* Before his accession to the throne, Louis XII (1498-1515) bore the title of duc d’Orléans.
* Women, in the seventeeth century, usually wore masks when they were outdoors so as to prevent tanning.
When every morning the regent rose between ten and eleven, the day officially began at Court: It was all very different from the pattern set under the late king. While Louis XIII liked to rise and retire early, avoided Paris for a variety of country palaces and lodges, and spent much time hunting, Anne of Austria kept Spanish hours, never hunted, and resided most of the year at the Palais Royal. Then, too, while her dour husband had disliked pomp, the regent was welcoming, amiable, and fond of ceremony. “The Queen,” wrote one of her courtiers, “knew all about everyone’s birth and merit and liked to notice them: proud and polite at the same time, she knew how to hold a court better than anyone and although virtuous actually enjoyed the atmosphere of flirtation which is essential to make things pleasant and urbane.”16 It was altogether a more civilized atmosphere which now prevailed, but in spite of this new sophistication, there was no attempt at reviving the interest in the arts which had been so characteristic of earlier monarchs.
That surprised no one. Anne of Austria was basically ignorant; she hardly ever read, had had the most neglected of educations, and was anything but an intellectual. As for painting and sculpture, they meant nothing to her; even architecture, that standard preoccupation of most princes, failed to interest her. The most one can say for her is that when she decided to have a convent built at the Val de Grâce, in what was then suburban Paris, she called on Le Vau, the best architect of his time, but then again, it was, most probably, on Mazarin’s advice.
This particular lacuna was an obvious setback when the time came to organize her sons’ education: Knowing so little herself, the regent was hardly in a position either to set standards or even to make a wise choice. She showed this inability when she chose a new Governess of the Children of France. Louis XIII had appointed Mme de Lansac because she was Richelieu’s creature. Now the queen promptly, and understandably, dismissed her. As her replacement, she chose Mme de Sénecé, an old friend whose only preoccupation was the defense of her prerogatives at Court and who cared nothing for her charges. The sub-governess, the amiable and cheerful Mme de Lassalle, loved to play with the two little boys. Wearing black feathers in her hair and a sword at her side, she commanded a company of children in mock military maneuvers to the great pleasure of the young king; while that may have begun the child’s inclination for all things related to war, it cannot be said to have taught him anything. When, at the age of seven, as was the custom, Louis XIV was turned over to the care of a governor, he was illiterate.
Still, helped, no doubt, by the child’s own predisposition, his governess had shown him how to behave with the dignity which became his rank. When, in 1645, the regent went to the Parlement to announce the victory just won at Nordlingen by the duc d’Enghien over the imperial troops, the king was naturally required to appear. Once in, he “bowed to the whole company; and after having looked toward the Queen as if to ask for her approbation, he said in a clear voice: ‘Messieurs, I have come here to talk to you of my affairs; my Chancellor will tell you my intentions.’
“He spoke those few words with a grace which gave great joy to the whole assembly, and that joy was followed by acclamations which lasted for a long time.”17
That little episode was, in fact, a good lesson for the young king: Appearances, he saw, were often divorced from reality. In spite of the public adoration accorded Louis XIV, the monarch was, in fact, a neglected child. After he and his brother Philippe had spent an hour at their mother’s lever, they went back to their own apartment where they took off the splendid clothes they wore in public and changed into old and often shabby garments; they then passed the time as best they could. And, already in 1645, there was considerable opposition to the government, partly because taxes were higher than ever, partly because Mazarin was generally - and unfairly - hated. Thus, the ovation given Louis XIV meant nothing: The Parlement fought his mother’s policies all the same so that, early on, the boy learned all about deceit and hypocrisy.
