Queen of Versailles: Madame de Maintenon, First Lady of Louis XIV's France 9780228004318

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queen of versailles

Queen of Versailles Madame de Maintenon, First Lady of Louis XIV’s France

mark bryant

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2020 ISB N 978-0-2280-0339-7 (cloth) ISB N 978-0-2280-0431-8 (eP DF) ISB N 978-0-2280-0432-5 (eP UB) Legal deposit fourth quarter 2020 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: Queen of Versailles : Madame de Maintenon, first lady of Louis XIV’s France / Mark Bryant. Names: Bryant, Mark, 1973– author. Description: Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200272527 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200272632 | ISBN 9780228003397 (hardcover) | IS BN 9780228004318 (P D F) | ISBN 9780228004325 (eP UB) Subjects: lc s h: Maintenon, Madame de, 1635-1719. | l c sh : Louis XIV, King of France, 1638–1715—Relations with women. | l cs h: Favorites, Royal—France—Biography. | lcsh : Queens—France—Biography. | l cs h: France—Kings and rulers—Paramours Biography. | l cs h: France—Court and courtiers—History. | l c sh : France—History Louis XIV, 1643-1715. | l cgf t : Biographies. Classification: l cc dc 130.m2 b 79 2020 | ddc 944/.033092—dc23

This book was typeset in 10.5/13 Sabon.

Contents

Acknowledgments | vii Illustrations follow page viii Introduction | 3 1 Childhood, First Marriage, and Royal Governess, 1635–1680 | 22 2 Favourite Courtier and Secret Consort, 1680–1683 | 42 3 “Becoming Visible,” 1684–1689 | 68 4 The Evolution of the Marquise’s Métier, 1690–1695 | 96 5 The Eruption of the Quietist Controversy, 1695–1697 | 137 6 Quietism Vanquished, but Heresy Endures, 1697–1699 | 175 7 1700–1709, Part One: “Mother of the State” and “Protectress of the Realm” | 214 8 1700–1709, Part Two: Queen of the Court and “Mother of the Church” | 270 9 1709–1715, Part One: “La Toute Puissante,” or Waning Influence? Domestic and International Affairs and Court Politics | 315 10 1709–1715, Part Two: The “Universal Abbess” – Mortal Challenges and Jansenist Crises | 348 Conclusion | 386 Abbreviations | 393 Notes | 395 Bibliography | 487 Index | 517

Acknowledgments

For their inspiring influence, I would like to thank Robert Brandon, Shelagh Mitchell, Alison Brown, Robert Frost, the late Conrad Russell, Peter Lake, and Glyn Redworth. Marisa Linton is a Brighton rock and has had her ears patiently chewed off on an almost weekly basis for over two decades. Her wisdom, friendship, and encouragement have been indispensable. Over the years I have benefited significantly from the guidance given by John Hardman, Peter Campbell, Joël Félix, Guy Rowlands, Munro Price, Barry Coward, Sara Chapman, Carolyn Chapell Lougee, Philip Mansel, Clarissa-Campbell Orr, and David-Kammerling Smith. I have also profited from insightful conversations with Jeroen Duindam, Marcel Loyau, Antonia Fraser, Tom Kaiser, Darryl Dee, Kent Wright, Julie Hardwick, Bill Doyle, Mack Holt, Nigel Aston, and John Miller. As well as providing much needed employment for several years at Birkbeck, Julian Swann kindly read the manuscript before submission, as did Greg Monahan. Their comments were immeasurably useful, as was the expertise of Jim Collins, who frequently and munificently put it at my disposal. I am deeply grateful for the assistance provided by the anonymous readers; all the publishing team, in particular Kyla Madden; and heads of the history department at Chichester who have done their best to make some space for research and writing: Hugo Frey and recently retired Sue Morgan – her camaraderie and sagacious advice continue to be greatly appreciated. Robert Cosials, Jean-Michel Roidot, and the staff at the Bibliothèque Municipale de Versailles were extremely gracious and generous. The original research was carried out thanks to grants and scholarships from

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Acknowledgments

The Huguenot Society, London University’s Central Research Fund, the University of London Institute in Paris, and the British Academy. And research grants from the University of Chichester and the Isobel Thornley Bequest helped with publication costs. Four friends, of many, deserve a special mention for benevolence beyond belief: Jason Bullmore, Paul Gooch, Tim McHugh, and Jonathan Spangler, who has read countless drafts of the manuscript and sunk countless draughts in fraternity. My wife, Laura, helped with the bibliography and of course so much more besides. Her patience and support have been invaluable, especially considering that my son, Sebastian, was born while the book was being completed. As enchanting distractions go, he is the supremo. My family have been wonderful, as ever, with my Mum and late Dad separately providing vital injections of funds to sustain my PhD studies initially, long before the advent of student loans. Finally, I owe an incalculable debt to my former supervisor, Roger Mettam, without whose unparalleled knowledge and unstinting kindness this project would never have been conceived, let alone finished.

Françoise d’Aubigné, c. 1671. Painting by Pierre Mignard. © Musée Bernard d’Agesci, Niort.

An impression of what the secret wedding of Louis XIV to Madame de Maintenon may have looked like on the night of 9 or 10 October 1683. Original engraving by Jean Michel Moreau (1741–1814).

Louis XIV holding the plans for the royal finishing school for girls at Saint-Cyr, c. 1684. Painting by Nicolas-René Jollain. © Château de Versailles.

Louis XIV visiting Saint-Cyr, c. 1690. Artist unknown. Engraving from Théophile Lavallée, Histoire de la maison royal de Saint-Cyr (1686-1793) (Paris, 1863), 197.

François de Salignac de la Mothe Fénelon: preceptor to the Duke of Burgundy from 1689 and Madame de Maintenon’s spiritual mentor until their estrangement during the Quietist affair. Engraving by Benoît Audran after Joseph Vivien, published in Paris in 1714.

Louis-Antoine de Noailles: archbishop of Paris from 1695 and cardinal from 1700, he was one of Madame de Maintenon’s protégés and her premier ecclesiastical adviser until he became tainted by suspicions of Jansenism. Engraving by Nicolas Pitau the Younger. Artist unknown.

Maintenon with her niece, also named Françoise d’Aubigné, the future duchesse de Noailles, c. 1689. Painting by Louis Ferdinand Elle the Younger. © Château de Versailles.

Peter the Great’s audience with Madame de Maintenon at Saint-Cyr in June 1717. Painting by Thérèse de Champ-Renaud. © Château de Maintenon.

queen of versailles

Introduction

During his second grand tour of Europe in 1717, Peter the Great of Russia visited Paris, Fontainebleau, and Versailles, and he also stayed several nights at the lesser known château of Marly. From there he journeyed to the famous finishing school for noble girls at Saint-Cyr, where he requested an audience with its founder, Madame de Maintenon, who had retired there in 1715. The insatiably curious tsar was anxious to see this remarkable woman about whom he had heard so much, and whose importance was such that Peter could not leave France without seeing the late Louis XIV’s enigmatic and elusive consort. For many years a radiant beauty, Françoise d’Aubigné was now a frail octogenarian. She was reluctant to receive visitors, having been plagued by courtiers for three decades, but was unable to shun the importunate tsar. Maintenon therefore agreed to meet Peter on 11 June, although she retained the faint hope that he might cancel, as she intimated in a letter penned the same day to her great friend the maréchal de Villeroi.1 Punctually the Russian ruler arrived at Saint-Cyr that evening, and Maintenon received him at seven o’clock ensconced in bed with its curtains almost completely drawn, which the tsar pulled open to gain a better view of Louis XIV’s celebrated companion before sitting on the corner of her bed. A short and awkward conversation ensued, as Maintenon recounted to her adopted niece, the comtesse de Caylus. The tsar inquired whether the marquise was incapacitated by infirmity. Maintenon replied that she was not well, but that her malady was “a great old age and an enfeebled temperament.”2 Peter departed shortly afterwards. This incident illustrates just how renowned Maintenon had become after secretly marrying the Sun King in 1683. Books about Louis XIV continue to pour off the presses,3 and the public continues to be captivated by Versailles,4 but much less attention has been given to his legendary

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consort, who still generates controversy and beguiles historians and biographers. Was she the powerless but pious and censorious superior of Saint-Cyr, or an obstreperous omnipotent “Pantocrate,” so labelled by contemporary detractors like the king’s sister-in-law, Elisabeth-Charlotte de Bavière, duchesse d’Orléans (later nicknamed Liselotte), and the duc de Saint-Simon? Saint-Simon perceives Maintenon’s insidious influence behind every decision; while Hans Bots, in his recent edition of Maintenon’s voluminous correspondence, claims that her political influence over the king has been greatly exaggerated and was relatively minimal except within the realm of ecclesiastical appointments.5 Neither perspective makes much sense, in light of the evidence, and bearing in mind that the bestowal of religious benefices was one of the most powerful instruments of patronage the king possessed. This book focuses on Mme de Maintenon’s political career and her relationship with Louis XIV, to whom she was first introduced in 1666. After an overview of her turbulent childhood and colourful first marriage to the famous playwright Paul Scarron, which ended in widowhood in 1660, the chapters chronologically investigate Françoise’s public and private preoccupations thereafter in order to appraise her rise to prominence and evaluate the impact she had on the king, his court, and his government. They demonstrate that the influence she wielded in affairs of church and state was substantial and after 1698 ministerial in scope. Maintenon’s own writings, as well as the vast correspondence she transacted with courtiers, generals, ambassadors, princes, and pontiffs, with whom she had regular and portentous dealings, provide abundant evidence of both the extent and the limits of her influence.

m a in t e n o n ’ s im ag e : t he s tereotype Liselotte was unambiguously damning in her indictment of Maintenon’s influence over the French state and the Orléans family, but this adverse appraisal was not impartial. Like many of Maintenon’s enemies, she nursed a personal grievance against the king’s consort, stating that all the King’s mistresses had not tarnished his reputation so much as the old woman he married; from her proceeded all the calamities which have since befallen France. It was she who excited the persecution against the Protestants; invented the heavy taxes which raised the price of grain so high and caused the scarcity. She helped the ministers to rob the King; by means of the constitution she hastened his death; she brought about my son’s marriage [to Françoise Marie

Introduction

5

de Bourbon (1677–1749), Mlle de Blois – a bastard daughter sired by the king and Montespan]; she wanted to place bastards upon the throne; in short, she ruined and confused everything.6 Saint-Simon agreed, bitterly asserting that Maintenon exercised “total power … all in a word, at her feet … everything without exception in her hand, the King and the State her victims.”7 Parisian opinion was even more vitriolic, wildly conjecturing that under the cloak of piety Maintenon was in fact an insatiable demon that had seized control of France by causing the king to lose his reason.8 Popular rhymesters were equally unsympathetic, observing in 1709 that One could, without being satirical, Even find this regime comical. See how this holy whore, Directs this whole empire. If we were not dying of hunger, We would die of laughter.9 But not all of Maintenon’s contemporaries condemned the impact she had on the king and his affairs. In the spring of 1686 the provost of Versailles, the marquis de Sourches, surmised that the marquise was responsible for creating “the most enviable union imaginable” among the king’s ministers by dexterously balancing rival factions, providing each of them with her protection, working in their interests, and equalizing their authority. Sourches acknowledged that his (inaccurate) evaluation was somewhat speculative in conceding that the incident which brought about this governmental rapprochement “shows well that the intrigues of the court are impenetrable.”10 Voltaire was the first historian to dispute these overstated appraisals. In his 1752 Siècle de Louis XIV the philosophe fractured the interpretative unanimity on Maintenon, presenting the first of many commendable if uncritical portraits: Her rise meant for her retirement. Shut up in her apartments, which were on the same floor as those of the King, she was restricted to the company of two or three ladies, confined like herself; even these she saw rarely. The King visited her every day after dinner, before and after supper, and stayed with her until midnight. He transacted affairs there with his ministers, while Mme de Maintenon occupied herself in reading, or some needlework, never anxious to join in the

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discussion of state affairs, often, indeed, seeming to pay no attention to them, avoiding the slightest appearance of intrigue or plot; much more occupied in pleasing him who was her ruler, than in seeking to rule herself, and husbanding her influence by exercising it seldom and with great tact.11

Voltaire wrongly asserted that Maintenon “did not take advantage of her position to secure preferments and important posts for her own family,” but rightly added that she was always personally frugal. As her position at court became more established she became acutely aware of the need proactively to discourage suspicions of nepotism, instructing relatives to petition the relevant minister for patronage instead. It was therefore vital for her to avoid ostentation, because, as Voltaire contended, she was eager that the public should pardon her rise to favour in consideration of her disinterestedness … The only public distinction which betrayed her secret rise in fortune was that at mass she occupied one of those small rostrums or gilded latticed seats, which are usually set apart for the King and Queen. Otherwise no outward show of greatness was vouchsafed her. The passion which she had inspired in the King, and which had led to her marriage, gradually developed into a deep and genuine affection, which age and familiarity but served to strengthen.12 Her apartments were simply furnished; she employed few servants and wore modest garments that Théophile Lavallée, the literary scholar who first published accurate versions of her letters, pointed out would hardly have distinguished her from a marchande de Paris.13 Her income of approximately 90,000 livres per year placed her below a typical a duke-peer, let alone someone like the Prince of Condé.14 Moreover, she disbursed most of her wealth as alms, or on religious and educational institutions, some of which she had founded and personally directed, like Saint-Cyr. Philanthropic occupations gave her the greatest pleasure, and she enjoyed little leisure time.15 She was able only occasionally to escape to one of her houses in the towns of Versailles or Fontainebleau, and tried more regularly to visit Saint-Cyr, which provided a retreat from the intensity of court life. Maintenon, alone among the wives of the Bourbon kings of France, was never recognized as queen. She never served as regent, and her marriage was never publicly acknowledged, leaving her in an unparalleled if

Introduction

7

somewhat awkward position auprès du roi. Even the king’s relations were unsure about their marital status, and this uncertainty generated gossip in other European courts, as highlighted in a letter written by Liselotte on 13 May 1687 to her aunt Sophie, the Electress of Hannover, reflecting that your grace desires to know whether it is true that the King has married Madame de Maintenon, but truly I am not able to tell. Not many people doubt it, but as long as this marriage is not made public, I find it difficult to believe. And because of what I know of marriage in this country, I do not believe that if they were married they would be as much in love as they are. But then, perhaps, secrecy adds a special spice that other, publicly married people do not have.16 Most recent studies of the queens of France and of female regents thus exclude any consideration of Maintenon.17 These queens had far larger incomes and households than her, but the evidence demonstrates that she had far greater input into Louis XIV’s thinking than either Marie de Medici or Anne of Austria had on their respective husbands.18 The problem for historians is the evidence itself. Maintenon was a prolific correspondent, but like the king she was careful to leave few traces of her private persona. Indeed, Louis XIV did this so effectively that it prompted one of his most intimate courtiers, the duc de Berwick, to record in his memoirs that “no prince has ever been so little known as this one.”19 Much the same can still be said of Maintenon. Before their deaths, she and Louis destroyed a large number of communications, including their most revealing compositions and exchanges, leaving intriguing and frustrating gaps. The remaining missives are often incomprehensibly esoteric, either because Maintenon often designed them to be misleading, as in the case of her dispatches to the overbearing princesse des Ursins, or because she chose to hide her influence behind a dogged disingenuousness, incessantly insisting that she had “little capacity for affairs.”20 This pose fooled no one, but she was understandably cautious, knowing that the contents of missives sent to and from the court were analyzed by personnel working for the foreign minister, Colbert de Torcy, under the surintendant des postes at a bureau in Paris in a darkened room – the cabinet noir – and in another within the palace of Versailles.21 Maintenon consequently warned her novices “never to write anything down that you wouldn’t want anyone else to read,”22 and advised the future Duchess of Burgundy in 1697 to “speak, write

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and carry out all of your actions as if you had a thousand witnesses … Writing, in particular, is very dangerous.”23 Aware that her mail and its compromising contents might be intercepted, she employed dependable friends and the king’s personal servants as couriers or brokers to facilitate epistolary transactions. She also encouraged correspondents to burn her letters, as she sometimes dishonestly claimed she did theirs;24 and to preserve confidentiality she used code names, like many of her contemporaries. For example, at the height of the War of the Spanish Succession, Maintenon asked the comte d’Aubigné de Tigny for news of the campaign in Flanders and of its principal commanders, but recommended that “if you fear that something might happen address your letters to Mlle d’Aumale [Marie-Jeanne d’] (1683–1756), who is next to me, or to another in my circle,” before concluding by urging him to destroy her message.25 Maintenon thus remains an enigma, because vital documents have been lost,26 and also because of her careful construction of the surviving evidence. The known existence of the cabinet noir deterred many courtiers from indulging in espionage, gossip, and slander, the famous exception being Liselotte, who nearly fainted and was reduced to tears during a private meeting with Maintenon in June 1701 when confronted with a number of her own letters that contained criticisms about the state of the kingdom and extremely unflattering remarks about the king’s companion.27 Accordingly, Maintenon is rarely mentioned in the letters, journals, and memoirs of government and church officials. This looming absence exacerbated rumours that she dominated the court and king to exercise supreme power, making her an ideal – and, as a woman, a traditional – target and scapegoat for critics anxious to defend a staunchly patriarchal society and to blame her for France’s misfortunes, as she herself repeatedly bemoaned. The popular perception that Maintenon was a malevolent and manipulative scheming mistress was substantiated and solidified by the voluminous editions of her letters and memoirs, which were first published in 1753 by Laurent Angliviel de La Beaumelle, Royal Professor of French Language and Literature at the University of Copenhagen. He gained access to Maintenon’s unpublished letters and subtly altered the original documents by removing or adding words, phrases, and passages and by inserting numerous invented letters to make his collection more sensational and marketable. In doing so he countered the charitable depiction of Maintenon by Voltaire, whom La Beaumelle had loudly criticized. The celebrated philosophe was convinced that a reading of Maintenon’s missives would have greatly improved his appraisal of Louis XIV, but

Introduction

9

La Beaumelle denied him access to the manuscripts when the pair finally met in 1751.28 Voltaire succeeded in proving that La Beaumelle had made many fraudulent embellishments, but the public’s appetite for such material was insatiable, and new editions continued to be printed and expanded.29 These publications crystallized the caricature until several nineteenth-century authors scrutinized the authentic correspondence, which prompted them to try to resurrect Maintenon’s reputation so as to debunk La Beaumelle’s misrepresentation.30 The public, however, remained unconvinced, and the polarization of historiographical opinion on Maintenon endures.

hi s to r io g r a p h ic a l p o rt rayals and problems The interpretations of nineteenth-century historians, be they sympathetic or hostile toward the marquise, warrant detailed scrutiny because of the profound impact they had on the historiography and because most are based on explorations of authentic sources. This was no mean task, for many of Maintenon’s papers were dispersed after Saint-Cyr was ransacked during the Revolution. But in the 1840s, Théophile Lavallée began collating, editing, and publishing thousands of Maintenon’s authentic missives, often alongside La Beaumelle’s falsifications, to provide a corrective and challenge his stereotype. Lavallée also published a voluminous amount of material relating to the marquise’s family,31 to her educational writings,32 and to Saint-Cyr,33 in order to rescue her reputation from “the slanderous novels of Holland, the pamphlets of Protestants and the songs of the court.”34 With the same objective in mind, one of Maintenon’s collateral descendants, the duc de Noailles, published a four-volume Histoire de Madame de Maintenon in the mid-nineteenth century.35 The duc had access to the same sources as Lavallée and drew similar, if less critical, conclusions. Noailles contended that Louis XIV had covertly married Maintenon to enjoy away from the increasing pressures of government a private life with an intelligent and charming companion in whom he could confide, “from whom he hid nothing,” and who was “left ignorant of nothing” as “the travail of ministers [were] carried out in the evenings in her [two] apartments,” which were constantly beset by courtiers because “the world had recourse to her protection.”36 Advisers therefore encouraged Maintenon to moderate Louis XIV’s excesses and secure his salvation, while conciliating factions at court and within the royal family to further unburden the king. But she simultaneously had to support her own relatives, friends, and expanding network of clients, while often having to

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spend up to four hours – as her secretary and confidante, Mlle d’Aumale, recorded – employing a thousand inventions to divert the king, dissipate his sadness, calm his anxieties, lift his spirits, and relieve his boredom. Maintenon was also expected to reform the French church by packing it with worthy candidates, as proposed by François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, her spiritual and intellectual mentor in the late 1680s and 1690s, but to do so without rousing Louis XIV’s suspicions. This necessitated the use of subterfuge and Lavallée claims that she was incapable of intrigue, but in a footnote he describes the mechanics of what was an elaborate preferential process that often succeeded in obtaining a benefice for one of Maintenon’s nominees. And although the king often openly rejected her requests for placements, sinecures, and commissions, Maintenon divulged to Aumale that she received a deluge of thanks from courtiers convinced that the graces and favours they had obtained from the sovereign, like governorships, pensions, bishoprics and abbeys, would not have succeeded without her assistance. The wider correspondence confirms that this was invariably true. Dedicating herself to all these tasks caused incessant “agitation, insomnia and anxiety,” and while Louis mostly treated her with care, consideration, respect, and even deference, he could also be humourless, demanding, intolerant, unkind, and often reduced her to tears, as witnessed by Aumale. As Maintenon herself complained: “men are incapable of friendship.”37 Noailles therefore concurs with Lavallée in claiming that Maintenon had no desire to govern and exerted little political influence. The king may have confided in and consulted her on secret state matters, but he also continued personally to rule absolutely and remained jealous of his authority. Lavallée accordingly contradicts La Beaumelle in concluding that Maintenon ultimately “did not have on Louis XIV the evil influence that her enemies attributed to her,” and highlights her mission to improve the king’s morality and “ruinous habits,” which proved more successful than her campaign to ameliorate his religious affairs. He nonetheless concedes that Maintenon’s extraordinary position as the enigmatic “hidden queen” and one of the chefs de famille at court did give her access to power, as acknowledged by the “Parlements, provinces, towns, regiments, bishops, cardinals and French grandees,” who were keen to capitalize on her favour and acquire prized royal bienfaits. Foreign diplomats and rulers also sought out her friendship, as did successive popes, who authorized her to promote Roman interests in French ecclesiastical business. To provide further insights, Lavallée also edited a reconstruction of Maintenon’s life by Jean-Joseph Languet de Gergy, who personally knew

Introduction

11

and had worked for the marquise during the Sun King’s final years, carrying out secret missions to bolster the misguided campaign against supposed Jansenists after being made bishop of Autun in 1709 with Maintenon’s backing. Significantly he was also the younger brother of Jean-Baptiste-Joseph, curé de Saint-Sulpice, who became Maintenon’s confessor after the death of Godet des Marais in 1709. Gergy had access to her original letters and had copies made of them to facilitate the completion of his Mémoires sur Mme de Maintenon et la Cour de Louis XIV, written in the 1740s.38 Focusing primarily on the religious controversies that bedevilled the later reign, Gergy’s hagiographic portrait emphasizes Maintenon’s devotion to the “well-being of the public” and her honourable intentions to render the yoke of obedience imposed by Louis XIV’s “absolute power” more tolerable for his subjects by her “insinuations, counsels and good offices” to augment the much greater “glory of God,”39 although the results were not always positive, as he concedes. More incisively, this eyewitness refutes the idea that Maintenon was omnipotent and asserts that a more subtle balance of power existed in Louis XIV’s government, wherein ministers carefully and proficiently manipulated the king and his consort to try to guarantee the successful prosecution of their departmental and personal agendas.40 Auguste Geffroy, in his 1890 edition of two volumes of Maintenon’s letters, probed more deeply into her political role based on an analysis of many letters written after 1700.41 As well as her passion for education and for safeguarding the king’s conversion, he also emphasizes how critical her unstinting support was for key ministers like Chamillart and Voysin and for exceptional marshals like Boufflers and Villars. This has compelled a more recent biographer of the king, François Bluche, begrudgingly to concede that “sometimes the marquise [de Maintenon] gave good advice – when she was not obsessed with her pious intrigues or overcome with pacifist yearnings. She liked and supported Boufflers, a captain as brave as Bayard. She protected and defended Villars. So paradoxically, this devout defeatist helped to save the King’s domain.”42 In fact Villars’s reliance on powerful patrons like Maintenon proved crucial as his imperious manner habitually engendered enmity. Geffroy is therefore right to argue that advancing the careers of such officials and working closely with them inspired in Maintenon a greater interest and legitimized her participation in state affairs and ministerial discussions. Yet his assertion that Maintenon lacked independent views, and that in this sphere her only ambition was to serve the king, with his full cognizance, is refuted in his collection by Maintenon herself!43

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The inconsistencies in these analyses can be traced to the problematical nature of the extant sources and what Hans Bots has accurately described as Maintenon’s “hyperbolic abasement” of herself in letters crafted to protect her own reputation and that of the king.44 These efforts to restore Maintenon’s reputation were overshadowed by the more celebrated works of Jules Michelet and Ernest Lavisse, which resurrected the old stereotype. The former portrayed Maintenon as a toxic conspiratorial dogmatist who often interfered detrimentally in affairs and especially in the appointment of officials, urged on by Fénelon, to promote apparently “honnêtes gens” in order, ultimately, to bolster her “cabal of dévots.”45 Michelet therefore melodramatically proposes that this forced Louis XIV to set up an “occult ministry” after 1704, comprising Burgundy, Beauvillier, and Chevreuse, to monitor and rival the Maintenon–Chamillart faction, resulting in a disadvantageously ineffective “government of saints” that favoured pacifism and “religious terrorism.”46 More empirically, Lavisse rightly reflects that Maintenon was more powerful and better informed than any French queen, but enjoyed few privileges, enduring a melancholic marriage of subjection and “conjugal boredom” in order to generate virtue at court as “an instrument of the counsels of God.”47 Her apartments became the “laboratory” in which the king and his ministers “made the life of France,” and it was her disagreeable duty to advise him openly, graduating from confidante to counsellor.48 Maintenon may have offered only general maxims, but, as Fénelon recognized and Lavisse underscores, these in fact did make an impression on Louis XIV, whose mind was malleable. He goes on to argue that her “mania for management” was moderated by her educational occupations and her reason and self-control, and therefore asserts that “no great event was determined by her and she did not change the course of history.”49 But contrarily Lavisse then repeats Saint-Simon’s exaggerations in alleging that Maintenon was able to affect more than half the decisions and appointments made in ministerial travail at which she was present, with almost ruinous results.50 She was, he concludes, an interfering, bigoted, hypocritical old woman whose “generals were defeated, ministers were incapable … and archbishops almost heretical.”51 Perhaps so, but how did this come to pass? And if Maintenon’s meddling had a palpably pernicious impact on the affairs of church and state, then why was it not curbed urgently and more effectively? How can the same woman have made such a determinative impact on Louis XIV’s administration, yet have had no real influence?

Introduction

13

n e w a p p roac h e s : m at r ia rchy and queens hi p Michelet and Lavisse were scathing of what they considered Maintenon’s perversion or inversion of patriarchy. Her biographer of the 1930s, the priest Marcel Langlois, in a 1929 article wrote that the marquise’s “feminine nature carried her to wish, without having the air of so doing, to control all in the state and the church, in the court and the town.”52 In the biography that followed, Langlois reinforced these views, describing Maintenon as a political “dominatrice,”53 but he put forward little or no evidence to make his hypotheses applicable to the crucial years between 1699 and 1715 when Maintenon’s protégés became ministers. And tellingly, Langlois’s four-volume edition of Maintenon’s correspondence terminates in 1701,54 precisely at the point when the apologists he condemns, such as Lavallée, contend that “she began [from 1700] to take part in affairs of state.”55 Jean Cordelier, in his 1955 biography, agrees, but fails to substantiate the assertion and insipidly surmises that “for her the greatest affair … was spiritual,”56 and that ultimately “Louis XIV did not want Mme de Maintenon in his government, he wanted her in his bed.”57 Subsequent biographies from the 1970s to the 1990s produced more reasonable if predominantly rehashed versions of the traditional narrative.58 In stark contrast, Françoise Chandernagor’s 1981 novel re-creating Maintenon’s adult life, which openly admits its fictionalizations, has been credited with at least beginning the process of rehabilitating the marquise’s reputation, by exploring the original documents.59 Chandernagor encouraged new ways of thinking about Maintenon beyond the sensational, negative, and speculative. Concurrently a renewed interest in court, gender, and queenship studies started to produce a vast body of literature vividly demonstrating how women exercised authority in all spheres of society. Merry Wiesner-Hanks emphasizes that “through the arrangement of marriages, they established ties between influential families; through letters or the spreading of rumours, they shaped networks of opinion; through patronage, they helped or hindered men’s political careers; through giving advice and founding institutions, they shaped policy; through participation in riots and disturbances, they demonstrated the weakness of male authority structures.”60 This phenomenon was particularly perceptible in France, despite the fact that legislatively France was apparently becoming more patriarchal, with women playing prominent economic roles as working taxpayers and estate managers, as successful litigants within the judiciary, and as power brokers at court, besides pioneering change in the realms

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of religion, education, and medicine.61 Moreover, in the sphere of elite intellectual culture woman were often the leading protagonists and made a powerful impact as benefactors, salon hostesses, literary figures, and social commentators.62 Maintenon herself benefited immeasurably from her edifying experiences in the intellectually fertile and refined milieu of Parisian salon society in the 1650s and ’60s during and after her first marriage. By reflecting the social reality, this continually expanding body of work has undermined the traditional concept of patriarchy. For example, Sonja Kmec has convincingly asserted that “female petitioning, networking and negotiating with men in power were part of everyday practice,” and contends that there was no “opposition between private and public spheres of action” for the two women at the centre of her study, Marie de la Tour (1601–1665) and Charlotte de La Trémoïlle (1599–1664). She therefore reasons that “the old private/public dichotomy is thus obsolete.”63 Indeed several historians believe that the term “patriarchy” is misleading and should be altered in order more effectively to understand gender relations and evaluate the dynamics of social and political power in early modern France, which Thierry Wanegffelen describes as a phallocracy.64 Derval Conroy in Ruling Women goes further, persuasively demonstrating that gynaecocracy was repeatedly being presented in theatrical discourse as a valid alternative to patriarchy.65 To an extent this is supported by strident early-modern female writings printed – often for the first time – in The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe series, published by the University of Chicago Press. These texts were authored by the likes of Gabrielle Suchon, Modesta di Pozzo di Forzi, Lucrezia Marinella, and the Spanish noblewoman Maria de Guevara, who argues strongly that in the late seventeenth century the inclusion of women in political decision-making at court would help restore Spain’s power and status.66 In that same series a number of Mme de Maintenon’s “Dialogues and Addresses,” written for the girls at Saint-Cyr, appeared in 2004 ruminating on a range of topics, including marriage and patriarchy. This underscores again how difficult it is to pigeonhole its directrice. These discourses reveal just how critical the marquise could be of men and of the constraints in life faced by women, whose state of dependence was ordained by God and unfortunately unavoidable.67 Maintenon tells the girls that “we are destined to obey all our lives,”68 but she also complains that men are often selfish, overbearing, dissolute, and ineffectual in the face of adversity. She goes on to describe the drawbacks of marriage, warning that “even the best husbands tend to act like tyrants.”69

Introduction

15

In the end, however, Maintenon embraced her subordinate and submissive status and function.70 This is perhaps unsurprising, considering Louis XIV’s ingrained patriarchal values, which were reinforced by the contribution made to the rebellion and civil wars of the Fronde by a number of remarkable women. The experience left him determined to emasculate the “femme forte”71 and fiercely opposed to women’s involvement in politics. He was insistent on this matter in his memoirs, the bulk of which were composed in the 1660s, exhorting his son to ensure that women played no part in state affairs, for “we see in history so many ghastly examples of houses being made extinct, of thrones overthrown, of provinces devastated, of empires destroyed.”72 This was somewhat ironic, as the king would progressively come to rely on Maintenon’s advice, encouragement, and reassurance. Several prominent courtiers and ministers did likewise and willingly acknowledged the extent to which their spouses helped advance their careers. They included Louis de Pontchartrain, the duc de Noailles, Torcy, Voysin, and Villars. Many women were also key members or the nominal leaders of court coteries, like the duchesses du Maine and of Burgundy and the princesse de Condé. Éléanore de la Rochefoucauld-Roye, wife of the notoriously boorish naval secretary, Jérome de Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain, repeatedly saved her husband from disgrace by intervening with her superior tact, grace, and noblesse.73 And even one of Maintenon’s fiercest critics, the duc de SaintSimon, hypocritically conceded that he “consulted the judgment” of his own wife, Marie Gabriele de Lorges “in everything … I never found a wiser, shrewder, nor more useful counsellor, and I readily admit that she steered me clear of many difficulties both small and great … The support which she gave me was invaluable, both in my personal conduct and in public affairs.”74 Maintenon has also become more visible in new studies of wives, favourites, and mistresses.75 In this regard, Simone Bertière made some penetrating observations in her 1998 study titled The Sun King’s Women. She maintained that Maintenon was regularly and reluctantly consulted on political affairs and that she was too intimate with the king not to influence his “judgments, sympathies and preferences,” particularly during the War of the Spanish Succession, when she played an important diplomatic role between the two Bourbon courts. Her alleged hypocrisy was in fact a “versatile performance” in discretion that compelled the marquise to behave, in person and on paper, differently toward different people. This enabled her to work with Louis XIV in a “sharing of roles,” surveying court opinion, garnering expert information and even

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“testing the terrain” in ministerial meetings to prevent the king from being compromised.76

r e c e n t s t u d ie s : m o di fi ed verdi cts Most recent works on the court have been more reticent about Maintenon, either repeating old refrains77 or reinvigorating Saint-Simon’s invective.78 An exception is Jeroen Duindam, who states that Maintenon’s apartments became the “undisputed centre” of the court,79 after the “cabinet du roi.”80 But as Olivier Chaline shrewdly observes in his illuminating L’année des Quatre Dauphins, her rooms became a refuge for Louis of which she was the “guarantor and prisoner.”81 In this work Chaline draws conclusions, some of which are based on my own findings, and develops ideas put forward in his commendable 2005 biography in suggesting that the king “shared with her the burdens of power.”82 Pertinently Chaline also echoes Andrew Lossky in underscoring that understanding Louis XIV is impossible without considering the role and impact of his consort.83 Another leading contemporary biographer, Jean-Christian Petitfils, also acknowledges Maintenon’s involvement and influence in state business. He rightly asserts that Louis XIV and Françoise worked together rather than in competition with each other and unwittingly became a faction in their own right, thus critically undermining the king’s ability to manage competitive cliques at court.84 However, two other recent biographers remain at odds as to whether Maintenon was an intrusive critic of the king’s immoderate habits and policies85 or an unobtrusive political assistant and moral guardian,86 thus leaving the debate, as ever, in limbo. A glut of recent work on the later reign and its officials has provided a wealth of fresh insights into the neglected final decades of Louis’s “Personal Rule” and helped fill in the historical landscape,87 but Maintenon remains an obscure figure. This is perhaps unsurprising because of the sensitive nature of the work of these officials, the successful completion of which depended on total secrecy, as insisted upon by Louis XIV. But even the author of a fine monograph on Chamillart concedes that Maintenon’s influence during this period is “difficult to discern.”88 Maintenon’s involvement in ecclesiastical affairs is more palpable, so works on confessors, clerics, and religious crises, like that of Protestantism, Quietism, and Jansenism, are more revealing about the influence she allegedly exerted.89 But again problems arise. As we shall see, the marquise and her clients played a pivotal role in the Unigenitus crisis of 1713–15, as did Mlle de Joncoux, yet the latter can only

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speculate to what degree “a person of great consideration (between us Mme de Maintenon)” was involved, if at all.90 Two recent biographies of Maintenon are also frustrating. Jean-Paul Desprat fails to reference his sparkling quotations and contradicts himself by stating that Maintenon was a profoundly pious pacifist and that Louis did not want her to take decisions, but that her opinion on affairs of state did count after 1704. From then on Desprat concedes that her views were requested and respected by the king, who also used Maintenon to monitor and manage court factions as well as the unruly extended royal family,91 which caused her “incessant torments,” as another historian has affirmed.92 Hans Bots and Jan Schillings, on the other hand, focus on Saint-Cyr and the marquise’s undoubtedly important pedagogical innovations.93 A conference dedicated to Maintenon held in her birth town of Niort in 1996 did likewise, largely shying away from power and politics.94 Following this trend, scholarly interest in Maintenon has begun to focus on spheres in which her activities and their impact were more tangible, such as her role as a pioneering educationalist,95 influential moralist,96 kindly correspondent,97 and spiritual exemplar.98 Work by scholars like Dominique Picco and Karen Taylor, and several articles in the Niort conference collection, nonetheless suggest that Saint-Cyr was much more than Maintenon’s version of Marly or simply a hobby.99 The wealth of documentation catalogued in “Series D” at the newly refurbished and recently catalogued archives at Yvelines confirms this and adumbrates that the convent provided the marquise with a distinguished occupation and another extensive and influential socio-ecclesiastical network that has yet to be thoroughly mapped and appraised.100 Even part of the correspondence between the princesse des Ursins and Mme de Maintenon has to an extent been depoliticized and presented as an insightful but primarily sentimental exchange between two admittedly influential old female friends in a volume edited by Marcel Loyau.101 This again bypasses an opportunity to demonstrate the way in which friendship ties could facilitate the expansion of social and client–patron networks and thereafter be exploited to enhance personal prestige and influence.102 More recently a stimulating collection of papers presented at a conference held at Versailles to commemorate the tercentenary of Maintenon’s death, and subsequently published,103 did delve deeper into the marquise’s writings, and her coterie, network, and life at court, and recognized the importance of her political role, which one of the volume’s editors, Alexandre Maral, has analyzed in other works. He offers a balanced analysis of Maintenon’s “influence politique” in his Les Femmes de Versailles, published in 2016. And he successfully expands on this in

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a sound and often illuminating biography brought out two years later titled Madame de Maintenon: La Presque Reine. Disappointingly there are no references, and Maral again echoes Chandernagor’s ambiguous conclusion that hers was the “model of a faultless career,” which to an extent remains shrouded in mystery.104 As we shall see, Maintenon’s mistakes were legion and she regretted them bitterly. Researchers are consequently compelled to consult Alfred Baudrillart’s article published in 1890 that did try to evaluate Maintenon’s personal power in one important sphere in detail by examining her relationship with des Ursins and the Spanish court, but deduced, somewhat questionably, that she acted with no real independent authority. This only confirms the need for a more holistic approach.105

a p e rs o n a l a n d p o l it ic al partnershi p – a w e a k wo m a n , b u t u n e f e m m e f o rt e In 1712 the English diplomat Matthew Prior reported that the foreign secretary “[Colbert de] Torcy is first minister, after Mme de Maintenon.”106 Significantly this extraordinary “rise to power” was unpremeditated and came about erratically. Françoise d’Aubigné’s first marriage to the celebrated writer Paul Scarron in 1652 introduced her to many eminent literary figures and courtiers, but ended with her husband’s premature death in 1660. The widow Scarron began regularly to encounter Louis XIV in her capacity as governess to the bastard children he had sired after 1669 with Mme de Montespan. As Athénaïs fell gradually from favour, the king’s relationship with Mme Scarron flourished. At first the governess had no other ambition than to obtain posts and pensions for her family. She had intended to retire from court life as soon as possible to the estates at Maintenon purchased in 1675, but the king found her company indispensable and the couple secretly married in October 1683 shortly after the death of Queen Marie-Thérèse. For the rest of the reign Maintenon occupied an enviable if awkward position “auprès du roi [next to the king].” Coming from a non-titled noble family, she occupied no formal position, and her marriage to Louis was never made public. Nevertheless, Maintenon quickly became an established figure at Versailles in the 1680s, and her favour and “protection” were highly sought after by French and foreign notables. She initially focused on the management of Saint-Cyr and the king’s salvation, but her mentor Fénelon made clear in 1689 that God had elevated her to an exalted position in Louis XIV’s favour for a particular purpose. It was her duty to remind “Le Grand” of his Christian

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and monarchical responsibilities and to push the habitual warmonger in a more devotional direction. This emboldened Maintenon somewhat reluctantly to be more spiritually and politically proactive, but with mixed results, one of which was the Quietist scandal that erupted in the 1690s, which almost brought about her disgrace. She nonetheless recovered and became a pivotal part of the new, more personal style of government adopted by Louis XIV after the death of Louvois in 1691, when Louis effectively began to fulfill the role of first minister. The king quickly found the obligations onerous and the workload excessive and thereafter routinely insisted that his consort be present in daily conferences with advisers and officials. In consequence Maintenon was exposed to and acquired a detailed knowledge of the inner workings of government and its primary personnel. She began occasionally attending conseil d’en haut meetings after 1698, and in January 1701 her protégé, Michel Chamillart, became the first – and only – controller-general of finances also to be appointed secretary of state for war and minister, as he was invited routinely to attend the deliberations of the king’s high council. From this point on Louis came to depend on his consort. She had effectively been acting as an informal adviser, but after 1700 fulfilled the functions of an unofficial minister, or “ministresse.” Hence the Sun King’s apparent tendency to turn in the direction of the niche in her apartments where the marquise was ensconced, usually in bed, to ask “your solidity” for her view on the matter under discussion. Ministers like Torcy and Pontchartrain clearly exercised as much power as the king’s consort and even more so in the formulation and implementation of policy, as recent works have demonstrated. But they continued nonetheless to regard Maintenon as a rival for Louis XIV’s favour, and they suspected that she could modify or obstruct their plans as the aging king had become more inclined to select her candidates for important church and state posts. The foreign minister, Colbert de Torcy, was himself wary of Maintenon and deeply suspicious of her machinations and motives. He mistakenly considered her his nemesis and worked secretly with his officials, agents abroad, and other ministers – such as his cousin Desmaretz, the controller-general of finances from 1708, Chancellor Pontchartrain, and the secretary of state for war after 1709, Daniel Voysin – to restrain the influence she exerted and ensure that important strategies would be executed. Torcy did so in part by prearranging agendas for conseil d’en haut debates, which he introduced in his role as rapporteur.107 This became imperative during the War of the Spanish Succession as a series of defeats and disasters, some of which were unfortunately

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caused by Maintenon’s protégés, endangered France and caused the king to lose his self-confidence. Louis was often depressed and despondent from 1705, and his tendency to prevaricate and vacillate increased. This indecision often compelled courtiers, officials, and royal family members to pressure Maintenon – as they would Marie-Antoinette in the 1780s108 – to bring a decisive influence to bear on the sovereign. Lacking experience and status, Maintenon corresponded industriously to solicit expert information that would enable her to counsel the king with conviction, but she found her governmental obligations taxing and deeply troubling, as her letters to her confessors later testified. She made many costly errors and was often genuinely reluctant to intervene in affairs, keenly aware of the extent to which this caused her to be scorned in public and further mistrusted by certain ministers and courtiers. The following chapters focus on Maintenon’s remarkable career at court, which lasted from 1680 to 1715. Chapter 1 explores her troubled upbringing and her marriage to Scarron, 1652–60, in the course of which she was introduced to a cast of characters who would later play a significant role in her life at Versailles, including Athénaïs de Montespan. In her role as secret and then formal governess to the children Louis XIV begat with Montespan, Françoise developed a deep friendship with the king in the 1670s that became increasingly romantic after she was installed at court in the dauphine’s entourage in 1680. Chapter 2 scrutinizes that transition, 1680–84, which culminated in her clandestine marriage to Louis and the construction of the marquise’s own apartments at Versailles. Chapter 3 reflects on Maintenon’s initial occupations as the king’s uncrowned queen, addressing her historically overblown role in the Revocation of Nantes, the founding of Saint-Cyr, the expansion of her patronage and clientage network, and her increasing involvement in court life and politics as ministers and French and foreign officials vied to win her favour. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 survey the 1690s, when she started to intervene more actively in governmental and especially ecclesiastical affairs, as recommended by her advisers. Initially, Louis merely valued her presence during quotidian meetings with ministers in her apartments and did not encourage his spouse to volunteer opinions. In consequence Maintenon concentrated her efforts on transforming Saint-Cyr into a nunnery and attempting guilefully to fill the church with pious prelates. The former project succeeded and cemented closer ties with the court of Rome, but the latter scheme backfired and she became embroiled in the Quietist scandal, as detailed in Chapters 5 and 6. Extricating herself from what became an international controversy proved a seminal experience, and one on

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which she drew when attempting to resolve the Jansenist affair, 1705–15, in which many of her eminent friends and clients were implicated, as outlined in Chapters 8 and 10. Strenuous efforts on her part, and good fortune, enabled her to regain the king’s confidence and rebuild her court circle by 1698, and subsequently to promote her protégé, Chamillart, from his position as controller-general of Saint-Cyr’s finances to being entrusted with those of the kingdom in 1699. Accordingly, chapters 7 to 10 comprehensively investigate the last turbulent fifteen years of the realm in order to ascertain how much influence Maintenon exerted once she had elevated so many of her candidates to important posts in the church and government and also foreign courts, whose princes solicited her patronage, protection, and guidance as Louis XIV’s self-assurance diminished. Without properly substantiating their allegations, contemporaries and historians have suggested either that Maintenon became “all-powerful” after 1700 or that her influence decreased after 1709, when two of her most prominent candidates, the cardinal de Noailles and Chamillart, fell into disgrace. The evidence suggests that Maintenon’s influence did rival that of ministers during this period because she was able to modify religious, financial, domestic, military, and foreign policies, intervene directly in events and necessarily in certain crises, and affect the appointment of secretaries of state, chancellors, marshals, ambassadors, bishops, cardinals, royal advisers, governors, and tutors. However, it will be demonstrated that Maintenon almost accidentally became an integral, then central, and finally pivotal part of the world of the French court, the private life of Louis XIV, and the state system over which he presided. The king unwittingly allowed this to happen because she was a shrewd, discreet, and altruistic adjuvant in whom he could place his trust and with whom he could converse frankly on equal intellectual terms, impelling him increasingly to seek her views on his personal and official affairs. But her marital status remained a secret. Maintenon consequently occupied an exceptional, formidable, and often invidious position entrenched next to Europe’s most powerful monarch, causing her to be feared and respected, ridiculed and admired, and flattered and denounced by courtiers and wider French and foreign public opinion. She became Louis XIV’s political partner and his closest consultant, matriarch of the royal family, and minister in all but name. Her tenacity and intelligence had enabled her to ascend to this unprecedented position of power, which she sometimes relished but often resented and from which she readily retired just before the king’s death when, finally, her dutiful “solidity” was no longer required.

1

Childhood, First Marriage, and Royal Governess, 1635–1680

Françoise d’Aubigné’s upbringing (1635–51), first marriage (1652–60), and widowhood (1660–83) were experiences that proved formative, as she would later explain to the girls at Saint-Cyr, because she established long-standing and powerful social networks with noble families across France from Poitou to Paris. She was born between 24 and 27 November 1635 in Niort, where her father, Constant, had been imprisoned for committing, among other crimes, multiple acts of treason and murder.1 Although impoverished by her father’s profligacy, Françoise inherited from her grandfather, the eminent courtier, literary figure, and Protestant warrior Agrippa d’Aubigné, certain qualities and personal connections that would eventually enable her to succeed in Parisian and court society after her marriage in 1652 to the notorious playwright Paul Scarron. He introduced his young wife to Mme de Montespan, whose affair with Louis XIV had produced several illegitimate offspring. Their upbringing was entrusted to the widow Scarron, who was appointed secret governess in 1669 and official governess in 1674. It was in this capacity that she came into regular contact with the king. Constant d’Aubigné was an extraordinary character. He had inherited the charisma, eloquence, and bravado that had distinguished his own father, Agrippa, who personally served Henry of Navarre until 1593 when the prince converted to Catholicism to become king of France. These alluring qualities made Constant a popular figure in elite circles until his illicit activities came to light. Increasingly regarded as an incorrigibly reckless “man of pleasure,”2 and with seemingly no religious scruples, unlike his father, Constant repeatedly allied himself with whichever faction or faith seemed most likely to prevail in his financial favour. To escape execution for having committed murder and abduction in 1613 he enlisted in Condé’s Huguenot army in revolt against the Regency,

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but converted to Catholicism to support Louis XIII in 1617, resulting in Constant fighting against his own father two years later. Having regained his father’s confidence, Constant then double-crossed him again by betraying the Calvinist coalition Agrippa prominently championed, to help the French crown’s campaign against the Protestant rebels at La Rochelle in 1627. Now notoriously untrustworthy, he was incarcerated at Louis XIII’s behest at the château Trompette in Bordeaux by the governor of Aquitaine/Guyenne, the duc d’Épernon, for a litany of crimes including unpaid debts, fraud, treachery, and the murder of his first wife Anne Marchande. Married without permission in 1608, Constant learned that she had taken a lover, who – allegedly still ensconced on a chaise percée – was also stabbed to death, on 6 February 1619.3 Constant’s roguish charm enabled him quickly to befriend the prison governor Pierre de Cardhillac and within three months seduce his beautiful sixteen-year-old daughter, Jeanne. Épernon forced the couple to wed on 27 December 1627 for reasons that remain unclear. Pierre was a distant cousin of Épernon, and Jeanne may have fallen pregnant, but her first child, also called Constant, was not born until April 1629, in the father’s absence. The marriage had secured Constant’s freedom, though unpaid debts contracted in prison delayed his release until 20 February 1628, but the couple soon became estranged and Jeanne was granted a matrimonial separation of property by a tribunal in Niort shortly before the birth of her first son.4 On 24 April 1630 Agrippa formally disowned his son Constant “for the destruction of the good name and honour of his house,” as he stated in his testament;5 this left the bulk of his property to his two legitimate daughters, Marie (b. 1581), who married Josué de Caumont, seigneur d’Adde, in 1613; and Louise-Arthémise (b. 1583), who married Benjamin Le Valois, seigneur de Villette, in 1610. To raise much-needed funds Constant began counterfeiting coins, was recruited by Gaston d’Orléans, and thus was implicated in the plot to raise the provinces in revolt against Richelieu, who confined d’Aubigné for a decade, reimprisoning him in the château Trompette in December 1632. Jeanne’s father died in 1633, and she was obliged to reconcile with her felonious husband, giving birth to their second child, Charles, in 1634. She attended Constant in prison while both sons were being cared for by her kindly sister-in-law, Louis-Arthémise, at the Château de Mursay on their estates 10 kilometres north of Niort inherited from Agrippa. Jeanne then successfully petitioned to have Constant transferred in December to a jail in Poitiers, where she fell pregnant again. Anxious to be close to her benevolent relatives, she succeeded in having d’Aubigné moved to the prisons of the conciergerie of the palace of Niort, where between 24 and

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27 November 1635 she gave birth to Françoise, who was baptized the following day, as was customary. The baptismal register states that the godfather was five-year-old François de la Rochefoucauld (cousin of the celebrated author of the Maximes) and son of Benjamin, baron d’Etissac and de Maigno. The godmother was the nine-year-old daughter of Charles de Baudéan, comte de Neuillan and governor of Niort, Suzanne (1625–1684), who went on to become the duchesse de Navailles in 16516 and dame d’honneur to Queen Marie-Thérèse from 1660 to 1664.7 Over the next year Jeanne remained in prison with Constant while her daughter was also nurtured at Mursay. Significantly, Françoise’s godfather’s uncle was François V (1588–1650), 1st duc de La Rochefoucauld, thus connecting her to this distinguished Protestant family and also to the La Tour d’Auvergne thanks to François III de La Rochefoucauld’s second marriage to Charlotte de Roye.8 Françoise’s early life was extremely unsettled. With an uninterested and frequently absent father and an increasingly dejected, unloving mother, her happiest years were spent in the surrogate care of the Villette family from 1635 to 1643 and 1647 to 1648. She adored her uncle and her kindly aunt, whose death in 1662 Françoise unfailingly commemorated annually. She also revered her beloved governess at Mursay, Mme Delisle, whose son she employed thirty years later at court as her maître d’hôtel.9 Moreover, Françoise also established lasting friendships with her cousins Madeleine (b. 1621), Anne (b. 1623), Marie (b. 1633) with whom she learned to read and write, and Philippe (b. 1632). He was her favourite companion, teaching her rudimentary mathematics and domestic economics, which in light of Constant’s insolvency would prove invaluable. Françoise visited her father in prison every Sunday while the staunchly Calvinist Villettes worshipped at the Huguenot temple. There is no evidence to suggest that Françoise formally renounced Catholicism, but she later did have to be forcibly reconciled with the faith of her baptism. Such an upbringing did not make her tolerant of religious minorities, but it did kindle a more empathetic disposition towards the “Réligion Prétendue Réformé.” It also germinated an unshakable conviction that the authentic conversion of the Huguenot community could only be achieved through education and persuasion, hence her opposition to their persecution even after her relatives had abjured. Françoise’s time in the West Indies from 1644 to 1647 also cultivated an appreciation of difference and revealed her aptitude for survival. After Richelieu’s death on 4 December 1642, Louis XIII reprieved a number of political prisoners including Constant. His buccaneering spirit inspired the Company of the Islands of America in 1644 to appoint him governor

Childhood, First Marriage, and Royal Governess, 1635–1680

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of territory in the West Indies newly conquered and colonized on behalf of the French crown. Jeanne consented to accompany her husband on this hazardous expedition, having spent five miserable years in Paris with her two sons pursuing an unsuccessful and ruinous lawsuit from 1638 to reclaim the estates at Surimeau that Agrippa had bequeathed to Constant before disinheriting him.10 The d’Aubigné family set sail from La Rochelle in September 1644, and the crossing was difficult, exacerbating the inhospitable conditions on the Isabelle de la Tremblade. Françoise contracted a severe fever and was presumed dead, but Jeanne fortunately noticed that her daughter’s body was not lifeless just before it was cast overboard and she recovered before they landed on Martinique in November. The family moved to Guadeloupe a few days later and shortly afterwards installed themselves on the small nearby island of Marie-Galante. This proved uninhabitable, partly because of the rugged terrain but also because of the hostility of recently arrived Irish settlers, but undeterred, Constant returned to France in March 1645 and successfully claimed his governorship. When he returned in early 1646 his family were living in Fort Royal on Martinique, having evacuated MarieGalante the previous autumn for their own safety. The family were then reunited in July on Saint-Christophe, where they took up residence with the island’s governor. Here they lived lavishly until the end of the year, when d’Aubigné departed again for France and effectively disappeared. Mortified and demoralized, Jeanne managed to raise enough money to transport the family back to France in July 1647, docking at La Rochelle in the autumn after surviving another dreadful voyage during which they were menaced by storms and pirates. The period in America was extremely extremely trying for Jeanne. She became increasingly disillusioned, but still furthered the education of her children, who became proficient at reading her favoured texts, such as Plutarch, and writing. Her affections, however, were concentrated on the sickly and melancholic Constant. The younger siblings felt this acutely, but it made Françoise more independent, resourceful, and practical, which would serve her well. Penury reduced the d’Aubignés to begging on the streets of La Rochelle on their return, and it was predominantly Françoise who obtained the means to support them and avert starvation. Her father, it transpired, had died on 31 August 1647 in Orange, allegedly after reconverting to participate in treasonous conspiracies involving France’s Protestant enemies. Jeanne had instructed her children to be at all times respectful and charitable, and after being taken in again by the compassionate Villettes at Mursay at the end of 1647, Françoise found herself regularly dispensing alms with her aunt Louise to the poor of nearby Niort.

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This experience was seminal, as was Françoise’s reintroduction to Catholicism during two periods of confinement in Ursuline convents. The first was orchestrated by the ambitious wife of Niort’s governor, the comtesse de Neuillan, Louise Tiraqueau (1591–1673), whose relative Pierre Tiraqueau, baron de Saint-Hermant, was maître d’hôtel d’ordinaire du roi.11 She was anxious to advance her daughter Suzanne, who was Françoise’s godmother, at court, and in order to make a favourable and dramatic impression she sought to redeem young d’Aubigné by removing her from Calvinist clutches, obtaining a lettre de cachet from Anne of Austria to legitimate the abduction in November 1648. It was stressful for Françoise to be wrenched away from her family. Moreover, her eldest brother, Constant, had been found drowned in the moat at Mursay, having committed suicide in the opening days of 1648, which further deepened Jeanne d’Aubigné’s depression. It also drove Françoise and Charles closer together and may help to explain why she continued unstintingly to support Charles until his death in 1703, despite his adherence to a bucolic lifestyle. Unfortunately for Françoise, Charles was sent to Poitiers in 1648 to be employed as a page in the household of the governor of Poitou, Henri de Baudéan, comte de Parabère (1573–1653), who was the comtesse de Neuillan’s brother-in-law. Unable to convert her obstinate charge, Mme de Neuillan deposited Françoise in the Ursuline pensionnat of Niort probably in late 1648 or early 1649, though dating events during this period of her life is difficult.12 At the convent Françoise initially fell sick, but was nursed back to health by Sister Céleste, who then transformed her reluctant charge into an assiduous and popular pupil through a mixture of patience and indulgence, although she stubbornly continued to refuse the sacraments. Françoise idolized her mentor, informing the green class at Saint-Cyr in 1714 that she took pleasure in “sacrificing myself for her service,” and carried out many of her maitresse’s menial tasks to win her favour, including staying up all night starching the pensionnaires’ fine linens.13 Crucially, Françoise was inculcated in schooling methods, which she later developed and deployed with much success. Benedictine, Cistercian, and Visitation convents attracted daughters from the upper nobility and consequently focused on cultivating refinement, in contrast to Ursuline institutions, which concentrated on fostering a repertoire of skills to ensure social but primarily domestic success. Girls from minor noble and “middle class” families were taught how to clean and sew but also how to interpret legal documents, manage accounts, and supervise younger students.14 The core dévot virtues of civility, modesty, prudence, and honesty were also extolled and instilled, while vices such as vanity and

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indolence were vigorously discouraged. Geography, history, and some languages gradually appeared on curricula, and music, dancing, and even drama were utilized to further the girls’ edification; however, excessive curiosity was regarded with suspicion and energetically curbed.15 Unfortunately these halcyon days came to an abrupt end a few months later when Françoise was ejected from the convent because Mme de Neuillan had refused to pay the bill. It was then sent to Mme de Villette, who also naturally declined to pay for her niece’s Catholic instruction! Nevertheless, the experience made an indelible impression on Françoise’s maturing personality and character. It also helped crystallize her cultural and spiritual outlook as epitomized in later pedagogic exchanges with Saint-Cyr novices, which were colourfully illustrated by episodes from her schooldays.16 Wretched on being evicted from the comfort of the convent,17 Françoise found herself in the spring of 1649 an unwelcome guest in the Neuillan household as her mother had returned to Paris in 1648 in another vain attempt to reclaim some of her late husband’s inheritance from the Caumont d’Adde family through the courts. To mollify her inhospitable guardian Françoise stoically carried out her copious chores and refined her ability to dissemble her true feelings and act with discretion that she had first learned in the convent.18

mar r iag e a n d s o c ia l n etworki ng i n pari s Mme de Neuillan was eager to be rid of another financial burden, having been widowed in 1644. To improve her family’s prospects she journeyed to Paris, probably in the autumn of 1649 after the royal court’s return in August, to finalize matrimonial negotiations with the Navailles and present her daughters at court,19 wintering with them and her charge Françoise at the residence behind the Palais d’Orléans of her cousin, the baron de Saint-Hermant.20 It is unclear whether it was the comtesse de Neuillan or Jeanne d’Aubigné who was responsible for depositing Françoise with the Ursulines of the Faubourg Saint-Jacques to complete her religious rehabilitation.21 In contrast to Niort, the Parisian grand couvent was renowned for its rigour.22 Deeply unhappy, Françoise appealed to her aunt by letter, but Louise de Villette was understandably unable to intervene in such matters, and after a war of attrition her niece was discharged several weeks later after finally taking her first communion. Although such draconian methods were unpleasant, they were often employed to compel Calvinist children to abjure their faith in the run-up to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, but with uneven results that depended on the approach a given institution

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took.23 Mme de Maintenon would later utilize similar tactics, maintaining, somewhat hypocritically, that their severity was defensible in the child’s spiritual interests. Because the baroness was naturally reluctant to parade the beautiful fourteen-year-old d’Aubigné daughter in public along with her own progeny, Françoise was effectively housebound. She did strike up a firm friendship with Pierre Tiraqueau’s daughter, Angélique, with whom she corresponded after returning to Niort in the first few months of 1650. And although appearing rarely in Parisian society, Françoise was introduced to the renowned burlesque writer and cripple Paul Scarron, but it is difficult to ascertain which of his friends arranged the first meeting. Scarron occupied a vast apartment in the Hotel de Troyes, at the start of the rue d’Enfer, which neighboured the residence of the baron de Saint-Hermant, who may have been responsible, as could the chevalier de Méré. He had first encountered the young Françoise, as he later immodestly admitted in 1675,24 during an extended stay in the Neuillan household, where he assisted in her education. Furthermore, Scarron’s fellow tenant, Cabart de Villermont, had been a guest of the d’Aubignés in Martinique and may have suggested that Scarron seek their advice about a trip to the West Indies he hoped might cure the acute rheumatoid arthritis that had ravaged his body after 1638, leaving it twisted and mostly paralyzed.25 What is clear is that Françoise was striking and that de Méré was the first of many serious admirers.26 Scarron was captivated by Françoise and was further enchanted after reading one of her “witty” and diverting letters to Angélique.27 This did not go unnoticed by Mme de Neuillan, who saw an opportunity to be rid of her custodial liability and thus orchestrated the betrothal of Françoise to Scarron in the latter part of 1651. The couple married in Paris on 4 April 1652. Cabart had been given permission in February to represent Jeanne, who was then living in Bordeaux, but who died before the ceremony took place in the oratory of the Hôtel de Troyes. We do not know whether the sixteen-year-old Françoise audibly reflected that her only options were the convent or marriage, but she evidently was in need of protection and support, having been abandoned yet again and officially orphaned.28 In this context, and considering Scarron’s celebrity, the match seems less bizarre. In 1643 Scarron had published A Collection of Burlesque Verses, and thanks to the auspices of his patrons, Mlle de Hautefort and the maréchal de Schomberg, he had obtained a pension of 1,500 livres from Anne of Austria and was consequently nicknamed “the Queen’s invalid.” Paid annually from 1644, when the burlesque epic Typhon was successfully

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published,29 the subsidy was stopped by the regent in 1648 when Scarron was suspected of pamphleteering against Cardinal Mazarin’s ministry. Whether true or not, this impelled the playwright to join the Fronde. Scarron quickly became a prominent member of the circle supporting Gaston d’Orléans, whose emissaries, along with those from the Condé camp, often met in Scarron’s apartment, which de Retz also visited.30 Segrais records that Scarron started writing or assisted in launching the Mazarinades early in 1651.31 He undoubtedly penned a number of lampoons that libelled the cardinal and remained in Gaston’s service and on his payroll for several years.32 Also in 1651, Scarron published the first part of his acclaimed masterpiece, Le Roman Comique. Shortly after marrying, Scarron and his young wife left Paris for Tourraine, but safely returned to the capital in the autumn of 1653 after Scarron had obtained a privilège for his play Don Japhet d’Arménie. Fouquet was a fan of the burlesque and reinstated Scarron’s pension, increasing it to 1,600 livres.33 This enabled him in February 1654 to take up residence in the fashionable Marais district on the Rue NeuveSaint-Louis, in what became know as the “Hôtel Impécuniosité.” What cannot be understated is the impact this marriage and the subsequent experience of widowhood had on Françoise’s future career. Crucial to her subsequent fortune, Mme Scarron had by the end of the 1660s established an extended network of priceless contacts and gained and honed social and intellectual skills that would enable her to survive and thrive in the fiercely competitive and unforgiving world of the court. The Parisian salons that flourished in the first half of the seventeenth century were microcosms of the French court and, as arenas of intellectual and political discourse, even competed with it.34 Eminent thinkers, writers, and notables played leading roles in both realms and regularly gathered at the hôtels d’Albret, de Bourgogne, de Rambouillet, de Richelieu, and de Troyes. Scarron was already an established figure within these elite circles, but his wife also excelled in this rigorous environment after discovering that she was supremely gifted in the art of conversation. To enhance this capacity, Scarron and his acolytes, such as the chevalier de Méré, furthered Françoise’s education. She was taught literature, as well as the rudiments of several languages, including Latin, Spanish, and Italian, and instructed in versification and composition. Segrais claimed that this enabled her to edit and even contribute to the composition of the series of burlesque and tragicomic novels Scarron produced between 1655 and 1659, including Le Marquis Ridicule (1655), Le Prince Corsaire (1658), and the second part of Le Roman Comique (1657).

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Invitations to Scarron’s own salon were coveted. It was described by Segrais as “the rendezvous of all the most polished at court and all the best wits of Paris.”35 Attendants enjoyed the exuberant esprit and comic brilliance of the host, but they also came to admire the beauty, charm, and eloquence of his wife. Accordingly Françoise soon attracted a number of notable suitors, including Paul Barillon d’Amoncourt, the comte du Lude, the vicomte de Guilleragues, François III d’Harcourt marquis de Beuvron,36 the marquises de Villars37 and de Villarceaux, César d’Estrées, the future cardinal, and Lamoignon de Bâville, with whom she enjoyed a platonic but ultimately long-standing and fruitful association.38 Mme Scarron also attended the celebrated salons of the duchesse de Lesdiguères, Mme de Sablé, Ninon de Lenclos, and Mme de La Fayette,39 with whom she became firm friends. And within these circles Françoise also encountered literary luminaries like Paul Pellison, Boileau, Corneille, La Fontaine, Mignard, and Racine, enjoying a particular affinity with the novelist Madeleine de Scudéry,40 who based the character of Lyrianne in volume two of Clélie on Mme Scarron.41 At these edifying and distinguished gatherings Françoise became closely acquainted with the likes of the duchesses d’Aumont, de Richelieu, de Navailles, and de Montausier, the comtes and comtesses de Brienne, de Brancas,42 de Guiche, and de Gramont,43 and Mmes de Coulanges44 and de Fouquet.45 Indeed Scarron’s renown was such that Queen Christina of Sweden demanded to see him in Paris in 1658, and in June 1659 Mme Scarron declined a commission to serve Mazarin’s niece Marie Mancini in exile, which illustrates the extent to which her qualities were acknowledged and esteemed,46 as was her attractiveness. During an extended eulogy in 1660 Françoise was described by René de Saint-Léger, sieur de Boisrond, as a “mouth-watering” beauty.47 Her fortunes changed dramatically when Scarron suddenly died at the start of October 1660, leaving his widow 10,000 francs of property and 20,000 francs of debt.48 Moreover, their marriage contract was, as she explained to her cousin Philippe de Villette, “so badly fashioned” that of the 23,000 livres Françoise was owed only four or five thousand would be forthcoming after creditors had been paid.49 This “so deplorable”50 state compelled the widow Scarron to exploit her connections and lean heavily on friends, whose generosity and support was later reciprocated once she was firmly established at court. Thus during her marriage and widowhood from 1660 Françoise forged more enduring and significant friendships with the Marshal d’Albret, César Phébus, comte de Miossens, and his niece, Mlle Bonne de Pons (the future marquise d’Heudicourt),51 as well as Anne-Marie La Trémoïlle-Noirmoutier (the future princesse

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des Ursins), Louise Boyer (1631–1697), duchesse de Noailles (dame d’atours to Anne of Austria, 1557–1666),52 Mme de Brinon, the duc de Vivonne and, more importantly, his younger sister, Mme de Montespan. Accounts differ dramatically about the life Françoise led and even where she lodged during the 1660s, since only a handful of letters survive from this decade. But a clear illustration of Françoise’s social standing at this time can be seen in her description of the king’s entry into Paris on 27 August 1660 to celebrate his marriage to the daughter of Philip IV of Spain, Marie-Thérèse. Louis XIV was accompanied by a glittering entourage that included many of Françoise’s notable acquaintances, such as the marquises de Villarceaux and de Beuvron, the comte de Guiche, and the duc de Navailles, Philippe II de Montault (1619-84), who would be appointed governor of Louis XIV’s nephew, the duc de Chartres, in 1683.53 In 1651 Navailles had married Françoise’s godmother, Suzanne de Baudéan, who along with the duchesse de Montauzier, Mme de Motteville, and the maréchal d’Albret successfully petitioned Anne of Austria and the surintendant Fouquet to have Scarron’s pension reinstated.54 Beginning in early 1661, 2,000 livres were paid annually to the writer’s widow. This enabled her to rent a room at the Ursuline convent on the rue Saint-Jacques and to reject the charity given by Scarron’s cousin, Catherine, the maréchale-duchesse d’Aumont, who had begrudgingly provided lodgings for her homeless relative in the Petite Charité convent of the Hospitalières on the Place Royale. This was a gruelling experience and Françoise recorded nearly thirty years later that still she found the thought of donating alms to the institution repugnant.55 After some sort of dalliance with one of the king’s huntsmen, Louis de Mornay, marquis de Villarceaux (1619–1691), from 1661 to 1662,56 precipitated reputedly by Ninon de Lenclos,57 Françoise set out to preserve her reputation, which was threatened not only by gossip but also by physical manifestations of her liaison, such as the portrait Villarceaux commissioned that notoriously depicts a naked young woman, supposedly Françoise d’Aubigné. It hangs to this day in the châteaux Villarceaux, where the Scarrons spent a number of summers in the 1650s with Louis and his cousin, Henri de Mornay, the marquis de Montchevreuil, and his wife, Marguerite d’Orsay, both of whom became Françoise’s firm friends. Mme Scarron was rightly aware that it was better to be mocked as a précieuse than labelled a putain,58 and installed herself in the nunnery where she had been re-Catholicized. Here she lived a prudent and pious but contented existence in widowhood, dressing simply and living modestly, as her secretary Mlle d’Aumale later recorded.59 There she was served by a maid, Annette Balbien, nicknamed “Nanon,” who

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would become her lifelong attendant and confidante. Françoise nonetheless remained a socialite, regularly accepting invitations to evening gatherings at the hôtels d’Albret and de Richelieu, where she carried out secretarial and domestic chores by day. Françoise also worked in Mme de Montchevreuil’s household, taking care of the accounts and all of her friend’s affairs, while also caring for and educating her children.60 Portentously, when Mlle de Pons and the marquis d’Heudicourt celebrated their wedding in 1665, Françoise was presented at court for the first time.61 But she was formally introduced to Louis XIV by Mme de Montespan in the summer of 1666 at Saint-Germain, where she thanked the king for having renewed and supplemented her pension on 23 February 1666 to 2,700 livres after Anne of Austria’s death on 20 January.62 In June the bishop of Laon, César d’Estrées, had suggested that Mme Scarron accompany the daughter of the duc de Nemours, Marie Françoise Élisabeth, who had just married King Alfonso VI of Portugal (1656-83), to Lisbon as dame d’honneur.63 Françoise was overwhelmed and declined,64 but was nonetheless keenly aware how vital it was to establish and maintain a network of influential friends and advisers. This opportunity also reconfirms that her rise to prominence was far from sudden. It may have been around this time that she left the convent and moved back to the Marais. Here she settled, eventually, on the Rue de Trois-Pavillons65 after returning from visiting her Villette relatives in Poitou in the summer of 1667, from whom she retrieved a number of important family documents following the death of her aunt and uncle.66

t h e k in g ’ s s e c r e t nursemai d Françoise d’Aubigné’s “favour” began in 1668 at the age of thirty-two, as she later reflected in a letter to Mme de Caylus.67 The year 1668 was reputedly also the year in which she engaged the abbé Gobelin as her confessor,68 and the time when Françoise began suffering regularly from the debilitating migraines that would recur for the rest of her life.69 As she had informed Caylus, since the beginning of her favour she had not been for a moment without “afflictions,” which had continued to increase.70 Nevertheless, she discharged her duties as governess-housekeeper efficiently, and her success in this capacity resulted in Françoise’s appointment in 1669 as governess to the king’s children by Mme de Montespan, who first fell pregnant in August 1668. The child was born in March 1669 and smuggled from Saint-Germain to a wet nurse in Paris by Mlle des Oeillets, one of Montespan’s ladiesin-waiting.

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Louis XIV’s new mistress found herself pregnant again in August 1669, and Mme d’Heudicourt recommended the widow Scarron as a suitably qualified and discreet person capable of carrying out the sensitive and onerous task of secretly bringing up the illegitimate children Montespan was siring with the king.71 Reluctant to carry out what she perhaps regarded as an unseemly occupation, Françoise only complied when commanded by the king, and to facilitate this task moved in 1669 to the rue des Tournelles.72 Montespan rapidly produced two more bastards, Louis Auguste, duc du Maine, on 31 March 1670, and Louis César, comte de Vexin, on 20 June 1672. As Françoise later reflected, Athénaïs de Montespan was an “indefatigable character”!73 Consequently the governess was installed in a large house off the rue Vaugirard a few months later in July 1672, as orchestrated by Louvois, where all three children could be accommodated. The job was evidently stressful, as her secretary Mlle d’Aumale later recorded: When Mme de Montespan was on the point of being confined, Mme Scarron was sent for. She carried away the child, hidden under her scarf, concealed herself under a mask, took a fiacre, and returned thus to Paris, not without much fright lest the secret confided to her by the King should be discovered. She herself told us of the extraordinary distress that this charge caused her, her painstaking efforts, her sleepless nights, sometimes rising fourteen or fifteen times in the night, watching over the children to let the wet-nurse sleep; and all the time, in order that the children’s existence should remain concealed, she saw her friends as usual and joined them every night at their various addresses and in the morning appeared as if she had slept well so that they would suspect nothing. What caused her the most anxiety was that being timid she blushed very easily, and when her friends really doubted something that had taken place and began to speak of it she would turn scarlet, and in order to diminish this propensity to redden she had herself bled, but it made little difference.74 Clandestinely nurturing these children was also physically demanding work, as Maintenon later recounted to the girls at Saint-Cyr in October 1717: This quite singular honour cost me infinite care and trouble; I mounted ladders to do the work of upholsterers and workmen because it was forbidden that they should enter; I did everything myself, the nurses doing nothing by hand for fear that being fatigued

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would spoil their milk. I often went on foot from nurse to nurse, disguised, carrying under my arm linen and meat, etc.; I sometimes passed the entire night with one of the children who was ill, in a small house outside Paris, and returned in the morning to my own dwelling by a small back door, and, after dressing, took a coach which was out in front to transport me to the hôtel d’Albret or de Richelieu so that my ordinary society would perceive nothing and not even suspect that I had a secret to keep.75 In spite of Françoise’s assiduity the first infant, Louise Françoise, died shortly after moving in the summer of 1672. But a second daughter, Louise Françoise de Bourbon, Mlle de Nantes, was born in June 1673, who went on to marry Monsieur le Duc, Louis III de Bourbon-Condé (1668–1710) and thus became known as Madame la Duchesse.76 Heudicourt had temporarily been disgraced in 1671 after divulging Montespan’s secret, but was forgiven toward the end of 1673 as the king had taken the decision to legitimize Maine, Vexin, and Nantes; so it was registered in the Paris Parlement on 20 December. Louis was now able to see his children openly at Saint-Germain, where they were installed in Montespan’s apartments alongside the widow Scarron, who was now formally acknowledged as their governess.

p e rs o n a l s e c u r it y a n d fami ly patronage Despite increasingly volatile relations with Montespan, whose favour with the king waned in 1675 after the confession scandal,77 but recovered in 1677 and then diminished permanently in 1679, there is no evidence to suggest that Françoise during her initial time at court had any ambitions other than to improve her own fortunes and those of her family. Convinced that her position at court was temporary, she was anxious to obtain as much patronage as she could as quickly as possible, as she herself later explained to the girls at Saint-Cyr in 1710: When I had arrived at the court, I thought that when I had accumulated a little wealth – because I had none on arrival – I would retire to a private house somewhere. It was with this intention that I purchased site unseen the territory of Maintenon. I sent all sorts of furnishings down there. As soon as I entered its courtyard [the château de Maintenon], I was delighted to see the window of what I thought was the principal room. I thought to myself, “That’s where I’ll spend the rest of my days.” I had no other plan than to live peacefully with

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the peasants on my estates. However, as I was planning this God was arranging things quite differently.78 The urgency of her campaign is clearly illustrated in her correspondence with relatives.79 Beginning in 1671 she repeatedly pestered ministers, officials, and marshals like Colbert, Louvois,80 Seignelay,81 Pontchartrain,82 and Luxembourg83 for favours, preferments, and pensions, either directly or via Mme de Montespan,84 and obtained appointments for her cousin Philippe de Villette, successfully persuading Seignelay to name him second captain on Le Fort on 12 March 1672.85 On 14 April 1675 Françoise suggested that she might be able to persuade Colbert to favour her cousin’s request to serve on the vessel that would conduct the French ambassador to Moscow,86 but there were two impediments. First, as she reminded Philippe on 22 March 1675, he lacked a patron at court,87 and second, he refused to abjure his Calvinist faith, which, as Françoise spelled out on 29 April, was an overriding obstruction to any career path that she could attempt to fashion for him, conceding that she did not want this to be the foremost reason for his Catholicization, but that it would please her greatly to see his soul saved and his prosperity secured.88 On a similar note she had reminded Philippe again on 2 September 1672 that “I saw Mr de Louvois today and he can find nothing feasible for you … Your affairs render me ill-humoured.”89 Françoise also gained a series of prestigious promotions for her unworthy brother, Charles. He was named commander of Amersfoort near Utrecht in the autumn of 1672, but was instructed by his sister on 2 September not to be complacent: “in the name of God, my dear brother, never forget to merit the esteem of the King.”90 Ignoring this advice, Charles greedily harassed his sister and officials for more resources than those Louis XIV usually granted.91 This led to the first of many humiliations for his sister when three months later d’Aubigné was reproached by Louvois for abusively imposing financial exactions on the local population. Ordinarily intolerant of misconduct, particularly of this nature, the war minister nevertheless refrained from disciplining Charles, and informing the king, out of respect for Françoise.92 Clearly the governess was held in high royal esteem, but she also curried favour with the likes of Turenne to protect and elevate her brother,93 who subsequently gained the governorships of Elbourg in 1673,94 Belfort, in Alsace, in 1674, and Cognac in 1677.95 Charles d’Aubigné, like his father, was incorrigibly profligate, and to maintain his extravagant lifestyle he made excessive demands on his sister, who unfailingly extracted vast sums from the king and his ministers, or funded her brother personally, which proved costly. Maintenon constantly

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implored Charles to live within his quite substantial means and avoid accruing debts, which spiralled after his marriage to Geneviève de Piètre, a fifteen-year-old spendthrift, on 23 February 1678.96 Ever the governess, Maintenon was not reluctant to intervene in the lives of her brother and sister-in-law and was uncompromising in criticizing Geneviève’s ruinous prodigality and coarse behaviour, declaring that it seems to me she has been spoilt because she is the only daughter and is like a bourgeoise, who elevate their children the most badly … She is insupportably uncivilized: it is the inevitable consequence of a low birth … She attracts the familiarity of men … is unregulated in everything she does … It is representative of … une caillete [rennet bag, or cow’s fourth stomach, which secretes gastric juices] de Paris … [and] she talks comme à la halle [like a market vendor].97 In exasperation Maintenon sent on 9 April 1678 a long letter filled with admonitions and monetary advice, including a daily expense budget, described as “projected expenditure I would incur if I were not at court”; and this was accompanied by the suggestion that he could save a considerable amount if he drank cheaper wine.98 The impact was negligible, and a year later Maintenon again wrote to her brother about his financial difficulties and to remonstrate that Geneviève had spent the equivalent of “nearly two thousand écus in fifteen months” on jewels and clothes, including chemises made “as if for the Queen,” adding a memoir detailing the purchases to prove it.99 Lavallée remarked that the manner in which Maintenon hounded the king and Colbert for money seemed rather undignified.100 That she was succouring undeserving relatives like Charles no doubt further disgruntled the officials she badgered, like Louvois, but she had endured years of abject poverty and learned from her mistakes. Subsequently the methods she utilized to obtain patronage became more subtle and indeed successful, revealing, as one historian has somewhat insidiously suggested, a “marvellous aptitude … infinite suppleness … and such virtuosity” that could potentially be “dangerously” misused.101 She did constantly downplay her influence and the extent of her “credit,”102 and acted without appearing to do so “whilst at the same time pronouncing that she was able to do nothing.”103 For example, on 19 September 1672 she explained to Charles that “I do not regard the governorship of Amersfoort to be a very solid establishment, but it is one path to another.”104 On 8 July 1675 she counselled her brother to profit from his relationship with Vauban, forged during the refortification of Belfort, because “one good office

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from this man is worth more than that of all the courtiers.”105 And on 26 October 1677 she instructed Charles to write complimenting Louvois on his father’s nomination as chancellor.106 This dissimulation became more essential over the course of the 1680s to discourage the suspicion that she was excessively powerful, though she was, by then, an immovable fixture auprès du roi. This had been far from predictable in the 1670s, when her position at court was tenuous and obligatory retirement was a possibility at any moment. With the children maturing, and Montespan’s jealousy and enmity increasing daily, as reflected in their bitterly “sharp disputes,”107 Françoise had for some time been considering abandoning the trials and temptations of court life.108 She intimated this is in a letter to Gobelin dated 24 January 1675;109 then in March 1676, to obtain his approbation, she sent him an outline of her “project of how I should like to act if I were no longer at court.”110 Accordingly, she planned to spend two days a week visiting friends, two days at home receiving and entertaining them, and the other three devoted to visiting the poor, hospitals, and prisons of the parish, with one tenth of her income dedicated to alms and the rest of her energy focused on piety.111 Having done everything she could for her brother and family in 1678–79, it was Louis XIV’s affair with Mlle de Fontanges,112 which began in March 1679 and precipitated the fall of Montespan permanently from favour, that convinced Maintenon she must decisively quit the court. But by 1679 the king had come to value her presence so much that he invented a new position in December to prevent her departure when constructing the household of the dauphin’s future wife. Louis formally installed Maintenon as second dame d’atour to Marie-AnneChristine-Victoire of Bavaria on 7 January 1680, an appointment that was applauded in the December 1679 issue of the Mercure Galant: As for Mme de Maintenon, this admirable person cannot be praised too much. Never had [a] woman so good and upright a reputation. Her ancient nobility and great beauty first brought her to prominence and later her mind, sparkling with so much brilliance, turned all her acquaintances to friends and admirers. By her virtue she has kept them all … and has become the closest friend of the first ladies of the kingdom and conducted herself everywhere so wisely that she merits the friendship of the all the entire court, with the esteem and favour of His Majesty.113

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r e l at io n s w it h loui s xi v How did her relationship with the king develop?114 Initially it seems to have been rather frosty, but a turning point came in 1675. After rejecting an unflattering offer of marriage from the ossified duc de Brancas-Villars in the summer of 1674, Françoise was able to acquire the château at Maintenon and its estates on 28 December thanks indirectly to the king. Louis had upped her salary to 2,000 écus in March 1673115 and had also rewarded the governess with several monetary gifts and dispensations totalling 250,000 livres.116 She notified Gobelin in July 1674 that she was “extremely keen to buy an estate,”117 clarifying why a few months later: “my desire to retire has at no point altered: I am useless here.”118 Clearly pleased with her decision, Françoise informed her brother that her new property was “fourteen leagues from Paris, ten from Versailles and four from Chartres; it is beautiful, noble and will bring in ten to eleven thousand livres in rent. There is a retreat …”119 Moreover, in recognition of her services Louis XIV had ennobled the governess by conferring marquisate status on her new estate,120 prompting Françoise proudly to tell Charles on 6 February 1675 that “it is true that the King has named me Madame de Maintenon.”121 Montespan had encouraged this purchase, presumably anxious to monopolize the king’s favour, but as Caylus documented, Louis initially did not find the rather severe governess to his liking, and he also suspected that she harboured the prudish “mind of a précieux of the hotel de Rambouillet.”122 Yet he evidently appreciated that she lavished maternal affection on his favourite bastard son, the duc du Maine, whose infirmities had prompted an extended trip to the curative waters at Barèges in the Haute-Pyrénées in 1675 accompanied by his governess. They departed in May and were away for six months, during which time Maine’s health improved and his limp became less pronounced, as Maintenon informed her brother: “M. the duc du Maine is walking and although not very robustly there is hope he will walk like us; you know all the tenderness I have for him and cannot doubt that this happy success of my voyage gives me only great pleasure.”123 Reports on Maine’s progress impressed the king, and Voltaire later noted that “her letters pleased him greatly; this was the beginning of her fortune, her own merit did the rest.”124 Significantly, at each stage of their journey to and from Barèges, Maintenon and her charge were received and entertained “everywhere like the King,” with the latter recording the magnificent welcome from the aldermen of Bordeaux as they approached the city by boat.125

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Maintenon’s public performance during this expedition was exemplary, and it clearly raised her profile. None of this could have escaped the king’s attention and Mme de Caylus confirms that Maintenon’s favour increased significantly after her return from Barèges.126 And Mme de Sévigné observed that Maintenon’s standing changed considerably after her jubilant arrival at court in November 1675: Nothing could be more agreeable than the surprise which greeted the King as he had not been expecting the duc du Maine until the following day; he entered the King’s chamber, supported only by the hand of Mme de Maintenon, which caused great transports of delight; M. de Louvois came to see the arrival of this governess … She supped chez Mme de Richelieu … and mocks the notion that she is much changed, but they say that she has.127 Françoise was still beautiful, and her gift for companionship and engaging conversation contrasted sharply with the intensity of Louis’s relations with Montespan, as Mme de Sévigné highlighted in letters to her daughter, Mme de Grignan. On 13 January, she wrote that I have supper every evening with Mme Scarron. She has an agreeable and marvellously sensible mind. It is a pleasure to hear her discussing the horrible disturbances of a region she knows so well, the desperation of that d’Heudicourt just when her position seemed so miraculous, the continual ravings of Lauzun, the black despondency or miserable troubles of the ladies of Saint-Germain … It is a most interesting thing to hear her talk about all of this. This discussion sometimes takes us far and wide, from one moral to another, sometimes Christian, sometimes political. We often talk about you. She loves your wit and your manners.128 Similarly, on 26 February 1672, Sévigné reiterated to her daughter that Mme Scarron’s company was “delicious.”129 Maintenon’s fortunes continued to rise in 1676. On 22 July Sévigné reported that “the ladyfriend of Mme de Montespan is more in favour than she has ever been – such favour that she has never been close to before.”130 This was seemingly confirmed when one month later Louis XIV dispatched Le Nôtre to Maintenon to transform the grounds of the château. On 26 August Mme de Sévigné reflected: “it is true that her favour is extreme.”131 Mme de Montespan retaliated by taking a restorative trip to the waters at Bourbon in May. Mme de Sévigné notified

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Mme de Grignan on 29 July 1676 that she had returned much lighter, and more dazzling than ever: “in a word a triumphant beauty to make all the ambassadors admire.”132 Perhaps predictably, Sévigné informed the same correspondent on 2 October that Montespan had regained her ascendancy in the affections of the king,133 who since the spring had embarked on a series of flamboyant affairs with the likes of Mme de Soubise, Mlle de Louvigny, Mlle de Rochefort-Théobon, and MarieElizabeth de Ludres, possibly to bolster his confidence after he had infamously failed to engage the enemy at Heurtebise on 10 May.134 Sévigné also disclosed that Athénaïs and Françoise had been reconciled.135 A manifestation of Louis XIV’s reunification with Montespan was the birth of another child, Françosie Marie, Mlle de Blois, at Maintenon on 4 May 1677. Nevertheless, Françoise refused to care for the child and instead embarked at the beginning of June on another curative trip to Barèges and Bagnères in the Pyrenees with the ailing duc du Maine. For this voyage the retinue was even more splendid. The duc’s entourage included an aumonier, six valets de chambre, and a personal physician,136 as well as Gui-Crescent Fagon (1638–1718)137 and a preceptor, Gobelin’s nephew the abbé Le Ragois (d. 1681), both of whom had been selected by Maintenon,138 who was attended by three ladies.139 Unfortunately, Maine’s health deteriorated to the point that his distraught governess warned Gobelin on 7 September that the duc would probably not survive, and they left for Versailles six days later.140 The governess was in constant contact with the court throughout her absence141 and would have been aware of what Mme de Sévigné on 11 June 1677 described as Montespan’s “triumphant” restoration in vanquishing Mme de Ludres,142 but it is difficult to discern Maintenon’s reaction to this. That she was clearly disillusioned on her return is apparent from her correspondence: she complained to Gobelin on 25 October 1677 that she was languishing at court and hoping that God would “break these chains, if it is necessary for my salvation.”143 The underlying message in Maintenon’s letters to Charles imploring her brother and his new wife to live more frugally 1677–79 was that she would no longer be able to support them so generously once she withdrew from court life, because the fountain of patronage would run dry. Françoise had endured more than enough in the first colourful and stressful forty-two years of her life to justify a well-earned retirement, but her intentions in that regard were thwarted by Louis XIV because he had become personally and romantically attached to her. The former governess quickly became a prominent figure at Versailles as the queen’s

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closest ally and the king’s constant companion. Maintenon’s fears about the court were well-founded, and the second half of her life would prove just as challenging as the first, compelling her often to rely on her own personal resources and capitalize on a superlative network of notable contacts established long before she was installed at Versailles.

2

Favourite Courtier and Secret Consort, 1680–1683

Ironically, it may have been Mme de Montespan who was largely responsible for dissuading Maintenon from abandoning the court. Athénaïs gave birth to another royal bastard, the comte de Toulouse, on 6 June 1678. She was therefore anxious to maintain an ally at court, one who was popular with the king and therefore, while a potential rival, ultimately less threatening than younger, more ambitious challengers. Mme Scarron was also an old friend who, for the time being at least, would remain loyal and compassionate. Unfortunately, Louis XIV’s roving eye soon fixated on the stunning teenager Marie-Angélique de Scorailles de Rousille de Fontanges, who had been named one of the filles d’honneur of Liselotte in October 1678.1 The king quickly became besotted, prompting Maintenon on 17 March 1679 to ask her confessor the abbé Gobelin to “pray to God for me, and pray to God for the King who is on the edge of a great precipice.”2 The principal casualty of Louis’s new infatuation was Mme de Montespan. On 11 April 1679 the king signalled the demotion by granting her the consolation of the rank and privileges of a duchesse as well as pensions totalling 21,000 livres. Three days later, she replaced the Countess of Soissons (Olympia Mancini) as surintendante de la maison de la Reine, which distanced her from the king’s private life. Athénaïs left Saint-Germain for Paris on 15 April “in a fit of jealousy,”3 then decamped temporarily to the château de Maintenon,4 whose proprietress had now also resolved to withdraw from court life for a more “tranquil” existence on her estates.5 Françoise understandably craved security and stability, and the court was, as Sévigné observed on 17 January 1680, a “very stormy” place.6 Nevertheless, Mme de Maintenon was now anxious to stay at court, informing her confessor on the day she took up her prestigious post on

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8 January 1680 that “I am truly not able to envisage a retreat soon; it is therefore necessary that I work here on my salvation.”7 Why did she accept Louis XIV’s offer? And what was her new agenda? Several historians have posited that their relations may had been sexual since the early 1670s.8 This seems unlikely, given the tone of Maintenon’s letters of that time and her general character, but her new determination to remain at court in constant contact with the king proves that an emotional attachment existed and that her outlook had diametrically changed. In requesting guidance from Gobelin in the same letter of 8 January, Maintenon offers an intriguing and relatively frank piece of self-analysis, one that outlines personal flaws, several of which she would never be able to remedy completely: My days are regulated and extremely solitary: I pray to God for a few moments when I get up; I go to two masses on Feast-days and one on working days. I recite my office every day and read a chapter of some good book. I pray to God when I go to bed and when I awake during the night I say a Laudate or Gloria Patri. I think often about God during the day and I dedicate my actions to him. I implore him to take me from here if I am unable to secure my salvation and besides I am not aware of any sins. I am moral and have good inclinations, which make me do little that is bad; I have a desire to please and to be esteemed, which puts me on guard against all my passions. Thus it is hardly ever actions that cause me to reproach myself as they are driven by very human motives, great vanity, much levity and dissipation, great freedom in my thoughts and judgments and a constraint in my words, which only comes from human prudence. This is my situation, more or less; prescribe the remedies you believe are most suitable.9 The reaction to Maintenon’s appointment may have been overwhelmingly positive in the propagandizing Mercure, but most courtiers were surprised, and those in the new dauphine’s immediate entourage, like her first dame d’atour Mme de Rochefort and her dame d’honneur, Françoise’s old friend the duchesse de Richelieu, were evidently aggrieved by this elevation of a person of lower noble status.10 Maintenon not only accompanied them during the royal trip to Châlons-sur-Marne in March 1680 to meet the new dauphine, but at one point during the journey, on the 7th, was also given the honour of sitting to the right of the king in his carriage, as the Gazette proclaimed.11 This confirmed that the couple were conspicuously close. The Italian chronicler Primi Visconti reflected incisively on the reasoning behind Maintenon’s advancement:

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Also furious was Mme de Montespan who had hoped to recover her favour with the King entirely, bored as he was with the illness of Mme de Fontanges. The whole court was astonished at the preference made for Maintenon, an unknown person, widow of the poet Scarron, born in America [sic], for whom the charge of the King’s natural children would seem the summit of her fortune. However, it wasn’t long before Mme de Rochefort was honoured by her company as the King spent much time with Mme de Maintenon to the prejudice of his visits to Mme de Montespan and Mlle de Fontanges. No one knew what to think because of her age; some regarding her as the King’s confidante, others as a go-between, others as a skilful person whom the King would use to help re-write his memoirs. It is certain that her appearance, behaviour and demeanour meant that no one quite knew with whom they were dealing. Many were of the opinion that there simply are men who have a preference for older women over younger ones. Mme de Montespan and the enemies of the new favourite did all they could to trace blemishes in her past and person, as is always the case at court with new elevations.12 The marquis de Sourches was more circumspect, reflecting that: the King therefore no longer had a mistress at the time when I commenced these memoirs, but he had given all his confidence to Mme la marquise de Maintenon, who, by her penetration, her manners and her exactitude in keeping secrets, merited the confidence that the greatest prince in the world honoured her with. He has created a charge expressly for her, having made her second dame d’atours de Mme la Dauphine; he has very long conversations with her every day, and this bears witness to the fact that he has for her all the consideration and friendship imaginable.13 However, Mme de Sévigné provides a more insightful chronological account of her old friend’s rise to a position of pre-eminence at court. Louis XIV’s passion for Fontanges titillated the gossips and further exasperated court clerics, like Bossuet and Bourdaloue, who had been cautioning the king to regulate his life for several years, with the latter preaching on the dangers of excessive commerce and adultery on 29 March 1680.14 As if to counter these criticisms, Louis spent more and more time enjoying Maintenon’s friendship and irreproachable company after placing her at court, as witnessed by Sévigné, who wrote on 20 March 1680 to Mme de Grignan that “the favour of Mme de

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Maintenon increases daily: there are never ending conversations with His Majesty.” Two days later she informed the same correspondent that “the favour of the person with a cold [sic] (as you’ve been calling her this winter) increases daily, as does the hatred between her and the sister of the man who received you so well [Montespan].”15 And on 25 March Bussy-Rabutin categorically confided to Mme de Montjeu that “no-one is on better terms with the King than Mme de Maintenon,”16 as Sévigné verified on 6 April: You are about to learn some news that is no longer a secret … Mme de Fontanges is a duchess with an income of 20,000 écus … Some people say that this establishment smacks of dismissal. I don’t really believe it, but time will show … Here is the present position: Mme de Montespan is furious. She wept a lot yesterday. You can imagine the tortures her pride is going through. It is even more outraged by the high favour of Mme de Maintenon. His Majesty often goes and spends a couple of hours after dinner in her room, chatting with a friendliness and free and easy air which makes that place the most desirable in the world.17 Louis XIV clearly appreciated her qualities as an engaging and charming companion, to the continued detriment of Montespan,18 and of Mme de Fontanges, whose promotion also heralded relegation. From July the new duchess began making regular retreats to the convents at Chelles and Port Royal-des-Champs, where she died of a miscarriage on 28 June 1681.19 Her death deeply unsettled the king, who consequently became even closer to Maintenon. As Mme de Sévigné shrewdly remarked on 17 July 1680: “she [Maintenon] has introduced him [Louis XIV] to a new land heretofore unknown to him, which is friendly intercourse and conversation without restraint or chicanery; he seems charmed by it.”20 Sévigné also registered, like Visconti, that Maintenon’s prominence had encouraged envious courtiers to scrutinize the first part of her life unfavourably,21 and a letter dated 21 June 1680 underscores why: I am told that conversations between His Majesty and Mme de Maintenon have become more frequent and more prolonged, that they last from six o’clock till ten; that the daughter-in-law [dauphine] sometimes pays her a short visit; that she finds them each sitting in a high-backed chair, and that as soon as the visit has finished they resume the threads of their conversation. My friend [Mme de Coulanges] informs me that one can no longer approach

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the lady without fear or respect, and that the ministers pay her court as do the others.22 On 11 September Sévigné accordingly estimated that Maintenon’s favour was “supreme.” Françoise was keenly aware that this was generating flatterers and enemies in equal measure. Mme de Soubise had fallen from grace in January 1680 partly because she reputedly made excessive demands of the king.23 Maintenon therefore commanded her avaricious and indiscrete brother on 6 July 1680: “Do not speak of my favour, neither in a positive or negative way … They [the courtiers] are enraged against me.”24 To deflect criticism and gain the queen’s confidence, Maintenon successfully orchestrated a rapprochement between Louis XIV and an elated Marie-Thérèse by August, which was widely acknowledged.25 Consequently on 18 September 1680 Mme de Sévigné wrote that she did “not know which of the courtiers first let it slip: they are calling Mme de Maintenon Mme de Maintenant [sic] under their breath … This dame de Maintenon or de Maintenant [sic] spends every evening from eight until ten with His Majesty. M. de Chamarande [premier maître d’hôtel of the dauphine] escorts her there and back openly in front of everybody.”26

mo r a l r e f o r m o f t h e court and ki ng Within twenty-four months the king’s religiosity had been revived, resulting in a moral reformation at court, where piety became fashionable. An astonished Visconti recorded in 1681 that the court and kingdom of France appeared to have undergone an ethical transformation: “Anyone who comes to France today and who had been here twenty years ago will be amazed … Debauchery, evil haunts, drunkenness, indecent dress, vices and obscene speech now will destroy anyone close to the King …; the kingdom appears to be a seminary.”27 This was overstated, but many contemporaries directly attributed this transformation to the dauphine’s second dame d’atour because Louis XIV had, as the abbé de Choisy pronounced, “sensibly listened to the wise councils of Mme de Maintenon.”28 Liselotte less generously blamed “the old whore,” and the king’s gullibility, complaining in 1686 that “he imagines that he is pious because he no longer sleeps with young women … It is quite certain that he no longer wants to hear any banter and has become so earnest that it is altogether frightening.”29 Lavallée subsequently compounded the stereotype, stating that “all people of quality, the pope and the bishops applauded the victory of Mme de Maintenon and saw that she had rendered a signal service to the King and to the state.”30

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Maintenon was a deeply devout and principled person, but here a number of stereotypes need to be debunked. Françoise d’Aubigné was not the miserable crusading bigot set on converting the court into a puritanical priory, nor was she the malicious Machiavellian aiming to dominate Louis XIV’s spiritual and political affairs. Neither was she the guileless sacrificial martyr whose only mission was to secure the sovereign’s salvation,31 although in her later pedagogical dialogues with the girls at Saint-Cyr she reasoned that even the king was constrained by the “martyrdom” of “service” and how dedicating oneself altruistically to others becomes “sweeter with the passage of each day” as “we become loved and respected” for it.32 Pressure to decontaminate and purify the court came not just from clerics like Bossuet, but also from the queen and from the king’s Jesuit confessor, Père de La Chaise. Dangeau noted that Bourdaloue used his Christmas Day sermon in 1684 to “attack vice and counselled the King to exterminate it in his court.”33 The new curate of Versailles, François Hébert, was especially keen to maintain standards of propriety and sobriety, particularly among the younger, more unruly elements. Unreservedly intolerant of all sinful behaviour, Hébert also attempted to broach the sensitive subject of the homosexuality and irregular lifestyle of the king’s brother Philippe, titled Monsieur, with Mme de Maintenon, who quickly clarified that “consideration” prevented Louis from censuring his brother.34 The king nonetheless personally began to police his courtiers’ conduct from 1684, establishing communion services on Thursdays and Sundays in the chapel at Versailles in March 1685,35 thus compelling even the Grand Condé, Louis II de Bourbon (1621–1686), to take his first communion in seventeen years, or so it was alleged.36 Liselotte was also castigated by the king in May 1685 for deriding dévot pretentions and for her general outspokenness, prompting her to protest in October 1687 that “court life is becoming so dull that one can hardly stand it any longer; for the King imagines that he is pious when he sees to it that everyone is bored and bothered.”37 A moral backlash had been inevitable following the eruption of the “Affair of the Poisons” in March 1679 and the shocking revelations about sorcery and sexual deviance uncovered by the special police tribunal of Nicolas de La Reynie in Paris.38 It tried 442 criminal suspects before its closure in July 1682 and a purge was simultaneously carried out at court that saw, as Sourches records, several distinguished nobles expelled from Versailles in disgrace, having been found guilty of “ultramontane debaucheries” such as gross indecency, rape, sexual torture, and homosexuality.39 These included the Grand Condé’s nephew, the prince de la Roche-sur-Yon,

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François-Louis de Bourbon (1664–1709), as well as the prince de Turenne and the marquis de Créquy, son of the maréchal.40 Several members of the dauphin’s entourage were also banished, including the chevaliers de SaintMaure and de Mailly, and Louvois’s first cousin de Tilladet, a former colonel de dragons and maréchal de camp. Several prominent Protestants were also exiled: M. de Caillemotte, who was the son of the deputy-general of the Huguenots, and M. de Ruvigny, as well as the comte de Roucy and M. le Vidame de Laon, sons of the comte de Roye of the prestigious house of La Rochefoucauld, to which Maintenon had kinship ties. The grand écuyer, Louis de Lorraine (1641–1718), known as M. le Grand,41 managed to save his eldest son, the comte de Brionne, but not his own brother, the comte de Marsan, who remained at court but never regained the king’s friendship.42 Louis XIV’s own bastard son produced with La Vallière, the comte de Vermandois, confessed that he too had been involved in degeneracy when interrogated by his father, who exiled his son to Normandy, where he died fighting in Flanders in 1683, aged sixteen.43 All of these developments changed the court. Maintenon would have encouraged and commended such alterations but was not solely responsible for them. Moreover, the moral revolution myth exaggerates the influence of dévot forces, which merely helped precipitate changes that were already ongoing and to a certain extent inevitable.44 The king was now well into his fifth decade and had abandoned adulterous pursuits, but that is not to say that his appetites had diminished. Louis XIV continued to enjoy sexual intercourse on a daily basis into his seventies, hunted avidly, and ate gluttonously until shortly before his death. With the court’s permanent move to Versailles in 1682, decorum needed rapidly to be established in this new environment, so an etiquette and conduct book, the Ceremonial, was published the same year. It defined ranks and set out protocols that grew ever more elaborate as the palace’s size and governmental significance increased.45 The royal family also expanded. Louis XIV’s first grandchild, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, was born on 6 August 1682, soon followed by his brother, Philippe duc d’Anjou, on 19 December 1683. Setting and projecting a “Most Christian” and paternal example and image was vital at this critical dynastic juncture when the controversial Gallican articles were being championed, Protestantism was being eradicated in France, and Louis XIV’s failure to assist in repelling the Turks from Vienna in 1683 intensified international opprobrium. Maintenon herself was a pragmatist,46 even when it came to religion. As she told the girls at Saint-Cyr: “piety can be too emotional – that’s never the case with reason,” which she cautioned “must rule our entire

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conduct,” because it was essential to be “mistress of yourself … and master of all your emotions.”47 She may have mentioned, in a missive to Gobelin dated 6 June 1682, her “pleasure of seeing, at the mass, the Most Christian King,” but a few lines later she regretted that the queen’s confessor unfortunately instructed her more like a Carmelite than a queen, with damaging consequences.48 In the same letter she asked Gobelin to compose some “short and solid” maxims on religion and the “duties of a prince” for the duc du Maine. She may therefore have behaved in a manner confirming the conclusion reached by many contemporaries and historians – that she was an obstreperous governess who did intervene recurrently to try and unite the royal family. Yet she had no desire to control the king. The marquise was keenly aware of her relatively minor noble status and accepted that her sex was subordinate. In her educational dialogue On the Necessity of Dependence, she stated that “men very much depend on each other; women even more so; that we are actually weak and timid; that we need to be helped and protected.”49 Maintenon also knew that Louis wanted to preserve the fiction that women were not permitted to intervene in public affairs, and that his consorts were not allowed to interfere in government business. Courtiers knew better, as the endless stream of requests funnelled through Maintenon made obvious. She did constantly strive to make the King more virtuous and felt obligated to do so, but she attempted to accomplish this by persuasion and inspirational conversation rather than with lugubrious exhortations, as Languet de Gergy reflected.50 If Maintenon adopted the black garments for which she became renowned, she still retained her keen sense of humour and fondness for gossip, as illustrated in a letter dated 29 March 1680 from Mme de Sévigné to her daughter: “Maintenon by a hazard made me a small visit of quarter of an hour and recounted a thousand things about the Dauphin.”51 And after the queen’s sudden death on 30 July 1683, Maintenon in a letter to her brother on 28 September mocked Montespan’s circle of former female favourites, whose new passion for devotion was motivated by a desperate desire to return to favour: I believe that the Queen asked God to convert the entire court; that of the King is admirable and those ladies that seemed the furthest from it no longer leave the churches. Mme de Montchevrueil, Mmes de Chevreuse and de Beauvillier, la princesse d’Harcourt and, in a word, all our dévots are not at church more often than Mme de Montespan, de Thianges, la comtesse de Gramont, la duchesse du

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Lude and Mme de Soubise; simple Sundays are like Easter Sundays of times gone by.52 Maintenon’s wardrobe was deliberately modest to avert attention, and her manner of deportment similarly unpretentious in stark contrast to her competitively ostentatious contemporaries. Ironically this habit may have made Françoise particularly distinctive at court, but she later emphasized to the girls at Saint-Cyr that “Saints Peter and Paul advise members of our sex to dress modestly, to wear neither gold nor silver, to avoid curling our hair.”53 For women to succeed socially, simplicity, courteousness, and reason must be employed at all times.54 The marquise stressed that humility, reserve, restraint, and thus discretion were crucial qualities to cultivate when outlining to her older students How to Maintain a Good Reputation in 1702.55 These skills had enabled her to succeed in Parisian high society, but why did she remain at Versailles if life at court was so challenging and troubling? Espousing a mantra that would become increasingly familiar, Maintenon did not take direct responsibility for this decision. As she told the most senior class at SaintCyr in an Instruction on Avoiding the Occasions of Sin in 1710: What I find so consoling in the state where I am is that God has placed me here. I never wanted a single moment to be in it [the court]. I’ve even desired to leave it. At first, I just couldn’t understand why God would give me such a desire to flee the court and yet summon me to spend my entire life there. My confessors explained that one was precisely the reason for the other. This aversion to the court would act as protection against all the temptations I would find there.56 This stance perhaps helps explain why envious contemporary observers, like Saint-Simon, and modern historians alike have accused her of ravenous ambition and duplicity.57 Maintenon did perhaps understandably overstate her abhorrence of court life to her confessors, but to an extent the allegations of her critics still stand in that there are many instances throughout her time at court, and especially initially, when the marquise candidly conveyed to correspondents how much she relished life at Saint-Germain,58 Versailles, and the other satellite palaces like Chambord, Marly,59 and later the Trianon: “The beauty of Versailles is astonishing and I am delighted to be here; we are going to savour all sorts of pleasures: there will be often be balls chez le roi, comedies chez Monsieur, promenades

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everywhere, midnight feasts for us – ultimately the King wants everybody to be diverted.”60 Piety at court was vigorously promoted, but entertainments flourished nonetheless, with the marquise writing from Versailles on 25 June 1684 to her brother Charles that: “the court is very gay and extremely beautiful … He [the King] is happy and there is a great union in the royal family.”61 And Maintenon informed the same correspondent on 8 October 1684 that “we are enjoying ourselves at Chambord. The weather is very beautiful and … the King hunts every day and in the evening there are other pleasures. The Dauphine works wonders and everybody is content. We all eat with the King and that generates a very agreeable familiarity. One day there is a ball, another a comedy.”62 Maintenon even declared to her brother Charles on 15 September 1682 that Versailles, contrary to conventional wisdom, helped improve her physical condition: “my health is very good and the air at Versailles clears half of my migraines.”63 These ejaculations of enthusiasm often included some typically Maintenonian qualifications. For example, on 5 August 1685 she reported to Charles from Versailles that “it is true that the King often gives fêtes and that I go to them less than I am able; I do not know how to remain awake without being greatly inconvenienced … Marly is fort a la mode [greatly in fashion]; we spent the whole day there yesterday and I will return there once the spectacle has begun, loving rest better than pleasure.”64

amb it io n : r e s p e c ta b il i ty and reputati on Maintenon’s continuing preoccupation at court was therefore to attain respectability and reputation both for herself and for her relations and to consolidate her position and fortify her association with Louis XIV and Marie-Thérèse. With the queen still alive, and a reconciliation between Marie-Thérèse and the king effected by Maintenon, the position of first mistress was not coveted. Lavallée astutely remarks that during the years 1681, 82, 83 [the letters of] Madame de Maintenon bear witness to a peace of mind in contrast with [previous missives]. “My life is tranquil,[”] she said, [“]all of which matches my temperament.” She had achieved her goal, in terms of her ambition (because was she able to predict the death of the Queen?): she had the friendship of the King, the confidence of the Queen, the esteem of honnètes gens: “she is the soul of the court,” as Mme de Sévigné said.65

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However, Maintenon did not dispense patronage all that sparingly once placed in the dauphine’s entourage, despite warning her brother about the dangers of extravagance. She did complain that Charles’s demands were “unreasonable”66 especially considering – as she pointed out on several occasions – that he was much richer than his sister, with the governorship of Cognac alone remunerating 12,000 livres per year. Françoise also insisted that he moderate his lifestyle, which unrealistically aped that of a “grand seigneur,”67 but Charles’s unremitting demands continued to be liberally and undeservingly rewarded. Ministers were again hounded for gratuities and payments,68 and a six-year tax-farming concession was negotiated in his favour in 1681 worth 18,000 livres per annum.69 Maintenon, as ever, implored him to invest his wealth prudently and threatened to ration and delay disbursements,70 but Charles heedlessly squandered his income and borrowed heavily on future returns, propelling him further into debt.71 The marquise therefore took care of a number of her brother’s illegitimate and legitimate children, the first of whom, Charlot, was brought up at Maintenon.72 She also continued to play an active role in the duc du Maine’s upbringing, selecting, in tandem with Montespan, his educational tutors,73 and ensuring that the marquis de Montchevreuil, Henri de Mornay (1622–1706), the husband of her great friend, was appointed the duc’s governor in December 1679.74 This appointment enabled Maintenon to prolong her role as governess, offering advice on how best to accelerate the duc’s development, which continued to be impeded by illness. For example, when Montechevreuil took his new charge on another curative trip to Barèges in 1681, Maintenon sent a barrage of officious letters brimming with instructions that unhelpfully contradicted the local doctor, La Guttère, whom she had formerly favoured, again revealing traits in her character that contemporaries loathed.75 She also arranged that Fagon be appointed premier médecin to the dauphine in January 168076 and that her old friend Madeleine de Scudéry be awarded a pension of 2,000 livres in March 1683 by the king, whom the novelist thanked in person during an audience at which the marquise was present.77 As Maintenon’s standing rose, her relations with the understandably envious dauphine soured. The latter began to refuse the services of her second lady of the wardrobe,78 but Louis XIV intervened and orchestrated a rapprochement in September 1682.79 Part of the problem was Maintenon’s inferior social status, which she tried to address by cultivating a closer association with the ancient and more distinguished d’Aubigné de Tigny family from Anjou, who first contacted her in the spring

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of 1682.80 The families were distant relations, with both lines descending from Thibaut de d’Aubigné, seigneur of Jousselinière de La Touche, in the fifteenth century.81 The connection was somewhat tenuous,82 but Maintenon welcomed the association, which proved mutually beneficial. Further research provided evidence of a line of nobility that enabled her brother Charles legitimately to be accepted into the Order of the SaintEsprit in 1688.83 Louis d’Aubigné, baron de Tigny, served successfully in the army, becoming marquis then maréchal de camp and governor of Saumur. Maintenon personally managed the ecclesiastical career of his brother, Claude Maur (d. 1719), who was named count-bishop of Noyon – one of the six ecclesiastical peerages – in 1701.

mai n t e n o n ’ s ro l e in p ro testant pers ecuti on Maintenon had achieved a degree of respectability, but further progress was hampered by the fact that many of her relatives remained staunch Calvinists. In her role as matriarch, Maintenon expressed her desire to reconcile the family because, as she informed her cousin Philippe de Villette on 5 April 1678, “I suffer from their disunion.”84 Keenly aware that the reputation of her family should enhance rather than detract from her own, Maintenon set about converting them, using devious and often ruthless methods to effect this starting in 1678. This was first mooted in a letter to Philippe’s wife, Marie-Anne, 7 April 1677.85 Then in a missive to Philippe dated 9 February 1678 Maintenon confided that “I do not know what the King will do for you if you do convert, but he seems to me to have a desire and particular care for it that I dare not ask him the reason why.”86 Maintenon was much more explicit on 5 April 1681, explaining that Philippe’s religion was blocking his career by creating an “insurmountable exclusion” and that this would affect his children in a similar fashion.87 She had warned Philippe about this as early as 1672, reminding him again in 1675 that his religion was “an obstacle to this embassy [to Moscow] and all the other advantages that you can hope for; I don’t want this to be the primary reason for your conversion, but I confess that it would give me great joy to see you in a position to make your fortune and your salvation.”88 This reluctance to abjure, she again underscored, would also adversely affect his family. Yet Maintenon later conceded, rather intriguingly, on 16 July 1684 that “we push too far our aversion for your religion and you push too far the prejudices of your childhood.”89 This complex episode is a separate topic in its own right, and elements of it are rightly described by Lavallée as “odious,”90 but they do

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prove that Maintenon did not play a leading role in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Several historians have demonstrated that zealously Catholic corporations, confraternities, orders, and institutions, such as certain provincial Estates, Parlements, and General Assemblies of the Clergy, as well as the Society of Jesus and the Company of the Holy Sacrament, had since the 1650s been pressuring the Crown to reduce rights for Protestants, who by 1678 were predicting their “impending doom.”91 This was perhaps unsurprising given that the legislative campaign against the Huguenots started in earnest in the 1650s. It encouraged General Assemblies of the Clergy to intensify their attacks on the Calvinist community, demanding that their “synagogues of Satan” be demolished and in 1665 that the Edict of Nantes be abolished.92 Protestant repression therefore started long before Maintenon’s rise to prominence and was infamously accelerated with the deployment of the dragonnades, who were billeted in Huguenot households in Poitou in 1681 and across France in great numbers three years later.93 Louis XIV had stated in his Memoirs of 1661 that the Edict of Nantes of 1598 was, as his grandfather Henry IV had believed, a temporary measure: “As to the greater of my subjects of the supposedly reformed religion … I am still a long way, my son, from having exhausted everything that I have in mind for recalling peacefully those whom birth, education, and most often a zeal without knowledge hold in good faith to these pernicious errors.”94 The court had quickly labelled the marquise and her circle as dévots, and by the 1680s Louis himself had become as “devoted” to religious ceremonial and ritual as his wife, but his piety was more superficial and less philosophical. It seemed that his interest in doctrine was only aroused if a dispute could be ended or instigated to the incremental benefit of his gloire or the possible extinction of novelty or nonconformity. And as Voltaire rightly observed, the domestic and foreign policies of “Louis Le Grand” in the 1680s were hubristic, reflecting the king’s obsession with “glory such that he was always greedy of.”95 But Louis XIV had grown up in the tradition of “one king, one law, one faith” and therefore viewed the Huguenots, and also the Jansenists, as an unacceptable anomaly and a threat to that monarchical unity as expressed through his person. A reading of Dangeau’s Journal and the marquis de Sourches’s Mémoires shows that the pace at which wholesale conversions were being accomplished shortly before the Revocation in October 1685 theoretically justified the king’s claim that an edict of toleration was no longer necessary. The entire Huguenot populations of towns like Montauban, Nîmes, Castres, Cognac, Uzès, Montpellier, Grenoble, and Lyon abjured between 2 September and 16 October,96 and 50,000

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Protestants converted in the generalité of Bordeaux on 6 September.97 Early in the year, on 24 January, the marquis de Sourches had observed that “the King is still making war on the Huguenots.”98 And this operation had been successful to the extent that the marquis could record on 6 October that “one hopes in a short time the heresy of Calvin will be entirely banished from this province, where she has reigned for such a long time, and in a year or two be able to banish them entirely from the kingdom.”99 This optimism no doubt reflected popular opinion throughout France, where, as one historian has asserted, intolerance had become fashionable.100 It had been enthusiastically promoted by the Jesuits as highlighted in a letter dated 22 February 1677 in which nuncio Varese informed Cardinal Cybo that he had been assured by the king’s confessor, Père de La Chaise, that once the Dutch war was over Louis XIV would “abolish this nest of heretics.”101 Further proof of Louis XIV’s intentions came in a circular transmitted to senior churchmen on 10 July 1682 in which he proclaimed that “the reunion of the R.P.R. into the folds of the church” had been his ardent intention since the beginning of his reign. And that this “holy enterprise, so advantageous to the glory of God and good of my state” could only be accomplished with the assistance of the clergy, whom he demanded must provide “indications of your zeal for Religion” by employing “any measures” to bring about a “happy conclusion.”102 The bishop of Luçon and the archbishop of Reims had dutifully requested that dragoons be dispatched to their dioceses to convert recalcitrant Huguenots, and the General Assembly of the Clergy, meeting in the autumn of 1682, had branded their king a “new Constantine,”103 voted him 3 million livres, and drafted a pastoral letter to the Protestant community explaining Louis XIV’s position, proclaiming that “the great prince now covets (having conquered abroad) the final palm of triumph he esteems more than all others.” Additionally, the clergy starkly warned that “if you refuse God will no longer ask us to give an account of your souls” and that “terrible misfortunes” would befall them as “schismatics.”104 A specially convened meeting of the council of conscience in December 1684 told the king that not only did he have the legal right to revoke the Edict of Nantes, but also that he was obliged to do so. And the Assembly of the Clergy meeting three years later in 1685 made it even plainer in a summary of the memoirs submitted to Louis XIV, which stated that “the destruction of heresy is our unique concern.”105 When the clergy met at Saint-Germain on 18 June 1685 they unanimously voted Louis XIV 3 million livres, which was the sum he had demanded,106 but Sourches notes that three days later “the prelates of the Assembly … came to make

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to the King their last harangue on the subject of religion.” 107 Moreover, they presented Louis with memoirs on 1 July explicitly outlining their criticisms of Huguenot practices and again calling for the outright abolition of Calvinism.108 Clearly the clerics felt that the king could finally be decisively swayed.

ru t h l e s s c o n vers i ons Maintenon had been brought up in the Villette-Mursay family, who were dedicated Calvinists, and she would no doubt have worshipped with them and their four children – Madeleine (b. 1621), Aymée (b. 1623), Philippe (b. 1627), and Marie (b. 1633) – at the local Huguenot temple. She was therefore capable at this juncture of appreciating their predicament, if perhaps not sympathizing with it. Maintenon marvelled, as did Sévigné and others, at the “miraculous” scale and speed of the conversions,109 telling her superior at Saint-Cyr on 20 September 1685 to “think and rejoice that 100,000 souls have converted in 1 month in Guyenne; those of Xaintes have converted after deliberation; and my brother [as governor] has harangued those in Cognac … The missions of the bishops give consolation and money is provided for churches and books to educate the masses, which has a most marvellous effect, reaching miraculous heights – the King spares no expense.”110 She nevertheless abhorred the use of physical violence, believing, as did Fénelon, her future mentor, that education and persuasion were the only means by which permanent and authentic abjurations could be secured, and she was confident that the seven hundred missionaries the king had dispatched, and the large sums put at the bishops’ disposal,111 would have the desired effect. She may have complained to her cousin Philippe on 4 September 1687 about relatives on his side of the family whose conversions were overdue, and she had assured him of her conviction that insincere renunciations were “abominable,”112 but her endemic pragmatism could be quite mercenary. She may have implored her brother Charles on 27 September 1672, when he was governor of Amersfoort, not to be “inhuman” to the Huguenots in his custody and to exercise “gentleness” in their treatment,113 but she also recommended that he exploit and profit from their plight by purchasing devalued land in Poitou hastily abandoned by emigrating Protestants.114 Moreover, the English ambassador, Sir William Trumbull, noted in 1685, while the court was at Chambord, that Maintenon received a petition from one of the leading Huguenots about the “miserable … inhumanities” being inflicted on Protestant communities. This she flatly denied, assuring pastor Janisson that he was deceived:

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the king was well informed about all the affairs in his kingdom, and she would not meddle in such matters.115 These views unsurprisingly replicated what key informants had told Louis XIV and what he believed, or wanted to believe, was the case. Maintenon therefore welcomed the prospect of the reunification of the French Catholic Church, and the Edict of Fontainebleau was signed and sealed in her apartments on 18 October 1685.116 Further proof that she could not be held directly accountable for the Revocation itself was the observation Maintenon made almost five years earlier to Mme de Villette on 23 December 1680, concerning patronage obtainable from the king, that “the Huguenots are not able to hope for anything.”117 Accordingly, historians now agree that Maintenon’s role has been grossly exaggerated.118 Even so, Henry Baird has alleged, perhaps justly, that although she was unable to prevent measures taken against the R.P.R., the marquise was guilty of “cold blooded indifference.”119 Furthermore, several scholars have rightly argued that pressure was successfully exerted on the Crown by “devotional” forces to revoke the Edict of Nantes, noting that Maintenon emerged in the 1680s as one of their most prominent advocates.120 So she must, to an extent, shoulder some of the blame. The period 1660–1715, for example, saw the founding of seventeen new female dévot teaching congregations like the Dames de Saint-Maur, which was established in Paris in 1676 by Nicolas Barré.121 It proved so successful that by the time of the king’s death, the Dames were running a school in every parish in the capital.122 Protestant conversions were paramount, and these congregations successfully targeted Huguenot children, encouraging Louis XIV to deploy twenty schoolmistresses from the Dames de Saint-Maur to supplement missionaries proselytizing in Languedoc and Bordeaux in 1685 and 1686.123 And for similar reasons, Maintenon avidly enrolled Calvinist pupils from all over France at her own academy at Saint-Cyr, either for re-education or as a reward for renouncing their Protestant faith.124 In fact, SaintCyr was directly inspired by institutions like the Dames de Saint-Maur and the Filles de La Sainte-Famille, which had been founded in Paris in 1661 by Maintenon’s old friend from the Marais, Marie Bonneau de Miramion. This school became known as the “Miramionnes” and enrolled many young Protestant girls for reinstruction, including several sent by Maintenon. More established and influential governmental figures must be held accountable for the wave of persecution that culminated in the Edict of Fontainebleau. These include the king’s Jesuit confessor, Père de La Chaise; zealous intendants like Foucault;125 the minister for the R.P.R.,

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Châteauneuf, who helped edit the edict;126 and the minister for the marine, the royal household, and Paris, the marquis de Seignelay, who, unlike his father Colbert, was passionately anti-Protestant. He helped draft much of the repressive legislation against the R.P.R., worked closely with La Reynie, lieutenant-general of police of Paris, to remove them from the capital, and declared on 14 April 1680 that Huguenot officers would be purged from the navy.127 These measures strongly buttressed chancellor Michel Le Tellier’s dogged campaign to outlaw Protestantism,128 and historians now generally agree that much of the impetus for revoking the Edict of Nantes in the autumn of 1685 came from Louis’s most long-standing and trusted adviser rather than from his son, the war minister Louvois.129 Le Tellier died on 30 October at the grand old age of eighty-two, but his terminal decline had begun on 12 August, just three days after Louis had imparted to the duc D’Estrées that he had been surprised by the sheer numbers of conversions reported and that God therefore clearly wanted the French king “to bring to perfection the holy work he had begun, which was the conversion of all his subjects.”130 Little wonder then that the deployment of dragonnades was further accelerated at this juncture, with Louvois recording that there had been 130,000 conversions between 29 August and 17 September. Moreover, Le Tellier wrote the first draft of the Edict of Fontainebleau, in tandem with his second son Maurice, the Archishop of Reims, and procureur-général Harlay, at the beginning of October and the king’s council then considered it on the 8th. The chancellor was convinced that this would bring stability to the kingdom and gain glory and ensure salvation both for himself and for his master. Recently Sarmant and Stoll have analyzed the views of Le Tellier’s contemporaries and particularly those of his ministerial colleague, relation, and “disciple,”131 Claude Le Peletier, who was much more skeptical about the mass conversions.132 They therefore concluded that the venerable chancellor was the “true master of the game.”133 Maintenon may have condemned conversions made under extreme duress, but her enthusiasm for attaining abjurations is evidenced in her determination to convert all the Protestants for whom she felt responsible. She made it clear to her intendant at Maintenon, Guignonville, how essential it was that the Huguenots on her estates be converted “using gentleness, because that would give her “great joy,”134 and importantly she notified him on 12 June 1681 that “the King has just made a declaration that children over seven years are able to declare which religion they want to be.”135 In order to Catholicize her relations, Maintenon consequently resorted to deceit, kidnapping, and spiritual intimidation, and these methods were endorsed and employed by other so-called moderates, including

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Bossuet. With the connivance and assistance of relatives and officials like her brother Charles, her first cousin to convert, Mme de Fontmort (Aymée de Villette-Mursay, who had married René Jouslard de Fontmort in 1658), the abbé Gobelin, and Colbert de Seignelay, children were forcibly removed from the families of Maintenon’s Villette, Saint-Hermine, and Caumont d’Adde cousins to establishments in Paris, or placed under her own watchful eye at court in November and December 1680, where they were pressured to renounce their reformed faith.136 In the case of thirteen-year-old Marie-Anne-Françoise de SaintHermine (1670–1734), nicknamed “Minette,” the marquise instructed her own brother Charles on 19 December 1680 to extract a letter from the girl stating that she wanted to become a Catholic. This would enable Maintenon to send Charles a lettre de cachet to seize the child, because, as she explained, no means other than “la violence” – effectively a lawful abduction – could be employed, for the family would not readily consent, having learned of the treatment and conversion of young Monsieur de Villette-Mursay.137 His father, Philippe, head of the Villette family, was particularly aggrieved by the marquise’s behaviour as he had been persuaded to accompany his two sons Philippe (1667–1706) and HenriBenjamin (1668–1692) to sea to help them embark on naval careers in November 1680. The eldest son, however, joined a different vessel than his father and brother, and once they were afloat Philippe junior was sent to Versailles, where he was indoctrinated by Gobelin and converted.138 In the same letter of 19 December Maintenon referred to officials spearheading the crusade to convert the kingdom, such as Marillac and Michel Amelot de Gournay, Archibishop of Tours from 1673 to 1687, as “our friends.” She also clarified her definition of “violence.” The marquise believed that her intrusions, while forceful, were not unwarranted or disproportionate, reminding her brother that “as to the other conversions [in Cognac], you cannot make too many, but do not corrupt morals in preaching the doctrine.”139 Like Bossuet, she disdained cruelty but sanctioned severity. Philippe’s sister, Marthe-Marguerite (1673–1729), found herself transported reluctantly to Paris and then to Saint-Germain along with Louis-Henri de Saint-Hermine and his other sister, Madeleine-Sylvie, plus Mlle de Caumont d’Adde. It was an upsetting experience, as Marthe-Marguerite would recount in her Memoirs, and one that initially left her disinclined to convert.140 She was forcibly installed with the Ursulines at Pontoise and then in Maintenon’s own institution at Reuil, where she finally confessed in February 1682.141 Her brother Henri-Benjamin (1668–1692), nicknamed “Marmande,” was also placed in Maintenon’s charge at court, where he was Catholicized

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and elevated.142 To ensure that their father did not hamper this process Maintenon arranged for him to be kept on an extended tour of naval duty in America by the maréchal d’Éstrées until March 1681.143 The marquise atoned for her resort to “la violence” by emphasizing to Philippe in a long letter dated 5 April 1681 that her intentions were “good and right”144 and, indeed, imperative because “if God preserves the King then in twenty years time there will not be any Huguenots.”145 She went on, rather hypocritically, to apologize for employing violence to effect their abjurations, but this did little to appease the evidently enraged parents. Maintenon also endeavoured to pacify Mme de Villette by informing her in detail on 23 December 1680 about the excellent progress her children were making; two days later, however, she wrote more bluntly that “your letter made me pity you, or to put it better your state; but ultimately you are a Catholic, and it is impossible that, in your heart, you cannot be anything other than very pleased to see your children on the path on which I have placed them.”146 Nevertheless, Mme de Villette was not able to visit her children at court until May 1683.147 In another long letter to her cousin Philippe on 16 January 1682, Maintenon reported on his children’s development and expressed her hope to “see you in a condition that permits you to profit from the kindness of the King, and from the esteem in which I hold you.”148 This was no empty promise. Sourches observed on 12 February 1685 that a pension of 12,000 livres had been granted to François de La Rochefoucauld, comte de Roucy (1660–1721), eldest son of Frédéric, comte de Roye (1632–90), and added that “the King endeavours to show how he rewards people of quality who abandon the R.P.R.”149 Villette’s eldest son, Philippe, consequently received a pension and a place in the military academy in January 1681,150 and he was later joined there by his brother, Henri-Benjamin. They both trained with the musketeers in 1684 and went on to have distinguished careers in the army.151 Philippe, comte de Mursay, was appointed cornet in the company of the light horse of the King’s Guard in December 1684 and mestre de camp in 1688. For his younger brother Henry (1668–1692), the king purchased a regiment of the queen’s dragoons on 3 January 1685 at a cost of 20,000 écus, although Dangeau points out that this was granted not so much because Maintenon had asked for it, but because he had served in the musketeers for a year.152 He subsequently gained the illustrious title of chevalier. Henry’s career was cut short when he was fatally wounded on 3 August 1692 at the Battle of Steenkerque.153 In January 1683 Maintenon again urged Philippe to “think of an affair so important, humiliate yourself before God, and ask him to enlighten you.”154 She did so again on 16 July 1684 when she intimated that

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“Seignelay is dying with envy to serve you … [and] I have given your letter to the King; he esteems you as much as you could desire and you will be able to serve him better if you want to … I am anxious to share my happiness with you.”155 Despite these temptations and injunctions, Philippe remained recalcitrant, as did the three Saint-Hermine children. Evidently irritated, Maintenon had informed Charles on 5 February 1681 that “M. de Saint-Hermine and his [two] sisters are leaving on Sunday; they have all made une belle resistance and they are making une belle retraite; I am persuaded that they will repent of it.”156 Several never did, however. Of the family of nine, six members – Elie, Louis-Henri, Alexandre, JeanPharamond, “Minette,” and their mother Anne-Madeleine – eventually did abjure in 1686 and 1687, albeit often unwillingly after their households had been occupied by dragoons, or after they had been taken into custody.157 Consequently, Maintenon implored her brother Charles in the aforementioned letter to protect the recently Catholicized Aymée de Fontmort from exposure to the “fury of her family.”158 Maintenon’s frustration is to an extent understandable: her correspondence makes clear that the revocation was inevitable and that renunciations were therefore crucial. She protested to Charles on 19 May 1681 that “I believe that the only Huguenots left in Poitou will be our relations, as it seems to me that everyone else has been converted.”159 It is difficult to assess to what degree her peremptory interventions into the lives of her Calvinist relatives were completely justifiable and selflessly motivated, but as Baird concedes, “she sacrificed everything to the inclination of the King and to the resolution which he had adopted long since with regard to this matter.”160 Ultimately her actions resembled those taken by other prominent figures with close kinship ties to Protestants. Louis may have been satirized for taking as his consort the wife of a former prominent frondeur, but in the event, it was unacceptable for Maintenon to have heretical relatives. Not dissimilarly, the aging Admiral Duquesne (1610–1688) was not compelled to convert, but Louis insisted that his sons and nephews do so. Moreover, it would have been impossible for Maintenon to deflect what was described by one Huguenot émigré from Champagne, Josias de Robillard, as a “storm across all of France … that … had carried away nearly all the Protestants.”161

m a r r iag e to the ki ng Maintenon’s relationship with the king changed dramatically when on 30 July 1683 incompetent doctors hastened the death of Queen MarieThérèse. Cordelier suggests that Louis and Maintenon became lovers in

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Flanders in the summer of 1680 and that Maintenon agreed to become his mistress in August 1681, perhaps permanently to terminate Louis XIV’s short dalliance with Mlle Doré,162 who went on to become fille d’honneur to the duchesse de Bourbon in 1685.163 This seems improbable, with the queen still alive, and considering that Maintenon was renowned for her probity. But she had evidently become an integral part of the king’s entourage, accompanying him, the queen, Monsieur, Madame, and the dauphin (minus the pregnant dauphine) to Alsace and Franche-Comté to inspect troops and military bases from 26 May until their return to Versailles on 24 July.164 With almost all evidence deliberately destroyed and no certificate extant, dating the marriage of Louis XIV and Françoise d’Aubigné is difficult.165 Maintenon’s guarded missives nonetheless betray that a seismic change took place in her life in the late summer and early autumn of 1683. The queen’s sudden death disrupted the original plan to stay at Chambord in September and then Fontainebleau in October, while Versailles was cleaned and prepared for occupation over the winter months beginning in November. The king travelled instead to Saint-Cloud and then, with a small section of the court, moved to Fontainebleau on 3 August, where he was joined by Maintenon on the 5th. On the following day she wrote to Mme de Brinon explaining that neither she nor the king was in a “good state.” Her breathlessness had passed, but she was still suffering from insomnia; meanwhile, the king had been ill for two days, prompted by an excess of bile brought on by a week of “agitations,” which caused Maintenon further anxiety.166 She disclosed to her brother on 7 August that her afflictions continued but revealingly added that “the reason which prevents me from seeing you is so beneficial and so glorious that you could only feel joyful about it.”167 Clearly, the king had successfully proposed marriage and promised that the ceremony would be carried out as soon as they had returned to Versailles, but problems remained, despite Maintenon being further honoured by the Papacy, which had decided to give a number of gifts intended for the queen, including the relics of St Candide, to the “very illustrious and very excellent dame Françoise d’Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon.”168 It seems Louis anticipated that the prospect of formalizing their union would enable Maintenon to indulge his advances by mitigating her sickening sense of guilt. But she apparently continued to resist for some days, asking Brinon on 12 August to send her a number of devotional texts, and disclosing that the king needed their prayers more than ever “to withstand a condition contrary to his inclinations and his habits,” whereas she was returning to her “natural self” and anxious to focus

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on her salvation.169 Maintenon’s unease nonetheless continued and was understandable, considering that her first marriage to Scarron cannot have been properly consummated. She complained to Brinon on 18 August that she had been so overwhelmed with visits since the queen’s death that she had “hardly had time to breathe” and was composing the letter while enduring “one of the worst migraines I have ever had.”170 Plainly distressed and in need of counsel, Maintenon summoned her confessor, Gobelin, who arrived on 18 August. But the relentless audiences and the king’s almost constant presence curtailed their time together, and she was unable fully to unburden herself, as she explained a month later. By 22 August the situation had altered again when the marquise defensively, and significantly, notified the same correspondent that she had wanted with all my heart to hide the present I have received from Rome, because I am so glorified in this world by certain good intentions willed by God that I have reason to fear being humiliated and confounded in the next … There is nothing to answer on the point about Louis and Françoise – these are folies [sic]. I should merely like to know why she would not like it, because I would never have believed that a proscription, on this matter, would have come from her.171 The inquiry alluding to a betrothal came originally from Mlle de Scudéry in Paris, where rumours were already circulating, prompting Maintenon to request that Brinon meet with the novelist to glean all the information she could, whether good or bad, as she was prepared for the worst, stoically concluding that “here is a new scene, that excites everybody.”172 Two days later Maintenon informed her brother that the king’s sorrow was a “terrible augmentation to my own” but that she was starting to feel more like herself. The period of mourning at Fontainebleau evidently drove the couple even closer together, and this was compounded by two further developments. On 6 September Louis sustained another serious blow when his most industrious and powerful minister, Colbert, died from kidney stones aged sixty-four. Moreover, the following day the king suffered what at first appeared to be a serious riding accident, which made Maintenon and the other courtiers “tremble.” Fortunately, it transpired that he had merely dislocated his arm. The marquise was greatly relieved, recording her admiration for the king’s sangfroid in a communication to her brother on 7 September. In the same and subsequent missives some sort of proof that a wedding was imminent can be extrapolated, for feelings of contentment

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and serenity can be detected, with Maintenon confiding to Charles that “I am becoming an old woman, very relaxed and very mild.”173 More revealing is a letter to Gobelin dated 19 September 1683, following his abortive meeting with Maintenon at Fontainebleau the day before: I have had the vapours and all that I have suffered has, for some time, troubled my health a little … I deeply regret the last visit that you made. The time was badly employed and you could sense only a proportion of my agitations. They are finished, at least in appearances, and I am in a state of peace about which I will be more pleased to talk to you than the disturbances we discussed. It is said that we shall remain here no longer than three weeks, but it is not known whether we will go to Chambord or to Versailles. The King is, thanks to God’s grace, in perfect health.174 By 28 September Louis’s arm had fully healed and apartments for Maintenon had been prepared, enabling the court to return to Versailles at the beginning of October. The dauphine travelled there first on the 6th, followed on the 9th by the king’s coach carrying the dauphin, the princesse de Conti, Liselotte, Louis, and Maintenon. Historians have consequently identified a letter from Maintenon to Brinon dated 11 October as proof that the marriage took place on 9 or 10 October, late in the evening to maximize secrecy: “I have received your letters and am dying with envy to see you, but I cannot tell you when that will be. I have hardly had the time to recognize myself and this moment has been snatched from my sleep and another from when [the king] has not yet entered my chamber.”175 In his memoirs Languet de Gergy states that he was informed by the archbishop of Narbonne that the wedding took place around this time and that the ceremony was apparently witnessed by the war minister Louvois, the king’s premier valet and confidant, Bontemps, and Maintenon’s close friends Madame and Monsieur de Montchevreuil, although the latter would have had to dash 170 miles from the siege of Courtrai to attend. The archbishop of Paris, Harlay de Champvallon, supposedly gave the blessing,176 and Père de La Chaise, the king’s confessor, celebrated the nuptial mass. Significantly, these details were reiterated in the recollections of Maintenon’s secretary, Mlle d’Aumale,177 and her niece, MartheMarguerite de Villette-Mursay, the future comtesse de Caylus.178 Evidence that Louis and Françoise’s relationship had changed can be found in the new tone of confidence discernible in some of Maintenon’s missives, which started to address correspondents on the king’s behalf,

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thus signalling to courtiers and petitioners that communicating with the marquise might potentially be as effective as addressing the sovereign himself. For example, after the queen’s passing the marquise d’Huxelles had sent compliments and condolences to Louis XIV and to Maintenon, who replied on 13 September that “the King has commanded me to thank you.”179 On 25 September Maintenon notified M. de Montchevreuil, who was supervising M. de Vermandois at the siege of Courtai, that “the King has received your letter and commanded me to reply, on his behalf, that he is very pleased that you are happy with M. de Vermandois … and he has charged me to inform you to make, about that, all the expenses that you judge appropriate” to support the young prince.180 Moreover, on 23 September Maintenon had written directly to the prince himself in response to his letter asking whether the king approved of his conduct, which had also been designed to curry favour with the new consort. Maintenon reassured Vermandois that the king had nothing but praise for his son and that this could be further augmented by not having “too much deference for the advice he gives you in private in order to profit from in public.”181 Repeated references to Bontemps, and how Maintenon was benefiting from his services, also suggest that she and Louis were now more intimate than ever.182 Furthermore, Mme de Brinon was reprimanded in November 1683, and a nun, Mme de Bonnevault, was removed from Reuil in December, after both were found guilty of conversing indiscreetly about the clandestine marriage.183 Details of the wedding continued to be kept secret, and it was never publicly celebrated or acknowledged. Mlle d’Aumale reflected that she didn’t doubt that her mistress had married the king, although she had never openly admitted it. On the one occasion when the subject of her relations with Louis XIV came up, Maintenon intriguingly admitted that although it sometimes made her life at court “disagreeable,” she was not mistaken for the king’s mistress.184 Even courtiers close to Louis XIV were kept in the dark. On 14 April 1688 Louis’s sister-in-law, Liselotte, conceded to her Aunt Sophie, the Electress of Hannover, that she had still not been able to find out whether or not the King has married his Maintenon … What is very sure is that this King has never felt such a passion for any mistress as he does for this one. To see them together is something to marvel at, for not a quarter-of-an-hour passes without his whispering into her ear or talking to her in secret, though he has already spent the entire day with her.185

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Louis XIV’s marital status also generated gossip in France, as this popular contemporary Parisian song demonstrates: The King to Marly does withdraw, A husband now and lover no more. He does what he must at his age; It is the old soldier’s destiny, In retiring to the village, To marry an old hussy.186 In the absence of documentation, the important question to ask is why did it happen at all? The Bourbon succession was by now seemingly assured, and the match with Maintenon had to be morganatic because of her modest social background. Furthermore, secretly marrying Scarron’s non-aristocratic widow, who was three years older than Louis XIV and the granddaughter of an internationally acclaimed Protestant champion, could only fuel skepticism and criticism, as the song illustrates. Yet the arguments in favour of marrying Maintenon instead of forging a favourable dynastic alliance with a European princess, like the Portuguese Infanta, were strong for many reasons. Rumours were still circulating in February 1685 that such a marriage might take place, as documented by Sourches and encouraged by Maintenon – again, presumably, in an attempt to keep the public guessing.187 Furthermore, Dangeau witnessed the king declaring on 13 August 1684, after adjudging a dispute arising from a second marriage, that anyone remarrying would encounter “great inconveniences” irrespective of their social position.188 Primarily the king wanted an intelligent companion, conversationalist, and confidante, and she was also a good listener.189 The argument that Louis XIV needed a matriarchal and matronly figure to assist in managing the boisterous young royal family is also compelling, as is the notion that Mme de Maintenon was to a certain extent comparable with Anne of Austria. The strength of Louis and Françoise’s relationship was their friendship. On this theme, Maintenon instructed Marie Adélaïde of Savoy in 1697 that her relationship would succeed by ensuring that the Duke of Burgundy became “your best friend and confidant.” But Maintenon also cautioned that this would not guarantee perfect happiness and that the best marriages were those in which the husband and wife suffered each other “with sweetness and patience.”190 For Maintenon this included enduring sex on a daily basis because the king’s primal needs had not abated and Françoise remained extremely attractive. Mignard’s portrait of 1694 depicts, as one historian has stated,

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a “nubile, Rubenesque woman”191 in her mid-fifties with a handsome body that had not been ravaged by childbirth or gluttony, although she had to overcome her aversion for physical intercourse with the help of clerical counsellors. Mlle d’Aumale records the advice given on conjugal coition by Maintenon’s confessor at court from 1689 until his death in 1709, Paul Godet des Marais (b. 1648), who explained that it was a marital obligation to indulge the king to prevent infidelity: “the faithful wife sanctifies the faithful man, as St. Paul says. How much more the Christian man!”192 Within a short space of time Maintenon’s life at court had been transformed, and the secure and stable position she had enjoyed of being the queen’s attendant and companion had been exchanged for the much more glorious and glamorous but also volatile and complex role of clandestine royal consort. This new position proved to be just as demanding as her new husband, and both would constantly test Françoise’s remarkable powers of patience and fortitude as she sought to establish herself at Versailles and find an appropriate and acceptable function and supportive social circle.

