Athenais: The Life of Louis XIV's Mistress, the Real Queen of France

by Hilton, Lisa

  Du Maine was Louis’s favorite child, far more attractive and appealing than the lumpen Grand Dauphin, who had inherited all his mother’s charm, and La Maintenon was shrewd enough to exploit her proximity to the boy to improve her standing with his father. Athénaïs was by no means a neglectful or disinterested mother, but as we have seen, her court duties left her little time for childcare, and Louis was selfish enough to insist that he always come first. It must have seemed very unfair that he was then so pleased to discuss Du Maine with La Maintenon. She seems to have loved the child for his own sake, and was a painstaking and encouraging tutor, improving Du Maine’s confidence so that he was easy and funny with adults, unlike his legitimate half-brother, who had had any natural vivacity he may have possessed whacked out of him by Bossuet. Louis was proud of Du Maine, and La Maintenon lost no opportunity to lavish delicate flatteries on this small extension of the King’s person.

  Of these, one of the most effective was the little book of Du Maine’s letters presented to Athénaïs as a New Year gift. It is hard to believe that such an intelligent man as Louis was fooled by such a crass attempt at manipulation, but then, literary criticism was never his strong point. Mme. de Maintenon had schooled her pupil well in damning his mother with faint praise, while at the same time emphasizing her own good influence. The little boy was forbidden to address the King as “Papa,” although on one occasion at a boating party he was given too much red wine, and had his gondolier row up to Louis, whereupon he shouted: “Long live the King my father!” before collapsing in giggles into his governess’s arms. His affection for this distant, awe-inspiring man is certainly touching: “I was jealous, Sire, of the letter you did Mme. de Maintenon the honor of writing to her; I so long for signs of your friendship that I can’t bear you to give them to other people” (Barèges, 1677), but he also reports disingenuously on his mother’s peccadillos: “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 [during the brief reign of La Ludres] you burnt one from him” (Barèges, 1677). Again, to Athénaïs: “I was inconsolable to see you depart today [for the siege of Ghent]. The King did me the honor to look at me, as he left the chapel, I was delighted with the little sign he made with his head, but afflicted by his departure, and for you, Madame, very unhappy that you seemed to me to be hardly bothered.” On one occasion, when Louis was questioning the child on his lessons, and well satisfied with his answers, he praised his son’s good sense. “I ought to be reasonable,” answered the little Duc studiedly, “since I have a lady around me who is reason itself.”8 Louis was pleased enough to give Du Maine 1,000 francs as a gift for his wise teacher.

  To make matters worse as far as Athénaïs was concerned, La Main-tenon remained infuriatingly attractive, whereas Athénaïs, at thirty-nine, was beginning to lose her looks. In fact, since the birth of the Comte de Toulouse, the sexual passion between her and the King — that powerful, anarchic constant in their relationship — had been dying. Nine pregnancies had taken their toll on Athénaïs’s figure, and her natural tendency to greed led her to overeat to console herself for his waning interest. She put on a lot of weight, which La Maintenon was quick to remark upon: “Mme. de Montespan has fattened by a foot since you saw her, she is astonishing,” she reported spitefully to a correspondent. The governess was not alone in her derogatory observations on the favorite’s Junoesque curves. On seeing Athénaïs getting out of her carriage, Primi Visconti reported that her legs were so fat, one of them was the size of his torso (to be fair, he added gallantly, “I have recently lost weight”).

  Mme. de Maintenon, too, was plumper, but a little extra weight suited her full bosom and beautiful vellum skin. Though five years older than Athénaïs, she had retained a fresh, serene beauty, and her eyes were as bright and clear as ever. Athénaïs, by contrast, exhausted herself with the frenzied distractions of the bassette table, and, for the first time, appeared to be drinking as well as eating too much. She was under strain, and it was manifest in her looks that her confidence and her energy were evaporating.

