Work record

Louise de la Vallière

Name: Louise de la Vallière
Author: Alexandre Dumas

Alexandre Dumas

1849 · 19th Century · Novel · French

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Abstract

Written: 1849 (serialized 1847-1850)
Setting: 1661; Fontainebleau, Paris, Chaillot and London
Author: Alexandre Dumas; trans. anonymous (19th-century English version)
Country: France
Language: French
Genre: Historical adventure novel
Form: Prose novel; this volume contains chapters 141-208 of The Vicomte de Bragelonne
Recommended: Grades 10–12 (Concerns the king's love affair; best for older students.)

Background. The third Project Gutenberg volume of The Vicomte de Bragelonne, written by Dumas with Auguste Maquet, centers on the historical love affair between Louis XIV and Louise de la Vallière in 1661.

Plot. Louis falls in love with Louise while Raoul, who has loved her since childhood, is sent to England. Madame's jealousy drives Louise to the convent of Chaillot, from which the king retrieves her. Raoul returns to find her lost, and Athos boldly rebukes the king. Meanwhile Colbert presses Fouquet, and Aramis, now a bishop, works with Porthos and the Bastille governor Baisemeaux on a hidden plan.

Structure. A court love story braided with the political rivalry of ministers and the first steps of Aramis's conspiracy.

Themes. Royal power and desire, faithful and unfaithful love, honor before kings, grief, and the cost of court favor for those who refuse to flatter. Louis, Louise, Madame Henriette, Fouquet, Colbert and the Bastille are historical; Raoul's courtship and the musketeers' part in these events are Dumas's invention, so the 1661 court scenes should be checked against a biography of Louis XIV.

Significance. The emotional center of the Bragelonne cycle, which explains Raoul's fate and leads directly into The Man in the Iron Mask. Readers who come to it without the two preceding Gutenberg volumes will miss why Athos's quarrel with the king, and Raoul's long patience, carry so much weight.

Main characters

Louise de la Vallière: A modest maid of honor loved by Raoul and the king
Louis XIV: A young king who follows his desires
Raoul: Faithful lover who loses Louise
Athos: The Comte de la Fère, who rebukes the king
D'Artagnan: Loyal, ironic observer of the court
Aramis: A schemer working on a secret plan
Fouquet: Struggles against Colbert and the king's demands

Summary

Louise de la Vallière is the third of the four Project Gutenberg volumes of The Vicomte de Bragelonne, containing chapters 141-208 of Dumas's last d'Artagnan novel. It tells how the young Louis XIV falls in love with Louise, the gentle maid of honor whom Raoul, the Vicomte de Bragelonne, has loved since childhood. While Raoul is sent away to England on the king's business, the king and Louise draw together through a series of meetings at Fontainebleau and Paris, helped by courtiers such as Saint-Aignan and Malicorne. Madame, jealous of the king's attention, turns against Louise, and at one point Louise flees to the convent at Chaillot before the king brings her back. Raoul returns to find that he has lost her and that the whole court knew before he did; his grief, and Athos's dignified protest to the king, are among the most moving scenes in the series. Around this love story the political plot tightens. Colbert gains ground against Fouquet, who struggles to raise money for the king's demands, and Aramis, now Bishop of Vannes, works with Porthos and the governor of the Bastille, Baisemeaux, toward a secret plan concerning a prisoner, which will come to light in the next volume. D'Artagnan, captain of the musketeers, watches everything with a soldier's irony and remains loyal to his friends. Dumas treats the affair with sympathy for Louise but without hiding the wrong done to Raoul, and his portrait of a young king who takes whatever he wants is a study in the abuse of power. Because the central story is an adulterous royal romance, the volume suits readers in grades 10-12. It is part 5 of six in the Project Gutenberg division of the d'Artagnan Romances: The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Ten Years Later, Louise de la Vallière, The Man in the Iron Mask.

Virtues in this work

Justice: Athos insists the king has wronged his son.
Fortitude: Raoul bears his loss with dignity, even when it costs him or her dearly.

