The Secret Wife of Louis XIV: Françoise d'Aubigné, Madame de Maintenon

by Veronica Buckley

  “scared to death”: Lauzun relayed this story himself to La Grande Mademoiselle. See Desprat, Jean-Paul, Madame de Maintenon, ou le prix de la réputation (Paris: Perrin, 2003), 132.

  “Don’t abuse my secret”: Letter to the comte de Bussy-Rabutin, April 16, 1670, in Sévigné, Marie, marquise de, Lettres, 3 vols (Paris: Pleiade, 1960), I, no. 59, 166. The portrait appeared in his satirical Histoire Amoureuse des Gaules, in which his cousin appeared as Madame de Cheneville.

  The duty of a wet-nurse: From Audiger’s La Maison réglée of 1688 and 1692, quoted in La Vie de Paris sous Louis XIV. See Franklin, Alfred, La Vie privée d’autrefois: Arts et métiers, modes, moeurs, usages des Parisiens, du XIIe au XVIIe siècle, d’après des documents originaux ou inédits, 27 vols (Paris: E. Plon, Nourri, 1887–1902), XXIII, 78–9.

  “a wet-nurse must be able”: Quoted in Desprat, 131.

  “and other little sums”: Letter to Père Gobelin of March 2, 1674, in Madame de Maintenon, Lettres, ed. Langlois, Marcel, Vols II–V (Paris: Letouzy et Ané, 1935–59), II, no. 31, 76–8.

  “and Madame d’Heudicourt gave her”: Caylus, Marthe-Marguerite, comtesse de, Souvenirs, ed. Bernard Noël (Paris: Mercure de France, 1965 et 1986), 39.

  “like a good courtier”: Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de, Mémoires, 7 vols (Paris: Pléiade, 1953), I, 327.

  “the most awful things”: Letter to Madame de Grignan of February 6, 1671, in Sévigné, Marie, marquise de, Lettres, 3 vols (Paris: Pléiade, 1960), I, no. 79, 191.

  rue des Tournelles: An unpublished letter of September 20, 1669, from Madame du Bouchet to the comte de Bussy-Rabutin (Madame de Sévigné’s cousin) reveals the details. See Caylus, 180.

  “in absolute despair”: Letter to Madame de Grignan of February 9, 1671, in Sévigné I, no. 80, 192–3.

  “I was quite distressed”: Letter to Mr de Villette, April 14, 1675, in Langlois (ed.), Lettres II, no. 71, 126.

  “Send me news”: Letter to Mr de Villette, April 19, 1675, in ibid., no. 74, 130.

  “It’s quite hard to get”: Lettre à Madame*** [Scarron], undated, in Chamaillard, Edmond, Le Chevalier de Méré, rival de Voiture, ami de Pascal, précepteur de Madame de Maintenon (Niort: Clouzot, 1921), 2e partie, 26–8.

  “climbing up ladders”: “Entretien particuler avec Madame de Glapion” of October 18, 1717, quoted in Leroy, Pierre-E. et Marcel Loyau (eds), Comment la sagesse vient aux filles: Propos d’éducation (Paris: Bartillart, 1998), no. 6, 52–4.

  rue Vaugirard: The house does not survive; its location is now on the boulevard du Montparnasse, at number 25.

  “far more than the real mother”: Caylus, 40.

  “The dauphin became like an idiot”: Visconti, Primi, Mémoires sur la Cour de Louis XIV, 1673–1681 (Paris: Perrin, 1988), 148. One of the dauphin’s governors, the duc de Montausier, served as model for the character of the miserable Alceste in Molière’s play The Misanthrope.

  “in between mathematics”: Letter to Madame de Maintenon, probably December 1683, in Correspondance générale de Madame de Maintenon, ed. Lavallée, Théophile, 4 vols (Paris: Charpentier, 1857), II, no. CCCXLV, 338–9.

