“with six little dogs”: Letter to the Herzogin Sophie, December 4, 1701, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Briefe, 194.
“which are better housed”: See Dunlop, 122.
“an open-air extension”: Ibid., 135.
“a place naturally without water”: Ibid., 137.
“The water is putrid”: Visconti, 152.
“feeling very well indeed”: Letter to Charles d’Aubigné, August 22, 1680, in Madame de Maintenon, Lettres, ed. Langlois, Marcel, Vols II–V (Paris: Letouzy et Ané, 1935–59), II, no. 216, 350.
“fifteen rolling chairs”: Louis XIV, Manière de montrer les jardins de Versailles (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2001), 10.
“The King…has ordered”: Dangeau, marquis de, Journal entry for November 16, 1704, quoted in Louis XIV, Manière de montrer les jardins de Versailles, 13.
“he preferred to watch”: Bouchenot-Déchin, Patricia, Henry Dupuis, jardinier de Louis XIV (Versailles: Perrin, 2001), 169. Marly was an elegant château that had been built as a country retreat for Madame de Montespan, near Versailles.
palace of Alcázar: Alcázar was destroyed by fire in 1734. The palace of Buen Retiro (Pleasant Retreat) was originally outside the city of Madrid. It was destroyed during the Napoleonic Wars. Its site is now a large public park within the city. The “planet” epithet of Felipe IV in fact referred to the sun, then deemed to be the fourth “planet” in the solar system.
“The King admits himself”: Letter of November 5, 1699, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Lettres de Madame duchesse d’Orléans, née Princesse Palatine, 1672–1722, ed. Ameil, Olivier (Paris: Mercure de France, 1985), 268.
“Let’s not make fools”: D’Aumale, Marie-Jeanne, Souvenirs sur Madame de Maintenon: Mémoire et lettres inédites de Mademoiselle d’Aumale, 2e ed. (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1902), 69.
“Madame de Montespan and I”: Letter to M. le marquis de Montchevreuil, May 27, 1681, in Langlois (ed.), Lettres II, no. 233, 380. And see Desprat, Jean-Paul, Madame de Maintenon, ou le prix de la réputation (Paris: Perrin, 2003), 193–4.
“in the afternoon”: Letter to the Herzogin Sophie, August 1, 1683, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Briefe, 61.
“a cruel and malignant fever”: Vallot, d’Aquin, et Fagon, Journal de la santé du Roi Louis XIV de l’année 1647 à l’année 1711, écrit par Vallot, d’Aquin et Fagon, ed. Le Roi, J. A. (Paris: A. Durand, 1862), 157.
“In the twenty-three years”: Quoted in Bouchenot-Déchin, 127.
“She died quite quickly”: Letter to the Herzogin Sophie, August 1, 1683, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Briefe, 61.
“Let them,” he said: Saint-Germain, Jacques, La Reynie et la police au grand siècle (Paris: Hachette, 1962), 189.
“With too little intelligence”: Spanheim, Ezechiel, Relation de la cour de France, faite au commencement de l’année 1690 (Paris: Renouard [pour la Société de l’histoire de France], 1882), 155.
“This is no time”: D’Aumale, 78–9. And see Caylus, Marthe-Marguerite, comtesse de, Souvenirs, ed. Bernard Noël (Paris: Mercure de France, 1965 et 1986), 84.
“The King doesn’t need”: Caylus, 84.
“And I can’t promise”: Ibid., 84–5, and see note 1 on 175–6.
“Madame de Montespan wept”: Ibid., 84.
“You’re quite right”: Letter to Mr d’Aubigny, August 24, 1683, in Langlois (ed.), Lettres II, no. 323, 514.
“In all my troubles”: Letter to the Herzogin Sophie, August 1, 1683, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Briefe, 61.
“We were all very concerned”: Letter of October 1, 1720, quoted in Langlois (ed.), Lettres II, 503, note 316.
“more touched than afflicted”: Caylus, 83.
“very moved to see her die”: Letter of October 1, 1720, quoted in Langlois (ed.), Lettres II, 503, note 316.
