Also known as:
born Louis-Stanislas-Xavier de France
Louis-Stanislas, Comte de Provence
Son of: Louis, Dauphin de France & Maria Josepha von Sachsen.
Husband of: Maria Giuseppina Luigia di Savoia, daughter of Vittorio Amedeo III di Sardegna & Maria Antonia Fernanda de Espana, mar 1771.
"Louis-Stanislas was born at Versailles on 17 November 1755, the fourth son of the Dauphin Louis, and given the ancient title of Comte de Provence. Like his brothers, his education was entrusted to the pious Duc de Vauguyon, whose repressive regime may have been responsible for his lukewarm attitude towards religion. From a very early age he showed unusual intelligence, aided by a phenomenal memory. Delicate, with deformed hips which made it difficult for him to ride a horse, he was studious and developed a taste for history and literature which lasted throughout his life. He particularly enjoyed Voltaire, and the writings of the Encyclopedias. Naturally malicious, he was apt to sneer at his clumsy brother, Berry (the future Louis XVI), who was only a year older, mocking his bad grammar—‘A Prince should at least know his own language.’" (Erenow)
Physical appearance & personal qualities.
"Monsieur enjoyed pomp and circumstance. Despite his inability to ride, he kept one of the largest stables in France and his regiment of Carabineers was superbly mounted. As Grand Master of the Knights of St Lazarus, he restricted membership of that ancient hospitaller order to great noblemen. Everything about him was designed to enhance his pride and ostentation. Short, fat and swarthy, he overdressed in diamond-studded suits, and adopted a repentantly haughty manner. Yet a gouache of Monsieur in his early twenties, by Moitte, shows a surprisingly attractive face, with the Bourbon nose but an amused grin." (Erenow)
Comte de Provence & his wife.
"Monsieur had himself married in 1772, when he was only fifteen, but, despite boasting how he would outdo his brother, failed to beget children; it was rumoured that his impotency drove his wife to drink, though in fact he only became impotent much later in life. ‘Madame’ was Maria Giuseppina of Savoy, daughter of the King of Sardinia. She was small, dark, ugly, insignificant, and bad-tempered, coarse-natured, and dirty in her person—Louis XV begged her parents to persuade her to wash her neck and clean her teeth. Mme de Campan says that the only thing worth mentioning about her was a ‘pair of tolerably fine eyes’. Madame’s favourite occupation was catching thrushes in nets and having them made into soup. (Monsieur was fond of food too, but with more elegance—he created a dish which consisted of a partridge stuffed with an ortolan, which in turn was stuffed with foie gras.) Their flat was in the left wing at Versailles on the side near the Orangery, Monsieur and Madame occupying separate floors." (Erenow)
Louis XVIII's need of a special kind of affection for his beloved.
"Although not affectionate by nature, Louis XVIII had need of a special kind of affection. He must have near him a person in whom he had absolute trust, who saw him at any moment, who received all his confidences, all his secrets, and with whom he could think aloud. This friendship of a particular kind did not last indefinitely, but, so long as it did last, it possessed an exclusive character which made it a veritable passion. Any attack of the object of this favoritism was like high treason in the eyes of the King, and the greater were the jealousies excited by the person thus preferred, the more did the monarch please himself by heaping up and overwhelming him with favors. In aggrandizing him, he thought he aggrandized himself, and he identified himself with the object of his choice. Unable to hunt, and incapable of many pleasures, nailed to his armchair by sufferings, he had no resource but this impassioned friendship into which he cast all he possessed of mind and heart. It was thus that he loved, one after the other, the Countess of Balbi, the Count of Avaray during the emigration, the Duke Decazes from 1816 to 1820, and the Countess of Cayla from 1820 till his latest hour." (The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Louis XVIII:: 256)
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| Louis XVIII of France |
" . . . He was known to have had three mistresses, or at least there were three ladies who enjoyed that title. Before the Revolution, Madame de Balby; since the restoration, Madame Princetot, M. Decazes' sister; and, finally, the celebrated Madame du Cayla. . . ." (The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume 4: 162)
The King's paternal relations with younger men.