Plot or Argument

The king's attention
Louis notices Louise at Fontainebleau and begins to court her.
Raoul in England
Raoul is sent to London and learns of rumors from home.
Chaillot
Louise, persecuted by Madame, flees to a convent; the king brings her back.
Raoul's return
Raoul discovers the truth; Athos confronts the king.
Aramis's plan
Aramis, Porthos and Baisemeaux prepare the way for the events of The Man in the Iron Mask.

Characters

Louise de la Vallière, heroine
A modest maid of honor loved by Raoul and the king.
Louis XIV, king
A young king who follows his desires.
Raoul, Athos's son
Faithful lover who loses Louise.
Athos, Raoul's father
The Comte de la Fère, who rebukes the king.
D'Artagnan, captain
Loyal, ironic observer of the court.
Aramis, Bishop of Vannes
A schemer working on a secret plan.
Fouquet, superintendent
Struggles against Colbert and the king's demands.

Lessons

Power and desire
The king takes the woman another man loves. Dumas shows how unchecked power makes wrongdoing easy.
- How does the king use his power to court Louise?
- Who suffers because of it?
- What does the story of David and Bathsheba add (2 Samuel 11-12)?
Related across the library
- Journey to the West (A Mission to Heaven), Lesson: Power without humility
  Power without humility. Sun can cross eighteen thousand li in a leap, yet his boast that he can jump out of Buddha's palm ends with him writing his name on Buddha's finger. The early chapters show great gifts turned to disorder by pride, and the rest of the book shows the same gifts put to service.
- Till We Have Faces, Lesson: Love that devours
  Love that devours. Orual's love for Psyche, for the Fox and for Bardia is real, but it wants to possess. Lewis shows natural affection turning jealous when it cannot bear the beloved to belong to another, even to a god. Only when Orual sees what Ansit and Tarin see does she recognise the hunger in her devotion.
- Henry V, Act 3, Scene 6
  Fluellen describes Bardolph's face as all bubukles and whelks just before he is hanged; Henry admits his people are much enfeebled with sickness.
- Prometheus Bound and Other Plays, Lesson: A king asks his people
  A king asks his people. Pelasgus will not choose between sacrilege and war on his own authority. Aeschylus stages an early picture of a ruler binding his city by consent, while showing that consent does not make the choice painless.
- On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History, Lesson: Reformer at Worms, ruler at Whitehall
  Reformer at Worms, ruler at Whitehall. The fourth and sixth lectures pair a priest who refuses to recant against conscience with a ruler who seizes power to impose order. Carlyle admires both, but their cases differ: Luther stands alone and suffers; Cromwell commands armies and dissolves parliaments. Comparing them tests where courage ends and domination begins.
Athos's rebuke
Athos tells the king plainly that he has wronged his son. Students can discuss speaking truth to power.
- What does Athos say to the king?
- Why is it dangerous?
- When is it right to rebuke a ruler?
Related across the library
- White Nights, Fourth night and morning
  The dreamer's sudden hope and loss form a compact study of attachment, disappointment and depressive return.
- The Leipzig Disputation, Lesson: The disputation as a school of argument
  The disputation as a school of argument. Leipzig was a formal university disputation with agreed rules, notaries and appointed judges. It shows how late medieval scholars tested claims publicly, and how much depended on preparation, memory and command of authorities.
- Richard III, Lesson: Religion as a mask
  Religion as a mask. Richard boasts that he clothes his villainy in scraps of Holy Writ and appears to the citizens with a prayer book between two bishops. The play shows the special wickedness of using piety as a tool of ambition.
- White Nights, Medical lens
  White Nights is useful for loneliness, fantasy life and emotional dependency. The dreamer's night wandering and self-description resemble melancholic isolation and maladaptive daydreaming, though the novella's sentimental mode resists clinical reduction. Nastenka's grandmother adds a mild caregiving/control dynamic around blindness and age.
- The Roman History, Medical lens
  Ammianus is a rich source for late-Roman ideas of disease and for the deaths of emperors. His digression on pestilence at Amida (XIX.4) summarizes the inherited theory that extremes of heat, cold, moisture and drought, or air corrupted by corpses, cause epidemics, and sorts plagues into pandemic, epidemic and a fast-killing third kind; he cites Homer and Thucydides and says the garrison's sickness lifted after rain. Julian's spear wound to the liver, the physician's attempt to help him and his death by blood los...
Grief and faithfulness
Raoul's love does not change when he loses Louise. His sorrow raises questions about how to bear disappointment.
- How does Raoul respond?
- What do his friends do for him?
- How can a Christian bear heartbreak?
Related across the library
- The Golden Bowl, Lesson: People as possessions
  People as possessions. Adam collects art and, in a sense, people. The novel questions what money can buy.
- Fahrenheit 451, Lesson: Memory as a library
  Memory as a library. Granger's exiles keep books alive by memorizing them, so that each person becomes a book waiting to be written down again. The ending argues that what matters is not paper but the words and the people who carry them, and that culture survives disasters through memory and patience.
- The Muqaddimah, Lesson: Solidarity builds and luxury dissolves
  Solidarity builds and luxury dissolves. Group feeling gives a hardy people the cohesion to win power; settled rule brings wealth, comfort and reliance on paid troops, which weaken that cohesion until a new group with stronger solidarity takes over. The cycle is presented as a pattern of human nature rather than a moral fable alone.
- The Spirit of the Laws, Book V. That the Laws Given by the Legislator Ought to Be in Relation to
  burdensome than the people themselves They have broken their numerous guards mitigated criminal punishments erected tribunals entered into a knowledge of the laws and instructed the people But there are particular causes that will probably once more involve them in the very misery which they now endeavour to avoid In those states religion has more influence than anywhere else it is fear added to fear In Mahomedan countries it is partly from their religion that the people derive the surprising veneration they hav...
- Commentaries on the Laws of England, Lesson: The law as guardian of those who cannot guard themselves
  The law as guardian of those who cannot guard themselves. Chapter 8's account of idiots and lunatics shows the crown acting as trustee for people unable to manage their affairs, preserving their property for them and forbidding the next heir to be the keeper of a lunatic, since he would gain by the person's death. Blackstone presents this protective duty as part of the king's office as general conservator of his people.

