Louis XIV

by Olivier Bernier

  In early February, however, “since the King’s illness continued, the tumor was cut open to help Nature, which was pushing the infection out … and Félix used a cautery to widen the wound.”220 That, as it turned out, was still insufficient; by early March, the abscess was still there, along with the open wound. Yet another cut proved useless, so a cautery was used again, but still the disease continued. The king spent most of March in bed, as he was no longer able to walk without great pain; finally, on the thirtieth, the abscess broke and the king started to heal, although, still some three weeks later, the last of the infection had to be cleaned out.

  The king, the abbé de Choisy commented, “suffered great pains but never ceased holding his Councils … His illness did not sour his temper; he wanted the Court to enjoy itself in his absence.”221 Once again, Louis XIV proved how thoroughly he was master of himself: Physical pain was no more able to shake his equanimity than political pressure. Of course, there was more to this behavior than just courage: Well-established though it was, the new order was still recent enough to be fragile, and all depended on the king. Had he stopped governing, either the ministers or his family - the incapable dauphin and the frivolous Monsieur - would have taken over, and that was not a possibility he was willing to allow. As for the amusements of the Court, if they proceeded unalterably on, it was because Louis XIV feared the end of his system of concentrating the aristocracy at Versailles where it was powerless.

  Stoicism, however, is not without cost: It was in 1686 that, physically and psychologically, the young, ebullient monarch was replaced by the formidable figure we see in the later portraits, with its hawklike nose and deep vertical wrinkles. The young king was impressive, but amiably effulgent; the older Louis XIV became terrifyingly majestic, a living icon more than a man. Psychologically too, that detachment from normal emotions which had always characterized the king, that willingness to cause suffering among his family and friends for the good of the state, became even more marked. There is a visible hardness, now, a lack of humanity, which shows up all too clearly in the way the Protestants were treated, an absolute refusal to allow even the slightest dissent. At the same time, while always retaining a measure of selfishness - Mme de Maintenon often deplored this trait - Louis XIV, as the years passed, devoted himself ever more completely to the state he had created, so that the identification between man and function became virtually total.

  This transcending of normal human feeling was, in one sense, only an extension of that semidivine status the king had long enjoyed, and just as gods never die, so Louis XIV went on to surmount illnesses which would have either killed or incapacitated most of his subjects. If he wanted to maintain his system, he had no choice: From 1686 on, his health failed on repeated occasions.

  Sometimes the illnesses were relatively harmless. “The Court was greatly worried because of the King’s fever,” Sourches noted in August 1686. “Although it was never very high, it still caused the King to become much thinner and changed his face visibly.”222 The fever may well have been an early symptom of a much more serious disorder. By September, it had become clear to Louis and his physicians that he was suffering from an anal fistula. Not only was it inconvenient and extremely painful; like all such wounds in the seventeenth century, it entailed a possibility of generalized and fatal infection. Amazingly, considering the state of medical knowledge, an operation had recently been developed that was known sometimes to effect a cure, but it was also highly dangerous: One way or the other, there was no guarantee of survival.

  “The King, who was suffering more and more from his fistula, had been resolved, for two months, to undergo the great operation; but he had confided this secret only to Monseigneur, Mme de Maintenon, M. de Louvois, his First Physician, Félix, his First Surgeon and the Père de La Chaise, his confessor; and even so Monseigneur did not know the King had decided that it would take place on November 19.

  “On the seventeenth, he strolled in several places in Versailles and finding himself in great pain, although he did not show it, he decided to have the operation the next day …” Already for the past few weeks, Félix had been practicing on prisoners with fistulas, and also corpses, so as to know exactly in what way, where, and how deep to make his incisions. “On the eighteenth, at eight o’clock, those who entered the King’s bedroom found that he was sleeping soundly, which showed the tranquillity of his soul on an occasion when others would have felt great fear. Once he had been awakened, he asked whether everything was ready and whether M. de Louvois was in his antichamber; and when he was told that M. de Louvois was there and that all was ready, he got out of bed and started to pray.

  “After this, having risen, he said aloud: ‘Lord, I place myself in your hands,’ and, getting back onto his bed, he ordered Félix to begin the operation, which he did, in the presence of Bessière, the cleverest surgeon in Paris, and of M. de Louvois, who held the King’s hand throughout the operation; for Mme de Maintenon was standing near the mantelpiece.

  “The King did not cry out and only said once ‘Oh, God!’ when the first incision was made. When the operation was almost done, he told Félix not to spare him, and to treat him just as if he were the least important private person in France; which forced Félix to make two more incisions; after which he put on the first bandage and bled him from the arm and there he was not as successful as during the operation, which he had carried out perfectly, for he cut a muscle in the arm and caused the King much pain … Around ten [the First Gentleman of the Bedchamber and the King’s other attendants] were allowed in … and the King held a Council after dinner.”223

  It is difficult for us to imagine just what this sort of operation meant to the patient, the blend of terror and racking pain which accompanied it. It was not uncommon for people to withstand both in silence, but then, within less than two hours of the operation, to have the First Gentleman and the other courtiers come in, and to hold a Council that very afternoon, is so stoical as to be well nigh incomprehensible: If Louis XIV demanded much of others, he expected no less of himself.