"Louis was fond of stressing the paternal element in his relations with these younger men, and it is significant that they began only after he had given up hope of having children with Marie-Josephine. In the case of Decazes, this was carried to extremes. Sometimes Louis would set down his feelings in full" 'My Elie, I love you, I bless you with all my soul, I press you against my heart. Come to it and receive the tenderest embraces of your friend, your father, your Louis!' At other times he would express them in acronyms of which he was very fond. A message of 11 April 1816 ends 'm.e.j.t.p.s.m.c.e.j.t.b.m.em.m.f.' (Mon Elie, je te presse sur mon coeur et je te benis, mon Elie, mon fils --- 'My Elie, I press you to my heart and I bless you, my Elie, my son'.) (The Perilous Crown: 94-95)
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Anne-Jacobé Comtesse de Balbi @Pinterest |
Louis XVIII's lovers were:
Lover in 1780-1794.
Comtesse de Balbi
French aristocrat, courtier & royal mistress
Lady-in-waiting to the Comtesse de Provence.
Also known as:
Anne Nompar de Caumont de La Force, Comtesse de Balbi
Anne-Jacobee Nompar de Caumont de La Force, Comtesse de Balbi
Madame de Balbi.
[Bio]
Daughter of: Bertrand Nompar de Caumont La Force, Marquis de La Force de Caumont et Taillebourg & Adelaide Luce Madeleine de Galard de Brassac de Bearn.
Wife of: Francois Marie Armand, Comte de Balbi, Marchese de Piovera, mar 1776.
"Somewhat surprisingly in view of his ugliness, timidity and ill-defined sexuality, Louis-Stanislas acquired a glittering young mistress, the high-spirited Mme de Balbi, who was one of Madame’s ladies. Anne-Jacobé Caumont La Force had been born in 1759, the daughter of a distinguished member of Monsieur’s household. Admired by all for her elegance and dashing appearance, she married the Comte de Balbi, grandson of a Genoese Doge, but he turned out to be insane; in 1780 violent behaviour culminated in his beating his wife with his cane after finding her en galanterie, and he was confined in a madhouse (some said with Monsieur’s connivance). What appealed to Louis-Stanislas about la Balbi was not so much her physical charms, and certainly not her promiscuity, as her literary tastes and mordant wit; though it is likely that they slept together, for at this date he was not yet impotent. He installed her in a flat above his own at Versailles, Madame continuing to live below. In Paris Anne-Jacobé held court at the Petit Luxembourg, where she entertained the literary men whose company her lover enjoyed so much. Her extravagance on clothes, jewellery and gambling reached such heights that Monsieur soon found himself in serious financial difficulty." (Erenow)
2) Antoine-Louis-Francois de Besiade (1759-1811)
1st Duc d'Avaray 1799
Son of: Claude Antoine de Besiade, Marquis d'Avaray.
"After la Balbi’s fall, the focus of Monsieur’s affections was the Captain of his Bodyguard. Antoine-Louis-François de Bestiade, Comte d’Avaray, was thirty-four and a career soldier whose skilful organization of his master’s escape to Coblenz had won him his master’s confidence; later the infatuated Louis-Stanislas gave him the right to bear the royal arms of France on his own with the motto Vicit iter durum pietas (loyalty finds a way over even the stoniest road). Henceforward, until his death, he only left Monsieur when sent on special missions. The two men had no secrets from each other, Avaray’s one fault in Monsieur’s eyes being that he had no Latin. Indeed it is probable, though there is no actual proof, that Monsieur was a repressed homosexual. Significantly, Hézecques compares his character with those of Henri III and Monsieur, brother of Louis XIV (though admittedly he does not speak of common sexual tastes). Undoubtedly, Louis-Stanislas found full emotional satisfaction in male friendships, even if these were platonic because of his low sexual drive. Like Louis XIII, he sought the perfect friend." (Erenow)
The most feeling of friends.
"For all his undoubted probity, Avaray, the King’s favourite companion, inspired jealousy and even hatred. He particularly irritated conservative émigrés by speaking English and dressing like an Englishman. In 1808 a Vendéen veteran, General de Puisaye, accused Avaray of trying to have him assassinated. The scandal reached such proportions that Louis issued a public defence of ‘the most feeling of friends’ and appointed a committee of twenty-four noblemen who quickly declared Avaray innocent. The favourite at once challenged Puisaye to a duel, but the King had him arrested by the English authorities to prevent him fighting. As a mark of his esteem he then made Avaray a Duke. However, the favourite’s health was collapsing—he seems to have been tubercular—and he had to leave England for a warmer climate at the end of 1810." (Erenow)
Personal & family background.
