Louis XIV

by Olivier Bernier

  Once again, it looked as if chaos were only days away. Voltaire described the situation perfectly: “There was, at this time, no party but was weak; that of the Court was no stronger than the others; strength and money were lacking everywhere; factions were multiplying; the battles produced only losses and regrets on both sides.”52 Clearly, there was only one solution: Mazarin, “whom everyone blamed as the cause of the rebellion but who was only its pretext,”53 once again left France. Only this time, he went to Sedan, the independent principality on the northern border which belonged to Turenne’s brother, the duc de Bouillon, to the accompaniment of a royal proclamation praising his accomplishments. That was enough. Within days, even the rump of the Parlement started negotiating with the Court; Condé was forced to leave, and on October 20, the king, the queen, and the Court reentered the city. Ormesson wrote, “with the acclamations of the crowds and shouts of Long live the King from all the people, who surrounded His Majesty’s return with all the greater affection that he was bringing them the only possibility of living in peace after so many calamities.

  “The next day, the King met his Parlement in the Gallery of the Louvre; he had a general amnesty registered in his presence, as well as the reunion of the two Parlements, that of Paris and that of Pontoise; he decreed the exile of some twelve conseillers who had been particularly violent Frondeurs; he forbade the Parlement ever to discuss the affairs of the state again without his permission; he ordered that no one serve the princes or accept a pension from them; and finally he called on the great nobles to come and render their respects to him within three days … The very next day, the Bastille was turned over to the King … This return of the King’s is a miracle, a work of God.”54 Strong words for someone whose office and family tradition tied him firmly to the Parlement, but the results were too clear for controversy: When, together with the princes, the Parlement had so weakened the Crown as to render it ineffective, the consequence had been civil war, general disorder, and widespread ruin.

  As for the chiefs of the rebellion, they, too, were now only anxious for forgiveness. The duc d’Orléans was ordered to retire to his castle in Blois, and he remained there for the next six years; Mademoiselle, who tried staying on in Paris, was exiled to her estate at Saint Fargeau, a week’s travel away from the Court; the ducs de Beaufort and de Rohan were exiled as well; the king, who was clearly in charge, “settled in at the Louvre for good, having learned from the untoward events of the Palais Royal that private, moatless houses were not for him.”55 Only Condé continued the war but, abandoned by most of his former partisans, poorly financed by Spain, he was only able to skirmish in northern Champagne until, finally, he left France to be appointed commander in chief of the Spanish armies, thus putting himself wholly in Philip IV’s dependency. In France, his estates were seized, and on March 27, 1653, the Parlement, having tried the prince in absentia, convicted him of treason and condemned him to be beheaded.

  As if all those changes were not proof enough that the Fronde was well and truly ended, the king, obviously in full control, recalled Mazarin, who reached Paris in February 1653. A year earlier, this move would have caused the most violent opposition; now, he was received with acclamations and, after being reinstated in his post of Prime Minister by Louis XIV, he proceeded to gather the reins of government once more while his most determined enemies, Messieurs of the Parlement, begged for the honor of visiting him so as formally to request his protection. Never, perhaps, has a minister’s situation altered so radically from general rejection to enthusiastic subjection. Just how true this status was soon became, if possible, even clearer: That spring, one of the many nieces the cardinal had brought over from Italy was betrothed, then married to the prince de Conti, Condé’s own brother. Mazarin had now scaled the same heights as Richelieu, but unlike his predecessor, he could govern an obedient country where opposition no longer existed.

  * Louis the Lazy (986-987) was the last monarch of the Carolingian dynasty.

  * Although Mazarin was naturalized a Frenchman under Louis XIII, most people still thought of him as Italian, especially since he spoke with a strong accent; to have a foreigner rule France was, of course, particularly galling.

  * Strictly speaking, the little duc d’Anjou should already have been called Monsieur as he was the reigning king’s brother; most of the time, however, the duc d’Orléans, although now only the king’s uncle, was still called Monsieur.

