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Lestat de Lioncourt & Nicolas de Lenfent: status, class and money in 18th century France…

I've written a ridiculous post about Lestat being a noble... as we all know... but sometimes it feels like it's forgotten about? So I started writing... and then it became a behemoth. And now I don't know what it is, but I know if I don't post it, it might eat me. So I'm posting it! Here it is! The End. (The Beginning...)

OK… *Panic attack* - Can I write this? I don’t know! But I feel like I need to! I love you Lestat! But let’s also talk about your noble privilege?

This will be long and isn’t really finished, however… it is not some essay to be marked (although please mark me and give me a good grade? I cry! The fear!) So let’s just stop! It’s fine if it isn’t perfect, or if I’m not entirely right (I’ll only flagellate myself for a month or two)… But however ill-informed I may be, I feel like there’s stuff we need to talk about, no? Help me! I wave in the sea! I am drowning, drowning!

First: a caveat: I am as far from an expert in this as it is possible to be. I studied history only as far as GCSE. The grand total of my studies of The French Revolution was when I was 11, and our history teacher asked us to write a letter to Marie Antoinette as if we were peasants, explaining the situation in a way she would understand and that would make change her actions (OK… it wasn’t so nuanced an understanding we had/were being taught at 11!) And I, always going too far, covered my letter in oil, baked it in the oven, burned the corners to age it and wrote it in a fancy script (to make it look old!!) I handed it in rolled up in a kitchen roll tube.

When I got my homework back, the tube had bite marks in. Presumably, tempted by the smell of cooking oil, my teacher’s dog had tried to eat my homework! Hehehe. My teacher was very flattering and told me that she thought if Marie Antoinette had received my letter I might have stopped the French Revolution! Hahaha! But I’m sure she just felt embarrassed that she had to tell me, “I’m sorry, my dog nearly ate your homework!”

So, this said, my historically educated human comrades (or enemies… do I have any enemies?! I hope not!) please come in and correct me wherever and whenever.

Well done me... nice long intro with no relevance to the books at all! Have I sent you all running for the hills yet?

Well, I’m mainly talking about this stemming from The Vampire Lestat book characters only as we have the facts as they are there, but I also think it's worth discussing because this could potentially become an even bigger deal on TV? Lestat’s turning is moved to 1794… Lestat and Nicki are going to be in Paris 1793/4, right amid the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror… So these issues have to matter on the TV show, right?

There’s something I’ve noticed in fandom discourse… far from always, but often enough, I see discussion that boils down to: Lestat = poor / Nicolas = rich… and extrapolating from this.

Purely considering Lestat, I’ve seen comments suggesting Lestat is a hunter solely due to his family’s poverty, and even regarding him perhaps speaking in a “country” accent or Occitan dialect and thus struggling to fit in, or even be understood in Paris.

To me this is all wild, because the precise status Lestat holds is so important to so many events and dynamics in The Vampire Chronicles (way beyond Nicki! But this is me and this is Lestat’s human life, so I’m talking about him too.)

I also note that I am not American. So I won’t understand some subtleties of how this story might read specifically to an American reader, reading for the first time in 2025. I don’t know what proportion of us are from the US versus elsewhere in the world, but obviously our own lives and experiences influence our perception too.

After all this waffle…

Let’s Begin! (Ahhhh! What am I going to write?)

Lestat explains why he’s such a great Lelio himself: “Now, Lelio in the old Italian comedy is supposed to be quite handsome; he's the lover, as I have explained, and he doesn't wear a mask. If he has manners, dignity, aristocratic bearing, so much the better because that's part of the role. Well, the troupe thought that in all these things I was blessed.” He’s a lord and he is brought up that way. He might not have money, he might not even have been taught to read… but he absolutely is an aristocrat and has the manners and bearing instinctively and innately.

And he retains this in Paris: “"He's the handsomest actor on the boulevard du Temple and you'll hire him outright for it, and pay him outright for it, and he doesn't touch another broom or mop." I was terrified. My career had just started and it was about to be over, but to my amazement Renaud agreed to all her terms. Of course I was very flattered to be called handsome, and I understood as I had years ago that Lelio, the lover, is supposed to have considerable style. An aristocrat with any breeding whatsoever was perfect for the part. But if I was going to make the Paris audiences really notice me, if I was going to have them talking about me at the Comédie-Française, I had to be more than some yellow-haired angel fallen out of a marquis's family onto the stage. I had to be a great actor, and that is exactly what I determined to be.”

Lestat keeps noting his status all through this book - “it was strangely reassuring to know that I hadn't been the first aristocratic fiend to move through the ballrooms of the world in search of my victims-the deadly gentleman who would soon surface in stories and poetry and penny dreadful novels as the very epitome of our tribe”

When he’s being disparaging towards Louis’ presumptions on his own class, Lestat says, “I came from a long line of feudal lords who licked their fingers and threw the bones over their shoulders to the dogs as they dined.” Alright, dial down the arrogance a tad, Lestat, but we get it: you’re upset.

Maybe I’m preaching to the angels and everyone gets it already, and please know this isn’t in response to anything particular said by anyone, nor is it intended in any way as critical of Lestat. I adore Lestat.

It’s just general comments over time that make me wonder if Lestat’s situation feels conceptually alien to some people in 2025? So I’m going to try diving into the mire of my own ignorance. AHHH, The Terror.

But… at the very least, the minimising of Lestat’s nobility seems a widespread view? Even Lestat’s Wikipedia page says he is “technically” an aristocrat. When even Wikipedia is saying “he’s just a poor boy from a poor family…” you know there’s a perception that isn’t fully connected to fact. I mean, yes, Lestat is a poor boy (monetarily and in tragic life experiences.) But he’s a poor boy who lives in a castle, on land where tenants have to pay the family.

