The Sun King

by Nancy Mitford

  Louis XIV still had three years in which to put his house in order, and ought to have applied himself to reforming the constitution of France. In half a century he must have noticed how badly it worked but he was tired, would do anything for a quiet life and instead it was the ‘Constitution Unigenitus’ which now occupied his attention. More and more under the influence of Mme de Maintenon, he used his remaining strength to force the papal Bull Unigenitus on the French bishops. The Bull was supposed to bury Jansenism for ever. No other government took it seriously. The Serenissima Republic of Venice locked it up in a cupboard and never mentioned it; in Savoy, Spain and Poland its acceptance or refusal was left to individual bishops. Only the King of France made a national issue of it. The Archbishop of Paris, Noailles, formerly such a great friend of Mme de Maintenon and now her enemy, led the opposition to the Bull with the result that Louis XIV exiled him from Versailles. Jansenism had begun to flourish again, especially in Paris and the King’s action was the source of endless difficulties for his successor.

  Meanwhile the fortunes of war had been slightly turning in favour of the French ever since the King’s courageous decision in 1709 not to capitulate. He had managed to raise some cash (notably in bullion from the New World, which he borrowed from the Spanish bankers) with which to feed and clothe his soldiers. English public opinion was beginning to agree with Lord Peterborough who said ‘We are all great fools to get ourselves killed for two such boobies [the Archduke Charles and Philip V]’. There was a change of government which took England out of the war and she signed preliminaries of peace with France in 1711. The Italian states and the Papacy banded together to resist the Emperor and his tool the Duke of Savoy; the Emperor himself died of smallpox and was succeeded by the Archduke Charles; and Vendôme established Philip V in Spain with several resounding victories.

  The French army in the North was now commanded by Maréchal de Villars, one of those picturesque, boastful soldiers who are sometimes, to the annoyance of their colleagues, as good as their own opinion of themselves. He was a man of great courage; his knee was shattered by a bullet at Malplaquet; in agony he continued to direct the battle until he fainted away. He refused to allow the surgeons to cut off his leg and by a miracle he was soon well again, except for a stiff knee. At Versailles he was considered a slightly comic figure, partly because he insisted on taking his young wife, of whom he was inordinately fond, to the front with him. It was a sensible precaution: she was nothing if not flighty. At the death of M. le Duc, Mme la Duchesse, distracted, sent urgently for Toulouse; he was found in bed with Mme de Villars, to the general merriment. Later she was to be an early love of Voltaire’s; he stayed with her and her husband at their château, Vaux-le-Vicomte, renamed Vaux-Villars, and collected much information from the Marshal for the Siècle de Louis XIV. The courtiers saw this Marshal as a cocu, not to be taken seriously, but the King believed in him.

  At the end of July 1712 the Court was at Fontainebleau. For some days there had been no dispatches from Villars; then rumours began to come in that he had won a decisive battle against the Austrians and the Dutch, led by Prince Eugène and Lord Albemarle, and that Albemarle was taken prisoner. It was many years since such news had come from the front; now nobody paid much attention, it seemed far too good to be true. However it was soon confirmed. Villars had not only beaten the apparently invicible Eugène at Denain but he followed up this action by taking Douai, after which Eugène and his allies lost more territory in three months than they had won in the past three years. Napoleon was always to say, speaking of those times, ‘Denain saved France’. The King, who had held firm during ten of the most difficult years in French history, now had his reward. God had remembered him at last; and he gave thanks to God.

  The various treaties of Utrecht were all signed by 1713 and concluded the war. England was awarded Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Gibraltar. France kept her pre-war frontiers intact. France and Spain declared that their two crowns were always to be kept separate. Louis recognized the Protestant succession in England and was obliged to refuse to harbour the Old Pretender in France. He also agreed to destroy the fortifications of Dunkirk. The Duke of Savoy regained Savoy and Nice which the French had taken. The Netherlands were returned to the Empire. There were also various trade agreements between France and England. The cause of this long war, Philip V, remained on the throne of Spain, and it was occupied by his descendants until 1931.

  20. THE END

  Le dernier acte est sanglant quelque belle que soit la comédie en tout le reste.

