Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King (34 page)

It was a piece of good fortune that Madame de Maintenon's interest in the education of girls, especially girls like herself, of gentle birth but lacking a dowry, coincided with the King's increasing need to be amused by younger women (hence his indulgence to his illegitimate daughters). The result was the establishment known as the Foundation of Saint-Louis at Saint-Cyr in 1686: it was for the free education of daughters of the impoverished gentry. Only royal donations were permitted to support the Foundation; the teachers were to be known as the Dames and the girls as the Demoiselles of Saint-Louis. Twelve ladies were invited from the charitable school Saint-Maur to instruct the Dames how to do their work.
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This was a subject on which there was perfect unison between the King and his secret wife. Neither Françoise nor Louis wanted Saint-Cyr to be a convent. Françoise herself had resisted going into a convent; Louis had not totally appreciated those endless convent visits accompanying his mother as a young boy. Sentimentally interested in young women and their welfare, Louis gave his characteristic attention to detail to matters such as their bonnets. Where once the royal virility had been celebrated by the spectacle of his numerous mistresses, Louis XIV was happy now to be regarded in a patriarchal role: guardian of ‘the pearls of the kingdom'. And he was particularly happy that the daughters of soldiers who had fallen in war – in royal service – should be looked after.

A satirical pamphlet printed in Holland referred to Saint-Cyr as ‘a seraglio which the old Sultana prepared for the modern Ahasuerus' (Louis XIV).
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This was true only in so far as Louis gloried in the all-female atmosphere of the charming children and girls, aged between seven and twenty, who came to fill the establishment. He loved their modesty: the way that they never permitted themselves to stare outright at the august figure of their sovereign, although they were obviously longing to do so. Louis paid frequent visits, sometimes on foot (Saint-Cyr was conveniently close to Versailles), and enjoyed the excellent music of the scholars. They were divided by age into the youngest Reds, early teenage Greens, Yellows and finally more or less adult Blues. At one point a Mademoiselle de Beaulieu, a Green, with a particularly lovely voice, decided to organise an impromptu song in the King's honour as he was departing on foot after Vespers. So the sweet sound came to him: ‘Let him live and triumph for ever, our hero.' It was just what the King wanted; it was indeed what any celebrated older man might want.

Madame de Maintenon, for her part, found here the perfect opportunity to control and mould according to her own values. It should also be remarked in her favour that just as Françoise was ahead of her time in her genuine affection for children and their company, she was also modern in her belief in the need for female education to make society work properly (she had already tried one experiment at Noisy in the grounds of Versailles). Françoise spent a great deal of time at Saint-Cyr, sometimes arriving at six o'clock in the morning. On occasion events there produced that rather dry sense of humour which was another aspect of Françoise's character. There was the eager question from a Demoiselle: what should they look out for ‘on entering the world'? Instead of a solemn admonition, Françoise replied lightly: ‘Don't get dirty in the mud of the courtyard.' On another occasion she had spent a long time chatting in the kitchen when the need arose to attend some formal ceremony. ‘But Madame,' cried one of those present, ‘you smell just a little of cooking fat!' ‘True,’ replied Françoise, ‘but no one will ever believe it's me.’
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No detail was too small for her to notice (acute attention to detail was something that Louis and Françoise had in common). Good teeth for example were a subject that obsessed her, and dentistry was provided for these provincial girls: the wilful Marguerite had been forced to have her inadequate teeth seen to. The girls were impressed that Françoise interested herself in details of their lingerie, and even more so when she ordained that the portions of food should not be too small, tasting the food herself to make sure of the quality.

The aim was to turn out good Christian women rather than nuns: in fact the emphasis was on the teaching which would enable them to take their place in the world as respectable and useful wives to gentlemen. Thus cheerfulness – always helpful in a wife – was a recommended virtue. French was to be spoken with a proper accent. Sacred writings were obvious materials for study, and some classical texts. It was notable that the theatre was considered a proper area of study where novels were not; but then Louis XIV was and remained a passionate lover of the theatre and the girls could hardly go wrong, could they, in pursuing an art which gave their ‘hero' such pleasure. In January 1689 the King lent jewellery, some ‘brilliant stones' from his collection, as well as suitably rich tapestries, for a performance of
Esther
by Racine with music by Jean-Baptiste Moreau, a disciple of Lully.

