Governing a great kingdom engaged in a difficult war, overseeing the ministers’ work, financing vast new expenditures, and, with it all, continuing to appear in public regularly and often should have been enough for any man, but without a moment’s hesitation, Louis XIV, in 1700, took on the government of Spain as well. On December 15, he wrote the duc d’Harcourt: “I think it necessary to warn you that the King of Spain’s intentions are good. He wants to do well and will if he knows how, but he lacks knowledge in many fields. He has learned little, even less than would be normal at his age. It will be easy to rule him if in the beginning you are careful to prevent any prejudice people may try to give him . . . He will trust you and follow your advice.”269

In short order, the Princesse des Ursins took over, but the fact remained that Madrid was governed from Versailles. In any age, that would have been a crushing burden; at the dawn of the eighteenth century, it was made more onerous still by slow, often faulty, communications and by the advanced state of decadence of the Spanish monarchy: As if it were not enough to cope with the war, the government had to be thoroughly reorganized as well. Undaunted, the Sun King set about centralizing and rationalizing the virtually paralyzed administration left behind by the Habsburgs.

He also followed Mme des Ursins’s maneuvers with extreme attention. The princesse was to be simply the means of transmitting orders from grandfather to grandson; instead, she quickly developed so strong a loyalty to Philip and Maria Luisa that, in certain cases, she encouraged them to have a policy of their own. Already, on July 13, 1701, Louis XIV wrote Philip V: “I am sending you Marsin who will stay with you . . . I trust him, you may too, and be quite sure that he will never suggest anything that will not be useful to our common interests. I cannot end without assuring Your Majesty of my love and telling you, with all the strength I have, that I wish to see Your Majesty become as great a king as you can be if that is your desire.”270

This kind of exhortation was repeated again and again. On August 7, for instance, a long letter about the Spanish etiquette and some problems regarding Naples concluded: “How happy I will be when I see you in that high degree of gloire to which I hope your courage will raise you! I will love you more; and as my esteem for you grows, so will my tenderness.”271 At the same time, while Philip V was urged to exert himself, he was also given the most detailed guidance: Whether it was a reform of the Spanish etiquette or the way to deal with the Cortes of Catalonia, the letters kept coming from Versailles.

Soon, however, a new problem surfaced. Mme des Ursins, who proved invaluable in many ways, was all too clearly in charge. She governed the queen absolutely, and the queen, in turn, governed the king. Indeed, any slight resistance on the part of the young man could be overcome by a simple expedient: He was so obsessed with sex that even a single night of chastity was more than he could bear. All the queen had to do, therefore, was repulse her husband; the next day - if he had held out that long - he caved in.

Of course, everyone knew it, so on November 13, Louis XIV tackled the problem: “It is essential for your happiness and hers that [the Queen] be disabused of the notions she may have been given according to which she can govern you. Surely Your Majesty would never allow it. You would feel too strongly the dishonor such a weakness would bring you. It is not forgiven in private people. Kings, who are exposed to public observation, are even more contemptible when they are dominated by their wives . . . The Queen is your first subject; as such, and as your wife, she must obey you.”272 That was all very well, but what the king expected to find in his grandson was a younger - and slightly more pliable - version of himself, and in that, he was deceived. As it turned out, Philip V was not without qualities, but a strong will was not one of them.

Annoying though this behavior was, Louis XIV was far too shrewd not to behave accordingly. When, the following year, after many tears, the queen reluctantly agreed to stay behind as her husband went off to war, Louis wrote her: “I could not doubt that your strong and tender love for the King of Spain would cause you to feel much pain at being parted from him, but I must admit I did not believe that this separation would cause me to love you still more, and to realize that your intelligence, your reason, and your spirit far exceed what I had seen of them until now. You truly love my grandson in preferring his gloire to everything else, and I must give you well-deserved praise rather than the advice for which you ask me . . .”273 To all his other talents, the Sun King had now added those of a psychologist.

Still, he was not merely flattering: Maria Luisa quickly proved, except for those nightly sessions in the conjugal bed, to be rather more of a man than her husband. It was her indomitable courage that sustained him at the most difficult times; it was her intelligence, assisted by that of Mme des Ursins, that helped him to govern; it was her energy that brought the pair much needed popularity. Alone, Philip would probably have been a liability: Together with his wife, he proved an important asset. And when he did not, scolding letters promptly came from Versailles.

It was all the more important for everything to go well in Madrid now that a European coalition was backing the archduke’s claim, and as, once again, he faced strong and well-organized enemies, Louis XIV relied on himself most of all. Arrayed against him were the two greatest generals of the time, John Churchill, soon to become duke of Marlborough, and Prince Eugene of Savoy, the son of the king’s erstwhile mistress the comtesse de Soissons, who now served the emperor. To these men of genius, the king could only oppose the duc de Vendôme, the illegitimate grandson of Henri IV and a talented leader, but not equal to either Marlborough or Prince Eugene; the maréchal de Villars, brave, clever, and, above all, lucky; and the duc de Berwick, James II’s illegitimate son by Arabella Churchill, Marlborough’s sister, and a highly competent leader, but without his uncle’s genius. Far worse, the other French generals lacked even the most elementary competence: Villeroy, the king’s friend, knew more about the organization of a ball than about that of an army, and Tallard, Marsin, and La Feuillade, all of whom were eventually created marshals, were courtiers rather than generals.

Nor were the ministers any more distinguished. Chamillart, the most important of them, was way over his head; Torcy, the Foreign Minister, found himself implementing a policy he had opposed. Of course, he obeyed the king, but with a singular lack of élan. The duc de Beauvillier, straightforward and immensely virtuous, deplored the whole situation, so it was all up to the king himself, who found it rather stimulating.

In fact, for the next twelve years, Louis XIV, besides holding Court as usual, did the work of several ministers while telling his generals what to do, all at an age when most of his contemporaries were either dead or in retirement. Nor did he find reliable support in his most intimate circle. Mme de Maintenon, who remained absolutely obedient, made no secret of her loathing for the war; the légitimés quite failed to distinguish themselves; the rest of the royal family went on squabbling as ever.

