Athenais (51 page)

Both Saint-Simon and Mme. de Sévigné have been used as sources and models for subsequent French writers, perhaps most famously by Proust in
A la Recherche du Temps Perdu.
He compares the style of Mme. de Sévigné’s letters to the painting of the artist Elstir, suggesting that she is absorbed by the personal, subjective qualities of a situation and disregards its “reality” as perceived by others. Her subjectivity, Proust proposes, had nothing of the communal to it. It is concerned with creating an affective world, constructed from what acts upon the senses of the individual. Again, such a rarefied reading of Mme. de Sévigné might not seem relevant to her eager reportage of Athénaïs de Montespan’s triumphs and decline, but this interpretation emphasizes the specialized individualism that makes Mme. de Sévigné’s letters such an important literary work and such a problematic historical source. In a sense, her subjectivity presents an opposite problem from Saint-Simon’s in that many of her letters were in a sense love letters, stemming from the urgent need to communicate with her daughter, whom she loved in a way that seems positively sinister to modern psychology, and not designed as a chronicle to be admired by posterity. Whether the Sévignéen tone is seen to be compromised by its intimacy or by its performative qualities, the relationship between the author of the letters and their recipients prevents them from ever being relied upon as an entirely objective historical source.

The nicknames employed by Mme. de Sévigné to such amusing effect signpost another problem with the primary sources of information about Louis XIV’s court, for these also had a serious function as code names, required for the sake of discretion by a writer whose political sympathies had once been allied with the Fronde, and who knew about the spy network that operated at Versailles. Louis was famous as a king who “wanted to know everything,” and letter-writing, as his daughter the Princesse de Conti discovered when she insulted Mme. de Maintenon, could be a dangerous business. The Princesse Palatine was fully aware that her letters were read by the King’s spies, and her comments often got her into trouble. Yet she engaged in an indirect dialogue with Louis via the spies, using her letters to express feelings and criticisms that she would never have dared utter to his face. “I must confess,” she huffed after a scolding from Louis, “that I am thoroughly angry with the King for treating me like a chambermaid, which would be more befitting for his Maintenon, for she was born to it, but I was not.”

Madame used her letters to complain about the duplicities of the court, highlighting the atmosphere of verbal obscurity that was so alien to her straight-talking character. “Perhaps,” she wrote about the rumors that her son was to marry Athénaïs de Montespan’s daughter, “I shall be exiled over this . . . for I shall not fail to let [Monsieur] know my exact opinion, which, as usual, he will report to the King . . . And if the King himself, to intimidate me, should speak to me about this matter, I shall tell him in plain words that I do not like it at all.” Of course, poor Madame never did any such thing, but her knowledge that Louis had access to her “private” thoughts created an opportunity for communication which was, paradoxically, more honest.

Philippe Beaussant’s stunning analysis of the symbolic ritual that pervaded even the most quotidian activities at Louis XIV’s court shows just how difficult it is to penetrate the hermeneutical labyrinth the King established around him, and the reservations about the objectivity of primary sources expressed here could be elaborated upon at length. The genre of the memoir, the public use of letters, as exemplified by Mme. de Maintenon’s desire to manipulate her story for posterity, and the checks on personal expression imposed by censorship all contribute to the caution with which those sources must be approached, and yet, of course, they remain the only access we have to the world Athénaïs de Montespan inhabited.

“Secrets add to the taste of things,” Athénaïs once remarked to Mademoiselle, and she was probably far better equipped than the modern historian to deal with a world where no one quite meant what they said.

This table is drawn from Henri Brocher’s
Le Rang et l’Etiquette sous l’Ancien Régime
(Paris, 1934), p. 28. How do the horizontal categories conduct themselves in the presence of the vertical? The table indicates the solutions, at least at Versailles. For example, a cardinal had to stand before the King, but could have a chair before a grandchild of France and an armchair before a prince of the blood. (Emmanuel le Roy Ladurie,
Saint-Simon ou la Système de la Cour
, Paris, 1997.)

Acknowledgments

I
should like to thank Professor Anthony Nuttall of New College, Oxford, for his excellent advice, without which this book would never have been attempted. Many thanks, too, to Michael Alcock, at Michael Alcock Management, for endless encouragement and faith in the book. Alan Samson at Time Warner Books has been equally kind, and I am very grateful, as I am to my editor, Caroline North, whose patience and diligence have been so overwhelming that any remaining errors in the book are entirely mine. Linda Silverman was wonderful at tracking down pictures from all over Europe. Kinch Hoekstra, of Balliol College, was also kind enough to provide some obscure material: thanks for easing the tension. Without the scrupulous and dedicated attention of Asya Muchnick, this book might have proved as exasperatingly elusive as its subject. I am extremely grateful for her scholarly discernment. Thanks to Jack Murnighan, for Florence. Most of all, I would like to thank Dominique de Bastarrechea, for more inspiration, goodness and delight than I or this book can ever deserve.

Notes

GENERAL SOURCES

As certain sources have been quoted extensively, to avoid unnecessary repetition, these are not listed separately in the notes. Unless otherwise noted, Madame de Sévigné’s correspondence is quoted from
Correspondance,
edited by Roger Duchêne (Paris, 1978) and
Lettres,
edited by Louis Jean Nicolas Monmerqué (Paris, 1866).The memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon are Lucy Norton’s translation (London, 1967). Quotations from Bussy-Rabutin are from
Correspondance avec Sa Famille et Ses Amis,
edited by Ludovic Lalanne (Paris, 1858).