"A. L. F. De Besiade, Count d'Avaray, eldest son of the Marquis d'Avaray, who was before the Revolution, and is still, what we call Groom of the Stole. The Count d'Avaray was born in 1759, and served at the siege of Gibraltar; after which he became Colonel of the Regiment de Boulonnais . . . Monsieur, on assuming the title of Louis XVIII, made M. d'Avaray Captain of the Guards, and gave him the arms of France, to be borne as an honourable augmentation to his own, with the date of the King's escape as a motto. In 1799 he received, what at that time must have appeared, the empty honour of being created a Duke. M. d'Avaray followed the fortunes of the exiled monarch into Italy, Germany, Russia, Poland, and finally into England. He had the entire possession of his private confidence, and the greatest share in his political concerns. . . [H]e was advised to try a voyage to Madeira (where) M. d'Avaray died . . . in 1811. His father has been created a Duke and peer of France; his next brother is now Count d'Avaray." (Royal Memoires on the French Revolution: 47)
3) Pierre Louis Jean Casimir de Blacas. (1771-?)
Comte d'Aulps; 1st Duc de Blacas.
"Luckily, Louis quickly found a new dear friend, one who had been recommended by Avaray himself. Pierre-Louis-Jean-Casimir de Blacas, Comte d’Aulps, had been born in 1771 of an ancient family of Provence. Like his predecessor, he was a career soldier, a former dragoon captain. He had joined Louis’s household at Verona and had stayed with him ever since. A quixotic figure who modelled himself on the heroes of French chivalry, he insisted on regarding his gouty master as the reincarnation of Saint Louis and Henri IV. He knew Latin, and soon Louis was devoted to him. As Blacas said later, ‘You don’t know the King—he must have a favourite and he might as well have me as anyone else.’" (Erenow)
"Our author also well understood and well describes the character of Louis XVIII. In reality an able and sensible man, but utterly passive; condemned by obesity to inaction, he had the pride and in some degree the greatness of royalty, but his horizon was bounded by the precincts of his court. Intellectually akin to Louis Philippe, his character was different. The latter was active both in body and mind; but not so high in his views a Louis, because he felt himself less a king. Louis XVIII was fond of displaying his literary acquirements; Louis Philippe spoke readily of home politics, without paying much attention to the affairs of Europe, which Louis XVIII, judged with greater acuteness and dignity. Both sovereigns were minds of the middle sort, but in their way very intelligent men. Louis XVIII needed a favourite because of his indolence; this he found in the Duc de Blacas in 1814, and in M. de Cazes in 1816. When they deprived him of the latter he was all adrift, and took no interest in governing, though he found in it a solace for his pride. The Duc de Richelieu was little to him, M. de Villele nothing at all. It was then he surrendered himself to his female favourite, Madlle de Cayla, who was in Villele's interest, and through whom Villele was allowed at last to do as he liked." (The Rambler: 223)
Lover in 1816-1820.
French statesman
Comte Decazes 1815, Hertug af Glucksbierg, 1818, 1st Duke of Glucksbierg 1818, 1st Duc de Decazes 1820, Paris Prefect of Police 1815, Minister of Police 1815, Minister of Interior 1815, President of the Council/Prime Minister of France 1819, Ambassador to Great Britain 1820.
[Bio]
Daughter of: Bertrand Nompar de Caumont La Force, Marquis de La Force de Caumont et Taillebourg & Adelaide Luce Madeleine de Galard de Brassac de Bearn.
Wife of: Francois Marie Armand, Comte de Balbi, Marchese de Piovera, mar 1776.
