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47-563: The Hôtel Guimard was a private home located at 9 rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin in Paris, France. Commissioned by the Opera dancer Marie-Madeleine Guimard , it was designed by the architect Claude-Nicolas Ledoux in the neoclassical style, then built from 1770 to 1773. It is noted for having boasted its own 500-seat theater. The building was ultimately demolished as part of the massive urban renewal program headed by Baron Haussmann , which largely reshaped

94-499: A Court Ballet, and less than a year later her second child was born. The couple lived in a small house close to the Louvre, which allowed Madame de Montespan to attend court and carry out her duties there as a lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of Orléans. She quickly established herself as the "reigning beauty of the court". Beauty, however, was only one of Madame de Montespan's many charms. She

141-450: A decade earlier. She was very religious and took Communion once a week, a practice that she would continue as a young woman. At the age of 20, Françoise-Athénaïs became a maid-of-honour to the king's sister-in-law, Princess Henrietta , Duchess of Orléans, who was known at court by the traditional honorific of Madame . Later, because of the relationship between her mother and the queen dowager, Anne of Austria , Françoise-Athénaïs

188-465: A low relief of the Muse of Dance riding a chariot "pulled by Amours surrounded by Bacchantes and Wildlife and followed by the graces of choreography". Above the entrance was a ballet hall with a ceiling painted by Taravel, painter of the king. The theater was a 500-seat masterpiece. It opened on December 8, 1772, ending the shows of the hôtel of Pantin (which included her previous theatre). The first dinner in

235-546: A pleasure pavilion, called the Trianon de Porcelaine near Versailles, purchased and built for Madame de Montespan, surrounded by gardens, on the site of the former hamlet of Trianon. It was meant as a hideaway for the couple. Because of the fragility of the earthenware tiles used in its construction, the Trianon de porcelaine was demolished in 1687 and replaced by the Grand Trianon of pink marble ( marbre rose des Pyrénées ). In

282-453: A second dinner invited writers, artists, and wits that all but rivaled the salon of Mme Geoffrin ; a third dinner was devoted to all the most ravishing and lascivious young women. Mlle Guimard uniquely sold her hotel by holding a lottery, selling 2,500 tickets at 120 francs each. On 25 May 1785, the Countess of Lau won the hotel with only one ticket. Lau then sold the hotel for 500,000 francs to

329-452: A son, Louis-Auguste de Bourbon , became the duc du Maine ; the second child, a son, Louis-César de Bourbon , became the comte de Vexin ; and the third, a daughter, Louise-Françoise de Bourbon , became Mademoiselle de Nantes and, in 1685, married the son of the head of the House of Condé , a cadet branch of the reigning House of Bourbon. As Madame de Montespan spent most of her time immersed in

376-565: A swampy piece of land north of the Porte Gaillon , a city gate in the wall built during the reign of King Louis XIII , leading to the village of Les Porcherons. It is called a chaussée because the marshy land required it to be raised and laid along a sort of dyke. At the Rue de Provence, it crossed the "great sewer" or Ruisseau de Ménilmontant  [ fr ] , which was approximately two meters wide. Following an ordinance dated 4 December 1720,

423-746: The Affair of the Poisons , which began in 1677, severely damaged her reputation and resulted in her fall from royal favour. In 1691, she withdrew to the convent of Filles de Saint-Joseph in Paris, but left thirteen years later when she relocated to the Château d'Oiron . She devoted the rest of her life to charity, patronage and penance until her death in 1707 at the age of 66. She is an ancestress of several royal houses in Europe, including those of Spain , Italy , Bulgaria , Portugal , Belgium and Luxembourg . Françoise-Athénaïs

470-602: The Duke of Antin (1665–1736). Son of the marquise de Montespan , the duke was the superintendent of the Bâtiments du Roi , or buildings of the king. His residence faced this street and his name became associated with it as early as 1712. At the intersection of the Boulevard des Capucines , stood the former hôtel de Montmorency , which gave way to the Théâtre du Vaudeville in 1869, and then

517-525: The Marquis of Montespan in 1663. She then became a maid of honour to Princess Henrietta, Duchess of Orléans , and later a lady-in-waiting to Queen Maria Theresa . Noted for her great beauty and wit, she carefully cultivated a relationship with Louis XIV and eventually supplanted Louise de La Vallière as his favourite. She had seven children by the king, six of them later legitimised but only four survived infancy . Madame de Montespan's alleged involvement in

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564-470: The Paramount Opéra cinema theater in 1927. The main hall of the theater corresponds to the 'grand salon'—probably a ballroom—of the 18th-century hôtel. The rotunda above the facade has been preserved. The notorious Cabaret de la Grande Pinte  [ fr ] stood on the present site of the Église de la Sainte-Trinité. It opened in 1724, and could accommodate 600 people for public festivities. At

