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

by Antonia Fraser

  Saint-Simon wrote of Adelaide that her youth and high spirits enlivened the whole court. Liselotte, describing how she had joined in a jolly game of blind man's bluff, which she had to admit she had much enjoyed, commented that everyone was busy ‘becoming a child again'.16 When Adelaide admitted that she missed the Savoyard dolls which had not been allowed to accompany her, special dolls were sent for from Paris, more gorgeous than anything mere Savoy could imagine. Games of spillikins were also pronounced beneficial by Madame de Maintenon because they promoted ‘dexterity'.

  There is a vignette of the little Princess ‘sledging', that is to say, being whirled down the polished corridors of Versailles, which is curiously touching when one thinks of the awe in which this establishment was held by the whole of Europe. An English visitor about this time, Dr Martin Lister, gaped at what he saw: ‘it were endless to tell all the furniture of these gardens, of marble statues, and vases of brass and marble, the multitude of fountains, and those wide canals like seas running in a straight line from the bottom of the gardens as far as the eye can reach. In a word, these gardens are a country …' To Adelaide however, frolicsome to a fault, skipping, chattering, ‘rumpling' the King and Tante Maintenon, these gardens were her playground.17

  Louis might now be a man in late middle age plagued by gout, who wore unromantic galoches* when the weather was wet: reflected in the child's eyes he saw himself in quite a different light. As Marguerite de Caylus reported, the King was so ‘completely bewitched' by Adelaide that he could not bear to be parted from her for a single moment and even took her to council meetings. As for Adelaide, Dangeau reported significantly that the little girl ‘never had a cold' when it was a question of going out with the King.18

  It was true, as has been mentioned, that Adelaide was not well educated: but how convenient that she could be enrolled in Tante's nearby Saint-Cyr three times a week! (Even if she had to be in a class of those below her own age.) Here she formed a friendship with Françoise's niece Françoise-Charlotte d'Aubigné, and she also acted a ‘little Israelite', part of the young chorus, in a production of Esther; subsequently she played Joas's bride Josabit in Athalie, although there was some heart-searching about her participation in this controversial play.19 Her handwriting remained childish – at the age of thirteen she was still vowing to improve it – but at least Saint-Cyr gave her some opportunities for youthful society in an otherwise highly ceremonious life.

  All this innocent fun made such a pleasant change from the louche young royals of the court with their drinking, their endless shrieking and above all their gambling. It was hardly to be expected that these attractive, spoilt princesses, mated – one has to use the word – at an early age for reasons of state, would ignore the opportunities for gallantry around them. Marie-Anne de Conti, the eldest, had led the way; Madame la Duchesse eventually settled into a long affair with the Marquis de Lassay; Françoise-Marie's ‘discretion' in handling her affairs was, for once, praised by her mother-in-law Liselotte.20

  Liselotte's real gripe was less against the morals than the sheer laziness of the princesses. They were such layabouts and so debauched that they could hardly be bothered to dance any more. (This critic was the Liselotte who had thoroughly enjoyed an impromptu farting competition within her family circle, won by Philippe, who could make ‘a noise like a flute'.) Worst of all, at any rate for those around them, was their daring use of tobacco. Although tobacco was used as a curative in certain cases of great pain – Catherine de Médicis administered it to the young François II for migraine – that was a case of taking the tobacco in powder form as a drug. Rakish gentlemen might indulge themselves by handing it round in elegant boxes (Don Juan's valet Sganarelle opens Molière's play by reflecting that ‘there's nothing like tobacco'). But it was regarded as a disgusting habit for a lady to smoke tobacco in a pipe as sailors did. On the other hand inhaling tobacco caused ‘dirty noses', in the words of Liselotte, as if the ladies had rubbed their fingers in the gutter, or rummaged in a man's tobacco pouch. Nevertheless the princesses did it, for all the complaints.21

  Madame de Maintenon's take on tobacco was similarly disapproving – although to the Demoiselles of Saint-Cyr who had to make their way in the world and could not risk giving offence, she advocated more pragmatic behaviour: avoid tobacco altogether, unless it was offered by ‘a person of importance', in which case a girl should take a little and let it drop ‘imperceptibly' to the ground. Further measures against what would now be called date-rape were the avoidance of wine, and the wearing of a corset at all times.22

