Love And Louis Xiv
by Antonia Fraser

Description

"Antonia Fraser explores the rich dynamic that existed between Louis XIV and the many fascinating women who ornamented his personal life. This includes not only Louis's mistresses, principally Louise de La Valliere and Athenais de Montespan as well as the puritanical Madame de Maintenon, but also the wider story of his relationships with women in general: his mother Anne of Austria, his two sisters-in-law who were Duchesses d'Orleans in succession, Henriette-Anne and Liselotte, his wayward illegitimate daughters, and lastly Adelaide, the beloved child-wife of his grandson." "Antonia Fraser portrays the gallantry of these relationships, from friendships shading to love, the subtle art of courtship, the more frivolous and even dangerous pursuit of flirtation, down to sensual libertinage ending in sex. But if gallantry - or sex - is one theme of this book, then religion is another and it is in the connection between the two that the fascination of Louis XIV's relationships with his mistresses properly lies. Great religious figures of the age such as Bossuet spoke out on the subject of royal adultery and even Louis could not stop them. As for the women's spiritual life, it was significant that Penitent Magdalen was the favourite saint of seventeenth-century France." "Drawing attention to the political significance of female figures of the period, this book also inevitably reflects something of the condition of women of a certain status in seventeenth-century France. Antonia Fraser considers their choices and to what extent they - mistresses and wives, mothers and daughters - were in control of their own destinies."--BOOK JACKET.