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Confirmation that Maintenon and Louis XIV perhaps had married, or that the king did not plan to remarry, was perceptible in the physical and functional changes made at Versailles. The king’s chambers were eventually relocated at the centre overlooking the cour de marbre, and after the death of the duchesse de Richelieu on 27 May 1684, he offered Maintenon her post of dame d’honneur to the dauphine. The marquise predictably refused “most generously and most nobly”1 – perhaps to persuade the public that she was unmarried, as Lavallée posits2 – and on 11 June her old friend Mme d’Arpajon, sister of the marquis de Beuvron, was appointed dame d’honneur instead thanks to Maintenon’s intervention.3 In the spring of 1684 the marquise was installed in a suite of colourfully and comfortably furnished though small rooms, designed by Mansart, at the top of the queen’s staircase. The apartment was initially divided into four chambers, decorated in gold, green and various hues of red, and comprising two small antechambers that served as reception spaces, a room for her servant Nanon, and a wardrobe attached to a principal bedroom in the alcove of which was Maintenon’s celebrated bed. Alterations were made in 1685 to create more accommodating quarters, consisting of two reception rooms leading to Maintenon’s bedchamber at the back of which in the right-hand corner was a door and short passageway up five steps that provided access to a grand cabinet (eventually used for audiences and entertainments), which connected to the antechamber of the apartments of the Duke and later Duchess of Burgundy. In the same year Nanon was accorded the official title of première damoiselle [sic] d’honneur de Madame la marquise de Maintenon.4 Further changes were instituted in 1698 to make Maintenon’s apartments more commodious.5 These were connected to the king’s chambers on the first floor via the vestibule or salon de l’escalier de la reine that adjoined the

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salle des gardes pour le roi.6 At the same time Montespan was moved downstairs into converted bathrooms. This role reversal was further substantiated a year later on the evening of Thursday, 13 December 1685, when the king announced to Montespan, on entering her chamber, that he had with pleasure appointed her son, Louis Antoine de Gondrin, the marquis d’Antin (1665–1736), as one of the dauphin’s menin [gentleman attached] in accordance with the request that she had made that morning to Mme de Maintenon.7 Maintenon is often presented as a shadowy, almost invisible figure at court, knitting ensconced in her bedroom niche or absent at Saint-Cyr. Naturally she could not be present at many rituals and ceremonies that a royal consort would traditionally have attended, but her movements did not go unnoticed by contemporaries, and her informal position sometimes made her even more accessible than that of a queen. Dangeau regularly records Maintenon accompanying the king in his barouche with other notable ladies on palatial promenades,8 and travelling with him in his coach on excursions to palaces like Marly,9 or the Trianon,10 where she joined in supper parties, 11 or Fontainebleau, where she attended the hunt12 and where new apartments were constructed for her that the diarist described on 8 October 1686 as “very proper and very convenient, on the same floor as the King.”13 Maintenon was also present along with sixteen other notables at a glittering lottery hosted by the king at Versailles on 4 May 1685.14 Moreover, the marquis de Sourches documents the trips the king made to the château de Maintenon, officially to inspect the progress of the aqueduct, in September 1682 and August 1686, where he was entertained by the marquise and stayed for two days in April 1687.15 She also accompanied the king on campaign to Valenciennes in 1684, leaving Versailles on 22 April in his coach with the dauphin, the dauphine, the maréchal de Rochefort and the princesse de Conti, who, like Maintenon, had been included in her capacity as dame d’atour, as the May edition of the Mercure clarified.16 Two weeks later, on 5 May, Maintenon judiciously informed her brother that she had the honour of travelling in the king’s coach, but “that is always accompanied by some constraint.”17 An Englishman named Ellis Veryard travelling through France in 1684–85 recorded on his visit to Versailles that we have had here a sight of the famous Mme de Maintenon. The people fancy her married to the King but on what grounds I know not. Her age and features are not so charming; but her parts are so very extraordinary that she passes for the wisest of her sex. She is

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widow to the late ingenious M. Scarron. She lives at court and when she goes abroad has the King’s equipage and attendants.18 On 6 September 1685 Maintenon journeyed to Chartres to join Louis XIV’s coach en route to Chambord, where she went stag hunting in Louis’s barouche with the duchesse de Bourbon and Mmes de Montespan and de Chevreuse on the 12th.19 On 9 September the marquise visited a nearby charitable institution she had established and helped found. She also sponsored other establishments in the towns of Versailles and Fontainebleau and in Paris.20 This was not unusual, for elite women were expected to dispense charity, but it was important for Maintenon to dedicate her energies to projects beyond the court, where her status and function were ambiguous and her position rendered more awkward by the king himself. As the 1680s progressed Louis XIV was increasingly consumed by domestic and international crises and unable to spend as much time as he wished with his new consort. He continued to visit Mme de Montespan each day before dinner and to transact some ministerial business in her presence; he would then visit Mme de Maintenon until supper. Courtiers were unsure how to treat the marquise and floundered as to the best course of action. Ministers, mistresses, and favourites who monopolized the king and his patronage were traditionally targeted with either hostility or flattery, whereas a non-aristocratic companion dedicated to piety and charity presented unique problems. Maintenon was treated with a degree of respect, but much of it was understandably disingenuous. Courtiers reasoned that if the king had married Maintenon, this would surely have been publicized. Conversely, if she was merely Louis’s lover, her favour would not endure. These underlying attitudes manifested themselves in January 1685, when a letter describing the king’s relations with Maintenon in derisive and “extremely liberal” terms, and calling for war against the Turks, was exposed. The authors were identified as the prince de Conti and Villeroi’s grandson, the marquis d’Alincourt. On 27 March the king publicly burned the missive without reading it. 21

sai n t- cy r : b e g in n in g s a nd aggrandi s ement Maintenon found life at court in the glare of the public eye difficult and spiritually demoralizing, and with few dependable friends and allies she quickly became disenchanted and isolated. Given the atypical nature of her marriage to Louis she needed to establish her own circle and independent occupations. Philanthropic projects were important, but her

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educational enterprise at Saint-Cyr proved vital. It provided a sanctuary from the pressures of court life and was intellectually and spiritually, as well as maternally, rewarding and fulfilling. It also suited her split personality. Though seemingly at ease engaging grandees in conversation in the capital and at court, Françoise also coveted a conventual existence. This helps explain the pangs of guilt she invariably expressed after enjoying court festivities. Underemployed by the dauphine for much of 1681 and 1682, Maintenon devoted her spare time to educational and charitable projects, the most notable of which was a boarding school started by two retired nuns, Mme de Saint-Pierre and Mme de Brinon. The latter had met Mme Scarron in the Marais and approached her for financial backing in the summer of 1680.22 Maintenon helped enthusiastically, providing the pensionnat with a number of pupils whom she personally sponsored at a cost of 110 livres each. She also intermittently visited the institution, and it quickly expanded, obliging Maintenon to rent a spacious building to house sixty pupils sited five miles from Versailles at Reuil, where the school was transferred in March 1682.23 The marquise also provided furnishings, as well as blue serge outfits for the girls; she also had the small chapel consecrated and employed a chaplain and two former Ursuline nuns, Sisters du Bosque and d’Angien, as teachers to support the two founders.24 As often as she could, Maintenon escaped from her post at court to monitor the girls’ progress and instruct them personally for several hours on their spiritual exercises, about poverty and charity and how to conduct themselves as good and honest Christians. The program was designed to prepare the students for convent or married life, and Maintenon therefore began composing educational tracts on a wide range of subjects, which she would continue to produce throughout her life.25 As the king expanded the park of Versailles from 1682 he compensated residents who were compelled to vacate their properties, one of which, the château de Noisy, Maintenon obtained as a new site for her seminary.26 Louis donated 30,000 livres to renovate the building and facilitate the move, which took place on 3 February 1684, and he also agreed to subsidize one hundred pupils. Ever keen to enhance his image, the king decided in his council on 15 August 1684 that the project would be expanded further: 250 girls from noble families of modest means were to be educated in a grand new royal academy. Construction soon started on a suitably splendid building for that purpose in the village of Saint-Cyr, one league from the palace of Versailles.27 In expanding Maintenon’s school, the king preferred moving the institution closer to Versailles, mindful of the difficulties posed by water

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shortages at Noisy. But the marquise was wary of the corruptive influence of the court.28 By the spring of 1685 Mansart and Louvois had found a more favourable location one league from the palace between Versailles and Marly in the vale of Gallie at the village of Saint-Cyr. The domain consisted of two fiefs, one owned by a member of the Séguier family, the marquis de Saint-Brisson, and the other occupied by an order of Benedictine nuns at the convent of Notre-Dame-des-Anges. The king accordingly offered to relocate them in Paris, but the nuns objected and demanded 500,000 livres compensation. With his typical brusqueness, Louvois gave them fifteen days to vacate the premises in April 1685.29 The nuns consequently complained to Maintenon, who informed Louis XIV that she did not want her foundation to begin with a “coup d’autorité.”30 Fortunately, Saint-Brisson happily consented to sell his land and property for 91,000 livres on 9 April 1685, with the rights exchanged on 14 June 1686.31 Worried that Louvois would scrimp as drastically as the king would splurge,32 Maintenon emphasized to Louis that she wanted “neither a palace, nor a convent, but a very simple house” designed to be practical rather than beautiful.33 Building work began on 1 May, and the Maison Royale de Saint-Louis was completed by Mansart and more than 2,500 workers in fifteen months at a cost of almost 1.4 million livres. The result looked impressive, but it had been poorly constructed, necessitating constant repairs.34 Unfortunately, the land at Saint-Cyr was also poor and often inundated, rendering the environment cold and humid,35 which prompted Maintenon in 1710 to concede in frustration that “we discover every day how much this great man [Mansart] has deceived the King.”36 Moreover, running costs were higher than anticipated, and the annual budget of 150,000 livres was quickly exceeded. In order to resolve this shortfall, the revenues of the abbey of Saint-Denis of 114,000 livres per year were transferred to Saint-Cyr on 2 May 1686 and the king provided a further 15,000 livres, but an extra 30,000 livres had to be raised from tailles levied on the généralité of Paris to finance the academy. The pupils were finally transported majestically from Noisy-le-Roi during the last week of July 1686 in the king’s carriages, and a grandiose inauguration ceremony to open the school was held on 2 August during which the chapel was consecrated. Aware of Louis XIV’s antipathy toward religious houses and monastic living, Maintenon determined that the Maison-Royale would be a community rather than a nunnery. This was fashionable rather than original, imitating similar examples set by the “Miramionnes” and the Dames de Saint-Maur. Their founder, Barré, was asked by Maintenon to send

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“twelve of the best sisters of his Institute, who would give their assistance to the Dames de Saint-Louis, train them in the Saint-Maur teaching method, and instruct both them and the students of Saint-Cyr.”37 They proved invaluable and would remain until 1694, when Saint-Louis’s transformation into a nunnery had been accomplished. Initially 250 girls between the ages of seven and twelve from the lesser nobility, who could trace their noble status back at least four generations, were enrolled at the king’s discretion, finally graduating in their twentieth year, but the number of pupils was soon increased to four hundred.38 As Louis commented to Mme de Brinon, the institution was dedicated to “the glory of God and the relief of my nobility,”39 and the girls admitted were the daughters, nieces, and orphans of noble soldiers and officials, whose credentials were verified by the royal genealogist M. d’Hozier.40 The staffing reflected this principle, as did the constitution, which was drawn up by the bishop of Chartres, Ferdinand de Neuville (the duc de Villeroi’s brother), and the king’s Jesuit confessor, Père de La Chaise, and along with the foundation’s letters patent was registered in the Paris Parlement on 18 and 28 June 1686.41 Mme de Brinon was appointed superior for life, the incumbent bishop of Chartres would act as the institution’s spiritual superior, Gobelin became “examiner of vocations,” and M. Delpech was named the academy’s financial intendant.42 Maintenon was awarded the title and honours of institutrice for life, and an apartment and adequate living expenses were put permanently at her disposal. Thirty-six teachers, the Dames de Saint-Louis, were employed to direct the girls’ instruction, assisted by a community of twenty-four lay sisters, who functioned as domestics.43 After Brinon the dames were led by the assistant superior, Mme de Loubert, and mistress of novices, Mme de Pérou, plus Mmes d’Hauzy and Saint-Aubin, who collectively became known as “the ladies of the choir and were regarded as the mothers of the establishment.”44 Other novices were appointed as mistresses of classes, and Mme de Radouay was entrusted with managing the institutions’ finances as dépositaire, under the authority of the superior and the intendant,45 while Mme de Saint-Pars was appointed concierge (première portière).46 In the classrooms the educational material presented by instructors was then dissected in small discussion groups led by mature students. Classes were distinguished by the colour of the ribbon worn on the girls’ brown uniforms: red for seven- to eleven-year-olds, green for eleven to fourteen, yellow for fourteen to seventeen, and blue for those aged seventeen to twenty.47 The staff, like Maintenon, were clothed elegantly in black, again reminiscent of Saint-Maur,48 with the dames wearing a gold cross and the sisters one of silver.49 And the house was furnished

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relatively simply by the marquise’s intendant at Maintenon, Manseau, at a cost of 150,000 livres.50 The king was suitably impressed when he returned to inspect the institution on 8 September,51 having been reproached by Maintenon, as she told Brinon, seven days earlier for not having visited the school since it opened.52 In Louis’s defence his health was suffering thanks to the infamous fistula, and Maintenon alerted Brinon that he had endured a “violent fit” a few weeks previously on 10 August.53 Once his convalescence was complete the king regularly returned to Saint-Cyr, often attending Sunday services in the academy’s chapel.54 Much research has been carried out on Saint-Cyr and its curriculum,55 which was innovative in its aim not only to provide the girls with an education appropriate for their sex and status, but also to prepare them for married domestic or convent life.56 Article 12 of its constitution stipulated that the royal treasury would contribute to the dowry of betrothed graduates or place prospective novices in suitable nunneries.57 The intention, as La Chaise described, was to provide the state with girls who had been “well brought up,” who would of course thrive as mothers in families or enclosed in cloisters, and whose superior virtues would “serve to sanctify the world.”58 It was therefore vitally important for teachers to know and engage their pupils and educate them effectively to prepare them for an appropriate vocation.59 Maintenon instilled this in her tutors, whom she superintended personally and by letter, meanwhile assiduously composing volumes of edifying didactic dialogues, conversations, lectures, proverbs, maxims, and commentaries over several decades, many of which have been published.60 She also devised the syllabus, which on top of religion, reading, and writing, included religious and secular history, mythology, theology, geography, economics, astronomy, Latin, and French literature and language, as well as arithmetic, music, drawing, deportment, and dancing.61 This educational program, in tandem with the simple vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience the students took, was designed to produce pious, decorous, and cultured ladies of refinement. Yet Maintenon remained relatively conservative in her outlook, and although novel in certain aspects,62 the curriculum was designed to enforce rather than undermine patriarchal values. The school was an instant success, and families clamoured to place their daughters at such a prestigious institution.63 Initially most pupils were drawn from the Parisian basin and Normandy, but by the eighteenth century they were coming from all over France.64 Maintenon expended vast amounts of time and energy on the school’s direction, as

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highlighted in truncated letters to correspondents, which often ended abruptly with the words “I have too many affairs.”65 She admitted to Gobelin on 26 October 1687 that she had little time for rest at Versailles because of her commitments at Saint-Cyr,66 but she nonetheless flourished in her new role and relished being busy,67 confessing in 1686 that Saint-Cyr was her “passion.”68 Saint-Simon mocked what he described as Maintenon’s “mania for directing, which monopolized the little freedom she might have enjoyed,”69 as well as her passion for administration and obsessive attention to detail, but it served her well and was a trait she shared with the king.70 Françoise Chandernagor claims that Maintenon’s principal role was as an educationalist,71 and Antonia Fraser agrees that this was Maintenon’s “true vocation,” while insightfully adding that “guiding the king … had been thrust upon her by a combination of circumstances. For all her professed aversion to court life (an aversion that was expressed more strongly as the years passed) Françoise had not been able to resist the challenge and the triumph.”72 This was partly true. As we shall see, many of the obligations and responsibilities she discharged at Versailles were not always actively sought but rather inadvertently accumulated as her position “auprès du roi” became more entrenched and expectations commensurately increased regarding her ability to influence the king and obtain patronage from him. There was also a sense of duty. Maintenon spent two to three days a week at Saint-Cyr, but for all her protestations, she did not abandon the court; as she wrote to Brinon on 27 August 1686, “adieu Madame; I am going to dine at the Trianon, and, though nearest the King’s person, I would rather be at Saint-Cyr; but we must accommodate ourselves to the times, places and people.”73 Managing Saint-Cyr significantly bolstered Maintenon’s confidence and as well as her standing at court, for it was an unbridled display of the king’s favour. Largesse of this nature was different in kind from, and possibly even greater than, the erection of the Duchy of Vaujours for Louise de La Vallière in 1667, or the construction of the château de Clagny for Montespan in 1675.74 Moreover, Maintenon remained by the king’s side throughout the illness of 1686, when an anal fistula threatened his life, and their partnership emerged stronger from the survival of this near-fatal ordeal. The symptoms had started materializing in February,75 and after months of discomfort, then agony, several innovative invasive surgical procedures were performed by Félix on Monday, 18 November, and Friday and Monday, 6 and 9 December 1686.76 Their success was such that Louis made a remarkably rapid recovery, famously receiving courtiers and chairing a council meeting from his bed

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in the afternoon just hours after the first “great” operation had finished, having started at 7 a.m. on 18 November.77 Dangeau recorded him looking “considerably” better on 13 December and observed him walking for more than an hour at Versailles four days later.78 On Christmas Day, Maintenon notified Brinon that the king seemed completely healed, having attended services, meetings with courtiers, and a musical recital that rendered everyone “delighted with joy.”79 On Monday 13 January 1687 the king announced that he felt “more vigorous than before,” and departed for Marly the day after.80 Indeed, by 15 March Louis could again ride a horse.81 Desprat persuasively suggests that this episode “indisputably changed the King,” who was now wary of his own mortality and accelerated work on the Trianon and at Marly, where he could enjoy moments of intimacy and privacy with invited family members and favourites, who were lodged in twelve pavilions, each containing two apartments, that were completed in 1686.82

e x e rc is in g in fluence Sourches claimed that by 20 April 1686 Maintenon’s influence was such that she “gave her protection to each of the ministers in turn, to engage them in their interests and balance their authority equally to prevent any from rising too far above his competitors,”83 creating the illusion of ministerial harmony by 16 September.84 This seems exaggerated at this juncture, and Sourches conceded that court intrigue was, for him, unfathomable, but he was correct in asserting that by lending her weight noticeably to the Colbert faction Maintenon did help frustrate the seemingly inexorable ascendancy of the Le Tellier family.85 On 30 January 1685 Seignelay’s brother, Jules Armand Colbert, marquis de Blainville, who had succeeded his father as surintendant des bâtiments en survivance from 1674 to 1683, purchased the prestigious post of Grand Master of Ceremonies at Versailles for 24,000 écus from the penurious marquis de Rhodes, which Sourches noted was a “great mark” of distinction for Seignelay and also showed the “manifest protection that Mme de Maintenon accorded to the entire house of Colbert.”86 Moreover, Jean-Baptiste Colbert’s daughters became members of an inner circle that quickly coalesced around the marquise, and she was clearly fond of Seignelay, who assisted in promoting her relatives. This can have done little to improve the relations between Louvois and the marquise, which were frosty partly because she presented a threat, but largely on account of their dissimilar personalities and temperaments, as illustrated in an entretien with Mme de Glapion in September 1708

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during which Maintenon discussed the nature of her role at court. Even with the support of friends and advisers and faith in God, the marquise confessed that counselling the king was a strenuous task, and she feared that “on opening my body after my death, you should find my heart as dry and twisted as that of M. de Louvois.”87 Whether she was powerful or not, it was important for courtiers to ingratiate themselves with Maintenon, as illustrated in a letter from Liselotte to her Aunt Sophie on 2 August 1686, in which the former complains that “the old woman has already tried more than ten times to set Mme la Dauphine against me … I should add that all the ministers flatter the woman and seek to gain her favour through every kind of base behaviour.”88 Further evidence of this came in mid-September 1686, when Seignelay was able gleefully to relay the news to the king and Maintenon that the pope had responded positively to the request that the revenues of Saint-Denis be transferred to fund the Maison Royale de Saint-Louis. His uncle Croissy, Sourches records, was devastated and suffered “a mortal displeasure” as a consequence.89 Lavallée sensibly contends that 1687 was the year in which Maintenon was begrudgingly accepted as a central figure and permanent fixture at court,90 particularly after disappointing her enemies (so Sourches claims) by surviving a severe attack of colic in July.91 Maintenon would suffer increasingly from rheumatism and other ailments for the rest of her life, but remained stoical and remarkably durable. She only began taking a proactive part in politics in 1700, but in 1687 she started trying to establish a specific role for herself at court. This was far from straightforward, for the position she found herself in was unprecedented. With no rule of precedence or formal rank to observe, Maintenon could theoretically interact with anyone keen to make her acquaintance or gain her favour in the hope that she might, in turn, commend them to the king. Would Maintenon accept the opportunity to become involved in such matters? Her inability to select a satisfactory confessor at this time suggests it was a problem that her conscience was struggling to resolve. There was no official edict prohibiting more responsibility from being placed upon the king’s consort, but what activities would Louis XIV, courtiers, and the public allow her to participate in? The marquise would spend the rest of her career at Versailles trying to work out the parameters of her inimitable métier. Sometimes she did so in tandem with the king, but not always, for he gradually, and often inadvertently, gave Maintenon more influence in practice than he intended. Age and circumstances would make Louis increasingly dependent on his consort for support, but he would no more make that public than

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their secret marriage. From 1687 they were increasingly inseparable, and although their relations continued to be physical it was a partnership founded on mutual attraction and on friendship that was more pragmatic than romantic. As she would explain much later to Mme de Glapion on 18 October 1717, “it is true that he loved me more than anyone, but only as far as he was capable of loving. For men, when not being led by passion, have very little capacity for tenderness in their friendships.”92

s oc ia l c irc l e a n d pat ronage network Maintenon deeply valued the friendships she had cultivated before marrying the king and now endeavoured to expand her contacts and cement alliances at court to consolidate her position and enliven her social milieu. The core of her clique was already established. It centred around the “petit troupeau” of dévots and was comprised of long-standing companions like the marquise de Montchevreuil, Marguerite Boucher d’Orsay (d. 1699), the princesse d’Harcourt, Marie Françoise de Brancas d’Oise (d. 1715), and Fouquet’s daughter Marie, duchesse de Béthune-Charost (1640–1716). Maintenon’s circle also embraced new acquaintances, including Colbert’s two daughters, Jeanne Marie, duchesse de Beauvillier (1650–1732), and Henriette Louise, duchesse de Chevreuse (1667–1733), and also the duchesse de Ventadour, Charlotte Éléonore de La Motte-Houdancourt (1651–1744). Beautiful and charming, Charlotte in 1671 had married Louis Charles de Lévis (1647–1717), duc de Ventadour, who was disreputable and debauched. Thanks to the intervention of the maréchal de Villeroi and Monsieur, Charlotte’s retirement from court was prevented when she was awarded the post of dame d’honneur to Madame for free in June 1684, with the intended successor, Mme de Clérembault, awarded 40,000 écus compensation by the king’s brother.93 Two other women augmented Françoise’s circle: the marquises de Dangeau and d’Heudicourt, described by Saint-Simon as “the two angels of Mme de Maintenon: one good and one bad.” Sophie Marie de Bavière (1664–1736), comtesse de Löwenstein and niece of the cardinal de Fürstenberg, was appointed lady-in-waiting to the dauphine in 1684. She quickly established a close bond with Maintenon and went on to marry the marquis de Dangeau, Philippe de Courcillon (1638–1720), at midnight on Saturday, 30 April 1686, in the chapel at Versailles. Philippe had been governor of Tourraine since 1666, had served in the army, and had repeatedly been employed as an international envoy, but

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he was also renowned for his wit and his proficiency at gambling. He became one of Louis XIV’s favourite courtiers, and this secured him the appointment of menin to the dauphin in 1680, chevalier d’honneur to the dauphine in 1685, and excellent apartments at Versailles.94 The marquise de Dangeau was also charming and popular and described as “pretty and virtuous” by Saint-Simon, who in contrast embroidered that Maintenon’s long-standing friend from the Hotel d’Albret, Mme d’Heudicourt,95 had once been “extremely beautiful and gallant,” but had quickly become “hideous with infinite guile and the wickedness of the darkest of demons.”96 Regarding Maintenon’s devoted confidante, Mme de Montchevreuil, the duc de Saint-Simon characterized her husband, Henri de Mornay (1622–1706), as honest, modest, and courageous. But the memoirist wrote that his wife was an avaricious, unattractive, unamusing, and unimaginative prude, who was intimidatingly judgmental as well as a “twenty-four carat dévot” in her self-adopted role as the “inspectrice de la cour,” and who wielded considerable influence because of her proximity to Maintenon and the discernible favour of the king.97 Mme de Montchevrueil was a redoubtable figure, but as Saint-Simon, Mme de Sévigné, and Dangeau all observed, Françoise did not forget the enduring friendships forged during her first marriage and widowhood, and these cronies benefited handsomely from her unrivalled standing and the consideration the king consequently showed them. From 1686 Maintenon’s ability to obtain and dispense patronage increased exponentially, while Saint-Cyr afforded her the opportunity to create another extensive social network, as testified by the voluminous collection of documents stored at the Yvelines archives. Numerous friends, relatives, and associates were showered with honours, gifts, pensions, and promotions, which established or furthered family fortunes and career success. For example, Mme de Montchevreuil had been named gouvernante des filles d’honneur de la Dauphine in December 1679, but was allowed to step down on 25 October 1687 and awarded a pension of 1,200 livres.98 Her sister on 26 April 1686 was made Abbess of Saint-Antoine in Paris, described by Dangeau as one of the most beautiful and considerable abbeys in France, worth 25,000 livres per year.99 Montchevreuil’s husband Henri, the marquis (m. 1653), had distinguished himself fighting against Spain in the 1640s and was made commander of Cardinal Mazarin’s regiment. He was then appointed governor of the duc du Maine in 1682 and on 30 August 1685 given the post of capitainerie de Saint-Germain to share with his son, Henri-Charles, who was granted the survivance. To accompany this Henri was awarded a pension of 10,000

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livres on 3 September, plus an additional 2,000 livres for continuing to command the officers in the household of the duc du Maine, who found his former governor indispensable. He was then made a chevalier on 2 December 1688, having accompanied the young duc on campaign.100 Montchevreuil’s son, Henri-Charles, comte de Mornay, was made a cavalry captain in 1680, colonel of a regiment in Béarn in 1684, and an aide-de-camp of the dauphin on 23 September 1688,101 but was killed a few weeks later, on 9 November, during the siege of Mannheim.102 To console his mother the king awarded their second son, Léonor (d. 1717), comte de Mornay-Montchevrueil, the survivance of the capitainerie de Saint-Germain and his dead brother’s regiment of infantry on 12 November, which, Sourches notes, did not surprise the courtiers, who expected nothing less of “la faveur de Mme de Maintenon.”103 His other brother, Réné (d. 1721), abbé de Mornay, also enjoyed a distinguished career, and was named ambassador to Portugal in 1713 and bishop of Besançon in 1717.104 Furthermore, on 12 June 1684 the marquis de Beuvron’s sister, the duchesse d’Arpajon, Catherine Henriette d’Harcourt-Beuvron,105 became dame d’honneur to the dauphine. Sévigné reported that d’Arpajon was “transported with joy” and attributed the appointment to Maintenon, as it was the position she had rejected and because Françoise “recalls with great fondness the old friendship that de M. de Beuvron and Mme d’Arpajon had for her during the time when she was Mme Scarron.”106 Dangeau agreed, noting that Maintenon “never forgets such friends”;107 and the entire family would consequently benefit handsomely from this venerable connection. Maintenon personally directed the career of Henry I d’Harcourt (1654–1718), the eldest son of François III, marquis de Beuvron (d. 1705). He had already distinguished himself as a soldier as an aide-decamp of Turenne and had been appointed lieutenant-general in upper Normandy, an inspector of infantry in October 1682, and a brigadier in 1683.108 With Maintenon’s support Henry obtained a pension of 4,000 francs in August 1686, married Mlle de Genlis on 8 July 1687, was named maréchal de camp on 2 September 1688, and became a duc in 1700.109 His brother Odet d’Hacourt, abbé de Beuvron (1658–1692), was appointed an aumonier du roi in 1685, and accompanied Colbert de Torcy, Cardinal Bonzy, and the duc de Chaulnes on a diplomatic mission to Rome on 17 August 1689 that was important for France and for Maintenon, as shall be demonstrated.110 A host of other intimates profited from their new benefactress. The duchesse de Ventadour, who was greatly esteemed at court, gained a

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pension of 8,000 livres from the king in January 1687,111 and the pension of the “fiendish” Mme d’Heudicourt was augmented by 1,000 écus on 7 February 1688.112 Significantly, her daughter, Louise (1668– 1707), was elevated with the king’s bastard children, becoming another protégé of Mme de Maintenon. Upon marrying the marquis de Montgon at Marly on 4 September 1686, Louise was presented with a wedding gift of 10,000 écus of silver by the king, plus a pension of 1,000 écus.113 Her brother, Pons Auguste Sublet d’Heudicourt (1676–1742), obtained the survivance of the charge of grand louvetier de France (Master of the Wolf-Hunt) from his father Michel III Sublet (d. 1718), marquis d’Heudicourt, who had purchased the prestigious post after marrying Mlle Bonne de Pons in 1684.114 Maintenon wrote to inform her confessor Gobelin in May 1686 that the king had awarded him a pension of 2,000 livres,115 and Bussy-Rabutin noted that the marquise intervened in February 1685 to ensure that the 2,000 écu pensions of the dames du palais of the late queen, Mmes de Tingry and de Saint-Géran, which had been unpaid since her death, be reinstated.116 Sourches suggests that Maintenon also interceded on behalf of the penurious Mlle de Chausseraye, fille d’honneur of Madame, and obtained a pension of 1,000 écus for her in May 1688.117 Besides adopting her brother’s bastards, Toscan and Charlot,118 Maintenon brought up Charles’s legitimate daughter FrançoiseCharlotte (1684–1739) after 1686, and the children of former admirers were also succoured. Dangeau recorded that the king had supplemented Guilleragues’s pension by 24,000 francs on 10 August 1684,119 and after his death in 1685 Maintenon became even closer to his daughter, MarieAnne de La Vergne (1657–1737), who had married Gabriel Claude, marquis de Villers d’O (1654–1728). Accordingly, at the end of February 1686, Marie-Anne was awarded 22,000 écus and her husband was named governor of the young comte de Toulouse because, Saint-Simon alleged, Maintenon wished to continue to meddle in his upbringing as she had with the duc du Maine.120 In keeping with his new station the marquis d’O was appointed major-general of the marine on 15 March 1687, as his charge had nominally become the admiral of France in 1683 at the age of five.121 The comte de Gramont was made a chevalier de l’ordre in December 1688, as was the son of the marquis de Villarceaux, whom the king had named captain-lieutenant of light horse, also in acknowledgment, as Sourches testified, of friendships and long-standing connections with Maintenon.122 Crucially this all served to solidify and substantiate Françoise’s new social standing at court, which she realized could be augmented further by promoting her relatives.

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fa m ily b e n e factor Maintenon was keenly aware that the reputations of family members should enhance rather than detract from her own, and once recalcitrant relatives had abjured she was able rapidly to advance their careers and social status by acquiring preferments and orchestrating marital alliances. Dangeau documented on 10 March 1686 that Maintenon’s cousin-germain, Philippe de Villette (1631–1707), who had “converted recently,” was given a pension of 3,000 francs by Louis XIV,123 going on to become a lieutenant-general of the navy in 1689. His eldest son Philippe (1664–1706), comte de Mursay, was commissioned mestre de camp on 26 August 1688 by the king, who on 13 March 1689 dictated that because the comte had no cavalry experience he should pay M. de Saint-Gelais twenty instead of thirty thousand livres for one of the dauphin’s regiments of horse.124 Philippe went on to become a brigadier, maréchal de camp, and lieutenant-general.125 Their newly Catholicized sister, Marthe-Marguerite (1671–1729), attracted a number of notable suitors at court, including the marquis de Boufflers (1644–1711), who was rejected by Maintenon on the grounds of humility and was married off instead to Jean-Anne de Tubière de Lévis (1666–1704), comte de Caylus, in 1686. The wedding was celebrated at Versailles at midnight on 13 March, with the king presenting the bride with a string of pearls worth 10,000 écus and making the groom menin of the dauphin.126 Drunken and dissolute, Caylus soon neglected his wife, who ran up debts living in Paris, compelling Maintenon to write a series of increasingly desperate letters from August to October 1687 entreating Marthe-Marguerite’s father, and Caylus’s mother, to intervene to resolve the situation.127 Philippe de Villette consequently travelled to Paris and confronted the comte, who was permanently packed off to the army, while his daughter was returned to Versailles and thereafter became one of Maintenon’s closest confidantes. And good to her word, Maintenon procured funds from the king to ameliorate the young couple’s financial plight. On 22 September 1688 Dangeau noted that the comtesse had received a 2,000 livres pension,128 and on the same day Sourches recorded that the comte had been awarded one of 6,000 livres, adding portentously that such an award did “not astonish courtiers, the protection of Mme de Maintenon being all-powerful.”129 On 8 September the king had permitted the comte to purchase a regiment of the queen’s dragoons from M. de Chevilly, and Caylus was chosen on 23 September as one of nine aides de camp selected to accompany the dauphin on campaign. This distinguished group included the comte de Mornay and M.

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d’Heudicourt, as well as Montespan’s son, d’Antin, and another of the dauphin’s menins and favourites, Louis (1662–1699), comte de Mailly, whom Maintenon had married to another freshly converted cousin, Marie-Anne de Saint-Hermine (1667–1734). The Saint-Hermines also benefited handsomely from their new benefactress. Her cousin Hélie, marquis de Saint-Hermine (d. 1677) had seven children, whom Maintenon evidently felt it was her duty to protect and promote. His eldest son Elie, marquis de Saint-Hermine, enjoyed a successful career in the army, being appointed brigadier in 1695 and, later, maréchal de camp and lieutenant-general.130 As Dangeau observed on 29 June 1686, Elie’s younger brother Louis-Henri, the comte marquis de Saint-Hermine, who was a capitaine de vaisseaux, was given a pension of 1,000 francs “sur la marine” and 500 écus from the royal treasury after converting to Catholicism.131 Alexandre de Saint-Hermine became an ensign in the navy, and his brother, Jean-Pharamond, was made a lieutenant de vaisseaux, but abandoned his maritime career to become a priest.132 The marriage of their sister, Minette, to the aforementioned comte de Mailly, on 8 July 1687, was arranged by Maintenon as a reward following her enforced abjuration after she had spent ten months effectively incarcerated in the Nouvelles Catholiques in Paris.133 Mailly was already a member of the dauphin’s entourage, but as Sourches pointed out, the match proved beneficial to both families. The king gave a wedding gift of 100,000 livres to the new comtesse de Mailly, whose husband was appointed aide de camp to Monseigneur on 23 September 1688 and subsequently named maréchal de camp. His brother, Victor-Augustin Mailly (1644–1712) became bishop of Lavaur on 15 August 1687 at the age of twenty-seven, which Sourches noted would not have happened had he not been “a relative of Madame de Maintenon.”134 His sister subsequently became Abbesse of Lavaur, and their younger brother, François Mailly (1658–1721), enjoyed a glittering ecclesiastical career with Maintenon’s backing, becoming a royal almoner in 1694, bishop of Arles in 1698, and archbishop of Reims in 1710.135 Minette’s mother, Anne-Madeleine, endured the same treatment as her daughter and abjured in April 1687 after spending several months with the Miramionnes at the behest of Maintenon, who nonetheless suspected that the conversion was inauthentic as she never saw her cousin take communion.136 Anne-Madeleine’s husband, Hélie, died in the Bastille in December 1687, having refused to renounce his Calvinist faith, and two of his children did likewise. In the spring of 1685 Madeleine-Sylvie became the second wife of Alexandre d’Olbreuse, whose château became a refuge

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for Huguenots trying to escape from La Rochelle. They were protected by Alexandre’s influential sister, Eléonore d’Olbreuse, the Duchess of Zell, who petitioned Maintenon on their behalf, but this immunity from prosecution proved temporary. One final intervention by their patron enabled the d’Olbreuses to emigrate in April 1686 to avoid having to accommodate dragoons.137 Madeleine-Sylvie’s other brother, Henri-Louis de SaintHermine, known as the chevalier, was also imprisoned in the Bastille, on 10 March 1686, where he received better treatment thanks to Maintenon’s intervention. Intriguingly, Maintenon remarked in a letter to Philippe de Villette of 4 September 1687 that Henri’s situation was “deplorable” but that he ultimately had nothing to be ashamed of because “to abjure without being truly Catholic was infamous.”138 She then explained that these reasons had convinced her to set the chevalier at liberty and implored Philippe to help him as best he could, but without being too supportive because “that will be interpreted here as being a bad Catholic.”139 Henri was released on 17 April 1687, but he remained recalcitrant and was consequently banished from France in the spring of 1688. He died fighting in Ireland for the new King of England, William of Orange.140 Maintenon’s brother Charles was a perennial embarrassment, and his risible request to be made connétable de France was predictably rejected, but he continued, nonetheless, to receive honours. In 1688 alone he was awarded a pension of 24,000 livres to replace his 18,000-livre tax-farming concession on 20 February,141 and made governor of AiguesMortes near Montpellier on 3 September.142 Maintenon immediately wrote her old friend Lamoignon de Bâville, who was now intendant of Languedoc, to say how delighted she was that Charles would be “next to him,”143 thus tacitly imploring him to keep an eye on her errant brother. Furthermore, Charles was included on the list of chevaliers named by the king on 2 December 1688, as was the marquis de Montchevrueil.144 Sourches observes that Mme de Montchevreuil had asked Maintenon to obtain this distinction for him after the dauphine obstructed her attempt to become dame d’atour in October 1687, appointing her “beloved” Bavarian femme de chambre, Mlle Bezzola, instead.145

roya l m at r ia rch and in t e r n at io n a l in t ermedi ary Courtiers quickly realized that Maintenon’s influence was ineluctable, and she was relentlessly pursued, complaining to Brinon in July 1687 that “I have very little leisure here [at Marly] and les grands hardly ever leave me [alone].”146 Liselotte wrote dejectedly on 18 November 1687 to

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Christian von Harling’s wife to explain that “my son and his men are full of praise for … [your husband’s] conduct in the battle. I had vigorously advocated … [Harling’s] advancement in his regiment, but the favour of Mme de Maintenon and her recommendation have done more, I am sorry to report, than mine.”147 Royals also recognized that Maintenon could successfully appeal to the king on their behalf after witnessing the swift elevation of her former charge and royal favourite, the duc du Maine, who in 1682 was given the governorship of Languedoc. Moreover, the birth of Louis’s grandsons in 1682 (Burgundy), 1683 (Anjou), and 1686 (Berry) enabled Maintenon gradually to assume the role of surrogate matriarch to the extended Bourbon family. Liselotte and Saint-Simon protested that this afforded Maintenon the opportunity to interfere in royal family business and that she imposed religious discipline through fear. The endless moralizing no doubt grated, but she constantly reiterated her desire to bring unity and harmony to the royal family, and she could also be compassionate and caring. Importantly, Maintenon offered a more sympathetic route to the ear of the king, who was an altogether more daunting figure. The dauphin consequently became close to Maintenon and willingly confided in her, as illustrated in the letters he wrote while fighting in Flanders, which also reported on military developments. One of Maintenon’s responses, dated 23 October 1688, regarding the investment of Philippsbourg, stressed that the king had been made aware of his son’s account and was pleased with his progress. She also candidly conveyed the king’s view that the dauphin had too much deference for his father’s opinions, which were given in secret so that he would be able to utilize them in public, and reminded him to continue to profit from Chamlay’s services.148 Du Maine’s correspondence from the front line was even more extensive for his erstwhile governess demanded regular updates from the young duc and his former governor, M. de Montchevreuil. These were also relayed to the king, who responded accordingly.149 Any behavioural anomalies generated swift reproaches from Maintenon, and Maine remonstrated,150 but mildly because he not only passed on solicitations but also constantly sought favours for himself and members of his entourage.151 For example, he asked Maintenon to tell Montespan to send much needed money on 25 October 1688, and on 31 October 1689 he requested that Maintenon reserve a lodging at Marly should the court be there on his return.152 One of Maintenon’s former charges, Marie-Anne de Bourbon, now the princesse de Conti, wrote in 1687 expressing gratitude for the king’s

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continuing support and kindness and imploring the marquise to continue to promote her interests and those of her family at court and to pay her respects to the king.153 Clearly, by the late 1680s it was generally understood that conveying a message to Maintenon was akin to communicating with the king. To avoid the prying eyes of the cabinet noir, Maintenon sent letters via dependable intermediaries like Bontemps and Mme de Montechevreuil. Papal emissaries had repeatedly attempted, either directly or through Mme de Brinon, to foster a closer relationship with Maintenon in order to employ her credit in Rome’s favour. These men included Giovanni Battista Lauri,154 Cardinal Spada,155 and nuncio Angelo Ranuzzi, who in 1683 had written that the king’s new companion possessed a “pleasing physiognomy, profound humility [and] perfect piety.”156 Ranuzzi had already indicated in his dispatches that Louis XIV did not like anyone except ministers to speak to him about state affairs,157 but he continued to importune Maintenon,158 broaching the controversy over ambassadorial franchises with her at the beginning of October 1687.159 Pierre Blet claims that this brief conversation took place as Maintenon was leaving the chapel at Versailles on 1 October,160 whereas Langlois contends that a longer discussion took place on 2 October.161 Either way the result was the same: Maintenon humbly and tersely declared that such affairs were “beyond the capacity of a woman.”162 Seemingly everyone was now keen to curry favour with Mme de Maintenon, but how should she act and for whom? Promoting the interests of Rome was clearly outside her remit, but as the War of the League of Augsburg intensified, state business had to be deliberated and transacted at all of the royal residences, including Marly,163 where couriers and ministers delivered the latest news to the king, who was often in Maintenon’s chambers.164 For example, Dangeau observed at Marly on 2 June 1689 that the “villain” of time prohibited the king from taking his promenade, so he worked with Seignelay in Maintenon’s rooms instead.165 And later in the year, again at Marly, on 29 September the marquis d’Huxelles gave Louis XIV an account of the siege of Mayenne “chez Mme de Maintenon.”166 Partly because of this, some decisions started to be taken during informal meetings with advisers and officials in Maintenon’s presence. As we have seen she was only too aware that women in France had no part to play in public affairs and that Louis frowned upon it, but the king evidently sounded Maintenon out on such matters in their private moments together, which is hardly surprising given that so many friends and younger royals were actively engaged in theatres of war. Thus by embracing her roles as royal stepmother,

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intermediary, and patron Maintenon somewhat inadvertently also began to enlarge her network of elite contacts and expand the framework of her career at court.

s p i r it ua l in f l u e n c e s a n d qui eti st ori gi ns This proved to be a pivotal moment in Maintenon’s time as consort. Assailed by solicitations, and surrounded by supplicants, she was in desperate need of counsel and sought Gobelin’s advice on the course and nature of the action she should take. This became a recurrent topic of discussion in exchanges between Maintenon and her confessors, who strove to define what her function was and in which realms of authority she could and should justifiably intervene. Unfortunately, Gobelin was now overawed by her exalted position and company and was unconvinced by Maintenon’s reassurances that she was still the same person he had first guided on the rue de Tournelles. The marquise consequently had to find another confessor and in so doing took spiritual advice from Bossuet, the Lazarist missionary, Père Jassault, l’abbé Godet des Marais, and also Bourdaloue, who assured Maintenon in an extended missive dated 30 October 1688 that her work at Saint-Cyr was admirable and that missing vespers was therefore forgivable. Moreover, she should not feel “repugnance” for the court because God had placed her there not just to do good, but to carry out “great good works” and to profit from the opportunities that Providence has provided “to speak and act usefully.” This included edifying the king spiritually when in his company by saying a short prayer before bed, for example. Fear an excess of pride, Bourdaloue warned, but employ moderation. He acknowledged that she was not the mistress of her own time, and this was partly because she wanted to keep everybody happy, but he also asserted that God would be content if she prayed when she was able and reminded her of St Augustine’s contention that “the religion we follow is one not of angels but of men.” Bourdaloue also emphasized that this was written in response to her appeal for intensive direction and was designed “not to worry or embarrass you, but to encourage you and excite your zeal” for “the glory of God.”167 The notion that it was her duty to be proactively helpful rather than passively supportive was restated by subsequent confessors and made a profound impression. This also made Maintenon susceptible to new influences. She eventually settled on Godet des Marais as her confessor in 1689, but only after sounding out François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon (1651–1715), who quickly won over Maintenon and became her mentor

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for several years. One of the great intellectuals of the era, Fénelon’s talents had already been widely recognized. In 1678 he was named superior of the Congregation of New Catholics, and he further proved his educational abilities during missionary campaigns to “propagate the faith” and convert young Calvinist girls between December 1685 and July 1687 in Aunis and Saintonge. Drawing on these experiences he began writing a Treatise on the Education of Girls in 1685, which was published in 1687.168 Its composition may have been prompted or accelerated by the duchesse de Beauvillier, who asked Fénelon for a manual to instruct her nine daughters, and she may have introduced him to Maintenon. The marquise was immediately impressed and persuaded Fénelon to prepare a version for general use at Saint-Cyr, where several dozen Huguenot girls were also inculcated.169 Fénelon’s methods may have been innovative, but his aims were relatively conservative, writing that “we must be content to follow and to aid nature.”170 Women should receive enough learning to succeed in the domestic sphere, which in turn would enable their husbands more effectively to manage the public domain. Fénelon began advising Maintenon by letter in October 1688,171 by which time they had both become disciples of the mystic from Montargis, Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon (1648–1717), who designed and championed Quietism in France. Led by interior voices, and from 1681 by the Barnabite priest, Père La Combe, Mme Guyon believed that the commitment of sin could be obviated by connecting to the divine presence during meditative contemplation, thus fostering the abandonment of the soul to the “pure love” of God, whose will then commanded untainted physical actions. Communing with God was as simple as breathing, Guyon contended, and this act of spiritual union superseded all other forms of religious observance. In 1683 Guyon described her experiences and doctrine in several published works including an autobiography, the Spiritual Torrents, and A Short and Easy Method of Prayer, which she published in Grenoble in 1685 on her return from Turin.172 The heterodox contents and popularity of works that eliminated the need for spiritual intermediaries made the authorities understandably nervous, and after being banished from Gex by the bishop of Geneva,173 Guyon was also compelled to leave Grenoble. From there she travelled to Marseille, Genoa, Vercelli, and Turin before returning to France, staying briefly in Chambéry and then Grenoble in 1685.174 That same year, the Spanish mystic Miguel Molinos was arrested and imprisoned in Rome for espousing similar views in a number of books, the most successful of which was his hugely popular Spiritual Guide, which was published in 1675 and ran to twenty editions. Louis XIV

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was alerted immediately from the papal court by Cardinal d’Estrées. After being ejected from Grenoble, Guyon and her confessor went to Paris in 1686, where Archbishop Harlay orchestrated their arrest using lettres de cachet. Eventually, La Combe was incarcerated in the Bastille for life175 and Guyon was placed in the Visitandine convent on the rue Saint-Antoine. The works of Molinos were formally condemned as immoral and heretical in the papal bull Caelestis pastor, promulgated on 16 September 1687, but Guyon was released in September 1688 thanks to the efforts of Maintenon and Madame de Miramion, who sponsored and took regular retreats at the Visatindine nunnery, where Maintenon was won over by Guyon’s teachings and took up her cause.176 Maintenon had also been motivated to intervene by a number of her close acquaintances, who were admirers or relatives of Guyon. Fouquet’s daughter, the duchesse de Béthune-Charost, had retired to Montargis after her father’s disgrace. She there befriended Guyon,177 whose relative, Marie-Françoise Sylvine de La Maisonfort, subsequently became an instructor at Saint-Cyr.178 Once set at liberty, Guyon thanked Maintenon by letter, but also in person at Saint-Cyr. Initially somewhat skeptical, Maintenon was soon charmed and captivated by the mystic and her teachings. Guyon seemed enlightened by the Holy Spirit, and her simple methods appeared to resolve many difficult questions that Maintenon and her spiritual advisers had been grappling with. Significantly, the duchesse de Béthune-Charost introduced Mme Guyon to the other members of Maintenon’s petit troupeau during the autumn of 1688. The duchesse de Chevreuse and Beauvillier quickly became earnest devotees, as did Fénelon, who became passionately dedicated to Guyon and her Quietist dogma,179 as in turn did Maintenon.180 Guyon’s works and ideas were now disseminated at SaintCyr, where she was a frequent visitor and part-time resident and tutor. This perhaps hastened the rather ruthless but anticipated removal, by lettre de cachet on 10 December 1688, of Mme de Brinon, whose peremptory style had for many months put her increasingly at odds with Maintenon.181 Contemporaneously, Fénelon was instrumental in constructing a reforming circle that was anxious to moderate Louis XIV’s increasingly arbitrary style of government. That circle included the ducs de Beauvillier and Chevreuse and their brother-in-law the marquis de Seignelay, who had been in correspondence with Fénelon because his ministerial portfolio included overseeing the province of Saintonge. This group contained the likes of Archbishop Harlay, La Chaise, and Louvois responsible for misleading the king and inspiring the belligerent policies that had by 1689 antagonized Rome and much of Europe, triggering a potentially

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devastating war. Fénelon’s faction clustered around the impressionable young Duke of Burgundy, who, it was hoped, could be taught to rule in a more judicious fashion, putting the needs of the people above personal glory and vanity. Their incentive to remonstrate was probably the excessively brutal scorched-earth policy implemented in the Palatinate between December 1688 and June 1689 to prevent the quartering of enemy troops on the French border. Proposed by Chamlay on 27 October 1688,182 and opposed by Vauban,183 this saw the total destruction of numerous Protestant towns and cities including Speyer, Worms, Oppenheim, Koblenz, Bingen, and Mannheim, while the lands and villages around them were razed within a ten-mile radius. Inhabitants were given time to leave and granted ten-year tax exemptions if they resettled on French territory. This was a practical military measure employed throughout the seventeenth century, but it did little to endear Louis XIV to his growing chorus of critics.184 It also inspired innovative new propaganda techniques designed to further blacken the Sun King’s rapacious reputation, like Romeyn de Hooghe’s bitingly satirical Harlequin prints.185 Such extreme measures emboldened Fénelon to compose a long and remarkable letter in response to repeated requests for advice on spiritual improvement from Maintenon. In it Fénelon candidly described Maintenon’s faults and those of the king and his ministry and the steps he believed she should take to remedy them. It echoed many of the recommendations made by Bourdaloue, but went much further by stressing that the greater sin was not to interfere in the king’s affairs and therefore miss the opportunity to improve him and them. The manner in which the marquise subsequently conducted herself at court can invariably be traced back to this seminal document. Indeed, Maintenon included it in her “Petits livres secrets,” which are transcriptions she herself made of a number of the spiritual and personal directives received from Godet des Marais and Fénelon between 1689 and 1709.186 The missive is examined in greater length in the following chapter, as is its more famous counterpart composed in 1694, but one particular section catalysed Maintenon into taking immediate action. In it Fénelon explained that the king’s conduct was governed not by maxims but rather by the impression made on him by trusted advisers and courtiers, who had persuaded him to implement unjust, violent, and defective policies to serve their own interests. It was therefore crucial, Fénelon contended, to surround the king with wise, selfless counsellors who would promote public prosperity, and to achieve this he recommended promoting the likes of the duc de Beauvillier.187

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The letter is dated January, but the year is unfortunately missing, and Orcibal places a question mark next to his estimation that it was written in 1690.188 The contents support this, but I agree with Lionel Rothkrug that January 1689 would seem even more plausible because of the devastation of the Palatinate in prospect of another unnecessary war, and the fact that on 16 August 1689 appointments to the Duke of Burgundy’s household were announced.189 Beauvillier became the prince’s governor, and Bossuet’s candidate as preceptor, Pierre de la Broue, bishop of Mirepoix, was rejected in favour of Fénelon. A Beauvillier contact, the marquis de Denonville, was made deputy-governor, and Claude Fleury one of two subpreceptors. The other, the abbé de Beaumont, was a relative of Fénelon’s through marriage, and Burgundy’s new lecteur, the abbé Langeron, was Fénelon’s old friend from his missionary days in Saintonge. Fénelon’s confessor, Père Le Valois, was commissioned to fulfill the same function for Burgundy.190 Beauvillier was already close to the king and had been promoted president of the council of finances in 1685, but his only biographer to date, Georges Lizerand, states that Hébert, Louis Tronson (superior of the training seminary of SaintSulpice from 1676 until his death in 1700), Le Valois, and even Bossuet spoke in support of Fénelon’s candidature and, critically, to clear him of suspicions of Jansenist leanings.191 The king, Lizerand argues, ultimately acted in accordance with Beauvillier’s opinion and that of Mme de Maintenon,192 who now seemed destined to play a much more active political and religious role at court.

e m e r g in g s tat e swo m a n and quas i -queen By 1689 the marquise had become one of the most respected and influential members of Louis XIV’s inner circle and her position as consort was tacitly accepted. Contemporaries therefore readily held Maintenon accountable when the king conferred new gratuities or preferments they had not expected or sponsored, having concluded that Maintenon’s protection was all-powerful. Clearly it was not, but the eminence of the position she occupied was widely acknowledged, as evidenced in Maintenon’s relations with the papacy, the exiled Stuart family, and the king’s key advisers and ministers. The transfer of the revenues of Saint-Denis to Saint-Cyr had been delayed because Innocent XI had demanded 130,000 livres to expedite the transaction and because Louis XIV had also asked in June 1686 for a dispensation enabling him to appoint candidates to benefices in conquered territory.193 It has been well documented how relations between

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the two courts had deteriorated over a number of issues, which in 1687 included clashes over ambassadorial franchises and candidates for the Electorate of Cologne. This resulted in the excommunication of Louis XIV’s bullish new ambassador to Rome, the marquis de Lavardin, after d’Estrées’s death at the start of the year. Subsequently the French king and his ministers were threatened with similar disciplinary action via the “Good Friday” bull, In Coena Domini, issued in 1688, which was unenforceable in France, as Innocent XI was patently aware.194 It was also not made public and therefore treated with a degree of skepticism by the king when Ranuzzi’s acolyte, Domenico Amonio, conveyed the message to him in January 1688.195 Nevertheless, papal ratification was required to install new bishops, and twenty-nine French benefices now lay vacant,196 motivating Seignelay to commission Fénelon at the end of 1688 to compose a memoir analyzing the current state of the impasse with Rome and the means by which it might be resolved. He unsurprisingly advocated a combination of judicious diplomacy and deferential compromise,197 and propitiously after Innocent’s death on 12 August 1689, a new pope, Alexander VIII, was elected who was sympathetic to French interests and also favoured reconciliation. An indication of this came in a letter dated 16 December 1689 written by the ambassador in Rome, the duc de Chaulnes, to Maintenon. He informed her that the endowment of Saint-Denis was henceforth reallocated to her school at Saint-Cyr and that this was being granted freely and quickly because of the measures Louis XIV has taken to uphold the Catholic religion and “in acknowledgment of your merit and your virtue,” adding that Alexander had underscored that this be communicated to the marquise and had twice reminded him of it.198 This was propitious, for Louis previously had perhaps miscalculated the extent to which he was able to manipulate the Roman curia. He had made a similar misjudgment in failing to foresee, or forestall, the Glorious Revolution in England, which did, nonetheless, offer new opportunities to enhance the power and prestige of the Bourbon family, in which Maintenon was now unofficially entrenched. After fleeing England on 23 December 1688, King James II lived in exile as the guest of his first cousin, Louis XIV, at Saint-Germain. James and his wife, Queen Mary of Modena, were both anxious to befriend Maintenon, and Louis XIV saw no impediment that prevented his consort from paying court to the Stuarts, and vice versa. Consequently, on his third visit to Versailles on 16 January 1689, James met the king chez Mme de Maintenon.199 A few days later at Marly on 20 January, James sought an audience with Maintenon, who descended to stop James from mounting the stairs,

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meeting him in the grand salon instead.200 The two monarchs subsequently spent a longer time together alone in her apartments at Versailles on Thursday, 27 January.201 A week later, on Saturday, 5 February, James II, Mary, and Louis XIV attended the third performance of Racine’s play Esther by the girls at Saint-Cyr, with Mme de Caylus admirably playing the leading role, which Sourches observed was “admired by all.”202 Maintenon arranged the seating to avoid further difficulties over protocol,203 providing armchairs for the three royal guests, with Louis placed on the left and James on the right of Mary.204 There was some controversy, nevertheless. Court memoirs purportedly composed by Mme de La Fayette wrote that “everyone still thought that this play was an allegory” because the central characters resembled Louis XIV, Mmes de Maintenon and de Montespan, and Louvois. The pupils apparently became intoxicated by the acclamation, and further stagings were terminated in 1690.205 On 7 February 1689 Louis XIV conducted James and Mary on a tour of the Trianon, accompanied by Maintenon and her female favourites, Mmes de Chevreuse, Beauvillier, Montchevreuil, Gramont, and Ventadour.206 Then James II was escorted to Brest on the 24th of the same month by the comte de Mailly. Sourches noted that this was a great honour for a young man like Mailly, who was not yet thirty but benefited from “the esprit and protection of Mme de Maintenon.”207 Perhaps with the future of her son in mind, the exiled English queen purposefully208 – and as it transpired, naturally – developed a strong bond with Maintenon, with Rizzini reporting that the marquise visited Mary at Saint-Germain on 1 March 1689, where they spent an hour together in private conversation.209 Moreover, on Sunday, 8 May 1689, Dangeau noted that Mary had dined at Saint-Cyr, where she spent a long time in the company of Mmes de Maintenon, Montchevrueil, and de Grammont, with a similar excursion made on 11 July.210 The Bourbons and the Stuarts clearly enjoyed each other’s company, with outings to the Trianon, sojourns at Marly, and autumn retreats to Fontainebleau becoming commonplace. Maintenon was therefore able legitimately to start playing a semi-regal role at court for the first time. She would never become queen, and it is unlikely she ever coveted a position that entailed such onerous public obligations, but she proved adept at carrying out a less formal vocation. This plainly suited the king, and two short billets du roi addressed to Maintenon dated 1689 give us a glimpse into Louis’s relationship with Françoise. The first kindly and urgently exhorts her to assure the comtesse de Gramont “that her brother has not been taken,” as he wanted

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her to hear this before the news from the front became public and knew she was with Maintenon at Saint-Cyr.211 The second is similar to others that have survived in which the king states that he had intended to go hunting, but that “time is against him and my foot is not all that good, and so if you would therefore like to come [to Versailles from SaintCyr] at six o’clock it would give me pleasure.”212 Louis clearly doted on his companion and prized their moments together, but Maintenon was concerned, as ever, about her devotional duties. On this topic her new confessor, Des Marais, advised on 2 November 1689 that she should do nothing out of the ordinary and that the king should always find her company “easy and enjoyable.”213 This she endeavoured to do, but the war and the crisis with Rome had generated much political tension at Versailles that had, to an extent, been exacerbated by Maintenon’s increasing influence and overt favouritism for the Seignelay–Burgundy faction against the interests of the Le Tellier family.214 Louvois therefore seized the opportunity that presented itself on 23 March 1689 when it transpired that the marquis de Lorges’s report that all the munitions necessary for the navy and army were ready in Guyenne proved woefully inaccurate. It was a province for which Seignelay was responsible, and Sourches recorded that he was angrily rebuked in Louvois’s presence by the king and forced to throw himself at Louis’s feet and beg his pardon. Seignelay subsequently suffered “violent vapeurs” in the expectation that he would be disgraced, but Sourches documented that this was averted because “Mme de Maintenon employed all her credit to prevent his ruin, and she undoubtedly did this in order to prevent Louvois from becoming “ministre absolu,” as the editorial footnote rightly suggests.215 In fact Maintenon’s efforts to rehabilitate Seignelay’s reputation were so successful that Dangeau confirmed six months later on the morning of 4 October that the secretary of state for the navy had been made a minister of state and thus a privileged member of the king’s chief policy-making body, the conseil d’en haut.216 However, another factor that enabled Maintenon to convince the king to retain and promote Seignelay was the realization that future attempts to restore James II to his throne would depend on a seaborne invasion.217 On Monday, 20 September 1689, Claude Le Peletier (1631–1711), who was formerly a Le Tellier client, retired as controller-general of finances and was replaced by Louis de Pontchartrain.218 Le Peletier continued to be a member of Louis XIV’s conseil d’en haut until 1697 as minister without portfolio, but he repeatedly complained that the king, while wishing to appear a “prudent Prince,” was in fact allowing himself increasingly to be governed by the impressions of Mme de Maintenon

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and obsequious flatterers.219 Little wonder then that Sarmant and Stoll have reasoned that “the close of the 1680s did not see the triumph of the Colbert, of the Le Tellier or of the Phélypeaux, but more assuredly that of the royal wife, who was going to remain the most trusted counsellor of Louis XIV until the end of his reign.”220 In broad agreement with this conclusion, the following chapter will demonstrate nonetheless that this seemingly organic transition from confidante to counsellor would be erratic and complex. In refining her role, while accumulating and discharging an ever greater number of responsibilities, Maintenon would constantly be hampered by humility, inexperience, competition, criticism, and a king who wanted advice but not direction.

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The Evolution of the Marquise’s Métier, 1690–1695

Although they fail to analyze the era in depth, Maintenon’s biographers agree that she would begin to play a more prominent role in state business after 1700 and that during the preceding period the influence she exerted in the sphere of politics was incidental to her involvement in the realm of religion.1 The involvement of the marquise in public affairs did appear to be inevitable at this time: she was a regular attendee at policy-making meetings from November 1700, and was courted by and in correspondence with numerous foreign powers, and several of her protégés already occupied the highest positions in church and state. However, this prospect was far from predictable during the 1690s, which witnessed the almost accidental evolution of Maintenon’s métier, contradicting the traditional interpretation that she had already become all-powerful and had cunningly plotted to be so. Maintenon’s influence was restricted to religious affairs during the 1690s, but it gradually encroached into state business because the two realms were inseparable. This was in part because church benefices were superlative assets that conferred not just episcopal influence on incumbents but also political power, social prestige, and lucrative financial reward. Encouraged by advisers with their own conflicting agendas, such as Fénelon and Godet des Marais, Maintenon embroiled herself in ecclesiastical politics, meddling with appointments, policies, and diplomacy and thereby gaining experience, knowledge, confidence, and eventually influence in matters of state, so that by 1700 the arguments supporting her involvement in high politics outweighed those favouring her exclusion. No such case could have been defended a decade earlier, least of all by the king. Throughout the 1690s Louis was plainly opposed to his wife’s participation in state business, which compelled Maintenon to apply herself initially to more immediate concerns, such

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as the direction of Saint-Cyr and its conversion into a convent, the fulfilment of her matriarchal obligations within the royal family, and promoting the interests of her relatives and associates. But again this placed her in an awkward position because at the same time the king required her to support him by attending multifarious conferences with officials. After 1690 he developed the habit of working with ministers and advisers in her apartments between dinner and supper because after Louvois’s sudden death aged fifty on 16 July 1691 the king effectively became “his [own] principal minister,” as La Bruyère remarked.2 The workload was demanding, and the pressure on him was intense, making Maintenon’s reassuring and intelligent presence in governmental deliberations desirable; and in many ways this replicated the working relationship between Cardinal Mazarin and Anne of Austria.3 That the king became accustomed to her attendance, and to her cautious intervention, suggests that no one was as surprised as Louis to find that his wife had become an indispensable member of his government by the turn of the century. It is important, therefore, to contextualize this complex and erratic process, which saw Maintenon become a formidable and recognizable court figure, who nonetheless remained unsure what her remit might legitimately entail beyond the king’s spiritual redemption.

f é n e l o n ’ s ag e n da for reform Maintenon was present at ministerial meetings after 1689 but excluded from participating directly in deliberations, which were nicknamed liasses because of the bundles of state papers that advisers brought to work through with Louis XIV. The marquise insisted to papal nuncios and the archbishop of Paris on numerous occasions throughout this period that the king disliked hearing affairs of state discussed by anyone other than his ministers, and that consequently she was able only to pass general comments on such matters. This presented a fundamental and consistent conundrum – what was Maintenon’s role at court? Whether at Marly, the Trianon, Fontainebleau, or other royal residences, the king visited Maintenon in her apartments almost every day between dinner and supper, usually from seven until ten, “à son ordinaire,” when state business was transacted with individual ministers, as Dangeau records,4 but she remained absent from official ceremony. Protocol clearly prevented this, although the princesse de Conti teased Maintenon in April 1691 that her humility was unnecessary.5 Even at Marly or on campaign, when etiquette was relaxed, Maintenon’s isolation – she was often “enfermée” with the king and

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secluded from court scrutiny – naturally aroused suspicions, for she was forced to adopt a distinct and unprecedented rank that Liselotte considered above that of queen, and thus subversive of the function of a proper court.6 Given the marked transformation in the king’s character, and considering the amount of time Louis had been spending in Maintenon’s company, it is hardly surprising that courtiers thought her responsible for a wide range of appointments and changes in government policy. Ironically, Liselotte found the king’s new piety and fidelity perplexing, and on 13 February 1695 she asked her aunt, Electress Sophie, “where in the world does one find a husband who loves only his spouse and does not have someone, be it mistresses or boys, on the side?”7 The guidance Maintenon received from Fénelon in the aforementioned letter of January 1689 was therefore timely. It was also candid and made a profound long-term impact on the marquise, so is worth analyzing in detail. Fénelon highlighted Maintenon’s personal and spiritual shortcomings as well as those of the king and his administration. He praised the marquise for her piety: “you have never had worldly vices and a long time ago abjured errors.”8 But he also warned her against becoming conceited and that she had perhaps deservedly acquired the reputation for being cold, severe, and judgmental, immediately abandoning seemingly virtuous people she had hoped to favour once a minor weakness had been detected.9 There is also a clearly delineated political agenda, and the contents of this missive very much anticipated the more coruscating criticisms levelled in the notorious letter of 1693–94. Fénelon exhorted Maintenon to become more involved in, and better instructed about, current affairs and state business so that she could play a more prominent role in improving the king. This he hoped to achieve by bolstering her confidence and suggesting ways to remedy the many failings he identified in the Sun King’s system of government. It was Maintenon’s duty to accomplish this, as well as secure Louis’s salvation: It is said that you meddle too little in affairs. Those who say this are inspired by anxiety, by the desire to interfere in the government, and anger against those who distribute graces, or in the hope that they will obtain them from you. For you, Madam, it is at no point appropriate that you make efforts to correct what is not in your hands. Zeal for the salvation of the King should not make you go beyond the bounds that Providence seems to have marked out for you … What seems true to me, regarding affairs, is that your mind is more capable than you think: you distrust yourself perhaps a little too much, or else you are too afraid to enter into discussions contrary

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to your taste for a life of tranquility and contemplation. Moreover, I imagine you fear the character of people you encounter on your path when entering into some affair. But finally it seems to me that your intellect, natural and acquired, is much more considerable than you acknowledge … I persist in believing that you should never interfere in the affairs of State, but you must become instructed in them … and when the overtures of Providence offer you the means to do good, without pushing the King too far beyond his limits, you must never retreat … This task would not be easy for she would have to overcome not just her own anxieties but also the misgivings of courtiers as well as those of certain royal family members, who needed protecting and nurturing: Regarding your duties, I do not hesitate a moment in believing that you should confine them within narrower limits than most overzealous people would like. Each, full of self-interest, wants to lead you in these matters … [and] each person also wishes that your opinion is consistent with his, and his reason with yours … You have, at the court, people who appear well intentioned; they deserve to be treated well and encouraged; but it must be done with great precaution, because a thousand people will make themselves dévots to please you … After the hours of piety you must also, it seems to me, work and give the time necessary in order to know, by dependable people, the excellent aspects of each profession, and the principal disorders that one can suppress. At no point use informers, who will endeavour to poison you in recounting all the minor faults of particular individuals … You must also take care to support in their employment good people who are in post, to prevent calumnious reports and unjust suspicions, to diminish the splendour of the court when you are able to do it, and to insert, little by little, Monseigneur [the dauphin] in all affairs, to prevent the venom of impiety from slipping around him; in a word, being the sentinel of God in the middle of Israel, to protect all that is good and repress all that is bad, but according to the boundaries of your authority … Fénelon temptingly hinted that if Maintenon’s subtle endeavours proved successful then even more ambitious projects of reform could be attempted. But he insisted that the marquise must also concurrently

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take care of her own health and well-being before tackling the heart and mind of the king: It perhaps follows, if God gives you the relevant facilities, that you will be able to do good on an even more extensive scale. Now you have the community of Saint-Cyr, which demands a good deal of care: nevertheless, I would like you to be substantially relieved and discharged from that obligation. You need time for contemplation and rest both of body and mind. You must follow the current of general affairs to temper what is excessive and redress that which is in need of it. You must, without ever being discouraged, profit from all that God puts in your heart … to open the eyes [of the king] and enlighten him, but without overzealousness, as I’ve often illustrated to you … The true means by which to bring grace on the King and on the State is not to scold or indeed to tire the King; it is to edify him, by sacrificing yourself continually; it is to open, little by little, the heart of this prince by ingenious, cordial, patient conduct, free nevertheless and with infantile patience. But speak boldly and bluntly, returning often to the objective, prepare your strategy secretly, making plans of human wisdom, to reform that which needs reforming, and wanting to do good by unorthodox means: your solidity rejects such methods, yet you just have to follow them simply … Fénelon then explained that because the king was impressionable and unenlightened, the best way to convert him to new ways of thinking would be to surround him with wise and prudent councillors and to pack the church with “saintly” prelates. In matters of conscience she should therefore have only one “sagacious” director, but in temporal affairs the marquise should, as the occasion demanded, be able to solicit guidance from experts:10 Moreover, as the King conducts himself much less by following maxims than by the impression made by those who surround him, and those in whom he entrusts his authority, the key is to surround him with reliable people, who are acting in concert with you to make him accomplish his duties the true extent of which he has no idea. If he is prevented from favouring those who carry out so much violence, so much injustice [and] make so many gross mistakes, he will soon be even more inclined to favour those who would follow the rules and generate good in so doing. I am therefore persuaded that if

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you were able to augment the credit of Messieurs de Chevreuse and Beauvillier, you will strike a great blow. It is for you to judge when, but if simplicity and liberty cannot achieve this, I would like better to wait until God has prepared the heart of the King. Lastly, the great point is to besiege it, since he wants to be governed: his salvation consists in it being besieged by righteous and selfless people. Your application is to touch him [the King], to instruct him, to open his heart, to protect it from certain traps, to support it when he is shaken, to give him visions of peace, and especially the relief of the people, of moderation, of fairness, of distrust regarding councils harsh and violent, of horror for acts of arbitrary authority, finally of love for the Church, and the application to seek out saintly pastors … Although you cannot speak about these matters at any time, you will need to expend a good deal of time in order to choose the appropriate moments to insinuate these truths. Here is the occupation that I put above all the others … Whilst waiting you can do good by the choice of the pastors, thereby endeavouring to diminish evil … Lastly, Madam, be well persuaded that for the correction of your defects, and for the achievement of your obligations, the principle is to work on them from the inside, and not the outside.11 Fénelon’s message was carefully couched to appeal to Maintenon’s sympathies, employing intricate political undertones and a heavy religious overtone. He successfully motivated Françoise to move beyond the conservative and thus more comfortable limits of an educational and charitable imperative,12 to take a proactive role in the public and private life of the court and king. This was ironic given his didactic beliefs. One historian has accused Fénelon of hypocrisy in manipulating Maintenon to pursue his own agenda and further his personal political ambitions.13 But Fénelon himself reasoned that Maintenon’s inimitable position auprès du roi afforded so many opportunities to do good that it must have been divinely conceived. He was convinced at this stage that the king’s erroneous ways could be corrected by influencing his closest companion, so Lionel Rothkrug’s old “shadow government” theory can no longer be substantiated.14 The personal faults Fénelon perceptively pinpointed were ones that Maintenon constantly strove and invariably failed to overcome in the years ahead, and they were often exacerbated by the unfamiliar and constantly challenging environment she found herself in. The marquise consequently made mistakes, and her inexperience was sometimes glaringly exposed. Nevertheless, she always attempted to stay within Fénelon’s

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guidelines, which enabled her to assess what part she might play in certain affairs, or to appraise the extent of her culpability when an interventionist strategy had gone awry. Fénelon’s instructions became a point of reference and acted as a moral and political compass for Maintenon, and elements of them were subsequently reinforced and elaborated upon by mentors and confessors. They served as an inspiration and an obligation, and they repeatedly provided justifications for the inadvertent consequences of actions with unimpeachably good intentions, even beyond the termination of their friendship in 1697 and throughout her career as royal consort. Subsequent letters from 1690 to 1692 contained further constructive observations, which Maintenon transcribed into notebooks, often carried on her person; and the principal tenets of Fenelon’s directives provided the foundations for the maxims she composed to edify her Saint-Cyr pupils.

a m in is t e r ia l r e s h uffle and t h e r is e o f t h e p hélypeaux Fénelon could perhaps rightly complain in 1693 that the subsequent alterations in government had achieved little, but the modifications implemented between 1689 and 1691 were not inconsistent with his wishes, nor were they solely contingent on Mme de Maintenon. The escalation of the Nine Years’ War and the sudden death of Louvois on 16 July 1691 helped precipitate profound changes in the direction and personnel of Louis XIV’s government, which witnessed the rise of the Burgundy circle and Phélypeaux family. Beauvillier and Fénelon and their contacts dominated the household and circle of the Duke of Burgundy after August 1689, as has been stated, and Dangeau documented on 19 September the rumour circulating at court that considerable alterations were expected after Claude Le Peletier asked to be relieved as controller-general.15 The king acceded to this request the following day and assigned the post to Louis Phélypeaux (1643–1727), comte de Pontchartrain. He had served successfully as the président of the Parlement of Brittany between 1677 and 1687 and subsequently as an intendant de finances at Versailles. Pontchartrain was talented and popular; Saint-Simon extolled his sharp intellect, great integrity, and pleasing cheerfulness, and also the many virtues of his wife, Marie de Maupeou.16 In 1690 Maintenon followed Fénelon’s advice and appointed a replacement for the abbé Gobelin, choosing Godet des Marais as her confessor. She also ensured that Godet was elevated to the Bishopric of Chartres, even though, as Maintenon privately conceded to Mme de Brinon on 22 February 1690, “the King had never seen his face and he

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knows no-one here [at court]; but all honnêtes gens have applauded this choice. He was truly distressed and his humility has redoubled because of it.”17 Saint-Cyr came within the orbit of the Diocese of Chartres, and with the episcopal seat only thirty miles away, Godet also became the school’s religious supervisor. Seignelay’s sudden death on 3 October 1690 proved a boon to the Phélypeaux family. Pontchartrain gained the late minister’s offices of secretary of state for the maison de roi and for Paris, as well as for the clergy, and was also compelled to accept, against his will, responsibility for the navy,18 securing the survivance of this post for his son Jérôme Phélypeaux (1674–1747) in 1693.19 The senior branch of the Phélypeaux family, the La Vrillières, held the secretaryship for Protestant affairs, an office they monopolized from 1629 to 1715,20 and in 1690, Louis de Pontchartrain’s brother, Jean Phélypeaux (1646–1711), was appointed intendant for the généralité of Paris.21 Pontchartrain entrusted his nephew, the abbé JeanPaul Bignon (1662–1743), with the academy of sciences in 1692 and with those of belle-lettres, inscriptions, and medals in 1693. This gave him a commanding role in the production of culture and propaganda, and even more so after his uncle became chancellor in 1699 and appointed JeanPaul director of the book trade and royal library.22 The Phélypeaux had therefore seemingly become predominant in the king’s councils, but this did not, in fact, signal the total decline of the Le Tellier family,23 nor did it herald the eclipse of the Colberts. The new executive team that the king constructed after Louvois’s death was determinedly led by Louis XIV, and after 24 July 1691 it included the duc de Beauvillier, who became a minister without portfolio, and the dauphin.24 The king’s son had attended the finance council since 1688, but was now entitled to enter them all, including the conseil d’en haut,25 which the duc du Maine informed Maintenon was a great mark of esteem and confidence.26 The duc de Chevreuse also joined the king’s inner circle of advisers, and a Colbertian faction therefore remained prominent within it. Simon Arnauld, marquis de Pomponne (1618–1699), however, was recalled after an eleven-year absence to share the foreign secretary’s portfolio with Colbert de Croissy. This signalled a significant change in the direction and style of government, as several historians have identified, because a more moderate approach to foreign policy-making was necessary “to counterbalance annexationist diplomacy.”27 Pomponne may have been less belligerent and more flexible in principle than Croissy, but he was also an experienced, resourceful, and fiercely tenacious negotiator and diplomat, whom the King would come to rely upon for pragmatic advice on international affairs.28

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The Venetian ambassador reported that the presence of Beauvillier and Pomponne in the conseil d’en haut severely eroded the influence and credit of Croissy, whose “roughness and arrogance” was now counterbalanced by Beauvillier’s honesty, piety, and kindness and the easy-going and more compromising nature of the new ministers in general.29 Beauvillier and Chevreuse may even have had a hand in orchestrating Pomponne’s reappointment,30 and his return was widely applauded. The duc du Maine informed Maintenon that foreign powers too would be “delighted” and that the king’s affairs would now be so well-conducted that they could not go wrong.31 These sentiments were shared by Vauban. He had long lamented that the careful consideration of the course of international affairs had detrimentally been subordinated to the promotion of aggressive internal and external policies that resulted in France brazenly alienating numerous foreign powers32 and that had rendered his job more difficult.33 Liselotte had overheard the rumour that criticisms of Maintenon made to the king by Louvois at the siege of Mons in the spring of 1691 had precipitated the disgrace of the war minister.34 Although displeased with Louvois’s complacency at Mons, which was eventually captured despite William of Orange’s unexpected relief efforts,35 there is little evidence to support the theory that Louis was about to make one of his rare ministerial dismissals.36 Nevertheless, Louvois’s sudden death was quietly welcomed,37 and it left courtiers speculating on the cause and likely consequences. Liselotte was proved wrong in both her suspicions. She believed that Louvois had been poisoned and that there was now nothing to prevent Maintenon from becoming “more powerful than ever.”38 The marquise had conspicuously become Seignelay’s patron and more antagonistic toward the personality and policies of Louvois, but while she was evidently becoming more politically powerful, she could not effect ministerial removals, nor could she manipulate factional conflicts, which the king continued to control. Moreover, as one historian incisively contends, the court was “a trading floor of elite interests” that were fiercely competitive and naturally fluid.39 Andrew Lossky replicates a mistake made by André Corvisier40 in citing a letter of 4 December 1688 from Maintenon to Mme de Saint-Géran,41 proved apocryphal by Lavallée,42 in which the marquise confessed that the king’s desire to speak with an entire liberty in her presence at ministerial interviews irritated Louvois. Saint-Simon more accurately reflected that Louvois feared that Maintenon’s power would be enhanced to his detriment if the secret marriage he allegedly witnessed was publicized.43 As Guy Rowlands has indicated, the influence Maintenon exerted “made the Le

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Tellier very uneasy,”44 and Thierry Sarmant has suggested that the location of Mme de Maintenon’s bedroom caused Louvois much anxiety. 45 The expanding Phélypeaux network and their accumulation of offices also challenged Colbertian supremacy, particularly after 1689.46 The Le Tellier presence in the conseil d’en haut was by now reduced,47 yet many Le Tellier clients continued in their capacity as leading political and ecclesiastical officials.48 Sourches reflected that since the war’s commencement, Louvois’s ministerial authority had expanded, with even Mme de Maintenon “propping up his sails,” and that Seignelay was his only rival.49 This is somewhat exaggerated, but it does reveal just how indispensable Louvois had become. When he went to take the recuperative waters at Forges in July 1688 the war minister was hounded incessantly by couriers arriving from Versailles because, as Sarmant and Stoll assert, the king “would not take any important resolution without consulting M. de Louvois.”50 And a few months earlier in March his second son, François Macé, marquis de Courtanvaux (d. 1719), was awarded the survivance for the distinguished post of Capitaine des Cent-Suisses of the king’s guard.51 Geoffrey Symcox notes that Louvois effectively attacked the pro-navy Colbert faction after Seignelay’s death in 1690, obtaining for himself the charge of the direction of ports and coastal fortifications previously under the authority of the marine secretary.52 Furthermore, in November 1690 the two bodies of engineers were reunited into a single unit under the sole authority of Louvois; this may have been an attempt to decelerate the rising fortunes of the Phélypeaux family.53 Claude Le Peletier was one of the foremost Le Tellier clients and has been described by one historian as “the disciple of Michel Le Tellier.”54 Le Peletier had long acted as the protector and patron at Versailles of Pontchartrain and was greatly esteemed by the king. Accordingly he was given the task of recommending his replacement as controller-general. Claude could have chosen his brother, Michel Le Peletier de Souzy (1640–1725), but instead he based his decision on merit and selected Pontchartrain.55 He had proved himself after 1677 to be an adept premier président in Brittany, which had biannual estates but did not have a permanent intendant until 1689, which left Pontchartrain to shoulder many of the responsibilities usually discharged by that official, including the management of provincial courts and institutions.56 He consequently constructed an extensive clientage network to manage these obligations and help expedite Crown business.57 Michel de Souzy was also highly regarded, having served as a successful intendant in Lille from 1668, and as an intendant de finances since

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1684. Saint-Simon regarded him as “infinitely capable,”58 and his talents were rewarded after the death of Louvois, whose son, Louis François Marie Le Tellier, marquis de Barbezieux (1668–1701), took over as secretary of state for war, with Michel de Souzy appointed director-general of land and sea fortifications in 1691. This office had been detached from the new war minister’s portfolio,59 and Michel ran it until 1715, meeting the king once a week every Monday from 1694 after dinner, as Dangeau recorded.60 Barbezieux was awarded the pension of a ministre d’état of 20,000 livres61 but was not invited to join the conseil d’en haut, nor was the other leading Le Tellier client who had been appointed chancellor on 1 November 1685, Louis Boucherat (1616–1699),62 but the latter continued to attend the royal council of finances, which met during the 1690s on Tuesdays and Saturdays.63 Its membership consisted of the king, the dauphin, Beauvillier, Colbert’s uncle Henri Pussort (1615–1697), Claude Le Peletier, and also François d’Argouges, who had been named premier président of the Parlement of Brittany in 1661 under Colbert’s auspices. D’Argouges became Pontchartrain’s powerful ally and sponsor, later lending him the money to purchase the office of secretary of state for the navy and colonies.64 The position of surintendant des postes was taken from Barbezieux65 at the start of 1692 and awarded to Claude Le Peletier,66 who retained his title of minister as a continuing member of the conseil d’en haut,67 which met on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.68 Le Peletier also continued to promote the Le Telliers’ interests and those of their clients, such as the favoured military commander and marshal from 1693, Nicolas Catinat, who had been Louvois’s protégé.69 Gilbert Colbert, marquis de Saint-Pouange (1642–1705), continued as the premier commis for the secretary of state for war and accompanied Monseigneur the dauphin on campaign in 1693. Édouard Colbert, marquis de Villarcerf (1628–1699), became inspector-general or controlleur des bâtiments du roi on 1 August 1686 because Louvois was, according to Dangeau, “overwhelmed by the tiresome details.”70 He was then elevated to surintendant on 28 July 1691, but the control of manufactures was taken from Villarcerf’s department and given to the new controller-general, Pontchartrain, in 1689. Charles Maurice Le Tellier (1642– 1710), Louvois’s brother and Barbezieux’s uncle, was promoted to the see of Reims in 1671 and became an eminent courtier and close friend of Louis XIV, who consulted him on a wide range of issues. It is therefore far too simplistic to apportion excessive influence to Maintenon and her clients at this juncture. But the death of Louvois in 1691 did mark a fundamental turning point in the management of

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Louis XIV’s government, in which the marquise would come to play an increasingly important role.

l o u is x iv ’ s p e rsonal rule Historians have long debated when Louis XIV first began to act as his own first minister, with both 1691 and 1701 identified as dates that heralded a new era in personal government. Ernest Lavisse marked 1701 as the beginning of a more personal rule, surmising that Chamillart’s appointment to the war ministry underscored the king’s desire to be his own war minister because of his vast knowledge of military matters and Chamillart’s inexperience.71 Subsequent scholars have modified this view, persuasively arguing that a new period of personal governance started in 1691.72 Clearly, Louvois’s death introduced a new and complex balance in political factionalism with the reduction in power of the Colbert and Le Tellier circles, the elevation of the Phélypeaux family, plus two phenomena that have traditionally been studied too little, namely, the increasing prominence in government of royal family members, and, of course, that of Mme de Maintenon. John Rule, and to a lesser extent Michel Antoine, have convincingly contested that the same period consequently saw a marked decline in the influence of the conseil d’en haut as advice was increasingly sought from officials who were not ministers.73 Essential government business was often transacted during informal private conferences held in Mme de Maintenon’s apartments, with decisions taken and frequently noted in arrèts pris en commandement, which were then signed with an individual secretary of state.74 Dangeau notes, for example, that at the end of 1693, each evening it was the king’s custom to work between dinner and supper “chez Mme de Maintenon” with Pontchartrain on naval business, or with Barbezieux regarding troops and warfare.75 Guy Rowlands contends that after Louvois’s death, Louis XIV felt “liberated,” but that on the same afternoon a “visibly worried” king could be seen pacing anxiously outside the palace of Versailles.76 Perhaps that could also be interpreted as nervous excitement at the prospect of actually playing the part of a first minister in addition to fulfilling his divine duties as sovereign. The marquise d’Huxelles recorded overhearing a conversation between Louis and Pomponne on 23 July 1691, during which the king asserted that he was better acquainted with affairs of state than any one of his current ministers.77 And Dangeau noted on 25 July 1691 that the “King presented them [his council] with a plan of all the affairs of state, and the ministers all agreed that they had never heard such a beautiful discourse.”78

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Louis was now free to gather around him a cluster of officials who were generally more servile and in some cases less experienced than some of their predecessors, so his boast to Pomponne was far from hollow. Regarding himself as the “first soldier of the realm,”79 the king thought it only natural for him to assume direct control of the war effort after Louvois’s death, but he was only partly aware of the extra weight such new and challenging responsibilities would place upon him.80 As the 1690s progressed Louis XIV therefore was, to all intents and purposes, his own war minister, and a letter of instruction from the king to Vauban seems to confirm this.81 Louis personally undertook and directed the ultimately successful siege of Namur in 1692 “to show to all of Europe that, without the help of Louvois, he was able himself to execute such a grand design,”82 and Sarmant and Stoll cogently claim that Louis XIV became the “chief of his armies” during the Nine Years’ War.83 After that war’s conclusion Dangeau witnessed that the king remarkably took the opportunity, during a promenade at Versailles on 16 April 1699, to justify why he had not taken command of his armies before 1691, elucidating that “a man insufferable on that occasion as all others” (Louvois) had prevented him from gloriously attacking and defeating the enemy at Heurtebise near Valenciennes during the Dutch war on 10 May 1676. Yet he then also quietly admitted that it had been the day in his life when he had made the most mistakes, was regrettable and painful to recall, and that it still sometimes woke him up at night “always in a state of anger.”84 This furnishes us with important insights into “the King of war”85 and the notion that Louvois had provided Louis, Maintenon, and other officials with a safety valve that allowed them to express reservations about and objections to inflammatory government policies. After Louvois’s death and the king’s assumption of personal power, that valve was sealed and progressively more pressure was placed on Louis’s shoulders. This he initially welcomed, and he did have a wealth of experience to draw on, having fought in several of the theatres in which the Nine Years’ War was waged. But Dangeau also documents that the king was working an extra three to four hours a day since Louvois’s passing, and writing many things in his own hand.86 Maintenon confirmed this to correspondents, telling the abbesse de Fontévrault on 27 September 1691 that those people closest to him are surprised by his activity: he holds more councils than ever, because he has more affairs than ever, and devotes two or three hours a day to the hunt when he is able. He returns at six o’clock and ceaselessly writes, reads or dictates

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until ten. He often takes leave of the princesses after supper to dispatch a courier. His generals are so comfortable in dealings with him that they render a very exact account; they seem charmed by his responses and without wishing to be insulting [a reference to Louvois, as Lavallée footnotes] they find them composed in a much more genial style.87 To reassure courtiers and onlookers of the stability and constancy of his affairs, and to instill confidence in young Barbezieux, who also enjoyed Maintenon’s support, the king began working publicly with his new war secretary two days after Louvois’s death. He clearly relished his new role as mentor. Sarmant and Stoll credibly assert that a new equilibrium was quickly established in government, in which the king was “in the ascendant.” This initial burst of confidence and new ministerial configuration meant that Louis was perhaps less mindful of the need to focus constantly on factional management.88 Initial successes in the Nine Years’ War were attributable to Louvois’s military machine, to the efficiency of new officials, ministers, and extremely able generals like Luxembourg, Noailles, and Boufflers, and – to a certain extent – to Louis XIV’s assiduity, but two military strategists predominated. The Venetian ambassador remarked that the king had singled out Vauban and Chamlay to act as “the secret councillors of a defunct ministry to direct and deliberate on projects of war.”89 John Lynn claims that the former soldier Jean-Louis Bolé (1650–1719), marquis de Chamlay, became the King’s personal military adviser;90 and Sourches observed in 1692 that he had become a “considerable figure.”91 After Louvois’s death Chamlay had been called in immediately to report on the current state of the international conflict,92 and was subsequently offered the position of secretary of state for war, which he declined out of deference to his Le Tellier patrons.93 Chamlay nonetheless continued to work closely with Louis in private planning campaigns, and he was regularly sent on missions to the front line and given diplomatic assignments.94 He had been appointed maréchal general des logis des camps et armées in 1670 and – a mark of the deep respect in which Louis held him – in 1687 he had been granted the right of access to the king’s bedroom, the grand entrées. His tireless exertions and invaluable counsel earned him a gratification of 30,000 livres in 1692; and the following year he was named commander and awarded the great cross of the Order of Saint-Louis.95 Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban (1633–1708) was the unofficial “general commissaire of fortifications,” to whom Le Peletier de Souzy

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deferred, and labelled “chief of engineers” by Sourches on 24 August 1688.96 He was similarly rewarded for his inestimable contributions as a seemingly invincible siege director, fortress designer, and expert military consultant, receiving 100,000 livres in 1691 and finally obtaining a marshal’s baton in 1703.97 Indeed Vauban’s influence was such that it even made Louis de Pontchartrain feel vulnerable.98 The king corresponded directly with both Vauban and Chamlay, ensuring that the latter also worked regularly with Barbezieux to expedite his apprenticeship,99 but sometimes decisions were taken and promotions granted without the war secretary’s cognizance, and this ultimately undermined his position further.100 Barbezieux naturally became disenchanted and distracted. He was not so much little used as lacking initiative and independence.101

t h e e l a b o r at io n o f m a i ntenon’s role Louis XIV began personally to oversee the minutiae of day-to-day government after 1691 and this helps to account for his recall of and reliance upon old friends, trusted servants, and experienced administrators. The king was perhaps seeking a degree of reassurance, and this would have been further bolstered by Maintenon’s inclusion in conferences with ministers, marshals, secretaries, and advisers. The marquise was renowned for her discretion and provided Louis with an intelligent second pair of eyes and ears, but this was not a planned political internship like that endured by Barbezieux. Her opinion at this stage was unwelcome, and she found herself unable to push Fénelon’s proposals further. Maintenon’s influence was restricted not by feuding factions or envious officials but primarily by the king. He patently did not want women involving themselves in affairs, as exemplified by Maintenon repeatedly admonishing Mme de Brinon not to become involved in the dispute between the duchesse de Bouillon and the Duchess of Brunswick-Hannover. A violent quarrel over precedence had broken out among their valets in January 1692, during which a number were injured and several of the duchesse’s men killed.102 A few months later Maintenon informed Brinon that the affairs of Madame de Brunswick, Mme, have become matters of state, that, consequently, neither you nor I can be involved in any longer; they must be dealt with by the ministers and we must content ourselves to wishing that they be concluded to our satisfaction; I am interested in these matters as much as I have ever been and am sorry to be unavailing in them.103

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The last line of the quotation betrays Maintenon’s dilemma in that she wanted to continue in similarly successful fashion the salutary projects begun in 1689, but was to an extent thwarted. She was evidently disappointed and frustrated. A letter dated 21 December 1695 to her protégé, Louis-Antoine de Noailles, who had been named archbishop of Paris earlier in the same year, lamented the new resistance she encountered in 1691: “I have in mind that if one had not been distanced from me, we would have continued as it began five or six years ago.”104 Significantly, Maintenon was convinced that interested parties had successfully encouraged the king not to be steered by his consort. Not until 1696 would she begin to realize that the primary responsibility for this detachment lay with Louis himself. It nevertheless caused contemporaries to speculate, incorrectly, that the king was being malevolently governed by “the old trollop,” sitting enigmatically in state behind the scenes, as aptly portrayed in a letter to Brinon on 27 August 1693. Herein she spoke about being overwhelmed by affairs at Saint-Cyr and her desire that the war be concluded quickly and peacefully, and again reminded Brinon that she was unable to speak on matters that had become affairs of state, adding that “you know me and know if I like to cause harm; I only know how to behave justly and simply. Few people in this country think the same, and are capable of believing that I could not have reached where I am without profound skilfulness; this is said just between us, if you please.”105 It was ironic that Maintenon harboured suspicions similar to those voiced by her critics. This betrays the adept fashion in which Louis XIV initially managed his government during the new “personal rule.” Nevertheless, “mystery” fostered insecurity and left the marquise questioning her own position and function. This did not include interfering in ecclesiastical appointments with assured success, as she discovered in August 1690, when she failed to have her candidate named Prioress of Pontoise.106 A letter to her friend the duchesse de Ventadour, Charlotte Éléonore Madeleine de La Motte-Houdancourt (1651–1744),107 on 30 October 1691, explained why. In it she exposed her disdain for the king’s Jesuit confessor, Père de La Chaise, to whom she had “nothing agreeable to say.”108 He resented Maintenon’s growing influence and opposed her attempts to encroach on his authority and monopolize church preferments by divulging them to the king,109 thus undermining her campaign and causing her “embarrassment.”110 All of this was further exacerbated by Louis, who “did not miss the opportunity to say: ‘in what do the women want to meddle?’ So in the end, having considered everything, I have not spoken of it.”111 Until 1695 Maintenon therefore stressed repeatedly to correspondents that she

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“involved herself little in regard to benefices,” and that the king’s confessor, Père de La Chaise, as ministre de la feuille, was to be approached for patronage in this area, a procedure she herself reluctantly had to follow.112 But this did not prevent her from passing on recommendations to the king, which were often taken up with ministers, or from discussing vacancies,113 especially with abbesses, in whose convents she successfully arranged the placement of Saint-Cyr graduates.114 Courtiers would perhaps tolerate Maintenon carrying out rituals and responsibilities that reflected a role traditionally fulfilled by a queen, but once she began to interfere in state business their reaction would be inimical.115 During this period the marquise consequently focused on developing her relations with the king’s relatives, advancing her own friends and family, consolidating her position at Versailles, governing Saint-Cyr, and satisfying any other private and social obligations that befitted her position. Activities in spheres of influence that were more accessible to her, and acceptable to la voix publique, gradually gave Maintenon a more sophisticated understanding of the ways in which the court and government functioned, as well as the royal family. As during campaigns in the late 1680s, her overbearing manner was inflicted on the duc du Maine, but also on the king through correspondence. Initially displaying concern for the sovereign’s well-being, her missives soon echoed the lectures of a governess, and Louis’s reaction was defiant. On 26 March 1691 the duc du Maine informed the marquise that the king was behaving rashly and exposing himself to danger at the front “because in addition to fatigue, he is exposing himself, if I dare say it, like a young fool who wants to establish his reputation and to show that he has no fear.”116 Maintenon consequently berated Louis in letters delivered by du Maine, who confided that the marquise’s reprimands had been as badly received as the reproaches that he and other senior officers had ventured. The duc added that the king was now under the impression that Maintenon was willing his gout to deteriorate in order to prevent him from leaving the safety of the trenches.117 The much criticized opportunity that Louis missed to annihilate the army of William of Orange after the siege of Heidelberg in May 1693 has been blamed on Maintenon, who allegedly successfully demanded that the king return to the safety of Versailles, with Louis consequently dividing his army and spoiling the possibility of total victory.118 Maintenon informed a correspondent that the king’s return was “in the interests of the state,”119 and she was naturally delighted and relieved because it was in accordance with her wishes, but it is unlikely that he took them into account in making his decision. Rather, it exposes Louis’s

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growing conservatism and indecision and serves as another demonstration of his inability to command effectively in the field.120 Guy Rowlands has detected other examples during the Nine Years’ War of the King’s penchant for prevarication, or “strategic dithering,”121 which became increasingly problematical as the reign wore on. Louis composed many private billets du roi to Maintenon during the war, several of which have survived. Some were intimate, but most were composed to assure the marquise of the continued safety of her friends and family, and they soon evolved into regular and eagerly awaited newsletters that updated Maintenon on the current state of the war. The first two of the three messages transcribed below refer to the aftermath of Tourville’s great naval victory over the allied fleet at Beachy Head on 10 July 1690, in which Maintenon’s cousin, Philippe de Villette, was intricately involved as a naval commander; whereas the third relates to the siege of Mons in March and April 1691: [15 July 1690] The nephew of the Chevalier de Tourville has just arrived, who left the fleet Thursday, who says that we are pursuing them again, that Villette [her cousin] is after six dismasted vessels that are leaking; he knows what he is doing and the wind is good. We have seen sunk or burnt eight ships, of which six are Dutch and two are English. That’s the good news I’ve heard – I will send for you in time.122 [16 July 1690] The commander of the naval army has just arrived. Villette forced the enemies to burn four of the vessels that he was following and the other two have escaped; after fourteen lighter ships four more have been disabled. Beyond the battle I know nothing more; the commander believes that the anticipated sea breezes will enable the enemies to draw the rest of their vessels back into their ports and that Tourville will therefore drop anchor in front of the dunes.123 [9/10 April 1691] I am going to inspect a part of the army today and I will be ready to leave on Monday morning in order to arrive on Saturday evening at Compiègne, where I will have the pleasure of seeing you – I hope that this will be in good health … The capitulation has been signed; thus a great affair is finished. We enter the city gates at noon today and the garrison will leave tomorrow at midday on Tuesday. Render great thanks to God for the graces he gives me; I believe that you will do this with pleasure.124

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After 1692 Maintenon was included in war parties to Flanders, where the king carried out his usual daily ritual of visiting her between dinner and supper “à son ordinaire.”125 Although flattered, Maintenon did not enjoy the privations of campaigning that the king relished, and these experiences elicited a volley of animated complaints about the interminably jarring journeys, uncomfortable accommodation, and excruciating weather.126 From Dinant on 2 June 1692 Maintenon admitted to Mme de Veilhant at Saint-Cyr that “for myself, who is très femmelette, I would voluntarily give up my place, in order to work on tapestries with our dear ladies.”127 The reaction her presence generated within army circles is difficult to gauge, though an edge of resentment can perhaps be detected in Vauban’s letter to Le Peletier on 23 May 1693 in which the former disclosed that the “map of Mons is in the hands of the King and he locks it in one of the cupboards housed chez Mme de Maintenon.”128 The marquise was of course passionately interested in the campaigns for obvious reasons, and she became extremely well informed through her correspondence with the king, du Maine, and the dauphin, who explained on 26 March 1691 that his battlefront bulletins had become increasingly laconic because “you have the journal [of the marquis de Chamlay] of what is happening here, there is nothing further I can tell you.”129 On 5 August 1694 Monseigneur conceded that “the King informed me the other day that, for your part, you are better instructed than anyone here. From that I am convinced of the interest you take in the State and particularly regarding my role in it.”130 Convention still decreed that Maintenon be segregated from the rest of the party travelling to and from the theatres of war, but once on campaign, etiquette became more flexible and traditional formality was progressively relaxed as courtiers and soldiers became accustomed to the presence of the king’s companion. For example, at Compiègne on Monday, 12 May 1692, Dangeau observed the unique protocol that Maintenon was forced to respect, recording that the marquise walked alone with the comtesse de Mailly away from the royal party.131 In the entourage that left Versailles, arriving at Chantilly on 18 June 1693, the king’s coach comprised the dauphin, Mme de Chartres, Mme la Duchesse, the princesse de Conti, and Mme du Maine; the second coach contained Mme de Soubise, the princesse d’Harcourt, the duchesses de Beauvillier and de Chevreuse, the comtesse de Gramont, and Mme d’Heudicourt, whereas Maintenon “travelled alone in one of the King’s carriages.”132 Gradual changes can nevertheless be detected. On 16 December 1692 a war council composed of the maréchal de Lorges, the marquis d’Huxelles, and Chamlay convened in Maintenon’s apartments,133 and

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Louis XIV habitually worked most evenings in her bedchamber with advisers and ministers. On 20 March 1694 at Compiègne she was present when the king “took his ministers chez Mme de Maintenon, where he worked for a long time.”134 Moreover, six days later Dangeau remarked that “Mme de Maintenon was at the [military] review where the King made her all the honours.”135 She also took part in a stag and boar hunting party at Chantilly on 30 March 1694 in a carriage with Mme La Princesse de Conti.136 It was therefore inevitable that Louis XIV’s preoccupations would absorb the marquise, and on 28 July he notified the dauphin that “I made your compliments to Mme de Maintenon, who thanks you for them. What I can tell you is that she was more worried than me by the sight of the armies as they approached each other.”137 It was undoubtedly Maintenon who carefully orchestrated the rapprochement between the king and the dauphin, and she delighted in its initial success, imparting in a letter to Brinon on 30 September 1690 that they wrote each other letters throughout this campaign that would have made you weep with tenderness for the one and the other; Monseigneur reiterated again his last [message] to the King: “when there is nothing more to do here, I will be overjoyed to embrace you on my knees, and to assure you that you have no subject more submissive than myself.” Is not it true, Madame, that good people must observe this union with great pleasure?138 The king was evidently a difficult person for his children to approach. Both du Maine and the dauphin corresponded regularly to ask Maintenon for assurances of the king’s continuing favour, even writing to her at Versailles when they were at the front with Louis.139 Pensive, quiet, shy, and somewhat subdued, the dauphin found in Maintenon a sympathetic ally and valuable confidante. He prized his stepmother’s friendship and depended on her for support in dealings with his father, as this missive discloses, in which he asks for guidance on marriage: I had resolved to go see you this morning, but you were at Saint-Cyr, so I was unable to. I am aware, Madame, that I have no better friend than you and as I promised to speak to you about all my affairs, I have written this letter. I am persuaded that it will greatly surprise you: because it is to inform you that I am starting to think about remarrying, being yet still quite young enough to sense that I am not being wise, and as I know the thing in the world that the King is most apprehensive of would be if I fell into debauchery, please let me

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know your true feelings on this matter, and state when I can come to see you so we can talk a little together. I am sure that you believe that I have examined all the disadvantages that there may be, for I assure you that I have long thought of nothing else. The first, which is the most significant is that it seems to me, that the King is far removed, and the second, that I do not see a princess that suits me. That is all I can tell you at present in writing. I implore you not to reveal that I have informed or spoken to you about this. Do not tell even the King, and give me a word in reply; but rest assured that I only say all of this to you out of conscience, and that I would rather die than do something that displeased the King. Believe that no one is more devoted to you than me. Once more, the secret is a brief audience when you are able. You can give a few words in response to Joyeux, who will be carrying my letter.140 The arrangement of marriages was one sphere in which the marquise did meddle authoritatively, although the wife chosen independently by Monseigneur to replace the dauphine, who died on 20 April 1690, defied expectations and caused a scandal at court.141 His relationship and secret marriage in August 1694 to the lowly born fille d’honneur of the princesse de Conti, Marie Emilie de Joly, Demoiselle de Choin (d. 1732), was a match that seemed to mirror that of Louis with Maintenon and accordingly was, at least at first, a source of great embarrassment to the older couple. The subsequent reconciliation was slow and strained. Hypocritically both the king and the marquise never fully forgave the dauphin, who apparently lost Maintenon’s affection in consequence, for their correspondence dries up after 1694. The duc du Maine, however, remained a firm favourite of the king and his consort,142 who nevertheless continued to scold her former charge for showing a lack of moral asceticism when he was away at war.143 But their continued alliance was important because the young duc drew into their circle, among others, his comrades Noailles and Boufflers, whose families were to play a formative part in Maintenon’s affairs and those of the state in the concluding years of the reign.144 The marquise already enjoyed an old affinity with the duchesse de Noailles from her Marais days,145 and with the combined support of Maine and Maintenon the family rose to greater prominence.146 Long-standing loyalty and successful military service had already earned the Noailles the trust and friendship of Louis XIV as provincial governors of Perpignan and Roussillon, and in Languedoc where the duc was the premier of the province’s three lieutenants-généraux

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and the effective governor.147 The second duc de Noailles, Anne-Jules (1650–1708), had four brothers, two of whom entered the church.148 Louis-Antoine (1651–1729), had become bishop of Cahors in 1678, was renowned for his “saintliness,”149 and was elevated to the prestigious ecclesiastical peerage of Châlons-sur-Marne in 1680. Gaston (1669–1720), was awarded the abbey of Moustier-Ramey on 21 March 1693.150 In the same month Anne-Jules was one of seven who were designated as maréchaux de France on 27 March.151 His subsequent campaigns proved that the distinction was warranted, and he was named viceroy of Catalonia after conquering the region in 1694.152 This project had been carefully devised the previous year during personal consultations between Noailles and Louis XIV at Marly in July,153 and at Versailles in November 1693.154 Boufflers had also been named a maréchal after being made lieutenant-général on 20 March 1693, with the duc du Maine as his maréchal de camp.155 On the same day he requested the hand in marriage of Maintenon’s niece, Mlle d’Aubigné, which the marquise graciously declined. Boufflers subsequently married the sister of the maréchal de Gramont, a match arranged by Noailles,156 and his new wife immediately befriended Maintenon. On her inaugural court visit the maréchale de Boufflers paid her respects to Louis XIV chez Mme de Maintenon, who formally presented her to the king on 31 December 1693.157 Maintenon’s partiality for the Montespan bastards is renowned but often misinterpreted. The absence of evidence and rare mentions in correspondence make it clear that her relations with the comte de Toulouse were much less familial than those with the duc du Maine. Toulouse was also devoted to the king, but the dominant personality in his adolescent upbringing was the eminent man of letters Jean-Baptiste Henri de Troisset de Valincour (1653–1730). Valincour was a celebrated literary critic, historian, and academician and was friends with Bossuet, Racine, and also Boileau, who strongly supported his nomination to the French Academy in 1699,158 and to replace Racine as historiographer royal in the same year.159 Valincour became an integral member of Toulouse’s household after being appointed tutor in 1685 and then sécrétaire des commandements and sécétaire générale de la marine after the young comte formally took charge of the admiralty on 23 December 1694. He provided Toulouse with a practical education, ensuring that he was well-informed, particularly on naval matters. He accompanied his charge to the siege of Mons in 1691, to that of Namur in 1692, and also to Charleroi in 1693, when the comte led his own regiment for the first time.160 Toulouse did eventually marry into the Noailles family, but

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not until 1723.161 Saint-Simon accused Maintenon of planting GabrielClaude, marquis d’O (1654–1728), in the household of Toulouse as governor in 1685 to enable her to continue prying into the comte’s affairs.162 If so it was unsuccessful, but theoretically plausible as the marquise was close friends with d’O’s wife, Marie Anne de La Vergne (1657–1737), who was the daughter of Maintenon’s former admirer from the Marais, the vicomte de Guilleragues (d. 1685). More efficacious was Maintenon’s involvement in the marriage of Liselotte’s son, the duc de Chartres, to Mlle de Blois in January 1692. The match was opposed by Monsieur and even more vehemently by Madame.163 To add insult to injury, Maintenon then installed her grand-niece, Marie-Anne de Saint-Hermine, the comtesse de Mailly (1667–1734), as dame d’atour to the duchesse de Chartres. Liselotte’s outrage was understandable. She openly wept on being told about a match she considered a mortifying mésalliance, dramatically exhibiting her feelings a few days later in front of the entire court when she famously “dealt him [the duc de Chartres] such a resounding box on the ear that the smack could be heard several paces distant.”164 Maintenon had orchestrated this wedding in concert with another friend from the Marais, Mme de Bracciano, princesse des Ursins,165 so that the latter could become dame d’honneur to install herself at court. After the match was fixed Bracciano suddenly abandoned the project and refused the post, arousing Maintenon’s suspicions that her accomplice had grander designs.166 The episode suggests that Maintenon, in contrast to Ursins, did not have a predetermined political agenda,167 thereby refuting the theories of some historians, who have argued that Louis was constantly compelled to resist his wife’s attempts to govern her husband and rule.168 That such ambitious, scheming individuals did exist and should be vigilantly guarded against was an accepted aspect of early modern political life. Louis alerted his son to the dangers posed by ambitious members of the opposite sex, as we have seen, and the wives, mistresses, and widows of public men were considered to be the most energetic and dangerous culprits. The subsequent careers of the duchesse du Maine and the duchesse de Bracciano pointedly vindicated the sober and detailed admonitions offered even by more enlightened men like Vauban, who warned that there is nothing more importunate or more dangerous than women. They constantly cabal or make demands. If these demands are just, God knows! But they use all sorts of ways to achieve their ends, and deploy their charms most next to those they want to win over

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or from whom they aim to procure good offices. God again knows with what justice and how little they spare their conscience and the consciences of the people with whom they are dealing,”169 This again hints at the endemic nature of misogyny and male insecurity in a staunchly patriarchal society. But if Maintenon seemed incapable of political subterfuge, she was nonetheless capable of intrigue.170 More significantly she was aware of a distinction between her own behaviour and that of Bracciano, offering a fundamental insight into the problem of determining the obsessions and ambitions of these two central characters. Saint-Simon rightly contended that the king was “goaded by Mme de Maintenon”171 when selecting a wife for the duc du Maine, as he did go on to marry her preferred candidate, Anne-Louise-Bénédicte de Bourbon (1676–1753), the second daughter of Henri-Jules, M. le Prince de Condé, on 19 March 1692. This was organized in tandem with Mme de Brinon, whom Maintenon congratulated three days later, informing her that “the King is very happy [with the duchesse du Maine] as is her husband. There is the marriage that you found so sensible to arrange: I was strongly of this opinion; God grant that they are as satisfied as I am at this moment.”172 However, by the summer of the following year Maintenon had become convinced that the unruly young princesse needed a gouvernante more than a dame d’honneur,173 and replaced the benign Mme de Saint-Valéry in August 1693 with Mme de Manneville, who was the daughter of Maintenon’s confidante, Mme de Montchevreuil.174 The marquise also involved herself in the betrothal of Julie de Bourbon, demoiselle de Châteaubriant (1668–1710), the legitimate daughter of “Monsieur Le Prince” – that is, Henri Jules de Bourbon, the prince de Condé (1643–1709) – to Armand de Madaillan, marquis de Lassay (1652–1738), in 1693.175 Julie had been brought up at the convent of Maubisson by Fagon’s aunt, and Maintenon had allegedly witnessed Armand’s birth, for the Madaillan family were friends from her first marriage to Scarron. Julie and Armand de Lassay’s daughter, Anne Louise, went on to marry the son of the marquise d’O, which again underscores how Maintenon gradually established a social network by blending and fusing past connections with new contacts. Importantly, Maintenon believed she could improve the reputation of the royal family, and consequently enhance Louis XIV’s prestige, by intervening in the lives of his more immature relatives, having persuaded herself that “it is not possible for the King to discover in his family one [girl] who won’t turn out well. I want, with God’s grace, good to prevail everywhere, and will contribute to that as much as possible.”176

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Within the sphere of her own family and friends the marquise was more proactive, having resolved that her influence should not be wasted, as this missive to Mme de Brinon of 18 January 1691 highlights: “Does your niece no longer visit M. le chancellor [Boucherat]? I go there from time to time, and since the world, intoxicated by favour, counts only those that do come, I desire with all my heart that my actions and words will be useful to someone.”177 Numerous marriages were also arranged for young female relatives and Saint-Cyr graduates with men of good social standing, including Crown officials, military officers, and minor nobles.178 Only later would Maintenon seek personal strategic family alliances. Nevertheless, the patronage and protection she provided was increasingly sought after by those within and beyond her immediate circle who were anxious to further their interests. The marquis de Lassay repeatedly sought Maintenon’s “protection” and successfully requested twice to be made the king’s aide-de-camp on campaigns in 1691 and 1693.179 The comte de BussyRabutin wrote to the king in September 1692 asking permission to resign his army commission because of financial pressures, and he petitioned Maintenon with a similar plea on the same day to ensure the success of the original supplication.180 Other courtiers came to recognize the efficacy of this method and began replicating it routinely. M. Lemoine, lieutenant-général of Chaumont, had proudly secured a d’Aubigné connection by orchestrating the marriage of his daughter to Philippe, comte de Mursay, the eldest son of the marquis de Villette.181 Accordingly, Lemoine soon exploited the alliance and successfully asked Maintenon to help arrange an audience with the premier président of the Parlement of Paris, M. de Harlay (1639–1712).182 The marquise obtained many placements and pensions to reward long-standing service, loyalty, and friendship. Favourable marriages were arranged for several nieces of Mme de Brinon, who herself was awarded a pension of 2,000 livres. However, such lavish patronage began to become noticeable. The beautiful abbey of Signy that generated 15,000 livres of rent per year had been allotted to the abbé d’Aubigné de Tigny, but after the death of the incumbent abbot, Baradas, he felt compelled to return the benefice on 31 May 1693 out of “scruples,”183 having already been awarded the abbey of La Victoire near Chantilly in October 1692.184 And any delays in the payment of pensions that Maintenon had organized were quickly addressed by personally reminding the king,185 or pestering controller-general Pontchartrain, whom she admired186 and also petitioned for favours:

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I had forgotten, Monsieur, to speak to you about the brother-inlaw of my mâitre de l’hôtel [Delisle, whose mother had educated Françoise in the household of her aunt, Mme de Villette]; I ask of you on this occasion for all that can be accorded to him without injustice, because I would like to be able to gratify a man who has much more merit than an ordinary domestic, and that serves me with an affection that I cannot sufficiently reward. I hope that the force of truth will enable you to see it all as I think you do, Monsieur, without my telling you often, and that compliments at no point enter into our commerce.187 Maintenon also ensured that her family continued to thrive. She insisted on 27 March 1693 that her brother supplicate the premier president du Grand Conseil, Bignon, on behalf of the duc de Richelieu, confident that Bignon would remember “our long standing friendship.”188 And Charles himself gained the government of Berry in October 1691.189 Philippe de Villette’s naval career also continued to flourish.190 As a lieutenant-general during the 1690 campaign he captained Le Conquérant, which carried six hundred men and eighty cannon in a fleet containing only three larger vessels.191 By 1692 the marquis de Tigny had accumulated several profitable positions, including those of maréchal de camp and inspecteur d’infanterie. The Montchevreuil family also prospered, with the king entrusting the care of the household of the duc du Maine on 15 March 1692 to Henry de Mornay, his former governor. Dangeau recorded that Maine had long petitioned for this advancement and that Montchevreuil was not given a title, though his pension was augmented by 2,000 écus.192 On 21 July 1694 the same diarist noted that the king and a number of notable ladies travelled to Saint-Germain, where they paid court to the king and queen of England, took part in the hunt, and then on their return visited “the new château of Mme de Montchevreuil.”193 Along with Saint-Cyr, Maintenon’s burgeoning commitments commensurate with her position “next to the king” clearly kept her fully occupied.194 Much time was naturally set aside for Louis, and the couple spent most if not all evenings between dinner and supper in her apartments during a schedule that was appreciably exhausting, as Maintenon revealed: “I go almost every day to Saint-Cyr before daybreak; the King is in my chamber when I return, and I have much need of rest when he has left.”195 She went on to admit to the same correspondent on 28 August 1693 that “I am overwhelmed with the affairs of Saint-Cyr … and I remain at Versailles only during the hours when the King is in my

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chamber.”196 Even visits from the Stuart family were interrupted to allow Louis more time alone with Maintenon and his ministers before it was deemed proper for the marquise to attend ceremonial occasions.197 A number of personal billets du Roi from this time again reveal something of the king’s relationship with his morganatic wife: [1691] I took the opportunity of the departure of M. Montchevreuil to assure you of a truth that pleases me so much that I never tire of telling you, which is that is that I cherish you always, and regard you to a degree that I am not able to express and finally the friendship that you have for me, I have still more for you, being completely and wholeheartedly yours.198 [9 April 1691] I am not writing this to avoid the ordinary post, because I will soon despatch Delisle, who will report to you what I think about your trip. Today I am going to see part of the army and will be ready to leave on Monday morning in order to return on Saturday evening to Compiègne where I will have the pleasure of seeing you. I hope that it will be in good health.199 [December 1691] Château-Renault [lieutenant-general of the naval armies] has arrived at Brest with all my vessels and many other English ones loaded with 12,000 Irishmen [following the Boyne defeat of the previous year]. I thought you would be anxious to hear this news.200 [1692] The gout prevents me from sleeping; I walk with difficulty and I am in my chair. I also have a cold, so I will not go out. I think that there are a few things that will be able to amuse me until four o’clock; if you want to come back at that time it would give me pleasure, Louis.201 [July 1693] I will fetch you from Saint-Cyr, and as I am never capable of walking very boldly … if you could come to the little garden gate, we will collect you there. If it is too late to come past the garden, inform me, as then we will go to the main gate of the house, that is to say the one that encloses the women in the courtyard.202 Clearly the king and his consort enjoyed a loving relationship that was intimate and trusting and founded on an affectionate and indissoluble friendship. Maintenon, along with a number of her ladies, increasingly

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accompanied Louis on tours and trips of the châteaux, parks, and gardens of Versailles, Marly, Chantilly, Chambord, Choisy, and Meudon. The party that left Versailles on 26 April 1695 bound for Compiègne gives a typical example of Maintenon’s female coterie. It was composed of the princesse d’Harcourt, the duchesses de Chevreuse, de Beauvillier, and de Gramont, and the marquises de Dangeau, d’O, d’Heudicourt,203 and de Montgon,204 although Maintenon herself was conveyed in a separate carrosse du Roi with Mlle d’Aubigné.205 These excursions often included members of the royal family, who themselves regularly visited the château of Saint-Germain to pay their respects to James II and the Stuart court. Initially dutiful, these gatherings quickly became convivially social. For example, the Bourbon and Stuart families met on eight occasions from Monday, 5 January to Friday, 27 February 1693 at either Saint-Germain, Versailles, or Marly.206 The families enjoyed each other’s company, and meetings between the two took place on average more than twenty times per year from 1689 to 1709,207 which stimulated a number of adaptations in protocol. In the absence of an official queen or dauphine after 1690, Mary of Modena became the first lady of the French court, and she was entitled to sit in an armchair in the royal presence like Mme de Maintenon, with whom she became firm friends. James II received the dauphin standing as a mark of respect, and similarly, during summer balls at Versailles and Marly, Louis would deferentially stand up while James II was dancing. The Stuarts recurrently joined the royal party during Louis’s autumnal retreat to Fontainebleau, where they were housed in splendid apartments and entertained lavishly at a reputed cost of 60,000 livres per visit. This fostered even closer relations between the two families, with Louis XIV acting as an unofficial godparent to James’s children, James Francis Edward Stuart (1688–1766) and Louise-Marie (1692–1712). According to Dangeau’s accounts Maintenon was absent from official gatherings until 1695,208 but the evidence reveals that she regularly received and visited James and Mary of Modena, with the dauphin often asking Maintenon to pass his compliments on to the “Queen of England.”209 Modena visited Maintenon and Louis XIV at Saint-Cyr on 7 July 1693,210 and on 30 November 1695 Dangeau recorded that “the King came to Marly early and after arriving went straight to Mme de Maintenon’s apartments to wait there for the King and Queen of England.”211 This affiliation encouraged the marquise to be one of the most forceful advocates of Louis XIV’s continued support for the controversial Jacobite cause, which waned dramatically after negotiations opened at Ryswick in 1696.212

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After the defeat of the Jacobites at the Battle of the Boyne on 11 July 1690,213 and the naval defeat at La Hogue on 29 May–3 June 1692 that scuppered the intended Stuart invasion,214 James II’s military credibility dwindled, and the final attempt to reinstall him in 1696 was an unmitigated debacle. But the exiled king’s respectability remained relatively undented even though his piety intensified to fanatical proportions. Liselotte criticized him for losing “three kingdoms through bigotry” on 13 September 1690, but conceded five weeks later “now that I have come to know good King James better, I am quite fond of him; he really is the kindest man in the world.”215 These qualities endeared him to Maintenon, so it is perhaps fitting that her introduction to a more public role of state was acting as the unofficial French queen to an exiled royal house at a puppet court. The papacy continued to curry favour with Maintenon during the 1690s to fortify its relations with the French crown. When important papal encyclicals or emissaries were sent to Versailles they were often accompanied by a letter imploring Maintenon to exert her influence to ensure that ultramontane interests were protected and promoted.216 For example, on 20 December 1690 Alexander VIII asked her to convey a letter addressed to Louis XIV regarding “an affair of such weight, and that we hold so dear to our hearts, we believe it appropriate to send it to you, so that the King will ultimately receive it from your hands, and we do not doubt that you will employ everything on which the success of this affair depends.”217 Furthermore, on 30 June 1692 Innocent XII beseeched Maintenon to “employ your credit and your care in helping this prelate [the auditeur de rote, Jean-Jacques Cavallerino, the archbishop of Nicaea] in the conduct of the affairs of the Saint-Siège with which he has been charged”; this was supplemented by a missive from the pope’s secretary, Cardinal Sfondrate, reiterating those sentiments.218 These epistolary exchanges are cryptic but in hindsight seem to have centred around efforts to reconcile the two courts after the breech of 1688 that left thirty-five dioceses vacant by 1692.219 Dangeau charted the fluctuating progress of the rapprochement between France and Rome, which was achieved on 12 September 1693. It was officially concluded on 19 October, when eight bishops were assured that their bulls of registration would finally be issued because they had signed a declaration disavowing the Gallican articles of 1682.220 Maintenon’s role in this process is difficult to determine with any accuracy. Her intervention in international relations at this time was inappropriate, but she was one of the few courtiers who communicated directly with the pope and the cardinals of the Curia, and her participation can therefore only

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have been constructive. The Holy See was anxious to capitalize on the connection established in the 1680s with Louis XIV’s consort, who was dependably subservient and sympathetic to their cause at a time when France needed to reforge relations with her natural international allies.

fa m in e a n d f in a n c ia l cri si s , 1693–1694 The disastrous weather conditions and resulting food shortages that crippled France in 1693–94 reduced the population of approximately 20 million by 1.5 million in eighteen months and killed around 2 million souls.221 Maintenon informed Mme de Brinon on 3 February 1693 that “the misery of the provinces is not unkown here, and he [the king] would like with all his heart to relieve it; but we are pressed on all sides. Pray and make prayers incessantly for peace. After that we can only hope.”222 Moreover, on 28 August 1693 she confided to Brinon that she was “languid from the continuation of the war, and I would give anything for peace … Now we have to pray and wait for what it will please God to do; it does not matter, his wishes will be accomplished in spite of men.”223 She also repeatedly assured the same correspondent from 1690 to 1694, and more vehemently during 1693, that the king harboured the same irenical desire “despite all our victories” to relieve France of the onerous burden of war. Maintenon went on to claim in that same letter, dated 14 October 1693, that Louis XIV “knows the misery of his people; nothing about that is hidden from him, we look for any means of relieving it, including desiring that God enlightens our enemies on the foolish hope they have of destroying France; we will beat them everywhere: God is with us.”224 However, Bourdaloue reflected the more traditional perspective in declaring that peace should be fought for and imposed on French terms. In his advent sermon of 1693 he recognized that Louis XIV was a conquering king, and the most conquering of kings, who nevertheless uses his glory to be recognized as a peace-loving king, and distinguished as such among all the kings of the world. Before this Christian audience, I must render solemn thanks to God when I see in Your Majesty a victorious and invincible monarch, whose only desire is to pacify Europe and who puts all his efforts into working for this and contributing towards it, and whose only ambition is to succeed in this task, and who is, because of this, the visible image on Earth of Him, whose nature, according to Scripture, is to be at once the God of battles and the God of peace.225

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Other churchmen regarded the famine as a divine judgment on Louis XIV’s rule that they had long predicted. Between 1689 and 1692 Godet des Marais told Maintenon to fortify the king’s religious convictions, and like Fénelon, he persistently emphasized that it was also her responsibility to extract charitable and general “good works” from Louis.226 Godet could be austere, but unlike Fénelon he could also resort to flattery, realizing that Maintenon needed to be instilled with confidence and courage: Oh! That the great Saints pray heartily for you! The mother of the poor, the protectress of the clergy, for her who loves the Church alone in the midst of the world, who finally God has prepared for the relief of the people, for the sanctification of the King, and in order to be at the court the model of great virtues, the channel for good counsels and evangelical maxims in front of those who regard faith as foolish.227 Both churchmen also stressed the importance of revealing France’s actual condition to Louis XIV.228 With the plight of the French poor at its peak, Fénelon sent a stinging rebuke to the king at the end of 1693.229 The letter probably never reached him, nor was it intended to, given that the criticisms targeted stereotypical culprits in the form of “evil counsellors.” Nevertheless, it was a detailed and damning indictment of Louis XIV’s government in which Fénelon vigorously criticized the Sun King’s dereliction of duty, which he attributed to the failings of “wicked” advisers like the archbishop of Paris, Harlay de Champvallon, Louvois, and also Beauvillier and Maintenon, whose cowardice Fénelon considered a national disgrace. He protested that it was hoped, Sire, that your council would keep you from going too far astray, but your council has neither the strength nor the vigour to do good. At least Mme de M … and M. de B … should avail themselves of your confidence in them in order to undeceive you, but their weakness and timidity dishonours them and scandalises everyone. France is in dire straits; what do they await to speak frankly to you? That all should be lost? Do they fear to displease you? Because they therefore must not love you; because it is necessary to offend those one loves, rather than flattering them or betraying them with silence.230 In her defence, the marquise’s inexperience would have rendered the task of reminding a veteran sovereign of his monarchical duties more difficult, especially at a time of internecine international conflict to which

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Louis was devoting all his hours and energy. Perhaps her mission was to have been accomplished in collaboration with Beauvillier. Either way Fénelon was deeply unimpressed with the results. Such condemnation, compounded by fiscal exhaustion and starvation among the people, seems nevertheless to have given the marquise a renewed sense of purpose and the confidence to proceed with determination. This is the only rational explanation for her subsequent initiatives. Dangeau’s Journal of 1693 reveals just how worried the king was, with many of its pages devoted to describing the resources allocated and actions taken to mitigate the food shortage, particularly in Paris, where he feared the famine might incite an insurrection. The Crown therefore took a number of extreme measures in 1693–94 to combat hunger and counteract hoarding.231 These included importing wheat from northern Europe, Italy, and Africa and keeping a number of bishoprics vacant, allegedly to retain the régale for poor relief.232 Bread was distributed to the poor in Paris at a fixed price of two sous per livre at 100,000 rations per day, and to facilitate this, part of the Louvre was transformed in September 1693, with thirty large ovens installed to bake bread twenty-four hours a day.233 To help with costs a tax was collected on Parisian houses that raised 5,200,000 livres between September 1693 and September 1694.234 Maintenon sometimes castigated Louis for his uncharitable disposition, but she could be just as parsimonious. Like many of her contemporaries in and beyond France, she discriminated between the deserving and undeserving poor, with the latter increasingly being incarcerated in new confinement hospitals.235 In 1694 she instructed her intendant at Maintenon, Manceau, to feed the poor with what you have spare, but do this intelligently and in concert with Mme Lefèvre … Otherwise they will take from all sides. Ask her for two, three, four extremely poor families that you know, and who come every day to fetch soup or to do something similar … I devote myself to help those who help themselves and to leave the lazy to suffer: preach this gospel to the curates in my terms.236 Other temporary expedients were introduced to sustain wartime expenditures and reduce privation, although the impact was ultimately negligible beyond Paris, with some regions, like the Massif Central, suffering population losses of 25 percent.237 The “Austrian” Capitation was instigated in 1695,238 and five hundred temporary patents of nobility were sold in 1696 for 2,000 livres each.239 Whether Louis XIV ever saw

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Fénelon’s letter, or was meant to, remains a matter for conjecture,240 but that the king was aware of the gravity of the predicament facing France is perceptible from the tone of a communication from him on 13 June 1694, in which he impressed upon the maréchal de Noailles that only perhaps the capture of Barcelona would justify the victory of Ter, because the public will regard any other conquest as unworthy of this advantage: it is the only thing that will be able to bring peace by striking a decisive blow against Spain: without it we can hardly take much pride from wintering our troops in Catalonia, which will yet be essential to tire the Spanish and relieve the finances.241 Unfortunately, the duc was unable to build on the impressive seizure of Girona on 29 June and achieve the requisite victory, which the king continued inadvisably to push for until 21 October.242 Because these campaigns were often devised without consulting Barbezieux, the young secretary of state’s sense of alienation deepened, as did his feelings of inadequacy. In 1694 and 1695 he made a concerted attempt to undermine Noailles’s reputation at court in order to bolster his own flagging fortunes and those of the Le Tellier circle. He was assisted in this by Noailles himself when it came to light in the winter of 1695 that the marshal had overstated his role in the victory of the Ter, for debilitating rheumatism had absented him from much of the battle.243 Mentally the duc was not in much better shape, and after a nervous collapse in May 1695 he was relieved in Catalonia the following month by Vendôme.244 Barbezieux’s assault at court nevertheless failed for a number of reasons,245 not the least of which was Maintenon’s unstinting support of Noailles,246 and the robust friendship of the king and his assurances of confidence, which were disclosed to Boufflers, who in turn communicated them to Noailles on 14 November 1694, reasoning sympathetically that “what should console you about that [the failure to capture Barcelona], is that all upright people render you the justice you merit, and that, from all I was able to discover from the King and Mme de Maintenon during the little trip I have just made, His Majesty is very pleased with you, and renders you complete justice.”247 After this defeat Barbezieux virtually abandoned his duties and fell into debauchery. This enraged the king, who detailed the war secretary’s faults in a memoir dated 29 October 1695 to Barbezieux’s uncle, Maurice Le Tellier, the archbishop of Reims.248 He had advised Louis on several occasions on a range of issues, most notably the precise rules of precedence and protocol to be heeded during the ceremony that registered the

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bastards du Maine (now Grand Master of the Artillery) and Toulouse as legitimized princes of the blood in 1694.249 Maurice’s reputation saved that of his nephew, who sourly resumed his responsibilities.250 Despite victories in 1693 and 1694, the war effort became increasingly more of a strain, and this was compounded by the food crisis. Nicolas de Catinat (1637–1712), who was commanding in Italy, took opium to relieve his stress;251 while François Henri de Montmorency-Bouteville (1628-95), maréchal de Luxembourg, was replaced as head of the forces in Flanders in favour of the king’s son, Monseigneur, because he had been too successful! The marshal’s string of victories had been advantageous, but they also weakened the dauphin’s chances of gaining personal glory. Luxembourg thus found himself having to ignore opportunities to engage and defeat the enemy if the dauphin was absent, which ironically improved his standing at court. As the king intriguingly admitted to Luxembourg in September 1694: “I would have been extremely vexed had there been some action after the departure of my son.”252 Other ministers were also under intense pressure, and Jerôme de Pontchartrain, who was working under his father as survivancier for the navy and royal household, reflected on 20 May 1695 how “in a job like mine where you want to do everything by yourself you are overwhelmed by an infinite number of details and thorny affairs, and where from morning till night people put to you a thousand questions and make a thousand impossible and sometimes even ridiculous requests.”253 Rowlands makes the important point that Louis XIV himself was beginning to show the strain and was “paralysed by indecision” in June 1694.254 This particular trait would manifest itself even more frequently during the War of the Spanish Succession at the start of the eighteenth century. The king was now looking increasingly to Maintenon for moral support. She informed Brinon on 9 June 1694 that it is true that I no longer see the world at Marly, and the rest of the time I give to Saint-Cyr; this house is so great a preoccupation that although I give it all that I am able, it is only half what is necessary. I have no spare time for other affairs: the King takes up much of my time; my bad health sometimes renders me incapable of acting; it is necessary to occupy myself with his faith and his salvation: all of that makes months pass like moments.255 With criticism of government policy mounting, Vauban had composed, among many others, a memoir recommending a change in naval policy from guerre d’escadre to guerre de course as a means to reduce

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maritime expenditures and thenceforth concentrate on ground offensives.256 He argued that naval campaigns could not bring about a victory decisive enough to win the peace and that they diverted resources from land operations, which could. Vauban’s supplication advocated a radical strategic reform that reflected the acute situation. Maintenon agreed that some sort of retrenchment was needed, and she commissioned Chamillart in 1694 to calculate an appropriate budget for the kingdom, as well as one for Saint-Cyr, which he presented in 1695.257 Quickly arriving at Vauban’s conclusion that the current maritime strategy had to be compromised in favour of privateering, Chamillart recommended decreasing the naval budget from 22 to 8 million livres, opining in a letter to Maintenon on 14 July 1694 that I am convinced that nothing is more important than keeping a number of forces strong enough to prevent the enterprises that the enemies can make on the ground, those of the sea being much more uncertain and at least as dangerous, and it is with this in mind that I gave no consideration to the navy beyond routine maintenance, which one could dispense with if it were not to be kept on the same footing as it is now.258 Chamillart readily acknowledged that such estimates were beyond his normal competence, notwithstanding the adroit manner in which they were compiled, and he admitted that his proposals would not be to the liking of M. de Pontchartrain as they encroached on the marine minister’s portfolio and would diminish his authority if strictly adopted.259 Langlois asserts that this was a deliberate assault on Pontchartrain’s authority, with Maintenon aspiring to control government policy through her candidate.260 But this is typically far-fetched, and in spite of the implementation of a naval policy not far distanced from Chamillart’s ideas, the marquise’s protégé did not enter the ministry for another six years. Naval privateering and the guerre de course strategy that was implemented proved both economical and extremely popular with courtiers, who fashionably competed to sponsor the most expensive frigates. The marquise shared this enthusiasm and also financed a vessel.261 Significantly, Geoffrey Symcox reveals that the stringent regulations enforced by the Crown to administer the privateering policy had to be relaxed, or even rescinded, in order to expedite the assessment and allocation of captured spoils so as to prevent mutinies and improve profitability.262 The evidence therefore suggests that Maintenon was attempting to meddle in rather than mastermind policy at this stage. Subsequent

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interventions were successfully inhibited by a combination of elements, including the king’s resolve, Pontchartrain’s pride, and Chamillart’s modesty. Pontchartrain did not take kindly to the marquise interfering in his ministerial business and reacted acrimoniously, creating a rupture between the d’Aubigné and Phélypeaux families that became permanent because of subsequent disagreements over religious issues.263

sa in t- cy r t r a nsforms , b u t im p ie t y p e rs ists, 1692–1694 Maintenon’s flourishing relations with the papacy proved mutually beneficial for they enabled the marquise to expand Saint-Cyr and convert it from a girls’ finishing school to a convent of the Visitation starting in 1692. Her correspondence with Rome alludes to this. Saint-Cyr was Maintenon’s domain and she devoted herself to its direction. Shocked by the prevalence of immorality and the lack of piety engendered by the performances of Jean Racine’s Esther (1689–90) and even more so by Athalie (1689–91),264 in which the girls again took part, the marquise decided to institute sweeping reforms starting on 9 August 1691 to reinforce humility and simplicity, as well as to decontaminate the school from the court’s corruptive influence.265 The ensuing experiment in creating an institution that was part-school and part-convent failed to raise the girls’ education to Maintenon’s exacting standards. She was disappointed to learn on her return from Flanders in the summer of 1691 that the suppression of Athalie and the other changes she had effected had not sufficiently discouraged the taste for independence and self-interest prevalent among the girls. She blamed herself, candidly admitting to Mme de Fontaines, the general mistress of classes, that the trouble that I have concerning the girls of Saint-Cyr can only be put right by time and by changing entirely the education that we have given them until now. It is quite right that I should suffer for it, since I have contributed to it more than anyone else. My pride has spread throughout the house, and in essence has become so extensive that it has gone far beyond my good intentions. God knows that I had wanted to establish virtue at Saint-Cyr, but I have built this on sand. I wanted the girls to have wit, to elevate their hearts, and train their reason; I have succeeded in this design: they have wit and use it against us; their hearts are uplifted and they are more proud and haughty than even the greatest princesses should be. To speak in

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worldly terms, we have formed their senses and made them talkative, presumptuous, inquisitive, bold.266 Consequently, the marquise determined to undertake a more permanent mutation.267 In tandem with Nanon and Godet, and with the advice of the resident missionary abbés de Brisacier and de Tiberge, in whom she had the utmost confidence,268 the experience of Mère Priolo,269 and the sponsorship and tepid approval of the king, Maintenon plagued Cardinal Forbin-Janson with plans and memoirs throughout August 1692.270 Pope Innocent XII happily countenanced the transformation from academy to nunnery on 30 September 1692 in recognition of the directrice’s services and faithful support.271 Further evidence of this came in the swift response to Maintenon’s request that she be given an unprecedented dispensation to enter any religious house in France. Forbin-Janson received Maintenon’s supplication on 27 October 1692 and wrote back the following day to confirm that the privilege had been granted.272 Accordingly, Innocent XII wrote to Maintenon on the same day with detailed instructions on the etiquette and rules to be observed when entering institutions, in which she would be entitled to stay for six days.273 And it was perhaps not coincidental that shortly after the news had reached Versailles that Forbin-Janson’s efforts in Rome had paid off, the cardinal was awarded the abbey of Corbie on 5 October 1693. As Dangeau observed, Corbie was one of the richest and most beautiful abbeys in France, generating 40,000 livres of rent per year.274 Meanwhile Brisacier and Tiberge designed more suitably rigorous constitutions for Saint-Louis, and the girls started to take vows in the summer of 1693. Education nevertheless remained paramount. Prospective candidates still had to satisfy rigorous entrance requirements, which included providing a certificate of poverty as well as exhaustive proof of nobility,275 the intricacies of which Maintenon detailed in full when, in a letter to Louis-Antoine de Noailles, she bemoaned Père de La Chaise’s inability to comprehend the procedures.276 After the school formally became a convent in March 1694, the king issued letters patent and a number of decrees relating to the size of the community, with the number of nuns increased from sixty to eighty, and the functions and administrative obligations to be discharged by the institution’s Conseil du Dehors.277 This council, presided over by Pontchartrain, included the avocat Nouet, the intendant Bernard, and (unofficially) Michel Chamillart (1652–1721), who had been assisting with the institution’s finances since 1690 when he became an intendant de finances. A conseiller du Parlement from 1676, Chamillart had also made his name as an

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accomplished billiards player in Paris and then at Versailles, where on most winter evenings between seven and nine o’clock the king could be found in a dedicated cabinet indulging his passion for the game in the company of the ducs de Vendôme, de Villeroi, and de Gramont and M. le Grand, Louis de Lorraine.278 Chamillart’s skill, good sense, and companionable nature made him a firm favourite with them and the king, who appointed him a master of requests in 1686 and then intendant of Rouen in January 1689. On top of conciliar duties at Saint-Cyr, Chamillart shouldered much of the responsibility for organizing the acquisition of additional landed estates for the foundation to boost revenues, which in 1698 would be further supplemented by another taille levied on the généralité of Paris totalling 60,000 livres.279 Saint-Cyr was doubly important because in organizing its transition, and then personally overseeing its administration and regulation, Maintenon had to deal effectively with ministers, corporations, and institutions. To appropriate funds, defend budgets, appoint superiors, and exchange novices and nuns with other establishments,280 the marquise was forced to tackle, either by letter or in person, Pontchartrain, Le Peletier, présidents of the Parlement of Paris, numerous abbesses, the papacy, and the king himself, who regularly visited Saint-Cyr. In concert with her administrator, Chamillart, finances, building projects, and charitable donations to be granted by the institution were disputed and settled during meetings with Le Peletier and more particularly Pontchartrain, with whom she had developed a healthy commerce that was conscientiously sustained. The following letter of 13 June 1693 to A. Bernard, the intendant des dames de Saint-Louis, is that of a maturing, tenacious businesswoman whose charitable principles were not beyond compromise: The journey here from Namur was so long and so tiring that it rendered me incapable of writing to you in my own hand. Yesterday I received a letter from M. de Pontchartrain containing a project for distributing a thousand écus for alms extraordinary that Saint-Cyr must make this year for the relief of the public misery. Firstly this sum of a thousand écus had not been settled with the approval of M. the bishop of Chartres, M. Peletier and myself in the meeting where I believe that you were. I had asked M. Chamillart to agree with M. de Pontchartrain the alms that this community must make, considering on the other hand that the resources of Saint-Cyr must be employed for the demoiselles and the nuns must also make economies. With regard to the present time, I think that the sum of a thousand écus is already committed: find out precisely from Manceau and ensure

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that which remains is promptly distributed as the need could not be more pressing. If in favour of the extraordinary misery M. de Pontchartrain finds it is appropriate to double the expenses of Saint-Cyr then please ask that the sum of the alms that has to be made be added to Saint-Cyr’s obligations. Take this letter to M. de Pontchartrain to whom I dare not address it because I have not written it in one’s own hand, yet I do not want to wait because of the misery of the poor. I will respond to the other items in your letter as soon as I am able, as this seemed more urgent.281 The marquise also became accustomed to petitioning representatives of the Parlement of Paris in defence of her convent’s fiscal privileges282 and on behalf of the relatives of the community at Saint-Cyr, to reduce or repeal sentences and fines of those who had received or were awaiting the court’s justice.283 The issue of Quietism and bids to suppress it encouraged the marquise to become more intensely involved in the political arena.284 Reprehensible behaviour, not too dissimilar from that allegedly stimulated by Racine’s plays, alerted one of Saint-Cyr’s confessors, M. Durand, to warn Godet des Marais early in 1693 that something at the convent was amiss.285 The bishop of Chartres carefully studied the girls’ behaviour with the help of informers and, finding their conduct highly questionable, informed an already anxious Maintenon. One of the superiors at Saint-Louis, Mme de Pérou, reminiscing later, reflected that almost the entire house became Quietist without knowing it. People talked about nothing but pure love, abandonment, holy indifference, simplicity, all of which enabled people to accommodate themselves to everything and feel comfortable; one was to worry about nothing, not even your salvation; deriving from this supposed resignation to the will of God, one was to be able to consent to damnation as openly as wanting to be saved. This constituted the famous act of surrender which they taught, after which they no longer had to consider preparing their souls for eternity.286 The suspected architects of this transmutation were Mme de La Maisonfort and her cousin Mme Guyon, who had become a popular figure at the school and whose works were similarly admired. These included A Short and Easy Method of Prayer, Spiritual Torrents, and Commentary on the Song of Songs of Solomon.287 Maisonfort’s eccentric behaviour included inviting a visionary peasant named Jean Content

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into the convent,288 which compelled Maintenon to place her under the personal direction of Fénelon. He agreed with Godet that access to Guyon’s works must be withdrawn because certain precepts, such as passive prayer, were too dangerous for inexpert let alone immature minds.289 Nevertheless, Fénelon allowed Maisonfort to visit Guyon two or three times a year because her heart would thereby be “expanded.”290 But after May 1693 the mystic’s visits to Saint-Cyr were permanently proscribed by Maintenon, who also began to distance herself from Fénelon. Moreover, in September Godet began the process of sanitization by confiscating Guyon’s books, interrogating her disciples, and lecturing the convent on the dangers of non-conformist mysticism.291 Fénelon had clearly been captivated by Madame Guyon following their first meeting after her release at the end of August 1688.292 He conceded that her teachings left him in a state of “childlike simplicity,”293 and she exerted a maternal influence over him, although their emotional bond remained platonic. The intensity of their friendship is documented in their correspondence from 1689, consisting of thirty-nine letters filling more than three hundred pages,294 but the notion that this attachment rendered Fénelon an irrational enthusiast is inaccurate. He repeatedly warned Maintenon between 1690 and 1692 that her educational program was too rigid and severe, and although his own ideological and pedadogical views had been infected by Guyon’s doctrine, he was confident that a detailed intellectual examination of religious texts would ultimately reconcile and legitimize this modern mystical interpretation of the gospels.295 Fénelon was, however, more anxious to defend Guyon’s writings rather than her person, which he admitted had appreciably been altered by the extraordinary physical experiences she had endured in the form of visions, trances, and convulsions.296 With this in mind he insisted in the summer of 1693 that Guyon’s works be appraised by Bossuet, who met Jeanne for the first time on 20 August 1693 in Paris. As Minois bluntly asserts, it was an extraordinary encounter between “a mentally unstable woman and a rigid bishop [of Meaux],” but first impressions were favourable until Bossuet examined her works.297 The second interview took place on 30 January 1694, after which it was clear that their views were incompatible.298 As Minois succinctly states, “she spoke of her psychological experiences and he interpreted them in terms of doctrine.”299 Afterwards the bishop of Meaux informed Fénelon that Guyon was an illuminist, and on 4 March Bossuet condemned her doctrine of “pure love” as unorthodox.300 She humbly submitted and began preparing her 1,700-page Justifications, which was a compendium of her own ideas and experiences shrewdly interlaced with

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“a great number of passages out of approved writers, which showed the conformity of my writings with those used by holy penmen.”301 By the conclusion of 1693 Maintenon therefore felt uneasy and this was further compounded by Fénelon’s “Letter to Louis XIV.” Her own views are difficult to determine because the marquise’s religious convictions seemed relatively malleable. She was initially impressed by Mme Guyon, who recorded that Maintenon had for three years given her “every mark of esteem and confidence.”302 But Mme du Pérou claims in her memoirs that the marquise had not actually read Guyon’s works before palpable difficulties arose in 1692.303 And Bossuet’s secretary, the abbé Ledieu, asserted that she had not read the Commentary on Solomon.304 There may be some truth in this. The administration and conversion of SaintCyr as well as her obligations at court left Maintenon with little if any spare time for digesting theological discourses. While not a well-versed Guyonian, it is indisputable that Maintenon was mentored by Fénelon and this could only have made her embrace Quietist principles or at least consider them more readily. Melchior-Bonnet importantly asserts that Fénelon’s mysticism, predicated upon virtue and prayer, was different from and more grounded than that of Guyon, who took a more quasi-miraculous approach. Both creeds, however, were extraordinarily complex, as soon discovered by the council established at Issy-Les-Moulineaux in July 1694 to scrutinize them. Maintenon’s position at court appeared powerful by the end of 1693, but her actual function remained ambiguous and her influence was unreliable. The marquise had become an increasingly familiar face at the king’s conferences, with leading advisers providing her with first-hand experience of government business and high politics. Her administration of Saint-Cyr and spearheading of the school’s adaptation obliged her to enter into or further her personal dealings with the Roman Curia, representatives of the Parlement of Paris, and other high-ranking government officials. Several of her candidates received distinguished promotions, and she consolidated her position at court and within the royal circle, where the recurrent presence of the exiled Stuarts further enhanced her standing. Unfortunately, Maintenon had also misguidedly promoted Mme Guyon’s Quietist beliefs, which were now threatening to bring the reputation of Saint-Cyr, herself, and several eminent associates into disrepute. To prevent that from happening, and the king from becoming fully cognizant of what had transpired, the marquise was forced to utilize all the resources at her disposal to smother a potential scandal. The next two chapters analyze her efforts and how they fuelled rather than extinguished the flames of controversy.

