Making a Scene, Part I - What Scene and Why?

In a previous post - Marie and Buckingham - I talked about a spy report that had been found behind a bust at the Prefecture of the Police in Paris in the 19th century.

It was written for Richelieu and tells about the activities surrounding Anne of Austria in May 1625, just after the wedding of Henrietta Maria, when Buckingham visited Paris to escort the new Queen to England.

These events are important to the plot of this novel in progress and, as much as I love the idea of writing a scene wherein Buckingham wears five disguises in one day, it's not practical.
But...
The report includes another incident involving Marie de Rohan and Buckingham which will make a perfect scene.

So - I thought I'd break down the act of writing a scene and post the various steps needed here...just a little exercise shared between you and me!

OK. Let's begin.

First off - I'm writing about real people and real historical events.

This scene can only go in one place.

Secondly - I already have a draft (all right, several drafts) of the novel so my framework is built. This scene can only go in one place.
Sorted.

Decisions need to be made beforehand because a scene must do several things at once .

It must be written from one point of view.
It must elucidate all the characters involved - their wants, needs and personalities.
It must drive the plot forward.
It must give vital information through setting, backstory, foreshadowing and, most importantly, dialogue.
It must always include a memorable, significant action which plays out in real time.

Oh - and it must have a beginning,a middle and an end.

This scene - we'll call it The White Lady - will be written from Marie de Rohan's point of view.
The players include Marie, Anne of Austria, Buckingham, Pierre la Porte and Wat Montagu.
The plot is moved forward (in fact these events reverberate for years to come) and various personality traits are highlighted.

And, the significant action involves a man dressed as a ghost.

The next step will be preparation. Gathering together all the information needed to write the scene.

Nil desperandum

Louise Labé

Born in the 1520's in Lyon, Louise Labé was a Renaissance poet. Amongst her work are 24 (maybe 25) sonnets of glorious passion.

There are several English translations of Louise's sonnets but my favourite belong to Alice Park

Today England is grey (again) but with a promise of the new season and I've just re-read Alice Park's translation of Sonnet XV.

~

Sonnet XV - Pay Homage

Pay homage to the glad return of spring!

Embrace the razzle-dazzle, molten sun!

Enjoy the happy breeze and all the joy

Of hearing fresh, quick-running water sing!

The land displays its most alluring face.

Two scarlet songbirds work their miracle,

And seven hundred jonquils flaunt their all

In sunny, yellow splashes that erase

The tedium of ice and muffled white

Five slim, young girls are dancing in the light

Of blue-skied noon. I catch my breath.

O yes, You’ve come!

Now spring has made the whole scene new.

O little daylight moon, the sun, and you!

My heart feels overwhelming tenderness.

© 2000 Alice Park

~

I have around 700 snowdrops, no jonquils yet... but hope and expectation are in the air. Reading Sonnet 15 makes my heart feel 'overwhelming tenderness.'

Yours too - I hope.

Another Update - 17th Century Textile Colours - And Red Hair

"JUDAS COLOUR- Silver."

In a previous post I played a game...trying to give colours to 17th century textile names.

To me - in my absolute black and white mode - Judas colour represented silver. 30 pieces, I believe. Too obvious on the first pass.

BUT -I'm now reading Catherine Delors' Mistress of the Revolution - where Gabrielle has red hair like - JUDAS.

Mmmmn!
(BTW, that's the sound I make with my lips tightly closed and my eyebrows raised in wonder)

So, I've changed my mind about this 17th C colour. I see copper. A pinkish orange.

Another BTW - I'm very interested in our genetic make-up.

My father is a Scot with Irish colouring (black hair, grey eyes.)

My mother was from Norfolk - Iceni country. Boudicca had red hair!

My hair is as dark as you can get without being black. It has red highlights.

Never wanted to be blond - wouldn't mind being red. :o)

~

Article Update - I'm a Student Handout

Oooh!

I've just checked my own links and found that my 2002 article The Smell of the Middle Ages is now.....

THE most popular site on the Legio Draconis: Art of Combat site.

And I've been read 921 times on the SCA website

Woohooo!

