The Sun King

by Nancy Mitford

  Louis XIV thought that he must now make up his mind what to do about ‘the Prince of Wales’; should he or should he not recognize him as King of England at his father’s death? The sensible course, inaction, seems not to have occurred to him: he felt that he must pronounce one way or the other. He called a cabinet meeting at which the ministers were all categorically against recognition. Torcy, his foreign minister, told him that such a step would madden the proud English; and that furthermore, if the child was too obviously the French King’s puppet, his cause would be ruined from the start. Louis would have violated the Treaty of Ryswick — and for what? William III was solidly established on his throne; the only people in Europe who questioned the fact were the exiles at Saint-Germain- en-Laye, a pathetic crew, concerned merely with their own prospects. The King had seldom in his reign taken a decision contrary to the unanimous opinion of his Council. Now he paused. He visited his cousin once or twice, always leaving his carriage and walking across the courtyard at Saint-Germain for fear of disturbing the dying man; but he never raised the topic which was uppermost in everybody’s mind. Mme de Maintenon meanwhile was working on his feelings day and night. Queen Mary of Modena had become one of her dearest friends; she and King James had never snubbed her like Madame, the Dauphine and nearly all the French royal family. She shared the charming Queen’s distress and longed for King James to go in peace. At last Louis heard that his cousin was about to die. He went to Saint-Germain in great state, ordered King James’s courtiers to gather round his bed, and then, too late to be much of a comfort to James who was practically unconscious, he announced his decision: ‘I come to tell Your Majesty that, whenever it shall please God to take you from us I will be to your son what I have been to you, and will acknowledge him as King of England, Scotland and Ireland.’

  Nobody has ever known, because the King as usual never explained, what could have induced him to behave so unwisely. True, the Grand Alliance against him, in view of the Spanish affair, had already been signed; but it is very improbable that the English with their dislike of Continental wars woud have implemented it, had they not been infuriated by this unlucky step. The worst fears of Torcy were now to be realized.

  The Pope wrote a letter, congratulating Louis on so singular a proof of his piety — that, and the melancholy smiles of Mary of Modena were the only satisfaction he ever had from this decision.

  18. MARTIAL NOISES OFF

  Du chagrin le plus noir elle écarte les ombres

  Et fait des jours sereins de mes jours les plus sombres.

  RACINE

  The War of the Spanish Succession, in which Austria, nearly the whole of Germany, Denmark, Holland and England leagued against France and Spain to dethrone Philip V in favour of the Archduke Charles broke out in 1702. William III, the great animator of the Protestant world, was dead; but his policy was carried on for a while by England under Queen Anne. Like all European wars of those days, it was fought with close relations in the opposing camps — Anne against her half-brother, the Pretender, her other half-brother Berwick and her first cousin once removed Louis XIV; Berwick against his uncle the Duke of Marlborough; the Emperor against his brother-in-law and first cousin Louis XIV; Prince Eugène against his first cousin, the Duc de Vendôme; the Duke of Savoy, once he had changed sides, against both his sons-in-law, Bourgogne and the King of Spain.

  For Louis, the news from the front, not too bad at first, was soon punctuated by such desperate defeats as Blenheim, Ramillies, the French retreat from Italy, the fall of Madrid. The large sum of money in his coffers, referred to by Portland, soon melted away. Trade ground to a standstill, the army was expected to perform miracles without pay, without organization, almost without food. Colbert and Louvois might never have existed, their work was so diminished in a few years.

  With all this rumbling in the background, life at Versailles went on exactly as usual. A few days after the news of Blenheim there were fêtes at Marly and fireworks in Paris to celebrate the birth of a son to the Duc and Duchesse de Bourgogne. There were continual parties and balls at which the couriers were encouraged to dress richly and the princess to sparkle in all their diamonds. The gambling, which Louis XIV had formerly discouraged in wartime, was high because the Duchesse de Bourgogne liked that. The King only put in short appearances, now, at Appartement; he was really governing by himself, working nine or ten hours a day. He directed operations at the front, thus making unnecessary difficulties for his generals, who had to wait for a reply when in doubt as to what they were meant to do; he read every one of their dispatches as well as all his ambassadors’ reports from foreign capitals; he continually gave audiences.

