Scatter Brained

NON-AMERICAN POLITICIANS
After Joseph Stalin’s fi rst wife, Ekaterina, died in 1907, 
 Stalin said he would never feel love for another person 
 (perhaps to prove it, he later had her family shot). But for 
being the only creature he ever loved, he treated Ekaterina 
pretty poorly—she had to suf-
fer his notorious temper tan-
trums as well as his chronic 
infi delity.
ROYALTY
Jahangir, the fourth Mogul 
emperor of India, supposedly 
had 300 wives (296 more than 
allowed by the Islamic reli-
gion  he  espoused).  And  yet, 
he couldn’t stay faithful to 
them: He also had 5,000 fe-
male concubines and 1,000 
male ones.
✖  ✖  ✖
Th
  e French elevated the posi-
tion of royal mistress to very near that of queen. Louis XV, for 
instance, mourned the death of his second mistress for months 
before Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson came along. Despite 1) be-
A Faithful Husband
When Winston Churchill mar-
ried Clementine Hozier in 
1908, a family friend said, 
“Their  marriage  will  fail  be-
cause Winston is not the mar-
rying kind.” False prophesy. 
Churchill never had another 
love—well, unless you count 
gin. Clementine, dignifi ed and 
shy and comparably sober, 
was no retiring violet, either: 
During the Blitz, she often 
joined Winston on tours of 
bombed-out London.

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111
ing married, and 2) having a last name that literally translates 
to “fi sh,” Jeanne-Antoinette appealed to Louis. He brought her 
to live at the palace and for the 
next  19  years,  Madame  de 
Pompadour, as she was known, 
reigned over Louis XV’s court. 
She wielded so much power, 
in  fact, that an adviser once 
said, “Th
 e mistress is prime 
minister.”
✖  ✖  ✖
Catherine the Great, Russia’s 
empress from 1762 to 1796, 
did
 have a lot of lovers—but 
given that her marriage to 
emotionally stunted, impo-
tent, and inbred-to-the-point-
of-insanity Peter III was never 
consummated, who can blame 
her? And sure, Catherine kept 
a secret room fi lled with erotic 
paintings and engravings. But 
for the last time: She did 
not
 
die in a botched attempt to 
make love to a horse.
✖  ✖  ✖
Talk about moving up in the 
world:  Nell  Gwynn,  English 
king Charles II’s best-known 
(but by no means only!) mis-
tress, was born in a London 
alley to a woman who ran a 
Happily Ever 
After (Sort of)
Franz Ferdinand, who was 
once  heir  to  the  Austro-Hun-
garian Empire, had very little 
to recommend him as a per-
son. Spoiled and ill-mannered, 
Franz was so disliked by the 
Viennese elite he was known 
as “the loneliest man in Vien-
na.” But unlike most every roy-
al in Europe, he loved his wife, 
Sophie, a middle-class woman 
his family thought beneath 
him. But marrying Sophie was 
the best decision he ever 
made. The worst decision he 
ever made, of course, was tak-
ing Sophie to Sarajevo on June 
28, 1914, the couple’s 14th 
wedding anniversary, where 
they were both assassinated 
by anarchist Gavrilo Princip. 
Franz Ferdinand’s last words 
were an attempt to comfort his 
wife: “It is nothing,” he assured 
her. But it was something in-
deed: Their murders sparked 
World War I.