Still tooting the trumpet. Sorry, but, please.........I'm still AMAZED :o)

17th Century Textile Colours

One of my first ever research projects was on 17th century costume.
I got a beautiful old, old costume book from the library and much to my disgust - I can't remember the name of it.

Anyway - from that book I made a note of the names used for textile colours in that era.
They are so evocative and always set the imagination running.

~
PANSY FLOWERING; RAYFLAX BLUE; SUMMER BLUE; ROYAL BLUE; TURQUOISE; WATER COLOUR; PALE BLUE; BEAN BLUE; PASTEL;
~

~
DAWN; CORAL; PEACH BLOSSOM; PALE YELLOW; GOLDEN YELLOW; CANARY; SULPHUR
~

~
WILLOW GREEN; BUDDING GREEN; BRIGHT GREEN; BOTTLE GREEN; SEA GREEN; VERDIGRIS; GOSLING GREEN;

~

~

GREY; DOVE; ARGENT; PEARL GREY; SLATE, PIGEON; SILVER GREY; CRYSTALLINE;

~

~
REDDISH PURPLE;BRIGHT RED; AMARANTH; CARNATION; RUSSETT; SCARLET; OX BLOOD; ORANGE; NONAIN - ROSY WHITE;

~

And colours to try and get our minds around.

I'll have a go...

~

I love the idea of SICK SPANIARD - a yellowy olive.

JUDAS COLOUR- Silver.

TEMPS PERDU- I see this as a pale violet.

ANGRY MONKEY- Is red brown too obvious?

APE'S LAUGH- Again, a reddy colour. But only if they were always being pedantic

RESURRECTION - Oh Gawd! A blue-grey????

KISS ME DARLING - Pale pink, maybe.

TRISTAMI - Sorry, can only think of pepparami here. Oops.

MORAL SIN - Love this. A deep, vibrant, singing red.

SCRATCH FACE - Purpley (if there's such a word)

SMOKED OX HAM COLOUR - Pinky, purpley (if it's not a word, it should be!)

LOVE LONGINGS - Help!

CHIMNEY SWEEP - Too obvious????

FADING FLOWER - Mmmn. Pastel. Maybe like ashes of roses.

DYING MONKEY - Black, brown....ish

MERRY WIDOW - Deep Purple - nearly black but not quite.

~~

I'd love to hear about your ideas :o)

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Did You know......?
That in the 17th century both James I and his son, Charles, set a precedent by wearing only felt and not beaver hats? Both were worried about the declining numbers of beaver in the UK!





Also...

Deforestation was a major cause for concern in both 17th century England and France.

~
Mating pairs of beaver have just recently been re-introduced to the UK.

And deforestation is still an issue!

~
Plus ça change!

~

A Writer's Instinct?

In June 2008 a portrait by Jean Leblond - Louis XIII's painter ordinary - was sold by Christies.

The sitter was 'presumed to be Marie de Rohan-Montbazon, Duchesse de Luynes then Duchesse de Chevreuse.'

I took one look and thought -'No way'

A second look and the realisation that the art experts at Christies know an awful lot more than I do about art made me think - 'OK. But....'

My writer's instinct said that it just felt all wrong. This picture looks nothing like any known portraits of Marie. And nothing like MY view of this endlessly fascinating woman.

Then I read to the end of the article and found -

PORTRAIT OF A LADY, PROBABLY THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE, OIL ON PANEL, BY JEAN LEBLOND. We are grateful to Mr. Maxime Préaud for the details he provided on the work of the artist. Mr. Préaud considers that the attribution to Leblond is probable but has doubts regarding the identification of the sitter.

Aah! There you go. I'm still no art expert.....but I am a writer :o)

The line that divides fact from fiction can be fine or too broad to cross.

M. Préaud and I may be as wrong as two wrong things but...where on that fine line is there room for instinct?

That indefinable something that separates a writer's right from a writer's wrong?

How do we writers of Historical Fiction justify our interpretation of a person who actually walked talked and lived?

And -big question here - Do 'we' choose them or do 'they' choose us?