  Most of the work was done in Mme de Maintenon’s bedroom. In the evening she would be undressed in front of any minister who happened to be present and put into bed. As the hours went on she sometimes longed for a certain article of bedroom china, and then simply had to wait until the men had gone away. When at last they had said goodnight she used to sigh to her maid, who came to pull the curtains, ‘I have only time to tell you that I am done for’. She wrote to the Bishop of Chartres to say that she was extremely tired and to ask whether she might not now refuse to go to bed with the King twice a day: ‘These painful occasions’, she said, were really too much for her. Godet des Marais replied he would indeed have preferred to see her in the state of virginity of Jesus Christ’s wives, but that it was a work of great purity to preserve the King from sins and scandals into which he might fall. Soon, he reminded her, she would be in heaven, able to follow the Lamb.

  Both the King and Mme de Maintenon knew that there was somebody at Versailles spying for the English. Mme de Maintenon thought he was probably in an important position at Court. What Sir Winston Churchill calls ‘this deadly personage’ certainly sent highly-coloured accounts of their domestic life to the Duke of Marlborough — his identity remains mysterious.

  At Court, now that the King had retired into the wings, the Duchesse de Bourgogne was the star. When she first grew up, she gave every sign of being a deplorable person; she lived frankly for pleasure, was unkind to her husband and to older women, vile to her aunts. She would tease them until they could not help letting out some disagreeable observation upon which she would perform a series of pirouettes: ‘I don’t care what they think and I shall be their Queen!’ She spent half her life in fancy dress as Flora, or a sultana, or an old beggar woman or a dairy maid. When the weather was warm, she bathed in the river and slept in a tent on the bank. Sometimes she was several weeks without seeing the light of day; she would dance all night, go to Paris to sup at Les Halles, then to Mass at St Eustache, back to Versailles in time to kiss the King good morning. Though she had a beautiful body and complexion, and walked like a goddess, her face was really ugly. She cared not a rap. She took no trouble over her appearance, and the other women at Court were amazed to see how quickly she dressed.

  The usual staid royal manner was not affected by Marie-Adélaïde; when walking in the park she would take the arm of one lady-in-waiting and dance along preceded by the others, so that (Madame said, disapprovingly), how could a stranger guess who was in the company? ‘It’s not like a Court here nowadays.’ She describes Marie-Adélaïde ‘bounding into my room’ to announce the marriage of her brother-in-law, the Duc de Berri, with Madame’s granddaughter; this was such a joy to the old lady that she quite forgave the bounding. Berri was the Duchess’s pet, her little page. He spent his life with her and her ladies, winding their wool, running their errands, laughing all the time. Everybody loved him, even Madame, though she could not approve of his tenue. Anjou having renounced the French throne when he accepted the Spanish, Berri was next in succession to Bourgogne, but nobody would have thought so by his behaviour. When treated as an important person he was amazed and hardly knew how to respond. He had no notion of etiquette and precedence and fled from ceremonies. He was sent by the King to address the Paris Parlement; when he was on his feet he dried up completely; the President had to come t
o his rescue; the whole thing was painful. Back at Versailles somebody who had not heard what had happened congratulated him on his speech — the poor fellow burst into tears. His talent was for outdoor sports, he was an excellent rider and an extraordinary shot — he could bring down pheasants with a pistol.

