Ch. 15: The Daughters of Louis XIV

None

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section twenty of Women of Versailles. The Court of Louis
the fourteenth by Artur Leon Ambert de Saint Aman, translated
by Elizabeth Gilbert Martin. This LibriVox recording is in the
public domain. Read by Pamel and A. Gami, Chapter fifteen,
The Daughters of Louis the fourteenth. The Princesses was the

(00:24):
title by which the three legitimated daughters of Louis the fourteenth,
one by Mademoiselle de la Valliere and the other two
by Madame de Montespon, were known at court. The first
of them, born in sixteen sixty six, married Prince Louis
armonte Comteis, The second, born in sixteen seventy three, married

(00:47):
the Duc de Bourbon. The third, born in sixteen seventy seven,
married the Duc de Chartres, who became the Duke of
Orleons and Regent of France. The process of contie was
more beautiful than Mademoiselle de la Valliere. The duchesses of
Bourbon and Chartes had the wit and pride of Madame

(01:10):
de Montespon. The three princesses, who were as proud of
their birth as if they had been legitimate daughters had
a great place in the heart of Louis the fourteenth.
The courts surrounded them with homage, and although they did
not play an important political role, yet they must figure

(01:30):
in the gallery of women of their silles. The birth
of the future Princess of Contie was veiled in mystery.
Mademoiselle de la Valliere had concealed her pregnancy the very
night before her delivery. She made her appearance in the
royal apartment in presence of the whole court, in a

(01:51):
splendid ball dress and with uncovered head. A year later,
her daughter was legitimated by letters patent char as sign
of the times concerning his favorite. Louis the fourteenth said,
in naming her Duchess, although her modesty has frequently opposed
our desire to raise her sooner to a rank proportionate

(02:14):
to our esteem and her good qualities, Yet the affection
we have for her and justice do not permit us
to defer any longer our acknowledgment of merits so well
known to us, nor longer to refuse to nature the
effects of our tenderness for Marie Anne, our natural daughter.

(02:35):
The child was called Mademoiselle de Blois, In sixteen seventy four,
the year when the Duchesse de la Valliere retired to
a carmelite convent, Madame de Savignier wrote, Mademoiselle de Blois
is a masterpiece. The King and everyone else is enchanted
with her. She is a prodigy of attractiveness and grace.

(02:59):
She has charmed the court by her beauty from her
earliest infancy. People pretend that the Emperor of Morocco fell
madly in love with her at the sight of her portrait.
She was fifteen years old when in January sixteen eighty
she married Louis Armand de Bourbon, Prince de Conti, nephew
of the Great Conde, who like all his family, testified

(03:22):
the most lively joy on occasion of this marriage. The
young married couples seemed delighted with each other. Their love
is like a romance, wrote Madame de Savignier, and the
King is amused by their inclination. The courtiers went to
the carmelite convent of the Rue Saint Jacques to pay
their compliments to the former Duchesse de la Valliere, now

(03:45):
Sister Louise of Mercy, who perfectly conciliated her style in
her black veil, her maternal tenderness with that of a
spouse of Jesus Christ. In this mystic asylum were, according
to bass Usuway's expression, one is straightened on all sides,
so as to respire no longer except toward heaven. The

(04:07):
pious carmelite, showing yourself for the last time, seemed the
very image of repentance and sanctity. Madame de Savignier thus
describes to her daughter the emotion produced by such an angel.
To my eyes, she still possessed all the charms we
saw of old. Her eyes and glances were the same. Austerity,

(04:31):
poor nourishment, and curtailed sleep have neither hollowed nor weakened them.
That strange habit detracts nothing from her grace or good appearance.
She said many kind things to me, and spoke of
you so well and appropriately. All she said being so
perfectly suitable to her that I think nothing could be better. Truly,

(04:56):
that habit and that retreat are a great dignity for her.
While the saintly Carmelite was expiating in the cloister the
birth of the Princess de Conti, the young Princess was
dazzling the court by her beauty, grace, and spirit. Like
nearly all remarkably beautiful women, she was coquettish. Her husband

(05:18):
managed her badly. He surrounded her with the most fashionable
young people at the court, which naturally gave occasion for scandal.
In sixteen eighty five she had the smallpox, and the
Prince de Conti, having shut himself up with her, took
the disease and died of it. Suddenly, what a death

(05:41):
was that of the Prince de Conti, After having escaped
all the infinite perils of war in Hungary, he has
just died here of a malady which he scarcely had.
He is the son of a saintly man and a
saintly woman, and in consequence of wrongly directed thought, he
has played the fool and debauchi and died without confession. Footnote.

