Madame Guyon and her network at court

In the context following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the quietism propagated at the court of France appears as a rather insignificant parenthesis as long as it concerns only a few followers, even if we count among them the biggest names of the nobility. The excitement came when Madame de Maintenon, the secret wife of Louis XIV, took an interest and blew hot and cold on this religious practice. She is undoubtedly the key to the fall of Madame Guyon.

By Mathieu da Vinha, scientific director of the Palace of Versailles Research Center

The success of the cabals at court is due to their networks, but above all to the position and influence of their leader with the king. If we stick to a simplistic but effective caricature proposed in her letter of December 23, 1710, Madame Palatine, the court was then divided into three main cabals, corresponding to the three generations of the royal dynasty: that of Madame de Maintenon – and therefore that of the king – also called the “cabal of lords”, that of Miss Choin (the secret wife of the dauphin) also called “cabal of Meudon”, and finally that of the Duke of Burgundy, called that of the devotees or, later, ministers.

These three entities already existed when Ms. Guyon arrived, even if only the first and the third seemed concerned by quietism. The story of Madame Guyon at the Court of Versailles appears as a dramatic comedy – or a tragedy depending on where you place yourself – in three acts: the happy arrival and the charm of novelty, then the fall of Madame Guyon, and finally the Fénelon/Bossuet quarrel leading to the persecution of the former's friends.

The main protagonists: the “little herd”

To qualify the followers of quietism and Madame Guyon, the Duke of Saint-Simon evokes in his writings the formula of "little flock", proof that this movement had a certain importance. The first mention of Madame Guyon's name among her memoirist contemporaries was, however, quite late and only occurred when her doctrine began to be criticized, proving the lack of interest that the court had until then in this movement inspired by Molinos. However, Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de La Motte already had relationships with important court figures, among whom the Duchess of Béthune-Charost played an essential role. The latter, daughter of the deposed general superintendent of finances Nicolas Fouquet and his first wife, found refuge in Montargis with her paternal grandmother, Marie de Maupeou, and her mother-in-law, Marie Madeleine de Castille, with Claude Bouvier de La Motte. , father of Mme Guyon, after Louis XIV had accepted that the Fouquet family could move closer to Paris.

Jeanne-Marie and Marie Fouquet, Duchess of Béthune-Charost through her marriage to Louis Armand de Béthune Charost, understood each other immediately and a deep friendship was born between them which never faded. As historian Daniel Dessert writes, “The shared devotion of the Fouquets and Mme Guyon for the Salesian ideal and the Visitation of Saint Mary forged deep ties between the two families. The spiritual evolution of Madame Guyon aroused echoes in the Duchess of Charost, a soul of great elevation and profound piety, and the two women demonstrate an unalterable friendship. This friendship was maintained by correspondence during the wanderings, from 1681, of Mme Guyon, notably in French and Italian Savoy) where she met the ultramontane quietists, or even in Grenoble. It was during this period that she wrote her works and formalized her thoughts, but also that she attracted the first slander.

Returning to Paris in July 1686, Madame Guyon renewed her old friendships and spread, according to her biographer Louis Guerrier, “her ideas and mystical aspirations, but without leaving the narrow circle of intimacy. Sometimes those whom she called her children went separately to her, in the countryside, to the Duchess of Charost. And the slander comes back on her account regarding the dubious, even scabrous, relationships she had with Father La Combe. Her half-brother, Father de La Motte, feeling wronged when Madame Guyon parted with her property and jealous of Father La Combe's qualities as an orator, was no stranger to the propagation of these rumors. The condemnation by Rome in 1687 of Molinos, of whom La Combe was close, led to the latter's captivity in the Bastille at the end of the year, then the exile of the Barnabite to Oléron and finally to the castle of Lourdes. La Motte's father then advised his half-sister, Mme Guyon, who remained faithful to his ideas, to flee, but she flatly refused. Accused of heresy and of corrupting people through the assemblies she organized, Louis XIV gave the order on January 29, 1688, to have her locked up among the Visitandines on rue Saint-Antoine, without any contact with the outside world and taking away his daughter Jeanne-Marie, barely eleven years old. From April 15, however, she was authorized to walk in the cloister and speak to the nuns who, at first completely prejudiced against her, were finally under the spell and spoke to anyone who would listen about her holiness...

