The Secret Wife of Louis XIV: Françoise d'Aubigné, Madame de Maintenon
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“You are one of those people”: Letter of July 4, 1679, quoted in Sévigné II, 1050.
“Madame de Sévigné”: Saint-Simon I, 228.
“He changes favourites”: Letter of October 12, 1701, in Lettres de Madame duchesse d’Orléans, née Princess Palatine, 1672–1722, ed. Olivier Ameil (Paris: Mercure de France, 1985), 305.
“a fat girl”: Saint-Simon I, 191.
“of remarkable ugliness”: Caylus, 79.
“She is perfect”: Letter to Their Royal Highnesses of Savoy, November 5, 1696, in d’Aumale, 124–5.
“She hardly took any notice”: Letters to the Kurfürstin Sophie of November 8 & 22, 1696, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Briefe, 137.
“My eyes are so thick”: Letter to the Herzogin Sophie, January 10, 1692, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Briefe, 109–10.
Eighteen: Castles in Spain
“That prince”: Choisy, Abbé François-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), 176.
“I think…the King of Spain”: Letter to the duchesse de Hanovre, July 17, 1700, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Lettres de Madame, 275.
“We’ll soon be hearing”: Letter to M. le Cardinal de Noailles, November 8, 1700, in Correspondance générale de Madame de Maintenon, ed. Lavallée, Théophile, 4 vols (Paris: Charpentier, 1857), IV, 4e partie, no. XCVIII, 341.
“Madame String-puller”: Letter to the duchesse de Hanovre, November 10, 1700, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Lettres de Madame, 282.
“Gentlemen,” said Louis: Dangeau, Philippe de Courcillon, marquis de, Journal de la cour de Louis XIV, avec les additions inédites du duc de Saint-Simon, 19 vols (Paris: Firmin-Didot Frères, 1854–1860), November 16, 1700, VII, 418.
“The duc d’Anjou will make”: Letters to the duchesse de Hanovre, November 13 & 10, 1701, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Lettres de Madame, 282.
“Everyone here seems thrilled”: Letters to M. le Cardinal de Noailles, November 17 & 25, 1700, in Lavallée (ed.), Correspondance générale IV, 4e partie, nos XCIX, 344–5 & C, 347–8. The cardinal was in Rome to attend the papal conclave which eventually elected Clement XI Albani.
“playing hide-and-seek”: Letter to M. le Cardinal de Noailles, November 25, 1700, in ibid., no. C, 348.
“Be a good Spaniard”: Dangeau VII, November 16, 1700, 418.
“His passion for glory”: Spanheim, Ezechiel, Relation de la cour de France, faite au commencement de l’année 1690 (Paris: Renouard [pour la Société de l’ histoire de France], 1882), 25.
“and preventing English”: Choisy, 177.
“Animal” Visconti: Letter of August 8, 1702, in Lettres de Madame duchesse d’Orléans, née Princesse Palatine, 1672–1722, ed. Olivier Ameil (Paris: Mercure de France, 1985), 320.
“the very first world war”: Davies, Norman, Europe: A History (Oxford: OUP, 1997), 625. In North America, it was known as Queen Anne’s War.
“At court, perhaps without”: Déon, Michel, Louis XIV par lui-même (Paris: Gallimard, 1991), 144–5.
“Our two Kings”: Letter to Madame des Ursins, June 5, 1706, in Truc, Gonzague (ed.), Lettres à d’Aubigné et à Madame des Ursins (Paris: Bossard, 1921), Part 2, 8.
“eleven ounces”: Letter to the Kurfürstin Sophie, June 12, 1701, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Briefe, 183.
“The monastic life”: Letters to the duchesse de Hanovre and the Raugrave Amélie-Élisabeth, July 15 & 7, 1701, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Lettres de Madame, 302 & 301–2.
“If those in the other world”: Letter to the duchesse de Hanovre, June 30, 1701, in ibid., 301.
“She sent a message”: Letter to the duchesse de Hanovre, June 12, 1701, in ibid., 299–300.
“which just shows how badly”: Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de, Mémoires, 7 vols (Paris: Pléiade, 1953), I, 917–19.
“visited la Maintenon”: Letter to the Herzogin Sophie, July 22, 1699, paraphrased from Bryant, Françoise d’Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon, 153. Use of an armchair was a mark of precedence in rank. Liselotte, as a duchess, would normally have been entitled to an armchair rather than a stool. However, in Françoise’s apartments, since the King entered frequently and without formal warning, no armchairs were made available for guests.
“It’s appalling”: Letter to the Raugrave Amélie-Élisabeth, February 19, 1705, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Briefe, 217–18.
“I’m sure his German”: Letters of September 29, 1702 and July 16, 1702, in Lettres de Madame, 323–4 and 320.