"Somewhat surprisingly in view of his ugliness, timidity and ill-defined sexuality, Louis-Stanislas acquired a glittering young mistress, the high-spirited Mme de Balbi, who was one of Madame’s ladies. Anne-Jacobé Caumont La Force had been born in 1759, the daughter of a distinguished member of Monsieur’s household. Admired by all for her elegance and dashing appearance, she married the Comte de Balbi, grandson of a Genoese Doge, but he turned out to be insane; in 1780 violent behaviour culminated in his beating his wife with his cane after finding her en galanterie, and he was confined in a madhouse (some said with Monsieur’s connivance). What appealed to Louis-Stanislas about la Balbi was not so much her physical charms, and certainly not her promiscuity, as her literary tastes and mordant wit; though it is likely that they slept together, for at this date he was not yet impotent. He installed her in a flat above his own at Versailles, Madame continuing to live below. In Paris Anne-Jacobé held court at the Petit Luxembourg, where she entertained the literary men whose company her lover enjoyed so much. Her extravagance on clothes, jewellery and gambling reached such heights that Monsieur soon found himself in serious financial difficulty." (Erenow)
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| Antoine-Louis-Francois de Besiade 1st Duc d'Avaray @New York Day by Day |
1st Duc d'Avaray 1799
Son of: Claude Antoine de Besiade, Marquis d'Avaray.
"After la Balbi’s fall, the focus of Monsieur’s affections was the Captain of his Bodyguard. Antoine-Louis-François de Bestiade, Comte d’Avaray, was thirty-four and a career soldier whose skilful organization of his master’s escape to Coblenz had won him his master’s confidence; later the infatuated Louis-Stanislas gave him the right to bear the royal arms of France on his own with the motto Vicit iter durum pietas (loyalty finds a way over even the stoniest road). Henceforward, until his death, he only left Monsieur when sent on special missions. The two men had no secrets from each other, Avaray’s one fault in Monsieur’s eyes being that he had no Latin. Indeed it is probable, though there is no actual proof, that Monsieur was a repressed homosexual. Significantly, Hézecques compares his character with those of Henri III and Monsieur, brother of Louis XIV (though admittedly he does not speak of common sexual tastes). Undoubtedly, Louis-Stanislas found full emotional satisfaction in male friendships, even if these were platonic because of his low sexual drive. Like Louis XIII, he sought the perfect friend." (Erenow)
The most feeling of friends.
"For all his undoubted probity, Avaray, the King’s favourite companion, inspired jealousy and even hatred. He particularly irritated conservative émigrés by speaking English and dressing like an Englishman. In 1808 a Vendéen veteran, General de Puisaye, accused Avaray of trying to have him assassinated. The scandal reached such proportions that Louis issued a public defence of ‘the most feeling of friends’ and appointed a committee of twenty-four noblemen who quickly declared Avaray innocent. The favourite at once challenged Puisaye to a duel, but the King had him arrested by the English authorities to prevent him fighting. As a mark of his esteem he then made Avaray a Duke. However, the favourite’s health was collapsing—he seems to have been tubercular—and he had to leave England for a warmer climate at the end of 1810." (Erenow)
Personal & family background.
"A. L. F. De Besiade, Count d'Avaray, eldest son of the Marquis d'Avaray, who was before the Revolution, and is still, what we call Groom of the Stole. The Count d'Avaray was born in 1759, and served at the siege of Gibraltar; after which he became Colonel of the Regiment de Boulonnais . . . Monsieur, on assuming the title of Louis XVIII, made M. d'Avaray Captain of the Guards, and gave him the arms of France, to be borne as an honourable augmentation to his own, with the date of the King's escape as a motto. In 1799 he received, what at that time must have appeared, the empty honour of being created a Duke. M. d'Avaray followed the fortunes of the exiled monarch into Italy, Germany, Russia, Poland, and finally into England. He had the entire possession of his private confidence, and the greatest share in his political concerns. . . [H]e was advised to try a voyage to Madeira (where) M. d'Avaray died . . . in 1811. His father has been created a Duke and peer of France; his next brother is now Count d'Avaray." (Royal Memoires on the French Revolution: 47)
3) Pierre Louis Jean Casimir de Blacas. (1771-?)
Comte d'Aulps; 1st Duc de Blacas.
