The Sun King (14 page)

The Dauphin liked his ugly wife very much at first; and the longed-for heir was born soon after the Court had definitely moved into Versailles — indeed this birth was the first excitement there. The Dauphine was delicate; she had already had at least two miscarriages; so it was arranged that a surgeon, named Clément, should deliver her, instead of a midwife. The King himself saw to every detail, even to choosing the baby's wet-nurse who, he said, must be dark, healthy and intelligent and above all, must smell delicious. Such a one was duly found. When the Dauphine's pains began the atmosphere at the château soon became that of a party. The courtyard was illuminated; messengers were at the ready to carry the news all over France; those who had not got the
entrée
to
the Dauphine's room crowded as near it as they could. It was August and a grilling heat-wave was in progress. The King had been woken at five, but told there was no great hurry; so he heard Mass before going to his daughter-in-law. The delivery seemed difficult and promised to be slow. At nine the King went to his council. The Queen sent for the relics of St Margaret, and they were exposed where the Dauphine could see them. The King came back; he thought her very weak and gave her food and wine with his own hands. Clément was calm and told him not to worry. Then Louis went to his dinner. The bed in which Marie de Médicis and Anne of Austria had had their babies was brought into the room — it had special bars for hanging on to and a foot-rest.

The crowd, by now, was indescribable. Ambassadors and foreign princes had come hot-foot from Paris; they, of course, had to be allowed at the bedside. Time went on. The Dauphine suffered horribly and became weaker and weaker. Clément was admirable. The King came back for good and stayed in her room all night. She said he was so kind to her she could hardly bear to leave such a dear father; for now she and everybody else thought she must die. The King said he would be glad even if the baby was a girl, if only the Dauphine's torment could come to an end. The Dauphin sat with his head in his hands, sunk in misery. Hour after hour dragged by. Dawn broke. Everybody was very tired (specially the Dauphine) except Clément who was as fresh as a daisy and never once lost his head; from time to time he bled her, saying that everything would be all right. The pains got worse and worse but there was still no sign of a baby. By ten-thirty a.m. on the second day the pains were excruciating. Then, just as it seemed as if she was at the end of her tether and must expire, the King's loud, clear voice was heard above the din of the onlookers: ‘We have got a Duc de Bourgogne'.

The crowds all over the château and outside, in the courtyard, went berserk. They gave such a shout of joy that it was heard the other end of the town. Those who could get at the King hugged and kissed and cheered and clapped him. They pulled down the scaffolding in the Galerie des Glaces and pulled up the parquet everywhere and piled it all, with any other wood they could find including sedan chairs, topped by their own and other people's clothes, to make a huge bonfire in the courtyard. The King laughed, saying to let them be: ‘I only hope they won't burn the house down!' He was transported with joy. The Dauphin forged himself a way through the mob, went out hunting and was seen no more that day.

But the Dauphine was still in agony. The excellent Clément went on keeping his head. He had a sheep flayed alive in her room (to the horror of her ladies — she was probably past caring) and wrapped her up in the skin. Naturally this cured her at once. Then she only longed to go to sleep. But Clément could not allow it. Sleep, after such a lengthy and precarious delivery would have been most dangerous, so
she was forcibly kept awake for several hours. After that her room was hermetically sealed up and she had to stay in bed there, in the heat-wave, without even the light of a candle, for another nine days.

It is said that the Marquise de Maintenon, meeting the Marquise de Montespan on the Queen's staircase, remarked in her dry way: ‘You are going down, Madame? I am going up.' The King had allotted her a flat at the top of the staircase, opposite the entrance to that of the Queen; so he had all three women on his own floor. What is now the Oeil de Boeuf was still two rooms, the Salon des Bassans where the King hung his Bassanos, and a guard room; he had to cross these and the top of the staircase when he visited Mme de Maintenon. He could not go in unobserved as he could to Mme de Montespan on the other side; but his relationship with Mme de Maintenon was nothing if not above-board. Her rooms, so long the very centre of life at the Court, have been torn to pieces and reshaped and are now used as lumber-rooms. After the disappearance of Mlle de Fontanges, Louis had a short-lived affair with a Mlle Doré which gave Athénaïs the vapours and made Mme de Maintenon choke. When that was over, he resolved to sin no more and to dedicate his old age to God.

