Letters from Spain: A Seventeenth-Century French Noblewoman at the Spanish Royal Court (Volume 80) (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series) [Illustrated] 1649590105, 9781649590107

Table of contents :
Cover
Series Page
Title Page
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Illustrations
Introduction
The Other Voice
A Diplomatic Life
Women and the Epistolary Arts
The Marquise de Villars, Letter Writer and Travel Writer
The Self-Fashioning of an Ambassadress
The Extant Letters of the Marquise de Villars
A Note on the Translation
Letters from Spain (1679–1681)
Appendix: Three Additional Letters by the Marquise de Villars
Letter A: To the Marquise de Sévigné, Paris, August 25, 1673
Letter B: To Simon Arnauld, Marquis de Pomponne, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Turin, November 1, 1676
Letter C: To Simon Arnauld, Marquis de Pomponne, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Turin, September 11, 1677
Bibliography
Index
Series Titles

Citation preview

Marie Gigault de Bellefonds, marquise de Villars

Letters from Spain: A Seventeenth-Century French Noblewoman at the Spanish Royal Court E D I TE D A N D T R A N SL AT E D B Y

Nathalie Hester

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, 80

LETTERS FROM SPAIN

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, 80

FOUNDING EDITORS Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. SERIES EDITOR Margaret L. King SERIES EDITOR, ENGLISH TEXTS Elizabeth H. Hageman

In memory of Albert Rabil, Jr. (1934–2021)

MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS

Letters from Spain: A Seventeenth-Century French Noblewoman at the Spanish Royal Court • Edited and translated by NATHALIE HESTER

2021

© Iter Inc. 2021 New York and Toronto IterPress.org All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America ISBN 978-1-64959-010-7 (paper) ISBN 978-1-64959-011-4 (ebook) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Villars, Marie Gigault de Bellefonds, marquise de, 1624-1706, author. | Hester, Nathalie, 1970editor, translator. Title: Letters from Spain : a seventeenth-century French noblewoman at the Spanish Royal Court / Marie Gigault de Bellefonds, marquise de Villars ; edited and translated by Nathalie Hester. Other titles: Lettres de Madame la Marquise de Villars. English | Seventeenth-century French noblewoman at the Spanish Royal Court Description: New York : Iter Press, 2021. | Series: The other voice in early modern Europe : the Toronto series ; 80 | Letters translated from French into English by the editor. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: "Translation and critical study of thirty-seven letters to friends at home, written 1679-1681 by Marie Gigault de Bellefonds, marquise de Villars, French noblewoman and wife of French ambassador Pierre de Villars, describing life at the Spanish court at a troubled time"-- Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2020039363 (print) | LCCN 2020039364 (ebook) | ISBN 9781649590107 (paperback) | ISBN 9781649590114 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Villars, Marie Gigault de Bellefonds, marquise de, 1624-1706--Correspondence. | Diplomats' spouses--Spain--Correspondence. | Spain--Description and travel. | Spain--Social life and customs--18th century. | Spain--History--Charles II, 1665-1700. | Spain--Court and courtiers. Classification: LCC DP189.V5 A5 2021 (print) | LCC DP189.V5 (ebook) | DDC 327.44046092 [B]--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039363 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039364 Cover Illustration Portrait of Marie-Louise d’Orléans, queen consort of Spain, 1679–1689, Château de Versailles. Wikimedia Foundation. “File:Marie-Louise d'Orléans, reine d'Espagne.jpg.” Wikimedia Commons. Page last modified 9 November, 2019. . Cover Design Maureen Morin, Library Communications, University of Toronto Libraries.

For my father, Ralph M. Hester (1931–2020), who taught me the love of language.

Contents Acknowledgments

vii

Illustrations

ix

Introduction The Other Voice A Diplomatic Life Women and the Epistolary Arts The Marquise de Villars, Letter Writer and Travel Writer The Self-Fashioning of an Ambassadress The Extant Letters of the Marquise de Villars A Note on the Translation

1 1 2 7 9 12 18 19

Letters from Spain (1679–1681)

21

Appendix: Three Additional Letters by the Marquise de Villars Letter A: To the Marquise de Sévigné, Paris, August 25, 1673 Letter B: To Simon Arnauld, Marquis de Pomponne, Secretary of   State for Foreign Affairs, Turin, November 1, 1676 Letter C: To Simon Arnauld, Marquis de Pomponne, Secretary of   State for Foreign Affairs, Turin, September 11, 1677

77 77

Bibliography

85

Index

91

80 81

Acknowledgments The idea for this volume has its origins in the second iteration of the NEH Summer Institute, “A Literature of Their Own: Women’s Writing in Venice-London-Paris, 1550–1700.” Al Rabil, who, sadly, passed away while this volume was in production, was the inspired and inspiring force behind the institute. Al and his wife, Janet, were gracious hosts in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and helped create a uniquely engaging and supportive learning community. Among the eminent scholars who led our discussions was Elizabeth Goldsmith, a generous guide for my research on seventeenth-century French women writers and a reader of this volume’s introduction. Sarah Nelson, also a participant in the institute, has always been an engaging interlocutor and helped with portions of this volume. I am deeply grateful to Margaret King, the patient and rigorous editor of the Other Voice in Early Modern Europe series. The anonymous reader’s comments on the manuscript and Cheryl Lemmens’ eagle-eyed copy-editing were invaluable to the project. I am thankful for the example and support of colleagues and mentors who have published in the Other Voice series: Virginia Cox, Anne Cruz, Maria Galli Stampino, Suzanne Magnanini, Amanda Powell, Meredith Ray, Diana Robin, Margaret Rosenthal, Anne Jacobson Schutte, Elissa Weaver, and Lynn Westwater. The Oregon Humanities Center and the Giustina Family Professorship Fund at the University of Oregon supported financially the publication of this volume. My husband, Craig, was a stalwart supporter of this project from beginning to end.

ix

Illustrations Cover.

Portrait of Marie-Louise d’Orléans, queen consort of Spain, 1679– 1689, Château de Versailles. Wikimedia Commons.  .

Figure 1. Rizi or Ricci, Francisco (1608-1685). Auto-da-fé in the Plaza Mayor, Madrid, 1683 (oil on canvas). Bridgeman Images XOS3247805. Figure 2. Reproduction of a page from Bellefonds-Villars’ letter to Simon Arnauld, Marquis de Pomponne, September 11, 1677. Archives du Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires étrangères.

xi

Introduction The Other Voice When Marie Gigault de Bellefonds, marquise de Villars, joined her ambassador husband in Madrid in October 1679, she was long established in aristocratic circles. She had entered Parisian society almost three decades earlier and was a regular presence at the most popular salons of the time. She frequented the gatherings hosted by the marquise d’Uxelles, and kept company with acclaimed writer the comtesse de La Fayette, as well as the marquise de Sévigné, best known to posterity as the grande dame of French epistolary writing.1 Unlike many women in her social milieu, however, Bellefonds-Villars traveled internationally as an ambassadrice, and played a significant role in supporting French interests abroad. In 1676 she traveled to the Savoy court in Turin, to which Louis XIV had sent her husband, Pierre de Villars, as French ambassador. She later moved to Madrid to be with him for his third ambassadorship to Spain. Her letters from Madrid were highly anticipated and eagerly received by her French acquaintances. During her two-year stay there, she wrote to several correspondents, including her good friend, Marie-Angélique du Gué de Bagnols, dame de Coulanges (ca. 1641–1723). A selection of her extant letters to Coulanges was first published posthumously, in 1749, and in nine subsequent editions. With the publication of this translation, the letters appear in print for the first time since 1923. Just as Bellefonds-Villars was esteemed by her peers during her lifetime, so her published letters enjoyed a positive reception. They receive uniform praise for their liveliness, insights, and tantalizing information. Her first editor, DenisMarius Perrin, commends the missives: Not only are they very enjoyable to read, but also very intriguing, because of the anecdotes one finds in them on the subject of the union of Charles II with Marie-Louise d’Orléans, daughter of Philippe d’Orléans, Louis XIV’s brother, and because of the portrait that 1. Marie de Bailleul, marquise d’Uxelles (ca. 1626–1712), mentioned at the end of Bellefonds-Villars’ Letter 22; Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, comtesse de La Fayette (1634–1693), mentioned in Letter 9; and Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné (1626–1696), mentioned in Letters 9 and 28. Although it was common in seventeenth-century France to refer to a married noblewoman as Madame de, followed by her husband’s surname, I use married titles such as marquise, comtesse, and duchesse to refer to artistocratic women, in keeping with scholarly practice. For the sake of clarity and efficiency, however, I use “Bellefonds-Villars” to differentiate the marquise de Villars from her husband, Pierre de Villars, to whom I refer as “Villars.” In her surviving manuscript letters written after her marriage, she signs her letters “De Bellefont” or “De Bellefont Villars,” indicating that she identified herself by her maiden name as well as her married name.

1

2 Introduction Madame de Villars paints of the customs of the country and the mores of the court of Spain.2 In a nineteenth-century literary journal article on French women who traveled to Spain, Ferdinand Colincamp echoes Perrin’s comments: When we listen to [Madame de Villars], we see ourselves in a salon at Versailles, or else with Madame de Sévigné or de la Fayette: it’s a tempered exchange, with veiled terms. The details are singular and carefully chosen [. . .]. A light irony flickers about like bees around it all.3 Certainly the regular reprinting of Bellefonds-Villars’ letters, as well as references to her missives in works about late seventeenth-century Spanish-French relations, attest to the appreciation of this letter writer through the early twentieth century, both for the content of the missives and for their expressive style.

A Diplomatic Life Marie Gigault de Bellefonds was born into a noble family in Normandy, near Valognes, in 1624.4 Shortly after arriving in Paris, in about 1650, she met Pierre de Villars (1623–1698), who served the French cavalry officer Charles-Amédée de Savoie, duc de Nemours (1624–1652), and was known for his excellent military skills, charm, and good looks. A witness to the early courtship of Bellefonds and Villars caught sight of Villars as he dashed away and nicknamed him Orondate, after a handsome character in Madeleine de Scudéry’s popular novel Artamène, or the Great Cyrus (1649–1653).5 The Villars, married in January 1651, made a 2. Marie Gigault de Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres de Madame la Marquise de Villars, ambassadrice en Espagne, dans le tems du mariage de Charles II, roi d’Espagne, avec Marie-Louise d’Orléans, fille de Monsieur (Amsterdam and Paris: Michel Lambert, 1759), Introduction, iv. All translations are mine unless noted otherwise. 3. Ferdinand Colincamp, “Deux françaises en Espagne à la fin du XVIIe siècle,” Le Correspondant, vol. 19 (Paris: Bureaux du Correspondant, 1877), 250. 4. For biographical information I have consulted the meticulous work of Alfred Morel-Fatio and Charles Jean Melchior de Vogüé (the marquis de Vogüé), who edited and introduced, respectively, Pierre de Villars’ Mémoires de la Cour d’Espagne de 1679 à 1681 (Paris: Plon, 1893; hereafter cited as “Villars, Mémoires”), and Alfred de Courtois, editor of Bellefonds-Villars’ Lettres à Madame de Coulanges: 1679–1681 (Paris: Henri Plon, 1868). 5. This anecdote is recounted in several sources, including the memoirs of the soldier and diplomat Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon (1675–1755). See the Mémoires complets et authentiques du duc de Saint-Simon sur le siècle de Louis XIV et la Régence, vol. 3: 1700–1703 (Paris: H.-L. Delloye, 1840), 157–59.

Introduction 3 beautiful but financially strapped couple, as Villars had relatively little family wealth. Complicating matters was his participation as second to the duc de Nemours in that nobleman’s duel with his brother-in-law, the duc de Beaufort. Nemours was killed by Beaufort, but Villars killed Beaufort’s second, the comte d’Héricourt, and was forced to flee to Vienna.6 After the death of Nemours, Villars ingratiated himself with Armand de Bourbon, prince de Conti (1629–1666), whom he served after Conti’s marriage in 1654 to Anne-Marie Martinozzi (1637–1672), a niece of Cardinal Jules Mazarin (1602–1661), Louis XIV’s chief minister. Villars fought in Louis XIV’s military campaign in Flanders in 1667, but although respected and admired, he was hindered in his career because of conflicts between his nephew, Bernardin Gigault de Bellefonds, maréchal de France (1630–1694), and François Michel le Tellier, marquis de Louvois (1641–1691), Louis XIV’s secretary of state for war.7 Pierre de Villars eventually asked the king for a diplomatic post and was appointed extraordinary ambassador to Spain to announce officially the birth of Louis XIV’s second son to the regent of Spain, Mariana of Austria (1634–1696). The Treaty of Aix-laChapelle had only recently been signed when Villars arrived in Spain in the fall of 1668.8 Meanwhile, Bellefonds-Villars remained in Paris with her children.9 She kept up friendships with well-connected women such as the marquise de Sévigné, whose own letters express affection for Bellefonds-Villars.10 Villars left his post in 6. See Villars, Mémoires, x. Héricourt is identified by his title in an earlier edition of Villars’ Mémoires; see Mémoires de la Cour d’Espagne, sous la [sic] regne de Charles II, 1678–1682, ed. Sir William Stirling-Maxwell (London: Whittingham and Wilkins, 1861), vi. 7. Alfred de Courtois, introduction to Lettres à Madame de Coulanges, 16. 8. The 1668 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, or Aachen, temporarily settled French and Spanish territorial disputes in the Spanish Netherlands and the Franche-Comté. 9. The Villars had nine children, seven of whom survived to adulthood (Courtois lists eight, including a son, Pierre-Hyacinthe, who died aged five, but excluding a daughter, Laurence Eléonore, who may also have died as a child). Two of them, Félix and Charlotte, were with their parents during the 1679– 1681 embassy to Madrid. Although Courtois surmises that Thérèse de Villars was the other child, it was the fifteen-year-old Charlotte who acompanied them. See Courtois, introduction to Lettres à Madame de Coulanges, 77–78, and Villars, Mémoires, xlvi. Laurence Eléonore de Villars (b. 1666) is listed in Père Anselme de Sainte-Marie’s Histoire généalogique et chronologique de la maison royale de France, 3rd ed., 9 vols. (Paris: Compagnie de Libraires, 1726–1733), 5:106. 10. The marquise de Sévigné’s letters are a significant source of information about Bellefonds-Villars. Both women had sons in the army. Of Louis XIV’s 1667 invasion of Flanders, Sévigné writes on August 1 of that year: “Meanwhile the king amuses himself in taking Flanders, and Castel Rodrigue [the governor of Flanders] in retreating from all the towns that His Majesty wants to have. Almost everyone is worried for a son, or a brother, or a husband because, despite all our prosperity, there are always those who are wounded or killed.” See Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné, Lettres de Madame de Sévigné, de sa famille, et de ses amis, ed. Louis-Jean-Nicolas Monmerqué, 14 vols. (Paris: Hachette, 1862–1868), 1:495.

4 Introduction Spain in October 1669, but returned to Madrid in 1671, this time as ordinary ambassador and hoping to prevent Spain from fighting French and English interests in the Spanish Netherlands. War there began in 1672 and, after the French victory at Maastricht in 1673, Villars’ life at the Spanish court became untenable. He was also out of funds, and took his leave at the end of that year.11 In 1676, the Villars’ friend, Simon Arnauld, marquis de Pomponne (1618– 1699), secretary of state for foreign affairs, had Villars named ambassador to the court of Savoy. The ambassadorial post to Savoy was a less hazardous appointment, since the court was pro-French. Bellefonds-Villars arrived in Turin in late October, several months after her husband.12 As the regent, Marie Jeanne Baptiste de Savoie-Nemours (1644–1724), known as “Madame Royale,” began to see more of the French ambassadrice, Bellefonds-Villars strove to facilitate an agreement for the regent’s son, prince Victor Amadeus, aged eleven at the time, to marry a niece of Louis XIV.13 In September 1677, the Villars caused a stir by intervening in a love scandal. The renowned musician Alessandro Stradella (1639–1682), hired by the Venetian nobleman Alvise Contarini to provide lessons to his mistress, began his own relationship with her. The couple fled Venice and eventually went to Turin. Two men, presumably hired by Contarini, attacked Stradella there and then escaped police by entering the Villars’ residence. Villars agreed to give the men immunity and personally accompanied them, hidden in his carriage, to safety across the French border. The incident did nothing to incur further favor with Madame Royale, who

11. A letter from August 1668 from Bellefonds-Villars to Hugues de Lionne (1611–1671), the French secretary of state of foreign affairs, pleads for more funds for her husband at the Court of Spain. See Villars, Mémoires, xx. For a discussion of the financial burdens faced by ambassadors, see William James Roosen, The Age of Louis XIV: The Rise of Modern Diplomacy (Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Co., 1976), 71–72. 12. Bellefonds-Villars’ travels were delayed while her husband struggled to settle the question of which seat she would occupy as French ambassadress at the court of Savoy. Louis XIV wanted the ambassadress to benefit from a chair with a back, while the regent’s protocol was for ambassadors’ wives to sit on a stool. Seating and etiquette were considered of primary importance to relationships within courts, as rank—and recognition of rank—were central to both social and political interactions. See Villars, Mémoires, xxxi–xxxiii. For an analysis of etiquette at the court of Louis XIV see Giora Sternberg, Status Interaction During the Reign of Louis XIV (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 13. Marie Jeanne Baptiste de Savoie-Nemours, widow of Charles Emmanuel II and regent of Victor Amadeus Francis II of Savoy (1666–1732), was the daughter of the duc de Nemours, whom the marquis de Villars had served until the duke’s death. Bellefonds-Villars advanced French interests by advocating that Victor Amadeus marry Anne-Marie d’Orléans (1669–1728). Anne-Marie was the sister of Marie-Louise d’Orléans, queen consort of Spain and a central figure in Bellefonds-Villars’ letters from Madrid. The marriage of Anne-Marie and Victor Amadeus eventually took place, in 1684.

Introduction 5 was already skeptical of Bellefonds-Villars, and she was asked to leave soon after.14 Her husband stayed on through 1678 and then returned to Paris. Villars did not remain long in France. After the conclusion of the Treaty of Nijmegen in 1679, which ended the Franco-Dutch War and in which Spain made significant concessions to France, there was a renewed effort on the part of France to ease relations between the two countries. The Spanish were interested in a marriage between Charles II (1661–1700), the heir to the throne, and Marie-Louise d’Orléans (1662–1689), daughter of Philippe d’Orléans, Louis XIV’s brother, and Henrietta of England. Villars was considered a seasoned candidate for overseeing this new alliance, and he left for Spain as ordinary ambassador in May 1679. The marriage contract was signed in August 1679, and Bellefonds-Villars joined her husband in Madrid two months later. When the Villars settled in Spain, the court had been in financial and political turmoil for a number of years. Following the death of Philip IV in 1665, Mariana of Austria had become regent of her son, Charles II, then only four years old. Mariana appointed her confessor, Austrian Jesuit Johann Eberhard Nithard (1607–1681), as de facto prime minister. When enough opposition to Nithard was mounted, Mariana appointed another favorite (valido)—Fernando de Valenzuela, marquis of Villa Sierra (1636–1692)—as prime minister.15 Internal intrigues aside, there were other serious problems facing the Spanish court. Charles II, the product of generations of consanguinity in the Spanish Habsburg dynasty, was physically and mentally disabled.16 Known later as el hechizado, “the bewitched,” he was considered too fragile for any extensive education, and, although the information was never made public, he was infertile. Charles was particularly vulnerable to the manipulations of different parties vying for power, especially ministers and the Spanish nobility.17 Don Juan José of Austria (John of Austria, 1629–1679), the illegitimate son of Philip IV, had many supporters, and his eyes on the Spanish throne. After Charles came of age in 1675, Don Juan convinced the young king to remove prime minister Valenzuela and send Mariana from the court to Toledo. Don Juan became prime minister and garnered Spain’s participation in the Peace of Nijmegen in 1678. He made no attempt to educate the already intellectually neglected king, and annulled a 14. Villars, Mémoires, xl–xliii. The marquis de Vogüé writes that the relationship between BellefondsVillars and Madame Royale was always fraught and that the regent was happy to see Bellefonds-Villars go. 15. Regarding Mariana of Austria’s political influence, see Silvia Z. Mitchell, Queen, Mother, and Stateswoman: Mariana of Austria and the Government of Spain (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019). 16. His father, Philip IV, was his mother’s uncle. 17. For an overview of the different factions of the court of Spain, see Marie-Françoise Maquart, L’Espagne de Charles II et la France, 1665–1700 (Toulouse: Presses universitaires du Mirail, 2000).

6 Introduction marriage contract arranged by the regent between Charles and Maria Antonia, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I.18 By the time Villars arrived in Madrid, it was clear that Don Juan had plenty of enemies, some of whom had offered to assassinate him on behalf of Mariana.19 Because Don Juan demanded an etiquette that the French considered above his rank, Villars never met with him. Charles eventually agreed to have Don Juan removed from court. Don Juan died unexpectedly, perhaps from poisoning, on September 17, 1679, and Charles retrieved his mother from Toledo a few days later. She continued to exercise power in favor of the house of Austria until her death in 1696. According to both Villars and Bellefonds-Villars, Charles, who had seen the portrait of Marie-Louise d’Orléans, was smitten by his bride-to-be and eager to meet her. Marie-Louise’s convoy arrived at the Spanish border on November 1, 1679. By this time Charles was in Burgos, where the wedding ceremony was to take place. Villars was granted permission to meet Marie-Louise, who was already unhappy with the new rules of Spanish etiquette and the political maneuvering around her.20 Because the archbishop of Burgos was very ill, the wedding venue was moved to Quintanapalla, a small village near Burgos where the new queen was staying. Villars, however, almost missed the ceremony; he had been misled by Don Jerónimo de Eguía, the secretary of state, who claimed the wedding was still taking place in Burgos. In the end, Villars and the extraordinary French ambassador, the prince d’Harcourt, reached Quintanapalla in time for the ceremony. Since neither the king nor the queen spoke each other’s language, Villars served as translator at their first meeting. In the words from Villars’ memoirs of his ambassadorship, he “had them say to each other what they would have thought most courteous.”21 The royal convoy arrived near Madrid in early December, and Marie-Louise d’Orléans made her ceremonial entry into Madrid the following month.22 Both Villars’ memoirs and Bellefonds-Villars’ letters attest to the challenges of their two-year stay in Madrid. In addition to seemingly irreparable relations between the two countries and an abundance of political intrigues around a weak king, the Villars had to contend with a succession of conflicts, including attacks on 18. Courtois, introduction to Lettres à Madame de Coulanges, 41–42. 19. Courtois, 45n1. 20. Villars, Mémoires, 95–96. 21. Villars, Mémoires, 99. 22. The ceremony is recounted in Relación compendiosa del recibimiento, y entrada triunfante de la Reyna Nuestra Señora D. María Luisa de Borbón. En la muy noble, leal Coronada Villa de Madrid. A 13 de Enero 1680 (Madrid: Bernardo Villa-Diego, Madrid, 1680), and translated into French as Nouvelle relation de la magnifique et royale entrée qui a été faite à Madrid par Marie-Louise de Bourbon, reine des Espagnes (Paris: A. Chouqueux, 1680). The periodicals Gazeta de Madrid and Gazette de France published regular accounts of royal ceremonies and travels.

Introduction 7 their servants and the termination of traditional ambassadorial privileges. Court finances, moreover, were in disarray, and poverty in Madrid was widespread. And although Charles adored his French wife, he was resolutely anti-French. As the ambassadorship went on, members of the Spanish court became increasingly hostile toward the French ambassador. In France, rumors spread that BellefondsVillars was using her friendship with the queen to advance her own ambitions. In the end, Louis XIV recalled ambassador Villars upon the request of the Spanish prime minister, Juan Francisco de la Cerda, duke of Medinaceli (1637– 1691), who was deeply suspicious of the queen’s French entourage and perceived the king as increasingly vulnerable to the queen’s requests. Rumors circulated that the decision was a result of Bellefonds-Villars’ plottings at the court. She left Spain in May 1681, and Villars took official leave of the court of Spain in August of the same year. Despite the disappointments of this ambassadorial assignment, however, the Villars remained in Louis XIV’s good graces. Villars began serving as extraordinary ambassador to Denmark in 1683, and received several honorific titles during his years of service to the French Crown before his death in 1698. Bellefonds-Villars continued her close friendships with the marquise de Sévigné and dame de Coulanges, and died in Paris in 1706.

Women and the Epistolary Arts Bellefonds-Villars’ letters conform precisely to the aristocratic climate of epistolary writing in this era. Social letter writing in seventeenth-century France adhered to the parameters for polite conversation that were codified in the salons and courtly settings:23 The art of epistolary writing and the art of conversation combine the same aesthetic values and establish the same ethics of sociability, in which spontaneity, naturalness, variety, and cheerfulness are expected to transmit the subtly surveilled flow of words within the controlled scenography of conversation.24 Notions of spoken and written expression reflected similar ideas about what constituted pleasing and commendable communication. Like the familiar letter genre, which humanist culture brought to prominence in early modern Europe, the art of conversation became the subject of treatises and prescriptive texts. The 23. “With the permanent aim of pleasing, conversation developed a precise strategy involving politesse [politeness], esprit [wit], galanterie, complaisance (obligingness), enjouement (cheerfulness), and flatterie.” See Benedetta Craveri, The Age of Conversation, trans. Teresa Waugh (New York: New York Review Books, 2005), 345. 24. Brigitte Diaz, L’épistolaire, ou la pensée nomade: Formes et fonctions de la correspondance dans quelques parcours d’écrivains au XIXe siècle (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2002), 25.

8 Introduction emergence of the courtesy book in sixteenth-century Italy, from Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier (1528) to Stefano Guazzo’s The Civil Conversation (1574), reflected in literary form a new social reality. As Elizabeth Goldsmith writes, “Cultural transformations caused by unprecedented social mobility turned everyone’s attention to the technique of personal image-making.”25 Mastering the rules of conversation was central to controlling how one would be perceived in social settings, including in communications from a distance. Accordingly, letter writing manuals, such as Francesco Sansovino’s Del secretario (1564), became increasingly popular, as did letter collections. Significantly, seventeenth-century discussions of epistolary writing established that letter writing was an especially suitable form of expression for women.26 Women were associated with successful letter writing because, according to gender norms of the time, women’s expression had the spontaneity, simplicity, and naturalness that ideal letters were said to require. Implied in these gender distinctions was the exclusion of women from other forms of authorship considered to require a deeper intellectual effort or scholarly preparation.27 Nevertheless, just as women played a key role in the creation of salon culture, they also contributed to the development of social epistolary writing.28 Katharine A. Jensen writes that the “view of women as superior letter writers related to the power they exercised in

25. Elizabeth Goldsmith, “Exclusive Conversations”: The Art of Interaction in Seventeenth-Century France (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), 5. 26. “Over and over again we read that the female writing style is somehow particularly adapted to the epistolary form.” Elizabeth C. Goldsmith, “Authority, Authenticity, and the Publication of Letters by Women,” in Writing the Female Voice: Essays on Epistolary Literature, ed. Elizabeth C. Goldsmith (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1989), 47. 27. “The adjectives [used to describe women’s letters] reveal an ideology of the natural constituted within an aesthetic value that women were said to embody, one which again signifies their being external to, or excluded from, culture.” See Christine Planté, ed., L’épistolaire, un genre féminin (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1998), 17–18. 28. “The arrival of women on the literary stage in the seventeenth century is the cause, or the consequence, or perhaps both, of a change in epistolary sociability. While letters had previously been an instrument of argumentation and dissemination of ideas in the humanist microcosm, they now become, more humbly, the means of creating ties within a group, a clan, or a salon, positioning its participants in a complicity of artifice. Within these new epistolary connections, women appear very quickly as their relays and privileged vectors.” Diaz, L’épistolaire, ou la pensée nomade, 21, quoted in Lettres de femmes: Textes inédits et oubliés du XVIe au XVIIe siècle, ed. Elizabeth C. Goldsmith and Colette H. Winn (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2005), xxi. Epistolary writing was only one area of written expression to which women contributed in seventeenth-century France. Foundational studies such as Joan DeJean’s Tender Geographies: Women and the Origin of the Novel in France (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), and Faith E. Beasley’s Revising Memory: Women’s Fiction and Memoirs in Seventeenth-Century France (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990), have established the central role of women writers in the development of the novel and the memoir.

Introduction 9 the salon as arbiters of language and social interaction.”29 The attention to women and epistolary writing was both a reflection of the significant role of women in aristocratic French culture and an effort to circumscribe that role. Creating an impression of spontaneity and naturalness was, of course, dependent on thoughtful deliberation, and French women were attentive to the reception of their letters among their peers.30 While social letters were addressed to a single correspondent, it was common practice to share them in relatively intimate gatherings among friends and acquaintances and to discuss the content and the stylistic qualities of letters. Participating in a salon conversation and writing to a friend required cautious attention to whom might be listening or reading.31 For Marie Gigault de Bellefonds, marquise de Villars, when writing as an ambassadress, crafting her correspondence required an additional level of care and consideration.

The Marquise de Villars, Letter Writer and Travel Writer Bellefonds-Villars’ surviving letters to Marie-Angélique de Coulanges, sent at regular intervals between November 1679 and May 1681, possess all the expected elements of polite social conversation: pleasant storytelling, eloquent if brief descriptions, praise for her correspondent and members of their social circle, and invitations to dialogue. In fact, she uses verbs of oral communication: to speak, to say, to tell. Like her female contemporaries, Bellefonds-Villars had to engage in the careful creation of a woman narrator-character conveying modesty, courtesy, wit, and good taste.32 Coulanges was a judiciously chosen correspondent, since she was close to Françoise d’Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon (1635–1719), 29. Katharine A. Jensen, “Male Models of Feminine Epistolary,” in Elizabeth C. Goldsmith, ed., Writing the Female Voice: Essays on Epistolary Literature (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1989), 28. 30. “Letter writing inevitably involved a conscious structuring effort, not only to follow epistolary conventions but also in anticipation of a public beyond the correspondent. Letters were often read aloud in the salons or circulated among acquaintances, to be admired and criticized.” See Elizabeth J. MacArthur, Extravagant Narratives: Closure and Dynamics in the Epistolary Form (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 42. 31. The publication of literary or fictional letters, along with letter writing manuals, increased over the century. For an overview of women’s contributions to these genres in the seventeenth-century, see the introduction to Madeleine de Scudéry, Selected Letters, Orations, and Rhetorical Dialogues, ed. and trans. Jane Donawerth and Julie Strongson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). 32. Introductions to nineteenth-century editions of Bellefonds-Villars’ letters reproduce the gendered assessments of the style of earlier centuries. One editor, for example, writes that “they [the letters] are written in a simple, easy, and pleasant style; it’s that of a woman with a natural sense and wit, combined with the kind of delicate and subtle tone that distinguishes good company.” See Lettres de Mmes de Villars, de La Fayette, et de Tencin: accompagnées de notes biographiques et de notes explicatives par Louis-Simon Auger (Paris: Chaumerot jeune, 1823), 2.