  In 1700 Mme du Lude asked permission to enter the King’s cabinet during the council of state, and announced that she had seen something at the Duchesse de Bourgogne’s toilette which meant that she was now ready to have a child. Bourgogne had fallen furiously in love as soon as they were man and wife, so much so that he embarrassed the bystanders, and Marie-Adélaïde even more. Since he was in every other way remarkably sober, as calm and well behaved as his wife was rampageous, this amorous behaviour surprised everybody. The Duchess often said she was sorry that she made him such an unsuitable wife — he would have done better to have married a Grey Sister. But she never let him see that he loved her more than she loved him. She had various fancies of her own. First there was the Marquis de Nangis, the most fashionable young man at the Court. He, though flattered and touched that she should have singled him out, was in love with one of her ladies, Mme de La Vrillière. In fact he found himself in the same case as the Vidame de Chartres in La Princesse de Clèves and many of the situations described in that book were re-enacted in real life. After a while the Duchess switched her affections to the Marquis de Maulévrier, a friend of Nangis, and their attachment gave rise to comic scenes worthy of Feydeau. So that he could stay with his love instead of going to the front, Maulévrier pretended to have tuberculosis and to have lost his voice. This also gave him an excuse for whispering into Marie-Adélaïde’s ear when they were in company together. Soon, everybody except the King and Bourgogne knew what was going on. Fagon, prompted, most likely, by Mme de Maintenon, took it upon himself to end the affair; he sent for Maulévrier, examined him, shook his old head and pronounced that the only, very slight hope of a cure would be for Maulévrier to go to Spain. Fagon’s word was law: to Spain he went. After that the Abbé de Polignac was loved for a while until his superiors sent him to Rome.

  The King’s adoration for Marie-Adélaïde never altered. She still ran in and out of his room a hundred times a day, as she had done when she was a little girl, and each time had something funny to tell him or found some way of distracting him when he was low. Formerly such a martinet for behaviour, he never scolded her for her fantasies and escapades; when she was not present at his supper table he was sad but not angry. Nanon, Mme de Maintenon’s maid, gave the Duchess an enema standing up in front of the fireplace when they were all ready to go to the play. ‘What’s Nanon doing to you?’ said the King and only burst out laughing when he was told. (She held it, says Saint-Simon, all through an Italian comedy.) Louis did once say to Mme de Maintenon ‘surely a dinner party, a hunt, a riding party and a banquet are enough for one day without playing cards as well!’ He said he would speak to ‘those gentlemen her friends’. But he never did speak. His indulgence was remarkable, when it is remembered that his ideal of a woman and a queen was the exquisitely polished Anne of Austria. He tried to make the Duchess have a day for receiving the ambassadors but seemed not to mind when nothing came of the idea. However, on one point he was firm. He insisted that she should communicate five times a year. The courtiers thought this must have been awkward, at her age.

  Mme de Maintenon could be quite severe. Once, when the King was out of the room, the Duchess began rummaging about among his papers. Mme de Maintenon told her to stop; she paid no attention. Presently she came across a letter, in which she spied her own name, from Mme d’Espinay, a Princess of Lorraine and great friend of the Dauphin’s. ‘What’s that, Mignonne?’ said Mme de Maintenon, ‘and what’s the matter with you?’ The Duchess showed her the letter. ‘That’s what comes of being so curious. One sometimes finds things one doesn’t quite like—’ then, in a different voice, ‘read the whole of it and if you’re wise you’ll profit by it.’ The letter was an hour by hour report of Marie-Adélaïde’s doings of the past few days. There was a good deal about Nangis, with many intrigues and imprudences. The Duchess was fit to faint. Then Mme de Maintenon gave her a talking-to which she was not likely to forget. She told her that everybody at Versailles always knew what was going on there and that she, Mme de Maintenon, had reports from all kinds of people on Marie-Adélaïde’s behaviour.

