After a while, the lovers parted. Louis returned to his apartments, while Athénaïs prepared for the rehearsal of a court ballet. Lauzun slipped out of her chamber but lingered by the door until she came out; meeting her in the corridor, he gallantly offered to escort her to the room where the rehearsal was to be held. He began to chat to her, eventually asking her if she had managed to speak to the king as she had promised. She assured him that she had, adding that she had spoken very favorably about him. Lauzun listened eagerly until she finished before he suddenly turned on her, calling her a liar, a trollop, a whore, and a piece of dog filth. He then repeated word for word everything that had passed between her and the king. The poor lady was so shocked that it was all she could do to stagger into the rehearsal room, where, to the great concern of all, she promptly fainted away. That evening, Athénaïs recounted her conversation with Lauzun to Louis, although both were at a loss as to how he could have known what had been said. It simply did not occur to either of them that he could have been so bold as to hide in the room and listen to their every word.
Thus far, Louis had been more than tolerant of Lauzun’s insolence, but enough was enough. Within days the comte was arrested under a lettre de cachet and escorted by d’Artagnan and his musketeers to Pignerol, where he arrived on December 12, 1671. He would spend the next ten years of his life wondering what he had done to upset Louis, while making Saint-Mars’s life a misery by refusing to eat, setting his chamber on fire, and attempting to tunnel his way to freedom.
SEVENTEEN
The Dutch War
The spring of 1671 was pleasant and serene, giving no indication of the storms that were about to break over Europe. In April, Louis was at Versailles, where he spent his time overseeing the building of “the most beautiful fountains ever seen.”1 On the twenty-third, he and his court attended a lavish party hosted by the prince de Condé at his château at Chantilly. This spectacular three-day event was nevertheless to be marked by a tragedy that would be long remembered. The king arrived on Wednesday evening and enjoyed a collation served in an area carpeted by jonquils before going on a deer hunt. The course was lined with lanterns, but the beauty of the fireworks, which cost 16 thousand francs, was blotted out by the brilliance of the moon. The hunt over, Louis ate supper and played games before retiring to bed.
The following day, as the court sat down to eat, the sheer number of guests meant that there was not quite enough meat to go around and people at two of the tables had to go without. This greatly upset Vatel, whose reputation as maître d’hôtel was well deserved. Condé tried to reassure him that all was well and that “nothing was so beautiful as the King’s supper.”2 Still, Vatel, who had not slept for several days, would not be comforted.
At four o’clock the following morning, Vatel waited anxiously for the expected delivery of fish. When one solitary cart arrived, he asked the driver if that was all. The driver thought he was referring to his catch only and replied, “Oui, Monsieur.” When, after a while, no further carts arrived, Vatel’s despair deepened. He told his friend Gourville that he would not survive this indignity. He went to his room, placed his sword against the door, and ran himself through three times before falling down dead. Shortly afterwards, the first of several fish carts trundled into view, coming from all directions.3 Upon hearing the news of Vatel’s suicide, Louis told Condé that he had “put off coming to Chantilly for five years because he understood the expense of the trouble.” He added that Monsieur le prince did not have to provide more than two laden tables.4 Vatel’s duties were taken over by Gourville, and the party continued with collations, suppers, walks, games, and hunting. “All was perfumed with jonquils; all was charming,” declared Mme de Sévigné;5 yet, amid all the amusements, Louis’s mind was focused upon war.
