681. Now you may think I am joking about my notes about those peasant slang words like "stonmitz" and "katunz", but I am not, on the contrary the use of those words was very indicative of something at work in the royal families of Europe in the years leading up to the French Revolution. The aristocratic families were infected with a desire to use words that were more real and earthy than the formal court jargon handed down for generations.
682. In 1750 Austrian aristocrats more often than not used the french language for conversation, and for formal documents, and the same was true in Russia, where most royals could speak only French. The fact of the matter was, aristocratic formal language was so stilted that slang peasant words and phrases became all the rage for children in the time of Marie Antoinette.
683. But this is all no matter, we have to concern ourselves with little Marie, only ten years old, taxed with learning to play a difficult piece of keyboard music when her tutor knew that she was having difficulty mastering the 18th century version of 'Mary had a Little Lamb'. A week went by, Marie made no progress, the music tutor was fired and replaced, Mozart's visit was put off for another month.
684. The new tutor was an overweight Italian whose expertise was Opera; he had a great reputation as a teacher. He had an interview with the Empress; she said to him, "I want Marie to learn to play Bach by the end of the month. If she will not work hard I want to be informed, if she will not practice she will be punished." To make her point she slapped the palm of her hand with her letter opener. The new Italian tutor raised his eyes and pursed his lips but said nothing.
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