The Sun King

by Nancy Mitford

  At last the King returned from the front. Bossuet, who had heard certain disturbing rumours, went, religious grief written all over his face, to meet him on the road, only to hear from his own lips that Mme de Montespan’s rooms at Versailles were indeed being prepared for her. The Bishop was not much reassured when Louis added something about living together in Christian chastity. In fact, the desires of a returning warrior, excited by Galet’s splendid powders, soon undid the work of Mme de Maintenon and the divines. The King arranged to meet Athénaïs in the presence of respectable, elderly women of the Court, who were to witness the transformation of love into friendship. The two former lovers began by exchanging a few platitudes for all to hear, but then they went over to a window embrasure, away from the crowd. They were both seen to be crying. Suddenly he led her to the door of her bedroom; they bowed to the company and disappeared. After that, everything was perfect, though the King, for some unaccountable reason, began to have appalling headaches.

  On 29 July 1676, Mme de Sévigné spent a day at Versailles and wrote an account of it to her daughter, Mme de Grignan. She went down with the Villars: first they assisted at the Queen’s toilette; went to Mass and then watched the royal dinner. At three o’clock everybody assembled in the Grand Appartement. The King, the Queen, Monsieur and Madame with Monsieur’s eldest daughter, Mme de Montespan and her people, all the courtiers, all the ladies — in other words, the Court of France — were in these beautiful rooms. It was not the least bit too hot; you wandered about as you liked, no feeling of being crowded. The King was with Mme de Montespan who was taking cards; the Queen, at her own table, had Monsieur, Mme de Soubise, Dangeau and Co., Langlée and Co., all playing with gold louis and no counters — a thousand louis were on the table. Dangeau let Mme de Sévigné sit by him so that she was very comfortable and she watched him and saw how badly everybody else played compared to him. He never looked up from the game — was completely concentrated — never missed a trick or let the smallest opportunity escape him, so that luck or no luck he couldn’t help winning — the proof was that he had been credited in the book with ten thousand louis in ten days.

  Mme de Sévigné curtseyed to the King in the way Mme de Grignan had shown her — had she been young and pretty he could not have responded more kindly. The Queen asked how she was after her illness and talked about it at length with as much interest as if it had been childbirth. In fact everybody had a kind word for her.

  Mme de Nevers is very pretty and modest — M. de Nevers has not changed a bit but his wife is madly in love with him. Her sister, Mlle de Thianges, is more beautiful but not so nice. M. du Maine is incomparable, so funny and clever and says such unexpected things. Mme de Maintenon and Mme de Thianges together are like the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Madame most friendly. Mme de Montespan talked of the cure she was doing at Bourbon and asked about Vichy. She said she took one bad knee to Bourbon and came away with two. Her back is perfectly straight and her looks are amazing. She is half the size she was but neither her skin, her eyes nor her mouth are any the worse for that. Her dress was of French needlepoint lace, her hair in a thousand curls done up with black ribbons; she wore huge diamonds and enormous pearls — in short a triumphant beauty to dazzle the ambassadors. She knows that people have felt she prevented them from seeing the King, so here he is, she has given him back to them — Mme de Grignan can’t imagine how gay and beautiful it all was. So all this charming, easygoing yet orderly confusion of the cream of society lasted from three till six. The post arrived in the middle of it and the King went off to read his letters, but he soon reappeared. There was music all the time. At six o’clock the gambling stopped — no need to bother with accounts as they were playing with gold. Then everybody got into carriages — the King, Mme de Montespan, Mme de Thianges and Monsieur in one, the Queen and the Princesses in another followed by all the rest. From six to ten the whole company floated on the canal in gondolas to the music of a band. At ten o’clock the play began and at midnight there was supper. So passes a Saturday at Versailles.

  Mme de Maintenon had returned to the Court, leading du Maine by the hand. He was better, could walk alone and much bigger. The King was delighted to see them both and gratified by the reception his little boy had had in the provinces, but Athénaïs was not so pleased to find Mme de Maintenon at her elbow again. Mme de Maintenon herself complained to her confessor, the Abbé Gobelin: ‘I can’t believe that it is really God’s will that I should have to put up with Mme de Montespan — she is incapable of friendship.’ She said that whatever rules she made for the children were immediately reversed by their mother. Mme de Maintenon also complained to the King, who took her part — Athénaïs naturally found this unendurable and furiously reproached them both. Then she knew that they went away and talked about her behind her back, so she made more scenes. She was no Louise de La Vallière to bear everything, a slow trickling tear her only form of protest.

