Madeleine de Souvré was quite an odd character at the court of Louis XIV. She had the distinction of being born in the previous century - in 1599, to be exact. Thus, she was already 44 years old when the five-year old Louis XIV ascended to the throne.
By this point, she sported the title of Marquise de Sablé through her marriage to Philippe Emmanuel de Laval-Bois Dauphin. She had been married at the age of fifteen and was widowed in 1640. By the beginning of Louis XIV's reign, her beauty was fading but what marked her out was her salon. She was an intellectual who acted as patron for La Rochefoucauld and harboured constant concerns for her health. As it happens, she was described as a notorious hypochondriac as well as a sharp wit.
 |
| Madeleine de Souvré, Marquise de Sablé |
Her continuous complaints occasionally prevented her from engaging in social engagements. For instance, a surviving letter of hers from 1650 makes her excuses that she has been suffering from several complaints which "have made it difficult for me to pay visits".
Was she actually sick, though? It is hard to know for sure but her contemporaries certainly thought she exaggerated. Tallemant des Réaux gave a less than flattering image of her: "a fat woman who has no other illness than any she might imagine". Apparently, she combined a deep devotion with a perpetual concern for her own health which caused to fervently avoid any talk of death. An even harsher image is conjured up by Sainte-Beuve in a scathing summary. Sainte-Beuve referred to Madeleine in the years after her retirement from court in 1656:
"In lodging near Port-Royal of Paris, in a building she had constructed next to the convent, she created a novel position for herself... hearing everything, fussing over everyone, interfering with everything, making herself the finest wit and the greatest theologian; avid for the smallest bit of gossip and for the most religious tome; interested from now on only in her salvation and in her new circle of monks, but still maintaining all her best friends from before; keeping close to her austere confessor, but not dismissing her cook; consulting both her physician and her moral theologian on her migraines and on her scruples; sponsoring lectures, colloquia and debates in her salon, but feeling supported by the nuns on Communion day; helping the nuns by her marvelous potions and all-purpose elixirs, but putting into her jams and jellies only what is absolutely permitted..."
If such a character might have been difficult to engage with, Madeleine nonetheless found a close friend in the Comtesse de Maure - another hypochondriac. The two ladies allegedly could spend hours together discussion their "fragile" healths. To be honest, while the description by Sainte-Beuve is not exactly flattering, it also does not invoke the image of a woman who had any ill intent.
While it is easy to dismiss a hypochondriac as being in good health but merely complaining, it should at least be considered whether she actually did have any genuine complaints. She was described as having "chronic rheumatism" (she herself refers to it) which can be a reference to perceived rheumatism - but what if it was not? As with most medical diagnoses of the time, "rheumatism" could refer to any number of things but would generally cause stiffness and pain the joints. If that was the case, it would certainly explain why she was unable to travel in 1650. It was not the first time that she had been poorly enough to not go where she please. She had wanted to leave Paris for a while but could not go as her health did not permit it which she wrote to the abbess Angélique Arnauld.
There can be no doubt that Madeleine had a penchant for the dramatics. For one, she wrote to her friend, Renaud de Sévigné (uncle of the Madame de Sévigné): "I hate the world, I flee it; pray that I might hate myself as much and that I might think on nothing other than my own salvation". Might be dramatic, but if she was suffering from chronic pain such an existence must have been severely uncomfortable, especially in a time before effective over-the-counter painkillers.
Another thing was that she was seemingly perpetually having a blocked nose leading her to sneeze frequently and apparently had a never-ending cycle of the common cold. It was said that when she was encumbered by that particular complaint, she could focus on nothing else but her stuffed nose.
As with all sources, it should be considered where the charge of hypochondria came from. Most of her detractors had fundamental differences on a spiritual, philosophical and religious level and found it quite convenient to dismiss her as a hysterical, aging lady. It further added to her reputation that she became increasingly eccentric as she grew older which often just referred to someone (especially a woman) living on her own terms which she certainly did.
So, vapours, rheumatisms, colds and fevers were seemingly a recurrent theme in Madame de Sablé's life - whether imaginary or not. She died in 1678 at the age of 79; seemingly of natural causes.
