Now, in March 1663, Louis began transporting more than a thousand seedling orange trees from Vaux-le-Vicomte to Versailles. These were placed in the Orangery, a new structure built of brick and stone to the south of the château. While the new building work was expensive, the cost of moving the earth was even more so.34 Over the next two years alone, Louis would spend more than 500 thousand écus, much to the alarm of Colbert, whose task it was to raise the money. Although the companies Colbert had inaugurated or supervised, and the enterprises and workers he had encouraged, were doing good business, he was still concerned about the revenues raised, and resented spending such vast sums on Versailles. He warned the king that if he wanted to see where the money had been spent at the château, he would have difficulty in finding it. He reproached Louis, as far as he dared, for neglecting the Louvre, which he thought more worthy of the king’s attention, and urged him to divert the funds there instead.35
Colbert, however, was wrong to suggest that Louis was neglecting the Louvre, as work was still continuing on renovations begun by his grandfather, Henri IV. This work, which was referred to as the “Grand Design,” had been taken over by Mazarin, although his preoccupation with the Thirty Years’ War and the Fronde had prevented him from devoting as much time to it as he would have liked. When Louis returned to Paris after the Fronde, the renovation of the Louvre resumed with the enlargement of the Petite Gallery and the improvement of its links with the rest of the building. Since that time, while the restoration work had slowed considerably, it had not stopped, and Charles Le Brun was already in the process of decorating the Galerie d’Apollon. Louis, therefore, continued to devote much time and attention to the Louvre. At the same time, however, he had no intention of abandoning his favorite project, and instead of going to Fontainebleau that summer, he announced that he would take the court to Versailles. Then something happened that threatened to frustrate this plan.
That May, Marie-Thérèse suffered an attack of measles, and perhaps inevitably, Louis began to feel unwell soon afterwards. Vallot recommended bleeding, to which Louis submitted with his customary resignation, while a purging later that day seem to do the trick. Louis felt very well and was impatient to travel to Versailles, despite the protests of the hapless physician. Once there, he went for a walk, but it was not long before he began to feel unwell again, and the following day, the measles showed itself.36
Louis was ill for several days. In the grip of fever, he muttered about Louise, although he did not want to see her for fear of infecting her.37 Throughout their romance, Louise had maintained her policy never to ask the king for anything, but simply to return love for love. Although Louis gave her small trinkets as love tokens, Louise received very little from him. She owned no expensive jewelry, her only dresses were those her meager wages paid for, and she continued to live in one small garret room. Louis now sought to give her family greater social standing by elevating her brother’s military prospects.
Jean-François de La Baum La Blanc had been a lieutenant to the king at Château Amboise since 1659, although there is nothing to suggest that he and Louis actually knew each other. In 1663, he was made a cornet in the dauphin’s Company of Light Horse.38 This regiment was, in fact, the “foundation of an Army-Corps,” the standard of which bore a dolphin playing in a rough sea and the motto Pericula Ludus, ‘Danger is my pleasure.’ Later the same year, Louis achieved the young man’s marriage to a Breton heiress, Gabrielle Glé de la Cotardais. She was due to inherit 40 thousand livres, and La Vallière had been courting her for six months. The marriage contract was signed on June 11 by Louis, Marie-Thérèse, Philippe, Henriette, Condé, his son, Enghien, as well as the eighteen-month-old dauphin, who traced an L and a D in a baby hand.39 The wedding, which took place the next day at the Church of the Assumption, was witnessed by the highest in the land, including sixty members of the aristocracy.
