Louise de la Vallière

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Louise de la Vallière
Louise de la Vallière with her children
Born August 6, 1644
Died June 7, 1710
Paris, France
Occupation Official mistress to Louis XIV from 1661 to 1667
Parents Laurent de la Vallière
Children Charles
a child of unknown gender
Marie Anne (Mlle de Blois)
a son (count of Vermandois)

Louise Françoise de La Baume Le Blanc, duchesse de la Vallière [1] [2] (August 6, 1644 – June 7, 1710) was a French courtesan, the mistress to Louis XIV of France from 1661 to 1667.

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[edit] Early life

Louise was born at 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. Laurent de la Vallière died in 1651; his widow soon married again, 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.

[edit] Entrance into royal circles, and a royal affair

Through the influence of a distant kinswoman, Mme de Choisy, Louise was named maid of honor to Henrietta, sister of King Charles II of England, who was about her own age and had just married Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, the King's brother. Henrietta was extremely attractive in her youth and joined the court at Fontainebleau in 1661, soon becoming involved on friendly terms with her brother-in-law, resulting in some scandal and rumors of a romance.

To avoid this, it was decided that Louis should pay court elsewhere, and his mother selected three young ladies to 'set in his path'. Louise was selected. The abbé de Choise reported that the seventeen year old innocent "had an exquisite complexion, blond hair, blue eyes ,a sweet smile...an expression once tender and modest."[1] One leg was shorter than the other, so she wore specially made heels. She had only been at Fontainebleau for two months before she became the king's mistress. 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.

Nicolas Fouquet's curiosity in the matter was one of the causes of his disgrace.

In February 1662 there was a storm when Louise refused to tell her lover about the affair between Madame (Henrietta) and the comte de Guiche. She fled to an obscure convent at Chaillot, where Louis rapidly followed her. Her enemies, chief of whom was Olympe Mancini, comtesse de Soissons, niece of Jules Cardinal Mazarin, sought her downfall by bringing her liaison to the ears of Queen Maria Theresa of Spain. She was removed from the service of Madame, and established in a small building in the Palais Royal, where in December 1663 she gave birth to a son, Charles, who was given in charge to two faithful servants of Jean-Baptiste Colbert.

[edit] Downfall as royal mistress

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 venemous 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 favor was waning. She had given birth to a second child in January 1665, but both children were dead before the autumn of 1666. A daughter born at Vincennes in October 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 it seemed a kind of retirement present given to a servant.

In October of that year she bore a son (their fourth child together), but by this time her place in Louis's affections had been usurped by courtesan Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan, who both she and the queen (both very pregnant when the affair started) had thought of as a trusted friend. She was compelled to remain at court as the king's official mistress, and even to share Mme de Montespan's apartments at the Tuileries to prevent the legal manuevers of Mme de Montespan's husband. 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, he dragged the queen and his official mistress along for the sake of "propriety."

[edit] Entering convent life, and later life

She attempted to leave in 1671, fleeing to the convent of Ste Marie de Chaillot, only to be compelled 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 the Misericord. 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," she 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 repentence must be public, too."[2]

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 covent for spiritual consolation and repose. One day, seeing Louise limping in her coarse nun's habit, she was brought to tears and repented her cruel treatment of the girl earlier. Such a sweet girl, brought to this.

Interestingly, later in life, Madame de Montespan went to Louise for advice on living a pious life. Louise forgave her, and counselled her on the mysteries of divine grace.

She died in 1710 in Paris.

Of her two surviving children: Her daughter married Louis Armand I, Prince of Conti in 1680. The count of Vermandois, her youngest child, died on his first campaign at Kortrijk in 1683.

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.

[edit] Trivia

  • The term lavalliere, the name for a jewelled 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.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Herman, Elizabeth: "Sex with Kings", p 106. HarperCollins, 2004
  2. ^ Herman, Elizabeth: "Sex with Kings", p 222. HarperCollins, 2004

[edit] See also

[edit] References


Persondata
NAME Vallière, Louise de la
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sister Louise of the Misericord
SHORT DESCRIPTION Official mistress to Louis XIV from 1661 to 1667
DATE OF BIRTH August 6, 1644
PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE OF DEATH June 7, 1710
PLACE OF DEATH Paris, France
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