(06:06):
Madame de Savigner, a widow at twenty and easily consolable,
The young princess continued to be the ornament of Versailles. Monseigneur,
as the Dauphin was styled, was continually in her apartments.
Versailles became rejuvenated in this little haunt of pleasure there

(06:26):
was nothing but promenades, rendezvous, love letters, serenades, and all
that was found delightful in the good old times. It
was there that Monseigneur became acquainted with Mademoiselle Choin, who
is made of honor to the Princess. According to Madame
de Caelouse, this young lady's mind was not calculated to

(06:47):
shine anywhere except in an ante chamber, and was capable
of nothing better than describing what she had seen. And
yet she adds in her souvenir, this same Mademoiselle Choin
carried off from the most beautiful princess in the world,
the heart of Monsieur Clermont. At that time an officer

(07:07):
of the guards. Monseigneur had a particularly good opinion of him,
and had introduced him to the Comtesse de Comtie, whom
he made such love too, that he inspired her with
a rather lively inclination. The King, having been informed of
this intrigue by means of letters intercepted at the post office,

(07:28):
sent for his daughter, and showed her not only though
she had written to Clermont, but those which the latter
had addressed to Mademoiselle Choin. The princess thought she would die,
says Saint Simon. She threw herself at the King's feet,
bathed them with her tears, and could hardly articulate. There

(07:49):
was nothing but sobs, pardons, despairs, rages, and entreaties for
justice and vengeance. She was speedily heard. Clermont and Madeimeemoiselle
Choin had to leave the court and resign their appointments,
but Mademoiselle Choin remained the favorite of Monseigneur. This happened

(08:09):
in sixteen ninety four. The Princess de Conti resumed her
accustomed dissipations and amusements, pleasure parties, balls, hunts, cards, collations
at the Trianon or the menagerie, night promenades in the gardens. Meanwhile,
Sister Louise of Mercy was redoubling her austerities. Her natural

(08:33):
delicacy had suffered infinitely from the real severity of her
corporal and spiritual penitence, as well as from that of
a very sensitive heart, which she concealed as well as
she could. She died with every mark of great sanctity,
in the midst of the nuns to whom her gentleness
and virtues had given delight. The Princess de Contie, notified

(08:56):
too late, only reached the karmelike convent of the Rue
Saint Jacques in time to see her mother breathe her last.
At first she seemed very much afflicted, but San Simon
says she was quickly consoled. The whole court paid her
visits of condolence. The children of Madame de Montespon, who

(09:19):
had lost their mother three years before, were greatly mortified
by these public visits, seeing that in a parallel case
they had not dared to receive any such They were
still more so, add San Simon, when they saw Madame
the Prancess de Conti, contrary to all custom, drape her

(09:40):
apartment in mourning for a simple nun, although she was
her mother. They who had none, and who for that
reason had not dared even to wear the least sign
of mourning on the death of Madame de Montespon. Between
the situation of the Prancess de Conti and that of
the two other legitimated daughters of Louis the fourteenth, there

(10:02):
existed this difference. The first were designated in her letters
of legitimation as the daughter of Mademoiselle de la Valliere,
while in those of the other two, their mother's name
was not mentioned. This is why Saint Simon, distinguishing between
the simple and the double adultery, says that the Princess

(10:23):
de Comtis had named and recognized mother, while the Duchesses
of Bourbon and of Chartre had not. The Duchess of Bourbon,
who was at first called Mademoiselle de Nantes, had been
legitimated in the year of her birth by letters patent,
in which Louis the fourteenth, without naming the mother, had

(10:45):
contented himself by alleging the tenderness which nature gave him
for his children, and many other reasons which considerably increased
these sentiments in him. The young princess was still a
little girl when she married in sixteen eighty five, the
Duc de Bourbon, grandson of the Great Conde. It was

