to suffer from the competition of new "objects of desire": the artists. In a historical moment that, if it does not invent the star-system at least consolidates it, actors and actresses, singers and dancers represent the "forbidden fruit" that attracted the desires of husbands and wives, eager to try new thrills.
However, it was always a question of whims and desires that were exhausted in the time span of a strong but not lasting passion fire or in menage in which the rich party financed the lover by offering a standard of living that could be "respectable".
Artists were rarely considered worthy to officially enter the blue blood pedigree.
Sex, in the century of the Mozarts, could be pure pleasure or a means for the conquest of money, power and positions kindly favored by those who, man or woman, have pleasantly enjoyed the relationship.
Certainly neither Leopold nor Wolfgang belonged to the category of careerists between the sheets: the marriage of the former was happy but certainly did not give him wealth or social advancements, that of the latter then, with the insipid Constanze (imposed on him by the crafty Mrs. Weber, who had finally managed to place even the least attractive of the three daughters) it was an obligatory choice.
As for dissolute conduct, on the other hand, Amadeus was not one to hold back, at least from the moment he found himself at his disposal far from his father's control. The affair with his cousin and the Viennese adventures with students and actresses of his plays are part of the often obscured story of his life.
In the 18th century the rich and powerful enjoyed, even in a non-figurative sense, their position of power which allowed them to dispense money and offices to their lovers; the latter having no problem moving from bed to tax collector's office or royal official.
If you were male you made a career for yourself, if you were female you used the influence obtained between the sheets to consolidate your role and to help relatives and friends by supporting their requests.
A single example, which circulated in Parisian salons at the time of Louis XV, can be illuminating. A Countess, who had already given up her arms in a singular encounter with the King, wrote him a letter (found by the monarch's servant by chance and delivered to Madame de Pompadour, the official lover) in which she asked him for 50,000 crowns, the command of a regiment for a relative of his, a bishopric for another relative ... and the liquidation of the Pompadour (which he evidently aspired to replace).
The wealthy aristocrats, when they were an "unfulfilled desire" for some girls and did not want to waste time intervening directly in the seductive game, hired a trusted valet, acting as a pimp, who lent himself to act as an intermediary and organize meetings (sometimes personally exploiting that particular role of power towards the bridesmaids, who did not refuse for fear of missing the greatest opportunity).
The practice of having lovers, moreover, came from high above. Louis XIV, the Sun King, had a disproportionate number of lovers of which about thirty "officers"; his successor Philip d'Orleans (regent until the coming of age of the future Louis XV) had two official