Conclusion

Two episodes together provide the starting point for these concluding remarks. The first concerns the duc de Saint-Simon, the celebrated chronicler of Louis XIV’s fabled court at Versailles. Saint- Simon, as is well known, devoted his voluminous Memoirs to providing an enormously detailed account of the rivalries among the court aristocracy and the rise – and fall – of families in the entourage of the Sun King. But another aspect of the duc’s life has not attracted the attention it merits: he also drew up detailed tables setting out which aristocratic lineages had in the past married a member of the French royal family. These lists survive primarily in manuscript. ¹ Saint-Simon’s obsessive interest in genealogy is well known, and this was a practical expression of it. He compiled these lists for one very simple reason: his conviction that such marriages added enormous and enduring lustre to the lineage in question, enhancing its prestige and boosting its status at court. Louis XIV certainly seems to have shown particular regard for these families in his treatment of them at Versailles. Between the eleventh and the sixteenth century such marriages had been concluded periodically in France. ² After the accession of the Bourbons in 1589, however, they had all but ceased; those that did take place were mostly in unusual circumstances and attracted strong criticism at the time. The new ruling family was determined to emphasise the importance of royal blood in order to assert the dignity of the dynasty and to distance the Bourbons from even the greatest of their subjects. They therefore viewed such marriages as mésalliances, something which Saint-Simon clearly regretted.