On the other hand, Louis had urged Colbert not to “break his head over it. Why? Because Ormesson does not want to hang Fouquet, is it necessary that I should hang him?”40 The king would not order Foucquet’s execution, but he refused to accept the sentence of banishment. Louis reasoned that Foucquet knew so much of the secret affairs of state that it would be unwise to allow him to live freely abroad.41 However, the faults that marred the trial—the irregularities in the inventories of Foucquet’s papers; the hostility towards the defendant throughout; the forged and redacted documents; and the damage caused to the finances of everyone concerned—rendered the imposition of the death penalty unacceptable.42 Instead, Louis changed the sentence to life imprisonment. Under normal circumstances, a man would be allowed to have the company of his wife in prison,43 and certainly Mme Foucquet wanted to join her husband, but Louis ruled this out. Foucquet would be held in solitary confinement amid the grim isolation of the citadel of Pignerol, a remote French outpost in the Italian Alps.44
Such was the penalty for those whom Louis thought overshadowed him with their magnificence, their learning, and their impeccable taste in all things that spoke of the glory of France. In ruining Foucquet, Louis broke the recent tradition of rule by first minister and, with it, the threat of a new Fronde; and Foucquet’s terrible fate served as a dire warning to any who entertained ambitious thoughts.
The plight of the fallen superintendent had won him much sympathy. People who would gleefully have strangled him with their bare hands three years earlier now came out to cheer their support and wish him well as his fortified carriage rolled out of Paris on that cruel late-December day.
Henceforth, the minutiae of Foucquet’s life would be closely monitored and controlled by the king. Foucquet would live in a cell comprising three small rooms, including a garderobe. Even among prisoners, rank was preserved, so Foucquet ate food similar to that he had enjoyed as a free man. He had a cruet set, fine tableware, and linen; his clothes were washed by washerwomen, and his suits were changed with the seasons; he had a comfortable bed with a canopy, mats on the floor and tapestries on the walls; two valets served him and looked after his every need. However, those valets were under instructions to spy upon him and report to the jailer, Saint-Mars, everything Foucquet said or did. Reports were sent back to Paris and read to Louis. Foucquet was denied writing materials and was allowed to read only one book at a time, the titles restricted to religious works and a history of France. He spoke to no one other than his valets and his jailer. Although he was allowed to hear mass, it was said in another room, and he could confess only four times a year. Foucquet’s life had been spared, but his imprisonment would be a kind of living death.45
As far as Mme de Sévigné was concerned, Louis was not to blame for the terrible treatment Foucquet had suffered; instead, she attributed it to Colbert and his creatures. In doing so, she failed to acknowledge that Louis had it in his power to pardon Foucquet, or at least to reduce his sentence in some way. In increasing that sentence—which, as far as is known, was unique in the history of the French monarchy—Louis did not break the law, but his decision was both unfair and unethical, and it left an indelible blemish upon his gloire.
FOURTEEN
Mars and Athena
The year 1666 did not open happily for Louis. Only a few weeks previously, on September 17, his father-in-law and uncle, Philip IV of Spain, died. The queen was particularly affected, and Louis and his court went into mourning.
