Louis XIV

by Olivier Bernier

  This victory of an elderly lady over the Sun King was all the more remarkable that, in France itself, obedience was absolute. “The old maréchal de Villeroy, who knew the Court well,” Saint-Simon noted, “said amusingly that one should hold the chamberpot for the ministers while they are in office, and pour it over their head as soon as one sees that their power is beginning to slip.”278 Indeed, only the king mattered: It was the very reverse of the situation in 1660; and as if to make it all clearer still, defeats or no, Louis XIV saw to it that Versailles remained as splendid as ever. The appointed festivities were held at their unchanging times; the king moved from Versailles to Trianon, Marly, or Fontainebleau as always; work continued on a new chapel for the Palace, and even if money began to be sorely lacking, nothing was allowed to change the routine of the Court.

  As for the courtiers, they were more cowed than ever, although even they thought some flattery went too far. The abbé de Polignac, Saint-Simon tells us, “was a guest on every trip to Marly, and all vied for the charms of his company; … [but] with all his intelligence, he let go a piece of flattery whose exaggeration was widely noticed … He was following the King in the gardens of Marly; it began to rain; the King said something polite about his clothes which would not keep him dry. ‘That is nothing, Sire,’ he answered. ‘The rain at Marly is not wet.’“279

  It was, in fact, at Marly that Louis XIV received Mme des Ursins on January 10, 1705, but already four days earlier, he had written to his new ambassador at Madrid, the duc de Grammont: “You know my grandson’s weakness … The Queen will always control him. We must try and use her power rather than destroy it … The King of Spain must not be told what I think of him … Try to gain the Queen’s confidence, don’t let her think you are trying to remove her from the government.”280 As a result, Mme des Ursins’s stay with the French Court was triumphant. There were long, private conversations with the king and Mme de Maintenon; special favors were granted her brothers; and when, on June 15, 1705, she left on her way to Spain, it was clear that she would stay there for good.

  Never before, in forty-four years of personal reign, had Louis XIV allowed a subject thus to defeat his intentions: It is much to his praise that, in this one instance, he was flexible enough to bend: The war could not be won - indeed, would certainly be lost - without Mme des Ursins’s work in Madrid.

  Almost equally surprising is the fact that at this great age, the king managed to work harder than ever. After the severe illnesses of earlier years, he seems to have quite regained his health. In the course of the year 1705, for instance, he suffered briefly from gout in mid-March, had a cold in mid-April accompanied by a severe attack of gout, and except for fairly prolonged diarrhea in late August, and again in October, he remained well until December 23 when he vomited dead worms with, however, no apparent aftereffect.281 Considering that he was purged at least once a month (with up to ten consequent evacuations) and not infrequently bled, it seems obvious that he had an extraordinarily strong constitution. Still, in April, because of his gout, he discontinued the grand coucher, that ceremony in which he undressed and went to bed before the entire Court: Henceforth, only a small circle of servants and courtiers remained.

  That change, however, entailed no diminution in splendor. While the duchesse du Maine, on her side, gave ever grander receptions, the balls at Marly and Versailles in January and February 1706 showed the world that the king of France could fight the rest of Europe and not feel it. But on January 1, 1707, Louis XIV at last found himself forced to retrench sharply in the amount of the customary New Year’s presents to the royal family.

  There were other changes, too. In 1707, for the first time, the king decided that, much as he disliked giving his relatives any chance to shine, he could no longer afford not to use them. The duc d’Orléans, at long last, was given an effective command,* that of the French army in Spain. It was on that occasion that the king’s hatred of religious heterodoxy once again surfaced. Upon Louis XIV’s having asked his nephew of whom his staff consisted, “M. le duc d’Orléans named, among others, Fontpertuis. ‘What!, nephew,’ the King retorted with emotion, ‘the son of that madwoman who used to follow M. Arnaud everywhere, a Jansenist? I will not have that sort of person near you.’

  “‘Well, Sire,’ M. d’Orléans answered, ‘I do not know what the mother did, but as for the son, a Jansenist! Why, he does not even believe in God.’

  “‘Is that possible?’ the King said. ‘And are you quite sure? If it is so, all is well and you can take him along.’”282 It was no wonder that Fénelon’s exile was never rescinded.