  Very soon the whole world was talking about the two women, their quarrels and their reconciliations. These were astonishingly frequent because in fact the Marquises were fascinated by each other. When it seemed as if they had broken for ever, Mme de Maintenon would go and stay at Clagny or Athénaïs at Maintenon. This old château-fort was being modernized; and the King sent Le Nôtre to see what he could do with the garden. Having inspected the improvements in each other’s houses, apparently on the best of terms, the two women would come back to the Court and refuse to speak to each other. On one occasion, after many scenes and sulks, they were obliged to travel from Versailles to Fontainebleau together alone in a coach. Athénaïs, settling herself comfortably for the long drive, said ‘Do let’s forget everything and chat as we used to — might as well enjoy ourselves while we can’. They laughed the whole way, but after their arrival were on the same bad terms as before — worse, indeed, because the King made Mme de Maintenon tell Athénaïs that she had better begin thinking about her salvation. Nothing loath, she did tell her, to be rewarded by a storm of insults. She said this was most unfair; Athénaïs ought to be grateful for being rescued from the results of her irregular life — she seemed not to like her old friend any more. To say that she did not like her was putting it mildly; the mere sight of Mme de Maintenon now made Athénaïs choke and secrete black bile.

  At the end of 1676 they were both worried about the King, who seemed to have lost interest in them and had become startlingly promiscuous. He had always been inclined to go to bed with any woman who was handy, had done so in Athénaïs’s own antechamber, if she kept him waiting, with her maid Mlle des Oeillets or with Mme de Thianges, but such passing fancies, all in the family so to speak, had never bothered anybody and the public knew nothing of them. Now he threw caution to the winds and had a series of violent, unexpected and costly love affairs in the full light of day: a pretty face seemed able to do anything with him. Mme de Sévigné said one smelt fresh meat at Mme de Montespan’s — her star was setting — there were tears and grief mingled with affected gaiety. Princesse de Soubise, beautiful and dull, was in love with her husband, the head of the great Armorican Rohan family. He was poor; she longed to be of some practical use to him. So she encouraged him to go and look after his estates and as soon as his back was turned she put on her emerald earrings, a pre-arranged signal which showed the King that the coast was clear. The result was that the Soubises became enormously rich and built the lovely house which is one of the glories of Paris to this day. The King’s affair with Mme de Soubise lasted off and on, always rather tepid because she bored him, for several years. She lost a front tooth; she seemed not to mind but the effect was odd and after that there was less talk about her and Louis. Then she got King’s Evil, but not, it was said, for want of having been touched by the King. They always remained on friendly terms; her son, Cardinal de Rohan, was most probably the fruit of this attachment.

  Meanwhile various other women had turns and the next major upset was caused by Mme de Ludres, a maid of honour from Madame’s nursery gard
en who, having taken religious vows, was called Madame, not Mademoiselle. She was quite lovely and had been the mistress of Vivonne. The Queen noticed that when Mme de Ludres came into a room the Duchesses present rose to their feet, although she was an unmarried nobody, while Mme de Thianges was extremely rude to her. All this could only mean one thing.

  Mme de Maintenon sulked but Mme de Montespan acted — she sent for Mme Voisin. She may have resorted to Black Mass — in any case Mme Voisin was keenly working on her problem. The two Marquises retired to Maintenon together. Athénaïs, in the family way as usual, was out of spirits and Mme de Maintenon not at all kind to her; a certain coldness which was part of her character was in evidence during the whole visit. She and her guest went to church a great deal, and Mme de Maintenon told a correspondent that people thought she was trying to bring Athénaïs to God. ‘I would like to, but am not hopeful. There is another heart, of better quality, of which I have greater expectations.’ This was not the view at Court; the King seemed well on the way to becoming a dirty old man.