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The Eruption of the Quietist Controversy, 1695–1697

Maintenon comes out of the Quietist affair particularly badly, and she did behave ruthlessly and at times callously, as will be demonstrated, but this was often from necessity. Once Guyonian mysticism was formally denounced as heretical she needed to prevent the convent and its royal benefactor from being compromised, as this might jeopardize her relationship with the king. That said, she could undoubtedly have handled the whole affair better. The prelates involved were ultimately inflexible on matters of conscience, and she recognized this but naively failed to guard against it.1 The solution she contrived to suppress Quietism was therefore impermanent, and the subsequent exposition of these machinations almost resulted in her disgrace.

t h e c o n f e r e n c e s at i ssy, 1694–1695 The initiative to set up a tribunal came from Bossuet and particularly from Maintenon, who on 22 June 1694 had sent the bishop of Châlons, Louis-Antoine de Noailles, Guyon’s Short Method of Prayer and Commentary on Solomon to solicit his judgment on them in strict confidence as it would be “of consequence for the good of the church.”2 Noailles responded with an incontrovertible condemnation in a long and uncompromising letter addressed to Maintenon on 6 July 1694.3 In it he detailed his reasons, explaining that although these Guyonian tracts gave the appearance of piety they in fact contained dangerous propositions that renewed the errors of Quietism. This doctrine had been denounced at the ecumenical Council of Vienne held in 1311–12 and was considered particularly subversive because its proponents, besides rejecting responsibility for their physical actions, claimed they did not require intermediary authorities or outward observances because they were personally able

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to unite with God.4 Maintenon consequently rejected Guyon’s appeals, even though the marquise would probably have privately agreed with Jeanne’s protest on 7 June 1694 that although “irreproachable,” she was nonetheless being accused of “scandalous vices.”5 And to prove himself amenable to the council’s proceedings, Fénelon also agreed to a number of measures, including that he correspond with Guyon via the duc de Chevreuse instead of communicating directly with her.6 The deliberations at Issy began in July 1694. The commissioners were Godet, Louis Tronson, Bossuet, and Louis-Antoine de Noailles, who was a friend of Bossuet. Louis-Antoine had also been Fénelon’s classmate at the seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, whose supérieur Tronson subsequently became Fénelon’s spiritual director.7 Tronson knew Bossuet but had not met Noailles before.8 The Quietist controversy was potentially devastating because of Guyon’s powerful court connections, which included the Beauvillier and Chevreuse families9 and of course Fénelon, who had been named preceptor to the duc d’Anjou in August 1693. The affair was minimized initially, and personal embarrassment to Maintenon was drastically reduced, by focusing attention on Mme Guyon and by concealing the truth from the king. Manipulated by the marquise, with the more innocent collaboration of Noailles,10 Louis XIV unintentionally helped this operation succeed, unaware that he was protecting the court from scandal and himself from humiliation. It was vitally important that one of Fénelon’s fiercest detractors, the archbishop of Paris, Harlay de Champvallon, be kept ignorant of these proceedings.11 Maintaining, ironically, that the affair would be blown out of all proportion if Harlay were informed, Maintenon convinced the king to consent to the councils being held in secret at Issy,12 thus preventing the disputations from coming under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Paris. Harlay was outraged to learn that an equally erroneous mysticism had apparently re-emerged at Saint-Cyr and was possibly flourishing within the entourage and household of the Duke of Burgundy. Eager to atone for a rare lapse in vigilance, Harlay apprised the Sorbonne in 1693.13 He was understandably incensed to learn in the autumn of 1694 what the Issy commission was investigating, having campaigned tirelessly for the papal denunciation in 1687 of the Spanish mystic Molinos, many of whose views mirrored those of Guyon. In retaliation he commanded that on 16 October in every church in his diocese a denunciation be read out of the works of Père La Combe and Mme Guyon, albeit without naming the latter.14 An apprehensive Mme de Maintenon informed Noailles on 7 November 1694 that

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I received two days ago, Monsieur, the letter you did me the honour of writing, which was nevertheless dated October 25. I believe, like you, that our secret has been discovered [the subject of the Issy conferences], and that is what has determined the Archbishop [Harlay], who I have just seen arrive at Fontainebleau in a state of astonishment and distress, forecasting that matters will not be able to conduct themselves as we had projected.15 Noailles and Bossuet jointly cross-examined Mme Guyon on 6 December 1694, and their verdict was censorious.16 Tronson was the most moderate and open-minded of the three interrogators, and he questioned Guyon on 12 December, concluding much more positively that “she has just explained her doctrine in a such a manner that I don’t know that I am able to find much wrong with it.”17 Boosted by Tronson’s evaluation, Fénelon worked assiduously throughout the winter of 1694–95 to validate Guyon’s mysticism, but later complained that he had received no response or clarification on the details of the treatises he had composed and sent to Bossuet, who also refused to meet with Fénelon. To appease Bossuet and settle their spiritual differences, Mme Guyon voluntarily put herself under Bossuet’s direction, installing herself in January 1695 at the Vistandine convent in Meaux; but as Minois suggests, it was highly improbable that someone with Bossuet’s authoritarian reputation would ever make compromises with a mystic guilty of “spiritual anarchism.”18 Louis XIV’s repugnance for religious innovations was even more ardent, caused by a combination of ignorance and prejudice, and all of this helped harden Maintenon’s stance. Fearing the repercussions of these developments, she again convinced the king and also Bossuet of the need for the utmost confidentiality, apprising Noailles on 31 December 1694 of her intention to muzzle Fénelon: M. de Meaux is in agreement with everything and we are going to send Mme Guyon to him; the King will speak of it to M. the Archbishop, and will tell him that as a God-fearing man he must not speak of this affair; I hope with that the prelate’s [Fénelon’s] zeal will cool. I have just written to M. de Meaux, as I had not been able to do it these days past, having been incapacitated by a cold. I urged him to finish everything and to declare to our friends what he thinks of the doctrine of this woman. I suggested that afterwards he will have all the time he needs to examine the documents, and respond to them as he sees fit. My reason for pressing him, Monsieur, is that

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I believe that the affair about which I consulted you the day before your departure will be settled any day now and it seems that you should have taken your decision before this change of condition.19 It therefore seems that Noailles and possibly Bossuet were complicit in Maintenon’s scheme to remove Fénelon far from the court by promoting him to a distant benefice, which would be justifiable on the grounds of his continuing accomplishments, having replaced Paul Pelisson, for example, as an elected member of the Académie Française in 1693.20 As a mark of his confidence in Fénelon, and to reward his pedagogic services to the princes, the king had awarded him the historic abbey of Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme on the northern coast of Picardy on 24 December.21 But the greater prize was the prestigious see of Cambrai, recently made vacant by the death of the incumbent Jacques-Théodore de Bryas on 16 November 1694.22 Besides being a socially eminent position that conferred on the primate the title of duc, the archdiocese was lucrative, producing a revenue of 100,000 livres per year. Hence Lavallée’s footnote alleging that Fénelon could perhaps be incentivized to comply with the clauses of the “condition” by the lure of Cambrai.23 Maintenon and Bossuet continued to press for a swift conclusion to the Issy conferences in January 169524 and persuaded the king to award the archbishopric to Fénelon on 4 February.25 He accepted, but nobly returned the abbey of Saint-Valéry four days later, demonstrating that his principles were beyond compromise, as the curate of Versailles, Hébert, testified.26 Nevertheless, Maintenon had achieved her objective in part: Fénelon’s promotion to the northeastern border of the kingdom amounted to a nine-month exile from the court,27 even though the king readily agreed that he could continue in his role as preceptor and spend three months of each year at Versailles in that capacity.28 The Duke of Burgundy was devastated, and the dévot party was disappointed because they had coveted the see of Paris for Fénelon and had hoped to see him installed before long, as Harlay was about to turn seventy on 14 August 1695. On 8 February, the same day he returned Saint-Valéry, Fénelon agreed to sign a classic statement of Tridentine orthodoxy that had been drawn up by Cardinal Bérulle (1575–1629). But he continued to wring concessions out of Bossuet. The bishop of Meaux conceded that Jeanne de Chantal (1572–1641) had also been passive to the will of God,29 but he continued to avoid Fénelon, who successfully insisted that a number of modifications be made to the thirty articles on Quietism that Bossuet had drawn up in February. On 6 March 1695, Tronson wrote urging

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Bossuet to accept these amendments. The four commissioners assembled on 10 March and swiftly drew up thirty-three articles, then added a thirty-fourth at the last minute stating that it was possible to “distinguish degrees of advancement and of perfection on the inner path.”30 The thirty-third article asserted that truly humble Christians were theoretically able to renounce their reward and consent to their damnation without ceasing to love God, but that this was limited to exceptional souls.31 The councils closed on the same day with all four commissioners signing the thirty-four articles, which imprecisely denounced, and therefore failed definitively to condemn, the works of Mme Guyon,32 who was at no point mentioned.33 Fénelon also signed, but this was perhaps more out of deference for his colleagues than to express sympathy for their judgments, thus rendering the Issy formulary ineffectual.34 Guyon was compelled to capitulate. While still resident in Meaux, she witnessed the promulgation of the Issy Articles within the diocese and also, on 16 April 1695, the publication, without consultation, of Bossuet’s Ordinance and Pastoral Instruction on the States of Prayer, which scathingly condemned Quietism and the “horrors” of a “false” and “dangerous mysticism” that could cause “such great evil.”35 Over the previous winter months Bossuet had read her Justifications, and he praised a number of passages, possibly the ones culled from approved authorities, as “admirable” and “completely divine.”36 Overall, though, the work seems to have compounded Bossuet’s negative preconceptions that Guyon and her ideas were unsound. Guyon and Fénelon justifiably felt betrayed and the latter must have felt particularly uncomfortable being consecrated as archbishop of Cambrai on 10 June at Saint-Cyr by Bossuet, who was assisted by the bishops of Chartres and Amiens in the presence of Beauvillier and Maintenon, alongside the king and his three grandsons. Guyon claims in her memoirs that her enemies had literally attempted to poison her, so she agreed to sign a confession of faith and to submit more of her works for examination in return for a certificate enabling her to travel and take the waters at Bourbon.37 But Bossuet withheld permission for some time, perhaps in compliance with Maintenon’s entreaty that it be refused.38 Melchior-Bonnet is highly critical of Maintenon at this juncture, arguing that her oppressive behaviour was “rancorous, secretive, intriguing,” and claims that Guyon referred to the marquise as d’Eudoxie (Aelia Eudoxia, the ambitious and assertive wife of the Byzantine emperor Arcadius) in her correspondence with duc de Chevreuse from this point on.39 Such criticisms seem justified to a certain extent, but the stakes were high and Maintenon simply panicked.40 When consent was given to

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Guyon in July she instead journeyed to Paris to live anonymously “in some private place with my maids, who were trusty and sure, and to hide myself from the view of the world.”41 Bossuet believed that Guyon had absconded and considered this a permanent breach of trust.42 She set out for the capital on 16 July and on the 18th Fénelon took his leave of Louis XIV, taking up residence in Cambrai on 4 August. Two days later Harlay died suddenly from apoplexy after the king had revealed that in negotiating the annual subsidy payable to exempt the clergy from the Capitation, the archbishop had conceitedly commented that they could pay more than the two million livres the Crown had demanded. Their indemnity was consequently doubled to 4 million livres, and the opprobrium heaped on Harlay supposedly brought about his death.43 Maintenon saw his death as an opportunity to recommence Fénelon’s assignment to sanctify the church, and she cajoled the king to nominate her pliable protégé, Louis-Antoine de Noailles, to replace Harlay. Noailles was at the bottom of an impressive list that included Cardinal Forbin-Janson and the archbishops of Auch and Sens, as well as Bossuet and also Fénelon,44 whom Hébert commended to Maintenon when she solicited the curate’s advice because it would be widely welcomed.45 Her response is revealing: “You well know … what prevents us from proposing him.” She asked whether Hébert would chose Godet or Bossuet instead.46 The curate replied that he was unable to decide between them, thus making Noailles the preferred choice, adding that “I told her my reasons and she approved.”47 Fénelon disparaged Noailles’s lack of courage and intellect,48 and Robin Briggs is right to describe the new primate of Paris as “honest, but maladroit,”49 though he was also no fool. Hébert recalls that Noailles was very reluctant to accept such a tiring, troubling, and prominent post, “although it was the premier ecclesiastical dignity in the kingdom.”50 Noailles maintained that he was “married to Châlons,”51 which already made him an ecclesiastical peer, and Louis-Antoine was clearly aware of Maintenon’s intentions, with Dangeau noting on 20 August that “the King appointed M. de Châlons to the archbishopric of Paris; he declined twice quite forcefully [on the 12th and 14th], but the King commanded him to accept and he obeyed [on the 16th].”52 Maintenon was overjoyed, as she later divulged to the duc de Noailles on 12 October 1695: “I’ve just had a severe migraine; but when something upsets me, I recall in my mind that M. the bishop of Châlons is Archbishop of Paris.”53 The Quietist menace had thus been swept under the carpet, with the courtiers hoodwinked as well as Louis XIV, although not everyone’s suspicions had been allayed. Liselotte gossiped on 15 September 1695 to

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her aunt Electress Sophie that “the young maids there [at Saint-Cyr] fell in love with each other and were caught in committing indecencies together. They say that Mme de Maintenon wept bitter tears about this and had all the relics exposed in order to drive out the demons.”54 Sensing that the danger had passed, Maintenon now decided more energetically to put Fénelon’s propositions into practice. The timing appeared auspicious in that the military crisis of 1695 had made the king more ductile. It started with the death of one of his finest but aging generals, Luxembourg, on 4 January 1695,55 and culminated in William III’s successful recapture of Namur after a fierce struggle lasting from 1 July to 5 September.56 Luxembourg’s death left a considerable gap in the military command, not because there was a lack of inspiring generals, but because there were few of them that the king implicitly trusted.57 Louis XIV was thus responsible for the ensuing lack of effective leadership, having taken on even greater responsibility for martial operations. As Guy Rowlands insightfully contends, the king’s mind was “far from tranquil,” and rather than dislocate campaigns by adhering to an inept stratégie de cabinet, he was in fact “simply evading responsibility.”58 It was at the most ominous moment during the siege of Namur, when a portentous engagement between the two sides was in prospect, that Louis XIV agreed to Noailles’s nomination. Louis seems to have become convinced that the root of France’s misfortunes was the loss of providential goodwill, and he began endorsing dévot policies to try to recover divine favour and atone for his past misconduct.59 As Liselotte surmised in typically blunt fashion on 30 May 1694, if peace doesn’t come soon it will go miserably here. Already conditions are indescribable, and not to be believed unless one sees them for oneself. I really think all that scorching and burning must have brought us bad luck, and that is why it is impossible for us to profit from all the battles that have been won and the cities that have been conquered. You hit the nail on the head when you compared the state of things here to cancer … Dogs are the best people I have come across in France. I never have less than four about me.60 Bossuet and the Sorbonne also urged the king to outlaw all theatre and opera in Paris to further improve morality, but this was considered too extreme.61 Put simply, Louis XIV was suffering a crisis in self-confidence. Apart from his presence at various sieges, Louis had been detached from the front line from the late 1670s. As France’s position deteriorated,

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depressing news from the battlefront now haunted the king, with no respite to be found in his usual retreats, and a sense of nervousness is increasingly detectable in contemporary accounts of him.62 On Friday, 15 July 1695, Dangeau recorded that Barbezieux woke the king at Marly at five o’clock in the morning “and brought him a letter from maréchal de Villeroi, the thirteenth since eleven o’clock the previous evening … The King spent the whole day waiting for a great event. Most of the ladies here are in mortal anxiety, with nearly all their husbands, their children, or brothers in this army.”63 Perhaps then to boost his confidence Louis XIV regularly held conferences with chevaliers and maréchaux in Maintenon’s presence from February 1695,64 and on 5 September Dangeau noted the court’s surprise on learning that the maréchal de Boufflers was to be appointed duc et pair after the king emerged with him from a war council in the marquise’s apartments.65 Moreover, on 28 June 1695 Louis and Chamillart discussed at length the renewed possibility that the enemy would attack French frontier fortresses and how to respond to this threat.66 The marquise’s attendance was not recorded on this occasion,67 and Chamillart’s advice was not commonly sought on such matters. These examples nevertheless reinforce the notion that Louis XIV’s government was becoming more informal, with the king casting widely for rational council.68 A conspicuous mark of the king’s increasing regard for his unofficial consort came with the construction of new apartments for Maintenon at Marly, which Dangeau noted on 8 March 1695 were very agreeable and “much less inconvenient” than her previous quarters.69 Maintenon also began to be included in the royal parties that visited the dauphin and Mlle Choin at Meudon in July, August, and October 1695.70 And her personal escort and écuyer, Clair-Gilbert d’Ornaison, comte de Chamarande, continued until his death in 1699 to be one of Louis’s most trusted and dedicated servants, having served as his premier valet de chambre from 1649 to 1679.71 Furthermore, on 28 April 1694 the king conducted Maintenon and her dame d’honneur to the Trianon, where Louis slept for the first time accompanied by a small royal party that included the dauphin, the duc du Maine, Mme la Duchesse, and her daughter the princess de Conti.72 Significantly, these overnight excursions became more frequent because the smaller palace provided an overburdened king with a refuge from the intensity of Versailles. With Noailles now established at Paris, Maintenon was eager to work in concert with her new archbishop to interfere more legitimately in ecclesiastical affairs and appointments. The results of these efforts are analyzed in the following chapter, but from the outset Maintenon

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emphasized that to achieve such lofty objectives a degree of duplicity was necessary, intoning that I partially understand the gravity and importance of the yoke we want to impose upon you; but, Monsieur, one must work. You have youth and health; it is not for me to urge you to sacrifice them to the glory of God, to the good of the Church and the salvation of the King. Here is a letter from one of your friends [Bossuet], who knows a part of what is happening; you must guard our secret from everybody. We must sometimes deceive the King in order to serve him, and I hope that God will give us the grace to deceive him and in concert with you.73 The elevation of the politically inexperienced Noailles marked an important turning point in the reign, as identified by Robin Briggs: The problems which appeared after 1695, with factional struggles doubling the doctrinal ones, make it plain how relevant Harlay’s skills had been. His much decried opportunism had been invaluable in preserving some balance between the various extremisms, in an area where the King himself was at least competent; once he was gone royal policy began to veer abruptly and unpredictably as Jansenists, Dévots and Jesuits grappled for the tiller, and only succeeded in putting the ship on the rocks.74 Importantly, 1695 was also the year in which Louis XIV further increased the power of his bishops, enhancing their jurisdictional authority within dioceses to the detriment of the increasingly embittered lower clergy, who began more volubly championing the anti-episcopal arguments of staunch Gallican theologian Edmond Richer (1559–1631).

b o s s u e t ’ s at tac k on qui eti s m Unfortunately, Maintenon’s Quietist deception was beginning to unravel as the matter began to be debated in print. In January 1695 Pierre Nicole had reissued his Treatise on Prayer, and in July he published a more explicit critique of mysticism in his Refutation of the Principle Errors of the Quietists. This was preceded by the official publication in February of Quietism Is Contrary to the Doctrine of the Sacraments by the Sorbonne doctor Jean Grancolas (1660–1732), which had first appeared in 1693 and comprehensively condemned Molinos. That same year

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another Sorbonne theologian, abbé Jean-Jacques Boileau, produced a work titled Marcelli Ancyrani Disquisitiones, a chapter of which, “De Tactibus Impudicis [The Impure Touch],” denounced Quietism for its immorality. Then on 21 November Godet published a tract censuring several chapters of Guyon’s Spiritual Torrents.75 Bossuet was now determined to eradicate Quietism, starting with a personal purge of Saint-Cyr. And he openly accused Fénelon of preaching a “Quietist” sermon to the Carmelites in Paris on the rue SaintJacques on his return to court at the end of 1695. The archbishop of Cambrai sharply refuted this, insisting that he had in fact been criticizing illuminism, which Bossuet would have realized had he been present.76 Fénelon again offered to visit Bossuet at his château at Germigny to resolve their differences, but this overture was rejected, effecting an irrevocable estrangement. Further enmity was generated when on 27 December Mme Guyon was arrested, interrogated by La Reynie, and imprisoned at Vincennes because a chronically paranoid Louis XIV had become convinced she was a dangerous fanatic responsible for fomenting an extensive heretical conspiracy.77 Noailles regretted the severity of Guyon’s treatment, but Bossuet did not.78 Nor did Maintenon, whose devotional crusade now began in earnest, as did the campaigns of Fénelon and Bossuet respectively to legitimate and annihilate Quietism. The explosion of the Quietist controversy with the publication of Fénelon’s Explication des Maximes des Saints sur la vie intérieur on 29 January 1697 triggered a furious factional struggle at court and a vibrant debate in the public sphere. For Maintenon personally it was embarrassing, even threatening. It also made a mockery of her well-intended intervention and she was justly accused of hypocrisy after permanently abandoning anyone tainted with mysticism. The king was understandably aggrieved upon realizing that he had been inadvertently compliant in a botched cover-up that promoted Fénelon to the see of Cambrai and Noailles to that of Paris. The latter’s glittering appointment, and the commensurate ecclesiastical influence he was now able to exercise, encouraged detractors to express their suspicions that Noailles was being manipulated by Maintenon and that he harboured Jansenist sympathies. To an extent both accusations were and would prove to be warranted. Maintenon energetically embarked upon what Joseph Bergin has called her “crusade to create a dévot episcopate”79 immediately after Noailles’s installation as archbishop. Importantly, elements of this campaign show how her political skills had matured. For example, Maintenon explained on 29 August 1695 that the prospect that the bishopric of Châlons might be given to the abbé de Clermont-Tonnerre did not meet with

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her approval because it would place three comté-pairie (count-peerage) bishoprics in the hands of the same family and she had therefore “implored the King to prefer a good choice to this symmetry.”80 And the marquise relentlessly pressured Noailles to conspire with her to accomplish Fénelon’s mission, a project that was approved by her confessor, Godet des Marais, as Maintenon confided to Noailles in a letter dated 27 December 1695: “I understand from a letter I have received from the Bishop of Chartres that, provided that I contribute to the making of good bishops, he will overlook everything else.”81 The Quietist affair subsequently embroiled the marquise in a religious crisis that developed into a political conflict. The experience would prove useful when, in 1713, Louis XIV again negotiated a critical European peace after an exhausting war to decide the fate of the Spanish empire against the backdrop of a domestic religious conflagration, this time over Jansenism, inflamed by another Maintenon-sponsored protégé, Louis-Antoine de Noailles. Why did her clandestine exertions to arrange nominations to vacant benefices meet with such limited success? What part did Maintenon play in the turmoil and factionalism generated by the Quietist dispute? And how did she survive a potentially damaging scandal to recover the king’s confidence, rebuild her circle, and extend her authority?

m a in t e n o n , n oai lles , and e p is c o pa l e n d e avo urs , 1695–1696 Maintenon’s intention was to promote the worthiest clerics within the church to improve the organization as a whole. This goal could only be achieved by subverting the malign influence of the Jesuits, who, she informed Noailles on 26 August 1695, “openly declare war on us [the dévots] from all sides.”82 Control of the feuille des bénéfices also needed to be wrested from the clutches of Père de La Chaise, whom she despised, in what has been described as “the duel of the directors of conscience.”83 The marquise was convinced that the spiritual counsels of the confessor she sarcastically referred to as “the good Father”84 were obstructing the king’s path to salvation, and she agreed wholeheartedly with the sentiments expressed by Fénelon in his letter of December 1693 that La Chaise was not vicious, but he fears solid virtue and only cares for loose and irreverent persons. And he is jealous of his authority, which you have raised beyond all bounds. Never before have royal confessors made bishops

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and decided all matters of conscience. You alone in France, Sire, are unaware that he knows nothing and that his mind is limited and vulgar, and that he continually indulges in stratagems with grossness of spirit. Even the Jesuits are contemptuous of him … You have made a minister of state of a monk. He proceeds boldly without fearing to lead you astray, and will always incline toward laxity and keeping you in ignorance … Thus, it is one blind man leading another, and as JesusChrist said, they shall both fall into the ditch [sic].85 The intensity and intricacy of this two-year clandestine operation, as revealed in her correspondence with Noailles, underscores both Maintenon’s determination to make it succeed and the corresponding strength of opposing forces keen to see her fail. To a certain extent these included the king, who disliked advisers involving themselves, without permission, in affairs outside the area of occupational authority that he had bestowed upon them. This left his consort in a permanent quandary and state of anxiety – what pursuits would Louis XIV, court, and la voix publique deem permissible beyond those related to education and charity? Reigning supreme in the king’s confidence, Maintenon evidently felt able to intervene in ecclesiastical matters, but not overtly. The employment of artifice was therefore essential, and Maintenon solicited and gained her confessor’s permission in order to clear her conscience. As Robin Briggs remarks: “there was a fundamental incoherence in royal policy at this point, for Louis XIV did not share his consort’s views, yet allowed her a degree of influence which made no sense unless he was prepared to back her consistently.”86 If it was not to bolster self-assurance on the king’s part, Maintenon’s growing but muted presence in important governmental meetings is difficult to explain. Critically, that presence emboldened her to take the initiative, or to act on behalf of others who, she believed, also had the king’s best interests at heart. She often confronted Noailles with the question, “Should I involve myself in this affair?,”87 and claimed that the king to a certain extent sanctioned her intrusions, informing Noailles on 9 September that he “only wants me to involve myself in ecclesiastical matters to help you support the public good.” In the same letter the marquise elaborated that she had complied with representations made by the Capuchins of Paris that she speak on their behalf to the king, who “with reason responded that it was not for him to enter into this affair” and therefore asked whether their petitions might best be passed to the archbishop after Noailles’s instalment.88 Predictably, contemporaries and historians have interpreted Maintenon’s activities as selfish and deliberately overbearing, with

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Langlois concluding that the king refused to involve himself in affairs for which he was not directly responsible, whereas Maintenon’s “taste for dominance and her impulsive temperament carried her along.”89 These allegations are partly true and reflected their respective natures, but Maintenon always remained a subservient partner and subject to her husband and sovereign, who increasingly depended on her, thus constantly changing and confusing her roles and the levels of responsibility they might confer.

t h e d e vo t e d “ewe” 90 Unfortunately, Louis had not met Noailles before his induction, and he approved the preferment on the bishop’s renowned merits, his family’s reputation, their outstanding service and loyalty,91 and Maintenon’s commendation.92 Her efforts were doubly rewarded, with Dangeau observing on 7 October 1695 that Innocent XII also welcomed the appointment and had given the Archbishopric of Paris to Noailles for free.93 This decision was vindicated on 10 November when Noailles took possession of his diocese and commemorated the occasion by distributing 8,000 livres to the poor, further enhancing his hallowed reputation.94 For Maintenon’s episcopal plans to be realized more effectively, the new archbishop needed to acquire the friendship and trust of the king and the respect of the court; this in turn required a program of political tutelage, which Maintenon predictably savoured as much as the king had when training Barbezieux. The marquise’s hopes of success were initially high, and she enthusiastically intensified her epistolary exchanges with Noailles. These missives invariably contained detailed and often esoteric information that was also highly sensitive. Consequently, efficient and dependable personal couriers were employed, like M. and Mme de Montchevreuil or the abbé de Tiberge,95 and the use of codes was commonplace,96 as was the destruction of compromising documents.97 Maintenon emphasized that on her part it was important that she try and reveal as much as possible about the king’s conscience and opinions. Conversely, she enjoined Noailles to include in his letters anything he wanted to bring to the king’s attention and to provide instruction regarding which affairs she should become involved in and which petitions she should respond to, and how,98 including disputes between the regular and secular clergy.99 Reciprocally she counselled Noailles, alerting him to the dangers of a court that in her experience “changes the best [of men].”100 She warned that he should also be particularly guarded when interacting with Père

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de La Chaise and other Jesuits, Papal emissaries, and Parisian parlementaires. After Noailles’s investiture on 13 November 1695 Maintenon began promptly to forward the requests of friends like Mary of Modena,101 who were keen to advance family members and clients and to promote their own favourites, including Noailles’s younger brother, Gaston, and Maintenon’s relative, the abbé de Caylus. At the same time the marquise stressed that the archbishop should not respond to every issue she raised.102 She also insisted that personal meetings between them be held only when absolutely necessary,103 but that when they did occur, such as for his introduction to the king at Versailles on 6 November, the archbishop should conspicuously visit her apartments to publicize their partnership and also accustom courtiers to “our grand commerce,” a manifestation of which would be the commissions he would “honour” her with.104 The king was keenly aware that his consort was becoming intimately acquainted with state business and asked her to keep her new-found knowledge secret and to exercise discretion when disclosing elements of it even with her archbishop.105 Ignoring this injunction, Maintenon explained to Noailles that she desired only to do good, confiding semi-flippantly that to accomplish that he must allow her “the liberty to lie.”106 Conversely, it was crucial to counsel the archbishop on how best to approach Louis XIV, whose disposition was exacting and at times austere. As Maintenon explained to Noailles on 21 December 1695 it was “at no point malicious,” but rather caused by recurrent melancholic fits of the vapours.107 Maintenon explained that to lead the king “gently” in a certain direction, without arousing suspicion, blunt methods were inappropriate because they would only “irritate or discourage him.”108 To underscore that point she included with her missive the infamously incendiary letter composed by Fénelon in 1693–94. On 27 December she delightedly agreed with Noailles that it was “well written,” but also “too severe.”109 Maintenon therefore ironically recommended that in order to win over the king, Noailles should in essence follow the same methods Fénelon had devised for her in 1689. A firm approach could be embraced only after the king’s confidence had been gained, as she stressed again in a communication dated 27 December: “it is necessary to accustom and not to surprise him … Finally, Monseigneur, once he is used to you be free and bold with him, I implore you.”110 Later, in March 1696, she elucidated that the king “feared novelty in everything,” so assiduous preparation would engender a sense of familiarity to ensure that the introduction of essentially new ideas and names would not seem innovative.111 Maintenon again endorsed prevarication

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over revelation when discussing intricate affairs with Louis XIV, differing distinctly from Fénelon: “M. de Noailles [the archbishop’s younger brother] is too sincere with the King; it is not easy to erase impressions once they have been given to him, and it is this which obliges me to hide many things from him, although this is against my natural inclination.”112 The use of subterfuge was therefore crucial, as disclosed on 13 December 1695, and only by carefully colluding together would they be able to achieve their agenda.113 It was a technique the marquise had been forced to adopt and one she incessantly practised to prevent excessively angering or disappointing a king who was still jealous of his personal authority and already oppressed by formidable responsibilities that she was trying to alleviate.

j e s u it o p p o si ti on Maintenon worked energetically and seized on every opportunity to insinuate Noailles into the king’s favour. On 15 November 1695 she reassured the archbishop that “he is well disposed towards you, and I hope each day will augment the esteem and confidence that I wish for.”114 Moreover, a month later, on 13 December, Maintenon informed Noailles that “yesterday the chancellor told me of the wonders of your conduct that gives me a natural opportunity to say some good things to the King, which will be useful.”115 Within weeks it was evident that the king was well disposed toward his new prelate, but Maintenon’s campaign to dislodge La Chaise in 1695–96 was ineffective, and her efforts to steer the king fitful at best. She implored Noailles on 14 January 1696 to send a list of good bishops, whose careers she could then attempt to advance, and on 28 January emphasized that unless La Chaise was removed, their project would be jeopardized. In the same letter Maintenon subsequently disclosed that she had been reproached by Bourdaloue for the inimical state of her relations with La Chaise and the Society of Jesus. For this she denied culpability.116 The marquise was convinced that La Chaise was malevolently thwarting their plans to remodel the episcopacy, an enterprise that on 21 December 1695 she revealingly admitted had started “five or six years ago,” spearheaded by the Fénelon-led “Burgundy Circle,” before the confessor had successfully distanced the king from her and arrested their endeavours.117 A number of telling altercations with the king indicated that this suspicion was only partly correct. La Chaise was a wily old campaigner with thirty years of experience in court intrigue, and he again fiercely and successfully resisted this encroachment on

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his supremacy, and that of the Jesuits, by praising Noailles to the king and courting and flattering Maintenon in person, while simultaneously extolling the Society of Jesus and denigrating the dévots in public as disorganized, idealistic, and “good for nothing.”118 Maintenon’s defence was also enlightening: she expounded to Noailles that some dévots were admittedly not fit to govern, but that this was due to the character of their spirit and not the fault of their devotion.119 Ironically this explanation exposed a basic flaw in Maintenon’s character as later identified by the editor of the memoirs of the duc de Noailles, the abbé Millot, who asserted that Maintenon selected candidates for their probity rather than their ability.120 Fénelon had attacked Harlay for being “worldly,” but this was an important attribute, given that leading churchmen also had to be domestic and international statesmen, as demonstrated during the régale row in the 1670s and the rupture with Rome in the 1680s. Joseph Bergin has demonstrated that the French episcopacy in the second half of the seventeenth century was dominated by theologians rather than lawyers, as it had been in the first half.121 Maintenon was therefore attempting to refine a process that had effectively already begun. This may help explain why Louis’s administration became increasingly bedevilled by paralyzing religious disputes that undermined his absolute authority in the later part of his reign. Maintenon did not in fact start to dominate the feuille des benefices, in tandem with Noailles, until the resurrection of the conseil de conscience in 1700. Before that date her freedom of action was partly restricted by La Chaise, but mostly by the king, as she was surprised to discover. The first open clash with Louis came on 21 December 1695. While discussing the provision of support for the Carmelites, Maintenon sensed that although reluctant the king did “not seem inflexible,” and she therefore pressed the point home by declaring that it was for the good of the church and would continue to comply with the late queen’s wishes. This incited Louis firmly to restate the patriarchal prejudices delineated in his Memoirs, declaring that a wife could only make such a request and certainly could not accomplish it without the permission of her husband. Maintenon replied that this was fair, but that in matters of religion there might be extenuating circumstances when the wife’s wishes could be accommodated if they did not compromise her husband’s affairs.122 On Christmas Day things became more fractious. Maintenon was elated to be told that Gaston de Noailles would, despite the king’s reservations, replace his older brother at Châlons. But she was infuriated to learn that Clermont-Tonerre had been promoted to Langres against her advice and blamed La Chaise for this.123 In a letter on spiritual direction

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in November 1691 Godet des Marais had suggested that Maintenon sermonize to the king whenever possible to enhance his faith, doing so in short and very simple orations “in proportion to his state of inapplicability.”124 Recalling this advice, Maintenon now boldly attempted to do just that on 25 December, with distressing results, which she described to Noailles two days later. She explained that she had begun to talk about St Augustine and on seeing Louis listen “with pleasure” took the opportunity of asking why he had never commissioned “diverting” lectures of instruction to be composed for his edification, and proclaiming her belief that La Chaise was opposed to it. The king denied this and countered that his confessor had in fact proposed such a measure, which the marquise then queried, claiming that when she had previously spoken to Louis of the writings of Fénelon, and read from those of François de Sales, he had been so touched that he had wanted to, and in fact did, make a general confession. The king did not respond immediately on this subject and when challenged about it twenty-four hours later declared that he was not a man who “followed any party in any matter.”125 Because she believed him to be telling the truth, Maintenon was left to surmise to Noailles that it was therefore not La Chaise who had estranged her from the king in ecclesiastical affairs. But she also regretfully realized that this meant that Louis was evidently mistrustful of unsolicited counsels from his consort. Maintenon, however, remained hopeful that by taking the initiative Noailles might bridge this gap and supplant La Chaise.126 Initial signs of optimism, visible even in a missive written later that same day,127 were given a further boost in a communication also dated 27 December in which the marquise jubilantly reported that Mme Guyon had been arrested and that the king wanted Noailles to decide what to do with her person, friends, and writings.128 The year 1696 began auspiciously. On 3 January Pope Innocent XII sent a gift to Maintenon of a lapis lazuli crown of the blessed Virgin Mary, attached to which was a gold medal with Jesus Christ portrayed on one side and Mary on the other. By the summer of 1696 it appeared that the prospects for Maintenon’s clerical crusade had further improved. La Chaise orchestrated a rapprochement with the marquise in March and reinforced that on 23 April by ensuring that he was the first to notify Maintenon that the king had chosen one of her relatives, the abbé de Caylus, to be one of his almoners. Their subsequently illuminating “long conversation” prompted Maintenon revealingly to remark to Noailles that she “realized that the King is not as docile as I thought and that the good father gives him very good advice.” Building on his advantage, and

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the marquise’s gullibility, La Chaise then urged Maintenon to preach to the king because “no-one could do it better.” However, their exchange concluded with a minor disagreement when Maintenon advocated loving over fearing God.129 In March 1696 Maintenon encouraged Noailles to work more closely with Achille III de Harlay (1639–1712), the premier président of the Parlement of Paris from 1689 to 1707, because their “union will be very important for the public good.”130 Then on 27 April Maintenon divulged to Noailles that it was “only too true that ministers did not like the King to be informed by anyone other than themselves,” but that she was now able to provide the sovereign with all points of view, which often contradicted those of his councillors, and that they had become a little more accustomed to that.131 In May she again asked Noailles for direction on “the pleasures permitted to Christians [and] … on those of the court,”132 thus confirming that their attachment was intensifying. And in support of her archbishop’s opposition to the proposition that clerical contributions to the Capitation be enlarged, Maintenon suggested, on 3 August 1696, that she might be able to intervene more effectively when the issue was discussed in her presence: “I know how to respond in general to this kind of discourse, but if you want to instruct me I will respond even better.”133 Regarding the same topic, she had firmly reminded Noailles on 1 June that “I am, Monseigneur, of your cabal against all the other cabals.”134 These stratagems culminated in Maintenon reporting “her inexpressible joy” on 14 August at having seized the chance, provided by the king on the 5th, to plead that La Chaise be prohibited from selecting a “stupid” confessor for the new Duchess of Burgundy and requesting that Louis consult Noailles on the appointment instead, to which he had subsequently acquiesced.135 Her “augmented confidence” in Noailles’s ability to guide the king, and her great expectations that he might successfully “continue to attack all that is bad in the Jesuits with your natural gentleness,”136 were soon dashed, however. La Chaise’s eventual triumph was expedited initially by the Quietist controversy,137 early tremors of which Maintenon felt in late August 1696 and registered on 28 September, when she intimated that “Quietism is making more of a disturbance than I thought.”138 It enabled La Chaise to quash dévot aspirations, throw their plans into disarray, and even venture to ruin the reputations of their leading protagonists, including Maintenon, while simultaneously pretending to negotiate a settlement. The vanquished marquise concluded on 24 September 1697 that “the good Father” had “more talent for evil than good.”139 Thus Maintenon’s campaign to control clerical appointments through her confidant-confessor, Louis-Antoine de Noailles, was relatively

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unsuccessful. Even her bid to pick a confessor for the Princess of Savoy failed: La Chaise’s candidate, Père Le Comte, was appointed on 2 September.140 The king was advancing in age as he was in piety and conservatism, and he placed unwavering trust in confessors who by convention had been selected from the Society of Jesus since the time of Henry IV. The marquise’s efforts to break that tradition and oust La Chaise were consistently disappointed, and the battle she conducted against what she regarded as the Jesuit menace caused her to enter the political sphere, on which ground she sought alliances and intelligence and gained experience that would later prove invaluable. La Chaise’s prowess had sustained the power of the Jesuits,141 and this was supplemented by the campaign they waged against suspected Jansenists, of whom the marquise’s archbishop of Paris was emerging as the most conspicuous and vulnerable figure. More pressing though was the threat posed by Quietism. Fénelon had never formally disavowed Mme Guyon, and Bossuet considered this inexcusable. Maintenon also found it extremely troubling because it was bringing about an increasing “coldness” between herself and “les dames” de Beauvillier and Chevreuse, as she admitted to Noailles on 8 March 1696.142 On 7 March Fénelon penned what would prove to be a momentous letter to Maintenon, explaining his attachment to Mme Guyon and her teachings, gently reprimanding Maintenon for having duplicitously rejected her, and demanding to know “why do you now fear to speak of God with me?”143 On 29 August an alarmed marquise briefed Noailles that Ponthchartrain had asked the king what action he wanted to take in response to a book composed by M. Davant that defended Quietism. Maintenon expressed her fear that a great commotion would be generated if all the persons named in Davant’s memoir were arrested, adding that she had contrived a delay in the hope that Noailles might be able to exercise his amplified influence to prevent the crisis from escalating. Unfortunately, Fénelon would prove to be remarkably obdurate.

“ t h e b o s s u e t – f é n e lon battle” 144 a n d q u ie t is t s c a n dal, 1696–1697 After weighing up the often partisan debates, and scrutinizing a wide range of documents and letters with debatable dates, it becomes apparent that confusion and misunderstandings generated mistrust in the Fénelon and Bossuet camps, each of which became convinced that the other was plotting against it. Over the course of 1696 the differences between Bossuet and Fénelon became irreconcilable, and this ignited a

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theological conflict between the two that became intensely personal, as well as a damaging factional struggle at court. Bossuet was determined to demonstrate that Quietism was heretical, and he preached on three occasions at Saint-Cyr in February, March, and May 1696 condemning passive prayer.145 More significantly, he informed the bishop of Mirepoix on 18 February that he would soon be able to read the second part of his “work against the Quietists,” titled Instructions on the States of Prayer.146 It was being rapidly composed in the knowledge that the archbishop of Cambrai had refused to censure Guyon, as Bossuet, Chartres, and Maintenon had requested, and was consequently preparing a definitive defence of Guyon’s doctrines titled An Explanation of the Maxims of Saints on the Inner Life.147 An incomplete version of Fénelon’s book was sent to Tronson on 26 February, and on 2 August a fuller memoir developing Cambrai’s ideas and explaining why he was unable to countenance Bossuet’s Instructions was read out to the former adjudicators at Issy, Noailles and Tronson, in the presence of Beauvillier and Chevreuse.148 Fénelon had completed the Maxims by early September, and on the 9th of that month he conveyed the text to a copyist.149 On 14 December two drafts of the Maxims of Saints were taken to a doctor of the Sorbonne, M. Pirot, for his comments and approval, and two days later Fénelon visited Chancellor Pontchartain to obtain a privilège permitting his book to be printed.150 Intriguingly, Bossuet had received royal authorization to publish his Instructions on 21 October.151 Maintenon also possessed a copy of the Maxims and was fearful of the consequences of publication, particularly after brief interviews with Bossuet and Fénelon on 7 October confirming that the former was as enthusiastic in his desire to crush Quietism as the latter was to vindicate it.152 Fénelon had again championed Guyon’s beliefs in a letter sent to the marquise in September. In it he denounced the malicious allegations that Bossuet had levelled in his Instructions, which the duc de Chevreuse had forwarded to the archbishop of Cambrai on 22 July, that described the “diabolical design” of Guyon’s “monstrous system.”153 Moreover, on 15 November an anxious Maintenon ominously notified Noailles that she had met with “the archbishop of Cambrai, who vehemently assured me how much he desires to be on good terms with you. We spoke of Mme Guyon. He has not changed his mind about that and I believe that he will suffer martyrdom sooner than admit that she is at fault.154 Fénelon had told the marquise toward the end of 1696 that it was his intention “to reduce to silence the hardiest of critics,”155 but at the same time made clear to Bossuet that he did not desire “victory over any person.”156

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The Maxims have been described as a “sober manifesto” designed to bring clarity and not to court controversy.157 And Fénelon stated that he wanted truth and peace to prevail for “God’s glory” and “thrice happy shall I be if it is secured, attended by my confusion and your [Bossuet’s] triumph.”158 At the outset Maintenon concurred, informing Noailles on 30 November 1696 that “it is not the condemnation of this doctrine that I look for, but the truth explained by the church.”159 However, when the storm broke a few months later Maintenon was forced to abandon this principled position, and consequently a number of her friends, as the intensifying scandal threatened to destroy her reputation and marriage. The duc de Chevreuse oversaw the printing of the first two copies of Fénelon’s Maxims of Saints, which appeared on 14 January 1697, and declared that further copies could be produced within ten days as he was now eager to go to press before Bossuet’s Instructions were published.160 But Fénelon wanted to wait until the bishop of Meaux’s book was in the public domain, presumably to allow further time for appropriate amendments.161 Adjustments had already been made in the autumn of 1696, induced by Tronson and Noailles, who, as Jean Orcibal has shown, were unable to find much wrong with Fénelon’s Maxims.162 But both did have reservations, particularly regarding the notion of “Pure Love” and the soul’s union with God after a metaphysical crucifixion and abandonment to divine will through passive, meditative prayer.163 Tronson told Chevreuse that he also thought it better to delay publication until Bossuet’s work was in circulation, but by 17 January Fénelon had changed his mind, informing Tronson that “you know as much as anyone how important it is that my work appears as early as possible.”164 During these embryonic stages the archbishop of Cambrai was evidently not immutable in his opinions. In one meeting he had invited Noailles to alter points that the archbishop of Paris had marked in pencil as questionable or equivocal. Significantly, however, Noailles was only prepared to hazard tentative suggestions, not make emphatic contradictions.165 Even the notoriously injudicious duc de Saint-Simon conceded that he was not qualified to comment on the Maxims after copies were formally issued on the Festival of St François de Sales on 29 January 1697.166 The memoirist astutely reflected that Fénelon’s was a work of such doctrinal complexity that no one except theologians could comprehend it, and even then the meaning could only be grasped after three or four readings.167 The Curate of Versailles, Hébert, agreed, recording in his memoirs that the attempt to define mystical spirituality was a laudable but “very difficult and hazardous enterprise,” which is why he repeatedly declined the duc de Chevreuse’s invitations to do so.168

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At Versailles on 1 February 1697, the duc de Beauvillier personally presented the king with a copy of Fénelon’s Maxims, and another was given to Bossuet by one of the duc’s men.169 The bishop of Meaux was already predisposed to denounce the book, as revealed in a letter to the abbé de Maulevrier dated 21 January in which he confided his certainty that Fénelon’s treatise could only cause “un grand scandale”: 1) because after telling me he refused to approve my book, he resolved never to condemn the books of Mme Guyon …; 2) I see, by the letters and discourses of M. de Cambrai, that he intends to establish that perpetual passivity is possible sustained by insupportable illusions; 3) I am sure that he has left several articles in doubt and obscurity … And if that is as it will be, who can exempt me from making the whole church see the extent to which this dissimulation is dangerous?170 Moreover, a letter to his nephew, Jacques-Bénigne, abbé de Savigny, on 11 February revealed that Bossuet had already revised sections of his completed book Sur le quiétisme in response to Fénelon’s Maxims, which he described censoriously.171 On 18 February Bossuet stated categorically to Godet des Marais that Fénelon’s “book makes a great furore,”172 and on the 21st Maintenon wrote to Noailles glumly to reflect on the fallout it had generated: I saw our friends, Monseigneur; we were intensely embarrassed with each other. M. the Archbishop of Cambrai spoke to me for moment in particular. He knows the bad effect of his book, and defends it with reasons that persuade me more and more that God wants to humiliate this great mind, that has perhaps relied too much on his own insights. He told me that Père de La Chaise had rendered an account of a conversation he had had with the King, after which he was not able to stop himself from talking to him about it. I fell in agreement with everything. But from the dispositions I see in the king, M. de Cambrai will gain little satisfaction from this elucidation. I also spoke to M. the duc de Beauvillier for a moment, who told me how he was afflicted by the King’s silence. I did what I could to address that about which we wanted to warn him [the king]; but he does not desire it and this conversation will be no less cold than the other. This opposition has not been inspired by me; it is a heartfelt conviction the King has for all novelties. I see only too well that he will blame me; but I owe you the truth, Monseigneur, and I am telling it to you.

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I have at no point seen M. de Meaux, although I have diligently tried. I thought that perhaps he wanted to be able to say that he had not seen me during this row. It is said to be great. M. de Pontchartrain will no longer embarrass you. His son marries Mlle de Roucy.173 I forgot what obliged me to write to you. M. de Cambrai wants to speak to you, Monseigneur, in my presence. I had already proposed this to him; and I had said that it will be when pleases you; but it seems to me that he wishes for me to be the one who is requesting and arranging this meeting. He has placed in my hands a memoir of the articles that he wants to discuss with you, which are questions on all that has just occurred. I can see no usefulness in this deliberation; but he will perhaps derive some advantage from a refusal, like that he wants to elicit from the silence of M. de Meaux.174 Unfortunately, the situation quickly deteriorated. On 26 February 1696 Fénelon had confided his belief to Tronson that the bishop of Meaux principally was forming a faction against him “in concert and in secret … [and that] Maintenon is afflicted and irritated against us by the new impression that is being generated. Countless people at court already disposed against us out of spite are keen to see this poisonous discourse turned against us.”175 And a year later on 29 February 1697 the duc de Beauvillier wrote to Tronson that “I speak to you with the sincerity that you are acquainted with, Monsieur, that it appears clearly to me there is a very strong and animated cabal against M. de Cambrai.” Beauvillier presciently added that Maintenon was completely in accord with her bishop of Chartres and was prepared to go to extremities against Fénelon that might include purging all suspected Quietists from the household of the Duke of Burgundy.176 This impression was seemingly confirmed by avocat-général HenriFrançois D’Aguesseau, who recorded that Pontchartrain took it upon himself, while awaiting the publication of Bossuet’s rejoinder to the Maxims of Fénelon,177 to inform the king that “there was forming at court and almost before your eyes a party dangerous to religion, pernicious to good morals, and capable of introducing a fanaticism that could be as fatal for the church and the state.”178 Furthermore, Sourches documented on 22 February 1697 that Fénelon’s book had made “a great sensation at court and in Paris” and had antagonized perspectives, as encouraged by the resolute opposition of his former friend, Bossuet. The memoirist recollected that “everybody reasoned in their own fashion, some supporting the Archbishop, others blaming him overtly,” but that

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there were others who were more moderate and suspended judgment.179 On 3 March Godet officially endorsed Bossuet’s Instructions, which had been completed on 25 February,180 and a day later Maintenon congratulated Noailles for doing likewise, but admitted that it would now be difficult for Fénelon to make the necessary retraction.181 Moreover, Maintenon confided to the same correspondent on 16 March 1697 that Père de La Chaise had been forced to confess to the king that he had sent Cardinal Forbin-Janson the Maxims of Fénelon with a favourable commendation. Louis had reacted to this very badly,182 a response compounded by the fact that Bossuet had presented him with a copy of the Instructions at Marly the day before.183 The marquise’s letter to the archbishop of Paris pessimistically concluded that “day by day the cabal becomes bigger and bolder. In it I see neither simplicity nor passivity. It is for you, Monseigneur, to support the cause of the church and M. de Meaux, that Père de La Chaise attacks next to the King.”184 Louis had consequently written to Janson on 15 March restating his abhorrence for novelties and commanding that the cardinal say and do nothing about Fénelon’s book until told otherwise.185 Confirmation that the Sun King would steadfastly champion Bossuet came on 21 March, when Dangeau recorded at Marly that “M. de Meaux gave his book several days ago to the King, and, because they do not share the same viewpoint, M. the archbishop of Cambrai and him, their very different books are making a great commotion, and the King seems very pleased with M. de Meaux.”186 Louis Cognet described Fénelon’s Maxims as a “redoubtable war machine,”187 and contemporaneously, avocat-général D’Aguesseau (son of Henri) portrayed Fénelon and Bossuet as “two combatants,”188 with the battle lines drawn up quickly after Bossuet’s work was distributed and then officially published on 30 March. The following day Bossuet apprised his nephew that “as for news of the books, mine it seems has been well received, and the doctrine I propound in it augments protestations against the other, [whose supporters are] in a state of consternation.”189 Opinions now rapidly polarized. As Henri-François D’Aguesseau later reflected, “the scandal was not so considerable, while these great antagonists confined their quarrel to points of doctrine. But the scene was truly afflicting to all good men, when they attacked each other on facts. Their publications were contrary to the extent that it seemed impossible that both of them could be telling the truth, and the public sorrowfully recognized that one of the two had to be wrong.”190 On Monday, 25 March, Père de La Rue had delivered a sermon in the presence of the king and his princes in the chapel at Versailles that, as the papal nuncio reported,

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forcefully denounced “the iniquity of the Quietist sect and the detestable perversity of its adherents.”191 Furthermore, Dangeau documented that Père Gaillard had expressed similar sentiments when preaching in Paris to “make publicly known the Society [of Jesus]’s sentiments on the new books that are so much talked about.”192 In the following weeks the venerated abbé de La Trappe, Armand-Jean Le Bouthillier de Rancé, nailed his colours firmly to the mast in a letter to Bossuet simply dated “March” and another on 14 April in which he described Fénelon and his doctrine and acolytes as “deluded” and impious “madmen,” indulging “fantasies” and holding “ridiculous” opinions that “in truth, if the chimera of these fanatics was accepted, it would be necessary to close the divine scriptures.”193 Mindful of these reproaches, Fénelon was preparing a new defence of his beliefs, The Traditional History of the New Mystics, as well as a translation into Latin of the Maxims. The prospect of further attempts to exonerate Guyon appalled an already mortified Maintenon. On 1 April she informed Noailles that three short treatises in Fénelon’s writings, On Dissipation and Sadness, On Simplicity, and The Burdens of Prosperity, Favour, and Grandeur, had been composed for and embraced by her petit troupeau, comprising the duchesses de Beauvillier, Chevreuse, and Béthune-Charost, who had written to Maintenon to acknowledge their embarrassment, compelling her to admit that “I am [with] them, and incapable of dissimulation. They know how much you have spoken and written in their favour.”194 Two days later in an extraordinarily prophetic letter, which is worth quoting extensively, Maintenon outlined her apprehensions to Noailles: I see that I am utterly deceived in the opinion I held that M. de Cambrai would write nothing reprehensible, and I dare no longer say that I do not believe he would do it a second time. Moreover, I am fearful that he is working on his translation in order to have everything ready for when it is needed. The King seems to me embarrassed to prevent a third edition. He must speak to M. de Beauvillier. Count on it, Monseigneur, that the severity of this affair will not be lessened, whether at Rome, in France, or in the heart of the King, and that we must therefore consider the danger the princes have been exposed to by such an education. As for me, I am afflicted and embarrassed: for the church, for you, and for me. I fear the outcome of this affair between two great prelates if they go to extremes. I worry about the course of action that the King will take, and for which he must answer to God. I fear the same for you; M. de Cambrai presses you and with reason; but

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the matter is difficult as everybody has acknowledged. I do not know if the authority of all the bishops together would be able to justify this book. As for my concerns, I would like, Monseigneur, a consultation, if you please, with yourself and M. de Chartres, so please come as soon as possible. I will see M. de Beauvillier as soon as I am able, in order to say to him that it is not a question of exposing his inner thoughts, but that it is necessary to respond to the public on the estimation that he has protected quietism, and that this belief will always be held if he does not condemn Mme Guyon, unambiguously, unconditionally and as soon as he is able to do it. Père de La Chaise wanted to see me. The pretext was a Saint-Cyr matter, but the true reason was an apology for the book of M. de Cambrai, telling me that there were some defects, but that they were all trivial, and that I must employ my credit to oblige the King to stop everybody from talking about it … [and] that Mme Guyon was a very dangerous woman.195 Beauvillier was sensitive to these allegations and emphasized in a missive to Maintenon of 9 April that he was not reluctant to see Mme Guyon’s books judged and that he submitted fully and unreservedly to the condemnation that the archbishop of Paris had made, for he too had a renowned aversion for novelties as “nothing seems to me more dangerous to religion, and I have consequently observed Quietism with particular horror because it is contrary to faith and destroys good morals.” He concluded sardonically “that if I was not certain that you would not forget to show this note to the King, I would beseech you most humbly to exhibit it to him … [and] you are also welcome, Madame, to make any other use of it you deem appropriate.”196 To further his cause Bossuet had already dispatched copies of his Instructions to the Roman Curia on 11 March.197 He was also having it translated into Latin to rival his adversary. Fénelon therefore decided on 13 April to exercise his episcopal right to appeal to the pope to adjudicate the matter and travelled to Versailles that day to show the king the memoir he intended to send in order to secure his approbation.198 Louis seemingly agreed, but on the condition that the archbishop of Cambrai did not publish his Tradition. Fénelon assented to this,199 eventually transmitting his supplication addressed to Cardinal Spada in Rome via the papal nuncio after explaining its purpose to him on 22 April 1697.200 Sensing that he was losing the initiative, and unhappy with the king’s irresolution, Bossuet now stepped up his campaign. He pressed Louis to

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secure a condemnation of Fénelon’s work and persuaded him to authorize an examination of Fénelon’s Maxims by a small team of experts comprising himself, the bishop of Chartres, and the archbishop of Paris, whose deliberations began on 15 April.201 On 22 April the bishop of Meaux was pleased to report to his nephew in Rome that the protestations against Fénelon were increasing every day as their own diligent investigations continued, but he also complained about the general state of hesitancy in tackling Quietism, confiding that the dispositions of the king, M. de Paris, M. de Reims, and Mme de Maintenon “still appeared not to have altered.”202 Bossuet’s frustration was compounded by Rome’s apparent indifference. Prudently Innocent XII was reluctant to involve himself in the dispute. He wrote on 6 May thanking Bossuet for his book, but without commenting on its contents.203 The bishop of Meaux was incensed and notified his nephew on the same day that he was unable to disguise the fact that “the Cardinal de Bouillon, who has grandes liaisons politiques with M. de Cambrai, will go to Rome solely with the intention of defending him more or less openly,” but added that “religion would prevail,” and assured him that the king would not remain equivocal as “everybody favours us, especially the clergy, and one fears acutely for piety if M. de Cambrai evades censure.”204 Fénelon had also written to the pope to make his case, and Bossuet therefore insisted that to counter Cambrai’s arguments it was paramount to instruct Innocent XII that they “tended towards the subversion of religion.”205 Fénelon suspected that people with “grandes liaisons à Rome” would prejudice the verdict and was keen to expedite matters, as he made clear in a letter dated 13 May to the king, who asked Maintenon to describe it to Noailles.206 In the missive Cambrai confirmed that the duc de Beauvillier had spoken to him about the Maxims, as the king had commanded, and that he welcomed the prospect of his book being re-examined by Noailles, Pirot, and Tronson because they would easily resolve any difficulties posed by Bossuet’s delays. Fénelon emphasized that he believed with a “degree of certainty” that these conferences would be harmonious and produce no doctrinal embarrassment, but added portentously that “a bishop cannot see his faith suspected without rendering an account of it to Rome as soon as possible.”207 By then, however, the backlash had begun. On 10 May 1697 the king personally visited Saint-Cyr to oversee the expulsion of three tenacious Quietist disciples, Mesdames de La Maisonfort (Guyon’s relative),208 de La Tour, and de Montaigle, and made a speech to the novices in which he expressed his astonishment, as

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Bossuet recorded, that anyone was “able to esteem the greatest madness in his kingdom.”209 In a desultory dispatch to Noailles two days later Maintenon imparted that Louis XIV had spoken to Beauvillier “according to your intentions,” but had found him “extremely cold,” and added that the king had then expressed himself so strongly that it did not augur well. Ominously she mused that “the scene at Saint-Cyr is going to make a great disturbance and will be regarded as a prelude. God wants to enlighten, fortify and console you all, because this affair is so distressing that we will only be able to breathe again by submitting to his wishes.”210 Louis’s acute irritation was appreciable, for he was by then preoccupied with diplomatic initiatives aimed at ending the war. Negotiations had begun in 1696 and were carried out at first by Boufflers and then, formally from March 1697, by François de Callières at the conference convoked in Ryswick that eventually closed in October. Confident that the tide had turned, Bossuet unleashed his ruthless dynamism. He discarded his customary discretion and began to litter his letters with personal remarks. Back in May 1696 in a conciliatory note to Fénelon he had expressed the hope that his Instruction would reunite them,211 but the preface to the second edition, published a year later on 22 May 1697, was pugnaciously offensive and the rift between the two prelates after this point became unbridgeable. The new foreword denigrated the archbishop of Cambrai’s Maxims as infinitely arrogant and full of contradictions, manifest impiety, and false and erroneous definitions that could only give rise to “universal indignation” because they were designed to create a scandal in the church, which prevented Bossuet from “holding his tongue” and compelled him to defend “the true faith.”212 The revised text had been completed by 18 May, when Bossuet boasted to Père de La Broue that it would succeed in Rome as it would in France, and observed that Fénelon was placing his confidence in Bouillon and the Jesuits as many of the Society, like La Chaise, supported Fénelon.213 The following day Bossuet was more direct, declaring to his nephew that he was surprised the Latin translation of his first edition of the Instruction had not yet arrived in Rome, but objectivizing that the bref he had received from Innocent XII on 12 May was positive214 and thus deducing that “poor M. de Cambrai is greatly demoralized, and can no longer be so haughty. I am his bête [noir].”215 On 3 June Meaux urged his nephew to make Cardinal Casanate realize that Fénelon’s Maxims were “extremely odious here,” that the king was indignant about it, and that most prelates thought he must abandon the book. He also complained that Cambrai was refusing to be amiable or to meet with him, Noailles,

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or Chartres and that his artifices were intended to divide or simply to amuse the clergy.216 This naturally made Fénelon furious and can only have stiffened his resolve to defend not only his own work but also Mme Guyon, whom he maintained may have been misguided but was not wicked. An insightful communication composed by Bossuet to his nephew on 10 June 1697 confirmed Maintenon’s prediction and reveals why the Quietist affair continued to generate national and international controversy until it was finally terminated in January 1699. In it Meaux divulged that his tribunal had agreed upon a resolution, declaring that Cambrai’s Maxims were fallacious and renewed Quietist errors and in so doing effectively made a secret apology for the works of Mme Guyon, whom Fénelon must condemn along with Molinos in a public apology. Subsequent assertions betray that Bossuet deludedly believed that he was mounting a one-man crusade to shield the church and instruct the people in order to protect them from “the cabal that has been stirred.” He declared that he would not rest until his objectives had been achieved, and he denounced Paris and Chartres as “feeble” and as only willing to act when pushed. He also disdainfully disclosed that Archbishop Noailles was equally afraid of himself as he was of Fénelon, and that this too necessitated urgent action “because without me all will be lost and M. de Cambrai will carry the day … I am alone in confronting the cabal.”217 The abbé Phélypeaux recorded this tirade against Paris and Chartres, which continued in a similarly declamatory fashion, with Bossuet blustering that “I will raise my voice to the heavens against those errors that you can no longer ignore. I will make my complaints known to Rome and throughout the entire world; and it shall not be said that the cause of God is cowardly abandoned … but the truth will triumph and error will be confounded.”218 Meaux also recommended that his nephew cautiously sound out the abbé de La Trémoïlle, brother of the princesse des Ursins, who was living in Rome and had close ties with the papal court. Bossuet consequently declared on 17 June that he had informed the king and Maintenon, on behalf of Chartres and Paris, that he too was writing to Rome to extract their judgment on Quietism, as had Cambrai who, he confided, “will no longer remain at court if he is obstinate.”219 The “war of words,” as Fénelon would later describe it,220 had now begun in earnest, and he would continue to reject appeals to discuss his doctrinal differences with Bossuet in person – differences that, the latter claimed on 29 July, “scandaliz[e] honnêtes gens,”221 and that Meaux was clearly exploiting to justify his aggressive campaign. Nevertheless, Fénelon did comply with Bossuet’s request that he draw

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up a number of articles of faith defining his dogma that Cambrai himself verified in the presence of Maintenon, Noailles, and Chevreuse at Saint-Cyr on 25 June.222 Unsurprisingly, Bossuet’s response to every one of the twenty propositions was negative,223 which Fénelon probably anticipated, because the two clerics were now implacably intransigent. Cambrai’s propositions also propelled Bossuet into action. He met with Louis XIV at Marly on 28 June,224 presumably to press the king to resolve the matter decisively, and he gently nudged Noailles in a similar direction on 30 June.225 This initiative obviously succeeded, for Bossuet was named counsellor of state for the church the following day and was given his own suite of apartments at Marly on 7 July.226 Thus he was able to brag on 1 July that “the King is very pleased with me … and I am très bien auprès de Mme de Maintenon [very close to Mme de Maintenon].”227 At the same time he grumbled that Fénelon was winning time because of the prolixity of his explanations, which alluded to the extensive Pastoral Instruction that Cambrai was diligently writing to be published in the autumn.228 The debate now moved vividly into the public domain with the new bishop of Noyon, Clermont-Tonnerre, attacking the “pernicious maxims of Quietism” and the “illusions” of its adherents in the July edition of the Mercure Galant. As Sourches remarked, this made “a great commotion” and obliged Fénelon to clear himself of suspicion by explaining his book clearly in refuting the errors of Mme Guyon, whom the provost described as the “patriarch of the Quietists.”229 Having succumbed to Bossuet’s remonstrations, the king was now evidently poised to make a pronouncement, which caused allegiances to become more visible. On 1 August an anonymous theologian in Lyon published a tract commending the archbishop of Cambrai’s Quietist creed after the frantic negotiations that had been intensified in June and conducted, often chez Tronson, by Pirot, Chantérac, Beauvillier, Chevreuse, and Noailles with Fénelon, had ground to a halt on 24 July.230 Moreover, on 16 July Pirot had exhorted Meaux, Chartres, and Paris to make public the Déclaration against Fénelon’s forthcoming Pastoral Instruction that Bossuet had been drafting, and on the same day Bouillon wrote to assure Maintenon of his ardent desire to see the affair concluded by a superior council to “procure tranquillity for the church and state.”231 Three days earlier Maintenon had starkly cautioned Noailles that if the king did not want to tolerate Fénelon’s book then negotiations must be discontinued, but remnants of loyalty are also perceptible in her remark that Cambrai in his heart supported religion “in mind and in truth” and that if he was not deceived then he would be able to return to court.232

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Fénelon was keenly aware that he was on the brink of a precipice, as revealed on 18 July when Maintenon wrote to Noailles relaying Cambrai’s request that they all meet at Saint-Cyr in a last-ditch attempt to find a settlement acceptable to all parties.233 Noailles had continued to show sympathy for Fénelon, even after it became clear that Chartres and then Pirot and even Tronson were dissatisfied by Cambrai’s clarifications, but he too yielded to Maintenon, according to Pirot, who claims that the archbishop of Paris on 16 July specified that deliberations should cease and a judgment proclaimed.234 Conversely, Bossuet asserted on the 22nd that Noailles was privately continuing to try to “convert” Fénelon, ever hopeful that he might make concessions. Bossuet skeptically concluded that “we await its success.”235 An injection of moderation was laudable, but futile in this particular struggle, and merely prolonged and even amplified the controversy, as Fénelon had already intimated. Since Maintenon had already been stigmatized by Quietist associations, and humiliated at Saint-Cyr, historians have tended to highlight this moment as the point at which the marquise betrayed her former mentor by terminating her friendship with Fénelon in an act of unethical and ruthless self-preservation. She certainly did refuse to meet with him and Noailles as Cambrai had requested, causing Fénelon on 27 July 1697 to carp to Maintenon that “since you deem it useless to have the kindness to honour me with an audience I will not importune you in that regard.”236 She was of course deeply implicated in the dispute, having been a sponsor and devotee of Guyon, and in promoting Fénelon and Noailles originally to try to smother a controversy that continued to flourish, the marquise admittedly had only herself to blame for behaving in the meddlesome manner for which she would become renowned. But could she have possibly preserved her position and reputation and the king’s esteem while openly throwing her considerable weight behind such a sensitive issue that had already engendered impassioned and schismatic debates? On 18 July Maintenon wrote to Noailles asking him to talk to Fénelon for old friendship’s sake at Saint-Cyr that Saturday and affirming that if the conference went ahead then she would ensure that the Duchess of Burgundy would be absent from the convent by cancelling her customary visit.237 This suggests that it was in fact Noailles who rejected Fénelon’s original proposal as unwise after having persuaded Maintenon to see reason. The attribute she most admired prevailed from this point on, and she did rationally, if regrettably, break off relations with Fénelon, whom she nonetheless continued to respect. Maintenon now had to give and be seen to be giving fulsome backing for Bossuet.

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A letter to Noailles dated 19 July confirms that her position had shifted. In it she documented that she had curtly rebuffed La Chaise’s toadying entreaty that she sanction a new three-hour conference that Fénelon had suggested be held with Tronson, Pirot, Boileau, and Beaufort to expedite the affair’s conclusion to everyone’s satisfaction without Rome’s intervention. She reminded La Chaise that Noailles had consulted Cambrai extensively to no avail, that Bossuet was putting the finishing touches on the Déclaration, which would illuminate Fénelon’s errors, and that ultimately she could not respond in a manner inconsistent with the king’s wishes. She further retorted that Louis was pleased with the contribution that Noailles had made and was looking forward to the archbishop’s own Pastoral Ordinance, but revealed that she harboured doubts about Beauvillier’s response, although she was persuaded that he would submit without hesitation.238 What she cannot have anticipated were the extreme measures Meaux was prepared to take to demonize Guyon and destroy Quietism.

f é n e l o n ’ s “ e x il e ” a n d papal arbi trati on, 1697–1698 The crunch came on 22 July when the king decided to write to the pope, evidently at Bossuet’s insistence, with Cardinal Forbin-Janson commanded to delay his return from Rome.239 Louis XIV’s solicitation from Meudon on 26 July, much of which was penned by Bossuet (as the latter proudly admitted),240 beseeched Innocent XII to make a definitive judgment against Fénelon’s Maxims, repeatedly referencing Meaux’s expositions to validate and bolster his petition and maximize the threat Cambrai posed.241 The timing was not uncoincidental. Fénelon had been trying to gather episcopal support, inviting the bishops of Toul and Amiens (Henri-Pons de Thiard de Bissy, 1692–1705; and Henri Feydeau de Brou, 1692–1706) to make their views known. But the latter refused to become involved,242 and the looming publication of Bossuet’s Déclaration forced Cambrai’s hand, which accounts for the breakdown in negotiations on 24 July. Fénelon now wrote to the king at Meudon on 25 July asking permission to travel to Rome to appeal to the pope in person. This was deeply regrettable, he wrote apologetically to Maintenon on 29 July, and he was doing so involuntarily, but he deserved the “liberty to justify” treatises he had authored that had been castigated as “abhorrent and dangerous” in France, where arbitration was unobtainable, as his failed dialogue with the vacillating archbishop of Paris had demonstrated.243

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Accordingly on 26 July Maintenon sent one copy of Fénelon’s letter to Godet and another to Tronson, asking the latter to comment on it and for his sentiments on the affair. He immediately responded, outlining five points that needed refining.244 Three days later a jubilant Bossuet notified his nephew that the king had spoken “very powerfully” to the nuncio and that they would “defy” the Jesuits and Bouillon, the outcome of which would be that “poor” M. de Cambrai “will be ordered to retire … [His] fury against me is extreme; his cabal is terrible and his artifices equally so; but we have on our side, the truth, honest intentions, courage, the King, Mme de Maintenon, etc. … I add assuredly that M. de Cambrai only believes those people who flatter him.245 Considering Fénelon’s views on sycophancy, this last comment was equally ridiculous and hypocritical, but both clerics had by now lost their perspective. Bossuet was nevertheless correct in that his adversary was now ordered to leave the court and return to his diocese. Fénelon promised Maintenon he would do so immediately in a letter dated 1 August in which he sincerely regretted displeasing the king and begged forgiveness “for all the pain I have caused you,” emphasizing that he was anxious to protect his diocese of Cambrai. But he added that he was prepared to see himself “crushed” further on behalf of his beliefs.246 Fénelon left on 3 August, as Dangeau documented,247 after writing to the king on the 2nd asking if he could be represented in Rome by the abbé de Chantérac, whom he commended to Cardinal Spada in a letter the same day.248 In communications dated 4 and 5 August, Maintenon justified the sovereign’s decision to Godet, reasoning that it was “very good” and left Cambrai no cause for complaint. The marquise was pleased too because she believed that the reprimand did not look like a denunciation. She concluded self-assuredly that Fénelon was “much better off in his diocese,” but she also registered her alarm that Louis might bypass Rome and convene a national synod to judge Quietism, should the pope procrastinate excessively.249 Bossuet summarized these developments in a letter to Père de La Broue on 1 August in which he declared that the king and Maintenon were “in accord” on Fénelon’s manuscript and that Noailles, eight theologians, “Sorbonnistes,” and others, who had not been in communication with him, had all, nonetheless, condemned the book along with the author’s protracted explanations. He added that the king had discussed the matter with several bishops, who would make their own declaration on Monday, and that it was now necessary to await Rome’s decision on the “frightfully proud” archbishop of Cambrai. Significantly, Meaux also recorded his wish that the affair be decided in a different

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manner, correctly forecasting – as the editor’s footnote elucidates – that Gallican prelates did not often readily acknowledge the congregational authority of the Saint-Siège, but that it was fundamentally necessary to leave Rome “to do things in its own way.”250 Maintenon reported to Godet on 6 August that she had read the missive written to Beauvillier by Fénelon,251 who in turn stated that he would submit without qualification to the judgment made by the pope as his superior, but that he had abandoned everything to defend the truth and was unrepentant because God had deliberately imperilled him, so that eventual obedience would be a compliment rather than an act of contrition.252 Fénelon was less circumspect in a letter to Tronson on 3 August that apologized for neglecting to have bidden him farewell and that berated the rigour of his antagonists and particularly Bossuet, who “not content with attacking my book stops at nothing to blacken my reputation … presenting me as a fanatic and a hypocrite.”253 Justifiably, he nursed feelings of anger and injustice caused by Bossuet’s bad faith and the insults heaped on Guyon,254 whose blemished reputation he was determined to clear even if that proved detrimental to his own. Fénelon may have dutifully left the court promptly, but the almost instantaneous printing and promulgation of his letter to Beauvillier transformed it into a manifesto, which meant that his presence could still be felt.255 He had also composed a six-point memoir explaining how things stood, which he asked Chantérac to convey to the pope.256 George Minois posits that Bossuet had made “an alliance with the devil” to ensure victory over Fénelon,257 but as François Bluche asserts, the fact that Cambrai endorsed Mme Guyon “shows that this exceptional soul was lacking somewhat in realism.”258 Maintenon too had shown herself to be extremely naive in this affair.259 Hers was a poorly executed strategic retreat, but when contrasted with the actions taken by the more worldly and experienced archbishop of Cambrai, her conduct seems more excusable. On 6 August Sourches reflected on the impact the Quietist controversy had made thus far in France before being exported to Italy, declaring that “never has an affair made such a furore as this one.” It had seemingly split the court, the capital, and, more alarmingly, the French church into factions, with Meaux, Chartres, and Paris, along with most of the Sorbonne, “raising their standard” against Fénelon, and with the Jesuits, Cordeliers, and Jacobins and most of the priests of the Oratory behind him. Sourches lamented that it had also led to “great intrigues” at court and that those who remained neutral were “saddened to see, in front of God, such division between two great prelates.” But, he judiciously noted, there were also many people who

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“were not at all scandalized,” mindful that in the past many similar wars had been fought out in the church.260 It is difficult to identify accurately the members of the two parties, for affiliations naturally shifted for multifarious reasons. In this instance the choice, as Sourches intimated, had become partly theological and partly political, with Bossuet’s supporters, like the archbishop of Reims, Maurice Le Tellier, seizing the opportunity to prove their loyalty and enhance their standing and that of their family members with the king. It also gave Reims the chance to gain some credit for the faltering Le Tellier faction. Minois’s suggestion that this was a cabal against “the clan Colbert”261 is perhaps oversimplistic: both sides courted Torcy, who seems to have maintained a degree of independence. But it would be fair to say that prominent detractors of the Burgundy circle included the Phélypeaux and possibly also the dauphin, who had effectively become estranged from his sincerely virtuous son,262 and their clients were eager to see their influence expand to the detriment of that exerted by the potent coterie dominated by Fénelon and the ducs de Beauvillier, Chevreuse, and Chaulnes. Significantly, it also gifted Maintenon’s enemies a golden opportunity to denigrate the king’s consort in a bid to reduce her influence and perhaps even bring about her disgrace. The debate over the heterodoxy of Quietism and the teachings of Guyon and writings of Fénelon now began to rage in Rome, from where the priest M. Maille263 wrote on 30 July 1697 to inform his old friend, Cardinal Le Camus, that the abbé Bossuet had been distributing translated copies of his uncle’s Instruction among the cardinals, while they still awaited an Italian version of Fénelon’s Maxims. Maille suggested that ultimately a humble retraction might be better for the church.264 And this proved only too true in that the first two conventions of cardinals that Innocent XII assembled to evaluate Fénelon’s doctrine had failed to reach a verdict and the third only succeeded a year later after sustained pressure from Louis XIV. Bossuet had apprised his nephew on 5 August of recent developments at Versailles, informing him that their Déclaration would soon be dispatched to Rome where, he warned, Bouillon would be campaigning proactively on behalf of Fénelon, who had wrongly assumed that Meaux had mounted a vendetta against him. Bossuet claimed, disingenuously, that there was nothing personal in their disputation and that the only disagreement he had with Cambrai was that which all the bishops and the whole church shared over his “bad doctrine,” and he urged the abbé to publicize this. Meaux finished the communication by relaying Maintenon’s request that he and the abbé Phélypeaux monitor

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proceedings attentively, and Bossuet commanded them both to speak with restraint.265 In the same missive the bishop of Meaux had disclosed that Fénelon’s aspiration to travel to Rome and present his case had come to nothing, as the king would not hear of it. Maintenon would not countenance this journey either, sensing it might prove dangerous to herself, and Fénelon did humbly return to his diocese, but it is hard to discount the notion that he knew what Bossuet had acknowledged. The king could exile Fénelon from the court and bar him from travelling abroad, but Louis could not stop him from petitioning the Roman Curia, where Cambrai was confident that forces would fight in his favour. Critically, the ability to appeal in itself considerably undermined the king’s supposedly absolute authority and dispelled any notion of spiritual supremacy, which the Gallican Articles had tried and failed to secure. Perhaps this helps account for Bossuet’s exasperation and his ardent desire to resurrect his reputation as the “oracle of the church” before old age overpowered him. All of this did little to alleviate Maintenon’s burgeoning unease. She confided in a note to Noailles on 17 August that she had failed in another attempt to diminish La Chaise’s credit, and boost her own, by mentioning that the confessor’s condemnation of Quietism was contradicted by his admiration for Fénelon to the king, who “listened with attention, but said nothing in response.”266 On 24 September Maintenon informed Noailles that the king had reacted in a similar manner to the archbishop of Sens’s proposal that a council of bishops be convened to pre-empt Rome’s decision in order to establish whether Fénelon had the right only to abandon or defend his book. In the same missive she divulged that Meaux’s news from the Holy See “makes me tremble for M. de Cambrai,” but that it was necessary to prioritize the interests of the church after peace had finally been concluded, with the fate of the Spanish Succession now at the top of European rulers’ agendas.267 Unfortunately, deliberations in Rome remained gridlocked for well over a year, with Chantérac and Bouillon taking up the cudgels on Fénelon’s behalf to try and repel Bossuet’s relentless onslaught. It was an extremely harrowing time for Maintenon, who could not relax until Fénelon was silenced. This placed her in an invidious position: she had to endeavour to remain neutral in private because Cambrai might conceivably be exonerated, while conspicuously supporting the king and Bossuet proactively in public, as her letters reveal. One to Bossuet dated 22 December 1697 remarked ironically that “our cabal is not as lively as people have been led to believe.”268 Another, to Bouillon on 3 February 1698, apologized confidentially for not having responded to his three

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previous messages, explaining that she was unable to do so at present and that this was, in fact, the best course of action.269 Bossuet was aware that the pope had wanted the affair resolved in France and that numerous cardinals summoned to the three conventions at the Vatican sympathized with Fénelon, as did Innocent XII to a degree,270 making the process of adjudication potentially interminable. This was exacerbated by Fénelon. In a bid to gain some legitimacy for his ideas he canvassed a variety of opinions, asking Innocent XII, Père de La Chaise and also Rancé at La Trappe for feedback on his Pastorale Instruction in October,271 which Bossuet had already commented unfavourably upon in a memoir dated 15 September 1697 in which the words “dangerous” and “supernatural” were liberally employed.272 Pressure therefore needed to be brought to bear on public opinion and on the Roman Curia, primarily through the abbés Bossuet and Phélypeaux, but also through printed propaganda. Meaux wrote tirelessly, publishing pamphlets and tracts in French and Latin, such as the Substance of the Doctrine of the Book Entitled: Explication des Maxims des Saints, which appeared in August 1697, and also placing articles in international periodicals like the Mercure and the Gazettes of France and of Holland. This tactic was replicated by the Fénelon camp, with Cambrai penning numerous dissertations to clarify his position. These included the Four Letters of M. de Cambrai, distributed in December 1697, which were designed to attack Bossuet, who shamelessly retaliated using the subterfuge and “artifice” he had accused Fénelon of employing. These methods included hiring personal couriers, recruiting informers, and currying favour with cardinals, using a mixture of flattery, coercion, and bribery, with “gifts” disbursed to win them over, to the extent that the abbé Bossuet had spent well over 4,000 livres by December 1698 on top of his normal expenses.273 The two young abbés also lobbied hard to have cardinals favouring Fénelon removed from the pope’s tribunal. They succeeded in having Père Damascène dismissed in October 1697 and replaced with Père Philippe, a Carmelite.274 Both abbés were also encouraged to canvass support from farther afield, with Meaux reminding his nephew on 17 June, and again on 29 July, to compliment the newly nominated bishop of Metz, Henri-Charles du Cambout de Coislin, on his elevation and exhorting the abbé on 26 August to use the opportunity provided by the death of La Chaise’s brother to write a letter of condolence to the king’s confessor.275 The Bossuets also embarked upon what can only be described as a smear campaign, during which they spread malicious rumours about Fénelon and Guyon to scandalize the public and tarnish Cambrai’s

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integrity.276 Unfortunately the young abbé executed this operation recklessly in Rome, where he had already garnered a dissolute and quarrelsome reputation, which obliged his uncle to intervene on more than one occasion to persuade not only the king but also Madame de Maintenon of his innocence, as he was compelled to do in March 1698.277 The marquise reassured the bishop on 3 April that she was convinced, as was the king, that his nephew was evidently blameless.278 This intervention smoothed things over temporarily, but dealings between the two parties would become even more unsavoury and their behaviour more unscrupulous before this unedifying episode was brought to a close.

6

Quietism Vanquished, but Heresy Endures, 1697–1699

As the Quietist controversy intensified Maintenon came close to losing the king’s confidence. Fortunately Louis XIV’s indignation quickly subsided and Maintenon’s favour was restored and her position fortified auprès du roi. Bossuet’s indefatigable exertions helped bring the Quietist affair to an end when Fénelon submitted to papal censure in March 1699. But other religious problems resurfaced, namely the perennial problem of Protestantism, which had been revivified by preachers like Claude Brousson in the 1690s, and Jansenism, which was still being robustly defended by the nuns at Port-Royal des Champs. The Treaty of Ryswick had brought the War of the League of Augsburg to a close, but Louis’s clumsy attempts to eradicate unorthodox elements within the French church shattered the “peace” that had been fudged in 1669 and generated schismatic turmoil that would continue beyond his death. Maintenon was again exhaustively involved in efforts to settle these theological disputes, and this placed her, somewhat reluctantly, at the very centre of governmental affairs during the Sun King’s later reign.

bos s u e t ’ s

r e l at i o n s u r l e q u i é t i s m e

of 1698

On 27 January 1698 Bossuet reported to his nephew that he had left the king and that all was going well, but this was not in fact quite true. The ten specialist theological consultants selected by the pope soon split into two factions, and to further complicate matters their judgments then had to be confirmed by eighteen cardinals of the highest Roman court of appeal, the Signatura Justitiae, although ultimately only thirteen of them ratified Fénelon’s reprimand in January 1699.1 Fénelon in his Four Letters, and Chantérac in supplementary pamphlets, had pointedly emphasized that while Madame Guyon had been resident in the

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Diocese of Meaux it was Bishop Bossuet who had in fact communicated and absolved her. With no decision in prospect it seemed by the end of 1697 that opinion was swinging in favour of the archbishop of Cambrai, in part because his dedication to his war-ravaged diocese had gained him widespread acclaim. Nevertheless, in a letter to Chantérac on 9 December, Fénelon scotched rumours that a comeback to court would be possible if he admitted his mistakes. Such an admission, he pointed out, would compromise the purity of his doctrine and reputation.2 Bossuet responded with renewed vigour, issuing a barrage of publications over the next three months. And in a desperate bid to break the deadlock in Rome, he now strove to demonstrate in one authoritative work, which would comprehensively condemn Quietism, that Guyon was mentally unstable, that her relations with Père La Combe were immoral, and that her liaison with Fénelon was perhaps not platonic. To achieve this goal, d’Argenson carried out new interrogations, first of Guyon in December 1697, then of La Combe in March 1698. As Bossuet divulged to his nephew on 5 May 1698, this was specifically to corroborate that a “manifest” physical connection had existed between the two suspects and that La Combe was also guilty of impure illusions.3 Fénelon, who was not cognizant of these manoeuvres, on 10 March 1698 published a prodigious new preface to his Pastoral Instruction to counter Bossuet’s expanding corpus. This only spurred on his opponent, who warned his nephew that his own new preamble would turn the entire episcopate and the whole world against Cambrai, but that his “powerful cabal would continue to be menacing unless it was dealt with.”4 Because his powers of reason were fast diminishing, Père La Combe was transferred to the hospital at Charenton. A few days later he was moved to Vincennes, where, with the help of his interrogators, he penned a letter to Mme Guyon admitting that they had together strayed from the path of righteousness and must atone for it. This document was then presented to Mme Guyon at Vaugirard, whose confession was extracted from a broken and disillusioned woman under duress by the archbishop of Paris, Louis-Antoine de Noailles, with the help of the Curate of Saint-Sulpice, Joachim de La Chétardie (1636–1714), who had been her guardian since 1696.5 La Combe was also required to confess to being a disciple of Molinos, and Guyon did likewise after being moved to the Bastille in May, where she was submitted to three months of interrogation led by d’Argenson, with the support of Noailles, about her links with Fénelon.6 Critically, on 10 March Maintenon revealed to Bossuet that she still possessed two notorious letters written to her from Fénelon dated 7 March 1696 and September 1696 that resolutely

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defended his “friend” Mme Guyon and her admittedly rather unorthodox but not heterodox views.7 This seemingly substantiated the declarations made by La Combe and Guyon and linked Cambrai to them, thus lending substance to Bossuet’s fantasy that Fénelon was also guilty of a fostering a Molinist conspiracy. Notwithstanding the claims of some historians, it is very doubtful that these interviews were conducted at Maintenon’s behest. She probably did know they were taking place, but not exactly what Bossuet’s agenda was, nor how inexorable he would prove to be. To the marquise’s horror the depositions of March and April were immediately publicized, thus reigniting the scandal in France, as registered by Dangeau on 28 April,8 but this time with greater intensity as the public grasped that “new things had been discovered on this matter,” compelling the king to demand that the bishop of Chartres enlighten him on the matter immediately in person at court. Similarly the diarist noted that the following morning Noailles, Bossuet, and Godet spent a long time in discussion with Maintenon, presumably to update her. The timing was propitious. Letters from the abbé Bossuet to his uncle on 10 and 20 May stated that it needed to be emphasized to the king that Chantérac and Bouillon were working and publishing frenetically for Fénelon with the effect that their growing cabal, which had transmitted Quietism to the four corners of the kingdom, was now generating factional conflict in Rome.9 The abbé stressed that Louis XIV must also be apprised about the “bad impression” being made at the Holy See by the Jesuits and the cardinal de Bouillon, as should Maintenon,10 whose close friend the maréchale de Noailles subsequently received missives from the princesse des Ursins in Rome on 6 September 1698 and 10 January venting her outrage at what she viewed as Bouillon’s brazen disloyalty.11 The young abbé also exhorted his uncle to dispatch his Rélation sur le Quiétisme at the earliest opportunity, otherwise their cause might be lost.12 Bossuet could not in fact send the text on just yet, so instead he couriered copies of key documents to his nephew. Reproductions of La Combe’s confession and Fénelon’s letters to Maintenon were translated and conveyed in great secret and arrived in Rome on 23 May. Their contents astonished Innocent XII, who was keen to see them both translated into Italian and printed.13 This the abbé Bossuet duly accomplished, but in the meantime the pope had both texts read out by his secretary at the next meeting of his tribunal on 26 May, where they caused an uproar.14 La Combe’s revelations and Maintenon’s disclosure made Bossuet’s Rélation even more combustible. It would tip the balance in the Bossuets’ favour, as his nephew reasoned on 27 May,

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commenting portentously that good use could be made of both documents and particularly Fénelon’s admirable letters, which were “of the greatest consequence” and had arrived “just in time” to subdue Chantérac and authenticate the allegation that a “great and destructive party” had formed against the king and Maintenon.15 The marquise herself now panicked, informing Archbishop Noailles on 24 May 1698 that I had a conversation with the King yesterday about the great affair; he wants to remove M. de Cambrai and all who surround the Princes; but he looks for reasons to defer and all because of the pain it will cause M. de Beauvillier. I said all that I could about it in order to press him yet without revealing an eagerness that he might find shocking. I made no impression, and only want what God wishes. I did not find the King had softened on the crux of the matter … Pray for me, Monseigneur, I implore you; I do not have the courage to sustain my fortune, judge how I will manage in adversity.16 Accordingly, on 29 May she updated Noailles about her renewed attempt not only to remove all Fénelon advocates from the princes’ milieu, but to discredit the duc de Beauvillier because she held him chiefly responsible for duping her. Beauvillier’s mortification, Maintenon hoped, might prevent her own. Now that La Combe’s confession was in the public domain, it was vital, she explained, to increase security around Madame Guyon, whose grilling began after she was taken to the Bastille two days later: I finished my discourse in saying [to the king] that I would not be able to forgive M. le Duc de Beauvillier for having chosen the friends of Mme Guyon having known who they were all along. In effect I see more and more each day how much I have been deceived by these people to whom I gave my confidence without having theirs; because if they had acted frankly then why did they not let me in on all of their mysteries? And if they feared that I might reveal them does this not prove that they had formed a plan to use my friendship, and my credit, to establish this novelty at court? The King seems disposed to speak unreservedly with M. le Duc de Beauvillier. If he has not done that by tomorrow then this will be a great mark of credit for this minister. Push M. d’Argenson, Monseigneur, and convey that we believe him won over by the friends of Mme Guyon.17

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Despite Maintenon’s efforts, Beauvillier retained the favour of the king, who as Dangeau noted spent a long time confined with the duc on the morning of 2 June, resulting in the purge of the Duke of Burgundy’s household that evening. The lector, an under-preceptor, two gentlemen from lower Normandy and a guardsman, the abbés de Langeron and de Beaumont (Fénelon’s nephew), and Messieurs Dupuy, l’Échelle, and the comte de Fénelon (Cambrai’s half-brother) respectively were banished from the court for being “strongly attached to new opinions.”18 On the same day Bossuet told his nephew that his Rélation had been “submitted to the court” after the first print run on 31 May.19 Moreover, Bossuet’s brother Antoine documented that it had been approved by the royal censor on 3 June after minor modifications that included excising “something” about Mme de Maintenon.20 Meaux also reported that the king had been constrained on the same day to implore the nuncio to obtain from the pope “not an accommodation, but a precise decision.”21 On 24 June the king held a long audience with Noailles that Dangeau supposed had focused on the affairs of M. de Cambrai, as the bishop of Chartres’s book “on these matters” was given to the king on the same day.22 More critically, the diarist observed that two days later at Marly, Bossuet formally presented his Rélation sur le Quiétisme to the king, the contents of which explain the manner of his relations with M. de Cambrai and recount in detail the opinions of Madame Guyon. The book is a strong condemnation of all the practices of the archbishop of Cambrai in this affair. After dinner M. de Meaux gave many courtiers who were here this book; the King spoke of it during his promenade, and stated that there was not a word in it that was not true.23 Louis XIV may initially have extolled the virtues of Bossuet’s manifesto, but he had clearly not yet read it carefully. On 28 June, Dangeau recorded that the only topic under discussion at Marly was Bossuet’s book, which “laid bare” the complete doctrine of Mme Guyon, who although imprisoned in the Bastille continued to defend herself with “much spirit and firmness” in the face of continuing interrogations conducted by La Reynie, as commanded by the king.24 Bossuet’s Relation was formally published on 26 June and had the desired effect of fanning the flames of controversy by exaggerating the Quietist menace, which was apparently spreading across Europe. He embroidered his chronicle of the past and present history of heretical mysticism with insulting character sketches of the principal fanatics,

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who had also plotted darkly to subvert the government as well as the church, as a startled Liselotte noted: I thought that M. de Meaux’s book would prove diverting. From what he told me in conversation about the affaire Guyon, M. de Cambrai has taken her side only to hide his unmeasured ambition. All of this [the Quietist controversy] was but a front to govern the King and the entire court; nothing is more certain. They had decided to win over Mme de Maintenon, which was done in order to govern the King totally. At their homes we found entire lists of appointments placing their creatures in the most elevated posts. Religion was therefore the least of their worries. But as soon as Mme de Maintenon realized that M. de Meaux had caught on to the plot, and the whole thing could turn out badly, she grew afraid that the King would become aware of how he was governed by her; so she turned about immediately and abandoned Mme Guyon and all her party. Then it all came out in the light of day. I assure you that this bishop’s quarrel has nothing to do with faith: it is all about pure ambition.25 This was hyperbole, but as with the Affair of the Diamond Necklace a century later, the public had no interest in facts. One compromising statement about Maintenon may have been deleted, but many more regarding her role in the affair and her relations with Guyon and Fénelon remained, about which the king had become acquainted by 29 June, as a distraught marquise confided to Noailles: The book of M. de Meaux makes a great row here; people speak of nothing else; the facts are exhibited to the world and everyone is diverted by the follies of Mme Guyon; the book is short and everyone is reading it … I do not doubt, Monseigneur, that M. the duc de Beauvillier will be upset to lose me; my friendship for him was very sincere: I thought that he had the same for me … The book of M. de Meaux rekindles the anger of the King for having allowed us to make him [Fénelon] archbishop. He reproaches me very severely and inevitably all the pain of this affair falls on me!26 The Relation also caused a cooling in relations between Maintenon and Bossuet. The marquise informed Noailles on 28 July 1698 that she had “seen M. de Meaux and heard from his mouth that he does not want to write any more.”27 She confirmed on 9 September that she no longer saw Bossuet, nor knew what he thought of her, and that she was very

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inaccessible “having always the King or the Duchess of Burgundy in my chamber.”28 The Dames de Saint-Cyr noted that the king strongly blamed Maintenon for “having promoted to bishop a man who was able to form within his court a powerful party,”29 and Languet de Gergy rightly reflected that Louis’s reproaches were so bitter that Maintenon was indeed on the verge of disgrace.30 The king’s fury was palpable. He had unwittingly enabled his wife to meddle in his affairs, with disastrous and embarrassing consequences for the Crown and the royal family’s reputation. But crucially, Louis did not regard this as a thwarted political coup intended to infiltrate and transform his church and state, which helps account for Maintenon’s survival and the unimpeded continuation of the ministerial careers of the ducs de Beauvillier and de Chevreuse. Although initially angry with them both, the king could not dismiss two advisers he deeply trusted and respected. Beauvillier had often taken Boucherat’s place in councils because of the latter’s recurrent bouts of ill health and did so again in 1699 before the chancellor’s death on 2 September.31 It was also an inappropriate time for Louis XIV to be destabilizing his government by sacking or demoting two of its most influential members, thus generating imbalance and enabling the Phélypeaux to predominate. Dangeau provides further evidence, documenting that on 7 July the king held an audience in the morning at Versailles with the archbishop of Paris before going to see M. de Chevreuse and de Beauvillier and that they had separated “very content with one another,” agreeing on the “extravagances” of Madame Guyon that “they had only learned from the book of M. de Meaux.”32 The implication being that it was the wives who were perhaps primarily responsible for fostering mysticism, having been brainwashed by Guyon and Fénelon. Maintenon reported acerbically to Noailles on 3 July that courtiers who had formerly commended Guyonian mysticism were now abandoning Quietism as quickly as they had embraced it, claiming that Meaux’s book had “opened their eyes.”33 Correspondingly, Fénelon’s Réponse à la Relation, written at breakneck speed in six weeks and published on 3 August, described Bossuet’s “dishonourable” tome an “obnoxious” and derisory “romance.”34 Lizerand asserts that Chevreuse took Meaux’s book even less seriously, dismissing the Relation as a laughable fabrication.35 The Curate of Versailles, Hébert, admitted that Beauvillier had visited his apartments at the height of the furore to discuss his potential exile from the court, and noticed that he was extremely calm. The duc felt he had no reason to reproach himself, having never wavered from the church’s teachings and its recent directives on Quietism and that he would continue to submit to them “with the docility of an infant.” At the end of the conversation

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Beauvillier concluded that if the king wanted to divest him of the noble offices to which he had been elevated then that must also be the will of God. In that event, he would retire voluntarily as Providence was affording him the opportunity for a more tranquil life that would console him in his disgrace, although he regretted the trouble it would simultaneously cause the king.36 In his Réponse, Fénelon also mocked Bossuet’s melodramatic claim that “great bodies, great powers are in motion,”37 further disproving the assertion that the Burgundy circle constituted a “shadow government.”38 There were certainly tensions within the conseil d’en haut, with factions jockeying for position whenever alterations seemed imminent. And a regime change appeared a real possibility in the summer of 1696 when a small red boil appeared on the King’s neck on 12 August that developed quickly into a large suppurating tumour, allegedly created by anthrax spores. Within a matter of days it had grown to measure four fingers in diameter and was affecting Louis’s shoulder muscles and the nerves in his back. As in 1686, the king’s physicians were forced to resort to surgery, operating on 8 September. A number of incisions successfully removed all traces of the potentially deadly growth so that Louis XIV was fully restored to health by 1 November.39 The Burgundy circle recognized that it was in practice a government-in-waiting and that it could well be so for a considerable time should the dauphin prove to be as physically resilient as his father. They were not attempting to effect wholesale political reform at this stage. They continued instead to participate in a monarchical system they viewed as excessively vainglorious and belligerent, and hoped to modify that system gradually by making the king acknowledge his mistakes and rectify his faults. If Louis XIV were to fail, they would ensure that his grandson succeeded, and they educated him accordingly eventually to accomplish their goal of establishing a more humble and paternal form of monarchy. Hence the famous provincial inquest commissioned by them on Burgundy’s behalf that began in February 1697, and the composition of Télémaque, which appeared in print to Fénelon’s dismay and the king’s consternation in March 1699. The Burgundy circle had no plans to undermine the French church. For them, Fénelon’s preoccupation with mysticism was an unfortunate and unforeseen development. Nevertheless, Louis was paranoid about religious conspiracies, especially in light of recent developments in southern France, where Claude Brousson’s remarkable missionary activities in the 1690s had resuscitated in Languedoc the Calvinist “church in the desert,” which continued to thrive after his capture and public strangulation on 4 November 1698.40

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Louis was mainly worried that the minds of the young princes had been polluted by Quietism. However, Maintenon apprised Noailles on 12 July 1698 that her interview with the Duke of Burgundy had been comforting, with the petit-dauphin reassuring the marquise that the Maxims of Saints by his former tutor were “very bad” and “specious.”41 Ironically, it was Tronson who replaced Fénelon in this educational capacity and who informed his new pupil about the pitfalls of Quietism, warning him that “sophisticated self-interest lurks behind our conviction that we are disinterested: we do not seek to exercise influence, but we remove obstacles; we do not solicit the great, but we take care to show ourselves to them in the best light; no one can be entirely certain that he has not called himself, instead of waiting for the calling of God.”42 Maintenon disclosed on the 12th that Beauvillier had visited her apartments for a frank exchange in which his description of the part he had played in the affair seemed unlikely, but he assures me it is true; I therefore must believe it. I asked for time to efface all that has happened … Mme de Beauvillier has interrupted this letter to say the same things to me as her husband. I replied in the same fashion … You are good to think of me! I am delighted to think that you are aware of my weakness and that you sometimes say a word to encourage me … Instruct someone, I implore you, to send me a copy of the news from Rome.43 Maintenon managed quickly to salvage her relationship with the king, with Dangeau reporting from Marly on 20 July that a storm, and the Duchess of Burgundy’s toothache, meant that a picnic in the forest planned for the ladies was abandoned. They convened instead for a jovial evening chez Mme de Maintenon, where an impromptu tourniquet or small carrousel was assembled and operated by the king, with many trifles won.44 But a ruling from Rome was still not forthcoming. Bossuet had proclaimed in June that the Relation had resulted in his triumph over Fénelon at court, where no one would defend Cambrai except Beauvillier and Chevreuse, who “dare not lift their eyes in shame.”45 By 7 July, Meaux had declared that Fénelon had lost everyone’s respect.46 Meanwhile, news from the papacy appeared more promising. On 10 June the abbé Bossuet reported that the declarations made by La Combe and Guyon had ruined Fénelon’s reputation, advertising as they did that he was in fact “a very dangerous man” who had used “incredible artifice” to promote his Guyonian cabal. People were therefore “scandalized” that he remained preceptor, and all of

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these documents, the abbé concluded, “are excellent for fortifying the pope and we always have need of this.”47 Bossuet’s translated Relation resoundingly authenticated these viewpoints and seemingly heralded Fénelon’s impending doom. The abbé Bossuet predicted on 15 July that his uncle’s diatribe would “work wonders,” and the abbé Phélypeaux confirmed on the 22nd that the “most eminent protectors” of Fénelon” had been “frightened” by the Relation, the distribution of which had made “a marvellous effect” and had left the abbé de Chantérac and his friends confused and utterly despondent.”48 Phélypeaux also warned that the Inquisition had now started to investigate Quietism in earnest, with arrests made in Rome and also Madrid.49 This did little to conquer Louis XIV’s paranoia about what one historian has called “the mystical invasion.”50 At the same time the leader of an extreme form of licentious Quietism in Burgundy, whose advocates took no responsibility for their lubricious pursuits, Philibert Robert, curé de Seurre, was sentenced by the Parlement of Dijon for impiety and “spiritual incest,” among other crimes, in the summer of 1698.51 But Innocent’s tribunal continued to drag its feet thanks to renewed efforts by the supporters of Fénelon, whose own tenacity also seemed indomitable. On 24 June the abbé Bossuet remarked on the resourcefulness of Cambrai’s allies.52 Dangeau similarly logged on 30 June that the affair had started to go badly in Rome for Fénelon, whose work he conjectured might soon be condemned. But he also noted that the friends of M. de Cambrai had declared that they were sure to respond.53 The propaganda campaigns mounted by both parties were expensive. Fénelon benefited from munificent injections of funds from the likes of Bouillon and Chantérac, which facilitated the printing of several thousand copies of Cambrai’s Réponse à la Relation. Five hundred copies were then delivered to Rome,54 where Chantérac was simultaneously publishing letters apparently written by theologians from Louvain and Flanders defending the archbishop of Cambrai.55 The conflict would now be contested in print. Bossuet and Fénelon slugged it out in the public domain, while letters responding to and criticizing each other, and those of their supporters and detractors, were published incessantly in 1698 and early 1699, to the disappointment of the likes of Cardinal Camus. He saw only a dishonourable squabble that titillated gossipmongers and that called the integrity of the episcopate into disrepute, while handing victory to the libertarians.56 In contrast, Maintenon gently reproached Noailles on 7 August 1698 for being too conciliatory toward Fénelon, but claimed she was doing so with decent and charitable intentions.57 The marquise also told the archbishop that she had been

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“edified” by Beauvillier’s conduct but had rebuffed Bouillon’s supplication that she intervene to settle the affair because she could only proffer general counsels and was unable to meddle in these matters. Maintenon had deduced, more sympathetically, that had Fénelon not been disciplined he would have proven to be the great protector of Quietism, and if he was condemned it would be a devastating blow from which he would struggle to recover.58 That is why she longed for God to “end this sad affair as quickly and peacefully as possible.” As Lavallée points out, this narrative undermines the traditional invective excoriating Maintenon for deserting her former friends to save herself. It was simply more complicated than that. She had made mistakes, as she cryptically conceded to Noailles,59 and more explicitly to Mme Brinon on 30 November, admitting that Bossuet’s Relation had made her realize the danger of elevating a man of such virtue and intellect to such an important post, but that she now awaited news of Fénelon’s fate in “great tranquility … God is angry and we must appease and endeavour not to offend him further.”60 The marquise predicted to Archbishop Noailles on 9 September 1698 that the “affair” would be concluded before the winter, as long as the pope didn’t die.61 And three days later she implored Noailles to thank the nuncio, but also to stress to him, as she had to Bouillon, that the king was not pleased that the papal emissary had addressed his consort directly, for this was primarily the business of ministers. She repeated that she was only able to give indefinite advice in such circumstances and nothing specific on the facts, for she “almost never heard them spoken of” and therefore “would not dare to become mixed up in affairs.”62 This was of course misleading, but it was naive of the nuncio to have thought that Maintenon could represent Rome at Versailles at this stage in proceedings. Subsequently the abbé Bossuet crowed in September that he had obtained an audience with the pope during which he had pressed Innocent to compel his cardinals to make “tender reflections,” yet the stalemate continued.63 Melchior-Bonnet claims that Chantérac even tried to persuade Fénelon to condemn publicly the works of Mme Guyon, which Cambrai refused to do unless compelled by Rome.64 The impasse was eventually unblocked by Louis XIV, who forced the pope’s tribunal to meet twice a week toward the end of 1698. He then berated the pontiff in a strongly worded exhortation drafted with Torcy, who then significantly read the letter to Maintenon in order to gain her endorsement on 22 December.65 The requisition was dispatched on the 24th, demanding that Innocent’s jury quickly reach a decisive outcome:

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At the time when I expected from the zeal and friendship of Your Holiness a prompt decision upon the book of M. de Cambrai, I could not learn without grief that this decision, so necessary to the peace of the church, is still retarded by the artifices of those who think it their interest to protect it. I see clearly the consequences of this delay, that I should not consider myself as duly supporting the title of eldest son of the church, were I not to reiterate the urgent entreaties which I have so often made to your Holiness, and to beg you to calm, at length, the anxieties of conscience, which this book had caused. Tranquility can now be expected only from the decision … let it be clear and precise, and capable of no misinterpretations; such a decision, in fact, as is necessary to remove all doubt in regard to doctrine, and to eradicate the very root of evil. I demand, most Holy Father, this decision, for the good of the church.66 Bouillon, as encouraged by Maintenon, was consequently replaced as French ambassador in Rome by the Prince de Monaco in January.67 And after further vituperative exchanges between Bossuet and Fénelon,68 and pressure from Versailles, a judgment was finally reached and ratified on 12 March, and published the following day.69 On behalf of his congregation Innocent XII intriguingly did not issue a binding bull, but instead dispatched a personal bref “motu proprio” titled Cum Alias, which merely censured, rather than condemned, twenty-three of Fénelon’s Maximes des Saints for being “reckless dangerous and erroneous.”70 The encyclical was quickly delivered to Versailles, arriving on 22 March. Royal officials were thenceforth ordered to impound Fénelon’s Maximes, and copies were seized throughout France, from Lyon to Rouen.71 Fénelon submitted immediately, and on the same day Louis XIV wrote contentedly to Maintenon that “here is an affair now presently finished that I hope will no longer trouble anyone,”72 though he subsequently ensured that the pope’s judgment was widely promulgated by all bishops.73 The marquise later confided to Mme de Glapion that the king now quickly rediscovered his sense of humour: “I also had very upright intentions when I named Messieurs de Noailles and de Fénelon archbishops of Paris and of Cambrai; this subsequently caused me such great distress that the King said to me: ‘Well then, Madame, must we watch you die because of this affair?’”74 The marquise was relieved by the judgment, but also disappointed at its equivocal nature, whereas Maurice Le Tellier and Bossuet were incandescent. The latter suggested the following day that a bull was now needed to condemn Molinos, and his nephew subsequently agitated,

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unsuccessfully, to extract a more damning sentence from the Roman Curia.75 Bossuet and Reims now launched a new campaign to have Fénelon’s works irrefutably denounced by each bishop in every diocese in France, with Meaux promulgating what Minois describes as a “bulletin of victory” in his diocese on 16 August 1699.76 Reims went even further, unprecedentedly using the preamble speech customarily delivered to open meetings of the church’s General Assembly in 1700, over which he was presiding for the first time, to call for the destruction of heresy in the kingdom. He went on to mention the name of the archbishop of Cambrai, provoking a hostile reaction from the prelates present in the grand cabinet du roi in the form of indignant whispers and gestures.77 These melodramatics were now scorned in public, with Bossuet and Fénelon lampooned in song and verse. To a degree, Bossuet had vanquished his rival, but it had been a pyrrhic victory, and courtiers had become increasingly bemused by Meaux’s histrionics and affronted by the bitterness of his vendetta. In the final outcome, popular opinion sided with Fénelon, who had managed to maintain a degree of dignity, but the claim that he had successfully upheld the family motto to “love to be unknown” is risible.78 Mme Guyon was convinced that she had been used as a scapegoat and had been subject to “persecutions of which I have only been the accidental object, as I was only persecuted in order to involve therein persons of great merit … [thus] confounding their affairs with mine.”79 And Fénelon expounded on that theme when he wrote “On Pure Love” that “all these [ancient] legislators and philosophers who reasoned about laws presupposed that the fundamental principle of political society was that of preferring the public to the self – not through hope of serving one’s own interests, but through the simple, pure disinterested love of political order, which is beauty, justice, and virtue itself … Nothing is so odious as this idea of a heart always occupied with itself.”80 Compounding the extensive advice he had given to Maintenon in 1689, this episode thus symbolized another stage in the evolution of Fénelon’s philosophy, whereby politics and religion became fused,81 placing “pure disinterested love” at the heart of his constitutional ideals, culminating in the “Tables of Chaulnes” of 1711. But as shall be demonstrated, those values would ultimately be corrupted by his reckless quest to take revenge against Archbishop Noailles and destroy the Jansenist party in the process. Conversely, it has been suggested that Bossuet’s acolytes believed that “Quietism was subversive of France itself,”82 and Meaux avowed to his nephew on 14 September 1698 from Compiègne that “M de Cambrai is a man without measure, who dedicates all his

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thinking to subtlety and invention; who wants to govern everything, and even the state, by direction, or crawling or excessive insolence.”83 This accusation seems far-fetched, and it would have been difficult to manipulate the government through the Duke of Burgundy at this stage, as he only joined the conseil des dépêches to initiate his practical political education on 25 October 1699.84 But it is hard to deny that Fénelon knew that in complying with his request that Rome act as adjudicator the king had tacitly acknowledged and exposed a fundamental weakness in his sacerdotal authority. Cambrai’s contrition therefore guaranteed him a minor victory at worst, in that the need for papal intervention vindicated a number of the criticisms he had levelled vehemently in 1694, and more subtly in Télémaque when it was leaked by his adversaries and published five years later. But by 1699 the public had lost interest, at least in Quietism, which was unsurprising. Contemporary observers like M. Vuilhart estimated that only four hundred people in Paris were truly absorbed in the theological intricacies of the debate,85 which is why Sourches had wisely suggested in August 1697 that it might have been better to write nothing at all on such a delicate subject.86 Popular opinion agreed, castigating both Bossuet and Fénelon for their “petty nonsense” and recommending that they focus on their dioceses instead: “Hey, why write so much / of Cambrai and of Meaux / when there is nothing left to say / that is either good or new?”87 So the Quietist controversy had degenerated into an ambitious personal polemical battle with no clear winner, apart from perhaps, paradoxically, Madame de Maintenon.

m a in t e n o n r e s to r e d and rai sed The marquise had been engulfed by the Quietist affair but not consumed by it, and she had emerged relatively unscathed, although the experience had left an indelible impression. Presumably in response to a request for guidance, Godet des Marais wrote a formative letter to her in February 1698. Chartres advised that she must continue to have faith in the ways of divine Providence, which were “incomprehensible” and “impenetrable” yet nonetheless indicated that her purpose at court was to shoulder many troubles to lighten those of the sovereign and the state and to sanctify and save the soul of the king, who could find sanctuary in her chamber.88 Significantly he later also sought to restore her in Louis XIV’s confidence by explaining her actions and highlighting Maintenon’s qualities as a spouse:

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You have an excellent companion, full of the spirit of God and of good judgment, whose tenderness for and devotion to you are without equal. It has pleased God to make known to me the core of her heart. I know well her caution [sic], Sire, and that no-one could love you more tenderly or respectfully than she loves you. She would never have deceived you had she not herself been deceived. In all the dealings I have been honoured to have with her I have never seen her take a bad turn; she acts like Your Majesty, when the facts are clearly explained she inevitably chooses the side of wisdom and justice. It seems very clear to me, Sire, that God wanted to give you an assistant similar to you in the midst of this band of self-interested and deceitful men that constitute your court, in bestowing on you a woman that resembles the strong women of scripture, occupied with the glory and salvation of her husband and all kinds of good works. It seems to me, Sire, that God is with her in everything that she does and she loves this in preference to anything else.89 From now on Maintenon would, it seemed, tread more carefully and only intrude in state business with the king’s blessing, but this was conferred more quickly than she could have envisaged, hence her restored peace of mind and self-confidence, which by the autumn of 1698 enabled her to speak with renewed authority to ministers. From this point on she was deeply immersed in the Crown’s affairs and Louis became ever more reliant on the constancy of her presence, her companionship and conversation, and accordingly on her counsel. Some of the marquise’s frustrations over Quietism were taken out on erstwhile members of her petit troupeau, from whom she deliberately estranged herself, with Hébert recording that she excluded the duchesse de Beauvillier from the position she had been expected to attain of dame d’honneur to the Duchess of Burgundy, with the duchesse du Lude nominated instead.90 This step appears vindictive, but it was also strategic. The Treaty of Turin between Savoy and France signed on 29 August 1696 had sealed a military and also a dynastic alliance between Louis XIV and Duke Victor-Amadeus II (1666–1732). His daughter, Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie (b. 1685), was betrothed to the young Duke of Burgundy, with a spectacular wedding held at Versailles on 7 December 1697.91 The precocious young princess injected a vibrant new sparkle into the royal circle and quickly perceived that to secure the king’s devotion she must first win the affection of his consort and consequently spent much of her

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spare time with Maintenon, either at court or visiting her at Saint-Cyr, as Liselotte observed on 22 November 1696: She [the Duchess of Burgundy] walks well and has a fine mouth and a graceful demeanour; she is rather serious for a child of her age and frightfully political, makes little to-do about her grandfather, and barely looks at my son and myself. But as soon as she sees Mme de Maintenon she gives her a big smile and goes to her with open arms; she does the same thing when she sees the princesse de Conti. That shows your Grace what a politician she already is … The King no longer has anything in his head but this child; he cannot abide not seeing her and once even called her into the council. The girl is a real Italian and as political as if she were thirty years old.”92 By packing the princess’s household with her own relatives, clients, and friends, Maintenon was trying to superintend her upbringing,93 while at the same time reconstructing her own court circle. On 2 September 1696 Dangeau documented that he had been appointed chevalier d’honneur (after purchasing the post from the duc de Richelieu); the duchesse du Lude,94 dame d’honneur; the comtesse de Mailly,95 dame d’atour; and the comte de Tessé, premier écuyer.96 The diarist then noted that six dames du palais had also been chosen by the king, with his wife’s name announced first, followed by the comtesse de Roucy97 and the marquises de Nogaret,98 d’O,99 de Châtelet,100 and de Montgon.101 Subsequently Mme Quentin was appointed the première femme de chambre, and the Jesuit Père Le Comte and Bossuet named confessor and premier aumônier respectively.102 And seemingly at the Princess of Burgundy’s request, the marquise de Lévis, Marie-Françoise de Chevreuse, and the comtesse d’Estrées, Lucie-Félicité de Noailles, were also named dames du palais on 29 January 1698, but were too young to carry out their duties and so would correspondingly be individually supervised in that capacity by the marquises de Dangeau and d’O.103 Further security was engendered through the illustrious marriage of Maintenon’s adopted niece, Françoise, to the son and heir of the duc Anne-Jules de Noailles, the comte d’Ayen, Adrien-Maurice (1678–1766) on 1 April 1698. Mlle d’Aubigné soon became one of the Duchess of Burgundy’s dames du Palais, and this all immeasurably enhanced the status of Maintenon’s family. The king provided a lavish array of sumptuous wedding gifts with a value of well over 800,000 livres, further impressing public opinion, as recorded by Dangeau and

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reported in the Mercure.104 On top of that, Louis awarded d’Ayen two survivances enabling him to inherit the governorships of Roussillon and Berry, held by his father and uncle.105 More conspicuous proof that Maintenon had not fallen from favour over the Quietist debacle was the expansion of her accommodation at Versailles: the cardinal de Fürstenberg’s apartment was joined to her own by Mansart, who then decorated and furnished the suite anew in January and February 1698.106 This restoration was publicly acknowledged during the magnificent military exercises held at Compiègne in September 1698, where Maintenon was treated regally. Held over three weeks, it was designed to introduce the Duke of Burgundy to the art of warfare, and a wide variety of combat drills were carried out by 60,000 soldiers, witnessed by French and many foreign dignitaries. The accounts provided by contemporary periodicals and observers, like Dangeau, and Maintenon’s letters from the encampment, belie SaintSimon’s exaggerated and uncorroborated version of events, which suggested that the king continually bent down subserviently to explain to Maintenon, through a small gap in her sedan chair window, exactly what was being demonstrated.107 Maintenon notified Archbishop Noailles on 9 September that she was enjoying her best day thus far at Compiègne because everyone had left to watch the review, “where happily I am not able to go.” She added bluntly that she was unable to gain any rest at all at Compiègne because the king visited her chamber three times a day, thus preventing her from doing anything: “I accept that God has made me insensitive to the honours which surround me and to become accustomed to constraint, thus destroying any notion of self-respect.”108 Maintenon seems to have been unwell throughout the proceedings,109 and the Duchess of Burgundy spent a number of days with her “aunt,” as she had nicknamed the marquise, instead of watching the martial manoeuvres.110 The extent to which Maintenon was “honoured” in public on this occasion is therefore debatable, but importantly she was present and accommodated in royal quarters. More significantly, Dangeau observed that even at Compiègne the king continued his established practice of visiting her in the evenings to work with his ministers, as he did on 14 September with first Torcy and then Pontchartrain.111 This practice perhaps helps account for Maintenon’s attendance at her first conseil d’en haut meeting in October at Fontainebleau. This unprecedented inclusion proved that Louis’s faith in his consort had been fully restored, although she confided to Noailles on 22 October that its procedures

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were extremely elaborate, with great secrecy imposed on its participants, so she was pleased not be asked to contribute to the deliberations.112

p ro t e s ta n t p roblems These debates included a discussion about an issue with which she was familiar: the allies at Ryswick were insisting that toleration for Protestants be restored in France. This was an extremely sensitive matter: Calvinism had been powerfully reanimated, particularly in the south of France, by the activities of renegade pastors like the former lawyer Claude Brousson, who had revived the Huguenot cause in Languedoc in the 1690s.113 Louis indignantly rejected the allies’ calls for the re-establishment of toleration and excluded the subject from subsequent negotiations. Then, in returning the principality of Orange to William, he extracted a secret assurance from him that no Protestants would be allowed to establish themselves in the town itself without the “permission and consent” of the French king, who also prohibited any of his subjects, except sieurs, from doing likewise, fearful that it would “soon become the retreat of all the malcontents of my kingdom.”114 Louis had reassured William at Ryswick that he would grant his Protestant subjects “private liberty [to worship] without tormenting them.”115 However, he was not aware that Louis during separate negotiations with Austria had managed not only to retain the Alsatian towns seized previously, including Strasbourg, but also to secure an agreement with the emperor’s plenipotentiaries that the Roman Catholic religion would be continued in the same condition in the other towns and territories to be exchanged in the Holy Roman Empire. The result was that sixteen churches that were to be restored to the Protestants would in fact be condemned. Many German princes protested, and William confessed that he was “greatly embarrassed,” confiding to his ambassador, the Earl of Portland, on 31 October that although practically impossible, it was “doubtless our duty to continue the war rather than make any concessions that might be prejudicial to the free exercise of the reformed faith.” Furthermore, William admitted that he had “always apprehended a religious war” sparked by the reaching of “a secret understanding” between France and Austria – an understanding “which is at present but too manifest.”116 The Spanish inheritance ruptured that in 1700, but the partition treaties negotiated beforehand forced the European powers temporarily to put aside their differences with Louis, keen as they were to mollify his adversaries to achieve outcomes favourable to the Bourbons.117 William, nevertheless, did little to prevent his Protestant

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subjects from returning to Orange despite decrees issued by Louis on 23 November 1697 and 13 January 1698 prohibiting them from settling in the principality or participating in religious services while there. At the end of September 1698 Dangeau reported that seven to eight hundred “badly converted new catholics” had crossed the Rhône and descended on the town of Orange to preach and administer Holy Communion and had generated much disorder, particularly on their return journey through neighbouring Avignon, compelling Bâville to arrest and punish several provocateurs.118 By the autumn of 1698 Louis XIV was palpably incensed by the state affairs in his church. After months of intensive conferences to decide the fate of the Spanish Succession, a condemnation of Quietism from Innocent XII had still not materialized, and accusations of Jansenism were being levelled at leading public figures including Noailles, Racine, and Henri-François D’Aguesseau.119 More pressingly, an effective strategy was now required to address the problem of Protestantism, which had been reinvigorated to the point that the king was obliged unprecedentedly to consider revising, or even reversing, government policy toward the Huguenots, even though more benevolent measures had already been tried. On 12 and 13 January 1698 Dangeau reported that he had learned over the course of 1697 that the king had entrusted Henri D’Aguesseau, conseiller au conseil royal des finances and effective chair of the Council of Dispatches, with the task of overseeing the distribution of funds collected from the revenues of vacant bishoprics and abbeys to pay for the new converts, and that Louis had also expedited a large number of patents for pensions to support girls who had abjured and entered nunneries. Like D’Aguesseau, Archbishop Noailles favoured a more sympathetic approach, and on 3 January 1698 Maintenon informed the latter that she had relayed to the king his suggestion that new converts be compensated for taking the sacraments to underscore the sincerity of their conversions. However, the marquise added that Pontchartrain had emphasized that “everybody” and especially the bishops were “very unhappy at what has just been done for the new converts.”120 And tensions continued to escalate in the south nonetheless. Bâville estimated that there were almost 200,000 Protestants in Languedoc in 1698, and on 22 January Sourches had noted that several ministers in the same province had been hanged for fomenting sedition.121 As anticipated, Louis XIV rather reluctantly decreed on 10 February that members of the R.P.R. could return to France on condition that they convert to Catholicism within six months, but this was a tacit acknowledgment that a more effective long-term solution was needed. Henri

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d’Aguesseau and his colleague Pontchartrain had long been volubly expressing their concerns about the economic harm that was being done to the kingdom, especially after such an exhaustive war, by the ongoing stringent enforcement of the Edict of Fontainebleau.122 Moreover, Bossuet, among others, intoned that forcing Huguenots to take Catholic sacraments was a sacrilegious act in itself and must be prohibited, along with the practice of exhuming Calvinist cadavers and dragging them through the streets, which only fostered unrest. Louis XIV therefore decided to take the unusual step of canvassing opinion, and to that end he commissioned D’Aguesseau and Pontchartrain to solicit the opinions of the bishops, as overseen by Noailles, and those of the intendants regarding what might be done to resolve the Huguenot conundrum. Memoirs were subsequently submitted by seven intendants and twenty-six bishops including Noailles in response to his three questions, which asked about the state of the R.P.R. in 1698 in contrast to 1685, what could be done about dissidents ultimately to foster greater union, and whether the Revocation should be suppressed.123 As Maintenon recorded in a letter to Archbishop Noailles in September, the king was “embarrassed” by the diversity of reflections expressed in the reports,124 which were, nonetheless, uniformly critical of government policy. Many intendants favoured greater moderation because compulsion had proved ineffective and indeed disruptive. Episcopal responses were more varied. No prelate supported reinstating the Edict of Nantes, and many southern bishops and officials, particularly those in Languedoc like Fléchier of Nîmes, de Saulx of Alès, and intendant Bâville, demanded that coercive methods be intensified to instill discipline, prevent backsliding, and guarantee enduring conversions.125 However, many northern bishops echoed the attitudes of moderates like Bossuet, Fénelon, the bishop of Châlons, Noailles’s younger brother Gaston, and the archbishop of Reims, who all argued that violence was counter-productive in that it prevented authentic abjurations and encouraged emigration, that Calvinist corpses should not be degraded in public, and that the observance of sacraments and attendance at church services should not be enforced.126 Following Fénelon’s advice that she counsel the king by appropriating expert opinions, Maintenon had personally solicited the views of officials on the R.P.R. question in tandem with Archbishop Louis-Antoine de Noailles and intermediaries, including his brother the maréchal-duc, Anne-Jules. In a letter to Louis-Antoine in September 1698, she summarized these assessments and those contained in the memoirs by revealing that she was somewhat perplexed by the cacophony of discordant voices. For example, Archbishop Noailles favoured leniency,

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whereas Maintenon’s confessor, the bishop of Chartres, referenced the Albigensian Crusade in concurring with other prelates, like the bishop of Viviers, that all heretics were rebels and must be dealt with severely. By contrast, Maintenon observed that the stance adopted by the archbishop of Sens was “muddled” in that he personally favoured toleration, but also recognized that harsher methods would reap greater rewards for the church and state, especially in certain areas. In fact Sens was simply replicating the position of many officials, who held contrasting private and public views on the Huguenots. This included Bâville, who confidentially acknowledged that only subversives should be physically maltreated and that greater social instability would impair commercial prosperity.127 The king himself preferred a tougher, more disciplinarian solution, as evidenced when he told Maintenon on 22 August 1698 that he would be “aggrieved,” in favouring that mass be enforced, to be at odds with his archbishop. He therefore urged Noailles to think again,128 but Louis-Antoine held firm thanks to the support of other leading advisers, so that Maintenon was able to remind the king in October that only by combining gentleness with rigour could true conversions be achieved. Unfortunately, this recommendation was not well-received, provoking a terse one-word response from Louis XIV about how difficult that would be.129 Worryingly for the Crown, other administrative fissures started to appear. On 6 October Maintenon confided that she had “argued vigorously about the bishops” with Chancellor Pontchartrain after he had stated his suspicion that the clergy were opportunistically trying to manipulate the situation to gain more “advantages” than they had previously enjoyed, thus inferring that the Crown’s secular arm should be empowered to succeed where the bishops had failed.130 Maintenon admitted to Noailles that if she was as enlightened as she was well-intentioned she would “speak more forcefully on the affair of religion; but everything about it is so difficult, so obscure, so uncertain that I only dare make general remarks.”131 But this was disingenuous, as ever. In 1697 Vauban had sent Maintenon a version of the six memoirs he had previously forwarded to Louvois in 1686 and 1689 and to Louis in 1692, 1693, and 1695132 in which he had denounced the Revocation as divisive and harmful and called for Nantes to be restored in full ultimately to prevent rebellion and potential invasion.133 Her response of 1698 is instructive and very much represented the policy the king begrudgingly agreed to adopt. This marked a victory for the moderates, which Desprat has claimed inaccurately was a personal triumph for Maintenon.134

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In fact the formal part of her rejoinder, and even the handwritten notes she appended to it,135 very much reflected the collective wisdom of officialdom in agreeing that granting Protestants the liberty to worship in private made sense in theory, but that this would effectively signal that the Edict of Nantes had been, or would be, reinstated and thus unjustly raise the hopes of Huguenots at home and in exile. It would also be a “repugnantly” recidivist step that would seriously damage the king’s reputation and authority and could incite civil and international conflict.136 Moreover, this would also undermine the project that would permanently purge France of Reformed Protestantism, namely the enforced indoctrination of Huguenot children. Maintenon’s personal view was that such children should continue to be removed from their parents and educated in newly constructed hospitals, where relatives could visit them before they were transferred to monasteries and nunneries. Rebels and their ringleaders must continue to be punished, but the use of violence and torture created “public spectacles” and “false martyrs” and therefore must be outlawed. Critically, Maintenon concluded that it would be best in practice for local authorities to “turn a blind eye” to non-conformity, while outwardly appearing unyielding, and for them to continue vigilantly to scrutinize local communities. This task would be carried out more efficaciously by church and state officials working more harmoniously together and reporting discrepancies to the relevant secretary of state.137 The declaration issued on 13 December 1698 very much embraced these views. The Edict of Fontainebleau would continue to be enforced, but in less draconian fashion. Fasts, festivals, and the Sabbath must be observed and the commandments obeyed, but Huguenots should be encouraged rather than obliged to take the sacraments. Emigrants who abjured and returned could regain their property, resume their trades, and obtain certificates and licences to hold public offices and practise law and medicine, but marriages would have to be conducted according to canon law.138 Two further sets of deliberately unpublicized instructions issued to the provincial intendants and commissaires départies on 6 January and the bishops on 7 January 1699 commanded that although the clauses of the December declaration must be “rigorously” enforced publicly, in practice the king would be satisfied with outward conformity – officials must “at no point use constraint” and instead employ indulgence, charity, and kindness to secure the “sincere and perfect conversion of their [Huguenot] hearts.”139 Bossuet had concluded his memoir by underscoring how vital it was to have a uniform policy on the New Catholics rather than being “too austere in some ways and too indulgent in others.”140 Unfortunately the

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intricately complicated government directives compounded the confusion and tied the hands of local administrators, who within weeks were complaining that in effectively sanctioning non-compliance, the declaration had engendered outright disobedience, with church services flagrantly unattended, marriages improperly conducted, and the re-education of Huguenot children vehemently obstructed.141 By implementing a semi-tolerant policy of “turning a blind-eye” and provisionally ignoring non-conformity, the Crown, as one historian has remarked, had ineptly straightjacketed itself.142 This ambiguous via media was reminiscent of the dysfunctional “peace of the church” of 1669. And it proved too little too late, especially for more tenacious Calvinists, who were emboldened to take militant measures to defend their faith, ironically resulting in the Camisards rebellion that broke out in 1702, which was exactly the sort of major insurrection that Maintenon and the moderates had feared.

p o t e n t patron Now keenly aware of Maintenon’s elevated prominence at court, French and European notables began in earnest to solicit her “protection,” friendship, and support in an effort to appropriate and channel the king’s influence. For example, the House of Lorraine endeavoured to safeguard the independence it had gleaned from Ryswick by wooing powerful allies. Louis was duly approached with the proposal that Duke Léopold (1679–1729) marry Monsieur’s daughter, Élisabeth Charlotte d›Orléans (1676–1744). Maintenon also received supplications in November 1697 from Léopold and his mother, Archduchess Eleonora Maria of Austria, and another more desperate plea the following June from the prospective groom to obtain her approbation for the match and precipitate its completion.143 The ceremony was performed at Fontainebleau on 13 October 1698.144 The marquise’s relations with the Stuart family grew ever more intimate, and she was able on several occasions to intercede with Louis on behalf of James II and his wife, Mary of Modena, who considered the marquise to be one of “the best of my friends.”145 The marquis de Sourches recorded that the French court thought that by the Treaty of Ryswick Louis XIV had “entirely abandoned” the Stuart cause in recognizing William III and his heirs and successors as legitimate kings of England. The exiles at Saint-Germain were incensed, but soon mollified as it became clear that Louis had no intention of forsaking James Francis Edward, the Prince of Wales (1688–1766), or expelling his retainers. The efficacy of Maintenon’s influence here is difficult to ascertain, and Louis

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was increasingly courteous to atone for his Machiavellian diplomacy,146 but the marquise’s attitude can be gleaned from her refusal to refer to William III as anything other than “the Prince of Orange” in her correspondence after Ryswick.147 During subsequent negotiations to finalize the partition of the Spanish empire, William III made clear that he was extremely anxious for his ambassador, the Earl of Portland, to cultivate the marquise’s favour at every available opportunity, and the king confessed in February 1698 that he “should be very much vexed if you were not to see Madame de Maintenon.”148 Portland subsequently reported that he had “endeavoured to obtain permission to attend him [Louis XIV] now and then” at Marly, where he was also attempting to gain an audience with Maintenon, “whose reserve on all matters relative to [state] business is so great that she will not see any of the ministers.”149 Accordingly, William wrote to Portland pessimistically in May that “since you have not written to me that you had seen Madame de Maintenon, I suppose that you have not. I hope therefore that you will be able to see her at Marly, since I should be very sorry that you should not see her before your departure.”150 It is somewhat ironic that Maintenon was increasing her international significance almost in proportion to her elusiveness. But the marquise’s renown by this time was such that she was unable, and seemingly reluctant, to remain in the shadows, so Portland’s successor had more luck. Maintenon notified Archbishop Noailles on 29 May 1698 that she had “proposed last night that an ambassador should be nominated [to Rome, where the Prince de Monaco would replace Bouillon]; we are reflecting on it.”151 And in early May of 1699, Maintenon, accompanied by Louis de Pontchartrain, had received the wife of the English ambassador,152 Edward Villiers, 1st Earl of Jersey (1656–1711). At this stage it was clearly unacceptable for the marquise to become personally involved in foreign affairs, but her prominence was such that she could and should undertake certain ceremonial duties. During the war of the Spanish Succession these obligations would be augmented to such an extent that the foreign minister, Torcy, often felt that his authority was being undermined. Maintenon’s ability to obtain patronage commensurately increased at this time, and old acquaintances benefited accordingly. The marquise was usually happy to indulge them, as she informed Noailles on 7 October 1697, but she also counselled the archbishop on the tactics to be utilized successfully to sway the king. The marquise commended Noailles’s written approach, which was “gentle but firm” and “without affectation,” and advised that the opportunity should always be taken to raise an

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issue that the archbishop wanted resolving in every communication, but without overburdening the monarch. To dispel any notion of complicity letters should be conveyed sometimes via Bontemps and sometimes via Maintenon, whose name should be cited as a form of warranty: “all my friends use me in this way, and you are above all of my friends.”153 Rejected petitions should not be resubmitted because nothing made the king angrier than having to make repeated refusals.154 Swamping Louis with requests was also inadvisable. Early in September 1697 another letter of recommendation arrived in favour of the duc de Guiche, Antoine V de Gramont (1672–1725), this time from the maréchal-duc de Noailles. Maintenon observed that this was as badly received by the king as the ones it had succeeded, partly because all of them claimed that the supplicant was descended from Henry IV. In spite of the marquise’s efforts, the king’s antipathy toward the maréchal’s daughter, Marie-Christine de Noailles (1671–1748), who had been a fledgling member of Maintenon’s petit troupeau, and her husband, persisted because of the latter’s blatant and seemingly unrepentant links with recognized Quietists. On 9 September 1697 the marquise recorded that Louis was astonished at the number of people prepared to speak on behalf of the duc de Guiche, causing Maintenon to reflect candidly that “it is a great misfortune to have too many relatives.”155 In consequence the duchesse de Guiche had to cede her apartment at Versailles on 11 March 1698 to her future sister-in-law, the comtesse d’Ayen, who was Maintenon’s niece.156 As the marquise’s clientage-patronage network expanded, a number of her intimates were approached to broker contact with Maintenon and pass on plausible petitions. For example, the duc du Maine informed Maintenon that his mother, Mme de Montespan, was seeking a subsidy for one of her daughters, Mlle de Vivonne, which the king granted, though he insisted on making it known that the benevolence had been accorded at Maintenon’s behest.157 Somewhat predictably this reignited the latent resentment in Montespan, who churlishly thanked Maintenon in a brusque letter addressed to the maréchal de Noailles’s wife, Marie-Françoise de Bournonville (1656–1748),158 dated 19 November 1698.159 On behalf of the princesse des Ursins,160 Maintenon also arranged an annuity of 2,000 écus for her recently orphaned niece, Marie Anne Césarine Lanti (1685–1753),161 thanks to the maréchale de Noailles, who transferred the request and the subsequent message of gratitude in January 1699.162 Moreover, after the death of Maintenon’s closest confidante, Mme de Montchevreuil, on 21 October 1699,163 Ursins took the opportunity to send another communication to the marquise, which was again conveyed