  That Louis should be entrusting his nephew with an army showed how very worried he was: While to the outside world he seemed more self-confident than ever, Blenheim had shown him clearly that defeat was no longer impossible. Already in 1704, in the deepest secrecy, approaches had been made to Heinsius, the grand pensionary of Holland, but to no avail. France would have to fight on, and the war was almost impossibly costly. While in Colbert’s lifetime the budget tended to run around 100 million livres and to be very close to balance, by 1706, it had gone up to 220 million with a deficit of nearly 170 million; the Debt, obviously, was growing by leaps and bounds; the State, once again, was dependent on the good will of financiers.

  Clearly, however, there was no hope other than to endure. In Italy, at least, the war was going well. On August 16, 1705, Vendome actually defeated Prince Eugene at Cassano; and on April 19, 1706, he trounced one of the prince’s lieutenants in his absence at the battle of Calcinato; indeed, it looked as if the strongly fortified city of Turin, the duke of Savoy’s capital would soon be taken.

  Elsewhere, unfortunately, the French continued to be beaten. Blending the qualities of a statesman with those of a general, the duke of Marlborough managed to keep the Coalition together, its armies trained and supplied and its finances prosperous; on May 23, 1706, he trounced the maréchal de Villeroy yet again, this time near the little town of Ramillies. It was another Blenheim, and the appalled Villeroy was so terrified of writing the news to Versailles that he waited five days to do so. But when he reappeared at Court, far from punishing him, Louis XIV simply said: “Monsieur le maréchal, one is no longer lucky at our age.”283

  As if it had not been disastrous enough in itself, Ramillies had yet another consequence. Convinced at last that Villeroy was not the commander to oppose Marlborough, the king called Vendôme back from Italy, and the moment he was gone, the French army, poorly led by the duc de la Feuillade, Chamillart’s son-in-law, so mismaneuvered as to give the returning Prince Eugene a strong advantage. Not only was Turin not taken, but Marsin lost a battle before the city on September 7, 1706, in which virtually all the matériel was taken by the enemy. Marsin himself died soon after of his wounds: that, cruelly enough, was the only silver lining. By the end of the month, France had lost the area around Mantua, Milan, and the Piedmont, while, with the help of the British navy, Austria had taken Naples: No matter where Louis XIV looked, there was only disaster to be seen.

  As for Chamillart, who had the jobs once held by Colbert and Louvois, he begged the king to let him resign. “He wrote the King,” Saint-Simon noted, “a pathetic letter asking for relief: he made plain the sad state of affairs, and added that he could not remedy them due to lack of time and strength … and ended by saying frankly that all must perish unless a remedy were found. He always left a wide empty margin where the King wrote his comments in his own hand. Chamillart showed me this one after it had come back to him: I saw with great surprise that the King’s short comment ended with: ‘Well, we will perish together.’”284

  Indeed, the fates had clearly turned against France: At least, Emperor Leopold had been slow and inefficient, but in 1705, he died and was succeeded by his son, who took the name of Joseph I. The new emperor was more energetic and intelligent than his father; he worked hard for the success of his brother’s candidacy to the Spanish throne and proved a dangerous enemy.

  In Spain, too, there
was nothing but disaster. In spite of repeated attempts, the siege of Barcelona failed and Philip V was forced to retreat into Navarre, while Anglo-Portuguese troops under a French Protestant exile, M. de Ruvigny, who had been created Earl of Galloway by William III, advanced deep into Spain, until, on June 26, 1706, he entered Madrid, where the archduke joined him.

  The very extent of this reversal, however, turned out to be helpful: Philip V was popular because he was the late king’s chosen heir; Maria Luisa was loved for her energy. In a few weeks, she raised money from the cities as yet not taken by the British; the people and the grandees alike observed the oath they had sworn to Philip; at the head of a reconstituted army, he defeated Galloway and reentered Madrid on September 26.

  It was, clearly, a major success, not least because Spain had shown conclusively it would not settle for the archduke, or, indeed, any other candidate chosen by foreign powers. Of course, it comforted Louis XIV in his determination to save his grandson’s crown, but right near him, someone almost as powerful was ready to end the war on almost any terms.