“No, you can’t come”: Letter to Mr d’Aubigny, August 7, 1683, in ibid., no. 318, 505–7.
“I ask your prayers:” Letter to Mme de Brinon, August 12, 1683, in ibid., no. 320, 509.
“There’s nothing at all”: Letter to Mme de Brinon, August 22, 1683, in ibid., no. 322, 513.
“the most illustrious kingdom”: “Oraison funèbre de Marie-Thérèse d’Autriche,” in Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne, Oraisons Funèbres (Paris: Hachette, 1898), 203 ff.
“because, according to”: Letter to the Raugrave Amélie-Élisabeth, May 13, 1705, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Lettres de Madame, 357.
“All salvation comes from”: “Oraison funèbre de Marie-Thérèse d’Autriche,” in Bossuet, 262–3.
“We’ve hardly got over”: Letter to Mr d’Aubigny, September 7, 1683, in Langlois (ed.), Lettres II, no. 325, 516.
“completely dislocated”: Vallot et al., 159–60.
“a very fine capture”: André Zysberg, L’ascension de Colbert, in Cornette, Joël (ed.), La France de la Monarchie absolue, 1610–1715 (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1997), 269–70.
“But the King couldn’t do”: Choisy, Abbé Françoise-Timoléon de, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de Louis XIV, et Mémoires de l’abbé de Choisy habillé en femme, ed. Georges Mongrédien (Paris: Mercure de France, 1966), 262.
“the attchment to her”: Spanheim, 18–25.
“beyond the age”: Choisy, 262.
“the greatest of all men”: “Oraison funèbre de Marie-Thérèse d’Autriche,” in Bossuet, 227.
“as if the thing hadn’t yet”: Choisy, 263.
“It was rumoured”: Spanheim, 20.
“the best valet ever”: Choisy, 183.
“He had the King’s”: Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de, Mémoires, 7 vols (Paris: Pléiade, 1953), I, 826.
“as capable as anyone”: Caylus, 90.
“When I think of all”: Lettre à Mademoiselle *** [d’Aubigné], undated, in Chamaillard, Edmond, Le Chevalier de Méré, rival de Voiture, ami de Pascal, précepteur de Madame de Maintenon (Niort: Clouzot, 1921), 2e partie, 22–4.
“The King loved dignity”: Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de, Mémoires, 7 vols (Paris: Pléiade, 1953), II, 412.
“Will you look at Madame”: Molière, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, Act III, scene xii, 755–6.
“Madame de Maintenon would never have”: D’Aumale, 81–2.
“and after her death”: Caylus, 68.
“Owing to her modesty”: Ibid.
“He’ll quite happily go”: Letter to the Herzogin Sophie, July 23, 1699, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Briefe, 160.
“I knew I had nothing”: Quoted in Bertière, Simone, Les Reines de France aux Temps des Bourbons: Les deux régentes (Paris: De Fallois, 1996), 503.
“He knew that Madame”: Choisy, 205.
“to make it habitable”: Solnon, 315.
“and one most remarkable pearl”: Ibid.
Fifteen: La Vie en Rose
“Think about your pleasure”: Letter to Mr d’Aubigny, quoted in Cordelier, Jean, Madame de Maintenon (Paris: Club des Éditeurs, 1959), 150.
“I’m dying to see you”: Letter to Madame de Brinon, October 11, 1683, in Madame de Maintenon, Lettres, ed. Langlois, Marcel, Vols II–V (Paris: Letouzy et Ané, 1935–59), III, no. 333, 5.
“hadn’t touched the tip”: Choisy, Abbé Françoise-Timoléon de, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de Louis XIV, et Mémoires de l’abbé de Choisy habillé en femme, ed. Georges Mongrédien (Paris: Mercure de France, 1966), 206.
“You ask whether”: Letter to the Herzogin Sophie, May 13, 1687, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Briefe, 79.
“She was so charming”: Caylus, Marthe-Marguerite, comtesse de, Souvenirs, ed. Bernard Noël (Paris: Mercure de France, 1965 et 1986), 28.
