When Louise pointed this out to Louis as an allusion to his own inconsistency, he ordered it to be removed.19 He had more important matters to occupy him than an aggrieved mistress, for Athénaïs had discovered that she was pregnant with their first child. In order to conceal her condition, she had designed a new style of dress, a robe battant, known ironically as l’Innocent. It was a loose-fitting, flowing gown of chiffon, which was immediately adopted by all the most fashionable ladies.20
Such subterfuge was necessary because the marquis de Montespan had the legal right to claim as his own any child his wife had with the king. Later, a charming, if partly apocryphal, story emerged surrounding the birth of this child. As he had done with Louise, Louis took a house for Athénaïs in which she prepared to give birth to her child. As her time drew near, Louis arranged for an accoucheur, a M. Clément, to attend her. Clément was admitted to the house and taken to a darkened room to find a masked woman lying on the bed and a young man obscured behind the bed curtains. Clément voiced his thoughts that the couple must be attempting to conceal a scandal, but he was told to be quiet and get on with his job. Clément said that he was hungry and asked for something to eat, upon which the man went out and prepared him some bread and jam. Clément then asked for some wine, upon which the young man told him to have patience before duly fetching a glass. Just as the accoucheur was about to request another drink, the lady on the bed began to moan, at which Clément began to attend her. The young man hid himself once again behind the curtains, but he held the lady’s hand and stroked her hair throughout her labor, always asking when it would be over. After an hour or so the child was born. So secret was the birth that its sex was unconfirmed, although it is generally believed to have been a girl, and that she was named Louise-Françoise. The child was spirited away by one of Athénaïs’s maids, Mlle Desœillets, and her secret life ended after only three years.21
It was about this time that a long-standing dispute with the Jansenists at Port Royal was resolved. Four years previously, Hardouin de Péréfixe, Louis’s former tutor, reopened the controversy of the formulary by requiring the French clergy as a whole to sign it. He went to Port Royal to force the nuns to comply, but his visit achieved nothing. A subsequent attempt was no more successful than the first, and in his anger, he abused the abbess, Mère de Ligny. A week later, he returned, and when twelve of the nuns still refused to sign the formulary, he sent them to other convents. He then imposed a nun from the convent of the Visitation to watch over those who remained at Port Royal. In the end, Péréfixe managed to obtain only seven signatures on the formulary.22
In an effort to bring the revolt to a close, Louis asked for and obtained a bull from Alexander VII, the Regiminus Apostolici. Péréfixe took this to Port Royal for the nuns to sign, but those who had refused to place their names on the earlier bull also refused to sign this one. Four of those who had signed the previous one now joined their sisters in rebellion.
As Péréfixe’s persecution of the Port Royal community continued, Louis imposed the Regiminus Apostolici on his kingdom as a whole. It was to be signed by all clerics, including secular, as well as women in religious orders, who were also required to acknowledge the presence of the Five Propositions. This was resisted by several prominent bishops, but Pope Alexander died before he could order the removal of the rebels.
Pope Alexander had dealt heavily with a matter that could, with tact, have been diffused relatively easily. However, when he died in 1667, he was succeeded by the more judicious and diplomatic Clement IX. In March 1668, Clement granted Louis the régale, or regalian rights, which he had long desired to exercise over the Three Bishoprics. The régale allowed Louis to stand in for a deceased bishop and to benefit from the revenues pertaining to the see. It also allowed him to nominate to all non-parochial benefices. The following month, Clement extended the grant to Roussillon, Artois, and the newly acquired regions in Flanders.23 That autumn, negotiations concerning the acceptance of statements of obedience took place, which led to a compromise, known as the Pax Clementia. Louis was happy to accept this, provided it did not interfere with his regalian rights, and peace in the Gallican Church was restored.