Ever since he was a little boy, Louis had been passionately engrossed in everything military. He delighted in inspections, troop movements, victory parades, and lavish displays. He loved nothing more than to spend time with his army out in the field enjoying the thrills, the discomforts, and the dangers of life as a soldier. There was glory in it too. Following the recent Devolution War, the city of Paris celebrated the king’s victories by awarding him the epithet “the Great.” The title first appeared on a medal struck in 1671, which showed the king in armor, a large plume adorning his helmet and his hair falling in waves around his shoulders. The inscription read LUDOVICUS MAGNUS, Louis the Great.6 Now, thanks to Colbert’s fiscal reforms and the efforts of the war minister, Michel Le Tellier, and his son, the marquis de Louvois, Louis had a large and powerful force at his command. Five years earlier, at the time of the Devolution War, the army could boast no more than 72,000 men. Now, on the eve of the Dutch War, their numbers had increased to 120,000. In civilian life, the nobility had been forced to bend to Louis’s will. Now the military was to follow suit. A hierarchy of ranks was introduced, most of which had to be attained by merit rather than purchase.7
Training programs were implemented and discipline was tightened, with men being drilled by the infamous inspector-general of infantry, Jean Martinet, who invented marching in step and other regimes. The wearing of uniforms, which once identified troops serving the armies of individual noblemen, became more widespread and applied to all regiments and units. Louvois applied stricter rules to the nobility, who were now disciplined for absenteeism and fraud.8
Munitions factories were established, although weapons were still not advanced at this point. The matchlock musket was still in use, as were pikes, at least until 1687, when Vauban made them obsolete with the invention of the ring bayonet.9 Army magazines sprang up, allowing a greater concentration of troops, who no longer had to forage and pillage for provisions, and allowed winter campaigns. Increasingly, Louis personally directed campaigns, taking advice from Jules-Louis Bolé de Chamblay, the equivalent of his chief of staff. The two greatest generals of the age, Turenne and Condé, kept each other in check.10
Le Tellier’s reforms in the army were matched in the navy by Colbert. Upon taking office in 1661, Colbert had found the navy in a state of neglect, a situation that was not helped by Louis’s lack of interest. However, the money available to the king as a result of Colbert’s economic strategies allowed funds to be diverted to building France’s sea power. By 1677, Louis would have a fleet comprising 116 men-of-war, 83 other ships, and a strong Mediterranean fleet—the largest navy in Europe.11
To man this fleet, Colbert organized a system of conscription in preference to the press-gang system favored in England. He founded the Inscription Maritime, which required all sailors to serve in the navy for six months every three years. Ports were renovated, with Toulon, Brest, and Rochefort becoming major bases. Vauban, meanwhile, strengthened the defenses at Ath, Oudenarde, Charleroi, and Dunkirk. When Louis left Chantilly, he made his way to Dunkirk, where he stayed for some time with his troops, who were arriving at the rate of some nine thousand each day.12 As he continued his preparations to wage war on the Dutch, Louis was in command of superior forces, the largest seen so far in France; and they were now amassing on the Dutch border.
By mid-December 1671, the Dutch were so concerned about Louis’s intentions that they sent their ambassador, Peter de Groot, with a letter for the king. In this letter, which was summarized by Saint-Maurice,13 the Dutch wrote that they had been assured that the “great armament” that Louis was making was in order to wage war on them. They found this difficult to believe because they had never lacked respect for him, nor had they done anything against his interests. They had even refused to listen to suggestions that they should attack him. They had, rather, punctiliously carried out all the latest treaties made with his crown “and, therefore, feeling their consciences to be clear, they could not imagine that he had anything against them; that, if they had done him any disservice, or if without knowing it, they had failed him in any respect, if His Majesty would have the goodness to let them know, they were ready to give him all befitting satisfaction.”