  * Mademoiselle was the appellation given to the king’s brother’s eldest daughter; thus here, the daughter of Gaston, duc d’Orléans; she was also known as Mlle de Montpensier.

  * Condé’s younger brother, who, at the moment, was in love with his sister, Mme de Longueville.

  † A very distant cousin of the king’s whose wife, Condi’s sister, was the leader of the Parisians.

  ‡ A prince of the House of Lorraine.

  § The owner of an independent principality on the northern border of France and a frequent rebel under Louis XIII.

  ** His army was then encamped in Germany pending ratification of the Treaty of Westphalia.

  * This handsome, stupid, but popular young man was the son of one of Henri IV’s bastard sons.

  † Peers and marshals of France, although created by the king, took rank from the date of their reception by the Parlement.

  * France had thirteen Parlements; that of Paris was the most important one.

  † Longueville was Governor of Normandy.

  * Monsieur, in this case, is obviously the eleven-year-old due d’Anjou.

  When returning from the wars, Louis XIV at last moved back into the palace of his ancestors, it seemed to almost everyone that he was still a silent partner in a government run by his mother and the cardinal. He apparently took a less than ardent interest in politics; he rode, he hunted, he danced, he courted women, and pleasure appeared to be his main concern. We know from rather a nasty story retailed by La Porte that, as of 1652, the king was mature sexually; as peace returned he embarked, discreetly at first, on a series of brief affairs, and people predicted that he would need a prime minister for the rest of his life.

  This prospect seemed all the more likely as Mazarin’s power grew with every month. He now took every major decision himself, often telling the queen only after it had been implemented. Pensions, promotions, honors, all came from him: He ruled France as if he had been the most absolute of monarchs, and all the while, he grew richer himself. By 1658, when Colbert, his business manager, drew up a summary of his position, he was enjoying a yearly income of 793,570 livres (almost $10 million in today’s dollars); his fortune had risen to over 8 million livres (about $98 million), all without counting his justly famous collection of paintings, sculpture, rare books, and precious objects56; he had been created a duke, with reversion of the title on whichever of his nieces he chose. As the years passed, the etiquette surrounding him grew ever more demanding: It was a singular turnaround for someone whose humility had been a byword.

  Still, while sharp observers noted that the queen was beginning to resent the cardinal’s new, imperious manner, it was also very clear that the king was perfectly satisfied with what was being done in his name; in fact, despite all the appearances to the contrary, Mazarin was careful not only to seek Louis’s approval but to explain his policy in such a way as to teach the young man all he would need to know about government; thus, from 1653 on, the ill-educated king received his political education as he watched the wiliest of living statesmen.

  The winter of 1653-54 was quiet enough; the war continued, but without major battles; France, now happily delivered from civil strife, seemed intent on making up for the wasted years as prosperity reappeared; on June 7, 1654, the king’s coronation confirmed that a new era was, indeed, under way. The ceremonies were marked by the usual lavish display; Louis XIV was anointed with the balm supposedly brought down by an angel some 1,000 years earlier; the crown was placed on his head by the archbishop of Rheims; the scepter and the hand of justice were giv
en him, and the people who filled the vast Gothic cathedral shouted: “Vivat Rex in aeternum.” After that, the king, the cardinal, and the Court moved on to Stenay, in northern France, which was held by the Spanish and besieged by the French. There could be no doubt now for anyone in the kingdom: Louis XIV was, indeed, the Chosen of the Lord, a fact with which he had long been familiar himself.

  That knowledge showed: Although in the spring of 1654, Louis XIV was still only fifteen years old, he could already be astonishingly imposing. “His tallness and his handsome appearance were much admired, and his eyes and his entire person bore a look of majesty,”57 Mme de Motteville noted. At court, this awesome appearance only served to contain the natural exuberance of the younger people within decent bounds, but soon, the king showed that he was, indeed, an absolute monarch.

