Royal Prince and Princesses

Through the TudorTalk discussion group, I learned of a new website featuring European Prince and Princesses,www.altesses.eu, and naturally had to look at all the portraits of Elizabeth I, but later found Louis XIII, and then Louis XIV. I placed a few of those found for Louis XIV on facebook as there is no direct link to blogger so that I can place them here. I suppose there could be a way to do it, but I am not that far along in my computer skills. I am still very basic and primitive for all the many years I have used this machine. I forget easily simple things as cut and paste already, mind you.

The pictures of Madame de Maintenon when she was only Francois d'Aubigne, a poor young girl in need of a friend, really impressed me. The artist loved her when she was a young girl in the vibrancy of her youth. The flowers that are painted beneath her portrait impressed me a lot. She was a beautiful girl and to imagine that she was wasting away as Paul Scarron's wife is not only sad for her but also for him. He could not really enjoy his marriage to her at all, and it is very easy for me to see why and how she caught the King's attention.

Portraits of her in her later years are not quite so flattering and probably do not do justice to her, for most comments about her are so positive and enchanting. Those comments do not show in the many portraits made of her.

There is a secret ceremony portrait that does not look true to me at all, but then I am certain that it came about many years after the marriage was finally acknowledged. I do not believe in this portrait much at all. It is too much a copy of his marriage to his young Spanish bride. Her portraits are quite beautiful in my opinion and I liked them a lot. She is a much overlooked and maligned young woman also.

I do have my own recollection of the marriage between the king and Francois d'Aubigne, then known as Madame de Maintenon. It did occur and it was a nighttime ceremony. She stood on his left hand side which is an important detail to know. The marriage could never be acknowledged openly in the court or in the land, but years later, France has seen fit to give honor to Madame de Maintenon. She did not suffer the same fate from the revolutionaries as did the other members of the Royal Family, so whether she knew it or not, she earned a different fate than did the other members of the family, including her own august husband.