Louis, however, was also occupied with other, more weighty matters to do with territory and the security of France. In October of the previous year, he had bought the strategically important towns of Dunkirk and Mardyck from Charles II, including “all the cannons and munitions of war that were in them.” He paid 5 million livres for them, payable in installments; but Charles was so short of money that he struck a bargain with Louis, offering them to his cousin for a substantial discount if Louis would settle the balance immediately. Louis readily agreed “so that this important place cost the king but little money and showed his opulence and adroitness.” At the same time, it demonstrated “the weakness of the king of England in having abandoned for so small a sum a place which put him in a position to enter Flanders or France, and so help France or Spain as he might see fit.” The comte d’Estrades, Louis’s ambassador in London who had been employed in the negotiations, said that “the English people murmured loudly” at this transaction.40
Also the previous year, Charles IV of Lorraine had signed the Treaty of Montmartre, in which he would cede the town of Marsal to France as a pledge to his agreement to revert the duchies of Lorraine and Bar to the French. Now, in July 1663, news arrived that Charles was reinforcing his garrison in the town before the French troops could take possession of it. Louis immediately ordered a siege and made preparations to join his army.
Even as Louis was getting ready to leave, he gave special thought to Louise’s welfare, and for a very special reason. She was four months pregnant with their first child. While Louis usually confided his more delicate affairs to his gentleman of the bedchamber, Saint-Aignan, this time he turned to Colbert to help him make arrangements for when the child was born. Colbert, as severe and serious as he ever was, did in fact have a tender side to his character, although he usually concealed it very well. He had already demonstrated his reliability and his devotion to Louis on many occasions, and his wife hailed from the same region as Louise, making him a good choice for such a delicate assignment.
Louis attended services for the feast of Saint-Louis, which fell on August 25, before he departed for Châlons. Five days later, he arrived at Metz, where he reviewed the troops of the maréchal de La Ferté-Senneterre. The maréchal was preparing to set out to reinforce the siege, but as it turned out, the mere threat of more troops was enough to frighten Charles into giving up. He met Louis at Metz on September 3 and signed a new agreement. Marsal was now in the hands of the French without a shot being fired.41
Upon his return from Marsal, Louis turned his attention once more to Louise. He removed her from her cramped and drafty room and installed her in the Palais Brion, which he had bought and furnished. This was a small, one-story palace built in the grounds of the Palais-Royal,42 and Louise lived there in a very retired manner, never going out, and always dressed in a loose-fitting robe. When she received guests for card parties, she kept to her bed all the while. As her time neared, Colbert found her a maid, the demoiselle du Plessis, who brought supplies for the baby. He then arranged for the baby to be placed initially into the care of two of his own servants, Beauchamp and his wife, who lived nearby.
In the middle of September 1663, Louis took the two queens, Philippe, Henriette, and the whole court to Versailles for a week. The queen mother’s apartments had been decorated in Chinese silver and filigree gold and filled with her favorite jasmine plants. Louis’s rooms also were “not only superbly, but even gallantly furnished and decorated with everything that can be agreeable to the sight and the sense of smell.”43
On this occasion, the apartments appointed to the courtiers were furnished, and food, firewood, and candles were provided for everyone, “which has never been convenient in royal houses.”44 Previously, those who stayed with the king had to provide for themselves, although their visits rarely lasted for more than three months at a time. Louis intended to change all that, and his purpose was to make his courtiers mindful of their subjection to, and dependence upon, him. He wanted them to become used to the delights of life at court, with endless fêtes, ballets, plays, and hunts, so that they would never think that there mig
ht be a life away from him.
