Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King

by Antonia Fraser

Was it because Marie de Médicis had favoured her second son, Gaston, over Louis XIII and thus raised him up into inconvenient opposition? Was the delicate Monsieur, a pretty child with the bright black eyes of the Médicis, to be in effect neutered by being feminised, dressed in girls' clothes? Such a ploy is easier to detect with hindsight than for people present at the time. Monsieur did show homosexual leanings quite early in his life – but there is no reason to suppose that he would not have done so in any case. ‘The Italian vice', as it was derogatorily known, existed at the French court at the time as at any other. The real answer seems to hark back to the cataclysmic effect of Louis's birth on the Queen: she simply could not go through those feelings again. After all, the birth of Monsieur was convenient (a second male heir provided security in the succession – and indeed a great many second sons had succeeded in French history including Henri II), but it could hardly be seen as a miracle.

  Before Louis was five years old, his life was transformed. The death of his remote and querulous father, probably from tuberculosis, on 14 May 1643 can hardly have appeared as a tragedy to the child.* Louis XIII himself displayed his melancholic temperament to the end: when told he had an hour to live, he replied: ‘Ah! Good news!' The sincere grief that the Queen experienced, at least according to Madame de Motteville, must also have been tempered with relief and even excitement at the new order. Change for Queen Anne had begun late the previous year when her old enemy Richelieu died in December. ‘There is something in this man which rises above ordinary mankind,' a contemporary had written of the mighty Cardinal.34 His designated successor Jules Mazarin was of a very different nature. He showed himself from the first far more accommodating to the Queen, as indeed prudence dictated in the developing situation of Louis XIII's illness.

  It was a point made by Queen Anne in her first words to the new monarch, aged four years and eight months, as she knelt breathless before him: ‘My King and my son' – emphasis added. (In her haste to pay him homage she had hurried on foot through the gardens of Saint-Germain.) In the practical fashion of the time, the corpse was then abandoned to its rituals at Saint-Germain while the living set off for Paris, the Queen and her two sons in an open carriage. The wild applause, the expressions of loyal sympathy, meant that the cortège was constantly delayed: it took seven hours to travel the short distance. As Madame de Motteville wrote: ‘They saw in the arms of this princess whom they had watched suffer great persecutions with so much staunchness, their child-King, like a gift given by Heaven in answer to their prayers.'35

  This popular notion that a golden age was dawning was dramatically reinforced five days after the death of the old King. It was said that the dying Louis XIII had had a vision of a French triumph over Spain. No one otherwise could have expected the dazzling victory which the twenty-one-year-old Duc d'Enghien secured over Spain on 19 May at Rocroi in the north-east, on the borders of the Spanish Netherlands.

  Known to history as the Grand Condé (he inherited the princely title of Condé from his father three years later), this superb young soldier was seen by his detractors as having ‘the air of a brigand' while others thought more admiringly that there was ‘something of the eagle about him'.36 Brigand or eagle as he might be, it was the future Condé's brilliant boldness which enabled him to defeat the Spanish cavalry on the left, leading the charge himself. On the field the Spanish troops, then thought to be the finest in Europe, slightly outnumbered Condé's. But at the end of the bloody day, their casualties far outstripped those of the French. Condé had brought to an end the legend of Spanish military invincibility and could report an extraordinary victory to his child-master.

  * The name history has given her – Anne of Austria – is misleading since Anne never visited the country. It marks the fact that her father was one of the Spanish line of the (Habsburg) House of Austria.

  * Father of the famous memorialist the Duc de Saint-Simon and an important source for his son's information about the preceding reign.

  * The name of Richelieu's Italian assistant, known in France as Jules Mazarin, later to be closely associated with the Queen, did not feature at this date in these scandalous satires, and he was in any case in Italy at the time of Louis's conception.15

  * Still a major national holiday in France.

  * Largely demolished during the French Revolution, the château was rebuilt in the nineteenth century and adapted for a Musée Gallo-Romain. The Pavilion Henri IV where Louis XIV was born remains however and is, appropriately enough, the site of a luxurious restaurant. A medallion on the terrace marks the birth of the future King with the inscription: ‘C'est ici que naquit Louis XIV.’ It shows a cradle and a fleur-de-lys.

