A Childhood at Versailles consists of the first 5 chapters of the memoirs of Mme de Boigne (1781-1866), née Adèle d’Osmond, who was a French salon hostess and writer.  She was born in the Château de Versailles and lived at the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette until her family fled to England during the Revolution.  Later in her long life, she married a rich soldier of fortune 30 years her senior, hosted a brilliant salon in Paris, and became an intimate of the last French queen, Marie-Amélie, consort of King Louis Philippe (r. 1830-1848).  Childless herself, Mme de Boigne addressed her memoirs to her grandnephew.  The memoirs were not published until 1907, under the title Récits d’une tante, or An Aunt’s Tales.  They’ve never been published in English, as far as I know, so I’ve decided to translate the first 5 chapters, the ones that take place mainly at Versailles, and post them here on this blog for interested readers to enjoy for free.

The chapters are quite lengthy, so I’ve broken each one into several parts. In Part 2.5, the author tells how the royal family spent their evenings at Versailles, describing the ceremony of the coucher, or the royal going-to-bed, as practised under Louis XVI.

A Childhood at Versailles, Chapter Two, Part 5 (2.5)

At nine o’clock the whole royal family gathered for supper in the apartments of Madame, the wife of Monsieur.  They were exclusively amongst themselves there, and were only very rarely absent.  There were positive reasons apart from displeasing the King.  Even the Comte d’Artois, who was very bored by these occasions, was hardly ever absent from them.  Court gossip was recounted and family matters were discussed.  They were very much at ease and often very merry, for it must be said that once they were separated from the entourages that importuned them, these princes were the best people in the world.  After supper, they all went their own ways.

The King went to his coucher.

The following events occurred between 18 and 23 February in different years of the Versailles Century (1682-1789).  I find most of them on the English or French wikipedias, but occasionally elsewhere.  Whenever possible, I link to further reading in English or recommend a print source.

Death of the Duc de Bourgogne on 18 February, 1712

It was on this day 306 years ago that the Duc de Bourgogne, eldest grandson of Louis XIV and father of the future Louis XV, died of smallpox at Versailles.  The Duchesse de Bougogne, Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie, had died six days earlier. Their elder son soon followed. The Duc’s father, the Grand Dauphin, had died the year before. Consequently, it was the Bourgognes’ younger son, the Duc d’Anjou, who became Dauphin aged two, and then succeeded his great-grandfather on the throne as Louis XV (r. 1715-1774). Although little Anjou was also ill during these terrible weeks, his governess, Mme de Ventadour, succeeded in keeping him away from the inept doctors who were killing off his family.

Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis,_Duke_of_Burgundy

Image: The Duc de Bourgogne, courtesy of Wikipedia.

A Childhood at Versailles consists of the first 5 chapters of the memoirs of Mme de Boigne (1781-1866), née Adèle d’Osmond, who was a French salon hostess and writer.  She was born in the Château de Versailles and lived at the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette until her family fled to England during the Revolution.  Later in her long life, she married a rich soldier of fortune 30 years her senior, hosted a brilliant salon in Paris, and became an intimate of the last French queen, Marie-Amélie, consort of King Louis Philippe (r. 1830-1848).  Childless herself, Mme de Boigne addressed her memoirs to her grandnephew.  The memoirs were not published until 1907, under the title Récits d’une tante, or An Aunt’s Tales.  They’ve never been published in English, as far as I know, so I’ve decided to translate the first 5 chapters, the ones that take place mainly at Versailles, and post them here on this blog for interested readers to enjoy for free.

The chapters are quite lengthy, so I’ve broken each one into several parts. In Part 2.4, the author describes the court within the court of Louis XVI’s aunts, whose leader was Madame Adélaïde, the eldest surviving daughter of Louis XV.  

A Childhood at Versailles, Chapter 2, Part 4 (2.4)

The little court of Mesdames the King’s aunts was a court within the court, referred to as the Old Court.  Its habits were very regular.  The princesses spent the whole summer at Bellevue, where their nephews and nieces constantly came for impromptu family dinners. A courier would arrive a few minutes ahead to announce them. When the courier was Monsieur’s, later Louis XVIII, the kitchen would be warned, and the dinner would be more ample and carefully presented. For the others, no warning was given, not even for the King, who had a large appetite, but was not nearly as much a gourmand as his brother.

At Bellevue, the royal family dined with everyone who happened to be there.  With the people attached to Mesdames, their families, and a few regular guests, the number generally came to twenty or thirty persons.

The following events occurred in different years of the Versailles Century (1682-1789) between 12 February and 16 February.  I compile these events mainly from the English and French wikipedias.  Whenever possible, I link to further reading or suggest a print work.

