Lionel Royce

By Nancy J. Farrier

Sometimes circumstances in life make it necessary to change your identity or to adapt in order to preserve your life. Lionel Royce is one such person, an actor, who also adapted to survive.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Lionel was born Leon Reiss, in what is now Ukraine. In 1913, he traveled to Vienna to attend the Academy of Music and Performing Arts. Leon loved acting and excelled at the craft. His acting career was put on hiatus with the onset of WWI. He enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian Army and fought valiantly. He was wounded several times and awarded a medal of valor.

Lionel began his acting career after the war using the stage name, Leo Reuss. His first performance was in Vienna in a production of King Lear. In 1921, he went to Berlin to join a theater group there and gained notoriety for his acting ability. With the rise of the Nazi party, Reuss began to have problems. Due to his Jewish heritage, he began to have trouble finding work in Berlin. He returned to Austria hoping he would do better there, but the Nazi reach still kept him from acting jobs.

Instead of giving up, Reuss took time to reinvent himself. At a cabin he owned in the mountains, he studied the Tyrolean farmers and became one of them. He

Vienna Academy of Music
and Performing Arts (1920)
Photo by PaulShunOSAWA

dyed his hair by bathing in a peroxide bath regularly. He grew his hair longer and allowed his beard to grow. 

He changed his name again, this time to Kaspar Brandhofer, to emulate a Tyrolean peasant. Then he returned to Vienna, complete with papers stating he was a Christian. He auditioned before his former mentor, who did not recognize him, but who was very impressed with Kaspar’s acting skill.

He walked a fine line as he was cast in a feature role. Many of the other performers knew him and had acted with him before. He had to maintain his subterfuge as Kasper every moment, not just when he was on the stage. His premier as Kaspar proved an amazing success. He received accolades, even from the Nazi’s attending. They claimed his heritage as a white Christian proved he had superior blood. 

Courtesy
Wikimedia Commons

Reuss could have gone on to greater heights in acting, but maintaining the Kaspar identity must have been difficult. Keeping separate from people he once knew brought on loneliness and he didn’t like the power the Nazi’s were gaining. After his rousing performance, he admitted to his ruse. His announcement caused a great uproar and Reuss ended up escaping to the United States.

Courtesy
Wikimedia Commons

Once again, he changed his name, this time to Lionel Royce. He began his film career in the USA with a small role in Marie Antoinette. For the next few years, Royce continued to take on smaller roles as he gained notoriety. He was then cast in a role of a German, Hintze, in Confessions of a Nazi Spy. From there he continued to portray the very people who caused him to leave his beloved Austria. He did it with such success that the German embassy asked him to come back to Germany and offered him honorary Ayran status so that he could act for the Nazi party. Royce turned them down.

Courtesy
Wikimedia Commons

The last film Royce appeared in was the 1946 production of Gilda,starring Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford. From there, Lionel Royce joined the USO and began doing tours for the US troops, much as Bob Hope did. During his tour in Manilla, Royce had a fatal heart attack and died at the age of 54. 

I found the story of Lionel Royce to be so interesting. In the 1990’s a play was written about the life of Lionel Royce and performed in Vienna but I don't believe it was made into a movie. Have you heard of Lionel Royce? He must have been a great actor. I found it interesting that the Nazi party wanted to offer him Aryan status just so he could perform for them. What did you find interesting?

Nancy J Farrier is an award-winning author who lives in Southern Arizona in the Sonoran Desert. She loves the Southwest with its interesting historical past. When Nancy isn’t writing, she loves to read, do needlecraft, play with her cats, and spend time with her family. Nancy is represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of The Steve Laube Literary Agency. You can read more about Nancy and her books on her website: nancyjfarrier.com.

