On this day, Mme de Sévigné records in a letter that Louis XV and Mme de Louvois, the widow of his late, great minister of the same name, have negotiated an exchange of properties. Wishing to obtain a country residence for his son the Dauphin, Louis XIV trades the château of Choisy for the widow’s château of Meudon. Mme de Sévigné remarks that is “a very good bargain; they seem very pleased with it, too.” She goes on to observe that “these are the kind of honest dealings that happen from time to time among commoners, but that one rarely experiences with one’s lord and master.”
Commentary:
Choisy was built for Louis XIV’s cousin Mlle de Montpensier, “la Grande Mademoiselle,” but came to him after her death. It will change hands twice more, eventually becoming Louis XV’s favourite of his private houses.
Pictured: A view of Choisy in Mlle de Montpensier’s time.
Meudon will be much embellished by the Dauphin. It is not used much after his death in 1711. Louis XV’s parents-in-law, Stanislas Leczinski and Catherine Opalinska, live in it briefly before they move to Lorraine in 1737.
Pictured: Louis XIV hunting at Meudon circa 1685.
At the end of our period, Meudon is the sanatorium of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette’s tubercular eldest son, who dies just before the Revolution starts. The air is thought to be good for him.
Neither Choisy nor Meudon subsist in our day apart from a few remnants.
If you have questions that I have not addressed in the commentary, please ask in the comments.