King Louis XI was doodled by Prospero into one of his books of spells (The Face in the Frost, 5).
Inspiration[]
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Louis XI, illustrated by Marilyn Fitschen.
Louis XI , called "Louis the Prudent", was a monarch of the House of Valois who ruled as King of France, succeeding his father Charles VII. His taste for intrigue and his intense diplomatic activity earned him the nicknames "the Cunning" and "the Universal Spider", as his enemies accused him of spinning webs of plots and conspiracies. He was succeeded by his son Charles VIII[1].
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Louis XI, illustrated by John Bellairs.
Like Prospero, Bellairs, too, was a witty doodler. "John had a real talent for cartooning and, had he so chosen, I think he could have made something out of it by attending art school. However, such an idea was never even remotely on his personal radar screen. In all my years of knowing John, I never knew him to do anything so ambitious with his cartooning talent.[2]"
Bellairs also doodled bearded patriarchs and pharaohs...and bishops and nuns and more...but his most frequent character was Louis XI, lending credence to why Myers jokingly called Bellairs the "biggest modern-day fans" of the so-called spider king. Bellairs's caricatures decorated letters and cards and often accompanied autographed books.
"John liked to draw him wearing his favorite peaked cloth hat, with medals of various saints forming a ring around the rim (i.e. his badge for Saint Michael and who-knows-who-else). Louis would pray to a given saint for success in one of his endeavors, and if that saint didn't come through for him, Louis would demote his medal to the back of his hat. John also greatly appreciated the fact that Louis kept a cardinal, not of the avian but of the Prince of the Church variety (Jean Balue), in a cage in his castle.[2]"
Versions of the book that exist without Marilyn Fitschen's illustrations were released by Recorded Books (1995) and Olmstead Press (2000) where the image is reduced to the following passage:
"....King Louis XI of France who, as far as Prospero was concerned, looked like Cyrano de Bergerac with a lumpy Roman nose." [Olmstead Press, 2000; p. 9]
References[]
- ↑ Wikipedia: Louis XI of France
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Correspondence with Alfred Myers.