Another Miracle Baby
 |
| Louis & Philippe |
Philippe de
Bourbon was the second child of Louis XIII, king of France and his wife Anne of
Austria. Born on 21st September 1640; Philippe was granted the title
of Duc d’Anjou by his father. Philippe’s parents had been married twenty-five
years by the time of his birth and their only other living child was Philippe’s
elder brother, known as Louis Dieudonné. Louis and Philippe were placed in the
care of the Marquise de Lansac.
Throughout
his life Philippe suffered from the knowledge that his brother was his mother’s
favourite child. Philippe’s education was far less thorough than the programme
his brother was subjected to. When Louis fell ill Anne would be at his bedside
day and night. When Philippe was ill Anne attended balls or left him alone in
order to spend long periods of time with Louis. Louis was her idol; he had
saved her from any possibility of divorce.
From his
earliest childhood Philippe was required to defer to and obey his brother. He
was given to understand that only in this way could he win his mother’s love
and approval. Philippe’s education was deliberately minimal and he was
encouraged to concentrate in frivolous pursuits to lessen the danger of
Philippe following in his Uncle Gaston’s footsteps; a potential rival to his
brother’s crown.
Philippe was
an attractive and intelligent child and his mother called him ‘her little
girl’. He was encouraged by his mother and her senior minister Cardinal Mazarin
to make friends with active homosexuals at court. This cannot have had any
effect on his sexuality; his father, if not an active homosexual[i], was certainly attracted
to men rather than women; which may have partly explained the length of time
before his children were born[ii].
Le Petit Monsieur
Philippe dressed for his brother's coronation
When
Philippe was less than three years old his father died and on 14th
May 1643 the five year old Louis became king. Philippe was now heir to the
throne.
The Queen
was made Regent and her adviser was Cardinal Mazarin[iii]. Anne’s power was
severely limited by Louis’ will. Her brother-in-law Gaston was made lieutenant
general of the country. Anne and her advisers were able to persuade the Paris
Parlement to override the will; Gaston remained as lieutenant general, but was
now subject to the Regent.
The Fronde
Gaston, Duke of Orleans
Anne saw the
five year war of the Fronde in the stark terms of disobedience to her son;
whether it was the Fronde of the Parlement 1648-9 or the Fronde of the Princes
1651-2. For her the second of the two periods of violent disturbances was more
dangerous, involving as it did the disloyalty of senior nobility and members of
the royal family.
Naturally
Louis’s Uncle Gaston was involved in this attempted power grab. Gaston had been
involved in many attempts to seize power from his brother and now had no compunction
in attempting to dispossess his nephew.
Philippe was
ill with smallpox when the Fronde originally erupted following the arrest of
three members of the Paris Parlement. The people demanded the arrest of Anne
and her replacement by Gaston. Louis was taken to Rueil[iv] and Philippe was left in
Paris, until rescued several days later.
Cardinal Mazarin
For the next
four years the court led a nomadic existence. Originally Gaston was chosen to
negotiate with the revolting Parisians. But it was not long before Anne and
Mazarin decided that he appeared to be too sympathetic to the demands of the
Parlement. In 1650 Gaston’s wife produced a son and the Parisians were delirious
with delight; Anne and Mazarin must have feared that Gaston would try and
replace Louis.
Louis was
permanently scarred by the wars of the Fronde. He avoided his capital as much
as possible during his adult life; preferring the palace of Versailles he had
built on the site of one of his father‘s hunting lodges. Philippe as an adult
made the Palais Royale his Parisian home, until the Palace of St Cloud was
built.
Duchesse de Montpensier
Gaston’s
eldest daughter[v],
Mademoiselle[vi],
had always considered her cousin as her future bridegroom, despite a twelve
year difference in their ages. She took an active part, on the side of her
father, in the war and in doing so, as Mazarin remarked
‘With that cannon
Mademoiselle has shot her husband.’[vii]
When finally
Louis was able to re-enter his capital on 21st October 1652 Gaston
was exiled to his estates in the Loire valley and Mademoiselle to her property
at Saint Fargeau. Philippe lost the company of his two favourite relatives.
Louis was
henceforth to be far less trusting of those around him:
‘It could reasonably be
asked if a prince does not have as much need to protect himself from the
pretensions of his own allies, of his own subjects, and even of his own family, as from the attacks of his enemy.’[viii]
This
mistrust was to rule his actions throughout the rest of his life, causing
Philippe much unhappiness.
Marriage to an English Princess
It was not
until the death of his Uncle Gaston in February 1660 that, when he was 20,
Philippe was made Duc d’Orléans. The dukedom had always been held by a member
of the royal family. Philippe had not seen Gaston since he was exiled, but they
had kept in contact by letter. Louis was angered by Philippe’s sorrow
‘Not only did he profess not
to believe in his brother’s grief, but through the disguise of mockery he saw
it as a threat.’[ix]
Normally the
revenues of the dukedom were settled on the new duke, but Mazarin and Louis
were reluctant to give Philippe this financial freedom, preferring to keep him
dependent on his brother. It was decided to give him a reduced revenue stream
of 150,000 livres[x]
per year once he was married. With the death of Gaston the title of Monsieur
passed to Philippe. For Philippe, an inveterate gambler, money was essential.