"Luckily, Louis quickly found a new dear friend, one who had been recommended by Avaray himself. Pierre-Louis-Jean-Casimir de Blacas, Comte d’Aulps, had been born in 1771 of an ancient family of Provence. Like his predecessor, he was a career soldier, a former dragoon captain. He had joined Louis’s household at Verona and had stayed with him ever since. A quixotic figure who modelled himself on the heroes of French chivalry, he insisted on regarding his gouty master as the reincarnation of Saint Louis and Henri IV. He knew Latin, and soon Louis was devoted to him. As Blacas said later, ‘You don’t know the King—he must have a favourite and he might as well have me as anyone else.’" (Erenow)
"Our author also well understood and well describes the character of Louis XVIII. In reality an able and sensible man, but utterly passive; condemned by obesity to inaction, he had the pride and in some degree the greatness of royalty, but his horizon was bounded by the precincts of his court. Intellectually akin to Louis Philippe, his character was different. The latter was active both in body and mind; but not so high in his views a Louis, because he felt himself less a king. Louis XVIII was fond of displaying his literary acquirements; Louis Philippe spoke readily of home politics, without paying much attention to the affairs of Europe, which Louis XVIII, judged with greater acuteness and dignity. Both sovereigns were minds of the middle sort, but in their way very intelligent men. Louis XVIII needed a favourite because of his indolence; this he found in the Duc de Blacas in 1814, and in M. de Cazes in 1816. When they deprived him of the latter he was all adrift, and took no interest in governing, though he found in it a solace for his pride. The Duc de Richelieu was little to him, M. de Villele nothing at all. It was then he surrendered himself to his female favourite, Madlle de Cayla, who was in Villele's interest, and through whom Villele was allowed at last to do as he liked." (The Rambler: 223)
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Elie, Duc de Decazes @Wikipedia |
4) Elie-Louis, Duc de Decazes (1780-1860)
French statesman
Comte Decazes 1815, Hertug af Glucksbierg, 1818, 1st Duke of Glucksbierg 1818, 1st Duc de Decazes 1820, Paris Prefect of Police 1815, Minister of Police 1815, Minister of Interior 1815, President of the Council/Prime Minister of France 1819, Ambassador to Great Britain 1820.
Son of: Michel Decazes & Catherine Trigant de Beaumont.
Husband of:
1. Elisabeth-Fortunee de Muraire (d.1806), daughter of Comte Honore Muraire., mar 1805
2. Wilhelmine-Egidia-Octavie de Beaupoli (d.1873), Comtesse de St. Aulaire-Glucksbierg, mar 1818.
"One reason for the survival of Richelieu’s ministry was the fact that its Minister of the Interior was M Elie Decazes. This dark-haired, fine-featured Gascon lawyer in his early thirties, the son of a little notary in the Gironde, had replaced Blacas as the King’s dear friend. Of his appearance Talleyrand said—knowing that his words would be reported to Louis—‘He resembles a moderately good-looking hairdresser’s assistant.’ Minister of Police during the First Restoration, Decazes had won his master’s confidence by following him to Ghent, and then endeared himself by retailing malicious gossip about the country’s leading figures, which he gleaned from police files. He never bored the King with tiresome detail but took care that he was informed of anything of genuine importance. In addition he was of a literary turn of mind, and an excellent listener who enjoyed Louis’s stories. Soon the King was infatuated, addressing him as ‘mon fils’ and writing to him three times a day—‘Come to receive the tenderest embraces of thy friend, thy father, thy Louis.’ He even gave his adorable minister English lessons, and was amazed by his progress; in fact Decazes was discreetly visiting the best tutor in Paris after each lesson. The King said of ‘his darling child’ that, ‘I will raise him so high that the greatest lords will envy him.’ Again, one’s mind goes back to Louis XIII." (Erenow)
A man more powerful than the King; the confidant, the favorite, the alter ego of the sovereign: "There was a man in France at the beginning of 1820 who was probably more powerful than the King. This was Count Decazes, president of the Council of Ministers. The credit he enjoyed caused the ultras an exasperation bordering on convulsive rage. On ascertaining the omnipotence of a former favorite of the Empire, it was all the emigres could do to refrain from treating Louis XVII as a disguised Bonapartist or crowned Jacobin. x x x The man who excited the jealousy and rancor of the courtiers of Louis XVIII to such a pitch was not yet forty. Born September 28, 1780, at Saint-Martin-de-Laye, near Libourne, where his father was lieutenant of the presidial, he had been first a barrister, and afterwards employed in the Ministry of Justice, under the Consulate. In 1805 his married with the daughter of Count Muraire, first president of the Court of Cassation, opened to him the career of the magistracy. Having been appointed judge of the Seine tribunal, he became a counsellor of the imperial court in 1806. He was called to the Hague the same year by King Louis Bonaparte, whose confidential counsellor he became. After the abdication of this Prince he filled the post of private secretary to Madame Mere from 1811 to the close of the Empire. Under the Restoration he became an avowed royalist. He refused to keep his post in the magistracy during the Hundred days, and Napoleon exiled him forty leagues from Paris. After Waterloo he became prefect of police to Louis XVIII. September 24, 1815, he entered the cabinet as Minister of Police, and from that day onward he was the confidant, the favorite, the alter ego of the sovereign." (The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Louis XVIII: 132)
From royal affection to real infatuation.
