The Sun King (16 page)

As the Dauphine never would appear in society, the young fashionables of the rising generation centred round the Dauphin, his half-sister Marie-Anne de Conti and her husband, and Conti's younger brother, Prince de La Roche-sur-Yon. Now that Louise de La Vallière's daughter Marie-Anne was grown up, the most beautiful women at Versailles were nothing to her. Mme de Sévigné says she was above humanity, you could see she was a daughter of the Gods; her scented bedroom was the very shrine of Venus. She had been married since she was thirteen to the Prince de Conti and was the first of Louis XIV's bastards to marry into the royal family. The Conti brothers, like their cousins the Condés, were Princes of the Blood but not Children of France, since they were not descended from a Bourbon king but only from an uncle of Henri IV. They were nephews of the Grand Condé and great-nephews, through their mother, of Cardinal Mazarin — first cousins of Mary of Modena. So they had the same blood on both sides as Prince Eugène whom the younger brother resembled in his nature and his gifts. Their father was dead; he had been a most fascinating man, the model for Molière's Don Juan. Little Marie-Anne cried when she heard that she was engaged. Louis XIV, always very fond of her, asked why, but she was too timid to say that she preferred the younger brother. She was not too timid, however, after a few days of marriage, to pronounce that her husband was no good at making love — which, coming from such a baby, surprised even the sophisticated courtiers at Versailles. The King sent for her, gave her a wigging and reduced her to tears; and after that the young couple got on quite well, but there were no children.

Marie-Anne was right in preferring the younger Conti to her husband, who was a nonentity. The brother was very different: valiant, brilliant and ambitious, adored by those who knew him, with all the gifts of a leader, he was often likened to Germanicus. He was just as charming to the butcher, the baker and the candlestick-maker as he was to the highest in the land, could be as frivolous as anybody and yet had as many friends in intellectual circles as among the playboys of the Court. He could discuss their special problems with magistrates and scientists; had read immensely and remembered what he had read; knew where to find the sources of information; was versed in astronomy and mathematics; had the genealogy of all the nobles by heart (a polite accomplishment in those days) and possessed a marvellous clarity of thought. With a gift for friendship, he chose his intimates well and then made their relationship truly profitable; he was courteous and never hurt anybody's feelings. He was fond of making love and it was said of him that, like Caesar, he was every woman's husband and every man's wife. In warfare he was a hero. He attached the soldiers to him by his goodness and the officers by his affability: all ranks felt total confidence in him. He distinguished himself at the battles of Steinkirk and Neerwinden, and was known throughout Europe as a
chivalrous adversary. He had been brought up with the Dauphin and was his greatest friend — their tutor, Bossuet, loved him more than a son. Even Mme de Maintenon was charmed by him.

But this splendid prince was born under an unlucky star. For one thing, his fortune was not great enough to support his rank. This would not have signified if he had pleased the King, but unluckily for him the King soon realized that he was worth a hundred of the Duc du Maine and was jealous on his son's behalf. He blighted the young man's career, so that with all his brilliant gifts he was able to make nothing of his existence. Now he is forgotten. However, while the princes were in their early manhood, it was taken as a matter of course that whenever the Dauphin should be called to the throne his cousin would be at his right hand. Life seemed to be full of promise.

In 1683 the Turks were surging into Europe. The King of France, whose chief enemy had always been the Emperor, was not displeased to see him in difficulties and refused to join an alliance against the Infidel, although Pope Innocent XI offered him Constantinople if he would do so. The Conti brothers and various other young bloods at Versailles, bored with peace at home, begged permission to go and fight the barbarians. The King consented; they went off; he had second thoughts and ordered them to come back; they turned the deaf ear. They joined up with their cousin Eugène, performed prodigies of valour and no doubt enjoyed themselves very much indeed. Unfortunately they had urged their friends at Versailles to keep in touch and letters passed to and fro. Now the King was fond of reading other people's letters; it was one of the ways by which he knew what was happening under his enormous roof. The post was censored and the meatiest morsels were brought to him. He had a shock when he saw himself referred to by the younger Conti as a Monarch of the Stage. After that there was a whole bag of letters from Versailles to the French volunteers in Hungary, none of which was relished by the said monarch. Some of them made fun of him and Mme de Maintenon and complained that the dullness of Versailles now beggared description; there were several homosexual love-letters and, in the same fatal packet, one from Marie-Anne de Conti saying that she was obliged to drive out with Mme de Maintenon and an old freak called the Princess d'Harcourt, day after day. ‘Judge what fun this must be for me.' The King sent for Marie-Anne and blasted her with his terrifying tongue. Three fashionable young men were exiled on account of this mail-bag. Another of the writers was the grandson of Maréchal de Villeroy, the King's greatest friend — who said how lucky it was that the boy had only blasphemed in his letter: ‘
God
forgives'. Mme de Maintenon never forgave Marie-Anne de Conti.