At the very outset, however, the king made a terrible mistake: He issued letters patent to his departing grandson assuring him that his right of succession to the French throne remained unimpaired by his assumption of the crown of Spain. This move was not unusual: There was a precedent in the case of Henri III, who became king of Poland, but succeeded as king of France on the death of his brother in 1574. Still, the notion that France and Spain could be united under a single monarch was bound to terrify - and anger - the rest of Europe; and its unlikelihood* changed nothing.

A further irritant to the Coalition came with the death of James II on September 16, 1701. Despite his ministers’ advice, Louis promptly recognized James’s son as king of England. That, however, was not as ill-advised as has sometimes been supposed: The league against France had been signed a month earlier, and nothing short of war could be expected. By recognizing a Stuart as king of England, Louis XIV, besides giving pleasure to the widowed Mary of Modena, was also providing himself with yet another counter for the future peace negotiations.

The war itself, begun by the emperor in Italy, started slowly. First, Catinat, a competent but uninspired leader, was beaten by Prince Eugene; then, on February 2, 1702, the prince surprised Villeroy in Cremona, and took both the town (briefly) and the maréchal (permanently), so Vendôme was sent off to replace him. All through 1702, a series of indecisive, but often bloody, battles opposed the two generals; the great change came in 1703 when, little by little, it became clear that the duke of Savoy, who had been promised money and territory by the emperor, was about to turn coat once again. Of course, Louis XIV reacted swiftly. In September, he wrote the duke: “Monsieur, since religion, honor, interest, our alliance, and your very signature mean nothing to you, I am sending my cousin the duc de Vendôme at the head of my armies to explain my intentions to you. He will only give you twenty four hours to make a decision.”274 In fact, the duke’s army was seized by the French while he himself went over to the Coalition.

On the far more crucial northern front, things were not going any better: Neither the maréchal de Boufflers, who was brave but not clever, nor the duc de Bourgogne, were able to stop Marlborough, whose steady pressure accompanied by occasional minor victories, caused the French army to fall back quite significantly. The duc de Bourgogne himself was harshly criticized. Louis XIV showed what he thought of it all by bringing his grandson into the Council, and all prepared for the following campaign.

At least, on the Alsatian front, Villars had won a battle at Fridlingen in October 1702. In the spring of 1703, he joined the elector of Bavaria, France’s sole remaining ally, and with Prince Eugene still busy in Italy, it looked as if France could expect major successes. The Imperial army was beaten at Hochstedt in September 1703; Villars took Augsburg while, on his side, Vauban, under the duc de Bourgogne’s nominal supervision, took Landau and Alt-Brisach.

Unfortunately, Villars and the elector had grown to detest each other: Villars thought the elector hopelessly slow and timorous, the elector resented Villars’s boldness and his overall leadership of the two allied armies. So the maréchal asked to be brought home - he was sent to command the troops fighting a Protestant insurrection in the Cévennes; Marsin replaced him and the successes ended.

Nor where the French armies any luckier in their next campaign on the Northern front: There, Villeroy, released from captivity, led them against Marlborough. The mismatch was grotesque, and catastrophes promptly followed. The Coalition retook the whole of the Lower Rhine and, on July 2, 1704, inflicted a bloody defeat on the French at Donauworth; then, as if that were not bad enough, the maréchal de Tallard, in a rare show of incompetence, partly, it must be said, directed from Versailles, decided to attack the Anglo-Germans. On August 13, just outside the village of Blenheim, Marlborough showed the world that he was a commander of genius; as for the French, they lost 12,000 men killed, 14,000 prisoners, 1,200 officers taken prisoner and all the matériel: It was a defeat such as France had not experienced in centuries.

The news reached Versailles in the middle of the festivities celebrating the birth of a son* to the Bourgognes; it was Mme de Maintenon who told the king, and he promptly showed the world that no disaster could crush him. A new army was brought forth, Villars recalled from the Cévennes, and because the Coalition often failed to function smoothly, in 1705, the maréchal was at least able to prevent Marlborough from progressing farther. Even now, after a catastrophe and four years of war, the French borders remained unbreached: It showed how very far the kingdom had come under Louis XIV’s reign.

Unfortunately, the war was also going badly in Spain. On August 4, 1704, the English took Gibraltar,* and an attempt by an army under the comte de Tessé and a fleet under the comte de Toulouse failed to retake it; then, in March 1705, an English fleet, while not actually beating the French, forced it to leave Spanish waters. Toulouse had fought bravely, yet prudently, but from then on, the British navy was mistress of the sea.

Almost worse, that spring, the English under Lord Peterborough took Barcelona, then the largest city in Spain and the whole kingdom of Valencia. The archduke followed them and assumed the regnal name of Charles III: Spain now had two kings and no one could tell anymore which of the two would win.

In Madrid, too, Louis XIV was encountering serious problems. Mme des Ursins, who was governing Spain almost singlehanded, had begun to develop her own policies. Worse, she embarked on a long and bitter quarrel with Louis XIV’s new envoy, the cardinal d’Estrées. At first, the princess thought to get rid of him by begging Louis XIV for permission to come through Versailles on her way to retirement in Rome, but the king, while urging her to remain in place, did not recall his ambassador. At the same time, he tried very hard to strengthen his grandson. “I would be very pleased to hear that you are behaving like the master,” he wrote Philip on May 5, 1703, “and not to have any more reports that you have to be provided with an opinion on the least little things. It would almost be better for you to make small mistakes on occasion because you have followed your own impulses than to avoid them by taking other people’s advice.”275

That was asking too much. Mme des Ursins wanted the cardinal d’Estrées recalled so, naturally, Philip V wrote his grandfather to that effect. On June 24, Louis XIV wrote back, agreeing to the recall - at some future date - and then the cardinal himself asked to go home, adding: “Were I to do otherwise, it would be thought that I had been fooled by his enemies; you would also be blamed for it . . . it would be said that Court intrigues are no less powerful now than under the late King’s reign.”276 Coming from a monarch who loathed intrigue, this evocation of the late Court was a sharp warning to the princess, and when the latter broke open a dispatch from Versailles addressed to the ambassador, Louis XIV struck: On April 11, 1704, on his order, Mme des Ursins was sent away from Madrid and told to reside in the South of France.