(Also… what does this mean for me whenever I watch historical dramas on TV and then spend 3 hours Wikipedia-ing the real people? Could half of the stuff I read be made up, since Wikipedia can be edited by anyone? My reality shatters before my eyes as I look into this.)

For all the good and bad it does him and for all the good and bad it means, Lestat is a noble.

Lestat’s family:

The de Lioncourts are poor provincial nobility. But although they lack money, they live in a castle, on an estate, and own loads of land. Their castle “had stood for a thousand years” as Lestat tells us. The de Lioncourts have been noble for many, many generations. It’s a crumbling fortress now, unmaintained. But it’s still a literal castle.

The family have title, lineage, and the de Lioncourt name. This automatically puts Lestat above Nicki in the rigid social hierarchy. He would be addressed with formal deference, he’d have legal privileges, and would carry himself with the ingrained authority of someone who never needed to “aspire” to gentility. It was his birthright.

The de Lioncourts would be exempt from certain taxes, they’d have exclusive rights to hunt on their lands, they’d have jurisdictional powers and the right to collect rents and dues from peasants on their lands (though these rights would be increasingly challenged by Lestat’s era.)

Now, Lestat himself does not benefit much from his noble status in many respects. If anything, it holds him back. It would be unseemly for the ambitious and talented-at-everything Lestat to enter a profession that does not befit his status in the eyes of the nobility (and specifically, his father.). This is not only frustrating, but devastating to Lestat. It strips hope and possibility of meaning from him. And yet there isn’t the money for him to have any hope of a nice, happy future - either in any profession, or even by marriage. Lestat’s nobility traps him. But it still raises him too. Even as it traps him, just like any privilege - It is still a privilege.

And to suggest Lestat doesn’t benefit from what is a huge societal privilege… well… it would be a lie, quite clearly. Although we thankfully do not live in this kind of a world now (or… are we returning there..? Just in a different way, more defined by money…? And is that part of the confusion in this topic…?) I am sure everyone can think of analogies…

I mean… even the squandering of the family wealth… yes Lestat’s father and brothers are useless… but did even they squander the family’s wealth? “Even in a rich family, it might have been that way for a younger boy, but our wealth had been used up long ago. My eldest brother, Augustin, who was the rightful heir to all we possessed, had spent his wife's small dowry as soon as he married her. My father's castle, his estate, and the village nearby were my entire universe. And I'd been born restless-the dreamer, the angry one, the complainer. I wouldn't sit by the fire and talk of old wars and the days of the Sun King. History had no meaning for me.”

To me, this suggests a family that probably were struggling already almost certainly even when Lestat’s father was a child, if not before. That’s surely why Gabrielle was selected as Lestat’s father’s wife - she was rich… and yeah… Lestat’s dad squandered her wealth too… but I’d presume the de Lioncourts were struggling already and he did this because his father did this and they sit around telling old stories of the Sun King (1643-1715…) because that’s the last time the de Lioncourt family actually had any real clout in the world…? And, any money. Possibly, the family only recently lost their wealth. We can imagine Lestat’s Dad born around the end of the era of Louis XIV perhaps, or a little after and being told how wonderful it all was… but it all just slightly predating even him?

I dunno… like, no love for Lestat’s father or brothers for me, obviously. But personally, I think the more complex all characters are, the more interesting the whole story is. The more you have any character be just the evil villain and it’s all their fault, the more dull.

You can also note that Lestat says, “Our castle was full of old armour. My ancestors had fought in countless noble wars since the times of the Crusades with St. Louis.” He takes some of these (“And hung on the walls above all this clattering junk were a good many lances, battleaxes, flails, and maces. It was a very large mace--that is, a spiked club-that I took with me that morning, and also a good-sized flail: an iron ball attached to a chain that could be swung with immense force at an attacker.”) with him to kill the wolves. St. Louis is Louis IX who reigned 1226-1270… The Crusades - The Lestat’s have weapons in the castle that are five hundred years old. !!!

I mean… I’m sure a historian could pop in here and give an essay on the general way things were going for rural nobles in this era… Whereas I’m just wracking my brain back to Versailles and the wee BBC history bits about it, thinking HMM, can I remember anything? No. Not really. I don’t remember. And anyway, it’s not exactly WOW, your wondrous knowledge… a TV drama!

AHEM!

But I do remember that all was fine and dandy for the French nobles in those glory days and then for all French nobility outside of the direct court, especially those in the countryside, things began to decline. Just to say, it’s also often spoken of as if Lestat’s father is a good for nothing squanderer of the family’s wealth… and he is… but he’s likely not the originator of that behaviour… just as he passes that way of living on to Augustin, it was likely passed from his father on to him. And Lestat’s grandfather… he probably lived at a time when the family could afford to live in so extravagant a manner?

Nurse quotes:

As a child (and not just an infant, but through boyhood), Lestat has a nurse.

Nicolas: "You began to scream and to cry. They sent someone for the Marquise herself because your nurse couldn't quiet you.” Nicki, who would not have had a nurse, would remembers Lestat’s.

Lestat: "My childhood nurse many a time thrilled me with tales of such fiends, told me they might at any moment leap out of the suits of armour in our house to carry me away screaming.” Just to indicate, Lestat also remembers his nurse.

She can’t have been a brilliant nurse given that she didn’t teach Lestat to read. Presumably she was a basic caretaker rather than a governess.

Nicolas’s family:

His father is a draper in a village. They are petite bourgeoisie. They are comfortable. More than comfortable. Nicolas will never have had to worry about money as long as he does exactly as is expected of him (Oops… Failed at step one, Nicki), beyond the knowledge that it will one day be his responsibility to make it. He was never impacted by poverty as a child. He had opportunity, within the context of the expectations of his family. Nicolas’ family are richer than Lestat’s, but socially they’re far lower down the ladder. Nicki’s family are educated, ambitious tradespeople. They are respectable, but they are commoners.