  The marriage of Adelaide and Bourgogne was ordained to take place on her twelfth birthday, 6 December 1697, roughly a year after her arrival. Adelaide did not allow her coming grandeur to go to her head: when the aged Bishop Bossuet, appointed her Almoner, knelt before her, she protested strongly. ‘Oh, Monseigneur, I am ashamed to see you thus.' The King however was in an extravagant mood, although he had recently dressed very simply, curtailing expenditure Duc to the demands of the War of the League of Augsburg just concluded. He ordered ‘some fine clothes' for the occasion and he indicated in addition that his courtiers would please him with a certain deployment of splendour. Sure enough the Duc and Duchesse de Saint-Simon between them spent twenty thousand livres on their outfits (nearly seventy thousand pounds in today's money).23

  Having decreed splendour, the King should not have been too surprised when the usual chicaneries of Versailles society, based on rivalry, took place. Louis himself chose the embroideries for Adelaide's costume but stipulated that the embroiderer should not immediately abandon all his other clients for the royal commission. Madame la Duchesse, with no such scruples, kidnapped the tailors of the Duchesse de Rohan to work on her own robes exclusively but was obliged to give them back. At the ceremony itself Bourgogne wore black velvet lined with rose-coloured satin and Adelaide wore silver, dotted all over with so many rubies and diamonds that the total weight, together with that of her bejewelled coiffure, was said to be more than her own. The heavy cloak flowing from her shoulders was blue velvet strewn with the golden fleur-de-lys of France.

  The wedding night which followed was a purely formal occasion according to the dictate of the King. James II and Mary Beatrice, as the senior royals present, handed the young couple their chemises. There was some chat by the Dauphin and after that the ceremony was over. Bourgogne did daringly kiss his bride, despite the deep disapproval of the Duchesse de Lude, and that was all. But it was the Duchesse who had correctly interpreted the King's instructions: he was furious at the news since he had expressly forbidden contact. Only ‘that naughty little rogue' Berry, ten years old and already livelier than his brothers, said that he would have attempted far more …

  The next stage – the consummation of the marriage – did not come for nearly two years. In the meantime the young Bourgognes were carefully introduced to a limited and asexual married life. It included visits to the theatre. In October 1698 for example a trip to see Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme produced uproarious laughter from both Duc and Duchesse. There was a ballet to celebrate Adelaide's birthday in 1698 at which Bourgogne danced Apollo and Adelaide danced a Muse. Perhaps there were courtiers present who recalled the grace of Adelaide's grandmother Henriette-Anne dancing the same kind of role forty years earlier (although few would care to have compared poor bent Bourgogne to the magnificent young Louis XIV).

  Adelaide also learned the routine of attending military occasions: where Françoise, with no taste for glory, had not liked these outings and still did not, Adelaide had an enjoyable time. ‘I am a good Frenchwoman,' she told her grandmother when she expressed joy over a French success.24 Of course Savoy was at this point on the side of France and the sorrows of a princess hearing the ‘good news' of her native country's destruction, such as had torn Liselotte apart, had not yet come the youthful Adelaide's way … Yet in spite of this, in spite of Bourgogne insisting on nightly visits to his wife in November, after an original stipulation of every other night, Ad
elaide did not for the time being get pregnant. The ascendancy of Adelaide over both Louis and Françoise had the happy effect of consolidating a relationship which had recently come as near as it ever did to foundering. How strange that trouble developed over the matter of religion, the very subject which had welded Louis and Françoise so closely together! The temporary cloud and its vanishing demonstrate how little, if at all, the King was prepared to compromise in anything in order to please his secret wife, and how irresolute, even timid, Françoise herself became when there was any kind of clash. The central Catholic Church in France was threatened – as it believed – by any doctrine which assailed the conventional view of the Church as the essential mediator between individuals on earth and God. One of these doctrines was so-called Quietism, a mystical practice of the Catholic religion somewhat akin to modern meditation, in which prayer, even repetitive prayer, was everything.