10 Introduction Louis XIV’s mistress and eventually his second wife.33 Through this letter writing, Bellefonds-Villars was able to maintain close ties with Parisian salons and major French female cultural and literary figures of her time. Madame de Sévigné eagerly describes her correspondence with Coulanges: “Madame de Villars sends a thousand pleasant things to Madame de Coulanges, to whose home we go to get the news. They are accounts that bring joy to many people. Monsieur de la Rochefoucauld is curious about them. Madame de Vins and I glean from them what we can.”34 Bellefonds-Villars’ letters to Madame de Coulanges begin by recounting Marie-Louise d’Orléans’ arrival in Spain and the events leading up to the wedding ceremony. Although Bellefonds-Villars reached Madrid before the wedding, she did not attend it. The principal thread of Bellefonds-Villars’ missives revolves around the female spaces and relations of the Spanish court: the two queens, the new queen’s powerful governess, and the lives and work of the maids and maidens of honor. Bellefonds-Villars also describes the challenges of her diplomatic role, including the lack of funds given to ambassadors, the struggle to maintain ambassadorial privileges, and even the threat of attacks on the ambassador’s residence. She rightly characterizes her and her husband’s status in Madrid as unstable and unpredictable. In addition, Bellefonds-Villars is a principal witness, in this two-year period, to the trials and tribulations of Marie Mancini (1639–1715), the runaway French aristocrat and a subject of endless curiosity. Mancini, the niece of Cardinal Mazarin, was married to Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna (1637–1689), a Roman nobleman and grand constable of the kingdom of Naples. Mancini left her husband and at first traveled with her sister Hortense (1646–1699), who had also fled a disastrous marriage in England. Mancini published her memoirs in 1677, following the publication of an unauthorized autobiography.35 When Bellefonds-Villars met Mancini in 1679, she was staying in a convent in Madrid and trying to negotiate an official separation from her husband, who had been appointed viceroy of Aragon in 1678 and had moved to Spain with their three sons. Bellefonds-Villars’ letters, which convey sympathy for Mancini, provide regular updates on her troubles. While Bellefonds-Villars’ missives follow the parameters of epistolary writing, at the same time they incorporate what would have been considered the required elements of travel writing: attention to courtly rituals and etiquette, 33. Unfortunately, the Coulanges side of the correspondence does not survive. Coulanges was also a close friend of Sévigné, and her husband, the magistrate and parliamentarian Philippe-Emmanuel de Coulanges (1633–1716), was Sévigné’s first cousin. 34. Letter of February 28, 1680. See Madame de Sévigné: Correspondance, ed. Roger Duchêne, vol. 2 (Paris: Gallimard, 1974), 852. On the duc de la Rochefoucauld, see Letter 11; on the marquise de Vins, see the note to Letter 28. 35. See Hortense Mancini and Marie Mancini, Memoirs, ed. and trans. Sarah Nelson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008).

Introduction 11 women’s dress and hairstyles, social and religious rituals, quirks and curiosities, and titillating tidbits. In the French imaginary, Spain often represented an alluring and decadent culture, steeped in Moorish traditions while also adhering to Catholic orthodoxy. Fictional and fictionalized tales of jealous Spanish lovers and violent encounters were popular in France, and Bellefonds-Villars’ attention to interactions between lovers and the presence of weapon-wielding women at the Spanish court surely appealed to her readers. She describes the details of a bullfight, which she claims to watch only because protocol demands it.36 Beyond these experiences are the natural events, such as an earthquake and the passage of a comet, that become part of the dramatic fabric of her recounted experience abroad. She also goes beyond the expected elements to comment on a particularly horrific event, the auto-da-fé of June 1680. Bellefonds-Villars, as wife of the French ambassador, was required to attend the Inquisition spectacle, during which dozens of persons accused of heresy were tortured and burned at the stake in the Plaza Mayor of Madrid (Letter 17). However, the cruelties of this mass execution were not appropriate subject matters for social letter writing, and BellefondsVillars remains circumspect, admitting to Madame de Coulanges, “that is what I cannot write to you.” Bellefonds-Villars’ attitude in many ways typifies a French noblewoman’s view of Spain: repulsed by religious fanaticism, skeptical of superstition, disappointed by the lack of good conversation, bored by long religious rituals, and pained by the lack of worthy entertainment at the royal palace. As travel letters, her missives from Spain are echoed to some extent by the Relation du voyage d’Espagne (Travels to Spain, 1691) of Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, comtesse d’Aulnoy (1650/1–1705). D’Aulnoy, best remembered for her fairy tales, was a prolific author of histories, novels, and short stories, as well as Mémoires de la Cour d’Espagne (Memoirs of the Court of Spain, 1693). She fled France after being accused of the crime of lèse-majesté,37 and claimed to have been in Spain during the same period that the Villars were there.38 Her Travels to Spain consist of fifteen letters written to a female relative. While d’Aulnoy clearly gleaned sizable amounts of information from Pierre de Villars’ own memoirs, which circulated in manuscript form, she painted a colorful portrait of life at the court of Spain.39 Although the contexts for their epistolary writing are different—a literary 36. For an overview of the reception of Spain in seventeenth-century France, see Jean-Frédéric Schaub, La France espagnole: Les racines hispaniques de l’absolutisme français (Paris: Seuil, 2003). 37. An offense against the dignity of a reigning monarch, subject to severe punishment or death. 38. Bellefonds-Villars and Mancini do not mention d’Aulnoy, nor does Pierre de Villars. As of this writing, d’Aulnoy’s Travels to Spain is currently in preparation for publication in The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe series. 39. See Nathalie Hester, “Travel and the Art of Telling the Truth: Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy’s Travels to Spain,” Huntington Library Quarterly, 70, no.1 (2007): 87–102.

12 Introduction collection of published travel letters for d’Aulnoy, unpublished letters intended to reach a limited audience for Bellefonds-Villars—both convey the confident, discerning, and, at times, condescending, point of view of an educated Frenchwoman visiting what was considered by the French an exotic and mysterious country.

The Self-Fashioning of an Ambassadress Bellefonds-Villars’ letters from Spain provide a fascinating example of epistolary writing and courtly social interactions, but they do something more: they constitute the self-portrait of a woman wielding potential political influence in foreign affairs. Indeed, the uniqueness of her letters results in part from the fact that Bellefonds-Villars was not only a visitor and observer in Madrid, but also a diplomatic participant. As mentioned above, she had been directly involved in some of her husband’s undertakings in Turin. There, Louis XIV assigned her what one editor calls “a true diplomatic mission,”40 that is, to secure the marriage of the prince of Savoy, Victor Amadeus, to Anne-Marie d’Orléans. Although the arrangement did not come through until years later, Louis XIV expressed admiration for Bellefonds-Villars’ social and political skills.41 She had a significant role to play for France in Madrid. Women at the Spanish court were quite isolated from their male counterparts, so BellefondsVillars entered into spaces and situations that were inaccessible to her husband. Diplomatic missives reveal that she was explicitly charged with advising the queen of Spain in order to promote pro-French politics, which consisted principally of allowing France to maintain or expand its holdings in the Spanish Netherlands. In a letter from January 30, 1680, Louis XIV thus instructs Pierre de Villars: Continue to keep me informed about what is happening, not only regarding the government of the state, but also the specific and domestic matters of the king and the queens. And since the marquise de Villars has permission to see the young queen, and she can be informed of all that the queen says and all that she does, and also about the treatment she receives, I wish you to inform me of all things in detail, without concealing anything, and, in case there is something

40. Villars, Mémoires, xxxvii. 41. After a difficult diplomatic setback, Louis XIV praises her in a letter from December 3, 1677: “I have such an opinion of Madame de Villars’ genius that I use the term, since I cannot doubt that, given the dedication that she is sure to apply to the matter, she will surely regain the trust of Madame the regent of Savoy.” See Villars, Mémoires, xliii. A letter from Villars to Louis XIV, in cipher, dated June 6, 1677, proudly recounts his wife’s conversation with the regent and Bellefonds-Villars’ subtle arguing for a marriage contract. Archives diplomatiques: Sardaigne, vol. 66, folios 164r–167r.

Introduction 13 very secret, you may send your dispatches by a direct courier to Bayonne.42 Because Charles II was considered weak-minded and easily influenced, there was hope on the French side that the new queen could leverage the king’s affections for her into political influence.43 Although the ambassadress’s primary role was to ensure that the queen conducted herself well enough not to jeopardize diplomatic relations between France and Spain, Bellefonds-Villars was expected to obtain political information from within the insulated female spaces of the Spanish court. A letter from Villars early in his ambassadorship suggested optimism that, presumably with the help of Bellefonds-Villars, political traffic could be directed from within the women’s quarters of the royal palace: “Mademoiselle [the queen] must act with a dissimulated confidence. It will be very easy for her to obtain much power over the mind of the king of Spain, whose temperament is mild and compliant.”44 As a seventeenth-century noblewoman, Bellefonds-Villars was acutely attuned to her reputation and that of her husband. The codes of social interaction were strictly defined, and any breach of comportment, real or perceived, could bring about social disfavor—or worse, the end of coveted appointments by the king or members of the royal family. Her duty was to be charming, witty, and discreet, and to develop rapports with the most respected and powerful members of society at that time. In addition, as ambassadrice, Bellefonds-Villars had to contend with representing herself in relation to foreign affairs. Although, for reasons of diplomatic protocol, Bellefonds-Villars was ostensibly to avoid referring to affairs of state, the missives nevertheless allude to the political climate at the court of Spain. This mix of reporting and glossing over underscores the contrast between her purported apolitical intentions and her inescapably political position at the court. She explicitly denies any diplomatic role at the same time as she is expected to wield political influence, if primarily by assuring that Marie-Louise is behaving properly. As one of the few members of the French party who had regular visits with the queen and often saw the king, Bellefonds-Villars quickly became 42. Letter of January 30, 1680. Archives diplomatiques: Espagne, vol. 64, folios 234v–235r. 43. “In reality, she played a political role in Madrid and dedicated herself, since it was surely her duty as ambassadress, to use her influence on the queen to benefit her husband’s mission, which is the same as benefitting French interests.” Courtois, introduction to Lettres à Madame de Coulanges, 58. Wendy Perkins writes that Bellefonds-Villars “acquired a kind of political autonomy and significance through her assessment of the queen’s position and her use of the opportunity which it offered.” See Wendy Perkins, “Marie de Villars: A Political Woman?” in Keith Cameron and Elizabeth Woodrough, eds., Ethics and Politics in Seventeenth-Century France (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1996), 145. 44. Archives diplomatiques: Espagne, vol. 64, folio 75r.

14 Introduction a confidante to the young Marie-Louise, who was languishing under the strict oversight of female courtly figures and the jealous attentions of the king. Certainly Bellefonds-Villars was navigating very tricky diplomatic waters. She had to reveal enough to Coulanges—and of course the anticipated, highlyplaced other readers who would relay the information back to court—to foster the impression that she (and her husband) were doing their job prudently and effectively. To state her role too overtly could have had dangerous repercussions at a court already weary of French presence. Her closeness to the queen, moreover, could have produced the impression that she was pursuing Marie-Louise to serve her own ambitions as a woman of influence. In fact, her responses to Coulanges show that this was part of court rumors in France, and her letters reflect an increasing anxiety about her reputation as the ambassadorship becomes more problematic.45 Bellefonds-Villars’ epistolary style makes use of indirect modes of expression that are not meant simply to amuse, but to serve as a subtle interpretive key to underlying diplomatic matters for the reader to make sense of. She employs understatement, allusions, double negatives, the non-dit, and irony. A typical indication of this comes at the end of Letter 34, when she writes of her husband’s recall: “You may gather from this the many other circumstances of which I do not tell you.” Her letters, especially in the repetition of certain remarks, serve as a constant reminder that things are not what they seem, and imply that Coulanges should read between the lines. From both a political and a literary viewpoint, Bellefonds-Villars’ principal focus remains on the queen of Spain, and she constructs her persona as ambassadrice through her friendship with Marie-Louise d’Orléans. She denies her influence at the same time as she makes obvious her position as a mentor to the queen. One of her ways of downplaying an official diplomatic role is to insist that her visits to the young queen are simply acts of obedience. The repeated references to the queen’s requests for her company have the convenient effect of augmenting her status as authority figure, ideal companion, and careful society woman. This repetitiveness—a quality to be expected from letters sent regularly from the same place—is part of Bellefonds-Villars’ poetics of self-promotion at the French court. She becomes, despite her own self-interests, the confidante, the reluctant companion, the disinterested governess, the faithful wife without personal ambitions for political power. In Letter 3, for example, after Marie-Louise d’Orléans arrives in Madrid but before her ceremonial entry into the city, Bellefonds-Villars 45. A letter from the marquise de Sévigné to her daughter from January 5, 1680, reveals this concern: “This morning I received a long letter from Madame de Villars [. . .] It seems to me that she locks herself up tightly at home, wanting to avoid any impression of overzealousness, in order to avoid false prophecies. The queen wants to see her incognito. She [Bellefonds-Villars] has herself pleaded to visit, so that she may command a new price.” See Madame de Sévigné: Correspondance, 2:787–88.

Introduction 15 emphasizes the queen’s insistence on seeing her. She refers four times to MarieLouise’s invitations to the Buen Retiro palace, including once in the words of the queen mother. As she creates a sense of anticipation before seeing the queen for the first time, Bellefonds-Villars becomes the privileged interlocutor: “No Frenchman has seen her.”46 In Letter 15 she writes: The queen orders me and, if I dare say it, pleads with me constantly to see her often [. . .]. But since I have no role to play with her, and I have no charge or mission to interfere in matters, nor am I to investigate anything regarding the past, the present, and the future, she honors me greatly in wanting that I be near her often. Here one can see the gap between what Bellefonds-Villars says she is doing and what Louis XIV had explicitly asked her to do, namely to interfere on behalf of the French and investigate all matters related to Marie-Louise. In order to maintain her reputation, not to mention Franco-Spanish relations, Bellefonds-Villars denies the role given her by the king of France. Another repeated element of note is Bellefonds-Villars’ insistence on Marie-Louise’s good health and good spirits. In Letter 18, for example, in a typical comment, Bellefonds-Villars writes: “She is plump and beautiful; drinks, eats, sleeps, laughs very often, dances with all her heart when we are alone, I singing the minuet and the passepied. Content yourself with this.” It is in her interest that Marie-Louise be untroubled, and she often, although not always, denies in her letters the reports of Marie-Louise detesting her life in Madrid.47 Her positive assessment of the queen is a way to reassure the French, but given the stifling atmosphere at the court described by Bellefonds-Villars herself, the repeated references to Marie-Louise’s positive state of mind also invites interpretations to the contrary—the kind of reading at which her correspondents would have been well versed. Her missives paint an ultimately sad portrait of Marie-Louise, raised in the festive environment of Palais Royal in Paris but destined for the dreary, hypercontrolled lifestyle in Madrid. “I have no idea how she sustains it all,” Bellefonds-Villars admits at the end of Letter 31. Despite Bellefonds-Villars’ consistent praise of Marie-Louise’s health and good cheer, there are several allusions to the queen’s despair about not producing an heir to the Spanish throne. The ambassadress’s letters from Spain expose the tensions between the necessity of diplomatic restraint and the reality of the inner workings of the Spanish royal family and Marie-Louise’s position within it. As such, Bellefonds-Villars’ letters serve not just to convey the facts of the difficulties at the Spanish court, but also 46. “[O]nly the ambassadresses of France and Germany enter the queens’ chambers.” (Letter 14). 47. Pierre de Villars writes of the queen in a dispatch dated March 22, 1680: “The life that she leads could not be any sadder [. . .] It is strongly doubted that he [the king] can have said child.” Archives diplomatiques: Espagne, vol. 64, folio 319r.

16 Introduction sometimes to uphold the fiction of conciliatory relations between French and Spanish parties. On occasion she expresses more openly the potential risks in her position as the queen’s favorite, but even these moments underscore her privileged status. In Letter 12, for instance, she writes revealingly: “The queen’s conduct is always very good. You praise her for the good taste that she has for me; but do you know in what sauce I must simmer to be found so tasty?” Here Bellefonds-Villars conveys both her wit and her sense of vulnerability vis-à-vis royal authority. One may also detect an ironic allusion to Marie-Louise’s hearty appetite and weight gain. The way in which the letters reveal, conceal, and suggest information demonstrates Bellefonds-Villars’ acute consciousness about the circulation of information and its potential social and political repercussions. The ambassadrice repeatedly alludes to what has been left unsaid, thus implying that Coulanges and other readers should draw their own conclusions.48 For example, after the French ambassador almost loses his diplomatic privileges at the Spanish court, Bellefonds-Villars writes in Letter 12:49 Since I am always on guard not to write anything about affairs of state, I did not inform you of several things that happened here, although they were made public; but in general you can say that Monsieur de Villars has put everything in order as the king desired. As is typical, she is hesitant to reveal details, but her words nevertheless suggest that she is quite informed regarding French-Spanish relations. This apparent reluctance to discuss foreign affairs is also undercut when, for example, she discusses Marie-Louise’s possible pregnancies. Once again, the refusal to provide more detailed information is both a call for further interpretation and a way to provoke the curiosity of the reader and to create suspense, a typical element of this kind of letter writing. There are several mentions of suspected pregnancies of the queen in the text, and in one of the later references (Letter 22), Bellefonds-Villars writes to Coulanges: It’s been nine days since it was suspected again that she was pregnant. As for me, I do not suspect it. The king loves her passionately in 48. In Letter 25 she writes: “I cannot, my dear Madame, tell you more. I would have to, though, if I wanted to have you understand a thousand things that, despite all your acumen, you cannot discern from so far away.” 49. Bellefonds-Villars also plays at revealing news that is supposed to be secret but is actually well known, for example at the end of Letter 10: “I will finish this letter with something that will seem to you as extraordinary as that which I told you at the beginning: it is a secret that Monsieur de Villars has confided to me. The king, the two queens, and the prime minister have no credit. This secret is like one in a play. I suspected it a bit by the little precaution that Monsieur de Villars took in confiding it to me.”

Introduction 17 his way, and she loves him in hers. She is as beautiful as the day, fat, fresh. She sleeps, she eats, she laughs. I must end there and challenge you, using all your cleverness, to guess all that I will have to tell you later about all of this. Here she refers to much more than court gossip, since producing an heir was a matter of state, and Spanish succession was a central concern to European powers. It was also Marie-Louise’s primary duty as queen, and Louis XIV was preparing to make claims to the Spanish throne.50 Bellefonds-Villars’ ironic characterization of the king and queen’s feelings toward each other is an allusion to the king’s impotence. In addition, the turn of phrase reveals the queen’s attitude toward her husband, which was at best one of resigned tolerance. Once more, Bellefonds-Villars suggests that she is privy to matters that have significant public and political implications. As the economic situation at the court of Spain worsens, and members and guests of the court receive fewer funds, she writes that she may have to return to France before her husband. However, when he is able to secure monetary support, she expresses relief at being able to stay at Villars’ side (Letter 27): If until now I might have doubted the affection that you believe I have for Monsieur de Villars, I am more than certain of it at this hour, because of the joy I felt upon learning I was no longer to leave this pleasant city of Madrid: understand by the word “pleasant” the complete opposite of what it actually means. At this juncture, when the Villars are facing growing scrutiny and criticism from both sides, Bellefonds-Villars’ indirect way of communicating turns into another mode of expression. Her characteristic subtlety disappears as she instructs Coulanges to read in her words the exact opposite of their usual meaning. The implication that positive statements about Spain are to be interpreted as false reveals quite explicitly that Bellefonds-Villars’ diplomatic letters are in many ways social constructs meant to please Coulanges and her other readers. Furthermore, as she begins to understand that the ambassadorship is most likely doomed, she may feel there is less at stake in concealing, and a better chance at defending herself by revealing. Her writing becomes more critical of the Spanish court. She also hints that she has not been able to adequately fulfill the secret role given to her by Louis XIV. In Letter 30, she refers quite openly to the hope, now lost, that the queen might influence her husband and the court: “She could govern him quite well, 50. Several of Villars’ dispatches to Louis XIV mention the risk that if she did not produce an heir, the royal marriage could be annulled. See, for example, his letter from May 16, 1680. Archives diplomatiques: Espagne, vol. 64, folio 365v.

18 Introduction but other machinations, without much force or speed, set off other movements, and turn and change the king’s wishes. The young princess is not so aware of it.”51 Although one could say that the Villars ultimately failed as ambassadors—even if normalizing French-Spanish relations at the time was most likely an impossible task—the scapegoating of Bellefonds-Villars is an indicator of her relatively powerful role. As the favorite of Marie-Louise d’Orléans, she could potentially influence Franco-Spanish relations, even though she held no official position. Her letters reflect the cautious negotiations in representing herself at the Spanish court, not only as a noble Frenchwoman, but, unlike other French épistolières, also as a diplomat. Bellefonds-Villars carefully crafts the character of the ideal ambassadress who is faithful to her king and promotes conciliatory international relations from behind the scenes—in the queen’s chamber.

The Extant Letters of the Marquise de Villars Bellefonds-Villars’ letters to Coulanges were first published in Paris in 1759 by Denis-Marius Perrin, the editor of Madame de Sévigné’s letters.52 Perrin had the manuscript prepared for publication by 1754, the year of his death, and they came out five years later. The original letters and the prepared manuscript do not survive. The letters had four editions published in close succession: Paris (1759), Amsterdam and Frankfurt (both 1760), and Amsterdam again (1762). In the nineteenth century, the letters were published in a collection of women’s letters that went through three editions, two in 1805 and the other in 1806 (Paris: Léopold Collin).53 The missives were published in a similar collection

51. After the Villars left Spain, Marie-Louise d’Orléans continued her unhappy life in much the same way at the court of Spain. She was never influential politically and continued to overeat. She died on February 12, 1689, possibly of appendicitis, although rumors circulated that she had been poisoned. Charles II then married Maria Anna of Neuburg (1667–1740), considered to come from a line of reliably fertile women, but there was no issue. The question of Spanish succession had been at play for quite some time, since Charles II could not produce an heir. The French, aided by the prince d’Harcourt, then ambassador to Spain, were able to convince Charles II to name Philip d’Anjou (1683–1746), Louis XIV’s grandson, as his successor. With Charles II’s death on November 1, 1700, Habsburg Spain came to end, and the Bourbon king was crowned Philip V. 52. Alfred de Courtois speculates that the published letters are close to the original ones, and that Perrin refrained from the heavy-handed editing that he did of Madame de Sévigné’s letters. See the introduction to Lettres à Madame de Coulanges, 78–79. 53. Lettres de Mmes. de Villars, de La Fayette, de Tencin, de Coulanges, de Ninon de l’Enclos, et de Mademoiselle Aïssé: Accompagnées de notices bibliographiques, de notes explicatives [par Louis-Simon Auger], et de La Coquette vengée, par Ninon de l’Enclos, 3 vols. (Paris: Léopold Collin, 1806). In the second edition of 1805, the editor writes that “the swiftness with which the first edition of the Letters was picked up has prompted us to offer a second one”: see “Avertissement de l’éditeur,” i.

Introduction 19 of women’s letters in 1823.54 A stand-alone edition, with a lengthy scholarly introduction by editor Alfred de Courtois (Paris: Plon, 1868), is the most comprehensive and informative edition of the letters.55 Finally, her letters were published as part of a series of volumes of women writers (Paris: Ollendorf, 1923).56 The volume with her letters includes Pierre de Villars’ Memoirs of Spain.57 Although few of Bellefonds-Villars’ letters survive, we know that she wrote to, among others, the marquise de Sévigné, the comtesse de La Fayette, the marquise de Vins and her sister, and the marquise and marquis de Pomponne. Several of her letters are in the French diplomatic archives, alongside her husband’s dispatches. In his edition of Bellefonds-Villars’ letters, Alfred de Courtois includes the reproduction of a manuscript letter written in 1672 and most likely addressed to Monsieur de Pomponne, as well as a letter to Madame de Sévigné written in 1673. This volume’s appendix includes translations of three from a handful of letters that are not part of those to Coulanges: the 1673 letter to Sévigné, and two letters, from 1676 and 1677, to the marquis de Pomponne.

A Note on the Translation I have based my translation on the first edition, while consulting the excellent edition of Alfred de Courtois from 1868. Courtois sometimes adds translations or explanations of Spanish terms in the text of his edition, and on occasion makes corrections. In these cases I follow the first edition and provide explanations in footnotes. Bellefonds-Villars’ missives, as discussed above, were intended for circulation within a limited social network, and were certainly never conceived as a part of a published, organic whole. They are sometimes repetitive in terms of subject matter, but they express vividly impressions of day-to-day life at the Spanish court. They also have some of what Nicholas Paige, the translator and editor of Madame de La Fayette’s Zayde, calls “lexical poverty,” which creates certain 54. Lettres de Mmes de Villars, de La Fayette et de Tencin (Paris: Chaumerot jeune, 1823), in the Collection épistolaire des femmes célèbres du siècle de Louis XIV [Epistolary Collection of Famous Women in the time of Louis XIV]. 55. Courtois searched extensively for manuscript letters by or to Bellefonds-Villars, and was disappointed to have located only one additional letter by her, which was reproduced in his edition (see the Appendix, Letter A). 56. Lettres de la marquise de Villars (Paris: Ollendorff, 1923), in Choix de mémoires et écrits des femmes françaises aux XVIIe, XVIIIe et XIXe siècles, avec leurs biographies: par Mme Carette, née Bouvet [Selection of Memoirs and Writing by French Women of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Centuries, with their Biographies, by Madame Carette, née Bouvet]. 57. To my knowledge, the only examples of Bellefonds-Villars’ letters to Coulanges published in English are excerpts from five of her letters in Madame de Sévigné and her Contemporaries, 2 vols. (London: Henry Colburn, 1841–1842), 1:78–83.

20 Introduction echoes and emphases in the text as a whole.58 The use of a limited quantity of substantives and adjectives corresponds to stylistic and rhetorical expectations of the time, and I have maintained these whenever possible. I have reproduced closely the sometimes lengthy sentence structure, except where obstacles to comprehension arose. Punctuation, in particular the use of the comma and semi-colon, has been adapted to the parameters of English usage. The italics used for proper nouns in the original edition have been removed. My aim has been to convey to the reader the formal qualities of epistolary writing, which were based on controlled, polite conversation, while also conveying changes in tone, such as when Bellefonds-Villars faces difficult times. Forms of address (Monsieur, Madame) and titles of nobility (princesse, comte, duc) have been retained in the original French. In order to distinguish between la Connétable Colonna (Marie Mancini) and le Connétable Colonna (Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna), as Bellefonds-Villars refers to them, I use “Madame la Connétable Colonna” for Mancini and “Prince Colonna” for her husband. I have adapted the spelling of names of nobility for purposes of identification (“Villaumbrosa” for “Villombrosa”, “Ventimiglia” for “Ventimilla”). Finally, I have changed place names and river names to conform with English spelling (Saragossa, Manzanares, Tagus).

58. Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, comtesse de La Fayette, Zayde: A Spanish Romance, ed. and trans. Nicholas D. Paige (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 30. Epistolary writing and novels followed quite distinct parameters, but the focus on key terms and phrases is discernable in both genres in this period.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) Letter 1 Madrid, November 2, 1679 Here I am, finally, in Madrid, where I am determined to wait patiently for the return of the king and the arrival of the queen, his wife.1 I did not have the courage to go to Burgos. Monsieur de Villars, who was waiting for me here, left to join the king, who is off to find the queen with such haste that one cannot keep up with him. And if she has not yet arrived in Burgos, he is determined to take with him the archbishop of that city and to go to Vitoria2 or to the border to marry the princess. He refused to heed any advice contrary to his intentions. He is overtaken by love and impatience. Given such a temperament, one cannot doubt that this young queen will be happy. The dowager queen, who is very kind and very reasonable, wishes passionately that she be happy.3 On the way here, I found all the ladies and officers of her household, which is large, assembled near Burgos. The duchesse de Terranova, her camarera mayor,4 had her sedan chair stopped next to mine. She seemed to me clever and very courteous, and not as old as I had imagined. From afar all the maids and maidens of honor held up their hankerchiefs, which are waved in the air as a sign of friendship. I thought I might forget to do the same, and, if my daughter had not reminded me, I would have begun things with a great blunder.5 You could not imagine what courtesies I receive here. The

1. Charles II traveled to Burgos, 150 miles north of Madrid, to marry Marie-Louise d’Orléans, niece of Louis XIV. The marriage contract had been signed by proxy at Fontainebleau on August 31, 1679. The archbishop who was to oversee the ceremony fell gravely ill, so it was celebrated in Quintanapalla, a village just northwest of Burgos. See Courtois, introduction to Lettres de Madame de Villars à Madame de Coulanges (hereafter “Lettres”), 47n2 and 52. 2. A city in northern Spain near the French border, now known as Vitoria-Gasteiz, capital of the Basque Autonomous Region. 3. Queen Mariana of Austria, the regent of Spain, was no friend of the French. French foreign policy at the time aimed to cultivate a good rapport between the queen mother and the new queen, all in hopes of influencing Charles II and keeping at bay Don Juan of Austria, Philip IV’s power-seeking natural son. 4. The camarera mayor, or first lady of the bedchamber, was Juana de Aragón y Cortés, duchess of Terranova. She had been an ally of Don Juan of Austria and discouraged any friendly rapport between the new queen of Spain and the queen mother. For a detailed look at the queen’s household, see Ezequiel Borgognoni, “The Royal Household of Marie-Louise of Orleans, 1679–1689: The Struggle over Executive Offices,” The Court Historian 23 (2018): 166–68. 5. The child is the Villars’ daughter Charlotte, who was fifteen at the time. See Villars, Mémoires, xlvi. Unlike her brother Félix, who is explicitly identified in Letter 4, Charlotte is referred to only as “my

21

22 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS queen mother sent me her majordomo6 to inquire how I was feeling after the toils of my travels, and to convey many expressions of kindness. They say that she does not usually do so with the other ambassadors’ wives. But it is not to my ordinary merit that I attribute this honor. I do not wish to receive visitors yet. I am waiting for the return of Monsieur de Villars. There are so many customs and so many rituals to observe, and he must teach me about them all, from the smallest things to the most important. Nothing here resembles what is done in France. Don Juan has died of grief.7 The king had begun causing him some when, without telling him, he called back to court several grandees that Don Juan had exiled. I do not know if the princesse d’Harcourt will be allowed to enter the queen’s carriage.8 Madame la Connétable Colonna sent for me to visit her.9 She is still in her convent, of which she is very tired. She hopes to leave it when the queen is here,

daughter.” Courtois therefore surmises that it was the eldest daughter, Thérèse (b. 1659), who accompanied her parents. See his introduction to Lettres, 77. 6. The “head of the house,” or principal servant of the household, administrator of its staff and expenses. Mariana’s majordomo at this time was Antonio de Toledo y Salazar, marquis of Mancera (1622–1715). 7. Don Juan José of Austria (1629–1679) was the natural son of Philip IV and actress Maria Calderón, and an accomplished military leader for Spain. He gained enough power to send the dowager queen into exile and rule as prime minister until 1679, when Charles II expelled him from the court of Spain. 8. Alphonse Henri Charles de Lorraine (1648–1718) and Marie Françoise de Brancas (ca. 1650–1715), prince and princesse d’Harcourt, had been named extraordinary ambassadors in order to accompany Marie-Louise d’Orléans to Spain. The princess’s father was a close friend of the marquise de Maintenon (1635–1719), Louis XIV’s long-time mistress and, as of 1683, his second wife. Harcourt returned to Spain as ordinary ambassador in the 1690s. Because the Spanish were already hard at work separating Marie-Louise d’Orléans from her French entourage, Bellefonds-Villars wondered how much access the princesse d’Harcourt would have to the new queen, implying that she, Bellefonds-Villars, had a more privileged position vis-à-vis the new queen. 9. Marie Mancini (1639–1715), the niece of Cardinal Mazarin and wife of the Roman nobleman Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna (1637–1689), is a central figure in Bellefonds-Villars’ letters. She was in Madrid during the time of Villars’ ambassadorship from 1679 to 1681, residing at a convent, and, briefly, in the house of her husband, who became viceroy of Aragon in 1678. She remained in Madrid until after the death of Charles II, keeping company with French visitors to Spain, including JudithAngélique de Gudannes, the mother of writer Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy. See Elizabeth C. Goldsmith, The Kings’ Mistresses (New York: Public Affairs, 2012), 218–19. Marie Mancini was one of five famous sisters who were brought to France by their widowed mother in the hopes of arranging advantageous marriages for them; the others were Laure (1636–1657), Olympe (1638–1708), Hortense (1646–1699), and Marie Anne (1649–1714).

