The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV (25 page)

Mme de Montespan was incensed at finding herself relegated to the sidelines. Her fury when Mlle de Fontanges was created a duchess was exacerbated by the fact that this coincided with the time when the King’s attentions to Mme de Maintenon were growing ever more pronounced. On 25 March the Comte de Bussy declared, ‘Nobody, without exception, is on better terms with the King than Mme de Maintenon.’ The court’s wonder at this increased when he began to call on her in her own rooms, rather than meeting in the Dauphine’s apartment. Every evening he would spend two hours chatting animatedly to her with so ‘free and easy an air that it makes this the most desirable place in the world’. This continued throughout the summer of 1680 although by June their evening tête-à-tête, which now lasted from 6 p.m. till ten at night, was taking place in the King’s private apartments.
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Whereas a few weeks earlier the King had used his visits to the Dauphine as an excuse to see Mme de Maintenon, now the Dauphine almost felt like an intruder on the occasions when she joined them. She invariably found them seated opposite each other in comfortable chairs (in itself an extraordinary violation of the rules of etiquette) and, though they greeted her politely, it was evident that they were longing for her to leave so they could resume the thread of their conversation. No wonder that, by late June, the Duchesse de Fontanges believed herself superseded and was frequently seen weeping. As for Mme de Montespan, she had realised, far too late, that the challenge posed by the King’s ‘flash of passion’ for Marie-Angélique was negligible compared with that which she now faced.
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Mme de Sévigné commented that the King’s conversations with Mme de Maintenon were ‘of a length to make everyone wonder’, and people have been speculating ever since as to the exact nature of the relationship. Mme de Sévigné was inclined to believe that the secret of her appeal lay in the fact that the King felt absolutely relaxed and open with this woman who commanded his respect and whose sincerity he admired. She explained, ‘She introduces him to a new world, hitherto unknown to him, of friendship and unrestrained conversation, free of chicanery. He appears charmed by it.’
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Abbé Choisy also believed that the King was attracted by what for him was a delightful novelty: despite his extensive experience of women, she was the first ‘who talked to him only of virtue’ and, furthermore, she could do so without being in the least boring. The German diplomat Ezechiel Spanheim likewise thought the King was drawn to her by ‘a pure esteem’, and he stressed that at this point it was generally accepted that their attachment was based on friendship and trust rather than proceeding from ‘a more tender passion’.
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Others sought alternative explanations for the King’s perplexing predilection for this middle-aged lady who was so completely different from the women who had gained his love in the past. Primi Visconti recalled, ‘Nobody knew what to make of it, for she was old. Some regarded her as the confidante of the King, others as a go-between [with other women]; others still as a clever person whom the King was using to draw up the memoirs of his reign.’
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Inevitably, however, some people were sure that sex provided the key to it all. Rumours began to circulate that Mme de Maintenon’s past history was not as virtuous as she liked to imply and that, though her marriage to Scarron may have been unconsummated, she had had affairs in early widowhood. The notorious rake the Marquis de Villarceaux was named as one of her lovers and there were exciting reports that she had been seen in his bed dressed as a page. However, having noted that Mme de Montespan was in the forefront of those who sought to cast aspersions on Mme de Maintenon, Primi Visconti decided there was no truth in these stories.
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Even if Mme de Maintenon had led a completely chaste life prior to her arrival at court this does not, of course, rule out that she surrendered herself to the King. Many historians have accepted that, from the moment she first acquired the King’s favour circa 1675, she began sleeping with him. A letter which she supposedly wrote in 1673 is often cited in support of this. In it she refers to the King making advances which she has managed to spurn without disheartening him.
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However, this document is of dubious authenticity and cannot be relied on. Even so it is sometimes still maintained that she and Louis became lovers long before his admiration for her was recognised. What is more, it is suggested that she did so in the conviction that she was following God’s wishes.