The playwright was by now a friend and ally of Françoise, and may even have helped her with her ‘Secret Notebooks' as well as the Constitution of Saint-Cyr. He was also a frequent visitor to her château of Maintenon. He went there for example, together with his fellow writer and Royal Historiographer Nicolas Boileau, for rest and recreation in August 1687, when Racine found Madame de Maintenon ‘full of wit and good sense'.

The simple and delightful dwelling of Maintenon was, as ever where the presence of Louis XIV was concerned, undergoing alterations and additions: these included two new wings designed by Mansart, cobblestones outside where his guards could strike their bayonets with a noise like thunder to greet their King, and a passage for him to reach a special
tribune
or gallery from which he could overlook the village church and partake in Mass, unseen. It was shortly after a royal visit that Louis granted his secret wife the Marquisate of Maintenon in June 1688: though ironically, Françoise's dream of a peaceful life there, never really fulfilled, was by now coming to an end altogether owing to the increasing demands of the King's militaristic ambitions.
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Then there was the aqueduct which had been intended to reach the height of the cathedral of Notre-Dame, and which Charles d'Aubigné found ‘grotesque'.
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It was part of an ambitious plan on the part of the King to divert the waters of the river Eure to feed the fountains of Versailles. Soldiers toiled and workmen died of fever from the marshes; in the end the project was abandoned.

Where the themes of plays at Saint-Cyr were concerned, ‘holy theatre' was the desired note. Almost immediately however Racine ran into a problem with
Esther.
His play was taken straight from the biblical story of the virtuous Israelite Esther preferred by King Ahasuerus over the ‘arrogant' and contemptuous Vashti, who had ‘reigned a long time over his offended soul'. It was hardly difficult for the gossipmongers to equate Esther with Françoise and Athénaïs with Vashti. The emphasis was all on the renewal of Ahasuerus's life, thanks to the serenity of Esther: ‘The darkest shade of care she wafts away / And turns my gloomiest days to gleaming day,' and again: ‘Everything in Esther breathes innocence and peace.' By the end of the play the chorus of Israelites was saluting Ahasuerus's own virtue: ‘The roaring lion is a peaceful lamb,' and thanking God for the outcome: ‘In Thy hand is the heart of Kings.' To avoid the embarrassment of the amusing parallel to the King's love life, Racine hurriedly wrote a Prologue making it clear that Ahasuerus was nothing but a stage King … This Prologue was spoken by Piety, played by Marguerite, Françoise's protégée and the star performer at Saint-Cyr, who declaimed it by heart.
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The King adored
Esther
and saw it at least five times. It confirmed him in his opinion of Saint-Cyr as ‘a dwelling inhabited by Grace', in the words put into the mouth of Piety by Racine.
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He loved the sight and sound of the young girls playing the chorus of Israelites: ‘A swarm of innocent beauties / What amiable modesty is painted on their faces.' The court too was only too happy to find an enjoyable entertainment of which their newly puritanical master actually approved. Madame de Sévigné had wondered how a young girl could encompass the part of Ahasuerus. A little later she was able to see for herself, sitting behind the row of superior duchesses at the front. Afterwards she had one of those banal dialogues with royalty which nevertheless give pleasure to the most intelligent of their subjects.

