25 kilometers from Salzburg) “that even if they are pretty, they are repelling in the eyes of an honest German.”.
Beauty products
On the vanity table of an elegant dame (without excluding husbands, who also used various creams and makeup) there were many products aimed at creating fashionable pale and fresh skin, as well as substances to alter the tone, false beauty marks, etc.
Since the 16th century, there had already been books printed with recipes of every type for curing diseases or for the preparation of beauty oils and creams, such as “I Secreti Universali in Ogni Materia” by Thimoteo Rossello, published in Venice in 1575 whose second volume contained a list of a dozen recipes for making hair blond and beautiful and how to have splendid white skin.
Several similar publications were also widespread in the 18th century, for example “La Toilette de Venus” published in 1771, or “La Toilette de Flore” from the doctor Pierre-Joseph Buc'hoz who offered recipes for oils and beauty creams derived from flowers and plants.
Transparent and brilliant skin (the fashion to follow was the “convent complexion”) in the 1700s was praised enough to forgive a woman who displayed even stupidity or unrefined behavior.
Men and women who applied make-up used ceruse to whiten their complexion (originally derived from egg whites and later a white pigment made with toxic lead) and rouge for lips and cheeks (originally derived from animal substances such as scarlet-colored insects or plant-based red sandalwood, later derived from minerals such as lead, minium and sulfur baked in ovens at high temperature), not to mention the dozens of essences, creams, pastes and eau de cologne.
In one of his writings, the Knight d'Elbée calculates the sales of 2,000,000 jars of rouge and reports the words of Montclar (among the most famous vendors of rouge in Paris), who confirms having sold three dozen jars of rouge a year to Signor Dugazon (the actor, Jean-Baptiste-Henry Gourgaud), while his wife, the actress Rose Lefèvre purchased six dozen jars from Bellioni and Trial each for six francs a jar.
The make-up or rouge was not, however, chosen by its tone or color. It needed to make a statement about the person wearing it, so much so, that a certain type was reserved for the dames of social class as opposed to the dames of the Court (the princesses wore a very intense color), while another color was appropriate for the middle class, and obviously another for the courtesans.
There were also lotions: to lighten the color of the skin or to give it a blush tone, to enhance and to wash it, to eliminate freckles and blackheads, to rejuvinate skin yellowed by age, etc.
Entire fortunes were squandered on beauty products, to the point of boiling gold foil in lemon juice in order to obtain an otherworldly complexion in the light of day.
Then there were the ointments to repair the scars on the skin from disease, smallpox in particular which was widespread in that era, products for hair, nails and for teeth.
And what about false moles, also known as beauty marks? They were tiny pieces of sticky cloth in various shapes (hearts, moons, stars, etc.), purchased from the famous manufacturer Madame Dulac, meant to complete the make-up with personality and spirit.
The position of these false beauty marks (each with an assigned name) were rigorously imposed by well known rules: the assassin (at the corner of the eye), the romantic (in the middle of the cheek), the cherished (near the mouth), the regal (on the forehead), etc.
To complete the preparation of the head of the noblewoman before leaving the house neccessitated the setting and styling of her hair which, for the great noblewomen on important occasions usually involved true architectural creations by the greatest hairdressers in Paris.
The height of the hairstyles reached towering limits, so much so that caricaturists represented the hairdressers standing on stools, if not ladders to reach the peaks while they worked on their creations.
If during the early part of the 18th century, brown was the favored standard for beauty of hair color, at the turn of the century, fashion abruptly changed: dark hair fell out of favor to blue eyes and blond hair.
A pale complexion, though, remained an essential element. To reach this objective, many underwent a bloodletting procedure often many times a day through the application of bloodsuckers or being stuck with a pin in an exterior vein.
Even religious devotion and the morality of the Parisians gave Leopold reason to express many of his sarcastic doubts. Regarding the business that the Mozarts expected from the exhibitions in Versailles, all moved so slowly that Leopold complained that at the Court “things go at a snail's pace, even more than at other Courts” mostly because every entertainment activity (festivities, concerts, theatrical performances, etc.) had to pass through the evaluation and the organization of a special commission of the Court, the Menus-plaisirs du Roi (the lesser royal pleasures of the King). Leopold Mozart writes to Hagenauer's wife, illustrating some of the Parisian Court's different practices compared to what was done in Vienna: in Versailles you do not kiss the hand of royalty or bother them with requests and pleas, least of all during the ceremony of the “passage” (the procession between the two wings of courtiers that the royal family practiced while going to mass at the chapel inside the palace). It was not customary to display honor to royalty by bowing the head over a bended knee as was done in other European Courts. Instead, one was to stand up straight and comfortably and watch the members of the royal family walk by.
In reference to these customs, Leopold does not miss the chance to remark with great surprise that among the guests present, the daughters of the King stopped to speak with Wolfgang and Nannerl, letting them kiss their hands and doing likewise. Even on the evening of the New Year during the “grand couvert” (royal dinner where numerous courtiers and guests stood by watching the high ranking social class) held in the Hearth Hall that also served as the antechamber to the Queen's apartments, “My Mr. Wolfgangus had the honor to pass the entire evening near the Queen”. He conversed with her (she spoke German very well as she was of Polish origin and spent some years of her youth in Germany) and even ate the food offered by her. Leopold also draws attention to the fact that they were all accompanied to the “grand couvert” hall (given the large crowd that flocked in order to watch the dinner) by the Swiss Guards and that he, too, was near Wolfgang while his wife and Nannerl were placed near Louis, Dauphin of France (heir to the throne) and one of the daughters of the King.
The Swiss Guards
Today when we talk about the Swiss Guards, the first thing that comes to mind are the pictoresque soldiers at the State of the Vatican, with their colorful Renaissance uniforms that guard of honor of the Pope.
In truth, dating back to the 14th century during the epoch of the Hundred Years' War, many European kings used Swiss mercenaries to form military corps for their protection.
The first monarch to create a Swiss Guard corp was Louis XI and his successor Charles VIII progressively increased the number to 100, hence the name Cent suisses (the Hundred Swiss).
Between the end of the 1400s and the beginning of the 1500s, the Papal State followed the example of the King of France to the point that Julius II had at his service 150 Swiss Guards that demonstrated their faith during the course of the Sack of Rome which was carried out by the German mercenary Landsknecht soldiers enrolled in Emporer Charles V's army.
Even the Savoys had their Swiss Guards in the 16th century, and during the 18th century the Swiss were personal guards to Frederick I of Prussia, the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Joseph I of Portugal and even utilized by Napoleon Bonaparte.
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