Death of Le Brun on 12 February, 1690

It was on this day 328 years ago that Charles Le Brun, Premier Peintre du Roi (First Painter to the King), died. Le Brun was born into a family of artists and showed early signs of great promise. He came to Louis XIV’s notice in the early 1660s, perhaps because of his work at Vaux-le-Vicomte. He was soon commissioned to work at the royal chateau of St. Germain and at the Louvre. His masterpieces, however, are the ceilings of the Hall of Mirrors, the Salon de Paix, and the Salon de Guerre at Versailles. He died rich and ennobled.

Image: A portrait of Le Brun by Largillière, courtesy of Wikipedia.

A Childhood at Versailles consists of the first 5 chapters of the memoirs of Mme de Boigne (1781-1866), née Adèle d’Osmond, who was a French salon hostess and writer.  She was born in the Château de Versailles and lived at the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette until her family fled to England during the Revolution.  Later in her long life, she married a rich soldier of fortune 30 years her senior, hosted a brilliant salon in Paris, and became an intimate of the last French queen, Marie-Amélie, consort of King Louis Philippe (r. 1830-1848).  Childless herself, Mme de Boigne addressed her memoirs to her grandnephew.  The memoirs were not published until 1907, under the title Récits d’une tante, or An Aunt’s Tales.  They’ve never been published in English, as far as I know, so I’ve decided to translate the first 5 chapters, the ones that take place mainly at Versailles, and post them here on this blog for interested readers to enjoy for free.

The chapters are quite lengthy, so I’ve broken each one into several parts.  In Part 2.3, the author recalls the Princesse de Guéméné, the rather eccentric governess of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette’s children.  At any rate, she was their governess until a sudden reversal of fortune…

A Childhood at Versailles, Chapter Two, Part 3 (Part 2.3)

At Versailles, the Princesse de Guéméné’s house was the one most frequented by my parents.  My father had some family connection to her, and she overwhelmed them with kindness.  She was a very singular person.  She had a great deal of intellect, but she put it to use by plunging into the follies of spiritualism.  She was always surrounded by a multitude of dogs to whom she rendered a kind of worship, and let on that through them she was in communication with intermediary spirits.  In the middle of a conversation in which she showed wit and judgement, she would suddenly stop short and fall into a trance.  She sometimes told her intimates what she had learned on these occasions and was offended to notice any signs of incredulity.

One day my mother found her in her bath, wreathed in tears.

“You are ill, princess!”

“No, child, I am sad and horribly tired; I spent the whole night fighting for this unfortunate child (motioning towards the Dauphin), but I could not beat them.  They won and there will be nothing left for him, alas!  And what a fate the others shall have!”

My mother, accustomed to the princess’s aberrations, paid little attention to these words; she remembered them afterwards and told them to me.

The following events took place from  5-9 February in different years in the Versailles Century (1682-1789).

5 February, 1782

It was on this day 245 years ago that the British forces under General Murray agreed to surrender to the Spanish forces under the Duc de Crillon, who was in fact a Frenchman. They duly abandoned Fort St. Philip the next day and Minorca effectively returned to Spanish rule. They had lost Minorca to the British in the Seven Years’ War (1757-1763), and the desire to regain it was a major factor in Carlos III’s decision to join France in supporting the nascent United States in its war of independence against Britain.

A Childhood at Versailles consists of the first 5 chapters of the memoirs of Mme de Boigne (1781-1866), née Adèle d’Osmond, who was a French salon hostess and writer.  She was born in the Château de Versailles and lived at the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette until her family fled to England during the Revolution.  Later in her long life, she married a rich soldier of fortune 30 years her senior, hosted a brilliant salon in Paris, and became an intimate of the last French queen, Marie-Amélie, consort of King Louis Philippe (r. 1830-1848).  Childless herself, Mme de Boigne addressed her memoirs to her grandnephew.  The memoirs were not published until 1907, under the title Récits d’une tante, or An Aunt’s Tales.  They’ve never been published in English, as far as I know, so I’ve decided to translate the first 5 chapters, the ones that take place mainly at Versailles, and post them here on this blog for interested readers to enjoy for free.

The chapters are quite lengthy, so I’ve broken each one into several parts.  In Part 2.2, the author describes the urbane manners and mores of summer life in 3 great country houses: Hautefontaine, Frascati, and Esclimont.  As far as I can tell, all 3 chateaux were casualties of the Revolution.  

A Childhood at Versailles, Chapter 2 (Part 2.2)

During the first years of my parents’ residence at Versailles, they divided their summer between the homes of the Duc d’Orléans, Saint-Assise and Raincy, Hautefontaine, which belonged to the Archbishop of Narbonne, the Bishop of Metz’s Frascati, and the Maréchal de Laval’s Esclimont.

