Louis spent another difficult night during which he drank several times. Between three and six in the morning, he felt better, and mass was said in his room. He took dinner at one, after which he was carried once again to Françoise’s rooms to enjoy a musical evening with her and her ladies.
A pattern was now forming in which Louis would spend a restless night during which he would drink often, but he would then sleep peacefully during the early hours. He continued to hear mass in his room and hold council or otherwise see his ministers. At one o’clock on August 17, he dressed and took dinner, watched by the courtiers. That afternoon, he held an audience in his cabinet with the general of the order of Saint-Croix before going to Françoise’s apartments in his three-wheeled chair, which he steered himself.
On August 18, Louis spent a more peaceful night than he had of late. This time, however, Fagon slept in the king’s room, although he was adamant that the king had no fever. Again, Louis heard mass in his room before discussing fortifications with M. Pelletier. After visiting Françoise, he retired to his own apartments, where he ate supper in the presence of the court.
The following day, when Louis should have been addressing parlement, his sciatica was still very troublesome. When the doctors examined his leg, Maréchal noticed a black patch on the left foot and immediately recognized it as a bad sign. He rubbed the leg vigorously with hot cloths, and on the following day, Louis sat in a bath filled with hot Burgundy wine and aromatic herbs for a good hour, after which Maréchal again rubbed the leg with hot cloths, which eased the pain somewhat. After a cup of bouillon, Louis rested.
The doctors came once again from Paris on the twenty-second. After examining the patient, they again prescribed ass’s milk, and this time Louis took some. By this time, however, the leg was swollen and burning.
For the next two days, Louis experienced dizziness, which the doctors attributed to the ass’s milk. This was immediately stopped. When they examined the leg, they were alarmed to find that the discoloration had spread to the point just below the garter. It was only now that they began to suspect gangrene. They wrapped Louis’s leg in linen soaked in camphorated brandy in an attempt to bring back its natural heat.
Even in this state, Louis attended mass, took a cup of bouillon, and held a council of finances until eleven o’clock, when M. Maréchal came to rub the leg in order to relieve the pain. As lunchtime approached, Louis took only bouillon. He held another council afterwards, but again, Maréchal interrupted it to rub the leg. As Maréchal removed the linen, Louis’s oldest and closest friend, the maréchal de Villeroy, got his first look at the king’s leg. He was horrified to see the extent of the discoloration, although Louis remarked that it did not hurt as much as it had. Villeroy was afraid. He judged the king’s condition to be incurable and promptly returned to his apartments to conceal his tears. Louis too was struck by a feeling of melancholy, which he could not shake off. He was helped into his armchair, where he spoke to some of his officers about his illness. Louis knew the end was approaching, and he asked his confessor, Père Le Tellier, to prepare him for death. From that moment on, Le Tellier would never leave the king. As news of Louis’s infirmity spread beyond the confines of Versailles, his subjects gathered in the courtyard, where they began their sad vigil.
Sunday, August 25 was the Feast of Saint-Louis, the king’s personal saint. Although he had passed a very bad night, he insisted that the drums and oboes should play beneath his windows as usual, and he wanted to hear his orchestra of twenty-four violins playing as he ate dinner.
Louis was then left alone with Françoise and her ladies, but he fell asleep during their conversation. When he awoke his mind wandered, which frightened them so much that they sent for the doctors. They took the king’s pulse, which was so weak that they advised him to “make no delay in receiving the sacraments.”
Père Le Tellier arrived with the Cardinal de Rohan, grand almoner of France, and the son of one of Louis’s minor mistresses, the beautiful princesse de Soubise. Père Le Tellier took the king’s confession, while Rohan brought the Holy Sacraments and the sacred oils from the chapel. Throughout the rite, Louis was firm but seemed much moved by what he was doing.
