M. de Montespan’s steadfast refusal to see the light quickly proved an embarrassment: Sin was one thing, scandal quite another, and the marquis did all he could to make himself obnoxious. In 1673, for instance, he retired to his estate in Gascony, where he had a requiem mass celebrated for his wife’s soul, put himself, his children, and his servants in mourning, and went about deploring his loss. Another time, he took to displaying himself in Paris with horns, the cuckold’s symbol, attached to his hat; most of the time he went about insulting his wife in language so unrestrained that “whore” was the very least of it.
That, as well as the annoying business about the double adultery, was the reason why the chroniclers, at this period, constantly wrote of the king’s visits to his mistresses, in the plural. Mme de Montespan’s apartment was reached through La Vallière, who was thus made to serve as a screen: Louis XIV appeared to be visiting the former mistress when, in fact, he had merely walked through her rooms on his way to the marquise, showing, typically, virtually no concern for the duchesse’s feelings as she was thus left behind.
By 1674, however, no one had any doubt at all that Mme de Montespan alone mattered. Her very appearance proved it. On June 6, for instance, from Dole, which he was busy conquering for the second time, the king wrote Colbert: “Madame de Montespan absolutely refuses to let me give her jewels; but so that she will not lack them, I would like you to order a handsome small coffer in which you will put what I will list hereafter, so that I can easily lend her whatever she would like. It seems extraordinary, but she will not listen to reason when it comes to presents.
“You will put in that coffer a pearl necklace, which I want to be fine; two pairs of earrings, one in diamonds, which I want to be fine, the other of mixed stones; a box and some links of diamonds; a box and some links of mixed stones which can be taken apart and used with the diamonds as well. We must have stones of every color so that they will be available. We must also have a pair of pearl earrings.
“We must also have four dozen buttons, of which the stones can be changed in the middle, the outside being made of small diamonds, that will go with everything; we must have stones ready for this …
“You must spend freely on this, it will please me.”151 And five days later, the king ordered an even more significant (and expensive) present: An estate having been bought at Clagny, some three miles from Versailles, work was begun on a château designed by Mansard, and although it was torn down during the Revolution, we know from seventeenth-century engravings that it was both large and splendid.
Still, the anti-Montespan pressures were strong: The Church, respectfully but firmly, deplored the double adultery. Because Louis XIV normally took communion at Easter, that was an especially sensitive time: If the affair continued, the “Most Christian King” must stay away from the altar, and, in 1675, Bossuet finally convinced him the scandal was too great. Not for nothing was this time the century of Corneille and Racine: Louis and the marquise parted in public, both weeping torrents and expressing the most edifying sentiments. She then moved to Paris while he duly took communion, and after some six weeks, the bishops decided that it was safe for her to return to Court. So in order to avoid any possible awkwardness, a meeting between the former lovers was arranged in the presence of a group of elderly and respectable ladies. At first, all proceeded according to plan; then the king took the marquise off near a window; he was seen to whisper in her ear; she whispered back in his. They came back to the middle of the room, and facing the ladies, Louis bowed and the marquise curtseyed. Having done so, both moved into the next room, closing the door behind them. In short order, unequivocal noises filtered through the panel, and nine months later, when Mme de Montespan gave birth to a baby girl, any last, lingering doubt the ladies might have felt was finally eradicated.
By May, the marquise was back at the peak of favor. On the twenty-eighth, the king wrote, “Mme de Montespan wrote me that you had ordered the purchase of some orange trees [for Clagny] and that you always ask her what she would like; continue to do as I have commanded you in this as you have done until now.” On June 5, he reiterated: “Go on doing whatever Mme de Montespan wants,”152 and on the eighth, he amplified this order: “a great deal of money has been spent [on Clagny] and that proves that nothing is impossible for you in order to please me. Mme de Montespan has written me that you have carried out my commands perfectly and that you are always asking her what she wants: always continue to do so. She also tells me that she went to Sceaux* where she spent a pleasant evening. I have advised her to go some day to Dampierre† and have assured her that Mme de Chevreuse and Mme Colbert would be happy to receive her there. I feel sure that you will do the same. I will be pleased to have her amused, and these [evenings] will be very apt to entertain her.
“Confirm that this will happen. I am pleased to let you know all this so that you can see, inasmuch as it is in your power, that she is entertained.”153
What these letters reveal, however, is not just that Louis XIV was anxious to please the marquise: Typically, all these orders were addressed to Colbert, whose many responsibilities included everything connected to the king’s private life. Just as Monsieur had written to him when he wanted to be reconciled with his brother, so he was expected to look after the mistresses and their illegitimate children as well as the building of Versailles, the smooth operation of the state manufactures, what, today, we would call the Department of the Treasury and the Bureau of the Budget, international trade, the navy, and just about anything else which was neither War nor Justice.
