Mlle Montvoisin spoke of a certain Abbé Étienne Guibourg, an elderly priest who worked in the slums of Saint-Denis. His speciality was to perform black masses. Whenever a woman came to him for help, he would use her naked body as his altar. Mlle Montvoisin described how the woman would lie down on a mattress, which was supported by two chairs placed close together. Her head, supported by a cushion, would rest on another chair, which was placed slightly lower than the other two, while her legs would hang over the edge of the mattress. A serviette would then be placed on the woman’s body, upon which would be arranged a cross and a chalice. Mlle Montvoisin noted that about three years earlier, that is, in 1677 or early 1678, Mme de Montespan had participated in one of Guibourg’s black masses, arriving at six in the evening and leaving at midnight. La Voisin then told her that in order to ensure the ritual worked, she ought to participate a further two or three times, but when Athénaïs protested that she did not have the time, la Voisin volunteered to participate in her stead.
It was further alleged that if Athénaïs could not retain Louis’s love by these means, she was prepared to take an even more sinister course: she sought to bring about the death of her rival, Mlle de Fontanges, by means of poison-impregnated fabric or gloves.18
There is no doubt that Athénaïs visited fortune-tellers before she became Louis’s mistress. It was a common practice among the ladies of the court. It is also probably true that she tried to retain Louis’s love by slipping him love powders when she felt the need to do so. This, however, was the extent of her commerce with la Voisin and her accomplices. Athénaïs could not have been guilty of the other, terrible crimes of which she had been accused, for several reasons: her piety, which was every bit as deep and sincere as that of Louise de La Vallière, would not permit her to participate in such sacrilegious activities. She loved Louis, who was the father of all but two of her children, upon whom she relied for support and position, and whom she had every reason not to harm. Moreover, prisoners facing death would frequently implicate important people in the hope that the subsequent investigation would buy them more time. Athénaïs would have found it difficult indeed to go anywhere at all, let alone the sleazy slums of Saint-Denis, without several people knowing about it. Following her altercation with Lauzun several years earlier, Athénaïs had become paranoid about her personal safety.19 She had requested, and received, a bodyguard, who accompanied her everywhere she went.20 Lastly, la Voisin and Guibourg believed that the lady they had met and carried out black masses for was Athénaïs, but they never saw her face and they could not be sure. Then there is Mlle Montvoisin’s assertion that apart from the times that her mother gave powders to Mme de Montespan, la Voisin had only ever had direct dealings with Mlle Desœillets, Athénaïs’s personal maid and formerly one of Louis’s casual lovers. Mlle Montvoisin identified this lady by her brown hair, but Athénaïs was blond.21 As to the accusation that Athénaïs had attempted to murder Mlle de Fontanges, once again, Athénaïs’s alleged involvement with her death is far from certain, while Mlle Desœillets’s part was never fully explained.
Mlle Desœillets, it emerged, had participated in black masses said by Abbé Guibourg. On one occasion, she attended with a foreigner, an English milord who was said to be her lover. She met Guibourg at la Voisin’s house, where the ritual was performed using her menstrual blood, the Englishman’s semen, some powders, the blood of a bat, and the blood of a child whose throat had been cut.22 This was then mixed with flour to stiffen the compound. Guibourg then said mass, which he began at the canon, during which he said a conjuration including the name of the king.
The object was to produce a charm or spell against Louis, and it was done on behalf of Desœillets and the English milord. Desœillets spoke with such passion as she made complaints against Louis that the Englishman had to calm her down.
