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

by Antonia Fraser

  His mother's advanced age when the ‘Godgiven’ Louis was born, the years of miscarriage followed by barrenness she had endured, her difficult relationship with Louis XIII, all these things went to make Louis the great love of Anne of Austria's life – and she can at least bid to be the most important woman in his. These fierce maternal feelings, favouring Louis ostentatiously over his younger brother Monsieur, were justified by Queen Anne in terms of her sons’ relative positions: Louis was the Dauphin and then quite rapidly the King, the little boy of four and a half before whom she knelt in homage in 1643. Monsieur, two years his junior, was merely the heir presumptive, before the birth of the Dauphin in 1661. But of course from the point of view of Louis's and Monsieur's shared childhood, what mattered was not so much why Louis was the adored one, as the fact that from the first he could have utter confidence in his mother's love and support.

  Meanwhile Anne of Austria herself gave Louis XIV an ideal of a woman who besides being a Queen was also virtuous, dignified, intelligent and strong. It would take the King until his early forties to achieve this kind of helpmeet in the former Françoise d'Aubigné: when the ‘perilous season’ of passions, as Father Massillon put it in his funeral oration, was over. But in choosing this modest if wise woman a few years older than himself, Louis was undoubtedly influenced by the maternal example set to him so many years ago. The tears of Anne of Austria, shed for so long over the question of his promiscuity and his ‘salvation’, were never quite forgotten; it was significant that when Louis XIV was dying and wished to commend Madame de Maintenon to the Regent, he praised her for the good advice she had given to him, her usefulness above all on the subject of this salvation.

  In this story there have after all been remarkably few accounts of happy marriages: Liselotte spoke for many when she described marriages as ‘like death … you can't escape’. But it is possible to argue that Louis XIV was happily married twice – once to a young woman who brought him the international stature he desired then and who gave him no trouble, as he said, except by dying, and once to the saviour of his soul.

  In the meantime Louis was certainly lucky during the ‘perilous season’ itself. Handsome and godlike as all contemporary observers agreed, and with the aura of royalty to act as an aphrodisiac, there was never any question that Louis would enjoy the favours of the ladies if he wished. It was hardly a disagreeable fate to be seduced by the young Louis XIV, but in any case the evidence is that the ladies met him more than halfway, enjoying the pleasure and also the material rewards. With Louis there are no stories of crude abductions, violations, unwilling maidens: this was for Athénaïs's husband, Montespan, not her lover the King.

  This view does not, of course, take into account the strictures of the Catholic Church on adultery. Sex outside marriage put a person in a state of sin. The immense popularity at court of the plain-speaking preacher Bourdaloue (much admired by Louis XIV), the aristocratic crowds who flocked to hear him, demonstrate the seriousness with which the issue was taken. Fortunately all the mistresses of Louis XIV, like the King himself, managed to die as so many penitents in a state of grace.

  Certainly, with one or two possible exceptions, the women in the life of Louis XIV were not victims and did not see themselves as such. And there was a point in the King's favour which even the critical Saint-Simon admitted: he was kind and generous to his former mistresses.* It is true that the court was not always an ‘enchanted palace’. The women from time to time may have witnessed the canvas and cardboard scenery, the ropes and pulleys backstage, in Françoise's evocative phrase. But there was another equally potent side to court life as described by Madame de Sévigné: ‘the hunt, the lanterns, the moonlight, the drive, the meal in a place carpeted by jonquils …’ The women were there too.

  It may be cynical to suggest that there were many worse options in the life of a seventeenth-century woman of a certain class than to be the mistress of Louis XIV, but it is also realistic. Primi Visconti, observer of Louis's court, believed that ‘ladies are born with the ambition to become the King's favourite’ and there was certainly something in what he said. The alternative for the vast majority of women was to accept the robust advice of St Jeanne de Chantal: ‘Put yourself in God's hands and then your bridegroom's.’ Others, lacking a bridegroom, simply put themselves in God's hands in a convent, but it was a life which did not suit everyone who ended up there, and educational initiatives for girls were otherwise in their infancy, as Madame de Maintenon understood.

