The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People (69 page)

appetite—the “degenerate offspring of an

illustrious race.” As a young woman she was

shapely and graceful, with fetching black eyes,

but she became old and haggard by her mid-30s owing to her many pregnancies (she gave

birth to 12 children, losing five in infancy and

miscarrying several others), dental disease (she

lost her teeth by the time she was 37), and, it

was widely believed, sexual excesses.

According to the Russian ambassador in

Madrid, “Her complexion is now greenish,

and the loss of almost all her teeth—which

have been replaced by artificial ones—has given the
coup de grâce
to her appearance.” While all Europe seethed around her with revolutionary discontent, the queen of Spain sought solace for her lost beauty with a long succession of lovers.

HER LOVERS:
Maria Louisa’s infidelities were the scandal of Spain, a very prim country in matters of morality. Soon after her marriage she created her own court in the Casita del Principe (“Little Prince House”) and began deceiving her husband with grandees such as the Count of Teba, the Duke of Abrantes, and Don Juan Pignatelli, exiling the latter to France because of his partiality to a fairer face.

Other lovers were banished by Maria Louisa’s sternly reproving fatherin-law, Charles III. Only her husband, who became Charles IV on the death of his father in 1788, remained happily oblivious to his wife’s promiscuity. “If queens felt tempted to sin,” this true naïf who passed his days hunting and tinkering once remarked, “where would they find the kings or emperors to sin with them?”

Hitherto sovereign in her sexual caprices, Maria Louisa became enthralled at 37 by handsome 21-year-old guardsman Manuel de Godoy, an impoverished provincial nobleman whose brother had preceded him into the royal bed (and thence into exile). Godoy, amusing, indolent, sensual, aroused in her a grand passion compounded of lust, maternal instinct, hero worship, and jealousy. The balance of sexual power shifted to Godoy, who in 1792 at the age of 25 became prime minister of Spain. “It is difficult to imagine,” French Ambassador Bourgoing wrote to Paris, “that a young man without any previous political experience could have been appointed to one of the most important ministries; a man whom the queen’s love demands leave little time to dedicate to government affairs.” Three years later, after concluding a catastrophic war against France, he was elevated to “Prince of the Peace,” second in stature only to the king of Spain.

Most of Godoy’s diplomacy was devoted to handling the queen. The Prussian ambassador described their typical day thus:

At eight o’clock in the morning Godoy goes to his country house riding school where the queen joins him every day at nine o’clock, while Charles IV is away hunting. The riding takes place until eleven. At one o’clock in the afternoon Godoy returns to the palace to be present during the queen’s lunch, which is one of his “duties.” Afterward, he goes to his rooms, which are located under the queen’s. Maria Louisa soon joins him, using a secret staircase.

Aristocratic ladies vied for Godoy’s favors, emerging rumpled and flushed from the prime minister’s chancery, while their husbands contributed to his growing personal fortune. There was also Josefa “Pepita” Tudo, a beautiful, plump, dark-haired commoner who bore Godoy two children out of wedlock. It was to break up this affair that Maria Louisa arranged for her lover’s marriage to the king’s cousin, Maria Teresa de Vallabrige, Countess of Chinchon, in 1797. The countess, however, could not abide her husband, who continued to sleep with the comely Pepita.

Jealousy drove the aging, toothless queen, absurd in her girlish frocks, into even further sexual excesses. “To appease the queen’s unnatural sensuality,” the French ambassador reported, “the assiduity of the king, the fleeting attentions of the Prince of Peace, and the frequent assistance of the choicest of the bodyguards are all required.” During periods of estrangement from Godoy, Maria Louisa consoled herself with fresh young bodies: an Italian named Malaspina, whom she goaded to intrigue against Godoy; Don Luis de Urquijo, who was promoted by the queen to first secretary of state; and Don Manuel Malló, another handsome guardsman, who was rewarded for his services with a carriage and horses so splendid that even the phlegmatic Charles took notice. Seated with Maria Louisa and Godoy, the king one day asked, “Manuel, who is this Malló whom I see every day with a new carriage and horses?” Replied Godoy, “Your Highness, Malló does not have a penny, but it is well known that Malló is kept by some toothless old woman who robs her husband to enrich her lover.” The king laughed and turned to the queen. “What do you think of this, Louisa?” Flushed, the queen replied, “Charles, you know that Manuel is always joking!”

Godoy is even said to have provided the queen with lovers. Whatever the case, the bond between Maria Louisa and her favorite was so compelling that it lasted the rest of her life. Godoy fathered two of the queen’s children, a son named Francisco and a daughter named Maria Isabella. Far from being suspicious, the complacent Charles was genuinely fond of Godoy, to whom he abdicated all power and responsibility. This aroused the undying enmity of the heir apparent, Ferdinand, who conspired to overthrow the regime. The French intervened, Napoleon installed one of his brothers as king of Spain, and Maria Louisa and Charles were dispatched into exile. With them, as the fulcrum of the royal sexual triangle, went Godoy and his assorted children, legitimate and otherwise. They were joined by Pepita shortly afterwards. This complicated ménage survived until the death of Maria Louisa in Rome, followed by that of her husband just three weeks later. Free at last, Godoy moved to Paris, where he married his Pepita in 1828. Bored and weary of their poverty, Pepita left him and went back to Spain in 1833.

—C.D.

