These were, of course, public or dynastic reasons for not taking another queen, but Louis also had his private reasons. The sudden death of Marie-Thérèse had come as a shock to Louis. He and she were the same age, and if God could take her, why not him? He felt the need to look to his own salvation. A private marriage to a woman of his own choosing would remove from him the temptations to which he had yielded in his youth, and which had endangered his soul. His second marriage, therefore, was not a public affair, it was not registered, and it conferred no official position upon his wife.30 There would be no Queen Françoise. Indeed, “The only public distinction that discovered her private elevation was, that at mass she occupied one of those little pulpits, or gilded canopies, which seemed to be made for the king and queen.”31 That there would be no queen was confirmed the following year when the queen’s official apartments at Versailles were broken up, with much of the space being incorporated into Louis’s own apartments.
For both Louis and Françoise, this second marriage followed a less than satisfactory first union. It was to bring happiness, or rather contentment, to both. Louis showed Françoise the respect that was her due, although his courteous manner towards her occasionally bordered on formality. He addressed her as Madame, but he gave her other names too, names that reflected the qualities he saw in her: Reason and Your Solidity.
Louis confessed his love for Françoise: “However much you say you love me, my love for you will always be greater,”32 and there is no reason not to believe that his sentiment was anything but sincere. Françoise herself believed that the king loved her, “but only so far as he is capable of loving; for if they are not led by passion, men are not very tender in their affection.”33 Perhaps the burning passions that tortured Louis as a young man had mellowed, but Françoise surely had not recognized that Louis’s emotions were as still waters: apparently calm on the surface, yet running very deeply.
Whenever they were apart, Louis would leave small notes for Françoise, requesting her company for a walk or hoping for a private meeting, leaving her to decide the time and the place.34 He would visit her at all hours of the day, attending to his letters and dispatches, and he would read aloud the odd passage and ask her opinion on it. He would linger after supper or when a gambling party left for the night, and Françoise found his constant companionship quite exhausting at times. Her secretary, the demoiselle d’Aumale, often found her mistress tired, anxious, or even ill from the strain of keeping Louis entertained with “numberless little inventions and interests,” not to mention their conversations that went on for three or four hours at a time, and the effort it cost her to maintain them. When Louis finally left her apartment at ten in the evening, Françoise was overcome with weariness, and had “only time to say” that she was “quite worn out.”35
While Louis would make frequent and lengthy visits to Françoise’s apartment, she would never go to his unless he was unwell and in need of her care. One day, as Françoise was attending him, Philippe unexpectedly entered the room to find Louis relaxing uncovered on his bed. “You see me in this state and, therefore, you can imagine what she means to me,” he told his brother.36 But what exactly did she mean to him? It is perhaps best summed up this way: “At all times she was a friend ready to listen, a wife prompt to sympathize, a servant quick to do everything for his comfort, and, above all, a counsellor full of wisdom and resource, suggesting or upholding the right course to take, but without pretension or show of superiority.”37
Being married did nothing to alter the rigidity with which the king’s life was regulated. He would still rise between eight and nine each morning to begin his day with the all-important lever. Steeped in ceremony, the lever was how Louis prepared for the coming day. Certain privileged courtiers would be granted the right of entry to watch as Louis said his morning prayers, was washed, shaved, and dressed. Specially selected courtiers would be designated to hand Louis his shirt, to attach his lace cuffs, or to put on one shoe while another put on the second.
Louis then went to mass, and by nine thirty he would be shut away with one of his councils in a meeting that would go on for some three hours at a time. The king had a great capacity for work, and the different councils would meet on designated days.38 Sunday was the day of the Conseil d’État, at which the most important business of the state was discussed and major decisions made. Louis maintained the practice of consulting his ministers, allowing each of them to express his views before making up his own mind, which nearly always reflected the majority opinion. The Conseil d’État also met every second Monday, alternating its sittings with the Conseil des despatches, which dealt with the correspondence that passed between the government and the intendants who administered local government in cities and the provinces. Tuesdays were reserved for the royal council of finances, which had replaced the old surintendance des finances. Wednesdays and Thursdays were taken up with the Conseil d’État once again, while Fridays were set aside for the Conseil des consciences. Concerned with ecclesiastical affairs, particularly benefices, the Conseil des consciences, which went back to Mazarin’s time, was not strictly speaking a royal council, but Louis continued to maintain it. The royal council of finances held a second meeting each Saturday, which rounded off the formal business of the week.
The councils ended about twelve thirty, at which point Louis would alert the dauphine that he was ready to go to mass. The mass, at which “there was excellent music”39 and to which he was accompanied by the entire royal household, was an important part of Louis’s day and he would never miss it. When he emerged, after about an hour or an hour and a half, he would join the dauphine in her apartments and remain with her during dinner, which was served by the gentlemen of the chamber. Louis’s afternoons were then spent at work, or occasionally he would go out for some exercise.