  “I couldn’t bear it”: Letter of 1686 or 1687, quoted in Hilgar, Marie-France, “Madame de Maintenon et le duc du Maine,” in Niderst (ed.), Autour de Françoise d’Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon, Actes des Journées de Niort, Mai 23–25, 1996, Albineana 10–11, 2 vols (Niort: Albineana-Cahiers d’Aubigné, 1999), II, 264–5.

  “He couldn’t stand her”: Choisy, Abbé Françoise-Timoléon de, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de Louis XIV, et Mémoires de l’abbé de Choisy habillé en femme, ed. Georges Mongrédien (Paris: Mercure de France, 1966), 262.

  “She knows how to love”: Caylus, 40.

  “A king must distinguish”: Instructions au duc d’Anjou, in Louis XIV, Mémoires, suivi de Réflexions sur le métier de Roi (Paris: Tallandier, 2001), 284.

  “so delightful and such good company”: Letter of Madame de Coulanges to Madame de Sévigné of March 20, 1673, quoted in Desprat, 141.

  “Madame Scarron is charming”: Letter to Madame de Grignan of January 13, 1672, in Sévigné I, no. 184, 453.

  “But I don’t regard this”: Letters to Mr d’Aubigné of September 19 and 27, 1672, in Langlois (ed.), Lettres II, nos 24 & 25, 63–6.

  Ten: L’Arrivée

  “With the King giving”: Solnon, Jean-François, La Cour de France (Paris: Fayard, 1987), 282–5.

  “I saw some samples”: Letter to Charles d’Aubigné of October 31, 1673, in Madame de Maintenon, Lettres, ed. Langlois, Marcel, Vols II–V (Paris: Letouzy et Ané, 1935–59), II, no. 30, 73–5. The relatives in question are not named, but Françoise gave financial help to both her father’s and her mother’s families and also to the extended Scarron family.

  “like a prison rack”: Desprat, Jean-Paul, Madame de Maintenon, ou le prix de la réputation (Paris: Perrin, 2003), 142.

  “stretched out naked”: Visconti, Primi, Mémoires sur la Cour de Louis XIV, 1673–1681 (Paris: Perrin, 1988), 1; 17.

  “with a back and arms”: Ibid., 169.

  “excessive expense”: Letter from Louis XIV to Colbert, June 8, 1675, quoted in Déon, Michel, Louis XIV par lui-même (Paris: Gallimard, 1991), 288.

  “She’d play the entire evening”: Petitfils, Jean-Christian, Louis XIV (Paris: Perrin, 2002), 304.

  “Le hocca is forbidden”: Quoted in Saint-Germain, Jacques, La Reynie et la police au grand siècle (Paris: Hachette, 1962), 133.

  “This means it will certainly spread”: Ibid.

  “your clever friend”: D’Aumale, Marie-Jeanne, Souvenirs sur Madame de Maintenon: Mémoire et lettres inédites de Mademoiselle d’Aumale, 2e ed. (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1902), 55.

  “Ah, no! Not Madame Scarron”: Desprat, 148.

  “Half the court was living”: Visconti, 35.

  “her stupidity”: Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de, Mémoires, 7 vols (Paris: Pléiade, 1953), II, 412.

  “That whora will kill me”: Hilton, Lisa, The Real Queen of France: Athénaïs and Louis XIV (London: Abacus, 2003), 218.

  “She’s no beauty”: Visconti, 26.

  “so terrifically big”: Letter to the Herzogin Sophie, August 5, 1673, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Briefe (Ebenhausen bei München: Langewiesche-Brandt, 1966), 18.

  “The King invites me:” Letter to the Herzogin Sophie of December 14, 1676, in ibid., 29.

  “running and jumping about”: Letter to Frau von Harling of November 23, 1672, in ibid., 15.

  “Catholic sermons”: Letter of March 19, 1693, in ibid., 118–19.

  “You’re very particular”: D’Aumale, 61.

  “The old parliamentary resistance”: Quoted in Goubert, Pierre, Louis XIV et vingt millions de Française (Paris: Hachette, 1977), 116.