Context

Louise de la Vallière (1644-1710) was a real maid of honor who became Louis XIV's mistress in 1661 and later entered a Carmelite convent. Dumas built Raoul's story around this historical affair.

Composition

Part of The Vicomte de Bragelonne, written with Auguste Maquet and serialized 1847-1850.

Reception

Readers have long debated Dumas's sympathetic portrait of Louise and the tragic fate of Raoul, which concludes in The Man in the Iron Mask.

Love Desire Power / Politics Honor Shame Friendship Guilt Sin

Comparisons

Ten Years Later
The preceding volume in the d'Artagnan series; read it first.
The Man in the Iron Mask
The next volume in the d'Artagnan series, which continues the story.
The Count of Monte Cristo
Both novels show a man robbed of the woman he loves; compare Raoul's grief with Dantès's response.

Quotes

“Since I have become a bishop, I have looked for these primeval natures, which make me love truth and hate intrigue”

— Alexandre Dumas, Louise de la Vallière, Chapter IX, trans. Anonymous 19th-century translation.Quote card

Speeches on the Compromise of 1850, Henry Clay: Compromise Resolutions and Speech (February 5-6, 1850)
referred that each of the parties at the North in its turn has moved and endeavored to obtain the assistance of a small party called Abolitionists in order that the scale in its favor might preponderate against that of its adversary And all around us every where we see too many evidences of the existence of the spirit and intemperance of party I might go to other legislative bodies than that which is assembled in Congress and I might draw from them illustrations of the melancholy truth vipon which I am dwelling...
Confessions, Book I
none to tell me neither father nor mother nor experience of others nor mine own memory Dost Thou mock me for asking this and bid me praise Thee and acknowledge Thee for that I do know I acknowledge Thee Lord of heaven and earth and praise Thee for my first rudiments of being and my infancy whereof I remember nothing for Thou hast appointed that man should from others guess much as to himself and believe much on the strength of weak females Even then I had being and life and at my infancy's close I could seek for...
Till We Have Faces, Lesson: Seeing and not seeing
Seeing and not seeing. Psyche sees a palace where Orual sees only heather and rock. Lewis leaves open whether Orual's blindness is inability or refusal, and why each piece of evidence leaves her unpersuaded. Lewis ties her uncertainty to her wishes: if the god is real, Psyche belongs to him and not to her.
Confessions, Book I
inspired me through the Incarnation of Thy Son through the ministry of the Preacher And how shall I call upon my God my God and Lord since when I call for Him I shall be calling Him to myself and what room is there within me whither my God can come into me whither can God come into me God who made heaven and earth is there indeed O Lord my God aught in me that can contain Thee do then heaven and earth which Thou hast made and wherein Thou hast made me contain Thee or because nothing which exists could exist with...
Confessions, Book Iv
it converted and follow thee Whatever by her thou hast sense of is in part and the whole whereof these are parts thou knowest not and yet they delight thee But had the sense of thy flesh a capacity for comprehending the whole and not itself also for thy punishment been justly restricted to a part of the whole thou wouldest that whatsoever existeth at this present should pass away that so the whole might better please thee For what we speak also by the same sense of the flesh thou hearest yet wouldest not thou ha...