  The number of Louis's minor flings cannot be computed with any certainty, particularly during the period when he was indulging in what are now called one-night stands (in his case one-afternoon stands). We do not know how often he enjoyed himself chez les dames, as the contemporary phrase had it, but materially at least no one suffered from the experience. The known number of his children is also fluid: there were at least eighteen of them including his six legitimate children by Marie-Thérèse. He thus had roughly the same number of bastards as Charles II, although the latter had no legitimate children. Another first cousin, Charles Emmanuel of Savoy, also enjoyed an energetic sex life, with at least five bastards: given Monsieur's talent for procreation, whatever his tastes, it seems right to salute the philoprogenitive blood of their shared grandfather Henri IV.

  Despite that proverb to the effect that a man could beget as long as he could lift a sheaf of straw, Louis sired no known bastards after the son of Angélique who died. Thanks to Madame de Maintenon, he was still able to enjoy the pleasures of family life, including the cosy atmosphere of Saint-Cyr. Françoise's love of children was that particular emotion, with much of the teacher in it, common to certain women who have none of their own. Thus Louis was able to admire Françoise's tender maternal qualities without the inconvenience of her pregnancy.

  One possible exception to this lack of victimhood might be Marie Mancini, promised so much by the eighteen-year-old Louis, but abandoned by him in the line of duty: a sacrifice which has become celebrated in Racine's line: ‘You weep and yet you are the King.’ Yet it is difficult to criticise Louis's decision, which was in any case heavily supported by Cardinal Mazarin, no fan of his erratic niece. The marriage of a great king was an important element in any foreign policy, particularly a marriage which could bring ‘peace’ along with ‘the Infanta’ to a war-torn country. Marie's subsequent unhappy wandering career deserves sympathy. She ended back in Italy after the death of her tyrannical husband Prince Colonna, and died in the same year as Louis: her son Cardinal Colonna erected a monument with the epitaph she had chosen herself: ‘Ashes and Dust.’2 At the same time Cardinal Mazarin, that wily man of affairs, was right to perceive in his niece something sadly self-destructive.

  Louise de La Vallière is the sole plausible exception to the general rule that women did quite as well out of Louis XIV as he did out of them. Not for nothing did women passing through the King's bedroom when it was empty, according to etiquette, curtsy to the royal bed … On the whole the King did not press his attentions on young girls – a few boisterous adventures trying to reach the maids-of-honour do not count – but Louise was different. Unquestionably a virgin, she also had a strongly religious temperament; falling insanely in love with the Sun King at the age of sixteen meant that she transferred for a period her religious emotions intended for God Almighty on to Louis, her personal Apollo.

  This was the great romantic affair of Louis's life: as with any seduction of an innocent religious girl in literature it was more or less bound to end in betrayal – and the shedding of rivers of tears.* Louise's subsequent long years of penance, which even precluded her mourning the death of her son because of the circumstances in which he had been conceived, attest to the sincerity of the religious side of her nature. Surely there was something self-punishing in her role as godmother to the daughter of Louis and Athénaïs, named Louise-Françoise apparently after her – but actually after the King and her supplanter. Thus Louise did truly incarnate the penitence of Magdalen, her favo
urite saint.

  While La Vallière attempted to fulfil one Christian ideal, it has to be noted that Louis for a period enjoyed a feature in theory more familiar to oriental rulers than Christian ones: the harem. For it is difficult to see the period of ‘the three Queens’ Marie-Thérèse, Louise and Athénaïs, in their war-going coach, in any other light. It is true that the King needed Louise as a cover for his new affair with a married woman (who had a troublesome husband). Nevertheless this was the harem as described in Bajazet by Racine, who demanded in the Preface: ‘Indeed, is there a court in the world where jealousy and love can be better known than in a place [the harem] where so many rivals are shut in together?’ This situation was the moral responsibility of Louis XIV. As Racine added, ‘the men there very probably do not love with the same refinement.’4

  The trouble was that after the first thrill of desire, Louis discovered that he had a further need which the vulnerable ‘hidden violet’ Louise could not fulfil – nor for that matter could his wife Marie-Thérèse. He had discovered something of that need and its satisfaction in his amitié amoureuse with his sister-in-law Henriette-Anne as they danced together in the wonderful Court Ballets of the early part of the reign. As he developed the notion of the Sun King, the monarch who dazzled the whole of Europe and made the French court the envy of the world (including Louis's young opponent William III), Louis reached out for a woman who was worthy to take her place beside him, even if it was an illegitimate place.