(11:07):
a ridiculous thing, says the Marquis de Souche, to see
these two marionettes Mary, for the Duc de Bourbon was
excessively small. It was feared he would remain a dwarf,
and they were obliged to wait until July before Mademoiselle
de Nantes would be twelve years old. Madame de Caelous

(11:29):
says that the Great Conde and his son neglected no
means of testifying their joy, as they had omitted nothing
to bring about this marriage. As she grew up, the
Duchess became very pretty. San Simond praises her figure formed
by the tenderest loves and her mind made to enjoy

(11:50):
them to her liking, but without being dominated by them.
But he represents her at the same time as egoistic, deceitful,
and setir miracle. She was, he says, the siren of
the poets. She had all their charms and all their perils.
She loved pleasure, luxury and extravagance. Thanks to Madame de Mantineau,

(12:14):
she obtained in seventeen hundred the payment of her debts
by the king, who kept her secret from her father
in law and her husband. If Saint Simon and Madame
de Caylus were to be believed, her conduct was not exemplary.
She may have been the mistress of the second Prince
de Conti, he who had been elected king of Poland

(12:36):
in sixteen ninety seven after having fought valiantly at Florus, Steinkerk, Nea,
Vinda and in Hungary, but who was unable to take
possession of his crown. The Prince de Conti, says Madame
de Caelouse, opened his eyes to the charms of Madame
the Duchess by dint of being told not to look

(12:57):
at her. He loved her passionately, and if on her
part she loved anything, it was certainly him. Whatever may
have happened, since this affair was conducted with such admirable
prudence that they never gave any one any hold over them.
According to San Simon, the Prince de Comtie was perfectly

(13:20):
happy with Madame the Duchesse, although Monsieur the Duke was
very singular and strangely jealous. The Duke died on Shrove
Tuesday in the year seventeen o nine. Madame the Duchess,
although surrounded by finery, masquerading habits, and a crowd of
invited guests, lost none of her presence of mind. With

(13:43):
her tearful ways, she extorted from the King, though against
his will and tardily enough, an income of thirty thousand livres.
Then her tears dried up and her good humor returned.
She received everybody in state. She was on her bed
in a widow's gown bordered and lined with ermine. The

(14:05):
Prince de Contie died almost at the same time as
the Duke. Madame the Duchess, says Saint Simon, was the
only one to whom he had not been in constant.
He would have paid her the homage of his grandeur,
and she would have shown by his luster, what disheartening
memories with no consolation but Laseille junior footnote Laseilles was

(14:30):
a brigadier of infantry. According to Saint Simon, he became
openly the master of Madame the Duchess and the director
of her affairs. Back to main text. For want of
a better she became inordinately attached to him, and the
attachment has lasted four thirty years. She was not made

(14:50):
for tears. She wanted to forget her troubles, and to
do so plunged first into amusements and then into pleasures,
even to the mo most extreme indelicacies. Considering her age
and condition, she tried to drown her vexations in them,
and she succeeded. San Simon's exaggerations are to be suspected. However,

(15:14):
he is always malevolent and often unjust. The suspicions of
the ruthless Duke and Pierre constantly hover over the private
lives of two of the daughters of Louis the fourteenth,
but he spares the third one at all events, and
though he accuses her of an almost satanic pride, he
insinuates nothing against the purity of her morals. This princess

(15:38):
was at first styled Mademoiselle de Blois, the same name
as the daughter of Mademoiselle de la Valliere. She was
fourteen when she was married in sixteen ninety two to
the Duc de Chartre, son of Monsieur, Duke of Orleon.
Sain Simon has described the exasperation of the young prince's
mother at seeing her son espouse a bastard. She strode

(16:04):
up and down, handkerchief in hand and weeping, unrestrainedly, talking
rather loud, gesticulating and reminding one of Ceres. After the
abduction of Proserpine people generally going to await the breaking
up the council and the king's mass in the gallery,
Madame went there. Her son approached her, as he did

(16:25):
every day, to kiss her hand. At that moment Madame
gave him so resounding a slap that it could be
heard several paces off, and which in presence of the
whole court, covered the poor prince with confusion, and filled
the very numerous spectators, of whom I was one, with
prodigious astonishment. Let us note in passing that in a