As evening fell, Louis might entertain the court at an appartement, a word that had recently been coined to describe a reception, a party, or celebration hosted by the king. It was held in his own apartments, in sumptuously furnished rooms. He had held appartements occasionally since 1674, but since the court had moved permanently to Versailles, they had become more frequent and were regularly held on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. At this period, they were still quite innovative, and a medal was struck in 1683 to commemorate them.40 The legend explained that
The King, in order to increase the pleasure of the Court, wished for his Appartements to be opened on certain days of the week. There were large rooms for dancing, games, music. There were others where one would find all sorts of refreshments in abundance, and where one could take pleasure and enjoyment in the presence of so great a King and so good a Master.
The medal bore the image of a Muse with a lyre to symbolize music, Pomona with a basket of fruit to represent the refreshments that were served, while Mercury presided over the games. The legend read COMITAS ET MAGNIFICENTIA PRINCIPIS, ‘signifying the affability and the magnificence of the Prince’ and ‘the Palace of the King open to the pleasure of His subjects.’
On those days when an appartement was held, the salons would open at about seven in the evening. One of Louis’s favorite games was billiards, which he would often play until nine o’clock with the comte d’Armagnac, Gramont, or Michel Chamillart of the Paris parlement. As soon as his game was finished, he would withdraw to Françoise’s apartments until suppertime, after which there would be a ball to round off the night. The final ceremony was, of course, the coucher, in which Louis was prepared for bed watched by those privileged enough to be allowed to witness such an intimate ceremony. As with the lever, favored courtiers were selected to hand Louis his nightshirt or hold the candle. It was all highly ritualized, and it brought an ordered end to a much organized day.
The events that took place at Versailles followed a rigid timetable, which was planned months in advance, but life at court was also regulated. “The King was so fond of the old customs of the Royal Household,” wrote Liselotte,
that nothing woul
d have induced him to change any of them. Madame de Fiennes used to say that in the Royal Household they stuck so closely to these old customs and usages that the Queen of England died with a toquet on her head, that is a little bonnet which babies wear when they are put to bed . . . When the King desires anything he would allow no one to reason with him. His orders must be obeyed immediately and without question. He was too much accustomed to ‘such is our pleasure’ to suffer any suggestions. He was very particular about the etiquette he had established in his household.41
Everyone, from the grandest courtier to the humblest servant, observed a strict hierarchy of rank. For the royal family, this was set down in the Ceremonial, a large volume that would increase still further in size as the years drew on and the protocols laid down within its pages became more complex. In 1682, prompted by the birth of the duc de Bourgogne, the first of Louis’s grandchildren, a new rank was added. The king naturally continued to take precedence, followed by the dauphin, but now came the petit-fils de France, the king’s grandson, who went before the princes of the blood.42
As to the nobility, Louis had accustomed them to accept that their raison d’être was to serve the state, rather than to lead their own lives on their faraway estates. Like moths to a flame, they were attracted to the beauty and grandeur of Versailles and the glamor of life in the presence of the Sun King. On the whole, they came to prefer life at Versailles to the point that they often neglected their own estates and rarely, if ever, saw their tenants. Louis, who was anxious to avoid the conditions that might lead to a new Fronde, used protocol and rank to control and monitor them. It was a system he had used at the Louvre and Saint-Germain, and one that he would continue to use at Versailles.43 Indeed, Versailles has been described as Louis’s revenge for the Fronde,44 although this is not an entirely fair assessment, given that many leading frondeurs, such as Condé and Turenne, fought valiantly in Louis’s wars, with Turenne losing his life for his king. On the other hand, the number of aristocrats who lived at court was relatively low. By the end of Louis’s reign, some ten thousand people served at Versailles, of whom five thousand were commoners. The other five thousand were nobles who served in two “quarters,” or three-month sessions of service twice a year. In all, the nobility at Versailles comprised only some 5 percent of the entire aristocracy of France.45
It is important to note, however, that even the preened and beribboned nobles who served in the king’s household were soldiers before they were anything else. While, during the winter months, they gambled, duelled, danced, and attended the king’s lever, coucher, and appartement, once the weather turned, they would be back with their regiments risking their lives for the glory of France. This is why Versailles itself must be seen as more than a gilded royal palace and the seat of government. It must also be understood as an extension of Vauban’s ceinture de fer, the ring of fortifications that protected France’s borders. It was an integral part of Louis’s pursuit of power and security for France by war and building.46 It is no coincidence that Versailles was largely built by soldiers who had also worked on France’s fortifications, or that it housed the headquarters of the armed forces.47
At Versailles, therefore, the soldier-courtier fulfilled a second function, which was to serve the king in a variety of roles: a master of the wardrobe, perhaps, or a gentleman of the chamber.48 Discipline was imposed upon them through court ritual as well as art.49 The greatest sin any courtier could commit was to be absent from court. Even in his youth, Louis would take note of those who absented themselves from his presence,50 and he would continue to do so. He was instantly aware of who was missing from the crowds that lined the corridors or graced the chambers of Versailles. No excuse was acceptable, and any courtier noted by his absence from courtly entertainments and ballets, or who missed a turn in the gardens, would be scorned with the words “we never see him,” the sentence of social death.51 Given the dual role of the courtier as both soldier and servant, absence could be seen as a form of desertion.