The courtiers noticed that the King was in a difficult mood altogether at this time, 1685, the year of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He suddenly exiled Cardinal de Bouillon, Grand Aumônier de France,
and the Duke, his brother; some thought for an affair of sodomy, others that the Bouillons were altogether too grand and pretentious. They were furious; the Duke said ‘the King is only an old gentleman in his château who has got one tooth left which he keeps to bite me with'. The brothers were hated at the Court, so nobody minded their departure. Then the King, for some reason, sent beautiful, thin Mlle de Crenan to the Bastille.

One evening there was a party at Marly; the Maréchal de Villeroy, the Duc de Roquelaure and the Marquis d'Antin, all intimate friends of the King's, asked the Duc de Luxembourg to tell him that they were at the door. Louis XIV in his new, curmudgeonly mood, said ‘All right — they can go away.'

News now came of the death of Charles II; Milord Arran fell in a dead swoon in the Galerie des Glaces, which showed that he was nicer than most English people who were generally thought to hate their kings. ‘Now,' said Mme de Sévigné, ‘the stage is set for some great acting, between the Prince of Orange, M. de Monmouth and that infinite quantity of Lutherans there are in England. It seems that Charles died more as a philosopher and an Englishman than as a Christian.' This death was politically a serious blow to Louis XIV.

When the two Conti brothers got back from the war, Marie-Anne almost immediately fell ill with smallpox — she recovered but gave it to her husband. He seemed to be getting better and was sitting up in bed, joking with her, when he fell back, dead, leaving her a childless widow at nineteen. So her brother-in-law was now Prince de Conti and head of the family. The King, who had never liked him, and since the famous letters, could not bear the sight of him, exiled him from Versailles and he went to live at Chantilly with his uncle, the Grand Condé, who loved him more than his own children and married him to his grand-daughter.

Exquisite as she was, the Dowager, or, as she was more often called, to distinguish her from her sister-in-law, the Beautiful Princesse de Conti, never had much luck in love and never married again. The King of Morocco asked for her hand, and she could have married the Duc de Chartres, the son of Monsieur, but she preferred to be free. She was a good-natured soul, most kind and attentive to her mother, Louise de la Vallière, whom she visited regularly in her convent. Like her, she was dull. She always behaved decently, and Spanheim says that the fashion for virtue at Versailles was set by the piety of the late Queen, the goodness of the Dauphine, the indifference (to men) of Madame and the excellent behaviour of the lovely Princesse de Conti. She and the Grand Dauphin now became inseparable — he could hardly bear her out of his sight — but they never created an agreeable society, as they might have done. The Dauphin had no social gifts, he was too shy. When the day's hunting was over he either took his sister to the Opéra in Paris or played cards with her and a few close friends. People thought that when he
came to the throne he would live in Paris and abandon Versailles — also that he would never go to war since he was lazy and not in the least ambitious.