  Athénaïs was brought to bed, at Maintenon, of the future Duchesse d’Orléans, the ‘Jubilee Baby’. Meanwhile the King had gone to join the army and nobody doubted that this time her sun had set for good and all. She thought to herself and awaited his return in a mood of unusual pessimism. She was anxious to get Mme de Maintenon and the little boy out of the way — they were going to the Pyrenees again for du Maine to do another cure — so as to have the King to herself without the eye of the governess ever upon them. Her holy influence seemed to be directed, most unfairly, against Athénaïs more than against the temporary mistress. However, Mme de Maintenon elected to stay; she said du Maine must embrace his father before such a long journey. So she was obliged to witness the displeasing spectacle of Athénaïs victorious, happy and glorious, for, to the general amazement, the King suddenly seemed more in love with her than he had ever been before. Mme Voisin had worked very successfully indeed.

  ‘What a triumph at Versailles!’ Mme de Sévigné wrote to her daughter. ‘What redoubled pride! What a solid establishment! What a Duchesse de Valentinois [Diane de Poitiers] . . . I was an hour in her room; she was on her bed, dressed and her hair done up, resting before supper. I gave her your messages, she was all sweetness and praise; her sister was happily teasing poor Mme de Ludres and laughing at her for daring to complain. Just imagine how pride without generosity can act in a moment of exultation and you will be in the picture.’ During the next weeks she said that Athénaïs and the King were behaving as they used to at the beginning. ‘Mme de Montespan was covered with diamonds the other day, such a brilliant divinity that one’s eyes dazzled. The attachment seems stronger than it has ever been; they’re at the stage when people can’t stop looking at each other. There can never have been another example on this earth of love starting again like theirs.’

  Athénaïs was in luck. She gambled for huge stakes every evening and she always won. In Paris as at Versailles nobody could talk of anything but this amazing turn of affairs.

  The governess and her charge went to Barèges. Everybody loved this little boy for his jokes and high spirits and his sayings were much repeated by the courtiers. He had been forbidden to call Louis XIV ‘Papa’. One evening when the royal family were all supping in gondolas he drank a lot of red wine and then, making his gondolier row him over to the King, he called out at the top of his voice: ‘Long live the King my father!’ Screaming with guilty laughter he then flung himself into the arms of Mme de Maintenon. While they were at Barèges she collected some essays and letters he had written and had them printed, an edition of seven copies, in a little volume called Works of a Seven Year Old Author. The title page bears no date; the book is dedicated to Mme de Montespan and the letters are to her and the King.

  Barèges 1677. I was so happy, ‘Belle Madame’, when I saw that you hadn’t forgotten your ‘Mignon’. You know how much I love getting letters and I’m enchanted to have one in your beautiful writing, full of kisses for me. I’m going to write to little de Rochefort but I’ve begun by you because my heart tells me many things for you. Pray, Madame, don’t let the King forget the ‘Mignon’.

  Barèges 1677. I was jealous, Sire, of the letter you did Mme de Maintenon the honour of writing to her; I so long for signs of your friendship that I can’t bear you to give them to other people. ‘Belle Madame’s’ letter makes me anxious to keep up the reputation I flatter myself I have got, since there is nothing in the world I want so much as to please Your Majesty.

  Barèges 1677. I have received a letter from the King which fills me with transports of joy; nothing could be more obliging. I shall not do as you did when at Maintenon [at the time of Mme de Ludres] you burnt one from him . . . Adieu, Madame, I love you passionately.

  Barèges 1677. Thank you humbly, ‘Belle Madame’, for the goodness you have shown my wet-nurse, please continue it, she is a woman I love very much. Mme de Maintenon says you have taken her to Fontainebleau and I am very happy that you have . . . I want to ask you another favour, may they stop dressing me in skirts? I should walk much better so I beg you to allow this, ‘Belle Madame’.

  Barèges 1677. Mme de Maintenon spends all day netting and if one allowed her to she would spend the whole night at it, or else writing. She works every day to make me clever, she hopes to succeed and so does the ‘Mignon’ who studies as hard as he can, since he dies to please you and the King. I read the Life of Caesar on the way here, also Alexander’s and yesterday I began Pompey. Mme de Maintenon had migraine and only got up for Mass. M. Fagon [the King’s doctor] scalded me yesterday in the little bath; I do hope he will be more moderate another time and not make me scream so loudly. The tartufferie of our chaplain continues and will divert you when he gets back. I am the man who loves you most in all the world.