In Paris, with success, Nicolas’ family would hope Nicki could lift the family to the haute bourgeoisie, but without ennoblement, they’d still be commoners. And Nicki will have been told that it is his responsibility to raise his family to the next level. (A responsibility Nicki obviously rejects.)

I imagine Nicolas, concerned with justice thought he probably could live with himself becoming a Parisian lawyer. Then he surely got to Paris, spent 01 day studying, learned the profession of the law wasn’t at all concerned with the kind of absolute moral justice that Nicolas is driven by and absolutely requires, went to a lovely concert where a violin virtuoso played and that was that - studying law was morally abhorrent. And he was going to be a violinist. Anyway, I digress…. We’re talking about class, not the fact that there’s more in Nicolas’ core than just cynicism…

The Wolves/The Hunter:

Lestat: “Understand that since I was the lord and the only lord anymore who could sit a horse and fire a gun, it was natural that the villagers should come to me, complaining about the wolves and expecting me to hunt them.”

Translation - nobody is legally allowed to fire a gun on the land apart from Lestat. Lestat is the hunter for his family, and they would starve without him… but that’s because the rest of his family are good for nothing lazy pies! Not because Lestat is a peasant. Literally nobody else in the village can hunt on this land at all because it is Lestat's family's land… Every bit of meat on that land to eat, it’s the de Lioncourt family’s. Only his family is allowed to hunt. If a common family is starving, they literally can’t send anyone out onto that land to hunt because they would be shot.

Only Lestat can kill the wolves because anyone else firing a gun on Lestat's family's land would be committing a crime. The de Lioncourt family doesn’t have money, but they do have both a castle and land that only they can hunt on. Lestat the hunter embodies feudal privilege. The villagers come to him not because he's poor, or even a great hunter, but because he's their lord. It's feudal obligation that means it is he who has to rid the village of the wolves.

I mean, I write all of this, but I don’t have to write it, because Lestat tells us himself! “Of course this was a noble occupation, hunting one's ancestral lands, and we alone had the right to do it. The richest of the bourgeois couldn't lift his gun in my forests. But then again he didn't have to lift his gun. He had money.” The family owns the rights to hunt those forests, and if the richest commoner fires a gun there, they can be executed. But the poorest, most starving person obviously could also not hunt!

The de Lioncourt family are financially impoverished because the land isn’t producing much revenue, which business minded Lestat would like to try to change - even at 16 - but is unable to do much as he has no power… It’s his father’s land and he’s not the heir.

Lestat: “I became a true hunter with those dogs, and by the age of sixteen I lived in the field. But at home, I was more than ever a nuisance. Nobody really wanted to hear me talk of restoring the vineyards or replanting the neglected fields, or of making the tenants stop stealing from us.”

This indicates Lestat’s business mind, practical thinking even at sixteen, the fact that the de Lioncourts are being paid by commoners who live on their land, and the neglect their land has fallen into. They have feudal privilege. Lestat wants to stop the tenants stealing from them. Lestat, far from his “impulsive” characterisation has practical ideas. But he is considered a mere nuisance by his family.

I wonder if he might succeed more here on TV with an extra fourteen years? It’s another side of Lestat that is often dismissed, preferring to speak of Lestat’s impulsivity and drama - but Lestat is also practical and ambitious. Ironically, had he been born into Nicki’s wealth and lowlier status, it’s certain Lestat would have made a giant success of his mortal life.

So when Lestat kills wolves, he’s not a desperate villager defending the livestock out of necessity. He’s literally the only person in the village legally allowed to even fire a gun at them. So either the wolves remain, and eat those sheep and children, or Lestat is the one who kills them. Talking of the wolves - Lestat gets his original mastiff pups from a lord in the neighbouring area.

Wolfkiller cape and meeting Nicki for the first time:

Lestat: “My mother came in and said I must receive the merchants from the village who wanted to

honour me for killing the wolves.

"Oh, hell with it," I answered.

"No, you must come down, " she said. "They have gifts for you. Now do your duty””

The merchants have come to pay their respects to the lord, and they all defer to Lestat. As Lestat says, “they paid me respect as the aristocrat.”

Every time Nicki addresses Lestat in the first few meetings they have, he calls him “Monsieur” and bows, as he ought to defer to Lestat, who has higher social status.

Yes, these men are richer than Lestat, but… well… while Lestat would struggle to make money partly due to his status, Nicki is a commoner and he could become the fanciest richest Parisian lawyer there is, as his family wished him to be, but he’d still be a commoner. (Or, at best, someone with a bought title. Nicki’s worst hypocritical nightmare, eh! He would never.)

When Lestat goes to the inn to meet Nicki, Lestat says: “I had no more than enough for one glass of wine and I wasn't sure just how to proceed when the innkeeper came out, bowed to me, and set a bottle of his best vintage before me. Of course these people had always treated me like the son of the lord.” Of course he’s being rewarded for killing the wolves… but he’s also Lestat de Lioncourt. He walks into a room and he doesn’t need money as he’s the lord’s son and commoners will defer to him.

When Nicki arrives, “…he was flushed as if he'd been running and his hair was windblown and messy, and his eyes full of excitement. He bowed to me, waited for me to invite him to sit down.” There he is, as Anne Rice writes him, deferring to the lord. Someone’s told him Lestat’s here… quite likely he’s there waiting for Nicki… but Nicki BOWS and waits to be told he can sit. Does it sound like the simple rich Nicki versus poor Lestat dynamic?

This bit for example:

“"What was it like, Monsieur, killing the wolves? " And folding his arms on the table, he stared at me.

"Why don't you tell me what's it like in Paris, Monsieur?” I said, and I realised right away that it sounded mocking and rude. "I'm sorry, " I said immediately. "I would really like to know.”