Husband of:
1. Elisabeth-Fortunee de Muraire (d.1806), daughter of Comte Honore Muraire., mar 1805
2. Wilhelmine-Egidia-Octavie de Beaupoli (d.1873), Comtesse de St. Aulaire-Glucksbierg, mar 1818.
"One reason for the survival of Richelieu’s ministry was the fact that its Minister of the Interior was M Elie Decazes. This dark-haired, fine-featured Gascon lawyer in his early thirties, the son of a little notary in the Gironde, had replaced Blacas as the King’s dear friend. Of his appearance Talleyrand said—knowing that his words would be reported to Louis—‘He resembles a moderately good-looking hairdresser’s assistant.’ Minister of Police during the First Restoration, Decazes had won his master’s confidence by following him to Ghent, and then endeared himself by retailing malicious gossip about the country’s leading figures, which he gleaned from police files. He never bored the King with tiresome detail but took care that he was informed of anything of genuine importance. In addition he was of a literary turn of mind, and an excellent listener who enjoyed Louis’s stories. Soon the King was infatuated, addressing him as ‘mon fils’ and writing to him three times a day—‘Come to receive the tenderest embraces of thy friend, thy father, thy Louis.’ He even gave his adorable minister English lessons, and was amazed by his progress; in fact Decazes was discreetly visiting the best tutor in Paris after each lesson. The King said of ‘his darling child’ that, ‘I will raise him so high that the greatest lords will envy him.’ Again, one’s mind goes back to Louis XIII." (Erenow)
A man more powerful than the King; the confidant, the favorite, the alter ego of the sovereign: "There was a man in France at the beginning of 1820 who was probably more powerful than the King. This was Count Decazes, president of the Council of Ministers. The credit he enjoyed caused the ultras an exasperation bordering on convulsive rage. On ascertaining the omnipotence of a former favorite of the Empire, it was all the emigres could do to refrain from treating Louis XVII as a disguised Bonapartist or crowned Jacobin. x x x The man who excited the jealousy and rancor of the courtiers of Louis XVIII to such a pitch was not yet forty. Born September 28, 1780, at Saint-Martin-de-Laye, near Libourne, where his father was lieutenant of the presidial, he had been first a barrister, and afterwards employed in the Ministry of Justice, under the Consulate. In 1805 his married with the daughter of Count Muraire, first president of the Court of Cassation, opened to him the career of the magistracy. Having been appointed judge of the Seine tribunal, he became a counsellor of the imperial court in 1806. He was called to the Hague the same year by King Louis Bonaparte, whose confidential counsellor he became. After the abdication of this Prince he filled the post of private secretary to Madame Mere from 1811 to the close of the Empire. Under the Restoration he became an avowed royalist. He refused to keep his post in the magistracy during the Hundred days, and Napoleon exiled him forty leagues from Paris. After Waterloo he became prefect of police to Louis XVIII. September 24, 1815, he entered the cabinet as Minister of Police, and from that day onward he was the confidant, the favorite, the alter ego of the sovereign." (The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Louis XVIII: 132)
From royal affection to real infatuation.