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 23 and to stay with her sister-in-law, the marquise de los Balbases.10 The abbot de Villars,11 who went to see her the other day, found her very pretty, and I hear that she looks nothing like she did in France: she has a lovely waist, a pure and clear complexion, beautiful eyes, white teeth, and beautiful hair. She has written a book on her life that has already been translated into three languages, so that no one will be uninformed about her adventures.12 The book is most entertaining. She dresses in the Spanish style, in a very suitable way, but having taken away here and added there, which is actually more becoming.

Letter 2 Madrid, November 30, 1679 One could not lead a more pleasing life than the one I am leading here since arriving, not making any visits and not wishing to receive any until Monsieur de Villars’ return. I go out sometimes, when the weather is nice, to tomar el sol,13 as they say, outside the city gates. The sun is very pleasant in this season. In the city one must be careful to draw all the curtains of one’s carriage, otherwise one would not be considered an honest woman, and in any country it would be a shame to ruin one’s reputation for such a small reason. The dukes of Osuna and Astorga had a great quarrel in front of the queen. It was judged that the first was in the wrong, and he was sent here to wait for orders from the king. I do not remember what position he has, but rumor has it in Madrid that the marquis de los Balbases could get it.14 I have not yet seen any Spanish beauties. 10. Don Pablo Spínola Doria (1628–1699), third marquis de los Balbases, was the special ambassador in Paris for the union of Marie-Louise d’Orléans and Charles II. His wife, Anna, was Prince Colonna’s sister, and therefore Marie Mancini’s sister-in-law. 11. The Villars’ son Félix (d. 1691), who accompanied his mother to Spain. He became abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Notre-Dame de Montiers en Argonne, in northeastern France, in 1671. See Courtois, introduction to Lettres, 77, and Charles Rémy, L’Abbaye de Notre-Dame de Montiers en Argonne (Tours: Paul Bouserez, 1876), 43–44. 12. Mancini published her memoirs, La verité dans son jour (The Truth in its Own Light, Madrid, 1677), as a response to a false autobiography published under her name in 1676, Mémoires de M.L.P.M.M. Colonne, G. Connétable du Royaume de Naples; its title mimicked that of Hortense’s Mémoires D.M.L.D.M. (1675). See Hortense Mancini and Marie Mancini, Memoirs, ed. and trans. Sarah Nelson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008; hereafter “Mancini, Memoirs”), 9–11. Her own memoirs were translated into Spanish (1677), Italian (1678), and English (1679). Bellefonds-Villars duly notes Mancini’s desire to publicize her story. 13. Literally, to take in the sun. 14. Gaspar Téllez-Girón y Sandoval, duke of Osuna (1625–1694; the master of the horse, or caballerizo mayor, to Marie-Louise), and Antonio Pedro Sancho Dávila y Osorio, marquis of Astorga (ca.

24 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS Monsieur de Villars has just arrived from Burgos. He told me many details about all that he has just seen. He flatters himself that the prince and the princesse d’Harcourt are satisfied with him. He spoke to me about the most beautiful dress in the world worn by the princess.15 Madame de Grancey did very well and made excellent use of her time with the queen, giving her only very good advice.16 It is said she will have a pension of two thousand écus from the Catholic king.17 We do not yet know if she will come all the way here. She seemed quite tempted to return with the princesse d’Harcourt. The king and the queen will come alone in a large carriage without glass panes, in the fashion of the country. It will be advantageous for them to be like their carriage. They say that the queen conducts herself very well. As to the king, since he was very much in love before having seen her, her presence can only have increased his passion. When she received the king she wore a very beautiful dress in the French style, and an astonishing quantity of precious stones; but she changed it the following day to dress in the Spanish manner, and the king found her appearance much improved.18 Madame de Grancey also wore a Spanish dress, which the queen had given her, and did her hair in the Spanish manner, which suits her very well. She was with the maids of honor, who are, to be exact, the queen’s girls. After the theater performance they all pass before the king and queen, two by two, making their curtsies.19 Madame de Grancey made her appearance with one who was very graceful. I did not hear said if the wife of the maréchal de Clérembaut was there with anyone, but I heard

1615–1689; the head majordomo, or mayordomo mayor, to Marie-Louise). Each sought to play a principal role in the various ceremonies involved in the arrival of the new queen. Both were reprimanded, and Osuna lost his position at the court. Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres, 215–16. 15. Bellefonds-Villars refers to Marie-Louise d’Orléans as both princess and queen. 16. Louise Elisabeth de Rouxel, Mademoiselle de Grancey (1653–1711), was well known at the Palais Royal and close to “Monsieur,” Philippe I, duc d’Orléans (1640–1701). She was appointed dame d’atour, the woman in charge of the young queen’s dress and appearance. Although unmarried, she was given the title Madame de Grancey, not Mademoiselle, which created a stir. She did not go to Madrid, and returned to France with the Harcourts. 17. An écu is the French silver coin. 18. For a detailed description of Spanish dress and hairstyles, see Letter 8 in Marie-Catherine de Barneville, comtesse d’Aulnoy, La cour et la ville de Madrid vers la fin du XVIIème siècle, ed. B. Carey, 2 vols. (Paris: Plon, 1874–76), 271–78. See also José Luis Colomer and Amalia Descalzo, eds., Spanish Fashion at the Courts of Early Modern Europe, 2 vols. (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica, 2014). 19. Plays and performances were integral parts of official ceremonies and celebrations. For a discussion of Spanish theater productions in the time of Marie-Louise d’Orléans, see María Luisa Lobato, “Miradas de mujer: María Luisa de Orleans, esposa de Carlos II, vista por la marquesa de Villars, 1679–1689,” in Judith Farré Vidal, ed., Teatro y poder en la época de Carlos II: Fiestas en torno a reyes y virreyes (Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2007) 23–40.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 25 that she spoke Spanish very well.20 The king and the queen will be here in three days and they will stay at the Buen Retiro, the royal house at the gates of Madrid, until all is ready for the queen’s entry.21 How I dread having to dress and begin visits! I was not born to represent France abroad. I have just learned that Madame de Grancey has left Burgos for Paris with the prince and princesse d’Harcourt. She received one thousand louis, a pension of two thousand écus, and a gift of diamonds worth eighteen hundred or two thousand pistoles,22 exactly the same as what was given to the wife of the maréchal de Clérembaut. There were two other gifts, worth three thousand pistoles, for the prince and princesse d’Harcourt. All the women, besides the queen’s two nursemaids and two other girls, were sent back. An old governess’s helper named Mademoiselle Fauvelet died en route, but so well en route that her soul left this world for the next from inside the carriage, since she had always wanted to follow along, no matter how ill she was. She died a few hours before arriving at the place where the king met the queen and where they were married. On the way, the queen lost one thousand pistoles to the prince and princesse d’Harcourt and to other people who were accompanying her.23 When Their Majesties left, the players feared greatly that they would not be paid, but they were pleasantly surprised by the delivery of a purse with the whole sum in it. Don’t you find that Madame de Grancey had a good journey? Everyone at this court is most pleased with her. The prince and the princesse d’Harcourt have a very splendid convoy and a magnificent table, and they peformed their duties very well. Their entry into Burgos was found to be quite enchanting. The prince d’Harcourt conducted himself very well, and here there is much satisfaction with one and the other. You can assure Monsieur de Brancas of this.24

20. Louise Françoise le Bouthillier (1633–1722), wife of Philippe de Clérembaut, maréchal de France. She was Marie-Louise d’Orléans’ first maid of honor. 21. The official entry was an elaborate ceremony that lasted several days and took place in different areas of Madrid. The Buen Retiro (“Good Retreat”) was a palace, then located just outside Madrid, with a garden whose planning began under Philip II. Several theatrical presentations were performed here for the royal family and court during the reigns of Philip IV and Charles II. Only a few of the original structures remain, but have been incorporated into what is now a public park in the heart of Madrid. 22. The louis refers to the French gold coin. Pistole is the French word for the Spanish gold coin, the doblón. 23. Gambling and card games were common pastimes at the French court. The fact that the prince and princess are said to fear they will not be paid by the queen is an early indicator that money is an issue at the Spanish court. 24. Charles de Brancas (1618–1681), an admirer of Coulanges and father of the princesse d’Harcourt.

26 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS Letter 3 Madrid, December 14, 1679 A short time after arriving here, the queen expressed much desire to see me and had her wishes conveyed to me. I answered that I was greatly touched by the honor she was bestowing upon me. She had me told a second time that she had asked the king to let me visit her incognito because, until she makes her official entry and lives at the palace, no one (neither man nor woman) may see her. The camarera mayor was called and told what the queen had requested, and that the king had granted her permission to see me incognito. The camarera answered that she knew nothing of it. The Spanish gentleman whom we sent to her begged her to ask about it. She answered that she would do nothing of the sort, and that the queen would see no one as long as she was at the Retiro. We had the queen informed of our efforts: one could not do any less, given the desire she had expressed that I have the honor of seeing her. After that we stayed still. I did not even want to go to the church, where one can see her from a gallery, out of fear that I be accused of too much eagerness. The king has it in great quantity for her. He would like never to lose sight of her, which is very gallant. But to come back to this desire to see me, on Sunday I went for the first time to pay my respects to the queen mother, who is kind, obliging, and says all that she can and all that is required to be pleasing. She asked me if I had already seen the queen, her daughter-in-law. I told her no. She answered, “She very much wants to see you. You will see her as soon as you would like, beginning tomorrow.” This tomorrow is today. I wrote you all this in advance. At four o’clock I will go to the audience with the queen. I will recount to you how all this will have seemed to me. They say that she conducts herself very well, and I am sure of it. No Frenchman has seen her. Two days ago the marquise de los Balbases wanted to see her. She went into the camarera’s room, which adjoins that of the queen. As soon as the young princess found out, she came right away. But since she wanted to speak with the marquise, the camarera took the queen by the arm and led her back to her chamber. These are customs that are not as unusual here as they would be elsewhere.

Letter 4 Madrid, December 15, 1679 Yesterday I went to the Retiro, the residence where the king and the queen are staying at present. I entered through the apartment of the camarera mayor, who came to greet me with all sorts of courtesies. She led me through small passages to a gallery where I thought I would find only the queen, so I was quite surprised when I found myself among all the royal family. The king was seated in a large

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 27 armchair, and the queens on square cushions.25 The camarera was still holding me by the hand, informing me of the number of curtsies I had to make, and that I had to begin with the king. She had me go so near His Catholic Majesty’s armchair that I could not understand what she wanted me to do. On my part, I thought I had to do no more than perform a deep curtsey. I can say, without conceit, that he did not respond to the gesture, although he did not seem unhappy to see me. When I told this to Monsieur de Villars, he said that the camarera probably wanted me to kiss the king’s hand. I had suspected as much, but was not moved to do so. Monsieur de Villars added that the camarera had proposed that the princesse d’Harcourt kiss the royal hand and that, when the princess asked him his opinion on the matter, he had answered that she not do it. Here I am, then, in the middle of these three Majesties, the queen mother telling me many obliging things, as on the day before, and the young queen seeming very happy to see me. I did what I could so that she would express this only in a proper way. The king has a little Flemish dwarf who understands and speaks French very well.26 He was not of insignificant help with conversation. One of the maidens of honor was brought in, wearing a guardainfante, to show me this contraption.27 The king had me asked what I thought of it, and I answered to the dwarf that I did not believe it had been created for a human body. He seemed to me quite of the same opinion. An almohada28 had been brought to me. I sat down, to obey convention, but only for a moment, and I found right away a trifling reason to stay standing, because I saw that many señoras de honor were not seated, and I thought it would please them that I do as they did. So I remained always standing, even though the queens told me repeatedly to sit. The young queen had a light meal served on her knees by her ladies, who have commendable names and who can claim to come from no lesser houses than those of Aragon, Portugal, and Castille, and others of the grandest. The queen mother had chocolate.29 The king did not have anything.30

25. It was customary for the women of the Spanish court to be seated on cushions instead of in chairs. 26. The dwarf’s name was Louisillo. See Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres, 91n. On dwarfs at the Spanish court, see Betty M. Adelson, The Lives of Dwarfs: Their Journey from Public Curiosity Toward Social Liberation (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005), 13–15. 27. The wide hoop skirt worn by Spanish royal girls and women. For a detailed discussion of this attire, see Amanda Wunder, “Women’s Fashions and Politics in Seventeenth-Century Spain: The Rise and Fall of the Guardainfante,” Renaissance Quarterly 68 (2015): 133–86. 28. Square cushion. 29. Chocolate, introduced into Europe after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire in the early sixteenth century, was a popular beverage at the Spanish court and also among the French aristocracy. 30. The king’s pronounced “Habsburg jaw” meant that his upper and lower teeth were misaligned, causing him to have difficulty chewing.

28 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS The young queen was dressed in Spanish style, as you can imagine, using the beautiful fabrics that she brought from France. Her hair is very well done, with some across her forehead, and the rest spread on her shoulders. She has a wonderful complexion, beautiful eyes, and her mouth is very lovely when she laughs. What a beautiful thing it is to laugh in Spain! But it is pleasing to draw the portrait of the queen for you. This gallery is quite long, lined with damask or crimson velvet, which is adorned with wide, closely spaced embroideries of gold thread. From one end to the other is the most beautiful foot carpet I have ever seen. There are tables, cabinets and braziers, candles on the tables. And from time to time one sees meninas,31 all dressed up, who enter with two silver candleholders for changing the candles that need to be snuffed out. They make deep and long curtsies, very gracefully. Quite far from the queens were several maidens of honor seated on the ground, and several ladies of advanced age in their widow’s clothing, standing, leaning against the wall. The king and the queen left after three quarters of an hour, the king going first. The young queen took her mother-in-law by the hand, passing before the door to the gallery, after which she came back more quickly than at walking pace towards me. The camarera mayor did not come back, and it seemed quite clear that the queen was being given all kinds of liberty to speak with me. Only an old woman remained, quite far away. The queen told me that if that lady were not there, she would happily embrace me. It was only four o’clock when I arrived there. It was seven thirty when I left, and I was the one who wanted to leave. I assure you, Madame, that I wish the king, the queen mother, and the camarera mayor had been able to hear all I said to the princess. I wish you knew as well, and that you had been able to see us walk about in this gallery, which the candles made so pleasant. This young queen, along with her new and beautiful clothing, wore countless diamonds, and was ravishing. Understand, once and for all, that black and white are no more different than life in Spain and that in France. I think this young princess is conducting herself quite well. She would like me to have the honor of seeing her every day. I assured her that I would be delighted, but I begged her to spare me of it unless it was made clear as day to me that the king and the queen mother wished it almost as much as she. The camarera mayor came to get me at the door of the gallery to take me back. There I found some of the queen’s Frenchwomen, to whom I said they had to learn Spanish and to refrain, as much as possible, from saying one word of French to the queen. I knew that they were getting scolded a bit when they spoke too much to her. I told the camarera mayor in Spanish what I was telling the Frenchwomen, and she was contented by it. Madame, here is just about all that I can tell you of this first visit. 31. Ladies-in-waiting.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 29 If you had been here today, you would have had the pleasure of seeing, through a doorway, the most handsome nuncio in the world, and the most eloquent.32 He speaks Spanish effortlessly. I received him officially, I comfortable on my cushions, and he in his armchair. He spoke to me at length of Charles V.33 I was a bit ashamed to be so little informed on the subject. I did not pretend I was. I said a few words here and there, recalling in my memory many beautiful places of which my eldest son had sometimes spoken. My son the abbot, who assisted me on this occasion, shone brightly in this conversation, and made no less of an impression than from the benches of the Sorbonne.34 Monsieur de Villars, who is back from town, places himself at your feet, to use the Spanish expression. He just admitted to me that, after dinner, he spent time at the home of the woman whose portrait you have seen.35 He says that she is no longer beautiful, but she is still very witty. I will judge soon, since he wants her to be one of the first I receive. Farewell, Madame. If my letter does not prove to you the pleasure I feel when I think of you and converse with you, then I do not know what to do to persuade you of it. Perhaps you would prefer to doubt it, since this letter is quite long for a person like you, surrounded by good company and pleasant things. As you consider this letter, however, know that there are a thousand things that I do not send and that I would gladly tell you. I do not think, if everyone were to see this, that I could receive any reproach or blame for it. Still, make prudent use of it.

Letter 5 Madrid, December 27, 1679 I received my visits a little while ago. The manner in which this ceremony unfolds is quite a peculiar thing. First, as soon as I arrived here in Madrid, all the ladies, princesses, duchesses, and grandees sent their compliments to me several times and determined exactly when they could see me, each wanting to be informed of the first visit dates. Finally the time came and, several days ago, they were told that I would receive visitors three days in a row. To all those who have called one sends a page carrying letters called nudillos, because, in fact, these letters are closed

32. Savo Mellini (1644–1701), papal nuncio to Spain from 1675 to 1685. A member of the Roman patrician Neri Capponi family, Mellini enjoyed a successful diplomatic career and was named cardinal in 1681. See his entry in the Dizionario Biografico, . 33. Charles V (1500–1558), who became king of Spain in 1516 and Holy Roman Emperor in 1519. 34. Félix de Villars. See Letter 1, note 11. 35. The identity of this woman is unclear.

30 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS in knots.36 It was the marquise d’Osera,37 widow of the duc de Lerma (whom I had known in France, and who is convinced I did her some small service), who honored my house with her presence those three days. The lady in this portrait that Monsieur de Villars has gave me the same honor, too. I believe she was once beautiful, and even that she could still be somewhat so, if it weren’t for the horrid widow’s attire that she wears. It’s just not possible for any beautiful person to appear so when dressed in such a way, and I don’t understand how a widow who likes to use her charm and relies on her beauty does not remarry at the end of the year at the latest. This lady has much wit, and is reputable and courteous. I will not tell you the exact number of steps I took when I received these ladies; some I met at the first platform, others at the second or at the third because, by the way, I have a very large apartment.38 Glean from this, sighing with empathy for me, what it costs me to furnish it. Upon entering or leaving, one must pass by all the ladies. The one who guided me had plenty of matters to set straight, since I kept forgetting the ceremonial. These visits last all day. Visitors are led to a room with carpets and a large silver brazier in the middle. I must not forget to tell you that in this brazier there is no coal, but instead little olive pits that light up and that make the most lovely fire in the world; a slight, sweet vapor. This fire lasts longer than the day. The way they converse and make acquaintances would take too long to explain. All these women chatter like magpies turned out of their nests, and are all done up in fine clothes and jewels, except those whose husbands are away on travel or embassies. One of the most lovely, without comparison, was dressed in grey for this reason. During their husbands’ absence, they devote themselves to some saint and wear small belts made of ropes or leather with their grey or white dresses.39 I cannot describe any woman of beauty, because I did not see any. The Constable of Castille’s daughter is one of the best looking.40 But let us get back to our brazier.41 We were all seated on our legs, on these carpets, because even though there were quantities of almohadas, or square cushions, the ladies would 36. From the Spanish nudo, knot. 37. Maria Leonor de Monroy y Aragón (b. ca. 1622). After the death of her first husband, Diego Gómez de Sandoval, duke of Lerma, in 1668, she married José de Villalpando y Funes, the marquis of Osera. See . Bellefonds-Villars mistakenly identifies her as the marquise of Assera. 38. Platforms were used for official visits and ceremonies, and a strict protocol was followed in positioning participants by social rank. 39. Belts akin to those worn by Roman Catholic priests, monks, and nuns as part of their habits. 40. The wife of Don Gaspar de Guzmán, marquis del Carpio y de Eliche (1629–1687), ambassador to Rome (1677–83) and viceroy of Naples (1683–87) under Charles II. He was known also as an art collector. See Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres, 231. 41. This is a play on the expression revenons à nos moutons, literally, “let’s get back to our sheep,” meaning “let us get back to our subject matter.”

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 31 not use them. As soon as there are five or six ladies, a light meal is brought, and this starts over again an endless number of times. First, large bowls of fruit paste candies are presented. Girls serve them. After that, quantities of all sorts of ice waters, and then chocolate. And the quantity of glazed chestnuts (which they call castañas) that they ate or carried away with them cannot be calculated, they find them so good. There is a great courteousness among them, for they wish to please and be pleasing. And with all this, Madame, how happy I was to find myself at the end of my three days! Most of them came to see me twice. Three or four of them understand or speak a little French, and I very little Spanish. If this account seems too long to you, keep it to replace the reading you sometimes do in the evenings. Thanks to me alone you will have one more detail about theater plays and their apparatuses. The queen, whom I have seen twice, wanted to take me, since she was going, but until now I have excused myself from it, since I expected it to be a deadly bore, but I told her that I would go once she is at the royal palace. This young queen is without doubt more beautiful and more charming than all the ladies of her court. She has not yet made her official entry. They say that on the second day of next month we will find out the date for this ceremony. There are suspicions of a pregnancy.42 On the subject of not seeing her as often as she tells me she wishes to, what I am doing is almost harsh. It isn’t that I disdain this honor, or that I do not know how to make of it what I should, but I fear more than I can say that I could be accused of too much zeal. Whether the princess behaves well or less well, it must not be attributed to me. She conducts herself most prudently. It would not have been a bad idea to have given her in France a dependable person whom she could trust. This court is full of people who could get involved indirectly in giving her advice. She has been here too little time to know how to choose the good and reject the bad. This is in no way my business, and if the queen mother had not wished that I see the queen more often than I was expecting, I would have gone there only once. I assure you, Madame, that when I must dress—even though I am allowed to wear all sorts of mantles—and when I must leave my room, I am already sad and distressed about going out in public. Five or six beautiful triumphal arches are being prepared for the queen’s royal entry. I saw one that seemed beautiful to me. If on the second of next month she is still thought to be pregnant, she will make her entry on a kind of open chair, which several men will carry on their shoulders; if not she will make it on horseback. I was with her a few days ago. The king comes to make brief appearances and then leaves. She showed me a very beautiful gift: a set of precious stones that the king

42. Rumors of the queen’s pregnancy are a recurring subject in the letters. While the Villars sometimes seem to convey hope for an heir, they also hint that this will not in fact be possible, given Charles II’s physical disabilities.

32 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS had given her that morning. They go to bed every day at eight thirty, that is, the moment after they leave the table, with a bite still in their beaks.43 The prince de Ligne died three days ago.44 He was quite old. His wife will go back to Flanders. Eight days ago, a famous Theatine named Father Ventimiglia was expelled.45 It’s said that he was a plotter and among the friends of the late Don Juan, and a declared enemy of the queen mother. He would very much have liked to serve as confessor to the young queen, and he would not have caused her just minor qualms. He is a friend of Madame Colonna, whom I have not yet seen, since I have not paid any visits. She does not leave her convent. We thought that she would stay at the home of the marquise de los Balbases, her sister-in-law, but that is not to be.46 The duc d’Osuna still does not go to court. There are very often what are called chapel ceremonies in the church adjacent to where Their Majesties reside at present. One can see the queen through the bars of a gallery. She is magnificently adorned, as well as all the ladies. This place for orations is no less dear to them than others. The Christmas holiday is celebrated in the palace with extraordinary splendor, and a play at four o’clock. Although I do not enjoy myself much here, I will say, Madame, that there is no place on earth where I would rather be than in Spain, as long as Monsieur de Villars is here, of course. That is the real truth.

Letter 6 Madrid, January 12, 1680 I gave you an account in my last letter of the visits that I have had. I will not go into detail about those that I return. I forgot to tell you that all these grand ladies speak to each other using only tu and toi;47 it is a sign of friendship. We are beginning to address each other informally. The king and queen use informal terms with each other. The queen is no longer pregnant. The day after she wasn’t anymore, the king 43. The king’s bedtime, eight thirty in the winter and ten o’clock in the summer, had been established by Philip II and was strictly followed. Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres, 234. 44. The Flemish Claude Lamoral (1618–1679), third prince de Ligne, was a grandee of Spain and had served as viceroy of Sicily from 1670 to 1674. 45. Ventimiglia was a superior at the convent of San Gaetano and a former ally of Don Juan of Austria. Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres, 234–35. The Theatines (the Congregation of Clerics Regular of the Divine Providence) were an Italian religious order founded in the early sixteenth century. 46. While Bellefonds-Villars knew it was risky for her reputation as ambassadrice to frequent the scandal-causing Mancini, her letters suggest that she had quite some sympathy for her. 47. It was customary for French aristocrats of the time to use the formal second-person singular pronoun, vous, with close family members. It would have been amusing for a French visitor to hear the royal couple address each other informally in public.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 33 and queen went to the Pardo, a charming house two leagues from here.48 She had the pleasure of horseback riding a bit and of seeing the king, her husband, kill a boar. Her official entry will take place next Saturday. It is said that there will be extraordinary displays of grandeur. Their Majesties will leave the Retiro and live in the Palace. The queen’s apartment is very golden and well furnished. We went to see it the other day. When she is there she will receive thousands of visits. I intend, without speaking of it, to pay her fewer visits. All the ladies who—without being presumptious—like me well enough think and expect that I will be there every day and that I can help them in paying their respects to the queen; but, my dear Madame, between you and me, not only do I not wish to be implicated in anything, but I would also like to place myself wholly out of reach of any suspicion. I beg you to make some effort to discern, from where you are, if it is not thought to be the best approach. It’s quite possible that no one will bother to consider what I am or am not doing, unless you mention it. There is almost no middle ground between seeing the queen very often and seeing her only very rarely. For the public’s sake and for her sake, I search for reasons not to see her, but they are hardly plausible, since the king, the queen mother, and the camarera mayor seem very pleased that I be with her often, and everyone says that the ambassadress of Germany was with the queen mother every day and that they spoke only German together. You see, then, that at this court, everything would have me be with the queen often. But if I do not know that the court of France approves of it, nothing prevents me from pulling back my troops and letting the court here think all that it will. This is why I beg you once again to find out what you can about it. Up to now this young queen has conducted herself with much kindness and deference toward the king. It’s said that he loves her greatly. Each has his own way of loving. I see him come quite frequently into the gallery when the queen is there. Evidently you have seen some of his portraits.49 The day following the queen’s entry there will be evening festivities called a mascarada, where all the grandees of the court run two by two along a passageway, each carrying a torch. The king runs with his grand stablemaster.50 What they wear is extraordinary, and I think it will be more beautiful described than seen.

48. The Royal Palace of El Pardo, now in northern Madrid, was originally a hunting ground, on which Charles V built a palace in the 1540s. It was finished under Philip II and rebuilt by Philip III after a fire destroyed the interior. A league was about two and a half miles and represented the distance one could walk in one hour. 49. Pierre de Villars, in a ciphered letter to Louis XIV, writes of the Spanish king on June 22, 1679: “He is so ugly it’s scary, and he’s unpleasant.” Archives diplomatiques: Espagne, vol. 66, folio 62r. 50. The principal stablemaster to the king (the master of the horse, or caballerizo mayor) was the admiral of Castille, Juan Gaspar Enríquez de Cabrera (1625–1691). See Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres, 239. The duke of Osuna served the queen in that function. See the note to Letter 2.