I am wrong to say that Hautefontaine belonged to the Archbishop of Narbonne; it belonged his niece, Mme de Rothe, daughter of his sister, Lady Forester.  She was the widow of a General de Rothe.  She had been pretty enough and despotic with it, and did the honours of the house for her uncle, with whom she lived for many years in a highly complete intimacy that they hardly bothered to dissimulate.

The Archbishop had eight hundred thousand in revenue from his clerical benefices.  Every two years he went down to Narbonne for a fortnight, and then presided over the Estates at Montpellier for six weeks.  Throughout these times, he led a grand and very episcopal life, and deployed a fair amount of administrative capacity in presiding over the Estates.  However, the day that the sessions ended, he packed up his papers and never gave them another thought until the next sessions opened, nor did he give any further thought to the needs of his diocese.

Hautefontaine was his customary residence.  Mme de Rothe was its proprietor, but the Archbishop was the master.  He had married his nephew, Arthur Dillon, son of Lord Dillon, to Mlle de Rothe, an only daughter and his grand-niece.  She was a very pretty woman, very fashionable, one of the Queen’s ladies, and openly had a liaison with the Prince de Guéméné, who spent his whole life at Hautefontaine.  In a nearby village, he had installed a hunting establishment, which he possessed in common with the Duc de Lauzon and the Archbishop, for whom his nephew, Arthur, served as the front.

The following events occurred this week in different years of the Versailles Century (1682-1789).  I’ve culled them mostly from the English, French, and German wikipedias.  Occasionally, I draw on wikipedias in other Romance languages and hope that I correctly understood them.  I welcome gentle correction in the comments, either here or on the Versailles Century page on Facebook.  As often as possible, I provide a link to an article in English for further reading.

29 January, 1712

It was on this day 305 years ago that the Congress of Utrecht opened. Its aim was to negotiate an end to the War of the Spanish Succession, which had been raging for nearly a decade. The British and French had already stopped fighting in late 1711 and agreed on certain preliminaries. The Congress dragged on for more than year, finally resulting in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. The Austrians made a separate peace with France in 1714.

Original English and Spanish copies of the Treaty of Utrecht, courtesy of Wikipedia.

This is of particular note to Canadians and Americans. By its terms, France ceded Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the shorelands of Hudson’s Bay to Britain. This cession spurred the emigration of the Acadian people from Nova Scotia to Louisiana, then still a French possession, where they later became known as the Cajun people.

Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Utrecht

30 January, 1735

It was on this day 287 years ago that the island of Corsica, hitherto under the rule of the Republic of Genoa, first declared its never-to-this-day-realized independence. The Genoese, unable to reassert control, called on Louis XV for military aid. French interference continued for more than 30 years, until Genoa finally formally ceded Corsica to France in 1768 by the Treaty of Versailles. Nonetheless, it was not until the Battle of Ponto Novo in the spring of 1769 that France was able to establish full control over the island — just in time for one Napoleone Buonaparte to be born a French subject that summer in Ajaccio, Corsica’s capital.

An ancient Genoese tower in Corsica, courtesy of Pierre Bona — Travail personnel, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10590372.

Source: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corse 

31 January, 1773

It was on this day 245 years ago that Frederick the Great decreed that the former Polish province known as Royal Prussia would henceforth be known as West Prussia. The former Ducal Prussia would in contrast be called East Prussia. Frederick had acquired the re-named province in the First Partition of Poland in September of the previous year. It was an important strategic and practical acquisition because it joined Ducal Prussia to Pomerania. Prussia, Russia, and Austria had agreed the partition amongst themselves and then forced the Polish diet to ratify it. Although this re-drawing of the map was accomplished peacefully, it must be said that it was a historic crime against Poland. Worse was yet to come.

Courtesy of Skäpperöd at en.wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia(Original text : :image:K0nigl+herzoglPreussen.png), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6101262

Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Prussia

1 February, 1733

It was on this day 285 years ago that Augustus II, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, died. He had been the rival of Louis XV’s father-in-law, Stanislas Leszczynski, for the Polish throne in the first decade of the 18th century. Augustus prevailed with Russian help. After his death, Stanislas hurried to Poland and was once again elected king by the Polish diet. This touched off the War of the Polish Succession (1733-1738). To make a long story very short, Louis XV failed to support his wife’s father militarily, and the Russians again helped the Saxons. Augustus II’s only son was in the end duly crowned Augustus III. As fate and politics would have it, however, Augustus II and Stanislas were both great-grandfathers of the last 3 kings of France. How? Augustus III’s daughter, Marie-Josèphe de Saxe, married the Dauphin Louis, the son and heir of Louis XV. The young couple produced the future Louis XVI, Louis XVIII, and Charles X.

