Female Equestrian Culture in

France, 1600-1715

Valerio Zanetti St John’s College

April 2020

This thesis is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Declaration This thesis is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of

work done in collaboration except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text.

It is not substantially the same as any that I have submitted, or, is being concurrently

submitted for a degree or diploma or other qualification at the University of

Cambridge or any other University or similar institution except as declared in the

Preface and specified in the text. I further state that no substantial part of my thesis

has already been submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for any such degree,

diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University

or similar institution except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. It does

not exceed the prescribed word limit for the relevant Degree Committee.

Female Equestrian Culture in France, 1600-1715

Valerio Zanetti

Abstract

This dissertation investigates female equestrianism in France between 1600 and the

end of Louis XIV’s reign in 1715. The introduction situates the study of female

horseback riding within the scholarship on early modern women’s sport, elite

femininity and corporeal culture in seventeenth-century France. It also positions the

analysis of equestrian garments within current trends in fashion and dress history.

Chapter I examines definitions of female athleticism in medical and pedagogic

literature. It highlights how traditional humoral models of the body and conservative

views of women’s education gradually made space for new progressive

conceptualisations of the female ‘Amazonian’ athletic body. Chapter II starts by

reassessing the significance of equestrianism within French aristocratic culture,

emphasising its role as an elite medical practice. It then traces the development of

female horse-riding techniques in the seventeenth century. Chapter III explores the

social and political significance of female horse riding in seventeenth-century France

with reference to aristocratic women’s lives. The first part shows how, far from being

exclusively associated with hunting, riding was connected with crucial economic and

military functions. The second part focuses on the court of Louis XIV and highlights

how female horse riding moved beyond hunting conventions and established itself as

an independent athletic practice. Chapter IV explores the evolution of female riding

attire, revealing how liberating forms of dress were created to suit new spaces of

corporeal freedom. First, it examines the donning of riding breeches and the fashion

for a particular ‘Amazonian’ feather headdress in the mid-seventeenth century. It then

traces the emergence of a recognisable tailored outfit that represented the first

sporting uniform for women. The conclusion outlines how, by the turn of the

eighteenth century, the ‘Amazonian’ French horsewoman had been fashioned into a

powerful and influential ideal of athletic femininity.

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Acknowledgements I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor, Ulinka Rublack, for her invaluable guidance throughout my PhD. Her continuous encouragement to explore a variety of new and exciting research paths has not only shaped my doctoral project, but also moulded my identity as a historian and an academic. I am also grateful to Karen Harvey, whose teachings first sparked my fascination with the history of the body as a masters’ student and whose work continues to remain a source of inspiration. Special thanks are also owed to Evelyn Welch for her precious recommendations and generous encouragement. Many are the academics who have helped shape and improve my thesis with their thoughtful feedback. I am particularly indebted to Alessandro Arcangeli, Elizabeth Claire, Donna Landry, Mary Laven, Philip Mansel and Sarah Toulalan, who have read and commented on pieces of writing that are now part of my dissertation. For their stimulating conversations and valuable suggestions concerning various aspects of my research, I am deeply thankful to Fanny Cosandey, Mark Greengrass, Erin Griffey, Maria Hayward, Lauren Kassell, Shigehisa Kuriyama, Lyndal Roper, Guy Rowlands, Emma Spary and Giora Sternberg. During the course of my doctoral research, I enjoyed the privilege of collaborating with talented museum curators and conservators, to whose passion and expertise I owe a great deal. I am especially obliged to Ménéhould de Bazelaire du Chatelle and Guigone Rolland for their generous invitation to explore the equestrian wonders of the Collection Emile Hermès in Paris. I am most grateful to Sofia Nestor and Ann Hallström who warmly welcomed me at the Livrustkammaren in Stockholm and then guided my examination of saddles and paintings. I am also indebted to Annika Williams, curator at the Hallwyl Collection in Stockholm, for her enlightening observations on equestrian techniques in portraiture. Finally, my thanks go to the helpful staff at the Bibliothèque Mazarine in Paris. My experience as a PhD student at Cambridge would not have been as enriching without the presence of a vibrant community of fellow history students, whom I have come to admire as colleagues and cherish as friends. While it has been a pleasure to share this journey with many companions, I would like to express my special gratitude to Eleanor Barnett, Holly Fletcher, Abigail Gomulkiewicz, Kelly Rafey and Jessica Tearney-Pearce. The writing of this thesis would not have been possible without the constant help of my partner Jack, for whose priceless advice and patient assistance I could not be more grateful.

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I conclude by thanking my parents for their unwavering support throughout my education. I dedicate my historical musings on equestrianism to this couple of consummate riders who first instilled in me a healthy passion for sport and love of history.

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Table of Contents Declaration .................................................................................................................... iAbstract ........................................................................................................................ iiAcknowledgements ..................................................................................................... iiiList of Illustrations .................................................................................................... viiIntroduction ................................................................................................................. 1

Approaching Early Modern Female Athleticism ............................................................. 8Equestrian Culture and Elite Femininity ........................................................................ 14Female Equestrianism and the Court’s ‘Body Culture’ ................................................ 25Equestrian Uniforms and Court Sartorial Politics ........................................................ 34

Chapter I – Amazons in the Flesh: Defining the Female Athletic Body ............... 48I.1 The Medical Discourse ................................................................................................ 48

I.1-i Women’s Exercise in Girolamo Mercuriale’s De arte gymnastica ........................ 51I.1-ii Health Regimens .................................................................................................... 61I.1-iii Treatises on Women’s Health ............................................................................... 68

I.2 The Pedagogic Discourse ............................................................................................. 73I.2-i The Conservative View ........................................................................................... 75I.2-ii The Egalitarian View of François Poullain de La Barre ........................................ 86

I.3 The Amazon’s Body Theorised: François de Chassepol and Pierre Petit .............. 90Chapter II – The Amazonian Mount: Female Equestrian Techniques ................ 97

II.1 The Cultural Significance of Equestrianism ............................................................ 97II.1-i Equestrianism as Health Practice ......................................................................... 107

II.2 Historical Approaches to Female Equestrianism .................................................. 120II.2-i Reconstructing Seventeenth-Century Female Equestrian Techniques ................ 128II.2-ii Female Riders in Dutch Landscape Painting ...................................................... 142II.2-iii Claude Déruet’s Hunt of the Duchess Nicole .................................................... 154

Chapter III – The Noble Amazon: Female Equestrianism and Aristocratic Identity ...................................................................................................................... 165

III.1 The Aristocratic Horsewoman .............................................................................. 165III.1-i Female Equestrian Education and Aristocratic Leisure ..................................... 167III.1-ii Female Equestrian Practice and Aristocratic Duty ............................................ 179

III.2 The Courtly Horsewoman ...................................................................................... 188III.2-i Female Participants in Louis XIV’s Royal Hunts .............................................. 188III.2-ii Female Equestrian Exercise and the Duchess of Burgundy’s cavalcades des dames ............................................................................................................................ 208

Chapter IV – Fashioning the Amazon: Female Equestrian Attire ..................... 225IV.1 Female Riding Breeches ......................................................................................... 226IV.2 The Feather Panache .............................................................................................. 235IV.3 Female Equestrian Fashions at the Court of Louis XIV ..................................... 259

IV.3-i The Rise of the Male Equestrian Uniform ......................................................... 259IV.3-ii Ladies’ Equestrian équipages ........................................................................... 263

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IV.3-iii Female Equestrian Fashions in the Mercure galant ......................................... 283IV.3-iv Female Equestrian Fashions in ‘Fashion Portrait Prints’ ................................. 289IV.3-v The Duchess’ Cavalcades and the habit d’Amazone ......................................... 303

Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 316Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 324

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List of Illustrations Fig. 1: Mattäus Merian I, Equestrian portrait of Elizabeth of Bohemia, c. 1620. London, British Museum. Inv. 1905,0414.47 Fig. 2: Simon van de Passe, Equestrian portrait of Anne of Denmark, 1616. London, British Museum. Inv. 1848,0911.276 Fig. 3: Pirro Ligorio (engraving after), Oscella (Swing). Illustration from Girolamo Mercuriale, De arte gymnastica (Venice: Giunta, 1573), p. 164 Fig.4: Pirro Ligorio, Oscella (Swing). Stresa, Archivio Borromeo dell’Isola Bella. Fondo Autografi, Ligorio Pirro, Disegni originali Fig. 5: Jost Amman, Man and Woman Riding Pillion. Illustration for Marx Fugger von Kirchberg und Weißenhorn, Von der Gestutüteren (Frankfurt-am-Main: Sigmund Feyrabends, 1584), p. 60 Fig. 6: Pillion side-saddle. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Inv. 1993-31/950 Fig. 7: Saddle ‘à la Fermière’, France, 17th century. Collection Emile Hermès: EH-00-EQ-0-32 Fig. 8: The Cranborne Saddle, c. 1600-1800. Hatfield House, Inv. 5.00 Fig. 9: Albrecht Dürer, The Lady on Horseback and the Lansquenet, c. 1497. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Inv. 60.534.13 Fig. 10: Adriaen van de Venne, Frederick V of the Palatinate and Elizabeth Stuart on Horseback, 1626-1628. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Inv. SK-A-958 Figs 11a-b: Pierre de Garsault, Le Nouveau Parfait Maréchal, ou La connaissance générale et universelle du cheval (Paris, 1741), p. 140 and plate XI, fig. H Fig. 12: Philips Wouverman, Rest at a Stag Hunt (detail), 1665-1668. Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek, Inv. 150 Fig. 13: Philips Wouverman, Rest on the Way Back from the Hunt, 1647/1648. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, The Laing Art Gallery, Inv. TWCMS:G17023 Fig. 14: Aelbert Cuyp, Lady and Gentleman on Horseback, 1655-1665. Washington, National Gallery of Art, Inv. 1942.9.15

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Figs 15a-b: Jan Miel, Equestrian Portrait of Enrichetta Adelaide of Savoy and Ferdinand Maria of Wittelsbach, Elector of Bavaria (whole and detail), 1659-1661. Turin, Reggia di Venaria, Sala 16 Fig. 16: Daniel Mytens, Charles I and Henrietta Maria departing for the chase, 1630-1632. Royal Collection Trust, Inv. 4048771 Fig. 17: Pierre Daret, Equestrian portrait of Henrietta Maria of France, 1625-1630. Royal Collection Trust, Inv. 602051 Fig. 18: Woman’s saddle, France and Sweden, 1650. Stockholm, Livrustkammaren, Inv. 9000 (585:a) Fig. 19: Woman’s saddle, France and Sweden, 1650. Stockholm, Livrustkammaren, Inv. 9011 (3850) Fig. 20: Woman’s stirrup and strap, c. 1640. Stockholm, Livrustkammaren, Inv. 9034 (900) and 9034 (900:b) Fig. 21: Woman’s stirrup, c. 1650. Stockholm, Livrustkammaren, Inv. 3327 (3851) Figs 22a-b: Jan Wildens, September or The Hunt (whole and detail), c. 1615-1614. Genova, Musei di Strada Nuova, Inv. 280 Figs 23a-b: Jacob Matham, September, engraved after a drawing by Jan Wildens (whole and detail), 1614. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Inv. RP-P-OB-27.247 Fig. 24: Antonio Tempesta, Stag Hunt, 1609. Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, Inv. A. II. 115/23 Fig. 25: Antonio Tempesta, Boar Hunt and Falconry, 1609. Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, Inv. A. II. 115/27 Fig. 26: Peter Paul Rubens and Workshop, Wolf and Fox Hunt, 1616. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Inv. 10.73 Fig. 27: Philips Wouverman, A Stag Hunt. The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, Inv. 43843 Fig. 28: Philips Wouwerman, A Stag Hunt by a River (detail), first half of the 1660s. Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alter Meister, Inv. 1149 Figs 29a-b: Philips Wouwerman, A Stag Hunt (whole and detail). Sheffield, Graves Gallery, Inv. VIS.5130

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Fig. 30: Philips Wouwerman, A Stag Hunt. Painting auctioned by Sotheby’s in London on 9 December 2015, currently in a private collection Fig. 31: Nicholas Berchem, Wild boar hunt (detail), 1659. The Hague, Mauritshuis, Inv. 12 Fig. 32: Nicholas Berchem, Landscape with Deer Hunt (detail), c. 1670. Houston, The Museum of Fine Arts, Inv. 2001.81 Fig. 33: Nicolas Berchem and Jan Hackaert, A stag hunt in the forest, c. 1660. London, National Gallery, Inv. 829 Fig. 34: Jacques Bellange, Deer Hunt. Nancy, Musée Lorrain, Inv. 50.2.9 Fig. 35: Antonio Tempesta (attr.), Boar Hunt at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Inv. 1963.30.37250 Fig. 36: Claude Déruet, Allegory of Air or The Duchess’ Hunt, 1625-1642. Orléans, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Inv. 355 Fig. 37: Claude Déruet (attr.), Allegory of Air or The Duchess’ Hunt. Chartres, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Inv. 878 Fig. 38: Claude Déruet, Allegory of the Peace Treaty of the Pyrenees, 1659. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. 4234 Fig. 39: Claude Déruet, Three Goddesses and a Lady on Horseback. Nancy, Musée Lorrain, Inv. 5428 Fig. 40: Théodore van Egmont (attr.), Marie-Anne Mancini as a huntress, c. 1655. Alcudia, Mallorca, Fundación Yannick i Ben Jakober, Inv. 1281 Fig. 41: Pierre Daret, Equestrian portrait of Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans, 1652. Bibliothèque nationale de France: 8-H-7555 Fig. 42: Pierre Mignard (school of), The Hunt of the Grande Mademoiselle. Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Inv. 8172 Fig. 43: Claude Déruet, Equestrian portrait of Alberte-Barbe d’Ernécourt, 1645. Nancy, Musée Lorrain, Inv. 52.3.1 Fig. 44: Balthasar Moncornet, Equestrian portrait of Alberte-Barbe d’Ernécourt, 1645

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Fig. 45: Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Philis de La Charce, 1695. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 68, n. 5984 Fig. 46: Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of François Henri de Montmorency Duke of Luxembourg, c. 1690-1695. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 70, n. 6136 Fig. 47: Jean Le Blond, Louis XIV on horseback, with his governess and a falconer, c. 1642. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 36, n. 3200 Figs 48a-b: May. Saint-German (whole and detail). Tapestry produced by the Royal Manufactory from carton by Charles Lebrun. Saint Petersburg, Hermitage Museum, Inv. T-2953 Fig. 49: Adam Frans Van der Meulen, View of the Château of Vincennes with Louis XIV and Maria-Theresa, 1669. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. MV 4342 Fig. 50: Adam Frans Van der Meulen, View of the Château of Fontainebleau with Louis XIV and Maria-Theresa, 1669. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. MV 4343 Fig. 51: La Chasse Royale, c. 1661-1670. Royal Collection Trust, Inv. 617059 Fig. 52: Pierre Gobert, The Duchess of Burgundy in Hunting Dress, 1704. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. 6825 Fig. 53: Nicolaes Schurtz, Three Ladies on Horseback (detail). Illustration to Georg Simon Winter von Adlersflügel, Wohlberittener Cavallier (Nürenberg: Verlegt durch Wolfgang Moritz Endter und Johann Andreae Endters Sel. Erben, 1678), plate 104 Fig. 54: Antonio Tempesta, Stag Hunt. Painting auctioned by Farsettiarte in Prato on 28-30 October 2010, currently in a private collection Fig. 55: Antonio Tempesta, Hunting Scene, 1630. Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Inv. 2340 Fig. 56: Giuseppe Maria Mitelli, Proverbi figurati consecrati al Serenissimo Principe Francesco Maria di Toscana / Trista è quella casa dove la gallina canta e il gallo tace, 1678. London, The British Museum, Inv. 1872,1012.3837 Fig. 57: Crispijn van de Passe, ‘Figure de l’habit de chevalier à la Pluvinelle’. Engraving for Antoine de Pluvinel, Le Manège royal, 1623. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Est. KE-7-FOL

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Fig. 58: Ferdinand Elle the Elder, Portrait of Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans in hunting garb. Painting auctioned by Christie’s in Paris on 16 December 2009, currently preserved at the Château de Cadillac Fig. 59: Balthazar Moncornet (author) and Jean Sauvé (printer), Roe deer hunt, musée de la Vénerie de Senlis, Inv. D.V.2006.0.59.1 Fig. 60: Caspar Netscher (attr.), Portrait of Henrietta of England Duchess of Orléans, 1661-1670. Painting auctioned by Christie’s in London on 10 May 2005, currently in a private collection Fig. 61: Pierre Mignard (style of), Portrait of a Young Lady, c. 1660-1670. Barnard Castle, Bowes Museum, Inv. B.M.247 Fig. 62: Pierre Bourgouignon, Portrait of Anne-Marie-Louise of Orléans as Minerva. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. MV 3504 Fig. 63: Seventeenth-Century French School. Portrait of Anne de La Grange-Trianon, Countess of Frontenac as Minerva. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. MV 3508 Fig. 64: Charles Beaubrun (copy of), Portrait of Olympia Mancini as Amazon. Gripsholms Slott, Nationalmuseum, Inv. NMGrh 1173 Fig. 65: Henri and Charles Beaubrun (atelier of), Portrait of the Grande Mademoiselle as Amazon. Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Inv. P 2198 Fig. 66: Louise Hollandine of the Palatinate, Portrait of Sophia of the Palatinate as Amazon, 1644. Painting auctioned by Christie’s in London on 1 December 1994, currently in a private collection Fig. 67: Adriaen Hanneman, Portrait of Mary Princess of Orange as Amazon, c. 1655. Royal Collection Trust, Inv. RCIN 405877 Fig. 68: Henri and Charles Beaubrun (atelier of), Portrait of Anne Marie Louise of Orléans as Artemis. Painting auctioned by Artcurial in Paris on 10 October 2011, currently in a private collection Fig. 69: Pierre Mignard (circle of), Portrait of Françoise-Athénaïs de Montespan as Artemis. Painting auctioned by Christie’s in London on 10 April 2003, currently in a private collection Fig. 70: Henri and Charles Beaubrun (atelier of), Portrait of Anne Marie Louise of Orléans as Artemis. Painting auctioned by Millon in Paris on 11 December 2006, currently in a private collection

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Fig. 71: Louis Ferdinand Elle (attr.), Portrait of a young lady. Painting auctioned by Tajan in Paris on 26 June 2013, currently in a private collection Fig. 72: Pierre Mignard, Portrait of Françoise-Athénaïs de Montespan as Artemis. Painting auctioned by Bukowskis in Stockholm on 13 December 2016, currently in a private collection Fig. 73: Charles Dauphin, Equestrian portrait of Christine Charlotte de Fleury Marquess of San Giorgio and Emmanuel Filiberto of Savoy-Carignano, c. 1663. Turin, Reggia di Venaria, Sala 16 Fig. 74: Georges Tasnières after Charles Dauphin, Equestrian portrait of Princess Ludovica Maria of Savoy and Francesca Maria Cacherana Countess of Bagnasco. Illustration to Amedeo Cognengo di Castellamonte, Palazzo di Piacere, e di Caccia, Ideato dall’Altezza Reale di Carlo Emanuel II (Turin: Zapatta, 1674) Fig. 75: Jean Lepautre after Jean Bérain, Habit d’hiver (Winter outfit). Illustration to Extraordinaire du Mercure galant (January 1678) Fig. 76: Jean Lepautre after Jean Bérain, Habit d’hiver (Winter outfit). Illustration to Extraordinaire du Mercure galant (January 1678) Figs 77a-b: Joseph Werner the Younger, Portrait of a lady in hunting garb (whole and detail), 1662-1667. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. V.2018.15 Fig. 78: Joseph Werner the Younger, Portrait of Françoise-Athénaïs de Montespan, c. 1665. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. V.2015.10 Fig. 79: Charles Le Brun, Portrait of Louis XIV, c. 1655. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Inv. INV29874-recto Fig. 80: Jacob Ferdinand Voet, Portrait of a lady in riding garb, 1663-1678. Painting auctioned by Christie’s in Paris on 8 November 2005, currently in a private collection Fig. 81: Jacob Ferdinand Voet, Portrait of Maria Mancini, 1663-1678. Amsterdam, Rjiksmuseum, Inv. SK-A-3236 Fig. 82: Pierre Mignard / Joseph Parrocel (attr.), Equestrian portrait of the Duchess of Aumont, 1678-1682. Skokloster Museum, Inv. 3144 Fig. 83: Pierre Mignard / Joseph Parrocel (attr.), Equestrian portrait of the Marquise of Louvois, 1678-1682. Skokloster Museum, Inv. 3145

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Fig. 84: Pierre Mignard / Joseph Parrocel (attr.), Equestrian portrait of the Countess of Saint-Géran, 1678-1682. Skokloster Museum, Inv. 3150 Fig. 85: Pierre Mignard / Joseph Parrocel (attr.), Equestrian portrait of the Countess of Armagnac, 1678-1682. Skokloster Museum, Inv. 3149 Fig. 86: Pierre Mignard / Joseph Parrocel (attr.), Equestrian portrait of the Duchess of La Ferté, 1678-1682. Skokloster Museum, Inv. 3148 Fig. 87: Pierre Mignard / Joseph Parrocel (attr.), Equestrian portrait of the Duchess of Bouillon, 1678-1682. Skokloster Museum, Inv. 3146 Fig. 88: Pair of gloves, England, 1660-1680. London, Victoria & Albert Museum, Inv: T.229-1, 2-1994 Fig. 89: Pierre Mignard (copy of), Portrait of Madame de Montespan and her children, c. 1678. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. 8237 Fig. 90: French School, Portrait of Louis Auguste de Bourbon Duke of Maine, c. 1675. Château de Blois, Inv. 860.1.16 Fig. 91: Robert Bonnart, Fille de qualité en habit de chasse. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cabinet des Estampes, coll. Smith Lesouf, 49 (9479) Fig. 92: Robert Bonnart, Madame la marquise de Hautefeuille en habit de chasse. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cabinet des Estampes, Oa pet fol, f. 121a Fig. 93: Nicolas Bonnart, Dame en habit de chasse, c. 1680. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Inv. M.2002.57.14 Fig. 94: Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Françoise-Marie of Bourbon Duchess of Chartres, c. 1692-1695. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 100, n. 8651 Fig. 95: Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Louise-Françoise of Bourbon Duchess of Bourbon, c. 1692-1695. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 97, n. 8423 Fig. 96: Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Louise-Bénédicte de Bourbon Duchess of Maine, c. 1692-1695. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 101, n. 8742 Fig. 97: Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Marie-Thérèse of Bourbon-Condé Princess of Conti, c. 1692-1695. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 94, n. 8173

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Fig. 98: Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Anne-Marie of Orléans Duchess of Savoy, c. 1692-1695. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 92, n. 8062 Fig. 99: Robert Bonnart, Portrait of Marie of Lorraine Duchess of Valentinois in hunting garb, c. 1692-1695. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 70, n. 6173 Fig. 100: Nicolas Bazin, engraved portrait of Maria Theresa of Austria on horseback, 1682. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Inv. 44.1138 Fig. 101: Nicolas Bazin, Portrait of Elizabeth Charlotte Duchess of Orléans on horseback, 1682. Royal Collection Trust, Inv. RCIN 616074 Fig. 102: Nicolas Bazin, engraved portrait of Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria Dauphine of France on horseback, 1686. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 57, n. 5039 Fig. 103: Antoine Trouvain, Madame en habit de chasse, 1694. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 7921 Fig. 104: Antoine Trouvain, Mademoiselle de Loube, Fille d’honneur de madame, en habit de Chasse, c. 1695. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Inv. RP-P-2005-97 Fig. 105: Robert Bonnart, Portrait of François de Neufville Maréchal of Villeroy, 1696. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 93 n. 8100 Fig. 106: Jean Dieu de Saint-Jean, Lady of quality in hunting garb, 1695. Bibliothèque nationale de France, ARS EST-368 (215) Fig. 107: Pierre-Denis Martin, Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy Duchess of Burgundy hawking (detail), c. 1705. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. MV 5696 Fig. 108: Henri Bonnart, Europe, 1690-1700. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Inv. L67LR85 Fig. 109: Henri Bonnart, Africa, 1690-1700. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Inv. L67LR88 Fig. 110: Henri Bonnart, America, 1690-1700. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Inv. L67LR87 Fig. 111: Henri Bonnart, Asia, 1690-1700. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Inv. L67LR86 Fig. 112: ‘Patriotic Woman with a New Uniform’. Journal de la mode et du goût, ou Amusements du salon et de la toilette (25 August 1790), plate 2

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Introduction

‘If there is any difference between men and women, this has to be limited to the

exercise of war’ affirmed Madeleine de Scudéry in her collection of female heroic

harangues, published in 1642.1 Uttered by one of the many illustrious women brought

to life in the treatise, this declaration aptly summarised the state of the debate on

gender equality in mid-seventeenth-century France. 2 By this time, an increasing

number of feminist authors such as Mademoiselle de Scudéry (1607-1701) voiced

their conviction that women’s minds could be reformed and even achieve intellectual

perfection should they gain access to a well-rounded education.3 Thirty years later,

François Poullain de la Barre published his influential tract On the Equality of the

Sexes (1673).4 Adopting a scientific outlook on the matter, the Cartesian philosopher

and concluded that the ‘mind, working similarly in both sexes, is equally capable’.5

The same, however, could not be said for the body. Deeply entrenched beliefs in the

1 ‘… s’il y a quelque difference, entre les hommes & les femmes, ce doit estre seulement, pour les choses de la guerre’. Madeleine de Scudéry, Les femmes illustres ou les harangues héroïques (Paris: Chez Augustin Courbé, 1642), p. 426. All translations are mine, unless otherwise indicated. On Scudéry’s ‘feminism’ and her literary production as philosopher, poet and novelist, see Laura J. Burch, ‘Madeleine de Scudéry: Peur-on parler de femme philosophe?’, Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’ Étranger’ 203.3 (2013), pp. 361-375, Renate Kroll, ‘Poésie précieuse ou poésie des précieuses: Questions de genre et de gender’, in Delphine Denis and Anne-Élisabeth Spica (eds), Madeleine de Scudéry: Une femme de letter au XVIIe siècle. Actes du colloque international de Paris (28-30 June 2001) (Arras: Artois Presses Université, 2002), pp. 165-177 and Joan DeJean, ‘The Politics of Genre: Madeleine de Scudéry and the Rise of the French Novel’, L’Esprit Créateur 29.3 (1989), pp. 43-51, later incorporated in her monograph Tender Geographies: Women and the Origin of the Novel in France (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), esp. pp. 71-93. 2 The quote is taken from the volume’s final harangue ‘Sapho to Erinne’. 3 Elsa Dorlin, L’Évidence de l’égalité des sexes: Une philosophie oubliée du XVIIe siècle (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2001); Domna C. Stanton, The Dynamics of Gender in Early Modern France: Women Writ, Women Writing (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), p. 89-119. 4 Poullain de La Barre’s views on gender equality are discussed more extensively in Chapter I, pp. 86-90. 5 ‘… l’esprit n’agissant pas autrement dans un Sexe, que dans l’autre, il y est également capable des mémes choses’. François Poullain de La Barre, De l’égalité des deux sexes. Discours physique et moral où l’on voit l’importance de se défaire des préjugés (Paris: Chez Jean Du Puis, [1673] 1686), p. 100.

2

inherent corporeal weakness and instability of the female sex still prevented any

serious consideration of their engagement in military activities. Mademoiselle de

Scudéry herself thought it laughable that a woman should prove her worth on the

battlefield. 6 ‘I know better what are the limits of women’s noble courage

(générosité)’, she wrote in a letter from 1646, ‘and [I am] far from suggesting that

they should go to war; indeed I almost object that they should often talk about it’.7

Such attitudes certainly appear in contrast with the spirit of an age dominated

by powerful female rulers. The period between the middle of the sixteenth and the end

of the seventeenth century saw a quick succession of female sovereigns and regents

on various European thrones, thus sparking new intellectual debate about women’s

ability to take the reins of government and wage war.8 It was France, however, that

proved a particularly fertile ground for the development of a sophisticated discourse

on militant femininity. During the troubled years of the wars of religion (1562-1598)

and the civil unrest of the Fronde (1648-1653), three female regents held the reins of

government and a number of noblewomen took central stage in diplomatic affairs,

acting as spies, emissaries and military commanders.9 As a consequence of such

unprecedented visibility, aristocratic female involvement in the political arena

suffered a strong backlash during the reign of Louis XIV.10 On the other hand, these

6 Anne R. Larsen, Anne Marie de Schurman, Madeleine de Scudéry et les Lettres sur la Pucelle (1646), in Isabelle Brouard-Arends (ed.), Lectrices d’Ancien Régime (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2003), pp. 269-279. 7 ‘Je sçay mieux que cela jusques où doibt aller la générosité des femmes et bien loin de vouloir qu’elles aillent à la guerre, je ne trouve quasy pas bon qu’elles en parlent souvent’. Letter to Valentin Conrart dated 1 December 1646, in Ed. Barthelemy and R. Kerviler (eds), Un tournoi de trois poucelles en l’honneur de Jeanne d’Arc. Lettres inédites de Conrart, de Mlle de Scudéry et de Mlle de Moulin (Paris: Chez Alphonse Picard, 1878), p. 23. 8 Sharon L. Jansen, Debating Women, Politics and Power in Early Modern Europe (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) and Liza Hopkins, Women Who Would be Kings: Female Rulers of the Sixteenth Century (London: Vision Press; New York: St Martin’s Press, 1991). Focusing on artistic production on a European scale, see Annette Dixon, Women Who Ruled: Queens, Goddesses, Amazons in Renaissance and Baroque Art (London: Merrell Publishers, 2002). 9 Éliane Viennot, La France, les femmes et le pouvoir: Les résistances de la société (XVIIe–XVIIIe siècle) (Paris: Perrin, 2008), esp. pp. 50-58. 10 Sophie Vergnes, Les Frondeuses:Une révolte au feminin (1643-1661) (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2013).

3

circumstances generated a renewed wave of sentiment in favour of female militancy,

which found its most powerful expression in volumes that gathered exemplary

portraits of heroines from history as well as myth and biblical tales. These

publications abounded with examples of active femininity, which were saluted as

femmes fortes, strong women, and clad in classical garb as Amazons.11 Mademoiselle

de Scudéry’s own treatise found its place within this burgeoning literature, including a

discourse by the belligerent Queen Zenobia and proudly displaying the figure of an

armed female warriour on the frontispiece.12 Sylvie Steinberg discusses how this new

feminine prototype also became common currency amongst seventeenth-century

commentators to praise those famous noblewomen who exerted political agency

during the Fronde.13 Featuring prominently in various kinds of feminist discourse, the

Amazon truly became ‘the emblematic proof of the legitimacy of power exercised by

women’.14 Joan de Jean emphasises how, unlike the mythological model, the French

‘Neoclassical Amazon’ presented a model of heroism that was mostly solitary and

egocentric.15 Nevertheless, Natalie Zemon Davis points out, this imagery did not only

serve the purpose of validating the rule of aristocratic women, but could also ‘hint at

the possibility of a wider role of citizenship for women.’16

11 Bettina Baumgärtel and Silvia Neysters, Die Galerie der Starken Frauen: Regentinnen, Amazonen, Salondamen (Munich and Berlin: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1995). While Jacques Du Bosc’s La Femme héroïque (1645) provided the first example this type of publications, the genre is usually referred to using the name of Pierre Le Moyne’s La Gallerie des femmes fortes (1647). 12 Derval Conroy, ‘In the Beginning was the Image: Feminist Iconography and the Frontispiece in the 1640s’, Seventeenth-Century French Studies 23.1 (2001), pp. 27–42. 13 Sylvie Steinberg, ‘Le Mythe des Amazones et son utilisation politique à la Renaissance à la Fronde’, in Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier and Éliane Viennot (eds), Royaume de fémynie: Pouvoirs, contraintes, espaces de liberté des femmes, de la Renaissance à la Fronde (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1999), pp. 261-274. 14 Steinberg, ‘Le Mythe des Amazones’, p. 262. 15 Joan DeJean, ‘Amazone et femmes de lettres: pouvoirs politiques et littéraires à l’âge classique’, in Danielle Haase-Dubosc and Éliane Viennot (eds), Femmes et pouvoirs sous l’ancien régime (Paris: Rivages, 1991), pp. 153-171. 16 See chapter 5 ‘Women on Top’, in Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (London: Duckworth, 1975), pp. 124-151, quote at p. 144.

4

Alain Bertrand’s 2001 monograph charts Europe’s persisting fascination with

the Scythian tribe of women warriors discussed in classical texts. 17 While the

encomiastic use of Amazonian imagery was very much rooted in Renaissance and

medieval literary production, Éliane Viennot has shown how in the late sixteenth

century the traditional image of the female warrior underwent a softening makeover

and then became a truly pervasive presence across the French cultural landscape.18

Reaching beyond the perimeter of political publications, the figure of the Amazon

appeared as a literary trope to celebrate female heroism in seventeenth-century

novels.19 Amazons also acquired popularity in the visual and musical arts, becoming

favourite subjects for court pageants, plays and baroque operas.20 Frédérique Villemur

examines how they also emerged as an independent artistic theme, best exemplified

by the work of the Lorraine painter Claude Déruet.21 While idealised figures of

‘strong women’ were usually depicted standing in the guise of armed female soldiers,

Amazons were portrayed riding, thus establishing a connection between female

courage and the male noble art of horsemanship. Real-life rulers too started to be

17 Alain Bertrand, L’Archémythe des Amazones (Lille: Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2001). For a comprehensive and innovative overview of Amazonian imagery’s origins and development in the classical period, see Walter Duvall Penrose Jr., Postcolonial Amazons: Female Masculinity and Courage in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). 18 Éliane Viennot, ‘Les Amazones dans le débat sur la participation des femmes au pouvoir à la Renaissance’, in Guyonne Leduc (ed.), Réalité et représentations des amazones (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2008), pp. 113-130. On the figure of the Amazon and the medieval discourse on militant femininity, see Sophie Cassagnes-Broquet, Chevaleresses: Une chevalerie au féminin (Paris: Perrin, 2014), esp. pp. 136-153 19 See, for example, the Amazonian characterisation of the belligerent Queen Tomyris in Scudéry’s influential and voluminous novel Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus (1649-1653). Ian Maclean, Woman Triumphant: Feminism in French Literature 1610-1652 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), esp. pp. 64-87; Mark Bannister, Privileged Mortals: The French Heroic Novel, 1630-1660 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), esp. pp. 77-78. 20 Vincent Dorothée, ‘Femmes fortes et Amazones: Les figures féminines belliqueuses et les festivités princières au sein des échanges franco-lorrains (1580-1652)’, Le Verger – bouquet 6 (2014), pp. 1-16; Nathalie Rivère de Carles, ‘Acceptable Amazons? Female Warriors on the English and French Early Modern Stage’, Caliban French Journal of English Studies 27 (2010), pp. 203-217 and Andrea Garavaglia, Il mito delle amazzoni nell’opera barocca italiana (Milano: Edizioni Universitarie di Lettere Economia Diritto, 2015). 21 Frédérique Villemur, ‘De l’Air ! Les Amazones de Claude Deruet (1588-1560)’, in Leduc (ed.), Réalité et représentations des amazones, pp. 65-88.

5

depicted in the saddle, assuming poses that became increasingly typified, crystallised

and disseminated throughout Europe in the form of popular prints. Thus, for example,

the engraved portrait of Elizabeth of Bohemia by the Frankfurt-based artist Matthäus

Merian I closely resembles that of Anne of Denmark realised in England by Simon

van de Passe (figs 1-2). Maria de’ Medici’s likeness painted by Rubens to

commemorate the French victory at Jülich in 1622 constitutes the first example of a

female equestrian portrait of truly monumental proportions. 22 The fifty-year-old

regent is depicted mounting majestically cross-saddle, clad in a white dress

embroidered with gold fleurs-de-lys and a billowing golden cloak. Her proud head is

crowned with a classical-looking plumed helmet and she firmly holds a baton

signifying her military prowess.

Behind the armour and heroic trappings, however, these representations were

often disconnected from any notion of female physical strength. In her insightful

overview of gender dynamics in early modern France, Domna C. Stanton highlights

22 Otto von Simson, Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). Humanist, Maler und Diplomat (Mainz am Rhein: von Zabern, 1996), esp. pp. 229-285.

Fig. 1: Mattäus Merian I, Equestrian portrait of Elizabeth of Bohemia, c. 1620. London, British Museum. Inv. 1905,0414.47

Fig. 2: Simon van de Passe, Equestrian portrait of Anne of Denmark, 1616. London, British Museum. Inv. 1848,0911.276

Photo of ‘Mattäus Merian I, Equestrian portrait of Elizabeth of Bohemia’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: British Museum, London.

Photo of ‘Simon van de Passe, Equestrian portrait of Anne of Denmark’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: British Museum London.

6

this fundamental paradox and shows how the courage of the femme forte was widely

conceptualised as a virtue of the soul rather than the body.23 Joan De Jean similarly

questions the relationship between female acts of violence and artistic depictions of

violent women in early modern France.24 Both look at the widely influential treatise

The Gallery of Strong Women (1647), in which Pierre Le Moyne squarely placed the

‘armed and robust force’ as subordinate to the superior spiritual force that pervades

the femme forte.25 Female rulers such as Anne of Austria, to whom the work is

dedicated, are said to be moved by the highest type of goodness, which is ‘victorious

without weapons and conquering without violence’.26 In virtue of her piety, the Queen

Regent is able ‘without leaving her private cabinet, is able to win battles and conquer

cities all over Europe’.27 Thus the exceptional and potentially subversive Amazon

became recognisable in light of traditional feminine canons and was turned into a

universal model.

While Anne of Austria and Mademoiselle de Scudéry never entered the fray of

a battle, other seventeenth-century women did. Riding at the head of armed troops and

launching an attack, French noblewomen Alberte-Barbe de Saint-Baslemont (1607-

1660) and Philis de La Charce (1645-1703) could not but be described as Amazons in

the flesh.28 Throughout the seventeenth century, more and more French ladies earned

the same title on account of their equestrian prowess, shown not on the battlefield but

on the hunting ground. Focusing on visual and literary representations, scholarly

research has hitherto skirted the central question of establishing women’s real horse-

23 The term generosité established a direct connection with the idea of magnanimity and nobleness of character; courage (derivate of coeur ‘heart’), with its sanguine associations, was more liable to ambiguity as it could signify valiant bravery as well as reckless foolhardiness. See Stanton, The Dynamics of Gender, pp. 129-130. 24 Joan DeJean, ‘Violent Women and Violence against Women: Representing the “Strong” Woman in Early Modern France’ Signs 29.1 (2003), pp. 117-147. 25 ‘Cette Force armée & robuste’. ‘Preface’ in Pierre Le Moyne, La Galerie des femmes fortes (Paris: Chez Antoine de Sommaville, 1647), n. p. The volume was reedited five times in France and two Elzevier editions were also published in the Netherlands. 26 ‘… une bonté victorieuse sans armes, & conquerante sans violence’. Ibid., p. 17 27 ‘… sans sortir de son Cabinet, gaigne des batailles & prend des villes en toutes les parties de l’Europe’. Dedicatory Epistle ‘To The Queen Regent’. Ibid., n. p. 28 Their military exploits will be closely examined in Chapter III, pp. 179-188.

7

riding habits at this time. Steinberg does take into account the symbolic significance

of the Frondeuses’ equestrian feats, which – she contends – constituted a deliberate

and almost theatrical display (mise en scène) intended to generate wonder and

admiration.29 In so doing, they were emulating the behaviour and poses assumed by

military commanders and male courtiers, themselves striving to imitate the king.30

Such practices, and related representations, have been traditionally interpreted as a

temporary transgression invested with a fetishistic character akin to cross-dressing.31

Joseph Harris reveals that, while most references to Amazons responded to an

encomiastic intent, images of women on horseback also embodied concerns related to

female transvestism in seventeenth-century France. 32 This perspective echoes the

findings of various scholars who revealed a diffused sense of gender anxiety in

Europe at the time, especially directed at women, either real or fictional, who

appropriate male garb and attitudes in order to circumvent the limitations of their

inferior social status. 33 I do not challenge the notion that women’s exercise of

equestrian skill represented a breach into a sphere of physical activity that was widely

regarded as a ‘male preserve’.34 However, I believe that any attempt to examine such

activities exclusively as a transgressive performance would prove limiting, or even

misleading. Behind the ‘theatrical display of magnificence and physical prowess’

enacted by real-life horsewomen, lay a complex process of cultural self-fashioning

29 Steinberg, ‘Le Mythe des Amazones’, pp. 267-268. 30 Joël Cornette, Le Roi de guerre (Paris: Payot & Rivages, 1993), esp. pp. 177-207. 31 See the chapter ‘Fetish Envy’ in Marjorie B. Garber, Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety (New York and London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 118-27. 32 Joseph Harris, Hidden Agendas: cross-dressing in 17th-century France (Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2005), esp. pp. 62-66. 33 See Rudolf Dekker and Lotte van de Pol, The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989); Sylvie Steinberg, La Confusion des sexes: le travestissement de la Renaissance à la Révolution (Paris: Fayard, 2001) ; see also Femmes travesties: un “mauvais genre”, special issue of Clio. Histoire, femmes et sociétés 10 (1999) edited by Christine Bard and Nicole Pellegrin. 34 More generally on the idea of sport as ‘male preserve’, see Eric Dunning, ‘Sport as a Male Preserve: Notes on the Social Sources of Masculine Identity and its Transformations’, in Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning, Quest for Excitement (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), pp. 267-283.

8

and corporeal training.35 Laden with powerful symbolic meaning, equestrian practices

were also – and most importantly – a form of athleticism and a powerful statement of

the strength of the female body and mind, which proved able to rival those of men.

Finally reconciling actual practices with theoretical formulations and artistic

representations of ‘strong women’, the present dissertation offers an original

contribution to the scholarship on the seventeenth-century querelle des femmes by

investigating its corporeal side.36 Looking at female equestrianism between the start

of the seventeenth century to the end of Louis XIV’s reign, it also constitutes the first

historical study of women’s physical exercise in early modern France.

Approaching Early Modern Female Athleticism Since the late 1970s, an ever-increasing number of scholarly publications have

investigated the key role athletic activity played – and still plays – in the struggle for

female emancipation all over the world.37 Recent studies explore a great variety of

contemporary practices from across the globe, considering gender together with race

and class.38 In comparison, historical studies of women’s sport prior to the twentieth

century appear still very limited in their chronological and geographical scope. Since

the appearance of a few seminal works in late 1980s, great attention has been placed

35 ‘la mise en scène de la magnificence et aussi de la prouesse physique’. Steinberg, ‘Le Mythe des Amazones’, p. 267. 36 On the extension of the querelle des femmes from the Renaissance to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, see Danielle Haase-Dubosc and Marie-Élisabeth Henneau (eds), Revisiter la ‘querelle des femmes’: Discours sur l’égalité/inégalité des sexes, des 1600 à 1750 (Saint-Étienne: Publications de l’Université de Saint-Étienne, 2013).37 For a comprehensive review of gender in sports studies, see Susan J. Bandy, ‘Gender’, in S.W. Pope and John Nauright (eds), The Routledge Companion to Sports History (London and New York: Routledge, 2010), pp. 129-145. 38 Amongst most recent publications on women and sport, figure titles such as Gyozo Molnar, Sara N. Amin and Yoko Kanemasu (eds), Women, Sport and Exercise in the Asia-Pacific Region: Domination, Resistance, Accomodation (London and New York: Routledge, 2018); Aarti Ratna and Samaya F. Samie (eds), Race, Gender and Sport: The Politics of Ethnic ‘Other’ Girls and Women (London and New York: Routledge, 2017) and Gudrun Doll-Tepper, Katrin Koenen and Richard Bailey (eds), Sport, Education and Social Policy: The state of the social sciences of sport (London and New York: Routledge, 2016).

9

on the popularisation of sport in nineteenth-century England and United States.39

More recently, Sue Macy’s cultural history of the bicycle showed how the

unprecedented increase in corporeal mobility that accompanied the widespread

adoption proved crucial to the emergence of the so-called New Woman at the turn of

the twentieth century. 40 Betty Spears’ 1983 article on women’s sport in ancient

Greece inaugurated the lively research into female athleticism in classical times.41

Comparatively little attention has been placed on women’s sporting activities in early

modern Europe. Embracing the thesis expressed by Thomas David Boslooper and

Marcia Hayes in the 1973 volume The Femininity Game, Spears emphasised how

women had been systematically excluded from active participation in sports since

medieval times, occupying marginal positions selected for them by men.42

To a certain extent, this limited perspective reflects the relative neglect of the

early modern period within sport history more generally. In their introduction to the

2017 volume Physical Exercise in Early Modern Culture, editors Angela Schattner

and Rebecca von Mallinckrodt argue that this gap constitutes a long-lasting effect of

influential theoretical stances taken by pioneer scholars in the field.43 Most notably

39 See the seminal studies by James A. Mangan and Roberta J. Park (eds), From Fair Sex to Feminism: Sport and the Socialization of Women in the Industrial and Post-Industrial Eras (London: Frank Cass, 1987) and Catriona M. Parratt, ‘Athletic “Womanhood”: Exploring Sources for Female Sport in Victorian and Edwardian England, Journal of Sport History 16.2 (1989), pp. 140-157; Roberta J. Park, ‘Sport, Gender, and Society in a Transatlantic Victorian Perspective’, in James A. Mangan and Patricia Vertinsky (eds), Gender, Sport, Science: Selected Writings of Roberta J. Park (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), pp. 69-101. 40 Sue Macy, Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2011). More generally on mobility, see Wendy Parkins, ‘Moving Dangerously: Mobility and the Modern Woman’, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 20 (2001), pp. 77-92. 41 Betty Spears, ‘A Perspective of the History of Women’s Sport in Ancient Greece’, Journal of Sport History 11.2 (1984), pp. 32-47. Major publications on sport in classical Greek and Rome include a dedicated section to women, see Mark Golden, Sport and Society in Ancient Greece (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 104-140; Stephen G. Miller, Greek Athletics (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), pp. 150-159 and Nigel B. Crowther, Sport in Ancient Times (Wesport, CT and London: Praeger, 2007), pp. 146-153. 42 Betty Spears, ‘Prologue: the myth’, in Carole A. Oglesby (ed.), Women and Sport: From Myth to Reality (Philadelphia: Lea and Febiger, 1978), pp. 3-15; Thomas David Boslooper and Marcia Hayes, The Femininity Game (New York: Stein and Day, 1973). 43 Rebecca von Mallinckrodt and Angela Schattner, ‘Introduction’ in Rebecca von Mallinckrodt and Angela Schattner (eds), in Physical Exercise in Early Modern Culture: New

10

amongst them, Allen Guttmann frames the subject matter of his work within the

process of modernisation that took place between the late eighteenth and the twentieth

centuries.44 This paradigm has been challenged by Arnd Krüger, John McClelland and

John Marshall Carter, whose theoretical formulations opened the way to a new wave

in sport studies that focused on, or at least included, the early modern period.45 In

these studies, however, women remain systematically ignored or at best relegated to

the role of audience in occasion of tournaments and public games.46 Only a handful of

athletic women are discussed, briefly, and employing the tones of the extraordinary.47

On the whole, as Jean-Michel Mehl rather plainly puts it, ‘sporting games, with few

exceptions, do not concern them’.48

In light of women’s formal exclusion from organised athletic activities,

Roberta J. Park acknowledged in 1994, historians are faced with the challenge to

‘search through a great many obscure sources’ to gather a few examples of female

Perspectives on the History of Sports and Motion (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), esp. pp. 2-3. 44 See Allen Guttmann, From Ritual to Record: The Nature of Modern Sports (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978). Guttmann has more recently reaffirmed his theory in the volume Sports: The First Five Millennia (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004), esp. pp. 68-76. His argument has been picked up and developed in current sports historiography, see Christiane Eisenberg, ‘Towards a New History of European Sport?’, European Review 19.1 (2011), pp. 617-622 and Stefan Szymanski, ‘A Theory of the Evolution of Modern Sport’, Journal of Sport History 35.1 (2008), pp. 1-32. 45 Pioneering works in this direction have been: Arnd Krüger and John McClelland, Die Anfänge des modernes Sports in der Renaissance (London: Arena Publications, 1984) and John Marshall Carter and Arnd Krüger (eds), Ritual and Record: Sports Records and Quantification in Pre-Modern Societies (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1990). See also John McClelland, Body and Mind: Sport in Europe from the Roman Empire to the Renaissance (London: Routledge, 2006) and John McClelland and Brian Merrilees (eds), Sport and culture in early modern Europe (Toronto: Centre for the Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2010). 46 McClelland, Body and Mind, p. 120 47 Particularly discussed is the appearance in 1427 of a Belgian tennis player by the name of Margot which captured the attention of the Parisian crowds; see McClelland, Body and Mind, pp. 43, 124 and Jean-Michel Mehl, Les jeux au royaume de France du XIIIe au début du XVIe siècle (Paris: Fayard, 1990), p. 126. 48 ‘Les jeux sportifs, sauf exceptions, ne les concernent pas’. Mehl, Les jeux au royaume de France, p. 216.

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participation in male leisure activities prior to the late 1800s.49 In order to fully

appraise athleticism in the early modern period, Rebecca von Mallinckrodt argues, the

sports paradigm should be conceptually shifted from the stricter sense of games such

as pall-mall or football, regulated by codes and rules, to the broader definition of

exercise. 50 As he traces the emergence of a distinctly European leisure culture

between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, Alessandro Arcangeli defines

exercise from other kinds of body movements for being undertaken consciously,

vigorously, and in pursuit of pleasure or psychophysical wellbeing.51 Thanks to this

radical change of perspective, Arcangeli has been able to approach early modern

women’s dancing as medical practice as well as leisure pursuit.52 Their involvement

in any other types of exercise, however, has not been considered. Two recent essays,

by Arcangeli and by Wolfgang Behringer, both gather examples of female

participation in a variety of athletic activities between the sixteenth and the eighteenth

centuries.53 Looking at an eclectic body of sources ranging from medical tracts to

memoirs and popular engravings, both scholars highlight marked discrepancies

between strict prescriptions and more liberal practices across Europe. Covering an

ambitious chronological and geographical scope, both accounts provide broad

49 Roberta J. Park, ‘From “Genteel Diversions” to “Bruising Peg”: Active Pastimes, Exercise, and Sports for Females in Late 17th- and 18th- Century Europe’, in D. Margaret Costa and Sharon R. Guthrie, Women and Sport: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1994), pp. 27-43, quote at p. 30. 50 Rebecca von Mallinckrodt, ‘Bewegte Geschichte: Plädoyer für eine verstärkte Integration und konzeptuelle Erweiterung der Sportgeschichte in der frühneuzeitlichen Geschichtswissenschaft’, Historische Anthropologie 12.1 (2004), pp. 134-139 and the introduction to Rebecca von Mallinckrodt (ed.), Körpertechniken in der Frühen Neuzeit (Wolfenbüttel: Herzog August Bibliothek, 2008), pp. 1-14. 51 Alessandro Arcangeli, Recreation in the Renaissance: Attitudes towards Leisure and Pastimes in European Culture, c. 1425-1675 (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p. 20. 52 Ibid., pp. 93-100 and Alessandro Arcangeli, ‘Dance and Health: The Renaissance Phisicians’ View’, Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research 18.1 (2000), pp. 3-30. Arcangeli’s study of early modern dance were originally published in Italian as Davide o Salomè? Il dibattito sulla danza nella prima età moderna (Treviso: Fondazione Benetton; Rome: Viella, 2000). 53 Alessandro Arcangeli, ‘Exercise for Women’, in Von Mallinckrodt and Schattner (eds), Physical Exercise in Early Modern Culture, pp. 147–163 and the chapter ‘Frauensport in der Frühen Neuzeit’ in Wolfgang Behringer, Kulturgeschichte des Sports: Vom antiken Olympia bis zur Gegenwart (Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 2012), pp. 169–173.

12

overviews that open the way for focused studies investigating the significance of

different types of exercise within specific contexts. The present study of female

equestrianism in seventeenth-century France, therefore, constitutes a first contribution

to a new strand of research that will shed light on early modern women’s athletic

practices across Europe.

In order to situate my study of women’s horseback riding as physical exercise,

the opening chapter of my thesis examines definitions of the female athletic body in

contemporary medical and pedagogic discourse. As one of the six non-natural factors

that regulated a person’s complexion, exercise was widely discussed in early modern

health regimens. In spite of their significance, such publications have rarely been

approached systematically as sources for historical enquiry. Marylin Nicoud has

traced the origin and diffusion of this genre in the Middle Ages.54 In their 2013

volume focusing on late Renaissance Italy, Sandra Cavallo and Tessa Storey proved

how a careful reading of regimens was crucial to shed light on a variety of

contemporary health-related practices.55 With regards to exercise, they emphasise that

gentle exercise became increasingly associated with a new ideal of genteel living

among the leisured classes. 56 Noting that the female body only ‘makes a rare

appearance’, the authors list a few examples of prescriptions for women, whose

apparent contradictions remain however unexplained.57 At the start of my study,

therefore, I discuss the ambiguous status of female exercise within Galenic medicine.

I do so by offering an original reading of Girolamo Mercuriale’s De arte gymnastica.

First published in 1569, this treatise remained the reference publication on medical

exercise between in late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. While a recent

collection of studies edited by Alessandro Arcangeli and Vivian Nutton sheds new

light on this influential work and its author, I provide the first comprehensive analysis

of Mercuriale’s pronouncements on women’s practices. I then embark on an

54 Marylin Nicoud, Les Régimes de santé au Moyen Âge. Naissance et diffusion d’une écriture médicale, XIIIe-XVe siècle (Rome: École française de Rome, 2007). 55 Sandra Cavallo and Tessa Storey, Healthy Living in Late Renaissance Italy (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). 56 Ibid., pp. 145-178 57 Ibid., pp. 153-154.

13

inspection of seventeenth-century French health regimens, written in both Latin and

vernacular, examining prescriptions concerning female exercise. In my attempt to

establish medical views of women’s athleticism, I also turn towards seventeenth-

century French treatises specifically dedicated to female health. Examining these

texts, Evelyne Berriot-Salvadore argues that the humoral definition of woman as an

‘imperfect man’ made space for an anatomical discourse that placed greater emphasis

on the debilitating effects of her reproductive organs.58 My analysis reveals the role

played by exercise in maintaining the body healthy in the various stages of a woman’s

reproductive lifecycle. In the second section of the first chapter, I consider how

medical beliefs concerning female athleticism permeated contemporary French

pedagogic literature on women’s education. In her 2014 volume investigating The

Dynamics of Gender in Early Modern France, Domna C. Stanton examines both

conservative and progressive publications in light of the debate on intellectual

equality between the sexes.59 I, on the other hand, scrutinise these texts in order to

establish the place occupied by the body and bodily education in the seventeenth-

century querelle des femmes.

In the conclusion of an essay on seventeenth-century athletic culture, Georges

Vigarello suggests that more liberal attitudes towards athletic practices accompanied

major changes in anatomical beliefs around the turn of the eighteenth century.60 As

French medical authorities began to question the veracity of Galenism in favour of

models of the human body based on fibres and nerves, Vigarello argues, exercise

became a key element to the preservation of good health, as it performed the vital

function of strengthening fibres, thus shaping the body ‘from the inside’.61 Vigarello’s

58 Evelyne Berriot-Salvadore, ‘De l’ornement et du gouvernement des dames: esthétique et hygiène dans les traités médicaux des XVIe et XVIIe siècles’, in Cathy McClive and Nicole Pellegrin (eds), Femmes en fleurs, femmes en corps: Sang, Santé, Sexualité, du Moyen Âge aux Lumières (Saint-Etienne: Publications de l’Université de Saint-Etienne, 2010), pp. 37-58. 59 See the chapter ‘The Female Mind Reformed: Pedagogical Counter-Discourses, Radical and Regressive, Under Louis XIV’, in Stanton, The Dynamics of Gender, pp. 89-109. 60 Georges Vigarello, ‘S’exercer, jouer’, in Alain Corbin, Jean-Jacques Courtine and Georges Vigarello (eds), Histoire du corps, vol. 1: De la Renaissance aux Lumières (Paris: Seuil, 2005), pp. 247-317. 61 Ibid., pp. 306-307.

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theory of a dramatic shift in athletic attitudes towards the end of the seventeenth

century, though compelling, needs to be strengthen by establishing solid connections

between the elite practices he examines and contemporary medical literature. I thus

conclude my chapter by examining a unique discussion of women’s exercise by the

physician Pierre Petit. Still firmly rooted within a humoral framework, his 1685 De

Amazonibus dissertatio presented an erudite and convincing study of female body

strength that recognised its ability to improve with training and rival men’s.

Equestrian Culture and Elite Femininity After establishing contemporary views of women’s athleticism in general, the second

chapter of my thesis begins the study of women’s horseback riding. In his three-

volume cultural history of horsemanship, Daniel Roche compellingly discusses how

the art of equitation constituted a pillar of French aristocratic culture during the early

modern period.62 Indeed, riding played an essential part in the constant performance

of a specific lifestyle (vivre noblement) that distinguished the premier état and

consolidated its privileges. The crucial importance of this exercise derived from its

close connection with war and the ‘profession of arms’ (métier des armes), which had

long been the raison d’être of the nobility and still represented the most suitable

career for scions of prestigious families.63 The very act of taming and training a horse,

moreover, reflected the gentleman’s accomplished mastery over his own passions and

his ability to control and guide his social inferiors. Equestrian training, therefore,

played a key in the formation of a young nobleman. While Mark Motley discusses

wealthy family’s habit to engage a riding master, Corinne Doucet charts the diffusion

of fashionable academies in the seventeenth century.64 Kate Van Orden’s research

62 See especially the chapter ‘La distinction équestre: de la noblesse aux notables’ in Daniel Roche, La Culture équestre de l’Occident, xvie-xixe siècle: L’ombre du cheval, vol. 2: La gloire et la puissance. Essai sur la distinction équestre (Paris: Fayard, 2011), pp. 15-50. 63 See the chapter ‘The profession of arms’ in Jonathan Dewald, Aristocratic Experience and the Origins of Modern Culture: France, 1570-1715 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 46-68. 64 Mark Motley, Becoming a French Aristocrat: The Education of the Court Nobility, 1580-1715, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), p. 140 and Corinne Doucet, ‘Les

15

examines how the ballet équestre emerged as a sophisticated exercise to showcase the

elite rider’s knowledge of up-to-date riding techniques.65 Amongst the aristocracy,

however, hunting represented a fundamental leisure pursuit that united regular

exercise in the saddle with the development of other desirable intellectual and moral

qualities. The entangled meanings and evolution of cynegetic practices in Ancien

Régime France are carefully considered in Philippe Salvadori’s 1996 monograph.66

In the opening section of my second chapter, I survey seventeenth-century

definitions of riding and hunting, highlighting their specific role as medical exercise

fit to mould the elite body and spirit. In so doing, I draw original connections between

seventeenth-century equestrian manuals, cynegetic treatises and health regimens. I

then move on to consider the place of women in the aristocratic culture of equestrian

leisure. In his extensive publication, Daniel Roche only dedicates a mere ten pages to

female equestrian practices. Echoing concerns expressed by historians of sport, the

author emphasizes how women’s exclusion from early modern prescriptive literature

has made it difficult to establish the evolution of female riding techniques.67 On the

other hand, Roche points out, early modern accounts bear witness to elite, and

especially royal, women’s activities in the saddle. A long-lasting and diffused

fascination with princely horsewomen and huntresses has given rise to a number of

pioneering attempts to trace the evolution of female riding techniques, all penned by

equestrian practitioners and amateurs rather than professional historians. Lida

Fleitmann Bloodgood’s 1959 The Saddle of Queens as well as Rosamund Owen’s The

art of the side-saddle and Gillian Newsum’s Women and Horses, both published in

the 1980s, provide broad historical narratives that are largely based on a series of

académies équestres et l’éducation de la noblesse (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle)’, Revue historique 4 (2003), pp. 817-836. 65 See the chapter ‘“Dresser L’Homme”: The Ballet à Cheval’, in Kate Van Orden, Music, Discipline and Arms in Early Modern France (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004), pp. 235-284. 66 Philippe Salvadori, La chasse sous l’Ancien Regime (Paris: Fayard, 1996). 67 See the section ‘Des amazones antiques à l’amazone moderne’, in Roche La culture équestre occidentale, vol. 3: Connaissance et passion (Paris: Fayard, 2015), pp. 205-15.

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compelling anecdotes. 68 In 2007, Catherine Tourre-Malen provided a historical

account in which the author identifies three progressive stages leading up to the

popularisation of female equestrian sports in the nineteenth and twentieth century.69

This classification, however, appears limiting insofar as it simply presents the early

modern period as an intermediary phase between a passive utilisation of the horse and

a modern and empowered riding style. An essay within the 2016 French volume

Cavalières Amazones, edited by Isabelle Veauvy, Adélaïde de Savray and Isabelle de

Ponton d’Amécourt offers a more nuanced historical perspective covering the period

between the Renaissance and the eighteenth century.70 For the first time, the authors

accompany their analysis of traditional written accounts with few references to visual

and material documents. The broad scope of the narrative, however, does not allow

for a deep engagement with these new sources and leaves little space for investigating

practices within specific contexts.

Historical scholarship on medieval and early modern women’s hunting

followed the same evolution patterns that characterised studies of female

equestrianism and female sport more generally. Excluded from prescriptive texts,

women are not mentioned in John Cumming’s 1988 monograph on medieval hunting

or Salvadori’s 1993 publication focusing on early modern France.71 Published in

2003, Richard Almond’s cultural history of medieval hunting included a pioneering

68 Lida Fleitmann Bloodgood, The Saddle of Queens: the story of the side-saddle (London: J. A. Allen, 1959), esp. pp. 8-27 Rosamund Owen, The art of side-saddle: History, Showing, Etiquette (Saltmarsh: Trematon, 1984), esp. pp. 8-27 and Gillian Newsum, Women and Horses (London: The Sportman’s Press, 1988), esp. pp. 11-28. 69 Catherine Tourre-Malen, ‘Des amazones aux cavalières: avatar d’un loisir féminin’, in Daniel Roche and Daniel Reytier (eds), À cheval! Écuyers, amazones & cavaliers du XVIe au XXe siècle (Paris: Association pour l’académie d’art équestre de Versailles, 2007), pp. 225-241. Catherine Tourre-Malen, Femmes à cheval: La féminisation des sport et des loisirs équestres: une avancée? (Paris: Belin, 2006). 70 See the chapter ‘Galantes Amazones: De la Renaissance au XVIIIe siècle’, in Isabelle Veauvy, Adélaïde de Savray, Isabelle de Ponton d’Amécourt (eds), Cavalières Amazones: Une histoire singulière (Paris: Swan, 2016), pp. 57-100. 71 John Cummins, The Hound and the Hawk: The Art of Medieval Hunting (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1988).

17

account of female practices examined through a careful survey of visual sources.72 In

2006, the Musée de la Vénerie in Senlis dedicated a special exhibition to the history

of women’s hunting. Though short, the catalogue that accompanied the display

provided a good example of a broader historical narrative built on a balanced and

consistent dialogue between image and text.73 In 2009, Almond expanded his research

of female practices into the first study entirely dedicated to the figure of the huntress

in Europe between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.74 As a way to gain few

precious cues as to women’s cynegetic education and activities, Almond emphasised

the necessity to subject to analytical and systematic scrutiny a vast body of visual

representations that had hitherto been employed for illustrative ends. Amanda

Richardson’s 2012 article focusing on medieval elite practices similarly stresses the

necessity to adopt an interdisciplinary and contextual perspective that combines

material culture, archaeological and spatial theory alongside documentary sources.75

Recent studies by Simon Adams and Mareike Böth, focusing respectively on Queen

Elizabeth I and Elizabeth-Charlotte d’Orléans, have also provided excellent examples

of how insightful and systematic engagement with textual sources can turn once-

anecdotal biographical narratives into solid historical studies with the potential to

shed light on women’s practices more generally.76

Building on this approach, my own historical study of seventeenth-century

equestrian techniques relies on the integration of various types of sources, paying

particular attention to the heuristic value of visual and material culture.77 In particular

72 See the chapter ‘Medieval Dianas’ in Richard Almond, Medieval Hunting (Stroud: The History Press, 2003), pp. 143-166. 73 Cinq siècles de vénerie féminine: sportive, légère et élégante (Paris: Somogy, 2006). 74 Richard Almond, Daughters of Artemis: The Huntress in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2009). 75 Amanda Richardson, ‘“Riding like Alexander, Hunting like Diana”, Gendered aspects of the Medieval Hunt and its Landscape Settings’, Gender and History 24.2 (2012), pp. 253-270. 76 Mareike Böth, Erzählweisen des Selbst: Körperpraktiken in den Briefen Liselottes von der Pfalz (1652-1722) (Köln: Bölau, 2015), pp. 205-221; Simon Adams, ‘“The Queens Majestie … is now become a great huntress”: Elizabeth I and the Chase’, The Court Historian 18.2 (2013), pp. 143-164. 77 For an excellent overview of the uses of material culture in historical research, see Karen Harvey (ed.), History and Material Culture: A Student’s Guide to Approaching Alternative Sources (London and New York: Routledge, 2009).

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I test new insights gathered from textual evidence against the close reading of rare

extant saddles from the period. Spurred by Almond’s call for a more systematic and

inquisitive engagement with images, I propose an original approach to seventeenth-

century visual culture to gain precious insight into women’s equestrian practices. In

his 1989 monograph on horsemanship and the arts, Walter Liedtke limits his

investigation of female riders to the passing examination of two equestrian likenesses

of seventeenth-century queens.78 Observing that ‘[t]hese women, riding side-saddle

on slow-stepping mounts, seem more at ease as a group than the men on their less

subdued horses’ the author concludes that ‘in art as in life, riding like a man was not

expected of a lady’.79 Examining Christina of Sweden’s equestrian portrait painted by

Sébastien Bourdon around 1652, Diane H. Bodart claims that this constitutes the first

realistic depiction of a woman as an accomplished rider.80 By shifting the focus of my

research towards hunting scenes rather than official portraiture, my research brings to

the fore a considerable body of visual depictions where ladies are consistently

represented riding skilfully alongside men. Art historians have noted the emergence

of equestrian themes within the broader development of Dutch landscape painting.81

Birgit Schumacher has revealed the influential role played by the prolific ‘horse

painter’ Philips Wouvermans in the development and diffusion of equestrian scenes as

an independent genre throughout Europe.82 Though admired for its careful depiction

of equine subjects, the production of Wouvermans and other artists from the period

has never been investigated in order to shed light on the history of equestrianism.

Amandine Didouan’s pioneering doctoral research is currently exploring the

relationship between equestrian manuals and artistic depictions of male riders

78 Walter Liedtke, The Royal Horse and Rider: Painting, Sculpture, and Horsemanship, 1500-1800 (Norwalk, CT: Abaris Books, 1989), p. 59. 79 Ibidem. 80 Diane H. Bodart, ‘Le portrait équestre de Christine de Suède par Sébastien Bourdon’, in Anne-Lise Desmas (ed.) Les portraits du pouvoir. Actes du colloque “Lectures du portrait entre art et histoire” à la Villa Médicis, Rome. 24-26 avril 2001 (Paris: Somogy éditions d’art, 2003), pp. 76-89. 81 Desmond Shawe-Taylor and Jennifer Scott, Dutch Landscapes (London: Royal Collection Publications, 2010), esp. pp. 34-44. 82 Birgit Schumacher, Philips Wouverman. The Horse Painter of the Golden Age (Doornspijk: Davaco Publishes, 2006).

19

between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.83 Whereas existing scholarship on

early modern horse riding has emphasised national differences, Didouan advocates

the necessity for a comparative European study that reflects the spread of equestrian

knowledge via the circulation of people, materials and images.84 In my attempt to

reconstruct seventeenth-century female riding techniques, I too have adopted a broad

European perspective. To compensate the comparative lack of prescriptive materials

concerning women, I have traced the diffusion of female equestrian imagery in

paintings and established connections with the development of more empowering

equestrian styles for women.

After providing an original reconstruction of women’s riding techniques in

seventeenth-century Europe, I embark on a closer study of the actual practice and

symbolic significance of female horse-riding in French aristocratic culture. 85

Considering the key place of equestrianism in a nobleman’s life and education, I set

out to investigate to which extent these practices were shared by their female

relatives. Mark Motley’s 1990 monograph on aristocratic education in early modern

France posited that a marked separation was established between boys and girls from

83 Amandine Victoria Didouan’s doctoral thesis is entitled ‘Cantering Amidst Art, Science, and Aesthetics: Early Modern European Equestrian Visual Culture’. I am grateful to the author for sharing some preliminary findings. 84 See Giovanni Battista Tomassini, The Italian Tradition of Equestrian Art: A Survey of the Treatises on Horsemanship from the Renaissance and the Centuries Following (Franktown, VA: Xenophon Press, 2014) or Pia F. Cuneo’s extensive work on early modern Germany: ‘The Reformation of Riding: Protestant Identity and Horsemanship at North German Courts’, The Court Historian 24.3 (2019), pp. 235-249; ‘Visual Aids: Equestrian Iconography and the Training of Horse, Rider and Reader, in Peter Edwards, Karl A.E. Enekel and Elspeth Graham (eds), The Horse as Cultural Icon: The Real and Symbolic Horse in the Early Modern World (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012), pp. 71-97; ‘Das Reiten als Kriegstechnik, als Sport und als Kunst: die Körpertechnik des Reitens und gesellschaftliche Identität im frühneuzeitlichen Deutschland’, in Rebecca von Mallinckrodt (ed.) Bewegtes Leben: Körpertechniken in der frühen Neuzeit (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008), pp. 167-187; ‘Just a Bit of Control: The Historical Significance of Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century German Bit-Books’, in Karen Raber and Treva J. Tucker (eds), The Culture of the Horse, Status and Discipline in The Early Modern World, edited by (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 141- 173. 85 This part of the thesis draws on my previously published article ‘Holding the Reins: Female Horse Riding and Aristocratic Authority in Seventeenth-Century France’, Ludica. Annals of the history and culture of games 25 (2020), pp. 125-143.

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an early age.86 This view of a pedagogic segregation between the sexes reflected and

perpetuated traditional views of gender dynamics within early modern French society.

Sarah Hanley’s 1989 article ‘Engendering the State’ revealed how patriarchal control

on female relatives had grown increasingly stringent since the mid-sixteenth century,

constituting an essential element in the formation of what she termed ‘Family-State

compact’.87 Her careful review of juridical texts and regulations showed how the

influence of a male tutor extended from economic and legal matters to the personal

sphere, and played a crucial part in what represented the most important decision in a

woman’s life, that is the choice of a husband. Marriage, in particular, was not simply

regarded as a match of kindred spirits, but resulted instead from calculated strategies

which involved a great deal of family politics. Fanny Cosandey’s study of queenship

in France makes manifest how the strict dynamics regulating the marriage market

were exacerbated at the highest echelons of society, where dynastic considerations

were more pressing.88

It would be unwise, however, to employ legal definitions of womanhood to

illuminate the various facets of early modern women’s experiences, including their

education and engagement in intellectual and cultural life. In his overview of the

female condition in seventeenth-century France, Roger Duchêne acknowledges the

many constraints endured by the female population at the time; however, he also

highlights few ‘spaces of freedom’ that could be enjoyed by ladies higher up in the

social scale.89 The author focuses on the emergence of a new way of socialising based

on the ideal of galanterie, which derived from the new vogue for sentimental novels

(romans) and encouraged a more egalitarian relationship between the sexes. 90

Inaugurated with the publication of Carolyn Lougee’s seminal text Le Paradis des

femmes in 1976, scholarly works by Joan DeJean and Faith Evelyn Beasley explored

86 Motley, Becoming a French Aristocrat, p. 51. 87 Sarah Hanley, ‘Engendering the State: Family Formation and State Building in Early Modern France’, French Historical Studies 16.1 (1989), pp. 4-27. 88 Fanny Cosandey, La reine en France: symbole et pouvoir, XVe-XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Seuil, 2000). 89 See chapter ‘Des espaces de liberté’, in Roger Duchêne, Être femme au temps de Louis XIV (Paris: Perrin, 2004), pp. 349-358. 90 Claude Habib, Galanterie française (Paris: Gallimard, 2006), esp. pp. 137-276.

21

the role of seventeenth-century salons as a crucial site where women, barred from the

collèges and universities, could acquire what Duchêne termed ‘a permanent

education’.91 Martine Sonnet and Elizabeth Rapley, on the other hand, discussed the

crucial role of religious institutions in the education of girls in Ancien Régime France,

while a recent collection of essays edited by Isabelle Brouard-Arends draws attention

on the involvement of non-religious elite women as pedagogues92 Another fruitful

line of enquiry inaugurated by Susan Broomhall’s 2002 monograph recast traditional

notions about women’s access to education by looking at correspondence as well as

legal sources such as inventories and lawyers’ pleadings.93 Through the study of

similar sources, historians have also been able to investigate aristocratic women’s

extensive involvement in diplomatic and political affairs, such as in the case of the

Guise women studied by Penny Richards or the ‘Ligue Princesses’ examined by

Éliane Viennot. 94 It has also been recognized that the management of very

considerable estates was often undertaken by noblewomen; indeed, how to run a

household was a major part of their training before marriage and subsequently a life-

long occupation.95 These concerns were far from limited to the ‘domestic’ sphere,

91 See the chapter ‘L’école des femmes au xviie siècle’, in Roger Duchêne, Écrire au temps de Mme de Sévigné. Lettres et texte littéraire (Paris: Vrin, 1982), pp. 77-88. Carolyn Lougee, Le paradis des femmes: Women, Salons, and Social Stratification in Seventeenth-Century France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), Joan DeJean, Tender Geographies and Faith Evelyn Beasley, Salons, History and the Creation of Seventeenth-Century France (Farnham: Ashgate, 2006). 92 Martine Sonnet, L’éducation des filles au temps des Lumières (Paris: Cerf, 1987); Elizabeth Rapley, The Dévotes: Women and Church in Seventeenth-Century France (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990) and Isabelle Brouard-Arends and Marie-Emmanuelle Plagnol-Diéval (eds), Femmes éducatrices au siècle des lumières (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2007). 93 Susan Broomhall, Women and the Book Trade in Sixteenth-Century France (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002). See also Isabelle Brouard-Arends (ed.) Lectrices d’Ancien Régime. 94 Penny Richards, ‘The Guise women: Politics, war and peace’, in Jessica Munns and Penny Richards (eds), Gender, Power, and Privilege in Early Modern Europe (Edinburgh and London: Pearson, 2003), pp. 159-170. Éliane Viennot, ‘Des “Femmes d’Etat” au xvi siècle: Les Princesses de la Ligue et l’écriture de l’histoire’ in Haase-Dubosc and Viennot (eds), Femmes et pouvoirs sous l’ancien régime, pp. 77-97. 95 Mavis Mate, ‘Profit and Productivity on the estates of Isabella de Forz (1260-92)’, Economic History Review 33 (1980), pp. 326-334; Jessica Munns and Penny Richards, ‘Exploiting and Destabilizing Gender Roles: Anne d’Este’, French History 2 (1992), pp. 206-

22

Kirsten B. Neuschel points out, as ‘managing military resources was a dimension of

property management’. 96 Overall, recent scholarship has endeavoured to correct

traditional binary views of elite women’s experiences, emphasising considerable areas

of overlap with men in both their education and activities. In my research, I contribute

to this fruitful line of enquiry by shedding light on French noblewomen’s equestrian

pursuits through the close reading of the self-authored memoirs of Anne-Marie-

Louise d’Orléans Duchess of Montpensier (1627-1693) and Catherine Meurdrac de

La Guette (1613-1676) as well as Madame de Saint-Baslemont’s 1678 biography by

the Franciscan Jean-Marie de Vernon. Contemporary representations, as well as their

own words, indicate that these three aristocratic women were hailed as ‘Amazons’

and known for their equestrian prowess during their lifetime. Historians have

repeatedly approached their biographical narratives to emphasise how their literary

self-fashioning as well as their actions, which are generally – and sometimes

mistakenly – characterised as cross-dressing, challenged contemporary gender

canons. 97 By situating these accounts within a broader culture of elite female

horsemanship, instead, I reveal the less exceptional side of their horse-riding training

and practices. In addition to providing valuable information into women’s equestrian

education, these fist-hard accounts offer rare insights into female embodied

experiences. Georges Vigarello notes that, in seventeenth-century egodocuments,

215; Robert J. Kalas, ‘The Noble Widow’s Place in the Patriarchal Household: The Life and Career of Jeanne de Gontault’, Sixteenth-Century Journal 23.3 (1993), pp. 519-539. 96 Kristen B. Neuschel, ‘Noblewomen and War in Sixteenth-Century France’, in Michael Wolfe (ed.), Changing Identities in Early Modern France (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 1997), pp. 124, 125. The term ‘culture of violence largely derives from Francis Barker’s now classic work on power and its deployment in The Culture of Violence (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993) and J. R. Mulryne and Margaret Shewring (eds), War, Literature and Arts in Sixteenth-Century Europe (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1988), esp. pp. 190-196. 97 See, for example, Margaret Wise, ‘Saint-Balmon, Cross-Dressing, and the Battle of Gender Representation in Seventeenth-Century France’, French Forum 21.3 (1996), pp. 281-300; Joseph Harris’ discussion of Saint-Baslemont and La Guette (Hidden Agendas, pp. 64-65) and the chapter ‘The Heroine at War: Self-Divisions in La Guette’s “Extraordinary” Memoirs’ in Stanton, The Dynamics of Gender, pp. 123-148, which also mentions Saint-Balmon and the Duchess of Montpensier. On Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans, see Christa Schlumbohm, ‘Der Typus der Amazone und das Frauenideal im 17. Jahrhundert. Zur Selbstdarstellung der Grande Mademoiselle’, Romanistisches Jahrbuch 29 (1978), pp. 77-99.

23

‘internal sensations, intimate tensions or troubles, are neither raised nor expressed’.98

When examining the emergence of a new ‘feminine’ type of autobiographical

narratives in the 1670s, Elizabeth Goldsmith and Adelaïde Cron have both remarked

that these memoirs tended to focus on the writers’ intimate dimension rather than

public life, reflecting their attempt to fashion an individual identity that escaped

previously established categorisations.99 In my attempt to tease out the corporeal

component from these texts, I consider how the authors’ athletic activities were

connected with specific emotional experiences.

In his introductory volume to the history of emotions, Jan Plamper observes

that self-authored accounts constitute extremely precious sources for scholars willing

to engage in this budding field of research.100 However, the author cautions, in order

to be approached emotions ought to be properly situated within specific cultural

parameters that ‘have an impact upon the way emotion is experienced in the self-

perception of the feeling subject’.101 In the past two decades, early modern historians

have increasingly begun to explore the ways in which specific cultures formulated

and evaluated emotional states.102 Pioneering monographs by Angus Gowland and

Jeremy Schmidt focused on early modern melancholy, investigating its significance

within the period’s medical, religious and political context.103 In 2008, a volume

98 ‘Les sensations internes, malaises ou désordres intimes, ne sont ni relevées, ni exprimées’. Georges Vigarello, Le sentiment de soi: Histoire de la perception du corps XVe-XXe siècle (Paris: Seuil, 2014), p. 9.99 Adelaïde Cron, Mémoires féminins de la fin du XVIIe siècle à la période révolutionnaire. Enquête sur la constitution d’un genre et d’une identité (Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2016) and Elisabeth C. Goldsmith, Publishing Women’s Life Stories in France, 1647-1720: From Voice to Print (Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2001). More specifically on letter writing, see Elisabeth C. Goldsmith and Colette H. Winn (eds), Lettres de femmes: textes inédits et oubliés du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: H. Campion, 2005). 100 See the section ‘What sources might we use in writing the history of emotions?’ in Jan Plamper, The History of Emotions: An Introduction, trans. by Keith Tribe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 33-39. 101 Ibid., p. 32. 102 For a recent overview of this research subfield, see Susan Broomhall (ed.), Early Modern Emotions: An Introduction (London and New York: Routledge, 2017). 103 Angus Gowland, The Worlds of Renaissance Melancholy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Jeremy Schmidt, Melancholy and the Care of the Soul (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007).

