‘Romancing the Throne’: Madame de Maintenon's Journey from Secret Royal Governess to Louis XIV's Clandestine Consort, 1652–84

Abstract

Françoise d'Aubigné descended from an eminent but disgraced noble family and was born in a hovel outside Niort prison where her father was incarcerated for murder. But young Françoise used her keen intellect and arresting looks, and exploited her family's distinguished social connections, to advance herself in society. In 1652 she married the famous playwright, Paul Scarron (d. 1660), whose glittering circle of contacts gained his widow the prestigious post of governess to the bastard children Louis XIV sired with Athénaïs de Montespan. This article examines the development of the relationship between the Sun King and Françoise, who soon became one of Louis' most trusted servants. As their friendship blossomed an unexpected romance ensued, resulting in their secret marriage after the death of Queen Marie-Thérèse in 1683. Events surrounding the clandestine wedding are scrutinized to establish why and when this remarkable ceremony took place in the manner that it did, and to assess what impact this notorious mésalliance had on the court at Versailles.

Notes

1 Louis-François du Bouchet, marquis de Sourches, Mémoires sur le règne de Louis XIV, comte de Cosnac and E. Pontal (eds), 13 vols (Paris, 1882–93), vol. I, p. 442.

2 E. Forster (ed.), A Woman's Life in the Court of the Sun King — Letters of Liselotte von der Pfalz, Elisabeth Charlotte, duchesse d’Orléans, 1652–1722 (Baltimore, 1997), p. 53.

3 M. Kroll (ed.), Letters from Liselotte (London, 1998), p. 55.

4 See D. Conroy, Ruling Women, Volume I: Government, Virtue, and the Female Prince in Seventeenth-Century France (London, 2015), and Ruling Women, Volume II: Configuring the Female Prince in Seventeenth-Century French Drama (London, 2016); B. Craveri, Reines et Favorites: Le Pouvoir des Femmes (Paris, 2009); M. E. Wiesner-Hanks, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2008); J. M. Lanza, From Wives to Widows in Early Modern Paris: Gender, Economy, and Law (Aldershot, 2007); K. Crawford, Perilous Performances: Gender & Regency in Early Modern France (Cambridge, MA, 2004); C. C. Orr (ed.), Queenship in Europe: The Role of the Consort, 1660–1815 (Cambridge, 2003); S. Bertière, Les Reines de France au temps des Bourbons, vol. II: Les Femmes du Roi-Soleil (Paris, 1998); F. Cossandey, La Reine de France: Symbole et Pouvoir (Saint-Amand, 2000); C. Dulong, La Vie Quotidienne des Femmes au Grand Siècle (Paris, 1984).

5 J. J. Conley (ed. and trans.), Madame de Maintenon: Dialogues and Addresses (Chicago, 2004), p. 63.

6 Ibid., p. 65.

7 Ibid., p. 122.

8 Ibid., p. 37.

9 See J. J. Conley, The Suspicion of Virtue: Women Philosophers in Neoclassical France (Ithaca, 2002), p. 155.

10 See A. de Boislisle, Paul Scarron et Françoise d’Aubigné d’après des documents nouveaux (Paris, 1894).

11 J.-P. Desprat, Mme de Maintenon, ou la Prix de la Réputation (Paris, 2003), p. 101; M. Cruttwell, Mme de Maintenon (London, 1930), p. 56.

12 Louis de Mornay was later appointed Lieutenant-Captain in the Dauphin's light horse: H. Bots and E. Bots-Estourgie (eds), Lettres de Madame de Maintenon [et] à Mme de Maintenon, 10 vols (Paris, 2009–17), vol. I, p. 97.

13 F. E. Beasley, Salons, History, and the Creation of 17th-Century France: Mastering Memory (Aldershot, 2006); A. E. Duggan, Salonnières, Furies, and Fairies: The Politics of Gender and Cultural Change in Absolutist France (Newark, 2005); C. C. Lougee, Le Paradis des Femmes — Women, Salons, and Social Stratification in Seventeenth-Century France (Princeton, 1976).

