Daughters of the House, Part 2...Make hay while the evening falls...gather the roses while ye may...
| Saturday, June 18, 2021
Dear guest,
Nights of June…balmy and light…and soon to be extremely short.
The long days swallow up the night. The timid stars, obscured by the last sheen of daylight in the evening sky, finally prick forth as midnight approaches.
As Victor Hugo wrote,
“Et l’aube, douce et pâle, en attendant son heure,
Semble toute la nuit errer au bas du ciel.”
And the dawn, sweet and pale, awaiting its hour,
Seems all night long to be wandering at the bottom of the sky.
Just a few weeks ago, the morning light still tiptoed across the floorboards at dawn. Now, it bursts through the curtains.
The brazen energy of these long days has the bees humming in the long grass and among the wild roses -- the églantier -- that blossom in the hedgerows. The elderberry is blooming, its white flowers ready to gather for flavoring cakes and making sirop de sureau. That is, if you have the time for such fantaisie as making gâteau and limonade. Our practical Norman countryside is occupied with la fenaison, making hay. All the day long and into the long evenings, the tractors ply the fields, cutting hay, raking it, rolling the bales.
“C’est juin qui fait les foins,» comments Madame Brigitte, looking out over the fields of fine golden-green stubble with a practiced eye. If we make hay in June, it’s also June that makes the hay. And this June has been unusually hot and summery – excellent for les foins. Heat raises the sugar content of the grass, and heat helps it to dry, stabilizing its nutrients. Madame Brigitte tugs open a crevice in a bale and pulls out a few strands of the green, elastic fodder.
Beyond the Temple, fresh-cut hay is stacked in the shed. Roses against the wall of the old stable yard.
She inhales deeply, passing me a few stalks so that I too may be satisfied with next winter’s rations for our cattle. “And,” she adds. “You’ll be able to sell some bales, too.”
* * *
Three hundred years ago in this season, another chatelaine was probably counting up her bales and calculating next winter’s forage, too.
At the ripe age of 24, Marie-Madeleine de Saint Rémy arrived at the Chateau as the bride of Guy Antoine de Saint Simon, Marquis of Courtomer. The following year found her expecting their first child and managing not only the extensive estate she had inherited from her father but a thousand acres of Courtomer lands. Her husband had joined his regiment near Paris.
Guy Antoine had not been intended for marriage. Like many a second son in the Norman nobility, he was expected to make his career in military service.
When he was five, a place was purchased for him in the Order of the Knights of Malta. At 19, he joined the royal court at Versailles, appointed to the garde de corps of Louis XIV’s grand-daughter. The newly-widowed Duchess of Berry was beautiful, headstrong and, like Guy Antoine, just 19. As hostess for her father, the Regent of France, she presided over his high-spirited inner circle. Her short life was a succession of scandals, from hard partying and gambling to her four posthumous pregnancies. Her bodyguards were expected to cover up her biggest gaffes – like the time, raide comme une planche (stiff as a board), she had to be smuggled back to the palace. They also tried to avoid being named as one of her amants.
The death of Guy Antoine’s childless older brother brought an abrupt change to these circumstances. He promptly resigned from the Knights of Malta – where a younger brother now took his place. Guy Antoine moved into his brother’s position as colonel of the Régiment de Soissonnais, founded in 1630 and one of the most prestigious units in the royal army. This post opened the way to high military honors and recompense.
At 30, he had no time to lose…and by the end of the year, on December 30, 1725, the new Marquis was married. Marie-Madeleine was the sole heiress of the Marquis de Cossé, a lineage as well-implanted and venerable in our region of Normandy as that of the Saint Simon family.
Madame la Marquise’s personal property included valuable forges, woodlands, mills, and farms, as well as the Saint-Rémy chateau of La Motte-Fouquet, in the vicinity west of Courtomer. Records of a long lawsuit concerning ownership of the family forges at Cossé and the bold claims of the encroaching Marquis de Rânes, her neighbor, reveal that the Marquise de Courtomer did not shrink from upholding her rights. Through numerous legal appeals, despite fires and untrustworthy tenants, she fought for and held onto this lucrative property.
This late 19th-century photograph shows the old fortified tower and enclosed external staircase of the chateau of La Motte-Fouquet, where Marie-Madeleine de Saint Rémy was born. Close to Courtomer at La Ferté-Macé, it can be visited.