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edited by Susan Broomhall explored the affective ties and displays of emotion within

extended domestic communities in central and northern Europe.104 The following

year, Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen and Karl A. E. Enekel published a collection of essays

that established how early modern perceptions of emotional suffering were

inextricably linked to physical pain.105 Focusing on the Reformation, monographs by

Susan C. Karant-Nunn and Ronald K. Rittgers examine the way religious beliefs

shaped various aspect of people’s emotional life in early modern Germany.106 Jonas

Liliequist’s 2012 History of Emotions gathers studies of medieval and early modern

repertoires and representations of emotion, focusing chiefly on French and English

literature, but also venturing into Greenland, Sweden and the Ottoman Empire.107 Fay

Bound Alberti’s publications provide pioneering explorations of pre-modern

understanding of emotions as movements of the sensitive soul within the body.108

Elena Carrera’s edited collection Emotions and Health, published in 2013,

convincingly shows how medieval and early modern Galenic authors appraised

spiritual well-being as a fluctuating physiological state that could be altered by

changes in lifestyle.109 Conceptualised as non-natural, emotional life interacted with

other factors such as exercise. Mareike Böth’s analysis of Elizabeth Charlotte of

Orléans voluminous correspondence establishes strong connections between the

written record, corporeal experiences and emotional life.110 In Böth’s compelling

study, the princess’ passion for horse riding is presented as a therapeutic activity that

104 Susan Broomhall (ed.), Emotions and the Household, 1200-1900 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). 105 Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen and Karl A. E. Enekel (eds), The Sense of Suffering: Constructions of Physical Pain in Early Modern Culture (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009). 106 Susan C. Karant-Nunn, Reformation of Feeling: Shaping the Religious Emotions in Early Modern Germany (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); Ronald K. Rittgers, The Reformation of Suffering: Pastoral Theology and Lay Piety in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). 107 Jonas Liliequist (ed.), A History of Emotions, 1200-1800 (London and New York: Routledge, 2012). 108 Fay Bound Alberti (ed.), Medicine, Emotion and Disease (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) and Fay Bound Alberti Matters of the Heart: History, Medicine and Emotion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). 109 Elena Carrera (ed.), Emotions and Health, 1200-1700 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013). 110 See the section ‘dressed like a man: Handlungsspielräume auf der höfischen Jagd’ in Böth, Erzählweisen des Selbst, pp. 205-221.

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provided her with much needed ‘scopes for action’ (Handlungspielräume).111 My

analysis draws connections between individual seventeenth-century accounts to

examine the role of equestrianism in shaping aristocratic women’s perception of their

social identity as well as their intimate self. I find that by engaging in horse riding and

hunting from an early age, some elite women were encouraged to become part of an

‘emotional regime’ that, according to prescriptive texts, should have been reserved for

aristocratic males.112 It appears that, in practice, rules governing such bodily and

emotional behaviours were primarily informed by considerations of rank rather than

gender.

Female Equestrianism and the Court’s ‘Body Culture’ Following the analysis of the role played by horse riding in French aristocratic

women’s culture, I then move on to consider female equestrian practices at court

during the long reign of Louis XIV (1643-1715). Since the publication of Norbert

Elias’ seminal work The Court Society in 1969, the workings of the French court,

symbolised by the grandiose image of Versailles, have been closely examined in

connection with Louis XIV’s absolutist political plan.113 Grounding his research on a

reading of the Duke of Saint-Simon’s all but objective memoirs, Elias presented court

ceremonial as a powerful instrument to realise the sovereign’s design to domesticate

the aristocracy. A number of critics, most notably Jeroen Duindam, successively

questioned Elias’ compelling ‘myth of Versailles’, highlighting amongst other flaws

his overstatement of the ruler’s personal impact and his neglect of concrete courtly

111 Ibid., pp. 205-221. 112 First introduced by William M. Reddy in his 2001 study The Navigation of Feeling, the term ‘emotional regime’ has become popular as a useful framework to examine how emotions are articulated within a specific community, paying particular attention to their implications as agents of social and political change. See Tania M. Colwell, ‘Emotives and emotional regimes’, in Broomhall (ed.), Early Modern Emotions, pp. 7-9. 113 Norbert Elias wrote Die höfische Gesellschaft earlier in the twentieth century; however, it was only published in 1969 and then translated into English as The Court Society by Edmund Jephcott in 1983. The work has recently reappeared as volume ii of new German and English-language editions: Gesammelte Schriften (Frankfurt, 1997–); The Collected Works of Norbert Elias (Dublin, 2006–).

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routines in favour of the abstract meaning of ceremony.114 In a 2005 article, William

Beik proposed of a new paradigm that interprets Louis XIV’s absolutism as a process

of social collaboration between monarchy and elites. 115 At the same time, the

historical sub-discipline of court studies gained momentum and a new wave of

scholars embraced the so-called Neo-Ceremonialist approach, shifting their attention

from state celebrations to the ritualisation of daily life.116 Drawing extensively on a

series of contemporary sources, they produced in-depth analyses of individual

ceremonies that rooted the study of symbolic forms and their evolution on a solid

empirical basis.117 Reflecting on the power mechanisms that regulated life at court,

Fanny Cosandey highlights how the constant enactment of social hierarchies opened

up spaces for negotiation and conflict concerning rank and precedence. 118 The

114 Jeroen Duindam, Myths of Power: Norbert Elias and the Early Modern European Court (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1994) and Jeroen Duindam, Vienna and Versailles: The Court’s of Europe Dynastic Rivals, 1550-1780 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), esp. pp. 5-9. See also the perspective embraced by John Adamson (ed.), The princely courts of Europe: ritual, politics and culture under the Ancien Régime, 1500-1750 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1999). 115 William Beik, ‘The Absolutism of Louis XIV as Social Collaboration’, Past & Present 188.1 (2005), pp. 195-224 and the monograph A Social and Cultural History of Early Modern France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), esp. pp. 330-331. 116 For an analytic overview of the changes in the field, see Jeroen Duindam, ‘Early Modern Court Studies: An Overview and a Proposal’, in Markus Völkel and Arno Strohmeyer (eds), Historiographie an europäischen Höfen (16.–18. Jahrhundert) (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2009), pp. 37–60. 117 An early example of this approach is the monograph of Ralph E. Giesey, The Royal Funeral Ceremony in Renaissance France (Geneva: Droz, 1960), later expanded in his work Cérémonial et puissance souveraine: France, XVe-XVIIe siècles (Paris: Colin, 1987) translated in English in 2004. See also Sarah Hanley, The Lit de Justice of the Kings of France: Constitutional Ideology in Legend, Ritual, and Discourse (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983); Richard A. Jackson, Vive le roi!: A History of the French Coronation from Charles V to Charles X (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984); Lawrence M. Bryant, The King and the City in the Parisian Royal Entry Ceremony: Politics, Ritual, and Art in the Renaissance (Geneva: Droz, 1986); Michèle Fogel, Les cérémonies de l’information dans la France du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Fayard, 1989). A recent monograph focusing on ceremonial during the 1770s, Anne Byrne, Death and the Crown: Ritual and politics in France before the Revolution (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020). 118 Fanny Cosandey, ‘L’insoutenable légèreté du rang’, in Fanny Cosandey (ed.), Dire et vivre l’ordre social en France sous l’Ancien Régime (Paris: Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2005), pp. 169-189 and Fanny Cosandey, ‘Instituer la toute-puissance? Les rapports d’autorité dans la France d’Ancien Régime’, Tracés, revue de sciences humaines 17 (2009).

27

necessity to appeal to a higher power in order to arbitrate quarrels, Cosandey argues,

reinforced the notion of a monarchical all-mightiness that remained powerful even

when not directly exercised. Giora Sternberg’s 2014 monograph on status interaction

during the reign of Louis XIV redefined the issue at its core by bringing to the fore

courtiers’ agency in the struggle to assert their place in the pecking order.119 Whilst

acknowledging that the negotiation of status permeated virtually every moment of life

at court, Sternberg emphasises that it mostly ‘took place outside the monarch’s

presence, knowledge, or indeed interest’. 120 Status interaction, moreover, was

regularly materialised through people’s engagement with each other as well as with

objects, such as furniture and dress, whose visual and physical qualities acquired

considerable significance.121

This change of perspective turns the spotlight on a group of figures that have

traditionally been looked upon as mostly passive actors. A 2016 publication by

Pauline Lemaigre-Gaffier, for example, reveals the crucial role played by court

officials such as the Grand Masters of Ceremonies.122 The place of women in court

power networks has also been reconsidered. Duindam confined their influence to

what he termed the ‘informal circuit’ of court politics, positing that they acted as ‘go-

between’ connecting the sovereign with other influential men.123 Similarly, Olwen

Hufton compared women to the ‘nervous system’ to the body of the court, ‘part of a

vital system of communications through which messages are transmitted, channels

opened up’.124 While the unique status of queens and female regents has been the

object of focused and systematic investigation, most notably by Fanny Cosandey, the

119 Giora Sternberg, Status Interaction during the Reign of Louis the XIV (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 120 Ibid., p. 11. 121 In Sternberg’s monograph, see the chapters ‘The affaire of the sièges: The Anatomy of a Ceremonial Crisis (pp. 50-72) on chairs and ‘The Battles of the Mantles: Ceremonial Gear and Status Conflict’ (pp. 72-96) and ‘To Wear or Not To Wear? Mantled Visits in the Early Eighteenth Century’ (pp. 97-110) on dress. 122 Pauline Lemaigre-Gaffier, Administrer les menus plaisirs du roi: L’État, la cour et les spectacles dans la France des Lumières (Ceyzérieu: Éditions Champ Vallon, 2016). 123 Duindam, Myths of Power, pp. 155-157. 124 Olwen Hufton, ‘Reflections on the Role of Women in the Early Modern Court’, The Court Historian 5.1 (2000), pp. 1-13.

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study of noblewomen’s political agency at court has traditionally remained the

preserve of the biographer.125 Especially in the case of Louis XIV, it would be hard to

keep track of all publications exploring the lives of relatives and mistresses of the

sovereign, all of which at least to some extent consider matters of political

influence.126 Building on her innovative research on power broking in seventeenth-

century France, Sharon Kettering published two seminal articles that shed light on the

broader role of aristocratic women within patronage dynamics at the French court.127

After a long silence, the question has been revisited in a 2013 volume edited by

Nadine Akkerman and Birgit Houben, gathering essays that investigate the workings

of female royal households in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe.128 In order

to appraise the political agency of aristocratic ladies-in-waiting, the volume’s

contributors shift their attention from male-dominated institutions of government and

administration to the analysis of correspondence, family networks, household

structures or gift exchange. The fruits of this methodological turn continue to bring

new information that complicates traditional understandings of both internal and

international court politics. 129 By studying female participation in equestrian

activities, I pursue a new path to explore the way in which noblewomen skilfully

acted in the political arena of Versailles. By joining Louis XIV’s royal hunts, female

courtiers gained political influence through their physical proximity to the soverign.130

125 Cosandey, La Reine de France. Symbole et pouvoir. 126 A perfect example is Antonia Fraser, Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006). 127 Sharon Kettering, ‘The patronage and power of early modern French noblewomen’, The Historical Journal 34.4 (1989), pp. 817-841 and ‘The household service of early modern French noblewomen’, French Historical Studies 20.1 (1997), pp. 55-85, later collected in the volume Patronage in sixteenth and seventeenth century France (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002). 128 Nadine Akkerman and Birgit Houben, The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-waiting across Early-Modern Europe (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013). 129 See for example the recent contributions Ezequiel Borgognoni, ‘The Royal Household of Marie-Louise d’Orléans, 1679-1689: The Struggle over Executive Offices’, The Court Historian 23.2 (2018), pp. 166-181 and Laura Oliván, ‘Judith Rebecca von Wrna and Maria Sophia von Dietrichstein: Two Imperial Ambassadresses from the Kingdom of Bohemia at the Court of Madrid (1653-1674), Theatrum Historiae 19 (2016), pp. 95-118. 130 This part of the thesis draws on my previously published article ‘From the King’s Hunt to the Ladies’ Cavalcade’: Female Equestrian Culture at the Court of Louis XIV’, The Court Historian 24.3 (2019), pp. 250-268.

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The cavalcades des dames organised by the Duchess of Burgundy, Marie-Adélaïde of

Savoy (1685-1712), became a crucial space for the young princess and her entourage

to assert their power and influence.

The crucial place occupied by cynegetic – and more generally equestrian –

practices at the French court has been amply discussed by both Philippe Salvadori and

Daniel Roche.131 An article published by Glenn Richardson in 2014 offers an in-depth

comparison between hunting cultures at the courts of Francis I and Henri VIII in

England.132 In her 2016 monograph on animals at the French court, Joan Pieragnoli

sheds new light on the development of hunting offices between the sixteenth century

and early seventeenth century. 133 Fréderique Leferme-Falguières, instead, firmly

places cynegetic daily exercise within her study of the ritualisation of everyday life

when the French court moved to Versailles in the second half of the seventeenth

century.134 Following an established royal tradition, Louis XIV used the hunt to

display his physical fitness and cultivate his image as a ‘roi de guerre’, according to

Joël Cornette’s formulation.135 At the same time, Philippe Salvatori notes, the royal

hunts constituted a key opportunity for male aristocrats to show off their worth and

earn those favours and honours that only the King had the power to grant.136 As a

consequence of their exclusion from official records and accounts concerning hunt

management in the royal household, female courtiers have been excluded from

Salvadori’s study of the cynegetic court arena. Ladies, and more specifically Francis

131 Salvadori, La chasse, pp. 193-273; Roche, La Culture équestre de l’Occident, vol. 2, pp. 131-168. 132 Glenn Richardson, ‘Hunting at the Courts of Francis I and Henry VIII’, The Court Historian 18.2 (2014), pp. 127-141. 133 See the chapter ‘Le cadre juridique et social: la societé des princes chasseurs’, Joan Pieragnoli, La cour de France et ses animaux, XVIe-XVIIe siècles (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2016), pp. 105-131. 134 Fréderique Leferme-Falguières, Les courtisans: une société de spectacle sous l’Ancien Régime (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2007), pp. 245-247. 135 Cornette, Le Roi de guerre, pp. 177-207. See also Abby Zanger, ‘Lim(b)inal Images: “Betwixt and Between” Louis XIV’s Martial and Marital Bodies’, in Sara E. Melzer and Kathryn Norberg (eds), From the royal to the republican body: Incorporating the political in seventeenth and eighteenth-century France (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 33-64. 136 Salvadori, La chasse, pp. 215-216.

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I’s mistress Madame d’Etampes, make only a fleeting appearance in Richardson’s

narrative. 137 Presenting a brief and partial selection of early seventeenth-century

testimonies, Joan Pieragnoli suggests that female participation to Louis XIII’s hunts

was in all likelihood limited to observation.138 Their conspicuous presence in visual

records, however, prompts Bénédicte Pradié-Ottinger to declare, briefly and

axiomatically, that ‘women performed an important role in the social exchange that

revolves around the royal hunts’. 139 My investigation supports Pradié-Ottinger’s

intuition through a systematic study of pictorial and textual records from the reign of

Louis XIV.

In addition to considering female hunting’s symbolic significance, I also

investigate its place within the specific corporeal culture of the French court. ‘The

skilled courtier is master of its gesture, its gaze and its countenance’ observed the

moraliste Jean de La Bruyère (1645-1696) towards the end of the seventeenth century

and, indeed, from its earliest days the historical study of European courts placed

corporeal behaviours at the very core of its research.140 Elias presented the ‘civilizing

process’ that took place within the court society as the gradual repression of

individual impulses and the acquisition of control over natural passions to obey the

king’s absolutist designs.141 In this markedly Freudian account, the enforcement of

strict corporeal management played an important part in turning subdued forms of

behaviour dictated by external forces (Fremdzwänge) into an ‘internal’ standard

137 Richardson, ‘Hunting at the Courts of Francis I and Henry VIII’, pp. 128-129. 138 Pieragnoli, La cour de France et ses animaux, pp. 145-147. 139 ‘Dans l’échange social qui se joue autour des chasses royales, les femmes ont un rôle important’. See the section ‘La place des femmes dans les chasses princières’, in Bénédicte Pradié-Ottinger, L’Art et la Chasse: Histoire culturelle et artistique de la chasse (Tournai: La Renaissance du livre, 2002), pp. 167-168, quote at p. 167. 140 ‘Un homme qui sait la cour est maître de son geste, de ses yeux et de son visage’. Jean de La Bruyère, Les Caracteres de Theophraste traduits du grec avec Les Caracteres ou les moeurs de ce siecle (Paris: Chez Estienne Michallet, 1689), p. 198. On the autor and his work, see the chapter ‘La Bruyère et les Caractères’, in Bérengère Parmentier, Le Siècle des moralistes (Paris: Seuil, 2000), pp. 113-148. 141 First published in 1939, Norbert Elias’ two-volume Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation only gained popularity in the 1960s and was first translated in English in 1969; I consulted the latest revised edition The Civilising Process: sociogenetic and psychogenetic investigations, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000). Especially relevant to my discussion is vol. 1 ‘The history of manners’.

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(Selbstzwang) that was embraced by the individual. Leisure activity, Norbert Elias

and Eric Dunning clarified in a later publication, performed a therapeutic function

consisting in ‘loosening non-leisure restraints’ present in society.142 In its overall

outlook, Elias’ narrative preannounced Michel Foucault’s influential theories

expressed in the 1975 essay Discipline and Punish, which examined ‘the body as a

prime object and target of power’ for the monarchical State to exercise control over

men’s conscience. 143 Compelling though they are, such linear and unidirectional

narratives present many shortcomings in approaching early modern corporeal

experiences. In the conclusion to his introduction to a co-edited cultural history of the

body, Georges Vigarello advocates the necessary to devise more complex frameworks

able to reconcile competing tensions between the ‘accentuation of collective

impositions’ and the ‘accentuation of individual liberations’ that marked the period

between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.144 When studying body politics in a

courtly context, Olivier Chaline points out, Elias’ perspective has failed to grasp its

complexity, contributing instead to conceal its most innovative and progressive

traits.145 Another limitation, Jennifer Heargraves lamented, is that Elias provided a

paradigm for sociological analysis focused on male experiences and ostensibly

unconcerned with gender relations.146

In his influential 1980 volume, Stephen Greenblatt showed how elite

individuals actively shaped their identity and public persona through a process of

142 See Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning, ‘The Quest for Excitement in Leisure’ in Elias and Dunning, Quest for Excitement, p. 65. See also Eric Dunning and Chris Rojek (eds), Sport and Leisure in the Civilizing Process (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992). 143 ‘... corps comme objet et cible du pouvoir’. Michel Foucault, Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison (Paris: Gallimard, 1975), p. 160. The book was translated into English in 1977. 144 ‘… une accentuation des impositions collectives, une accentuation des affranchissements individuels’. Georges Vigarello, ‘Introduction’, in Corbin, Courtine and Vigarello (eds), Histoire du corps, vol.1, p. 15. 145 Olivier Chaline, ‘The Kingdoms of France and Navarre: The Valois and Bourbon Courts, c. 1515-1750’, in Adamson (ed.), The princely courts of Europe, p. 89. 146 Hargreaves acknowledged that Elias did write a book-length manuscript concerning gender relations, which unfortunately got accidentally destroyed. Jennifer Hargreaves, ‘Sex, Gender and the Body in Sport and Leisure: Has There Been a Civilizing Process?’, in Dunning and Rojek (eds), Sport and Leisure in the Civilizing Process, pp. 161-182.

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careful self-fashioning.147 Stephen Kolski and Anna Bryson emphasised how, while

moving within a set of socially acceptable standards, aristocratic men and women

exercised a considerable degree of agency and creativity in adapting prescriptive

norms to specific circumstances.148 European courts were marked by different sets of

values and gradually developed distinct codes of behaviour. For example, while the

Spanish nobleman was depicted as a calculating individual able to conceal his

thoughts and feelings behind an impenetrable façade, in France dissimulation was to

be avoided at all costs as the courtier refashioned himself as the urbane honnête

homme.149 As new scholarly approaches freed the courtier from Elias’ yoke, corporeal

management was still thought to play a central role in aristocratic self-fashioning.

Herman Roodenburg’s insightful 2004 monograph The Eloquence of the Body

points at a fundamental paradox inherent to all elite corporeal models, which is traced

back to Castiglione’s seminal treatise Il Cortegiano.150 Sprezzatura, the proverbial je

ne sais quoi that constituted the quintessential marker of the refined courtier, could

not be learnt. More generally, Roodenburg contends, historians need to tackle the

inherent tension between early modern people’s understanding of innate physical

traits and their intense pedagogic efforts to fashion their identity and display status. In

2015, a co-edited volume proposed a broad survey of medieval and early modern

European courts as veritable emotional communities with very distinct cultures of the

body.151 Recent scholarship, moreover, has further challenged Elias’ model of a top-

down pressure, showing how the sovereign’s own body was all but uncontested, being

147 Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). 148 Stephen Kolsky, ‘Making and breaking the rules: Castiglione’s Cortegiano’ Renaissance Studies 11.4 (1997), pp. 358-380; Anna Bryson, From Courtesy to Civility: Changing Codes of Conduct in Early Modern England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998). 149 Roland G. Asch, Nobilities in Transition 1550-1700: Courtiers and Rebels in Britain and Europe (London: Arnold Publishers, 2003), p. 84. 150 See the chapter ‘Castiglione’s Paradox’ in Herman Roodenburg, The Eloquence of the Body: Perspectives on Gesture in the Dutch Republic (Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 2004), pp. 11-28. 151 Bernard Andenmatten, Armand Jamme, Laurence Moulinier-Brogi and Marilyn Nicoud (eds), Passions et pulsions à la cour (Moyen Âge – Temps modernes) (Florence: SISMEL Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2015).

33

the object of careful scrutiny, multifarious interpretation and aggressive criticism.152

Louis XIV’s physical performances in particular have been studied in connection with

his political strategies and the many fabrications of his public image.153 In addition to

readdressing the balance of power between monarch and aristocratic subjects, court

historians have also advocated a shift from an exclusively symbolic reading of the

royal body as political instrument to reveal the significance of daily corporeal

functions and minor bodily disorders. In this sense, Stanis Perez’s 2007 biohistory of

Louis XIV led the way in tackling the complex relationship between the sovereign’s

living anatomy and representation while at the same time situating the royal body

within Versailles’ medical landscape.154 Perez’ meticulous reading of the Louis XIV’s

Journal de santé and other contemporary accounts sheds light on the workings of the

large entourage of physicians, surgeons and apothecaries that cured, monitored and

issue official pronouncements concerning the King’s health.155

A 2011 collection of essays edited by Catherine Lanoë, Mathieu da Vinha and

Bruno Laurioux considers how questions of corporeal hygiene, beauty and wellbeing

did not concern exclusively the royal body, but were instead of paramount importance

for all social actors.156 Early modern European courts are thus reconfigured as spaces

where localised ‘body cultures’ could form and develop. Contributors turned their

attention towards broad and diverse range of objects and practices, from wigs to

thermal bathing, thus recalibrating the connections between the microcosm of the

152 Jeffrey Merrick, ‘The Body Politics of French Absolutism’, in Melzer and Norberg (eds), From the royal to the republican body, pp. 12-32 and Antoine de Baecque, The Body Politic: corporeal metaphor in revolutionary France 1770-1800, trans. Charlotte Mandell (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997). 153 See Peter Burke’s seminal volume The Fabrication of Louis XIV (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992) and, focusing on ballet, Mark Franko, Dance as Text: Ideologies of the Baroque Body (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) and his essay ‘The King Cross-Dressed: Power and Force in Royal Ballets’, in Melzer and Norberg (eds), From the royal to the republican body, pp. 65-85. 154 Stanis Perez, La Santé de Louis XIV: Une biohistoire du Roi-Soleil (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2007). See also Georges Vigarello, ‘Le corps du roi’, in Corbin, Courtine and Vigarello (eds), Histoire du corps, vol. 1, pp. 405-430. 155 In 1698, for example, the King’s medical entourage counted no less than thirty-five individuals. 156 Catherine Lanoë, Mathieu da Vinha and Bruno Laurioux (eds), Cultures de cour, cultures du corps: XIVe-XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Presses de l’université Paris-Sorbonne, 2011).

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court and the urban network of traders, craftsmen and professionals.157 The result of

such individual investigations is a more nuanced and inclusive account of courtiers’

embodiment that acknowledges the influence exercised by social actors other than the

sovereign and his aristocratic entourage. Medical professionals have especially come

to the fore as crucial political actors. Alexandre Lunel’s 2008 monograph examines

the role of court physicians in France between the sixteenth and the eighteenth

century, whereas a 2013 volume edited by Elisa Andretta and Marilyn Nicoud offers a

comparative perspective spanning across medieval and early modern Italy, France and

Spain.158 In May 2017, a workshop organised at the Deutsches Historisches Institut in

Paris shed new light on the crucial role played by bodily ideals, health practices and

professional practitioners in shaping princely courts’ internal politics and international

relationships.159 By showing the emergence of spaces dedicated to female physical

exercise and their crucial signifiance, my study of female equestrian practices

provides an original addition to the existing scholarship on the ‘body culture’ at Louis

XIV’s court.

Equestrian Uniforms and Court Sartorial Politics The fourth and final chapter of my thesis explores the role of dress in fashioning the

body of the seventeenth-century Amazon. In the first place, I discuss two hitherto

neglected aspects of female equestrian attire in seventeenth-century Europe, namely

the wearing of breeches and decorative feathers. I then move on to trace the

development of a veritable riding uniform at the court of Louis XIV. In the last two

157 See the essays by Didier Boisseul, ‘Les cours italiennes et le thermalisme à la Renaissance: les Sforza de Milan et les cures thermals au milieu du XVe siècle’ and Mary K. Gayne, ‘La taxe sur les perruques de 1706: l’intégration du corps dans la société marchande de l’Ancien Régime’, in Lanoë, da Vinha and Laurioux (eds), Cultures de cour, cultures du corps, pp. 51-67, 227-242. 158 Alexandre Lunel, La Maison mèdicale du roi. XVIe –XVIIIe siècles. Le pouvoir royal et les professions de santé (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2008); Elisa Andretta and Marilyn Nicoud (eds), Être médecin à la cour: Italie, France, Espagne, XIIIe-XVIIIe siècle (Florence: SISMEL Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2013). 159 The proceedings of the workshop ‘Corps et politique dans les cours princières aux temps modernes’, organised by Regine Maritz, Eva Seemann and Tom Tölle, are to be published as a special edition of the journal Francia in August 2021.

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decades, historical approaches to early modern dress have moved a long way from the

descriptive narratives characteristic of traditional ‘hemline history’.160 Scholars have

explored the many ways through which clothing, positioned in between the pre-social

biological body and the socially shaped public persona, was especially crucial to the

fashioning of self. According to the felicitous formulation of Ann Rosalind Jones and

Peter Stallybrass, garments in the early modern period were far from simply sitting

inertly on the body; on the contrary, they had the power to ‘permeate the wearer,

fashioning him or her from within’.161 In her 2010 monograph Dressing Up, Ulinka

Rublack led the way by showing how dress constituted the most immediate way to

express the complexity of early modern men and women’s identity in its many facets,

including gender, age, class, nationhood, religious beliefs, not to mention personal

memories and emotions.162 A number of scholarly studies followed, exploring one or

multiple factors within different early modern cultures. 163 A collection of essays

edited by Bella Mirabella in 2011 and Natasha Awais-Dean’s 2017 monograph add

further nuance to the study of dress by establishes that small-scale ornaments and

jewellery exerted a crucial degree of agency in materialising the wearer’s identity and

conveying specific cultural and political messages.164

Untangling the relationship between clothes and the self, scholars have

emphasised that sporting a particular fashion resulted from a process of negotiation

between the competing drives to express individuality and belonging to a certain

community. The study of dress, therefore, can provide precious insight into how

160 This definition of classical fashion history, by now proverbial, was coined by Christopher Breward, The Culture of Fashion (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1995), p. 1. 161 Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 2. 162 Ulinka Rublack, Dressing Up: Cultural Identity in Renaissance Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). 163 See, for example, Elizabeth Currie, Fashion and masculinity in Renaissance Florence (London: Bloomsbury, 2016) and the collection of essays edited by the same Elizabeth Currie, A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Renaissance (London: Bloomsbury, 2018). 164 Bella Mirabella (ed.), Ornamentalism: The Art of Renaissance Accessories (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011) and Natasha Awais-Dean, Bejewelled: Men and Jewellery in Tudor and Jacobean England (London: British Museum Press, 2017).

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broader cultural tensions were experienced and articulated. Aileen Ribeiro’s

influential monograph Dress and Morality, first published in 1986 and then reedited

in 2003, explored the fraught relationship between sartorial trends and contemporary

norms of behaviour imposed by religious and secular authorities.165 More recently,

historians have focused on the significance of sumptuary laws in certain areas of

Europe as well as around the globe.166 A number of historical essays have revealed

how, despite the considerable pressure to conform, early modern men and women

across the social scale were able to carve spaces of freedom for themselves to

experiment through shopping and creative reformulation of vestimentary canons.167

Sartorial change, John Styles argues, was stimulated by the interplay of customer

demand for novelties and an increasingly regular innovation of materials, techniques

and fashions, which culminated with the advent of the annual cycle in the late

seventeenth century.168 Great attention has also been placed on how practices such as

second-hand markets, renting, lotteries, auctions and theft made fashionable

merchandise increasingly accessible to broader sections of Renaissance urban

society. 169 Careful studies of inventories have revealed that, by the seventeenth

165 Aileen Ribeiro’s Dress and Morality was originally published in 1986 (London: B.T. Batsford) with a second edition in 1990 and finally reedited in 2003 (Oxford and New York: Berg); see esp. pp. 59-94 on the early modern period. 166 Giorgio Riello and Ulinka Rublack, The Right to Dress: Sumptuary Laws in a Global Perspective, c. 1200-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019); for an in-depth case study, Maria Hayward, Rich Apparel: Clothing and the Law in Henry VIII’s England (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009). 167 Evelyn Welch, Shopping in the Renaissance. Consumer Cultures in Italy 1400-1600 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005); Paula Hohti, ‘Artisan Fashion in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Italy’, in Welch (ed.), Fashioning the Early Modern, pp. 143-165. 168John Styles, ‘Fashion and Innovation in Early Modern Europe’, in Welch (ed.), Fashioning the Early Modern, pp. 33-56. 169 Patricia Allerston, ‘Reconstructing the second-hand clothes trade in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Venice’, The Costume Society 33 (1999), pp. 46-56; Carole Collier Frick, ‘The Florentine “Rigattieri”: Second Hand Clothing Dealers and the Circulation of Goods in the Renaissance’, in Alexandra Palmer and Hazel Clark (eds), Old Clothes, New Looks: Second-Hand Fashion (Oxford: Berg, 2004), pp. 13-28; Evelyn Welch, ‘Lotteries in Early Modern Italy’, Past and Present 199 (2008), pp. 71-111.

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century, even segments of the rural population in England and France could partake

of the latest court styles, if only in the form of a small piece of lace or ribbon.170

In addition to revealing the unsuspected wealth of goods available and

dynamism of the sartorial market, historical studies of dress have also radically

reconfigured the role of making and the the figure of the maker. In her seminal

monograph The Body of the Artisan, published in 2004, Pamela Smith has cogently

established that artisanal epistemology, that is the acquisition of knowledge through

observation and material engagement with nature in addition to abstract reasoning,

occupied a central place in the ordo cognoscendi of early modern Europe.171 Sandra

Cavallo’s research revealed the considerable overlap between the skills and practice

of medical professionals and craftsmen in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century

Italy.172 Historians of dress have placed themselves at the forefront of this line of

research, connecting artisanal practices with wider bodies of knowledge. Articles by

Evelyn Welch and Ulinka Rublack argue that artisans such as dye-makers, tailors,

hairdressers, leatherworkers all possessed specialised skills that allowed them to turn

natural matter, including the body itself, into artificial creations laden with cultural

meaning. 173 The interdisciplinary project ‘Fashioning the Early Modern’ led by

Evelyn Welch reconfigured scholarly understandings of the dynamics that regulated

sartorial creativity and innovation between early modern artisans and elite

170 Margaret Spufford, The Great Reclothing of Rural England, Petty Chapmen and their Wares in the Seventeenth Century (London: The Hambledon Press, 1984) and Laurence Fontaine, ‘Le colportage et la diffusion des “galanteries” et “nouveautés” (XVIIe-XIXe siècle)’, in Jacques Bottin and Nicole Pellegrin (eds) Echanges et cultures textiles dans l’Europe pré-industrielle. Actes du colloque de Rouen, 17-19 mai 1993, Université Charles-de-Gaulle-Lille III, Revue du Nord hors série 12 (1996), pp. 91-109. 171 Pamela Smith, The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). See also Ursula Klein and Emma Spary (eds), Materials and Expertise in Early Modern Europe: Between Market and Laboratory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). 172 Sandra Cavallo, Artisans of the Body in Early Modern Italy: Identities, Families and Masculinities (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007). 173 Ulinka Rublack, ‘Renaissance Dress, Cultures of Making, and the Period Eye’, West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture 23.1 (2016), pp. 6-34; Evelyn Welch, ‘Art on the Edge: Hair and Hands in Renaissance Italy’, Renaissance Studies, 23.3 (2008), pp. 241-268.

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consumers.174 Embracing empirical research and various reconstruction modes, the

‘Refashioning the Renaissance’ led by Paula Hohti is currently charting the

production and dissemination of dress at the more popular levels of early modern

society.175 In May 2018, I organised a conference that aimed at bringing together

cutting-edge approaches in the field of court studies and dress history. 176 The

contributions, a selection of which is to be published as a volume, shed new light on

the tangled network of artisanal skills, cultural ideals and materials that revolved

around the sartorial world of the early modern court.177

Together with changing perspectives on the meaning of making, come novel

approaches to the objects themselves and way in which early modern people

experienced clothing. The strong emotional hold that dress exerted on

contemporaries, Ulinka Rublack explains, did not just depend on personal memories

and sentimental investment but also on specific visual qualities and material

characteristics inherent in the materials employed.178 Precious textiles and glittering

jewellery, for example, were not just valued in terms of their monetary worth, but also

treasured for their unique power to generate splendour and radiance.179 Sensorial

features of various kinds, Susan Vincent points out, provided a very concrete setting

with the power to shape people’s patterns of thought and action.180 Embracing new

perspectives in fashion theory, historical studies of dress increasingly endeavour to

integrate a semiotic reading of clothing with accounts of its fundamentally embodied

174 Evelyn Welch (ed.), Fashioning the Early Modern: Dress, Textile and Innovation in Europe, 1500-1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 175 See the forthcoming monograph by Paula Hohti, Artistans, Objects and Everyday Life in Renaissance Italy: The Material Culture of the Middling Class (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press). 176 The conference ‘Fashioning the Early Modern Courtier’ took place at the University of Cambridge on 16 May 2018. 177 The forthcoming volume Fashioning the Early Modern Courtier: Sartorial Networks at the Courts of Europe, 1550-1750 is scheduled for publication with Brepols in 2020. 178 Ulinka Rublack, ‘Matter in the Material Renaissance’, Past and Present 219.1 (2013), pp. 41-85. 179 Cristoph Brachmann (ed.), Arrayed in Splendour: Art, Fashion, and Textiles in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019). 180 Susan Vincent, Dressing the Elite: Clothes in Early Modern England (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2003), p. 4.

39

nature.181 Indeed, despite its many layers of symbolic meanings early modern dress

exercise fascinated – and still fascinates – for its direct engagement with the material

body, reshaping and deforming the human figure. 182 Traditional narratives have

posited that in the past fashionable clothes and accessories, whilst providing support

and protection, usually constituted a hindrance to even the simplest of movements. In

a brief overview of what he calls the ‘Ancien Regime of the body’, Michel Delon

goes so far as to characterise dress as a veritable form or corporeal censorship.183 The

marked shift from representations of clothing to its material features and interactions

with the body called for the establishment of stronger ties and the organisation of

collaborative research projects that bring together the scholarly community with

curators and conservators. The exhibitions ‘La Méchanique des dessous’ (2013) and

‘Marche et démarche’ (2019-2020) at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris

exemplify this new trend, approaching historical accounts of how underwear and

footwear interacted with the body through a close material reading of extant items.184

The current embodied turn in fashion history, Hilary Davidson declares in a recent

article, has also encouraged scholars to approach making and reconstruction as

legitimate research tools pregnant with heuristic potential.185

In my study of female riding attire in early modern Europe, I endeavour to

examine the powerful symbolic meanings of garments while at the same time

reflecting on material qualities of clothing as situated corporeal practice. Considered

in connection with equestrian activities, women’s sartorial borrowings from the male

181 On dress as situated bodily practice, Joanne Entwistle, The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress, and Modern Social Theory (Cambridge: Polity, 2000), esp. pp. 6-39. 182 Valerio Zanetti, ‘“Nothing is fashionable till it be deformed”: Sartorial Materials and Aesthetic Ideals of Beauty in Early Modern Europe’, in Sarah Toulalan (ed.) A Cultural History of Beauty in the Early Modern Age (London: Bloomsbury, 2020) – forthcoming. 183 Michel Delon, ‘The Ancien Regime of the Body’, in Denis Bruna (ed.), Fashioning the Body: An Intimate History of the Silhouette (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), pp. 89-93. 184 See the exhibition catalogues Denis Bruna (ed.), La méchanique des dessous: une histoire indiscrète de la silhouette (Paris: Musée Arts Décoratifs, 2013) translated as Fashioning the Body (see note above) and Denis Bruna (ed.), Marche et démarche: une histoire de la chaussure (Paris: Musée Arts Décoratifs, 2019). 185 Hilary Davidson, ‘The Embodied Turn: Making and Remaking Dress as an Academic Practice’, Fashion Theory 23.3 (2019), pp. 329-362.

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wardrobe have been interpreted as a straightforward act of cross-dressing.186 In 1999,

Janet Arnold first approached female riding habits systematically, tracing an overview

of their evolution in Europe from the late Middle Ages to the twentieth century.187

While her skilled eye proved invaluable in evaluating the cut and material of dress

looking at few examples of portraiture, her analysis lacked appropriate engagement

with changes in equestrian technique. Moreover, the wide scope of her narrative did

not leave space for deeper engagement with the sources or exhaustively investigate

practices within a specific time or place. Thanks to my original study of equestrian

techniques, I offer some new insights on the development of female equestrian in

seventeenth-century Europe, when some specific common features began to emerge.

Through a careful analysis of textual and visual sources, I show how the search for

comfort in the saddle led women to appropriate the breeches as a riding garment,

worn as a form of underwear or in certain cases even outerwear. My contention is that

this sartorial practice, which has hitherto passed unnoticed, did not constitute an

instance of cross-dressing but rather a diffused trend informed by functional

necessities. I then discuss the fashion for voluminous feather panache that marked out

female equestrian headdresses in the middle of the century. In this case, I discuss the

object’s ornamental function in light of its material qualities as well as its symbolic

role as a signifier of ‘Amazonian’ femininity.

Finally, I examine the emergence of veritable female riding uniforms.

Focusing on eighteenth-century England, two articles by Betty Rizzo and Patty

186 Catherine Velay-Vallantin, ‘Représentation symbolique du vêtement dans les contes de travestissement et de pouvoir (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles)’, in Guyonne Leduc (ed.), Travestissement féminin et liberté (s) (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2006), pp. 359-378; Mary Beth Rose, ‘Women in Men’s Clothing: Apparel and Social Stability in The Roaring Girl’, English Literary Renaissance 14 (1984), pp. 367-391. On real instances of female transvestism, Nicole Pellegrin, ‘Le genre et l’habit: Figures du transvestisme féminin sous l’Ancien Régime’, Clio 10 (1999), pp. 21-54. 187 Janet Arnold, ‘Dashing Amazons: the development of women’s riding dress, c. 1500-1900’, in Amy de la Haye and Elizabeth Wilson (eds), Defining Dress: Meaning Identity (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), pp. 10-29. For an earlier attempt, see also Jean R. Druesedow, ‘Aside and Astride: A History of Ladies’ Riding Apparel’, in Alexander Mackay-Smith, Jean R. Druesedow and Thomas Ryder (eds), Man and the Horse: An Illustrated History of Equestrian Apparel (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), pp. 59-69.

41

Crown, both published in 2002, emphasise that tailored riding suits, partly inspired

from male fashions, were regarded as controversial garments that allowed women to

assume masculine poses and gestures.188 Mostly looking at satirical representations,

both authors seem more interested in exploring the garment’s symbolic significance

rather than addressing the material qualities that allowed freer corporeal behaviours.

Crown somewhat simplistic conclusion is that equestrian fashions constituted nothing

more than a temporary transgression, an exploration of arbitrary gender boundaries.

Cally Blackman’s insightful research, on the other hand, cogently shows that the

riding habit became a popular form of informal everyday wear donned by middle-

class English women already in the middle of the eighteenth century.189 This choice,

Blackman argues, represented a consequence of the outfit’s inherent qualities of

simplicity and comfort that depended from its origins as a sporting uniform. A

number of scholars have commented on the adoption of riding habits during the

French Revolution, interpreting it as an attempt to acquire a martial air by mimicking

the uniform of the newly established National Guard.190 The wearing of equestrian

habits, commonly referred to as ‘amazone’, became intimately connected with the

figure of the militant ‘Revolutionary Amazons’ who campaigned for women’s active

involvement in political life and even military efforts.191 My study traces the origins

of the riding uniform back to late seventeenth-century France. By closely comparing

written and visual accounts, I show how aristocratic women incorporated elements of

male fashions in their equestrian habits so as to create a recognisable équipage. In

188 Patty Crown, ‘Sporting with Clothes: John Collet’s Prints in the 1770s’, Eighteenth-Century Life 26 (2002), pp. 119-135. See also Betty Rizzo, ‘Equivocations of Gender and Rank: Eighteenth-Century Sporting Women’, Eighteenth-Century Life 26 (2002), pp. 70-92. 189 Cally Blackman, ‘Walking Amazons: The Development of the Riding Habit in England during the Eighteenth Century’, Costume 35 (2001), pp. 47-58. The issue was briefly treated in Elizabeth Ewig, Everyday Dress, 1650-1900 (London: B. T. Batsford, 1984), pp. 82-83. 190 Aileen Ribeiro, Fashion in the French Revolution (London: B. T. Batsford, 1988), p. 88; Nicole Pellegrin, Les Vêtements de la liberté: Abécédaire des pratiques vestimentaires en France de 1780 à 1800 (Aix-en-Provence: Alinea, 1989), p. 13, 182-184; Christine Bard, Une histoire politique du pantalon (Paris: Seuil, 2010), pp. 50-58. 191 Suzanne Desan, ‘“Constitutional Amazons”: Jacobin Women’s Clubs in the French Revolution’, in Bryant T. Ragan, Jr and Elizabeth A. Williams (eds), Re-creating Authority in Revolutionary France (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992), pp. 11-35.

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order to reveal the significance of the emergence, evolution and diffusion of such

trends, I situate my analysis within the sartorial network that regulated fashion at the

court of Louis XIV.

Early modern courts played a vital part in generating, crystallising and

spreading cultural trends through constant practices of conspicuous display and

spectacle. In order to fully appreciate the significance of aesthetic fashioning in the

courtly milieu, Malcolm Smuts first contended in 1996, it is necessary to broaden the

scope of their investigation beyond the fine arts to include ephemeral displays such as

pageants, banquets and – not least – dress.192 At that time, a few pioneering studies

had already investigated clothing worn by particularly prominent sovereigns such as

Elizabeth I or Louis XIV.193 Embracing Smut’s exhortation, more and more scholars

turned towards sartorial practices as a crucial site to penetrate the intricate workings

of the princely courts of Europe. Following the multiplication of studies exploring

dress in individual courts, Philip Mansel’s 2005 publication offered a wide-ranging

reflection on how and why rulers across the world sought to regulate their courtiers’

appearances.194 A 2009 exhibition at the Palace of Versailles sparked further interest

amongst scholars, resulting in the publication of a catalogue and a collection of essays

investigating dress at the European court between 1400 and 1800.195 Together, these

volumes establish new exploratory routes that complement the more traditional study

192 R. Malcolm Smuts, ‘Art and the Material Culture of Majesty in Early Stuart England’, in R. Malcolm Smuts (ed.), The Stuart Court and Europe: Essays in Politics and Political Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 86-112. 193 See two seminal publications on Elizabeth I, Roy Strong, Gloriana: The Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I (London: Thames & Hudson, 1987) and Janet Arnold, Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d (Leeds: W. S. Maney & Son, 1988). On Louis XIV and the French court more generally Burke’s The Fabrications of Louis XIV and Daniel Roche, La Culture des apparences. Une histoire du vêtement, originally published in 1989 (Paris: Fayard) and then translated as The culture of clothing: Dress and fashion in the ‘ancien régime’, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 194 Philip Mansel, Dressed to Rule: Royal and Court Costume from Louis XIV to Elizabeth II (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2005). 195 Pierre Arizzoli-Clémentel and Pascale Gorguet Ballesteros (eds) Fastes de cour et cérémonies royales: Le costume de cour en Europe, 1650-1800. Catalogue of the exhibition, Château de Versailles, 31 March-28 June 2009 (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2009) and Isabelle Paresys and Natacha Coquery (eds), Se vêtir à la cour en Europe, 1400-1800 (Villeneuve d’Ascq: Publications de l’institut de recherches historiques du septentrion, 2011).

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of visual and documentary sources with the careful and systematic examination of

wardrobe accounts and records of bills. Thanks to the collaboration with museum

curators and conservators, greater attention is also placed on the object themselves,

their materiality and making. As a consequence of this trend, the agency of craftsmen

and retailers in the definition of elite fashions has been progressively brought to the

fore by a series of projects and publications, which I have previously outlined in this

introduction. Strengthening existing ties between studies of material culture and the

fine arts, researchers have also started to reconsider the way they approach the arsenal

of images that has traditionally constituted the backbone of dress history. Publications

such Anna Reynolds’ 2013 In Fine Style, which accompanied an exhibition of Tudor

and Stuart portraits at The Queen’s Gallery, reconsider the role of artistic

representations and artists in the fashioning of royal dress.196

Embracing new methodological approaches has allowed scholars to

complicate existing accounts of how fashions were generated and diffused at court.

Traditionally, the sovereign has been placed at the top of the sartorial ladder, acting as

master and arbiter of taste. From this perspective, Mansel argues, clothing had the

power of bringing together all members of a royal or princely household by visually

expressing allegiance and service.197 The practice of displaying a ruling family’s

colours or heraldic badges, a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages, evolved in the

formal donning of liveries by salaried members of the court.198 During processions

and special ceremonies, high-ranking nobles too had to appear clothed in specific

uniforms bearing the insignia of their rank, office or chivalric order. In addition to

enforcing vestiary policies, kings and queens could accord their particular favour by

literally clothing the royal entourage. Elizabeth I, for example, handed down articles

of clothing to her ladies-in-waiting.199 However, archival research has shown that

courtiers could in turn play an important role in shaping the image and body of the

196 Anna Reynolds, In Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion (London: Royal Collection Trust, 2013). 197 See the chapter ‘Service’ in Mansel, Dressed to Rule, pp. 18-36. 198 Hayward, Rich Apparel, pp. 137-149; Currie, Fashion and masculinity, pp. 28-31. 199 Arnold, Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d, pp. 99-104.

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monarch through their personal influence or, more explicitly, by offering gifts of

clothing or jewels. 200 Maria Hayward’s volume on clothing at the Stuart court,

published in the spring of 2020, offers a balanced narrative in which the sartorial will

exercised by each male sovereigns’ personality is tempered by the acknowledgement

of the role played by courtiers and craftsmen.201 Hayward’s account also reveals how

the fashioning of a new masculine ideal was deeply connected with the construction

of a markedly national style of dress. Erin Griffey’s 2019 edited collection of essays,

instead, shows that clothing represents a fruitful research avenue to further scholarly

understanding of female agency at the early modern court. High-ranking women,

Griffey points out, were extremely adept at taking advantage of ‘proto-soft power’

unique to dress in order to make political statements.202 Sarah Cockram’s study of

Isabella d’Este (1474-1539), for example, shows how the Marchioness of Mantua

skilfully used the style of her clothing to display and further the interests of her own

lineage alongside her husband’s Gonzaga dynasty.203

In part as a consequence of a long-standing fascination with the ‘myth of

Versailles’, Louis XIV’s France has traditionally held a central place in the study of

court fashions. Pascale Gorguet Ballesteros notes how the Roi Soleil went one step

further than previous sovereigns when he established a new sartorial regime that

required the wearing of luxurious – and ruinously expensive – garments to distinguish

the select group of aristocrats who resided at Versailles from those who lived in

Paris.204 Thus the female grand habit and the male habit habillé constituted veritable

court uniforms. Further layers of complexity were added when, on the occasion of

ceremonial or ritual occasions, special accessories were worn to denote individual

200 Studies of the Tudor and early Stuart court have been particularly lively; see Felicity Heal, The Power of Gifts: Gift Exchange in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), esp. pp. 87-148 and Jane A. Lawson (ed.), The Elizabethan New Year’s Gift Exchanges, 1559-1603 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 201 Maria Hayward, Stuart Style: Monarchy, Dress and the Scottish Male Elite (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020). 202 Erin Griffey (ed.), Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019). 203 Sarah Cockram, ‘Isabella d’Este’s Sartorial Politics’, in Ibid., pp. 33-56.204 Pascale Gorguet Ballesteros, ‘Caractériser le costume de cour: propositions’, in Arizzoli-Clémentel and Gorguet Ballesteros (eds) Fastes de cour et cérémonies, pp. 54-69.

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rank. Within the close-knit community of Versailles, Giora Sternberg notes, crucial

differences in status were signified by minute details like a few inches difference in

the length of a mantle’s train.205 Louis XIV’s desire to exert sartorial control over his

entourage went as far as issuing special licences to those male courtiers who were

allowed to sport the so-called justaucorps à brevet.206 Popular narratives, exemplified

by Joan De Jean’s monograph The Essence of Style, have also emphasised the

sovereign’s direct involvement in the creation of more or less influential trends such

as the general wearing of wigs amongst elegant men – and some women – in the late

seventeenth century or the iconic trend for red-heeled shoes.207 Like much else in

courtiers lives, however, sartorial choices too seem to have been the fruit of a

negotiation carried out, at least in part, outside official regulations and away from the

royal gaze. A little-known monograph published by Paola Placella Sommella in 1984

already provided a meticulous account of how fashion trends were communicated and

spread through the close study of Madame de Sévigné’s correspondence.208 Corinne

Thépaut-Cabasset’s editorial efforts have rendered it possible to appreciate the

influence of fashion reportages in the magazine Mercure galant.209 Professing to

simply describe up-to-date trends from the court, this publication exercised a crucial

role in determining what pieces of sartorial news would be disseminated to its the

town and provinces. In 2014, a collection of essays edited by Kathryn Norberg and

Sandra Rosenbaum assessed the role of single-figure fashion engravings that flooded

the Parisian print market between around 1670 and 1700.210 While they ostensibly

205 Sternberg, Status Interaction during the Reign of Louis XIV, pp. 72-86. 206 Sally-Ann Héry-Simolin, ‘Louis XIV et les mystères du justaucorps à brevet’, in Arizzoli-Clémentel and Gorguet Ballesteros (eds) Fastes de cour et cérémonies, pp. 180-182. 207 Joan DeJean, The Essence of Style: How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafes, Style, Sophistication, and Glamour (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005) esp. pp. 83-103. On the origin of wigs’ popularity, see Perez’s account of the King’s ‘maladie de Calais’ in July 1658, following which Louis XIV experienced severe hair loss; Perez, La Santé de Louis XIV, p. 62. 208 Paola Placella Sommella, La mode au XVIIe siècle d’après la « Correspondance » de Madame de Sévigné (Paris: Biblio 17, 1984). 209 Corinne Thépaut-Cabasset (ed.) L’Esprit des modes au Grand Siècle (Paris: Éditions du CTHS, 2010). 210 Kathryn Norberg and Sandra Rosenbaum (eds), Fashion Prints in the Age of Louis XIV: Interpreting the Art of Elegance (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2014).

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depicted real outfits worn by courtiers and members of the royal family, Norberg

claims that such representations also celebrated the power of la mode as ‘an abstract,

ephemeral, and destabilizing force’ to which even the King himself had to bow.211

Further research is needed to shed light on the agency of artists, and the influence of

the fine arts more generally, not simply in the representation of court fashions during

the reign of Louis XIV, but also in their creation.212 Studying garments might prove a

fruitful avenue to unlock further aspects of the relationship between portraitists and

their female sitters and patrons.213

To study female equestrian dress between around 1670 and 1715, I illuminate

my analysis of images, both paintings and prints, through a close reading of various

textual sources such as memoirs and articles in the Mercure galant. First, I trace the

sartorial evolution of the tailored uniform that, by the turn of the eighteenth century,

was already known as a ‘habit d’Amazone’. I then move on to explore the symbolic

significance of this garment within the sartorial arena of the French court, where it

came to identify a particular set of young noblewomen who rode with the Duchess of

Burgundy. Like a veritable uniform, it thus performed the crucial political function of

expressing allegiance and articulating status within the complex networks of court

society. Although it became gradually invested with multiple layers of contextual

meanings and personal associations, the garment maintained strong connections with

equestrian activities. Tending towards increasing simplicity, the Amazonian habit’s

material features were designed to suit the equally material traits of the female

Amazonian body. Within and without the court milieu, the dress came to embody a

new ideal of athletic femininity.

At the turn of the eighteenth century, most French medical and pedagogic authorities

still upheld conservative theories of the female body and its physical abilities. Few

211 Norberg, ‘Louis XIV: King of Fashion?’ in Ibid., pp. 135-166, quote at p. 135. 212 The topic of dress is not addressed either by studies of individual artists or the broad review edited by Jean Aubert, Alain Daguerre de Hureaux and Emmanuel Coquery, Visages du Grand Siècle: Le portrait français sour le règne de Louis XIV (Paris: Somogy, 1997). 213 Andrea Pearson (ed.), Women and Portraits in Early Modern Europe: Gender, Agency, Identity (Farnham: Ashgate, 2008).

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were the voices of intellectuals who dared shake those beliefs in the pursuit of

knowledge, like Petit, or in search of effective change, such as Poullain de La Barre.

Largely absent from prescriptive texts, discourse in support of female athleticism

found ample expression in contemporary accounts of fashionable practices, be they

memoirs, magazines, personal correspondence or anonymous pamphlets. This was

also illustrated in artistic representations ranging from grandiose equestrian portraits

to fleeting apparitions in landscape scenes and small popular prints. Without

possessing the universality of scope or the dogmatic clarity of a theoretical

pronouncement, these compelling accounts testify to the marked change in attitudes

towards elite women’s corporeal behaviours.

Female equestrianism stood at the cornerstone of this cultural debate.

Considered a male preserve in the early modern period, horsemanship already

constituted an inherent component of some French noblewomen’s lives. It was not

until the reign of Louis XIV, however, that female horseback riding became a

prominent feature of court life. At first fashioned through participation in male

activities and the imitation of male habits, women’s equestrian practices progressively

gained independence and popularity. Exercising in the saddle became a powerful way

for female courtiers to acquire and display political influence and, at the same time,

exert agency over their own body in a way they found beneficial to their health and

wellbeing. Ladies in the saddle were no longer looked upon as cross-dressers, or even

as masculine women. They were seen as performing a legitimate, fashionable and

even desirable feminine ideal. In this process of athletic emancipation, the figure of

the Amazon played a key role in reflecting and affecting female practices. In addition

to offering a focus for artistic production and intellectual discourse, it also provided

elite women with a model to make sense of their bodily experiences and fashion their

identity as Amazons in the flesh.

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Chapter I – Amazons in the Flesh: Defining the Female Athletic Body I.1 The Medical Discourse In Renaissance Europe, exercise was defined as the balance between motion and rest.

Following traditional Hippocratic-Galenic models of the human body, it was listed as

one of the six non-natural factors that contributed to the healthy management of a

person’s complexion.214 Advice on how to manage one’s athletic activity ultimately

depended upon each individual’s unique temperament, while also following general

rules determined by age and gender. Male and female bodies were thought to be

essentially different on account of their opposite humoral make-up, moist and cold for

women, hot and dry for men. 215 Moreover, a woman’s anatomy was considered

inherently weaker and unstable on account of the nefarious influences of her

‘wandering womb’.216 While moderate exercise was recommended to expel the excess

of moisture that characterised the female constitution, vigorous exertion was to be

avoided at all costs could since it caused a dangerous increase in temperature.

Renaissance health regimens, therefore, advised ladies to indulge preferably in

passive or gestational forms of movement suitable for weaker constitutions. 217

Walking at a slow pace was also thought most suitable for them, whereas dancing was

treated with great caution, praised as beneficial when moderate and feared as perilous

when agitated. 218

214 Cavallo and Storey, Healthy living in late Renaissance Italy, pp. 145-178. Other non-naturals were air, food and drink, sleep, repletion and evacuation, and emotional life. 215 Katherine Crawford, European Sexualities, 1400-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 216 Evelyne Berriot-Salvadore, Un Corps, Un Destin: La Femme dans la Médecine de la Renaissance (Paris: Champion, 1993), pp. 23-33 and Laurinda S. Dixon, Perilous Chastity: Women and Illness in Pre-Enlightenment Art and Medicine (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1995). 217 Cavallo and Storey, Healthy living in late Renaissance Italy, pp. 146-147. 218 Ibid., pp. 170-177; Alessandro Arcangeli, ‘Dance and Health: The Renaissance Physicians’ View’.

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Medical conceptions of the female body in seventeenth-century France did not

diverge drastically from the Renaissance model. Evelyne Berriot-Salvadore has

argued how the humoral definition of woman as an ‘imperfect man’ gradually made

space for an anatomical discourse that placed greater emphasis on the debilitating

effects of her reproductive organs.219 The uterus in particular was described as a

troublesome entity whose stirrings caused paleness, nausea, fainting spells and

suffocation. Freed from these ailments, noted the celebrated midwife Louise

Bourgeois (1563-1636), women ‘could be as healthy as men in both mind and body,

but God made them inferior to avoid any jealousy between the sexes’.220 Popular

publications, however, seem to have continued to promote traditional Galenic

understandings of sexual difference well into the seventeenth century. In his treatise

Natural curiosity, organised in questions following the alphabetical order, published

in 1606, the historian Scipion Dupleix squarely blamed women’s mutability on their

‘imperfect temperament, being colder than men’s’.221 Directly inspired by Dupleix’s

work, Pierre Bailly’s 1628 tract Natural and curious questions reiterated that female

‘natural’ inconstancy was but a necessary consequence of an inconsistent

complexion.222 While these closely related texts have never received close scholarly

attention, other works by the two authors have been examined as rare examples of

‘mixed’ literary genres aimed at the divulgation of knowledge amongst non-specialist

readers. 223 As their name suggests, these treatises proceed through a series of

219 Evelyne Berriot-Salvadore, ‘De l’ornement et du gouvernement des dames’. 220 ‘… elles pourroient esgaler leur santé à celle des hommes tant tu corps que de l’esprit, mais Dieu les a voulu rendre moindres en cela, pour obvier à l’envie qu’un sexe eust peu porter à l’autre’. Louise Bourgeois, Observations Diverses sur la Sterilité, Perte de Fruict, Foecundité, Accouchements et Maladies des Femmes et Enfants Nouveaux Naiz (Paris: Chez Abraham Saugrain, 1617), p. 77. On the author, see Bridgette A. Sheridan, ‘Patronage and the Power of the Pen: The Making of the French Royal Midwife Louise Bourgeois’, Early Modern Women 13.1 (2018), pp. 58-79. 221 ‘… elles sont d’un tempérament moins parfaict, estant plus froides beaucoup que les hommes’. Scipion Dupleix, La curiosité naturelle rédigée en questions selon l’ordre alphabétique (Paris: Chez Laurent Sonius, 1606), p. 112. 222 Pierre Bailly, Questions naturelles et curieuses (Paris: Chez Jean Petit-Pas, 1628), pp. 228-237. 223 On Dupleix, see Violaine Giacomotto-Charra, ‘Scipion Dupleix, passeur de textes savants et poétiques’, in Isabelle Diu, Christine Bénévent and Chiara Lastraioli (eds), Gens du livre et

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alphabetically arranged questions, whose topics range from astrology to table

manners. A great part of the questions deals with human behaviours and the human

body, thus establishing a clear connection with contemporary health regimens.

Neither Dupleix nor Bailly were trained physicians, a fact that probably accounts for

their overall simplistic and outdated outlook on Galenic medicine, which emerges

more patently in their discussion of exercise.

Dupleix’s concise treatment of the subject was limited to highlighting the

crucial importance of physical activity in stimulating a healthy digestion and

expelling bad humours.224 Bailly agreed on this point, adding that the best time to take

exercise is before a meal, since the ‘heat generated by the exercise […] expels

through sweating, or other insensible means, all superfluous matter’.225 Although no

gender-specific considerations are made in either treatise, cues emerge pointing to

crucial differences in the way men and women should exercise. When dealing with

the question of whether or not it is possible for a girl to turn into a boy, Bailly referred

to current anatomical beliefs in the fundamental similarity of reproductive organs,

female genitals being identical to men’s but concealed within the belly.226 ‘Should

that be true’, the author continued, ‘female dancers, jumpers, and mannish women

(hommasses) would easily become men because of such natural impulsions aided by

those violent jolts’. 227 Thus he exposed exercise’s dangerous potential to trigger

gens de lettres à la Renaissance (Turhout: Brepols, 2014), pp. 171-183 and a biography by Cristophe Blanquie, Un magistrat à l’âge baroque: Scipion Dupleix (1569-1661) (Paris: Publisud, 2007). On Bailly, see Xavier de Saint-Aignan, ‘Vulgarisation médicale et mélange des genres: Les Songes de Phestion de Pierre Bailly (1634)’, in Andrea Carlino and Michel Jeanneret (eds), Vulgariser la médecine: du style médical en France et en Italie (Geneva: Droz, 2009), pp. 137-148. 224 Dupleix, La curiosité naturelle, p. 102. 225 ‘... la chaleur qu’aporte l’exercice avant le repas, envoye dehors par sueur, ou insensiblement les choses superflues qui ne se peuvent lier à nostre substance’. Bailly, Questions naturelles et curieuses, p. 220. 226 Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1990); Helen King, The One-Sex Body on Trial: The Early Modern Evidence (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013). 227 ‘Si cela estoit & que la nature se fust seulement oubliée à produire en évidence toutes ces pièces, il arriveroit aysement que ces grandes danceresses, sauteresses, & hommasses deviendroient hommes, par l’impulsion que pourroit faire la nature aydee de ces violentes secousses’. Bailly, Questions naturelles et curieuses, pp. 267-268.

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physiological changes. Resting on more unstable biological grounds, a woman’s

sexuality was considered especially fluid and tending naturally towards the perfect

male configuration. Strenuous activity was thought to stimulate such changes on

account of its sheer physical force coupled with the sharp variation in temperature.

Bailly’s doubtful tone, however, betrays his own uncertainty in reporting views about

the effects of athletic activity on women’s sexual physiology. The fact that

contemporary manuals on healthy living did not refer to this or similar issues when

discussing exercise strongly suggests that such theories did not form part of the

established medical canon. At the same time, more critical approaches to Galenism as

well as the advent of new anatomical theories recast the debate on female exercise.

Before turning to a close study of seventeenth-century French health regimens, it is

therefore crucial to reconsider female practices in the most influential early modern

publication on medical exercise, Girolamo Mercuriale’s De arte gymnastica.

I.1-i Women’s Exercise in Girolamo Mercuriale’s De arte gymnastica

Thanks to his encyclopaedic knowledge and impressive library, the Forlivese doctor

Girolamo Mercuriale (1530-1606) was able to compile an exhaustive overview of

classical sources on the subject of medical gymnastics, encompassing more than 120

authors. 228 In addition to establishing what forms of exercise were practised in

Ancient Greece and Rome, he set out to establish their universal health benefits. In his

opinion, the importance of exercise to prevent disease and maintain a balanced

constitution had been comparatively neglected in favour of other non-naturals such as

diet. Mercuriale’s ambitious project resulted in a carefully structured publication

whose organisation in six volumes mirrored its most influential model, Galen’s De

sanitate tuenda.229 The author’s intervention, however, was by no means limited to a

compilatory effort; his voice, on the contrary, is perfectly audible, though discreet,

228 Alessandro Arcangeli, ‘A proposito delle fonti del De arte gymnastica’, in Alessandro Arcangeli and Vivian Nutton (eds), Girolamo Mercuriale: Medicina e Cultura nell’Europa del Cinquecento. Atti del convegno ‘Girolamo Mercuriale e lo spazio scientifico e culturale del Cinquecento’ Forli 8-11 novembre 2008 (Firenze: Olschki, 2008), pp. 115-125. 229 Galen’s treatise was available in Latin translations since the fourteenth century, when it entered the curriculum of the prestigious faculty of medicine at Montpellier.

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throughout the treatise as he offered powerful synthetic pronouncements on key

issues. In his pursuit of pure medical and historical knowledge, the erudite physician

allowed little space for moral, and especially Christian, considerations.230 From the

first edition, the De arte gymnastica addressed itself to a broad and heterogeneous

audience, including physicians and learned scholars as well as antiquarian enthusiasts

and readers concerned with their physical wellbeing. Mercuriale’s work proved very

popular indeed; the 1569 text by the Venetian publisher Giunta was soon reprinted in

1573, significantly expanded and accompanied by a set of 22 illustrations, mostly the

work of the architect Pirro Ligorio (1514-1583).231 Three more editions followed

during the author’s lifetime, one in Paris (1577) and two more in Venice (1587 and

1601). A further version, edited and amended, appeared in Amsterdam in 1672. Thus

the treatise enjoyed wide circulation and exerted considerable influence on

subsequent publications all over the Continent and in England, where it informed the

work of the Elizabethan pedagogue Richard Mulcaster (1531-1611).232

The first two books of the De arte gymnastica carefully circumscribe its

subject matter by limiting its scope to medical athletics as opposed to ‘perverted

gymnastics’ (vitiosa gymnastica) or exercise for exercise’s sake. 233 Exercise is

defined as any ‘physical movement that is vigorous and spontaneous, which involves

a change in the rhythm of breathing, and is undertaken with the aim of keeping

healthy or building up a robust constitution’. 234 Book III provides a review of

230 Jean-Michel Agasse, ‘Philosophie et morale du corps dans le De arte gymnastica’, in Arcangeli and Nutton, Girolamo Mercuriale, pp. 159-173. 231 At least 19 are to be attributed beyond doubt to Ligorio; see Ginette Vagenheim, ‘Una collaborazione tra antiquario ed erudito: I disegni e le epigrafi di Pirro Ligorio nel De arte gymnastica di Girolamo Mercuriale’, in Arcangeli and Nutton, Girolamo Mercuriale, pp. 127-157. 232 Richard Mulcaster’s Positions wherein those primitive circumstances be examined which are necessary for the training up of children either for their skill in their books or health in their body (London, 1581) dedicated thirty chapters to the subject of exercise. 233 All references and quotes from Mercuriale’s De arte gymnastica, henceforth DAG, are taken from the 1573 edition (Venice: Giunta), unless otherwise specified. Translations from Latin are mine. See DAG, I.14, pp. 69-72 on the concept of ‘perverted gymnastics’. 234 ‘… exercitatio, de qua medici interest tractare, proprie est motus corporis humani vehemens, voluntarius, cum anhelitu alterato vel sanitatis tuendae, vel habitus boni comparandi gratia factus’. DAG, II.1, p. 78.

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different types of exercise, each analysed in a specific chapter. These include

practices of ‘gestation’, that is activities in which the body is moved by another agent,

such as being carried in a chariot or swinging on a hanging bed. 235 Book IV

complicates the argument by introducing further distinctions between types of

exercise according to their vigour, which part of the body they affect and the type of

environment they require.236 These information are deemed necessary to determine

which exercises are suitable for different kinds of people, ‘for neither the time nor the

place is universally suitable, just as not every type of body can tolerate every type of

exercise’.237 Mercuriale then discusses the key function of exercise to preserve a

healthy constitution by eliminating residues that would otherwise suffocate the body’s

natural heath. As a consequence, he adds, all other corporeal faculties too are

enhanced and ‘become stronger and more efficient in their performance’. 238 The

traditional view that exercise should be vigorous is then reassessed and moderate

activities, such as walking or being carried on a litter, praised.239 Mercuriale clearly

stated that people of different temperaments should exercise differently, both in

sickness and health.240 The individual’s complexion is also crucial to determine the

ideal time and place to exercise.241 Book V provides an in-depth analysis of the

effects and benefits of particularly significant activities including jumping, dancing

and walking. Book VI starts by revealing the medical properties of a wide range of

mundane activities such standing upright, holding one’s breath, singing, reading,

speaking, laughing or crying.242 After a discussion of the fashionable game of pall-

mall, the treatise offers further considerations over the medical benefits of activities

235 Such activities are discussed in III.10-12. The definition of gestatio in DAG, II.10, p. 170. is borrowed from Caelius (De morbis acutis et chronicis) and Pliny (Naturalis Historia), wheread Antyllus, Herodotus, Galen and others employ the term aiora ‘high up’. 236 DAG, IV.1. 237 ‘… sicuti namque corpora omnia non omnem exercitationis speciem perferunt, ita similiter non quius locus, nec quodlibet tempus cuicumque aptantur’. Ibid., p. 190. 238 ‘… omnesque corporis virtutes in propriis perficiendis operationibus expeditiore, & fortiores evadunt’. DAG, IV.2. 239 DAG, IV.5. 240 DAG, IV.7 discusses sickness and IV.9 health. 241 DAG, IV.10 discusses place and IV.11 time. 242 DAG, VI.1-6.

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previously discussed such as being carried about, exercising on swings, riding and

hunting.

The physician’s inquisitive eye and the antiquarian’s curiosity united render

De arte gymnastica unsurpassed in its attempt to catalogue and study the various

types of physical exercise that can affect the human body. A body, Mercuriale

observed, whose physical condition and specificities have to be carefully appraised in

order to be examined and cured. In his narrative, therefore, the sick or invalid body

are always addressed separately from the healthy. Differences in age and in

temperament are also taken into account. On one element of corporeal difference,

however, the author’s attention seems to fall short; in that the body he is concerned

with appears to be primarily male. In his treatise, Mercuriale never addresses the issue

of gender in a straightforward or articulated fashion. The male figure’s prominence in

his narrative may just be attributed to the reliance on classical literary sources

combined with Galenic conventions that posited the male body as the medical norm.

The relative absence of the female subject, therefore, must not be interpreted as a sign

of the author’s disinterest in female practices. Nancy Siraisi went as far as suggesting

that the treatise’s overall cautious approach to exercise might be a consequence of

Mercuriale’s concern with certain of his readership, namely women and the clergy.243

Siraisi’s contention, however, is disputed by the fact that his prescriptions were far

from limited to moderate activities. By conducting a systematic study of Mercuriale’s

pronouncements concerning the female body, I expose the ambiguous status of female

exercise within a Galenic framework.

At the start of De arte gymnastica, mentions of women’s practices appear

strictly circumscribed within the space of classical antiquity. In Book I, Mercuriale

dedicates considerable space to answering the somehow prurient question of whether

or not ancient men and women bathed together naked and shared the space of the

gymnasium. 244 A catalogue of derogatory quotes denouncing the presence of

prostitutes in Roman baths is followed by the somehow redeeming example of Sparta

243 Nancy G. Siraisi, ‘History, Antiquarianism, and Medicine: The Case of Girolamo Mercuriale’, Journal of the History of Ideas 64.2 (2003), pp. 231-251, esp. 244. 244 The issue is approached at various points in I.7,8 and 10.

55

as described in Book V of Plato’s Republic.245 There, the author reports, one could

witness ‘young and old, exercising naked together in the gymnasium and the

palestra’.246 Spartan virgins’ honesty as they ‘without infamy […] exercised naked

amongst wrestling men’ is also praised through the words of Propertius (Elegy III, 14,

1-4). 247 Plato’s authority is invoked once again in the volume with reference to

passages from Laws VII and Republic III in which the philosopher advocates that

‘there should be public masters to teach gymnastics to boys, girls, and young women’

to enhance their martial skills.248 In Book II Plato’s Republic is quoted once again,

together with a passage from Xenophon, to discuss the importance of armed Pyrric

dances in the militarisation of women as well as boys and men.249 The author also

mentions the existence of a set of Greek dances, collectively called martypiae, which

were performed exclusively by women.250 As for the performance of actual wrestling

and boxing, Mercuriale quoted Plato’s controversial opinion that women should

indeed be allowed to exercise, but only after the age of marriage.251 The author does

not shy away from referring to a particular type of ‘bed wrestling’ (lucta lecti)

practiced by Emperor Domitian with ‘degenerate women as well as men’. 252

245 Jean-Michel Agasse calls attention to Mercuriale’s unusual concern with moral matters in this section of the treatise; see Jean-Michel Agasse, ‘Philosophie et morale du corps dans le De arte gymnastica’, in Arcangeli and Nutton, Girolamo Mercuriale, pp. 159-173, esp. p. 167. 246 ‘… mulieres tam iuvenes, quam seniores una cum viris nudae in palestris atque gymnasiis exerceantur’. DAG, I.7, p. 27. 247 ‘Multa tuae Sparte miramur iura palaestrae, / Sed mage virginei tot bona gymnasÿ, / Quod non infames exercet corpore ludos / Inter luctantes nuda puella viros’. Ibidem. 248 ‘… locuplentissimum testem Platonem in medium afferram, qui in septimo de legibus […] decernit publicos magistros habendos, qui gymnasticam pueros, atque puellas, & virgines endoceant, quod ad assequendam militarem peritiam, nil melius palaestrica & saltatoria gymnasticae partibus inveniatur’. DAG, I.13, p. 66. Plato, De Legibus VII 813-b-e; De Republica, III 413, c-404b. 249 DAG, II.7, p. 100. Plato, De Republica V 3, 452a-b; VII 6, 521d-e; Xenophon, Anabasis VI 1, 11-13. 250 DAG, II.6, p. 99. Mercuriale names two dances, the apochini and mactrismi, neither of which has been identified. 251 DAG, II.9, p. 109. Plato, De Legibus, VII, 813e-814b. The author refers more specifically to the practice of pancratium, a combination of wrestling and boxing 252 ‘… eam lecti luctam interpretemur quam κλινοπαλην Domitianum vocasse tradit Svetonius, et quam a spurcissimis tam viris quam foeminis exerceri consuesse narrant Spartianus, Lampridius et Capitolinus’. Svetonius, Vitae, Domitianus, XII. Mercuriale

56

Mercuriale also reported a peculiar exercise practiced amongst the female population

of Sparta, consisting in ‘jumping with their legs bent backwards so that they touched

their buttocks with the heel; sometimes with legs bent alternatively, sometimes with

both legs bent at once’.253 Towards the end of the volume, the author considers the

exercise of throwing, referring one last time to Plato’s recommendation that women

learn how to fling stones, shoot arrows and also throw javelins like the ‘women of

Scythia’ described by Hippocrates.254

In Book III, Mercuriale discusses various ways in which ancient women

exercised in a gestational fashion. First, he considers the ‘delightful exertion’ whereby

girls and boys enjoyed being tossed in the air on swings (oscellae) made of four ropes

connected to a plank, not dissimilarly to contemporary ones.255 This type of exercise,

Mercuriale comments, is probably what Avicenna recommended his patients in order

to reduce excessive perspiration.256 This game was certainly popular amongst various

ancient cultures, the author concludes, and is represented on some coins of Emperors

Augustus and Tiberius. The narration is interrupted by a full-page illustrative plate

depicting a woman in classical garb sitting on what looks like a stool suspended from

a beam with a rope (fig. 3). Two female companions, similarly attired, make the

swing oscillate by pulling ropes and pushing the one who is sitting. Despite being

reflects on the meaning of the various meanings word reflexio, a sort of backwards bend, in a wrestling context; the passage is a later addition found in the 1587 Venetian edition of the De arte gymnastica, II.8, p. 107. 253 ‘Exsilitione olim utebantur Lacenae mulieres ad nates saltando, quae retroflexis cruribus ita saltabant, ut calcibus nates attigerent, quandoque cruribus alternatim inflexis, quandoque vero utrisque uno & eodem tempore’. DAG, II.11, p. 118. The performance of bibasis involved both boys and girls; it was described by the lexicographer Pollux and the medical compiler Oribasius. See Judith Evans Grubbs, Tim Parkin, Roslynne Bell (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 389. 254 ‘… id quod mulieres Scytharum antea facere solitas sciebat, quas Hippocrates & pedibus, & ex equis arcubus uti, & sagittas ejaculari consuevisse, scriptum reliquit’. DAG, II.12, p. 128; Plato, De Legibus, VIII, 834a on the slinging of stones, which Mercuriale believes women hauled only with their hands. DAG, II.13, p. 130; Plato, De Legibus, VIII, 828d-831c on the throwing of javelins and arrows. Hippocrates, De aere aquis et loci XX. 255 ‘… hoc exercitationis delectabilis […] quae hodie apud multas puellas & pueros efficitur’. DAG, III.8, p. 163. 256 Ibidem; Avicenna, Canon, IV.1, 2, 13.

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placed immediately after the discussion of children’s swings, the image appears more

suited to illustrate the grown-up habit of rocking in a hanging beds or cradle called

skimpodion (Gr.) or scimpodium (Lat.), which is discussed later in the volume as an

activity enjoyed by both men and women in Antiquity.257 The original drawing by

Pirro Ligorio, preserved at the Borromeo Archives in Stresa (Italy), is accompanied

by a note from the antiquarian’s hand (fig. 4).258 After mentioning the origins of such

devices, which he calls indifferently scimpodii and oscellae, amongst the Thracians

and Egyptians, Ligorio discusses the mythical tale of Erigone, who hanged herself

with a rope to mourn the death of her father Icarius. 259 It was the desire to

commemorate the girl’s tragic fate together with pre-existing rites in Latium, the

author suggests, that originated the Roman tradition to have virgins swing in baskets

257 DAG, III.12 258 Archivio Borromeo dell’Isola Bella, Stresa. Fondo Autografi, Ligorio Pirro, Disegni originali. 259 Ovid relates this tale in Metamorphoses VI.

Fig.4: Pirro Ligorio, Oscella (Swing). Stresa, Archivio Borromeo dell’Isola Bella. Fondo Autografi, Ligorio Pirro, Disegni originali

Fig. 3: Pirro Ligorio (engraving after), Oscella (Swing). Illustration from Girolamo Mercuriale, De arte gymnastica (Venice: Giunta, 1573), p. 164

Photo of ‘Pirro Ligorio (engraving after), Oscella (Swing) removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Photo of ‘Pirro Ligorio, Oscella (Swing)’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Archivio Borromeo dell’Isola Bella, Stresa.