  Here he was lucky to find – or be found by – Athénaïs Marquise de Montespan, an unhappily married woman in her mid-twenties, who combined a voluptuous nature with lavish beauty, a taste for the arts with a royal instinct for patronage. For the long years in which Athénaïs exercised her role as maîtresse en titre were not entirely about the sexual hold she had over the King, although that was obviously part of the allure; he was not for example sexually faithful to her, and during her frequent pregnancies Athénaïs does not seem to have expected it of him: her maid the Demoiselle des Oeillets and possibly her own sister offered diversions. It was the presence and style of Athénaïs which provided the Sun King with exactly what he wanted over so many years of the ‘perilous season’.

  What was remarkable, however, about this season was that the unrelenting campaign of the Catholic Church to secure Louis's salvation – in other words his connubial fidelity – was waged throughout. It was all very well for a court lady like Madame de Meilleraye (as reported by Saint-Simon) to give her ‘considered opinion that where a man of birth is concerned, God would think twice before damning him’. This was not the official message of the Catholic Church towards kings, who as God's regents on earth were expected to behave better, rather than worse, than their subjects. Although many people secretly agreed with the Marquise de Polignac that, while it might be very necessary to die in a state of grace, it was very boring to live in it, Bossuet thundered forth on the subject on a very different note: ‘How great the wrong if kings seek pleasures which God forbids’ and ‘Suffer not the noise of men surrounding you to deaden the Voice of the Son of God speaking within you.’5 Liselotte's very protestations about her lack of Catholic faith showed how out of joint with the times she felt.

  One of Racine's plays that Louis much admired was Athalie. The last lines by the high priest Joad make the message clear: ‘Never forget that kings have a severe judge placed above them in heaven.’6 Individual confessors such as the Jesuits, with the wisdom of the world, believed that a young King should be allowed latitude, on the grounds that he would repent in time (Father La Chaise was right: that was exactly what happened). But this complaisant line was not taken by the great preachers of the era. Both Bossuet and Bourdaloue made comparisons to King David the adulterer in court sermons. This was strong stuff: but it never stopped. Nor did Louis throughout his life ever quite forget the severe judge.

  Louise fled to a convent on the first occasion for fear of a Lenten sermon; Athénaïs was actually made to give up the King when a humble parish priest refused her Communion at Easter. The fact that this separation ended when the King's rampant physical feelings in her presence overwhelmed him does not negate the fact that it took place. There is no evidence that King Charles II, another lover of women but an altogether more cynical fellow, underwent crises of conscience on the subject: he believed on the contrary that God would never damn a fellow for a little pleasure. Louis XIV was different. ‘We must submit,’ said the King over the death of his son, pointing to the skies. In the end, spiritually at least, he did submit to the dictates of heaven as interpreted by the Catholic Church.

  The unfortunate affair of Angelique de Fontanges, twenty years younger than the King, beautiful as her angelic name indicated but rather stupid, may be regarded as Louis's last fling before he settled for the virtuous domestic existence preached to him for so long. Angélique, although a virgin, was not a victim, except to her own tragic gynaecological history: with a taste for grandeur, she was eager to fill the place of the maîtresse en titre for which no one, and finally not Louis himself, thought her suitable.

  Certainly nobody could call Françoise a victim, except possibly she herself in her later years with the King, when bad health induced a slightly wearisome series of complaints made to her correspondents. It was true that Louis was lucky to find her, a remarkable woman by any standards, and one who was prepared to carry out the famous work of salvation, seeing in it her divinely appointed mission. By his secret marriage he gave up the prospect of another grand bride, say the Infanta of Portugal, with the prestige and alliance that might bring; and there would be no official queen in France for over forty years, despite the perceived importance of the position.

