‘Magnificence and gallantry were the soul of this court': in writing about Louis XIV and his women, this is the contemporary verdict that I have borne in mind. Certainly I have hoped to convey magnificence in this book. How else could one write about the man who created Versailles in the early part of his personal rule and made it his official seat in 1682? There is extravagance inside and out; feasts to which only the King with his Gargantuan appetite could do justice, huge flower beds with every plant changed daily, multitudinous orange trees – the King's favourites – in silver pots, terraces where the court was driven indoors at night by the dominant perfume of a thousand tuberoses, money flowing forth like the fountains the King was so fond of commissioning, so that ornamental water itself became a symbol of power … There are wildly obsequious courtiers such as the Duc d'Antin, who cut down his own avenue overnight because it impeded the view from the visiting monarch's bedroom, or the Abbé Melchior de Polignac, thoroughly drenched in his court costume, who assured the King that the rain at Marly did not wet.
And I have certainly depicted gallantry in all the many contemporary senses of the word, from friendship shading to love, the subtle art of courtship, the more frivolous and even dangerous pursuit of flirtation, down to sensual libertinage ending in sex. It is easy to understand why seventeenth-century France was popularly supposed to be a paradise for its women, who enjoyed ‘a thousand freedoms, a thousand pleasures'. But if gallantry – or sex – is one of my themes, then religion is another. It is in the connection between the two that I believe the fascination of Louis XIV's relationships with his mistresses properly lies. This was the century in which penitent Magdalen was the favourite saint in France: symbolically his mistresses were painted, loose hair flowing, as Magdalen in their prime, while flouting the rules of the Church in the most flagrant manner possible; their attempts to incarnate the saint's own penitence would come later. Thus the Catholic Church's struggles for the salvation of the King's soul strike a sombre note in the celebratory music of Versailles from the King's youth onwards and cannot be silenced. Lully is there with his graceful allegorical Court Ballets in which the King (and his ladies) danced; but he is also there with his themes of lamentation for the King to mourn.
My study is not however entirely limited to the mistresses of Louis XIV: possibly Marie Mancini, principally Louise de La Vallière and Athénaïs de Montespan as well as the enigmatic, puritanical Madame de Maintenon, whose precise status was doubtful. I had once intended this before my researches led me on to the richer story of his relationships with women in general. These include his mother Anne of Austria, his two sisters-in-law, Henriette-Anne and Liselotte, who were Duchesses d'Orléans in succession, his wayward illegitimate daughters, and lastly Adelaide, the beloved child-wife of his grandson. Inevitably, therefore, the story also reflects something of the condition of women of a certain sort in seventeenth-century France. What were their choices and how far were they, mistresses and wives, mothers and daughters, in control of their own destinies?
A portrait will, I trust, emerge of Louis XIV himself, the Sun King and like the sun the centre of his universe. But as the title and subtitle indicate, this is not a full study of the reign, so fruitfully dealt with elsewhere, in studies both ancient and modern, to all of which I acknowledge my deep gratitude. It was Voltaire, in the first brilliant study of ‘le grand siècle’, published twenty-odd years after the King's death, who wrote: ‘It must not be expected to meet here with a minute detail of the wars carried on in this age. Everything that happens is not worthy of the record.' This is a sentiment which one can only humbly echo.
Let the King's sister-in-law Liselotte, Duchesse d'Orléans, have the last word, the copious correspondent whose outspoken comments cannot help making her my favourite among the abundant female sources of the period, despite the presence of the incomparable letter-writer Madame de Sévigné. ‘I believe that the histories which will be written about this court after we are all gone,' she wrote, ‘will be better and more entertaining than any novel, and I am afraid that those who come after us will not be able to believe them and will think that they are just fairy tales.' I have hoped to present the ‘fairy tale' in such a way that it can be believed.