34 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS On another day there will be the juego de cañas.51 I’m not quite sure what that is; they throw sticks in the air. But the grand event will be the bullfight. About that, I think it will be a very beautiful thing. Some grandees and sons of grandees will commit tauricide. The splendor of the procession and the attire will be astonishing, I am told. As long as no one is killed, I might take some pleasure in it. If that is the case, then I will often be wishing for your presence on my balcony. Alas! Madame, if I dared, I would wish you here even if the celebration were dull. I have not yet dressed in Spanish fashion, although I have had two Spanish dresses made. The queen mother absolutely likes French dress, and all the ladies, too; that is, mostly mantles, and that suits me just fine. They can be either black or of another color. One color does not show more respect than another. It’s as cold here as in Paris. I hope it will not be hotter here. The marquis de Flamarens is in Madrid in Spanish dress and the golilla.52 It’s not hard to see that he will soon be bored. The comte de Charny, the supposed natural son of the former Monsieur, lives quite a desolate life here.53 He is a respectable man and it’s true, as no one doubts, that he has the honor of being the brother of many illustrious princesses. Those who are in a position to do him good should well do him some and procure him some means of sustenance. We do not see him often, nor Flamarens; they have to be circumspect. I have only been to see the queen mother once since I have been here. The queen specifically instructed me to send you her compliments. I take you with me to the palace each time that I go, and your name, without my having to mention it, always comes up in our conversations. Philosophy on the outside and feet inside had her thinking she might die of laughter.54 What the Frenchmen and Frenchwomen find so sad here is not so at all, and the queen told me in very good faith that she never would have thought she would become accustomed to Spain so soon. You can well imagine that I avoid conversation apt to make her sigh constantly for France. Well, until now I have done my best, for the sole satisfaction of doing what is proper. 51. A popular game during festivities, of Moorish origin, in which members of the nobility on horseback threw javelin-like canes, which were to be blocked with shields. 52. François de Grossoles (d. 1706), marquis de Flamarens, fled to Spain from France after a duel and died there in 1706. His mother, Françoise Le Hardy de la Trousse, was a close relation of dame de Coulanges. Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres, 240. The golilla is the white starched collar worn in seventeenth-century Spain. 53. Jean-Louis d’Orléans (1638–1692), comte de Charny, was the natural son of Louis XIII’s brother, Gaston d’Orléans (1608–1660) and Louise Rogier de la Marbellière (b. 1621). He served as general at the Spanish court and received a pension from the Spanish king. Gaston’s daughter, Anne-MarieLouise d’Orléans, duchesse de Montpensier (1627–1693; La Grande Mademoiselle), acknowledged that he was her stepbrother and gave him his title of comte de Charny. See her Mémoires, ed. Adolphe Chéruel, 4 vols. (Paris: Charpentier, 1858–59), 2:275–76. 54. The context for this exchange is unknown.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 35 Letter 7 Madrid, January 26, 1680 I will not speak to you much about the queen of Spain’s entry.55 She was its grandest and most delightful ornament, on horseback under a large dais, very dressed up; a hat with white feathers, clothing made expressly for this day of ceremony, preceded by several highly adorned grandees and a quantity of liverymen, sumptuous and badly matched, like the clothing of their masters. The queen was very composed. She changed her solemn air a bit while in front of the balcony where we were, and then I saw her change back again. For two days in a row there were fireworks in front of the palace, which I excused myself from attending. Until now there have been no other festivities. The king often takes the queen into convents, and for her that is no celebration at all. She insisted that I go with her these last two days. Since I know no one, I found it very tedious. I think she wanted me there only to keep her company. The king and queen are seated, each one in an armchair, with nuns at their feet and many ladies who come and kiss their hands. A light meal is brought: the queen always has roast capon at this meal. The king watches her eat and finds that she eats a lot. There are two dwarfs who always keep up the conversation. Yesterday, upon leaving the convent, I thought I would return home, but Madame la Connétable de Castille56 begged me to go with her to the palace because, as you probably know, I could give myself grand airs here (without having deserved it), since the ladies think it’s enough that an amabassadress be of the same nation as their queen to be somewhat to their liking. I do my best not to disappoint their expectations. These are all the matters I wish to tend to at the palace. The queen mother is always a very good princess. I cannot say anything else. I do not seek to benefit from her kind gestures toward me, since I have seen her only twice since I have been in Madrid. Two days ago another Spanish ambassador to France was named. The one that you had in France was recalled. He is the marquis de La Fuente, son of the one whom you met as ambassador.57 His wife will leave soon. She will seem to you neither young nor pretty. She may be one and the other in this country. She is a good woman. The life I am leading in Spain is not as leisurely as I would like, and it will be a feat if I am able to make all the visits here that I am supposed to. What is most 55. The ceremonial entry took place on January 13, 1680. 56. Maria Teresa de Benavides (ca. 1640–1702), wife of the constable of Castille, Iñigo Melchor Fernández de Velas. 57. Don Gaspar de Teves y Córdoba Tello de Guzman, second marquis of La Fuente (d. 1685), served as ambassador to several countries and was plenipotentiary for Spain at the Peace of Nijmegen in 1679; he replaced the duke of Giovinazzo (see Letter 12, note 91). The first marquis of La Fuente had been to France and had assisted Pierre de Villars during his earlier ambassadorship to Spain. See the note to Letter A in the Appendix.

36 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS pleasant for me is the comfort of the clothing. The queen mother and all the ladies always so fervently approve of what I wear, especially the mantles, that you can well believe with what pleasure I satisfy them. Black, as I believe I have already told you, is a color no more respectable than another. I do not see much haste here to send the letter certifying Madame de Grancey’s pension of two thousand écus. Monsieur de Villars would well like to be of help to her. But for all the gold coming from the Indies, Spain does not seem so prosperous.58 The richest, the most gilded, and the most magnificent thing I have seen is the queen’s apartment. In her room there is, besides other furnishings, a tapestry whose visible background is made of pearls. There are no figures. It cannot be said that the gold in it is solid, but it is used in an extraordinary manner and abundance. There are several flowers. There are decorative designs. But one would have to be more skillful than I am to depict these things so you can understand the beauty of the coral used in this work. It is not a precious enough material for me to praise its quantity; but the color and the gold in the embroidery would be truly difficult to describe to you. But this hardly matters to you. This tapestry has stayed on my mind. It’s what has made me write this, which is tending quite a bit toward balderdash. Farewell, Madame. What I feel very clearly is that I care for you. Care for me, too, I entreat you, and never concede to yourself that I am in Spain and you in France. Madrid, January 27, 168059 Since the courier did not leave yesterday evening and I have a little bit of time left, I wish to tell you in a few words, if I can, of an amusing episode.60 We were arriving home yesterday, Monsieur de Villars and I, at ten o’clock in the morning, when we saw a tapada61 enter into my room, followed by another covered woman who seemed to be her attendant. I signaled to Monsieur de Villars that he should begin the required doing of honors. The attendant left. The other indicated that she wished the servants in the hall to leave as well. She approached a window with Monsieur de Villars, signaling to me at the same time that I approach. She took off her cape, and I was no more in the know. I vaguely remembered having seen someone who resembled her. Monsieur de Villars exclaimed, “It’s Madame 58. Spain’s economic decline and mishandled finances come up regularly as a topic in Pierre de Villars’ Mémoires, as well as in Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy’s Relation du voyage d’Espagne (Paris: Claude Barbin, 1691) and Mémoires de la Cour d’Espagne, 2 vols. (Paris: Claude Barbin, 1690). 59. In the 1759 edition, both entries from January 27, 1680, are part of Letter 7. The 1760 edition includes the two entries as separately numbered letters, so that the total number of letters is 38 and not 37. This edition follows the numbering of the 1759 edition. 60. The ordinary (“ordinaire,” or regular mail delivery) between Madrid and Paris took about two weeks. See Roosen, The Age of Louis XIV, 133. 61. A woman whose face is concealed by a cape.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 37 la Connétable Colonna!” At that I began paying her a few compliments. But since it’s not her way, she came right to the point. She wept and asked that we take pity on her. Let me say two words about her appearance: she has a beautiful figure. A scarf in the Spanish style covers her shoulders neither too much nor too little. What she does reveal is very attractive: two thick braids of black hair, tied on top with a beautiful ribbon the color of fire. The rest of her hair is untidy and barely combed; beautiful pearls around her neck; an agitated air that would not suit another woman well, but which for her is quite natural and does not spoil anything; beautiful teeth.62 I would much like for you to understand all this in just a few words. Madame la Connétable is in a royal convent named San Domingo. She has already been out of it four or five times, and the last time she returned, the nuncio pretended he wished to speak to a nun at the gate, and when it was opened, Madame la Connétable, who was thought to be quite far away, quickly went back in; because in Spain, in these kinds of convents, there are strict rules for entrances and exits. When she went there, the relatives of Prince Colonna demanded that she sign a document for the king, according to which she would pledge not to leave without her husband’s permission, and promising that if she did leave, she could be sent back to Saragossa or to another place of her husband’s choosing.63 Here she is, then, doubly bound. When the marquis de los Balbases returned to Madrid with his wife, Madame Colonna thought that they would receive her in their home, but they excused themselves from doing so, saying it was too small. Talk of the queen’s entry prompted Madame Colonna to resolve to leave her convent again. No sooner decided than done. She has a coach borrowed and goes straight to the marquise de los Balbases. She was well received, despite their surprise. At the end of several days someone came to tell her that the Balbases were going to send her to Saragossa to her husband. At that she asks for a coach to get some air. One is given to her. She goes around the city and then has herself let off at our door. There she is, then, at our house, saying that she does not want to leave, and that we would not want to put her out on the street. It seemed that she would be quite glad to see the nuncio. We served her dinner. I did my best with her, because it’s true that, in the state she’s in, she evokes great pity. The marquis de los Balbases sends one of his relatives to try to convince her to return and not to make another public scene. She says she will do nothing. The nuncio arrives. She begs him to get her back into the convent. He responds that he does not have the power to do so. A lady of quality who is one of our friends, 62. Marie Mancini was known for her beauty and had attracted the young Louis XIV’s attentions when she was at the court of France. 63. Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna was appointed viceroy of Aragon by Don Juan of Austria and arrived in Saragossa in 1678. He came with his three sons and negotiated the marriage between his eldest son, Filippo, and the daughter of the duke of Medinaceli, who became prime minister in 1679. See Mancini, Memoirs, 7.

38 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS the comtesse de Villaumbrosa, whose son married the Balbases’ daughter, came here.64 Monsieur de Villars and the nuncio made several trips to the home of Balbases. The marquis promised, on a knight’s honor, that he would not use force against Madame Colonna to make her return to her husband, and that he would entreat her to go back to his house, and that we would do what we could so that the king, who had Madame Colonna’s document, would know nothing of her exit, but that if she persisted in not wanting to return, she would have against her the king, her husband, and all of his family. Well, Madame, it was close to midnight and none of us knew what to do about the trouble that this poor creature was bringing upon herself by staying with us. But finally she decided to leave. The comtesse de Villaumbrosa, Monsieur de Villars, and I brought her to the marquis de los Balbases. His wife and he received her very well; a thousand embraces. What goes through her mind is beyond belief. She admits it herself. If she is unable to keep moving, it is not for lack of good will. Nevertheless, if she decides to return again to our house and does not want to leave, for fear that she will be brought back under her husband’s authority, we would be greatly inconvenienced by it. If this story bores you, Madame, blame it on the desire and pleasure that I have to tell all that I know I can write to you.

Letter 8 Madrid, February 9, 1680 The queen of Spain, quite far from being in a pitiable state, as is published in France, has fattened to the point that if she grows a bit more, her face will be perfectly round. From the beginning her bosom was already very big, although it is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. She usually sleeps from ten to twelve hours a night. She eats meat four times a day. It is true that breakfast and collation65 are her best meals. For her light meals there is always a boiled capon in a soup and a roasted capon. I often see her laugh when I have the honor of being with her. I am certain that I am neither so amusing nor so pleasant as to cause her to be in this good mood, so it must be that she is naturally not unhappy. Surely one could not conduct oneself any better, nor with more kindness and consideration for the king. She had seen his portrait; that of his attachment to rules and solitary life had not been painted for her. It’s not as if all the customs of this country have been repealed to put more pleasant ones in their place. But the queen mother does all that she can to ease them. It seems to all people with 64. María Petronila Niño de Porres Enríquez de Guzmán, countess of Villaumbrosa (1640–1700), whose son married Teresa Spínola y Colonna de los Balbases, daughter of the Balbases. See Villars, Mémoires, 324–25. 65. A light meal taken in the late afternoon or evening.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 39 common sense that the young queen could not better fulfill her role in garnering the continued attachment and tenderness that this prince shows her. There is this duchesse de Terranova, the camarera mayor, whose character is known to be somewhat haughty. All the ladies find the young queen infinitely charming. I do what I can, when I have the honor of being with her, to remind her to tell them all that is most proper for winning them over. When I tell you that she is fat, that she sleeps, that she laughs, once again, what I tell you is true. It is also no less true that, given all of this, the life that she leads is hardly pleasant for her. Well, Madame, I assure you that she behaves marvelously. I am quite surprised by it. Yesterday was the most remarkable celebration of the bulls that had ever been seen in several reigns of Spanish kings. Six grandees or sons of grandees were the toreadors. During the first hour I thought I would die; “die” is saying too little, because I felt such an emotion and a violent heartbeat that I thought I would not survive it. I would have gotten up and left the balcony where I was, if Monsieur de Villars had not told me that for nothing in the world could I make such an error in protocol. This celebration is of a frightful beauty. The bravery of the toreadors is great, and that of the best and strongest was truly tested by several terrifying bulls. They pierced several beautiful horses with their horns, and when horses are killed, the gentlemen must fight on foot, sword in hand, against these furious beasts. Even if I wanted to tell you all that one sees in these combats, which take after those of the ancient Moors and Granadians, I would never be able to. The ladies whose lovers fight and who are present must have a very bad time, even given how little they truly love them.66 Each gentleman who fights has one hundred men dressed in his livery. It’s something that merits being told to you in more detail. If I were king of Spain, we would never see it again. I believe I have already spoken to you about the religious devotion in this country. We have been obliged, out of fear of scandalizing the secular and religious, to eat meat on Saturdays. On that day we do not eat what is called petits pieds.67 It is a common mortification.68 It exists everywhere in Spain. 66. Rigid conduct rules at the court of Spain meant there was little occasion for noblemen and women to speak to each other privately. In her letters, Bellefonds-Villars mocks the fact that supposed lovers rarely, if ever, communicate face to face. 67. Literally, small feet, meaning small game or poultry. 68. Members of the aristocracy were required to purchase, once a year, the Bull of the Holy Crusade (Bula de la Santa Cruzada), which was originally issued to provide indulgences for those involved in the fight against non-Christians. Ostensibly, the funds gathered were to go toward Catholic missions, but they were in fact appropriated by the Crown. This particular Bull allowed for the eating of meat on Saturday, so those noblemen and women who did not eat meat on Saturday could be suspected of not having paid for the Bull, and therefore of possibly being Jewish or Muslim. See Eduardo de Hinojosa y Naveros, “Bull of the Crusade,” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 4 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908), at New Advent: . See also Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres, 250–52.

40 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS All these ladies, generally speaking, are well-mannered and courteous, especially those who have traveled some with their husbands. The king of Spain perfectly despises Frenchmen and Frenchwomen. There is a Frenchman here about whom I have spoken to you. He is the comte de Charny, who deserves to live in his own country and not to end his days in this one. We see him little, but what I know of him is that he is a prudent and sensible man. We see the marquis de Flamarens even less. I have a good enough opinion of him to believe that he is very bored. Farewell, Madame.

Letter 9 Madrid, March 6, 1680 Here we are on Ash Wednesday. I have nothing to tell you about Carnival. Since Lent here is in no way a time of penitence, that which precedes it is not distinguished by any amusements, and you would never be inclined to believe that one of these includes throwing a lot of water out the window onto passersby. As to what takes place at the palace, the king, the queen, and the ladies spar by throwing eggs filled with scented water, but in such prodigious quantities that it’s impossible to understand how they find so many.69 They are silver and decorated. The queen gave me a basket of them, which I offered to my daughter. That, Madame, is how this young queen experiences days that she spent differently in France and whose memory I attempt, as much as I can, to have her forget. Truth be told, the queen’s kindness and cordiality, and her conduct as a whole, are extraordinary things in an eighteen-year old. All sorts of elements make up this happy disposition and, to add to the glory that she can derive from all that she does, is the fact that before she arrived, she was given the most malicious advice in the world.70 She knows it well now. I have been quite often to Spanish theater plays with her. Nothing is more detestable. I amused myself by watching the suitors look at their mistresses and speak to them from afar using signs they made with their fingers. As for me, I am convinced that it is an expression of their memories rather than a language, because their fingers move so quickly that, if these lovers understand each other, then the Cupid of Spain must be an excellent master in this art.71 I believe that he 69. These are cascarones, eggs that are emptied of their contents, then filled with scented water or confetti, sealed, and decorated. 70. Bellefonds-Villars refers here to the camarera mayor, the duchess of Terranova, whose plot to set Marie-Louise against her mother-in-law, Mariana of Austria, began before the royal wedding took place. 71. Pierre de Villars also notes extravagant courting customs among the nobility that preclude conversation: “This commerce is quite imaginary.” See Mémoires, 269.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 41 sees more clearly here than elsewhere, and that he hardly worries about having things go any further. Since a few days ago there has been a new prime minister, the duc de Medinaceli, the grandest lord of this court.72 He is only forty or forty-five. That is all that you will find out here about state affairs. I know hardly anything else. There has been no remedy to the matter that is closest to my heart, that is, the depreciation of the currency.73 It is a rather sad thing, Madame, the little money that comes to us from France after this decrease, and that each pistole must lose half its value. The pity I have on us does not prevent me from feeling some for the destitute people, who are so thin, defeated, and miserable, that they seem to live off what is called here tomar el sol. Sunday there was a play with stage machines at the Retiro,74 where the two queens and the king were. We had to be there at midday. It was deadly cold there. I was strolling through the galleries of this residence, which are very pleasant, and I was dressed comfortably, since I had to watch this play from behind the blinds,75 when, thinking neither of the king nor the queen, I heard our young princess calling me quite loudly by name. With a somewhat composed air, I entered the room from where her voice seemed to be coming. I found her seated between the king and the queen mother. In calling to me she had heeded only her desire to see me and had completely forgotten Spanish gravity. She laughed when she saw me. The queen mother reassured me; she is always happy that the queen, her daughter-inlaw, enjoys herself. The queen mother even gave her the chance to come speak to me near a window, but I soon gave my leave. She asked me if I had received any of your letters. As to the rest, Madame, all the ambassadresses in Madrid die. There have been two in six weeks, and who were younger than I.76 I would have liked it as much if death had taken some from another country. I am told it is impossible to survive the heat. I calm myself a bit about this when I think of Madame de Schomberg and Madame de La Fayette, who seek and find temperate air in their 72. Juan Francisco de la Cerda Enríquez de Ribera, eighth duke of Medinaceli (1637–1691), the new prime minister, or valido, was 43 at the time and one of the most politically influential players at the court of Charles II. He was ultimately responsible for the recall of Villars. 73. When, in the 1660s, the bronze currency (reales de vellón) was ordered to be minted in a bronze and silver alloy, counterfeit coins flooded the market. As a result, the value of silver and gold went up, including that of the pistole. The remedy of which Bellefonds-Villars speaks was a response to the inflation. Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres, 254–56. 74. These were plays or operas with various apparatuses to entertain audiences, such as mechanisms to hoist actors into the air. 75. During certain public ceremonies and spectacles, it was customary for women to watch from behind blinds or curtains. 76. The wives of the ambassadors of Denmark and Germany.

42 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS city homes and in those that they choose in the country.77 The ambassadresses are always sick, even if Fortune does not assail them with her reversals. As for me, I am well, and do not need any remedies or think them necessary. But that cannot last. I follow my diet of chocolate, to which alone I owe my health. I do not consume it excessively or imprudently. I would think that my constitution would not tolerate this food completely, yet it is marvelous and delicious. I had some made in my house, and it is never harmful. I often think that if I am able to see you again, I want you to have some regularly so that you will admit that nothing is better for one’s health. Well, that is some good talk of chocolate. Keep in mind that I am in Spain, and that chocolate is almost my only pleasure. Madame la Connétable Colonna, since her visit to us, is still in the convent five leagues from here. Her husband has been in Madrid two days. They say that he will allow her to go back to another convent in this city where she will have much less freedom than in the one she left. We learned that on the day she was brought from Madrid to the place where she is at present, she was fully ready to come to our house and hole up in my room. I received by this last ordinary a letter from Madame de Sévigné. I would not know how to answer her today, however much I wish to. I had the queen read the part where Madame de Sévigné speaks of her and of her pretty feet, which allow her to dance so well and walk with such grace. That pleased her very much. Then she thought that these pretty feet, for all they are able to do, presently move only to make a few circles around the room and, at eight thirty every evening, lead her to her bed. She instructed me to convey friendly salutations to both of you. Yesterday she was as beautiful as an angel, weighed down, without complaint, by a set of emeralds and diamonds on her head, or better, the thousand hairpins which hold the stones; some large ear pendants and, diagonally across her front and all around, rings and bands. You think that emeralds in brown hair are not attractive. Correct yourself. Her complexion is of the most beautiful that one can find in a brunette, and her white bosom is very beautiful. She was a bit more adorned than usual. She told me that she had given an audience to Prince Colonna and that, seeing him and hearing him speak, she became much more convinced of his wife’s imprudence. He is made to be painted. As to his good nature, one cannot doubt it, if one judges from the way he let his wife live in Rome. The queen asked me quite a bit for news of Madame de Grignan, and if she will come back to Paris this winter.78

77. Suzanne d’Aumale d’Haucourt, duchesse de Schomberg (d. 1688), was among Sévigné’s close friends. Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, comtesse de La Fayette, was the celebrated author of the novel The Princess of Cleves, first published anonymously in 1678. 78. Françoise-Marguerite de Sévigné, comtesse de Grignan (1646–1705), was Madame de Sévigné’s beloved daughter, who lived in Provence.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 43 If, three weeks after you have received this letter, you send a valet to the Richelieu quarter, have him pass by the convent of the Petits-Pères,79 and tell him to inquire if two of their friars have arrived from Spain. These fathers have a little box for you with the smallest present in the world. Do, however, take note of the búcaro cups.80 In truth I am a bit ashamed, not of the little gift, but of this long letter. It is not fitting that someone who is in Madrid should test the patience of a person such as you, whose days are filled with pleasant occupations, or so they are called.

Letter 10 Madrid, March 21, 1680 I wish to speak to you of the outing that I went on yesterday. It is of the most ordinary when it is hot, and it is already very hot here. It’s a carriage ride in this much-praised Manzanares river. Specifically, the dust is beginning to accumulate so much that it is already a nuisance. There are small rivulets of water here and there, but not enough to soak the meager sands that rise up under the horses’ hooves, so that this ride is no longer bearable. This is not to tell you a bad joke, but rather a quite extraordinary truth. I beg you, Madame, to recount this with all the proper embellishments you use to give things a certain flair. I reveal to you only this: that one cannot take a ride in the riverbed because there is only dust. But that is nothing: one must see the grand and prodigious bridge that a king of Spain built over this Manzanares. It is much wider and much longer than the Pont-Neuf in Paris, and one cannot help but be grateful to the person who advised the prince either to sell this bridge or to buy a river.81 I thought that I could tell you all this in five or six lines, and here are many more. The queen’s Frenchwomen left here the fourteenth of this month. They came to our residence that day. They took care of all their affairs and, after dinner, Monsieur de Villars and I accompanied them in my carriage outside the city to take theirs. That evening they had told the queen that they would see her again the following day but, wisely, they did not bid her goodbye. She asked for them as early as seven o’clock. They were no longer there. She wept a great deal. She 79. Next to the Palais Royal in Paris. 80. A búcaro was a vessel made of baked earthenware, especially clay from the Jalisco region in Mexico. The reddish clay, which had a pleasant fragrance, was used to make containers for perfume and medicine. 81. The Segovia Bridge, commissioned by Philip II, was designed by Juan de Herrera (1530–1597) and built from 1582 to 1584. It became a commonplace in French writing about Madrid to mock the disproportion between the sumptuous bridge and the low-flowing river over which it was built. See Schaub, La France espagnole, 189–192.

44 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS sent for me, but I came home a bit late. I went to the palace at five o’clock in the evening. She was getting up. In truth, it is surprising how she has become more beautiful. She had her hair on her forehead, bound in large curls; rose-colored ribbons on her headdress and on her head; and not daubed with rouge, as she must be ordinarily. An admirable bosom. She put on a dressing gown in the French manner and spent the rest of the day in this attire. She looked at herself, dressed this way, in a tall mirror. The sight comforted her. From her eyes one could tell that she had cried quite a bit. As she began to speak to me, the king entered, and it is an established rule here that when His Majesty enters the queen’s chamber, all the ladies who are there leave it at once, even if there are only the camarera mayor and two or three servants. I heard playing cards being requested, and from that I gathered that the queen was about to be quite bored by the little game the king likes, and where one can lose a pistole only through extraordinary misfortune. The queen always acts as if she were thrilled by this activity. Two of the women whom she brought with her from France remain: one of her nursemaids, who is quite competent, and a woman from Provence, who plays the harpsichord. The king has great joy in seeing the number of French diminish, since he cannot hide that he hates our nation to the highest degree. To explain to you a bit better the sending back of these women, who are a robust nursemaid of the queen’s, and a girl, called Martin, lovely, pretty, and prudent: they were not driven out, but their life in the palace was made unbearable enough to compel them to leave. Add to that the hostility of the king. Monsieur de Villars asks me not to forget to speak to you of a setting of jewels that one of the queen’s ladies wore two days ago. She is what we call in France a maiden of honor. The queen has ten of them. New ones are added every day. The one of whom I speak to you is the duc d’Alba’s daughter.82 Their dresses are of the most magnificent, with many precious stones. This lady, serving a small meal to the queen, like the others, was taking away a dish. I saw a pistol hanging at her side from a large knot of ribbon. Do not think it was a jewel. It could well have killed a man: it was more than a half-foot long, of a well-polished and well-wrought steel. I did not wish to pretend to notice it in front of the queen. Perhaps I did not pay all my respects to the girl, who did not wear that weapon to hide it, nor because she did not expect some praise for it. The other day there was a procession in what are called the palace cloisters. I saw it through a small window in front of which it passed. The king and queen walked together. She wore a long ceremonial dress with long sleeves and a long train carried by the camarera mayor. The maidens or maids of honor walked behind them, adorned in special dress for these days. The cross, the patriarch, the bishops, the priests, and the religious orders preceded Their Majesties. But 82. The duke of Alba at this time was Antonio Alvarez de Toledo (1615–1690). The reference is possibly to his daughter Maria Alvarez de Toledo, princess of Astillano. See Villars, Mémoires, 77.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 45 to go back to the ladies, they are followed by someone called the guarda mayor.83 Their suitors, during those days, obtain what is called dar lugar,84 that is, during this procession they have the space and liberty to talk to their mistresses. These processions are much better occasions for the suitors than at the theater, where they can only speak to each other from a distance, and with their fingers. That, Madame, is all that I can say about this ceremony. If the cross were not carried in it, I would tell you that it is one of the prettiest and most gallant festivities I have seen in Spain. I will finish this letter with something that will seem to you as extraordinary as that which I told you at the beginning: it is a secret that Monsieur de Villars has confided to me. The king, the two queens, and the prime minister have no credit. This secret is like one in a play. I suspected it a bit by the little precaution that Monsieur de Villars took in confiding it to me.85

Letter 11 Madrid, April 4, 1680 I received two of your letters with this last courier, as I was getting into a carriage to go to the Escorial. Alas! Madame, what news is this that you have given me of the death of Monsieur de la Rochefoucauld?86 I do not have the heart to speak to you of all the marvels that I have just seen. The sadness of this death, which pierced me, prompted me to consider longer than I might have, had I been in another state of mind, this magnificent pantheon, and these eight beautiful homes, if one can call thus the place which the dead inhabit, and where there are already four kings and four queens.87 That is all, Madame. I would not know how to speak with you about anything today. I embrace you with all my heart, and it is all that I can do, saddened as I am.

83. Laura Maria de Alarcón, governess of the maidens of honor. Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres, 262. 84. Literally, to give place to. 85. Villars, in his Mémoires, recounts that there were not enough funds to pay palace servants, and that trips of the king and queen to other residences (Aranjuez, El Escorial) were eliminated or delayed. The queen herself often had no pocket money. 86. François VI, duc de la Rochefoucauld (1613–1680), is best remembered as the author of the Memoirs (1664) and Maxims (1665). At the end of his life he kept regular company with, and was beloved by, such figures as the marquise de Sévigné and comtesse de La Fayette. He died on March 17, 1680. 87. The chapel of the Escorial palace, completed in 1584 during the reign of Philip II, is the mausoleum of the Spanish kings.

46 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS Letter 12 Madrid, April 27, 1680 If on Sunday I had been to another lovely procession that was taking place, I would give you a light account of it, but it did not seem reasonable to me to purposely spend all of Palm Sunday without praying to God. I contented myself the evening before with seeing the queen’s dress, which she had ordered brought to me. There is always one made expressly for this ceremony, which entails displays of mourning and mortification. The bottom of this dress is made of black satin, all embroidered in white and silver jet, and, without comparison, done much better than in France. It is the only embroidery I have seen of complete perfection. The queen wore many precious stones, but with small bits of pleated gauze attached in several places to the bodice. It is meant to signify great modesty. The ten maidens of honor had pointed white gauze caps on their heads and their suitors by their side. I will tell you nothing about all that happens during the three holy days; Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. All the women are dressed up and run from church to church all night, except those who have found what they were looking for in the first church, because there are several who, in all the year, speak to their suitors only during these three days. I write you via a courier that the king sent to Monsieur de Villars. Perhaps you would like this ambassador even more if you knew how judiciously he conducts himself at this court. Since I am always on guard not to write anything about affairs of state, I did not inform you of several things that happened here, although they were made public; but in general you can say that Monsieur de Villars has put everything in order as the king desired.88 A thousand snares have been set for Monsieur de Villars in the last two or three months, in order to provoke a fight near his residence in Madrid, and to have our home pillaged and burned, by stoking the people.89 Everything is to be feared when such scandals take place. One must constantly work to prevent them and even, if possible, to foresee them, although that is sometimes quite difficult. Cardinal de Bonsi,90 when he was here 88. Louis XIV. 89. Villars writes at length about the revoking of privileges of French ambassadors under Charles II. Privileges included imunidad del barrio, neighborhood immunity, which restricted the carrying out of law enforcement in the quarter around the amabassador’s residence without the ambassador’s consent, and franquicias, an exemption from tariffs on objects going to the ambassador’s residence. The law officer of Madrid had gone through the ambassador’s neighborhood, and also a crowd wielding sticks, after rumors circulated that the French had brought counterfeit currency into Spain and therefore caused currency deflation. Villars mentions this violent affront in an ambassadorial dispatch from February 22, 1680, to Louis XIV. Charles II finally restored the privileges. Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres, 267–72. 90. Piero Bonsi (1631–1703), a protegé of Cardinal Mazarin who later became archbishop of Narbonne, was named extraordinary ambassador to Spain in 1670.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 47 as ambassador, went through this. When these disturbances occur, the complaints inevitably make their way back to France, and a poor ambassador gets condemned without having been able to explain his side. Here they harbor such resentment over the fact that Giovinazzo,91 their ambassador to France, did not receive the treatment he expected, that they would have bought at a high price some reason to attack Monsieur de Villars’ conduct concerning either the simple existence or the precise nature of the embassy. On a personal level, no one is more liked or more esteemed than he. This king has a frightful hatred of the French. I have written you about it many times. The queen’s conduct is always very good. You praise her for the good taste that she has for me; but do you know in what sauce I must simmer to be found so tasty? Farewell, my dear Madame. Monsieur de Villars sends you a thousand devoted respects.