  BLAISE PASCAL

  There was to be one more bereavement before the end. In 1714, while the little, delicate Dauphin lived, though with difficulty and always ailing, his hearty young uncle Berri died. He was hurt out hunting, by the pommel of his saddle — his horse slipping and rearing. He had just been having a particularly bad time with the doctors: he had had an abscess on a tooth and they had inflicted various torments on him, and now he was not brave enough to say what had happened. He drank quantities of hot chocolate and the next day went out hunting as usual. A peasant, who had seen the accident, said to one of the King’s men, ‘How is the Duc de Berri?’ ‘I suppose he is quite well, since he has gone out hunting.’ ‘If he is quite well, princes must be made of different stuff from the rest of us — I saw him take a blow yesterday which would have split a peasant in two.’ But when he got home he began to bring up black blood. Of course he was given the usual emetic and soon was clearly dying. He said not to bring the Holy Sacrament until the King had gone to bed as he did not want to upset him — then he realized how urgent it was. The King went and fetched the priest himself. Next morning the Duke, who thought he was better, died.

  A few weeks later the Duchesse de Berri had another dead baby. Louis XIV now had only one legitimate descendant eligible for the throne. If the little Dauphin died, the choice would be between Orléans and the bastards unless, which was most probable, Philip V were to go back on his word and present himself. When Mme de Ventadour saved the life of Louis XV, she almost certainly prevented civil war in France.

  Later that year the Duc de Beauvilliers died, broken by the deaths, in a single week from smallpox, of his two sons, by that of his brother-in-law Chevreuse and above all of the precious and adored Bourgogne. The Duchess survived another twenty-four years.

  In May 1715, the members of London clubs, kept informed by the English ambassador, Lord Stair, were betting that Louis XIV would not live much longer. In July he went to Marly; when he returned the courtiers were shocked to see how ill he looked. He had become not only thin but very small and had lost his appetite. Only Fagon and Mme de Maintenon seemed to notice nothing: when Mareschal told them that he was worried they sent him packing. The King’s constitution was undermined by years of indiscriminate purging, bleeding, enemas, doses of opium and quinine and other remedies of the day by which the doctors sought to make this healthy man live for ever. For a good while now Fagon had ordered him to sleep enveloped in feather beds so that he should sweat, which he did so freely that he had to be washed down twice in the night. It made the King very uncomfortable but he was too pious in medicine to refuse to do it. On 9 August he went out hunting from Marly in the little calèche which he drove so brilliantly; came back to Versailles that evening; and never saw Marly, or went out hunting again.

  His death was long and dreadful and conducted, like his life, with perfect self-control. On 11 August he began to have pain in his leg. Fagon diagnosed sciatica. The leg got more and more painful. The King had to be carried about in a chair, but he led a fairly normal existence until about 24 August when Mareschal noticed black spots on the leg and realized that there was gangrene. The King was made to keep his leg in a bath of Burgundy. Four doctors came from Paris and consulted lengthily with Fagon; they ordered ass’s milk. Then Mareschal, saying that gangrene was a matter for surgeons rather than physicians, called in half a dozen of his own colleagues. They decided that it was now too late for amputation and tha
t Mareschal must make a few incisions in the leg. The King, who knew quite well that he was dying, asked Mareschal if he really thought it right to hurt him so much, since it was useless. Mareschal was careful after that to spare him any extra suffering. His eyes were full of tears, and the King asked how many more days he gave him. It was a Monday. Mareschal said, ‘Sire, we may hope until Wednesday’. Though in fact he lived until the following Sunday he made all his dispositions to be ready to go on the Wednesday.

  It cannot be said that Mme de Maintenon made the King’s last days on earth very easy. The Duc d’Orléans was the Dauphin’s nearest legitimate relation in France, and as such would automatically become Regent at the child’s succession. Mme de Maintenon had never liked the Duke and was now scandalized by the gossip she heard about him. The more he was accused of an incestuous love affair with the Duchesse de Berri, in pamphlets and songs, the more idiotically he behaved with his daughter, probably out of bravado. Mme de Maintenon dreaded his influence on the future King; she could not bear to think of him ruling France. So when Louis XIV was too tired and ill to stand up to them she and du Maine forced him to add a codicil to his will, putting du Maine in charge of the new King’s education. This was a clever move to render Orléans virtually powerless, since the King’s person was the magic which made all wheels turn in France. Louis XIV knew that it was very wrong of him to sign; but he also knew that political testaments are not worth the paper on which they are written. Two people, Président de Mesmes and Lauzun, told Saint-Simon that the King was heard to say ‘I have bought some rest. They gave me no peace until I signed — it will become what it becomes; but at least they won’t torment me any more!’ An even greater worry to him was his estrangement, also the fault of his wife, from the Archbishop of Paris. If he died without being reconciled to this prelate many tongues would wag; he asked to see him. Père Tellier and Mme de Maintenon kept the two men apart, however, and the Last Sacraments were given by the young Cardinal de Rohan, son of the Princesse de Soubise and, it was generally thought, of Louis XIV himself.