  Through her early life among the Précieuses, in the intellectual salons which would remain unknown to Louis XIV personally, Françoise had been able to acquire the new female art of conversation, something in which sympathy certainly played a part and gallantry was merely an option. Madame de Sévigné was quick to point to her ability in this direction when she perceived Françoise's influence rising: here was someone with whom you could have a conversation. There were four types of women according to Baudeau de Somaize in his Grand Dictionary of the Historic Précieuses of 1661; they ranged from the completely ignorant, via those of natural gifts if no great education and those who tried to lift themselves up, to the femmes illustres.7 Françoise was a mixture of the second and third types: she had natural gifts and she also tried to improve her lot. The Benedictine rule adapted for women and widely quoted in the middle of the seventeenth century described ‘your sex’ as ‘weak, fragile and inconstant if the reins are let loose’: none of this applied to Françoise d'Aubigné. Her self-control was admirable, and the control of others which she sought was mainly for the good.

  Nevertheless Françoise's denunciations of court life cannot altogether obliterate the fact that she did in some way seek out her destiny. The displacement of Athénaïs, however religiously motivated, was definitely to the advantage of Françoise. This is not to say that Françoise bore any resemblance to the old whore, strumpet, garbage or ordure of Liselotte's vulgar terminology. It was a long journey from little Bignette chasing the turkeys to the Marquise de Maintenon, ‘glorious … Protectress of the Realm’, as the soldiers addressed her in 1705. No one achieves such a remarkable position as Françoise did, holding it for over twenty years, without some streak of ambition – even if the ambition was only to save the King's soul.

  How amusing to find the lovely, amoral Madame de Pompadour in the reign of Louis XV, whose hold over the King was definitely no aid to his salvation, deciding to emulate the pious Madame de Maintenon! ‘If the Queen were to disappear,’ the King would want ‘to buy peace for his conscience’ like his great-grandfather, wrote the Austrian Ambassador: ‘the plan of the marquise is formed on the example of Madame de Maintenon.’ The Pompadour proceeded to order a lot of religious paintings from the sensuous Boucher in order to bolster her claims to be a holy ‘secret wife’.8 So muc
h for human plans: in the event it was not Queen Maria Leczinska but the Pompadour who died …

  Now Françoise, as the King's secret wife, was left with the problem of amusing him. The coming of little Adelaide of Savoy into the life of Louis XIV, solving the problem at a stroke with her cute childish ways, was therefore the greatest piece of luck for both Louis and Françoise. Henceforward all the King's hopes and affections were utterly focused on this small, sprightly creature; and since she was the future Queen of France, he could feel it was his absolute duty to do so.

  Louis's generosity and courtesy to women, his enjoyment of their company outside the bedroom, has been stressed throughout this book. He loved his daughters and spoiled them; he loved his granddaughters too. But there was also a ruthless side to his nature where women were concerned – royal women. Liselotte was Condémned to witness the destruction of her homeland: her own royal rights were invoked to press the claims of France, and she found it infinitely distressing. Yet Louis reacted to her grief with irritation; such feelings of chagrin were not permitted at Versailles. Marie-Louise d'Orléans was sent briskly off to Spain to marry the appalling Carlos II in spite of her tearful pleas. ‘Farewell. For ever,’ was the reaction of Louis XIV. It was a fate which subsequently caused Liselotte to exclaim that being a queen was hard anywhere, but to be the Queen in Spain is surely worse than anywhere else’.9 Even the beloved Adelaide incurred her grandfather's resentment when she displayed something less than her usual gaiety at the denigrations of her husband. Yet these experiences, for better or for worse, were part of the lives of royalty at the time, not only for women: arguably Berry was just as badly treated in not being allowed to separate from the incontinent Marie-Élisabeth. And one should balance Louis XIV's tenderness towards the deposed Queen Mary Beatrice – not always to the advantage of France – against his ruthlessness towards Marie-Louise.