There can be no doubt that Mme de Maintenon was a deeply religious woman, for the preoccupation with salvation that forms a theme of her correspondence cannot be dismissed as mere posturing. Nevertheless, it is contended that she was able to square what was ostensibly a grave sin with her conscience by persuading herself that she was sacrificing her virtue for a higher purpose. Her ultimate and paradoxical aim – so the argument goes – was to restore the King to a pure way of life by lessening his dependence on other mistresses. Furthermore, she acted with the blessing of her confessor who persuaded her that by this means she could bring the King to a spiritual awakening and save him from damnation.

There are, of course, many difficulties about accepting this hypothesis. Quite apart from the level of sophistry and elasticity of outlook it presupposes in both Mme de Maintenon and her confessor, it would have been a tremendous gamble on their part to believe that all would turn out as planned. It needed powers of supernatural foresight to anticipate that she could have conducted a casual affair with the King for many years without forfeiting his respect, and that her hold over him would subsequently tighten to a point where she could exert moral guidance. Furthermore, though she was known to be in favour, there is no hint that, prior to 1680, anyone at court remotely suspected that she had ever had sexual relations with the King.

It is, of course, much easier to believe that Mme de Maintenon succumbed to the King at some point in 1680. By that time his liking for her had matured into an overwhelming attraction, while his love for Mlle de Fontanges was fading. Arguably, indeed, it is inconceivable that a man of the King’s known appetites would have been prepared to spend hours closeted in conversation with a woman he found alluring unless she was offering him sexual satisfaction. Some have believed him incapable of forming a profound attachment to a member of the opposite sex without attaining carnal knowledge.

Against this, it should be noted that once the King had ceased sleeping with Mlle de Fontanges his behaviour towards the Queen underwent a marked alteration. Mme de Caylus later recalled that he began showing her ‘attentions to which she was unaccustomed. He saw her more often and sought to amuse her … She attributed the happy change to Mme de Maintenon.’ When the court was touring the borders of Holland and Alsace-Lorraine in August 1680, Mme de Sévigné heard that the Queen was in unusually good form, and that the King was treating her very kindly. He also began having sexual relations with her much more frequently. The number of times he did this could be accurately charted because the Queen always took communion the following morning. Furthermore, according to Madame, ‘She was so happy when that had happened that one saw it straight away; she liked it if one joked with her about it, and then she laughed and winked and rubbed her little hands.’ In December 1680 M. de Trichâteau told the Comte de Bussy that the King was doing everything possible to furnish the Dauphin with a brother and ‘the Queen has not had such fun for a long time’.
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It seems plausible that Louis’s sudden and uncharacteristic uxoriousness was caused by his having to seek a legitimate outlet for his passions now that he was no longer gaining sexual release through extramarital affairs.

Such an interpretation is supported by the fact that he made no attempt to be discreet about his meetings with Mme de Maintenon. Instead, every evening she was ceremoniously conducted to and from the King’s rooms by the Dauphine’s Master of the Household ‘in the sight of all the universe.’
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This forms a complete contrast to his almost obsessive secrecy when he started his liaison with Mlle de Fontanges. Unless one accepts that the King had suddenly become completely shameless, the only explanation is surely that Louis took real pleasure in being able to flaunt a relationship with a woman about which he had no cause to reproach himself.

The few surviving letters written by Mme de Maintenon at this period testify to her happiness, but this cannot be taken as proof that she and the King had become lovers. The knowledge that she was admired and esteemed by him was plainly a source of satisfaction, but for her the real triumph lay in the fact that she had achieved this without compromising her virtue. She now exerted her influence to extricate the King from a state of sin, in the belief that, having done so, she could effect a conversion and attain his salvation.

