Louis XIV had never lost his temper before; he never did again. But the duc du Maine’s disgrace had obviously touched him in an even more sensitive place than Saint-Simon thought: The duc attributes the king’s anger to his disappointment in a beloved son, and, as far as that goes, he is right, but it was also the first time that a deeply thought out policy was wrecked by someone’s personal deficiency. There could be no more question of using the duc du Maine to lower the princes of the blood: Their respective status remained unchanged and the king’s plans were dropped. That may well be why, to the horror of all Europe, Louis XIV ordered that Brussels be bombarded gratuitously. There was no question of taking the city; instead, it was destruction for destruction’s sake, something with which we are sadly familiar but which the seventeenth century rightly found unacceptable.
In many ways, in fact, 1695 marks a turning point in Louis XIV’s life. Problems - mostly financial - had occurred earlier, but with the loss of Namur, the invincibility of the French army was proved to be an exploded myth after all: Fate, which had always been so kind to the king, now seemed to work against him; instead of giving orders, he had to search for compromise. Success, of course, has its own dangers, but it is still better than a string of reverses. As long as he triumphed, Louis had shown equanimity; the question was now how he would deal with defeat and disappointment.
In fact, once again, his superb common sense took over. Fighting Europe, he decided, was occupation enough: It was time to settle with the pope, so he accepted a compromise which, a few years earlier, he would have rejected with disdain. This resolution was made possible by the election, on July 12, 1691, of Innocent XII Pignatelli, who was determined not only to reform the administration of the papal states but also to end the estrangement of France and its clergy. In 1693, he ratified the appointment of the bishops nominated since 1682, provided only that they had not participated in the Assembly of that year. On his side, Louis XIV revoked the obligation for the clergy to subscribe to the Four Articles. Both parties had apparently retreated; in fact, the pope lost a good deal more than the king; he accepted the king’s view of his regalian rights, and while the clergy was no longer enjoined to subscribe to the Four Articles, they were not forbidden to do so of their own free choice. Still, for the first time, Louis XIV had publicly acknowledged an error.
The same prudent attitude prevailed when it came to the war. In 1695 and 1696, it spread across the ocean to the French colonies in the Caribbean, while in France itself, Dieppe was bombarded from the sea and largely destroyed. But elsewhere, the ineffective fighting of the previous years continued. As a result, and because the Treasury was even emptier than usual, the king began to contemplate a kind of peace in which, for the first time, France would not prevail.
The most obvious way to attain even that sort of arrangement was to split the coalition, and its weakest link was well within reach of the king’s blandishments. Vittorio Amedeo II, duke of Savoy, ruled over Savoy and Piedmont; at the moment, he was generalissimo of the imperial army, but he was always ready to betray an ally if it suited him. “The comte de Tessé”, Voltaire wrote, “a clever and amiable man, with a pleasing sort of genius, which is the most essential talent for a negotiator, first acted secretly in Turin. The maréchal de Catinat, as gifted for making peace as for making war, concluded the negotiation. There was no need for two clever men to join in convincing the Duke of Savoy to follow a policy advantageous to him. His country [which was occupied by a French army] was returned to him; he was given money; he was offered the marriage of his daughter with the young duc de Bourgogne, son of Monseigneur and heir to the French Crown: an agreement was quickly reached … The Duke of Savoy joined the French army with his troops … and … in less than a month had gone from being the Emperor’s generalissimo to being Louis XIV’s generalissimo.”251
That turnaround, in itself, was enough to shake Leopold I, but although he might have been ready to make a separate peace, Louis XIV knew very well that his principal enemy was William III, and that no peace would be lasting which did not include him. So swallowing his pride, he secretly approached the man whose whole life had been spent fighting him. In short order, negotiations began at Ryswick, in Holland. Their exceedingly slow pace was somewhat speeded up when it was learned that, in August 1697, the duc de Vendôme, an illegitimate grandson of Henri IV and a talented general, had just taken Barcelona. Since, at the same time, Parliament had been making it plain to William III that it was tired of the war, and since Louis was prepared to return all his conquests since the Peace of Nijmegen with the single exception of Strasbourg, the conditions for a reasonable peace existed. On September 20, 1697, it was at last concluded.
