LOUIS XIV
The Power and the Glory
Josephine Wilkinson
CONTENTS
Prologue
ONE: A Gift from God
TWO: To Educate a Living God
THREE: The Fronde
FOUR: “The Anointed of the Lord”
FIVE: Louis in Love
SIX: A Royal Wedding
SEVEN: A New Dawn
EIGHT: The Summer of 1661
NINE: At Vaux-le-Vicomte
TEN: The Sun King
ELEVEN: Le Château de Cartes
TWELVE: The Pleasures of the Enchanted Isle
THIRTEEN: The Dark Side of the Sun
FOURTEEN: Mars and Athena
FIFTEEN: The Triple Alliance
SIXTEEN: Marriages and Intrigues
SEVENTEEN: The Dutch War
EIGHTEEN: Les Femmes
NINETEEN: The Affair of the Poisons
TWENTY: Mme de Maintenon
TWENTY-ONE: Versailles
TWENTY-TWO: The Sun Reaches Its Zenith
TWENTY-THREE: The Edict of Fontainebleau
TWENTY-FOUR: The League of Augsburg
TWENTY-FIVE: “Sire, Marly!”
TWENTY-SIX: The Spanish Succession
TWENTY-SEVEN: Gathering Twilight
TWENTY-EIGHT: Le Soleil se Coucher
Illustrations
Bibliography
Endnotes
Index
PROLOGUE
It is perhaps only fitting that the story of the most legendary king ever to sit on the throne of France should itself begin with a legend. It opens on a bleak December day in 1637 when a small company of riders thunders through the narrow streets of Paris. They have just left the small hunting lodge of Versailles and are now making their way towards Saint-Mandé, on the eastern edge of the city. As they ride along the rue Saint-Antoine, one of them suddenly signals his desire to stop, and the small party comes to a halt outside the convent of the Visitation. The man dismounts and enters the building while the others wait patiently outside.
Within, all is peace and tranquillity, while the unassuming design and austere décor contribute to the general atmosphere of no-nonsense solemnity. The man crosses the floor, making his way towards a wooden door whose only feature is a grille closed from the inside. No one approaches him or tries to impede his progress in any way, for he is a regular visitor to the convent and well known to the nuns. Besides, few would be so bold as to challenge the king of France, who has come to see a close friend, to discuss his problems, and receive her wise counsel.
Out of courtesy, a small stool is placed before the door; he sits and patiently awaits his friend’s arrival. Suddenly the grille slides open and the king looks upon the familiar, exquisite face of the novice. She smiles in greeting. She knows why Louis has come, and she listens with a serenity that belies her youth as he confides to her his secret worries about the state, his dealings with his ministers, and, most poignantly, his difficult relationship with his queen. She offers her advice as best she can, but most of the time she merely allows him to unburden himself. Then, at a carefully chosen point in their conversation, she takes the opportunity to urge him, as she has done so many times before, to reconcile with the queen, for France is very much in need of a dauphin.
After a time, Louis XIII takes leave of his friend and steps into the street to discover that the storm which had been threatening all afternoon has finally broken. Undaunted, he mounts his horse, and the small party resumes its journey amid the gathering darkness. They do not travel very far before the weather, already bad, has deteriorated markedly. The cold and drenching rains whiten into a heavy sleet, which in turn gives way to driving snow, while the blustering winds make it impossible to keep the torches lit. Guitaut, the trusted captain of the king’s guard, suggests that it would be folly to go any farther, and that it might be better to spend the night at the Louvre. This makes sense. The Louvre is still only a short ride away; it is warm and dry, and the hunting party could resume its excursion in the morning. The king, however, is reluctant. He knows the queen is in residence at the Louvre, but they have been estranged for some time; besides, he is expected at Saint-Mandé, and his bed and other necessities have been sent on ahead, while his hosts are awaiting his arrival, as are his servants. Louis looks at the sky and assures Guitaut that the storm will soon pass and they should continue on their way.