Even that drastic measure failed to reestablish harmony. Philip and Maria Luisa had obeyed - they had no other choice - but, from then on, they begged tirelessly for the princess’s return while the lack of a firm guiding hand became more evident every day. On August 20, the king wrote wearily: “You ask me for advice; I wrote you what I think but nothing is any use if you wait until it is too late before you either ask me or act on my advice . . . You cannot succeed while your government is in such disorder.”277 It was not proving easy to govern Spain from Versailles; Philip’s incapacity was too great; his subordination to his wife too absolute; her need for Mme des Ursins too complete. So in an unprecedented reversal, and in order to avoid a complete collapse of the Spanish Government, on November 16, after yet another pleading letter from Maria Luisa, Louis XIV gave the princess permission to come to Versailles: It was obvious that she would be sent back to Madrid from there.

This victory of an elderly lady over the Sun King was all the more remarkable that, in France itself, obedience was absolute. “The old maréchal de Villeroy, who knew the Court well,” Saint-Simon noted, “said amusingly that one should hold the chamberpot for the ministers while they are in office, and pour it over their head as soon as one sees that their power is beginning to slip.”278 Indeed, only the king mattered: It was the very reverse of the situation in 1660; and as if to make it all clearer still, defeats or no, Louis XIV saw to it that Versailles remained as splendid as ever. The appointed festivities were held at their unchanging times; the king moved from Versailles to Trianon, Marly, or Fontainebleau as always; work continued on a new chapel for the Palace, and even if money began to be sorely lacking, nothing was allowed to change the routine of the Court.

As for the courtiers, they were more cowed than ever, although even they thought some flattery went too far. The abbé de Polignac, Saint-Simon tells us, “was a guest on every trip to Marly, and all vied for the charms of his company; . . . [but] with all his intelligence, he let go a piece of flattery whose exaggeration was widely noticed . . . He was following the King in the gardens of Marly; it began to rain; the King said something polite about his clothes which would not keep him dry. ‘That is nothing, Sire,’ he answered. ‘The rain at Marly is not wet.’“279

It was, in fact, at Marly that Louis XIV received Mme des Ursins on January 10, 1705, but already four days earlier, he had written to his new ambassador at Madrid, the duc de Grammont: “You know my grandson’s weakness . . . The Queen will always control him. We must try and use her power rather than destroy it . . . The King of Spain must not be told what I think of him . . . Try to gain the Queen’s confidence, don’t let her think you are trying to remove her from the government.”280 As a result, Mme des Ursins’s stay with the French Court was triumphant. There were long, private conversations with the king and Mme de Maintenon; special favors were granted her brothers; and when, on June 15, 1705, she left on her way to Spain, it was clear that she would stay there for good.

Never before, in forty-four years of personal reign, had Louis XIV allowed a subject thus to defeat his intentions: It is much to his praise that, in this one instance, he was flexible enough to bend: The war could not be won - indeed, would certainly be lost - without Mme des Ursins’s work in Madrid.

Almost equally surprising is the fact that at this great age, the king managed to work harder than ever. After the severe illnesses of earlier years, he seems to have quite regained his health. In the course of the year 1705, for instance, he suffered briefly from gout in mid-March, had a cold in mid-April accompanied by a severe attack of gout, and except for fairly prolonged diarrhea in late August, and again in October, he remained well until December 23 when he vomited dead worms with, however, no apparent aftereffect.281 Considering that he was purged at least once a month (with up to ten consequent evacuations) and not infrequently bled, it seems obvious that he had an extraordinarily strong constitution. Still, in April, because of his gout, he discontinued the grand coucher, that ceremony in which he undressed and went to bed before the entire Court: Henceforth, only a small circle of servants and courtiers remained.

That change, however, entailed no diminution in splendor. While the duchesse du Maine, on her side, gave ever grander receptions, the balls at Marly and Versailles in January and February 1706 showed the world that the king of France could fight the rest of Europe and not feel it. But on January 1, 1707, Louis XIV at last found himself forced to retrench sharply in the amount of the customary New Year’s presents to the royal family.

There were other changes, too. In 1707, for the first time, the king decided that, much as he disliked giving his relatives any chance to shine, he could no longer afford not to use them. The duc d’Orléans, at long last, was given an effective command,* that of the French army in Spain. It was on that occasion that the king’s hatred of religious heterodoxy once again surfaced. Upon Louis XIV’s having asked his nephew of whom his staff consisted, “M. le duc d’Orléans named, among others, Fontpertuis. ‘What!, nephew,’ the King retorted with emotion, ‘the son of that madwoman who used to follow M. Arnaud everywhere, a Jansenist? I will not have that sort of person near you.’

“‘Well, Sire,’ M. d’Orléans answered, ‘I do not know what the mother did, but as for the son, a Jansenist! Why, he does not even believe in God.’

“‘Is that possible?’ the King said. ‘And are you quite sure? If it is so, all is well and you can take him along.’”282 It was no wonder that Fénelon’s exile was never rescinded.

That Louis should be entrusting his nephew with an army showed how very worried he was: While to the outside world he seemed more self-confident than ever, Blenheim had shown him clearly that defeat was no longer impossible. Already in 1704, in the deepest secrecy, approaches had been made to Heinsius, the grand pensionary of Holland, but to no avail. France would have to fight on, and the war was almost impossibly costly. While in Colbert’s lifetime the budget tended to run around 100 million livres and to be very close to balance, by 1706, it had gone up to 220 million with a deficit of nearly 170 million; the Debt, obviously, was growing by leaps and bounds; the State, once again, was dependent on the good will of financiers.

Clearly, however, there was no hope other than to endure. In Italy, at least, the war was going well. On August 16, 1705, Vendome actually defeated Prince Eugene at Cassano; and on April 19, 1706, he trounced one of the prince’s lieutenants in his absence at the battle of Calcinato; indeed, it looked as if the strongly fortified city of Turin, the duke of Savoy’s capital would soon be taken.

