My kingdom for an HEIR! A male heir, that is. The cry was heard throughout the world, issued by wives and their protectors. For until the 20th century confirmed that the sperm donors, not the incubators, determined the sex of a child, women took the rap. Remember Anne Boleyn? The chopping block stood more than [...]
Archive for the ‘Child-rearing’ Category
issue. and that rhymes with tissue.
Posted in Child-rearing, Kings & Queens, the Archduchess on February 3, 1848 | Leave a Comment »
Scheisse my Papa says
Posted in Child-rearing, Kings & Queens, poems, the insufferable governess on December 2, 1848 | Leave a Comment »
Was it from Vienna where the notion of girls marrying their fathers came? Freud, was it? Well, I can assure you, I did not marry my papa. Duke Maximilian Joseph was nothing like the Emperor. My papa was an eccentric hedonist–a champion of the underclass. He liked nothing more than to dress up as King [...]
The Baroness finds me in a Compromising Position
Posted in Child-rearing, the insufferable governess on August 23, 1848 | Leave a Comment »
I was glad of the fact that I didn’t die after all. And when next my eyes sprang open, no fire, no devil. The pit of Hell, as it turned out, was not awaiting me. But, close enough, because the smelling salts, the stinging slap, the rough absorption of the blood, were conducted by none [...]
The Circus Within
Posted in Child-rearing, horses on August 22, 1848 | Leave a Comment »
I adored my father, and was normally eager to join in the make-believe, the folly, the fun that he provided during his home stays, though even I could see how he’d stretched the limits this time. Papa loved children. All children. But it often seemed as if his own children were no more or less [...]
In which I first meet the Archduchess
Posted in Child-rearing, Kings & Queens, the Archduchess, Victorian Culture on August 19, 1848 | Leave a Comment »
The first time I laid eyes on the woman who would eventually ruin my life, she disappointed me. In the flesh, the woman for whom we’d practiced hours curtseying was nothing more than a fluffed up matron. Grey hair roughly pulled off a deeply-lined forehead revealed tired, dull eyes. Her many necklaces tiered heavily round [...]
