Mme de Sévigné commented that the King’s conversations with Mme de Maintenon were ‘of a length to make everyone wonder’, and people have been speculating ever since as to the exact nature of the relationship. Mme de Sévigné was inclined to believe that the secret of her appeal lay in the fact that the King felt absolutely relaxed and open with this woman who commanded his respect and whose sincerity he admired. She explained, ‘She introduces him to a new world, hitherto unknown to him, of friendship and unrestrained conversation, free of chicanery. He appears charmed by it.’120
Abbé Choisy also believed that the King was attracted by what for him was a delightful novelty: despite his extensive experience of women, she was the first ‘who talked to him only of virtue’ and, furthermore, she could do so without being in the least boring. The German diplomat Ezechiel Spanheim likewise thought the King was drawn to her by ‘a pure esteem’, and he stressed that at this point it was generally accepted that their attachment was based on friendship and trust rather than proceeding from ‘a more tender passion’.121
Others sought alternative explanations for the King’s perplexing predilection for this middle-aged lady who was so completely different from the women who had gained his love in the past. Primi Visconti recalled, ‘Nobody knew what to make of it, for she was old. Some regarded her as the confidante of the King, others as a go-between [with other women]; others still as a clever person whom the King was using to draw up the memoirs of his reign.’122
Inevitably, however, some people were sure that sex provided the key to it all. Rumours began to circulate that Mme de Maintenon’s past history was not as virtuous as she liked to imply and that, though her marriage to Scarron may have been unconsummated, she had had affairs in early widowhood. The notorious rake the Marquis de Villarceaux was named as one of her lovers and there were exciting reports that she had been seen in his bed dressed as a page. However, having noted that Mme de Montespan was in the forefront of those who sought to cast aspersions on Mme de Maintenon, Primi Visconti decided there was no truth in these stories.123
Even if Mme de Maintenon had led a completely chaste life prior to her arrival at court this does not, of course, rule out that she surrendered herself to the King. Many historians have accepted that, from the moment she first acquired the King’s favour circa 1675, she began sleeping with him. A letter which she supposedly wrote in 1673 is often cited in support of this. In it she refers to the King making advances which she has managed to spurn without disheartening him.124 However, this document is of dubious authenticity and cannot be relied on. Even so it is sometimes still maintained that she and Louis became lovers long before his admiration for her was recognised. What is more, it is suggested that she did so in the conviction that she was following God’s wishes.
There can be no doubt that Mme de Maintenon was a deeply religious woman, for the preoccupation with salvation that forms a theme of her correspondence cannot be dismissed as mere posturing. Nevertheless, it is contended that she was able to square what was ostensibly a grave sin with her conscience by persuading herself that she was sacrificing her virtue for a higher purpose. Her ultimate and paradoxical aim – so the argument goes – was to restore the King to a pure way of life by lessening his dependence on other mistresses. Furthermore, she acted with the blessing of her confessor who persuaded her that by this means she could bring the King to a spiritual awakening and save him from damnation.
There are, of course, many difficulties about accepting this hypothesis. Quite apart from the level of sophistry and elasticity of outlook it presupposes in both Mme de Maintenon and her confessor, it would have been a tremendous gamble on their part to believe that all would turn out as planned. It needed powers of supernatural foresight to anticipate that she could have conducted a casual affair with the King for many years without forfeiting his respect, and that her hold over him would subsequently tighten to a point where she could exert moral guidance. Furthermore, though she was known to be in favour, there is no hint that, prior to 1680, anyone at court remotely suspected that she had ever had sexual relations with the King.
It is, of course, much easier to believe that Mme de Maintenon succumbed to the King at some point in 1680. By that time his liking for her had matured into an overwhelming attraction, while his love for Mlle de Fontanges was fading. Arguably, indeed, it is inconceivable that a man of the King’s known appetites would have been prepared to spend hours closeted in conversation with a woman he found alluring unless she was offering him sexual satisfaction. Some have believed him incapable of forming a profound attachment to a member of the opposite sex without attaining carnal knowledge.
Against this, it should be noted that once the King had ceased sleeping with Mlle de Fontanges his behaviour towards the Queen underwent a marked alteration. Mme de Caylus later recalled that he began showing her ‘attentions to which she was unaccustomed. He saw her more often and sought to amuse her … She attributed the happy change to Mme de Maintenon.’ When the court was touring the borders of Holland and Alsace-Lorraine in August 1680, Mme de Sévigné heard that the Queen was in unusually good form, and that the King was treating her very kindly. He also began having sexual relations with her much more frequently. The number of times he did this could be accurately charted because the Queen always took communion the following morning. Furthermore, according to Madame, ‘She was so happy when that had happened that one saw it straight away; she liked it if one joked with her about it, and then she laughed and winked and rubbed her little hands.’ In December 1680 M. de Trichâteau told the Comte de Bussy that the King was doing everything possible to furnish the Dauphin with a brother and ‘the Queen has not had such fun for a long time’.125 It seems plausible that Louis’s sudden and uncharacteristic uxoriousness was caused by his having to seek a legitimate outlet for his passions now that he was no longer gaining sexual release through extramarital affairs.