58

during the hottest days of the year.260 The custom was represented on medals from the

time of Augustus and Tiberius, whose designs the artist praised and took as a source

of inspiration. From these simple figurations, he infers that it would take two people

to pull up a third, just like in contemporary swinging games from certain regions of

Italy.261 Both Ligorio and Mercuriale appear keen to draw comparisons between past

habits and present-day practices. Such observations, however, never develop into real

judgements about the activities described. Mostly illustrative in character, they aim

exclusively at recreating various aspects of ancient life as vividly as possible.

Mercuriale’s historical narrative, Nancy Siraisi noted, ‘was by no means intended as

an unambiguous endorsement, let alone a call for the revival, of all ancient

practice’.262 While this seems generally true for the author’s investigation of specific

activities in the fist part of the treatise, the second part often assumes the universal

tone of scientific inquiry. Book IV is specifically concerned with establishing the

theoretical basis of exercise as medical practice. According to Galenic views of the

body that had remained virtually unchanged since classical times, Mercuriale applied

corporeal categorizations that revolved around temperament. While hot bodies can

only withstand moderate exertion, he stated, ‘it is clear that cold bodies require a great

deal of violent exercise’.263 In the matter of moist bodies, Mercuriale responded to

Aristotle’s concern that intense activity would turn corporeal humidity into

suffocating steam.264 In his opinion, instead, ‘vigorous efforts are particularly suitable

for drying any excess of humidity and removing the abundance of superfluities’ that

characterise a moist complexion.265 ‘For this reason among women who are generally

endowed with a moist temperament’, the author continued’, ‘it is those who work and

260 Ginette Vagenheim identified a passage of Ligorio’s Roman Antiquities (Turin, Archivio di Stato, ms. a.III.9, f. 151) in which the author established the same connection; see Vagenheim, ‘Una collaborazione’, pp. 154-156. 261 Ligorio mentions variants from the region of Lombardy, Rome and Naples. 262 Siraisi, ‘History, Antiquarianism, and Medicine’, p. 237. 263 ‘Ex quo simul clarum efficitur, frigida corpora vehementer atque multum exercenda esse’. DAG, IV.9, p. 214. 264 Ibid., p. 215; Aristotle, Problemata V 21. 265 ‘At tamen ratio secus perduadere videtur, quae demonstrat humida corpora excrementis abundare, & propterea ipsis labores validos congruere, tum ad exuberantem humiditatem consumendam, tum ad superfluitatum copiam alimendam’. Ibidem.

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exercise longer and more vigorously who live a healthier and less troubled life’.266

This time the author turns to Aristotle for support, referring to a passage from the De

generatione animalium (IV.6) in which he affirms that ‘women give birth more easily

in countries and regions where they are used to hard work, and have fewer uterine

problems than idle and sedentary women, because their labour consumes all their

residues’.267 Cold and moist bodies, the author concluded, ‘benefit most of all from

violent and swift exertion, which consumes their superabundant humidity while

stimulating and increasing corporeal heat’.268

Female practices as such are never again addressed directly in the volume.

Women’s bodies, however, are elsewhere referred to by way of a humoral periphrasis.

Discussing the curative effect of exercise on sick bodies, for example, Mercuriale

declares that ‘those that are cold and moist require the maximum amount of exercise,

since any movement, provided it is not excessive, acts as a sort of remedy by heating

and drying’.269 As for establishing the appropriate amount of exercise for different

kinds of bodies, the author’s view is clear: ‘the cold and moist must be exercised until

they begin to pant, grow hot, and even perspire a little. In short, they require exercise

most of all [types of bodies] to empty the humid residues that oppress them, to

stimulate their natural heat, and to produce good digestion’.270 Read within a Galenic

framework, Mercuriale’s prescriptions leave no doubt concerning the place of

women’s exercise, both in a curative and preventive medical context. A female

266 ‘… atque hac ratione ex muliebrimus humida temperie in universum praeditis illa saniorem, & minus molestam vitam degunt, quae diutius, & valentius elaborant & exercentur’. Ibidem. 267 ‘… sicut & eadem apud quas gentes & in quibus locis laborare consueverunt, facilius pariunt, ut scribit Aristoteles; neque uterum difficulter gerunt, cum labor ea recrementa consumat, quae in mulieribus otiosis, & sellularijs augentur’. Ibidem. 268 ‘Frigida atque humida omnium maxime ab exercitationibus vehementibus, & velocibus iuvantur, quipped quae supervacaneam humiditatem absumunt, & calorem nativuum excitant, augentque’. Ibidem. 269 ‘At frigida & humida aliorum omnium maxime exercitationes sustinent; quod motus exsiccando, & calefaciendo veluti quoddam remedium sit, modo tamen non extra modum adhibeatur’. DAG, IV.7, p. 207. 270 ‘Frigida porro & humida eatenus exercenda sunt, quatenus anhelent, incalescant atque etiam paulisper sudent. Summatim huiuscemodi corpora omnium maxime exercenda sunt, inaniuntur, calor naturalis excitatur et perbelle concoctiones omnes perficiuntur’. DAG, IV.12, p. 230.

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constitution, that is a cold and moist constitution, requires the greatest amount of

exercise in terms of frequency and intensity. Compared with the radical tone of

Mercuriale’s theoretical stance on the subject, his further comments on actual

practices appear particularly cautious.

In Book V, the author considers the health effects of ‘dances, cavortings, and

gestures, which are enjoyed nowadays by women as well men, in pursuit of delight

and pleasure’. 271 Whilst recognising the beneficial effects of jumping per se, he

denounces the danger of indulging in dancing after dinner and throughout the night,

‘at a time when rest and sleep would be much better’.272 Pregnant women are likely to

suffer extraordinary damage from the exertion, Mercuriale added, bringing forth the

example of a girl to which Hippocrates prescribed jumping to get rid of an unwanted

pregnancy.273 This point is reiterated later in the volume, when the author placed

jumping among violent exercises, especially when consisting of a series of quick

jumps performed in unbroken succession.274 Amongst the general effects of such

exercise, the author claimed, ‘is that it very readily causes abortion in pregnant

women’.275 To jump lifting up the feet towards the buttocks in the manner of the

Spartan women is said to act as a potent purge with the power to bring about women’s

menstruation as well as ‘extrude a foetus that adheres too tightly to the uterine

wall’.276 Moreover, ‘by virtue of the shaking, it can expel the secundinae, when they

are retained, and return a womb that has contracted excessively to its proper

position’.277 Walking too is deemed effective in provoking menstruations when they

271 ‘Et iccirco nostra tripudia, βαλλισμους, ac gesticolatorios motus, quos tam mulieres quam viri hodie ad libidines et delicias exercent, illis non prorsus dissimiles extare censebit’. DAG, V.3, p. 239. 272 ‘… ut plurimum post cenam, atque nocte inter ipsas commesationes exercentur, quando potius quieti, & somno vacare praestaret’. Ibidem. 273 Ibid., p. 240. Hippocrates, De natura pueri XIII. 274 DAG, V.8, pp. 253-254. 275 ‘Hoc praeterea saltui commune inest, ut gravidas mulieres abortiri facillime faciat’. Ibid., p. 254. 276 ‘… quod si ad nates efficiatur saltus, qualem Lacaenarum mulierum fuisse iam diximus, caput […] peculiariter purgat […] Evocat etiam menstruas mulierum purgationes et foetus nimium adhaerentes expellit’. Ibidem. 277 ‘Secundas quoque retentas quassationis merito deiicit, necnon uterum, qui supra sese contraxit, in suum locum trahit’. Ibidem.

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are suppressed.278 As for the appropriate time and place to take an airing, Mercuriale

recommends people endowed with a moist temperament to go for a walk before

meals, when the body is free from excessive humours and the head lighter. 279

Overweight women in particular are advised to walk amongst trees covered in dew

that, thanks to its ‘colliquative’ power, will stick to their garments and ‘consume their

flesh’ during the exercise.280 Female practices are virtually absent in Book VI, aside

from a passage in which the author praises the beneficial effect of vocal exercises

(vociferatio) on women who are about to give birth.281

Aside from his note on the slimming power of dew-covered boscage, all of

Mercuriale’s prescriptions concerning the female body focus on its generative

functions and reproductive cycle. While moderate activity could re-establish

menstrual regularity, any violent exertion put pregnancy at great risk. Mercuriale’s

overall prudent attitude in his discussion of current practices appears somehow at

odds with his account of ancient habits and his theoretical treatment of the cold and

moist constitution. The author’s exhortation to exercise swiftly and vehemently is not

accompanied by any concrete recommendation on how to keep women healthy

through vigorous medical gymnastics. As a consequence, the status of the female

body remains ambiguously divided between the temperamental imperative to exercise

intensely and the caution necessary to fulfil one’s reproductive destiny. Mercuriale’s

refusal to reconcile these two strands of medical discourse resulted in a fundamental

ambivalence concerning female exercise that echoed in health regimens from the

following century.

I.1-ii Health Regimens

The first such volume to appear in the seventeenth century was The Government

necessary for everyone to live long and healthily published by the royal physician

278 DAG, V.11, p. 260. 279 DAG, V.12, p. 267. 280 ‘Etenim rori vis colliquativam […] inesse perspectum satis illud facit, quod ros bibitus gracilitatem inducit, ut mulieres eae manifesto declarant, quae alioquin obesae dum tenuibus vestimentis aut laneis rori colligendo operam navant, eo in exercitio carnes consumunt’. Ibidem. 281 DAG, VI.5, p. 281. The theory is attributed to Alexander of Aphrodisias, Problemata I.87.

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Nicolas Abraham de La Framboisière in the year 1600.282 Chapter XIX, entirely

dedicated to the balance of quiet and movement, opened with the usual

acknowledgment that by augmenting bodily heat, exercise greatly favoured the

digestion of nutrients and the evacuation of superfluous matter.283 A further advantage

of exercise, La Framboisière added, is that it hardens the limbs, thus rendering them

stronger and the whole body ‘more agile and better disposed’. 284 While

recommending moderation as a general rule, the author recognised that different

temperaments require different regimens. A phlegmatic constitution, for example,

necessitates ‘more vehement and sudden exercise’ to counteract its moist and cold

inclination, whereas a bilious one demands ‘soft and slow’ activity.285 Following the

existing Renaissance trend, La Framboisière praised walking as the best form of

exercise ‘suitable for everyone’.286 Running and jumping are also useful to stimulate

the appetite, but can too easily ‘tire those with a weak brain’.287 Horse riding was

commended as invigorating to both mind and senses with comparatively little

consumption of energy, whereas riding in a carriage was said to be by comparison a

far more strenuous activity liable to agitate the humours.288 Dancing is presented as a

useful and pleasant exercise insofar as it ‘renders the body cheerful, well-disposed

and skilful; the mind lively, gay and joyous’.289 It is said to be singularly beneficial

for ladies since it brings about their menstrual cycle. However, they are categorically

forbidden to dance the volta ‘since it confounds the brain, disturbs the mind, and

282 La Framboisière (1560-1636) also taught at the University of Reims. Laurence Brockliss notes how he was the first to publish in the vernacular for the benefit of those without an academic medical training. See Laurence Brockliss and Colin Jones, The Medical World of Early Modern France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 99. 283 Nicolas Abraham de La Framboisière, Le Gouvernement nécessaire è chacun pour vivre longuement en santé (Paris: Chez Michel Sonnius, [1600] 1608), pp. 102-103. 284 ‘Par ainsi l’exercice rend tout le corps plus agile & dispos’. Ibid., p. 103. 285 ‘Vray est que les corps phlegmatics, pour corriger leur intemperature, ont besoin d’un exercice plus véhément & soudain; & les bilieux d’un plus doux et lent’. Ibidem. 286 ‘La pourmenade est fort salubre à toutes personnes’. Ibidem. 287 ‘La course […] estonne & appesantit ceux qui ont le cerveau débile; Le sault produit les mesmes effects’. Ibid., p. 105. 288 Ibid., pp. 105-106. 289 ‘La danse […] rend le corps alaigre, dispos & adroit; l’esprit vif, gay & ioyeux’. Ibid., p. 105.

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exhausts the body to the point that it ends up causing many dangerous illnesses’.290

Indeed pregnant women are warned that if they indulge in this pastime, they are most

likely to give birth prematurely.

Published in 1618, The Portrait of Health by Joseph Du Chesne (1544-1609)

offered a more articulated and innovative study of exercise, which united

methodically referenced quotes from classical authorities with original reflections on

current practices. In his approach to the topic, the French physician admitted

following in the footsteps of Mercuriale.291 Being alternatively ‘strong and violent,

moderate, or limited and soft’, exercise is said to strengthen all parts of the body and

suit different ages, seasons, times of the day and temperaments. 292 Like La

Frambosière, Du Chesne too only mentioned women in relation to dancing, which he

praised as a most effective way to fashion young people’s carriage and fortify the

body. It is said to be especially crucial for girls to acquire the ‘good grace and good

demeanour that become them marvellously’.293 Indeed, dancing is proclaimed as

appropriate for women as hunting is for men294. The essential difference between

athletic regimes for the two sexes is made more explicit within Du Chesne’s

discussion of exercises tailored to different constitutions. Whereas men are

encouraged to engage in a multitude of laborious exercises, women are relegated in

the same category as the elderly and anyone with a faint complexion. These ‘delicate

people’, the author advised, should confine their activities to moderate endeavours

such as singing, reading, board games, and – most importantly – taking long

promenades in the mornings and evenings.295 The female body, regardless of its age

290 ‘… la volte, pour qu’elle estourdit la teste, trouble l’esprit, eboüit la veuë, & esbranle tellement tout le corps, qu’elle leur cause enfin beaucoup de maladies dangereuses’. Ibid., p. 105–106. 291 Joseph Du Chesne, Le pourtraict de la santé (Paris: Chez Claude Morel, [1618] 1627), p. 293. 292 ‘… il y a trois sortes d’exercices, que nous reduirons ou distinguerons en trois sortes […] forts & violents aux exercices mediocres, & en ceux qui son petits & legers’. Ibid., pp. 291-292. 293 ‘Une bonne grace, une bonne façon, entregeat & contenance, qui leur est chose merveilleusement bien seante’. Ibid., p. 305. 294 Ibid., p. 321. 295 ‘Exercices duisibles aux personnes delicates’. Ibid., p. 328–329.

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and robustness, was thus relegated to an altogether different group from the ideal

healthy male.

This binary gendered narrative is somehow complicated by the appearance of

women within a discussion of wrestling. With reference to various classical authors,

Du Chesne reported how the female population of Sparta, from young girls to old

women, was trained to fight alongside men in order to prepare for all kinds of

corporeal hardships. 296 Confronted with such egalitarian athletic practices, the

seventeenth-century author limited his comment to a harsh criticism of mixed

nakedness, which he deemed ‘altogether too shameful’. 297 His anodyne attitude

probably followed the example of Mercuriale, who often referred to ancient practices

but conspicuously failed to address contemporary women’s sport.

The few remarks expressed by Du Chesne remained the most extensive

discussion of female exercise for decades. Gaspard Bachot’s collection of Popular

errors concerning medicine (1626) approached the subject only in relation to body

weight.298 The royal physician lamented how ladies and girls are particularly prone to

lose weight in an unnatural fashion because of travelling, tiredness or prolonged

anxiety.299 To regain the ideal embonpoint, Bachot recommended a lot of sleep and

abstaining from any form of sudden and vehement exercise.300 On the other hand, he

criticised fashionable women’s habit to take a nap right after the morning repast in

order to gain weight, inviting them instead ‘to get dressed and take a moderate

exercise’.301 In his treatise The art of living long (1630), Pierre Jacquelot similarly

commended the fattening property of a ‘slow and poised’ promenade, which he

296 Ibid., p. 298. 297 ‘… Ie trouve quant à moy que c’est une chose trop honteuse’. Ibid., pp. 298-299. 298 Gaspard Bachot, Erreurs populaires touchant la médecine (Lyon: Par Barthelemy Vincent, 1626). Little is known about Bachot aside from the fact that he was awarded a medical degree in 1592. 299 Ibid., p. 405. 300 Ibid., pp. 405-406. 301 ‘… s’habiller & faire quelque léger exercice0. Ibid., p. 408.

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defined, according to what had become an almost formulaic expression, as ‘the most

common of all exercises’ and ‘suitable for everyone’.302

Moderation remained the common denominator of all medical

pronouncements on exercise later in the century. ‘[E]xcessive movement renders the

body thin and bilious’, warned the renowned physician and man of letters Guy Patin

(1601-1672) in his Treatise on the preservation of health (1632), but ‘too little

exercise makes it heavy and lazy, which is why one should behave with great

discretion and moderation’.303 ‘Eschew all violent exercises, as they heat and dry up’,

urged Antoine Porchon in 1684, recommending instead a light promenade and all

‘moderate exercises, since they fortify the joints and the flesh’.304 In his Happiness of

life or the Secret of health (1666), Pierre Dalicourt offered advice tailored to each

different complexion, ending with a generalised exhortation to ‘restrain from all

excess’, in exercise as in all other things. 305 Arranging their prescriptions by

complexion, neither of these vernacular guides mentioned practices especially suited

to women.

The silence was broken in 1668 with the appearance of a treatise written in

Latin by the physician Pierre Gontier.306 Despite the backward-looking choice of

302 ‘La pourmenade est le plus commun de nos exercices. Elle convient à toutes personnes’. Pierre Jacquelot, L’art de vivre longuement, sous le nom de Medée (Lyon: Pour Louis Teste-Port, 1630), p. 150. See Magdalena Koźluk and Jean-Paul Pittion, ‘La Medée de Pierre Jaquelot: médecine, culture humaniste et thérapeutique des passions’, in Jacqueline Vons (ed.), Actes du colloque 50e International d’Études Humanistes: Pratique et pensée médicales à la Renaissance, Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance (Tours) (Paris: De Boccard-Diffusion, 2009), pp. 187-200. 303 ‘… les mouvements excessifs rendent le corps maigre & bilieux; le trop peu d’exercice le rend pesant & paresseux; c’est pourquoy il faut s’y comporter mediocrement avec beaucoup de discretion & de moderation’. Guy Patin, Traité de la conservation de la santé (Paris: Chez Jean Jost, 1632), p. 106. 304 ‘Fuyez les exercices violens, car ils échauffent & dessechent […] les exercices moderez fortifient les jointures & les chairs’. Antoine Porchon, Les Règles de la santé ou le régime de vivre des sains (Paris: Chez Maurice Villery, 1684), pp. 43-45. Little is known of the author of this treatise, who presented himself as ‘doctor in medicine’ and a client of Nicolas-Louis de Bailleul, Marquis de Château-Gontier. 305 ‘… sur tout se garder des excés’. Pierre Dalicourt, Le Bonheur de la vie ou le Secret de la santé (Paris: n.d., 1666), pp. 48-89. 306 Pierre Gontier, Exercitationes hygiasticae, sive de sanitate tuenda et vita producenda libri XVIII (Lyon: Sumptibus Antonii Iulliéron, 1668).

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language and its plethora of antiquarian remarks, the book abounded with references

to current French practices. Within a classical dissertation of jumping, for example,

Gontier carefully examined what he termed Gallorum saltationes, that is fashionable

dances such as courantes, voltes and gaillardes. These activities were said to be

equally enjoyed by men and women, as they trained the former for war and helped the

latter acquire ‘the corporeal discipline that is most suited to their sex’.307 Gontier also

described the French habit of taking a promenade along the fashionable Cours ‘where

people of both sexes and all conditions gather’, some strolling and some riding on

horseback or in a carriage.308 Walking was especially praised for its power to ‘ease all

kinds of troubles and benefit people of all age, sex and complexion’, a slow pace

being best suited to women, the sickly and delicate.309

The curiosity towards contemporary practices that marked Gontier’s treatise

also informed a publication from the following year (1669), Michel Bicaise’s manual

on The manner to govern one’s health through what surrounds us, through what we

receive, and through exercises, or modern gymnastics.310 As the title suggests, the

third and final section of the treatise is entirely dedicated to exercise, which the author

is determined not discuss without delving unnecessarily into ancient customs.311 To

suit his intended purpose, Bicase’s medical outlook incorporated recent anatomical

insights gathered from autopsies and new mechanical descriptions of physiology.312

More specifically, his study of exercise mingles traditional humoral beliefs with a

307 ‘… sed certissimum etiam corporum diligentiae, quamquam muliebrem sexum potius deceant’. Ibid., p. 475. Arcangeli, ‘Dance and Health’, pp. 3-30. 308 ‘… le cours, quo aestate convolant omnes cuiusuis sexus, aut conditionis homines’. Ibid., p. 491. 309 ‘… omnem perturbantem affectionem explicat, & omni aetati, sexui, naturae, conducit’. Ibid., p. 492. 310 Michel Bicaise, La manière de régler la santé par ce que nous environne, par ce que nous recevons, et par les exercices, ou la gymnastique moderne (Aix: Chez Charles David, 1669). Little is known of the author, who introduced himself as doctor and professor of Medicine at the University of Aix 311 Ibid., p. 227. 312 Laurence Brockliss revealed the gradual emergence of eclectic medical approaches within French universities during the second half of the seventeenth century; see Laurence Brockliss, French Higher Education in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: A Cultural History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), pp. 391-440.

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new attention to the workings of muscles and nerves.313 Another original aspect of

Bicase’s work is the attention placed on exercise during childhood, to which an entire

section of his book is devoted. In this context, girls make a first appearance as the

object of particular attention. In the author’s opinion, it is good for them to indulge in

games that exercise their arms such as throwing knucklebones or partaking in

snowball fights.314 Such diversions are said to prepare them for the future toils of

spinning and weaving, which took their toll principally on the upper limbs and could,

in the worst cases, impact their reproductive faculties. 315 Bicase also deemed a

sedentary life, in the literal sense of the term, most pernicious since it inhibited the

regular evacuation of excessive substances. Being particularly at risk of experiencing

‘persistent obstructions’, women of every age were encouraged to walk often,

especially after lunch.316 In light of up-to-date physiological knowledge, the author

explained how the movement from women’s thighs would act upon the uterus via the

ligaments, helping to release any discharge of superfluous matter.317 Carriage riding

was recommended for the same reason, and so was dancing, as they cause women to

transpire and agitate stagnant humours by violently shaking the lower limbs.318 In

spite of their innovative general outlook, Bicase’s views ultimately reinforced

traditional prejudices concerning athletic femininity. Women were indeed encouraged

to engage in physical activity, but exclusively when this responded to a medical

necessity and more specifically to prevent nefarious afflictions of the reproductive

system. Exercise was not intended as a strategy for bodily self-improvement, but

rather prescribed as a prophylactic tool to stem the flow of overabundant humours the

female body was still thought to produce.

313 Bicaise, La manière de régler la santé, pp. 232-233. 314 Ibid., pp. 242-243. 315 Ibid., p. 242. 316 ‘… les femmes […] ont des obstructions opiniâtres’. Ibid., p. 26. 317 Ibid., p. 322. 318 Ibid., pp. 253, 282.

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I.1-iii Treatises on Women’s Health

While seventeenth-century printed regimens often dealt with women’s health only

tangentially, an emerging medical genre dealt exclusively with the peculiarities of the

female body. The work of the physician and agronomist Jean Liébault (c. 1535-1595)

placed itself at the forefront of the new interest in female anatomy. Consisting

essentially in an augmented translation of the work by the Italian Giovanni Marinello,

Liébault’s The illnesses of women and their remedies first appeared in 1582 and knew

vast popularity, being reprinted in 1585, 1598 and finally 1609.319 In this treatise, the

health of a woman was considered chiefly in relation to its reproductive function.

While still a virgin, a young girl was at risk of suffering from a bloating of her flesh

(bouffissure) caused by wateriness and thick internal winds brought forth by a ‘cold

and humid intemperance’.320 It was advisable in such cases to purge any internal

excrements ‘provoking menstruations by every possible means’; alongside a diet of

easily digestible food and little drink, it was recommended to ‘exercise the body

moderately and friction it with coarse linen’. 321 Once a girl had fulfilled her

reproductive destiny and was expecting a child, a stricter regime was to be prescribed.

Pregnant women should avoid any violent action including walking too fast, sitting

down and standing up too suddenly, running, and – most importantly – they should

not under any circumstances dance or ride on horseback.322 They were even forbidden

to carry heavy loads or move their arms up and down too often or too suddenly; their

legs instead should never be crossed or left dangling from a chair, since this was

likely to cause deformity in the child.323 Promenades instead were allowed so long as

they were to be taken at a slow pace. Indulging in other forms of ‘soft and moderate’

319 Jean Liébault, Les maladies des femmes & remedes d’ycelles, en trois livres (Paris: J. Berjon, 1609). On the author and his work on women’s medicine, see Evelyne Berriot-Salvadore, ‘De l’ornement et du gouvernement des dames’. 320 ‘Le mal […] procede de certaine intemperature froide et humide’. Ibid., p. 15. 321 ‘Pour y donner ordre, faut provoquer les mois par touts les moyens que l’on pourra […] exercer le corps mediocrement, & le frotter avec linges quelque peu rudastres’. Ibid., p. 16. 322 Ibid., p. 653. 323 Ibidem.

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exercise was also permitted, provided that ‘they should not cause any weariness’.324

As the moment of giving birth approached, more intense walks, ‘going back and forth

to the point of tiredness’, were instead recommended as most beneficial.325 However,

the author concluded, a pregnant woman should never ride on a carriage, since many

ladies have given premature birth as a consequence; if they need to be carried

somewhere, this should be done in a litter.326

Virtually identical advice was given by Jacques Duval in his 1612 treatise On

Hermaphrodites and women’s pregnancies. 327 All expecting women, the author

maintained, should not cross their legs, leave them dangling, or ride in carriages328.

Most importantly they should avoid dancing, especially the volte and the courante, for

such dances are ‘so dangerous, that they seem to have been expressly invented by the

worst enemy of the human race’.329 Indeed, the physician explained, their violent

movements cause discharges that in the most lamentable cases have prevented

honourable girls and ladies to produce any offspring. Whilst claiming that his remarks

were addressed ‘not just to the peasant girl, but also to the lady and even to the

princess’, Duval allowed for differences according to at least two different types of

complexion.330 Women who are naturally strong and robust, endowed with a ‘hard’

constitution, were warmly invited to ‘exercise their body, albeit without violence’.331

324 ‘…s’exerce à quelque doux & mediocre exercice qui ne luy apporte aucune lassitude de corps’. Ibidem. 325 ‘… quasi sur le poinct de son accouchement […] l’aller & le venir mesme avec lassitude luy sera profitable’. Ibidem. 326 Ibid., p. 654. 327 Jacques Duval, Des Hermaphrodits, accouchemens des femmes, et traitement qui est requis pour relever leur santé, & bien élever leurs enfans (Rouen: David Geuffroy, 1612). On the author and work, see Valerie Worth-Stylianou (ed. and trans.), Pregnancy and birth in early modern France: treatises by caring physicians and surgeons (1581-1625) (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2013), pp. 224-336. 328 Ibid., p. 167. 329 ‘Fuiront les danses & balets & signamment elles se garderont de danser des voltes & courantes, danses tant pernicieuses, qu’il semble à voir que l’enemi du genre humain les ait inventez exprès’. Ibidem. 330 ‘… utile & convenable, non seulement à la vilageoise, Mais aussi à la damoiselle dame & Princesse’. Ibid., p. 160. 331 Ibid., p. 160–163.

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Those who are ‘tender and delicate’ instead should ‘keep to their room, avoid all

exercise, even moderate, and lie on the bed most of the time’.332

In addition to endangering the smooth running of a pregnancy, poorly

managed physical activity was thought to prevent women from being able to conceive

in the first place. In his 1625 study of women’s sterility, the physician Louis de Serres

affirmed that ‘movement and rest, or exercise and idleness […] both taken in correct

measure, marvellously improve their fecundity, whereas their incorrect administration

greatly contributes to their infertility’.333 Sloth is innate in most women, the author

claimed, but he pronounced himself confident that, following his advice, ‘they will

soon change tune and, instead of abandoning themselves to laziness, they will

determine to embrace another way of life and take up some honourable exercise’.334 If

moderate, this activity will be enough to revive the ‘natural heat’ that would

otherwise lie dormant, ‘as if absorbed in the depths of those superfluous humours’

that naturally overflow in women’s bodies and are the principal cause of sterility.335

On the other hand, immoderate exercise in its many guises, de Serres continued, is

‘greatly prejudicial to the fertility of women’ regardless of their temperament.336 It is

said to ‘overheat the blood of those who are hot, bilious, and of amorous complexion;

spoil and corrupt that of the phlegmatic, since it agitates their bad humours without

332 ‘… tendres et delicates […] plusieurs d’icelles sont contraintes de garder la chambre, & fuir les exercices, quoy que médiocres, voire souvent de se tenir couchées au lict’. Ibid., p. 166. 333 ‘Le mouvement & le repos, ou l’exercice & l’oisiveté […] ainsi l’un & l’autre modérément prins, entretient merveilleusement leur fécondité, aussi l’usage sinistre d’iceux contribue fort à leur infécondité’. Louis de Serres, Discours de la nature, causes, signes et curation des empeschemens de la conception, et de la stérilité des femmes (Lyon: Chez Antoine Chard, 1625), p. 191. On the author and work, see Worth-Stylianou, Pregnancy and birth in early modern France, pp. 296-302. 334 ‘… elles changeroyent bien tost de note, & qu’au lieu de se laisser avachir à la faineantise, elles se resoudroyent à suyvre une autre façon de vivre qui fust meslangée de quelque honorable exercice’. Ibid., p. 192. 335 ‘… leur chaleur naturelle, qui est quasi comme absorbée dans le gouffre des humeurs superflues dont elles regorgent naturellement’. Ibidem. 336 ‘Quant au mouvement, ou exercice immodéré […] nous nous contenterons de dire premièrement & en général, qu’il est grandement preiudiciable à la fécondité des femmes’. Ibid., p. 194.

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getting rid of them, and finally dries up that of the melancholic’.337 Excessive dancing

was again singled out as the most dangerous activity, whose nefarious effects on

women’s reproductive ability are said to be comparable only to those of horse riding

on men. 338 Indeed, fashionable dances were held up as ‘the veritable causes of

sterility’, explaining how their violent movements are often responsible for detaching

the embryo from the uterine walls.339 In his treatise, De Serres also listed physical

activity amongst the remedies to get rid of excessive weight, which is blamed for

rendering ‘some [women] sickly, incapable of moving at liberty, others odious to their

husbands and infertile for life’.340 To those suffering from such an affliction, he

recommended tiring activities and promenades to be taken especially in the morning,

which is said to be a crucial time of the day, during which women should ‘not rest at

all, but instead exercise as much as they can’.341 Conversely, women who desire to

gain weight should live in a temperate climate and avoid all occasions leading to

tiredness and sweating. Should they be endowed with a cold and humid temperament,

however, exercise is still most necessary regardless of body weight.342

The interplay of a weaker humoral makeup and overbearing procreative needs

still remained key to female health past the middle of the century, when the teachings

of the physician Jean de Varandée (c. 1564-1617) were translated into the vernacular

and appeared as a new Treatise on Women’s Diseases.343 Published in 1666, this

volume still opened with the traditional acknowledgement of women’s substantial

337 ‘… il eschauffe par trop le sang de celles qui sont chaudes, bilieuses, & d’amoureuse complexion; gaste & corrompt celuy des phlegmatiques ou pituiteuses, parce qu’il esmeu, & ne résout leurs mauvaises & impures humeurs, & desseiche extraordinairement celuy des melancholiques’. Ibidem. 338 Ibid., pp. 194-195. 339 ‘… les vrayes promotrices de stérilité’. Ibid., pp. 196-198. 340 ‘… rend les unes maladives & incapables de tout libre mouvement, les autres odieuses à leurs maris pour sentir le bouquin, & les autres finalement stériles & infécondes toute leur vie’. Ibid., pp. 439-440. 341 ‘… ne demeureront guerres en repos, ainsi s’exerceront le plus qu’elles pourront’. Ibid., pp. 442-444. 342 Ibid., pp. 450-451. 343 Jean de Varandée, Traité des Maladies des Femmes (Paris: Chez Robert de Ninville, 1666); a first Latin edition entitled De affectibus mulierum had been published in 1619. Born in Nimes, Varandée became dean of the faculty of Montpellier in 1609.

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difference on account of their cold and humid temperament, which was identified as

the original cause of their valetudinarian constitution. With reference to Galen, the

author explained how the cacochimie, or collection of bad humours, engendered a

cachexie, literally a ‘bad habit’ of the body resulting in pale complexion and inflated

flesh.344 This sickness was so widespread amongst women that Varandée did not

hesitate to pronounce it ‘endemic’, especially amongst the ‘ladies of quality,

beautiful, widows or unmarried’. 345 Later the treatise targeted more specifically

certain women of the court, whose body was made flaccid and sensitive by the habit

of sleeping too long and sitting for hours to sew. Other female courtiers, instead, are

said to ruin their health by staying awake all night ‘in order to enjoy dancing or other

violent exercises’ that interfere with the digestion and generate bad humours. 346

Where ill-advised physical activity was at the root of the evil, however, sensible

exercise could also be part of the cure; indeed, Varandée pronounced moderate

exercise to be crucial. This should not be too violent to begin with, otherwise the

convalescent would suffer palpitations and breathing difficulties; when she starts to

recuperate instead greater agitation is useful to dissipate any lingering bad humours.

Once a woman has regained good health, the physician concluded, ‘a husband is the

most appropriate of all remedies’ and the pleasure enjoyed within marriage the best

tonic.347 Varandée mentioned exercise once more within his discussion of the correct

habits to be observed during pregnancy. As a general rule, he stated, expectant

women should not engage in any violent activity ‘avoiding dancing, tiring themselves

carrying or dragging heavy weights, riding in a carriage, cart or on a wild horse likely

344 ‘mauvaise habitude’. Ibid., p. 6. 345 ‘… nous voyons maintenant regner […] principalement parmy les personnes de qualité, ou belles, ou veuves, ou sans marys. Ce mal est si ordinaire, qu’on peut Presque l’appeler Endemyque’. Ibid., pp. 1-2. 346 ‘… afin de passer leur temps à danser & d’autres exercices violents […] qui engendrent quantité de mauvaises humeurs’. Ibid., pp. 5-6. 347 ‘Quand ces malaldes viennent à se mieux porter, un mary leur est plus propre que tout autre remède’. Ibid., p. 13.

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to throw them off their seat; and finally, they should not do anything that could agitate

their body’.348

More or less moderate, preventive or curative, female exercise prescribed in

medical texts was meant to act primarily on a deep humoral level, regulating the ebbs

and flows of the fluids that moved inside a woman’s body. It was also to be carefully

considered in relation to the reproductive apparatus, mostly in terms of the damage it

could provoke. The ‘hardening’ and strengthening of limbs and muscles instead were

left entirely to the men. While the female constitution was to be maintained healthy

by oscillating around a delicate and elusive medium, a male body could aspire to a

progressive and competitive dynamic of corporeal improvement. This persisting

dichotomy in medical prescriptions was punctually reflected in pedagogic literature

from the period.

I.2 The Pedagogic Discourse Physical training had traditionally played an increasingly central part in the moulding

of the ideal man in early modern France, as medical beliefs became indissolubly

bound with moral considerations and a straight body was regarded as the outward

marker of an upright spirit. 349 Male scions of the aristocracy, moreover, were

expected to show specific corporeal qualities that immediately manifested their

credentials as future military and political leaders. Between the sixteenth and

seventeenth century, Georges Vigarello observes, the required traits underwent a

marked shift from the display of ‘frontal force’ to the exhibition of dexterity and

grace that found expression in the man’s posture as well as his attire.350 Though such

qualities were supposed to be inbred and determined by ‘blood’, great pains were

taken to educate young aristocrats’ bodies as well as minds. During infancy, tutors

made sure that a noble boy’s daily routine would involve some form of outdoor

348 ‘Pour ce qui regarde l’exercice, il faut observer cette regle […] qu’elles fuyent les danses et les bals, & qu’elle ne s’efforcent point à porter, ou traisner une chose trop pesante ; qu’elles n’aillent point en carrosse ou charrette, ny sur un cheval rude qui les puisse secoüer, & enfin qu’elles ne fassent rien qui puisse trop esmouvoir le corps’. Ibid., p. 364 349 Georges Vigarello, Le corps redressé. Histoire d’un pouvoir pédagogique (Paris: Pierre Delarge, 1978). 350 Vigarello, ‘S’exercer, jouer’, esp. p. 249 on the ‘force frontale’.

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activity, usually a morning promenade; a series of masters would be then engaged to

teach them the noble arts of riding, fencing and dancing.351 Appearing in greater

numbers, didactic treatises too played an increasingly crucial part in the physical

training of French elites.352 These were usually written by professional instructors,

partly to assist colleagues and partly for the benefit of individuals who could not

afford private lessons. Turning towards these texts, Vigarello argues, it is possible to

tease out shifts in elite corporeal education across various disciplines. Pedagogic

publications, mostly the work of ecclesiastics or moral writers, also included specific

considerations regarding the physical attributes befitting the aristocratic body. In

1614, the Jesuit François Loryot endowed the ideal nobleman with an agile and

nimble body, ‘ready to every move’ required in times of war as well as peace.353 As

the century progressed, these traits became desirable in any healthy young man of

sound morals. In his Rules on the education of children (1687), the Port-Royal

pedagogue Pierre Coustel strongly advocated all exercises that, in addition to

fortifying the body, promoted a ‘free and honest countenance’ reflecting all the

beautiful qualities of the soul. 354 More specifically, he recommended dancing to

produce a graceful demeanour, horse-riding to make the body more robust, hunting to

prepare for the labours of war and finally swimming, which was thought to be

generally beneficial. His body and spirit fortified, a man earned his divine right to

351 Motley, Becoming a French Aristocrat, p. 140. 352 Serge Vaucelle, ‘L’éducation corporelle des aristocrates français à l’âge classique: la place des traités didactiques’ , in McClelland and Merrilees (eds), Sport and culture in early modern Europe, pp. 249-267. 353 ‘Notre Noblesse […] a sur tous besoin d’un corps leste & bien faict, pour dignement s’entretenir au temps de paix et en les factions de la guerre, qui demandend un homme soupple à tous plis, & dispos à tous mouvemens’. François Loryot, Les Fleurs des secretz moraux sur les passions du cœur humain (Paris: Chez Guillaume Guyot, 1614), pp. 537-538. Little is known of the Jesuit Loryot. His unique work, the 1614 treatise Les fleurs des secretz moraux, a collection of moralising observations on human life and social mores, appeared in four concurrent editions by different Parisian publishers. 354 ‘… la contenance libre & honneste font encore paroistre davantage les belles qualitez de l’ame’. Coustel’s Règles de l’éducation des enfants was reprinted as Traité de l’education chrétienne et littéraire propre à inspirer aux jeunes gens les sentiments d’une solide piété, & à leur donner le gout des belles-lettres 2 vols (Paris: Chez J. B. Delespine/Jean-Th. Herissant, 1749); quote at vol. 1, p. 313. On the author, see Nicholas Hammond, Fragmentary Voices: Memory and Education at Port-Royal (Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2004), pp. 59-68.

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preside over the rest of God’s Creation, starting with his own family. In 1698 the

writer Eustache Le Noble still affirmed that a husband had the right to exercise

complete authority over his wife since ‘nature made him more imposing, more agile

and more robust’ in the same way that ‘his mind has greater strength, breadth of scope

and penetration’. 355 Female virtues advocated by seventeenth-century religious

authors appeared to be embodied as well, although they responded to an altogether

different logic.

I.2-i The Conservative View

At the start of the seventeenth century, François de Sales (1567-1622), Bishop of

Geneva, wrote the first book of devotion expressly dedicated to a secular audience.

Published in 1609 and expanded in 1619, his Introduction to the Devout Life became

immediately popular, with multiple editions and translations into all major European

languages. 356 Although ostensibly directed at a universal readership, François de

Sales’ volume derived from his correspondence with a relative, Louise de

Charmoisy.357 The Introduction too is presented in the form of a long address to a

female interlocutor named Philothée (‘lover of God’). Accordingly, the tone and

language employed appealed to a public of novel-reading elite women who wished to

lead a devout and yet worldly life.358 After discussing a great many ways to exercise

the spirit and purify the soul, François de Sales benevolently acknowledged that ‘[i]t

is necessary sometimes to relax our mind, and our body too, with some sort of

355 ‘… la Nature l’a fait plus grand, plus agile & plus robuste; son esprit a plus de force, plus d’étenduë, & plus de penetration’. Eustache Le Noble, L’École du monde, ou Instruction d’un père à son fils, touchant la manière dont il faut vivre dans le monde (Amsterdam: Aux dépens de la Compagnie, [1698] 1709), vol. 4, p. 178. 356 The treatise was the second most frequently reprinted book in the seventeenth century after the Bible. On its far-reaching influence, see Sabine Volk-Birke’s article ‘Catholic Devotion Fitted for Use of Protestants: Francis de Sales’ Introduction à la vie dévote in France and Britain’, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 41.2 (2018), pp. 193-210. 357 Louise de Chastel was married to François’ cousin, Claude Vidomne de Chaumont, Seigneur de Charmoisy. In her early twenties at the time of her correspondence with François de Sales, Louise had previously lived at the French court as a maid of honour to Catherine de Clèves, dowager Duchess of Guise. 358 Nancy Oddo, ‘L’invention du roman français au XVIIe siècle: littérature religieuse et matière romanesque’, XVIIe siècle 54 (2002), pp. 221-234.

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recreation’.359 It would be a vice, he added, to deny oneself and others the pleasure of

such honest pastimes as taking a promenade, playing an instrument, singing or

hunting.360 Games where ‘gaining rewards the ability and industry of body or spirit’

such as various ball or racquet sports he also deemed ‘in themselves good and

pleasant’.361 When engaging in these activities, it was sufficient to apply ‘common

prudence’ and ‘avoid all excess’.362

After reprimanding all gambling activities, François de Sales carefully

considered ‘dances and balls’ as activities that are ‘indifferent in their nature, but

because of the ordinary fashion in which this exercise is taken, it is strongly inclined

towards the side of evil, and consequently full of danger and peril’.363 Taking place at

night, they encourage people to stay up late and lose the best part of the following

day. Moreover, ‘in the same way that these exercises open the pores of the body […]

they also open the pores of the heart’, which are then receptive to absorb all kinds of

moral poison in the air.364 Therefore, Philothée is vehemently and repeatedly urged to

attend balls as rarely as possible and applying the greatest prudence. ‘In order to play

or dance with pleasure’, François de Sales concluded, ‘it is necessary that these things

should be done for recreation and not for compulsion, for little time, and not until one

is exhausted or overwhelmed’.365 Above all, people should indulge in these exercises

rarely, lest they turn from a form of recreation into a veritable occupation.

359 ‘Il est force de relâcher quelquesfois nostre esprit, & nostre corps encore, à quelque sorte de recreation’. François de Sales, Introduction à la vie dévote (Paris: Chez Frédéric Léonard, [1619] 1666), p. 414. 360 Ibid., pp. 415-416. 361 ‘Les jeux esquels le gain sert de prix & récompense à l’habilité & industrie du corps, ou de l’esprit […] sont des recreations de soy-mesme bonnes & loisibles’. Ibid., p. 416. 362 ‘… pour en bien user il n’est besoin que de la commune prudence […] Il se faut seulement garder de l’excez’. Ibidem. 363 ‘Les Danses & Bals sont choses indifferentes de leur nature; mais selon l’ordinaire façon avec laquelle cét exercice se fait, il est fort penchant & incliné du costé du mal, & par consequent plein de danger & de peril’. Ibid., p. 420. 364 ‘Et comme ces exercices ouvrent les pores du corps de ceux qui les font, aussi ouvrent-ils les pores du cœur’. Ibid., p. 422. 365 ‘Pour joüer et danser loisiblement, il faut que ce soit par recreation, & non par affection; pour peu de temps, & non jusques à se lasser, ou étourdir’. Ibid., p. 425.

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In his reiterated warnings against excess and his horror of professional athleticism,

François of Sales provided sound advice in agreement with contemporary medical

authorities. Overall, his outlook on exercise seemed a positive one, whenever this was

taken during the day, in honest company and with the right frame of mind. Even

dancing, against which his is reforming zeal is unleashed, is chastised chiefly for the

corrupting surroundings where it takes place rather than for any inherent corporeal

danger. Indeed, the body surfaces rarely in this narrative, and when it is characterised

as a genderless entity whose health is intimately connected with the spirit. A properly

entertained body was thought to favour a happy mind; similarly, physical exhaustion

could induce moral weakness. François de Sales’ prescriptions seemed to apply to the

totality of his readers with no particular distinctions or caveats. By avoiding any

reference to female weakness or delicacy, he left room for the possibility that women

could and should take as much enjoyment from honest exercise as men.

Despite de Sales’ considerable influence on French devotional literature, his

de facto equalitarian approach to women’s exercise was to remain an exception

amongst the following generations of authors. Marcel Bernos emphasises how

‘weakness’ (faiblesse) remained a key term within the religious discourse on female

nature throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.366 While women’s moral

imperfection was the object of continuous and lively debate, their corporeal frailty

was taken as axiomatic, to the point of being regarded by some as the underlying

cause of their spiritual deficiencies. The highly popular Jesuit spiritual director and

preacher François Guilloré (1615-1684) maintained that women naturally develop ‘a

dominant and imperious humour, as if to compensate for the weakness of their sex’.367

To prevent this likely eventuality, female readers of devotional and moral

manuals were instead encouraged to cultivate the virtue of modesty. 368 In his

366 Marcel Bernos, Femmes et gens d’Église dans la France classique XVIIe-XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Cerf, 2003), esp. pp.50-54. 367 ‘Une humeur dominante & impérieuse, comme pour recompenser la foiblesse de son sexe’. François Guilloré, Retraite pour les dames (Paris: Chez Estienne Michallet, 1684), p. 17.368 See the chapter ‘La modestie: vertu féminine ou simplement chrétienne?’ in Bernos, Femmes et gens d’Église, pp. 55-70.

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influential tract The Holy family, first published in 1643, the Jesuit Jean Cordier

(1599-1673) explained that this moral attribute was particularly necessary to a

woman, being the one ‘that holds the compass to find the excellent medium that leads

to all other virtues’.369 Despite being often conceptualised as a spiritual trait, modesty

was explicitly presented by early modern authors in corporeal terms. According to

Cordier, it ‘must act chiefly on the exterior’ and govern all movements to avoid

excess.370 Bodily control, he continued, was supposed to extend from one’s eyes to

one’s tongue, one’s hands ‘and all the rest’, so that it became impossible for a woman

to ‘laugh like a buffoon, jump like a tumbler or shout like a madman’.371 Such rigid

prescriptions were promptly incorporated within the teachings of a growing number

of religious schools all over the country. Largely run by nuns and catering to pupils

from various social classes, these institutions represented the most common way for

girls to acquire some form of education during the Ancien Regime.372 Surviving

regulations appear to advocate, in Martine Sonnet’s words, a veritable ‘apology of

immobility’, according to which the body should be looked after whilst being

constricted and hidden.373 The teaching nuns of the Community of Sainte-Anne in

Paris encouraged their girls ‘to cultivate modesty in their gaze, movements, posture

and habits, to keep their body straight and to be civil and honest in all their

manners.374 In the classroom, they were forbidden from climbing on or under their

desks as well as sitting on the edge, lest they should fall immodestly; when seated

369 ‘C’est à la modestie, à qui on donne le compass à la main pour trouver cét excellent milieu, qui fait toutes les Vertus’. Jean Cordier, La Famille sainte (Lyon: Chez G. Chaunod, [1643] 1678), p. 179. 370 ‘Elle doit principalement ajuster tout le dehors, & ne rien permettre de tout ce qui peut arriver à l’excez’. Ibidem. 371 ‘… elle donne les mesures à nos yeux, à nôtre langue, à nos mains, & à tout. Elle nous defend de rire en bouffon, de sauter en bâteleur, de crier en enragé’. Ibidem. 372 Jean Perrel, ‘Les écoles de filles dans la France d’Ancien Régime’, Historical Reflections 7.2/3 (1980), pp. 75-83; Rapley, The Devotes. 373 ‘L’apologie de l’immobilité’. Martine Sonnet, L’éducation des filles au temps des Lumières, pp. 150-156. 374 ‘Elles les accoutumeront aussi à garder la modestie des yeux, des gestes, des postures, des habits, à tenir le corps droit et à être civiles et honnêtes de toutes leurs manières’. The Règlement de la communauté des Filles de Sainte-Anne établies pour l’instruction des pauvres filles de la paroisse Saint-Roch à Paris was written in 1698. The manuscript is preserved at the Bibliothèque Mazarine, Ms 3309 ; quote at fols 400-401.

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instead ‘they should not move their head or feet, which is a sign of levity, and they

should also keep their feet hidden under their skirts’.375 Moreover, rigid instructions

were issued to direct pupils’ behaviour outside of the institution. The girls taught by

the religious Ladies of the Cross were urged to spend the daily journey from home to

the convent ‘looking down at their feet’ and if the mud forced them to lift their skirts,

they were should do so ‘most discreetly’.376 Such injunctions were directed at girls

who attended the convents’ day schools and came from the urban lower classes. Other

institutions offered board and lodging to better-heeled pupils from the bourgeoisie and

the aristocracy. Founded in 1686 under the auspices of Françoise d’Aubigné (1635–

1719), Marquise of Maintenon, the Maison royale de Saint-Louis at Saint-Cyr

proposed itself as a model institution gathering girls of noble birth but reduced

circumstances. 377 A devout and well-educated woman, Madame de Maintenon

intended for the students of Saint-Cyr to enjoy a better-structured and more useful

education than that offered by a traditional religious school, without abandoning its

strict discipline378. When instructing the teaching nuns of Saint-Louis, the powerful

patroness reminded them that ‘your demoiselles have infinitely more need to conduct

themselves like good Christians and manage their family wisely, than acting like

bluestockings (savantes) and heroines’.379 Addressing the pupils, she plainly stated

375 ‘… elles ne remueront ni la tête ni les pieds, ce qui est un effet de légèreté, elles se tiendront modestement leurs pieds cachés et couverts de leurs jupes’. Ibid., fol. 1434. 376 ‘… marcheront en regardant leur pieds […] Si les boues les obligent de relever leur jupes, elles prendront garde que ce ne soit fort médiocrement’. Instruction chrétienne des jeunes filles dressée en faveur de celles qui son instruites dans la communauté des Dames de la Croix; pour y servir de lecture (Paris: Le Clerc, 1734), pp. 270-271. The community was established in the Parisian Faubourg Saint-Antoine during the first half of the seventeenth century. Their regulation was modelled on the work of the pedagogue Charles Gobinet (1614-1690). 377 Françoise d’Aubigné initiated an amorous liaison with Louis XIV in the late 1670s. They were probably united in a morganatic marriage around 1683 and lived as husband and wife until the King’s death. 378 Jacques Prévot, La Première Institutrice de France: Madame de Maintenon (Paris: Belin, 1981). 379 ‘… vos demoiselles ont infinimment plus de besoin d’apprendre à se conduire chrétiennement dans le monde et à bien gouverner leur famille avec sagesse, que de faire les savantes et les héroïnes’. ‘Entretien VIII, juin 1696’ in Françoise d’Aubigné marquise de Maintenon, Entretiens sur l’éducation des filles par Mme de Maintenon, ed. Théophile

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that ‘the Holy Spirit praises the femme forte insofar as she has hardened her arms for

toil, that is she has overcome her natural weakness to dedicate herself to the cares of

the household’.380 What good could too empowering an education be, if the ultimate

destiny of women was, in her own words, to ‘hide, locking ourselves away in a

convent or in our family’.381

Alongside regulations issued by specific institutions, pedagogic publications

started to propose general educational models tailored to women. Mostly dealing with

the improvement of the female mind through selective learning, such texts also

considered how best to think about and look after the female body. In 1632, the

Franciscan Jacques Du Bosc published his popular tract The Honest woman, where he

delineated a female counterpart to the ideal ‘honest man’ presented two years

previously by the scholar Nicolas Faret.382 The treatise started with a lengthy debate

on what temperament was to be preferred between what he called a ‘cheerful’ and

‘melancholic’ humour. After presenting both sides of the argument, Du Bosc

concluded that a woman should aspire to a balanced disposition and, should she be

more inclined towards melancholy, he recommended she not forsake completely all

Lavallée (Paris: Charpentier, 1854), p. 22. Dominique Picco, ‘Les dames de Saint-Louis, maitresses des demoiselles de Saint-Cyr’, in Isabelle Brouard-Arends and Marie-Emmanuelle Plagnol-Diéval (eds), Femmes éducatrices au siècle des lumières (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2007), pp. 273-287. 380 ‘Vous savez que le Saint-Esprit loue la femme forte de ce qu’elle a raidi ses bras pour le travail, c’est-à-dire qu’elle a surmonté sa faiblesse pour s’adonner aux soins de son ménage’.,Françoise d’Aubigné marquise de Maintenon, Recueil des instructions que Madame de Maintenon a données aux demoiselles de St-Cyr. D’après un manuscrit original et inédit appartenant à la Comtesse de Gramont d’Aster, ed. Odette de Montesquiou-Fezensac comtesse de Gramont d’Aster (Paris: J. Dumoulin, 1908), pp. 84-85. 381 ‘… la conduite consiste à obéir, à nous cacher, à nous renfermer ou dans un couvent ou dans notre famille’. Françoise d’Aubigné marquise de Maintenon, Conseils aux demoiselles pour leur conduite dans le monde, ed. Théophile Lavallée (Paris: Charpentier, 1857), vol. 1, p. 452. 382 Sharon Diane Nell and Aurora Wolfgang (ed.), L’Honnête Femme: The Respectable Woman in Society and the New Collection of Letters and Responses by Contemporary Women (Toronto: Iter Inc./Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2014).

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cheerful diversions. After all, the author observed, ‘Elizabeth of Hungary did not

disdain dancing, and her good humour did not prevent her from being canonised’.383

Whilst conforming to traditional understandings of human anatomy, Du

Bosc’s view of women’s character was at the same time strikingly innovative. The

author employed the same Galenic beliefs that were usually brought forth to explain

female natural weakness to account for historical and legendary examples of femmes

fortes. ‘Those who understand women’s temperament’, he declared, ‘will admit that

they have a marked disposition for true courage, being not so cold that they are

insensible, or so hot that they are foolhardy’.384 Du Bosc’s interest in the body,

however, did not extend beyond a rather elementary description of humoral flows and

their moral effects. Neither did he consider how courage might be connected or not to

corporeal force, nor did he offer advice on how to strengthen one’s body. In his

treatise, he did discuss corporeal qualities that he deemed important, namely beauty

and grace. On these topics his arguments were limited to rather trite considerations on

the necessity to achieve a correct balance between nature and artifice.

When articulating his own ideal of ‘The honest girl’ (1640), the moralist

writer François de Grenaille (1616-c. 1680) showed a similar attitude to all matters

corporeal.385 After dedicating the first section of his treatise to the definition of all

areas of knowledge suitable for women, the author turned his attention to moral

considerations regarding female beauty. 386 Alongside love of gentleness and

propriety, Grenaille regarded looking after one’s body as a natural female attribute, so

much so that ‘if girls renounced to taking care of their body, they would renounce

383 ‘Elizabeth de Hongrie ne refusoit point de danser, & sa bonne humeur n’a pas empesché qu’on ne l’aye canonisée’. Jacques Du Bosc, L’honneste femme (Paris: Chez Pierre Billaine, 1632), p. 16. 384 ‘Ceux qui cognoissent le temperament des femmes avouëront qu’elles ont une grande disposition au vray courage, n’estant pas si froides qu’elles soient insensibles, ny si chaudes qu’elles soient temeraires’. Ibid., p. 131. 385 After preparing for an ecclesiastic career, Grenaille moved to Paris where he became a prolific writer of moral tracts; he was also the official historiographer to Gaston d’Orléans, brother of Louis XIII. 386 On Grenaille’s views on female education, see Stanton, The Dynamics of Gender, pp. 95-96.

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their very sex’.387 His idea of body care consisted essentially in preserving one’s

embonpoint; that is, the ideal state of health to which each individual constitution was

predisposed.388 Far from being connected to any medical prescription, Grenaille’s

advice to honest girls focused instead on the moral evils of tampering with nature

through excessive ornamentation of body and dress. However, in a publication from

the following year (1641), Grenaille ventured to express the first articulate reflection

on the controversial role of exercise in a gentlewoman’s routine. His treatise on The

Ladies’ Pleasure consisted in a collection of seven essays, each examining the

positive and negative sides of what he considered a typically feminine and ladylike

activity.389 The chapter dedicated to ‘The Promenade’ provided an opportunity for the

author to engage with the medical side of a woman’s nature. Grenaille’s discourse

was firmly grounded within a solid, albeit traditional, understanding of the non-

naturals and echoed contemporary manuals on healthy living. He praised moderation

above all things and hailed walking as the most pleasant of amusements and the most

beneficial for mind and body, since the movement in addition to dispersing all

polluting humours would also enliven the spirit.390 Beneficial to all kinds of people,

the promenade is deemed ‘especially necessary to women’ in their constant attempt

to preserve their natural balance (embonpoint). 391 By expelling through exercise all

the excess of phlegm produced by the body in a state of quiet, they avoid the risk of

their whole complexion being corrupted. Grenaille did not challenge the basic tenet of

women’s corporeal inferiority; on the contrary he deemed them naturally weaker and

softer than men. Because of this universally acknowledged truth, however, he

declared that ‘they should take all the more care to fortify their constitution’ through

387 ‘… si les Filles renonçoient au soin du corps, elles renonceroient à leur sexe’. François de Grenaille, L’honneste fille (Paris: Chez Antoine de Sommaville, 1640), p. 338. 388 The term embonpoint, or embon-poinct, originated in the sixteenth century to designate a ‘good state’ of health, later acquiring the more specific meaning of ‘plump and portly constitution’. 389 Arcangeli, Recreation in the Renaissance, pp. 93-100. 390 François de Grenaille, Les Plaisirs des Dames (Paris: Chez Gervais Clousier, 1641), pp. 164-166. 391 ‘… la Promenade […] est principalement necessaire aux Dames’. Ibid., pp. 182-184.

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exercise. 392 In addition to discussing its prophylactic function, Grenaille also

suggested that walking could progressively improve a woman’s constitution. The

promenade, he wrote, ‘by agitating the body increases its strengths and, by keeping it

exercised, renders it averse to inactivity’.393 This active regime is recommended for

women’s own sake as much as to enhance their reproductive ability, which is

celebrated as their noblest attribute. In order to generate vigorous men, the author

affirmed, ‘they should live like Amazons, whose bravery was equal to male

heroes’.394

Such warm praise of the promenade was immediately followed by a bitter

invective, in which Grenaille appeared chiefly animated by moralistic zeal. He mainly

objected to the fact that walking outdoors fostered dangerous familiarity between the

sexes; ‘in letting themselves be seen’, he remarked scornfully, ‘women commit a sin

similar to that of men who look at them lustfully’.395 Only at the end of his moralistic

rant, the author made an attempt to back his criticism with medical considerations,

intimating that exercise is not beneficial to the body since it upsets the humours and

causes unnecessary excitement.396 Moreover, women are said to particularly at risk

since the heat generated by exercise endangered their natural moisture and the

delicacy of their complexion. True to the Scholastic principles that informed his

treatise, Grenaille did not refute one side of the argument in favour of the other. By

laying out both, instead, he made manifest inherent paradoxes associated with

contemporary understandings of female exercise. Indeed, while enjoying the pleasure

of the promenade, women appeared to thread an extremely thin line between

phlegmatic idleness and perilous overexertion.

392 ‘… comme elles sont naturellement plus foibles que les hommes, elles doivent avoir d’autant plus de soin de se fortifier’. Ibid., p. 183. 393 ‘… la Promenade en agitant le corps augmente ses forces, & luy fait hayr le repos, le tenant tousiours en haleine’. Ibid., p. 182. 394 ‘… elles doivent vivre comme des Amazones, qui égaloient la generosité des Heros’. Ibid., p. 183. 395 ‘… les femmes font presque la mesme faute en se laissant voir, que les hommes en les regardant d’un œil de concupiscence’. Ibid., p. 216. 396 Ibid., p. 215.

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The medical scruples that underpinned Grenaille’s argument were shared by a

number of intellectuals who published tracts on female education throughout the

second half of the seventeenth century. While Grenaille endeavoured to present a

balanced view, however, these pedagogues proposed a harder prescriptive line. In his

Treatise on the Education of Girls (1687), François Fénelon (1651-1715) announced

his conservative position by declaring that women ‘are made for moderate exercises’,

since ‘their body, as well as their mind, is less strong and robust than men’s’.397 ‘On

the other hand’, Fénelon continued, ‘nature endowed them with industry, propriety,

and a sense of economy so that they could find suitable occupation in their homes’.398

This opening statement is followed by an acknowledgement that women’s ‘natural

weakness’ ought to be fought so that they could look after their households; indeed

‘the more they are weak, the more important it is to strengthen them’.399 The worse

risk a girl can incur, according to Fénelon, was to abandon herself to unchecked

indolence, ‘getting used to sleep a third longer than it is necessary to preserve perfect

health’.400 Such prolonged languor ‘only makes her softer, more delicate and more

exposed to the revolts of the body’, whereas ‘measured rest accompanied by orderly

exercise renders a person cheerful, vigorous and robust’.401 Such professions appear at

first to chime with Grenaille’s praise of a fortifying walk. Yet the antidote to idleness

Fénelon suggested was limited to an active engagement in domestic matters. The

author’s reticence to make any mention of actual physical exercise was doubtlessly

motivated by his desire, expressed later in his treatise, that girls should learn to

397 ‘Leur corps, aussi bien que leur esprit, est moins fort et moins robuste que celui des hommes’. François de Salignac de la Mothe Fenélon, De l’éducation de filles (Paris: Pierre Aubuin, 1687), p. 4. On Fénelon’s view’s on éducation, see Stanton, The Dynamics of Gender, pp. 103-109. 398 ‘… en revanche, la nature leur a donné en partage l’industrie, la propreté et l’économie, pour les occuper tranquillement dans leurs maisons’. Ibidem. 399 ‘Mais que s’ensuit-il de la faiblesse naturelle des femmes? Plus elles sont faibles, plus il est important de les fortifier’. Ibid., pp. 4-5. 400 ‘Elle s’accoutume à dormir d’un tiers plus qu’il ne faudrait pour conserver une santé parfaite’. Ibid., p. 9. 401 ‘… ce long sommeil ne sert qu’à l’amollir, qu’à la rendre plus délicate, plus exposée aux révoltes du corps; au lieu qu’un sommeil médiocre, accompagné d’un exercice réglé, rend une personne gaie, vigoureuse et robuste’. Ibidem.

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distinguish between body and soul, mortifying the former to extol the latter. Unlike

Du Bosc, Fénelon feared a girl’s natural familiarity with corporeal matters. ‘As for

her body’, he commented, ‘she already knows too much about it; everything leads her

to gratify it, adorn it, turn it into an idol, therefore it is most important to instil

contempt, and expose her more positive side’.402

Claude Fleury (1640-1723), author of a Treatise on the choice and method of studies

published in 1686, proposed a similar assessment of female nature. Women, in his

opinion, ‘are ordinarily endowed with less concentration, less patience to reason

efficiently, less courage and firmness than men’.403 While their bodily constitution

played a part in this state of inferiority, Fleury admitted, ‘a bad education undoubtedly

played a bigger part’.404 His plans of reform of women’s instruction, however, were

limited to the mind. ‘As for the body’, he briefly noted, ‘there are no exercises which

are suitable for them, apart from walking’.405

One generation younger than Fénelon and Fleury, the educator and historian

Charles Rollin (1661-1741) appeared to hold more progressive views concerning the

training of girls’ bodies.406 In his Treatise on education (1726) he clearly stated that

‘like there are studies which are apt to cultivate and refine the spirit, there are also

exercises which are suitable to shape the body’ that ought not be neglected by any

‘Christian and reasonable’ mother.407 The only form of exercise he deemed suitable

402 ‘Pour son corps, elle ne le connoit que trop; tout la porte à le flatter, à l’orner, & à s’en faire un idole, il est capital de luy en inspirer le mépris, en luy montrant quelque chose de meilleur en elle’. Ibid., p. 118. 403 ‘Il est vray que les femmes ont pour l’ordinaire moins d’aplication, moins de patience, pour raisoner de suite, moins de courage & de fermeté que les hommes’. Claude Fleury, Traité du choix et de la méthode des études (Paris: Chez Pierre Aubouin, Pierre Emery et Charles Clousier, 1686), p. 265. On the author, Raymond E. Wanner, Claude Fleury (1640-1723) as an educational historiographer and thinker (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1975). 404 ‘… la constitution de leur corps y fait quelque chose, quoy que sans doute la mauvaise éducation y fasse plus’. Ibid., pp. 265-266. 405 ‘Pour le corps, il n’y a guère d’exercices qui leur conviennent, que de marcher’. Ibid., p. 268. 406 On Rollin’s life, see François Lebrun, Jean Quenart and Marc Venard, Histoire de l’enseignement et de l’éducation (1480-1789) (Paris: Perrin, 2003), vol. 2, pp. 513-514. 407 ‘… le devoir d’une mère chrétienne et raisonnable [...] Comme il y a des études destinées à cultiver et à orner l’esprit, il y a aussi des exercices propres à former le corps; et l’on ne doit

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for girls, however, was dancing – and only if learnt with the express aim to govern

one’s demeanour. ‘In order to achieve that’, he observed ‘it is sufficient to teach

young people not to abandon themselves to a lax nonchalance that spoils and corrupts

the whole attitude of the body; to keep straight, walk with a firm and uniform step’ so

that they could move easily in society.408 ‘There is no need for me to stop here and

discuss’, the author concluded, ‘how anything beyond what I just marked could be

dangerous for young girls, and lead to disastrous consequences’.409

Unlike his predecessors, Rollin presented exercise as an essential pedagogic

tool able to mould the female body to achieve specific corporeal goals. Underpinning

his prescriptions was the belief in an anatomical model no longer preoccupied with

the internal balance of the humours as much as with the formation of a strong

musculature. What appeared at risk of corruption was no longer a girl’s embonpoint,

but her posture. However fortified, straightened and controlled, the body described by

Rollin was still female insofar as it was greatly limited in its scope for action. A girl

could walk, but not run, and her training tended towards the performance of a range of

activities suited to indoor spaces, such as coming in and out of a room or curtsying

gracefully. Anything beyond this athletic perimeter was deemed disastrous as it

challenged physiological boundaries that, despite their relocation from the humoral

depths to the nervous surface, still stood solidly to separate the two sexes.

I.2-ii The Egalitarian View of François Poullain de La Barre

No true equality could be achieved until the anatomical barrier between the sexes

remained unchallenged, a fact that was first recognised by François Poullain de La

Barre. In his feminist writings, the Cartesian philosopher adopted a scientific outlook

to prove that ‘being members of the same species’, men and women were equal and

pas les négliger’. Charles Rollin, Traité des études (Paris: Didot Frères, [1726] 1863), vol.1, p. 81. 408 ‘Mais il suffit pour cela d’apprendre à de jeunes personnes de ne point s’abandonner à une molle nonchalance qui gâte et corrompt toute l’attitude du corps; à se tenir droites, à marcher d’un pas uni et ferme’. Ibidem. 409 ‘Il n’est pas nécessaire que je m’arrête ici à montrer combien tout ce qui est au delà de ce que je viens de marquer peut devenir dangereux pour les jeunes demoiselles, et combien les suites en peuvent être funestes’. Ibid., p. 82.

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should be educated in the same manner.410 While the core of his pedagogic theory

focused on the equality of the mind, Poullain de La Barre did not neglect the

corporeal component of the argument.411 His treatise On the equality of the two sexes

(1673) included an entire section to the traditional question of male and female

temperaments. 412 Behind the familiar label, however, the author proposed a

substantial reassessment of humoral understandings of gender.413 Medical attempts to

prove that women’s temperament is ‘completely different from ours, rendering them

inferior in every aspect’ were dismissed by the author as light conjectures.414 The true

reason behind gender inequality, Poullain counterargued, were to be found in

society’s costumes, since scientific evidence had shown that ‘men and women are

similar almost in every aspect of their internal and external bodily constitution’ and

that ‘the natural functions, from which depend our conservation, proceed in the same

manner’.415 Reproductive organs were indeed recognised as the one clear anatomical

difference, but in the author’s view this fact alone did not justify the common belief

that one gender should be endowed with more or less strength and vigour than the

other. On the contrary, experience showed that there are as many robust women as

men and that men brought up in idleness appeared often in worse physical shape.416

‘The same goes for women’, the author continued, observing that ‘those that occupy

410 ‘… n’y ayant qu’une methode pour instruire les uns & les autres, comme estans de mesme espece’. ‘Avertissement’ in François Poullain de La Barre, De l’éducation des dames pour la conduite de l’esprit dans les sciences et dans les mœurs (Paris: Chez Jean du Puis, 1674), n. d. 411 Poullain’s philosophy is carefully examined by Marie-Frédérique Pellegrin, François Poullain de La Barre: égalité, radicalité, modernité (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2017). 412 Poullain de La Barre, De l’égalité des deux sexes, pp. 175-178. 413 Marie-Frédérique Pellegrin also considers humoral theories of gender difference within her examination of Poullain’s conception of ‘equality’. See her article ‘Égalité ou superiorité: Les ambiguïtés du discours égalitaire chez Poulain de La Barre (1647-1723), in Haase-Dubosc and Henneau (eds), Revisiter la ‘querelle des femmes’, pp. 17- 30, esp. pp. 24-28. 414 ‘… tout à fait different du nôtre, & qui les rend inferieur en tout […] Mais leurs raisons ne sont que des conjectures legeres’. Poullain de La Barre, De l’égalité des deux sexes, p. 175. 415 ‘Aussi voyons-nous que les hommes & les femmes sont semblables presque en tout pour la constitution intérieure & extérieure du corps, & que les fonctions naturelles, & desquelles dépend nòtre conservation, se font en eux de la même maniere’. Ibid., p. 176. 416 Ibid., p. 177.

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themselves with laborious exercises are more robust than those gentlewomen who

handle nothing more than a needle’.417 These observations led Poullain to claim that

‘if the two sexes were to exercise equally, one would perhaps acquire as much vigour

as the other’.418 To support his theory, the author brought forth the historical example

of women wrestling in ancient Greece and present-day Amazons in Central

America.419 Poullain declared it useless to rely on bodily constitution to explain

observable differences between the sexes, which, he argued, have been ascribed to

temperament only for lack of a better explanation and the failure ‘to observe what can

accomplish in us habit, exercise, education, and external conditions’ dictated by

society.420

Education was singled out as one of the most crucial factors to be considered

since the one offered to women ‘could not be more different’ from that of men, and

greatly contributed to making them weak and helpless.421 This was true for the mind

as much as the body, since girls ‘do not partake in those exercises that confer

dexterity and strength, both to attack and defend’ themselves.422 While he raised the

issue of girls’ physical education, Poullain did not venture to put forward an

alternative pedagogic plan. In his collection of dialogues On the education of ladies

published the following year (1674), however, he posited that ‘to know the body’

constituted an essential stepping stone to all forms of scientific understanding of the

material world.423 Since humans, men and women alike, interact with the surrounding

environment via physical perceptions and sensations, the body ‘acts like a pair of

417 ‘Il en est de même des femmes. Celles qui s’occupent à des exercices pénibles sont plus robustes que les Dames qui ne manient qu’une aiguille’. Ibidem. 418 ‘Ce qui peut faire penser que si l’on exerçoit également les deux Sexes, l’un acquereroit peut-estre autant de vigueur que l’autre’. Ibidem. 419 Ibid., pp. 177-178. 420 ‘… faute d’avoir observé ce que peuvent faire en nous l’habitude, l’exercice, l’éducation & l’état exterieur’. Ibid., pp. 187-188. 421 ‘L’habillement, l’éducation, & les exercices ne peuvent estre plus differens’. Ibid., p. 190. 422 ‘Elles n’ont point de part aux exercices qui donnent l’adresse & la force pour l’attaque & pour la défense’. Ibid., pp. 196-197. 423 ‘… l’ordre veut que l’on connoisse ce Corps’. Poullain de La Barre, De l’éducation des dames, p. 274.

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distance spectacles for the mind’ putting in focus all external stimuli.424 To look into

corporeal matters, therefore, did not represent a corrupting distraction from the

research of spiritual truths, as Fénelon later put it, but a most beneficial and necessary

complement. Thus, invited to reflect upon their own corporeality, women would gain

the self-empowering knowledge of their physical equality with men. They would also

realise the crucial role of exercise to achieve their full anatomical potential and claim

the hitherto-male prerogative of active and athletic strength. Poullain presented his

thoughts on the equalising power of exercise in the form of a tantalising hypothesis,

based on rational and scientific observation, but as yet lacking any concrete

application in contemporary society. Seeking evidence to support his claim, he had to

turn towards the well-known description of female exercise in Plato’s Republic,

adding then that ‘similar things have been reported concerning the Amazons in

Central America’.425

It is hard to determine Poullain’s source of information, since many were the

early modern travel narratives that told of encounters with communities of belligerent

women in the New World.426 These were habitually referred to as Amazons and, like

the mythical tribe roaming the steppes of Scythia, they too were said to be highly

skilled warriors living in isolation from men. Similar communities were to be found,

according to other accounts, in various regions of Africa and even within the

European territories such as Bohemia and the Scandinavian lands.427 By depicting

entire populations of physically strong women, these reports provided new substance

to the classical Amazonian myth. Considered together, these distinct narratives had

the power to shake medical theories of sexual difference to the core. If Amazons had

existed, and indeed still existed in the flesh, then women’s body had indeed the

424 ‘Le corps, à mon avis, est à l’égard de l’esprit, ce que les Lunettes de longue vuë font à l’égard de l’œil’. Ibid., pp. 274-275. 425 ‘… on rapporte le même des Amazone qui sont au Midy de l’Amerique’. Poullain de La Barre, De l’égalité des deux sexes, p. 178. 426 Jean-Pierre Sanchez, Le Mythe des Amazones du Nouveau Monde (Pamplona: Universidad de Navarra, Edition Reichenberger, 1991). 427 Bertrand, L’Archémythe des Amazones, pp. 61-82. More specifically on Africa, see Laura Brown, ‘Amazons and Africans: Gender, race, and empire in Daniel Defoe’, in Margo Hendricks and Patricia Parker (eds), (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 118-137.

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potential to rival men’s. This notion, considered by Poullain in the limited space of a

sentence, was soon to find a more articulate exposition.

I.3 The Amazon’s Body Theorised: François de Chassepol and Pierre Petit

A New History of the Amazons published in 1678 by a certain François de Chassepol

constituted the first modern attempt to give the legendary Amazons a tangible life

through painstaking philological research. 428 The result was a chronologically

organised dissertation tracing the history of the Scythian ‘Kingdom of Amazonia’

together with a genealogy of its female rulers. The author’s outlook appears strikingly

original for its day in its rejection of the traditional image of Amazons as a

bloodthirsty crowd in favour of a more sympathetic depiction of a sisterhood of truly

valiant and honourable warriors.429 Chassepol conveyed his thoughts on disparity

between the sexes indirectly, within a long speech to the Amazons pronounced by

their first queen Marthésie. In this eloquent oration, the speaker denounced how for

centuries men had been forced to ‘bring [women] up in great softness, and bar [them]

from military exercises’ for fear that they might rebel to their domination.430 To this

end, she continued, they have been relegated to ‘activities that slacken the courage,

anesthetise the mind and destroy the force of our temperament’.431 And yet, despite

these precautions, women have managed to prove ‘through a great many beautiful

actions’ that their sex is ‘suited to the most laborious exercises, and able to succeed in

the most daring enterprises’. 432 These words echoed Poullain’s contention that

428 The treatise was published concurrently in Lyon and Paris, entitled alternatively Histoire nouvelle des Amazones or simply Histoire des Amazones. Little is known of the author, who claimed to have been inspired in the approaching of this topic by his patroness, Marie-Anne Mancini Duchess of Bouillon (1649-1714). 429 Bertrand, L’Archémythe des Amazones, pp. 151-154. 430 ‘C’est ce qui les oblige à nous élever avec tant de delicatesse, à nous deffendre l’exercice des armes’. François de Chassepol, Histoire des Amazones (Paris: Chez Claude Barbin, 1678), vol. 1, p. 65. 431 ‘… & à ne nous employer qu’aux choses qui amolissent le courage, endorment l’esprite, & détruisent la force de nôtre temperament’. Ibidem. 432 ‘… mais malgré cette precaution que les hommes ont prise dans tous les siecles, ne s’est-il pas trouvé des femmes qui ont fait connoître par un grand nombre de belles actions, que nôtre sexe est proper aux exercices les plus penibles, & capable des entreprises les plus hardies’. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 65-66.

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education rather than nature lay at the origin of gender inequality in society. While the

scope of his research was limited to the study of one specific community of Amazons

in the past, the author concluded by casting his gaze to the present day. ‘I am well

aware’, Chassepol noted at the very end of his treatise, ‘that there are still women who

bear this name and live more or less like those ancient warriors’.433

Towards these modern Amazons was directed the attention of another author,

the physician-turned-scholar Pierre Petit (1617-1687). Little is known of the life of

this seventeenth-century intellectual, save that after completing his medical studies in

Montpellier he moved back to the French capital. There he seems to have spent the

rest of his life, first engaged as tutor to the sons of Guillaume de Lamoignon, Chief

President of the Parliament of Paris, then living under the patronage of Aymar de

Nicolai, President of the Chamber of Accounts. This privileged situation allowed Petit

to fully dedicate himself to the pursuit of learning and the composition of literary and

historical tracts in Latin. On rare occasions he still took part in medical debates, most

famously in 1667 when he voiced his critique of the employment of blood transfusion

as a cure.434 Towards the end of his life, Petit set out to demonstrate the reality of

Amazons. Unlike Chassepol, he did not conceive his work as a piece of philological

enquiry into the classical myth. On the contrary, he sought to produce a scientific

explanation of the existence of Amazons in the present time. The fruit of Petit’s

labours, a Dissertation on Amazons in Latin, was first published in 1685 and then

expanded into a new version, which appeared soon after the author’s death two years

later. Reprinted in 1712, the work was finally translated into French as the Historical

treatise of Amazons in 1718.435 This title was partially truthful insofar as the initial

and final section of the treatise did engage principally with antiquarian material. The

central portion of the volume, however, was dedicated to proving ‘how it is not

433 ‘Je sçay bien qu’il y a encore aujourd’huy des femmes qui portent ce nom, & vivent à peu prés comme ces anciennes Guerrieres’. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 243. 434 See his tract De nova Curandorum Morborum Ratione per Transfusionem Sanguinis. 435 Pierre Petit, Traité historique sur les Amazones (Leide: Chès J. A. Langerak, 1718). On the work’s genealogy, see Bertrand, L’Archémythe des Amazones, pp. 161-162.

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absurd that Amazons have been as it is said they were’.436 Put in simpler terms, Petit

was determined to prove that a woman with the physical and mental characteristics of

an Amazon could exist. Without pausing any longer on ancient testimonies, the author

continued, it was time to consider ‘the thing itself, and see whether it exhibits any trait

that is opposed to reason or to the laws of nature’.437 In this endeavour, Petit benefited

from his unique background as he reinterpreted material from classical texts and

travel accounts with the eye of the trained physician and the wisdom of an

experienced pedagogue. The result was a medical study of the Amazon’s complexion,

explained mainly in light of two factors, namely physical surroundings and education.