The pair claimed that they put the compound onto Louis’s clothes when he passed by, which Desœillets said was easy to do since she spent her time at court. This compound was designed to make Louis die of a languishing illness.23 With the help of the marquis de Louvois,24 who was Athénaïs’s enemy, Mlle Desœillets managed to escape prosecution for her crimes, which in ordinary circumstances would have earned her the death penalty. Since that time, she had left court and was living comfortably, dividing her time between her house on the rue Montmartre in Paris and her Château de Suisnes in the country.25
The Desœillets murder plot was not the only one to be uncovered during the Affaire des Poisons. Another conspiracy involved several men who wanted to avenge the ex-superintendent Foucquet, or to liberate him from prison, which necessitated Louis’s murder. Of the conspirators, all but two were executed. One died under torture before his case could go to trial, and another was acquitted. He was Roger de Pardaillon de Gondrin, marquis de Termes, a cousin by marriage to Athénaïs, whom Louis went on to employ as a valet of the bedchamber.26
Throughout the entire poisons affair, Louis asked to be kept informed of the interrogations and proceedings, but he maintained a dignified silence regarding the murder plots against him. He also remained silent about Mme de Montespan’s possible involvement with the plots, as well as her alleged participation in black masses and child sacrifice; she would never be in his favor again, however, and he would move her out of her apartments, which were close to his, and install her in the specially renovated appartement des bains, or bath chamber. Even so, his order to La Reynie to continue the reports regarding her on separate sheets of paper testifies to his concern for her and for his own dignity; indeed, he would destroy these records in 1709, two years after Athénaïs’s death, burning them with his own hands.27 Meanwhile, it took some time before Colbert could persuade Louis of Athénaïs’s innocence. She had, after all, been his abiding passion for some twelve years, and by her he had fathered seven children. He allowed her to remain at court, but she would never enjoy the favor he had shown her previously, and he did not resume sexual relations with her. Then again, Louis’s personal life was about to take an entirely new course.
TWENTY
Mme de Maintenon
In 1680, Louis was in his forty-second year. He had secured his borders, brought peace to his kingdom, and made himself the master of Europe. He now had time to address some of France’s needs, and he began with his capital. Already, he had authorized new paving stones to be laid in the streets of Paris. This achievement was marked by a medal, struck in 1669, which showed a lady standing upon a new pavement, and bearing the legend URBS NOVO LAPIDE STRATA, ‘The city of Paris newly paved.’1 Another, struck the following year, commemorated the embellishment and enlargement of the city. However, Paris had long been menaced by crime perpetrated by professional mendicants.
Some years earlier, the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement had founded the Hôpital Général, the edict for its establishment being sealed by Louis on April 27, 1656. Spread across five houses—la Salpêtrière, Bicêtre, la Pitié, Scipion, and Chaillot2—its purpose was to provide lodgings and work for the vagabonds and beggars whose growing numbers and aggressive tactics caused such a problem in Paris. The beggars would congregate in an area known as the Cour des Miracles in the north of the city. They would simulate wounds and debilitating illness and go out into the streets to extract money out of sympathetic passersby. Upon returning to their own district at night, they would remove their painted-on scabs and deformities—hence the name Cour des Miracles—only to begin the process again the following morning.
Now, several years later, the problem persisted. Louis was obliged to order La Reynie to raid the Cour des Miracles and arrest as many “vagabonds and Bohemians” as he could find. Some were imprisoned, while others were sent to the Hôpital Général. Here, the inmates were forced to do endless hours of hard labor every day, except when they attended compulsory services at the chapel. Those who escaped from the Hôpital Général were sent to an even harsher life in the galleys.3
Louis’s apparent success in freeing the streets of Paris of mendica
nts emboldened him to act against France’s Gypsy population. Often confused with wanderers and vagrants, Gypsies, or “Bohemians,” were persecuted throughout Europe. In July 1682, Louis countersigned a plan drawn up by Colbert to force bailiffs, seneschals, and their lieutenants to arrest gypsy men so they could be sent to the galleys, even if they had not committed a crime. The women, on the other hand, were to have their heads shaved, and, if they refused to give up their lifestyle, they could be beaten and exiled.4 As with most of Colbert’s actions, however, his prime motive was to provide labor for his projects, in this case the galleys.
Louis’s recent victories in the Dutch War and Vauban’s ceinture de fer had rendered the defensive fortifications of Paris obsolete, and work was begun to dismantle them. This released resources that could be used elsewhere, and Louis directed them towards beautifying the city and beginning new and exciting building projects.
One of these projects, a joint collaboration between Louis and Colbert, saw the resumption of work on the Louvre. In 1661, when Louis had taken personal power, Henri IV’s Grand Design was some fifty years old and no longer looked quite so impressive. Fresh plans were needed. Colbert invited architects from all over France and Italy to submit ideas for the next phase, a new wing. Initial interest was shown in the designs sent by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, but these were ultimately rejected on the grounds that they took no account of comfort, convenience, and security,5 although the architect was commissioned to produce a magnificent bust of the Sun King, which was justifiably well received.