14 See a letter from Ninon to Mme Scarron dated 4 July 1662, in which she alludes to the troubled relationship between Françoise and Villarceaux and the scandalous painting, which Lenclos thought was ‘charming’ and not something to worry about excessively: Bots, Lettres, vol. VIII, pp. 57-8.

15 G. Mongrédien, Madeleine de Scudéry et son salon (Paris, 1946); A. Niderst, Madeleine de Scudéry, Paul Pelission et leur monde (Paris, 1976).

16 A. Geffroy (ed.), Mme de Maintenon d’après sa correspondance authentique, choix de ses lettres et entretiens, 2 vols (Paris, 1887), vol. I, pp. 8-9.

17 See M. Langlois, Mme de Maintenon (Paris, 1932), p. 17; and M. Langlois (ed.), Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, 5 vols (Paris, 1935-9) vol. II, pp. 26-8; and Boislisle, Scarron, pp. 125-6.

18 Geffroy, Correspondance authentique, vol. I, p. 21-2.

19 Boislisle, Scarron, pp. 84-5.

20 For more see a missive from Ninon to Mme Scarron on 3 June 1662: Bots, Lettres, pp. 55-6.

21 See M. Dufour-Maître, Les Précieuses: Naissance des femmes de lettres en France au XVIIe siècle (Paris, 2008).

22 T. Lavallée (ed.), Lettres historiques et édifiantes adressées aux dames de Saint-Louis par Mme de Maintenon, 2 vols (Paris, 1856), vol. II, p. 460.

23 Following Anne of Austria's death on 20 January: Boislisle, Scarron, p. 132.

24 Boislisle, Scarron, p. 133; Desprat, Maintenon, pp. 120-1.

25 Caylus, Souvenirs, pp. 17-18.

26 Marthe-Marguerite, daughter of Françoise's cousin, Philippe de Villette-Mursay.

27 Geffroy, Correspondance authentique, vol. I, p. 32.

28 Ibid., p. 33.

29 Comte de Haussonville and G. Hanotaux (eds), Souvenirs sur Mme de Maintenon: Mémoires et Lettres Inédites de Mlle d’Aumale, 3 vols (Paris, 1902-5), vol. I: Mémoire sur Mme de Maintenon, pp. 54-5.

30 Lavallée, Lettres historiques, vol. II, p. 461-2.

31 See his The Society of Princes: the Lorraine-Guise and the Conservation of Power and Wealth in Seventeenth-Century France (Farnham, 2009), chap. 4.

32 On this see my forthcoming book, Queen of Versailles and First Lady of Louis XIV's France: Mme de Maintenon, 1635–1715 (McGill Queen's Press), chap. 2.

33 L. Norton (ed.), Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon, 1691–1723, 3 vols (London, 1999–2000), vol. I, pp. 93-5.

34 A. Fraser, Love and Louis XIV (London, 2006), pp. 138-207.

35 E. Raunié (ed.), Souvenirs et Correspondence de Madame de Caylus (Paris, 1881), pp. 52-3.

36 Geffroy, Correspondance authentique, vol. I, p. 48; Françoise complained in October 1674 to her confessor Gobelin that these exchanges left her ‘overwhelmed by melancholy . . . the situation I find myself in is one full of agitation and nothing is able to put me at my ease’ (Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, p. 107).

37 Geffroy, Correspondance authentique, vol. I, p. 48.

38 Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, p. 119.

39 For example, see the letters to Gobelin on this subject in March 1674 (Geffroy, Correspondance authentique, vol. I, pp. 38-9); on 24 July 1674 and 27 March and 30 March 1675 (Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, pp. 87-8, 164-5). See also an Entretien of 1717 reflecting on this period (Geffroy, Correspondance authentique, vol. I, p. 33).