The Archbishop of Paris, Harlay de Champvallon, did not hear it that way and did everything to continue the persecution, going so far as to fabricate a letter in which Madame Guyon repented of her wrongs, finding nothing concrete to oppose. to his imprisonment. It seems, according to Abbot Phélippeaux, that the prelate offered the captive her release in exchange for the marriage of his daughter with his nephew the Marquis de Champvallon... Mme Guyon's first cousin, Mme de La Maisonfort, known as the "canonesses» de Saint-Cyr, intervened directly with Madame de Maintenon, but without success. Indeed, the old rumors were still being spread at court and Madame de Maintenon wrote to Madame de Brinon on February 23, 1688: “Me Guion, according to what he claims, ran the fields, and passed the mountains, to follow her confessor, who is Savoyard, and she distributed her books, where it is claimed that there are errors; her daughter is in the convent of Ste Marie on rue St. Jacques. »

It was ultimately to Madame de Miramion, known for her greatest virtue and benefactor of the Visitandines, that Madame Guyon owed her freedom. The first spoke with the morganatic wife, who again reported the conversation to her royal husband, seeing in this a means of disserving Harlay de Champvallon whom she hardly liked. Faced with these different testimonies, on the one hand, those of Madame de La Maisonfort and Madame de Miramion, and on the other, those of the Archbishop of Paris and Father de La Motte, Louis XIV followed the advice of his wife and gave an order on August 24, 1688, to release the captive who regained her freedom the following September 13. After thanking the Archbishop and Madame de Migration, Madame Guyon wrote a letter to Madame de Maintenon on October 10: “After thanking Divine Providence for freeing me from the prison where my enemies held me, It is only right that I give thanks to you, Madam, whom God used to rescue me, as if by a miracle, from the hands of the great people of the earth. » After agreed formulas, she preached for the release of Father La Combe for which Madame de Maintenon did not, however, intervene.

The crucial meeting that followed the release of Mme Guyon was that with Fénelon. She reported thus in the Unpublished Fragment of Autobiography by Mme Guyon: “A few days after my release I was in B[eynes] at M[adame] de C[harost], where I was told about M. L. One evening, I was suddenly taken care of him with extreme strength and gentleness. It seemed to me that Our Lord united it with me very intimately, and more than any other. » The "M. L." in question represented Fénelon in Mme Guyon's letters, undoubtedly put for "M" monsieur de "L" a Mothe-Fénelon according to Maurice Masson. Trained at the Collège du Plessis, Fénelon quickly embraced the ideas of the Blessed Sacrament where he became close with Louis Antoine de Noailles, future cardinal. Close to Saint-Sulpice thanks to his uncle the Marquis Antoine de Fénelon, he had very early met the Dukes of Charost, Beauvillier, Chevreuse, and Colbert, whose spiritual director was Tronson, parish priest of Saint-Sulpice and a great actor. of the devout party. It was therefore quite natural that Fénelon, his reputation growing, became closer to the Colberts and their relatives around the 1680s. This proximity to the great minister of Louis XIV, but also his children, allowed him to achieve all the honors and he also became the spiritual director of the Duke of Beauvillier.

The clan that Fénelon joined was very close-knit and occupied leading positions. Jean-Baptiste Colbert, one of Louis XIV's secretaries of state and one of his principal ministers, had married three of his daughters to three dukes, all three commensal officers or close to the monarchy: Jeanne-Marie married 1667 Charles Honoré Albert de Luynes, future Duke of Chevreuse and captain-lieutenant of the light horse of the King's Guard who became occult advisor to Louis XIV without ever accepting an official position, Henriette Louise married in 1671 Paul, future Duke of Beauvillier, while the last, Marie-Anne, married Louis de Rochechouart, Duke of Mortemart, in 1679. The latter two were promised a brilliant future since the Duke of Beauvillier became head of the royal council of Finance in 1685 before recovering on the death of his father, the Duke of Saint-Aignan, in 1687, the office of the first gentleman of the King's Chamber, one of the closest to the monarch's service, and in 1689 obtained the office of governor of the Children of France. As for the Duke of Mortemart, Saint-Simon reminds us that he “was the man of his time of the greatest hope, and, for his age, of the greatest reputation.” However, he died of consumption in April 1688, watched over to the end by Fénelon, and was also a survivor of the office of general of the Galleys held by his father the Duke of Vivonne, brother of Madame de Montespan, the haughty favorite of Louis XIV.