Louis
made arrangements to receive de Groot but then put him off, preferring to play his cards very close to his chest. In the end, he did give the ambassador an audience, but this was merely to warn him that he intended to increase his armament by land and sea, and, having done so, he would use it in a manner appropriate to his dignity. He added that he owed no explanations to anyone.14 Shortly afterwards, he sent Louvois to the electorate of Cologne to negotiate the support of the elector and the bishop of Münster, and to arrange the supply of provisions for the French troops.15
On April 27, Louis was attended at his lever as usual. After mass, he entered his carriage, which was drawn by six horses, and drove alone towards the duc d’Estrées’s home at Nanteuil before going on to Villers-Cotterets, where he rendezvoused with his brother and a large company. He had not even said good-bye to the queen or dauphin, so sudden was his departure.16 By May 5, he was at Charleroi, where he reviewed his troops as they arrived at the town. He was especially impressed by the Royal Piémont, which was “very fine.”17 The armies marched in good order and were well paid. Again, Louis took personal direction of all matters concerning the military, taking everything in his stride and not uttering a word of annoyance. He ordered marches, established the camps, marked out the guard stations, all of which he visited in person; he worked harder than any of his officers and even ate on the march.18 Louis always had a map of the area in his hand, and he would consult his officers, but the final decisions and orders were his own.19
Nothing seemed “so important to the reputation of my troops” as to begin a campaign with some brilliant feat of arms, Louis wrote to Louvois from his camp near Neuss on May 31. To this end, he had arranged to lay siege to four places at once, which, for the sake of his gloire, he would personally direct. The four places he chose were Wesel, the troops to be commanded by Condé; Büderich, the siege of which was to be led by Turenne; Orsoi, under Philippe’s command; while the siege of Rheinberg would be directed by Louis personally. The town was close enough for him to monitor the other sieges.20 Again, his bravery in the face of danger was not in doubt.
At the dawn of June 6, three of these towns had been taken, and only Rheinberg held out. Louis summoned the governor and told him that if he was obliged to open the trench and fire the cannon, he would hang him and put his entire garrison to the sword. The governor surrendered, upon which Louis allowed him and his men to retreat to Maastricht, taking with them provisions for the whole garrison and with their dignity intact.21
Emmerich and Rees were the next to fall, and it was at Rees that Turenne suggested Louis cross the Rhine between Schenck and Arnhem in order to be in the best position to penetrate into the interior of the United Provinces. The river was very wide, but the dry summer had left it relatively shallow, and it was fordable in several places.22 Calming their nerves with a little brandy, the troops prepared to cross. The cavalry went first, swimming the horses across, but they did not get very far before the Dutch caught sight of them, waded into the water, and began attacking with swords. Guiche, who tried to contain the threat, witnessed the “most pitiable sight in the world: more than thirty officers or horsemen drowned or drowning, and Revel at their head; the Rhine filled with men, horses, flags, helmets and other similar things”; for gunfire from the enemy right had caused some of the horses to panic, and it was all the French could do to save themselves and their horses.23 The success of the French offensive now hanging in the balance, Louis issued orders to fire the cannon, which forced the Dutch into retreat and allowed the men to build a bridge of light boats to assist the others to cross. When he reached the other bank, Louis publicly embraced Guiche; he would later write to the comte’s father that what had happened that day was memorable in so many ways, “but I assure you, that among those that touched me the most, I can award the distinction that the comte de Guich has deserved.”24 So proud was Louis of the crossing of the Rhine that the event would be commemorated on the main bas-relief of the Porte Saint-Denis.
Louis now seemed unstoppable as he took the forts on the IJssel without encountering any significant resistance. Utrecht, abandoned by the Dutch, was his for the taking, and he obliged on June 23. Amsterdam lay only two days away, separated by flat country, which lay below sea level. The Dutch had claimed the land from the North Sea and defended it with sand dunes and dykes. Windmills fed water into storage systems from which it flowed into rivers at low tide, where the cycle began again.25 It was a simple matter to interrupt the cycle, and this is exactly what the Dutch now did. Within five days Amsterdam became an island surrounded by sea water. Louis could only look on as the waters lapped at his feet.
Meanwhile, on the English coast at Sole Bay, the Dutch had surprised a joint naval force of French and English ships, and although the outcome of the subsequent sea battle was indecisive, the Dutch had caused sufficient damage to the enemy to prevent their attempting any further action.26
Louis, threatened by the rising waters, began pillaging small towns and attacking isolated enemy forces wherever he found them. This naturally terrorized the civilian population, but it also ignited a bitter and lasting hatred of the French.
While this was going on, Holland was torn by revolution. The grand pensionary, Jan de Witt, was deposed and murdered, and William of Orange was proclaimed stadtholder, captain, and admiral-general. He was only twenty-two, a staunch Calvinist, short, anaemic, and asthmatic, yet Orange would come to personify his country’s hatred for Louis and the French.