40 T. Lavallée (ed.), Correspondance générale de Mme de Maintenon, 5 vols (Paris, 1865–7), vol. I, p. 247.

41 Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, p. 166.

42 Lavallée, Correspondance Générale, vol. I, pp. 258-60.

43 Boislisle, Scarron, p. 148.

44 Bots, Lettres, vol. I, pp. 141, 155-56.

45 Geffroy, Correspondance authentique, vol. I, p. 41.

46 Ibid., p. 53.

47 Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, p. 110.

48 The purchase of additional lands expanding the estate meant that the seigneurie was redefined with new letters patent drawn up in 1686 and registered in 1688; see Boislisle, Scarron, pp. 174-5 and Langlois, Maintenon, p. 30.

49 Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, p. 118.

50 M. Monmerqué (ed.), Lettres de Mme de Sévigné, 14 vols (Paris, 1862–8), vol. II, p. 514.

51 L. Tancock (ed. and trans.), Mme de Sévigné: Selected Letters (London, 1982), p. 116.

52 Geffroy, Correspondance authentique, vol. I, pp. 73-4: 16 October 1675.

53 M. P. Pollack (trans.), The Age of Louis XIV (London, 1926), p. 298.

54 Lavallée, Correspondance générale, vol. I, p. 275.

55 Caylus, Souvenirs, p. 50.

56 Sévigné to Mme de Grignan, 10 November 1675: Lettres, vol. IV, pp. 223-4.

57 Ibid., pp. 535-6.

58 Ibid., vol. V, pp. 32, 37-8.

59 Sévigné, Selected Letters, p. 203.

60 Sévigné, Lettres, vol. V, p. 86.

61 Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, p. 167, n. 100.

62 Sévigné, Lettres, vol. V, pp. 86-7.

63 Dangeau, Philippe de Courcillon, marquis de, Journal de la cour de Louis XIV, ed. E. de Soulié, 19 vols (Paris, 1854–60), vol. VII, p. 66.

64 Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, p. 200.

65 Sévigné, Lettres, vol. IV, pp. 445-6, n. 2.

66 In 1693. His great uncle Henri was the médecin ordinaire of Louis XIII. In 1680 Fagon became premier médecin de la dauphine, then for Queen Marie-Thérèse and the enfants de France, and in 1693 was appointed premier médecin du roi.

67 Lavallée, Correspondance générale, vol. I, p. 202, n. 3.

68 Geffroy, Correspondance authentique, vol. I, p. 88.

69 See Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, pp. 253-7; and see Lavallée, Correspondance générale, vol. I, pp. 346-53.

70 Sévigné, Lettres, vol. V, p. 170.

71 Lavallée, Correspondance générale, vol. I, p. 355-6, p. 356, n. 1.

72 D. Van der Crussye, Madame Palatine, Princesse Européenne (Paris, 1988), p. 219.

73 Sévigné, Lettres, vol. VI, p. 317.

74 Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, p. 302.

75 Lavallée, Correspondance générale., vol. II, p. 48.

76 Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, p. 303.

77 As Mme de Caylus recalls in her Souvenirs, pp. 50-1; also see the Duc de Noailles, Histoire de Mme de Maintenon, 4 vols (Paris, 1848–52), vol. I, p. 520.

78 Quoted in Noailles, Maintenon, vol. II, p. 11, n. 3.

79 Sévigné, Lettres, vol. VI, p. 193.

80 15 November 1695: Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. III, p. 464.

81 Geffroy, Correspondance authentique, vol. I, p. 112.

82 J. Cordelier, Mme de Maintenon (Paris, 1955), pp. 137-43; Bluche, Louis XIV (Oxford, 1990), p. 272.

83 Desprat, Maintenon, pp. 189-90; Caylus, Souvenirs, pp. 87-8.

84 J.-B. Primi Visconti, Mémoires sur la cour de Louis XIV (Paris, 1857), pp. 296-7.

85 25 September 1681: Sourches, Mémoires, vol. I, p. 20.