"The King's affection for his minister became a real infatuation. He made him a count, a peer of France, Minister of the Interior, and President of the Council. As M. de Viel-Castel has very justly remarked, it was all the easier for M. Decazes to succeed in convincing the King of his absolute devotion because, touched himself by the kindness with which he was treated and the affection displayed toward him by the sovereign, he responded to it by profound gratitude. After being a widower for twelve years, he had married in 1818, thanks to the royal protection, a young person of noble family, Mademoiselle de Saint-Aulaire, grandchild through her mother of the last reigning Prince of Nassau-Sarrebruck, and grandniece of the Duchess of Brunswick-Bevern, who obtained for the new married pair from Frederick VI of Denmark, the succession of the duchy of Glucksberg. In speaking of his favorite minister, Louis XVIII said, 'I will raise him so high that the greatest lorts will envy him.' Any criticism aimed at M. Decazes was considered by the sovereign as a seditious attempt against royal authority, and a sort of conspiracy or high treason." (The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Louis XVIII: 136)
A relationship difficult to fathom.
A relationship difficult to fathom.
"Louis XVIII's embrace of the political centre was unquestionably his own decision. Yet it was helped by the fact that at this juncture, rather alarmingly, he found love. The object of his affections was his minister of police, Elie Decazes. The precise nature of the relationship is very difficult to fathom, since Louis's own sexuality remains a grey area. Outwardly he appeared to be heterosexual: he had managed to impregnate his wife, Marie-Josephine of Savoy, twice, though on each occasion Marie-Josephine miscarried, and further efforts were hampered by growing evidence that she was alcoholic and a lesbian. Louis had then turned to another woman, the witty and imperious Mme de Balbin, who became his mistress for fourteen years. On the other hand, Louis' emotional life was also marked by a series of extremely close friendships with younger men --- the duc de Levis, the comte d'Avaray, Blacas, and finally Decazes. There is no evidence that any of these were sexual, although one of Louis' letters to Levis, written in English in the style of Smollett, is both obscene and slightly voyeuristic." (The Perilous Crown: France Between Revolutions, 1814-1848 : 94)
5) Madame de Mirabel.
6) Madame Princeteau.
7) Mademoiselle Bourgoin.
Lover in 1820-1824.
Finding a new love.
5) Madame de Mirabel.
6) Madame Princeteau.
7) Mademoiselle Bourgoin.
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Zoe, Comtesse du Cayla 1825 |
8) Zoe Talon, Comtesse du Cayla (1785-1852)
Finding a new love.
" . . . Enormous, red-faced, smiling, with his three chins and his 'penetrating, lynx-like, look,' Louis also found time to enjoy a new favourite, the 35-year-old Zoe Talon, Comtesse de Cayla, a former pupil of Mme Campan's Academy. Mme de Cayla was an agreeable, plump, blonde, seductive woman, 'with pock-marked skin and bad teeth, for whom the King would build a pavilion of marble and acacia, with an orangerie and stables, later home to the sheep with long silky coats to which she would give her name. Mme de Cayla's husband was said to have gone mad as a result of her infidelities. Growing older, Louis spoke of the 'exhausting glories' of royal life." (Dancing to the Precipice: Lucie de la Tour du Pin and the French Revolution)
Madame du Cayla's physical appearance & personal qualities.
Madame du Cayla's physical appearance & personal qualities.
"July 10th---I dined with the Duke of Wellington yesterday, a very large party for Mesdames the Duchesse d'Escars and Madame du Cayla. . . Madame du Cayla is come over to prosecute some claim upon this government, which the Duke has discovered to be unfounded, and he had the bluntness to tell her so as they were going to dinner. She must have been duc good-looking in her youth; her countenance is lively, her eyes are piercing, clear complexion, and very handsome hands and arms; but the best part about her seemed to be the magnificent pearls she wore, though these are not so fine as Lady Conyngham's. All king's mistresses seem to have a rage for pearls; I remember Madame Narischkin's were splendid. Madame du Cayla is said to be very rich and clever." (The Greville Memoirs: 75)
"Madame du Cayla had been the soi-disant mistress of Louis XVIII, or rather the favorite of his declining years.'Il fallait une Esther,' to use her own expression, 'a cel Assuerus.' She was the daughter of M. Talon, brought up by Madame Campan, and an early friend of Hortense Beauharnais. Her marriage to an officer in the Prince de Conde's army was an unhappy one; and she was left, deserted by her husband, in straitened circumstances. After the assassination of the Duc de Berry, M. de la Rochefoucauld, one of the leaders of the ultra-Royalist party, contrived to throw her in the way of Louis XVIII, in the hope of counteracting the more liberal influence which M. Decazes had acquired over the King. Madame du Cayla became the hope and the mainstay of the alter and the throne. The scheme succeeded. The King was touched by her grace and beauty, and she became indispensable to his happiness. His happiness was said to consist in inhaling a pinch of snuff from her shoulders, which were remarkably broad and fair.M. de Lamartine has related the romance of her life in the thirty-eighth book of his Histoire de la Restauration, and Beranger satirized her in the bitterest of his songs---that which bears the name of 'Octavie.'". (The Greville Memoirs: 75)
Mademoiselle Talon's personal & family background.