These lessons were confirmed by the next great event in the king’s life. According to custom, royal boys were taken away from their governess when they reached the age of seven and entrusted to a governor; this switch implied a complete change of personnel, an obviously painful moment for a child who suddenly lost all the people he knew. “After the King was taken out of the care of women,” La Porte, his First Valet de Chambre, noted, “I was the first who slept in His Majesty’s bedroom; that surprised him at first, since he no longer saw the women who used to take care of him; but what upset him the most was that I did not know the fairy tales with which the women used to make him go to sleep … I told the Queen that … if she allowed me to do so, I would read him French history … The Queen agreed … The King enjoyed this and was determined to be like the greatest of his ancestors; he would become very angry when told that he would be another Louis the Lazy.”*18
La Porte was given his job because he had been imprisoned on Louis XIII’s orders for carrying some of the queen’s secret letters - not, perhaps, the best of qualification for someone who was to be constantly with the child king; in fact, that little dig about Louis the Lazy was characteristic of the intrigues carried out by the valet de chambre: The lesson was, of course, that the sovereign must govern without a prime minister, and its implied consequence, that Mazarin was nothing but a usurper. This often repeated piece of propaganda was so effective that, according to La Porte, “one day, at Compiègne, the King, who was watching His Eminence pass by the terrace of the castle with a large suite, could not help saying, rather loud, ‘there goes the Sultan.’ Le Plessis told His Eminence, and His Eminence told the Queen, who pressed the King strongly to reveal the name of the person who had first said this, but he never would do so … It is true that he was already very secretive.”19 La Porte, no doubt, was lucky, since he must have been the author of the comparison between Mazarin and the sultan, but in order to indulge his own dislike, the valet de chambre was turning Louis XIV against a man who not only ran the country but was deeply devoted to the little monarch.
Almost more important, the cardinal had also just become superintendant of the king’s education. “The Queen, who … spoke often of her desire to have her children taught all the sciences [i.e., every subject], was completely at a loss when she had to order the way in which it was to be done … Princes must know many things: and surely it is not Latin they need most. Politics is the true grammar they must study, as well as history which can give them examples taken from every country … but that is unfortunately not a science which can be taught to children …
“That is why the Queen, who was sure that M. le Cardinal was the cleverest man in Europe, finally decided to make him responsible for the education of the King. She even left the choice of his Governor up to him, and it was the marquis de Villeroy who was chosen … He was the wisest man at Court; he had led armies, but his most important qualification was that he knew the kingdom itself better than anyone, and that he had both capacity for and knowledge of the affairs of state. The tutor who was placed under him was the abbé de Beaumont … who was hardly able to concentrate on improving the mind of a great prince. Both said that they behaved according to their superior’s instructions … The marquis de Villeroy,” Mme de Motteville goes on, “told me at the time, talking about the King, whose native intelligence he admired, that he had no control over the way he was brought up; and that if he had had his way, he would not have left so promising a mind without cultivation at the moment it was most needed … for he spontaneously liked to learn what he did not know …
“At that time, he was taught to translate Caesar’s Commentaries; he learned how to dance, to draw, to ride horses, and he was as good at all bodily exercises as a prince, whose profession they aren’t, should be … The Queen took great care to nurture, in
the soul of that young prince … feelings of virtue, wisdom, and piety; she preferred preventing the alteration of his innocence by other young men of his age, rather than seeing him more aware of all the things which normally free youth from a certain shyness.”20
So much for one eyewitness account: Mme de Motteville, indeed, was in a position to know what she was talking about. The facts seem to change, however, when another eyewitness, La Porte, tells us what went on: “M. de Beaumont, the King’s tutor, took great pains to teach him and I can truthfully say that, at all the lessons which I attended, he forgot none of the duties of his position; but those who were around the King … instead of making him practice the lessons he had been taught kept him entertained with games.”21 Which, then, is it?
When Louis XIV had become a middle-aged man, he complained not infrequently about the poor education he had received; indeed, he went to a great deal of trouble to ensure that his son and grandchildren had the best tutors possible. In 1681, a diarist noted: “The King had all possible qualities of mind and body … and if he lacked anything, it was a little education, which Cardinal Mazarin, his governor, was unwilling to give him.”22 And a little later, Mme de Maintenon, that born educator, is known to have expressed amazement and horror at the way the king’s education had been neglected.
