Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King

by Antonia Fraser

  Liselotte's satisfactory fertility was in contrast to that of the unfortunate Queen. There was a sad catalogue of royal infant deaths around this time: three in just over a year. The little Duc d'Anjou died at the age of three in July 1671; his brother, born the following year, was dead by the beginning of November; then the Petite Madame, an especially beloved child, died at the age of five in March 1672. The line of royal succession now led from the Dauphin to Monsieur, and so to the new baby Philippe. There were evil tongues which ascribed the deaths of the Queen's children to the scandal of her husband's philanderings, although as has been noted, repeated intermarriage was the more likely explanation.

  There was a further, even more marked contrast, to set the tongues wagging again, between the Queen's experiences and those of the Ceres-like goddess of fertility Athénaïs. A second boy, Louis-Cesar, was born to her in 1672 (very shortly after Marie-Thérèse's son who died) and a second daughter Louise-Françoise in June 1673. With Louis-Auguste, born in 1670, and her two children by her husband, Athénaïs had given birth to six children in under ten years, only one of whom, that mysterious baby of 1669, had died in infancy. It was a prodigious record, especially when combined with the sensual duties of a mistress, and as it turned out Athénaïs's ready powder would be lit again in the future.

  There was however a question mark over these little pledges of love – or symbols of royal, even national virility as many of less censorious disposition would have seen them. How long would they remain in the comfortable obscurity of the rue Vaugirard, tended by the virtuous Françoise Scarron? This was especially true after Athénaïs gave birth to Louise-Françoise on 1 June 1673 at Tournai, while the whole royal cortége of war was once more in Flanders.

  Louis had declared war on the Dutch in 1672 in pursuit of solidifying his north-western dominions. This so-called Dutch War was expected to end in another triumph for Europe's most dazzling military monarch. But for once the victorious French armies had met their match. The heroic resistance of the Dutch took the form of opening the dykes and flooding their own country, making further French advances virtually impossible. All this was done under their newly appointed leader, the young Prince William of Orange (that Protestant nephew of Charles II Liselotte had once hoped to marry).* The French were obliged to withdraw in early 1673.

  In the new season's campaign Louis was engaged in the siege of Maastricht, the court remaining at nearby Tournai. The Queen and Louise de La Vallière occupied the Bishop's house while Athénaïs gave birth in the town's citadel. This distinction of dwelling hardly made for concealment.

  * The future Queen Anne was already third in line to the British throne at this point after James and her elder sister Mary, since Charles II had no legitimate children.

  * The following dates are given in French New Style as opposed to English Old Style which, as has been noted, lagged behind that of the Continent at this period.

  * To look ahead, one should note that the ‘welfare of the kingdom' never did permit Charles to declare himself a Catholic until he was lying on what was manifestly his deathbed.

  * Compared by Lytton Strachey in the twentieth century to ‘molten lava'. There was always a considerable gap between a death and a state funeral, the corpse having been embalmed and the vital organs removed to be interred elsewhere.

  * The copious correspondence of the second Madame to her relatives and friends at home starts in 1672 and constitutes a first-hand record which did not benefit from hindsight. Saint-Simon's own personal memories begin in the 1690s, and were written down from 1739 onwards.

  * Liselotte's great-granddaughter was Marie Antoinette: she thus provides the direct blood link between the two tragic queens without resembling either.

  * This feisty twelfth child of Elizabeth the Winter Queen was born in 1630, the same year as her first cousin Charles II, with whom she had flirted in 1648 when he was in exile. As a granddaughter of James I, she was of course within the English succession, which admitted females, although at this point there were many candidates between her and the throne.

  * Philippe, forty years later Regent of France, did not fulfil either prophecy, although from the single point of view of personal profligacy he was nearer the latter than the former.

  * Since Monsieur begot at least eleven children in the course of his life, the rosary was evidently effective.

  * William, born in 1650, was the posthumous son of another William of Orange and Princess Mary Stuart, daughter of Charles I and Henrietta Maria; he was thus Louis's first cousin once removed.

  CHAPTER 8

  A Singular Position

  I have already got a singular position, envied by the whole world.