The reason Lestat sounds mocking is that Nicki instinctively and naturally defers to Lestat, but Lestat would never instinctively defer to Nicki in this way… so when Lestat says it, it is like he is mocking Nicki’s etiquette, which, too late - he realises.

Nicki continues to call Lestat Monsieur their entire first meeting in the inn, even as they get very drunk he still doesn’t call him Lestat once. It’s not until after Nicki plays violin and Lestat literally tells him to stop calling him “Monsieur” and that he can call him by his name does Nicki even consider using “Lestat.”

We first explicitly hear Nicolas call Lestat by his name as it is heading away from winter and into spring ("Saints? " he asked. "Blessedness? Goodness? Lestat, your language baffles me.”) although we can assume he’d have called him Lestat once Lestat asked it of him. But crucially, he never would have done so until Lestat requests it.

Lestat is the one who has the privilege of status, so Lestat can look at Nicki as an equal. I mean, he has plenty of reason to be envious of/feel inferior to Nicki’s money and world and intellectual experience and knowledge, but in hierarchical terms, Lestat is above Nicolas no matter what. Nicki cannot look at Lestat as an equal, not at first. And it is always a fragile thing - does Lestat really see him as an equal? He does! And Nicki believes it! But centuries of inequality mean it is a thing easily shattered…

So, let’s talk generally about status: Social etiquette of the era dictated that anybody of lower status was expected to defer to a noble, even if they were friends or close in age. Lestat could invite Nicki to dispense with formality in private, but publicly, Nicki would never presume equality. If they met in the street, Nicki would step aside first. If they sat together, Lestat would sit first. If a servant addressed them, the servant would defer to Lestat first - certainly when they’re in their own village. (In Paris, Lestat is often hiding his noble status in public… and he certainly will be hiding it 14 years later!)

Why does this matter? Anne Rice writes Nicki as acutely aware of Lestat’s superior birth. For Nicki, it’s part of why Lestat seems untouchable. When everything comes easy for Lestat, part of it is his charm, his light… but Lestat’s status and Nicolas’ sense of his own self-diminishment feeds into this too. Nicki’s sense of inferiority isn’t just about Lestat’s charisma, beauty and light. It’s about centuries of embedded hierarchy telling him he is, and always will be, of lesser standing.

I could make an analogy, if Nicki were a woman and Lestat wished to marry… In 18th-century France, a nobleman of Lestat’s rank marrying the daughter of a petit bourgeois tradesman would be considered a marriage beneath his station. It wasn’t impossible… money could tempt… especially for Lestat, as the seventh son… were he not so needed at home. But given Lestat’s family wouldn’t let him stay at the monastery as it did not befit his noble status, I’m going to say that were Nicki a woman and Lestat wished to marry, a lady of such a background would have been deemed too lowly by Lestat’s father. And it would be socially frowned upon and resisted by many noblemen’s families, even despite money. The gap between Lestat and Nicki is wide.

Regarding AMC’s The Vampire Lestat - Nicki’s gonna be 25 in 1794 (when Lestat is turned) and they’re going to be in Paris presumably 1793-94 - during the Reign of Terror. Nicki has revolutionary propensity philosophically… somewhat implied in The Vampire Lestat even in 1780… but move that on 14 years… and give him those few more years of living to grrr himself up, and surely TV Nicolas will be far more explicitly Revolutionary with a capital R? Nicki will no longer be just a disillusioned provincial student; he’ll be living in a city awash with political clubs, pamphlets, and public trials. Revolutionary rhetoric will no longer be abstract philosophy, but daily reality. He could be in the thick of debates about liberty, the rights of man, religion, and the dismantling of the aristocracy. People were being guillotined over their birth status. Lestat, as an aristocrat, would represent everything Nicki resents, and on TV that tension could be explosive, wherever they go with it…?

I feel if Lestat is snatched from his bed, or vanishes in any way, Nicolas will feel sure he’s been snatched for the guillotine… and he could well fear one of his own friends has done the snatching… and that it’s his own fault. Lestat’s going to have to hide his noble status. Will Nicki give him away, in drunken chat or in anger? Who knows… (Please don’t intentionally betray Lestat, TV-Nicki… I would die.)

Also, there’s a shift here for TV… in the books, Lestat does hide his noble status when working at the theatre. But he doesn’t have to. And he can have some pride in his nobility. And nobles genuinely would have looked down on Nicki in 1780… but by 1794, it’s a matter of life or death for Lestat to hide his noble status. Nicki - I feel like how can he not be a revolutionary given that the French Revolution was driven by his class and he is so concerned with justice. How is that going to fit into his relationship with Lestat? How will Lestat feel about his own noble status? I don’t have answers to these questions as they’re not part of the book. But I hope they will be important on TV…

Let’s look at book-Lestat here, because what he says could feed in:

“[Nicolas] got even more ironical when his rich student friends came around to talk to him. They thought he was a lunatic to live as he did. And for me, a nobleman shovelling actresses into their costumes and emptying slop buckets, they had not words at all. Of course all that these young

bourgeois really wanted was to be aristocrats. They bought titles, married into aristocratic families whenever they could. And it's one of the little jokes of history that they got mixed up in the Revolution, and helped to abolish the class which in fact they really wanted to join. I didn't care if we ever saw Nicolas's friends again. The actors didn’t know about my family, and in favour of the very simple Lestat de Valois, which meant nothing actually, I'd dropped my real name, de Lioncourt.”

I mean… it’s basically spelling it out: Nicki and his mates would literally be these revolutionaries if you shift this to AMC era; I don’t think there’s any debate. The only debate would be how much does Nicki’s love for Lestat protect Lestat and hold Nicki back? How much might Lestat, who has in many ways felt trapped by his nobility agree with the revolutionaries. Certainly in the book, he doesn’t really agree. He doesn’t really understand, I think? He can see it as a “little joke of history”. Just like he can easily mock Nicki calling him “Monsieur” without even realising what he did till afterwards. I dunno - it’s interesting because it all makes Lestat more complex, no?

