Commedía Dell'Arte

I've just posted to Hoydens and Firebrands about Commedía Dell'Arte: click here to see it.

Athénaïs: innocent or guilty?

Yesterday I received a book ordered from France: Madame de Montespan et la Légende des Poisons by Jean Lemoine, a French historian I admire greatly. I inhaled this book, eager to know his thesis — his verdict regarding the guilt or innocence of Athénaïs with respect to dealings in Black Magic, Spanish Fly, infanticide. The plot of The Next Novel hinges on this crucial question: was she guilty?

Lemoine's thesis, at quick glance, seems to be that Athénaïs and a number of others accused by the prisoners of heinous crimes, were personally "encouraged" to embellish their testimonies by the Minister of War, Louvois, who was, in effect, carrying out a private vendetta against his arch-rival, Colbert.

Louvois shows up as a demon with respect to the horrific punishment inflicted on Lauzun. The earliest known record regarding the Man in the Iron Mask is a letter written by Louvois (July 1, 1669). He is also blamed, by some, for the dragonnades, the atrocities suffered by the Huguenots.

Lemoine indicates that part of what fueled Louvois's vendettas was rejection by the aristocracy. Here's a quote from the Net:

For all his ability and power, Louvois was never accepted as the social equal of the commanders who carried out his orders. The great Turenne dismissed Louvois as little better than a valet or clerk. But Louvois was by nature thick-skinned and bull-headed, characteristics he needed to make himself obeyed, although they hardly endeared him to the court.

According to Somerset's book on the Affair of the Poisons, Primi Visconti believed that Louvois's efforts to compile evidence against Olympe was fueled by her mocking him when he fell off his horse out hunting, and her contempt at the suggestion that his daughter marry one of her sons.

According to Hilaire Belloc in her book Louis XIV, Louvois was almost insanely violent, a relentless persecutor who was indifferent to people's suffering. (He was, on the balance, passionate in his devotion to the King. They were close in age, and had known each other since childhood.)

I'm a writer of historical fiction, and I smell a rat, here — a true villian.

The conception of Louis XIV

Image: Louis XIII with Anne of Austria and their miracle child, Louis "the God-given".

Gary McCollim, a careful historian, posted this recently to the Louis XIV Yahoo list group. He answers very clearly the "urban legends" about the conception of Louis XIV.

"We have all heard the story of how on a stormy night in December (December 5?) 1637, King Louis XIII was forced to seek shelter for the night in his palace at the Louvre where his queen Anne of Austria lived. Since there was only one bed fit for the king to sleep in, he spent the night with his estranged wife and nine months later she gave birth to Louis XIV. This is the night of Saint-Germain.

"In reading Jim Collins' history of France, he discusses this myth and provides bibliographic citations for reading further on this story. Jim puts his faith in A. Lloyd Moote's biography of Louis XIII. Moote relies on the journal of Louis XIII's doctor Hérouard who meticulously followed the king's health until Hérouard's death in 1628. During the time Louis XIII and Anne of Austria were married, they slept together at least twice a week up to 1628. After that time, we do not have the kind of record of their relationship to follow.

"Moote dismisses various spurious stories about Louis XIII and the paternity of Louis XIV. For example, Mazarin was in Rome during the time when Anne of Austria became pregnant and during her pregnancy. Yet, Moote says he has been told in all seriousness by scholars that Mazarin was the father of Louis XIV.

"Anne of Austria may have had as many as five miscarriages during her 23 year marriage to Louis XIII before she gave birth to Louis XIV. I say may because some of these pregnancies may have been hysterical, products of her imagination and failure to menstruate when expected. She did have two miscarriages that are believed to have been real, the last in 1626.

