Comte d'Armagnac
Coat of Arms of Louis de Lorraine, Count d'Armagnac, Grand Écuyer de France.
La Maupin’s first recorded romantic liaison was as the mistress of “Monsieur le Grand”, the Grand Écuyer (Grand Squire or Master of Horse) of France, one of the seven Great Officers of the Crown of France. He was in charge of the Great Stable and those that worked there as well as the heralds, kings of arms and other ceremonial officers. Perhaps more importantly from our perspective, he was charged with the training of the pages, the young men on their way to being officers in the King’s army.
La Maupin’s father, generally believed to be named Gaston d’Aubigné, was the Count’s secretary, and so young Julie grew up in and around the Grand Stables, and le Manège, its school for the pages. This provides us with an explanation of how young Julie’s upbringing and education was so masculine in nature. Additionally, the Grand Stable was just across the plaza from Versailles, exposing her to the life at court, and men and women of power.
Portrait of Louis d'Lorraine, Comte d'Armagnac.
Grand Écuyer was an hereditary and life-long position. Comte d’Armagnac, Louis de Lorraine-Harcourt-Armagnac (1641-1718) held the title during La Maupin's entire lifetime. His titles include Comte d’Armagnac, Comte de Charny, Comte de Brionne, and Vicomte de Marsan. He was a knight of the Order of the King, seneschal of Bourgogne and governor of Anjou, and as well as Grand Écuyer. His wife was Catherine de Neufville, and he had 14 children, including Henry, the Count de Brionne; Prince Camille; Louis, the Bailiff of Lorraine; and Prince Charles, who succeeded his father as Comte d’Armagnac and Master of the Horse.
La Maupin’s involvement with d’Armagnac explains a lot about her life, but it also provides a 21st century author with substantial difficulties. We have no record of exactly when she became his mistress, but given the number of events that occur between then and her opera debut at the age of 17, she has to have been somewhere between almost fourteen and fifteen and a half and he’s 32 years older, about three times her age. Now, in the 17th century, she would have been regarded as an adult from the age of 14. The pages at l’Manège would become soldiers at that age, and d’Armagnac’s daughter was married at 14, a little before Julie became his mistress.
By modern standards, a 14-year-old is just a child, and d’Armagnac would be regarded as a pedophile. In the 17th century, he’s just a man of his day. Julie would not have been the woman she was if her father had not been d’Armagnac’s secretary, if she had not grown up around the Grand Stable, and if she hadn’t been the Count’s mistress. She would not be “La Maupin” if the Count hadn’t married her off to M. Maupin of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
This results in two major problems for the author: how the characters should behave, and how explicitly should any romance or sexuality be portrayed in the book as a whole. Julie d’Aubigné was bold and iconoclastic, and had an ongoing relationship with d’Armagnac. So, at the risk of over-romanticizing the times and their relationship, I decided to honor her agency by portraying the relationship as mutual rather than abusive. He pursues her, and she encourages him. She is eager and energetic and, as at least one source suggests, even a bit too much for him to handle. Still, she is young—a child by our standards and a very young woman by theirs, and so I have elected to keep the doors largely closed with regards to physical intimacy, not only in her relationship with him, but throughout her life, and the book.
This approach may disappoint readers of more than one stripe. Some may wish that I had done more to show the power inequalities inherent in their relationship and treated it as inappropriate and abusive. Conversely, others may wish that the book were “spicier”, more explicit. Either way, if you have feedback, be it supportive or critical of my approach, I am always interested. Just click on this link to send me an email, with a subject line mentioning “La Maupin feedback”. Please note: I will be building a La Maupin interest mailing list, and if you send me mail this way, I’m likely to add you.