“In fact the poor girl was in love, and she reveled in her innocent affection”

— Alexandre Dumas, Louise de la Vallière, Chapter XXII, trans. Anonymous 19th-century translation.Quote card

Far from the Madding Crowd, Vol. I, Ch. IV (Ch. 4)
I want somebody to tame me; I am too independent Bathsheba refuses Gabriel's first proposal.
The Story of a Soul, Chapter XI
O Jesus, my Love, at last I have found my vocation. My vocation is love! After reading St. Paul on the body of Christ and the more excellent way of charity.
Orlando: A Biography, Chapter 3
The second trance in Constantinople, a doctor's useless remedies, and the waking change of sex announced by the trumpets of Truth.
Orlando: A Biography, Lesson: Biography as comedy
Biography as comedy. The narrator poses as a sober biographer with documents and portraits, then complains when the documents are burnt or the subject only thinks. Woolf mocks the confident lives-and-letters biography of her father's generation and asks what a life really consists of.
Orlando: A Biography, Chapter 3
Orlando had become a woman--there is no denying it. But in every other respect, Orlando remained precisely as he had been. After the trumpets of Truth wake Orlando in Constantinople, the biographer pauses to state the fact of the change and that memory and identity are unbroken.

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

The king's first meetings with Louise.
Raoul's letters from England.
Louise's flight to Chaillot.
Athos's audience with the king.
Aramis's dealings with Baisemeaux.

Key terms and names

Musketeers: The king's mounted guard in which d'Artagnan serves.
Cardinal: A senior churchman; Richelieu and then Mazarin governed France as chief ministers.
Chaillot: A convent near Paris where Louise seeks refuge.
Bastille: The Paris fortress-prison governed by Baisemeaux.

Seminar Questions

Comprehension Why is Raoul sent to England?
Comprehension Why does Louise flee to Chaillot?
Comprehension What does Athos say to the king?
Interpretation Is Louise a victim, a willing partner, or both?
Interpretation What is Aramis planning?
Big Question How should the powerful be held accountable for private wrongs?

Faith Connections

2 Samuel 12:7 (Scripture)
Nathan tells David, Thou art the man; Athos's rebuke of Louis echoes the prophet's courage.
Proverbs 17:17 (Scripture)
A friend loveth at all times; Raoul's friends stand by him in grief.
Psalm 34:18 (Scripture)
The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; a frame for Raoul's sorrow.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: When a ruler treats his subjects' loves and lives as his to take, he wrongs them even if he is not punished; therefore Athos is right to rebuke the king.

Rhetorical device: contrast. Dumas sets Raoul's constant love against the king's passing desire and the court's gossip.

Debate: Resolved: that Athos was right to confront the king.

Memory Work

Since I have become a bishop, I have looked for these primeval natures, which make me love truth and hate intrigue
Chapter IX, trans. Anonymous 19th-century translation. Aramis's admiration for honest friends.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Explain how Dumas makes readers sympathize with both Louise and Raoul.

Comparison with Ten Years Later: Compare Raoul's loss here with what follows in Ten Years Later or The Man in the Iron Mask.

Creative Prompts

Classroom
Find out what became of the historical Louise de la Vallière and compare her life with Dumas's portrait.
Essay
Is Louise to blame for Raoul's suffering? Use evidence from the novel.
Dialogue
Write Athos's conversation with Raoul after Raoul learns the truth.