To mark the event, Louis ordered a new medal, which was struck the following year. It bore the inscription RESTITUTA ECCLESIAE GALLICANAE CONCORDIA, ‘Concord re-established in the Gallican Church,’ and was accompanied by a commentary:
Among the theologians of France there were such bitter disputes on matters of grace that their animosity was already causing a great scandal, and that it was feared that things might go still farther. The King acted together with the Pope to suppress these seeds of division. The Holy Father addressed several letters to the prelates of the kingdom, and His Majesty published edicts which restored the Gallican Church to its former tranquillity. This is the subject of this medal. On an altar we see the open Bible, and on this Bible are placed the keys of Saint Peter and the sceptre with the hand of justice, which mark the cooperation of ecclesiastical power and royal authority. The radiant dove symbolizes the Holy Spirit who presided over this act.24
It would soon become apparent, however, that the peace that had descended upon religious affairs in France was, in fact, little more than a cease-fire, for a new battle was about to be fought. Louis’s suspicions regarding the Jansenists had never diminished. He viewed their teachings as being too close to Calvinism, and he would continue to see them as a threat to the unity of his kingdom. For now, though, he decided to leave them in peace, for he wanted to focus upon his plans to subdue another section of society—the nobility.
During the years 1661–2, Louis had appointed eight prelates and sixty-three knights of the Ordre du Saint-Esprit. It was the first time such promotions had taken place since 1633. Louis knew that “no reward costs our people less, and none touches the noble heart more than these distinctions of rank, which are almost the first motive of all human actions, but above all the most noble and the most grand.”25
By January 1665, Louis had regulated the ordre de Saint-Michel, restricting membership to one hundred persons, including those he chose to retain from the previous membership. Louis had then, in July of the following year, decreed that all who would claim admittance to the order would be obliged to produce their titles of nobility before specially designated intendants. Eligibility was further restricted to Catholics, except for foreigners, and candidates had to provide considerable service in the military over a period of at least ten years.26
These measures formed part of Louis’s policy to regulate and subjugate the nobility. He sought the establishment of a useful aristocracy, one that would devote their services to the state rather than their own interests, thereby allowing Louis the assurance that there would be no renewal of the Fronde or any similar uprising. The process had begun with senior judges in 1661 and continued with the Recherche de la noblesse, or investigation into titles of nobility. No family was exempt, and in December 1668, Mme de Sévigné wrote that her family had been required to prove their nobility in their ancestral Brittany, where “those who have the most have taken pleasure in making use of this occasion to display their merchandise.”27
Aside from establishing the authenticity of the letters of nobility, the intendants were also required to ensure that claimants lived a gentlemanly existence. This meant that their ancestors had not worked in crafts or trades or had been otherwise employed in positions demeaning to people of their status.28 These inspections were more than an inconvenience or an opportunity to show off, for if people could not prove their nobility or if they presented false proofs, their names would be written onto the tax register, making them liable to the same tax burdens as members of the third estate.29 In addition, they would be forced to pay a fine as punishment for assuming a title to which they had no right. There was, however, a system of appeal, and this course would be followed by many who wished, for financial reasons or out of self-esteem or family pride, to retain their noble status.30
As first gen
tleman of the realm, Louis required an aristocracy who would serve in his armies and in his own household. While he could create new nobles for political purposes, the promise of ennoblement was a crucial factor in ensuring a regular supply of soldiers and sailors.31 One of the best ways to achieve promotion to the second estate was to excel in the army, and, as it happened, the opportunity for many men to do just that was soon to present itself.
The Dutch had frequently been useful allies of France, but they had incurred Louis’s displeasure for several reasons. They were republicans; their success in commerce had brought prosperity and strength, which made them difficult to undermine; and they had rejected Catholicism. In 1648, they had signed the Treaty of Münster with Spain, which had frustrated Mazarin and prevented the annexation or partition of the Spanish Netherlands. More recently, they had formed the Triple Alliance with England and Sweden.32 Louis, who resented any form of opposition, had come to view the Dutch with implacable hatred, and he desired nothing so much as to crush them completely.
The king was encouraged in this ambition by Colbert, who took exception to Dutch mercantile supremacy. Since 1667, he had been engaged in a trade war through tariffs, but even the peaceable Colbert had come to view war as the only means to gain ascendancy over his rivals in commerce. Louvois, associate secretary for war and always spoiling for a fight, was happy to pursue any aggressive policy Louis might suggest.33 Turenne, newly converted to Catholicism, belligerent and incautious, was eager to lead the charge against the Protestant Dutch.