611-624: The Duc de Noirmoutier (one of the leaders of the Fronde ). However, La Trémoille had to flee to Spain after a disastrous duel, and Françoise-Athénaïs was betrothed to Montespan. The wedding ceremony took place in a chapel at the Église Saint-Eustache, Paris . Françoise later recounted that as she had neglected to bring along the proper kneeling cushions for the ceremony, the couple had to kneel on dog cushions. She soon became pregnant with her first child, Christine . Two weeks after her daughter's birth she danced in

658-633: The Duke of Mortemart and the Prince of Tonnay-Charente, and Diane de Grandseigne , a lady-in-waiting to Anne of Austria , queen consort of France. From her father, she inherited the famous Mortemart esprit ("wit"). As a young girl, she often travelled with her mother between the family estates and the court at the Louvre in Paris. At the age of 12, she began her formal education at the Convent of St Mary at Saintes , where her sister Gabrielle had started hers almost

705-526: The King. Madame de Montespan was also said to have seduced the King by dropping her towel obligingly when she spotted Louis spying on her while she showered. Shortly after, Louise's position was diminished to second place. To conceal his new relationship, the King placed the ladies in connected rooms so he could have access to both. Louise left court and joined a convent perhaps through regret and religiosity or because she had no other option. The spotlight belonged now to

752-615: The Queen, was accused of acting as a go-between in order to secure the governorship of the Dauphin for her husband, the Duke of Montausier . By 1666, Madame de Montespan was trying to take the place of Louis XIV's current mistress, Louise de La Vallière . Using her wit and charm, she sought to ingratiate herself with the king. She also became close to the Dauphin, whose affection for her never wavered. Even though Louise de La Vallière knew that Montespan

799-440: The abbess of the wealthy Fontevraud Abbey . Gabrielle was appointed abbess in 1670 and it is said that her beauty, wit, and knowledge surpassed Athénaïs' qualities. The King wanted her to stay for longer periods at court but Gabrielle always declined and stayed only for very short times. In 1700, Madame de Montespan acquired the Château d'Oiron , thereby abandoning the hospice of Fontevraud from 1703 and moved there in 1704 after

846-566: The age of almost sixty-seven while taking the waters at Bourbon-l'Archambault in order to try to heal an illness. The king forbade her children to wear mourning for her. Athénaïs was considered "astonishingly beautiful" by the standards of her time. She had large blue eyes, long, thick, corn-coloured hair that fell in curls about her shoulders, and a curvaceous, voluptuous body. She was droll, amusing and used her considerable wit to mock others. She also had an extravagant and demanding nature and possessed enough charm to get what she wanted. She

893-517: The banker Jean-Frédéric Perregaux . It was here that Jacques Laffitte began his career as a banker, under the tutelage of Perregaux. Rue de la Chauss%C3%A9e-d%27Antin The Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin is a street in the 9th arrondissement of Paris . It runs north-northwest from the Boulevard des Italiens to the Église de la Sainte-Trinité . In the 17th century, the Chemin des Porcherons crossed

940-650: The city during the Second French Empire. Marie-Madeleine Guimard was a ballerina for the Paris Opera . She made her fortune as mistress of the Prince de Soubise and had a hôtel particulier (or mansion) in Pantin , a Paris suburb. The Hôtel Guimard was nicknamed the " Terpsichore temple", in reference to Mlle Guimard (Terpsichore was the Muse of dance). The site featured a sculpture titled Terpsichore Crowned by Apollo ,

987-502: The court by openly resenting the position of Queen Maria Theresa of Spain . The daughter of King Philip IV of Spain and Elisabeth de France , the Queen's Spanish title, before her marriage, was Infanta María Teresa de Austria . In France, she was known as Marie-Thérèse d'Autriche . A scandal arose when the Duchess of Montausier , Governess of the Children of France and lady-in-waiting to

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1034-422: The death of her sister Gabrielle. In her long retirement, Madame de Montespan donated vast sums to hospitals and charities. She was also a generous patron of the arts and letters and befriended Corneille , Racine , and La Fontaine . The last years of Madame de Montespan's life were given up to a very severe penance. Real sorrow over her death was felt by her three youngest children. She died on 27 May 1707 at

1081-440: The end of the reign of La Montespan . Suspicion that Madame de Montespan might be capable of murder or worse began when the King's eye strayed to another beauty, the Duchess of Fontanges . Madame de Montespan's relegation to the position of superintendent of the Queen's household as a result brought matters to a head. Before any further developments in her romance with the King could occur, Mlle de Fontanges died in 1681. Many at