Before long, however, it becomes obvious that the storm is growing yet more violent. Guitaut speaks up again, reiterating his proposal that they go to the Louvre for the night. Again the king protests, pointing out that the queen takes her supper and retires too late for him. Guitaut assures his master that she would conform to the king’s wishes in this respect, and Louis, reluctantly, indicates his consent.
As the small company retraces its steps and makes its way towards the Louvre, Guitaut rides ahead to alert the queen of the king’s imminent arrival and state the time at which he would like to take his supper. The queen issues orders to serve the king his favorite dish, and the royal couple shares a warming meal. They then withdraw for the night, and Louis finds that his pillow has been placed on the queen’s bed. Nine months later, the queen, Anne of Austria, gives birth to their son, the dauphin of France. The child is named Louis, but at his formal baptism he will be given a second name, one that reflects the miraculous nature of his arrival: Dieudonné, for Louis XIV of France truly was a gift from God.1
As with all legends, this one has some basis in fact, but not much. However, its author, the Abbé Griffet, was correct to portray the coming of the dauphin as a prodigious event, for the fact was that Louis XIV was born at a time when France had every reason to give up hope that her king would ever produce a much-desired heir—and the circumstances of Louis XIV’s conception and birth are every bit as dramatic as the legend.
LOUIS XIV
ONE
A Gift from God
It was a charming scene. In the fairy-tale château at Burgundy, the bride and groom, both of whom were only fourteen years old, came together for the formal solemnization of their marriage. Anne of Austria was “as beautiful as the day,”1 tall, with large blue eyes, luxuriant chestnut hair, and long white hands of which she was especially proud. She wore a velvet gown of royal purple powdered with golden fleur-de-lis, the symbol of her new country. Louis was quite plump and spoke with a stammer; he was “handsome and very well made,” and his appearance “did not displease the queen.”2 His dark hair and deep brown eyes were perfectly set off by a suit of white satin embellished with gold embroidery and a large ruff.3 They exchanged gifts, Louis presenting Anne with a plume from his hat, while she gracefully acquiesced to his request for one of the bows that bound her hair.
The wedding festivities would continue into the night, but first the royal couple was ceremonially put to bed as other members of the royal family and courtiers looked on and a priest blessed the marriage bed in the hope that God would help the couple produce an heir. Where the bride and groom were children, this symbolic “consummation” was all that was required, and the groom, having been placed in the bed beside his wife before witnesses, would then be removed and taken away to his own chamber. The young couple would then continue to live in separate households until it was decided that they were old enough to begin their married life together in the fullest sense. However, Louis and Anne, despite their youth, were deemed old enough to begin living together as husband and wife immediately, and it was here that the problems began.
At the time of his wedding to Anne of Austria,4 Louis XIII of France already had a highly developed aversion towards women. This was largely the result of the schemes and conspiracies of his mother, Marie de Médicis, who proved reluctant to relinquish the power she had
exercised as regent, and who had always favored her younger son, Gaston, duc d’Orléans, at the expense of the king. Now, as he stood on the threshold of manhood, Louis appeared disinclined to consummate his marriage.
At five thirty in the afternoon, Louis announced that the wedding ceremonies had tired him out, and he retired to his room. No amount of persuasion would induce him to change his mind, and when his courtiers regaled him with lurid sex stories, they seemingly made a bad situation worse. However, the king’s behavior was merely artifice, part of a larger ritual designed for such a momentous occasion.
When, after almost two hours, Louis had still not emerged from his chamber, Marie de Médicis entered and, as his companions looked on, announced, “My son, it’s not all done in getting married; you have to come to see the queen your wife, who awaits you.” Louis replied, “Madame, I was only waiting for your command. I’m happy to set out with you to find her.” The nervous bridegroom allowed himself to be led by his mother to Anne’s chambers, to find her sitting up in bed. “My daughter,” said Marie, “here is your husband whom I bring to you; receive him into your bosom and love him well, I beseech you.” Anne expressed her eagerness to please Their Majesties,5 before the young king and queen were left in the care of two royal nurses. The sumptuous curtains were drawn around the bed and, after a little over two hours, Louis called for his slippers and dressing gown. He withdrew to his own chamber, announcing that he had done his duty twice.