A copy of an original 1720s portrait of Augustus II by Louis de Sylvestre. It’s in the Meissen room of the Gardiner Museum in Toronto, where I photographed it in December, 2017.

This wraps up our Versailles Century events for this week.  To get daily updates as they occur, please follow the Versailles Century page on Facebook.  They appear there first, and then get compiled here at the end of the week.

A Childhood at Versailles consists of the first 5 chapters of the memoirs of Mme de Boigne (1781-1866), née Adèle d’Osmond, who was a French salon hostess and writer.  She was born in the Château de Versailles and lived at the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette until her family fled to England during the Revolution.  Later in her long life, she married a rich soldier of fortune 30 years her senior, hosted a brilliant salon in Paris, and became an intimate of the last French queen, Marie-Amélie, consort of King Louis Philippe (r. 1830-1848).  Childless herself, Mme de Boigne addressed her memoirs to her grandnephew.  The memoirs were not published until 1907, under the title Récits d’une tante, or An Aunt’s Tales.  They’ve never been published in English, as far as I know, so I’ve decided to translate the first 5 chapters, the ones that take place mainly at Versailles, and post them here on this blog for interested readers to enjoy for free.

The chapters are quite lengthy, so I’ve broken each one into several parts.  In Part 2.1, the author highlights the lack of interest that the courtiers at Versailles took in the outside world, which is revealed in an amusing exchange between her father and Mme Adéläide, the most senior princess at Court after the King’s wife and sisters-in-law.

A Childhood at Versailles, Chapter 2 (Part 2.1)

From Sunday to Saturday one lived quietly at Versailles in a way that was horribly dull for people who tore themselves away from their usual society to come and serve there without being well established.  However, it was a life not without interest for people who were definitively established; it was, in a way, a country house life of which the gossip revolved around important affairs.  Most had no notion of the national interest while following the intrigues that exiled M de Malesherbes from the centre of power or brought M de Calonne to it.  However, enlightened minds, such as my father’s, were interested in things other than a dispute over music or a rupture between Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Princesse de Luxembourg, which were the great events in society at the time.

No one thought of public policy in general.  If anyone did, it was done unreflectingly and motivated by a private interest of fortune or faction. Foreign governments were as unknown to us then as that of China is to us today.  My father was considered a bit of a pedant for taking an interest in European affairs, and he read the only journal that took some notice of them.

A Childhood at Versailles consists of the first 5 chapters of the memoirs of Mme de Boigne (1781-1866), née Adèle d’Osmond, who was a French salon hostess and writer.  She was born in the Château de Versailles and lived at the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette until her family fled to England during the Revolution.  Later in her long life, she married a rich soldier of fortune 30 years her senior, hosted a brilliant salon in Paris, and became an intimate of the last French queen, Marie-Amélie, consort of King Louis Philippe (r. 1830-1848).  Childless herself, Mme de Boigne addressed her memoirs to her grandnephew.  The memoirs were not published until 1907, under the title Récits d’une tante, or An Aunt’s Tales.  They’ve never been published in English, as far as I know, so I’ve decided to translate the first 5 chapters, the ones that take place mainly at Versailles, and post them here on this blog for interested readers to enjoy for free.

The chapters are quite lengthy, so I’ve broken each one into several parts.  In Part 1.7, the final part of Chapter One, Mme de Boigne relates the strange tale of a pair of imposters posing as Greek refugee princes who hoodwinked Louis XVI, his ministers, the court, and high society.    

A Childhood at Versailles, Chapter One, Part 7 (1.7)

The Court of France’s predilection for foreigners was exploited in a rather singular way by two illustrious Greeks, hounded from their homeland by Muslim provocations.  The Prince of Chios and Prince Justinian, his son, direct descendants of the Byzantine emperors, came to request the hospitality of Louis XVI at the beginning of his reign.  He accorded it to them nobly and grandly, as befitted a king of France.  While waiting for the claims he was making to the Sublime Porte for the restitution of his property to be resolved, the Prince of Chios was begged to accept a hefty pension, and Prince Justinian entered French service by taking command of a fine regiment.

These Greek princes lived off the royal munificence for some years, and were well received in the best society in Paris and at Versailles.  Their accent, and a bit of oddness in their manners, assured their success.  One day, when, for the hundredth time, they were dining at the table of the Comte de Maurepas, the latter saw the Prince of Chios, who was seated next to him, turn pale and look troubled.