There are many people whose help was invaluable during the five years I spent researching and writing this book. First of all, I must thank Alan Palmer for his Chronological Political Summary. Professor Felipe Fernandez-Armesto also read the book at an early stage, as did my eagle-eyed daughter Rebecca Fraser Fitzgerald. Dr Mark Bryant allowed me to read his (2001) thesis on Madame de Maintenon in advance of his own published work on the subject; Professor Edward Corp drew my attention to important references; Alastair Macaulay advised me on the art he loves; Col. Jean-Joseph Milhiet gave me information concerning the remains of Madame de Maintenon; the late Professor Bruno Neveu was an inspiration; Sabine de La Rochefoucauld arranged illuminating visits to both Versailles and the Louvre; M. Jean Raindre was an enlightening and generous host at the Château de Maintenon, as were Cristina and Patrice de Vogüé at Vaux-le-Vicomte; Dr Blythe Alice Raviola, University of Turin, crucially assisted me over manuscripts, as did M. Thierry Sarmant, at the Archives Historiques de la Guerre, Vincennes. Niall MacKenzie provided translations of Gaelic poetry as well as advice; Renata Propper interpreted Liselotte's often ribald German; Lord (Hugh) Thomas of Swynnerton translated from the Spanish for the Mexican memorial service of Louis XIV, the text of which was kindly acquired for me by my daughter-in-law Paloma Porraz de Fraser.
I also thank wholeheartedly the following: Mrs H. E. Alexander, the Fan Museum, Greenwich, and Mrs Pamela Cowen; Neil Bartlett, late of the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, for his translation of Molière's Don Juan; Sue Bradbury, the Folio Society; Barbara Bray; M. Bernard Clergeot, Mairie de Bergerac; M. Michel Déon; Father Francis Edwards, SJ; Peter Eyre; Gila Falkus; Charlie Garnett; ‘ma fille française', Laure de Gramont; Liz Greene, Equinox; Ivor Guest; Lisa Hilton; Diane Johnson; the late Professor Douglas Johnson; Laurence Kelly; Emmajane Lawrence at the Wallace Collection; M. Pierre Leroy; Sylvain Levy-Alban; Cynthia Liebow; Frédéric Malle for his photograph of the blocked marriage door of Louis XIV; M. Bernard Minoret for allowing me yet again to borrow from his precious library; Graham Norton for information about the history of the West Indies; Dr Robert Oresko, especially for help in Turin; Dr David Parrott for Rantzau discussions; Judy Price for information about Cotignac; Professor Munro Price for a felicitous shared visit to the birthplace of Louis XIV; Professor John Rogister, the Vicomte de Rohan, President of the Société des Amis de Versailles, and Madame Anémone de Truchis, also of Versailles; Mme Jean Sainteny (Claude Dulong); Mme Dominique Simon-Hiernard, Musées de Poitiers; Chantal Thomas; Hugo Vickers; Dr Humphrey Wise, the National Gallery, London; Anthony Wright; Francis Wyndham; the staff of the Archives Nationales and Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the British Library, the London Library and Kensington Public Library in London.
My editors on both sides of the Atlantic, Nan Talese of Doubleday and Alan Samson of Weidenfeld & Nicolson, were enormously supportive. I thank Steve Cox and Helen Smith for the copy-editing and Index respectively. My PA Linda Peskin, who put the book on disk, must at times have felt like an extra lady-in-waiting at the court of the Sun King. My French family, the four Cavassonis, made visits to Paris an extra pleasure. Lastly, this book is justly dedicated to my husband, as ever the first reader.
Antonia Fraser
Feast of St Catherine, 2004–Lady Day, 2006
Note There are three perennial problems writing historical narrative for this period, to which I have offered the following solutions. First, names and titles, so often very similar, can be extremely confusing. For the reader's sake, I have tried to be clear rather than consistent; the list of Principal Characters, awarding one (slightly different) name to each person, is intended as a guide. Second, dates in England, Old Style (OS), lagged behind those on the Continent until 1752; I have used the French New Style (NS) unless otherwise indicated. Third, where money is concerned, I have included rough comparisons to the present day, again for the reader's sake, although these can never be more than approximate.