Lestat’s dialect and manners:

While Auvergne did have Occitan dialects, these were increasingly rarer by Lestat’s era, predominantly would be associated with peasants and labourers and Lestat’s family situation makes it unlikely he'd primarily speak this. Not to say he wouldn’t know it at all.

I’m far less confident talking in this area to be honest, beyond that book-Lestat certainly doesn’t show any signs that he spoke this way.

However, Lestat’s Italian mother would speak French/Italian with her sons, his snobbish father would insist on 'proper' French as the language of nobility, and Lestat was kept isolated at home more often than mixing with locals who might speak the local dialect.

Lestat, as I see it, would at most have had a slight country lilt. In The Vampire Lestat, no one in Paris treats his speech as rustic or laughable. He moves easily in aristocratic salons and attends balls with Marie Antoinette herself.

I note that I am FAR from an expert here, and so, I refer to a reddit post by someone who is an actual historian, Talullah32 on reddit (the original question presumed Lestat would speak Occitan, while Nicolas would be more well spoken.)

“Working in the field of history in Belgium, I can answer this question. (My time to shine for once.)

You need to known that by the end of the 16th century, noble families spoke the Versailles French. Whether the most rural of nobles or one closer to Paris, the entire nobility spoke French, while Occitan was reserved for peasants. Additionally, it must be understood that the notion of an accent, as seen by a modern American, is much less prominent in France and Belgium, then and even now.

Indeed, it is possible to recognise someone's origin by a difference in pronunciation, but, especially at the time, this was not a concern at all. A person speaking French, a noble, remained a noble, and their status was more dependent on the language they spoke than on the accent associated with it.

To put it more clearly, at the time, only "Avoir du sang bleu" ( be born in a noble family) was what granted you status in society. A peasant who made a fortune (a social climber) and spoke perfect French would still have been looked down upon compared to a noble who spoke his regional dialect and had no money.

Now, in the anti-regime circle, than could be look down, since noble from the rural side of the country were know to be uneducated.”

In 18th-century French context, nobility from the provinces still belonged to the same social world as their Parisian counterparts, even if they were unfashionable in taste. Yes, Parisian nobles would call the likes of Lestat’s family hare catchers. But can you imagine what they’d think of non-nobles?! Lestat is a Country Lord, a hare catcher. Not educated or learned in the trends of Parisian society. But he is still above everyone who is not nobility - not just in terms of how he is perceived, but factually.

Lestat's lack of literacy, despite having a nurse, suggests how far his family had declined - keeping the symbols of nobility while neglecting its substance. So Lestat’s education certainly was impacted. But Lestat talks over and over of his noble bearing, highlighting how Lestat doesn’t have to learn this. It is how he innately and instinctively is.

Nicolas’ dialect and manners:

Nicolas is the son of a merchant. He would also be well-spoken, but because he is highly educated.

We can look to Gabrielle to clarify how he would be seen: “You know how he's been educated all his life to be a little imitation aristocrat.” Meow, Gabrielle. I hear the condescension through the page! “A little imitation aristocrat.” Not a real aristocrat, like you and Lestat, eh, Gabrielle?!

Nicki would have learned gentility as a cultivated skill, an external thing to pretend to, not as his birthright, nor necessarily as how his parents/any other family are or speak. He would have had to work at it. It would not be something instinctive. It’s subtle, but a difference a real aristocrat (like Lestat… and certainly, as she tells it, Gabrielle) would know.

Lestat’s actual vulnerabilities in Paris:

Lestat has to borrow clothes from Nicki, as his are old, threadbare and unfashionable, even if they were once fancy, long ago.

Nicki's student friends mock Nicki for working in a little rattrap theatre, but they cannot believe a literal Lord such as Lestat would belittle himself so!

Nicki is from the bourgeoisie, and ought to aspire to climb socially, so theatre work is seen as below his class.

Lestat, a noble, is expected to avoid such work entirely. His involvement is shocking and scandalous.

Servants (because I’ve also seen chat about how Nicki would have servants and Lestat wouldn’t):For Lestat’s noble but impoverished family:

Despite financial hardship, noble families usually kept at least a minimal household staff. Lestat had a nurse. So that’s certain. Even poor noble families may also have at least a cook, or a footman. I don’t know how far in decline Lestat’s family were in terms of did they have any other servants ever… but we know at least he had a nurse as a child… and not just an infant. He still had the nurse at whatever age he was at the witches’ place.

Servants weren’t just labour; they were symbols of rank and lineage - a way to display noble status, so even poor nobles often maintained a skeleton staff.

For Nicki’s bourgeois family:

The petit bourgeoisie were often wealthy enough to employ some domestic help, but usually more modest, just a maid or a cook, not a full staff.

If Nicki’s family had any servants, it might be a single live-in maid or housekeeper, but highly unlikely anything beyond this. He wouldn’t have had a nurse as a child, or highly unlikely… even more unlikely the way he brings up Lestat’s situation at the witches’ place.

Religon:

Even their relationship to faith reflects these class differences. Lestat notes: “Real religion had long ago died out in our family, as it had perhaps in the families of thousands of aristocrats.”

Lestat's comparative freedom from religious obligation is itself a privilege of his status. Meanwhile, Nicolas's 'money-grubbing' father, for all his ambition, remains 'fervently religious' - because the bourgeoisie couldn't risk the social and economic consequences of appearing godless.

After Lestat becomes a vampire:

So, for Nicki and Lestat, it especially matters because eventually, the only means by which Nicki can rationalise what’s happened when Lestat has vanished over and over again and keeps throwing money at Nicki is that it’s to do with Lestat’s noble status.

