Alexandre Bontemps
Alexandre Bontemps (French pronunciation:
Life
His father, Jean Baptiste Bontemps (1590–1659), had been surgeon to
He seems to have been an amiable figure, entirely devoted to Louis, who in turn trusted him as he did few others. He was twelve years older than the King. He was one of a small handful of witnesses to the secret second marriage of Louis to Madame de Maintenon. Saint-Simon speaks of "royal coaches (the kind without armorial bearings on the harness, such as Bontemps used for the King's private missions)" and says that "all the secret orders, the private audiences, the sealed letters to and from the King, in fact all the mysteries passed through his hands".[5] Saint-Simon anecdotes have him arranging the marriage to an obscure country nobleman of an illegitimate daughter of Louis who, unlike many, he did not choose to acknowledge officially,[6] and, in Louis's earlier years, leading a minor mistress enveloped in a cloak up the back stairs to the King's study for her assignation; the king having put the key on the outside of the door.[7]
He emerges better than most from the Memoirs of Saint-Simon, whose father had been a friend of Bontemps. Saint-Simon asked him for advice on important issues, using him sparingly. The memoirist Choisy wrote that part of his success with Louis came from never asking him for favours,[8] although Saint-Simon says that he "loved procuring favours solely for the pleasure of it ... great numbers of people, some of them highly placed, owed their fortunes to him, and he was modest almost to the point of breaking with them if they so much as mentioned it".[9] The two statements are not incompatible, as Bontemps was in a position to ask favours from ministers and other powerbrokers. He says Bontemps was "rough and brusque in manner, yet respectful and always in his place.... His only skill lay in serving his master, and he was wholly intent on that... [he had been] influential for the past fifty years, and with the Court at his feet."[9] He once greatly amused Louis, when asked how his wife was, by "replying mechanically with a shrug".[10]
He used the Swiss Guards stationed around the Palaces and gardens to report on the behaviour of courtiers, including their church attendance, as well as political and sexual intrigues.[11] As Intendant or Governor of Versailles, his control extended to the whole town outside the palaces, where many courtiers had houses.
Premier valet
The office of head valet dated back to a historically unwise complaint some generations back by the
In addition one of the ordinary valets was en poste by the King's bed all day, inside the
Private life
Apart from a large apartment in the palace, and a separate house in Versailles, Bontemps had a "hôtel particulier" (townhouse) on the
In modern memory
- The City of Versailles has a "Rue Alexandre Bontemps".
- Bontemps, played by television seriesdrama set around the construction of the palace.
- Bontemps is a leading character in the computer game Versailles 1685, where the player takes the part of a junior valet helping him to thwart a plot at Versailles.[16]
References
- ^ The Chambre du Roi, more important that it might sound to a modern ear, was an essential part of the royal household, the Maison du Roi.
- ^ "Famille Bontemps" on the French Wikipedia has details
- ^ Da Vinha (online):6 and SS Memoirs:III:40 and n.
- ^ SS Memoirs:I:146 and Da Vinha
- ^ SS Memoirs:I:35 coaches and I:146 mysteries
- ^ Da Vinha (online):8
- Duke of Lauzun, also involved with the lady, had locked the door and hidden himself and the key in the privyopposite, from where he watched the ensuing frustrations SS Memoirs:III;463-4
- ^ Choisy Memoirs, pp183-4, quoted Riley, op & page cit
- ^ a b c SS Memoirs:I:146
- ^ Da Vinha (online):5
- ISBN 0-313-31708-9and Da Vinha (online):6, quoting Saint-Simon
- ^ a b Da Vinha:1-3
- ^ Da Vinha 12
- ^ "Généalogie de Ne BONTEMPS". Geneanet.
- ^ "Catalog Number 29". www.batguano.com.
- ^ "Versailles 1685 Review - Mr. Bill's Adventureland". www.mrbillsadventureland.com. Archived from the original on 2021-02-08. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
Sources
- Da Vinha, Matheu, Les Valets de chambre de Louis XIV, Perrin, 2004;
- "SS Memoirs" = Duc de Saint-Simon, ed & trans Lucy Norton; Historical Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon, Vols 1–3, 1967–72, Hamish Hamilton, London.
This article is partly sourced from the French Wikipedia article "Bontemps".