1128-409: The famous poisoning cases were brought, heard testimony that placed Madame de Montespan's first visits to the so-called witch Catherine Monvoisin, known as La Voisin , in 1665. In 1666, Madame de Montespan supposedly went so far as to allow a priest, Étienne Guibourg , to perform a black mass over her nude body in a blood-soaked ceremony, which also, allegedly, included infant sacrifice. Whatever

1175-481: The hotel was banned by the Archbishop of Paris and the food was taken to a priest for distribution to the poor. Mlle Guimard welcomed as courtesan the financier Jean-Joseph de Laborde , the bishop of Taranto, and other important persons. In a career of luxury, she offered three dinner parties a week, according to Edmond de Goncourt. One dinner was for the greatest of lords and those of the highest consideration at Court;

1222-529: The intersection of the Boulevard des Italiens stood the barracks of the Gardes Françaises —a regiment of the royal guard which was to play a key role in the revolutionary events of July 1789 . The barracks was built by the Duke of Biron in 1764. It gave the boulevard its name for some years. On 12 July 1789, a platoon of the French Guards saved its colonel, M. Duchâtelet, from popular riots. The air

1269-460: The king's demands. After a short separation, the King and Madame de Montespan resumed their relationship, resulting in the birth of two more children, Françoise Marie de Bourbon , Mademoiselle de Blois , in 1677, and Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon , comte de Toulouse , in 1678. Both were to be legitimised in 1681. The Affaire des Poisons , which erupted in September 1677, was to be the beginning of

1316-560: The king's need to avoid shocking scandal, Police Chief La Reynie said: the enormity of their crimes proved their safeguard. In 1691, no longer in royal favour, Madame de Montespan retired to the Filles de Saint-Joseph convent, in the rue Saint-Dominique in Paris, with a pension of half a million francs. In gratitude for her departure, the king made her brother the duc de Vivonne, a marshal of France . Louis had previously made one of her sisters, Gabrielle, whose vows were only four years old,

1363-400: The loss of Louis' attention. Olympia Mancini , Countess of Soissons, herself a former mistress of the king and well-known intrigante, was also implicated in the conspiracy. From the end of 1680 onwards, Louvois , Jean-Baptiste Colbert , and Madame de Maintenon all helped to hush up the affair in order to prevent further scandal about the mother of the king's legitimised children. Concerning

1410-637: The old residences. For Honoré de Balzac "The heart of Paris today beats between the Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin and the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre ." In 1840, the street was extended past Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin  [ fr ] . The first one-way streets in Paris were the Rue de Mogador and the Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin, created on 13 December 1909. Marquise de Montespan Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Marquise of Montespan (5 October 1640 – 27 May 1707), commonly known as Madame de Montespan ( French: [madam də mɔ̃tɛspɑ̃] ),

1457-497: The priest Lécuyer refused to give her absolution , which was necessary for her to take Easter communion, a requisite for all Catholics. Father Lécuyer raged, Is this the Madame that scandalises all France? Go abandon your shocking life and then come throw yourself at the feet of the ministers of Jesus Christ. The King appealed to the priest's superiors, but the Church refused to yield to

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1504-574: The social whirl of the court, the three had little contact with their busy mother and spent most of their childhood with their governess, Madame Scarron. In 1674, an official separation with her husband was declared by the Procureur général Achille de Harlay , assisted by six judges at the Châtelet . Due to her role in royal adultery, the Roman Catholic Church soon became her adversary. In 1675,

1551-529: The street was graded and resurveyed as a wider boulevard with a width of eight toises and extended to meet the grands boulevards to the south. This new boulevard stretched from the end of the Rue Louis-le-Grand  [ fr ] to the Rue Saint-Lazare . The frequent stays of King Louis XV in Paris led to the building of splendid homes such as that of Louis Antoine de Pardaillan de Gondrin,

1598-416: The time suspected that she had been poisoned by her rival, although none could prove it. It is now believed that Mlle de Fontanges died from natural causes. Long assumed to have been involved in the infamous Affaire des Poisons , Madame de Montespan has never been conclusively implicated. Gabriel Nicolas de La Reynie , Paris' first Lieutenant General of Police and the chief judge of the court, before whom

1645-471: The truth in these allegations, in July 1667, Madame de Montespan became the king's new mistress even though Louise de La Vallière was carrying his child, Louis de Bourbon, comte de Vermandois . In addition to seeking Louis' love, some charged Madame de Montespan with also conspiring to kill him, but inconsistencies in this testimony suggest that the royal mistress was innocent of these charges. However, suspicion