  If alcoholism is a family trait, it may well have been that Athénaïs struggled with the affliction, for her daughters, and particularly her granddaughter the Duchesse de Berry, scandalized polite society with their drinking. The Duchesse, the daughter of the former Mlle. de Blois, “resembled her grandmother Mme. de Montespan in her eloquence, her embonpoint, her drinking, her sexuality,”9 and was the black sheep of the royal family, dying aged twenty-four after a life of alcohol, gluttony and promiscuity (the latter most notoriously, it was rumored, involving her own father). Only six weeks after her wedding to the youngest son of the Grand Dauphin, she had to be carried speechless and incontinent with drink from a party at St. Cloud. Both of her aunts, Athénaïs’s other daughters, were known to be hard drinkers, “as drunk as a bellringer” three or four times a week in their teens, and they often interrupted their endless competitive sniping to carouse together.10 Athénaïs herself gave up alcohol at the end of her life, but in this difficult period, she may well have turned to the bottle, which would explain the increased ferocity of her temper, as well perhaps, as the fits of “vapors” which kept her to her rooms for days. Alcohol may also have contributed to the sad ruination of her figure. Mme. de Maintenon’s charm might have been quieter than Athénaïs’s once-radiant beauty, but it seemed to be more enduring. “It was difficult to see her often without developing an inclination for her,” wrote the Abbé de Choisy,11 while the diarist Saint-Simon commented on her “incomparable grace.”

  Louis was still so attached to Athénaïs, so proud of her, and so accustomed to her presence at the center of the court, that she perhaps had less need than she perceived to feel threatened. But sadly, along with her looks, Athénaïs seemed to be losing her judgment, and with it her temper. As 1679 drew on without any sign of the King returning to her bed, she began to punish him with furious tantrums, allowing herself to forget that he hated scenes of any kind. Louis continued to spend a good deal of time in her rooms, but rather than being amused by her conversation he had to endure nagging, screaming and fits of tears. When he withdrew to the tranquillity of La Maintenon’s apartment, Athénaïs felt neglected and wronged and redoubled her fury, succeeding only in driving him further away. She was mystified by the appeal of this quiet, secretive woman, and her bemusement was shared by the courtiers, who put about rumors that La Maintenon was taking dictation of the King’s memoirs, or even that she was a secret procuress who obtained young girls for him. The more perceptive among them, though, had taken to calling her Mme. de Maintenant.12

  Whatever the attraction, Mme. de Maintenon seemed to be steadily displacing the maîtresse en titre. “We are talking of changes in love at court,” wrote one of Bussy-Rabutin’s correspondents. “Time will make things clear.”13

  Clarification came in the form of Marie-Angélique de Scorailles de Roussille, Demoiselle de Fontanges. “Belle comme une ange” was the obvious, and apposite, pun on her name, since she was the most beautiful creature the court had ever seen. The stand-off between Athénaïs and La Maintenon was suddenly eclipsed by a new passion which appeared to threaten them equally.

  Angélique, like most of Louis’s women, was a gorgeous blond, eighteen years old, slender and delicate with huge grey eyes and a beautiful set of teeth (in itself a sufficient qualification for beauty at the time). “One could see nothing more marvelous,” conceded Madame, who had no patience for pretty women. Like Louise de La Vallière, Angélique came from the petite noblesse. Her family, who lived in Auvergne, realizing that their beautiful daughter was a great asset, had raised enough money to send her to court with the unspoken yet precise aim of replenishing the family coffers from the royal bed. Angélique made her ambition quite clear in recounting a dream to her new mistress, Madame. She dreamed that she climbed a high mountain, and when she reached the summit, she was dazzled by a brilliant cloud, then she found herself in such p
rofound darkness that she awoke in fear. The dream was interpreted by a monk, who warned Angélique that the mountain represented the court, where she would arrive in great but short-lived state. “If you abandon God,” he told her, “He will abandon you, and you will live in shadow forever.” This monk was not the only religious soul to be alarmed by Angélique’s dazzling vision. On 17 March 1679, Mme. de Maintenon wrote to her confessor, the Abbé Gobelin, using remarkably similar imagery: “I beg you to pray for the King, who is on the brink of a great precipice.” It was Athénaïs who, in a terrible error of judgment, pushed him over the edge.