86 Bourdaloue famously preached on the dangers of excessive ‘commerce’, with Sévigné noting on 29 March 1680, that he ‘strikes home without mercy, saying the boldest truths, light where they may, and declaiming vehemently against adultery, caring not who is hurt by it’ (M. de Rabutin-Chantal de Sévigné, Letters from the Marchioness de Sévigné to her Daughter the Countess de Grignan, 10 vols (London, 1927), vol. VII, p. 46).

87 For an official description of the appointment see Lavallée, Correspondance générale, vol. II, pp. 97-8.

88 Sévigné, Lettres, vol. VI, p. 322.

89 Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, p. 337, n. 207.

90 Sévigné, Lettres, vol. VI, pp. 347-8.

91 30 June 1680 Sévigné wrote that: ‘the other day the King spent three hours chez Mme de Maintenon who had a migraine … Mme de Fontanges cries incessantly because she is no longer loved’ (Sévigné, Lettres, vol. VI, p. 497). Fontanges began in July 1680 to make regular retreats to the convents at Chelles and Port Royal-des-Champs, where she died after a terminal miscarriage on 28 June 1681, which profoundly shocked the King.

92 Ibid., vol. VI, pp. 533-4; vol. VII, p. 195.

93 See the missive to Grignan dated 7 July 1680: Sévigné, Lettres, vol. VI, pp. 510-11.

94 Sévigné, Lettres, vol. VI, p. 475.

95 Ibid., vol. VIII, p. 14.

96 For more on this subject see E. Harth, Cartesian Women: Versions and Subversions of Rational Discourse in the Old Regime (Ithaca, 1992).

97 Sévigné, Lettres, vol. VI, p. 194.

98 See the letter and Lavallée's preliminary note: Lavallée, Correspondance générale, vol. II, pp. 112-14.

99 Sévigné, Letters, vol. VII, p. 178.

100 Primi Visconti, Mémoires, pp. 296-7.

101 Sévigné, Lettres, vol. VII, p. 43.

102 Ibid., p. 248.

103 Ibid., p. 78.

104 Lavallée, Correspondance générale, vol. II, p. 147.

105 Ibid., vol. II, p. 147.

106 As she confided to her confessor on 6 June 1682: Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, pp. 432-3.

107 Quoted in Desprat, Maintenon, p. 221, which is a view favoured by several historians including Bluche, Louis XIV, p. 273, and Georges Couton: ‘Mme de Maintenan had reconciled the King and the Queen whilst waiting to reconcile entirely the King and God’ (Le chair et l’âme — Louis XIV entre ses maîtresses et Bossuet (Grenoble, 1995), p. 187).

108 Philip Riley, A Lust for Virtue: Louis XIV's Attack on Sin in Seventeenth-Century France (Westport, CT, 2001), p. 98.

109 See Lavallée, Lettres historiques, vol. II, p. 162.

110 Forster, Liselotte, pp. 92-3.

111 Conley, Suspicion of Virtue, p. 148.

112 Conley, Dialogues, pp. 58-9.

113 Ibid., p. 62.

114 P. Sonnino (ed. and trans.), ‘Mémoires’ for the Instruction of the Dauphin (New York, 1970), pp. 246-8.

115 T. Lavallée and J.-J. Languet de Gergy, La famille d’Aubigné et l’enfance de Mme de Maintenon par Théophile Lavallée, suivi des Mémoires inédites de Languet de Gergy, archevêque de Sens, sur Mme de Maintenon et la cour de Louis XIV (Paris, 1863), p. 164. To prepare the mémoires, Languet had copies made of the extensive collection of Maintenon's letters stored at Saint-Cyr, which are now archived at the Bibliothèque Municipale de Versailles [hereafter cited as B.M.V.].