Letter 13 Madrid, May 1, 1680 All I can tell you of the queen is that she continues to behave well. On Wednesday the king went to the Escorial, and came back Friday. One must put on certain airs here: the queen had all the ones needed to convey great sadness during his absence. I may not be a good actress, but I know well how to praise and give proper opinions when I find an occasion to do so. During this short absence they sent each other precious and charming presents. I am back from the palace. Today is Monsieur’s saint’s day.92 The queen was as beautiful as the day. I don’t know how she can be so beautiful in Madrid. She was adorned with very large pearls and many diamonds. I spent some time alone with her. We sang several opera melodies, since our conversations have none of the gravity that is customary for someone my age. In truth, were I to direct properly my moral intentions, I would not think amusing her was a good deed.93 Palace life in Madrid can hardly be understood. The king was a bit ill yesterday. He is feeling well today. I stayed behind as all the royal household went to the theater. I was very happy not to go and to return to my residence. I will not tell you all that Monsieur de Villars would like me to inform you about, on his part. It would be impossible to honor or respect you more than he does, and also my daughter, who loves Monsieur de Coulanges with all her heart. Farewell, Madame. 91. Domenico Giudice, duke of Giovinazzo (1637–1724), served as Spanish ambassador to France, Portugal, and the House of Savoy. 92. That is, the feast day of Saint Philip, observed on May 1, and therefore the saint’s day of Philippe I, duc d’Orléans. 93. Here Bellefonds-Villars refers to the devotional connotations of dresser son intention, to direct morally one’s intentions, and faire une bonne œuvre, to do a good deed.

48 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS Letter 14 Madrid, May 26, 1680 You say, Madame, that I attract praise from the queen because of the taste she seems to have for me and the desire she conveys that I be almost always with her. In truth, she deserves more praise for how she tolerates the horrible palace life. Three or four hours a day she plays jackstraws,94 the king’s favorite game, without showing any irritation. He often gives her gifts that she likes very much, and that is how he consoles her. The marquis de Grana and his wife have arrived.95 They say this woman speaks five or six languages. I will be humble with her. I don’t know if she will see the queen often. If that is the case, we will often be together, since only the ambassadresses of France and Germany enter the queens’ chambers. All the other wives of foreign ministers see them only in the places for official ceremonies. With this privilege, can one not be happy in Madrid? Monsieur de Villars sends you a thousand most humble respects, and my daughter, too. She loves Monsieur de Coulanges a bit more than you. Yesterday she brought Monsieur de Coulanges’ letter and songs to the queen. They sang them for a long time. Have you received the little box from the friars yet? Letter 15 Madrid, May 28, 1680 I saw Monsieur and Madame de Grana; the husband came to see me two or three days ago. He spent the whole evening with me, after dinner. He speaks French better than a Frenchman, and he is a good conversationalist. He is bored to death in Madrid, even though he has lived here a long time and has many relatives here. He is terrified of the government, even though he speaks of it only as an ambassador of the Emperor must speak to a Frenchwoman. He says that he will not be here long. He claims that there is only one ambassador from France who could find some pleasure at this court now, after hearing talk of the bad state it’s in. As for me, Madame, you can well believe that I do not address any of these matters. I take pleasure in the good weather, which at present is marvelous. It has been mild for one month. We see or feel the sun just in the right amount to enjoy it. The queen orders me, and, if I dare say it, pleads with me constantly to see her often. The tedium in the palace is awful, and I sometimes say to this princess, 94. This was a game of pick-up sticks whose different colors indicated specific values. 95. Othon Henri del Caretto or del Carretto, marquis of Grana (1629–1685), had a successful military and diplomatic career, and was the ambassador of Spain for Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I (1640–1705). Villars, his diplomatic enemy, calls him “short and monstrously fat.” See Mémoires, 59. Grana’s wife was Maria Theresia von Herberstein (1641–1682).

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 49 when I enter her room, that it’s as if one could feel it, see it, touch it, so thickly is it spread. However, I do all that I can to persuade her that she must get used to it, because it is not my place to indulge and appease her with foolish and fanciful words, which many people so generously dispense. For two months it was thought she was pregnant. It is for her to know if this was the case. One cannot be more proper than I in asking about such matters. What’s more, you know that when she left Paris, I was not very much in her confidence, nor was I known or regarded at the Palais Royal.96 I am meddling in nothing here: it pleases the queen to see a Frenchwoman and to speak in her natural language. We sing opera arias together. Sometimes I sing a minuet, to which she dances. When she speaks to me of Fontainebleau, of Saint-Cloud,97 I change the subject; and written accounts of them must be avoided. When she leaves the palace, nothing is as sad as her outings. She is with the king in a very rough carriage, and all the curtains are drawn. But then those are the customs of Spain, and I tell her often that she should not have thought that they would be changed for her, or for anyone. Between you and me, what I don’t understand is that no one searched, on land and on sea, and for her weight in gold, some intelligent, worthy, and prudent woman to provide consolation and counsel to this princess. Did they think she would not need it in Spain? She behaves kindly and with deference toward the king. As to amusements, she sees none even to hope for at this court. But since I have no role to play with her, and I have no charge or mission to interfere in matters, nor am I to investigate anything regarding the past, the present, and the future, she honors me greatly in wanting that I be near her often. But when this is not the case, I hardly die of tedium with Monsieur de Villars, with whom I like to go out just as much. If I told you of the continuation of, or, better said, the worsening of this country’s misery, it would pain you. Farewell, Madame, I am yours with all my heart.

Letter 16 Madrid, June 13, 1680 Since my last letter we made a small trip to the only place that the king of Spain can visit when he wishes to leave his Madrid residence for a bit of time. It is called Aranjuez.98 Here it passes for the marvel of this world. The waterways are beautifully situated. And if Monsieur Le Nôtre found something just like it, what he 96. The Palais Royal, near the Louvre Palace, was the main residence of the House of Orléans and known for its social gatherings. 97. Fontainebleau is the royal palace south of Paris where the proxy wedding of Marie-Louise d’Orléans to Charles II was celebrated on August 31, 1679. Philippe I d’Orléans purchased the Palace of Saint-Cloud, west of Paris, in 1658. 98. The royal palace of Aranjuez, south of Madrid, was commissioned by Philip II in the sixteenth century but not completed until the eighteenth century.

50 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS could do with it would indeed be called a marvel.99 The garden, which is large, is flanked by two rivers, one the Tagus and the other the Guadarrama.100 Now there are some big names, but here I am, set straight for life about these famous names. Don’t you have a lofty notion of this Tagus? And hasn’t the Manzanares sometimes appealed to your imagination as a lovely river?101 The Tagus is larger, but, then again, its water is not clear. One must tell the truth, however: this garden, for Spain, is pleasant for the quantity of fountains and trees in it, because nothing is so rare in this country as woods, due to the dry climate. I found nothing to fault in the small width of the walkways. Philip II had them done, and perhaps in his time they had to be that way to be perfect. The house would be quite beautiful if it were finished, but more than half is missing, even though the floor plan is not large. There are seven or eight leagues between Aranjuez and Madrid. We went there Friday and came back on Monday. I went to see the queen the following day. I told her wonderful things about it and begged her to tell the king when he entered. She did her duty very well. I had advised her to convey some impatience for His Majesty to take her to see this beautiful place. She had no trouble persuading him that I was charmed by it, because he believes it more than anything in the world. This residence, which seems appropriate only for mild weather, is deadly in the summer, and the governor has permission not to go there in that season. Of all rare beasts, there is an infinite number of horrible camels. Seeing just one, as one can sometimes see in Paris, is not as unpleasant as seeing many together. Nothing one sees here recalls the menagerie of Versailles.102 In fact there is not even a menagerie, because these ugly animals graze in the fields like herds of bulls and cows, and they are used to carry stones or dirt for construction. Here I am, having returned from this royal house, of which I will now stop speaking to you. The Spanish tell us constantly that we will soon be at war. The pitiable people have a great fear of it.103 As for me, I much prefer the tedium of Madrid than to have to leave it for that reason, and I always answer them that I do not believe any of it. This rumor is more widely spread at the palace than elsewhere, and the queen, as you can imagine, is quite alarmed. She continues to do well. Her happy temperament is good for her health. I do not know what, in her soul and in her mind, sustains her so well because, regarding her heart, I don’t think anything is 99. André Le Nôtre (1613–1700) was Louis XIV’s principal gardener and designer of the gardens at the Palace of Versailles. 100. A tributary of the Tagus. 101. This is an ironic comment, since the Manzanares was dry for a good part of the year. 102. The menagerie of Versailles, built under Louis XIV in 1663, was an octagonal structure that housed exotic animals. 103. Both Spain and France continued to threaten each other over matters including French-Spanish border disputes, French commercial ships robbed by Spanish pirates, and ownership of titles of nobility. Louis XIV had sent troops to Bayonne, at the western border with Spain. Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres, 295–96.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 51 transpiring there. When I spend some time without seeing her, she does not like it. We sing like crickets. She reads operas, she plays the harpsichord marvelously, and the guitar quite well. She learned to play the harp in no time. She does not find much consolation in devotional texts. That is hardly unusual for her age. I tell her often that I wish she were pregnant and would have a child. I have not seen the marquis de Grana since I wrote you. I would be delighted for us to see each other, but perhaps the politics he thinks he must subscribe to at this court restrains him, and his wife, too, who, for her part, dresses for politics in Spanish fashion. She should be compensated for it, because she looks much better when dressed differently. Monday there will be a celebration with bulls. We anticipate a very enjoyable time, since such fierce bulls have never been seen before. The abbot de Villars will inform you on the subject if you wish. He was delighted by the bullfight he saw. But whatever he may say to you about it, believe me, it is a frightful beauty. There will be another celebration on the thirty-first of this month, about which I will have an ample account written for you.104 You will find it quite extraordinary. It takes place only every fifty years. Many Jews are burned, and there are other torments for heretics and atheists. These are horrible things. Letter 17 Madrid, July 25, 1680 I did not have the courage to attend this horrible execution of Jews. It was an atrocious spectacle, from what I heard of it. However, I was obliged to be present for the week of trials,105 unless I obtained firm testimony from doctors that I was at life’s end, since otherwise I would have been taken for a heretic. It was even thought very bad that I did not appear to enjoy thoroughly what was happening. But as to the cruelties that I saw enacted in the death of these miserable ones— that is what I cannot write to you. 104. The auto-da-fé, or act of faith, was a lengthy ceremony of judgment and punishment of heretics, overseen by the Inquisition. Those found guilty were burned at the stake. The auto-da-fé of June 30, 1680, was considered to be the largest and was held in honor of the new queen in Plaza Mayor, with hundreds present and participating in processions. One hundred and twenty people were tried, one hundred and four of them Jews. Twenty-one were burned at the stake. See Vincent Parello, “Una fiesta barroca en tiempos de Carlos II: El auto de fe madrileño de 1680,”  Les Cahiers de Framespa 8 (2011), . Villars describes the event and suggests that some of the Jews had their mouths covered because they spoke more knowledgeably about religious matters than their persecutors. See Mémoires, 188. A footnote to this description states that it was omitted from the 1733 edition. This letter incorrectly gives the date of June 31, not June 30, which Courtois corrects in the 1868 edition. 105. In the 1868 edition of the Lettres, Courtois changes “semaine de jugement,” week of trials, to “scéance de jugement,” sentencing.

52 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS

Figure 1. Rizi or Ricci, Francisco (1608-1685). Auto-da-fé in the Plaza Mayor, Madrid, 1683 (oil on canvas). Bridgeman Images XOS3247805. On Monday the marquis de Grana made his official entry. The Spanish were expecting to see more magnificence. As for me, I think he did well not to do more. He is a very gallant man, and he spends all that he can. He is frightened at all the money that one needs here, even though he receives a lot: he has a pension of fifteen hundred pistoles paid by the king of Spain, double exemption,106 and his house is paid for, without counting what the Emperor his lord pays him. He has great respect and great esteem for ours but, in his conversations with the people of this court about the conquests of the king of France, he mixes in certain things that are rather sly. I often see his wife at the palace. She is very witty. I would go much more often to her house, to see one and the other, if I did not fear causing them trouble, because of the roles they must fulfill here. The marquis de Grana is one of the fattest men here, but has a very healthy countenance. Our young queen, in order to be happy, would very much need to have a taste for solitude in her sad palace, which she wants me to visit often to grill in the heat with her. The heat here is violent. It’s true that we don’t suffer too much from it in our residence. We are in a low apartment, delightful for this season. These past days the queen went out incognito twice with the king, at ten o’clock in the evening, in that dusty river. She had me informed of it so that we could meet there, and she told me by what sign to 106. Traditionally, foreign ambassadors to Spain were exempt from paying duty at the city gates for items directed toward their residence. Madame d’Aulnoy explains ambassadorial privileges in her Mémoires de la Cour d’Espagne, 2:21–23.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 53 recognize her carriage, and how she would recognize mine. If only you knew what a pleasure this is! Even so, it is thought that the queen owes some back.107 Farewell, my dear Madame. It is an almost tangibly good feeling for me to believe, as I do, that you truly care for me. If Monsieur de Coulanges, according to the wishes of Monsieur de Schomberg,108 and after the measures he took at Fontainebleau, had been sent to Portugal as ambassador, we would have kept him as long as possible when he passed through Madrid. If you have not yet given away or broken the little búcaros with the white interior that I sent you, keep them, because this white lining is made with bezoar stone.109

Letter 18 Madrid, August 8, 1680 I am addressing this letter to you in Paris, even though in your last letter you wrote me that you were leaving for Lyon in three days.110 I have heard, from you and from everyone, the extent to which you acclaim my letters, and since I am not persuaded of their merit, I have, until now, been very surprised at the fuss that was being made about them. But I think I have discovered the reason for it: it’s that you don’t let others read them, and that you read them aloud yourself. Since it’s hardly an effort for you, you put in all that is missing from them in order to make them pleasant and to garner praise for them. I beg you, my dear Madame, admit the truth of it, without consulting your modesty. I will read with more attention and care all that you write me from Lyon than all that you write me from Paris, because from Lyon you speak more about yourself and all that affects you. I am requesting that you omit nothing of all that you will do. I would also like to know all you will be thinking. As for me, Madame, if I wanted to speak to you only of what occupies me right now, it would be of the cruel heat wave that we are suffering through here. The plague and famine, which we have already seen twice, and the war that is thought imminent, do not yet seem as intolerable as the horrible heat. At least during the day we are spared a bit by staying in a low apartment, but at night we cannot sleep there because the midges devour us poor souls. 107. Bellefonds-Villars refers to the opinion at the Spanish court that the queen was enjoying too many liberties. 108. Frédéric Armand de Schomberg (1615–1690), a distinguished military officer who became maréchal de France in 1675. 109. Bezoar stones, masses formed in the gastrointestinal tracts of animals and humans, were thought to have medicinal or magical properties. On the búcaros, see Letter 9. 110. Dame de Coulanges was visiting her father, François du Gué-Bagnols, intendant (royal administrator) of the généralités (financial districts) of Lyon and Grenoble.

54 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS It is you, Madame, who think and write better than anyone in the world. Alas! We do not know with whom to talk about it here. We read your letters— Monsieur de Villars, my daughter, and I—with great relish and great pleasure. They are more than a source of pleasure because they remove my doubts that you might not care for me. And although this pleasure stirs up the weariness that I suffer in not seeing those whom I love, and by whom I am loved, this suffering is quite mild compared to the slightest waning of your friendship. There are four or five places in your last letters that have a liveliness and imagination unheard of before you, Madame, and that will never be matched. I don’t think anyone could be ambitious enough even to hope to produce bad copies of them. Since we are on the subject of copies, is it all right if I remind you that you mentioned your portrait? I would not have dared to ask you for it, however much I wanted it, if you had not spoken of it first. I love our young queen for the delight that she seems to feel when I mention your name and when I tell her that you remember her. She has given me heaps of expressions of friendship to send you. I wouldn’t know who could inform you about everything regarding her. We will speak about it one day, should we see each other again. She is plump and beautiful; drinks, eats, sleeps, laughs very often, dances with all her heart when we are alone, I singing the minuet and the passepied.111 Content yourself with this. You did not find out if the marquis de La Fuente mentioned Monsieur de Villars.112 If there is no war, his wife will leave in the month of September to join him. She is one of the most sensible women here. I beg you to send me all that you know about the war. You tell me, and it is true, that we would be very happy if tedious places could inspire firm and serious reflections on salvation and detach us from the things of this world, which detach themselves from us further every day: health, youth, beauty, friends. In a short time a foreigner will come through Lyon and give you a very small present on my behalf.113 With these small trifles, I like to show you as often as I can that I am thinking of you. Monsieur de Villars is ashamed of them, since he thinks that you are worthy of being offered only crowns. Were you to have some, he could not honor you or respect you beyond how much he already does. Farewell, Madame.

111. A dance and music form popular in the seventeenth century. 112. Presumably Bellefonds-Villars had hoped that Fuente would speak in Villars’ favor. 113. The marquis de Ligneville.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 55 Letter 19 Madrid, August 15, 1680 I am truly impatient to have news from you, and also of Paris, since we speak incessantly of war, and I don’t yet understand who will declare it. The Spanish are not in a position to sustain it. Their misery goes beyond all that one can imagine. It’s true that they hope or, better said, they are convinced that the Emperor, England, and Holland will join them. The prince of Parma is to leave today to command the army in Flanders.114 It’s said here that they did not want Flanders to be finally lost under the command of a native Spaniard.115 Our marquis de Grana’s heart is poisoned against France. If he were supported in all that he wants to deploy against us, he would cut out quite a plan for us, as he calls it. He is a charming man, and witty, but from his manner of speaking you’d think he was born on the banks of the Garonne.116 We’ve been in real danger here of dying from the excessive heat. It has not diminished the queen’s beauty and freshness. She promised to give me a little chest for you. As soon as I have it, I will search for a way to get it to you. She seems to me to want your friendship very much. I assure her that she has good reason to want it. I wish people believed a bit less in horoscopes.117 I will never have to reproach myself for any pernicious acceptance of them and for not having done what I could to refute their falsehoods. In the chest that you will receive from the marquis de Ligneville are two pairs of silk stockings, amber drops in a purse, and an aventurine egg with pastilles inside, of a flavor that I don’t think will displease you. I give you these details of little importance so that you’ll notice if something were to be taken from the chest. Madame la Connétable Colonna is in her husband’s residence, quite worried about what will become of her, since she has no intention of returning to Italy with him. She’d like to be able to enter a convent in Madrid during this time—of course to leave it shortly after and to go as far as the earth will take her, 114. Alessandro Farnese (1635–1689), brother of Ranuccio II Farnese, duke of Parma, was governor of the Habsburg Netherlands from 1680 to 1682. He had served in Spain’s military campaigns since 1662. See his entry in the Dizionario Biografico at . 115. This is a reference to Charles V, who was born in Ghent and, when he became king of Spain in 1516, did not speak Spanish. 116. The Garonne River flows northwest from northern Spain up to Bordeaux and the Atlantic coast. Bellefonds-Villars’ comment is meant to imply that the Marquis of Grana expresses himself in an unrefined way. 117. Bellefonds-Villars’ circle of friends had predicted that she would become a woman of influence at the Spanish court. Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres, 297.

56 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS to Flanders, to England, to Germany; because, regarding France, she fears that she will not be accepted there. She is truly an original whom one cannot admire too much, seeing her up close, as I see her. She has a lover here. She wants me to agree that he is charming and that he has something clever and mischievous in his gaze. He is horrible, but that is not what would diminish her attraction or put her off, compared to a small thing that is hardly worth discussing: namely, that this lover does not care for her one bit, from what she has told me. Yet she is happy with him that way, because if he returned her feelings even just a little, that would cause even more of a scandal. She is not unappealing: she dresses in Spanish fashion with an air that is much more attractive than that of all the other women of the court. She has three grown sons, badly reared. The eldest will marry one of the daughters of the duc de Medinaceli, the prime minister. But all this is not your concern. It is being much discussed here that the duchesse de Terranova will soon leave her position as camarera mayor, which, according to what is said, will be given to the duchesse d’Alburquerque.118 This is cause for joy at this court, especially considering that the first is not liked here. As for me, it makes no difference, provided the queen is content. Farewell, my very dear Madame. Remind yourself often that I care for you with all my heart. Letter 20 Madrid, August 29, 1680 I am not receiving any letters, Madame. I have no news of you and would like to get some, which I would prefer to all the news I might get about Paris. How are you feeling? What do you do from morning until evening? How long will you be in Lyon? After this I will tell you my news, which is not the most pleasant. Misery grows every day here, and the currency has not gained in value. Of the twelve thousand écus that the king gives Monsieur de Villars, in Madrid it is worth only about five thousand five hundred écus. Our home costs us nine thousand francs in rent. You can see what is left for all sorts of other expenses. Monsieur de Villars therefore wants to send me back so he can live in a less costly way, keeping only very few servants after my departure. This separation is a very sad thing for me, as devoted as I am to Monsieur de Villars, and also very sad because we have found no other means of diminishing his expenses. I did not say anything to the queen for some time, and when I told her, she could not believe it or accept it. There is more honor than vanity in persuading myself that this poor princess might miss 118. Juana de Armendáriz y Afán de Rivera, marquise of Cadereita (d. 1696), married in 1645 to Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, eighth duke of Alburquerque (1619–1676), one of the grandees of Spain. See Villars, Mémoires, 289.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 57 me, she remaining in Spain in her cheerless palace with her cheerless little activities. Her camarera mayor was changed: for two days the duchesse d’Alburquerque has filled this position. The queen will make do better with this one than with the one she had. What a country, Madame, is this one! I must really love Monsieur Villars to be pained to leave it. But also, as the tedium continues, I wish he would not stay here without me, since things cannot get better. I find great consolation in having gotten through this horrible heat spell, of which I spoke to you, without having succumbed to it. Countless people have died here, and I was very frightened for our household. But, my dear Madame, when will I have news from you? You will receive, from a man who will leave here soon, the little chest from the queen, full of pastilles to eat. Letter 21 Madrid, September 5, 1680 In my last letter I sent you news that the duchesse de Terranova had been dismissed, that the duchesse d’Alburquerque was put in her place, and that I could be neither pleased with nor cross about this change, except in accordance with the queen’s being content or unhappy with it. Even though the duchesse de Terranova has a great aversion to France and Frenchmen, she always treated me very decently. We believe the queen will have no reason to regret this change.119 There is already a whole other atmosphere in the palace, and it is the same with the king, too. His Majesty has given permission for the queen to go to bed at ten thirty, and to go horseback riding when she wishes, even though this is entirely against custom. He accorded her one more thing, which gave her great joy: Three or four days ago, upon seeing me enter her room, she came to me with an expression of extraordinary delight and said to me, “Won’t you agree to what I am about to ask you?” It was that the king had granted my daughter the honor of being one of her court ladies. She was elated by it. You can well judge with what respect and what pleasure I listened to what she was telling me. But she was a bit taken aback when I answered her that, before accepting this honor, Monsieur de Villars had to have permission from the king our lord. My daughter is beside herself with joy. Who, at that age, does not imagine pleasures that, on the surface, won’t be enjoyed for a long time? She would have illustrious companions, since there are only daughters from the Houses of Portugal, Aragon, Manrique, Castille; in sum, all that is grandest in the kingdom. They have many small duties. Most of them neglect no part of duties relating to gallantry. 119. Bellefonds-Villars is careful not to discuss how this change came about, but Mariana and MarieLouise apparently endeavored together for Terranova to be replaced. See Borgognoni, “The Royal Household of Marie-Louise,” 175.

58 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS We do not speak of war here anymore. This is not what could possibly reassure me. Farewell, Madame, I leave you to attire myself. The queen has just sent word to me that today is our king’s birthday, and that I should not miss going to the palace wearing all the diamonds I possess.120 Had I been able to attend her dressing this morning, I would have advised her not to display too much opulence today, since it will please no one, and I am sure that the king, her uncle, would gladly exempt her from it.

Letter 22 Madrid, September 12, 1680 I have finally received two of your packages from Lyon, Madame, and I have very little time to answer, since the courier leaves this evening. I was distressed because I did not have news from you, but not because I feared that you had forgotten me. You speak to me of the plague and how much anguish you feel for me. It has not reached us, thank the Lord, and one must hope that it will spare Madrid from danger. You speak to me again of another plague, which is the continuing misery here. It increases still, and the currency values do not rise. I have discussed all that with you too much. I do not want you to have to think about it. You are full of life, and you care for me. Think of it once, and then do not think of it again, that a salary of twelve thousand écus here is worth only five thousand five hundred écus, and that we pay nine thousand francs in rent for our house. I have already told you that Monsieur de Villars could no longer subsist on it and had resolved that I leave next month. The marquis de Grana, who is wealthy because of personal fortune, because his master pays him, and because of the pensions he receives from this court, also says he cannot subsist here. How Gascon121 he is, this German: a bit quarrelsome about the affairs of France, and about all that the king our lord plans and executes! But your portrait, Madame, which you’ve made me hope to see, should be entrusted to my children, who will be in Paris before the end of this month. In truth, I cannot describe to you the happiness that you give me. I thought I was no longer as sensitive as I find I am to this kind of joy. My children will probably have seen you in Lyon. How delighted they will have been, if they take after their mother! We are still happy with the change in camarera mayor. The atmosphere in the palace is completely different. We can now look as much as we like, the queen and I, through a window that has a view only of a large garden in a convent of 120. Louis XIV turned 42 on September 5, 1680. 121. Gascon, from the region of Gascony, also means boastful, blustering.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 59 nuns called Incarnate, and which is attached to the palace.122 You will probably have difficulty imagining that a young princess, born in France and raised at the Palais Royal, counts this as amusement. I do what I can to make it count more than the value I see in it myself. It’s been nine days since it was suspected again that she was pregnant. As for me, I do not suspect it. The king loves her passionately in his way, and she loves him in hers. She is as beautiful as the day, fat, fresh. She sleeps, she eats, she laughs. I must end there and challenge you, using all your cleverness, to guess all that I will have to tell you later about all of this. Farewell, my dear Madame. I would very much have liked to write more, if I had had the time. Tell me what you find out about peace and about war. You will receive a small package that I am sending to you only because it will cost you nothing in customs fees, since even the little you might pay would be more than it’s worth. Nevertheless, it’s the queen of Spain who sends it to you. I send a thousand thanks to Monsieur de Coulanges for his poetry and verse. The marquise d’Uxelles sent me those that he had composed for her while staying in Châlon-sur-Saône.123

Letter 23 Madrid, September 26, 1680 I have just received your letters. Today I will tell the queen about all you write that is gracious and considerate toward her. How lovely it is to be eighteen years old and possess the lucky ability to believe all that one wishes to, and how well this keeps one’s health and beauty! As for me, I tell her every day that, unfortunately, for my entire life I have been in quite the opposite of that happy state. That of poor Madame la Connétable Colonna is at present quite awful. It has been more than two months since I warned her what would happen to her. But, without any consideration, she has lived day to day, assuming she would enjoy the liberty of leaving her residence and making visits, and that no one would mention anything until after her eldest son’s nuptials. It has been twelve or fifteen days since she was notified, on behalf of the king, that he would no longer intervene in her affairs, and that she should think to obey her husband, who plans to go back with her or send her to Italy. The next day she was given orders not to go out; the 122. The Royal Convent of the Incarnation (Real Monasterio de la Encarnación), the construction of which began in 1611 and ended in 1616. It was originally located next to the royal palace and directly accessible to members of the royal family via a passageway. 123. Marie de Bailleul, marquise d’Uxelles, was the wife of the lieutenant general of the French royal army and held a salon. Monsieur de Coulanges’ poetry to Uxelles was published in his Recueil de chansons choisies (Paris: Simon Benard, 1694). Châlon-sur-Saône is located about eighty miles north of Lyon.

60 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS following day, not to see anyone. She lives in constant fear that she will be taken away by force and that she will be put in a litter and sent wherever her husband pleases. I do not want to justify her past behavior, but one must remember and agree that she has good reason not to trust an Italian husband.124 She is doing what she can to be locked up in the most austere convent there is. I do not know what she will be allowed to do. She has against her only the king, the prime minister, her husband, and the whole Balbases family. I feel very sorry for her. If we judge by the ample accounts of Madame to the queen of Spain, never have there been delights equal to those enjoyed at Versailles.125 Monsieur de Villars still says he wants to send me back because poverty is growing in Madrid, and without me he will spend much less. I will do all that he asks, although with a heavy heart, if I must leave him in so sad a place, and in such a state as his. Until now we have not been without the gift of good health, but this gift is fragile and subject to limited duration, especially since we are no longer young. Farewell, Madame, from us, just as we are; that is, all yours.