  Perhaps owing to her flightiness and the fact that she was always over-tired, the Duchesse de Bourgogne only had her first baby in 1704. He died a few months later. The parents behaved beautifully — she, good and resigned, while the Duke, like Abraham, offered up his son as a sacrifice. The King, though sadly disappointed, tried to be pleased for the sake of the child, now in eternal bliss. By degrees, as she grew older, Marie-Adélaïde’s nature changed. Public and private misfortunes sobered her. When her father betrayed his French allies she was perfectly dignified, considering herself as a Frenchwoman, while never forgetting the country she still loved, though she had left it at the age of twelve. From having been indifferent to the point of disliking her husband, she became a devoted wife. She rallied fiercely to him when he had a period of bad luck. True, she was always a tease. Once she told Mme de La Vrillière to get into her bed and then said to Bourgogne that she was sleepy. As he loved going to bed early and she never would, he was delighted — went off to undress in a hurry — came into her room where she was out of sight. ‘Where is Madame?’ ‘Here I am,’ she said, as though in bed. He threw off his dressing-gown and jumped in. Up came the Duchess. ‘What is all this? You’re for ever pretending to be such a saint and now I find you in bed with the most beautiful woman in France!’ Bourgogne threw himself on Mme de La Vrillière and beat her, so that she had to flee without her slippers.

  The Duchess is easy to know, neither her virtues nor her vices surprise us. But her husband is one of those historical enigmas, an heir to a throne who died too soon to succeed. How would he have turned out? From the Black Prince onward such young men have generally had a good press. Some of Bourgogne’s contemporaries thought that he was going to be a perfect king, a second St Louis. As a small child he was exceptionally violent and naughty; he could not bear to be thwarted; had been known to break a clock when the hour struck for him to do something that bored him; would scream at the rain if it stopped him from going out. He was very unkind about people, shrewd in knowing their weak points. After Fénelon had taken charge of him he changed amazingly, becoming as good as gold. He himself put this down to religion and indeed the turning point seems to have been his first communion. He was brought up by Fénelon and Beauvilliers like a monk, with little knowledge of the world or of how to behave in polite society. He never realized, until Madame told him, that he had a German mother. People noted with amazement that he knew the geography of France better than that of the forests round Versailles. Indeed, he did not care for hunting. He went about the Court with a melancholy and disapproving air, letting the courtiers see that he regarded them as so many lost souls. When he went to Paris it was not for pleasure and amusement but to see a man’s brain dissected or to hear a thesis at the Sorbonne. He was for ever at Holy Communion, dressed in his robes of the Saint-Esprit to do honour to the Sacrament. He knew Latin and was fond of history — he told the Abbé de Choisy that he had read his life of Charles V (of France) several times. When Choisy was engaged on his next book, Charles VI, he asked him, in a disingenuous way, how he would manage to convey the fact that Charles VI was mad? ‘Monseigneur, I shall say that he was mad.’

  When Bourgogne was sixteen, Anjou fifteen and Berri thirteen, Spanheim summed up the characters of the brothers and the Duchesse de Bourgogne thus:

  Bourgogne, a masterpiece. Delicate health. Very gay but not very chatty. Loves to study science, languages, philosophy, mathematics and history ancient and modern. Excellent memory. Never cared for games even as a child. Rather proud and intimidating.

  Anjou, sweeter nature and also a clever boy. People prefer him to Bourgog
ne.

  Berri, very chatty, lively and full of promise.

  Duchesse de Bourgogne. Sharp and spiteful. Hates Mme de Lude and makes her life a burden. She and Bourgogne completely indifferent to each other. Servile to Mme de Maintenon.

  Bourgogne’s letters show an amazing piety, they could have been written by a Victorian clergyman; they have no spark of the originality, gift for language and nobility which inform every one of his grandfather’s utterances. He greatly disapproved of his father. When the latter nearly died from eating too much fish, Bourgogne hoped that God would take advantage of this illness to make him lead a better life in future. The Duchess fell ill; he wondered what he had done to displease the Almighty; when she got better he made all sorts of good resolutions. He had a faithful, affectionate nature; he never forgot Fénelon though he hardly saw him again after the disgrace (once or twice on his way to the front); he loved his brothers very much and worshipped his wife. Physically he was far from attractive, thin from too much fasting, short, almost hump-backed, often ill. At that time it seemed unlikely that he would make a great king of France. However, Louis XIV placed high hopes on him and admitted him to his Council when hardly out of his teens.