"Moote shows that Anne of Austria had reconciled with Louis XIII with the encouragement of Cardinal Richelieu during 1637 with the reconciliation made official by two memoires written on 17 August 1637. Prior to that final reconciliation, the king and queen had been estranged with the queen suspected of corresponding with her brother the king of Spain. She agreed to cease such correspondence along with other issues that troubled the always suspicious Louis XIII. Thereafter, marital relations resumed between the two royal spouses leading to the queen's pregnancy and the birth of Louis XIV.

"By Moote's reading (and Collins' as well), the myth of the night of Saint Germain was a product of royal propaganda designed to show that Louis XIV was a product of divine intervention, indeed he was the God-given, the Dieudonné. Thus, those who find the story incredible are correct but not because Louis XIV was the product of an illicit relationship between Anne of Austria and another man but because we were ignorant of the fact that Louis XIII and Anne of Austria had resumed their sexual relationship several months earlier."

Thank you, Gary!

Claude des Oeillets: guilty or not?

I have been doing so much research, of late, that I don't post here, because there is too much to say. And so I will start, slowly.

With my last post, on reading Strange Revelations, I was convinced that the heroine of the novel I am working on now, Claude des Oeillets, was guilty of dealing with the witch Madame Voisin (on behalf of her employer, Athénaïs, Madame de Montespan). The testimonies against Claude, recorded in the Bastille Archives, are overwhelming in number and detail. How could so many people be wrong?

Now, having read and reread Jean Lemoine's Les Des Oeillets; une grande comédienne, une maitresse de Louis XIV, I'm not so sure.

Jean Lemoine is one of those wonderfully careful historians that documents every claim. The book is, in fact, made up of documents: leases on houses, money loaned, money paid, last wills and testaments. The stuff of history.

What's telling, to me, is that Madame Voisin insisted, under terrible torture, right up to the day of her execution, that she'd not had any dealings with Athénaïs or Claude, Athénaïs's maid. She had squealed on many, many others at court, most of them high-and-mighty (Athénaïs's sister-in-law was one). There was nothing to be gained in not mentioning Athénaïs or Claude. What would be her motivation? Possibly: to tell the truth?

The accusations poured in from other prisoners after Voisin's execution. What I've learned from Lemoine's work is that Claude was called in by Louvois, the Minister of War, and, horrified by what was being said, insisted on being shown to her accusers. She swore on her life that they would not know her. The "test" was unfortunately mishandled (as noted later by minister Colbert): Claude wasn't shown to the prisoners with other people. The prisoners had been grilled shortly before about Claude. It was easy enough for them to guess who she was.

She insisted on another meeting with Louvois, pleading her case. This was followed up with a letter, in which she offered possible explanations. Louvois, who would have been happy to find any evidence compromising Athénaïs, was ultimately convinced of her innocence ... as was the King and Colbert.

And so: the jury is out. I'm not yet sure. The reason why Claude's guilt or innocence is critical is because it directly implicates Athénaïs — the Shadow Queen of France at that time. I've ordered Jean Lemoine's book on Athénaïs and the Affair of the Poisons. Until then, I remain puzzled, unconvinced either way.

Strange Revelations

I'm loosing quite a bit of sleep reading Lynn Wood Mollenaurer's Strange Revelations; Magic, Poison, and Sacrilege in Louis XIV's France.

This book is indeed a revelation. The author has done a massive amount of carefully-documented research on what is known as the "Affair of the Poisons" at the Court of the Sun King, presenting the details in a context that I found enlightening.

I've read a number of books on this subject, but few have helped me to understand the cultural context — the historical framework for this astonishing period in history. (And now that I have, I confess to feeling somewhat sickened and overwhelmed.)

Witchcraft has often been a subject of controversy. Some historians frame witches as midwives persecuted for offering birth control (and abortions), for example — women who helped other women, and, in doing so, subverted male authority, for which they were punished (by men). No doubt in some realms this was the case — but that is not the case here.