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by the maréchale de Noailles. It contained the princess’s condolences but also included the proposition that a “well-ordered commerce” be instigated with Maintenon.164 The insatiably ambitious Ursins had not been asked to assist but had nonetheless intervened to advance the king’s case against Fénelon in Rome in order to expand her network of influence and her standing at the Papal Curia and at Versailles. She also hoped to be rewarded with a prestigious post, and this was realized in 1700.165 Clerics too sought to capitalize on Maintenon’s incomparable favour. The bishop of Autun, Gabriel de Roquette, regularly communicated with the marquise in the later 1690s, successfully imploring her to obtain audiences with Louis on his behalf.166 He also urged that she continue to employ her credit “next to the king” in favour of his diocese. He occasionally held private meetings with Maintenon, requesting one in November 1696 to discuss the report he had prepared for the king, which was probably related to his forthcoming role as Élu of the clergy of the EstatesGeneral of Burgundy that was meeting in 1697.167 Events in 1698 and 1699 indicate that Maintenon’s influence was definitely expanding, with her circle concurrently growing in size, confidence, and importance. On 1 November 1698 the abbé de Fleury, André Hercule (1653–1743) was nominated to the Bishopric of Fréjus with Maintenon’s support, which, she reflected, was primarily a mark of distinction for his patrons, the Noailles, who had long been advocating his advancement,168 but also for herself.169 Significantly, constraint forced her to cut the letter to Archbishop Noailles short because her room was full of people, including “the King, M. the Duke of Burgundy and all their followers.”170 From this point on Maintenon would constantly be plagued by courtiers, with only weekly day trips to Saint-Cyr providing some reprieve. The ministerial reshuffle that took place in 1699 in the days following the death of Chancellor Boucherat on 2 September confirmed Maintenon’s ascendancy at court. Her protégé and superintendent at Saint-Cyr, Chamillart, was named controller-general, and Louis de Pontchartrain was appointed chancellor.171 The latter was delighted to be released from his financial duties,172 but as Maintenon revealingly disclosed to Archbishop Noailles on 7 September, Pontchartrain was unhappy that his successor was Chamillart, who she ominously observed “is scared by the weight of his charge.”173 Nevertheless, the government changes of 1699 clearly favoured the Phélypeaux family.174 Pontchartrain’s son, Jérôme, formally inherited the marine secretaryship from his father but was not made a minister.175 Maintenon further consolidated her own position by orchestrating the marriage of Françoise de Mailly, the daughter of her relative, to Louis Phélypeaux, the marquis de

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La Vrillière,176 which took place in 1700 when the marquis succeeded his father, Balthazar, marquis de Châteauneuf, as secretary of state for the R.P.R. Barbezieux retained his position as secretary of state for war, but neither he nor the marquis de La Vrillière became members of the conseil d’en haut,177 whereas the duc de Beauvillier continued to attend. Torcy was first admitted to the high council in 1697, but he did not become a minister until January 1699.178 He was then named foreign secretary after Pomponne’s death on 26 September 1699,179 and also inherited his office of surintendant général des postes.180 Maintenon’s crowning achievement was successfully obtaining in February 1700 a cardinal’s hat for her other principal protégé, Louis-Antoine de Noailles, whose name Louis XIV had put forward in 1699.181

a more p ro m in e n t a n d p u rsuable publi c fi gure Now that Maintenon was an acknowledged public figure, she became an obvious target for satirists and critics, whose deprecations were transmitted through a variety of media.182 This may have deterred Louis from publicizing their union and having Maintenon declared queen as the gossips projected. On 25 November 1697 Liselotte remarked to her aunt, Electress Sophie, that the “master’s passion for that woman is quite amazing; everyone in France says that as soon as the peace is concluded the marriage will be made public and the lady will assume her rank.”183 However, on 16 March 1698 she explained that I cannot believe her marriage will ever be made public and would have to see it with my own eyes. They cannot do it even if they wanted to; the Parisians are too much against it, and the woman would not be safe if it happened. Last year when we went to Fontainebleau they put up big placards against it at the Pont Neuf and made threats; that quickly put an end to all rumours of publication … The Pantocrate [Maintenon] is so afraid of Parisians that she will not go around in Paris in her own coach. Yesterday we met her; the coach in which she rode was surrounded by bodyguards in disguise, and it was the King’s coach. If the market women could get hold of her, she would be torn to pieces, that is how much they hate her.184 La voix publique and also the Quietist experience may have made Louis reconsider his consort’s position, but in reality being queen was not a role that Maintenon desired, nor would it serve Louis XIV’s

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purposes. He would regret the loss of a private life that he had come to cherish in old age because of the respite it provided from monarchical pressures and from the theatre of kingship in which he had ensnared himself. Moreover, the second health scare of 1696, a decade after the fistula operation, had driven them even closer together. Maintenon had become his primary confidante and a governmental consultant, and she became almost as obsessed by the progress of the war as her husband, as a number of billets du roi demonstrate. The first of these, on 10 June 1694, reported on the duc de Noailles’s capture of the citadel of Palamos leading to further success in Catalonia.185 The second message, dated the 18th, detailed Vauban’s repulsion of the allied naval attack on Brest on 18 June that resulted in “500 prisoners taken and 600 or 700 killed [including] the English commander [lieutenant-general] Talmash [Tollemache] … All this has filled me with great joy that you undoubtedly share. I believe that the Dames de Saint-Cyr will also be anxious to hear this news, which is very considerable at this juncture.”186 Two further missives from the king composed in 1696 gave Maintenon important updates on events that had started to bring the war to a conclusion. The first, on 8 June, briefly recounted Vendôme’s successful attack on Spanish cavalry forces led by the Prince of Darmstadt.187 The second, on 16 July, hailed “a courier from Marshal Catinat bringing news of the conclusion of peace in Italy” thanks to the “right course [taken] by the duc de Savoi.”188 Crucially this led to the signing of the Treaty of Turin on 29 August and an alliance with France, which was cemented by the betrothal of the Duke of Burgundy to Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie. The war had proven to be unexpectedly long and costly, with retrenchments repeatedly made by the king at court in consequence. But it was Maintenon who was constantly accused in the 1690s by detractors and social commentators of being a fanatical killjoy, who attempted puritanically to purge entertainments, diversions, and even cosmetics from the court.189 On 23 December 1694 Liselotte protested to her aunt that we almost had no more plays; the Sorbonne, in order to please the King, wanted to have them forbidden. But I understand that the archbishop of Paris [Harlay] and Père de La Chaise told the King that it was too dangerous to banish honourable entertainments because this would drive the young people even deeper into abominable vices. So, thank God, plays are here to stay, which, they say, has horribly annoyed the King’s old pruneface, because doing away with plays was her idea.190

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By 17 June 1698 life at Versailles had become deplorably dull according to Liselotte, who reasoned that “if a person who had left the court since the Queen’s death were to return now, he would think that he had come to an altogether different world.” She added warily that “a great deal more could be said about this, but it cannot be entrusted to paper, since all letters are read and then re-sealed,”191 which of course did take place in the cabinet noir. Liselotte’s contention implies that at Maintenon’s behest the apparently ineffective police féminine had been replaced by a repressively proscriptive regime, but this would be to overstate two cases. In her correspondence the marquise did bemoan the “depravity of Paris” in contrast to Versailles in April 1696,192 and in January of the same year she lamented that “religion is little known at court,” complaining that courtiers, and the king as well, practised Catholic rites without improving their interior faith.193 Nevertheless, Louis was concerned about immorality and sacrilegious behaviour at court and especially in Paris, and the new lieutenant-général of police after 1697, Marc-René d’Argenson, and his informers in the capital imprisoned many miscreants during the last years of the reign. An attempt was made to regulate theatrical performances with varying degrees of success, as colourfully described by Philip Riley.194 Yet the king continued to enjoy and allow plays, music, dancing, card games, gambling, and dinner parties, which were often held in Maintenon’s quarters. For example, several lotteries were held and a comedy staged in Maintenon’s apartments at Marly on 17 and 18 December 1699 respectively, with the play’s most important parts performed by the court’s young favourites, the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy.195 Louis was appreciably sensitive when his spouse was vilified in the public sphere and reacted uncompromisingly. The Italian players were exiled on 15 May 1697 for lampooning Maintenon in a handful of performances of their play, La Fausse Prude (The Bogus Prude),196 and a number of printers in Lyon were executed for publishing a pamphlet titled Scarron apparu à Mme de Maintenon that disparaged the character of the king’s companion and that had first been printed in Cologne in 1694.197 In 1695 another anonymous and scurrilous fiction denigrating the marquise appeared titled The Familiar Spirit of the Trianon, or The Ghost of the Duchesse de Fontanges, which was immediately banned. Even after censorship was intensified throughout France after the book trade census of 1700,198 criticisms of the Crown’s policies and personnel continued to be propagated in print, and in songs and rhymes.199 Maintenon’s personal response was not to seek retribution but to

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develop a thick skin. On 8 March 1696 she divulged to Archbishop Noailles that she had received an anonymous letter, which cannot have been the first and was certainly not the last, attacking her for hypocrisy and mass defections in the army. She dismissed it outright, declaring that “I have nothing to say about this letter, which is nothing.”200 More lurid libels of course proliferated, such as Les Amours de Madame de Maintenon, published in 1694, which alleged that the marquise had cunningly gained power through manipulation and sexual intrigue.201 Moreover, several anonymous authors suggested, in scurrilous accounts of the king’s love affairs published in the 1690s, that Maintenon’s convent at Saint-Cyr was in fact a royal bordello, where pretty young girls were groomed for the sovereign’s pleasure. This prompted the police lieutenant-général d’Argenson to investigate the matter.202 Unfortunately, Maintenon’s reaction to slander is rarely documented, but it must have made some impression. She knew that the king was often more brutally maligned than her and that little could be done to stifle the manufacture and circulation of calumnies that people in the public eye inspired.203 The Crown responded by monitoring public opinion more closely and by controlling the publishing industry more tightly by restricting licences, monitoring guilds, and establishing the bureau contentieux in 1708 to regulate printing.204 Censorship had been stepped up to combat the residual threat posed by frondeurs and Jansenists back in the 1650s, when rigorist bishops like Arras were calling for the imposition of greater religious and moral discipline. This often caused them to be suspected of harbouring Jansenist tendencies, and in the 1690s it transpired – unfortunately for Maintenon – that the manifestly austere Louis-Antoine de Noailles was no exception. The marquise’s admittedly priggish but relatively limited objective was to ensure that only amusements sanctioned by the church should be practised, but ideally not on Holy Days or during Catholic festivals and seasons such as Advent and Lent. But here again we must sound a note of caution. Louis XIV showed himself to be far from inflexible and was more interested in the general principle of commanding and arbitrating the parameters of obedience than in the absolute enforcement of it. Maintenon apprised Archbishop Noailles in December 1699 that “Reims told him [Louis XIV] yesterday that M. d’Arras [Guy de Sève de Rochechouart (1670–1724)] has issued an ordinance that forbids the performance of comedy in his diocese under pain of excommunication. The King was a little angry. But he has just read this prescription to me, which is for the time of Advent only and other circumstances that render it justifiable.205

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To a certain degree Liselotte’s accusations therefore stand, and the marquise did have a part to play in what Pierre Goubert described as the “worldly and intellectual victory” of the capital over the court.206 The Orléans family increasingly avoided Versailles as much as possible by residing at their own court at Saint-Cloud and spending much time in Paris, or at other satellite courts like Sceaux, where the duc du Maine resided. Many younger courtiers began to do likewise, seeking diversions and pleasure at various princely palaces and in Paris as the reign progressed, to the point that the dauphin’s court at Meudon, besides providing a base for the infamous cabal that often came into conflict with the Crown after 1700, also started to challenge the cultural hegemony of Versailles.207 On 26 August 1714 Maintenon complained to Ursins that this increasing absenteeism was depleting the court to such a degree “that one sees nobody all the afternoon,” including the king, who had gone “to the chase, or [was] closeted … Individuals also have their pleasure houses, where they entertain their friends, which also diminishes the court.”208 Much more research needs to be carried out on the notion that Versailles’s primacy went into decline during the early eighteenth century. Louis XIV’s illiberalism was motivated partly by Maintenon and dévot enthusiasts, but also by old age and paranoia about Paris, both of which would inspire a renewed attack on Jansenism when the opportunity arose. So when the news reached Versailles in early 1699 that Rome had finally decided to discipline Fénelon over his defence of Quietism, Pontchartrain ominously intimated in a letter to the First President of the Paris Parlement, Achille III de Harlay, that the king was now eager to conclude the Jansenist affair in much the same manner.209 This would prove fateful and may have contributed to the worsening relationship between Maintenon and Louis de Pontchartrain, who had been firmly supported by the marquise in the early 1690s.210

ja n s e n is m r e v iv e d : a cardi nal error After several bulls had failed to extinguish Jansenism a fudged “peace of the church” had been arranged in 1669 to enable clerics, theologians, and schoolteachers to maintain a “respectful silence” about whether five heretical propositions were or were not in Cornelius Jansen’s colossal, and controversial, Augustinus, which in 1640 infamously seemed to defend the concept of predestination. This prompted critics, and in particular the free will–favouring Jesuits, to conflate Jansenists with Calvinists, thus rendering them heretical. Adherents to and champions

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of Jansen’s teachings, such as Pierre Nicole and Antoine Arnauld, saw themselves as sincere, orthodox Catholics whose austerity was merely a spiritual and physical manifestation of the value they placed on authentic sacramentalism, which was motivated by untainted contrition in the pursuit of grace and ultimately salvation. This credo contrasted starkly with that of the Society of Jesus, whose practices they considered mechanistic and profanely permissive in making penance and forgiveness simple and easily obtainable, thereby effectively encouraging and endorsing sin, as laid out in Arnauld’s famous polemic criticizing Jesuit casuistry, On Frequent Communion (1643). Jansenism was never popular, and its followers were few in number. But the nebulous nature of their religion, which was more a philosophy than a faith, and their apparent disregard for clerical and conventual rules and authority, made traditionalists nervous, particularly after a number of their most prominent acolytes had supported the frondeurs against the Crown. The physical embodiment of Jansenism was the convent of Port-Royal des Champs, a few miles from Versailles, which was founded in 1204 and became a house of the Order of the Cistercians in 1225. It was radically reformed by a series of abbesses, starting with Arnauld’s sister Angelique (1591–1661) in 1609. The Port-Royal nuns often described themselves as the “disciples of St. Augustine” and thus enshrined what would become known as Jansenist values in their community’s observances.211 The same ascetic rules were followed at their sister house of Port-Royal in Paris, which was founded in 1626 and to which a number of schools were attached. Both institutions were widely respected for their outstanding piety and for the educational, charitable, and medical work they carried out in neighbouring communities. But several leading frondeurs and their friends and families had stayed or been taught at these establishments, and had also provided them with patronage and donations – for example, the Bignons, who were closely related to the Pontchartrain family. Louis XIV had long suspected that all individuals associated with Jansenism were potentially dangerous dissidents who could not be tolerated, and Mazarin had compounded these views.212 Louis would declare in his memoirs for 1661 that he had “dedicated” himself to “destroying” Jansenism and “breaking up those communities where this spirit of novelty was developing, well-intentioned perhaps, but which seemed to want to ignore the dangerous consequences that it could have.”213 The king’s hostility toward Jansenism continued to smoulder, as witnessed in clashes with clerics and officials who were inclined toward or sympathized with its tenets. One of the most important of these clashes involved the sacking of Arnauld de Pomponne as foreign minister in 1679. This

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signalled that the “peace of the church” was at an end. However, projects of personal gloire, the Nine Years’ War, and problems with Protestants and Quietists preoccupied Louis XIV until he was able to turn his attention back to the “Catholic cousins of Calvin.” Louis-Antoine de Noailles’s aversion to the teachings of Luis de Molina – in particular, his belief in the fundamental importance of free will – could be traced back to the archbishop’s education by the Oratorian Denys Amelote (d. 1679).214 After becoming primate, Louis-Antoine had to judge an appeal made in 1695 by the convent of Port-Royal in Paris that a portion of their property previously alienated by the former abbess, Dorothy Perdereau (d. 1685), to Port-Royal des Champs when the two houses were divided in 1669, be returned. It seemed a reasonable request, given that two thirds of the Parisian institution’s property had been awarded to the community situated roughly nine miles from Versailles, which in contrast to Port-Royal in Paris had steadily declined in size after its novices and boarders were expelled in May 1679, after which the number of nuns in the convent was limited to fifty and the reception of new entrants was prohibited.215 But after having the accounts examined, Noailles rejected their lawsuit on the grounds that the Parisian house had mismanaged its finances, thus giving the impression that he was abetting Port-Royal des Champs. The archbishop’s inconsistencies became noticeable in 1696 after a Benedictine monk and former friend of Antoine Arnauld (1612–1694), Dom Gerberon, rashly decided while in exile in Brussels to publish in 1673 the Exposition of Faith concerning Grace and Predestination, composed by the diehard Jansenist nephew of Saint-Cyran, Martin de Barcos (1600–1678), on behalf of the defiant bishop of Alet, Nicolas de Pavillon (1597–1677).216 Noailles issued an ordinance on 20 August that condemned the Exposition, but he left Bossuet to draft the theological section, which, as Lavisse remarks, was a “masterpiece of eclecticism” in that it stoutly upheld Augustine’s doctrine on grace.217 The celebrated writer and critic Nicholas Boileau-Déspreaux (1636–1711) summarized the feelings of many in stating that “voilà – Jansénius condemned, and Jansenism put on a pedestal.”218 More problematically, it emerged that Noailles, while still bishop of Châlons, had encouraged the renegade Oratorian in exile and pre-eminent surviving Jansenist practitioner, Pasquier Quesnel (1634–1719), to write a fresh edition of his New Testament in French with Moral Reflections on Each Verse. Louis-Antoine had fervently commended the new expanded work when it appeared in 1692 to his flock, describing it in hallowed terms in a letter to his diocesan clergy on 23 June 1695:

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The difficulties of the New Testament are clearly explained and the most sublime truths of religion are expounded with the force and gentleness that comes from the Holy Spirit … You will find here the bread of the Word, with which it is your duty to feed your people, broke up and ready to be distributed to them … so … that the weak will find milk to nourish their soul, just as the strong will find solid sustenance. Thus, it is a book to take the place of a whole library for you.219 This eulogy impressed Quesnel’s publishers to the extent that it was included as a preface to endorse the four-volume edition issued in 1696, with Noailles named as the foreword’s “honourable author.”220 Quesnel had become an Oratorian after graduating from the Sorbonne with a master’s degree in theology, but was progressively converted by the works of Jansenists, especially Antoine Arnauld, who became his close friend, mentor, patron, and companion in exile.221 Quesnel therefore withdrew his signature from the formulary of 1657 that had censured the five propositions in Jansen’s Augustinus. For this he was expelled from his order and from Paris by Archbishop Harlay, taking up residence in Brussels in 1685. Originally written in 1672, the first edition of Quesnel’s Moral Reflections had been praised by the Sorbonne as “useful to the public,” and the thirty-year copyright mandate, fining anyone who plagiarized it 6,000 livres, was signed in 1677 by Louis XIV himself.222 Arnauld too had admired the work, finding it “full of edifying thoughts [which] raise the heart to God” and stating that for didactic purposes it was “as good as a catechism.”223 The second edition was supplemented by commentaries Quesnel had written in 1687 on the Epistles of St. Paul, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Book of Revelation. It elaborated upon grace and predestination and championed Richerism in giving much more power to the lower clergy, who would be elected, thus invigorating the ethos of Presbyterianism.224 Quesnel was also driven by a passionate revulsion for ultramontanism. He had contentiously labelled the Jesuits “enemies of the state,” and his notoriously relentless and defamatory attacks on Rome were penned “with a violence approaching sheer coarseness,” as one historian has described them.225 The Society of Jesus was also riled by a miscellaneous collection of documents purporting to defend Quesnel and Port-Royal des Champs titled The Abridged History of Jansenism, and Remarks on the Ordinance of the Archbishop of Paris. It was produced by Jansenist stalwarts Mlle de Joncoux and the theologian Jacques Fouillou and printed in Cologne at the beginning of 1698.226 The Jesuits retaliated with numerous denunciations, of which the Ecclesiastical Problem

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presented to the abbé Boileau by the Archbishop of Paris … LouisAntoine de Noailles, promulgated in the last days of 1698, would prove the most inflammatory. It was published anonymously, but a number of Jesuit polemicists, such as Pères Doucin, Daniel, Lallemant, and de Souastre, based at Jesuit College of Louis-Le-Grand in Paris, have been identified as the likely culprits.227 This twelve-page pamphlet highlighted the dilemma in which Noailles had left his flock by simultaneously condemning Barcos and applauding Quesnel. The “peace of the church” was now irreparably broken, which the king seemingly welcomed because his antipathy for Jansensim was unabated, as Dangeau witnessed in June 1699, when the comtesse de Gramont was temporarily disgraced because she had spent more than a week with the dwindling community of respectfully silent nuns at Port-Royal Des Champs. In April 1696 Gramont had asked Maintenon for permission to spend “holy week” at Port-Royal, disclosing that she had never been able to make a similar request to the former archbishop of Paris because of his apparent aversion for the convent. In a letter to Noailles on 13 April, Maintenon explained that she had stressed to Gramont that the new archbishop was no more in favour of Jansenism than his predecessor and that the king was similarly disposed, so she would not therefore dare to ask for his consent. 228 Another of Maintenon’s friends, Jean Racine, had been educated at the convent of Port-Royal in Paris and in 1655 had studied at PortRoyal des Champs, where his aunt, Agnès, was abbess from 1690 to 1699. These ongoing connections to both institutions probably explain why the playwright and royal historian suddenly found himself in such disfavour in 1698, and perhaps this did hasten his death from cancer in April 1699, contrary to Saint-Simon’s more dramatic supposition.229 Moreover, the king had not commissioned Racine to write a History of Port-Royal, which he completed in secret in 1695, and which remained unpublished until 1767, so one can only conjecture whether some of its contents had been made known to the king, with discreditable consequences for the author. In light of these events Louis XIV was now keen to tackle the Jansenist problem. On 10 January 1699 the Paris Parlement condemned the Ecclesiastical Problem,230 with Sourches noting two days later that the king had “a very long conference with Noailles in his cabinet, and one learnt that afterwards … a certain libel against him would be burnt in Paris by the hand of the public executioner.”231 The pamphlet attacking Noailles had been incinerated, but extinguishing the Jansenist controversy would not be that straightforward, as experience should have

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warned the king. Liselotte was right to complain on 11 May 1696 that it was “amazing how simple the great man is when it comes to religion, for otherwise he is not simple at all. The reason is that he has never read anything about religion, nor the Bible either, and just goes along believing whatever he is told about [it].”232 The same would hold true for Jansenism in that few contemporaries were able to define it. This was perhaps unsurprising, considering that its leading apologists argued that Jansenism had been contrived by its enemies to persecute non-conformists and therefore simply did not exist. This was highlighted in the Abridged History of Jansenism (1698) by Fouillou, which consisted of heterogeneous documents that offered a far from coherent explanation of the doctrine233 and therefore came to the logical conclusion that “it is true that Jansenism is a phantom,” thus repeating the argument made in works by several predecessors, including Letters on an Imaginary Heresy, published by Pierre Nicole in 1665, and Antoine Arnauld’s The Phantom of Jansenism of 1686.234 Bossuet had rightly calculated that Roman intervention on these issues would aggravate Gallican sensibilities, and in 1699 HenriFrançois D’Aguesseau did demand that several ultramontanism clauses be removed from the papal brief that faulted Fénelon, Cum alias, before it was registered.235 Admittedly at this stage the public had a very limited understanding of what Jansenism actually was – a diverse range of abstruse opinions had fused to create the stereotypical “Catholic puritan.”236 Among the confused was the marquise de Maintenon, who conceded that she was not knowledgeable enough to comment on such matters, but who was also concerned enough to interrogate Noailles about them in letters dated 7 September 1696 and 1 November 1697.237 The archbishop’s situation caused the marquise much anxiety, for she had announced in 1695 that she was “declaring war on Jansenism” by pursuing suspects like Père de La Tour in tandem with, at that time, Mme de Pontchartrain.238 Genuine fear can be detected in October 1698 after a former novice at Saint-Cyr, Mlle de Montfort, relayed to Maintenon the details of a diatribe against Noailles by Fénelon that she had overheard. The marquise instantly contacted Louis-Antoine to see if there was any truth in Cambrai’s damning indictments, which, in light of the Quietist affair, could be described as spitefully exaggerated. Maintenon was so troubled by these accusations that she journeyed to the Convent of the Visitation in Melun, southeast of Paris, to meet Montfort. According to the novice, Fénelon had declared that the king had been utterly deceived by Noailles, who “is a Jansenist and a protector of those that are; and not content with reading their works he

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also recommends them”; and that he only allowed penitents of Père de La Tour to read Quesnel’s New Testament; and that he had moulded the community at Saint-Agathe to follow “the maxims and practices of these men”; and that “he will defend and aims to re-establish PortRoyal des Champs.”239 Maintenon immediately apprised Noailles of this “for fear that I will forget it, and to make you see how things are being discussed in all quarters.” The marquise then assured the archbishop that he did not need to respond urgently and promised that she would prime him as developments unfolded, and that she was comforted by the conviction that at a critical juncture God would “make something happen that will raise you above all suspicion.” However, she caustically concluded that “the King of England has told me that he has read all the books of these Messieurs without scruple because you gave him permission. The Queen at the same time told me she has no desire to read them. It is impossible that this will not get back to the King and will only fortify his suspicions. Forgive my lack of restraint, Monseigneur.”240 James II had digested many of these works before fleeing to France and had studied “with the pleasure and satisfaction that everything coming from Arnauld’s pen merited,” even offering in 1686 to establish the foremost Jansenist theologian in England, which Antoine declined on the grounds of age.241 The exiled king was therefore fascinated by Port-Royal, visiting the convent in September 1693 and September 1695, though he was dissuaded by his astute wife from going again.242 However, in 1692 James had appointed a former priest and doctor of the Sorbonne with Jansenist sympathies, Dr John Betham (1642–1709), as the Prince of Wales’s preceptor. Betham also became his primary tutor, depending heavily on the works of Pierre Nicole and Blaise Pascal,243 thus creating another cause of concern for Maintenon, who convinced Modena to take action in 1703.244 We do not have Noailles’s response to Maintenon’s inquiry, but a letter to the archbishop a year later in September 1699 illustrates that her apprehensions about his immoderate asceticism had not been assuaged: I was delighted to hear of your retreat, in the hope that you will have found new strength in mind and body. I wish that you had taken resolutions not to abuse them. Your austerity frightens me. I saw your mother die from it, and I am persuaded that her piety is the same character as yours, in proportion to the person she was. This reflection often makes me tremble for you, and we talk about it within the family.245

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Considering that Maintenon had first expressed misgivings about the austerity of Noailles’s faith in May 1696,246 and taking into account her volatile experiences with Fénelon, one would have expected the marquise to be a little more circumspect about promoting her protégé to such a powerful and internationally prestigious position as cardinal. But by September 1699, it was too late and the recommendation had been made, with the likelihood of success virtually vouchsafed. This was formally substantiated on 24 June,247 with Louis XIV placing the red biretta transported from Rome on Noailles’s crown during a ceremony held at Versailles on 1 July,248 inspiring the infamous gibe from the Président of the Parlement of Paris, Harlay, that it was very big hat for such a small head.249 Nevertheless, the cardinal could now wield the sort of ecclesiastical influence that Maintenon had endeavoured to afford him in the 1690s, although the ramifications would ultimately be profoundly damaging. The 1690s saw the erratic and unpredictable evolution of Maintenon’s métier. She now enjoyed unrivalled and much envied favour, and her elevation from a subsidiary to a primary position at court shocked those outside her inner circle, like Liselotte, who coveted the fruits of majesty that she believed the unsuitably bourgeois marquise had deviously acquired. Theoretically Maintenon could now less tentatively make a tangible impact on church and state affairs and even on international relations. But, like her husband, she too would soon be overwhelmed by strenuous obligations that left little time to spare for herself or for leisure. Liselotte was equally horrified by Louis XIV’s displays of deference to his companion, which included being entitled, uniquely, to sit in an armchair in the king’s presence. Such concessions confirmed Liselotte’s long-held suspicion that a role reversal was in transition. So she informed her Aunt Sophie on 22 July 1699: Yesterday I visited all the ladies who are in favour; first I called on the duchess of Burgundy, and from there I went to the Maintenon. I found her in a royal state: she sat at table in a big armchair, Mlle de Charolais, M. le Duc’s second daughter, and Mme de Montchevreuil were eating with her, sitting on stools; she was kind enough to have another stool brought in for me, but I assured her that I was not tired. I had to bite my tongue and almost laughed out loud. How things have changed since the time when the King came to ask me if I would allow Mme Scarron to eat with me just once so that she could cut M. du Maine’s meat for him, since he was still a child. Such reflections call forth a lot of thought about the ways of the world

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… When the King walks in the garden, the lady sits in a sedan chair fitted with four wheels and four fellows are pulling her. The King walks alongside like her lackey, and everyone else follows on foot … Everything here looks to me like the world upside-down; the only thing I like is the scenery.250

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1700–1709, Part One: “Mother of the State” and “Protectress of the Realm” The final four chapters of this book focus on Maintenon’s quasi-ministerial influence and power between 1700 and 1715 and on her efforts to alleviate the virtually insupportable monarchical burdens shouldered by Louis XIV, whose self-confidence was repeatedly challenged and at times undermined. The title of this chapter plagiarizes contemporary descriptions. During the War of the Spanish Succession, under-resourced soldiers petitioned Maintenon, addressing her as “the mother of the state”1 and “protectress of the realm.”2 This seems justified as the evidence reveals that during this increasingly personal and informal period of government, Maintenon came to play a pivotal role in the king’s private and political affairs. She participated in conciliar discussions, received and named ambassadors, mediated between courts, intervened in crises, levelled factions, monopolized nominations to benefices, succoured embattled generals, selected ministers, and helped modify government policies. The marquise consequently became Louis’s principal adviser after the foreign secretary, Colbert de Torcy, and the chancellor, Louis de Pontchartrain. However, this career path was not predetermined, and to some extent it replicates the one that developed erratically in the 1690s. November 1700 was a momentous month for France, and for Maintenon 1700 was a transformative year. The two state councils that determined the fate of the Spanish succession were held in her apartments at Versailles on 9 and 10 November, and Dangeau noted two weeks later that the king had invited Chamillart on the 23rd to join the conseil d’en haut. Earlier in the year her protégé and confidant, the archbishop of Paris, Louis-Antoine de Noailles, had been awarded a cardinal’s hat with her assistance, and on 6 January 1701, following the death of Barbezieux, Chamillart became the first controller-general simultaneously to acquire the office

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of secretary of state for war. Three months later Maintenon’s old friend from the Marais, the princesse des Ursins, was, at Maintenon’s behest and with what would prove to be a thoroughly regrettable recommendation, appointed Camarera Mayore (Head of the Queen’s Household) to assist the young King of Spain and his queen, Marie-Louise de Savoie.3 Furthermore, a letter dated 3 December 1700 from Maintenon to another even more ambitious protégé in Madrid, the marquis de Beuvron, Henri d’Harcourt, who served as the French ambassador in Spain from 1698 to 1701, apparently confirms Saint-Simon’s accusation that she was also keen to help make him a minister. In that missive Maintenon acknowledged their shared disappointment that Barbezieux had again been overlooked for ministerial promotion, but advised Harcourt to be patient, mindful of Chamillart’s recent promotion.4 Maintenon now seemed destined to become an instrumental figure in Louis XIV’s government. But the marquise again discovered that influencing the appointment of candidates to high-profile positions did not necessarily entitle her to exercise prerogative power. It is difficult to say exactly what role Louis XIV wished her to fulfil, and we can only conclude that the king did not quite know himself. At times he evidently restricted and monitored her activities, seemingly anxious that his wife not meddle excessively in state affairs. As she frequently reminded correspondents, “the people here cannot bear that women should meddle with public affairs, and no zeal or attachment can justify them.”5 Primarily, Louis seemed keen that she remain a relatively mute but observant attendant in conferences with ministers and advisers, preferring private discussions to vociferous contributions and unfettered influence. Nevertheless, he progressively accorded her more authority as government business with a wide range of senior officials was transacted on an almost daily basis in her apartments, giving her an unrivalled knowledge of the inner workings of government and its personnel. Michelet argued that Louis XIV in 1704, having realized that he had given his consort too much power, set up an “occult” faction headed by the duc de Chevreuse surreptitiously to counteract the influence wielded by Maintenon and Chamillart’s “feminine … government of saints” and rebalance his ministry.6 This inaccurately assigns Maintenon overweening authority that she did not covet and that the king would not have permitted. Louis’s mistake was to become a participant in, rather than a manager of, ministerial factionalism from 1700 by unwittingly allowing himself and Maintenon to become their own faction. Extricating himself from this awkward position without openly disempowering and offending his wife and embarrassing himself was extremely difficult. Michelet contended

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that this disentanglement had been completed by 1708, presumably after Chamillart’s resignation as finance minister, but this is too simplistic. The king may well have regretted allowing his consort the opportunity to participate in so many spheres of power, and after the death of three dauphins in 1711–12 he was impelled to provide leadership and reassert his personal authority, but by then Maintenon had become so integral to his governmental system that she could not be excluded. As we shall see, Maintenon’s métier was complicated, but by the turn of the century her proximity to the king, and the tacit acceptance that they were married, meant that her status, although undefined, was more secure. However, she was still unsure of her responsibilities. What could she do or not do? What would the increasingly intrusive and critically influential voix publique permit? And how would Louis respond? By closeting himself with his clandestine consort the king was exacerbating suspicions of dominance that he could not easily ignore. Incessantly agitated, Maintenon repeatedly turned to her confessor, Godet des Marais, whom she had appointed bishop of Chartres in 1690. On 14 September 1689 he had bluntly told her that she was “born to obey, never to govern,”7 but a decade later things had profoundly changed. In 1703 Godet advised Maintenon to limit her ambitions and concentrate on those areas within which she had already become an established and effective force: I acknowledge that God has destined that he shall employ you for the benefit of others; however, use this, Mme, with discretion by discerning that which is necessary from that which is superfluous. God charges you principally with the King, with those matters that concern him most, and the royal family; he also entrusts you with Saint-Cyr; these obligations are demanding and you must identify what you should and should not do, and when it is necessary to act quickly or defer a decision. You cannot give your attention to everything you see; at the same time I believe there are many things to disapprove of, but also to admire in the place where you are; it is necessary to love people and to detest their defects, and, to speak the language of St. Augustine, it is necessary to eradicate errors to save souls.8 Nevertheless, the boundaries of such broadly defined circles of influence were patently ambiguous, and these spheres expanded as the marquise became an ever more recognizable and purportedly dynamic figure auprès du roi both inside and outside France, as graphically illustrated by the celebrated Dutch artist Romeyn de Hooghe. He depicted Maintenon on the title page of his polemic Ptolomeus, published in 1701, holding

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the reins of power, while driving an eponymously named chariot that dragged along behind it Louis XIV leaning on crutches in a bespoke chaise-percée.9

a g ov e r n m e n ta l partners hi p – t h e m i n i s t r e s s e 10 d u r o i ? As he grew older and setbacks proliferated, the Sun King’s confidence deteriorated. As the pressures of government became intolerable and defeats unbearable from 1704, he became habitually dependent upon his wife. This was partly because Louis was in desperate need of companionship, consolation, and counsel and partly because Maintenon’s fidèles were often responsible for the outcome of a number of seminal events during the most critical test of the Sun King’s regime, occupying as they did some of the most significant posts in the church and state besides acting as Louis’s leading courtiers and advisers. As this chapter will reveal, Maintenon’s influence at court was incomparable; she had become the king’s political partner, confessor, and confidante, while fulfilling the functions of patroness, ambassador, matriarch, and queen. Her chambers therefore became the “undisputed centre” of the court,11 where courtiers clustered, ministers worked, generals deliberated, emissaries converged, and royal family members socialized. Uniting the two state offices of war and finance in one man, Chamillart, as the war began seemed feasible. But trying to fill the shoes of Colbert and Louvois simultaneously would prove impossible, as Louis must have feared, and as Le Peletier had warned, pointing out to the king that the role of controller-general was more than enough for one minister, who had little experience of military affairs.12 However, Louis enjoyed working with Chamillart and had confidence in him,13 which was bolstered by the fact that he was being guided expertly behind the scenes by the much more experienced Nicolas Desmaretz and his assistants. Desmaretz had advised Le Peletier and controller-general Pontchartrain in the 1690s,14 and was rewarded for his ongoing efforts with the title of Director of Finances in October 1703, thus formalizing his collaborative working partnership with Chamillart.15 Louis also placed great stock in his own capacities and seemed convinced that his managerial skills would resolve any difficulties arising from this unprecedented arrangement, which proved misguided. Voltaire shrewdly reasoned that the King, now more than sixty years of age and grown more retiring, had lost as a consequence his power of judging men; he saw things

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from too far off with less diligent eyes that had been dazzled by long years of prosperity. Mme de Maintenon, with all of her estimable qualities, had not the strength, nor the courage, nor the greatness of mind necessary to uphold the glory of a state … The King, relying on his own experience, believed he could successfully direct his ministers. After the death of Louvois he said to King James: “I have lost a good minister; but your affairs and mine will fare none the worse.” On choosing Barbezieux to succeed Louvois at the ministry of war, he said to him: “I trained your father; I will do the same for you.” He said almost as much to Chamillart. A King who had striven for so long and so successfully seemed to have the right to speak thus; but his confidence in his own perspicacity deceived him.16 He was, nonetheless, determined to continue to be his own first minister, while directing the war. Hence Louis XIV, Chamillart, and Mme de Maintenon formed a kind of governing triumvirate, with important decisions increasingly taken outside the conseil d’en haut.17 The king therefore hid nothing from his consort, and her opinion was increasingly solicited, with Maintenon herself recording that she was often asked to “play third” in their daily discussions.18 These contributions presented the marquise with a dilemma in that she had to dissemble in public and persuade more formal correspondents that she had no interest or influence in “affairs,” when in fact she was embroiled in state business in an era of intensely personal government, when family feuds, court conflicts, and ministerial rivalries fuelled factional politics. The burden of expectations placed on her by the king, the royal family, and courtiers was therefore considerable, while she also had to satisfy a swarm of parasitical friends, relatives, and associates. As will be demonstrated, her average day was extraordinarily demanding, disclosing to her friend, the duc de Noailles, that she was either “intoxicated or inundated”19 by throngs of visitors anxious to obtain or retain her favour or acquire her powerful “protection,” who gathered in and around her apartments, which consequently became “impenetrable,” as another friend, Mme de Caylus, complained.20 Saint-Cyr offered sanctuary, but the number of her weekly visits came to be limited to two per week, and she admitted to the girls that she was not the mistress of her own time and never knew at ten o’clock in the evening what she would be doing the next day in compliance with whatever the king’s wishes might be.21 Maintenon evidently found these expectations onerous. She confided to Ursins on 17 October 1707 that “I must own, Madame, that the loss

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of Suza and the unpromising aspect of the siege of Lerida, engages my attention more than the beauties of Fontainebleau, and I fancy I should find myself better among the foetid exhalations of Madrid, if we only had a peace that would place our Princes in security and repose.”22 Inevitably this all took its toll, as highlighted in a letter on 25 November 1709, when she asked the same correspondent to “conceive the effect of such a diversity of opinions upon the mind of one who had passed her sixtieth year [1695], when she began to hear public affairs discussed.”23 Nor did she relish the meetings with ministers in her apartments, confiding to her close friend, the duchesse de Ventadour, in 1705 that she would much rather be sitting next to her rather than knitting behind the back of the chancellor – a sentiment with which Louis de Pontchartrain would assuredly have agreed!24 A letter from the marquis de Caylus, who was lodged in an apartment directly below that of Maintenon, reveals that the denizens of Versailles could communicate via the chimney flues, which must have made ministers even more guarded.25 Nevertheless, Maintenon intensified her efforts to counsel the king with greater conviction and further expanded her vast network of correspondents in order to become better informed so that she could, if required, respond to Louis’s impromptu questions in conferences with ministers. Unfortunately, the marquise lacked confidence and experience and intervened with mixed results. But unofficially assisting the king was also no easy task, as she later indignantly reminded Ursins on 27 October 1709 in a letter typifying the truculent but tactfully subtle rhetorical approach that Maintenon adopted in her dealings with the often unmanageable princesse, which often involved hiding behind gender stereotypes: I persist, therefore, in believing that the King approves of your continuing with their Catholic Majesties as long as they wish it, and that, if he thought otherwise, he would cause it to be frankly stated. This is my opinion, which I do not vouch for as being either reasonable or well founded; I may easily be deceived, but I will never knowingly deceive. There is no subterfuge in my conversation, nor more meant other than what is expressed. I am an individual of little importance: I write to you with the greatest candour, never showing my letters nor your answers; I have no authority from any quarter; I am ignorant of public affairs, it is not wished that I should meddle with them, and I will abstain. There is no concealment attempted upon me, but I know nothing in time and I am very often ill-informed.26

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As the war went from disappointing to disastrous, Maintenon began to believe that her initiatives were ineffectual, but was surprised to discover that her spirits repeatedly recovered, thanks, she suspected, to her lineage. After the dreadful defeat at Ramillies on 23 May 1706, she admitted to Noailles on 15 June that “the King withstands this reversal of fortune with Christian courage … [and] as for me, my dear duc, I have been dumbfounded, demoralized, stupid, but I now take new heart and find myself truly the granddaughter of Agrippa [d’Aubigné].”27 Meanwhile she was beginning to show her age at seventy-one years and her health was suffering. She was plagued by ailments, including headaches, fevers, colic, nausea, and debilitating haemorrhoids.28 She alerted Ursins on 14 November 1706 that “I am still weak from 3 days of fever, which returns at this time every 15 days,”29 and glumly informed the same correspondent on the 21st that “I am enjoying an interval of [good] health, which is not likely to last long.”30 Her protégé Chamillart was also exhausted as she told Noailles on 24 July 1706: “our friend Chamillart is overwhelmed with work and deeply distressed.”31 Maintenon’s stoicism was extraordinary, but her relative timidity stemmed mainly from her acceptance and endorsement of her subordinate status as a woman, though she often manipulated that condition to her advantage. She disclosed to Ursins on 5 June 1706 that “the duchess of Burgundy suffers with the vapours; the King is courageous and a Christian; and I, Madame, am a woman and one of the weakest.”32 She also acknowledged that the public, and especially the king, had a strong aversion to feminine intervention in politics, reiterating to Ursins on 25 November 1709 that “I dare not risk showing your letters; they do not like here that women should talk of public affairs.”33 She recurrently reminded female correspondents and pupils of the limitations of their gender, warning the Saint-Cyr novices that “there is no state in life where you can avoid the state of dependence to which God wants to restrict persons of our sex.”34 At the same time she talked openly to her novices “On the Drawbacks of Marriage.” For example, in her Dialogues, the character Alexandrina asks Clotilda whether she thinks “that marriage is also a kind of imprisonment.”35 The former subsequently delineates how a wife should “forget herself” and completely devote each day to her children, domestic arrangements, entertaining guests, and pleasing her husband, thus outlining a gruelling routine not dissimilar to the one she endured. It included indulging Louis sexually at least twice daily for some years beyond 1705, when she protested about “these painful occasions” to her confessor. Godet was unsympathetic, reproachfully intoning that it was an act of charity, patience, and kindness and prevented

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the king from committing infidelities, so she must submit and do her domestic duty.36 Little wonder then that Maintenon found elements of the imbalance between the genders irksome. In appraising Vendôme’s performance during the military imbroglio of 1708 she conceded to Ursins on 23 July that “men are not perfect,”37 and she often complained about government officials in her letters, telling the same correspondent on 18 March 1709 that “if I still have any hope left, it is not to be derived from our public men, who appear completely at a loss in every respect, but in God who works miracles when he pleases.”38 With potential defeat and economic collapse close at hand, the marquise was accordingly expected in 1708 to bring a decisive influence to bear on the king and remedy his proclivity to vacillate. Godet shared Maintenon’s pain and afflictions; in a series of illuminating missives analyzing her position and function he instructed his daunted confessant that she was obligated ultimately to God, and it was therefore her duty to offer the king the “wise counsel he needs”39 and do everything within her power to relieve his burdens and support the royal family and the state, because the gloire du Roi was merely a facet of the gloire de Dieu. This would hold true for the Jansenist and succession crises that plagued Louis XIV’s final years and prevented the marquise from retiring to the relative tranquillity of SaintCyr until shortly before 1 September 1715, when the king expired. Some historians have suggested that from around the age of seventy in 1708, Louis XIV began to decline mentally,40 and that during the War of the Spanish Succession his “decrepitude” left him bereft of spirit, ideas, and talent, and that he could not cope without his wife, nor the monotonous routine of the court and its elaborate rituals and inflexible ceremonies that served to prop up his image and dignity.41 The sources belie these exaggerations. While some sort of breakdown seems to have taken place in 1705, as will be demonstrated in the next chapter, the evidence does not support the contention that the king became increasingly senile. His physical health in fact remained remarkably robust, as Maintenon testified to Ursins on 6 November 1707, asserting that he “shows no signs of old age and his exercises and the offences of the open air puts everyone to the test.”42 Even so, his age and the intensifying burdens of government and seemingly irresolvable crises severely tested his nerve and character, often reducing him in private to uncontrollable fits of tears. As one historian has persuasively argued, the Sun King “fretfully realised [as time wore on] that his heroes put him in the shade.”43 He was profoundly affected by the loss of Lille after Vauban’s fortified bastion fell in December 1708, and he was plagued with depression as

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the reign wore on and his misfortunes mounted, but his majestic image in public was maintained, buttressed by Maintenon’s tenacity and resilience. Impressed courtiers, ministers, and ambassadors recorded that he continued to perform his sovereign duties with assiduity, energy, and charismatic regality right up until his death.44 One of Maintenon’s leading biographers, Jean-Paul Desprat, agrees that the marquise’s contribution during this period was substantial, but paradoxically minimizes the political impact she made, claiming that in politics she did not intervene directly in affairs … but her experience of them since 1698 meant that from 1704 Louis began to solicit her opinion … Her only political role was therefore not to enter into affairs but to enable the King to endure misfortunes … and those of his family and to help him counter the cabals forming at court … to moderate his appetite for glory, to awaken some scruples within him and especially to make the court operate to avoid the suspicion that there was a power vacuum … In becoming his wife she agreed to suffer the King’s authoritarianism and to sacrifice her liberty, provided that the system functioned and that Louis XIV continued to be regarded as a great king … Thus Louis wanted her sentiment and good sense not counsel.”45 By closely scrutinizing the evidence, the final four chapters will demonstrate that Desprat comprehensively underestimated the importance of Maintenon’s governmental activities after 1700 and that the obligations he rightly identified in fact compelled her, sometimes tremulously and reluctantly, to interfere in state business. To a certain extent the king himself was forced to depend on his consort because both lost most of their dearest friends, closest relatives, and long-standing confidants as time passed. Louis was devastated when his brother Philippe suffered a fatal stroke on 9 June 1701, some hours after a blazing row with his sibling.46 And a few months earlier, on 17 January, Louis’s faithful premier valet du chambre since 1659, Alexandre Bontemps, had died aged eighty. The king had hidden few secrets from the loyal Bontemps, through whose hands, as Saint-Simon remarked, had “passed all the mysteries”:47 he had been entrusted with orders, confidential messages, private audiences, and sealed letters.48 Significantly, Louis was given the news of his death in the apartments of Maintenon, to whom Bontemps had been greatly attached, having supposedly been witness to their clandestine wedding ceremony in 1683. Bontemps also held the prestigious governorships of Versailles and Marly, which passed to his successor,

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Louis Blouin, who between 1699 and 1701 had served as Maintenon’s personal escort after the death of Chamarande, thus becoming “the constant” liaison between Louis and Françoise, as Matthieu da Vinha has asserted.49 In 1703, Maintenon’s only sibling, the incorrigibly profligate Charles, breathed his last;50 and the marquise’s old friend with whom she had founded Saint-Cyr, Mme de Brinon, died two years later. Moreover, in 1706 Maintenon’s dear cousin, Philippe de Villette, passed away, as did Françoise’s long-standing personal servant, Nanon (Annette Balbien). By Maintenon’s side for several decades, Nanon helped her mistress to dress and attended to her hair, while also performing a wide range of non-domestic duties, one of which, notably, was being entrusted to prepare the prized guest lists for excursions to Marly. It was hardly surprising, given their ages, that their respective circles were decreasing, and this naturally inclined Louis and Françoise to bouts of melancholy and made them ever mindful of their own fragility.51 As Maintenon confided to her “cousin” the archbishop of Rouen, Claude d’Aubigné de Tigny, on 13 March 1709: “it is true, Monsieur, that I always have a cold, but without peril; the King gave us a slight scare a few days ago … but is now perfectly well.”52 These mortal reminders served to drive them even closer together because there were now seemingly few people still alive at court whom either could trust, creating a prevailing atmosphere of uncertainty that Maintenon abominated: When you’re in favour at court you no longer have any true friends. The position you hold becomes an object of jealousy and everyone wants to profit from it. There is no more real sociability, no more freedom, no more candour. Everything turns into manipulation, plots, feigned agreement and limitless flattery carries all before it … You become a stranger to your own family. Your brother becomes a spy and joins a cabal with others who are seeking some favour from you … It is impossible to keep them [your family] happy. Their desires always transgress the bonds of the reasonable and the possible. As a result you suffer from the effort expended to obtain certain concessions for them and by the fact that they are never satisfied.53 While much of this may well be true, Maintenon’s more private communications betray that more often than not she liked being at the centre of affairs, even when they were challenging, and could take respite by travelling to satellite courts, where comfortable apartments had been constructed for her.54 She also thoroughly enjoyed some of the

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amusements and entertainments held at Versailles and at palaces like Fontainebleau and even Marly. She often found these activities taxing but at times admitted that Marly could be a “delicious” and “enchanting” place, where she could relax and play card games with friends.55 At the Trianon, Maintenon occupied a sumptuously furnished suite of three rooms, from where she guiltily divulged to Ursins on 19 June 1707 that “we are in a charming spot here; I do not know whether you have seen the Trianon at this season of the year; but I must confess to you that I should feel more at ease in a cave, with a peace made on fair terms, than I am in an enchanted and perfumed palace like this.”56 Maintenon avidly kept abreast of news and events and gossiped incessantly if discreetly. She delighted in exchanging jokes about individual and family fortunes, changing social mores, and the king’s exercise and eating habits. And she gave much attention to two of the most pressing issues of the day, which were indigestion and the seemingly epidemic proportions of piles. She particularly revelled in her role as unofficial governess to the Duchess of Burgundy and wrote extensively on education, decorum, piety, morality, and marriage for the edification of the girls at Saint-Cyr. And contrary to her asseverations of disinterest after leaving Versailles in 1715, she closely monitored the upbringing of Louis XV, in tandem with her close friend, the duchesse de Ventadour. Maintenon had selected her as the young king’s governess and hence avidly followed the goings on at court even after closeting herself at Saint-Cyr shortly before Louis XIV’s death. Her curiosity was further stimulated by Ventadour, who wrote regularly to solicit the marquise’s advice about Louis XV’s education. 57 During the latter part of his reign, Louis XIV could no longer call on the likes of Colbert, Louvois, Condé, Turenne, and Luxembourg, but the notion that there was a dearth of talent in France after 1695 is a classic Old Regime myth. Torcy was a brilliant foreign minister, Pontchartrain an excellent chancellor, and Chamillart an enlightened, if overwhelmed, secretary of state, who did not hide his shortcomings in fiscal matters, but who also became increasingly desperate and reckless when confronted with insurmountable challenges. His replacements, Voysin and Desmaretz, were extremely gifted and successful, as were commanders like Vauban, Boufflers, Vendôme, Orléans, Noailles, and the irrepressible Villars, whom Maintenon vigorously protected and promoted. Perhaps Louis did overestimate his own prime ministerial abilities. He did continue to solicit a wide range of expert opinions, but this may have further clouded his judgment. The real problem was his addiction to warfare, as he admitted on his deathbed. It resulted in him being deluged day and night with reports and dispatches and therefore consumed with work.

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At the height of the War of the Spanish Succession, Maintenon joked to the duc de Noailles on 24 July 1706 that when messengers bearing news from Flanders, Castile, and Turin arrived at Versailles, “the King received these three couriers at the same time, which almost matches the state of Job: God give him the same patience!”58 Louis was often reluctant to delegate responsibility. He also obsessed over details. This meant he sometimes relied too heavily on Maintenon for guidance and that he usually accepted the candidate she recommended for a position, which could present problems. The marquise’s interventions were always well intentioned, but her involvement in political, family, and ecclesiastical affairs was not always welcome or helpful. Louis may have had a mediocre scholarly mind, as Saint-Simon insists, but he had always been a shrewd judge of character and had often selected his ministers, advisers, and generals wisely and with impressive results for the expansion and security of the kingdom and his own gloire and dynastic reputation. This dereliction of duty was perhaps explicable, for the constraints on the aging king were unenviable, as Maintenon emphasized to the girls at Saint-Cyr: He wakes every day at an assigned hour for the convenience for his attendants. It’s impossible for him to have days when he rises earlier or later. He has to dress in public in order to please the grand lords of the realm, even though on many occasions he would prefer to be alone. In the same way he must dine in public and according to the strictest rules of etiquette. He must work with his ministers and this isn’t always a pleasant affair. He must receive foreign ambassadors and hold public audiences. He must listen to things that secretly irritate or enrage him. Can all of this possibly be done without accepting some constraints? When he goes hunting or pursues other pleasures, he must often drag along people he personally doesn’t like. He can’t afford to offend or slight certain people with powerful positions. He must often leave behind those people who really do let him relax, because he must always guard against the possibility of jealousy within the court. In other words there is constraint wherever you look.59 Louis therefore probably employed Maintenon discreetly to sound out others’ political views, garner information, and even float ideas and names in meetings to help the king stay one step ahead of his ministers,60 who came to conseil d’en haut sessions with their own agendas. Hence

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this chapter highlights the multifarious roles and responsibilities that Maintenon discharged as the respected and formidably influential ministresse du roi. In Franco-Spanish affairs her role as an intermediary between the two courts, and indeed as a buffer against the authoritarianism of the princesse des Ursins, was crucial during the War of the Spanish Succession, and the two women wrote constantly to each other. Philip V and his queen, Marie Louise de Savoie, routinely corresponded with Maintenon to retain her esteem but also to trade sensitive military and political information, and ultimately to obtain Louis XIV’s patronage. Maintenon’s relations with the exiled Stuart court and family grew even closer. Her friendship with Mary of Modena compelled her to persuade Louis recognize the “Pretender,” James III, as the legitimate heir to the three Stuart crowns after the death of his father in 1701, and to underwrite subsequent efforts to have him reinstalled, including the attempted invasion of Scotland in 1708. In military affairs she played a vital role as a liaison between the king and his commanders and advisers and in persuading the procrastinating sovereign to make decisions – something that was particularly important after 1708, when James III complained of a “drift” in government.61 To try to generate a clearer sense of political purpose, she worked assiduously first with Chamillart and then with his replacement as war minister in 1709, Daniel Voysin, who was another of her powerful protégés, and who became chancellor in 1714 even while retaining his ministerial portfolio. She was the unofficial queen of the court, as well as matriarch of the increasingly fractious royal family, and her intense efforts in ecclesiastical affairs earned her the moniker the “mother of the church.” All of which made foreign courtiers eager to inveigle themselves into her favour and seek audiences with her at every opportunity. Maintenon’s political influence therefore cannot simply be discounted because she lacked independence or because she focused her energies primarily on the king’s salvation, as writers and historians past and present have asserted. To substantiate this the following chapters investigate the parts Maintenon played in various affairs of court and state by analyzing her actions, motives, and ambitions and then assessing the impact she had, be it positive or negative. They consider to what extent the marquise’s participation in Crown business affected her status, influence, and ability to dispense patronage, and examine how French and European courtiers and dignitaries responded to these developments.

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f r a n c o - s pa n ish affai rs Historians have long argued about what contribution Maintenon made, if any, during the two high council meetings held to decide the fate of the Spanish Succession in her chambers on 9 and 10 November 1701.62 This is partly because there are conflicting contemporary reports about whether the king asked “Votre Solidité” for her opinion. Philip V’s tutor and gentilhomme de la manche, the marquis de Louville, claimed that she argued vehemently against accepting Carlos II’s testament, whereas Torcy, who unlike Louville was present at both conferences, recorded that she remained mute throughout. Either way, Baudrillart is right in stating that even if her opinion was solicited she would not openly have contradicted the king’s wishes, nor those of the dauphin, who was strongly in favour of accepting the testament and was supported by the chancellor, Pontchartrain.63 Andrew Lossky points out that the ambassador to Spain, the marquis d’Harcourt, opined that a long war would be necessary anyway to divide up the Spanish empire and uphold the second partition treaty of 25 March 1700.64 Intriguingly, Dangeau witnessed that the king lightheartedly asked Mme la Duchesse (Louise Françoise de Bourbon-Condé) and the princesse de Conti which course of action they would take on the issue of the Spanish inheritance. They responded that “they would promptly send the duc d’Anjou to Spain based on the arguments they had heard made in public and that this would also be the decision that would be the most generally approved,” which prompted the king sombrely to reflect that “I am sure that whichever decision I take I will condemned by many people.”65 Nevertheless, Louis XIV’s second grandson, the duc d’Anjou, and his young wife were successfully installed as King Philip V and Queen Marie-Louise of Spain (1688–1714) in 1701. Within a year, as the Sun King had predicted, an imposing European coalition had been forged that formally declared war on Bourbon France and Spain on 15 May 1702, although hostilities had in fact broken out in the spring of 1701 in Italy, where a number of battles were fought, culminating in the capture of the French commander, Marshal Villeroi, by Prince Eugene of Savoy in February 1702.66 The “Grand Alliance” was further bolstered when the Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II, father to Marie-Adélaïde, the Duchess of Burgundy, and the Queen of Spain, signed a treaty with the Austrian emperor Leopold I (1640–1705). Having defected from his alliance with Louis XIV, the Duke of Savoy declared war on France on 3 October 1703. Matters did not improve in 1704 when rising pressure,

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and the peremptory interference of Ursins in affairs in Madrid, caused Franco-Spanish relations to break down in 1704. This rift prompted Louis to employ Maintenon as an informal broker between the two courts, a role that became increasingly important as the fortunes of war worsened. This move proved significant, because Maintenon found her rather redundant position as a silent council member frustrating and admitted to friends that she would have much preferred to be attending to the affairs of Saint-Cyr. Godet sympathized with her circumstances and assured her that “I pray constantly for you, Madame, and I do wish with all my heart that God sprinkled his celestial unction in anointing your soul, in order that you may bravely bear the tribulations of the King and State,”67 but enjoined her not to feel dissipated by diversions and amusements at court. These were necessary and would enable her to endure the constrained nature of her public life, besides providing her with the energy she needed to act positively by exerting a salutary influence in the king’s councils: Even the greatest libertines revere your communions, and good souls are also encouraged by them; and they undermine more than ever the false prudence of this age, which rests on maxims contrary to religion; confound and destroy it, if you can; at least, never tire of the struggle … It is that which ruins states, and forfeits religion; God says, I will lose the wisdom of the wise, and the prudence of the prudent.68 The disgrace and recall from Spain of the princesse des Ursins in April 1704 somewhat embarrassed these efforts. She had been selected to guide the inexperienced young royal couple, but it soon became apparent that she aspired to dominate affairs and rule through them.69 Reports flooded back complaining that her interference was disrupting and jeopardising relations between the two countries.70 Marie-Louise vehemently protested against Ursins’s removal by pressing Maintenon to have her reinstated.71 This compelled Maintenon to write to the Spanish queen on 5 October 1704 to atone for the princess’s behaviour and defend the decision of the king,72 who had told his grandson on 20 August that he must put a stop to Ursins’s injurious intrigues, which “annoy me incessantly.”73 Nevertheless, their Most Catholic Majesties continued to pressure the marquise, as did Ursins via the maréchale de Noailles,74 proclaiming the innocence and importance of their ousted Camarera Mayore.75 Consequently, Louis held a number of protracted conferences

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with Ursins in 1705 at Versailles in January, and in Maintenon’s presence at Marly in February,76 which resulted in the vindication and restoration of the princess, who arrived back in Madrid in August. The king and queen were delighted and immediately sent letters in January 1705 thanking Maintenon for the large part they believed she had “no doubt” played in orchestrating Ursins’s return.77 Maintenon had taken a keen interest in Spanish politics since 1700 and gleaned information by corresponding with her allies in Spain such as the comte d’Ayen78 and the ambassador, the marquis d’Harcourt, whom the marquise referred to as “my oracle.”79 He became a duc in November of the same year, received a marshal’s baton in 1703, and then became a gentleman to the king’s bedchamber with Maintenon’s support. The marquise and Queen Marie-Louise exchanged dozens of letters,80 and courtesies between the two Bourbon courts were customarily reciprocated through Maintenon’s correspondence: they commiserated over deaths, like that of her brother Charles on 22 May 1703,81 and revelled in the glory of royal births and military successes.82 Maintenon also received many individual letters from Philip, who demanded that she write to him often and frankly about Louis’s assessment of his conduct. Before 1705 there was seemingly a distinction between interest in and intervention in foreign affairs, as attested by this seemingly truthful protestation to the cardinal de Noailles on 14 November 1704: I implore you, Monseigneur, to tell the Bishop of Soissons that I dare not refuse to his face the audience he asks me to obtain for M. Puisieulx; but I beg him to consider what little time he has given me, and the uselessness of instructing me about Swiss affairs. The King does not like me to enter into any business: so I would not dare to make use of what I have heard. It is M. Torcy who desires the services of M. Puisieulx; if he wants to compose a memoir I will give it to the King; but in all likelihood this memoir will be returned to M. de Torcy.83 This policy was dramatically altered with the reinstallation of Ursins as Camarera Mayore. The ambitious princess continued to make herself indispensable to the young queen, who was more independent and energetic than her doting young husband in the early years of Philip’s reign.84 As Charles Noel emphasized, Marie-Louise was even at thirteen years of age “a true phenomenon; exceptionally mature, politically savvy, hard working and articulate; she easily outmatched Philip as a political being.”85 And Ursins outmatched both of them. Conscious of

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the supreme influence that Ursins enjoyed at the court in Madrid, and the weight of the burden that had been placed on the shoulders of his inexperienced grandson, Louis became convinced that Spain could only be governed in concert with the princess and he consequently did just that from 1705 to 1709 by appointing a new and effective ambassador, Jean Amelot, with whom Maintenon communicated regularly. Louis also took a variety of other measures, including continuing his own secret du Roi with the king and queen, which was supplemented by the vast correspondence transacted between Maintenon and the aptly dubbed “royal triumvirate”86 of Philip V, Marie-Louise de Savoie, and the princesse des Ursins, who remained the “senior partner in the Spanish government”87 until she was ousted in December 1714. Ursins was ably assisted by Philip, who matured swiftly after revealing an aptitude for warfare. Henry Kamen argues compellingly that Philip relished organizing and commanding campaigns and that the art of warfare therapeutically enabled him to surmount depression88 – something that undoubtedly held true for his grandfather as well. Philip excelled in this arena, perhaps unsurprisingly, and his initial uxoriousness developed into a deep and almost inseparable attachment and an unswerving political partnership, as witnessed by the French ambassador, the marquis de Bonnac, who briefed Torcy in 1711 that “the King does not make decisions alone, the Queen is absolute mistress of Philip’s heart and soul.”89 Marie-Louise de Savoie was a dynamic and inspiring popular figure and a natural leader,90 whose feats during the War of the Spanish Succession War induced Louis to write admiringly that “I know that Spain places you already in the ranks of its greatest queens.”91 Their working method almost replicated that of Louis and Maintenon, with Ursins sewing in the background while Marie-Louise attended her husband’s council meetings and ministerial conferences.92 In an insightful study – indeed the only one – that attempts to assess Maintenon’s political influence during the later reign, Alfred Baudrillart asserts that in the realm of Franco-Spanish relations the marquise “had been a discreet and authorized intermediary between Louis XIV and several important people in France and Spain,” but concludes that she did not have access to independent political power.93 This assertion cannot really be contested, though it would be erroneous to apply it to every sphere in which she was active. Nevertheless, in Spanish affairs Maintenon’s correspondence was clearly regulated, carefully measured, and evidently conducted in tandem with the king’s own secret du Roi to try and subjugate, or at least restrain, the seemingly limitless pretensions of the princesse des Ursins. And in that regard it often failed miserably.

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Ursins continued to intervene obstreperously and in her missives to the marquise repeatedly made extravagant demands, quarrelling with and even scolding her correspondent, ostensibly for failing to extend and abuse her position of influence to support the Spanish Bourbons even when the circumstances for France were perilous. The future for the Bourbons in Spain looked increasingly insecure in 1707, and the princess’s remonstrations prompted Maintenon to respond sharply that “your courage is absolutely necessary, Madame, to endure all that you see and all that you fear. For myself, I shrivel up in pain, and when you scold me again I will tell you that my consolation is to be old.”94 By 1709 the situation was even more desperate, compelling Maintenon on 15 July to complain pointedly that on reaching Versailles last night, I found your letter of the first instant; you will scold me no more for you have the twenty battalions which you asked for, and even twenty-five, but all this does not afford me the same hopes as it does you; I am even persuaded that you would think as I do, if you were an eye-witness of our situation; but you do not credit me upon that subject, and you look upon all those who are capable of consenting to the hard peace which is proposed to us, as being anxious to excite discouragement. I can assure you there is not a Frenchman who does not wish for its conclusion. Marshals Boufflers, d’Harcourt, Villeroi and de Villars are of the same opinion. They have embraced it more tardily, as I wrote to you several times, but at length they have done so, seeing that there is no resource, owing to the scarcity of money, and still more to that of corn. You are too good a Frenchwoman to wish to lose France in order to save Spain.95 Their exchange of letters persistently exhausted and exasperated Maintenon, whose responses contained critical observations that were clearly meant to be heard by the king besides being read by the princess. She suspected that Ursins had been duplicitous in her discussions with Louis in order to secure her reinstatement at the Spanish court, but she was uncertain of this and did not confide her reservations to the maréchal de Villeroi until a letter of 14 January 1705.96 It is doubtful whether Louis appreciated that a potentially parallel situation might arise at his own court, or recognized that it could be endlessly problematic to advance people to positions of power without defining their functions clearly. Nonetheless, as Geffroy rightly states, Louis now employed Maintenon as a channel for conveying orders to Ursins while

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also allowing the princess to defend her undertakings without involving the relevant ministers.97 In his instructions to the prince of Cellamare, Antonio del Giudice, in May 1715, Philip V warned his ambassador that “you will not be able to gain any profit from Mme de Maintenon, because she is chained to the will and mind of the Most Christian King.”98 While this was probably true in this particular realm of influence, it did not prevent Philip from repeatedly attempting to exploit Maintenon’s sway with Louis XIV by manipulating his own relationship with her through a correspondence that the Spanish king considered an essential channel of communication to his grandfather, particularly during 1709 and 1710, when Louis was under strong international pressure to abandon his grandson and orchestrate his dethronement. Between 1700 and 1715 Philip issued a broad range of demands. He commonly requested assurances of Louis XIV’s continued esteem and friendship, was desperate to be notified if the French king expressed hostility toward a particular policy or displeasure at his grandson’s behaviour, and routinely solicited the continuation of the marquise’s “good offices next to the King.”99 Philip believed that Maintenon’s influence could be effective if she exerted it. For example, he asked for monetary assistance on 28 June 1701 because he was “in great need of relief, because I found everything in such a strange state and especially my finances, without which one cannot do anything.”100 And this may well have brought about the appointment of the financial expert, Jean Orry, in 1702. On 24 January 1702 Philip tacitly implored Maintenon to expedite a speedy decision from his grandfather by emphasizing that he was waiting impatiently for Louis XIV’s permission to launch a campaign in Milan that would re-establish Spanish authority in his Italian patrimony. He wanted to lead that invasion himself,101 and he had outlined this desire in a petition forwarded to the French king on the same day.102 Philip appealed for more troops on 14 October 1705.103 Then on 10 December 1708 he entreated the marquise to persuade Louis to resolve the dispute between the duchesse de Gramont and the Spanish queen dowager, Mariana von Neuburg, which Philip thought had been incited by the duc de Gramont. Moreover, on 3 June 1709, during the delicate negotiations conducted at the height of the War of the Spanish Succession, Philip urgently wrote to Maintenon to implore you immediately to ask the King my grandfather whether the Duke of Alba learns from him [Louis] or his ministers about the negotiations I entrusted to Count Bergeyck because I gave the Count the liberty to inform my ambassador about this business when it was

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appropriate to do so; thus to avoid the misunderstanding we consequentially see between these two ministers who demand disagreeable clarifications; I am not able to prevent myself from addressing such a good friend on all these sorts of occasions; it is proof, Madame, of the esteem and friendship I have for you which has never been greater nor more sincere than it is now.104 Philip V prized Maintenon’s discretion as an international intermediary and depended on her to relay secret and sensitive matters to Louis,105 while at the same time encouraging her to read and reflect on the contents of the dispatches he entrusted to her.106 The queen of Spain, not wishing to importune the French king, also corresponded regularly with the marquise, reporting extensively on the health and general well-being of the Spanish court107 and thus replicating or sometimes augmenting the tidings, concerns, and demands of Ursins.108 Marie-Louise also inquired about the king’s vitality109 and frequently solicited Maintenon’s advice. So on 27 March 1705 she wrote that “I must beg you to inform me in what manner I should approach the King, my grandfather, with the Monseigneur [the dauphin] and with the Duke of Burgundy, to please me, that is to say, if I should write to them often or seldom, if my letters must be gay or sad; in short, direct me.”110 Accordingly, in a letter of 1 November 1701, Torcy, after announcing that he had read out a letter from Ursins in the presence of the king and Maintenon, had warned the princess of the principal importance of preventing the precocious queen from gaining an ascendance over the mind of the impressionable young Philip, and that ideally Marie-Louise should follow no other counsels than those of her first lady of the bedchamber.111 Ursins needed little encouragement in this, and Philip admitted to his grandfather on 10 March 1705 that he was secretly jealous of the way in which his wife was dominated by Ursins, who was about to resume her position as head of the queen’s household.112 Therefore Philip perhaps initially used his correspondence with Maintenon as a mechanism by which to redress the balance of power at the Spanish court and assert his personal authority, and this was unlikely to have been discouraged by the French government. The whole process was convoluted and disordered nonetheless and was not an ideal way to govern one of the world’s largest empires during a military conflict that had engulfed the major European powers. Torcy agreed, and on that basis John Rule had asserted that Maintenon’s intervention “strongly constricted Torcy’s leadership in shaping foreign affairs.”113 However, he has since refined that view, suggesting that

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Torcy always felt that Maintenon posed a threat because of the amount of classified information she was able to scrutinize, which compelled him to establish his own independent secret du ministère.114 Louis was indeed keen to keep the marquise extremely well informed. He continued to work with ministers every evening in her apartments, and he kept her abreast of the minutiae of Spanish politics by sending the Spanish post, le paquet d’Espagne, for her consumption, or having, in his presence, its contents read out to her, including, much to Torcy’s irritation, the secret reports of the marquis de Louville from Philip V’s court that were intended for Louis’s ears only. In the spring of 1701 the foreign minister bemoaned to Louville that “I reread your letters continuously … The King, to whom I regularly show the essential passages, often reads them in their entirety, and provides Mme de Maintenon with extracts from them.”115 Torcy’s fears seem to have been generated largely by paranoia, which was perhaps understandable, given the nature of his portfolio, yet the evidence suggests that Maintenon was anxious not to undermine the foreign secretary’s endeavours, even while she attempted to improve Louis’s international relations.116 Maintenon’s activities may sometimes have constricted Torcy’s ministerial independence, but it was the frantic clandestine diplomatic initiatives undertaken by Chamillart with foreign powers from 1705 to 1706 to promote peace, as endorsed by the king, that damagingly compromised the policies the foreign minister was attempting to pursue.117 This compelled Torcy to conduct his own secret du ministère by instructing his officials to make copies of letters from key individuals like Ursins that he received, thanks to his position as surintendant général des postes, before the official communication arrived.118 In her meticulously researched biography, Marianne Cermakian contends that without the drive, determination, and ambition of the princesse des Ursins the Bourbons would have been permanently removed from Spain.119 While this assertion is credible, it cannot be substantiated without taking Maintenon’s intensive efforts into consideration, as well as those of the foreign minister and his subordinates. And although Philip V was perhaps right to warn that Maintenon was uniquely shackled to the mind of the king, her role in Franco-Spanish relations was, nonetheless, the first officially sanctioned governmental function that Louis had assigned to her. This in itself was highly significant, bearing in mind that the dauphin was extremely reluctant to intervene on behalf of his son and rarely did so, despite repeated requests to do just that.120 Significantly, this gave the marquise practical experience of international

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relations and wartime government, and importantly was only one aspect of a métier that was already considerable in size and scope and would continue to expand as the reign progressed.

re ga l r e l at io n s w it h t he hous e of s tuart Current and contemporary historians alike have posited that the marquise de Maintenon was the driving force behind Louis XIV’s continued support for the exiled House of Stuart in the early eighteenth century, and the evidence confirms this. Maintenon venerated the piety and resolve of James II, whose saintly death made those who came to see it rejoice to heaven … He took communion twice, he spoke to his son, to his Catholic and Protestant servants, to our King, to the Queen, and all persons of his acquaintance … with a presence of mind, a peace, a joy, a zeal, a steadfastness and a simplicity, so that everyone came back charmed. When they opened his body, the doctors and surgeons took something to make relics from them; the guards dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood, others touched their rosaries.121 The marquise also enjoyed a close relationship with Mary of Modena, who confided to the Sun King’s consort that “you know and see clearly that I do not have in the world a true friend of the heart like my dear Madame de Maintenon.”122 This affinity is clearly discernible in their correspondence, and Maintenon was extremely fond of their two children, James Francis and Louisa Maria Teresa Stuart (1692–1712). Louis also treasured the Stuarts’ company, and they interacted on a weekly basis,123 while their annual trips to Fontainebleau have been described as “family holidays.”124 The fatal decline of James II in September 1701 bequeathed to Louis another dilemma: he now had to choose between hereditary legitimacy and raison d’état. Ultimately he opted to recognize James III, the chevalier de Saint-George, rather than William III, as the rightful heir to the English throne after James expired on the 16th. To abandon their Stuart relations at this juncture might have proved a worthless gesture of appeasement because the Grand Alliance had been signed on 7 September,125 but the foreign minister, Torcy, disagreed. He recorded in his memoirs that the decision to succour the cause of James III was inflammatory and insinuated that it was not favoured by a ministerial majority.126 It has been suggested more recently that Louis wanted to

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avoid replicating the error committed by Mazarin, who had ignored the Stuarts during the Protectorate, only for them to be re-established by Charles II on 8 May 1660 after Cromwell’s death on 3 September 1658.127 Furthermore, J.-C. Petitfils has suggested that it was Maintenon who pushed the king to overturn the verdict of the conseil d’en haut that on 12 September had refused to uphold the claims of the “chevalier de Saint-George.”128 The marquise’s views on divine right monarchy were even less flexible than her husband’s, as demonstrated when she dutifully praised Philip V’s renunciation of the French succession in 1712,129 though in an earlier letter she had implied that she found the potential implications distasteful.130 Maintenon was unequivocal about the Pretender’s prospects, and in her letters she always referred to him as “King James,” whereas William III was “the Prince of Orange.” On 30 November 1711 she remarked to Ursins that “I yet hope, as old as I am, to see the King of England restored in his kingdom.”131 And Maintenon continued to uphold his rights even after the peace treaties negotiated at Utrecht, and eventually signed in April 1713, stipulated that Louis discontinue his support for the Stuarts, expel them from France, and recognize Anne as the rightful Queen of England. On 2 March 1714 she told James that “we will see you re-established sire, and then the misfortunes of your youth will be reversed.”132 The marquise undoubtedly encountered the pro-Jacobite English envoy, Viscount Bolingbroke, during his visits to the French court between 1712 and 1715, and we should not underestimate her role in persuading Louis to sponsor the Jacobite uprisings and James III’s failed expedition to rally support in Scotland during 1715, subsequent to Bolingbroke’s flight from England to the court of “the Pretender” in Rome in March.133 However, it was clear that Louis was already inclined to uphold the rights of the Stuarts in 1701, and Voltaire contended that, in conference with Maintenon and Louis XIV, it was Mary of Modena’s anguished remonstrations that motivated the marquise to convince the king to reject ministerial advice and sustain the cause of “the Pretender,” James III.134 Painstaking research by Edward Corp and Edward Gregg has confirmed the veracity of Voltaire’s contentions and revealed that Louis promised the dying James II that he would bring his son up as if his own.135 Previously Maintenon had almost turned the infamous Scottish invasion attempt of March 1708 into a personal crusade. On 4 March 1708 the marquise wrote to Ursins that she was “very impatient to hear your news about the enterprise of Scotland, which I think will meet with your approbation. The King has always opposed it; he cannot reconcile

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himself with the uncertainty of measures that are taken on the sea.”136 With this project in mind Maintenon dutifully wrote on 1 December 1707 to the second wife of her cousin, M. de Villette, the celebrated naval commander and father of the comtesse de Caylus, to “implore [him] to send me a memoir of everything that I need to know about the navy, so that I may it put before the King every time there is something that he needs to attend to.”137 This request was significant because it became customary for Maintenon during the War of the Spanish Succession to exploit her resources and contacts to garner intelligence that would enable her better to advise Louis, especially on matters about which he was ill-informed or unacquainted. An armada of more than thirty ships and transport vessels carrying approximately 6,000 soldiers, 13,000 fusils, and 10,000 saddles and bridles was supposed to leave Dunkirk at the beginning of March.138 Delays in departure, and the subsequent disasters that befell the enterprise designed to install James III on the English throne,139 provoked an exchange of several frantic letters between Mary of Modena and Maintenon.140 The latter shared her anxieties with several correspondents141 and commanded the confessor to the Capuchin order in Paris, Père Emmanuel, to pray for the expedition,142 the success of which, she contended, was craved for by French public opinion, even though Louis XIV could be counted among the prominent skeptics. Maintenon emphasized to Ursins on 22 April 1708 that never has an undertaking been so widely applauded as this one; it was not (between you and I) by the King, who has always had a poor opinion of it; but he must defer to the voice of the public; because everyone from the Dauphin to the last urchin at court, to the fishwives of La Halle in Paris wanted us to go to Scotland; but God did not wish it: he sends measles to the King of England, who is delayed for ten days in Dunkirk.143 At this juncture it looked as if the fleet would never sail, partly because James had fallen ill. Poor communications prompted a dejected Maintenon wrongly to inform Ursins on 11 March that “the Scotch affair has failed.”144 In fact James’s health recovered, and Maintenon was able to notify the same correspondent on 19 March that “the King of England has set sail at last; the account of his descent in Scotland will be still more interesting. May God shield him from all the perils that threaten him!”145 But the marquise justifiably remained uneasy, reporting to her niece, the comtesse de Caylus, on 15 March that “the

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fleet of the enemy has departed in order, appearances suggest, to follow the King of England, which frightens me greatly.”146 Subsequently, on 1 April she apprised Ursins that “we constantly expect news, but nothing is assured in maritime affairs”; and the following day chastised the same correspondent for “rejoicing at the Scottish expedition … You think nothing of the anxiety we have undergone.”147 Unfortunately the odds were stacked against James, and despite coming in sight of the mainland on several occasions the Pretender was ultimately unable to land on Scottish soil, having been hounded by the English navy, and more detrimentally undermined by unenthusiastic French seamen and officers, including the commander, Admiral Forbin, who had no faith in the expedition from the beginning, claiming it was “unfeasible.”148 Maintenon conceded defeat to Ursins on 8 April, dolefully reflecting that “we shall both suffer from the failure of so grand an enterprise.”149 Maintenon evidently took this setback personally. Participants in the Scottish invasion had been lauded by her, and abstainers chided: “The affair of [lieutenant-general] M. de Surville has not been resolved, but you should not be disheartened. I am quite angry that he did not ask to go to Scotland.”150 Powerful advocates included the Duke of Burgundy. In the post-mortem that followed the bungled expedition he wrote to Maintenon in August to reassure her that the principles underlying the Scottish scheme had been righteous,151 which explains why he was, for once, in agreement with his father, whose aversion for his son’s austere morality and appeasing nature kept the pair constantly at odds with each other.152 Other supporters included the duc de Villars, who, according to Torcy in his Journal, had convinced a skeptical Maintenon that the invasion of Scotland would advantage the following year’s campaign, which the foreign minister rightfully regretted.153 The costly maritime mission only served to undermine preparations for war in 1709, which ironically prompted Torcy to recommend in December that another invasion be attempted in 1710 because, as he told the king, it “seemed to me the only means [for ending the war] that was still viable, provided, of course, that it was undertaken with the necessary military forces to make it succeed.”154 Despite the project’s abject failure, caused predominantly by a combination of illness, bad weather, indiscreet and inadequate preparation, and Forbin’s fatal apathy,155 Maintenon’s efforts to revive Stuart fortunes were unstinting. Responding to appeals from Modena, she badgered the maréchal de Villars to place his expertise, guidance, and protection at the chevalier de Saint-George’s disposal during the campaign in Flanders of 1709. She also implored the maréchal to alleviate the considerable

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burden that the chevalier was being forced to incur in funding his own company and entourage at a time when French resources were slim.156 Additionally, a missive to the marquise from Torcy, detailing Mary of Modena’s long-awaited dowry payments and arrangements,157 and one from the queen expressing her sincere gratitude,158 imply that Maintenon had been chiefly responsible for exerting pressure in various quarters to secure a pension to maintain a befitting lifestyle for her friend, who was left despondent after her son’s enforced exile.

mi n i s t e rs , m a rs h a l s , a n d mi li tary manoeuvres Maintenon’s ardent endorsement of the Scottish invasion is just one of many instances where her actions contradict the interpretations of historians and contemporary propagandists, who have levelled the accusation that Maintenon’s only unvarying government policy was to promote peace at any price, however harmful and humiliating the consequences might be.159 Maintenon’s ideology, which took its cue from the king and numerous advisers, was primarily pacifist in the Fénelon mould,160 but it was also far from immutable and could be dictated by the turn of events. There are almost as many instances of her persuading correspondents that the prosecution of the war was unavoidable, because conciliation had been abandoned, as there are records of the marquise clamouring for the negotiation of the necessary peace. For example, on 10 June 1709 she rhetorically asked the princesse des Ursins “how often do I pray that your King may be able to maintain himself alone! If we carry on the war on our side, our enemies, powerful as they are, will have something to do; and what will become of them, if we were not always unfortunate?”161 And on 25 October of the same year she accentuated to the princess that “you must no longer complain about peace; it can no longer be considered and we must think only of war.”162 The botched enterprise to raise a rebellion in Scotland in favour of “the Pretender,” James Stuart, was symptomatic of the campaigns supervised by Louis during the War of the Spanish Succession between 1702 and 1709. Chamillart was gradually crushed under the weight of his heavy responsibilities, thus exacerbating inadequacies that were increasingly exposed and of which he was only too aware.163 The king continued to support him nonetheless and repeatedly offered reassurances, writing in the margin of one of Chamillart’s letters that “we are both to be pitied in these stormy times; but we must do our best and not let ourselves be discouraged.”164 Unfortunately, the king’s efforts failed. Chamillart resigned as controller-general on 14 February 1708, and in

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a beleaguered state thereafter was eventually dismissed as secretary of state for war on 9 June 1709.165 The duc de Saint-Simon sympathized and agreed that Chamillart had been overcome, blaming a combination of ill health, exhaustion, and, typically, Maintenon for his disgrace because he claimed that she had sacrificed her former protégé to hostile public opinion.166 As was so often the case, the duc’s version of events was not strictly accurate, given that as early as January 1701 Maintenon had expressed to the duc d’Harcourt her fear that Chamillart had “too many affairs.”167 She came increasingly to appreciate the magnitude of the burdens he shouldered, and sympathized that pressures were mounting on him based on expectations that France’s ailing war efforts would soon be dramatically resuscitated, confiding to the duc de Noailles on 24 July 1706 that “our friend Chamillart is overwhelmed with work and penetrated by grief.”168 After his resignation as controller-general, Maintenon told Mme de Caylus on 15 March 1708 that “the state of M. Chamillart is a fine subject for contemplation; let me know everything that is said about him in Paris; I am deeply distressed because I know better than anyone that he deserved to be happier.”169 And on 23 July she informed Ursins, with some irony, that reports were wrong which suggested that “the minister of war was thought dead.”170 Always mindful of her educational duties, Maintenon reflected on Chamillart’s predicament in didactic exchanges with the girls at SaintCyr that discussed the supposedly glamorous life of a minister, cautioning that the King’s ministers – whose positions are so senselessly coveted and fought for – more than deserve anything they gain from their post, because of the burdens and exhaustion they must face. Monsieur de Chamillart, for example, is in a perpetual state of work. He no longer has any time to relax, let alone to really entertain himself. He can’t even find sufficient time to spend with his family. From dawn to dusk he does nothing but listen to bitter disputes … [and] we are afraid he might fall very ill. The burdens of office have changed him … yet this is a man many believe to be so fortunate.171 Successive military setbacks and a series of painful defeats – Blenheim, Ramillies, the loss of Gibraltar and then Turin – culminating in the rout at Oudenarde on 11 July 1708, and the subsequent capture of Lille by the allies, greatly weakened France’s financial resources and left her military reputation in tatters. Maintenon had declared that the weight of public opinion had compelled Louis to appoint Chamillart as controller-general

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in 1699, and in 1709 she again stated on 14 June to the maréchal de Villars that the king had been “obliged to surrender to the public voice” in divesting Chamillart of his office as war minister.172 The former controller-general made an ideal scapegoat for the current military and financial crisis, thus drawing criticism away from the king and his consort-confidante. Chamillart had worked hard and diligently to fulfill his colossal obligations and had introduced new measures to try and pay for the bankrupting war effort – for example, by introducing paper currency and changing the administrative infrastructure – but the crisis was such that any reforms implemented had been almost bound to fail.173 Moreover, there were fundamental problems with the Old Regime system that Louis XIV’s successors would also wrestle with, unsuccessfully as it turned out.174 Recent scholarship has been more damning, concluding that Chamillart was guilty of gross financial and administrative incompetence and “amateurishness.”175 After his secret peace initiatives failed in 1706, Chamillart admitted to Dutch emissary Hennequin that he was not suited to diplomacy and that he also lacked resources and sufficient forces, but would attempt to find both to continue the war and expedite peace.176 However, by 1708 Chamillart had effectively thrown in the towel, and after his removal from the war secretaryship in June 1709 Maintenon lamented to the duc de Noailles on 28 July that “M. Chamillart lost everything by his obstinacy. He absolutely counted on peace and had made no preparation for war. This is what puts us in the dangerous situation we are.”177 Chamillart was to a certain extent unlucky, and he was ill-served by less talented relatives whom he had been obliged to promote, including his son-in-law, the duc de La Feuillade, who was deeply implicated in the embarrassing débâcle at Turin in September 1706. The marquise herself was extremely concerned, as she confessed to Ursins on 5 December 1706: Poor M. Chamillart is not better treated; but he is really unhappy, both by the greatness of his charge and domestic sorrows. You may easily imagine that all that has occurred at Turin affects him deeply. M. de La Feuillade will no longer be a visitor here; he proposes to go to Naples. He is rather singular and resembles his father too much. M. Chamillart has not the heart of a minister; he is tender, full of feeling, and the best natured man in the world: he is now trying to repair our losses, and assures us that the King will have powerful armies on every side. Omit nothing, Madame, on your part to aid us. I am very impatient to know the effect of the vigorous step the King of Spain has taken to obtain money.178

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Maintenon nevertheless endeavoured to defend Chamillart from the assaults of the cabale de Meudon179 and to defend his reputation by repeatedly rebuking one of its leading assailants, who also happened to be one of her closest friends, the maréchal de Villeroi. On 23 September 1706 she wrote to complain that: it is said that you form a cabal against M. Chamillart, that you have joined with his enemies, and that you persuade people of merit to support these interests, and many other things that I cannot believe, and I would be delighted if you would repudiate them. Regarding my concerns, they are of such little importance that nothing needs to be said about them. You know me perfectly well; I retain no other liaisons than those for the King; I love those who are faithfully and dutifully attached to him, as you know; I want to console him and support those who serve him. For the good of affairs it is not appropriate to disparage those burdened with them. I believe, Monsieur, that you are enough of an honnête homme to cast off your resentments against M. Chamillart at a time like this, and to think only of excusing his faults and proposing remedies for them, to resurrect hopes and engage in discourse agreeable to the King.180 On 6 November 1706, Maintenon went further, underscoring to Villeroi that “when I am told, Monsieur, that you continually rage publically against M. Chamillart, I reply: ‘If that were true, M. the maréchal de Villeroi will have made a great mistake; because it is unacceptable to rail against a man who is esteemed by the King, and against a minister who is on such good terms with his master as M. Chamillart.’”181 All of this put Maintenon in an awkward position, albeit one that was warranted, as she admitted to Ursins on 17 October 1706: “it is true that the hatred between M. de Villeroi and M. de Chamillart is very disagreeable to me; but it is not easy to make passionate people hear reason.”182 The marquise acknowledged Chamillart’s failings only after his successors, Desmaretz and Voysin, had taken up their respective posts and discovered the extent to which their departmental affairs were in disarray.183 She admitted to the princesse des Ursins on 22 April 1708 that “the King is always happy with M. Desmaretz; however, he is not able to perform miracles, and M. Chamillart does not deny that he left Desmaretz with affairs in a very bad state. This minister has returned from his voyage to Flanders; he seems a little better, but is still dejected.”184 Letters to Ursins and the duc de Noailles reveal that powerful factions at court had been instrumental in precipitating Chamillart’s downfall, which was

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secured by the dauphin.185 But Maintenon impressed on correspondents that these forces were not intractable, and she took pains to scotch the rumours of ministerial anarchy that were abounding at Versailles and in Paris. These, she claimed, were “very false; our friend M. Voysin is doing perfectly well and everybody perceives that he is more industrious than his predecessor. M. Desmaretz has managed to do even more than we could expect; I hope that money will be more commonplace than it is within one month.”186 With scant evidence it is difficult to draw unequivocal conclusions, and even Pénicaut is ambiguous regarding Maintenon’s involvement and impact.187 But letters that have survived to and from Chamillart, when combined with references and inferences in general correspondence, indicate that the marquise contributed more to the working relationship between the king and his foremost minister than simply her services as a respected liaison. To court commentators the three appeared to form a supreme governing triumvirate.188 That perhaps overstates the case, but Petitfils is right to suggest they formed a faction in their own right,189 and one that ultimately placed the king in a compromising political position. In a letter to Louis on 22 September 1707 Chamillart disclosed that he had first notified Maintenon of his intention to resign as controller-general, which Louis subsequently refused.190 Numerous missives from the marquise discuss, and press Chamillart to attend to, a variety of domestic matters,191 and the memoir she received from the minister detailing the military and budgetary programs projected for 1706 underscores the extent to which Maintenon and Chamillart worked closely together.192 As the king’s most trusted adviser the marquise became, effectively, a minister without portfolio and an intrinsic part of Louis’s government. Louis clearly prized and monopolized the company of his consort, and he had almost inadvertently engineered her elevation, but now purposefully maintained her clandestine position because it benefited him to do so. Surviving documents suggest that the marquise freely discussed state business and especially wartime matters when confined with Louis and Chamillart, as she was almost on a daily basis, and that she sometimes worked alone with the minister, often at Saint-Cyr. Maintenon was no military expert, but she was very well informed and had been a steadfast presence at the conferences and martial councils that had directed both ground and naval operations during the Nine Years’ War. This practice was openly intensified during the War of the Spanish Succession, with Dangeau and Sourches frequently recording that “great councils” and protracted discussions with generals and ministers took place chez Maintenon. For example, the king worked in his consort’s apartments

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with marshals Marsin, Villars, Villeroi, and Chamillart on 14 March 1705,193 had a two-hour meeting there with marshals Marsin and Vauban on the 25th,194 and consultations about naval fortifications and strategy with the comte de Toulouse and relevant advisers on 26 May 1706 and 19 December 1707.195 On the evening of 14 October 1709, Louis, on entering Maintenon’s chambers, was “most surprised” to find Jacques Maignart de Bernières, intendant of the army of Flanders, and the new war minister, Voysin, who apologetically admitted that it was unexpected for them to be there at such an hour. However, the king reassured them that he “would hardly be angry about it,”196 thus condoning a tactic increasingly employed, whereby notables and officials anxious to speak to him would gain entrance to Maintenon’s chambers instead, secure in the knowledge that the sovereign would either be there already or was arriving imminently. The marquise conceded to Mme de Glapion in the entretien of 1705 describing her daily life (as analyzed in the following chapter) that she was sometimes asked to participate in the king’s deliberations with Chamillart. If Louis was now prepared openly to consult his wife he must have valued her opinions and respected her judgments. Maintenon confided to the maréchal de Villeroi on 24 January 1710 that the king “hid nothing from her” and told her “all the things he dare not say to others,” ruefully adding that “I try to do everything that affection, interest, justice, reason, sorrow and acrimony are able to inspire … I live in bitterness, but also happy in the knowledge that my suffering may be of some use!”197 But Maintenon had also revealed to the same correspondent on 2 January 1707 that, while anxious to prove herself useful, she had learned of affairs too late in life198 and was consequently as zealous as she was incapable.199 Again the marquise camouflaged reality by fusing fact and fiction. Perhaps to augment her knowledge, compensate for her inexperience, or capitalize on her new opportunity to collaborate, she corresponded industriously to gather military intelligence that, as she assured the marquis de Tigny on 26 July 1709, would not be misappropriated and could be beneficial.200 Several maréchaux and other distinguished commanders, including Boufflers, Catinat, d’Estrées, d’Harcourt, Noailles, Tallard, Tessé, Villars, Villeroi, and Villette, were consequently consulted on a wide range of war-related issues. In reciprocation they received the marquise’s patronage and protection, though the recipient of a favour or preferment would, like the historian, be left uncertain as to whether Louis or Maintenon herself was the true benefactor. The information thereby collated enabled Maintenon to confer more confidently, when required. Her

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input was often constructive and to the benefit of both parties, whose relations were not enhanced by the marked differences in personality and by a belief, or lack of it, in their own abilities. As has been demonstrated, the powerful Noailles family enjoyed a close affinity with the d’Aubignés. It was in the Marais that Maintenon had first encountered and befriended the duchesse de Noailles, Louise Boyer (1630–1697), who was the mother of the Maréchal-Duc AnneJules (b. 1650). He was one of the king’s most trusted generals and favourites and had married Marie-Françoise de Bournonville (1656–1748) in 1671. Their son, Adrien-Maurice (1678–1766), the comte d’Ayen, had become the marquise’s nephew-in-law in 1698 and inherited the title of duc in 1704, four years before his father’s death. Besides nine surviving sisters, Adrien had three brothers, who occupied important positions in the army and the state,201 and he too enjoyed a glittering military career. After being given the honour of accompanying Philip V to Madrid to claim his crown in 1701, Noailles was named a maréchal de camp in October 1704, and in June 1705 he was placed in command of the troops detached in Roussillon and Catalonia. The prince de BourbonCondé wrote to Maintenon to congratulate Adrien on “the grace that the King has accorded M. the duc de Noailles; no-one takes a greater share in his pleasure.”202 And he became a Spanish grandee in 1712. Maintenon doted on the young duc, and like his mother and his uncle, the archbishop of Paris, Adrien became a member of Maintenon’s inner circle and she kept few secrets from him. A large cache of extant letters written to him by the marquise reveal much about the developing relationship between Maintenon and Adrien and his wider family, while they also afford us an occasional glimpse into the private side of Maintenon’s character. She could be sarcastic, playful and comical, even about members of her own cabale. Many of them were dames du palais to the young Princess of Burgundy, whom she described satirically on 22 December 1700: Would you like to hear some very diverting news? It is without doubt that of the dames du palais, because they are your weak spot, which we must show sympathy for. Mme de Dangeau fortifies herself playing backgammon, Mme de Roucy is pregnant, Mme de Nogaret is fat, Mme d’O remains in bed since her husband went away to look at the place where he was and where he no longer is … Mme du Châtelet is pregnant, Mme de Montgon is red in the face, Mme de Lévis is skinny, Mme la comtesse d’Estrées bursts out laughing, Mme la comtesse d’Ayen [his wife and Maintenon’s niece]

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is talking in falsetto, the lady-in-waiting has gout, and the lady of the bedchamber does not neglect her spinning. That, my dear Count, is the state of our little Court that assembles every evening in my apartment around the young Princess [of Burgundy], who grows taller in front of our eyes and a little more imperceptibly in merit.203 The intimate correspondence exchanged over many years between Maintenon and Adrien de Noailles, who became a close military adviser to the king, discussed a wide range of issues, including army appointments,204 actions and potential projects in Italy,205 Flanders,206 and Spain,207 naval campaigns,208 the alarming scarcity of troops and funds in 1709,209 and the possibility of enemy incursions as well as initiatives to anticipate and deter them.210 There were seemingly no subjects that could not be broached in their missives, and this was important. French commanders were unused to being repeatedly and soundly defeated, so it was vital for them to receive assurances of the king’s confidence. Maintenon regularly conveyed personal tokens of encouragement to Noailles from Louis, while also including his and her own reflections and anxieties on affairs in general, and on the discussions that were taking place at court, both formally and informally, about strategies to be adopted to improve the increasingly calamitous war effort. The exchanges were reciprocally beneficial in that they provided Maintenon, and in turn the king, and also Chamillart, with Noailles’s personal news, operational updates, eyewitness observations, and general recommendations. Maintenon also invoked the patronage of the son of another notable whom she had befriended during her first marriage, Lamoignon de Bâville, and implored the intendant of Languedoc to supply the same assistance and wise counsels that had so benefited the duc de Noailles’s father.211 The correspondence between Maintenon and Noailles therefore developed into a detailed, highly confidential triangular discourse with Louis XIV that offers unique insights into the internal workings of government and its executors. Maintenon was a powerful patron, but she was also anxious always to be of service and keen to intensify their “commerce.” On 4 February 1704 she wrote to offer her help to the duc in his dealings with François d’Usson de Bonrepaus, intendant-générale of the marine, and Marshal Montrevel, who was commanding the forces fighting the Camisards in Languedoc, but she regretted that she would be unable to discuss these matters with Noailles immediately in person because he was busy working with Chamillart.212 On 3 April of the same year, Philip V began to invest Barcelona, deploying predominantly French naval and military forces commanded

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by Marshal Tessé, as well as an army attacking from the north of the city, led by the duc de Noailles. The latter’s proposal that the siege be delayed had been ignored, but Maintenon penned a message the same day reassuring him that his prudence had been duly noted and to an extent welcomed because it had been suspected that the letters from Admiral Toulouse had been overoptimistic regarding the progress of preparations.213 She also divulged that the king was “very happy” with Noailles and that when this was not the case the duc’s virtue would undoubtedly “render his conscience clear.” On this topic Maintenon concluded by assuring Adrien that she appreciated that circumstances dictated that their “commerce” could not be as frequent or as detailed as the three correspondents might desire, or as helpful as conversing together, but it was essential that it continue.214 They customarily exchanged several letters each month. Thus, her “dear nephew,” for whom she clearly harboured a maternal affection, was one of the few people in whom Maintenon confided her innermost thoughts and fears and to whom she could vent her displeasure at the allies and even Providence. On 24 July 1706 the marquise informed Noailles that she had replied to his two recent missives dated the 11th and 17th, somewhat bitterly conceding that they were compelled to submit to the wishes of God, who even employed their heretical enemies as “instruments … to afflict and humiliate the King and France,” and that while she continued to suffer from severe headaches and bouts of fever, the king was in “perfect health.”215 Regarding the campaign in Iberia, Maintenon had admitted the month before, on 15 June, that she was delighted with Noailles’s letter imparting that he had accompanied Philip V when he re-entered his capital on the 5th, but then reflected more pragmatically that the joyful protestations of the Spanish people were “inconsequential” and that “I would much prefer that they give us troops.” She added that she had read his letter to the king (as she evidently often did), who had caustically remarked that Noailles clearly no longer knew what was taking place in Flanders. Maintenon explained that this would deeply concern the duc because “we are presently able to say that our affairs there go as badly as they do in Spain,” and added that the pregnant Duchess of Burgundy was constantly, and thus unhealthily, agitated about the progress of the war in Flanders, Turin, Catalonia, and of course Spain, where her sister was queen. The marquise also reiterated the hope of the French ambassador, Michel-Jean Amelot de Gournay (1655–1724), that the allies might be forced to leave troops in Roussillon, thus gaining Philip some respite. She then rhetorically asked whether Noailles was satisfied with Ursins and the French ambassador,

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Amelot, before reflecting that “they seem to be doing their best in everything and with great courage.”216 Maintenon’s missive dated 15 July 1707 was equally enlightening. The marquise began by apologizing for being forced to dictate her message to Mlle d’Aumale, which she found regrettable because her intention was always to write to him in her own hand. This was presumably because of the sensitive and personal nature of their communications – Nanon being the other secretary that the marquise had formerly employed when she was too ill or too pressed for time to compose letters herself. Maintenon then updated Noailles on the French campaign along the Rhine led by Villars, who it was feared had advanced too far and might be cut off by the enemy. By contrast, Villars, the marquise reported, was confident that he continued to enjoy a superior position, and whose “ravages in Germany” meant he was even more intensely admired by the “babblers of the salon [around the apartments at court].” Villars was right to be confident, as usual, and continued to occupy Baden into the autumn relatively unmolested, extracting valuable and vital “contributions” from several cities totalling more than 2,750,000 livres.217 The marquise’s apprehensiveness was justifiable, however, because enemy forces commanded by the Margrave of Bayreuth had advanced toward Villars’s forces in July. As it turned out, they made little impression. Maintenon monitored all the king’s affairs intently, was extremely well-informed, and, as she subsequently revealed to Noailles on 15 July 1707, could be just as compassionate as she was antagonistic toward France’s adversaries: I assure you that the King is very happy with everything that you are doing and convinced of your attachment to him; my worries are presently for Provence; I see that many people believe this is unfounded; I hope to God they are right!218 Scurvy is rife in the enemy fleet; it is said that they’ve had to throw more than fifty dead men into the sea; it is wretched to rejoice in this, but if our affairs continue successfully we may hope for peace.219 The marquise concluded her letter with a commendation that offers us a glimpse into an expansive patronage and clientage network that enabled her to be as influential as she was knowledgeable. She submitted that there is in the regiment of Artois a second lieutenant of the company of the Chevalier de Balincourt;220 he is under my protection and I recommend him to you, my dear Duke, as he deserves that I intervene

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on his behalf; he is a perfectly fine gentleman and the brother of the little musician that you saw me with me at Versailles.221 Maintenon’s relationship with Noailles therefore continued to thrive, and this helped him become one of the king’s principal military advisers. Maintenon maintained a rather different relationship with the maréchal de Villars, Claude Louis Hector (1653–1734), whose father Pierre, the marquis (1623–1698), she had known in the Marais. Villars’s prowess as a military commander was rarely questioned, but his arrogance, audacity, ambition, and avarice made him few friends at Versailles.222 Such traits might have ended his career prematurely had it not been for the unstinting patronage of Maintenon, who was close friends with his wife, Jeanne-Angélique Roque de Varengeville, and for the fact that France was threatened with total defeat at various moments between 1708 and 1711.223 Throughout the War of the Spanish Succession Villars relied heavily on the marquise, who was possibly the only person powerful enough to protect and promote a figure so generally disliked at court. It is unfortunate, as Vogüé laments, that more of their correspondence has not survived as it would further disclaim the malignant aspersions cast by Saint-Simon, and highlight the “perspicacity and patriotism” that Maintenon’s faith in Villars displayed.224 After seizing Kehl on the Rhine on 9 March 1703, Villars went on in the autumn to join the forces of Maximilian-Emmanuel, Elector of Bavaria, who had only recently defected from the emperor’s ranks. Subsequently the maréchal dramatically demanded that he be granted a leave of absence, claiming that the elector had deliberately frustrated his design to march on Vienna. Louis was profoundly irritated with both commanders and relieved Villars of his commission. He confined Villars indefinitely to the estates of his wife and then stationed him in Languedoc in 1704, where he succeeded in quelling the Camisard rebellion.225 Villars lobbied Maintenon for assistance throughout his career. During his troubles with the Elector of Bavaria he wrote imploring Maintenon to provide “kindness” and “support.”226 And on 13 May 1704 the marshal again sought her assistance in overcoming the “cabals” at court, “daring to take complete confidence in the honour of your protection.”227 Maintenon, through their correspondence, took pains to comfort Villars during his temporary disgrace.228 She negotiated a rapprochement between him and the minister for the R.P.R., La Vrillière, in 1704,229 and in response to the maréchal’s relentless supplications,230 pestered Louis to return Villars to the front line. The maréchal received a letter to that effect on 29 December 1704, and ten days later attended a meeting

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with Chamillart, in Maintenon’s apartments at Versailles, in which the king rewarded his successes in the Cévennes with a cordon bleu, the ducal title he had asked Maintenon and Chamillart to procure in March 1703,231 and with the task of reviving France’s military fortunes.232 Villars then wrote to both Chamillart and Maintenon in 1706 urging them to convince Louis not to send him to serve in Italy under the nominal authority of the duc d’Orléans. However, as Vogüé rightly points out, the maréchal’s letter to the marquise on 19 June 1706 was much more detailed, instructive, and emotive, in contrast to the official ministerial correspondence, leaving little doubt as to who was primarily responsible for securing Villars’s posting in the Rhineland.233 Similarly, at the beginning of 1708, in individual communications to Maintenon and Louis, Villars caused the project to seize Neufchâtel to be abandoned after making it abundantly clear that the scheme was ill-conceived and potentially disastrous.234

de f e at at o u d e n a r d e and the mi li tary im b ro g l io of 1708 To accommodate personality clashes and enhance the performance of his forces, Louis reorganized his commanding officers in 1708, with dreadful results. The reshuffle brought about a crisis in the military chain of command, as well as factional chaos that led to the humiliating defeat at Oudenarde and the subsequent capitulation of Lille, Ghent, and Bruges. In these tense and uncertain times, Maintenon’s influence proved formative, both in recommending to Louis the advice she elicited and in attempting to defuse tensions and rivalries. Marshal Vendôme and the Duke of Burgundy had been given joint command of the main body of the French army that assembled in Flanders in May, and they were clashing from the outset of the campaign. Vendôme wanted to besiege Huy in May. The king initially agreed with Burgundy that it was too risky, but changed his mind and assented to the marshal’s plan. As long as Burgundy deferred to Vendôme’s experience and ingenuity, the two worked productively in tandem, and they successfully implemented the latter’s strategy to win back Ghent and Bruges, which were retaken in the first week in July. However, after Eugene’s forces were joined on the Dendre at Lessines by those of Marlborough on 10 July, disagreement reigned as to whether the allied enemy should be attacked, with Burgundy against and Vendôme in favour, mindful that the Duke of Berwick’s army was on its way from the Rhine as ordered by the king.

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The delay was costly because they were soon forced into action at Oudenarde on 11 July, where Burgundy’s ineffectiveness on the left flank obliged Vendôme, on the right, to bear the brunt of the enemy attack. As many as 15,000 men were lost in the battle, including nearly 800 officers, with 4,000 to 5,000 soldiers killed or wounded and 7,000 to 9,000 taken prisoner. Not only was this costly in terms of men and morale, but it also opened up a strategic gateway for the allies and undermined the reputation of the heir to the throne.235 Louis XIV’s letters to the Duke of Burgundy leave the impression that he blamed both commanders for the result.236 Burgundy’s only incisive decision had been to order a retreat, “the confusion … of [which] was great,” as the disappointed king admitted to his grandson on 16 July,237 and this had been executed contrary to Vendôme’s desire to renew hostilities the following day. Louis, however, was notoriously reluctant to take risks and two days later told Burgundy to “urge the Duke of Vendôme to act with more precaution.”238 Unsurprisingly, the king gave his grandson the benefit of the doubt, but public opinion was less generous,239 and Burgundy was accused of cowardice in popular verse: By your fear and ignorance France is reduced to despair: You belie the blood of our kings So renowned for their valour.240 Burgundy was also mocked in rhyme: They hazard neither limb nor life, Nor yet their honour in the strife, One plays at shuttlecock all day, The other commands from his chaise-percée.241 Yet Louis was also at fault. His grandson had only been put nominally in charge of the French army in Flanders in pursuit of dynastic gloire, but the king was aware of the gravity of the circumstances and Burgundy’s inexperience. Louis had therefore counselled his grandson to follow the guidance of Marshal Vendôme,242 who himself was placed in an awkward position. Formally he was obligated to defer to a Prince of France, but on 20 May Louis XIV had written effectively asking the marshal to mentor Burgundy and expressing his hope that the young duc would profit from the older officer’s expert advice. The king also reminded Vendôme that resources were running short and that in the long run it would not

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be possible to sustain the army’s expenses, for revenues had dwindling for some time.243 Maintenon alluded to the same problem when observing in a missive to the princesse des Ursins on 15 August that “it is now fifteen years since it was said that we had no more [money], and yet what immense sums have not been expended?”244 The two commanders were therefore under immense pressure and constantly at odds. Ironically, this obliged Burgundy to solicit further instructions from Versailles, which he was anxious to obey in order to please the king and – for that matter – to escape responsibility for outcomes that might injure the state. Thierry Sarmant has contended that Burgundy was “paralyzed” by his inability to “hold sway” over generals like Puységur, Lamotte, Biron, Matignon, and Hautefort.245 This shortcoming perpetuated problems in the chain of command, which again were compounded by the king. Louis XIV’s experience of fighting in Flanders, and his anxieties about the campaign and his grandsons (as the duc de Berry was also present), meant that his letters became more prolix and complex as hostilities continued. They also demonstrate just how high Louis XIV’s expectations could be. For example, Burgundy received a message from the king on 11 July decreeing that an engagement should be avoided and “great prudence” employed to avoid compromising the success achieved at Ghent and Bruges.246 Louis’s endless stream of detailed dispatches throughout the campaign, which were filled with numerous recommendations in an attempt to cover all contingencies, have been described by one historian as “remarkable … for a man of seventy.”247 This may be so, but they also underscore how indecisive the king could be, and this ultimately undermined the confidence of his generals in the field and compounded the problematical nature of the “cabinet strategy,” which delayed decisions. Louis was clearly attempting to coordinate operations as effectively as possible,248 but with adverse results. As Maintenon later complained to Ursins on 23 September: “it is hardly possible to give proper orders at such a distance and [when] they who are on the spot are divided in their opinions.”249 To bypass the usual channels of communication, and explicitly describe the difficulties he was encountering, Burgundy intensified his correspondence with Maintenon. On 13 July the prince wrote describing his version of events at Oudenarde, which was unequivocal as to who was primarily responsible:250 “The King is greatly deceived if he maintains a high opinion of him [Vendôme] … Adjudge, Madame, whether the interests of the state are in good hands.”251 To regain Louis’s respect, and to extract a vote of confidence to bolster his authority, Burgundy defensively explained that he had been told by the king to abide by Marshal Vendôme’s decisions,

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even when he had disagreed that the army should be withdrawn after Oudenarde to prevent further losses the following day. Consequently his only recourse on that occasion had been to remonstrate. If the king wanted him to make decisions in such circumstances, in consultation with marshals and other wise and skilful front-line officers, then he would endeavour to do just that “for the good of his service,” but “as rarely as it would seem possible.” Again this reveals the extent to which many commanders were unwilling to contest the cabinet strategy.252 On 21 July, Burgundy more impartially conceded to Maintenon that Vendôme’s errors did not excuse his own failings, while at the same time pointing out that the army’s confidence in the marshal was low.253 This was slightly disingenuous, given that Vendôme subsequently wrote to the king levelling much the same accusation about the soldiers’ opinion of the young prince; but he also blamed a caucus of pessimistic and disloyal senior officers for “throwing doubts into the mind of the Duke of Burgundy.”254 The maréchal was also defending his own record in the knowledge that he had as many enemies as allies at court, where Burgundy enjoyed support from Louis and Maintenon. The duc’s letter of the 24th implies that the marquise had indeed been working efficaciously behind the scenes in response to his earlier request, for he began by expressing his thanks for having obtained from the king “the decisive voice,” which would assuredly benefit Louis’s service and which was more requisite than ever.255 A letter from Maintenon to the princesse des Ursins on 23 July 1708 highlights the extent to which the marquise, like many courtiers, was still attempting to appraise the significance of Oudenarde and objectively identify who was responsible: The Duke of Burgundy was well advised, but had orders to give way to M. de Vendôme as being more experienced … Men are not perfect; there never was a better disposed man than M. de Vendôme, nor more attached to the royal family and the state; they say that he has been more exposed to the fire of the enemy than all the rest of the army, but he is overconfident, insolent, obstinate, and always despising the enemy. Prince Eugene is not an enemy to be despised; he knows M. de Vendôme, and how to profit by his faults. Marshal de Berwick arrived just in time to cover our strongholds, and collect our scattered troops; in these operations he does all that could be expected of him. The public here are not less infuriated with M. de Vendôme as they were against Marshal Villeroi, they go to extremes in everything.256

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In the same missive Maintenon observed that ongoing discord in the military high command in Flanders, and “harmful discourse” at Versailles, had split both the army and the court into Burgundian and Vendômiste camps. She rightly predicted that such toxic factionalism would further weaken a deteriorating campaign as the summer progressed. It did in fact crystallize the cabale de Meudon,257 which in championing Vendôme laid the blame for the defeat and France’s military failings squarely on Chamillart’s sagging shoulders. The marquise had perceptively warned that it could also lead to further misfortunes that might not be remediable,258 as highlighted in the subsequent missive written just one week later to Ursins, in which she continued to conjecture about the result of the battle, while accurately forecasting the enemy’s seemingly unstoppable designs: It does not appear to me that the Duke of Savoy has an eye to Provence; it is Dauphiné that he threatens, and the French already fancy him at Lyons; this is a city of such great commercial importance, that such an apprehension will greatly injure our credit … There has been much uncertainty concerning the battle in Flanders; it was first said to be of little consequence, and five or six days after we were informed that it became much more important. It is at last ascertained that the enemy’s loss has been as great as our own. It is openly asserted in the enemy’s army that they are going to besiege Lille: on receiving the news Marshal Boufflers offered his services to defend this place, which the King accepted and he set out immediately … The [enemy] make frequent incursions into Artois, and wish to levy contributions on all the country. Marshal Berwick finds himself embarrassed between the necessity of protecting the peasantry, and his eagerness to intercept the convoy conducted by Prince Eugene.259 A fateful invasion now seemed possible, and this further heightened tensions at court. It also amplified public criticism, from which no one was immune, and which started to impact both policy-making and the people thought responsible for it. Thus Maintenon ruefully reflected in the same communication that the alteration which the battle in Flanders has caused in our affairs, the embarrassing situation in which the Princes find themselves, and the apprehensions for Dauphiné, have affected the health of M. de Chamillart, and increased the outcry of the courtiers against him. I agree with you that they are very despicable and odious; it is indeed

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a real misfortune to those who cannot get rid of their importunities! They often address themselves to me, as less important and mysterious than the ministers, for the purpose of imparting their afflictions: perhaps this may arise from their zeal, but it throws me into a state of the utmost irritation and impatience.260 Maintenon consequently stepped up her efforts on behalf of the Duke of Burgundy as well as her defence of the Crown’s tactics, although she also started subtly to record that she was increasingly frustrated by the cabinet strategy. On 12 August she wrote to Ursins that the King continues to act with the greatest prudence. The presence of our Princes is desired in the armies; he sends those of the most august character: he would be blamed if he left everything to their decision because they are yet so young. They are assisted by councils, on whose advice the King relies, and it these councils that ruin our affairs. If the Duke of Orléans had been believed at Turin, we should not have lost Italy; and if the Duke of Burgundy’s advice had been followed at Oudenarde, we should not have lost a battle of which the consequences are so disastrous.261 Burgundy’s letters show that, like the duc du Maine before him, he received Maintenon’s protection and “the good offices that you are able to render me next to the King,”262 which now included reciprocally relaying instructions, ideas, and highly confidential intelligence to which she was privy. On 1 August Burgundy expressed that he was pleased his grandfather was satisfied with his conduct and that he had gained confidence from learning as much.263 Six days later he thanked the marquise for her letter of the 4th that had divulged the contents of her conversation with the maréchal de Catinat, whose esteemed advice would prevent him from again dissatisfying the king and falling deeper into public disfavour.264 The prince added a further critique of Vendôme’s arrogance, and the pessimism he claimed it inspired, before expanding on the dangers of besieging Oudenarde and how “the misunderstanding between M. de Vendôme and myself will be pernicious,”265 although rumours of it were already circulating throughout the court and in Paris. Burgundy concluded that several sensible people had agreed with him that chancing a second encounter following Oudenarde might severely jeopardize the army’s operational ability had they again been defeated; he was therefore “anxious to make these things known to the King; and I thought I ought to tell you, Madame,

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in order that you might use this information when you are with King at the moment you deem appropriate.”266 Significantly, Burgundy also pointed out, in agreeing with Maintenon, that it had been vital to obtain the king’s “decisive voice,” because the decision-making of the conseil de guerre, where “one finds thirty different opinions,”267 was too protracted and initiatives were consequently being lost and opportunities squandered.268 Voltaire was later to level the same allegation, which more recent studies have substantiated: The generals he employed were often embarrassed by precise orders, like ambassadors who were not allowed to deviate from their instructions. In the private apartments of Mme de Maintenon he directed the plan of campaign with Chamillart. If a general wished to undertake some great enterprise he often had to dispatch a courier to the King asking for permission; on his return the courier would find the opportunity missed or the general defeated.269 Other advisers, like Chamlay, were also implicated.270 Chamlay was implicitly trusted by Louis XIV, and the military memoirs he regularly sent to the front were intricately detailed271 and cannot have done much to unify the officers or clarify policy when consulted alongside the king’s own elaborate directives. Burgundy had proposed and now reiterated that if, at critical moments, actions could be undertaken after consulting officers and experts in the field, rather than counsellors at court, the army’s performance should improve.272 The prince added that he was pleased that Catinat was not worried about the security of Dauphiné because his specialist knowledge made him more capable of evaluating the situation than anyone else.273 The counsel Maintenon subsequently imparted to Burgundy was extremely welcome, as revealed in the prince’s reply of 13 August, in which he thanked the marquise for her frankness and assured her he would follow the advice always to find the occasion to consult good officers.274 Villars had written to Maintenon from Dauphiné on 12 August to emphasize that Chamillart was underestimating the threat posed by Savoy.275 Fears at the French court were realized when Eugene invested Lille on the 14th with 35,000 men protected by Marlborough’s larger force of 75,000. Maintenon was tangibly unnerved by the looming decisive encounter, confiding to Ursins on 9 September that “I have not had a moment’s repose since Lille has been invested.”276 The marquise again turned to her confessor, Godet des Marais, who assured her that she had reacted correctly and motivated her to continue to act constructively on

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behalf of the king and the Duke of Burgundy; but he also reminded her that though she should take part in discussions, it was not her responsibility to make decisions, for “the Holy Spirit says in the proverbs that, the wise man is courageous [and] the skilful man is strong and valorous, because he conducts war with prudence and finds salvation where there is abundant counsel. You see, Madame, the Holy Spirit prefers wisdom and counsel over force; in our darkness this is the advice we must be sure to give.”277 After stressing to Ursins on 19 August that “we must not deceive ourselves, we lost the action of 11 July,”278 Maintenon diligently asked Villars for a solution to the army’s predicament.279 On 23 August the maréchal replied that he had previously presented one to the king during an informal conversation while walking with him in the gardens at Versailles. Significantly, these excursions may well have also provided Louis and Maintenon with regular opportunities to talk unreservedly about personal matters, court affairs, and state business. Villars then repeated to the marquise that, although the recapture of Oudenarde was the ideal strategy to pursue, it was also dangerous, and consequently “it is necessary to give battle to save Lille. The glory of arms and of the nation compels us to do this more than anything. And this is one the great maxims of M. de Turenne: ‘It is necessary to save the important places, since if you don’t fight for the first then you will have to fight, in spite of them, for the places of secondary importance.’”280 Villars’s solution was to suggest that if a “great action” was to be undertaken, then he should lead the forces deployed.281 The former piece of advice did not prevail in this instance, but the latter was adopted in 1709, when Villars was put in charge of the army in Flanders on 15 March after Vendôme’s temporary disgrace.282 Throughout August 1708, Boufflers kept up his valiant defence of Lille. Burgundy communicated to Maintenon on 21 August that the cooperation between himself and Vendôme, which she considered vital,283 had been established,284 adding that although it was desirous to relieve Lille, it was also likely that an engagement would be lost, but that they would await new orders from the king after he had reflected on their intelligence.285 On the 22nd, Louis drew the same conclusions, discouraging Burgundy from chancing a major encounter, which was becoming more probable as the siege advanced,286 with Eugène opening trenches on the same day.287 Reinforcements led by the maréchal de Berwick arrived on 29 August, so that the French army now numbered around 110,000 soldiers, but this caused disruption because Berwick refused to serve under the duc de Vendôme.288 This was a critical development, for in another

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lengthy letter to his grandson on 26 August the French king had stressed that all further decisions must be taken in concert with Berwick, who now should not unite with the main French army, as he and Chamlay had previously insisted, but rather assemble as many troops as possible at Valenciennes to facilitate Burgundy’s retreat to Mons. This would also provide some relief for Boufflers, because the loss of Lille would be “irreparable.”289 Louis insisted that this could be avoided if Burgundy followed his intricate instructions, concluding rather unrealistically that “if you conduct yourself with precaution you’ll be able to preserve Lille and Ghent at the same time.”290 Such turmoil intensified Maintenon’s bewilderment, which brought forth insightful guidance from Godet on 21 August: You suffer on all sides from the uncertainty of opinions, the eminent peril we are facing, the placement of princes we have hazarded to the fate of arms, the extremities that confront us whichever way we turn, the dreadful fear of adopting the wrong approach … I am sure you would not spare yourself if you could inspire counsels of wisdom and confound presumption and the persistence of bad policies. I believe for you to do so, it is necessary in your obscurity to await enlightenment, ask for it, consult the wise and skillful people in war and inspire the King to do the same. It is to tempt God to neglect the advice of elders and sages in order to give way to young ministers without knowledge and experience of military matters; and unable to take effective care of them because of their indolence and other objects with which they are perhaps more occupied.291 Paradoxically, weeks of prevarication ultimately proved the right course of inaction, for as it turned out, the allies were also unsure how to proceed after Oudenarde.292 Marlborough’s proposal for a lightning attack on Paris had been rejected outright by the Dutch Estates-General, so he was extremely anxious in August to force the French into fighting one final decisive battle, wary of the precarious political situation in England and keenly aware that the siege of Lille would be an exhaustively elongated affair, as it subsequently proved to be. Marlborough had confided to his wife Sarah his hope that the defeat at Oudenarde would compel France to sue for peace, and had intimated this in conversation during a dinner he gave to Marshal Biron after Oudenarde, when he also inquired after the health of the chevalier de Saint-George, James Stuart,293 who was campaigning under Burgundy and Vendôme in Flanders after his botched invasion of Scotland. Throughout the

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campaign Marlborough had been conducting a private correspondence with his nephew, Berwick, and in the expectation that no conclusive battle would take place, after twice failing to engage the French army, he secretly contacted foreign minister Torcy via Berwick in late August about instigating possible peace negotiations.294 Chamillart, Vendôme, and Burgundy were all skeptical of Churchill’s motives, and Torcy categorically replied that any initiative would have to come from the Dutch Estates-General.295 Louis interpreted this as an opportunity to exploit a potential allied weakness and consequently ordered Berwick’s army to join Burgundy’s to attack the enemy. After reconnoitring the enemy’s position on 5 September, the three commanders remained at variance on the best course of action, and this effectively hamstrung French operations. Vendôme was eager to fight, but Burgundy was more reluctant, explaining to his grandfather on the 6th that more difficulties would be encountered than the marshal envisaged and that interrupting supplies from Brussels might prove more effective, given that the siege was proceeding slowly because the allies were short of powder.296 Berwick concurred and on the same day informed Chamillart that although it would be sad to lose Lille, worse still would be to lose an army that could stop the enemy from invading after their siege had succeeded. Berwick emphasized that if there was a chance of success then he would gladly give battle, but added, “I confess to you that I can see that nothing good will come of it.” The marshal then noted that Burgundy was still awaiting the king’s instructions, and if he judged that an engagement should be risked, then “there was no time to lose to take a resolution on which the fate of the rest of the campaign depends.”297 Most of the officers supported Burgundy and Berwick,298 causing the king angrily to reiterate his order to attack on the 7th and to enforce his wishes dispatched Chamillart, who arrived at Mons on the 9th.299 Ironically, as historians have revealed, Louis XIV’s commands were so precise and complicated that they were impossible to execute.300 Burgundy had therefore made the right objections, but crucially lacked the experience and confidence forcefully to outline the reasons for his hesitation and thus persuade the king,301 which is why he penned a long letter to Maintenon, also on 6 September, arguing that an aggressive strategy could prove perilous. He clearly felt that he had to defend himself against what observers construed as his cowardly conservatism.302 The communication concluded thus: “You see, Madame, with what confidence I speak to you; and it is always with the same truth that I have told you my thoughts until now, particularly on matters that I believed were of service to the King.”303

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The numerous councils and conferences, the expectation of an important offensive, and the disarray that engulfed the campaign caused general alarm at court,304 as encapsulated by Maintenon in a letter to Ursins from Saint-Cyr on 9 September 1708: Since we have learnt that they [Burgundy, Berwick and Vendôme] are near Lille, we have been in the greatest suspense … I see nothing but weeping, trembling, moaning, while all those about me are still more uneasy than myself; the King alone is firm in wishing to hazard everything for the relief of Lille, and the honour of our nation. The duke of Burgundy is not of this opinion, because all the officers are against it, and Marshal de Berwick is at their head. M. de Vendôme alone wishes to attack and force the entrenchments: the others maintain that the King’s army would be destroyed, and have but little confidence in M. de Vendôme since the unfortunate affair at Oudenarde. These different opinions place everything in a very dangerous position, which has obliged the King to send M. Chamillart, to see if he at least can rally them on the day of battle. We are at present in this cruel expectation; as for me, Madame, you may easily conceive that I see Lille taken and the battle lost; these disputes and indecisions give the enemy time to fortify himself still more strongly, and thus our difficulties daily increase.305 A day later the marquise expressed the same fears in a desperate message to the duc de Noailles, confiding that “the King wishes to risk everything to save Lille, and if he consequently finds that the enemy is too advantageously entrenched then I believe this will prove to be insurmountable.” Hence they needed a “miracle” to save Lille, or “lose everything,” despite “Marshal Boufflers doing everything that is possible.” She also revealingly emphasized to Noailles that “you know the crosses I bear and how they are imperceptible to others; but that isn’t important: what is important is to endure them.”306 Apart from her friends, Maintenon continually garnered solace and support from her confessor, who wrote more frequently than usual throughout this episode. Godet was keenly aware of the taxing nature of her position and back in July had dispatched two long missives that sensed “the magnitude of your suffering,” reassuring her that I fully understand the extent to which, Madame, that all the public afflictions fall doubly on you because of the heart that God has given you and the state he has placed you in; and I would be greatly more aggrieved than I am, Madame, if faith had not made me apprehend that

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it is God who determines the events of this life, and will turn everything to his glory and to the profit of those who love him as you do.307 With a fateful encounter still seemingly imminent, Maintenon wrote to Villars on 12 September, summarizing the current imbroglio and recommendations to resolve it that she believed Burgundy was sensibly warning against, and lamenting how “the diversity of sentiments spoils everything and the plurality of generals is not good … It will now take a miracle to save Lille.”308 Boufflers himself had composed a detailed communication to Chamillart on 14 September warning that “there will be insuperable difficulties in trying to save Lille by a battle.”309 Marlborough had reasoned to Sarah on 10 September that his forces were now so unassailably entrenched that the French would be “mad to venture it [an attack].”310 The marquise was acutely affected by the strain these events imposed on the king, and this in turn made it even more necessary for her to continue collating intelligence to expedite the decision-making process. She also recognized the need sometimes to shield Louis from inauspicious rumours and hostile criticisms that could exacerbate his depressive tendencies and irresolution. As the sovereign’s personal conduit she was also expected to make representations on behalf of petitioners and relay information that was often disagreeable. Maintenon was invariably the first person to absorb the bad news that Louis had received from other sources. Understandably she found this stressful and was eager to relinquish responsibilities that she had not sought, conceding to Glapion that “I am not great, I am only elevated.”311 Paradoxically, this also heightened her anxieties about the extent to which she should influence the king. She articulated her fear to Glapion that becoming more embroiled in ministerial politics was compelling her unwillingly to become increasingly cynical and thus uncertain: I have always on my mind Spain nearly lost to us, peace receding farther than ever, miseries that I hear of on all sides, thousands of persons suffering before my eyes and I am not able to relieve them; and next to this piety, all the excesses which reign at present, this drunkenness, this gluttony, this excessive luxury; and worst of all the visible danger to religion. I do not know whether it is necessary to direct the King to push things to a certain point or if it is necessary to moderate them, because who knows whether or not a course of conduct too severe will embitter sentiments, excite a revolt, cause a schism?312

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Maintenon consequently relied on and drew strength from the counsel of a small circle of loyal friends and trusted advisers, as well as her faith in God. Such support enabled her to continue to fulfill her obligations and she therefore passed on a military memoir from the king to Burgundy that gave instructions on how Lille might be relieved and that demanded to know why no similar measures had been ventured. With the war minister in his company, Burgundy seemingly preferred to address responses defending his decisions to Maintenon rather than to the king. Accordingly, on 15 September 1708 the prince thanked the marquise for the memoir, in which “there are certainly many good things and which I will be able and must profit from.”313 Burgundy’s letter concluded in an uncompromising fashion that was evidently designed to sway the recipients in stating that “I commit myself absolutely to everything that M. Chamillart will tell the King on his return, and I personally will be the first to condemn myself in things deserving of it, and to try and repair them.”314 Then on 17 September, Burgundy wrote to convince Maintenon of his propriety and integrity, using the same sort of phraseology that the marquise often reached for when justifying her misjudgments and easing her own conscience: “It seems to me Madame, thanks to God, that in all I have written and done I have always endeavoured to ensure that everything went well in the service of the state and the King. After that people will judge me as they wish: that embarrasses me but a little, provided that there is nothing in my conscience to reproach me.”315 Ominously, and rather ironically considering his inertia, Burgundy intimated to Maintenon that only divine inspiration could now save Lille; but he added, on a positive note, that Chamillart had again orchestrated a rapprochement between him and Vendôme.316 This was, by now, an irrelevance, because Chamillart had been impressed by the cogency of Berwick’s arguments that repudiated an aggressive strategy. But tensions at court and in the capital were still running high. Maintenon reported to Ursins on 16 September that “Paris is in consternation because our generals do not give battle; the capture of Lille makes them consider the enemy as already amongst us.”317 But she elucidated that all the generals, including Vendôme, now agreed that an attack was impossible because delays had allowed the allies time make their fortifications impregnable. French forces consequently retreated to the environs of Tournai on 17 September,318 and Chamillart hurried back to Versailles, where the policy to withdraw was grudgingly accepted on the evening of the 18th.319 To convince the king of the pertinence of that policy, Burgundy on the same day composed to Maintenon a reply to the articles of the memoir she had previously forwarded. Evidently, his conscience was far from clear.

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The prince outlined an abundance of difficulties, including problems with subsistence, communications, topography, and the enemy’s position, that had thus far delayed an assault on the allied armies.320 The French now took an attritional approach. Mindful of their advantageous possession of Ghent and Bruges, they decided to block all of the Scheldt crossings in an attempt – one that Marlborough had anxiously predicted on the 10th – “to distress us for want of provisions being a great distance from our magazines.”321 This compelled the allies to mount an attack on Lille on the 12th, which failed. Marlborough intimated to Sarah on the 17th that he now feared the siege “would continue so long, and consequently consume so much stores, that we may at last not have the wherewithal to finish, which would be very cruel … I long extremely to have this campaign well ended, for all of the campaigns I have made this has been the most painful.”322 On 21 September the allies therefore launched a major assault and captured several ravelins. After Lamotte’s infantry were cut down on the 28th, enabling a relief convoy to reach the attacking army, an end to the siege was in sight. Maintenon’s subdued letter to the duc de Noailles dated 7 October reflected the air of depression that now enveloped the court.323 Godet supplied consolation and a pragmatic, if historically vague, perspective that Fénelon would have applauded in telling her not to lose heart or courage, and highlighting that God is the master, Madame, he knows better than us what is most advantageous for us; the King has reigned for a long time without Lille; this town is not part of the ancient patrimony of our kings, and God has preserved the kingdom until now … Perhaps, Madame, you want to make our politicians feel that their wisdom is worthless, and that religion saves empires as infidelity destroys them … Our heart is in the hands of God, and proud wisdom, that religion does not enlighten, is the ruin of monarchies … I ask God to deliver to you his invisible support in your adversity.324 Fénelon himself was busy trying to overcome his protégé’s pusillanimity to prepare him for the onslaught of malevolent court and Parisian public opinion he would be confronting on his return from Flanders. He instructed Burgundy in letters during September on the need for the prince be more resolute to overcome popular censure, and on the great effort required to command the respect of the people.325 Over the following weeks he also counselled the prince on how devotion, honour, and courage were vital attributes in times of adversity,326 offered advice

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on the “public row” that was developing over the army’s performance,327 and suggested how the young duc should conduct himself in public and at court on his return.328 Burgundy’s excessive timidity is captured in a letter of 24 September 1708 in which the archbishop of Cambrai admonished the prince, whose scruples had prevented him from temporarily lodging in the girls’ abbey at Saulsoir, compelling him to solicit his mentor’s advice. Fénelon praised his morality but reminded him that this was a “necessity that one must become accustomed to during the encampments of the army.”329 Nevertheless, on 3 October Burgundy protested to Fénelon that the public’s reproaches should be redirected at Vendôme’s shortcomings.330 The duc also continued to appeal directly to Maintenon for support, writing on 23 October to offer “infinite thanks, Madame, for your counsels, beseeching you to continue them, and assuring you that I am well disposed to profit from them in the best way it will be possible.”331 A massive bombardment of Lille’s defences by the allies on 21 October compelled Boufflers to offer terms, which were agreed on the 22nd, allowing him two days to dispatch his sick and wounded men to Douai and move his remaining 4,500 soldiers into the citadel. Louis found the loss of Lille very difficult to bear. Maintenon admitted to Ursins on 28 October that “he possesses the same courage, equanimity and health, but I fear he is inwardly much affected.”332 On 11 November she added that he [the king] is touched to the quick at seeing one of his first conquests in the power of the enemy. He is not the less affected at the disgrace of our army in having done nothing to the relief of this place; it had been positively and repeatedly ordered and he gave his word to Marshal Boufflers, that he should have been succoured … All these circumstances attached to an event so important in itself, affect the King, and I fear the impression the more, from his dissembling it by his fortitude.333 And on the 25th she notified the same correspondent that she had “never seen the King so acutely affected as he has been on this occasion, nor can he reconcile himself to see Lille in the hands of his enemies.”334 Meanwhile, Marlborough had offered an olive branch, contacting Torcy on 30 October, again via his nephew Berwick, regarding the possibility of opening peace talks. Unfortunately Chamillart’s response was so offensive that a baffled Berwick recorded that it was “beyond my penetration.” He copied the war minister’s reply in French, so that his uncle would know it had nothing to do with him!335

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Anticipating the inevitable backlash from the public, Maintenon began mounting her own defence of Burgundy’s performance in her correspondence, beginning on 11 November, when she confided to the princesse des Ursins that chaos at the front persisted even though M. de Chamillart has returned, after having induced the generals to agree on the steps to be taken in the present conjuncture. M de Vendôme and Marshal de Berwick are still opposed to each other; the former wishes to defend the Scheldt, to prevent the enemy from receiving ammunition, while the latter asserts that we undertake too much, that we should cover Picardy and Artois, and prevent the enemy from establishing himself during the winter around Lille. It has been resolved upon to defend all that M. de Vendome wishes to be defended, and to send a large body of cavalry into Artois, to oppose the incursions of Prince Eugene.336 This situation could not continue, and finally, on 18 November, Maintenon reported to the princess, in an unusually critical tone, that the King has just sent Marshal de Berwick into Alsace to the great satisfaction of M. de Vendôme. We hear that they were both equally glad of the separation and that the Duke of Burgundy was not sorry at finding some repose on that account: it is certain that this misunderstanding has been very detrimental to our affairs; it could be wished that a speedier remedy had been applied to it.337 Maintenon’s subsequent long letter to Ursins a week later revealed that the post-mortem at Versailles had begun: What could our Prince do, who has not yet acquired much experience, and who finds himself involved in the situation the most difficult, but follow the advice of the man who enjoys the confidence of the King his father? How can he discriminate and judge of himself, that the counsels he receives are too timid, and that he must give himself up to M de Vendôme, against whom three quarters of the army are enraged? This is the cause of the outcry against our Prince.... the minds of the people are soured, his virtue has excited all the discontented against him; while his declaration about the Jansenists makes all that party his enemy; the hatred against the Jesuits falls upon him, on account of his confessor; the cabal, which M. de Cambrai is said to have at court, brings still more obloquy

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on him. Nothing is now spoken of but Telemachus, in which he has taught the Prince to prefer a pacific King to a conqueror; all this causes the outcry of which you hear; some say that he wished Lille to be captured, in order that we might be forced to make peace; while others are certain that he wanted to restore the place because the King had taken it unjustly; others, again, say that he does not wish for any fighting from the fear of losing human lives. I should never end if I wrote all that us said on this subject.338 However, earlier in the same communication of the 25th Maintenon had also divulged that the Duke of Burgundy had sent a courier to the king asking permission to launch a last-ditch two-pronged attack both on Eugene’s lines and on Marlborough’s troops,339 who had been forced to move toward Brussels because they were being bombarded by the Elector of Bavaria in an attempt to split the Allied armies. Louis immediately agreed to this measure, but little came of it. Boufflers surrendered on 9 December and marched out of Lille’s citadel with his remaining forces a few days later. The king had warned that the loss of Lille would be irredeemable. Even so, Marlborough’s calculations had turned out to be accurate: the allies had lost as many as 12,000 men over the course of the gruelling four-month siege. Maintenon had stated to Ursins on 9 December that “I consider … Ghent and Bruges as taken,”340 and indeed, both towns were captured by January 1709. Boufflers was nonetheless heroically received at Versailles, where in conference with Louis in Maintenon’s apartments on 16 December he was made a peer of France,341 granted the dispensation that his governorship of Flanders, valued at more than 100,000 livres, would revert to his son rather than the Crown, and given the entrées of a first gentleman of the bedchamber.342 Burgundy arrived at court on 11 December and, emboldened by Fénelon’s direction and his wife’s contempt for Vendôme, thoroughly denigrated the marshal while closeted with the king for three hours in Maintenon’s rooms on the 13th.343 Vendôme was consequently asked personally by the king during their meeting for over an hour on the 16th, again in the marquise’s presence, to retire temporarily to his estates at Anet the following day.344 The marshal was soon back at court, but altercations between the Duchess of Burgundy and Vendôme erupted at Marly in February 1709,345 and subsequently at Meudon on 26 April, that resulted in him being provisionally barred from both residences and even for a time from the dauphin’s entourage at Marie-Adélaïde’s

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behest.346 Vendôme’s army commission was accordingly withdrawn on 2 February 1709, and his pay terminated forthwith.347 The date is significant, given that until Villars’s appointment at the head of the Flanders army on 15 March 1709, the campaign lacked two of Louis’s finest generals because personal and factional animosities and vociferous public criticism were undermining wartime policy. Maintenon had fulminated on 23 September about the “unbound freedom of speech” that prevailed at Versailles, where “there is scarcely an individual, including even the young female attendants at court, who do not freely offer their opinion on the progress of the war, or find fault with all that is done.”348 Leading nobles were also prepared to air their views, and Maintenon reported to Ursins on 21 October that the youngest of Louis’s grandsons, the duc de Berry, had publicly upbraided the Duc de Guiche, who had denounced in print the tactics employed to save Lille.349 Maintenon complained that this was harmful because “Guiche makes assertions which, though true in themselves, tend to dishearten the public.”350 Having fought against and suffered at the hands of these prejudicial forces, Marshal Villars fully comprehended the baleful influence that la voix publique could exert, as he expressed in a letter to Maintenon dated 17 June 1709, in which he commended the choice of one of his friends, M. de Voysin, as the new war minister, but warned that he must not “become subjugated by courtiers, it is a dangerous pitfall for anyone who wants to serve his master well.”351 By placing the Duke of Burgundy partly in charge of the army in Flanders in 1708, Louis XIV had committed a serious mistake, and Maintenon’s apparently altruistic and energetic interventions on behalf of the young prince had not greatly improved matters. The king had been blinded by the prospect of dynastic gloire and hoped that his own military experience would make up for the fact that Burgundy had almost none and, as one historian has commented, consistently “seemed timid, scrupulous and hesitant.”352 These traits manifested themselves as a lack of self-confidence and an inability to command. Burgundy’s weaknesses were then aggravated by Louis’s domineering guidance and the excessive reverence in which the young prince evidently held his grandfather. John Lynn has rightly pointed out that “the shuffling of generals leaves the impression that Louis was still searching for the right combination,” but then oddly footnotes that “Louis did have his three best generals up front – Villars, Berwick, and Vendôme.” They were clearly in the wrong place, or were the wrong amalgamation, at the wrong time, for Lynn states on the same page that the Elector of Bavaria, at the beginning of

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that year’s campaign season, had to be sent to fight with Berwick on the Rhine so as not to clash with Burgundy and Villars. The latter, who did not get on with Burgundy at all, had been transferred to Dauphiné to forestall an invasion.353 In other theatres of the war, Philip V lost Sardinia and Minorca to the British, but Spanish forces inland rallied and took Tortosa in June 1708, with troops led by the duc d’Orléans, and then Denia on 6 November, as well as Alicante, which surrendered on the 17th.354 To divert imperial forces, Louis sent 2,000 troops to aid the revolt in Hungary led by the Prince of Transylvania, Ferenc II Rákóczi, but that rebellion was subsequently suppressed in August 1708 when the kuruk army was annihilated by the Austrians at Trenscén.355 More positively, the Elector of Bavaria had secured the Rhine, and Villars had successfully defended Dauphiné and French-held Savoy and had also driven Duke Victor Amadeus’s troops back into Piedmont after victory at Cesana on 10 August.356 Nonetheless, France had been expelled from most of Flanders by the beginning of 1709. Maintenon’s profound disquiet is tangible in a letter she wrote to the duc de Noailles on 4 December357 and in a subsequent confession she made to Ursins on 23 December that was filled with self-recrimination and foreboding: You’re right in saying that we ought to behold the hand of Providence in all this; our King was too glorious; god wishes to humble in order to save him; France had aggrandised herself too much, perhaps unjustly; he wishes to confine her within narrow limits, and which will be, no doubt, more substantial; our nation was insolent and dissolute; it has pleased the Almighty to punish and abase it.358 This contrasts sharply with the optimistic levity that Maintenon had displayed in a missive to the comtesse de Caylus on 25 April 1706 on hearing of Vendôme’s victory over Joseph I’s brother, archduke Charles, at Calcinato in Lombardy on the 19th, when she disclosed that “the battle won in Italy determined me to put on my gown; I will dress in green if we take Barcelona, and pink if the Archduke falls into our hands.”359 But by the end of 1708 the despondency at court was palpable, and it had also infected Maintenon, whose despair perhaps reflected the king’s: “France will not blot out the stain with which she has just covered herself for a long time; nor do I comprehend how we shall be able to continue the war, in our present situation, and still less, how we can make peace; it is to be hoped, that more able people than myself will tell us what ought to be done.”360 In a letter to Ursins on 26 August 1708, the

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marquise had presciently identified two factors that might save France: “it is very true that if God aids us in this same campaign, which now gives us so much uneasiness, it will be very glorious, and that the enemy may become as tired of the war as ourselves.”361 Maintenon was already occupying a focal position at court when Louis placed her at the heart of his government from the earliest stages of the War of the Spanish Succession. From 1700 she was expected to carry out an even broader range of matriarchal functions, monarchical duties, and ministerial tasks. To satisfy these strenuous requirements she sought advice from a small circle of eminent officers, officials, and administrators and stationed her own candidates in important posts, when possible. The marquise often dispatched several detailed letters per day, even when she was unwell, to different correspondents. She also worked extremely hard, becoming an invaluable intermediary, a powerful patroness, and an influential stateswoman. She also proved that she was capable of acting on her own initiative, independently of the king and even without his permission or knowledge. But in spite of her benign aspirations, her exertions sometimes reaped unfavourable results, which rendered her remorseful and craving a retirement that became progressively more elusive as the Crown became immersed in worsening crises.

