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Updated: October 16, 2025
These informal receptions were frequented by a few men and women of rank, but the prevailing tone was literary and slightly bourgeois. We find there, from time to time, Mme. de Sable, the Duc and Duchesse de Montausier, and others of the old circle who were her lifelong friends. La Rochefoucauld is there occasionally, also Mme. de. La Fayette, Mme. de Sevigne, and the young Mme.
She was at one time herself threatened with the necessity of abandoning her residence at Port Royal, and had thought of retiring to a religions house at Auteuil, a village near Paris. She did, in fact, pass some summers there, and she sometimes took refuge with her brother, the Commandeur de Souvré, with Madame de Montausier, or Madame de Longueville.
In August, on the Day of Our Lady, while the King was besieging Lille, a letter came to the Queen, informing her that her husband had forsaken Madame de la Valliere for her Majesty's lady-in-waiting, the Marquise de Montespan. Moreover, the anonymous missive named "the prudent Duchesse de Montausier" as confidante and accomplice.
This lover, who won whole nations as other men win a maid or two; this ruler, who had popes for handmaidens and gave kingdoms as tips, who dictated to kings preferably from the palaces of their own capitals; this fortunate demon of a man, who had escaped even Mlle. Montausier, was safely disposed of at Saint Helena, and the ordinary ways of mortals had their place in the world again.
The dauphin was not devoid of intelligence. "Monseigneur has plenty of wits," said Councillor Le Gout de Saint-Seine in his private journal, "but his wits are under a bushel." The boy was indolent, with little inclination for work, roughly treated by his governor, the Duke of Montausier, who was endowed with more virtue than ability in the superintendence of a prince's education.
Hard must have been the heart that could resist the testimonials of your skill as a poet offered by the Duc de Montausier, and the learned Huet, Bishop of Avranches, and Monseigneur Godeau, Bishop of Vence, or M. Colbert, who had such a genius for finance.
Brought up by the Duc de Montausier, a sort of monkish soldier, and by Bossuet, a sort of military monk, Monsieur le Dauphin had no good examples from which to profit. Crammed as he is with Latin, Greek, German, Spanish, and Church history, he knows all that they teach in colleges, being totally ignorant of all that can only be learnt at the Court of a king.
After the death of her husband, Mme. de Rambouillet retired, to reside with her daughter, Mme. de Montausier; after that, she seldom appeared in public. She hardly lived to see the spirit of the salon changed to the real préciosité—the direction and aim she gave to it being gradually abandoned.
In a loud voice he proceeded to scold her, daring to threaten her as if she were some common woman; in fact, he caught hold of her and endeavoured to strike her. The King would not allow M. de Montausier to obtain redress from the Marquis for such an insult as this. He granted a large pension to the Duchess, and appointed her husband preceptor to the Dauphin.
One would have thought that he was to perform the task of a Bossuet and a Fenelon, while in reality he filled the place of a Montausier or a Beauvilliers. Had he not their virtues, and especially their devotion?"
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