…Political pornography is far rarer in human history than political smut, and much more dangerous for the society in which it burgeons. Indeed, Louis XIV’s great rival, England, was already suffering from a mild outburst- one that took more than a hundred years to eradicate. Its steady survival was guaranteed by two factors: an uncensored press exploiting an expanding market, and a widespread feeling that the institutions of government were indifferent to the needs and aspirations of most sections of society. The restoration of the monarchy in 1660 took place in a blaze of sentiment and hope, but within a few years sharp and violent criticism of Charles II and his court began to appear. Samuel Pepys himself was worried by the attacks on the promiscuity of the king’s friends that he heard and read in London.
Sir Robert Walpole. click image for source…
Soon, ribald manuscript poems were circulating widely; after press censorship went out in the 1690′s, writers and cartoonists became bolder. And once the Hanoverians came to the throne in 1714, the attacks grew bolder yet and an ominous new note was struck- not only the court and courtiers were pilloried, but also officers of the state, the prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, and the government itself.
—Most of these ”libelles” did not defend any clear set of principles. They were animated by a spirit of nihilism rather than of ideological commitment, yet the libelles showed a curious tendency to moralize, even in their pornography, even if this morality was a rhetorical pose resulting from a feeling of total contempt for a totally corrupt elite;—-click image for source…
A popular cartoon of the 1730′s depicts the unbreeched royal backside of George II descending toward the expectant face of Walpole. It is a mild obscenity by modern standards for the most part, but in the context of the eighteenth century, with its natural reverence for monarchy and aristocracy, it was shocking. ( to be continued)…
ADDENDUM:
(see link at end)…Charles de Morande was one of the abler writers of the libelles. According to Darnton he could bring shock even to Voltaire. He specialized in ascribing to members of the court and aristocracy all manner of sexual deviation and depravity. Thus, in Morande’s account, the “devout wife of a certain Marechal de France” prefers the “crude caresses” of her “robust” butler to those of her husband; elsewhere, “The Count of Noail— having taken some scandalous liberties with one of his lackeys,” is knocked over “with a slap that kept his lordship in bed for eight days.” And at one point the public is warned that an epidemic disease is raging among the girls of the Opera, that it has begun to reach the ladies of the court, and that it has even been communicated to their lackeys. This disease elongates the face, destroys the complexion, reduces the weight, and causes horrible ravages where it becomes situated. There are ladies without teeth, others without eyebrows, and some completely paralyzed.
The French Revolution..click image for source…
According to Darnton, Morande’s chronicle of decadence in high places reads “as an indictment of the social order …. He associated the aristocracy’s decadence with its inability to fulfill its functions in the army, the church, and the state.”
The philosophes’ characterizations of these gamy libellistes of Grub Street could be savage. Mercier thought them no better than “famished scribblers” and “poor hacks.” Voltaire was much more savage, placing them at a level below that of prostitutes and calling them “the dregs of humanity,” the “ragged rabble” and “riff-raff of literature.” Such invective notwithstanding, Voltaire and others were not above using these pauvres diables for their own purposes, mostly by encouraging them (with information and money) to attack in the underground press the philosophes’ ideological enemies.Read More:http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Grub-Street-to-revolution-6571
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