"Madame du Cayla had been the soi-disant mistress of Louis XVIII, or rather the favorite of his declining years.'Il fallait une Esther,' to use her own expression, 'a cel Assuerus.' She was the daughter of M. Talon, brought up by Madame Campan, and an early friend of Hortense Beauharnais. Her marriage to an officer in the Prince de Conde's army was an unhappy one; and she was left, deserted by her husband, in straitened circumstances. After the assassination of the Duc de Berry, M. de la Rochefoucauld, one of the leaders of the ultra-Royalist party, contrived to throw her in the way of Louis XVIII, in the hope of counteracting the more liberal influence which M. Decazes had acquired over the King. Madame du Cayla became the hope and the mainstay of the alter and the throne. The scheme succeeded. The King was touched by her grace and beauty, and she became indispensable to his happiness. His happiness was said to consist in inhaling a pinch of snuff from her shoulders, which were remarkably broad and fair.M. de Lamartine has related the romance of her life in the thirty-eighth book of his Histoire de la Restauration, and Beranger satirized her in the bitterest of his songs---that which bears the name of 'Octavie.'". (The Greville Memoirs: 75)
Mademoiselle Talon's personal & family background.
"M. Decazes was still in high favor when he introduced to Louis XVIII the who woman who was to replace him in the monarch's favor. Zoe Victoire Talon, Countess of Cayla, was born in 1784. Her father, who belonged to an ancient family of advocates, had taken part in the struggle between the court and the Revolution from 1789 to 1792, and was mixed up, so it was said, with the policy of the Count of Provence. . . During the emigration of her father, Zoe Talon had remained in France. She had been educated there by Madame Campan, and had profited by that elegant education which Lamartine has called a school of feminine diplomacy. She was intimate with Hortense de Beauharnais and the brilliant young persons who were the fashionable women of the Consulate and the Empire. Pretty, amiable, and intelligent, she possessed all that could make her pleasing. She was married to a man of high birth, belonging to the little court of the Condes, Count du Cayla, who became a peer of France in 1815. This union was not a happy one, and the pair separated on the ground of incompatibility of temper. But the Countess was skilful enough to secure the sympathy of the Condes and that of her mother-in-law, who had belonged to the household of Madame the Countess of Provence, wife of Louis XVIII." (The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Louis XVIII: 257)
" . . . With Decazes banished to London, the versatile king had switched to a female favourite, Zoe, comtesse du Cayla. A witty, intelligent
Madame du Cayla's spouse & children.
" . . . With Decazes banished to London, the versatile king had switched to a female favourite, Zoe, comtesse du Cayla. A witty, intelligent
Madame du Cayla's spouse & children.
"She was married to a man of high birth, belonging to the little court of the Condes, Count du Cayla, who became a peer of France in 1815. This union was not a happy one, and the pair separated on the ground of incompatibility of temper. But the Countess was skillful enough to secure the sympathy of the Condes and that of her mother-in-law, who had belonged to the household of Madame the Countess of Provence, wife of Louis XVIII. The dowager Countess of Cayla was altogether on the side of her daughter-in-law. Before dying, she sent her a letter, which, in case of necessity, wouldv become a talisman. She addressed it to the King, whom she always found full of good will toward her, and in words which her approaching death rendered solemn and affecting, she supplicated the monarch to protect her son's wife against the resentment of her son." (The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X: 257)
References for Louis XVIII of France
Louis XVIII et ses Favoris @culture-et-debats.over-blog.com
The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Louis XVIII @hathitrust.org
References for Louis XVIII of France
Louis XVIII et ses Favoris @culture-et-debats.over-blog.com
The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Louis XVIII @hathitrust.org
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