Zoé Talon, comtesse du Cayla
Encyclopedia
Louis XVIII of France
Louis XVIII , known as "the Unavoidable", was King of France and of Navarre from 1814 to 1824, omitting the Hundred Days in 1815...
, and was his maîtresse-en-titre
Maîtresse-en-titre
The maîtresse-en-titre was the chief mistress of the king of France. It was a semi-official position which came with its own apartments. The title really came into use during the reign of Henry IV and continued until the reign of Louis XV....
.
She was born at Le Boullay-Thierry
Le Boullay-Thierry
Le Boullay-Thierry is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France.-Population:-References:*...
. She was the daughter of a royal avocat, Antoine Omer Talon (1760-1811), and was privately educated and groomed by Madame Campan, whose school Lamartine called an academy of feminine diplomacy. In 1802 she married the comte Baschi du Cayla (died 1851), with whom she had two children, Ugolin and Ugoline before being separated after prolonged litigation, which brought her to the attention of Louis XVIII, to whom she personally appealed for protection from her husband. She managed to retain the confidence, however, of her mother-in-law, a lady-in-waiting in the household of the comtesse de Provence, who now became titular queen of France. At the court of the restored Bourbons, Mme de Cayla was also the protegée of the vicomte Sosthène de La Rochefoucauld and from about 1817, at first very discreetly, became the major avenue through which the Ultras
Ultra-royalist
Ultra-Royalists or simply Ultras were a reactionary faction which sat in the French parliament from 1815 to 1830 under the Bourbon Restoration...
were able to influence the aged and emotionally needy Louis XVIII, who lavished favours upon Mme de Cayla, though she was unlikely ever to have been his mistress.
In 1821 the king had the Château de Saint-Ouen, north of Paris, razed and rebuilt by the architect Jacques-Marie Huvé
Jacques-Marie Huvé
Jacques-Marie Huvé was a French architect who practiced in Paris, working in a neoclassical manner that he refined working in the atelier of Percier and Fontaine, Napoleon's chief architects....
; the first stones were laid 2 May 1821, in the presence of the king and the comtesse. The old château had been the site of the signing of papers that restored the brother of Louis XVI
Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....
to the throne of France. It was decorated and furnished out of Louis XVIII's pocket, without a trace in the official budget of the Maison du Roi
Maison du Roi
The Maison du Roi was the name of the military, domestic and religious entourage around the royal family in France during the Ancien Régime and Bourbon Restoration; the exact composition and duties of its various divisions changed constantly over the Early Modern period...
, and completed by the end of 1822, when Mme de Cayla officially "purchased" it from the architect, 29 October 1822. The King's house-warming gift was a dessert service of Sèvres porcelain painted with views of the new château.
She was also the avenue through which office-seekers could find places. After the death of her royal patron in 1824 she turned her attention to agriculture, raising a new breed of sheep named in her honour, from a long-haired Nubian ram that had been presented to her by Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali of Egypt
Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha was a commander in the Ottoman army, who became Wāli, and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan...
, viceroy of Egypt. She supported the pile carpet manufactory of Savonnerie
Savonnerie
The Savonnerie manufactory was the most prestigious European manufactory of knotted-pile carpets, enjoying its greatest period ca. 1650–1685; the cachet of its name is casually applied to many knotted-pile carpets made at other centers...
in its last independent days before it was absorbed by the Gobelins
Gobelins manufactory
The Manufacture des Gobelins is a tapestry factory located in Paris, France, at 42 avenue des Gobelins, near the Les Gobelins métro station in the XIIIe arrondissement...
in 1826.
She died in 1852 at her château of Saint-Ouen
Saint-Ouen, Seine-Saint-Denis
Saint-Ouen is a commune in the Seine-Saint-Denis department. It is located in the northern suburbs of Paris, France 6.6 km from the centre of Paris....
.
Among gardeners, her name is commemorated in the Rose 'Comtesse du Cayla', not in fact a rose of her period, but instead a Hybrid Tea Rose raised by Pierre Guillot in 1902.
Sources
- The American Cyclopædia: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge (1873) s.v. "Zoé Victoire de Cayla".
- Arthur Léon Imbert de Saint-Amand, (Elizabeth
- Gilbert (Davis) Martin, tr.) The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Louis XVIII 1892