Education, defined by Petit as a mixture of the nutrition and corporeal training

children receive from an early age, was considered especially crucial to the formation

of ‘the vigour and excellence of body and mind’ possessed by Amazons.438 While

previous authors had emphasised how female courage and force were to be

interpreted in a moral and spiritual sense, Petit appeared keen to underline the

necessary union of a strong body and a strong mind in the making of a real strong

woman. In his opinion, what might strike at first as an exceptionally robust female

constitution was simply the result of constant ‘exercises and labours both of mind and

body’.439 Refuting all sense of biological essentialism, he argued that it was through

habit and the repeated performance of certain activities that men acquired a ‘new’ and

‘masculine’ nature. Forced to get used to the same exercises as men since their most

tender youth, Amazons too had acquired ‘a magnanimous and generous spirit together

with a robust and vigorous body’.440 Completing such ‘an austere and harsh lifestyle’,

436 ‘… il n’est pas absurde que les Amazones ayent été telles qu’on dit avoit été’. Ibid., p. 87. 437 ‘… considerons un peu la chose meme, & voyons si elle ne renferme rien qui soit si oppose à la raison ou aux loix de la nature’. Ibidem. 438 ‘Que l’education, que l’on donnoit aux Amazones dès leur enfance, a beaucoup contribué à cette vigueur & excellence de corps & d’esprit extraordinaires, dont elles ont été douées’. Ibid., p. 140. 439 ‘… toute sorte d’exercices & de travaux tant du corps que de l’esprit’. Ibid., p. 142. 440 ‘… par-là les Amazones ont aquis un esprit grand & genereux & un corps robuste & vigoureux’. Ibid., pp. 143-144.

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the continual exercise of the hunt was sure to make women ‘enterprising and

courageous beyond the reach of their sex’.441

Petit proceeded then to buttress his theories on female education with specific

references to philosophical and medical authorities. First, he discussed the well-

known passage from book V of the Republic, in which Plato advocated that all

corporeal exercises should be shared between the sexes, while preserving those

differences that concern the reproductive faculty.442 Then he examined the work of

Galen to put into question the belief in the inherently gendered characters of the body

conceived in humoral terms. A careful reading of his tract On the pulse revealed that a

person’s temperament was not necessarily connected to sex; a woman might be

naturally more bilious, that is more hot and dry, than a man and a man more naturally

phlegmatic.443 Moreover, other factors such as conditions of life and exercise could

produce alterations in a person’s constitution. A woman who ‘is often in the country,

exposed to the elements, and takes a lot of exercise’, for example, will enjoy a

stronger constitution than a man who ‘lives a delicate, idle and voluptuous life’.444

More generally, the author concluded, ‘if any woman should follow the same way of

life usually adopted by men, it is plausible that, regardless of her natural temperament

being more or less hot than a man’s, she will acquire a constitution […] little or not at

all inferior in terms of heat and vigour’.445 This same fact that had been observed by

Poullain as an experiential truth, Petit instead presented as a universal theory rooted in

medical culture.

441 ‘… s’étant accoûtumées dès leur enfance au travail & à la peine, à vivre d’une maniere austere & dure, & à chasser continuellement dans les montagnes, elles en devenoient robustes, vigoureuses, entreprenantes, & courageuses au-delà de la portée de leur sexe’. Ibid., p. 150. 442 Ibid., p. 155. 443 Ibid., p. 160. 444 ‘… celui-ci mene une vie delicate, oisive, & voluptueuse; que celle-là se trouve souvent à la campagne & exposée aux injures de l’air, qu’elle prene beaucoup d’exercice’. Ibid., 161. 445 ‘… si […] la femme suive la même maniere de vivre que la plûpart des hommes tiennent, il est assès vrai-semblable, qu’une telle femme, quoique d’ailleurs elle soit d’un temperament un peu moins chaud qu’un homme dans son état naturel, aquerra pourtant une telle constitution par sa maniere de vivre un peu plus dure & approchante de celle des hommes, qu’elle ne cedera que fort peu où point du tout à l’homme en chaleur & en vigueur’. Ibid., p. 164.

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Whilst following in Poullain’s footsteps, Petit moved more methodically as he

discussed the importance of corporeal exercise to form courageous and robust

women. Once again he turned first to Plato for support, pointing out how the

philosopher’s endorsement of female gymnastics was chiefly motivated by the fact

that movement hardened the limbs, whereas idleness would make them weak and

languid.446 A moderate amount of physical labour would also rouse women’s fighting

ardour without turning it into savage brutality. In his treatise On Airs, Waters and

Places, Hippocrates too stated that exercise has the power to make men not only

stronger but also more courageous.447 ‘But what good are authors’ testimonies’, Petit

then exclaimed, ‘when experience makes the truth almost palpable through clear and

evident examples?’ and invited to look at peasant women running in the streets and

carrying heavy weights with as much agility and speed as men.448 ‘From this it is easy

to understand’, the author concluded, ‘how women would be capable of doing all the

things that men do if they were brought up and educated in the same manner’449. After

observing that children are naturally similar in their natural inclinations and that it is

education that moulds their character according to sex, the author again noted ‘how

there is little difference between peasant girls and women and their menfolk in the

coarseness of their manners and their ability to withstand physical labour’.450 Petit’s

Amazons were not to be found exclusively in faraway lands and history books; they

roamed the streets of French towns, busy with their daily occupations. Less

marvellous than the horsewomen of Scythia or the American warriors, these women

offered a glaring, if somewhat mundane, example of the effects of a masculine

corporeal training on a woman’s body.

446 Ibid., pp. 169-170 447 Ibid., p. 171. 448 ‘Mais qu’est-il besoin de témoignages d’Auteurs, lorsque l’experience rend la vérité de la chose presque palpable par des exemples clairs & évidens?’. Ibid., p. 172. 449 ‘D’où il est aisé de comprendre, que les femmes seroient capables de faire toutes les mêmes choses que les hommes si c’étoit coutume de les élever & de les instruire de la même maniere’. Ibid., pp. 172-173. 450 ‘Je voudrois bien aussi qu’on observât, combien les Paysanes tant filles que femmes sont peu différentes des garçons & des hommes dans la grossiereté des mœurs & dans la force à supporter les travaux’. Ibid., p. 185.

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The benefits of an equal education being so manifest, Petit wondered why

society had not seen fit to establish such custom. To provide an answer, the author

assumed a misogynistic tone in striking contrast with his preceding reflexions.

Women’s corporeal inferiority, he claimed, was a condition necessary to maintain

harmony within the household. In the first place, husbands had enough troubles

keeping their wives to their domestic duties as it was, in spite of their weaker

education. Should they be made ‘more robust and courageous through a harder and

masculine training’, it was to be feared they would soon aspire to become ‘mistress of

the house’. 451 Besides, he added, the same ardour that would make them more

belligerent, would ‘suffocate in them any sense of shame’, thus making all women

immodest and unfaithful to their husbands.452 To conclude, Petit proclaimed, ‘it is not

only for the peace and quiet of the home, but also for the sweetness and pleasure of

life, that women should have a softer spirit and weaker body than men, following the

order of nature’.453

Thus the march of Petit’s Amazons came to an abrupt halt. Frightened by the

possibility of female liberation going too far, the author retreated into the security of a

natural order whose integrity and validity his own work had challenged. To break all

harmony within the institution of family and society more broadly appeared too

catastrophic a risk to be taken lightly. In pursuit of medical knowledge, however, Petit

had ventured to lay bare the real and deep roots of gender inequality. Traditionally

standing as an incontrovertible and divine truth inscribed in the weaker flesh of

women, male superiority had instead been exposed as a man-made political strategy.

Justified as a guarantee of social peace, corporeal disproportions between the sexes

were enforced through specific pedagogic models centred on different conceptions of

exercise. Preventive or curative, physical activity was presented to women

451 ‘… si devenues plus robustes & plus courageuses par l’éducation dure & mâle qu’on leur aura donnée […] elles veulent être maîtresses en leur domestique?’. Ibid., p. 174. 452 ‘… il faut nécessairement que la même ardeur, qui les encourage à se battre vaillamment, étouffe en elles toute honte’. Ibidem. 453 ‘Enfin, il importe non seulement pour la paix & la tranquillité domestique, mais aussi pour la douceur & le plaisir de la vie, que les femmes, suivant l’ordre de la nature, ayent un esprit plus doux & un corps plus foible que les hommes n’ont’. Ibid., p. 175.

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exclusively as a medical measure to achieve a healthy equilibrium. For men, instead,

athletic endeavours constituted a key instrument for corporeal improvement

stimulated by assiduous and competitive training. It would take centuries for French

society – and Western culture more generally – to reconcile medical views with moral

scruples and start embracing more equalitarian views of athletic activity. Despite the

evolution of medical views of exercise in the eighteenth century, no French author

tackled the issue of female athleticism as radically or as straightforwardly as Petit had

done. In the absence of any study of the De Amazonibus or of his author, it is only

possible to speculate on the reception of the treatise in the century following his

publication. Due to its presentation as an erudite tract, it is probable that it had a

greater impact within eighteenth-century literary circles rather than amongst

physicians. Indeed, it likely contributed to the emergence of the literary trope of the

Amazon as a symbol for women’s personal and social emancipation through the

acquisition of greater corporeal freedom. While in Petit’s narrative the mythological

figure represented the embodiment of a woman engaging in any type of masculine

physical exercise, from the mid-seventeenth century the term in French became

increasingly associated with the female practice of equestrianism. This semantic

development coincided with the diffusion of new equestrian technologies that

favoured a more empowering riding style for women. After discussing the

significance of horse riding as a form of corporeal exercise in seventeenth-century

French culture, the following chapter will trace the evolution of the modern side-

saddle or monte en amazone.

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Chapter II – The Amazonian Mount: Female Equestrian Techniques II.1 The Cultural Significance of Equestrianism From the Middle Ages to the Revolution, the art of horsemanship has constituted one

of the pillars of French aristocratic culture. In the Ancien Regime, as Daniel Roche

shows, learning how to mount a horse was considered the basis on which a nobleman

would build his military training and eventually a career as an officer in the royal

army. 454 More generally, the control displayed by the skilful rider was a most

powerful signifier of his natural predisposition to lead and defend weaker members of

society, in addition to ruling over his land and household.455 Princes and scions of the

nobility were educated by a riding master in their private residences.456 Equestrian

academies too had become an increasingly popular alternative since they had been

established in the sixteenth century, based on the Italian model.457 Also inspired by

the work of Italian horse riding masters such as Federico Grisone and Claudio Corte,

specialised treatises began to appear for the benefit of teachers and students alike.458

Trained in Naples by Giovan Battista Pignatelli, Salomon de La Brue (c. 1530-c.

1610) was the first to compose a collection of Principal Precepts (1593) addressed

specifically at a French public, thus setting the basis for the national haute école.459 In

his treatise, the author set out to form a well-rounded horseman (cavalerice) rather

454 See the chapter ‘L’éducation des cavaliers: le roi et les pages’, in Roche, La culture équestre occidentale, vol. 2, pp. 131-168. See also the unpublished doctoral thesis by Treva J. Tucker, ‘From destrier to danseur : the role of the horse in early modern French noble identity’ (University of Southern California, 2007). 455 Ibid., pp. 220-221. 456 Motley, Becoming a French Aristocrat, p. 140. 457 Doucet, ‘Les académies équestres et l’éducation de la noblesse’. 458 Tomassini, The Italian Tradition of Equestrian Art. 459 A gentleman from Gascoigne, Salomon de La Brue became écuyer to Jean Louis de Nogaret de La Vallette, first Duke of Épernon, and subsequently écuyer ordinaire of the Grande Écurie du Roi in the reign of Henry IV. His Preceptes Principavx Que les bons Caualerisses doiuent exactement obseruer en leurs Escole was first published in 1593, reappeared as Le cavalerice François in 1602 and was reedited various times in the first half off the century.

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than a écuyer or mareschal able to train horses exclusively for military ends.460 La

Brue made it clear that such endeavour involved the horseman’s mind as well as

body, ‘[s]ince to master such a fierce and vigorous animal, the cavalerice must be

naturally ingenious, patient, courageous and strong’.461

Antoine de Pluvinel (1552-1620), another disciple of Pignatelli, achieved great

success, serving as riding master to Henri III and Henry IV, being then appointed

sous-gouverneur to the young Louis XIII.462 In 1594 he also established a successful

Academy in Paris, where the flower of French nobility learned the art of

horsemanship alongside the rudiments of music, dancing and other academic

subjects.463 His equestrian theories were first put in writing by one of his noble pupils,

René de Menou seigneur of Charnizay, whose 1612 treatise on horsemanship was

conceived with the express purpose of defending his master’s innovative methods

amongst the recalcitrant French aristocracy.464 Ten years later, Pierre de la Nue’s

treatise on French and Italian Horsemanship (1620) discussed how Franco-Italian

techniques were successfully applied to training horses for warfare as well as

equestrian ballets and carrousels.465 Key to the cavalier’s success, the author noted,

was the display of grace. Without this quality that renders all actions ‘admirable and

460 Patrice Franchet d’Espèrey, La main du maître: réflexions sur l’héritage équestre (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2007). 461 ‘Car pour bien maistriser un animal si vigoureux & si fier, le Cavalerice doit estre naturellement ingenieux, patient courageux et fort’. Salomon de La Broue, Le Cavalerice François (Paris: Chez Abel L’Angelier, 1610), p. 3. 462 Native of Crest in the Dauphiné, Antoine de Pluvinel received his equestrian education in Naples between 1571 and 1572, when he returned to Paris and was introduced at the court of Charles IX. 463 Pluvinel’s Academie d’Equitation was located near today’s Place des Pyramides. On Pluvinel’s pedagogy, see Hilda Nelson, ‘Antoine de Pluvinel, Classical Horseman and Humanist’, The French Review 58.4 (1985), pp. 514-523. 464 René de Menou de Charnizay, La Pratique du Chevalier ou l’exercice de monter à cheval (Paris: Chez Guillaume et Jean-Baptiste Loyson, 1612). Descendant of a distinguished military family from the Perche region, René de Charnizay (1578-1651) became conseiller to Louis XIII. 465 Little is known of La Nue; he was in all likelihood a provincial nobleman who, in his address ‘Aux Cavaliers’, declared himself to be far from court circles.

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amiable’, he is at risk of being mocked in elegant society, ‘even though he is able to

surpass everyone in his understanding of the most beautiful airs and manoeuvres’.466

Entrusted by the King to write a new and comprehensive manual, Pluvinel

began compiling a series of notes, but died before he could achieve his literary opus.

The material he left behind was hastily published in 1623 under the name Le Maneige

Royal, accompanied by illustrations by the talented Dutch engraver Crispijn van de

Passe The Younger (c. 1595-1670).467 In spite of its undeniable beauty and richness of

information, the work appeared in need of substantial editing. Determined to render

justice to his master’s work, René de Menou undertook the necessary revision of the

original manuscript, which appeared again in 1625 as The instruction of the King and

the art of riding. Structured as a dialogue between riding master and royal pupil,

Pluvinel’s discussion of equestrian techniques and training was framed within a

broader debate over the true nature of cavalerie. In accordance with the holistic

approach to aristocratic education championed in the Parisian Académie, Pluvinel

similarly emphasised how a complete and correct equestrian training was an exercise

‘necessary not only for the body, but also for the mind’.468 To exert mastery over an

‘irrational animal’, it was imperative that the rider should first control his own spirit

‘instructing and accustoming it to perform all its functions neatly and orderly amongst

the worries, noise, agitation, and continual fear of danger’.469 These efforts, moreover,

were to be carried out with grace while maintaining all the external traits of

466 ‘La grace est si necessaire au Cavalier, que sans icelle il se trouve plustost moqué, que loüé en les bonnes compagnies […] pour les rendre admirable & aymables en toutes leurs actions, quoy qu’ils les puisse surpasser en l’intelligence des plus beaux airs & maneges’. Pierre de La Noue, La cavalerie françoise et italienne (Lyon: Par Claude Morillon, 1620), p. 32. 467 Antoine de Pluvinel, Maneige royal ou l'on peut remarquer le defaut et la perfection du chevalier, en tous les exercices de cet art, digne des princes, fait et pratiqué en l'instruction du Roy (Paris: Guillaume le Noir et Melchior Tavernier, 1623). The author’s notes had been gathered and laxly edited by the royal valet de chambre J. D. Peyrol. 468 ‘… cét exercice n’est pas seulement necessaire pour le corps, mais aussi pour l’esprit’. Antoine de Pluvinel, L’Instruction du Roy en l’ exercice de monter à cheval (Paris: Chez Michel Nivelle, 1625), p. 2. 469 ‘… ce bel exercice est utile pour l’esprit, puis qu’elle l’instruct, & l’accostume d’executer nemment, & avec ordre, toutes ces fonctions, parmy le tracas, le bruict, l’agitation, & la peur continuelle du peril’. Ibid., p. 3.

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composure and ‘a smiling face’.470 The desire to excel in the art of horsemanship was

also said to foster attention to one’s corporeal health and encourage a balanced

lifestyle more generally. It ‘forces man to live soberly and with measure’, Pluvinel

stated, ‘[i]t renders him free in all his parts, makes him avoid all sort of excess and

debauchery, which could affect his health, knowing full well that it is impossible for

whoever experiences even the slightest physical discomfort to perform with grace on

horseback’.471

Moving further away from its primary connection with the military profession,

equestrian training progressively became part of an aristocratic pedagogy that

revolved around the fashioning of appearances through intellectual and emotional

discipline as well as corporeal mastery. 472 By the seventeenth century, issues of

control over the horse became internalised, the exercise of energy being directed

mostly towards moulding the rider’s behaviour rather than governing the horse’s

body.473 This shift is exemplified by the work of Gabriel du Breuil Pompée, whose

1669 manual of horsemanship was preceded by a general discussion of moral

philosophy and the physical sciences.474 In the preface, the author declared that it was

no use to approach military training without having previously acquired a well-

470 ‘… c’est une des parties tres-requise au Cavalier d’avoir la face riante’. Ibid., p. 12. 471 ‘… il oblige l’homme à vivre sobrement & reiglément. Il le rend libre en toutes ses parties, le fait eviter toutes sortes d’excès & de desbauches, qui pourroient troubler sa santé, sçachant bien estre impossible à celuy qui resent la moindre incommodité en sa personne, de pouvoir entreprendre quoy que ce soit, à cheval de bonne grace’. Ibid., p. 4. 472 Roche, La culture équestre, vol.2, p. 135. 473 Pia F. Cuneo, ‘Just a Bit of Control: The Historical Significance of Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century German Bit-Books’, in Karen Raber and Treva J. Tucker (eds), The Culture of the Horse, Status and Discipline in The Early Modern World (London: Palgrave Macmillan), p. 163. 474 Gabriel du Breuil Pompée, Abrégé des sciences en général. Instruction de la grâce et belle posture que le cavalier doit avoir à cheval, très utile aussi aux femmes qui, à présent, pour leur commodité et fermeté, prennent la mesme assiette et posture que le cavalier observe. La description des qualitez d’un beau et bon cheval, en françois et en latin (Arnhem: J. F. Haagen, 1669). Nothing is known of the author, who presented himself as a nobleman from the region of Poitou. The treatise first appeared as the Traitté de l’instruction du cavalier pour le render capable de dresser et emboucher toutes sortes de chevaux, sans qu’il aye besoin de l’ayde d’un escuyer, avec un raisonnement universel sur tous les airs du manège, dedié à la noblesse françoise (Poictiers: Jean Fleuriau, 1666). A version with the original title appeared in 1669 by the same published Haagen.

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rounded education.475 ‘[I]n order to achieve the glorious feats to which high birth has

destined them’, the author noted, young nobleman should temper ‘the magnanimity

and courage that are natural to them’ with ‘dexterity and prudence acquired through

the exercise of mind and body’.476 Opening his discussion of good horsemanship, du

Breuil Pompée declared that, in order to keep a good posture ‘from head to toe’, the

rider must pay attention to the correct way to hold the reins with a firm and skilful

hand. 477 From this single gesture depended his ability to govern the horse’s

movements as well as his own body. Echoing Pluvinel’s precepts, the author

emphasised that complete corporeal mastery was to be reflected in the display of a

cheerful countenance. ‘It is a required attribute for the rider to show a smiling face’,

he concluded, ‘so that this gaiety makes manifest that he is not embarrassed or

constricted in his actions’.478 Thus the practice of horsemanship was supposed to

become like a second nature for the well-bred nobleman. Daily equestrian drills

ensured that the noble rider refined his technique to acquire complete control and

dexterity in the saddle. Such intense physical training, however, was supposed to be

accompanied by the development of intellectual skills, emotional qualities and

strategic abilities that were honed chiefly through the frequent practice of the hunt.

Inseparable from the practice of horsemanship, cynegetic exercise played an

essential part in the constant performance of a specific lifestyle, that vivre noblement

which distinguished the Second Estate and consolidated its privileges.479 Traditionally

divided into venery (hunt with dogs) and falconry (hunt with birds), the art of the

chase remained the object of constant literary interest between the sixteenth and the

seventeenth century as treatises were constantly published and reprinted. Written by

475 Ibid., p. 3. 476 ‘… si, avec cette grandeur de courage, qui leur est naturelle, ils sçavoient joindre la prudence & l’addresse, qu’ils s’acquerent par les exercices de l’esprit & du corps, ils seroyent, sans doute, beaucoup plus capables de servir le public, & d’achever les entreprises glorieuses, ausquelles ils sont destinez par leur naissance’. Ibid., p. 4. 477 ‘A commencer depuis la teste iusques aux pieds, le Cavalier prendra garde comme il doit tenir les resnes’. Ibid., p. 22. 478 ‘… c’est une partie tres-requise au Cavalier, d’avoir la face riante, en regardant par fois la compagnie, sans beaucoup la tourner, ny ça ny là, afin que cette gayeté fasse connoistre qu’il n’est point embarrassé, ny contraint en ce qu’il fait’. Ibid., pp. 22-23. 479 Roche, La culture équestre occidentale, vol. 2, pp. 15-50.

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aristocratic men and intended chiefly for an aristocratic audience, these texts in

vernacular French praised the many benefits of cynegetic exercise whilst conveying

technical information. In his seminal treatise on hunting, Jacques du Foilloux (1519-

1580) addressed ‘the princes, lords and gentils-hommes of France’ and proclaimed

that

Amongst the honest exercises and enjoyable labours of men, it is impossible to find one that is as free from idleness and sin as the pleasure of the Hunt, Venery and Falconry; and of all the liberal occupations that we have, there is none that diverts the spirit, exert the body, stimulate the appetite and offer a good time, more than the amusement of the hunt and the fly of the bird.480

To these advantages, the author added that through hunting ‘one is made more skilful

in the saddle, gaining a better knowledge and ability to travel through the country and

defend oneself in a fight’.481 Foilloux then painted a delicate bucolic idyll in which

the rider setting off for the hunt was invited to enter in closer community with God by

contemplating the land stretching before his eyes and the creatures that inhabit it. In

this light, the ensuing chase was not to be regarded as an antagonistic effort, but rather

the perfect completion of a divine design. The Jesuit Étienne Binet (1569-1639),

prolific author of hagiographic and moral tracts, opened his Essay on the marvels of

nature (1621) with an extensive discussion of venery and falconry, which he held in

high esteem.482 In his influential treatise on falconry, Charles d’Arcussia (1554-1628)

too praised hunting as an activity suitable for every honest man who is sure to ‘find in

480 ‘Entre les honnestes exercices & labeurs delectables des homes, il ne s’en trouve aucun mieux excuse d’oisiveté & de peché que le plaisir de la Chassem Venerie, & Fauconnerie: & sur toutes les liberals occupations qu’avons entre nous, il n’y en a point qui plus recrée l’esprit, agilité le corps, aguise l’appetitm & donne du bon temps, que le deduit de la chasse, & le vol de l’oiseau’. ‘Epistre aux princes, seigneurs et gentils-hommes de France’ in Jacques du Foilloux, La Venerie (Paris: Chez la veuve Abel L’Angelier, 1614), p. 95. A nobleman of the Poitou region, du Foilloux originally published his treatise at Poitiers in 1561; this remained extremely popular, with no less than nineteen reprints between 1562 and 1888. 481 ‘… on est mieux addressé à cheva, pour cognoistre & entreprendre mieux les voyages par pays, & se defender en conflits’. Ibidem. 482 Étienne Binet, Essai des merveilles de nature et des plus nobles artifices. Pièce tres nécessaire à ceux qui font profession d’éloquence (Rouen: Chez Romain de Beauvais, 1621), pp. 1-45. The work, published under the pseudonym René François, enjoyed great success and was reedited 23 times. Henri Bremond, Histoire du sentiment religieux en France (Paris: Colin, 1967 [1916]), vol. 1, pp. 131-132.

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the countryside and the forest something that will elevate his heart to God’.483 The

flight of the falcon, with its sudden elevations and descents, is presented as valuable

object of contemplation, acting as a vivid reminder of the instability of mans’ life on

earth. Together with such moral considerations, the author did not distain to delve in

the more mundane and practical effects of hunting on the landscape. In particular,

d’Arcussia addressed diffused complaints that hunters galloping through the

countryside caused irreparable damage to the fields.484 The author dismissed such

accusations and protested instead that by chasing animal such as rabbits, partridges

and foxes, hunters rid the countryside of pernicious pests that would otherwise

damage the crops. The same opinion was embraced by the agronomist ante litteram

Olivier de Serres (1539-1619), whose pioneering treatise on agriculture extolled

hunting as the most important amongst the ‘honest exercises’ befitting the French

gentil-homme.485

While he indulged in this ‘honourable and pleasing labour’, de Serres commented, the

nobleman also acted for the public welfare ‘by freeing the country from ravenous

animals’.486 The fight of man against beast was depicted by the author as ‘training for

war […] in service of King and Country’.487 In ‘hardening himself to labour, rejecting

idleness, contenting himself with little food and drink, getting used to all kind of

483 ‘L’homme qui a son esprit à Dieu, peut tirer toujours quelque profit de telles actions; & trouver dans les forests, & dans les campagnes, de quoy eslever son cœur à Dieu’. Charles d’Arcussia, La Fauconnerie (Paris: Chez Jean Houzé, 1615), p. 267. Charles d’Arcussia, lord of Esparron, was a nobleman from Provence, serving as consul and then deputy for the city of Aix. His tract was first published in 1598 (Aix: Jean Tholosan) and subsequently reedited in 1615 and 1627. 484 Ibid., pp. 185-187. 485 ‘De la Chasse et autres honnestes exercices du Gentil-homme’. Olivier de Serres, Le théâtre d'agriculture et mesnage des champs (Paris: n.d., 1600), pp. 992-997. Member of a wealthy Protestant family, de Serres received a thorough education before managing his own estate of Pradel in Ardèche; his treatise knew instant success and was reprinted nineteen times between 1600 and 1675. 486 ‘… par tels honorable & plaisans labeurs, la contree sera délivrée de bestes ravissantes’. Ibid., p. 992. 487 ‘… estant la Chasse, un vrai apprentissage de la guerre […] proper à faire service au Roi, & à la Patrie’. Ibid., p. 993.

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nourishment and beverage, fighting strenuously and with little notice, spurring horses

on good and bad terrain’ the gentil-homme ‘fashions himself for war’.488

Training his body, the hunter also refined his spirit, rendering it ‘patient,

discrete, continent, modest, magnanimous, bold and ingenious’.489 Indeed, François

de Saint-Aulaire wrote in his 1619 treatise on falconry, ‘many held hunting to be the

one and true preservative against the sinful tickling of their senses and carnal

appetites’.490 ‘This exercise’, the author affirmed, ‘utterly exhaust the body with its

continuous labour so that the bows and arrows of Cupid are very easily broken, or

even disappear’.491 In addition to keeping the spirit and body virtuous, the practice of

hunting also contributed to reinforce the internal hierarchies of aristocratic society. A

minor noble (vassal), Saint-Aulaire declared, should only hunt with the permission of

a higher lord (haut Seigneur or Seigneur de fief).492 And even when this is granted, the

hunt should never be carried ‘in the vicinity or even within sight’ of the lord’s

castle.493 Finally, ‘if in the course of the hunt the nobleman happens to catch a great

quantity of prey, and especially of rare quality, he should immediately offer it as a

present to his lord’.494 Saint-Aulaire similarly advocated the exercise of great courtesy

between nobles of equal rank. Should the chase inadvertently lead the hunting party

488 ‘… par l’exercice de la Chasse, le Gentil-homme se façonne à la guerre, y apprenant les ruses de l’art, à s’endurcir au travail, fuiant l’oisivité, à se contenter de manger & boire peu, à s’accostumer à toutes viands & bruvages, à combattre à force & par surprinse, à piquer chevaux par bon & mauvais païs’. Ibid., pp. 992-993. 489 ‘… façonne l’esprit, rendant l’homme, patient, discret, continent, modeste, magnanime, hardi, ingénieux’. Ibid., p. 992. 490 [P]lusieurs n’ont pas tenu l’exercice de la Chasse pour le seul & vray préservatif contre le vitieux chatoüillement de leurs sens & appétits charnels. François de Saint-Aulaire, La fauconnerie (Paris: Chez Robert Fouët, 1619), p. 412. Little is known of the life of François II de Saint Aulaire, son of François de Beaupol de Saint Aulaire in Limousin, except that he married Jeanne de Barry, heiress of the seigneurie of La Renaudie in Périgord in 1590. 491 ‘Cest exercice matte tellement le corps par le travail continu qu’il y fair prendre que par tel assidu labeur les arcs et flesches de Cupido sont à la vérité fort aisément rompus, voire esvanouis’. Ibid., p. 411. 492 Ibid., p. 419. 493 ‘Le vassal sur tout ne doit iamais faire sa Chasse pres ny mesmes à la veue de la maison & chasteau de haut fief’. Ibidem. 494 ‘Si par le cours ordinaire de la Chasse du vassal, il prend quantité de gibier & notamment quelqu’un rare, il doit de cestui-cy faire incontinent present à son Seigneur’. Ibid., pp. 419-420.

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into the precincts of a neighbouring estate, the author recommended that excuses be

made immediately via an emissary.495 Finally, the author advocated respect towards

the fields and vineyards cultivated by farmers, whose help in tracking the prey may

sometimes turn out to be extremely valuable. 496 Thus on the hunting field, the

complex network of power relations on which Ancien Regime society was built found

immediate and tangible expression. Physical spaces as well as the riders’ own actions

and behaviours were invested with symbolic meanings that changed with time. While

preserving a strong connection with the art of war, seventeenth-century hunting

customs were affected by broader shifts in aristocratic culture. Following the same

trend that had marked changes in equestrian education, cynegetic exercise

increasingly came to rely on a form of corporeal management that put a premium on

the rider’s grace and beautiful deportment over strength and violence. In his 1671

New Treatise on French Civility, Antoine de Courtin strongly recommended not to

race at a gallop or ‘parade’ one’s equestrian ability unless asked to.497 Even during the

hunt, one should not cut in front of others or ‘let oneself get carried away with too

much ardour’.498

The performance of social hierarchies and polite conventions did not relate

exclusively to the general procedures of the hunt and the interactions between

participants. The type of cynegetic technique and prey chosen were in themselves

imbued with a complex set of cultural meanings that reinforced the close connection

between man and nature.499 Animals – be they different species of horses, hounds or

prey – were considered as creatures endowed with particular characters depending on

their humoral constitution, the so-called ‘naturel’, in a way not dissimilar to

495 Ibid., p. 418. 496 Ibid., pp. 421-422. 497 ‘Si elle galope il faut avoir soin de n’aller pas plus viste qu’elle, & ne faire & ne faire point parade de son cheval à moins qu’elle ne le commande’. Antoine de Courtin, Nouveau traité de la civilité qui se pratique en France parmi les honnestes gens (Paris: Chez Helie Iosset, 1671), p. 151. 498Et méme si l’on est à la chasse il ne faut pas la couper, ni le laisser emporter par trop d’ardeur. Ibid., p. 152. 499 Susan Crane, ‘Ritual Aspects of the Hunt à Force’, in Barbara A. Hanawalt and Lisa J. Kiser (eds), Engaging with Nature: Essays on the Natural World in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008), pp. 63-74, esp. p. 68.

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humans.500 A noble beast such as the hart, for example, deserved to be chased and

killed by the noblest of hunters and in the noblest possible way. Deeply rooted in

medieval traditions, such symbolic connotations grew only stronger throughout the

seventeenth century. Building on the rich tradition of cynegetic treatises from the

previous century, Robert de Salnove still exalted hunting as ‘the noblest form of

exercise, the only one to be enjoyed by Princes, alongside military training’.501 His

1665 treatise The Royal Venery methodically lists all the types of hounds and prey

with their natural properties (proprietez or qualitez) and the best way to engage with

them in different months of the year. A similar taxonomic pleasure pervaded Jean de

Franchières’ influential treatise on falconry, which was first printed in 1532 and then

reedited in the sixteenth and seventeenth century.502

Widespread beliefs concerning animals’ particular temperament, as well as

their physical properties and natural habitat, determined a hierarchy of cynegetic

techniques. The vénerie or chasse à courre, hunt par force in English, was regarded as

the noblest and quintessentially regal pastime, involving the pursuit of a wild animal

— usually a stag or roe buck but occasionally a boar or a wolf — with a pack of

hounds.503 The boar could also be gathered beforehand and put in a designated area

500 On the relationship between humans and animals in the early modern period, see the classic work by Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England, 1500-1800 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983), esp. pp. 100-120. 501 ‘La Chasse est un si noble exercice, qu’il est presque le seul où les Princes s’adonnent, comme à l’apprentissage de la guerre’. ‘Epistre au Roy’ in Robert de Salnove, La Venerie royale (Paris: Chez Antoine Sommaville, 1665). Robert (1590s-c. 1670) was the son of François de Salnove, sieur de la Mongie et des Fossées-de-Luçon in the Vandée region, counsellor and equerry to Catherine of Bourbon, Duchess of Bar, sister of Henry IV. Robert spent his youth as a page at the court of Henri IV and Louis XIII, who made him equerry to his sister Christine. When the princess became Duchess of Savoy in 1619, Salnove followed her to Piedmont where he likely spent the rest of his life. 502 Jean de Franchières was a Knight of the Order of Saint John, who was born in the first quarter of the fourteenth century and died in 1488. His Livre de fauconnerie, composed between 1458 and 1469, is preserved in over thirty manuscripts. The first printed edition appeared in Paris in 1532; it was then published again in 1567 and 1585. In the seventeenth century, it appeared in three editions (1607, 1618 and 1628) all published by Abel L’Angelier in Paris. 503 Claude d’Anthenaise, ‘La chasse courtoise’, in Chasse à courre, chasse de cour: Fastes de la vénerie princière à Chantilly au temps des Condés et des Orléans, 1659–1910 (Tournai, 2004), pp. 13-19.

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fenced with special toiles [wicker screens] where sportsmen could more easily chase

and finish them off in what was usually a bloody spectacle enjoyed by a large

audience. Despite the fact that its popularity increased throughout the seventeenth

century, this use of the toile was generally believed to be a less refined and skilful

practice than the kill in the open, which is probably why French huntsmen liked to

assume that it was a habit brought in from foreign courts.504 Under the reign of Louis

XIV it also became more common than in previous decades to hunt small birds and

rabbits with firearms; this was known as chasse à tir. The practice of the volerie,

hawking or falconry, by contrast, underwent a steady decline in the second half of the

century, becoming nothing more than a hollow ritual.505

II.1-i Equestrianism as Health Practice

For all their symbolic connotations, riding and hunting were still regarded principally

as a form of exercise that benefited mind and body alike. Prescriptive texts

emphasised how both corporeal strength and moral virtue were equally improved by

spending time in the saddle and out in the open air. Though preparatory to the military

profession, equestrian activity constituted an independent form of exercise for many

members of the nobility who spent several hours a day on horseback.506 While the

medical implications of riding and hunting remain largely implicit in the narrative of

most authors, Charles d’Arcussia dedicated an entire section to explain ‘[h]ow the

exercise of the hunt preserves the health of those who partake in it’.507 The position of

the author was soon revealed by his opening statement that hunting ‘is more effective

than the rest of Medicine altogether’ in preserving one’s health and prolonging one’s

life.508 Equestrian exercise, d’Arcussia continued, ‘is moderate and, if undertaken

504 D’Anthenaise, ‘La chasse courtoise’, p. 19; Salvadori, La chasse sous l’Ancien Regime, p. 200. 505 Salvadori, La chasse sous l’Ancien Regime, pp. 200-201. 506 Ibid., pp. 138-139. 507 ‘Comme l’exercice de la chasse conserve la santé à ceux qui s’y exercent’. Arcussia, La Fauconnerie, p. 323-324. 508 ‘Ceux qui se preparent d’allonger leurs iour, ne doivent penser qu’à la conservation de leur personne: à quoy l’exercice de la chasse peut plus que toute la Medecine ensemble. Ibid., p. 423.

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with ease, greatly benefit the body’ and, ‘according to Pliny’s advice, is particularly

advantageous to the joints and the stomach, warding off gout and kidney stones’.509

More generally, the author concluded, by providing a healthy form of entertainment,

hunting protects against idleness, which ‘corrupts the body, just as stagnant water is

more likely to get contaminated than water that flows continuously’.510

That d’Arcussia should offer an unmitigated commendation of the hunt comes

as no surprise considering the nature of his treatise. Contemporary health regimens

certainly offered a more cautious and nuanced view of riding’s effect on a man’s

constitution. Mercuriale’s De arte gymnastica introduced riding in Book III as the

first example of those activities ‘in which people are voluntarily and freely moved,

although the motion is performed by something else’.511 Amongst these exercises, the

author went on, riding is ‘nobler than the rest and better suited to free men, as Plato

wrote in the Laches; according to Galen, it involved two types of exercise, that which

we do ourselves, and that which others do for us’.512 After providing a few examples

of ancient equestrian games and discussing how riding was employed as part of

military training, Mercuriale concluded that ‘riding was always highly regarded as a

most useful exercise by physicians, although it greatly mattered whether people rode

on a mule or a horse, at a walk, a trot, a canter, or a gallop, all of which I will discuss

in due course’. 513 True to his promise, the author meticulously examined the

properties of riding in Book VI. According to Galen, riding is described as an

509 ‘Le travail de cheval, qui est moderé, estant supporté de bon cœur, profite extremement le corps […] selon l’avis de Pline, qui dit qu’estre à cheval est fort salutaire aux ionctures & à l’estomach, & preserve de la goutte & de la gravelle’. Ibidem. 510 L’oysiveté gaste le corps, tout de mesmes que l’eau croupissante se vient plustost à corrompre que celle qui court incessamment’. Ibid., p. 424. 511 ‘… in quibus hominess quidem sponte, & quodam modo libere movebantur, at eorum motus alterius moventis ope perficiebantur’. DAG III.9, p. 167. 512 ‘Inter haec postrema primum locum iure sibi vindicat equitatio […] nempe quae ceteris dignior sit, & liberum hominem, ut scripsit in Lachete Plato, maxime deceat, necnon utriusque exercitationis naturam, illius scilicet, quae a nobis ipsis, & illius quae ab alijs in nobis peragitur, secundum Galeni sententiam sapiat’. Ibidem. Plato, Laches (181e-182a); Galen, De sanitate tuenda II 11, 20. 513 ‘… persuasi credere debeamus equitationem tamquam utilissimam a medicis semper magnopere existimatam fuisse: quamvis & apud ipsos valde referret, numquid mulo, an equo veherentur, & illis an gradarijs, an asturconibus, an succussatarijs, an concurrentibus: quorum omnium diversas operationes suo loco explanabimus’. Ibid., p. 170.

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inherently intense and lengthy exercise that is greatly effective in increasing natural

heat and evacuating residues. 514 However, Mercuriale pointed out, it is crucial

whether ‘a horse […] moves slowly or quickly, or jogs, whether it trots, canters or

gallops’.515 Both Antyllus and Aetius wrote that a gentle slow ride ‘produces nothing

more than tiredness, especially in the groin’. 516 Hippocrates instead warned that

continuous riding ‘engenders great lassitude, renders men infertile and impotent, as

well as provoking chronic pain and limping’. 517 On the other hand, the author

reported, Aristotle argued the opposite, ‘saying that those who ride assiduously are

more lustful, because their genitals produce spirit through being heated by the motion

and constant rubbing, and thus desire for intercourse is induced’.518 Mercuriale’s

conciliatory reading of these two opinions explained that Hippocrates was concerned

with ‘peaceful over-frequent riding, which does not produce so much heat in its

motion and hurts the thighs and feet as they dangle down’, whereas Aristotle alluded

to ‘occasionally riding a horse that sometimes moves swiftly and sometimes at a

trot’.519 Overall, the author agreed with Antyllus and Aetius’ statement that riding has

the power to ‘vigorously shake up the entire body to a greater degree than all other

exercises’.520 For this characteristic, Mercuriale pronounced this exercise alternatively

beneficial or dangerous according to the types of diseases, of which he provided a

514 DAG VI.8, p. 292. Galen, De sanitate tuenda II.8, 2. 515 ‘Est autem non parva differentia, an equus […] lente, celeriterve gradiatur; an succusset; an asturco sit, ac tolutarius, an currat’. Ibidem. 516 ‘De placida, & lenta equitatione scriptum invenitur ab Antyllo, atque Aetio, si placide equus gradiatur, nihil magis, quam lassitudinem, & praesertim inguinibus afferre. Ibidem. Aetius, Libri Medicinales, III.7. 517 De hac, inquam, verba faciens, Hippocrates memoriae prodidit continuam equitationem lassitudinem magnam parere hominesque infoecundos et coeundi impotentes reddere, necnon dolores diuturnos et claudicationes generare’. Ibidem. Hippocrates, De aere aquis et loci XXII. 518 ‘Neque iccirco sentential Hippocratis damnanda videtur, quod Aristoteles contrario plane sensu scriptum reliquerit equitantes assidue libidinosiores evadere, quoniam genitalia continua attrectatione motionesque incalescentia spiritum concipiunt, sicque coeundi cupiditas inducitur’. Ibidem. Aristotle, Problemata IV.11 877b14-19. 519 ‘… siquidem Hippocrates de placida et nimis frequenti loquitur, utpote quae leni motu non ita calefaciat et pendentes coxas atque pedes oblaedat, Aristoteles vero de ea, quae equo celeriter gradiente et interdum sucussante, sed non admodum frequenter exercetur’. Ibidem. 520 ‘Haec etenim equitando facta exercitatio, ut Antyllus et Aetius crediderunt, totum corpus laboriose concutit, et magis adhuc omnibus aliis exercitationibus’. Ibidem, p. 157.

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detailed discussion. As announced in Book III, the horse’s gait played a crucial part in

determining the medical effect of riding. A jogtrot, for example, is said to be

particularly pernicious, as ‘it disturbs the whole body by its shaking, and it both

causes and increases pain’.521 Riding at a gentle canter with alternate legs, instead, is

said to be less distressing and particularly useful to stimulate the belly.522 As for

galloping, Mercuriale concluded, in addition to the constant danger of falling ‘there

are many reasons why those in search of good health should avoid this type of riding

at all costs’.523 According to Hippocrates, it overheats and dries the body, thinning it

to the point that Caelius Aurelianus promoted strenuous equestrian exercise as an

effective way to lose weight.524 Galloping is also said to have a bad effect on the

head, dulling the senses, hurting the eyes and making them water.525 The chest, lungs,

and all the viscera are also greatly damaged, and ‘[m]any people can attest that it

causes great harm to the kidneys, since they have been so severely troubled after

riding by burning urine, or stones’.526 Dislocations, broken bones, and twisted limbs

are also mentioned as constant risks deriving from the overexertion of arms, back and

legs. Taking all these factors into account, Mercuriale could not but conclude that

Those who enjoy travelling long distances on a succession of galloping steeds should recognise how much they are endangering not just their health, but their very life, and how they are behaving not like respectable men or people who care for their life and health, but rather like athletes – those examples of depravity – and men who hold their life in no account.527

521 ‘Equitatio peracta sucsussante equo praedictis duabus proculdubio deterior est, nimirum quae universum corpus moleste quasset, et dolores excitet augeatque’. Ibid., p. 293. 522 Ibidem. 523 ‘Sed praeter hanc multae exstant caussae aliae, ob quas a sanitatis studiosis huiusmodi equitation omni diligentia evitari debet’. Ibid., p. 294. 524 Ibidem. Hippocrates, De diaeta II.63, 3; Caelius, De morbis acutis et chronicis V.11, 132 525 Ibidem. Aristotle, Problemata V.37 884b22-35 on why the mouth waters when riding at great speed. 526 ‘Quod etiam renes maximo detrimento afficiantur, fidem facere possunt multi, quorum alij urinae ardore, alij lapillis […] ob hanc exercitationem sollicitati fuerunt’. Ibidem. 527 ‘Videant igitur quos currentibus, atque mutatis equis itinera sua obire delectat, quot, ijsque gravissimis periculis, nedum valetudinem, verum etiam salutem ipsam subijciant, quomodoque non ingenuorum, aut sanitatem curantium ac vitam, sed potius perditorum hominum, athletarum, nihilque vitam, qua nobis carius, aut optatius nil reperitur, aestimantium opus exerceant’. Ibidem.

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He also added that, according to Antyllus and Aetius, ‘neither of these types of riding

was of any real benefit to the sick’ and that Soranus of Ephesus pronounced it ‘in no

way suitable for those who had taken medicine’.528 Mercuriale displayed an equally

censorious attitude towards the habit of sitting pillion behind another rider, which he

deemed ‘of little use to those who are not well’.529 Even if one is being gently carried

along, he explained, one is still tired by the sheer act of mounting up and down from

the horse and being shaken by its movement. However, he conceded that this type of

exercise ‘can be of greater benefit to those who are in good health, by strengthening

body, mind and stomach, by cleansing and sharpening the senses; however, it

weakens chest and feet’.530

Mercuriale’s treatment of riding is cautious and may at points surprise for its

openly critical tone towards what constituted at the time a most respectable pastime

for European noblemen. The physician’s censure, however, appear to have been

addressed chiefly at equestrian exercise undertaken exclusively for the sake of what

he had previously defined as ‘perverse’ athletic ends.531 His perspective changed

drastically when considering riding in a cynegetic context. The discussion of hunting

in Book III begins with a direct reference to Galen’s maxim that ‘amongst all forms of

physical exercise, the most beneficial appears undoubtedly that which does not

exhaust the body while pleasing to the mind’.532 Following this principle, Mercuriale

invited to ‘recognise the exceptional wisdom of those who found in hunting a type of

exercise in which the effort is tempered by enjoyment and by the desire for praise in

such a way, that it is hard to determine which is greater, whether the activity of the

528 ‘Hactenus de equitationis speciebus, quarum nullam aegrotantibus admodum conferre scripserunt Antyllus atque Aetius, quasque nec iis, qui medicinam sumpserunt, ullo pacto congruere memoriae tradidit Soranus Ephesius’. Ibidem. Aetius, Libri Medicinales III.7; Soranius, In artem medendi Isagoge saluberrima XXIII. 529 ‘Sunt qui in equo sedentes gestari delectentur, quae exercitatio parum male valentibus usui esse mea sentential potest’. Ibidem. 530 ‘Valentibus magis conferre eadem potest, corpus, animum et stomachum firmando, sensus expurgando acuendoque, sed pectus atque pedes debilitat’. Ibid., pp. 294-295. 531 See p. 52, n. 233. 532 ‘Praeclarissima extat Galeni sententia, ex omnibus corporum exercitationibus, eam proculdubio utilissimam videri, quae nedum corpus fatigare, verum etiam animam oblectare valeat’. DAG III.15, p. 185. Galen, De parvae pilae ludo I.

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body or the mind’.533 According to Xenophon, the author continued, ‘the ancient

fathers of medicine’, Chiron, Machaon, Podalirius, Asclepius, went so far as to

prescribe it as a form of daily exercise.534 Hunting was subsequently praised in a

number of classical medical texts, which are examined in the rest of the chapter. In

addition to its health benefits, Mercuriale also recognised the valuable role of

cynegetic exercise in military training, which he explained in light of the many

similarity between these two activities. The author made it clear that his concern was

limited to the ‘capturing of animals on the ground, without recourse to trickery’ rather

than the many techniques for decoying birds.535

‘The situation of hunting’ in the present time is analysed in greater depth

within the very last chapter of the De arte gymnastica.536 Once again, Mercuriale took

a quote from Galen as the starting point for his own reflections. When comparing

hunting with the game of the small ball, the ancient physician drew only one

distinction, ‘that one required little material and could therefore be easily practised by

everyone, whereas the other needed such elaborate equipment that could only be

enjoyed by people of independent means’.537 While this might have been true in

Galen’s day, Mercuriale commented, ‘it is a fact that things today are rather different,

as we often see country folk and paupers going out to hunt with a dog or two and not

much more in the way of equipment’. 538 In addition to being popular, hunting

deserved particular attention insofar as it necessarily involves a multiplicity of

533 ‘… et iccirco sapientissimos illos haberi debere, qui in venatione eam exercendi corpora formam invenerunt, in qua mirifico quodam modo labores voluptate quasique laudis cupiditate ita temperantur, ut facile iudicari non possit maiorne sit corporis an animi motus’. Ibidem. 534 ‘… illi medicinae parentes’. Ibidem. Xenophon, De venatione I.1. 535 ‘… non in avibus decipiendis, sed in terrestribus animalibus sine dolo capiundis laboriose versatur’. Ibid., pp. 185-186. 536 ‘De venationis conditionibus’. DAG VI.13, pp. 305-308. 537 ‘Venationis exercitationem comparans ludo parvae pilae, Galenus illud solum inter ipsas discrimen posuisse videtur, quod alter modico apparatu indigeret, et ob id cuivis exercitatu facilis esset, altera vero pluribus instrumentis opus haberet, neque ab omnibus sed ab ingenuis dumtaxat atque divitibus exerceri posset’. Ibid., pp. 305-306 Galen, De parvae pilae ludo II. 538 ‘… etiam in aliqua venationis specie temporibus nostris verum foret, nihilominus in maiore eius parte secus rem sese habere compertum est, quando saepenumero uno vel duobus canibus aut paulo pluribus instrumentis rusticos atque pauperes venandi exercitationem frequentare conspicimus’. Ibid., p. 306.

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exercises and cannot be practised without spending a lot of time and energy. As a

consequence of its vigorous and composite nature, Mercuriale declared the exercise to

be endowed with various properties such as ‘heating the body with intensity,

dispersing residues, reducing flesh and superabundant humours, inducing deep sleep

and thus helping to ensure a good digestion of food and crude humours’ and finally,

according to Xenophon, it also ‘sharpens hearing and sight, and at the same time

wards off old age’.539

Mercuriale’s seemingly unreserved commendation of hunting appears at first

at odds with the previous condemnation of athletic horsemanship. His position

however is clarified in a final section dealing specifically with equestrian hunting

(venatio equestre). Undertaken ‘now at a gallop and now at a walking pace, at times

shouting and at others in silence’, this activity ‘seem to require considerable effort

from every part of the body, and for this reason many supposed that through this

exercise the chest, stomach, intestines, back and legs should be strengthened’.540 The

author instead is of different advice:

I prescribe that this type of hunting should be avoided by those whose head is easily perturbed, who are in danger of breaking the veins of their chest, or of having stones forming in the kidneys, those who have a weak peritoneum or any suspicion of a hernia, those whose entire bodily complexion is excessively hot, since one can see many hunters who, either through their shouting or the violence of their movements, appear affected by similar conditions and sometimes are lead to an untimely death.541

539 ‘… quod corpora vehementer calefaciat, excrementa dissipet, carnes et succos exuberantes minuat, somnos profundos generet, et proinde concoquentis cibis crudisve humoribus magnopere conferat, quodque ait Xenophon, auditum ac visum acuat, simulque senectutem retardet’. Ibidem. Xenophon, De venatione XII.1. 540 ‘Equestrem igitur, ita liceat mihi appellare, venationem exercentes, cum modo currentibus equis, modo gradientibus agantur, modo vociferare, modo quiescere cogantur, omnibus partibus laborare videntur, et iccirco multi hac exercitatione crediderunt corroborari pectus, stomachum, intestina, dorsum atque crura’. Ibidem. 541 ‘Ego vero eam evitare illis praecipio, quibus caput faciliter offenditur, quibus fractionis venarum in pectore periculum imminet, quibus lapilli in renibus aggregantur, quibus peritonaeum debile, aut ulla hernia suspicio est, et quibus tandem universus corporis habitus calorem plusquam mediocrem obtinuit, siquidem multos videre licet venatores, quos partim ob clamores, partim ob motus violentiam similes morbis occuparunt, et quandoque ad interitum deduxerunt’. Ibid., pp. 306-307.

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In comparison, hunting on foot (venatio pedestre) is said to drastically reduce these

risks whilst preserving the same advantages. At the same time, Mercuriale conceded,

equestrian hunting ‘involves harder work, it makes one hotter, and confers greater

strength to feet and legs’.542 ‘Besides’, the author added taking a moral turn, ‘it keeps

lustful desires in check, since they say that Hippolytus practised this kind of hunting

to preserve his virginity’.543

In conclusion, Mercuriale offered balanced and prudent advice, warning that

those who wish to practise hunting on horseback must carefully consider two things.

In the first place, they should reflect on ‘whether they are sufficiently strong in body

and enjoy unblemished health, otherwise most grievous arm will certainly befall

them’.544 Secondly, they should think of ‘whether they hunt in moderation and for

enjoyment or, as it is often the case, they do it without great thought or pleasure’.545

Mercuriale’s final invitation was a reminder that such vigorous physical activity

should never be undertaken lightly or casually, but rather one should ‘take account of

his own strength, the air, the season, the amount, place and mode of exercise’ they are

about to perform.546 This way, the author concluded, it is certainly possible to avoid

many of the ills deriving from intense exertion, especially in the case of hunting with

horses, which is unique insofar as it often lasts a whole day.

Those who indulged in a day-long hunt in the saddle therefore did not simply

parade their class privilege and wealth; most importantly, they made a show of their

perfect state of health. Whilst challenging the aristocratic nature of hunting on the

social scale, Mercuriale endorsed strict medical rules that effectively rendered the

exercise fit exclusively for a small group of elects. In his view, only robust

542 ‘At maiori labore afficitur, magis incalescit, magis pedes et crura corroborat’. Ibid., p. 307. 543 ‘Praeter haec libidinis stimulos coercet, quando Hippolytum studio virginitatis hoc venationis genus exercuisse ferunt’. Ibidem. 544 ‘Erit itaque omnibus hanc exercitationem inire cupientibus duo necessarium diligenter considerare: primum, an corporis robore polleant inculpataque sanitate fruantur, secus ne gravissima pericula sustineant, iure dubitandum videtur’. Ibidem. 545 ‘… secundum, numquid modestia quadam et iucunditate aut potius citra delectum ullum et casu quodam, ut plerumque fit, venationi operam navent’. Ibidem. 546 ‘Quicumque enim suarum virium, aeris, temporis, quantitatis, loci et modi rationem aliquam habere volunt, multa profecto eorum malorum vitare possunt’. Ibid., p. 308.

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individuals endowed with a balanced constitution could withstand the intensity and

length of equestrian hunting. In spite of its traditional gendered associations, people

with a hot and dry ‘ultra-masculine’ temperament were urged not to engage in this

exercise. Moreover, the constant interplay of mental and physical labour made it

suitable only for people in full possessions of their intellectual faculties. For those

strong enough to partake in the chase, however, the gain was certain, for no other type

of physical activity provided such a perfect mixture of beneficial exercise for the body

and delightful stimulation for the brain.

Seventeenth-century French manuals on healthy living appear keen to

underscore the beneficial medical effects of riding and hunting rather than warn

against their potential dangers. Writing in 1600, Nicholas Abraham de La

Framboisière presented the chase as ‘an exercise that is no less useful than pleasant

for those who have the leisure time to dedicate to it’, and especially the prince.547 In

terms of corporeal training, the physician continued, ‘in addition to being shaken in

the pursuit of the animals with the hounds, one acquires great agility and body

strength’.548 Equestrian exercise per se is especially recommended for ‘those that

have a fat, rare and slow constitution’, who cannot walk without endangering their

health.549 For these individuals, riding is ideal insofar as it ‘moves the body without

any colliquation of substance or diminution of strength, in addition to rendering the

spirit more lively and the senses more vigorous’.550 La Framboisière added briefly

that using a carriage was likely to have more deleterious effects than riding, since that

would ‘agitate the humours and shake the body’.551

547 ‘La chasse est aussi un exercice non moins utile que délectable, à ceux qui ont commodité d’y passer le temps’. La Framboisière, Le Gouvernement nécessaire è chacun, pp. 105-106. 548 ‘Car outre ce qu’on prend ses esbats à poursuyvre la bestes avec les chiens courans, on y acquiert une grande agilité & force de corps’. Ibid., pp. 105-106. 549 ‘Ceux qui ont l’habitude du corps gresse, rare, & aisée à se résoudre, d’autant qu’ils ne peuvent pas beaucoup cheminer à pied, sans s’offenser, ont besoin d’aller à cheval’. Ibid., p. 106. 550 ‘Car l’equitation fair mouvoir le corps sans colliquation de la substance, ny diminution de ses forces, & outre ce rend l’esprit plus vif, & les sens plus vigoureux’. Ibidem. 551 ‘Le coche agite plus les humeurs, & esbranle davantage le corps, que l’equitation’. Ibidem.

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Joseph Du Chesne’s discussion of riding was limited to a succinct historical

overview of equestrian games in ancient times, possibly aimed to provide some

historical background to an activity whose properties he considered known to

everyone. His medical attention, instead, was directed towards the growing fashion

for being carried around in chariots and carriages, noting that:

If one derives some comfort, one also often receives some damage when abusing of it, meaning that one refuses to move a step unless in a carriage, since the limbs are not properly exercised in this manner, and are not performing a movement that is appropriate and natural to them, but rather constrained and forced. In addition to this, the entire body ends up numb and feeble, or even slothful. Besides, the abrupt movement and shaking of those carriages and chariots, terribly exhausts the reins, heats them up and does great harm to those who suffer from kidney stones.552

Hunting, on the other hand, was praised as ‘the most commendable and frequent’ of

all exercises, ‘endowed with three beautiful qualities in being at once very necessary,

very useful and very pleasant’.553 As a pastime, the hunt is said to be particularly

convenient insofar as one ‘can practise it in different ways according to his desires,

either on foot or on horseback, spending more or less time and energy; every person

can do it according to his strength and possibilities’.554 In addition to being very

advantageous to people’s health, Du Chesne noted, cynegetic exercise also

contributed to keeping the countryside free from pernicious beasts and filling the

markets with good meat. The physician’s discussion took a similar tone to

552 ‘Si on reçoit de la commodité, on en rapporte aussi souvent du dommage, quand on en abuse: c’est à dire, qu’on ne veut faire un pas, que ce ne soit en carosse: car les membres ne s’exercent pas en ceste façon comme il faut, & n’usent pas un d’un mouvement qui leur soit propre & naturel, mais qui est contrainct & forcé. Ionct que tout le corps en fin s’en engourdit & devient lasche, voire s’en enpoltronit, outre que le rude mouvement & secouement desdites carosses ou coches, esbranle merveilleusement les reins, les eschausse, & est fort contraire à ceux qui sont sujets aux calculs’. Du Chesne, Le pourtraict de la santé, p. 315. 553 ‘La chasse est entre tous autres exercices le plus recommendable, & le plus fréquent […] Nous entendons parler icy seulement de celle qui appartient en quelque chose à la vie rustique, & qui est un exercice employé à poursuivre & chasser les beste, exercice doué des trois belles qualités, pour estre très necessaire, très utile, & très plaisant tout ensemble’. Ibid., p. 317. 554 ‘Elle est très-utile aussi non seulement à la santé du corps de l’homme, qui s’en exerce en diverses sortes & comme il luy plaist, soit à pied, soit à cheval, avec plus où moins de temps & de travail : chaque personne en peuvant user selon sa force & portée’. Ibidem.

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contemporary hunting treatises, presenting the chase as ‘an exercise eminently fit for

the nobility’, enjoyed by the greatest sovereigns and princes in times of peace, to

show their courage while ‘their weapons are hanging on the wall’.555 As a veritable

‘mirror of war’, hunting helps getting used to a rigorous lifestyle, ‘wake up early in

the morning, tolerate hot and cold temperatures’, while at the same time it puts one’s

courage to the test by interacting with wild beasts that might launch an attack.556 Du

Chesne then established the pedigree of cynegetic activities by reporting a series of

hunting anecdotes involving rulers from Cyrus to the current King Henry IV.

Falconry too, he added at the end of his historical excursus, ‘is a type of exercise

suitable for the great princes and the nobility’.557 In his Exercitationes (1668), Pierre

Gontier provided a similar, albeit condensed and less enthusiastic, view. He praised

the ancient origins of riding, pronounced it the noblest of ‘exercises in which one is

moved by something else’, briefly adding that it is divided according to the horse’s

gait.558 Hunting with hounds (venatio) is presented as particular insofar as it ‘does not

exert the body as much as it amuses the mind’, whereas fowling (aucupium), and

especially falconry (ars accipitaria), is again singled out as the noblest and most

suited to the Prince and the nobility.559 In the works of Pierre Jacquelot (1630) and

Antoine Porchon (1684), riding is mentioned only briefly and with a note of caution.

While the first warned that ‘equestrian exercise is not very beneficial and often causes

pain at the joints’, the latter included horse riding amongst the activities to avoid

categorically after a meal.560

555 ‘Au reste c’est un exercice approprié à la noblesse principalement, voire où les plus grands Monarques & Princes ont pris anciennement, & prennent encore aujourd’huy le plus de plaisir en temps de paix, & que leurs armes sont pendues au croc (comme on dit) en leur maison’. Ibid., pp. 317-318. 556 ‘Exercice de la chasse miroir de la guerre’. Car elle accoustume à se lever matin, à endurer le froid & le chaud. Ibid., pp. 318-319. 557 ‘… la fauconnerie ou vol des oyseaux, est une sorte de chasse ou exercice propre aussi pour les grands Princes, & pour la noblesse’. Ibid,, p. 322. 558 ‘Exercitationes alterius moventis’. Gontier, Exercitationes hygiasticae, p. 481. 559 ‘Venatio non tantum corpus exercet, sed & animum oblectat’. Ibidem. 560 ‘Celuy [exercice] qui se prend à cheval n’est pas beaucoup profitable & cause souvent les douleurs des ioinctures’. Pierre Jacquelot, L’art de vivre longuement, p. 151; Porchon, Les Règles de la santé, pp. 47-48.

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Focusing more specifically on medical gymnastics, Michel Bicaise’s health

regimen from 1669 followed Mercuriale’s example in paying special tribute to the

hunt. Indeed, the author claimed that to not include ‘the exercise of kings, heroes and

the nobility […] would mean forgetting our topic and not achieving our work’.561 ‘An

innocent war’, hunting constituted ‘the school of great captains and good soldiers’ by

making them robust and preparing them for fighting. 562 Whilst recognising the

exercise’s role in military training, Bicaise looked at hunting chiefly in medical terms,

maintaining that its practice naturally agreed or disagreed with each individual’s

complexion. ‘[T]hose who are averse to women’ and sensuality, the melancholics that

‘love solitude and wandering around mountains and forests’ are said to be fond of

cynegetic exercise.563 On the contrary, ‘those who are bilious, thin, depressed, easily

weakened, born under the influence of Saturn, must abstain from hunting’.564 The

same advice applies to those who are naturally ‘violent and cruel, since their brutality

[…] is increased by this exercise, whose aim is to seize and kill’.565

Determined to provide ‘less vague and more precise’ directives, Bicaise in the

first place echoed Mercuriale’s declaration that ‘hunting gathers all intense and hard

exercises, since it entails running, jumping, riding and a quantity of other

movements’.566 Secondly, the chase is said to ‘render hunters immediately sensitive to

561 ‘… l’exercice des Roys, des Heros & de la Noblesse, ce seroit à oublier nostre sujet, & à n’achever point nostre ouvrage, si nous n’y donnions quelque place, & si nous n’en faisons une des parties de la Gymnastique’. Bicaise, La manière de régler, p. 290. 562 ‘… une guerre innocente, & l’eschole des grands Capitaines, & des bons Soldats. En effet elle servoit autrefois à les render robustes, elle les disposoit aux combats’. Ibidem. 563 ‘… ceux qui sont ennemis des femmes, comme Hippolythe, s’appliquent souvent à la chasse, tous les melancholiques […] & qui aiment la solitude, & d’estre errans parmy les montagnes & les forêts’. Ibid., pp. 290-291. 564 ‘… les bilieux, les maigres, les tristes, les dissipables & les Saturniens doivent s’abstenir entierement de la chasse’. Ibid., p. 291. 565 ‘… il en est ainsi des violens & des cruels, dont la cruauté […] s’augmente davantage par cet exercice, qui n’a pour but que de prendre, & de tuër’. Ibidem. 566 ‘Mais pour donner des regles sur ce sujet qui soyent moins vagues, & plus precises, on doit supposer en premier lieu, que la chasse est un ramas de tout les exercices les plus forts & les plus penibles, car elle a besoin de la course, des sauts, du cheval, & de quantité d’autres mouvemens’. Ibidem.

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variations in air and weather, heating up their limbs and shaking them greatly’.567 In

addition to these factors, the author added that ‘hunting hardens the flesh’, which

instead ought to be preserved tender to ward off old age; it also dissipates moisture in

a way that renders the body ‘desiccated and emaciated’. 568 For these reasons, he

concluded that hunting is beneficial only for ‘people who are robust, strong, fat,

heavy and phlegmatic, and also those who transpire easily and do not suffer at all

from the influence of the air’.569 The violence of riding rendered equestrian hunting

an even more taxing exercise, as it ‘exhausts the brain, the reins, the spine, and

especially the lower abdomen and the internal organs’.570 As a ‘chase that takes place

in the air’, instead, falconry is said to ‘shake the arms, exert the eyes and the head’, so

that it is ‘the enemy of epileptics and of those who do not have a strong enough

brain’; those who are impatient and bilious too ‘cannot hunt in this fashion, as they

rush for lack of prudence, circumspection and stability, and in so doing they hurt

themselves’.571

Writing exactly a hundred years apart, Mercuriale and Bicaise’s views differed

little with regards to the medical benefits of cynegetic exercise. Whilst paying due

respect to hunting as a formative activity for the military elites, they both

acknowledged that it could only be enjoyed by sportsmen with a stable temperament

567 ‘En second lieu, qu’elle fait ressentir subitement aux chasseurs toutes les inegalités de l’air & du temps, qu’elle en échauffe les parties, & qu’elle les émeut grandement’. Ibid., pp. 291-292. 568 ‘De tout cela on conclud, que la chasse endurcit les chairs, quoy que la medecine nous enseigne, que pour retarder la vieillesse, on les doive entretenir tenders; que dissipant l’humide, & faisant evaporer les esprits, qui nouus tiennent lieu de sel, & de baume, elle desseiche & fait les tabides’. Ibid., p. 292. 569 ‘… il n’y a que les robustes & les forts, les gras, les presans & les phlegmatiques, ceux encore qui ne sont pas transpirables & qui ne souffrent point les impressions de l’air, à qui il soit profitable de chasser. Ibidem. 570 La chasse qui se fait à cheval ébranle le cerveau, les reins l’espine du dos, & principalement le bas ventre & les entrailles qui y sont contenües’. Ibid., p. 293 571 ‘La chasse qui se fait dans l’air esmeut les bras, & excerce les yeux, & la teste, elle est ennemie des epileptiques, & de ceux qui n’ont pas le cerveau assez fort […] il n’y a rien qui rende plus melancholique; c’est pourquoy les impatiens & les bilieux ne reüssissent pas à chasser ainsi, ils se precipitent mesme quelquefois, pour n’avoir la prudence, la circonspection, & l’attache, & ils se blessent dans les brouailles, & les rochers, parce qu’ils n’appliquent point leur ame, & ne fixent pas leur jugement’. Ibid., p. 296.

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and a strong intellect. The constant agitation would exacerbate the humoral

equilibrium of those individuals endowed with a naturally dry and hot complexion,

whose physiological imbalance was likely to find expression in cruel and violent

behaviours. People with a phlegmatic and idle disposition, instead, were to be

reinvigorated, both physically and psychologically. The hunt, therefore, provided a

platform where the aristocracy’s physical fitness, moral rectitude and civility could be

improved and put to the test.

In the previous chapter, I have shown that seventeenth-century French health

regimens appeared to be primarily concerned with the male body and its connections

with various types of exercise. Discussions of riding and hunting are no exception,

insofar as they neither recommend nor proscribe the exercise to women. The

documents’ silence on the matter could be easily interpreted as a sign that women

were automatically excluded from an exercise deemed physically and intellectually

demanding. Yet the revelation of the inherently ambiguous relationship of the athletic

female body renders such a straightforward assumption impossible. To investigate the

actual diffusion of equestrian practices, it is necessary to shift the focus away from

prescriptive medical literature. By tracing the evolution of female riding technologies

and techniques, the second part of this chapter will establish how and to which extent

seventeenth-century women were able to engage in horse riding as a form of athletic

exercise.

II.2 Historical Approaches to Female Equestrianism The history of female horse riding in the West, argues equestrian historian Catherine

Tourre-Malen, can be aptly divided in three broad phases.572 From Antiquity to the

sixteenth century, female equitation was restricted to travelling, requiring no specific

training or specialised attire. This period was characterised by a ‘technical

dimorphism’ between men and women, the latter engaging in a ‘passive use of the

horse’, simply being carried in a seat that faced completely to the left.573 Christian

572 Tourre-Malen, ‘Des amazones aux cavalières’. 573 ‘utilisation passive’ du cheval’. Ibid., p. 226. See also Paul Vigneron, Le Cheval dans l’Antiquité gréco-romaine: des guerres médiatiques aux grandes invasions. Contribution à

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Tavard dates the appearance of veritable women’s saddles to the 13th century. Called

a sambue, or pillion saddle in English, the earliest model consisted of a padded seat

placed on a wooden frame and fastened to the back of the horse. On this, women rode

sitting as if on a chair [monte en séant], their legs dangling off the left side of the

horse or resting more comfortably on a small wooden board [planchette] connected to

the main body of the saddle by two leather straps.574 A square piece of sturdy fabric

called a skirt was paced underneath the saddle so as to cover the horse’s flanks and

prevent direct contact with the ladies’ dresses.

The simplest types of pillion saddles took up so little space that they could be

easily connected to a man’s saddle. Thus the woman would ‘ride pillion’, that is to

say seating behind a male rider mounting astride.575 To keep the balance, she had to

hold her companion’s waist, as is shown in one of Jost Amman’s illustrations for

the1584 treatise On Horse Breeding by Marx Fugger (1529-1597) (fig. 5).576 To help

the female rider to mount and dismount as well as to gain more stability in her seat, a

horn or pommel was often affixed at the front or, less commonly, at the back of the

saddle. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust harbours a rare treasure, a pillion sidesaddle

dating from the mid-sixteenth century (fig. 6).577 Simply consisting of a large round

padded seat (335x485 mm) mounted on a wooden frame with a horn at the front, this

object reveals its elite nature through its precious green silk upholstery decorated with

applied fringes, braid of silk and metal thread.

l’histoire des techniques (Nancy: Annales de la faculté des lettres et des sciences humaines de l’université de Nancy, 1968), p. 164. 574 Christian H. Tavard, L’Habit du Cheval: Selle et Bride (Paris: Office du Livre, 1975), p. 242. 575 Monique Closson, ‘La femme et le cheval du XIIe au XVIe siecle’, in Le Cheval dans le monde médiéval (Aix-en-Provence: Presses universitaires de Provence, 1992), pp. 61-89, esp. p. 63. 576 Marx Fugger von Kirchberg und Weißenhorn, Von der Gestutüteren (Frankfurt-am-Main: Sigmund Feyrabends, 1584), p. 60. Marx Fugger, a member of the powerful banking dynasty of Augsburg, had already published an essay on the same subject in 1578; this second treatise however is more complete and lavishly illustrated by the talented artist Jost Amman (1539-1591). 577 Pillion side-saddle. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Inv. 1993-31/950.

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Three wooden boards could be added at the sides, thus creating a rudimentary

armchair-like seat called a whirlicote, literally a moving cot or litter.578 Those who

could afford the extra luxury had these wooden additions covered in fabric and

padded with hay or animal hair to provide better comfort and protection from the

cold. One such model dating from the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century is

preserved within the Collection Emile Hermès in Paris (fig. 7). 579 This was

unmistakably a costly item, the entire wooden body, including the planchette, being

upholstered in red velvet, the edges decorated with fringes of the same textile and

carefully fixed with metal studs, part of which are purely ornamental. The bottom and

sides of the seat are padded with horsehair and the back [dosseret] presents the

peculiarity of being detachable so that the rider could sit facing either the left or the

right side. The reason for this unusual feature might be the desire to ease the

interaction between ladies riding side to side as their mounts were led by a page or

stable boy. Rather heavy and cumbersome, this kind of saddles could only withstand

the slow gait suitable for a quiet journey or promenade. In such conditions, Tavard

speculates, it would be easier for women to keep engaging in leisurely conversation or

even useful activities such as spinning. Examples of later saddles have been found

578 Bloodgood, The Saddle of Queens, p. 8. 579 Saddle ‘à la Fermière’, France, 17th century. Collection Emile Hermès: EH-00-EQ-0-32.

Fig. 6: Pillion side-saddle. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Inv. 1993-31/950

Fig. 5: Jost Amman, Man and Woman Riding Pillion. Illustration for Marx Fugger von Kirchberg und Weißenhorn, Von der Gestutüteren (Frankfurt-am-Main: Sigmund Feyrabends, 1584), p. 60

Photo of ‘Jost Amman, Man and Woman Riding Pillion’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Collection Emile Hermès, Paris.

Photo of ‘Pillion side-saddle’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

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where a notch had been especially carved into the pommel to hold the distaff on

which wool thread was spun.580 According to Tourre-Malen, this type of unskilled

riding remained popular for centuries, albeit with a crucial difference. As the female

elites adopted more empowering equestrian equipment and techniques, being carried

persisted as the favourite option for women from the lower classes, especially in the

countryside. Later in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this style of saddles

came to be generally referred to in French as ‘à la fermière’ – literally ‘in the fashion

of a farmer’s wife’.

When investigating female equestrianism in the early modern period, warns

Daniel Roche, it is necessary to keep in mind that it ‘was never reduced to a single

model and a single social milieu, but rather it found a place at every level of

traditional societies, following the customs, the habits, the performances, all of which

are inseparable from the civilisation of the horse’.581 Even during the age of pillion

riding, however, there is evidence to suggest that women who could not afford to

keep a page and or simply wished to ride independently, mounted astride like a

580 Tavard, L’Habit du Cheval, p. 242. 581 ‘L’équitation des femmes ne s’est jamais réduite à un modèle unique et dans un seul milieu, mais elle a eu sa place à tous les niveaux des sociétés traditionnelles, selon les coutumes, les usages, les mises en scène, inséparables de la civilisation du cheval’. Roche, Histoire du cheval, vol. 3, p. 209.

Fig. 7: Saddle ‘à la Fermière’, France, 17th century. Collection Emile Hermès: EH-00-EQ-0-32

Photo of ‘Saddle “à la Fermière”’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Collection Emile Hermès, Paris.

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man. 582 In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales for example, the Wife of Bath is thus

described ‘Upon an amblere easily she sat, / Ywympled wel, and on hir heed an hat

/As brood-mantel aboute hir hypes large, / And on hir feet a paire of spores sharpe.583

Sporting a pair of spurs, this strong willed female character must have been riding

astride. A famous illumination from the Ellesmere Manuscript, dating from the first

decade of the fifteenth century, shows the Wife of Bath spurred, confidently

straddling the horse and brandishing a riding whip. In stark contrast, the Prioress and

the Second Nun are depicted more demurely riding on the side, probably on a

sambue. Unconventional though she was, it would be simplistic to interpret the figure

of Alyson, and her depiction, as a mere caricature or topsy-turvy subversion of

medieval gender roles.584 The Wife of Bath represents instead an example of the high

degree of agency that non-elite women could aspire to at the time. The socio-

economic independency achieved by this successful merchant widow is accompanied

by the proud display of physical mobility and power over her mount. In his

monograph on female hunting during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Richard

Almond argues that medieval aristocratic women often chose to ride astride when

they indulged in cynegetic exercise.585 This was the only way for them to attain the

speed necessary to join their male companions and truly enjoy the thrill of the chase.

Susan Bloodgood defines the fifteenth century as a transition period during which

women adopted the seat that best fulfilled their fancy or the demands of the occasion,

astride being preferred for travelling and the hunt, sideways for more formal

circumstances.586 The advent of new saddle-making technologies in the following

century finally allowed female riders to mount with ease and vigour while keeping

both legs on one side.

582 Bloodgood, The Saddle of Queens, p. 3 583 The Huntingdon Library, MS EL 26 C 9, fol. 72r. 584 Alcuin Blamires, ‘Refiguring the “Scandalous Excess” of Medieval Women: The Wife of Bath and Liberality’, in Thelma S. Fenster and Clare A. Lees (eds), Gender in Debate from the Early Middle Ages to the Renaissance (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp. 57-78. 585 Almond, Daughters of Artemis, p. 76. 586 Bloodgood, The Saddle of Queens, p. 3.

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Tourre-Malen aligns herself with most equestrian historians in placing the

start of a second phase in female equestrianism around the middle of the sixteenth

century. 587 This is generally connected with the riding exploits of Caterina de’

Medici, which had been reported by the eloquent, if not always reliable, Seigneur de

Brantôme (1540-1614).588 In his manuscript First Book of Ladies, written during the

last thirty years of his life and published in 1666, he recounted how the Florentine

Dauphine

always looked very well on horseback, appearing bold and sitting with remarkable grace, having been the first [woman] to have put her leg on the front of the saddle, in a way which makes the [rider’s] grace stand out more beautifully than on a planchette. She always enjoyed riding on horseback, until she was more than sixty years of age.589

The tale was repeated by the historian Antoine Varillas (1624-1696), who claimed

that the Queen ‘invented the fashion for putting one leg on the pommel of the saddle

when riding mares’ in order to show off her elegant silk stockings and shapely legs.590

The generic allusion to this piece of literary evidence is usually supported by

contemporary depictions of women riding aside adopting a posture that starts

resembling the modern one, with their right knee poking out under their skirts and

587 Newsum, Women and Horses, p. 22; Bloodgood, The Sddle of Queens, pp. 15-20; Owen, The Art of Side-Saddle, p. 10. 588 Pierre de Bourdeille, Seigneur de Brantôme was a French military man and courtier, who became famous for his ‘light’ writings containing anecdotes, most often court tittle-tattle, concerning the famous people he had rubbed shoulders with at court. On Brantôme’s misogynistic vein in his narratives, see David LaGuardia, Intertextual Masculinity in French Renaissance Literature: Rabelaism, Brantome, and the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), p. 8. 589 ‘… elle estoit fort bien a cheval, & hardye & si tenoit de fort bonne grâce, ayant este la premiere d’avoir mis la jambe sur l’arçon, d’autant que la grâce y est plus belle & apparessante que sur la planchette & a toujours fort aymé d’aller à cheval jusques en l’aage [sic] de plus de soixante ans’. Pierre de Bourdeille, Seigneur de Brantôme, Premier Livre des Dames. Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des manuscrits: NAF 20474 fol. 20v. Like all of Brantôme’s writings, this piece circulated in manuscript form until it appeared as a two-volume La vie des dames galantes de son temps, published in 1722 (Leyde: Chez Jean de la Tourterelle). 590 ‘Le beau tour de ses jambes luy faisoit prendre plaisir à porter des bas de soïe bien tirez, suivant la galanterie du temps; & ce fut pour les montrer, qu’elle inventa la mode de mettre une jambe sur le pommeau de la selle, en allant sur des haquenées’. Antoine Varillas, Histoire de Charles IX par le sieur Varillas, 2 vols (Paris: Claude Barbin, 1686), vol. 1, p. 2.