So general a consensus cannot be all wrong; in certain respects, Louis XIV’s education clearly left much to be desired, nor is it impossible to place the blame where it belongs: Mme de Motteville and La Porte give us all the clues we need. First, there were the king’s attendants. Their attitude was clear: They wanted to please the boy who would one day be in a position to make them rich and powerful, so they flattered him mercilessly - a fact of which, even as a boy of seven, Louis XIV was fully aware - and they did their best to amuse him. It is a rare boy, indeed, who when asked what he would like to do, clamors for a little more Latin, or an extra hour of mathematics: So instead of studying, the little king rode, played, or danced.
Then, there is one persistent myth which must be dispelled, the one according to which Mazarin deliberately sabotaged Louis XIV’s education so as to retain power when his charge grew up. That, in fact, he did the very opposite will become clear later, but he can fairly be accused of neglect. In the circumstances, however, he does have excuses: Constant financial crises, violent opposition, a foreign war soon complicated by unrest, then rebellion - more than enough for any one man. Quite obviously, the cardinal took on the superintendent’s job in order to prevent someone else from turning the king’s mind against him. That is, of course, understandable. Unfortunately, it contributed to the king’s ignorance - although one can hardly call anyone who speaks Italian and Spanish, as well as his native language, and knows a great deal of history, wholly uncultured.
By 1646, the harmony which had marked the beginnings of the regency was only a memory. The two powerful groups which at first had supported the new government, the aristocracy and the Parlement, were now turning against it; while the two had nothing in common, their united opposition could bring about an impossible situation. That, in the end, the middle class and the great nobles wanted completely different regimes was already clear, but both also began to see that a temporary alliance might at least bring about their common goal, the firing of Mazarin. They also assumed that the regent was weak and lazy, so that, once she was liberated from the cardinal’s influence, she would follow her new minister’s policy docilely. In fact, they were wrong in one essential point: Whatever the appearances, Anne of Austria was absolutely determined to stick by her minister because he was carrying out the very policy most likely to make France (and therefore Louis XIV) strong and glorious. The measure of her determination can, in retrospect, be seen clearly in her attitude to Philip IV: She distrusted herself when writing this beloved brother, she told Mme de Motteville, because “she was afraid that her affection might cause her to neglect the interests of her son the King.”23
Because Mazarin also had great charm, the queen undoubtedly grew fond of him, and that gave her new enemies just the handle they needed. Resisting the king was always a problem: The monarchy’s mystique was so strong that people had a way of falling to their knees before the Lord’s anointed; disobeying the regent was already a lot easier: She was, after all, only a woman, and in power solely because her son was too young to reign; fighting a minister, who was a foreigner* to boot, seemed perfectly normal, especially if his place depended on being the queen’s favorite or, worse, her lover.
There has, ever since the 1640s, been a vast outpouring of publications discussing the exact nature of Anne of Austria’s relationship to Mazarin: Was she or was she not his mistress? One side, leaning on a letter with a particularly warm ending (“I am dying, and Mazarin knows just why”) holds that she was; the other points out that Anne was given to verbal exaggeration and was far too proud of her birth and position to have an affair with a man of no birth at all, and that she was also too pious to commit so great a sin. That, on balance, seems the most likely; especially since the mechanics of adultery would have proved almost impossibly complicated. The queen was never alone: At least one, often two, of her ladies slept in her room; even her private conferences with the cardinal took place at one end of a gallery with the Court watching from the other end.
Unfortunately, even if, as is probable, Anne of Austria remained chaste, her obvious fondness for Mazarin made the reverse seem likely; worse, it affronted everyone. “The love that the people had felt until then for the Queen began to wane little by little. The absolute power she gave Cardinal Mazarin made her lose her own; and because she wanted him to be loved, she caused him to be hated,”24 Mme de Motteville noted, and she was right. Not only were royal favorites usually loathed: The cardinal’s permanence drove every ambitious man to a frenzy.