Such an interpretation is supported by the fact that he made no attempt to be discreet about his meetings with Mme de Maintenon. Instead, every evening she was ceremoniously conducted to and from the King’s rooms by the Dauphine’s Master of the Household ‘in the sight of all the universe.’126 This forms a complete contrast to his almost obsessive secrecy when he started his liaison with Mlle de Fontanges. Unless one accepts that the King had suddenly become completely shameless, the only explanation is surely that Louis took real pleasure in being able to flaunt a relationship with a woman about which he had no cause to reproach himself.
The few surviving letters written by Mme de Maintenon at this period testify to her happiness, but this cannot be taken as proof that she and the King had become lovers. The knowledge that she was admired and esteemed by him was plainly a source of satisfaction, but for her the real triumph lay in the fact that she had achieved this without compromising her virtue. She now exerted her influence to extricate the King from a state of sin, in the belief that, having done so, she could effect a conversion and attain his salvation.
Mme de Maintenon later claimed that she would have left court long before this had it not been for her confessor’s insistence that she remain there. Though at first she had been puzzled by his orders, after a time she saw their wisdom. As she recalled, ‘I began to see that perhaps it would not be impossible for me to be of some use in the King’s salvation; I began to be convinced that God had only kept me there for that.’127
Exactly when this revelation came to her remains unclear. One later statement of hers shows that for several years she considered that it was not incumbent on her to voice any disapproval of the King’s way of life with Athénaïs. ‘I never entered into his relations [with her],’ she declared. ‘They were already far advanced when he made my acquaintance and they did not take me into their confidence.’ On the other hand a letter she wrote to her confessor, Abbé Gobelin, on 5 April 1675 suggests that even then she was starting to exert moral pressure on the King. She told Gobelin she had spoken to Louis the previous day and th
at Gobelin should ‘fear nothing; it seems to me that I spoke to him as a Christian and as a true friend of Mme de Montespan’. Possibly, therefore, she played a part in bringing about the King’s Easter separation from Athénaïs. Apart from this, we know of only one instance where she upbraided Louis, which she later described to her secretary, Mlle Aumale. She recalled that, one day when she was walking with the King at a court reception, she had observed that if he had discovered that one of his musketeers was conducting an affair with a married woman he would have drummed the offender out of the palace. The King sheepishly concurred with this indirect reproof.128
Presumably she put forward other arguments during their numerous private conversations. Certainly, Mme de Maintenon later came to think that her role had been crucial in bringing the King to forsake a sinful way of life. She acknowledged that in doing so she had undermined the position of Mme de Montespan, who in many ways had been her principal benefactor, but she insisted she felt no guilt on this score. She later mused, ‘Was I wrong to have given him good advice and to have tried as far as I could to break off his relations [with Athénaïs]?’ She then answered her own rhetorical question by declaring that Mme de Montespan would have had more cause to reproach her if she had encouraged the King to prolong the affair.129
It also appears that Mme de Maintenon did her best to put a stop to the King’s affair with Mlle de Fontanges, though it is not clear if she confronted Louis himself on the matter. In March 1679, when the relationship came to light, she begged her confessor ‘to pray and have others pray for the King, who is on the edge of a great precipice’. She also later confided to some girls at Saint-Cyr that the King had once sent her to reason with a furious Mlle de Fontanges, who was upset by the way he was treating her. She reminisced, ‘The King feared an outburst and had sent me to calm her; I was there two hours and used the time to persuade her to leave the King and to try and convince her that this would be fine and praiseworthy. I recall that she answered me with vivacity, “But Madame, you talk to me of ridding myself of a passion as if it was like divesting myself of a chemise!”’130
* * *
The inexorable rise of Mme de Maintenon (now called Mme de Maintenant by knowing courtiers) meant that, despite the declining fortunes of the Duchesse de Fontanges, the summer of 1680 was a grim time for Mme de Montespan. That July the King travelled through Flanders, and along the borders of Holland and Alsace-Lorraine. Prominent among the ladies who accompanied him was Mme de Maintenon. Athénaïs trailed along too, taking with her her seven-year-old daughter, Mlle de Nantes, but this merely served to emphasise that she was now excluded from the King’s innermost circle. In contrast to the rapturous letters penned by Mme de Maintenon enthusing about her treatment on the voyage (‘Nobody at court is better served than I am’), communications from Athénaïs make it clear that she was leading a miserable existence. At one point she and her daughter were reduced to sleeping on a pile of straw and everyone around her fell prey to ailments. ‘I was as ill as the others,’ she lamented, confiding that a bad attack of the vapours had nearly killed her. A letter to her old friend the Duchesse de Noailles makes plain her sense of alienation. She wrote glumly, ‘I don’t have the heart for anything. At court one is still leading the same life. I am informed about it as little as I can be, and in effect that’s very little.’131
Clearly she was deeply depressed, but things were about to deteriorate further. Since January 1680 the court had been convulsed by the Affair of the Poisons, which had resulted in the arrest and interrogation of numerous prominent people on suspicion of witchcraft and attempted murder. In July Mme de Montespan’s name had begun to feature in the confessions of various unsavoury individuals who were currently imprisoned in the Château de Vincennes in connection with this matter. Their allegations gave rise to fears that Mme de Montespan was herself guilty of terrible crimes and that she too was part of the dreadful web of evil which had enmeshed so many court figures.
