5. Unceasing Vigilance—The Price of Success
They lay siege to the heart of a Prince as to a citadel.
UNLIKE THE QUEEN, WHOSE POSITION WAS CAST IN STONE, the mistress’s was made of far flimsier stuff. There would be no peace for her, no rest. Having obtained the great prize, the new mistress could not sit back and enjoy her rewards. She could not look around her magnificent rooms with satisfaction, or smile contentedly as she toyed with her glittering jewelry—not if it meant letting her guard down for a moment.
“Every woman was born with the ambition to become the King’s Favorite,” wrote Primi Visconti, an Italian fortune-teller who lived at Louis XIV’s court.1 There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of women hoping to attain the position, which meant toppling the current maîtresse-en-titre, even as she had unseated her predecessor. Retaining the position usually took more effort than winning it. In fact, the position of royal mistress was like a marathon where the finish line kept moving.
To defend her turf, the maîtresse-en-titre kept an unblinking eye on pretty women attempting to gain the king’s attention. Prostitutes, chambermaids, and the like had no hope of rising to the lofty position of royal mistress and therefore posed no threat. Though these minor infidelities might hurt, the maîtresse-en-titre had to pretend that they were too insignificant for her to notice. Some royal mistresses even procured lower-class women for the king to distract his attention from the real menace of beautiful noblewomen.
But when a smiling countess insinuated her way into the king’s company, the savvy royal mistress would call in her troops. She had a bevy of friendly courtiers and well-paid servants ready to whisper to the king that the woman in question had a venereal disease, a greedy family, or total lack of discretion. Such whispers usually shrank the size of the king’s interest.
Most of the mistress’s work to seek and destroy her enemies had to be conducted behind the king’s back. The mistress could not afford to degenerate into a nagging jealous wife. The monarch already had one of those whom he could not get rid of. But a nagging jealous mistress could be banished at a snap of the king’s fingers.
“There is the scent of fresh meat,” wrote Madame de Sévigné to her daughter with acidic candor.2 When the royal eye wandered, as it did with alarming frequency, there was great speculation as to whether the object of kingly desires would prove a meaningless flirtation or if she would completely replace the existing power structure at court. Whatever the king’s decision, there was always celebration on the winning side. In 1677 Madame de Sévigné wrote of yet another victory of ten-year veteran Madame de Montespan over fleeting rivals for the affections of Louis XIV.
“Ah, my daughter, what a triumph at Versailles!” Madame de Sévigné gushed. “What pride redoubled! What a solid reestablishment of favor!…There is evidence of added zest in the relation—all the sweeter, now, after lovers’ quarrels and reconciliations. What a reaffirmation of possession! I spent an hour in her—Madame de Montespan’s—chamber…the very air charged with joy and prosperity!”3
Royal mistresses maneuvered adeptly in an environment rife with intrigue, where the fundamental human matters of life and death and love meant little compared to the crumbs of success or specks of failure at court. To courtiers a little nod from the king in passing spelled exultant victory, the lack of a nod humiliating defeat. The court was a world of twisted values, strange honor, and disgraces incomprehensible to later generations.
In 1671 François Vatel, the chief butler for the prince de Condé, was instructed to prepare a lavish feast for Louis XIV. Before the royal visit, Vatel hadn’t slept for twelve nights running after he had been two roasts short of a full banquet for hundreds. “I have lost my honor,” he said to a friend who had noticed his disquiet. “This is a disgrace which is more than I can bear.”4 Then the next morning, when his order of fish did not arrive at the expected time to prepare for the king’s feast, Vatel ran himself through with his sword. The cart that took his body to the parish church was passed on the road by the cart delivering the fish.
Just as exquisite satins and fine lace hid the reeking flea-bitten bodies of courtiers, so did warm smiles and polite words conceal the razor-sharp weapons brandished on the battlefield of the court. Women, encased in the deceiving armor of beauty and charm, were ready to wreak the most ruthless vengeance against rivals, and all who strode smiling down the gilded halls had fear stabbing at their hearts.
Some courtiers, at least, were authentic about their inauthenticity. One wrote, “It is a country where the joys are visible but false, and the sorrows are hidden but real.”5 And a visitor to Versailles remarked, “A genuine sentiment is so rare, that when I leave Versailles, I sometimes stand still in the street to see a dog gnaw a bone.”6
Black Magic
The royal mistress who went to the greatest lengths to obtain and then retain her position against rivals was Athénaïs de Montespan. Ravishingly beautiful, venomously cunning, Madame de Montespan hoped for several years to replace Louis XIV’s maîtresse-en-titre Louise de La Vallière. But the king was unmoved by Madame de Montespan’s flirtation. “She tries hard,” he told his brother, “but I’m not interested.”7 In 1667, hoping to break up the relationship, Madame de Montespan visited a witch for assistance.
La Voisin, as she was called, looked much older than her thirty-five years. She lived in a dark and crumbling house on the outskirts of Paris, surrounded by a large, unkempt garden. Garbed in flowing robes embroidered with ancient symbols, La Voisin, along with her colleagues, performed magic tricks, read palms and tarot cards, cast horoscopes, babbled in tongues, and held séances for a steep fee.
Her more innocuous services included offering lotions to beautify the skin and spells to increase breast size or firm up sagging thighs. Her more sinister services included sticking pins in dolls to incapacitate and kill an enemy, performing abortions, providing poison to slip to annoying husbands, and celebrating Black Masses with a dead baby’s blood while preparing her magic potions. For years the carriages of the rich and famous lined up outside her house as her patrons vied with each other for her services, offering her rich rewards. But Madame de Montespan had no need of potions to improve her breasts or thighs. She wanted the king to forsake Louise and fall in love with her.
Louise de La Vallière was an unlikely object of black magic. Extremely religious, she came from a noble but obscure family and by a stroke of good fortune, found herself at Versailles and soon after in the young king’s arms. The abbé de Choisy reported that Louise “had an exquisite complexion, blond hair, blue eyes, a sweet smile…an expression once tender and modest.”8 Though all agreed she was a lovely girl, tenderness and modesty did not fare well on the bloody battlefield of Versailles, a court where a healthy slathering of etiquette and a splash of perfume barely disguised savage ambition and vicious greed.
After five years as royal mistress, Louise sensed Louis was growing restless. Heavily pregnant with her fourth child, she invited her good friend Athénaïs de Montespan to join her private meals with the king. Louise knew that her friend was a witty, scintillating conversationalist—all that she, Louise, was not. Ironically, dull Queen Marie-Thérèse was also pregnant and likewise needed help in amusing the king. She considered all the ladies she knew and also selected her dear friend Madame de Montespan to entertain the king during meals. Both queen and mistress committed a naive and deadly mistake.