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1700–1709, Part Two: Queen of the Court and “Mother of the Church” This chapter delves deeper into Maintenon’s personal life at Versailles and the nearby satellite palaces. It explores her working relationship with the king and her role within the royal family and analyzes the exacting nature of her daily life at court, as described by Maintenon herself. It also examines how she dispensed patronage and how supplicants tried to exploit the marquise’s influence. By 1709 a host of emissaries from foreign courts had either established contact with Maintenon or visited her in person. The chapter’s final section appraises her achievements in ecclesiastical affairs, which were substantial, with numerous clients appointed to benefices. However, her involvement became increasingly problematical as the persecution of Jansenists recommenced with renewed rigour in 1705, with a number of her candidates accused of heresy, the most prominent of whom was the archbishop of Paris, Louis-Antoine de Noailles.

t he ro u t in e a n d r it ua l o f a royal vocati on With Maintenon’s assistance, Louis XIV was able to navigate his battered state through a series of formidable storms, but the experience afflicted them both. One of the spiritual advisers to Saint-Cyr, the abbé de Brisacier, in a letter to Maintenon on 9 March 1701, conceded that “it seems by God’s infinite mercy that the court is a real cross for you.” Only during retreats to her “Holy House” at Saint-Cyr was she able to rest, worship, and live like “Sainte Françoise.”1 Her own confessor, Godet des Marais, expressed similar sentiments in more detail on 6 March 1708, astutely assessing her inhibitive situation: You want to serve the Church and the State, and you find obstacles that seem invincible; you love someone that you must love; it has

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become most the harshest cross that you bear and your sentiments are completely different; you are in a time of life and state of health where rest agrees with you, and you constantly have to act; you are infirm and often ill, yet you have to do things that a twenty-year-old would be expected to do; you occupy the position of a queen, yet you have the liberty of a petite-bourgeoise; I confess to you, Madame, you provide me with clear proof of the singular providence that God bestows on his servants, and on the righteous in the most difficult states in the Christian life where he places them … which must give you new courage to carry out the good works of your state.2 At the same time, Godet appreciated the complexities of her métier, stating in the same letter what he believed it was her public duty to try and accomplish: The King is a public person to whom you are able to tell public things he does not know, ultimately to enable him to be in a position to anticipate those he has to govern; focus always on giving him something certain that is certain, and something doubtful that is doubtful, and at the same time you are able to tell him secret things with a degree of certitude or incertitude when the good of the public demands it, as this will prevent a man guilty or wicked, or incapable of bearing an office that once acquired would give him the means to carry out wrongdoings to the prejudice of the service of the King, of the State, or of the Church.3 It was an unenviable task, but Maintenon was increasingly obliged to advise Louis and play counsellor to him when requested. Naturally this role sometimes demanded that she employ a degree of artifice, as Godet suggested, and she was often forced to delay the delivery of information, or filter its contents, so as not to dishearten or disturb the mind of the king. This could be spiritually rewarding, as Godet implied, but it made Maintenon’s obligations no less taxing and perhaps explains why a sense of weariness, bitterness, and disillusionment can sometimes be detected in her correspondence with clients and associates after 1700, in contrast to the more buoyant nature of communications exchanged simultaneously with intimate friends, like Mmes de Caylus, Dangeau and, Ventadour.4 Marcel Langlois wrongly referred incessantly to Maintenon’s failed regal ambitions to buttress his minimalist interpretation of her career at court,5 while more impartially conceding that “she knew about the affairs of state

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more than any queen.”6 John Wolf stated – incorrectly – that Maintenon was not politically powerful. As proof of this, he cited her inability to be recognized officially as queen, but with the proviso that she was a “useful team member.”7 Yet Maintenon understood that an open elevation would antagonize public opinion and that a separate court and theatre of ritual would have distanced her from the king and placed her closer to those enemies who abhorred her perceived arrivisme. She nevertheless complied so dutifully with all of Louis’s demands that her chambers were besieged by courtiers in the closing years of his reign. Maintenon therefore became the Queen of Versailles in every sense. In November 1704 Godet explained that her suite of apartments was meant to serve as a place of refuge for the king and as a sort of domestic chapel for the court’s elites. He urged her that you need to try and enjoy yourself; alleviate the sadness of the King with a saintly gladness; so that he appreciates how much sweeter it is to love and to serve God, instead of favouring the pleasures of the world, that are hard to renounce and the enjoyment of which are ultimately unfulfilling. You are his sanctuary, remember this; your chamber is a domestic church where God resides to support and sanctify the King without him perceiving it; the guardian angels of the kingdom combined with your own and the angels of God are there together to support and sanctify you. Tolerate his weaknesses; he will be inclined to love the one who gives such support, inspired by so great an act of charity … You are in the exact state where God wants you; be in peace, and do not concern yourself about the future.8 After the flurry of conferences conducted in the marquise’s bedchamber during December 1708, Saint-Simon described the “mechanics of Mme de Maintenon and of her apartment.” He recounted the guarded privacy of her quarters and the way in which she was embedded in the heart of the court and in affairs of state: The apartment of Mme de Maintenon was on the same floor and directly opposite the King’s guard-room. The antechamber was really a long passage leading into another antechamber of the same form. Between the door which led into Mme de Maintenon’s room from this second ante-chamber and the chimney stood the King’s arm-chair, its back against the wall, with a table before it, at the side of which was a folding stool for whichever minister was working with him. On the other side of the chimney was a niche, draped

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in red damask, and an arm-chair in which sat Mme de Maintenon with a table before her. Farther on, was her bed in a recess. Opposite to the foot of the bed were five steps up, and a door leading into a very large cabinet, which opened into the first antechamber of the Duke of Burgundy’s apartments … Every evening the Duchess of Burgundy played cards in this large cabinet. With such of her ladies as had the entrée (who were but few), and from there she could enter as often as she liked the chamber of Mme de Maintenon, where the latter always sat with the King, the fireplace between them. Monseigneur, after the comedy, usually came up to the large cabinet, which Mme de Maintenon seldom entered, and the King never. Before the King’s supper Mme de Maintenon’s servants brought in her soup and place setting and something else besides. She ate the supper, her women and one footman serving her, the King being always present, and nearly always working with a minister. When the supper was over, and it was short, the table was carried away; Mme de Maintenon’s women remained and immediately undressed her and put her to bed. When the King was informed that his supper was ready, he went to say a word to Mme de Maintenon.9 Maintenon was assiduous in applying herself to a role that rendered her court function all the more arduous. She was obliged, after 1700, to shoulder more responsibilities than before, as betrayed in her “confidential entretien” with her favourite Saint-Cyr novice, Mme de Glapion, on 4 April 1705.10 That account provides a unique insight into her life at court by describing what her typical day entailed and the extraordinarily fabricated ritual she endured. The entretien exposes the private personalities of Louis and his consort, who had become the focus of courtiers’ attentions. In it, the marquise honestly describes her attitude toward the exalted position to which she had been elevated and unveils her genuine concern for the king’s affairs and her compulsive desire to be of service and foster harmony, which often induced physical and nervous exhaustion. Only at Saint-Cyr was she able to “breathe freely,” for “when people … begin to enter my room I am not my own mistress; I have not an instant to myself”; “after the King’s dinner is over, he comes with all the princesses and the royal family into my room; and they cause it to be intolerably hot.”11 But she conceded that it was God’s will to keep her at court because it was a place she “hated,” in contrast to Mme de Montespan, who was ejected from Versailles because she “dearly loved” it:

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All this makes me think sometimes when I reflect upon it that my position is so singular it must be God who placed me in it. I behold myself in the midst of them all; this person, this old person of mine, the object of all their attention. It is to me they must address themselves, to me, through whom all passes! God has given me grace never to look at my position on its splendid side. I feel nothing but the pains of it; it seems to me that, thank God! I am not dazzled; He enables me to see it just as it is. I do not allow myself to be blinded by the grandeur and the favour that surround me; I regard myself as an instrument which God is using to do good, and I feel that all the influence He permits me to have should be employed in serving Him, in comforting whom I can, and in uniting these princes with one another, if possible … He wills that I should live in its [the court’s] midst and find my salvation there.12 Maintenon described how her rooms had become a thoroughfare for petitioners, courtiers, and royals, who were anxious to ingratiate themselves and gain the favour of the king and his consort, to communicate potentially with them both, or to present clients and relatives.13 But because the marquise did not occupy an official position at Versailles, the etiquette that evolved merely dictated that visitors pay their court in order of rank. There was no procedure in place to seclude and protect Maintenon. Only the king’s arrival and his demand for privacy could curtail what often became an interminable procession: “It is true,” said Madame, “as I have told you on many occasions, that the only time when I can take my prayers and attend mass is when other people are asleep; without that, I could not go on; because as soon as they enter my chambers … I cannot count on being mistress of my own time; I do not have a moment left.” I replied, as to that, that I always imagine her room to be like the shop of a great merchant which, once opened, is never empty and where the shop-man must remain. “That is just how it is,” said Madame. “They begin to come in about half-past seven; first it is M. Maréchal [the king’s surgeon]; he has no sooner gone than M. Fagon enters; he is followed by M. Blouin [the king’s head valet] or someone else sent to inquire how I am. Sometimes I have extremely pressing letters to write, which I must get in here. Next come persons of greater consequence: one day, M. Chamillart; another, the archbishop; to-day, a general of the army on the point of departure; to-morrow, an audience that I must give, having been demanded under such

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circumstances that I cannot defer it. M. le Duc du Maine waited the other day in my antechamber till M. Chamillart had finished. When M. Chamillart went out M. du Maine came in and kept me till the King arrived; for there is a little etiquette in this, that no one leaves me till some one of higher rank enters and sends them away. When the King comes, they all have to go. The King stays till he goes to mass. I do not know if you have observed that all this time I am not yet dressed; if I were I should not have been able to say my prayers. I still have my night-cap on; but my room by this time is like a church; a perpetual procession is going on, everybody passes through it; the comings and goings are endless.”14 Given these constraints, it is remarkable that she found the time to write so many communications. She complained to Ursins on 10 October 1707 that “the King enters my chamber, forcing me to finish this letter earlier than I had wanted.”15 Then after the king’s departure Maintenon would again be “surrounded” and compelled to listen to individuals, all of whom wished to obtain something from her or from the monarch, to present petitions and memoirs, make formal complaints, discuss domestic afflictions, or spread gossip. Princes and princesses also sought guidance and demanded her attentions, like the Duchess of Burgundy and the dauphin, whom Maintenon confided was the: hardest man in the world to talk with, for he never says a word. But I must try to entertain him because I am in my own apartment; if it were elsewhere I could lean back in a chair and say nothing if I chose … After the King’s dinner is over he comes with all the princesses and the royal family into my room; and they cause it to become intolerably hot. They talk; and the King stays about half an hour; then he goes away, but no one else; the rest remain, and as the King is no longer there they come nearer to me. They all surround me, and I am forced to listen to the jokes of Mme la Maréchale de C***, the satire of this one, the tales of that one. They have nothing to do these good ladies; they have a refreshed complexion because they have done nothing all morning. It is not so with me, who has much else to do than sit there and talk, often carrying in my heart sorrow and distress from bad news … I have everything on my mind; I am thinking that perhaps a thousand men in the world are perishing, whilst many more suffer … After they have all stayed some time they begin to go away, and then what do you suppose happens? One or other of these ladies stays behind, wishing to

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speak to me in private. She takes me by the hand, leads me into my little room, and I am frequently then told the most unpleasant and wearisome things because, as you may well suppose, it is not my affairs that they talk about; it is those of their own family; one has had a quarrel with her husband; another wants to obtain something from the King; an ill turn has been done to this one; a false report has been spread about that one; domestic troubles have embroiled another; and I am forced to listen to all this.16 By the 1690s Maintenon’s chambers at Versailles, and at other palaces, had became the venue for Louis’s daily liasse conferences after dinner with ministers.17 This practice only intensified after 1700, when Maintenon’s candidates began occupying the leading offices of state. Generals, ambassadors, and ecclesiastics convened in her apartments, where policy-making deliberations took place with Louis and royal family members. The king and Chamillart routinely worked in her presence at Versailles and at other satellite courts, and as the extract reveals, she was often asked to proffer an opinion on the subject under discussion. Louis clearly found her contributions welcome and useful, given her contacts and her experience of affairs, both of which were broadening as a result of this process. Maintenon also unveils a hitherto unfamiliar sovereign, one who is extremely apprehensive, insecure, vulnerable, and susceptible to debilitating bouts of depression brought on by the catastrophic defeats inflicted by his enemies abroad and at home in Languedoc in 1704: When the King returns from hunting he comes to me; then my door is closed and no one enters. Here I am, then, alone with him. I must bear his troubles, if he has any, his sadness, his nervous dejection; sometimes he bursts into tears which he cannot control, or else he complains of illness. He has no conversation. Then a minister comes, who often brings fatal news; the King works. If they wish me to be a third in their consultation, they call me; if they do not want me I retire to a little distance, and it is then that I sometimes make my afternoon prayers; I pray to God for about half an hour … I sit there, and hear perhaps that things are going ill; a courier has arrived with bad news; and all that wrings my heart and prevents me from sleeping at night … While the King continues to work I sup; but it is not once in two months that I can do so at my ease. I feel that the King is alone, or I have left him sad, or that M. Chamillart has almost finished with him; sometimes he sends and begs me to make haste.

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Another day he wants to show me something. So that I am always hurried, and the only thing I can do is to eat very fast.18 Maintenon also disclosed that she was aware how intensely people envied her evidently intimate relationship with Louis; they were jealously convinced that “she is the happiest; she is with the King from morning till night? But they do not remember, in saying that, that kings and princes are men like other men; they have their sorrows and troubles which we must share with them.”19 And she felt compelled to do so even when she was exhausted: After this it is, as you may suppose, getting late … I begin to feel what it is that makes old age; I find myself at last so weary that I can no longer carry on. Sometimes the King perceives it and says: “You are very tired, are you not? You ought to go to bed.” So I go to bed; my women come and undress me; but I feel that the King wants to talk to me and is waiting till they go; or some minister still remains and he fears my women will hear what he says. That makes him uneasy, and me too. What can I do? I hurry; I hurry so that I almost faint; and you must know that all my life what I have hated most is to be hurried.20 The stresses and demands on Maintenon were severe, and they did not end, either mentally or physically, even after she had finally retired to bed: Well, at last I am in bed; I send away my women; the King approaches and sits down by my pillow. What can I do then? I am in bed, but I have need of many things; mine is not a glorified body without wants. There is no one there whom I can ask for what I need; not a single woman. It is not because I could not have them, for the King is full of kindness, and if he thought I wanted one woman he would endure ten; but it never comes to his mind that I am constraining myself. As he is master everywhere, and does exactly what he wishes, he cannot imagine that any one should do otherwise; he believes that if I show no wants, I have none. You know that my rule is to take everything on myself and think for others. Great people, as a rule, are not like that; they never constrain themselves, they never think that others are constrained by them, nor do they feel grateful for it, simply because they are so accustomed to see everything done in reference only to themselves that they are no longer struck by it and pay no heed. I have

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sometimes, during my severe colds, been on the point of choking with a cough I was unable to check. M. de Pontchartrain, who saw me one day all crimson with the effort, said to the King: “She cannot bear it; someone must be called.”21 Even taking an element of hyperbole into account it is evident that Maintenon had become as distressed by France’s affairs as the king. They both worried particularly about Spain, where the war was also going badly. Moreover, the unpopularity of Ursins at both courts was proving costly. As Maintenon tellingly admitted to Amelot on 1 December 1709, “Madame la princesse des Ursins pains me, and more than I can say.”22 Maintenon was stoical like Louis and endeavoured to assist him, but her Christian negativism and propensity to worry had a deleterious impact on her husband, who was naturally inclined to melancholy: Moreover, there are a thousand things that our princes never think of which fall upon me. For example, Mme. la Princesse des Ursins is about to return to Spain; I must busy myself with her; I must repair as best I can by my attentions the coldness of the Duchess of Burgundy, the stiffness of the King, the indifference of others. I go to see her; I give her time with me; I listen to a thousand matters I do not care about; and all that merely that she may go away pleased with others, and say good of them, especially of the Duchess of Burgundy. I see they are all too negligent to do this for themselves; I must supply the want; and thus also with a thousand other things. I have always on my mind Spain nearly lost to us, peace receding farther than ever, miseries that I hear of on all sides, thousands of persons suffering before my eyes and I not able to help them.23 Nevertheless, Louis and Maintenon enjoyed a strong marital relationship. It enabled them to cultivate an effective working partnership, which continued to flourish over the course of the War of the Spanish Succession. And the nature of her role in facilitating Franco-Spanish relations was widely recognized by contemporaries, as a Dutch broadsheet of 1706 graphically portrayed. It depicted Maintenon squatting over a globe and urinating on a saw that Louis XIV and his grandson, Philip V, whose crown was falling off, were using to divide and conquer the world.24 The epithet “queen in all but name” has long been popularized but rarely justified. Voltaire noted that “the only public distinction that made her secret elevation apparent, was that at mass she occupied one of those

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little pulpits, or golden canopies that appear to have been reserved for the King and Queen.”25 To make her demanding life at court somewhat easier Maintenon was given a number of servants, but her household remained deliberately modest, which Saint-Simon found almost incomprehensible, commenting that “Maintenon’s domestics were, curiously, very few in number, uncommon, modest, respectful, humble, quiet.”26 Her staff comprised one écuyer, a maître d’hôtel, an officier and an aide d’office, a cook and her assistant and a chef’s assistant, a coachman, a postilion, a groom, three lackeys, two porteurs de la chaise, a maidservant, two or three femmes de chambre, and three valets de chambre.27 At first she had only one valet, but the Duchess of Burgundy frequented the company of the king and Maintenon in the latter’s chambers to the extent that two more were employed, one of whom, Cholet, served as a footman. During an interview in 1710, Louis personally reproached SaintSimon for being “so heated over the question of rank.”28 Nevertheless he ensured that Maintenon’s income was relatively unremarkable, considering her position. It totalled 93,000 livres per year and comprised a personal pension of 48,000 livres; the estates at Maintenon that generated 18,000; two pensions from her former position of second lady-in-waiting to the queen that brought in 15,000; and a further 12,000 livres that the king granted his consort to dispense among her intimates as New Year’s gifts.29 Maintenon also owned a hôtel de ville on the rue des BonsEnfants at Versailles. The aging couple were acutely aware of Maintenon’s unpopularity, so it was important for them not to attract unwarranted public attention. Liselotte graphically illustrated this in a letter to her aunt Electress Sophie on 1 November 1706: “The old Maintenon is dreadfully hated; when, a few months ago during our stay at Meudon, she drove to NotreDame and Saint-Geneviève, the old women of Paris abused her and loudly called her all kinds of filthy names.”30 A range of colourful criticisms were expressed in a steady outpouring of songs and verses that became popular on the streets of Paris and were expanded upon in publications printed abroad. The celebrated Lettres Historiques et Galantes, penned by French Protestant exile Anne-Marguerite Dunoyer and first published in Cologne in two volumes, 1707–8, highlighted the extent to which Louis XIV and the fate of the French state were increasingly directed by Maintenon.31 A torrent of cartoons, playing cards, pamphlets, and engravings produced outside France explored similar themes, with Maintenon typically depicted hounding or misdirecting the King.32 Maintenon’s closeness to Louis XIV endowed her with a prestigious status that greatly enhanced her authority and confidence, so that she

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did gradually become more at ease at the centre of the court, although that environment could also be challenging. She was entertained regally during courtly visits to D’Antin’s château at Petit-Bourg,33 which had originally been purchased by his mother Montespan.34 On 22 January 1708 she informed Ursins that “I have seen at the theatre in my apartment at Versailles a very fine troop composed of Mme the Duchess of Burgundy, the duchesse de Noailles, the maréchale d’Estrées and Mlle de Melun,35 M. the duc d’Orléans, M. the duc de Noailles, the young comte de Noailles and M. the duc de Berry.”36 And on 29 April 1709 she hosted a supper party in her rooms at the Trianon for the Duchess of Burgundy, the maréchal d’Estrées, and mesdames de La Vallière, Gondrin, d’O, and Caylus, after which Pontchartrain worked with the king in her apartment.37 Visits to Fontainebleau were often lengthened to satiate the king’s, and particularly the dauphin’s, passion for hunting. But Maintenon often found these trips vexing, confiding to the duc de Noailles on 22 October 1705 that she was “bored to death here, because I have neither repose, nor occupation, and neither backgammon nor cards can replace what I find at Saint-Cyr. If I had more virtue I would complain less.”38 To alleviate her frustration, Maintenon amused herself with excursions to neighbouring villages, where she would hand out alms to poor families, lecture fascinated groups of peasants on God and morality, and place her educational expertise at the disposal of women’s seminaries.39 To facilitate these charitable projects, particularly in nearby Avon, where “she established a house of charity and schools and loved to question the children and teach them the catechism,” the marquise took a small house in the town of Fontainebleau.40 This gave her some respite from being assailed by courtiers and also ministers, given that council chambers had been constructed at almost all of the satellite palaces, including Marly and the Trianon, with a new one fabricated at Versailles in 1702, all of which enabled state business to be transacted ceaselessly.41 She confided to Mme de Caylus on 4 August 1708 that “I spend two days a week in peace in my [Fontainebleau] townhouse where I also dine when I know that the King and Madame the Duchess of Burgundy are coming there, and I am able to take my evening meal, on other days, chez the duchesse de Noailles, chez Mme D’Heudicourt, or where our cabal finds itself.”42 The marquise’s secretary, Mlle d’Aumale, recounted Maintenon’s enthusiastically exhaustive activities on a typical day of philanthropy in and around Fontainebleau in a letter to the superior at Saint-Cyr, Mme du Pérou, on 15 July 1708:

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Never has Madame filled a day so well as this. She has been from village to village and house-to-house, giving charity everywhere. I must describe to you her day … At seven-thirty she heard Mass, at eightthirty she left to commence her mission. First she went to Avon to the boys’ school, where she talked for nearly an hour, and then for the same time she taught at the girls’ school. When she speaks of God to these peasants one sees on her face a great happiness and desire to make Him known to them. At eleven she left to go to the Loges [a Carmelite convent in the forest] to hear another Mass, and dined there rather poorly. At three she was at Saint-Aubin, a dependent village of Avon, where she gave alms to four or five families; from there to Valoin, where she visited six poor families each more miserable than the other, giving one money to buy corn, to others money to buy bread and clothes for their children and to pay their taxes; at last she gave a quantity of linen to a poor woman … She returned to her house at seven o’clock very tired, but well in health.43 Etiquette at Marly was more flexible, enabling Maintenon to discharge her role as matriarch to the Bourbon family more legitimately, both socially and ceremonially. The climax of the sumptuous fête held at Marly on 7 August 1704 to commemorate the birth of the Duchess of Burgundy’s first son, the duc de Bretagne, took place in Maintenon’s apartments, where the duchesse opened the “magnificent and gallant presents” she had collected from each of the twelve pavilions.44 After Bretagne’s death in 1705 the marquise transferred her affections toward the duchesse’s second son,45 as expressed in an extract from her letter to the princesse des Ursins on 28 August of 1707: “I yesterday met on returning from Versailles, M. the duc de Bretagne on the high road. I entered his carriage, not being able to part from him. He is the most amiable child in the world; he resembles Mme la Duchess of Burgundy; he is as lively as her and is in marvellous health.”46 Access to Maintenon’s person was less rigidly regulated at Marly. She could relax in Louis’s company and sometimes attend dinners surrounded by members of the royal family, although, as Saint-Simon noted in 1707, she invariably deferred her place near the king to women of greater rank and distinction47 and was often absent from formal festivities at all court venues, presumably because of intractable problems with protocol. For example, she was not present at a ball arranged to honour “James III” and his sister and mother, Louisa Maria and Mary of Modena, on 10 January 1711 at Marly, although the Stuart party visited her apartments to pay their respects beforehand.48 Nor did she attend

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the “magnificent supper” held at Versailles for twenty-nine distinguished guests on 6 July 1710 to celebrate the marriage of the king’s third grandson, Charles, duc de Berry, to the daughter of Philippe d’Orléans, Marie Louise Élisabeth (1695–1719).49 However, public perambulations with the king at Marly were more commonplace. Maintenon told the comte d’Ayen on 22 May 1703 that “I have walked twice with the King; and am about to again having tended to M. de Chamillart.”50 Sourches recorded on 23 April 1708 that the king conducted the marquise in a sedan chair to see “the new wonders of his gardens including a canal, where he had recently installed seabirds of different species, plus an aviary at each end full of small singing birds,” after which they returned to Maintenon’s chambers, where he worked with Chancellor Pontchartrain.51 Similarly, on 6 August 1709, the king took the marquise and Mme Voysin to admire the “beauty of his fountains,” before meeting with ministers in the evening in his consort’s apartments.52 Regarding the rites respected during Maintenon’s outings with the king, Mlle d’Aumale recorded in her memoirs that Louis XIV contributed himself to all the honours rendered to her by the consideration, politeness and attention he showed towards her especially in public. If he was walking with his courtiers, as soon as he saw her coming he took off his hat and made to go and meet her. This example of consideration and outward respect, which he never failed to show on any occasion, was effected for everyone, but as much perhaps to please the King out of sheer esteem for her, treating her always with all the respect possible.53 Saint-Simon was dismayed by these displays of deference, complaining that which always astonished were the walks … she took with the King with an excess of complacency in the gardens of Marly. He would have been a hundred times more liberal with the Queen, and with less gallantry. It was done with a most pronounced respect, even though in the middle of the court and in the presence of all the inhabitants located at Marly. Indeed the King deemed it notable, because it was at Marly.54 However, the memoirist added that their “carriages adjoined each other side by side; because she almost never mounted a chariot: the King would

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be alone in his carriage, and she in a sedan chair.” He observed that other royals would follow on foot, or in carriages, but usually at a distance.55 Sometimes the king walked alongside Maintenon’s chaise. He would remove his hat to converse with her through a small gap temporarily opened in the marquise’s window, which she otherwise kept vigilantly closed to exclude the fresh air she mistrusted,56 and to which she was often involuntarily exposed by Louis, as observed by a bemused Saint-Simon: Alighting to consider the new fountain, it was the same routine. Often the Dauphine would come and perch on one of the batons at the front [of Maintenon’s sedan chair] and enter into the conversation; but the window at the front would always remain closed. At the end of the promenade, the King would conduct Mme de Maintenon until they were next to the château, when he would take his leave of her and continue his walk. It was spectacle to which one could never become accustomed.57 At each of the royal residences Louis devoted much of his time to his consort, respectfully adjusting his schedule to their mutual convenience. Mlle d’Aumale documented that at Marly, or at the Trianon, where there weren’t any [formal] councils he went to her apartments in the morning after mass until dinner, and often took a walk with her. At Fontainebleau, he came almost every morning, after mass before entering the council, and every day after dinner, when no councils were held. When we were at Versailles … the King did not visit Mme de Maintenon in the morning, so as not interrupt her day and to give her the liberty to go to Saint-Cyr on the days that she wished.58 Maintenon usually spent only two or three mornings per week at SaintCyr, where she would sometimes hold meetings with marshals, bishops, and ministers.59 In a letter of 11 May 1711 the marquise reminded the archbishop of Rouen to “remember that Wednesdays and Sundays are the days when I most commonly go to Saint-Cyr.”60 Saint-Simon grumbled that Maintenon was treated in an improperly regal fashion during the king’s evening routine visits, and as to the style in which the marquise was conveyed between royal residences and other destinations, the duc lamented that

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it was the same on the voyages. She left early with some favourite like Mme de Montchevreuil, during her lifetime, or Mme d’Heudicourt, Mme de Dangeau, Mme de Caylus. A King’s carriage was taken, always appointed for her, and the same to go to Versailles, etc., to Saint-Cyr, and Des Epinais, écuyer de la petite écurie [Adrien de Bonsens, sieur des Épinais], put her into the carriage and accompanied her on horseback; that was his task every day. In transit the carriage of Mme de Maintenon conveyed her chamber maids and was followed by that of the King. It was arranged in such a way that the King, on arriving would find everything established by the time he reached her chambers.61 Maintenon was keen to clarify her own position. To disabuse the girls at Saint-Cyr of the notion that her own seemingly regal situation was calm and carefree, she composed an instruction ‘On Les jeux d’esprit” in 1705: As for me, whose favour is envied by the whole world, and who passes a part of my days with the King, everyone considers me the most fortunate person in the world, and with good reason considering the all the kindnesses that His Majesty honours me with; and yet there perhaps no-one who is more constrained; when he is in my room, I must often sit apart from him, because he is writing; no-one speaks, unless very low, in order not to disturb him.62 She also invented characters in her educational dialogues, such as Madame Duceaux, who enjoyed independent means but found tranquillity and happiness away from life at Versailles.63 But the marquise was not the only one who found life at court draining, and she ruminated further on this theme in a semi-satirical educational address titled “The trials attached to great circumstances,” which she delivered to the blue class at Saint-Cyr in 1710: You see, my dear girls, how it is with the greatest in the world, for I am speaking now of the princes and princesses, the very first persons of the court, who are the object of the envy for the rest of the world. They are ordinarily not contented anywhere, being bored of everything by dint of seeking pleasure; they go from Palace to palace, to Meudon, to Marly, to Rambouillet, to Fontainebleau, etc., in the hope of amusing themselves; all these are delightful places where you, my children, would be enchanted if you saw them, but they are

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bored there, because they become accustomed to it all, and in the long run the finest things cease to give us pleasure and we become indifferent; besides, such things do not make us happy; our happiness must come from within.64 It was no surprise that Maintenon sought solitude as often as possible as time wore on, given that her rooms were relentlessly assaulted at Versailles and beyond. While supping together in her apartments at Marly, Maintenon and the king were interrupted by Chamillart bearing news of the Bourbon victory at Almanza on 25 April 1707.65 And on 3 June 1708 the marquise recounted to the princesse des Ursins how her chamber at Marly had been invaded by an anguished Mme de Roquelaure,66 who protested that her daughter had been kidnapped by, or rather than had eloped with, the son of the duc de Rohan,67 and who had come to demand justice of the king, and, she hoped, to recruit Maintenon’s renowned influence to secure it.68 By contrast, the Duchess of Burgundy was always welcome in Maintenon’s society. From their regular correspondence and other accounts, it is evident that they enjoyed a singular affinity and relished each other’s company. But Marie-Adélaïde also very deliberately cultivated Maintenon’s favour to further endear herself to Louis. The princess had more access than most to the marquise’s adjoining apartments and sought constant guidance and company in her husband’s absence.69 As Liselotte observed on 7 February 1709, “this lady and the Duchess of Burgundy are but one soul in two bodies.”70 More cynically, the Venetian ambassador had detected in 1698 that the “little Duchess of Burgundy is sly and spiteful. She fawns most abjectly on Mme de Maintenon, and in private calls her ‘Grandmamma.’”71 These observations were not unjustified. For example, the young princess wrote to Maintenon in 1706 suggesting that “our princes go tomorrow to the hunt, their absence favours me with an opportunity to dine with you; if you have arranged some party away from your apartments where I am unable to go then do let me know, so that I don’t die of hunger.”72 Moreover, from Marly, in 1708, the duchesse jestingly reported that she was quietly pleased that Mme de Caylus had departed because the Queen of England (Mary of Modena) had just been announced rather unexpectedly, having not intimated at what time she might arrive: “Adieu, my dear aunt; I must detach myself from you today, but it is not without pain.”73 Unfortunately, the marquise’s efforts to cultivate a partner whose virtuous principles could compliment those upheld by her husband were foiled,74 and the Duke of Burgundy’s desire that Maintenon shield his

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wife from the vices of the court was also disappointed.75 At the same time many of them relished the duplicity of her successful dissimulations because she was the darling of the court and adored by the king and Maintenon. This led Liselotte on 20 September 1708 to fulminate to her aunt that the old woman is more malicious than ever and brings up her pupil, the Duchess of Burgundy, to be just as malicious and false. She [Maintenon] keeps sending [her] … to every high mass wearing big hoods that make her look mournful and pious. And at the evening service she always looks as if she were weeping and fasting, yet at night we have seen her through her windows holding médianoche with her ladies and having a merry old time. She can guzzle down two bottles of pure wine without showing it and is so coquettish that she even runs after her own écuyers. There Your Grace sees how falseness holds sway everywhere. The old woman has humbugged the King into believing that there was never anything like her in piety and virtue, and the good King believes it like the gospel truth.76 Contrary to Liselotte’s claims, Maintenon had long been aware of Burgundy’s hedonistic tendencies, but she had managed to shield this from the king, confiding to Ursins on 19 June 1707 that “the Duchess of Burgundy does all she can to destroy her health; but she will not believe it until it is too late.”77 However, Marie-Adélaïde’s intemperance escalated to the point that it created a minor scandal at Versailles in the summer of 1707, when courtiers professed astonishment at revelations of her wanton revelries with like-minded libertines like Madame la Duchesse, at various venues, including the pavilion adjoining the ménagerie in the park at Versailles, which the king had given to her in 1698, and the château de la Bretèche near Marly. On learning of this Maintenon was horrified and demoralized, readily acknowledging her own culpability, having superintended the duchesse’s upbringing.78 Louis was livid and suspected that he had been duped, so he interrogated Maintenon on 15 July 1707, who attempted to keep the worst from him during an extremely awkward exchange.79 Marie-Adélaïde was mortified, but within a short time had been forgiven by the king and Maintenon, who was subjected to endless tears and declarations of remorse and gratitude.80 The marquise accepted Marie-Adelaïde’s apologies81 but now endeavoured to reform her character irreversibly by accelerating her spiritual and intellectual education. She even settled some of the duchesse’s gaming debts, though expressing reservations to Mme de Dangeau that Louis

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might suspect that his wife was merely encouraging his granddaughter-in-law’s bad habits.82 In fact Marie-Adélaïde was greatly relieved to have recovered Maintenon’s trust and repaid her goodwill by committing herself wholeheartedly to the marquise’s program of correction.83 She became more erudite and devotional,84 and gave birth to her third son Louis, duc d’Anjou, on 15 February 1710. Unlike his brothers, he survived into adulthood and would reign as Louis XV after the deaths of his father, grandfather, great-uncle, and great-grandfather between 1711 and 1715. Maintenon rejoiced in the duchesse’s rehabilitation. She reflected in a letter to Ursins on 15 December 1710 on the extent to which MarieAdélaïde had changed, and relished that in reward the king had granted her the right to govern her entire household and its affairs and dispose of the charges therein. This was a mark of confidence that neither the queen nor the dauphine had ever enjoyed, as Louis XIV intoned.85 The duchesse accordingly embraced her new responsibilities earnestly, though she retained her high-spirited nature, causing Maintenon to confide to Ursins on 11 January 1712 that “it is true, Mme, that Mme la Dauphine greatly regrets her youth; however, there is reason to hope that she won’t completely abandon diversions, because she has inexhaustible reserves of joy, and if we are fortunate enough to have peace, she will be very happy.”86 However, there were other problems to tackle within the House of Bourbon. Fault lines in the royal family became distinct in 1708, but Maintenon had identified them long before that. Increasingly disconcerted, she elaborated to Mme de Glapion in February 1707 that she was under considerable pressure, but considered it her matriarchal duty to try and bring unity and stability to the Bourbon dynasty, and thus also to the court and even the government, in order to thwart a factional struggle that she worried could trigger a civil war: After talking to Mme de Glapion of the progress of Jansenism which was causing much friction between Louis and some of his clergy at the time, Madame, continued, “My heart was sore and my mind filled with all these painful ideas when I returned to Versailles, and in addition on entering my apartment I had the sorrow to be present at a dispute between the King and the Dauphin, which gave me extreme pain. I spend my life trying to unite them and prevent anything which might cause misunderstanding between them, and yet they are ready to quarrel over a trifle. Monseigneur, wanted to give a public ball at which everyone should be admitted. He insisted absolutely on this, and also that the Duchess of Burgundy should be present. The King, with charming gentleness, opposed it, explaining that he did not

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agree because if the Duchess were present then men and women of all ranks should be present also. The Princess, for her part, saw nothing improper in it and was as ready to dance with an actor as with a prince of the blood. I cannot tell you how this little dispute made me suffer and what a night I passed after it. I reproach myself for being too sensitive and yet, on the other hand, it seems to me that I was not at fault and that God wills, by example, that I should tremble, but that I should not lose faith, and that that I should desire piece and union in the royal family, and that I should dread, between a King of seventy years and a Dauphin of forty-six, doing anything that set them against each other, adding to our general war a civil one.”87 One way of attempting to promote greater harmony and heal rifts between courtiers and royal relatives was by hosting entertainments for them in her chambers or those of the Duchess of Burgundy at various palaces. Such evenings included supper parties, plays, balls, operas, comedies, lotteries, and also musical recitals, which became more frequent as the reign progressed.88 Louis’s marriage to Maintenon might have been problematical, but as a wife she proved a great success. Records of their deliberately secluded private life were systematically destroyed, but the few documents that remain offer intriguing glimpses of this legendary partnership from the king’s perspective. As Antonia Fraser has asserted, this relationship was “the great romantic affair of Louis’s life,” and till his dying day, he always kept about his person a miniature of the Mignard portrait.89 They were also united by age and circumstance and bound together by durable and engrained emotional ties, as is clear from a handful of intimate and often gallant messages from the king that have survived. One of these, composed on 2 July 1698, highlights that in the performance of his devotional duties Louis persistently sought Maintenon’s approbation: I believe I will be able to go to Compline at Saint-Cyr if you approve and to walk back afterwards with you. Because it is the festival of the Virgin Saint today we can recite the litanies that lengthen the prayers a little. Assuming that you agree with my idea, find some ladies to come with us and inform me by response to this message, so that I can conform to your wishes.90 The second missive, simply dated July, underscores that although egocentric, Louis XIV nevertheless did not take Maintenon for granted:

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I do not know whether to go hunting or walking in the garden. The weather is beautiful. If you would like to come with me at three or four o’clock you could meet me at the Apollo [in the grotto of Tethys] where I will find a [sedan] chair for you and a carriage for the ladies that you summon. But you are under no constraint and [therefore] let me know what you will do and if you leave, at what time?91 The Sun King may have been obsessed with work by necessity during his later reign, but he also cherished Maintenon’s company and complained bitterly when protracted meetings threatened to disrupt their planned moments together. For example, in 1702 he wrote to confess that he did “not know if the council will finish before the sermon, so I yet have an hour and half to go; take appropriate measures to avoid further annoyances; I am very cross about this setback.”92 A message from the following year, contradicting the contentions of Saint-Simon, shows just how spontaneous the king could in fact be, although very much on his own terms: I have changed my resolution for the day; it is the beautiful weather that deters me from going to Saint-Germain; I will make this voyage tomorrow, as for today, I will dine au petit couvert. I will go to the hunt, and I will return to the gate at Saint-Cyr at the side of the park, where I will draw up my great carriage. I hope that you will come to find me with such company that pleases you. We will walk together in the park, and will not go to the Trianon. On returning tomorrow from Saint-Germain, I will proceed decorously attired to Saint-Cyr to greet you, and we would then come back [to Versailles] together; that is what I believe is best. If you want to come to the gate in the garden this evening, from where my coach can take you into the courtyard at Saint-Cyr, give the order, and inform me of it, Louis.93 Another communication from the King, dated 1704, was even more flexible and frank, exclaiming that it was too hot to go hunting in between a bleeding and a purge; this is why I will only go out if it would please you to walk with me. We will come back, if possible, before three o’clock; but we will see how we get on, and if you would like to see Mme de Fontevrault before or after the promenade, let me know, so I know what course I should take, Louis.94

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Moreover, the King continued the habit started in the 1690s of keeping Maintenon abreast of the latest developments in the war, writing in late April 1706 that he believed she would be anxious to hear the news I have just received: M. de Vendôme, with twelve hundred horse, has defeated all of the enemy cavalry, that numbered four or five thousand [19 April at Calcinato]; all the general officers performed wonders. Longueval has been injured. You will know more soon. I am unable to be with you before three o’clock; take appropriate measures to prevent inconveniences. I am extremely irritated by this delay, but the council will not finish earlier.95 Thus, Maintenon unenviably bore the brunt of the king’s personal qualms and troubles and often struggled in fulfilling her divine duty to be the sobering voice of reason and reality, as this entretien with Mme de Glapion from 1708 reveals: “Yes, truly, what would become of me,” Madame replied, “if I could not fall back on God, I am almost always undecided about knowing which side to take. It happened again the other day. The King had just received some bad news, which he told me in the evening half an hour before leaving me. The Duchess of Burgundy, who was extremely upset by it, was also present. At the same time a man came to ask me to beg the King to do something which he ought not to do, but which he could not refuse without making him desperate, nor without danger to himself, also because he might have need of him. I had to take the message to the King … and prayed to God, Lord help me, for I know not what to do!” … “It seems to me,” said Mme de Glapion, “that you are very free with him.” “Yes,” she said, “and I think it is permissible to be so when one feels that one is entirely his, as I hope I am, for I desire nothing but his glory, and the salvation of those he has attached to me, as well as my own.”96 The marquise found the king’s fortitude in public as remarkable as the grief he exhibited in their private moments alone together, when he could sometimes be humble and repentant, as another entretien with Glapion from 1707 indicates: A propos of the King’s gentleness, you would not believe to what a point he carries it. I am more at liberty to warn him when he does

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wrong than anyone else. Some days ago for instance, on an important occasion, I said to him frankly, “Sire you have done very wrong, and are very much to blame.” He accepted it wonderfully, and even with humility. The following day, as it was necessary to speak of the fault he had committed, I wanted to pass over it lightly and said, “it is done sire, we must think no more about it.” He replied: “Do not excuse me, Madame, I was very wrong.” Am I not right to say that he is humble?97 Maintenon was ardently conscientious, and it was this characteristic that induced her to involve herself in her husband’s affairs. At the same time, she deeply admired those of his qualities that, at times of crisis, helped preserve the ancien régime system he had refined.98 For example, after his speech consoling the court over the defeat at Blenheim on 13 August 1704, Maintenon marvelled to the maréchal de Villeroi on the 23rd that “you know his firmness: his humour has not changed for a moment; his kindness means that he is occupying himself with all the individuals we have lost, and we are able to say without flattery that he is truly great.”99 But as the years wore on it was increasingly her energy and industry that helped the king withstand the vagaries of fortune and to shoulder the burdens of monarchy that he shared with few others, as she explained to the oldest students in the blue class at Saint-Cyr during a discourse: There is no-one who is exempt from suffering. For a long time I’ve had the honour of seeing the King close up. If anyone exists who should be able to shake off the yoke and have no problems, surely he’s the one. However, he is always running into difficulties. Sometimes he must spend the entire day in his office, tallying up his accounts. I’ve often seen him working hard, looking for something, starting over again, and working until he has finished his business. He doesn’t delegate this to his ministers. He doesn’t rely on some official in the army. He has a detailed knowledge of his troops and of his regiments, just as I have detailed class list for all of you. He holds several councils every day. These councils usually discuss the most disturbing questions: war, famine, losses, and other afflictions. At the moment he’s actually responsible for the government of two great kingdoms because nothing happens in Spain today without his order. The King of Spain has no money, so this has created new worries for our King. Business takes all of his time. He practically has no leisure left. Still is there any social position that on the surface appears to be as free from worry as the monarchy?100

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The marquise was under no illusions about the essence of her role in their marital relationship, as this entretien, titled “On the pains of marriage, and how they must endured, to the girls of the blue class,” evinces: On speaking of the pains of marriage and the constraints on women; Madame de Maintenon said, “My God! what virtue they must have! If only … the husband was not at home then at least the wife could be at leisure in her chamber; but that is not at all the case. Most come back more often than [once a day], and on their return always make one aware that they are the masters; they come in making a frightful noise, often with I don’t know how many other men; they bring in their dogs that spoil all the furniture; a wife must suffer: she is not even mistress enough of herself to close a window; if her husband comes back late she must wait for him to go to bed; he can dine when he pleases, in short, she counts for nothing.” It was asked if these wives should never complain. “It is for the best,” replied Mme de Maintenon, “because what purpose would these complaints serve?” “It seems to me, said one girl … that in order to maintain a good relationship one of the two must suffer in silence?” “Yes,” said Mme de Maintenon, “or when they have enough virtue to bear in turn.”101 Some of the king’s personal habits openly irritated his wife. On 1 August 1704 she bemoaned to the maréchal de Villeroi that by indulging his gargantuan appetite, on this occasion to celebrate the birth of the duc de Bretagne, Louis imperilled rather than improved his health as his age advanced: “the King has been incapacitated for four days, and it look likes this will continue, unless he decreases the size of his suppers. It is difficult to live at sixty-five as you did at forty.”102 Louis’s craving for fresh air, and his habit of flinging open windows in all weathers, often reduced the marquise to a miserable condition that eventually aroused even Saint-Simon’s sympathies.103 The cold and damp draughts aggravated her rheumatism and arthritis, even when she was cocooned in an armchair positioned in a protective recess,104 or ensconced in a bed covered with cushions. On 27 April 1705 Maintenon quipped to the duc de Noailles that if I continue to live for a long time in the King’s chamber then I will become a paralytic; there is not a door nor a window that is closed; one is battered there by the wind that reminds me of the storms of America: and we must mention this even less when travelling. I have rheumatism in the head and throughout the rest of my body; and

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because I have only the time to undress, I have used it to dictate this letter to Nanon.105

p e n s io n s , p l ac e m e n t s and preferments Nanon (Annette Balbien) was appointed maîtresse générale des classes at Saint-Cyr during the school’s formation.106 Her official title, in 1685, was first lady-in-waiting to Madame de Maintenon,107 and the future duchesse de Noailles was educated under her direction.108 Saint-Simon labelled her Maintenon’s “unique domestique”109 because Balbien commanded the respect of princes and ministers, and the duc insinuates that her inflated stature derived as much from her occupations as from her invaluable capacity to make alterations to the precious lists for Marly.110 The marquise revered Nanon for her piety and prudence,111 and she was handsomely recompensed for her services.112 However, Maintenon’s patronage was predominantly dispensed among immediate associates and relatives with her customary caution and discretion, as witnessed by Mlle d’Aumale, who maintained that there is no doubt that Mme de Maintenon had much power over the mind of the King; however, she managed her credit with great circumspection. She knew that she must only ask the King for things that were reasonable; sensing that, in her situation, she should be less importunate in her demands than anyone else; … her relatives, it is true, prospered from them; but she never wished to employ her favour to obtain dignities or positions for them that others merited as much, or perhaps would have filled them better.113 The marquise was consequently sensitive to criticism that she had artfully manipulated her position to amass a vast personal fortune in a manner comparable with the profiteering practised by previously eminent statesmen like Mazarin and Fouquet. For example, on 23 January 1701 Liselotte disclosed to Electress Sophie that there is a rumour in Paris that the Pantocrate is selling her wedded husband for money and that she takes money from the Emperor. It would be just too pretty if it were true. That the same person draws millions from Alsace and fleeces the nobility there is quite certain, and also that she is paid by people here … I cannot understand what this old woman, who does not have any children, wants to do with all the millions she has accumulated.114

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Careless favouritism would also infuriate rejected petitioners or disenchanted courtiers and sharpen the impression that the reins, as well as the coffers, of state had passed into the hands of the king’s consort. Maintenon herself was aware of this, confiding to Ursins on 5 December 1706 that the French are volatile; they have always murmurred when affairs went on well, no wonder therefore at their doing so when they are unfavourable. As to myself, I often receive anonymous letters, in which I am abused for all the evils I bring on the state. They ask me what can I want, on the eve of my death, with all the money I am amassing! There is nothing, Madame, but patience for all this.115 While she would lobby the relevant authorities unashamedly on behalf of candidates she considered to be meritorious, and was inclined to avail indigent relatives, she declined unsuitable, avaricious, and overly persistent petitioners, brusquely advising them to contact the king or the appropriate minister directly. All supplicants were alerted to the dangers of exaggerating the number and breadth of their applications, and they were discouraged from promoting undesirable candidates.116 Louis XIV’s famously ambiguous ”I will see” gave Maintenon room to manoeuvre, whereas an abrupt refusal could cripple their pretensions, permanently denying them the opportunity to acquire distinction and fortune, and temporarily devaluing the esteem in which the marquise was held by the king. In December 1704 the pension of the comtesse de Caylus was raised from 4,000 to 6,000 livres,117 and on 10 March 1705 Maintenon commissioned her niece to relieve the wretched state of the family of the marquis de Lezay,118 while maintaining her own anonymity.119 Nevertheless, she bluntly explained to the comtesse on 12 April 1705 that: You ask me for the government of Valenciennes, at least indirectly; M. de Saint-Hermine120 has written imploring me to give it to him, and Mme de Mailly wants it for her daughter’s dowry.121 All of this has determined me to make to my relatives the declaration that you find here, which is that I resolve never to demand anything more for them. I urge them to use me as they would if I were dead; they must address themselves to the ministers; and make their friends act on their behalf; in a word they are in the same circumstance as other people of their sort. I had believed that I had left you all in a position to achieve your fortunes having commenced them, but I see

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that Mme de Mailly is convinced that I must marry her daughters; and similarly her boys who are three in number; your own will soon be in a state to make similar remonstrations; Mme de Villette thinks to marry her daughter;122 the little Mursay children are growing up, and the father assumes that everything will be attended to;123 Mme de Saint-Hermine sadly presents me with a granddaughter, who I have failed to establish along with five others; M. de Saint Hermine is not yet established: he must have a wife and a government;124 little Villette will come and I begin to fear that I shall also have to marry Mlle de La Vrillière.125 Consider, my dear niece, with a little reason and fairness, the sort of character I would cut next to the King, if I demanded new graces from him every day. If he accorded them to me he would have few left to dispose; if he refuses, he afflicts me; if he afflicts me he has too much kindness for me not to feel angry in so doing, and I will therefore be the unhappiness of his life! … Voilà, my dear niece, the reasons for my resolution, which already gives me a sense of liberty and repose. I regard you all with more pleasure being no longer fearful of your proposals; I will make it known to the King; I will tell him what I can to serve you, and will do it more boldly and perhaps more usefully if he believes it has not been premeditated by me.126 A distant relative of Maintenon, M. de Montgon,127 was reprimanded on 24 February 1709 and 30 May 1714 for offending the king with incessant solicitations.128 Conversely, the comte d’Aubigné de Tigny was “recommended to all our generals,”129 and regularly promoted for both his services to the army and the military reports he compiled for the marquise, who wished “with all my heart that you will honour our name by your personal merit.”130 He was made colonel du régiment royal in 1703; promoted to brigadier in 1710; publicly commended and awarded the post of inspecteur d’infanterie by Louis XIV when taking his leave for Flanders on 16 March 1711;131 then appointed governor of Saumur in 1712 and maréchal de camp on 1 March 1719. Maintenon also gleaned information and observations on the war from his uncle, the marquis de Tigny, the brother of the bishop of Noyon, when he was also on campaign.132 Moreover, the marquis de Listenois, who had married the granddaughter of Maintenon’s cousin, and the brother of the bishop of Chartres, the comte de Lisle, were commended, on 29 May133 and 6 June 1709134 respectively, to the maréchal de Villars. Villars was only too happy to reciprocate some of the patronage consistently bestowed upon him by his benefactress, whose patience he

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routinely tried, nonetheless, with a series of extravagant requests. On 8 April 1709 the marquise indicated that the maréchal could not become governor of the Île de France because, although the duc d’Estrées was admittedly very ill, he had not yet expired.135 Nor could Villars be appointed premier gentilhomme de la chambre du Roi in June after the death of the duc de La Trémoïlle136 because his son, the prince de Tarente, held the survivance.137 Villars countered by asking for a pairie to match the duché he had received in 1705, at which the king “leant a deaf ear,”138 with Maintenon irascibly adding that it is true, Monsieur, that your last letters have afflicted me in how they relate to you; I sincerely wish that you would not augment the troubles of the King by facing him with the prospect of denying something to you, and I wish just as that you would have no other concerns than for the place you are in; it seems to me that this should occupy you more than sufficiently and to make you forget your particular interests.139 The maréchal’s appetite for decoration and remuneration may have been invigorated by his wife, who corresponded frequently with Maintenon. She absurdly pressed for her husband to be accorded the position of capitaine des gardes du Roi, left vacant by the death of the maréchal de Boufflers on 22 August 1711, which required the incumbent to walk long distances because it was his duty to attend the King personally.140 His knee having been shattered by a volley at Malplaquet, Villars sensibly withdrew his candidature in a rare display of reserve that cheered his patroness.141 Tact and moderation were qualities essential in procuring pensions and placements, as Maintenon explained to the curé de Saint-Sulpice on 2 April 1715: “I’ve just received a letter from M. de Troussebois, very reasonable, very well-written and very authentic. He is mistaken on one thing, which is to believe that it is easy for me to obtain a pension or a benefice for him, because I have just obtained the two you know of, which is precisely what prevents me from asking for more.”142 Mlle d’Aumale registered that she would have been very sorry had we known all the refusals that the King made to her, lest he be blamed. She suffered much from them. This did not impact on her relatives and friends, at least not on the majority of them. However, everyone wanted the graces that they demanded to go through her, not only her relatives, but the

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entire court, starting with the princes; it was believed that she had a share in everything. Many times I saw that she had just thanked the King for a grace in the government, pensions, bishoprics, abbeys; and she turned to me and said: “He lets me know that I have it; but if he knew that I had attempted to meddle to obtain it, then it would not have been so successful.”143 This partly explains the rancour of the marquise de Villette,144 who alleged that “you want to enjoy your moderation, and yet your family will be the victim of it.”145 Nevertheless, Voltaire’s pronouncement that “she had only the grounds at Maintenon, that she had bought with the benefactions of the King; she wanted only that the public pardon her elevation in light of her disinterest,”146 is slightly misleading. As well as her townhouses and land at Versailles, Louis purchased the princesse de Fürstenberg’s estate at Grignole for 360,000 livres for the marquise, who “greatly desired” the grounds because they bordered on her property at Maintenon.147 When exercised, the marquise’s patronage was powerful, and the careers of a number of eminent officials, such as the ducs de Beauvillier, de Chevreuse, de Noailles, de Boufflers, d’Harcourt and de Villars, as well as Fénelon, Louis-Antoine de Noailles, Chamillart, and the princesse des Ursins, had flourished with her backing. However, several of these clients had a far from salutary effect on the king’s affairs, and in hindsight, the marquise deeply regretted having sponsored a number of them. Worse still, after Beauvillier, Chevreuse, Fénelon, Maintenon, and her convent at Saint-Cyr had all been implicated in the Quietist débâcle at the end of the seventeenth century, the archbishop of Cambrai subsequently, and rather hypocritically, joined forces with the Jesuits and proactively supported their attack on the apparent threat posed by Jansenism, primarily to take his revenge against the heterodoxy’s principal apologist, the archbishop of Paris.148 In 1711 Maintenon attempted to exculpate her enterprises during an entretien with Mme de Glapion: “What astonishes me,” she added, “is that so many things I earnestly did to procure God’s glory, the welfare of the church and the salvation of the King have turned out ill. For example, I wanted the duc de Beauvillier and M. de Chevreuse to become friends of the King, so that he might experience honnêtes gens capable of making him love virtue and estranging him from the maxims and flatteries that surround him. This has turned out badly, and has made me angry, but without repenting for what I have done, because my only intention

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was to achieve something useful for the glory of God and the salvation of the King.”149 It would have been extremely difficult to foresee that leading and highly respected churchmen and statesmen would abandon their king and the Saint-Siège to champion heretical causes, thus wreaking havoc in the realms of ecclesiastical and secular politics. Concerning Fénelon, Louis-Antoine de Noailles, and her involvement in matters of government, Maintenon also professed to Glapion in 1711 that “my consolation is that I meant well, and that the late M. de Chartres thought as I did about these two men, and regarded them both as true saints serving the good of the church.”150 The princesse des Ursins proved to be another troublesome candidate whose egotistic aspirations Maintenon struggled to keep in check. She tried using subtle methods, but often resorted to candid confrontations, as a letter from Saint-Cyr dated 10 August 1709 colourfully demonstrates, in which she asks pointedly, Why do you accuse me of desiring the dethronement of their Catholic Majesties? I am very far from this thought, and few persons would make greater sacrifices than myself to see their reign consolidated; but it is true, that in order to accomplish it, I would not consent to the ruin of France. I admire your sentiments, but I was not prepared to expect what you have told me; could you possibly have the courage to quit the Queen so long as she is not compelled to take this step herself by the Spaniards? There would be great cruelty in abandoning her now. How sincerely do I pity you, Madam, and how truly unfortunate you are, notwithstanding your beauty and celebrity!151 This excerpt illustrates the balance that Maintenon invariably managed to strike throughout her correspondence with Ursins, in which she refrained from gratifying the demands of the princess for information and action, while retaining her friendship and confidence. She achieved this equilibrium by interweaving, in her communications, a minimum amount of delicate political material with updates on the royal family and court gossip, alongside perpetual denials of her ability to influence government business.152 Through skilful prevarication and by deliberately underplaying her knowledge of affairs, Maintenon was able to a certain extent to rein in the ambitions of Ursins, keeping her conversant enough to be useful but ignorant enough to maintain Bourbon supremacy. The marquise took refuge in the insecure and erratic postal system, nimbly and deceitfully contending, on 24 September 1714, that it “is

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certainly not from want of confidence that I do not communicate secrets to you, but from a prudence which ought always to prevail in letters, and which you observe better than anyone.”153 Maintenon was sincerely disappointed by Chamillart’s performance in the ministry, and Villars constantly tested her forbearance. Twice she recommended that the maréchal desist from posting his relentless communications because they customarily incorporated a plea or petition.154 Villars flagrantly disregarded these exhortations, yet the marquise did not withdraw her support. Ultimately, his subsequent military feats perhaps vindicated many of Maintenon’s other miscalculations, where she believed her favour had been misplaced or suspected that her influence had been abused.

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All members of the royal family, including disaffected relatives, found that Maintenon’s capacity to intercede with Louis on their behalf was unrivalled. Dangeau observed that the Duke of Burgundy had sent a “very well composed” letter to his grandfather requesting permission to go to war in February 1701, but in order to secure this the prince had also written to Maintenon urging her to gain a favourable resolution from the king.155 The marquise confided to Anne de Rohan-Chabot, princesse de Soubise (1648–1709), on 29 December 1701 that “M. d’Antin has written asking me to make him a duke,”156 and on 24 October 1709 Marie-Thérèse de Bourbon-Condé, princesse de Conti,157 requested Maintenon’s assistance in elevating her son, Louis Armand II, at court.158 In a letter to the marquise dated 1708, the son of the Grande Condé, Henri-Jules de Bourbon (M. le Prince), expressed his gratitude to Maintenon and Louis for their unfailing benevolence,159 and the Orléans family also utilized this reliable route to the ear of the king. The marquise assured the duc d’Orléans, in a letter of 26 September 1706, that neither the court nor the king blamed him for the loss of Turin, reverently adding that “your valour has surprised no-one; but it has been so brilliant that it has gained a new lustre.”160 Furthermore, on 12 August 1708 she confided to Ursins that “if the duc d’Orléans had been believed at Turin, we should not have lost Italy.”161 Exploiting this esteem, the duc successfully implored Maintenon to persuade Louis to countenance his petition to rejoin the campaign in Spain, which he did with great success at Almanza in April 1707.162 Unfortunately, Orléans fell out with Ursins the following year resulting in his permanent recall to the French court. The duc long suspected that

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it was Maintenon who was responsible for his fall from grace; but the marquise consistently denied this, lamenting to her new confessor the curé de Saint-Sulpice, Languet de Gergy (after Ursins’s own disgrace and exile from the Spanish court) on 24 February 1715 that “this prince is very badly advised. He regards me as his mortal enemy and believes it was me who had ensured that Mme des Ursins stayed here. However, I endeavoured to prevent her from sleeping at Versailles and to make sure she leaves France as soon as possible. Thus they are often deceived.”163 Even Maintenon’s most dogged adversary, the mother of the duc d’Orléans and the king’s sister-in-law, Liselotte,164 approached Louis by writing courteous communications to Maintenon, which covered a wide range of issues. On 25 June 1701 Liselotte affirmed that she had been touched by their displays of compassion and consideration during and after the death of her husband, Monsieur.165 She also obediently requested Louis’s counsel on how best to respond and through whom she should, if at all, answer the letters of the dowager queen of Spain,166 Mariana von Neuburg, who had virulently opposed the Bourbon succession in Spain.167 The dowager herself had appealed to Maintenon directly on 11 September 1706 hoping, in vain as it transpired, to evoke a sympathetic reaction to the petition she had forwarded to Louis requesting permission to live in retirement in France after her ejection from Spain.168 And Liselotte entreated the king’s permission to visit the court of Lorraine169 to be introduced to her grandchildren on 14 April 1707, although disagreements over protocol eventually thwarted her plans.170 As the Sun King’s spirits and confidence were eroded by a series of harrowing crises in the early eighteenth century, French and European courtiers came to regard Maintenon as the most effective channel through which to communicate with, gain the patronage of, and generally influence the aging sovereign. The duchesse de Lorraine repeatedly solicited the extension of the marquise’s kindness and friendship,171 and on 10 July 1707 Maintenon related to Ursins that “I have just received a letter from [the] princesse de Baden, who implores me to make M. the maréchal de Villars diminish the contributions he demands.”172 Moreover, as Louis became progressively less accessible, the marquise was increasingly perceived to be, and embraced as, a monarchical representative. Thus she was often obliged to correspond with, arrange audiences for, and personally meet with, delegates and representatives from the courts of Spain,173 England,174 Bavaria,175 Cologne,176 Mantua,177 and Genoa,178 and recorded that she was “extremely envious” to see the Dutch emissary, the comte de Bergeyck (1644–1725) at Marly in May 1708.179 Her connections in Lorraine and Mantua were cemented in part by virtue

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of the fact that the third wife of the prince d’Harcourt, Charles III of Lorraine (1620–1692), was the Duchesse d’Elbeuf, Françoise MontaultNavailles (1653–1717). She was the daughter of Maintenon’s godmother, Suzanne de Baudéan, whose granddaughter, Suzanne-Henriette d’Elbeuf (1686–1710), had married the Duke of Mantua (1652–1708). Conversely, the eldest daughter from the prince d’Harcourt’s first marriage, Anne Elizabeth (1649–1714), had wed Charles-Henri de Lorraine (1649–1723), Prince de Vaudémont. She too successfully courted Mme de Maintenon, who arranged to meet her at Marly on 17 July 1707,180 and they became friends thereafter. There are naturally also many references to Maintenon entertaining or supping with members of the exiled House of Stuart at Saint-Cyr, Versailles, or Saint-Germain, at which times she was invariably accompanied by members of the Bourbon family, including the king. Her second most intriguing relationship was conducted with the court of Rome and its significance would be magnified by the turn of events in the concluding years of the reign, when Louis again campaigned to rid France of all vestiges of Jansenism.

“ t h e m o t h e r o f the church” Saint-Simon excoriated Maintenon for interfering in ecclesiastical affairs and claimed that she “imagined herself to be the mother of the church.”181 The evidence does little to contradict this accusation. She intervened with relish, and this was often welcomed by members of the clergy, particularly in times of hardship. The marquise was profoundly pious and charitable during the years 1701 to 1715 and was constantly preoccupied with promotions, education, institutional direction, poor relief, famine, disputes, and dissent. These aspects of her career are scrutinized in this and the subsequent chapters to demonstrate that Saint-Simon’s sobriquet was well deserved, and to reveal how her moral meddling backfired and helped aggravate the ongoing Jansenist controversy. The conseil de conscience had previously been obviated by the stranglehold of Harlay and then Père de La Chaise, but it was resurrected in 1700. Comprising the king, Louis-Antoine de Noailles, Godet des Marais, and La Chaise, it met each month to discuss church matters and decide upon suitable nominations for benefices.182 With La Chaise’s monopoly now broken, and the power of the Jesuits weakened, Maintenon was able more productively to pursue the enterprise she had embarked upon during the 1690s. She again worked in tandem with Noailles to elevate the most creditable candidates to positions of authority within the ecclesiastical hierarchy by controlling the feuille des

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bénéfices,183 as indicated in this passage from a letter to the archbishop of Paris, dated 25 November 1700: The abbé de Luxembourg has left a beautiful abbey [Saint-Michel d’Orcamp]. The abbé de Mornay[-Montchevreuil] wishes to ask for it [which he subsequently obtained] in returning his own. M. the cardinal de Bonzi [archbishop of Toulouse] presses to have a coadjutor. I press the King on this also, because I believe that he should follow his conscience; but I do not know on whom this choice will fall. I have also spoken against the Curate of Marly: we do not intend to make him a bishop. Père de La Chaise has proposed to the King that he consult me over a choice of confessor for the King of Spain. I have refused, in saying that I would not be able to deal with this because you were not here.184 This was classically duplicitous. Noailles’s absence from the court did not prevent Maintenon from pestering him constantly via the cardinal-archbishop’s secretary, the abbé Jean-Jacques Boileau, about any religious matter she was interested or involved in.185 Sometimes the marquise claimed, rather disingenuously one suspects, that these inquiries were transmitted because the issue needed to be brought to the king’s attention, but she was also specifically asked to relay pressing questions to the archbishop that Louis XIV had about ongoing ecclesiastical issues.186 When the occasion demanded, however, Maintenon could be much more trenchant, and the available evidence provides us with glimpses of the opinionated aspect of her character that many courtiers understandably despised. For example, regarding the selection of a candidate to replace the king’s long-serving secretary, Rose Toussaint, who died on 6 January 1701 after taking up his post in 1657, the marquise brusquely told Noailles on 4 May that the king “on no account wants M. Rose [Toussaint’s grandson] to be his secrétaire du cabinet,” because she believed that his marriage to Mlle de Villefranche was “grossly disproportionate.” Villefranche, she insisted should have wed an old seigneur who had also been captivated by her charms, but whose name Maintenon’s discretion prevented her from disclosing.187 Clearly brimming with confidence, Maintenon now exploited her influence to orchestrate the promotion of numerous prelates, who were selected on the basis of personal preference or the recommendations of respected colleagues. Benefices were arguably one of the most important and coveted bienfaits the king could bestow, and this required Maintenon

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to balance the traditional need to dispense patronage with the piety and ability of prospective appointees. For his works of philanthropy and devotion to his community, the brother-in-law of the comtesse de Caylus became renowned at Auxerre.188 Hébert was similarly esteemed at Agen for his piety and loyalty,189 having been promoted from the curacy of Versailles, where Maintenon subsequently placed Huchon, in January 1704, to gratify the cardinal de Noailles.190 The nomination of Godet des Marais to Chartres in 1690 had been exceedingly advantageous as was able to act as Maintenon’s confessor and served her estates and the congregation at Saint-Cyr as a kind of local and personal bishop. After the death of Godet on 26 September 1709, his nephew, CharlesFrançois des Monstiers de Mérinville, proved a thoroughly competent replacement for him at Chartres,191 as did Gaston de Noailles in filling his brother’s shoes at Châlons-sur-Marne from 1695. Chalon-sur-Saône was awarded to the abbé Madot in 1712 after he had been elevated to the Bishopric of Belley in 1705192 as recompense for his management of the affairs of Maintenon’s profligate brother, Charles, who ended his days safely incarcerated, at least most of the time, in a charitable SaintSulpicien institution that Maintenon funded by mortgaging her estates at Maintenon. Charles occasionally escaped but could almost always be located among the prostitutes who infested the Tuileries gardens.193 Maintenon evidently facilitated the advancement of Chamillart’s second brother, Joseph (1657–1714). He was appointed bishop of Senlis in 1702, then premier aumônier to the Duchess of Burgundy in 1704, and was subsequently granted the Bishopric of Condom.194 Jean-Claude de la Poype de Vertrieux benefited from having a sister at Saint-Cyr who was close friends with Maintenon, which gained him the Bishopric of Poitiers in 1702,195 and Henry de Thiard de Bissy was perhaps the obvious successor to Bossuet at Meaux in 1704.196 The designation of Jean Lenormand as bishop of Évreux in 1710 was arranged in concert with Claude Maur d’Aubigné de Tigny,197 who had been named archbishop of Rouen in December 1707, and was replaced at Noyon by Charles François de Rochebonne.198 Maintenon often referred to her distant relative Claude de Tigny as “my archbishop of Rouen” in correspondence,199 and she had persuaded the king in 1703 to intervene on his behalf at Noyon successfully to reclaim honours that had been appropriated by the chapter of the church of Saint-Quentin. In a letter to Noyon on 6 November 1703 she disingenuously claimed to have had little bearing on the outcome of this lawsuit, urging him to “compensate for the little capacity I have for affairs, it is not my profession.”200 However, the secretary of state for religious affairs with whom Maintenon had

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been negotiating, M. de la Vrillière, who was also her relative, “wishes that I send you this decree. I am just as happy for you have received it from him.”201 Maintenon’s other relatives were also rewarded: VictorAugustin de Mailly (b. 1712) was promoted in 1692 to the Bishopric of Lavaur, where he remained until his death in 1712.202 He was the brother-in-law of Maintenon’s grand-niece, the comtesse de Mailly, and the older brother of François Mailly, who became bishop of Arles in 1698 and succeeded Le Tellier as archbishop of Reims in 1710. On Godet’s recommendation, Maintenon employed Joachim de La Chétardie, who had been the curé de Saint-Sulpice since 13 February 1696, as her confessor.203 He died on 29 July 1714, and Maintenon ensured that few of his letters survived,204 but she was evidently determined to find a worthy successor, and told Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Languet de Gergy not only that she wanted him to be Joachim’s replacement as curate,205 but also that she wanted him to become her confessor. JeanBaptiste had to be gently coerced into accepting such an important and demanding client, but as it turned out, he proved to be a highly competent curé.206 His brother, Jean-Joseph, author of the previously cited Mémoires sur Mme de Maintenon, had been designated as an aumônier to the Duchess of Burgundy in 1702 and was nominated to the Bishopric of Soissons on 12 January 1715.207 Maintenon notified her confessor, Jean-Baptiste, on 1 January that “it is a great happiness for this parish to which God has attached you; it is just as important as a diocese … You are too modest, Monsieur, on behalf [of] your brother. Soissons has never been occupied by any person who possessed either your birth or your merit.”208 And on 20 January she confided to Jean-Baptiste that “he [the king] is greatly prejudiced in favour of you, which I hope will increase every day … You would have taken pleasure in witnessing when I told the ladies of Mme la Dauphine that M. the abbé [Jean-Joseph] Languet had been placed not far from here; he is greatly respected, and it seems to me that this is deserved.”209 During the freezing winter and famine of 1708–9 many bishops abandoned the practice of writing first to the king and then to Maintenon to ensure the success of their first solicitation, as petitioners routinely did with ministers, and appealed directly to the marquise instead. For example, the bishops of Angers and Auxerre implored Maintenon to secure funds from the king to alleviate the shameful poverty in their dioceses.210 Clerical overtures were generally less blunt but were often as intense, covering a range of ecclesiastical issues. These ranged from the bishop of Blois reporting on the conferences convened to consider the papal bull Unigenitus that condemned Jansenism in 1713, and offering

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support for the king’s stance against the heterodoxy;211 to the bishop of Senlis, Joseph Chamillart, discussing the trafficking of nuns and novices between institutions.212 Demands for peace in order to mitigate suffering and burdensome taxation in 1709 came from the bishops of Rennes and Tournai,213 and the bishops of Beauvais and Nîmes requested appointments for friends and relatives,214 whereas the bishops of Auxerre and Noyon appealed for funds for deprived religious houses and charitable establishments.215 Frequently the letters simply toasted the good health of the king and extolled Maintenon’s bonnes oeuvres and wise counsels, or even solicited a private audience with the marquise.216 Many missives fervently sought the continuation of her precious commerce and the preservation of her priceless protection and confiance auprès du roi, as did a number of petitions from the bishops of Condom, Oléron, Rodez, Séez, and Valence,217 whereas the bishop of Saintes entreated her to interpose and facilitate the legal action that he had taken against the canons of his church.218 Once the marquise’s support had been secured, the efficacy of her influence was conspicuously dynamic. The bishop of Agen’s supplication of 5 February 1709219 was rewarded in April with the promotion of the abbé de Belsunce to the Bishopric of Marseille.220 The maréchal de Villars had in vain asked the king’s confessor, Père de La Chaise, on 24 August 1704 for “a large abbey near Paris” on behalf of his sister, Agnès, but after transmitting a similar application to Maintenon on 3 July 1707, he was rewarded on 15 August when Agnès de Villars was named abbesse de Chelles.221 And Philip V beseeched the marquise to thank his grandfather for appointing his candidate La Roche, abbot of Cherbourg, in a letter on 8 November 1705,222 having asked Maintenon to secure the preferment in a letter of 14 October.223 These promotions were sanctioned and no doubt precipitated thanks to the high regard in which Maintenon continued to be held by the Holy See. On current limited evidence, it is difficult to determine exactly what affairs were dealt with in the rather cryptic correspondence exchanged between Maintenon and Rome. The missives give the impression that on certain occasions, when a pope needed some business quickly concluded, private commissions transacted, or secret supplications submitted, a nuncio, a legate, or an extraordinary emissary would be dispatched to France to present the particular case, and its accompanying letter, to the marquise.224 As part of the jubilee celebrations in 1700 Innocent XII granted Maintenon, along with her confessor and twelve other persons of the marquise’s choosing, special spiritual dispensations.225 His successor, Clement XI, replicated the gestures made by preceding pontiffs,

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who had realized that the marquise’s favour was an incomparable asset. Clement, on his investiture, accordingly presented Maintenon with “a lapis ring of the Blessed Virgin Mary and a gold medal representing on one side the image of Our Saviour and the other that of the very happy holy Virgin Mother,”226 as a mark of respect and to guarantee, and hopefully buttress, the marquise’s ultramontane fealty.227 Fledgling papal nuncios were traditionally commended to Maintenon’s protection and “bons services,” and it had become customary to notify the marquise when a papal legate had been or would imminently be sent to Louis’s court to bestow the calotte rouge on a French cleric.228 It is unlikely that Maintenon was personally responsible for the elevation of Armand Gaston Maximilien de Rohan-Soubise to the College of Cardinals in 1712,229 of which she was apprised by François Bianchini on 30 May. The Rohan were an old, aristocratic French family, and also princes étrangers with a history of distinguished placements in the church, and it was vital that Louis retain their loyalty at this stage, because Strasbourg’s future was being debated in the peace negotiations at Utrecht. Nevertheless, the marquise had long shown a preference for Armand,230 who was rumoured to be Louis’s illegitimate son after his affair with the princess de Soubise in the 1670s, and Maintenon’s support undoubtedly helped obtain his appointent to the coadjutorship of Strasbourg in 1701, as letters to his mother testify. On 26 October she notified the princesse that her request had been passed on to the Cardinal de Noailles in Rome, where he was attending the papal conclave after the demise of Innocent XII in September, reassuringly adding that “you could not have a better solicitor,” although she also pragmatically recommended lobbying Torcy to secure the preferment.231 These efforts proved successful, and a few months later Maintenon wrote again on 22 June 1701 to convey, on behalf of the king, that his holiness had consented to Armand’s consecration.232 He became bishop of Strasbourg in 1704 and Grand Almoner of France in 1713. A large degree of responsibility must be ascribed to her for the advancement of Louis-Antoine de Noailles to the sacred college and, to an extent, of Henry de Thiard de Bissy, who became a cardinal in 1715, as well as the selection of the brother of the princesse des Ursins, the abbé Joseph-Emmanuel de La Trémoïlle (1656–1720),233 over d’Antin and the duc de Saint-Simon, to take charge of the king’s affairs at the Papal Curia in 1706.234 In June La Trémoïlle was awarded a cardinal’s hat in Rome, from where he regularly primed Maintenon about papal proceedings. This would prove particularly useful during the disputation over Jansenism.

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m a n if e s tat io n s of jans eni sm a n d j e s u it r e tali ati on Maintenon had perhaps unsurprisingly become increasingly intolerant of religious rebels, and she abhorred subversive extremists, including the Protestant Camisards, who employed guerrilla tactics in a war against the Crown between 1702 and 1705. Five days after the defeat of a Camisard force by the maréchal de Montrevel, at the battle of the Pont de Nages on 16 April 1704, the marquise buoyantly informed Mme de Glapion that “we have defeated 1,800 Camisards; I have asked our mother superior for a procession to thank God.”235 But she had been more explicit in celebrating a smaller victory over the rebels in a letter written to the future duc de Noailles on 14 May 1703, declaring that “we have killed many fanatics and we hope to purge them from Languedoc.”236 Jansenism, by contrast, would prove to be a much more complex and frustrating phenomenon and almost impossible to extinguish, despite the king’s belligerent efforts and Maintenon’s exertions, which resulted in her drawing a dramatic comparison between the two rebellions in a letter to her confessor Languet on 20 January 1715: “I cannot accustom myself to the revolt that is taking place everywhere against the Pope; I think I am back with the Huguenots where I was brought up.”237 As has been shown, Maintenon had already expressed concern about Noailles’s forbidding austerity, and on 19 February 1703 she pointedly warned the archbishop that they could only continue to manipulate the feuille des bénéfices if he retained the king’s full confidence, which would be lost if allegations levelled about his Jansenist leanings were not comprehensively refuted: Is it impossible to efface the suspicion that you like and are biased towards those of the Jansenist party … and must you not remove this obstacle alone that obstructs the fortune to which you seem destined? As for the means, you know them better than I. Neither you nor the people who surround you are accused of being Quietists. Why do you not clear yourself of this suspicion of Jansenism? You will have to endure the fury of the Jansenists, as you would any other cabal, but you would be in a better state to edify and guide the King and all those who do not share their views. Never have the Jesuits been more feeble than they are now, I see it often, and the force that you will have if you can dissipate this cloud of Jansenism.238

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The timing was also important, Maintenon insisted, because of the weakness of the Jesuit party that they could both capitalize upon: One is aware that you have direct and indirect commerce with people in Rome, who campaign relentlessly for them [Jansenists] and against the King. Be mindful, Monseigneur, that everything is reported back to him and that he is not therefore at fault for suspecting you; and this does not come from discourses made by Père de La Chaise, as the good man no longer has any credit; it is other people that speak and write of this once more, and he has reason to think as he does. However, these things are not without remedy. He is predisposed to think highly of you; he believes that your virtue is sincere, and regards it with respect; he permitted me to impart the advice that I have given on your business with Rome, it is a great mark of consideration for you. I touched on it in speaking to him about part of our last conversation, and I see very clearly, Monseigneur, that if you would declare very openly [against Jansenism] and that all of your clergy in the archdiocese would so the same, he will then favour you in the way that all good people desire. Today he nominated M. de Beaufort for me.239 I do not know if I am deceiving myself, but it seems to me that he was so at ease in justifying this and in such clearly forceful terms that we can be left in no doubt. Forgive all my liberties, Monseigneur, as you can see the cause of them. I love goodness, thanks to God’s grace, I love your person, and that is what makes me act and which renders me so sensible on this matter. Apparently I will die before you; and I would like to see the King placed in your hands.240 Suspicions about Noailles re-emerged in 1701 after controversy again flared up with the promulgation of an anonymous pamphlet, The Case of Conscience Proposed by a Provincial Confessor. In this “case” the Sorbonne were asked to adjudge the propriety of a priest continuing to give sacraments to one of his parishioners, whose religious views seemed Jansenist, but when challenged claimed the right to remain respectfully mute in accordance with Clement IX’s “peace of the church” of 1669. The forty Sorbonne doctors upheld the right to respectful silence on the supposed fact of the five propositions in Jansen’s Augustinus and published their decision in January 1703.241 This put them at odds with Rome, which condemned the “case” in a brief, Cum nuper, that was issued on 12 February 1703, which was designed to stifle Jansenism but also to assert papal authority over the Gallican church. This intention

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was keenly felt by French bishops and theologians on its reception,242 and it probably made Noailles even more hesitant, but he eventually did publish an ordinance rather tepidly condemning the “case” retrospectively in March 1703. Maintenon had reprimanded him on 19 February and did again on 8 March because, as she emphasized, his silence had been interpreted as acquiescing with the judgment made by the Sorbonne, which made the king, the chancellor, Père de La Chaise, and his former ally, the archbishop of Reims (Maurice Le Tellier), all express their concerns that the archbishop of Paris was at best favouring, and at worst protecting, the Jansenist party.243 In consequence Noailles resolutely reproached the doctors, but primarily for arrogating his diocesanal authority, for which he in turn was rebuked by the nuncio for disrespecting the papacy, which had condemned the case outright on 12 February, stimulating Maintenon’s admonition and inspiring protests from Gallican French bishops. Noailles had originally sought a compromise with the Sorbonne over the respectful silence, and this stance was originally supported by Bossuet and Maurice Le Tellier. But as Maintenon explained, in a forthright letter on 8 March 1703, all of this did little to dispel the grave doubts the king harboured about Noailles’s views, and that “the affair of Port-Royal” was therefore far from extinguished and, she feared, might prove as troublesome as that of the Quietists.244 Now keener than ever to bring this matter to a conclusion, Louis was determined to abolish the convent of Port-Royal des Champs, and he instructed his grandson Philip V to have the archbishop of Malines arrest the foremost living Jansenist, Pasquier Quesnel, who had been living in exile in Brussels with his friend Arnauld. He was captured on 30 May, and all his papers were seized, including a voluminous correspondence, which superficially indicated that a Jansenist network had been established across Europe and confirmed, at least in the minds of those that had long suspected it, that an international conspiracy was afoot.245 On the night of 12–13 September, with the help of his brother William, Quesnel escaped from prison to Liège. This breakout was contentiously celebrated by James III’s tutor, Dr John Betham, who in February 1704 was arraigned by Cardinal Noailles over eight Jansenist-related charges brought by his pupil, the “Pretender” James III, and his mother, Mary of Modena.246 Betham unsuccessfully denied the allegations, and Louis recommended in October that he be discreetly dismissed. Accordingly Noailles suggested the following month that Betham tactfully remove himself from Saint-Germain, and after emotional interviews with his former charge and Modena, Betham left for Paris in January 1705.247

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But paradoxically, instead of becoming indoctrinated with the teachings of Jansen, the Pretender’s religious inclinations in fact leaned toward Quietism, and even more so after he met Fénelon in 1709.248 Reminiscent of the Quietist affair, pamphlets now poured into the public domain, with Bossuet backing Noailles by attacking the “case of conscience” in 1703, and the Jesuits printing tracts denouncing Quesnel and the new edition of his Moral Reflections, published in 1705, as a compilation of Jansenist impieties.249 Awkwardly for the archbishop of Paris, the revised Reflections included his personal eulogy, which the preface declared had been “approved by His Eminence, the Cardinal de Noailles.”250 This endorsement further bolstered the campaign against Noailles spearheaded by an extremist faction at the Jesuit college of Louis-Le-Grand, which was masterminded by Père Michel Le Tellier (1643–1719), who had been teaching there since 1678 and had become its director in 1705. Noailles had made steadfast enemies of the Society of Jesus while presiding over the meeting of the General Assembly of the Clergy in 1700, during which he systematically attacked their sacramental laxity,251 particularly in maximizing Catholic conversions in Asia, for which they had been widely criticized in what became known as the “Chinese Rites Controversy.”252 After their capture in 1703 Quesnel’s papers were conveyed to LouisLe-Grand and ruthlessly exploited by the polemicists Jacques Philippe Lallement and Le Tellier’s former pupil, Louis Doucin. By 1705 they had published several detailed tracts, including The Seditious and Heretical Père Quesnel and Jansenism Condemned by the Church, by Itself and Defenders of St. Augustine, and sent lists of potential Jansenist suspects for the lieutenant-general of the police in Paris, the marquis D’Argenson, to scrutinize.253 In response Quesnel himself began a monumental eight-volume History of the Case of Conscience in the same year, all of which motivated Louis XIV to demand in 1704 that Clement XI issue a bull finally to rid him of this vexing and apparently expanding sect. Like his predecessors Clement XI was unenthusiastic, but Louis threatened to convene a French church council to decide the matter, and Rome capitulated,254 producing the bull Vineam Domini Sabaoth on 15 July 1705 that pragmatically outlawed the right of respectful silence in “the sense of the book of Jansen, which has been condemned in the five propositions.” With the peace of the church definitively at an end, Louis now intended to obliterate Jansenism. Louis-Antoine de Noailles initially spearheaded this campaign in an attempt to clear his own name, and the king commissioned him to ensure that Vineam Domini be accepted by

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the Assembly of the Clergy in 1705. It was endorsed on 21 August, but on the same day the congregation, steered by a caucus of Gallican bishops led by Noailles, passed three resolutions criticizing papal infallibility and asserting the right of the General Assembly to adjudicate doctrinal disputes. This move naturally offended the Holy See, irritated the king, and damaged the credibility of Cardinal Noailles.255 He proved equally ineffectual in tackling the recalcitrant nuns of Port-Royal des Champs, who refused to comply with Vineam Domini and continued to defy the king and the cardinal, who in 1706 condemned their intransigence as criminally disobedient.256 A decree issued by the conseil d’en haut in April 1706 prevented PortRoyal from taking any new novices, and in September 1707 Noailles sent a bullish new confessor, Firmin Pollet, to the convent to berate the community and pressure the nuns individually by criticizing their insubordination, which nonetheless continued despite him cautioning that the sacraments might be denied to them. Noailles consequently carried out this threat by letter on 3 October and formally on 18 November,257 while Louis entreated the pope to grant him permission to suppress the convent, which would be reunited with and thus controlled by its former sister house in Paris. Their abbess, Mme de Château-Renault, sent a similar petition to Clement XI, who also received solicitations from Noailles, La Trémoïlle, the French Jesuits, and all Molinists at the Sacred College, as well as, according to the abbé de Polignac, a heartfelt appeal from Mme de Maintenon.258 A number of equally frustrated French bishops had started publishing pastoral ordinances in their dioceses independently condemning Quesnel’s Moral Reflections, as the bishop of Apt did in 1703, and with the bishop of Nevers and the archbishop of Besançon following suit in 1707. Other bishops decided to express their concerns in person to Mme de Maintenon, as this extraordinary dialogue with the girls at Saint-Cyr in 1707 demonstrates: Several bishops assembled [in 1707] at Saint-Cyr to see Mme de Maintenon, Mme de Glapion told us yesterday. “It is true, that I saw [Maintenon revealed] four of them at the time and could not prevent myself from asking whether this constituted a provincial council?” – “Yes, Madame,” they responded laughing, “and it is you who presides over it.” – “If that is so,” she responded, “then it will not be official.” Then, adopting a more serious tone, she explained how distressed she was about the bad affairs of the church. Glapion asked her if these four bishops were not of the same opinion as the bishop of Chartres.

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– “Not only do they voice the same concerns, but are in fact less moderate [in their condemnation of Jansenism]. I cannot emphasize just how sad it is to see the progress that Jansenism has made: it has spread throughout the kingdom and won over almost all the convents.”259 Maintenon subsequently summarized these frustrations, and her own, in a short message to Cardinal Noailles, dated 14 July 1707, that attempted to exert some emotional pressure on Louis-Antoine by relaying that his brother “the duc de Noailles is greatly afflicted by your state, and I have not yet had the courage to compose a response to him.”260 But she did just that a day later, dejectedly apprising the old duc that “my sorrows over Jansenism increase daily without the prospect of any remedy. It has begun to spoil Val-de-Grâce, about which the King is discernibly aggrieved on account of the Queen Mother [Anne of Austria].”261 The cardinal nonetheless remained unmoved and defiant, to Maintenon’s dismay, as he subsequently came into conflict in October 1707 with her confessor, Godet, having made “unjust” comments about the bishop of Chartres.262 Godet despised all suspected Jansenists with unbridled fury and retaliated in 1708 by publishing in his diocese an Ordonnance et Instruction Pastorale portant une condemnation des Institutions Théologiques du P.[ère Gaspard] Juénin for defending the “errors of Jansenius’ book” and Jansenist “sectaries.”263 A papal pronouncement was therefore extremely welcome, and a bref was published condemning the Moral Reflections in 1708 after a bull had been delivered in March dealing with Port-Royal des Champs. But the king was disgruntled because, as the prioress, Claude-Louise Dumesnil recorded, “he has found it too favourable to us.”264 Louis believed it failed to reprove their disobedience and heterodoxy, and because it also allowed the remaining twenty-six nuns to live out their lives at des Champs, the king allegedly complained to the nuncio that he would therefore “never have the pleasure of seeing the destruction of Port-Royal” in his lifetime.265 Torcy was therefore given the task of composing letters in May and July emphasizing the extent of king’s displeasure to La Trémoïlle in Rome, and a second more abrasively worded bull was accordingly promulgated in September, ratified by the royal council in November, and registered without demur in the Parlement of Paris on 19 December. Louis found this encyclical more satisfying because it envisaged that the convent as the “nest where the error had grown so perniciously will be entirely ruined and uprooted.”266 This second bull issued by the papacy in September 1708 suppressing Port-Royal des Champs had also accorded Noailles the right to shut

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down the convent in the manner of his choosing and gave him the option to transfer the nuns to other establishments.267 Clement XI had formerly recommended that the nuns continue to live and die at des Champs, rather than disperse them and their dangerous views, but ultimately decided to leave a matter “so prudent and delicate” to Noailles’s “discretion.”268 By January 1709 the cardinal had decided against an enforced eviction and instead proposed a compromise, whereby the nuns could live peacefully and independently at des Champs until they died if they dropped their legal challenge against the reunification of their house with that of Paris. The nuns rejected this offer outright as an insufferable “injustice,” and the king’s fraying patience finally snapped.269 PortRoyal’s days were now numbered and by the end of the year the convent was cleared and closed. In retrospect, Noailles’s solution, had it been accepted, would probably have resulted in the termination of Jansenism as the elderly nuns, nine of whom were over sixty years of age,270 gradually expired and memories of their dogma and defiance diminished. And ultimately no one was still able to decide exactly what a Jansenist was. Fouillou elaborated on this theme in his defensive riposte against the onslaught of attacks titled The Chimera of Jansenism, published in 1708. It asserted, rightly, that after sixty years of debate no definition of Jansenism could be agreed upon, and offered a simple and familiar explanation in stating that “one cannot deny that Jansenism is only an empty phantom and a purely imaginary heresy .... there are neither Bulls nor Mandates that can give reality to a chimera.”271 He therefore concluded that Jansenism was Augustinianism, which the church had happily been teaching for more than thirteen hundred years.272 More helpfully, and insightfully, the friend of Antoine Arnauld, Louis du Vaucel, had identified three types of Jansenists in a letter to Pasquier Quesnel, in 1688: “those asserting that the five propositions were in Jansen’s Augustinus (‘very few in number’); those passionate about good morals and rigorous self-discipline (‘a very great number’); and those that despised the Jesuits (‘an infinite number’).” Louis XIV should have born this in mind and heeded the advice of Fouillou in his Chimera when he presciently warned that it would be better to pray for the Jansenists than make war upon them. 273 But the king and his confrontational new confessor appointed after Père de La Chaise’s death on 20 January 1709, Michel Le Tellier (who was not a relative of the Le Tellier clan), wanted rapid retribution, and the militant and myopic measures they employed to achieve this ensured that Jansenism survived and thrived, while simultaneously animating and galvanizing a vast body of vociferously critical

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opposition to the Crown’s pugnacious policies. Worse still, Noailles became the figurehead in France for the body of opposition that vetoed the Unigenitus bull issued in 1713, which was designed decisively to outlaw Jansenism and succeed where Vineam Domini had failed. This conflict generated a seemingly irresolvable crisis within the Gallican church that would cause Maintenon much anguish, as illustrated in chapter 10, much like the Quietist controversy and the quarrel with Fénelon had done before it. She bitterly conceded to Noailles’s brother the duc, on 15 June 1706, that “our Saintly Cardinal, who should have been my consolation, has become one of my sources of sorrow.”274 As Maintenon’s prominence and significance increased her role at court became ever more demanding and her personal and working relationship with the king even more intense. As an unofficial queen she proved, on the whole, to be a great success, but in 1709 her protégé Chamillart was sacked as war minister and Louis XIV rejected Maintenon’s candidate to succeed La Chaise as royal confessor and instead chose Michel Le Tellier, who successfully challenged the control that the marquise and Noailles had exerted over ecclesiastical promotions and policy. During times of crisis the manipulation of Maintenon’s network of secular and clerical contacts would prove vital in preventing disorder, and as the entretien of 1705 confirmed, she was genuinely concerned and determined to abet her husband. But as suggested by the appointments of candidates like Fénelon, Noailles, Chamillart, and Ursins, one has to conclude that on balance, her increased involvement in government business did not always have the desired effect of unburdening the king.

9

1709–1715, Part One: “La Toute Puissante,” or Waning Influence? Domestic and International Affairs and Court Politics The final two chapters investigate the counter-claims made by historians that Maintenon’s influence either expanded or contracted following Chamillart’s ministerial dismissal in 1709 to the benefit of advisers like the foreign secretary, Torcy, the chancellor, Pontchartrain, or the king’s new confessor, Père Le Tellier. My analysis concludes that to an extent both interpretations have their merits. Torcy’s role in negotiating France’s way out of the War of the Spanish Succession was seminal, and Le Tellier clearly pushed the king into making a more ruthless assault on Jansenism. Maintenon was increasingly wearied by her political obligations but had to continue to fulfill them, mindful of the series of financial, subsistence, succession, and religious crises that were enveloping Louis XIV’s government, which also had to confront the threat of total defeat and invasion. On the subject of Maintenon’s power, Le Roy Ladurie’s rather nebulous appraisal neatly summarizes the ongoing historiographical ambiguity: This brings us to the description of the premier cabal, that of La Maintenon … A first “point-cloud” collects in effect around the next oldest generation of royal lineage, symbolized perfectly by the sovereign (who, by their supreme functions, are above cabals), and especially by his wife Maintenon, the “old lady” as Mme Palatine says in her description of the factions, [or] “the all powerful Maintenon” as Daniel Dessert wrote recently, the great historian of French finances. Without giving this lady more importance than she merits (her real power has been a matter of much debate amongst researchers), let us say that she represents at least a symbolic point around which groups of influence can be aggregated, by pressure or complicity, the lobbies or stables as we would say.1

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But Ladurie then goes on to suggest that Daniel Dessert’s unequivocal appellation was appropriate and that “La Patronne” was indeed “all-powerful”2 because she was able to install her candidates in high-ranking positions among the premier spheres of influence in the ministry, the clergy, the army, the navy, the domestic and diplomatic bureaucracy, the royal household, and the regency government.3 Conversely, John Rule has argued that after Chamillart’s fall in 1709 the marquise’s influence irretrievably declined to Torcy’s advantage.4 This hypothesis is somewhat plausible. Torcy composed the appeal to the French people, promulgated on 12 June 1709, to fight in defiance of the allies’ precondition that Louis coerce his grandson to abdicate the Spanish throne without compensation. And this call to arms had been transmitted to président Rouillé and the foreign minister during negotiations conducted at The Hague in April and May 1709.5 Torcy would subsequently be credited with arranging the propitious Treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt.6 Moreover, Rule and Trotter posit compellingly that Torcy and his cousin Desmaretz rekindled the Colbertian or “neo-politique” faction in the ministry after the latter had replaced Chamillart as controller-general in 1708, with the support of Voysin when he replaced Chamillart as war minister in 1709.7 Fatigued by Ursins’s admonitions, Maintenon informed the maréchal de Villeroi on 7 October 1709: “I told the King that if I was only involved in the affairs of Spain to bear witness to the line of conduct maintained by Mme la princesse des Ursins and M. Amelot, then I no longer wished to be made aware about any of it, since the one was here, and the other no longer wanted to meddle in any affair. The King took care to tell M. de Torcy no longer to send me the Spanish packet.”8 By 1709 Louis’s confidence in the cardinal de Noailles had been undermined because the cardinal’s Jansenist sympathies had become increasingly perceptible. That same year, on 20 January, Louis’s confessor, Père de La Chaise, died, but not before persuading Louis to select a candidate from his list of suitable successors. The king asked the ducs de Beauvillier and de Chevreuse to investigate the names on that list, and they recommended Père Le Tellier,9 rather than Maintenon’s nominee, Joachim de La Chétardie, who was the curé de Saint-Sulpice and her confessor after the death of Godet des Marais on 20 January.10 These two events conspired to render the fixing of nominations to benefices problematical because, as Maintenon declared to Mme du Pérou in September 1711: “I implore you, my dear girl, to chide M. de Poitiers for soliciting a benefice. I believe that you see things quite clearly enough to know that I do not govern Père Le Tellier.”11 His fanatically discriminatory

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attitude toward what he perceived as Jansenist tendencies brought about the denunciation and destruction of Port-Royal des Champs starting in October 1709. And it was Le Tellier who induced Louis to coerce a reluctant papacy into producing an encyclical categorically condemning Quesnel’s Réflexions Morales. The bull Unigenitus was duly issued on 10 September 1713, which proved almost as divisive and damaging as the Edict of Fontainebleau. Rule and Trotter have recently moderated their contentions in alignment with my own findings, but the incident they cite in August 1710, when Torcy effectively upbraided Maintenon, with the king’s cognizance, for injudiciously broadcasting her criticisms of the Crown’s ardently pro-Spanish and thus pro-war policy,12 demonstrates that in the field of foreign affairs the minister was predominant. And this became even more necessary after the king and Chamillart had injuriously attempted to negotiate secretly with France’s enemies and kick-start peace negotiations in 1705–6. On closer inspection the evidence reveals that matters were a good deal more complex and that neither Torcy’s emerging pre-eminence, nor the Jesuits’ regained standing, succeeded in eclipsing the wife of the Sun King. Torcy continued to conduct liasse meetings with the king, and sometimes other ministers, regularly in Maintenon’s rooms.13 And on 24 March 1715 Maintenon conceded to her confessor, the curé of Saint-Sulpice, that I consider myself only too happy if I am able to serve you in your good works; but it is certain that the Jesuits govern absolutely and thus it is necessary, in spite of what may have been, to reckon with them … The King was saying to me two or three days ago, and before he had seen Père Le Tellier, that he had commanded everything that you asked for to be carried out at Sainte-Thècle. You see the efficacy of that order: however, how do we then clarify which of all the interests involved is responsible for its success? … Yet I read your letter to the King, because that seemed to me wholly reasonable. However, it will not be unless I re-read it one more time, because it is necessary that you handle the good Father with care.14 The appointment of Le Tellier clearly changed the dynamic somewhat in that the king increasingly entrusted him with the direction of religious policy, which in turn was a tacit admission that he had allowed Maintenon and her candidates too much sway in that sphere. But by then it was too late because his consort’s domestic and international prominence, and her important contacts and extensive patronage and clientage network,

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particularly in the church, meant that Maintenon was unable to withdraw from public life and break up the political partnership she had forged with the king. There was consequently little reduction in the frequency of daily conferences with ministers, senior officials, and generals after 1708. In fact these deliberations were intensified in 1709, and from 29 July 1710 the king, in order to capitalize on the flourishing collaboration between Desmaretz and Voysin, also held weekly “liasse à trois” meetings, customarily on Tuesday evenings, with his foreign and finance ministers chez Maintenon until November 1712, by which time hostilities between the French and Spanish Bourbons and the British had ceased.15

b o u r b o n s pai n Despite having abandoned the paquet, Maintenon remained a force in Spanish affairs and dedicated herself to improving them, as she disclosed to the princesse des Ursins on 1 September 1714 shortly before the princess’s ejection in December: “Yes, Madame, I believe that you are often in trouble, and I shall ever think that the great stations are accompanied by great afflictions, but they are too much envied for those who possess them to be pitied. I could heartily wish that the part I take in your troubles might in some measure diminish in them.”16 Torcy carried on reporting to the king on Spanish affairs and reading from the paquet in Maintenon’s apartments where he would often work, as he himself recalls on 24 May 1710: “I brought the package to the King without opening the letter addressed to His Majesty. He ordered me to read it in the presence of the Duchess of Burgundy and Madame de Maintenon.”17 The Spanish king and queen and Ursins wrote constantly, and the marquise received letters from the prince de Chalais,18 Prince Louis of Asturias (1707–1724), the king’s eldest son and heir,19 and Philip V’s new queen, Elizabeth Farnese, whom he married formally on 24 December 1714 after the death of Marie-Louise de Savoie on 14 February.20 Regrettably, Maintenon’s exchanges with the princesse des Ursins continued to prove problematical. From 1711 the latter obdurately pressed the marquise to convince Louis that a clause granting her a small sovereignty worth 30,000 écus of rent in the Netherlands, which was to be ceded to the Elector of Bavaria, be embedded in the forthcoming concordat to be finalized with the emperor.21 This supplication had initially been seconded by the Queen of Spain on 7 July 1711,22 and missives from Maintenon to Ursins on 18 September and 20 November 1713, and 2 May and 9 June 1714, attest that she was doing everything in her power to gratify the princess, while emphasizing that the odds were

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almost insurmountable.23 Eventually ignored by the emperor, and consequently discarded by French plenipotentiaries in July 1714, the princess’s project became a notorious obstacle to an international settlement, causing even friends like Mary of Modena to complain to Maintenon on 10 September 1713 that I am very angry to learn that there are still so many difficulties in the way of a general peace, and surprised that they come from Spain, which seems to me should be obliged to facilitate it; the conduct of the duc d’Ossone [d’Osuna] is insupportable and I am astonished that his master bears it; and as for Mme des Ursins, although I hold her in great affection, I am not able to prevent myself from blaming her, since she is not ready to sacrifice her poor principality … that at the same time delays (I do not say ruptures) the peace instead, which is desirable above all else.24 The king of Spain continued to try to profit from his exchanges with Maintenon as supported by his queen. The latter highlighted to Maintenon, on 6 November 1712, that in relinquishing his rights to the French throne Philip “hopes that this will help advance the repose of Europe, and especially that of France and of the King his grandfather, which he wishes for so passionately: to achieve this you see all that he is sacrificing.” 25 Marie-Louise then reminded the marquise that the French princes were now expected to renounce their claims to the Spanish Crown, which the ducs d’Orléans and de Berry did on 15 March 1713. On 11 April 1711 Philip V had urged the marquise to orchestrate the appointment of his candidate, Amelot, who had been forced to return to France in 1709, instead of Ursins’s choice, the maréchal d’Estrées, as the French ambassador to Spain.26 He was understandably disconcerted to discover subsequently that Maintenon had instead elevated another aspirant, who was also one of her clients, the marquis de Brancas, to the position on 15 June 1713. He brusquely admitted to her that “one is not able to give me an ambassador who is less agreeable here than the marquis de Brancas; it vexes me because you honour him with your kindness.”27 By way of reply, Maintenon substantiated her actions to Ursins on 17 July 1713, stating that “it is true that I entertain great esteem for the marquis de Brancas; he possesses wit, virtue, and great courage, and has, moreover in my eyes, the merit of being very poor with high birth; there is really a pleasure in aiding and raising up those who are thus circumstanced.”28 The king of Spain nonetheless persisted in his attempts to collaborate with the marquise in state business, as revealed in a letter of 11 April 1714:

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I am sending, Mme, the Prince de Chalais on important business knowing him, as I do, to be a very wise and very discreet man; and I am writing to ask you to receive him kindly, to listen to his commission and to enter into all details regarding it. Its nature is such that it must be kept very secret, and I entreat you to ensure that it remains so.29 Maintenon would undoubtedly have complied with this request, even though she continued to profess her powerlessness. On 2 May 1714 she expostulated, with characteristic disingenuousness, to Ursins that “you do not believe me when I tell you that I meddle with no business, and that there would be as much repugnance in communicating anything to me as I should have in hearing it.”30 However, on the recent raft of controversial reforms bringing about administrative centralization that had yet to be ratified by the Cortes of Castile, the marquise subsequently pronounced that “we think Spain indifferently governed, that there is often a change of measures, that the feelings of the Spaniards are not sufficiently consulted, and that you ought not to have put Orry into the high station [veedor general, or principal minister] he occupies.”31 Since 1704 Maintenon had been protesting that she was now so old and ill that she only responded to the most essential letters,32 but these continued to pour in and to receive responses, despite her remonstrations and a sickly disposition that proved remarkably resilient.

cou rt ly du t ie s a n d a m bas sadori al obli gati ons At court Maintenon was still inundated by requests for interviews and audiences, which she was increasingly reluctant to give. She was approached by a host of domestic and foreign dignitaries, including emissaries from Spain, Portugal, England, the Dutch Republic, Hungary-Transylvania, Mantua,33 Venice,34 and Saxony,35 as well as the duke of Lorraine,36 the Elector of Bavaria, Maximilian II, and his brother, the archbishop-elector of Cologne, Joseph Clemens. The archbishop-elector made an emotional appeal to Maintenon on 26 November 1712 in the hope that it would persuade Emperor Charles VI to lift the imperial ban his father had imposed and return his titles and territories: Madame, if I had followed my inclination I would have sometimes permitted myself the honour of writing to you to solicit the continuation of your kindnesses; but my lifelong respect for your wishes, and the fear of displeasing you, have restrained me until now, and if

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today I am acting against your orders, Mme, you must attribute this to the bitter necessity and cruel situation in which I find myself. It is natural that children in need should turn to the favourable assistance of their mother, and as you have been happy to assure that me you would help me on this occasion, I ask for your powerful protection, Mme, in the hope that it will be able promptly to extricate me from the abyss that I am in.37 The marquise was always careful not to overstep the boundaries of authority discerned by her intuition and defined by the deference she paid to senior officials, like the foreign minister, Torcy. For example, he logged on 26 January 1710 that the [Grand] Pensionary [of Holland, Antoine Heinsius], told me, when pressed, that he had come to court to speak with Mme de Maintenon, because he knew that she wanted peace and that she had opposed the rupture of the partition treaty. Florrison sought a letter from her for the Pensionary, and I had quite a bit of trouble making him understand that she would not give it to him.38 Nonetheless, the Electors of Cologne and Bavaria continued to strive, on a number of occasions and with favourable results,39 to fortify their alliance with the French king by individually courting his wife in private at Versailles, the Trianon, or even Saint-Cyr,40 and Prince Rákóczi did likewise in June and July 1713.41 Having taken refuge in France, the Transylvanian prince befriended and was guided at court by his relative, Mme de Dangeau.42 Louis consequently negotiated an article in the Treaty of Utrecht guaranteeing the re-establishment of Bavaria and Cologne,43 and Rákóczi harvested two lucrative pensions worth 6,500 livres per month from Louis and 30,000 per year from the King of Spain,44 thanks in no small part to Maintenon, who had petitioned Ursins successfully on the prince’s behalf in support of his ultimately vain efforts to re-establish himself as ruler of Hungary and Transylvania.45 These activities confirm that Maintenon continued to take a very keen interest in international affairs. The same was true regarding domestic concerns, and her rooms at Versailles, various satellite courts, and Saint-Cyr were besieged by royals, clerics, ministers, and marshals. Maintenon’s daily schedule consequently remained punishing and left her little time for leisure. She regretted to Madame de Dangeau on 7 May 1708 that the king’s bloodletting meant she was unable to leave Marly, so their dinner party at Saint-Cyr would have to be postponed.46

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All of this increasingly forced the marquise to avoid official meetings and engagements whenever possible, using her frail health as a legitimate excuse, but this did not always enable her to deter dogged courtiers or defer appointments with royals, who would camp outside her apartments once she was ensconced within them. The comtesse de Caylus expressed her frustration in an undated missive from 1709 or 1710, protesting that she was unable to speak to Maintenon about an urgent favour she needed from Louis because her aunt was unavailable and presumably would be for some hours to come because the duc d’Orléans was currently in her chamber, the dauphin was waiting at the door, and the king was on his way to find her, all of which compelled the comtesse to seek Voysin’s support in the meantime.47 On Sunday, 11 October 1711 Maintenon complained to the marquise de Dangeau that she was besieged by “too many bishops” at Saint-Cyr, so it might be better if she and her husband delayed travelling to the weekend retreat at Marly until Wednesday, as the stay had been extended for eight days, which would give the king time to find suitable lodgings for them.48 She avowed to the princesse des Ursins on 13 February 1713 that “the English ambassadress wishes to see me; I persist in refusing her, but this has not been done without some fear of reproaches from you.”49 And on 13 March 1713 Maintenon reported to the same correspondent that she had “done the very thing, Mme, which you cannot believe by refusing the visit of the English ambassadress [the duchess of Shrewsbury]. The marshal de Villeroi saved me from that of the Elector of Bavaria. Have you the cruelty to wish me to keep my door open until I am at my last gasp?”50 Maintenon thanked Mme de Dangeau on 31 March 1714 for preventing her from having to receive the grand écuyer of Duke Léopold of Lorraine, the marquis de Beauvau-Craon,51 but these respites were fleeting. On 4 September 1714 Maintenon informed the same old friend that despite spending much of the day nursing Mme de Caylus, who was suffering from some form of dysentery, she had still needed to attend to other affairs, while feeling unwell herself, and must change her clothes before the king arrived following his tiring médecin. Consequently, she would be unable to see Dangeau that day, or the one after, because she was anxious to get away from the court to avoid the incoming Elector of Bavaria.52 And as had become customary, Philip V’s new ambassador to France, the prince de Cellamare, conveyed a letter addressed to Maintenon from his master, dated 16 May 1715, which the Spanish king wished to be delivered personally so that a rapport might be established.53 The marquise politely refused, explaining that Louis had deemed it inapposite for

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her to receive foreigners.54 This was presumably because of the manner in which Ursins had been covertly and forcibly ejected from Spain at the end of December 1714. The expulsion had shocked and angered Louis and Maintenon and strained relations between the two courts when news of her eviction reached Versailles in December.55 Louis’s decision to reject Philip’s request on the marquise’s behalf is in itself significant. Nevertheless, before that rupture Maintenon’s rhetorical declarations of disinterest did not match reality. For example, on 27 November 1712 the marquise equivocated to Ursins that she was “very impatient to hear of the duke of Hamilton’s arrival here; but as to seeing him, I do not think of it, for in secluding myself more than ever from the French I shall not receive foreigners, although I must highly approve of their being well treated, and exert all my influence for this purpose.”56 The contents of a missive to Ursins on 12 March 1714 were more transparent: M. [the abbé René] de Mornay will soon depart for his embassy in Portugal: I do not know what services you can render him, but I recommend him very sincerely to you. He is the son of M. and Mme de Montchevreuil, who were two of my best friends, and has a probity rarely found in this country; he possesses the same principles of honour, talent, and experience in business, and a very conciliating disposition. It is pointless to give you his history, but his merit has been detrimental to his fortune, by rendering those jealous who might otherwise have protected him.57 A letter from Marly to Mornay in Portugal on 18 July 1714 betrays that Maintenon’s inquisitiveness was insatiable despite her claims to the contrary, for it concluded with a thinly disguised request for information: “I am not incurious as to the subject of your conversations with His Catholic Majesty; but don’t think you must satisfy this in your letters.”58 This same pattern was discernible in 1713 when Maintenon assured the same correspondent on 13 March that “I can’t see anything, I can’t hear anything, no-one understands what I say because I can no longer speak properly; I am a living skeleton; I confess that it walks often, but just like shadows that are not accustomed to seek out company.”59 Yet a week earlier she had admitted to Ursins that “notwithstanding my seclusion, I cannot refuse particular interviews with persons whom I have some reason for noticing; I have one today with Mme de Pompadour [the wife of the new ambassador to Spain],60 to whom all this kind of thing is new, and by which she is also much alarmed. I have also seen the widow of the marshal de Boufflers, who lives in great retirement.”61

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Maintenon employed less affectation in her correspondence with more faithful confidantes. She informed the marquise de Villette on 29 June 1714 that “you must not count on me anymore, Mme, for commerce, because so many things detain me that I can only see for a moment the people that I esteem and love the most.”62 Moreover, the marquise had told Ursins on 17 July 1712 that she “really loved to be alone whenever time permitted”;63 subsequently, on 2 October, she admitted to the same correspondent that I’ve passed the time Fontainebleau in great solitude, which I enjoyed very much, and shall continue it here [at Saint-Cyr]. I have no motive for showing myself, and have a thousand for concealment. I am old, often sad; tired of the world, knowing courtiers but too well; and no longer possess that which formally interested me in everything, except what regards the King’s person and the good of his kingdom.64 However, it was almost impossible for her to escape at Versailles. She bemoaned to her curate at Saint-Sulpice on 3 December 1714 that she was “so overwhelmed with visits, that I consider fleeing and invent reasons to render myself inaccessible. I spend the mornings shut up and after dinner I am absent from apartments. I do not dare to dine there; I am not able to see anyone without a premeditated rendez-vous, and I will barely be able to glimpse M. the abbé de La Sayette.”65 Maintenon therefore continued to be committed to helping the king tackle the exigencies of state, while indulging her passion for privacy whenever possible. She imparted to the archbishop of Rouen on 14 December 1715 that “solitude is best,” confidentially concluding that “the smallpox is here and provides a good excuse to avoid the visits demanded of me.”66 This seems to have become more difficult after 1709 and made her relish more intensely the one or two days per week when she was able to inhabit her well-appointed suite of four rooms at SaintCyr; yet even there she was pestered by petitioners to the extent that it effectively became her own court.67 Louis wasn’t insensitive to her needs, and as early as June 1710 he had arranged the construction of Le Repos at Marly for the marquise. She divulged to the duc de Noailles on the 13th that “I have some impatience to see the two little rooms next to the chapel, which the King has given me in order that I may rest sometimes and evade the importunity of morning visitors.”68 Liselotte described these spaces in more detail in a letter to her aunt, the Electress Sophie, on 13 November, remarking that

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the French women have this foolish craving for hiding away in dark places. Mme de Maintenon has had several niches built for her, where she goes to lie down; they are something like a small daybed, enclosed in a kind of little house of tight-fitting boards, which are like curtains. The Duchess of Burgundy also has a niche, and so does the princesse de Conti. I would suffocate if I had to sit or lie in one of these.69 Thus Maintenon’s presence at the French court was relatively undiminished until the king’s death, even though she assured correspondents that she was becoming less visible to the public. For example, on 1 April 1712 she intimated to the duc de Noailles that “all the ladies come into my chamber in order to see the King, that is to say the ‘grand cabinet,’ where I go rarely.”70 Conversely, in the summer of 1712 Admiral Ducasse returned to the French court for the first time since becoming a Knight of the Golden Fleece, for services rendered to the Spanish king, and was granted “a long audience” with Louis on 1 September at Fontainebleau chez Maintenon, who had dined with the king earlier.71 Furthermore, Sourches documented on 20 November 1712 that “the courtiers, who were the most attentive observers of the slightest novelty, noticed that the Duke of Berry had entered with him [the King] chez la marquise of Maintenon, which he had never done before.”72 In 1713 Saint-Simon recorded that “amusements in the evening were held more and more frequently chez Mme de Maintenon, wherein nothing could fill the void left by the poor Dauphine.”73 His observation is corroborated by Mme de Caylus in March of the same year,74 and also by Maintenon herself, who recounted to Ursins on 31 May 1713 that “M. and Mme the duchesse de Berry made me the honour of coming to see me [at Marly] separately.”75 Moreover, on 13 August she remarked to the same correspondent that there were “a number of ladies at Marly; we have so many princesses and maids-of-honour, that there are quite enough without wishing for any more; but I have no objection to their coming, as I do not see any of them. I have already named those whom I have reserved for myself, for the dinners and musical parties which are given in my own apartments.”76 Unfortunately, Maintenon could be less selective when it came to supplications, which continued to flood in from a variety of eminent figures, thanking the marquise for successfully supporting preceding entreaties, seeking her help in obtaining titles, promotions, bishoprics, and governorships, and even – as in the case of the Grand Prior of France since 1678, Philippe de Bourbon-Vendôme (1655–1727) – attempting

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to extricate themselves from disgrace or recover their inheritance.77 Maintenon was unable to assist the Grand Prior,78 but she exerted her influence favourably to enhance relations with other royal relatives. The duc d’Orléans improved his standing with the dauphin and the king, and also with Maintenon, by breaking with his mistress, Mme d’Argenton, in January 1710.79 The marquise took great pleasure in the accord it fostered within the Orléans family.80 However, she forbade d’Argenton from entering the cloister at Gomerfontaine on the grounds that it would compromise her own position, as she explained to the abbesse, Mme de La Viefville, on 16 January 1710, because she would be the one expected to relate her story and ongoing progress to the court.81 Subsequently the duc Orléans’s wife, Françoise Marie de Blois, wrote in August 1710 to ask Maintenon to thank the king for arranging lodgings for her at Versailles over the coming winter, and to emphasize how touched she had been by all the marks of friendship that Maintenon had shown her in this matter, which she “desired to merit more than anyone.”82 Even her mother-in-law, Liselotte, was compelled in the same year to state how extremely obliged she was to Maintenon for having helped obtain a pardon for M. de Lassay, whose family could otherwise have potentially been disgraced.83 Remarkably, Liselotte continued to show deference toward Maintenon, wary of the incomparable influence she continued to exercise at court, and offered her apologies in February 1710 for not having been able to present herself to congratulate the marquise on the birth of Louis’s third great-grandson, the duc d’Anjou, who was delivered on the 15th.84 And later that same year, it was in a conciliatory letter addressed to Maintenon that Liselotte expressed that her granddaughter, Mlle d’Orléans, who was about to marry the duc de Berry, had in fact not flouted the complicated rules of etiquette the king had recently and contentiously amended.85 Among other measures, Louis had stipulated in March 1710 that the children of the duc du Maine were henceforth to enjoy the same rank and privileges as their father, and in April they were granted the survivances of du Maine’s prestigious charges.86 Saint-Simon was scandalized and predictably suspected that a plot conceived by Maintenon was afoot, overlooking the fact that du Maine was one of Louis’s favourites as well as one of the marquise’s.87 Maintenon often lamented to correspondents that she was engulfed by affairs and that her apartments were overrun by courtiers, recurrently deploying the phrase “my room is full.”88 Yet in many of her letters, particularly to the her intimate friends Mmes de Dangeau and de Caylus, she clearly recounts the extent to which the games, diversions

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and entertainments, and grounds of the king’s various palaces gave her great pleasure, as did the company of select companions when she was able to escape her suffocating chambers.89 She wrote of Fontainebleau on 1 September 1714 that “we are here at last … [and] which the King has again embellished: they have taken away the little garden projected into the pond, and nothing can be more magnificent than the court of fountains.”90 Maintenon also indulged in the court’s favourite pastime of gaming,91 but she sometimes seemed priggishly determined not to enjoy herself. And when she did gamble she felt immediately guilty and repeatedly recorded that she could not countenance the extravagance at Marly and the excessive expenditure that continued to be lavished upon the king’s favourite retreat. This she considered ruinous, especially in the context of the ongoing war and enduring famine,92 and she confided to Mlle d’Aumale her fear that the court would soon be transferred from Versailles to Marly. Jadedly she soldiered on, morbidly but jocularly informing Mme de Caylus on 5 May 1715 that “you see from this billet, my dear niece, that I am at leisure. M. [Le Peletier] de Souzy93 works with the King. I am in an enchanting chamber, and it is only a headache and an alarming weariness that make me aware that I am mortal. Although the reflection in the mirror tells me that I am dead.”94 Occasionally Maintenon made good her escape with the assistance of friends like Mme de Caylus, who sympathized with the marquise’s taxing work schedule, as evidenced in one undated communication, in which she offered to remonstrate with the king to have her aunt discharged from ministerial liasse duties to participate in a card game with the duchesse de Noailles.95 Caylus did not always succeed, however, such were the demands of Louis. In another letter she apologetically admitted to Maintenon that she had “a deep regret in not being able to share with you the back of [minister] M. Le Peletier,”96 the elder brother of de Souzy, who continued to correspond with the king and visit him annually, which Louis required as a condition of his resignation as controller-general in 1697.97 Maintenon’s longing for an eremitic lifestyle was therefore somewhat frustrated in the final years of the reign, partly because of courtiers’ high expectations and partly because of her own sense of obligation and compulsive curiosity. Similarly, Maintenon’s retirement to Saint-Cyr in September 1715 was far from beginning a period of disinterested tranquillity that historians have traditionally depicted, because of both her reputation and her irrepressible preoccupation with the lives and careers of her clients and friends at the regent’s court.98

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f in a n c es At the ministry, Desmaretz took charge of the country’s decrepit finances from Chamillart.99 Despite conceding to Ursins on 4 March 1708 that “M. Desmaretz is at no point in despair and all the men of business are delighted to have him,”100 Maintenon confided in a letter to the princesse on 3 June from Saint-Cyr that “I am waiting for M. Desmaretz, who has arranged a rendezvous with me here; this is not without some worry on my part, because these men have nothing agreeable to say to me: the whole world endeavours to put them at odds with each other, M. Chamillart and him, and if that does not succeed it will be a miracle.”101 The mistrust was mutual, but it was quickly dispelled, in part thanks to the controller-general’s insinuative efforts, but also because he quickly proved his ability to raise substantial sums, as Maintenon acknowledged in a letter to his wife, Madeleine Béchameil (1655–1725), on 27 June.102 Accordingly, on 26 July 1708 Desmaretz wrote a letter to the marquise in which he acknowledged his cognizance that she had not wholly sanctioned his preferment, but nonetheless recommended that a healthy commerce be instituted between them because it could only be beneficial to the king’s affairs. In affirmation he enclosed a finance memoir he had prepared, confessing that he dare not unveil its depressing contents to Louis immediately and unvarnished, and was therefore forwarding the document to her one month in advance to soften the blow to the king’s morale.103 Thereafter their relationship thrived, thanks to the dexterity of Desmaretz as well as the tactical manoeuvres of the controller-general’s wife. Mme Desmaretz carefully cultivated the friendship of Maintenon and the marquise de Caylus, thus becoming a member of what the king’s consort playfully dubbed her “cabal”104 as well as a popular figure within the royal circle. This gained regular invitations to Marly for Madeleine and her husband. On her first visit in 1709, Mme Desmaretz was given a guided tour of the gardens on 18 April by the king, who travelled in his petit-chariot alongside Madame de Maintenon in a sedan chair.105 Consequently, Maintenon became what Stéphane Guerre has described as “une alliée précieuse” of Desmaretz,106 which proved reciprocally beneficial and contributed crucially to France’s ability to continue the war. They met often, and sometimes dined together at various locations, including Saint-Cyr, to exchange intelligence and proffer reciprocal support, and both worked regularly with Voysin and the king in liasse conferences. Desmaretz apprised Maintenon of fresh fiscal developments and intervened to ameliorate the financial affairs of Saint-Cyr and also

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those of her associates and clients.107 The marquise in turn provided the controller-general and his colleagues with protection and acted as an intermediary to enhance the minister’s relations with officials and improve communications with nettlesome generals, like Villars. Desmaretz could therefore be candid in their communications, even complaining to Mme de Caylus, probably in 1708, about the poor performance of French generals.108 This closeness emboldened Maintenon to try to safeguard the controller-general against the inequitable and somewhat irresponsible criticisms of Louis, who rebuked his minister on 30 July 1715 for having relied too heavily on financiers to sustain the solvency of the state. Maintenon consequently complained to her confessor, Gergy, that “one blames M. Desmaretz for not having scrutinized all the gens d’affaires, who enrich themselves at the expense of the kingdom; he is forced to humour them because, in pressing times, he cannot find any resources other than from them; but he intends to extract considerable sums from them.”109 The deposit bank, the Caisse Legendre, that Desmaretz instituted in December 1709 did fail in April 1715, but only after its credit bills had put 400 million livres at the Crown’s disposal.110 Maintenon was therefore acutely aware of the daunting scale of the task facing Desmaretz at the height of the war, and had accordingly been compelled to emphasize to the ever demanding princesse des Ursins just how precarious France’s finances were in a letter dated 10 August 1709: M. Chamillart, persuaded that peace was at hand, extended public credit so much that he absolutely destroyed it; M. Desmaretz restored it in the first five months of his administration; the capture of Lille weakened it a little, but the loss of Ghent and the separation of our army destroyed it again; so that nothing but fortunate events or peace can revive it; the former are hopeless and you do not wish for the latter.111 More explicitly, the marquise explained to her archbishop of Rouen on 14 September that “one is no more inclined against the traitans [contractors] than those at court and in Paris, and I know of no man who detests them as much as M. Desmaretz, nor who has a greater desire to extricate himself from their clutches, which will force him to ask the King for help.”112 And Maintenon went on presciently to declare to the maréchal de Villeroi on 10 November 1709 that “in truth, Monsieur, if there was any justice in the world, one would admire Monsieur Desmaretz for supporting what he has supported over the past two years, when

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the scarcity of money was as terrible as we see now. It would have been a great misjudgment of the King, if I dare to say it, not to be satisfied with such a minister.”113 In a letter to Maintenon on 26 July 1709, a disillusioned Desmaretz, whose “strength and … health have been exhausted by the excessive work” and public criticism, had demanded to know if anyone else could do any better,114 faced with what one historian has described as a “state of meltdown” in military finances.115 Total fiscal collapse was narrowly avoided thanks to a variety of expedients that included sequestering bullion from the Americas bound for Bourbon Spain, selling patents of nobility and new offices, reminting coins, obtaining loans from creditors, officials, wealthy individuals, and provincial institutions, escalating taxes (such the augmentation des gages, which extracted large sums from senior magistrates), and implementing new impositions, such as the controversial Dixième.116 As Gary McCollim has demonstrated, the Dixième was groundbreaking in that it had to be paid by commoners and nobles alike, not unlike the Capitation; but it was primarily a tax on revenue generated by property, and not technically on income. It raised 20 to 29 million livres per year, which fell well short of the 60 or so million livres the Crown expected.117 Criticism of Desmaretz therefore continued despite his successful exertions and Maintenon’s attempts to defend him; she declared to the archbishop of Rouen on 24 July 1710 that “M. Desmaretz is a man of great resources. He sees all of our difficulties, but he at no point loses courage. I am completely content with him, and I tell you with pleasure, because it seems to me that you like him too.”118 France’s economic woes persisted nonetheless after peace was concluded. The levels of debt incurred during the conflict became increasingly manifest, and money remained scarce, putting further pressure on the controller-general and thus prompting Maintenon to share her sense of exasperation with the Curate of Saint-Sulpice on 28 April 1715: “I at no point understand the discourse that again arises about M. Desmaretz. He has never been in better favour at court, nor judged more necessary in his place.”119

wa r a n d p eace Maintenon’s knowledge of fiscal and military matters was further deepened because Louis intensified the practice of working with ministers and generals simultaneously in his consort’s apartments. This escalation was perhaps unsurprising given the dire circumstances and that the office of secretary of state for war had again been awarded

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to Maintenon’s controller-general at Saint-Cyr. After Chamillart’s departure in June 1709, the day after she had learned of his dismissal, the marquise notified Ursins on 10 June that “the voix publique was behind M. Voysin to be his successor; he is one of my best friends, and has a wife of merit.”120 And on the 17th she added that “I believe you have been informed of the disgrace of M. Chamillart. M. Voysin replaces him and will be, I believe, more active and more vigilant; he is the ally and friend of M. Desmaretz, and the two of them always working in concert promises to be very advantageous to our affairs.”121 Importantly, Voysin’s wife, Charlotte Trudaine, had long been one of the few privileged members of Maintenon’s intimate circle, as illustrated on 5 August 1710, when the marquise recounted to the duc de Noailles that “we [Maintenon and the duchesse de Noailles and possibly the Duchess of Burgundy] dined together yesterday evening chez Mme Voysin [at Versailles].”122 Moreover, Maintenon jubilantly divulged to her close friend the maréchal de Villeroi on 25 June that “it gives me great pleasure to hear all the good things that you have told me about Monsieur Voysin; because the interest I take in him has augmented since his placement, and you render me justice in believing that in my heart I value the good of the state over my own particular views. His reputation obliged the King to appoint him. May God bless this choice!”123 The king also continued his habit of transacting state business with his war minister each evening in Maintenon’s chambers.124 Daniel François Voysin quickly proved himself to be a thoroughly competent minister, with the marquise reporting to the archbishop of Rouen, on 12 July 1709, that “our friend M. Voysin is doing perfectly well, and the whole world acknowledges how much more industrious he is than his predecessor.”125 One reward that Voysin obtained was being entrusted to draw up the list of coveted invitations to Marly.126 Maintenon had evidently contributed to Daniel’s success, emphasizing to the maréchal de Villars on 19 June 1709 that the salvation of the state is in your hands. Everyday M. the maréchal de Boufflers assures me that he knows no-one with a better understanding of war than you; your actions have made the army ready for war, your vigilance will prevent you ever from being surprised … I hope that our new minister will be less slow and less dejected than the other had been, or at least that this will not occur soon. He is one of my best friends, and I pray, Monsieur, that he will be one of yours.127

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On 30 June, in a letter to Villars, Maintenon ruminated on some of the intricacies of state affairs and the extent to which the public voice and court discussions could impact the manner in which they were conducted: It seems to me that our new war minister is very occupied with your subsistence; this is a man of industry; and I tell him as you advised, Monsieur, not to let himself be captivated by the courtiers: it’s even worse that these ladies interfere in everything at this time; those of Spain cause a great stir in the salon, but, by the grace of God, we will come back this evening and there will less discussion of it as fewer of them will have gathered there. I had the honour, in taking leave of the King of England, to advise him to dine often chez vous; I hope you will be satisfied with each other. He is, I believe, greatly astonished by what he sees and the manner in which you exert yourself. He is full of praise for everything you say and do, both naturally and by more subterranean means. You continue with your prodigious work and your health does not suffer at all, which is by no means easy. I fully expect, Monsieur, that you will be the friend of M. Voysin; I want to be the link in your liaison.128 The marquise ended the communication, as she often did, with a petition recommending “again a young man who carries my name and who is much wiser than his years; it seems to me that he could never have been quite as happy serving under anyone but you: it is the comte d’Aubigné.”129 Villars himself conveyed to Maintenon on 29 July 1711 that he was “extremely happy with M. Voysin, who I maintain is a very good secretary of state, whose application and organization is more than I could hope for.”130 And on 3 November 1712, she validated the maréchal’s assessment in a letter to her archbishop of Rouen, highlighting that it is true that M. and Mme Voysin must be very happy at present, and this will no doubt continue once our fortunes have changed for the better … I come back to M. Voysin in stating that the manner in which we are served by him cannot be bettered and that our army lacks for nothing and in finishing the campaign is left with a surplus of munitions and supplies.131 However, during the darkest days of 1709 resources were scarce, and Maintenon attempted to ameliorate matters by fostering greater harmony among officials and by gathering information and recommendations that

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would enable her to lobby the king more effectively. In martial matters the marquise’s relations with Villars and the duc de Noailles became of paramount importance, as did her friendship with Marshal Boufflers. He worked with Voysin and the king chez Maintenon on 6 August alongside the marquis de Ravignan, who was subsequently given his orders before returning to Flanders, where the army commanded by Villars was still desperately short of food, as the marshal had complained to Maintenon on 29 July.132 On 9 May Villars had returned from Flanders to confront Chamillart133 and then to consult the king about the army’s debility from lack of provisions, exacerbated by the devastating winter, during two indecisive conferences held at Marly, comprising Louis, the maréchaux de Villars, de Boufflers, and d’Harcourt, Chamillart, and Desmaretz. In his memoirs Villars recorded that the two ministers were apologetic and the king impotent and that only Maintenon and Torcy were forthcoming with constructive ideas: Messieurs de Chamillart and Desmaretz … showed uncertainty [and] embarrassment and excused themselves very badly for the dreadful mistake of risking that the King’s army might die of hunger. So what I gained in the course of my journey was the knowledge that the court was without resources. I obtained no more peace of mind on the subject of military operations; we examined, we discussed, and we settled on nothing; thus the King said in embracing me: “I put my confidence in God and in you, and I am unable to execute your orders, since I am unable to give you any help.” Mme de Maintenon took me aside and asked me to speak to her confidentially about M. Chamillart, and to tell her whether it was better to keep him, or remove him from office. I replied that the harm had already been done; that a new minister could hardly remedy it instantly, and that I did not believe an alteration was at all appropriate under the circumstances.134 Fortunately, Louis’s government and indeed the French state were galvanized by the preliminary peace talks held at The Hague in March and April at which the allies imprudently demanded that Louis abandon many of his frontier fortresses and cede Strasbourg, and that he force his grandson, by military means if necessary, effectively to abdicate and hand his Spanish possessions over to Archduke Charles of Austria. Accordingly, Tournai was invested by the Allies on 27 June, and Maintenon reflected to the maréchal duc de Noailles on 30 June 1709 that “all good Frenchmen have felt, like you, the harshness of the peace

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conditions, which are to be rejected; [but] it is difficult to sustain a war when one has neither wheat nor money. The famine comes directly from God, so that it seems to me proof that he wishes to see us overwhelmed by peace or war.”135 Louis XIV’s famous “appeal to the people” of June 1709, which was drafted with Torcy, expressed his sense of outrage at peace terms that were “against all humanity” and succeeded in encouraging the ragged French armies to fight on.136 But the challenges continued to intensify, and as the situation in Flanders deteriorated, with the town of Tournai surrendering at the end of July and the capitulation of the citadel imminent, Maintenon conceded to Ursins on 5 August 1709 that “M. Voysin and M. Desmaretz do their utmost, but their predecessor ruined everything in the hope of making peace.”137 The widespread famine and paucity of provisions further undermined the French campaign, and Maintenon informed Ursins on 10 August that the “maréchal de Villars is not in a condition to attempt anything; his troops are very inferior to those of the enemy, and diminish every day by desertion and hunger.”138 Villars personally warned the king via a letter to Maintenon on 29 August 1709 that “the peril is great” and that a decisive battle to decide the war and the fate of France was inescapable: I had the honour of informing the King, that there are things that I thought necessary for the day of a great action. His Majesty did not approve of them. It is surprising that we see the approach of a great battle, which will decide the fate of the state, without anyone marching to find it; when Charles V besieged Metz, all the Princes of the Blood and those most distinguished men of quality, threw themselves into the fray.139 On behalf of Louis, Maintenon replied on 2 September and clarified that his typically brash criticisms were not entirely justified because there were presently “no young people to be seen” at court. She added that the king reckoned that the Princes [of the Blood] would only embarrass the maréchal and consequently placed “his confidence … in God, in you and in the valour of his troops.”140 And hoping that a fateful engagement was not pending, which the king wished to avoid for fear of the repercussions, she optimistically added that [you are assuredly entrusted with a great and difficult affair; against my better judgment I sometimes allow myself to pander to reason; and one [the king] surmises that “if the enemies don’t dare to attack

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M. the maréchal de Villars before their capture of Tournai, because he was positioned too advantageously, why attack him in his current position where he is just as well fortified, thus weakening themselves in front of the place they are taking?”141 The citadel of Tournai fell the following day, enabling Villars, Montesquiou, and Boufflers to join battle with the allies on 11 September at Malplaquet, fielding 75,000 men against Eugene and Marlborough’s 86,000.142 Officially it was a victory for the allies, and the French did subsequently lose the key fortress of Mons. But by inflicting twice as many casualties on the enemy during this epic encounter, Villars, as John Lynn states, “may have saved France.”143 He himself was shot in the knee while personally leading an assault on the allied army. At the end of the year the valiant maréchal travelled to Versailles to pay his respects to the king, who made the apartments of the late prince de Conti available to him during his stay at court. Sourches and a host of courtiers admiringly witnessed how honoured the marshal was by Louis, who had his armchair carried to Villars’s suite on 22 December,144 where they conferred for two hours about the following year’s campaign, as documented by Maintenon.145 Further consultations on similar and related matters were transacted often in Maintenon’s rooms, where Villars was repeatedly carried in the first months of 1710, recommending on 22 March that the Flanders army be commanded by Pierre de Montesquiou d’Artagnan,146 who had been awarded a marshal’s baton for his generalship at Malplaquet in 1709. The marshal himself inaccurately and immodestly documented that “it is not necessary to ask if, after the master’s approach, the courtiers hastened to do likewise. The princes, the ministers, the greatest lords were envious to be my partisans, and also came to visit me: Mme de Maintenon never failed to visit each day; as I was considered a privileged object of favour I was, throughout the duration of my stay, the idol of the court.”147 The French war effort was still, nevertheless, in a wretched state, and to resolve this the duc de Noailles had devised a tactical scheme for extricating France from her current military quandary and submitted it for the king’s consideration at the end of August 1709. Maintenon communicated to him on 3 September that “your project was found to be fine and commendably detailed, but in every aspect we lack the means to accomplish it.”148 To generate goodwill and precipitate peace talks, the king had withdrawn a number of battalions from Spain after Malplaquet, but little had come of this by December, leaving Louis XIV seemingly on the brink of a breakdown and angrily lashing out at ministers, as documented by Torcy on the 17th of the same month:

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The King seemed to me that day extraordinarily discouraged [to the point of being] overcome by the cares of state. His misery sparked a distrust of his ministers and he attributed the failure [to come to terms with the allies] to his ministers’ weakness … Madame de Maintenon had said the evening before to M. Desmaretz that all the blame [for the lost peace] fell once more on the duc de Beauvillier. Frankly [I believe] that the duke should rather have been praised for having dared to tell the King some very disagreeable truths; and that being in the service of the King impelled him [as a good counsellor of the king] to speak. In the end the ministers … were all attacked [by His Majesty].149 Torcy was again reprimanded by Louis, along with Beauvillier, on 27 January 1710, after discussing who would be chosen to represent France at the forthcoming negotiation at Gertruydenberg, which would open in May. The stresses and strains of governance were clearly taking their toll on the king, who was becoming increasingly testy, compelling Maintenon to make a rarely recorded direct personal intervention, as again noted by Torcy: [As was often the case] he [the King] became irate with those who had pressed him on matters of state. [In this instance] His Majesty felt his counsellors’ excessive [desire for peace] had revealed to the enemy that [France] would conclude a treaty at any price. These reproaches fell principally on M. de Beauvillier, whom His Majesty singled out, but I too was roundly scolded for having urged upon His Majesty the necessity of reaching a decision [in the matter of ambassadors] before the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene arrived at The Hague … The King added [ironically] that he much admired my new-found zeal – I who was the slowest of all men in carrying out negotiations. I confess that I did not grasp the reason for His Majesty’s reproach, nor why I deserved it, for I had never delayed the execution of his orders; in fact I anticipated them. But since masters believe themselves never to be in the wrong, I held my tongue and tried to profit from this mortification … The above encounter took place in Madame de Maintenon’s rooms. From her bed she [called out] urging the King to think of finishing an affair so important as that of peace. [For a time] he resisted [our combined efforts], to debate the issues again, and finally surrendered, telling me to bring the necessary papers the next morning to the meeting of the Finance Council.150

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Unfortunately the allies’ demands were again so stringent that even Maintenon was forced to acknowledge by July that there was regrettably no option other than to recommence hostilities, even though the public continued to criticize the king in the belief that he was keen to obtain peace no matter what the cost.151 Accordingly, on 3 August 1710, Maintenon admonished Ursins, stressing just how important it was to continue fighting, thereby confounding yet again the notion that her pacific principles were immutable: Peace is out of the question, and I hope you will scold me less in the future. War is seriously considered; the King labours with M. Desmaretz and M. Voysin, to ascertain the sum which the former can furnish, and the purposes to which the latter will appropriate it. He has resolved to curtail superfluous expenses, and defer various payments, in order to devote everything to the prosecution of the war.152 She had nevertheless confessed to the duc de Noailles on 9 June that the resumption of war was a terrifying prospect because although the French army was indeed “magnificent, strong, fed, paid and very brave,” it was still inferior in number to the enemy’s forces, and it was rumoured that a detachment led by Eugene of Savoy might assault Dauphiné at any moment.153 The comte de Bergeyck had also repeatedly insisted in February during preliminary negotiations that the princesse des Ursins be permanently removed from Spain, adding that French forces were still expected to depose Philip V if he refused to abdicate. Maintenon confided to their old mutual friend, the maréchal de Villeroi, on 17 February 1710 that this stipulation generated new difficulties in that Ursins was unsure whether she should leave, and what she would live on if she did decide to reside in Rome, because, as Maintenon conceded, she “did not have un sol.” Besides asking her to solicit the king’s advice, Ursins entreated Maintenon to extract from Desmaretz the 20,000 écus she was apparently owed to help pay off her considerable debts, thus further straining their increasingly tempestuous relationship.154 These pervasive tensions made Louis even more mistrustful of his ministers, and he sought advice outside the confines of the conseil d’en haut that put more pressure on Maintenon and compelled officials like Desmaretz, Torcy, and Pontchartrain to devise strategies to try and surreptitiously nudge the king in what they believed was the right direction.155 But this did create confusion and discord. For example, after one conseil d’en haut meeting on 15 October 1710, Torcy noted that the duc de Noailles had outlined his three strategies for military operations in

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northern Spain to the ministers, but added that it had been presented to the council more for their information than for discussion.156 Relations between Louis and Villars grew fractious in 1711, and this severely tested the marquise’s conciliatory capabilities. After the death of Emperor Joseph I on 17 April, the maréchal was impatient to seize the initiative. In June and July, he repeatedly advocated that a vigorous assault be mounted against the allies in blunt letters to Louis, Voysin, and Maintenon,157 irritably lamenting on the 29th that “in this awful state, we see our armies obtruding on those of the enemy because of our inaction, our soldiers ardently demanding a battle, and finally we see no more obstacles to a good peace than it to be too much desired.”158 After being somewhat mollified by Maintenon, Villars composed a slightly more measured missive to the marquise on 25 August, underscoring that the situation in which we find ourselves could have been avoided; I predicted as much, though at the time you accused me of scolding. However, we must not talk of what has past, but focus more on the present and the future … The King can justly be persuaded that his true interests occupy me uniquely. And I apply myself to this entirely and in the best way I know how; and I am consulting those whom I believe to be the most wise and firm.159 The king, however, consistently vetoed these propositions, asserting that they might jeopardize opportunities to forge an enduring peace. But Louis then hypocritically decried Villars’s inertia in September when, after a two-month siege, Bouchain’s fall seemed inevitable; and it was indeed captured by Marlborough’s army on the 12th.160 The maréchal’s irritation accordingly turned to indignation and outrage as the campaign deteriorated, culminating in a threat to resign in a letter dispatched to Maintenon on 15 October. She had endeavoured to pacify Villars throughout the summer in numerous exchanges that incorporated assurances,161 encouragement,162 flattery,163 and ultimately stern logic: But after all is he not the master? And if he has different opinions from your own, is it not just that he pursues them? It is about your project, and it is also ”about the different views” and about “the detachments” that I wish never to be scolded again. I do want you to finish making your representations in secret, and very freely, but also desire that you embrace everything that the King decides, and give the impression that you approve.164

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A public interview with Louis at court toward the end of the year finally appeased the egotistical maréchal, who narrated that “when I arrived at Versailles, the King said to me: ‘You pressed hard to be given the liberty to fight at the beginning of the campaign. The negotiations had made us hopeful for peace;165 but had we followed your advice, we would not have been exposed and lost Bouchain.’ These words will console me a little.”166 When it became clear in late August that Bouchain could not be saved, Maintenon had stoutly defended Villars, in a letter to Ursins, against “Paris, the court, and the whole army [who] rail loudly against the Duke … however, the King is convinced, with others, that this general has been more unfortunate than incapable.”167 This sense of fatalism was compounded by the death of Marshal Boufflers, which Maintenon felt keenly, sombrely informing Ursins on 23 August that “we yesterday lost the best man in France, the most sincerely attached to the King, and the warmest of my personal friends.”168 Things had not improved a month later when on 20 September she dolefully reported to Ursins that “the King is no longer able to animate his armies, and the misfortunes which have happened to us render everything difficult.” Peace, Maintenon concluded, was “the only remedy,”169 but in the absence of that, “all the preparations necessary for the next [year’s] campaign” had to be taken “very seriously.” So she advised the comte d’Aubigné on the 25th, who was also told not to give up hope and to ignore the doom-mongers.170 To address the ongoing military crisis, a series of often long consultations were conducted in Maintenon’s chambers throughout the winter of 1711 to 1712 with individual marshals, including Berwick, Huxelles, Montesquiou, Tallard (with whom she was also in correspondence), and Villars.171 These took place alongside more informal exchanges between the marquise and Marshals Vendôme and Villeroi and the duc de Noailles.172 French prospects improved dramatically with Marlborough’s dismissal on 31 December 1711. Maintenon celebrated in earnest a few months later when Villars trounced his critics and proficiently pressed home his advantage after the Battle of Denain on 24 July 1712, recapturing numerous fortresses along the northeastern border of France, including Bouchain, and thereby hastening the conclusion of the war in Flanders and re-establishing Vauban’s fortified frontier.173 The marquise’s pronounced pleasure and pride at Villars’s victories, and his vindication, are manifest in a missive to Ursins on 22 October 1712 in which she exultantly reported that

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Bouchain is taken and our campaign most gloriously terminated. Yesterday, the King gave the government of Provence to Marshal de Villars; the post of general of the galleys to Marshal de Tessé; the government of Messin to M. de Saillant; that of Gravelines to the Marquis de Broglie, son-in-law of M. Voysin, whose appointments he increases as a compliment to the minister; the government of Charlemont to the Marquis de Vieux Pont, a good officer, and son-in-law to the Princess of Montauban; and of Nîmes to M. de Viéru, an old officer, and son-in-law of M. de Saint André. I do not know whether you remember enough of the Hôtel d’Albret to recollect this name.174 Maintenon’s sentiments were similarly laudatory at the end of the campaign season in 1713, when she commented, rather wryly, to Ursins on 5 November that “it is true that Marshal de Villars is making a glorious campaign; he has his faults, like other men, but he is very much attached to the King and the state, and one of the most able of our generals.”175 She added that this had put the king in a “very good humour,” which again counters the assertion that Maintenon was a dogmatic pacifist. It also reveals the extent to which she remained faithful to friends and mindful of acquaintances made during and after her first marriage.

e n g in e e r in g p oli ti cs ? Contemporary sources, many of which have been carefully edited, indicate that the marquise attended a number of governmental deliberations in this period, including conseil d’en haut or conseil d’État sessions. These conferences became indistinguishable from daily meetings with ministers and other officials during the War of the Spanish Succession, as historians have contended,176 and in 1714 Chancellor Pontchartrain objected that “the council of ministers is now only held for form’s sake … All resolutions are taken in private.”177 For example, on 29 July 1709 the marquise told Ursins that the number of soldiers she had persistently demanded had now been allocated: It is true, Mme, I did not have the honour of writing to you about the twenty-five battalions allotted to you. I was no less agitated during the council when this affair was deliberated; but I am toughminded, and liked as much that you learnt this news from M. de Torcy than from me; besides which I am not always the mistress of my own time to enable me to write via the couriers.178

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Moreover, Torcy related that the conseil d’en haut met “chez Mme de Maintenon” on 26 March 1710 to consider the objectionable stipulations tendered by the allied agents at Gertruydenberg,179 which again demanded that Louis force his grandson from the Spanish throne. And the conseil d’État convened in Maintenon’s rooms at least twice in 1712, as recorded by Liselotte on 14 March180 and by the marquis de Sourches on 4 July.181 On 29 April 1713 the marquise grumbled to Ursins that presently the couriers will arrive bringing you news of the peace; but I have just witnessed a war council that displeased me greatly that the King held with M. the maréchal d’Harcourt and the maréchal de Bezons, who are going to command the two armies in Germany. The continuation of the war afflicts the people of Paris and me; because all competent people believe that the Emperor will sign the peace in May.182 Saint-Simon was consequently convinced that Maintenon was masterminding a byzantine conspiracy that enabled her to manipulate the king almost undetectably. In his memoirs he described in intricate detail how she supposedly determined appointments in concert with compliant ministers during their diurnal deliberations with the king. Some of this is worth quoting in detail as it probably closely resembles the way in which many meetings transpired, but without the subtext of guileful subterfuge: When the King visited her chamber, they each occupied an armchair at either side of the fireplace with a table between them, hers opposite the bed and the back of the King’s facing the door of the antechamber; and two tabourets [folding stools] were placed in front of the table, one for the minister who had come to work and the other for his bundle of papers. During the travail Mme de Maintenon read or worked at tapestry. She heard everything that passed between the King and his minister. Rarely did she say a word, and more rarely would this word be of any consequence. Often the King would ask for her opinion. Then she would reply with great discretion. Never, or almost never, did she seem to lay stress on anything, and still less to show a particular interest in anybody; but she had an understanding with the minister, who would not dare to disagree with what she wanted, even less to say a word of protest in her presence. When it was a matter of some grace or post to be granted, this would be decided between them

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beforehand, and this would sometimes make her late without the King or anyone else knowing the cause. The actual selection of the names of candidates to be promoted or rewarded was very shrewdly planned in order to bamboozle the king and ensure a staggering rate of success, according to Saint-Simon: She would inform the minister that she wished to speak to him beforehand. If he had not received her orders he would not risk bringing anything up until the revolving mechanism of each day afforded them the time to confer at their leisure. Once that was done the minister suggested and put forward a list. If by chance the King stopped on the candidate that Maintenon wanted, the minister would halt there and go no further. If the King stopped at some other, the minister suggested they look at other names who were also fitting, allowing the King to make observations that could profitably be used to exclude them. Rarely would the minister immediately express the name they wanted to come to, but endeavoured to balance several against each other in order to flummox the King in his choice. Then the King asked his opinion, and the minister, after again running through the reasons for and against certain candidates, fixed upon the one he had selected. The King nearly always hesitated and asked Mme de Maintenon what she thought. She smiled, feigned incapacity, said a word about some other, then returned, as if she had not fixed there herself, to the name that the minister had put forward, and which they had already determined; in this fashion three-fourths of the favours and employments, which passed through the hands of the ministers in her room, and three-fourths even of the remaining fourth, were disposed of by her. Sometimes when she affected no preference, it would be the same minister who took the decision but with her agreement and consent, and without the King having the least suspicion. He thought he disposed of everything by himself, whilst, in fact, he disposed only of the smallest part, and always then by chance, except on the rare occasions when he put someone’s name forward on a whim, or if there was someone he especially favoured and had spoken of beforehand. The memoirist also contended that although she did not always get her way in affairs of state, Maintenon was nonetheless often able to pursue her own agenda and influence decisions through the employment of similarly labyrinthine strategies and the careful management of the

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monarch and also his ministers and advisers. They could profit immeasurably from her confidence, but, he contends, could also be ruined if they incurred her disfavour: In state affairs, if Maintenon wished to make them succeed, fail, or turn in some particular fashion, and which happened much less often than where favours and appointments were concerned, the same intelligence was employed between herself and the minister and thence almost the same intrigue was put into effect. By these particulars it will be seen that this clever woman did nearly all that she wished, but not everything, nor when and how she wanted. Another ruse was deployed if the King was obstinate; it was to avoid decision by confusing and spinning out the matter in hand, or by substituting another as though arising opportunely from that which had been under discussion, and which was then diverted, or by proposing that some clarification should be obtained. The first ideas [of the king] were thus blunted, and the charge could afterwards be returned to with the same artfulness, and which very often succeeded. In a similar manner faults could be ameliorated or diminished, greater value placed on recommendations and services, or glossed over, thus to generate failure or fortune. It is this which made the ministerial meetings chez Mme de Maintenon so important and which rendered it so necessary that the ministers were dependent upon her. It was this that also enabled them forcefully to elevate themselves above everybody, and continually to augment their credit and power, for themselves and their own, because Maintenon treated them so in all matters in order to attach them to her entirely. When they were about to arrive to work, or had just left, Maintenon would probe the King about them, to excuse or extol them, to complain about their performance, or exalt its merits, and if something was to be gained for them, she would prepare the ground, and sometimes break the ice for them under the pretext of their modesty and service to the King, which demanded that they strive to work harder and do even better. Thus were they bound together by reciprocal needs and services, with the King not having the slightest suspicion of what was going on. Hence their machinations were incessant and boundless.183 However, these methods were tortuous and inordinately unreliable, and it is unlikely that Maintenon would have used them in that fashion.