Louis treated the court to a series of lavish entertainments, which took place over the entire eight days of their stay. There were ballets, balls, plays, singing and music of all kinds, walks, and hunting. Among the plays was a new one by Molière, l’Impromptu, which had been written, learned, and rehearsed in eight days. Almost immediately, it was printed out and published under the title l’Impromptu de Versailles.45 However, the visit was not entirely dominated by pleasure. Louis had already established Versailles as a place of work. Every Monday, people would bring their petitions to the château, where a large table had been set up in one of the guardrooms. The petitions were received by the marquis de Louvois,46 who presented them at the end of each week to the council. They were then sent on to the relevant secretary of state, who would deal with the issues or requests contained within the petitions. After a week, the secretaries would present a report to Louis, who would pronounce his decision, which was either nothing would be done; he agreed with the petitioner; or he would consider the matter further, a verdict that could result in a positive or a negative judgment.47
Louis was with Louise when her labor pains began, but he could not remain with her for the birth. Instead, he made a show of normality by going out hunting. At three thirty in the morning of Wednesday, December 19, Louise gave birth to a boy. Both mother and child were well and the baby was found to be strong. Louise, however, was allowed to keep her child for less than three hours before he was whisked away by the midwife, M. Boucher.48 He carried the baby to M. and Mme Beauchamp, who waited near the Hôtel Bouillon to receive him. Later that day, the baby was taken to the church of Saint-Leu-Saint-Gilles in the rue Saint-Denis, where, on the orders of the king, he was named Charles, son of M. de Lincour and demoiselle Elisabeth du Beux. The Beauchamps stood as godparents under the names Gury Focard and Clémence Pré.49
Despite his delight at having become the father of a second son, albeit an illegitimate one, that winter brought Louis the unhappy news of the deaths of two princesses. The first was his aunt, the duchesse de Savoy, who was followed several days later by his cousin, the younger duchesse de Savoy. Earlier that year, Louis’s prospective bride, Marguerite de Savoy, who had become duchesse de Parma, had died at the age of only twenty-seven. Did Louis, as Mme de Motteville50 wonders, “consider from this how fragile is the grandeur of the great of this earth”?
TWELVE
The Pleasures of the Enchanted Isle
In the spring of 1664, Louis again took the court to Versailles. The old château de cartes still stood; Louis had threatened that if the builders attempted to demolish it, he would simply order it to be rebuilt brick by brick. Nevertheless, the new work was very much in evidence. The buildings surrounding the château had now been joined by a royal ménagerie, where exotic animals roaming in open spaces could be viewed from apartments specifically designed and decorated for recreation and dining.1 A kitchen had also been built, which occupied a separate building to the northeast of the château, while the terraced eastern approach was lined with trees.
Work in the surrounding land had also progressed, and the château was now enveloped on three sides by parterres, all of which extended to the park. The one to the north already had waterworks installed; that to the south, next to the Orangery, featured flowerbeds filled with plants of various kinds. The parterre to the west, which was planted with lawns, extended to the allée royale, otherwise known as the Tapis Vert. Beyond the park were natural woodlands through which hunting parties entered the park on the western side. It was here in this green space that Louis treated more than six hundred people to one of “the finest fêtes in the world.”2 Mme de Motteville believed that Louis planned Les Plaisirs de l’Ile Enchanté, a weeklong series of entertainments, to “efface the memory of past illnesses,” and this was probably true to some extent. There were other reasons, though. Louis was anxious to eradicate all memory of the magnificent fête given by Foucquet almost three years earlier. On a more romantic note, he wished to use the occasion as a tribute to the two queens, although everyone knew that the real recipient of that honor was Louise de la Vallière.3
While Saint-Aignan managed every aspect of the fête, all was arranged according to Louis’s strict orders. The king planned it “in the manner in which he did everything,” wrote Bussy-Rabutin, “that is to say, the most gallant and the most magnificent way that can be imagined.”4 There was a sense of excitement in the air—this was, after all, the first official court entertainment to be held at Versailles. Even nature conspired to help make the festivities the best they could be, and the heavy rains of the past few days stopped, allowing the sun to reign over clear blue skies.
The main feature, and the theme, of Les Plaisirs de l’Ile Enchanté was Ariosto’s Orlando furioso,5 which was to be played out over three days on stages set against the backdrop of the allée royale. The scenes were illuminated by the light of white wax flambeaux and four thousand candles, which stood up bravely to the summer breezes.6 The action followed the adventures of Roger and his chevaliers, beginning with their capture by the sorceress Alcine, and ending with the marriage of the heroic Roger and the fair Angélique.