Letter 24 Madrid, October 10, 1680 Allow me, Madame, to speak to you before all else of a little trifle that arrived yesterday at seven in the morning. It was only a violent earthquake, which lasted the length of a miserere.126 We felt it shake; Monsieur de Villars in his bed, and I in mine. He got up, imagining that the foundations of the house were collapsing due to the horrible rains. As for me, I cried out, terrified, that the earth was shaking. There came three quakes that shook the whole house, just as a tree might be shaken by the wind. The priests, in the churches where they were saying mass, struggled to keep the chalices from falling over. Most men and women ran in their nightgowns into the squares and streets, not knowing where to hide to avoid the calamity of crumbling homes that they feared would endanger their lives. I had not imagined that, to all the discomforts in Spain, one could add that of being swallowed up by the earth, which opened up in several places, or else being crushed under the ruins of homes, because this sort of tremor has never been seen 124. After Marie Mancini left her husband, Lorenzo Colonna had his wife continuously observed and followed and, given his status, he was able to convince sovereigns of the different countries she visited to intervene on his behalf. 125. Madame refers to Elizabeth Charlotte of Bavaria (1652–1722), Palatine princess and the second wife of Monsieur, Philippe I, duc d’Orléans. 126. The Catholic prayer for mercy, named for the first words of David in Psalm 51: “Miserere mei Deus” (“Have mercy on me, O God”). The earthquake of October 9, 1680, was centered in the southern cities of Málaga and Granada.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 61 here before. Yesterday I kept thinking that it was about to start again. Since the rain is starting again, it could be that there will be more tremors. I hope that this singular experience remains beyond any of yours, and that you never in your life find out what goes through one’s mind during such an event. I do not yet know if the earthquake reached the Escorial, where this court has been since last Monday. Sunday evening I stayed until quite late with the queen, who did not much want to go to that place whose greatest attractions are the magnificent sites where the bodies of kings and queens are placed after their death. She did not forget to express delight to go there, in order to show her deference to the king’s wishes. She wrote me the following day that she had not found there all that I had told her about the place, for it’s true that I had spoken to her about it so she would be eager to go there. I will not tell you what she told me, nor all that she wrote me of her fear that I will leave. She cannot believe it, due to her fortunate ability to persuade herself of whatever will lessen her sorrow. She told me before leaving for the Escorial that, without speaking to me about it beforehand, she had written about me to Monsieur and was convinced he has enough authority to obtain permission for me to stay; and she had explained the reasons and real needs that she believes she has that I not leave Madrid. I begged her to prepare herself for the little effect that her letter would have. I added that, if she had honored me by asking my opinion, I would have told her simply to convey the gratification that I felt in pleasing her and not to insist on anything else. Whatever happens with this letter, I will be as grateful to her should the result be a favorable one. But I do not expect it. I cannot end this letter without speaking to you about how the court prepares for travel, which is never to anywhere but the Escorial or Aranjuez. It costs the king enormous sums, and yet they are only seven leagues away; but the pilfering around that continues.127 On moving day there are at least one hundred and fifty women at the palace, be they señoras de honor, ladies who are like maids of honor in France, or camaristas, room attendants, or their criadas, servants. As to the señoras, they are old widows, always dressed and coiffed in the same way. The damas wear their most beautiful dresses, with hats and feathers placed quite elegantly and, on their shoulders, what they call a mantilla. It is neither a coat nor a scarf; it is made of velvet embroidered with gold and silver. Some are green, others crimson. They wear them in a particular way, with one end passing under the arm and the other over the shoulder, so that they have one arm free. That is the most graceful thing they have. All the suitors watch them enter their carriages and then they mount their horses, galloping behind them. Several of these gentlemen, on beautiful horses, follow incognito, with caps that fold down and hide their 127. The continued mishandling of finances meant that the royal coffers were nearly empty. Ministers avoided telling Charles II that there were no funds to move the court, and either took out loans or sold royal land holdings to pay for the move. The queen herself noted that the king was being treated like a child. Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres, 302–4.

62 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS faces. In spite of this, they are hardly unknown to their ladies. The day she went to the Escorial, the queen wore a hat with yellow and black feathers. But regarding these mantillas, it is written that queens may not wear them, even should they die of cold. I could not convey to you how much this princess has blossomed, has grown and fattened. She has a marvelous complexion. She loves herself as much as ever. The plan for this trip to the Escorial is that the court will stay there until All Saints’ Day. The following day, Their Majesties have solemn prayers offered to God for all the kings and queens that lie before them, and the next day they return to Madrid with the same convoy as when they left. But if I were in their position, I would not go back here, and would establish my court in another place where the earth does not tremble. If the courier were not leaving, I think I could keep writing to you until tomorrow. What omen is this, Madame? For I do not like to write at all.

Letter 25 Madrid, October 31, 1680 I am awaiting the queen’s return from the Escorial to show her all that you say about her in your letter. She was sick for two days. I offered right away to go and serve her. It was nothing, and I was doubly reassured, because we wished, Monsieur de Villars and I, that she be on her own for a bit, and that it be seen that I am not eager to be at court. They say that several small intrigues have taken place.128 If I had been there, we would not have been in accord, because I would have begged her not to abuse the permission she’s been granted to go horseback riding, and to make use of it only rarely. She has honored me regularly with her letters. She is still convinced my leaving is not possible. Nevertheless, if Monsieur de Villars had received some funds for me to leave, I think I would already be quite far away. I think I wrote you that my daughter will not be a maiden of honor for the young queen. They say that there is an irrevocable law that the maidens of honor must live in the palace, that it is absolutely necessary to spend money there, and that ten thousand francs would not suffice; and also, one must have at least four or five servants, one court attendant, furniture, clothing, and, at the end of all that, between you and me, a very tedious life, and one that does not promise a certain fortune.129 I cannot, my dear Madame, tell you more. I would have to, though, if I wanted to have you understand a thousand things that, despite all your 128. The queen had asked the prime minister to sell a government in the Americas, apparently at the behest of one of her French court women, who had been offered remuneration for obtaining such a sale. See Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres, 304–5n1, and Villars, Mémoires, 211–12. 129. Charlotte de Villars returned to France with her mother and later married Louis-Jacques de Vogüé (Louis III de Vogüé), seigneur de Gourdan; see Villars, Mémoires, lxii n1.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 63 acumen, you cannot discern from so far away. I ask that, if possible, you do not amuse yourself by making comments on our unhappy state—a state of which, out of discretion, I hide from you more than a hundredth part of its unpleasantness. To cure myself of it, I use the delightful remedy of considering I am not farther from any other state but youth; that death nears, and that it’s best if death finds us devoid of what makes up life’s pleasures. For you, Madame, who can envision a life of a longer duration,130 you have the liveliness and insight to face the injustices of fortune. I won’t tell you all the wishes that I make for fortune to change, and to what degree, if there’s anyone who deserves it, I believe you are worthy of being happy. But, Madame, what a treasure it would be if we could discover and put to use the secret to being truly devout, and apply it toward the next life! Then I would have no reason to lament what we suffer, as long as God keeps my children, whom I love tenderly. I have not yet gotten news of your portrait, but I hope to have it soon from a gentleman we are expecting. What joy this portrait will bring me! Yesterday we went to one of the king’s residences, two leagues from here, which is called the Pardo.131 Around it there are neither woods, gardens, nor fountains, and, in the house, neither seats, benches, tables, cushions, nor beds. It is nonetheless the favorite place, and the one where Their Majesties often go. I still do not know how they can possibly amuse themselves there. I will ask the queen. All my attention was on contemplating, for a long time, the portraits of this Queen Elizabeth and of this miserable Don Carlos, while thinking of their unhappy adventures. They were both quite attractive.132

Letter 26 Madrid, November 14, 1680 Your small portrait has been very well received, even too well by Monsieur de Villars, who has claimed it for himself. I did not neglect bringing it to the palace, where it passed through all the ladies’ hands. As for the men, they can admire nothing here except from the ground up, through windows. The queen first took 130. Bellefonds-Villars was 55 years old at the time, and Coulanges was 39 years old. 131. The Royal Palace of El Pardo. See Letter 6. 132. Elizabeth de Valois (1545–1568) was the daughter of Henri II of France (1519–1559) and Catherine de’ Medici (1519–1589). She became the third wife of Philip II of Spain in 1559, even though she was betrothed to Philip’s son, Don Carlos, prince of Asturias (1545–1568). Don Carlos, said to be mentally unstable, was imprisoned by Philip in 1568. He died in confinement six months later. Although the marriage likely took place for political reasons, it was thought at the time that Philip II had seen the portrait of the fourteen-year old Elizabeth and decided to take the bride for himself, even though Elizabeth and Don Carlos loved each other. See Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres, 305–6.

64 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS it for that of Madame de Nevers.133 This portrait evokes you; that is, it does not resemble you perfectly. It is impossible, when one should finish painting your features, to reproduce (or only very approximately) what is lively and animated in all that constitutes your appearance. It is not the fault of the painter, and this little portrait is as accurate and as lovely as one could make it. I send you a thousand thanks for it, my dear Madame, and for all that you tell me that conveys your friendship and your tenderness. I am not better able to appreciate the affection that I have for Monsieur de Villars than by living with him in the most troublefilled country in the world. Because it is usually said that in all pleasant places, the weeks pass very quickly. Here they are of infinite length. I go often to the palace. Perhaps I would not notice so many troubles if I were only eighteen years old. There are many things that I could tell you about that. Two days ago one of the queen’s ladies died. She was only thirteen or fourteen years old. They are better cared for when they are dead than when they are sick, because all the doctors here are dogs, and their remedies ridiculous. There is a large chapel in the palace. She was put there, in a casket covered in plush velvet the color of fire, with a large gold stripe, under the light of many torches. She was in a nun’s habit that was blue and white. They had put rouge on her cheeks and lips. She was very beautiful in that state. This casket locks with a key. The chief guard locked it. Then the queen’s majordomo came, and the casket was opened to show him that the deceased was in it. He took the key. The king’s guards carried the body up the stairs to a door where the grandees of Spain were waiting, to then carry it to the carriage that would take it to where it would be buried. The majordomo, having arrived at the church, opened the casket again to show the clergymen the body of this poor Doña Juana of Portugal, after which it was buried with the usual prayers. I was not thinking at all of giving this account, which is not amusing. But one should not always be on one’s guard never to speak of death, which visits indifferently all the countries in the world. I hope to send you, at the earliest convenience, two superb pairs of amberscented gloves and a fan from the queen, whose health and beauty grow each day.

Letter 27 Madrid, November 28, 1680 I did not receive any letters from you with this courier. I have already written you that I am no longer leaving. If until now I might have doubted the affection that you believe I have for Monsieur de Villars, I am more than certain of it at this hour, because of the joy I felt upon learning I was no longer to leave this pleasant 133. Diane Gabrielle de Damas de Thianges (1656–1715), wife of Philippe Julien Mancini (Cardinal Mazarin’s nephew and Marie Mancini’s brother), was known for her beauty.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 65 city of Madrid: understand by the word “pleasant” the complete opposite of what it actually means. With all that, despite fate, today I am beginning to enjoy one agreeable thing: we are leaving our large, uncomfortable, and expensive home to stay in another that is much less expensive, and very comfortable. I barely managed to find something with which to write you, since I have nothing left in my room. Our young queen expressed much more joy than it likely brought her that I am not leaving. I will discuss little with you today. It displeases me very much, my dear Madame, because it seems that I would have many things to tell you.

Letter 28 Madrid, December 12, 1680 You write me that the marquis de Ligneville passed through Lyon and did not pay you a visit. That’s not what preoccupies me, and I forgive him for not having had the sense to do so, as long as he left you the little present that I sent with him for you. I am much calmer than before, when I spoke to you of the grief that the thought of an imminent departure was causing me. The small contribution that the king had the generosity to give Monsieur de Villars has allowed us to breathe a bit. We have paid for and left our large house with a rent of eight hundred pistoles, and at present we are in another that is half as expensive and a thousand times more comfortable. I would not want for anything in the world for war to begin again, because I remember too well my acute anguish in that cruel time. But what a delight, even though it is not a possibility, to leave Spain and to be able to live in an enjoyable place, relishing the pleasure of seeing and cultivating what we love! Should you ever see me again, please prompt me to speak, as with a parrot, because here I am undoubtedly losing the faculty of hearing and speaking, as one does by your chimney. It’s as cold here as in Paris, but there are no chimneys. We had one made in our new house, which is the biggest consolation that we have in Madrid. The chimney gives none to the ladies who come to see me, since they do not know how to sit in a chair or on any other seat. Their demeanor, when they are seated, is amusing: they seem languid, tired, unable to hold themselves up unless they were made to dance on a string. This is some good news, but never has Madrid produced less of it. Everything here is of miserable dullness. You will receive a package that contains three others, closed with the queen’s seal and addressed in her own hand. There are two pairs of gloves and a fan in each. Take care to send them to their destination. The queen did not want me to tell you that it was from her, because she thought the presents were too small.

66 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS Tell it to Madame de Sévigné and Madame de Vins.134 It is said that the fans will work better with time. This young princess continues to grow more beautiful. She is fat, has the best complexion in the world, an admirable bosom, very beautiful eyes, and a lovely mouth. When I see that she thinks she has reason to be bored, I change the subject. Farewell, Madame.

Letter 29 Madrid, December 29, 1680 Madame la Connétable Colonna is in a pitiable state. I think I wrote you that her husband had her leave here rather brusquely, while the queen was at the Escorial. She did not kill or injure anyone. She is now in what is called the Alcazar of Segovia, and is being very miserably treated.135 The queen would have very much liked that Madame la Connétable be accorded what she had begged of her husband: that she be placed in the most austere convent that one could choose in Madrid. This poor, unhappy woman writes often to the queen’s confessor,136 who, on orders of the princess, goes occasionally to urge Prince Colonna to let his wife enter a convent here. It has been twelve or fifteen days since the husband told her confessor that he could not consent to his wife going to Madrid if she did not become a nun in the convent she entered, and that he himself would take his vows. The confessor wrote this proposal to Madame la Connétable, who accepted it. I think there is no lesser vocation toward religion than hers. Nevertheless, since she had her husband told that she will do all that he asks, this could hinder him, because I do not think he has any intention of having her return to Madrid. It was written to me from Paris that I am meddling in her affairs, and that I strongly supported her interests. I responded to one of my friends who had written me about it, because I gathered that someone had tossed a coin to determine what was better to accuse me of: whether of being too hard on this unfortunate woman, or being too compassionate. As for her, she was feeling deeply offended when 134. Charlotte Ladvocat, marquise de Vins (1651–1737). Her sister Catherine was married to Simon Arnauld, marquis de Pomponne and a friend of Bellefonds-Villars, the marquise de Sévigné, and her daughter, comtesse de Grignan. 135. On the orders of her husband, Mancini was forceably removed to the castle of Segovia, despite the fact that the duke of Medinaceli, the prime minister, had given his word to the queen that nothing would happen during the king and queen’s stay at the Escorial. There were suspicions that the marquis de los Balbases had influenced Lorenzo Colonna to take her to Segovia. See Villars, Mémoires, 212–15. Marie Mancini entered the convent of the Hieronymite Conception in Madrid and remained there until 1686, but never took her vows. See Mancini, Memoirs, 8. 136. Guillaume Ayrault (1618–1709), a Jesuit priest. He traveled with the French entourage that accompanied Marie-Louise to Spain for her wedding to Charles II, and he remained her confessor until she died in 1689. See Borgognoni, “The Royal Household of Marie-Louise,” 177–79.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 67 she came to our house, crying and asking that we tolerate her presence for one night and that we help her enter the convent. We were unable to grant her what she wanted, and, with extreme difficulty, I convinced her to return to the Marquis de los Balbases’ home, where I took her back at ten o’clock in the evening, since Monsieur de Villars did not want to get mixed up in her private matters. If I have felt pity for her since that visit, this pity was in no way apparent, and the queen, who would have well liked to give her the satisfaction of forcing her husband to place her in a convent here, said that Monsieur had advised her to help in all matters that she might reasonably desire. That of having her locked up in the most austere convent did not seem so unsuitable to this princess that she could not take it up. So Monsieur the prince de Parma is in love with the comtesse de Soissons?137 He is not a handsome suitor. Nor is it the case, were he to have one hundred thousand écus in his coffers, that he would spend them in one day, and better than any man in the world, in order to please his lady. The king our lord could not wish for another governor in Flanders for His Catholic Majesty. The queen does not enjoy herself as much as one might think. She is young and healthy and of a happy disposition. I do not think one sees anywhere else in the world what we’ve seen since we’ve been in this kingdom: plague, famine, water damage that had never been seen before, and an earthquake that almost entirely destroyed five or six cities; this not counting the fear that I felt for fifteen days after that. The slightest movement seemed to me an earthquake. But we were still missing something: a comet. Believe me that, for the last eight days, one of the largest and most visible comets ever seen has appeared.138 It starts to become visible at four or five in the evening and lasts until eight or nine. Since it is not our custom to fear it, I am most indifferent to it, because I am convinced that it means nothing regarding France.

137. Marie Mancini’s sister Olympe, comtesse de Soissons, was a powerful figure at the court of Louis XIV until she was implicated in the so-called Affair of the Poisons. She was accused of having participated in a plot to kill Louise de la Vallière, Louis XIV’s mistress, and suspected of poisoning her own husband. She fled to Flanders, where she met the prince of Parma. He was apparently obese and suffered from gout. See Mancini, Memoirs, 45n53. For information on this murder plot scandal, see the French justice ministry website at . 138. This comet, the first to be detected by telescope, was discovered in November 1680 by German astronomer Gottfried Kirch (1639–1710) and was visible until March 1681. See R.J.M. Olson and J.M. Pasachoff, “Historical Comets over Bavaria: The Nuremberg Chronicle and Broadsides,” in Comets in the Post-Halley Era, vol. 2, ed. R.L. Newburn, Jr., et al. (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991), 1309–41. Comets were often interpreted as bad omens.

68 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS Letter 30 Madrid, January 23, 1681 I must tell you two words about Madame la Connétable Colonna. Two days ago at the palace I saw the queen’s confessor, who had brought a letter to show the princess before he closed it. He had come from visiting Prince Colonna, who had written it to his wife in the presence of the confessor. It says that the husband consents that she come to Madrid in the chosen convent, that she take the religious habit the same day she enters there and take her vows three months after. I do not doubt that she will accept these conditions in order to leave the place where she is living now. I would not advise the queen to respond that Madame la Connétable will never leave it. This princess continues to conduct herself well and to spend seven or eight hours in church on holidays or the eves of big festivals. I would not want to answer you that she is all the more devout for it. I still have the honor of seeing her often. The king loves her as much as he can. She could govern him quite well, but other machinations, without much force or speed, set off other movements, and turn and change the king’s wishes. The young princess is not so aware of it. She now speaks Spanish very well. She knows all of the court and the different interests of those who are part of it. The queen, her mother-in-law, who is a very good princess, still loves her very tenderly.

Letter 31 Madrid, January 26, 1681 The comte de Monterrey was exiled from this court four or five days ago.139 It is not said why. I can’t understand it, if it isn’t that he is the most decent man in the world and the best suited to serve his king well. Leave is still being denied of his father, the marquis de Liche, who is ambassador to Rome, and sick, exhausted, and consequently very worried.140 The other day I saw his wife, who is very pretty, burst into tears at the feet of the king in order to obtain the leave. I will not speak to you of things that are more amusing and joyful, my dear Madame. 139. Don Juan Domingo Méndez de Haro y Fernández de Córdoba (1640–1716) served as governor of the Spanish Netherlands from 1670 to 1675. He married Inés Francisca de Zúñiga y Fonseca, countess of Monterrey, and took her name and title. Thought by some to have forced Spain’s entry into war with France and the Netherlands in 1672, he was eventually removed from office, but returned to Madrid after the death of Don Juan of Austria in 1679. With the help of allies he planned to create a junta that would weaken the power of the duke of Medinaceli as prime minister. The plot was revealed, and he was banished from the court. See Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres, 310–13. 140. Gaspar Méndez de Haro y Fernández de Córdoba was the brother, not the father, of the count of Monterrey. Courtois corrects this error in the Lettres. The marquis’ wife is mentioned in Letter 5.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 69 How difficult it is to be so in Madrid, and how ideal this place would be if I had the proper aptitude for penitence! The queen is in perfect health, with a very fresh complexion. I have no idea how she sustains it all.

Letter 32 Madrid, February 6, 1681 You have not, then, received from the marquis de Ligneville the little gift that I trusted he would faithfully deliver to you? From what I see, ordinary messengers have more honor and probity than respectable people bearing fine names. Truly, Madame, I do not write this to praise it, but what I sent you was, while hardly precious or opulent, nevertheless pretty and chosen with care, and I liked to imagine that all this would please you. This Ligneville is a friend of the marquis de Grana, and my trust was complete. Do not tire yourself writing compliments for the Catholic queen: I conveyed them to her yesterday. We wait every day here for Madame la Connétable Colonna to take the nun’s habit. Her husband, who is very miserly, is quarreling over the price with the convent she is to enter. She wrote the other day that her sister Mazarin would do much better to come make herself a nun alongside her.141 I hesitate about what I can tell you of this court. I do not lack for things to talk about, but from so far away, one cannot address too many subjects. Palace life is not suitable for people who were not born here, or who at least did not come here as children. One must nevertheless tell the truth in favor of the Spanish: that they are neither as terrifying nor as untrusting as we imagine them to be. The queens always get along. Since the moment the young queen entered Spain, Monsieur de Villars has dedicated himself to persuading her that it is truly necessary, for her peace of mind, that she establish a good rapport with her mother-in-law, and that she carefully keep from heeding opinions to the contrary. I do little else, either, besides trying to put that in her head. She does not much enjoy discussing politics. Until now everything has gone rather well, and, between you and me, all would have gone even better if, right at the border, most of her Frenchwomen had been sent back. One could not have more wit than she has, in addition to a thousand pleasant qualities. I still go see her often, although I sometimes beg her to agree that less frequent visits are a good thing. My daughter does not go much, even though the queen often tells me to bring her.

141. Hortense Mancini, who also fled her husband, Armand Charles de La Porte de La Meilleraye (1632–1713). The sisters traveled together for some time. Hortense spent time in Savoy and in England, where she remained until her death. Mancini, Memoirs, 4–6.

70 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS I wrote you that the comte de Monterrey had been exiled. Yesterday the duc de Veragua was as well. He was part of the plot and a friend of the former.142 I will not speak to you of the misery in this kingdom. Hunger has even reached the palace. Yesterday I was with eight or ten camaristas143 and Molina,144 who were saying that it had been a long time since they had been given either bread or meat.145 It is the same at the king and queen’s stables. I would not want it known, where you are, even that I got involved enough to write this. But I know well that you will not compromise me, and that there are often things in my letters that could be mocked.

Letter 33 Madrid, February 19, 1681 Here I am, on my second Ash Wednesday. What quite pleased me is that, in this country, as I have told you, carnival is hardly a time for creating an enjoyable atmosphere and, besides the lack of plays at the palace or in the city, everything else goes on in the usual manner. No one observes Lent. The palace is always the same. There is talk of going to Aranjuez right after Easter, that the queen will have some treatments, and that she will surely come back pregnant. I go quite often to see the marquise de Grana, who is ill and has not been out for three months. She will be lucky not to be the third ambassadress to die here. She would agree to leave Madrid if she could resolve herself to leave behind her husband, whom she loves greatly. Madame la Connétable Colonna arrived last Saturday at a very early hour. She entered the convent.146 The nuns received her at the door with candles and all the usual ceremonies for such an occasion. From there she was led to the choir, where she took the habit very modestly. A Spaniard who was in the church told me all that he saw. The habit is pretty and charming, the convent comfortable. I cannot have a good opinion of the intelligence and understanding of the Italian 142. Don Pedro Manuel Colón de Portugal (1651–1710), seventh duke of Veragua, was a descendant of the House of Portugal and of Christopher Columbus. He served as viceroy of Valencia and, after having been rebuked for executing a brigand, eventually joined the alliance against the prime minister, the duke of Medinaceli. 143. Chambermaids. 144. Doña Maria de Molina, the queen’s handmaiden, who had accompanied Maria Theresa of Spain (1638–1683) to France to become Louis XIV’s consort. 145. Villars’ diplomatic dispatches note the lack of monies in the royal coffers and unpaid servants leaving the palace, the king not being able to go out because his carriages need repair, and loans being provided to the king by royal grandees. Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres, 316–17. 146. The Hieronymite convent of the Conception.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 71 and Spanish gentlemen who have persuaded themselves that this woman could accept in good faith the proposal to become a nun, and who hope by this that she will pledge them all her good will. The first time I heard a discussion with the queen’s confessor about the instructions he had from Prince Colonna, that is, to write to his wife and to propose this option, I thought it a joke, one in which I never would have wanted to get mixed up. The good father wrote her, and the lady did not hesitate for a moment to answer that she would consent to it. As for me, without knowing anything else about it, I do not believe one bit in this sudden vocation. I have not rushed to go and visit her. I do not yet know when I will see her. On the subject of visits, I made one three or four days ago that frightened me terribly. A lady of quality, the wife of comte de Fernán Nuñez,147 had given birth one month or six weeks earlier and, since she had been quite ill, had not been seen. I sent for news of her, and her husband, who is one of our friends and speaks French well, wrote me that it would be an honor for his wife that I visit her. I went there, then, and sat for a moment at her bedside, but as soon as I looked at her, I got up. I took her husband aside and told him that I would not stay any longer, since I feared disturbing Madame his wife. He answered me that I was not disturbing her at all and, as for me, I insisted that she was in a very bad state, not daring to tell him that she was dying. At this, two grandees of Spain entered, one of whom was the duchesse de Pastrana.148 I left, and at three hours past midnight the lady was dead. She was only twenty-two years old. This is the fourth woman in three months to die from childbirth. The comte de Fernán Nuñez was our queen’s page and spent quite a long time in France. People are very badly treated for all kinds of illnesses in this country. Farewell, Madame. I am going out incognito, by carriage, to a public roadway in the middle of the countryside, where there is a preacher who preaches four or five hours at a time, and slaps himself with his swinging arms. One can hear, as soon as he begins giving himself slaps, the terrible sound of all the people doing the same. Since there is no obligation to chastise oneself in such a manner, we are going to attend this spectacle, which takes place three times a week during Lent. The details of devotional practices in this country would be amusing to tell you.

147. Catalina Zapata de Mendoza Silva y Guzmán, wife of Don Francisco Gutiérrez de los Rios y Córdoba, count of Fernán Nuñez (1644–1721). The count had been a page and escort of Mariana of Austria and of Maria Theresa, the first wife of Louis XIV, at the French court. He also served the king of Spain in various military capacities. 148. María de Haro y Guzmán (1644–1693), duchess of Pastrana, was the daughter of Philip IV’s prime minister. Her husband, Gregorio de Silva y Mendoza (1649–1693), fifth duke of Pastrana, traveled to France and took part in arranging Charles II’s marriage to Marie-Louise d’Orléans.

72 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS Letter 34 Madrid, April 3, 1681 You, Madame, several of my friends, and even my children, all seem surprised and as if upset not to be informed from my letters of all that is happening here around the recall of Monsieur de Villars. That regards me personally, judging that it is hardly a secret at this court. I hope you will believe me, my dear Madame, since surely, among my numerous faults, I do not possess that of lying. Nothing at all, then, came to our attention regarding what has been made up about my conduct here. You and my children tell me only that I created some intrigues in the palace. If people knew what the inside of the palace was like, and that the ladies and I say nothing more to each other than good day and good night, since I have not been able to learn the language of the country, they would not say that the intrigue involved women, nor any more so men, none of whom sets foot in any of the queen’s apartments. As to the young king and his hatred of the French, which is considerable, I can say that it is less violent toward me than toward the queen’s Frenchwomen, because they are more often by her side than I have the honor of being. If the prime minister had our return to France negotiated through the ambassador of Spain, who is in Paris, the king their lord knew nothing of it, because the day that we got the news here, he seemed very surprised when he learned of it and asked right away if it was not a sign that there was going to be war with France. You may gather from this the many other circumstances of which I do not tell you. The king and queen have an excellent rapport, better in the last two or three months than it has ever been. I will not boast of having been involved by giving advice to the queen. She has a good enough mind not to need it. I do not know if the king communicates state secrets to her. Those never entered the conversations that I had the honor of having with her. I do not know what else to tell you because, in truth, I do not find even the least noteworthy thing in all that has happened since I have been in this country. I am nonetheless afflicted by the unfortunate suspicion that my name has been brought up only disparagingly before the most powerful and most respected people at court. And what I suffer for that makes me envious of people who have never been spoken of, either in good or in bad terms. The day that Monsieur de Villars received the orders of his recall, I trembled at the thought that he would also bring orders that I leave right away. But when I learned that there was no word of it, I became calmer. I have more gratitude, despite my innocence, for this kind gesture from the king than do a thousand people for the continued favors they receive every day from His Majesty. I will not keep from leaving first, because Monsieur de Villars will depart more quickly when he is alone, as soon as he receives final orders from the king. Farewell, Madame. Let them say of me what they wish. I will see you soon. It will be a true joy for me. What a journey I must undertake, and what weariness I must endure!

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 73 Letter 35 Madrid, April 17, 1681 I thank you for the impatience you express to have the date of my return. I am unable to tell you. We have a thousand things to do before leaving. Monsieur de Villars is taking care of all that. I took leave of the queen before her departure for Aranjuez. She insisted emphatically that I visit her there. But I do not know if I will go. From where you are, you ask me to put forth defenses against the wrongs attributed to me, but I would have to know them beforehand. All that I know of Paris is that it’s published there that I had a big dispute with one of the young queen’s majordomos. But since I have already answered that I do not know any one of them, and that I never had the least exchange with a man or woman, inside or outside the palace, I would not know what else to say about it. All these things will be news to me when I arrive in Paris. It seems it’s still being said that I see the queen too often. If she had not wanted it, it would not have been. And if it had been commanded of Monsieur de Villars from France that my visits be less frequent, we would not have had to be told twice. One day I will recount to you at greater length how much I enjoyed myself here. I beg you insistently once again, my dear Madame, to let them say about me all that they wish, as long as these lies do not influence your opinion. It is all I ask of you. The news being sent to you from Rome about Madame la Connétable Colonna would be better for her than what is happening here. The poor woman may be very close to suffering through the worst adventure of all the ones she has had in the past. One cannot blame these kinds of personalities, and one cannot help but take pity on her. She is the loveliest woman in the world, or very close, but it is not within human powers to compel her to accept the best solutions or dismiss all that goes through her mind. Her husband is leaving Saturday or Monday with his children. As you know, he married his eldest son to a daughter of Medinaceli, the prime minister, and he is also taking her to Rome.149 Madame la Connétable remains in her convent, where apparently she will lack everything. She is already miserable there. If I had not sympathized so much with her misfortune, I would not have been able to keep from being amused at hearing her speak as she does. She is witty. She writes, which is surprising given her ups and downs. In some ways it would have been easy for Monsieur de Nevers, her brother,150 to take her out of the wretched situation she is in, had he come here to support her interests. She would not have been reduced to playing nun. I thought I would fall out of my chair when the queen’s confessor told me he was going to propose that she become a nun in order to get out of the Segovia castle. She did not hesitate one 149. Filippo Alessandro Colonna (1663–1714) married Lorenza Clara de la Cerda y Aragón (1666– 1697), daughter of the duke of Medinaceli, on April 17, 1681. 150. Philippe Julien Mancini (1641–1707), duc de Nevers.

74 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS moment, as I wrote you, in finding that she has a vocation for it. I thought that at least, having entered the convent, she would declare that she was joking and that she had promised it all in order to leave her prison. But instead of that, she takes the habit the moment she sets foot in the church. Her brother should have come and taken her away from there and tried to place her with the duchesse de Modena,151 as had been proposed.152 I began and ended Lent very well. I am not sick from it, thank God. Chocolate is a wonderful thing. Would you like to taste some? There is much talk of war with Portugal. The two princes demand unconditionally that a certain island be theirs.153 They insist that they will go to war if it is not ceded to them. We are nevertheless utterly calm at this court. Farewell, Madame, I care for you with all my heart.