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their back facing the same direction as the horse. In these paintings, however, the legs

as well as the actual saddle are hidden beneath such voluminous skirts that it is

virtually impossible to reconstructs its exact shape. Tourre-Malen and other authors

insist that changes in posture observed in the second half of the sixteenth century

coincided with the addition of a crouch or ‘second horn’ on the right side of the

saddle, creating a fourche (fork), meaning a space in which the female rider could

comfortably wedge her thigh as she wrapped her right leg around the upper

pommel.591 Assumptions about sixteenth and seventeenth-century saddles à fourche

have been usually advanced taking later items as a model. A saddle preserved at

Hatfield House, home to the Cecil family since 1611, might provide a rare glimpse at

one of the earliest saddles of such kind (fig. 8). It consists of a padded seat with two

padded pommels at the top, both of which are bent to better support the rider’s right

thigh. The so-called ‘Cranborne’ saddle is traditionally thought to have been brought

to Hatfield from Cranborne Manor, a secondary residence of the family in Dorset,

which was substantially remodelled in the second decade of the seventeenth century.

A precise dating is impossible without further analysis of the materials. By its

appearance and general wear, the structure is likely to date back at least to the

eighteenth century.

591 The Cranborne Saddle, c. 1600-1800. Hatfield House, Inv. 5.006.

Fig. 8: The Cranborne Saddle, c. 1600-1800. Hatfield House, Inv. 5.00

Photo of ‘The Cranborne Saddle’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Hatfield House Estate.

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Overall, the current trend to mark the beginning of a new phase in women’s

riding with the introduction of a fourche seems overly simplistic. There are reasons to

believe that such riding equipment was available to women even prior to the sixteenth

century. Albrecht Dürer’s 1497 depiction of a Lady on Horseback and the Lansquenet

clearly shows a crouch supporting the female rider’s right thigh (fig. 9).592 Instead of

being horn or pommel-shaped, this appears to be rather flat, following a model that

continued to be employed for women’s saddles as late as the first quarter of the

nineteenth century, when the leaping head was introduced. This is a downward-bent

flat pommel placed on the left side of the saddle, which constitutes a safety measure

that holds the left thigh of the rider when jumping.593 Allowing further freedom, the

leaping head revolutionised side-saddle design and inaugurated the third and final

592 Albrecht Dürer, The Lady on Horseback and the Lansquenet, c. 1497. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Inv. 60.534.13. 593 This is reputed to have been invented by a certain Thomas Oldaker, huntsman to the Earl of Berkeley (1788-1820), who after breaking his leg started to ride side-saddle, finding that he could not jump without a grip for his left leg. The leaping head was later perfected by the Parisian Jules Charles Pellier, who claimed to invent it in 1830. Owen, The art of side-saddle, p. 16.

Fig. 9: Albrecht Dürer, The Lady on Horseback and the Lansquenet, c. 1497. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Inv. 60.534.13

Photo of ‘Albrecht Dürer, The Lady on Horseback and the Lansquenet’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

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phase in Tourre-Malen’s historical narrative. It is arguable that the decision to have

the second phase coincide with the introduction of the fourche represents a weak

attempt to establish an equally straightforward association of evolution in both

technology and technique. The reality, however, was far more complex. Bearing in

mind Roche’s warning, the following study of seventeenth-century female horse-

riding techniques challenges current progressive views of early modern women’s

equestrianism. Whilst acknowledging the coexistence of various riding styles, it will

also provide an original analysis of the type of women’s saddle that contemporaries

considered to be the newest and safest available.

II.2-i Reconstructing Seventeenth-Century Female Equestrian Techniques

All studies of female horsemanship in early modern Europe lament the difficulty of

reconciling women’s conspicuous exclusion from all horse-riding and hunting

manuals with their presence in equestrian scenes. Daniel Roche explained this

paradox in light of deeply entrenched misogynistic beliefs that considered the

presence of women in the stables unsafe and even unhealthy.594 With reference to

cynegetic publications, Richard Almond points out that widely accepted literary

conventions restricted the intended readership to noble ‘alpha males’. 595 While

women might have still read these books, it seems more probable that their training

was more practical. By shifting his attention from prescriptive literature to the visual

record, Almond argues that women learnt the theory and practice of the hunt first

through simple observation and then by being taught by a male instructor or relative.

Considering the proliferation of female equestrian portraits in seventeenth-century

France, Veauvy, Savray and Ponton d’Amécourt insist that would have been

unthinkable for elite women not to receive proper equestrian training.596 The authors

accompany their cursory examination of contemporary visual sources with a reference

to the 1669 treatise by du Breuil Pompée, previously discussed. 597 Its very title

594 Roche, La culture équestre occidentale, vol. 2, p. 210. 595 Almond, Daughters of Artemis, p. 5. 596 Veauvy, de Savray and de Ponton d’Amécourt (eds), Chevalières Amazones, p. 75. 597 See p. 100, n. 474.

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proclaims the publication to be ‘also useful to women who, at present, for their

comfort and stability, adopt the same seat and posture as men’.598 While the female

readership is never addressed directly in the manual itself, this liminal mention is

interpreted as a powerful testimony that the French author thought ladies capable of

acquiring the corporeal and intellectual self-mastery necessary to become

accomplished riders. However, looking more carefully at Du Breuil Pompée’s work a

further layer of complexity emerges. The mention of women is absent in the original

version of du Breuil Pompée’s work, which was first published as an in-8° volume in

Poitiers in 1666. This was entitled Treatise for the instruction of the rider, dedicated

‘to the French nobility’ and published with the express purpose of ‘rendering [the

rider] able to tame and train any horse, without the help of a riding master’.599 In

1669, the work reappeared in two distinct in-8° editions, both issued by the publisher

Jean Frederich Haagen in Arnhem, a major city of the Gelderland province in the

Dutch Republic. A first version, bearing the same title of the Poitiers edition,

reproduces the original French text. The second version, instead, bears a new title and

contains text in both French and Latin, thus making it accessible to a wider

international readership. Virtually nothing is known of du Breuil Pompée’s life and it

is therefore impossible to establish to which extent he was responsible, or even aware,

of the difference between the two 1669 editions. Since this is limited to the title and

does not alter the content of the work, it is possible that the publisher himself made

the changes to appeal to two different sets of readers. Whoever made such changes,

however, must have believed that an international audience would be more inclined to

welcome the inclusion of women riders in the title page. This assumption appears to

598 Gabriel du Breuil Pompée, Abrégé des sciences en général. Instruction de la grâce et belle posture que le cavalier doit avoir à cheval, très utile aussi aux femmes qui, à présent, pour leur commodité et fermeté, prennent la mesme assiette et posture que le cavalier observe. La description des qualitez d’un beau et bon cheval, en françois et en latin (Arnhem: Chez Jean Frederic Haagen, 1669). 599 The complete title of this edition, published by Jean Fleuriau, reads Traité de l’instruction du cavalier pour le render capable de dresser et emboucher toutes sortes de chevaux, sans qu’il aye besoin de l’ayde d’un escuyer, avec un raisonnement universel sur tous les airs du manège, dedié à la noblesse françoise. Note that ‘emboucher’ means, in its more literal sense, ‘to put the bit in the horse’s mouth’.

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be confirmed by the appearance of a 1670 Franco-German in-folio edition of du

Breuil Pompée’s work.600 Published by Matthäus Merian in Frankfurt-am-Main, this

version is clearly modelled on the Franco-Latin Haagen edition and includes, in the

title, the same indication that the work is ‘very useful not only for men, but also for

women, who want to adopt a [male] rider’s posture’.601

A study of female equestrianism in the seventeenth-century Netherlands and

Germany remains to be written, yet there is some indication that it was more common

for women to ride astride there than in neighbouring France. Between 1626 and 1628

Adriaen van de Venne realised a portrait en grisaille depicting Frederick V of the

Palatinate and his wife Elizabeth Stuart on horseback (fig. 10).602 Despite the fact that

her legs are covered by a voluminous gown, it appears beyond doubt that the ‘Winter

Queen’ is riding astride like her husband. In the painting, the princely couple is

followed by two courtiers, a man and a woman who also appears to be straddling her

horse. That such posture was represented in an official portrayal constitutes in itself a

600 Du Breuil Pompée’s work was published together with a translation of Pluvinel’s treatise. 601 ‘… nicht allein für die Manns- sondern auch Weibs-Personen / die eben vergleichen Postur eines Reuters gebrauchen wollen / höchnüzlich’. 602 Adriaen van de Venne, Frederick V of the Palatinate and Elizabeth Stuart on Horseback, 1626-1628. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Inv. SK-A-958.

Fig. 10: Adriaen van de Venne, Frederick V of the Palatinate and Elizabeth Stuart on Horseback, 1626-1628. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Inv. SK-A-958

Photo of ‘Adriaen van de Venne, Frederick V of the Palatinate and Elizabeth Stuart on Horseback’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

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most powerful sign that riding astride was considered suitable for a woman of high

rank at the time. The question is clarified later in the century by Georg Simon Winter

von Adlersflügel (c. 1629-1701), whose equestrian tract addressed the issue of

women’s equestrian education in unprecedented depth. His Wohlberittener Cavallier,

a German-Latin manual published in 1678, dedicated an entire section to the

explanation of ‘[h]ow one should teach a lady of high standing how to ride / so that

she not only is sitting on the horse in a graceful way / but also that she can walk or

ride a horse without any danger for her life’.603 Himself an employee at the court of

various German nobles as well as the Danish king Christian V, the author did not

address the aristocratic rider directly, but provided instructions for other riding

masters in a princely household. Von Adlersflügel recommended as a general rule for

women to ride side-saddle, with the left foot in the stirrup and one leg wrapped

around the pommel of the saddle. Echoing the title page of du Breuil Pompée’s 1669

treatise, he admitted having witnessed women ‘in many places’ mounting like men.604

This fashion of riding, however, he deemed acceptable for noble women only if they

are unmarried and enjoy good health; it was not suitable instead should they be

pregnant, weak or overweight.605 Von Adlersflügel connected this riding style with

the introduction of a new type of saddle for women, which he described in great

detail. In the first place, it should be filled with deer hair to guarantee a comfortable

and ergonomic seat. Moreover, this should be ‘made in such a way that it isn’t too

wide nor too narrow and that the lady is able to put her right leg around the pommel

with greater ease’; the pommel itself should be of adequate height and its upper part

should not be pointed, but rather round, covered with leather and internally filled with

603 ‘Wie man eine Dame hohen Stands im Reiten unterrichten solle / daß sie nicht allein zierlich zu Pferd sitze / sondern auch ohne alle Lebens=Gefahr ein Pferd sowol spacieren / als über Land reiten könne’. Georg Simon Winter von Adlersflügel, Wohlberittener Cavallier: Oder Gründliche Anweisung zu der Reit-und Zaumkunst (Nürenberg: Verlegt durch Wolfgang Moritz Endter und Johann Andreae Endters Sel. Erben, 1678), pp. 65-68. On von Adlersflügel and his work, see Pia F. Cuneo, ‘Das Reiten als Kriegstechnik, als Sport und als Kunst’. The section on women’s riding is discussed at pp. 181-183. 604 ‘Wiewol ich an vielen Orten auch gesehen / daß das Frauenzimmer sich wie die Mannspersonen zu Pferd gesellen’. Adlersflügel, Wohlberittener Cavallier, p. 65. 605 Ibid., p. 66.

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deer hair.606 At the front of the saddle there should be a soft little cushion attached to

it ‘so that the right leg, which is wrapped around the pommel, can rest upon it and the

lady experiences no pain or unease’.607 Finally, firmly attached to the right side of the

saddle, underneath the saddlebow, there should be a handle that the lady can use to

help mounting the horse and to readjust her posture whilst riding. Von Adlersflügel

concluded by comparing this model to the “old style” of saddles for women, which

consisted of a sambue, a padded seat on a wooden frame placed with its back on the

right side of the horse. On this, women rode sitting as if on a chair, their legs resting

on a wooden board or long stirrup fastened to the main body of the saddle by two

leather straps.608 This way of riding, however, ‘is not only uncomfortable, but also

dangerous’, the author warned, since ladies can easily fall if they don’t hold their

body upright all the time.609

Von Adlersflügel does not include any illustration of this new type of saddle,

but its precise description clearly identifies it as the ancestor of the ‘saddle for

women’ [selle pour femme], first mentioned in the 1694 Dictionnaire de l’Academie

française. 610 Having become increasingly popular in the following century, its

structure is clearly defined in Pierre de Garsault’s 1741 treatise on horsemanship (figs

11a-b).611 Both figures of the ‘saddle for women’ [selle de femme] make it clear how

the structure has essentially remained unchanged, with the elevated padded seat, a

606 ‘Derhalben solle man anfänglich ein solchen Sattel gebrauchen / welcher mit Rehehaaren wol ausgefüllt und also gemacht ist / daß die Dame den rechten Fuß wol um den Sattel=Knopff gerad über sich stehen / aber am obern Theil nicht spitzig / sondern rund und mit Leder überzogen und innwendig mit Rehehaaren auch ausgefüllt seyn solle’. Ibid., p. 65. 607 ‘Von vornen hero gegen deß Pferds Hals zu / sollt ein weiches Küßlein vest angegürtet seyn / darmit der rechte Fuß / welcher um den Sattelknopff geschlungen / drauf ruhen könne und die Dame deßwegen keinen Schmerz oder Ungelegenheit empfinde’. Ibid., p. 65. 608 Tavard, L’Habit du Cheval, p. 242. 609 ‘Dieser Sättel Manier ist die beste unter alten für Weibspersonen zu gebrauchen / die übrige Manier der Sättel / welche auf die alte Manier gemacht sind / daß man den Rücken gegen deß Pferds rechte Seit wendet / und die Füsse neben einander in einen langen Steigbügel / von der lincken Seit des Pferds stellet / sind nicht allein unbequem / sondern auch gefährlich’. Adlersflügel, Wohlberittener Cavallier, p. 66. 610 Dictionnaire de l’Academie française (Paris: Vve J. B. Coignard et J. B. Coignard, 1694), vol. 2, p. 456. 611 Pierre de Garsault, Le Nouveau Parfait Maréchal, ou La connaissance générale et universelle du cheval (Paris, 1741), p. 140 and plate XI, fig. H.

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pommel and cushion at the front, a handle on the right side and a stirrup on the left.

Garsault’s design, however, includes an additional feature that was not mentioned in

the German treatise. At the front of the saddle, on the right side, is added a structure

resembling a small seat, probably made of wood and upholstered in the same fabric as

the rest of the saddle. This offered additional support to the rider’s right thigh and

provided a security measure in case she should be dangerously tilted in that direction

by a sudden movement of the horse. Together with the two illustrations of the saddle,

Garsault’s treatise featured one image of the female rider’s correct posture ‘to show

how a woman on horseback should sit facing the two ears of the horse like a man, and

not on the side like painters show them habitually’.612 This criticism expressed by the

eighteenth-century author constitutes an important cautionary note when observing

female equestrian portraits from the previous century as well. Artists, and especially

portraitists, often represented ladies turned excessively towards the left when sitting

in the saddle, almost facing the viewer as if they were sitting on a sambue. This

tendency may in part depend from inexperience, as Garsault implied, but it is more

612 ‘Je n’ai dessiné une femme à cheval sur une selle de femme, que pour faire voir qu’une femme bien à Cheval, doit être e face des deux oreilles de son Cheval comme un homme & non en côté comme les peintres les mettent ordinairement’. Ibid., p. 162 and plate XVI fig. B.

Figs 11a-b: Pierre de Garsault, Le Nouveau Parfait Maréchal, ou La connaissance générale et universelle du cheval (Paris, 1741), p. 140 and plate XI, fig. H

Photo of ‘Pierre de Garsault, Le Nouveau Parfait Maréchal, plate XI, fig. H’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Photo of ‘Pierre de Garsault, Le Nouveau Parfait Maréchal, plate XI, fig. H’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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likely the consequence of the artist’s desire to show the sitter as frontally as possible

while representing the horse sideways. Sitting on a side-saddle, a female rider would

have been able to turn towards the left, though with a certain discomfort. While

plausible on a still mount, this posture would have been impossible to hold when the

horse started moving, let alone running at a gallop.

Despite the limitations of such visual records, the analysis of seventeenth-

century equestrian scenes remains a fundamental component to the study of female

horse-riding technique, marked by the scarcity of prescriptive texts. Hard as it is to

catch a glimpse of what lies under the voluminous skirts in portraits, the rider’s

bearing itself provides an unequivocal indication that women then were mounting

with one leg wrapped around the pommel rather than astride or seated on a sambue.

Looking carefully at portraits as well as hunting scenes, moreover, it is sometimes

possible to catch a glimpse of the saddle itself. Paintings by Philps Wouvermans,

arguably the most accomplished and meticulous author of equestrian scenes of the

Fig. 12: Philips Wouverman, Rest at a Stag Hunt (detail), 1665-1668. Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek, Inv. 150

Fig. 13: Philips Wouverman, Rest on the Way Back from the Hunt, 1647/1648. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, The Laing Art Gallery, Inv. TWCMS:G17023

Photo of ‘Philips Wouverman, Rest at a Stag Hunt (detail)’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich.

Photo of ‘Philips Wouverman, Rest on the Way Back from the Hunt’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: The Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

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Dutch Golden Age, provide clear view women’s riding equipment around the middle

of the seventeenth century.613 In a scene depicting a break from stag hunt, dated

around 1665 and preserved in Munich, a lady is being led back towards her horse (fig.

12).614 Waiting for her is a saddle that appears conspicuously different from those of

her male companions insofar as it looks like an elevated padded seat with a high

pommel in front. A similar type of saddle features prominently in another hunting

scene painted by Wouvermans, of which two copies survive, one preserved in

Salzburg and one in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (fig. 13).615 The painting depicts a break

from a hawking party, during which a male and two female rider have dismounted

from their horses and are shown on the right-hand side. In the very centre of the

composition, instead, stands the ladies’ horse seen from the rear. Their saddle and

caparison, both seemingly made of deep-blue and purple velvet edged with a band of

gold fabric, appear identical to those in the previous painting, and they both match

von Adlersflügel’s description. Wouverman’s Departure of a Hawking Party from a

Mansion, now in a private collection, also shows the same model of saddle

upholstered in light purple velvet.616 The padded seat of a lady’s saddle is also clearly

visible in Aelbert Cuyp’s portrait of a wealthy couple setting off for the hunt, which

he executed between 1655 and 1665 (fig. 14).617 In none of these cases is the right

side of the horse visible, so that it is impossible to catch a glimpse of the stirrup.

However, in a Stag Hunt painted by Wouverman, now at the State Hermitage

613 Schumacher, Philips Wouverman. 614 Philips Wouverman, Rest at a Stag Hunt, 1665-1668. Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek, Inv. 150. Schumacher, Philips Wouverman, p. 245 (cat. A188a). 615 Philips Wouverman, Rest on the Way Back from the Hunt, 1647/1648. Salzburg, Residenzgalerie, Inv. 558. Schumacher, Philips Wouverman, p. 247 (cat. A193). The Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle-upon-Tyne holds a copy of this painting, attributed to the master himself (Inv. TWCMS:G17023). 616 This painting is reproduced in Schumacher, Philips Wouverman, p. 219 and table 15 (cat. A126). 617 Aelbert Cuyp, Lady and Gentleman on Horseback, 1655-1665. Washington, National Gallery of Art, Inv. 1942.9.15. The portrait is thought to have been commissioned to celebrate the union of Adriaen Stevensz Snouck and Erkenraad Berk Matthisdr, daughter of the artist’s patron Matthijs Berk. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (ed.), Aelbert Cuyp (Washington: National Gallery of Art; London: Thames & Hudson, 2001), pp. 172-175.

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Museum, the viewer can observe a lady in a yellow dress trying to climb in the saddle

by putting her left foot in a stirrup while a male attendant holds the horse down.618 His

depiction of The Hunter’s Return at the Pushkin Museum, instead, shows a female

rider being helped to dismount by one of her male companions, gallantly kneeling to

allow her to place a foot in his joint hands, following a method that is still

recommended to side-saddle riders today.619

The relatively small size of these works renders it is impossible to ascertain

whether the front of any saddle is provided with the matching cushion to hold the

lady’s right leg. Though apparently a minor detail, such accessory would have been

essential to the lady’s comfort. In my examination of European female equestrian

portraits from the seventeenth-century, I have found only a single pictorial

representation of this element of the saddle in the double portrait of Enrichetta

Adelaide of Savoy, Electress of Bavaria, and her husband Ferdinand Maria of

Wittelsbach, painted by Jan Miel between 1659 and 1661 (figs 15a-b).620 The painting

618 Philips Wouverman, A Stag Hunt, c. 1655-1668. St Petersburg, The State Hermitage, Inv. 1055. Schumacher, Philips Wouverman, p. 233 (cat. A159). 619 Philips Wouverman, The Hunter’s Return. Moscow, Pushkin Museum, Inv. 587. On the ‘classical method’ for mounting and dismounting, see Janet W. Macdonald, Riding Side-saddle (London: J.A. Allen, 1995), pp. 20-22 620 Jan Miel, Equestrian Portrait of Enrichetta Adelaide of Savoy and Ferdinand Maria of Wittelsbach, Elector of Bavaria, 1659-1661. Turin, Reggia di Venaria, Sala 16.

Fig. 14: Aelbert Cuyp, Lady and Gentleman on Horseback, 1655-1665. Washington, National Gallery of Art, Inv. 1942.9.15

Photo of ‘Aelbert Cuyp, Lady and Gentleman on Horseback’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: National Gallery of Art, Washington.

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is part of a cycle of twelve equestrians portraits realised commissioned by Carlo

Emanuele II of Savoy to adorn the Hall of Diana in the Palace of Venaria, near

Turin.621 Depicting the lady’s horse from the right side, the artist reveals the front

cushion, which is partly visible under the rider’s right thigh, clearly connected to main

body of the saddle. This unusual perspective also discloses the presence of a small

handle made of rope and discreetly attached at the bottom of the padded seat.

A portrait of Henrietta Maria and Charles I, realised by the Dutch Daniel

Mytens between 1630 and 1632, offers yet a different glimpse at this early type

woman’s saddle (fig. 16).622 The royal couple is depicted at their depart for the hunt,

strolling with a group of dogs while a Moorish page is leading two horses towards

them. Fully visible in the foreground, a mare is prepared for the lady to mount. On its

back is placed a saddle consisting of a padded seat with a round slightly curved

pommel and a single stirrup dangling on the left side. The same scene is replicated in

the background of an equestrian portrait engraved by the French Pierre Daret (fig.

621 The cycle is discussed in greater depth in Chapter IV, pp. 255-257. On this painting, see Danilo Comino, ‘I ritratti equestri della Sala di Diana alla Reggia di Venaria Reale’, in Paola Bianchi and Pietro Passerin d’Entrèves (eds), La Caccia nello Stato sabaudo; Caccia e cultura (sec. XVI-XVII), proceedings of the conference at the Venaria Reale, 11-12 September 2009 (Turin: Zamorani, 2010), pp. 216-217. 622 Daniel Mytens, Charles I and Henrietta Maria departing for the chase, 1630-1632. Royal Collection Trust, Inv. 4048771.

Figs 15a-b: Jan Miel, Equestrian Portrait of Enrichetta Adelaide of Savoy and Ferdinand Maria of Wittelsbach, Elector of Bavaria (whole and detail), 1659-1661. Turin, Reggia di Venaria, Sala 16

Photo of ‘Jan Miel, Equestrian Portrait of Enrichetta Adelaide of Savoy and Ferdinand Maria of Wittelsbach, Elector of Bavaria (whole)’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Reggia di Venaria, Turin.

Photo of ‘Jan Miel, Equestrian Portrait of Enrichetta Adelaide of Savoy and Ferdinand Maria of Wittelsbach, Elector of Bavaria (detail)’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Reggia di Venaria, Turin.

138

17).623 In the foreground, however, Henrietta Maria is presented riding alone in the

old fashion, sitting squarely on the side, both her feet resting on a planchette. Within

the same image, Daret represented two coexisting riding styles for women, one

thought suitable for an official portrayal of the Queen on parade, the other more

informal.

Accompanying these rare portrayals of the ‘new’ saddle praised by von Adlersflügel,

two even rarer examples of women’s saddles are preserved within the collection of

the Swedish Royal Armoury (Livrustkammaren) (figs 18-19). 624 Sent over from

France in 1650, both items were then assembled by the court saddler Simon Jüterbock

for the newly crowned queen Christina. They consist of a high padded seat with a

pommel in front and encircled by an asymmetrically shaped cantle to ease the lady’s

leftward-turned posture. In their essential structure, these lady’s saddles appear to

mirror contemporary models of selle à piquer for men, whose innovative features are

623 Pierre Daret, Equestrian portrait of Henrietta Maria of France, 1625-1630. Royal Collection Trust, Inv. 602051. 624 Woman’s saddle, France and Sweden, 1650. Stockholm, Livrustkammaren, Inv. 9000 (585: a); woman’s saddle, France and Sweden, 1650. Stockholm, Livrustkammaren, Inv. 9011 (3850).

Fig. 16: Daniel Mytens, Charles I and Henrietta Maria departing for the chase, 1630-1632. Royal Collection Trust, Inv. 4048771

Fig. 17: Pierre Daret, Equestrian portrait of Henrietta Maria of France, 1625-1630. Royal Collection Trust, Inv. 602051

Photo of ‘Daniel Mytens, Charles I and Henrietta Maria departing for the chase removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Royal Collection Trust.

Photo of ‘Pierre Daret, Equestrian portrait of Henrietta Maria of France’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Royal Collection Trust.

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praised in Salomon de La Broue’s 1610 treatise. According to the author, this

‘modern saddle’ was first introduced in France by a certain Seigneur Maxime, grand

écuyer of the Duke of Joyeuse, in the late sixteenth century and was still the best

available model at the time.625 So crucial was this item to the comfort of the ‘modern’

rider, that its engraved illustration takes pride of place at the very centre of the

manual’s frontispiece. To an untrained and ‘vulgar’ eye, La Broue comments, this

might seem similar to a traditional model in the Italian style.626 The tree of the saddle

[harçon], however, is lower, ‘so that the body of the rider appears to stand higher and

straighter on the seat’.627 Moreover the padded elements [battes] were shorter and

smaller to better showcase the rider’s shapely legs.628

625 ‘selle moderne’. La Broue, Le Cavalerice François, p. 44. 626 Traditional equestrian styles required a low saddle, on which the horseman either rode deeply seated, keeping the legs perfectly straight (monta a la brida) or with the body in the middle of the saddle and legs bent (monta a la gineta). Tommassini, The Italian Tradition of Equestrian Art. 627 ‘Le vulgaire dit, que ces selles modernes sont faites à l’Italienne; mais il y a bien à dire: car ces harsons sont beaucup plus bas, & mieux faits que ceux, qui se font en Italie. Qui est cause que le corps du chevalier se monstre plus hault, & plus droict sur le siege’. La Broue, Le Cavalerice François, p. 44. 628 ‘… les battes en sont plus courtes & moins grosses: qui luy font aussi beacoup mieux paroistre, la forme de la cuisse & du genouil’. Ibidem.

Fig. 18: Woman’s saddle, France and Sweden, 1650. Stockholm, Livrustkammaren, Inv. 9000 (585: a)

Fig. 19: Woman’s saddle, France and Sweden, 1650. Stockholm, Livrustkammaren, Inv. 9011 (3850)

Photo of ‘Woman’s saddle’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Livrustkammaren, Stockholm.

Photo of ‘Woman’s saddle’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Livrustkammaren, Stockholm.

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The elite nature of Queen Christina’s saddles is immediately evident from the

fact that they are both upholstered in silk velvet, one blue and one red, embroidered

with silver and gold thread. The saddle seats are filled with reindeer hair, in

accordance with von Adlersflügel’s advice, and the elevated cantles, also covered in

matching velvet and lightly padded, were probably a luxurious addition to the saddle

since no similar structure appears in any pictorial representation.629 In both cases the

saddle is surrounded by a square-shaped skirt of matching velvet, richly embroidered

with stylised floral and vegetable motifs. Two cushions have also been preserved,

upholstered in matching fabrics on the surface and sturdier leather at the bottom.

These would have been tied to the main body of the saddle to support the rider’s right

leg. Looking carefully at the pommel, it is still possible to see where the leg brushed

directly against the textile upholstery, which appears worn and faded. The red velvet

saddle is also accompanied by a matching stirrup and strap, both made of leather

covered in velvet liberally embroidered with silver thread (fig. 20).630 This type of

stirrup constitutes an early example of what would become known in the following

629 I thank Ann Hallström, conservator at the Livrustkammaren, whose expertise has proved precious when examining the saddles. 630 Woman’s stirrup and strap, c. 1640. Stockholm, Livrustkammaren, Inv. 9034 (900) and 9034 (900:b).

Fig. 20: Woman’s stirrup and strap, c. 1640. Stockholm, Livrustkammaren, Inv. 9034 (900) and 9034 (900:b)

Fig. 21: Woman’s stirrup, c. 1650. Stockholm, Livrustkammaren, Inv. 3327 (3851)

Photo of ‘Woman’s stirrup and strap’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Livrustkammaren, Stockholm.

Photo of ‘Woman’s stirrup’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Livrustkammaren, Stockholm.

141

century as a lady’s stirrup or slipper stirrup (étrier-pantoufle). Unlike men’s stirrups,

these are composed of a casing, made of leather or metal, which closely mimics the

shape of fashionable ladies’ shoes. In addition to keeping the rider’s stable, they also

protected the delicate footwear. The Livrustkammaren’s collection holds another

stirrup that belonged to the Queen (fig. 21).631 While it preserves the peculiar shape of

a lady’s model, this item is entirely made of gilded steel decorated with floral motifs.

It is possible that while the former type was used on ceremonial occasions, the latter

was more suited to everyday occurrences. Employed by Christina until her abdication

in 1654, this equipment allowed her to achieve an exquisite equestrian style for which

she was praised and renowned throughout Europe. The Jesuit Father Mannerscheidt,

confessor to the Spanish ambassador at Stockholm, remarked in 1653 how ‘despite

riding like a lady, she [the Queen] moves and controls her body with such agility and

suppleness, that unless standing very close, one would take her for a man […] She

puts only one foot in the stirrup; nevertheless she spurs her horse so well that no one

can keep up with her. One would say she flies rather than runs on a horse’.632

Sébastien Bourdon’s equestrian portrait of the Queen at the Prado, realised

between 1652 and 1654, shows her as a skilled and masterful rider able to lead her

mount into a flawless levade. 633 Refusing all classical disguise or pompous

embellishment, Christina is depicted with extreme realism, donning a sober and

elegant riding habit. Diane Bodart emphasises the exceptional nature of this depiction,

connected with the Swedish sovereign’s reputation as ‘Gothica Amazon’. 634

Bourdon’s likeness appears indeed remarkable as the first example of large size

(340.5x303cm) portrait of an individual woman exhibiting true equestrian skills, as

opposed to previous ceremonial depictions of Queens proceeding majestically, if

631 Woman’s stirrup, c. 1650. Stockholm, Livrustkammaren, Inv. 3327 (3851). 632 ‘Video propre indes equitantem, et quamvis more muliebri equo insideat, tamen ita corpus vibrat flectitque, ut qui non plane propinquus est, virum credat […] Pedem unum tantum habet stapedi impositum, et tamen ita equum ad cursum incitat, ut nullus sit, qui currentem assequi possit’. Johan Arckenholtz (ed.), Mémoires concernant Christine reine de Suede (Amsterdam et Leipzig: Chez Pierre Mortier, 1751), vol. 1, p. 95. 633 Sébastien Bourdon, Christina of Sweden on Horseback, 1652-1654. Madrid, Museo del Prado, Inv. P001503. 634 Bodart, ‘Le portrait équestre de Christine de Suède par Sébastien Bourdon’.

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somewhat stiffly, on horseback. Looking at hunting scenes from the first half of the

seventeenth century, however, it is not uncommon to see women riding as skilfully

and vehemently as men in the pursuit of the quarry. By examining landscape painting

from its Flemish origins to its diffusion in France, the last section of this chapter

reveals how female riders came to occupy a central role in the increasingly popular

subgenre of hunting scenes.

II.2-ii Female Riders in Dutch Landscape Painting

During the course of the seventeenth century, Dutch painters increasingly turned

towards the countryside as a source of inspiration. The rendition of natural landscapes

was accompanied by the depiction of rural activities, shown as if encountered by a

‘random eyewitness’. 635 In these scenes, it became popular to establish a stark

contrast between the toil of agricultural labourers and the gentle leisure of the urban

elites temporarily enjoying the pleasures of the country. In this sense, horse riding and

hunting played a central role as they effectively showed the way gentlefolk inhabited

the natural landscape, literally taking over the scene. This equestrian vein in Flemish

painting was influenced by the production of Italian, and especially Roman, artists

such as Antonio Tempesta (c. 1555-1630), who gained international fame for his

lively depictions of hunts and battles.636 Flemish artists came into contact with his

work either during their Italian travels, which traditionally included a prolonged stay

in the Eternal City, or through the many sets of prints that circulated throughout

Europe. Tempesta was a remarkably prolific printmaker, collaborating with virtually

every engraver and print publisher in Rome at the time. He also entertained direct

connections with print sellers in Antwerp, thus ensuring a prompt reception of his

work in the Netherlands.637

635 Shawe-Taylor and Scott, Dutch Landscapes, pp. 34-44. 636 Eckhard Leuschner, Antonio Tempesta. Ein Bahnbrecher des römischen Barock und seine europäische Wirkung (Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2005). 637 Tempesta was a remarkably prolific printmaker, collaborating with virtually every engraver and print publisher in Rome at the time. He had especially good connections with print sellers in Antwerp, thus ensuring a prompt reception of his work in the Netherlands.

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The first Flemish artist who became known for his wooded landscapes with hunting

scenes was Antwerp-born master Jan Wildens (1585-1653), whose style underwent a

dramatic shift towards realism during his travels to Italy between 1614 and 1616.

During this period, he produced a series of twelve paintings of the months,

accompanied by a separate set of drawings that were engraved and published by

Hendrik Hondius (1573-1650), Jacob Matham (1571-1631) and Andries Stock (1580-

1648).638 The painting of September, now preserved at the Musei di Strada Nuova in

Genoa, depicts a stag hunt in the woods (figs 22a-b).639 At the right bottom corner of

the composition a man and woman rider emerge in the foreground, both elegantly

dressed and galloping furiously in their pursuit of the animal, accompanied by a pack

of hounds and aides on foot. The two riders proceed at almost equal speed, the

horseman outdistancing his female companion by a minimal length. Both firmly hold

the reins with their left arm, the man wielding a sword in his right, the lady

brandishing a riding stick pointed firmly in the direction of the running stag. This

scene has been praised for its striking sense of realism, which permeates even the

smallest detail. Despite riding saddle-saddle, the horsewoman is depicted perfectly

facing forward, her eyes fixed on the prey, displaying a textbook posture that would

leave even sharp critics like Garsault satisfied.

Wildens’ drawing of September, engraved by Jacob Matham, also features a

stag hunt, but its composition presents considerable differences from the

corresponding painting (figs 23a-b).640 A male and female couple of hunters still

emerge from the woods, but they appear on the left side and in the background. They

are also preceded by two other male riders, thus making their figures less prominent

in the general composition. The lady especially appears considerably less in control of

her horse, which is being led by a male attendant on foot. Her whole body is turned

638 Walter S. Gibson, Pleasant Places: The Rustic Landscape from Bruegel to Ruisdael (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), p. 122. 639 Jan Wildens, September or The Hunt, c. 1615-1614. Genova, Musei di Strada Nuova, Inv. 280. See Peter C. Sutton and Jonathan Bikker (eds), Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712). Catalogue of the exhibition at the Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut, 16 Septermber 2006 – 10 January 2007 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006), p. 175. 640 September, engraved by Jacob Matham after a drawing by Jan Wildens, 1614. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Inv. RP-P-OB-27.247.

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Figs 22a-b: Jan Wildens, September or The Hunt (whole and detail), c. 1615-1614. Genova, Musei di Strada Nuova, Inv. 280

Figs 23a-b: Jacob Matham, September, engraved after a drawing by Jan Wildens (whole and detail), 1614. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Inv. RP-P-OB-27.247

Photo of ‘Jan Wildens, September or The Hunt (whole) removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musei di Strada Nuova, Genova.

Photo of ‘Jan Wildens, September or The Hunt (detail) removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musei di Strada Nuova, Genova.

Photo of ‘Jacob Matham, September (whole)’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Photo of ‘Jacob Matham, September (detail)’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

145

towards the right in a way that is not very realistic, her left hand still holds the reins,

albeit less forcefully, while her right arm hangs inertly by her side. The engraving is

dated from 1614 and therefore predates the painting by one or two years, which may

account for the change in quality at a crucial time for the development of the artist’s

technique. In spite of their differences, both artworks constituted innovative attempts

to depict a hunt within a natural landscape in a realistic fashion. They were also

original in the way they represented women as hunters. Female participants could

already be seen in some of Tempesta’s hunting scenes. Indeed, Richard Almond

argues that his production provides a rare visual testimony to Renaissance women’s

involvement in various types of hunting, both as knowledgeable spectators and

practitioners.641 In these many representations, however, the only horsewoman who is

seen taking an active part in the chase is one that leaps out of the woods, straddling

her mount, in Tempesta’s engraving of a Stag Hunt within a volume of cacce di

animali (hunts of various animals) published by the Roman printer Domenico de’

Rossi in 1609 (fig. 24).642 Similar female figures vigorously riding astride appear in

two other paintings by the author, which will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter

IV. Women riding side-saddle, on the other hand, are always depicted by Tempesta at

the edge of the main action, observing attentively or pointing at the hunters pursuing

the prey. Such is the case in an engraved Boar Hunt and Falconry, also part of de’

Rossi’s 1609 volume, and a Boar and Wolf Hunt published by the Venetian printer

Justus Sadeler (c. 1583-c. 1620) in the early seventeenth century (fig. 25). 643

Tempesta’s accuracy renders it possible to establish beyond doubt that these riders are

sitting in a ‘new’ side-saddle, as they show one leg wrapped around the pommel and

the other placed on a stirrup. Yet their static disposition does not set them apart from

traditional depictions of ladies watching the hunt from a distance sitting on a sambue,

examples of which can be seen in contemporary engravings by Dutch artist David

641 Almond, Daughters of Artemis, p. 62. 642 Antonio Tempesta, Stag Hunt, 1609. Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, Inv. A. II. 115/23. 643 Antonio Tempesta, Boar Hunt and Falconry, 1609. Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, Inv. A. II. 115/27; Antonio Tempesta, Boar and Wolf Hunt, 1601-1630. Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, Inv. RML0355024.

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Vinckboons (c. 1575-c. 1632).644 When Rubens painted the first of his great hunting

pieces in 1616, a Wolf and Fox Hunt now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he also

included a female character on horseback (fig. 26).645 At the very edge of the scene

on the right side, a lady sits in the saddle and observes the final moments of the hunt

whilst holding the reins in her left hand and a falcon with her right. Covered by the

riding figure in the foreground, the lady’s horse is not visible, yet from her posture it

is possible to assume without doubt that she is riding side-saddle. Unlike her male

companions, her figure appears still and her action is concentrated in the turning of

her head towards the animated fight between prey and hunters. The very fact that she

is gracefully holding a falcon makes it hard to think that she took an active part in the

chase, suggesting instead that she had observed and only approached in its final

moments. Female participation to the hunt seems limited to their attentive gazing, a

fact that is all the more evident in Rubens’ Boar Hunt, now at the Musée des Beaux-

Arts in Marseille, where two female heads are seen in the background of the main

action curiously peering over the shoulders of the male hunters.646 What introduces an

element of novelty in Wildens’ works, especially the painting in Genoa, is the

representation of women riding side-saddle alongside men, proving their ability to

exert perfect control over their horse and gallop at great speed in a way that would

have been impossible had they been sitting on an old-fashioned sambue. These

images provide an early and powerful testimony to the use and potential of new

equestrian technologies that would be described by von Adlersflügel much later in the

century.

As the depiction of equestrian and hunting scenes became increasingly popular

amongst Flemish painters, so too did the realistic depiction of ladies on horseback

become a recurrent feature of their work. This trend is exemplified by the production

of Philips Wouverman, whose artistic fame rested, and still rests, chiefly upon his

644 See his engravings of a Heron Hunt (printed by Pieter Serwouters) and a Hare Hunt, both preserved at the Ashmolean Museum (Print Room, Inv. WA2003, Douce 231 and 229). 645 Peter Paul Rubens and Workshop, Wolf and Fox Hunt, 1616. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Inv. 10.73. Susan Koslow, ‘Law and Order in Rubens’ “Wolf and Fox Hunt”’, Art Bulletin 78 (1996), pp. 681-706. 646 Peter Paul Rubens, Boar Hunt, c. 1616. Musée de Beaux-Arts Marseilles, Inv. 103.

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Fig. 24: Antonio Tempesta, Stag Hunt, 1609. Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, Inv. A. II. 115/23

Fig. 26: Peter Paul Rubens and Workshop, Wolf and Fox Hunt, 1616. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Inv. 10.73

Fig. 25: Antonio Tempesta, Boar Hunt and Falconry, 1609. Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, Inv. A. II. 115/27

Photo of ‘Antonio Tempesta, Stag Hunt’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome.

Photo of ‘Antonio Tempesta, Boar Hunt and Falconry’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome.

Photo of ‘Peter Paul Rubens and Workshop, Wolf and Fox Hunt’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

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small-scale landscapes with horses or hunting scenes. In his work, cynegetic exercise

is depicted as an elegant pastime usually enjoyed by a mixed group of ladies and

gentlemen on horseback. Every moment of the hunt is recorded, from the departure in

the morning to the return in the evening, without neglecting images of the actual

chase and various moments of rest that a day of hunting afforded. Overall,

Wouverman appears to have been more inclined towards the depiction of tranquil

scenes in which horses stand still or walk slowly. Many are his representations of

hawking parties, a less animated type of hunting traditionally enjoyed by men and

women alike. In these scenes, lavishly dressed ladies can be seen gracefully riding

side-saddle, holding a falcon in their right hand or simply witnessing the chase.

An altogether different atmosphere pervades Wouverman’s representations

stag hunts, which constitute another significant portion of his production during the

later decade of his life.647 In these scenes, hunters of both sexes are depicted furiously

pursuing their prey across the rural landscape. The number of ladies involved is

usually only slightly inferior to men’s. In one painting at the Hunterian Gallery in

Glasgow, for example, the hunting party is composed by three women and four men

(fig. 27).648 Ladies in these scenes are always depicted mounting side-saddle and

usually keeping a correct forward-facing posture. In the painting at the Hunterian, it is

possible to see a rare example of a horsewoman whose body appears turned

excessively towards the left, in a way which would have put the balance of a real rider

to the test. It is possible, however, that the skilled artist introduced such solecism for

dramatic purposes. Galloping on a white horse, Wouverman’s favourite type, and

garbed in brilliantly coloured clothes flowing in the wind, the lady constitutes the

focal point of the scene. Another painting at the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden, presents

647 Cornelis Hofstede de Groot’s 1909 catalogue listed some forty-four scenes including this subject, while Birgit Schumacher’s more recent study identifies seventeen autographs. Schumacher, Philips Wouverman, pp. 228-236; Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue raisonné of the works of the most eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth century (London: Macmillan, 1909), vol. 2, pp. 444-452. 648 Philips Wouverman, A Stag Hunt. The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, Inv. 43843. Schumacher, Philips Wouverman, p. 230 (cat. A150).

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another exception as it features a huntress riding astride (fig. 28).649 This represents

the only instance in which a female rider is seen holding a pike, which instead is often

visible in the hands of male hunters. What might appear at first a gesture pregnant

with symbolism is more probably a proof of Wouverman’s commitment a realistic

depiction. In order to carry and possibly employ such a cumbersome weapon, a rider

is forced to constantly recalibrate his balance. Such exercise would not have been

possible while riding side-saddle, which was undoubtedly a more precarious

technique. Any lady who desired to take an active part in the slaying of the prey

would have been better off opting for a masculine type of mount, as many women had

done and still did at the time.

Despite this undeniable limitation, Wouverman’s work shows that female

riders were by no means relegated to the periphery of the cynegetic arena. In his

compositions, women inhabit the painted space as freely as their male companions.

Nor do they seem to lag behind or occupy the safest positions on the hunting field. On

the contrary, they gallop right beside men even on difficult terrain and sometimes

dangerously close to the chased animal, which might at any moment take a sharp turn

or try to fight its aggressors. Many of Wouverman’s stag hunts involve riding into or

towards a stream of water. In a scene attributed to the artist, preserved at the Graves

Gallery in Sheffield, the stag is depicted on the left hand side of the canvas, frantically

trying to escape by running down a ditch towards a river or a lake (figs 29a-b).650 On

the right side, a man and a woman are seen galloping down a steep slope to reach the

animal, the woman holding tightly to the saddle pommel not to lose her balance.

Female riders are generally depicted by Wouverman with great realism. While

the artist took great pains to paint ladies sporting fashionable outfits, he also enjoyed

showing how a hurried chase would affect their elegant appearance. Under his

brushstroke, scarves flow, veils billow and feathers flutter, accentuating the

movement of the wearer as she gallops. Some of these fabrics and materials are

649 Philips Wouwerman, A Stag Hunt by a River, first half of the 1660s. Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alter Meister, Inv. 1149. Schumacher, Philips Wouverman, p. 229 (cat. A149). 650 Philips Wouwerman, A Stag Hunt. Sheffield, Graves Gallery, Inv. VIS.5130.

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Fig. 27: Philips Wouverman, A Stag Hunt. The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, Inv. 43843

Figs 29a-b: Philips Wouwerman, A Stag Hunt (whole and detail). Sheffield, Graves Gallery, Inv. VIS.5130

Fig. 28: Philips Wouwerman, A Stag Hunt by a River (detail), first half of the 1660s. Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alter Meister, Inv. 1149

Photo of ‘Philips Wouverman, A Stag Hunt’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow.

Photo of Philips Wouwerman, ‘A Stag Hunt by a River (detail)’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Gemäldegalerie Alter Meister, Dresden.

Photo of ‘Philips Wouwerman, A Stag Hunt (whole) removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Graves Gallery, Sheffield.

Photo of ‘Philips Wouwerman, A Stag Hunt (detail) removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Graves Gallery, Sheffield.

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depicted with aesthetic flair that reminds of the nervous and passionate mobility

noticed by Aby Warburg in Renaissance drapery. 651 The art historian raised the

question of the extent to which these ‘animated accessories’ (bewegtes Beiwerk)

constituted a representation of exterior movement (äussere Beweglichkeit) that

affected the object or rather simulate an inner vitality (innere Lebendigkeit) of their

own, connected to the emotional life of the subject painted. 652 In the case of

Wouverman’s paintings, it can be speculated seems that these agitated accessories

were depicted with the intend to reflect the physical action of the wind as well as to

express the passion and fury of the hunt and sometimes the huntresses themselves.

The face of the galloping horsewoman in the Hunterian hunt, for example, is framed

by a black or dark-blue veil that greatly adds to the scene’s dramatic energy. A

swirling piece of fabric, possibly a scarf, hangs from the dress of another female rider

in the background, while a third woman has blue feathers fluttering on her head. A

similar detail catches the viewer’s eye when looking at the painting of a Stag Hunt

that was auctioned by Sotheby’s in 2015 and is now in a private collection (fig. 30).653

651 Colleen Becker, ‘Aby Warburg’s Pathosformel as methodological paradigm’, Journal of Art Historiography 9 (2013), pp. 1-25. 652 Spyros Papapetros, On the Animation of the Inorganic: Art, Architecture and the Extension of Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), pp. 135-136. 653 Philips Wouwerman, A Stag Hunt. Painting auctioned by Sotheby’s in London on 9 December 2015 and is currently in a private collection.

Fig. 30: Philips Wouwerman, A Stag Hunt. Painting auctioned by Sotheby’s in London on 9 December 2015, currently in a private collection

Photo of ‘Philips Wouwerman, A Stag Hunt’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Sotheby’s.

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The lady galloping on the painting’s right wears two light-blue feathers in her hair,

which stand out against the brown and yellow tones of the autumnal background.

Wouverman’s aesthetic concerns, however, appear always accompanied by a desire

for realism. Even in the passion of the hunt, his ladies are capable to express

discomfort or preoccupation with their appearance. The lady on the proper right in a

Stag Hunt at the National Gallery in London, for example, is not ashamed to hold

onto her headdress with her left hand as she gallops towards the prey. 654 Other

horsewomen are depicted with their back bent or clutching the saddle pommel to keep

their balance. The search for female stately beauty and grace that characterises

Wouverman’s hawking scenes is replaced by the desire to communicate the vigour

and strength that these women could display in the saddle. In so doing, the artist

offered a compelling proof of the potential of the female equestrian technologies

available at the time. Like Christina of Sweden, these huntresses seem to fly rather

than run sitting on a ‘new’ side-saddle.

Wouverman’s skill and passion for equestrian themes remained unparalleled

within the Italianate landscape painters of the Dutch Golden Age. Indeed, it is hard to

find examples of this genre even within the production of a highly esteemed and

prolific artist of the following generation such as Nicolaes Berchem (1620-1683).655

More interested in the depiction of bucolic idylls, Berchem’s paintings are populated

by farmer girls and shepherdesses rather than aristocratic horsewomen. While the rare

examples of hunting scenes by the artist do include representations of ladies, these are

usually quite stiff. A Wild Boar Hunt from 1659, now preserved at the Mauritshuis,

features an elegant huntress holding a pike and a pistol hanging from a chord at her

waist (fig. 31).656 In spite of her apparent readiness for action, the lady is depicted in

the position of a mere observer, standing at a safe distance from the chase that takes

place on the painting’s right. The artist adopted a similar composition

654 Philips Wouwerman, A Stag Hunt, 1665. London, National Gallery, Inv. NG975. Schumacher, Philips Wouverman, p. 231 (cat. A153). 655 Pieter Biesboer et al., Nicolas Berchem: in the light of Italy (Ghent: Ludion, 2006). 656 Nicholas Berchem, Wild boar hunt, 1659. The Hague, Mauritshuis, Inv. 12. Biesboer et al., Nicolas Berchem, p. 68.

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Fig. 31: Nicholas Berchem, Wild boar hunt (detail), 1659. The Hague, Mauritshuis, Inv. 12

Fig. 33: Nicolas Berchem and Jan Hackaert, A stag hunt in the forest, c. 1660. London, National Gallery, Inv. 829

Fig. 32: Nicholas Berchem, Landscape with Deer Hunt (detail), c. 1670. Houston, The Museum of Fine Arts, Inv. 2001.81

Photo of ‘Nicholas Berchem, Wild boar hunt (detail)’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Mauritshuis, The Hague.

Photo of ‘Nicholas Berchem, Landscape with Deer Hunt (detail)’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Photo of ‘Nicolas Berchem and Jan Hackaert, A stag hunt in the forest’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: National Gallery, London.

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in a Landscape with Deer Hunt dating from around 1670, which can be seen at The

Museum of Fine Arts in Houston (fig. 32).657 The mark of Wouverman’s lesson may

be recognised, instead, in the painting a Stag Hunt at the National Gallery in London,

for which Berchem realised the figures and Jan Hackaert (c. 1628-c. 1685) the

surrounding landscape (fig. 33).658 In this scene, a huntsman with hounds forces a

stag to run into a shallow stream of water, where it is met by two more hunters, one of

whom is an elegantly dressed lady. Though it constituted an extremely unusual

subject for the artist, who famously favoured pastoral scenes, Berchem’s depiction of

a hunt managed to achieve great dramatic realism that matches and even surpasses

Wouverman’s. Never in the latter’s paintings is a galloping lady depicted so close to

the prey that it leaves the viewer fearing they might be about to collide. It is precisely

this propensity towards drama and energetic movement that sets these earlier

paintings apart from the later works of French Baroque artists who specialised in

equestrian themes such as Adam Frans van der Meulen, Jean-Baptiste and Denis

Martin. Their hunting and riding scenes, which will be examined in the following

chapters, are pervaded by a greater sense of grace and decorum that befitted the more

formal and stiffer atmosphere of the court.

II.2-iii Claude Déruet’s Hunt of the Duchess Nicole

While Van der Meulen is generally credited with bringing Wouverman’s technical

knowledge and taste for equestrian subjects to Parisian workshops in the 1660s, it is

necessary to consider the earlier influence of the Lorrain painter Claude Déruet

(1588-1660), celebrated for its depictions of Amazons.659 He is most famous for two

distinct sets each of four paintings, as well as various independent scenes, in which he

657 Nicholas Berchem, Landscape with Deer Hunt, c. 1670. Houston, The Museum of Fine Arts, Inv. 2001.81. Biesboer et al., Nicolas Berchem, p. 83 (cat. 44 HZS). 658 Nicolas Berchem and Jan Hackaert, A stag hunt in the forest, c. 1660. London, National Gallery, Inv. 829. Berchem was often employed to paint staffage in works of other landscape artists. 659 For a recent perspective on the artist’s life and work, see the contributions to the volume edited by Sophie Harent, Amazones et cavaliers: Hommage à Claude Déruet (v. 1588-1660), catalogue of the exhibition at the musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, 27 June 21 September 2008 (Deauville: Édition Librairie des Musées: Illustria, 2008).

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portrayed the classical heroines at war.660 Beginning his training under the Lorrain

court painter and talented printmaker Jacques Bellange (c. 1575-1616), Déruet

completed his education in Italy, where he lived for a few years starting from 1613. In

Rome, he came into contact with Antonio Tempesta, whose influence was to prove

crucial to the development his own personal style.661 Eckhart Leuschner claims that in

all probability Déruet was already familiar with the Roman painter’s work through the

ample circulation of his printed works, some of which must have been readily

available in his Lorrain master’s workshop. 662 Amongst Bellange’s drawings, the

historian identifies a Deer Hunt gouache that is clearly inspired from Tempesta’s hunt

(fig. 34).663 The animated chase is seen from above, with a group of figures acting as

repoussoir. Amongst these, a female rider sporting a high-crowned feathered hat is

turned towards the viewer and points at the main action in the background. Eckhart

suggests that Bellange drew inspiration directly from plate VIII of Tempesta’s 1609

Cacce, a Boar Hunt. However, the overall structure of the scene as well as some

telling details of the lady’s posture and dress, most notably her peculiar headgear,

points towards another print as a likely model. This is a Deer and Boar Hunt

preserved at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, in all probability a later

reinterpretation of the original plate (fig. 35). 664 Bellange’s own approach to

Tempesta’s work is extremely original insofar as it adds a sense of grace and

theatricality that will later emerge in his disciple’s work. Indissolubly associated with

660 Amongst the independent canvases, the most significant are arguably the Battle of the Amazons against the Greeks at the Louvre and the Amazons’ Banquet at the Musée Lorrain in Nancy. Of the two sets, the later, dating between 1627 and 1630, is constituted by the Departure of the Amazons and Triumph of the Amazons at the Met, together with The Duel and The Rescue at the Musée Jeanne d’Abboville at La Fère. The earlier set, realised in 1619, is entirely preserved at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Strasburg. Frédérique Villemur, ‘De l’Air ! Les Amazones de Claude Deruet (1588-1660)’, pp. 65-88. 661 Eckhart Leuschner, ‘Aux sources de l’art de Déruet: Antonio Tempesta’, in Harent (ed.), Amazones et cavaliers, pp. 11-17. 662 On Bellange’s life and production, see the exhibition catalogue edited by Sandrine Herman, Jacques de Bellange: la magie du trait (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2008). 663 Jacques Bellange, Deer Hunt. Nancy, Musée Lorrain, Inv. 50.2.9. On the attribution of this drawing, see Herman, Jacques de Bellange, pp. 64-65. 664 Antonio Tempesta (attr.), Boar Hunt at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Inv. 1963.30.37250.

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Fig. 34: Jacques Bellange, Deer Hunt. Nancy, Musée Lorrain, Inv. 50.2.9

Fig. 35: Antonio Tempesta (attr.), Boar Hunt at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Inv. 1963.30.37250

Photo of ‘Jacques Bellange, Deer Hunt’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée Lorrain, Nancy.

Photo of ‘Antonio Tempesta (attr.), Boar Hunt’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

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the depiction of ‘strong women’ on horseback, Déruet’s art remained almost entirely

confined to the mythological realm. While the attitudes and postures of his Amazons

are certainly indebted to Tempesta’s galloping hunters, his battle scenes seem to

escape the search for realism in favour of the creation of carefully orchestrated

compositions. The same stage-like quality also permeates his majestic equestrian

portraits of Alberte-Barbe de Saint-Baslemont, which will be discussed in the next

chapter.

Only one hunting scene certainly realised by Déruet has survived. This is a

large rectangular canvas (114x258,5cm) preserved at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in

Orléans (fig. 36).665 A slightly shorter in length (133x215,5cm) but otherwise almost

identical version can be found in Chartres and it is thought to be a copy from the hand

of the artist himself (fig. 37).666 Both paintings represent a large group of over forty

elegantly dressed ladies on horseback. Most of them are lined at the front in a

woodland clearing, each holding a hunting bird in their left hand. Smaller groups of

horsewomen can be seen in the background, galloping through a landscape with trees

and two buildings that have been identified as the ducal castle of Custines, now in

ruins, and the fort of the Avant-Garde near Nancy. However, this scene that may look

at a first glace like a courtly amusement has further and more complex connotations.

The larger canvas at Orléans has a relatively well-documented history. It used to hang

in the Queen’s cabinet at the Château de Richelieu, the Cardinal’s newly-refurbished

palace in Touraine.667 The room had been built for the Regent Anna of Austria and

was decorated with a series of depictions of Femmes fortes by Nicolas Prévost

(1603/1604-1670) and four allegories of the Elements painted by Déruet and

preserved together in Orléans.668 It has been traditionally held that all four paintings

665 Claude Déruet, Allegory of Air or The Duchess’ Hunt, 1625-1642. Orléans, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Inv. 355. 666 Claude Déruet (attr.), Allegory of Air or The Duchess’ Hunt. Chartres, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Inv. 878. 667 Between 1631 and the early 1642, Richelieu had his former family mansion turned into a veritable palace under the supervision of the architect Jacquest Lemercier (1585-1654). 668 Richelieu à Richelieu: architecture et décors d’un château disparu (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2011), pp. 341-346.

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Fig. 36: Claude Déruet, Allegory of Air or The Duchess’ Hunt, 1625-1642. Orléans, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Inv. 355

Fig. 37: Claude Déruet (attr.), Allegory of Air or The Duchess’ Hunt. Chartres, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Inv. 878

Photo of ‘Claude Déruet, Allegory of Air or The Duchess’ Hunt’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée des Beaux-Arts, Orléans.

Photo of ‘Claude Déruet (attr.), Allegory of Air or The Duchess’ Hunt. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Chartres.

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were especially executed by Déruet upon Richelieu’s commission in 1642.669 By that

time, the Duchy of Lorraine had been under French rule for eight years and the artist

had turned towards the invading King for protection. Before that, Déruet had been

engaged as court painter for Duke Henry II (1563-1624) and his daughter Nicole

(1608-1657), who briefly ruled as Duchess between 1624 and 1625 and then formally

as Duchess consort, although her power was in reality greatly reduced and she spent

the last years of her life in Paris.670

Déruet’s interpretation of the traditional theme of the Elements appears all but

conventional, as his four paintings depict a series of court diversions. Fire is

represented by a nocturnal carrousel accompanied by a pyrotechnic display, whereas a

sleigh race on a frozen river stands in for Water. Earth, by far the largest canvas

(114,8x422,7cm) portrays the triumph of Anne of Austria with a procession of

allegorical chariots accompanied by a tournament. The logic behind the artist’s

iconological choice for the cycle was certainly not clear to all observers at the time.

After visiting the castle in 1663, the fabulist Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695) wrote

to his wife expressing his bewilderment at the sight of:

[A]nother small [cabinet] with four paintings full of figures representing the four Elements. There one can see fireworks, jousting, amusements with sleighs, and other similar gentle diversions. If you were to ask me what it all means, I would reply that I have no idea whatsoever.671

From the historical reconstruction of the cabinet’s arrangement, it is clear that the

depiction of Air had pride of place. It was the first work encountered by the visitor,

located on the wall opposite the entrance together with Prévost’s figures of Dido,

Thomyris and Astrubal’s wife. Vincent Dorothée argues that such prominent position

was given to the painting since it best embodied the highly political connotations of

669 This thesis is discussed by Eric Moinet in his essay La Terre: Claude Deruet (Montreuil: Alain de Gourcuff, 1999). 670 Henry Bogdan, La Lorraine des ducs (Paris: Perrin, 2005), pp. 145-184. 671 ‘… un autre petit [cabinet] où quatre tableaux pleins de figures représentant les quatre Éléments. On y voit des feux d’artifice, des courses de bagues, des carrousels, des divertissements de traîneau, et autres gentillesses semblables. Si vous demandez ce que tout cela signifie, je vous répondrai que je n’en sais rien.’ Le Voyage en Limousin (Paris: La Renaissance, 1927), pp. 66-67.

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the room’s decorative apparatus, which was intended to pay homage to the Queen

Regent and women’s rule more generally.672 Instead of the traditional and stiffer

configuration of a triumph, which marks the grandiose depiction of Earth, Déruet’s

allegory of Air celebrates female power through the display of real women’s physical

empowerment in the everyday life pursuit of the hunt. This reading of the painting is

reflected in a contemporary account penned by Jean Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin (1595-

1676) who, as a client and intimate of Richelieu, was in a privileged position to

provide a reliable insight as to the Cardinal’s intention in displaying the painting. In

his 1653 narrative Les Promenades de Richelieu, Desmaret wrote

In this second painting of the Lorrains, the Duchess Of her Ladies shows the charms and dexterity They are all in a meadow, mounted on fine horses The rose is in their complexion, amongst a field of lilies On their hand is the goshawk, the lanner, or the saker Many are already in the air, and many make carnage Of innocent partridges among the hounds Covering their prey under a beautiful plumage One [lady] stands waiting, another runs through these vast spaces Such sweet pastimes! Such charms! Such graces!673

While the poetic account of hawking certainly conjures up a series of ethereal

fantasies and aerial visions in the reader’s mind, there is little doubt that the poet’s

attention is turned towards the ladies on the ground, whose ‘charms and dexterity’ he

praises. In addition to providing a clear interpretive key to the scene, Desmarets’

account also provides a precise context. Déruet’s allegory of Air is in fact the

depiction of a hunt at the court of Duchess Nicole of Lorraine, who is represented in

the very middle, presiding over her ladies’ cynegetic amusement. In light of this

672 Dorothée, ‘Femmes fortes et Amazones’. 673 ‘Dans le second tableau des Lorrains la Duchesse / De ses Dames fait voir les charmes & l’addresse. / Toutes sont dans les prez sur des chevaux polis. / La rose est en leur teint sur un beau champ de lis. /Sur leur poing est l’autour, le lanier, ou le sacre. / Maints sont desja dans l’air, et maints font un massacre / D’innocentes perdris parmy les épagneux, / Couvrant leur proye à bas d’un plumage soigneux. / L’une attend, l’autre court dans ces larges espaces. Que de doux passetemps! que d’attraits! que de graces!’. Jean Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin, Les promenades de Richelieu ou les Vertus chrestiennes (Paris: Chez Henry Le Gras, 1653), p. 56.

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information, Dorothée argues that this painting was probably one of at least two

Hunts painted by Déruet to celebrate the rule of the Duchess between 1624 and 1625.

Therefore, the historian adds, the canvas may have reached Richelieu alongside other

spoils of war following the occupation of Nancy in 1633.674 This tallies with recent

archival finds that place the painting in the Cardinal’s collections as early as 1634.675

What is certain is that the artist produced a similar scene, or possibly a copy, that is

listed within the inventory of paintings belonging to the Maréchal de La Ferté, the

Governor of Nancy, in October 1653. This was recorded as a ‘great painting […]

depicting a hunt of the Ladies of Lorraine’, which was worth eight hundred livres.676

Further research is needed to establish whether this could be the version of Déruet’s

Hunt currently preserved at Chartres. It is possible that the Lorraine painter had

produced more representations of a theme that allowed him to further expand his

natural artistic vision, shifting from the depiction of mythological scenes to the

portrayal of real-life horsewomen.

While it remains unique within the known production of Déruet, the Allegory of Air,

or The Duchess’ Hunt, certainly presents many similarities with his best-known

works. It shows the habitual taste for crowded scenes in vast landscapes, derived from

Tempesta, together with the theatrical flair that distinguishes Déruet’s Amazonian

battles and triumphs. Examined as an equestrian scene, however, this painting is

striking different. While the Amazons are always shown straddling the horse and

assuming masculine postures, all horsewomen taking part in the Hunt are depicted

riding side-saddle. As with the depiction of their clothing and features, however, the

artist showed great creativity in the rendition of the ladies’ posture. Within the

674 Such is the case of two globes belonging to the Cardinal, which bore the coat of arms of the House of Lorraine. Dorothée, ‘Femmes fortes et Amazones’, p. 10 and n. 47. 675 Richelieu à Richelieu, pp. 341, 409. The other three painting in this set instead include depictions of the Regent together with the infant Louis XIV and cannot have been realised prior to 1640. 676 ‘Item un autre grand tableau enchassé comme ceux cy dessus [dans une bordure dorée] représentant une Chasse des dames de Lorraine estimé huict cent livres’. Henri Herluison et Paul Leroy, ‘Notes artistiques sur les seigneurs de La Ferté. D’après les documents des archives départementales du Loiret’, Réunion des Sociétés des Beaux-Arts des Départements (Orléans: Herluison, 1897), p. 807.

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perimeter of the fashionable canons of the time, Déruet’s took great pains to insert

elements of individuality in dress and figure that render each one of the many female

riders different. The artist’s desire to enliven his composition went as far as to

introduce the almost comic depiction of a lady slipping backwards from the saddle,

thus showing her naked thighs. Such striking variety should not be mistaken for

search for realism. On the contrary, in order to achieve this creative feat Déruet

appears to have made many concessions as to the accuracy of single equestrian

portraits. A number of horses in the painting assume animated poses that, while

realistic, do not suit a collective representation where both the riders and their mounts

are depicted in close proximity. As for the ladies’ posture in the saddle, many seem

turned towards the spectator in a way that might suggest that they are in fact sitting

completely on the side of s woman’s saddle, without wrapping their right leg around

the pommel, or even on a sambue. Déruet employed this pose when depicting Anne of

Austria in his Allegory of the Peace Treaty of the Pyrenees, paint in 1659 (fig. 38).677

In the canvas, the Queen appears clearly seated on the side, delicately holding the

reins between the thumb and middle finger of her ungloved right hand, in a manner

that seems more symbolic than functional. The same gesture and attitude are assumed

by a lady on horseback in another allegorical painting preserved at the Musée Lorrain

in Nancy (fig. 39). 678 As she proceeds towards three goddesses, the elegant

horsewoman, whose identity remains mysterious, holds the reins in a daintily

unrealistic fashion, between her right thumb and index finger. Exercising no actual

control over her mount, the female rider adopting this pose would not have been able

to ride unaided in real life. The official and allegorical character of these two

paintings contrasts with the unceremonious atmosphere that pervades Déruet’s

depiction of the Hunt, which was at least in part inspired by real equestrian

677 Claude Déruet, Allegory of the Peace Treaty of the Pyrenees, 1659. Versailles, châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. 4234. The painting is signed and dated ‘7.XI.1659’. 678 Claude Déruet, Three Goddesses and a Lady on Horseback. Nancy, Musée Lorrain, Inv. 5428.

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entertainments he witnessed and possibly even took part in.679 In order to assume

more dynamic poses and ride freely, the huntresses inhabiting the painting must have

been riding on a new side-saddle. This must certainly have been true for the groups of

women represented galloping in the background. Even when the ladies’ body appears

turned towards the viewer, the uneven depiction of their legs and knees always

suggests that they are employing a pommel and stirrup. The portrait of the Duchess at

the very centre of the composition provides an excellent example of this somewhat

ambiguous posture. Like all her companions, however, she wears a pair of buff

leather gloves and holds the rein in a more forceful and realistic manner. The artist

achieved the greatest degree of precision in the depiction of three ladies who are

represented on the painting’s left. Close to the edge of the canvas, a lady sporting a

purple skirt with an orange bodice and puffy sleeves is represented holding a riding

stick and leading her horse towards the right, presenting its left flank to the viewer.

Further towards the centre of the composition, a lady wearing a purple dress with

green sleeves assumes a similar pose. In between these two, a third horsewoman

dressed in blue with a purple mantle is seen from the left side and from the back, so

679 Having received a noble title in 1621, Déruet became a full-fledged member of the Lorrain court. In 1645, he was also made a Knight of the Order of Saint Michael by Louis XIII.

Fig. 38: Claude Déruet, Allegory of the Peace Treaty of the Pyrenees, 1659. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. 4234

Fig. 39: Claude Déruet, Three Goddesses and a Lady on Horseback. Nancy, Musée Lorrain, Inv. 5428

Photo of ‘Claude Déruet, Allegory of the Peace Treaty of the Pyrenees’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon.

Photo of ‘Claude Déruet, Three Goddesses and a Lady on Horseback’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée Lorrain, Nancy.

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that instead of facing the viewer directly she appears in profile. Depicted from this

unusual perspective, the three huntresses display a perfect posture, riding with their

upper body turned towards the front of the horse.

The artist’s inconsistencies may depend from the fact that he did not intend to

provide an accurate illustration of women’s equestrian technique, but rather an

evocative portrayal of female equestrian culture at court. Déruet’s highly symbolic

depiction of the Hunt remained unique insofar as presented a real-life Amazonian

sisterhood where distinctions of rank seem to blur in the shared enjoyment of the

chase. Unlike the heroines from classical times, however, the Duchess and her ladies

appear able to master their belligerent spirits. Following the example of their male

companions, they found in riding and hunting a suitable outlet for overabundant

energies and potentially disruptive passions. Far from being regarded as unnatural,

female dexterity in the saddle was celebrated as a key component of aristocratic

identity, alongside more traditional charms and accomplishments. Indeed, the display

of physical strength tempered by intellectual control rendered this painting a powerful

tribute to female rule. Inspired from the reality of equestrian entertainments at the

court of Lorraine, this scene carried its message to the French court, where it

encountered models of hunts from the Flemish school.

The variety of visual records that have been discussed in this chapter have

provided a compelling testimony that, thanks to the development of specific

equestrian technologies and the employment of new techniques, more and more

seventeenth-century women were able to join men in the hunting field and take an

active part in the chase. Female equestrianism, however, was far from being just a

form of a leisure pursuit connected to cynegetic activities. From estate management to

military engagement, the next chapter will reveal how the acquisition of riding skills

was crucial to many aspects of an aristocratic woman’s life.

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Chapter III – The Noble Amazon: Female Equestrianism and Aristocratic Identity III.1 The Aristocratic Horsewoman680 In the introduction to my thesis, I have discussed how recent studies of women’s

history in early modern France tend to recast traditional binary views of male and

female education. In particular, they show that early modern noblewomen possessed

abilities and knowledge comparable to that of their male relatives, but were less

inclined to show it off. These skills ranged from a more or less sophisticated literary

and philosophical instruction to an understanding of politics and military science, not

to mention the more mundane principles of how to run the household. In most

instances, Lyndan Warner observes, the final objective of a girl’s education in

Renaissance France was not simply to shape moral and devout women, but most

importantly to provide them with the competences required to act as suitable

companions for their spouses.681 Elite wives, moreover, could be called in times of

war to act as veritable surrogates of their absent husbands, managing and defending

the family estate. Inherently bound up with the performance of aristocratic

masculinity in its leisure pursuits as well as its duties, horsemanship constituted a

precious skill for noblewomen to master if they intended to stand by their men, or in

their place. While the previous chapter explored the development of female equestrian

techniques in the seventeenth century, the present chapter investigates the significance

of female equestrianism as a key tool for female members of the aristocracy to access

the political and military arena as well as offering insights on how French

noblewomen learnt to mount on horseback.

Scholars of seventeenth-century France have long acknowledged how the

figure of the Amazon as a belligerent horsewoman was crucial to the representation of

militant royal and aristocratic women from the second half of the fifteenth century to

680 The following section draws on my previously published article ‘Holding the Reins’. 681 Lyndan Warner, The Ideas of Man and Woman in Renaissance France: Print, Rhetoric, and Law (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011).

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the end of the Fronde. While the emergence of female equestrian portraits in the

seventeenth century suggests that horse riding was a diffused pastime amongst French

noblewomen, the authors of the 2016 volume Cavalières Amazones lament that at

present ‘we know virtually nothing about their equestrian training’.682 However, they

add, within an aristocratic society that relied on the horse for many of its necessities

as well as leisure activities ‘it is unthinkable that the female elites did not receive a

solid equestrian training. 683 To shed light on this side of women’s education in

seventeenth-century France, I closely examine biographical and autobiographical

accounts from the period. In particular, I focus on the experiences of three

noblewomen whose equestrian feats were celebrated during their lifetime. Anne-

Marie-Louise d’Orléans Duchess of Montpensier (1627-1693), usually referred to as

the Grande Mademoiselle, was the daughter of Louis XIV’s uncle Gaston.684 She

sided against her own cousin, famously leading her father’s troops on horseback and

opening fire on the royal army during the Battle of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine in

July 1652.685 Anne-Marie-Louise’s manuscript accounts of her eventful life remained

unpublished until the mid-nineteenth century, but have since then known growing

popularity.686 The wife of an army officer, Catherine Meurdrac de La Guette (1613-

1676) acted as a secret agent and was charged to ride across the Kingdom in an

attempt to reconcile the rebels of Bordeaux with the Crown.687 Her self-authored

memoires appeared in 1681, a few years after her death. The Lorraine gentlewoman

682 ‘De fait, on ne sait pour ainsi dire rien de leur apprentissage équestre’. Veauvy, Savray and Ponton d’Amécourt (eds), Cavalières Amazones, p. 75. 683 ‘…il est impensable que l’élite féminine n’ait pas reçu un solide enseignement à cheval’. Ibidem. 684 Orphaned five days after her birth, Anne-Marie-Louise inherited the titles and vast fortune of her mother, Marie de Bourbon Duchess of Montpensier. She started to be addressed as ‘Grande Mademoiselle’ because of the title of ‘Grand Monsieur’ adopted by her father in 1643 after the birth of Philippe d’Orléans, Louis XIV’s younger brother, who was instead referred to as ‘Petit Monsieur’. 685 Vincent J. Pitts, La Grande Mademoiselle at the Court of France (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000). 686 The Grande Mademoiselle penned two manuscripts, both preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Mss. 66698-99 and 19588-92). The first complete edition by Adolphe Chéruel (Paris: Charpentier, 1858-1859) remains the best available. 687 Laurent Angard, ‘“Le fleuret et la plume”. Une amazone au XVIIe siècle. Les Mémoires de Madame de La Guette’, in Leduc, Réalité et représentation des amazones, pp. 356-369.

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Alberte-Barbe d’Ernécourt, dame of Neuville and of Saint-Baslemont (1607-1660)

instead distinguished herself during the Thirty Years War, when she mounted dressed

like a man and took up arms to defend her lands against raiding soldiers.688 Soon after

her death, the Franciscan Jean-Marie de Vernon (died 1695), author of pious works

and hagiographic texts, gathered first-hand testimonies concerning her life and heroic

deeds. 689 The resulting biography published posthumously in 1678, celebrated

Madame de Saint-Baslemont as a ‘Christian Amazon’, a paragon of piety and military

valour. In many ways the experiences of these three aristocratic women, in

themselves quite different, are undoubtedly exceptional and did not reflect

contemporary expectations or generalised practices of feminine behaviour. Yet their

biographical accounts offer rare insights that complicate our understanding of the

education and life of elite women from the period. When it came to physical training

and corporeal experiences, considerations of rank together with concepts of biological

sex seem to have informed these women’s physical pursuits and shaped their sense of

self.

III.1-i Female Equestrian Education and Aristocratic Leisure

Madame de Saint-Baslemont’s actions, as well as her very appearance, have

traditionally been interpreted as signs of her peculiar character and naturally

ambiguous gender identity. Comments on her masculine attitudes featured in some of

her earliest descriptions. In his Historiettes, Gédéon Tallemant des Reaux (1619-

1692) reported the popular notion that ‘she has the voice and the looks of a man,

except the beard’.690 Her renowned equestrian prowess was regarded as a facet of her

general eccentricity and an outward marker of male belligerent spirit. A friendlier

688 Micheline Cuénin, La dernière des amazones: Madame de Saint-Baslemont (Nancy: Presse Universitaires de Nancy, 1992). 689 On this little-known author, his work and the writing of Madame de Saint-Baslemont’s biography, see Ibid., pp. 7-9.690 ‘… elle a la la voix et la mine d’un homme à la barbe près’. Gédéon Tallemant des Réaux, Les Historiettes, ed. Louis Jean Monmerqué, Hippolyte de Châteaugiron and Jules-Antoine Taschereau (Paris: Levasseur, 1834), vol. 5, p. 108. The collection of short biographies by Tallemant des Réaux remained in manuscript form until it was edited in 1834 by Monmerqué, de Châteaugiron and Taschereau.

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observer and personal acquaintance, Antoine d’Andilly (1616-1698) remarked how ‘it

was rather pleasing to see how embarrassed she was wearing female clothing, and

with what liberty and vigour [...] she mounted on horseback’.691 Madame de La

Guette too inscribed her passion for horse riding within her lyrical self-portrait as a

courageous and hot-tempered woman.692 ‘I know that my demeanour / is a bit too

masculine’, she declared, ‘but I say that femininity / never mattered much to me’.693

Determined to move beyond the traditional limitations of the female gender, La

Guette drew attention towards her riding skills in order to establish her equality or

even superiority over men. Twice she recounted that she fiercely refused to be helped

to mount on the horse, swiftly jumping in the saddle on her own.694 She was also keen

to point out how she would never ride any other way than astride, ‘one leg on one

side, one leg on the other’. 695 Not unlike the women mentioned in the 1669

frontispiece of Du Breuil Pompée’s treatise, Madame de La Guette was able to

achieve a textbook posture. Often complimented on her equestrian skills, on one

occasion she was even mistaken for a cavalier by an officer. While offering his

apologies, the guilty observer explained ‘Madame […] you look quite extraordinary

for a woman, and I must say that there are few men who cut a better figure on a horse

than you do’.696 Similar equivocations seem to have been a common occurrence in

seventeenth century France. It is not surprising that female display of equestrian

skills, at a time when horsemanship was connected with highly gendered pedagogic

691 ‘C’était une chose assez plaisante de voir combien elle était embarrassée en habit de femme, et avec quelle liberté et quelle vigueur […] elle montait à cheval’. Antoine Arnauld d’Andilly, Mémoires contenant quelques anecdtotes de la cour de France depuis 1634 jusqu’à 1675 (Amsterdam: Chez Jean Néaulme, 1756), pp. 120-121. The memoirs of the abbé Antoine Arnauld d’Andilly, member of the prominent Arnauld family, were first published in 1756. 692 Stanton, The Dynamics of Gender, pp. 123-148. 693 ‘Je sais fort bien que ma démarche / Tient un peu trop du masculin; / Mais je dis que le féminin / Ne fut jamais ce qui m’attache’. Catherine Meurdrac de La Guette, Mémoires de Madame de La Guette escrits par elle-mesme (La Haye: Chez Adrian Moetjens, 1681), p. 249. 694 Ibid., pp. 175, 215. 695 ‘Je sautai légèrement en selle jambe de ça jambe de là, n’ayant jamais été à cheval autrement’. Ibid., p. 175. 696 ‘Madame […] vous me parûtes d’une façon toute extraordinaire pour une femme; et je puis dire qu’il y a peu de cavaliers qui soient mieux à cheval que vous’. Ibid., p. 226.

