Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Manky.

Listener discretion is advised.

I've already told a story about Marie Antoinette on this podcast.

The show's very first episode, in fact.

But considering it's Christmas, I figured I'd give myself the gift of getting to tell

one more story about my favorite doomed queen.

In the 18th century, a man named Louis René de Rowan had the good luck of being born

to one of France's most prominent families.

The Rowan clan boasted bishops and princes, ambassadors and dukes.

In 1771, at age 37, Louis René de Rowan was sent as part of a prestigious embassy to

Vienna, Austria.

He was just a vicar then, but it was practically a foregone conclusion that, in time, he would

become a cardinal and then a minister of France.

But the future cardinal de Rowan didn't quite act like a man of the cloth.

As soon as he arrived in Vienna, he flirted extravagantly with almost everyone he met,

charming anyone from a duchess to a chambermaid, people young and old, beautiful and ugly.

He hunted more often than he prayed.

He threw elaborate dinner parties where he openly flaunted social conventions and

seated people wherever he liked.

The cardinal brought with him an entourage to Vienna who abused the palace staff and brought

goods in and out of the country and bags with diplomatic seals.

And so it was no surprise that the Empress of Austria, Maria Teresa, hated Cardinal de Rowan.

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