by Hilton, Lisa
An unexpected ally in Athénaïs’s campaign against the governess was Charles, Comte d’Aubigné, La Maintenon’s brother. Although he was to benefit from his sister’s position in acquiring the governor-ship of Aigues-Mortes, this poor and cowardly soldier was constantly carping that he had not been made a duke, or even a maréchal. Although the Comte was a boastful, pompous spendthrift, he shared his sister’s intelligence, and the court delighted in his witty remarks, particularly when they concerned the history of the widow Scarron in her days at the Hôtel d’Albret. Saint-Simon recalls that he “used no restraint when he described her amorous adventures, and contrasted them with her present piety and majesty.” He was to refer insolently to Louis as “my brother-in-law,” which caused La Maintenon enormous embarrassment. Altogether, he was a thorn in her side, “forever chasing after whores in the Tuileries and spending a vast deal of money on them.”
If Aubigné was a burden, his wife was even worse. The marriage had been arranged as a favor by Mme. de Montespan in 1678, when La Maintenon was still officially governess to Athénaïs’s older children, but it may have been something of a backhanded gift, for Mme. d’Aubigné, the daughter of a Parisian doctor, was, in Saint-Simon’s snobbish words, “if possible, even more plebeian than her birth . . . marvelously stupid, of commonplace appearance, and so totally devoid of any social sense that Mme. de Maintenon found it equally embarrassing to receive her in company or refuse her admittance.” Mme. d’Aubigné retreated into the company of her vulgar Parisian friends, but constantly disgraced La Maintenon with her public complaints about her husband’s extravagance and ill-treatment. La Maintenon, ever ready to manipulate religion for her own convenience, complained to the priests at St. Sulpice, who managed to talk d’Aubigné into entering a “gentlemen’s retreat” where he could live quietly on his pocket money in lodgings. Poor Mme. d’Aubigné was persuaded into a convent, which, according to La Palatine, she thought “very hard lines after all that had happened, and that they might well have spared her that.” Much to Athénaïs’s glee, the Comte d’Aubigné, an unwilling captive, told everyone what a liar his sister was for boasting of his conversion. He escaped to his Tuileries whores as often as he could, but was always recaptured by the priests, and eventually put under the surveillance of a “companion,” an extraordinarily dull priest named Madot, who quite literally bored him to extinction. La Maintenon’s only use for Christian charity, it seemed, was control.
With Angélique de Fontanges now weeping and fussing because she was no longer loved, and Louis spending ever more time in the governess’s room, it was apparent that he cared nothing for such calumnies, and Athénaïs changed tack. Perhaps the ruse of distraction, though it had admittedly misfired with La Fontanges, would now serve to rid her of both of her rivals at once. Mme. de Caylus reports that Athénaïs attempted to draw Louis’s wandering eye to her own young niece, Mme. de Thianges’s daughter the Duchesse de Nevers, “in order to preserve the royal favor in her own family.” Mme. de Sévigné confirms that on one visit to Versailles with her mother, her aunt and Louis, the Duchesse was so bedecked with flowers that she rivaled Flora herself. De Sévigné, who perceived Athénaïs’s game very well, adds archly: “How dangerous such a jaunt would be to a man who had anything of the libertine in his composition!” The plan was not a success — perhaps Flora’s charms were too demure, too springlike, to ignite the aging royal imagination — and Athénaïs next attempted to push one of her own household, a voluptuous creature named Mlle. d’Ore, upon Louis’s affections. Mme. de Maintenon was by now alarmed, noting in her correspondence: “I have been suffering terribly from melancholy vapors ...I believe you already know Mlle. d’Ore. On Saturday she partook of medianoche with the King. They say she has a sister even more beautiful than herself, but that is no concern of ours.” Whether or not “medianoche” is used here as a polite euphemism, Mlle. d’Ore was no more of a hit with Louis than the Duchesse de Nevers. Maybe the ailments of La Fontanges and the carping of La Montespan were more than even the King’s celebrated libido could withstand.
