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Louise de La Vallière
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Louise Françoise de La Baume Le Blanc de La Vallière, Duchess of La Vallière and Vaujours (August 6 1644 – June 7 1710) was the mistress to Louis XIV of France from 1661 to 1667. She later became the duchesse de la Vallière and duchesse de Vaujours in her own right. Unlike her rival, Madame de Montespan, she has no surviving descendants.
Early life
Louise de La Vallière was born in Tours, the daughter of an officer, Laurent de La Baume Le Blanc -who took the name of La Vallière from a small property near Amboise- and Françoise Le Provost.
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Encyclopedia
Louise Françoise de La Baume Le Blanc de La Vallière, Duchess of La Vallière and Vaujours (August 6 1644 – June 7 1710) was the mistress to Louis XIV of France from 1661 to 1667. She later became the duchesse de la Vallière and duchesse de Vaujours in her own right. Unlike her rival, Madame de Montespan, she has no surviving descendants.
Early life
Louise de La Vallière was born in Tours, the daughter of an officer, Laurent de La Baume Le Blanc -who took the name of La Vallière from a small property near Amboise- and Françoise Le Provost. Laurent de La Vallière died in 1651; in 1655 his widow married again with Jacques de Courtarvel, marquis de Saint-Rémy, and joined the court of Gaston, Duke of Orléans at Blois.
Louise was brought up with the younger princesses, the stepsisters of "La Grande Mademoiselle". After Gaston's death his widow moved with her daughters to Luxembourg Palace in Paris, and with them went Louise, aged sixteen. She would grow up with the future Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Duchess of Alençon and the Duchess of Savoy.
Louis XIV
Through the influence of a distant kinswoman, Mme de Choisy, Louise was named Maid of honour to Princess Henrietta Anne of England, sister of King Charles II of England, who was about her own age and had just married Philippe of France (duc d'Orléans), the King's brother. Henrietta (known simply as "Madame") was extremely attractive in her youth and joined the court at Fontainebleau in 1661, soon becoming involved on friendly terms with King Louis XIV, her brother-in-law, resulting in some scandal and rumours of a romance.
To avoid this, the King and Madame decided that Louis should pay court elsewhere as a front, and Madame selected three young ladies to 'set in his path,' Louise among them. The Abbé de Choise reported that the 17-year-old innocent "had an exquisite complexion, blond hair, blue eyes, a sweet smile...an expression once tender and modest." One leg was shorter than the other, so she wore specially made heels.
Mistress
She had only been at Fontainebleau for two months before she became the king's mistress. Originally, Louise was intended to divert attention away from the dangerous flirtation between Louis and his sister-in law (and cousin) Princess Henrietta, however Louise and Louis soon fell in love. It was Louise's first serious attachment and she was reportedly an innocent, religious-minded girl who initially brought neither coquetry nor self-interest to their secret relationship. She was not extravagant and was not interested in money or titles that could come from her situation, she only wanted the King's love. Antonia Fraser writes that she was a "secret lover not a Maîtresse-en-titre like Barbara Villiers."
Nicolas Fouquet's curiosity in the matter was one of the causes of his disgrace, when he bribed Louise and the King thought mistakenly he was attempting to take her as a lover.
In February 1662, the couple fell into conflict. Despite being directly questioned by the King, Louise refused to tell her lover about the affair between Madame (Henrietta) and the comte de Guiche. Coinciding with this, a series of Lenten sermons delivered by Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, which condemned the immoral activities of the King using the allegory of King David, plagued the pious girl's conscience. She fled to the convent at Chaillot. Louis followed her there and convinced her to give up the veil and to return to court. Her enemies, chief among them Olympe Mancini, comtesse de Soissons, niece of Jules Cardinal Mazarin, sought to orchestrate her downfall by bringing her liaison to the ears of Louis' Queen Maria Theresa of Spain.
During her first pregnancy, she was removed from the Princess' service and established in a small building in the Palais Royal, where on December 19, 1663 she gave birth to a son, Charles. Her child was taken immediately to Saint-Leu and given to two faithful servants of Jean-Baptiste Colbert.
Despite the secrecy of the transfer, orchestrated by a doctor Boucher who was present at the birth, the story quickly spread to Paris. Their public scorn at a midnight mass on December 24 of that year resulted in a distraught Louise escaping for home from the church.
Children
It is thought that Louise had 6 children by Louis XIV, though evidence exists to suggest a seventh child. Only the last two survived infancy. Their children were:
- X de Bourbon (1662-1662) - It is thought that Louise had a miscarriage,
- Charles de Bourbon (1663-1665) - died in infancy,
- Philippe de Bourbon(1665-1666) - died in infancy,
- X de Bourbon (1666-1666) - died shortly after birth,
- Marie Anne de Bourbon (1666-1739); after her father Louis XIV legitimised her, she was known as Mademoiselle de Blois. She later married Louis Armand I, Prince of Conti. Through this marriage she became officially recognised as a Princess of the Blood.
- Louis de Bourbon, Count of Vermandois (1667-1683); Lived to 16 but died during his first military campaign.
Downfall
Concealment was practically abandoned after her return to court, and within a week of Anne of Austria's death on January 20, 1666, La Vallière appeared at Mass side by side with Maria Theresa. Ashamed of herself for her adultery, she treated the queen with humility and respect. In return, the queen was reportedly venomous towards her during the five year affair, continuing even after the affair really ended... unaware that the king had changed mistresses.
