What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: March 2017

It's a "tale as old as time" and we've heard it all before. Various adaptations have been made of this classic fairy tale but the one that most people are familiar with is Disney's animated Beauty & the Beast in 1991. The film won 2 Oscars as well as gaining 25 other wins and 21 nominations. It remains, to this day, a favorite among most of my generation, including me. Now a new Beauty & the Beast has arrived and with it brings a sudden popularity that I have heard a few people questioning. "Why is it suddenly everyone's favorite Disney movie; I don't get it." "Suddenly Belle is everyone's favorite princess." And of course, the "beloved" hipsters, "I liked Beauty & the Beast way before Emma Watson was cast as Belle." Well good for you, hipsters. We're all very impressed with your ability to like things before they become a thing.

Haters go out this door.

To be fair though, I think I can understand why some people would question why this fairy tale is such a favorite. Some people argue that it glorifies Stockholm Syndrome and bestiality and to those people I say, "SHUT YOUR MOUTH!" Beauty & the Beast holds a very special place in my heart and will continue to do so until the day I die. It's not about Stockholm Syndrome, it's not idolizing bestiality, it's a wonderful story about how two very different individuals come to see the beauty within someone that the public has labeled as an outcast.
Here's the thing though, everyone always calls it a fairy tale, but what if I told you that it was actually real?
Readers: "Wait, what - huh?"
That's right. Beauty & the Beast was based off a real couple in the mid-1500s. Now there wasn't a curse involved or talking furniture but the story had some very real roots. You know what this means, right? It's time for History Lessons with Amber!
One evening in 1547, Henry II, King of France, and his wife, Catherine de'Medici, were celebrating the king's coronation when Henry II recieved a very unusual coronation gift. Back then, coronation gifts were a big thing. You didn't just give the new king a card or something small; oh heck no. A coronation was that way to show off to the new ruler and let him know you were an ally and you meant business. New rulers recieved things like lands, animals, wealth, castles, slaves, silks, furs, gold, jewels that could buy an island, etc. When a coronation happened people went all out! Heck, I'm pretty sure that a carriage made of gold could have been a thing! So when it's said that the gift was "unusual", then that's something to consider.
A non-gold carriage with a cage in the cargo, rolls up before the king and queen and announces that a monster had been captured for his royal highness! A wild beast that walked like a man and even had the power of speech! Le gasp!
This "wild beast" was a ten year old boy by the name of Predo Gonzalez. Oh, yes, a wild beast indeed. *rolls eyes*

Pedro Gonzalez

Pedro Gonzalez had a condition that we now know as hypertrichosis (Ambras Syndrome), which means his body was covered in thick, long hair. It's a condition that still exists and I suspect is also the inspiration for werewolf legends. But back in the 1500s, they didn't think, "Oh, it's just a kid with an unusual amount of hair." Ooooh, no. They looked at this overly hairy boy and thought, "Sacrebleu! A beast!" I mean, really!?
No one had ever caught a wild man before. Legends told of wild men being creatures of evil, beings that stole babies from their cribs in the dead of night and were thirsty for blood. Everyone had so many questions about this wild man, so the king had little Pedro taken to the castle dungeon and told his physicians, "Alright, fellas, go nuts!" They examined Pedro and were shocked to find that not only had a wild man been captured, but it was a cub! Go figure! Pedro barely made a fuss, he even told them he had a name, "Pedro Gonzalez."
Despite his non-aggressive behavior, everyone was terrified that overnight Pedro would turn into the bloodthirsty monster they suspected him to be and would run rampant through the castle! The horror! Imagine their surprise when Pedro remained calm all through the night. Not even so much as a growl from him.
Okay, as if people in the 1500's couldn't be more idiotic, when Pedro was brought before the king and the royal court, they wanted to find out if the beast had magical powers. Apparently being a "wild man" wasn't a novelty enough, they wanted him to be a magical wild man. I guess Henry II wasn't too disappointed when the answer turned out to be "no" because the King decided to turn Pedro into an experiment. "What makes a man, a man?" The king decided to be the Professor Higgins to the Beast's Eliza Doolittle and bring him up as a human being with a nobleman's education, but Pedro had to change his name to the Latin form which was Petrus Gonsalvus. Honestly, I don't see that much of a difference between the name for there to have even been a change, but who can argue with a king, eh?
Once the king made his decree, Pedro - ehem, Petrus - was finally treated like a human. He was given proper food which up until being brought to the palace, Petrus had been fed raw meet and animal feed. He was also given clothing and true to the king's word, he recieved the best education of the times. His tutors were gobsmacked when Petrus proved to be a very intelligent and hard-working student when the equation they'd all expected was something along the lines of: Wild Man + Intelligence = 0. How was it possible for a monster to be so contradictory to his nature?
As the years went by, Petrus was made a nobleman of sorts and was given a position in the court. Here's the thing though, people of the royal court had to marry. It was kinda the law back then. But who on Earth would marry a beast?

