On this day, a Thursday, the Duc de Luynes leaves the château of Chaulnes, where he has been staying since Monday. Chaulnes is about 11 leagues from Compiègne. Nonetheless, he has been informed that the King hunted 3 times and hosted suppers in his private apartment 2 or 3 times during his absence. The same ladies as usual attended the suppers, except for Mme de Mailly. She was not able to attend because it is her week on duty.
Commentary:
Chaulnes belongs to the Duc de Chaulnes, our diarist’s cousin from the d’Ailly branch of the d’Albert family. M de Luynes, whose full name is Charles-Philippe d’Albert de Luynes, is the head of the senior branch of the family and M de Chaulnes of the junior one. The château of Chaulnes no longer exists.
Pictured: The gate at Chaulnes before the château’s destruction in World War I.
Luynes will have asked permission to leave Compiègne, where the King and Queen have been staying since the 10th, but there would have been no difficulty. He has no official position at court. It is his wife who is a personage of consequence as the Queen’s dame d’honneur, or chief lady-in-waiting. He has now returned to Compiègne for the remainder of the court’s stay, which will go on well into July.
Pictured: A view of the staircase of the château de Compiegne taken by me in July, 2023.
Mme de Mailly is “on duty” as lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Ladies-in-waiting serve on a weekly rota. Being on duty has never previously prevented Mme de Mailly from attending the King’s suppers. Luynes previously reported that Queen Marie once said that she would not dream of preventing any of her ladies from attending any entertainment given by the King even if they were on duty, which means that Mme de Mailly’s absence is not really because of her duty. The signs are becoming ever clearer than Mme de Mailly is about to be supplanted as the King’s mistress by her sister Mlle de Nesle, who has been present at the suppers this week.
If you have questions that I have not addressed in the commentary, please ask in the comments.
Isn’t the pre WW1 card of the gates to Chaulnes fantastic and evocative in its Romance. A novelist’s dream. And the stamp still there…
And…Go Mlle de Nesle!