Elsewhere, unfortunately, the French continued to be beaten. Blending the qualities of a statesman with those of a general, the duke of Marlborough managed to keep the Coalition together, its armies trained and supplied and its finances prosperous; on May 23, 1706, he trounced the maréchal de Villeroy yet again, this time near the little town of Ramillies. It was another Blenheim, and the appalled Villeroy was so terrified of writing the news to Versailles that he waited five days to do so. But when he reappeared at Court, far from punishing him, Louis XIV simply said: “Monsieur le maréchal, one is no longer lucky at our age.”283

As if it had not been disastrous enough in itself, Ramillies had yet another consequence. Convinced at last that Villeroy was not the commander to oppose Marlborough, the king called Vendôme back from Italy, and the moment he was gone, the French army, poorly led by the duc de la Feuillade, Chamillart’s son-in-law, so mismaneuvered as to give the returning Prince Eugene a strong advantage. Not only was Turin not taken, but Marsin lost a battle before the city on September 7, 1706, in which virtually all the matériel was taken by the enemy. Marsin himself died soon after of his wounds: that, cruelly enough, was the only silver lining. By the end of the month, France had lost the area around Mantua, Milan, and the Piedmont, while, with the help of the British navy, Austria had taken Naples: No matter where Louis XIV looked, there was only disaster to be seen.

As for Chamillart, who had the jobs once held by Colbert and Louvois, he begged the king to let him resign. “He wrote the King,” Saint-Simon noted, “a pathetic letter asking for relief: he made plain the sad state of affairs, and added that he could not remedy them due to lack of time and strength . . . and ended by saying frankly that all must perish unless a remedy were found. He always left a wide empty margin where the King wrote his comments in his own hand. Chamillart showed me this one after it had come back to him: I saw with great surprise that the King’s short comment ended with: ‘Well, we will perish together.’”284

Indeed, the fates had clearly turned against France: At least, Emperor Leopold had been slow and inefficient, but in 1705, he died and was succeeded by his son, who took the name of Joseph I. The new emperor was more energetic and intelligent than his father; he worked hard for the success of his brother’s candidacy to the Spanish throne and proved a dangerous enemy.

In Spain, too, there was nothing but disaster. In spite of repeated attempts, the siege of Barcelona failed and Philip V was forced to retreat into Navarre, while Anglo-Portuguese troops under a French Protestant exile, M. de Ruvigny, who had been created Earl of Galloway by William III, advanced deep into Spain, until, on June 26, 1706, he entered Madrid, where the archduke joined him.

The very extent of this reversal, however, turned out to be helpful: Philip V was popular because he was the late king’s chosen heir; Maria Luisa was loved for her energy. In a few weeks, she raised money from the cities as yet not taken by the British; the people and the grandees alike observed the oath they had sworn to Philip; at the head of a reconstituted army, he defeated Galloway and reentered Madrid on September 26.

It was, clearly, a major success, not least because Spain had shown conclusively it would not settle for the archduke, or, indeed, any other candidate chosen by foreign powers. Of course, it comforted Louis XIV in his determination to save his grandson’s crown, but right near him, someone almost as powerful was ready to end the war on almost any terms.

From the very beginning, Mme de Maintenon had opposed the war; indeed, her opinion, as expressed to the Council, owed more to her desire to placate Monseigneur - who would be king when his father died - than to her own conviction. From the very first, she had lamented the strain imposed by the conflict and predicted that things would go from bad to worse; now that they had, her jeremiads were even more constant and more lamentable. In 1706 and 1707, she came to a parting of the ways with her old friend Mme des Ursins who, whether from Navarre or from Madrid, constantly promised ultimate victory while asking for more men and more money. Mme de Maintenon, on the contrary, kept repeating that, for reasons unknown, God had decided to punish France, that it was futile to fight his decrees and that therefore peace, any peace, must be the sole object, even if it entailed leaving the Spanish inheritance to the archduke.

The king, of course, was fully aware of the marquise’s position; indeed, except for Mme des Ursins, he met with nothing but despair and defeatism wherever he turned. But, for a short while, the wind seemed to turn: On April 25, 1707, the maréchal de Berwick defeated the Anglo-Portuguese at the battle of Almanza; this great success was followed up by the duc d’Orléans, who had just joined the army; Lerida, along with several less important fortresses was taken, and from then on, in Spain at least, there was a hope of ultimate victory.

Unfortunately, the reverse was true on the other fronts: France itself was now under attack. In August 1707, Toulon was besieged and Provence ravaged by the duke of Savoy. The city resisted and the siege failed, but troops had to be sent there that were needed elsewhere. In order to strengthen the fighting spirit of the army on the northern front, therefore, the duc de Bourgogne was sent off to command with Vendôme as his second; and it was understood that the prince would heed the maréchal’s advice. At this point, the human element came into play. No two men could have been more unlike: Bourgogne was serious, pious, conventional - and legitimate. Vendôme was brilliant, an atheist, a debauchee whose tastes favored young men, a cynic, and the illegitimate grandson of Henri IV. Enmity soon developed between the two commanders; Marlborough took advantage of this hostility, and the loss of Oudenarde on July 11, 1708 was followed by that of Tournai, Gand and Ypres, while, at the same time, an attempt at landing the pretender in Scotland failed utterly.

Worse was yet to come. Advancing irresistibly, Prince Eugene lay siege to Lille, a city which had been strongly fortified by Vauban and was reputed to be proof against all attack. No one supposed that it could, in fact, be taken, but to the despair of the French, taken it was on October 28; after that, Gand, Bruges and all the remaining French strongholds in Flanders fell as well. And since Joseph I now held sway in Italy, he forced the pope, who had recognized Philip V as king of Spain in 1701, to switch his endorsement to the archduke, while, in 1708, the British conquered Sardinia.

All the while, the war continued to be enormously costly; Chamillart relied almost entirely on a small group of financiers to provide him with the necessary funds; up to a point they did, but, not unnaturally, the interest rates rose while the sums loaned shrank. Finally, quite overcome by the endless difficulties he faced, Chamillart succeeded in convincing the king he must resign, so he kept the ministry of War while the competent Nicolas Desmarets succeeded him as Contrôleur Général. Under other circumstances, Desmarets might have proved a great minister; as it was, he did his best to keep the government afloat, and no greater praise can be given him than to say that, with the greatest difficulty, he succeeded.