Catherine de'Medici

One day, King Henry II was killed in a jousting match and Catherine de'Medici came to power. Her reign was considered one of the cruelest in French history. The family name of Medici was steeped in violence and Catherine ruled with frightful mercilessness and cold calculation, using murder and terror as her weapons. If any of you are familiar with the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572, that was carried out by her orders. With Henry II gone, Petrus no longer had a protector and answered to the queen.
The queen decided to try her hand at an experiment of her own concerning Petrus Gonsalvus. If she were to pair him with a human female, would they produce little off-spring of wild men? Catherine de'Medici was notoriously known for her matchmaking. If she told you to marry Mr. So-So, then you best get used to calling yourself Mrs. So-So. You did not argue with her when she made her choice.
Petrus Gonsalvus had the "honor" of having his bride picked out by Catherine de'Medici herself. She had numerous lady candidates show up at the court for her inspection, but none of the girls had a clue as to who they were being considered to be married off to. The queen searched for a woman who she thought could survive the shock of her husband-to-be's reveal and also the realization that she'd be expected to "breed" with him. The queen was insistent that the lady would be beautiful so that way, and here's the real kicker ladies and gents, that way it wouldn't be more difficult for the savage beast to reproduce by wedding him to an ugly woman! When she finally made her selection, she chose a woman who shared the same name as her own; Catherine.

Catherine; she was the daughter of a
servant in the royal court. Not much
is known of her life before she
became the bride of Petrus. Not even
her maiden name is known.

The wedding day arrived, Catherine's been kept in the dark about her intended. She's to meet him for the first time at the ceremony. She cannot turn back, to turn back would almost certainly mean her death by the queen's orders. She walks down the aisle towards the priest and the mysterious man who's back is kept to her. At the sound of her footsteps, her soon to be husband turns to face her and...
Who knows how she reacted. Did she faint? Scream? Was she so frightened that she couldn't make a sound? Only God and those in the church know what happened at the wedding, but the ceremony did take place and Petrus and Catherine were married.
On the wedding night, Catherine is terrified. She's expected to consummate her marriage with a beast? Not just a beast, but someone she has never met until the very moment she was to say 'I do'. What was going to happen to her? Would he hurt her? Eat her? Would she give birth to devil children? The royal court also had their questions. Since this marriage was an experiment, the queen's physicians are given the opportunity to watch the events of the wedding night by way of hidden peepholes into the bedchamber. What happened that night is relatively unknown but it certainly wasn't what any of them expected.

It's said that he didn't touch her that night. Instead, he told her something along the lines of, "Catherine, I know that I'm a beast and that you weren't prepared for this. I know that you're scared. But I won't force you and I'll wait until you're ready." And as time went on, Catherine discovered that "there may be something there that wasn't there before."