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A certain amount of deception was employed in ecclesiastical affairs by Maintenon and Noailles initially in dealings with the king, but these tactics were rendered unnecessary after the reinstatement of the conseil de conscience in 1700, and became pointless after Le Tellier’s triumph in 1709. The political pamphleteer Charles Irénée Castel, abbé de SaintPierre,184 corroborated that Maintenon was a taciturn fixture during the daily gatherings to discuss state business in her apartments, where she would be located “near the table where the secretaries of state work. She has a piece of embroidery in her hand; she listens but rarely comments on what is being said. It is in her apartment that the King makes what preparations are needed for war; it is there he gives the orders for carrying out war measures, and thus there must be great secrecy about his plans.”185 Maintenon’s inclusion naturally made ministers apprehensive and cautious,186 but the marquise would assuredly have raised personal, ecclesiastical, or political matters with her husband during their many private moments together, rather than in front of observant advisers. A disagreement would have been mortifying for everyone present, as she had intimated to the comtesse de Caylus on 10 March 1705, and examples of her engaging in discussions are rare, save for one notable interjection in January 1710 that has already been mentioned.187 For what purpose was she included in political discussions apart from as an adviser and observer? Maintenon’s attendance perhaps became compulsory because the aging king needed his consort as an auxiliary to keep his ambitious ministers in check. With a modification this theory is tenable. Pontchartrain remarked that nineteen times out of twenty the king agreed with the majority decision taken in council, but would deliberately disagree on the twentieth occasion to wrong-foot his ministers and reassert his authority.188 As the years advanced, Louis clearly became more difficult to work with, and moments of supreme stress, generated by the unremitting and overwhelming multiplication of government problems, perhaps understandably caused him to lash out more frequently, and often unfairly, during discussions with counsellors. Louis’s volatility made Maintenon’s involvement even more important because she provided a degree of independence and balance. However, this state of affairs could prove counter-productive and to an extent helped inflame the satirists’ suspicions, inspiring a cavalcade of caricatures in pamphlets and broadsheets depicting a monstrous and devious king invariably being egged on, or steered by, his meddlesome and domineering consort.189 In Maintenon’s defence, she often asserted that her sole purpose was to serve the king, and after Cardinal Noailles’s fall from grace and Chamillart’s dismissal this was certainly true. She may

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have been guilty of coaxing and even coaching the king on occasion, based on her own instincts and experience and the advice of friends and confidantes, but there is not much evidence to substantiate Saint-Simon’s allegation that the marquise was carrying out a brilliantly conceived and almost perfectly prosecuted conspiracy, deviously designed to tighten her grip on the reins of power, which in fact she was anxious to relinquish. That aspiration was reinforced by old age and infirmity and also by the venomous attacks on her voiced in public that blamed Maintenon for France’s continuing misfortunes. Louis himself was also reluctant to take responsibility for the Crown’s calamities, which was ironic considering just how intensely personal the management of his government had become. An entretien with the girls at Saint-Cyr in 1711 cannot of course be taken at face value, but Maintenon’s explanation to the girls of her role at court no doubt contains elements of truth, for her assertion that one of her principal responsibilities was to acquaint the king with actualities, however painful, is corroborated in other documents, as has been demonstrated: Perplexities of mind and conscience assail me. I fear for the King’s health and that of our Princes and the Duchess of Burgundy. It often happens, as I have already told you, that I know not which part to take, that which is most suitable to the glory of God, or the fear of utterly repelling them with too much piety … Princes will never face sad things. They are accustomed to have them hidden from them, but my conscience, my friendship for the King and my interest in all that concerns him force me to speak the truth, never to flatter him, but to show him that he is often mistaken. What a creature to sadden thus that the person one loves and would not of vex! Yet I am obliged to do it and often, and frequently when he comes to me to be consoled I have to injure him. The Duchess of Burgundy too, who has terrible sorrows, brings them all to me. For instance, she came yesterday as I was going to bed worn out with fatigue, threw herself into my arms and kept me a long while telling me her sorrows. I had to remain half undressed, because if I had got into bed she would not have been able to speak freely, as the table where the King works is close to it. She was kind enough to ask me if I minded, but with all the liberty she allows me, and though she begs me to treat her like my daughter, it is impossible for me not to do this and show her all kinds of attention.190 Maintenon’s presence and her infrequent interventions were therefore desirable, and her incorporation in meetings was essential, particularly

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to counteract the machinations of ministerial factions and to moderate, whenever possible, the king’s intemperance. She virulently defended Villars to Louis against pernicious attacks from the court’s cabals and also from the “most preoccupied members of the public,” who, the marshal protested in a missive to Maintenon dated 11 September 1711, “poison everything.” He bemoaned that he was plagued each day by anonymous letters that denigrated his generalship. Significantly, Villars went on to complain to Maintenon that public opinion had now become the “only master” that people wanted to satisfy,191 thus making the task of senior officials, like himself, impossible under the pressure of trying to please two masters.192 In response to the marshal’s initial remonstrations in August 1711, Maintenon had assured him that the opinions of courtiers and querulous women made absolutely “no impression” on her,193 although she had, since 1708, been blamed by the wider French public for the poor performance of the French army, as documented by the baron de Savignac in Bordeaux.194 Ironically, Maintenon was in fact endeavouring behind the scenes to improve matters, as the next chapter will underscore. She consequently continued to chasten miscreants, like the maréchal de Villeroi, who was a member of the cabale de Meudon, in order to generate conformity, thus giving some credence to the interpretation of J.-C. Petitfils that Louis and Maintenon had become a faction in their own right.195 Similar sentiments were again expressed to Villeroi on 19 May 1711 on behalf of the new dauphin, the Duke of Burgundy, whom Maintenon hoped the maréchal would now support unreservedly for the good of the state even though, as she partly conceded, the prince “has his faults, but who has none?”196 Maintenon’s participation in affairs continued to be imperative and even more so after the deaths of the king’s son, Louis the Dauphin, on 14 April 1711, and his grandson, the Duke of Burgundy, on 18 February 1712. This marked the demise of two of the court’s foremost factions. The Bourbon succession now devolved precariously on a sickly twoyear-old, and monarchical instability loomed in the form of a regency government. Excerpts from two letters written by Fénelon to the duc de Chevreuse display Maintenon’s political significance at this time. In 1715 the second Earl of Stair had been appointed the English ambassador to France, though as Saint-Simon noted, he “had been living in France for some considerable time.”197 Stair reported that “[Maintenon] has more to say than all the [royal] council put together.”198 Thus, to maintain stability in the church and state, Fénelon advised Chevreuse on 27 February 1712 that suitable preparations be made for the young dauphin’s education and for the establishment of a minority government.

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This would require Maintenon and all the ministers to unite to persuade Louis to put these measures in place, with the close involvement of the king’s confessor, Père Le Tellier.199 Fénelon subsequently outlined to Chevreuse on 8 March that Maintenon’s support must be secured by the personal intervention of the duc de Beauvillier, who must put past disagreements aside and persuade her how essential it was to compel the king to make these arrangements to safeguard the security of the state and for his own well-being, glory, and salvation. Contrary to this advice, Fénelon then made clear that he still nurtured grievances against Maintenon; indeed, he suspected that Beauvillier’s diplomatic endeavour would fail because of Maintenon’s jealousy, weakness, and superficial nature, which prioritized flattering the king and dazzling the public to the detriment of the pressing needs of the state. Nevertheless, the archbishop of Cambrai was fully cognizant of the incomparable influence she wielded and underscored that Beauvillier must appease her if only to prevent her from obstructing the resolutions that needed to be implemented.200 In predictably patriarchal fashion Fénelon then ascribed what he perceived as Maintenon’s deficiency in political skills to the “finesses de femme.” However, her magnanimous letter to the duc de Beauvillier on 15 March 1712 following the death of his former charge, the Duke of Burgundy, confirms that Cambrai’s appraisal was unreliable and distorted by prejudice. In this missive Maintenon indicated that she was prepared to forget their personal differences and work together to bolster the king’s authority and safeguard the succession. To put his mind at rest, she confided to the duc that she had had copies made of all the writings he had composed for the Duke of Burgundy, which had been discovered in the late prince’s desk. Maintenon also admitted, however, that she had been unable to save the correspondence that had continued between Burgundy and Fénelon, which had enabled the latter to continue to tutor his pupil illicitly, thus angering the king, who burned the documents himself. This was “deeply regrettable,” Maintenon conceded, because “nothing ever written was so beautiful or good,” and it would have confounded Burgundy’s critics because the papers highlighted that any shortcomings the prince may have possessed could not be blamed on “counsels too timid, nor too flattering.”201 Maintenon’s influence could therefore not be allowed to wane in the interests of a balance in government that Louis struggled to maintain in the later reign. And this task was rendered more difficult by the prospect of famine, bankruptcy, and religious rebellion, as the final chapter demonstrates.

10

1709–1715, Part Two: The “Universal Abbess” Mortal Challenges and Jansenist Crises

During Louis XIV’s supremely tense and trying final years, when governmental difficulties and enemy incursions onto French soil generated instability in almost all quarters of French society, Maintenon manipulated her social and patronage networks in an attempt to quell disturbances and resolve crises. Driven by a Christian conscience, she was also determined to alleviate starvation and privation, which became acute during and after the “year of sorrows” of 1709, when sub-zero temperatures, snow, and frosts gripped much of France from 5–6 January until 15 March, destroying crops and killing livestock and people. Approximately 24,000 died in Paris alone and hundreds of thousands more in the dearth that followed.1 As France gradually recovered and the war drew slowly to a close, Louis became ever more determined to accomplish the objective outlined in his memoirs to annihilate Jansenism. But as with Quietism, he discovered that this could not be done without papal intervention; indeed, his efforts would unite a powerful body of opposition against him that would leave the French church in schismatic turmoil long after his death in 1715. The figure leading the resistance to the implementation of the 1713 papal bull Unigenitus, which was designed to outlaw Jansenism, was the cardinal de Noailles. This compelled Maintenon once again to intervene, and churchmen continued to look to her for guidance and leadership during an increasingly bitter struggle. She consequently utilized all of her resources, cajoled influential contacts, and exploited her clientage network to try to settle the Jansenist dispute, which at various moments seemed soluble but ultimately proved insurmountable. This made retirement impossible and reluctantly rendered her almost busier than ever.

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fa m in e , p h il a n t h ro py, and i nstabi li ty As part of her Fénelonian mission further to sanctify the French church, Maintenon took a keen interest in the careers of her candidates. After promoting Claude d’Aubigné de Tigny to the Archbishopric of Rouen in 1707, the marquise expounded on the nature of their relationship and its aims on 30 March 1708: Yes certainly, Monsieur, I take an interest in you, and it is very appropriate that we are in commerce. I need to be instructed in all that concerns you so that I can return to the King in a position that enables me to respond; because you will not lack enemies, nor the envious, nor ill will from my detractors; I will let you know as much as I can in order to be agreeable or useful. We must banish compliments, and you must lose no time in acting upon the letters in which I make recommendations that I cannot overlook; M. le marquis de Tigny should write to me because I regard you both of you as if you were one, and I implore you, the one and the other, to interact with me unceremoniously.2 Furthermore, she advised her archbishop on 1 August 1708 that our affairs are going well in Spain, and the taking of Tortosa is important. It is up to you, Monsieur, to inspire the patience of the people. It is necessary that they give it to the King, if they want the King to preserve them. They will suffer much more if the enemies burn them in their homes. Your heart will be acutely touched if you are forced to turn the poor away. I believe, Monsieur, that you will find the King and M. Desmaretz willing to give you all the help that they possibly can.3 One way in which hardship could be alleviated was by ensuring that officials worked in concert rather than in competition with one another, and Maintenon became directly involved in this endeavour. In the same letter as cited above she cynically inquired whether “this premier premier président, who at first inspired so much esteem, is he not helping you in every way that he can?” But on 12 July 1709 she imparted to Claude d’Aubigné that “the King is extremely content with the union at Rouen that exists between the principle personages about whom I rendered an account to him.”4 And on 24 July 1710 she congratulated the archbishop because “I find the King so satisfied with the accord that

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exists between the governor of Normandy,5 and the Archbishop and the premier président of Rouen that I do not doubt that he will readily exhort the procureur-général not to act alone.”6 Greg Monahan points out that during the “year of sorrows” the interests of the city of Lyon were robustly represented and protected by the royal governor of the Lyonnais, the maréchal de Villeroi, who was one of the king’s oldest friends, and by the intendant, Charles Trudaine, for both men were well connected to powerful figures at court like the marquise de Maintenon. She was the close friend of the maréchal, and Trudaine’s sister, Mme Voysin, was a member of the marquise’s exclusive cabale.7 The impact of the brutal winter of 1709 was catastrophic, with Liselotte recording as early as 20 January that every day people die of the cold here; some eighteen or twenty are buried in a day. No-one, no matter how old he may be, can remember having lived through such icy cold. In Paris all spectacles have ceased, and all litigation has stopped because no-one can get to the courts and the presidents and councillors are staying at home. No-one can ride in coaches, everyone goes on foot, and every day one hears of people who have broken their bones; in every house someone is sick. Well-nigh all of the people are sick; those who are healthier than the rest are coughing and sneezing.8 A few regions, like Brittany, escaped relatively unscathed, but others, like the Auvergne, were devastated. In Bordeaux the Baron de Savignac witnessed the intensity and impact of the cold, recording on 13 January that it’s an amazing thing, the ink freezes in the writing stand at every moment. The wine in bottles solidifies and freezes completely, and the lackeys’ fingers get caught on the slightly wet plates, so they have to get close to the fire to remove them. The birds in the countryside and wildfowl all die and eat each other. The jurists have public fires made for the poor. The thermometer today is either one or two degrees. The blood of Our Lord freezes in the chalice and stoves are placed on the altars in order to say Mass.9 Public opinion in Paris and beyond in the provinces scapegoated Maintenon. Her adverse influence was held responsible for the French army’s poor performance; furthermore, she had brought about the widespread misery by offending God.10 These defamations were specious. But in spite of her charitable sensibilities, Maintenon could lapse into the

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traditional rhetoric of blaming the apathy of the impoverished as well as esurience and providence itself for the general chaos and suffering, as she did in a letter to the bishop of Auxerre on 26 June 1709;11 and even more harshly to the archbishop of Rouen on 7 July: “M. Desmaretz will help you satisfy your rebels. It is a great satisfaction to make them work and I fear that in addition to all the ills that the great misery brings, it has only rendered the people more idle. Everyday we experience here that even though they are dying of hunger they wish to do nothing about it.”12 The situation had deteriorated by 28 September, when Liselotte morosely informed her aunt, Electress Sophie of Hannover, that the “wretched misery of these times defies description. The famine is so horrendous on all sides that one sees people collapsing and dying of hunger, everyone is full of sorrow and lamentation, from the greatest to the most lowly.”13 Then on 26 October 1709 Liselotte communicated to her aunt’s first lady-inwaiting, Raugräfin Luise, that “these are certainly sad times. Whenever one goes out one is followed by crowds of poor people who are half dead with hunger. Everything is paid in promissory notes, money is not to be found. Everyone is dejected, there is no joy anywhere.”14 Nevertheless, the death toll across France turned out to be less than half that of the famine of 1693–94, when 1.5 million people perished. This was thanks in part to the sowing of crops like barley in the spring, and in part to the care that Crown officials took not to repeat past mistakes.15 Efforts were made to ensure that grain was distributed more evenly, and searches to combat hoarding were sanctioned by government legislation.16 Wheat was imported from Africa and Spain, and cereals were purchased from Genoa and requisitioned from convoys bound for Smyrna. Maintenon could be somewhat callous in private, but in public she endeavoured to overcome the challenges posed by the famine, and at court she led by example. She had always distributed alms on journeys to royal residences like Fontainebleau;17 she was one of the first to send her plate, valued at between 13,000 and 14,000 francs, to the mint in June 1709;18 and she advocated strongly for the consumption of an inferior, less expensive bread rather than the demi-blanc that was produced for the more affluent.19 The marquise also reduced her own staff.20 And she was not afraid to criticize the king’s extravagance, as she informed the duc de Noailles on 9 June 1709: When it became known that the King had refused the unworthy propositions of peace that the enemies had put to M. de Torcy, everybody applauded and demanded war; but this momentum did

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not endure and it soon relapsed into this despondency that you have seen. When you were here, how many times had you heard it said: “Why leave us with our silver plate? It would give us pleasure if the King took it all.” Since the most zealous have subsequently set an example, all is consternation and murmur. They call upon the King to begin to retrench; and they complain to him about all his expenses: the voyages to Marly cause the ruin of the state; they want him to renounce his horses, his dogs, his valets; they grumble at his furniture; in a word they want to dispossess him definitively. These complaints reach his door; they want to stone me because they suppose I say nothing disagreeable for fear of paining him. And yet, the King has reduced his table at Marly; he has sent his gold plate to the mint; he is putting his jewels into the hands of M. Desmaretz to use as he sees fit; but they only want to take into account what he has not done. I confess to you that such dispositions chills the blood in my veins and your presence here is more necessary than ever.21 Maintenon feared, as did Louis’s detractors, that Marly would become another Versailles and further devour the nation’s depleted resources.22 When Louis began to retrench in May 1710 she was delighted because it allowed her to monopolize the king’s company to a greater extent. She remarked to the duc de Noailles on 19 July 1710 that she found Marly “better than ever” since the abandonment of public banqueting. She had explained this reform to Ursins on 11 May: “The King, fatigued by all the direct and indirect advice he had received about his excessive expenditure at Marly, has taken the resolution no longer to entertain the ladies and live in the same manner as he would at Versailles and at Fontainebleau: we will begin this new system on the first voyage we next make there.”23 From now on each visitor to Marly could dine, sup, and entertain friends in their own apartments.24 Maintenon confirmed to Ursins on 16 January 1713 that this practice continued because the king had “become one of the most abstemious men in his kingdom,” in stark contrast to the persistent “extravagance” of his guests.25 Maintenon’s comments about the new chapel at Versailles were suitably laudatory. She initially observed to the duc de Noailles on 13 June 1710 that “it is magnificent; but I do not quite possess an appropriate sense of taste to judge the rest.”26 However, she privately deplored such prodigality, writing acidly to Ursins on 6 July that “the magnificent reflects more the piety of the King than our present condition.”27 Moreover, Mlle d’Aumale recorded that Maintenon “did everything that she could to oppose the magnificent new chapel that the King had built

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at Versailles, because the misery of the people was very great at that time, and also because she believed that Versailles would subsequently cease to be the residence of the court.”28 Despite her reproaches, Marly’s magnificence continued to be embellished, prompting Maintenon to snipe to Ursins on 25 January 1712 that she “very much doubted whether the King will like the gardens he is making, if it be necessary to descend and ascend 170 steps.”29 And as late as 24 November 1714 Maintenon confided her fear to Languet that he would not find enough resources for his poor at court where money was “wasted on pleasure,” despite protests of poverty, and that “only M. Desmaretz will be able to provide you with grain.”30 The marquise intently monitored the scarcity that perpetuated “the great misery,” which also severely compromised military operations. She deliberated upon the deficiency of supplies and essential foodstuffs, and with many of her correspondents she lamented the defective distribution and marketing systems.31 She assured the maréchal de Villars on 26 May 1709 that “I do not cease persecuting the King, M. de Chamillart and M. Desmaretz to obtain your subsistence.”32 And she boasted to the duc de Noailles on 28 July 1709 that “my archbishop of Rouen thrust himself bravely into the milieu of three thousand seditious and thus contributed to the appeasement of them; what is even more admirable is that the governor, the archbishop, the premier président and the intendant are firmly united in order better to serve the King.”33 Maintenon subsequently bemoaned to the same correspondent that “it is not the same in Paris; our magistrates all hold different opinions about what to do to produce bread, the price of which increases every day; the people are always ready to mutiny.”34 Ministers, including Torcy and Desmaretz, were also in disagreement over how best to regulate the grain supply to mitigate the famine’s impact.35 And Maintenon became as bewildered and frustrated as many of her contemporaries by the caprices of the economic environment. On 10 August she confessed gloomily to Ursins that “corn will turn my brain; more is to be seen in the market than ever, and yet the price of bread rises! We are assured from all quarters that we shall experience great relief from the abundance of barley, though it is already at a high price. As to money it is more than ever concealed; everybody agrees that there is more in the kingdom than before the war, but it no longer circulates; and you know that when the blood stops, death ensues.”36 Unfortunately things had not improved by October, when on 14th she wondered, in a letter to the archbishop of Rouen, “why barley bread in Paris is selling for three sols since yours is selling for two.”37

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By this time starvation was a very real problem, and the Crown was anxious to prevent food riots, especially in the capital, and to suppress such outbreaks as they occurred, either directly or by assisting the Parisian ruling elites.38 As Maintenon had explained to Villars on 8 April 1709: However, joined to the misfortunes of war we now have the fear of famine, and scurvy at the Hôtel Dieu and the Invalides, that announces the plague. We need your courage to endure such evils … The King presses as much as he can to keep sending money, and it seems to me that M. Desmaretz is exploring all sorts of expedients in order to obtain it. You will have been informed that the fleet has arrived loaded with more than twenty millions for France. I wish we could get our hands on it. Adieu, M. the maréchal; the fear of finding myself in 1694 does not put me in a good humour.39 Thanks to the efforts of government and municipal officials, things had somewhat improved a year later. So Maintenon was able to inform the duc de Noailles on 13 June 1710 that “Paris still lives in hope of peace; everything is calm there because bread is à bon marché,”40 which the marquise assisted in organizing through her own agents and contacts. To avert insurrectionary outbursts, the mood of the Parisian populace was carefully monitored during this time. The lieutenant-general of police, Marc-René d’Argenson, provided Maintenon with reports based on eyewitness accounts and also traded intelligence with clerics like the curé of Saint-Sulpice, the marquise’s new confessor after 1714, J.-B.-J. Languet de Gergy.41 News from the capital was relayed back to Maintenon by the Duchess of Burgundy in a series of messages during the summer of 1709. The first, dated 20 August, reported that “everything is very quiet tonight in Paris; the tumult being appeased absolutely.” Also, because regiments of guards had been stationed in the villages around the city, and in the quarters within it, the duchesse concluded that “we are assured that every precaution necessary has been taken to prevent further disorder, but it all depends on the amount of bread that will be available in the market tomorrow.”42 In a subsequent note the duchesse related that nothing happened today in the market; what news we know is that from eight o’clock this morning everything was very quiet; nothing is said about the quantity of bread, nor the price, but the main thing is that there has been no disorder that we know of, thus put your mind at rest this evening, my dear aunt, if you can; I am beginning to see like the King that all these things that frighten us amount to nothing.43

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In what was hardly a unique incident, Maintenon recounted to Ursins on 29 April 1709 that “your dear friend M. de Pontchartrain has just left my chamber; he came to recount the particulars of yesterday’s sedition that took place on the rue Saint-Honoré.”44 This soon became a recurrent problem, and in August 1709 the maréchal de Boufflers chanced upon and subdued several pockets of insurgence in the capital, with the help of the duc de Gramont. On reaching Versailles he headed straight for Maintenon’s apartments, where he was able to disclose details of the uprisings to the marquise and the king.45 Subsistence crises continued for several years, and Maintenon accordingly invited the new curé of Saint-Sulpice, on 28 August 1714, to “inform me of what is reported to you about public discourses; as I told you before, opportunities will sometimes arise when we are able to put this to good use.”46 This was particularly pertinent because a bovine viral disease that had decimated cattle across Europe had now spread to France, with Maintenon lamenting to Mme de Glapion from Fontainebleau on 26 September that seventy-three of the eighty-strong herd at Avon had been killed by the “pest.”47 On 20 November she consequently insisted that Languet “sometimes speak to me about the public,”48 because the court found their conduct disturbing. She had speculated tremulously to the same correspondent on 2 October that we do not have many invalids here as mortality only strikes down cattle. We again enjoy so little peace, that it will be difficult to re-establish alms in the faubourgs of Paris. Will they be properly distributed by all the curates murmuring in support of the cardinal de Noailles and maintaining the people in the spirit of revolt and civil war that threatens us at all times, and about which M. d’Argenson does not to me seem frightened?49 Maintenon herself had genuine reasons to be fearful of Parisian opinion, as Liselotte underscored to her aunt Sophie on 22 August 1709: They are good people, the Parisians, after all, to calm down so quickly. Yesterday they all went to the market and were perfectly peaceful; but as much as they love their King and the royal house, they hate Mme de Maintenon. I wanted to get a breath of fresh air because it was warm in my rooms, which are small and have low ceilings; but I had only set foot outside when a great crowd of people gathered. They asked God’s blessing for me, but then they started to say such nasty things about the lady that I was obliged to go inside

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and close the windows; they said in plain words that if they could get hold of her they would tear her to pieces or burn her as a witch.50 Although concerned privately, Maintenon counselled the girls at SaintCyr in 1700 to treat affronts and insults with patience and humour: I receive letters every day … which ask if I am not tired of growing fat by sucking the blood of the poor [and] other letters that go farther still and say to me the most insulting things; some of them warn me that I shall be assassinated. But all this does not trouble me; I do not think that it requires much virtue to feel no resentment for that sort of opposition. I said rather an amusing thing on a first impulse the other day to a poor woman, who came to me while I was surrounded by a number of the court, weeping and imploring that I should obtain justice for her. I asked what wrong had been done to her. “Insults,” she said; “they insult me, and I want reparation.” “Insults!” I exclaimed, “why, that is what we live on here!” That answer made the ladies who accompanied me laugh.51 Thanks to Desmaretz’s unflagging efforts and Torcy’s virtuosity, France emerged honourably from the peace negotiations at Utrecht and Rastatt. Nonetheless, by 1715 the Crown’s debts amounted to between 1.5 and 2.3 billion livres, and it had already spent anticipated revenues for 1716 and 1717.52 On 28 April 1715 Maintenon told Languet she would be pleased to hear from him that the agitation had abated in Paris “because I fervently desire the relief of the people.”53 However, the situation rapidly deteriorated. While mulling over the unsavoury financial options open to Louis, the marquise urged Languet, on 30 July 1715, to stifle the mutinous rumblings, at least in his parish, which threatened to ignite chaos in Paris and beyond. Maintenon also reminded him assertively that “it is certain that the debts of the King are those of the state. He has incurred them in preventing the enemies from entering into his kingdom.”54 And in the same communication she derided public criticism of the new measures intended to sustain financial solvency, commenting that “I hear nothing about the finances, but it seems to me that a well ordered imposition is less odious than a bankruptcy. A man like you could render a great service by calming the preliminary murmurrings.”55 Charitable commissions were consequently carried out occasionally by Maintenon herself, but more often anonymously on her behalf by one of her intimates, including Nanon, Mlle d’Aumale, the comtesse de Caylus, or Mme de Dangeau.56 In late 1714 Voysin allotted the comtesse

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de Caylus a large share of the capital yielded by what was probably a Jansenist-related “confiscation,” but she was rather overwhelmed by the king’s munificence and turned to Maintenon for guidance.57 The marquise admitted that the primary enjoyment she gained from accruing a modest personal fortune, in revenues from her estates and gratuities from the king, was in seeing her wealth distributed where it was needed. Moreover, her forthright response to Caylus illuminates a side to her character that contemporaries and historians have conventionally treated with cynicism: I’m not so delicate as you, and I have felt only joy when the King told me last night that he had given you ten thousand francs on a confiscation, from which a part had also been destined for me, and which I had intended to dispose as alms; I thanked him saying it was appropriate to send such relief to Barcelona, and when my curtain was closed, I allotted more than a thousand écus on projects [and] resolutions and I exhort you not to spend your money in a week, because it seems to me that you throw it away very willingly; I live only for the pleasure of distributing money; do the same, my dear niece.58 The marquise was genuinely philanthropic and often generous. This is corroborated in a letter of November 1713 in which she asked Mme de Dangeau to “find it to be right, Mme, that I repair the blindness of fortune, which last night manifested itself in the only dispute that I have ever had with you.”59 This incident is referred to in the marquis de Dangeau’s diary, in which he recorded on the 9th that “a lottery was held chez Mme de Maintenon, who won a very pretty prize, which she sent the following day to Mme de Dangeau, who had won nothing … [and] the gift was accompanied by a charming letter.”60 There are also many instances of the marquise making or obtaining contributions of varying proportions on behalf of worthy persons and causes. For example, she required that the comtesse de Caylus dispense one louis per month to “a poor family” after August 1704,61 and she notified the comtesse in October 1709 that “M. Voysin told me that you were giving a quarter to Mme de Barneval: it is twenty-five écus; I implore you to add twenty-five more, so in the end she shall have fifty. I am sending you seventy livres, advance the rest: I will repay you this evening. To pay this poor woman in this fashion will be more useful than to give it all at once.”62 She informed Mme de Dangeau in 1710 that the curé of Saint-Sulpice had pledged 300 livres toward their projects to help the underprivileged in Avon,63 near Fontainebleau, and in February 1713 communicated to

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the same correspondent that “I am sending you sixty louis, Mme, to buy something for your adopted.”64 Thus, Mlle d’Aumale documented in her memoirs that: The sums she dispensed every year in alms were considerable. I have made up her accounts on more than one occasion. She donated between fifty-four and sixty thousand livres a year from her income alone, without counting all the extra donations she managed to obtain from the King, the princes and all the seigneurs of the court by dint of persuasion. In view of the added miseries caused by the dreadful winter, she more than doubled her charities this year [1709]: she fed a great number of families, and maintained several convents for young girls who, without her aid, would either have died of hunger or would have been forced to beg their bread in the streets. On several occasions, when she had run out of money, she sold pieces of her furniture so that she could help some poor family whose needs had just been brought to her attention.65

“ t h e u n iv e rsa l abbess” Maintenon focused much of her attention on ecclesiastical institutions, provoking Saint-Simon to pronounce that “she believed herself to be the universal abbess.”66 However, the sources do verify that supposition. For example, the marquise related to her confessor, Languet, on 21 April 1715 that she had been intimately associated with various religious houses and orders for decades besides Saint-Cyr, disclosing that “for thirty-two years I have been taking care of a house of Benedictines near Fontainebleau.” This, she contended, gave her the authority to intervene in the selection of their prioress and Maintenon duly installed one of their youngest nuns with the help of the archbishop of Sens, instead of someone from outside the convent, as the sisters had done before. Maintenon had known her candidate since the girl’s noviciate, and thereafter she governed the community with such “wisdom and humility that it attracts God’s blessing over the entire house.”67 But it is evident that her role as “universal abbess” was as much imposed as it was assumed, and it continued to expand in scope and significance right through to the end of the reign. It also gave Maintenon another extensive sphere of influence centred around SaintCyr, one that ran alongside and often overlapped with her political and social networks, providing a vast catalogue of contacts and clients to rival those established by leading government ministers, as epitomized

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in the following three extracts from letters to Languet de Gergy, the first of which was written on 6 July 1714: The Daughters of Val-de-Grâce wrote to tell me [they] were extremely keen to have M. Vivant, chancellor of Notre Dame, as their superior; and without waiting for my answer, they elected him abruptly. The King knew about this and has been greatly offended. He had been informed about M. Vivant and told that he was a man under suspicion in connection with [religious] innovations. We had implored M. le Cardinal [de Noailles] to give them either you, Monsieur, or M. de la Sayette, or M. Paulet [and] M. le Cardinal informed us that they would have one of those three. The Carmelites of the rue Grenelle have written to me that they want you for superior in preference to any other. I told them that they could not make a better choice … Do not refuse, Monsieur, all these good works, when it will prevent other communities from being spoilt … I thought I should warn you of everything that has happened here; you should make use of it as you please.68 The second excerpt is taken from a missive dated 11 January 1715 in which Maintenon clarifies that “the Cordeliers wrote to me, that is to say la Supérieure, a very beautiful letter beseeching me to ask the King to arbitrate between you and M. de Meaux. They have good reason; but I believe you have too many affairs, and that I should at no point meddle in this one.” 69 The third citation is from a communication of 5 February relating to another dispute: I think you are not unaware, Monsieur, of the conflicts between Mme de Bouligneux and the daughters of the Immaculate-Conception. I have neither the time nor the energy to get involved personally, and because you are too overwhelmed I do not propose that you become more acquainted with it. But do you not judge it appropriate, Monsieur, to give this letter to M. l’abbé de la Sayette, their superior? It is not necessary to add my prayers since he is responsible for this community. But the interest of our girls of Saint-Cyr will make me share in their gratitude if he can bring peace to this house.70 Maintenon also took the opportunity to patronize as many schools and convents as possible, sponsoring establishments at Avon,71 Bizy,72 Moret,73 and Niort74 using her own funds, and tirelessly lobbying the king, prelates, officials, and popes on their behalf. She provided the Carmelites

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of Pontoise with 250 livres of much needed cash via Mlle d’Aumale on 1 May 1709,75 and furnished her former pupil from Saint-Cyr, Mme de Montalbert, with fifty crucifixes for her fellow Capuchins on 22 June 1711.76 In a letter of 26 September 1712 the cardinal d’Estrées expressed his hope that the marquise would work with the curé de Saint-Sulpice, La Chétardie, and the bishop of Chartres, Mérinville, in order “to take measures that would ensure the success of this good work that you have taken such a keen interest in since his illustrious uncle had formed the design,” which had been to establish “a seminary very necessary in a diocese [of Chartres] as extensive as his.”77 And on 17 October 1705 the marquise revealed, in a missive to the cardinal de Noailles, that she had extracted several hundred livres from the Duke of Burgundy and the king to subsidize the penurious abbey at Gomerfontaine in Picardy. A relative of the cardinal, Mme de La Viefville, had been appointed abbess there in 1705, and it was a project to which Maintenon devoted a great deal of time and patronage: I am pleased with you, Monseigneur, for agreeing to tax the [Noailles] family! I am hoping that this little bit of help for our poor abbess will enable her to move forward and that her good behaviour will gradually resolve the difficult affairs of this house; she will have six hundred livres from you three, and I have obtained two hundred from M. the Duke of Burgundy and four hundred from the King; to make a round number I have added three hundred, so she will have fifteen hundred livres. That goes some way to relieve the need she is in.78 The marquise was also eager to create vacancies at Saint-Cyr, and once her girls had been properly educated they were often transferred to other appropriately elite institutions, including the prestigious house at Chaillot, or the abbey at Maubisson, where appointments were often organized in concert with its most distinguished inhabitant, Mary of Modena.79 Exchanges were also made with convents farther afield, in Brittany80 and Lorraine,81 for example, thus reflecting how extensive the marquise’s connections were. The arrangement of such placements and the distribution of alms were all carefully orchestrated, as a letter dated 6 January 1707 from Maintenon to Mme de Caylus demonstrates. It asked her “[please] to have the kindness to send twenty louis to the convent in Paris of the ‘English in the Field of the Lark.’ I count upon you still to give two louis each month to the wives of light horsemen and observe that I no longer give anything to la Providence. You know how much I like to tally my account.”82

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Moreover, the marquise confided to Languet on 12 October 1714 that “I saw the abbess de Poissy,83 formerly well-intentioned to reform the abuses of her house. She has been ill ever since. She asks us for eight girls with which to create a new zealous noviciate, upon which she has made a very favourable condition for us, wishing to take them for one thousand francs each.”84 In 1712 Maintenon had recommended to the abbesse de Bizy that “I believe that you will soon have the two small Martinvasts: it will be necessary for them subsequently to enter Saint-Cyr, finally to share in the King’s benefaction.”85 Accordingly, on 1 January 1715 she apprised Languet that the same abbess “will send me, when she pleases, Mlle de Martinvast, and we will do our best to render her capable of contributing to your grand design.”86 The marquise also took care to monitor how her graduates were faring in their lives after Saint-Cyr, and continued to offer her protection when problems arose or their noble credentials were called into question, thus threatening their chances of social advancement.87 The marquise thus had a hand in, or directly affected the election or nomination of, superiors, prioresses, abbots, and curates to many institutions, including Saint-Sulpice, Saint-Germain-des-Près,88 Saint-Antoine,89 Val-de-Grâce,90 and Les Filles de la Charité de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in Paris.91 It was perhaps not a coincidence that Mère Marie-Constance, after being seconded for eight years from Chaillot to assist Maintenon with her community at Saint-Cyr, was obliged to return to her convent in 1701 because her peers had elected her superior. The marquise evidently had a hand in this, writing to Marie-Constance shortly after her promotion to assure her she had “made all your compliments to the King, who has not at all been surprised at your election, having heard much spoken about your ability, and who has the greatest esteem for you; and he has instructed me to assure you of it.”92 The marquise also contributed to the reform of the religious houses at Poissy93 and produced a lengthy discourse for Mme de La Marie in May 1713 on how best to realize the melioration at Bizy.94 She intervened in the administration of Saint-Thècle, on Languet’s behalf,95 and was also anxious to ensure the survival of the convent of Saint-Joseph’s in Paris, whose benefactress was Mme de Montespan. She had retired there after quitting the court in 1691, and Maintenon conceded to Languet on 24 February 1715 that “I know Saint-Joseph well, since the time Mme de Montespan took it into her care (because despite of her disorders she loved good works) … I am delighted with the commerce that you [Gergy] have with this house; it seems to me that it is secure.”96 And on 8 April she added that “I am delighted, Monsieur, to see you happy with Sainte-Thècle.”97

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Distressingly it transpired that some of the institutions that Maintenon sponsored had adopted and fostered Jansenist beliefs, and she perhaps rightly felt partly responsible for propagating the heresy across France. The marquise was understandably outraged to learn in July 1714 that Gomerfontaine had become a haven for Jansenists. Such a discovery was doubly painful because the abbey of La Sainte-Enfance, directed by Maintenon’s acquaintance, Mme de Mondonville, had also been denounced by the Jesuits for harbouring like-minded heretics in 1696, and it befell the same fate as Port-Royal Des Champs, which was razed in 1710.98 The curé of Saint-Sulpice was therefore enjoined on 11 October 1714 to ascertain during his visit to Val-de-Grâce whether “girls are being spoilt [by Jansenism]”; and on 21 April 1715 he was asked to “show Val-de-Grâce to one of our girls; I beseech you Monsieur, to let me know how it goes because we are sending some there.”99

jan s e n s i s m a n d t h e

unigenitus

affai r, 1709–1715

The celebrated Jansenist Antoine Arnauld (d. 1694) had predicted that the persecution of Jansenists would generate a war, and that is what the archbishop of Cambrai, François Fénelon, now in alliance with the Jesuits, wanted and pursued from 1709 until his death in January 1715. This was partly motivated by a desire to exact revenge against the archbishop of Paris, Louis-Antoine de Noailles, who had successfully condemned Fénelon’s defence of Quietism in the 1690s. Moreover, Cambrai was vehemently supported by the king’s new Jesuit confessor from 1709, Père Le Tellier, who was an ultramontane extremist with a brutal personality. Saint-Simon’s description of his interrogation by Le Tellier is almost as memorable as his vivid portrayal of the forbidding confessor: He lived austerely by habit and by preference. His only love was for steady uninterrupted work, and in exacting the like from others he was without consideration, not understanding that one must show some regard. His head and his health were like iron; his conduct was similar; indeed, his whole nature was cruel and barbarous … He was a man of wrath, whose aim was no less than destruction, and who after he rose to power entirely ceased to dissemble … His looks did not belie his nature. He would have been frightening to meet at the corner of a thicket. His face was sinister, false, terrifying; his burning, evil eyes looked angry; it was alarming to see him.100

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In 1708 Le Tellier was appointed head of the Province of Paris for the Society of Jesus. He was also the director of the College of Louis-Le-Grand in the capital, from where he spearheaded the campaign against suspected Jansenists.101 Le Tellier also published extensively against Jansenism, which he ardently despised almost as much as he did the Cardinal de Noailles, whose episcopal authority he was keen to usurp and in whom the king had lost patience and confidence by 1709. It simultaneously became clear that relations between Maintenon and Cardinal Noailles had been ruptured by his association with Jansenism and by his refusal to distance himself from that sect despite Maintenon’s repeated exhortations. The cardinal was openly challenged on 10 July 1710 when the bishops of Luçon and La Rochelle, as encouraged by Fénelon, published a joint pastoral ordinance condemning Quesnel’s Moral Reflexions. This made Noailles’s position untenable,102 as a communication from the marquise to her archbishop of Rouen on 17 July illustrates: “The King thinks that you have given an anti-jansenist to Évreux. You told me nothing about M. d’Arles [Jacques de Forbin-Janson, (1643– 1741), who succeeded François Mailly at Arles in 1711], does this choice meet with your approval? I will inform you of the King’s intentions.”103 A subsequent letter to the same recipient on 24 July 1710 reveals that Maintenon was still desperately attempting to influence ecclesiastical nominations. But Le Tellier’s ascendancy meant she was also less well-informed, which made the process even more precarious: Never have I known the bishops during this current promotion less … The curé de Saint-Sulpice had taken the side of the Jesuits in the choice of M. d’Arles. It is given to me in honour of the alliance I have with him [the incumbent, François Mailly], but I did not know him well enough to have taken him in good conscience; your saintly curate has a very good opinion of him … I had difficulty in accommodating the choice of M. le C[ardinal] de N[oailles] with this anti-jansenism of the abbé Lenormand of which the King has been informed. M. the cardinal told me yesterday that he believed that you had a large part to play in installing him at Évreux. I don’t know if he is mocking us. I replied that I thought that you had wanted M. the abbé Dromesnil [Charles François, nephew of Maintenon’s great friend the maréchal Boufflers] and would have had him had it not been for the demission of M. the abbé de Maulevrier from the bishopric of Autun …104 To come back to M. d’Arles, I confess to you that I had a malignant joy in seeing his nomination to Reims in

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relation to M. the Cardinal, who I believed would have been angered by it in spite of their reconciliation.105 The marquise’s fears were well founded, for Le Tellier’s anti-Jansenist crusade was promoted in Rome by a powerful cohort led by the Jesuit order’s agent and former confessor to King Philip V, Guillaume Daubenton; the French secretary to the Procurator-General of the Capuchin Order, Timothée de la Flèche; the French ambassador; the Cardinal de La Trémoïlle; and Cardinal Carlo Fabroni, who was an old and intimate friend of Pope Clement XI. Their archenemy was Arnauld’s friend in exile and papal nemesis, Pasquier Quesnel, and the target his Moral Reflexions on the New Testament, which Noailles had consistently defended and conspicuously recommended to his parishioners. Matters had come to a head earlier in 1711 when a commission headed by the new dauphin, the Duke of Burgundy, failed to reach a compromise settlement with Noailles, who refused to denounce Quesnel or revoke his controversial recent ban barring Jesuits from ministering sacraments in his diocese. Sourches reflected the views of courtiers, who speculated that a meeting with Maintenon followed by a two-hour conference with Louis on 16 September at Versailles had resolved the dispute between Noailles and the three bishops, who had publicly denounced his stance (as the bishop of Gap had on 4 March added his own letter of protest to those of Luçon and La Rochelle), but Noailles’s supposed “accommodation” did not materialize.106 In fact the cardinal nailed his colours firmly to the mast in December 1711 when he confided to the bishop of Agen, François Hébert, the former Curate of Versailles, that if defending the doctrines of Aquinas and Saint Paul and Saint Augustine meant he was going to be labelled a Jansenist then he would just have to accept that as a matter of conscience.107 As Joseph Bergin has pointed out, Noailles was not a practising Jansenist, but an “episcopalist-Gallican.”108 However, this subtlety was lost on Louis, who was incensed by the cardinal’s contumacy. Maintenon nervously informed the duc de Noailles on 23 January 1712 that the king had angrily told Burgundy to “finish with the cardinal” because he “believed that he was a Jansenist, and regarded him as the first of his subjects at the head of their party,” and that he would therefore “break with him.” The marquise recorded her fear that this would be “a violent rupture” and reported that the dauphin was also “irritated” because the dispute had excited opinion in Paris and in Rome, where the Cardinal also enjoyed much support.109

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As Louis Ceyssens has argued, Louis’s indignation was exacerbated by the circumstance of three dauphins dying within twelve months.110 Desperate to appease an apparently wrathful God, and to extinguish an issue that had tormented him for decades, the king consequently assigned the Cardinal La Trémoïlle the unenviable task on 10 March 1712 of gaining Pope Clement XI’s support in his struggle against Jansenism. The Sun King subsequently applied constant pressure on Rome from 12 October 1712 right up to 28 August 1713 to deliver a permanent resolution to the Jansenist problem. It was completely unrealistic of Louis to expect that a single remedy could be found that would eradicate Jansenism at a stroke, but a very reluctant Clement XI compliantly set up a commission in the summer of 1712, which after thirteen months of painstaking deliberations condemned 101 propositions contained in Quesnel’s Moral Reflexions. The sheer number of propositions (originally 155) compounded Daubenton’s revealing admissions to colleagues, including Fénelon, in February 1707, March 1709, and September 1713, that as far as the Holy See was concerned this campaign was not primarily intended to extinguish Jansenism, but rather to relegitimize and relaunch Jesuit missions in China that Noailles had condemned. It was also designed to reassert the infallibility of the papacy and Rome’s supreme spiritual authority in France, where it was expected that the forthcoming bull would be received rapturously and accepted unconditionally.111 Moreover, all except one of the committee of cardinals, who had again been chosen by Fabroni, was an anti-Jansenist, making their agenda crystal clear. The Bull Unigenitus dei filius was finally sealed on 8 September. It was published in Rome two days later and condemned “the errors of Paschasius Quesnel,” which were described as false, captious, evil-sounding, offensive to pious ears, scandalous, pernicious, rash, injurious to the Church and her practice, insulting not only to the Church but also the secular powers seditious, impious, blasphemous, suspected of heresy, and smacking of heresy itself, and, besides, favoring heretics and heresies, and also schisms, erroneous, close to heresy, many times condemned, and finally heretical, clearly renewing many heresies respectively and most especially those which are contained in the infamous propositions of Jansen, and indeed accepted in that sense in which these have been condemned.112 Forty-three articles alone on grace and predestination were denounced,113 and Unigenitus stirred up a hornet’s nest of controversy when it arrived

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on 24–25 September in France. It also caused uproar in Rome, where several cardinals had long been suspicious about the bull’s clandestine formulation and the aspirations of its Jesuit authors. When the encyclical was finally unveiled, they criticized its contents and even demanded that it be immediately destroyed because many of the condemned propositions either repeated orthodox statements in the New Testament or contradicted the teachings of Saints Aquinas and Augustine. Even Clement XI seems to have acknowledged that Unigenitus contained flaws.114 Prelates, theologians, and magistrates in France were even more alarmed because they would have to ratify a bull that trampled on Gallican liberties and royal prerogatives. Articles 90 and 92 stated that Rome had the “authority to ex-communicate” and that Catholics must “suffer in peace … like St. Paul” when disciplined in that way, and Article 91 more provocatively asserted that popes could excommunicate kings, and thereby break their subjects’ sacred bonds of allegiance, in stipulating that “the fear of an unjust excommunication should never hinder us from fulfilling our duty.”115 Unigenitus thenceforth united a coalition of Gallicans, anti-Jesuits, Richeriste clerics, Jansenist sympathizers, Port-Royal supporters, and government detractors, who had long been critical of Louis’s arbitrary style of government. The bull also inflamed and polarized public opinion in France, where more than two hundred works attacking Quesnel were published in 1714 alone and more than one thousand works defending Jansenism were printed between 1713 and 1731.116 Aware of this growing body of opposition, Louis convened an assembly of forty-nine bishops in Paris, nominally presided over by Noailles, to examine and formally endorse Unigenitus. This outraged Clement XI, for the king had broken his promise to implement the Bull without demur. It quickly became clear that Unigenitus was unpalatable to many French clerics, and Noailles emerged as the leader of a caucus of nine clerics within the assembly who refused to register the bull on 23 January 1714. Louis was furious and had a “very long conversation” with his archbishop the following day, as Dangeau noted, but to no avail.117 Maintenon was doubly disappointed by her former protégé’s intransigence because she had been at the heart of the negotiating team that had painstakingly tried to broker a compromise with the refusants over the previous months. And she would continue to play a pivotal part in attempts to have Unigenitus accepted in France over the following year and a half. An early indication of this can be discerned in the letter she received from Clement XI dated 11 November 1713, imploring her to assist the Auditor of the Roman Rota (Apostolic Court of Audience),

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Pompée Aldrovandi, “in all the good offices that depend on you in the affairs of state of which we have been charged at the court of France and that we have confided to his probity.”118 The task of reconciling the king, the clergy, the affiliates of the cardinal de Noailles, and the papacy was unpalatable and seemingly unfeasible, but Maintenon’s contacts were powerful and she felt duty-bound to do all she could to further the king’s cause out of loyalty, humility, and deep regret. The cardinal de La Trémoïlle apprised her about diverse developments in Rome, and the cardinal de Rohan kept her constantly updated on the almost continuous consultations, both formal and informal, that he was conducting with Noailles and his acolytes from October 1713 to the summer of 1715. Moreover, she heard and read the reports that the cardinal de Polignac presented to the king and to the war minister, Voysin, both by letter and in person, on the progress of the conferences he held with Noailles and his recusant colleagues,119 and with the bishop of Meaux, Henri de Bissy, with whom she formed “a grand liaison, driven entirely by the good cause.”120 Bissy’s indefatigable efforts to reach an accommodation right up to the king’s death were acclaimed by La Flèche121 and also recognized by Rome, which awarded him a cardinal’s hat on 3 June 1715.122 Louis’s initial response was punitive: he issued lettres de cachet on 9 February 1714 that exiled, to their dioceses, the remaining rebel clerics, who were eight in number as the bishop of Laon, Louis-Annet Clermont de Chaste, had by then changed his mind, as had Maintenon’s relative, the bishop of Auxerre, after being fiercely rebuked by the marquise in person.123 To discipline their ringleader Noailles, the king terminated his presidency of the General Assembly of the Clergy, exiled him to his house in the country, and banned him from Versailles until further notice.124 Louis’s frustration was compounded by the fact that negotiations at Rastatt were also going badly, to the point that the king instructed his colonels to prepare their regiments for the renewal of war on 1 April.125 The Parlement of Paris and the Sorbonne were also bludgeoned into submission in February and March of 1714 after being threatened with a plethora of lettres de cachet. And more menacingly, during an abrasive meeting at Versailles on 8 February, Louis warned premier président Jean-Antoine de Mesmes and avocat-général Joly de Fleury that non-compliance would oblige him to “stomp on their stomachs with both feet.”126 This did not have the desired effect, and both the Parlement of Paris and the Sorbonne defiantly inserted clauses registering reservations about aspects of Unigenitus that they considered harmful to Gallican liberties.127

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On 21 March 1714 the bishops’ assembly in Paris published their agreed instruction, but Noailles continued to attack this settlement, just as he had in his own pastoral ordinance issued on 25 February, declaring from internal exile that it did not conform with church discipline and doctrine and banning its acceptance in his diocese, where he was supported by 385 of the 450 parish priests.128 La Flèche had confided to Clement XI on 22 January 1714 that he could “keenly sense the trouble that he [Noailles] was going to cause in the church.”129 And by the time of the king’s death seventeen bishops and more than three thousand priests across France had come out as anti-constitutionnaires.130 In the interim Clement XI repeatedly attempted to bring Noailles to heel, demanding in April 1714 that the cardinal issue two new pastoral instructions within six months, affirming his conformity and accepting the Constitution, with a deadline of 18 October. At the same time an exasperated Maintenon employed emotional blackmail to try and make Noailles conform, robustly responding to his placatory missive of 24 March131 by venting on 27 April that it pains me to ask, Monseigneur, whether you are determined to undermine the King, because I was persuaded that you did wish to prolong his days. About the rest of your letter I can say nothing; my ignorance and respect for you prevent me from commenting on such matters; I can only ask God to enlighten those who stand accused. But Monseigneur you have the Pope and most of the Bishops against you, and this in itself arouses much suspicion; but I do not want to say any more.”132 Noailles remained unrepentant, but confessed in May that he was “doubly distressed” not to have been able to be there in person to administer the last rites to the duc de Berry, who passed away on 4 May 1714 (having sustained fatal internal injuries during a riding accident), to assuage the grief of the royal family.133 Maintenon and the king were now convinced that the Jansenist party was all-powerful, that it dominated the Paris Parlement, and, more worryingly, that it had infected the entire church throughout the kingdom, including several nunneries that embarrassingly Maintenon had founded or sponsored, such as Gomerfontaine. She lamented to her confessor, Languet, on 6 August 1714, that “there is danger everywhere.”134 But in a damning and slightly hypocritical criticism of Louis’s administration the marquise disclosed to Ursins on 25 November that “I’ve seen for the last fifteen or twenty years that it [Jansenism] has been only too much

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tolerated; the party is much more powerful and more extended; and under the pretext of maintaining the rights and liberties of the kingdom, they attack directly the authority of the Pope and that of the King.”135 Noailles, by contrast, echoed Pierre Nicole’s Imaginary Heresy in asserting that Jansenism was merely a phantom. Comprehending Jansenism was almost as complicated as trying to deal with it, as Maintenon admitted to her archbishop of Rouen, Claude de Tigny, on 2 April 1714, reflecting that the more she heard about it the less she understood it. Moreover, in the same letter she went on astutely to predict how difficult this conundrum would prove to unravel: They say that the Pope is very unhappy with the bishops that have separated themselves, while others assure us that they are treated too mildly. We find one day that M. le cardinal de Noailles is not excusable and it is necessary to ask for justice following his last instruction, that he has created a schism, and that all of his actions are considered bad in the eyes of God, the Pope and the King. On another we are told that, if the Pope dares to deal with him a little more forcibly, then the King and all the Bishops will support him against the Pope.”136 Maintenon therefore laboured industriously to try and resolve the affair. She encouraged and readily received lengthy protestations of orthodoxy and obeisance from numerous clerics and from people whose relatives had been accused of heresy.137 This included a missive accompanied by an extensive memoir from Henri-Charles de Coislin, the bishop of Metz,138 whose influential pastoral instruction of 20 June 1714 pithily summarized the complexity of the controversy, and the contradictory nature of the Constitution, by accepting Unigenitus in essence, while criticizing its contents and simplistic purpose by emphasizing that Augustine and Aquinas had defended positions on grace not dissimilar to that of Quesnel.139 Consequently Coislin was denounced by the Jesuits and condemned by the king in the conseil d’en haut. The aging chancellor Pontchartrain resigned in protest on 2 July after refusing to enact the arrêt,140 leaving his successor Voysin to apply the seals three days after his promotion, while uniquely retaining his war secretaryship. Maintenon was delighted by this elevation and confident that Voysin would succeed in resolving the Unigenitus affair, but talks with Noailles had broken down by the end of July, prompting Maintenon to warn the duc de Noailles that his uncle’s behaviour threatened to disgrace the whole family. The cardinal-archbishop remained resolute nonetheless,

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having confessed to the bishop of Mirepoix the previous month that it was indeed unfortunate to be out of the king’s favour, but that he simply could not compromise his conscience.141 Renewed attempts to negotiate, led this time by the bishop of Troyes, predictably floundered, and Maintenon reported in September that the king would be compelled to convene a national church council to enforce Unigenitus, although permission for this would have to be granted by Rome, “where we will gain no satisfaction.”142 Tellingly, at the same time she told Rouen that the king “ardently desired an accommodation if it was a good one; but that he did not want any other.”143 Furthermore, on 7 October Maintenon informed the princesse des Ursins that if the pope was not satisfied by Noailles’s forthcoming instruction, “it will be necessary to have recourse to more drastic measures.”144 Ironically, Noailles had disavowed Quesnel’s Moral Reflexions at the end of 1713 to appease Rome, and he did issue a pastoral instruction by the deadline of the 18 October 1714, but it did not lift the ban on Unigenitus being accepted, nor the ban on Jesuit ministrations in his diocese. After working extensively with a team that included foreign minister Torcy, Voysin, Cardinal Rohan, and the bishops of Meaux and Blois, the former French ambassador to Spain, Amelot de Gournay, set out on 15 December 1714 for Rome armed with detailed memoirs and measures designed to persuade Clement XI to sanction a National Council that would register Unigenitus and oversee the trial of Archbishop Noailles by allowing papal legates to preside over that body. Clement refused outright to allow a council under any circumstances, fearing that this would encourage excessive independence within the French episcopate, and Fabroni bluntly pointed out that nowhere in the gospels did it stipulate that Gallis was exempt from Saint Peter’s authority.145 Maintenon thought that Amelot’s mission was “bad” and “deplorable,” that Noailles, although “running headlong to his ruin,” would never change his mind, and that the Jansenist affair would “never terminate agreeably.”146 Another attempt to bring Noailles to some sort of settlement by proposing two compromise agreements, this time led by Père Masillon, had flopped by January 1715 because, as Voysin reported to Maintenon, the cardinal-archbishop Noailles was again stalling. He cautioned her not to reveal to Louis the disappointing details of his discussions with the archbishop, warning that Noailles’s obduracy would subject “the King’s fortitude … to a long trial.”147 Everything seemed dismal in France, as Maintenon noted in February 1715. However, the endeavours of Amelot in Rome bore fruit, with Clement threatening Noailles with decardinalization unless

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he submitted a suitably submissive instruction immediately, and permitting Louis to denaturalize him if this was not forthcoming.148 Le Tellier went further, recommending that Noailles be kidnapped and transported to Rome to face trial by the Inquisition. But the cardinal still would not yield, and in March 1715 he outlined to Voysin his reasons, which were now clearly shared by an expansive party within the French church and state: Blind obedience, submission pure and simple, and threats and reproofs, has led to the degradation of the episcopate … I have done nothing except to uphold the purity of the faith, the authority of the bishops, the service of the King, and the maxims of the state … If this is a crime in Rome, it must not be so for you, Monsieur, since you are charged with defending our liberties and the rights of the Crown.149 Even the unfaltering Bissy was demoralized by the cardinal-archbishop’s behaviour, declaring that Noailles was “ignoring the facts” and “deceiving himself.”150 With few options left, Louis established a commission of fifteen bishops to broker an agreement. It quickly became deadlocked over the wording of a new instruction. Undeterred, Voysin launched fresh talks, assisted by the abbé Tiberge, which Noailles suspended within days on 20 March 1715 in the hope of receiving favourable news from Rome in response to his latest appeal. The fact that the Sun King had few alternative strategies left to stop Noailles’s insubordination highlights the critical deficiency in Louis XIV’s spiritual authority, as the Quietist controversy had done previously, and from which he had seemingly learned nothing. In the absence of willing volunteers, Voysin made one last desperate bid to “bring Noailles to his senses,”151 holding talks with the archbishop between 26 and 28 April 1715 in Paris that ended in another stalemate. Based on recent experience, Maintenon had put little faith in this new endeavour, conceding to Languet on 28 April that “M. the Chancellor returned yesterday from Paris with some hopes of accommodation; as ever I fear more than I hope.”152 She then expounded woefully on these anxieties and their origins, thus highlighting just how impenetrably complicated the affair had become, and protesting that “you do not write against the Jesuits, but neither you do write against the Jansenists, your morals are austere, so why are you not suspected of being a member of their party? It is because you are not. Me, most wretched and ignorant of women, I am at no point suspected of being a Jansenist; yet I have written nothing against them: only that truth reveals itself.”153

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On 15 May, Voysin conveyed his belief to Amelot that nothing could be done with Noailles in France, but urged him to continue working with the papacy to try to extricate the king from a humiliating position.154 With Machiavellian dexterity, Amelot managed to achieve this, and over the coming weeks he extracted from Noailles a pastoral instruction that Clement found reasonable and was prepared to publish.155 However, this was not the resolution that Louis wanted, nor was it the one desired by Le Tellier, who seemingly pushed the king into taking those drastic measures that Maintenon had hinted at, ultimately causing deadlock. On 24 July 1715, Voysin wrote to two Parlementaires alerting them that the king was planning to take extraordinary measures to enforce his will.156 Nevertheless, after resisting the king’s demand that Unigenitus be registered immediately without reservations on 28 July, the Parisian judges informed Louis on 13 August that they would not endorse the convention of a national church council either. In the same month, Amelot returned from Rome because it was futile for him to remain, as Maintenon observed to Mary of Modena on 21 August, underscoring that the Jesuits had sabotaged whatever compromise he had orchestrated: “The affairs of Rome have given him [the King] pain and continue to do so: the Pope will not render any response, he opposes everything and proposes nothing; the Parlement makes great difficulties. Our Cardinals and M. the Chancellor endeavour to alleviate them. M. Amelot has returned finding himself useless in Rome.”157 By now incandescent with rage at the Paris Parlement, the king told Mesmes, D’Aguesseau, and Joly de Fleury on 15 August that the legislation he required would be implemented when he presided over their formal session on 20 August, with the ratified church council to be held on 1 September. An apparently authentic copy of a letter composed by Le Tellier dated 2 August discloses that Louis was preparing to exploit his prerogative powers even further by “crushing procureur-général [d’Aguesseau] for eight days,” during which time the king himself would register “the great edict” and arrest the Cardinal de Noailles using already prepared lettres de cachet, before transporting the archbishop under armed guard to be imprisoned in the notorious fortress of PierreEncise in Lyon. Accordingly in the next sentence Le Tellier ironically predicted that “when we have cut down this hydra, we shall have nothing left to fear.”158 Championing Gallicanism and Romanism simultaneously had compelled the Sun King to flirt with despotism. But instead of a lit de justice, gangrene forced the king to take to his deathbed instead. From there, with heroic hypocrisy, Louis squarely blamed the counsels of Père Le Tellier and Cardinals de Rohan and de Bissy for the rampant disarray in his religious affairs and his regrettable maltreatment of Noailles.

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t h e v e t e r a n soverei gn a n d a n u n c e rta in succes si on Louis had endured abundant setbacks in the final years of his reign, but none of them had distressed him more than the tragic demise of many cherished members of his family. The succession crisis generated by the successive deaths of the dauphin, the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy, and the ducs de Bretagne,159 d’Alençon,160 and de Berry between April 1711 and May 1714,161 and a distrust of the pretensions of the duc d’Orléans, drove Louis to draw up, and successfully order the registration of, a decree placing his legitimized bastard sons, the duc du Maine and the comte de Toulouse, and their male descendants in the line of succession after the princes of the blood in July 1714.162 In a subsequent declaration on 23 May 1715 the king granted them the title of princes of the blood and appointed du Maine and Toulouse as members of the regency council, the format of which was specified in his will and testament, which was deposited in the Parlement of Paris on 30 August 1714. It stipulated that du Maine was to be made head of the civil and military household of the future Louis XV; and thus to him was entrusted the “safety, conservation and education” of the dauphin until his majority.163 Saint-Simon contends that the king was almost coerced into resolving the succession problem. He recounts that during an assignation with Mary of Modena, on 27 May 1714, Louis “burst out with, ‘Madame, I have made a will; they badgered me until it was done,’ then, turning to Mme de Maintenon [said], ‘I have bought my rest now.’” This anecdote was recited, almost verbatim, by the king’s sister-in-law, Liselotte, in 1716.164 Maintenon has traditionally been held responsible for these innovatory measures because of her unashamed partiality for the duc du Maine.165 Saint-Simon alleged that du Maine needed only to send one letter of commendation from himself to Maintenon in 1712 to secure the nomination to the premier presidency of the Parlement of Paris of Jean-Antoine de Mesmes in 1712, who was one of three parlementaires entrusted with the safekeeping of the king’s last will and testament. The fact that the succession plans were conceived and fashioned by the king and Voysin during meetings in Maintenon’s apartments that du Maine often attended suggests that the marquise had a hand in designing them.166 A series of letters from du Maine to Maintenon dispatched in the second half of 1714 discussed the king’s testament and also questions related to titles, ceremony, and rank, which had inflamed arguments within the royal circle, and beyond in the public sphere, about which the duc sought guidance and reassurance from the king.167 Maintenon

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had confided to the comte d’Aubigné de Tigny on 21 June that “it is said that there is a great row in Paris in connection with the affair of the legitimate and illegitimate princes: you know that I am not indifferent to it.”168 And on 5 August 1714 Maintenon provided Ursins with an apparently objective perspective on the elevation of the king’s bastards: What you must have heard concerning MM. du Maine and de Toulouse furnishes ample matter of conversation to our courtiers, but it has been subsequently acknowledged that what the King does for them injures no person. It is said, however, that the dukes are alarmed at it. It is affirmed at Paris where there is still more freedom of speech, that the King educates these two princes in view of giving them a greater influence during the regency, and to balance the credit of the duke of Orléans. Others say that it is the fruit of a wise and sound policy; but everyone hopes alike that the race of the Bourbons will never be extinct. The truth is that these two princes are full of honour, probity, religion, attachment for the King, the state, and the direct line of succession. I do not speak to you as a person prejudiced for either of them; it is a truth acknowledged by all sensible people in this country.169 However, she more honestly conceded to her confessor at Saint-Sulpice on 3 September that “it is impossible that M. the duc d’Orléans will not be injured because he has too much sense not to realize that he was naturally the primary person who should be given supreme authority, which has nonetheless been diminished by the ruling that it be shared.”170 It is easier to identify her involvement in the selection of the future Louis XV’s governor, governess, and preceptor. The maréchal de Villeroi was one of the few intimates still welcome in the aging couple’s ever decreasing circle after Maintenon had successfully reconciled him and Louis in October 1712, resulting in the reinstatement of his governorship of the Lyonnais and all the pensions attached to it.171 The maréchal also became a minister of state in 1714, presumably in relation to his appointment as governor to the young Prince Louis in August.172 After his death Villeroi was to be replaced as governor by another of Maintenon’s clients, the maréchal d’Harcourt.173 And the duchesse de Ventadour had succeeded her mother, the maréchale de La Mothe, as gouvernante des enfants de France in January 1709 because of her devoted friend’s patronage and quickly won the esteem of the court by famously saving the sickly infant Duc d’Anjou from the fatal ministrations of doctors, whose purges had hastened the demise of his relatives in 1712. After

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Berry’s death Anjou inherited the Crown from his great-grandfather, and Maintenon closely monitored young Louis XV’s progress after 1715 and continued to dispense advice on his upbringing, which was recurrently solicited by Ventadour, right up to the marquise’s death on 15 April 1719.174 Moreover, as preceptor, Fleury was conspicuously Maintenon’s favoured choice as the anti-Jesuit candidate to neutralize the influence of the minor king’s confessor, Père Le Tellier.175 One of Maintenon’s most palpable accomplishments was the change she had inspired in the personality and piety of the king. He was increasingly susceptible to her influence because she had become the only living adviser whom he unswervingly trusted and upon whom he could depend. In the early eighteenth century Louis was subjected to concurrent ordeals that became unbearable, and he took refuge with a dwindling coterie of surviving stalwarts in the sanctuary of his consort’s apartments at Versailles, or enjoyed escaping from the court to another of his residences, or one of his prince’s palaces, as described by Maintenon in a letter to Ursins on 9 October 1712: Never was there a more liberal or magnificent establishment than that of the comte de Toulouse [at Rambouillet], and conducted with such regularity, that nobody appears to suffer the least inconvenience; the house is small, but the park and gardens have been rendered extremely splendid, by the various improvements made by the Prince. The situation is not good, it is hunting country, having a very large forest near to it. The furniture, made at Saint Joseph, is very beautiful and full of the taste of her who had begun to prepare it; the King was very much pleased during his stay there, and may very probably return to it again. For my own part, I passed my time there as usual, and saw but few of the company; among whom I shall name Madame de Dangeau, de Caylus, and d’O; for Madame de Lévis, who belongs to my coterie, has scarcely recovered from her confinement, and the Duchesse de Noailles is pregnant.176 The king, like his consort, was increasingly reluctant to be exposed to the gaze of the public, which she complained to Ursins on 24 September 1714 was intensifying mercilessly.177 After January 1712 Louis began habitually to dine chez Mme de Maintenon on a number of weekday evenings,178 and he spent a great deal of time closeted with his forbearing consort as the series of untimely deaths in the royal family left him desolated. After the death of the dauphin from smallpox on 14 April 1711 Maintenon had written to Ursins on the 16th exclaiming “what a

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spectacle, Mme, when I arrived in the grand cabinet of Monseigneur! The King sitting on a daybed shedding no tears, but shuddering and trembling from his head to his feet.”179 The Duke and Duchess of Burgundy sent separate messages of condolence for Louis to Maintenon after the dauphin expired, proposing that she disclose them to the king at the time of her choosing.180 Similarly, the maréchal de Boufflers, after the premature death of his eldest son, beseeched the marquise in April 1711 to convey that he was eternally indebted to the king for having transferred the survivance of the governorship of Flanders to his remaining fiveyear-old son. He also acknowledged the part that he believed Maintenon had played in extracting this and many of the other honours that Louis had bestowed upon him and his family.181 The deaths of the Burgundys from measles in February 1712 left Louis and Maintenon disconsolate. The marquise grieved to Ursins on 14 February 1712 that “all is dead here, life has fled from us: our lost Princess was the soul of everything.”182 The task of rallying the king further prostrated the marquise, as illustrated in her letter to Ursins of 27 March 1712: It is true, Mme, that I am sad: never has anyone had more cause to be so; but count on it that the court is as wretched as me. All is blank and void; there is no joy or occupation. The King exerts himself as much as possible to console himself, but always relapses into his first sorrows; he confides them to me, and you may well conceive how much they add to my own sufferings. However, his health continues to be good, and he has not evaded any obligations. Our little Dauphin lives in spite of everything; I have not as yet had the courage to see him; I should have suffered less for him than the one we have lost, for he resembled the Dauphine in every way … We hope for peace, but we cannot flatter ourselves that the campaign will not commence; and this would be a source of fresh troubles for me … I have but little news; I live at Saint-Cyr more than ever to hide myself away; and when I stay here [at Versailles] those persons who are most afflicted join me, and the day is spent weeping. It will nevertheless be highly necessary to betray less grief to the King in order to preserve his health.183 Even one of Maintenon’s steadfast adversaries conceded that the marquise’s constancy helped brace the king against the vicissitudes of fortune, with Liselotte recording on 10 March 1712 that Louis “bears his misfortune with such constancy and firmness that I cannot admire his majesty

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enough. One can truthfully say that except for Mme de Maintenon the King has lost everything he has loved most in the world, and in Mme La Dauphine his only pride and joy.”184 Furthermore, on 21 May Liselotte admitted to Electress Sophie that “although the woman is our worst enemy, I wish her a long life for the King’s sake. For everything would be ten times worse if the King should die now. He loves this woman so terribly that he would be sure to follow her to the grave.”185 Maintenon herself deftly summarized the king’s troubles and projected her fears for the future in a penetrating letter to the bishop of Chartres, Mérinville, on 16 March 1712: It is true, Monsieur, that we are overwhelmed with every kind of unhappiness and that we take consolation in the good health of the King and in the Christian courage that supports it. He has never been so occupied with affairs, nor worked so much … I have never had more need of your prayers; I lose the sweetness of my life in losing Mme la Dauphine. I see the direct line excised, a long minority; and I fear the change in our circumstances will render the peace more difficult. More and more I see the affairs of the church in turmoil and M. the cardinal de Noailles in trouble with the King. The duc de Noailles, who I love very much, struck down with an apoplexy at thirty-four years of age. Here then are the crosses I bear at the end of my life. Ask, Monsieur, whether I have made a saintly use of it.186 It was perhaps Maintenon who shouldered the greatest burden in having to endure and trying to lighten the bouts of depression that afflicted Louis XIV in his final years, as La Chétardie acknowledged, sympathizing with his confessant that “for many years the affairs of the State have caused you extreme anguish and you have found relief in unburdening your afflicted heart.”187 Because Louis retreated increasingly to her rooms, they became the core of the court, where it was incumbent on her to indulge the king with care and consideration, and ensure that he was suitably diverted by arranging recitals of his favourite music and plays, by the likes of Molière and Racine. For example, she informed Ursins on 27 November 1712 that “there is, however, no part of the court in which it [pleasure] appears to exist more than in my room. We have music frequently; for it is the only thing that pleases the King when he is not out. Marshal de Villeroi is to give us some this evening.”188 And during an impromptu overnight stay at the duc d’Antin’s residence at Petit-Bourg, on the court’s return from Fontainebleau in October 1713, the marquise took charge of the king’s evening entertainments and asked for music to

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be provided by the host, who was astonished because she had not bothered to gain the sovereign’s permission, as she candidly confided to the duc de Noailles on the 11th: “I asked M. d’Antin for a little music for this evening; he replied that he would obey, but would never usually dare without it being ordered or proposed. I do pity timid people.”189 Spending more time with Maintenon also improved Louis’s spirituality. She had deplored to the duc de Noailles on 3 September 1706 that the king “knows only too well how to say that it is necessary to put everything in God’s hands; but it is often just language.”190 However, she proudly told Languet at Saint-Sulpice on 24 February 1715 that Louis XIV’s “religion is not external, and whatever happens he will live and die Catholic, Apostolic and Roman.”191 Moreover, Maintenon testified to her confessor on 28 April 1715 that “it is true, Monsieur, that the King has found a new vigour for all that he must do in Holy Week,” though she cautioned that “it is many years since I have seen him more tired.”192 Nevertheless, during the latter part of the War of the Spanish Succession, Louis still endeavoured personally to notify Maintenon as soon as there had been an important development, as the two surviving billets du roi suggest. The first, dated 1710, relates to the fluctuating fortunes of Philip V: “The enemies have withdrawn, and the King of Spain is master of Madrid; I believed that you would be anxious to hear this news before waiting to learn more about it in detail, Louis.”193 The second message, dated 27 November 1713, more portentously concerns the finalization of the long-awaited peace: The peace is not yet made; but it will soon be signed; Prince Eugene has come back to Rastatt, and Villars is going to return there; we agree about everything, and I am ordering Villars to sign. I thought you would not be sorry to hear this good news some hours early, and it is not necessary to say anything, other than that Prince Eugene has returned to Rastatt, and the conferences will recommence. I no longer doubt the peace, [and] I rejoice in it with you; let us give most sincere thanks to God, Louis.194 Maintenon’s support had proven invaluable, but her Christian fatalism could sometimes be a double-edged sword, simultaneously enabling the king to withstand his misfortunes unfalteringly and embrace them in remorseful resignation to Providential retribution, while also compounding his sense of guilt and foreboding. During the frigid peace dialogues of 1710, Maintenon divulged to Ursins on 19 July that “I do not know if you have received the latest response from our enemies; the King

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received it with the sang-froid (at least externally) that you acquaint with him. It is not the same with our princes and grand seigneurs; I have never seen them so sensitive … [yet] I never expected peace.”195 However, the marquise was not averse to taking pride in military achievements, and she sounded elated in a letter to Ursins on 30 November 1711: What glory for our King to have sustained a ten years’ war against all Europe, encountered every species of misfortune, experienced a famine and plague, which has destroyed thousands, and to see all this terminated by a peace which unites the monarchy of Spain to his own dynasty, and re-establishes a Catholic King in his kingdoms! For I can scarcely doubt of all this being the consequence of peace.196 Accordingly, when Villars’s military success at Denain on 24 July 1712 started to turn the tide of the war in France’s favour, Maintenon delightedly imparted to Ursins on 2 October 1712 that everything goes on admirably in Flanders; we heard at Rambouillet of the reduction of Quesnoy. Bouchain is on the point of being besieged. The enemy say they have never attacked us with so much spirit and skill as we attack them. All these sieges have not led to any considerable loss of lives up to the present moment … Is it possible, Madame, not to recognise the hand of God in such a change? Having humbled and afflicted us, he now raises us up and rejoices in us. The Dutch are exasperated against us and England.197 International peace would eventually be established when the Treaty of Baden brought the war to an end on 27 September 1714. But conflict continued to engulf the French church, and on 25 January 1712 Maintenon reported despairingly to Ursins that “everything that is passing confirms our hopes of peace. We shall have, according to all appearances, a glorious one … But as I am not destined for joy, the affairs of the church afflict me, and those of the Cardinal de Noailles with the King become more and more embroiled, which makes me anticipate a disgrace, to which I am by no means indifferent.”198 Concerning the government’s difficulties in extirpating Jansenism, Maintenon had deduced in a missive to her archbishop of Rouen on 8 December 1713 that the king was “very much to be pitied because he was having to decide on matters he does not understand.”199 The marquise excused this deficiency by blaming Louis’s early education, which she discovered had been woefully deficient, as she revealed to the girls of Saint-Cyr in an entretien from 1703:

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The King always astonishes me when he speaks of his own education. His governesses amused themselves all day, and left him in the hands of the maids without taking any care of him, because you know that he began to reign when he was three-and-a-half years old. He ate whatever he could lay his hands on, without paying any attention as to whether this could be contrary to his health. It was this that accustomed him to be so careless about himself. If they fricasseed an omelette, he would snatch some pieces of it, that he and Monsieur went off into a corner to eat. He recounts that he was most often left with a peasant woman; and his usual play companion was the granddaughter of a chamber maid who worked for one of the chamber maids of the queen; he called her queen Marie, because together they played the game called à la madame, with her always taking the part of the queen, and him serving her as a page or footman, carrying her train, wheeling her chair, or marching with a torch, or flag, in front of her. Judge whether the little queen Marie was capable of giving good advice, and if she was useful to him in anything at all.200 Mazarin’s subsequent tutelage and the cult of adulation had intensified Louis’s narcissism, which Fénelon persistently condemned, and which Maintenon tried to curb, with some success. For example, she was pleased to report to Ursins on 24 December 1714 that the king had indeed denied a request made by the commander of Guyenne, the maréchal de Montrevel, for permission to erect a “magnificent monument” to Louis’s glory opposite, of all places, the château Trompette, because he “wanted neither the praises of his people, nor to burden them.”201 Moreover, in a letter to Languet on 1 January 1715, Maintenon intimated that she had been responsible for the rejection of Montrevel’s proposal, pointing out that she had seen too many examples of princely vanity over the years.202 Besides tempering the king’s egotism, Maintenon also managed to moderate his monstrous meals, informing Ursins on 11 June 1712 that she saw “with pleasure that he [Louis] eats rather less.”203 But he was still gluttonous, as well as susceptible to binges, which Pierre Goubert has claimed were stimulated by bulimia, which made him favour spiced meats and giant sherbets.204 Intriguingly, his grandson Philip V suffered from the same eating disorder after 1718.205 Other historians have conjectured more persuasively that the aging Sun King was suffering from diabetes, which would certainly account for the gangrenous leg that hastened his demise.206 Nonetheless, from 1712 to 1715 Maintenon registered in her correspondence that her own health, and that of Louis,

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enjoyed spells of remarkable revitalization, despite her rheumatic susceptibilities and the constant purges and gout that intermittently incapacitated the king. On 13 July 1713 she remarked to Ursins that “I am presently in a state of weakness into which I relapse often: every time I believe that I am at my end, I then recover with astonishing force for my age.”207 But the source of the marquise’s octogenarian exuberance was perhaps a revival of the spirits, rather than a constitutional renaissance, revealing to Ursins on 3 December 1714 that “I am on a brand new regime for me, as I drink wine three times a day with quinine, which I find fortifying.”208 The king also continued to exhibit extraordinary reserves of physical strength and durability. On 15 August 1712 Maintenon remarked to Ursins that there is a chamberlain of the Pope [François Bianchini, who had arrived at Versailles on 25 July 1712 to deliver a red biretta to the newly elevated Cardinal de Rohan], who says that if he informed Rome that the King of France, at seventy-four years, during a heatwave, goes out at two o’clock in the afternoon and runs through the forest, in the sand along the riverbanks, in the midst of all the horses and dogs, they would think him truly mad. It is true, Madame, that the King’s health is astonishing; he was never more attentively observed, and since our misfortunes, he has become even more precious.209 Two years later, from Fontainebleau, she exclaimed on Sunday, 30 September 1714, that the king on Saturday had hunted with the hounds of Monsieur le Duc and caught two stags, and that on Thursday he had attended the chase for an impressive seven hours: and returned to the musical party in my room, fresher and gayer as if he had done nothing. He usually attends a stag-hunt twice a week; and on other days he shoots or takes a walk; attends four musical parties at my house, or hears some of Molière’s best plays read [like The Forced Marriage on Friday, 28 September, or The Blunderer on Friday, 5 October]:210 there are amusements enough; he holds, however, more councils than ever,211 and he gives a number of audiences, either to courtiers or foreigners. He enters into, and attends to business very assiduously, and really his life is a continued miracle; I never saw him so gay, and he appeared to me duly sensitive to the capture of Barcelona [on 12 September]. The alterations he has made at Fontainebleau have rendered it still more agreeable. 212

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The marquise reported from Marly on 10 November 1714 that the king’s “health is a miracle every day renewed; yesterday he fired thirty-four shots and killed thirty-two pheasants: strength, eyesight, skill – nothing in him is diminished.”213 This could prove challenging for those eating in his company, as the duchesse de Ventadour highlighted in a witty handwritten response to Maintenon’s invitation to dine with the king that was sent around this time, declaring that they should “be ready and be ready our stomachs! I will attend, and I will find health and money – two great miracles!”214 In May 1715, however, observers noted that the king’s health had started to deteriorate and that his voracious appetite had decreased. The bouts of overindulgence continued nonetheless, although his constitution often suffered as a consequence. Maintenon recounted one episode to the duchess de Ventadour, on 14 June 1715, that perhaps confirms that Louis XIV had become a diabetic. The marquise disclosed that the king had only been slightly inconvenienced and deprived of some sleep after eating too many peas and strawberries, which had “given him wind,” compelling Fagon to administer two warm water enemas, which enabled Louis to dine lightly and then sleep soundly for eight hours.215 Two days later Maintenon imparted to Ventadour that she hoped when the king came to dine in her apartments he would not again consume large quantities of the same foodstuffs because this would further harm his health, and that it was also “going to kill M. Fagon.”216 However, it was Louis who would succumb first. A missive from Maintenon to the duc de Villeroi on 15 August confirmed that the king was feeling enervated and increasingly unwell.217 The marquise notified Mary of Modena six days later that Louis was no longer running a fever and was sleeping well, but that he lacked his usual appetite, was struggling to support himself on his legs, and was suffering from frequent enfeebling sweats. But the Sun King remained stoical to the last, as Maintenon attested, buoyantly adding that despite feeling debilitated he had, nonetheless, undergone an intensive purge, managed two council meetings, and enjoyed a musical recital in the evening organized by the marquise in the company of her customary circle of ladies.218 In the early eighteenth century the marquise’s influence grew more forceful and expansive as the pressures of wartime government and Louis’s obsession with uniformity and conformity provoked paranoia as one crisis superseded another. Maintenon therefore became an essential component in his system of government, and it became inevitable that she would influence decisions and appointments because the king solicited her advice on such matters. Unfortunately, her interventions

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had mixed results, but Louis was primarily responsible for embroiling his consort in state business, so it was presumably a risk that he was willing to take, or one that the king neglected to assess with his customary caution. Maintenon genuinely regretted the mistakes she made, even though she evidently enjoyed “meddling,” notwithstanding her protestations to the contrary. She insincerely reminded her close friend Marshal Villeroi on 2 January 1712: “You know, Monsieur, that I do not enter into affairs, that I do not hear about them and that only my prayers are required, which may not be as good as my counsels; but, ultimately, we must satisfy the needs of those we serve.”219 On 16 July 1714 she more honestly, but mournfully, lamented to Ursins that It is true that I do not like to meddle with affairs, that I am naturally timid; but it is also true that I have interfered too much with them; it is I who brought forward the Abbé de Fénelon, upon the sole reputation of his merit: what displeasure has that not cost me! It is I who ardently desired the See of Paris; what a dreadful business we have now against a prelate, who, though irreproachable in his morals, tolerates the most dangerous party which could rise in the church; who renders his family miserable, and conspicuously afflicts the King at a time when his preservation is so necessary! These facts increase my natural timidity. I know that God will judge my intentions, and that they were good, but the evil that one suffers from them is not less great.220 Maintenon was thus compelled to remain deeply involved in state affairs as a result of the extent to which she had intervened and become engrossed by them. The marquise did provide her husband with comfort and companionship and also afforded the king a private life that, as Thierry Sarmant asserts, offered him much-needed relief from court intrigues and rituals and that enabled him, temporarily, to evade the public glare and the business of government at which he endlessly toiled. They were a devoted couple who, when alone together, enjoyed a “bonheur bourgeois.”221 But their working relationship was more complex. In 1711 Maintenon had conceded to Villars that Louis was “the master,” and on 20 January 1715 she told to her confessor, Languet, that “it is a long time since I have seen the world, that I know with contempt with all its unnecessary and uncertain favours; but I also know that the credit and esteem of the master is required to do good.”222 Maintenon, like Louis, had her own secrets and sometimes pursued her own agenda. Le Roy Ladurie contends that these activities mirrored those of an “octopus or ectoplasm.” This is a rather

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crude exaggeration, but he may be correct in positing that the king and his wife, both gifted dissemblers, occasionally hoodwinked each other.223 Nonetheless, the marquise became more indispensable to French and foreign courtiers and to Louis XIV, as his affairs became less manageable, as the person who was figuratively and invariably physically “next to the King,” and whom Villars regarded as “the faithful interpreter of the King’s thoughts.”224 She may have betrayed to Ursins on 19 June 1713 that “I now only think of shutting myself up,”225 but this in reality was impracticable because of the regal responsibilities she had acquired, was expected to fulfil, and could not simply relinquish. For instance, after the three plenipotentiaries, Polignac, D’Huxelles, and Mesnager, had collected their passports in preparation for their journey to the peace negotiations at Utrecht, and received their instructions from the king, they each individually called on Maintenon to take their leave, as she informed Mme de Dangeau on 30 December 1711.226 The English diplomat Matthew Prior had reflected in 1698 that it was “incredible the power that woman has; everything goes through her hands, and Diana made a much less figure at Ephesus.”227 He more waspishly confided to another correspondent around the same time that “it is prodigious the amount of power this old governess has over the mind of her sixty year-old royal pupil. He doesn’t dare to do anything without her, and refuses her nothing that she desires.”228 This was perhaps an exaggeration in 1698, but it did become a real problem for the marquise, who on 2 July 1713 griped to Ursins that she was “quite tired of forming a better judgment than wise men.”229 Even so, she continued to preoccupy herself with state affairs, and on 29 April 1714 she heatedly rebuked the same correspondent, declaring that “you are ill-informed, and you think that I am still more so than yourself. I am certainly ignorant of many little intrigues, but I am no stranger to things of consequence.”230 To describe Maintenon as “all-powerful” is therefore an exaggeration: she could exert influence in many spheres, but her authority had limits. Le Tellier’s appointment as the king’s confessor in 1709 and Noailles’s disgrace severely constricted her influence over ecclesiastical affairs and appointments, but Maintenon remained powerful in the realm of religion, as she did in secular affairs, because of the expansive clientage– patronage network she had painstakingly constructed and consequently exploited as best she could to assist the beleaguered king. John Rule’s older hypothesis is therefore partly correct in that Maintenon did yearn to retire from the court and strove with some success to reduce her obligations in Louis’s later years. However, her presence did not and indeed

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could not diminish, in part because of the outbreak of the Unigenitus crisis, and her influence, though slightly reduced, remained as formidable as her public persona. As an unofficial consort, Maintenon’s role was therefore more complicated than that of queen, confidante, or counsellor, and more demanding than that of minister, mistress, or master.

Conclusion

After days of agony, caused by spreading gangrene, Louis XIV lost consciousness on 30 August. He died on Sunday, 1 September 1715, at quarter past eight in the morning, just three days short of his seventy-seventh birthday.1 Maintenon had left the king and the court and departed for Saint-Cyr on 30 August after the head of the Lazarist order and her sometime confessor, M. Briderey, assured her that she was “no longer necessary to him.”2 She explained to Mlle d’Aumale that she had also abandoned the king before his death because she feared that she would not be able to remain mistress of her emotions and was anxious to avoid the hostility that former fallen favourites had encountered. Maintenon added that she was aware of how unpopular she was outside the court and had escaped quickly to Saint-Cyr to thwart those who might insult her in transit. To prevent that, the maréchal de Villeroi arranged for her to be escorted by his attendants and stationed guards along the route to ensure that she arrived safely.3 The journey was untroubled, and Maintenon arrived to find several dozen letters of condolence from numerous French and European notables, including the Queen of Poland.4 After mourning the king’s death with her pupils, and ensuring that faithful servants, like her “saint” of a footman, Cholet, gained advantageous employment at court or with friends, or were pensioned off,5 the marquise focused on teaching and preparing for her own salvation. Maintenon contracted a fever in March 1719 and passed away on 15 April aged eighty-three, but her remaining years were not quite as tranquil as she had anticipated. She was continually pestered by French and foreign dignitaries seeking audiences, and although most were successfully rebuffed (apart from Peter the Great), she continued to correspond prodigiously with friends, courtiers, and clerics.6 And until her health started to fail at the end of January 1719,7 the marquise also

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avidly followed international developments and events at the court in Paris and particularly in the church, where Gallican and Jansenist antipathy to Unigenitus continued to generate conflict and posed a danger “to religion and the state,” as she bewailed to “her” archbishop of Rouen on 22 December 1715.8 Two days later she revealed to the same prelate that “I had expected more peace in my retirement, but I am not able to be indifferent to general affairs. Those of England are not taking a good turn, but God conducts everything as he pleases.”9 Liselotte’s allegation that Maintenon had “ruined and confused everything” has to a certain extent been refuted, but the marquise’s appointments and contributions were not always salutary. She was discreet, could dissemble with dexterity, was a consummate conduit, and listened with acute attentiveness at all times. But she could also be judgmental and opinionated, and, as Millot alleged, her piety could sometimes cloud her political judgment. Maintenon lacked the sort of noble training in court politics that Marie-Louise of Spain and her sister Marie-Adélaïde had profited from, but she was also sharp-witted, keenly intelligent, and hawkishly observant, with a memory to match even that of the king. She worked assiduously to profit from her experiences and tried to learn from her often painful mistakes. The king didn’t always make things easy for his consort, who dedicated all of her spare time and energy to his person and interests. The marquise was invariably compelled to intervene both by her nature and by necessity, remarking to the princesse des Ursins on 5 December 1706 that “the greatest difficulties arise from the want of probity which is found in public men; they are nearly all selfish, envious, faithless, insensible to the public good, and regard any sentiments contrary to their own as romantic and impracticable.”10 She may have deplored the increasingly heavy cross she was made to bear, emphasizing to the girls at Saint-Cyr that marital “duty is tyrannical.”11 But having sometimes hastily interfered in complex matters with which she was unfamiliar, she had to accept that much of the encumbrance was of her own making. In warning the blue class in 1715 about the “dangers of religious innovations,” and Jansenism in particular, she mendaciously declared that “I’ve often thanked God for being a woman. It is our lot to avoid speaking about these controversies and even to ignore them. That’s one less peril we have to worry about.”12 But she did become entangled in such controversies, engendering untold anguish that prevented her from remaining an inactive onlooker. Maintenon’s remedial enterprises, and her interventions in general, helped reinforce the misogynist stereotype, which only served to gift her assailants with more ammunition.

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These circumstances, and the poverty and hardship prevalent in the kingdom, inflamed French public opinion, and the sovereign and his companion were excoriated in contemporary verse and song: Pour vous expliquer en deux mots, Ce qui se passe dans la France, Des ordres, abus, édits, impôts, Et circonstance et dependence. Louis ne prête que le nom, Le reste est à La Maintenon.13 To explain in two words, What is happening in France, Orders, abuses, edicts, taxes, And the circumstances and consequences. Louis lends only the name, The rest is by La Maintenon. And similarly: Au Dauphin irrité de voir comme tout va: « Mon fils, disait Louis, que rien ne vous étonne, Nous maintiendrons notre couronne. » Le Dauphin répondit: « Sire, Maintenon l’a ».14 To the irritated Dauphin seeing how it all goes: “My son, let nothing surprise you,” said Louis. “We will hold on to our crown.” “Sire, Maintenon has it,” replied the Dauphin. The censors had expunged lines from abbé Nadal’s play Hérode that conspicuously accused Maintenon of manipulating the king, but the performance of 1709 still presented a declining kingdom ruled by an enfeebled monarch dominated by women.15 Fénelon’s letters to the duc de Chevreuse of 1710 openly referred to governmental despotism and expressed his contempt for a debased, discredited, and universally detested monarch.16 Louis XIV’s popularity continued to decline, and in February 1714 a play by Crébillon, Xerxès, was banned after only one well-attended performance in Paris, because in the last act its tyrannical king is murdered and unmourned.17 This was partly born out in reality,

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with the curé of Saint-Sulpice noting on 1 September after the king’s demise that Louis was “little regretted throughout his kingdom.”18 In popular verse, Maintenon was portrayed as an evil first minister, but one who had perhaps conspired with the king rather than against him. However, Louis was ultimately accountable for this unparalleled elevation, and because he was determined not to renege on the commitment he had made in his memoirs that there would be no first minister, a yawning gap opened in his administration that Maintenon came to fill as he assumed greater personal control over his affairs after the death of Louvois on 16 July 1691. Louis lacked not the will, but the skill to uphold this long-cherished ideal of effectively being his own prime minister – a role that would become impossible for him to sustain as the reign wore on. As France’s fortunes deteriorated the king was therefore compelled to share the burdens of monarchy and enter into a governmental partnership with his consort. The working relationship that developed between Louis and Françoise d’Aubigné was reminiscent of the one between Mazarin and Anne of Austria, who met privately to discuss state business and determine policy.19 And to a degree it resembled the collaboration between Louis XV and Mme de Pompadour, who modelled her career on that of Maintenon, but unfortunately employing La Beaumelle’s counterfeited correspondence as her queenship manual.20 Overall, the marquise had a subtle but cumulative and significant impact on the second half of Louis’s reign that unequivocally altered the way in which his affairs were conducted. Although her endeavours did not always have satisfactory outcomes, the intensity of her efforts was admirable, considering the complexity and magnitude of her duties and tasks, the singular nature of her position, and her clandestine status and inexperience. Maintenon could be an intimidatingly frosty figure in public – a paragon of piety who frowned upon imprudent and indecorous behaviour. But in private she was evidently softer, warmer, and more humourful than the stern façade presented to those outside her intimate circle, and this undoubtedly helped improve the king’s relationships with relatives, courtiers, and officials. She could also be ruthless: to survive at court this was an attribute Maintenon was forced to cultivate and exercise against her nature. The ability to dissimulate was also essential, as she counselled the new Duchess of Burgundy in 1697, although she warned that it “makes one fall into considerable inconveniences.”21 The marquise’s métier as première ministresse and royal matriarch was indeed onerous, but her assuring presence and indefatigable aid was a boon to the king, who simply could not manage unaccompanied.

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The arrangement was indicative of Louis’s personal rule, when more unofficial and informal methods of government were often preferable. Maintenon and her apartments, clients, favourites, and expansive social network all facilitated this system and added “solidité” to its structure. But by allowing her to exercise almost unbridled influence, particularly in the realm of appointments, and by working so closely with his consort in private, Louis inadvertently immersed himself in the mélée of factional politics. At best, this made his affairs a good deal more complex; at worst, Maintenon’s involvement could have deleterious consequences. Nevertheless, her temperament, pertinacity, and the unfailing encouragement and constant reassurance she provided enabled Louis to maintain his resolute, confident, and authoritative image in public, even when the picture in private was quite the opposite. At the same time, the Sun King must have found her somewhat pessimistic and hectoring piety chastening, which may help account for his unabated appetite for exercise and hunting. Maintenon was evidently referring to the king rather than to Chamillart, whom she criticized unreservedly, when on 22 December 1706 she confided to the princesse des Ursins “how true it is that despondency in men weighs down their faculties, and that everything suffers from it! I could say a great deal more to you on this subject, but we are doomed to experience all types of suffering in silence because there are few to whom we dare communicate them.”22 Subsequent experiences merely strengthened these sentiments. After conveying on 9 September 1714 that chancellor Pontchartrain had confessed to the king that he disagreed about the direction of religious policy, Maintenon candidly informed Ursins that “I am quite of your opinion with respect to great men; I am more disgusted with them every day; they commit great faults, and can keep within no bounds; a moderate understanding, with probity, is much more preferable.”23 Maintenon ruminated further on the burdens of high office three weeks later, observing to Ursins on 30 September that their mutual friend Villeroi had “become much more serious than usual [since becoming a minister], which is the lot of those who occupy high stations. I have no difficulty in believing that you find yours very onerous, for I do not know any other in which so much patience is required to bear against the disappointments, contradictions, and the reproaches to which it is continually exposed.”24 Maintenon recognized that her preordained vocation was steadfastly to support her spouse and sovereign, and she therefore suffered in order to serve. On 15 August 1711, in a letter to Ursins, she had reflected frankly on the travails of her own exceptional occupation and its cumbersome obligations, which were impossible to fulfill satisfactorily

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because any degree of success invited additional criticism of apparently unwarranted ambitiousness: You do me justice, Madame, in believing me to be perfectly devoted to our King, and to such a degree, that I wish I had never been made famous by the honours conferred upon me, for they form the misfortune of my life, having never been able to learn how to take advantage of their kindnesses for my own interest without being so mindful of theirs as to make myself wretched.25 However, the marquise clearly did appreciate some of the perks of her position. She delighted in educational and charitable projects, relished dispensing patronage to friends and family members, and did enjoy moments of levity and leisure, and even pleasure: walking and dining with her female friends at the Trianon, or playing cards and savouring chocolate with them at Marly; admiring a magnificent musical concert performed on the canal at Fontainebleau; gossiping nostalgically with old comrades like marshal Villeroi; or regaling the girls at Saint-Cyr with sketches of life at court.26 But she conceded to Ursins on 1 September 1714 that “there are no honours to be put in competition with a life of repose, but God does not destine everyone for this, and we must serve in the station in which we are placed: it is a great consolation to do be able to do good.”27 After the initial shock and grief Maintenon must therefore have felt a sense of relief when the king finally expired, as it released her from the perils of power and pressures of life at court for a much more tranquil and docile domesticity at Saint-Cyr, where she was accountable only to God and her pupils, whom the marquise felt she had a “right to treat … as my children.”28 The marquise de Maintenon therefore changed the character and lifestyle of Louis XIV and substantially affected his statecraft. She exercised considerable influence in an array of public and private spheres, and she became progressively more powerful as Louis gradually came to terms with his own mortality, fallibility, and vincibility, becoming in effect a “living fossil” after 1700, as Sarmant has stated.29 This was a remarkable achievement, considering her background and the relentlessly hostile forces ranged against her. In 1705 the Duchess of Burgundy communicated an apparently frivolous witticism to Maintenon that in fact conveyed a poignant insinuation about the marquise’s role in Louis XIV’s regime: “In England the queens govern better than the kings, and do you know why, my aunt? It is because: under kings it is the women who rule, and it is men who rule under the queens.”30

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The final word should perhaps be left to Louis XIV himself, whose pronouncement was naturally more circumspect. On his deathbed the king made an earnest appeal on behalf of his prospective widow to his nephew, the duc d’Orléans, the future regent: My nephew, I recommend Madame de Maintenon to you. You know the consideration and esteem I have had for her. She has given me good counsels; I would have done well to follow them. She has been useful to me in everything, but especially for my salvation. Do whatever she asks of you for herself, for her relatives, for her friends, for her allies: she will not abuse this. She should address herself directly to you for anything she may want.31 This entreaty proved successful. The regent dutifully visited Saint-Cyr on 6 September 1715 to pay his compliments and assure Maintenon that her pension of 48,000 livres per year would be paid until her death,32 as Louis XIV had requested in his will, and which d’Orléans formally confirmed in writing on 12 September.33

Abbreviations

a rc h iv e s a n d li brari es aae aae md aae cp bmv bn bn fr bn nafr bv-c

Archives du ministère des affaires étrangères aae , Mémoires et documents aae , Correspondance politique Bibliothèque municipale de Versailles Bibliothèque nationale bn, Fonds français (manuscrits) Fonds nouvelles acquisitions françaises (manuscrits) Bibliothèque Victor-Cousin

p r in t e d wo r k s and journals H.B.L. Lettres de Madame de Maintenon [and] Lettres à Madame de Maintenon. Edited by Hans Bots, Eugénie Bots-Estourgie, Catherine Hémon-Fabre, Marcel Loyau, Christine Mongenot, and Jan Schillings. 11 vols. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2009–18. C.B. Correspondance de Bossuet. Edited by Chatelein Urbain and E. Levesque. 15 vols. Paris: 1909–25. C.G. Correspondance générale de Madame de Maintenon. Edited by Théophile Lavallée. 5 vols. Paris: Charpentier, 1865–67. E.T. Madame de Maintenon, Madame de Caylus et Madame de Dangeau: L’Estime et La Tendresse: Correspondences Intimes. Edited by Pierre-Eugène Leroy and Marcel Loyau. Paris: Albin Michel, 1998. G.M. Madame de Maintenon d’après sa correspondence authentique, choix de ses lettres et entretiens. Edited by Auguste Geffroy. 2 vols. Paris: Hachette et cie, 1887.

394

Abbreviations

L.L. Orléans, Elisabeth-Charlotte von der Pfalz, duchesse d’. A Woman’s Life in the Court of the Sun King – Letters of Liselotte von der Pfalz, Elisabeth Charlotte, duchesse d’Orléans, 1652–1722. Translated and edited by Elborg Forster. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. M.L. Madame de Maintenon: Lettres. Edited by Marcel Langlois. 5 vols. Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1935–39. M.U.C. The Secret Correspondence of Madame de Maintenon with the Princess des Ursins from the Original Manuscripts in the Possession of the Duke de Choiseul. Translated from the French. 3 vols. London: Geo. B. Whittaker, 1827. O.F. Correspondance de Fénelon. Edited by Jean Orcibal, Jacques Le Brun, and Irénée Noye. 18 vols. Paris: Klincksieck, 1972–2007. ss –Boislisle Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de. Mémoires de Saint-Simon. Edited by Arthur M. de Boislisle. 43 vols. Paris: Hachette et cie, 1879–1918. ss –Coirault Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de. Mémoires. Additions au Journal de Dangeau/Saint-Simon. Edited by Yves Coirault. 8 vols. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1983–88. ss –Norton Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de, Duc de Saint-Simon: Memoirs. Translated and edited by Lucy Norton. 3 vols. London: Prion, 1999–2000.

Notes

introduction 1 Maintenon, Lettres, ed. Auger, 3:298. 2 G.M., 2:389. 3 Mansel, Louis XIV; Lurgo, Philippe d’Orléans; Petitfils, ed., Le Siècle de Louis XIV. The traditional historiography focusing on Louis’s efforts to create a positive image now has a counter-historiography on the endeavours of his enemies to publicize the dark side of the Sun King. See Boitel, L’image noire de Louis XIV; Claydon and de Villain, Louis XIV Outside In; Maral and Da Vinha, Louis XIV, l’image et le mythe; Ziegler, Louis XIV et ses ennemis. 4 Including the dramatic, if historically disappointing, Canal+ and the bbcproduced television series Versailles. Also see Newton, Vivre à Versailles; Kisluk-Glosheide and Rodot, Visitors to Versailles; Jones, Versailles. 5 H.B.L. 1:7–15. Bots provides a more balanced interpretation of the subtle ways in which Maintenon was able to exert quite considerable influence in a chapter co-authored with Christine Mongenot: “Madame de Maintenon au miroir de sa correspondence,” in Gilleir, Montoya, and Van Dijk, Women Writing Back, 201–34. 6 Orléans, Elisabeth-Charlotte, Secret Memoirs, 120. 7 ss –Boislisle, 28:214. 8 Kaiser, “Louis le Bien-Aimé,” 149–51. 9 Caylus, Souvenirs, 161. 10 Sourches, Mémoires, 1:379, 442. 11 Voltaire, The Age of Louis XIV, 298–9. 12 Ibid., 299–300. 13 Gergy, Mémoires, 241. 14 Béguin, Princes de Condé. 15 Voltaire, The Age of Louis XIV, 168–9, 175–7. 16 L.L., 53.

396

Notes to pages 7–11

17 See for example Cosandey, La Reine de France; Crawford, Perilous Performances. 18 Kleinman, Anne of Austria; Grell, Anne d’Autriche; Dubost, Marie de Medici. 19 Jacques Fitz-James Stuart, the natural son of James II and Arabella Churchill, served in Louis XIV’s army from 1691, became maréchal in 1705 and was named the duc de Fitz-James in 1710 in recognition of his military prowess. [Berwick], Mémoires, 2:232. 20 Maintenon to the bishop of Noyon, 6 November 1703. H.B.L., 3:466. 21 Rule, “Colbert de Torcy,” 269–75; see also Soll, The Information Master. 22 Maintenon, Dialogues and Addresses, 123. 23 E.T., 290. 24 Falsely reassuring the princesse des Ursins on 25 January 1712 that she could “depend upon it, there will not be a line of writing found in my possession; I burn your letters the moment after I have answered them.” M.U.C. 1:363–4. 25 Maintenon to comte d’Aubigné de Tigny, 26 July 1709, f. 22, vol. 13634, bn nafr. 26 Many of Maintenon’s letters were destroyed during a fire at the Louvre in 1890. 27 ss –Norton, 1:160–1. 28 Voltaire subsequently gained access to the collection of Maintenon’s autograph letters, then in the possession of her nephew-in-law the duc de Noailles, and on 22 November 1752 wrote that “happily they confirm everything I said of her. If they had refuted me then my Age [of Louis XIV] would have been lost.” Qtd in Lavallée, Saint-Cyr, iin1. 29 Vie de Mme de Maintenon; Mémoires pour servir l’histoire de Mme de Maintenon; Lettres de Mme de Maintenon; Mémoires et Lettres de Mme de Maintenon; for more on La Beaumelle’s creations and their impact, see Lauriol, “Le premier biographe de Madame de Maintenon réévalué”; Fortuny and Lauriol, “La Beamelle Éditeur.” 30 Specifically addressing this debate, see Taphanel, La Beaumelle et Saint-Cyr. 31 Lavallée, La famille d’Aubigné. 32 Lettres sur l’éducation des filles; Entretiens sur l’éducation des filles; Lettres historiques et édifiantes; Conseils et instructions aux demoiselles. 33 Saint-Cyr. 34 C.G., 1:vi. 35 Noailles, Histoire. 36 Ibid., 2:181. 37 H.B.L., 1:46n122. 38 Eight volumes titled Lettres Édifiantes de Madame de Maintenon, now stored at the Bibliothèque Municipale de Versailles: bmv 1461, vols. P. 62–8. 39 Gergy, Mémoires, 98, 273.

Notes to pages 11–14 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

60

61

62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

397

Ibid., 251–2. G.M. – see abbreviations. Bluche, Louis XIV, ed. Greengrass, 480–1. G.M., lv. H.B.L., 1:25. Michelet, Histoire de France, 14:27–8, 44. Ibid., 270, 282–4. Lavisse, Louis XIV, 1123–5. Ibid., 988–90. Ibid., 1122, 1124. Ibid., 1124. Ibid., 1124–6. Langlois, “Madame de Maintenon et le Saint Siège,” 71. Langlois, Maintenon, 133. M.L. – see abbreviations. C.G., 4:364. Cordelier, Maintenon, 549. Ibid., 270. Haldane, Maintenon; Lambert, Maintenon; Cortequisse, Madame Louis XIV. L’Allée du Roi, which was subsequently made into an eponymously titled French film televised in 1996. The book was also translated into English and published three years later as The King’s Way. Wiesner-Hanks, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, 304; see also Dulong, Vie Quotidienne; Godineau, Les femmes dans la France moderne; Goldsmith, Exclusive Coversations; Spangler, Society of Princes. Hafter and Kushner, Women and Work; Crowston, Seamstresses; Hardwick, The Practice of Patriarchy, and her Family Business; Kettering, Patrons, Brokers, and Clients, and her “Brokerage at the Court of Louis XIV”; Chapman, “Patronage as Family Economy”; Rapley, The Dévots; Conley, ed., Jacqueline Pascal; Broomhall, Women’s Medical Work; Dinan, Women and Poor Relief. Conley, The Suspicion of Virtue; Duggan, Salonnières; Goldsmith and Goodman, Going Public; Mongrédien, Madeleine de Scudéry. Kmec, Across the Channel, 15–16. Dena Goodman comes to a similar conclusion in “Public Sphere and Private Life,” 1–20. Wanegfellen, Le Pouvoir contesté; Poutin and Schaub, Femmes et pouvoir politique. Conroy, Ruling Women, vols. 1 and 2. See also Scott, Women on the Stage. Suchon, A Woman Who Defends; Cox, ed., Moderata (Modesta Pozzo) Fonte; Dunhill, ed., Lucrezia Marinella; Guevara, Warnings to the Kings. Maintenon, Dialogues and Addresses, 107. Rapley, A Social History of the Cloister, 140. Maintenon, Dialogues and Addresses, 63.

398

Notes to pages 15–17

70 In 1910, Blennerhassett wrote that Maintenon’s “message to womanhood is the stern call to duty, to quiet, unrelenting, self-sacrificing work in the service of God and of mankind.” Louis XIV and Mme de Maintenon, 311. 71 For example, see Albistur and Armogathe, Histoire du féminisme français; Lemoyne, La Gallerie des Femmes Fortes. 72 Louis XIV, Mémoires, 246–8. 73 Chapman, Private Ambition, 23–7. 74 ss –Norton, 1:289–90; 2:29. 75 See also see Fraser, Love and Louis XIV; Craveri, “Madame de Maintenon,” in her Reines et Favorites, 217–40. 76 Bertière, Les Reines de France, 2:444–5. 77 See Da Vinha, Le Versailles de Louis XIV; Solnon, La Cour de France; Verlet, Le Château de Versailles. 78 Le Roy Ladurie, Saint-Simon. 79 Duindam, Vienna and Versailles, 230. 80 Rule and Trotter, A World of Paper, 216. 81 Chaline, L’année des quatre dauphins, 124. I would like sincerely to thank Professor Chaline for kindly sending me a copy of Quatre Dauphins in return for a copy of my PhD dissertation. 82 Ibid., 112–13; Chaline, Le Règne de Louis XIV. 83 Lossky, “Some Problems,” 341n5; Chaline, Le Règne de Louis XIV, 34. 84 On this subject see Cosandey, Le Rang. 85 Bély, Louis XIV, 210–11. 86 Levi, Louis XIV, 234–41, 306–7. 87 For example see Guerre, Nicolas Desmaretz; Mormiche, Le Petit Louis XV; Drévillon, Fonck, and Cénat, eds., Les Dernierères Guerres de Louis XIV; Rowlands and Prest, The Third Reign of Louis XIV. 88 Pénicaut, Faveur et pouvoir, 153. 89 Chappell Lougee, Facing the Revocation; Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon; Kostroun, Feminism, Absolutism. 90 Weaver, Mademoiselle de Joncoux, 287. 91 Desprat, Maintenon, 407–11; in her Les Reines de France, vol. 2, Bertière describes Maintenon as “la gendarme de la cour,” 454. 92 Craveri, Reines et Favorites, 240. 93 Bots and Schillings, De heimelijke echtgenote. 94 Niderst, ed., Autour de Françoise d’Aubigné. 95 Prévot, La première institutrice de France. 96 Riley, A Lust for Virtue. 97 See E.T. 98 Buckley, Maintenon. 99 Taylor, “Saint-Cyr,” and her “Les Cahiers de géographie de Saint-Cyr”; Picco, Les demoiselles de Saint-Cyr, and her “Saint-Cyr, un modèle educatif?”; Neveu, “De Culte de Saint-Louis”; Chappell Lougee, “Noblesse, Domesticity, and Noble Reform”; and from the conference collection

Notes to pages 17–24

100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108

399

Niderst, Autour de Françoise d’Aubigné, see articles by H. Bordes, B. Bray, J. Deprun, J. Dubu, J. Grimm, R. MacBride, A. Piéjus, and C. Strosetzki. Archives départementales des Yvelines et de l’ancienne Seine et Oise: http://www.yvelines.fr/archives/guide-et-inventaires/serieD/index.htm. Maintenon, Correspondance […] la Princesse des Ursins, ed. Loyau. Seifert and Wilkin, eds., Men and Women Making Friends. Da Vinha and Maral, Maintenon. Maral, Maintenon, 378–9. Baudrillart, “Madame de Maintenon et son role politique,” 101–61. Rule, “Colbert de Torcy,” 280; Prior makes a similar comment about Torcy in 1697–98; see Legg, Matthew Prior, 69. Rule, “Colbert de Torcy,” 261–88. Hardman, Louis XVI, 70–87, 103–44.

chapter one 1 Her date of birth is contested. Desprat chooses 24 November: Maintenon, 17, whereas Noailles opts for 27 November, as does Lavallée, who cites a passage from the register of the church of Notre-Dame in Niort recording that Françoise was baptized on 28 November 1635: Gergy, Mémoires, 48. 2 Gergy, Mémoires, 27. 3 Anne’s family reviled Constant and had long campaigned for him to be prosecuted: ibid., 30, 47. 4 Ibid., 40; and for a recent analysis of this not uncommon event, and other matrimonial and domestic matters, see Hardwick, Family Business, 20–56. 5 Desprat, Maintenon, 24. The tone of this statement could be considered ironic, considering Agrippa’s own colourful career; for a description of it see Noailles, Histoire, 1:6–67. 6 Boislisle, Paul Scarron, 6, 10. 7 The maréchale de Guébriant had been appointed dame d’honneur, but died suddenly, causing the duchesse de Navailles to be promoted from dame d’atour. Motteville, Mémoires, 5:105, 109. Suzanne married Philippe II de Montault (1619–1684), duc de Navailles and maréchal from 1674. On her efforts to protect the queen’s maids of honour from young Louis XIV’s sexual predations that led to her disgrace in 1664, see Kleinman, Anne of Austria, 279–80. 8 François III’s grandson by his second marriage, François de La Rochefoucauld-Roye, married Julienne-Catherine de La Tour d’Auvergne, daughter of the duc de Bouillon and sister of Louis XIV’s future military mentor, the vicomte de Turenne. 9 As recounted to the girls at Saint-Cyr in May 1714 during a lecture “On Friendship.” See Maintenon, Madame de Maintenon dans le monde, 447.

400

Notes to pages 25–9

10 After Constant was declared bankrupt by a Niort tribunal in 1625, Agrippa appointed his son-in-law, Josué de Caumont d’Adde (1581–1625), as manager of the Surimeau estates. Josué had produced four children with his first wife, Marie, and after her death in 1625 remarried and further enlarged his family. Now under mounting financial pressure, Josué effectively appropriated the Surimeau legacy and refused to relinquish even a portion of its revenues. 11 Aumale, Souvenirs, 1:22–5. 12 For more on these Tridentine boarding schools and the instituts or “day schools,” see Rapley, A Social History of the Cloister, 219–56. 13 Maintenon, Madame de Maintenon dans le monde, 445–6. 14 Rapley, A Social History of the Cloister, 240–1. 15 Ibid., 242. 16 See the “Instructions et entretiens sur l’éducation” in Maintenon, Madame de Maintenon dans le monde, 307–463. 17 Later informing the girls that she “died from grief.” Ibid., 446. 18 Cordelier, Maintenon, 18. 19 In 1656 her second daughter, Angélique (d. 1678), married Charles, comte de Froullay (1601–1671), who in 1651 had been appointed grand maréchal des logis des armées du roi. 20 Boislisle, Paul Scarron, 37. 21 Documents composed or signed by Jeanne on 2 March and 8 April 1649 intimate that she had left the capital and was living in Archiac near Angoulême. Boislisle, Paul Scarron, 12n2. But the Dames de Saint-Cyr claim that in the autumn of 1649 she was lodging on the rue des Tournelles, having perhaps returned to Paris for litigious purposes. C.G., 1:35–6. 22 Rapley, A Social History of the Cloister, 246–8. 23 Ibid., 236, 249–50. The process of forcibly “warehousing” lay women, particularly mature ladies, using lettres de cachet became more prevalent after the Revocation in 1685. This proved financially compromising for many convents, because the Crown offered few fiscal concessions and in fact introduced legislation in 1689 to extract more revenue from the regular clergy, then still more in 1704, when the seculars were permitted to fund their assembly’s don gratuit by taxing the regular orders. Ibid., 35–43, 250–3. 24 C.G., 1:38n2. 25 Boislisle, Paul Scarron, 89–91. 26 Noailles, Histoire, 1:149. This was confirmed by an exchange of missives among Angélique, Françoise, and de Méré. C.G., 1:45–6. 27 The reference made by Scarron to their first meeting “six months ago” means it probably took place at the beginning of 1650. C.G., 1:34–40. 28 Boislisle, Paul Scarron, 50. 29 Morillot, Paul Scarron, 164–83.

Notes to pages 29–31 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

37 38 39 40 41 42

43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

52 53 54

55 56

401

Boislisle, Paul Scarron, 34–46. Ibid., 35. Desprat, Maintenon, 67. Boislisle, Paul Scarron, 76. For example, see Dufour-Maître, Les Précieuses; Beasley, Salons; Chapell Lougee, Le Paradis des Femmes. Phelps, The Queen’s Invalid, 127; Magne, Scarron et son milieu. François III d’Harcourt, whose son Henri (1654–1718) was a protégé of the marquise de Maintenon and became a maréchal-duc, but was not related to the Harcourt branch of the house of Lorraine. Pierre, father of the future maréchale-duc. Desprat, Maintenon, 86–7, 95–6, who describes Mme Scarron at this time as “coquettish and unobtainable.” See Mongrédien, La Vie de Société, 21–162. See Aronson, Mademoiselle de Scudéry; Mongrédien, Madeleine de Scudéry; Niderst, Madeleine de Scudéry. Desprat, Maintenon, 99. Their daughter, Marie Françoise de Brancas d’Oise, married the prince d’Harcourt, Alphonse Henri de Lorraine. The princess enjoyed Maintenon’s friendship and benefited from her protection at court, particularly in the later reign, because of her parent’s close relations with the former Mme Scarron. ss –Coirault, 2:22, 112, 271–5, 501, 523, 587. The son of the maréchal de Gramont. The niece of Michel Le Tellier. Chatelein, Le Surintendant Nicolas Fouquet, 265–9. Boislisle, Paul Scarron, 84–5. Desprat, Maintenon, 101; Cruttwell, Maintenon, 56. Boislisle, Paul Scarron, 112–13. C.G., 1:91. Ibid. Mlle de Pons (1644–1709) was the adopted niece of the maréchal d’Albret. She married the marquis d’Heudicourt, Michel III Sublet, and was one of Mme Scarron’s lifelong companions. She married Anne de Noailles (1615–1678) in 1645, who was elevated to the peerage in 1663, becoming the first duc d’Ayen. G.M., 1:7–11. See Françoise’s letter to Villette, 7 December 1660, M.L., 2:26–8; Boislisle, Paul Scarron, 125–6. Some historians claim that the future maréchal de Villeroi, François de Neufville, interceded on her behalf, offering as proof a letter written in 1716: G.M., 1:15; Desprat, Maintenon, 110. But this is disputed by Langlois: M.L., 2:28. See the letter to her confessor, l’abbé Gobelin, on 19 April 1689. C.G., 3:173. He would later be appointed capitaine-lieutenant of the Dauphin’s light horse.

402

Notes to pages 31–5

57 See Desprat, Maintenon, 107–15. 58 As she later told the girls at Saint-Cyr. 59 Aumale, Souvenirs, 1:50–2. Aumale was born in 1683, admitted to Saint-Cyr in 1690, and, after Mlle d’Osmond’s marriage to M. d’Havrincourt, took her place as Mme de Maintenon’s secretary. C.G., 5:334–5. 60 G.M., 1:21–2. 61 Maintenon, Lettres Historiques, 2:460. 62 Boislisle, Paul Scarron, 132; the maréchal d’Albret and the duc de Richelieu apparently petitioned the King on Françoise’s behalf. Maintenon, Lettres Historiques, 17. 63 Boislisle, Paul Scarron, 132–3; Desprat, Maintenon, 120–1. 64 Caylus, Souvenirs, 17–18. 65 Boislisle, Paul Scarron, 130; Langlois also provides evidence of Mme Scarron living on the rue des Tournelles: Maintenon, 23; and then in the TroisPavillons: M.L., 2:37. 66 M.L., 2:36. 67 G.M., 1:32. 68 Desprat, Maintenon, 123. 69 M.L., 2:39, 48. 70 E.T., 415. 71 G.M., 1:33, although Langlois claims that the maréchal d’Albret was responsible. Maintenon, 23. 72 M.L., 2:43. 73 G.M., 1:33. 74 Aumale, Souvenirs, 1:54–5. 75 Maintenon, Lettres Historiques, 2:461–2; G.M., 1:33. 76 The magnificent wedding took place at Versailles on 23 July 1685. Petitfils, Montespan, 245–8. 77 When Father L’Écuyer refused to grant her absolution on the grounds of adultery, prompting admonishments from Bossuet, who almost succeeded in ending the relationship. Ibid., 121–36. 78 During an instruction for the blue class in 1710 titled Of Avoiding the Occasions of Sin: Maintenon, Dialogues and Addresses, 122. 79 For example, see letters to Villette on 9 October 1673, 3 April 1674, and 2 August 1679. M.L., 2:71–2, 79, 311–14. 80 “I keep on soliciting Mr de Louvois …” (9 August 1676: M.L., 2:172); “I will write to Mr Colbert about your payments …” (12 May 1677: ibid., 196); “I will give your memoir to Mr de Louvois. I will speak to Mr Colbert about your emoluments …” (18 October 1677: ibid., 209); “I have not ceased to importune Mr de Louvois …” (24 November 1677: ibid., 218); “Nothing has been forgotten in order to obtain all that you desire from Mr Colbert …” (23 May 1678: ibid., 273); “I will speak as soon as possible to Mr de Louvois (9 January 1679: ibid., 296). 81 For example see letters dated 9 October 1673 (M.L., 2:70–1), 3 April 1674

Notes to pages 35–7

82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107

108

403

(G.M., 1:39-40), 4 August 1675 (C.G., 1:281–82), 26 February 1676 (M.L., 2; 162–3), 14 January 1677 (ibid., 188), 29 October 1677 (C.G., 1:362) and 2 August 1679 (M.L., 2:311-14). M.L., 2:314. C.G., 1:165. M.L., 2:64n24. Ibid., 61. H.B.L., 1:177. M.L., 2:120–1. Ibid., 130. Ibid., 60–1. Ibid., 62–4. For example, see the letter from Maintenon dated 16 October 1672: C.G., 1:169–70. See C.G. 1:170–1; and the letter from Louvois to Charles of 10 October 1672: M.L., 2:67. H.B.L., 1:140–1. “M. de Louvois works wonders on every occasion and we are very obliged to him” (M.L., 2:70–1). Ibid., 2:62–4, 71, 75n30, 191n120. Daughter of Simon Piètre, procureur and conseiller du roi. G.M., 2:91–7. M.L., 2:244–50. Ibid., 2:304–8. C.G., 2:201. M.L., 2:266. For example, see letters to Philippe de Villette dated 26 February 1676 and 2 August 1679: G.M., 1:78, and M.L., 2:313–14. Ibid., 2:162–3. Ibid., M.L., 2:63. C.G., 1:281. M.L., 2:215. Françoise was often reduced to tears by Montespan’s tirades. After one very “lively” exchange on 13 September 1674 she complained to her confessor Gobelin that “she [Montespan] is incapable of friendship”: G.M., 1:48; and on 27 February 1675 she confided to him that “terrible things pass here between me and Mme de Montespan: M.L., 2:119. For example, see the letters to Gobelin on this subject in March 1674 (G.M., 1:38–9); on 24 July 1674 and 27 March and 30 March 1675 (M.L., 2:87–8, 164–5); and an Entretien of 1717 reflecting on this period (G.M., 1:33). She also clashed with Montespan over how the children should be brought up, which as she also confessed to Gobelin left her “overwhelmed by melancholy … the situation I find myself in is one full of agitation and nothing is able to put me at my ease” (October 1674, M.L., 2:107).

404 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120

121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137

138 139 140 141 142

Notes to pages 37–40 C.G., 1:247. M.L., 1:166. C.G., 1:258–60. Marie Angélique de Scorailles de Rousille de Fontanges, a fille d’honneur of Madame. Qtd in Noailles, Histoire, 2:11n3. For a well-reasoned overview see Fraser, Love and Louis XIV, 138–207. Boislisle, Paul Scarron, 148. M.L., 2:101. G.M., 1:41. Ibid., 53. M.L., 2:110. The purchase of additional lands expanding the estate to accommodate the construction of the aqueduct meant that the seigneurie was redefined with new letters patent drawn up in 1686 and registered in 1688: Boislisle, Paul Scarron, 174–5; Langlois, Maintenon, 30. M.L., 2:118. Caylus, Souvenirs, 52–3. 16 October 1675: G.M., 1:73–4. Voltaire, Louis XIV, 298. C.G., 1:275. Caylus, Souvenirs, 50. Sévigné to Mme de Grignan, 10 November 1675: Sévigné, Lettres, 4:223–4. Sévigné, Selected Letters, 116. Sévigné, Lettres, 2:514. Sévigné, Lettres, 4:535–6. Ibid., 5:32, 37–8. Sévigné, Selected Letters, 203. Sévigné, Lettres, 5:86. M.L., 2:67n100. Sévigné, Lettres, 5:86–7. Ibid., 4:445–6n2. Whose great uncle Henri was one of the physicians (a médecin ordinaire) of LXIII. In 1680, Fagon became premier médecin de la dauphine, then for Queen Marie-Thérèse and the enfants de France. Then in 1693 he was appointed premier médecin du roi, with Duchesne taking responsibility for the king’s children. Royal physicians D’Aquin and Fagon were also appointed superintendents of botanical dissections and medical operations in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Bluche, Louis XIV, ed. Greengrass, 167. C.G., 1:202n3. M.L., 2:200. G.M., 1:88. See M.L., 2:253–7; and see C.G., 1:346–53. Sevigné, Lettres, 5:170.

Notes to pages 40–7

405

143 C.G., 1:355–6n1; Maintenon returned from the Pyrenees still envious of a retreat, but Gobelin counselled her to stay at court.

chapter two 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Van der Cruysse, Madame Palatine, 219. M.L., 2:302. C.G., 2:48. M.L., 2:303. As Mme de Caylus recalls in her Souvenirs, 50–1. Sévigné, Lettres, 6:193. G.M., 1:112. Cordelier, Maintenon, 137–43; Bluche, Louis XIV, ed. Greengrass, 272. C.G., 2:96–7. Caylus, Souvenirs, 87–8. Maral, Maintenon, 101; see La Gazette (1680), 129. Visconti, Mémoires, 296–7. 25 September 1681: Sourches, Mémoires, 1:20. Sévigné, Lettres, 6:332. Ibid., 316–17, 322. M.L., 2:337n207. Sévigné, Selected Letters, 253; Sévigné, Lettres, 6:347–8. “Maintenon’s favour continues to grow, whilst that of Montespan diminishes”: 9 June 1680, in Sévigné, Lettres, 6:445. 30 June 1680: “the other day the King spent three hours chez Mme de Maintenon who had a migraine … Mme de Fontanges cries incessantly because she is no longer loved” (ibid., 6:497); and 17 July 1680: “Fontanges has left for for Chelles abbey [where her sister Mme de Molac had been named abbesse]; the beauty has lost all her blood, pale, changed and overwhelmed by sadness and indifferent to her 40,000 écus of rent and her tabouret” (ibid., 6:534). Ibid., 6:533–4. See the missive to Mme de Grignan dated 7 July 1680: ibid., 6:510–11. Ibid., 6:475. Ibid., 6:194. See the letter and Lavallée’s preliminary note: C.G., 2:112–14. Sévigné, Lettres, 7:43. Ibid., 7:78. Riley, A Lust for Virtue, 96. C.G., 2:147. L.L., 51–3. C.G., 2:147. A view favoured by many, including Bluche, Louis XIV, ed. Greengrass, 273; and George Couthon: “Mme de Maintenan had reconciled the King and the

406

32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

41 42 43

44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

Notes to pages 47–51 Queen, whilst waiting to reconcile entirely the King and God”: Le chair et l’âme, 187. Maintenon, Dialogues and Addresses, 58–9. Dangeau, Journal, 1:83. Hébert, Mémoires, 31–9. Dangeau, Journal, 1:141. Sourches, Mémoires, 1:209. L.L., 53. On the affair see Petitfils, L’affaire Des Poisons; Mollenauer, Strange Revelations; and Somerset, The Affair of the Poisons. On this episode and the nature of “disgrace,” see Swann, Exile, Imprisonment, or Death, 60–6. He was recalled to court, but kept under surveillance, as Dangeau noted in December 1684: Journal, 1:83-84. He became prince de Conti in 1685 after the death of his brother Louis Armand de Bourbon (1661–1685), who had married Marie-Anne de Bourbon, the daughter of Louis and La Vallière. Louis de Lorraine, comte d’Armagnac and governor of Anjou. Sourches, Mémoires, 1:110–12. On 18 November at Courtrai from a continuing fever. See the Gazette report in C.G., 2:330n2. He had been nominated Admiral of France, and the charge passed to the comte de Toulouse. Bluche, Louis XIV, ed. Greengrass, 396-8. Ibid., 349; see “Ceremony and Order at Court: An Unending Pursuit,” in Duindam, Vienna and Versailles, 181–214, in which he persuasively argues that ceremony and ritual were not immutable, but in fact necessarily flexible and adaptable. See Maintenon, Dialogues and Addresses, 136–7. Ibid., 50, 51, 83. M.L., 2:432–3. Maintenon, Dialogues and Addresses, 62. Gergy, Mémoires, 164. Sévigné, Lettres, 6:330. 28 September 1683: M.L., 2:524; G.M., 1:153–4. Maintenon, Dialogues and Addresses, 115. Ibid., 84–7, 145. Ibid., 117–20. Ibid., 122. Wilkinson, Louis XIV, 113–21. “where the solitude in the entresol is delicious,” as she informed Charles in April 1679: M.L., 2:305. Constructed by Mansart, 1679–83: Solnon, La Cour de France, 316. Written to the marquis de Montchevreuil on 2 May 1681, who was with du Maine at Barèges: M.L., 2:371. G.M., 1:158.

Notes to pages 51–4

407

62 C.G., 2:392. 63 M.L., 2:440. 64 Ibid., 3:105–7; perhaps referring to the magnificent festivities organized at the château of Sceaux by the marquis de Seignelay for Louis XIV on 16 July 1685, which, Dangeau records, the courtiers “by consensus agreed was the most beautiful fête that anyone has ever held for the King”: Dangeau, Journal, 1:198. 65 C.G., 2:147. 66 1 January 1680: M.L., 2:327. 67 See letters of 27 July 1681: M.L., 2:392–3; 29 April 1683: C.G., 2:293–4. 68 For example, see letters to Charles dated 30 June, 3, 6, 22, 24 July, 22 August, and 8 December 1680: M.L., 2:344, 345, 346, 348, 349, 349–50, 350–2. 69 G.M., 1:133. 70 See letters to Charles of 28 May 1682: G.M., 1:138–9; 22 June 1682: M.L., 2:433–4. 71 For example, see letters to Charles dated 8 May 1681: C.G., 2:167–8; 1 November 1681: M.L., 2:409–10. 72 G.M., 1:160–1. 73 Desprat, Maintenon, 191. 74 M.L., 2:324n201. 75 Ibid., 377–403. 76 Ibid., 327–8. 77 See Maintenon’s letters to Scudéry and Brinon on 3 March: ibid., 480–2; this was widely applauded, as reported in the Mercure gallant: C.G., 2:276–7; and remarked upon by Mme de Sévigné: Sévigné, Lettres, 7:223. 78 This acrimony had also been fostered by the duchesse de Richelieu and the Dauphine’s femme de chambre, Bessola; see Maintenon to M. de Montchevrueil, 4 July 1681: C.G., 2:187–8; M.L., 2:389–90. 79 See the letters exchanged between Maintenon and the Dauphine: M.L., 2:441–2. 80 See Maintenon’s letter to Charles dated 28 May 1682: ibid., 429–30. 81 C.G., 2:237n3. 82 See G.M., 1:188–90, 193–4. 83 ss –Boislisle, 11:114. 84 M.L., 2:240. 85 C.G., 1:330. 86 H.B.L., 1:252. 87 M.L., 2:363–8 88 Ibid., 2:130. 89 Ibid., 2:538. 90 C.G., 2:202n2. 91 See Beik, Absolutism and Society, 297–302; McHugh, Hospital Politics, 31–6.