Of course, that entailed subterfuges of every kind. Offices were sold by the dozen; the gold currency was repeatedly debased; a limited paper currency was introduced; taxes were raised; and borrowing went on apace. The king, well aware of the situation, helped when he could: The story of Samuel Bernard’s walk in Marly is a case in point. Bernard, the greatest of the French financiers, had already lent vast sums; when, in the spring of 1708, Desmarets approached him yet again, he refused to buy any more government paper. At that, and after consulting with the king, the contrôleur général invited him to Marly, where he had followed the Court, for yet another meeting. Bernard came. That day, around five, Louis XIV set out for one of his walks around the gardens. Saint-Simon tells us what happened next. “At the next pavilion, the King stoppped; it was that of Desmarets who came out of it with Samuel Bernard, the famous banker . . . The King told Desmarets that he was pleased to see him with M. Bernard, then, turning to the latter: ‘You are just the man never to have seen Marly. Come and walk through it with me, I will return you to Desmarets afterward.’ Bernard followed, and, all through the walk, the King talked only to Bergeyck* and to him, taking them everywhere and showing them everything with all the grace he knew so well how to use when he wanted to reward someone. I admired, and many others with me, this kind of prostitution of the King’s, who spoke so sparsely [to his courtiers] for a man like Bernard . . .

“Bernard was duped. He came back to Desmarets from his walk with the King so enchanted that, straightaway, he said he would rather risk being ruined than deny a prince who had treated him so well.”385 For a man whose birth precluded his ever being admitted to the Court, who, indeed, could never expect even a single word from the king, this treatment was most dazzling. It is sad to have to record that Bernard was, indeed, ruined: Within a few years, he had gone bankrupt.

Around the king, throughout these difficult years, the familiar faces grew fewer. In 1707, Vauban, the great engineer, died, and so did Mme de Montespan: Louis deplored the former and ignored the latter. And in 1708, Mansart, the architect of Versailles, followed them, but much as he, and some few others, might be missed, nothing apparently made any difference: Indefatigable, indomitable, and, indeed, scarcely human, the king continued on his appointed rounds.

An incident which occurred in 1708 was further proof of that, if any was needed. “Mme la duchesse de Bourgogne was pregnant,” Saint-Simon noted. “She was feeling very unwell. The King wanted to go to Fontainebleau, against precedent, at the beginning of the good weather* and had said so. In the meantime, he wanted to make stays at Marly. His granddaughter amused him, he could not do without her, but so much movement did not suit her condition. Mme de Maintenon was worried about this, Fagon* kept tactfully mentioning her fragility: this bothered the King, who was accustomed to having his own way in everything, and had been spoiled by the fact that his mistresses traveled when pregnant or just after they had given birth, and wore court dress throughout it all. The remonstrances about the trips to Marly annoyed him but he did not cancel them . . . The Saturday [following one of these], the King was taking a walk after Mass . . . when we saw the duchesse du Lude coming alone, on foot, at a time when there was no other lady with the King . . . He understood she had something urgent to tell him: he went toward her and when he came close to her, we stopped and left them alone. The conversation was short. She left and the King came back to us . . . without saying anything. Everybody had guessed what the matter must be and no one was in a hurry to say anything. In the end, the King . . . looking at the most important people there but without speaking to anyone in particular, said, looking annoyed: ‘The duchesse de Bourgogne has miscarried.’

“Immediately, M. de La Rouchefoucauld began to lament, M. de Bouillon, the duc de Tresmes and the maréchal de Boufflers joined him, then M. de La Rouchefoucauld went on to say, louder still, that it was the greatest misfortune in the world, that having had other miscarriages she might not have any more children. ‘And even if it were so,’ the King, who until now had said nothing, interrupted angrily, ‘why should I care? Doesn’t she already have a son?* And even if he died, is the duc de Berry not able to marry and have children of his own? And why should I care which of them succeeds me! Are they not all equally my [great] grandsons?’ And immediately, he went on impetuously: ‘Thank God she has miscarried, since she was going to miscarry, and I will no longer be annoyed about my trips by the representations of the doctors and the reasonings of the women. I will come and go as I please and will no longer be bothered.’ A silence such that one could have heard an ant walking followed this outburst.”286

The king’s outburst was due, no doubt, to disappointment, but it is true he was often especially intolerant to members of his family. Only a month earlier, a series of incidents in Spain deprived France of one of its best commanders. Louis XIV had never trusted the duc d’Orléans, his nephew (and son-in-law), simply because he was his nephew, and therefore potentially dangerous. Still, he did give him a command in Spain for lack of another competent general, but once there, the duc behaved in the way best calculated to affront both the king and Mme de Maintenon. Because the war was going so badly, a group of Spanish grandees thought that a way out of it might be to replace Philip V, who was a potential heir to the French throne, by the duc d’Orléans, who was much further down the line of succession. The duc listened without agreeing; Philip V heard about it and, convinced that there was a plot to send him back to France, reported all of it to his grandfather. Nothing was better calculated to reawaken the king’s memories of the Fronde, and he behaved accordingly: In short order, the duc d’Orléans was recalled, and although innocent, he never again commanded an army.

As if this episode were not bad enough, there was the story of the insulting toast. Upon arriving in Madrid, Orléans had found neither the supplies, nor the money, he had been led to expect; since Mme des Ursins was visibly in control, he blamed her for these shortages. In fact, Spain was in such a dreadful state that her lateness did not necessarily imply a dereliction of duty. Still, the duc was infuriated, and at the end of a dinner with his officers, in the course of which the wine had not been spared, he raised his glass. “Messieurs,” he said, “here is to the health of Captain Cunt and Lieutenant Cunt.”287 No one there doubted that he meant Mmes de Maintenon and des Ursins, nor did the two ladies when, in very short order, they heard about the toast, and any possibility that Louis XIV might forgive the duc disappeared.