‘Madame, I have been assured that you were pleased,' began the King. ‘Sire, I was charmed,' gushed Madame de Sévigné, ‘all that I experienced is beyond words.' ‘Racine has plenty of intelligence,’ observed the King. ‘Sire, he does indeed,' she agreed, ‘but to be honest, the young people were also very good; they attacked their roles as if they had never done anything else.’ ‘Ah, how true that is!’ were the King's final satisfying words. And off he went, leaving Madame de Sévigné the object of general envy by the court for the gracious notice she had received.
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Sixteen eighty-six, which marked the agreeable establishment of the ‘seraglio' at Saint-Cyr, was also the King's
annus hornbilis
where his health was concerned. Some premonition must have caused him to anchor Françoise to his side, for he certainly needed a wife at this point, not a mistress. We know a great deal – at times perhaps more than we want – about the health of Louis XIV from the detailed journals of his doctors, as well as those of Dangeau.
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He was purged routinely once a month, known as ‘taking medicine' (doses of herbs), as well as being given
lavements
(enemas) with mixtures of water, milk, honey and almond oil.
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But early in 1686 a boil on his thigh, combined with the painful gout in his right foot, meant that he could hardly walk, despite tinctures of myrrh and aloes, red wine and absinthe. The boil was eventually cauterised, but it was not until May that the King could once again walk in his beloved Orangery at Versailles. In the meantime he had been obliged to lie down for Council meetings and shoot from his little carriage. In August the introduction of quinine helped the gout. But worse was to follow.

In the autumn the King developed an anal fistula, an abnormal fissure in that area. Painful as this was, the treatment, which involved separating the tissues with a scalpel (in an age, of course, before anaesthetics), was even more agonising. The Grand Operation, as it was later known, took place at seven o'clock in the morning of 19 November. It was kept a close secret. The people who shared it were Françoise, Father La Chaise, the doctor Fagon and the surgeon Félix. (It was said that Félix's hand trembled for the rest of his life – after the event.) Louis, the master of self-control, displayed exemplary fortitude and bore it all with a single cry of ‘My God’ when the first incision was made.
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His silent sufferings resembled those of the tortured Titan in the Fountain of Enceladus at Versailles, whose shoulder is half-crushed by the rocks of Mount Olympus; his eyes are staring, but only the noise of the water coming out of his speechless mouth can be heard.

Almost as extraordinary as Louis's fortitude under the knife was the fact that he actually held a Council meeting that night. The next morning he also held his normal
lever
for the court, although the sheen of perspiration could be seen on his dead-white face. Messages were sent to the royal family after the event, but they were forbidden to rush to him. Despite this, the Dauphin arrived at a gallop, in floods of tears. Athénaïs, who was with her daughter Madame la Duchesse at Fontainebleau, also hurried to Versailles only to be told that there was no crisis and she should go back. By the time Louis saw the old Prince de Condé on 22 November he was able to observe with sangfroid: ‘People who weren't here believe my illness to have been great, but the moment they see me, they realise that I have scarcely suffered.' (It was in fact the Grand Condé who died a few weeks later.) Unfortunately another smaller operation was needed to remedy the suppuration following the first one. The second cure worked: by the middle of March 1687 Louis was able to mount a horse again for the first time.

During his year of illness, Louis had not been able to attend the unveiling of his equestrian statue on 16 March in the Place des Victoires in Paris, laid out by Mansart the previous year; the Dauphin went in his place.
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Now, in 1687, he was able to make one of his rare visits to Paris and inspect it for himself. Here the great King saw himself mounted aloft, above bas-reliefs on the pedestal of the Passage of the Rhine. The scale was magnificent and certainly in keeping with the contemporary notion of Louis le Grand: twenty men could and did dine inside the belly of the horse during its installation. The vogue for statues of the King was spreading through the provinces and far beyond: Quebec, the capital of New France since 1663, was graced with a bust of Louis XIV in its Place Royale. Louisiana, the area of North America conquered by Robert La Salle in 1682, went further and commemorated the King in its actual name.
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These salutations kept pace with his own policy of
réunions
mentioned earlier, that is to say, acquiring territories that he considered to be properly French. Then there were other lands which he considered had been bestowed upon France by marriages to heiress-princesses. The Spanish Netherlands was a prominent example of this.

It was in 1685 that the death of Liselotte's childless brother the Elector Palatine induced in Louis a new rush of territorial adrenalin: he would claim for Liselotte certain lands not covered by Salic Law (which prohibited female inheritance); or rather he claimed them for Monsieur, since by French law, the wife's rights were subsumed into the husband's. The League of Augsburg of 1686, an alliance against France which included Austria, Spain and Bavaria, was aimed at French expansionism. It provided the excuse for a disingenuous Declaration by the King to the effect that he was now obliged to resort to arms against his own will.