  From the very beginning, Mme de Maintenon had opposed the war; indeed, her opinion, as expressed to the Council, owed more to her desire to placate Monseigneur - who would be king when his father died - than to her own conviction. From the very first, she had lamented the strain imposed by the conflict and predicted that things would go from bad to worse; now that they had, her jeremiads were even more constant and more lamentable. In 1706 and 1707, she came to a parting of the ways with her old friend Mme des Ursins who, whether from Navarre or from Madrid, constantly promised ultimate victory while asking for more men and more money. Mme de Maintenon, on the contrary, kept repeating that, for reasons unknown, God had decided to punish France, that it was futile to fight his decrees and that therefore peace, any peace, must be the sole object, even if it entailed leaving the Spanish inheritance to the archduke.

  The king, of course, was fully aware of the marquise’s position; indeed, except for Mme des Ursins, he met with nothing but despair and defeatism wherever he turned. But, for a short while, the wind seemed to turn: On April 25, 1707, the maréchal de Berwick defeated the Anglo-Portuguese at the battle of Almanza; this great success was followed up by the duc d’Orléans, who had just joined the army; Lerida, along with several less important fortresses was taken, and from then on, in Spain at least, there was a hope of ultimate victory.

  Unfortunately, the reverse was true on the other fronts: France itself was now under attack. In August 1707, Toulon was besieged and Provence ravaged by the duke of Savoy. The city resisted and the siege failed, but troops had to be sent there that were needed elsewhere. In order to strengthen the fighting spirit of the army on the northern front, therefore, the duc de Bourgogne was sent off to command with Vendôme as his second; and it was understood that the prince would heed the maréchal’s advice. At this point, the human element came into play. No two men could have been more unlike: Bourgogne was serious, pious, conventional - and legitimate. Vendôme was brilliant, an atheist, a debauchee whose tastes favored young men, a cynic, and the illegitimate grandson of Henri IV. Enmity soon developed between the two commanders; Marlborough took advantage of this hostility, and the loss of Oudenarde on July 11, 1708 was followed by that of Tournai, Gand and Ypres, while, at the same time, an attempt at landing the pretender in Scotland failed utterly.

  Worse was yet to come. Advancing irresistibly, Prince Eugene lay siege to Lille, a city which had been strongly fortified by Vauban and was reputed to be proof against all attack. No one supposed that it could, in fact, be taken, but to the despair of the French, taken it was on October 28; after that, Gand, Bruges and all the remaining French strongholds in Flanders fell as well. And since Joseph I now held sway in Italy, he forced the pope, who had recognized Philip V as king of Spain in 1701, to switch his endorsement to the archduke, while, in 1708, the British conquered Sardinia.

  All the while, the war continued to be enormously costly; Chamillart relied almost entirely on a small group of financiers to provide him with the necessary funds; up to a point they did, but, not unnaturally, the interest rates rose while the sums loaned shrank. Finally, quite overcome by the endless difficulties he faced, Chamillart succeeded in convincing the king he must resign, so he kept the ministry of War while the competent Nicolas Desmarets succeeded him as Contrôleur Général. Under other circumstances, Desmarets might have proved a great minister; as it was, he did his best to keep the government afloat, and no greater praise can be given him than to say that, with the greatest difficulty, he succeeded.

  Of course, that entailed subterfuges of every kind. Offices were sold by the dozen; the gold currency was repeatedly debased; a limited paper currency was introduced; taxes were raised; and borrowing went on apace. The king, well aware of the situation, helped when he could: The story of Samuel Bernard’s walk in Marly is a case in point. Bernard, the greatest of the French financiers, had already lent vast sums; when, in the spring of 1708, Desmarets approached him yet again, he refused to buy any more government paper. At that, and after consulting with the king, the contrôleur général invited him to Marly, where he had followed the Court, for yet another meeting. Bernard came. That day, around five, Louis XIV set out for one of his walks around the gardens. Saint-Simon tells us what happened next. “At the next pavilion, the King stoppped; it was that of Desmarets who came out of it with Samuel Bernard, the famous banker … The King told Desmarets that he was pleased to see him with M. Bernard, then, turning to the latter: ‘You are just the man never to have seen Marly. Come and walk through it with me, I will return you to Desmarets afterward.’ Bernard followed, and, all through the walk, the King talked only to Bergeyck* and to him, taking them everywhere and showing them everything with all the grace he knew so well how to use when he wanted to reward someone. I admired, and many others with me, this kind of prostitution of the King’s, who spoke so sparsely [to his courtiers] for a man like Bernard …