“It’s the same stuff”: Letter to the Raugrave Amélie-Élisabeth, November 9, 1709, in Lislotte von der Pfalz, Lettres de Madame, 419.
“and I can still sing them”: Letter to the Herzogin Sophie, May 31, 1692, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Briefe, 112.
“Add to that”: The Mercure Galant news sheet, quoted in Dunlop, Ian, Royal Palaces of France (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1985)
, 125.
“I don’t like these French dances”: Letter to the Raugrave Amélie-Élisabeth, March 4, 1706, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Briefe, 225.
“I much prefer English food”: Letter to the Raugrave Amélie-Élisabeth, July 24, 1699, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Lettres de Madame, 262–3.
“In any other country”: From Justus Zinzerling’s 1616 Itinerarium Galliae, quoted in Sabban et Serventi, 23.
“roast or fried meat”: See ibid., 68.
“skinned and washed”: See Bonnefons, Nicolas de, Les délices de la campagne, suite du “Jardinier français,” où est enseigné à préparer pour l’usage de la vie, tout ce qui croît sur terre et dans les eaux, 2e ed. (Amsterdam: Raphaël Smith, 1655), 346.
“but lightly, so as not to”: See Sabban et Serventi, 63.
“The saga of the peas”: Letter to the Cardinal de Noailles, May 18, 1696, in Correspondance générale de Madame de Maintenon, ed. Lavallée, Théophile, 4 vols (Paris: Charpentier, 1857), IV, 3e partie, CDXI, 98.
“Last week it gave me colic”: Letters to Madame de Grignan of May 13 & 25, October 1671, in Sévigné, Marie, marquise de, Lettres, 3 vols (Paris: Pléiade, 1960), I, no. 114, 290–1 and no. 161, 408–9. The quotations from these letters are mixed together.
“The winter has passed”: Letters to Mr d’Aubigny of March 1 & October 25, 1685, in Lavallée (ed.), Correspondance générale II, 3e partie, no. V, 354 & no. XLIV, 430. Letter to Mr le marquis de Montchevreuil, May 2, 1681, in Langlois (ed.), Lettres II, no. 227, 371.
“I’m really desperate”: Letter to the abbé Gobelin, January 6, 1684, in Lavallée (ed.), Correspondance générale II, 3e partie, no. 1, 347–8.
“the extremities of the Universe”: Choisy, 225.
“who never thought much”: Ibid., 233. The abbé de Choisy had been part of a diplomatic mission to Siam (Thailand). His engaging Mémoires contain a description of it. See also his Journal du voyage de Siam fait en 1685 et 1686 (Paris, 1687).
“You’ll easily believe”: Letter to Mr d’Aubigny, September 19, 1683, in Langlois (ed.), Lettres II, no. 328, 520.
“The baby clothes”: Letter to Mr d’Aubigny, March 1, 1684, in ibid., III, no. 355, 39.
“Don’t be concerned”: Letter to Mr d’Aubigny, April 7, 1684, in ibid., no. 359, 43.
“I already feel a kind of tenderness”: Letter to Mr d’Aubigny, May 5, 1684, in ibid., no. 362, 47.
“I’m sorry to hear about this”: Letter to Mr d’Aubigny, June 25, 1684, in ibid., no. 365, 53–4.
“Don’t give in”: Letter to Mr d’Aubigny, July 11, 1684, in ibid., no. 366, 57.
“The King has agreed”: Letter to Mr l’Abbé Gobelin, March 8, 1684, in ibid., no. 357, 41.
“It often happens”: Letter to Mme de Brinon, February 15, 1684, in ibid., no. 353, 37.
“Please give the curé”: Letter to Mr de Guignonville, August 10, 1683, in ibid., II, no. 319, 507; Letter to Madame de Dangeau, in Leroy, Pierre-E. et Marcel Loyau (eds), L’Estime et la tendresse: Correspondances intimes (Paris: Albin Michel, 1998), no. 169, 200; Letter to Madame de Caylus in ibid., no, 31, 107.