At about the same time, Anne of Austria, who had been ill for some time, began to decline. She had noticed the first signs of the illness that was to kill her at the time of the Plaisirs de l’Ile Enchanté, the series of entertainments given by Louis at Versailles during that glorious summer of 1664. For some time, she had experienced pain in her breast, though she neglected it at first, with the result that when the cancer showed itself, there was little that could be done. Now that 1665 was drawing to a close, both Louis and Philippe sensed that their mother’s troubles would not end happily. That year they spent a gloomy Christmas until, partly against their better judgment, they looked for a means to brighten this darkest of winters. The opportunity arose with the necessity to entertain certain foreign visitors, whom Louis wished to dazzle with the grandeur of his court. Philippe hosted a great supper followed by a magnificent ball, which provided a much-needed diversion from the cares and worries that beset the entire court. Marie-Thérèse, who did not attend, made a suit for Louis to wear for the occasion. Because he was still in mourning for the king of Spain, the suit was of violet, but it was “so covered with great pearls and diamonds that it was marvelous to behold.”1
The next day, any thoughts of further diversions were put aside when Queen Anne’s condition took a turn for the worse. She had a violent fever, with a strong chill, after which erysipelas appeared, a side effect of her cancer. At this point, she was urged to dismiss her usual doctor and use the services of a Milanese physician who had helped another woman with the same condition. Anne at first showed no inclination to do so; instead, she seemed resigned to her suffering, which she accepted as the will of God. It was not until Louis coaxed her that she consented to see the Milanese. Unfortunately, in the opinion of Mme de Motteville, this physician’s remedies had “no other effect than to hasten her death.”2
Over the next few days, the queen mother’s condition grew worse, and her pain was so severe that it made her cry. She endured it with great fortitude, telling one of her ladies, “I am not weeping; these tears that you see coming out of my eyes, it is pain that forces them out, for you know I am no weeper.”3
On Tuesday, January 19, Anne’s doctors advised Louis to make his mother consider taking the Holy Viaticum. When the archbishop of Auch, to whom Anne “had entrusted the care of the most important matter of her life, which was to help her end it,”4 repeated the advice given her by the king, she showed fear for the first time and, at last, consented. As Louis watched his mother receive the final sacrament, he said in a low voice, “Look at the queen my mother; never did I see her more beautiful.”5
It was time now for Anne to take her leave of her four children: Louis and Philippe, Marie-Thérèse and Henriette. They “threw themselves on their knees beside her bed and kissed her hands and wept,”6 but Anne’s thoughts were now with God. As Louis stood before her, tears streaming down his face, Anne turned her gaze upon him and looked at him fixedly. Speaking “with the majesty of a queen and the authority of a mother,” she uttered these mysterious words: “Do what I told you. I tell it to you again, with the Holy Sacrament on my lips.” Louis, his eyes filled with tears, bowed his head and assured her that he would not fail. “To this hour,” wrote Mme de Motteville, “we are ignorant of what it was.”7
The end came on Wednesday, January 20, between four and five in the morning. Philippe, overwhelmed with grief, withdrew to his house at Saint-Cloud and could not face returning to the Louvre even to hear the reading of his mother’s will. Louis attended to these matters as early as it was possible to do so, and the late queen’s will was read by Le Tellier in the presence of the king and Anne’s ladies. When at last he went to bed, he spent the whole night weeping.
The following morning, his eyes still heavy and red, Louis spoke of his mother to the duchesse de Montausier, saying that
he had the consolation of thinking that he had never disobeyed her in anything of consequence; and, continuing to speak of her noble qualities, he added, that the queen his mother was not only a great queen, but that she deserved to be put in the rank of the greatest kings.8
Mme de Motteville described his words as “a eulogy that was indeed worthy of her for whom it was made, and worthy, too, of him who made it.”9
As Louis wrote in his memoirs,10 “[I] knew better than anyone the vigor with which this princess had maintained my dignity when I was unable to defend it myself.” Louis, of course, is speaking of her actions during the Fronde. “It was impossible,” he continued, “that a son attached
by the bonds of nature could see her die without extreme sadness.”
