On 6th August 1644 Louise de La Vallière was born.
1650. Pierre Mignard [aged 37]. Portrait of Louise de La Vallière [aged 5].
Samuel Pepys' Diary. 26th January 1663. Up and by water with Sir W. Batten [aged 62] to White Hall, drinking a glass of wormewood wine at the Stillyard [Map], and so up to the Duke, and with the rest of the officers did our common service; thence to my Lord Sandwich's [aged 37], but he was in bed, and had a bad fit last night, and so I went to, Westminster Hall [Map], it being Term time, it troubling me to think that I should have any business there to trouble myself and thoughts with. Here I met with Monsieur Raby, who is lately come from France. (he) tells me that my Lord Hinchingbroke [aged 15] and his brother do little improve there, and are much neglected in their habits and other things; but I do believe he hath a mind to go over as their tutour, and so I am not apt to believe what he says therein. But I had a great deal of very good discourse with him, concerning the difference between the French and the Pope, and the occasion, which he told me very particularly, and to my great content; and of most of the chief affairs of France, which I did enquire: and that the King [aged 32] is a most excellent Prince, doing all business himself; and that it is true he hath a mistress, Mademoiselle La Valiere [aged 18], one of the Princess Henriette's women, that he courts for his pleasure every other day, but not so as to make him neglect his publique affairs. He tells me how the King do carry himself nobly to the relations of the dead Cardinall1, and will not suffer one pasquill to come forth against him; and that he acts by what directions he received from him before his death.
Note 1. Cardinal Mazarin died March 9th, 1661.
Samuel Pepys' Diary. 19th June 1663. Thence to Wilkinson's after a good walk in the Park, where we met on horseback Captain Ferrers; who tells us that the King of France [aged 24] is well again, and that he saw him train his Guards, all brave men, at Paris; and that when he goes to his mistress, Madame la Valiere [aged 18], a pretty little woman, now with child by him, he goes with his guards with him publiquely, and his trumpets and kettle-drums with him, who stay before the house while he is with her; and yet he says that, for all this, the Queen [aged 24] do not know of it, for that nobody dares to tell her; but that I dare not believe.
On 2nd October 1666 [her illegitimate daughter] Marie Anne Bourbon was born illegitimately to Louis "Sun King" XIV King France [aged 28] and Louise de La Vallière [aged 22].
Samuel Pepys' Diary. 26th April 1667. Thence to Westminster Hall [Map] to hear our cause, but [it] did not come before them to-day, so went down and walked below in the Hall, and there met with Ned Pickering [aged 49], who tells me the ill newes of his nephew Gilbert [aged 15], who is turned a very rogue, and then I took a turn with Mr. Evelyn [aged 46], with whom I walked two hours, till almost one of the clock: talking of the badness of the Government, where nothing but wickedness, and wicked men and women command the King [aged 36]: that it is not in his nature to gainsay any thing that relates to his pleasures; that much of it arises from the sickliness of our Ministers of State, who cannot be about him as the idle companions are, and therefore he gives way to the young rogues; and then, from the negligence of the Clergy, that a Bishop shall never be seen about him, as the King of France [aged 28] hath always: that the King would fain have some of the same gang to be Lord Treasurer [aged 60], which would be yet worse, for now some delays are put to the getting gifts of the King, as that whore my Baroness Byron1, who had been, as he called it, the King's seventeenth whore abroad, did not leave him till she had got him to give her an order for £4000 worth of plate to be made for her; but by delays, thanks be to God! she died before she had it. He tells me mighty stories of the King of France, how great a Prince he is. He hath made a code to shorten the law; he hath put out all the ancient commanders of castles that were become hereditary; he hath made all the Fryers subject to the bishops, which before were only subject to Rome, and so were hardly the King's subjects, and that none shall become 'religieux' but at such an age, which he thinks will in a few, years ruin the Pope, and bring France into a patriarchate. He confirmed to me the business of the want of paper at the Council-table the other day, which I have observed; Wooly being to have found it, and did, being called, tell the King to his face the reason of it; and Mr. Evelyn tells me several of the menial servants of the Court lacking bread, that have not received a farthing wages since the King's coming in. He tells me the King of France hath his mistresses, but laughs at the foolery of our King, that makes his bastards Princes2, and loses his revenue upon them, and makes his mistresses his masters and the King of France did never grant Lavalliere [aged 22]3 any thing to bestow on others, and gives a little subsistence, but no more, to his bastards.
Note 1. Eleanor, daughter of Robert Needham, Viscount Kilmurrey, and widow of Peter Warburton, became in 1644 the second wife of John Byron, first Lord Byron. Died 1663. B.
Note 2. Louis made his own bastards dukes and Princes, and legitimatized them as much as he could, connecting them also by marriage with the real blood-royal. B.
Note 3. Louise Francoise de la Baume le Blanc de la Valliere had four children by Louis XIV., of whom only two survived - [her illegitimate daughter] Marie Anne Bourbon, called Mademoiselle de Blois, born in 1666, afterwards married to the Prince de Conti [aged 6], and the Comte de Vermandois, born in 1667. In that year (the very year in which Evelyn was giving this account to Pepys), the Duchy of Vaujour and two baronies were created in favour of La Valliere, and her daughter, who, in the deed of creation, was legitimatized, and styled Princess. B.
On 7th June 1710 Louise de La Vallière [aged 65] died.