Louis XIV had given up a good deal: While refusing to expel James II, he promised no longer to work for the restoration of the Stuarts. He returned his duchy to the duke of Lorraine and gave him Monsieur’s daughter as a wife; he abandoned Catalonia, which had just been conquered, along with the cities in the Spanish Netherlands (today’s Belgium) which he had seized since Nijmegen; he turned Brisach, Kehl, Freiburg, and Philippsburg over to the emperor; the Rhine forts were destroyed; and finally, William III recovered his principality of Orange, in southern France. In exchange, peace for a generation was, everyone agreed, at last assured.
In France itself, the Peace of Ryswick was greeted with something like sorrow. The very people who were complaining that the endless conflict was ruining the nation now accused the negotiators of having given up far too much. It was, after all, the first peace of the reign in which, far from swallowing new conquests, France had actually given up territory. And yet, it was an act of singular wisdom.
By 1697, Europe felt about France much as it would about Germany in 1940. Here was a predatory power, always hungry for new territory, armed with an unequaled army, ruthless in the wars it waged: It had taken no less than this belief to bring together the League of Augsburg. By renouncing all recent conquests, Louis XIV went a long way toward proving that he was far more moderate than his enemies thought; by agreeing no longer to back the Stuarts, he proved that he was not a Catholic fanatic always ready to fight for the extension of his religion. Any less would have made Ryswick a mere truce, and the king was thoroughly convinced that France needed many years of peace. That, barring unforeseen complications, he could now expect. A balance had been reached: It was in no one’s interest to disturb it, and no monarch less powerful, less absolute than Louis XIV could have imposed it on his ministers and his people.
That the treaty should have been so badly received pained the king, but he was also beginning to realize that, all politics aside, it had brought him an almost endless source of joy. By 1696, Louis was almost sixty years old, an age considered to be the threshold of extreme old age. No king of France had reached this age since Louis XI in 1483. Partly for that reason, partly because it distracted him from the cares of state, he now began to prize the cheerfulness and exuberance of the young, particularly as his own health was far from good. He was frequently tormented by attacks of gout, and in the fall of 1696, he developed an abscess on his neck which gave him a high fever and had to be operated on repeatedly. Now, as the result of his accord with Savoy, he had at his Court the most charming, the most lovable of young women.
Marie-Adélaide de Savoie was only twelve when she crossed the border into France as the embodiment of the treaty between her father and Louis XIV: She was chosen because she was available, not because of any personal qualities, and there was every reason to believe she would be yet another of those rather dim princesses whose main achievement was to provide an heir to the throne. Indeed, once the news of the alliance had become public, it was the change at Court people thought about rather than the attributes of the newcomer. “The Court had long been without a queen or a dauphine,” Saint-Simon noted. “All the ladies of a certain position and those in favor bustled and plotted, many of them against one another; anonymous letters, denunciations, and calumnies flew about. All the decisions were
taken solely by the King and Mme de Maintenon, who never left his bedside while he was ill [with the abscess on his neck], except when he allowed himself to be seen, and who was often alone with him. She had decided to be the real governess of the princess, to bring her up as she thought fit and for her own purposes, and to create strong enough a tie so that she could use her to amuse the King without fearing that, as she grew up, she might become dangerous. She also wanted to have a hold, through her, on the duc de Bourgogne for the future … Mme de Maintenon therefore sought out, for the princess’s entourage, persons who were either wholly devoted to herself or so stupid that she would have nothing to fear from them.”252
Saint-Simon loathed Mme de Maintenon, so that he is usually anything but impartial where she is concerned, but in this instance, he is clearly right. It had, after all, long been the king’s habit to allow the lady in his life a good deal of influence when it came to Court appointments; he had no reason to refuse his wife what he had offered his mistresses, and besides, he was well aware of Mme de Maintenon’s gifts as an educator. The duchesse de Bourgogne was a future queen of France; she was still young enough to be molded; it made sense to do so promptly and efficiently.