The advice that Fénelon had long been giving to his friends for the education of their children (1) worked in his favor and led to his appointment as tutor to the Duke of Burgundy on August 16, 1689: he entered the court of Versailles and Madame Guyon's connection with the Colbert clan was made naturally via Fénelon. Furthermore, a few days later, the Marquis de Dangeau reported in his Journal, dated August 29: “Mr. Marquis de Vaux, son of the late M. Fouquet, married here [Versailles], three days ago, Mademoiselle Guyon, very rich girl, who only has one brother who has just had his arm broken in Valcour. » The circle was closed and Madame Guyon was now linked familyly with the Fouquets and Béthune-Charost, a link which would be further strengthened when her widowed daughter married Maximilien Henri de Béthune, Duke of Sully.

With the parenthesis of quietism, we are in a network that implodes and contradicts practically all network theory. The friendly and unwavering alliances, united by the devout network, go completely against family networks: the Duchess of Charost (née Fouquet) is the great friend of the Duchesses of Chevreuse, of Beauvillier and of Mortemart (all three née Colbert), while the father of the first fell into disgrace due to the relentlessness of the father of the other three…

The setting: the north wing of the Palace of Versailles

We have just met the main actors of the comedy: Mme Guyon of course, the Béthune-Charosts, Abbé Fénelon, the Dukes of Beauvillier, Chevreuse and Mortemart as well as their wives for the "little flock", but also the shadow of future opponents, such as the Marquise de Maintenon or the future Cardinal de Noailles. All these little people rubbed shoulders in Versailles, at the castle, a real city within a city. Except for the royal family, only people who had a charge with one of its members were housed at court, which was the case for all our protagonists, except our main actress, who However, was able to come regularly to court and be welcomed by her followers. The strategy of most courtiers was not only to have accommodation "at the Louvre", that is to say by extension in the residence where the sovereign lived, but also to be closest to power. This is how the morganatic wife of Louis leads to the Queen's staircase and near the King's apartment. She retained this accommodation until the death of the monarch in 1715 and his departure from Versailles.

This was not the concern of the “little flock”. He only had in mind to be, as his name sums it up well, brought together. There was a before and after 1689, the date of the appointments of Beauvillier and Fénelon, respectively as governor and tutor to the Duke of Burgundy. Before this date, the Dukes of Beauvillier and Chevreuse occupied apartments adjoining the attic of the Princes (or South) wing overlooking the gardens and bearing the numbers AP96 and AP97. They had almost private access and numerous communications existed between the two accommodations. However, everything was turned upside down after August 1689. To respond to his new role as governor, the Duke of Beauvillier had to abandon the South wing for the North wing which had just been completed, as announced by the Marquis de Sourches in his Memoirs on September 3, 1689: “The King placed Monseigneur, Duke of Burgundy, in the hands of Mr. the Duke of Beauvilliers; he gave him an apartment in the new wing of the castle, which is that of the left hand, and from that evening the little prince began to receive instructions from Mr. Abbot de Fénelon with a fairly good grace. » This new accommodation was on the first floor on the lawn at the end of the north wing in the final pavilion. This move broke the beautiful harmony that Beauvillier and Chevreuse had managed to create, of whom Saint-Simon said that “both were only the same heart and the same mind”. Chevreuse took barely two months to exchange his apartment with the Archbishop of Reims and thus get closer to his brother-in-law, as Dangeau notes on November 20, 1689: “Mr. the Archbishop of Reims has exchanged his apartment in the new wing, to get closer to Mr. de Louvois, against Mr. and Madame de Chevreuse, who were very happy to get closer to Mr. de Beauvilliers. » It was apartment AN54, in the penthouse on the North Parterre. Made up of twelve rooms, it was approximately 250 m2. However, this exchange was only possible because Charles Maurice Le Tellier, who had given up his apartment in the North wing, was in turn able to get closer to his brother, the Marquis de Louvois, who was staying in the pavilion of the Superintendence.