Louis now added a codicil to his will, by which “the whole civil and military household of the king was subjected to the duc du Maine, absolutely and without reserve; and, under his orders, to the Maréchal de Villeroy.” Thus he made them “the sole masters of the person and dwelling of the king, of the city of Paris, of the two regiments of the guards and the two companies of mousquetaires, of the whole service of bedchamber, wardrobe, chapel, kitchens, stables etc.”28 He then added a further five or six lines to the document. When he finished, he asked for a drink. He called Villeroy and a few others, who stood at the door, and spoke to them alone for a quarter of an hour. When he had said all he had to say to them, he summoned his nephew, the duc d’Orléans, to whom he gave all the marks of friendship, esteem, and confidence and assured him that there was nothing in his will that would not please the duc.29
The following day, Louis awoke after another restless night. His leg was dressed and he heard mass in his room, after which he summoned Le Tellier and Rohan to his side and assured them that “he died in the faith and in submission to the Church.” He expressed regret that he had not left the church in better condition, but assured them that he had done all they wished him to do, and that his conscience was clear. He then had dinner in his room, the meal witnessed by all who had the entrée.
When dinner was finished, he requested those present to approach, and he said to them,
Messieurs, I ask your pardon for the bad example I have set you. I have much to thank you for, both for the manner in which you have served me, and for the attachment and fidelity you have always shown. I am very sorry not to have done for you all that I wished to do. The hard times are the reason. I ask of you for my grandson the same devotion, the same fidelity you have always shown to me. Let your example guide the conduct of my other subjects. Follow the orders that my nephew will give you; he will govern the kingdom; I hope he will do it well. I hope also that you will contribute to harmony, and if anyone breaks away from it, that you will endeavor to bring him back . . . I feel that I am moved, and I am moving you; I beg your pardon. Adieu, messieurs, I rely upon the thought that you will sometimes remember me.30
He then said good-bye to the maréchal de Villeroy, after which he asked Mme de Ventadour to bring in the dauphin.
The scene that followed was a mirror of that which had occurred between Louis and his own dying father all those years ago. The little boy, only five years old, approached the bed. Louis took him in his arms and said,
You will soon be the monarch of a great kingdom. What I most strongly enjoin upon you is never to forget your obligations to God. Remember that you owe all that you are to Him. Endeavor to preserve peace with your neighbors. I have been too fond of war; do not imitate me in that, neither in my great extravagance. Take council in all things and always seek to know the best and follow it. Let your first thought be devoted to helping your people, and do what I have had the misfortune not to be able to do myself.31
Louis then called for other members of his family. Wrote Liselotte:
[He bade me] farewell so affectionately that I marvel I did not fall down in a swoon. He assured me that he had always loved me even more than I myself imagined, and that he was sorry he had sometimes caused me sorrow. He asked me to think of him sometimes, adding that he knew I would do so gladly because he was sure that I had always been fond of him. He said also that he gave me his blessing and hoped that I would be happy all my life. I threw myself at his feet, took his hand, and kissed it. Then he embraced me and turned to the others.32
His farewells had been made. Louis now waited to die.
It was at this point that the doctors decided to try a new remedy they had heard of, called scarification. As Maréchal made an incision in the king’s lower leg, Louis assured him that he felt nothin
g at all. Maréchal cut even deeper to see if he could find the seat of the gangrene, upon which Louis cried out that the procedure was hurting him. Although an unpleasant experience, this was a hopeful sign, for it meant that the leg would suppurate and so release some of the poison. After the operation, the leg was wrapped in cloth soaked in corrosive and swathed in linen soaked in camphorated brandy. That afternoon, Françoise came to visit Louis; this was to be the last time husband and wife would speak together. “I had thought it was more difficult to die,” he told her.33
It was during this same afternoon that Louis burned many of the papers that had been kept in a casket in his study. When the surgeons examined the leg later that day, they were dismayed to find that the gangrene had worsened.
