It is true that Athénaïs did occasionally haunt Versailles. There she was compared poetically by Marguerite de Caylus to ‘those unhappy souls who return to the places where they lived to expiate their faults'.20 At the same time there is no reason to suppose that she was all that melancholy, with the satisfaction of atonement through good works to support her (any more than Louise de La Vallière, busy with her own expiation, was unhappy). A later confessor, Father Pierre François de La Tour, even persuaded Athénaïs to apologise to her husband. With her practical streak, Athénaïs was happy enough mending shirts for the poor, dining frugally, and dressing in crude fabrics at the orders of the clergy, as once she had been feasting (a little too much) and dressing in diamonds to divert the King.
The next generation, however, did not present that interesting mixture of sexuality reined in by religious fervour which their parents had exhibited. Françoise-Marie, for whom the glorious fate of marriage to Monsieur's only son, Philippe Duc de Chartres, was proposed, had no such inhibitions. This was a yet higher step for a (legitimised) bastard: Françoise-Marie's sister and half-sister had married Princes of the Blood, the Duc de Bourbon and the Prince de Conti respectively, but Philippe was a Grandson of France, and in direct line to the throne, after his three cousins, the young dukes. This meant that Françoise-Marie, younger than Madame la Duchesse and Marie-Anne de Conti by five and twelve years respectively, now took precedence over them, and they were obliged to call her ‘Madame'. In vain the angry sisters tried to get away with cries of ‘Darling' and ‘Sweetheart': the King had to utter a rebuke at this dereliction of etiquette.
For Liselotte, the horrified mother of the bridegroom, it was a step altogether too far. She cried all night before submitting because she had no choice. The King's will was law. She responded, however, to the King's request with the briefest of curtseys, according to Saint-Simon, a mere pirouette in ballet terms, before turning on her heel. Louis, for his part, swept such a deep bow or révérence that by the time he straightened himself all he could see was the retreating back of his sister-in-law. In the public language of Versailles, this was the nearest she could come to expressing her disgust.
Liselotte was bitter on two counts. First, there was her rooted objection to the stain of bastardy as such, which for her could never be wiped away by legitimisation (at least Athénaïs had been officially separated from Montespan at the time of Françoise-Marie's birth). Then she suspected Monsieur's favourites of persuading him to agree, in return for the King's help in other ways; and of course ‘the old trollop' was at the back of the whole thing. Liselotte outdid herself in venom on the subject of her future daughter-in-law: ‘the most disagreeable person in the world, with her crooked figure and her ugly face, although she considers herself a raving beauty and is forever fussing about her appearance and covering herself with beauty spots'. Madame behaved, wrote Saint-Simon, like Ceres whose daughter Proserpine had been taken down to the underworld by Pluto – except she was bewailing a son, not a daughter.21
In truth Françoise-Marie was more than adequately pretty in youth, as her pictures show: not unlike her catlike sister Madame la Duchesse, if not quite as ravishing as Marie-Anne. She does seem to have had some curvature of the spine, but her figure was none the less ‘stately', with a fine bosom. She had remarkable eyes and good if long teeth. Her hair grew ‘prettily' even if it was not particularly thick and she had long eyelashes, although her eyebrows were scanty. It was her character that grated, and her upbringing or rather lack of it. She had been born to a couple no longer passionately in love, and she had not been raised by Madame de Maintenon (even though she was born at her château). The result was a wilful child who had been spoilt and indulged with sporadic but ineffective correction. There was something touching – but significant – about the scene in which her august destiny was broken to Françoise-Marie. She was dressed up magnificently, like a fashion-doll used by dressmakers to display their wares, but she actually imagined she was going to be scolded until Madame de Maintenon took her on to her lap.22
Unfortunately Françoise-Marie had the violent urges of both her parents but none of the style and charisma which made them, even at their worst, magnificent. She neither pretended to love her husband nor expected him to love her. ‘All that matters is that he should marry me,' the future Duchesse de Chartres, lording it over her sisters, was reputed to have said. It was true that she had the Mortemart wit, that languishing tone of voice in which impossible things could be said, and it was through Françoise-Marie and her descendants that the ‘wit' would be perpetuated into the eighteenth century long after the death of its most famous exemplar. But as a teenager she already drank heavily, and within a few years as Duchesse de Chartres, she was ‘drunk as drunk' three or four times a week. A love of food combined with the Mortemart tendency to plumpness meant that her fine figure degenerated: besides, Françoise-Marie, with her mother's high fertility, gave birth to seven healthy children, and repeated pregnancies did not help. Her pride was inordinate: it was said that even on her chaise percée (commode) she remembered she was a Daughter of France, and her husband wryly nicknamed her Madame Lucifer.23
As for Liselotte, she might be compelled to bow to the will of the monarch, but when her quaking son came to break the news that he had agreed to the match (what could poor Philippe do against the King and his father?) she slapped him in the face. It was a slap which echoed throughout Versailles – but with a hollow sound. Whatever Liselotte's values, Françoise-Marie, Duchesse de Chartres, illegitimate at birth, was now the Second Lady at Versailles after her disgruntled mother-in-law.