  – Françoise Scarron

  On 18 December 1673 a baby girl of six months was baptised at the church of Saint-Sulpice on the Left Bank in Paris. This was the important parish church for those living in this ‘countrified' area, as Madame de Sévigné called it.11* These included Madame Scarron and her mysterious charges. The child was given the names Louise-Françoise by her godmother – who was none other than Louise-Françoise Duchesse de La Vallière. No one mentioned the fact that these two names also linked those of the King and Françoise-Athénaïs de Montespan. The parish priest stood proxy for the three-year-old godfather, the baby's elder brother.

  Two days later something more unusual than a mere parish baptism took place. The King issued an edict, duly registered by the Parlement, legitimising Louise-Françoise and her brothers Louis-Auguste and Louis-César. They received titles: Mademoiselle de Nantes, Duc du Maine and Comte de Vexin respectively. The edict referred to ‘the tenderness which Nature leads us to have for our children', an echo of the edict which had legitimised Marie-Anne and the Comte de Vermandois four years earlier, as well as ‘the many other reasons which increased such feelings.2 There was however no repeat here of the profound tribute which the King had paid on the previous occasion to the ‘virtues and modesty' of the children's mother. In fact there was no mention of the mother at all: unless she was to be counted among those ‘many other reasons'. These, it seemed, were miraculous children born to a father only, and that father the King.

  The reason was not far to seek. Athénaïs was still officially married to the Marquis de Montespan although a judicial separation was being sought to tidy up the situation as far as was possible, given that divorce in the modern sense did not exist. Annulment was recognised by the Catholic Church, meaning that no valid marriage had ever taken place; but this was embarrassing to put forward when Athénaïs had born two children to her husband. Judicial separation, which had to be ratified by Parlement, was the best possible solution. That separation would not, as it turned out, be granted until the following July.

  In the meantime Athénaïs reigned triumphant. ‘She must have whatever she wants,' was the King's constant assertion to his minister Colbert. No wonder that the nickname ‘Quanto' (‘How much?') was added to that of ‘The Torrent' by Madame de Sévigné. Jewels were showered upon her, pearls, diamonds, earrings ‘which must be fine', settings of different-coloured gems which could be interchanged: ‘It will be necessary to go to some expense over this but I am quite prepared for it’.3 In an instruction about the terraces of Saint-Germain, a birdcage for her birds and a fountain from which the birds could drink were commanded on one terrace, while another would have earth, and would be made into a little garden. From 1671 onwards, Athénaïs had one of the finest suites of apartments in the palace, of positively regal splendour. At Versailles they were situated at the top of the Grand Staircase with five windows onto the Royal Court (those windows under which courtiers feared to tread for fear of her tongue) and had, naturally, direct access to the King's own apartments. She had a special gallery with her own collection of pictures.

  As Versailles took shape in a perpetual flurry of building works, so did Athénaïs's own arrangements, which included a little pleasure-house decorated with blue-and-white Delft tiles on the walls by Le Vau and a new residen
ce of her own at Clagny, close by Versailles, reconstructed by Mansart. (The first changes at Clagny had been rejected by the superb Athénaïs as only fit for a chorus girl…)4 Once again the watchword in its construction was the will of the mistress. ‘I have no answer at present as I wish to ascertain what Madame de Montespan thinks about it,' replied Louis when his minister Colbert tried to consult him about Mansart's plans. Athénaïs filled Clagny with her favourite rococo furniture. The result was certainly a paradise and a fertile paradise at that, compared by Madame de Sévigné to the palace of the enchantress Armide and by Primi Visconti to the House of Venus. Here tuberoses,* jasmine, roses and carnations bestowed their perfume, to say nothing of the King's trademark orange trees, expensive gifts which he showered upon the favourite in large quantities. The home farm, suitably enough, contained ‘the most amorous turtle doves' and ‘cows that yielded an abundance of milk …’5

  Athénaïs's irrepressible mocking wit continued to be a feature of her relationship with Louis. One typical exchange occurred when the Queen's carriage fell into a stream on one of the campaigning journeys. ‘Ah, the Queen drinks!’ cried Athénaïs. ‘Madame, she is your Queen,' said the King reprovingly. Athénaïs was quick to retort: ‘No, Sire, she is your Queen.' Similarly, her taste for literary and theatrical patronage – something Marie-Thérèse had never displayed – made not only her company but the company around her a source of stimulation. Athénaïs was the patron of La Fontaine, to whom the second edition of his Fables was dedicated with the favourite apostrophised as Venus: ‘Words and looks, everything is charm with you.'6 Molière's rehearsals for Le Misanthrope were held in her apartments in November 1673 and it was hardly surprising that the wickedly amusing Tartuffe, which had shocked Anne of Austria, was much to her taste. Personally she loved to play the harpsichord, but she also acted as the generous centre of the elaborate musical entertainments that the King appreciated.

