The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV (20 page)

In a bid to prevent the pregnancy from becoming common knowledge, Louis rented a house near the Tuileries for Athénaïs. When she did come to court she and the King led a much quieter existence than usual. At night the King visited her as discreetly as possible, gaining access to her by slipping up a hidden staircase which had been clandestinely constructed.
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When Athénaïs’s child was born in March 1669 it was at once spirited away from court and brought up in the utmost secrecy.

The young Secretary of State for War, Louvois, finally quelled the obstreperous Montespan. In 1669 the latter had been permitted to rejoin his troops in the Roussillon. It came to Louvois’s ears that when Montespan and his company had been billeted in the town of Ille, Montespan had tried to force a local girl to come and live with him. To fend off his advances, her parents had placed her in the care of a local official, but Montespan had then confronted this man, pistol in hand, and addressed him in the most threatening and abusive terms. When the girl was removed to a convent, some of Montespan’s men tried unsuccessfully to drag her out by force; a few days later Montespan himself appeared and insulted the Mother Superior.

Montespan had committed a similar outrage at Perpignan in 1667, but at that time Louvois and the King had been at pains to humour him. The incident had therefore been overlooked. However, now that Montespan was making a nuisance of himself, his oppressive treatment of the civilian population became a matter for official concern.

On 21 September 1669 Louvois wrote ordering the
Intendant
of Roussillon to make a full investigation of both incidents. He suggested that Montespan’s men should be arrested in the hope they would implicate him in their misdeeds, enabling him to be cashiered ‘with an appearance of justice’. If Montespan could be charged with sufficiently grave offences to warrant summoning him before the region’s sovereign council, ‘this would be a good thing’, although Louvois made it clear that he would also consider it a desirable outcome if Montespan were terrorised into leaving the country.
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All went as Louvois had hoped. Realising that he had no chance of receiving a sympathetic hearing, Montespan fled to Spain in December 1669. When he failed to appear before a court in Pignerol, he was condemned as contumacious in his absence. About three months later he sued for pardon, presumably indicating that he would be more tractable in future. In April 1670 Louvois instructed the
Intendant
of Roussillon to drop proceedings against Montespan. Four months later a royal pardon was issued, although the text of this document recorded the details of his past transgressions, possibly to ensure that, if Montespan again proved troublesome, further sanctions could be brought to bear. Montespan was permitted to return to France but was forbidden to enter Paris unless he could prove his visit was essential.

In July 1670 the King instituted proceedings at the Châtelet to bring about an official separation between Montespan and his wife. Even the King, however, could not expedite the cumbersome legal process and it was four years before the case was finally settled. In the interval there were still fears that Montespan could make difficulties for Louis and Athénaïs. In late 1671, for example, it was rumoured that Montespan had leagued himself with the Comte de Lauzun to arrange the abduction of his wife and while the story was almost certainly false, it demonstrated the extent to which Montespan was still perceived as a danger.
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Because the legal situation remained so sensitive, Athénaïs’s children by the King had to be kept hidden. Her eldest child by Louis – a girl – died in March 1672, but by that time Athénaïs had produced a son, Louis Auguste, born in March 1670, who later became the Duc du Maine. He was joined in June 1672 by a brother, subsequently created Comte de Vexin, followed almost exactly a year later by a sister, Louise Françoise, born at Tournai during the King’s summer campaign. All these children had to be brought up away from court and Mme de Montespan needed to find someone reliable, virtuous and above all discreet who could assume charge of them. It was when pregnant with her first child by Louis that Athénaïs had hit on what seemed the inspired idea of entrusting the childcare arrangements to Mme Scarron, an impoverished but respectable widow she had met in the salon of her cousin the Maréchal d’Albret.