Yet in spite of the plotting and the rivalry between them, the two Marquises hated one another with the greatest cordiality. Athénaïs was fundamentally too good-tempered to allow a feud to interrupt a good conversation, and on one famous occasion when the two ladies were obliged to take a carriage journey together, Athénaïs suggested as they set off: “Let us not become the dupes of this affair, but converse as if we had no cause to quarrel. Of course, that will not necessitate our loving each other any the more, and on our return we can resume our former relations.”3 Perhaps, since there were now younger courtiers, such as the Dauphine, who had not known her in her days of triumph, and who saw her merely as the disgruntled mother of the King’s bastards, Athénaïs needed La Maintenon as a link with her past, someone who would respect her for what she had been. Although she was consumed with jealousy and distress at her rival’s role in Louis’s life, her feelings were of the type which ignite passionately and dissipate quickly, and she was not inclined to remain in a state of constant anger. La Maintenon describes one occasion when they took a walk together in the gardens of Versailles “arm in arm and laughing heartily, but we are on none the better terms for all that.” Athénaïs continued to mock La Maintenon’s dévot circle. She went, along with other court ladies, to one meeting in La Main-tenon’s rooms where each contributed a monthly purse of alms for the poor. Seeing the long-faced nuns and priests waiting outside, Athénaïs remarked: “You could not hope for a better attendance in your antechamber, Madame, were it the day of your funeral.”4
The most exciting event at court that year, 1680, was the birth, in a sweltering August, of the Dauphine’s first child, the Duc de Bourgogne, the heir to the throne in the third generation. As the Dauphine went into labor, messengers gathered outside the palace, ready to gallop the news all over France, and when the child was born the cries of delight could be heard at the other end of Versailles. The Abbé de Choisy recorded the universal joy at the event in his memoirs: “We became almost crazy ...everyone took the liberty of embracing the monarch, who gave his hand and kissed everybody. The common people seemed out of their senses.” The courtiers ripped up the parquet in the Galérie des Glaces and piled it with whatever else they could find — furniture, sedan chairs, old clothes — on to a huge bonfire to celebrate. Perhaps the only people who were not beside themselves were the poor Dauphine who, after a thirty-hour labor in a room crowded with ambassadors — who by custom were permitted to witness royal births — lay stifling in a freshly flayed sheepskin, and Athénaïs. “She evaporates our joy, she dies with jealousy,” crowed La Maintenon, as though she herself were a member of the royal family, suggesting that Athénaïs was annoyed because this birth was not as shameful as those of her own children. Once again, Athénaïs was forced to acknowledge that she was no longer the cynosure of Louis’s eyes.
The following year, 1681, did bring some consolation to Athénaïs in the final removal of La Fontanges and the legitimization of Mlle. de Blois and the Comte de Toulouse. As well as a mark of Louis’s continuing regard, if not of his love, this was a strong indication, if any were needed, that he considered her absolved from any incrimination in the Affair of the Poisons. Yet that same year also delivered a crushing blow in the death of the six-year-old Mlle. de Tours on 15 September, despite (or perhaps, given his subsequent record, because of ) the attentions of the new royal doctor, Fagon. The court was at Fontainebleau, from where Louis instructed the monks of the priory of St. Pierre de Souvigny to bury his “très chère fille” in the vault of the Ducs de Bourbon. The funeral took place on the 19th, and the child was carried to the tomb in her little coffin, draped in white satin with a silver cross, by the light of 600 candles. Athénaïs’s grief at her daughter’s death has already been described in her letter to her son the Duc du Maine. Cruelly, she was not able to attend the funeral, as she had to depart for Bourbon on a mission to negotiate on Du Maine’s behalf with the Comt
e de Lauzun, the former friend she had betrayed, who had finally been released from Pignerol.
Lauzun had Athénaïs to thank for his freedom, though her motives in procuring it do her little credit. Du Maine was undoubtedly Louis’s favorite child, and both his parents felt that he required titles and estates to befit the position he would hold at court as an adult. Since the boy was illegitimate, there was a limit to what Louis could do for him, and the only other member of the royal family with sufficient wealth at her disposal was Louis’s cousin Mademoiselle, whose marriage to Lauzun the King refused to allow at the eleventh hour. The still unmarried granddaughter of Henri IV remained the richest woman in France, with the principalities of Dombes and La-Rochesur-Yon, the duchies of Montpensier, Chatellerault and St. Fargeau, the earldom of Eu, the barony of Thiers and numerous other fiefdoms at her disposal. Marie-Thérèse was hoping that this vast inheritance would be left to her own son, the Dauphin, but since Mademoiselle loathed her after the Queen had sided against her in the Lauzun affair, this was unlikely. Athénaïs, however, had remained on good terms with Mademoiselle. Fortunately for Mme. de Montespan, Mademoiselle had never suspected her involvement in Lauzun’s disgrace, and had continued to treat her as a confidante.