The King's religious outlook was that of a clever child. He was well up in theology, never failed to observe the outward forms and tried not to sin; but humility, self-criticism, true repentance and the love of God were beyond his ken. Certain things in the Gospels definitely displeased him; for instance he did not think it right that Christ should speak the language of poor people. He seems to have felt unfriendly towards the poor and never wanted to hear about the sad and often desperate condition of the majority of his subjects. Many, many people came to grief for trying to tell him of it: Mme de Maintenon used to say they discouraged him and did no good. Possibly he felt powerless to do anything for those in want and therefore could not bear the distressing truth; possibly he did not care. In this as in other matters he kept his own counsel. There was no excuse for indifference, if indifference it was. Enlightened men abounded in the seventeenth century; La Reynie, for instance, was truly charitable. St Vincent de Paul had seen to it that everybody knew about the horrible life of the galley slave. After the death of Louis XIV, Madame, who was neither specially religious nor morbidly sensitive, begged the Regent to do away with galleys, which shows that they were considered a perfect scandal; but
the King allowed Colbert to increase their numbers and to stick at no injustice to obtain the slaves that he required for them. Sunday after Sunday, Louis sat under Bourdaloue who, among other things, was for ever trying to get reform in the prisons. Prisoners may well deserve their fate, he said, in one famous sermon, but are they not less miserable for that — indeed the innocent who are condemned unjustly are happier than the guilty: at least their conscience is clear. But consider the despair of a man awaiting judgement during endless days and nights, with nobody to talk to, in the horror of darkness — what must his lonely thoughts be as he anticipates an ignominious and agonizing death? To add to his spiritual torments, there are physical sufferings: a filthy dungeon to live in, just enough rotten bread to keep him alive, straw for his bed. Bourdaloue urged his congregation to go to the prisons and see how they could help those whom Christ had so often commended to them. The King listened attentively to such exhortations; nothing was ever done. He seems to have thought that one night of adultery was more displeasing to God than any amount of suffering inflicted on his fellow-men; in short, the spirit of Christianity was a closed book to him.

His confessor, Père de La Chaise, does not seem to have tried to enlighten him. He was a Jesuit; the King thought they were the best earthly servants of God and that all other orders were apt to have republican leanings. The director of a Catholic king's conscience in those days was almost like an extra minister (James II made Father Petre a Privy Councillor) and Père de La Chaise's anteroom was as crowded as if he had been one. The King took his advice about all the religious appointments, from archbishop to canon, so that the Father was very powerful. He was a delightful person, a gentleman, supple, polite, exquisitely cultivated and with a sweet nature, incapable of severity: in fact Mme de Montespan used to call him the
chaise à commodité
. He and Bossuet both encouraged the King to regard God as the only person to whom he was responsible. Remembering the famous
mot de Ramillies
, when, after that resounding defeat, Louis XIV said: ‘God seems to have forgotten all I have done for him', one cannot escape the suspicion, possibly unfair, that, having reached the pinnacle of success in spite of having led such an unchaste life, he thought that God would refuse him nothing, should he become really reformed.

Louis XIV now renounced the sins of the flesh and devoted himself to the Queen. He had never abandoned her or left her bed, in which he habitually slept, although not always in a way that she, with her Spanish temperament, would have liked. Nevertheless he made love with her at least twice a month. Everybody knew when this had happened because she went to Communion the next day. She also liked to be teased about it, and would rub her little hands and wink with her large blue eyes. She was very unattractive. After twenty-two years in France, she still spent most of her time between a Spanish maid and a
Spanish confessor, looking out for the courier from Spain. The Prussian ambassador Ezekiel Spanheim, a reliable witness, says the Court was never really gay because neither the Queen, nor the Dauphine, nor Madame (who only liked hunting), and least of all Mme de Maintenon, had the necessary high spirits.