116 Forster, Liselotte, p. 53.

117 Kroll, Liselotte, p. 52.

118 Bluche, Louis XIV, p. 396-8.

119 Ibid., p. 349. The notion that ceremony and ritual were not immutable, but in fact necessarily adaptable and flexible, has been persuasively propounded by Jeroen Duindam in various works. See, for example, chapter six: ‘Ceremony and Order at Court: An Unending Pursuit’ in his Vienna and Versailles: The Courts of Europe's Dynastic Rivals, 1550-1780 (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 181-214.

120 On the affair see J. C. Petitfils, L’Affaire des Poisons: Crimes et Sorcellerie au temps du Roi-Soleil (Paris, 2010); L.W. Mollenauer, Strange Revelations: Magic, Poison and Sacrilege in Louis XIV's France (Pennsylvania, 2007) and A. Somerset, The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV (London, 2003).

121 Sourches, Mémoires, vol. I, pp. 110-13. For more on the licentiousness prevalent at the court and in Paris that staggered French and also foreign observers, whose accounts were no doubt amplified, see chap. 12 entitled ‘Jeux de Princes’, in G. Ziegler (ed.), The Court of Versailles (London, 1966), pp. 191-200. Also see J. Swann, Exile, Imprisonment, or Death: The Politics of Disgrace in Bourbon France, 1610–1789 (Oxford, 2017).

122 La Roche was recalled to court in 1684, but kept under surveillance (Dangeau, Journal, vol. I, pp. 83-4), and became prince de Conti in 1685 after the death of his elder brother.

123 See the Gazette report in Lavallée, Correspondance générale, vol. II, p. 330, n. 2. He had been admiral of France and the charge passed to the comte de Toulouse.

124 Sourches, Mémoires, vol. I, p. 132, n. 4.

125 Dangeau, Journal, vol. I, p. 83.

126 Sévigné, Lettres, vol. VI, p. 330.

127 Lavallée, Correspondance générale, vol. II, p. 147.

128 Sévigné, Lettres, vol. VI, p. 176.

129 During a violent harangue, Conti had publicly accused the Chevalier of denigrating his wife and several members of his circle, which the King condemned as unacceptable for a person of his rank. Sourches notes that Conti received his rebuke with courage and contrition, thus in turn earning the respect of the King: Mémoires, vol. I, pp. 127-9.

130 This acrimony had also been fostered by the duchesse de Richelieu and the Dauphine's femme de chambre, Bessola; see Maintenon to M. de Montchevreuil, 4 July 1681: Lavallée, Correspondance générale, vol. II, pp. 187-8; and Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, pp. 389-90.

131 See the letters exchanged between Maintenon and the Dauphine: Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, pp. 441-2.

132 See J. Prévot, Madame de Maintenon — la première institutrice de France (Paris, 1987); P.-E. Leroy and M. Loyau (eds), Madame de Maintenon: «Comment la sagesse vient aux filles» propos d’éducation (Courty, 1998).

133 The Queen's feverishness began on 26 July and an abscess was detected under her left arm that was lanced and bled twice over the next few days causing septicaemia. An emetic was then administered that induced vomiting and death a few hours later: Bertière, Femmes du Roi-Soleil, pp. 323-4.

134 Mentioned by Maintenon in a letter to Montchevreuil on 5 August 1681: Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, p. 394.

135 For a discussion of this see Lavallée, Correspondance générale, vol. II, pp. 302-3.

136 Louis Hastier unconvincingly devoted nearly an entire book to it: Louis XIV et Mme de Maintenon (Paris, 1957).

137 Mlle de Chanteloup was her friend Brinon's niece and acted as Françoise's secretary, and the other was Marie-Gabrielle de Breil-Pontbriant, a former pupil at Reuil and future student at Saint-Cyr.

138 In a letter to her brother dated 7 September 1683: Bots, Lettres, vol. I, p. 483.

139 Sourches, Mémoires, vol. I, p. 105. The first severe attack, Sourches remarks, came in the winter of 1681, compelling the King to concede that he was now genuinely suffering from gout.