I'm not sure how long it was after their marriage when Catherine got pregnant, but when word got around everyone held their breath. Would it be a girl beast or a boy beast? The court was disappointed when Catherine gave birth to a perfectly normal baby with just the right amount of hair. Two years later, she gave birth to another healthy and non-hairy child. While I'm sure Catherine felt relieved, there was a downside to these normal children. If their third child proved to be "human" then the queen's experiment would be a failure and Catherine and Petrus might face the possibility of the queen's wrath. So when Catherine became pregnant a third time, the pressure was on and to their mixed relief, the third child was hairy. Third times the charm, right? Well, their fourth child was hairy too! In total, Petrus and Catherine had seven children and only four of them were hairy.
Everyone wanted portraits of the family! It was the latest craze. Nobles from all over Europe would demand to have a painting of the Wild Man family. But the people only wanted portraits featuring the hairy family members along with beautiful Catherine. The hairless kids were ignored by the public which later would become a blessing.

Petrus, Antonietta, unknown son, and
Catherine Gonslavus

Antonietta Gonslavus

Despite being a royal experiment, the Gonslavus' were allowed to travel wherever they pleased. In fact, the family were the equivalent of today's rock stars. They went on tours all around Europe and eventually settled down in Parma, Italy. There they had a new noble patron, the Duke Ranuccio Farnese. He saw himself as the new owner of the Gonslavus family. Petrus asked the duke for work and he was tasked with looking after an estate, where Petrus and his family moved into. If you thought that Catherine de'Medici was terrible towards Catherine and Petrus, think again. The duke of Parma exploited the Gonslavus children who were born with their father's condition. The above painting of Antonietta, the one that depicts her holding a letter, is possibly one of the cruelest paintings ever commissioned of the children. The letter in her hands reads; "From the Canary Islands, Don Pedro, a wild man, was brought to Henry II, king of France. Today he is with the Duke of Parma to whom I, Antonietta, belong; and now I am with Donna Isabella Pallavicina, the Countess of Soragna." Countess Isabella Pallavicina was Duke Farnese's mistress and he gave Antonietta to her as a freakin' gift because nothing says, "I dig you," like giving your mistress a hairy child. Antonietta never saw her family again. Remember when I said that out of seven kids, four of the Gonslavus children bore the hypertrichosis trait? All four of them were taken from Catherine and Petrus; taken and given away to other nobles.
Catherine and Petrus were married for forty years and spent their final years in relative peace and quiet in the town of Capodimonte, Itlay. Not much is recorded of their life once they removed themselves from the eyes of the court. Many question whether the two ever really loved each other and in answer to that, they are directed to the painting below.

This portrait was done by the Flemish painter Joris Hoefnagel.

What's so special about this picture, you ask? Back in the day, it was considered inappropriate for certain public displays of affection. Very little emotion is portrayed in paintings of people, so body language and clothes and settings ended up being ways to translate things to the viewer. Do you see Catherine's hand? To us, now, it just appears that Catherine is placing a hand on Petrus' shoulder but back then, a hand on the shoulder symbolized deep affection. This small sign shows the love they felt for each other. Catherine's death is recorded to have occurred in 1623 but Petrus is believed to have died before her. The last written mention of him is in 1617, when he attended his grandson's christening, but there has been no record found of his death. And although the pair were considered very famous among the court, their grave site locations have vanished.

"...her nose stuck in a book..."