He spoke about their daily life together, and how the respects he had always paid her were more than “the obligations one does out of propriety,” but that he lived under the same roof, shared the same table with her, and diligently visited her several times a day, despite the pressures of his work, all of which was done not for reasons of state but as a “mark of the pleasure that I took in her company.”11
Louis could not bear to remain at the Louvre, where his mother had died. He immediately withdrew, first to Versailles, where he found some much-needed privacy, and then on to Saint-Germain. Here he began to perform the duties the tragedy of losing his mother had imposed upon him. He wrote letters informing the princes of Europe, a duty that “cost me more than can be imagined, and particularly the letters that I wrote to the Emperor, and to the kings of Spain and to the king of England,” to whom propriety obliged him to write in his own hand.12
Louis then ordered the executors of his mother’s will to carry out her last wishes punctually. There was, however, one exception. Anne had asked for no ceremony, but Louis needed an outlet for his grief, and he ordered the same etiquette that she had decreed for his father’s funeral to be applied to hers.13 In accordance with royal protocol, Louis did not attend his mother’s funeral; instead, he withdrew again to the solitude of Versailles.14
Louis had asked for no letters of condolence from private individuals; he accepted only official ones. When the marquis de La Vallière, Louise’s brother, committed a monumental breach of etiquette by sending commiserations to the king, he received an appropriate reply. “What I have suffered in losing the queen, madam my mother,” Louis wrote, “surpasses all the efforts of your imagination; and to respond to you in one word, know that only the hand that has brought me such a severe blow is able to soften it.”15
The marquis was really no more than a “vehicle for liberalities not openly to be shown to Louise.”16 Even so, Louis was in no mood to indulge him, for while Louise had been present at a mass said for Anne of Austria, it would soon become clear that her star was fading.
The death of his mother left Louis bereft, but it also brought a freedom he had never known. If the loss of Mazarin had allowed Louis to assume fully the mantle of kingship, the loss of Anne of Austria lifted all restrictions to his behavior. Their recent arguments had inspired caution in the king, who was careful to conceal his passion for Louise. Now he no longer feared bringing her to court but instead flaunted her openly. This brought with it a consequence he did not expect, for the need for secrecy turned out to have been the spice that flavored their relationship, the possibility of discovery and further admonishment adding to the excitement. It began to dawn on Louis that he was no longer in love with Louise, although he kept her by his side. That March, he rode in excellent spirits to Mouchy to review his troops,17 but Louise, who travelled alongside him, was not the only one to notice his coldness towards her. Within weeks, the prince de Condé was speculating that “His Majesty is soon going to make Mlle de La Vallière a Duchess.” The classic “golden handshake” offered to every mistress was to elevate her to the status of duchesse, complete with lands and revenues to allow her to maintain her dignity. Condé, as it turned out, was correct.
By letters patent issued in May 1667,18 Louis conferred honors upon Louise, who received the estate of Vaujours19 and the barony of Saint-Christophe in Anjou, both of which were rich in revenues and tenures. With these properties, Louis gave Louise the title he felt was most worthy of someone of her noble and ancient lineage, that of duchesse de La Vallière. At the same time, he affirmed that his daughter by Louise, Marie-Anne de Blois,20 would inherit her mother’s titles and estates and pass them on to her own legitimate children, male and female.
There was, however, a clause of reversion, which stated that should Marie-Anne predecease her mother without legitimate issue, the properties belonging to the duchy would go to Louise, but only on condition that she could not dispose of it and that after her death all would revert to the crown. Louis then declared Marie-Anne “legitimate and capable of all civil honors and effects.”21
Louis had long been concerned that throughout their relationship, Louise had asked for nothing but his love; even now she owned very few possessions except some pieces of jewelry. Now Louise was a duchess, while Marie-Anne acquired the right to be called La Vallière.22 Louis wrote, “[I] believed I was right to ensure to this child the honors of her birth, and to give the mother an establishment suitable to the affection that I had for her for six years,”23 yet to all who had eyes to see, these honors represented a parting gift to Louise. This was confirmed when Louis sent her to Fontainebleau shortly afterwards, there to await further instructions.
Condé attributed Louise’s good fortune to the affection with which she was held at court, where “she does no harm, and tries to do all the good she can,” and perhaps this had something to do with it. On the other hand, Louis’s munificence could have been inspired by thoughts of his own mortality, for at the time he was preparing to go to war and had not “resolved to go to the army to remain distant from peril”24
Racine dedicated his tragedy Alexandre le Grand to Louis:
I do not content myself with placing at the head of my work the name of Alexander, I add also that of Your Majesty, that is to say, that I bring together all that is the greatest with which the present century and the centuries past can furnish us.