Saint-Cyr and its virtuous charming seraglio was at least a pure pleasure for the King and Madame de Maintenon, guaranteed salubrious entertainment. This was in contrast to a Versailles which offered endless gambling and a thrice-weekly social evening known simply as Appartement. Gambling in itself was not seen as wrong: both Anne of Austria and the late Queen had been great gamblers, as had Mazarin; the King had had to pay Marie-Thérèse's debts after her death. A courtier was expected ‘to play like a man of honour', according to the Chevalier de Mere, ‘ready to win or lose without showing whether one has won or lost in one's expression or behaviour'. It could be a form of social advancement: the Marquis de Dangeau for example, he of the Journals, was admired for his gambling skills: ‘Nothing distracts him, he neglects nothing, he profits by everything.'24*
The games concerned sound simple enough, but so do most gambling games to those who are not wagering on them. Bassette for example came from Venice, and included a banker, with players betting on the draw of their cards; Louis got so angered by the excessive losses of this game that he forbade it in 1679. Reversi, from Spain, a particular favourite of Louis himself according to Liselotte, was introduced by him during the court's expedition to Strasbourg to give Marie-Thérèse something to do; the winner scored the lowest points and made the least tricks. Tric-trac was a game of dice to advance pawns across a board. Lansquenet, which dethroned the popular Reversi, was a card game introduced into France by German mercenary soldiers (Landsknechts). By 1695 it was ‘all the rage': even simpler than Reversi, it consisted once again of betting on the draw. For some reason, Lansquenet aroused particularly foul language in its frustrated players; the King ordered an end to the swearing but he could not successfully forbid Lansquenet. There were many others, including the long-established Lottery, passing or enduring fashions: Portique, where little ivory balls were rolled through arches, and another somewhat similar ‘game of skill' invented by Louis himself in 1689, a form of hoop-la.25
As money got tighter, the gambling became more frenzied. Louis would have to pay enormous gambling debts on behalf of his son the Dauphin, his daughter Madame la Duchesse, and in time for his grandson the Duc de Bourgogne. No wonder the stern Father Bourdaloue lashed out in one of his sermons in the chapel of Versailles: ‘Gambling without measure is not a diversion for you [the court] but an occupation, a profession, a traffic, a passion, a
rage, a fury. It causes you to forget your duties, it deranges your households, it dissipates your revenues.'26 And yet the King could not control it, this instinct for amusement, any amusement, diversion, any diversion, where the younger members of court were no longer engaged by the solemn rituals and found going to the King's pleasure-house at Marly frankly dull.