At the same time, a court intrigue very nearly succeeded in ruining the duc de Bourgogne. Monseigneur disliked his eldest son; he was on terms of the closest friendship with Madame la Duchesse who, being illegitimate, hated the real princes and was close to the duc de Vendôme. When the campaigns of 1708 and 1709 went badly, therefore, this cabal saw its chance and openly blamed the duc de Bourgogne for not listening to Vendôme and thus being the cause of the current disasters. The story was plausible, and only partly wrong: It was widely believed, and even the king, it was noticed, spoke little and coldly about his grandson. It was not until the end of the second campaign that, having returned to Versailles, and with his wife’s help, the duc was able to convince his grandfather that he had, in fact, done his best. As a result, and to Monseigneur’s rage, the cabal failed. Vendôme was greeted more than coldly; the duc de Bourgogne was taken back into the fold, and with that, the split in the Court became deep and permanent.

Dreadful as the situation was in the fall of 1708, the king soon realized that it was rapidly getting worse. One reason for that was the weather: In 1708-9, the cold came early, grew deeper than in living memory and stayed, it seemed endlessly, ruining much of France’s agriculture. On January 19, 1709, Madame wrote her cousin: “Nobody can remember its being so cold. For the last two weeks, there have been reports every morning of people who have died of the cold; partridges are found frozen in the fields. All the theaters have closed, trials are postponed, neither the présidents nor the conseillers can remain in their courts because it is too cold,”288 On February 2, she went on, to her aunt, Electress Sophia of Hanover: “The cold is so horrible here that nothing like this, they say, has happened since 1606. In Paris only, 24,000 people have died between January 5 and today.”289

And still the cold got worse. At Versailles, the ink froze in the king’s inkpot; in Paris, and the rest of France, people died of the cold and of starvation. As always in a crisis, the stocks of grain proved insufficient, and it was obvious that the next crop would be substantially smaller than usual. Already on June 8, Madame was writing her cousin: “The famine is so violent now that children have eaten one another. The King is so thoroughly decided to continue fighting the war that this morning he sent his entire gold service to the Mint, plates, platters, salt cellars, in a word all the gold he had, to be coined into louis.”290

In a preindustrial age, when a country’s prosperity depended to a large extent on agriculture, this kind of winter was a severe blow, and while Madame complained of the discomfort at Versailles, people not only starved but were ruined. Of course, the immediate consequence of this situation was to aggravate the financial crisis: With commerce virtually stopped - for months on end it was too cold to move goods - and with money scarce, taxes yielded much less than usual. Given the already critical situation of the Treasury, this reduction seemed like the last blow, and so his ministers told the king. As for Mme de Maintenon, her lamentations reached a new degree of intensity. Here was another proof that God intended to punish France, she said: better yield now before something even worse happened.

In fact, although the marquise was a true representative of that odd strain in the French character which has, on occasion, caused some of its citizens to wallow in defeat, the situation did seem nearly hopeless. Not only could the war not be won, but also there seemed to be no reason why the defeats of earlier years would not be repeated, and so, in an act of real courage and utter selflessness, Louis XIV decided to sacrifice his pride, his gloire, and the union with Spain.

First, there was a Council in which the duc de Beauvillier gave so dire an account of the state of the country that the duc de Bourgogne burst into tears, as did several of the ministers. Chamillart and Desmarets both painted the bleakest of pictures; Torcy concluded that peace at any price must now be France’s new policy. It was then decided that secret approaches would be made to the Coalition; when these were ignored, Torcy, the Foreign Minister, volunteered to go to the Hague in person to beg for peace. He arrived there, incognito, on May 22, 1709. It was an unheard-of humiliation, but the king had agreed to this embarrassment as well.

Given this situation, it should have been easy to make peace. In fact, the Allies, drunk with their victories, decided to ask for more than anyone might have thought possible. First, they demanded Strasbourg and Brisach, both still firmly held by France. Then Holland was to be given ten fortified cities in Flanders. That might have been accepted, but next came a demand that Philip V give up the Spanish throne within two months. And, the Allies added, should he refuse to do so, France must then eject him militarily: It was the famous Article IV of these Preliminaries. Finally, in exchange for all of it, the Allies would only give France an armistice (as opposed to a peace treaty): There was no guarantee that they would not start the war again.

“If I have to make war,” Louis XIV said when these demands were read out to the Council, “then I would rather fight my enemies than my children.”291 That position, however logical, was not shared by many: A majority of the ministers continued to prefer peace at any price, and so did Mme de Maintenon, who not only craved an end of the war, but would also have enjoyed watching the discomfiture of her erstwhile friend, Mme des Ursins, for by now, the two ladies, having adopted opposed political positions, had become out and out enemies.

At this point, it would have been easier for the king to give in: His decision to go on fighting shows the extent of his courage, but he knew so well how unpopular the war was that, for the first time, he decided to justify himself to his subjects. A declaration was sent, on June 12, 1709, to the governors of the various provinces, to be printed and posted everywhere. Not only is it of interest as the first such communication ever made by a French government to its people, it also shows the king at his best.

“The hope of peace has been so widespread in the realm that I feel I owe to the fidelity shown me by my people in the course of my reign the consolation of informing them of the reasons why they do not yet enjoy the rest I had intended to give them. I had accepted, to that effect, conditions thoroughly opposed to the safety of my border provinces: but the easier I showed myself, the more I tried to dissipate the concerns my enemies claim they still feel about my power and my future plans, and the more they multiplied their demands; so that, adding, degree by degree, new demands to those they had made at the beginning . . . they showed that their purpose was to enlarge our neighboring states at our expense, and to open roads on which they could invade my kingdom whenever it suited them to fight a new war.” Then the king explained that he would have been forced to carry through all the provisions of the Preliminaries within two months without having a peace treaty in exchange, so that, France having become far more vulnerable, there would have been nothing to stop the Coalition from attacking it anew.