Louis played the part of Roger. He appeared on a magnificent horse, its harness the color of fire, shining with gold and silver and studded with precious stones. He carried weapons in the style of the ancient Greeks, and his armor was made of plates of silver over which he wore a richly embroidered cloak that shimmered with gold and diamonds. His helmet was covered with flame-colored feathers.7
At the end of the first day, the duc de Guise, the marquis de Soyecourt, and the marquis de La Vallière, Louise’s brother, competed in a tournament. La Vallière, who played the part of Zerbin, was the eventual victor; his prize was a sword of honor encrusted with diamonds, which he received from the hands of the queen mother.
The court then went to supper. Everyone ate to the sound of music, which had been composed for the occasion, while dancers dressed as the twelve signs of the zodiac and the four seasons performed a ballet. The dishes were carried in a procession choreographed and supervised by Molière. The servers were dressed as harvesters and grape-pickers, while men dressed in frosted costumes, their furs and dance steps representing coldness and weakness, carried bowls filled with artificial ice and snow.8
On the second day, Louis, still in the character of Roger, offered the two queens a comedy in six acts by Molière, La Princess d’Elide, which was appropriately set in Spain. As night fell, Roger and his chevaliers held tournaments on the orders of Alcine, whose palace was just visible beyond the waters of the Bassin des Cygnes, today’s Bassin d’Apollon.9
The opening scene of day three took place at the palace of Alcine. Heaven had granted Roger and the chevaliers their freedom from Alcine’s charms. Troubled by this turn of events, the sorceress crossed the lake on a sea monster with two of her nymphs to praise the queen mother. A ballet set to Lully’s music followed, after which Roger and the chevaliers were released from their enchantment. Islands in the lake suddenly burst into life, and the air filled with the sounds of violins, trumpets, and timpani, the musicians all in rich apparel. Alcine, still riding her sea monster, and her two nymphs once again addressed the queen mother as Heaven, Earth, and Sea burst in an explosion of fire, which destroyed Alcine’s palace and brought the three-day Orlando furioso to a spectacular end.10
Les Plaisirs de l’Ile Enchanté continued on Saturday, May 10, with a course de têtes, a kind of tilt in which the rider wields his lance to spear the heads of a series of mannequins, which were suspended along the course at a certain height. Louis was the victor on this occasion. The following evening featured a performance of Les Fâcheux, Molière’s comedy-ballet, which had received its début at Vaux-le-Vicomte. Molière, as always, played several of the characters, while the music was primarily by Beauchamp, with contributions from Lully.
Much of Monday was taken up by a special event, which Louis had arranged as a surprise. Som
e days before, he had written to Colbert about an idea that would cost money, but would “give pleasure to many here—and especially the two Queens.” The king’s idea was to hold a lottery, which he thought should cost no more than 3 thousand pistoles, which, “if well laid out,” ought to buy lots of jewels. He instructed Colbert not to buy clothes as prizes, nor did he want anyone else to know about the lottery, because “that way, it will be all the easier for you to get things at a moderate price.” The main prize should be worth five hundred pistoles, but Colbert could use his discretion in buying the others. This was Louis’s way of appeasing his thrifty minister.11 Louis then drew up a list of winners, which included the names of Louise and her sister-in-law. It was the strongest hint yet of Louise’s presence in the king’s life.
A joust followed, in which Saint-Aignan and the marquis de Soyecourt competed for honors. That evening, Louis presented a new play by Molière, entitled Tartuffe; ou l’Imposteur, which proved to be a highly controversial work. Artistically, the work was acclaimed by those who appreciated good theater and Moliere’s not always subtle humor, but the controversy lay with its subject matter.
The word tartuffe meant ‘hypocrite,’ and the play satirized the many at court who mistook ostentatious display for serious devotion in religious matters. Molière was not being cruel or cynical; rather, he was urging people to laugh at themselves, not to take themselves too seriously. However, some saw the play as an attack on true religion and were deeply affronted by it. Among them was Anne of Austria, who took the matter personally. She thought that Louis was using Tartuffe to make fun of her piety. Mother and son quarrelled, and Anne quickly found support from the Sorbonne, the prince de Conti, and President Lamoignon of the Parlement of Paris.
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