As a result, the marquis de Dangeau was appointed chevalier d’honneur. An old friend of the king’s, and a man with an astonishing ability to win at cards consistently without ever cheating, he was the most zealous of courtiers. The duchesse du Lude, who was appointed dame d’honneur, to her own stupefaction, was virtuous, rich, pleasant, and very, very stupid. The comtesse de Mailly, the dame d’atours, was a friend of Mme de Maintenon’s; the comte de Tesse, First Equerry, was given the place as a reward for the success of his negotiations with the duc de Savoie. There was no one here, or among the ladies-in-waiting, capable of opposing Mme de Maintenon; it was plain to all that she would be very much in charge.
All these maneuvers were entirely normal and would, with suitable modifications, have taken place at any other European court; what remained to be seen was whether the princess was ready to be molded: The queen, good and obedient though she had been, had utterly lacked interest; the dauphine had provoked indifference at best, hostility at worse. There was no guarantee that the duchesse de Bourgogne would be an improvement on these two ladies. It is therefore particularly interesting to read a description of Louis XIV’s first reaction on meeting her, and because he sent Mme de Maintenon a letter from Montargis, a little beyond Fontainebleau, where the meeting took place on November 4, 1696, we can do just that.
“I arrived here before five,” the king wrote. “[T]he princess only arrived around six. I went to meet her at her carriage. She let me speak first, but then answered me very properly and with a touch of shyness you would have liked. I took her, across the crowd, to her room, showing her off from time to time by bringing the torches closer to her face. She bore this march and these lights with grace and modesty. We finally reached her room, where the crowd and heat were enough to kill you; I showed her from time to time to those who came close …
“She is very graceful and has the best shape I have ever seen; beautifully dressed and coiffed; her eyes are very beautiful and lively; admirable dark eyelashes; a fine pink and white complexion which is just such as one can desire; the finest fair hair and in great abundance. She is as thin as she should be at her age; her mouth is very red, big lips, large white and very jumbled teeth, pretty hands but of the color to be expected at her age [e.g., red]. She speaks little, at least in my presence, is not shy about being stared at, and behaves like someone who is accustomed to the great world. Her curtsey is not good, and too Italianate; there is also something Italian about her face, but it is pleasing, I could see that in everyone’s eyes. As for me, I am delighted with her … I find her just as she should be and would not want her to be more beautiful …
“I saw her being undressed; she has a very good body, one might even say a perfect one, and is modest enough to please you …
“We took supper together; she did not make a single mistake and is always amazingly polite, but especially in regard to me and my son she did not make a single mistake and behaved as well as you would have done.”253 That was no mean compliment: For a twelve-year-old girl, faced with the Sun King in person, and placed suddenly in the midst of a foreign court, to behave as well as Mme de Maintenon herself showed amazing tact and intelligence.
The next day proved no disappointment. The king and “the princess”* attended mass together and, after dinner, went on to Fontainebleau; at Nemours, the fourteen-year-old duc de Bourgogne came to meet his fiancée; at Fontainebleau itself, the Court was introduced to its future queen, who was given Anne of Austria’s apartment. Because she was still so young - and unmarried - Louis XIV announced that she would see only the ladies of her Household and those specially authorized to visit her; that she would not hold court, and that her fiancé would only attend her every other week. Then, on the return to Versailles, she was given the queen’s apartment and introduced to such courtiers as had not been at Fontainebleau.