Informality was deliberate at Marly and the wearing of full court dress was abolished. A charming custom arose whereby courtiers found all they needed overnight including robes de chambres and toiletries already laid out in their rooms (as in some modern luxury hotel). This demonstrated Louis's thoroughness as a host – or perhaps his passion for controlling every detail of life around him. Work had begun in 1679 and the first Fête was held in July 1684; for the rest of the reign, annual visits were paid in increasing numbers. Those who were frequently present were known as ‘les Marlys'. With time informality was demonstrated even by the methods of dining: there was a sideboard piled with plates, glasses, wine and water, and a mechanical table â la clochette (summoned by a bell from below) so that the meal was virtually servant-free. Even the method of invitation was informal – or intended to be (it was in fact extremely testing). Would-be guests had to step forward and propose themselves: ‘Sire, Marly?' Afterwards an emissary either confirmed or denied the visit. In spite of all this, Marly was still not a riot of fun, and Duc to the presence of water, Liselotte at least came to complain about mosquitoes. There was also a great deal of tea- and coffee-drinking, even if the British Ambassador would have preferred a good Burgundy to ‘all these stupid drinks from the Indies'.27*
Compared to all this, Saint-Cyr seemed to offer not only an agreeable alternative but a solution to the King's equal need for diversion. It was therefore an enormous disappointment in the early 1690s when King Louis's troubles with his own Catholic Church, spilling out from his troubles with the Holy See, complicated the simple establishment of Saint-Cyr. There was a warning shot in January 1691 when Racine proposed another edifying tragedy, Athalie, to be performed by the young ladies, in succession to the enormously successful (and edifying) Esther. Athalie herself, another powerful female like Vashti in the earlier play, was declared to be against the natural order as a ruler on the grounds of her sex: a reference perhaps to the situation in Britain where Mary, ungrateful daughter of James II, was co-ruling with her husband William. Here was Athalie, an ‘impious stranger / Seated, alas, on the throne of kings', and again: ‘This haughty woman with her head held high / Intruded in a court reserved for men.'28
Trouble was made however by Madame de Maintenon's confessor the Abbé Godet des Marais over the performance of this piece by young girls. Godet des Marais had just succeeded Gobelin because the latter now felt himself too humble to counsel such an exalted lady. Godet des Marais on the other hand was professionally forthright. Athalie was unsuitable for the Demoiselles but it was not unsuitable in itself. After all, the emphasis of the text was all on the vanquishing of the unnatural Athalie, followed by the triumphant coronation of the rightful ruler-by-blood the young boy Joas. Here were more contemporary allusions: either to the future restoration of James II, or to Louis's ultimate heir, the eight-year-old Duc de Bourgogne, France's ‘dearest delight' and, it was to be hoped, France's future Joas.29
In the end the piece was performed by the girls in ordinary clothes, a sort of concert performance. When King James and Queen Mary Beatrice asked to see Athalie in February, Madame de Maintenon agreed, but once again there were to be no costumes. This time Father La Chaise and the theologian the Abbé François Fénelon, tutor to Bourgogne since 1691, did attend, but still Françoise's confessor declined.
The Abbé Godet des Marais, ten years younger than Madame de Maintenon, was prominent among those who encouraged her in her feelings of destiny, the one chosen by God where the King was concerned. But he also preached a distaste for the theatre, as opposed to good works, which Madame de Maintenon did not share (still less Louis XIV). It was all about the threat to innocence: Marguerite de Caylus, the best actress of them all, was demoted from her part because she was felt to be unbecomingly adept at the art. The ecclesiastical hold tightened in 1692 when it was deemed unacceptable for Saint-Cyr to remain outside the structure of the Church. Henceforward the lives of the girls, and the ladies who taught them, would be much more conventionally those of nuns and aspirant nuns.
Louis XIV had been involved in a bitter struggle with the Papacy over ecclesiastical revenues, the so-called ‘regalian rights', for some years. The Saint-Cyr foundation became involved in the controversy when he tried to use the revenues of the Abbey of Saint-Denis to fund it. The Holy See complained vociferously about a foundation partaking of religious revenues where the women concerned had taken no vows. Madame de Maintenon's position in all this was sensitive, since whatever private assurances the Papacy had received about her status, in the eyes of the world she had none – or worse still, that of mistress.