In 1678 Monsieur had to pawn his best jewels to cover his gambling losses.
The
governorship of Languedoc also fell vacant on Gaston’s death, but Philippe must
have been disappointed to not receive this post which had paid his uncle circa
500,000 livres per annum in the form of bribes from local officials. The post
was given to the Prince de Conti[xi], a former Frondeur, but
now living the life of a religious penitent and powerless in Louis’s opinion.
Giving Languedoc to Philippe would have boosted his power vis-à-vis his brother;
that was something Louis was determined not to do.
Henrietta Maria
After his
brother’s marriage to Marie Therese in June 1660 the Queen Mother persuaded
Philippe to offer for the younger sister of the newly restored English king,
Henrietta. He had previously offered for the hand of his cousin Anne-Marie, la
Grande Mademoiselle[xii], Gaston’s daughter and
heiress to a great fortune. The Duchesse de Montpensier refused Philippe’s
offer, remaining unmarried until her death in 1693
The marriage
between Henrietta and Philippe took place on 31st March 1661, three weeks after
the death of Cardinal Mazarin, Philippe’s mother’s adviser[xiii] since the death of her
husband eighteen years before. Louis was in favour of the match, writing later in
his memoirs
‘The marriage of my brother
served to keep [Charles] on my side.’[xiv]
Philippe was
eager for the match[xv], and despite his
preference for men, he was clearly capable of doing his duty as a husband. Philippe
and Henrietta had three children and one still-born child. Only the youngest
daughter outlived her father. The couple’s only son Philippe died in infancy
eighteen months before his mother.
It is
possible that the extremely thin and highly strung Henrietta suffered from
anorexia nervosa; she slept very little and ate even less. Her life was a
frenetic search for amusement.
When the
newly married couple were summonsed to court at Fontainebleau, Henrietta, freed
at last from her mother’s dour tutelage, was ready to flirt with her husband’s
brother and Louis was more than happy to humiliate his brother. Louis and
Henrietta spent a lot of time together;
‘The couple explored the
grottoes, bathed in the river and on moonlit evenings promenaded to the sounds
of violins around the canal.’[xvi]
However
innocent these pleasures may seem to modern eyes, they caused a lot of gossip
and scandal. Philippe was furious to find himself publicly cuckolded so soon after
his marriage.
The public
conduct of the affair ceased only when Louis’ mother joined Queen Henrietta
Maria and Philippe in pressuring Louis into conducting the affair with some
attempt at subtlety. Henrietta and Louis now would practise subterfuge; to this
end Louis was to pretend to set up one of his sister-in-law’s ladies as his new
mistress; Louise de la Valliére.
Louise de la Valliere
Louis fell
in love with la Valliére and Henrietta was cast aside, the first discard of
many[xvii]. Now humiliated in her
turn, Henrietta set up a new flirt, the Comte de Guiche, who was also one of
her husband’s lovers. Philippe’s humiliation was redoubled. By July he had got
his wife pregnant.
Bibliography
Brother to
the Sun King – Nancy Nichols Barker, 1989 The John Hopkins University Press
Louis XIV –
Vincent Cronin, The Reprint Society London 1965
A Woman’s
Life at the Court of the Sun King – Elborg Forster, John Hopkins Paperbacks
1997
Memoirs Duc
de Saint-Simon Vol 1 Edited Lucy Norton, Prion Books 2000
The Affair
of the Poisons – Anne Somerset, Weidenfeld and Nicholson 2003
Louis XIV –
John B Wolf, Panther History 1970
En.wikipedia.org
[i]
There is no evidence that he was actively homosexual
[ii]
There were rumours extant at the time that Louis’s father was Cardinal
Richelieu
[iii]
Former secretary to Cardinal Richelieu
[iv]
Outside Paris
[v]
One of Europe’s greatest heiresses
[vi]
Her court title
[vii]
Brother to the Sun King - Barker
[viii]
Ibid
[ix]
Ibid
[x]
Possibly as much as £700,000 at today’s rates.
[xi]
Brother of the prince de Condé, one of the
highest ranking Frondeurs
[xii]
Her court title after the birth of Philippe’s eldest daughter
[xiii]
It is rumoured that he was also her lover.
[xiv]
Brother to the Sun King - Barker
[xv]
Possibly due to the knowledge of the immediate rise in his income the marriage
would bring in its wake.
[xvi]
Brother to the Sun King - Barker
[xvii]
Louis was very callous towards his ex-mistresses
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.