With Louis’s implicit encouragement, Athénaïs had set to work on Mademoiselle in the hope of obtaining lands for Du Maine. She had hinted that perhaps it might still be possible for the thwarted marriage between Lauzun and Mademoiselle to come off. Louis’s anger towards Lauzun had cooled, and Athénaïs, who was now in need of as many allies as she could find, guessed that Lauzun’s enmity towards her for having him put in prison would probably dissolve in his gratitude to her at obtaining his freedom. What could Mademoiselle do, she had wondered, to please Louis enough to grant “her heart’s desire”? Mademoiselle had soon perceived the aim of Athénaïs’s insinuating flatteries, the invitations to carriage and boat rides and the friendly intimation that, “in time, circumstances change.” One of Lauzun’s friends, Pertuis, put the point more bluntly. “Make them hope that du Maine will be your heir.”5 To convince Mademoiselle that she still had enough power to secure Lauzun’s release, Athénaïs had had Colbert intervene at Pignerol for an amelioration of the terms of Lauzun’s imprisonment, and from 1679 onwards, he had been permitted to take walks and receive visits. Colbert, using a friend of Lauzun’s named Barrail as a go-between, had conveyed the Marquise’s terms clearly to Mademoiselle.
Athénaïs was asking for the two juiciest titles of Mademoiselle’s estate, the principality of Dombes and the earldom of Eu, for her son. She wheedled and charmed and coaxed so energetically that she wore Mademoiselle down. The King’s cousin begged for time to recover from her troubles. When she heard that Athénaïs wanted the titles bestowed immediately, rather than as a posthumous inheritance, she was outraged. She felt too well, she said, to see any present advantage in dying. Worried that the plan might collapse, Athénaïs hinted at ever more favorable terms — who knew whether the lovers might not be reunited at last? On 2 February 1681, Mademoiselle, too exhausted to resist any longer, and pinning all her hopes on the possibility of happiness with Lauzun, signed away Dombes to Du Maine and bestowed Eu upon him, in a false sale, for the sum of 1,600,000 livres.
Athénaïs probably knew all along that Louis, who was too nice to play any active part in such a despicable swindle, had never had any intention of permitting Lauzun to return to court, let alone to the welcoming arms of his cousin. All Mademoiselle received in exchange for her king’s ransom was Lauzun’s release and permission for him to live as an exile on his estates. Athénaïs, though, was quick to blame Louis’s strictness for the failure of a plan conceived out of her own dishonesty. When she was finally forced to admit to Made-moiselle that there was still no question of a marriage, she tried to pretend that she had never made such an extravagant promise. “What, he will not come straight here, after all I have done!” gasped Mademoiselle.
“How difficult you are to please,” drawled La Montespan.
