Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King Read Online Free PDF Page B

situation was the moral responsibility of Louis XIV. As Racine added, ‘the men there very probably do not love with the same refinement.’ 4
    The trouble was that after the first thrill of desire, Louis discovered that he had a further need which the vulnerable ‘hidden violet’ Louise could not fulfil – nor for that matter could his wife Marie-Thérèse. He had discovered something of that need and its satisfaction in his amitié amoureuse with his sister-in-law Henriette-Anne as they danced together in the wonderful Court Ballets of the early part of the reign. As he developed the notion of the Sun King, the monarch who dazzled the whole of Europe and made the French court the envy of the world (including Louis's young opponent William III), Louis reached out for a woman who was worthy to take her place beside him, even if it was an illegitimate place.
    Here he was lucky to find – or be found by – Athénaïs Marquise de Montespan, an unhappily married woman in her mid-twenties, who combined a voluptuous nature with lavish beauty, a taste for the arts with a royal instinct for patronage. For the long years in which Athénaïs exercised her role as maîtresse en titre were not entirely about the sexual hold she had over the King, although that was obviously part of the allure; he was not for example sexually faithful to her, and during her frequent pregnancies Athénaïs does not seem to have expected it of him: her maid the Demoiselle des Oeillets and possibly her own sister offered diversions. It was the presence and style of Athénaïs which provided the Sun King with exactly what he wanted over so many years of the ‘perilous season’.
    What was remarkable, however, about this season was that the unrelenting campaign of the Catholic Church to secure Louis's salvation – in other words his connubial fidelity – was waged throughout. It was all very well for a court lady like Madame de Meilleraye (as reported by Saint-Simon) to give her ‘considered opinion that where a man of birth is concerned, God would think twice before damning him’. This was not the official message of the Catholic Church towards kings, who as God's regents on earth were expected to behave better, rather than worse, than their subjects. Although many people secretly agreed with the Marquise de Polignac that, while it might be very necessary to die in a state of grace, it was very boring to live in it, Bossuet thundered forth on the subject on a very different note: ‘How great the wrong if kings seek pleasures which God forbids’ and ‘Suffer not the noise of men surrounding you to deaden the Voice of the Son of God speaking within you.’ 5 Liselotte's very protestations about her lack of Catholic faith showed how out of joint with the times she felt.
    One of Racine's plays that Louis much admired was Athalie. The last lines by the high priest Joad make the message clear: ‘Never forget that kings have a severe judge placed above them in heaven.’ 6 Individual confessors such as the Jesuits, with the wisdom of the world, believed that a young King should be allowed latitude, on the grounds that he would repent in time (Father La Chaise was right: that was exactly what happened). But this complaisant line was not taken by the great preachers of the era. Both Bossuet and Bourdaloue made comparisons to King David the adulterer in court sermons. This was strong stuff: but it never stopped. Nor did Louis throughout his life ever quite forget the severe judge.
    Louise fled to a convent on the first occasion for fear of a Lenten sermon; Athénaïs was actually made to give up the King when a humble parish priest refused her Communion at Easter. The fact that this separation ended when the King's rampant physical feelings in her presence overwhelmed him does not negate the fact that it took place. There is no evidence that King Charles II, another lover of women but an altogether more cynical fellow, underwent crises of conscience on