Alexandre Bontemps
Encyclopedia
Chambre du Roi
La chambre du roi , the King's Bedchamber, has always been the central feature of the king's apartment in traditional French palace design Ceremonies surrounding the daily life of the king — such as the levée and the coucher — were conducted in the...
("First valet of the king's bedchamber") in uninterrupted succession between 1643 and 1766, when an early death, leaving no successor, broke the line. There were four head or Premier valets de chambre, of whom Bontemps became the most senior in 1665, and thirty-two valets.
Life
Louis XIII of France
Louis XIII was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1610 to 1643.Louis was only eight years old when he succeeded his father. His mother, Marie de Medici, acted as regent during Louis' minority...
before becoming a Premier Valet in 1643. Alexandre succeeded him on his death in 1659, dying in office in 1701, by which time he was a count and marquis, holding several key offices controlling both the palaces and towns of Versailles
Versailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
and Marly
Marly-le-Roi
Marly-le-Roi is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris from the centre....
, the Swiss Guard
Swiss Guard
Swiss Guards or Schweizergarde is the name given to the Swiss soldiers who have served as bodyguards, ceremonial guards, and palace guards at foreign European courts since the late 15th century. They have had a high reputation for discipline, as well as loyalty to their employers...
who guarded the King and his palaces, and the household of the Dauphin. He was thus a key figure in maintaining the security of the King, and managing his household. The Governorships of Versailles and Marly had been given to him in 1665 after the death of Blouin, then the senior head-valet, and passed to Blouin's son in turn when Bontemps died. He was also a member of the Conseil du Roi
Conseil du Roi
The Conseil du Roi or King's Council is a general term for the administrative and governmental apparatus around the king of France during the Ancien Régime designed to prepare his decisions and give him advice...
(the Royal Council) and held a senior rank in the chivalric Order of Saint Lazarus
Order of Saint Lazarus
This article concerns the order of knighthood named after Saint Lazarus. For other uses of the name Lazarus, see Lazarus .The Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem is an order of chivalry which originated in a leper hospital founded by the Knights Hospitaller in 1098 by the...
.
He seems to have been an aimiable 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
Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon
Louis de Rouvroy commonly known as Saint-Simon was a French soldier, diplomatist and writer of memoirs, was born in Paris...
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". 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, 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.
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
François-Timoléon de Choisy
François Timoléon, abbé de Choisy was a French author.-Life:He was born in Paris. His father was attached to the household of the duke of Orléans, and his mother, who was on intimate terms with Anne of Austria, was regularly called upon to amuse Louis XIV...
wrote that part of his success with Louis came from never asking him for favours, 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". 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." He once greatly amused Louis, when asked how his wife was, by "replying mechanically with a shrug".
He used the Swiss Guards stationed around the Palaces and gardens to report on the behaviour of courtier
Courtier
A courtier is a person who is often in attendance at the court of a king or other royal personage. Historically the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together...
s, including their church attendance, as well as political and sexual intrigues. As Intendant
Intendant
The title of intendant has been used in several countries through history. Traditionally, it refers to the holder of a public administrative office...
or Governor of Versailles, his control extended to the whole town outside the palaces, where many courtiers had houses.
Premier valet
Gentleman of the Bedchamber
A Gentleman of the Bedchamber was the holder of an important office in the royal household of the Kingdom of England from the 11th century, later used also in the Kingdom of Great Britain.-Description and functions:...
, always great nobles, against the more menial aspects of the role. Once established, the valets expanded in number and importance, somewhat at the Gentlemen's expense. One of their number was always a few steps from the King wherever he went, and the four Premiers, rotating quarterly, were alone able to, and presumably did, sleep at the foot of the royal bed. In addition one of the ordinary valets was en poste by the King's bed all day, inside the balustrade
Baluster
A baluster is a moulded shaft, square or of lathe-turned form, one of various forms of spindle in woodwork, made of stone or wood and sometimes of metal, standing on a unifying footing, and supporting the coping of a parapet or the handrail of a staircase. Multiplied in this way, they form a...
that separated it, like an altar
Altar
An altar is any structure upon which offerings such as sacrifices are made for religious purposes. Altars are usually found at shrines, and they can be located in temples, churches and other places of worship...
communion-rail, from the rest of the room. In the morning Levée
Levee
A levee, levée, dike , embankment, floodbank or stopbank is an elongated naturally occurring ridge or artificially constructed fill or wall, which regulates water levels...
and evening Coucher ceremonies, the Grand Chamberlain of France
Grand Chamberlain of France
The Grand Chamberlain of France was one of the Great Officers of the Crown of France, a member of the Maison du Roi , and one of the Great Offices of the Maison du Roi during the Ancien Régime...
and Premier valet did the work, whilst the First Gentleman of the bedchamber (rotating annually among the four holders) had "the command of the room" (le commandement de la chambre). However, Saint-Simon explains carefully that if the First Gentleman of the year was absent, the Premier valet of the quarter was en commande of the ceremony, attended daily by about a hundred of the greatest courtiers - a significant point of prestige.
Private life
Apart from a large apartment in the palace, and a separate house in Versailles, Bontemps had a "maison particulier" (townhouse) on the Ile Saint-LouisÎle Saint-Louis
The Île Saint-Louis is one of two natural islands in the Seine river, in Paris, France . The island is named after King Louis IX of France ....
in the centre of Paris, with thirty rooms and a staff of twelve. According to Saint-Simon, he copied his master with a secret second marriage to the mother of La Roche, head-valet to Louis's grandson, Phillip V of Spain. The children of his first marriage married very well, and two generations later a Bontemps married the last Prince of Conti
Prince of Conti
The title of Prince of Conti was a French noble title, assumed by a cadet branch of the house of Bourbon-Condé. It was taken from Conty, a small town of northern France, c. 35 km southwest of Amiens, which came into the Condé family by the marriage of Louis of Bourbon, first prince of Condé,...
, a cadet branch of the Royal Family. Others married into the largest banking families in France. There is a portrait of the Comptesse de La Châtre, daughter of Louis XV's
Louis XV of France
Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...
Bontemps head valet, by Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
in New York, dated 1789, the last year of the Ancien Regime.
In modern memory
VersaillesVersailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
has a "Rue Alexandre Bontemps". Bontemps is a leading character in the computer game Versailles 1685
Versailles 1685
Versailles 1685 is a video game released in 1997. The 3D adventure game was developed and published by Cryo Interactive. It was followed in 2001 by Versailles II: Testament of the King....
, where the player takes the part of a junior valet helping him to thwart a plot at Versailles.
Sources
- Les Valets de chambre de Louis XIV, Mathieu Da Vinha, Perrin, 2004; ISBN : 2-262-02135-X Online text in French
- Duc de Saint-SimonLouis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-SimonLouis de Rouvroy commonly known as Saint-Simon was a French soldier, diplomatist and writer of memoirs, was born in Paris...
, 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".