Louis therefore entrapped his nobility within a gilded cage and controlled them with court ceremonial. The ritual that governed life at court, however, did not begin with Louis: it was already elaborate by the time of Henri III over a hundred years earlier, but Louis raised it to new heights, especially upon his relocation to Versailles. Like many who had experienced disorder in their youth, Louis liked regulation, and ceremonial gave him that. It also grounded courtiers in the king’s service and in the hierarchy of rank. It ensured that they were too busy to indulge in their personal cabals and intrigues; especially, it prevented them from forming dangerous conspiracies against the king. For the commoner, royal service brought privileges that would otherwise be unavailable to them, elevating them to a level above their lowly status, even if they would never be equal to the aristocracy. In this way, Louis, the sun surrounded by his satellites, watched and controlled those who might rebel against him, while rewarding those whose loyalty was beyond reproach. Versailles was a place of ceremony, service, and discipline, all attributes of the military headquarters that categorized it and justified its existence.
TWENTY-TWO
The Sun Reaches Its Zenith
Between 1679 and 1684, a series of courts were held. Known as chambres de réunions, they sought to establish Louis’s claims regarding the territories he had acquired under the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.1 As with most treaties, Westphalia was vaguely worded and open to more than one interpretation. The lawyers Louis sent to the réunions, all of whom were French, naturally found in his favor, with the result that much of the territory between the Moselle and Rhine, including a large part of Alsace and Luxembourg, was acknowledged as French. Louis thus had secured large tracts of economically and strategically important land. The legal foundation for this had been arranged by Colbert de Croissy, the capable younger brother of Colbert, while the acquisitions were fortified by Vauban, whose line of fortresses stretched from the Netherlands to Alsace.2
Louis’s gains, confirmed by the chambres de réunions, alienated his former allies, the German princes and the kings of Spain and Sweden. This, however, had not checked his policy of aggrandizement, and he set his sights upon Strasbourg, a free city within the Holy Roman Empire. Louis had no legal claim to the town, but it held a strategic position on the Rhine, and in September 1681, it capitulated under relentless pressure from the royal forces. A new medal was designed with an image of the fortifications Vauban had built surrounding the city and bearing the legend CLAUSA GERMANIS GALLIA, ‘France is closed to the Germans.”3
The following month, Louis and Marie-Thérèse arrived at Strasbourg with the court, and, to music written for the occasion by Lully the king was greeted by his new subjects. However, Louis had even more to celebrate: on the same day that Strasbourg fell, he also obtained Casale, the capital of Monferrat. Casale was one of the major gateways into Italy, and Louis’s possession of it checked potential aggression from the duc de Savoy; the duke, who was one of Louis’s allies, was offended by the acquisition.4
Louis then made his way to Luxembourg, where he laid siege to the town. It was at this point that he received news that Pope Innocent was calling for a new Crusade to assist Emperor Leopold, who was struggling to save Vienna, which was under siege by the Turks. Louis halted his assault on Luxembourg while he considered his options.5 He was aware that his predecessors, François I and Henri II, had pursued policies of alliance with the Turks, but at the dawn of his own personal rule, such an approach had come to be seen as undesirable. Even so, Louis found himself torn between two opposing views. From a religious perspective, as the Most Christian King, any association with a Muslim power was repugnant to him. Moreover, there was something very attractive about the prospect of attacking the Turks in order to further Christian cohesion in Europe. As a politician, Louis saw that any cooperation with the Turks, however loose, could assist him with his plans for aggrandizement. He was aware, also, that earlier alliances between the French and the Turks had largely been
successful. It could not be denied that Louis would benefit from the Turkish invasion of Austria, which would keep the emperor occupied for some time to come. Therefore, even though his fleets were already engaged in a campaign against the North African states in the Mediterranean,6 Louis decided to ignore Innocent’s plea, proclaiming that Crusades “were no longer in fashion.”7
Spain, meanwhile, had taken advantage of Louis’s temporary suspension of the siege of Luxembourg to declare war on France. As he returned to the siege, Louis found himself confronted by Carlos II. The sickly child had grown into a sickly man who suffered fits, was feeble-minded, and whose only real strength lay in his implacable hatred for France.8 Carlos proved no match for Louis, who easily defeated him before going on to take Luxembourg in June 1684. Louis then turned his attention to Genoa, whose city fathers had offended him by offering a safe harbor for the Spanish to rest and reprovision their ships.9 The French navy took revenge by mercilessly bombarding the town until it lay in ruins. The Genoese were forced to agree to humiliating terms in order to save what was left of their city.
Louis XIV Page 32
