Talk:Prince étranger

Request Move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved per request. Favonian (talk) 20:57, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Foreign Prince → Prince étranger — Does it make sense that we translate this exclusively French term while we don't call the Ancien Régime the Ancient Regime? Other French terms are left untranslated on wikipedia like Maison du Roi, Prince du sang, Fils de France and Madame Royale. --The Emperor&#39;s New Spy (talk) 20:33, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Support. One of those occasions where translation is for translation's sake and the article would be better off at the actual title. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:08, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Support. Precedent seems to be that the term is not translated in this type of usage. •••Life of Riley (T–C) 23:30, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Support, for uniformity. The term is French, and is used mainly in the context of French history and the history of French politics.--SGCM (talk)  00:16, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Sentence removed
I have removed this sentence :

"The status of foreign prince was not automatic: it required the king's acknowledgement and authorization of each of the privileges associated with the status. Some individuals and families claimed entitlement to the rank but never received it. Most infamous among these was Prince Eugene of Savoy, whose cold reception at the court of his mother's family drove him into the arms of the Holy Roman Emperor, where he became the martial scourge of France for a generation. "

It was not Prince Eugene who was first in line for a prince étranger rank, but his father, Prince Eugene Maurice, as a foreign dynasty prince heir to a french title (Soissons). So it is incorrect to say that Eugene's motive to leave France is grounded in his denied prince étranger rank. His mother's plot and escape had alienated Louis XIV goodwill years before Eugene coming of age.78.232.54.121 (talk) 14:56, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The sentence is accurate, sourced and so restored. First, The countship of Soissons was not the basis for any princely rank at the French court: it was merely the title taken, initially not by a prince étranger, but by a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon. The Bourbons were never princes étrangers, since they enjoyed the higher rank at the French court of princes du sang, a rank which could not be inherited by the Savoys, so their inheritance of Soissons entitled them to nothing and is irrelevant. Second, both Eugene and his father were, however, entitled to be ranked as princes étrangers, and when, years after his father's death in 1673, Eugene sought to procure the dignity and military privileges associated with that rank at the French court, he was denied because of his mother's continued disgrace in the eyes of Louis XIV. Thus Eugene left France in 1683 to pursue military service abroad, where he was accorded the command and equipage due his princely status. FactStraight (talk) 23:12, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
 * There seems to be a confusion. I never said owning the county of Soissons entitles anyone to prince rank, but the prince étranger rank was granted by the King to noblemen who were 1. members of a reigning foreign house 2. owners of a french fief and living in France. The Savoy-Carignan-Soissons line fits into these criteria, but they were never granted the rank. I would be most interested by any references saying otherwise. 78.232.54.121 (talk) 04:33, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Then please read the cite given in the article for the prince étranger rank. It is found in Ezechial Spanheim's Relation de la Cour de France en 1690. A German scholar who was 3/4 French, Spanheim became Prussian ambassador to France in 1680. He had served at the French court for 10 years when he wrote his analysis of its participants and hierarchy. In the 1973 version of his book, page 106 opens the chapter, "On the Foreign Princes and other Great Lords at the Court of France", which begins "The Foreign Princes, as one calls them in France, are those who, although born French and subjects of the King, issue from sovereign houses outside the kingdom, and of whom there are no more in France than the princes descended from the two houses of Savoy and of Lorraine...There is another of the same house of Savoy who settled in France during the previous reign, and who remained there: this was the Prince Thomas of Savoy, son of Charles-Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, and of the Duchess, daughter of Philip II, King of Spain, and brother of the late Duke of Savoy, grandfather of the current one, and who married in 1624 a Princess of the Blood of France, sister of the Count of Soissons who was killed in the battle of Sedan in 1641, and who has been known since under the name of Princess of Carignan, mentioned earlier. This Prince Thomas, her husband, after having borne arms in Italy for Spanish interests, left their service and embraced the French party, obtaining, among other conditions, that he would hold the highest rank in France after the Princes of the Blood, under the name of "Prince of Carignan", which he's carried ever since..." So, the rank came to the Savoy-Carignans as a result of their warrior ancestor's switching sides and taking up residence in France, and although his wife was a French heiress, there is no evidence that his holding a French fief had anything to do with his status at the French court. Nor have I ever before heard that ownership of property was a condition for enjoying the prerogatives of a prince étranger (the Prince Palatine Eduard was one of several royals who arrived at the French court a penniless refugee, yet he and his wife certainly enjoyed prince étranger rank there): What is the source for that contention? FactStraight (talk) 05:49, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

desirable daughters

 * ... and their daughters' dowries were sought by the princely class (e.g., the dukedom of Joyeuse eventually fell by marriage into the princely hands of, respectively, the ducs de Montpensier and the ducs de Guise.

The word "respectively" usually means 'these two correspond to those two in the same order'. Was something parallel to Joyeuse removed from the sentence? —Tamfang (talk) 08:11, 5 May 2014 (UTC)


 * One duchesse de Joyeuse suo juris married one duc de Montpensier, and subsequently married one duc de Guise. I rewrote that whole clause. —Tamfang (talk) 07:43, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

why quotation marks and italics?
... deprecated such neologistic practice with insertion of a "dit" ("styled" or "so-called") in his biographical entries ...

Why italicize "styled" but not "so-called"? When is it ever necessary to quote and italicize? —Tamfang (talk) 07:41, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that words not usual in English are italicized. In addition, the notation styled, when used to indicate that a term or name is not official, is also commonly italicized. I put it in quotes only to acknowledge (as is sometimes also done with "so-called") that some readers might not concur in the usage. But if I've misunderstood or you have a decided preference otherwise, I'm fine with deletion of the quotes. FactStraight (talk) 07:51, 6 May 2014 (UTC)