Mme de Maintenon later claimed that she would have left court long before this had it not been for her confessor’s insistence that she remain there. Though at first she had been puzzled by his orders, after a time she saw their wisdom. As she recalled, ‘I began to see that perhaps it would not be impossible for me to be of some use in the King’s salvation; I began to be convinced that God had only kept me there for that.’
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Exactly when this revelation came to her remains unclear. One later statement of hers shows that for several years she considered that it was not incumbent on her to voice any disapproval of the King’s way of life with Athénaïs. ‘I never entered into his relations [with her],’ she declared. ‘They were already far advanced when he made my acquaintance and they did not take me into their confidence.’ On the other hand a letter she wrote to her confessor, Abbé Gobelin, on 5 April 1675 suggests that even then she was starting to exert moral pressure on the King. She told Gobelin she had spoken to Louis the previous day and that Gobelin should ‘fear nothing; it seems to me that I spoke to him as a Christian and as a true friend of Mme de Montespan’. Possibly, therefore, she played a part in bringing about the King’s Easter separation from Athénaïs. Apart from this, we know of only one instance where she upbraided Louis, which she later described to her secretary, Mlle Aumale. She recalled that, one day when she was walking with the King at a court reception, she had observed that if he had discovered that one of his musketeers was conducting an affair with a married woman he would have drummed the offender out of the palace. The King sheepishly concurred with this indirect reproof.
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Presumably she put forward other arguments during their numerous private conversations. Certainly, Mme de Maintenon later came to think that her role had been crucial in bringing the King to forsake a sinful way of life. She acknowledged that in doing so she had undermined the position of Mme de Montespan, who in many ways had been her principal benefactor, but she insisted she felt no guilt on this score. She later mused, ‘Was I wrong to have given him good advice and to have tried as far as I could to break off his relations [with Athénaïs]?’ She then answered her own rhetorical question by declaring that Mme de Montespan would have had more cause to reproach her if she had encouraged the King to prolong the affair.
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It also appears that Mme de Maintenon did her best to put a stop to the King’s affair with Mlle de Fontanges, though it is not clear if she confronted Louis himself on the matter. In March 1679, when the relationship came to light, she begged her confessor ‘to pray and have others pray for the King, who is on the edge of a great precipice’. She also later confided to some girls at Saint-Cyr that the King had once sent her to reason with a furious Mlle de Fontanges, who was upset by the way he was treating her. She reminisced, ‘The King feared an outburst and had sent me to calm her; I was there two hours and used the time to persuade her to leave the King and to try and convince her that this would be fine and praiseworthy. I recall that she answered me with vivacity, “But Madame, you talk to me of ridding myself of a passion as if it was like divesting myself of a chemise!”’
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The inexorable rise of Mme de Maintenon (now called Mme de
Maintenant
by knowing courtiers) meant that, despite the declining fortunes of the Duchesse de Fontanges, the summer of 1680 was a grim time for Mme de Montespan. That July the King travelled through Flanders, and along the borders of Holland and Alsace-Lorraine. Prominent among the ladies who accompanied him was Mme de Maintenon. Athénaïs trailed along too, taking with her her seven-year-old daughter, Mlle de Nantes, but this merely served to emphasise that she was now excluded from the King’s innermost circle. In contrast to the rapturous letters penned by Mme de Maintenon enthusing about her treatment on the voyage (‘Nobody at court is better served than I am’), communications from Athénaïs make it clear that she was leading a miserable existence. At one point she and her daughter were reduced to sleeping on a pile of straw and everyone around her fell prey to ailments. ‘I was as ill as the others,’ she lamented, confiding that a bad attack of the vapours had nearly killed her. A letter to her old friend the Duchesse de Noailles makes plain her sense of alienation. She wrote glumly, ‘I don’t have the heart for anything. At court one is still leading the same life. I am informed about it as little as I can be, and in effect that’s very little.’
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Clearly she was deeply depressed, but things were about to deteriorate further. Since January 1680 the court had been convulsed by the Affair of the Poisons, which had resulted in the arrest and interrogation of numerous prominent people on suspicion of witchcraft and attempted murder. In July Mme de Montespan’s name had begun to feature in the confessions of various unsavoury individuals who were currently imprisoned in the Château de Vincennes in connection with this matter. Their allegations gave rise to fears that Mme de Montespan was herself guilty of terrible crimes and that she too was part of the dreadful web of evil which had enmeshed so many court figures.