  The King was in agony, day and night. He wanted to make his adieus and then be left in peace. He heard his daughters wailing in the antechamber. It was the fashion at Versailles to grieve out loud: a woman who had lost husband or son at the war was expected to appear in the public rooms and make as much doleful noise as possible. Madame, the Princesse de Conti, Mme la Duchesse and the Duchesse d’Orléans were all admitted to the King’s bedroom together; but the shrieks of his daughters tired the dying man, who had long ceased to have much feeling for them, and he said good-bye as quickly as he decently could; after advising them to make up their differences he let them go. But he spoke affectionately to Madame, saying he had loved her more than she ever knew.

  Then he sent for his great-grandson, a charming little boy of five, with big, round black eyes. He came with his governess, Mme de Ventadour. She lifted him on to the bed and the two men who between them reigned in France for a hundred and thirty-one years, looked gravely at each other for the last time. ‘Mignon’, said Louis XIV, ‘you are going to be a great King. Do not copy me in my love of building or in my love of warfare; on the contrary, try to live peacefully with your neighbours. Remember your duty and your obligations to God; see that your subjects honour Him. Take good advice and follow it, try and improve the lot of your people, as I, unfortunately, have never been able to do. Do not forget what you owe to Mme de Ventadour. Madame, I would like to kiss him.’ As he kissed him he said ‘My dear child I give you my blessing with all my heart’. From now on it was noticed that he spoke of the little boy as the King and of himself as already gone: ‘In the days when I was King.’

  Louis XIV said to those courtiers who had the entrée: ‘Gentlemen, I ask your forgiveness for the bad example I have set you. I must thank you for the way in which you have served me and the faithful attachment you have always shown me. I am sorry that I have not been able to do as much for you as I would have wished to: the difficult times we have had are the reason for this. I ask you to be as faithful and as diligent in serving my great-grandson as you have been with me. The child may well have troubles ahead of him. My nephew will govern the realm. Follow his orders. I hope he will do it well, I also hope that you will all remain united and do what you can, if any should stray, to bring them back to the fold. I feel that I may break down and that you also are moved — I beg your pardon. Good-bye, gentlemen — I believe you will sometimes think of me.’

  My nephew will govern the realm. These words show how much importance the King attached to the famous codicil, forced out of him by Mme de Maintenon.

  Next to be summoned were the two bastards, du Maine and Toulouse. They were some time alone with their father and then it was the turn of the Duc d’Orléans. The King had not seen him alone, had hardly exchanged a word with him, since they had had a painful interview after the death of the Bourgognes, when Orléans had hysterically begged to be tried in a court of law so that he could prove that he was not guilty of poisoning them. Now his uncle spoke kindly to him, and seemed to take it for granted that he would be sole Regent. ‘You are about to see one King in his tomb and another in his cradle. Always cherish the memory of the first and the interests of the second.’ He told him the identity of the Man in the Iron Mask — which was only known by two other people after them, Louis XV and Louis XVI, who took the secret to the scaffold with him. The King said that, after he had expired, Orléans must carry the new King to Vincennes where the air was good. He had ordered the castle to be got ready, and had even allocated the rooms, since the Court had not been there for fifty years. He asked Orléans to see that Mme de Maintenon was all right. ‘She has been a great help to me, especially as regards my salvation.’

  Now he was left to the priests, the doctors and his wife. She seems to have been strangely cold, but probably she was worn out. She had scarcely left his room, since the illness had taken a serious turn. Some say that he saw her crying and remarked ‘Why do you weep — did you imagine that I was immortal?’ but others that these words were addressed to two lacqueys. He did say ‘I think I’m going to cry (m’attendrir), is there anybody else in the room? Not that it matters, nobody would be surprised if I cried with you.’ And also ‘I had always heard it is difficult to die but I find it so easy.’ He said he was sorry he had never been able to make her happy. He spoke of her future and she said ‘I am nothing. Don’t waste your time over nothing.’ He said that his great comfort was to think that, given her age, they would soon be united. She did not reply. Hours before he was dead, before he had even relapsed into unconsciousness, she had gone down the Queen’s staircase for the last time and was soon comfortably in her own bed at Saint-Cyr.

  The King’s room was like a church, filled all the time with religious music and the murmuring of prayers, in which he joined with a loud firm voice during his moments of lucidity, asking God to help him. On 1 September 1715, after three weeks of intense suffering, Louis XIV’s life went out as gently as a candle.

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