As it happens, there is some dispute as to whether or not Louis and Anne consummated their marriage that night. Marie de Médicis claimed to have discovered stains on the blankets, which suggested that they had, but rumor had it that the king had been incapable of fully performing his conjugal duty; whatever the case, so distasteful did Louis find the physical side of married life that he left Anne alone thereafter.
No attempt to induce Louis to fulfill his royal responsibility and produce a dauphin seemed to work. A story later told by the Venetian ambassador had it that Louis was invited to the bedroom of his half sister upon her marriage to the duc d’Elbeuf and allowed to watch as they made love several times in the hope that he would be inspired to do the same with the queen. It was to no avail, and the now nineteen-year-old king eventually had to be carried, literally kicking and screaming, to Anne’s bed, when the full consummation of their marriage finally took place.6
The problem was not so much personal dislike for his bride but his aversion to women in general; moreover, Louis had long harbored a deep distrust of the Spanish, which in turn influenced his attitude towards his new queen. This could only make a difficult situation worse, for Louis and Anne were not really compatible. He was reserved and deeply pious. He had received a broad education designed to prepare him for kingship, and he was intelligent, but not an intellectual. Instead of occupying himself with philosophy and political theory, he preferred gardening and sports. A soldier at heart, Louis spent a lot of his time practicing with weaponry of all kinds. His preferred pastime, however, was hunting, and he kept several lodges throughout the Île de France, although none could match his favorite, Versailles, which nestled among the marshes and wild forests of the Val de Gallie.
For her part, Anne was also deeply pious, but she was also fun-loving, with “a fascinating gift for coquetry and an alarming lightness of behavior.”7 Sociable, she indulged a love of gambling and enjoyed parties and being surrounded by her friends, not all of whom exercised a favorable influence on her. The most notorious of her companions was the exquisitely beautiful Marie de Rohan, in turn duchesse de Luynes and duchesse de Chevreuse, who was already well known for the intrigues and conspiracies that would see her exiled from court, and even from France, on several occasions.
Notwithstanding their differences, Louis did manage to do his duty by his queen and his country, and Anne became pregnant more than once. Her first pregnancy ended in miscarriage when, upon returning to the Louvre from a party late one night with her friends, one of whom was La Rohan, she frolicked through the darkened corridors of the château. Slipping on the highly polished floor, Anne crashed in an undignified heap and lost her baby shortly afterwards.8 When another three pregnancies also ended in miscarriage, the king’s distrust of his queen deepened, and he would usually console himself by going to the hunt with an intimate group of favorites, leaving the government of the country to his chief minister and éminence grise, Cardinal Richelieu.
While Louis occupied himself with the chase, Anne had distractions of her own. Several men paid court to her, among them the duc de Bellegarde, an older gentleman who responded to Anne’s beauty as her husband never could. This was nothing more than the innocent flirtation that belonged to the realm of courtly love; however, the attentions of two of the queen’s admirers would be more significant. The first was Cardinal Richelieu, who, among his many other duties, served in Anne’s household as almoner.
