La mujer en las anécdotas de Voltaire sobre Luis XIV

Abstract

In Le Siècle de Louis XIV and in Anecdotes sur Louis XIV, Voltaire deals with some episodes of the king’s private life. The female figure is a key element in Voltaire’s anecdotes since it is connected not only with the love life and home environment of the monarch, but also with the political scene of the time. In this way, Anne of Austria, Marie-Thérèse of Austria, Henrietta of England, Adélaïde of Savoy, Mademoiselle de La Vallière, Madame de Montespan, and Madame de Maintenon, among others, are close to Louis XIV at different moments of his life. As a historiographer, Voltaire is aware that his writing should be at the sovereign’s service. Thus, in his anecdotal accounts of Louis XIV, Voltaire portrays a king whose most remarkable feature lies in his power as an absolute monarch as much as in his feelings as a man.