Nicki can only believe Lestat has abandoned him as he thinks Nicki inferior to him, beneath him. If we view Nicki only through the lens of having come from a richer family (albeit, obviously at this point Nicki’s family have disowned him anyway!) the literal main thing Nicki fears is absent if we forget Lestat’s status.

So, Nicki thinks, when he learns Lestat has some kind of power, riches and won’t or can’t see Nicki that he’s part of some secret society of nobles, akin to La Chambre Ardente… which Nicki, a commoner, is excluded from. And he can only presume Lestat agrees with the exclusion.

Lestat has so much trauma and awfulness in his youth and his mortal life. But that does not negate that he also has privilege. And I see it written so often as if this privilege of birth doesn’t exist. But I think it’s such an important part of who he is? And it’s also important that Nicolas has an inferiority complex in this area, which is not just his own insecurity, but is upheld by societal perception.

It’s not a negative. Lestat doesn’t look down on anyone! He mentions “Even his miserable money-grubbing father (whom I secretly admired) was fervently religious.” Lestat would never tell this to Nicki, who despises his father, whom he sees as hypocritical and his avarice as Godless and amoral. But Lestat sees it as the ambition of a commoner trying to better himself - the very opposite of his own father. He admires this quality in humans. (Louis is ambitious and business minded for example!) And so Lestat admires man like Nicki’s father, Roget, Louis, and he always did. They are in part what Lestat might have been but for the fact that his privilege denied him the possibility. But, Lestat has what everyone has who has any privilege - an amount of blindness to what it would be to not have privilege.

It isn’t a criticism of Lestat to say that he can’t imagine that Nicki would perceive himself as lesser, as it’s Lestat who has the privilege of status. And Lestat doesn’t see Nicki as lesser. In fact, Nicki is richer, more educated and more worldly. He has had more opportunity in some respects in life. I say “in some respects” only as Nicki didn’t really have choice. It is duty that he must become a fancy Parisian lawyer. He can’t just be whatever he wishes to be… but Nicki will do that anyway! And then he is disowned. And he doesn’t even have anyone to provide funds to get him going in life, as Lestat has Gabrielle when he does forge his own path. He then has no more contact with his family entirely - he’s disowned and disgraced. That's alright. Nicki wants to go down. Spite them all. Burn the world down.

Nicki also could not imagine being trapped in the exact way Lestat was. Although, he does try to imagine it. “Lestat, let me be frank with you. Things are easy for you. What you set your sights on you get for yourself. I know what you’re thinking about all the years you were miserable at home. But even then, what you really set your mind to, you accomplished. And we left for Paris the very day that you decided to do it.”

Hmm… while I’m here, I think this is quite interesting…

Lestat: “"God, if you could only believe in it, " I said, "that we do good when we make others forget their sorrow, make them forget for a little while that. . . “

{snip}

"Nicolas, " I said, "I can live without God. I can even come to live with the idea there is no life after. But I do not think I could go on if I did not believe in the possibility of goodness. Instead of mocking me for once, why don't you tell me what you believe? “

"As I see it, " he said, "there's weakness and there's strength. And there is good art and bad art. And that is what I believe in. At the moment we are engaged in making what is rather bad art and it has nothing to do with goodness!“

"Our conversation " could have fumed into a full-scale fight here if I had said all that was on my mind about bourgeois pomposity. For I fully believed that our work at Renaud's was in many ways finer than what I saw at the grand theatres. Only the framework was less impressive. Why couldn't a bourgeois gentleman forget about the frame? How could he be made to look at something other than the surface?”

It’s interesting because TV Lestat has a stance much closer to Nicolas than his book-self. TV Lestat would tell you there is good art and bad art. But art is good to book Lestat if it makes people happy, if it moves. That’s all that matters. Oh, beautiful book Lestat and your simple joys.

It’s also a difference of… Nicki is aware he couldn’t even get a job in the fancy theatres, as, much as Lestat admires his violin playing - he’s not skilled enough and never will be. But also, Nicki cannot “forget about the frame” as Lestat puts is as that’s what class and status does: it traps you inside a frame from which you cannot escape. Lestat was spiritually always free of the frame. And it’s part of why he makes a fabulous vampire. And why was Lestat able to be free of the frame? Part of it is Lestat’s personality, but part of it is the privilege of his status that always enabled him to step outside.

And part of Nicki’s tragedy is that he, too, despises the frame and it grates against all he is: the essence of him, and all he desires. But Nicki cannot just step out of the frame. His status keeps him firmly trapped within the frame. So Nicolas would be rid of the frame by burning it, and in so doing he’d burn himself.

Whereas, Lestat just steps right outside, like it’s nothing…

Well, that’s how I see it anyway. I realise I’ve meandered away from status and into their personal philosophies here, but I think there is a link, no?

The entirety of existence has shown Nicki his place, not merely in his own lifetime, but for generations. Lestat’s family castle has stood for a thousand years.

Lestat adores royalty! He loves the art of it, the drama, the beauty, the opulence, the theatre. He probably doesn’t feel like much of a noble compared to other nobles. Yet, he is also proud of his etiquette and his natural bearing. He doesn’t see his noble status as a negative. And why would he when it gives him a rare power in an existence which is powerless in his early years in most ways. At least in this one area he has something. Even if it holds him back from achieving in the ambitious way he admires in those of lower status than himself.

It’s a complicated topic, for sure. And I am sure I haven’t got every detail right here. But I see the topic being ignored quite often, whereas I think it is so integral to who Lestat is and should never be ignored?