  “Monsieur Colbert said”: Letter to the Kurfürstin Sophie, September 23, 1699, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Briefe, 163.

  much of it, Dutch: See Goubert, 50 ff. Goubert notes that between 1601 and 1750, during a period of phenomenal advance elsewhere, there was not a single treatise on agriculture written in France.

  United Provinces of the Netherlands: Also called the Republic of the Seven United Provinces. The republic was formed in 1648, having won a final independence from Spain at the end of the Thirty Years War. It comprised the northern provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Gelderland, Utrecht, Friesland, Overijssel, and Groningen. Holland was the largest and most important of the provinces, hence the frequent use of its name alone for all seven.

  “tired of these [commercial] insolences”: Quoted in Schama, Simon, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (London: Fontana, 1991), 271. In fact, the only commerce being blocked was that of French wines and spirits, which the Dutch had attempted to ban from their country in response to Colbert’s imposition of tariffs on all Dutch goods a few years previously. As for the Huguenots, though many in the mostly Calvinist republic felt some solidarity with them, a thir
d of its people were actually Catholic, and if some Dutchmen were printing pamphlets declaring Protestant solidarity, this was not owing to any grand plan on the part of the republic, but rather to the decentralized nature of Dutch authority, which was simply “without the machinery for the suppression of opinion” (Schama, 268). A Dutchman could print, more or less, whatever he liked.

  “When a Prince is wounded”: From Stubbes’s Justification of the Present War Against the United Netherlands of 1672, quoted in Schama, 271.

  Triple Alliance: The Treaty of Dover of June 1670 took the English secretly out of the Al liance. See Fraser, Antonia, King Charles II (London: Phoenix, 2002), 350 ff. and passim. The Swedes, encouraged by cash payments from France, renounced the Alliance early in 1672. ther German states also received money in return for their promise of neutrality. In 1671, the Holy Roman Emperor had also agreed to remain neutral in the event of a Franco-Dutch conflict.

  their advantage: At the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years War, the United Provinces of the Netherlands finally gained their independence from the Spanish Habsburg Empire. Moreover, the city of Amsterdam won its own important victory by forcing the end of free navigation on the Scheldt River, so diverting trade away from Spanish Antwerp northwards to its own wharves.

  “most theatrical form of warfare”: Thewes, in Musée des Beaux-Arts…, 265.

  so enjoyed: Siege warfare was “[possibly] the biggest engineering operation known to the age” and “a striking example of unproductive investment.” It required not only trench-digging but also the building of elaborate defensive lines which often required the conscription of locals, including, most harmfully, peasants at harvest time. See Anderson, M. S., War and Society in Europe of the Old Regime 1618–1789 (Guernsey, Channel Islands: Sutton Publishing, 1998), 40 ff., 87 ff., and 140 ff. The fortified towns of Vesel, Burick (Büderich), Orsoy, and Rheinberg were attacked simultaneously, and all taken in the first two weeks of June 1672, as were the smaller towns of Emmerich and Rees.

  “I can’t understand how they managed”: Letter to the comte de Bussy-Rabutin of June 19, 1672, in Sévigné, Marie, marquise de, Lettres, 3 vols (Paris: Pléiade, 1960), I, no. 229, 571. The King in fact crossed the Ijssel river, a distributary of the Rhine. For details of the crossing, see Pujo, Bernard, Le Grand Condé (Paris: Albin Michel, 1995), 312 ff. For the artworks pertaining to the Rhine crossing and the Dutch campaign in general, see Musée des Beaux-Arts…, and also Burke, Peter, The Fabrication of Louis XIV (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994), Chapter VI. For art propaganda on the Dutch side, see Schama, 270 ff.

  imperial territory: Both the Archbishopric of Cologne and the Bishopric of Münster, France’s German allies bordering the Rhine, were states of the Holy Roman Empire and hence owed allegiance in some degree to Leopold.

  “the depth of their contrition”: Schama, 273–5.

  “men for the Dutch”: Quoted in Pujo, 319.