  Desperate to distract Louis from his increasing interest in Mme. de Maintenon, Athénaïs drew his attention towards the beautiful young Fontanges girl. She believed that this foolish little provincial would be another Mme. de Ludres, a passing fancy easily controlled and easily disposed of. One evening she pointed the girl out to Louis at Appartement, remarking casually, “Look, Sire, here is a beautiful statue; seeing her I asked myself lately if she came from the chisel of Girardon, and I was surprised when I was told that she is living!”

  “A statue, perhaps,” replied Louis, “but Good God, what a beautiful creature!”

  At first, the King seemed almost shy of expressing his admiration for La Fontanges, joking that here was a wolf who would not eat him, but before long he had given the Duc de la Rochefoucauld a pearl necklace and earrings to present to her, a clear indication that he planned to make her his mistress. Athénaïs had calculated badly. Louis was no longer the handsome, shy young man she had drawn out and encouraged, but a mature monarch of forty-six who, like many middle-aged men, was all too ready to fall head over heels for an exquisite young girl. The very security of Athénaïs’s position, and the splendid domesticity she had established with her children at Clagny, diluted some of her erotic appeal, and as Louis moved into middle age, he was anxious to test his virility on younger, more quiescent flesh. One autumn evening, while Athénaïs was safely occupied at the bassette table, he retired discreetly to his carriage, accompanied only by his bodyguards, and drove to the Palais Royal, Monsieur’s Paris residence, where an accomplice named Mlle. des Adrets showed him to Angélique’s room. For all her apparent innocence, it appears that Angélique was not without a few erotic wiles of her own. She knew to resist just enough to make the conquest more delicious, how to abandon herself with a reluctance at once charmingly modest and thrilling. Indeed, the Paris pamphleteers were not slow to detail the King’s latest conquest in terms of a military surrender: “This important place, having been reconnoitered, was attacked in all its curvaceousness. The way was cleared, the outskirts were seized, and with much sweat and fatigue, and spilt blood, the King entered in victorious. We can say that no conquest gave him greater difficulty. There were many cries and tears spilt on one side, and never did a dying virginity release such gentle sighs.”14

  At first, Louis installed his new love in a little villa at Château Neuf de St. Germain, but before long she was given her own apartment at court. Angélique probably became Louis’s mistress only two months after her arrival in late 1678; in any event, the secret was clearly out early in the new year. Athénaïs was initially complacent, unaware that Louis had any serious interest in the girl, and it was not for several months that she knew herself abandoned. In March, La Maintenon described Athénaïs’s state in a letter. “Mme. de Montespan complains of her last accouchement, she says that this girl has caused her to lose the King’s heart; she blames me, as if I hadn’t told her often to have no more children ...I pity Mme. de Montespan at the same time as I blame her: what would she be if she knew all her misfortunes? She is far from believing the King unfaithful, she accuses him only of coldness. We don’t dare to tell her of this new passion.”

  In May, the governess witnessed a violent quarrel between Louis and Athénaïs, who had finally learned the secret the whole court had been whispering behind her back for months. Louis was unmoved by his lover’s fury. “I have already told you, Madame, that I do not wish to be bothered,” he said coldly. Athénaïs whipped herself into a fury of denunciation, slandering La Fontanges with all the vitriol she could muster, and then departed to Clagny for a few days to recover herself.

  Suddenly, there was a whirlwind of change, and all the regard of the court, all the entertainments it held, were for the aspiring mistress. Athénaïs was still maîtresse en titre (and indeed La Fontanges was never completely declared so), but from the King’s actions, it was clear that, informal though her position was as yet, Angélique was well on the way to becoming favorite. Louis abandoned the plain, sober style of dress he had affected in recent years and bedecked himself rather pathetically in the silks and ribbons of his youth. Athénaïs was hoist with her own petard. The King was deliriously in love. La Fontanges gave herself tremendous airs, and the malleable loyalties of the court were only too ready to do homage to the King’s new passion at the expense of the old. Athénaïs found herself shunned, ignored, eclipsed, as once she had herself eclipsed Louise de La Vallière. “The violence of the King’s passion for Mme. de Montespan is no more,” wrote Mme. de Montmorency, “and it is said that there are times when she weeps bitterly after the conversations she has with the King.”

