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| La Vie de Mme de Hautefort (Cousin) |
In Dordogne, France, the castle of Hautefort stands as the reminder of the life of righteous Madame de Hautefort, a Louis XIII's favorite, close to the Queen, who played a key role during the Fronde. And when there's a castle, there's always an old book... not far away.
Article
Article
THIRD ARTICLE
Marie de Hautefort
Beauty
& Politics
In
France, where there’s a castle—or a church—there’s
an old book. Rich people and religious people have indeed been the
guardians of arts and culture for dozens of centuries. There lay the beauties
of a chaotic world populated by barbarians and illiterate creatures. Just the
other night, as I was about to enter the castle of Hautefort, one of the most
magnificent castles of Dordogne, I was welcomed in front of the contemporary
drawbridge by a beautiful young actress dressed
in the 17th century fashion. She introduced herself as Marie de
Hautefort. Her name is quite familiar to historians as she was one of the favourites of Louis XIII in her time. As
a devoted Dame d’Atours of Queen Ann
of Austria—Louis XIV’s mother—, she even played an important role during the
troubled reigns of Richelieu and
Mazarin.
Victor Cousin
As I came back from this visit, I soon found out that Madame de Hautefort by Victor Cousin,
was the authoritative biography of this lady. The first edition came out in
1856 in Paris, illustrated with a very nice portrait. The book itself is part
of a series dedicated to some influent women of the 17th century.
“The noble person we’re about to talk about,” warns the author, “does not
belong to the political history of her time; she did not fight against the two
great Cardinals (Richelieu and Mazarin)
of France; she simply refused to sell them her soul, and to betray her friends
and a cause which appeared virtuous to her.” This was already quite enough to
run into serious trouble! Marie was born in 1616, in a castle that has sheltered
many famous people over the years, such as Gui le Noir, Latours—who earned the nickname
le Grand (the Great) during a crusade—,
or the warrior and poet Bertrand de Born. All through the 15th and
the 16th centuries, the castle stood as a rampart against the
English troops.
Marie lost both her parents at a very young age and was
raised by her grandmother, Mme de la Flotte Hauterive, who eventually took her
to Court when she was only twelve. She was beautiful and, as it seems, very
well educated—she soon became a fille
d’honneur of Marie de Medicis, the mother of Louis XIII. Victor Cousin
quotes her first—and not that easy to corner—biography, written by Duchess of
Montmorency (1799): “This charming young lady was introduced to the Court at fourteen,
where she soon earned the nickname of Sunrise.”
She met the King at Lyon, who fell in love with her and who appointed her to the
service of his own wife, Queen Ann of Austria. The Queen reluctantly welcomed
the favourite but soon found out that
she was a virtuous and a loyal young lady. Furthermore, Louis XIII was not an
ardent lover. According to the testimonies of the time—including La
Rochefoucauld’s—, his love for Marie de Hautefort was strictly platonic. Cousin
reports an interesting scene involving the King, his wife and Marie de Hautefort.
Caught by the King while reading a confidential letter, Marie had no choice but
to slip it between her breasts to keep it out of reach. The Queen laughed and
held Marie’s arms in her back, urging her husband to go for the letter. The
King dared not touching Marie and, failing to retrieve the letter with a pair
of pliers, left the room—far from his father Henri IV, indeed.
La Rochefoucauld and La Porte
In his preface, Victor Cousin confesses that he read a few
authoritative books including the Memoirs of La Rochefoucauld: “I had a deep
friendly relationship with Mlle de Hautefort who was young and surprisingly
beautiful,” writes the author of the classic. “She was virtuous and a very
faithful confidant; she was close to the Queen and an enemy to the Cardinal” de
Richelieu. In fact, La Rochefoucauld fell in love with Marie, only to become one of her first victims (cf Cousin).
The Queen started to plot against her husband and his
master, Richelieu, by exchanging compromising letters with her brother Philippe
IV, as France was at war with Spain. Richelieu’s secret police soon revealed
the conspiracy and the Queen had to give some explanations. In order to make
sure she would tell the truth, Richelieu had a certain La Porte arrested—book
lovers know La Porte quite well, as he left some colourful memoirs: he was the one who had carried the
incriminated letters, and his confession had to match the Queen’s.