Mmmmn!

BTW - Has anyone else thrown a book across the room because they utterly, totally and irrevocably disagree with that author's POV?

OK - maybe it's just me who throws!?!

Which, in my defense, is not as bad as reading in the bath (fave place to read) and accidently on purpose losing grip on said book.

~

NO. NEVER. I couldn't drown any book. Ever. Honest onions.

~

Eeek - I'm a Student Handout

I found out something totally amazing today!

An article I wrote, called The Smell of the Middle Ages, is being used in Californian schools as a study handout in their Humanities and Science programme. Eeek!

It is also listed as a Medieval study subject for the Moses Lake School, WA in America...

It has been read 842 times on the Society for Creative Anachronism website...

In May 2004 it was voted Site of the Month on The Gode Cookery pages...

And it is currently the second most popular Medieval link on the Legio Draconis: Art of Combat site.

The piece was originally written for Tamara Mazzei the founder of Trivium Publishing whom I was lucky enough to spend the day with in Lincoln and at Bolingbroke Castle in 2002. She kindly posted it on her new publishing website that year and I thought little more about it.

Wow.....

Seven years on and that little piece now has a life of its own. I'm so proud!

Thank you Tamara :o)

Forgive me for tooting my own trumpet but I knew none of this until today.
Woohoo!

Auriculas

I’m so excited.

It’s nearly that time.

March/April – when my favourite flowers dress themselves and throw colour all over my spring days.

I’ve been collecting auriculas since 1995. They have moved with me from garden to garden, they still bloom faithfully and they have never once ceased to amaze me with their transcendental beauty.

What does this have to do with 17th century France?

Aha!

I could not have answered that before I bought my new favourite book...

Cultivated Power – Flowers, Culture and Politics in the Reign of Louis XIV by Elisabeth Hyde.

~Yes , once again the 17th century in France starts in 1643. A major bugbear of mine but one I’ll overlook this time as the book is so glorious! ~

In the 17th century the auricular was also known as The Bear’s Ear – Auricula Ursi.
John Parkinson wrote about it in his 1629 book Paradisi in Sole.

“The Beares Ears or French Cowslips must not want their deserved commendations, seeing that their flowers, being many set together upon a stalke, does seeme every one of them to bee a Nosegay alone of it selfe; and besides the many differing colours that are to be seene in them...which increase much delight in all sorts of Gentry of the Land, they are not furnished with a pretty scent, which doth adde an encrease of pleasure in those that make them an ornament for their wearing.”

Auriculas hail from the Alps but several countries through the centuries have claimed this little flower’s perfection for themselves. In the 1700’s it was widely accepted that British gardeners were the most expert growers of auricula, despite the fact that in 1688 one N. Valney wrote in his flower gardening manual that, ‘the Bear’s Ear is French.’

Louis XIV would have agreed with M. Valney, for three years earlier he had been presented with a collection of striped varieties so new that, ‘His Majesty, who admired them, was surprised that such beautiful flowers existed in his country without him knowing about it.’

Every year I supplement my collection with a few tiny new plants. Four hundred years ago the colours most prized were red, purple, brown, buff and crimson – me, I don’t care. Any and every colour is welcome.

Marie and Buckingham

Much of the plot of Weave a Garland of my Vows revolves around the relationship of Marie de Rohan, Duchesse de Chevreuse and George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.

In her latter years Marie was to confess that the only man she had ever truly loved was Buckingham. A fascinating relationship. For even their contemporaries knew that these two were never lovers.

As a writer of fiction it has been interesting for me to develop this intense, platonic relationship.
To my mind, Marie and George met themselves in each other. There were outward similarities in their respective positions in society – both of them were the much-loved favourite of a monarch. Although, unlike Buckingham, Marie’s blood was the deepest deep blue.

Personality-wise too, the similarities are striking. Both have been described as pleasant, facetious, affable, quick-tempered, generous, loyal and magnificent. Both were independent, outrageous and full of self-confidence.

And both had a startling ability to play extravagant practical jokes.