  Françoise did not exactly dabble in Quietism but she did become a friend of the brilliant, charismatic Jeanne-Marie Guyon, a widow with four children, and allowed her to have contact with Saint-Cyr. Madame Guyon's book on ‘short and simple Orisons' which could be practised daily, printed in 1687, got her arrested the next year; Madame de Maintenon managed to secure her release. But Madame Guyon's second arrest, her incarceration in the fortress of Vincennes and her interrogation by La Reynie found Françoise either unable or unwilling to help.

  The influence of the Abbé Godet des Marais was important, because he urged Françoise strongly to side with the orthodox and severe Bossuet on the subject of Quietism: something Bossuet Condémned in a sermon at Lent 1696. Along the way Fénelon became a victim too. Now Françoise abandoned the man who had been her friend and sat by, helpless, while Fénelon was forbidden contact with Bourgogne and all the Quietists were purged from the young Duc's household. Françoise's abandonment of her former friends was seen as cowardice – although she would probably have justified it as part of her essentially pragmatic attitude to religion. In any case Louis became subtly cold towards Françoise, suggesting that Fénelon had been ‘a bad shepherd' who had been wrongly appointed to tend his grandchildren. As for poor Bourgogne, he was heartbroken, pleading in vain to be allowed at least to write to Fénelon: there was to be no further contact between Fénelon and his ‘little Louis' till 1701.25

  The whole protracted episode caused a degeneration in Francoise's health which may have been at least in part psychosomatic. It was significant that her reconciliation with the King occurred when he came and stood beside her bedside with the words, which had something of love but also much of impatience about them: ‘Well, Madame, are you going to die of this then?' And so the way was prepared for an apotheosis. At a military review at Compiêgne in September 1698 the King leaned ostentatiously on the open window of Madame de Maintenon's sedan-chair. He took off his hat and left it on top of the chair in order to describe the proceedings to her in full view of troops and courtiers alike. Louis hardly spoke to anyone else, and even Adelaide found it difficult to get him to answer her questions. It was as open a declaration as he ever made on the subject of her status, and left a profound impression on all present, including Saint-Simon.26

  It was however an apotheosis which had only occurred at a certain cost. Although Françoise had busied herself using her influence to secure bishoprics for her friends – Godet des Marais was made Bishop of Chartres and her ally Antoine de Noailles Archbishop of Paris – she now discovered that the price of influence was orthodoxy plus submission to the King's will, should she happen to cross it. As Madame de Maintenon confessed to the Archbishop when she had failed to bring about a particular Church appointment: ‘I see that the King was not as docile as I thought.'27 She was very far from being the strong-willed manipulator of Liselotte's and Saint-Simon's depiction: more the pliant ‘Thaw’ of the Sévigné nickname. In the upbringing of Adelaide, however, Françoise clearly had her role, which was not that of Queen precisely, so much as grandmother-cum-governess. Adelaide needed Françoise and Louis needed Adelaide: order was restored. So the unacknowledged but painful rift was healed.

  Did Maintenon hanker after the full role of Queen in public? Naturally her enemies said she did, but there is no evidence of it beyond their prejudices. Equally there is no evidence that Louis XIV ever seriously contemplated giving it to her: dynasty was sacred to him, royalty too, as had been impressed upon him from his earliest years by Anne of Austria, a mighty Princess. While he had chosen a discreet and virtuous private life with Françoise, it was not within his imaginative range to see her sitting on the throne once occupied by his mother (and by Marie-Thérèse, another mighty Princess). What would have been the point? With the increasing selfishness of the ageing, particularly in a man trained from the start to be self-centred as a form of duty, the King knew that he had what he wanted.