“I do not even mention,” the king went on, mentioning them, “the requests they made that I join my troops to theirs so as to force my grandson off his throne, if he refused to leave it voluntarily . . . Such an alliance would have been against all humanity. But even though my love for my people is no less than that I feel for my own children; even though I share all the suffering caused by the war to such faithful subjects and have shown Europe that I sincerely desired peace, I am convinced that they [his subjects] would refuse to seek it under circumstances so contrary to justice and the honor of France.”292

That being said, there was nothing to do except continue the fighting, and after all those years, and all his attempts at resigning, the king finally decided to replace Chamillart. Daniel Voysin, a hardworking and competent administrator, succeeded him; like Desmarets, he remained in place until the end of the reign. The two ministers discharged their impossible tasks as successfully as possible, making many enemies in the process, and, henceforth, the Council included them both, along with Torcy, and the duc de Beauvillier, the duc de Bourgogne, and Monseigneur.

All through 1709, the defeats continued. First Marlborough took Tournai; then he set siege to Mons, and the maréchal de Villars, who had been transferred to the northern army as the last best hope of France, decided to seek a battle. He found it on September 11 near the little town of Malplaquet, and although the French only lost 8,000 to the enemy’s 21,000 dead, the victory remained with Marlborough, who had broken the French center. Once again, it seemed that the Coalition could not lose. And, of course, Mons was taken.

At least in August, the maréchal du Bourg defeated an Imperial army on the Rhine and preserved Alsace from invasion, but since it seemed all too clear that France could never win the war, Louis XIV went on trying to negotiate. It took both courage and endurance: Nothing is harder than to go on fighting when you are treating for peace. Early in 1710, the maréchal d’Huxelles and the abbé de Polignac were sent off to the little Dutch town of Gertruydenberg, where they were treated as virtual prisoners, but no matter how much Louis XIV was willing to concede - and at one point, it included paying the Coalition troops that would be fighting in Spain - neither Marlborough nor the imperial Ambassador, Count Zinzendorff would settle for anything less that the expulsion of Philip V by the French army itself. That the Austrians, who wanted Spain for the archduke, should have been so demanding is not surprising, but it is startling to find Marlborough, that astute negotiator, adopting the same position.

Of course, that, too, can be explained. Back in England, Marlborough’s wife, the redoubtable Sarah, once Queen Anne’s closest friend, had now lost the royal favor, and in the same way, the queen, who was tired of the war, was beginning to look with favor on the Tories. Should the war end quickly, therefore, the Marlboroughs had a good deal to lose, but if it went on, the duke remained the indispensable man. Under these circumstances, it made perfect sense for Marlborough to back the Austrian demands even if they were unreasonable.

As for the war itself, it continued unabated, and 1710 proved disastrous for France. In June, Douai and Béthune were taken while, in August, Prince Starhemberg, who commanded the Coalition troops, inflicted a major defeat on Philip V’s army. It began to look as if that situation might resolve itself by the collapse of the Franco-Spanish forces, but later that month, the king and Vendôme together triumphed at the battle of Villaviciosa, crushing Starhemberg and ensuring their continued superiority.

At Versailles, where the Treasury was empty, the king insisted on maintaining the splendor of the Court virtually unabated as a way of impressing the Coalition with his ability to fight on, but there were no New Year’s presents on January 1, and the guests at Marly were, henceforth, required to provide their own food. There was at least one happy event: On February 15, the duchesse de Bourgogne gave birth to another son, who was promptly titled duc d’Anjou. Since she already had a five-year-old son, the duc de Bretagne, the succession was doubly assured, and Louis XIV became the only king in the history of France to have two great-grandsons living and in the direct line of succession.

Abroad, too, changes were taking place which clearly favored France: On August 7, Queen Anne dismissed Godolphin, Marlborough’s close ally, and promoted two of the leading Tories, Harley and Saint John, with the enthusiastic approval of her new favorite, Abigail Masham. Then, at the end of September, Parliament was dissolved, and the elections brought in a solid Tory majority. Although the government promptly confirmed Marlborough’s appointments, it was clear that it would also try to end the war. After a long season of despair, the French had reason to hope again, for, without Great Britain, the Coalition was powerless.

These promising developments might be the subject of much comment at Versailles, but still the war went on. And for five years at least, it seemed as if Louis XIV had borne every one of its burdens. “Our King’s face is tremendously changed,” Madame noted, “but he still looks strong and awe-inspiring, and when he speaks he is still pleasant.”293 That he should have been was nothing short of miraculous. We know just how difficult his life had become, partly through Mme de Maintenon’s letters, partly through Torcy’s journal. Scenes like the one which took place on January 27, 1710, were frequent, and greatly added to the king’s already unbearable burden.

That evening, Torcy had suggested sending negotiators to The Hague without further delay. “The King said it was fantastic, and almost stupid, for me to think that one day more or less would make a difference in this kind of negotiation. He stormed against those who spoiled everything by this sort of hurry, and by the way in which they let the enemy know they were eager to conclude at any cost. These reproaches were directed principally to M. de Beauvillier, whom His Majesty named, but I was next, for when I pointed out that it was necessary to anticipate the arrival of Prince Eugene and of the Duke of Marlborough . . . the King did me the honor of saying that he was surprised to hear me urge this when I was the slowest of negotiators. I must admit I did not understand the reason for these reproaches or how I had deserved them, since, far from delaying the execution of my orders, I often acted even before receiving them; but as our masters never think they are wrong, I remained silent and tried to profit from this mortification, coming as it did after so many others.

“This happened in Mme de Maintenon’s room. From her bed, she urged the King to end so important a piece of business. He resisted, fought back, finally gave in, and told me to bring in the letters the next morning.”294 The next day, in fact, the king delayed sending the negotiators.

From the tone of this entry, Torcy’s resentment of the king is clear; he was a minister who carried out a policy he detested on the orders of a king he thought tyrannical and unfair. It is a far cry from the attitude of a Louvois or a Colbert, and cannot have made Louis XIV’s life easier; as for Mme de Maintenon’s nagging, it never stopped. Neither in his moments of relaxation, nor in his Council could the king ever count on any sort of support; his choice was between sullen obedience - Torcy - and bitter reproach from the marquise. The Council itself, in fact, steadfastly opposed the continuation of the war. Beauvillier, Torcy and Desmarets wanted peace at any price; the chancellor often joined them; the duc de Bourgogne usually agreed with Beauvillier, but did not say so since, after all, it was his brother whose throne was tottering. Only Monseigneur backed continued assistance to Spain; in fact, much to everyone’s surprise, he became positively outspoken, once even reminding the ministers that he would be king some day, and that if they had abandoned his son, they would suffer for it. In 1710, Louis XIV was seventy-two: Monseigneur’s threat was by no means idle.