But the family strategy did not stop there. The Duchess of Montmorency, daughter of Chevreuse, had meanwhile taken over Beauvillier's accommodation in the Prince's wing. Wanting to be closer to her parents in the North wing, she managed to exchange this apartment with the Marquise de Châtillon who owned the apartment which was just opposite that of the Chevreuses! Madame de Châtillon was delighted since she was right above Madame's apartment, of which she was a lady in attendance. And Dangeau concludes: “They are all happy with their new homes. » However, regroupings – as long as the exchanges did not satisfy both parties – could not always take place. The Duchess of Mortemart, Colbert's third daughter and whose precise location of the apartment during this period is not known, failed during a first attempt to join her sisters. It was finally with the Duchess of Roquelaure that she was able to get along in 1696 but in a much smaller apartment. As for Fénelon, he probably had to move, upon his appointment as tutor to the Duke of Burgundy, to apartment AN49, on the first floor of the large pavilion of the North wing on the rue des Réservoirs and not far from that of the Duke of Beauvillier.

Beyond family rapprochement, this niche in the north wing welcomed the entire “little flock” who devoted themselves to the mystical doctrine around Madame Guyon and Fénelon, who became tutor to the Duke of Burgundy. Life was thus woven in this "district" of the northern wing, totally independent of that of court life regulated around the royal person, and made up of prognoses in which several government projects were hatched with a view to future succession. These isolated apartments allowed discreet meetings with the widow Guyon. Indeed, recalls the priest of Versailles Hébert, “We cannot hide from the eyes of the public what is happening at court. We saw that Madame Guyon came there frequently, that she mainly affected to come to Versailles during the time that the King was at Marly, to have more freedom to see these people of whom I spoke. In addition to the occasional visits she made there, Hébert reports that she stayed in the apartment of her friend's son, the Duke of Charost, also in the north wing at the penthouse of the large pavilion on rue des Tanks.

If the influence of Fénelon and Mme Guyon was able to develop at court, it is because they benefited in the early days from the beneficence of Mme de Maintenon and there was a branch network in the high nobility linked to the “Beauvillier-Chevreuse” clan. In these different apartments of the North wing, Abbot de Fénelon felt at home. He wrote to Madame de Gramont (née Noailles) on October 16, 1691: “I asked, Madam, from Madame la Duchesse de Beauvillier a territory suitable for our conference. We will have the Duke's office, from which we will expel everything that presents itself. If you want to go there tomorrow at quarter past seven, which is the time I leave the Duke of Burgundy's house, I will go there myself to receive your orders. » Failing to meet in the castle itself, the small flock could also meet in the hotels of Beauvillier or Chevreuse in town, which were contiguous and very close to the castle, in what is now Rue de l'Independance Americaine. at n°12-14. Fénelon – whom Saint-Simon deemed “master of their hearts and minds” – dined several times a week with them “at the Hôtel de Beauvillier or de Chevreuse”. This familiarity was found in all the dukes’ residences since, regarding Paris this time, Fénelon wrote to his sister-in-law, the Countess of Fénelon, on November 25, 1695: “For the other houses, nothing embarrasses me. I have accommodation at the Hôtel de Beauvilliers, much better than I would like, for two or three visits to Paris throughout the year. »

The Plot: The Persecution of the Quietists

These meetings in the Versailles accommodations, in addition to the friendship that had been forged between the Beauvilliers, Chevreuse, Mortemart, and Fénelon, gave rise to reflections around quietism. It is not up to us here to explain the doctrine or even its condemnation, but simply to see how it was able to emerge, to find an echo within a certain part of the court before being considered contrary to the apostolic and Roman religion. We know the outcome of the intrigue which saw the fall of Madame Guyon and the exile of Fénelon. It is appropriate for us to explain it in the light of the Versailles networks. Everything had started well, however, the ecclesiastical protagonists having known each other for many years, having frequented the same places: Fénelon and Cardinal de Noailles had been classmates at the Collège du Plessis in Paris, while Godets des Marais, bishop of Chartres and man of trusted by Madame de Maintenon, had also followed the teaching of Saint-Sulpice. And what about the Duchess of Béthune-Charost who frequented Bertaut (director of Mme Guyon in the early 1670s) in Montmartre with the Duchess of Noailles?

