Talk:Adélaïde of France

message: Was she "first lady" after her sister-in-laws and her mother's death in 1767/1768 and Marie Antoinette in 1770?--85.226.45.121 (talk) 16:22, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "First lady"? 

message: Sorry Lethiere but if you consider that "having acknowledged Velde's scholarship" on one subject implies that I follow him on all, you are confusing scholarship with sacred scripture. I have substantiated, not merely asserted, that Children of France did not use surnames. I have quoted scholars who think they didn't, and more important I have produced official documents where Children of France are referred and referred to themselves only by their first name and title, without surname, when Grandsons of France and Princes of the Blood in exactly similar situation are referred to by first name surname and title. What do you need more?
You have produced no sources where "de France" would be used a surname concurrently with  the title of Son of France. The only sources you have produced are secondary sources , mostly genealogies, were "de France" is used, but not "Son of France", for the simple reason that "de France" is just a shorthand for "Son/Daughter of France". Once and for all I have no doubt that those people where and are frequently referred as "of France" in a wide range of contemporary and modern books (and I am tired to repeat that). My point is that it was not their official style (or show me counter-examples).
You prize Père Anselme as being "the pre-eminent contemporary 18th century expert", something I find indeed fascinating for somebody who died in 1694! I have less confidence than you have in Père Anselme (or rather in his continuators who have done most of the job in the 18th-century version of his work). You could perhaps use the Histoire généalogique rather than prizing it, and, instead of looking at what people are called in genealogies (which is not at all authoritative, much less than even the Almanach royal, where you could also have found the shorthand "Firstname de France"), to have a glance at what they are called in what is the real treasure in "Père Anselme", that is the original document which are published here.
Authoritative theoreticians of the monarchy who treat the problem mostly agree that the King and his children had no surname(with the notable exception of the late 18th-century Guyot). However, that is a theoretical question. The real question is: did they officially use a surname. The answer is clearly no.
Your analogy with "Prince Henry" is interesting. Incidently, for what is of Prince Harry I think (but I am less competent here) that his style, at least in the UK does not include the "OTUKOGBANI" part since in Britain princes (except of course foreign princes) are by definition only royal princes (and I think - but am ready to be corrected - that the only people officially created "Prince of the UKOGBANI/UKOGBANI were consorts): OTUKOGBANI would be useful only in international context, when in contact with Royals of other houses. However, the case we are discussing is completely different and your analogy is wrong: "Son of France" was not "virtually never used" and "de France"-looking-as-a-surname was not used at the French court. Official documents like Letters patent always use the full style "First Name, Son of France, Duke of Someplace", and the court less formal use is entirely different, with the "Monsieur/Madame" system, but again not de France as a surname.
The fact that contemporary encyclopedic sources attribute "de France" to some of France in a way you interpret as looking as a surname does not justify Wikipedia to do so in the first line of the article. I can show you encyclopedic sources, journals of record or contemporary memories attributing to Prince Charles (the living one) styles like "Charles of England": do you suggest to use it in the first line of his Wikipedia notice?
At the most, it could justify to use the form "Firstname of France" and, as I said, I am not against using it in the titles of the articles when it can be disambiguating (although Firstname + Title is better when no ambiguity is at risk). However, in the first line of an article, we are supposed to be more technical and here we have to use the official contemporary style first, then any official nickname à la Madame. And it is really totally incongruously absurd to call somebody "Firstname de France, Son of France" since, even in "contemporary encyclopedic sources" of the Anselm kind, "de France" is just a shorthand for "Son of France". Or do you suggest for poor Prince Harry something like "Harry of the United Kingdom of Great-Britain and Northern Ireland, prince of the United Kingdom of Northern Ireland"?
All the result you arrive is to have people designated under a style they never used, that did not exist legally, and that is not even the style use by contemporary encyclopedic sources but a patchwork of all of that produced with more wikipedian orthodoxy than common sense.
The convention you invoke as your most definitive argument does not say what you claim it says. Quotation: "There is some sentiment that this ‘maiden name rule’ should be generalized into a convention for all past European royal consorts" and "There is also opposition to a broad usage of this convention". For me, it does not sound like an absolute rule. And, as any rule, it must be used with common sense. Where is common sense? Is there really a "risk" that somebody will for some seconds (before reading the first line of the article) infer from the title that Madame Adélaïde" (Adélaïde of France) was a Queen of some place. And is that risk really more damaging than to make him think wrongly that she was "de France" in the sense that Charles was de Gaulle rather than in the sense that Harry is of Wales? I think the second confusion is much more detrimental and will only make confuse what is simple. It is your responsibility to avoid generating confusion of that kind when a simple alternative exist.
The question of the translation or non-translation of fils/fille de France into Son/Daughter of France is another problem. However, you are completely wrong in your understanding of "fils de France" as a rank rather than a title: it was a title, used as a title, in conjunction with other titles and mixed with them: for example, they were rules for the place in which the title had to be put between others, that is before any other except royal titles (see for example Loyseau: "C'est pourquoy aussi s'ils ont quelque Royaume, ils en mettent le tiltre avant celuy de fils de France, comme il s'est veu en Charles roy de Sicile frère de S. Louis...". Nevertheless, one century after Loyseau, Philip V stopped to use his title of Son of France when he acquired the dignity of King, and that long before renouncing his rights to the French throne). However, during the emigration and in the 19th century that order was sometimes changed for Firstname + ducal title + Son of France. So, Son of France is a title like any other one, although above any other one. It is not the description of an actual relationship (as shown in documents where you have both the title and the description of the relationship, with strange-looking wordings like "Firstname, Son of France, brother of the King of France".
If the flat assertion, "They don't have surnames", is too flat, just take this one: "They never used any surname". That is easier to disprove: just find a document before 1789 using both the title and what you think was there surname, and you will have proven that they had a surname and not just a shortened title.
Montjoy Pursuivant (talk) 09:53, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I respectfully suggest that Montjoy Pursuivant review Wikipedia's policy on the use of primary vs secondary sources in documenting content here. In response to my and Frania W.'s efforts (imperfect but sincere) to reconcile varying French historical usages and interpretations thereof with Wikipedia norms, we get condescension, derision, nitpicking and, in effect, "I know what I'm talking about and all the rest of you are ignorant, so shut up and do as I say." We'll see how far that attitude gets you in editing Wikipedia articles. Good luck. Lethiere (talk) 00:11, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You never discuss the point itself, do you? I most respectfully suggest that, if you please, you may take into consideration the fact that the point is not varying bibliographical usages (of course Firstname of France is used by historians and memorialists, today and in the past, who said the contrary?) it is official style used at the time in official context. And, speaking of condescendence, I find you extremely condescending to refuse to discuss the evidences and sources I took the time to quote and just dismissed them in four scandalised lines with such patronizing argument as to tell me that I don't play fair game because I use "original research". I don't claim any special authority myself: I have produced bibliography, sources and facts. If you want to do without them, that is entirely your problem. And for what is of editing Wikipedia article, indeed I begin to think it was perhaps an error. Montjoy Pursuivant (talk) 17:41, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Daughter of France, not "de France" (again)

message: The article was assessed as C-class for lack of sufficient in-line citations. Boneyard90 (talk) 18:08, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  WP: Women's History Commentary 

message: It appears that considerable negative characterizations are drawn from a sole source about a particularly adversarial character -  Perhaps this should noted in the textual account  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.17.142 (talk) 01:42, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adversarial Characterization