Sorry if this is a load of silliness. I mean, I could have kept going through The Vampire Lestat and given loads more examples, but this is long already. Let’s just give one example of Nicki’s beliefs about Lestat once he’s a vampire (but Nicki doesn’t know)…

First, he is VERY adamant to uphold Lestat’s moral integrity to Jeanette and Luchina…

Nicolas: “I don't believe it, he wouldn't be ashamed of us." There was a suppressed rage in his voice, an ugly grief. “And why did he leave the way he did? I heard him calling me! The window was smashed to pieces! I tell you I was half awake, and I heard his voice... " An uneasy silence fell among them. They didn't believe his account of things, how I'd vanished from the garret, and telling it again would only isolate him and embitter him further. I could sense this from all their thoughts. "You didn't really know Lestat, " he said now, almost in a surly fashion, returning to the manageable conversation that other mortals would allow him. "Lestat would spit in the face of anyone who would be ashamed of us!”

At this point Nicki is sure of Lestat’s moral integrity, after Magnus first snatches him. He’s defending Lestat, no matter what anyone else tells him.

But a few nights later, after Lestat’s onstage breakdown as a vampire at Renaud’s, when Nicki has seen Lestat shot in a way where a mortal would be dead, when he thought he’d be cradling Lestat’s dead body, but instead Lestat was fine and threw Nicki from him, pushed him away, told him to leave him…

Then, Roget tells Lestat of Nicki: "He talks about sorcery, Monsieur. He says that you possess unusual powers. He speaks of La Voisin and the Chambre Ardente, an old case of sorcery under the Sun King, the witch who made charms and poisons for members of the Court. “

"Who would believe that trash now? " I affected absolute bewilderment. The truth was, the hair was standing up on the back of my neck.

"Monsieur, he says bitter things, " he went on. "That your kind, as he puts it, has always had access to great secrets. He keeps speaking of some place in your town, called the witches' place.“

"My kind! “

"That you are an aristocrat, Monsieur, " Roget said. He was a little embarrassed. "When a man is angry as Monsieur de Lenfent is angry, these things come to be important. But he doesn't whisper his suspicions to the others. He tells only me. He says that you will understand why he despises you. You have refused to share with him your discoveries! Yes, Monsieur, your discoveries. He goes on about La Voisin, about things between heaven and earth for which there are no rational explanations. He says he knows now why you cried at the witches' place.”

Nicki’s entire belief about what’s happened to Lestat now, and about who Lestat is at his core, all the way back to that little boy at the witches’ place is tied into Nicki’s knowledge of Lestat’s noble status. What could be more important to keep hold of?

I interpret Nicki's book quote: "He says he knows now why you cried at the witches' place."

As:

Since they were children (remember it is Nicki who first brings up the witches’ place to adult Lestat), Nicki thought Lestat cried at the witches’ place due to his sensitivity, empathy and morality. Nicki, driven by justice would have shared the sense of cruelty and injustice and would have also felt deeply when they were told about the witches. He would have recognised in Lestat’s external response how he felt inside. Nicki can’t break down crying as he doesn’t have a nurse to come for him. No one is calling his family. He’s not the son of the Marquis and he cries and he’ll more likely be punished. Or just laughed at. But Nicki certainly understood the truth of this feeling, even if adults around him framed it differently (as the priest and Nicki’s parents did.. even if Gabrielle told Lestat it was all lies and there were no witches.). Nicki was right about! Lestat was a sensitive, empathetic child. They did share moral anguish regarding the witches.

But now, Nicki believes Lestat cried only from inherited guilt: because his family had some secret involvement with dark powers and benefitted from such witches, poisons and so on for centuries, even as witches were condemned and killed… and now he can only conclude Lestat is benefiting from such secrets.

So Nicki can only rationalise that he must have been wrong all these years, and even as a child Lestat merely felt guilty as the witches were killed for things he and his family benefitted from… What Nicki thought was empathy for a shared injustice is corrupted and seems a symbol of complicity and betrayal.

And all this is only possible due to their different status.

(Admittedly, this won’t be the case on TV as Nicki and Lestat were not children at the same time! But still… we’re now set in The French Revolution, so there are other ways to bring in these themes!)

Lestat’s class is also pertinent in many other situations and relationship dynamics (for example with Louis… Marius…). I can’t get into details of all of these, but it’s a theme that arises over and over again in Anne Rice’s writing.

Anyway, this is likely a load of pants… but I dunno… I don’t get why Lestat’s noble status which has so much meaning and relevance to who he is an individual, to his relationships, to his bearing and even to why Magnus chose him to be a vampire… why is it so often ignored or dismissed as irrelevant?

Maybe it’s cooler to be the impoverished person who rises to greatness… but… let’s be honest… that story belongs to very few Anne Rice characters… certainly not to Lestat.

And a final disclaimer… Like… I began with facts, but obviously there’s a lot of my own interpretation in here too! So if you disagree, I’d love to hear your thoughts on whatever too!

Talk to me. Share your thoughts. Share your knowledge that I don’t have. I want to know all of the things! Someone continue on from here at the very least and delve into Louis, Magnus, Marius, Gabrielle - everyone.

Well... no one read this I am sure. If you got this far, you deserve any treat you desire. You earned it! (And thank you!) 🫣💀🫀😭

What did I write?

I guess I could have just written "Hey everyone! Don't forget - Lestat's an aristocrat! Vive la Révolution! (And he's a poor boy too!)" 😉 But Oh No, I'll write a wee thesis for fun instead!

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savagewilderness · 5 days ago

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Ponderings on love...

Disclaimer... this is just my silly pondering, and it isn't fully formed, nor am I sure how true it is... but I'm really curious to hear everyone's thoughts (regarding any characters! Not just Lestat, Nicolas... and I begin to think a tiny bit on Louis too...)

I have been thinking about Lestat, Nicolas and what love means to them, and it has led me onto wondering what love means to all the other characters too.

And I wanted to talk about it! I don’t actually know if this is truly connected to their book-selves or not. Because basically I’ve been writing Lestat and Nicki’s final argument, from Nicki’s perspective.

And Nicki, from his perspective told me that he needs to be seen to feel loved. And he needs to see the fullness of the other to love.