More distinguished than good-looking and pressed by burning ambition, Richelieu made it his business to ingratiate himself into Anne’s favor as a means of further advancing his own career. His tactics had succeeded once before, when he had found favor with the queen mother. Now he turned his attention to Anne, with overtures that he described as “fatherly efforts to show her kindness.” The queen was not impressed, but urged by her friend Marie de Rohan, she tricked the cardinal into dancing the fandango while wearing a green costume, complete with bells. Humiliated by their laughter, he never forgot this assault on his dignity, nor could he ever forgive the queen. Anne had made an enemy of him, and thereafter he took every opportunity to discredit her with the king.9
Much later, Anne was pursued by a man who would break all the rules of courtly love and threaten seriously to compromise her virtue—George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. The handsome and chivalrous duke first came into Anne’s life in 1623 when he and Prince Charles, the future king of England, travelled incognito through France on their way to Spain. Buckingham was enchanted by Anne, and, when he returned to France two years later to accompany Charles’s queen, Henriette, to England, he took full advantage of his mission to renew his attentions to her. The court travelled with Henriette and her gallant escort as they began their journey to Calais, but the queen mother became ill, and the party was obliged to find lodgings so she could rest for a few days. One evening, as Anne was strolling in the garden with her coterie of friends, Buckingham approached and asked to speak to her. Anne’s companions maintained a respectful distance as she and the duke walked along in private conversation. The path led them into a part of the garden that was hidden by shrubbery, and Anne, alarmed to find herself suddenly alone with her English admirer, cried out and brought servants and friends rushing to her aid.
When the court took leave of Henriette, Buckingham bent to kiss the hem of Anne’s gown as she sat in the front of her coach, taking care to hide his face so as to conceal his tears. The two parties went their separate ways, the French court making their way back to Fontainebleau, while Henriette and Buckingham journeyed on towards Calais. Buckingham, however, was tortured by an irresistible urge to see Anne once again and, pretending he had received fresh orders from his master, left his charge at Boulogne and caught up with the French court at Compiègne. Finding Anne in bed and attended by a few of her ladies, he threw himself onto his knees next to the bed and kissed the sheets. Anne, embarrassed and a little annoyed, was unable to speak, and it was left to her lady-of-honor to announce sharply to the duke that such behavior was not the custom in France and that he should rise. Buckingham reasoned that, since he was not a Frenchman, he was not bound to observe French customs; he then spoke tenderly to Anne, but she merely complained of his boldness and ordered him to leave. Yet it was obvious to all that Anne was not as angry with the duke as she pretended to be, and, as he left for England, he announced his intention to return to France as soon as he could.10 Anne later confessed that if a virtuous woman could love a man other than her husband, Buckingham would be the only one who could have pleased her.11
Louis, too, enjoyed tender moments when he became strongly attracted to Marie de Hautefort, a young woman who had recently joined his mother’s household. Known as l’Aurore, the Goddess of the Dawn, she was fourteen years old and highly spirited, with large blue eyes, golden hair, and a dewy complexion; although the king fell in love with her, he continued to admire her from a distance, much to the amusement of his queen and her friends.12
For her part, Mlle de Hautefort was not too impressed with her royal devotee. Although she agreed to spend time with him, she was sorry to report that all the king did was talk about hunting and dogs. On occasion, he would confide his woes about the queen to her, only for her to chide him for treating Anne so badly.
One who noticed Marie de Hautefort’s power over Louis was Cardinal Richelieu, who befriended the favorite with a view to using her to influence the king. Marie, however, would have none of it. She rejected Richelieu’s overtures, rebuking him instead for his ill-treatment of the queen.13
The friendship between Louis and Marie de Hautefort continued for some five years until he became attracted to Louise de La Fayette. She was the queen’s maiden-of-honor, and she possessed every accomplishment that fitted her for the position: she was seventeen and very pretty, with a good singing voice and a talent for dancing; but what attracted the king was her love of outdoor pursuits, especially hunting. Louis and La Fille, as he called her, would often go riding together, when he would regale her with tales of his success on the hunting grounds. Louise had a charming and easy manner, and Louis genuinely fell in love with her, much to the astonishment of the court, for Louis was not the man to take mistresses. The king felt comfortable enough with Louise to confide to her his hopes and worries, and he would discuss everything from the progress of the Franco-Spanish War to his dealings with Richelieu.
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