Meanwhile, she and Guy Antoine welcomed a new member into the family every one or two years. Their last child was born in 1737, after Guy’s home-coming from the War of the Polish Succession. Despite this evidence of virile health, years of campaigning had taken a toll. Guy Antoine died in 1738, aged 42. Thirty high masses, recount our Archives, were said for the repose of his soul in all the churches of their extensive domains, from Courtomer and Brullemail to La Ferté-Macé and Saint-Julien-sur-Sarthe. Thousands of candles were purchased and lit, yards of black crêpe draped over doorways and windows, and “litres,” bands of black, painted on the walls of chapels and churches.
Widowed, Marie-Madeleine continued to manage the family and its property. The “assemblée de famille,” an assembly of relatives required by Ancien Régime law to protect surviving children and their property, chose her as guardian. The king awarded her “garde-noble,” which gave her authority over feudal rights and dues. These included providing and charging for justice in local courts, establishing a public school on seigneurial lands, and receiving fees for grinding flour in the seigneurial mills.
Young Antoine, the oldest son and now Marquis de Courtomer, was 12. He would soon be responsible for vast estates and revenues, and expected, as well, to serve the king at court and on the battlefield. For his education, she chose the prestigious Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris.
Two views of Louis-le-Grand in the "Grand Siècle" of Louis XIV.
Founded for boys of noble birth in 1563, the school marked a defining moment in French history. Cultural literacy and religious education were now to be as important for the French elite as training in the use of arms and other military skills. The school was run by the Jesuit order with the explicit aim of instilling Christian values, Catholic doctrine, and the mental habits of a Classical education in the sons of the French aristocracy.
By 1669, Colbert, the ambitious minister of Louis XIV, had also instituted courses in Turkish, Persian and Arabic…France and its noble elite were to stretch their influence out beyond Europe and through the gates of the Sublime Porte, the headquarters of the vast Ottoman Empire to the east. The great and the good sent their sons to Louis-le-Grand – Voltaire was a schoolfellow of our Antoine de Saint Simon.
His four years of education completed at Louis-le-Grand, young Antoine’s mother enrolled him in the Académie d’Angers. This was one of several “académies equestres,” implanted in France since the early days of the Renaissance, imbued with admiration for Italian humanism, court etiquette, and up-to-date military prowess. Here, a young nobleman perfected his talents in horsemanship, learning to master la pirouette and le piaffe. He learned to dance gracefully and to fence, and might also learn to sing, play an instrument, and draw. But he also studied mathematics, the art of fortification, languages, history, geography, cartography, anatomy and law. And he made lifelong friendships with other nobles of his age.
Equestrian ease on a prancing horse was a part of noble life, as shown in this portrait of Louis XIII and his queen, Anne of Austria, by Charles Le Brun.
The Académie d’Angers drew not only provincial nobles like Antoine de Saint Simon, but the scions of aristocracy across Europe. From the 17th century onwards, and especially under the dazzling Louis XIV and his magnificent court of Versailles, France was the center of learning and the arts, including those of diplomacy and war. The great veterans of the Thirty Years War and subsequent conflicts, the Duke of Buckingham, the sons of the Duke of Newcastle, the nephews of the King of Sweden, the Finnish field marshal Gustav Horn, Frederick von Pappenheim were among the alumni of Antoine’s alma mater. So, later on, was the Duke of Wellington!
Antoine de Saint Simon, Marquis de Courtomer, emerged from these intensive years of formation ready for military service to the king in the tradition of his father and their ancestors. He joined the mousquetaires du roi, then became capitaine de cuirassiers, a heavily-armed cavalry unit.
And, he was 23; it was time to marry.
Enterprising as ever, Marie-Madeleine set about to find “un bon parti,” a partner whose social and pecuniary situation would suit her ideas of matrimony.
“Tandis que vostre âge fleuronne
En sa plus verte nouveauté,
Cueillez, cueillez vostre jeunesse.”
While your age is in flower
At its greenest and in its newness,
Gather, harvest your youth, quoted Henry, who had been listening with a smile.
“Perhaps there is something even better than un bon parti, Maman,” remarked Viola. “As the poet Pierre de Ronsard might have said when he fell in love in 1545, one must make hay while the sun shines.
“Let’s go out and gather some roses!”
P.S. Inspired to have your own wedding at Chateau de Courtomer? Please write to Heather or Béatrice (both are bilingual in English and French), or, of course to me, at info@chateaudecourtomer.com. We look forward to hearing from you!
P.P.S. To listen to a modern version of Pierre de Ronsard's 16th-century love poem set to musics, Mignonne, allons voir si la Rose...("Sweetness, let us go see if the Rose...") click here.
A wild rose in the hedgerow along a pasture fence at Chateau de Courtomer.