The Dutch now approached France to discuss peace. Their ambassador, Peter de Groot, was received by Louvois and Pomponne, and he offered them the following terms. Louis would receive Maastricht and the Rhine towns, as well as 600 thousand francs to offset the costs of the war. Louvois, however, was scornful, so the Dutch increased their concessions, adding all the towns held by Holland beyond the seven provinces, and increasing the sum offered to 10 million francs. This was a significant offer, for it would have provided Louis with a barrier extending from the Meuse to the Scheldt, which separated the United Provinces from the Spanish Netherlands. In time, the Spanish Netherlands would have been subjugated, and Louis would be in a strong position to wreak his vengeance on the Dutch.
While Pomponne was eager to accept these terms, Louvois advised Louis to demand still more. He pressed for the frontier to be withdrawn as far as the Wahal, with all the fortified towns on the river to be handed over to Louis or to be dismantled. In addition, all edicts that were unfavorable to French commerce were to be revoked, while a treaty of commerce with Holland that favored the French West and the East India Companies would be concluded. France also demanded the payment of an indemnity of 10,500,000 francs, with an embassy to be sent to France every year to present Louis with a gold medal bearing a motto of thanks for his having “left to the United Provinces the independence which the Kings, his predecessors, had enabled her to acquire.”27
It was widely expected in France that the Dutch would acquiesce, for, as Mme de Sévigné wrote, “nothing could resist the forces and the conduct of His Majesty.”28 Louis put it another way: “daily progress of my army puts me in a position to impose any conditions I please on the States, but I wish to listen to the promptings of my own generosity so far as is consistent with authority and the just rights of victory.”29 As to posterity, Louis said that
it may believe if it chooses in my reasons for so acting, and can at its pleasure ascribe my refusal to my ambition and the desire for vengeance for the injuries I had sustained from the Dutch. I shall not justify myself. Ambition and glory are always pardonable in a prince, and particularly in a prince so young and so well treated by fortune as I was.30
For his part, de Groot let it be known that he “would sooner die than accept such terms from France.”31 The war was set to continue, but with much of Holland flooded, Louis had little choice but to return to France, and he was back in Saint-Germain by early August. In December, Spain, Holland, the emperor Leopold, and the elector of Brandenburg formed a league against Fr
ance. Louis’s Dutch War was now a European conflict. As 1672 came to an end, the duc de Luxembourg, at the head of ten thousand men, took advantage of the freezing conditions to launch a “lightning war.” He left Utrecht for Amsterdam, burning houses and ships as he went; however, a sudden thaw obliged him to draw back until the beginning of January.32
In late February 1673, Louis was once again at Versailles. One cold day, he received an unexpected visitor, Armande Béjart, the wife of Molière. She was in a state of angry despair and had come to appeal to Louis for help as she fought to secure a Christian burial for her husband.
Molière had been suffering from tuberculosis for quite some time, and although he felt his condition to be worsening, he insisted that the fourth performance of his play Le Malade Imaginaire should go on as planned. Against the advice of his friends, he was on stage as expected at 4:00 P.M. on February 17, waiting for the curtain to rise. Towards the end of the play, Molière was seized by a sudden convulsion. It was noticed by the audience, so Molière disguised it with a forced laugh, and he managed to finish the play. Upon returning to his dressing room, his protégé, Michel Baron, was alarmed by how unwell Molière looked, and he wrapped the actor’s frozen hands in a muff before calling for the sedan chair to carry him back to his home in the rue de Richelieu.
Baron remained with Molière all the way home, where he immediately put him to bed. He asked if Molière would like some of the soup that Armande always had at hand, but Molière could not face it and asked for a small piece of Parmesan cheese and a little bread instead. He called for Armande to bring him a pillow stuffed with an herb that would help him to sleep, but moments later, he coughed violently and spat blood into a bowl. Seeing this, Baron cried out in alarm, but Molière reassured him: it was not the first time this had happened, and previous times had been worse. Nevertheless, he sent the young man to seek Armande.
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