  This iron front was kept up unfailingly. Four days after the operation, when the king must have been in agonizing pain, he saw the prince de Conti, “and said to him: ‘People who do not know me think me very ill, but as soon as they see me, they can easily notice that I am not suffering much.’“224 That was on November 22; by December 7, it had become all too plain that the wound was not healing.

  “The surgeons looked very thoroughly for the cause of this and finally discovered that certain hard bodies had formed at the bottom, and that they absolutely prevented a cure. They decided, therefore, to make new incisions to tear out these hard bodies, and, in fact, did so; but that could not be done without causing the King inordinate pains, and it even gave him a fever; but even so he continued to see [the Court] two or three times a day, refusing to give this up even on the day of the operation … One could see clearly that he suffered extremely and constrained himself not to show it; but the more he suffered, the longer he kept the courtiers in his room.”225 That he should have done so was due in part to his insistence on seeming more than human, but he also had sound political reasons. Any hint that he was likely to die soon would have encouraged certain members of the royal family to start plotting for control of the future king. Everyone knew that the dauphin was perfectly incapable of ruling alone, and there were many people who longed to be the power behind the throne. Almost worse, France’s enemies abroad would have felt encouraged: With Louis XIV removed, the kingdom would become more vulnerable. Thus, when he refused to admit to feeling pain, Louis was also defending his country.

  His agony was long drawn out. On December 9, the doctors decided to make a new incision. On the thirteenth, they cut again, and deciding the wound was scarring over too quickly, they applied a cautery to reopen it, a process which pained the king horribly. Finally, a week later, the recovery began: On December 22, Louis left his room for the first time in over a month, but he was not able to mount a
horse again before the middle of March.

  That he should have survived at all was virtually a miracle, but the fact that he did only strengthened his image. Clearly, just as his armies could not be defeated, so ordinary disease could not kill him, or, indeed, prevent him from attending to the government of his realm. As if to underline this tenacity, he embarked on yet another building project.

  Marly, by the summer of 1687, was just what Louis XIV had wanted, a retreat away from Versailles, but now he decided he wanted a small country residence within the great park itself. Because there had already been a pavilion at Trianon, he decided to build a house which could be used for festivities and an occasional stay. “Since the year was well under way when he gave orders to begin this, and since he wanted it finished before the winter, he pressed the work and often went to spend the afternoons under a tent, where he worked with M. de Louvois and looked at the work from time to time so as to make it go faster.”226

  It was during this summer that the king had a famous difference with Louvois. One day, as the monarch arrived at Trianon, he noticed that one window was out of true and pointed it out to his minister. Louvois looked, and convinced that his thoroughness was being doubted, swore that this inaccuracy was not the case. Measuring tools were brought and, in short order, it was discovered that while the error was very small, the king had been perfectly right. Indeed, he not only had the visual equivalent of absolute pitch, he was also a thorough perfectionist, and walls were torn down several times when they failed to come up to his very exacting standards.

  The result, as usual, was a building which princes throughout Europe admired and copied. A cross between a palace and a garden pavilion, Trianon - the work of Mansart - embodied a completely new concept, that of a subsidiary building, placed close enough to a main palace for convenience yet remote enough for privacy, small enough to exclude most of the Court as a residence, yet large enough to contain most of it for specific festivities. And in addition, quite as refined and luxurious as the palace itself while remaining almost completely open to the gardens outside.

  When, in 1688, the king inaugurated Trianon in the company of Monseigneur and Mme de Maintenon, what the Court saw with wonder was a fairytale palace of blond stone and pink marble. The main courtyard, flanked by two wings, led - as it still does - to an open, arcaded peristyle with, on the far side, paired pink marble columns. On the court side, the tall, arched windows of the wings, repeating the pattern of the peristyle, were topped by carved shells and trophies, and separated by pink marble pilasters; above came a band of stone, topped by a band of marble, with, crowning the building, a stone balustrade adorned with vases, trophies, and groups of children. On the garden side, the same pattern was repeated.

  Even today, when the balustrade ornaments are gone and nothing is left of Louis XIV’s sumptuous interiors, Trianon has lost none of its magic. This long, low building, almost hugging the ground, looks like nothing so much as a jewel placed in a sylvan setting. Versailles had majesty; Marly had charm; Trianon seemed a dream made real, and it quickly became a part of the king’s life.

  It is one of the paradoxes inherent to any account of the Sun King’s life that those surrounding him pale by comparison; thus, unquestionably, much credit must be given to Jules Hardouin-Mansart, who designed the wings, and Robert de Cotte, who was responsible for the peristyle. And yet the king, too, deserves credit - not just for providing the commission and footing the bills, but for his close and constant involvement with architects and builders. Here as elsewhere, Louis XIV was deeply and personally involved with every detail of the building, so that it is no exaggeration to speak of a collaboration between the monarch and those who worked for him. And, like Versailles, Trianon directly reflects the personality of its owner.