“The King and Mme de Maintenon made the princess into their doll,” Saint-Simon noted. “Her insinuating, flattering and attentive spirit pleased them infinitely and, little by little, she took liberties which the King’s grandchildren never dared to attempt, and which charmed them. It became clear that M. de Savoie knew our court well, and that he had taught it all to his daughter; but what was truly astonishing was how thoroughly she used that knowledge, and the grace with which she did everything: there can be nothing like the cajoling with which she bewitched Mme de Maintenon, whom she always called my aunt, and respected and obeyed more than if she had been her mother and a queen; all with a familiarity and apparent freedom which enchanted her and the King both.”254 It is no wonder, really: The princess had the kind of beguiling charm and lively, amusing spirit which Louis XIV’s grandchildren wholly lacked; she was at that fascinating time of life when the child turns into a young woman, and she knew how to blend the deference due the august couple with an ease they usually never encountered. It cannot sufficiently be said that the royal family was terrified of the king and that their relationships with him were accordingly stiff and awkward.
Even better, by showing herself unafraid, by making it plain that she enjoyed their company, the princess convinced Louis and the marquise that she liked them for themselves. It is always the ruler’s weakness to want to be loved for himself, not his position, and love him the princess did.
Just because Louis XIV never hesitated to put the state before his family does not mean he had no feelings; his tears may sometimes have been insincere, but he was not proof against finding himself the grandfather of such a pleasant child. He can have derived few satisfactions from the slow and lumpy Monseigneur besides those connected to having an undisputed heir. Of his grandchildren, the duc de Bourgogne, the eldest, was an odd mixture of violence and extreme piety, and far too serious to charm the king. The next brother, Philippe, duc d’Anjou, had deliberately been kept back so he could never be a threat to the future king; as a result he was slow, indecisive, and gloomy. The youngest, Charles, duc de Berry, was still only ten years old, a round-cheeked, fair-haired, and noisy little boy far too obstreperous to appeal to his grandfather. For all his distance from his legitimate family and his disappointment with the duc du Maine, however, Louis XIV was not proof against normal paternal feelings, and the princess enabled him to indulge them for the first time.
Other changes also took place at about this time, Monseigneur had been left the château of Choisy by a cousin in 1691. “The King, accustomed to dominating his family as much at least as his courtiers and his people, always wanted it gathered around him and had seen without pleasure the gift of Choisy to Monseigneur and the frequent trips he made there with the few people he chose every time as company. That made for a separation from Court which could hardly be avoided at [Monseigneur]’s age [he was thirty-four] as long as the gift of this house made it possible; but he decided at least to
bring him closer. Meudon,* much larger and extremely superb because of the millions that M. de Louvois had spent there, seemed to him just right for this.” An exchange was therefore arranged with Barbezieux, who was given Choisy and 900,000 livres; of course, Saint-Simon comments, “the King did not do this without having spoken about it to Monseigneur, for whom the slightest indication of a desire was an order.”255
With Monseigneur just next door, but buried in his own little circle, the king’s illegitimate daughters took on more importance. They, however, proved to be a fruitful source of disappointments: The princesse de Conti despised the other two and had an unfortunately well-known taste for low-born officers; the duchesse de Bourbon was given to composing, and repeating, scurrilous songs about her sisters; the duchesse de Chartres virtually never remained sober to the end of the evening. Of course, whenever one of the three went too far, she earned herself a scolding, from Mme de Maintenon usually, from the king in more severe cases, but they, too, failed to give their father much satisfaction.
Mme de Maintenon’s position, on the other hand, was stronger than ever. Her power, at this stage, has been much exaggerated: When it came to politics, the king, while frequently asking her opinion, invariably disregarded it; in religious matters, Bossuet and the Père de La Chaise, the king’s confessor, outranked her very consistently; only in family matters was she all-powerful. But still, Louis XIV loved and respected her more with every passing year. That became particularly clear when, in April 1697, the Commedia dell’Arte, which had been most popular in Paris and at Court, was suddenly ordered to leave France within a month. Although they were accustomed to mocking politics and religion, they had never before offended the king, but, this time, they put on a play called The False Prude which was an obvious satire on Mme de Maintenon, and that was more than the monarch was prepared to tolerate.
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