Masked Balls in 18th Century France

By J. M. Hochstetler

18th Century Masquerade by Lacroix

In researching the French setting for Refiner’s Fire, Book 6 of my American Patriot Series, I came across descriptions of the masked balls Queen Marie Antoinette held at Versailles. Masked balls developed in Italy from the ridotto, infamous private gambling salons in Venice, where visitors wore masks to conceal their identities. They rapidly spread throughout Europe and England and were already popular at Versailles in the mid 1770s when Queen Marie Antoinette regularly held masked balls in the Hall of Mirrors. Other royals and nobles hosted them as well at their own establishments in Paris.

Extravagant costumes were de rigueur at these affairs, with popular themes being heroes and goddesses of classical antiquity; figures from the Italian commedia dell’arte; allegories representing traits such as Truth or Virtue; traditional costumes of other nations; figures from folk songs and ballads; and even animals. Part of the fun was to try guessing the identities of other masked participants, and it was traditional for everyone to unmask at the ball’s end.

Black silk domino cloak with gold mask c.1765
Museum of London

Instead of wearing a costume, some guests simply wore a domino in black or white silk over their regular formal wear, with a face mask serving as the sole disguise. But in any case everyone, both men and women, wore dominoes. The word refers to both a mask and a cloak and derives from the name of the hoods worn by French priests in the Middle Ages. The mask covers only the upper half of the face and is rounded at the corners. The cloak, which originated in Venice, was voluminous, with wide sleeves and usually a removable hood referred to as a bahoo. Mask and cloak were most often black but could be any color, with silk being the preferred fabric. Not only did the cloak give the wearer a dramatic appearance, but it could also accommodate the most lavish costumes. By concealing the wearer’s identity, dominos allowed one to move freely and socialize with whomever one pleased.

Marie Antoinette wore the domino to attend masquerades without being easily recognized. It didn’t always work, however. Since Louis XVI rarely attended balls, one woman who happened to recognize the queen began chastising her for not acting like a proper wife and staying at home with her husband. She apparently also donned the domino for some court balls when the public was allowed to enter the gardens, which increased the number of gawkers.

Domino Mask

Masquerade balls were popular throughout the eighteenth century despite the disapproval of those who considered them immoral, corrupting, and even unpatriotic. These events suspended the formal conventions and norms of polite society, such as social rankings and gender roles, for a few hours. With the right costume and a mask to conceal your true identity, it was possible to step into another world in which anything became possible. The rich, famous, and even infamous danced, flirted, intrigued, and arranged assignations until dawn. And at times members of the higher ranks of the bourgeoisie were also invited as a way of introducing diversity. These wealthy commoners could otherwise never mingle with royalty and nobility, but a disguise opened up opportunities for liaisons and consequently social advancement. Critics feared that the entire social structure would be undermined if status and respect were gained or lost simply by the clothing one put on.

Changes in morality at the beginning of the early 19th century led to a decline in the masquerade’s popularity. Although fancy dress balls remained fashionable in the 1800s, they became much more respectable than the dramatic, risqué masquerade balls of the 1700s.