For four years, Louis’s diplomatists had roamed the rest of Europe seeking support for an attack on the United Provinces. In Sweden, the ruling aristocracy found that support for France would be well rewarded. In England, the efforts of French diplomacy fell on very fertile ground indeed. Charles II of England had always been fascinated by Louis, who ruled France as absolute monarch, while Charles was tied to a parliament with which he was becoming increasingly disillusioned. He had never been an enthusiastic member of the Triple Alliance, and he was eager to establish closer links with France,34 but how to fulfill this aspiration? The answer came from a source as charming as it was unexpected.
Henriette, duchesse d’Orléans, had never forgotten her English roots, and she was always desirous to protect the interests of the country of her birth. She was the only one of Charles I’s children to be brought up a Catholic, and her faith, which had sustained her through many difficult times, was deep, sincere, and strong. It had been her desire to bring her beloved brother into what she believed to be the true faith, not least because she knew he also secretly cherished a desire to convert to Catholicism. Henriette devised a plan by which Louis could have English support for his war, while Charles could fulfill his ambitions, both religious and political.
Henriette approached Louis with the warning that the growing hostility of those jealous of French power could lead to his becoming isolated in Europe. She suggested that a way to overcome this would be to cultivate the friendship of Charles. Louis liked the idea and ordered his ambassador, the marquis de Ruvigny, to make overtures to the English king. For his part, Charles expressed his willingness to forge a treaty with Louis as “between gentleman and gentleman.”35
The negotiations were directed by Louis and known only to a handful of carefully selected confidants. For several months, Henriette and Charles exchanged letters, using cyphers to ensure that the content of their correspondence would remain secret should any of it be intercepted. Eventually, the project reached the stage where Louis thought that Henriette should travel to England to conclude a treaty with Charles in person.
The prospect of seeing Charles after so many years delighted the duchess, but her excitement rapidly turned to disappointment when Philippe forbade her to go on the grounds that Henriette was pregnant. Even Louis did not possess the authority to override his brother’s marital rights, so the plans to send Henriette to England were postponed.
Shortly after he had begun work on Versailles, Louis had razed the small hamlet of Trianon and developed its surrounding land to expand the park. Here, at a distance from the château and screened by trees, he had built a palace in miniature, Trianon. The exterior walls were lined with blue-and-white delft tiles, and the color scheme was carried inside by white stucco ornamented with azure. The palace was built in an enchanting and exotic fusion of classical and oriental styles.36
Louis used Trianon as a private love nest, where he and Athénaïs would go to escape the court. The salon was used for formal entertaining; the wonderful meals the couple enjoyed together were prepared in the pavilions that flanked the main building. Louis and Athénaïs would then withdraw to the chambre des amours, the bedroom. Decorated in cool white, silver, and blue, with a luxurious mirrored bed trimmed with gold and silver, the bedroom was the showpiece of Trianon. Here, Louis and Athénaïs would make love as the heady scent of jasmine, tuberose, and orange blossom wafted in through the open windows.
Soon, Athénaïs wanted a bigger, better house than Trianon. She wanted a château that would reflect her status and which was built and decorated to her own tastes. The young architect, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, who had taken over the development of Versailles upon the death of Louis Le Vau, was chosen to design it for her. The new château was to be built upon land close to Versailles, and Athénaïs was involved in every stage of its creation. Like Versailles, the château was oriented east to west, and featured a gallery 210 feet in length by 25 feet wide. It boasted a chapel, an orangery, and, of course, magnificent parklands designed by Le Nôtre.37
By the spring of 1670, new arrangements for Henriette’s voyage to England were far advanced. Due to the necessary secrecy that surrounded the negotiation and the treaty that was the expected result, it was imperative that no one should know the true reason for Henriette’s journey. Philippe, however, seeing his wife closeted with Louis, became insanely jealous and in a fit of pique announced once again that she was not allowed to leave. Louis urged him to compassion. Henriette had not seen her brother for almost ten years, he reasoned. At this, Philippe softened; in that case she could travel to England and he would accompany her. To allow such a scenario would be to court disaster. Philippe was anything but discreet, and his presence would threaten everything they had achieved so far. In the end, Louis was firm. Henriette would make the journey alone. Philippe at last acquiesced on the condition that his wife spend no more than three days in England and travel no deeper into the country than Dover for the duration of her stay. The conditions were far from ideal, but they were the best on offer, and Louis, Henriette, and Charles would simply have to abide by Philippe’s wishes.