1692-548: The twenty-five-year-old Athénaïs de Montespan. She also became friends at court with another lady-in-waiting to the queen, Louise Boyer , the wife of Anne Jules de Noailles . Montespan's youngest son, the Count of Toulouse , would later marry one of Boyer's granddaughters. The first of Madame de Montespan's seven children with the king was born in 1669. The newborn child, a girl, is thought to have been named Louise-Françoise. The upbringing of this first child (and subsequent children)

1739-399: Was a French noblewoman and the most celebrated royal mistress of King Louis XIV . During their romantic relationship, which lasted from the late 1660s to the late 1670s, she was sometimes referred to as the "true Queen of France" due to the pervasiveness of her influence at court. Born into the House of Rochechouart , one of the oldest noble families of France, Françoise-Athénaïs married

1786-438: Was a cultured and amusing conversationalist, who won the admiration of such literary figures as letter-writer Madame de Sévigné and diarist Saint-Simon . In addition, she kept abreast of political events. This had the effect of making her even more appealing to men of intellect and power. She was courted by a number of suitors including Louis de Buade de Frontenac and Charles Auguste de la Fare . Madame de Montespan astounded

1833-450: Was a smaller version. The Château de Clagny was also famed for its gallery. In 1685, Louis XIV gave the magnificent palace to Madame de Montespan. At her death, her oldest son, the duc du Maine , inherited Clagny and, in turn, passed it on to his son, Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, prince de Dombes . The château reverted to the French crown in 1766 and was demolished in 1769. Louis XIV also had

1880-423: Was appointed to be a lady-in-waiting to the king's wife, Maria Theresa of Spain . On 28 January 1663, Françoise-Athénaïs married Louis Henri de Pardaillan de Gondrin, Marquis of Montespan , who was one year her junior. Madame de La Fayette says in her Histoire de madame Henriette d'Angleterre that Françoise-Athénaïs was in love with another young man, Louis de La Trémoille , who was the elder son and heir to

1927-579: Was born in October 1640 and was baptised on 5 October 1640 at the Château of Lussac-les-Châteaux , today's Vienne department, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in France. Françoise (as a précieuse , she later adopted the name "Athénaïs"), or more formally, Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente , possessed the blood of two of the oldest noble families of France through her parents, Gabriel de Rochechouart ,

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1974-480: Was built between 1674 and 1680 from the drawings of Jules Hardouin-Mansart , Premier architecte du Roi , (First architect of the King), on land bought by Louis XIV in 1665. Madame de Sévigné wrote that its construction employed 1,200 workers and the cost was no less than 2 million "livres". The royal gardener André Le Nôtre created the gardens, which looked west toward the much larger palace of Versailles, of which Clagny

2021-480: Was entrusted to one of Madame de Montespan's friends, Madame Scarron (the future marquise de Maintenon ). A son, Louis-Auguste, was born in 1670. When the third child, Louis-César, was born in 1672, a house was purchased for Scarron and the children on the Rue Vaugirard. In 1673, the couple's three living illegitimate children were legitimised by Louis XIV and given the royal surname of de Bourbon . The eldest,

2068-682: Was expensive and glorious, like the Palace of Versailles itself. Her apartments were filled with pet animals and thousands of flowers and she had a private gallery. Costly jewels were showered upon her and she was highly discriminating regarding the quality of the gems, returning them if they did not meet her exacting standards. She was given the nickname Quanto ("How much", in Italian). Her love for food and her numerous pregnancies caused her to gain weight in her late thirties. The Château de Clagny in Versailles

2115-458: Was thought to be healthier to the north and west of Paris during the 18th century. That, and the higher ground, attracted the upper classes. A series of glamorous hôtels particuliers were erected along the Chaussée-d'Antin in the later 18th century (now destroyed) : During the 19th century, commercial establishments changed the character of the street, and shops opened in the ground floors of

2162-461: Was thrown onto Madame de Montespan because the name of her maid, Mlle Desœillets, was frequently mentioned in connection with La Voisin in the evidence brought before the Chambre Ardente . Indeed, if anyone was attempting to kill the king, it was more likely Claude de Vin des Œillets , who had an illegitimate child fathered but not publicly acknowledged by Louis. Presumably, the maid resented

2209-432: Was trying to conquer the King's heart and reportedly laughed at her miserable efforts, she definitely underestimated her new rival. Montespan cleverly cultivated friendships with both Louise and Queen Maria Theresa and when both ladies were pregnant, Madame de Montespan was asked to help them entertain the King during private dinners. Soon they regretted their decision, for Montespan now cultivated an intimate relationship with

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