The coup de grâce came on a walk in the park at St. Germain, when Athénaïs airily mentioned that “the King also asked me to tell you that he does not wish that you should think of marrying M. de Lauzun.” Officially, then, Lauzun would not be recognized, but Athénaïs carelessly suggested that he and Mademoiselle could perhaps marry in private. Mademoiselle was furious, since it would be impossible for her to live openly with her husband if they were not equally publicly wed. Athénaïs was hardly in a position to pronounce on the propriety of anyone’s marital situation, and she dismissed Mademoiselle’s conscience with the argument that in fact she would be much happier, as Lauzun would love her even more if their relationship were clandestine. “Secrets add to the taste of things,” she added wistfully.6
Mademoiselle was not a Bourbon for nothing, and she had kept one trick up her sleeve. She had granted Athénaïs’s request only on the understanding that Lauzun would be able to return to her, and now, she announced, she would have to compensate him, for during his imprisonment she had “sold” the earldom of Eu to him. In September 1681, therefore, mourning her daughter, Athénaïs was dispatched to Bourbon to try to persuade Lauzun to surrender the title. She proposed to grant him lands worth 40,000 livres a year in exchange, but Lauzun demanded the restoration of his post as captain of the bodyguard, a gift from the treasury of 200,000 livres and for the pensions he had missed while in prison to be backpaid. Since Mademoiselle was complaining that she had already given enough, Athénaïs had to pay dearly to secure her son’s future. Lauzun eventually received the barony of Thiers, the estate at St. Fargeau and a further revenue of 10,000 livres as joint compensation from Made-moiselle and Athénaïs, who was now obliged also to negotiate between the King and his cousin. Having been duped once, Made-moiselle was determined that this time she would get her way, and that Lauzun should be allowed to return to court. If he wasn’t, the grant to Du Maine would not be permitted to be made public. Louis wrote a hypocritical letter to Colbert, feigning surprise at Athénaïs’s intervention on Mademoiselle’s behalf, and reiterating that while “I am upset when I do not know how to do what she wants,” his cousin had been shown amply “my pleasure in granting to Lauzun what I have just granted him.”7 Athénaïs finally managed to bring Mademoiselle around, and Du Maine publicly received his estates, yet neither she nor Mademoiselle was ultimately rewarded for their efforts. With hindsight, Mademoiselle admitted that she had been checkmated by Athénaïs, who was far more skilled in court politics, but Athénaïs herself gained no real satisfaction from her shabby victory. Du Maine felt no gratitude to his mother, and turned against her viciously in favor of his old governess, while Louis, whatever the extent of his collaboration in Athénaïs’s efforts on their son’s behalf, was not prepared to acknowledge her help. Lauzun, whose eventual rehabilita- tion at court was due in a large part to Athénaïs, married not poor Mademoiselle, but the fourteen-year-old sister-in-law of the Duc de Saint-Simon. In private, he would squeeze himself into his old guards uniform and dream of what might have been.
The episode demonstrated all too plainly just how marginal Athénaïs’s role at court was becoming. The King did visit her in her apartments, between Mass and dinnertime, and briefly after supper with the Dauphine, but he now restricted their private contact to conversations of only a few minutes’ duration. The only truly intimate moments in the day of a man who lived his life before a permanent audience of 5,000 people were the two or three hours he spent between working or hunting and in the evening with Mme. de Maintenon.
With the permanent establishment of the court at Versailles, Louis solidified the rigid, ritualistic timetable for which he became so famous, known as le mécanique du Roi. Anyone in the country could look at a clock at any given hour and know exactly what the King of France was doing. He rose at eight o’clock sharp, awakened by his valet and those privileged mortals who had the right of the Grande Entrée. After prayers and brief ablutions came the Seconde Entrée, which consisted of t
he most assiduous courtiers competing fiercely to attract a word, or even a look, from the King. The day after his father’s death, Saint-Simon was ecstatic when Louis favored him with the remark: “Ah, here is the Duc de Saint-Simon.” It was one of just three occasions on which Louis spoke to him.
After a brief session with his ministers, the King proceeded to Mass. During his walk to the chapel, any courtier was permitted to speak to him, though since he kept up a brisk pace, their inquiries had to be brief, and were invariably met with a laconic “I’ll see.” After Mass, Louis was closeted with his ministers, and the courtiers had to hang around waiting to bow to him as he left his Cabinet for the Petit Couvert, his first meal, which he ate alone, or occasionally with Monsieur, though in full view of the court. Then it was time for an outing. The King, in a new suit and wig, would set forth in his carriage to inspect the park. Another change of clothes, and he retired to his rooms, or Mme. de Maintenon’s, with his family and his dispatch box. At ten in the evening there was the ceremony of Grand Couvert, in which the King dined with his family, and which anyone in France had the right to observe. Then, until midnight, Louis withdrew to his rooms, again with La Maintenon, everyone sitting stiffly on their armchair, straight-backed chair, or stool, the princes on their feet. The King’s official bedtime brought a reverse of the morning’s ceremony, with one gentleman selected for the honor of holding the royal candle for the reading of the evening prayer.