Known to history as Mme de Maintenon, Mme Scarron’s maiden name was Françoise d’Aubigné. In 1635 she had been born in the most unpropitious circumstances, starting life in the Conciergerie at Niort which adjoined the prison where her scapegrace father had been imprisoned for debt. Rather than enter a convent, aged sixteen the penniless girl opted to marry an invalid in his early forties, the playwright Paul Scarron, who was so severely crippled by rheumatoid arthritis that it is unlikely the marriage was consummated. Although always short of cash, Scarron presided over a witty and eclectic salon frequented by freethinkers. It was here that his young wife developed her conversational skills, though without acquiring a reputation for levity.

Scarron died in October 1660, bequeathing only debts to his widow. She was rescued from indigence when the Queen Mother, Anne of Austria, was induced to give her a small pension. Having rented cheap lodgings in a Paris convent, she was soon moving in elevated social circles. She made herself indispensable to several aristocratic ladies, rising at six to oversee the redecoration of Mme d’Heudicourt’s house, and doing the accounts for Mme de Montchevreuil. She soon became an habituée at the Maréchal d’Albret’s salon, commending herself to his dull wife – whom most of the guests avoided – by being unfailingly attentive.
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It was here that she made the acquaintance of Mme de Montespan and the two ladies were instantly drawn towards each other. As Mme Scarron later recalled, they became ‘the greatest friends in the world. She was greatly taken with me and as for me, simple as I was, I entered into this friendship … she talked to me with great confidence and told me everything she was thinking.’
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It was not surprising that Athénaïs took so readily to this new acquaintance, for Mme Scarron was a woman of immense charm and discernment. There was nothing showy about her but, in the same way as she contrived to look elegant in plain but well-cut black dresses, which suited her better than bright silks, her conversation was always stimulating and original without being in any way improper. Saint-Simon recorded, ‘When she spoke it was quietly and correctly, using excellent French, always brief and eloquent … Her every action was performed with incomparable grace and ease.’ Though rarely flippant, she had a dry sense of humour, which somehow never descended into frivolity. While ready to enter into light-hearted discussions, she could also be fascinating on more serious subjects. Mme de Sévigné, who found her ‘delicious company’, described an evening when she was in particularly entrancing form, during which the topics covered ranged from court gossip to philosophical reflections. ‘These discussions are far-reaching … sometimes Christian and sometimes political,’ she told her daughter.
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Mme de Montespan concluded that this cultivated and well-bred woman was the ideal person to look after her children by the King. Mme Scarron had already proved herself not only diligent and capable but also ready to carry out comparatively menial tasks without complaining that this impaired her dignity. Given her lack of money, it was logical to assume she would welcome paid employment and she could be relied upon to perform her duties in an inconspicuous fashion. To complete her qualifications, she had practical experience of childcare, for she had not only frequently looked after Mme de Montchevreuil’s children but had also taught them to read and learn their catechism.
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Athénaïs’s appointment of Mme Scarron as her children’s governess turned out to be the worst mistake of her life but initially it seemed that the choice could not be faulted. At the outset the children were farmed out to wet-nurses but Mme Scarron closely supervised their welfare, visiting them daily to ensure that all their needs were provided for. After a time the King purchased a house in an outlying area of Paris, the Rue Vaugirard, where his growing brood by Athénaïs could be united under one roof. There Mme Scarron devoted herself to their interests, living largely in seclusion because of the need for secrecy. On the rare occasions she did see old friends she preserved a rigid silence about her occupation.