  Despite this artistic atmosphere, which pleased the King and impressed ambassadors, Athénaïs's real power consisted in the sexual thrall or ‘empire – the word generally used – which she exerted over the King. There were tales that his passion was so great that he could not even wait for his mistress to be properly undressed by her ladies, before starting to make love to her. To her mocking wit, Athénaïs added a further tempestuous element whenever she did not have exactly what she wanted: perhaps this added yet further spice to the relationship.

  In any case, the characteristic image of Athénaïs the mistress was surely an intimate one: lounging, voluptuously dressed, wearing her favourite high-heeled mules in her fabulous Appartement des Bains. There was nothing Spartan about this scene. Paintings by Le Brun, sculptures by Le Hongre, bronzes, were set off by brocades showing shepherds and shepherdesses having pastoral fun. Here the couple could have their own fun: they could disport themselves on couches, surrounded by orange trees in silver pots, and enjoy the huge octagonal bath cut from a single block of marble, in the Cabinet des Bains, lined with linen and lace.7*

  In this supremacy of the senses and the intellect on the part of Athénaïs, it remained notable that the Duchesse de La Vallière was still at court. Her needs were considered with elaborate courtesy: where public display was concerned, there were even demonstrations of equality between the two ladies in order to preserve the fiction of the unmarried Louise as maîtresse en titre. In 1669 specific orders were given to the architect Jean Marot for the two ladies to have identical grottoes, two each, decorated in the rococo style.

  None of this made any difference to Louise's private feelings of humiliation and despair, prompting another comparison to the confession of the rejected Portuguese nun: ‘I was not fully acquainted with the excess of my love until I resolved to use all my strength to be cured of it.' On Ash Wednesday she made another bolt for the convent dedicated to her favourite saint Mary Magdalen at Chaillot and asked for shelter. This time the King did not seize a grey cloak, mantle his face, ask for his fastest horse and gallop after her. He simply ordered her to return, sending Lauzun (still in favour) to the convent. A feeble defence for this cynical gesture can be put up: Louise had not sought permission to leave the court. In reality Louis was reacting as impatiently as Orgon in Tartuffe when his daughter Marianne pleaded on her knees to retire to a convent: ‘Everyone / When once her love is crossed must be a nun. / Get up!’8 The truth was that the need for her as a cover was still paramount. It was not the King's finest hour; the measure of the cynicism of the situation is that Louise eventually pleaded with Athénaïs to persuade the King to release her …

  It was about this time that Louise began her practice of wearing a hair shirt beneath her court robes as a penance. She had lost a lot of weight and looked quite haggard to unsympathetic observers. The hair shirt was less onerous than the daily strain of living in the greatest intimacy with her former lover and his current mistress. It is not clear exactly when sexual relations between Louis and Louise ceased: he certainly wept with emotion when Louise returned to court on his orders in 1671, but then Louis wept easily, and no one had ever doubted his affection for Louise, if it was not on the same scale as hers for him. Athénaïs wept too. The whole scene was highly sentimental if diverting to worldly observers.

  While Louise attempted to leave the galaxy, a former star attempted to rejoin it, equally in vain. Marie Mancini had not been happy in her marriage of convenience to Prince Colonna; he turned out to be a brute for all his noble ancestry. In 1672, deprived of her children, she tried to return to the French court, perhaps with some nostalgic notion of fascinating the sovereign yet again with a glance of those mesmerising black eyes. She lurked at Grenoble, awaiting a positive message.