  It did not occur to him to question seriously whether Françoise was equally content … He treated her at all times with scrupulous politeness. Although Françoise burned the King's letters after his death, a few little notes do survive about daily arrangements, in which the language is formal and above all considerate, with the reiteration of phrases like ‘if you approve' and ‘I shall conform to your wishes'. There is certainly no hint of command. ‘If you would like to take a promenade with me at three or four o'clock,' wrote the King on one occasion, ‘come to the Basin of Apollo, where I shall be with a chair for you'; but ‘please don't feel obliged to do this'. And probably in most ways Françoise was content, reflecting passively on ‘the enigma' of her destiny in the words of her confessor Godet des Marais: God had put ‘the salvation of a great king' in her hands … ‘You are his refuge, remember that your room is the domestic Church where the King retires.'28

  So long as her reputation was secure, Françoise was satisfied (as she had said of herself), and pace Liselotte nobody really thought of her in the 1690s as an ‘old whore' – old, yes, since she was in her sixties, but whore seemed very wide of the mark. It is true that the scurrilous pamphlets got going on her as they did on everyone of note. Despite the restrictions of censorship (which could be overcome by printing in Holland), mockery was widespread and lewd: no one was spared.

  For example, it is to this period that a satirical pamphlet suggesting that the true father of Louis XIV was actually the Comte de Rantzau belongs. Rantzau, a Maréchal de France originally from Holstein, died in 1650; there was of course no contemporary evidence for this wild surmise.29 If the King's past was smirched, so was his present. A medal of 1693 showed Louis being tugged away from the front line by four women, with a legend on the subject of unsuccessful invasion that was a rude adaptation of Caesar's famous aphorism: Venit, vidit sed non vincit (He came, he saw but he did not conquer). Eight years after its erection, the equestrian statue of 1686 in the Place des Victoires was adapted for a scurrilous engraving showing a new pedestal with the King in chains to four mistresses, Louise, Angélique, Athénaïs and Françoise, in place of his military triumphs. The printer, bookseller and his boy assistant were all hanged for their efforts.30 But the satires did not cease.

  Françoise therefore could hardly expect to be spared. She was said to have been seduced long before she met Scarron, ‘the breach already made' by the Marquis de Montchevreuil, featured inaccurately as the Duc de Montchevreuil. There was a ridiculous rumour that while still very young she had given birth to an illegitimate child called Babbé. Despite the tone of these attacks on ‘the old she-monkey', in which age was a prominent feature, the worst accusation was that which had her doing a deal with the Jesuits: her own secret marriage to the King in exchange for the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.31 None of this was true.

  It was Louis XIV however whose feelings constituted the real enigma to the outside world. There was a celebrated moment when Pierre Mignard was about to paint Madame de Maintenon in the role of St Frances of Rome; the King's permission was sought to drape her in ermine robes, the style of a Queen. (Something that was incidentally done in other portraits of g
reat ladies, other than queens.) ‘Certainly St Frances deserves ermine!' replied the King laughingly, leaving no one much the wiser as to his precise meaning. But he did love the picture: a miniature based on it was something he carried with him in his waistcoat pocket till the day of his death.*

  The Treaty of Ryswick, signed in September 1697, which brought to an end the nine-year War of the League of Augsburg, was hailed by a loyal courtier like the Marquis de Dangeau in glowing terms: ‘The King gave peace to Europe upon conditions which he wished to impose. He was the master ….'32 It is true that if he lost Lorraine, ‘the master' retained French Hainault and Lower Alsace including Strasbourg; in the West Indies, Santo Domingo (since the 1790s Haiti) was an important acquisition for the future. Yet there was much he had also acquired – at enormous cost in casualties – which Louis did not retain. The French armies which in the popular imagination had succeeded the Spanish armies of his youth as Europe's invincible warriors were no longer to be seen in quite that light. William III, once merely the modest Prince of Orange, was Europe's foremost martial leader.

  By implication, the Treaty also acknowledged William for the first time as King of England. Here Louis XIV did act with some spirit: he refused to banish the former King James II and Queen Mary Beatrice, with their children, from France. Furthermore he showed his sensitivity to the ordeal which the Treaty represented for these unhappy exiles by ordering that there should be no triumphant music and celebrations in their presence. Since the finalisation of the Treaty coincided with their traditional autumn visit to Fontainebleau, foreign news was not to be brought to him unless he was alone. And Louis pressed William for the payment of Mary Beatrice's jointure of fifty thousand a year, settled upon her by Parliament.