In Paris of 1740, Gabrielle Suzanne de Villeneuve published her novel, La Belle et La Bete, this book would be the first step towards what we now know as the beloved fairy tale of Beauty & the Beast. Since then variations of the story have spread throughout almost every culture of the world. Though some may argue that there existed tales of beasts and beauties before Catherine and Petrus Gonslavus, de Villeneuve's La Belle et La Bete is considered the first known written story and is strongly believed to have been inspired by the 16th century couple.
Having recently read the book, I can honestly say that the original story and what Disney has produced are hardly the same. There's a saying that goes, "The book was better." In this case, I have to answer with a resounding, "No!" I would take the Disney version over the original any day. Why? Character.
The original Beauty and Beast in the 1740 book have very little personality that could distinguish them from most of the novels published in that time. They're both about sixteen years old and given to dramatic fits of passion. The thing that might set apart Beauty (which is the name she is given in the book)from other heroines is that it mentions her love of literature and learning but it's only mentioned in passing. As for The Beast (he's given no name whatsoever), he wasn't turned into a monster because he was spoiled and cruel, he was cursed because he turned down the marriage proposal of a wicked fairy who was hundreds of years his senior. Might I mention this fairy practically raised him while his mother was away fighting a war and the prince even called the fairy "mother". Wouldn't you say no too? There's sooo many differences in the original tale that it's almost something entirely different and yet there are still elements that have remained in each retelling of the story.

"I want adventure in the great
wide somewhere..."

Buy why is it such a favorite? Well, as I said earlier, it's a story about seeing the beauty within a person. Belle is considered an outcast in her town, she prefers books to people and has her own opinion instead of following everyone else's. She's not like the other girls of her time and back then that wasn't a compliment. Despite the hostility from those who don't understand her, Belle tries to see the good in others. As for the Beast, when human he was a vain, arrogant, and spiteful prince who belittled those he deemed unimportant.
When an elderly beggar woman knocks on the castle doors and offers him a rose in return for shelter from a snow storm, he has so little compassion that he refuses. The beggar reveals herself to be an Enchantress and curses him. He becomes a beast not only in nature but by appearance as well. He's told that the curse will be broken if he finds a woman who will love him despite his appearance and whom he will love in return before the last petal falls from the rose she gave him. It's not just his appearance the woman would have to see past, it's his heart that she must come to love. But if the heart is just as ugly, then what is there to love? It doesn't fall solely on the woman's shoulders to break the spell, the Beast must change himself in order to be saved.
When Belle arrives, she comes upon a Beast who has been under the curse for ten years and he's given up. He's abandoned all hope and fallen into depression and anger. As a prince, he probably wouldn't have given Belle a second glance. Why would he when he was surrounded by beautiful noble women who fawned over him? Now he's alone and he has none of his looks to attract anyone, all he has is actions. Belle's his last chance to break the spell. Maybe he started out going through the motions, not really believing it's worth it cause he has such little time left. Maybe he didn't think Belle was all that great because she had an opinion on everything? Then...maybe he noticed that she didn't look scared of him anymore. She didn't flee the room when he snapped at her anymore, instead she'd call him out on it. She didn't flinch when she touched him, she smiled at his joke, she could talk about anything with him instead of just smiling and nodding like most of the court ladies used to do.
Little by little Belle's kindness, her compassion and her ability to see the good in others helps the Beast change for the better. She reaches out to him and tries to pull him from the darkness that he's wrapped himself in. When he thought there was absolutely nothing to love about him, she proves him wrong. And Belle isn't exempt from this. Because of how her town talked about her, labeling her as odd, she probably thought she was too weird for anyone to consider marrying her. The one thing she had going for her was that she was pretty enough to get attention but not many men wanted a woman who could think for herself back then. But the Beast seems to like all her quirks and her love of reading. He even gives her his library, "It's yours," which is the most romantic thing you could ever say to a bookworm, just sayin' gentlemen (take notes!). Maybe she's not too different after all?

Although the tale of Beauty and the Beast has changed throughout the years, the main theme remains constant in every single adaptation; love isn't about appearances, it's what's inside their heart. And to those of us who are considered outcasts by society's standards, a story like Beauty & the Beast isn't just a fairytale. It's hope. Petrus and Catherine proved it was possible, so maybe one day, we'll find the one who'll see us for what we are inside. Until then, I'll continue being my quirky, book-loving, goofy self.
~ Amber (Ink-Stained Hands)