Still, the laments continued. Here are Torcy’s notes on the Council of February 19. “The state of affairs is deplorable. Money is lacking altogether. There is no credit. The troops cannot be raised again. Officers and soldiers are dying of want: there are no supplies, no means of getting any. No one knows how the army will subsist through the next campaign. It is even doubtful it can fight at all. No generals to lead it. It is not sure whether the maréchal de Villars’s wound will allow him to serve, and even if he can, where to find the necessary resources? . . . He speaks only of forcing the enemy to fight at the beginning of the campaign, and when told that the State would perish if he is then beaten, he agrees.”295

Still, by mid-March, it had become clear that there was no choice but to fight: The Coalition was unwilling to treat seriously, in part, no doubt, because it expected future victories to make the French position more difficult still. So yet again, Torcy came up with a way to placate the enemy. At the Council of March 26, he suggested giving Naples and Sicily to Philip V in exchange for Spain, and fighting him if he refused; that, of course, supposed Austria would agree since it was in possession of Naples. “M. le duc de Beauvillier was firmly opposed to my proposal,” Torcy noted, “and spoke at length and eloquently on the injustice of making war on the King of Spain . . .

“Monseigneur le duc de Bourgogne supported him skillfully, speaking about injust wars as the pious and Catholic prince he is. It is not for me to say whether these maxims applied in this case.

“Monseigneur . . . said that there could never be any reason to fight the King of Spain.

“Everyone having spoken, the King, disturbed by all this, listening with chagrin to the sad discussion caused by this unhappy business, told me that he did not agree with me at all, that he would never promise or even consider fighting the King of Spain.”296 That was all very well, but both Torcy and, more important, Mme de Maintenon thought they knew better, and that, with time and effort, they would wear the king down; on May 9, for instance, the marquise told her ally that there was no solution other than declaring war on Philip V, that there was not a moment to be lost, and that she only hoped it was not too late.

In spite of this frenzy of defeatism, the king, aging and sadder than ever before, retained his determination to fight on until he could negotiate a decent peace, and, within a few months, his steadfastness paid off. In January 1711, a secret emissary was sent by Harley, now Earl of Oxford, and Saint John, now Viscount Bolingbroke, to France: The abbé Gautier, a priest belonging to the chapel of the Austrian Ambassador in London, was a man of no importance, but he could hardly have been listened to with more attention if he had been Queen Anne herself.

The two English ministers had good reasons, both to want peace and to be so secretive about it: Not only were the queen and the landowners tired of the war, its end would enable them to encompass Marlborough’s fall; if their approaches became known, however, there might well be a patriotic reaction against them. Still, the negotiations started in earnest; then, on April 17, an event took place which changed the face of Europe: Away in Vienna, the Emperor Joseph I died, and he was succeeded by his brother, the Archduke Charles, the claimant to the Spanish Crown.

All these years, England had been fighting a costly war so as to prevent the accretion of French power consequent on having a Bourbon as king of Spain, and even then, there was every expectation that the French and Spanish branches would remain separate. But now, at one blow, the new Emperor Charles VI would unite Spain and the Austrian possessions, thus creating just the sort of preponderance the English were determined to stop. As a result, peace became possible as long as there was a solemn undertaking on the part of France that the Spanish and French crowns would remain forever distinct.

It began to look, in fact, as if Great Britain was ruining itself for its allies, Austria and Holland, to whom the Flemish cities were to be given and who was, after all, a commercial rival. So the ministers, warmly supported by the queen, began to negotiate in earnest. But after so long and so bitter a war, nothing was simple, and in the meantime, the fighting continued. Once again, Marlborough pushed the French back. Bouchain was taken in September 1711; there seemed to be virtually no obstacle between the armies of the Coalition and Paris, and these ill-timed victories substantially complicated the peace negotiations.

At that point, political reality took over: Backed by a solid majority in the House of Commons, the government dismissed Marlborough from all his offices and tried him for peculation: 1711 had seen the last campaign to be fought by British troops. By 1712, a cease-fire was signed, and on July 19, Louis XIV turned the city of Dunkirk over to the English army under the duke of Ormonde, Marlborough’s replacement, as security for his undertakings in the forthcoming treaty. That, however, left Prince Eugene’s army in the field. On July 6, he took Le Quesnoy and went on to besiege Landrecies. In June, the duc de Vendôme had died in Spain: If Prince Eugene reached Paris, if the French army in Spain, deprived of its commander was beaten, the war would be lost after all; already Louis XIV was considering a move to the Loire in case Paris was taken.

It was at that point that the maréchal de Villars saved his country. He saw that Prince Eugene’s lines at Landrecies were overextended and attacked at the nearby village of Denain on July 24; for the first time in many years, the French won a great victory, and they followed it up by taking Marchiennes six days later. In September and October, Douai, Le Quesnoy, and Bouchain were retaken: Now it was the French who were going forward, and the enemy back.

These victories carried with them the obvious consequence: The Franco-British negotiations which had been taking place at Utrecht were greatly speeded up. Peace was now in sight. After disappearing behind a cloud of blood and tears, the sun came out again: At Versailles, the seventy-four-year-old king, who almost alone had resisted the whole of Europe, was proved right: Never more than in those difficult years had he shown he was fully entitled to be called Louis le Grand.

* The duc de Bourgogne was after all, likely to have children. In fact, his second son became King Louis XV, but in the very long run, the Coalition was right to worry: Today, King Juan Carlos of Spain is Louis XIV’s only direct descendant.

* The duc de Bretagne. He died a year later.

* Gibralter is still a British colony.

* He had campaigned the year before under Marsin in Italy, but in a purely ornamental capacity.

* One of Philip V’s generals.

* Louis XIV usually stayed in Fontainebleau during the month of October.

* The king’s First Physician.

* The second duc de Bretagne, born in 1705.