“It would take too long”: D’Aumale, Marie-Jeanne, Souvenirs sur Madame de Maintenon: Mémoire et lettres inédites de Mademoiselle d’Aumale, 2e ed. (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1902), 162.
“I’m sending you the fifteen pistoles”: Letters to Mr d’Aubigny, March 1679, April 2, 1678, July 3, 1680, April 9, 1678, in Langlois (ed.), Lettres II, no. 184, 301; no. 157, 242; no. 212, 340; no. 158, 245.
“one brown satin skirt”: Letter to Mr d’Aubigny, April 1679, in ibid., no. 187, 306–7.
“I’m really sorry to be”: Letter to Mr d’Aubigny, July 11, 1679, in ibid., no. 189, 310–11.
“You can’t think highly enough”: Letter to Mr l’Abbé Gobelin, January 17, 1686, in Lavallée (ed.), Correspondance générale III, 3e partie (suite), no. XLIX, 4.
“We mustn’t lose”: Letters to Mme de Brinon, probably November 6, 1683, & December 2, 1683, in Langlois (ed.), Lettres III, no. 337, 11, & no. 340, 15.
“Keep what wood you need”: Letters to Mme de Brinon, December 7, 1683, January 25, 1684, January 28, 1684 (note added on January 29) & November 13, 1683, in ibid., no. 341, 17; no. 345, 23; no. 348, 28; & no. 339, 13.
“It’s true that I like the Ursulines”: Letter to Mme de Brinon, August 29, 1681, in ibid. II, no. 243, 398.
“I’m sending her back”: Letter to Mme de Brinon, about February 19, 1684, in ibid. III, no. 354, 38.
“the talent that I have”: Letter to Mme de Villette, December 25, 1680, in ibid. II, no. 220, 356.
“Today the King signed”: Entry for June 6, 1686, in Dangeau, Philippe de Courcillon, marquis de, Journal de la cour de Louis XIV, avec les additions inédites du duc de Saint-Simon, 19 vols (Paris: Firmin-Didot Frères, 1854–1860), I, 346–7.
“It was all built so quickly”: Choisy, 214.
“a fine big building”: Letter to the duchesse de Hanovre, June 11, 1686, in Liselotte von der Pfalz, Lettres de Madame, 100.
“the great increase”: Letter to Mr l’Abbé Gobelin, April 7, 1686, in Lavallée (ed.), Correspondance générale III, 3e partie (suite), no. LV, 15.
“Madame de Maintenon entered into”: Choisy, 214.
maladie des directions: Langlois, “Madame de Maintenon,” in Revue Historique, 296.
“Sister Martha is to share”: Letters to Mme de Brinon, July 21, March, July 21, May 1, May, August & March 1686, in Lavallée (ed.), Correspondance générale III, 3e partie (suite), no. LXX, 34; no. LIII, 11–12; no. LXX, 34; no. LX, 22; no. LXV, 28; no. LXXIV, 41; & no. LIII, 11.
“Now that was a waste of time”: D’Aumale, 184.
“The King is very much occupied”: Letter to Mme de Brinon, February 27, 1686, in Lavallée (ed.), Correspondance générale III, 3e partie (suite), no. LII, 9.
“We’re working very hard”: Letter to Mme de Brinon, April 1686, in ibid., no. LVIII, 19.
“Do keep working”: Letter to Mr l’Abbé Gobelin May 1686, in ibid., no. LXVI, 28–9.
“They’re correcting the spelling”: Letter to Mme de Brinon, April 1686, in ibid., no. LIX, 20.
“I myself was never kissed”: D’Aumale, 18, and see Desprat, Jean-Paul, Madame de Maintenon, ou le prix de la réputation (Paris: Perrin, 2003), 262.
“Young girls will reform their families”: See Rapley, Elizabeth, The Dévotes: Women and the Church in Seventeenth-Century France (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990), 157.
“I don’t know anything about the scriptures”: Quoted in Desprat, 264.
“All girls learn the minuet”: Quoted in ibid., 267.