In May, Henriette set sail after a difficult journey to the coast. Upon her arrival, she was greeted warmly and enthusiastically by her brother. It was soon clear, however, that the finishing touches to the treaty would take longer to settle than originally expected. Henriette sent a message to Louis, asking him to arrange for her to stay longer than the allotted three days,38 which Louis, if not Philippe, was pleased to grant.
The Treaty of Dover was finally signed on June 1, 1670. Under its terms, Louis would pay Charles the sum of 2 million livres within six months, which would allow him to declare his conversion to Catholicism at a time he thought best. Charles would declare war on Holland when Louis was ready, and Louis would pay Charles 3 million livres a year for the duration of the war. Of the fruits of the war, Charles would receive the Zeeland Islands, and he would assist Louis in making good any new claims that might accrue to him for the Spanish throne. However, Charles was not obliged to do anything that would infringe on the Triple Alliance.39
Louis had planned to meet Henriette at Beauvais as she made her return journey, but Philippe, still filled with indignation, refused to travel out to welcome her back, which meant that no one else was allowed to. However, she did receive a rapturous welcome from the king at Versailles. He celebrated her diplomatic success with the gift of 6 thousand pistoles. Henriette was “looking very prett
y and happy,”40 although she was somewhat tired from her long journey. Louis, more sensitive to Henriette’s needs than her husband, insisted that she stay the night at Versailles, but Philippe would not hear of it. He wanted to return immediately to Saint-Germain.
A few days later, Henriette and Philippe went on to Saint-Cloud, and it was here, after taking a drink of chicory water, that Henriette suddenly became very ill. The news arrived at Versailles, and Louis ordered his physician, M. Vallot, to go to Saint-Cloud to attend the duchess. No sooner had Vallot left than another courier arrived bearing a distressing message from Henriette to the queen: “If the Queen wished to see her still alive she humbly entreated she would make haste; for that if she delayed coming she would see her no more.”41
Despite feeling unwell himself, Louis, accompanied by the queen, Louise, Athénaïs, and Mademoiselle, immediately set out for Saint-Cloud. On the way, they met Vallot coming the other way. The physician assured them that “it was nothing but une colique, and that Madame’s illness would be neither long nor dangerous.”42 His prediction, however, would turn out to be only partly true.
The royal party arrived at Saint-Cloud to find Henriette lying on a little bed, dishabille and in obvious pain. “She had all the appearance of a dying person,” noted Mademoiselle,43 and when Henriette said, “You see to what state I am reduced,” everyone, including Louis, burst into tears.
It was obvious, despite Vallot’s optimism, that Henriette was not going to survive this illness; and one by one her shocked and grieving guests took their leave of her. Louis spoke a few words to her in a low voice. Henriette then called out for an emetic, only to be told by her doctors that it would be useless. They still thought her condition was caused by colic and that she would recover after nine or ten hours at the most. Louis, however, tried to reason with them, but when they still refused to administer the requested medicine, he could barely hide his anger: “Surely, you will not allow a woman to die without giving assistance!”44 The fact was, however, that none of Henriette’s attendants believed she was going to die; yet the curé of Saint-Cloud, who had come to offer spiritual comfort, told Mademoiselle that he was waiting for their departure so that he could hear the duchess’s last confession. Louis now embraced the woman who had once been his lover and for whom he had always retained a special affection, “and bade her farewell; and she spoke to him in the most affectionate manner.”45 The king then withdrew, taking the royal party with him.
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