By 1646, one of these men was becoming an obvious danger. With the death of the old prince de Condé, the young and brilliant duc d’Enghien moved to the center of the stage. Notoriously proud and bad-tempered (as well as extraordinarily dirty), the new Monsieur le Prince was not only grand master of France, the highest post at Court, but also Governor of Burgundy, Berry, and Champagne, and the richest man in the country. Except for the always indecisive duc d’Orléans, he was the king’s closest relative; as if all that were not enough, he had just won a series of great victories. Finally, because he wanted to conquer an independent principality in Flanders, he now demanded full control of both army and navy.
Condé - as he was now called - felt nothing but contempt for Mazarin, but even that satisfying feeling was becoming tinged with impatience: It did not take a clever man to guess that opposition to the prime minister would soon have the prince’s support, along with that of his large following. Still, Mazarin was no fool: He promptly appointed Condé Viceroy of Catalonia and sent him off to besiege Lerida.
Even more dangerous at the moment, the Parlement had embarked on a kind of opposition which was rapidly veering from the loyal to the factious. Already in 1645, the lit de justice held for the registration of the new fiscal edicts had caused Attorney General Omer Talon to paint a stark and all too accurate picture of the overburdened people’s misery. Now the Parlement took on the role of defender of the poor and oppressed; this compassion would have been more convincing if its judges had not themselves been exempt from taxes, but, as it was, it earned an undoubted popularity. More, with a look across the Channel to the English Parliament which, just then, had defeated Charles I, it began, timidly at first, to claim power on the purse strings so as to control the government itself.
Mazarin, safe in the knowledge that he had the queen’s support, simply ignored this situation: Power, he knew, belonged to the monarch, and the notion that these middle-class magistrates might influence the regent’s policies seemed preposterous. As for Anne of Austria, she saw what was happening, but she knew her duty: The prerogatives left her by Louis XIII must be passed on to her son intact. There could be no question of compromise with the Parlement, so
she mostly ignored it.
In spite of all this discord, the life of the Court continued as if all were well. In early March 1647, for instance, there was a theatrical evening offered by Mazarin, with Commedia dell’Arte players, and especially rich sets and costumes; afterward, “a ball was given on the stage of the theater; a hall had been created, all gilded and made by large frames filled with paintings whose deep perspective formed a fine sight for those who sat in the audience. This hall was furnished with seats and cushions which were placed in niches … At the far end, there was a throne placed on four or five steps with chairs and cushions and a canopy made of gold and silver cloth and tassels worthy of such splendor. Four great crystal chandeliers lit this hall which really looked magical …
“The King was dressed in black satin with gold and silver embroidery; the black was only visible to serve as a foil for the embroidery. Scarlet plumes and ribbons completed his costume, but the handsome features of his face, the sweet yet serious look in his eyes, the whiteness of his complexion together with his hair which was then very fair, adorned him even better than his costume. He danced admirably; and although he was then only eight years old, one could say of him that he was one of those who had the grandest air and certainly the most beauty.”25
The little duc d’Anjou, of whom the queen was very fond, was also becoming one of the Court’s ornaments, but while Louis was preternaturally serious and dignified, his brother Philippe gave a very different sort of promise. “That prince had wit as soon as he learned how to talk. The clearness of his thoughts went along with two praiseworthy inclinations … generosity and humanity. It might be wished, however, that the idle amusements he was allowed had been forbidden him. He liked spending his time with women and girls, dressing them and doing their hair: he knew what would make them look elegant even better than the most curious women … He was well built; his features were fine … His eyes were black, shiny and beautiful; their expression was sweet, yet grave … His black hair, which curled naturally, suited his complexion; and his nose, which looked as if it might become aquiline, was then handsome. One could think that, if the years did not lessen his beauty, he could dispute its crown with the fairest ladies; but it already seemed as if he would not be tall.”26 No doubt Mme de Motteville is right: Philippe’s effeminate tastes were strongly encouraged, but then, both Anne of Austria and Mazarin knew all too well that the king’s brother could be a permanent menace: Better for the duc d’Anjou to care about dresses than rebellions.
Louis XIV Page 3