  * For the astrologically minded, an 11.20 a.m. birthtime at Saint-Germain-en-Laye gives Louis, apart from the Sun in Virgo, an ascendant sign of Scorpio, in conjunction with the planet Neptune.25

  * Louis's brother Philippe was first Duc d'Anjou, then Duc d'Orléans; he will be designated as ‘Monsieur' throughout to avoid the confusion of name changes.

  * There is a story that the dying Louis XIII asked little Louis his name; on being told ‘Louis XIV’ he replied: ‘Not yet, my son'; but it is apocryphal, since kings never referred to themselves by their numeral.33

  CHAPTER 2

  Vigour of the Princess

  The vigour with which this princess sustained my crown during the years when I could not yet act for myself, were for me a sign of her affection and her virtue.

  – Louis XIV, Mémoires

  I have come here to speak to you about my affairs; my chancellor will tell you my wishes.' These carefully prepared words were pronounced in a small high voice by the four-year-old Louis XIV on 18 May 1643. The occasion was the so-called lit de justice of the Parlement de Paris, taking its name from the cushioned bed from which medieval monarchs dispensed justice: this was the ceremony by which the sovereign personally enforced the registration of edicts. The King was so small that he had to be carried into the chamber by his chamberlain, the Duc de Chevreuse, and he was wearing a child's apron. But he had learned his lesson well. At his side, the new Regent, Anne of Austria, was draped in the deepest mourning, and it was for the sake of her future – or, as she would have seen it, for his – that she had brought her son to the Parlement.

  In the end the dying Louis XIII had not denied his wife her right as a Queen who had given birth to a Dauphin to act as Regent, even if that Queen was as so often a foreign princess and in this case a native of the country France was currently fighting. But he had attempted to circumscribe her power with a Regency Council, including his brother Gaston Duc d'Orléans, no longer heir presumptive to the throne but the senior adult royal male. This limitation Anne proceeded to get removed with the agreement of the Parlement; furthermore she declared Cardinal Mazarin to be officially her chief adviser. With French victories accruing, and Mazarin at his mother's side to guide her – and perhaps as the years passed offering love as well as guidance? – in 1643 it looked as if Louis would have as happy a childhood as any healthy young prince could expect.

  Mazarin, a year younger than the Queen, had in fact been recommended as chief minister to the late King by Cardinal Richelieu as he lay dying. He was an attractive man who had once been described teasingly by Louis XIII to his wife as bearing some resemblance to Buckingham: ‘You will like him.' Born Giulio Mazarini and brought up in Rome, he came of a family that had served the princely house of Colonna; he himself had been used by Pope Urban VIII for diplomatic missions when quite young. Early on in his French service he had shown sympathy for Anne of Austria during her period of disgrace which had preceded Louis's birth. Be the resemblance to Buckingham as it may, Mazarin, who was made a cardinal in 1641, was civilised and courtly: he could speak Spanish with Anne, and indulge her femininity – always an important aspect of her character – by procuring her jasmine-scented gloves (for those famous white hands) from Rome.

  It can never be known for certain what his true relationship was with the Queen, and
there are many divergent theories.1 If it became in time sexual (without marriage) then this apparently pious woman who continued to take communion frequently was an outrageous hypocrite: for she lived day by day in a state of mortal sin by the rules of the Catholic Church.* It is for this reason – the psychological implausibility in terms of Anne's known character – that historians have preferred the explanation of a secret marriage.

  Such marriages were very much of the period, as we shall see: valid in the eyes of the Church because they were held in an oratory or chapel in the presence of witnesses and blessed by clergy, they permitted all the intimacies of marriage, even if they were ignored in civil terms. It is true that the Cardinal had not actually taken priests orders (which would obviously have prohibited any marriage) but was merely of clerical status: this was a position which was rare but not unparalleled at this date. However, a modern scholar has provided evidence that Mazarin had begun to think very seriously of being ordained before his death, something that a secret marriage would rule out.2