The following illustration of this fact is taken from Secret Anecdotes of the French Police – Memoires selected from the Archives of the Police of Paris, from the time of Louis XIV to the present day by J. Peuchet 1839

Peuchet says, ‘Now taking advantage of some isolated documents which I discovered in a pasteboard case which lay perdu behind one of the busts that adorn the Salle des Passports at the Prefecture of Police, I shall bring Cardinal Richelieu upon the stage in a more interesting and prominent manner.’
Those ‘isolated documents’ were reports made by Marquis de Beautru and Boisrobert, both creatures and spies of the Cardinal detailing certain activities surrounding the Queen, Anne of Austria in 1625.

“It is of general notoriety at the English Embassy that the duke is in love with the queen. He has even been presumptuous enough to have a portrait of that princess placed in his closet, under a canopy of blue velvet, surmounted by red and white plumes; and wears besides, a miniature of her majesty, encircled with large diamonds, suspended from his neck by a golden chain, as if it had been given him by the queen. He goes frequently to see the Duchesse de Chevreuse of whom he pretends to be enamoured, but she is in reality only his confidente....

Eight days ago the queen went to a collation at the hotel of the duchess. The king had promised to be present also, but the Duke of Buckingham was as unwilling to be obliged to follow in the suit of his most Christian majesty as he was to be absent on the occasion from his lady, the audacious name by which he calls the greatest princess in the world.

During this afternoon he appeared under five different disguises.

The first time he wore the Albert livery, and made one of the group of footmen in waiting for the arrival of the queen's carriage, and with an inconceivable temerity, it was he that let down the step of the carriage, thus usurping the functions of the officers of the crown ; and it is said that as her majesty stepped out of the carriage, he laid his hand tenderly on the royal foot.

The queen at first walked about the gardens, and the duke's next appearance was as one of a number of gardeners who came forward to offer fruits and flowers to our gracious sovereign. When it came to the duke's turn he dared to utter a compliment, but in so low a voice that no one but the queen heard him, and she was observed to blush.

Later in the day he presented himself in the costume of a magician оr fortune teller, and bу means of this disguise spoke twice to the queen. On the first of these occasions it was remarked that the duchess nudged the arm of the queen, as if to caution her majesty against being surprised ; and when the pretended astrologer approached, and appeared to be telling her her fortune, the princess became so confused, that the duchess made signs to the duke to warn him that he had gone too far. We know not, monsigneur, what sort of impertinence the duke allowed himself to utter at that moment.

The Duke of Buckingham then disguised with an appropriate mask, made his appearance and danced twice in the ballet of demons which was performed in that occasion; and lastly, in order to enable him tо remain a longer time near his lady that tasteful masquerade had been imagined, which drew forth the applause of your eminence and the king, that representing the visit made to the queen for the purpose of paying homage to her beauty and merit, the emperors of China, Japan, Abyssinia, of the Moguls, Mexico, and by the Sultan of Constantinople, the Sophy of Persia, the Grand Khan of Tartary, and the Inca of Peru, each escorted by a suite of masks.

It was known that the representatives of these sovereigns were all noblemen of the houses of Lorraine, of Rohan, of Bouillon, of Chabot, of Tremouille, &c. With the view of prolonging the duration of this gorgeous pageant, and the triumph of the queen, the above named potentates were invited to form part of their majesties' immediate circle.

The Grand Mogul who was to have been personated bу the young Duke de Guise, was in reality represented by the Duke of Buckingham, the former having consented for a loan of 3000 pistoles to let the latter take his place. The dress of the Duke of Buckingham was one blaze of jewels, and amongst them, to the astonishment of the whole court, sparkled the diamonds of the crown of England, which through an excess of foolish confidence, the King of Great Britain had allowed his favourite to bring away with him to France.

The young Duke of Guise attended the simulated Grand Mogul, as one of the lords of his suite, under the title of his sword bearer, so that aided by the Duchess of Chevreuse, the Duke of Buckingham might change dresses with him a moment before the king invited their pretended majesties to unmask and sup with him and the queen.

