Fireworks in front of Mannheim Palace.
The grandfather of the bride, Prince-Elector Carl Philipp von der Pfalz, had a weakness for magnificence and spectacle. In 1741, a French ambassador criticized him by saying that, at 80 years of age, he had the taste of a ten-year-old. This was also on display at the wedding: When the Archbishop of Cologne and Prince-Elector Clemens August, who was to wed the couple, arrived in Mannheim, the streets were lit with torches. But due to the many cannon shots, the city was immersed in smoke.
A setting for glittering celebrations.
The eighty-year-old Prince-Elector Carl Phillip could only participate in the wedding from his wheelchair. After the ceremony, there was an opera and a glittering ball in the Knights' Hall at Mannheim. The prince-elector didn't want to miss out on the dancing: He had himself wheeled around in his wheelchair to the beat of a minuet. While "dancing," he was so lively that the wheelchair almost overturned and dumped the monarch on the ground.