  “What do you think”: Letter of July 15, 1673 to the comte de Bussy-Rabutin, in Sévigné, Marie, marquise de, Lettres, 3 vols (Paris: Pléiade, 1960), I, no. 249, 603.

  “[U]nder Vauban’s direction”: Thewes, in Musée des Beaux-Arts…, 265.

  “encouraging the troops”: Ibid., 246.

  “resolved to die for the King of Spain”: Ibid .

  “on a parterre strewn”: Sabban, Françoise, et Silvano Serventi, La Gastronomie au Grand Siècle: 100 recettes de France et d’Italie (Paris: Stock, 1998), 85. The Franche-Comté was finally ceded to France at the Treaty of Nijmegen in 1678.

  “Kings should enjoy”: Réflexions sur le métier de Roi, in Louis XIV, Mémoires, suivi de Réflexions sur le métier de Roi (Paris: Tallandier, 2001), 279.

  Eleven: The Course of True Loves

  “Her chambermaid threw herself”: Letter to Madame de Grignan of December 15, 1673, in Sévigné, Marie, marquise de, Lettres, 3 vols (Paris: Pléiade, 1960), I, no. 276, 653.

  “who had great influence”: Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de, Mémoires, 7 vols (Paris: Pléiade, 1953), I, 709 & II, 255.

  “I command you all”: From Charles Perrault’s Mémoires, quoted in Tiberghien, Frédéric, Versailles: Le Chantier de Louis XIV, 1662–1715 (Paris: Perrin, 2002), 77.

  “A public apology”: Bertière, Simone, Les Femmes du Roi Soleil (Paris: de Fallois, 1998), 212.

  “but she’s dead to me now”: Ibid., 216.

  “She’s too useful an example”: Ibid., 214.

  “I’ll be sure to pass it on”: Letter to Madame et Monsieur de Grignan of April 29, 1676, in Sévigné II, no. 416, 80.

  “would have given themselves”: Visconti, Primi, Mémoires sur la Cour de Louis XIV, 1673–1681 (Paris: Perrin, 1988), 164.

  “My sufferings”: Letter to Père Gobelin of March 2, 1674, in Madame de Maintenon, Lettres, ed. Langlois, Marcel, Vols II–V (Paris: Letouzy et Ané, 1935–59), II, no. 31, 76.

  “He didn’t understand”: Letter to Père Gobelin of July 1674, in ibid., no. 36, 83.

  “to remove myself”: Letter to Père Gobelin of March 6, 1674, in ibid., no. 32, 78.

  “If he were walking”: Letters to Charles d’Aubigné of May 21 and Pére Gobelin of July 24, 1674, in ibid., nos 35 & 40, 81–2 & 87–8.

  “How could you know better”: Quoted in Desprat, Jean-Paul, Madame de Maintenon, ou le prix de la réputation (Paris: Perrin, 2003), 153.

  “Madame de Montespan and I”: Letter to Père Gobelin of about July 26, 1674, in Langlois (ed.), Lettres II, no. 41, 90–1.

  “I spoke to Madame”: Letter to Père Gobelin of August 6 or 7, 1674, in ibid., no. 43, 93–4.

  “[Françoise] was born with nothing”: D’Aumale, Marie-Jeanne, Souvenirs sur Madame de Maintenon: Mémoire et lettres inédites de Mademoiselle d’Aumale, 2e ed. (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1902), 60.

  “She and Madame la duchesse”: Letter to Père Gobelin of July 24, 1674, in Langlois (ed.), Lettres II, no. 40, 87.

  “We’ve had a horoscrope”: Letter of November 16, 1674, in Lettres de Madame duchesse d’Orléans, née Princesse Palatine, 1672–1722, ed. Olivier Ameil (Paris: Mercure de France, 1985), 42.

  “So you see how the French”: Visconti, 61.

  “You may have heard”: Letter to Mr d’Aubigny of November 10, 1674, in Langlois (ed.), Lettres II, no. 56, 109–10. The château de Maintenon, in the town of Maintenon, forty miles west of Paris, dates from the thirteenth century. From 1698 to 1981 it was owned by the Noailles family, and since then has belonged to the Foundation du Château de Maintenon.