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models, should be taken as a sign of blurring gender boundaries. Far from

representing an exceptional talent or a natural gift, however, women’s proficiency in

the saddle constituted the result of rigorous training.

In her memoirs, Madame de La Guette did not provide any information

regarding her equestrian education. At the very start of her narrative, she mentioned

how her father invited her to join for a ride so that they could converse undisturbed.697

From this single detail it is tempting to imagine that Monsieur de Meurdrac himself

had taken charge of his daughter’s instruction so that he could then find in her a

suitable riding companion. Catherine’s dexterity in the saddle, however, would soon

turn to his own disadvantage when she literally galloped away from her father to

elope with her Monsieur de La Guette.698 Since Vernon traced her ‘Amazonian’

attitude back to her upbringing, more is known about Madame de Saint-Baslemont’s

equestrian education. Endowed with a fiery temper and a ‘lively, curious and clever

spirit’, the young Alberte-Barbe ‘was in constant need of occupation’ intellectual as

well as physical.699 Being raised in the countryside amongst the provincial nobility,

her overflow of energy is said to have found a natural employment on the hunting

field, surrounded by dogs and horses.700 Following her natural inclinations for such

exercises, her husband Jean-Jacques d’Haraucourt took pleasure in perfecting her

equestrian training. Vernon described her progress in great detail:

Alberte d’Ernecourt, riding every day in the presence of her husband, became in no time a proficient rider. This gentleman, having only one person to train, imparted all the perfection of his knowledge. They were both endowed with a belligerent spirit, and inclined towards generous and masculine [read courageous] actions. The husband, ravished by the admirable correspondence of his wife in interests that are not ordinarily the domain of women, provided her with costly weapons and rare horses suitable for the hunt as well as for war. It

697 Ibid., p. 26. 698 Ibid., p. 36. 699 ‘Son esprit vif, curieux et habile avait besoin d’occupation’. Jean-Marie de Vernon, L'amazone chrestienne, ou les avantures de Mme de S.-Balmon, qui a joint une admirable dévotion et la pratique de toutes les vertus avec l’exercice des armes et de la guerre (Paris: Chez Gaspar Meturas, 1678), p. 18. 700 Ibid., p. 19.

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must be said here that the habit to don men’s clothes was a consequence of her husband, who forced her in this matter as well as in all the military exercises. 701

During the first stages of her training, the two would roam together around the

countryside, she on horseback and he in a carriage to keep a better eye on her posture

and provide immediate feedback. They would then hunt together in the fields, and

Alberte-Barbe was often seen killing rabbits whilst riding at top speed.702 Margaret

Wise has argued that Vernon’s encomiastic narrative downplayed Madame de Saint-

Baslemont’s own initiative and agency in his attempt to depict her as an obedient

daughter and subsequently a devoted wife. 703 Her cross-dressing as well as her

masculine riding style are explained and justified insofar as they comply with

Monsieur de Saint-Baslemont’s desires as well as her natural inclinations. However,

to think that a husband could take a keen interest in his wife’s equestrian training is

by no means implausible. Madame de La Guette also commented on her husband’s

attempts to correct her posture. Whilst riding together in company, she remembered

that, ‘whenever the terrain got difficult, he would urge me to “Hold the reins” for fear

that something dangerous might befall me’.704 Irritated and offended in her pride as

bonne cavalière, Madame de La Guette eventually galloped away. In both cases,

women’s natural proclivity for action appears to have been cultivated and developed

under the guidance or at the very least with the approval of male relatives. This

challenges the traditional binary view of aristocratic education where men initiate

other men to military values and women instruct other women in the skills of

701 ‘Alberte d’Ernecourt, montant tous les jours à cheval, en présence de son mari, devint en moins de rien une illustre cavalière. Ce gentilhomme, n’ayant à conduire qu’elle seule, lui communiqua facilement sa perfection’. Ils avaient tous deux l’humeur guerrière, et portée aux actions généreuses et mâles. L’époux, ravi de la correspondance admirable de son épouse en des choses qui ne sont pas ordinaires aux femmes, lui fournissait volontiers des armes les plus choisies, des chevaux les plus rares, pour toutes les occasions de combat et de chasse. Il faut remarquer, ici, que la coutume de se travestir lui vint du commandement de son mari, qui l’y contraignit, ainsi qu’à tous les exercices de la guerre et des armes’. Ibid, pp. 20-21. 702 Ibid, p. 21. 703 Wise, ‘Saint-Balmon, Cross-Dressing, and the Battle of Gender Representation’, p. 286. 704 ‘Mon mari qui m’aimoit beaucoup, me disoit incessamment, quand il voyoit quelque méchant pas: ‘Tenez bride en main’ car il craignoit ce qui m’arriva’. Guette, Mémoires, pp. 227-228.

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household management as well as social graces.705 The picture that emerges is more

complex insofar as it shows clearly domains of overlap between female and male

cultures.

Knowledge about riding and hunting was not passed on exclusively via

prescriptive literature or didactic conversation; it could also be acquired through

simple observation. At the start of her memoirs, Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans

recounted a visit from César Duke of Vendome while she resided at the abbey of

Borgueil in October 1637. The Duke and his sons brought with them a pack of hounds

expressly to offer the ten-year old princess ‘the pleasure of the hunt’.706 Twenty years

later, Anne-Marie-Louise was still able to provide a most vivid and detailed account

of the pursuit of a stag that followed, in itself a most powerful testament to the deep

impression left in the little girl’s mind. After a long pursuit in the surrounding woods,

the hounds drove their prey into the main courtyard of the abbey, where the hunt

ended under her own eyes. Standing on the main staircase, she ‘enjoyed the pleasure

of witnessing the curée with great ease’.707 Arguably the most dramatic and bloody

moment of the hunt, the final killing and unmaking of the quarry nevertheless

followed a strict etiquette. Courtin recommended to let the highest-ranking hunters

reach the dying beast first and if it is necessary to inflict a fatal wound with a pistol or

sword, then ‘the honour should be left to the most qualified person’.708 Since the

Middle Ages, moreover, it was customary to gift the ladies present with a foot, or

more rarely the head, of the slain beast. 709 The exposure to such cruelty and

bloodshed has traditionally been interpreted as instrumental in hardening a young

man’s spirit in preparation for war. 710 However, the fact that a lady, and most

strikingly a girl of ten such as Anne-Marie-Louise, should be invited to witness the

705 Motley, Becoming a French Aristocrat, p. 51. 706 ‘… ils y amenèrent bien des chiens courants pour me donner le plaisir de la chasse’. Montpensier, Mémoires, vol. 1, p. 30. 707 ‘… la chasse finit à mes yeux, et où j’eus même fort commodément le plaisir de voir la curée’. Ibid, vol. 1, p. 31. 708 ‘Et s’il faut mettre l’épée à la main ou le pistolet pour luy donner le dernier coup, il faut laisser cet honneur à la personne qualifiée’. Courtin, Nouveau traité de la civilité, p. 152. 709 Cummins, The Hound and the Hawk, p. 180. 710 Roche, La culture équestre, vol.1, p. 97.

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hunt in its most gory details certainly calls into question the gendered nature of such

rituals and their cultural meaning. Young female courtiers too seem to have been

encouraged to get acquainted with the harsh reality of fighting and killing, which still

constituted a fundamental part of aristocratic identity. By being welcomed on the

hunting field, they were recognised as part of a select group of people in whose veins

flowed the blood of great commanders and military leaders. Any form of association

with cynegetic exercise, therefore, was regarded as a desirable feature that could be

turned into a device for self-promotion and legitimation. This is likely the case with

an early portrait of Marie-Anne Mancini (1649-1714), future Duchess of Bouillon,

realised soon after her arrival at the French court in 1555.711 Attributed to Théodore

van Egmont (1627-1672), the painting represents a girl dressed for the hunt, carrying

a bow and arrow (fig. 40).712 As the niece of the unpopular and yet powerful Cardinal,

and a member of the minor nobility, the young Mazarinette’s position at the French

court was far from solid. Being depicted as an elegant huntress constituted a way to

display her credentials as a new member of the refined Bourbon court.

711 One of the nieces of Cardinal Mazarin, Marie-Anne married Godefroy Maurice de La Tour d’Auvergne Duke of Bouillon in 1662. 712 Théodore van Egmont (attr.), Marie-Anne Mancini as a huntress, c. 1655. Alcudia, Mallorca, Fundación Yannick i Ben Jakober, Inv. 1281.

Fig. 40: Théodore van Egmont (attr.), Marie-Anne Mancini as a huntress, c. 1655. Alcudia, Mallorca, Fundación Yannick i Ben Jakober, Inv. 1281

Photo of ‘Théodore van Egmont (attr.), Marie-Anne Mancini as a huntress’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Fundación Yannick i Ben Jakober, Alcudia, Mallorca.

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Ladies with an impeccable pedigree were equally encouraged to cultivate their

cynegetic knowledge from an early age. Soon after she witnessed her first killing, the

young Duchess of Montpensier met her father at Amboise, where they both attended

another hunting party to celebrate the Feast of Saint Hubert on 3 November. This

time, however, she found the chase ‘less enjoyable’ than the one at Bergueil.713 At ten

years of age, Anne-Marie-Louise proved already able to form and express a clear

judgement on the quality of cynegetic entertainment. The following year, she joined

the royal entourage at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where she became a special favourite

of the Queen Anne of Austria, then pregnant with the future Louis XIV. ‘Hunting was

one of the greatest pleasures of the King’, the Grande Mademoiselle remembered, and

she would often be asked to join.714 By this time the young girl had certainly learnt

how to ride, for she described how she and other ladies at court were ‘all dressed in

colourful habits, mounted on beautiful mares richly caparisoned, each with a plumed

hat to shelter ourselves from the sun’.715 After the death of Louis XIII in 1643, Anne-

Marie-Louise still rode, alternating frequent promenades on foot with excursions on

horseback, alone or with other female companions. 716 The young King would

sometimes join in these outings, which he greatly enjoyed, until his mother expressly

forbade him on account of a supposed tenderness between the twelve-year old and

one of the Duchess’ companions, Anne de La Grange-Trianon (1632-1707), Countess

of Frontenac, who was nine years his senior.717

Louis XIV’s continued enjoyment of female company whilst riding will be

discussed at length in the next section of this chapter. The Grande Mademoiselle’s

Mémoirs are a precious document regarding the earlier years of his reign, testifying

that the sovereign habitually rode alongside female courtiers during his daily

promenades. Until the relationship between the cousins became hostile, Anne-Marie-

713 ‘… la chasse fut moins divertissante que celle de Bourgueil’. Montpensier, Mémoires, vol. 1, p. 32. 714 ‘La chasse était un des plus grands plaisirs du roi’. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 40. 715 ‘Nous étions toutes vêtues de couleur, sur des belles haquenées richement caparaçonnées, et, pour se garantir du soleil, chacune avait un chapeau garni de quantité de plumes’. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 40. 716 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 309-310. 717 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 315-316. Anne had married Louis de Buade Count of Frontenac in 1648.

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Louise herself was often invited to join and indeed soon after her return from the five-

year exile at Saint-Fargeau, the habit was resumed as a marker of reconciliation. On

11th July 1657, she was invited to join the King at Sedan and the two rode together

with other ladies. The occasion was marked out by the Gazette de France as a ‘most

agreeable cavalcade’.718 The Grande Mademoiselle herself remembered how Louis

XIV seized this opportunity to show her all his horses ‘one after the other’, which she

found ‘extremely beautiful’. 719 By this time, Anne-Marie-Louise had gathered

considerable expertise that rendered her an informed interlocutor in all matters

relating to the hunt. According to her own testimony, she had never cared much for

horses and dogs until her forced sojourn in the country residence of Saint-Fargeau

increased her appreciation of outdoor pursuits.720 There, the newly converted and yet

already enthusiastic horsewoman had an entire pack of hounds and various fine

mounts sent over from England, for, she explained, ‘it is a countryside amusement to

love horses, admire them, take them out for walks, show them off to people when

they visit’.721 The only known depiction of the Grande Mademoiselle on horseback is

a likeness engraved by Pierre Daret in 1652, now preserved at the Bibliothèque

nationale de France (fig. 41).722 As with the portrait of Henrietta Maria, realised more

than two decades earlier, Daret represented her sitter gracefully placed on a sambue,

her right hand holding the reins, the other a fan. The scene in the background is more

agitated, depicting a buck deer being chased by a group of horsemen and hounds.

Dating from the early period of Anne-Marie-Louise’s exile, this image probably

alludes to her newfound interest in country pursuits. She is visible again on the

painting’s left, observing the hunt while comfortably seated in the saddle and

accompanied by a groom. The Grande Mademoiselle’s fascination with horses and

718 ‘… le Roy, Monsieur, Mademoiselle & plusieurs Dames estans montez à cheval, formérent une Cavalcade des plus agréables’. Gazette de France, 11th August 1657, pp. 826-827. 719 ‘… il me montra ses chevaux les uns après les autres, que je trouvai fort beaux’. Montpensier, Mémoires, vol. 3, p. 136. 720 Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 287-288, 297. 721 ‘… car c’est un divertissement de campagne que d’aimer les chevaux, de les voir, de les faire promener, de les montrer aux personnes qui viennent voir’. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 287-288. 722 Pierre Daret, Equestrian portrait of Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans, 1652. Bibliothèque nationale de France: 8-H-7555.

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hounds, however, was soon to move beyond mere observation; indeed, she turned into

a veritable devotee of the chase. ‘I started to hunt three times a week’, Anne-Marie-

Louise later wrote, ‘a thing in which I took great pleasure’. She also explained how

‘[t]he country around Saint-Fargeau is very convenient for the hunt, especially with

English hounds, which ordinarily run too fast for women; however since the

countryside is covered in vegetation, [she] could follow them everywhere’.723 The

Hunt of the Grande Mademoiselle preserved at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of

Belgium was probably realised during this period (fig. 42).724 Attributed to the school

of Pierre Mignard, this painting casts the lady of Saint-Fargeau in the role of Diana,

surrounded by a small female entourage. Some of the huntresses have been identified

as Anne-Marie-Louise’s real-life companions during her exile, Madame de Frontenac,

bearing the quiver, and Madame de Fiesque, holding a pike and gazing upon the slain

723 ‘Je me mis à chasser trois fois par semaine; à quoi je prenois un grand divertissement. Le pays est fort beau pour la chasse auprès de Saint-Fargeau, et fort commode pour les chiens anglois, qui pour l’ordinaire vont trop vite pour des femmes; et comme le pays est couvert, cela faisoit que je le suivois partout’. Montpensier, Mémoires, vol. 2, p. 297. 724 Pierre Mignard (school of), The Hunt of the Grande Mademoiselle. Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Inv. 8172.

Fig. 41: Pierre Daret, Equestrian portrait of Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans, 1652. Bibliothèque nationale de France: 8-H-7555

Fig. 42: Pierre Mignard (school of), The Hunt of the Grande Mademoiselle. Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Inv. 8172

Photo of ‘Pierre Daret, Equestrian portrait of Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Photo of ‘Pierre Mignard (school of), The Hunt of the Grande Mademoiselle’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels.

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deer.725 Elise Goodman offers a convincing reading of this scene as a powerful

statement of the Grande Mademoiselle’s anti-marital stance during this phase of her

life.726 A the same time, the painting also provides a compelling depiction of the

hunting field as liberating space where women could experience a sense of

empowerment over the disruptive male element, embodied by the deer.

The Grande Mademoiselle’s love of hunting found its place within a shared

culture of female aristocratic leisure where exercise occupied an important part. When

sketching her literary self-portrait soon after her return from exile, Anne-Marie-

Louise proudly stated that she detested playing cards, preferring instead ‘games of

exercise [jeux d’exercice] and being engaged in more active pursuits including

hunting and horseback riding.727 In her Mémoires, the princess confirmed that since

infancy ‘games of action’ [jeux d’action] such as shuttlecock are ‘the thing that she

loves best in the world’.728 At Saint-Fargeau, come spring the ladies would play two

hours in the morning and two more in the afternoon.729 Anne-Marie-Louise also had a

croquet lawn laid out in the gardens, where she played with her faithful companion

Madame de Frontenac, who according to the princess was very good competition.

‘However, she [Frontenac] would always end up winning’, the princess admitted, ‘for

despite the fact that I played with more dexterity, she would always triumph on

725 Henri Pauwels (ed.), Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique: Catalogue inventaire de la peinture ancienne (Brussels: Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, 1984), p. 195. Gilonne d’Harcourt (1619-1699) married Charles Count of Fiesque in 1643. 726 The scene is interpreted in light of the mythical tale of Diana and Actaeon. Elise Goodman, ‘Minerva Revivified: Mademoiselle de Montpensier’, Mediterranean Studies 15 (2006), pp. 83-84. 727 ‘ie hais à iouër aux cartes, & i’aime les ieux d’exercice: ie sçay travailler à toutes sortes d’ouvrages, & ce m’est un divertissement aussi bien que d’aller à la chasse, & de monter à cheval’. Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans Duchess of Montpensier, Divers portraits ([Caen: Jean I Poisson] 1659), p. 33. From 1657, the Duchess started writing and collecting literary portraits of friends and acquaintances that she had published in 1659. See Jean Garapon, La culture d’une princesse. Écriture et autoportrait dans l’œuvre de la Grande Mademoiselle (1627-1693) (Paris: Champion, 2003), esp. pp. 211-212. 728 ‘…comme la chose au monde que j’aime le mieux’. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 18. 729 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 250.

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account of her superior strength’.730 Even when the weather was too cold to indulge in

such diversions, the Lady of Saint-Fargeau would still enjoy a daily walk. Unlike her

newly acquired passion for the hunt, this was an old habit. During her infancy spent at

her father’s residence of Blois, she started enjoying ‘the pleasure of the promenade’,

which she never abandoned.731 Once she moved to Paris to live at court, Anne-Marie-

Louise still found solace taking long strolls, and in her memoirs written many years

later she still voiced her displeasure thinking back to those times when she was forced

to give up her daily exercise.732 In town the Grande Mademoiselle walked along the

popular Cours on the right bank of the Seine.733 When at court or visiting noblemen in

the country, however, she took her promenades on horseback. Writing about a three-

day visit at Pont in 1650, she remembered enjoying dancing, promenading on

horseback and boating.734 The following year she went on a journey to Limours with

three young female companions; there, she commented, ‘we did nothing but taking

promenades on foot and on horseback’.735

A common pastime in court circles and blessed by the sovereign’s favour,

horseback riding found equal popularity amongst noblewomen in the country. Not

just a form of aristocratic display of power, it was greatly appreciated for its

recreational value as sport and entertainment. Madame de La Guette for example

recounted how she celebrated Carnival in 1645 by going on a ride with her niece,

Mademoiselle de Vibrac, who was ‘rather pretty and, moreover, a good horsewoman

(cavalière)’.736 The two ladies spent the afternoon chasing buck deer, ‘for sport and

to stimulate appetite’.737 Eight years later, in the midst of the troubles of the civil war,

730 ‘… je jouai avec madame de Frontenac, qui me disputoit sans cesse, quoiqu’elle me gagnât toujours: car, quoique je jouasse avec plus d’adresse, sa force l’emportait par-dessus’. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 250. 731 [L]e plaisir de la promenade. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 21. 732 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 72, 83. 733 Between the quai des Tuileries and the quai de la Savonnerie. 734 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 187. 735 ‘… nous ne faisons que nous promener à pied et à cheval’. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 309-310. 736 ‘… ma nièce de Vibrac, qui étoit fille du capitaine du château, assez jolie, et de plus bonne cavalière’. Guette, Mémoires, pp. 69-70. 737 ‘Nous fûmes dans le parc lancer quantité de cerfs à la course, pour en avoir le divertissement et chercher de l’appétit pour le soir’. Ibid., p. 70.

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she joined a cavalcade organised by the Countess of Marsin to entertain the ladies-in-

waiting of her illustrious guests, the Frondeuses Princess of Condé and the Duchess

of Longueville.738 On that occasion she shocked the company by riding at such speed

that the wind lifted her skirts above the knee, showing her thighs.739

However proficient certain female riders might become, it was by no means

the rule for any aristocratic lady to enjoy or indeed know how to mount. After the

court left Paris in April 1658, the Grande Mademoiselle complained that she was able

to ride only two or three times a week and exclusively in the company of

Mademoiselle de Villeroy et Madame de Sévigné.740 ‘Aside from them’, Anne-Marie-

Louise explained, ‘all the other [ladies] with whom I usually took promenades did not

ride’.741 In her self-portrait composed that same year, her friend the Duchess of Vitry

admitted that, although she liked riding and taking promenades, she did not care much

for hunting, which she enjoyed only for the ‘grand and magnificient air’ of the

preparations.742 In her Mémoires, the baronne de Staal (1684-1750) narrated her first

time mounting on horseback as a most traumatising experience. Her carriage having

broken down on the way to Caen, she was forced to ride for the remaining four

leagues. ‘I could not have been more terrified if they had proposed me to mount on a

camel’ she confessed, remembering how her footman had to hold the reins as best he

could whilst she slowly proceeded, placed in the saddle ‘like a packet rather than a

living thing’.743 Coming from the Parisian bourgeoisie and earning her keep as a

738 Marie de Balzac d’Entraigue (1617-1691), wife of the military commander Count Jean-Gaspard-Ferdinand de Marsin, entertaining Claire-Clémence de Maillé (1621-1686), wife of Louis ‘le Grand’ Prince of Condé, and her sister-in-law Anne-Geneviève de Bourbon (1619-1679), wife of Henri d’Orléans Duke of Longueville. 739 Ibid., p. 195. 740 Catherine de Neufville de Villeroy (1639-1707) later Countess of Armagnac and Marie de Rabutin-Chantal (1626-1696) Marquise of Sévigné, the famous letter-writer. 741 ‘… tout ce qui avoit accoutumé de se promener avec moi ne montoit pas’. Montpensier, Mémoires, vol. 3, p. 239. 742 ‘… j’aime à me promener & monter à cheval; quoy que j’aime peu la chasse, tous les preparatifs m’en plaisent, aimant tout ce qui a l’air grand & magnifique’. Montpensier, Portraits divers, p. 142. Lucrèce Bouhier de Beaumarchais, who died in 1666, was the widow of Nicolas de L’Hôpital Duke of Vitry (1581-1644). 743 ‘Si l’on m’avait proposé de monter un dromadaire, je n’aurais pas été plus épouvantée […] On m’amena un cheval ; on me posa dessus plutôt comme un paquet que comme une créature

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maid-in-waiting to the Duchess of Maine, Madame de Staal certainly had little

occasion or reason to learn how to ride for pleasure.744 For ladies living in the

country, however, to mount on horseback could become a veritable necessity.

III.1-ii Female Equestrian Practice and Aristocratic Duty

Historical enquiries have revealed how in the Middle Ages a number of French

noblewomen found themselves in charge of the management of considerable estates

due to their husbands’ premature deaths or prolonged absence.745 Characterised by

long periods of international conflict as well as civil strife, the seventeenth century

equally presented many such occurrences. Like running a household, overseeing the

administration of landholdings did require some theoretical knowledge, but it was

mostly learnt in the field. Meeting with agents and tenants constituted an integral part

of the job, as was inspecting the various properties with regularity. Such activities

were habitually carried out on horseback and required considerable endurance in the

saddle. In the absence of her husband, Madame de La Guette managed their two

estates in Sucy-en-Brie, located one league from each other. Determined to ‘hold

[her] lands in her own hands’, the strong-willed lady ‘mounted on horseback, whip in

hand’ to go and deal personally with the tenants and make sure that they knew who

was in charge.746 Alberte-Barbe d’Ernécourt found herself in a similar situation as

she took charge of her husband’s lands, as well as her own, as he took up his post as

colonel of infantry in the Duke of Lorraine’s army in 1631. The properties of the

Grande Mademoiselle were far too extensive for her to take all administrative matters

into her own hands. Yet she kept a close eye on her agent’s activities, proclaiming

vivante’. Marguerite Jeanne de Staal de Launay, Mémoires de madame de Staal, écrits par elle-même (Londres, 1755), vol. 1, pp. 102-103. The memoirs of Marguerite Jeanne Cordier de Launay, baronne de Staal, were first published in 1755. 744 Gabrielle Verdier, ‘Vivre de lecture, mourir de lire: Le cas de Madame de Staal-Delaunay’, in Brouard-Arends (ed.) Lectrices d’Ancien Régime, pp. 143-152. 745 Mate, ‘Profit and Productivity on the estates of Isabella de Forz’; Munns and Richards, ‘Exploiting and Destabilizing Gender Roles: Anne d’Este’; J. Kalas, ‘The Noble Widow’s Place in the Patriarchal Household: The Life and Career of Jeanne de Gontault’. 746 ‘… je tenois mes terres par mes mains. Je montai à cheval, la canne à la main’. Guette, Mémoires, p. 122.

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great admiration for aristocratic women with aptitude for accounting and managing.747

During the restoration of her domain of Saint-Fargeau, she mounted on horseback to

check the building works’ progress in person. 748 In addition to displaying wise

administrative skills, to intervene directly in the management of one’s estates was

thought to reflect the good moral conduct of a Christian landholder. Exemplary was

the conduct of Jeanne Frémiot Baronne de Chantal (1572-1641), foundress of the

monastic Order of the Visitation, whose pious nature was expressed through her

dutiful estate management following the premature death of her husband. According

to her granddaughter Françoise-Madeleine de Chaugy, ‘she visited all the principal

properties of her lands, and the properties of her children’, taking care to examine

personally ‘all the contracts and official documents; briefly, all that was necessary to

establish good order’.749 To do so, ‘in the same day she rode from Montelon to

Bourbilly, which are ten or twelve leagues from each other’.750

Reaching far beyond the boundaries of the domestic sphere, property

management also involved the organisation of military resources, at least on a local

scale.751 In case of enemy attack, it was the landowner’s duty to offer protection to

tenants and make sure that all property was preserved. Though normally this

constituted a defence strategy, offensive measures could also be taken. Caught in

between the French and Imperial troops, Madame de Saint-Baslemont assembled and

led a local militia of villagers to protect her lands. ‘Until that moment’, Arnauld

d’Andilly commented, ‘she had only exercised her belligerent humour at the hunt,

747 Montpensier, Mémoires, vol. 2, pp. 251-252. 748 Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 242-243. 749 ‘Elle visita tous les terriers et titres principaux des biens, des maisons de ses enfants, les contrats, livres de raisons, bref, tout ce qui était requis pour établir un bon ordre’. Françoise-Madeleine de Chaugy, Mémoires sur la vie et les vertus de sainte Jeanne-Françoise Frémyot de Chantal, fondatrice de L’Ordre de la Visitation (Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit et Cie, 1893), p. 175. Françoise-Madeléine de Chaugy (1611-1680) became a Visitandine nun in 1630 and later Mother Superior to the monastery of Annecy. Acting as secretary to Jeanne de Chantal, she left behind a number of manuscript biographical notes that were first published in the late-nineteenth century. 750 ‘… elle allait à cheval tout d’un jour de Montelon à Bourbilly, qui sont éloignés de dix ou douze lieues’. Ibid., p. 175. 751 Neuschel, ‘Noblewomen and War in Sixteenth-Century France’.

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which is a sort of war; but soon an occasion presented itself to exercise it fully’.752 In

the early 1640s, she had to face the repeated invasions of French, Swedish and

Croatian soldiers. Vernon reported how during this period she was seen ‘in the streets,

going from door to door at all the houses of her tenants’ to call men to action.753 Her

limited forces being compensated by a superior knowledge of the territory, she was

able to launch offensives against the raiding troops, ‘so effective that they would not

dare return’.754 Due to the constant state of alert, Alberte-Barbe herself admitted in a

letter to her confessor, ‘ordinarily I never got out of my village without weapons, and

without being well mounted’.755 According to Vernon, this situation also led to her

habit of ‘wear[ing] male clothes hidden under female garb’ so that ‘at the first sign of

alarm […] she was seen on horseback, after casting her skirt aside’.756 The availability

of good horses was of paramount importance, as Vernon himself suggested when

specifying that Madame de Saint-Baslemont was never more spurred to action than

when told that enemies were trying to steal her horses. 757 Micheline Cuénin’s

investigation into the family accounts has shown that even at times where it proved

necessary to sell all that was not strictly indispensible, expenses related to the stables

were never significantly impacted, not even when money had to be urgently raised to

pay off Monsieur de Saint-Baslemont’s ransom.758

The Lady of Neuville became rapidly famous for her staunch defence of her

estates and for her fierce and unusual appearance. On 19 November 1643 the Gazette

de France reported how she had pursued the Croatian mercenaries ‘mounted on

752 ‘Jusques-là elle n’avoit exercé son humeur guerriere qu’à la chasse, qui est une espèce de guerre; mais l’occasion se présenta bientôt de l’exercer véritablement’. Arnauld d’Andilly, Mémoires, pp. 117-118. 753 ‘… on la rencontra dans les rues, allant de porte en porte, aux maisons de ses vassaux’. Vernon, L'amazone chrestienne, p. 190. 754 ‘… elle les chargeait de si bonne façon, et si rudement, qu’ils ne revenaient pas’. Ibid., p. 36. 755 ‘… de mon ordinaire je ne sortois jamais de mon village sans armes, et sans être bien montée’. The letter to her confessor is transcribed in Ibid., p. 284. 756 ‘Etant toujours bottée, et portant l’habillement d’homme caché sous l’habillement de femme, à la première alarme […] on la voyait à cheval, après avoir quitté sa jupe’. Ibid., p. 146. 757 Ibid., p. 36. 758 Cuénin, La dernière des amazones, p. 58.

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horseback in men’s garments, at the head of twelve or fifteen of her domestics’.759

Madame de La Guette’s attempt to protect her lands were similarly zealous but

eventually unsuccessful. During the passage of the royal troops, she recalled, ‘I often

rode on horseback accompanied by a few guards […] to make sure that my houses

were not set on fire’. 760 Despite many exhortations to the tenants to defend the

properties, ‘only the four walls were left standing’ after the passage of the enemies.761

Nevertheless her indefatigable activity earned her the appellation ‘Saint Balmont de la

Brie’ in the region.762 Towards the end of the century, another noblewoman rose to

national fame for her military valour in defending her family lands in the Dauphiné

during the Nine Years’ War (1688-1697). Philis de la Charce (1645-1703) descended

from an illustrious line of protestant military leaders; her father, the Marquis Pierre III

de La Tour Gouvernet, and her four brothers all continued this noble tradition leaving

the family seat to fight in the King’s army. Little is known about the youth and

education of Mademoiselle de La Charce aside from the fact that she remained

unmarried and assisted her mother in the management of the estate, taking on a more

prominent role after the death of her father in 1675.763 Her life took an adventurous

turn in August 1692 when, aged forty-seven, she took up arms to defend her lands

against Victor Amadeus of Savoy’s troops. The following month, a notice in Jean

Donneau de Visé’s popular magazine, the Mercure galant, reported that ‘she stopped

the desertion of the people from Gap to the Baronnies. She took their lead, had

bridges destroyed and passages safeguarded, prevented the enemies from penetrating

beyond Gap’.764 The article concluded by stating that ‘the Amazon’ had won the

praise and admiration of the generals who had met her.

759 ‘… elle monte aussitost à cheval en habit d’homme, & à la teste de douze ou quinze de ses domestiques, poursuivit ces Croates’. Gazette de France, 29 November 1643, pp. 1045-1046. 760 ‘… je montois à cheval assez souvent avec quelques gardes que je prenois pour conduire, afin d’empêcher que l’on ne mît le feu à mes maisons’. Guette, Mémoires, p. 141. 761 ‘… on ne me laissa que les quatre murailles de tous côtés’. Ibid., p. 141. 762 Ibid., p. 143. 763 Rodolphe Carré, Philis de La Charce (Nîmes: Nombre 7 Éditions , 2016). 764 ‘Elle a empeché la désertion des Peuples depuis les environs de Gap jusqu’aux Baronnies. Elle s’est mise a leur teste, a fait couper les ponts, gardé les passages, empêché les Ennemis de penetrer au de-là de Gap’. Mercure Galant, 30 September 1692, pp. 328-329. The

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For aristocratic women to engage in armed conflict represented a natural part

of feudatory duties. Exposing their military talents in the moment of greater need,

however, they ended up playing an important role also on the stage of international

warfare. Alberte-Barbe d’Ernécourt fought against the Spanish army during the 1643

campaign, serving under the command of the formidable Grand Condé, then duc

d’Enghien. Philis de La Charce instead took up arms alongside the lieutenant general

Nicolas Catinat, who was made Maréchal de France and led the final victory against

Savoy in 1693. Having acted as officers, these ladies were honoured following

conventions reserved for successful military leaders. The fame of Madame de Saint-

Baslemont was such that the Lorrain artist Claude Déruet, a skilled painter of hunts

and mythological scenes involving Amazons, was commissioned to execute her

equestrian portrait around 1645.765 A first smaller piece (89 cm x 76 cm) was to be

donated to the regent Anne of Austria, while a second more monumental canvas (3.20

m x 3.52 m) hung in the ducal palace and is now exhibited at the Musée Lorrain in

Nancy (fig. 43).766 Both works show the thirty-six-year-old Lady of Neuville riding

astride and commanding her horse to strike an impressive levade. Alberte-Barbe is

dressed as a fashionable officer and sports a white sash denoting her French

allegiance. While the overall military air of the figure might instil reverence and even

fear, her face is illuminated by a benevolent smile and a gentle gaze that well express

the dignified grace prized by Du Breuil Pompée.767 Madame de Saint-Baslemont’s

equestrian image knew as ample and rapid a diffusion as could be managed at the

time; the Parisian printer Balthasar Moncornet engraved a copy of the full-length

portrait as early as 1645 alongside a bust-length likeness that was included in the

magazine Mercure galant was first published by Claude Barbin between 1672 and 1674. It was founded again in 1677 by Jean Donneau de Visé (1638-1710), who remained its sole editor until his death. The magazine itself appeared until 1714. See Monique Vincent, Le Mercure galant, présentation de la première presse féminine d’information et de culture 1672-1710 (Paris: Champion, 2005). 765 Harent (ed.), Amazones et cavaliers. 766 Claude Déruet, Equestrian portrait of Alberte-Barbe d’Ernécourt, 1645. Nancy, Musée Lorrain, Inv. 52.3.1. The first painting is held in the collection of the Musée Carnavalet in Paris (Inv. P977). 767 See p. 101, n. 478.

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Fig. 43: Claude Déruet, Equestrian portrait of Alberte-Barbe d’Ernécourt, 1645. Nancy, Musée Lorrain, Inv. 52.3.1

Fig. 44: Balthasar Moncornet, Equestrian portrait of Alberte-Barbe d’Ernécourt, 1645

Photo of ‘Claude Déruet, Equestrian portrait of Alberte-Barbe d’Ernécourt’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée Lorrain, Nancy.

Photo of ‘Balthasar Moncornet, Equestrian portrait of Alberte-Barbe d’Ernécourt’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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popular Mercure galant (fig. 44).768 Exactly fifty years later, the Bonnart brothers

produced an equestrian portrait of Philis de La Charce with the express purpose to

celebrate her ‘action worthy of eternal memory and her illustrious birth’, for which

the King granted her a pension of 2000 livres in 1694 (fig. 45).769 The depiction of

Mademoiselle de la Charce bears a clear resemblance to other Bonnart prints from the

early 1690s, which will be examined in the next chapter.770 At the same time, it

remains strikingly different from contemporary depictions of court ladies on

horseback. While these were depicted mounting side-saddle during the hunt, the

heroine of the Dauphiné rode to battle astride, her perfect equestrian mastery signified

by the horse’s levade. Including a tricorne hat and a cravat à la steinkerke, her outfit

too is characterised by a marked military air in comparison to contemporary female

equestrian garb, whose analysis will be the subject of the last section of my thesis.771

Unlike Madame de Saint-Baslemont, however, her femininity is more clearly

signalled by the wearing of a skirt. The iconographic proximity with male military

commanders is nevertheless made manifest by the usage of the same equine model

that Robert Bonnart had employed in the same period to portray the victorious

Maréchal du Luxembourg (fig. 46).772

While Philis de La Charce and Alberte-Barbe d’Ernécourt were universally

celebrated for service to their king and country, the Grande Mademoiselle’s military

exploits proved more controversial. The first two engaged in actions which were

fundamentally defensive in nature, protecting their lands and their country against

invading forces, Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans instead waged war against her own

cousin and sovereign. In March 1652, Anne-Marie-Louise joined other noblemen in a

768 Joan DeJean, ‘Violent Women and Violence against Women’, p. 125. 769 ‘Action digne d’une eternelle mémoire et de l’illustre naissance de cette Héroine’. Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Philis de La Charce, 1695. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 68, n. 5984. 770 See Chapter IV, pp. 289-303. 771 See pp. 303-315. 772 François-Henri de Montmorency-Luxembourg (1628-1695), a venerable French general who fought by his more famous relative the Grand Condé, may have made the acquaintance of Madame de Saint-Baslemont during the 1643 campaign. Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of François Henri de Montmorency Duke of Luxembourg, c. 1690-1695. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 70, n. 6136.

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civil rebellion now known as the Fronde of the Princes (1650-1653). Faced with the

exasperating indecisiveness of her father, the twenty-four-year-old lady decided to

take matters into her own hands and travel from Paris to Orléans to secure the support

of the city, which had hitherto remained neutral. On the way she rejoined the

Frondeurs’ army led by the Grand Condé and stationed in the region of Beauce.

Françoise de Motteville, lady-in-waiting to Anne of Austria, reported in her Mémoires

how the Grande Mademoiselle set off ‘with great joy and resolution’ accompanied by

a contingent of ladies ‘dressed like Amazons’ led by her faithful companions the

Countesses of Fiesque and Frontenac.773 ‘Once I got to Beauce’, Anne-Marie-Louise

herself recalls, ‘I mounted on horseback […] which gave the troops great joy; then I

773 ‘Elle y alla avec beaucoup de joie & de résolution, suivie des Contesses de Fiesque & de Frontenac, & de plusieurs autres Dames habillées en Amazonnes [sic]’. Françoise de Motteville, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire d’Anne d’Autriche (Amsterdam: Chez François Changuion, 1723), vol. 4, p. 331.

Fig. 45: Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Philis de La Charce, 1695. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 68, n. 5984

Fig. 46: Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of François Henri de Montmorency Duke of Luxembourg, c. 1690-1695. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 70, n. 6136

Photo of ‘Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Philis de La Charce’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Photo of ‘Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of François Henri de Montmorency Duke of Luxembourg’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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started to give orders’.774 From that moment until her return to Paris in May, the

Grande Mademoiselle was most often on horseback when accompanying the army.

Such a decision, she explained, was partly taken for practical reasons, so that her

additional carriage horses could be employed to carry cannons and ammunitions.775

However, Anne-Marie-Louise appears to have been quite aware that riding alongside

the troops played a crucial role in establishing her position as a military officer. She

proudly recalled being invited to participate in a war council with the generals

together with Mesdames de Fiesque and Frontenac ‘that were called my maréchales

de camp’.776 While travelling up towards Étampes, they were joined by a group of

ladies. Anne-Marie-Louise noted how the Duchess of Sully, the Countess of Olonne

and her sister Mademoiselle de La Loupe joined her on horseback. Only these three

are acknowledged by name; ‘there were other ladies present’, she admitted, ‘but since

they were travelling by carriage I will not name them’. 777 Though she was never

allowed to take part in any operation on the battlefield, the Grande Mademoiselle

employed her frequent rides to patrol the area surrounding the camp. On such

occasions the pleasure of the promenade was accompanied by the necessities and

risks of active warfare. One afternoon when stationing near Étampes, Anne-Marie-

Louise decided to go for a ride accompanied by a few officers. When she expressed

her desire to go on an elevation to survey the movement of the army, her zealous

companions stopped her on account of the danger she would expose herself to. Anne-

Marie-Louise then decided to gallop at full speed and enter in the courtyard of a

nearby estate, thus causing more distress.778 On another occasion she spurred her

774 ‘Comme je fus dans les plaines de Beauce, je montai à cheval […] ce qui donna à ces troupes bien de la joie de me voir. Je commençai de là à donner des ordres’. Montpensier, Mémoires, vol. 1, pp. 351-352. 775 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 16. 776 [J]’appellai mesdames de Fiesque et de Frontenac, que l’on nommoit mes maréchales de camp, pour assister à ce conseil de guerre. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 50. 777 ‘Il y avoit aussi d’autres dames ; mais comme elles étoient en carrosse, je ne les nomme pas’. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 78-79. Françoise de Créquy (1596-1656) married Maximilien II Duke of Sully in 1608. Catherine-Henriette d’Angennes (died 1714) had recently married Louis de La Trémouille Count of Olonne; her sister Madeleine (1629-1707) would marry Henri de Saint Nectaire in 1655. 778 Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 48-49.

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horse towards the enemy camp to parley directly with the Maréchal de Turenne.779

The Grand Condé had to intervene personally, rushing by her horse and getting hold

of the reins to stop her.780

In seventeenth-century France, men still held the authority to rein in female

energies, however powerful they may be.781 Elite women proved able to carve out

spaces of freedom by mastering the art of horsemanship. As they entered the hunting

ground and the battlefield, however, they were still following masculine models and

stepping into male preserves where they held no real authority. Focusing on the court

of Louis the XIV between 1680 and 1715, the following section considers how the

royal hunts gradually became a crucial site for the establishment of a thriving female

equestrian culture.

III.2 The Courtly Horsewoman

III.2-i Female Participants in Louis XIV’s Royal Hunts782

Nowadays the six million visitors that stroll around the grounds of Versailles every

year are treated to an exquisite selection of baroque arias that accompany the complex

play of the water features. During the reign of the Sun King, however, the park

offered a very different soundscape, the gentle sound of the fountains being drowned

out by the tumult of galloping horses, packs of hounds barking in the distance, and the

shrill note of the hunting horn.783 In Louis XIV’s day, the carefully trimmed groves

and elaborately designed parterres of the petit parc that we admire today were

surrounded by the grand parc, a vast hunting ground entirely reserved to the

779 Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne vicomte de Turenne (1611-1675) was a French Marshal General and chief of the troops loyal to the Crown during the last years of the Fronde. 780 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 169. 781 Duchêne, Etre femme au temps de Louis XIV. 782 The following section draws on my previously published article ‘From the King’s Hunt to the Ladies’ Cavalcade’. 783 Louis XIV acquired a passion for Versailles at the start of his personal reign in 1661; from that point the château was gradually enlarged and embellished until it became the official court residence in 1682.

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cynegetic pleasure of the King and his court.784 Consisting of 86,000 acres — ten

times the size of the formal gardens — this domain was enclosed in 1683 to provide

the perfect setting for increasingly frequent equestrian entertainments.

Intimately connected with the performance of royal power since Merovingian

times, the hunt played a key role in fashioning the king’s image as chief military

leader throughout the early modern period. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth

centuries, French sovereigns took increasingly greater care in codifying and

institutionalising the forms of cynegetic exercise at court.785 Louis XIV did not depart

from this tradition. During his long reign (1643-1715), he conspicuously deployed

horse-riding skills to cultivate his image as a warrior ruler, both through artists’

portrayals as well as real-life performances.786 Even before he was able to ride, Louis

was represented on a horse to make a powerful statement and present a promise of

military feats to come. An engraving executed by Jean Le Blond in 1642 shows the

four year-old Dauphin riding on a planchette held by the royal governess Françoise de

Lansac (1582-1657) and accompanied by a falconer (fig. 47). 787 An encomiastic

inscription accompanies the portrait, inviting to contemplate the countenance of the

young prince, so that one can immediately see ‘how he belongs to the race / of a great

Hero that of the hunt / appreciates the innocent pleasures; / It seems that this exercise

/ already tickles his senses’.788 The short poem goes on to proclaim how he will one

784 Vincent Maroteaux and Jacques de Givry (eds), Versailles: Le Grand Parc (Les Loges-en-Josas: JDG Publications, 2004). 785 See the chapter ‘La codification des chasses royales’, in Pieragnoli, La cour de France et les animaux, pp. 167-195. 786 See Cornette, Le Roi de guerre and Damien Bril, ‘À la croisée des genres: Louis XIV et le portrait équestre’, Artibus et Historiae 35.69 (2014), pp. 213-231. 787 Jean Le Blond, Louis XIV on horseback, with his governess and a falconer, c. 1642. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 36, n. 3200. Françoise de Sainte-Maure de Montausier married Artus de Saint-Gelais Lusignan de Lansac in 1601; as a relative of Richelieu, she was appointed governess to the King and his brother from 1638 to 1643. 788 The inscription reads: ‘Desia dans sa premiere Enfance / Le Dauphin espoir de la France / Charme les Cœurs d’Estonnement; / Et sur les traits de Son visage / Se remarque visiblement / Ce qu’il promet en Son bas âge / Comme il est sorty de la Race / D’un Grand Heros qui de la Chasse / Aime les plaisirs innocens; / Il semble que cét Exercice / Luy chatouille desja les sens / Entre les bras de Sa Nourrice / Mais quelque jour cét Alexandre, / A qui la Terre se doit rendre, / Devant qu’il ait trois fois dix ans / Chassera de la Terre Sainte / L’Impieté des Ottomans, / Ou par amour, ou par contreinte’.

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day defeat the Ottoman foe, following the example of his ‘hero’ ancestor Saint Louis.

A couple of years later the King started to take riding lessons and mount on its own.

In 1645 Olivier d’Ormesson (1616-1686) was pleased to remark, upon encountering

the young King riding in the Bois de Vincennes, that ‘there is no child of his age who

is more beautiful and skilful’ in the saddle.789 In 1647, Jean de Saint-Igny realised the

sovereign’s first equestrian portrait, now preserved at the Musée Condé in Chantilly,

which depicts the young Louis riding majestically as he set off for a hawking

expedition.790 Cynegetic exercise and royal display were connected in practice as well

as representations. On 3 November 1649, the chief minister Cardinal Mazarin

organised a chasse à courre in the gardens of the Palais-Royal for the express purpose

of showing off the six-year-old Louis in the saddle.791 During his reign the hunt

789 ‘Il n’y a point d’enfant de son âge ni plus beau ni plus adroit’. Entry for Sunday 26 March 1645, in Olivier Lefèvre d’Ormesson, Journal d’Olivier Lefèvre d’Ormesson et extraits des mémoires d’André Lefèvre d’Ormesson, ed. Adolphe Chéruel (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1860), vol. 1, p. 269. 790 Jean de Saint-Igny, Equestrian portrait of Louis XIV departing for the hunt, 1647. Chantilly, Musée Condé, Inv. PE 582. 791 An anonymous printed account of the occasion was circulated; see Les particularitez de la chasse royale faite par Sa Majesté le jour de saint Hubert et de saint Eustache, patrons des

Fig. 47: Jean Le Blond, Louis XIV on horseback, with his governess and a falconer, c. 1642. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 36, n. 3200

Photo of ‘Jean Le Blond, Louis XIV on horseback, with his governess and a falconer’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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progressively acquired a ritualised form and came to occupy a central part in the daily

routine when the French court moved to Versailles.792 Through a careful examination

of the royal accounts, Philippe Salvadori has been able to establish the full extent of

the court personnel involved in cynegetic activities.793 No less than 380 individuals

were employed to attend to various matters relating to the hunt at the very start of the

King’s personal reign in 1661.794

In the following years, Louis XIV riding habits would provide his courtiers

with an immediate indication of his health and even a sign of his political intentions.

In January 1672, Thomas-François Chabod (1624-1682), Marquis of Saint-Maurice,

reported in his diary current speculations concerning the King’s intention to wage war

against Holland and personally lead the troops. ‘What confirms this decision to the

courtiers’, Saint-Maurice added, ‘is the fact that he takes a lot of exercise on foot and

on horseback, so that they judge that he is trying to get used to the work and

labour’795 The editor of the Mercure galant himself commented on the significance of

the chasses du roi, explaining that:

If I do not tell you about the King’s hunts every month, it does not mean that these diversions do not often constitute one of his pleasures, Since exercise contributes very much to the health and this one not only stimulates vigour, but always represents an image of war, this prince possesses too martial a spirit to abandon it.796

chasseurs, accompagnée de plusieurs seigneurs de marque de sa cour (Paris: Alexandre Lesselin, 1649). 792 Leferme-Falguières, Les courtisans: une société de spectacle sous l’Ancien Régime, pp. 245-247. 793 Salvadori, La chasse sous l’Ancien Regime, pp. 194-243. 794 Ibid., p. 195. 795 ‘Le Roi parle publiquement de la guerre qu’il veut faire aux Hollandais et d’une manière qui fait croire qu’il veut aller en personne commander ses armées ; ce qui confirme cette pensée aux gens de la Cour est qu’il fait grand exercice à pied et à cheval ; ils jugent qu’il veut se mettre en haleine et se faire au travail et à la peine’. Entry for 22 January 1672 in, Thomas-François Chabod marquis de Saint-Maurice, Lettres sur la cour de Louis XIV, ed. Jean Lemoine, (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1910), vol.1, p. 230. Paris, le 22 janvier 1672. 796 ‘Si je ne vous parle pas tous les mois des chasses du roi, ce n’est pas que ce divertissement ne soit souvent un de ses plaisirs. Comme l’exercice contribue beaucoup à la santé et que celui-là non seulement entretient la vigueur, mais représente toujours une image de la guerre, ce prince a l’ame trop martiale pour l’abandonner’. Mercure galant (November 1682), p. 336.

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In his Journal, Philippe de Courcillon (1638-1720), Marquis of Dangeau, often

marked the King’s complete recovery from a period of illness by noting his prompt

return in the saddle.797 For example, on 27 March 1686, he reported the sovereign’s

announcement that he felt better and ordered a horse brought to him in the gardens

where ‘he mounted it without any trouble, and was not inconvenienced, neither when

he was on the horse, nor after he got off’.798

As Louis XIV’s son and grandchildren learnt how to ride and hunt, they were

each provided with an independent équipage and assigned a time to ride over the

grounds of Versailles. The frequency as well as the impressive scale of the royal hunts

at the turn of the eighteenth century is recorded by Elisabeth Charlotte von der Pfalz

(1652–1722), Duchess of Orléans, who observed that at Versailles:

[T]here is hunting every day; on Sundays and Wednesdays it’s my son’s turn. The King hunts on Mondays and Thursdays; on Wednesdays and Saturdays Monseigneur the Dauphin hunts wolf, the Count of Toulouse hunts on Mondays and Wednesdays, the Duke of Maine, his brother, on Tuesdays, Monseigneur the Duke on Fridays. They say that if the hunting équipages were to be gathered together, one could see between 900 and 1000 dogs.799

Such gatherings usually took place in the afternoon and lasted several hours, filling

the time between lunch, habitually served between one and two, and the soirées

d’appartements, a variety of amusements organised from seven in the evening.

797 The Marquis of Dangeau kept a diary from 1684 until his death, recording the minutiae of daily life at the French court. The first complete edition of his Journal was published between 1854 and 1860. 798 ‘… il se fit amener un cheval dans les allées il le monta sans peine, et ne fut point incommodé, ni durant qu’il fut à cheval, ni après en être descendu’. Philippe de Courcillon marquis de Dangeau, Journal du marquis de Dangeau, ed. Eudore Soulié, Louis Dussieux, Charles-Philippe de Chennevières-Pointel, Paul Mantz and Anatole de Montaiglon (Paris: Firmin Didot Frères, 1854-1860), vol. 1, p. 340. 799 ‘…il y a chasse tous les jours, le dimanche ainsi que le mercredi, c’est mon fils. Le Roi chasse le lundi et le jeudi; le mercredi et le samedi, M. le Dauphin va à la chasse du loup, M. le comte de Touluse chasse le lundi et le mercredi, le duc du Maine, son frère, le mardi, et M. le Duc, le vendredi; on dit que si tous les équipages de chasse étoient réunis, on verroit ensemble de 900 à 1000 chiens’. Elisabeth-Charlotte, daughter of the Elector Palatine, married the King’s brother, Philippe, Duke of Orléans in 1671. Quote from her letter of 13 October 1701, in Elisabeth Charlotte von der Pfalz duchesse d’Orléans, Correspondance complète de madame duchesse d’Orléans née Princesse Palatine, ed. and trans. G. Brunet (Paris: Charpentier, 1855), vol. 1, p. 56.

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During the royal voyages, when the court relocated to other royal residences for an

extended period of time, they could last even longer.800 The voyage to Fontainebleau

between September and November, a tradition inaugurated by François I, was

especially dedicated to cynegetic exercise as it included the Feast of Saint Hubert (3

November), patron of the hunt and huntsmen. Louis XIV in addition took to spending

the first part of each spring at Compiègne and began making more and more frequent

brief trips to Marly from 1683. The date of these escapes was determined by his

majesty’s pleasure, and invitations were particularly coveted as only a select group of

courtiers was allowed each time.801

Considering the central place occupied by cynegetic amusements in the daily

and yearly routine of Louis XIV’s court, it appears crucial to establish women’s

degree of involvement. Relying mainly on court expense accounts, Salvadori’s

meticulous analysis of the royal hunts does not make mention of any gendered

dynamic. Publications focusing chiefly on visual culture take women’s presence in

equestrian scenes as a sign that female courtiers could, and often did, participate in

the royal hunts, but then neglect to investigate further.802 The figure of Madame

Palatine alone has been systematically connected with the hunting field. Building on

the reputation as indefatigable huntress that marked her out during her lifetime,

modern biographers have depicted the German Princess as a lone and eccentric

Amazon at the court of the Sun King.803 Compelling though they may be, these

studies perpetuate the tendency of traditional historical narratives of female

equestrianism to overplay the influence of individual personalities such as Caterina

de’ Medici or Diane de Poitiers. 804 More remains to be said concerning the

involvement of female courtiers as a group. With a focus on the court of Louis the

800 Salvadori, La chasse sous l’Ancien Regime, pp. 199-200. 801 Vincent Maroteaux, Marly: L’autre palais du Soleil (Geneva: Vögele, 2002). 802 Pradié-Ottinger, L’Art et la Chasse, pp. 167-168 and Veauvy, Savray and Ponton d’Amécourt (eds), Cavalières Amazones, pp. 78-80. 803 Arlette Lebigre, La Princesse Palatine (Paris: A. Michel, 1986); Claude Pasteur, La Princesse Palatine (Paris: Tallandier, 2001); Daniel Des Brosses, La Palatine: l’incorrigible épistolière aux 60.000 lettres (Paris: AKR, 2004); Christian Bouyer, La princesse Palatine (Paris: Pygmalion, 2005). 804 See for example Bloodgood, The Saddle of Queens and Newsum, Women and Horses.

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XIV between 1680 and 1715, the following section considers how the royal hunt

gradually became a crucial site for the establishment of a thriving female horseback

riding culture. At first merely ornaments to the King’s retinue, courtly Amazons went

on to develop independent habits by the turn of the eighteenth century. I do so with

the help of contemporary accounts, most importantly the voluminous Journal penned

by the Marquis of Dangeau, complemented by the close reading of letters and

memoirs by other contemporaries that illuminate the diarist’s entries with glimpses

into the physical sensations and emotional experiences of these pioneering

sportswomen.

In the late 1670s the estate and the palace of Versailles were still undergoing

major expansion projects, and yet an anonymous pamphlet, The Royal Pastime,

informs us that Louis XIV was already keen to escape from Paris and retire to that

‘place full of enchantment’.805 The author, in all likelihood a courtier himself, then

describes the sovereign indulging in the pleasures of the hunt with ‘the group of ladies

which habitually accompany his majesty in that exercise’. 806 Amongst the

participants, the Duchess of Orléans, usually referredo to simply as ‘Madame’, is

singled out by name being ‘one of the ladies most passionate about that exercise’.807

The Duchess’ growing passion for horseback riding is chronicled in her own letters.

She admitted having never ridden whilst in Heidelberg, where she lived for the first

twenty years of her life. The Elector Palatine, in fact, would not permit his daughters

to ‘hunt or mount on horseback’. 808 Soon after her arrival at the French court,

however, she wrote about how she would rather have galloped than walked on a cold

February afternoon in 1672.809 It was only in August of the following year, two

months after the birth of her first child, that the twenty-one year-old princess declared

805 ‘… un lieu remply d’enchantement’. Le Passe-Temps Royal ou les Amours de Mademoiselle de Fontanges (n.d.), p. 99. 806 ‘… les Dames qui accompagnent d’ordinaire sa Majesté dans cet exercice’. Ibid., p. 100. 807 ‘Madame, qui estoit presente, est une des plus passionées pour cet exercice’. Ibid., p. 102. 808 ‘… notre père ne voulait pas souffrir qu’on chassât ni qu’on montât à cheval’. Letter dated 3 April 1699, in Correspondance, vol. 1, p. 36. 809 Letter dated 5 February 1672, in Elisabeth Charlotte von der Pfalz duchesse d’Orléans, Lettres de Madame, duchesse d’Orléans, née princesse Palatine, ed. Olivier Amiel (Paris: Mercure de France, 2012), p. 40.

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her intention of taking riding lessons.810 The same day the Gazette reported that

Madame had accompanied their Royal Highnesses on the occasion of a hunting party

at Vincennes.811 Progress must have been swift, for a few months later in October

Madame noted how the King formally requested her company twice a week during

the chase. The prospect, she commented ‘was entirely to [her] taste’, so much so that

in the space of a few years she became the most accomplished horsewoman at

court.812 Indeed, as the magazine Mercure galant affirmed in June 1680, ‘there are

few men who practise that exercise more vigorously’ than this veritable ‘Amazon’.813

The passion for riding and her reputation as a devotee of the chase became a

fundamental element of Madame’s public persona as it was portrayed by

contemporary artists and witnesses, as well as a key topic in her own writings (figure

1).814 Mareike Böth has cogently argued how her frequent rides provided Madame

Palatine with much-needed Handlungspielräume, opportunities with scope for action

necessary to her psycho-physical well-being. 815 Indeed her voluminous

correspondence abounds with references to the therapeutic nature of her equestrian

escapades. ‘Watching plays amuses more than hunting these days’, she wrote in 1699,

‘but I hunt because of my health, since if I do not take a lot of exercise I suffer terrible

pains in my heart’.816 Exceptional though they were, Madame’s vigorous riding and

pursuit of the chase are not to be regarded as an anomaly or a breach of etiquette. On

810 Letter dated 5 August 1673, in Elisabeth Charlotte von der Pfalz duchesse d’Orléans, A Woman’s Life in the Court of the Sun King: Letters of Liselotte von der Pfalz, ed. and trans. Elborg Forster (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), p. 9. 811 Dirk Van de Cruysse, Madame Palatine, princesse européenne (Paris: Fayard, 1988), p. 201. 812 ‘Cela sera tout à fait dans mes goûts’. Letter dated 10 October 1673, in Amiel (ed.), Lettres de Madame, p. 41. 813 ‘Vous sçavez que c’est une Amazone à cheval, et qu’il est peu d’Hommes qui ayent plus de vigueur qu’elle dans cet Exercice’. Mercure Galant (June 1680), p. 252. 814 William Brooks, Artists’ Images and the Self-Descriptions of Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orleans (1652–1722), The Second Madame (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2007), pp. 131-55; Mark de Vitis, ‘Sartorial Transgression as Socio-Political Collaboration: Madame and the Hunt’, Konsthistorisk tidskrift / Journal of Art History, 82.3 (2013), pp. 205-218. 815 Böth, Erzählweisen des Selbst, pp. 205-221. 816 ‘La comédie m’amuse maintenant plus que la chasse, mais je vais à la chasse à cause de ma santé, car si je ne me donne pas beaucoup de mouvement, j’éprouve d’horribles maux de cœur’. Letter dated 3 April1699, in Orléans, Correspondance, vol. 1, p. 36.

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the contrary, they constituted the expression of a court culture that encouraged female

display of equestrian skill, female members of the royal family setting the example.

Few excerpts from Mademoiselle’s Mémoires, previously examined, provide

precious indications that Louis XIV enjoyed female company while in the saddle

from a very early age. Sporadic testimonies from the first decades of his reign also

testify to the presence of a female entourage on occasion of royal hunting parties. In

July 1662, for example, the poet Jean Loret (1600-1665) wrote to Anne-Genevieve de

Bourbon (1619-1679), Duchess of Longueville, describing a deer hunt that had taken

place at Versailles earlier that month. On that occasion, Loret reported, the King had

been accompanied by a ‘squadron of beauties’ on horseback, led by Madame

Henrietta of England (1644-1670).817 Three years later, in the spring of 1665, Henri

Jules de Bourbon (1643-1709), Duke of Enghien, wrote to Marie-Louise de Gonzaga-

Nevers (1611-1667), the French-born Polish queen, anticipating the pleasures of a

grande chasse that was to take place the following day at Versailles.818 The Queen

was supposed to attend with many ladies, who ‘must mount on horseback’, although

the Duke feared that they should not enjoy themselves on account of the bad

817 ‘Enfin, un Escadron de Belles, / Et Madame, à la Teste d’Elles, / A Cheval sur des Palefrois, / Le Dimanche seixe du mois / Droit à Versailles se rendirent’. Jean Loret, La muze historique, ou Recueil des lettres en vers contenant les nouvelles du temps: écrites à S[on] A[ltesse] Mad.elle de Longueville (Paris: Chez Charles Chenault, 1665), vol. 3, p. 258. As a daughter of Charles I, the princess Henrietta spent part of her youth exiled in France, where she returned to marry Philippe Duke of Orléans in March 1661. She remained a central figure at the court of her brother-in-law Louis XIV until her sudden death. Loret wrote weekly letters in verse to Marie de Longueville between 1650 and 1665 to inform her of the political and cultural news from Paris. These were subsequently published and read by courtiers. The first integral edition appeared between 1857 and 1878, edited by Jules Ravenel, Charles-Louis Livet and Edouard de La Pelouze. 818 Letter dated 13 March 1665 in Émile Magne (ed.), Le Grand Condé et le duc d’Enghien. Lettres inédites à Marie-Louise de Gonzague, reine de Pologne, sur la cour de Louis XIV (1660-1667) (Paris: Émile-Paul, 1920), p. 152. Henri Jules de Bourbon was the son of the famous général Louis II de Bourbon, Prince of Condé. Marie-Louise, daughter of Charles III de Nevers, Duke of Mantua, left France in 1646 to marry Władysław IV Vasa King of Poland. Widowed two years later, she married her brother-in-law, and new king, John Casimir. On this correspondence, see Maciej Serwanski, ‘Être une reine étrangère: deux Françaises en Pologne’, in Isabelle Poutrin and Marie-Karine Schaub (eds), Femmes & pouvoir politique: Les princesses d’Europe, XVe-XVIIIe siècle (Rosny-sous-Bois: Bréal, 2007), pp. 193-200.

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weather.819 In September that same year, he presented his royal correspondent with

another account of a recent hunting trip:

The King returned from Versailles, where he had remained for four days. The first day he caught a deer and a buck with all the ladies, who mounted on horseback wearing embroidered justaucorps and hats; they chase (piquent) better than anyone in the world, and especially Mademoiselle de La Vallière and a lady-in-waiting to Madame [Henrietta of England]; they do not leave the hounds, and it is impossible for a man to go faster.820

The Duke’s vivid report placed women at the forefront of cynegetic action. Although

this description might at first be interpreted as a gallant homage to the ladies’

appearance on the hunting field, Enghien’s choice of vocabulary leaves no doubt as to

their active role in the chase. In the artful exercise of venery, piquer – meaning

literally to sting or arouse – signified both the physical act of spearing the prey, but

most importantly the role of those members of the party who stimulated the chase by

inciting both animals and hunters. ‘The good piqueur’, wrote Binet in his 1621 essay

on cynegetic terminology, ‘must be skilled in producing animal sounds (parler en

cris) and languages that are agreeable to the dogs, giving tongue (crier), whistling,

calling his companions’.821

Some equestrian scenes from the period also represent the King surrounded by

a cortège of horsewomen. A tapestry realised by the Royal Manufactory of the

Gobelins between 1667 and 1669, in all likelihood based on cartoons by Charles Le

Brun, depicts Louis XIV and Maria-Theresa of Spain taking a leisurely promenade on

horseback in the gardens of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, surrounded by galloping

819 ‘Il doit y avoir demain une grande chasse à Versailles; la Reine y va avec force de dames, et doivent monter à cheval; mais il fait un si vilain temps que je ne crois pas qu’elles y aient beaucoup de plaisir’. Ibidem. 820 ‘Le Roi revint de Versailles, où il a été quatre jours. Le premier jour il prit un cerf et un daim avec toutes les dames, qui montent à cheval avec des justaucorps en broderie et des chapeaux; elles piquent le mieux du monde, et particulièrement Mlle de La Vallière avec une fille de Madame; elles ne quittent jamais les chiens, et il est impossible à un homme d’aller plus vite’. Letter dated 18 September 1665 in Magne (ed.), Le Grand Condé et le duc d’Enghien. Lettres inédites à Marie-Louise de Gonzague, p. 209. 821 Binet, Essai des merveilles de nature et des plus nobles artifices, p. 12. On the author, see p. 102, n. 482.

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courtiers of both sexes (figs 48a-b).822 In 1669, Le Brun’s disciple Adam Frans Van

der Meulen probably took inspiration from this image when he realised two

equestrian paintings of the royal couple approaching the residences of Vincennes and

Fontainebleau, similarly accompanied by a mixed entourage (figs 49,50).823 In these

paintings, the dynamism that animates Wouverman’s female figures has been

moulded into a more dignified manner befitting the members of a refined court.

Nevertheless, Van der Meulen made sure to depict his horsewomen mounting side-

saddle in a realistic fashion that clearly suggests their ability to keep up with their

male companions.

While in these official representations the central place is taken by the royal

consort, a contemporary print shows the Louis XIV setting off to hunt deer

822 May. Saint-German.Tapestry produced by the Royal Manufactory from carton by Charles Lebrun. Saint-Petersburg, Hermitage Museum, Inv. T-2953. On Charles Le Brun, see Wolf Burchard, The Sovereign Artist: Charles Le Brun and the Image of Louis XIV (London: Paul Holberton, 2016). 823 For the dating of these two paintings, see Isabelle Richefort, Adam-François Van der Meulen (1632-1690): peintre flamand au service de Louis XIV (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2004), p. 21-23.

Figs 48a-b: May. Saint-German (whole and detail). Tapestry produced by the Royal Manufactory from carton by Charles Lebrun. Saint Petersburg, Hermitage Museum, Inv. T-2953

Photo of ‘May. Saint-German (whole)’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg.

Photo of ‘May. Saint-German (detail)’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg.

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Fig. 49: Adam Frans Van der Meulen, View of the Château of Vincennes with Louis XIV and Maria-Theresa, 1669. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. MV 4342

Fig. 50: Adam Frans Van der Meulen, View of the Château of Fontainebleau with Louis XIV and Maria-Theresa, 1669. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. MV 4343

Photo of ‘Adam Frans Van der Meulen, View of the Château of Vincennes with Louis XIV and Maria-Theresa’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon.

Photo of ‘Adam Frans Van der Meulen, View of the Château of Fontainebleau with Louis XIV and Maria-Theresa’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon.

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surrounded by a little squadron of female courtiers.824 An inscription on the top reads

‘It is such a pleasure to hunt with these beautiful ladies. They incite our hearts to win

the prize, but how fearsome they are, armed with so much charms; since often when

we believe that we are chasing, we are ourselves caught.’825 The overall composition

of this scene follows the model of an earlier Royal Hunt of Louis XIII printed by

Balthasar Moncornet and probably based on a design by Nicolas Cochin (1610-

1686).826 Together with the general update in the figure’s clothing, the substitution of

the male hunters with female riders is the only substantial difference between the two

prints. In light of the inscription that accompanies such changes, these might be

simply interpreted in connection with the traditional literary trope of gender inversion

between hunter and prey, pregnant with erotic undertones.827 During the early years of

Louis XIV’s reign, royal hunts were regarded by certain contemporaries as an

amorous playground, where the sovereign could admire and pursue whichever young

lady took his fancy. The visiting Italian nobleman Primi Visconti relates how in 1678

the Princess Palatine had marked out Mademoiselle de Fontanges as a particular

favourite amongst her ladies by offering to ‘take her to the hunt, which was the

Princess’ favourite passion’.828 It was probably on the occasion of one of these

outdoor gatherings that this eighteen-year-old beauty caught the King’s eye,

eventually becoming his lover until her sudden and possibly suspicious death three

824 Anonymous engraving of A Royal Hunt. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cabinets des Estampes et Photographie, QB-1 FOL M-93216. 825 ‘Quel plaisir de Chasser avec ces belles Dames. Elles animent nos cœurs à remporter le prix, mais qu’elles sont à craindre armées de tant de charmes, car souvent croyant prendre, soy mesme l’on est pris’. 826 Balthasar Moncornet (engraver), Royal Hunt. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cabinets des Estampes et Photographie, QB-201 (41)-FOL. I would like to thank Curator Vanessa Selbach for suggesting Cochin as a source for this print’s design. 827 See the chapter ‘Hunting, Sin, and Eroticism’, in Almond, Daughters of Artemis, pp. 119-146 and Patricia Zalamea’s unpublished doctoral thesis ‘Subject to Diana: Picturing Desire in French Renaissance Courtly Aesthetics’ (Rutgers University, 2007). 828 ‘Madame […] offrit à cette demoiselle de l’emmener avec elle à la chasse, qui était la passion préférée de cette princesse’. Gian Battista Primi Visconti, Mémoires de Primi Visconti sur la cour de Louis XIV, ed. Jean-François Solnon (Paris: Perrin, 1988), p. 115.

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years later.829 The contemporary pamphlet The Royal Pastime, also called The Loves

of Mademoiselle de Fontanges, set the passionate affair between the young lady and

her royal lover against the backdrop of a hunting party in the gardens of Versailles.830

A Royal Hunt, however, was also considered a suitable setting for a celebration of the

happy union of Louis XIV and his wife. Echoing the spirit of Le Brun’s and Van der

Meulen’s paintings, a printed plate from the mid-1660s depicts the royal couple and

the young Dauphin on horseback witnessing a deer hunt in the background (fig.

51).831 Looking at Maria-Theresa while pointing towards the main scene, the King’s

attitude seems to suggest that it is his duty to educate and literally direct his wife’s

understanding of the hunt. In doing this, the royal couple was represented enacting a

pedagogic model common to other aristocratic households where fathers and

husbands took charge of female relatives’ equestrian and cynegetic training.

829 Marie-Angélique de Scorailles was born in 1661 and died on 28 June 1681, possibly by poison. See Henri Pigaillem, La Duchesse de Fontanges (Paris: Pygmalion, 2005). 830 On the pamphlet, see earlier at p. 194. 831 La Chasse Royale, c. 1661-1670. Royal Collection Trust, Inv. 617059. This is part of a series of four scenes depicting the daily life of the royal family; the other scenes depict a meal, a promenade in the garden and a play.

Fig. 51: La Chasse Royale, c. 1661-1670. Royal Collection Trust, Inv. 617059

Photo of ‘La Chasse Royale’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Royal Collection Trust.

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It seems that learning how to mount gradually become a crucial requirement

for any female member of the French royal family. In the spring of 1680, soon after

her arrival at court, the new Dauphine Maria-Anna-Victoria of Bavaria (1660-1690)

was taken out for her first ride on the day of Pentecoste, surrounded by her ladies-in-

waiting.832 The Mercure galant reported that ‘[s]he had never mounted before, and

people were surprised to see her show such dexterity and grace in this exercise, which

was worthy of a seasoned rider. She handled her horse without any trouble, and even

desired to gallop from the first day’.833 The Dauphine was accompanied by Madame

and Marie-Anne de Bourbon (1666–1739), Princess of Conti.834 The King’s eldest

legitimized daughter, only thirteen years of age, was complimented for ‘her natural

grace and good ease’.835 Louis XIV himself and Monseigneur the Dauphin joined ‘the

beautiful and gallant troop’, so that ‘nothing was as spectacular to behold, than seeing

all the court on horseback’.836 Aside from the detailed reports of special occasions, it

is hard to establish how often women took part in equestrian entertainments at court.

Beginning in April 1684, the journal of the Marquis of Dangeau provides a concise

and accurate account of courtly routine until the year of his death in 1720. A close

analysis of his earliest daily reports confirms that Madame Palatine was by far the

keenest of the female riders, taking part in nearly every hunt organised both by the

King and his son, the Dauphin. By this time, the Queen had died and the Dauphine

was rarely seen outside on account of her fragile health, and never mounted on

horseback. 837 The King’s favourite hunting companions were his legitimated

832 The princess had married Louis the Grand Dauphin (1661-1711) by proxy on 28 January 1680 and moved to France in March. 833 ‘Cette princesse commença à se promener à cheval les Festes de la Pentecoste. Elle n’y avoit jamais monté, & l’on fut surpris de luy voir autant d’adresse & de bonne grâce dans cet Exercice, que si elle s’y estoit faite de fort longue main’. Mercure galant (June 1680), p. 251. 834 Marie-Anne, daughter of the King and his first official mistress Louise de La Vallière, had married her cousin Louis-Armand, Prince of Conti, in January 1680. 835 ‘Madame la Princesse de Conty accompagnoit aussi Madame la Dauphine, avec le bon aise et la grâce qui luy est naturelle’. Ibid., p. 252. 836 ‘Le Roy et Monseigneur se promenèrent avec cette belle & galante Troupe, & rien n’estoit si brillant à voir que toute la Cour à cheval, avec des Habits aussi magnifiques que bien entendus’. Ibid., p. 252. 837 Following the death of the Queen Marie-Thérèse in July 1683, the Dauphine held the highest position at court until her own death in 1690.

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daughters: the Princess of Conti, then eighteen, and Louise-Françoise (1673–1743),

Mademoiselle de Nantes and future Duchess of Bourbon, aged only eleven. 838

Together with Madame they travelled in the King’s carriage to reach the point of the

laisser-courre, where the actual chase started. Then Madame would always mount on

horseback to join the company of sportsmen that had followed the royal carriage. The

two young princesses instead often remained seated with the King, accompanying the

hunt at a distance. Unlike his son the Dauphin, a furiously keen rider, Louis XIV

would sometimes opt for the comfort of a carriage and female company. When he did

ride, however, female courtiers were encouraged to join. In April 1684 the King went

hawking in the park of Mouchy accompanied by the Princess of Conti and her ladies-

in-waiting, all mounted on horseback.839 In August, the King spent an entire afternoon

riding around the park of Versailles surrounded by female courtiers.840 During the

voyage to Fontainebleau later that year, all the ladies were riding on the occasion of a

boar hunt.841 All the ladies, that is, except Madame la Dauphine, who on account of

her fragile state of health was rarely seen outside, and never on horseback.842

The image of Louis XIV surrounded by a dashing squadron of courtly

Amazons does tally with Philippe Salvadori’s observation that the King enjoyed

hunting as a break from the performance of power, during which he could withdraw

from the public stage and enjoy greater intimacy with a few people of his choice.843

However, the relatively easy and intimate atmosphere did not mean that such

occasions were devoid of political significance. On the contrary, Salvadori himself

considers how hunting provided rare opportunities for courtiers to bring sensitive

matters to the King’s attention in an informal fashion, far from indiscreet ears.844 A

838 Louise-Françoise de Bourbon, daughter of La Vallière’s successor, Madame de Montespan, would marry Louis III, Duke of Bourbon, in 1685. 839 Entry for 25 April 1684, in Dangeau, Journal, vol. 1, pp. 8-9. 840 Entry for 19 August 1684, in Ibid., vol. 1, p. 49. 841 Entry for 25 October 1684, in Ibid., vol. 1, p. 63. 842 Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria (1660–1690) had married Louis the Grand Dauphin in 1680. She held the highest position at court after the death of the Queen Marie-Thérèse in July 1683. 843 Salvadori, La chasse sous l’Ancien Regime, p. 215. 844 Ibid., pp. 215-16.

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careful reading of Dangeau also shows that for ladies of the court such intimacy was

often extended from the hunting ground itself to the petits soupers, informal suppers

reserved exclusively for the sportswomen, with the rare addition of the Dauphine.

Depending on the sovereign’s direct invitation, participation in the hunt therefore

represented a clear and unmistakable marker of distinction that conferred upon the

courtier the crédit, meaning respect and credibility, which legitimised his or her

position in the eyes of fellow nobles. 845 Royal privileges, however, could be

withdrawn with the same ease as they were granted, and courtiers strove constantly to

show off their worth and establish their place within a surprisingly fluid hierarchy.846

Indeed Giora Sternberg’s work, as I have previously discussed, shows how every

moment of courtiers’ public lives was characterised by status interaction. 847

Especially crucial were instances that were not regulated by the strict norms of courtly

ceremonial and depended instead upon the King’s will. Not formalised until 1732, the

protocol regulating participation in the royal hunts constituted the perfect occasion for

courtiers to break into Louis XIV’s most intimate circle and for the King himself to

accord or withdraw favour. The experience of Madame Palatine is a poignant

testimony to the extent to which the hunt was connected to court micro-politics. At

various times when her relationship with the sovereign was troubled for some reason,

she found herself banned from the hunts, thus losing her only occasion to talk to him

undisturbed. This became a more common occurrence following Louis XIV’s

involvement with Madame de Maintenon, towards whom Madame harboured an

intense and ill-concealed hostility. In 1688, for example, wishing to talk to the

sovereign concerning a matter of some urgency, she complained that:

If I were on friendly terms with the King, like before, and he still took me with him to the hunt, I could very easily find a way to talk to him about this matter, but he is prevented from taking me anywhere (according to the will of the old

845 Clare Haru Crowston, Credit, Fashion, Sex: Economies of Regard in Old Regime France (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2013), esp. pp. 21-32. 846 Jay Smith, The Culture of Merit: Nobility, Royal Service, and the Making of Absolute Monarchy in France, 1600–1789 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996). 847 Sternberg, Status Interaction during the Reign of Louis XIV.

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woman [Madame de Maintenon]) and if I have something to tell him, I am obliged to ask for a regular audience.848

A similar dynamic characterised the Palatine’s relationship with Louis the Dauphin.