Naturally, this reliance only happened because he carried out his many functions with spectacular efficiency and honesty; as a result, he developed a very particular relationship to the king, one in which real affection existed. While Louis XIV, in the course of his reign, grew to feel respect for the capacities of certain other ministers - Louvois, Colbert’s great rival, is an example - he always kept them at a certain distance; they knew they pleased only because they were useful. With Colbert, however, the tone is very different, perhaps because Louis, who never forgot anything, remembered that it was in part to him that he owed his triumph over Fouquet, so he sometimes sounds more like a concerned friend than an imperious master. On April 15, 1671, for instance, he wrote: “Madame Colbert has told me that your health is not too good, and that the speed with which you intend to return [from Rochefort] might harm you.
“I write you this note to order you not to do anything that would make you unable to serve me, when you arrive back, in all the important business with which I entrust you.
“In a word, your health is necessary to me, I want you to preserve it and to believe that I speak to you like this because of the trust and friendship I feel for you.”154 Friendship! That was not a word Louis XIV used casually and here it gives the full measure of the minister’s importance.
No less instructive, however, is a letter the king wrote Colbert just nine days later, because the minister, during a Council meeting in which the navy’s position had been discussed, had argued on after his master had announced his decision. In its mixture of reproof, domination, and care, it expresses the very essence of the new monarchy. “I was sufficiently master of myself the day before yesterday to conceal from you that it pained me to hear a man whom I covered with favors speak to me in the way you did,” Louis wrote on April 24. “I have felt much friendship for you, my actions have shown it, I feel it still today and believe that I show it clearly enough when I tell you that I constrained myself one single moment for you and that I did not want to tell you what I am now writing you so as not to put you in a position where you might displease me still further.
“That feeling is due to my remembrance of the services you have rendered me and to my friendship for you; be glad of it and do not risk annoying me any more, for after I have heard your arguments and those of your colleagues, and then decided on all your requests, I never want to hear another word on those subjects.
“See if the navy
does not suit you, if your position is not what you wish, if you would prefer something else; speak freely. But after the decision I will take, I do not want to hear a single argument.
“I am telling you what I think so that you can work on a sound footing and will not take the wrong measures.”155
It would be difficult to state the position more clearly: The king was always willing to listen to advice before making a decision, but because he was absolute, God’s representative on earth, his decisions, once made, must be obeyed without further discussion. In this particular case, Colbert’s trespass had been due to jealousy: Louvois was getting more money for War than he was for the navy, and in his answer to the erring minister’s apology, Louis XIV made his position clearer still. “Do not think that my friendship for you will lessen, if your services continue it cannot happen, but you must render them such as I want them, and believe that all I do is for the best.
“The preference you fear I may give others must not pain you. I only want to avoid injustice while working for the good of the state. That is what I will do when you are all with me.
“In the meantime, believe that I have not changed toward you and that my feelings for you are such as you may wish.”156
Louis XIV had just made himself very plain, and Colbert heard the warning: Never again did he discuss a royal decision, but as we look back with the full benefit of hindsight, we are entitled to ask whether that, in fact, was the most productive of attitudes. The king’s reasons are clear: He would do whatever was necessary to avoid having a dominating minister and rely on God to inspire him with the right choice. Still, time after time, he chose to ignore excellent advice simply because it did not please him. When, for instance, Colbert pleaded that it was not possible to fight frequent wars, run the most splendid Court in Europe, and build Versailles, Trianon, and Marly all at the same time, he undoubtedly had a point. By 1671, for the first time in the history of the monarchy, he was producing a large surplus, 3,625,353 livres, while the debt was being retired at a steady rate. Already in 1680, the surplus had given way to a deficit of 4.5 million livres - very manageable still, but obviously alarming and due to the king’s refusal to curtail his expenditure. As a result, French historians have blamed Louis XIV for creating a lasting financial mess.
In fact, even a 4.5-million deficit still represented only 5 percent of the budget - a negligible figure to our modern eyes, and the king got good value for his money. When his wars resulted in the acquisition of important provinces (which, indeed, have remained French ever since), when his buildings turned out to be masterpieces admired throughout Europe, then the money cannot be said to have been wasted. Thus, it is a surprising, but real, fact that, when he relied on his instinct and ignored Colbert’s representations, Louis XIV was doing a great deal for the ultimate glory and welfare of France. There are, in the end, more important goals than a balanced budget, something the uneducated monarch understood better than his enormously competent minister.
Just because Louis XIV reserved the decisions to himself, however, does not mean that he was unaware of the details of his government: Besides determining policy, he watched jealously over its implementation. More, he took pride in his unrivaled knowledge of even the most distant parts of his realm. It is, for instance, interesting to read a letter he wrote in May 1671 to M. de Baas, Governor of the Isles of America, as the French Caribbean islands were then called, partly because of the care it denotes, partly because of its air of tolerance.