  “The King fucks them”: Quoted in Bluche, Louis XIV (Paris: Hachette, 1986), 399.

  “I am sure, Madame”: See Fraser, Antonia, Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2006), 167.

  “He liked almost all women”: Caylus, Marthe-Marguerite, comtesse de, Souvenirs, ed. Bernard Noël (Paris: Mercure de France, 1965 et 1986), 82.

  “berating Louis”: Letter of August 7, 1675 to Madame de Grignan, in Sévigné, Marie, marquise de, Lettres, 3 vols (Paris: Pléiade, 1960), I, no. 328, 792. It was customary for the French aristocracy to take their titles from the names of their estates.

  “a sweet and simple girl”: Visconti, 169.

  “As beautiful as an angel”: Choisy, Abbé Françoise-Timoléon de, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de Louis XIV, et Mémoires de l’abbé de Choisy habillé en femme, ed. Georges Mongrédien (Paris: Mercure de France, 1966), 267.

  “all dressed up”: Letter to Madame et Monsieur de Grignan, March 6, 1680, in Sévigné II, no. 638, 634–5.

  “Her astonishing beauty”: Choisy, 207.

  “No amount of good qualities”: Chamaillard, Edmond, Le Chevalier de Méré, rival de Voiture, ami de Pascal, précepteur de Madame de Maintenon (Niort: Clouzot, 1921), 1e partie, 143.

  “For her sake”: Visconti, 175–6.

  “who had been paying her”: Ibid., 176.

  “stumbling block”: Quoted in Desprat, 162.

  “Mada
me de Montespan had had a dream”: Visconti, 66.

  “Madame de Montespan and I”: Desprat, 173.

  “No, it wasn’t me”: Letter to Mr l’abbé Gobelin of March 30, 1675, in Langlois (ed.), Lettres II, no. 67, 122–3.

  “provided she was”: Cordelier, Jean, Madame de Maintenon (Paris: Club des Éditeurs, 1959), 87.

  “From now on”: Letter of July 3, 1675 to Madame de Grignan, in Sévigné I, no. 318, 754.

  “It took less time”: Letter to Mr de Villette of June 23, 1675, in Langlois (ed.), Lettres II, no. 79, 137.

  “a place more frightful”: Letter to Mr d’Aubigny of July 8, 1675, in ibid., no. 80, 138–9.

  “My dear, here’s a turn”: Letter to Madame de Grignan, August 7, 1675, in Sévigné I, no. 328, 792.

  “It seems a thousand years”: Letter to Mr l’abbé Gobelin of May 8, 1675, in Langlois (ed.), Lettres II, no. 75, 131.

  “he’s walking”: Letter to Mr d’Aubigny of October 16, 1675, in ibid., no. 82, 143.

  “my little angel”: Letter to Philippe de Villette (son of her cousin Philippe) of November 11, 1675, in ibid., no, 84, 147.

  “People bring up children”: Letter of September 14, 1675, in Lettres de Madame duchesse d’Orléans, née Princesse Palatine, 1672–1722, ed. Olivier Ameil (Paris: Mercure de France, 1985), 44.

  “calmly taking precedence”: Letter of July 3, 1675 to Madame de Grignan, in Sévigné I, no. 318, 755.

  “Remember, Madame”: Caylus, 59.

  “The King’s attachment”: Letter of July 31, 1675 to Madame et Monsieur de Grignan, in Sévigné I, no. 325, 779.

  “They’re all good enough”: Quoted in Petitfils, 304.

  “only too happy”: Letter of August 21, 1675 to Madame de Grignan, in Sévigné I, no. 334, 820.

  “They say she’s happy”: Letter of August 26, 1676 to Madame de Grignan, in Sévigné II, no. 455, 182.

  “and it was almost as fat”: Visconti, 117.

  “I’ve had Monsieur”: Letter to Madame de Villette of April 7, 1677, in Langlois (ed.), Lettres II, no. 123, 193.