408

Notes to pages 54–8

92 Strayer, Huguenots and Camisards, 97–110. 93 For more on this see the illuminating section in McCullough, Coercion, Conversion, 125–77. 94 Louis XIV, Mémoires, 55–7. 95 Voltaire, Louis XIV, 406. 96 Dangeau, Journal, 1:216, 230, 232, 233. 97 Ibid., 217–18; Sourches, Mémoires, 1:307. 98 Sourches, Mémoires, 1:176. 99 Ibid., 176, 311. 100 Adams, The Huguenots, 2. 101 Strayer, Huguenots and Camisards, 125. 102 Ibid., 129. 103 Ibid. 104 McManners, Church and Society, 2:579. 105 Ibid. 106 Dangeau, Journal, 1:193. 107 Sourches, Mémoires, 1:271. 108 Ibid. 109 M.L., 3:119. 110 Ibid., 118–19. 111 Lossky, Louis XIV, 222. 112 C.G., 3:91. 113 G.M., 1:36. 114 See letters to Charles dated 2 and 27 September 1681: M.L., 2:399, 403. 115 Claydon and Levillain, Louis XIV Outside In, 82. 116 Utt and Strayer, The Bellicose Dove, 35; Orcibal, “Edict of Nantes,” in Hatton, ed., Louis XIV and Absolutism, 154–5. 117 M.L., 2:354. 118 Labrousse, La révocation, 99–104; Garrisson, L’Édit de Nantes, 184–8. 119 Baird, The Huguenots, 2:23. 120 See Garrisson, L’Édit de Nantes, 117–56. 121 With the financial backing of the duchesse de Guise, Marie de Lorraine, who was keen to help Barré emulate the extraordinary success of the congregation he had founded in Rouen in 1662: Rapley, Dévots, 113, 120–6. 122 Ibid., 74–5, 113, 126. 123 The intendant, Lamoignon de Bâville, claimed that their endeavours were extremely beneficial: ibid., 126–8. 124 For more on this see the illuminating section in Chappell Lougee, Facing the Revocation, 219–29. 125 Bernard, “Foucault, Louvois,” 27–40. 126 Utt and Strayer, The Bellicose Dove, 28, 35. 127 Dingli, Colbert, marquis de Seignelay, 263–4; Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 272, 276–7. 128 Garrison, L’Édit de Nantes, 187.

Notes to pages 58–62

409

129 Most recently Bergin, The Politics of Religion, 260; Treasure, The Huguenots, 356. 130 Orcibal, “Edict of Nantes,” 161. 131 Stoll, Servir le Roi-Soleil, 103. 132 Ibid., 105–7. 133 Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 275. 134 H.B.L., 1:393, 397. 135 M.L., 2:383–4. 136 See Maintenon’s other incriminating letters in Lavallée’s collection, with his objective commentary: C.G., 2:133–67. 137 M.L., 2:352–3. 138 See letters from Maintenon to Gobelin dated 4 and 22 November 1680: H.B.L., 1:348–51. 139 Ibid., 352. 140 Caylus, Souvenirs, 22–4. 141 M.L., 2:415. 142 C.G., 2:297. 143 M.L., 2:368n225. 144 Ibid., 2:363–8. 145 G.M., 1:127. 146 Ibid., 1:119–21. 147 M.L. 2:498–9. 148 C.G., 2:223. 149 Sourches, Mémoires, 1:182. 150 M.L., 2:358–9. 151 C.G., 2:391. 152 Dangeau, Journal, 1:104. 153 Monmerqué, ed., Mémoires du Marquis de Villette, xxviii. 154 G.M., 1:141–2. 155 H.B.L., 1:537–8. 156 Ibid., 1:358. 157 M.L., 2:361n223; Chappell Lougee, Facing the Revocation, 226. 158 H.B.L., 1:358. 159 Ibid., 370. 160 Baird, The Huguenots, 2:24. 161 A central character in Chappell Louggee’s Facing the Revocation, 65. 162 Mentioned by Maintenon in a letter to Montchevreuil on 5 August 1681: M.L., 2:394. 163 Ibid., 2:394, 396. 164 C.G., 2:298–303. 165 Louis Hastier unconvincingly devoted nearly an entire book to it: Louis XIV et Mme de Maintenon. 166 M.L., 2:503–4. 167 G.M., 1:147.

410

Notes to pages 62–8

168 See M.L., 2:507–8, where the original letter from Cardinal Carpeigne is reproduced. 169 H.B.L., 1:477. 170 Ibid., 1:478. 171 Ibid., 1:480–1. 172 Ibid., 1:480. 173 G.M., 1:152. 174 M.L., 2:521. 175 H.B.L., 1:492–3. 176 Harlay was a doctor of the Sorbonne and archbishop of Rouen before acceding to the see of Paris in 1670, which earned him the title of duc et pair with the elevation of the seigneurie of Saint-Cloud, a dependency of the archbishopric, to a duché-pairie in April 1674. For more on his career and personality see Spanheim, Relation, 410–18. 177 Aumale, Souvenirs, 1:83. 178 Caylus, Souvenirs, 125, 133–5, who is the only one to suggest that madame de Montchevreuil was present. See also Gergy, Mémoires, 186, in which Lavallée footnotes his belief that the marriage was celebrated in June 1684: 187n3. Alexandre Maral contends that the local parish priest, a Lazarist named Nicolas Thibault, presided over the ceremony: Maintenon, 118. 179 C.G., 2:318–19. 180 M.L., 2:521–2. 181 H.B.L., 1:488. 182 See ibid., 1:479, 495, 509. 183 Ibid., 1:498–501. 184 Aumale, Souvenirs, 1:81. 185 Orléans, Letters from Liselotte, 55. 186 Qtd in Caylus, Souvenirs, 160. 187 Sourches, Mémoires, 1:178. 188 Dangeau, Journal, 1:42. 189 Riley, A Lust for Virtue, 94. 190 E.T., 288. 191 Riley, A Lust for Virtue, 94–5. 192 Qtd in Aumale, Souvenirs, 1:89.

chapter three Chapter title from Bridenthal, Stuard, and Wiesner-Hanks, eds., Becoming Visible. 1 Qtd in Dangeau, Journal, 1:18–19. 2 Gergy, Mémoires, 161n1. 3 Dangeau, Journal, 1:25. The positions of dame d’honneur to Madame and fille d’honneur to the dauphine were respectively awarded on 8 and 11 June to Mme de Ventadour and to Mlle de Löwenstein (ibid., 1:24–5), who

Notes to pages 68–72

4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

411

married the marquis de Dangeau in 1686 and became one of Maintenon’s closest friends. ss –Boislisle, 28:276n8. M.L., 3:85–6; Newton, L’espace du roi, 163–4; Verlet, Le Château de Versailles, 208–9, 276–9; Maral, Maintenon, 120–4; Himmelfarb, “Les logements versaillais.” Newton, L’espace du roi, fig. 8. That d’Antin be elevated next to the dauphin: Dangeau, Journal, 1:256–66. For example, on 9 and 14 April 1686: ibid., 320, 321. For example see Dangeau’s Journal entries for 30 March and 27 April 1685: ibid., 143, 162. 16 May 1686: ibid., 335. She dined with more than a dozen leading courtiers at Marly on 22 May 1685; at the Trianon (which had been redesigned in 1687) on 4 February 1688 with the Dauphin, Mmes de Chevreuse and Beauvillier, the princesse d’Harcourt, and the comtesses de Gramont, de Mailly, and de Dangeau; and again a week later on 11 February with Mmes de Chevreuse, Beauvillier, and Montchevreuil and the Dauphin, who accompanied the princesse de Conti and Mme la Duchesse, plus their respective guests Mme de Seignelay and Mlle d’Humières: Dangeau, Journal, 1:176; 2:104, 107. For example on 30 October 1684 and 8, 13, and 21 October 1685: ibid., 1:64, 227–8, 232, 236. Ibid., 1:398. Ibid., 1:166. Sourches, Mémoires, 1:144, 428; 2: 39. Dangeau, Journal, 1:8. M.L., 3:47. Qtd in Lough, France Observed, 149. Dangeau, Journal, 1:218, 220. Desprat, Maintenon, 235; and for individual examples see M.L., 3:41–2, and the first of many letters written to the procureur-général at the Paris Parlement, Achille III de Harlay (1639–1712), on 16 July 1684. It requested that the number of poor she was sending to him be placed in the Hôpital Général and that in relation to such matters she would be “delighted to be en commerce with you”: ibid., 3:59. M.L., 3:105–7. See C.G., 2:109–11. Lavallé, Saint-Cyr, 29. Gergy, Mémoires, 155. Lavallée, Saint-Cyr, 29–30. Gergy, Mémoires, 157. Lavallée, Saint-Cyr, 34–6. Ibid., 35. M.L., 3:99.

412 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

56

57 58 59 60

Notes to pages 72–4 Lavallée, Saint-Cyr, 36. Ibid. See her letter to Gobelin of December 1684: C.G., 2:396. Lavallée, Saint-Cyr, 36. Ibid., 37. Ibid., 35–6. Ibid., 37n3. Rapley, The Dévots, 127. Prévot, La première institutrice, 27–8. Lavallée, Saint-Cyr, 48. Prévot, La première institutrice, 25–7; for a list of the names of all students registered see Vindry, Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr. Lavallée, Saint-Cyr, 44–6. Former receiver-general for the Auvergne. Prévot, Maintenon, 28; C.G., 3:6. Lavallée, Saint-Cyr, 48–9. See ibid., 49. M.L., 3:225. Maintenon, Dialogues and Addresses, 7. Rapley, The Dévots, 128. For more on the garments worn by staff see Lavallée, Saint-Cyr, 41. Ibid., 39. C.G., 3:43. M.L., 3:215. Ibid., 3:200. In 1689, for example, see Dangeau, Journal, 2:389, 418, 426, 435, 452, 463, 476. See Roche, “Éducation et société”; Taylor, Cher espoir, and “The Articulation of Emotion” – I would like to thank the author for an advance copy of this article. There are a number of interesting chapters in Grell and Fortanier, L’éducation des jeunes filles: Ellero, “Les demoiselles de SaintCyr”; Milhet, “Saint-Cyr”; Picco, “Origines géographiques des demoiselles”; Taylor, “Saint-Cyr, vertu féminine.” See also Picco, Les demoiselles. For a rather gaudy interpretation of goings on at Saint-Cyr see the sensationalist novel Saint-Cyr. La maison d’Esther by Yves Dangerfield, published in 1991, which was made into a film titled Saint-Cyr by Patricia Mazuy in 2000. Alexandre Dumas wrote a popular comedy satirizing Maintenon’s academy, set c. 1700, titled Les Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr, which was first performed as a five-act play at the Théâtre Français in Paris in 1843 and revived repeatedly. It was published the same year. Lavallée, Saint-Cyr, 46. Ibid., 40. Maintenon, Dialogues and Addresses, 7. Prévot, Maintenon, 60–283; Maintenon, “Comment la sagesse.”

Notes to pages 74–7

413

61 Prévot, Maintenon, 48; also see Daniélou, Maintenon, éducatrice. 62 On the importance of the subject of regional and international geography and the “scientific” method of utilizing various maps, atlases, and globes to teach it, which was imitated throughout the eighteenth century, see the insightful chapter by Picco and Taylor, “Géographie à l’usage” – I would again like to thank Karen Taylor for a copy of this chapter. 63 “I am overwhelmed with solicitations …”: Lavallée, Saint-Cyr, 49n1. 64 See Picco, “Origines géographiques,” esp. 113–15; and the maps in Grell and de Fortanier, L’éducation des jeunes filles, 124. See also Lougee, “The Social Composition of Saint-Cyr,” in her Le Paradis des Femmes, 196–208. 65 Maintenon to Brinon May 1686: G.M., 1:173; Maintenon to M. de Villette in Paris, “adieu, I have thousands of affairs, my dear cousin,” 19 August 1687: C.G., 3:87–9. 66 M.L., 3:97–8. 67 For example, see the letter to Gobelin dated 22 September 1686: G.M., 1:179. 68 Lavallée, Saint-Cyr, 46n2. 69 Qtd in Cruttwell, Maintenon, 159. 70 Saint-Simon, Louis XIV, 215. 71 See her entry “Maintenon” in Bluche, Dictionnaire, 936–7. 72 Fraser, Love and Louis XIV, 212. 73 M.L., 3:211. 74 Mansart eventually completed the aggrandisement of Antoine le Pautre’s 1674 design, which Montespan dismissed as “fit only for an opera singer,” in 1682: Berger, A Royal Passion, 84–90. 75 Dangeau, Journal, 1:291–5. 76 Ibid., 1:417, 424, 426. 77 Ibid., 1:417–8. 78 Ibid., 1:428, 432. 79 Maintenon, Lettres Historiques, 1:42. 80 Dangeau, Journal, 2:6–7. 81 Ibid., 2:35. For more on this episode see Vallot, d’Aquin, and Fagon, Journal de la Santé, 166–80. 82 Desprat, Maintenon, 249. 83 Sourches, Mémoires, 1:379. 84 Ibid., 442. 85 For a recent analysis of the increasing predominance of Le Tellier after the demise of Colbert in 1683 and Maintenon’s support for the latter see Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 89–98. 86 Sourches, Mémoires, 1:177. 87 G.M., 2:78. 88 L.L., 52–3. 89 Sourches, Mémoires, 1:442–4. 90 C.G., 3:60.

414 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133

Notes to pages 77–83 Sourches, Mémoires, 2:66. Maintenon, Lettres Historiques, 2:456. Dangeau, Journal, 1:23–4, 27. Newton, L’espace du roi, 50. As he footnotes in Dangeau’s Journal, 1:19. Ibid., 316–17. ss –Boislisle, 1:109–10; Dangeau, Journal, 2:55–7. Dangeau, Journal, 2:55; ss –Boislisle, 1:109–10. Dangeau, Journal, 1:323–5. ss –Boislisle, 1:103, 109–10; Sourches, Mémoires, 2:288–92. Dangeau, Journal, 2:172. ss –Boislisle, 1:57–8. Sourches, Mémoires, 2:174. ss –Boislisle, 4:640; 6:434. The third wife of the duc d’Arpajon, who died in 1679. 13 June 1684: Sévigné, Lettres, 7:267–9. Dangeau, Journal, 1:25. Sourches, Mémoires, 1:149; 2:63. Dangeau, Journal, 1:372; 2:163; Sourches, Mémoires, 2:254. Dangeau, Journal, 2:450. Sourches, Mémoires, 2:14. Ibid., 2:139. Dangeau, Journal, 1:380. He abjured, according to Dangeau, on Monday, 11 February 1686: ibid., 1:294. C.G., 3:28. M.L., 3:95. Sourches, Mémoires, 2:166. Desprat, Maintenon, 251. Dangeau, Journal, 1:41. Ibid., 2:30. Sourches, Mémoires, 2:31. Ibid., 2:288–92. Dangeau, Journal, 1:308. Sourches, Mémoires, 2:215; 3:53. Ibid., 4:342; 7:191; 8:286. Dangeau, Journal, 1:309, 312. See C.G., 3:81–2, 85–92, 95–6. Dangeau, Journal, 2:171. Sourches, Mémoires, 2:230. Ibid., 5:62; 7:15; 9:107. Dangeau, Journal, 1: 356. Sourches, Mémoires, 8:320; Lart, Huguenot Pedigrees, 85. Chappell Lougee, Facing the Revocation, 341.

Notes to pages 83–7 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155

156 157 158

159 160 161 162 163 164

165 166 167

415

Sourches, Mémoires, 2:76. Bergin, Crown, Church, 449. Chappell Lougee, Facing the Revocation, 341. Ibid., 339–41. C.G., 3:91. Ibid. Lart, Huguenot Pedigrees, 85. Sourches, Mémoires, 2:139–40. He relinquished Cognac first: ibid., 2:221. C.G., 3:114. Sourches, Mémoires, 2:291–3. Ibid., 2:97. C.G., 3:80. L.L., 54. C.G., 3:128. For example, see the letter of 23 October 1688: ibid., 3:127. Complaining on 25 October that he had already written ten letters and did not become incensed if he did not receive a letter every day: ibid., 3:131. For example, see letters dated 31 May, 8 July, 24 July, and 7 August 1689: ibid., 177–8, 178–9, 183–4, 186. Ibid., 3:130, 204. M.L., 3:460. Ibid., 3:89–90. See the rather cryptic letter from Maintenon to Spada in 1686 thanking him for “the particular graces that His Holiness wishes to accord me”: C.G., 3:60. M.L., 2:508n319. Ibid. His incessant efforts were not particularly successful. See Neveu, ed., Correspondance, 10:30, 45, 56, 60, 62–3, 78, 738–9; 11:7–8, 23–4, 36, 135, 151, 157–8, 162, 168, 176, 182, 319, 331, 385, 392, 562. M.L., 3:91. Blet, Les Nonces, 155. M.L., 3:91. Blet, Les Nonces, 155. Rule, “The Administrative History,” 96. For example, in 1689 with Seignlay at the Trianon on 18 May; with Barbeziuex at Marly on 31 August and 16 September; and with Seignelay at Fontainebleau on 9 October; and on 21 November the comte de Duras was escorted by Louvois to meet with the king chez Mme de Maintenon: Dangeau, Journal, 2:396, 459, 471; 3:5, 21. Ibid., 2:403. Ibid., 2:479. C.G., 3:135–43.

416

Notes to pages 88–93

168 Fitzgerald, “To Educate or Instruct?” 162. 169 A practice that had started at Reuil and was replicated at Noisy (see, for example, M.L., 3:67, 75, 136–7), and indeed across France, where Protestant girls were forcibly incarcerated in pensionnats, often using lettres de cachet, to effect their conversion: Rapley, A Social History of the Cloister, 249–50. 170 Fitzgerald, “Educate or Instruct?,” 176. 171 C.G., 3:117–18. 172 Minois, Bossuet, 587. 173 Guyon, The Unabridged Collected Works, 164–8. 174 Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 92–3. 175 Rothkrug, Opposition, 289. 176 Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 85. 177 Ibid., 87–8. 178 She was formerly a canoness at the convent of Poussey in Lorraine: G.M., 1:167, 200. 179 Within a month, according to Lavallée, and the letter commending Guyon’s ideas and doctrine of “pure love” from Fénelon to Maintenon dated 4 Ocotber 1688 substantiates that: C.G., 3:117–18. 180 See, for example, her enthusiastic letter to Mme de Fontaines in 1689: G.M., 1:199–201. 181 C.G., 3:159–60. 182 Lynn, The Wars of Louis XIV, 195–6. 183 Wolf, Louis XIV, 452–3. 184 Explored expertly by Lynn, “A Brutal Necessity?” 185 See Henk van Nierop’s brilliant and vividly illustrated “Lampooning Louis XIV”; see also Boitel, L’Image Noir. 186 See bmv 1466, vols. P. 36–42, 98. 187 O.F., 2:146. 188 Bots follows Orcibal: H.B.L., 8:165. 189 Rothkrug, Opposition, 262–3. 190 Lizerand, Le duc de Beauvillier, 87–92. 191 Ibid., 89–90. 192 Ibid., 90. 193 Sourches, Mémoires, 1:400. 194 Bergin, The Politics of Religion, 2. 195 Lossky, Louis XIV, 213–14. 196 Bergin, Crown, Church, 239. 197 Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 77–8. 198 C.G., 3:206–7. 199 Dangeau, Journal, 2:302. 200 Ibid., 2:305. 201 Idid., 2:311–12. 202 Sourches, Mémoires, 2:32. 203 See Dangeau, Journal, 2:293.

Notes to pages 93–101

417

204 Ibid., 2:324–5. 205 Maintenon had commissioned Racine to write a “sacred” play for the edification of her students. For an insightful account of this episode see Prest, “Boys Will Be Girls: Cross Casting in School Drama,” in her Theatre under Louis XIV, 57–70. Boileau had pertinently written to Racine in August 1687 predicting that Maintenon could be a very rewarding patron: C.G., 3:84–5. 206 As well as the princesse d’Epinoy: Dangeau, Journal, 2:325–6. 207 Sourches, Mémoires, 2:43. 208 Corp, A Court in Exile, 18–19. 209 Haile, Queen Mary of Modena, 425. 210 Dangeau, Journal, 2:390, 427. 211 C.G., 3:208–9. 212 Ibid., 3:209. 213 Ibid., 3:204–5. 214 See Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 187–9. 215 Sourches, Mémoires, 3:58. 216 Dangeau, Journal, 3:3. 217 Nordmann, “Louis XIV and the Jacobites,” 83–4. 218 Dangeau, Journal, 2:473. 219 Stoll, Servir le Roi-Soleil, 134–5. 220 Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 188.

chapter four 1 For example see C.G., 4:141–2; Langlois, Maintenon, 131–64; G.M., 1:liii–viii; Cordelier, Maintenon, 301–15; Castellot, Maintenon, 230–86; Desprat, Maintenon, 399–442; Buckley, Maintenon, 341–66. Maral provides the best recent analysis of both spheres: “Mme de Maintenon en politique” (197–224) and “La religion de Madame de Maintenon” (225–74), in his Maintenon. 2 Qtd in André, Louis XIV et L’Europe, 41. 3 Kleinman, Anne of Austria, 149. 4 In April 1692, for example: Dangeau, Journal, 4:65–6. 5 C.G., 3:292. 6 L.L., 96. 7 Ibid., 87. 8 O.F., 3:143. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid., 3:142. 11 Ibid., 3:14–18. 12 Jones, The Charitable Imperative. 13 See Kanter, “Archbishop Fénelon’s Political Activity,” 320–34. In his illuminating article Kanter nonetheless inflates Fénelon’s political ambitions to

418

14 15 16

17 18 19 20

21 22 23

24 25 26 27

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

Notes to pages 101–4 bolster his argument, ignoring the fact that religious principles almost ruined his political prospects. Rothkrug, Opposition, 249–98. Dangeau, Journal, 2:473. ss –Norton, 1:128–9; for more on Marie and the important contribution made by her and other female family members in promoting Phélypeaux careers see Chapman, “Patronage as Family Economy,” 11–35. G.M., 1:204. Pontchartrain professed his ignorance, as a professional lawyer, of all things maritime, but the king “absolutely” insisted: Dangeau, Journal, 2:245. Ibid., 4:415. La Vrillière relinquished his office when nearing his eightieth birthday in 1678 and was succeeded by his eldest son Balthazar, the marquis de Châteauneuf (1638–1700), who was the cousin of Louis de Pontchartrain. Balthazar died in 1700, and his son Louis de Phélypeaux, marquis de La Vrillière (1672–1725), inherited the position. Until he resigned in 1709: ss –Coirault, 3:573. See Clarke, “Abbé Jean-Paul Bignon,” 213–35; McLeod, Licensing Loyalty, 68–9, 73–5, 110, 122–3. For more on this see Rowlands, “The Waning of Le Tellier Power,” in his The Dynastic State, 58–62; Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 205–64. Dangeau, Journal, 3:370; for an insightful recent biography see Lahaye, Le fils de Louis XIV. Dangeau, Journal, 3:370. “I am not surprised at the joy of Monseigneur,” 27 July 1691: C.G., 3:302–3. Bluche, Louis XIV, ed. Greengrass, 495; see also Mettam, Power and Faction, 236; Rowen, “Arnauld de Pomponne”; Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 89–104. Rowlands, The Dynastic State, 64. Qtd in Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 113–14. ss –Coirault, 1:658. 27 July 1691: C.G., 3:303. Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 114. Lossky, Louis XIV, 243–4. See L.L., 73. Rowlands, The Dynastic State, 59–60. Although the king’s servants allegedly witnessed Louvois being been dressed down by the king on the afternoon of 16 July 1691 for adhering to an antagonistic strategy that had provoked war and that the war minister was threatened with dismissal after defending himself in a less than courteous manner: Rowlands, The Dynastic State, 61. For more on their relationship and this episode in particular see Cénat, Louvois, 421–39.

Notes to pages 104–7

419

37 Vauban remarked that Louvois had been a great man who had “excellent qualities, but also bad ones.” Qtd in Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 113. 38 L.L., 72–3. 39 Duindam, “Norbert Elias,” 370–87. I would like sincerely to thank Professor Duindam for presenting me with a translated pre-published version of this paper. 40 Lossky, Louis XIV, 243. 41 Corvisier, Louvois, 318–19. 42 C.G., 3:110. 43 Saint-Simon, Louis XIV, 298–307. 44 Rowlands, The Dynastic State, 302. 45 Sarmant, Les Demeures, 310. 46 See Frostin, “Le Chancelier”; “La famille ministérielle”; “L’organisation ministérielle.” 47 Chapman, Private Ambition, 58. 48 Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 107. 49 Qtd in ibid., 95. 50 Ibid. 51 ss –Coirault, 5:808. 52 Symcox, The Crisis, 51n118. 53 Blanchard, Vauban, 302. 54 Stoll, Servir le Roi-Soleil, 103. 55 Chapman, Private Ambition, 52–3. 56 Ibid., 34. 57 Ibid., 54. 58 Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 101. 59 Ibid. 60 Dangeau, Journal, 3:448; 4:419; see also ss –Coirault, 1:342, 422, 1339. 61 Rowlands, The Dynastic State, 66. 62 Sourches recorded that it was a “mark of great credit” for Louvois that he was able to replace his recently deceased father as chancellor with Boucherat: qtd in Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 93. 63 Dangeau, Journal, 4:419. 64 Chapman, Private Ambition, 35–6. 65 On Thursday, 19 July 1691, Barbezieux had been awarded the charge of général des postes, reuniting the foreign and internal posts: Dangeau, Journal, 3:368. 66 Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 102. 67 Dangeau, Journal, 5:331–32. 68 In 1693: ibid., 4:419. 69 Rowlands, The Dynastic State, 64. 70 Dangeau, Journal, 1:366. 71 Lavisse, Louis XIV, 89–90.

420

Notes to pages 107–10

72 For example see Tilley, The Decline, 14–15; André, Louis XIV, 40–1; Petitfils, Louis XIV, 515. 73 See Rule, “Colbert de Torcy,” 282–3; his “King in his Council,” 216–41; Antoine, Le conseil du roi, 62. 74 Goubert, The Course of French History, 135. 75 Dangeau, Journal, 4:419. 76 Rowlands, The Dynastic State, 61–2. 77 André, Louis XIV, 50–1. 78 Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 108. 79 Rowlands, The Dynastic State, 348. 80 See Cénat’s section on this transition, “La Succession de Louvois,” in his Le Roi Stratège, 175–95; Wolf, Louis XIV, 464–5. 81 Rule, ed., Louis XIV and the Craft of Kingship, 49, 52. For other similar examples in letters to Vauban, 1693–97, see Louis XIV, Lettres, 91–2, 96–7, 104. 82 Dangeau, qtd in Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 109. 83 Ibid., 112. 84 Dangeau, Journal, 7:66. 85 Cornette, Le Roi de Guerre; pertinently, see also Lebrun, Louis XIV. 86 Dangeau, Journal, 3:387. 87 C.G., 3:304–5. 88 Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 107–8. 89 Qtd in ibid., 103. 90 Lynn, The Wars, 20. 91 Qtd in Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 108. For more on his career and influence, see Cénat, Chamlay. 92 Dangeau, Journal, 3:368. 93 Wolf, Louis XIV, 464. 94 On 15 January 1693 the court was at Marly, and after dinner and a walk in the gardens, the king worked with the marquis de Chamlay, who “very often arrives at this hour”: Dangeau, Journal, 4:222. 95 ss –Coirault, 1:105. 96 Sourches, Mémoires, 3:207. 97 Also see Virol, Vauban. 98 Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 112. 99 Ibid., 109. 100 Lynn, Giant of the Grand Siècle, 18, 72. 101 For a more detailed discussion of Barbezieux’s flaws and merits, see SaintSimon’s description, replicated in Sarmant and Stoll, Régner et Gouverner, 110. Guy Rowlands’s appraisal concurs, contending that he had the potential and ability to be a fine minister and revealing that he was eventually able to demonstrate that before his premature death in 1702, which Maintenon regretted: Rowlands, The Dynastic State, 64–72. 102 For more on this see Dangeau, Journal, 4:4–6.

Notes to pages 110–14

421

103 C.G., 3:360–1. On a similar tack, Maintenon also refused to obtain an audience with the king for her old acquaintance, Mme de Bouillon: G.M., 1:219. 104 C.G., 4:43–5. 105 G.M., 1:242. 106 Mme de Brinon had solicited this appointment for a young female member of the Mornay family named Placidie: C.G., 3:229–30. 107 The wife of the duc de Ventadour, Louis Charles de Lévis. 108 H.B.L., 2:157. 109 On their rivalry, see Minois, “Le Père de La Chaise et Madame de Maintenon. Le Duel des Directeurs de Conscience,” in his Confesseur, 442–51. 110 M.L., 3:550. 111 Ibid. 112 Maintenon to the comte de Caylus, 24 June 1692: Morrison and Thibaudeau, eds., A Collection, 4:22; C.G., 3:249–51. See also Maintenon to Louis-Antoine de Noailles, 18 May 1695: G.M., 1:249–50, significantly before his elevation to the see of Paris. 113 See for example a letter dated 27 September 1691 to her old friend MarieMadeleine Gabrielle de Rouchechouart (1654–1704), abbess of Fontevrault from 1670 and sister of Mme de Montespan: C.G., 3:306–7; on Marie, see Petitfils, Madame de Montespan, 10–15. 114 See Maintenon to the abbesse de Beaumont on 2 August 1692 thanking her for receiving Mlle de Toligni: C.G., 3:344. 115 Cordelier, Maintenon, 200–1. 116 C.G., 3:286–7. 117 Ibid., 3:287–8. 118 ss –Coirault, 1:88–9. 119 Maintenon to Mère Marie-Constance at Saint-Cyr, 12 June 1693: G.M., 1:239–41. 120 John Wolf defends Louis in the same terms but adds that he was probably overruled by his council: Louis XIV, 472–3. Lossky believes that the king should have trusted his instincts but democratically deferred to his team of experts: Louis XIV, 245. Either way an opportunity was lost after Marshal Luxembourg allegedly implored Louis to stay with his forces and continue fighting, according to the duc de Saint-Simon: see Lynn, The Wars, 233. 121 Rowlands, The Dynastic State, 68. 122 bmv 1461, vol. P. 63, f. 403. 123 Ibid., ff. 403–4. 124 Louis XIV, Lettres, 90; H.B.L., 8:268. 125 Camped at Quesnoy, 29 March 1693: Dangeau, Journal, 4:297. 126 For examples, see missives to Mme de Veilhant at Saint-Cyr in May 1692 and to Marie-Constance at Saint-Cyr in May 1693: G.M., 1:221–2; C.G., 3:367–8. 127 G.M., 1:223.

422 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139

140

141 142 143 144

145

146

Notes to pages 114–16 Vauban, Vauban, 2:387. C.G., 3:285–6. Ibid., 3:415. Dangeau, Journal, 4:74–5. Ibid., 4:289. Ibid., 4:210. Ibid., 4:465. Ibid., 4:467. Ibid., 4:468. C.G.., 3:448n2. Ibid., 3:253–5. For example, see Du Maine to Maintenon on 26 March 1691 and the Dauphin to Maintenon, 14 July 1690: ibid., 3:285–6, 3:236–7; and many other letters besides from both correspondents, who were also clearly in close communication with each other, 1690–94: H.B.L., 8:195–391. The Dauphin to Maintenon, 22 June 1691: C.G., 3:300–1. Michel Thomassin, named Joyeux, was the premier valet de chambre of the dauphin. For differing accounts of the controversy, see ss –Boislisle, 2:183–91; Dangeau, Journal, 5:61–5; C.G., 3:411–12. “My duc du Maine performs wonders in bravery and good sense.” Maintenon to the abbé Gobelin, 18 March 1691: C.G., 3:284. See two appeasing letters from du Maine to Maintenon on 17 and 26 August 1690: ibid., 3:242–3, 244. Du Maine to Maintenon, 26 March 1691: “I am strongly attached to Boufflers, and assured him that you have on more than one occasion spoken to me of him”: ibid., 3:286–7; and 2 April 1691: “our friend Boufflers is injured, but it will be nothing”: ibid., 3:289–90. “A battle [of Ter on 27 May 1694] won in Rousillon [where the duc de Noailles was in command] at the opening of a campaign gives me palpable pleasure like a good Frenchman. But I also sensed on this occasion, Madame, just how much I am attached to you and all those whom you hold dear.” Maintenon to the dowager duchesse de Noailles, 4 June 1694: bn Fr vol. 6919, ff. 19–20. The king’s congratulatory letter to the duchesse de Noailles on her husband’s famous victory over the Spanish army commanded by the viceroy of Catalonia, the duke of Escalona, was printed in the June edition of the Mercure and is reproduced in C.G., 3:395. “M. du Maine has beseeched the King to make the master of camp for his regiment Chéladet, who was the lieutenant-colonel of Noailles.” Dangeau, Journal, 3:175. The negative response offended du Maine, who petitioned Maintenon again on 2 August 1690: “I do not believe, Mme, that the King nor M. de Louvois would dare take the liberty to refuse the simple proposition I put to them,” complaining that Noailles was a man “who I like very much” and that the maréchal de Luxembourg was also strongly in favour of

Notes to pages 117–19

147

148

149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158

159 160 161 162 163 164 165

166 167 168 169

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the preferment. C.G., 3:245–6. On 1 May 1692, Noailles took leave of the king to command the army in Catalonia. Dangeau, Journal, 4:67. Until his majority in 1685, du Maine’s official title was governeurlieutenant under the charge of the duc de Noailles, who was commanderin-chief for the king and his lieutenant-général: Spanheim, Relation, 209, 535. Jacques de Noailles (1653–1712) became lieutenant-général des galères de France and a Knight of Malta, and Jean-François, marquis de Noailles (1658–1696), gained the post of maréchal de camp. bn Fr vol. 6919, f. 19. Dangeau, Journal, 4:249. Ibid., 4:251–5. See Lynn, The Wars, 23–4. Dangeau, Journal, 4:325. Noailles, Mémoires, 71:342. C.G., 3:283–4. Noailles, Mémoires 71:399. Dangeau, Journal, 4:415. After Racine’s death on 21 April 1699, Boileau advised Pontchartrain 26 June 1699 that Valincour was the “worthiest successor to Racine,” and he garnered support for this election from Pontchartrain and the son of the duc de Noailles, the comte d’Ayen: Williams, Valincour, 42. In which capacity he had been unofficially working in tandem with Boileau since 1693: ibid., 43–4. Ibid., 29–30. Marie-Victoire Sophie de Noailles (1688–1766) became his wife after being widowed by the marquis de Gondrin in 1712. Williams, Valincour, 24n40. L.L., 74. ss –Norton, 1:17. Marie-Anne de La Trémoille, the daughter of the duc de Noirmoutier. She married Adrien Blaise, the prince de Chalais, in 1659. He died in 1670 and she was remarried in 1675 to the duc de Bracciano, the head of the house of Orsinsi, who were one of the leading Roman grandee families. She adopted the title of the “princesse des Ursins” after her second husband’s demise in 1698. Maintenon to the duchesse de Ventadour, January 1692: G.M., 1:216–17. Cordelier, Maintenon, 317. For example, see Langlois, Maintenon, 132–3, 166. Vauban, Vauban, 2:628. Fénelon believed that women should be “fortified” by education because, he argued, women without virtue had traditionally wrought havoc throughout history and should therefore be trained for the benefit of men. See Kearns, “Fénelon,” in his Ideas in Seventeenth-Century France, 137–40.

424

Notes to pages 119–20

170 It is noteworthy that contemporaries, such as Saint-Simon as has been shown, also recognized the salubrious influence an astute wife could bring to bear on the career of her husband or the prosperity of his family, with Mme Voysin and the princesse de Soubise serving as prime examples: ss –Coirault, 1:634; 2:898; 3:504–6; see also Hufton, The Prospect Before Her, 143–5. 171 ss –Norton, 1:18–19. 172 Maintenon to Brinon, 22 March 1692: H.B.L., 8:202. 173 On her spirited nature, see Gourdin, “La Petite Princesse Rebelle,” in his La Duchesse du Maine, 16–72. 174 G.M., 1:242–3. 175 C.G., 3:357. The wedding took place on 5 March 1696: Dangeau, Journal, 4:307. 176 Maintenon to Brinon, 27 August 1693: G.M., 1:243. 177 Maintenon to Brinon, 18 January 1691: C.G., 3:275–6. 178 For an array of examples, see bn Fr vol. 15201. A briefer selection is provided by Langlois, Maintenon, 181–2. 179 C.G., 3:278–80, 364–6. 180 See the comte de Bussy-Rabutin to Maintenon, 3 September 1692: bn Fr vol. 24422, f. 249; and Bussy-Rabutin to Louis XIV: ibid., ff. 249–50. See also Bussy-Rabutin to Maintenon on 25 and 27 September, letters which suggest that the marquise’s help had been successfully invoked: ibid., ff. 251–2. For a description of Bussy-Rabutin’s later, more infamous writings and their consequences, see his Histoire amoreuese des Gaules. In his Devil in the Holy Water, Robert Darnton demonstrates that the scandalous 492page sequel to the Amorous History penned by Bussy, La France Galante, which appeared in 1695, ironically lampoons a weak, aging king dominated by his mistress, Mme de Maintenon, who is in turn controlled by conniving Jesuits; and he reveals that this anonymous work was supposedly composed by Courtilz de Sandras, who is better known as the author of the Mémoires d’Artagnan (1700), which inspired Dumas’s musketeer novels: 363–6. 181 One of the conditions of the marriage, which Maintenon considered “very advantageous,” stipulated that the marquise and a number of her nearest relatives were to pay their respects to the Lemoine family at their house on the Île de la Cité in Paris. This was carried out to honour M. Lemoine, who craved the distinction of being able to entertain the d’Aubigné family under his roof: C.G., 3:363. 182 Achille III, comte de Beaumont – see Maintenon to Harlay, 4 February 1693 and to the same correspondent on the 24th expressing thanks “regarding the affair of M. Lemoine”: M.L., 4:118–19, 121. 183 Sourches, Mémoires, 4:206. 184 Dangeau, Journal, 4:184–5; see the congratulatory letter from Maintenon to Mlle d’Aubigné de Tigny of 2 October 1692: C.G., 3:346–8. 185 “Have you not been sent your pension? I told him [Louis XIV] about it after you first asked me about it.” Maintenon to Brinon, 18 July 1690: C.G.,

Notes to pages 120–3

186 187 188 189 190 191

192 193 194

195 196 197 198

199 200 201 202 203

204

205 206

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3:240–1. “Have you been paid your pension? What do you think? The King gave his orders for that and I do not think that M. de Pontchartrain make you wait.” Maintenon to the abbé Gobelin, 22 April 1691: M.L., 3:504. “M. and Mme de Pontchartrain are people of merit.” Maintenon to Brinon, 18 January 1691: C.G., 3:275. Maintenon to Pontchartrain, December 1690: : C.G., 3:258. Ibid., 3:363–4. Thierry Bignon (1632–97), son of Jérôme I. Bignon. Langlois, Maintenon, 120. See Villette-Mursay, Mes campagnes. Le Grand carried 650 men and 92 cannon and was commanded by the comte d’Estrées. Le Dauphin-Royal carried 700 men and 100 canon and was captained by M. de Château-Renaud, while vice-admiral M. de Tourville headed the fleet on Le Roi-Soleil, which could support up to 850 men and 104 cannon: Dangeau, Journal, 3:164–5. Ibid., 4:45. Ibid., 5:48. “The King is doing very well and he works hard at his affairs. I am better than ever, I work a lot for my part, without hope of seeing the end of my work. God will do whatever he pleases.” Maintenon to Brinon, 28 February 1693: G.M., 1:233. Maintenon to Brinon, 2 February 1693: ibid., 1:230. C.G., 3:384. See the entries on Monday, 5 January 1693; Tuesday, 5 January 1694: Dangeau, Journal, 4:217, 431–2. Louis XIV, Oeuvres, 6:21. Considering that Maintenon carefully destroyed all traces of her relations with the king, this letter is somewhat suspect and cannot be found in the Lettres Édifiantes archived at the bmv 1461, vols. P. 62–8. However, it is not reminiscent of La Beaumelle’s style of invention and may be genuine. C.G., 3:293. H.B.L., 8:290. bmv 1461, vol. P. 64, f. 513. Louis XIV, Lettres, 94. Of the marquise d’Heudicourt, Saint-Simon wrote that she “never in her life had a good word for anyone unless accompanied by a few most devastating buts.” ss –Norton, 1:319. Maintenon arranged the marriage of Louise Sublet, d’Heudicourt’s daughter, to her d’Aubigné relative, the marquis de Montgon, Jean-François de Beauverger, who was promoted lieutenant-général in 1702. He was related to Aubin de Montgon, who had married one of the daughters of Maintenon’s aunt, Marie Caumont d’Addé. See Maintenon, “Quelques lettres de vieillesse,” 28n1. Dangeau, Journal, 5:–94. Ibid., 4:217, 221–2, 235, 237–8, 240.

426 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216

217 218 219

220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228

229 230 231

232 233 234 235

Notes to pages 123–7 Corp, A Court in Exile, 166–7. Dangeau, Journal, 5:291. C.G., 3:252–3, 382. Dangeau, Journal, 4:318. Ibid., 5:315. As Edward Gregg argues: “Monarchs without a Crown,” 398. Lynn, The Wars, 215–16; Callow, King in Exile, 122–55. Callow, King in Exile, 66–204. L.L., 71. See, for example, Maintenon asking cardinal d’Ottoboni to thank Alexander VIII for his overwhelmingly “kind … and generous bref.” April 1690: C.G., 3:226. C.G., 3:255–6. Ibid., 3:341–4. Which had only been exceeded during the French Wars of Religion, when forty sees remained unoccupied between 1589 and 1596. Bergin, Crown, Church, 239. Dangeau, Journal, 4:358, 380. Lachiver, Les Années de Misères, 390–3. 3 February 1693: G.M., 1:232. C.G., 3:384. Maintenon to Brinon, 14 October 1693: M.L., 4:164. Bluche, Louis XIV, ed. Greengrass, 450–1. Godet to Maintenon, December 1691: C.G, 3:315–16. 8 November 1691: C.G., 3:311. Le Roy Ladurie offers a balanced regional account of the hardship endured, concurring with Lachiver that, although serious, France quickly recovered from the subsistence crisis: Ancien Régime, 210–19. He goes on to assert that this capacity to recuperate enabled France to soldier on through the famine of 1709 to the end of the War of the Spanish Succession. Thomas Schaeper also modifies the notion that the later reign was dominated by depression in his Economy of France, and in The French Council of Commerce. O.F., 2:274–80. Ibid., 2:279. This anxiety may well have been kindled by the king’s post-Fronde paranoia. Whatever the precise reasons, popular protests were less inflammatory and arose more infrequently during Louis XIV’s reign than from 1586 to 1660; see Beik, Urban Protest, 250–67. See Dangeau, Journal, 4:381–2, 383–4, 399, 417, 455; 5:18, 40–1. Ibid., 4:367. Ibid., 4:351. For an impressive analysis of Louis XIV’s attitude toward the poor and the “enfermement” campaign in France, which was accelerated from 1662, but

Notes to pages 127–30

236 237 238

239

240 241 242 243 244 245

246

247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256

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in practice carried out and paid for by local elites, see McHugh, Hospital Politics. C.G., 3:423–4. Lachiver, Les années de misère, 196–202. Dangeau, Journal, 5:102, 121–2. Bluche and Solnon concentrate solely on the social implications in La Véritable, whereas Gary McCollim demonstrates that Vauban and Pontchartrain shouldered much of the responsibility for the Capitation’s inception: Louis XIV’s Assault on Privilege, 37–41. Officially the patents were granted “to serve as a reward for those of our subjects who, in acquiring them for a modest sum, will contribute to furnishing us with the aid which we need to repel the obstinate efforts of our enemies.” See the “Edict conferring enoblement in return for financial contributions upon five-hundred persons chosen from amongst the most distinguished in our realm, March 1696,” in Ranum and Ranum, eds., The Century of Louis XIV, 346–8. The patents were later cancelled: Voltaire, The Age of Louis XIV, 345. Ellis posits that it was primarily intended for Maintenon and Beauvillier: Boulainvilliers, 60–1n12. Noailles, Mémoires, 71:370. Ibid., 71:396. See Rowlands, The Dynastic State, 316–17. Ibid. Barbezieux took great delight in castigating Noailles over his inability to besiege Barcelona, which the king considered pivotal in the push for peace. It prompted Noailles to request that Chamlay be brought to Spain to witness the intensity of the difficulties involved. Pontchartrain’s demands were more deferential, but no less pressing on the need to mount an assault on the city: see Noailles, Mémoires: 71:386–97. See three revealing letters from Maintenon to Noailles’s brother, Louis-Antoine de Noailles, the archbishop of Châlons-sur-Marne from 1680, dated 28 April and 18 and 25 May 1695 describing the duke’s condition: C.G., 4:4–10. Noailles, Mémoires, 71:398–9. Louis XIV, Lettres, 98–100. Du Maine was the first to be presented to the Parlement on 8 May 1694; see Dangeau, Journal, 5:6–8. Gilbert, Charles Maurice Le Tellier, 365–8. Rowlands, The Dynastic State, 270. Ibid., 332; for more on this see Fonck, Le maréchal de Luxembourg. Qtd in Rowlands, The Dynastic State, 66. Ibid., 293. C.G., 3:396–7. Vauban, Vauban, 1:454–61.

428 257 258 259 260 261

262

263

264 265 266 267 268

269 270 271

272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282

Notes to pages 130–4 Chamillart, Michel Chamillart, 1:6–9. Ibid., 5. Ibid., 5–6. M.L., 4:287–8. The competition was so fierce in 1695 that a number of prominent courtiers, such as the comte de Pertuis, the marquis d’Harcourt, and the maréchal d’Humières, were unable to take part: Symcox, The Crisis, 194. Ibid., 131–228. Similar conclusions are drawn by Patrice Berger in his work on the government’s response to the famine of 1693 that Pontchartrain criticized, underscoring that the Crown was bureaucratically capable of conducting a national survey to determine exactly how much grain there was in France and that this needed to be calculated (and over the next two years was), but that urgent emergency measures were required to tackle privation rather than creating an impressive amount of paperwork, which would prove costly in terms of money and lives: “French Administration,” 101–27. “Poor Madame de Cantiers [mutual friend of the d’Aubigné and Brinon families] is in Paris for a case that Mr. de Ponchartrain refuses me. They want me to talk to the grand personages, and we would have done better by talking to those below.” Maintenon to Brinon, 15 July 1696: M.L., 5:73–4. See Prest, Theatre, 71–4; see also Orcibal, La genèse d’Esther et d’Athalie. Lavallée, Saint-Cyr, 97–104. Ibid., 91. See G.M., 1:209–25. Even believing that they could reform her brother, she implored M. Manceau, the controller of the household at Maintenon, to convince Charles to visit the priests for spiritual direction; see C.G., 3:339–40. A supérieure borrowed from the convent of the Visitation at Chaillot: G.M., 1:224. See Maintenon to Forbin-Janson, 30 August 1692: M.L., 4:71. Maintenon to Mme de Loubert, supérieure at Saint-Cyr, 12 October 1692: ibid., 4:91–92. The news of Saint-Cyr’s transformation was announced on 15 November 1692: ibid., 4:99. bmv 1461, vol. P. 64, ff. 350–1. C.G., 3:352–3. Dangeau, Journal, 4:371. See Chappell Lougee, Le Paradis des Femmes, 196–208. 9 June 1695: C.G., 4:10–11. For more details on the new regulations see Desprat, Maintenon, 283–7. Pénicaut, Faveur et pouvoir, 58–71. Lavallée, Saint-Cyr, 122–3. See for example C.G. 3:307. M.L, 4:147–48. See Maintenon to the avocat-général, M. de Lamoignon, 9 September 1692: M.L, 4:74.

Notes to pages 134–8

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283 See Maintenon to the premier président, M. de Harlay, 22 January 1694: C.G., 3:389. Also see Maintenon to M. de Harlay, 18 July 1696: M.L., 5:75. 284 There are a handful of accounts of this episode: Desprat, Maintenon, 288–326; Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 140–258; Minois, Bossuet, 581–672; Carcassonne, Fénelon, 25–74. Henk Hillenaar gives a more detailed account of the Quietist affair and the incipient Jansenist controversy, but misinterprets Maintenon’s role, overstating her political aspirations and overestimating her influence generally: Fénelon et les Jésuites: 55–115. 285 Gergy, Mémoires, 355. 286 Pérou, Mémoires, 306. 287 See Guerrier, Madame Guyon. 288 Desprat, Maintenon, 304. 289 Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 146–7, 150–1. 290 Ibid., 147. 291 Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 148. 292 Guyon, The Unabridged Collected Works, 246. 293 Minois, Bossuet, 590–1. 294 Ibid., 590. 295 For example see Fénelon’s letters to Maintenon on 20 and 26 November 1693, which defended the conduct and beliefs of Mme de La Maisonfort: O.F., 2:269–73. 296 Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 157; Minois, Bossuet, 596. 297 Minois, Bossuet, 596. 298 Bossuet, Oeuvres, xxxiii. 299 Minois, Bossuet, 597. 300 Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 156. 301 Guyon, The Unabridged Collected Works, 250–1. 302 Ibid., 247. 303 Cordelier, Maintenon, 336; and for more on the early stages of the Quietist controversy see Pérou, Mémoires, 298–314. 304 Desprat, Maintenon, 302.

chapter five 1 2 3 4

On the theological nuances see Balsama, “Mme Guyon,” 350–65. G.M., 1:245. C.G., 3:406–8. See the shrewd if short article on this topic by Bayley, “What Was Quietism Subversive Of?,” 195–204. 5 H.B.L., 8:374. 6 Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 157, 159–60. 7 Carcassonne, Fénelon, 6; Bossuet, Oeuvres, 1094; Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 34–7.

430

Notes to pages 138–42

8 Gergy, Mémoires, 368. 9 See, for example, letters from Maintenon to the ducs de Beauvillier and de Chevreuse in June 1694: M.L., 4:895–6. 10 See C.G., 4:3–4. 11 The feeling was mutual. In his letter of December 1693, Fénelon had written about Harlay to Louis, stating that “you have an archbishop who is corrupt, outrageous, incorrigible, false, cunning, artificial, an enemy of all virtue, and who makes all good people grieve. You have accommodated yourself to him because he seeks only to please you with his flattery.” O.F., 2:278. 12 Lavisse, Louis XIV, 304. 13 Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 152; Rothkrug, Opposition, 291. 14 Cognet, Le crépuscule, 251. 15 C.G., 3:419–20. 16 Minois, Bossuet, 599. 17 Qtd in Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 162. 18 Minois, Bossuet, 595. 19 G.M., 1:248. 20 Bergin, Crown, Church, 410. 21 Hillenaar, Fénelon, 56. 22 Born in 1631, he had been appointed archbishop of Cambrai on 17 June 1675 by the King of Spain. 23 C.G., 3:421n4. 24 See Maintenon to Louis-Antoine de Noailles, 17 January 169: C.G., 4:2. 25 Dangeau, Journal, 5:150. 26 Hébert, Mémoires, 231, 239. 27 ss –Coirault, 1:254–5. 28 Hébert, Mémoires, 238, 240. 29 Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 165. 30 Ibid., 165–6. 31 Ibid. 32 Cordelier, Maintenon, 350. 33 Ibid. 34 Carcassonne, Fénelon, 49; Gergy, Mémoires, 372. 35 Minois, Bossuet, 600. 36 Ibid., 598–9. 37 Upham, The Life of Jeanne Guyon, 339; Minois, Bossuet, 603–4. 38 Guyon, The Unabridged Collected Works, 252–3; Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 169–70. 39 Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 168. 40 Desprat, Maintenon, 302. 41 Guyon, The Unabridged Collected Works, 253. 42 Minois, Bossuet, 603–5. 43 Briggs, Communities, 213. 44 Bergin, Crown, Church, 410.

Notes to pages 142–4 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

56 57

58 59 60 61 62 63 64

65 66 67 68

69 70 71

431

Hébert, Mémoires, 244. Ibid. Ibid. Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 173. Briggs, Communities, 216. Hébert, Mémoires, 245. Bergin, Crown, Church, 270–1. Dangeau, Journal, 5:263. C.G., 4:22. L.L., 88. Louis implored his own premier physician, Fagon, on 31 December 1694, to treat the maréchal as he would the king himself if in a similar state of extremity: Dangeau, Journal, 5:128. Lynn, The Wars, 248–9. Wolf demonstrates that Louis XIV and Luxembourg held each other in mutual high regard, noting that the king’s letters of instruction to the maréchal were almost deferential, in contrast to his letters to the dauphin and the maréchal de Lorges, which were detailed and direct: Louis XIV, 466, 476–8. Rowlands, The Dynastic State, 69, 293. Ibid., 293. Orléans, Letters from Liselotte, 73. Riley, A Lust for Virtue, 158; Liselotte was greatly relieved: L.L., 85–6. For a number of examples, see June to August 1695: Dangeau, Journal, 5:225–55. Ibid., 5:239–40. On 19 February the chevalier de Bezons was “closeted” with the king “chez Mme de Maintenon” to give an account of the French cavalry that had been prepared for service in Flanders. After dinner on 20 September and on 4 October long meetings were held with Boufflers “chez Mme de Maintenon,” and another with the maréchaux de Villeroi and de Boufflers was held on 17 November. On 22 November Vendôme enjoyed a long audience with Louis XIV in Maintenon’s rooms, as did Catinat on the 9 and 15 December: ibid., 156–7, 281, 287, 309, 311, 319, 322. Ibid., 272. Ibid., 229. Ibid., 315. For instance, in November 1695, Dangeau witnessed that the king had commanded a maître des requêtes to investigate the organization of the Alsace staging posts on the advice of the comte de Gramont: ibid., 319. Ibid., 163. Ibid., 233, 265–6, 298. Maître d’hôtel de la Dauphine de Bavière from 1679, he was made a counsellor of state, governor of Phalsbourg and Sarrebourg, abbé de Fontenoy in

432

72 73 74 75 76 77 78

79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90

91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98

99 100

Notes to pages 144–9 Bayeux, and chevalier de Saint-Michel and Saint-Lazare: Da Vinha, Les Valets de Chambre, 334. Dangeau, Journal, 4:480–1. Maintenon to L.-A. de Noailles, 18 August 1695: G.M., 1:251. Briggs, Communities, 216. Minois, Bossuet, 601; Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 174. Ibid., 175. Ibid., 170–1; Calvet, Bossuet, 81. Maintenon wrote on 2 January 1696 that the bishop of Meaux was “delighted” because now many evils within the church could be expunged: C.G., 4:58–9. Bergin, Crown, Church, 277. H.B.L., 2:582; the abbé was the nephew of M. de Clermont-Tonnerre, bishop of Noyon, whose brother was the bishop of Laon. G.M., 2:262. “and those who love peace are to be pitied.” M.L., 4:419. Minois, Le confesseur, 442. C.G., 4:11. Church, The Greatness of Louis XIV, 19–20. Briggs, Communities, 224. C.G., 4:32–3. Ibid., 4:9–20. M.L., 4:426. Maintenon avowed to her new pastor, Noailles, on 29 August and again on 10 October 1695, that he would never find a ewe more zealous, respectful, submissive, or affectionate: G.M., 1:251–2; M.L., 4:447. See the king’s supplication to Rome to promote Noailles, 24 August 1695. M.L., 4:420–1. ss –Coirault, 1:258–9. Dangeau, Journal, 5:289–90. M.L., 4:461. Ibid., 4:421; and 5:89. For an index of the numbers and corresponding names and evidence of their use, see G.M., 1:259–60, 266. M.L., 4:464. For example, see Maintenon to Noailles on 11 July 1696, asking whether a request for the “small benefice of Corbeil for Mme de Saint-Bazile” should be brought to the attention of the king, either by herself or her archbishop. C.G., 4:103. “I spoke on La Trappe in conformity with your intentions.” G.M., 1:266. See, for example, missives dated 9 September and 6 and 25 November 1695. C.G., 4:19–20, 32–3; M.L., 4:469–70. C.G., 4:37.

Notes to pages 150–4 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115

116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133

134 135 136 137 138

433

G.M., 1:257–8. M.L., 4:461–2. C.G., 4:50. M.L., 4:459. C.G., 4:36. M.L., 4:474. C.G., 4:43–4. M.L., 4:475. G.M., 1:262. Ibid. Maintenon to Noailles, 8 March 1696: ibid., 266. C.G., 4:59. M.L., 4:472–3. C.G., 4:38. Ibid., 42–3. “You will see every day the King’s confidence in him growing.” Maintenon to Louis-Antoine’s brother, the maréchal de Noailles, 12 September 1695: ibid., 21. M.L., 5:16. C.G., 4:45. M.L., 4:478. Ibid., 4:478. Noailles, Mémoires, 71:429. Bergin, Crown, Church, 93–114. M.L., 4:474–5. Ibid., 4:476–8. C.G., 3:312–25. M.L., 4:479. C.G., 4:52–4. G.M., 1:262. M.L., 4:480–1. G.M., 1:271. M.L., 5:32. C.G., 4:93. Ibid., 4:97–8; Noailles’s counsel was first solicited on this dilemma on 6 and 8 March 1696. M.L., 5:60–1. G.M., 1:273; Maintenon had previously discussed levels of clerical taxation with Chamillart as documented in a letter to Noailles on 12 October 1695. M.L., 4:451–2. C.G., 4:99–100. Ibid., 4:107–8. Ibid., 4:108–9. See ibid., 4:153. M.L., 4:106.

434

Notes to pages 154–9

139 C.G., 4:179–80. 140 Bossuet became premier aumônier. ss –Boislisle, 3:159–61. Maintenon admitted to Noailles that she had found Le Comte admirable but that this judgment was based on only one conversation. C.G., 4:127–8. 141 Lacoutre, Jésuites, 1:388. 142 M.L., 5:33. 143 Fénelon, Oeuvres Complètes, 9:81–4. 144 Hébert, Mémoires, 285. 145 Bossuet, Oeuvres, xxxiv. 146 O.F., 4:239. 147 Fénelon, Oeuvres Complètes, 9:79; Carcassonne, Fénelon, 51–7. 148 O.F., 4:239. 149 Ibid. 150 Ibid. 151 Ibid, 4:249. 152 G.M., 1:277–8. 153 O.F., 4:89–94. For Fénelon’s initial dismayed reaction see his letter to the duc de Cheveuse of 24 July 1696: Fénelon, Oeuvres Complètes, 9:87. 154 M.L., 4:463. 155 C.G., 4:139 156 Upham, The Life, 423. 157 Knox, Enthusiasm, 343. 158 Upham, The Life, 453. 159 C.G., 4:138. 160 O.F., 4:252. 161 Ibid. 162 O.F., 5:117. 163 As described in Articles 8, 9, 12, 13, 19, and 27: Upham, The Life, 394–401, 403–4, 406–7; for more on Fénelon’s doctrine see Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 188–96. 164 C.B., 8:143n8. 165 See Fénelon to Noailles, 17 October 1696: O.F., 4:97–100. 166 Ibid., 4:254. 167 ss –Boislisle, 4:69. 168 Hébert, Mémoires, 249–50. 169 O.F., 4:254. 170 C.B., 8:125–6. 171 Ibid., 8:142; O.F., 4:261–2. 172 C.B., 8:146. 173 Jérôme de Pontchartrain married Eléanore de la Roye-Rochefoucauld, the sister of the comte de Roucy, a branch of the Rochefoucauld family, several of whom refused to renounce their Calvinism; however, a number were granted permission by the king to move to London after the Revocation: see ss –Coirault, 1:362–4; Chapman, Private Ambition, 25.

Notes to pages 159–64

435

174 G.M., 1:282–3. 175 Fénelon, Oeuvres Complètes, 9:79. 176 Ibid., 9:80. The mention of the six interrogations of Mme Guyon prove that this letter should be dated 1697 as they were carried out in October and November 1696 by La Reynie (M.L., 5:91), who resigned the following year after selling his position of Lieutenant-General of the Parisian Police on 22 January to D’Argenson for 50,000 livres. Sourches, Mémoires, 5:235. 177 Gergy, Mémoires, 387. 178 Aguesseau, Oeuvres Complètes, 8:198. 179 Sourches, Mémoires, 5:246. 180 O.F., 4:257–8. 181 M.L., 5:179. 182 C.G., 4:151. 183 Bossuet, Oeuvres, 142; C.B., 8:195. 184 C.G., 4:151. 185 O.F., 4:259. 186 Dangeau, Journal, 6:89. 187 Cognet, Le crépuscule, 395. 188 Qtd in Upham, The Life, 419. 189 C.B., 8:210–11. 190 Ibid., 8:204–5. 191 O.F., 4:260–1. 192 Dangeau, Journal, 6:91. 193 C.B., 8:201–2, 228–30. 194 G.M., 1:284. 195 C.G., 4:152–3. 196 Fénelon, Oeuvres Complètes, 9:137–8. 197 Minois, Bossuet, 658. 198 Fénelon, Oeuvres Complètes, 9:139. 199 O.F., 4:265–6. 200 Ibid., 266; for the letter see Fénelon, Oeuvres Complètes, 9:141–4. 201 O.F., 4:265. 202 C.B., 8:238. 203 O.F., 4:267; C.B., 8:247. 204 C.B., 8:246. 205 Ibid., 8:245. 206 C.G., 4:156. 207 Ibid., 4:156–8. 208 Maisonfort was sent to Meaux, where Bossuet said he would help her as much as he was able: C.B., 8:250. 209 Ibid., 8:260–1; Dangeau also documented the ejection: Journal, 6:117. 210 H.B.L., 2:798. 211 Fénelon, Oeuvres Complètes, 9:87.

436 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255

Notes to pages 164–70 Minois, Bossuet, 658–9. C.B., 8:253–4. See ibid., 8:247. Ibid., 8:256. Ibid., 8:261–2. Ibid., 8:266–68. Ibid., 8:267–8n9. Ibid., 8:268–70. Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 232. C.B., 8:312. O.F., 4:276. C.B., 8:281–9. Dangeau, Journal, 6:143. C.B., 8:279–80. O.F., 4:277. C.B., 8:289–92. O.F., 4:279. Sourches, Mémoires, 5:296. O.F., 4:283–4. Ibid., 4:281. C.G., 4:169. Ibid., 4:169–70. O.F., 4:281. C.B., 8:303. 29 July. C.G., 4:173. M.L., 5:229. C.G., 4:170–2. O.F., 4:282. C.B., 8:308–9. Ibid., 8:520. Ibid., 8:304–05. C.G., 4:173–6. O.F., 4:283. C.B., 8:308–9. O.F., 4:208 Dangeau, Journal, 6:164. O.F., 4:285. M.L., 5:234–5. C.B., 8:311–12. Ibid., 8:524–6. M.L., 5:235. Fénelon, Oeuvres Complètes, 9:186. See Upham, The Life, 426–30. O.F., 4:289.

Notes to pages 170–7 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270

271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278

Fénelon, Oeuvres Complètes, 9:184–5. Minois, Bossuet, 642. Bluche, Louis XIV, ed. Greengrass, 509. As argued by Desprat, Maintenon, 299. Sourches, Mémoires, 5:320. Minois, Bossuet, 643. On the problematical nature of this relationship see Lahaye, “Heir Obedience,” 139–44. He was employed as auditor for Cardinal Howard. Le Camus, Lettres, 534n1. O.F., 4:284. C.B., 8:316. C.G., 4:177. Ibid., 4:180. M.L., 5:301. Ibid., 5:315. Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 231; and see for example the pope’s response on 11 June to Fénelon’s petition of 27 April. Fénelon, Oeuvres Complètes, 9:159. Ibid., 9:209–19. Ibid., 9:223–4. Minois, Bossuet, 647–53. Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 230. C.B., 8:269–70, 309, 337–8. Minois, Bossuet, 643, 655–6, 659–60. Ibid., 632–3, 637–8, 642. M.L., 5:335.

chapter six 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

437

Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 230. Fénelon, Oeuvres Complètes, 9:266. C.B., 9:306–7. Minois, Bossuet, 660–1. Upham, The Life, 461–4. Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 238. Fénelon, Oeuvres Complètes, 9:82–4, 101–4. Dangeau, Journal, 6:339. C.B. 9:345, 391. Ibid., 9:345–51. bn Fr vol. 6919, f. 116; M.L., 5:405–6. C.B., 9:352–3. Minois, Bossuet, 654. Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 239.

438 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

Notes to pages 178–84 C.B., 9:356–60. M.L., 5:345–6. M.L., 5:346–7. Dangeau, Journal, 6:356. M.L., 5:351. C.B., 9:365n2. Ibid., 9:365. Dangeau, Journal, 6:371. Ibid. Ibid., 6:373–4. C.G., 4:163n1. H.B.L., 2:81. G.M., 1:308. Ibid., 1:312. C.G., 4:236. Gergy, Mémoires, 388. ss –Coirault, 1:622. Dangeau, Journal, 6:377–8. C.G., 4:239. Upham, The Life, 426–7. Lizerand, Le duc de Beauvillier, 143. Hébert, Mémoires, 289–90. Qtd in Upham, The Life, 427. Rothkrug, Opposition, 432. Vallot, D’Aquin, and Fagon, Journal, 230–2. Utt and Strayer, The Bellicose Dove, 147. M.L., 5:352. Qtd in McManners, Church and Society, 1:617. M.L., 5:352–3. Dangeau, Journal, 6:383. Minois, Bossuet, 661. Ibid. C.B., 9:377–8. Ibid., 10:87. Ibid., 10:87–8. Brémond, Histoire Littéraire, vol. 2. Minois, Bossuet, 628–30. C.B., 10:12. Dangeau, Journal, 6:374. Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 244. See the abbé Phélypeaux to Bossuet, 24 June 1698. C.B., 10:16–17. Minois, Bossuet, 669–70. C.G., 4:245.

Notes to pages 185–90 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81

82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94

439

Ibid. C.G., 4:256. Ibid., 4:366–7. H.B.L., 3:105. C.G., 4:256. Minois, Bossuet, 662–3. Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 245. Maintenon to Noailles, 22 December 1698. C.G., 4:268–9. Upham, The Life, 444; C.B., 11:42n1. H.B.L., 3:77. Exemplified by Fénelon’s Remarques, published to complement his Réponse à la Relation of Bossuet, who hit back with a Réponse aux Remarques sur la Réponse: see Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 44. Minois, Bossuet, 664. Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 248. Ibid., 241–2. Louis XIV, Lettres, 112; see Louis’s missive thanking the Pope dated 6 April, ibid., 112–13. Rule and Trotter, A World of Paper, 450. G.M., 2:190–1. Minois, Bossuet, 668. Ibid., 665. Hébert, Mémoires, 301–2. Upham, The Life, 485. Guyon, The Unabridged Collected Works, 253–4. Qtd in Fénelon, Telemachus, xxi. Dale Van Kley also disagrees with Denis Richet’s contention that Fénelon ideologically kept religion and politics separate: The Religious Origins, 56–8; and Richet, De la Réforme, 119–39. Bayley, “What Was Quietism Subversive Of?,” 203. C.B., 10:190. ss –Coirault, 1:663. Minois, Bossuet, 671. Sourches, Mémoires, 5:246. Minois, Bossuet, 670. M.L., 5:319–21. Ibid., 5:288–90. Hébert, Mémoires, 290. Dangeau, Journal, 6:239–41. L.L., 95. See Maintenon’s letters to Dangeau in March and June 1697. C.G., 4:148–9; G.M., 1:290–2. Marguerite-Louise de Béthune (1643–1726), second wife of the duc du

440

Notes to pages 190–4

Lude; she had previously been dame d’honneur of Queen Marie-Thérèse. 95 Marie-Anne-Françoise de Saint-Hermine (1667–1734), cousin of Mme de Maintenon. 96 Dangeau, Journal, 5:461–5. 97 Catherine-Françoise d’Arpajon, comtesse de Roucy (1661–1716), wife of François II de la Rochefoucauld, comte de Roucy. 98 Marie-Madeleine-Agnès de Gontaut-Biron (1653–1724). 99 Marie-Anne de la Vergne de Guilleragues, marquise d’O (1657–1737), wife of Gabriel-Claude, marquis de Villers d’O (1654–1728), menin to the Duke of Burgundy and former tutor to the comte de Toulouse. 100 Suzanne Gitault de Bellefonds, marquise de Châtelet (1667–1733). 101 Louise Sublet d’Heudicourt (1668–1707), wife of Jean-François Cordebeuf de Beauverger, marquis de Montgon. 102 ss –Boislisle, 3:158–9. 103 Dangeau, Journal, 6:285. 104 Ibid., 6:322. 105 First announced on 12 March 1698: ibid., 6:310. 106 Ibid., 6:283–90. 107 ss –Boislisle, 5:348–73; C.G., 4:251–2. 108 G.M., 1:312–13. 109 Dangeau, Journal, 6:405, 422. 110 For example, on 16th and 20 September: ibid., 6:422, 424–5. 111 Ibid., 6:420. 112 Maintenon to Noailles, 22 October 1698: M.L., 5:391–2. With a secret treaty concluded by Tallard and Portland renouncing the dauphin’s rights to the Spanish crown in August, and Torcy reporting that Carlos II was currently enjoying his finest health to date on 7 October, Langlois posits that this council would probably have taken place on 8 October, with the Spanish Succession at the top of its agenda: ibid., n1319. Bots and BotsEstourgie concur and suggest this took place “around the 10th”: H.B.L., 3:120n1. 113 For an account of his proselytizing activities, see Utt and Strayer, The Bellicose Dove. 114 Vast, Les grands traits, 2:210; William III, Letters, 1:22–3. 115 Utt and Strayer, The Bellicose Dove, 289. 116 William III, Letters, 1:130–2. 117 Rule, “The Partition Treaties,” 91–108. 118 Dangeau, Journal, 6:429–30. 119 H.B.L., 3:116n6. 120 Ibid., 3:45–6. 121 Sourches, Mémoires, 6:7. 122 On this episode see Monahan, “Rebellion,” 131–44. 123 See Leferme-Falquières, Mémoires des Évêques, xv. 124 H.B.L., 3:111.

Notes to pages 194–9

441

125 Monahan, “Rebellion,” 136–7. 126 See Minois, Bossuet, 517–69; Melchior-Bonnet, Fénelon, 44–69. 127 C.B., 9:311–31; see also Monahan, “Tyrant of Languedoc?”; and Armogathe and Joutard, “Basville,” 157–84. 128 H.B.L., 3:99. 129 Ibid., 3:118. 130 Ibid., 3:116. 131 Ibid. 132 Blanchard, Vauban, 346–7. 133 Vauban, Vauban, 1:465–82. 134 Desprat, Maintenon, 360. 135 G.M., 1:292–9. 136 Ibid., 1:293–7. 137 Ibid., 1:298–9. 138 Strayer, Huguenots, 288–9. 139 Leferme-Falquières, Mémoires des Évêques, 396–407. 140 Ibid., 290–1. 141 Monahan, “Rebellion,” 138–9. 142 Bergin, The Politics of Religion, 273. 143 C.G., 4:188–9, 234. 144 See Dangeau, Journal, 6:440–1; ss –Coirault, 1:562–3. 145 C.G., 4:82–3. 146 Corp, A Court in Exile, 54. 147 See for example a missive to Archbishop Noailles on 27 September 1700. C.G., 4:335. 148 William III, Letters, 1:175. 149 Ibid., 1:189, at the bottom of which the editor’s footnote cites a quotation from a “Note from Lord Hardwicke to Burnet’s History,” stating that “Madame de Maintenon would never see Lord Portland; which was looked on as a bad sign of the French intention towards King William and his government.” 150 Ibid., 1:500. 151 M.L., 5:346. 152 Ibid., 5:419–20. 153 C.G., 4:185. 154 Maintenon to Louis-Antoine de Noailles, 3 September 1698: ibid., 4:246–7. 155 Maintenon to Louis-Antoine de Noailles, 9 September 1697: ibid., 4:178–9. 156 M.L., 5:309–10. 157 C.G., 4:264. 158 The duc and duchesse had many children, including nine girls, eight of whom survived to adulthood and were married into a number of distinguished families; see Ursins, Lettres, 29–31. 159 C.G., 4:264–6. 160 After the death of her first husband, the prince de Chalais, Marie-Anne de

442

161

162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169

170 171 172 173

174 175 176 177 178 179

180 181 182 183 184 185

Notes to pages 199–202 La Trémoïlle (1642–1722) married Flavio Orsini, duc de Bracciano; she adopted a mutation of her second spouse’s name after his death in 1698. Bracciano’s sister, Louisa Angélique de La Trémoïlle, duchesse de Lanti, died in 1698. Her daughter went on to become a dame du palais of the Queen of Spain and married the marquis de Wailly, Jean-Baptiste de Croy, who was made a peer in 1710 and titled the duc d’Havré. M.L., 5:405. According to Dangeau: Journal, 7:173, 175, 179; although Saint-Simon claims that Montchevreuil died on 25 October. ss –Coirault, 1:662–3. Ursins, Lettres, 56–7. C.G., 4:270–1. 21 April 1698: bn Fr vol. 25555, f. 74. bn Fr vol. 25555, f. 72; Swann, Provincial Power, 51–64, 93–6, 160. ss –Coirault, 1:333–7, 549–58. On Fleury’s early career see Campbell, Power and Politics, 41–9. Maintenon to Noailles, 2 November 1698. C.G., 4:296–7. The relevant Bulls arrived in April 1699, and he took possession of his see in January 1701. ss –Coirault, 1:570–3. C.G., 4:297. On these developments at Versailles and Fontainebleau see Dangeau, Journal, 7:141–5; and D’Aguesseau, Oeuvres, 8:220–3. Chapman, Private Ambition, 146. C.G., 4:289; although Dangeau stipulates that it was “a commission not a charge” with an annual return valued at almost 200,000 livres; conversely, the chancellorship was a charge worth approximately 40,000 écus: Journal, 7:143. See Frostin, Les Ponchartrain, 273–410. Dangeau, Journal, 7:146. Saint-Simon described the match as a dreadful mésalliance: ss –Norton, 1:190. Dangeau, Journal, 7:219. ss –Coirault, 1:601n6. Ibid., 1:652–58. Until then the foreign secretary’s responsibilities were shared between Pomponne and his son-in-law, whose function consisted of dealing with foreign dispatches and giving audiences to foreign ambassadors and ministers: ibid., 1:601. Dangeau, Journal, 7:159–60. On 17 December she informed the archbishop that news of his nomination would soon arrive from Rome: M.L., 5:445. Right up to the present day: see the section “De la haine à la légend noire” in Maral, Maintenon, 362–71. L.L., 96. Ibid., 107–8. H.B.L., 8:374.

Notes to pages 202–6 186 187 188 189

190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203

204 205 206 207

208 209 210 211 212

443

Ibid., 8:375–6. Ibid., 8:422. Ibid., 8:424. Liselotte grumbled to her aunt Sophie on 2 February 1691 that “we are becoming more devout here every day; there is a rumour, although I do not know if it is true, that the King’s old trollop has let all the ladies who wear rouge know that they should no longer wear it.” L.L., 71. Maintenon naturally enforced a strict dress code at Saint-Cyr. For more on fashion and sumptuary regulations, see Crowston, Fabricating Women, 1–51. L.L., 85. Liselotte to Raugräfin Luise (the first lady-in-waiting to Electress Sophie), 17 June 1698: ibid., 109. C.G., 4:83–4. M.L., 5:17–18. Riley, A Lust for Virtue, 124–8, 154–61. Dangeau, Journal, 7:211–12. William Brooks proves it was enacted rather than simply advertised: “Louis XIV’s Dismissal of the Italian Actors,” 840–7. Gable, “Tragedy,” 170. For an instructive central and regional analysis of the crown’s attempts to regulate printing, see McLeod, Licensing Loyalty, 68–124. For more on this see Gable, “Tragedy,” 168–91; and on the songs and rhymes that often pilloried Maintenon see Taylor, “The Theatre,” 111–30. M.L., 5:32. Darnton, The Devil in the Holy Water, 369–70. Kaiser, “Louis le Bien Aimé,” 150–1. For an analysis of the deliberately “amusing” anthology of Maintenon’s thoughts and letters published in 1773 titled Le Mantenonia, see H. Krief, “Le Mantenonia (1773) dans la Bataille Encyclopédique,” in Mongenot and Plagnol-Diéval, Madame de Maintenon, 199–211. McCleod, Licensing Loyalty, 68–73; also see I. Boitel, L’image noire de Louis XIV, 257–476. C.G., 4:303–4. Goubert, The Course of French History, 131; see also F. Bluche, “Paris,” in his La vie quotidienne, 78–126. As Dan Fader has quite convincingly claimed in his “The ‘Cabale du Dauphin,’” 380–413; also see “1709: Quitter La Cour?,” and “Un Domaine,” in Lahaye, Le fils de Louis XIV, 252–78, 309–40; and Brooks and Yarrow, “What Madame Saw,” 167–78. M.U.C., 2:53. bn Fr vol. 17435, f. 28. Frostin, Les Pontchartrain, 251. See Conley, Adoration and Annihilation, 1–42. Treasure, Mazarin, 298.

444 213 214 215 216

217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229

230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246

Notes to pages 206–12 Sonnino, Mémoires, 54. Kostroun, Feminism, Absolutism, 210. Ibid., 192, 196; Racine, Abrégé de l’Histoire, 173–6. Weaver, Mademoiselle de Joncoux, 121–2; Adam, Du mysticism, 302. Barcos had determinedly opposed that the nuns sign the compromise formulary as it stood that brought about the “peace” in 1669: Kostroun, Feminism, Absolutism, 137; Strayer, Suffering Saints, 29–30, 93. Lavisse, Louis XIV, 1017. Adam, Du mysticisme, 302. McManners, Church and Society, 2:355–6. Ibid., 2:356. Cognet, Le Jansénisme, 88–9; Sedgwick, The Travails of Conscience, 233. Strayer, Suffering Saints, 143. Ibid., 41. Ibid. Jean Orcibal as qtd in McManners, Church and Society, 2:354. Weaver, Mademoiselle de Joncoux, 125–41. Adam; Du mysticisme, 302–3; Cognet, Le Jansénisme, 93. Dangeau, Journal, 7:104–5; C.G., 4:89–91. Saint-Simon suggests that Racine’s demise was precipitated by his disgrace, brought about by an alleged quip made to the king, which stated that the standard of plays in Paris had declined because the base comedies of Scarron had been revived: ss –Coirault, 1:609–11. Lavallée disagreed, pointing out that Racine had assisted in the presentation of Scarron’s play Jodelet, maître et valet, which was performed to the entire court, including the king and the dauphin, in 1688: C.G., 4:218–19. This was carried out on 10 January; see C.G., 4:274–5; M.L., 5:404n1328. Sourches, Mémoires, 6:108. L.L., 92. Weaver, Mademoiselle de Joncoux, 126–41. Qtd in Strayer, Suffering Saints, 15. Van Kley, The Religious Origins, 71n160. A phrase first coined by Palmer, Catholics and Unbelievers, 29; on this see also Briggs, Communities, 339–45. C.G., 4:115–16; M.L., 5:291. Maintenon to Noailles, 12 October 1695: G.M., 1:255–6. C.G., 4:262–3. Ibid. Clark, Strangers and Sojourners, 220–5. Scott, “James III’s Preceptor,” in Corp, A Court in Exile, 272–3. Ibid., 265–72. Ibid., 273–5. C.G., 4:289–90. G.M., 1:271.

Notes to pages 212–17 247 248 249 250

445

C.G., 4:330–1. Dangeau, Journal, 7:334. Briggs, Communities, 214. L.L., 113. As Forster points out, it would have been humiliating for the duchesse d’Orléans to sit on a stool in Maintenon’s presence when the marquise was ensconced in an armchair. In the king’s presence everyone had to stand apart from the dauphin, dauphine, and their children and the princesses of the blood, who were entitled to sit, or perch, either on a tabouret, which was a sort of low foot stool, or a ployant stool that folded up: see Brochet, Le rang et l’étiquette, 29; and Sternberg, Status Interaction, 50–70. Ironically, Liselotte recorded her dismay, in October 1699, that a similar dispute over rank caused her planned journey to Bar to witness the birth of her first grandchild to be cancelled because of the duc de Lorraine’s insistence that he sit in an armchair in the presence of his father-in-law, Monsieur, which Louis XIV disallowed: L.L., 118; D’Orléans, Letters from Liselotte, 98.

chapter seven 1 Sarmant, Louis XIV, 333. 2 A insightful quotation that Antonia Fraser discovered in the Vincennes archives written by troops on the Spanish border in December 1705, who were requesting Maintenon’s assistance in obtaining wages and better garments: Fraser, Love and Louis XIV, 278, 341. 3 “As I more readily give my opinion on matters pertaining to women than on other affairs, I propose that you select Mme de Bracciano to guide the Princess of Savoy; she is a woman of intelligence, gentleness, refinement, has knowledge of foreigners, and conducts herself in a manner that makes her universally admired; she is well thought of in Spain, has no husband or children and is therefore without compromising pretensions. I tell you this with without design nor any particular interest, but simply because I believe that she is better suited for your requirement than any other woman here.” Maintenon to the French ambassador in Spain, the duc d’Harcourt, 16 April 1701: C.G., 4:423–4. Philip married Marie-Louise on 3 November 1701. 4 H.B.L., 3: 248. 5 M.U.C., 1:279–80. 6 Michelet, Histoire de France, 14:270–7. 7 H.B.L., 8:121. 8 Godet to Maintenon 1703: bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 1–7; also printed in C.G., 5:234. 9 Claydon and Levillain, Louis XIV Outside In, 133–4. 10 A word employed playfully by Mme de Dangeau in a letter to Maintenon to describe the latter and her closest friends, written during or after 1709: E.T., 203.

446 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

Notes to pages 217–22

Duindam, Vienna and Versailles, 230. Rule and Trotter, A World of Paper, 695n328. See Pénicaut, Faveur et pouvoir, 62–164. McCollim, Louis XIV’s Assault on Privilege, 97–9. Guerre, Nicolas Desmaretz, 183–206. Voltaire, Oeuvres Historiques, 811–12. See Rule, “The King in his Council,” 216–41. G.M., 2:48. Ibid., 2:68. E.T., 135. As qtd in Desprat, Maintenon, 407. M.U.C., 1:138. Ibid., 1:277–8. Morrison and Thibaudeau, eds., A Collection, 4:27. E.T., 135. M.U.C., 1:270. G.M., 2:87. As Sourches notes on 5 and 11 October 1706. Mémoires, 10:187, 191. M.U.C., 1:57. G.M., 2:63. Ibid., 2:93. M.U.C., 1:4–5. Ibid., 1:278. Maintenon, Dialogues and Addresses, 107. Ibid., 64. C.G., 5:158. M.U.C., 1:169. G.M., 2:22–34. Godet to Maintenon, 14 September 1708: bmv 1461, P. 67, ff. 105–8. Petitfils, Le Siècle de Louis XIV, 685. Desprat, Maintenon, 370. H.B.L., 2:235. Desprat, Maintenon, 370. “He [the Elector of Cologne] cannot contain himself with regard to the King: he has told him that he wishes his enemies knew him as he really is: all that we hear on this subject induces us to perceive that strange notions are entertained of the King” (Maintenon to des Ursins: 17 October 1706: M.U.C., 1:50); see also the later observations made by the English diplomat Matthew Prior in 1711: Ranum and Ranum, The Century of Louis XIV, 439–51. 45 Desprat, Maintenon, 407–11. 46 Saint-Simon observed that, on hearing that his brother had collapsed, “the King, who ordinarily rushed to Monsieur’s aid on the smallest provocation, went instead to Mme de Maintenon and had her wakened.” ss –Norton, 1:158.

Notes to pages 222–8 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

57 58 59 60 61 62

63 64 65 66 67 68 69

70 71 72 73

447

Ibid., 1:145–6. Da Vinha, Les Valets, 224. Ibid., 332–4. For an amusing and fairly accurate précis of his life and colourful character, see ss –Norton, 2:94–6. See Mme de Caylus to Maintenon, 12 June 1706: E.T., 105. bn nafr vol. 13634, f. 14. Maintenon, Dialogues and Addresses, 55–66. See Maral, Maintenon, 124–7. E.T., 120, 235, 247. M.U.C., 1:115; Maintenon was originally accommodated in four rooms at the Trianon, but relinquished one to enlarge the new suite being created for the Duchess of Burgundy in 1701: Maral, Maintenon, 126. See bmv 1461, vol. P. 68, and 1717, vol. F. 910; G.M., 2:374–95; E.T., 253–442; and Antoine, Louis XV, 20–30. G.M., 2:93. Maintenon, Dialogues and Addresses, 58. As Bertière suggests: Les Reines de France, 2:444–5. Corp, A Court in Exile, 66. Dangeau reveals that after learning Carlos II had expired on the morning of Tuesday the 9th, the first meeting to discuss the testament “chez Mme de Maintenon” lasted seven hours, but that the duc d’Anjou was first informed of Louis XIV’s decision to accept the will in a meeting on Friday, 12 November, with the king, the dauphin and the Duke of Burgundy after the Spanish ambassador had presented Louis XIV with an authentic copy of the testament on Thursday the 11th. Dangeau discovered this on Sunday the 14th, but the king did not leave Fontainebleau until Monday the 15th, formally declaring to the court that the duc d’Anjou was the King of Spain on Tuesday the 16th: Journal, 7:411–18. Baudrillart, Philippe V, 1:41. Lossky, Louis XIV, 261. Dangeau, Journal, 7:415–16. Lynn, The Wars, 270–1. C.G., 5:261–2. bmv 1461, vol. P. 65, ff. 812–4. Maintenon was again partly culpable, proposing to d’Harcourt on 16 April 1701 that Mme de Bracciano be firmly implanted in the royal entourage: H.B.L., 3:293. See letters from the duc de Gramont, the ambassador in Spain, 1704–5: bn nafr vol. 23176; see also ibid., vols. 23177–8. The Queen of Spain to Maintenon, 24 June 1704: C.G., 5:246–7; 19 September 1704: aae md Éspagne, vol. 128, ff. 56–7. aae md Éspagne, vol. 128, ff. 59–61. Louis XIV, Lettres, 133.

448

Notes to pages 228–32

74 Ursins, Lettres, 176. 75 The Queen of Spain to Maintenon, 2 November 1704: C.G., 5:270; 28 November 1704: ibid., 279–90; 19 December 1704: ibid., 286–7; Philip V to Maintenon, 19 December 1704: ibid., 287–8. 76 Cermakian, La Princesse des Ursins, 307–38. 77 C.G., 5:275–6, 302–3. 78 See C.G., 4:355–418. The comte d’Ayen, who bore the title of duc de Noailles from 1704 after inheriting the duché from his father on 20 January, and the duc d’Harcourt transported the duc d’Anjou to Spain. They were accompanied to the border by the comte’s father, the maréchal de Noailles, and by the duc de Beauvillier, after his convalescence, who apprised Versailles of the journey’s progression in conjunction with “le journal que le maréchal de Noailles envoye chaque jour à Mme de Maintenon.” Beauvillier to Louis XIV, 9 December 1700: Burgundy, Le duc de Bourgogne, 403. This journal was probably the one composed by the comte d’Ayen – “Relation du voyage d’Espagne adressé par le comte d’Ayen à Mme de Maintenon,” 1701: C.G., 4:391–410. 79 Ibid., 4:382. 80 See aae md Éspagne, vol. 128; and Perey, Une Reine de Douze Ans. 81 See C.G., 5:196–7; bmv 1461, vol. P. 66, ff. 38–9. 82 For example, see Maintenon to Philip V: bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, f. 354; and Philip V to Maintenon: aae md Éspagne, vol. 99, f. 38. 83 C.G., 5:274–5. M. Puisieulx had been ambassador in Switzerland and wanted payment for his services. He found Maintenon unaccommodating and addressed himself directly to the king instead. Dangeau, Journal, 10:220. 84 Awaiting news of their marriage, Louis reminded his grandson in a letter on 13 November 1701 that “the Queen is your first subject. In this capacity and as your wife she must obey you.” Qtd in Baudrillart, Philippe V, 1 86. 85 Noel, “‘Bárbara Succeeds Elizabeth,’” 160. 86 Lynch, Bourbon Spain, 46. 87 Noel, “‘Bárbara succeeds Elizabeth,’” 161. 88 Kamen, Philip V, 20–1. 89 Ibid., 92. 90 Ibid., 93. 91 Ibid. 92 Noel, “‘Bárbara succeeds Elizabeth,’” 160–1. 93 Baudrillart, “Madame de Maintenon,” 161. 94 Maintenon, Lettres inédites, 1:437–8. 95 M.U.C., 1:246. 96 Maintenon, Lettres, ed. Auger, 3:246. 97 G.M., 2:82–3. 98 Baudrillart, “Madame de Maintenon,” 157. 99 See, for example, letters from Philip V to Maintenon on 21 April 1701: aae

Notes to pages 232–5

449

md Éspagne, vol. 99, ff. 9–10; or on 26 September 1707: bmv 1461, vol. P. 66, ff. 874–76. 100 aae md Éspagne, vol. 99, f. 12. 101 Ibid., f. 14. It should be noted that a decision sanctioning military action had already been taken on 23 January and a letter to that effect had been drafted by Louis to the Spanish council of state on the 24th: C.G., 5:113, 115–16. 102 C.G., 5:.113–14. 103 aae md Éspagne, ff. 20–1. 104 bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 177–8. 105 See missives from Philip V to Maintenon on 28 July 1709: aae md Éspagne, vol. 99, f. 36, and 30 January 1711: “You must understand the importance of the secret nature of the affair in question,” perhaps referring to covert peace negotiations or the plan to attack Girona after the Spanish victories at Brihuega and Villa-Viciosa in December 1710: ibid., f. 40. Philip often enclosed letters to and from important figures such as Jean Amelot and the princesse des Ursins: see ibid., ff. 32, 36. 106 On 13 August 1708 he complained about the duc d’Orléans, who had promulgated his criticisms of Philip V’s military tactics: ibid., ff. 26–7. On 13 April 1709 Philip bemoaned that all the letters “that arrive from France signal that the King wants to abandon Spain to make peace. I hope that God and my courage do not abandon me and that you will not disapprove of such sentiments in a Prince so highly worthy of your esteem and friendship.” Ibid., f. 32. 107 1 November 1704: C.G., 5:270–2; 26 September 1712: bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 428–30. 108 22 July 1705: aae md Éspagne, vol. 128, ff. 89–90; 6 September 1705: ibid., ff. 97–9; 14 October 1705: ibid., ff. 102–3. 109 26 October 1712: Noailles, Mémoires, 74:177–9. 110 27 March 1705: C.G., 5:317. 111 Ibid., 5:63–4. 112 Lynch, Bourbon Spain, 47. 113 Rule, “Colbert de Torcy,” 221. 114 Rule and Trotter, A World of Paper, 392. 115 Louville, Mémoires Secrètes, 1:167. 116 Rule and Trotter, A World of Paper, 385–92. 117 Ibid., 394–414. 118 Rule, “Colbert de Torcy,” 275. 119 Cermakian, La Princesse des Ursins, 617–18. 120 Lahaye, “Heir Obedience,” 138. 121 Maintenon to Philip V: C.G., 4:445–6. In outlining a program of devotional exercises for the comtesse de Caylus on 22 July 1707, Maintenon required the comtesse to repeat thirteen masses each to Sainte-Geneviève, to the Saint–Ésprit, to “notre Dame,” and “to King James.” bmv 1461, vol. P. 66,

450

122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129

130

131 132

133 134 135 136 137 138 139

Notes to pages 235–7 ff. 839–40. Her confessor, after the death of Chartres in 1709, Joachim La Chétardie (curé de Saint-Sulpice), impressed on the marquise in 1712 that helping “the Pretender” James III and his family was morally ethical and would be spiritually rewarding. Ibid., vol. P. 67, ff. 447–9. 16 August 1712. Ibid., ff. 420–3. Corp, A Court in Exile, 158–79, with a table depicting the regularity of inter-family meetings provided on 167. Ibid., 169. C.G., 4:449–50. Torcy, Mémoires 67:102–3. Le Roy Ladurie, The Ancien Régime, 270–1. Petitfils, Le Siècle de Louis XIV, 590–1. “I have no trouble believing, Madame, that in making the declaration in his council the King created a very heroic and very tender scene.” Maintenon to des Ursins, 17 July 1712: G.M., 2:309. The renunciation was signed by Philip in the presence of “all the heads of our noble houses and the counsellors of state” on 12 July 1712 and formally registered by “an assembly of all the Estates of the kingdom [of Spain]” on 2 November. For a brief account of the latter ceremony, which she described as “splendid,” see the Queen of Spain to Maintenon, 6 November 1712: Noailles, Mémoires, 74:179–80. She was desperate that peace be established but nonetheless elucidated to the duc de Noailles on 1 April 1712 that “others write more plainly that the King of Spain is very accustomed to being where he is, and that it will pain him to come here. That is what I have great difficulty understanding.” G.M., 2:306. Ibid., 2:290. Maintenon to James III, 2 March 1714: bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, 551–2. He had withdrawn to Bar in Lorraine in February 1713. On 31 May 1713 Maintenon told Ursins that “the chevalier de Saint-George is charmed by the way he has been received at the court of Lorraine: we must yet see the re-establishment of this prince, whose reputation grows daily.” G.M., 2: 327. James III was evidently enormously grateful for the patronage and protection he had been accorded in France; see “the Pretender” to Louis XIV, 1714: bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 552–3. See H.B.L., 10:393, 397, 529, 602; and 11:213, 230, 241; and Szechi, Britain’s Lost Revolution? Voltaire, Oeuvres Historiques, 805–7. Corp, A Court in Exile, 59, 162. G.M., 2:158. bmv vol. P. 66, ff. 912–13. Lynn, The Wars, 317–18; M.U.C., 1:146. For an excellent account of this enterprise and the sometimes comical way in which it was planned and executed, see Gibson, Playing the Scottish Card; and recently, with a more thorough consideration of the French archival

Notes to pages 237–9

140 141

142

143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155

156

451

sources, Szechi, Britain’s Lost Revolution? For relevant documents see “Mémoire sur le projet de descente de Jacques III en Écosse”: aae md Angleterre, vol. 24; “La correspondence entre Jacques II et M. de Torcy de 1688–1715”: ibid., vol. 75; “Correspondence secrète et militaire, sur l’armée de Flandre et l’expédition en Écosse, de 1705 à Septembre 1711”: aae cp Angleterre, vols. 219–43. For example, see 12 March 1708: bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 24–8; 14 March 1708: ibid., ff. 28–31. “I have come here [Versailles] to finish my letter having asked the King for permission to talk to you about the affair of Scotland … You judge rightly, Madame, that if God blesses this enterprise it will provide a powerful diversion that may lead to peace.” G.M., 2:156. “We await with impatience news from Scotland.” Maintenon to the archbishop of Rouen, 30 March 1708: bn nafr vol. 13634, f. 7. “You are too good a Frenchman, my Reverend Father, and too attached to the King not to want to procure all the prayers possible in favour of the King of England; his arrival in Scotland will enable to us to give peace.” March 1708: bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 15–16. Recounting discussions between herself, Louis, Mary of Modena, and the chevalier de Saint-George while supping together at Marly. G.M., 2:160. M.U.C., 1:148. Ibid., 1:150. Maintenon to the comtesse de Caylus, 15 March 1708: bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 40–1. M.U.C., 1:150. Qtd in Szechi, Britain’s Lost Revolution?, 25. M.U.C., 1:152. G.M., 2:158–9. See the duke’s letter to Maintenon, 7 August 1708: Noailles, Mémoires, 74:147–8. G.M., 2:280; and see Lahaye, “Heir Obedience,” 139–44. Torcy, Journal, 64–5. Qtd in Rule, ed., Louis XIV, 97. Gibson, The Scottish Card, 107–47, who claims plausibly that if the Pretender had at least landed somewhere in Scotland then the some sort of insurrection would have ensued, but treacherous tempests and tactics ensured defeat. 14 June 1709: G.M., 2:211–2. “The Chevalier de Saint-George is going to Flanders if we can provide him with the means to leave, which effectively gives him nothing. We no longer pay the Queen; everything is in an extremity.” Maintenon to the duc de Noailles, 9 June 1709: ibid., 209. Modena submitted a similar petition, the following April, to Louis XIV through a letter to Maintenon, requesting assistance on behalf of her son’s desire to campaign with French forces in 1710. bmv 1461, vol. P. 67. ff. 166–71.

452 157 158 159 160 161

162 163 164 165

166 167 168 169 170 171

172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179

180 181 182

Notes to pages 239–42 12 Jan 1714: ibid., ff. 524–5. 13 Jan 1714: ibid., ff. 517–19. Bluche, Louis XIV (1986 ed.), 844–6. That denounced aggrandisement, but encouraged a recourse to arms to repel invaders and defend established frontiers. M.U.C., 1:236; see also Maintenon’s letters to the archbishop of Rouen, 2 March 1710: bn naf r vol. 13634, f. 31; 24 July 1710: ibid., ff. 38–9; and Maintenon to Lamoignon de Bâville, August 1710: G.M., 2:257. G.M., 2:239. Guerre, Nicolas Desmaretz, 209–10. Qtd from ss –Norton, 1:125n1; see also the king’s positive comments adjoining Chamillart’s letter dated 22 September 1707: Louis XIV, Lettres, 141–2. For more on this see the instructive section in Pénicaut, Faveur et pouvoir, 142–59; and also Félix, “Profits, Malversations, Restitutions,” 831–74, who brilliantly details how extraordinarily difficult Chamillart’s task was. I would like to thank the author for generously sending me a copy of his article. For a description of his disgrace, magnanimity, and character, see ss –Coiraut, 3:497–503. C.G., 4:371–72. G.M., 2:93. bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 40–1. G.M., 2:172. Mme de Maintenon addressing the Blue Class in 1707 (students aged from 17–20 years) “On the Utility of Reflection.” Maintenon, Dialogues and Addresses, 98–9. Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 2:444. As Pénicaut sympathetically points out: Faveur et pouvoir, 218–25. For example, see Collins, The State, 195–227; Dee, Expansion and Crisis, 109–79; and Kwass, Privilege, 1–154. Guerre, Nicolas Desmaretz, 211; Rowlands, The Financial Decline, 181–230. Rule and Trotter, A World of Paper, 373–3, 398–419. G.M., 2:218. H.B.L., 3:876–7. Based at Meudon, the cabal flourished under the Grand Dauphin’s patronage. Its most salient constituents were Monseigneur’s mistress, Mlle Choin; Mme de Montespan’s daughter, Mme la Duchesse; her brother-in-law, the duc d’Antin; the duc de Vendôme; the maréchal de Villeroi; and several members of the houses of Lorraine and of the Conti and Condé families. See Lahaye, Le fils de Louis XIV, 334–40. Maintenon, Lettres, ed. Auger, 3:248–9. Ibid., 3:250–1; see also Maintenon to Villeroi, 30 November 1707: ibid., 256–7. M.U.C., 1:48.

Notes to pages 242–4

453

183 On 1 April 1708 she complained in writing to the princesse des Ursins that M. Chamillart “is always very languid.” bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 42–3. 184 G.M., 2:161. 185 “M. Chamillart has retired like an honnête homme, disputing nothing, withholding nothing, and with a righteousness that cannot be praised too highly. The maréchal de Villeroi triumphs; he is an intimate friend of M. Desmaretz.” Maintenon to des Ursins, 4 March 1704: G.M., 2: 155; “on entering my chamber after returning to Saint-Cyr, I found on my table a letter from M. Chamillart, which apprised me of his disgrace … It is Monseigneur [the dauphin] who determined the mind of the King.” Maintenon to Noailles, 3 June 1709: ibid., 210–11. 186 Maintenon to the archbishop of Rouen, 12 July 1709: bn naf r vol. 13634, f. 20. See also Maintenon to the duc de Noailles, 28 July 1709: G.M., 2:218. 187 Pénicaut, Faveur et pouvoir, 122–59. 188 ss –Coirault, 2:158–9. 189 Petitfils, Louis XIV, 621–32. 190 For Chamillart’s letter and the king’s reply see Chamillart, Michel Chamillart, 1:154–5. In an undated, but presumably subsequent, communication that expatiated on the chronic financial situation, and posited various measures to redeem it, the controller-general’s resignation was more earnestly tendered in recommending a colleague with greater economic expertise, namely Desmaretz, for his post: “the state in which I found the affairs of Your Majesty demanded two things equally necessary to restore them. The first – a great deal of attention and a firm resolve on the part of Your Majesty to regulate spending a little more in line with income. The second – a person of consummate experience who can withstand the weight of a difficult job; I can only offer Your Majesty my zeal and devotion … I enclose the memoir of M. Desmaretz; I respectfully implore Your Majesty to read it, so that you may know for certain that how absolutely necessary it is that revenue must be increased in order to cover expenditure.” Chamillart to Louis XIV: aae md France, vol. 137, ff. 87–90. 191 See Chamillart, Michel Chamillart, 1:251–3. 192 aae md France, vol. 137, ff. 91–4. 193 Sourches, Mémoires, 9:196. 194 Ibid., 9:204. 195 Dangeau, Journal, 11:113; Sourches, Mémoires, 10:440. 196 Sourches, Mémoires, 12:98–9. 197 Maintenon, Lettres, ed. Auger, 3:269. 198 Ibid., 3:251. 199 “I would like to provide remedies for the faults that I see and those that I fear, but I am as incapable as I am zealous, which is a great misfortune.” Ibid., 273–4. 200 bn naf r vol. 13634, f. 22.

454

Notes to pages 244–9

201 Comte Jules Adrien (1690–1710) became a knight of Malta and lieutenant-general of the Auvergne. Marquis Jean Emmanuel (1693–1725) became a brigadier des armées du roi and inherited the post of lieutenant-general of Guyenne from his elder brother, Emmanuel Jules (1686–1702). 202 bmv 1461, vol. P. 66, f. 379. 203 C.G., 4:361–2. 204 11 July 1705: C.G., 5:366–7. 205 3 September 1706: G.M., 2:94–5. 206 26 June 1705: C.G., 5:350–1. 207 22 February, 28 April, and 24 July 1706: G.M., 2:75, 80–1, 93–4. 208 16 September 1704: C.G., 5:266–8. 209 9 June 1709: G.M., 2:207–10. 210 15 July 1706 and 5 August 1710: ibid., 2:89, 253–5. 211 Maintenon to Bâville, 18 February 1706: ibid., 2:74; Beik, Absolutism and Society, 115–16, 301. 212 H.B.L., 3:485–6. 213 Ultimately the arrival of a fleet of English and Dutch ships on 7 May put paid to Philip’s efforts, which almost succeeded. Kamen, Philip V, 48. 214 H.B.L., 3:749–50. 215 24 July 1706: G.M., 2:92–3. 216 H.B.L., 3:779–80. 217 Lynn, The Wars, 314. 218 She also confided these fears in a letter to the duke’s uncle, Archbishop Noailles, the day before. See H.B.L., 4:160. And she was proved correct, for the Duke of Savoy entered Provence on 23 July, but retreated on 22 August after a failed assault on Toulon. 219 Ibid., 4:160–1. 220 Guy Nicholas de Durfort, duc de Lorges (1683–1758), who had married Chamillart’s third daughter, Élisabeth Geneviève (1687–1714), in 1702. 221 H.B.L., 4:162. 222 For a balanced account of the maréchal’s exploits see Ziegler, Villars. 223 Liselotte reflected the general view held at court in commenting to Electress Sophie on 28 January 1708, that “it seems to me that Villars might be well satisfied with what he has already gotten out of Germany, for no-one in France is wealthier than he. It is a great flaw in a hero to be greedy.” L.L., 168. 224 Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 1:207–8. 225 By intelligently employing more moderate tactics as well as military force: see Monahan, “The Children of God,” in his Let God Arise, 212–34; Ziegler, Villars, 126–72. 226 H.B.L., 8:557. 227 Ibid., 8:574.

Notes to pages 249–53

455

228 “Madame, I received a letter from Mme de Saint-Géran [one of Maintenon’s intermediaries] that will more than likely restore peace in my heart, which was truly troubled and with good reason.” Villars to Maintenon, 21 October 1703: Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 1:195. 229 A blazing row had erupted in the summer of 1704 between La Vrillière and the maréchal, who argued that the Protestant insurrection in Languedoc was a matter for the secretary of state for war and not the secretary for the R.P.R.: ibid., 1:199–206. 230 See for example Villars to Maintenon, 12 July 1704: ibid., 1:202–6. 231 Villars, Mémoires, ed. Vogüé, 2:65. Chamillart had flatly refused to countenance such a bold request. 232 Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 1:202–6, 208. Villars immediately set off to reorganize forces along the Rhine and, from 1705 to 1707, reported regularly and dutifully to his patron all occurrences of relative importance: ibid., 1:210–15. 233 Ibid., 1:212–14. 234 Villars, Mémoires, ed. Petitot and Monmerqué, 68:235. 235 Sarmant, Louis XIV, 458. 236 See Vault and Pelet, eds., Mémoires Militaires, 8:52–8, 80–2, 135–8; Louis XIV, Oeuvres, 6:193–7; Wolf, Louis XIV, 551–2. 237 Wolf, Louis XIV, 551. 238 Ibid. 239 Petitfils, Louis XIV, 616. 240 Lavisse, Louis XIV, 110–11. 241 ss –Norton, 1:383. 242 Cénat, Le Roi Stratège, 236. 243 Vault and Pelet, eds., Mémoires Militaires, 8:9–10. 244 M.U.C., 1:176. 245 Sarmant, Louis XIV, 458. 246 Vault and Pelet, eds., Mémoires Militaires, 8:31; Cénat, Le Roi Stratège, 237. 247 Wolf, Louis XIV, 551. 248 Pénicaut, Faveur et pouvoir, 199, who agrees with Guy Rowlands that labelling Louis’s management of military affairs as a “cabinet strategy” is inaccurate and that it was merely an attempt to coordinate a complex campaign. Either way the impact was detrimental. Cénat is more critical of Louis’s style of micro-management as appraised in a subsection, “Les Paradoxes de la stratégie de cabinet pendant la guerre de succession d’Espagne” (The Paradoxes of the cabinet strategy during the War of the Spanish Succession), in his Le Roi Stratège, 241–3. 249 M.U.C., 1:188. 250 Noailles, Mémoires, 74:139–41. 251 Ibid., 74:141. 252 Ibid.

456 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283

284 285 286 287 288 289 290

Notes to pages 253–8 Ibid., 74:143. Vault and Pelet, eds., Mémoires Militaires, 8:88–9. Noailles, Mémoires, 74:143–4. G.M., 2:169–71. Petifils, Louis XIV, 615–18. G.M., 2:171. 30 July 1708: M.U.C., 2:170–2. Maintenon, Lettres inédites, 1:289. M.U.C., 1:173–4. 10 June 1710: Burgundy, Lettres du duc de Bourgogne, 2:182. Noailles, Mémoires, 74:144–5. Ibid., 74:145. Ibid., 74:148–9. Ibid. Ibid., 74:145–6. Ibid., 74:146. Voltaire, Oeuvres Historiques, 812; and see Cénat, Le Roi Stratège, 217–43. For more on his career and influence see Cénat, Chamlay. For example, see memoirs addressed to Burgundy on the 20 July and 16 August 1708: Vault and Pelet, eds., Mémoires, 8:404–7, 419–24. Noailles, Mémoires, 74:146–9. Ibid., 74:148. Ibid., 74:149–50. Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 1:216. M.U.C., 1:183. bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 102–5. H.B.L., 4:399. Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 1:217. Ibid., 217–18. Ibid., 218–19. Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 2:433. On 19 August she had commented to des Ursins that “it is certainly lamentable to reflect on the diversity of opinion that exists betwixt the Duke of Burgundy and M. de Vendôme. Let us hope that they will be reconciled by the importance of the objects upon which they have to confer.” M.U.C., 1:178. In part achieved by Chamillart, whose efforts were denigrated by SaintSimon: ss –Coirault, 3:225–6. Burgundy, Lettres, 2:191–2. Wolf, Louis XIV, 553, 658n44. ss –Coirault, 3:246. Ibid., 3:248–9. Louis XIV, Oeuvres, 6:194. Ibid., 6:197.

Notes to pages 258–64 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334

H.B.L., 9:466–7. Ostwald, Vauban under Siege, 100–3. Holmes, Marlborough, 392. Rule and Trotter, A World of Paper, 420. Ibid. Vault and Pelet, eds., Mémoires Militaires, 8:91–4. Ibid, 8:90–1. ss –Norton, 1:386–7. Vault and Pelet, eds., Mémoires Militaires, 8:94–6. Ibid., 8:95. Ibid. Noailles, Mémoires, 74:151–3. Ibid., 74:153. ss –Coirault, 3:250–1. M.U.C., 1:184–5. G.M., 2:179–80. bmv 1461, P. 67, ff. 82–3, 87–90. Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 1:219. Vault and Pelet, eds., Mémoires Militaires, 8:433–5. Holmes, Marlborough, 397. Gergy, Mémoires, 189. G.M., 2:175–8. Burgundy, Lettres, 2:194. Ibid. Noailles, Mémoires, 74:153. Ibid., 74:154. M.U.C., 1:186. ss –Coirault, 3:261. Ibid., 3:262. Burgundy, Lettres, 2:195–6. Holmes, Marlborough, 397. Ibid. G.M., 2:182–3. bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 105–8. Louis XIV, Oeuvres, 3:605–9. 15 October: ibid., 3:610–13. 25 October: ibid., 3:614–16. 17 November: ibid., 3:616–17. Ibid., 3:608. Ibid., 3:609–10. Qtd in Noailles, Mémoires, 74:155. M.U.C., 1:197. Ibid., 1:198. Ibid., 1:201.

457

458 335 336 337 338 339 340 341

342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361

Notes to pages 264–73 Rule and Trotter, A World of Paper, 420. M.U.C., 1:199. Ibid., 1:200. Ibid., 1:205–6. Ibid., 1:203. Ibid., 1:211. Further elevating the duché into a duché-pairie. Boufflers had been awarded the former in recognition of his equally resiliant defence of Namur between July and September 1695. ss –Coirault, 3:319–22. Ibid., 3:315. Ibid., 3:319, 1312n6, 1305n3. Ibid., 3:447–9, 1367n3. Ibid., 3:449–52, 1368n3. Ibid., 3:333. M.U.C., 1:189–90; H.B.L., 4:422. Ibid., 1:196. Ibid. Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 2:446. G.M., 2:179n1. Lynn, The Wars, 317. Ibid., 324–5. Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy, 110–17. Lynn, The Wars, 323–4. G.M., 2:184. Maintenon, Lettres inédites, 1:367–9. G.M., 2:79–80. M.U.C, 1:215. Ibid., 1:180.

chapter eight 1 bmv 1461, vol. P. 65, ff. 733–9; see also “Lettres et réflexions pieuses de l’abbé de Brisacier, directeur de Mme de Maintenon”: bn Fr vol. 13249. 2 bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 16–20. 3 Ibid., ff. 21–4; for the full printed version of Godet’s mmessage see H.B.L., 9:409–14. 4 See E.T. 5 Langlois, Maintenon, 147–9, 152–3, 155, 158, 171–4, 201. 6 Ibid., 191. 7 Wolf, Louis XIV, 599–601. 8 C.G., 5:282–3; for the manuscript see bmv 1461, P. 66, ff. 228–31. 9 ss –Coirault, 3:312–3.

Notes to pages 273–80

459

10 G.M., 2:45–52; Geffroy reproduces the original version, which has visibly been torn out of volume 5 of the Lettres Édifiantes: bmv 1461 vol. P. 66, 255–65. 11 G.M., 2:44, 46. 12 Ibid., 2:47–8. 13 Many courtiers seized the opportunity to introduce friends and family members to the king, either as he walked from his apartments to those of Maintenon, or within his wife’s chambers. See Sourches, Mémoires, 12:158, 427; 13:249, 459. 14 G.M., 2:44–5. 15 H.B.L., 4:217. 16 G.M., 2:46–7. 17 Sourches notes on 5 September 1699 that Pontchartrain worked with the king in the evening in Maintenon’s apartment at Fontainebleau: Mémoires, 6:183. 18 G.M., 2:48. 19 Ibid., 2:51. 20 Ibid., 2:48–9. 21 Ibid., 2:50. 22 H.B.L., 4:712. 23 G.M., 2:51. 24 For an example see Boitel, L’Image Noire de Louis XIV, 315. 25 Voltaire, Oeuvres Historiques, 939. 26 ss –Boislisle, 28:273. 27 Aumale, Souvenirs, 1:188–9. 28 ss –Norton, 2:27. 29 Aumale, Souvenirs, 1:188. 30 L.L., 165. 31 Taylor references numerous manuscripts held at five Parisian archives, plus multiple volumes of publications, printed in the closing years of the reign or shortly afterwards, that are packed full of poems, songs, rhymes, plays, and satirical diatribes lampooning and lambasting the malevolent influence that Maintenon allegedly exercised over a frail and manipulable monarch: “Theatre and the Court,” 112–30. 32 For examples see Boitel, L’Image Noire de Louis XIV, 53, 56, 332, 337, 474–5. 33 Louis-Antoine de Pardaillan de Gondrin was the son of the marquis and marquise de Montespan. 34 For example, on 12–13 September 1707, when, after being shown to her apartment, she was given a tour of the newly expanded gardens before dining with the Duchess of Burgundy, Madame (Liselotte), and their ladies. Sourches, Mémoires, 10:398. 35 Anne Julie de Melun-Épinoy (1672–1734), who acted regularly in court comedies from 1702.

460 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

70 71 72 73 74

Notes to pages 280–5 G.M., 2:153–4. Dangeau, Journal, 12:395. C.G., 5:429. Maintenon, Lettres historiques, 2:248. ss –Boislisle, 28:249. Rule, “The King in his Council,” 221–3. H.B.L., 4:387. Maintenon, Lettres historiques, 2:247–8. Dangeau, Journal, 10:88–9; see also Maintenon’s letter to Villeroi on 10 August applauding the King’s “magnificence.” H.B.L., 3:509. Born on 8 January 1707. G.M., 2:137–8. ss –Boislisle, 2:368–9; 15:242. Sourches, Mémoires, 13:8–9. Ibid., 12:257–8. C.G., 5:195–6. Sourches, Mémoires, 11:69. Ibid., 12:25. Aumale, Souvenirs, 2:171–2. ss –Boislisle, 28:278–9. Ibid. See also Maintenon to the princesse de Vaudémont (the duchesse d’Elbeuf’s step-daughter), 31 December 1712: Langlois, Maintenon, 207. ss –Boislisle, 28:279–80. Aumale, Souvenirs, 2:299. ss –Boislisle, 28:246–8. bn nafr vol. 13634, f. 45. ss –Boislisle, 28:251–2. Maintenon, Madame de Maintenon dans le monde, 401–2. Kennedy, “From Stage to Cloister,” 118. Maintenon, Institutrice, 151. G.M., 2:123–4. The former ground floor apartments of Queen Marie-Thérèse. ss –Boislisle 15:242n3. The prince de Léon. G.M., 2:164. For further examples of the nature of their relationship see four letters from Bourgogne to Maintenon written in 1707 and 1708: bmv 1461, vol. P. 66, ff. 704–5, 907; vol. P. 68, ff. 8–9, 81–2. L.L., 172. ss –Norton, 2:220n1. bmv 1461 vol. P. 66, f. 537. Ibid., vol. P. 67, ff. 100–1. See G.M., 1:127–30.

Notes to pages 286–93 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98

99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112

461

17 August 1708: Burgundy, Lettres, 2:190. L.L., 169. M.U.C., 1:115. See Maintenon to Mme de Dangeau: bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 319–20. E.T., 217–19. G.M., 2:132; H.B.L., 4:200; bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 286–8. See the Duchess of Burgundy to Maintenon: bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 280–2. bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 305–7. “M. le Dauphin and Mme la Dauphine cut a fine figure.” Maintenon to the duc de Noailles, 27 April 1711: G.M., 2:281. H.B.L., 4:317, 399. G.M., 2:262; Dangeau, Journal, 13:295. G.M., 2:293. Ibid., 2:114–15. E.T., 240–1; Dangeau, Journal, 11:20, 313, 410; Sourches, Mémoires, 6:230, 234; 12:136, 138. Now preserved at the Château de Maintenon. H.B.L., 8:484. Ibid., 8:485. bmv 1461, vol. P. 65, f. 835; also printed in C.G., 5:182. bmv 1461, vol. P. 66, ff., 75–6; also printed C.G., 5:232–3. bmv 1461, vol. P. 66, f. 142. Louis XIV, Ouevres, 6:186–7. Maintenon, Lettres Historiques, 2:275. Ibid., 2:198. Chaline, Le Règne de Louis XIV, 728, which he expands on in his L’Année des Quatre Dauphins in which there are many illuminating sections on Maintenon, and the court, and the significance of the role she played within the royal family at this traumatic time: 82–180. Maintenon, Lettres, ed. Auger, 3:242. Maintenon, Dialogues and Addresses, 98–9. G.M., 2:9–12. C.G., 5:253. ss –Boislisle, 28:272–3. See Maintenon to the duc de Noailles, 2 May 1705: G.M., 2:57. Ibid., 2:56. Gergy, Mémoires, 327. ss –Boislisle, 28:275–6n8. Gergy, Mémoires, 305–6. ss –Boislisle, 28:274. Ibid., 28:275. Gergy, Mémoires, 305. The king gave her some land at Versailles, where previously building

462

113 114 115 116 117 118 119

120 121

122

123 124

125 126 127

128

129

Notes to pages 293–5 materials had been stored until 1684; a “gratification” of 30,000 livres in rentes on the town in 1692; and a small tax-farming concession that brought in 150 livres from a portion of the profit from the aides and gabelles levied by the convent of the Augustins de Notre-Dame du Grand Marché at Meaux, where two of Nanon’s aunts were nuns. ss –Boislisle, 28:275–6. Aumale, Souvenirs, 2:177. L.L., 128. Maintenon to des Ursins, 5 December 1706: M.U.C., 1:65–6. See, for example, Maintenon to the marquise de Villette, 29 June 1714: bmv 1462, vol. G. 227, ff. 18–19. See Maintenon to Caylus: C.G., 5:294–5. Relatives of her grandmother, Suzanne de Lezay, dame de Mursay. “Enquire, without naming me, my dear niece, of the circusmtances of M. le marquis de Lezay; it is a long time since I have heard talk of his penury; but I cannot believe that his family would leave him to starve to death; he is our relative and we have a double obligation to assist him.” Morrison and Thibaudeau, eds., A Collection, 4:33. Hélie, marquis de Saint-Hermine, was Maintenon’s cousin by marriage. Louise-Françoise (1691–1769) was a Saint-Cyr graduate and married the marquis de Listenois, who became a maréchal de camp in 1710 and died later that same year. Marie-Claire Des Champs de Marsilly was the second wife of Maintenon’s cousin, the marquis de Villette, from 1695. Their union produced three children. One daughter, Isabelle-Sophie-Louise, became Abbess of Notre-Dame de Sens, and her sister, Constance-Lucie, married the marquis de SaintHérem. Notably, their brother Ferdinand (1697–1717) became lieutenant-générale of Maintenon’s native province of Poitou. Philippe, comte de Mursay, who had been promoted to lieutenant-générale in 1704 and was killed at Turin in 1706. Louis Henri, comte de Saint-Hermine, was the grandson of Maintenon’s cousin. He also served in the army and was made a lieutenant-générale in 1704. He died in 1707. Mme de Mailly’s granddaughter. C.G., 5:324–5. Lieutenant des gardes du corps du Roi, and promoted Mestre de camp de cavalerie in 1709, Aubin de Montgon was a cousin by marriage of Maintenon. Maintenon, “Quelques lettres,” 28, 39–40; the transcriptions are occasionally inexact, but the originals can be consulted at bmv 1462, vol. G. 227, ff. 4–5, 14–15. She continued that “they respond unanimously that he deserves all

Notes to pages 295–9

130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140

141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152

153 154

155 156

463

this himself.” Maintenon to the archbishop of Rouen, 6 July 1710: Maintenon, “Quelques lettres,” 32; bmv 1463, vol. G. 224, ff. 5–6. Maintenon to the comte d’Aubigné, 26 July 1709: bn naf r vol. 13634, f. 22. He had married the daughter of the marquis de Villandry in 1713. Sourches, Mémoires, 13:57. bn nafr vol. 13634, f. 20. Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 2:440. Ibid., 2:442. Ibid., 2:434–6. Villars to Maintenon, 6 June 1709: ibid., 2:443. Ibid., 2:442–3. Ibid., 2:443. 19 June 1709: ibid., 2:447. Ibid., 2:462–3. Maintenon may have been instrumental in arranging and then convincing the maréchale de Boufflers to sacrifice pride for practicality and accept, on 5 October 1711, the generous pension of 12,000 livres she needed to repay her late husband’s many creditors. See ss –Coirault, 4:319–20. Maintenon to Villars, 31 August 1711: Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 2:463. Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 683; thirty-seven of the original autographs can be consulted at bmv 1718, vol. G. 326. Aumale, Souvenirs, 1:96–7. After Philippe de Villette’s death in 1707, she was remarried to Lord Bolingbroke in 1720. Voltaire, Oeuvres Historiques, 937. Ibid. As asserted by the marquis de Sourches, here qtd in ss –Norton, 1:191n1. See the chapter titled “Une amitié de combat, 1700–1715,” in Hillenaar, Fénelon, 214–96. G.M., 2:190. Maintenon, Lettres Historiques, 2:367–8. M.U.C., 1:254–5. For superlative illustrations of this art in practice see missives from Maintenon to des Ursins on 27 October 1709: ibid., 2:31–4; 25 November 1709: Maintenon, Lettres inédites, 2:174; 9 June 1714: M.U.C., 2:36. Ibid., 60. Maintenon to Villars, 12 June 1710: Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 2:455–6; Maintenon to the comte de Tigny, 2 June 1711: bn naf r vol. 13634, ff., 47–8. Dangeau, Journal, 8:38–9. C.G., 4:463. D’Antin eventually attained the distinction, although the

464

157 158 159 160 161 162

163 164

165 166 167 168

169 170 171 172

Notes to pages 299–300 advocacy of the duc d’Orléans was primarily responsible for obtaining the ducal title: ibid., 463–4n3. And D’Antin was honoured further in 1708 when he was appointed directeur général des Bâtiments. Marie-Thérèse married François Louis, prince de Conti, in 1688. His brother, Louis Armand, prince de Conti, had died childless in 1685. bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, f. 224. Ibid., f. 13. G.M., 2:96. This eulogistic missive provoked a graciously appreciative and witty reply: see 10 October 1706: ibid., 97–8. M.U.C., 1:174. Noailles, Mémoires, 74:137–8. Maintenon frequently complimented the bravery and capability of the duc d’Orléans in numerous letters to a variety of correspondents: “I am not surprised that you are pleased with the duc d’Orléans, as he possesses great and estimable qualities.” Maintenon to des Ursins, 1 May 1707: M.U.C., 1:100. See also Maintenon to des Ursins, 23 December 1708: G.M., 2:186–7; Maintenon to Languet, 20 March 1715: Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 680–1. In a letter to the duc de Noailles, on 3 September 1709, the marquise respectfully implied that d’Orléans’ talents more than compensated for his vices. G.M., 2:221–3. Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 679. “As for the rest, I endure in peace the hatred of Madame Madame [Liselotte] and that of Mme de Berry [Liselotte’s granddaughter-in-law], and am at not being drawn into it.” Maintenon to Languet, 20 March 1715: Maintenon, “Quelques lettres,” 80–1. C.G., 4:428. See Liselotte to Maintenon, 23 October 1701: bmv 1461, vol. P. 65, ff. 797–8; and in 1702: C.G., 5:182–3. Ibid., 4:402. “You would greatly oblige me if you were to employ your credit next to the Most Christian King my dear brother, to ensure that he keeps me in his good graces, in assuring His Majesty that I put all my pleasure into being most agreeable to him and in meriting his approbation. bmv 1461, vol. P. 66, ff. 610–11. Elisabeth Charlotte d’Orléans had married Léopold, duc de Lorraine, in 1698. She had also appealed to the foreign minister. See bmv 1461, vol. P. 66, ff. 680–1. 25 June 1701: C.G., 4:438; 1 January 1713: bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, f. 451. Maintenon, Lettres inédites, 1:118. Of the maréchal’s campaign, Dangeau noted on 10 June 1707 that “the King, when he awoke, was given the news that M. de Villars was in Stuttgart, where he exacted contributions on the country of Wurtemburg of 2,200,000 million livres … He wrote to the magistrates of the city of Ulm, demanding that unless they put at liberty as soon as possible the French prisoners, detained so unjustly, he aims to burn the small towns and villages of their territory.” Journal, 11:389–90.

Notes to pages 300–3

465

173 “The duke of Alba [ambassador to France] has made a particular request to speak to Mme de Maintenon. This had been achieved by the time he came to see me, saying that he had received a very gracious welcome, but that she had spoken very coldly on the matter in question [regarding the grandeeship accorded to Mlle d’Amelot].” Torcy, Journal, 2 December 1709, 51–2. 174 She wrote in 1707 that the “courts of France and England often do me the honour of being in my chamber.” Maintenon, Lettres Historiques, 2:202. 175 Maximilian II, brother to the archbishop-elector of Cologne, cited below. 176 Joseph Clemens of Bavaria was inducted as archbishop of Cologne in 1689, and nominated to the archbishopric of Liège in 1694. He charmed the royal family on his visit to the French court in the autumn of 1706. See Maintenon to Ursins, G.M., 2:105. 177 When visiting Versailles in May 1704 the duc declared to a delighted Louis XIV that he was anxious to meet and pay Maintenon his compliments, which subsequently took place on 28 June. Sarmant, Louis XIV, 332–3. 178 The duc de Turci, probably at Marly in September 1704. H.B.L., 3:518. 179 Ibid., 3:325. 180 Ibid., 3:164. 181 Saint-Simon, Louis XIV, 381, 382–90, 418–29. 182 Briggs, Communities, 210–14. 183 Noailles was chosen, in 1700, to replace Maurice Le Tellier as president of the assemblies of the clergy: ibid., 215. 184 H.B.L., 3:245–6. 185 For example see a letter from Maintenon to Cardinal Noailles, 28 October 1700. Ibid., 3:226–7. 186 Ibid. 187 Ibid., 3:296–7. François de Callières gained the position instead. 188 McManners, Church and Society, 2:389–90; Delumeau, Catholicism, 33. Regarding the career of the abbé de Caylus, who had been named bishop of Auxerre on 12 April 1704, Maintenon elucidated to his sister, the comtesse, on 19 May 1704, that “it is true that I have taken a very lively interest in the affair of the abbé de Caylus, and that I could not reconcile myself to see him so poorly placed [he was an aumônier du roi and had just been offered the bishopric of Toul, but had evidently been exhorted to decline it], I hope that soon he will be better off, or at least he can never be worse. Assure yourself, Mme, of the interest I take in him, and the envy I have to see him satisfied.” Morrison and Thibaudeau, eds., Letters, 4:23. 189 ss –Norton, 2:127. 190 “I saw M. Huchon for a moment: he seemed wise and to have made quite a good representation. I spoke of this to the King, according to your instructions; he will welcome and appoint whoever pleases you and no-one else.” C.G., 5: 239. 191 ss –Coirault, 4:43; Maintenon, “Quelques lettres,” 35n1; C.G., 5:232. To secure this succession, Maintenon invoked the services of the cardinal de La

466

192

193 194 195 196

197

198

199 200 201 202 203 204

Notes to pages 303–4 Trémoïlle. He explained to the marquise in February 1710 that Mérinville’s accession had in fact been organized by Cardinal Gualterio, whom Maintenon consequently thanked profusely. see bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 270–1, 239–40. Also see twenty-two letters from Mérinville to Maintenon, 1710–15: bmv 1722, vol. G. 330; and the profusion of missives from the latter to the former in H.B.L., vols. 4, 5 and 6, which often focused on Saint-Cyr issues as Godet had done: e.g., 4:765–6, 771–3, 779–80, 843–4, composed by Maintenon in February, March, and July 1710. On 25 May 1704, Maintenon reported to the comtesse de Caylus that “I briefly saw M. d’Auxerre [the current bishop, as the abbé de Caylus had not yet been installed], but I was not too busy to present M. l’abbé Madot to the King.” Morrison and Thibaudeau, eds., Letters, 4:24; see also ss –Norton, 1:217. See Maintenon to the duc de Noailles, 21 December 1701: C.G., 4:462–3. ss –Norton, 1:191, 208, 233. See twenty letters from Vertrieux to Maintenon, 1711–18: bmv 1723, vol. G. 331; and Bergin, Church, Society, 435. He was proposed for the vacancy by Godet: ss –Coirault 4:43. Foisset rightly notes, as does Geffroy (G.M., 2:284n1), that the marquise accorded Bissy all her confidence after losing Godet: Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 651n1. “I am truly afflicted, Monsieur, by the death of M. the bishop of Évreux, not for himself but for the King who will have difficulty replacing him … I yet remain hopeful that you will be consulted a little; it had crossed my mind to propose M. the abbé Languet, but I did not want to do that without knowing what you thought about it … Similarly I believe that we will not appoint an abbess at Saint-Louis [in Rouen] without your participation.” Maintenon to the archbishop of Rouen, 10 February 1710: bn naf r vol. 13634, f. 29. On the abbess dispute, involving a former Saint-Cyr novice, see H.B.L., 4:753–4, 758. “Permit me the honour of assuring you of my very respectful acknowledgement of all the kindnesses I know you have honoured me with, Madame; M. the bishop of Poitiers was anxious to remind me of all the obligations I owe you. Your generosity, Madame, has filled me with joy, which I feel with all possible respect. I wait for my bulls with impatience.” Rochebonne to Maintenon, 22 April 1708: bmv 1721, vol. G. 329, f. 65. For example see Maintenon to the duc de Noailles, 28 July 1709: G.M., 2:220. C.G., 5:228–9. Maintenon to Noyon, 20 November 1703: ibid., 5:229. Bergin, Church, Society, 264, 449. See Maintenon, “Quarantes lettres inédites,” 642. See one example dated September 1709, providing Maintenon with

Notes to pages 304–6

205

206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220

221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232

467

reassurance and recommending that she try to overcome her understandable feelings of desolation in order that she might continue in her admirable endeavours on behalf of the church and at Saint-Cyr and in offering “salutary councils for the public good.” H.B.L., 9:727–9. She wrote frankly on 24 June 1714 that “I sincerely wish, Monsieur, that you be appointed curate of Saint-Sulpice.” Maintenon, “Quarantes lettres inédites,” 650. Ibid., 650–3. Ibid. He had become one of Maintenon’s closest allies during the Jansenist crisis. Ibid., 673. Ibid., 676–7. bmv 1721, vol. G. 329, ff. 11, 16–18. Ibid., ff. 25–7, 29–31, 36, 49–50, 50–1, 52–3, 54, 56–7, 58. Ibid., ff. 99–100. Ibid., ff. 76, 77–8, 79, 105–6. Ibid., ff. 19–20, 63–4. Ibid., ff. 14, 23, 66–7. See communications to Maintenon from the bishops of Blois, on 4 June 1711, and Noyon, in approximately 1715: ibid., ff. 28–9, 71. Ibid., ff. 60, 72–3, 74–5, 81–2, 97–8, 107–8. Ibid, ff. 95–6. Ibid., ff. 1–2. On 25 April, d’Agen wrote to thank Maintenon: “I must begin my letter, Madame, in having the honour to write to you in humble thanks for all the good offices you have rendered me next to the King in honour of the abbé de Belsunce.” Ibid., f. 3. Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 1:214–15. aae md Éspagne, vol. 99, f. 24. Ibid., f. 20. For example see Clement XI to Maintenon, 30 May 1712: bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, f. 415. Ibid., vol. P. 65, ff. 677–80. Clement XI to Maintenon, January 1701. Ibid., ff. 758–9. See also Clement XI to Maintenon, 29 May 1706 and 11 October 1707. Ibid., vol. P. 66, ff. 588–9, 882–3. See, for example, Clement XI to Maintenon, 3 June 1715, informing her of Bissy’s imminent promotion. Ibid., vol. P. 67, ff. 664–5. He became bishop of Strasbourg in 1704; on his preferment see Clement XI to Maintenon, 30 May 1712: ibid., vol. P. 65, f. 616. C.G., 4:463–4. H.B.L., 3:225–6. Ibid., 3:304.

468 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274

Notes to pages 306–14 Son of Louis de La Trémoïlle, duc de Noirmoutier (1612–1666). Cermakian, La Princesse des Ursins, 680. G.M., 2:28. Ibid., 2:28n1. H.B.L., 6:291. H.B.L.., 3:395–6. Probably Noailles’s former vicar-general at Châlons: H.B.L., 3:396n3. Ibid., 3:395–6. Strayer, Suffering Saints, 145; H.B.L., 3:389. Gres-Gayer, “The Unigenitus of Clement XI,” 263. H.B.L., 3:395–7. Ibid., 3:399–400. Ceyssens, “Les Papiers de Quesnel,” 508–51. Geoffrey Scott in Corp, A Court in Exile, 276. Ibid., 277. Ibid., 277–8. Doyle, Jansenism, 44. McManners, Church and Society, 2:356. Sourches, Mémoires, 6:285–86. On this affair see Brown and Tackett, eds., The Cambridge History, 7:440–74; and Mungello, ed., The Chinese Rites Controversy. McManners, Church and Society, 2:361. Kostroun, Feminism, Absolutism, 211. Strayer, Suffering Saints, 147; McManners, Church and Society, 2: 357. Kostroun, i, 215. Ibid., 221–6. Le Roy, Le Gallicanisme, 259. G.M., 2:113–14. H.B.L., 4:160. Ibid., 4:161. Ibid., 4:212. Published in Chartres (1708), 313. Kostroun, Feminism, Absolutism, 227. Ibid. Le Roy, Le Gallicanisme, 261–2. Kostroun, Feminism, Absolutism, 228. Le Roy, Le Gallicanisme, 264–5. Kostroun, Feminism, Absolutism, 228–9. Weaver, Mademoiselle de Joncoux, 241–3. Qtd in Strayer, Suffering Saints, 15–16. Ibid., 16. Ibid., 14. H.B.L., 3:779–80.

Notes to pages 314–19

469

chapter nine

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19

20 21 22 23

Quote in chapter title from Dessert, Argent, 381. Le Roy Ladurie, Saint-Simon, 192–3. First coined by Saint-Simon. ss –Coirault, 5:547. Le Roy Ladurie, Saint-Simon, 206–14. Rule, “Colbert de Torcy,” 227–30. Petitfils,ed., Le Siècle de Louis XIV, 635; for a transcription of the letter to the provincial governors see Torcy, Mémoires, 2:349–51. Ibid., 2:127–227. Rule and Trotter, A World of Paper, 381. Maintenon, Lettres, ed. Auger, 3:262–3. ss –Norton, 1:407. Gergy, Mémoires, 431–2; Dangeau, Journal, 12:312, 337. G.M., 2:288. Rule and Trotter, A World of Paper, 392. For example on 16 May, 13 June, and 21 June 1712: Sourches, Mémoires, 13:391, 411, 426. H.B.L., 6:304. Guerre, Nicolas Desmaretz, 214. M.U.C., 2:54. Torcy, Journal, 186. For other examples see Dangeau, Journal, 13:135–6, 393; 14:78, 114, 122, 260; and with Torcy and Voysin separately on 5 October 1712: ibid., 14:236. On 26 August 1714, Torcy worked with Louis XIV for “a long time” chez Maintenon: ibid., 15:215; and on 3 November 1714 he deliberated first with Torcy and then Chancellor Voysin in the marquise’s chambers: ibid., 15:273. See Maintenon to des Ursins, 9 June 1714: G.M., 2:347; Louis-Jean-Charles de Talleyrand was an adviser to Philip V and the nephew of des Ursins. “I have learnt from the cardinal de Judice [Giudice – the new inquisitor general] of the interest you have always taken in my regard and the extent to which you have spoken advantageously about me to the King my grandfather when he communicated to you the contents of the letters I had the honour of writing to him. I have charged the Prince de Chalamar [Cellamare] to render you a thousand compliments on my behalf, and I do not want to lose the opportunity myself to remind you of my sincere gratitude in assuring you, Madame, of all my respect and the sincere friendship I will always have for you.” aae md Éspagne, vol. 99, f. 57. See her reply to the princesse de Parme: bmv vol. P. 67, f. 690. For example see des Ursins to Maintenon, 19 August 1713: ibid., ff. 488–94. Noailles, Mémoires, 74:176. G.M., 2:331–2, 336–7, 343–7, 347–50.

470

Notes to pages 319–21

24 bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 506–8; also see ss –Coirault, 4:337. 25 Noailles, Mémoires, 74:178. On the renunciation crisis see Ellis, Boulainvilliers, 94–101. 26 aae md Éspagne, vol. 99, ff. 42–4. 27 Ibid., f. 46. Louis de Brancas-Céreste was made lieutenant-général in 1710 and governor of Girona in 1711. He was the son of one of Maintenon’s closest friends from the Marais, the comte de Brancas, who had died in 1681, and brother of the princesse d’Harcourt. 28 M.U.C., 1:434–5. 29 aae md Éspagne, vol. 99, f. 53. The “affair” to which the Spanish King alludes was probably the possible removal of Ursins from Spain, Philip V’s remarriage proposals, or both. The duc d’Orléans had requested the recall of his steadfast enemy, the princesse des Ursins, in a letter to Louis on 4 April, and the prince de Chalais had announced the news of Philip’s impending wedding to the Princess of Parma in an audience with Louis XIV on 27 June after having been at court for a month: Cermakian, La Princesse des Ursins, 685. 30 M.U.C., 2:26. 31 Ibid., 2:28. 32 E.T., 517. 33 Interviews were conducted in 1709 with the duchess of Mantua, the widow of Carlo Ferdinando Gonzaga III, Suzanne Henriette de Lorraine-Elbeuf, and in November 1710 with her mother, the duchesse d’Elbeuf, who was the daughter of Maintenon’s godmother, See ss –Norton, 1:470–3; H.B.L., 4:900; Torcy, Journal, 305–7. 34 “Subsequently [His Majesty] informed me that Mocenigo [the Venetian ambassador] had requested a secret audience, having addressed himself to Père Le Tellier and to Mme de Maintenon in order to obtain it.” 7 January 1710: Torcy, Journal, 96. 35 M.U.C., 2:66, 69. 36 E.T., 245. 37 bmv 1461, P. 67, ff. 445–6. 38 Torcy, Journal, 122. 39 For example see letters dated 27 October 1709: G.M., 2:234; and 13 March 1713: Maintenon, Lettres inédites, 2:362–3. 40 See Maintenon to the maréchal de Villeroi, 6 January 1711. Maintenon, Lettres, ed. Auger, 3:276–8. 41 E.T., 242–3; G.M., 2:330. 42 ss –Coirault, 4:574–80. 43 Maintenon, Lettres, ed. Auger, 3:279–80; Voltaire, Oeuvres Historiques, 879–80. 44 ss –Coirault, 4:582, 1324n2. 45 On 23 July 1713, Maintenon wrote that she had “just learnt that the prince Ragotzki has an affair in Spain … and today I ask most sincerely that you accord him your protection and I am sure that you will grant it based on his

Notes to pages 321–5

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

55 56 57 58 59 60

61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

471

merit that is well-known to you.” G.M., 2:330. On 18 September she thanked the same correspondent for “all the good offices that you have rendered him.” Ibid., 2:333. H.B.L., 4:325. E.T., 177. Ibid., 234–5. M.U.C., 1:416. Ibid., 1:422. E.T., 245. H.B.L., 5:678–9. aae md Éspagne, vol. 99, f. 55. bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 684–5. The prince of Cellamare was the brother of the inquisitor general, Cardinal Giudice, who was appointed governor of Philip V’s heir, Louis, prince of Asturias (1707–1724), in 1715. See Cermakian, La Princesse des Ursins, 509–47. M.U.C., 1:410. Ibid., 2:16. H.B.L., 6:159–60. Maintenon, Lettres inédites, 2:363. “It is true that M. and Mme de Pompadour are fixed upon going to Spain, and that they are delighted with it on account of you, from whom they hope great protection. I know but little of M. de Pompadour, but it is quite otherwise with regard to his wife who is certainly a woman of honour and probity, since I am better informed than anyone else of the proof she has given me of those virtues which have won my esteem.” Maintenon to Ursins, 16 December 1714: M.U.C., 2:87. The marquise de Pompadour, Gabrielle de Montault-Navailles, was the daughter of Maintenon’s godmother and sister of the duchesse d’Elbeuf. She had been appointed governess to the children of the duc de Berry in 1712 and was the wife of the new ambassador to Spain, Léonard-Hélie, who was a cousin, through his mother, of the princesse des Ursins. However, the marquis never actually reached Spain to take up his appointment, because he was involved in various court intrigues and was later implicated with the du Maines in the Cellamare conspiracy. Ibid., 1:420. Maintenon, “Quelques lettres,” 41. Maintenon, Lettres inédites, 2:294–5. M.U.C., 1:398–9. Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 671. bn nafr vol. 13634, ff. 76–7. Desprat, Maintenon, 331–3. G.M., 2:247. L.L., 183. G.M., 2:307. Dangeau, Journal, 14:216.

