Read Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King for Free Online

the subject: he believed on the contrary that God would never damn a fellow for a little pleasure. Louis XIV was different. ‘We must submit,’ said the King over the death of his son, pointing to the skies. In the end, spiritually at least, he did submit to the dictates of heaven as interpreted by the Catholic Church.
    The unfortunate affair of Angelique de Fontanges, twenty years younger than the King, beautiful as her angelic name indicated but rather stupid, may be regarded as Louis's last fling before he settled for the virtuous domestic existence preached to him for so long. Angélique, although a virgin, was not a victim, except to her own tragic gynaecological history: with a taste for grandeur, she was eager to fill the place of the maîtresse en titre for which no one, and finally not Louis himself, thought her suitable.
    Certainly nobody could call Françoise a victim, except possibly she herself in her later years with the King, when bad health induced a slightly wearisome series of complaints made to her correspondents. It was true that Louis was lucky to find her, a remarkable woman by any standards, and one who was prepared to carry out the famous work of salvation, seeing in it her divinely appointed mission. By his secret marriage he gave up the prospect of another grand bride, say the Infanta of Portugal, with the prestige and alliance that might bring; and there would be no official queen in France for over forty years, despite the perceived importance of the position.
    Through her early life among the Précieuses, in the intellectual salons which would remain unknown to Louis XIV personally, Françoise had been able to acquire the new female art of conversation, something in which sympathy certainly played a part and gallantry was merely an option. Madame de Sévigné was quick to point to her ability in this direction when she perceived Françoise's influence rising: here was someone with whom you could have a conversation. There were four types of women according to Baudeau de Somaize in his Grand Dictionary of the Historic Précieuses of 1661; they ranged from the completely ignorant, via those of natural gifts if no great education and those who tried to lift themselves up, to the femmes illustres . 7 Françoise was a mixture of the second and third types: she had natural gifts and she also tried to improve her lot. The Benedictine rule adapted for women and widely quoted in the middle of the seventeenth century described ‘your sex’ as ‘weak, fragile and inconstant if the reins are let loose’: none of this applied to Françoise d'Aubigné. Her self-control was admirable, and the control of others which she sought was mainly for the good.
    Nevertheless Françoise's denunciations of court life cannot altogether obliterate the fact that she did in some way seek out her destiny. The displacement of Athénaïs, however religiously motivated, was definitely to the advantage of Françoise. This is not to say that Françoise bore any resemblance to the old whore, strumpet, garbage or ordure of Liselotte's vulgar terminology. It was a long journey from little Bignette chasing the turkeys to the Marquise de Maintenon, ‘glorious … Protectress of the Realm’, as the soldiers addressed her in 1705. No one achieves such a remarkable position as Françoise did, holding it for over twenty years, without some streak of ambition – even if the ambition was only to save the King's soul.
    How amusing to find the lovely, amoral Madame de Pompadour in the reign of Louis XV, whose hold over the King was definitely no aid to his salvation, deciding to emulate the pious Madame de Maintenon! ‘If the Queen were to disappear,’ the King would want ‘to buy peace for his conscience’ like his great-grandfather, wrote the Austrian Ambassador: ‘the plan of the marquise is formed on the example of Madame de Maintenon.’ The Pompadour proceeded to order a lot of religious paintings from the sensuous Boucher in