On this day, Madame de Maintenon writes to a friend from Marly, where she is staying with the King. She reports that she will leave for Maintenon, her own house, tomorrow. “I would like to spend the rest of the summer there, but there is no question of that,” she says. “You know that for a long time now I have had no will of my own. I submit to everything. I offer my efforts to God and I pray that He will call me to Him if my death is necessary for my salvation, and if my life is no longer useful to the King and his people. May His will be done!”
Commentary:
As he ages, Louis XIV spends more and more time at Marly. With just 6 royal apartments besides the King’s and his wife’s, the main pavilion is the smallest and most intimate of his residences. Only invited courtiers may accompany him to Marly. They stay in one or another of the 12 guest pavilions. Mme de Maintenon is not as fond of the place as her lord and master, complaining of the drafts in the central salon.
Pictured: A period print of the château of Marly by Aveline, from my personal collection.
Wherever the King goes, his wife follows. He permits her only brief absences from his side. Since their secret marriage in 1683, Mme de Maintenon has had no life of her own apart from her patronage of the school at Saint-Cyr and the brief stays she is able to make there from time to time.
Pictured: The Maison Royale de Saint Louis, as Saint-Cyr is formally called until the Revolution. The King and Mme de Maintenon are visible in the foreground.
Solo visits to her château of Maintenon are few and far between. The King purchased it for her before their wedding and erected it into a marquisate, which is why she, née Françoise d’Aubigné and called Mme Scarron after her first marriage, is now known as Mme de Maintenon. In the early years of their marriage, the King sometimes accompanied her to Maintenon for brief stays. The Marquis de Dangeau records 2 such visits in 1686, for example, after the first of which the King ordered some renovations at his own expense. By this date, Mme de Maintenon is able to use her château so infrequently that she will soon make it over to her niece.
Pictured: The château at Maintenon as it appears in our day.
The translation from the French is my own, as it always is unless I credit someone else. If you have questions that I have not addressed in the commentary, please ask in the comments.