  “The Parlement, which felt humiliated only because it could no longer resist the King’s power, tried, now and again, to recover its strength; there were even some occasions when police measures* and the King’s service forced it to come together;† but since these assemblies had been so harmful to France, and that very word ‘assembly’ being odious to the Minister, the King stopped them, and [on April 10, 1653] came from the Vincennes forest [where he had been hunting] wearing his riding boots to forbid these assemblies.”58 That, in itself, was a startling break with precedent. Not only did he dispense with the usual ceremonies, which would have given the several chambres time to organize their resistance, he also came booted, spurred and a whip in his hand, as if his anger, on hearing of the Parlement’s assembly, had been too great for him to master, while at the same time showing the judges that they were unworthy of a more splendid costume. In fact, that had all been carefully planned with Mazarin.

  “As he walked in, His Majesty showed only too clearly in his expression the anger he felt in his heart. ‘Everyone knows,’ he said in a voice less pleasant and graceful than usual, ‘the troubles your assemblies have brought upon the state, and the dangerous consequences they have had. I have learned that you expect to go on with them, taking as your pretext a deliberation on the edicts which have been read and published in my presence. I have come here for the sole purpose [pointing to Messieurs of the Enquêtes*] of forbidding you to go on with them, as I do now absolutely; and I forbid you, Monsieur le Premier president* [also pointing to him] to allow or grant them no matter how much the Enquêtes may ask for them.’ After that, His Majesty having risen immediately before anyone else had spoken a word, returned to the Louvre and from there to Vincennes.”59 That was a tone the Parlement had not heard in a very long time, but even Messieurs des Enquêtes knew the king was right: No one wanted a new series of wars and rebellions.

  Even those who were most fully convinced that Mazarin ruled alone had to admit that the king, at the very least, was backing his minister to the full: In fact, Louis XIV, who realized he was not yet competent to govern, knew very well what he wanted. That the cardinal disliked the Parlement, and with good reason, cannot be doubted, but the king, too, had strong feelings about that anomalous institution and while the nature of his speech had been written by his minister, the actual words he spoke, his tone of voice, his imperious pointing, all that was strictly his own: On that day in April 1653, for the first time, we hear the voice of the Sun King.

  In one other way, as well, he participated in the tasks of government: The war with Spain continued, not very energetically, because both countries were exhausted, and year by year, France reconquered all the territory it had lost during the last years of the Fronde. All through the campaigning seasons - mercifully brief in that civilized era - the king lived with his army and learned the art of making war while encouraging his troops in person. Since, however, his life was too precious to risk, Mazarin made sure that he usually found himself in places where the danger was minimal - the very notion which, today, applies to generals commanding an army.

  The first major victory came on August 25, 1654. The Spanish army was besieging Arras; Turenne, in turn, besieged the Spanish army, forced its lines and beat it; only Condé managed, briefly, to withstand the French onslaught, but he, too, had to retreat: As Voltaire points out, this general of genius, who never lost a battle when he fought at the head of a French army, never won one when he served against his country. After that, the war became, again, indecisive. Clearly, something more was needed, so Mazarin looked toward England.

  That in itself required the kind of realism which the minister so eminently possessed: Charles I had been married to Henrietta Maria of France, Louis XIII’s sister who now lived, a penniless refugee, at the Louvre. The pretender to the throne, the future Charles II, was Louis XIV’s first cousin; he, too, lived in Paris and when, in 1652, the Court had reentered the city, Charles had ridden at Louis’s side: There seemed to be all the reason in the world, therefore, to shun the Commonwealth.

  Mazarin, however, knew as well as anyone that, under Cromwell, England had become a major power, and that with its help, he could finally inflict a decisive defeat on Spain; as for the Lord Protector, like the good Puritan he was, he detested the kind of Catholicism represented by Spain and still considered it the menace it had been at the time of the Armada: Thus, he only needed a little encouragement to join the war on the side of France. This Mazarin provided by offering to take Dunkerque together with him and then turn the city over to him so that England would have a port in Flanders: On November 8, 1655, the treaty was signed. To the scandal of almost everyone at court, one of its clauses prescribed the expulsion of the pretender and his brother, the duke of York.