“our young ladies read aloud”: Letter of August 3, 1688, in Rathery, Edmé-Jacques-Benoît, et Boutron, Mademoiselle de Scudéry: Sa vie et sa correspondance, avec un choix de ses poésies (Paris: Léon Techener, 1873), 479–80.
“Madame de Maintenon thought it wasn’t possible”: Madame de Pérou, quoted in Ramière de Fortanier, Arnaud (directeur), Les Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr. Maison royale d’éducation, 1686–1793 (Versailles: Archives départementales de Yvelines; Paris: Somogy, éd. d’art, 1999), 175.
“there are too many songs”: Letter to Mme de Brinon, December 26, 1686, in Lavallée (ed.), Correspondance générale III, 3e partie (suite), no. LXXXV, 56.
“Lord, conserve our only hope”: “Prière pour Madame de Maintenon,” in Receuil d’airs spirituels à une, deux et trios voix sans accompagnement, de différents autheurs (Bibliothèque municipale de Versailles, BMV MS musical 65, 2), 901–2.
“Experience is the best teacher”: Quoted in Desprat, 264.
“Raising Oneself Socially”: Maintenon, Comment la sagesse vient aux filles, Conversation 59, 232–4.
“Self-confidence produces”: Chamaillard, Edmond, Le Chevalier de Méré, rival de Voiture, ami de Pascal, précepteur de Madame de Maintenon (Niort: Clouzot, 1921), 1e partie, 130–2.
“Reading is useful for men”: Quoted in Duchêne, Être femme au
temps de Louis XIV, 316, 324.
“Apart from their natural authority”: Fénelon, François de Salignac de La Mothe, Traité de l’éducation des filles (Paris: Kincksieck, 1994), Chapter 1, 38.
“Take care not to make”: Ibid., Chapter XII, 93.
“I don’t know whether”: Spanheim, Ezechiel, Relation de la cour de France, faite au commencement de l’année 1690 (Paris: Renouard [pour la Société de l’histoire de France], 1882), 403.
“She is just as she has”: Letter to Boileau, August 4, 1687, in Boileau, Nicolas and Jean Racine, Lettres d’une amitié: Correspondance 1687–1698, ed. Pierre E. Leroy (Paris: Bartillat, 2001), no. 7, 43–7.
“public poisoner”: The phrase is from the 1671 Essais de Morale of Pierre Nicole, one of Racine’s teachers at Port-Royal.
“something moral or historical”: Desprat, 267.
“It is a story filled”: Preface to Esther, in Racine, Jean, Théâtre et Poésies (Paris: Gallimard, 1950), 812.
“When Racine moved”: Spanheim, 402.
“I shall not regard”: Racine, Jean, Oeuvres Complètes 7 (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1869–77), Lettre LXIV, 1688, 439.
“The play is”: Letter of July 12, 1715, in Lettres de Madame duchesse d’Orléans, née Princesse Palatine, 1672–1722, ed. Olivier Ameil (Paris: Mercure de France, 1985), 514. Liselotte is here writing of both Esther and Athalie.
“It was a delightful little divertissement”: La Fayette, Madame de, Mémoires de la cour de France, pour les années 1688 et 1689, nouvelle édition (Paris: GALIC, 1962), 68. Marie-Madeleine de La Fayette’s La Princesse de Clèves, first published in 1678, is generally regarded as the first example of the novel in French.
“with this difference”: Ibid.
“This kind of artistic undertaking”: Anne Piéjus, in Ramière de Fortanier, Les Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr, 181.
“Madame de Maintenon’s modesty”: Caylus, 95.
“Admire the wisdom”: Quoted in Rathery et Boutron, Mademoiselle de Scudéry, 521.
“How could anyone resist”: La Fayette, 68.
“I’m happier than I’ve ever been”: Letter to Mr l’Abbé Gobelin, September 22, 1686, in Laval lée (ed.), Correspondance générale III, 3e partie (suite), no. LXXVI, 44.
The Secret Wife of Louis XIV: Françoise d'Aubigné, Madame de Maintenon Page 55