Louis spent a disturbed night, during which he prayed often. His attendants saw him beat his breast at the confiteor. That morning, he called Le Tellier to his side, and as the prelate was talking to the king about God, Louis noticed two attendants seated at the foot of his bed silently weeping. “Why do you weep?” he asked them. “Did you think me immortal? I never thought so, and you ought, at my age, to expect to lose me.”34
There was still hope, however. A Provençal, “extremely rough and common,” arrived, claiming that he knew of an elixir from Marseilles that would cure gangrene. Louis was so ill that it was decided to give the medicine a try. Ten drops of this elixir were added to a glass of Alicante wine and administered to the king. Whatever the medicine was, it seemed to work at first, and when the king’s pulse weakened again, they asked him to take a second dose. Louis took the glass, saying, “For life or death, as God pleases.” As Louis was taking the medicine, Françoise withdrew to Saint-Cyr.
Louis began to look much better. His speech improved and his voice was stronger. The peasant, Le Brun, arranged to have a special bouillon made, which was served to the king every hour. Soon Louis was once again managing to eat solid food. Those around the king began to hope that a miracle would occur.
Alas, this proved to be a false dawn, for Louis relapsed the following day, August 30, when he experienced short periods of unconsciousness. Fagon was furious. He called Le Brun a charlatan and told him he was liable to criminal prosecution for giving the king an unknown remedy. The terrified Le Brun fled Versailles, never to be seen again.
At two that afternoon, Françoise arrived from Saint-Cyr, but Louis was in no condition to speak to her. He lay in his bed with his eyes fixed and wide open. Françoise remained for a short while before returning to her retreat at Saint-Cyr.
The next day, August 31, Louis was calm, although the gangrene had consumed his leg as far as the thigh. Françoise, hoping to speak to him one last time, hurried to Versailles, only to find her husband unconscious. That afternoon, Cardinal de Rohan entered the room and began to recite the prayers for the dying. His words filtered through to Louis, who said the responses so loudly that he could be heard above all the voices of the priests. When the cardinal finished his prayers, Louis told him, “These are the last favors of the Church.” Rohan was the last person to whom Louis spoke. He retreated into himself then, quietly muttering the words “Nunc et in hora mortis.” He then added, “Oh, God, come to help me; hasten to succor me!” Those were the last words Louis spoke. He lay unconscious throughout the night.
At just after eight on the morning of Sunday, September 1, 1715,35 four days before his seventy-seventh birthday and in the seventy-second year of his reign, Louis gave a number of short sighs and two gasps. Then quietly, peacefully, Louis XIV—Louis the Great—was dead.
Louis XIV, King of France and Navarre by Charles Le Brun, 1661. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Louis XIII, the father of Louis XIV by Philippe de Champagne, 1655. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Anne of Austria, mother of Louis XIV and regent by Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1620s. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Portrait of Philippe of Orléans, Duke of Orléans (1640–1701) by Antoine Mathieu, c. 1660s. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Cardinal Jules Mazarin, Louis’s godfather and mentor by Pierre Mignard, 1658. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Marie-Thérèse by Jean Nocret, c. 1660. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Louise de La Vallière by Jean Nocret, 1661. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
La Fête Les Plaisirs de l’Ile Enchantée. Courtesy of gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliotheque nationale de France.
Athénaïs de Montespan, artist unknown. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Madame de Maintenon, Louis’s second wife. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Louis XIV in 1673, at the height of his power and glory, after Lefebvre. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Louis XIV by Hyacinthe Rigaud, 1701, which shows the damage caused to Louis’s face by the dental surgery. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Louis XIV and His Family, attributed to Nicolas de Largillière, c. 1710. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Aerial view of the Palace of Versailles, France. Photo © ToucanWings/Wikimedia Commons.
Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors) in the Palace of Versailles, Versailles, France.
Photo © Myrabella / Wikimedia Commons.
Château Marly-le-roi by Pierre-Denis Martin, 1724. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Château de Versailles) / Gérard Blot.w
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