If you were to attend a masked ball, who or what would you dress as?

~~~

J. M. Hochstetler is the daughter of Mennonite farmers and a lifelong student of history. She is also an author, editor, and publisher. Her American Patriot Series is the only comprehensive historical fiction series on the American Revolution. Book 6, Refiner’s Fire, releases in April 2019. Northkill, Book 1 of the Northkill Amish Series coauthored with Bob Hostetler, won Foreword Magazine’s 2014 Indie Book of the Year Bronze Award for historical fiction. Book 2, The Return, received the 2017 Interviews and Reviews Silver Award for Historical Fiction and was named one of Shelf Unbound’s 2018 Notable Indie Books. One Holy Night, a contemporary retelling of the Christmas story, was the Christian Small Publishers 2009 Book of the Year and a finalist in the Carol Award.

Guarding the Kings of France

by J. M. Hochstetler

For my current work-in-progress, Refiner’s Fire, Book 6 of my American Patriot Series, I’ve had to recreate the French court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. I’m finding a lot of interesting—and scandalous—details of daily life in a palace, but today, I’m going to focus on a relatively mundane concern they shared with our modern-day leaders: security. You can be sure that between the Royal Bodyguard and the famed Swiss Guards, the French monarchs had the situation well in hand, at least until the French Revolution broke out.

Royal Bodyguards

Garde du corps, era of Louis XVI

In 1418 Charles VII of France founded an elite Scottish military unit called the Garde Écossaise to serve as his personal bodyguards. They later formed the first company of what became the Royal Bodyguard (Garde du Corps du Roi), which continued as the senior Scottish Company until the Bourbon monarchy ended with the French Revolution.

The Royal Bodyguard consisted of four companies, and a detachment accompanied the French king wherever he went. They guarded where he slept and even escorted his food from the kitchen to his table. A special detachment of 24 “Guards of the Sleeve” (Gardes de la Manche) stood so close to the king during court ceremonies that his sleeves actually brushed them. They wore embroidered white and gold cassocks over their blue, red, and silver uniforms. From the 16th century onward, Frenchmen primarily made up this unit, but it kept the name and certain Scottish commands.

Swiss Guards

Soldier and officer of Gardes Suisses in French

 service in 1757: Marbot, Alfred de, 1854

Beginning in the late 15th century units of Swiss soldiers called Swiss Guards served at various European courts. The earliest permanent unit was the Hundred Swiss (Cent Suisses), created in 1480 when France’s Louis XI retained a Swiss company for his personal guard. They served at the French court until 1817 as bodyguards and ceremonial troops, sharing guard duties inside the palace with the king’s Royal Bodyguard. The Swiss Guards (Gardes Suisses), guarded the palace’s entrances and outer perimeter as well as serving in the field as a fighting regiment in wartime.

The Guards and their officers were all recruited from Switzerland. They maintained a high reputation for discipline, which followed the Swiss codes of conduct, which were significantly harsher than those of the regular French Army. Accordingly they received considerably higher pay than did French soldiers. Their uniform consisted of red coats with dark blue lapels and cuffs edged in white embroidery, with the grenadier company wearing bearskins, while the rests of the companies wore the same three-cornered hats as those of the French infantry. The Hundred Swiss were armed with halberds with the royal arms in gold on the blade and gold-hilted swords.

Swiss Guards During July Revolution,
Jean Louis Bezard, c. 1832

The most famous, and tragic, episode in the history of the Swiss Guards was their defense of the Tuileries Palace in central Paris on August 10, 1792, during the French Revolution. Of the 900 Swiss Guards stationed there, about six hundred were killed during the fighting or were massacred after they surrendered. Sixty taken as prisoners to the Paris City Hall were killed there by the crowd. An estimated 160 more died of their wounds while in prison or were killed during the September Massacres that followed. Apart from fewere than 100 Swiss who escaped from the Tuileries, some of whom were hidden by sympathetic Parisians, the regiment’s only survivors were a detachment of 300 that had been sent to Normandy a few days earlier.

The Hundred Swiss had been disbanded when Louis XVI was taken from Versailles to the Tuileries in October 1789. Reformed in 1814, they accompanied Louis XVIII into exile in Belgium the following year. After the Battle of Waterloo they returned with him to Paris, where they resumed their traditional role of palace guards at the Tuileries until a new French guard company replaced them in 1817.

~~~

Book 6, American Patriot
Series

J. M. Hochstetler is the daughter of Mennonite farmers and a lifelong student of history. She is also an author, editor, and publisher. Her American Patriot Series is the only comprehensive historical fiction series on the American Revolution. Book 6, Refiner’s Fire, releases in April 2019. Northkill, Book 1 of the Northkill Amish Series coauthored with Bob Hostetler, won Foreword Magazine’s 2014 Indie Book of the Year Bronze Award for historical fiction. Book 2, The Return, received the 2017 Interviews and Reviews Silver Award for Historical Fiction and was named one of Shelf Unbound’s 2018 Notable Indie Books. One Holy Night, a contemporary retelling of the Christmas story, was the Christian Small Publishers 2009 Book of the Year and a finalist in the Carol Award.