  In any case, both these explanations ignore the third possibility that Anne, now in her early forties and with the experience of being unhappily married at fourteen, was not in such desperate need of sex as the cynics and balladeers determined that she must be. What she needed was advice, loyalty, protection and that precious gift amitié or even amitié amoureuse, a friendship which, as it grew, developed within it a great deal of love. Mazarin took a lot of trouble to aid the Queen in her duties as Regent – for which she was hardly trained – and to educate her into being the dignified figure who came to fill the role with such aplomb. The result was that Anne the Regent was a far more serious person than Anne the scorned and often controversial Queen. It was a change of personality noted by her intimate friends, such as the Duchesse de Chevreuse, who had been exiled at the time of the Queen's disgrace and was now allowed to return. It was motivated by Anne's passionate love for her elder son, but it was orchestrated by Cardinal Mazarin.

  The crudeness of the balladeers was extreme and in certain instances, as satire often is, contradictory. Mazarin, on grounds of his birth, was accused of ‘the Italian (homosexual) vice', which meant that his couplings with the Queen – their ‘dirty frolics' – had to be of an unnatural sort.* On the other hand, a rhyme entitled ‘The Queen's Keeper Tells All' stated exactly the opposite. The admonition ‘People, don't doubt that it's true that he f *** her' was followed by explicit detail; Louis was supposed to remonstrate against the suggestion of castrating the Cardinal: ‘Maman still has a use for them [his private parts].4

  In contrast to these, the distasteful snipings from which great persons can never be entirely free, the correspondence of Mazarin and Queen Anne, of which eleven of her handwritten letters have survived, bears witness to tenderness, devotion – love indeed, but with no discernible hint of sex. There are numbers as codes – Anne is fifteen or twenty-two and Mazarin sixteen, while Louis is known as ‘the Confidant’. There are signs as symbols: Anne as a line with cross-bars, like an extended cross of Lorraine, and Mazarin as a star. There are endings of letters which betoken real love: Anne signs off: ‘I will live’ and adds the symbol for herself.5

  How did the Queen react to the public slurs on her private conduct? Madame de Motteville for one believed that the Queen was too ‘lofty’ by nature to contemplate the interpretation which might be put upon her relationship with Mazarin (just as she had been naïve in her innocent addiction to ‘gallantry’ when she arrived in France). Anne knew the vulgar charges to be untrue – ‘people who have done nothing wrong, have nothing to fear’ – and she simply maintained the intimacy which was so essential to her, both personally and in terms of government. The regular evening meeting between the two where Mazarin gave his advice was, finally, what mattered to the Queen.

  Against this background of domestic companionship, Louis spent the first ten years of his life. Much later he would criticise his education – as people often do look back with a reproof for the previous generation which is not necessarily justified. He remembered his governesses as an idle lot who simply enjoyed themselves, leaving his care to the humbler waiting-women. But other people who were present remembered things differently. In any case, by the time of his adolescence he spoke and wrote elegant French, could manage Italian and Spanish, and even knew enough Latin to read the dispatches of the Pope.6

  Detailed instructions for Louis's daily routine, the Maxims and Directives for the Education of Boys, were drawn up at Anne of Austria's request and dedicated to her (she was compared to the noble Roman mother of the Gracchi).7 For example, he was not to sleep in an overheated atmosphere, since the brain needed cold air in order to develop. Classical allusions abounded. It was explained that Socrates had compared a child to a young horse, and at different points Aristotle, Plutarch and St Bernard were cited as well. Nevertheless the advice was all very practical. Plato had sent his disciples and his children to sleep with the aid of music: a gentle chant would help Louis to relax. He should be accustomed to sleep with the light burning, so as not to be frightened if he woke up. Hair should not be allowed to grow too long (Louis had ‘the most beautiful hair imaginable’, wrote his cousin Anne-Marie-Louise, thick, curling and a rich golden brown). As for washing, ‘cleanliness is a quality to be much recommended in a young prince’: nails were to be clean, and hands washed regularly with a wet cloth impregnated with eau de Fontane, a perfume. Swimming was highly recommended, just as the Greeks swam when fishing, and that role model of energy Henri IV owed his health to frequent swimming.*

  Instructions for reading reflected the prevalent political climate. An interest in history was to be deliberately encouraged by Louis's reading matter. He must also study books about the provinces and towns of England and Spain – in case of future conquest – but written in French. Louis however never developed a particular taste for reading: what he loved even as a child were activities which he could practise himself. The royal passion for hunting was inculcated early (Anne had been ‘an Amazon in the saddle’ when young). So was the passion for sport generally: at the age of four Louis was chasing ducks with his dogs.