Letter 36 Madrid, May 1, 1681 Never has anything in the world seemed to me less of a compliment after all that you tell me, my dear Madame, of your generous wish that I come and stay with you when I arrive in Paris. Be assured that what I think and feel about that is all that is needed to inspire in me a deep and grateful tenderness. My children will excuse themselves a thousand times on my behalf, because I cannot do what you wish. These are quite different excuses than those that we give to turn down an offer or favor that we cannot return. But your heart is made in such a way that I know declining your offers would be a form of offense for you. So I ask you for endless pardons. I ask some of myself for not accepting the joy of being near enough to see you and to speak to you at all times. I am not destined for endless delights, if one must have them, and, to change the subject, I will admit to you that for some time I have been less hurried to return to Paris. As you probably know, Monsieur de Villars decided that I should leave when he learned in a letter from the king his lord that he was recalling him. He believed, for convenience’s sake, that it would be best that I go first, so he could move more promptly, free of women, herds, and convoys, and anticipating that, after three weeks or one 151. Laura Martinozzi (1639–1687) was Marie Mancini’s cousin and also a niece of Cardinal Mazarin. She married Alfonso IV d’Este, duke of Modena, in 1655. 152. This is the last Bellefonds-Villars writes of Marie Mancini. Mancini left the convent in 1686 and returned to Italy in 1691, two years after her husband’s death. She traveled between Spain and Italy several times before her death in Pisa in 1715. 153. Portugal and Spain were fighting over the small island of San Gabriel, which sits off the coast of Colonia del Sacramento. This city in modern-day Uruguay, founded in 1678 by the Portuguese, faces Buenos Aires across the Rio de la Plata.

Letters from Spain (1679–1681) 75 month at the latest, he would receive orders from the king to leave and that another ambassador would be named. But I see now that nothing is being said, and that Monsieur de Villars could remain here for a long time still. That being the case, I no longer wish to go, in order not to leave my husband in this tedious country where I can at least offer something, considering the lack of any kind of amusement. Meanwhile, Monsieur de Villars, unable to imagine staying here for a long time, and with the hot weather coming, wants me to leave. On that subject: if by chance you should cross paths with someone who claims that the king ordered me to return to France, say firmly, Madame, that that is not the case. His Majesty has not written a word about it to Monsieur de Villars.154 If what I write you here were not true, you can well believe that I would not tell you the opposite. You see to what extent are reduced my prideful aims, which are to establish, because it is true, that the king did not order me to leave because of my wrongdoings. I will discuss it with you in detail, Madame, when I see you. I trust that it will hardly be difficult for me, I believe, to have you concede that I do not deserve much blame for my conduct at this court and, without boasting, I did not fault anyone’s conduct. Farewell, my dear Madame.

Letter 37 Madrid, May 15, 1681 I have not left yet. The rains have been so excessive and constant here that neither the carriages nor the litters have been able to get on their way. Now that the weather is clearing and that we are hoping to learn from the next courier whom the king has named as Monsieur de Villars’ successor, I will leave more willingly and with the certainty that he will not remain here long after me.155 Their Catholic Majesties returned Saturday from Aranjuez. The queen had the kindness to tell me that she would have been in despair about coming back so soon, if it weren’t 154. Diplomatic correspondence around the recall indicates that Bellefonds-Villars was made the scapegoat of the Villars ambassadorship: “Although the king is satisfied with the care that the marquis de Villars brought to executing the orders of His Majesty in the ambassadorship to Spain and with all his conduct, nevertheless, because the Catholic king complained through his ambassador that Madame Villars was involved in intrigues that might cause unrest and disorder in the royal house of Spain, His Majesty agreed, without investigating the true basis for these complaints, to concede on this subject to the desires of the said Catholic king all that he asked for and to convey to him the sincere desire that His Majesty has to maintain all the ties of friendship and good faith that must always be present between His Majesty and the said Catholic king. His Majesty resolved to recall the said marquis of Villars.” Archives diplomatiques: Espagne, vol. 67, folio 337r–v. These are part of instructions for Villars’ successor, written in September 1681. See Villars, Mémoires, lix–lx. 155. The next French ambassador to Spain was André de Béthoulat, comte de La Vauguyon (1630– 1693), who served until 1683.

76 MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, MARQUISE DE VILLARS for the joy of seeing me again. She has not, however, grown fatter during this lovely stay. I found her changed. These past few days I saw the queen mother, whom I have all the reasons in the world to praise for all the considerate things she says about Monsieur de Villars’ conduct and mine, and about the rapport she has with her daughter-in-law. And I am quite convinced that she writes the same to the queen in France. I am yours, my dear Madame, more than I can say.

Appendix Three Additional Letters by the Marquise de Villars A. To the Marquise de Sévigné, Paris, August 25, 16731 I have received your letter from the sixteenth of this month. I see that mine are not delivered to you with much regularity. I do not trust these young abbots: if I cross paths with him, I will take the liberty of asking what is done with them where he resides.2 There is a man with whom my servants speak who assures them that his master’s letters are opened for him every evening. But let’s get to the news. Who wouldn’t think, in this vast confluence of affairs, that there would be a thousand news items to write about? That said, one would have to have lost one’s mind to think one knew a single true piece of news, and for the last year I’ve heard endlessly what is being said now, which is that in three weeks we’ll know exactly if we’ll have peace or war.3 At this point I’m not prone to thinking it will all be clear within fifteen days. Their Majesties leave tomorrow for Brissac.4 They will travel for seven days. The length of their stay is uncertain; nevertheless it’s said it will be for fifteen days. Our children, meanwhile, are near Andernach, in dreadful areas.5 Our reputable man writes that these are dreamworthy places: I think he will indeed find thoughts of love and of great constancy there. He communicates to Mademoiselle de Lestrange6 that if she and the countess do not write him, he will lament of it to the trees and rocks.7 If he laments of it to Echo I fear that, as ready as she might be 1. Published in Lettres de Madame de Sévigné, de sa famille, et de ses amis, ed. Louis-Jean-Nicolas Monmerqué (Paris: Hachette, 1862–1868), 2:238–40, and in the appendix to Bellefonds-Villars, Lettres, 327–31. Alfred de Courtois, in his introduction to the appendix, calls this letter the sole surviving fragment of the correspondence between these two friends. 2. Presumably Bellefonds-Villars counted on her son, abbot Félix de Villars, and perhaps also LouisJoseph Adhémar de Monteil, abbot of Grignan (1650–1722), to deliver her letters to Sévigné. 3. A reference to the Franco-Dutch war (1672–1678), which dragged on after the failure of a Dutch attempt to negotiate peace with Louis XIV in 1672. 4. Louis XIV and his wife, Maria Theresa of Spain (1638–1683). Brissac was a town in southern France not far from the Mediterranean coast. 5. “Our children” are the sons of Bellefonds-Villars and Sévigné: Claude Louis Hector de Villars (1653–1734), later a distinguished military leader and maréchal de France under Louis XV, and Charles de Sévigné (1648–1713). The town of Andernach is about 55 miles southeast of Cologne. “Our reputable man” is the young de Villars. 6. Henriette Bibiane de Saint-Nectaire (1646–1693). See Sévigné, Lettres (1818–9), 6:16n1b. 7. The countess mentioned here is the comtesse de Fiesque, Gilonne d’Harcourt (1619–1699), wife of Charles-Léon, comte de Fiesque. See Lettres, 3:225n7.

77

78 Appendix to answer him, he will forget what he has told her and treat what the poor nymph answers him as gibberish, because he’s a little rascal. However, for La Fare, he’s the marvel of our days. La Fare came back here again to admire his lady’s ugliness.8 Let us speak of the king’s praises: those of me are pleasant, at the expense of those of Brancas.9 He wrote an account to Monsieur de Villars, in epistolary form, of the siege of Maastricht and of all that the king our lord did.10 There is nothing better written. The king read it and was very pleased with it. He’s right to be, it is so beautiful. He describes the beautiful and great qualities of the king in a gallant and robust manner. It’s done so the Spanish will die of envy or of love for such a prince. Monsieur de Villars will have it translated in their language. I will ask him to send it back to us. What you send me of Brancas is so lovely and charmingly put! I will write it to him. He will laugh heartily about it. And the poor man needs something to cheer him, since he tells me he is quite aggrieved. He wrote and sent me this letter, which is more like a book. His daughter, the princess, has thrown herself into religious devotion—headfirst, I would say. She does very beautiful and noble things. There isn’t the slightest doubt in the world as to their beauty and righteousness. She prays, she fasts, she goes to Hôtel-Dieu,11 to the prisons, and seems genuinely moved. I wanted to see this great sight, on behalf of Madame de Marans.12 I do not judge anyone’s devotional acts, but the earnest withdrawal of this lady much convinces me. I saw and spoke with her a long time. All light talk and doubts have been completely removed from her heart. So only her mind remains, which directs her to speak neither too much nor too little, and has her judge the past, the present, and the future with reason and calm, not wishing for anything in the world. So she is doing marvelously in the most dreadful and remote area of Paris (she likes her room), occupying herself happily by reading devotional works, walking to the parish where she concentrates all her religious observances,

8. Charles Auguste de La Fare (1644–1712), poet and memoirist. He had fallen in love with Madeleine de Laval de Bois-Dauphin, wife of Henri Louis d’Aloigny, marquis de Rochefort, maréchal de France. Complicating matters was the fact that the marquis de Louvois, the powerful secretary of state for war, was a rival for her affections. Harold Streeter notes that the comtesse de La Fayette criticized the relationship between La Fare and Madeleine de Laval and that Bellefonds-Villars was “confounded by La Fare`s persistency in courting a lady who [had] no thought for him.” See Harold Wade Streeter, “M. de la Cochonnière—Apostle of Laziness,” French Review 8 (1935): 303–4. 9. Charles de Brancas (1618–1681). His daughter Marie Françoise (ca. 1650–1715) became princesse d’Harcourt after marriage. On the princess and her father, see the notes to Letters 1 and 2. 10. The Villars’ son is apparently the author of the account. Claude Louis Hector de Villars took part in the Siege of Maastricht in June 1673 and a year later was promoted to head a cavalry regiment. 11. A hospital for the poor run by the Roman Catholic Church. 12. Françoise Charlotte de Montalais, comtesse de Marans (1633–1718).

Three Additional Letters by the Marquise de Villars 79 without looking here and there for reputable preachers and overseers. If this does not please and move you, I do not know what will. As to Madame de Mecklembourg,13 it’s quite true that she lives in a little room at Madame de Longueville’s. Madame de Brissac14 also sleeps comfortably in the one where Madame la Princesse de Conti died.15 I think that their interior is in good condition. Madame de Longueville went to the countryside one month or six weeks ago. No matter how many virtuous people I see, you will not lose sight of me. Perhaps you would have to lower yourself to give me your hand. Never have I seen such little forward progress in my devotional practices. I gave your compliments to Madame de Noailles.16 Her trip to Auvergne has been in question for two days. A thousand expressions of friendship to Monsieur and Madame de Grignan.17 Come to Paris, all of you. I forgot to tell you that Madame de Noailles has loaded me up with a thousand things for the three of you. Good night, my dear Madame. P.S. Monsieur and Madame leave Monday for Villers-Cotterêts. They would have left five or six days ago, if Madame de Monaco had not been ill.18 Monsieur de Vivonne is quite ill, in the town of Nancy.19 They had to make an incision from his shoulder to his elbow. I have received letters from Madrid, from the ninth of this month, where, despite the hatred that they have for our nation, there is still much friendship and consideration for Monsieur de Villars. They gave him the duc d’Alburquerque in place of the marquis de Las Fuentes, who has died and who was the minister with 13. Elisabeth Angélique de Montmorency-Bouteville, duchesse de Mecklembourg-Schwerin (1627– 1695). In this letter, Bellefonds-Villars is reporting that Mecklembourg is living at the Hôtel de Conti, a house in Paris belonging to the Princes of Conti, relatives of the French royal family. Anne Geneviève de Bourbon, duchesse de Longueville (1619–1679), was a member of this family, and could therefore extend her hospitality to her friends. 14. Gabrielle Louise de Saint-Simon, duchesse de Brissac (1646–1684). 15. Anne Marie Martinozzi (1637–1672), who became princesse de Conti on her marriage to Armand de Bourbon, brother of the duchesse de Longueville. She and her sister, Laura, were cousins of the Mancini sisters. Martinozzi died, aged about 35, at the Hôtel de Conti. On Laura Martinozzi, see the note to Letter 35. 16. Marie-Françoise de Bournonville, duchesse de Noailles (1656–1748), was the wife of Anne-Jules de Noailles, maréchal de France. 17. Madame de Sévigné’s daughter Françoise-Marguerite, mentioned at the end of Letter 9, and her husband, François Adhémar de Monteil, comte de Grignan (1632–1714). 18. Monsieur and Madame: Philippe I, duc d’Orléans, and his wife, Henrietta of England, the parents of Queen Marie-Louise of Spain. Villers-Cotterêts, a town in northeastern France, was the location of Philippe’s country estate. Madame de Monaco was Catherine Charlotte de Gramont, princesse de Monaco (1639–1678), Henrietta’s lady-in-waiting. 19. Louis Victor de Rochechouart de Mortemart, duc de Vivonne (1636–1688), was a military officer and the brother of the marquise de Montespan (1640–1707), chief royal mistress of Louis XIV.

80 Appendix whom he handled matters.20 He is as bored and tired as any respectable man can be in such a country, in particular after all the uncertainties about peace and war arose. B. To Simon Arnauld, Marquis de Pomponne, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Turin, November 1, 167621 I thought I would never obtain an audience [with the regent of Savoy], Monsieur, but I was not concerned with that: surely it was the least amusement I have ever had. It’s that I have no taste for, nor do I feel suited to, public encounters. I often wish that Madame de Saint-Géran had been with me that day.22 If she had, I would not have fretted about my composure, and no one would have looked at the ambassadress. But to return to my being received, one could not have displayed more courtesy or expressions of respect than Madame Royale.23 The following day I had an audience with this poor princess who has been quite humiliated, although it was not apparent during my visit. She told me that she knew how I had acted on that occasion, and her obligation to me. She had an armchair brought for me and, far from weeping, as she did the day she gave it to Madame Servien,24 and not wishing there be no one in attendance, made my audience public. She was in an excellent mood, and I remained there a long time. She is a very reasonable person. Madame Royale is very charming of character and in her appearance. The little prince is surprising: I have never seen anything so lovely. If you want a more exact account of this court, perhaps I’ll be informed of that promptly. I would like even better to be informed that you still honor me with your friendship. Do not forget me, Monsieur, because I have passed over the Alps, and please accept the esteem and gratitude that I have for all your kindness. Permit me to assure Madame de Pomponne of all my respects. I have charged

20. Gaspar de Teves y Tello de Guzmán, marquis of La Fuente (1608–1673), the Spanish ambassador to France, was replaced by Francisco Fernández de la Cueva y Enríquez de Cabrera, duke of Alburquerque (1619–1676), as the official with whom her husband dealt as ambassador. His wife, the duchess of Alburquerque, would become the camarera mayor of Marie-Louise d’Orléans. See Letters 19–21. 21. Archives diplomatiques: Sardaigne, vol. 65, folio 310r-312v; Villars, Mémoires, xxxiv–xxxv. On the marquis de Pomponne, see the Introduction. 22. Françoise Madeleine Claude de Warignies, comtesse de Saint-Géran (1655–1733), wife of Bernard de La Guiche, comte de Saint-Géran (1642–1696), who held several ambassadorial posts under Louis XIV. 23. Marie Jeanne Baptiste de Savoie-Nemours, regent of Savoy. See notes 12 and 13 in the Introduction. 24. Wife of Ennemond III Servien, French ambassador to Savoy.

Three Additional Letters by the Marquise de Villars 81 Monsieur d’Hacqueville with conveying my compliments to Madame de Vins.25 I would like, Monsieur, to hope to serve you here. At least I will dedicate myself to finding you some good wine. C. To Simon Arnauld, Marquis de Pomponne, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Turin, September 11, 167726 I had no intention of allowing myself the honor of writing you, Monsieur, as long as I was uncertain about what you would answer Monsieur de Villars about the proposal that I leave the court. Although I was hardly calm at the thought of the decision you might make, I would have obeyed without a word if you had ordered my departure and considered it appropriate. I’d be quite tempted to tell you, Monsieur, that in truth it was not, nor will it be in the future, necessary at all; but Monsieur de Villars does not want to have anything in the least for which to reproach himself when it comes to serving the king and being of satisfactory service to Madame Royale. Several days ago this princess bestowed on me the honor of inviting me to a feast being given for her, and, since it lasted a long time and I could easily speak with her, I subtly began to mention my journey to France and the concern I felt that not only did she approve of my departure, but that perhaps she wished it. She told me that I would have to have an unkind opinion of her if I thought such a thing. I answered her that, in her court and in that of France, I had heard many hurtful things that made me suspect I’d had the misfortune of not being able to please her. She interrupted me right there and spoke to me with utmost courtesy, mentioning that, in the first days of my arrival at court, she had written to Paris certain things that she now regretted about rank and ceremonies that she thought were being refused and, Monsieur, that were later all accorded to her.27 She assured me that she had written nothing against me since that time, that it must have been someone who discussed what she had not instructed anyone to mention, such as my return or not finding me pleasant, and that she had never written or had anything said on her behalf regarding that. I realized, Monsieur, from all that she gave me the honor of telling me, that there must have been someone who thought it would please her to insinuate at the French court that she would be happy to no longer see me at hers. Who it might be, one does not dare guess, but one could well take the liberty of suspecting. Finally I left, satisfied with our conversation, and I would be all the more so if I could persuade myself that you have some friendship and esteem for me. Surely 25. The abbot of Hacqueville, counsellor of Louis XIV, was a family friend and confidant of Sévigné. Charlotte Ladvocat, marquise de Vins, was the sister-in-law of the marquis de Pomponne and another longtime friend of Sévigné. See the note to Letter 28. 26. Archives diplomatiques: Sardaigne, vol. 66, folios 257v–257r; Villars, Mémoires, xxxviii–xl. 27. See note 12 in the Introduction.

82 Appendix I am not at fault for having too great an appreciation of your esteem for me but, on my word, you should have some for my conduct in this country. It’s true that I do not deserve all this honor, having simply followed the advice of Monsieur de Villars. I do not wish to enter into any details about this small and stormy court, where we will never stop doing the best we can. What I can tell you of it is that it’s governed by a beautiful and charming sovereign, whose son is the most agreeable child one can find.28 It would be impossible to convey his wit, refinement, and intelligence. He is shy, perhaps, but is that really the most difficult quality to cope with? He is quite delicate, this mute prince who nevertheless makes himself understood. He has many excellent qualities, and adores a knight, a nephew of his, who is with him and is not the comte de Soissons.29 But when one knows the court of Savoy so well, one could become tedious by speaking too much about it. It’s a wonderful form of knowledge, and flattering to those who possess it. I would rather have the knowledge necessary to persuade you that I am truly your very humble and obedient servant. De Bellefont I am counting on Madame de Vins regarding my business with you.

28. Victor Amadeus, prince of Savoy, who was eleven years old at this time. 29. This is likely a reference to a cousin, Louis Jules (1660–1683), called the knight of Savoy, son of Eugene Maurice of Savoy, comte de Soissons (1635–1673), or to Louis Jules’ younger brother, Prince Eugene of Savoy-Carignano (1663–1736), who became a distinguished military officer. At the time this letter was written, Prince Eugene was thirteen years old and, despite his military interests, still destined by Louis XIV for an ecclesiastic career.

Three Additional Letters by the Marquise de Villars 83

Figure 2. Reproduction of a page from Bellefonds-Villars’ letter to Simon Arnauld, Marquis de Pomponne, September 11, 1677. Her signature, De Bellefont, is visible in the lower right-hand corner. Archives du Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires étrangères.

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Index Affair of the Poisons, 67n137 Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of, 3 Alarcón, Laura Maria de, 45n83 Alba, Antonio Alvarez de Toledo, duke of, 44n82 Alburquerque, Francisco Fernández de la Cueva y Enríquez de Cabrera, duke of, 56n118, 79–80 Alburquerque, Juana de Armendáriz y Afán de Rivera, marquise of Cadereita, duchess of, 56–57, 58, 80n20 Alcázar of Segovia (castle), 66 almohadas (square cushions), 27, 29, 30–31 Alvarez de Toledo, Maria, princess of Astillano, 44n82 ambassadors, at Spanish court: anxieties/concerns of, 48, 52, 68; funds provided to, 4, 10, 17, 41, 56, 58, 65; privileges of, 7, 10, 16, 46n89, 52; threats against, 6–7, 10, 46–47. See also Villars, Pierre de, marquis de Villars, French ambassador to Spain (1679–81) ambassadors, extraordinary, 6, 22n8, 46–47; Villars as, 3–4, 7 ambassadors’ wives: access to queens’ chambers by, 48; ill health/ death of, 41–42, 70; queen mother and, 22, 33; seating protocol for, in Savoy, 4n12. See also Bellefonds-Villars, Marie Gigault de, marquise de Villars, and entries following Anne-Marie d’Orléans, queen consort of Sardinia, 4n13, 12

Aranjuez, royal palace of, 45n85, 49–50, 61, 70, 73, 75 Astorga, Antonio Pedro Sancho Dávila y Osorio, marquis of, 23n14 Aubigné, Françoise d’ (Madame de Maintenon), 9–10, 22n8 Aulnoy, Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, comtesse d’, 11, 22n9; La cour et la ville de Madrid vers la fin du XVIIème siècle, 24n18; Mémoires de la Cour d’Espagne, 11, 52n106; Relation du voyage d’Espagne, 11–12, 36n58 auto-da-fé (Plaza Mayor, Madrid, June 1680), 11, 51n104; painting of, 52 Ayrault, Guillaume, 66n136, 68, 71, 73 Balbases, Anna Colonna, marquise de los, 23, 26, 32, 37, 60 Balbases, Pablo Spínola Doria, marquis de los, 23n10, 37–38, 60, 66n135, 67 Balbases, Teresa Spínola y Colonna de los, 38n64 Beaufort, François de Vendôme, duc de, 3 Bellefonds, Bernardin Gigault de, 3 Bellefonds-Villars, Marie Gigault de, marquise de Villars: courtship/marriage of, 2–3; death of, 7; family of, 3n9; friends/ correspondents of, 1, 9–10; and regent of Savoy, 4–5, 80, 81; and royal marriage in Savoy, 4, 12; and Stradella-Contarini incident, 4–5. See also entries below 91

92 Index Bellefonds-Villars, Marie Gigault de, marquise de Villars, as French ambassadress to Spain (1679– 81): criticisms/suspicions of, 7, 14, 18, 72–73, 75; dress/clothing of, 25, 31, 34, 35–36, 41; letters to, from dame de Coulanges, 34, 41, 48, 54, 59, 62; and promotion of French interests, 12–13, 15, 17–18; and queen mother, 15, 21–22, 26, 27, 28, 31, 33, 34, 35–36, 38, 41, 76; and recall of husband, 7, 14, 72, 74–75, 75n154; reception of visitors by, 22, 23, 29–31, 32; and relationship with Marie-Louise, 12–17, 22n8, 26, 28, 33, 40, 41, 47, 48–49, 51, 54, 61, 62, 69, 72–73; on rent/residential expenses, 30, 58, 65; as required to attend auto-da-fé, 11, 51 Bellefonds-Villars, Marie Gigault de, marquise de Villars, letters of: and art of epistolary writing, 7–9; to dame de Coulanges, 9–12, 14, 16–18, 19, 53; to marquis de Pomponne, 80–82, 83; to marquise de Sévigné, 14n45, 19, 77–80; on political/diplomatic issues, 12–18; publication of, 1, 9n32, 18–19; reception of, 1–2; on relationship with MarieLouise, 12–17; travel elements in, 10–12 Bonsi, Piero, 46–47 Bouthillier, Louise Françoise le, 24–25 Brancas, Charles de, 22n8, 25, 78 Brissac, Gabrielle Louise de SaintSimon, duchesse de, 79 búcaros (earthenware vessels), 43, 53 Buen Retiro, royal palace of, 15, 25, 26, 33; Bellefonds-Villars’ visits

to, 26–29, 41; theatrical performances at, 25n21, 31, 41 bullfighting, 11, 34, 51 Bull of the Holy Crusade, 39n68 Burgos, Spain, 6, 21, 24, 25 Calderón, Maria, 22n7 camarera mayor (first lady of the bedchamber): duchess of Alburquerque as, 56–57, 58, 80n20; duchess of Terranova as, 21, 26–27, 28, 33, 39, 40n70, 44, 56–57 camels, 50 Carlos, prince of Asturias, 63n132 Carnival (pre-Lenten festivities), 40, 70 Carpio y de Eliche, Gaspar de Haro y Guzmán, marquis del, 30n40, 68 Carpio y de Eliche, Teresa Enriquez de Cabrera, marquise del, 30n40, 68 Castiglione, Baldassare: The Book of the Courtier, 8 Catherine de’ Medici, queen consort of France, 63n132 Cerda y Aragón, Lorenza Clara de la, 37n63, 56, 59, 73n149 Charles II, king of Spain: and ambassadorial privileges, 7, 16, 46n89; as anti-French, 7, 40, 44, 47, 72; Bellefonds-Villars on, 26–27, 31–34, 35, 44, 57, 72; dwarf of, 27; as infertile, 5, 15n47, 18n51, 31n42; and Juan José, 5–6, 22; and love of Marie-Louise, 7, 24, 26, 33, 39, 59, 68; and Marie Mancini, 59–60; pastimes of, 33, 40, 44, 48, 63; physical/mental defects of, 5, 27n30, 33n49; portraits of, 33, 38; and recall of Villars, 75n154; wedding of, 6, 21. See also Spain, court of

Index 93 Charles V, king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, 29, 33n48, 55n115 Charles Emmanuel II, duke of Savoy, 4n13 Charny, Jean-Louis d’Orléans, comte de, 34, 40 chocolate (drink), 27, 31, 42, 74 Clérembaut, Philippe de, 24–25 Colincamp, Ferdinand, 2 Colonna, Filippo Alessandro, 37n63, 56, 59, 73n149 Colonna, Lorenzo Onofrio, constable of Naples (husband of Marie Mancini), 22n9, 23n10; and relationship with wife, 37–38, 42, 55–56, 59–60, 66–67, 68, 69, 71; and son’s marriage, 37n63, 56, 59, 73n149; as viceroy of Aragon, 10, 22n9. See also Mancini, Marie comet, sighting of (December 1680), 11, 67 Contarini, Alvise, 4 Conti, Armand de Bourbon, prince de, 3, 79n15. See also Martinozzi, Anne Marie convents: of Hieronymite Conception, 66n135, 70; of Incarnation, 32, 58–59; of PetitsPères (Paris), 43; royal couple’s visits to, 35; of San Domingo, 22–23, 32, 37, 42 Coulanges, Marie-Angélique du Gué de Bagnols, dame de, 1, 7, 63; Bellefonds-Villars’ letters to, 9–12, 14, 16–18, 19, 53; gifts from Bellefonds-Villars to, 43, 48, 53, 54, 55, 65; gifts from Marie-Louise to, 55, 57, 59, 64, 65–66; letters from, as

welcomed/shared, 34, 41, 48, 54, 59, 62; portrait of, 54, 58, 63–64 Coulanges, Philippe-Emmanuel de, 10n33, 47, 48, 53, 59 courtesy books, 8 Courtois, Alfred de, 2n4, 3n9, 13n43, 18n52, 19, 21n5, 77n1 currency, devaluation of, 41, 46n89, 56, 58. See also finance/economy, issues of deaths: in childbirth, 71; of governess’s helper, 25; during heat wave, 57; of Juan José, 6, 22; of maiden of honor, 64; of other ambassadresses, 41–42; of prince de Ligne, 32; of princesse de Conti, 79; of Rochefoucauld, 45 Don Juan. See Juan José of Austria dress/clothing: of Bellefonds-Villars, 25, 31, 34, 35–36, 41; of bullfighters’ men, 39; during court’s travel, 61–62; funerary, 64; of maidens of honor, 27, 30, 44, 46, 61; of Marie-Louise, 24, 28, 35, 44, 46; of Marie Mancini, 23, 37, 56; of marquise de Grana, 51; during religious ceremonies, 44–45, 46; of widows, 28, 30, 61. See also entry below dress/clothing, Spanish, specific articles of: golilla, 34; guardainfante, 27; mantilla, 61–62 earthquake (October 1680), 11, 60–61, 67 Eguía, Jerónimo de, 6 Elizabeth Charlotte of Bavaria, duchesse d’Orléans (“Madame”), 60n125, 79 Elizabeth de Valois, queen consort of Spain, 63n132

94 Index Enríquez de Cabrera, Juan Gaspar, admiral of Castille, 33n50 epistolary writing, 7–9; and art of conversation, 7–8; and novel, 8n28, 20n58; women as especially suited to, 8–9 Escorial, El, royal palace of, 47, 61, 62, 66; Bellefonds-Villars’ visit to, 45 Eugene, prince, of Savoy-Carignano, 82n29 Farnese, Alessandro, prince of Parma, 55, 67 Farnese, Ranuccio II, duke of Parma, 55n114 Fauvelet, Mademoiselle (governess’s helper), 25 Fernán Nuñez, Catalina Zapata de Mendoza Silva y Guzmán, countess of, 71 Fernán Nuñez, Francisco Gutiérrez de los Rios y Córdoba, count of, 71n147 Fiesque, Charles-Léon, comte de, 77n7 Fiesque, Gilonne d’Harcourt, comtesse de, 77n7 finance/economy, issues of: currency devaluation, 41, 46n89, 56, 58; poverty/hunger, 7, 41, 60, 70; at Spanish court, 5, 7, 17, 25, 36, 41, 45, 61n127, 70 Flamarens, François de Grossoles, marquis de, 34, 40 Fontainebleau, royal palace of (France), 21n1, 49, 53 foods: capon, 35, 38; chocolate, 27, 31, 42, 74; sweets/confections, 31 Franco-Dutch war, 4, 5, 68n139, 77n3