  “Really,” complained Athénaïs. “A stupid girl without education, a beautiful painting and that’s all. The King is hardly delicate to love such a person, who had affairs back in her province.”

  Although Athénaïs was spared the final indignity of seeing her rival declared maîtresse en titre, she had to tolerate the affair until 1680. For some time, it appeared that La Fontanges was to become a permanent favorite. She flaunted herself before the Queen, appearing at Mass in a coat made from the same azure cloth as Louis’s; her carriage was drawn by eight fine white horses; she demanded a position as abbesse of Chelles for her sister Catherine; just like Mme. de Montespan, she spent 25,000 ecus a week on trinkets. The new favorite’s portrait was taken by Mignard, and La Fontaine, who had benefited so much from Athénaïs’s patronage, treacherously dedicated a flattering poem to La Fontanges, with the inscription:

  Charmant objet, digne present des cieux

  (Et n’est ce point image du Parnasse)

  Votre beauté vient de la main des dieux

  Vous l’allez voir au recit que je trace.

  Puisse mes vers presenter tant de grâce

  Que d’être offerts au dompteur des humains,

  Accompagnés d’un mot de votre bouche

  Et presentés par vos divins mains.15

  That La Fontaine, with whom Athénaïs had enjoyed a stimulating relationship of mutual admiration, should prove so fickle, so ready to prostitute his genius in the service of a mere doll, was intolerable. To defer to this uneducated provincial was more than Athénaïs’s pride could bear, and she railed at the King’s confessor, Père la Chaise, who seemed perfectly complacent at this new romantic peccadillo, since it did not involve double adultery. “Ce Père la Chaise,” she punned, “is a real chaise de commodité.”16 She had clearly chosen to forget that she herself had made use of La Chaise’s complacency during the religious crisis of 1675. Louis was besotted, and ignored both the rants of his discarded mistress and the querulous mutterings of the dévots. One bishop who dared to try to remonstrate with the King about this too-public display of his affection was given the tart reply, “You will do me the pleasure, Monsieur, of conserving your zeal for your diocese!”

  Initially, Athénaïs allowed her anger to draw her into open rivalry with Angélique. Comically, the two appeared side by side at the King’s Mass, both trying to outdo one another in their demonstrations of piety, clutching their chaplets in two plump white hands and rolling four great blue eyes to heaven like beautiful saints. “It’s the greatest comedy in the world,” scoffed Primi Visconti. One story has it that the two pet bears Athénaïs kept for her amusement in a little menagerie Louis had given her in the grounds of the palace “accidentally” escaped and destroyed Mlle. de Fontanges’s ap
artment. It is likely to be apocryphal, but it would not have been beyond Athénaïs’s enormous capacity for fury to release the ravening beasts into her rival’s rooms. If the story is true, it was the last service the bears performed for Athénaïs, for in 1681 she sold them to the Duc du Maine’s valet.

  In February 1680, the whole court set off to meet the future Dauphine, Anne-Marie of Bavaria, betrothed to Louis’s only living legitimate son. At a ball at Villers-Cotterets, Athénaïs showed that she could still outshine her conceited little rival in grace and style. Angélique danced badly, and disgraced herself in the minuet, Mme. de Sévigné commenting that her legs seemed unable to arrive where they ought, and that she managed barely more than a bow. Athénaïs, on the other hand, knew that she danced superbly, and obliged Angélique to retire blushing from the floor. It was this very awkwardness, however, that seemed to enchant the King. In contrast with the tempestuous Athénaïs, La Fontanges seemed all simplicity and admiration, flattering Louis’s huge ego with her naïveté and ignorance. Just as Athénaïs had done ten years before, she introduced a new hairstyle, this one created on the hunting field rather than in the boudoir. One day, as the hunt galloped in pursuit of the stag, a branch whipped Angélique’s hat from her head so that she appeared before the King with her hair loosely tied in a ribbon, tumbling in curls to her shoulders. Louis found this “rustic” style delightful, and the coiffure à la Fontanges became the latest craze.