Mme de Maintenon mentions Mme Guyon for the first time in her correspondence on February 23, 1688, recalling what was said about her and her ultramontane adventures with La Combe. After having worked for the release of Madame Guyon in 1688, the secret wife of Louis Paris who had her arrested and whom she hated. The relationship with Madame de La Maisonfort, known as the canoness and novice at Saint-Cyr, undoubtedly also contributed greatly to this craze. Well disposed towards her, the Marquise did not take long to hear the praises that Madame de La Maisonfort sang about her cousin and Madame de Maintenon soon invited Madame Guyon to Saint-Cyr to come and speak in front of her. the ladies. It was probably at the same time that Madame de Maintenon met Fénelon when she was concerned about the education that was being provided to the young girls of Saint-Cyr by Madame de Brinon. This good opinion was reinforced by her friends Beauvillier and Chevreuse, with whom she dined once or twice a week according to Saint-Simon.

The distrust and distancing of Madame de Maintenon from Madame Guyon from 1691 was nevertheless very detrimental to the network of the devout party at court. The king’s wife wrote to Madame de La Maisonfort on February 6: “As for Madame Guion, we must be content to keep her for ourselves; it does not suit her, any more than it does me, for her to direct our Ladies, it would bring on her new persecution; she was suspicious, that’s enough for her to never be left alone. » It must be said that the quietist doctrine – propagated by the Middle Court which Mme de Maintenon initially found harmless – became more and more suspect to the religious authorities and Godet des Marais, spiritual director of Saint-Cyr and bishop of Chartres, spoke out against it. greatly worried to the point of spying on the “teaching” that Ms. Guyon was providing in the educational center.

In the space of three years, the distance was felt more and more and it was completely consummated in 1694. Sensing the storm in May 1693, Fénelon approved the fact that Mme Guyon no longer went to Saint-Cyr. The fact that Mme de Maintenon abandoned Mme Guyon, and especially her ideas, was detrimental to the entire devout party: it became suspect in the eyes of the court and was to bring about the disgrace of Fénelon before endangering the Duke of Beauvillier himself. Despite the departure of Madame Guyon in January 1694, the long battle that would oppose Fénelon to Bossuet was only beginning, the former having undertaken work to undermine the latter in the fall of 1693.

The examination of Mme Guyon's writings (the famous Issy conferences which led to the signing of the 34 articles in the spring of 1695) was confirmed by Mme de Maintenon in Chevreuse on June 21, 1694, and the marquise again assured the duke that she “I sincerely hope that she is not in error.” Everything is woven between June 21 and 28 when the examiners are chosen and where Madame de Maintenon plays a key role in corresponding with the different protagonists, not hesitating to ask the future Cardinal de Noailles for a backdated opinion! We know the end of the story: Mme Guyon was forbidden to appear at court before being imprisoned and Fénelon, under pressure from Bossuet and Cardinal de Noailles, was accused of reviving quietism, condemned by the Church and had to leave his apartment in January 1699; he also abandoned his position as tutor to the Duke of Burgundy. The Dukes of Beauvillier and Chevreuse had not emerged completely unscathed from this relentlessness since Madame de Maintenon, allied to the Noailles by the marriage in 1698 of her niece to Adrien Maurice, future Duke of Noailles, now firmly supported the condemnation of the writings of Mme Guyon and those of Fénelon... She had sided with Bossuet and Louis Antoine de Noailles, the new archbishop of Paris since the death of Harlay de Champvallon in 1695. The Marquis de Dangeau, on June 2, 1698, reported in his Journal the purge of the supporters of the Fénelon clan which was carried out in the house of the Duke of Burgundy.