“As I am generally”: Letter to M. le duc d’Harcourt, April 16, 1701, in Lavallée (ed.), Correspondance générale IV, 4e partie, no. CXXXVIII, 423–4.
“If I may say so”: Taillandier, Madame Saint-René de, La Princesse des Ursins: Une grande dame française à la cour d’Espagne sous Louis XIV (Paris: Hachette, 1926), 52.
“dwarves, clowns, parrots”: Ibid., 36 and passim.
“The rooms in this palace”: Paraphrased from ibid., 67–8.
“It was in the middle”: Paraphrased from ibid., 68–9.
“to command as generalissimo”: Letter of June 24, 1706, in Lettres de Madame, 370. D’Orléans was replacing the brilliant Vendôme, himself transferring to Flanders after the resignation of Villeroy following the May defeat at Ramillies, where the Franch lost some fifteen thousand men.
“As I had had various”: Saint-Simon II, 26.
“M. le duc de Saint-Simon”: Spanheim, 423.
“if you count up all”: Saint-Simon II, 330.
“dropped his pants”: Letter of July 11, 1708, in Lettres de Madame, 393.
“the loss of the Kingdom”: Letter of August 10, 1707, in Geoffroy, M. A. (ed.), Lettres inédites de la Princesse des Ursins (Paris: Didier, 1859), 316.
“They say he owed”: Goubert, Pierre, Louis XIV et Vingt Millions de Français (Paris: Hachette, 1977), 288–9.
“There are deserters”: Letter of August 9, 1702, in Lettres de Madame, 321.
“relentless increase”: Anderson, M. S., War and Society in Europe of the Old Regime 1618–1789 (Guernsey, Channel Islands: Sutton Publishing, 1998), 142.
“a triumph for the new regime”: Rothstein, Andrew, Peter the Great and Marlborough: Politics and Diplomacy in Converging Wars (London: Macmillan, 1986), 33.
“an impressive sum”: Sir Winston Churchill, quoted in ibid., 33.
“I have found everywhere”: Quoted in ibid., 112.
Our Father which art at Versailles: Quoted in ibid., 112.
“The maréchal de Villars has told me”: Letters of May 26 & June 10, 1709, in Loyau, Marcel (ed.), Correspondance de Madame de Maintenon et la Princesse des Ursins, 1709: une année tragique (Paris: Mercure de France, 2002), 189 & 199.
“Rents, new offices”: Goubert, 290.
“penuriousness”: The Englishman Joseph Addison in 1707, quoted in Rothstein, 158.
“I’m so angry”: Letter of July 1, 1709, in Loyau (ed.), 215.
“As for the money here”: Letter of August 10, 1709, in ibid., 243.
“chamber pots”: Saint-Germain, Jacques, La Reynie et la police au grand siècle (Paris: Hachette, 1962), 151.
“This question of wheat”: Letter of August 10, 1700, in Loyau (ed.), 243.
“they’re holding a big procession”: Letter of May 26, 1709, in ibid., 186.
“A great many of the poor”: Letter of January 27, 1709, in Loyau (ed.), 94.
“Madame de Maintenon redoubled her alms”: D’Aumale, Marie-Jeanne, Souvenirs sur Madame de Maintenon: Mémoire et lettres inédites de Mademoiselle d’Aumale, 2e ed. (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1902), 153–4.
“quite willingly”: Letter of June 10, 1709, in Loyau (ed.), 199.
“The women here”: Letter to Mme de Caylus in Paris, June 12, 1706, in Leroy, Pierre-E. et Marcel Loyau (eds), L’Estime et la tendresse: Correspondances intimes (Paris: Albin Michel, 1998), 105.
“You’ll have heard”: Letter of Ju
ne 3, 1709, in Loyau (ed.), 194.
“How can anyone buy peace”: Letter of June 10, 1709, in ibid., 196.
“The King of Spain has received”: Letter of June 10 or 11, 1709, in ibid., 201.
“the impossible condition”: Rothstein, 115.
“The hope of peace”: Petitfils, Louis XIV, 635–6. Petitfils notes the Churchillian nature of Louis’s appeal.
“Advices from the Hague”: Addison, Joseph and Sir Richard Steele, Selections from The Tatler and The Spectator, ed. Robert J. Allen, 2nd ed. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970), 23.
“Nothing is equal”: Letter of September 14, 1709, in Loyau (ed.), 277.
“all the ladies”: Ibid., 277–8.
“And what about the peace”: Letter to Madame de Dangeau of May 21, 1712, quoted in Leroy et Loyau (eds), L’estime et la tendresse, no. 212, 236.