FOUR
THE FIRST ARRESTS
The Affair of the Poisons can be said to have started with the arrest in February 1677 of Magdelaine de La Grange. At the time this had seemed an event of little significance. Later described by the Chief of the Paris Police as ‘the cleverest and most wicked woman in the world’, Magdelaine de La Grange was the thirty-six-year-old widow of a tax collector who had been hanged for receiving stolen goods. Like many others in Paris at the time, she operated as a fortune-teller or ‘divineress’ and claimed to have predicted successfully developments in the Dutch War and the timing of the Queen’s pregnancies. She also exploited people’s fears by suggesting to clients in poor health that they had been poisoned and offering to provide an antidote.1 However, it subsequently emerged that her knowledge about poison was more extensive than that.
For eight years Mme de La Grange had ‘lived like a queen’ in the house of an elderly lawyer named Jean Faurye. At the end of this time – according to her – he had decided to make her his wife. On 17 August 1676 she had visited a notary’s office, accompanied by a man who identified himself as Faurye. After the couple had showed the notary their marriage certificate, the purported Faurye instructed him to draw up a marriage contract arranging that all his wealth should pass to his new wife in the event of his predeceasing her. Shortly after this Faurye had, in fact, died. His relations, who had counted on inheriting his estate, were naturally upset at having their expectations overturned. They lodged a formal complaint at the Châtelet and as a result an investigation was mounted. This led the Criminal Lieutenant of Paris to conclude that Mme de La Grange’s marriage certificate was a forgery and that the gentleman who had gone to the notary’s with her was in reality Abbé Nail, the priest who supposedly had conducted the marriage. Furthermore, there were grounds for suspecting that Faurye had been poisoned. Consequently, Magdelaine de La Grange and Nail were arrested, and confined in separate prisons to await trial on charges of forgery and murder.
In February 1677 Mme de La Grange sent a letter from prison to the Marquis de Louvois. She intimated that she had discovered that one of her fellow prisoners was a spy and she had uncovered information from him which had the gravest implications for national security. Taking this very seriously, Louvois at once arranged for Mme de La Grange to be taken to his Paris house so he could question her in person.
The involvement of Louvois was an extraordinary development, for he was one of the most powerful men in France. Born in 1639, he had since his early youth been groomed by his father, Michel Le Tellier – who himself had become Secretary for War in 1643 – to serve the King. In 1662, aged only twenty-two, he had won the right to style himself ‘Secretary of State’ and to deputise for his father when the latter was absent or ill. During the next few years he and his father had together carried out the major reforms which transformed the French army into the most formidable fighting force in Europe. Though Le Tellier in theory remained Secretary for War until 1677, by 1670 Louvois was probably more active in the War Department than his father and his contribution to France’s ultimate victory in the Dutch War was immense. Having been promoted to a Minister of State in 1672, Louvois would be formally created Minister of War in October 1677, following Le Tellier’s appointment as Chancellor. His power was further enhanced by various lesser positions, including that of Superintendent of the Postal Service, which enabled him to intercept and read all private correspondence that passed through France.
Louvois drove himself very hard and laboured indefatigably on the King’s behalf. ‘I’ve never known a man work so much,’ the Marquis de Saint-Maurice declared in 1667. He was also a natural bully who did not consider politeness a priority. Even the King, who valued Louvois as an indispensable servant, would declare, once he was dead, that Louvois had been ‘an unbearable man’ and among those who had less cause to be grateful to him he excited feelings of intense dislike. The King’s sister-in-law, the Duchesse d’Orléans, subsequently recalled, ‘Louvois made himself hated by everyone on account of his
brutality and coarse speech. He had no refinement and was a detestable man.’ He was physically unattractive, with a corpulent figure and jowly face, and his manners were extraordinarily brusque. Describing him as ‘mordant and peremptory in command, demanding complete submission to his wishes’, the Venetian ambassador noted that Louvois not only ignored the complaints of subordinates but was less than deferential to some of the principal personages at court.2
Besides inspiring hostility, Louvois was ruthless about pursuing vendettas. His greatest rival was the Controller-General of Finance, Colbert. While there could be no question of Louvois unseating a man who enjoyed the King’s complete confidence, the friction between the two was palpable. In 1671 Michel Le Tellier remarked sadly that, though he had tried to cultivate amicable relations with Colbert, his son seemed set on warring with him. Louvois had still fewer reservations about antagonising other important figures. During the Dutch War he inspired fury among high-ranking officers with his insistence that they conform to his will, and even came into conflict with the great generals Condé and Turenne. Later it would be alleged that Louvois used the Affair of the Poisons – in which he played an active role from the start – to pursue ‘personal enmities’ by encouraging the persecution of individuals who had annoyed him or who were affiliated to Colbert.3
The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide, and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV Page 19