Racine, who compares Louis to Alexander, one of the king’s heroes, continues: “It is not extraordinary to see a young man win battles, to see him set on fire all over the world,” adding that history “is full of young conquerors, and we know with what passion Your Majesty has sought opportunities to distinguish himself at an age when Alexander was still crying for the victories of his father.” Yet Louis, “who, at Alexander’s age, had the command of Augustus; who, almost without venturing from the center of his kingdom, had spread his light to the end of the world,” is placed far above the great Macedonian general. Now, as the summer of 1667 approached, Louis’s plans to emulate the great Alexander were coming to fruition.
The cause of Louis’s reflections was the accession to the Spanish throne by Carlos II, son of the late Philip IV, after the death of Philip Prospero. The new king was disabled physically and mentally, and was widely expected to die without an heir. Such an event, which was thought to be imminent, would provide Louis the opportunity to address concerns about the security of his borders.
It had long been Louis’s ambition to extend the eastern borders of France as far as the Rhine by absorbing Lorraine and conquering Franche-Comté. The frontier was also vulnerable to the northeast, and Mazarin’s earlier attempts to provide a barrier to protect Paris from a sudden attack had been unsuccessful. With no lasting peace between France and Spain, Louis planned to push the French frontier to the river Scheldt, which ran through the Spanish Netherlands.25
As matters stood, there were two options Louis could take. The first was to negotiate the possible partition of the Spanish Netherlands with Emperor Leopold, who was about to marry Margarita Teresa, the half sister of Queen Marie-Thérèse.26 Such an arrangement would satisfy both the king and the emperor, both of whom would acquire territory in right of their respective wives. Emperor Leopold was hampered at home by the League of the Rhine and occupied on his eastern frontier by Turkish attempts to seize the whole of Hungary.27
The other option was for Louis to claim compensation for the 500 thousand écus owed to him as his wife’s dowry, and which remained almost wholly unpaid.28 While Marie-Thérèse’s right of succession had been annulled by the Act of Renunciation, this had been agreed in exchange for the dowry. Since much of the dowry remained outstanding, Louis reasoned, the Act of Renunciation could not be upheld.
In order to support his argument for compensation, Louis could appeal to a little-known law, the Jus Devolutionis, or Law of Devolution. This stipulated that where a man married more than o
nce, the inheritance would devolve upon the children of the first marriage and not the second. Marie-Thérèse, as the eldest child of the late Philip IV, had a valid claim to her father’s royal estate, a claim that Louis, as her husband, could exploit. Unfortunately for Louis, the Law of Devolution was observed in only a few locations: Brabant, Malines, Namur, and Hainaut; even here, it applied only to private property, not political rights such as matters of succession to the crown.29
As April 1667 drew to a close, a peace conference was held at Breda in the Spanish Netherlands, attended by France, England, Holland, Sweden, and Denmark. As the talks dragged on, Louis felt threatened by rapprochement between England and the Dutch Republic, but he was not without resources. His legal advisors had produced a pamphlet, A Treatise upon the Right of the Most Christian Queen to Various States in the Spanish Monarchy, which explained Louis’s duties: as a king to fight injustice, as a husband to oppose the usurpation of his wife’s property, and as a father to preserve his son’s patrimony.30
Summaries of the Treatise were sent to the Dutch States General and to the queen regent, Mariana of Spain. The Dutch were so alarmed that they attempted a coup against England, with their renowned commander, Ruyter, managing to sail up the Thames as far as Gravesend before menacing towns along the Medway. For her part, the regent Mariana refused to accede to Louis’s demands, but she reckoned without the military might available to the Sun King.
While Louis’s navy was still relatively weak,31 his army had recovered from the ravages of the Fronde. No longer disorderly and disloyal, the French army, although small in comparison to its size in later years, was well trained, disciplined, and, more importantly, had been kept in a state of preparedness for war. Moreover, Louis took personal interest in his troops, and for the past fifteen months he had spent a total of twenty-two days inspecting his regiments. Thanks to the reforms implemented by Colbert, Louis now had the money to carry out his military plans, and he was ready to launch his assault on Flanders.
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