472 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

79 80

81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89

90 91

92

93 94 95 96 97 98 99

Notes to pages 325–8 Sourches, Mémoires, 12:530. 4:685. E.T., 240. G.M., 2:325. M.U.C., 1:440. See plaintive letters from Philippe to Maintenon dated 31 March and 14 June 1714. H.B.L., 10:596–7, 632–4. Marshal Vendôme’s younger brother had been exiled from court and demoted for alleged cowardice at the Battle of Casano in 1705 and, according to Saint-Simon, disreputable behaviour in general. ss –Boislisle, 13:92–4, 297–300. See G.M., 2:221–2; and ss –Coirault, 3:645–714. “Never have we seen such a beautiful household than that of M. and Mme d’Orléans: they never part company and enjoy nothing more than being en famille.” Maintenon to the duc de Noailles, 13 June 1710: G.M., 2:247. Ibid., 2:242–3. bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 323–4. Ibid., f. 321; about this see H.B.L., 10:141. See Liselotte to Maintenon: ibid., ff. 240–1. Ibid., ff. 328–9. See Maintenon to Ursins. H.B.L., 4:484. ss –Coirault, 3:765–9, 772–9, 780–3. Maintenon to Mme de Dangeau, 8 November 1709: E.T., 228. See the section titled “L’Enjouée” containing letters exchanged between Mmes de Maintenon, de Caylus, and de Dangeau, 1698–1711, in ibid., 181– 207; and subsequent letters in ibid., 240–1, 245. M.U.C., 2:55. There are many instances of this and it was almost unavoidable – see the charming letter from Maintenon to Mme de Dangeau on 9 November 1713 reflecting humorously on the latter’s lottery success: E.T., 245. See Maintenon to Mme de Dangeau, 31 May 1710: ibid., 232; and Maintenon to Ursins, 26 August 1709 and to the same on 5 May 1715: M.U.C., 1:256, 2:105. Michel Le Peletier de Souzy (1640–1725), director-general of fortifications, 1691–1715, and from 1702 a member of the Royal Council of Finances. E.T., 247. Ibid., 134. Ibid. He came to court almost every year until 1705 and then again, finally, in 1711: Stoll, Servir le Roi-Soleil, 227–36. For example see Boislisle, “Le Veuvage,” 48–110. According to David Parker, France’s debts were estimated at 651 million livres in 1708: Class and State, 200–2; but these had doubled or even quadrupled by 1715 according to Rowlands: The Financial Decline, 236. ss –Coirault,

Notes to pages 328–31

100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107

108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116

117

118 119 120 121 122 123 124

125

473

Pénicaut specifies that 58 million livres of the prospective revenue of 82 million for 1708 had already been spent before the budget for that year had been finalized: Faveur et pouvoir, 142–3; and in 1710 Desmaretz hoped to raise 126,769,486 livres knowing that expenses would exceed that figure by approximately 80 million livres, but in fact they totalled over 225 million. McCollim, Louis XIV’s Assault on Privilege, 168. G.M., 2:155. Ibid., 2:168. In conjunction, on this occasion, with financiers like Samuel Bernard. H.B.L., 4:351. aae md France, vol. 137, ff. 85–7. See E.T., 119, 145, 147, 152, 162, 165–6; and H.B.L., 4:442–3. Dangeau, Journal, 12:391. Guerre, Nicolas Desmaretz, 231. Such as the archbishop of Rouen and five nuns in Paris, who were former Saint-Cyr novices, in 1708 (H.B.L., 4:435–6; 9:497–8); Madame de Caylus in 1711 (ibid., 10:209–302); and Maintenon’s confessor, the curate of SaintSulpice, Languet de Gergy, in 1715 (ibid., 6:340). E.T., 155. Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 690; and for more on this subject see Rowlands, Dangerous and Dishonest Men. On this see Chapter 14, “La Guerre du Crédit (1709–10),” in Guerre, Nicolas Desmaretz, 325–59, 407. M.U.C., 1:254. Maintenon, “Quelques lettres,” 34. Maintenon, Lettres, ed. Auger, 3:267. Boislisle, Correspondance, 3:602. Rowlands, The Financial Decline, 192. See Swann, Provincial Power, 154–93; Dee, Expansion and Crisis, 129–69; Hurt, Louis XIV and the Parlements, 67–124; Bonney, “‘Le Secret de leurs familles,’” 383–416. McCollim, Louis XIV’s Assault on Privilege, 191–203; and the more detailed Chapter 15, “L’Homme du Dixième (1710–12),” in Guerre, Nicolas Desmaretz, 360–401. bn nafr vol. 13634, f. 38. Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 689–90. Maintenon, Lettres inédites, 1:424. Ibid., 428. G.M., 2:254–5. Maintenon, Lettres, ed. Auger, 3:259. For example see Maintenon to the new bishop of Chartres, Mérinville, 18 May 1713: H.B.L., 5:617; and missives from Caylus to Maintenon: E.T., 134, 137, 150. bn nafr vol. 13634, f. 20.

474 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157

158 159 160 161

Notes to pages 331–8 See Maintenon to the duc de Noailles, 1 August 1710: H.B.L., 4:857. Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 2:447. Ibid., 2:449. Ibid. Ibid., 2:460. bn nafr vol. 13634, f. 59. Sourches, Mémoires, 12:24–5. Ziegler, Villars, 187–8; Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 2:450–1. Villars, Mémoires, ed. Petitot and Monmerqués, 69, 265–6. H.B.L., 4:584. Bluche, Louis XIV, ed. Greengrass, 541–3. M.U.C., 1:252. Ibid., 1:253. Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 2:452–3. H.B.L., 4:631. Ibid. Lynn, The Wars, 331–2. The French lost about 11,500 men, whereas 21,000 were either killed or wounded in the allied army. Ibid., 334–5. Sourches, Mémoires, 12:129–30. G.M., 2:241. Sourches, Mémoires, 12:175. Villars, Mémoires, ed. Petitot and Monmerqué, 69:300–1. G.M., 2:222. Qtd in Rule, ed., Louis XIV: Great Lives Observed, 97. Qtd in ibid., 98–99. See Maintenon to the archbishop of Rouen, 24 July 1710: H.B.L., 4:853. M.U.C., 1:301. H.B.L., 4:824. H.B.L., 4:764. Rule, “Colbert de Torcy,” 281–2. Torcy, Journal, 287–8; Rule, “The King in his Council,” 233. “I confess, Mme, that I had ardently desired permission to attack the enemies … I console myself in hoping that his Majesty had good reasons not to take any risks, because the best and most favourable dispositions can be disarranged by the slightest setback.” Villars to Maintenon, 19 June 1711: Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 2:456–7. Villars to Maintenon, 29 July 1711: ibid., 2:458–9. Ibid., 2:462. Ibid., 2:464. “I perceive your pain and that of the King, and perfectly understand the one and the other; but we must believe at this juncture that patience is best … Console yourself in thinking that we are in a better state than we have been,

Notes to pages 338–44

162

163

164 165

166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186

475

that our army is larger and paid, and that, according to all appearances, we will not experience new misfortunes.” 23 June 1711: ibid., 2:457–8. “The King is thoroughly persuaded that you have no reason to reproach yourself … You have to think and do the best that you can; nothing should be done in spite, and I believe you are incapable of doing so. I share as much as is possible in your sorrows, Monsieur, and have been acutely afflicted by all that has happened; you know that I am not indifferent. Render me the same justice as you would in my personal regard.” 22 August 1711: ibid., 2:461. “Adversity has not yet made your head spin, Monsieur the maréchal, and nothing is so reasonable in all its parts than the letter you have honoured me with … I am sure that you see more clearly than those who pass comment; that you follow the best factions, and that all of the courtier’s discourses would not excite you to do anything against the interests of the King and of the State. I know your attachment to one and to the other.” 31 August 1711: ibid., 2:463. 5 August 1711: H.B.L., 5:252. Precipitated more by the new Tory government in England, which recalled Marlborough in December and terminated his command, thereby stunting allied efforts. Villars, Mémoires, ed. Petitot and Monmerqué, 69:361. M.U.C., 1:336. Ibid., 1:335. H.B.L., 5:308–9. Ibid., 5:310. Sourches, Mémoires, 13:231, 237, 261, 268. M.U.C., 1:335–63. Lynn, The Wars, 352–4. M.U.C., 1:404. H.B.L., 5:720. Lossky, “Some Problems,” 320–1. Qtd in Bluche, Louis XIV (1986 ed.), 869. Maintenon, Lettres inédites, 1:41. Torcy, Journal, 152–7. Cited in Langlois, Maintenon, 193. Sourches, Mémoires, 13: 437–8. G.M., 2:320. Saint–Simon, Louis XIV, 401–3. Appointed Liselotte’s premier aumônier in 1694 and a member of the French Academy in 1695. Qtd in Rule, Louis XIV: Great Lives Observed, 95. See Rule, “Colbert de Torcy,” 261–83; and Bluche, Louis XIV (1986 ed.), 716–7.

476 187 188 189 190 191

192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201

Notes to pages 344–52 Torcy, Journal, 125–6. Rule, “Colbert de Torcy,” 278. See Boitel, L’Image Noire, 315, 378, 418, 422–7. Maintenon, Lettres Historiques, 2:365–8. For an excellent analysis of the growing power of opinion and its manipulation and politicization see Boitel, L’Image Noire dee Louis XIV, esp. pts. 2 and 3 and also the conclusion, 477–83. Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 2:464. Ibid., 2:460, 463. See Le Mao, Chronique du Bordelais, 39–40. Petitfils, Louis XIV, 316–18, 619–25, 650–5, 676–87. Ibid., 282. ss –Norton, 2:408. Qtd in Scoville, The Persecution, 31; for the autograph see Public Record Office, London, State Papers, France, vol. 78/160, fol. 46. Fénelon, Oeuvres, ed. Aimé-Martin, 3:679. Ibid., 3:679–80. G.M., 2:302.

chapter ten 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Bluche, Louis XIV, ed. Greengrass, 592–3.

bn naf r vol. 13634, f. 6. Maintenon, “Quelques lettres,” 27. bn naf r vol. 13634, f. 20. Where the duc d’Harcourt was the lieutenant-général. bn naf r vol. 13634, ff. 38–9. Monahan, Year of Sorrows, 48–50. L.L., 171. Le Mao, Chronique du Bordelais, 59. Ibid., 159–62. G.M., 2:215–16. bn naf r vol. 13634, f. 18. L.L., 180. Ibid. Lachiver, Les années de misère, 317–84. Miller, Mastering the Market, 8–10; Guerre, “Le Ministre des Grains,” in his Nicolas Desmaretz, 287–324. Aumale, Souvenirs, 1:152. G.M., 2:210. Ibid., 2:210, 251–3; Kaplan, The Bakers of Paris, 42. Aumale, Souvenirs, 1:167. G.M., 2:208–10. Aumale, Souvenirs, 1:159–60.

Notes to pages 352–6 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

53 54 55 56

477

Ibid., 253n2. Ibid. M.U.C., 1:414. G.M., 2:248. Ibid., 2:248, 250. Amale, Souvenirs, 1:185. H.B.L., 5:376. Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 670. See Maintenon to the abbesse de Gomerfontaine, 1 May 1709: bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 173–4; to the duc de Noailles, 28 July 1709: G.M., 2:217–20; to des Ursins 14 September 1709: ibid., 2:227–9; and to the archbishop of Rouen, 22 September 1709: Maintenon, “Quelques lettres,” 30–1. Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 2:440. G.M., 2:220. Ibid. Rule and Trotter, A World of Paper, 710n115. M.U.C., 1:253–4. bn nafr vol. 13634, f. 23. McHugh, Hospital Politics, 80–1, 106–8. Maintenon, “Correspondance inédite,” 2: 436. G.M., 2:246. “I am very glad that M. D’Argenson praises you; your intelligence is absolutely necessary for the good of your parish.” Maintenon to Languet, 3 September 1714: Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 657. See also ibid., 658; and Maintenon to Languet, 12 October 1714: ibid., 662. bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 230–1; the date is accurately approximated: see H.B.L., 9:686. bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, f. 231. G.M., 2:204. ss –Norton, 1:474–6. Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 656. Maintenon, Lettres Historiques, 2:427. Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 669. Ibid., 660. L.L., 177–8. Maintenon, Madame de Maintenon dans le monde, 339. Jim Collins posits a lower figure of between 1.25 to 1.5 billion livres: The State (2009), 222; whereas Rowlands calculates that they were higher, totalling between 1.8 and 2.3 billion livres in 1715: The Financial Decline, 236. H.B.L., 6:319. Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 690. Ibid. For example see missives dated 17, 20, 22, and 24 February, 1 March, and 18 June 1705, and March 1713, entrusting Caylus and Dangeau with a

478

57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

65

66 67 68 69 70

71

72

73

Notes to pages 357–9 series of benevolent assignments that were to be executed in conjunction with the Duchess of Burgundy, the curé de Saint-Sulpice, the cardinal de Noailles, the bishop of Auxerre, and the convent at Saint-Cyr: C.G., 5:308–9, 309–10, 310–11, 311–12, 312–13; G.M., 2:60–1; Morrison and Thibaudeau, eds., Letters, 4:46. bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, f. 606. Ibid., ff. 606–7. G.M., 2:336. Dangeau, Journal, 15:21. Morrison and Thibaudeau, eds., Letters, 4:24. G.M., 2:234–5. Ibid., 2:319–20. bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, f. 457 – a note appended to the copied letter reads: “it was a woman of quality and one of the most distinguished at court through her birth, but who was in need.” Summarized in Ziegler, The Court of Versailles, 347–8; see Aumale’s longer description of Maintenon’s charitable enterprises, “On the Poor,” in her Souvenirs, 1:152–83. Saint-Simon, Louis XIV, 381. Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 687. H.B.C., 6:148 Ibid., 6:288. Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 678. Mme de Bouligneux was the superior of the Filles de la Conception Immaculée, a house founded by Queen Marie-Thérèse, whose affairs the marquise surveyed intently, grumbling to Languet on 3 December 1714 that the king shared in the merit gained from “all sorts of places” where devotional piety was practised, but “as to the other Princes I do not believe they even know that there is a religious house in Paris that was established by the late Queen under the name of the Immaculate Conception.” Ibid., 6:671. See two letters to Mme de Dangeau of 1710 planning trips to Avon and Moret, sometimes accompanied by the duchesse de Noailles, to survey the organizations with which she was associated and to visit the poor: bmv 1461, P. 67, ff. 324, 326–7. Located near Vernon, this nunnery was one of the succursals of Saint-Cyr and its prioress, Mme de La Marie, who was an old pupil of the converted school. Maintenon notified Languet on 3 September 1714 that “I have nothing in particular, Monsieur, to tell you about Bizy. You have done even more there than I could have asked. I have just again written to M. d’Argenson to press him for some money for our poor priory.” Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites, 672. See a letter to the cardinal de Noailles dated 5 November 1701 about procuring money, pensions, and clothing for the Moret community. H.B.L., 3:327–8.

Notes to pages 359–61

479

74 See a letter from the bishop of Poitiers, M. de Vertrieux, to Maintenon on 24 May 1715 thanking her and the king for their “protection” and support for the seminary, charitable schools, and house of voluntary penitents at Niort, and imploring both that it be prolonged to enable their good works to continue to thrive: bmv 1461, P. 67, ff. 654–6. 75 See a missive from Maintenon to Mme de La Viefville, abbesse de Gomerfontaine, dated 1 May 1709: G.M., 2:206–7. 76 bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 457–8. 77 Ibid., ff. 430–2. 78 C.G., 5:426–7. 79 Ibid., 4:459–60. 80 “Our Mlle d’Orcise is not too sound. We believe her here to be an excellent subject, and would be anxious to keep her, although her intelligence is quite limited. I believe she will go into a good convent in Brittany of her choosing.” Maintenon to Languet, 7 April 1715: Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 684. 81 See E.T., 180, 287–88. 82 G.M., 2:109. 83 Jean Charlotte Rose de Mailly was related to Maintenon, being the sister of the comte Louis de Mailly (1662–99), who had married Maintenon’s grandniece, Marie-Anne de Saint-Hermine (1667–1734). Jean Charlotte was also the sister of the abbé Victor-Augustin (1644–1712), who became bishop of Lavaur in 1692, of Marie-Louise, the abbesse de Lavaur, and of François (1658–1721), archbishop of Reims from 1710. 84 Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 662. 85 Ibid., 673. 86 Ibid. 87 For example, Maintenon’s missive communicated in April 1701 to Jérôme III de Bignon, intendant of Picardy, regarding the apparently uncertain noble status of Marie-Anne Le Marchant de Charmont, whom the marquise stoutly defended, pointing out how exacting the king was in vetting entrants to Saint-Cyr based on their genealogical qualifications. H.B.L., 3:296. 88 Maintenon’s ally, the bishop of Meaux, Henry de Bissy, had been named abbot in December 1714 after the death of the cardinal d’Estrées. She subsequently elaborated to Languet on 1 January 1715 that “I fully understand that the zeal of M. de Meaux will not be pleasing to the religious of the abbey of Saint-Germain. Your keenness to have this prelate makes me believe that your union with him will produce great things. The relatives of M. the cardinal de La Trémoille and the cardinal de Polignac are the only ones that had asked for the abbey of Saint-Germain.” Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 673. 89 See a missive dated 23 December 1714 from Maintenon to the daughter of her old friend, Mme de Montchevreuil, debating the merits of prospective

480

90

91

92 93

94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116

Notes to pages 361–6 candidates to succeed her as abbesse de Saint-Antoine: bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 619–20. See Maintenon to Languet, 21 April 1715: Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 687. M. Amelot was charged with the temporal affairs of Val-de-Grâce, which had been founded by Anne of Austria. Languet, as curé de Saint-Sulpice, oversaw its spiritual undertakings. See Maintenon to the comtesse de Caylus, 15 July 1706, informing her that she had asked Desmaretz whether consent had been given to nominating the candidate they wanted to elect as superior of La Charité: bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, f. 201. Their order, founded in the seventeenth century, was devoted to relieving the plight of the poor and helping abandoned children. C.G., 4:429. “Yesterday I saw Mme the abbesse de Poissy, whose discourse and projects are very edifying. She wants to establish regularity in her house … She does not have a good priest for a counsellor. Perhaps, Monsieur, you might not find as many difficulties as I had envisaged; so I have referred her to you.” Maintenon to Languet, 3 November 1714: Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 666. G.M., 2:321–4. See Maintenon to Languet, 24 March 1715: Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 682. Ibid., 679. Ibid., 685. G.M., 1:267, 320. Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 661, 687. ss –Norton, 1:408–9. McManners, Church and Society, 2:359–60. Le Roy, Le Gallicanisme, 295–332. bn nafr vol. 13634, ff. 36–7. Who refused his nomination, resulting in the eventual appointment of Dromsesnil. bn nafr vol. 13634, ff. 38–9. Sourches, Mémoires, 13:194. McManners, Church and Society, 2:378. Bergin, The Politics of Religion, 291. H.B.L., 5:373–5. Ceyssens, “Autour de la bulle Unigenitus,” 158. McManners, Church and Society, 2:348, 358, 363. For the full text see “Papal Encyclicals Online”: htthttp://www. papalencyclicals.net/Clem11/c11unige.htm. Strayer, Suffering Saints, 158. Le Roy, Le Gallicanisme, 544–5. http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Clem11/c11unige.htm. Strayer, Suffering Saints, 164; Bergin, The Politics of Religion, 293

Notes to pages 366–71

481

117 Dangeau, Journal, 15:72. 118 bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 412–13. 119 See Maintenon to the archbishop of Rouen, 21 July 1714: bn naf r vol. 13634, f. 73; Maintenon to Languet, curé de Saint-Sulpice, 11 October, 20 and 24 November 1714 and 11 January 1715: Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 661, 668–9, 676. 120 Maintenon to Languet at Saint-Sulpice, 24 November 1714: ibid., 669. 121 La Flèche, Mémoires, 194. 122 See the letter of the same date from Pope Clement XI to Maintenon apprising her of this elevation: bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 664–5. 123 Dangeau, Journal, 15:80; Le Roy, Le Gallicanisme, 511. 124 La Flèche, Mémoires, 172. 125 Dangeau, Journal, 15:70. 126 Qtd in Richardt, Le Jansénisme, 174. 127 Dangeau, Journal, 15:83. 128 Strayer, Suffering Saints, 164; Michel, Jansénisme, 278–80. 129 La Flèche, Mémoires, 173–4. 130 Strayer, Suffering Saints, 164. 131 “I pledge to you that I am ready to do everything possible on my part for the peace of the church.” H.B.L., 10:595. 132 bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, f. 559. 133 Ibid., ff. 562–3. 134 H.B.L., 6:176. 135 H.B.L., 6:260. 136 Ibid., 6:92–3. 137 For example see letters from Mailly, archbishop of Reims, of 1711, and the archbishop of Rouen of 6 June 1714, on behalf of Mme de Mailly and the magistrate M. de Pont-Carée respectively: bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 376–8, 579. 138 Ibid., ff. 586–7, 587–94. 139 McManners, Church and Society, 2:390–1; Bluche, Louis XIV, ed. Greengrass, 590–1. 140 On 9 September Maintenon confided to Ursins that Pontchartrain had “confessed to the King that he did not think like him regarding the affairs of the church.” H.B.L., 6:198). 141 Strayer, Suffering Saints, 159. 142 M.U.C., 2:66–7. 143 H.B.L., 6:208. 144 Ibid., 222. 145 Strayer, Suffering Saints, 159–60. 146 M.U.C., 2:78–9. 147 bmv 1461, P. 67, ff. 637. 148 Le Roy, Le Gallicanisme, 630–2. 149 Qtd in Strayer, Suffering Saints, 160.

482

Notes to pages 371–5

150 bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 656–8. 151 As they had been trying to do for some time: qtd in a letter from Maintenon to Rouen, 29 April 1714: H.B.L., 6:109–10. 152 Ibid., 6:319. 153 Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 689. 154 Le Roy, Le Gallicanisme, 641. 155 Ibid. 156 Ibid., 653. 157 H.B.L., 6:345–46. 158 Le Roy, Le Gallicanisme, 655–6. 159 The Bourgogne’s second son died on 8 March 1712. 160 See La Chétardie’s letter of condolence to Maintenon after the death on 16 April 1713 of the duc de Berry’s son, who was aged twenty-two days: bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 477–9. 161 See Chaline, L’année des quatre dauphins; and also Gerber, Bastards, 49–94. 162 In his edict of May 1711, which regulated the peerage, Louis had upgraded his legitimized bastard sons to a rank above the dukes and peers that was below that of the legitimate princes of the blood; see Ellis, Boulainvilliers, 115. 163 Bluche, Louis XIV (1986 ed.), 875. 164 ss –Norton, 2:354. 165 Le Roy Ladurie, Saint-Simon, 212. 166 ss –Coirault, 4:821–46; 5:587–617. 167 H.B.L., 10:647, 685–6, 687, 688, 695. 168 Maintenon, “Quelques lettres,” 40–1. 169 M.U.C., 2:46. 170 “Quarante lettres inédites, 656–7. 171 On this see letters from Maintenon to Ursins dated 3 January and 2 October 1712: M.U.C., 1:357, 398; and Louis XIV, Lettres, 177. 172 Maintenon observed to Ursins on 9 September that “the maréchal de Villeroi is at the height of his ambition; I wish with all my heart, before he becomes a mysterious minister, that he could fly to you, to let you into the secret of what is passing here”; she then confirmed subsequently on the 26th that he was “loaded with honours and marks of confidence,” and on 30th reported that he now occupied a “high station.” M.U.C., 2:57, 59, 64. 173 “There never was such a friend as the maréchal de Villeroi, of which there is no need to assure you, but I cannot help it.” Maintenon to des Urins, 20 January 1715: ibid., 2:97. The maréchal was one of the few people who corresponded with and was permitted to visit Maintenon during her retirement at Saint-Cyr. 174 See the handwritten copies of Maintenon’s maxims and also of the eightytwo letters exchanged between the marquise and the duchesse de Ventadour from 1710 to 1719, which were also donated by the comtesse de Gramont

Notes to pages 375–81

175

176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202

203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210

483

in 1920: bmv 1464, vol. M. 56, ff. 1–90. On Louis XV’s education and hints at Maintenon’s involvement see Antoine, Louis XV, 24–60. Campbell, Power and Politics, 40–6; see also letters exchanged between Maintenon and Fleury dated 28 June 1712 and 12 April 1715 indicating that they shared confidences: H.B.L., 5:451–2, 11:92. M.U.C., 1:402. Ibid., 2:62–3. ss –Norton, 2:214. G.M., 2:277. Burgundy, Lettres, 2:220–1; bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, f. 349. See Boufflers to Maintenon in April 1711: bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 340–2. M.U.C., 1:371. G.M., 2:303–4. L.L., 189–90. Ibid., 191. bmv 1717, vol. F. 910, f. 18–21. bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 447–8. M.U.C., 1:410. H.B.L., 5:708. G.M., 2:94. Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 679. Ibid., 688. bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, f. 330. Ibid., f. 457; also printed in H.B.L. 11:556. G.M., 2:251. M.U.C., 1:353. Ibid., 1:399. Ibid., 1:363. bmv 1463, vol. G. 224, f. 14. Maintenon, Madame de Maintenon dans le monde, 374. Maintenon to Ursins, 24 Dec 1714: H.B.L., 6:279. Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 673. The general commanding in Guyenne, the maréchal de Montrevel, had wanted to erect a statue at Bordeaux of the king at the province’s expense, but Louis had withheld his consent. See Dangeau, Journal, 22 January 1715: 15:346. M.U.C., 1:387–8. Goubert, The Course of French History, 149. Kamen, Philip V, 123. Sarmant, Louis XIV, 504. G.M., 2:331. Ibid., 2:357. H.B.L., 5:484. Dangeau, Journal, 15:251, 254.

484

Notes to pages 381–7

211 For example, convening councils of state at Fontainebleau on 30 September, and on 1, 3, 8, 10, 14, 17, 21, and 22 October; of finances on 29 September and 2, 6, 9, 13, 16, 20, and 23 October; meeting with Père Le Tellier on 5, 12, and 19 October; while also working with individual ministers almost every evening chez Maintenon. Dangeau, Journal, 15:252–68. 212 H.B.L., 6:215–16. 213 Maintenon, Lettres inédites, 3:136. 214 E.T. 198. 215 H.B.L., 6:329. 216 bmv 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 308–9. 217 H.B.L., 6:343–4. 218 Ibid., 6:345–6. 219 H.B.L., 5:365. 220 M.U.C., 2:43–4. 221 Sarmant, Louis XIV, 333–4. 222 Maintenon, “Quarante lettres inédites,” 676–7. 223 Le Roy Ladurie, Saint-Simon, 209. 224 Villars, Mémoires, ed. Petitot and Monmerqué, 69:261. 225 M.U.C., 1:432. 226 E.T., 194. 227 Legg, Matthew Prior, 71. 228 Ibid. 229 M.U.C., 1:433. 230 Ibid., 2:24.

conclusion 1 For more on 1715 and the king’s death, see Cornette, La Mort de Louis XIV; Maral, Les Derniers Jours de Louis XIV; and Sarmant, 1715; and also the recent film, dir. Sera, La Mort de Louis XIV (2016). 2 Aumale, Souvenirs, 1:203. 3 Ibid., 1:203–4. 4 Marie Casimire de La Grange d’Arquien: vol. G. 328. 5 See Maintenon’s letter to the duc de Noailles dated 7 September 1715: H.B.L., 6:347–9. 6 See H.B.L., 6:347–776; 11:161–505. 7 See letters on 28 and 29 January 1719 to Mme de Glapion and Mme de Dangeau complaining that she was “extremely ill,” did not have the strength to leave her bed, and was enduring “violent pains.” H.B.L., 6:762–3. 8 Ibid., 6:397. 9 Referring to the Jacobite defeat at the Battle of Preston on 14 November. Ibid., 6:398–9; see Szechi, 1715. 10 M.U.C., 1:65.

Notes to pages 387–92 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

485

Maintenon, Dialogues and Addresses, 63. Ibid., 124. Caylus, Souvenirs, 161. Lavisse, Louis XIV, 456. Gable, “Tragedy,” 184. See missives dated 3 May and 4 August 1710: Fénelon, Oeuvres, 3:641, 646–9. Gable, “Tragedy,” 185–6. Boitel, L’Image Noire de Louis XIV, 475. Kleinman, Anne of Austria, 149. See Lever, Madame de Pompadour, 184–90, 230–2. E.T., 291. M.U.C., 1:66–7. H.B.L., 6:198. Maintenon, Lettres inédites, 3:118. H.B.L., 5:268. E.T., 113, 120; H.B.L., 4:316, 5:431, 634, 6:215; Maintenon, Madame de Maintenon dans le monde, 429–34. H.B.L., 6:193. Ibid., 3:846. Sarmant, Louis XIV, 420. Langlois, Maintenon, 201. Louis XIV, Oeuvres, 2:494. For d’Aumale’s account of this rather awkward interview see her Souvenirs, 1:207–10. bmv 1461, vol. P. 68, ff. 29–30.

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Index

absolute monarchy, 10–11, 152, 172, 182, 188, 195, 371 Adde, Josué de Caumont, seigneur d’, 23, 27, 59 Adde, Mlle de Caumont d’, 59 Affair of the Poisons, 47–8 Aguesseau, Henri d’: canvasses bishops’ views on the impact of the Revocation and economic harm caused by, 194; Protestant confiscations and moderate attitude toward Huguenots, 193–4 Aguesseau, Henri-François d’ (son of Henri d’): on Quietism and factional struggles generated by, 159–60; accused of being a Jansenist, 193;attacks Ultramontanism, 210; king criticizes and threatens to crush, 372 Alba, Duke of, 232; requests audience with Maintenon, 465n173 Albert, Charles Honoré d’. See Chevreuse Albigensian Crusade, 195 Albret, César Phébus, comte de Miossens, maréchal d’, 30, 31, 401n51 Albret, Hôtel d’, 29, 32, 34, 79, 340

Aldrovandi, Pompée, 367 Alençon, duc d’ (son of the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy), 373 Alexander VIII (Pope), 91–2, 124 Alfonso VI, King (of Portugal), 32 Alincourt, François Camille de Neufville de Villeroi, marquis d’, 70 Almanza, Bourbon victory at, 285, 299 Amelot, Michel-Jean de Gournay, 230, 247–8, 278, 316, 319, 370 Amelot de Gournay, Michel (archbishop of Tours), 59 Amelote, Denys, 207 Amonio, Domenico, 92 Angien, Sister d’, 71 Anjou, Louis, duc d’. See Louis XV Anjou, Philippe, duc d’. See Philip V Anne, Queen (of England), 256 Anne of Austria, Queen (of France, wife of Louis XIII and mother of Louis XIV), 7, 26, 28, 31–2, 66, 97, 312, 389 Antin, Louis-Antoine de Gondrin, duc d’ (son of Mme de Montespan), 6, 83, 280, 299, 377–8 Aquinas, Thomas, 366, 369

518

Index

Argenson, Marc-René d’ (lieutenant-général of police in Paris), 47, 176, 178, 203–4, 354–5 Argenton, Mme d’, 326 Argouges, François d’, 106 Armagnac, Louis de Lorraine, comte d’ (“M. le Grand”), 133 Arnauld, Angélique, 206 Arnauld, Antoine, 206–11, 309, 362 Arnauld, Simon. See Pomponne Arpajon, Catherine Henriette d’Harcourt-Beuvron, duchesse d’, 69, 80 Artagnan, Pierre d’. See Montesquiou Asturias, Louis, Prince of, 318, 471n54 Aubigné, Agrippa d’ (grandfather of Maintenon), 22, 220 Aubigné, Charles d’ (brother of Maintenon), 23–6; governorships, 25, 35–6, 56, 84, 121; profligate lifestyle, 26, 35–6, 40, 52; heavy debts, 36; marriage to Geneviève de Piètre, 36; tax concessions granted to, 52, 84; Order of the Saint-Esprit, 53; death of, 223, 229 Aubigné, Charlot d’ (daughter of Charles), 52, 81 Aubigné, Claude. See Tigny Aubigné, Constant d’ (father of Maintenon): charismatic figure, 22; disowned by Agrippa, 23; implicated in revolts and plots against the Crown, 22–3; imprisoned for treason and murder, 23; governor in West Indies, 25; disappearance and death, 25 Aubigné, Constant d’ (elder brother of Maintenon): commits suicide, 26 Aubigné, Françoise d’. See Maintenon

Aubigné, Françoise-Charlotte d’ (niece of Maintenon). See Noailles Aubigné, Geneviève de Piètre d’ (wife of Charles), 36 Aubigné, Jeanne (mother of Maintenon), 23–4, 28; children taken in by Villette-Mursay family, 25; difficult times in West indies, 25; attempts to reclaim husband’s inheritance, 27 Aubigné, Thibaut d’, 53 Aubigné, Toscan d’, 81 Augustine of Hippo, 87, 366, 369 Aumale, Mlle Marie-Jeanne d’, 8, 10, 31, 33, 64–5, 67, 280, 282–3, 293, 296, 352, 356–60, 386; acts as courier for Maintenon, 8, 359–60; on Maintenon’s wedding, 64–5; as Maintenon’s secretary, 10, 248; member of Maintenon’s inner circle, 356; witnesses Maintenon reduced to tears by Louis XIV, 10 Aumont, Catherine Scarron de Vaures, maréchale-duchesse d’, 30–1 Ayen, comte d’, See Noailles Baden: occupation of, 248; contributions exacted in, 300; Treaty of (ending the War of Spanish Succession), 379 Baden, Françoise Sibylle de SaxLauenbourg, princess of, 300 Balbien, Annette, known as “Nanon”: Maintenon’s personal servant, 31–2; première dame d’honneur of, 68; quarters at Versailles, 68; maîtresse générale at Saint-Cyr, 132, 293; acts as Maintenon’s secretary, 248; dispenses charity on behalf of, 356; death, 223

Index Balincourt, chevalier de, 248 Barbezieux, Louis François Marie Le Tellier, marquis de, 218; secretary of state for war, 106, 107, 109, 144, 201; mentored by the king, 109; abandons his duties and almost disgraced, 128–9; not consulted, 110, 128; undermines Noailles’s reputation, 128; overlooked for ministerial promotion, 215; potential to be a fine minister, 420n101; death of, 214 Barcos, Martin de, 207 Barillon, Henri de (bishop of Luçon), 55 Barillon, Paul Amoncourt, seigneur de, 30 Barneval, Mme de, 357 Barré, Nicolas: founder of the Dames de Saint-Maur, 57, 408n121; sends instructors to Maintenon, 72–3 Bastille, 83–4, 89, 176–7, 179 Baudéan, Charles de. See Neuillan Baudéan, Henri de. Se Parabère Baudéan, Suzanne de. See Navailles Baudrillart, Alfred, 18, 227, 230 Bavière, Elisabeth-Charlotte de. See Orléans Bavière, Marie-Anne-ChristineVictoire de (d. 1690): as Dauphine, 37, 43–6, 51–2, 62, 64, 68, 71, 77–80, 84, 116 Bâville, Lamoignon de, 84, 193–5, 246; befriends in Paris, 30 Beaumont, abbé de, 91, 179 Beauvau-Craon, marquis de, 322 Beauvillier, Jeanne Marie Colbert, duchesse de, 49, 78, 88–9, 93, 155, 161; close to Fénelon, 88, 89, 161; devotee of Guyon, 89, 138; member of Maintenon’s circle, 93, 113,

519

123, 161; Maintenon’s coldness toward, 155; defends her husband to Maintenon, 183; excluded from position of dame d’honneur over Quietism, 189 Beauvillier, Paul de Saint-Aignan, duc de, 12, 127, 166, 347; Burgundy circle, 89, 102, 171; Fénelon urges Maintenon to promote, 90, 101; governor to Duke of Burgundy, 91; on the conseil d’en haut and finance council, 103–4, 106, 181; Fénelon accuses of timidity, 126; involvement in Quietist affair, 138, 141, 156, 164, 297; supports Fénelon, 158, 163, 171, 183, 185; fearful of Bossuet’s anti-Fénelon faction, 159; claims to be antiQuietist, 161–2, 170; problems and rupture with Maintenon over Quietism, 161–2, 178, 180, 183; retains the king’s favour 179, 181, 201; potential disgrace, 181–2; king criticizes for “lost peace,” 336; recommends Le Tellier as king’s new confessor, 316 Belsunce, Henri, abbé de (bishop of Marseilles), 305 Bergeyck, Jan van Brouchoven, comte de, 232, 300, 337 Bergin, Joseph (historian), 146, 152, 364 Bernard, M., intendant at Saint-Cyr, 132–3 Bernières, Jacques Mignart de, intendant of the army of Flanders, 244 Berry, Charles, duc de (third grandson of Louis XIV), 85, 252, 281, 325–6; criticizes the duc de Guiche, 267; renounces claim to Spanish throne, 319; death of, 368, 373, 375

520

Index

Berry, Marie Louise Élisabeth d’Orléans, duchesse de, 326 Bérulle, Pierre, cardinal de, 140 Berwick, Jacques Fitz-James, maréchal-duc de, 7, 250, 253–4, 257–60, 262, 264, 339, 396n19 Betham, Dr John, 211, 309 Béthune, Marguerite-Louise-Suzanne de. See Guiche Béthune-Charost, Marie Fouquet, duchesse de, 30, 78, 89, 161 Beuvron, François III d’Harcourt, marquis de, 30–1, 80, 215 Beuvron, Henri, marquis de. See Harcourt Bezons, Jacques Bazin, maréchal de, 341 Bezzola, Mlle, 84 Bianchini, François, 306, 381 Bignon, Jean-Paul, abbé, 103 Bignon, Thierry, 121, 425n188 Biron, Charles Armand de Gontaut, duc de, 252, 258 Bissy, Henri de Thiard de (bishop of Toul, then Meaux), 168, 303, 306, 367, 371–2, 466n196 Bizy, abbey of, 359, 361, 478n82 Blainville, Jules Armand Colbert, marquis de: surintendant des bâtiments and Grand Master of Ceremonies at Versailles, 76 Blenheim, Battle of, 240, 291 Blois, Marie-Anne de Bourbon, Mlle de (daughter of Louis XIV and Mme de Montespan, wife of duc d’Orléans), 4, 40, 118, 326 Blouin, Louis, 223, 274 Boileau, abbé Jean-Jacques, 146, 168, 209, 302 Boileau, Nicolas, 30, 117, 207 Bolé, Jean-Louis. See Chamlay

Bolingbroke, Viscount Henry, 236 Bonnac, Jean Louis d’Usson, marquis de, 230 Bonnevault, Mme de, 65 Bonrepaus, François d’Usson de, 246 Bonsens, Adrien de, 284 Bontemps, Alexandre, 64–5, 86, 199, 222 Bonzi, Cardinal Pierre de, 80, 302 Bosque, Sister du, 130 Bossuet, abbé (nephew of J.-B. Bossuet), 171, 173–4, 178, 184–5 Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne, 44, 47, 59, 87, 91, 117, 303; appraises and denounces Guyon and her doctrine, 135, 138, 139, 140, 141, 179; attacks and aims to annihilate Quietism, 145–55; Instructions and personal attacks and campaign against Fénelon in France and Rome, 155–72; named councillor of state, 166; boasts is “very close” to Maintenon, 166; smear campaign against Fénelon and Guyon and La Combe in Rome, 173–4; Rélation sur le Quiétisme venomously attacks mysticism, Guyon, and Fénelon, 175, 177, 179–81, 185; cooling of relations with Maintenon, 180; Rélation causes sensation in Rome, 182–4; pyrrhic victory over Fénelon, 187; defends Gallicanism, 210; backs Cardinal Noailles when accused of Jansenism, 301, 309, 310; Déclaration denouncing Quietism publicized and published and sent to Rome, 168, 171; on Huguenots and the Revocation, 194, 196 Bots, Hans (historian), 4, 12, 17 Bouchain, siege of, 338–40, 379

Index Boucherat, Louis, comte de Compans, 106, 120, 181, 200 Boufflers, Catherine Charlotte de Gramont, maréchale de, 117, 231, 323, 376 Boufflers, Louis-François, maréchalduc de, 82, 109, 116, 117, 128, 144, 164, 224, 231, 331, 335, 376; close friend of and conferences with Maintenon, 244, 297, 333, 422n144, 431n64, 463n140; defence of Lille, 254, 258, 260–1, 266; heroically received at Versailles, 266; puts down Paris riots, 355; death of, 296, 339 Bouillon, Emmanuel-Théodose de la Tour d’Auvergne, cardinal de, 163–4, 166, 185; campaigns for Fénelon, 169, 171–2, 177, 184; replaced as ambassador to Rome, 186, 198 Bouillon, Marie Anne Mancini, duchesse de, 110 Bouligneux, Mme de, 359, 478n70 Bourbon, François-Louis de. See Roche-sur-Yon Bourbon, Julie de. See Lassay Bourbon-Condé, Marie-Thérèse de. See Conti Bourbon-Vendôme, Philippe de (Grand Prior of France), 325–6 Bourdaloue, Louis, 44, 47, 87, 90, 125, 151 Boyne, Battle of the, 122, 124 Bracciano, duc de, 118–19 Bracciano, Marie-Anne de la Trémoïlle. See Ursins Brancas, Charles, comte de, 30, 470n27 Brancas-Céreste, Louis de, known as the marquis de Brancas (son of Charles), 30, 319, 470n27

521

Brancas d’Oise. See Harcourt Brancas-Villars, Louis, duc de, 38 Bretagne, duc de (great-grandson of Louis XIV), 281, 292, 373 Brienne, Louise Béon, and comtesse de, 30 Brienne, Louis Henri, comte de, 30 Briggs, Robin (historian), 142, 144, 148 Brinon, Marie-Madeleine de Senneterre, Mme de, 31, 62–5, 71, 76, 84, 86, 102, 110, 111, 115, 125, 129, 185; superior at St-Cyr, 73, 75; removed from post, 89; arranges Saint-Cyr graduate marriages with Maintenon, 119–20; death of, 223 Brionne, Henri de Lorraine, comte de, 48 Brisacier, Jacques Charles, abbé de, 132, 270, 458n1 Broglie, Charles Guilaume, marquis de, 340 Brou, Henri Feydeau de (bishop of Amiens), 168 Broue, Pierre de la (bishop of Mirepoix), 91, 164, 169 Brousson, Claude, 175, 182, 192 Bruges, loss and recovery of, 250, 252, 263, 266 Bryas, Jacques-Théodore de, 140 Burgundy, Louis, Duke of (grandson of Louis XIV), 12, 48, 68, 85, 90, 102, 140, 183, 203, 233, 285–6; seeks Maintenon’s counsel and support and uses her as conduit to Louis XIV and other officials, 68, 181, 200, 252–3, 256–7, 259, 262–2, 265–6, 299; household appointments, 91, 102; household suspected of containing and then

522

Index

purged of Quietists, 138, 159, 179; and Fénelon, 140, 263, 266, 347; provincial inquest on behalf of, 182; warned about pitfalls of Quietism, 183; military training, 191; marriage, 202; and Philip V (his brother), 233; supports invasion of Scotland in 1708, 238; Battle of Oudenarde and aftermath, 250–68; clashes with Vendôme, 250–2, 255, 264–6; accused of cowardice, 251; unable to control generals, 252, 267; as dauphin, 346; death of, 346, 373, 376 Burgundy, Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie, Duchess of, 7, 15, 154, 203, 212, 224, 245, 247, 275, 290, 391; close to Maintenon, 66, 68, 167, 181, 183, 191, 278, 280–1, 285, 345, 389; père le Comte as confessor, 155; marriage, 189, 202; members of household arranged by Maintenon, 189–90, 245–6, 279; clashes with Vendôme, 266; first son, 281; dissimulating skills, 285; hedonistic tendencies, 286; mends her ways, 287; beloved by the king and court, 286, 377; Maintenon treats and consoles like a daughter, 345; monitors Paris mood in 1709, 354; death of causes anguish, 373, 376–7 Burgundy circle, influence of, 90, 94, 102, 151, 171, 182, 188 Bussy-Rabutin, Roger, comte de, 45, 81, 120, 424n180 cabale de Meudon. See Meudon cabinet strategy, 252, 253, 255, 455n248

Caelestis pastor (papal bull of 1687), 89 Caillemotte, M. de, 48 Caisse Legendre, 329 Calcinato, victory at, 268, 290 Callières, François de, 164 Camisards, rebellion of, 197, 246, 249, 307 Camus, Cardinal Étienne le, 171, 184 Cardhillac, Jeanne and Pierre de, 23 Carlos II, King (of Spain), 227, 440n112, 447n62 Carmelites, 146, 152, 359 Casanate, Cardinal Girsolamo, 164 Castel, Charles Irénée, abbé de SaintPierre, 344 Catinat, Nicolas, maréchal de, 106, 129, 202, 255–6 Caumont, Josué de, seigneur d’Adde, 23 Caumont, Marie, 59 Cavallerino, Jean-Jacques, archbishop of Nicaea, 124 Caylus, Daniel-Charles-Gabriel, abbé de (brother of Marthe-Marguerite), 150; almoner to Louis XIV, 153; bishop of Auxerre, 303–5, 351; Maintenon forced to back down over resistance to Unigenitus, 367, 466n192, 478–9n56; Maintenon has a hand in promoting to Auxerre, 465n188 Caylus, Jean-Anne de Tubières de Lévis, comte de, 82–3 Caylus, Marthe-Marguerite de Villette, comtesse de (grand-niece, intimate friend of Maintenon and member of her cabal): relative and intimate friend of Maintenon, 3, 32, 39, 64, 82, 150, 218–9, 237, 240, 271, 280, 284, 322, 325–7,

Index 329, 356, 375; enforced reconversion orchestrated by Maintenon, 59; glittering wedding at Versailles and marital support from Maintenon, 82–3; plays lead in Racine’s Esther, 93; carries out charitable commissions for Maintenon, 356–7; pension increased, 294 Céleste, Sister (Ursuline nun), 26 Cellamare, Antonio del Giudice, prince de, 232, 322 Chalais, Adrien Blaise, prince de, 318–19, 423n165 Chamarande, Clair-Gilbert d’Ornaison, comte de (mâitre d’hotel to the dauphine), Maintenon’s personal escort, 46, 144, 223 Chambord: court at, 56, 62; visits to, 50–1, 64, 70, 123 Chamillart, Joseph (bishop of Senlis, later of Condom), 11, 16, 21, 303, 305 Chamillart, Michel, 16, 19, 131, 244, 246, 250, 256–7, 259, 261, 274–5, 282, 285, 333, 353; appointed secretary of state for war and retains post of controller-general, 19, 107, 214–15, 217; enjoys Louis XIV’s confidence, 107, 217, 218, 239, 243–4, 246, 250; produces budget and recommends naval retrenchments, 130, 243, 329; controller-general at Saint-Cyr, 132, 133, 200; skilled at billiards and plays with Louis XIV’s courtiers, 132–3; innovations as finance minister, 141; discusses tactics with the king, 144; appointed controller-general, 200; joins conseil d’en haut, 214–

523

15; resigns as controllergeneral, 216–17, 239–42, 314–15, 328, 331; working partnership with Desmaretz and recommends as replacement, 217, 328, 333, 453n190; governing triumvirate with Louis XIV and Maintenon, 218, 226, 243, 256, 276; exhausted by workload, 220, 224, 239–41, 254, 452n165; botched peace initiatives, 234, 317; Maintenon anxious about, 240; defended by Maintenon, 240–1, 242, 453n185; incompetence, 241, 329; Maintenon disappointed by and criticizes, 242, 299, 331, 333, 453n183; attacked by Villeroi and the cabale de Meudon, 242, 453n185; blamed for defeat at Oudenarde, 254; sent to the battlefront to unify generals, 259–60, 262, 265; refuses peace talks, 264; Maintenon protégé, 297; dismissed as war minister, 314–16, 331, 344 Chamlay, Jean-Louis Bolé, marquis de, 85, 90, 109, 114; military adviser to Louis XIV, 109, 256 Chandernagor, Françoise (historian), 13, 18, 75 Chantal, Jeanne de, 140 Chantérac, abbé de, 166, 169, 170, 172, 177, 184–5 Chantilly, hunting at, 114–15, 123 Charles II, King (of England), 236 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, 334 Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, 268, 320 Charles, Archduke of Austria, 268, 333 Charolais, Mlle de. See Maine Chartres, duc de. See Orléans

524

Index

Château-Renault, abbesse de, 311 Château-Renault, François-Louis Rousselet, comte de, 122 Châtelet, Suzanne Gitault de Belllfonds, marquise de, 190 Chaulnes, Charles d’Albert d’Ailly, duc de, 80, 92, 171 Chaulnes, Tables of, 187 Chausseraye, Mlle de, 81 Chelles, convent of, 45 Chevilly, M. de, 82 Chevreuse, Charles-Honoré d’Albert de Luynes, duc de, 12, 388; member of Louis XIV’s inner circle of advisers, 12, 103–4, 215; member of Burgundy circle, 89; Fénelon tells Maintenon to promote, 100–1; defends Fénelon over Quietism, 138, 156–7, 166, 171, 183; corresponds with Mme Guyon, 141; unconvinced by Guyonian mysticism, 181; retains Louis XIV’s favour over Quietism, 181, 297; patronage of Maintenon, 297; with Beauvillier selects Louis XIV’s new confessor, 316; plans minority government with Fénelon, 346–7 Chevreuse, Jeanne-Marie Thérèse Colbert, duchesse de (wife of Charles-Honoré): favourite and member of Maintenon’s dévot circle, 49–50, 70, 78, 93, 114, 123; devotee of Mme Guyon 89, 181, 155, 161; estranged from Maintenon over Quietism, 155; admires Fénelon’s works, 161 Chevreuse, Marie-Françoise d’Albert de, Mlle de (daughter of Jeanne-Marie). See Lévis Chinese Rites Controversy, 310

Choin, Marie Emilie de Joly, Mlle, 144; secretly marries the Dauphin, 116 Choisy, abbé de, 46 Christina, Queen of Sweden, 30 Churchill, John, See Marlborough Clemens, Joseph, Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, 320–1, 465n176 Clement IX (Pope), 308 Clement XI (Pope): sends Maintenon gifts, 305–6; Louis XIV seeks condemnation of Jansenism, 310, 365; petitioned by Port-Royal nuns, 311; and Cardinal Fabroni, 364; sets up commission that drafts Unigenitus, 365–6; admits flaws in Unigenitus, 366; furious that Louis XIV queries Unigenitus, 366; seeks Maintenon’s support for Unigenitus, 366–7; concerned about and disciplines Cardinal Noailles, 368, 370–1; unhappy with French bishops rejecting Unigenitus, 369; rejects Louis XIV’s request to set up a national church council, 370 Clérembault, Marie Louise de Loup de Bellenave, comtesse de, 78 Clermont, Louis-Annet de Chaste (bishop of Laon), 367 Clermont-Tonnerre, abbé de (bishop of Noyon), 146, 152, 166 Coislin, Henri-Charles du Cambout de (bishop of Metz), 173, 369 Colbert. See Torcy Colbert, Édouard. See Villarcerf Colbert, Gilbert. See Saint-Pouange Colbert, Henriette Louise. See Chevreuse Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 35, 36, 56, 76; death of, 63. See also Seignelay

Index Colbert, Jeanne-Marie. See Beauvillier Colbert, Jules Armand. See Blainville Company of the Holy Sacrament, 54 Compiègne, 113–14, 122, 191; Maintenon attends council at, 115 Condé, Louis II de Bourbon, prince de (“le Grand Condé”), 47 Condé, Henri-Jules de Bourbon, prince de (“M. le Prince,” son of preceding), 6, 119, 245, 299 Condé, Louis-Henri de Bourbon, prince de (“M. le Duc,” son of Condé, Louis II de Bourbon), 34, 212, 299 Condé, Louise-Françoise de Bourbon (“Mme la Duchesse,” formerly Mlle de Nantes, daughter of Louis XIV and Mme de Montespan), 34, 114, 144, 227, 281, 286–7, 354 Condé, Anne-Louise-Bénédicte de. See Maine Content, Jean (visionary), 134 Conti, Louis Armand de Bourbon, prince de, 70, 299 Conti, Marie-Anne, duchesse de Bourbon, princesse de Conti (wife of preceding and daughter of Louis XIV and Louise de La Vallière), 70, 69, 85 Conti, Marie-Thérèse de BourbonCondé, princesse de, 85, 97, 115, 189, 299 Corbie, abbey of, 132 Cordelier, Jean (historian), 13, 61 Corneille, Pierre, 30 Cotentin, Anne-Hilarion de. See Tourville Coulanges, Marie Angélique de, 30, 45 Courcillon, Philippe de. See Dangeau Courtanvaux, François Macé, marquis de, 105

525

Courtrai, siege of, 64–5 Crébillon, Claude, 388 Croissy, Colbert de, 77, 103–4 Cromwell, Oliver, 236 Croy, Jean-Baptiste de. See Wailly Cum alias, 186, 210 Cybo, Alderano, Cardinal, 55 Damascène, Père, 173 Dangeau, Philippe de Courcillon, marquis de (Journal author), 47, 54, 66, 76, 78–9, 82, 86, 93, 102, 107–8, 114–15, 123–4, 144, 149, 179, 184, 193, 227, 357; chevalier d’honneur to the dauphin, 79, 190 Dangeau, Sophie Marie de Bavière, Comtesse de Löwenstein, marquise de (intimate friend of Maintenon and member of her cabal), 78–9, 190, 271, 284, 286, 321, 329, 356–7, 375 Daniel, Père Gabriel, 209 Darmstadt, George Prince of [Hesse-], 202 Daubenton, Guillaume, 364–5 Dauphin. See Louis de France Davant, M. (author), 155 Delisle, Mme (Maintenon’s governess at Mursay), 24 Delisle, M. (son of Mme), 121, 122 Delpech, Pierre, 73 Denain, Battle of, 339, 379 Denonville, Jacques-René de Brissay, marquis de, 91 Desmaretz, Nicolas: assists Chamillart, 217; replaces Chamillart as finance minister, 224, 328–9; finds finances in poor state, 242; works with Torcy, 19, 316; collaborates with Voysin, 318, 331; thriving working relationship with

526

Index

Maintenon, 328–30, 336; works assiduously to raise funds, 329–30, 334, 337, 349, 351, 356 Desmaretz, Madeleine Béchameil, 328 Desprat, Jean-Paul (historian), 17, 76, 195, 222 Dessert, Daniel (historian), 315–6 dévots, 145, 147, 154 Doré, Mlle, 62 Doucin, Père Louis, 209, 310 dragonnades, 54, 58 Dromesnil, abbé Charles François, 363 Ducasse, Jean-Baptist (admiral), 325 Dunoyer, Anne-Marguerite, 279 Dupuy, M., 179 Duquesne, Abraham (admiral), 61 Durand, M. (confessor, Saint-Cyr), 134 Dumesnil, Claude-Louise (prioress of Port-Royal des Champs), 312 Elbeuf, Françoise de MontaultNavailles, duchesse d’ (third wife of Charles III), 301 Elbeuf, Suzanne-Henriette d’. See Mantua Eleonora Maria, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Poland, 197 Elizabeth (Farnese), Queen of Spain (Philip V’s second wife), 318, helps orchestrate Ursins’s ejection from the Spanish court, 232 Emmanuel, Père, 237 Épernon, Jean Louis de Nogaret de La Valette, duc d’, 23 Escalona, Juan Manuel Pacheco, Duke of, 422n145 Estates-General of Burgundy, 200 Estrées, César, Cardinal d’, 30, 32, 89, 360

Estrées, François Annibal II, duc d’, 58, 296 Estrées, Jean, maréchal d’ (vice-admiral), 60 Estrées, Lucie Félicité de Noailles, comtesse de, member of Maintenon’s cabal, 190 etiquette: at court, 48, 225, 281, 326; on campaign, 114; lack of regarding Maintenon, 274–5; relaxed at Marly, 281 Fabroni, Cardinal Carlo, 364–5, 370 factions and factional politics: at court, 9, 17, 22, 146, 156, 182, 346; Louis and Maintenon as a faction, 16, 215, 243, 315–16, 346; Colbertian, 76, 95, 103, 105–7, 171, 316; Phélypeaux de Ponchartrain, rise and influence of, 95, 102–5, 107, 131, 171, 181, 200; Le Telliers, rise and fall of, 103–8, 171; ministerial, 200–1. See also Pontchartrain Fagon, Guy-Crescent, 40, 52, 274, 382, 404n137 famine (1693), 125–7, 129; seen as divine judgment, 126, 334; 1709 “Year of Sorrows,” 304, 348–54; army shortages because of, 333–4 Fénelon, François de Salignac de la Mothe-, 92, 310; mentor to Maintenon, 18, 87, 90, 96, 126, 142–3, 147, 153, 194, 349; superior of the Congregation of New Catholics, 88; innovative but conservative Treatise on the Education of Girls, 88, 426n169; admired by Maintenon’s petittroupeau, 89; devotee of Guyon and her doctrines, 89, 135, 138–9,

Index 146, 155, 165, 170, 176; political ambitions of as head of Burgundy circle, 90, 102, 151, 171, 180, 182, 188, 417n13; formative letter of instruction guiding Maintenon’s court career, 90–1, 98–102; criticizes Louis XIV, 93, 126, 128, 136, 150, 380, 383; defends Guyonian mysticism, 135, 155–6; develops own form of mysticism, 136; Issy conferences condemn Guyon and La Combe, 137–41; Tronson, as spiritual director, excoriates Maxims in new capacity as Burgundy’s tutor, 138, 183; dislikes Harlay and reciprocated, 138, 152; Maintenon attempts to muzzle, 139–40; championed by dévot party, 140; made archbishop of Cambrai with Maintenon’s backing, 140, 142, 297; betrayed by Bossuet, 141; signs Issy articles, 141; Bossuet’s relentless attack on, and Quietist affair, 146, 157, 158, 159, 164–6, 168–9, 170, 172, 176–188; Maxims of Saints published and causes sensation and public debate, 146, 156–8, 159–60, 163, 166; member of the Académie Française, 140; denounces La Chaise, 147–8; Maxims of Saints and defence of mysticism causes Maintenon anxiety, 156, 158–9, 162, 163, 169, 172, 178, 181–2, 212; Bossuet–Fénelon factional and publishing battles in France and Rome, 159, 160–3, 165, 171–3, 176, 179–80, 183–4, 200; Louis XIV unhappy with Maxims of Saints and Quietism, 160, 162; Jesuits defend over Quietism, 160,

527

164; defended by Beauvillier and Chevreuse who later denounce Guyonian mysticism, 156–8, 181; appeals to Pope Innocent XII, 163, 170, 172; Pastoral Instructions published to clarify dogma, 166, 173, 176; Maintenon breaks with and regrets promoting, 167, 186, 298, 383; attempts to compromise over Quietist beliefs, 167–8; Louis XIV asks reluctant papacy to quash Quietism, 168, 171, 179, 185–6; Archbishop Noailles condemns Maxims, 169; exiled from court and public respect diminishes, 169, 183, 188, 263; smear campaign against, 173–4; censured by papacy and submits, 175, 186, 188, 205, 210; brother and Quietist supporters purged from Burgundy’s household, 179; Résponse to Bossuet’s notorious Rélation, 181–2, 184; Télémaque leaked by enemies and published, 182, 188; “On Pure Love,” 187; “Tables of Chaulnes” government reform plans, 187; quest for revenge against Noailles and attacks on Jansenist stance, 187, 210, 362–3, 365; against violence in treatment of Protestants, 194; against warmongering, 239; tutoring Burgundy, 263–4, 266; plans for minority government, 346–7; criticizes Maintenon’s deficiencies, 347 Fenélon, Henri-Jospeh François de Salignac, comte de (brother of François), 179 Filles de la Sainte-Famille, 57 Fitz-James, duc de. See Stuart

528

Index

Flèche, Timothée de la, 364, 367–8 Fléchier, Esprit (bishop of Nîmes), 194 Fleury, André–Hercule de (bishop of Fréjus), 200, 375, 442n168 Fleury, Claude, 91 Fontaines, Mme de, 131 Fontainebleau, 97, 139, 325; Peter the Great visits, 3; Maintenon’s townhouse at, 6; town of, 6, 70, 280; court at, 62, 123, 224, 377; retreats to, 63–4, 93, 123, 201, 235, 283; Maintenon’s apartments at, 69, 381; hunting at, 69, 280, 381; ministerial and council meetings at, 191, 325, 415n164, 459n17, 484n211; wedding at, 197; placards put up against Maintenon at, 201; delights of, 219, 224, 327; music at, 391 Fontainebleau, Edict of (1685), 57–8, 194–5; continues less stringently to be enforced, 196–7 Fontanges, Marie-Angélique de Scorailles de Rousille de, 405n30; affair with Louis XIV, 37, 42, 44; death of 45; made a duchess, 45 Fontévrault, MarieMadeleine de Rochechouart, abbesse d’, 108, 289 Fontmort, Aymée de Villette-Mursay de, 59–60 Fontmort, Réné Joulard de, 59 Forbin, Claude de, comte de (admiral), 238 Forbin-Janson, Jacques de (bishop of Arles), 363 Forbin-Janson, Toussaint de, Cardinal, 132, 142, 160, 168 Forzi, Modesta di Pozzo di, 14 Foucault, Nicolas Joseph (intendant), 57

Fouillou, Jacques, 208, 210, 313 Fouquet, Marie. See Béthune-Charost Fouquet, Nicolas, 29, 293 Fraser, Antonia (historian), 75, 288 Fürstenberg, Guillaume-Egon, Cardinal, 78, 191 Fürstenberg, Marie de Ligny, Princesse de, 297 Gaillard, Père Honoré, 161 Galicanism, 170, 308–9, 311, 314, 364, 366–7, 372, 387 Gallican Articles, 48, 124, 172 Geffroy, Auguste (historian), 11, 231, 459n10, 466n196 gender: queenship, 7, 13, 91–3, 235, 389; wives venerated, 15; patriarchy championed, 15; femme forte, 15, 18; patriarchy challenged, 14; Vauban warns against dangers of women, 118–19; police féminine, 203; feminine government of saints, 215; women subordinate, 220; finesses de femmes, 347 Genlis, Marie-Anne de Brûlart de. See Harcourt Gerberon, Dom, 207 Gergy, Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Languet de, curé de Saint-Sulpice, confessor to Maintenon, 11, 300, 304, 353–4, 356, 358, 361, 368, 371, 378, 383 Gergy, Jean-Joseph (bishop of Soissons), 304 Gergy, Jean-Joseph Languet de (bishop of Autun, then archbishop of Sens), 10, 49, 64, 181 Gertruydenberg, peace talks at, 336, 341 Ghent, loss and recovery of, 250, 252, 263, 266

Index Glapion, Marie-Madeleine de, 76, 78, 186, 244, 273, 287, 290, 297, 307, 311, 355 Gobelin, abbé François (confessor to Maintenon), 32, 37–8, 40, 42–3, 49, 59, 63–4, 73, 75, 81, 87, 102 Gomerfontaine, abbey of, 326, 360, 362, 368 Gramont, Antoine V de. See Guiche Gramont, Armand de. See Guiche Gramont, Philibert, comte de, 81 Gramont, Elizabeth Hamilton, comtesse de, 30, 49, 93, 209 Gramont, Antoine IV, duc de, 133, 232, 355 Grancolas, Jean, 145 Grand Alliance, 227, 235 Grand Almoner of France. See Rohan-Soubise Grand Louvetier of France. See Heudicourt Grand Prior of France. See Bourbon-Vendôme Grignan, Françoise de Sévigné, comtesse de, 39–40, 44 Guébriant, Renée Crespin du Bec, maréchale de, 399n7 Guevara, Maria de, 14 Guiche, Antoine V de Gramon, duc de, 199, 267 Guiche, Armand de Gramont, comte de, 30–1 Guiche, Marguerite-Louise-Suzanne de Béthune, comtesse de, 30 Guiche, Marie-Christine de Noailles, duchesse de, 199 Guignonville, Florent Boutete de (intendant at Maintenon), 58 Guilleragues, vicomte de (GabrielJoseph de Lavergne), 30, 81, 118

529

Guyon, Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de la Motte: mystical “Quietist” beliefs and works defining include A Short and Easy Method of Prayer, Commentary on the Songs of Solomon, Spiritual Torrents, 88, 134, 146, 156; banished from Gex, 88; connections at court 89, 138; arrested in Paris, 89, 146, 153; set at liberty and employed at SaintCyr by devotee Maintenon, 89, 139, 167; books removed from Saint-Cyr, 135; intense friendship with Fénelon, 135; works condemned by Louis-Antoine de Noailles, 137–9, 161; Maintenon abandons, 139–40, 180; Bossuet interrogates and condemns, 139, 141, 156, 168, 170, 183; interrogated by police in Paris, 146, 176; incarcerated in Visitandine convent and at Vincennes and in the Bastille, 139, 146, 176, 178; Fénelon refuses to abandon, 155–6, 161–2, 165; causes scandal at court, 158, 165; disciples expelled from Saint-Cyr by the king, 163–4; immoral relations with Père la Combe, 176; Rome scandalized by, 171, 173–4; signs Issy articles, 141; suspects has been poisoned by enemies, 141; suspects is scapegoat, 187 Hague, The, peace talks at, 333, 336 Hamilton, James, Duke of, 323 Hamilton, Elizabeth. See Gramont Hannover, Bénédicte of Bavaria, Duchess of [Brunswick-], 110 Harcourt, Alphonse Henri de Lorraine, prince de, 401n42

530

Index

Harcourt, Anne Elizabeth d’. See Vaudémont Harcourt, Henri, marquis de Beuvron and maréchal-duc d’, 231, 240, 244, 333, 341, 374, 401n36; protégé of Maintenon, 80, 229, 297; ambassador to Spain, 215, 227; ministerial ambitions, 215 Harcourt, Marie-Anne de Brûlart de Genlis, duchesse de, 80 Harcourt, Odet d’, abbé de Beuvron, 80 Harcourt Charles III of Lorraine, prince de, 301 Harcourt, Marie Françoise de Brancas d’Oise, princesse de (wife of Alphonse), 49, 78, 114, 123, 401n42 Harcourt, Françoise MontaultNavailles, Duchesse d’Elbeuf, Princesse de (third wife of Charles III), 301 Harcourt-Beuvron, Catherine Henriette d’. See Arpajon Harlay, Achille III de, 154, 205 Harlay, François de Champvallon (archbishop of Paris), 58, 89, 202, 410n176; officiates (allegedly) at Louis XIV’s wedding, 64; arrests Mme Guyon, 89; Fénelon denounces, 126, 430n11; condemns Guyon’s works, 138; death of, 142; expels Quesnel, 208; mocks LouisAntoine de Noailles, 212 Harling, Christian von, 85 Hautefort, Mlle de, 28 Hauzy, Mme d’, 73 Havré, Jean-Baptiste de Croy. See Wailly Hébert, François (curé de Versailles, then bishop of Agen), 91, 140, 142,

181, 189, 303, 364; seeks moral reform at court, 47; and the complexities of defining mysticism, 157 Heinsius, Antoine (Grand Pensionary of Holland), 321 Hennequin, Gualterus, 241 Henri IV, King (of France, Henri of Navarre), 22, 54, 155, 199 Heudicourt, Bonne de Pons, marquise d’, 30, 33, 78–9, 81, 280, 284, 401n42 Heudicourt, Louise de. See Montgon Heudicourt, Michel III Sublet, marquis d’ (Grand Louvetier de France), 81 Heudicourt, Pons Auguste Sublet d’ (son of Michel III), 83, 81 Heurtebise, Battle of, 108 Hooghe, Romeyn de, 90, 216 Hospitalières, Petite Charité convent of, 31 Hozier, Louis Pierre d’, 73 Huchon, Claude (curé de Versailles, then bishop of Agen), 303 Huxelles, Nicolas de Laye du Blé, marquis d’, 65, 86, 107, 114, 339, 384 Immaculate Conception, Daughters of the, 359 In Coena Domini (the Good Friday Bull), 92 Innocent XI (Pope), 91 Innocent XII (Pope), 124, 132, 149, 153, 163, 168, 171, 173, 177, 185– 6, 193, 305 Issy: articles of, 141; conferences at and commissioners, 137–8, 140, 156 Jacobites: support for, 123–4, 236

Index James VII and II, King (of England): in exile at Saint-Germain, 92–3; close friends with Maintenon, 92–3; friends with Louis XIV, 93; attends play at St Cyr, 93; discussions about restoration and failed attempts at, 94, 124, 197; regularly socializing with Bourbon royal family, 122–3; deference towards Maintenon, 123; extreme piety, 124; Jansenist sympathies, 211; “saintly” death of, 235 Janisson, Pastor, 56 Jansen, Cornelius, 206; Augustinus, 205 Jansenism, 16, 21, 91, 145, 147, 187, 193, 204–13, 221, 265, 270, 287, 297, 304–14; Louis XIV determined to destroy, 54, 301, 312; dogma inexplicable to Maintenon, 271; Unigenitus crisis, 317, 348, 362–72. See also Clément XI; Le Tellier, Père; Maintenon; Noailles, Louis-Antoine de; Port-Royal des Champs Jassault, Père, 87 Jersey, Edward Villiers, Earl of, 198 Jesuits: call for Revocation of Nantes, 54–5; malign influence of, 55, 147, 150, 177, 206; power of, 155, 317; back Fénelon, 170; criticized by Quesnel, 208; attack Jansenists, 297, 307–14, 360–72; weakened state, 301, 308 missions in China, 365 Joly de Fleury, Guillaume François, 367, 372 Joncoux, Marguerite, Mlle de, 16, 208 Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor, 268, 338

531

La Beaumelle, Professor Laurent Angliviel de, 8–10, 389 La Brèteche, château de, 286 La Broue, Père de, 91, 164, 169 La Bruyère, 97 La Chaise, Père de (confessor to Louis XIV), 47, 55, 57, 73–4, 89, 111–12, 132, 153–4, 202, 305; allegedly celebrates nuptial Mass of Louis and Maintenon, 64; denounces Guyon, 138; excoriated by Fénelon, 147–8; despised by Maintenon, 147, 151–2; supports Fénelon, 160, 164, 172–3; toadying to Maintenon, 168, 302; condemns Quietism, 172; on conseil de conscience, 301; concern over Cardinal Noailles’s support for Jansenism, 309; death of, 316 La Chétardie, Joachim de (curé de Saint-Sulpice and Maintenon’s confessor), 176, 304, 316, 360, 377, 449n121 La Combe, Père, 88, 183 La Fayette, Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, Mme de, 30, 93 La Feuillade, Louis d’Aubusson, duc de, 241 La Fontaine, Jean de, 30 La Hogue, Battle of, 124 Lallement, Père Jacques-Philippe, 209, 310 Langeron, abbé de, 91, 179 Langlois, Marcel (historian), 13, 86, 130, 271 Lanti, Marie Anne Césarine, 199 Laon, Guy de La Rochefoucauld, Vidame de, 48 La Reynie, Gabriel Nicolas de (inaugural lieutenant-général of police in Paris), 58

532

Index

La Roche (abbot of Cherbourg), 305 La Rochelle, 23, 25 La Rue, Père de, 160 La Sayette, abbé de, 324, 359 Lassay, Armand de Madaillan, marquis de, 119–20, 326 Lassay, Julie de Bourbon-Condé, marquise de Lassay (wife of Armand), 119 La Tour, Marie de, duchesse de La Trémoïlle, 14 La Tour, Père de, 210–11 Lauri, Giovanni Battista, 86 Lavallée, Théophile (historian), 7, 9, 13, 51, 53, 77, 104 La Vallière, Louise-Françoise de la Baume la (first mistress of Louis XIV), duchesse de Vaujours, 48, 75 La Vrillière, Balthazar Phélypeaux de, marquis de Châteauneuf, 58, 200–1, 418n20 La Vrillière, Françoise de Mailly, marquise de, 200–1, 295 La Vrillière, Louis Phélypeaux, marquis de (son of Françoise), 200–1, 249 Lavardin, Henri Charles de Beaumanoir, marquis de, 92 La Victoire, Abbey of, 120 Lavisse, Ernest (historian), 12–13, 107, 207 Le Camus, Étienne, Cardinal, 171 Le Comte, Père, 190 Ledieu, abbé, 136 Lefèvre, Mme, 127 Lemoine, Jean-Baptiste, 120, 424n181 Lemoine, Mlle. See Villette Lenclos, Ninon de, 30 Lenormand, Jean (bishop of Évreux), 303, 363

Le Nôtre, André, 39 Leopold I, Emperor of Austria, 227 Le Peletier, Claude, 58, 94, 102, 105, 133; complains the king is excessively influenced by Maintenon, 114 Le Peletier, Michel. See Souzy Le Ragois, abbé, 40 Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel, 315–16, 383, 426n228 Lescure, Jean-François de Valderies de (bishop of Luçon, 1699–1723), 363–4 Lesdiguères, Paule de Gondi, duchesse de, 30 Le Tellier, Charles Maurice Le (archbishop of Reims), 58, 106, 128–9, 186, 171, 309 Le Tellier, François Michel. See Louvois Le Tellier, Louis François Marie Le. See Barbezieux Le Tellier, Michel (Chancellor), driving force behind Revocation of Nantes, 58 Le Tellier, Père Michel (Louis XIV’s confessor from 1709), 347, 384; spearheads campaign to eradicate Jansenism and crush Noailles, 310, 313–14, 316–17, 362–4, 371–2; wrests back control of ecclesiastical appointments from Maintenon, 314–15, 317, 344, 363; appointed king’s confessor instead of Maintenon’s candidate, 316; brutal personality, 362; Maintenon blocks appointment as future Louis XV’s confessor, 375 Le Tellier family, influence of, 76, 94–5, 103–7, 109, 128, 171 Le Valois, Père, 91

Index Lévis, Louis Charles. See Ventadour Lévis, Marie-Françoise d’Albert de Chevreuse, marquise de, member of Maintenon’s cabal, 190, 245, 375 Lezay, Claude de Lusigna, marquis de, 294 Lille: loss seen as irreparable, 221; siege of 254, 256–61, 263; surrender of, 250, 264 Liselotte. See Orléans Lisle, comte de, 295 Listenois, Jacques de Bauffremont, marquis de, 295 Listenois, Louise-Françoise de Mailly, marquise de, 295, 462n21 Lorges, Marie Gabriele de. See Saint-Simon Lorges, Guy de Durfort, duc de, 94, 114 Lorraine, duc Léopold de, 197, 320, 322 Lorraine, Élisabeth Charlotte d’Orléans, duchesse de, 197, 300 Lorraine, Henri de. See Brionne Lorraine, Louis de. See Armagnac Lorraine, Marie de. See Guise Lossky, Andrew (historian), 16, 104, 227 Loubert, Mme de, 73 Louis XIII, King (of France), 23–4 Louis XIV, King (of France): patriarchal values of, 15, 111; Queen Marie-Thérèse, marriage to and attachment to, 24, 31, 46, 51; Queen Marie-Thérèse, death of, 61; close to his brother, Philip, 47, 220; gloire-obsessed, 54, 129, 207, 225; lampooned, 66, 90, 216–17, 278, 388; addicted to building and redesigning, 69, 213, 257, 282, 352–3; campaigning, 69, 114, 133;

533

founded Saint-Cyr, 71–5; visits to Saint-Cyr, 93–4, 122–3; courage of, 75–6, 220, 379, 382; authoritarianism of, 90, 126, 344, 367, 372; addicted to fresh air and hunting, 108, 280, 293–3, 381; Du Maine favourite bastard son of, 112, 116, 119, 129, 212, 326; difficult for his children to approach, 115; fondness for the Duchess of Burgundy, 190, 286; deference for Maintenon in public, 191, 282–4; depressive and despondent, 221, 276, 336, 344–5, 376–7; addicted to warfare, 224; destroys personal documents, 7, 288; family deaths, prostrated by, 376–7; death of, 372, 382, 386; will and testament elevates bastard sons into succession, 373–5 – health of: gluttony, 48, 292, 380, 382; recovers from fistula, 74–6, 202; gout, 112, 122, 381; removal of neck tumour, 182; purges, 289, 320–2, 381–2; astonishing septuagenarian vigour, 378–9, 381–2; diabetes and bulimia, 380 – kingship: more informal method of government by, 86, 218, 340, 344, 390; friends with and supporter of Stuarts, 92–4, 123–4, 226, 235–9, 211, 301; own first minister, 97, 218; workload increasingly intolerable, 19, 97, 108–9, 127, 224–5, 280, 377, 378; personal rule, 107–10; daily ministerial meetings chez Maintenon, 107, 115, 97, 340; regrets Heurtebise and blames Louvois, 108; mentors Barbezieux, 109; ineffective and indecisive general, 113, 129, 143, 221, 225–6, 252–3, 267, 339; diminishing

534

Index

judgment and self-confidence, 21, 143–4, 148, 214, 217–8; holds councils chez Maintenon, 191–2, 214, 227, 333, 336, 339, 340–1; Bourbon Succession in Spain manages and secures with Maintenon, Torcy, and Ursins, 192, 197–8, 227–35, 298, 318–20, 333–4, 356, 378; enduring governmental partnership and faction with ministresse Maintenon, 18–20, 217, 225–6, 230, 246–50, 253, 256, 278, 318, 344, 346, 383, 389; triumvirate with Chamillart and Maintenon, 218, 243; inconsolable at loss of Lille, 221–2; constraints of office, 291 – mistresses: Fontanges, Montespan, 32–5, 37–40, 42, 44–5, 49, 69; Soubise, 40, 306; La Vallière, 48, 75; string of affairs, 40 – relations with Maintenon: promoted relatives of, 34–7, 60–1, 82–4, 191; romance and secret marriage, 38–46, 61–7; relished time with and companionship of, 44, 69, 122–3, 288–9; sexually demanding of, 48, 66–7, 220; entertained at the château of Maintenon by, 69; on excursions and promenades with, 69, 114–15, 122–3, 282–4, 289, 325; loved and loved tenderly by, 78, 189, 288; messages arranging rendezvouses and giving war news to, 93–4, 113, 122, 202, 288–90, 378; devoted couple, 98, 278, 383; furious with but forgave over Quietism, 158, 164, 1810–1, 186, 191; admitted every wrong to, 290–1; instructed to conclude

peace by, 336; “good counsels” and usefulness “in everything” of, 392; obtained patronage for, 296– 7; told truths by, 345; supper parties and entertainments hosted at Versailles by, 375, 377– 8, 381; salvation secured by, 392 – religion and ecclesiastical affairs of: morality reformed, 44, 46–51, 54; “war” on Huguenots and revoked the Edict of Nantes, 53–61; detested innovations and novelties, 54, 139, 158; disliked monasticism, 72; rapprochement with Rome, 92; piety improved and admired by Maintenon, 98, 378, 392; refused to be led on, 153; purged Saint-Cyr of Quietists, 163–4; successfully pressured pope to censure Fénelon, 168, 171, 173, 186; paranoid about religious conspiracies, 182; moderated policy of intolerance toward Protestants, 197; failed to eradicate Jansenism with papal support, 11, 205–13, 307–14, 362–72; simple understanding of religion, 210; destroyed Port-Royal des Champs, 206–9, 211, 301, 311–13, 317, 362; regretted allowing Maintenon to monopolize benefices, 314, 317; blamed schism on advisers, 372; demanded uniformity and conformity, 382 – Versailles: sought sanctuary from at Marly, Fontainebleau, and the Trianon, 9, 76, 144, 188, 202, 281–2, 327, 383; protocol at, 48, 123; entertainments at, 50–1; apartments at, 68; new council chamber constructed at, 280; magnificent chapel built at, 352

Index Louis XV (great-grandson of Louis XIV), 48, 85, 138, 224, 287, 326, 373–5, 389 Louis de France, Dauphin (also known as Grand Dauphin and Monseigneur), 62, 64, 69; on campaign, 80, 82–3, 114–16, 129; confides in Maintenon, 85, 115; on conseil d’en haut and finance council, 103, 106; reserved nature, 115, 275; secret marriage to Mllle Choin, 116; socializing with James II, 123; entertains the king at Meudon, 123, 144, 266, 279, 284; critical of Burgundy circle, 171; heads the cabal de Meudon, 205, 242, 254, 346, 452n179; supports Carlos II’s will, 227; passion for hunting, 280; in dispute with king, 287–8; death of, 346 Louis-le-Grand, Jesuit school in Paris, 209, 310, 363 Louvigny, Mlle de, 40 Louville, Charles Auguste d’Allonville, marquis de, 227, 234 Louvois, François Michel Le Tellier, marquis de (war minister), 35, 39, 89, 93, 195; secures house for governess Maintenon, 33; promotes and reproaches Charles d’Aubigné, 35–7; campaign against Protestants, 58; witnessing king’s wedding, 64; finding location for Saint-Cyr, 72; not favoured by Maintenon, 76; heart “dry and twisted,” 77; attacked by Fénelon, 89, 126; attacks Seignelay, 94; complacent at Mons, 104; growing authority, 105; sudden death, 19, 97, 102; death of prompts new personal rule, 19, 97, 102, 106–8, 218, 389

535

Luçon, Bishopric of, 55, 363–4 Lude, Henri de Daillon, comte de, 30 Lude, Marguerite-Louise de BéthuneSully, duchesse de, 34, 49, 189 Ludres, Marie-Elizabeth de, 40 Luise, Raugräfin, 351 Luxembourg, François Henri de Montmorency–Bouteville, maréchal de 109, 129, 143 Lynn, John (historian), 109, 267, 335 Macé, François. See Courtanvaux Madot, François, abbé (bishop of Belley, then Châlon-sur-Saône), 303 Mailly, comte Louis de, 83; escorts James II to Brest, 93 Maille, M. (priest, Rome), 171 Mailly, Marie-Anne-Françoise de Saint-Hermine (“Minette”), comtesse de, 114, 118, 190, 294–5, 479n83; seized for conversion, 59;eventually abjures, 61; married as reward, 83 Mailly, François, archbishop of Reims (brother of Victor-Augustin), 83, 304, 363, 479n83 Mailly, Françoise de. See Vrillière Mailly, Jean-Charlotte-Rose de, 479n83 Mailly, Marie-Louise, abbesse de Lavaur, 83, 479n83 Mailly, Victor-Augustin de (bishop of Lavaur), 83, 304, 479n83 Maine, Anne-Louise-Bénédicte de Bourbon, Mlle de Charolais, duchesse du, 15, 114, 118, 119, 212 Maine, Louis Auguste, duc du (son of Louis XIV and Montespan), 79–80, 103, 104, 121, 129, 199, 205; Maintenon brings up and directs education and helps select wife, 33,

536

Index

49, 52, 81, 119, 212; favourite of Louis XIV and Maintenon, 38, 85, 144, 255, 275, 326; poor physical health, 38–9, 40; communications from front line with Maintenon, 85, 112, 114, 116, 117, 422; governor of Languedoc, 85, 423n147; seeks Maintenon’s help, 115, 255; rank elevated and placed in line of succession, 129, 326, 373–4 Maintenon, Madame (Françoise d’Aubigné), (marquise) de: and Voltaire, 5–6, 8–9; gift for conversation, charm and beauty, 21, 45, 50, 66–7; and Montespan, 22, 31–5, 37–8, 42–5; Gobelin (abbé – confessor): 38, 42, 43, 49, 87; and Maintenon (her château and estate) purchases, 38–9; king stays at Maintenon, 69; on homosexuality, 47; fondness for gossip, 49, 224; and Louis Auguste, duc du Maine, 49, 52, 85, 374; needlework, 5, 69, 219, 344; wanted security, 28, 42; and hunting, taking part, 69, 70, 115; frustrated at royal addiction to hunting, 280; on philanthropic projects and charity, 6, 70, 280–1, 351, 356–8, 360; and Père de La Chaise (dislikes), 111–12, 147–8; governess-like behaviour, 112, 390; and marshal Boufflers, friendship and support for, 11, 116–17, 128, 164, 260, 297; as mother of the church, campaign to monopolize benefices with Archbishop Noailles, 10, 144–5, 149–55, 301–6, 344; universal abbess, 358–62; social and clientage networks at court, 9, 20, 30–1, 78–81; and Noailles family, 31, 190–1, 245–9; and Ursins,

31, 199, 219–20, 231, 233, 239, 278, 298, 300, 314, 316, 337, 340; pacifism and anti-pacifism, 11, 224, 231, 239, 333–4, 337, 339, 351; and Villeroi, 3, 70, 78, 133, 144, 231, 242, 244, 291–2, 316, 322, 346, 329, 339, 350, 374, 377; as potent patron and benefactor, 10, 79–84, 249–50, 293–9; dispensing patronage with discretion, 46, 293, 294–5; and Louis, Duke of Burgundy, assists and defends over Oudenarde, 250–69; and Torcy, 233–4, 317–18; and Villars, 257, 267, 331–2, 333, 338–9, 346, 354; humourful, 268, 382; typical day at court, 273–5; income, relatively modest, 6, 279; townhouses at Versailles and Fontainebleau, 6, 280, 297; and Père Le Tellier, takes back control of allocating benefices, 305, 314, 315–17, 363; solitude and privacy craved by, 322, 324–5, 327; skills for success at court, 373, 391; defends placing Maine and Toulouse in line of succession, 373–4; gloire: celebrating survival and victory, 379; regrets mistakes and “meddling,” 383 – beginnings: birth and baptism, 22, 23–4: criminal father, Constant, 22–4; depressive mother, Jeanne, 23–4; notable godparents, 24; siblings, Constant and Charles, 26 – childhood and early adulthood: in Niort, West Indies, and Paris, 23–8; re-Catholicization in convents a seminal experience, 26–8; first marriage to playwright Paul Scarron, 28–9; success as a gifted conversationalist and beauty in elite

Index Parisian social circles and salons, 29–30; critical lifelong connections and friendships established therein, 30–1 – early court life: successful as secret then formal governess to children sired by Louis XIV and Montespan, 32–4, 38–40; promotes relatives, 35–7; disliked court life and keen to retire to estate purchased at Maintenon, 34–5, 38, 43; king refuses and installs at court as second dame d’atour (1680), 37, 42–4, 46; and reactions to, 43–5 – establishment at Versailles: close relations with Louis XIV, 38, 40–1, 44–6; and supreme favour of, 42–4, 45–6; reconciles Louis and Marie-Thérèse, 45; secretly marries king after queen’s sudden death, 3, 66–7 – exercising influence, 6, 9, 15; accused of manipulating the king, 11–12; mechanics of described by Saint-Simon, 341–3 – and family: raises brother’s children, 52; promotes relatives, 81–4; brother Charles, 53; Charles receives promotions and tax-farming concessions, 35–7, 53; d’Aubigné de Tigny connection emphasized, 52–3; – and famine: of 1693, 126; of 1709, 348–55 – and Fénelon: mentor, 10, 88, 90; inspirational educationalist, 88; helps to appoint as preceptor to the Duke of Burgundy, 91; seminal guidance given by on role at court and how best to guide the king,

537

98–102; criticized by during famine of 1693, 126; falling out over Quietism, 146–88 – and gambling: backgammon, 280; card games, 203, 224; lotteries, 69, 327 – and Godet des Marais (confessor): appointed and made bishop of Chartres, 102–3, 303; on Quietism, 135, 138, 142, 146–7; commends Maintenon’s qualities as “spouse” to Louis XIV, 188–9; exhorted to indulge king sexually by, 67, 220–1; insightfully guides on taxing role at court with king, 216, 221, 228, 256–8, 260–1, 263–4, 270–2; on conseil de conscience, 301 – in government affairs: as stateswoman, 9, 91–5, 226, 389; advises the king, 11, 219; solicits expert advice and gathers intelligence to do so, 8, 20, 114, 244, 270–1, 332–3; balances factions, 5, 76; favours Colbert family and Seignelay, 76; dislikes Louvois, 76–7; ministers curry favour with, 77; from 1687 king holds meetings with ministers and generals in her apartments, 86; and from 1690 liasse meetings with ministers on an almost daily basis, 97, 107, 110, 317, 318, 327–8; stresses ministers must be approached on particular state matters, 111, 229; and war conferences with generals held regularly in her chambers, 115, 144, 243–4, 341; Stuart support and Scottish invasion, 123–4; attends and consulted in conseil d’en haut meetings sometimes held in her

538

Index

rooms, 191–2, 333, 336, 340–1; appoints ministers and ambassadors, 200, 214–5, 226, 323; fate of the Spanish Succession decided in her rooms, 214, 227; first minister after Torcy and principal adviser, 18, 214, 346–7; claims to be too old to comprehend, 219; works hard, 219, 273; as ministresse, 19, 226, 344, 389; broker and liaison with King and Queen and Ursins in Franco-Spanish affairs, 227–35, 318–20; extremely well informed, 234, 323, 383; as military adviser, 239–69; anxious to prove useful, 244; finds role stressful, 10, 290, 218–19, 273–8, 327, 345; unable to retire from, 348–9, 384–5; fosters harmony among officials, 349–53; monitors public mood, 354–6 – and health: headaches, 220, 247, 327; haemorrhoids or piles, 220, 224; colds, 223, 278; rheumatism and arthritis, 292; drinks wine and quinine, 381 – and inner circle: her petit troupeau, 78, 89, 161, 189, 199; and cabal of ladies (Caylus, Dangeau, Desmaretz, Estrées, Lévis, d’O, Montgon, Noailles, Nogaret, Voysin), 6, 49–50, 245–6, 280, 328, 350, 375 – and Jansenism: renewed crisis, 205–11; declares war on, 210; baffled by, 271; efforts to resolve Unigenitus crisis, 21, 362–72 – and Jesuits: declared war on by, 147; relishes weakness, 301, 308; detests dominance, 317 – and letters, 7, 9, 10, 11, 17; code and couriers employed, 8;

discretion essential in composing, 7–8; destruction advised, 7–8; fraudulent versions of, 8–9; secretaries to (Aumale, Caylus, Havrincourt, Nanon), 8, 10, 64, 402n59 – life at court palaces: despises fierce competitiveness at, 42, 223; intermittently enjoys beauty of and entertainments at, 50–1, 223–4, 326–7; apartments at Fontainebleau, 69; apartments at Chambord, 50, 56, 70, 123; at Petit-Bourg, 280, 377–8 – at Chantilly, 114–15, 123; townhouse in, 6; Stuart visits to, 93, 123; retreat to, 324, 327; agreeable alterations at, 381 – at Marly, 144, 183, 203, 223, 229, 281; “delicious and enchanting,” 224; Saint-Simon complains she is treated like queen at, 282–4; Maintenon fears court will move to, 352 – at Saint-Germain, 34; relishes life at, 50, 406n58; – at Versailles: townhouse in, 6; apartments at, 68–9, 191, 272–3; beauty of and entertainments at, 50–1 – and Liselotte: slandered by; 4–5, 46, 111; Maintenon challenges, 8; marital status questioned by, 7, 65, 98 – and Louis XIV: romance with, and secret marriage to, 3, 4, 6–7, 18, 20, 21, 37–8, 40–6; unsentimentality and sternness of, 10, 78; securing salvation of, 9, 11, 18, 49, 126; trying to unburden troubles and sorrows of, 9–10, 16, 276, 376–7; political partnership with and

Index confidante of, 16, 20, 21, 217–27; position next to (auprès du roi [next to the king]), 7, 18, 77, 175, 216, 305; installed at court by, 37; courtiers reflect on relations between and marital status of, 7, 43–6, 65, 69–70; friendship of and emotional attachment to, 9, 44–6, 65, 75, 77–8, 288; improves morality of, 46–7; aversion to sex with, 66–7, 220; on campaign with, 69, 114, 133; promenades and trips with, 69; and protocol observed at, 69, 283; obtaining patronage from, 10, 78–81, 296–7, 391; loved by and reciprocated, 78, 98, 189, 278, 288, 383; chambers visited daily at all palaces by, 97, 114, 283; reflects on increasing personal workload of, 108–29; works in councils with, 129, 218; sermonizes to and antagonistic reaction shown by, 152–3; anger toward Quietism shown by, 158, 164, 180–1; favour of recovered, 183, 186, 188; dines and supper parties with, 203, 375; gives advice to, 19, 227, 218, 336; musical recitals, plays, and entertainments arranged and hosted for, 203, 325, 377–8, 381; advised how to guide and provide support for, 216, 257, 272; dislikes personal habits, dogs, and indelicacy, 221, 292; decisions encouraged to be taken by, 20, 253, 256, 336; respect and deference shown by, 10, 282–4; Saint-Cyr liaisons arranged with, 283, 289; compelled reluctantly to disclose bad news and truth to, 290, 345; pities suffering of from overwork, 291; humility

539

and gentleness of, 290–1; exasperated at appetite of, 292, 380, 382; sacrifices time for, 320–1, 322; defends, 352; criticizes extravagance of, 352–3; courtiers acknowledge Maintenon’s unstinting support for, 377–8; admires piety of, 378; curbs egotism of, 380, 483n220; laments deficient education of, 380; admires stoicism and energy of, 381–2; admires septuagenarian hunting skills of, 382; serves as dutiful wife and partner, 383, 390–1; death of, 386 – and Louis XV: advises about education of, 224; appoints old friend Ventadour as governess, 375; Villeroi named governor of and to be succeeded by the maréchal-duc d’Harcourt, 374; makes Fleury preceptor of, 375 – and Louis the Dauphin: seeks support from, 85, 115–16; orchestrates rapprochement with father, 115; falling out over dauphin’s secret marriage to Mlle Choin, 116 – and Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie, Duchess of Burgundy: packs household with clients, 190; educates, 224; hosts party to celebrate son’s birth, 281, 285–7; reforms errant ways, 285–7; treats like a daughter, 345 – on marriage: and domestic tyranny, 14, 387; and suffering to ensure success, 66; serving husband, 284, 383, 391; husbands arrogant, selfish, and dirty, 292 – on old age, 273, 327; king a living fossil, 291; a living skeleton, 323; deathly reflection in mirror, 327

540

Index

– Pantocrate: accused of being, 4–5; accused of achieving “total power,” 5; scheming mistress, 4–5, 8; with limitless ambition, 50; exaggerated, 384 – and papacy: gifts from, 62, 153, 307; favoured by, 92; support solicited by, 86, 366–7; granted the right to enter any religious house in France by (Innocent XII), 132 – and patriarchy: accuses men of being “incapable of friendship,” 10; overbearing and ineffectual, 14; women weak and need protection, 49; and lack tenderness, 78; God restricted state of dependence, 220 – perks and privileges: gilded chair and canopy at mass, 6, 279; travels in king’s coaches, 69, 284; sedan chair on royal promenades, 213; excessive honours makes uneasy, 391; armchair in royal presence; 445n50 – on princes: to be pitied, 284–5; have trouble facing truth, 345 – and Protestantism: brought up by Calvinist Villette family, 24; role in Revocation, 20, 53–4; forcibly converts Huguenot relatives and justifies abductions, 53–61; frustrated by recalcitrance, 35, 61, 83–4; sanctions greater moderation in 1698–99 policy review, 192–7; intolerant of Camisard rebels, 307 – protégés – Henri d’Harcourt, 80, 227, 231, 240, 244, 297, 333, 341, 374; tries to make a minister, 215; becomes maréchal-duc with Maintenon’s backing, 229

– Michel Chamillart: controller-general at Saint-Cyr, 132; promotes and works with at court, 11, 20, 220, 249–50; triumvirate with king, 217–9, 243–4; defends, 240, 242; criticizes, 241, 299 – Louis-Antoine de Noailles: promotes to Paris and works closely with on benefice campaign, 149–55, 301–6; falling out over his Jansenist leanings and opposition to Unigenitus, 368 – Daniel Voysin, 242, 244, 318, 328, 333, 367, 373, 369–72 – on Providence, 35, 50, 269; depressed by, 268; optimistic about, 339, 379 – on public figures: sympathy for ministers, 240–1, 290; despondency of men, 384, 390 – and public opinion: uncertain of 216; criticized and lampooned by, 5, 21, 70, 201, 203–4, 217, 279–80, 293, 350, 355, 388; complains is the “only master,” 346 – as queen: not formally recognized (uncrowned), 6, 20; public reflect on marital status of, 7, 65, 69–70; skills to survive at, 7–8, 389; besieged by courtiers, 9, 84, 218; apartments the heart of the court, 16, 218; inundated by requests and petitions, 49, 290, 218, 321–324– 6; courtiers and foreign ambassadors and princes curry favour and demand audiences with, 84–5, 197–201, 320–3, 299–301; overwhelmed with visitors, 218, 321–2, 326; with Stuart family, 91–2, 123, 235–9, 281; hosts entertainments in her apartments, 203, 288;

Index treated regally by king in public, 213, 282–3; balancing rival court factions, 9, 242–3, 346; entertained at Petit-Bourg, 280; peace plenipotentiaries take leave of, 384 – and Quietism: admires teachings of Guyon, 88, 136; extricates from prison, 89; allows to instruct at Saint-Cyr, 134; school becomes infected by Quietism and purge instigated, 134–6, 146; cover-up mounted by Maintenon, 137–43, 144–6; Fénelon publishes defending Guyonian mysticism, 146; Bossuet campaigns to have Quietism condemned in France and Rome, 146; ensuing international affair compromises Maintenon, 147–88; king’s fury at Maintenon, 180; Fénelon censured, 186–8; Maintenon recovers king’s favour, 186, 188; breaks with Fénelon and Beauvillier, 167, 180 – and religiosity: “re-Catholicized” as youth, 26–8; rational piety, 48–9; prayer and self-analysis, 43; moral reforms at court, 46–7; represents dévot party and values, 47, 49–50, 78; puritanical streak, 202, 204, 327; confessors of (see Gergy; Gobelin; La Chétardie; Marais) – as royal matriarch: balancing family factions, 9, 281, 287–8; support solicited, 85–6; arranging marriages, 116 – and servants: Nanon, 32, 69; Chamarande, 46, 144, 223; staff, 279; reduces staff during famine, 351 – and Saint-Cyr: founded and expanded, 70–3; passion for

541

direction of, 73–4; apartments at, 234; transformed into a convent, 131–4; overwhelmed by affairs of, 111, 121, 129; Quietism infects and purged from, 134–5, 138, 163–4; conferences with bishops and officials at, 283, 322; retreats and retires to, 75, 218, 273, 324, 376, 386 – teaching and education, 6, 9, 11, 12, 17; advocates reason and rational piety, 48–9; on a good reputation and social success, 50; subordinate position to men, 49, avoiding sin, 50 Maisonfort, Marie-Françoise Sylvine de la, 89, 134, 163 Malplaquet, battle of, 296, 335 Manceau, Pierre (intendant of Maintenon), 127 Mancini, Marie, Princess Colonna, 30 Mancini, Olympia, Countess of Soissons, 42 Manneville, Mme de. See Mornay-Montchevreuil Mansart, Jules-Hardouin, 68, 72, 191 Mantua, Fernando Carlo Gonzaga, Duke of, 300–1 Marais, Paul Godet des (bishop of Chartres), 11, 67, 142, 158; confessor to Maintenon and guides on role at court and with Louis XIV, 67, 87, 94, 102, 126, 153, 169, 170, 177, 188, 216, 220–1, 228, 256, 258, 260, 263, 271–2, 466n196; promoted to the Bishopric of Chartres thanks to Maintenon, 102–3; religious adviser for Saint-Cyr, 73, 103, 303; helps convert Saint-Cyr into a convent, 132; warned about Quietism

542

Index

at Saint-Cyr, 134; Issy conferences, 138; criticizes Guyon, 135, 146; approves of Maintenon’s scheme to appoint good bishops, 147; backs Bossuet against Fénelon, 160; endorses Bossuet’s Instructions, 160; detests Jansenism, 312; member of the conseil de conscience, 301; recommends replacement confessor for Maintenon, 304; slandered by Cardinal Noailles, 312; death of, 316 Mantua, Suzanne-Henriette d’Elbeuf, duchesse of, 301 Maral, Alexandre (historian), 17–18 Marchande, Anne (first wife of Constant d’Aubigné), 23 Maréchal, M. (surgeon), 274 Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France, 20 Marie-Constance, Mère, 361 Marie-Thérèse d’Autriche [of Austria], Queen (of France and wife of Louis XIV and mother of Louis the Dauphin), 24; marries Louis XIV, 31; marriage to Louis XIV, 31, 51; Maintenon reconciles with the king, 46, 51; sudden death of, 18, 49, 61 Marillac René de (intendant), 59 Marinella, Lucrezia, 14 Marlborough, John Churchill, Duke of, 335, 338; at Oudenarde and Lille, 250, 256, 258, 261, 263–4, 266; offers peace talks, 259, 264, 336; at Malplaquet, 335; captures Bouchain, 338; dismissed, 339 Marlborough, Sarah, Duchess of, 258, 261 Marly, château de: visits to, 3, 50, 69, 281, 351, 382; in fashion, 51;

improvements to, 76, 144, 282, 324, 353; governmental meetings at, 84, 92, 129, 19, 229, 280; court at, 86, 97, 352; entertainments at, 123, 203, 224, 288, 391; gardens, 328; Maintenon fears court will move to, 352; Maintenon criticizes new gardens at, 353 Marsan, Charles de Lorraine d’Armagnac, comte de, 48 Marsilly, Marie-Claire Des Champs de. See Villette Marsin, Ferdinand, comte-maréchal de, 244 Martinvast, Mlle de, 361 Masillon, Père, 370 Maubission, Abbey of, 360 Maulevrier, abbé de, 158, 363 Maupeou, Marie de. See Pontchartrain Maximilian-Emmanuel II, Elector of Bavaria, 249, 266–8, 318, 320–2 Mazarin, Cardinal Jules, 97, 206, 236, 293, 380, 389 Medici, Marie de, Queen (of France and wife of Henry IV), 7 Melchior-Bonnet, Sabine (historian), 136, 141, 185 Melun, Mlle de, 280 Méré, Antoine Gombaud, chevalier de, 28–9 Mérinville, Charles-François des Monstiers de (nephew of Godet des Marais, replaces him as bishop of Chartres), 303, 377 Mesmes, Jean-Antoine de, 367, 372–3 Meudon, cabale de, 242, 254, 266, 346; members of, 452n179; château de, 123, 144, 168, 266, 279, 284; dauphin’s court challenges Versailles’s supremacy, 205

Index Michelet, Jules (historian), 13, 215 Mignard, Pierre, 66, 288; painting of Maintenon by, ix Millot, abbé, 152, 387 Minois, George (historian), 135, 170–1 Minorca, loss of, 268 Miramion, Marie Bonneau, de, 57, 72, 83, 89 Modena, Mary Beatrice Isabella d’Este, Queen (of England): best of friends with and confidante of Maintenon, 92–3, 197, 226, 235, 285, 319, 360, 372, 373, 382; deference paid to by French royals, 123, 150; privileged to sit in armchair in royal presence, 123; son’s tutor, John Betham, suspected of Jansenism and removed, 211, 309; persuades Louis XIV to recognize her son as successor to the British thrones, 226, 235–6; dowry confirmed with Maintenon’s help, 239; pays respects to Maintenon, 281 Molière, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, 377, 381 Molina, Luis de, 207 Molinos, Miguel, 88–9, 138, 145, 186 Monaco, Louis Grimaldi, Prince de, 186, 198 Mondonville, Jeanne Juliard, dame de, 362 Mons, siege of, 104, 114, 117, 335 Montaigle, Mme de, 163 Montalbert, Mme de, 360 Montault-Navaille, duchesse de. See Elbeuf Montault-Navailles, marquise de. See Pompadour Montausier, Julie Lucie d’Angennes, duchesse de, 30–1

543

Montchevreuil, Henri de Mornay, marquis de, 79, 122, 323; befriends Mme Scarron (Maintenon), 31; governor of the duc de Maine, 52, 79, 85, 86, 121; allegedly witnesses Maintenon’s wedding, 64; supervises the comte de Vermandois on campaign, 65; promoted chevalier thanks to Maintenon, 84 Montchevreuil, Marguerite Boucher d’Orsay, marquise de (wife of Henri): befriends Mme Scarron (Maintenon), 31; household run by Mme Scarron, 32; allegedly witnesses Maintenon’s wedding, 64; member of Maintenon’s dévot circle and confidante of, 78–9, 93, 212, 284, 323, 479n89; promoted by Maintenon, 79; new château visited by Louis XIV, 121; used as courier by Maintenon, 149, 199; death of, 199 Montespan, Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart, marquise de, 20, 31, 35, 38–9, 49, 69, 70, 273; introduced to Maintenon in Paris, 22; introduces Maintenon to Louis XIV, 32; children by Louis XIV, 5, 18, 32–4; made a duchess and falls from favour, 42; dissuades Maintenon from leaving the court, 42; jealous of Maintenon, 37, 44–5; Clagny built for, 75; seeks subsidy for daughter, 199;retires to Saint-Joseph, 361 Montesquiou, Pierre d’Artagnan, duc de, 335, 339 Montfort, Mlle de, 210 Montgon, Jean-François de Beauverger, marquis de, 295, 425n204

544

Index

Montgon, Louise Sublet, marquise de (wife of Jean-Françoise), 81, 190, 425n204 Montjeu, Mme de, 45 Montmorency-Bouteville, François Henri de. See Luxembourg Montrevel, Nicolas Auguste de La Baume, maréchal-marquis de, 246, 307, 380, 390 Mornay, Bonne Angélique de Montchevreil, Mme de Manneville (daughter of Henri), promoted by Maintenon, 119 Mornay, Henri-Charles de Montchevreil, comte de (son of Henri), promoted with Maintenon’s support, 79–80 Mornay, Léonor, comte de Montchevrueil (son of Henri), 80 Mornay, Louis de. See Villarceaux Mornay, Réné, abbé de (son of Henri, bishop of Besançon in 1717), 80, 302, 323 Mursay, château de, 23–5 Mursay, Philippe de Villette, comte de, 53, 82, 120 Nadal, abbé de, 388 Nantes, Mlle de (daughter of Louis XIV, later known as “Mme la Duchesse”). See Condé Nantes, Revocation of Edict of, 20, 27, 54–5, 57–8; debates about reversing, 194–7 Navailles, Philippe II de Montault, duc de, 31, 399n7 Navailles, Suzanne de Baudéan, duchesse de, 24, 31, 399; dame d’honneur to Queen Marie-Thérèse, 24; godmother to Maintenon, 24

Nemours, Marie Françoise Élisabeth (wife of Alfonso VI of Portugal), 32 Neuburg, Mariana von (Queen Dowager of Spain), 232, 300 Neuillan, Charles de Baudéan, comte de, 24 Neuillan, Louise Tiraqueau, comtesse de, entrusted with Maintenon’s care and education and reconversion, 26–8 Neuville, Ferdinand de, bishop of Chartres, 73 Nicole, Pierre, 145, 206, 210–11, 369 Noailles, Adrien-Maurice, comte d’Ayen, maréchal-duc de (son of Anne-Jules), 224, 228; marries Maintenon’s niece in lavish ceremony at Versailles, 190–1; confidante of Maintenon, 220, 225, 240–2, 260, 263, 268, 280, 292, 307, 324–5, 331, 333–4, 337, 351–2, 353, 378; intelligence solicited by Maintenon in triangular correspondence with Louis XIV, 244, 246–9, 333, 354; accompanies Philip V to Madrid, 245; career advanced by Maintenon, 15, 245; attacks Barcelona, 247; in command in Catalonia, 245; salvaging military strategy proposed for Flanders, 335; military strategies for northern Spain dictated to ministers, 338; warns of impact on family of his uncle’s attack on Unigenitus, 370; apoplectic illness, 377 Noailles, Anne-Jules, maréchal-duc de (d. 1708), 109; old trusted friend of Louis XIV, 116–17, 245; viceroy of Catalonia, 117; as provincial governor, 116–17; Barbezieux tries to

Index undermine, 128; Maintenon stoutly defends, 128; ultimately unsuccessful campaigns in Catalonia, 128, 202 Noailles, Françoise Charlotte d’Aubigné, marechale-duchesse de (Maintenon’s niece): brought up by Maintenon, 52, 81; marries the comte d’Ayen de Noailles (AdrienMaurice), 190–1; member of Maintenon’s cabale, 280, 331; educated by Nanon, 293; pregnant, 375 Noailles, Gaston (bishop of Châlonssur-Marne, brother of LouisAntoine), 117, 152, 194, 303 Noailles, Jacques de, 117, 423n148 Noailles, Jean-François, marquis de, 117, 423n148 Noailles, Louis-Antoine de (archbishop of Paris and Cardinal, brother of Anne-Jules): assists and often compelled to do so in Maintenon’s campaign to appoint worthy candidates to benefices, 111, 144–55, 301–2, 303, 306, 344; bishop of Cahors, 117; confidante of Maintenon, 132, 155, 156–7, 158–9, 161–2, 166, 172, 177, 178, 180–1, 183–4, 185, 204, 191, 198, 200, 204, 229, 324, 360; in Quietist affair and Issy conferences, 137–8, 178, 185; interrogates and condemns Mme Guyon, 139, 176; “married” to Châlons, 142; promoted reluctantly to Archbishopric of Paris, 142–3; Fénelon disparages and seeks revenge against and attacks, 142, 187, 210–11, 362; regrets harsh treatment of Guyon, 146;

545 pre-eminent figurehead of Jansenist party, 147, 270, 308–9, 314, 316; Maintenon advises on guiding and deceiving Louis XIV, 144–5, 148–55; endorses Bossuet’s Instructions, 160; Bossuet calls feeble, 165; Maintenon’s advancement of regrettable, 167, 186, 298, 314, 383; moderate attitude to Protestant problem, 193–5; made cardinal, 201, 212, 214; austere piety, 204, 211–2, 307; inconsistencies regarding religious views, 207; aversion for Molinist free will, 207; fails to support Port-Royal, 207, 311–13; writes eulogy for and acclaims Quesnel’s Moral Reflexions, 117, 132, 172, 177, 181, 191, 207–9, 228, 240; Jesuit attacks on, 208–9, 316–17; Maintenon defends, 209; pamphlet attacking burnt after conference with Louis XIV, 209; Maintenon anxious about, 210–11, 312; protégé of Maintenon, 297; member of the conseil de conscience, 301–2, 344; “case of conscience,” 308–10; arraigns John Betham, 309; defends religious stance position and criticizes papacy, 309, 311, 371; slanders Godet des Marais, 312; Maintenon pressures to conform, 312, 368; disgrace, 21, 344; defiantly leads opposition to Unigenitus and ensuing affair, 348, 355, 363, 365–72; attacks Jesuits casuistry, 365; claims Jansenism is a phantom, 369; an “episcopalistGallican,” 364; Pope Clement XI attempts to discipline, 368, 371; Le Tellier suggests that Roman

546

Index

Inquisition interrogate, 371; Louis XIV plans to imprison, 372 Noailles, Louise Boyer, duchesse de (mother of Anne-Jules; d. 1697), 245, 280, 293, 375; befriends Mme Scarron (Maintenon), 30–1, 116, 245; congratulates on son’s military success, 422n145 Noailles, Lucie Félicité de. See Estrées Noailles, Marie Christine de. See Guiche Noailles, Marie-Françoise de Bournonville, maréchale-duchesse de (wife of Anne-Jules), 116, 199, 245, 327 Nogaret, Marie-Madeleine Agnès de Gontaut, marquise de, member of Maintenon’s inner circle, 190, 245 Noisy, château de, 71–2 Notre Dame des Anges, convent of, 72 Nouet, M. (avocat), 132 O, Gabriel Claude, marquis de Villers d’, 118; governor of the comte de Toulouse, 81, 118 O, Marie Anne de La Vergne de Guilleragues, marquise de Villers d’, 81; member of Maintenon’s cabal, 118–19, 123, 190, 245, 280, 375 Oeillets, Mlle des, 32 Oise, Marie Françoise de Brancas d’. See Harcourt Olbreuse, Alexandre d’, 83 Olbreuse, Eléonore d’. See Zell Olbreuse, Madeleine-Sylvie de SaintHermine d’, 59, 83–4 Orange, principality of, Catholics in, 193; Protestants barred from 192; returned to William III, 192

Orcibal, Jean (historian), 91, 157 Order of the New Catholics, 88, 196 Orléans, Gaston d’ (Louis XIV’s uncle), 23, 29 Orléans, Elisabeth-Charlotte de Bavière, duchesse d’, known as Liselotte, sister-in-law of Louis XIV: marital status of Maintenon and the king questioned by, 7, 65, 98; accuses Maintenon of being malicious, 77, 286; jealous of Maintenon, 84–5; amused by Quietism and Maintenon’s discomfort, 142–3, 180; on famine and misery, 143, 351; on James II’s piety, 180; on Duchesse de Burgundy, 190; on Maintenon’s acute unpopularity, 201, 279; avoids Versailles, 205; mocks the king’s “simple” religious views, 210; mocks Maintenon, 212–13; slanders Maintenon, 4–5, 46, 111; suspicious of Maintenon, 293; uses Maintenon to reach the king 300, 342; describes Marly, 325; wishes Maintenon a long life, 377 Orléans, Françoise Marie de Blois de Bourbon, duchesse d’ (daughter of Louis XIV and Montespan and wife of Philippe II), 40, 118, 326 Orléans, Marie Louise Elizabeth d’. See Berry Orléans, Philippe I, Duc d’ (brother of Louis XIV, known as “Monsieur”), 255, 268, 280, 322, 326; homosexuality of, 47; death of, 222 Orléans, Philippe II, duc de Chartres d’ (later regent), 250, 392; marriage arranged by Maintenon infuriates mother (Liselotte), 118; falls out with Ursins, 299, 470n29;

Index wrongly mistrusts Maintenon, 299–300; renounces claim to the Spanish succession, 319; restricted role as future regent, 373–4; Louis XIV recommends Maintenon to, 392; criticizes Philip V, 449n106; Maintenon admires qualities, 464n162, 472n80 Orléans, Elisabeth Charlotte d’. See Lorraine Ornaison, Clair-Gilbert d’. See Chamarande Orry, Jean, 232, 320 Orsay, Marguerite d’. See Villarceaux Ossone, Francisco Maria de Paula Téllez–Girón, duc d’ [Osuna], 319 Oudenarde, Battle of, and aftermath, 240, 250–69 Parabère, Henri de Baudéan, comte de, 26 Paris: salon society, 14, 24, 27–30, 50; Parlement of, 34, 73, 120, 133, 136, 154, 193, 205, 212; dévot teaching in, 57; famine and riots in, 127, 348–50, 353, 355; depravity in, 143, 203; Fénelon’s book a sensation in, 159; losing interest in Quietist affair, 188; opinions against Maintenon, 5, 201, 279, 293, 350, 355–6; opinions against Chamillart, 240; concerns about war, 258, 262, 341; opinions against Villars, 339; furore over Unigenitus, 364–8, 371–2, 387; Parlement suspected of being dominated by Jansenists, 368; ferment over royal succession, 374; public mood carefully monitored 354; See also Champvallon; Noailles

547

Pascal, Blaise, 211 Paulet, abbé, 359 Pavillon, Nicolas de (bishop of Alès), 207 Pellison, Paul, 30, 140 Perdereau, Dorothy, 207 Pérou, Mme de, 73, 134, 136, 280, 316 Peter the Great, Tsar (of Russia), 3, 386 Petit-Bourg, château de, 280, 377 Petitfils, Jean-Christian (historian), 16, 236, 243, 346 Phélypeaux, Abbé Jean, 103, 165, 171, 173, 184 Philip IV, King (of Spain), 31 Philip V, King (of Spain, formerly Duc d’Anjou), 215, 226–7; close correspondence with Maintenon, 229, 232–3, 274, 318; installed as king, 227, 245; outmatched by his wife, 229; aptitude for war, 230; royal triumvirate with Ursins, 230; Italian campaign, 232; renounces French throne, 236, 319, 337; invests Barcelona 246; re-enters Madrid, 247; loses Minorca and Sardinia, 268; lacks financial support, 291, 323; told to arrest Quesnel, 309; pressure to abdicate, 316, 333, 337; anti-Jansenist campaign, 364; bulimia, 380 Philippe, Père, 173 Piètre, Geneviève de (wife of Charles d’Aubigné), 36 Pirot, M., 156, 163 Poissy, abbesse de, 361 Poland, Marie Casimire de La Grange d’Arquien (widow of King John III Sobieski), Dowager Queen of, 386 Polignac, Cardinal Melchior de, 311, 367

548

Index

Pollet, Firmin, 311 Pompadour, Gabrielle de MontaultNavailles de, 323, 389, 471n173 Pomponne, Simon Arnauld, marquis de, 103–4, 107–8, 201, 206 Pons, Mlle Bonne de. See Heudicourt Pontchartrain, Éléanore de la Rochefoucauld-Roye, comtesse de (wife of Jérôme), 15, 210, 434n173 Pontchartrain, Jérôme de Phélypeaux de (son of Louis), 15, 19, 129, 434n173 Pontchartrain, Jean-Fréderic (son of Jérôme). See Maurepas Pontchartrain, Louis Phélypeaux de, comte de, 15, 110, 120, 214, 217; controller-general of finance, 94, 102; secretary of state for Paris and for the Navy, 103, 107; premier président of the Parlement of Brittany, 105; relationship with Maintenon, 120, 132–3; famine of 1693–94, 129; naval budget reduced, 130; causes rupture between d’Aubigné and Phélypeaux families, 131; and Quietism, 155, 159; unhappy with moderate treatment of new converts, 193; accuses clergy of opportunism, 195; excellent chancellor, 224; plans to steer council meetings with Torcy and Desmaretz, 225, 337; supports Carlos II’s testament, 227; objects to decisions taken outside the conseil d’en haut, 340; religious disagreement with the king, 390; reports on sedition in Paris, 355; resigns over Unigenitus, 369 Pontchartrain, Marie de Maupeou (wife of Louis), 102 Pontoise, Convent of, 59

Portland, Earl of, 192, 198 Port-Royal des Champs, Convent of, 45, 175, 206–7, 209, 211; closure of, 309, 311–13, 317, 362; sister convent in Paris, 206–7; suppressed by papal bull, 312 Priolo, Mère, 132 Prior, Matthew, 18, 384 Protestantism: campaign against Huguenots, 48, 54–61; Louis XIV intolerant of and makes “war” on, 54–5; Maintenon ruthlessly converts Huguenot relatives, 56–61, 82–3; Edict of Fontainebleau revoking Nantes signed in Maintenon’s apartments, 57, 61; Calvinist church revived, 182–3; Camisards’ rebellion in the Cévennes, 246, 250, 307; Revocation of Nantes, 20, 27, 54; Maintenon’s role in Revocation of Nantes, 53–6; Revocation’s success questioned and more moderate policy implemented, 192–7 public opinion (voix publique), 112, 148, 201; critical of and lampoons Maintenon, 5, 21, 70, 201, 203–4, 217, 279–80, 350, 355, 388; mocks Fénelon, 160, 188, 263; and Quietism, 173, 177, 180, 187; impressed by king’s largesse, 190; Maintenon uncertain of, 216; supports Scottish invasion, 237; calls for dismissal of Chamillart, 240–1; mocks and accuses Burgundy of cowardice, 251; baleful influence of, 267; backs Voysin, 331; Maintenon complains is the “only master,” 346; inflamed by Jansenism, 366; on the Bourbon succession, 374

Index Puisieulx, Roger Brûlart, marquis de, 229 Pussort, Henri, 106 Quentin, Mme, 190 Quesnel, Pasquier, 207–8, 211, 309–11, 317, 363–6, 369; outpouring of works against, 366; papal condemnation of, 365 Quesnel, William (brother of Pasquier), 309 Quietism, and affair of, 16, 19–20, 87–91, 133, 137–88, 199, 201, 207, 210, 297, 307, 309–10, 314, 348, 362, 371, 429n284. See also Beauvillier; Bossuet; Fénelon; Maintenon; Noailles, Guyon Louis-Antoine de Racine, Jean, 5, 30, 93, 117, 131, 133, 193, 209, 417n205, 423n158, 444n229 Radouay, Nicole-Suzanne de Raymond, Mme de, 73 Rákóczi, Prince Ferenc II of Transylvania, 268, 321 Rambouillet, 375, 379 Ramillies, Battle of, 240 Rancé, Armand-Jean Le Bouthillier de, abbé de La Trappe, 161, 173 Ranuzzi, Angelo, 86 Rastatt, Treaty of, 316, 356, 367, 378 Ravignan, Joseph de Mesmes, marquis de, 333 Reuil, Convent of, 59, 65 Rhodes, Charles Pot, marquis de, 76 Richelieu, Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal, 23–4 Richelieu, Armand-Jean de Vignerot, duc de, 121

549

Richelieu, Anne Poussart de Fors du Vigean, duchesse de, 30, 39, 43, 68 Richelieu, Hôtel de, 29, 32, 34 Richer, Edmond, 145 Robert, Philibert, curé de Seurre, 184 Robillard, Josias de, 61 Rochebonne, Charles François de (bishop of Noyon), 303 Rochechouart, Guy de Sève de (bishop of Arras), 204 Rochechouart, Louis-Victor de. See Vivonne Rochefort, Henri Louis de Loigny, maréchal de, 69 Rochefort, Madeleine de LavalBoisdaupin, maréchal de, de, 43, 44 Rochefort-Théobon, Mlle de (later the comtesse de Beuvron), 40 Rochefoucauld, Charlotte de Roye, comtesse de La, 24 Rochefoucauld, François II de la. See Roucy Rochefoucauld, François III de La (godfather to Maintenon), 24 Rochefoucauld, François V, duc de La, 24 Rochefoucauld-Roye, Éléanore de La. See Pontchartrain Rochefoucauld-Roye, François de La, 399n8 Rochefoucauld–Roye, JulienneCatherine de la Tour d’Auvergne, comtesse de Roucy, 399n8 Roche-sur-Yon, François-Louis de Bourbon, Prince de la, 47–8 Rohan, duc de, 285 Rohan, Mlle de Roquelaure, duchesse de, 285 Rohan-Chabot, Anne de. See Soubise Rohan-Soubise, Armand Gaston Maximilien de (Grand Almoner

550

Index

Cardinal of France), 306, 367, 370, 372 Roquelaure, Mme de, 285 Roquette, Gabriel de (bishop of Autun), 200 Rothkrug, Lionel (historian), 91, 101 Roucy, Catherine-Françoise d’Arpajon, comtesse de, 159, 190, 245 Roucy, François II de la Rochefoucauld, comte de, 48 Rouvroy, Louis de. See Saint-Simon Rowlands, Guy (historian), 104, 107, 113 Roye, Charlotte de. See Rochefoucauld Roye, Frédéric, comte de, 48, 60 Rule, John (historian), 107, 233, 316–17, 384 Ruvigny, Henri de Massué, marquis de, 48 Ryswick, Treaty of, 123, 164, 175, 192, 197 Sablé, Madeleine de Souvré, marquise de, 30 Saillant, M. de, 340 Saint-Agathe, community of, 211 Saint-Aignan, Paul. See Beauvilliers Saint André, M. de, 340 Saint-Antoine (Paris), Abbey of, 361 Saint-Aubin, Mme de, 73 Saint-Brisson, Jean-Baptiste Séguier, marquis de, 72 Saint Candide, relics of, 62 Saint-Cloud, palace of, 62, 205 Saint-Cyr: ransacked in Revolution, 9; virtues of modesty and courtesy promoted at, 50; founded and success so expanded, 70–4; Maintenon’s passion for, 73–4, 359; Maintenon designs broad

rational curriculum for, 74; Saint-Denis revenues transferred with papal approval to, 77, 91–2; Huguenot girls inculcated at, 88; Fénelon’s teachings used at, 88; Racine’s plays performed and banned at, 93, 131–2; Louis XIV visits, 122, 288–8; Stuarts entertained at, 123, 301; Maintenon overwhelmed by affairs of and visitors to, 111, 121, 129, 324; transformed into a convent, 20, 131–4; Quietism infects, 134–5, 138, 142–3; Fénelon consecrated as archbishop of Cambrai by Bossuet at, 141; purged by Bossuet and Louis XIV, 146, 163–4; meeting at, with Fénelon, fails to find compromise, 167, 131–4; libelled as a royal bordello, 204; Maintenon’s suite of apartments at, 234; Maintenon’s sanctuary and solitude at, 273, 324, 376; Maintenon dedicates Wednesdays and Sundays to, 283; Godet des Marais serves as local bishop (of Chartres) to, 303; bishops’ provincial council at, 311; Maintenon courted by foreign princes at, 3, 321; Maintenon’s dinner parties with friends at, 321; “too many bishops” at, 322; Maintenon meets ministers at, 328; finances of, 328; peace to be re-established at, 359; girls transferred to other prestigious convents from, 360; Maintenon’s retirement to, 386, 392; regent ensures pension secure during visit to, 392; separate sphere of influence for, 358; Maintenon treats students as if her children, 391

Index Saint Enfance, Convent of, 362 Saint-Esprit, Order of, 53 St François de Sales, Festival of, 157 Saint-Gelais, M. de, 82 Saint-Géran, Mme de, 81, 104 Saint-Germain, palace of, 50, 92, 121, 123, 197, 289, 361 Saint-Hérem, Constance-Lucie Villette (wife of Jean-Baptiste), marquise de, 462n122 Saint-Hérem, Jean-Baptiste de Momtmorin, marquis de, 462n122 Saint-Hermant, Pierre Tiraqueau, baron de, 26–8 Saint-Hermine, Alexandre de, 61, 83 Saint-Hermine, Anne-Madeleine de (wife of Hélie), 61, 83 Saint-Hermine, Elie, marquis de (son of Hélie), 61, 83 Saint-Hermine, Hélie, marquis de, 83 Saint-Hermine, Henri-Louis, chevalier de, in the Bastille, then banished from France, 84 Saint-Hermine, Jean-Pharamond, 83 Saint-Hermine, Louis-Henri, comte de (son of Hélie), 59–61, 83, 295, 462n124 Saint-Hermine, Madeleine-Sylvie. See d’Olbreuse Saint-Hermine, Marie-Anne-Françoise de (“Minette”). See Mailly Saint-Joseph, Convent of, 361 Saint-Léger, René de, sieur de Boisrond, 30 Saint-Louis, Maison Royale de, 77 Saint-Maur, dames de, 57, 72 Saint-Maure, chevalier de, 48 Saint-Pars, Mme de, 73 Saint-Pierre, Mme de, 71 Saint-Pouange, Gilbert Colbert, marquis de, 106

551

Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de, 4, 5, 12, 79, 230, 209, 225, 240, 249, 272, 279, 281, 293, 346; fierce critic of Maintenon, 15, 50, 75, 81, 85, 104, 118, 119, 191, 215, 222, 279, 282–3, 301, 326, 358, 373; commends Pontchartrain, 102; commends de Souzy, 105–6; finds Maximes of Saints by Fénelon too complicated to comment on, 157; feels sympathy for her rheumatism, 292; intricate mechanics of manipulating the king described, 341–3, 345; describes “frightening” Père Le Tellier, 362 Saint-Simon, Marie Gabriele de Lorges, duchesse de, 15, 79 Saint-Sulpice, curés of, 296, 357, 362; seminary of, 11, 138, 176, 324, 330, 361 Saint-Thècle, convent of, 317, 361 Saint-Valéry, Mme de, 119 Saint Vincent de Paul, charité de, 361 Sales, François de, 153 Salons, 14; in Paris, 29–30, 32 Sarmant, Thierry (historian), 58, 95, 105, 109, 252, 383 Saulx, François Chevalier de (bishop of Alès), 194 Savignac, Joseph François Ignace de Labat, baron de, 346, 350 Savigny, Jacques Bénigne, abbé de, 158 Savoie, Marie-Adélaïde de. See Burgundy, Duchess of Savoie, Marie-Louise de, Queen of Spain (Philip V’s first wife), 215, 226–8, 387; protests at Ursins’s removal, 228; political prowess, 229; correspondence with Maintenon, 229–30; death of, 318

552

Index

Savoy, Eugene, Prince of, 227; Ouenarde battle and Flanders campaign (1708), 250, 253–7, 266; incursions into Artois, 265; Battle of Malplaquet (1709), 335; peace talks, 335–7, 378 Savoy, Victor Amadeus II, duc de, 189, 202; declaring war on France, 227; treaty with Austria, 227 Scarron, Paul (Maintenon’s first husband), 4, 18; marries Françoise d’Aubigné (Maintenon), 4, 18, 20; colourful character, 22, 29–30; literary success and works published, 22, 28, 29; acute arthritis, 28; educates Françoise, 29; joins Fronde, 29; meets and is captivated by Françoise, 28; pension from Anne of Austria, 28–9; suspected of pamphleteering against Mazarin, 29; popular and brilliant salon, 30; death and debts, 18, 30 Sceaux, château de, 205, 407n64 Schomberg, Frederick Armand, maréchal-duc de, 28 Scotland, failed invasions of (1708, 1715) , 142, 155, 156, 226, 236–9, 258, 451n141 Scudéry, Madeleine de, 30, 52, 63, 407n77 Seignelay, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, marquis de (Colbert’s son), 58–60, 77, 86, 89, 92; zealously anti-Protestant and purges Huguenots from Paris and navy, 58; patronage and friendship of Maintenon, 76–7, 94, 104; Maintenon’s patronage and friendship reciprocated, 35, 59, 61; king works with in Maintenon’s chambers, 86; heads Colbert faction, 94; secretary of state for the

navy, becomes minister of state, 94; rival to Louvois with Maintenon’s backing, 105; sudden death, 103, 105 Sévigné, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de, 39–40, 42, 44–6, 49, 51, 56, 79, 80 Sfondrate, Celestino, Cardinal, 124 Shrewsbury, Adelhida Palliotti Talbot, Duchess of, 322 Signy, Abbey of, 120 Sophie, Electress of Hannover, 7, 65, 77, 98, 143, 201, 279, 286, 293, 325 Souastre, Père de, 209 Soubise, Anne de Rohan-Chabot, Princesse de, 40, 49, 299 Sourches, Louis François du Bouchet, marquis de (provost of Versailles), 5, 54–5, 69, 94, 109, 110, 188, 209, 282; on Maintenon, 44, 76; on Quietists, 159; on Protestantism, 193; on the Stuarts, 197 Souvré, Madeleine de. See Sablé Souzy, Michel Le Peletier de, 105–6, 109, 114, 217, 327 Spada, Cardinal Fabrizio, 86, 161, 169 Spanish Succession, decision on, 214, 227 Stair, Earl of, 346 Stoll, Mathieu (historian), 58, 95, 105, 109 Stuart, Jacques Fitz-James (duc de Fitz-James), 396n19 Stuart, James Francis Edward, chevalier de Saint-George (the Pretender, James III), 123, 281, 309; Louis XIV recognizes as heir to the three Stuart crowns and promises to

Index bring up as his own, 197, 226, 235; failed invasions of and uprisings in Scotland, 236–9, 258, 451; favourite of Maintenon who wants to see him restored, 236, 450n132; campaign in Flanders, 238, 258; forced to leave France, 452n132; tutor, John Betham, sacked for Jansenism, 309;sympathetic to Quietism, 310 Stuart, Louisa Maria Teresa, 123, 235, 281 Sublet, Louise. See Montgon Suchon, Gabrielle, 14 Surville, Louis Charles d’Hautfort, marquis de (lieutenant-general), 238 Suza, loss of, 218–19 Tallard, Camille d’Hostun de La Baume, maréchal de, 244, 339 Talmash [Tollemache], Thomas (lieutenant-general), 202 Tarente, Prince de, 296 Tessé, René de Froulay, comte-maréchal de, 247, 340 Tiberge, abbé de, 132, 149, 371 Tigny, Claude Maur d’Aubigné de (sometimes “d’Aubigny”): Maintenon’s distant relatives, 52–3; referred to by Maintenon as “her” archbishop of Rouen, and collaboration, 53, 120, 223, 303, 348, 349, 369 Tigny, Louis d’Aubigné de Tigny, marquis de, 121, 349; Maintenon gleans military intelligence from, 244, 295 Tigny, Louis-François, comte and baron d’Aubigné, de, 339, 374; Maintenon promotes and receives war reports from, 8, 295, 332

553

Tilladet, Gabriel de Cassagnet, chevalier de, 48 Tingry, Mme de, 81 Tiraqueau, Angélique, 28 Tiraqueau, Louise. See Neuillan Tiraqueau, Pierre. See Saint-Hermant Torcy, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, marquis de, 15, 18–19, 80, 185, 191, 201, 230, 233, 318, 370; effectively is first minister, 18, 214, 317; works with king chez Maintenon, 191, 317–18; made foreign secretary and minister, 201; plans expeditiously to steer council meetings with Pontchartrain and Desmaretz, 225, 337; worries is being undermined by Maintenon, 233–4; exasperated by Chamillart’s incompetence, 234; disapproves of first Scottish invasion but supports second, 235, 238; criticizes Maintenon for interfering, 317; drafts appeal to the people (1709) as call to arms, 316, 334; perplexed by Louis XIV’s despondency and criticisms, 336; frustrated by famine, 353; successfully negotiates Spanish Succession peace talks, 264, 315, 356 Toulouse, Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, comte de (son of Louis XIV and Montespan), 42, 81, 117–18, 129, 244, 247, 373–5, 406n43 Tourville, Anne-Hilarion de Constentin, comte de (vice-admiral), 113 Toussaint, Rose, 302 Trémoille, Cardinal JosephEmmanuel de La, 165, 306, 311–12, 364–5, 367

554

Index

Trémoïlle, Charles, duc de La, 296 Trémoïlle, Charlotte de La, Countess of Derby, 14 Tremoïlle, Louisa Angélique de La. See Lanti Trémoïlle-Noirmoutier, Anne-Marie de La. See Ursins Trianon: dining at 69, 75; improvements to, 76, 280; visits to, 50, 93, 144, 224, 283, 289, 321, 391 Trompette, château de, 23 Tronson, Louis, 91, 138–9, 156–7, 159, 163, 167–70, 183 Troussebois, M. de, 296 Trumbull, Sir William, 56 Turenne, Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, vicomte-maréchal de, 35, 48, 257 Turin: loss of, 240–1; Treaty of, 189, 202 Unigenitus die filius (papal bull), 16, 304–5, 348, 365–6; unacceptable to French bishops and provokes schism, 314, 317, 348, 362, 366–72, 387. See also Jansenism Ursins, Anne-Marie de La Trémoïlle, duchesse de Bracciano, princesse de: old friend of Maintenon from the Marais, 31, 118, 340; confidante of Maintenon, 17, 18, 205, 218–19, 220, 221, 224, 236–9, 241, 242, 252, 253–7, 260, 265–9, 280–1, 285, 287, 294, 299, 300, 319–24, 328–9, 331, 334, 339, 341, 352–3, 355, 368–70, 375–9, 381, 383–4, 387, 390–1; grand ambitions, 118, 200, 230; brother, Joseph-François, in Rome and promoted at the papal court, 165, 306; dynamic and domineering influence, 7, 119, 226,

229–31, 233–4, 319; outraged at Bouillon’s disloyalty, 177; Maintenon’s tactics in dealing with, 219–20, 298; recalled to Versailles from Spain but swiftly reinstalled (1704), 228–9; governing triumvirate with Philip V and Queen Marie-Louise, 230; employed by Louis XIV to assist inexperienced young sovereigns and defend Bourbon interests, 231, 233–4; unpopularity at French and Spanish courts and beyond, 278, 318, 337; falls out with duc d’Orléans, 299–300; causes delay in peace talks, 319–20; ejected permanently from Spanish court in disgrace (1715), 323, 337; Maintenon finds demanding and troublesome, 199, 231, 233, 239, 278, 298, 300, 314, 316, 337, 340; obtains post of Camarare Mayore to Queen MarieLouise of Spain with Maintenon’s recommendation, 215, 445n3; marriages to the prince de Chalais and the duc de Bracciano, 423n165 Ursuline sisters, 26–7, 31, 59, 71 Utrecht, Treaty of, 236, 306, 316, 321, 356, 384 Val-de-Gräce, convent of, 312, 359, 361–2 Valette, Jean Louis de Nogaret de La. See Épernon Valincour, Jean-Baptiste Henri de Troisset de, 117, 423n158 Valois, Benjamin Le, seigneur de Villette (Maintenon’s uncle), 23, 91 Valois, Louise-Arthémise de Villette, dame de Mursay (Maintenon’s aunt), 23, 27

Index Varese, Pompeo (papal nuncio), 55 Vauban, Sébastien Le Prestre de, 104, 109–10, 114, 118–19, 129–30, 195, 202, 244 Vaucel, Louis de, 313 Vaudémont, Anne Elizabeth d’Harcourt, Princesse de, 301 Vaudémont, Charles-Henri de Lorraine, Prince de, 301 Veilhant, Mme Jacquette, 114 Vendôme, Louis-Joseph de Bourbon, duc de, 128, 133, 202, 224, 290, 339, 431n64; Oudenarde campaign (1708) and clashes with Burgundy, 221, 250–5, 257–60, 262–8; temporary disgrace, 257, 266; victory at Calcinato, 268, 289 Ventadour, Charlotte Éléonore de la Motte-Houdancourt, duchesse de, intimate friend of Maintenon, 78, 111, 219, 225, 271, 374–5, 382 Ventadour, Louis Charles de Lévis, duc de, 78 Vergne, Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la. See La Fayette Vermandois, comte de (son of Louis XIV and Louise de La Vallière), 48, 65 Versailles, château de: morality reformed at, 46–9; protocol at, 48, 123; beauty of, 50–1, 257; entertainments at, 51, 69, 133, 202, 224, 282, 288, 301; king’s apartments at, 68; Maintenon’s apartments, 68–9, 93, 191, 250, 272–3, 276, 327, 355; aqueduct, 69, 404n120; expansion of, 71; tensions and alarm at, 94, 246, 260; avoided as dull by younger courtiers, 203–5; curates of (see Hébert; Huchon); Maintenon’s typical day

555

at, 273–8; new council chamber constructed at, 280; ménagerie at, given to the Duchess of Burgundy, 286; new chapel built at, 352; supremacy of, challenged by Paris and Marly, 205, 352 Vertrieux, Jean-Claude de la Poype de, bishop of Poitiers, 303 Veryard, Ellis, 69 Vexin, comte de (Louis César, son of Louis XIV and Mme de Montespan), 33 Victor-Amadeus II, duke of Savoy, 189, 202, 268; betrays treaty and declares war on France, 227 Viefville, Mme de La, 326, 360 Viéru, M. de, 340 Vieux Pont, marquis de, 340 Vignerot, Armand-Jean de. See Richelieu Villarceaux, Louis de Mornay, marquis de, 30–1, 81 Villarceaux, Marguerite d’Orsay, marquise, de, 30–1, 81 Villarcerf, Édouard Colbert, marquis de, 106 Villars, Agnès de (sister of the maréchal, abbesse de Chelles), 305 Villars, Claude Louis Hector, maréchal-duc de (son of Pierre): protection sought from, 11, 224, 249, 297, 353; confidante of Maintenon, 231, 241, 332, 354; supports Scottish invasion, 238; Maintenon seeks counsel from and trades military intelligence with, 238, 244, 256–7; Rhine campaign, 248–50; generally disliked at court, 249; old family connection from the Marais of Maintenon with, 30, 249; awarded cordon bleu for

556

Index

defeating the Camisards, 250; emphasizes threat from Savoy, 256; takes charge in Flanders with Maintenon’s backing, 257, 267, 331; dislikes Duke of Burgundy, 268; victory at Cesana, 268; Maintenon recommends clients in the army to, 295, 332, 340; vexes Maintenon in seeking promotions, 296, 299; Maintenon petitions to reduce contributions exacted by, 300; Maintenon serves as conduit to the king for, 329, 338; Maintenon’s confidence in supreme military skills of, 331–2, 354; Maintenon to be liaison with Voysin on behalf of, 332; critical war conferences with ministers and Maintenon, 333, 339; complains troops are poorly provisioned and deserting, 334; wounded at Malplaquet and heroically honoured by king at court, 335;seeks “great action” and gives battle at Malplaquet (1709), 334–5; recommends Montesquiou to the king, 335; reminded by Maintenon that Louis XIV is “the master,” 338; critical of king’s tactics and scolds Maintenon, 338–9; glorious campaign (of 1712) and rewarded with governorship of Provence for success at Denain, 339–40, 379; stoutly defended by Maintenon, 339, 346; signs peace treaty as plenipotentiary, 378; concedes Maintenon the best interpreter of king’s thoughts, 384 Villars, Jeanne-Angélique Roque de Varengeville, maréchale de, 249 Villars, Pierre, marquis de, 30, 249

Villefranche, Mlle de, 302 Villermont, Cabart de, 28 Villeroi, François de Neufville, maréchal-duc de: old friend, confidante of, and adviser to Louis XIV and Maintenon, 3, 70, 78, 133, 144, 231, 244, 291–2, 316, 322, 329, 339, 350, 374, 377, 382, 383, 386, 390–1; captured by Eugene of Savoy, 227; rebuked by Maintenon over Chamillart criticisms, 242, 346; public infuriated by, 253; commends Voysin, 331; governor of the Lyonnais, 350; named governor to Louis XV, 374; recovers favour and made minister, 374; news of king’s illness, 382; transports Maintenon as widow to Saint-Cyr, 386; sympathizes with ministerial burdens of, 390 Villette, Constance-Lucie (daughter of the marquis Philippe). See Saint-Hérem Villette, Ferdinand (lieutenant-general of Poitou), 462n122 Villette, Henri-Benjamin (second son of the marquis, known as “Marmande”), catholicized and promoted by Maintenon, 59–60 Villette, Isobel-Sophie-Louise (daughter of the marquis and abbesse de Notre-Dame de Sens), 462n122 Villette, Louise de (aunt of Maintenon), 27, 57, 60, 121 Villette, Marie-Anne de (first wife of the marquis Philippe de Villette), 53 Villette, Marie-Claire Des Champs de Marsilly, marquise de (second wife of the marquis), 295, 297, 324, 462n122

Index Villette, Philippe, marquis de (cousin of Maintenon), 24, 30, 59, 82, 84, 223, 237; second captain on Le Fort, 35; refuses initially to abjure Calvinism, 35, 53, 61; indoctrinated, 59; granted pensions, 60, 82; military career, 60, 121; victory at Beachy Head, 113 Villette, Philippe, comte de Mursay (eldest son of Philippe), 60, 82, 120, 462n123 Villette, seigneur de. See Valois Villette-Mursay, Aymée de. See Fontmort Villette-Mursay, Marthe-Marguerite de. See Caylus Villette family and attempted conversions, 24–5, 27, 32, 53, 56, 59, 60 Villiers, Edward. See Jersey Vineam Domini Sabaoth (papal bull against Jansenism), 310 Visconti, Primi, 43, 45–6 Visitandine convents, 89 Visitation, Convent of the, 210 Vivant, M., 359 Vivonne, Louis-Victor de Rochechouart, duc de, 31 Vivonne, Mlle de, 199 voix publique. See public opinion Voltaire, François Marie Arouet, 5–6, 9, 217–18, 256, 278, 297 Voysin, Daniel François, 15, 19, 224, 334, 340, 356–7; as chancellor while retaining war secretaryship, 226, 243, 331, 369; made war minister with Maintenon’s backing, 242, 244, 267, 316, 367, 369; works closely with king and Maintenon, 244, 318, 328, 333, 337, 367, 373; flourishing collaboration with Desmaretz, 318;

557

controller-general at Saint-Cyr, 331; efforts and competence praised, 331–2, 334; negotiates with Cardinal Noailles over Unigenitus, 369–72 Voysin, Charlotte Trudaine (wife of Daniel): member of Maintenon’s cabal, 282, 331, 350 Vuilhart, M., 188 Wailly, Anna-Maria Lanti della Rovere, duchesse, d’Havré (Ursins’s niece and wife of JeanBaptiste), 442n161 Wailly, Jean-Baptiste de Croy, marquis then duc d’Havré, 442n161 War of the Spanish Succession, 8, 19, 129, 172, 193, 198, 221, 225–37, 239–69, 278, 315, 318–20, 321, 333–40, 356, 379 William III (of Orange), King of England, 84, 104, 112, 143, 192, 197–8, 235 Wolf, John (historian), 272, 421n120, 431n57 Zell, Eléonore d’Olbreuse, duchesse de, 84