We can wonder about the motivation of the Archbishop of Paris in having saved the Duke of Beauvillier and this, in total contradiction with his family, religious, and social network... Did he remember that they had both been at the College of Plessis in Paris? Did he have anything to gain? Indeed, did the friendship that Louis XIV maintained with his friend Beauvillier need to be confirmed, and would it therefore be thanks to Noailles that the monarch would have avoided breaking it? Noailles would then have appeared as a perfect courtier telling his king what he wanted to hear. Was it on this occasion that he earned his cardinal's hat? Or perhaps it was simply a feeling of fairness and noble loyalty, an occasion in which M. de Paris had shown himself purely and simply just, a feeling then uncommon at court.

During each of these different attacks, the victims defended themselves, undoubtedly to protect their network. Thus, the Bishop of Cambrai recalled in June 1694 – at the time of examining Mme Guyon's writings – that he had never introduced Mme Guyon anywhere. Likewise, the Duke of Beauvillier testified that he did not meet Mme Guyon until after August 1689 which, consequently, would have prevented any influence from her in the choice of the Duke of Burgundy's personnel. Finally, as if to put to rest all suspicions, the “little flock” made amends, as the Marquis de Dangeau seems to believe who reported on July 7, 1698: “Before the morning council, he [the king] had given audience to the archbishop of Paris and then went to see M. de Chevreuse and M. de Beauvilliers, and they separated very happy with each other, all agreeing on the extravagances of Madame Guyon, which they only learned from the book by M. de Meaux. » this was not the case and, at the death of the Grand Dauphin in 1711, the apartments of the North wing must have still reasoned, for barely a few months, about political projects extrapolated around the new heir in the person of the Duke of Burgundy.

1• He notably wrote a Treatise on the Education of Girls for the many daughters of the Duke of Beauvillier. The book – written in the early 1680s and not intended for publication – did not appear until 1687.

Quietism

“Mystical doctrine inspired by the works of the Spaniard Molinos, widespread in France at the end of the 17th century, according to which Christian perfection resides in tranquility, that is to say, “pure love” and the contemplation of God, in the absence of any specific activity of the soul” (definition of “quietism” in the Trésor de la Langue Française dictionary).

The affair seen by Saint-Simon

The Duke of Saint-Simon – who did not particularly hold the future Cardinal de Noailles in his heart – nevertheless had the opportunity to greatly praise the attitude of the Archbishop of Paris in his own family's plot against Beauvillier, given to recover its various charges. The situation went against all the logic of networks, whether familial, social, or religious, and the action of Mr. de Paris seemed to result from a perfectly fair judgment: “The king, relentlessly pressed in heavily by the bishops, in detail and the open by Madame de Maintenon, and yet torn by a remnant of habit, esteem, and confidence for M. de Beauvilliers, thought it necessary to entrust her troubles to M. de Paris [the future Cardinal de Noailles], in whom he then had unreserved confidence in everything that concerned conscience, and esteemed him enough to prefer him on this point to M. de Meaux and M. de Chartres [Godet des Marais], although There was a personal interest about Marshal de Noailles. He therefore explained to him the resolution that he had finally taken, despite his repugnance, to expel M. de Beauvilliers, etc., and to give M. de Noailles his places in the council and with the princes. If M. de Paris had consented, the matter would have been done and declared at that very moment; but M. de Paris opposed it with all his strength. He represented to the king the uprightness, the candor, the virtue of the Duke of Beauvilliers with all possible force, and the security where the king must be in all respects on him, and how even this fall could sound badly for his reputation, and attract of blame even throughout Rome to the cause which would have brought it about, and to those who supported it, and he fell back to advising the king to remove from the prince's subordinates of whom one would not be so sure, and whose disgrace would show in Rome the partiality and care of the king, without causing such a damaging and even scandalous outburst as removing the Duke of Beauvilliers. This was what saved him, and the king was very happy. Whatever care had been taken, and even successfully, to alienate him from the duke, they could not take away his esteem, and habit meant that, having only his conscience to fight, he felt relieved when M. de Paris, in whom he had placed his confidence on this point, forced him, at the expense of the greatness of the marshal his brother, to keep M. de Beauvilliers, so suspicious of them, could save them from not one the slightest dregs; but the Noailles were outraged and the marshal was very cold towards his brother for a long time, without daring to show it; and then his wife, who felt the consequences, did so much that she mended them. »