(16:49):
letter to the Rheingrave Louise Madame says that a rumor
is in circulation that she had slapped her son in
the face, but that it is absolutely false. The marriage
was celebrated with great pomp. Louis the fourteenth was gratified
to find the great lords and ladies rivaling each other
in magnificence. There was a great ball at Versailles, where

(17:12):
the Duke of Burgundy danced for the first time, and
it was the King of England who gave the bridegroom
his shirt. Reader's note the exile James the Second. A
month later, March nineteenth, sixteen ninety two, the Duc de
men the eldest of the children of Louis the fourteenth,
by Madame de Montespont, married Mademoiselle de Charrolet, daughter of

(17:35):
the Prince and granddaughter of the Great Conde. The legitimized
thus found themselves established in the court of Versailles, which
they could not have left without sadness, for it was
the most brilliant and most envied abode in Europe. Louis
the fourteenth, who had originally said, concerning the offspring of adultery,

(17:56):
these persons must never marry, caused them to make me
magnificent marriages curious thing. The Duchess of Sharp naively fancied
that she had honored the king's nephew by marrying him.
Madame wrote on this head, my son's wife thinks she
did him a great honor in marrying him. She says,

(18:18):
he is only the nephew of the king, while she
is his daughter. This is to forget that one is
also the son of his mother. Never would she comprehend that.
Duclose says that people jocosely compared her to Minerva, who,
recognizing no mother, prided herself on being the daughter of Jupiter.

(18:40):
Haughty as she was, this princess was timidity itself. In
presence of Louis the fourteenth, the king could make her
faint with a single severe look, and Madame de Maintenon too.
Perhaps at all events she trembled before her and about
the most ordinary things, and in public. She never replied

(19:02):
to them without stammering and looking frightened, I say replied,
for to address the king first was beyond her strength.
The Duchesse de chart was none the less a woman
of great intelligence, having a natural eloquence, a justness of expression,
and affluency and singularity in the choice of terms, which

(19:23):
always surprised one, together with that manner peculiar to Madame
de Montespon and her sisters, and which was transmitted to
none but those intimate with her, or to those whom
she had brought up. In spite of all her intelligence,
the Duchess was unable either to gain the attachment of
her husband or to give a good education to her daughter,

(19:47):
who married in seventeen ten. The Duc de Berrys, third
son of the Grand dauphin Saint Simon, whose tongue is
always envenomed, has ill treated no woman in his memoirs
so much as this poor Duchesse de Berrie, who a
widow at seventeen, died at twenty four. If one must

(20:08):
believe the spiteful Duke in Pierre, she was a bad wife,
a bad daughter, and a bad Christian. She got drunk,
she mocked at religion, and she wanted Lais, her husband's equerry,
to elope with her. She was a prodigy of art, pride,
and gratitude and folly, and also of debauchery and stubbornness.

(20:32):
The duchess was very wrong, without any doubt, but we
incline to think that Saint Simon exaggerates. Possibly she was
neither better nor worse than many women of her time.
It is certain at any rate that she grieved her mother,
Already much tormented by the rivalries and dissensions of the court.

(20:52):
The three daughters of Louis the fourteenth were not always
on good terms with each other. There was a time
when their quarrels multiplied to such a degree that the
king threatened if they continued to in turn all three
of them in their country houses. The menace was effectual,
and thenceforward they disputed on the sly. Louis the fourteenth

(21:15):
loved his daughters greatly in spite of their defects. He
was at the same time a just king and an
affectionate father. He showed a real tenderness, a solicitude, and
a devotion in his treatment of them, which never altered
when they were ill. He was grieved and troubled, he
would rise several times in the night to go and

(21:36):
visit them. Madame de cay Loose relates that the Duchess
of Bourbon, having been seized with smallpox at Fontainebleau, Louis
the fourteenth was absolutely determined to go to see her.
The Prince the Great Conde stood at the door to
prevent him from entering. There, a great struggle took place

(21:57):
between paternal love and the zeal of a courtier, a
struggle very glorious for Madame the Duchess. Louis the fourteenth
was the stronger and went in in spite of the
resistance of the Great Conde. Thus behaved this king, who
can only be treated as an egotist by those who

(22:17):
know him badly or who do not know him at all.
End of Section twenty