Who are the maids of honor at the royal court – it’s interesting!

😉 Greetings to regular and new readers! Friends, perhaps young readers do not yet know who the maids of honor are. Hope you find a clear answer in this article.

Maids of honor

Who is the maid of honor? This is a court personage, consisting of the queen, queen, princess. The ladies of the court were the retinue of empresses and grand duchesses.

To become a maid of honor at the royal court was the dream of most girls of noble birth in tsarist Russia. Not only girls, but also their eminent parents dreamed of this. The very proximity to the court was very prestigious and honorable.

The maid of honor is the top of the career ladder for a woman, for which a decent salary was laid. In fact, this is the entourage of the empress. The court had its own hierarchy, which was jealously guarded.

How to become a maid of honor?

There were several ways to get on the list of maids of honor. Most often, girls between the ages of 16 and 20 were “pushed through” by their noble relatives. Often the empress brought her favorite candidate closer to her simply at will, and she became a maid of honor.

Almost all the girls were of noble family. Their male relatives, as a rule, served here at the court. But a person of little status, for example, the best graduate of the Institute of Noble Maidens, could also get into the cycle of the royal palace.

There were cases when the list of maids of honor included young girls who lost their noble parents before they came of age. In this case, they were educated at court. And they were entitled to a salary, however, several times less than adults performing their duties.

Duties of maid of honor

The very duties of women who served under the empress were determined by the empress herself. There were no clear job descriptions – what Her Majesty wanted should be done.

But there was a kind of work schedule. At any time of the day, there were to be persons on duty near the Empress. Night shifts often gave rise to intrigues that were always shrouded in the royal court.

During the day, the retinue expanded many times over and accompanied the empress, both on walks and at business meetings. Moreover, etiquette assumed knowledge of the slightest nuances. How to approach and move away, how to hold hands and head, when to speak, and when to keep your mouth shut.

Often the girls were asked to attract someone’s attention or, conversely, to distract someone with a conversation. There were cases when, in order to achieve political goals, women were “put”, for example, under foreign diplomats.

I must say that the last word was for the girl, and no one could force her to do it. But trying to please the royal family, and not wanting to leave the court, rarely did any of their women dare to protest.

Distinctive sign

All eminent servants at any court had their own distinctive signs. When the empress and young daughters lived in the palace, the maid of honor of Her Majesty and the Grand Duchesses could easily be distinguished by their outfits. Everything was used: style, color, texture.

And, of course, the distinctive sign is a precious monogram attached to a blue bow. The monogram of the person they served. In the portraits of the maid of honor, you can see these blue bows.

Both ladies of state and chamber-maids of honor had distinctive outfits. It must be said that all Russian empresses dressed their subjects very elegantly, one might say, to the envy of all of Europe.

Favorites of the emperor

While in the service of the queen, any representative of Her Majesty’s retinue often became the favorite of the emperor. Such love cupids almost always led to court proceedings, investigations, and a showdown.

Sometimes love affairs ended in pregnancy. But this was treated as a cost of palace life and did not bother too much about it.

Once on the list of maids of honor, the girl had the opportunity to successfully marry. With such a favorable outcome of the case, she was entitled to a decent dowry in the form of outfits, jewelry, bedding.

But everyone lacked noble suitors. Cases when young girls lingered beside the empress for life were very frequent. They grew up, continuing to serve, and then became governesses and educators for the children of royal persons.

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