The Queen had belittled her implication and La Porte’s
confession had to reveal certain things, and to hide others. How could they
agree on what to say when La Porte was jailed in La Bastille under tight scrutiny?
That’s where Mlle de Hautefort intervened. “Mme de Hautefort did all she could
to help the Queen,” writes La Porte. “She could have lost everything. But she
was so passionate for her Queen that she did not hesitate (…). She faced some
terrible dangers to help her out.” Through a friend of her, Marie de Hautefort
got in touch with a Commander of La Bastille, De Jars; one night, she surreptitiously
left the Louvre under disguise, then went to talk to De Jars at La Bastille.
The Commander was hesitant, as his implication could have cost him his life.
“What? Are you hesitating?” said Mme de Hautefort. “What would happen to me, if someone should find out about
it?” De Jars could not resist the persuasive young lady but he couldn’t talk to
La Porte directly; he decided to contact some prisoners from the top floor of
the tower. They lifted a stone from their floor, asked some croquants—or rebellious peasants—from
Bordeaux, who were jailed below, to do the same. They then reached the cell of
the Baron of Tenance who himself dug a hole in the floor of his cell to give
access to the cell of La Porte! The prisoner soon knew exactly what to say and
the accusation never went too far.
Scarron
Richelieu identified Marie de Hautefort as an incorruptible
enemy. He feared her influenced on the King and succeeded in banning her from
the Court. To the King great displeasure, she went to Le Mans where only a
handful of friends would visit her, including La Porte, recently freed from La
Bastille. “La Porte knew her as so intrepid, so pure, and so caring a lady,” writes
Cousin, “that he had given himself out to her as much as to the Queen.” When in
Le Mans, Marie de Hautefort heard of Scarron, the burlesque poet. She became
her protector and even obtained a pension
for him when she came back to the Court, three years later. The poet, who was
suffering from physical disability, portrayed himself as the illustrious sick of the Queen. He dedicated many works to Marie—they
are to be found in Tom. VII of his works (Amsterdam, 1752). Here is one of
them, entitled Travel of the Queen to La
Barre :
Is it so? Such a wreck,
Of the Dukes challenged the courage?
And the Duke of Ventadour
Lost everything, but the love he had;
That love that left him the strength
To walk like a Sarabande,
Notwithstanding his limping,
To offer himself, humble and subdued,
To your heart, my so good and so beautiful,
My incomparable Hautefort,
The only mistress of his fortune.
In 1643, Louis XIII died, and the Queen, and mother of the
young Louis XIV, became the regent of the kingdom. La Porte and Mme de
Hautefort came back triumphantly to the Court. But the Queen was in charge and
her political decisions soon hurt her former friends. Cardinal Mazarin, who had
succeeded his mentor, Cardinal Richelieu, wan the heart of the Queen—some say
he wan more than that—and tried to bribe Mme de Hautefort. He did not succeed,
and had her disgraced again. This was a very trouble time in France and Marie
was no politician. She suffered as a friend, the political decisions of the
Queen and retired from the Court. In 1646, she married the powerful Maréchal de Schomberg, and became Mme de
Schomberg. Her husband died a few years
later and Mme de Hautefort led a confortable life, exchanging letters with
various authors, especially Benserade. She died in 1691, aged 75, leaving no
children.
The biography of Victor Cousin is quite interesting as he
added a previously unpublished manuscript biography of Mme de Hautefort, as
well as two important indexes: the story of the house of Hautefort, and a
portray of Mme de Chevreuse, whose life was closely linked to Mme de
Hautefort’s. Marie did not spend a lot of time in the castle that bears her
name but the old and dignified stones of the monument keep on reminding of her
life, her beauty and her determination.
Thibault Ehrengardt
-
Victor Cousin: Madame de Hautefort et
Madame de Chevreuse (Paris, 1856).
-
La Porte: Mémoires (Genève, 1755).
-
La Rochefoucauld: Mémoires de M.D.L.R
(Cologne, 1669—first edition 1662).
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