Nicolas needs to be perceived: Intellectually, spiritually and truthfully. For him, love without perception is hollow. If you don’t see who he truly is, what part of him are you even loving? And he can see Lestat for his full, complicated self, for all his beauty, all his flaws and love it all. For Nicolas, love and hate are not mutually exclusive. He loves Lestat for who he is, and hates him for the same reason. This is an alien concept to Lestat: if you despise him, how can you love him?

Whereas Lestat’s love is action-based. He rushes in: saves, builds, defends, protects. And yet, he can be blind to the interiority of those he loves, certainly in those early days - in the case of Nicki. (But I think it holds true always - Lestat can love Louis and Claudia through their murder of him, for example.) Lestat doesn’t fully understand Nicki, but loves him fiercely anyway. His love is emotional, embodied, even possessive, but not analytical, not dependent on full understanding.

I guess, I may was well share that in writing Lestat’s POV, personally, he says (disclaimer - my thoughts - not Anne Rice’s!), "He wanted me to see him. But I had loved him. I loved him still, no matter who he was, no matter what he was. My love did not depend on some corrupted truth of him.” This is an alien concept to Nicolas! To Nicolas, if Lestat doesn't truly see him, he cannot love him.

It’s fundamentally different conceptions of what love is, and how fascinating is it to contemplate? Please chime in with not only your thoughts on Lestat and Nicolas, but also your thoughts on what love means to all the characters in The Vampire Chronicles!

To Lestat, his love is beyond anything he doesn't know of Nicki (or, of anyone.) His love is true and independent of anything he could learn about Nicolas. That's why he can both love and not be able to bear Nicki.

On the other hand, Nicki, too, by the end, despises Lestat, and loves him. But in a very different way. Nicki sees the fullness of Lestat and loves every aspect of him, even the parts he hates. For him love and hate can coexist, mutually. They can both be extreme feelings, and one does not negate the other. But both are dependent on the truth of Lestat, as I see it.

Whereas for Lestat, neither love nor hate depend on full truth. They are just what he feels?

I actually hadn't realised it, till I wrote Lestat's perspective. I thought "Oh, Lestat, never knew the all of Nicolas, so he could never have loved him, truly. Nicki must actually have loved Lestat more, because he saw Lestat truly! Lestat did not see Nicki in fullness, so he could not love him as deeply.” But I guess I felt that as, at the time I was writing Nicolas’ perspective, and he felt that. Then, I simply wrote Lestat's POV and he showed me how wrong I was. It was never that Lestat's love was less. Just that what love was for him was utterly different.

In fact, you could call Lestat's love deeper, as Lestat's love allows for change - "I love you no matter what you fully are, no matter what you could ever be, even if I cannot bear you." Whereas Nicki's love depends on who the other is right now? But you can say that, since it isn't killed by hate, it also allows for change? Because Nicki can keep on looking if a person changes, so can still love. Maybe Nicki's love can be more fully destroyed (if a person changes beyond recognition, beyond love), but the truth of Lestat's love can be more fully questioned (can it really be true without full knowledge?)

But I don't think either love is more or less, just different.

They're both trying to love each other in the ways that would make them feel most loved, and it's perfectly jarring mutual destruction!

Nicolas: "I'm going to show you that I see every single terrible thing about you, and that I love you anyway - isn't that the most profound love possible?"

Lestat: "ABSOLUTELY NOT. If I am all those terrible things then I am unlovable and your love is either a lie or a curse and I REJECT BOTH."

And then:

Lestat: "I love you no matter what you are or what you've done - isn't that the purest love possible?"

Nicolas: "ABSOLUTELY NOT. If you don't even know what I am or what I've done then you're not loving ME, you're loving some fantasy, which means I'm completely alone."

It's like they're each offering the other person their worst nightmare disguised as the greatest gift. Nicolas thinks he's giving Lestat the gift of being truly known and loved; Lestat experiences it as being destroyed. Lestat thinks he's giving Nicolas the gift of unconditional love; Nicolas experiences it as being erased.

And in a weird way they both end up feeling completely unloved despite being desperately, deeply loved by someone who would die for them!

Neither is wrong, but they're asking for the impossible from each other. Nicolas can't feel loved by someone who loves an idealised version of him, and Lestat can't provide the kind of forensic, unflinching witness that Nicolas needs to feel seen.

Lestat's love feels pure and unconditional to him, but to Nicolas it feels shallow and false because it's not based on truth.

When Nicolas forces Lestat to see his "corrupted truth," Lestat can still love him but can no longer bear him - which to Nicolas proves the love was never real.

Nicolas can hate and love simultaneously because both are responses to truth; Lestat experiences them as contradictory because his emotions exist independently of facts.

They're speaking completely different languages about what love even IS. And so they tear each other apart - they're each trying to love in the way they need to be loved, but it's exactly wrong for the other person.

I dunno… I feel in a bit of a tangle with all of this.

What’s different with Louis. Well, I think Lestat is different by this time. I think Lestat knows Louis more fully than he ever did Nicolas. So I don’t think his love is blind to Louis. Lestat already could love unconditionally, but by the time of Louis, I feel he can bear the knowledge of Louis more.

How about Louis? I feel like Louis’ love begins unconsciously. Louis absolutely resists love, at first. Yet he is naturally deeply empathetic. And I think once he accepts love (which takes many decades longer than Nicolas even lived for!) Louis’ love, eventually grows to be more similar to Lestat’s. Louis is great at understanding Lestat emotionally without words. Does Louis need to be truly known? Hmm… well, I think Lestat does know him way more than he ever knew Nicki… but I don’t think Louis needs it the way Nicki did?

I don’t know. I have never written Louis’ voice myself. Those of you who have, what did he tell you?

I wonder if I could do a poll? I don't think I can formulate anything on characters though... but maybe I could do one about love?

Well... that's quite confusing, but... it... is?

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