  Indeed he seems to have worshipped his mother at this time: ‘my dearest heart, my dear child, you were as beautiful as an angel’ and so on. But it was Mme de Maintenon who did everything for him. When he was taken away from her, at the late age of ten, and handed over to a male governor, she advised about his health which she understood so well. Don’t make him eat when he is not hungry; try and stop him from over-eating at night. He should have several different kinds of soup; not too much meat; plenty of raw fruit and no sweets between meals. His teeth are so bad that he is not very fond of dry bread. Plenty of fresh air is necessary for him and at least nine hours’ sleep.

  In 1678 du Maine wrote to the King from Saint-Germain:

  I was sad, Sire, to see you go so soon and I shall never forget the honour of the look Your Majesty gave me on leaving. The courtyard is melancholy and our lodgings even more so since you are here no more; I ardently desire the return of Your Majesty. The ‘Mignon’.

  The King, the Queen and Mme de Montespan and no other women at all had gone to the siege of Ghent. Athénaïs left the party after a few weeks and retired to Clagny to bring the Comte de Toulouse into the world. Mme de Maintenon was so disapproving about the appearance of the two last babies, Toulouse and his sister, that the King did not dare ask her to look after them and they were handed over to Mme de Louvois.

  Sad to relate, after this birth Athénaïs definitely lost her power over the King. She grew enormously fat and, in spite of two or three hours of massage every day, it was seen, when she got out of her coach, that each of her legs was the size of a thin man. She was always inclined to be blowsy, now she used too much scent, which the King hated. He was so used to her, so proud of her and so much amused by her; she was such a help to him in holding his Court and such an integral part of Court life, that none of this, probably, would have mattered had she been amiable. Her tempers had become truly appalling. She still had her flat next to the King’s and he still spent a good deal of time there with her, but the courtiers could walk with impunity under the windows now. The two of them never sat any more looking to see who went by and with whom, laughing, probably mocking, happy and in love. Inside the gilded rooms there
were tears and angry reproaches. He hated scenes, which embarrassed and upset him — he went to Mme de Maintenon more and more for a little peace. The relations of the two women again became as bad as they could be, Athénaïs attributing her troubles to this viper she had nourished in her bosom.

  People were now talking about Mme de Maintenant. His incomprehensible attachment to a woman of forty, three years older than Louis and so much unlike the usual run of his fancies, was explained in various ways by the courtiers. Some thought she was helping him to write his memoirs, some that she was a confidante and some that she procured young girls for him. It never occurred to anybody for a single minute that he might be falling in love with her.

  In the winter of 1678–9 an incomparable flower appeared in Madame’s nursery garden, her new lady-in-waiting, Mlle de Fontanges. This physically gorgeous but mentally pathetic creature saw herself as the heroine of a romantic tale; the King was her knight and she was determined to be his lady-love. As she was the greatest beauty to have appeared at Court within living memory she had no difficulty at all in realizing her ambition. The King slept with her almost at once, keeping the affair a deadly secret, chiefly on account of Mesdames de Maintenon and de Montespan. He encouraged Athénaïs to spend her time and his money at a new game called Bassette, so that she would not notice what he was up to. Mlle de Fontanges was lodged in a little room near his own and during the day he pretended not to know her. This state of affairs did not last. Like Mlle de La Vallière, whom she resembled in many ways (they both came from comparatively humble country families) she was a first-class rider; she went out with the King’s pack of hounds and then it was soon noticed that he never left her side. When her hat was swept off one day by the branch of a tree, she tied up her golden locks with a ribbon and thus set a fashion in hairdressing for many years to come. The King was completely enslaved. Very soon she was ordering him about in a way no other woman had ever dared to. She went to Mass in a dress of the same stuff as his coat, both wearing turquoise ribbons; in church she and Mme de Montespan sat one on each side of the altar, vying with each other in the fervour of their prayers, their four huge blue eyes rolling towards heaven. Mlle de Fontanges was made a duchess and declared mistress in record time.