This shifting of dresses was effected by means of a closet, into which the Grand Mogul and his sword bearer retired, and as after supper they were to remask and recommence dancing, a new exchange of turbans and robes enabled the Duke of Buckingham to assume his former character. All this was managed by the charitable assistance of the Duchess de Chevreuse, so that during the entire of the entertainment the rash foreigner had frequent opportunities of conversing freely with his lady What did he not say to her?”

~

A nice little insight into the true nature of known characters.

Joan Grant

Joan Grant wrote and published several novels in the 1930's and 1940's. What her readers didn't know until 20 odd years later was that these novels were not exactly 'fiction'. Joan Grant was a psychic who, she felt, had actually lived her stories.

I've not read any of these novels but I am reading 'Joan Grant - Speaking from the Heart. Ethics, Reincarnation and What it Means to be Human' a selection of her unpublished writings.

Her description of the act of writing caught my attention and had me nodding in agreement.

Here are a couple of paragraphs - - -

'Writing is rewarding to me only when I am certain that my life has overlapped with the lives of others. All of my experiences, all of my senses, have taught me one overriding principal - it is within each of us to be able to help others and to change their lives for the better. This requires a great deal of us...
This is what made writing so complicated for me. The intensity of difficulty I experienced in getting my ideas onto printed pages did not ease up as one work followed another. Certain books, naturally, were written under more pleasant circumstances than others. Some were written quite rapidly. Yet I readily admit that I would find any excuse to put off writing. I'd scrub the kitchen floor, empty bedpans, do anything rather than write. It's a very challenging effort to get an idea into words. When you think you've succeeded, the words are often a shabby imitation of what you really saw or felt. It can be disheartening. Only the tremendous drive of feeling that I had something that needed to be said forced me to persevere, to continue.'

Taken from Joan Grant Speaking from the Heart Ethics, Reincarnation & What it Means to be Human edited by Nicola Bennett, Jane Lahr & Sophia Rosoff

My kitchen floor is looking criminally dirty :o)

Knitting Day

Not much happening in the brain department today, you know what I mean? ....but I have a fail-safe antidote. Knitting.

There's something about the rhythm of knitting that allows the mind to disengage from worry and to wander far and wide. Scenes appear. Dialogue suddenly makes sense. Delightful phrases emerge fully formed. And all without effort.

As long as there's a pen and notebook handy, these nuggets can be recorded for later use. Although - I tend to photocopy my knitting patterns so that I can keep track of my rows and stitches and these get used, more often than not, for nugget jotting. Knit two, purl two, in dry weather the Seine was sometimes only a metre deep and could be waded across, knit two, purl two.

Stocking stitch is best on days like this. Muscle memory takes over from the brain.

Wishes To his (Supposed) Mistress ~ Richard Crashaw, styled 'The Divine' 1612-1649

Soft silken hours,
Open suns, shady bowers;
'Bove all, nothing within that lowers.
Days, that need borrow
No part of their good morrow
From a fore-spent night of sorrow:
Days, that in spite
Of darkness, by the light
Of a clear mind are day all night.
Life, that dares send
A challenge to his end,
And when it comes, say, 'Welcome, friend.'
I wish her store
Of worth may leave her poor
Of wishes; and I wish – No more.
Now, if time knows
That Her, whose radiant brows
Weave them a Garland of my Vows;

~

Part of the beautiful poem that gave me a title

Where it all began....

Several years ago I was sheltering from the rain in a second hand bookshop in Northern Ireland when I saw and bought a lovely old book called The Seventeenth Century by Jacques Boulenger.

Months later, on an equally rain day back in England, I sat down to read this book.

On page 44 I came across the following...

‘Nor did Anne's best friend help to improve matters. Marie de
Rohan had married the Duc de Luynes when she was seventeen and by the time her first husband died, her reputation was already so extremely bad that the Nuncio thought it his duty to advise the young Queen not to keep so compromising a lady about her person..’

Intrigued, I decided to find out more about this girl.

Weave a Garland of my Vows came from that research and this blog is the digital equivalent of a writer muttering to herself as she puts together her final draft.

Please bear with me - this could go anywhere :o)