madame de maintenon part III In the Corridors of Power madame de maintenon in the corridors of power 16 april - 21 july 2019 Versailles, 15 April 2019 Press release To mark the tricentenary of the death of Madame de Maintenon (1635-1719), the Palace of Versailles is highlighting the exceptional destiny of this woman, who was born in a prison but went on to become the wife of the world’s most powerful king. Presented in the private apartment that Madame de Maintenon occupied on the first floor of the Palace, close to the King’s own apartments, the exhibition traces the life of this important court figure via around sixty works and documents. Thanks to the evocative design of the exhibition, visitors can also rediscover the iconic 17th-century décor, no examples of which remain in modern-day Versailles. This space is being unveiled as part of The Remarkable Women of Versailles and alongside both the reopening of the Queen’s State Apartment and The taste of Marie Leszczyńska exhibition. Following a difficult, impoverished childhood, Françoise of the Palace, very close to the King’s apartments. The d’Aubigné married, at the age of 16, the famous poet space underwent a whole host of changes during the time Scarron, who introduced her to prestigious Parisian of those occupants who followed Madame de Maintenon, circles. After being widowed, she was entrusted with the in particular following the major transformation of the role of raising the illegitimate children of King Louis Palace into a national monument dedicated “to all the XIV and Madame de Montespan. After the first children glories of France” by King Louis-Philippe in the 19th were legitimised in 1673, Françoise d’Aubigné moved to century. For this exhibition, unique paintings, drawings, the court, where she caught the King’s attention. Having engravings, books, medals and documents are on show in obtained the title Madame de Maintenon, she went on the various rooms of the apartments, retracing Madame to marry King Louis XIV following the disgrace of his de Maintenon’s destiny. former favourite and the death of Queen Maria Theresa. The staging of this exhibition, complete with restored wall In 1686, as a result of having been a governess, she hangings, is particularly evocative and manages to recreate founded the Saint-Louis Royal School in Saint-Cyr for the lively atmosphere of this suite of rooms, discreet yet daughters of the impoverished nobility of France, which sophisticated, just like their occupant. delivered an exceptionally modern teaching programme. The wall hangings were woven by Tassinari & Chatel Whether decried or admired, Madame de Maintenon – France’s oldest silk factory, founded in Lyon by King continues to fascinate to this day. Louis XIV – based on a description of the original hangings included in the 1708 inventory of the Royal Evocative scenography brings the Furniture Depository. In those days, the walls of Madame apartment back to life de Maintenon’s apartments were sumptuously decorated with silk hangings, arranged in alternating strips The exhibition is an opportunity to open Madame throughout most of the rooms. de Maintenon’s apartment to the public and recreate the atmosphere that would have prevailed during her This iconic 17th-century style of décor is no longer residency there, from 1680 to 1715. found in today’s Versailles, so the exhibition is a unique opportunity for visitors to admire how the interior of a Relatively modest compared to royal and princely courtier's quarters would have looked during the French apartments, the quarters are located in a prized and “Grand Siècle”. exceptional position, on the first floor of the main wing Exhibition curation Alexandre Maral, General Curator of Heritage and Director of the Palace of Versailles Research Centre Mathieu da Vinha, Scientific Director of the Palace of Versailles Scenography With the support of Research Centre. Jérôme Dumoux Françoise d’Aubigné (detail) d’Aubigné Françoise Garnier © Thomas museum d’Agesci. Bernard Niort, canvas, on 1670, oil around 53 preface by catherine pégard President of the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles History is undoubtedly studded with mysteries. A da Vinha are helping us rediscover. It is not the size of mysterious reversal or about-turn, a sudden rise or fall, these spaces that made them strategic. For thirty-two a mad day or strange behaviour that alters the course of years, Madame de Maintenon insisted on staying in everything. A mysterious situation dissolved or resolved this apartment, at the heart of all the royal comings and over time by the expertise, research and discoveries it goings, where she became the prime example of personal inspires. ambition, social climbing and political influence at court. Even while the court was changing… But Madame