After having spent nearly twenty years in perfect agreement and enjoying each other’s

trust, the heir to the throne became closer to the circle of his half-sister the Duchess of

Bourbon, an enemy of Madame. Since that moment, the Palatine later complained, ‘I

no longer went hunting with His Royal Highness any more; I stopped entertaining any

relationship with him until his death and he behaved as if he had never seen or known

me’.849 Not even the King’s favourite child and most habitual hunting companion, the

Princess of Conti, was protected from his ill humour. During a journey to Chambord

in September 1685, Dangeau reports how the Princess had not been invited to the

hunt, and she believed ‘with good reason’ that she had displeased the King by means

of her support of her disgraced husband.850 As a consequence of this ban the Princess

‘was deeply upset all day long and cried a great deal’.851

If being invited to the hunt represented an unequivocal badge of royal favour

for a princess, it was certainly no smaller matter for one of her ladies-in-waiting.

These too, in fact, were invited into the King’s carriage and then to the petit soupers,

thus getting a chance to enter the sovereign’s most intimate circle. Such intimacy,

however, was not devoid of dangers. The story of Mademoiselle de Fontanges

exemplifies the risks a woman incurred when she decided to mount a horse and break

848 ‘Si j’étais avec le roi sur le même pied que jadis et s’il m’emmenait encore à la chasse, je m’arrangerais bien de façon à lui parler de la chose, mais il lui est interdit de m’emmener où que ce soit (c’est un ordre de la vieille femme) et si j’avais quelque chose à lui dire, je serais obligée de lui demander une audience en règle’. Letter dated 2 August 1688, in Orléans, Lettres, p. 117. 849 ‘… je n’ai plus chassé avec Son Altesse, je n’ai plus eu que peu de relations avec lui jusqu’à sa mort, et il s’est conduit comme s’il ne m’avait jamais ni vue ni connue’. Letter dated 21 May 1716, in Orléans, Correspondance, vol. 1, p. 238. Louis stopped hunting with Madame in 1701, after the death of Monsieur; the Dauphin himself died in 1711. 850 ‘… madame la princesse de Conty ne fut point conviée à cette chasse, et crut, avec quelque fondement, qu’on se souvenoit de la lettre qu’elle avoit écrite’. Entry for 12 September 1685, in Dangeau, Journal, vol. 1, p. 220. The Prince of Conti and his brother François-Louis de Bourbon had both fallen in disgrace when their correspondence mocking the King and Madame de Maintenon had been intercepted. Dangeau here mentions a letter written by the Princess herself during her husband’s absence. 851 ‘… elle fut fort affligée tout le jour et pleura beaucoup’. Ibidem.

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into the still heavily homosocial space of the hunt. That bold intrusion entailed being

in close quarters not just with the sovereign, but also with a small entourage of

officers, each with keen eyes and his own agenda. The integrity of a girl’s honour at

the time was of paramount importance as it ensured her position within the marriage

market. Any social — let alone physical — intercourse between the sexes was

therefore closely monitored. This was all the more true within the highest echelons of

society, where dynastic considerations were the most pressing.852 At court even the

slightest indiscretion was enough to generate rumours that would then spread

uncontrolled.853 A surprisingly heavy atmosphere reigned in the halls of Versailles,

vividly described by Primi Visconti as early as 1677: ‘Except when they are

conversing, princesses in France are kept in a state of slavery which is harsher than

that of women in a seraglio; their looks are observed and there is not a single man

around them which is not a spy of the King’.854 Even Madame, whose general conduct

was agreed to be beyond reproach, had to face repeated accusations of entertaining

liaisons with this or that officer. She explained the origins of such rumours to her aunt

Sophia, Electress of Hanover:

[W]hen I am riding during the King’s hunt, I am placed just behind the Captain of the Guards, thus being always surrounded by all the officers, who pay me small services when the occasion arises, without there being any actual intercourse between us.855

On the other hand, getting too far away from the watchful male gaze could be even

more dangerous. During a trip to Marly, Dangeau reports that when some female

courtiers accompanied the Dauphin on the hunt, ‘unfortunately one or two of the

852 Duchêne, Etre femme au temps de Louis XIV, pp. 117-126. 853 Nicholas Hammond, Gossip, Sexuality and Scandal in France (1610–1715) (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2011). 854 ‘Sauf dans les choses de la conversation, les princesses en France sont plus esclaves que les femmes des sérails; leurs regards sont observés et il n’y a pas un homme autour d’elles qui ne soit un espion du Roi’. Primi Visconti, Mémoires, p. 114. 855 ‘… quand je suis à cheval à la chasse du roi, je marche immédiatement derrière le capitaine des gardes, de sorte que je suis toujours entourée de tous les officiers, qui me rendent les petits services qu’ils peuvent sans que j’aie avec eux aucune relation’. Letter dated 19 September 1682, in Orléans, Lettres, p. 75.

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younger ladies were left behind, and this caused some rumours’.856 Sadly for the

historian, the author of the Journal does not habitually indulge in gossip, and even in

this circumstance the Marquis voluntarily omits the identity of the courtiers concerned

as well as the details of the rumour that was spreading on their account. It is

reasonable to assume, however, that the two young ladies were not in fact alone, but

they had been left behind in the company of some officers, or — worse still — they

might have arranged to meet someone in the woods. Sexual slander was a damaging

enough inconvenience for a married lady like Madame to endure, but it could be

ruinous for a girl’s reputation and prospects. Swift action was therefore taken, and

Dangeau informs us that ‘the young ladies have been forbidden to ride, because there

has been some displeasure during the last ride at Marly’.857 It is likely that such orders

came straight from the King, and were certainly not to be taken lightly. During the

following voyage to Fontainebleau in fact the princesses were seen riding without

their habitual entourage. 858

Despite the potential social hazards involved in the exercise, by the mid-1680s

more women at court had taken up riding regularly, as attested by Dangeau’s

chronicle of a trip to Marly in September 1686. On Monday 23, ‘Monseigneur,

Madame de Bourbon, Madame the Princess of Conti and all the ladies who can ride

on horseback went to join the King and accompanied him to the hunt’. 859 The

following day too ‘all the ladies rode on horseback’, and finally on Thursday they

enjoyed one last ride before their return to Versailles.860 This was to become the norm

during the traditional voyage to Fontainebleau for the rest of the 1680s.861 The habit

of frequent horseback exercise seems to have caught on rather quickly, especially

856 ‘… il y eut une ou deux filles qui demeurèrent derrière par malheur, et cela leur fit des affaires’. Entry for 26 September 1686, in Dangeau, Journal, vol. 1, p. 392. 857 Entry for 10 October 1686, in Ibid., vol. 1, p. 398. 858 Entries for 11, 13 and 14 October 1686, in Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 399-400. 859 ‘Monseigneur, madame de Bourbon, madame la princesse de Conty et toutes les dames qui savent monter à cheval allèrent joindre le roi, et l’accompagnèrent durant la chasse’. Entry for 23 September 1686 in Ibid., voI. 1, p. 390. 860 ‘… toutes les dames montèrent à cheval’. Entries for 24 and 26 September 1686, in Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 391-392. 861 See, for example, entries for 5 October 1687, 9 October 1688 and 16 October 1689, in Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 51, 184; and vol. 3, p. 8.

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amongst the younger generation, and indeed it appears as though being a keen

horsewoman had become a key prerequisite for being invited to accompany the royal

family. In January 1690 a small number of courtiers followed the King to Marly, and

another of his legitimated daughters, Françoise-Marie de Bourbon (1677–1749),

Duchess of Chartres, is recorded to have brought only one lady-in-waiting,

Mademoiselle de Bouillon, ‘because she rides on horseback and will take part in the

hunts’. 862 The fact that Dangeau immediately remarked that Mademoiselle de

Bouillon ‘never before had been invited to stay in Marly’ suggests that her equestrian

skilfulness had helped her to gain favour with the young princess. In preparation for

the following royal voyage, the criteria for being invited were spelled out more

clearly. The King himself ‘demanded of the princesses the names of those ladies who

will mount on horseback in order to define who will go to Compiègne’.863 A list of

courtly Amazons had to be drawn up. On the occasion of another journey to Chantilly

in March 1693, the Duchess of Humières and the Countess of Courtenvaux were

asked to accompany the princesses for the express purpose of riding ‘with them

during the hunts and the military reviews’.864

III.2-ii Female Equestrian Exercise and the Duchess of Burgundy’s cavalcades

des dames

As more and more women became keen to ride, the King appeared less inclined to do

so himself. Indeed, between the late 1680s and the early 1690s, Louis XIV hardly

ever hunted on horseback. To be sure, he would still set off straight after lunch, taking

862 ‘Madame de Chartres n’y a mené que mademoiselle de Bouillon, qui monte à cheval et sera des chasses’. Entry for 14 January 1693, in Ibid., vol. 4, p. 222. The second legitimised daughter of the Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, Françoise-Marie de Bourbon married the King’s brother’s only son, Philippe, Duke of Chartres. Marie-Elisabeth de La Tour d’Auvergne (1666–1725) was the eldest daughter of Godefroy-Maurice, Duke of Bouillon, and the King’s former mistress, Maria Anna Mancini. 863 ‘Le roi a demandé aux princesses les dames qui monteront à cheval, afin de régler celles qui iront à Compiègne’. Entry for 17 February 1690, in Ibid., vol. 3, p. 68. 864 ‘La duchesse d’Humières et madame de Courtenvaux seront avec les princesses pour monter à cheval avec elles aux revues et aux chasses’. Entry for 1 March 1693, in Ibid., vol. 4, p. 241. The ladies mentioned are Louise-Antoinette de la Châtre, Duchess of Humières (1635–1723), former lady-in-waiting to the Queen, Marie-Thérèse of Austria, and Anne Catherine d’Estrées, Countess of Courtenvaux (1663–1741).

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groups of ladies in his carriage, as was his custom. Once the party reached the laisser-

courre, however, all female courtiers mounted on horseback while the King moved

into a little chaise from which he could follow the hunt, driving himself. By April

1701, Dangeau was describing the following routine: ‘After lunch the King got in a

little carriage with Madame and went to hunt deer. When they reached the laisser-

courre, Madame always mounts on horseback, and the King takes his place in a

carriage which is even smaller and he drives himself’.865 One year later Madame

Palatine, having driven in the new vehicle herself, assures us that the King’s carriage

and horses are indeed very little ‘but they run so well that they always manage to keep

up with the hounds and not lose the hunt, so much so that one has the impression of

being on horseback’.866

At the turn of the century the role of lead horseman left vacant by an ageing

Louis XIV was about to be filled by what would appear at first a rather unlikely

candidate, his teenage granddaughter Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy. The Piedmontese

princess had arrived at court in the autumn of 1696, aged eleven, to marry Louis,

Duke of Burgundy, the Dauphin’s eldest son and third in line to the throne.867 The

union came as a result of the Treaty of Turin signed on 29 August, with which the

Duke of Savoy pledged to support Louis XIV during the Nine Years’ War.868 France,

therefore, welcomed the Marie-Adélaïde with open arms. While visiting Paris, the

Savoy diplomat Count Solaro di Govone wrote on 8 October ‘[t]omorrow I will move

to Fontainebleau with the rest of the Court to wait for the arrival of our Princess so-

called ‘of Peace (de la Paix), whose education will be supervised uniquely by

865 ‘Le roi, après son diner, monta dans une petite calèche avec Madame et alla courre le cerf. Quand on arrive au laissez-courre, Madame monte toujours à cheval, et le roi se met dans une calèche encore plus petite, qu’il mène lui-même’. Entry for 26 April 1701, in Ibid., vol. 8, p. 88. 866 ‘… il a une petite calèche et de tout petit chevaux, mais ils courent si bien qu’on suit toujours les chiens et qu’on ne perd presque jamais la chasse, comme si l’on était à cheval’. Letter dated 16 May 1702, in Orléans, Lettres, pp. 318-319. 867 Martial Debriffe, La Duchesse de Bourgogne: Mère de Louis XV (Paris: Les 3 Orangers, 2007). Marie-Adélaïde was the eldest daughter of Duke Vittorio Amedeo II of Savoy and Anne-Marie d’Orléans, daughter of the King’s brother Philippe. 868 Christopher Storr, War, Diplomacy, and the Rise of Savoy, 1690-1720 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 122-170.

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Madame de Maintenon’.869 The King took an immediate liking to this lively and

pretty child, whose sole objective seemed to please and entertain. Soon after her

arrival, the acute eye of Madame Palatine had already discerned how the apparently

careless and naïve behaviour of Marie-Adélaïde was in fact ‘tremendously

political’.870 She certainly had a talent for falling in with the preferences of her new

‘grandpapa’, including his love for the gardens of Versailles. One month after the

Princess’ arrival, Solaro di Govone accompanied her as the King showed around the

park, observing ‘the tenderness of His Majesty, who enjoyed letting the young

Princess walk behind him on foot and then, when he felt she was getting tired, let her

climb in his chaise, explaining her everything’.871 In December, the Savoy diplomat

was once again invited to join a walk in the gardens with His Majesty ‘always

keeping the Princess in front of him, making her observe everything, being pleased

and admiring her like a loving father, inviting her to jump and run, and repeating how

much he was satisfied with her temperament, which seemed to have been made

especially to suit him’.872

Once her education was completed at the Collège de Saint-Cyr, the King took

it upon himself to introduce the young Duchess to the ways of Versailles. In October

1697, the Marquis Ferrero wrote to Madame Royale, Marie-Adélaïde’s grandmother,

869 ‘Je me transporterai demain à Fontainebleau avec la Cour pour attendre l’arrivée de notre Princesse appelée de la Paix, et de l’éducation de laquelle entend se charger uniquement Madame de Maintenon’. Letter dated 8 October 1696, in Albert Gargnière (ed.), Marie-Adelaïde de Savoie: Lettres et Correspondances (Paris: Olldendorff, 1897), pp. 79-80. Francesco Ottavio Solaro conte di Govone (1648-1737) was a Savoy dimplomat. 870 Letters dated 3 and 25 November 1696 in Orléans, Lettres, pp. 201, 203. 871 ‘Le roi l’a conduite hier visiter tous les jardins et fontaines, ou j’ai eu l’honneur de les suivre. Et j’observais avec une curiosité émue la tendresse de Sa Majesté, qui prenait plaisir à laisser marcher à pied la jeune princesse après de lui, et lorsqu’il la sentait fatiguée, de la faire monter avec lui dans la chaise à porteur, en lui expliquant toute chose’. Letter dated 12 November 1696, in Gargnière (ed.) Lettres et Correspondances, pp. 192-193. 872 ‘… après le repas, le Roi me rappela, en daignant me demander que je l’accompagnasse dans les jardins, pour me faire observer l’excellence de l’art avec lequel ils avaient été dessinés, et ayant toujours devant lui Madame la Princesse, en lui faisant tout observer, en se complaisant à l’admirer comme un Père amoureux, en l’excitant à sauter et à courir, et me répétant combien il se satisfait de son excellent naturel, et qui semblait avoir été fait exprès pour lui’. Letter dated 10 December 1696, in Gargnière (ed.), Lettres et Correspondances, p. 201.

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informing her that ‘The King hunts every day with the Princes of the Maison Royale

and very often he also takes the Princess in his carriage to amuse her’.873 Dangeau

first recorded her participation in the hunt one year later, in the autumn of 1698,

describing the royal grandfather and granddaughter travelling together in the King’s

little carriage.874 It would take two more years, however, before the Duchess would be

deemed ready to start taking riding lessons herself, and the records of her progress in

becoming proficient on horseback provide a unique insight into the equestrian training

of a young woman at the very start of the eighteenth century.

It was August 1700 when Marie-Adélaïde paid a visit to Marie-Françoise de

Bournonville (1656–1748), Duchess of Noailles, in her residence at Saint-Germain.

There the fourteen-year-old Duchess of Burgundy ‘mounted on horseback for the first

time in the paths of the park’.875 The exercise was repeated the following week, and

this second time the princess ventured beyond the gardens’ perimeter to take a

promenade to a neighbouring village.876 The current issue of the Mercure galant

reported the second outing, providing a complete narrative of the day:

At the beginning of this month, Madame the Duchess of Burgundy went to visit Madame the Duchess of Noailles at her beautiful residence at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. This princess donned a habit d’Amazone, accompanied by her ladies-in-waiting, that we call Dames du Palais, and Madame the Marquise of Montlevrier, who was wearing the same outfit. At Saint-Germain she met with the Countess of Estrées and Madame de Marquise of La Vallière, dressed in the same manner. These Ladies Amazons went on a cavalcade in the forest and, after a magnificent meal, they spent some time playing and danced until midnight, when they were served abundant refreshments. Afterwards, games and dances started again, so that Madame the Duchess of Burgundy did not get back to Versailles until dawn, greatly pleased with the good reception she had

873 ‘Le Roi va tous les jours à la chasse avec tous les Princes de la Maison Royale et bien souvent il y amène aussi la Princesse de Savoie dans son carrosse pour la divertir’. Letter dated 17 October 1697, in Gargnière (ed.), Lettres et Correspondances, p. 361. Tommaso Felice Ferrero marchese della Marmora (1626-1706) was the Savoy ambassador in France during the period 1674-1699. 874 Entries for 24 October and 4 November 1698, in Dangeau, Journal, vol. 6, pp. 448, 454. 875 ‘… ensuite elle alla chez madame de Noailles, où madame de Maintenon étoit. Elle y monta à cheval dans les allées pour la première fois de sa vie’. Entry for 2 August 1700, in Ibid., vol. 7, p. 350. Marie-Françoise de Bournonville, Duchess of Noailles (1656–1748). 876 Entry for 9 August 1700, in Ibid., vol. 7, p. 353.

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received from Madame the Maréchale de Noailles, and with the pleasures she had procured, for which the Princess thanked her in a most obliging manner.877

While the magazine delved in a detailed description of the many amusements that

occurred on the day, Dangeau only reported Marie-Adélaïde’s progress in the saddle.

The very fact that such a selective chronicler should choose to keep track of the

Duchess’ equestrian exploits is in itself a strong indicator that they represented a key

moment in the formation of a young girl destined to become queen. He had similarly

noted when the sixteen-year-old Duke of Burgundy had started taking lessons at the

grande écurie under the tutelage of Monsieur de Nesmond (1641-1702) in November

1698.878 Louis de Rouvroy (1675-1755) Duke of Saint-Simon reports that the King

entrusted the Maréchal de Duras (1625-1704) with finishing the equestrian education

of his grandchildren.879 ‘At eighty years of age’, the author commented, ‘he still

trained horses that no one had mounted yet; he was also the most accomplished and

best horseman that ever was in France’.880 That two of the most experienced officers

877 ‘Au commencement de moiis, Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne alla voir Madame la Duchesse de Noailles dans sa belle maison de Saint Germain en Laye. Cette Princesse estoit en habit d’Amazone, accompagnée de ses Dames, qu’on nomme Dames du Palais, & de Madame la Marquise de Montlevrier, qui estoit dans le meme adjustement. Elle trouva à Saint Germain Madame la Comtesse d’Estrees, & Madame la Marquise de la Vallière, vestues de la meme sorte. Ces Dames Amazones firent une Cavalcade dans la Forest, & apres une magnifique collation, elles se divertirent quelque temps à jouer, & dansèrent jusques à minuit, qu’on leur servit un grand Medianoche; ensuite de quoy le jeu et la danse recommencèrent; en sorte que Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne n’arriva qu’au jour à Versailles, fort contente de la bonne réception que luy avoit faite Madame la Maréchale de Noailles, & des plaisirs qu’elle luy avoit procurez, dont cette Princesse la remercia d’une manière très obligeante’. Mercure galant (August 1700), pp. 150-152. 878 Entry for 5 November 1698, in Ibid., vol. 6, p. 465. André marquis de Nesmond was a celebrated naval commander. 879 Inspired by Dangeau’s journal, whose dry style and unimaginative format he criticised, the Duke of Saint-Simon started writing his own memoirs on the French court, assembling a monumental opus reporting gossip, individual portraits and notes on disparate matters. The first complete edition of Saint-Simon’s Mémoires, consisting of twenty volumes edited by Adolphe Chéruel, was published between 1856 and 1858. 880 ‘À quatre-vingts ans il dressait encore des chevaux que personne n'avait montés. C'était aussi le plus bel homme de cheval et le meilleur qui fût en France’. Louis de Rouvroy duc de Saint-Simon, Mémoires complets et authentiques du duc de Saint-Simon sur le siècle de Louis XIV et la Régence, ed. Adolphe Chéruel (Paris: Hachette, 1856-1858), vol. 4, pp. 365-366. Jacques Henri de Durfort de Duras was a talented general and great favourite with the King.

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in the French army should be invited to preside over the Princes’ horse-riding training

is a clear sign of the significance and prestige attached to such post, which required

great competence and the King’s complete trust.

In comparison, the Duchess’ training appears to have been a more intimate

affair, taking place in a private residence rather than in the more public space of the

royal stables. To supervise, however informally, the equestrian education of the future

Dauphine was nevertheless a clear sign of favour and influence. An intimate friend of

Madame de Maintenon, the Duchess of Noailles was the female head of one of the

most powerful clans at the French court. Saint-Simon repeatedly emphasised how it

was she rather than the Duke who managed the family’s affairs and constituted the

veritable éminence grise behind the irresistible ascent of the Noailles at court.881

Endowed with ‘more acumen and talent for intrigue (manège)’ than her husband, she

manipulated Louis XIV through her strong ascendant on his morganatic wife, to the

point that the sovereign directly instructed his finance ministers to accord any

requests advanced by both the mother or any of the daughters ‘and to procure them as

many positions as possible’.882 The Duchess had already managed to obtain a place

for one of her daughters, Lucie-Félicité (1683–1745), Countess of Estrées, as lady-in-

waiting to the young Marie-Adélaïde.883 Unlike Messieurs de Nesmond and Duras, it

is probable that Madame de Noailles exercised a symbolic rather than technical

supervision since she was no proficient horsewoman herself. In April that same year

Madame de Maintenon had noted how she would not be invited to a voyage at Marly

on account of the excursion being ‘reserved for the ladies who mount on

horseback’.884

881 Kettering, ‘The patronage and power of early modern French noblewomen’, pp. 833-834. 882 ‘… sa femme qui avait plus d'esprit et de vrai manège que lui […] le roi avait ordonné à Pontchartrain, puis à Chamillart, quand il lui succéda aux finances, de faire en faveur de la mère et de la fille toutes les affaires qu'elles présenteraient, et de lui en procurer tant qu'ils pourraient’. Saint-Simon, Mémoires, vol. 3, p. 53. 883 Lucie-Félicité de Noailles married Count Victor-Marie d’Estrées in January 1698 and was made Dame du Palais soon afterwards. Saint-Simon, Mémoires, vol. 2, p. 10. 884 ‘On ne compte pas de mener madame de Noailles à Marly ce voyage; il est destine pour les dames qui montent à cheval’. Letter dated 7 April 1701, in Françoise d’Aubigné marquise de

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Dangeau does not provide further updates concerning the equestrian training of the

little Duchess throughout the autumn, but it must have progressed successfully since

on 26 December the Marquis announced that she would ‘mount for the first time the

following Thursday to hunt hares’.885 Which she did, on 30 December:

Madame the Duchess of Burgundy mounted on horseback at the gate of the park and went in the grand parc to hunt some hares with the greyhounds, and then joined the King; she observed him shooting and went back to the Ménagerie, where she had lunch at four o’clock. She had never ridden a horse anywhere else than in Madame de Noailles’ garden in Saint-Germain; she is very graceful and not at all awkward in conducting her horse.886

Marie-Adélaïde was naturally talented and rapidly developed a taste for riding, and in

February 1701 an official announcement was issued, requesting that all the ladies —

dames and demoiselles — who knew how to ride should be ready to follow the

Duchess on occasion of the cavalcades, which she enjoyed greatly. 887 The first

cavalcade took place on Monday 21 February, when the Duchess appeared

accompanied by six ladies, including Madame d’Estrées and her younger sister

Marie-Thérèse (1684–1784), Duchess of La Vallière.888 Endowed with ‘more wit,

more reason and more cunning than all the Noailles put together’, according to Saint-

Simon, Madame de La Vallière gained the Duchess’s favour and was appointed lady-

in-waiting in 1707 following the death of Madame de Montgon. 889 On the next

occasion, 1 March, ‘in addition to all those [ladies] who were present the first time,

Maintenon, Correspondance générale de Madame de Maintenon, ed. Théophile Lavallée (Paris: Charpentier, 1865–1866), vol. 4, pp. 421-422. 885 ‘On dit qu’elle commencera à monter à cheval jeudi pour la chasse au lièvre’. Entry for 26 December 1700, in Dangeau, Journal, vol. 7, p. 465. 886 ‘Madame la duchesse de Bourgogne monta à cheval à midi à la porte du par cet alla dans le grand parc courre des lièvres avec des lévriers, et ensuite alla joindre le roi; elle le vit tirer durant quelque temps et revint à la Ménagerie, ou elle dina à quatre heures. Elle n’avoit jamais monté à cheval que dans le jardin de madame de Noailles à Saint-Germain; elle y est de très-bonne grâce et elle n’est point embarrassée à mener son cheval’. Entry for 30

December 1700, in Ibid., vol. 7, p. 468. 887 Entry for 19 February 1701, in Ibid., vol. 8, p. 40. 888 Entry for 21 February 1701, in Ibid., vol. 8, p. 42. 889 ‘Mme de La Vallière, qui avait seule plus d'esprit, de tête et d'intrigue que tous les Noailles ensemble’. Marie-Thérèse de Noailles married Charles-François de La Baume Le Blanc, Duke of La Vallière, in 1698. Saint-Simon, Mémoires, vol. 5, p. 333.

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there were also the Duchess of Lesdiguières and Madame de Villacerf’.890 Then again

on 10 March, ‘Madame the Duchess of Burgundy rode on horseback with many

ladies; Mademoiselle d’Enghien et Mademoiselle de Bouillon were present, in

addition to all those that have already taken part’.891 Dangeau deliberately provides

the information in a cumulative way, as if to show that Louis XIV’s orders had been

duly followed and a squadron of Amazons had been formed to please the Duchess.

The King himself took part in the first two outings and went hawking with the ladies.

An easier and more relaxed type of hunt, falconry allowed for the company of female

courtiers to meander at a slow place whilst admiring the birds’ flight across the

landscape. On the occasion of the third cavalcade, the sovereign left the ladies to their

own amusements, preferring instead the quiet of Trianon and Madame de

Maintenon’s company. From then onwards, Louis XIV appears to have given up the

habit of going out in the afternoon, even in his little carriage, thus causing Madame

Palatine to lament in 1703 that ‘the King does not hunt any more’.892 Time would

prove Madame’s concerns to be excessive, since in the following years Louis XIV did

occasionally hawk or simply follow the ladies. The grounds of Versailles and other

royal residences, however, were left mostly at the disposal of the Duchess of

Burgundy to organise her outings as she pleased.

Dangeau’s particular use of the term cavalcade to indicate such occasions

should not pass unnoticed. This word of Italian origin indicated a ‘ceremonial march

where courtiers and people on horseback accompany and honour their prince’, but it

could also be used ‘to describe a promenade or a short journey made by people on

890 Madame la duchesse de Bourgogne y étoit à cheval avec beaucoup de dames ; outre toutes celles qui étoient la première fois, il y avoit encore les duchesses de Lesdiguières et de Lauzun et madame de Villacerf. Entry for 1 March 1701, in Dangeau, Journal, vol. 8, p. 48. Louise-Bernarde de Durfort, daughter of the Marshal of Duras (born 1676); and Geneviève Larcher, Marquise of Villacerf (d. 1712). 891 ‘Madame la duchesse de Bourgogne monta à cheval avec beaucoup de dames; mademoiselle d’Enghien et mademoiselle de Bouillon y étoient, outre toutes celles qui y ont déjà été’. Entry for 10 March 1701, in Ibid., vol. 8, p. 53. Marie-Anne de Bourbon, Mlle d’Enghien (1678–1718), daughter of the Prince of Condé. 892‘ Le roi ne chasse plus’. Letter dated 18 January 1703, in Orléans, Lettres, p. 327.

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horseback to reach a destination close by’.893 Though lacking the pomp and almost

liturgical aura of a royal equestrian procession, the cavalcades led by the Duchess did

become the embodiment of her power and right to command, if only a small group of

ladies. Other noblewomen at Versailles were surrounded by their own coterie, and

indeed Marie-Adélaïde engaged in more or less open confrontation with other female

members of the royal family such as the Duchess of Bourbon, supported by the cabale

de Meudon, and the Duchess of Maine who held her own court at Sceaux. 894

Traditionally such rivalries had found expression in the patronage of the arts. The

Duchess of Burgundy had instead shifted this very female confrontation to horseback

and the traditionally masculine arena of the hunt. Never, in fact, had the King’s own

daughters aspired to set up an independent riding equipage at court, nor had the

skilled Madame ever considered taking such a lead. They all accepted that they

occupied a subordinate position to the man who was at once the head of the Bourbon

family and of the French monarchy. The sight of a cavalcade of ladies led by the

Duchess of Burgundy must have appeared novel in the eyes of an observer such as

Dangeau, a fact that accounts for the considerable space these occasions take up in his

journal. Moreover, Marie-Adélaïde’s equestrian activities took place at the heart of

the court, on the very sites that were most directly associated with the display of royal

power. Her physical conquest of the grand parc and other hunting grounds with the

King’s permission signified her political influence and granted her the status of an

almost-kingly surrogate. Pierre Gobert’s portrait of the Duchess in hunting garb,

893 ‘Marche pompeuse que font les Courtisans & des gens à cheval en quelque ceremonie pour accompagner & honorer leur Prince […] se dit aussi d’une promenade, ou d’un petit voyage que font des gens à cheval dans quelque lieux peu éloignez’. Entry in Antoine Furetière, Dictionnaire universel (Rotterdam: A. et R. Leers, 1690). This appears unchanged in the 1702 re-edition (vol. 1, p. 331). 894 Louise-Bénédicte de Bourbon (1676–1753), daughter of the Prince of Condé, married the King’s illegitimate son Louis-Auguste, Duke of Maine, in 1692. Catherine Cessac, ‘La duchesse du Maine et la duchesse de Bourgogne: d’une cour à l’autre’, in Fabrice Preyat (ed.), Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie (1685–1712), Duchesse de Bourgogne, enfant terrible de Versailles, Etudes sur le XVIII Siecle XXXXI (Brussels: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 2014), pp. 127-138.

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which will be discussed in the next chapter, shows her as a confident maîtresse des

lieux, majestically pointing at the Grand Canal at Fontainebleau (fig. 52).895

Stepping into the King’s riding boots, the Duchess of Burgundy did not simply

try to reproduce the model of the royal hunts. On the contrary, the cavalcades lacked

any strictly ritualised form or even organic planning. Female courtiers would just

gather in the afternoon at the Ménagerie, which had been renovated in 1698 by order

of the King and then offered to the Duchess as a personal retreat in the park.896 From

there the party would set off to ride around the park or a longer journey, the

destination often being chosen on the spur of the moment. One day in August 1707,

the Duchess had already mounted on horseback when she was informed that her

father-in-law the Dauphin had organised a breakfast party at Chaville, some six miles

away. The gathering had been organised, Dangeau adds, in honour of the Duchess of

Bourbon and the Princess of Conti ‘who would mount on horseback, despite the fact

that they hadn’t ridden in a long time’.897 Determined not to be left out, Marie-

Adélaïde and all the ladies of her suite ‘galloped at full speed’ to get there in time.898

By this period, news of the young Duchess’s equestrian activities must have reached

far beyond the walls of Versailles and attracted considerable interest. On 5 September

1707, Dangeau informs us that when the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy went out for

a ride from Versailles to the park of Boulogne accompanied by many ladies, ‘an

infinite number of people came from Paris by carriage to witness the cavalcade’.899

The Mercure galant also reported the event, describing how ‘the Duchess of

895 Pierre Gobert, The Duchess of Burgundy in Hunting Dress, 1704. Château de Versailles, Inv. 6825. See Chapter IV, pp. 309, 313. 896 Joan Pieragnoli, ‘La Duchesse de Bourgogne et la Ménagerie de Versailles’, in Preyat (ed.), Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie (1685–1712), pp. 139-159. 897 ‘… madame la Duchesse et à madame la princesse de Conty qui dévoient y monter à cheval, quoiqu’elles n’y eussent pas monté depuis longtemps’. Entry for 29 August 1707, in Dangeau, Journal, vol. 8, p. 450. 898 ‘Madame la duchesse de Bourgogne passa à toute bride avec toutes les dames qui la suivoient’. Ibidem. 899 ‘Monseigneur le duc de Bourgogne et madame la duchesse de Bourgogne allèrent se promener l’après-dînée au bois de Boulogne, à cheval, avec beaucoup de dames. Il y vint un nombre infini de carrosses de Paris pour voir la cavalcade’. Entry for Monday 5 September 1707, in Ibid., vol. 8, p. 454.

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Fig. 52: Pierre Gobert, The Duchess of Burgundy in Hunting Dress, 1704. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. 6825

Photo of ‘Pierre Gobert, The Duchess of Burgundy in Hunting Dress’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon.

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Burgundy went for a long promenade in the park with around twenty ladies’. This is

the one instance, in what little remains of her personal correspondence, when Marie-

Adélaïde herself refers to her riding activities. Writing to her grandmother in Turin,

she apologises: ‘I will not write a longer letter because tomorrow I will go for a

promenade at the park of Boulogne’.900

The informal and easy atmosphere of these cavalcades is accompanied by

another crucial change in the conception of female courtly horseback riding.

Releasing the practice of riding from the ritualised, performative, and ostensibly

functional character of the hunt, horseback exercise was now being undertaken for its

own sake and placed at the very centre of courtly activity. In other words, the

cavalcades separated the display of athletic skill from the act of the chase, thus

allowing some space for experimentation with riding techniques. Saint-Simon

involuntarily bears witness to the riding habits of the Duchess of Burgundy and her

female companions, as he related a humorous anecdote concerning Claude-Louis-

Hector de Villars (1653-1734), Marshal of France. During the terrible battle of

Malpaquet, fought on 11 September 1709, the General had been badly wounded by a

musket ball that hit his knee. ‘His wound, or the affectation that he assumed because

of it’, Saint-Simon wrote, ‘caused him to put his leg up on the horse’s withers, more

or less like the ladies do’. 901 ‘One day’, the author continued, ‘because of the

annoyances he had to face with his army, he let slip that he was tired of riding like

those whores in the Duchess of Burgundy’s retinue, who, by the way, were all the

young ladies of the court’. 902 Unsurprisingly, the horsewomen in question took

offence. In addition to being impolite, Villars’ remark insulted the ladies’ equestrian

habits, which appear to have been more adventurous than he imagined. On at least

one occasion, Dangeau observed some ladies at the Ménagerie, who went for a

900 ‘Je ne ferai point cette lettre plus longue, parce que je vais demain au bois de Boulogne me promener à cheval’. Gagnière (ed.) Lettres et Correspondances, pp. 264-265. 901 ‘Il arriva au maréchal de Villars une aventure fort ridicule qui fit grand bruit à l’armée et à la cour. Sa blessure, ou les airs qu’il en prenoit, lui faisoit souvent tenir la jambe sur le cou de son cheval à peu près comme les dames’. Saint-Simon, Mémoires, vol. 8, p. 358. 902 ‘Il lui échappa un jour, dans l’ennui où il se trouvoit dans son armée, qu’il était las de monter à cheval comme ces putaines de la suite de Mme la duchesse de Bourgogne, qui, par parenthèse, étoient toutes les jeunes dames de la cour’. Ibidem.

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cavalcade ‘trying to mount one leg on each side, to keep a better balance on the

saddle’.903 The quiet pace of the promenade was sometimes abandoned in favour of a

gallop whose dangerous speed tested the skill of the riders, sometimes with painful

consequences. One June afternoon of 1707, the Duchess went out on a ride with four

female companions, her husband and her brother-in-law, the Duke of Berry. They

galloped all the way to the tower of La Bretèche, around eight miles northwest

towards Marly, and on the way back one of the ladies ‘had a bad fall’.904 Accidents

were a common occurrence during the vigorous chasses à courre, and ladies were

particularly susceptible on account of riding side-saddle. Facing left and with her right

leg wrapped around the saddle’s pommel, the Amazon must balance her weight by

means of a constant tension in the lower back’s left side. Especially when galloping or

jumping, the necessity constantly to lean forward renders the body’s balance more

precarious and increases the possibility of a fall.905 Even an experienced rider was

bound to suffer a number of falls. Madame Palatine herself admitted to having been

unseated no fewer than twenty-six times, although, she added proudly, ‘I was

seriously injured only once’.906 In another letter penned in the aftermath of one of

those falls, Madame stressed the importance of learning how to dismount safely and

rapidly in case of an emergency.907 The pamphlet The Royal Pastime reported an

argument between Madame Palatine and one of her ladies-in-waiting following a

hunting party. Upon witnessing a lady fall from her horse, the latter commented that

she preferred ‘quieter amusements’ and greatly admired ‘those [ladies] who could

enjoy some pleasure without putting their lives at risk’.908 To this, Madame sharply

903‘… il y eut grande cavalcade de dames qui essayèrent de monter à cheval, jambe deçà, jambe delà, pour se tenir mieux’. Entry for 28 August 1707, in Dangeau, Journal, vol. 8, pp. 449-50. 904 ‘Ils allèrent au galop jusqu’à la Bretèche, et en revenant la marquise de la Vallière fit une assez rude chute’. Entry for 13 June 1707, in Ibid., vol. 8, p. 392. 905 Janet W. Macdonald, Riding Side-Saddle (London, 1995), pp. 53-60. 906 ‘… sur vingt-six fois que je suis tombée de cheval, je ne me suis fait mal qu’une seule’. Letter dated 9 November 1709, in Orléans, Correspondance, vol. 1, p. 122. 907 Letter dated 29 September 1683, in Orléans, Lettres, p. 95 908 ‘… je me reserve continua-t-elle pour les divertissements plus tranquilles, & je ne puis assés admirer celles qui ne peuvent goûter des plaisirs sans courir [sic] fortune de leur vie’. Le Passe-Temps Royal, p. 101.

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replied: ‘I see that the pleasures of the bedchamber touch you more deeply than those

that are to be found in exercise (agitation); lazy and sedentary amusements are needed

for those [ladies] to whom weakness precludes enjoying all others’.909 Whether this

dialogue really happened or not, it shows that a lady’s inclination towards equestrian

pursuits was seen as a sign of a strong constitution and an active spirit.

Even in the absence of accidents, royal hunts were a rather demanding

exercise as they entailed spending long hours in the saddle, often in far from ideal

weather conditions. As Dangeau’s records confirm, hunting was practised throughout

the year regardless of the weather, no exceptions being made for the ladies present.

Twice in the autumn of 1687, the Marquis notes how the hunt had taken place under

such heavy rain that the ladies who rode ‘got extremely wet and were covered in

mud.’910 Only once in March 1689 the King and the usual contingent of female

courtiers on horseback were forced to retire due to a sudden snowfall.911 In addition to

all this, ladies had to endure prolonged exposition to sun and wind that would damage

their complexions and threaten the pallor that was considered a marker of aristocratic

beauty. ‘Hunting is certainly more beneficial to my health than my complexion’,

remarked Madame Palatine in 1693.912 Later in 1706 she further commented, ‘I know

full well how it feels to expose oneself to a burning sun on occasion of the hunt; many

a time I have spent the day out hunting from the morning until five in the afternoon;

even nine in summer. I used to come back red like a lobster, my complexion entirely

burnt’.913 However uncomfortable and tiring, ‘it is not the hunts that have made me

909 ‘… je vois bien que les plaisirs de la Ruëlle vous toucheroient plus vivement que ceux qui se trouvent dans l’agitation, il faut des divertissements paresseux & sédentaires à celles dont la foiblesse ne leur permet pas d’en prendre d’autres’. Ibid., p. 102. However ambiguous, Madame’s words seem deprived of any sexual innuendo. According to Furetière’s dictionary, the ‘ruelle’ was the space of the bedchamber where ladies could receive visits, wither in bed or sitting. Furetière added that fashionable people at court, the galants, prided themselves in being ‘gens de ruelles’ as they paid many visits. 910 Entry for 6 and 8 November 1687, in Dangeau, Journal, vol. 2, pp. 61, 63. 911 Entry for 17 March 1689, in Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 353-354. 912 ‘… la chasse vaut mieux pour ma santé que pour mon teint’. Letter dated 13 October 1693, in Orléans, Lettres, p. 160. 913 ‘… je sais bien ce que c’est que de s’exposer à la chasse à un soleil brûlant ; il m’est arrivé bien des fois de rester à la chasse depuis le matin jusqu’à cinq heures du soir, et en été jusqu’ù

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grow old and ugly’, explained Madame in 1678, ‘but rather court intrigues, which in

the last seven years have caused me so many wrinkles all over my face’.914 And it was

to find relief from the many disappointments and frustrations of life at court that

Madame kept riding until she started fearing that her horse could not carry her weight

any more. The Duchess of Burgundy too seems to have found exercise therapeutic,

keeping her body busy in order to cope with personal and political anxieties, which

increased during the last years of her brief life. In the summer of 1710, Madame de

Maintenon noticed how the princess ‘strives to exhaust herself: she runs on foot, on

horseback, in a carriage, and her worries with her’.915 Marie-Adélaïde’s last years at

the French court in fact proved more challenging as she loyally stood by her husband

and supported his political views and military career. Nevertheless, the princess

managed to retain her active and joyous disposition. When she died of smallpox in

February 1712, followed by her husband only six days later, Saint-Simon wrote:

‘With her disappeared all the joy, pleasures, amusements even, and all things

agreeable; darkness covered the surface of the court: it was she who kept it animated,

filling every place at once’.916

Despite her premature disappearance, the Duchess of Burgundy was to leave a

lasting mark on the life of Versailles and those places that she had so vivaciously

‘filled’. Under her leadership the traditionally masculine arena of the royal hunt was

transformed into a space for ladies to exercise, initiating a love affair between

equestrianism and female courtiers that did not wane until the very end of the French

monarchy itself. Moreover, that passion for horseback riding that she had instilled in

the heart of many women at court continued to flourish and thrive beyond palace

neuf heures; je rentrais rouge comme une écrevisse et la figure toute brûlée’. Letter dated 12 June 1706, in Orléans, Correspondance, vol. 1, p. 88. 914‘Toutefois les chasses ne m’ont pas rendue si vieille et si laide que les cabales’. Letter dated 14 November 1678, in Orléans, Lettres, p. 50. 915 ‘Notre princesse tâche de s’étourdir: elle court à pied, à cheval, en carosse, & ses inquiétudes avec elle’. Letter dated 19 July 1710, in Françoise d’Aubigné marquise de Maintenon, Lettres de Madame de Maintenon à M. le Duc de Noailles (Amsterdam: Aux dépens de l’éditeur, 1756), p. 160. 916 ‘Avec elle s'éclipsèrent joie, plaisirs, amusements même, et toutes espèces de grâces; les ténèbres couvrirent toute la surface de la cour; elle l'animait tout entière, elle en remplissait tous les lieux à la fois’. Saint-Simon, Mémoires, vol. 9, p. 203.

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walls and aristocratic circles. Thus was born a new ideal of athletic femininity that

found its natural place in the saddle.917 Four years after Marie-Adélaïde’s death,

Madame Palatine reflected on the personality of her two grand-daughters. Of one, the

twenty-one-year-old Marie-Louise-Élisabeth (1695–1719), Madame said, ‘I often

mock Madame de Berry saying that she affects a liking for the hunt, whereas what she

really likes is just the movement from place to place’.918 And about the other, Louise-

Adélaïde (1698–1743), known as Mademoiselle de Chartres: ‘she persists in her

desire to become a nun, but I cannot believe that she has a true vocation, for she has

all the inclinations of a boy; she likes dogs, horses, the hunt, and gunshots’. 919

Different though they were, these girls had one thing in common. Their female

character was to be shaped by, and measured against, their relationship to horseback

riding and the hunt.

Looking at seventeenth-century France, this chapter has discussed how a

number of noblewomen succeeded in mastering the quintessentially masculine art of

horsemanship. In search of pleasure and glory, or compelled by duty and necessity,

‘Amazons’ stepped out of the canvas and off the page to ride across the hunting

ground and even on the battlefield. This selection of individual experiences brings to

light the relative fluidity of gender boundaries for an elite segment of European

society during the period. Considerations of rank together with concepts of biological

sex seem to have informed these women’s educational pursuits and shaped their sense

of self. At a time when equestrian training was key to the ideals and practices of

aristocratic living with its amusements and duties, noble ladies were keen to

demonstrate their competency in the art of equestrianism. In so doing, they created

917 Tourre-Malen, Femmes à cheval. 918 ‘Je taquine souvent Mme de Berri, et je lui dis qu’elle se figure qu’elle aime la chasse, mais qu’au fond elle aime seulement à changer de place’. Letter dated 28 October 1716, in Orléans, Correspondance, vol. 1, p. 275. Marie-Louise-Élisabeth, daughter of Philippe d’Orléans and Françoise-Marie de Bourbon, youngest legitimised daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. She had married the King’s third grandson, Charles, Duke of Berry, in 1710. 919 ‘Elle persiste fermement à se faire religieuse, mais je ne puis croire qu’elle en ait la vocation, car elle a tous les goûts d’un garçon; elle aime les chiens, les chevaux, la chasse, les coups de fusil’. Letter dated 12 August 1716, in Ibid., vol. 1, p. 263. Louise-Adélaïde indeed took the veil in 1717, and later became Abbess of Chelles.

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new spaces of physical freedom and politico-military agency. At first considered

intruders in a masculine arena, they succeeded in establishing a thriving and markedly

feminine equestrian culture. As they took their place in the saddle, French ladies

adopted new forms of clothing. The next chapter explores the evolution of female

equestrian attire in the seventeenth century. While shedding new light on general

trends, I show how French fashions became popular across Europe. Designed to suit

specific symbolic and material requirements, some of these sartorial innovations

exerted a far-reaching influence on women’s dress.

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Chapter IV – Fashioning the Amazon: Female Equestrian Attire

A woman is more naturally inclined to engage in public affairs than a man, recognised

the Jesuit father François Loryot in 1614.920 Indeed, an innate disposition to be quick-

witted and thrifty even renders her particularly suited to the management of business.

It is excessive love of dress, however, that condemns a woman to an existence mostly

confined within the perimeter of the home. ‘Utterly embarrassed in a jumble of

clothing and jewels’, Loryot commented, ‘she can hardly move; consequently she has

no means or leisure to set about doing much.’921 The author’s conviction probably

originated from his observation of elegant outfits during the early years of Louis

XIII’s reign. Boned stays, puffed sleeves, starched lace collars, multiple layers of

petticoats held up by padding and structural undergarments fastened at the waist; all

these items of clothing certainly hindered women’s bodies.922 The fashionable female

silhouette became even more cumbersome during the reign of Louis XIV, and

especially at court where the sovereign enforced the wearing of the grand habit on

formal occasions. Fashionable dress in the Ancien Regime, Michel Delon argues,

exerted a form of corporeal ‘censorship’ that affected male and female bodies alike.923

A crucial difference was the fact that, while women’s mobility of the lower limbs was

heavily impaired, men’s legs were proudly showcased and even enhanced by tight

920 On Loryot and his treatise, see p. 74, n. 353. For an overview of women’s involvement in commerce and trade in Ancien Regime France, see Christine Dousset, ‘Commerce et travail des femmes à l’époque moderne en France’, Les Cahiers de Framespa 2 (2006), accessed on 11 February 2020. URL: [http://journals.openedition.org/framespa/57]. 921 ‘… elle se trouve toute empeschée de tant de fatras, & d’habits & de parures, qu’elle ne peut presque se remuer là dedans: dont elle n’a ny moyen ny loisir de beaucoup entreprendre’. Loryot, Les Fleurs des secretz moraux, p. 273. 922 Louise Godard de Donville, Signification de la mode sous Louis XIII (Aix-en-Provence: Edisud, 1978). 923 Delon, ‘The Ancien Regime of the Body’, in Denis Bruna (ed.), Fashioning the Body, pp. 89-93.

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breeches, hose and leather boots.924 In their review of fashion under the reign of Louis

XIII and XIV respectively, Louise Godard de Donville and Joan DeJean both

emphasise the importance placed on adherent boots (bottes) by elegant men and even

the sovereign himself. 925 Wearing such stylish accoutrements made manifest the

wearer’s strength, agility and readiness for action. Loryot’s remark, instead, drew

attention to the fact that female fashions were connected with women’s sedentary

lifestyle and physical limitations. In the previous chapter, however, I have discussed

how French elite women proved able to establish spaces of physical freedom through

regular equestrian exercise. In the higher echelons of society, where more liberating

riding techniques were embraced, ladies felt the necessity to don a new type of dress

that suited their need for mobility and expressed their athletic ambitions.

The following chapter traces the evolution of female equestrian habits in

France between the early seventeenth century and the first decade of the eighteenth

century. First, I outline a few common characteristics that defined a female equestrian

ensemble across early modern Europe, discussing the employment of riding breeches,

a revolutionary garment whose significance has hitherto been neglected. I then

examine the fashion for a voluminous ‘Amazonian’ feather panache sported by

French ladies as they rode and hunted on horseback. Finally, I focus my analysis on

the court of Louis XIV. After discussing the establishment of a prescribed hunting

habit amongst male courtiers, I discuss the adoption of a female équipage de chasse

by female courtiers and its evolution into a veritable uniform known as the habit

d’Amazone.

IV.1 Female Riding Breeches The second chapter of this thesis argued that medieval and Renaissance women never

rode side-saddle. Placed behind a man or alone in a pillion saddle, they sat as if on a

924 On the fashioned leg and gender distinctions, see Susan Vincent, The Anatomy of Fashion: Dressing the Body from the Renaissance to Today (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2009), pp. 97-110. 925 See the chapter ‘Cinderella’s Slipper and the King’s Boots’, in DeJean, The Essence of Style, pp. 83-103 and Godard de Donville, Signification de la mode sous Louis XIII, pp. 15-16.

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chair, their legs dangling off the left side of the horse or resting more comfortably on

a planchette. In these conditions, ‘passive’ female riders did not have any specific

sartorial requirement, aside from a general need for comfort and warmth.926 If they

wished to join their menfolk in the exercise of the hunt, Richard Almond and Amanda

Richardson contend, high-born ladies most likely rode astride. 927 Due to the scarcity

of testimonies up to the seventeenth century, however, no scholar has yet ventured to

make assumptions as to what they might have worn as they did so. In her pioneering

overview of equestrian attire in Europe, dress historian Janet Arnold argues that

European ladies borrowed and adapted various types of masculine dress such as

doublets and cassocks, which were worn over ample skirts.928 Arnold’s broad sartorial

study, however, does not take into account crucial shifts in female equestrian

techniques that affected women’s engagement with the horse. As I have previously

discussed, the major change was caused by the widespread adoption of the modern

side-saddle between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. First described in von

Adlersflügel’s 1678 Wohlberittener Cavallier, this new model had a pommel that the

rider could wrap her right leg around, finally facing forward and exerting full

command over the horse. To suit this freer technique, the German riding master

issued the first recorded set of prescriptions concerning ladies’ equestrian dress. For

the benefit of noble women who embraced the ‘new’ mount on the side, von

Adlersflügel recommended in the first place the wearing of tight leg-garments

(Hosen) made of soft chamois skin, velvet, scarlet woollen cloth (Scharlach) or ‘other

soft silky stuff’.929 These, he concluded, are not just useful for the lady to sit firmly on

the horse; but ‘she might also keep them for winter to protect her knees from the

cold’.930 No further instructions concerning the rider’s appropriate turnout are offered,

926 ‘[U]tilisation passive du cheval’. Tourre-Malen, ‘Des amazones aux cavalières’. 927 Almond, Daughters of Artemis. See also Richardson, ‘“Riding like Alexander, Hunting like Diana”’. 928 Arnold, ‘Dashing Amazons’. 929 ‘Fürs ander solle eine solche vornehme Dame auch der Hosen sich gebrauchen / welchs von linden Gemsfellen / Sammet / Scharlach oder sonsten linden seidenen Zeug gemacht seyn sollen’. Adlersflügel, Wohlberittener Cavallier, p. 66. 930 ‘[V]on welcher Gebrauch sie nicht allein vester zu Pferd sitzen wird / sondern dieselbe bewahren auch im Winter die Knie gar wol für der Kälte’. Ibid., p. 67.

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except that she should carry a pike (Spitzrut) or whalebone whip (Fischbein).931

Additional information can be gathered from an illustration by the Nuremberg

engraver Cornelis Nicolaes Schurtz (1651-1700), which accompanies von

Adlersflügel’s discussion of women’s riding (fig. 53.).932 This plate represents three

ladies, in all likelihood members of the aristocracy, slowly proceeding on horseback

accompanied by a male horseman on two valets on foot. The two ladies in the

foreground and background ride on a new type of side-saddle, whereas the one in the

middle is straddling the horse. Despite their different choice of equestrian technique,

they all appear to be donning the same outfit, consisting of a long training skirt partly

covered by a knee-length vest from which emerge puffy sleeves reaching as far as the

elbow. Their whole apparel radiates a sense of luxury and excess. A pair of gloves

protects the ladies’ forearms and hands while voluminous feather headdresses

surmount their hats. Their low décolletage is decorated with precious clasps and their

necks are adorned with a string of pearls. Even useful tools such as their whalebone

931 Ibidem. 932 Nicolaes Schurtz, Three Ladies on Horseback. Illustration to Georg Simon Winter von Adlersflügel, Wohlberittener Cavallier: Oder Gründliche Anweisung zu der Reit-und Zaumkunst (Nürenberg: Verlegt durch Wolfgang Moritz Endter und Johann Andreae Endters Sel. Erben, 1678), plate 104.

Fig. 53: Nicolaes Schurtz, Three Ladies on Horseback (detail). Illustration to Georg Simon Winter von Adlersflügel, Wohlberittener Cavallier (Nürenberg: Verlegt durch Wolfgang Moritz Endter und Johann Andreae Endters Sel. Erben, 1678), plate 104

Photo of ‘Nicolaes Schurtz, Three Ladies on Horseback (detail) removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Collection Emile Hermès, Paris.

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whips are turned into ornamental accessories, bedaubed as they are by four separate

ribbon clusters of decreasing volume, which appear to match the many bows that

adorn the horses’ plaited manes and harnesses. The trousers described by von

Adlersflügel, though equally costly and elegant items, were therefore meant to remain

concealed for the sake of propriety.

Common sense leads us to believe that the wearing of such protective

underwear must have been essential to the comfort of female riders. However, the

ladies’ ample skirts render it generally impossible to detect their presence in all late

sixteenth- and seventeenth-century equestrian portraiture and hunting scenes. Few

exceptions can be identified within the production of Antonio Tempesta, whose

crucial significance as equestrian painter has been previously discussed.933 One of his

paintings, probably dating from the first decade of the seventeenth century, portrays

an animated stag hunt (fig. 54).934 In the foreground, on the left, a female rider leaps

out of the woods, straddling her mount, to pursue the quarry into a clearing. The lady

is elegantly dressed, wearing a pearl necklace and sporting a burgundy hat bedaubed

with white and bright yellow feathers that match her long sleeves with dainty ruffled

cuffs. Her deep blue gown is open at the front to reveal a leg clothed in scarlet

breeches and green stockings fixed at the knee with a voluminous bow. In virtue of

their apparent softness and colour, this form of legwear well matches the description

in Von Adelsflügel’s manual. Should the lady stand, it is likely that her legs would be

covered by her voluminous gown, which appears similar to that worn by other ladies

depicted by Tempesta riding side-saddle. In those cases, however, the open gown is

worn over a more traditional skirt. The female figure riding astride appears again in

his engraving from the 1609 cacce discussed in Chapter III. The absence of colour in

the engraving is compensated by a superior rendering of certain details, including the

pinking on the lady’s breeches and sleeves (fig. 24). In both printed and painted

version of the scene, the woman’s horse appears ready to gallop, though it is still led

by a male attendant on foot. The observer is thus left wondering about the rider’s

933 See Chapter II, p. 145. 934 Antonio Tempesta, Stag Hunt. Painting auctioned by Farsettiarte in Prato on 28-30 October 2010, now in a private collection.

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Fig. 54: Antonio Tempesta, Stag Hunt. Painting auctioned by Farsettiarte in Prato on 28-30 October 2010, currently in a private collection

Fig. 55: Antonio Tempesta, Hunting Scene, 1630. Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Inv. 2340

Photo of ‘Antonio Tempesta, Stag Hunt’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Farsettiarte, Prato.

Photo of ‘Antonio Tempesta, Hunting Scene’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich.

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involvement in the actual chase. A painting at the Bavarian State Painting Collections

leaves no room for doubt in placing the female figure in the middle of the scene,

pursuing a hare through a clearing in the woods (fig. 55).935 Painted in less detail, the

lady is still recognisable because of her feathered hat and particular costume.

Tempesta remains unique in his depiction of ladies mounting astride and

wearing breeches. Even amongst the seventeenth-century equestrian painters that

were inspired by his work, no one went as far. The female riders of Philips

Wouverman or Claude Déruet, for example, hunt with great vigour but always

mounting astride and wearing a skirt. This might be a consequence of the fact that

riding astride was considered a somewhat daring practice and therefore less likely to

be recorded in painting. It is also possible that the wearing of breeches as a form of

outerwear was an Italian trend limited to the more daring ladies straddling their horse.

In a printed account of his journey through Italy in the early 1590s, the English

traveller Fynes Moryson recorded

Also I have seene honourable Women, as well married as Virgines, ride by the high way in Princes traines, apparelled like Men, in a doublet close to the body, and large breeches open at the knees, after the Spanish fashion, both of carnation silke or satten, and likewise riding astride like men upon Horses and Mules, but their heads were attired like Women, with bare haires knotted, or else covered with gold netted cawles and a hat with a feather.936

Noted by Moryson as an Italian peculiarity, women’s fashion for riding astride

wearing trousers seem to have reached England in the following century, if we are to

believe to the expressed by Thomas Ellwood in his poem Speculum Seculi, or a

Looking-Glass for the Times, written in 1662:

But Sex-Distinctions too are laid aside, The Women wear the Trowsers, and the Vest: While Men in Muffs, Fans, Peticoats are drest. Some Women (oh, the Shame!) like ramping Rigs, Ride flaunting in their Powder’d Perriwigs:

935 Antonio Tempesta, Hunting Scene, 1630. Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Inv. 2340. 936 Fynes Moryson, An Itinerary: Containing His Ten Years Travel Through the Twelve Dominions of Germany, Bohemia, Switzerland, Netherland, Denmark, Poland, Italy, Turkey, France, England, Scotland and Ireland (London: John Beale, 1617), part 3, p. 173.

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Astride they sit (and not ashamed neither) Dresd up like Men, in Jacket, Cap and Feather937

In France, the only recorded instances of real seventeenth-century women riding

astride wearing breeches concern two of the high-born ladies discussed in the

previous chapter, whose experiences can hardly be regarded as conventional. Madame

de Saint-Baslemont notoriously rode like a man and wearing men’s garments.

According to her biographer, the Père Vernon, she habitually donned ‘masculine

clothing concealed under female dress’ so that she could remove it swiftly should she

need to mount in the saddle and fight approaching enemies.938 Madame de La Guette,

proud of her ability to ride like a man, recalled in her memoirs that once she and her

niece Mademoiselle de Vibrac went hunting deer in the woods in masculine garb and

wearing boots.939 It seems, however, that she preferred traditional attire on more

formal occasions. Once, accompanied by a group of courtiers in a cavalcade, she

galloped so energetically that her skirt rose to show her thigh.940 Breeches certainly

constituted a more comfortable form of attire for a keen rider, yet clerical censorship

against cross-dressing rendered it a most controversial fashion.941 Madame de Saint-

Baslemont for one was publicly accused of bringing misfortune to her household by

persisting to dress in men’s clothing.942

Discretely concealed under a variety of fashionable skirts and petticoats, riding

breeches represented a safe and elegant alternative to the outright appropriation of

male clothing. In addition to protecting the upper leg from cold and unpleasant

937 Thomas Ellwood, The history of the life of Thomas Ellwood: Or, an account of his birth, education, &c. with divers observations on his life and manners when a youth: … Also several other remarkable passages and occurrences. Written by his own hand (London: printed and sold by the assigns of J. Sowie, 1714), p. 199. 938 ‘Etant toujours bottée, et portant l’habillement d’homme caché sous l’habillement de femme, à la première alarme, signifiée par un coup de cloche, on la voyait à cheval, après avoir quitté sa jupe, et retenant le juste-au-corps’. Vernon, L'amazone chrestienne, p. 146. 939 La Guette, Mémoires, p. 69. 940 Ibid., p. 195. 941 Affirmed in Deuteronomy 22.3, the interdiction to wear clothing of the other sex was reaffirmed in two canons of the Council of Gangra (c. 341) then formalised in the Decretum Gratiani (1180). See Harris, Hidden Agendas. 942 Cuénin, La dernière des amazones, pp. 135-136.

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friction, they must have provided new freedom of movement for ladies whose

corporeal and sartorial habits usually revolved around ideas of grace and containment.

Absent in any account of seventeenth-century French fashion, their popularity is

attested by a single source, the anonymous pamphlet The Royal Pastime, briefly

mentioned in the previous chapter. Dating from around 1680, this document described

the amusements of Louis XIV and his court in the newly-refurbished palace of

Versailles, which included hunting on horseback surrounded by a group of

‘indefatigable’ ladies.943 On one occasion, the company had been entertained by the

sudden fall of one of the female riders; the incident is said to have been all the more

bemusing since that day ‘the ladies, contrary to their ordinary habit, had not been

wearing breeches (caleçons)’.944 It is thus through a salacious tale that the fashion for

women’s riding breeches was presented as a sartorial norm at the court of the Sun

King. The pamphlet did not provide any information on the equestrian garment other

than its being referred to as caleçon. Antoine Furetière’s 1690 Universal Dictionary

defined the term as ‘item of clothing that covers the thighs, connected to the belt and

placed on the naked skin. Normally made of cloth, it can also be found in chamois,

taffeta etc.’945 Available in a variety of expensive fabrics, the more elegant versions

certainly seem to match the comfort and softness of von Adlersflügel’s trousers. To

conclude the definition, the dictionary provided an example of usage: ‘beware of

women wearing breeches’.946

In its pithiness, Furetière’s sentence very much savours of popular wisdom

and it appears hard to establish to which degree it might or might not have been

associated with the actual wearing of breeches. What appears evident, however, was

the belief that donning a bifurcated garment was likely to lead to more daring and

943 ‘[L]es Dames qui accompagnent d’ordinaire sa Majesté dans cet exercice, y parurent infatigables & y firent voir beaucoup de vigueur’. Le Passe-Temps Royal, p. 100. 944 ‘[E]lle dit devant plusieurs personnes, que cette cheute devoit estre d’autant plus sensible à cette belle chasseresse, que les Dames ne s’estoient pas pourveuës de caleçons contre l’ordinaire’. Ibid., p. 101. 945 ‘Vêtement qui couvre les cuisses, qu’on attache à la ceinture, & que qu’on mez sur la chair nuë. Il est ordinairement de toile; mais on en fait aussi de chamois, de taffetas, &’. See the definition of ‘caleçon’ in Furetière’s 1690 Dictionnaire universel. 946 ‘Il se faut garder des femmes qui portent le caleçon’. Ibidem.

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dangerous corporeal behaviours. Some engravings in late sixteenth-century Venetian

costume books even established a connection between the wearing of breeches as

underwear and high-end prostitution.947 Meanwhile, the popular iconographic topos of

the fight for the breeches expressed contemporary anxieties connected with shifting

gender dynamics in the household and society more generally.948 A 1678 print by the

Bolognese engraver Giuseppe Maria Mitelli (1634-1718) depicted the struggle’s

outcome as a topsy-turvy domestic reality in which the woman proudly sports the

contested garment and assumes domineering poses (fig. 56).949

947 See the chapter ‘Liftable Skirts and Deadly Secrets’ in Suzanne Karr Schmidt, Interactive and Sculptural Printmaking in the Renaissance (Leiden: Brill, 2018), pp. 353-391. 948 Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, ‘La lutte pour la culotte, un topos iconographique des rapports conjugaux (xve-xixe siècles), Clio. Femmes, Genre, Histoire 34 (2011), pp .203-218.949 Fig. 56: Giuseppe Maria Mitelli, Proverbi figurati consecrati al Serenissimo Principe Francesco Maria di Toscana / Trista è quella casa dove la gallina canta e il gallo tace, 1678. London, The British Museum, Inv. 1872,1012.3837; the print is examined in Patricia B. Rocco, The Devout Hand: Women, Virtue, and Visual Culture in Early Modern Italy (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017), pp. 186-197. I thank Guido Beduschi for drawing my attention to this engraving.

Fig. 56: Giuseppe Maria Mitelli, Proverbi figurati consecrati al Serenissimo Principe Francesco Maria di Toscana / Trista è quella casa dove la gallina canta e il gallo tace, 1678. London, The British Museum, Inv. 1872,1012.3837

Photo of ‘Giuseppe Maria Mitelli, Proverbi figurati’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: The British Museum, London.

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Though portrayed as part of an unrealistic hybrid costume, her voluminous

and soft-looking breeches, gathered at the knee and bedaubed with ribbons, bear a

marked resemblance to those painted by Tempesta. The display of the clothed leg, and

especially a shapely calf, remained a key element of elite males’ corporeal display

throughout the early modern period.950 Bifurcated garments, Susan Vincent explains,

came to represent a form of sartorial shorthand for an ensemble of corporeal attributes

that were considered ‘markers of the particular gendered qualities of self-

determination and rationality’.951 Whether hidden or showcased in plain sight, riding

breeches provided early modern women with an occasion to experience greater

freedom of movement and achieve unprecedented corporeal empowerment. While

their liberating effects acted directly on the wearer’s body, other equestrian

accessories were designed to send a powerful message to the observer’s eye.

IV.2 The Feather Panache Like breeches, the adoption of other masculine items of clothing by horsewomen can

be explained in light of very practical reasons. Doublets and vests with a masculine

cut allowed a freer movement of the upper body and protected the ladies’ delicate

skin from the elements. Boots were considerably sturdier than shoes. Other

accessories instead appear to have performed a symbolic function in defining what

constituted feminine equestrian attire. Sixteenth and seventeenth-century visual

sources suggest that women across Europe almost invariably wore a feathered

headdress when in the saddle. Whilst donning a large-brimmed hat or bonnet might

have served to protect the wearer from cold, rain or sunlight, the ornamentation with

feathers performed no such immediately evident function. Ulinka Rublack and Stefan

Hanß have recently shed new light on early modern feather-making techniques and

the cultural significance of feathers at the time.952 According to their findings, plumed

950 Rublack, Dressing Up, p. 18. 951 Vincent, The Anatomy of Fashion, p. 120. 952 Rublack and Hanß’ research on feathers is part of the interdisciplinary project ‘Materialized Identities: Objects, Affects and Effects in Early Modern Culture, 1450-1750’. While their research findings have been recorded on the project’s blog, I am grateful to Ulinka Rublack for sharing further insights from forthcoming publications. On the study of

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accessories were sometimes employed to waterproof headwear and at the same time

they were thought to help preserve and even generate heat. Less tangible, but effective

nonetheless, were the symbolic meanings that traditionally connected the wearing of

feathers with the martial sphere. Since Antiquity, military men and warriors from

various populations across the globe have been found to don various types of plumed

headdresses. Vividly coloured and standing upright, they constituted a powerful way

to strike awe into the heart of enemies as well as galvanize one’s own companions. In

so doing, they acted as veritable ‘affective artefacts’ embued with the power to alter

the emotional condition of the wearer as well as the observer.953 While magnifying

every movement and reflecting light, these objects created a figure larger than life. In

sixteenth-century Europe, the wearing of plumes gradually became a popular form of

ornament amongst civilian dress as their variety greatly increased with the discovery

of the Americas as well as the intensification of trade with Africa and the East.

Feathers’ exoticism, combined with their material power to dazzle, became connected

with the display of wealth and elegance that set the ruling classes aside. They also

served to show off the owner’s intellectual curiosity and knowledge of faraway lands

with their peoples and customs. On the wider social stage, this trend testified to the

success of European states’ commercial and colonial expansion. Feather-makers were

sought-after and highly skilled craftsmen.

The donning of a plumed headdress became especially associated with riding

and hunting outfits, since both activities combined the controlled exhibition of

belligerent strength with the conspicuous display of aristocratic distinction. Moreover,

as an animal product and the fruit of hunting, ornamental feathers established a direct

connection with the element of air and nature more generally. In choosing an

appropriate form of attire, the hunter was invited to reflect on the complex

relationship that entangled humans with animals and the surrounding environment.

feather-making techniques, see Stefan Hanß, ‘Material Encounters: Knotting Cultures in Early Modern Peru and Spain’, The Historical Journal 62.3 (2019), pp. 583-615. 953 Giulia Piredda, ‘What is an affective artifact? A further development in situated affectivity’, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences (June 2019), accessed on 10 April 2020, URL: [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11097-019-09628-3].

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After considering at length the medical nature of cynegetic exercise, the seventeenth-

century physician Michel Bicaise commented that ‘certain clothes are destined to

hunters so that they shall protect and preserve them, and that their colours shall

entertain and surprise or attract: green is agreeable to deer, grey does not frighten

one’s chase, but red renders cruel both the hunter and the animals that he pursues’.954

In virtue of its inherent connection with blood, red was thought to inspire vigour

through the senses of sight and touch.955 In his popular treatise On the signification of

colors, the Mantuan humanist Fulvio Pellegrino Morato (c. 1483-1548) explained

how red dye was used to infuse people with courage because its natural components

were thought to have a ‘stimulating and heating strength’.956 Soldiers, Morato argued,

often wore red to make up for their natural pusillanimity. For the same reason, lively

shades of red, such as scarlet, appear to have been particularly popular dyes for early

modern hunting garb.

In the matter of riding, Antoine de Pluvinel envisaged the ideal horseman’s

apparel to reflect propriety as well as commodity.957 With this principle in mind, the

experienced riding master issued practical recommendations such as ‘never to wear a

heavy hat, or too wide-brimmed’, that would fall easily and require continuous

954 ‘De tout cela, on voit pourquoy on destine certains habillemens aux chasseurs, afin qu’ils les munissent & qu’ils les preservent, & que leurs coleurs servent tout ensemble à amuser, à surprendre ou à attirer: ainsi le verd est agreable au cerf, le gris n’effare point la chasse, mais le rouge rend cruel le chasseur, & les animaux qu’il poursuit’. Bicaise, La manière de régler, p. 295. 955 On early modern understandings of colour, see Tawrin Baker, Sven Dupré, Sachiko Kusokawa and Karin Leonhard (eds), Early Modern Colour Worlds (Leiden: Brill, 2016). More specifically on colour and dress, see Rublack, ‘Renaissance Dress, Cultures of Making, and the Period Eye’, esp. pp. 23-24. 956 ‘… perciò gli timidi soldati mancandogli il calore naturale, pigliano il color finto Rosso, perche le cose che concorreno à fare il color Rosso, hanno forza incentiva e calorifica, piu che quelle che concorreno à far gli altri colori, & cosi aiutano la loro pusillanimità naturale’. Fulvio Pellegrino Morato, Del significato de colori (Venezia, 1535), pp 19-20. The treatise was followed by an expanded edition in 1545, in which the author also discussed the signification of flowers (mazzolli). 957 Pluvinel, L’Instruction du Roy en l’exercice de monter à cheval, p. 6.

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readjusting.958 He concluded, however, by squarely declaring that ‘a chevalier should

never appear without a feather’. 959 Chrispijn van de Passe’s engraving of ‘the

horseman’s attire in the style of Pluvinel’, featured in the Le Maneige Royal, depicts a

high-crowned hat with the brim turned up and decorated with a short band and a

couple of voluminous feathers (fig. 57). 960 Some figures in Van de Passe’s

illustrations wear similar headdresses, whereas others sport more daring models with

wider brims and almost drooping feathers. Early seventeenth-century paintings show

that, when represented on horseback, women often wore feathered hats and bonnets

not too dissimilar to those donned by their male companions. Tempesta’s huntress, for

example, wears a high-crowned hat very similar to the type portrayed in Pluvinel’s

treatise, as does Anne of Denmark in her 1617 portrait by Paul Van Somer.961 Two of

Rubens’ large-scale hunting scenes from around 1615 feature ladies donning flat

958 ‘[N]e porter jamais de chapeau pesant, ny qui aye le bord trop large, pour éviter le danger qu’un cheval incommode en maniant ne le face tomber, ou l’oblige d’y porter souvent la main’. Ibidem. 959 ‘Il ne faut jamais que le Chevalier soit sans plume’. Ibid., p. 7. 960 Crispijn van de Passe, ‘Figure de l’habit de chevalier à la Pluvinelle’. Engraving for Antoine de Pluvinel, Le Manège royal, 1623. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Est. KE-7-FOL. 961 Jemma Field, ‘Anna of Denmark: A late portait by Paul van Somer (c1577-1621), The British Art Journal 18.2 (2017), pp. 50-55.

Fig. 57: Crispijn van de Passe, ‘Figure de l’habit de chevalier à la Pluvinelle’. Engraving for Antoine de Pluvinel, Le Manège royal, 1623. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Est. KE-7-FOL

Photo of ‘Crispijn van de Passe, “Figure de l’habit de chevalier à la Pluvinelle” removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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crowned black leather bonnets adorned with long white ostrich feathers, which are not

dissimilar to those worn by other horsemen in the painting.962 Charles I and Henrietta

Maria are portrayed by both Daniel Mytens and Anton Van Dyck as they set off for

the hunt sporting matching wide-brimmed black hats bedaubed by white ostrich

feathers.963

While the style of female riding hats evolved following male fashions, the

disposition of ornamental feathers played an increasingly crucial part, taking over the

lady’s equestrian headdress. This is clearly illustrated by the drawing of a deer hunt

realised by the Lorraine printmaker Jacques Bellange, discussed in Chapter II.964

Inspired by the work of Tempesta, the animated scene includes the delicate depiction

of a female rider wearing a high-crowned hat. Unlike the Italian’s model, however,

Bellange turned the lady’s headdress into a tall construction with a tuft of straight

feathers towering over softer, drooping plumes that cover most of the hat’s brim. This

design appeared again in a painting by Bellange’s most celebrated pupil, Claude

Déruet’s Hunt of the Duchess Nicole. In both versions of this work, the ladies

depicted sport the same type of plumed hat in an endless variety of colour

combinations. Flamboyant though it may appear, Déruet’s depiction is likely to have

been inspired by the reality of aristocratic equestrian entertainments. In her memoirs,

the Grande Mademoiselle described the pomp of court hunting parties where Louis

XIII rode alongside a group of young ladies including his eleven-year-old niece. ‘We

were all dressed in colourful habits’, she remembered, ‘mounted on beautiful mares

richly caparisoned, each with a plumed hat to shelter ourselves from the sun”.965

962 Peter Paul Rubens and Workshop, Wolf and Fox Hunt, c. 1616. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Inv. 10.73. See also Rubens’ Boar Hunt at the Musée de Beaux-Arts Marseilles, Inv. 103. 963 The same headdress features in two separate Van Dyck portraits of the royal couple in equestrian garb and two engraved portraits of the queen: Jean Leblond I, Serenissima Potentissimaque Henrica Maria, Dei Gratia Magnae Britanniae, Franciae, Hibern. Regina, 1625-1650. British Museum, Inv. 1862,0712.653 and Pierre Daret, Equestrian portrait of Henrietta Maria of France, 1625-1630. Royal Collection Trust. Inv. RCIN 602051. 964 See p. 155 and fig. 34. 965 ‘Nous étions toutes vêtues de couleur, sur des belles haquenées richement caparaçonnées, et, pour se garantir du soleil, chacune avait un chapeau garni de quantité de plumes’. Montpensier, Mémoires, vol. 1, p. 40.

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As discussed in the previous chapter, Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans grew up

to become a skilled horsewoman. An exquisite portrait painted by Louis Ferdinand

Elle the Elder (1612-1689) around 1660 shows the Grande Mademoiselle in the full

splendour of her equestrian garb (fig. 58).966 Her luxurious habit follows the style of

the day with its narrow bodice studded with pearls, low neckline and the ever-present

collier of pearls. The outfit’s equestrian nature is only revealed through its

accessories, a beribboned riding stick and feather panache placed atop the lady’s

carefully modelled ringlets. Composed of two layers of drooping plumes in the three

colours white, black and red, the headdress appears at a first glance more suited for a

theatrical costume or fancy dress. Yet mid-seventeenth-century prints of two hunting

scenes designed by Balthazar Moncornet (c. 1600-1668) show ladies riding in outfits

that closely match the one sported by Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans (fig. 59).967 The

decoration of the riding stick, the plumed headdress and even the hairstyle are

virtually identical to those depicted in Elle’s portrait. More generally, contemporary

testimonies confirm the extent to which the donning of feathers had become strongly

associated with equestrian pleasures in French aristocratic circles. In her biography of

Henrietta of England, the Countess of La Fayette (1634-1693) recalled the delightful

atmosphere that reigned at court during the summer of 1661. While residing at the

Château de Fontainebleau, the young princess enjoyed daily afternoon rides, setting

off in a carriage because of the heat and returning on horseback followed by the King

966 Ferdinand Elle the Elder, Portrait of Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans in hunting garb. Painting auctioned by Christie’s in Paris on 16 December 2009, now preserved at the Château de Cadillac in the Gironde region. 967 Balthazar Moncornet (author) and Jean Sauvé (printer), Roe deer hunt and Deer hunt, Deposit of the musée de la Chasse et de la Nature de Paris au musée de la Vénerie de Senlis. Inv. D.V.2006.0.59 and D.V.2006.0.59.2. The only in-depth study of Moncornet’s life and work remain the unpublished master’s thesis by Edmond Rohfritsch, ‘Balthazar Moncornet, graveur et éditeur et marchand d’estampes à Paris au XVIIe siècle, ou l’invention du portrait de grande diffusion’, Université Paris IV Sorbonne (1996). The printer and print seller Jean Sauvé (c. 1635-post 1692), was active in Paris between the middle of the 17th century and 1692. See Maxime Préaud, Marianne Grivel, Corinne Le Bitouzé, Dictionnaire des éditeurs d’estampes à Paris sous l’ancien regime (Paris: Edition du Cercle de la librairie, 1987), p. 279.

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Fig. 58: Ferdinand Elle the Elder, Portrait of Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans in hunting garb. Painting auctioned by Christie’s in Paris on 16 December 2009, currently preserved at the Château de Cadillac.

Fig. 60: Caspar Netscher (attr.), Portrait of Henrietta of England Duchess of Orléans, 1661-1670. Painting auctioned by Christie’s in London on 10 May 2005, currently in a private collection

Fig. 59: Balthazar Moncornet (author) and Jean Sauvé (printer), Roe deer hunt, musée de la Vénerie de Senlis, Inv. D.V.2006.0.59.1

Fig. 61: Pierre Mignard (style of), Portrait of a Young Lady, c. 1660-1670. Barnard Castle, Bowes Museum, Inv. B.M.247

Photo of ‘Ferdinand Elle the Elder, Portrait of Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans in hunting garb’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Christie’s.

Photo of Balthazar Moncornet and Jean Sauvé, Roe deer hunt’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: musée de la Vénerie de Senlis.

Photo of ‘Caspar Netscher (attr.), Portrait of Henrietta of England Duchess of Orléans’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Christie’s.

Photo of ‘Pierre Mignard (style of), Portrait of a Young Lady’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle.

242

and all the young courtiers. The ladies, Madame de La Fayette added, were ‘elegantly

dressed, with a thousand plumes on their heads’.968 Henrietta herself was portrayed

around this time sporting a voluminous red and white panache while holding a

medallion portrait of her spouse Philippe d’Orléans (fig. 60).969 The rest of her dress,

however, does not present particular equestrian association.