  “Bernard was duped. He came back to Desmarets from his walk with the King so enchanted that, straightaway, he said he would rather risk being ruined than deny a prince who had treated him so well.”385 For a man whose birth precluded his ever being admitted to the Court, who, indeed, could never expect even a single word from the king, this treatment was most dazzling. It is sad to have to record that Bernard was, indeed, ruined: Within a few years, he had gone bankrupt.

  Around the king, throughout these difficult years, the familiar faces grew fewer. In 1707, Vauban, the great engineer, died, and so did Mme de Montespan: Louis deplored the former and ignored the latter. And in 1708, Mansart, the architect of Versailles, followed them, but much as he, and some few others, might be missed, nothing apparently made any difference: Indefatigable, indomitable, and, indeed, scarcely human, the king continued on his appointed rounds.

  An incident which occurred in 1708 was further proof of that, if any was needed. “Mme la duchesse de Bourgogne was pregnant,” Saint-Simon noted. “She was feeling very unwell. The King wanted to go to Fontainebleau, against precedent, at the beginning of the good weather* and had said so. In the meantime, he wanted to make stays at Marly. His granddaughter amused him, he could not do without her, but so much movement did not suit her condition. Mme de Maintenon was worried about this, Fagon* kept tactfully mentioning her fragility: this bothered the King, who was accustomed to having his own way in everything, and had been spoiled by the fact that his mistresses traveled when pregnant or just after they had given birth, and wore court dress throughout it all. The remonstrances about the trips to Marly annoyed him but he did not cancel them … The Saturday [following one of these], the King was taking a walk after Mass … when we saw the duchesse du Lude coming alone, on foot, at a time when there was no other lady with the King … He understood she had something urgent to tell him: he went toward her and when he came close to her, we stopped and left them alone. The conversation was short. She left and the King came back to us … without saying anything. E
verybody had guessed what the matter must be and no one was in a hurry to say anything. In the end, the King … looking at the most important people there but without speaking to anyone in particular, said, looking annoyed: ‘The duchesse de Bourgogne has miscarried.’

  “Immediately, M. de La Rouchefoucauld began to lament, M. de Bouillon, the duc de Tresmes and the maréchal de Boufflers joined him, then M. de La Rouchefoucauld went on to say, louder still, that it was the greatest misfortune in the world, that having had other miscarriages she might not have any more children. ‘And even if it were so,’ the King, who until now had said nothing, interrupted angrily, ‘why should I care? Doesn’t she already have a son?* And even if he died, is the duc de Berry not able to marry and have children of his own? And why should I care which of them succeeds me! Are they not all equally my [great] grandsons?’ And immediately, he went on impetuously: ‘Thank God she has miscarried, since she was going to miscarry, and I will no longer be annoyed about my trips by the representations of the doctors and the reasonings of the women. I will come and go as I please and will no longer be bothered.’ A silence such that one could have heard an ant walking followed this outburst.”286

  The king’s outburst was due, no doubt, to disappointment, but it is true he was often especially intolerant to members of his family. Only a month earlier, a series of incidents in Spain deprived France of one of its best commanders. Louis XIV had never trusted the duc d’Orléans, his nephew (and son-in-law), simply because he was his nephew, and therefore potentially dangerous. Still, he did give him a command in Spain for lack of another competent general, but once there, the duc behaved in the way best calculated to affront both the king and Mme de Maintenon. Because the war was going so badly, a group of Spanish grandees thought that a way out of it might be to replace Philip V, who was a potential heir to the French throne, by the duc d’Orléans, who was much further down the line of succession. The duc listened without agreeing; Philip V heard about it and, convinced that there was a plot to send him back to France, reported all of it to his grandfather. Nothing was better calculated to reawaken the king’s memories of the Fronde, and he behaved accordingly: In short order, the duc d’Orléans was recalled, and although innocent, he never again commanded an army.