Free Royal Romances: Titillating Tales of Passion and Power in the Palaces of Europe by Leslie Carroll Page A

was devout throughout her life, once angrily retorting to a duchess who expressed surprise at her adherence to the Church’s prescribed fast days, “What, Madame? Because I commit one sin am I to commit all others?”
    Nevertheless, Athénaïs needed to believe that her own fine qualities, rather than any calculated agenda, had won the king’s heart. She believed, as did Louise de La Vallière to a point, that the only excuse for adultery was true love.
    Louis XIV spent most of his long reign at war, and for several years during the earlier part of his rule, when he decamped for the front he was accompanied by an entourage that included the most important women in his life. In May of 1667 the conflict in question was the War of Devolution in the Spanish Netherlands, now Belgium. Athénaïs and the queen were among the party, both determined to bear the long hours on the road like troupers. But it was the beginning of the end for Louise when, in an uncharacteristic and rather desperate display of bravado, she rode out in great state to greet her royal lover, utterly humiliating her boss, the queen, thereby causing considerable embarrassment to His Majesty. The maîtresse en titre ’s breach of etiquette became a chasm and Louis began to stray.
    Most historians believe that he and Athénaïs became lovers duringthis military campaign. The story, though it may be apocryphal, goes like this: Athénaïs was staying at the home of friends. Louis disguised himself in the livery of her hostess’s servants and surprised Madame de Montespan in her bath—but the king was allegedly more dumbstruck by the sight of the voluptuous marquise than she was by his intrusion. He stood rooted to the floor, transfixed by her beauty. It fell to her to dispel the tension, which she purportedly did by dropping her towel.
    A new age was about to dawn. Their royal romance would span the most successful and dazzling years of the Sun King’s reign, earning the era the nickname l’Âge Montespan .
    People at court began to notice a change in the winds when the guard at the door to the king’s apartments was removed, and it was remarked that Louis seemed to be spending an inordinate amount of time in there. Athénaïs started to neglect her customary responsibilities as lady-in-waiting to Her Majesty, and her roommate was suddenly making herself scarce in advance of the visits the marquise would receive from Louis—in disguise. When the queen inquired what was keeping him from her bed till four a.m., he muttered something about being busy with military dispatches. It was all quite risky, in addition to being risqué. Louis’ new liaison was being conducted right under his wife’s nose, as well as that of Louise, who still held the position of maîtresse en titre .
    After the sovereign returned to Paris from the battlefield, courtiers had noticed his swagger; he’d grown more confident around women. Athénaïs had changed, too. She was no longer just another very pretty woman at court who was also smart and pious. Her glorious conquest had hardened her, as though inside and out she had been coated with a veneer of shellac. Victorious in love, she became imperious, capricious, and coquettish. Or were people seeing only what they wanted to see, attributing a different color to her usual behavior, now that she was in the throes of a royal romance? Was it Athénaïs who had changed, or the courtiers’ point of view?
    Perhaps they condemned her for being brazen about her royal liaison, rather than diffident, like the “violet” Louise de La Vallière. Madame de Montespan was not embarrassed about her doubly adulterous affair, and she enthusiastically enjoyed sex in an era whenwomen typically considered “ commerce ”—intercourse—to be anything from an inconvenience to an annoyance to an outright burden. And Louis was a man of large appetites. He had a libido like JFK and “needed” to make love to Athénaïs three times a day, so hot and