“a greedy and treacherous desertion”: Sir Winston Churchill, quoted in Rothstein, 151. Marlborough was the victim of domestic political intrigues. His opponents sought to present him as a would-be “second Cromwell” (Rothstein, 154). His preference for maintaining the general interests of the Alliance had been superseded in parliament by a decision to maintain the exclusive interests of Great Britain, particularly against the Dutch.
“I reckon the City”: Letter to Charlotte Clayton of January 1614, quoted in Field, Ophelia, The Favourite: Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2002), 335.
“for all this waste”: Milton, Sonnet XI, l. 451.
“no more than a sloop”: Lavisse, quoted in Rothstein, 196.
“England wishes to become master”: Paraphrased from ibid., 196.
“The dauphin is shorter”: Spanheim, 40, 46.
“The King has so humbled”: Letter of April 16, 1711, in Lettres de Madame duchesse d’Orléans, née Princesse Palatine, 1672–1722, ed. Olivier Ameil (Paris: Mercure de France, 1985), 449.
“You will understand”: Letter from Louis XIV to Felipe V of February 21, 1712, quoted in Déon, Michel, Louis XIV par lui-même (Paris: Gallimard, 1991), 300–1.
“Misfortune…overwhelms us”: Letter of March 10, 1712, in Lettres de Madame, 468.
“vomiting violently”: Letter of May 3, 1714, in ibid., 499–500.
“I feel lethargic”: Letter to the duc de Richelieu, April 30, probably 1713 (unpublished ms).
“violating the constitution”: Bluche, François, Louis XIV (Paris: Hachette, 1986), 865.
“Since the sister”: Letter to the Raugrave Luise, September 2, 1714, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Lettres de Madame, 507.
“this news which would not allow”: Saint-Simon IV, 341–5.
Nineteen: All Passion Spent
“The King was very well”: Vallot, d’Aquin, et Fagon, Journal de la Santé du Roi Louis XIV de l’année 1647 à l’année 1711, écrit par Vallot, d’Aquin et Fagon, ed. Le Roi, J. A. (Paris: A. Durand, 1862), 344–5. Italics in the original.
“Yes, my dear daughter”: Quoted in Desprat, Jean-Paul, Madame de Maintenon, ou le prix de la réputation (Paris: Perrin, 2003), 340.
“a whole pheasant”: Quoted in Fraser, Antonia, Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2006), 201–2.
“her skin like a bit of”: Letter to the duchesse de Hanovre, December 29, 1701, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Lettres de Madame, 313.
“Old age is terribly sad”: Letter to Madame des Ursins, August 26, 1709, in Loyau (ed.), 255.
“I was about thirteen”: Duchêne, Roger, Ninon de Lenclos: ou la manière jolie de faire l’amour (Paris: Fayard, 2000), 336.
“I’m sure you don’t have”: Letter to the duchesse de Hanovre, December 29, 1701, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Lettres de Madame, 313.
“heavy and sumptuous suit”: Castellucio, Stéphane, “La Galerie des Glaces: Les réceptions d’ambassadeurs,” Versalia, La Revue de la Société des Amis de Versailles, no. 9, 2006, 41.
“a hundred and six”: Le baron de Breteuil, quoted in ibid., 43.
“so he sent for her”: Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de, Mémoires, 7 vols (Paris: Pléiade, 1953), IV, 887–8, and to 939 for subsequent paragraphs.
“Monsieur d’Orléans’s apartments”: Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de, Mémoires, 7 vols (Paris: Pléiade, 1953), IV, 889–91, and to 939 for quotations in subsequent paragraphs.
“I was a witness”: D’Aumale, Marie-Jeanne, Souvenirs sur Madame de Maintenon: Mémoire et lettres inédites de Mademoiselle d’Aumale, 2e ed. (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1902), 200, and see 198–202.
“If the King eats”: Quoted in Petitfils, Jean-Christian, Louis XIV (Paris: Perrin, 2002), 694.
“The King was constantly”: Saint-Simon VI, 934.
“whenever she felt she could not”: D’Aumale, 198–202.
“He surrendered his soul”: Quoted in Petitfils, 695.
“She had asked me”: D’Aumale, 203–4, and note to 209.
“a calm grief”: Ibid., 205.
“The King had paper and ink”: Saint-Simon IV, 925.
“that’s to say, to leave them”: Ibid., 923.
“if my son’s mistresses”: Letter to the Raugrave Luise, December 14, 1717, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Lettres de Madame, 532.
“I asked him how”: Saint-Simon VI, 35–7.
“she would set the whole kingdom”: Ibid., 15–16.
“I was dying of joy”: Quoted in Gourdin, Jean-Luc, La Duchesse du Maine: Louise-Bénédicte de Bourbon, Princesse de Condé (Paris: Pygmalion, 1999), 222.