  Then there were military matters. It was a militaristic age and it was not unusual for a royal or noble child to be obsessed with soldiers: Louis had a taste for silver and lead soldiers and toy forts. Combat was after all the obsession of most of the adult males who surrounded him: not only the nobles who generally went through a form of military service, but also the guards who surrounded him twenty-four hours a day. There was a cult of the warrior at the French court (where the great Henri IV was remembered as a warrior who had brought harmony). As the aphorist the Duc de La Rochefoucauld declared, no man could answer for his courage ‘if he had never been in peril’.8

  Another many-sided figure of the period, like the galant, was that of the honnête homme; this term essentially referred to the civilised man. One of his virtues was to be brave. Even before Louis had discovered for himself – or thought he had – that ‘war … is the real profession of anyone who governs’, in the words of Machiavelli, many of his amusements had something of the military about them. At five Louis drilled other children, and before he was seven he was reviewing real-life guards' regiments. Nor was there an implicit distinction between the masculine sphere of war and that of feminine domesticity: in the summer of 1647 Louis's beloved mother took him to the war front in Picardy to encourage the troops, an image of female presence on military campaigns which presaged his behaviour in adulthood.

  All this concentration on the person, the health, the education, the welfare of the young King was further enhanced by Anne's continuing determination that her younger son Monsieur was to defer to Louis in games and treat him, in effect, as a ‘Petit Papa’. This was a phrase sometimes employed of elder brothers, and Louis himself used it to sign his letters to Monsieur. This constant reiteration of the pecking order did not prevent the brothers from having fights: one particular incident was related by the valet de chambre Du
Bois in which a boyish romp turned into an equally boyish scatological contest, and Monsieur gave as good as he got. But in essence Monsieur was as firmly trained to occupy the second place as Louis was to rejoice in the first.

  On the surface, the religious life of the child Louis was completely conventional. He was confirmed in November 1649 according to the custom of the time and made his first communion at Christmas. Only in the shadowed corners of his life, the dark places in his mother's oratories hung with crucifixes and saints' relics, did an absolutely contradictory sense of his worth prevail. On the one hand Louis was born to be a great King, with glorious possibilities: someone to whom all his subjects from his brother (his heir) downwards must bow according to the will of God. At the same time he himself must bow down to God, in whose eyes his soul was no more precious than that of the humblest peasant in the kingdom.

  Mazarin sometimes criticised the Queen for the excessive nature of her piety – ‘God can be worshipped everywhere, including in private, Madame,’ he said, referring to her addiction to public rituals, to convents and chapel-visiting. But it was sincere. The several hours a day she spent in prayer meant a daily accounting of her spiritual state. Therefore when she educated Louis to believe that kings, however powerful, would one day have to account to God for what they did, it was a lesson he was not likely to forget. Evil, declared the Maxims … for the Education of Boys, was to be pictured in a child's mind as ‘a black stain’ on a fine piece of cloth: and the cloth in this child's case was of the finest.9

  In September 1645, political events, in particular the pressure of the war against Spain and others, expensive if successful, meant that it was thought necessary for Louis to appear again at the Parlement de Paris where the Regency had been decided in Anne's favour two years earlier. This time there was no need for the Duc de Chevreuse to carry him. At seven years old Louis walked boldly, although still dressed in the short jacket of a little boy. What he lacked in stature was however fully made up for by the appearance of the Queen Regent. She was the ‘leading lady’ of the show – and the show was carefully staged.10 Anne was still draped in black, including a black veil (it was over two years since her husband's death but black suited her, quite apart from establishing her ceaseless mourning as a widow). Through the veil however gleamed a huge pair of earrings, gigantic diamonds mixed with equally vast pearls, all evidently of great worth. A large cross over her heart was equally impressive and equally ostentatious.