Blog: La Maupin and d'Albert

I had originally intended this posting to be about the "downfall of d'Albert". However, the more I thought about it, the more I thought I shouldn't restrict myself to just that period, but rather address just who d'Albert was and what his relationship to la Maupin is.

The comte d'Albert was Louis-Joseph d'Albert de Luynes, son of the Duke of Luynes and Anne de Rohan-Montbazon, born April 1, 1672, making him two years la Maupin's junior or one year her senior depending on which birth year you accept for her. I am going with 1670, which makes him the younger. Eventually, he attained the rank of "Prince" in service to the Elector of Baveria, another of la Maupin's lovers.

I don't have an exact date for when the two met, but all accounts make it between the burning of the convent in Avignon and her debut with the Opera. I am currently carrying the "Convent" incident as happening in late 1688, but it could have happened any time from about 1687 to early 1690. I picked late 1688 so as to allow enough time for la Maupin to travel widely after the young Marseillaise returned home, time during which she meets d'Albert, Marechal and Thévenard, all before Thévenard gets to Paris early in 1690.

From "The General Biographical Dictionary", we learn that d'Albert served at both the siege of Philippsburg in 1688, and the battle of Fleurus in 1690, where he was wounded twice. This makes the most likely window for la Maupin to meet d'Albert is some time in 1689. I have chosen to set this chapter in the first half of that year. Gilbert set the encounter in Villeperdue. I have no particular notion where he gets that setting from. I've been using it, nonetheless. (You'll find it widely cited on the web, but most got it from me and I got it from Gilbert).

So with that background, we find la Maupin on the run in late 1688 or early 1689. She arrives at an inn (given as the "Ecu-Neuf" by one source) in Villeperdue, where she encounters a small group of young nobles. Their leader is the 16 year old comte d'Albert. (Even if this happens later, at most he would be 18.) La Maupin and d'Albert rub each other the wrong way—there are various accounts of how this comes to be and I will have to choose one—and a duel ensues. In some versions she fights two of his underlings and then d'Albert. In others, it is just one on one. The fight ends with her running him through the shoulder. A couple of sources have him looking over his shoulder to see the point sticking out or pinning him to the wall.

That evening one of his companions informs her that this is the comte d'Albert, the son of the Duke of Luynes, (Luynes is about 20 miles to the north of Villeperdue). She goes to make peace with her victim and ends up nursing him back to health. They become lovers, but he gets called back to duty with the military. Presumably he is off to the battle of Fleurs. He purchases himself a captaincy in the service of the Dauphin, and makes a reputation for himself over the years. When he is not off fighting the wars, he and la Maupin resume their love affair, and he is her longest term lover. Neither of them is constitutionally inclined to monogamy, and he, like her, develops quite a reputation among the ladies. He does not, however, share her taste for men.

Besides being a military hero and a ladies' man, d'Albert is something of an author.  He was the student of Abbé Jean Pic, who had been Lulli's librettist. A couple of works supposedly translated from the Greek (but in reality probably original works) were published under his name, "Songe d'Alcibiade" and "Timandre instruit par son genie". Both are claimed by some to actually be the work of Pic.

His relationship to Abbé Pic raises one interesting possibility. La Maupin's career with the Opera of Paris comes in two long stretches, from 1690-95 and 1698-1705, with a gap during which she travels to Brussels and Spain. Her 1690 debut was very well received, but she was only in a couple of opera during the next 5 years, at least that we have records of—Didon in 1693 and les Saissons, in 1695. It is shortly after the latter that she gets involved with the duel outside the Pallais Royal, during Monsieur's ball, and leaves Paris quickly. The librettist of les Saissons is Abbé Pic, her lover's teacher. Could d'Albert helped her secure the role of Cérès?

The high spot in d'Albert's life during the course of the novel would be his heroism at the second siege of Namur. During the first, the French took the city of Namur. A couple of years later, the Allies moved to take it back. D'Albert's company was stationed at Namur, but d'Albert himself was in Paris. I suppose that's one of the advantages of spending 40,000 livre to buy a commission. Officers were somewhat expected to take it easy during off times. Word came that his company was under iege and d'Albert high-tailed to to Namur. He traveled incognito and took a boat to the outskirts of Namur, he then slipped into the river and with his sword clenched between his teeth swam across and entered the town. He led his company to victory and people were still talking about it a half-dozen years later when he hit his low point during the timeframe of the novel.

Early in 1701, as described in "The Downfall of d'Albert", d'Albert got into a duel over the affections of the marquise Luxembourg, and as a result spent two years in jail and lost his commission in the Dauphin's Dragons. As a result, he went with Marshall Villars to Brussels and there entered the service of the Elector of Bavaria. Initially, this resulted in a certain loss of status and separated him from la Maupin, but ultimately it lead him to posts as the Elector's Ambassador Extraordinaire to the Court of France, Master of the Horse and Field Marshall, and gained him the rank of prince, but all of that was after the close of our story.

When la Maupin was contemplating retiring and taking up te veil, she wrote to d'Albert to ask his advice. We have d'Albert's reply. In essence, he asked "How can you ask me to advise you on this, when it would put you beyond my reach. I have too vested an interested in the answer to advise you to follow your heart."