  In short order, the alliance proved effective. A fleet under Admiral Blake caught up with the Spanish treasure ships near the Canary Islands and sent them to the bottom; for a government already tottering on the brink of bankruptcy, this blow was nearly fatal since there no longer was any money with which to pay the troops fighting in Flanders. Then, a British fleet blockaded Dunkerque while 6,000 experienced English soldiers were sent to fight under Turenne. On June 14, 1658, at the Battle of the Dunes, the Spanish army under Don Juan of Austria was crushed by the Franco-British under Turenne, and Spain never recovered from the defeat.

  Briefly, however, it looked as if the campaign might prove fatal to France as well. On June 22, “the King fell ill at Calais with a continuous scarlet fever which made us fear for his life …

  “For two weeks, he was in the greatest danger and the Queen felt all the anguish which her great love for him was bound to cause …

  “Monsieur showed her the greatest affection possible and seemed very frightened of losing his brother. When the Queen told him he must no longer visit for fear of catching his disease, he started to cry and … it was a long time before he could say a word …

  “The King was twice given an emetic wine [and recovered].”60 As it turned out, the king and France were lucky on two counts: First, that he recovered in spite of the “emetic wine,” and second, that the education given Monsieur had been so effective: Effeminate the prince might be, but he genuinely loved his brother, and in spite of the hopes encouraged by the maréchal du Plessis-Praslin, his former governor, and the comte de Guiche, his closest friend, he absolutely refused to serve as a rallying point for all those who still opposed Mazarin.

  That Monsieur should prefer his amusements to politics was just what the queen and Mazarin wanted, but even Louis XIV, in those early years of his reign, showed all the taste for pleasure that normally characterizes young men of his age; since Mazarin’s nieces were young, smart, and pretty, he began looking at them with more than passing interest. Already in 1653, Mme de Motteville noted, “he grew interested, not in the most beautiful one, but in Mlle de Mancini … Her eyes were full of fire; and, despite the defects of her features, her reaching the age of eighteen had its effect: her figure grew, her complexion became whiter and beautiful, her face filled out; she developed dimples in her cheeks which gave her great charm, and her mouth became smaller; she had fine arms and hands, and both favor and elegan
ce gave a brilliant look to her mediocre beauty. Finally, she seemed worthy of love to the King and rather pretty to everyone else. He saw her often …”

  “The Queen, who trusted both the King and Mlle de Mancini, was not upset by their attachment because she thought it innocent; but she could not stand it, even as a joke, if someone seemed to think this friendship might lead to marriage … Mlle de Mancini herself, who knew that she was not destined to be a queen, was thinking of her future and wanted to become a princess like her sisters …

  “The King remained for some time in this state which, in truth, seemed more like a feeling which made him enjoy being with this girl than like a great passion.”61

  Mme de Motteville was quite right, Louis XIV was not really in love, but he did find Hortense Mancini both attractive and entertaining: She was lively, cheerful, intelligent, and decorative as well. She soon married the comte de Soissons, a scion of the younger branch of the House of Savoy, bore a son, and became the king’s mistress.

  Already in the mid-fifties, however, it seemed highly probable to many at court that Louis’s marriage would depend on the outcome of the war: There would be no better way to seal a peace with Spain than to arrange for an infanta to become queen of France, and since that was not yet possible, then the king was free to amuse himself; indeed, Anne of Austria encouraged him to do so. There were balls given quite regularly at the Louvre, for instance, and sometimes the king came to them wearing a mask so as to be free of the ever-present etiquette; there were ballets in which Louis, often in the guise of Apollo, took part; there were equestrian performances of all kinds; sometimes these different modes of entertainment came together as in the first of the great carrousels of the reign, that of 1656, in which three groups of eight riders each competed.