Soon after his wife's death, the Dauphin fell in love with one of the Princesse de Conti's ladies, called Mlle de Choin. Ugly, like all his women, she was a fat, squashy girl with a snub nose, an enormous mouth and huge breasts on which he would beat a tattoo with his fingers. She became mixed up in the intrigues which always surrounded him, since nobody could forget that from one day to another he might be the King of France. At this time, Marie-Anne de Conti was rather in love with a good-looking member of the Duc de Luxembourg's staff called M. de Clermont. Luxembourg, always full of schemes, suggested to Clermont that if he married Mlle de Choin they could rule the Dauphin between them; so Clermont, in the best traditions of French classical comedy, proceeded to court both mistress and maid. While this was going on he left for the front. Marie-Anne was certainly unlucky where the post was concerned: Clermont's mail was opened and given to the King; it contained the love letters of this three-cornered affair. The King sent for the Princess who arrived trembling as all his children did, except du Maine, when summoned to the dread presence; he then read out Clermont's letters to Mlle de Choin. Marie-Anne fainted away. He revived her and made her read out loud her own letters to Clermont. After that, and having pulled her out of another fainting fit, he spoke rather kindly to her and sent her off in a tremendous rage. She dismissed Mlle de Choin; but the Dauphin went on seeing her and eventually married her. He did so for exactly the same reasons as those for which his father had married Mme de Maintenon. As in their case, total secrecy was observed; no details of the ceremony are known, but a letter from the Dauphin to Mme de Maintenon (19 July 1694) leaves no doubt that it took place. ‘I was amazed that you spoke to me of my wife — amazed and taken aback. I am delighted that I am in favour; my only thought is how to please the King.' Mlle de Choin behaved well, living very quietly at Meudon and never putting herself forward. Clermont, many years later, married the Dowager Countess of Jersey, widow of the English ambassador to Paris.

Athénaïs de Montespan's daughters were much more amusing than the Princesse de Conti. The frivolous Mortemart strain was powerful and came out in her children. In 1685 her eldest daughter married M. le Duc (de Bourbon), grandson and heir of the Grand Condé. She was thereafter known at Versailles as Mme la Duchesse. Some people thought it strange that the rich, powerful, famous Condé should allow his heir to marry a bastard. But Condé's life was complicated by the part he had played in the Fronde, when he had fought against the Queen Mother and Mazarin. He was ashamed, now, of his behaviour and was for ever trying to make amends to his cousin the King whom he both loved and feared. The bride was only twelve and Mme de
Montespan showed her hard heart with a vengeance on this occasion, insisting that she should be put to bed at once with her seventeen-year-old husband, for fear that otherwise he might have second thoughts and seek an annulment of the marriage. The King was more humane and would not allow it. M. le Duc was intelligent and well-educated but most unattractive; large for a pigmy, small for a man, with a bright yellow face and a head too big for his body. His appearance was thought to be due to his mother's having intercepted a sexy look from her dwarf when she was pregnant; but his sisters were little black beetles, and the Condé family was to be strange, physically and mentally, for several generations.

Mme la Duchesse was a darling. Her plump little body could not compete with that of the swan-like Princesse de Conti for beauty, but she had the face of a real love child. Madame said of her (and Madame hated bastards) ‘She ridicules everything in such a droll manner that one can't help laughing . . . in all her life she has never had a bad-tempered moment'. This may have been due to the fact that she always had the best food in France. The Grand Condé was subjugated by her and she adored him; they were a touching pair, never apart. The year after her marriage she caught smallpox while the Court was at Fontainebleau. Condé nursed her devotedly and stayed with her there after everybody else had left for Versailles. She recovered; but he had worn himself out; this great captain suddenly died, at the age of sixty-five, as the result of his fond attachment to a little girl of thirteen. On his death bed he wrote a letter to the King, begging him to take the Prince de Conti back into favour.

After all the services Condé had rendered him, the King could not do otherwise and Conti reappeared at Versailles. He and Mme la Duchesse were in love and their liaison, though it did not prevent Conti from loving his pages as well, was cloudlessly happy and romantic and lasted until death parted them, many years later. The affair was conducted with the greatest discretion; their only confidants and go-betweens were the Dauphin and Marie-Anne de Conti. For twenty years Conti never visited Mme la Duchesse in her own flat; when he was ill or absent she never asked for news of him. M. le Duc was dangerously jealous, not only of his wife's love for Conti but of his brother-in-law's irresistible charm, ever before his eyes, and of the fact that the Grand Condé had been so fond of him. However, Mme la Duchesse was always on the best of terms with her husband, as was Conti with his wife; M. le Duc and his sister, the Princesse de Conti were thus kept under control.