  It was not to be. For once both Queen and mistress, Marie-Thérèse and Athénaïs, were in accord. There was a disastrous expedition to Fontainebleau – there where Louis and Marie had loved and hunted fifteen years before – in which Marie gambled on the drawing-power of memory. Instead, a cool message came from the King: Marie should return to Grenoble. Louis did send her a large gift of money: 10,000 pistoles (over three hundred thousand pounds in today's money). But he declined to receive her.9

  Marie Mancini had not lost all her spirit. She had heard of ladies being given money to gain access to them, she remarked, but never to keep them away. Eventually she was allowed to withdraw to the abbey of Lys, near Lyon. Alas, poor Marie, who had always detested convents, was once more Condémned to reside in one. No wonder she observed in her memoirs that ‘fortune always seemed to be interested in persecuting me’.10

  It was the summer of 1674 which saw the formalisation of the new order at court, as it was intended to be for the foreseeable future (although few would have predicted the consequences of this new order). There were two steps. First, at the age of nearly thirty, Louise was at last allowed to have the wish she had harboured on and off for over ten years and take the veil. Bossuet played his part in persuading her but as he wrote, if the words were his, the deeds were hers. She made her departure in a style which was generally admired: she insisted on a last interview with Marie-Thérèse in which she begged the Queen's pardon for all the wrongs she had done her. Although the Queen's lofty attendants tried to prevent this scene taking place as being unsuitable, Louise retorted: ‘Since my crimes were public, so should my penance be.’ With her gentle manners, Marie-Thérèse raised Louise from the floor where she had abased herself, kissed her on the forehead and told her that she had been forgiven long ago.

  The interview with the King was tearful: his eyes were still red with weeping at Mass the next day. He wept, no doubt, for his youth as well as from the fidelity Louise had shown him over thirteen years in which she placed her King above her God, an order which was now to be reversed for ever. In future she was to be counted among those ladies for whom, in the words of Saint-Évremond, God was ‘a new lover, that comforts them’ for what they had lost.11 Louis then set off immediately with the court towards Franche-Comte, which had been handed back to Spain in 1668. O
nce more, with its capital Besancon, Franche-Comté was easily overrun. It all represented the push towards further European conquest, since that unexpected check by the Dutch.

  Louise for her part left behind a picture specially commissioned from Pierre Mignard which showed her with her two children, Marie-Anne and the Comte de Vermandois. It featured the discarded vanities of the world, including a casket of jewels and a large gambler's purse, at her feet. The words SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI – THUS passes the glory of the world – were inscribed in large letters on a pillar behind her: the rose in her hand, like Louise herself, looked rather battered. That night at the Carmelite convent in the rue d'Enfer in Paris, Louise cut her famous blonde locks to indicate the end of her old life.

  Louise was officially ‘clothed' in her postulant's garments at the beginning of June. Present were the Queen, Monsieur and Madame, Marie-Louise d'Orléans, Monsieur's daughter by his first marriage, the Grande Mademoiselle and many other dignitaries. In a brilliant move, Louise had transformed herself from humiliated duchess to respected nun. The new Sister Louise de La Miséricorde was a penitent, and there was nothing the seventeenth century liked more than a penitent, be it the remote but venerated Mary Magdalen or the King's former mistress.

  It was of course relevant to Louise's adoption of her new life that her children, the product of her shame as she saw them, were well established. Marie-Anne in particular had created a sensation by her dancing at the carnival celebrations earlier in the year, a delightful vision in black velvet and diamonds. Madame de Sévigné described how the King was enchanted with her and everyone else eagerly followed his lead.12

  At seven and a half Marie-Anne was already wise to the priorities of the court. In the middle of the ball, she went up to the Duchesse de Richelieu and enquired anxiously: ‘Madame, can you let me know if the King is pleased with me?’ She also understood the need to be amusing. ‘All sorts of things come out of her pretty mouth,’ Madame de Sévigné went on; ‘she fascinates people with her wit of which no one could have more.' The little girl's partner in the dance was a young Prince of the Blood, the thirteen-year-old Louis-Armand, son of the Prince de Conti. ‘Ah, the little fiancés!' murmured the courtiers, for such an elevated match was not out of the question for Louise's daughter. Symptomatic of the hierarchy of the King's natural children and their mothers now emerging was the fact that Louise called Marie-Anne (who had legitimised royal blood) ‘Mademoiselle' but was herself addressed as ‘belle Maman'.