For Mme. de Maintenon (Mme. Scarron), the definitive source is the
Correspondance Générale,
edited by Théophile Lavallée (Paris, 1865). Quotations from Mademoiselle, Duchesse de Montpensier, are from the
Mémoires
edited by Christian Bouyer (Paris, 1985), while Mme. de Caylus is quoted from her
Souvenirs,
edited by Bernard Noël (Paris, 1965). Unless otherwise sourced, the quotations from Louis XIV are taken from his memoirs as edited by Jean Longnon (Paris, 1978). Primi Visconti is quoted from
Mémoires sur la Cour de France,
edited by Jean Lemoine (Paris, 1909). The correspondence of Madame, the second Duchesse d’Orléans (the Princess Palatine) comes from
Correspondance,
edited by Olivier Amiel (Paris, 1985).

Full details of these and other texts cited in the Notes may be found in the Bibliography.

EPIGRAPHS

The epigraphs that open each chapter are taken from the
Maxims
of the Duc de la Rochefoucauld.

POEMS

I do not pretend to be a literary translator, but except where translations are otherwise credited, I have tried to render the meaning of the poems I have quoted and, where I was capable, their rhyme and meter.

A NOTE ON CURRENCY

The basic unit of money at Louis XIV’s court was the livre. There were 3 livres to 1 ecu, and 10 livres to one pistole, which was equal in value to a louis d’or. Three livres were roughly equivalent to $15 in today’s money. So, for example, Marly, which cost 4.5 million livres to build, would have cost about $22.5 million in today’s money. However, the purchasing power of the livre of course fluctuated widely during Louis’s reign.

ON PRONUNCIATION

Athénaïs is pronounced A-ten´-ay-EES.

CHAPTER ONE

1
. Primi Visconti. See General Sources above.

2
. Be limping, fifteen, witless
Ill-born, brainless, titless
Have your children
In a back room
You’ll have the best of lovers on my faith
And La Vallière is the proof.

3
. Cronin,
Louis XIV,
p. 70.

4
. Mongrédien,
Madeleine de Scudéry,
p. 164.

5
. Diderot and D’Alembert, “Article adultère,” in
Encyclopédie, ou, Dictionnaire raisonnée des sciences, des arts et des métiers,
p. 128.

6
. Melchior-Bonnet and De Tocqueville,
Histoire de l’Adultère.

7
. Quoted by Dulong in
Le Mariage du Roi Soleil.

8
. Louis XIV,
Oeuvres.

9
. Comtesse de Lafayette,
The Princesse de Clèves,
p. 46.

CHAPTER TWO

1
. Mme. de Caylus. See General Sources.

2
. Voltaire,
Le Siècle de Louis XIV.

3
. Duc de Saint-Simon. See General Sources.

4
. Mitford,
The Sun King,
p. 45.

5
. Cronin,
Louis XIV,
p. 33.

6
. Mongrédien,
Madeleine de Scudéry,
p. 164.

7
. Martine Sonnet, “A Daughter to Educate,” trans. Arthur Gold-hammer in
A History of Women in the West,
ed. Davis and Farge, p. 122.

8
. Mme. de Sévigné. See General Sources.

9
. Mme. de Sévigné,
Selected Letters,
p. 203.

10
. Madame. See General Sources.

11
.
Mercure Galant,
1660.

12
. Quoted in
Memoirs of Madame de Montespan
(London, 1754).

13
. Cousin, “Clef inédite du Grand Cyrus.”

14
. Leonard Tancock, “Introduction,” in Duc de la Rochefoucauld,
Maxims,
p. 12.

15
. George Eliot, “Women in France: Madame de Sablé,” in
Selected Essays, Poems and Other Writings
(London: Penguin, 1990), p. 9.

16
. Tancock, “Introduction,” in
Maxims.

17
. Jean-Paul Desaive, “The Ambiguities of Literature,” trans. Arthur Goldhammer in
A History of Women in the West,
ed. Davis and Farge, p. 264.

18
. Lougée,
Le Paradis des Femmes,
p. 25.

19
. Mme. de Sévigné,
Selected Letters,
p. 86.

20
. Lougée,
Le Paradis des Femmes,
p. 192.

21
. Mortemart, old fellow,
Loves La Tambonneau
She’s a little yellow
But he’s an ugly beau.

22
. Petitfils,
Madame de Montespan,
p. 10.

23
. Anonymous,
Alosie, ou les Amours de M.T.P.

24
. Magne,
Ninon de Lanclos.

CHAPTER THREE

1
. Petitfils,
Madame de Montespan.

2
. And on my faith you will have the best of lovers.

CHAPTER FOUR

1
. Mademoiselle. See General Sources.

2
. Marquis de La Fare,
Mémoires et réflexions sur les principaux évènements du règne de Louis XIV.

3
. Tooth and nail.

4
. Madame, quoted by Mademoiselle. See General Sources.

5
. Petitfils,
Madame de Montespan,
p. 42.

6
. Primi Visconti.

7
. Truc,
Madame de Montespan,
p. 163.