  This direct involvement did not, however, in any way serve to diminish the artists’ merits. Louis XIV’s reaction when he received a new work of Le Brun’s, the Elevation of the Cross, in June 1685, is typical of his constant and visible appreciation. The painting was taken in to the king’s bedroom in the morning, “and although the King was holding the Council, since he had given orders that he was to be warned promptly, as soon as it came he came out of the Council to see it and seeing that it was as beautiful as he had hoped, he said a thousand obliging things to M. Le Brun; then returning to the Council, he told the Chancellor and all the others that he had just been brought a painting which was worth their getting up and coming to see it. All the Council came and applauded it and the King showed great joy to all.”227 It is, in fact, one of the Sun King’s most endearing features that, while capable of being pitiless to family and friends, he never stinted in proclaiming and rewarding merit of all kinds.

  Indeed, he seemed to move about in a golden light of success and splendor. Masterpiece followed masterpiece: To have created the new Versailles, Marly, and Trianon all within ten years is a mind-boggling achievement; Lulli was reinventing music; Molière was dead, it is true, but Racine lived and spent much time at Court, as did Boileau and La Fontaine; Le Brun, perhaps not a great genius, but certainly a painter and designer of the very first rank, was endlessly busy; Puget was sculpting masterpieces. On a different plane, Louvois, for all his shortcomings, was an exceptionally able minister. And over all, enveloped in splendor, shone the king.

  As if all that grandeur were not enough, the great Court festivities took on a dazzling magnificence. The Carrousel of the Civil Wars of Granada was a typical example. “Two trumpets led the parade,” we are told, “and were followed by Dumont, Monseigneur’s equerry … dressed in crimson embroidered with silver.

  “Then came eighty pages of Monseigneur’s troupe, dressed in black embroidered with gold, in purple embroidered with gold and silver, in grey embroidered with silver, in crimson embroidered with gold and silver, and they carried their master’s coat of arms …

  “M. le duc de Saint Aignan, the leader of the carrousel, rode a splendid horse and wore a Roman-type armor made of silver blades, with gold and ruby ornaments. His helmet was similar, with a golden sphynx holding a quantity of white feathers, and others spotted with black and crimson … The harness of his horse was similar, and it wore a quantity of the same feathers on its head … His trumpeteers, pages and footmen were in crimson embroidered with silver …

  “Monseigneur wore a crimson suit, embroidered in silver, with large gold buttonholes and a mosaic of black velvet cut and embroidered with gold and laden with a great number of rubies and diamonds …”228 Then came twenty knights in black and gold, with the same diamond-and ruby-laden black velvet mosaic and black plumes sprinkled with pink; ten knights in gold and purple with ruby-and-diamond buttonholes; another ten in gray and silver with emeralds. The description is seemingly endless, and on a printed page, the very accumulation soon becomes tedious. How very different it must have been to see the reality: the gold and precious stones sparkling in the sun, the plumes waving, the horses prancing, the music playing. Here was a spectacle on the grandest scale, but not so grand that it was not appropriate to the Court of Louis XIV: For, during these years of peace and power, the sun of France shone so brightly as to dazzle the world.

  * She had retired to a convent in 1674.

  † He was Louis XIV’s first cousin three times removed.

  * The only way to speak to a prince without being heard by the courtiers who always surrounded him.

  * Because it was hoped the dauphine might have the king’s ear. The queen, as everyone knew, did not.

  † The chief lady of the Household after the Superintendent.

  ‡ The chief gentleman of the Household.

  * The Jansenists, who took their name from a Dutch bishop, believed that salvation came from God’s grace and not works, as the Jesuits thought. The implacable enemies of the latter, they advocated leading an austere life as divorced as possible from worldly ambition and pomp. Jansenism had been condemned, most recently, in February 1665, by Pope Alexander VII following Louis XIV’s request.


  * The queen had died in 1683, so the dauphine was now the first lady and lived in the late queen’s apartment.

  † He often just walked through, out a back door, and went to see Mme de Maintenon.

  ‡ The daughter and granddaughter of the king’s uncle, Gaston, duc d’Orléans.

  * I.e., those days when the king officially entertained the Court - normally, three times a week.

  * Colbert died in 1683; Pelletier was his successor.

  * Most unfortunately, Marly was torn down by speculators during the Revolution; a small part of the gardens has survived.

  * This occasion was the first time the king’s illegitimate sons were treated as if they were part of the royal family; a difference was preserved, though, when the doge failed to visit them later.

  * Added italics.

  * The marquis, later duc, d’Antin was Mme de Montespan’s only legitimate child.

  As the 1680s drew to a close, Louis XIV seemed more powerful than ever, if only because his personal rule had lasted for a generation. With the death of the people who had known him when he was a young man, the king’s eminence seemed both formidable and natural. In his family, too, he was a feared and uncontested master. It was well understood that everyone’s convenience had to give way to his and and that it was better to endanger one’s health than to annoy him: In October 1685, for instance, the dauphine, who was pregnant, began to feel unwell during the performance of a play. There could be no question of leaving before his majesty, so the poor woman waited; when she finally reached her room, she miscarried before she could even reach her bed. That sort of behavior deserved no more than a brief note in Dangeau’s memoirs; and there were many similar scenes in the next few years.