“Having learned that the Jews who have settled at Martinique and in the other islands inhabited by my subjects have incurred considerable expenses for the cultivation of the land, and that they are still fortifying their towns, which is useful to the population, I write you this to tell you that I want them to enjoy the same privileges as the other inhabitants of the same islands; they are to be given their full freedom of conscience, while the necessary precautions will be taken so that their religious ceremonies will not offend the Catholics.”157
This letter, obviously, has a double implication. The first and most obvious is that nothing was too inconsiderable for the king’s attention; the second, and more surprising, is that he was no enemy of toleration. A clear distinction can thus be made between his attitude to the Protestants, on the one hand, and his understanding of religious freedom on the other; as usual, this contrast was based on politics. The Protestants had formed almost a separate country within France; even in the 1670s, they represented a potentially dangerous minority, not by their power to convince but by their eventual ability to resist the royal government. Since it was the king’s great goal to ensure that his writ was unchallenged, he had an obvious reason to wish the Protestants converted to Catholicism. No such resistance was to be feared from the Jews, however, and so no attempt was made to convert them: More, their religious observances were to be protected. Coming from a monarch who eventually became almost a byword for fanatical Catholicism, this openmindedness needs to be noted.
Again, because Louis XIV became so radiant a symbol of monarchy, he is now often seen in modern terms as the first of a long line of dictators. In fact, precisely because he was the king, and thus secure, his method of ruling and of presenting himself was the very opposite of that adopted by someone like Mussolini. While modern “great leaders” have been reduced to pretending universal competence, Louis XIV invariably required, and usually deferred to, the opinions of experts. Nor did he ever downplay the importance of those people who served him. To take only one example among many, his behavior when Turenne died in July 1675 was typical.
“That evening, when all the courtiers were crowding around the table at which the King usually dines, he had barely appeared before he said gravely: ‘We have lost the father of the country’ … The next morning, so that people could see that the realm was not short of generals, and to lessen the effect of this loss, the King made Schomberg, d’Estrades, Navailles, Rochefort, Luxembourg, La Feuillade, Duras, and Vivonne marshals of France. Since this last was the brother of Mme de Montespan, people said that seven had been raised by the sword and one by the scabbard.”158 In fact, Vivonne was a brave, experienced, and effective general, and Louis XIV’s regard both for Turenne and for France’s position after his death was eminently sensible.
Common sense, that often despised quality, may well have been the king’s greatest boon. That he should have retained it in the midst of constant flattery is all the more admirable: The first consequence of his new system was that he had now become the target of every ambitious man and woman at Court, and that his smallest word was taken as gospel. In 1674, for instance, there was the story of the duc Mazarin, the cardinal’s nephew by marriage, and the man who had lent the king money at the time of Fouquet’s dismissal.
“It is enough,” Primi Visconti noted, “for the King to speak of someone for that person to be eagerly sought or completely rejected. On that subject, I have heard that when Mlle de La Vallière was the favorite, the duc Mazarin had told the King that he had had a revelation that night that His Majesty was to behave better; to which the King answered: ‘Well, I dreamed that you were mad!’ Immediately everyone, down to his own footmen, treated the duc as if he had been a madman so that he no longer dared show himself at Court. Several years later, the duc understood his mistake. He told the King how low he had fallen and begged for help. The King, at his lever, first talked about hunting with Mazarin, then, turning to the courtiers, he said that the duc had wit. Hardly had the duc left the bedroom before more people crowded around him than around the King.”159 It was, however, part of Louis’s extraordinary psychological stability that he saw through these marks of adoration; indeed, throughout the reign he occasionally made fun of his flatterers.
One of these sycophants, the maréchal de Grammont, repeatedly suffered from these demonstrations. There was the time, in 1664, when, according to Mme de Sévigné, the king showed him a sonnet, commenting that he thought it very poor. The maréchal wholeheartedly agreed, upon which
the king announced that he was its author. Some ten years later, one day at the king’s dinner, he offered Grammont a piece of a pear he was eating, saying it was delicious; once again, the maréchal concurred, only to watch as the king told several other courtiers to taste the pear, which was, in fact, no good. Certainly, these stories show a lack of respect for Grammont, but then again, they were testimonials to the fact that the king demanded respect and obedience, not flattery.
Indeed, he could on occasion be positively ingenious in giving pleasure to the people close to him, In 1673, “His Majesty gave* M. le prince de Marcillac the office of grand master of the wardrobe in a manner which charmed everyone. He had one of his pages take him this note: ‘I am sending you La Hébertye from whom you will hear some news which will, I think, please you. I rejoice with you, as your friend, for this gift I make you as your master.’“160 And far from disdaining his subjects, he insisted that anyone of particular interest come and see him: “Although His Majesty is ordinarily busy with affairs of State, he still gives some moments to things worthy of the curiosity of his great mind, especially since he wants to be aware of everything. That is why when he found out that the Sieur Denis had made discoveries relating to magnets and the weight of air, he had several of his experiments carried out before him, which he admired and he thus caused the Sieur Denis to receive much praise.”161
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