After five years, her favour was waning. She had given birth to a second son, Philippe, in January 7 1665; but both children were soon dead, Charles in July 15 1665 and Philippe before the autumn of 1666. A daughter born at Vincennes in October 2 1666, who received the name of Marie Anne and was known as Mlle de Blois, was publicly recognized by Louis as his daughter in letters-patent making Louise a duchess in May 1667 and conferring on her the estate of Vaujours. As a duchess, Louise had the right to sit on a taboret in the presence of the queen -- a highly desired privilege. However, Louise was not impressed. She said her title seemed a kind of retirement present given to a servant. Indeed she was correct, for Louis commented that legitimising her daughter and giving Louise an establishment "matched the affection he had had for her for six years," in other words an extravagant farewell present.
In October 2 of that year she bore a son named Louis (their fourth child together), but by this time her place in the King's affections had been usurped by courtesan Françoise-Athénaïs de Montespan, Marchioness of Montespan, who both she and the queen (both very pregnant when the affair started) had thought of as a trusted friend. Louise was sent away to Versailles while the court was at war under the pretense of her pregnancy; however, she disobeyed the King's orders and returned, throwing herself at his feet sobbing uncontrollably. In a strange twist of fate she ended her relationship with the King in the same way in which she started. Used initially as a decoy for Louis and Madame, Louise now became a decoy for her own successor. Louis obliged her to share Mme. de Montespan's apartments at the Tuileries to prevent the legal manoeuvres of Mme de Montespan's husband and keep the court from gossiping.
Mme de Montespan demanded that Louise assist her with her toilette, and Louise did so without complaint. Whenever the king wished to travel with his real mistress, Athenais, he dragged the queen, and Louise the "alleged" mistress, along for the sake of propriety. Since Athenais was married it meant that both the king and she were committing adultery, a mortal sin. Louise had refused a smokescreen marriage for this very reason. She had not wanted to commit a mortal sin by sleeping with the King. (In cases where one partner is unmarried, a carnal affair is considered simple fornication.)
Athénaïs' daughter was given the names Louise; Mlle. de la Valliere is listed as her godmother. Louise hated being the decoy for Athénaïs and begged and wept often to be allowed to join a convent. She took to wearing a hair shirt and the strain of being forced to live with her former lover and his current mistress caused her to lose weight and become increasingly haggard.
Later Life
She attempted to leave in 1671, fleeing to the convent of Ste Marie de Chaillot, only to be compelled (once more by order of the King) to return. In 1674 she was finally permitted to enter the Carmelite convent in the Rue d'Enfer under the name of Sister Louise of Mercy. Due to her leaving the court, the new Duchess of Orléans, born Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, took care of the education of her only surviving son Louis. Louis would later be involved in a scandel with his uncle Philippe of France and his lover, the Chevalier de Lorraine. He would die in 1683 aged 16 during an exile in Flandres. His loving sister and aunt were greatly impacted by his death. His father, however, did not even shed a tear. His mother, still obsessed with the sin of her previous affair with the king, said upon hearing of her son's death:
I ought to weep for his birth far more than his death.
Louis was later suspected of being the Man in the Iron Mask.
Marie Anne would later marry the Prince of Conti. The marriage would to Louis Armand de Bourbon would occur at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. There would be no children from the marriage and Marie Anne would outlive her husband by over four decades. Madame de Maintenon asked Louise if she had fully considered the discomforts that awaited her among them. "When I shall be suffering at the convent," Louise replied, "I shall only have to remember what they made me suffer here, and all the pain shall seem light to me." The day she left, she threw herself at the feet of the Queen, begging forgiveness. "My crimes were public, my repentance must be public, too."
She took the final vows a year later, accepting the black veil from the queen herself, who kissed and blessed her. The queen already had a habit of spending brief sojourns at the convent for spiritual consolation and repose. Interestingly, later in life, Madame de Montespan went to Louise for advice on living a pious life. Louise forgave her, and counseled her on the mysteries of divine grace. She died in 1710 in Paris. The Duchy of La Vallière went to her daughter Marie Anne as did the fortune she had acquired during her time as Louis' mistress.
La Vallière's Réflexions sur la miséricorde de Dieu, written after her retreat, were printed by Lequeux in 1767, and in 1860 Réflexions, lettres et sermons, by M. P. Clement (2 vols.). Some apocryphal Mémoires appeared in 1829, and the Lettres de Mme la duchesse de la Vallière (1767) are a corrupt version of her correspondence with the maréchal de Bellefonds.
Legacy
- The term lavalliere (lavalier), the name for a jeweled pendant necklace, comes from her name.
- Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière, the main female character of Zero no Tsukaima, is named after her.
- Her life was the basis for a character in Alexandre Dumas's novel The Vicomte de Bragelonne. A common English translation of that novel breaks it into three parts, with the second part entitled Louise de la Vallière. In the novel Twenty Years After, the sequel to The Three Musketeers, she is the childhood friend of Raoul de Bragelonne, the ward (revealed later to be the son) of Athos, one of the Three Musketeers, and in The Vicomte de Bragelonne the couple have, ten years later, fallen in love, only for Louise to have her head turned by the young King Louis XIV. Raoul, broken-hearted, goes off to fight in North Africa and is killed in battle.
- Sandra Gulland has written a historical novel featuring Louise de la Vallière, called Mistress of the Sun, published in 2008.
- Joan Sanders published a biography of Louise in 1959 entitled La Petite: Louise de la Valliere.
Footnotes
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