So Saint-Cyr was changed, the uniform was changed, although Louis XIV, with his eye for detail and his dislike of the morbid, suggested that at least the young ladies should not be stripped of their charming bronzé leather gloves. These were a fashion item much in demand, also as love tokens. (Samuel Pepys laid out ten shillings on such, ‘very pretty and all the mode'.) No wonder the King, a sentimental admirer of young women, protested: ‘Would you take from them their cloaks, their gold crosses and the gloves?' he enquired plaintively. The gloves at least were restored. Madame de Maintenon's authority as supreme head of Saint-Cyr was however not touched. As her girls sang to her in 1695: ‘You are our faithful foundress …'30
The death of Marianne-Victoire in 1690 had left the Dauphin, still not yet thirty, in theory the most eligible bachelor in Europe – if you accepted the fact that his father was otherwise engaged. But the Dauphin, like Louis XIV before him, chose domestic bliss over duty, on the grounds that by providing three sons, he had already done more than enough. He settled down at Meudon with his mistress Marie-Émilie Jolie de Choin, who had originally been a lady-in-waiting to his favourite half-sister Marie-Anne de Conti. No beauty – with her short legs and round face she looked ‘like a bull terrier' – she was intelligent and very sympathetic. She provided him with the security that his over-severe childhood had stolen from him; this comfort was symbolised by a pair of ‘monstrously large breasts' which were said to ‘charm' him because he could beaton them as if they were kettle-drums'.31 It seems likely that in the course of time this couple too went through some form of morganatic marriage for which after all nothing was needed except a priest and two witnesses.
No French Queen (and no prospect of one) and no Dauphine meant that Liselotte was now the First Lady of Versailles. At least she did not have to pay the despised ‘old woman' the respect Duc to the King's wife; offering her the chemise at her lever for example as senior royal lady. It seemed unlikely that Liselotte would be ousted from the ‘métier' which made her groan – but which she also treasured – until the marriage of France's ‘dearest delight' in the shape of Louis's grandson the Duc de Bourgogne.
In view of the wartime situation, that was certainly a match which would be dictated by strong diplomatic considerations. The League of Augsburg had been transformed into the Grand Alliance by the adherence of England and Holland. In 1693 Louis failed to capture Liège (he never joined his troops in the field again). Two years later William III took back Namur for the Alliance. Flanders was not the only sphere of action: in the south France invaded Spain.
The sufferings of France itself (never mind the other countries) were beginning to be denounced by those quite close to royal circles. Prominent among these was the Abbé Fénelon, Bourgogne's own preceptor, who had managed to establish a tender, quasi-paternal relationship with the boy. ‘I will leave the Duc de Bourgogne behind the door,' he said, ‘and with you I will be no more than little Louis.' Fénelon, now in his early forties, had been a disciple of Bossuet. Tall and ascetic-looking, he had famously burning eyes and preache
d ‘like a torrent', according to Saint-Simon. But Fénelon had sweetness too, and a genuine love of the young: he wrote a treatise on girls' education for Louis XIV's devout friends the Duc and Duchesse de Beauvillier who, having nine daughters, certainly stood in need of it.32
Fénelon was fearless, as Bossuet and Bourdaloue had been before him. He had denounced the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in a strong letter to Madame de Maintenon. Now he wrote the ‘Anonymous Letter to Louis XIV’ of 1694, which, via Beauvillier, may even have reached the King himself; certainly Françoise knew of it. He referred to the putative 2 million dead in the recent famine. As for the King: ‘You live as though with a fatal blindfold over your eyes.' And again: ‘The whole of France is nothing but a huge desolate hospital.'33
Appropriately enough, Louis now sought to use Bourgogne's marriage to a Savoyard princess as part of a package which would bring about peace between France and Savoy. It would also hopefully control the mercurial and wily Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus, who with his numerous changing allegiances coupled with his advantageous geographical position, was showing form as the gadfly of Europe. Fortunately Victor Amadeus did have a daughter, still very young, but of an appropriate age to wed Bourgogne one day. Her mother was the French princess Anne-Marie d'Orléans, like the unhappy Marie-Louise a daughter of Monsieur by his first marriage to Henriette-Anne.
The name of the child was Adelaide. She was three and a half years younger than her proposed bridegroom Bourgogne. Since Victor Amadeus specialised in tantalising his would-be allies with the other possibilities before him, he was also considering an Austrian Habsburg prince for his little daughter, maybe the Archduke Charles. Time would reveal whether Adelaide was to be yet another unhappy cipher at a foreign court, where the ‘grandeurs of the world' very often led to acute unhappiness on the part of the imported bride, as witness Liselotte and Marianne-Victoire in France. Or perhaps this particular princess would have inherited something of the special grace of her grandmother Henriette-Anne which would enable her to survive and flourish …
Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King Page 30