“Her laziness is beyond belief”: Letters to the Raugrave Luise, April 7 & 17, 1718, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Lettres de Madame, 539.
“It doesn’t take too much”: Saint-Simon VI, 336.
“She knew something had happened”: D’Aumale, 223.
“dreadfully afflicted”: Saint-Simon VI, 336.
“She’d had the good sense”: Ibid., 332.
“to think of my salvation”: D’Aumale, 204.
“very well made”: Ibid., 188–9, 211–12. The letter to Madame de Caylus is of February 16, 1716.
“They tell me I’m almost”: Letter of August 23, 1717, in ibid., 213 & 216, note 1.
“The man I used these things for”: Ibid., 213–15.
“God will have to be”: Ibid., 163.
“I have found the pleasantest retreat”: Letter of September 11, 1715, in ibid., 224.
“who was always fond of”: Saint-Simon VI, 332–3.
“in an extraordinary equipage”: Oman, 228.
“with some girl in tow”: Letter to Madame de Caylus, June 11, 1717, in Leroy, Pierre-E. et Marcel Loyau (eds), L’Estime et la tendresse: Correspondances intimes (Paris: Albin Michel, 1998), 416–17.
“Dearest Luise, I’ve had”: Letters to the Raugrave Luise and the Kurfürstin Sophie, May 14, 1717 & September 18, 1697, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Briefe, 283 & 147.
“The Tsar seems to me”: Letters to Madame de Caylus, May 14 & June 11, 1717, in Leroy et Loyau (eds), L’Estime et la tendresse, 416–17.
“Men are tyrannical”: D’Aumale, 97.
“I’m enjoying it”: Letter of June 19, 1716, in ibid., 217, note 1.
“She always loved children, Madame”: Ibid., 110.
“I’m a bit hesitant”: Ibid., 221.
“Now I can no longer prove”: Ibid., 112.
“probably the only gentlemanly thing”: Bernard Noël in his introduction to Caylus, Marthe-Marguerite, comtesse de, Souvenirs, ed. Bernard Noël (Paris: Mercure de France, 1965 et 1986), 13.
“and you see my handwriting’s”: D’Aumale, 233–4.
“She was full of chat”: Ibid., 223–7.
“Am I in my last throes”: Ibid., 235.
“How are you”: Ibid., 236.
“It seems that God”: Ibid.
“because we preferred”: Ibid., 237.
“in such a state of grief”: Ibid.
“What a noise”: Saint-Simon VI, 332.
“our wise, m
odest, gentle foundress”: D’Aumale, 239–40.
“Such a prodigious elevation”: Saint-Simon I, 437.
“The old hag’s croaked”: Desprat, 462.
“Saint Paul declares”: D’Aumale, 182–3.
“Ah, mon Dieu”: Ibid., 228–9.
Bibliography
Unpublished Sources
Brinon, Madame de, Lettre à Mlle de Scudéry concernant le théâtre de Racine, 1688 (Archives départementales des Yvelines, J3326).
Maintenon, Madame de, Les Petits Cahiers secrets, 8 vols (Bibliothèque municipale de Versailles, BMV MS P 36 à 42, et BMV MS P 98).
———, Proverbes (Bibliothèque municipale de Versailles, BMV MS M 57).
———, Letter of July 14, 1708, to Mme la comtesse de Caylus (Amsterdam University Library, Died 35 Ah.1).
———Letter of December 29, 1708, to an unidentified gentleman (Amsterdam University Library, Died 35 Ah.2).
———, Letter of February 22, year unknown, to Mme des Marets (Amsterdam University Library, Died 35 Ah.3).
———, Letter of April 30, probably 1713, to the duc de Richelieu (Sotheby’s Paris, auction of June 15, 2005, lot no. 42, letter 2).
Lettres adressées à Madame de Maintenon à la suite de la mort de Louis XIV (Bibliothèque municipale de Versailles, BMV G 328).
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À Kempis, Thomas, Of the Imitation of Christ (New Canaan, Connecticut: Keats Publishing, 1973).
d’Aubigné, Théodore-Agrippa, L’Histoire universelle du sieur d’Aubigné (Maillé: J. Moussat, 1616–1620).
———, Mémoires, ed. Ludovic Lalanne (Paris: Librairie des bibliophiles, 1889).
———, Sa vie à ses enfants, ed. Gilbert Schrenk (Paris: Nizet, 1986. First published in 1729).
d’Aumale, Marie Jeanne, Souvenirs sur Madame de Maintenon: Mémoire et lettres inédites de Mademoiselle d’Aumale, publiés par le comte d’Haussonville et G. Hanotaux, avec une introduction par le comte d’Haussonville, 2e ed. (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1902).