Garonne (river), 55 Gaston, duc d’Orléans (brother of Louis XIII), 34n53 Giovinazzo, Domenico Giudice, duke of, 35n57, 47 Goldsmith, Elizabeth C., 8 Grana, Maria Theresia von Herberstein, marquise de, 48, 51, 52, 70 Grana, Othon Henri del Caretto (or del Carretto), marquis de, 48, 51, 52, 55, 58, 69, 70 Grancey, Madame de (Louise Elisabeth de Rouxel), 24, 25, 36 Grignan, François Adhémar de Monteil, comte de, 79n17 Grignan, Françoise-Marguerite de Sévigné, comtesse de (daughter of marquise de Sévigné), 42, 66n134, 79 Grignan, Louis-Joseph Adhémar de Monteil de, 77n2 Guadarrama (river), 50 guardainfante (hoop skirt), 27 Guazzo, Stefano: The Civil Conversation, 8 Gudannes, Judith-Angélique de (mother of comtesse d’Aulnoy), 22n9 Gué-Bagnols, François du (father of dame de Coulanges), 53n110 Habsburg dynasty, in Spain: consanguinity of, as causing Charles II’s physical/mental defects, 5, 27n30; end of, 18n51 Hacqueville, abbot of, 81n25 Harcourt, Alphonse Henri Charles de Lorraine, prince d’, 6, 18n51, 22n8, 24, 25 Harcourt, Marie Françoise de Brancas, princesse d’, 22, 24, 25, 27, 78n9

Index 95 Henri II, king of France, 63n132 Henrietta of England (mother of Marie-Louise d’Orléans), 5, 79n18 Héricourt, comte d’, 3 Herrera, Juan de, 43n81 Hieronymite Conception, Convent of the (Madrid), 66n135, 70 Hôtel de Conti (Paris), 79n13, 79n15 Jensen, Katharine A., 8–9 jewelry: of maidens of honor, 30, 44; of Marie-Louise, 24, 31–32, 42, 46 Juana (maiden of honor), 64 Juan José of Austria (Don Juan), 5–6, 37n63; death of, 6, 22, 68n139; vs Mariana of Austria, 5–6, 21nn3–4, 22n7, 32 Kirch, Gottfried, 67n138 La Fare, Charles Auguste de, 78n8 La Fayette, Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, comtesse de, 1, 2, 19, 41–42, 45n86; Zayde, 19–20 La Fuente, Gaspar de Teves y Córdoba Tello de Guzman, second marquis of, 35 La Fuente, Gaspar de Teves y Tello de Guzmán, first marquis of, 35n57, 54, 79–80 La Meilleraye, Armand Charles de La Porte, marquis de, 69n141 La Vauguyon, André de Béthoulat, comte de, 75n155 Le Hardy de la Trousse, Françoise, 34n52 Le Nôtre, André, 49–50 Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, 6 Lerma, Diego Gómez de Sandoval, duke of, 30

Lestrange, Mademoiselle de (Henriette Bibiane de SaintNectaire), 77 Liche, marquis de. See Carpio y de Eliche, Gaspar de Haro y Guzmán, marquis del Ligne, Claude Lamoral, prince de, 32 Ligneville, marquis de, 54, 55, 65, 69 Lionne, Hugues de, 4n11 Longueville, Anne Geneviève de Bourbon, duchesse de, 79 Louis XIII, king of France, 34n53 Louis XIV, king of France, 4n12, 5, 9–10, 22n8, 37n62, 58, 67n137, 70n144, 71n147, 77, 79n19, 81n25, 82n29; and BellefondsVillars’ advocacy of royal marriage in Savoy, 4, 12; and Bellefonds-Villars’ promotion of French interests in Spain, 12–13, 15, 17–18; military campaigns of, 3n10, 50n103, 77–78; and Villars, 1, 3, 7, 12–13, 33n49, 46 Louisillo (dwarf of Charles II), 27 Louis Jules of Savoy, knight of Savoy, 82n29 Louvois, François Michel le Tellier, marquis de, 3, 78n8 Madrid: cold weather in, 34, 41, 62, 65; hot weather/heat wave in, 41, 52, 53–54, 55, 57; hunger/famine in, 53, 67, 70; Marie-Louise’s ceremonial entry into, 6, 14, 25, 26, 31, 33–34, 35, 37; as “pleasant,” 64–65; poverty/devaluation of currency in, 7, 41, 46n89, 56, 58, 60, 70; rumors/talk of war in, 50, 53, 54, 55, 58, 59, 65, 72 maidens of honor, at Spanish court, 10, 21, 24–25, 44–45; at Bellefonds-Villars’ Buen Retiro

96 Index visit, 27–28; consideration of Charlotte de Villars for inclusion among, 57, 62; death of, 64; dresses/jewelry worn by, 27, 30, 44, 46, 61; financial hardship/ hunger of, 70; as members of elite families, 27, 57; suitors of, 45, 46, 61–62 Maintenon, Madame de (Françoise d’Aubigné), 9–10, 22n8 majordomos (heads of household): of Marie-Louise, 23n14, 64, 73; of queen mother, 22 Mancera, Antonio de Toledo y Salazar, marquis of, 22n6 Mancini, Hortense, 22n9, 69; and flight from husband, 10, 69n141; memoirs of, 23n12 Mancini, Marie, 10; and Balbases, 23, 32, 37–38, 60, 67; beauty of, 23, 37, 73; at convent of San Domingo, 22–23, 32, 37, 42; at Hieronymite convent, 68, 69, 70–71, 73–74; imprisonment of, 66; later years/death of, 74n152; memoirs of, 10, 23; and son’s marriage, 37n63, 56, 59, 73n149; Spanish court’s view of, 42, 59–60, 66–67; and struggles against husband, 37–38, 42, 55–56, 59–60, 66–67, 68, 69; visits to Villars’ home by, 36–38, 66–67 Mancini, Olympe, comtesse de Soissons, 22n9, 67; and Affair of the Poisons, 67n137 Mancini, Philippe Julien. See Nevers, Philippe Julien Mancini, duc de Manzanares (river), 43, 50 Marans, Françoise Charlotte de Montalais, comtesse de, 78

Mariana of Austria (mother of Charles II; queen mother), 3, 71n147; Bellefonds-Villars’ interactions with, 15, 21–22, 26, 27, 33, 34, 35–36, 41, 76; BellefondsVillars’ positive impressions of, 21, 26, 28, 31, 35, 38, 76; and duchess of Terranova, 21n4, 40n70, 57n119; Juan José as enemy of, 5–6, 21nn3–4, 22n7, 32; and Marie-Louise, 21nn3–4, 26, 28, 40n70, 41, 68, 69, 76; as regent, 3, 5–6, 21n3 Maria Anna of Neuburg, queen of Spain, 18n51 Maria Antonia of Austria, 6 Maria Theresa of Spain, queen of France, 70n144, 71n147, 79n4 Marie-Louise d’Orléans, queen of Spain: apartment of, 33, 36; ceremonial entry of, 6, 14, 25, 26, 31, 33–34, 35, 37; Charles II’s love for, 7, 24, 26, 33, 39, 59, 68; as close to Bellefonds-Villars, 13–17, 26, 28, 35, 41, 47, 48–49, 51, 52, 54, 61, 75–76; French attendants of, 24–25, 28, 43–44; kindness/deference of, 35, 38, 40, 44, 48, 49, 61; later years/ death of, 18n51; as needing good/trustworthy counsel, 31, 40, 49; and queen mother, 21nn3–4, 26, 28, 40n70, 41, 68, 69, 76; suspected pregnancies of, 16–17, 31, 32–33, 49, 59, 70; unhappy life/surroundings of, 15, 18n51, 35, 38–39, 40, 49, 52, 58–59, 61, 67; wedding of, 6, 21; weight gain of, 38, 39, 59, 62, 66, 76. See also Spain, court of Martin (French attendant of MarieLouise), 44

Index 97 Martinozzi, Anne Marie, princesse de Conti, 3, 79 Martinozzi, Laura, duchess of Modena, 74, 79n15 Mazarin, Jules, 3, 10, 22n9, 46n90, 64n133, 74n151 Mecklembourg-Schwerin, Elisabeth Angélique de MontmorencyBouteville, duchesse de, 79 Medinaceli, Juan Francisco de la Cerda Enríquez de Ribera, duke of, 7, 41, 66n135; daughter of, as married to Colonna’s son, 37n63, 56, 59, 73n149; plot against, 68n139, 70n142 Mellini, Savo (papal nuncio), 29n32 Modena, Alfonso IV d’Este, duke of, 74n151. See also Martinozzi, Laura Molina, Maria de, 70n144 Monaco, Catherine Charlotte de Gramont, princesse de, 79 Monterrey, Inés Francisca de Zúñiga y Fonseca, countess of, 68n139 Monterrey, Juan Domingo Méndez de Haro y Fernández de Córdoba, count of, 68 Montespan, Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart, marquise de, 79n19 Montpensier, Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans, duchesse de, 34n53 Morel-Fatio, Alfred, 2n4 Nemours, Charles-Amédée de Savoie, duc de, 2–3, 4n13 Nevers, Diane Gabrielle de Damas de Thianges, duchesse de, 64 Nevers, Philippe Julien Mancini, duc de, 64n133, 73 Nijmegen, Treaty of, 5, 35n57 Nithard, Johann Eberhard, 5

Noailles, Anne-Jules, duc de, 79n16 Noailles, Marie-Françoise de Bournonville, duchesse de, 79 Notre-Dame de Montiers en Argonne, monastery of, 23n11 Osera, José de Villalpando y Funes, marquis of, 30n37 Osera, Maria Leonor de Monroy y Aragón, marquise of, 30 Osuna, Gaspar Téllez-Girón y Sandoval, duke of, 23n14, 32 Paige, Nicholas, 19–20 palaces, royal. See specific palaces Palais Royal (Paris), 24n16, 43n79, 49; Marie-Louise’s upbringing at, 15, 59 Pardo, El, royal palace of, 33, 63 Parma, prince of. See Farnese, Alessandro, prince of Parma Pastrana, Gregorio de Silva y Mendoza, duke of, 71n148 Pastrana, María de Haro y Guzmán, duchess of, 71 Perrin, Denis-Marius, 1–2, 18 Petits-Pères, convent of (Paris), 43 Philip II, king of Spain, 45n87, 49n98, 63n132 Philip IV, king of Spain, 5, 21n3, 22n7, 25n21, 71n148 Philip V, king of Spain, 18n51 Philippe I, duc d’Orléans (“Monsieur,” brother of Louis XIV; father of Marie-Louise d’Orléans), 1, 5, 24n16, 47, 49n97, 60n125, 79 plague, 53, 58, 67 Pomponne, Catherine Ladvocat, marquise de, 19, 66n134, 80 Pomponne, Simon Arnauld, marquis de, 4, 19, 66n134;

98 Index Bellefonds-Villars’ letter to (November 1, 1676), 80–81; Bellefonds-Villars’ letter to (September 11, 1677), 81–82, 83 Quintanapalla, Spain, 6, 21n1 religious ceremonies, 11; auto-dafé, 11, 51, 52; after maiden of honor’s death, 64; pre-Lenten Carnival, 40, 70; processions, 44–45, 46 religious observances: during Lent, 40, 70; of Marie-Louise, 68; of princesse d’Harcourt, 78–79; and proscription on meat, 39 Rochefort, Henri Louis d’Aloigny, marquis de, 78n8 Rochefort, Madeleine de Laval de Bois-Dauphin, marquise de, 78n8 Rochefoucauld, François VI, duc de, 10, 45n86; death of, 45 Rogier de la Marbellière, Louise, 34n53 Rouxel, Louise Elisabeth de (Madame de Grancey), 24, 25, 36 Royal Convent of the Incarnation (Madrid), 32, 58–59 Saint-Cloud, royal palace of (France), 49 Saint-Géran, Bernard de La Guiche, comte de, 80n22 Saint-Géran, Françoise Madeleine Claude de Warignies, comtesse de, 80 Saint-Nectaire, Henriette Bibiane de (Mademoiselle de Lestrange), 77 Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de, 2n5 San Domingo, convent of, 22–23, 32, 37, 42

San Gabriel, island of, 74n153 Sansovino, Francesco: Del secretario, 8 Savoie-Nemours, Marie Jeanne Baptiste de (“Madame Royale”), regent of Savoy, 4–5, 12n41, 80, 81 Savoy, duchy of: ambassadorship of Villars to, 1, 4–5, 12; and Bellefonds-Villars’ advocacy of royal marriage, 4, 12; BellefondsVillars’ letters to marquis de Pomponne from, 80–82, 83; seating protocol at, 4n12; Stradella-Contarini incident in, 4–5 Schomberg, Frédéric Armand de, 53 Schomberg, Suzanne d’Aumale d’Haucourt, duchesse de, 41–42 Scudéry, Madeleine de: Artamène, or the Great Cyrus, 2 Segovia Bridge, 43 Servien, Ennemond III (French ambassador to Savoy), 80n24 Servien, Madame (French ambassador’s wife), 80 Sévigné, Charles de, 77n5 Sévigné, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de, 1, 2, 7, 10n33, 19, 45n86, 66; Bellefonds-Villars’ letter to (1673), 19, 77–80; letters of, 3n10, 10, 14n45, 18, 42. See also Grignan, FrançoiseMarguerite de Sévigné, comtesse de Soissons, Eugene Maurice of Savoy, comte de, 67n137, 82n29. See also Mancini, Olympe Spain, court of: cost of travel by, 61–62; financial troubles at, 5, 7, 17, 25, 36, 41, 45, 61n127, 70; games/amusements at, 34, 40,

Index 99 44, 48; issue of succession at, 5, 15, 16–17, 18n51, 31, 32, 49, 59, 70; political intrigue at, 5–7, 22, 32, 62, 68, 70, 72; protocol/ etiquette at, 26–28; separation of women from men at, 12, 39n66, 40, 41, 46, 61–62; tedium of, 15, 35, 44, 48–49, 50–51, 58–59 Stradella, Alessandro, 4 Tagus (river), 50 Terranova, Juana de Aragón y Cortés, duchess of, 21, 28, 33, 39, 44; importance of protocol to, 26–27; and Mariana of Austria, 21n4, 40n70, 57n119; removal of, 56–57 theater/theatrical performances, 24, 47; apparatuses used in, 31, 41; at Buen Retiro, 25n21, 31, 41; sign language between lovers at, 40, 45 Theatines (religious order), 32n45 Turin, court of Savoy at. See Savoy, duchy of Uxelles, Marie de Bailleul, marquise d’, 1, 59 Vallière, Louise de la, 67n137 Velas, Iñigo Melchor Fernández de, constable of Castille, 35n56 Velas, Maria Teresa de Benavides de, 35 Ventimiglia, Father, 32 Veragua, Pedro Manuel Colón de Portugal, duke of, 70 Versailles, royal palace of (France), 2, 60; menagerie of, 50 Victor Amadeus Francis II, duke of Savoy, later king of Sardinia, 4, 12, 82

Villa Sierra, Fernando de Valenzuela, marquis of, 5 Villars, Charlotte de, 3n9, 21n5, 40, 47, 48, 54, 62n129, 69; as possible maiden of honor, 57, 62 Villars, Claude Louis Hector de, 77n5, 78n10 Villars, Félix de (abbot of NotreDame de Montiers en Argonne), 3n9, 21n5, 23n11, 77; at bullfight, 51; on Marie Mancini, 29 Villars, Laurence Eléonore de, 3n9 Villars, Marie Gigault de Bellefonds, marquise de. See BellefondsVillars, Marie Gigault de, marquise de Villars Villars, Pierre de, marquis de Villars: and courtship of/marriage to Bellefonds, 2–3; as French ambassador to Savoy, 1, 4–5, 12; as French extraordinary ambassador to Spain, 3–4; as French ordinary ambassador to Spain (1671–73), 4, 35n57; later career/death of, 7; and Louis XIV, 1, 3, 7, 12–13, 46; at Nemours-Beaufort duel, 3; and Stradella-Contarini incident, 4–5. See also entry below Villars, Pierre de, marquis de Villars, French ambassador to Spain (1679–81), 5–7; on auto-da-fé, 51n104; on Charles II, 33n49; funds provided to, 10, 17, 41, 56, 58, 65; memoirs of, 2n4, 3n6, 36n58, 40n71, 48n95, 51n104; privileges of, as threatened, 7, 10, 16, 46n89; recall of, 7, 14, 41n72, 72, 74–75, 75n154; residence of, as threatened, 6–7, 10, 46–47; at Spanish royal wedding, 6, 21

100 Index Villars, Thérèse de, 3n9, 21n5 Villaumbrosa, María Petronila Niño de Porres Enríquez de Guzmán, countess of, 37–38 Villers-Cotterêts, France, 79 Vins, Charlotte Ladvocat, marquise de, 10, 19, 66, 81, 82 Vivonne, Louis Victor de Rochechouart de Mortemart, duc de, 79 Vogüé, Charles Jean Melchior de, marquis de Vogüé, 2n4, 5n14 Vogüé, Louis-Jacques de, seigneur de Gourdan, 62n129 war(s): Franco-Dutch, 4, 5, 68n139, 77n3; with Portugal, 74; rumors/ talk of, 50, 53, 54, 55, 58, 59, 65, 72 women: and court protocol/etiquette, 4n12, 26–28; epistolary writing by, 7–9; from France, as MarieLouise’s attendants, 24–25, 28, 43–44; as regents, 3, 4–6, 12n41, 21n3, 80, 81; as separated from men, at Spanish court, 12, 39n66, 40, 41, 45, 46, 61–62. See also ambassadors’ wives; maidens of honor, at Spanish court

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

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H. Hageman

Series Titles Madre María Rosa Journey of Five Capuchin Nuns Edited and translated by Sarah E. Owens Volume 1, 2009 Giovan Battista Andreini Love in the Mirror: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Jon R. Snyder Volume 2, 2009 Raymond de Sabanac and Simone Zanacchi Two Women of the Great Schism: The Revelations of Constance de Rabastens by Raymond de Sabanac and Life of the Blessed Ursulina of Parma by Simone Zanacchi Edited and translated by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Bruce L. Venarde Volume 3, 2010 Oliva Sabuco de Nantes Barrera The True Medicine Edited and translated by Gianna Pomata Volume 4, 2010 Louise-Geneviève Gillot de Sainctonge Dramatizing Dido, Circe, and Griselda Edited and translated by Janet Levarie Smarr Volume 5, 2010

Pernette du Guillet Complete Poems: A Bilingual Edition Edited with introduction and notes by Karen Simroth James Poems translated by Marta Rijn Finch Volume 6, 2010 Antonia Pulci Saints’ Lives and Bible Stories for the Stage: A Bilingual Edition Edited by Elissa B. Weaver Translated by James Wyatt Cook Volume 7, 2010 Valeria Miani Celinda, A Tragedy: A Bilingual Edition Edited with an introduction by Valeria Finucci Translated by Julia Kisacky Annotated by Valeria Finucci and Julia Kisacky Volume 8, 2010 Enchanted Eloquence: Fairy Tales by Seventeenth-Century French Women Writers Edited and translated by Lewis C. Seifert and Domna C. Stanton Volume 9, 2010

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Sophie, Electress of Hanover and Queen Sophie Charlotte of Prussia Leibniz and the Two Sophies: The Philosophical Correspondence Edited and translated by Lloyd Strickland Volume 10, 2011 In Dialogue with the Other Voice in Sixteenth-Century Italy: Literary and Social Contexts for Women’s Writing Edited by Julie D. Campbell and Maria Galli Stampino Volume 11, 2011 Sister Giustina Niccolini The Chronicle of Le Murate Edited and translated by Saundra Weddle Volume 12, 2011 Liubov Krichevskaya No Good without Reward: Selected Writings: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Brian James Baer Volume 13, 2011 Elizabeth Cooke Hoby Russell The Writings of an English Sappho Edited by Patricia Phillippy With translations from Greek and Latin by Jaime Goodrich Volume 14, 2011 Lucrezia Marinella Exhortations to Women and to Others If They Please Edited and translated by Laura Benedetti Volume 15, 2012 Margherita Datini Letters to Francesco Datini Translated by Carolyn James and Antonio Pagliaro Volume 16, 2012

Delarivier Manley and Mary Pix English Women Staging Islam, 1696–1707 Edited and introduced by Bernadette Andrea Volume 17, 2012 Cecilia del Nacimiento Journeys of a Mystic Soul in Poetry and Prose Introduction and prose translations by Kevin Donnelly Poetry translations by Sandra Sider Volume 18, 2012 Lady Margaret Douglas and Others The Devonshire Manuscript: A Women’s Book of Courtly Poetry Edited and introduced by Elizabeth Heale Volume 19, 2012 Arcangela Tarabotti Letters Familiar and Formal Edited and translated by Meredith K. Ray and Lynn Lara Westwater Volume 20, 2012 Pere Torrellas and Juan de Flores Three Spanish Querelle Texts: Grisel and Mirabella, The Slander against Women, and The Defense of Ladies against Slanderers: A Bilingual Edition and Study Edited and translated by Emily C. Francomano Volume 21, 2013 Barbara Torelli Benedetti Partenia, a Pastoral Play: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Lisa Sampson and Barbara Burgess-Van Aken Volume 22, 2013

François Rousset, Jean Liebault, Jacques Guillemeau, Jacques Duval and Louis de Serres Pregnancy and Birth in Early Modern France: Treatises by Caring Physicians and Surgeons (1581–1625) Edited and translated by Valerie WorthStylianou Volume 23, 2013 Mary Astell The Christian Religion, as Professed by a Daughter of the Church of England Edited by Jacqueline Broad Volume 24, 2013 Sophia of Hanover Memoirs (1630–1680) Edited and translated by Sean Ward Volume 25, 2013 Katherine Austen Book M: A London Widow’s Life Writings Edited by Pamela S. Hammons Volume 26, 2013 Anne Killigrew “My Rare Wit Killing Sin”: Poems of a Restoration Courtier Edited by Margaret J. M. Ezell Volume 27, 2013 Tullia d’Aragona and Others The Poems and Letters of Tullia d’Aragona and Others: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Julia L. Hairston Volume 28, 2014 Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza The Life and Writings of Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza Edited and translated by Anne J. Cruz Volume 29, 2014

Russian Women Poets of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Amanda Ewington Volume 30, 2014 Jacques Du Bosc L’Honnête Femme: The Respectable Woman in Society and the New Collection of Letters and Responses by Contemporary Women Edited and translated by Sharon Diane Nell and Aurora Wolfgang Volume 31, 2014 Lady Hester Pulter Poems, Emblems, and The Unfortunate Florinda Edited by Alice Eardley Volume 32, 2014 Jeanne Flore Tales and Trials of Love, Concerning Venus’s Punishment of Those Who Scorn True Love and Denounce Cupid’s Sovereignity: A Bilingual Edition and Study Edited and translated by Kelly Digby Peebles Poems translated by Marta Rijn Finch Volume 33, 2014 Veronica Gambara Complete Poems: A Bilingual Edition Critical introduction by Molly M. Martin Edited and translated by Molly M. Martin and Paola Ugolini Volume 34, 2014 Catherine de Médicis and Others Portraits of the Queen Mother: Polemics, Panegyrics, Letters Translation and study by Leah L. Chang and Katherine Kong Volume 35, 2014

Françoise Pascal, MarieCatherine Desjardins, Antoinette Deshoulières, and Catherine Durand Challenges to Traditional Authority: Plays by French Women Authors, 1650–1700 Edited and translated by Perry Gethner Volume 36, 2015 Franciszka Urszula Radziwiłłowa Selected Drama and Verse Edited by Patrick John Corness and Barbara Judkowiak Translated by Patrick John Corness Translation Editor Aldona Zwierzyńska-Coldicott Introduction by Barbara Judkowiak Volume 37, 2015 Diodata Malvasia Writings on the Sisters of San Luca and Their Miraculous Madonna Edited and translated by Danielle Callegari and Shannon McHugh Volume 38, 2015 Margaret Van Noort Spiritual Writings of Sister Margaret of the Mother of God (1635–1643) Edited by Cordula van Wyhe Translated by Susan M. Smith Volume 39, 2015 Giovan Francesco Straparola The Pleasant Nights Edited and translated by Suzanne Magnanini Volume 40, 2015 Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly Writings of Resistance Edited and translated by John J. Conley, S.J. Volume 41, 2015

Francesco Barbaro The Wealth of Wives: A Fifteenth-Century Marriage Manual Edited and translated by Margaret L. King Volume 42, 2015 Jeanne d’Albret Letters from the Queen of Navarre with an Ample Declaration Edited and translated by Kathleen M. Llewellyn, Emily E. Thompson, and Colette H. Winn Volume 43, 2016 Bathsua Makin and Mary More with a reply to More by Robert Whitehall Educating English Daughters: Late Seventeenth-Century Debates Edited by Frances Teague and Margaret J. M. Ezell Associate Editor Jessica Walker Volume 44, 2016 Anna StanisŁawska Orphan Girl: A Transaction, or an Account of the Entire Life of an Orphan Girl by way of Plaintful Threnodies in the Year 1685: The Aesop Episode Verse translation, introduction, and commentary by Barry Keane Volume 45, 2016 Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi Letters to Her Sons, 1447–1470 Edited and translated by Judith Bryce Volume 46, 2016 Mother Juana de la Cruz Mother Juana de la Cruz, 1481–1534: Visionary Sermons Edited by Jessica A. Boon and Ronald E. Surtz Introductory material and notes by Jessica A. Boon Translated by Ronald E. Surtz and Nora Weinerth Volume 47, 2016

Claudine-Alexandrine Guérin de Tencin Memoirs of the Count of Comminge and The Misfortunes of Love Edited and translated by Jonathan Walsh Foreword by Michel Delon Volume 48, 2016 Feliciana Enríquez de Guzmán, Ana Caro Mallén, and Sor Marcela de San Félix Women Playwrights of Early Modern Spain Edited by Nieves Romero-Díaz and Lisa Vollendorf Translated and annotated by Harley Erdman Volume 49, 2016 Anna Trapnel Anna Trapnel’s Report and Plea; or, A Narrative of Her Journey from London into Cornwall Edited by Hilary Hinds Volume 50, 2016 María Vela y Cueto Autobiography and Letters of a Spanish Nun Edited by Susan Diane Laningham Translated by Jane Tar Volume 51, 2016 Christine de Pizan The Book of the Mutability of Fortune Edited and translated by Geri L. Smith Volume 52, 2017 Marguerite d’Auge, Renée Burlamacchi, and Jeanne du Laurens Sin and Salvation in Early Modern France: Three Women’s Stories Edited, and with an introduction by Colette H. Winn Translated by Nicholas Van Handel and Colette H. Winn Volume 53, 2017

Isabella d’Este Selected Letters Edited and translated by Deanna Shemek Volume 54, 2017 Ippolita Maria Sforza Duchess and Hostage in Renaissance Naples: Letters and Orations Edited and translated by Diana Robin and Lynn Lara Westwater Volume 55, 2017 Louise Bourgeois Midwife to the Queen of France: Diverse Observations Translated by Stephanie O’Hara Edited by Alison Klairmont Lingo Volume 56, 2017 Christine de Pizan Othea’s Letter to Hector Edited and translated by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Earl Jeffrey Richards Volume 57, 2017 Marie-Geneviève-Charlotte Thiroux d’Arconville Selected Philosophical, Scientific, and Autobiographical Writings Edited and translated by Julie Candler Hayes Volume 58, 2018 Lady Mary Wroth Pamphilia to Amphilanthus in Manuscript and Print Edited by Ilona Bell Texts by Steven W. May and Ilona Bell Volume 59, 2017 Witness, Warning, and Prophecy: Quaker Women’s Writing, 1655–1700 Edited by Teresa Feroli and Margaret Olofson Thickstun Volume 60, 2018

Symphorien Champier The Ship of Virtuous Ladies Edited and translated by Todd W. Reeser Volume 61, 2018 Isabella Andreini Mirtilla, A Pastoral: A Bilingual Edition Edited by Valeria Finucci Translated by Julia Kisacky Volume 62, 2018 Margherita Costa The Buffoons, A Ridiculous Comedy: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Sara E. Díaz and Jessica Goethals Volume 63, 2018 Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle Poems and Fancies with The Animal Parliament Edited by Brandie R. Siegfried Volume 64, 2018 Margaret Fell Women’s Speaking Justified and Other Pamphlets Edited by Jane Donawerth and Rebecca M. Lush Volume 65, 2018 Mary Wroth, Jane Cavendish, and Elizabeth Brackley Women’s Household Drama: Loves Victorie, A Pastorall, and The concealed Fansyes Edited by Marta Straznicky and Sara Mueller Volume 66, 2018 Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel From Arcadia to Revolution: The Neapolitan Monitor and Other Writings Edited and translated by Verina R. Jones Volume 67, 2019

Charlotte Arbaleste DuplessisMornay, Anne de Chaufepié, and Anne Marguerite Petit Du Noyer The Huguenot Experience of Persecution and Exile: Three Women’s Stories Edited by Colette H. Winn Translated by Lauren King and Colette H. Winn Volume 68, 2019 Anne Bradstreet Poems and Meditations Edited by Margaret Olofson Thickstun Volume 69, 2019 Arcangela Tarabotti Antisatire: In Defense of Women, against Francesco Buoninsegni Edited and translated by Elissa B. Weaver Volume 70, 2020 Mary Franklin and Hannah Burton She Being Dead Yet Speaketh: The Franklin Family Papers Edited by Vera J. Camden Volume 71, 2020 Lucrezia Marinella Love Enamored and Driven Mad Edited and translated by Janet E. Gomez and Maria Galli Stampino Volume 72, 2020 Arcangela Tarabotti Convent Paradise Edited and translated by Meredith K. Ray and Lynn Lara Westwater Volume 73, 2020 Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve Beauty and the Beast: The Original Story Edited and translated by Aurora Wolfgang Volume 74, 2020

Flaminio Scala The Fake Husband, A Comedy Edited and translated by Rosalind Kerr Volume 75, 2020 Anne Vaughan Lock Selected Poetry, Prose, and Translations, with Contextual Materials Edited by Susan M. Felch Volume 76, 2021 Camilla Erculiani Letters on Natural Philosophy: The Scientific Correspondence of a SixteenthCentury Pharmacist, with Related Texts Edited by Eleonora Carinci Translated by Hannah Marcus Foreword by Paula Findlen Volume 77, 2021 Regina Salomea Pilsztynowa My Life’s Travels and Adventures: An Eighteenth-Century Oculist in the Ottoman Empire and the European Hinterland Edited and translated by Władysław Roczniak Volume 78, 2021 Christine de Pizan The God of Love’s Letter and The Tale of the Rose: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Thelma S. Fenster and Christine Reno With Jean Gerson, “A Poem on Man and Woman.” Translated from the Latin by Thomas O’Donnell Foreword by Jocelyn Wogan-Browne Volume 79, 2021