140 J. A. Le Roi (ed.), Journal de la Santé du Roi Louis XIV de l’année 1647 à l’année 1711 écrit par Vallot, D’Aquin et Fagon (Paris, 1862), p. 159.

141 Sourches informs us that Le Tellier fortunately recovered with the help of quinine administered by the ‘famous’ English Doctor Talbot: Sourches, Mémoires, vol. I, p. 142.

142 28 September 1683: Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, p. 524; Geffroy, Correspondance authentique, vol. I, pp. 153-4.

143 Geffroy, Correspondance authentique, vol. I, p. 147.

144 Caylus, Souvenirs, p. 124.

145 Aumale, Mémoire, p. 81.

146 Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, p. 509.

147 Bots, Lettres, vol. I, p. 477.

148 See Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, pp. 507-8 where the original letter to the ‘very illustrious and very excellent dame Françoise d’Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon’ is reproduced.

149 Bots, Lettres, vol. I, p. 478.

150 Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, pp. 520-1.

151 Geffroy, Correspondance authentique, vol. I, pp. 148-9.

152 Bots, Lettres, vol. I, p. 480, n. 4.

153 Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, pp. 513-14.

154 Geffroy, Correspondance authentique, vol. I, p. 152.

155 Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, p. 521.

156 Bots, Lettres, vol. I, p. 486.

157 Ibid., pp. 479, 495, 509.

158 Lavallée, Correspondance générale, vol. II, pp. 318-19.

159 Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. II, pp. 521-2.

160 Bots, Lettres, vol. I, p. 488.

161 Fraser, Love and Louis XIV, p. 206.

162 Bots, Lettres, vol. I, pp. 487, 491.

163 Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. III, pp. 6-7.

164 Bots, Lettres, vol. I, pp. 492-3.

165 Languet de Gergy, Mémoires, p. 186.

166 Aumale, Mémoire, p. 83.

167 Caylus, Souvenirs, pp. 134-5.

168 Bots, Lettres, vol. I, pp. 500-1.

169 She excitedly informed Brinon on 6 November 1683 that ‘on [the King] showed me yesterday the plan for Noisy’ (Bots, Lettres, vol. I, p. 496).

170 See T. Lavallée, Mme de Maintenon et la maison royale de Saint-Cyr, 1686–1793 (Paris, 1862), pp. 22-48.

171 That initially included two small antechambers, a principal bedroom, a garde-robe and a room for her servant Nanon: Langlois, Mme de Maintenon: Lettres, vol. III, pp. 85-6; W. R. Newton, L’espace du roi: La Cour de France au château de Versailles, 1682–1789 (Paris, 2000), pp. 163-4; P. Verlet, Le Château de Versailles (Paris, 1985), pp. 208-9, 276-9.

172 Newton, L’espace du roi, fig. 8; Dangeau, Journal, vol. I, pp. 77-8, who also records that Maintenon was also given new ‘very suitable’ apartments at Fontainebleau in October 1686 that were also, he noted, on the ‘same floor as the King’: Ibid., pp. 397-8.

173 Bots, Lettres, vol. I, pp. 498-501.

174 Ibid., p. 502.

175 Ibid., p. 504.

176 Ibid., pp. 530-1.

177 Lavallée, Correspondance générale, vol. II, pp. 365-6.

178 Bots, Lettres, vol. I, p. 533.

179 Dangeau, Journal, vol. I, pp. 18-19; Languet de Gergy, Mémoires, p. 161, n. 1.

180 The positions of dame d’honneur to Madame and fille d’honneur to the Dauphine were awarded on 8 and 11 June respectively to Mme de Ventadour and to Mlle de Löwenstein, who married the marquis de Dangeau in 1686: Dangeau, Journal, vol. I, pp. 24-5. These three became intimate members of Maintenon's coterie at court.