In the end, the commission to construct the new wing was awarded to a group of French architects, artists, and theorists, including Louis Le Vau, Charles Le Brun, Charles Perrault, and François d’Orbay. Le Vau also renovated the Tuileries for Louis to use while the Louvre was uninhabitable. However, these works slowed considerably as Louis increasingly turned his attention to Versailles.
Louis lent his support to Colbert’s ambition to build an observatory in Paris. Work had begun in 1667 to designs by Claude Perrault.6 Its four walls were oriented towards the cardinal points of the compass, the southern wall lying along Paris’s latitude, while the median plan bisected the Paris meridian, which was calculated in 1667. Many great achievements took place at the observatory: the true dimensions of the solar system would be measured here, and Cassini would discover the rings and satellites of Saturn in the 1670s. Picard, Roberval, and La Hire would be able to present Louis with the first general map of his kingdom. Picard was also a member of the team that measured the size of the earth.7
The next project was entirely Louis’s own. This was the building of the Hôtel royal des Invalides.8 Louis was concerned about the care available to soldiers who had been disabled in his wars, and as early as 1670 he announced his intention to build a hostel, financed by monastic revenues, where they could live out the rest of their lives in comfort. The foundation deed for Les Invalides was signed four years later. Now officers and soldiers who had previously been reduced to begging in the streets to survive, or who otherwise would have taken refuge in a monastery, would have a place to live. This hospice would cater for all the worldly needs of its residents, and its administration would be overseen by the minister for war, in this case the marquis de Louvois. There was also a church run by the Lazarists, members of the Congregation of the Mission, which had been founded by Vincent de Paul in 1625 and which was dedicated to preaching to the poor and, by extension, catering for their needs.
At Les Invalides, personal hygiene was paramount; fresh water, bread, meat, and wine were provided, as were latrines complete with seats. The infirmary was run by the Filles de la Charité and accommodated three hundred men, each in his own bed. It was staffed by a doctor, a surgeon, and an apothecary, each of whom had his own team of assistants. A rudimentary system of occupational therapy was also available. In return for the privilege of living at Les Invalides, residents were required to observe strict discipline. While the men were allowed to do small jobs to earn some money, begging was absolutely forbidden and punishable by expulsion. Blasphemy was an even worse crime, and could earn a man a spell in prison.
If Versailles reflects Louis at his most glorious, Les Invalides shows him at his most philanthropic. The king was, in fact, entering a quieter, gentler phase in his life. After the horrors of l’Affaire des Poisons, he found comfort in the company of a new lady at court; or rather, he began to see a lady who had been at court for some while in a new light.
Françoise, marquise de Maintenon, was the granddaughter of the poet and Huguenot soldier Théodore Agrippa d’Aubigné. The close friend of Henri de Navarre, the future Henri IV of France and Louis’s grandfather, d’Aubigné had fought in the wars of religion that rocked the previous century. Her father, Constant d’Aubigné, was a wastrel who squandered his money and his time on gambling, drinking, and whoring. Having married against his father’s wishes, he killed a man in a duel, although this went unpunished. When he abducted a girl to whom his friend had taken a fancy, he received the death penalty. He saved his life by joining the army, but the army he chose was a Huguenot one, which happened to be in open rebellion against the regent, Queen Marie de Médicis. Not for the last time, Constant then switched loyalties and allied himself with Catholic extremists. This led to his being disowned by his horrified father, who branded him a bastard.
Constant discovered his young wife with her lover and murdered them both. This being a crime of passion he again escaped punishment, but his betrayal of the Huguenots at the siege of La Rochelle resulted in his imprisonment at Bordeaux. Here he met Jeanne de Cardilhac, the sixteen-year-old daughter of the prison governor. Stories differ as to what happened next, with some suggesting that he seduced the girl and was forced to marry her, while others insist that they fell in love. Whatever the case, the couple married in December 27, 1627. His prison sentence was quashed, and the penurious Constant made a living as a professional gambler before turning his talents to coining. The couple moved to Niort, a hundred miles north of Bordeaux, where their first child, a son named Constant after his father, was born.