Many of the witches investigated in Paris in this period sold innocent charms, read palms, told fortunes, true, but often they also sold poison — "widow makers" — for doing away with unwanted husbands. Again, we rise to defend such practices: women were forced into abusive marriages in that age; women were powerless; what choices did they have? Yet the extent of the attrocities committed during this period is overwhelming. Witches (both male and female) gave women the means to be murderers ... and they took it.

"There is nothing I can't do," the sweet-faced motherly La Voisin (shown at right) told a friend. "I want to make you happy, and if I make you a widow, I will marry you off to any man that you choose. Only bring the money that I ask." [page 91]

Getting rid of a husband — or any number of other relatives for that matter — was relatively easy; getting a man to love you was quite a bit more challenging, requiring rituals of increasing complexity (and cost). At the apex was the "amatory mass" performed by a priest over the genitals of a naked woman, and involving the newly-spilled blood of a sacrifical enfant.

Historians have discounted such sordid revelations as hysterical imaginings, or "confessions" brought on by torture. Possibly, but I'm beginning to hold with this author's contention that the sheer number of highly-detailed accounts given by the wide array of men and women under investigation during the Affair of the Poisons lends credibily to the confessions.

Indeed, it's hard to discount them.

Fact and Fancy

I read the paragraph below on a blog:

"Over 300 years ago, King Louis XIV of France asked Pascal, the great philosopher of his day, to give him proof of the existence of
miracles. Without hesitation, Pascal answered, "Why, the Jews, your Majesty. The Jews." History does not tell us the king's reaction to this proof, but we do know exactly what Pascal meant by his answer, because he explained it clearly in his masterwork, Pensees. He states that the fact that the Jewish people had survived even to his day was proof enough for him that miracles occur."

I wondered if there was truth to this story: it seemed a bit too tidy. I posted my question to a Yahoo group on Louis XIV, and the wonderful Gary McCollim, a Sun Court historian, posted this reply:

I do not know whether the king and Pascal ever had such a conversation. However, I can add a few facts to help us decide whether the two men ever met. Andre Le Gall's biography of Pascal mentions no such meeting.

Pascal died in August 1662 when Louis XIV was about to turn 24 years old.

Pascal converted to Jansenism in 1647. Jansenism was condemned by the papacy on several occasions starting in 1653.

There was a lot of debate over whether what the Pope condemned was actually in the ideas of Jansenius or among the beliefs of the Jansenists. Louis XIV hated the Jansenists because he saw them as schismatics and promoters of disorder. He says in his memoires that Cardinal Mazarin told him to crush the Jansenists. Louis saw them as part of the Fronde rebellion because they supported Cardinal de Retz against the crown.

Pascal would publish 18 Provincial Letters under a pseudonym between 1656 and 1658, These letters were condemned by the Church and the crown in 1658. The letters were a defense of Jansenism against the so-called attacks of the Church.

Pascal became convinced that miracles do indeed take place in 1657 when his niece was cured of a painful eye infection after touching what was believed to be a thorn from Christ's crown of thorns.

In order to resolve the situation in 1661, the clergy of France with the help of the faculty of the University of Paris came up with a formluary that asked the signatories to sign supporting the Pope's condemnation of five suspected tenets of Jansenism. Pascal at first opposed signing such a document because it would make the signers appear to agree that these states were in fact part of the Jansenist doctrine, but he later relented.

Did Louis XIV ever meet Pascal? It does not appear to be likely, bur it is difficult to prove a negative.

Gary McCollim

I am, as always, impressed by Gary's scholarship. He is a fastidious and careful historian; his factual record helps separate fact from fancy.

Do I think Louis XIV met Pascal? Unlikely, yes, and even more unlikely that they would have had the conversation cited, in my view.

Wonders and Marvels: Bone Magic

Historian Holly Tucker writes a wonderful blog on the 17th century: Wonders and Marvels. Today I'm the guest, and I wrote about Bone Magic, a 17th century ritual used to tame unruly horses:
Wonders and Marvels: Bone Magic