The Fall of Madame de Montespan

In 1678 Madame de Montespan gave birth to her seventh child by Louis XIV. Françoise-Athénaïs had reached her 38th birthday and had been the king’s maitresse en titre for no less than thirteen years. Her reign had been long – longer than most women could manage – and for the time being all seemed quite normal. Yet, the year marked not just the birth of her final child but also the beginning of the end for the glittering mistress.

 

On the surface, everything seemed normal. The king still spent hours every day with Athénaïs but before long people started noticing that he did not stay the night. Shortly after, it was widely noted that the two had seemingly ceased their intimate relationship. Traditionally this shift has been blamed largely on Athénaïs’ change in figure. Having had nine children in total, a family history of weight issues and an intense fondness for rich food, Athénaïs physical appearance had changed quite drastically. While still being a remarkably beautiful woman, her body was (understandably) not the same.

Madame de Montespan at the
height of her influence

 

Meanwhile, the king who otherwise adored routine was beginning to shift his attentions and priorities. The tempests that had accompanied his relationship with Athénaïs for years had lost some of their charm. After all, the king was aging, too. The shift was subtle. While Louis XIV could certainly exhibit a streak of cold-heartedness and a definite selfishness, he was also a gentleman to the bone. The woman he had loved passionately for years was not to be thrown out the door – yet Athénaïs’s deroute became increasingly obvious.

 

It has been argued that the Affair of the Poisons hastened her downfall but there is little to suggest that to be the case. For instance, Louis would never have allowed her to remain anywhere near him if he genuinely thought that she had tried to either poison or seduce him with dangerous potions or powders. The mere fact that she remained at court for over a decade after the Affair of the Poisons at the very least heavily indicates his reassurance on that part.

 

While he continued to spend his obligatory minimum of two hours with her, it seemed more routine than outward passion. Likewise, Athénaïs continued to plan the season’s social calendar and retained her status as the star of the court. Later, though, the hours became gradually shorter and shorter.

As early as 1680, Athénaïs received what could be seen as an initial parting gift. It was customary for kings to end their relationships with a maitresse en titre with a suitably grand gift - a gesture of former intimacy. Athénaïs received the rights of a duchess but without the title which could not be granted to her due to her husband. The Marquis de Montespan had openly and scandalously objected to his wife's affair with the king and Louis was fervently opposed to rewarding such behaviour with a dukedom. As Athénaïs, a married woman, could not be made a duchess with also conferring the rank on her husband, she had to make do with the pomp surrounding it. Likewise, she was made Superintendant of the Queen's Household which was the highest position attainable for women at court.

 

Then, in 1684, the king decided to expand his own apartment which he did by simply absorbing the sumptuous space hitherto occupied by Athénaïs. In compensation, she was offered the luxurious Appartement des Bains on the ground floor where they had spent hours together privately. To the uninitiated, it was not exactly a punishment but to the courtiers, it was a clear sign that something was afoot. At Versailles, the closer you were housed to the monarch himself, the higher in favour you were – and Athénaïs had just been moved down a floor. If that was not enough, the king’s new mistress, Madame de Maintenon, did not hesitate to hammer home the point. The Appartement des Bains had been connected to the king’s private apartment via a private staircase. That was until Madame de Maintenon took advantage of the king’s convalescence after his surgery to have the staircase permanently bricked up. 

 

On a grander scale, the fall of Athénaïs was blatantly obvious. Her influence amongst the courtiers had long rested entirely on the devotion of Louis XIV. While Athénaïs herself belonged to one of the most prestigious aristocratic families at court, she still relied on the king’s favour to wield the influence she had enjoyed. With that fading, she now had to seek a new avenue which cannot have been anything but humiliating. As it happens, Athénaïs had to apply to the king’s new mistress, Madame de Maintenon. For instance, it was to Maintenon that Athénaïs had to make a request on behalf of her son in 1685 to join the dauphin’s household. That same year, Athénaïs had to endure yet another reminder of her replacement. Much like poor queen Marie Thérèse had been forced to endure previously, Athénaïs had to share a carriage with both the king and Madame de Maintenon while hunting in the autumn of 1685.

To a modern observer it seems quite odd that the king would insist on such an arrangement but to Louis XIV, it was the natural order of things. The king knew full well that his relationships would eventually fade and a new one would begin - the ladies he involved himself with knew it too. Thus, he did not exactly see it as a punishment but rather the way of the world. If anything, Louis had done the same thing once before. Then, it had been Athénaïs who was on the ascendancy and Louise de La Vallière who had to swallow the bitterness of being replaced. Yet, this was nonetheless slightly different. Louise de La Vallière had never truly found peace in her role as royal mistress. Her religious scruples eventually led her to literally flee the court only for the king - strongly displeased - to bring her back. Only a few years later was she permitted to finally join the convent she had escaped to. That episode greatly hurt the king's pride which could not abide being the one to be abandoned. But this time, the slighted mistress wanted to stay and the power lay entirely with the king. 

Athénaïs, ca 1670

 

By 1686, Athénaïs presence was no longer necessary for the king. Just the year before, she had had one of her greatest triumphs when her daughter, Louise Françoise, was married to the Prince de Condé who was one of the king’s own cousins. Thus, she had established her daughter firmly in the royal family for good. It would create a precedent which ensured that all her children by Louis were firmly integrated into court society long after their mother’s final dismissal. Perhaps Voltaire was correct when he referred to it as her “last great triumph” at the French court.

 

It would certainly seem so, for the following year she was omitted from the party invited to accompany the king on his trip to Barèges to take the waters for his fistula. Allegedly, she fainted from sheer anger when she heard. At this point, she cannot have been unaware that she would likely not regain her former position, but this was a step too far, too publicly. If she had had any doubts, her relegation to one of the ordinary apartments while the king’s court visited Fontainebleau that year should have cemented her new role.

 

The ascendancy of Madame de Maintenon was too obvious to deny and Athénaïs was no fool. By 1691, she finally decided that time was up. Athénaïs retired to a convent and only visited court a few times afterwards.

Madame de Sablé: A Hypochrondriac?

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.