Constant now joined the cause of Gaston d’Orléans, Louis’s rebellious uncle, whom he served by recruiting men to the prince’s mercenary army. When Gaston’s rebellion failed, Constant was once more captured. Held in a succession of prisons, he fathered another son, Charles, and in 1635, a daughter, named Françoise after her godfather, François de La Rochefoucauld. The children’s aunt, Madame de Villette, had already taken in the two boys, and now she offered a home to Françoise. Here, the three children were brought up as Huguenots.
Jeanne d’Aubigné went to Paris, where she lived in poverty as she tried to salvage whatever she could of her husband’s property. Françoise, who was nicknamed Bignette, was reunited with her mother at the age of seven or eight, but the cold and distant Jeanne showed her no affection and the child cried for her aunt Villette. Jeanne did not wish her daughter to be raised as a Huguenot, and she forced her to learn the Catholic catechism and attend mass, but she had not reckoned on the girl’s strong will. Françoise had to be dragged to the church, and, once inside, she promptly turned her back to the altar. For this she received a sound beating, which she accepted with the remark that “it was a glorious thing to suffer in the cause of religion.”9
Constant d’Aubigné, meanwhile, was deeply in debt. Out of sheer desperation, he accepted the offer of a post as governor of the Caribbean island of Marie-Galante.10 Upon approaching Martinique, Françoise was so ill that her family thought she was dead. As they prepared to bury her at sea, her mother, acting on an irresistible impulse, rushed forward to check her pulse once more. She felt a feeble beat and cried, “My daughter is not dead!” Years later, Françoise would be reminded of her lucky escape when, under different circumstances, the bishop of Metz would tell her, “Madame, people are not brought back from that point for nothing.”11
The d’Aubignés remained in the West Indies for some eighteen months before returning to France. Fran
çoise’s brother, Charles, was employed as a page in the home of Madame de Neuillant, a distant relative, and now the lady approached Anne of Austria on Françoise’s behalf. She persuaded Anne that a good Catholic girl ought not to be exposed to Calvinist influences. Anne agreed, and Mme de Neuillant was granted the guardianship of Françoise.
Now Françoise spent her days with Mme de Neuillant’s daughter, Angélique, and a cousin, Bérénice de Baudean, dressed in peasant clothes and clogs. The three girls were put to work in the farmyard with masks over their noses to protect their delicate skin from the sun. Here, they took care of flocks of turkeys and geese, and forked out hay for the carriage horses, while learning by heart verses from a book.12 After a while, however, Mme de Neuillant came to realize that the road upon which she had set the young Françoise was not the one she had described to Anne of Austria. Particularly, Françoise was not receiving the promised religious instruction. There was only one remedy, and this was to send the girl to a convent, and the Ursuline convent at Niort was selected.13
Here, Françoise became attached to one of the nuns, Mother Celeste. For her sake she would delve into her studies, assist the younger girls with their studies, and even iron their undergarments so that they would look clean and presentable in class. Try as they might, though, the nuns could not make Françoise embrace Catholicism. In the end, they were forced to concede defeat and return her to her mother.
As it was, Jeanne d’Aubigné was still embroiled in lawsuits and had no time for her daughter, who was not yet thirteen. Instead, she sent her to another Ursuline convent, this time in the Faubourg Saint-Jacques in Paris. Life now became very hard for Françoise, who was treated harshly by the nuns. The girl wrote an impassioned plea to her aunt Villette, begging her “to take me away from these people, among whom my life is worse than death. Ah! madame and aunt, you cannot imagine the hell that this so-called house of God is to me.”14 The nuns intercepted the letter, upon which they learned of the despair they had inflicted on the thirteen-year-old. From that point on they treated her with greater kindness. Significantly, she was no longer forced to attend mass or observe feast days. Now that she did not waste her energy fighting such undesired obligations, Françoise began to take an interest in them. During a debate between a Huguenot minister and a Catholic priest, she was impressed by the priest, particularly his knowledge and interpretation of the Bible. Her own familiarity with Scripture was very advanced for one so young, and it was at this point that her interest in Catholicism was awakened. Françoise, however, took time to consider the matter thoroughly before she finally converted; and when she did so, it was only after she had been assured that her aunt Villette would not be condemned for being a Huguenot.15
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