de Maintenon is one mystery that endures: “I will remain an enigma to the world,” she said, It is the modern nature of this amazing destiny that carefully destroying all traces of her life before her death. makes her seem less diabolical yet just as mysterious. From a very young age, she endeavoured to seem outside Because although the historians can lay bare the legend of herself and apart from a society in which she became a of errors and falsifications, they will surely never pivotal player, albeit unknown by most. discover the secret of the king who helped create them. Her legend, which is both golden and dark, was The fact that Madame de Maintenon remains such a first documented by her contemporaries, the most fascinating mystery is due not only to the woman herself overbearing of whom, such as Saint-Simon and Princess but also to Louis XIV, who, at the height of his glory, Palatine, hated her without really knowing her. Even her and even after thirty-two years together, sought her out, greatest enemies acknowledged her sharp intelligence every evening when he returned from his walk. and lively spirit, but as for the rest… A precarious and exotic childhood spent among the lesser nobility, a first This small corner of the Palace of Versailles belongs to a – unlikely – marriage to a disfigured and provocative couple. A couple without compare. poet, the unexpected favour of a king, who made her his confidante and then his secret wife, and, finally, an unrivalled and shared longevity with him, which gave her enormous influence. Her face has only rarely been revealed to us by painters, but the memorialists and historians vied to produce the true “portrait of the Ambiguous One”, as Michelet once said. Ambitious “Beautiful Indian”, scheming widow, shrewd favourite, uncrowned queen, femme fatale turned hypocritical bigot, an extremely devout dark shadow – it wasn’t until the 1980s that these prejudices and inaccurate testimonies were contested by Françoise Chandernagor, based on new historiographical research. In her wake, Alexandre Maral – General Curator of Heritage at the Palace of Versailles, who, in the course of his work over the years, has become well acquainted with the “almost queen” – and Mathieu da Vinha – Scientific Director of the Palace of Versailles research centre – enable us to meet Madame de Maintenon, without rewriting her history, in the world she built, from Scarron’s salon up to her retirement in Saint-Cyr, where she died, three hundred years ago. But especially, where she lived, in the four rooms that were completely overlooked by Louis-Philippe and which Maral and 54 foreword by laurent salomé Director of the Musée National des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon “I am no greater a lady now than when I was in Rue des This highly original exhibition is designed not just to Tournelles, where you used freely to tell me of my faults. rhapsodise once more over this incredible ascent but also And though the rank I now hold places the world at to move science forward, to ask new questions, gather my feet, it should not matter to a man charged with the together important documents, elaborate acknowledged direction of my conscience, whom I implore to disregard facts and set them firmly within the mechanisms of the it in setting me on the path that he believes is best for my court. By revisiting this page in the story of France – a well-being.” story that is, above all, about love and spirit – in the very heart of what remains of the apartment of the “almost In these few words addressed, in 1686, to the Abbot queen”, it will, we hope, trigger something in more than Gobelin, who was her longtime confessor, Madame de a few... Maintenon reveals the modesty and piety that constitute much of the fascination we still hold for her today. These virtues, among many others, together with her known skills as a strategist, diplomat and educator, are what enabled her incredible “career” to develop as it did. This exhibition marks the tricentenary of the death of one of the most extraordinary characters in French history, who, with Louis XIV, formed a formidable couple, in which the woman was never the inferior partner. It is a chance for us – pathetically embroiled in our problems of patriarchal entitlement and misogyny as we are – to reflect on how things were during the Ancien Régime. One often hears quoted the observation made by Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Le Brun in her Memoirs that “women ruled but the Revolution dethroned them”. It marks a moment of grace that can be placed around the end of the 18th century, thus linking it, on the one side, to the reign of Louis XVI, which was considered quite feminised, and, on the other, to the philosophy of the Enlightenment – a link that is not all that obvious.