Arch Prince Malavere de Felleville

Tarvuist member of the French royal family. Malavere (1730-1780) was a flamboyant prince, who famously held 52 weddings for his first wife, Marie, and 104 for his second, Brigitte (Marie's sister). These were held every week for a period of three years.

Naturally, with the same guests, and the same speeches week after week, it must have been very difficult for everyone to keep up the pretence that they were enjoying themselves.

Malavere's cousin, Jean-Luc de Felleville wrote in his memoirs, that “I had grown so tired of hearing the same speeches by the same men, that I had to find ways to dull the boredom. Thus I took to imagining that all the words I heard were different wines, and all the pauses between the words, fine brandies - and so by the end of all the oratory, I was quite drunk”. (Jean-Luc, Le Maitre de Felleville, Lourdes et Louise Presse 1801).