The Monk And The Harem

KING MONGKUT OF SIAM (Oct. 18, 1804–Oct. 1, 1868)

HIS FAME:
This king of Siam is known to

the Western world as the inspiration for the

Broadway musical
The King and I
. In Asia his

popularity was due to his ability to befriend

foreigners, thus sparing his people the violence

that accompanied the coming of the Europeans to the rest of the continent. He was a

progressive leader who initiated many democratic reforms before his subjects even asked for

them. After his death he was called Rama IV.

HIS LOVES:
Few people in history have

gone through such a sudden and radical

change in their sex lives as did Mongkut at

the age of 46. He began normally enough,

marrying early and fathering two children.

When he turned 20 he followed tradition by leaving his family to become a monk, intending to return in a few months. However, while he was away his father died, and Mongkut’s elder half brother was chosen to replace him as king.

In order to avoid any hint of political intrigue, Prince Mongkut remained a monk and spent the next 26 years practicing celibacy in the priesthood.

In 1851 his half brother died, and it was Mongkut’s turn to be king. He moved from his simple quarters in a monastery to the luxurious accommodations of the Inner Palace in Bangkok, which he shared with 3,000 women. No other men were allowed in the Inner Palace except priests and an occasional doctor, and these visitors had to be escorted by members of the all-female palace guard.

Assuming the throne in early April as Phra Chom Klao, Mongkut wasted little time returning to action after two and a half decades of abstinence. By mid-August he had taken 30 wives, and early in 1852 royal children began appearing at a rapid pace. By the end of his 17-year reign he had fathered 82 children, 66 of whom were alive at the time of his death.

The rigid laws of custom stipulated that he spend the period between 11:00

A.M. and 1:00 P.M. each day being “attended by the ladies of the palace.” Unlike his predecessors, Mongkut felt that he had more than enough wives and concubines. In the most dramatic reform of his career he announced that his wives and concubines, if they so desired, could leave the palace to return to their parents or to marry other men. Only the mothers of his children could not remarry. Very few women took advantage of the king’s offer.

—D.W.

The Passionate Prude

VICTORIA (May 24, 1819–Jan. 22, 1901)

HER FAME:
The longest-reigning

monarch in English history (1837–1901),

Victoria became symbolic of the era of

prudery and sexual repression which

bears her name. There is increasing evidence, however, that Albert, her adored

husband and stern consort, was the true

inspiration behind Victorianism.

HER PERSON:
Victoria’s father, fourth

son of King George III, died when she

was an infant. She grew up simply at

Kensington Palace, sharing a room with

her mother and companionship with her

German governess, Baroness Lehzen.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert

Despite a solitary childhood, she was a

merry, mischievous, and willful little girl; her imperious tendencies were reinforced on becoming heir apparent to the throne at age 11 and queen at 18.

The young Victoria was a romantic figure. Although only 5 ft. tall (“Everybody grows but me,” she lamented) and with a hearty appetite that early portended stoutness, she was fair, charming, and as sprightly as a hummingbird.

During the first visit of her cousins Ernest and Albert, 16-year-old Victoria danced and romped to her heart’s content. “All this dissipation does me a great deal of good,” she remarked.

LOVE LIFE:
In her time the most prized match in the world, Victoria was courted by a succession of royal suitors, many of them her cousins. She described them all in her diary with enthusiastic approval, particularly the tall, dashing Grand Duke Alexander, heir to the Russian throne, with whom she fell just a little in love. But the dominant male figure during her first years on the throne was Lord Melbourne, prime minister of England, a gallant, sophisticated man of great erudition who educated the young queen in her public role and took private pleasure in gossiping with her on the sofa at Windsor Castle. The widowed Melbourne, who was 40 years older than his pupil, has been described as “more than a father, less than a lover” to Victoria. They spent several hours a day together, obviously delighted with one another’s company, and corresponded when they were separated even briefly.

Although she was susceptible all her life to strong men with roguish charm, Victoria chose to marry her cousin Albert, a young German princeling with

operatic good looks, because she found him pure and fair, gentle and winning.

As queen she was the one to propose marriage, and she maintained her ascendancy during an engagement otherwise noted for fervent embraces and ecstatic letters. “I am the Sovereign,” Victoria reminded her betrothed, denying his request for a quiet honeymoon. Shortly after the 20-year-olds were wed, Albert complained to a friend that he was only “the husband, not the master of the house.” But his influence grew with every day, and with every night, and with every royal pregnancy, of which there were nine. By the second child, Albert had succeeded in supplanting the governess, Baroness Lehzen; by the third, the royal “I” had been changed to “we.”

Was Victoria a true Victorian or not? The evidence is contradictory. The wedding night injunction to “Close your eyes and think of England” has been attributed to her; but she also wrote with such frankness of the delights of the marriage bed that her journal was destroyed after her death. She hated pregnancy (“a complete violence to all one’s feelings of propriety”) and complained of the “shadow side of marriage,” i.e., the sexual slavery of woman to man; yet she liked to call Albert her angel, worshiped him effusively, and presented him with gifts of nude works of classical art. When advised to have no more children, she is said to have replied to her doctor, “Oh, Sir James, can I have no more fun in bed?” However, Victoria was naive about some aspects of sexuality. In 1885, when presented with the anti-homosexual Criminal Law Amendment, she crossed out all references to females. Lesbianism simply did not exist, insisted the queen.