When the Queen realized that she had got her husband to herself at last, her joy knew no bounds. She was not jealous of Mme de Maintenon: on the contrary she was grateful to her and attributed this turn of affairs to her influence. She gave her a portrait of herself framed in diamonds. Although Mme de Maintenon was attached to the Dauphine's household, it was noticed that when the Court went for the annual visit to Fontainebleau she went too, in spite of the fact that her mistress the Dauphine, still unwell from her lying-in, stayed at Versailles. The Queen's happiness only lasted about a year. In May 1683 the King went to the eastern front; France was at peace for once but he wanted to visit his regiments and inspect his fortresses. The Dauphine was again left behind but again Mme de Maintenon accompanied the Queen. All Louis XIV's women hated these journeys (the only thing they hated more was not to be of them), because of the wretchedness of the lodgings and the long, exhausting days in coaches or, worse still, on horseback, at the manoeuvres. This time they were away from 26 May to 30 July.

The Queen seemed very tired; and as soon as they were back at Versailles she developed an abscess under her arm. Fagon, the King's doctor, insisted on bleeding her although the surgeon implored him not to and even wept. Then, at midday, Fagon gave her a huge dose of emetic. Suddenly, those courtiers who happened to be in the Galerie des Glaces saw the King, distracted and in tears, running to the temporary Chapel to fetch the viaticum. Such a scene was extraordinary and those present were deeply embarrassed by it. The Queen died about an hour later, in the arms of Mme de Maintenon; she was forty-five. ‘Poor woman,' the King said, ‘it's the only time she has ever given me any trouble.'

There was a rule that the royal family never stayed on in a house where death had occurred (ordinary people were forbidden to die in royal residences for this reason). The King went straight to Monsieur, at Saint-Cloud, for a few days while Fontainebleau was got ready to receive him. The Dauphine awaited him there, with Mme de Maintenon. Always soberly dressed, either in black or very dark colours, Mme de Maintenon had got herself up for this occasion in such deep, such exaggerated, such earnest-like mourning that the King burst out laughing when he saw her and could not resist teasing her about it. He himself had quite recovered from whatever grief he may have felt and, having taken a momentous decision, was in an excellent mood. Mme de Maintenon found that she had been given rooms in the Queen's suite.

Obviously, if the King was really going to lead a life according to the rules of Christian sexual morality, in other words either monogamy, sanctioned by the Church, or abstinence, he would have to marry again very soon. He was only forty-five; he needed a woman. The choice available to him was not enormous — he had no desire to bring some foreign princess whom he had not seen, possibly with a fat nose, to Versailles. The Dauphin now had two healthy sons, the Duc d'Anjou, future King of Spain, having followed hard on Bourgogne; there seemed no need for more Children of France. If the King married, even morganatically, a member of the French high nobility, he would cause dreadful, possibly dangerous jealousies; if such a wife produced children the complications would be endless as, fruits of matrimony, they would have to take precedence of the adored du Maine. He never felt truly comfortable except with those he knew well. Mme de Montespan, had the circumstances been different, might have been granted her wish; as it was, what with the scandals in which she had recently been involved, her dreadful temper, her
embonpoint
, her husband and the fact that the King was no longer in love with her, she was out of the running. All his other women friends were married. Remained Mme de Maintenon. She was beautiful and attractive, with brilliantly bright eyes; too old to have children and yet young for her forty-eight years; she amused him and indeed she could be very funny, as her letters show — her discretion was absolute, and that was vital; she was a widow and almost certainly a virgin; she was pious; she was the most correct and ladylike person at the Court; she used the French language so that it was a pleasure every time she opened her mouth; finally, he loved her. ‘He loved me, it is true,' she said, in later years, ‘but only as much as he was capable of loving, for unless a man is touched by passion he is not tender.' Nevertheless he loved her more as time went on, more, perhaps, than she ever knew and certainly more than she loved him.