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Although the existence of a refractory husband complicated their relationship, in some ways the King manifested his love for Athénaïs far more overtly than had been the case with Louise. As early as 1668 Athénaïs was credited with having persuaded the King to appoint the Duc de Montausier as governor to the seven-year-old Dauphin. While this was a disaster for the child – for Montausier was a horrible bully who thrashed the little boy for the most minor infractions – it much impressed the court, who noted that Louise had never managed such a striking achievement.
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In January 1669 Mme de Montespan’s father, the Duc de Mortemart, was appointed to the prime position of Governor of Paris, somewhat to the irritation of Colbert, whose own candidate was overlooked. Athénaïs’s brother, the Duc de Vivonne, was believed to be critical of her liaison with the King but in March 1669 he too received promotion. He was made General of the Galleys, an important post, which had the additional advantage of removing him to Marseille, where he could not make his disapproval so plain. In August 1670 Athénaïs’s younger sister was made Abbess of Fontrevault, a prestigious position in the past reserved for princesses of the blood royal. It was an extraordinary honour for a twenty-five-year-old nun without a vocation, but she acquitted herself with great distinction, translating Homer and Plato in her spare time and exhibiting formidable talents as an administrator. Athénaïs’s achievements for her family were crowned in 1670 when she arranged a marriage between her niece and the immensely wealthy Duc de Nevers. These successive feats moved Mme de Sévigné to exclaim, ‘Mme de Montespan is performing marvels all over the place.’
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The situation of Louise de La Vallière was, in contrast, utterly pitiful, but in the end her faith redeemed her. As she herself declared, even while she had been leading ‘a wholly profane life, full of pride and sensuality’, her piety had never deserted her for she was ‘always troubled by the prospect of my crimes and my remorseful conscience’. Then, at the end of 1670, or just afterwards, she had a very serious illness. She later recalled lying in bed as ‘the doctors on one side, and the priests on the other, were speaking with as little certainty for my life as for my soul, and where I, like a poor beast, could do nothing for my salvation’.
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This marked the beginning of her conversion.

In February 1671 Louise fled to the convent of the Filles de Sainte-Marie de Chaillot on Ash Wednesday, apparently determined to withdraw permanently from court. To the puzzlement of many people who assumed that by this time the King regarded Louise as something of an unwelcome encumbrance, Louis evinced ‘the greatest affliction in the world’ at her departure. He enlisted the Comte de Lauzun and the Maréchal de Bellefonds to persuade her to reconsider and, when that failed, sent Colbert with orders to bring her back. The courtiers whispered that he and Mme de Montespan ‘had had a big row about that as she was not at all willing to permit the other’s return’. When Louise obeyed the King’s summons, Louis was transparently overjoyed and Athénaïs too put on a good show, going to meet Louise ‘with open arms and tears in her eyes’. However, people assumed that this friendly reception was deceptive and that whereas the King had shed tears of joy at Louise’s return, Athénaïs had wept with frustration.
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Amidst general mystification that he should have exhibited such an ‘extraordinary tenderness’ towards Louise, the King resumed his curious tripartite love life. ‘All this makes no sense,’ Mme de Sévigné declared flatly. Court observers were left unable to decide whether the King had been motivated by genuine fondness for Louise or whether he was merely a creature of habit who disliked having his routine disrupted. One lady gushed that the episode showed that the King was ‘praiseworthy even in his abandonments’, but cynics had a different explanation. They believed that there were fears that M. de Montespan might once again turn awkward and the King needed Louise to remain at court as a sort of decoy.
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Some people thought that after her return Louise’s standing with the King was better than it had been before. Others despised her for her weakness. ‘Like an idiot she came back,’ was the comment of Mlle de Montpensier, who thought that Louise ought to have extracted a promise that the King would treat her more kindly before coming out of retreat.
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Louise rationalised her conduct by persuading herself that it was not inconsistent with her faith to resume her place at court for, by inflicting on herself the pain and humiliation of seeing Louis and Athénaïs together, she would atone for her former misconduct.

Louise later explained to Madame that during the next three years ‘she suffered the tortures of the damned’, but she ‘offered all her misery up to God as an expiation of her past sins’. In a prayer composed at this time she told God, ‘If, to impose on me a penitence that in some way accords with my offences, you wish that … I remain in the world to suffer on the same scaffold on which I transgressed,’ she was ready to submit to this. All she asked was that God should give her the strength to avoid being corrupted by the vanity of the court and to ‘shield me from being poisoned by the infectious air that one incessantly breathes there’.
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