181 Ibid., p. 42.

182 Sourches, Mémoires, vol. I, p. 178.

183 Quoted in Caylus, Souvenirs, p. 160.

184 J. Lough (ed.), France Observed in the Seventeenth Century by British Travellers (London, 1985), p. 149.

185 For more on court ceremony and the strict hierarchy and problematical nature of seating arrangements, at least in public, see G. Sternberg, Status Interaction during the Reign of Louis XIV (Oxford, 2014), pp. 49-71.

186 Forster, Liselotte, p. 113.

187 Fraser, Louis XIV, p. 209; the original can be found in the ‘Fonds Patrimoine de la Médiathèque l’Apostrophe de la Ville de Chartres’ — my thanks to Fabienne Talbot, Conseil général d’Eure-et-Loir, for this reference.

188 Lavallée, Correspondance générale, vol. V, p. 283; for the manuscript see B.M.V., Ms. 1461, vol. P. 66, ff. 228-31.

189 B.M.V., Ms. 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 16-24.

190 Fraser, Louis XIV, p. 195.

191 For more on this see See J. DeJean, Tender Geographies: Women and the Origins of the Novel in France (New York, 1991), chaps 1-2.

192 B. and E.-J.-B. Rathery, Mademoiselle de Scudéry, sa vie et sa correspondence (Paris, 1873), p. 58.

193 C. Haldane, Mme de Maintenon: Uncrowned Queen of France (London, 1970), p. 265.

194 See the previous two letters cited from Ninon composed in 1662 in which she analyses their relationship in a deliberately esoteric fashion, but nonetheless repeatedly describes Villarceaux as Françoise's ‘amant’: Bots, Lettres, pp. 55-8.

195 As apparently applauded by Ninon in a letter of 25 February 1663 that concludes by extolling the virtues of ‘innocent friendship’: Ibid. pp. 58-9.

196 Aumale, Mémoire, p. 89.

197 Languet de Gergy, Mémoires, pp. 185-7, 244-5.

198 Conley, Suspicion of Virtue, p. 196. On this subject see L. C. Seifert and R. M. Wilkin (eds), Men and Women Making Friends in Early Modern France (Oxford, 2015).

199 Riley, Lust for Virtue, pp. 94-5.

200 Ibid.

201 John B. Wolf, Louis XIV (London, 1968), pp. 326-7.

202 Aumale, Mémoire, p. 81.

203 For an overview, see my chapter: ‘Partner, Matriarch and Minister: Mme de Maintenon of France, Clandestine Consort, 1669-1715’, in Orr, Queenship in Europe, pp. 77-106.

204 Conley, Dialogues, pp. 109-10.

205 B.M.V., Ms. 1461, vol. P. 67, ff. 16-24.

206 Forster, Liselotte, p. 113.

207 Fraser, Louis XIV, p. 259.

208 For examples see P. Gaxotte (ed.), Lettres de Louis XIV (Paris, 1930), p. 94; Lavallée, Correspondance générale, vol. III, pp. 293-354 and vol. V, pp. 182, 232-3; B.M.V., Ms. 1461, vol. P. 66, f. 142 and vol. P. 67, ff. 330, 457.

209 Sévigné, Lettres, vol. VII, p. 289.

210 Lavallée, Correspondance générale, vol. V, p. 158.

211 Conley, Dialogues, p. 53.

212 DeJean, Tender Geographies, p. 56.

213 Lavallée, Lettres historiques, vol. I, p. 456.

214 Ibid., pp. 456-7.

215 Conley, Dialogues, pp. 56-7.

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Notes on contributors

Mark Bryant

Mark Bryant is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Chichester, U.K. He is the author of ‘The Catholic Church and Its Dissenters, 1685–1715', in G. Rowlands and J. Prest (eds), The Third Reign of Louis XIV, c. 1682–1715 (Routledge, 2017), and the forthcoming Queen of Versailles and First Lady of Louis XIV's France: Madame de Maintenon, 1635–1715 (McGill Queen's Press).