| Mlle de Montpensier, born in 1627 during the reign of Louis XIII at a time when France was governed by Richelieu, was the daughter of Gaston, Duc d'Orleans, brother of the King, and a grand-daughter of Henri IV. She was brought up at the Court, amid the rivalries, plots, and scandalous behavior of a host of courtiers, in a country still mostly rural, but which had begun to become commercially viable on a world-wide scale. Her mother having died at her birth, she inherited an immense fortune, and grew up as a proud princess, adulated, flattered, somewhat spoiled. Following the customs of the XVIIth Century, she hoped to marry according to her rank and become a queen or an empress. Her hopes to marry the young King Louis XIV, eleven years younger than she, were shattered after her participation in the Fronde; she had fought against Mazarin and was exiled to Saint-Fargeau, where she remained five years. There she began to write her Memoires in which she related the events of her life.;Of the nineteen marriage proposals which she received, none materialized, and she found herself at forty-four years of age still a virgin and unmarried. At about that time she fell in love with the Comte de Lauzun, a courtier and favorite of Louis XIV. Her plans to marry him were foiled by the royal family who did not approve of this misalliance. Lauzun was sent to prison where he remained eleven years. Even though rumors still persist that Mlle de Montpensier and Lauzun were secretly married, there is no definite proof. After his release Mlle de Monpensier found out very soon that Lauzun's behavior was unacceptable and they separated. She ended her life in a most quiet fashion and died in 1693.;The Memoires give us an insight into the world of the Court in Seventeenth Century France. They reveal Mlle de Montpensier's personality and relate the main events of her life. It is also by means of these Memoires that one can understand the condition of women at that time and how difficult it was to break away from traditions that had prevailed for centuries. In the light of her Memoires, and that of certain of her contemporaries such as Mme de Motteville, Mme de La Fayette, Mme de Sevigne, the Cardinal de Retz and La Rochefoucauld, la Grande Mademoiselle distinguishes herself as a unique personality, highly narcissistic, proudly aristocratic, certainly a non-conformist. The Memoires depict her life in such a way that it becomes almost a novel, and is thus not just a recollection of events and personalities, but a literary innovation. |