The Gobelins tapestry depicting Louis XIV and Maria-Theresa riding in the

gardens of Saint-Germain-en-Laye includes four ladies whose colourful plumed

headdresses flutter in the wind. Van der Meulen’s equestrian paintings of Vincennes

and Fontainebleau also show the royal couple accompanied by female courtiers

sporting costly justaucorps and voluminous plumed panaches on their head. A 1679

engraving at the Bibliothèque nationale also shows the King setting off to hunt deer

surrounded by a group of female courtiers sporting similar headdresses. 970 The

contemporary pamphlet The Royal Pastime indulged in the description of

Mademoiselle de Fontanges, the short-lived mistress of Louis XIV, taking part in a

hunting party at Versailles.971 ‘That day’, the anonymous author reported, ‘she was

wearing a embroidered justaucorps of considerable price and her coiffure was made

of the most beautiful feathers that could be found; that outfit looked so well on her

that it seemed impossible that she could wear anything more flattering’.972

It is not hard to understand why the fashionable plumed panache made such a

strong and generally positive impression upon awestruck onlookers. Unlike the

968 ‘[T]outes les Dames habillées galamment, avec mille plumes sur leur tête’. Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne comtesse de La Fayette, Histoire de Madame Henriette d’Angleterre Première Femme de Philippe de France duc d’Orléans (Amsterdam: Chez Michel Charles Le Cène, 1720), pp. 52-53. 969 The painting attributed to Caspar Netscher (c. 1639-1684) was auctioned by Christie’s in London on 10 May 2005 and now in a private collection. A copy attributed to Theodore Netscher is held within the collections of the Musée Condé (Inv. PE 142). 970 Anonymous engraving of A Royal Hunt at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cabinets des Estampes et Photographie, QB-1 FOL M-93216. The engraving is dated from around 1679, but in all probability depicts fashions from a previous 971 Marie Angélique de Scorailles was born in 1661 and died suddenly on 28th June 1681. 972 ‘Elle estoit vestuë ce jour là d’un juste-au-corps en broderie d’un prix considérable, & sa coëffure estoit faite des plus belles plumes qu’on eut pû trouver; il sembloit tant elle avoit bon air avec cet habillement, qu’elle ne pouvoit pas en porter un qui lui fut plus avantageux’. Le Passe-Temps Royal, p. 78

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various types of hat that had been previously donned by female riders, it created the

tantalising illusion that the ornamental feathers arose naturally from the wearer’s hair.

A portrait of in the style of Pierre Mignard at the Bowes Museum shows the panache

emerging straight from the lady’s hurluberlu coiffure without the intermediary of a

hat or coif (fig. 61).973 It is likely that the plumes were individually attached on a band

fixed at the back of the head where natural hair was gathered. The recent historical

reconstruction of a similar plumed headdress, led by Ulinka Rublack and Jenny

Tiramani, shows that such towering structures were probably supported by light-

weight wire frames.974 It has also become evident that, in order to achieve the desired

soft and vaporous appearance, up to five feathers had to be stitched together to create

a single plume. This process, together with additional washing and dyeing, rendered

the making of such ornamental artefacts a time-consuming and skilled enterprise.

In spite of their lightness, these panaches must have been unstable affairs to

carry on one’s head in the open. Besides, wind and heavy rain would have easily

spoiled their effect. It seems that equestrian headwear might have changed according

to the season, sturdier and warmer hats being still preferred during the colder months.

In April 1657, the poet Jean Loret described the young Louis XIV riding surrounded

by a group of elegant court ladies, adding

That their habits, or garments, Greatly increased their amusements; Habits, not in the French fashion, But, rather, in the Danish style: That is to say, des Juste-au-corps, And on their head, wide-brimmed bonnets (topabords), Garnished with waving plumes, Which rendered them so elegant, That even a severe and wise Cato

973 Pierre Mignard (style of), Portrait of a Young Lady, c. 1660-1670. Barnard Castle, Bowes Museum, Inv. B.M.247. 974 An account of this reconstruction, together with a short film, has been published on the University of Cambridge website; see Tom Almeroth-Williams, ‘When real men wore feathers: The recreation of a Renaissance headdress reveals how European men harnessed the seductive power of ostrich feathers’, accessed on 11 April 2020, URL: [https://www.cam.ac.uk/whenmenworefeathers].

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Would have been charmed, so they say.975

The topabord, Furetière’s dictionary explained, was a type of bonnet inspired from

northern ‘English’ fashion, whose wide brim ‘is folded down to protect from wind

and sunlight’.976 Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans reported how the court had moved to

Moulins in the winter of 1659. There the King went on daily rides surrounded by a

group of ladies who wore plumed bonnets made of black velvet.977 In spite of this

precaution, the Grande Mademoiselle observed, ‘I believe their ears must still have

been freezing, for in the middle of the countryside the cold is felt through the

curls’.978 Elsewhere she noted how Madame de Sully had started the fashion to wear

plumed bonnets lined in fur during the hunt. 979 While still luxury items, these

bonnets’ structural and chromatic simplicity represented a nod to the taste for

masculine equestrian hats in the previous century. By contrast, the fashionable high

and colourful headdresses represented a bolder statement of novelty and

independence. Their significance went beyond the simple display of wealth and was

connected with new ideas concerning the role of elite women in French society.

I have already discussed how the figure of the ‘Amazon’ became key to the

lively debate concerning female ability and right to act on the public stage in

seventeenth-century France. Traditional notions gathered from classical texts were

supplemented with travel accounts of ‘Amazonian’ tribes and Chassepol’s

philological study on the subject. Deeply embedded within current political and

intellectual debates, Amazonian imagery spread across the artistic landscape of

975 ‘Que leur habits, ou vêtemens, / Augmentoient fort leurs agrémens; / Habits, non pas à la Françoize, / Mais, Presque, à la Danoize: / C’est-à-dire des Just-au-corps, / Et sur leur chefs des Tapabors, / Ornez de plumes ondoyantes, / Ce qui les rendoit si galantes, / Qu’un sévére et sage Caton / En eût êté charmé, dit-on.’ Jean Loret, La muze historique, ou Recueil des lettres en vers contenant les nouvelles du temps: écrites à S[on] A[ltesse] Mad.elle de Longueville (Paris: Chez Charles Chenault, 1657), pp. 52-53. 976 ‘Bonnet à l’Angloise […] don’t on abat les bords pour se gatentir du vent & du hale’. The name is literally composed of taper ‘cover’ and bord ‘brim’. 977 Montpensier, Mémoires, vol. 3, p. 349. 978 ‘[M]ais je crois qu’elles ne lassoient pas d’avoir bien froid aux oreilles; car en plaine campagne il pénètre les boucles’. Ibidem. 979 Montpensier, Mémoires, vol. 2, p. 250. Françoise de Créquy (1596-1656) married Maximilien II Duke of Sully in 1608.

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seventeenth-century France. The abstract and vague ideas conjured up by literary

descriptions acquired more tangibility through visual representations in the form of

paintings and engravings.980 In the second half of the century, Amazons also made

their appearance as characters in plays, operas, court pageants and equestrian

carrousels. 981 The comparison between elite women and belligerent warriors

gradually ceased to be a mere literary trope. The poetic exaltation of strong women

together with a growing interest in classical culture resulted in a new vogue in female

portraiture. Real-life noblewomen began to appear depicted in mythological trappings

and bearing arms. The Regent Maria de’ Medici set the example with her equestrian

portrait painted by Rubens between 1622 and 1625 to commemorate the French

victory at Jülich.982 The fifty-year-old regent is depicted mounting majestically cross-

saddle, clad in classical-looking garments and crowned with a plumed helmet.

Traditionally regarded as a quintessentially masculine and military attribute, this type

of headgear was also sported by the female deity Athena. Combining intellectual

strength and patronage of the arts with military ardour, the goddess of wisdom

provided the ideal disguise for a woman wishing to be represented as a legitimate

political actor. At least three portraits of the Grande Mademoiselle in this guise

survive.983 The most famous is certainly the one painted by Pierre Bourgouignon

around 1672, in which she holds a medallion portrait of her deceased father Gaston

d’Orléans (fig. 62).984 The shield with Medusa’s head, a pike and the little ornamental

owl perched atop her helmet make it easy to decipher the mythological reference. An

earlier likeness by Claude Deruet shows a helmeted Grande Mademoiselle clad in

classical garb and surrounded by symbols of her various cultural interests. 985 A

980 Villemur, ‘De l’Air ! Les Amazones de Claude Deruet (1588-1560)’, in Leduc (ed.), Réalité et représentations des amazones, pp. 65-88. 981 Dorothée, ‘Femmes fortes et Amazones. 982 Originally displayed in the Luxembourg Palace, the painting is now at the Louvre (Inv. 1781). 983 Elise Goodman, ‘Minerva Revivified: Mademoiselle de Montpensier’, Mediterranean Studies 15 (2006), pp. 79-116. 984 Pierre Bourgouignon, Portrait of Anne-Marie-Louise of Orléans as Minerva. Château of Versailles, Inv. MV 3504. 985 Painting held at the David E. Rust Collection, Whashington.

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smaller three-quarter portrait by the court painter Charles Beaubrun depicts her

carrying a pike and sporting a helmet adorned with white, blue and red plumes.986 Her

companion Anne de La Grange-Trianon, Countess of Frontenac, appears similarly

portrayed with a plumed helmet and holding Minerva’s shield (fig. 63).987 Wishing to

convey an image of physical valour accompanied by sound virtue, other noblewomen

preferred to be depicted as Artemis or one of her female companions.988 Louise de La

Vallière was thus painted by Claude Lefèbvre in 1667, carrying a bow, a quiver full of

arrows and accompanied by two hunting dogs.989 Her white dress and veil signify a

purity of spirit, which is further enhanced by contrast with the blood-red strap across

her bodice. Alongside these images of deities equipped with their codified set of

iconographic attributes, a new type of mythological camouflage became particularly

popular amongst fashionable ladies. Female courtiers were depicted in the pose of

warriors, typically carrying a pike in the right hand and holding a shield in the left. On

the whole their dress appeared to have lost all pretence of resembling armour and

simply followed the line of fashionable garments. In his portrait of Olympia Mancini,

Countess of Soissons, the court painter Charles Beaubrun added a classical touch by

inserting a skirt of leather or fabric strips at the top of the sleeves and at the bottom of

the bodice (fig. 64).990 These were meant to echo the pteruges attached to the armour

of Greek and Roman soldiers to protect the upper parts of their limbs.991 Instead of the

tall Athenian helmet, the sitter appears to sport a smaller bronze hat from which is

raised a line of six white and red plumes. Another portrait produced in the atelier of

the Charles and Henri Beaubrun depicts a lady in a similar guise who, in spite of

scarce physiognomic resemblance with other likenesses, has been traditionally

986 Painting at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Orléans. 987 Seventeenth-Century French School. Portrait of Anne de La Grange-Trianon, Countess of Frontenac as Minerva. Château de Versailles, Inv. MV 3508. 988 Almond, Daughters of Artemis, pp. 18-27. 989 Château of Versailles (Inv. MV 3540). Françoise Louise de La Baume Le Blanc Duchess of La Vallière (1644-1710) was the official mistress of Louis XIV between 1661 and 1667 and mother of two of his natural children. 990 Charles Beaubrun (copy of), Portrait of Olympia Mancini as Amazon. Gripsholms Slott, Nationalmuseum, Inv. NMGrh 1173. 991 Deriving its name from the Greek πτέρυγες ‘feathers’, these elements were usually fitted with small metal studs and plates that united defensive and decorative function.

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Fig. 62: Pierre Bourgouignon, Portrait of Anne-Marie-Louise of Orléans as Minerva. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. MV 3504

Fig. 64: Charles Beaubrun (copy of), Portrait of Olympia Mancini as Amazon. Gripsholms Slott, Nationalmuseum, Inv. NMGrh 1173

Fig. 63: Seventeenth-Century French School. Portrait of Anne de La Grange-Trianon, Countess of Frontenac as Minerva. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. MV 3508

Fig. 65: Henri and Charles Beaubrun (atelier of), Portrait of the Grande Mademoiselle as Amazon. Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Inv. P 2198

Photo of ‘Pierre Bourgouignon, Portrait of Anne-Marie-Louise of Orléans as Minerva’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon.

Photo of ‘Portrait of Anne de La Grange-Trianon, Countess of Frontenac as Minerva’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon.

Photo of ‘Charles Beaubrun (copy of), Portrait of Olympia Mancini as Amazon’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Gripsholms Slott, Nationalmuseum.

Photo of ‘Henri and Charles Beaubrun (atelier of), Portrait of the Grande Mademoiselle as Amazon’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée Carnavalet, Paris.

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identified as the Grande Mademoiselle (fig. 65).992 Aside from her bearing of pike and

shield, the sitter’s classical camouflage in this instance is limited to the insertion of

scalloped bands of pearl coloured satin edged with pearls and red stones. The elegant

pearl necklace and earrings match these ornaments, while in the lady’s hair another

string of pearls appears to support a line of white plumes, some of which are partly

dyed in red.

Their choice of weapons and headdress suggests that the model for these

mythological representations is that of the Amazon. In his philological study, François

de Chassepol gathered information from various classical sources to sketch the ideal

portrait of the belligerent women. He reports how they wore their bodices partially

open on the right side, leaving their breast covered only by ‘a little flowing cloak’ to

facilitate the handling of weapons and shooting of arrows.993 Similarly their legs were

allowed more freedom by holding up part of their skirts with a brooch. They carried a

variety of weapons including bow and arrows, a sword, a pike or an axe. What

Chassepol mentioned first, however, was the fact that ‘their head was covered by a

little helmet charged with plumes of different colours, which created by their radiance

(éclat) an agreeable effect to the sight’.994 Feather headdresses, and feathers more

generally, were similarly associated with the populations of belligerent women in the

New World and Africa. They feature prominently in two rare depictions of

Amazonian costumes for European court masques. Sophia von der Pfalz (1630-1714),

future Electress of Hanover, was depicted in this guise by her elder sister Louise

Hollandine (1622-1709) (fig. 66).995 The most striking element of her outfit consists

of a cloak of feathers fastened at the shoulders with a precious brooch. She also wears

a long headdress of red feathers and carries a spear. Sophia’s costume was probably

inspired by first-hand accounts and objects brought back by her uncle Count John

992 Henri and Charles Beaubrun (atelier of), Portrait of the Grande Mademoiselle as Amazon. Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Inv. P 2198. 993 Chassepol, Histoire nouvelle, p. 87. 994 ‘Leur teste estoit couverte d’un petit casque chargé de plumes de differentes couleurs qui faisoient par leur éclat un effet agreable à la veuë’. Ibid., pp. 86-87. 995 Louise Hollandine of the Palatinate, Portrait of Sophia of the Palatinate as Amazon, 1644. Painting auctioned by Christie’s in London on 1 December 1994 and now in a private collection.

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Maurice of Nassau-Siegen, who acted as Governor of Dutch Brazil and returned to

The Hague in 1644. A similar disguise is sported by Mary Princess of Orange (1631-

1660) in the so-called ‘Amazon Portrait’ by Adriaen Hanneman, although in this case

the headdress consists in a turban adorned with light red drooping plumes and a string

of pearls (fig. 67).996

Representations by French artists seem to have been confined to Amazonian

imagery deriving from classical sources. Whilst moral considerations prevented

ladies from showing their naked breast and thighs, the wearing of a feathered panache

instead became universally popular. Indeed, it can be considered the hallmark of a

series of female portraits in mythological disguise produced by the most fashionable

court painters from the 1660s until around 1680. Feathered headdresses appear

sometimes associated with representations whose attributes clearly allude to Artemis.

Such is the case of portrait by the Beaubrun atelier representing a lady dressed in a

996 Adriaen Hanneman, Portrait of Mary Princess of Orange as Amazon, c. 1655. Royal Collection Trust, Inv. RCIN 405877. The painting is connected with the Princess’ appearance dressed as an Amazon at an entertainment in The Hague early in 1655.

Fig. 66: Louise Hollandine of the Palatinate, Portrait of Sophia of the Palatinate as Amazon, 1644. Painting auctioned by Christie’s in London on 1 December 1994, currently in a private collection

Fig. 67: Adriaen Hanneman, Portrait of Mary Princess of Orange as Amazon, c. 1655. Royal Collection Trust, Inv. RCIN 405877

Photo of ‘Louise Hollandine of the Palatinate, Portrait of Sophia of the Palatinate as Amazon’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Christie’s.

Photo of ‘Adriaen Hanneman, Portrait of Mary Princess of Orange as Amazon removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Royal Collection Trust.

250

white habit adorned with pearls (fig. 68).997 Carrying a full quiver and a small hunting

dog in her arms, she approaches a spring to gather water in a shell. A similar pose is

adopted by a painter in the circle of Pierre Mignard to depict Françoise-Athénaïs de

Montespan as Artemis carrying a bow (fig. 69).998 The relative osmosis between the

imagery of Artemis and the Amazon is best exemplified by yet another portrait of the

Grande Mademoiselle attributed to the Beaubrun brothers (fig. 70). 999 While the

subject’s pose and background are a perfect reflection of her portrait as Amazon, in

this version she carries a bow and a dog on a red leash. The pearls that encrust her

bodice are here arranged to mimic the scales of classical armour (lorica squamata)

and the Amazon’s floating red cloak is substituted by Artemis’ red quiver’s strip. The

two ladies’ headdresses, however, appear almost identical.

The growing popularity of these allegorical portraits attracted the disapproval

of the moralist writer Jean de La Bruyère. In the section ‘On Fashion’ of his

Characters, the author chastised the hypocrisy of his contemporaries who, while they

strove to follow the latest sartorial trends, in their portraits ‘prefer an arbitrary outfit,

an indifferent drapery, fantasies of the painter […] that resemble neither the customs

nor the person’.1000 In these representations, he continued, ‘they favour forced and

immodest attitudes, a harsh, wild and foreign fashions that turn […] a city woman

into a Diana, a simple and timid woman into an Amazon or Pallas’.1001 Apposite as it

may have been to describe the vulgarisation of such pictorial manner in the 1680s, La

Bruyère’s observation appears incorrect when looking back at its origins. In the first

997 The Portrait of the Grande Mademoiselle by the atelier of Henri and Charles Beaubrun was auctioned by Artcurial in Paris on 10 October 2011 and is now in a private collection. 998 Her portrait by an artist within the circle of Pierre Mignard was auctioned by Christie’s in London on 10 April 2003 and is now in a private collection. 999 This ‘presumed’ Portrait of the Grande Mademoiselle by the atelier of Herni and Charles Beaubrun was auctioned by Millon in Paris on 11 December 2006 and is now in a private collection. 1000 ‘[I]ls leur préfèrent une parure arbitraire, une draperie indifférente, fantaisies du peintre […] qui ne rappellent ni les mœurs ni la personne’. Jean de La Bruyère, Les caracteres de Theophraste traduits du grec. Avec Les caracteres ou les moeurs de ce siecle (Bruxelles: Chez J. Leonard, 1693), pp. 481-2. 1001 ‘Ils aiment des attitudes forcées ou immodestes, une manière dure, sauvage, étrangère, qui font […] une Diane d’une femme de ville; comme d’une femme simple et timide une amazone ou une Pallas’. Ibidem.

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Fig. 68: Henri and Charles Beaubrun (atelier of), Portrait of Anne Marie Louise of Orléans as Artemis. Painting auctioned by Artcurial in Paris on 10 October 2011, currently in a private collection

Fig. 70: Henri and Charles Beaubrun (atelier of), Portrait of Anne Marie Louise of Orléans as Artemis. Painting auctioned by Millon in Paris on 11 December 2006, currently in a private collection

Fig. 69: Pierre Mignard (circle of), Portrait of Françoise-Athénaïs de Montespan as Artemis. Painting auctioned by Christie’s in London on 10 April 2003, currently in a private collection

Photo of ‘Henri and Charles Beaubrun (atelier of), Portrait of Anne Marie Louise of Orléans as Artemis’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Artcurial, Paris.

Photo of ‘Pierre Mignard (circle of), Portrait of Françoise-Athénaïs de Montespan as Artemis’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Christie’s.

Photo of ‘Henri and Charles Beaubrun (atelier of), Portrait of Anne Marie Louise of Orléans as Artemis’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Millon, Paris.

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place, the noblewomen who were first depicted as the belligerent Amazon or Artemis

often did enjoy hunting and sometimes even engaged in military actions. In this sense,

they complicate the relationship between sitter and mythological model in the

Baroque portrait historié. In a recent volume, Volker Manuth, Rudie van Leeuwen

and Jos Koldeweij warn that ‘[b]y classifying the portrait historié as merely

allegorical, one disregards the underlying processes such as identification, role play,

projection, appropriation and substitution’. 1002 It is true that in certain cases the

donning of martial garb in portraiture responded exclusively to emblematic

conventions manipulated for political propaganda. 1003 Objects acted as a medium

through which certain qualities and attributes were transferred from the mythological

or historical model to the real-life sitter. Material accessories, however, did not simply

ornate the image by the superimposition of some disguise, according to original

meaning of the French ‘historier’; they also conferred movement to the composition

by the introduction of a more or less elaborate narrative. The wearing of classical

armour, for example, was accompanied by martial poses and dynamism in the figure

that could be connected with the sitter’s actual engagement in military action. It was

this embodied aspect connected with physical sensations and corporeal memories that

established a strong connection between everyday reality and ultramundane

representation in formam deorum. In the case of the portraits ‘en Amazone’ or ‘en

Diane’, the line between real experience and fiction was blurred by the material

identity of sartorial attributes. The multicoloured feather panache towering over the

heads of many noblewomen simultaneously alluded to the apparel of a belligerent

Amazon and the outfit of an elegant rider. Contrary to La Bruyère’s critique, those

women depicted did sport elements of real and even fashionable costume, a fact that

is attested by the evolution of French sartorial vocabulary. At the turn of the

eighteenth century, the expression ‘en Amazone’ became common currency to

1002 ‘Introduction’ in Volker Manuth, Rudie van Leeuwen and Jos Koldeweij (eds), Example or Alter Ego? Aspects of the Portrait Historié in Western Art from Antiquity to the Present (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), pp. 7-15, quote at p. 13. 1003 See for example the study by Jeroen Goudeau, ‘Harnessed Heroes: Mars, the Title-page, and the Dutch Stadtholders’, in Ibid., pp. 203-220.

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designate ladies wearing the so-called habit d’Amazone, the female riding uniform

whose origin will be examined in the last section of this chapter. The first mentions of

this sartorial turn of phrase place, however, date back to second half of the

seventeenth century. In November 1667, the Gazette reported the royal festivities for

Saint Hubert’s Day. The King and his court had moved to Versailles, then still a

hunting residence, ‘enoying for six days the divertissement de la chasse, where the

Queen and Madame were on horseback, superbly dressed en Amazones, as were all

the ladies’.1004 In her memoirs, Madame de Motteville (1615-1689) described the

Grande Mademoiselle, the Countesses of Fiesque and Frontenac and various other

ladies ‘dressed en Amazonnes’ as they set off to join the rebel troops in the spring of

1652. 1005 The contex in which the expression was used renders it clear that

contemporaries did not refer to a theatrical costume, but rather to a form of equestrian

garb that reminded them of Amazonian imagery. It was the voluminous plumed

headdress, therefore, that established a connection between the cynegetic exercise and

the art of war, the sphere of myth and reality.

Though it is arduous to establish whether such headdresses were first sported

on the hunting field or on canvas, it seems more likely that painters should be inspired

to include real-life accessories in the same way that they followed the real silhouettes

of garments. This thesis appears supported by the fact that women’s allegorical

portraits sometimes included other fashionable types of headdress used for hunting.

Black velvet plumed topabords or bonnets like those described the Grande

Mademoiselle, for example, make an appearance in at least two paintings from the

period. A likeness of a young lady’s head attributed to Louis Ferdinand Elle includes

a lavish hat in this style, adorned with a brooch, a tuft of white plumes and a line of

1004 ‘… ayans pris, pendant six jours, le Divertissement de la Chasse, où la Reyne, & Madame estoyent à cheval, superbement vestuës en Amazones, ainsi que toutes les Dames’. Report from Paris dated 12 November 1667 in the Gazette (1667), p. 1262. 1005 ‘Elle y alla avec beaucoup de joie & de résolution, suivie des Contesses de Fiesque & de Frontenac, & de plusieurs autres Dames habillées en Amazonnes’. Motteville Mémoires, vol. 4, p. 331.

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pearls (fig. 71).1006 The same accessory appears in a three-quarter portrait of a lady,

said to be Madame de Montespan, depicted by Pierre Mignard in the guise of Artemis

(fig. 72). 1007 The juxtaposition of fashionable accoutrements and mythological

attributes seem not to have troubled contemporaries’ imagination. When singing the

praises of a charming lady met at the thermal Forges in July 1658, portrayed under the

pseudonym of Cloris, the Duchess of Montpensier declared that’[s]he mounts well on

horseback; and when she goes hunting wearing her bonnet, with many plumes and a

justaucorps, there isn’t anyone who does not take her for Diana’.1008

1006 Louis Ferdinand Elle (attr.), Portrait of a young lady. Painting auctioned by Tajan in Paris on 26 June 2013 and currently in a private collection. 1007 Pierre Mignard, Portrait of Françoise-Athénaïs de Montespan as Artemis. Painting auctioned by Bukowskis in Stockholm on 13 December 2016 and currently in a private collection. 1008 ‘Elle monte bien à cheval; & quand elle va à la chasse avec son bonnet, avec force plumes & un just’au-corps, il n’y a personne qui ne la prenne pour Diane’. Montpensier, Portraits divers, p. 149. The true identity of Cloris remains a mystery, admits Jean Garapon, La culture d’une princesse, p. 212.

Fig. 71: Louis Ferdinand Elle (attr.), Portrait of a young lady. Painting auctioned by Tajan in Paris on 26 June 2013, currently in a private collection

Fig. 72: Pierre Mignard, Portrait of Françoise-Athénaïs de Montespan as Artemis. Painting auctioned by Bukowskis in Stockholm on 13 December 2016, currently in a private collection

Photo of ‘Louis Ferdinand Elle (attr.), Portrait of a young lady removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Tajan, Paris.

Photo of ‘Pierre Mignard, Portrait of Françoise-Athénaïs de Montespan as Artemis’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bukowskis, Stockholm.

255

The fluidity between Amazonian imagery and real-life horsewomen is made

manifest in two sets of hunting portraits realised to adorn the newly built residence of

Venaria, a monumental hunting residence commissioned by Charles Emmanuel II

Duke of Savoy (1634-1675). At the very heart of the complex lies the Palace Diana,

whose central hall is adorned with two series of paintings celebrating real-life

women’s cynegetic exploits. In the lower register, the viewer can admire ten paintings

by the Dutch artist Jan Miel detailing the various moments of the hunt, from the

gathering to the curée.1009 Immediately above were located twelve imposing double

equestrian portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Savoy and other female courtiers by

various painters, of which only ten survive.1010 Together they constitute a tribute to

aristocratic female hunters that is unparalleled in early modern Europe. Copies of

some of these paintings by the Turinese engraver Georges Tasnières adorned the

guide to the Venaria penned by the royal architect Amedeo di Castellamonte.1011

During the course of his literary tour through the palace and grounds, the author stops

to admire the paintings of ‘Lords and Ladies depicted from life, some in the guise of

Amazons, some as Huntresses, mounted on valiant horses’. 1012 The surviving

canvasses testify to the mixture of real and fictitious costumes. Charles Dauphin’s

portrait of Christine Charlotte de Fleury Marquess of San Giorgio accompanied by

Emmanuel Filiberto of Savoy-Carignano, for example, shows the lady in a realistic

fashion, elegantly holding a riding stick and sporting a low-cut loose cassock

decorated with heavy embroidery, a row of golden buttons and multicoloured ribbons

1009 These include hunting the stag, the hare, the bear, the fox, the wild boar; the death of the stag; the woods; the gathering before the hunt; the chase; the curing after the killing. Clelia Arnaldi di Balme, ‘Jan Miel e la serie delle Cacce per la Reggia di Venaria’, in Bianchi and Passerin d’Entrèves (eds), La Caccia nello Stato sabaudo, pp. 193-202. 1010 Comino, ‘I ritratti equestri della Sala di Diana alla Reggia di Venaria Reale’, in Ibid., pp. 203-222. 1011 Amedeo Cognengo di Castellamonte, Palazzo di Piacere, e di Caccia, Ideato dall’Altezza Reale di Carlo Emanuel II (Turin: Zapatta, 1674). 1012 ‘[O]rdine di Quadri maggiori dipinti a oglio, cinti di grandi cornici dorate rappresentanti Cavaglieri, e Dame al naturale, in habiti chi d’Amazoni, e chi di Cacciatrici, sopra generosi Cavalli’. Ibid., p. 28.

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(fig. 73).1013 The French artist also depicted Princess Ludovica Maria and her lady-in-

waiting Francesca Maria Cacherana Countess of Bagnasco dressed like Amazons,

both carrying a pike and the second even a sword at her waist. Tasnière’s engraving

reveals the many classically inspired details that are no longer distinguishable on the

deteriorated painting, such as the classical masks adorning their bodices (fig. 74).1014

The same variety can be observed in all other surviving paintings and engravings

from this set. Thus divided between Amazons and Huntresses, the ladies depicted

present one remarkable sartorial similarity in the fact that they all sport the same

headdress, consisting of little hats adorned with two or even three layers of plumes of

up to six different colours. The same headdress appears in the hunting paintings by

Jan Miel, where groups of female courtiers are represented chasing deer, hare or

witnessing the curing of the slain quarry. The visual evidence is accompanied by

Castellamare’s account of a hunt organised in the early 1660s to celebrate the

wedding of the lady-in-waiting Christine Adelaide Pallavicino di Franosa and Ippolito

Malaspina Marquess of Fosdinovo. On that occasion, ‘all the ladies appeared superbly

dressed with habits fit for riding, blonde wigs and hats with plumes of various

colours’. 1015 A succession of French marriages had rendered the Savoy court

particularly receptive towards all fashions from across the Alps. 1016 It is not

surprising, therefore, to find the ‘Amazonian’ panache adopted in Turin.

Castellamare’s description, moreover, constitutes an early testimony of the wearing of

1013 Charles Dauphin, Equestrian portrait of Christine Charlotte de Fleury Marquess of San Giorgio and Emmanuel Filiberto of Savoy-Carignano, 1014 Georges Tasnières after Charles Dauphin, Equestrian portrait of Princess Ludovica Maria of Savoy and Francesca Maria Cacherana Countess of Bagnasco. Illustration to Castellamonte, Palazzo di Piacere, e di Caccia. 1015 ‘Comparvero il giorno appresso tutte queste Dame superbamente vestite con habiti acconci al cavalcare, con peruche bionde, e capelli con vaghe piume in capo’. Ibid., p. 19. 1016 The most recent being the consort and long-time Regent Christine of France (1606-1663) and the two wives of Charles Emmanuel II (1634-1675), the short-lived Françoise-Madeleine d’Orléans (1648-1664) and Marie-Jeanne-Baptiste of Savoy-Nemours (1644-1724). On the French influence over Savoy fashions, see Rosita Levi-Pisetsky, Storia del Costume in Italia (Milano: Istituto Editoriale Italiano, 1966), vol. 3, p. 399 and the recent article Alessandro Malusà, ‘Mourning, Dress and Representation in the Widowhood of Two Seventeenth-Century Savoy Regents: Christine of France and Marie-Jeanne-Baptiste of Savoy-Nemours’, The Court Historian 24.1 (2019), pp. 17-47.

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Fig. 73: Charles Dauphin, Equestrian portrait of Christine Charlotte de Fleury Marquess of San Giorgio and Emmanuel Filiberto of Savoy-Carignano, c. 1663. Turin, Reggia di Venaria, Sala 16

Fig. 74: Georges Tasnières after Charles Dauphin, Equestrian portrait of Princess Ludovica Maria of Savoy and Francesca Maria Cacherana Countess of Bagnasco. Illustration to Amedeo Cognengo di Castellamonte, Palazzo di Piacere, e di Caccia, Ideato dall’Altezza Reale di Carlo Emanuel II (Turin: Zapatta, 1674)

Photo of ‘Charles Dauphin, Equestrian portrait of Christine Charlotte de Fleury Marquess of San Giorgio and Emmanuel Filiberto of Savoy-Carignano removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Reggia di Venaria, Turin.

Photo of ‘Georges Tasnières, Equestrian portrait of Princess Ludovica Maria of Savoy and Francesca Maria Cacherana Countess of Bagnasco’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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wigs to complete the female equestrian uniform. The trend was long-lived, since in

1675, the infamous Hortense Mancini (1646-1699), Duchess of Mazarin, was

observed by the Marquise de Courcelles leaving Savoy ‘on horseback, wearing

plumes and a wig, with a suite of twenty men, talking of nothing but violins and

hunting parties’.1017

By that time, the wearing of the ‘Amazonian’ panache had spread across

Europe, appearing in Flemish, English and Spanish portraiture until well into the

1680s. Meanwhile at the French court, where the trend had originated, plumed

ornaments had decreased in size or completely disappeared. With its military and

political association, the royal hunt had emerged as a crucial stage for courtiers of

both sexes to assert their distinction through physical and sartorial display. As male

dress on the royal hunting field evolved according to the sovereign’s prescriptions and

broader shifts in elite taste, so too did female equestrian garb. In the following secion,

I discuss the establishment of a male equestrian uniform for those courtiers who took

part in Louis XIV’s royal hunts. I then show how certain items from fashionable

men’s wardrobes were incorporated into female courtiers’ riding equestrian

équipages.

1017 ‘En passant ici elle était à cheval, en plumes et en perruque, avec vingt hommes à sa suite, ne parlant que de violons et de parties de chasse, enfin de tout ce qui donne du plaisir’. Letter from 8 November 1675, in Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat marquise de Courcelles, Mémoires et correspondance de la Marquise de Courcelles, ed. Paul Pougin (Paris: P. Jannet, 1855), p. 105. Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles (1647-1733), better known by her married name of Madame Lamber, was a writer and salonnière; her ‘Tuesdays’ were famous for their dignified and cultivated atmosphere, Hortense Mancini was one of the nieces of Cardinal Mazarin. In 1661 her powerful uncle arranged her marriage with the Armand Charles de La Porte de La Meilleraye, a nephew of Richelieu, who was granted the title of Duke of Mazarin. He proved an extremely difficult and abusive husband, prompting Hortense to flee from Paris in 1668 and spend the rest of her life in Rome, Savoy and finally England, where she became a mistress of Charles II. She wrote her memoirs during her exile in Chambéry, under the protection of her old suitor, Charles Emmanuel II Duke of Savoy.

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IV.3 Female Equestrian Fashions at the Court of Louis XIV

IV.3-i The Rise of the Male Equestrian Uniform

A number of insightful historical studies have revealed the highly political nature of

dress at the court of Louis XIV.1018 On ceremonial occasions, the sovereign wore

clothing covered with gold and silver embroidery to irradiate a glittering image of

divine splendour. By enforcing the donning of similarly luxurious – and ruinously

expensive – court habits, Philip Mansel notes, he made sure that the whole court too

joined in a conspicuous display of magnificence.1019 At once a privilege and an

obligation, sartorial uniformity fostered a sense of esprit de corps by materialising

distinctions between courtiers and other members of the elite.1020 From the very start

of his personal reign, Louis XIV prescribed the wearing of a blue justaucorps with red

facings to distinguish those men who enjoyed the honour of accompanying him to the

hunt.1021 Associated with the vénerie royale, red coupled with the specific shade of

blue known as bleu de roi enjoyed a special connection with French royalty. In 1661,

official patents (brevets) were issued to allow the decoration of this item of clothing

with braid, lace, gold and silver embroideries, notwithstanding current sumptuary

laws. The justaucorps was a knee-length long-sleeved coat made of cloth with splits

cut at the back and side that allowed the wearer to sit more comfortably in the saddle.

Originally donned by soldiers and officers, this coat had become popular amongst

wealthy horsemen and huntsmen. Benoit Boullay’s tailoring manual from 1671

already included a separate section for justaucorps patterns.1022 Together with the coat

came an array of military-inspired accessories such as a white sash (écharpe) tied

around the waist, traditionally sported by royal army officers, and knots of ribbons

fixed on the right shoulder (nœuds d’épaule) that once served to hold the baldric.

Such outfits were also accompanied by cravats whose design was tracked back to the

1018 Beginning with the pioneering publications of Peter Burke’s The Fabrications of Louis XIV and Daniel Roche’s The culture of clothing. 1019 Mansel, Dressed to Rule, pp. 1-17. 1020 Gorguet Ballesteros, ‘Caractériser le costume de cour: propositions’. 1021 Héry-Simolin, ‘Louis XIV et les mystères du justaucorps à brevet’. 1022 Benoit Boullay, Le Tailleur Sincère (Paris: Antoine de Rafflé, 1671).

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neckwear worn by the French army’s Croatian unit during the reign of Louis XIII.

Under Louis XIV, these stripes of cloth edged in fine lacework were carefully

arranged around the neck and tied with ribbons in the guise known as rabat noué.

Finally, equestrian outfits were always accompanied by a plumed hat, which in the

second half of the seventeenth century were generally made of beaver-hair felt with

the brim cocked up and trimmed with a round circle (tour) of plumes.1023

Wearing the so-called ‘justaucorps à brevet’ became a sought-after privilege

amongst Louis XIV’s courtiers. In 1678, the Mercure galant reported that men at

Versailles had started to add silver and gold decorations to red and blue coats to

imitate the exclusive look.1024 Having lost all military and equestrian associations, the

justaucorps and its accessories became the preferred attire of elegant French

gentlemen. In January 1678, an extraordinaire issue of the Mercure galant featured

two engravings depicting male ‘winter outfits’, both consisting of a knee-length

justaucorps worn over a vest, knee-breeches and, in one case, covered by a longer

cloak (figs 75,76).1025 This fashion rapidly spread from the nobility to the urban elites

and completely replaced the doublet as a central item of French male dress.1026 In

1684, Louis XIV approved the creation of a uniform for the French Guards, the royal

infantry regiment based in Paris.1027 Consisting of a blue justaucorps with red facings,

this military outfit clearly mirrored hunting fashions. When His Majesty reviewed the

newly outfitted regiment in March 1685, he wore the same uniform as the officers

that, according to the Mercure, were a glitter of silver and gold.1028

At court, the justaucorps maintained a strong association with the royal hunt.

While the ageing Louis XIV showed less interest in cynegetic activities, his son Louis

1023 On the development of beaver fur trade in Paris, see Bernard Allaire, Pelleteries, manchons et chapeaux de castor: Les fourrures nord-américaines à Paris, 1500-1632 (Sillery: Éditions du Septentrion / Paris: Presses de l’université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1999). 1024 Mercure galant (October 1678), pp. 367-368. 1025 Two engravings of a ‘Habit d’hiver’ executed by Jean Lepautre after Jean Bérain, inserted in the Extraordinaire du Mercure galant (January 1678) between pp. 492-493 and 494-495. 1026 Aurore Pierre, ‘From the Doublet to the Justaucorps: The Male Silhouette in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, in Bruna (ed.), Fashioning the Body, pp. 95-107. 1027 Entry for 1 October 1684, in Dangeau, Journal, vol. 1, p. 57. 1028 Entry for 24 March 1685, in Dangeau, Journal, vol. 1, p. 140; Mercure galant (March 1685), p. 314; Mercure galant (April 1685), pp. 188-189.

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the Dauphin (1661-1711) took the lead in the saddle. In June 1686, the Marquis of

Dangeau reported, the prince ‘ordered that all the people who wish to follow him to

hunt wolf be dressed in the same manner; he wishes that they wear habits of green

cloth with a galloon of gold’.1029 The Mercure promptly recorded that:

Certain people put on their habit pipings (passepoil) of light double galloons or a single flat galloon made of a silver lace with two blades at the edges. It has been called ‘hay galloon’ (galon de paille) and then ‘wolf galloon’ (galon du loup), since they are seen on the clothes of those that accompanied Moseigneur le Dauphin for this sort of hunt. It has become so common that it has been ordered to all those that have the honour of accompanying him when he enjoys this amusement to put this galloon on green cloth of Holland, so that this prince has been seen many times at the head of thirty people wearing this justaucorps.1030

The quick popularisation of such fashions beyond the perimeter of the court may have

prompted the Dauphin to renovate his hunting ensemble already the following year. In

1029 Entry for 15 June 1686, in Dangeau, Journal, vol. 1, p. 349. 1030 Mercure galant (September 1686), p. 325.

Fig. 75: Jean Lepautre after Jean Bérain, Habit d’hiver (Winter outfit). Illustration to Extraordinaire du Mercure galant (January 1678)

Fig. 76: Jean Lepautre after Jean Bérain, Habit d’hiver (Winter outfit). Illustration to Extraordinaire du Mercure galant (January 1678)

Photo of ‘Jean Lepautre, Habit d’hiver’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Photo of ‘Jean Lepautre, Habit d’hiver’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

262

June 1687, Dangeau noted that ‘Monseigneur has ordered twenty or thirty dark grey

justaucorps embroidered with silver, that he will give to those who have the honour to

habitually accompany him to the hunt’.1031 The chromatic shift was punctually noted

by the Mercure, which reported that ‘[t]he justaucorps of the people of quality that

ordinarily accompany Monseigneur the Dauphin to the hunt were of green cloth last

year, whereas this year they are of dark grey cloth and embroidered in silver’.1032 In

March 1688, Monseigneur again ‘had twenty-five magnificent justaucorps made to

hunt the wolf’, Dangeau reported.1033 The new équipage first appeared ‘in all its

magnificence’ on the 2 April, when the Dauphin went hunting with the King at

Marly. 1034 That month, the Mercure provided further information concerning the

hunters’ attire:

This équipage consists of a justaucorps made of blue cloth adorned with a large galloon of gold and silver thread flecked with black and crimson, and a rich waistcoat with a red background; gloves with fringes of gold; a hat edged in gold with a white feather; a hunting knife, a leather belt and a cover for the horse.1035

The yearly renewal of hunting outfits at court between 1686 and 1688 seems at first to

take part in the increasingly cyclical dynamic of sartorial innovation in late

seventeenth-century France. 1036 With the last change, however, the Dauphin

appropriated the colours of Louis XIV’s vénerie royale and established the definitive

version own riding uniform. As with the justaucorps à brevet, the wearing of the

Dauphin’s hunting équipage constituted a privilege reserved exclusively for a select

group of twenty-three male courtiers, whose names were painstakingly recorded both

by Dangeau and the Mercure galant.1037 Their names being absent from this list, as

well as from the patents granted by the King, female riders seem to have been

1031 Entry for 8 June 1687 in Dangeau, Journal, vol. 2, p. 48. 1032 Mercure galant (June 1687), p. 319. 1033 Entry for 23 March 1688 in Dangeau, Journal, vol. 2, p. 122. 1034 Entry for 2 April 1688 in Ibid., vol. 2, p. 126. 1035 Mercure galant (April 1688), p. 281. 1036 Styles, ‘Fashion and Innovation in Early Modern Europe’. 1037 Entry for 23 March 1688 in Dangeau, Journal, vol. 2, pp. 122-123; Mercure galant (April 1688), pp. 282-284.

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excused from wearing any form of equestrian uniform. Yet their presence amongst the

King’s hunting companions is recorded from the very early days of Louis XIV’s

reign. Like their male relatives, noblewomen too were aware of the political

significance of cynegetic exercise and appeared keen to show off their belonging to

the exclusive society of royal hunters.

IV.3-ii Ladies’ Equestrian équipages

Whilst neither Louis XIV nor the Dauphin ever enforced any rule concerning the

dress of ladies that took part in royal hunting parties, documents from the 1660s

already testify to the growing similarity between the attire of male and female riders

at court. Van der Meulen’s 1669 scenes (figs 49,50) depict male and female courtiers

sporting similar tailored coats and a few contemporary witnesses describe elegant

horsewomen sporting justaucorps. 1038 Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans, who

remembered how the ladies that habitually accompanied the King out for his rides in

the winter of 1659 ‘all suffered from the cold, despite the fact that they wore

justaucorps edged in fur’.1039 She later described Louis XIV’s mistress Louise de La

Vallière at the height of her beauty in the mid-1660s.1040 In spite of her tall figure, the

Grande Mademoiselle commented, ‘she danced well and rode gracefully; the

[equestrian] habit became her greatly, since the justaucorps hides the décolletage –

hers being scarce – and cravats make her look more plump’.1041

Female equestrian fashions seem to have occupied an increasingly crucial place in

the politics of conspicuous display at court. Writing to the Duchess of Longueville in

1662, Jean Loret concluded his account of a royal hunt at Versailles by noting that the

ladies’ beauty was only improved by their ‘smart équipages’:

On their delicate breasts,

1038 On Van der Meulen’s scenes, see pp. 198-199. 1039 ‘Le roi alloit tous les jours à cheval avec les dames, qui avoient beaucoup de froid, quoiqu’elles eussent des justaucorps fourrés’. Montpensier, Mémoires, vol. 3, p. 349. 1040 Madame de La Valliere held the place of royal mistress the of between 1661 and 1667, when she was replaced by Madame de Montespan. 1041 ‘Quoiqu’elle fût d’une fort grande [taille], elle dansoit bien, étoit de fort bonne grâce à cheval: l’habit lui en seyoit fort bien; car les justaucorps cachent la gorge qu’elle avoit fort maigre, et les cravates font paroitre plus grasse’. Montpensier, Mémoires, vol. 4, pp. 394-395.

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They wore nothing but cravats, And on their heads, grey hats, Adorned with plumes of great price, Each (so a female friend told me) Weighted no more than an ounce and a half [...] Girls, Ladies and Princesses, All wore very beautiful justaucorps, And looked, under their hats, Not like Caesars, or Augustus, (Such reports would be unfair) But rather, in virtue of their infinite charms, Like Medorus or Adonis.1042

Thus the poet found a way to describe the striking, if somewhat peculiar, effect of the

new fashionable equestrian outfits, which were charming in their markedly

androgynous beauty. The Duke of Enghien too expressed his appreciation for the new

trend with a simile of mythological inspiration. In September 1665, he informed

Marie-Louise of Gonzaga-Nevers that female courtiers at Versailles had sported

embroidered justaucorps on occasion of a royal hunt followed by a ball. The Duke

remarked that ‘there is nothing in the world that suits them better, and they look like

Amazons’. 1043 Like the Great Mademoiselle, Enghien too especially admired

Mademoiselle de La Vallière, who looked so beguiling dressed in this fashion ‘that it

is impossible to imagine anything prettier than she looks sometimes.1044

A miniature portrait within the collections of the Château of Versailles offers a

unique depiction of a hunting ensemble from the early years of Louis XIV’s reign.

1042 ‘Mais en si lestes équipages, / Que la beauté des leurs vizages, / Qu’on ne peut voir sans amitié, / En augmentoit de la moitié. / Dessus leurs gorges délicates / Elles n’avoient que des cravates, / Et sur leurs chefs de chapeaux gris, / Ornez de plumes de grand prix, / Chacun (ce m’a dit une Amie) / Ne pézant qu’une once et demie […] Tant Filles, Dames, que Princesses, / Ayans des Just-au-corps fort beaux, / Paroissent dessous leurs chapeaux, / Non des Cézars, ny des Augustes, / (Tels rapports ne seroient pas justes) / Mais, par leurs apas infinis, / Des Médors et des Adonis’. Ibid., pp. 258-259. On Loret, see p. 196, n. 817. 1043 ‘Il y eut, ensuite de la chasse, un bal où les dames dansèrent avec ces sortes de vestes que l’on porte depuis peu, et des justaucorps; il n’y a rien qui leur sied mieux au monde, et elles ressemblent à des amazones’. Letter dated 18 September 1665 in Magne (ed.), Le Grand Condé et le duc d’Enghien, p. 210. 1044 ‘… mais surtout Mlle de La Vallière se met bien de cette façon, que l’on ne peut s’imaginer rien de plus joli qu’elle est quelquefois’. Ibid., p. 210.

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The small gouache (17.3x13.2cm) depicts a lady standing in a wooded landscape,

accompanied by a small spaniel and carrying a flintlock rifle (figs 77a-b).1045 Two

dead birds at the lady’s feet, a jay and a gray partridge, clearly indicate that the

huntress is represented enjoying the aristocratic pastime of the chasse à tir. Attributed

to the famous miniaturist Joseph Werner the Younger (1637-1714), the artwork was

only recently acquired by Versailles following its auction by Drouot in 2017. Due to

her famous preference for hunting garb, the Duchess of Orléans has been put forward

as the most likely candidate for the sitter’s identity. To match this attribution, the

portrait has been dated around 1671, the year marking the Duchess’ arrival at

Versailles. By that time, however, the artist himself had already left France for

Augsburg. It seems more likely, therefore, that the work should have been painted

during Werner’s Parisian period, between 1662 and1667, when he realised likenesses

of the King and other prominent members of court.1046 In 1664, for example, Werner

executed two matching portraits of Louis XIV and his then-favourite mistress Louise

1045 Joseph Werner the Younger, Lady in hunting garb, 1662-1667. Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. V.2018.15. 1046 Jürgend Glaesemer, Joseph Werner, 1637-1710 (Schweizerisches Institut für Kunstwissenschaft, Zürich; Prestel Verlag, Munich, 1974), pp. 21-23.

Figs 77a-b: Joseph Werner the Younger, Portrait of a lady in hunting garb (whole and detail), 1662-1667. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. V.2018.15

Photo of ‘Joseph Werner the Younger, Portrait of a lady in hunting garb (whole)’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon.

Photo of ‘Joseph Werner the Younger, Portrait of a lady in hunting garb (detail)’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon.

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de La Vallière garbed in Polish costume for a court masque.1047 Around the same

time, the artist also painted matching likenesses of the Queen Maria Theresa and the

Dauphin Louis of France.1048 The Château of Versailles has recently acquired another

pair of miniatures representing the sovereign and his mistress Madame de Montespan,

who rose to the position of maîtresse-en-titre around 1667 (fig. 78). 1049 Evident

similarities in style and format place the huntress’ likeness alongside these portraits.

Under her plumed hat, the lady sports a fashionable hurluberlu coiffure that closely

resembles that of Madame de Montespan. Her cravat, moreover, mirrors the style

preferred by Louis XIV during the early years of his reign. A pastel portrait realised

by Charles Le Brun around 1655, now at the Louvre, already shows the sovereign

with a short lace cravat that, instead of falling down in deep folds, gracefully fans out

1047 Glaesemer, Inv. 71 and 72, p. 155. Both miniatures are now preserved at the Norton Simon Museum (Inv. M.2010.1.189.P and M.2010.1.190.P). 1048 Glaesemer, Inv. 73 and 74, p. 156. 1049 Inv. V.2015.11 and V.2015.10.

Fig. 78: Joseph Werner the Younger, Portrait of Françoise-Athénaïs de Montespan, c. 1665. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. V.2015.10

Fig. 79: Charles Le Brun, Portrait of Louis XIV, c. 1655. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Inv. INV29874-recto

Photo of ‘Joseph Werner the Younger, Portrait of Françoise-Athénaïs de Montespan’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon.

Photo of ‘Charles Le Brun, Portrait of Louis XIV’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée du Louvre, Paris.

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like that worn by Werner’s huntress (fig. 79).1050 Unlike fashionable rabats noués in

the late 1670s and 1680s, cravats in this period are not folded over the ribbon knot,

which remains clearly visible at the neck. The ribbons employed, moreover, are cut in

narrow strips and possibly tied so that the bow does not dangle languidly but rather

assumes a stiff and elongated shape. The lady’s habit consists of a colourful knee-

length justaucorps, which is entirely buttoned up and decorated with gold frogging

around the pocket slits as well as on both sides of the chest. Her training skirt, instead,

is cut from black fabric heavily decorated with what looks like silver embroidery. The

same material was employed to make a sort of knee-length coat with short sleeves

that the lady wears over the justaucorps. It appears unclear whether this additional

item of dress was provided with buttons; probably not, however, as it is worn open at

the front and gather at the back with a voluminous bow. Benoit Boullay’s 1671

tailoring manual includes patterns for a ‘riding coat (manteau) for ladies’ cut from a

half circle of Holland camlet.1051 The fullness of fabric at the back, useful when

sitting in the saddle, might have proved cumbersome hunting on foot, thus justifying

the lady’s decision to tie it up. Only one other visual record of a similar garment

survives, as it appears in an oval portrait attributed to the Flemish Jacob Ferdinand

Voet (1639-1689), in all likelihood executed during the artist’s Roman period,

between 1663 and 1678 (fig. 80).1052 When it was auctioned at Christie’s in 2005, the

work was presented as a ‘bust portrait of a man, wearing a plumed hat’. I argue,

instead, that this painting shows a female equestrian uniform in the latest fashion.

Possibly contemporaries, the ladies depicted by Voet and Werner appear to be

wearing the same type of black beaver hat edged in gold and the fanned-out cravat

with long narrow ribbon bow. As for the justaucorps and mantle, the similarities

extend to the very type of fabric employed and the colourful decoration of the

1050 Charles Le Brun, Portrait of Louis XIV, c. 1655. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Inv. INV29874-recto. 1051 ‘Manteau pour femme a cheval’ in Boullay, Le Tailleur Sincère, fol. 19. 1052 The patinting was auctioned by Christie’s in Paris on 8 November 2005 and is now in a private collection. On the artist’s biography, see Cristina Geddo, ‘New Light on the Career of Jacob-Ferdinand Voet’, The Burlington Magazine 143.1176 (2001), pp. 138-144 and the volume by Francesco Petrucci, Ferdinand Voet (1639-1689), detto Ferdinando de’ ritratti (Rome: Ugo Bozzi, 2005).

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justaucorps, which are rendered more delicately in the oil painting. Due to the format

of the Voet portrait, it is impossible to establish a perfect correspondence in the full

shape of the ladies’ outfits. The similarities in the upper half, however, are

undeniable. In both depictions, what immediately attracts the viewer’s gaze is the

abundance of decorative ribbon trimmings, collectively known at the time as

garniture.

Originally produced for the functional purpose of tying together items of dress, they

ended up playing a chiefly ornamental role. As small-size and light-weight

accessories, ribbons became increasingly popular in seventeenth-century France and

featured prominently in both male and female outfits.1053 Their success and the rapid

change in fashions stimulated manufacturing changes and the rise of a strong

independent industry on a European scale. 1054 Like feather decorations, vividly

1053 Jennifer Jones, Sexing La Mode: Gender, Fashion and Commercial Culture in Old Regime France (Oxford: Berg, 2004), p. 21. 1054 Andrea Caracausi, ‘Fashion, capitalism and ribbon-making in early modern Europe’, in Thomas Max Safley (ed.), Labor Before the Industrial Revolution (London and New York: Routledge, 2019), pp. 48-69.

Fig. 80: Jacob Ferdinand Voet, Portrait of a lady in riding garb, 1663-1678. Painting auctioned by Christie’s in Paris on 8 November 2005, currently in a private collection.

Photo of ‘Jacob Ferdinand Voet, Portrait of a lady in riding garb’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Christie’s.

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coloured ribbons were added to various parts of the habit to creating a sense of éclat,

the radiance that determined the beauty and magnificence of a whole ensemble. In

addition to the ribbons that tie the cravat and those employed to gather the mantle at

the back, Werner’s huntress also sports a voluminous nœud d’épaule, ribbon

trimmings at mid-sleeves and at the edge of gloves. The ribbons’ colours, black and

crimson, seem to have been chosen purposefully to match the black beaver hat

bedaubed with a flurry of crimson plumes. Voet’s lady also wears ribbon decorations

on sleeves and right shoulder, in addition to the bow at the neck. Her garniture is

monochrome, its yellow hue beautifully coordinated with the plumage on her own

black beaver hat edged in gold. The appearance of this markedly French fashion in a

Roman portrait may shed some light on the sitter’s identity. In a recent essay, Leticia

de Frutos investigates the cultural and material networks of Marie Mancini (1639-

1715), the most vivacious and troublesome amongst Cardinal Mazarin’s nieces.1055

After spending a decade at the French court, she was married off to the Roman

nobleman Conestabile Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna and forced to move back to Rome in

1661.1056 De Frutos emphasises how the intellectual and free-thinking Maria soon

found herself suffocated by the oppressive atmosphere in the Papal city. Frustrated

with the provincial taste of the Roman ladies, she cultivated her image as a lady ‘alla

francese’ and endeavoured to maintain contacts with her Parisian friends. In 1670,

Maria received a visit from the Chevalier Philippe of Lorraine (1643-1702), the

favourite of Louis XIV’s younger brother Philippe Duke of Orléans. As a token of

friendship from his royal patron, Maria later wrote, the Chevalier brought her ‘an

équipage de chasse worth a thousand pistols, adorned with an infinite number of

1055 Leticia de Frutos, ‘Maria Mancini (1639-1715), Paintings, Fans, and Scented Gloves: A Witness to Cultural Exchange at the Courts of Paris, Rome, and Madrid’, in Joan-Lluís Palos and Magdalena S. Sánchez, Early Modern Dynastic Marriages and Cultural Transfer (Farnham: Ashgate, 2016), pp. 189-212. 1056 Elizabeth Goldsmith recently published an excellent biography of Marie and her sister Hortense, entitled The King’s Mistresses. The Liberated Lives of Marie Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna, and her Sister Hortense, Duchess of Mazarin (New York: Public Affairs, 2012).

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ribbons amongst the richest and most beautiful in Paris’.1057 Marie, a keen huntress

and always starving for news on French fashions, must have warmly welcomed the

luxurious gift. The fact that this constitutes the only mention of an item of clothing in

her memoirs certainly is a strong sign that the present had left a mark in her memory.

It is possible, therefore, that Marie desired to be depicted sporting her newest dress. It

would have been quite natural for her to turn towards the popular Voet, who was

celebrated for realising ‘galleries of beautiful women’ in the French fashion, series of

portraits that adorned the palaces of Roman aristocrats and prelates. 1058 Before

escaping from Rome in 1672, Marie sat for a portrait in the ‘gallery’ commissioned

by Cardinal Flavio Chigi, which is still preserved in the family’s palace in Ariccia,

near Rome.1059 This and other likenesses by the Flemish artist testify to a similarity

with the female model in the painting auctioned in 2005. Marie’s portrait at the

Rjiksmuseum presents the sitter in a soft light, smiling gently at the observer and clad

in a pink and shiny white silk dress edged in soft lace (fig. 81).1060 Voet’s lady in a

riding uniform, instead, casts a more inscrutable and enigmatic look upon the

1057 In the same period a justaucorps for men would cost between seven hundred and a thousand pistols. Doscot (ed.), Mémoires d’Hortense et de Marie Mancini, p. 145. After relations with her husband deteriorated, Marie escaped in 1672, accompanied by her sister Hortense. After the appearance of a scurrilous and ill-written pamphlet on her life, titled, she decided to take matters in hands and write her own memoirs, which were first published in 1677 under the title La Vérité dans Son Jour, ou les Véritables Mémoires de M. Mancini, Connétable Colonne. Maria Mancini’s self-authored narrative, together with her sister Hortensia’s, have been the subject of much scholarly attention; see for example Elizabeth Goldsmith and Abby Zanger, ‘The Politics and Poetics of the Mancini Romance: Visions and Revisions of Louis XIV’, in Thomas F. Meyer and D.R. Woolf (eds), The Rethorics of Life-Writing in Early Modern Europe: Forms of Biography from Cassandra Fedele to Louis XIV (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995), pp. 341-372; Elizabeth Goldsmith, ‘Publishing the Lives of Hortense and Marie Mancini’, in Elizabeth Goldsmith and Deena Goodman (eds), Going Public: Women and Publishing in Early Modern France (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), pp. 31-45. 1058 See Lada Nikolenko, ‘The Beauties’ Galleries’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 67 (1966), pp. 19-24 1059 Lada Nikolenko, ‘The Source of the Mancini-Mazarini Iconography. Catalogue of Portraits in the Chigi d’Ariccia Collection’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 76 (1970), pp. 145-158, esp. Inv. 17 p. 153. 1060 Jacob Ferdinand Voet, Portrait of Maria Mancini, 1663-1678. Rjiksmuseum, Inv. SK-A-3236. Whilst providing correct dates of birth and death, the museum confuses Maria with her sister Anna-Maria, Duchess of Bouillon.

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observer, common to other female portraits by the artist. However different in their

attitude, the two sitters share the same dark colour of hair and eyes, not to mention an

undeniable likeness in the moulding of nose, mouth and chin. Further archival

enquiries are needed to establish whether Voet’s sitter was indeed the glamorous

Marie. In the meantime, it is sufficient to acknowledge that the subject is not an

aristocratic young man, but rather a Roman noblewoman clad in the latest French

fashion, an equestrian équipage bedaubed with yellow ribbons a plumed hat to match.

In a sense, modern viewers’ confusion echoes the fascinated perplexity of

contemporary observers such as the Jean Loret as they first admired such dazzling

androgynous outfits. Together, Werner’s miniature and Voet’s portrait provide a

unique glimpse of riding équipages from the first decade of Louis XIV’s reign. To

observe the evolution of female equestrian fashion at the French court, it is necessary

to examine another group of six equestrian portraits preserved at Skokloster Caste in

Sweden (figs 82-87).

Each painting features a French noblewoman riding in front of a royal palace

and garden. Archival research indicates that the set was in all likelihood brought back

Fig. 81: Jacob Ferdinand Voet, Portrait of Maria Mancini, 1663-1678. Amsterdam, Rjiksmuseum, Inv. SK-A-3236

Photo of ‘Jacob Ferdinand Voet, Portrait of Maria Mancini’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Rjiksmuseum, Amsterdam.

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Fig. 82: Pierre Mignard / Joseph Parrocel (attr.), Equestrian portrait of the Duchess of Aumont, 1678-1682. Skokloster Museum, Inv. 3144

Fig. 84: Pierre Mignard / Joseph Parrocel (attr.), Equestrian portrait of the Countess of Saint-Géran, 1678-1682. Skokloster Museum, Inv. 3150

Fig. 83: Pierre Mignard / Joseph Parrocel (attr.), Equestrian portrait of the Marquise of Louvois, 1678-1682. Skokloster Museum, Inv. 3145

Fig. 85: Pierre Mignard / Joseph Parrocel (attr.), Equestrian portrait of the Countess of Armagnac, 1678-1682. Skokloster Museum, Inv. 3149

Photo of ‘Pierre Mignard / Joseph Parrocel (attr.), Equestrian portrait of the Duchess of Aumont’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Skokloster Museum.

Photo of ‘Pierre Mignard / Joseph Parrocel (attr.), Equestrian portrait of the Marquise of Louvois’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Skokloster Museum.

Photo of ‘Pierre Mignard / Joseph Parrocel (attr.), Equestrian portrait of the Countess of Saint-Géran’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Skokloster Museum.

Photo of ‘Pierre Mignard / Joseph Parrocel (attr.), Equestrian portrait of the Countess of Armagnac’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Skokloster Museum.

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to Sweden by Ambassador Nils Bielke (1644-1716) in 1682, at the end of a three-year

mission in Paris.1061 Further clues concerning the paintings’ provenance have to be

gleaned from a careful examination of the objects themselves. In the context of the

2013 exhibition ‘André Le Nôtre en perspectives’ at Versailles, the set was attributed

alternatively to Pierre Mignard (1612-1695) or Joseph Parrocel (1646-1704).1062 On

that occasion, great attention was placed on the scenes’ backgrounds, which feature

the latest creations of the fashionable landscape architect. It appears indisputable,

however, that the main attraction of this group of paintings lies in the beauty and

accuracy of the equestrian portraits in the foreground. Although conceived as a set,

each likeness is remarkable for its sense of individuality rendered through a great

1061 They figure in the 1696 inventory of Bielke’s possessions at Salsta Castle. Further archival research is currently being conducted by Annika Williams, Curator of the Hallwyl Collection in Stockholm, whom I thank for generously sharing her thoughts and preliminary findings. 1062 Patricia Bouchenot-Déchin and Georges Farhat (eds), André Le Nôtre en perspectives. Catalogue of the exhibition ‘André Le Nôtre en perspectives, 1613-2013’, Château de Versailles, 22 October – 23 February 2013 (Paris: Hazan, 2013), pp. 42-43, 188-189, 216-217.

Fig. 86: Pierre Mignard / Joseph Parrocel (attr.), Equestrian portrait of the Duchess of La Ferté, 1678-1682. Skokloster Museum, Inv. 3148

Fig. 87: Pierre Mignard / Joseph Parrocel (attr.), Equestrian portrait of the Duchess of Bouillon, 1678-1682. Skokloster Museum, Inv. 3146

Photo of ‘Pierre Mignard / Joseph Parrocel (attr.), Equestrian portrait of the Duchess of La Ferté’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Skokloster Museum.

Photo of ‘Pierre Mignard / Joseph Parrocel (attr.), Equestrian portrait of the Duchess of Bouillon’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Skokloster Museum.

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variety of poses and attention to physiognomic traits. The artist displayed

considerable talent in realistically portraying the sitters as accomplished riders,

mounting side-saddle with great ease and commanding their horses to strike difficult

manoeuvres such as terre à terre, passage, pirouette and carrière.1063 Himself a keen

horseman and avid art collector, Bielke must have been fascinated by this unique set

of paintings that celebrate the display of equestrian skill and feminine aristocratic

grace.1064 At Salsta Castle, his residence in the Swedish Uppland, the ambassador had

them hung in the room between the library and the imposing stables.

The ladies’ identities are immediately revealed by a cartouche bearing their

name on each portrait. An inscription a tergo, instead, indicates that they had been

originally commissioned by Louis-Marie-Victor Duke of Aumont (1632-1704), an

army officer and influential figure at the court of Louis XIV.1065 His second wife,

Françoise-Angelique de la Mothe Houdancourt (1650-1711) is depicted riding on a

hill overlooking the parterre of Latona, in the gardens of Versailles (fig. 82).1066

Marie-Anne Mancini (1649-1714), Duchess of Bouillon, and Françoise-Madeleine-

Claude de Warignies (1655-1733), Countess of Saint-Géran, are also portrayed

against the backdrop of Versailles; the former in front of the orangerie and the latter

overlooking the great courtyard and the stables on the opposite side of the palace (figs

1063 The portrait of the Countess of Saint-Géran alone appears incorrect insofar as the horse is performing a terre à terre to the right, whereas the body of the rider appears to be turning in the opposite direction. 1064 On Bielke as art collector, see Simon McKeown, Emblematic Paintings from Sweden’s Age of Greatness: Nils Bielke and the Neo-Stoic Gallery at Skokloster (Turnhout: Brepolis, 2006). 1065 The inscriptions read ‘Pour Monseigr Le Duc. Daumont’ and are accompanied by the individual number on each portrait. Louis-Marie-Victor d’Aumont de Rochebaron was an army officer and courtier who served Louis XIV in various capacities, including First Gentleman of the Bedchamber and Governor of Paris, succeeding to the Dukedom of Aumont at the death of his father in 1669. He first married Madeleine Fare, daughter of Michel Le Tellier Marquis de Barbezieux, by whom he had five children. 1066 Françoise-Angélique was the daughter of Philippe Count de la Mothe Houdancourt, maréchal of France and Louise de Prie Marquise de Toucy, who served as royal governess to the children of Louis XIV between 1661 and 1672; she married the Duke of Aumont in November 1669. I believe that the Duchess’ likeness is modelled on a portrait by Justus Van Egmont preserved at the Musée Condé in Chantilly.

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87, 84). 1067 Marie-Gabrielle-Angélique de la Mothe Houdancourt (1654-1726),

Duchess of la Ferté-Senneterre and younger sister to the Duchess of Aumont, is

portrayed in front of the recently renovated terraces of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (fig.

87).1068 The gardens of the château of Fontainebleau are instead visible in the portrait

of Catherine de Neufville (1639-1707), Countess of Armagnac (fig. 85).1069 Anne de

Souvré (1646-1715), Marquise de Louvois, proudly stands overlooking the property

of Meudon, acquired by her husband in 1679 (fig. 82).1070

Together with the careful rendition of the ladies’ equestrian technique, the

most striking feature of these portraits is certainly the artist’s attention towards

sartorial details. Each individual lady’s attire appears immediately striking for the

multitude of colours and fabrics depicted. Wrapped in a blue mantle lined with

ermine, the Duchess of Aumont alone is represented donning sartorial insignia of her

rank. The other five ladies, instead, all sport the same type of riding ensemble, whose

upper part closely mirrors male fashions’ latest trends. The black knee-length

‘manteau for ladies’ that covered the ladies’ equestrian outfits painted by Werner and

Voet has entirely disappeared. All five sitters, instead, wear a justaucorps unbuttoned

and fastened with a sash at the waist, just like the male élégants from the January

1678 Mercure. Francis Back’s examination of a rare surviving item from the period

shows that, by this time, buttonholes were sometimes no longer pierced, thus

revealing their purely decorative function. 1071 Three portraits reveal waistcoats

1067 One of the nieces of Cardinal Mazarin, Marie-Anne married Godefroy Maurice de La Tour d’Auvergne Duke of Bouillon in 1662 Françoise-Madeleine-Claude, only daughter and heiress of François seigneur of Monfréville, married Bernard de La Guiche Count of Saint-Géran and La Palice in 1667. 1068 Marie-Gabrielle-Angélique married Henri François de Saint-Nectaire Duke de la Ferté-Senneterre in 1675. 1069 Catherine was the daughter of Nicolas V de Neufville Duke of Villeroy, maréchal of France, half-brother of Catherine de Neufville, mother of Anne de Souvré; she served as maid of honour to Anne of Austria and married Louis de Lorraine Count of Armagnac in 1660. 1070 Anne was the daughter of Jean de Souvré, Marquis de Courtanvaux, and Catherine de Neufville; she married François Michel Le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois, in 1662. 1071 Francis Back, ‘Un justaucorps du règne de Louis XIV’, Cap-aux-Diamants: la revue d’histoire du Québec 55 (1998), pp. 54-55.

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underneath, which appear noticeably shorter than the justaucorps, following a trend

first reported by the magazine in October 1678.1072

According to male fashions, the ladies wear their justaucorps together with an

array of lavish accoutrements. Their fringed sashes match descriptions of luxurious

male accessories that, according to the Mercure, were made of point d’Espagne

needlework with gold and silver thread.1073 The most extravagant ornament, however,

still consisted in the conspicuous garniture. Providing constant opportunities to

combine and recombine colours, decorative patterns and knot techniques, ribbons

well suited the French fashion markets’ need for easy innovation in the 1670s and

early 1680s. ‘Young people want ribbons, because they adorn with little expense’,

professed the Mercure in October 1682, adding that, without these accessories, ‘we

would be dressed too uniformly’.1074 Relatively cheap as a single ribbon might have

been, the magazine also recognised that entire nœuds d’épaule could instead reach

such exorbitant prices that they ended up costing as much as the justaucorps itself.1075

More ribbons were stitched onto sleeve cuffs and used to tie the cravat. Gloves for

both sexes were also ‘adorned with a great quantity of little ribbons’. 1076 A

contemporary pair of green suede gloves manufactured in England displays a

conspicuous trimming consisting of three layers of silk and silver thread ribbons,

which create a vegetable motif with green leaves and pink flowers (fig. 88).1077 As

Marie Mancini’s noted upon receiving her luxurious outfit in 1670, such feats of

craftsmanship came at no small cost. In 1680, the Mercure informed its readers that

the new Dauphine’s ladies-in-waiting had been given a special allowance from the

King ‘to acquire an équipage de chasse suitable to follow the Princess in all her

1072 Mercure (October 1678), p. 373; until the summer justaucorps and veste were of the same length. 1073 Mercure (January 1678), p. 345 and (October 1678), p. 368. 1074 Mercure galant (October 1682), p. 280. 1075 Mercure galant (December 1681), p. 331. A justaucorps under the reign of Louis XIV could cost as much as 700 livres, at a time when a labourer earned up to 70 livres per year, a miller 100 and a carpenter 150. 1076 Mercure galant (January 1678), p. 345 for men and 349 for women. 1077 Pair of gloves, England, 1660-1680. London, Victoria & Albert Museum, Inv: T.229-1, 2-1994.

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cavalcades’.1078 Louis XIV himself and the Dauphin joined ‘the beautiful and gallant

troop’, so that ‘nothing was as spectacular to behold, than seeing all the court on

horseback, with habits so neat and magnificent’.1079 In virtue of their cost and material

qualities, ribbon trimmings played an important role in the conspicuous display of

sartorial splendour at the court of the Sun King.

The five horsewomen depicted in the Bielke set provide a glaring testimony to

the lavishness of equestrian équipages sported by female courtiers, whose generous

garniture is fit to rival masculine models described in the Mercure. Four ladies sport

voluminous nœuds d’epaule made with one or two types of ribbon.1080 Three wear

gloves garnished with innumerable tiny ribbons, whereas the Duchess of La Ferté

alone has a pair of fringed gloves that, according to the Mercure, constituted an

exclusively masculine prerogative.1081 In addition to dazzling with the abundance of

costly and colourful materials, ribbons were also employed to create a sense of

chromatic harmony, sometimes even matching other elements of the dress. The

Marquise de Louvois, for example, sports a shoulder knot, cravat and gloves that are

1078 Mercure galant (June 1680), p. 251. 1079 Ibid., p. 252. 1080 The Duchess of Bouillon’s pose renders it impossible to ascertain whether or not she is wearing a shoulder knot. 1081 Ibid., p. 345.

Fig. 88: Pair of gloves, England, 1660-1680. London, Victoria & Albert Museum, Inv: T.229-1, 2-1994

Photo of ‘Pair of gloves’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

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all trimmed with identical light blue and pink ribbons. Headdresses too contribute to

create the sense of a coherent ensemble. The Duchess of La Ferté, the Duchess of

Bouillon and the Marquise of Louvois all wear beaver hats bedaubed with plumes that

match their outfit and garniture. Whilst the former two are black, the Duchess’ hat is

of a light grey shade that the 1678 Mercure pronounced especially desirable.1082 In

December 1681, however, the magazine announced that grey hats were no longer in

fashion.1083 Three years later, in December 1684, ‘black beaver hats with the edges

rather large and raised’ were proclaimed to be the prevailing style of headwear, thus

initiating an enduring vogue for black tricornes that lasted until the Revolution.1084

Under the hat, the coiffure itself added to the overall decoration of the outfit. For

example, the Duchesses of Bouillon and La Ferté both wear their hair, or more

probably their wigs, into carefully arranged curls, two of which are much longer and

tied with a couple of ribbons, one in the middle and one at the end. Such a hairstyle

was a further item plundered from men’s wardrobes, being modelled on a new type of

male wig created specifically to accompany equestrian-inspired outfits. First

appearing in January 1678, perruques à la cavalière were said to be tied in the

middle, just under the cravat, ending in two large curls, one on each side.1085 The

hairstyle sported by the Countess of Armagnac, be it made of false or genuine hair,

was also inspired by another style for men’s wigs at the time, which the Mercure

described as short and ‘flowing in an easy fashion (dégagées), half backcombed and

half curled so that the best ones look like waves’.1086

In appropriating masculine fashions to create part of their equestrian

ensemble, aristocratic women espoused aesthetic ideals that defied contemporary

gender conventions. To be dressed ‘in equestrian habit (en habit de cavalier) and

without any ornament’, the Mercure affirmed in July 1677, constituted the best form

1082 Mercure galant (January 1678), p. 343. 1083 Mercure galant (December 1681), p. 332. 1084 Mercure galant (December 1684), p. 309. 1085 Mercure galant (January 1678), pp. 446-347. 1086 Ibid., p. 346.

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of attire for men who are naturally ‘in less need of artifice’.1087 Furetière’s 1690

dictionary explained that to appear à la cavalière or cavalièrement had come to

signify a particularly masculine way of dressing – and usually behaving – in a

nonchalant casual way, which could be taken both positively and negatively.1088

Women, on the other hand, rarely appear beautiful without careful cosmetic

intervention in their dress and appearance, the 1677 Mercure reflected, ‘unless their

beauty is genuine’.1089 Unbound by any official prescription, ladies at court devised

their own version of the habit de cavalier as a free choice and the sartorial

embodiment of female ambition to compete with men in the hunting field. In so

doing, they also expressed a powerful sartorial statement towards a more sober and

masculine way of displaying their beauty. Enacting what fashion theorists have

termed a sartorial strategy of power-dressing, female riders moulded the upper part of

their outfit according to male fashions, whilst preserving an unquestionable sartorial

marker of femininity by wearing a skirt.1090

The amphibious nature of such riding équipages is evident in the fact that

similar habits appear to have been donned by elite male boys in the late 1670s. Pierre

Mignard’s portrait of Madame de Montespan surrounded by her children, a copy of

which is preserved at Versailles, shows Louis Auguste de Bourbon (1670-1736),

Duke of Maine, wearing what looks like a miniature version of a lady’s riding habit

(fig. 89).1091 Louis XIV’s legitimated son is depicted sporting a red and silver brocade

justaucorps reaching just beyond the knee and worn over a skirt of the same fabric.

The outfit’s equestrian associations are made manifest by the donning of a riding stick

adorned with a cluster of white and red ribbons, identical to that stitched at the sleeve

cuff and the voluminous nœud d’épaule. The boy also sports a lace cravat tied with a

1087 Mercure galant (July 1677), p. 137. 1088 See the definition of ‘cavalier’ in Furetière, Dictionnaire universel. 1089 Ibidem. 1090 Joan Enwistle, ‘Power Dressing and the Fashioning of the Career Woman’, in Mica Nava, Ian MacRury, Andrew Blake and Barry Richards (eds), Buy this Book: Studies in Advertising and Consumption (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 311-323. 1091 Pierre Mignard (copy of), Portrait of Madame de Montespan and her children, c. 1678. Château de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. 8237. See Constans, Musée national du château de Versailles, n. 5450.

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Fig. 89: Pierre Mignard (copy of), Portrait of Madame de Montespan and her children, c. 1678. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. 8237

Fig. 90: French School, Portrait of Louis Auguste de Bourbon Duke of Maine, c. 1675. Château de Blois, Inv. 860.1.16

Photo of ‘Pierre Mignard (copy of), Portrait of Madame de Montespan and her children’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon.

Photo of ‘Portrait of Louis Auguste de Bourbon Duke of Maine’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Château de Blois.

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red bow and a towering tuft of plumes dyed in the same colour. In early modern

portraiture, it is not uncommon for children to sport items of adult clothing or to bear

material markers of their future character and position in society.1092 The implication

behind the choice of equestrian attire, probably modelled on real clothing worn on

ceremonial occasions, was that the boy, although not yet breeched, already displayed

the signs of a courageous and valiant temper inherited from his royal father. Another

contemporary portrait of the Duke of Maine, preserved at the Château of Blois, shows

the boy wearing a similar ensemble of justaucorps, skirt and lace cravat, all decorated

with the customary garniture (fig. 90).1093 The absence of a feathered headdress is

compensated by the addition of blatantly martial accessories such as the white sash

edged in gold and the metal cuirass that covers his breast. In this case, the royal

bâtard also carries a pike and a sword instead of a riding stick.

For Louis-Auguste and other scions of the aristocracy, to don items adapted

from male equestrian and military dress represented an auspicious allusion to a

glorious future. For a woman, instead, this sartorial borrowing acquired an entirely

different significance, which did not pass unnoticed in a society riddled with anxieties

about cross-dressing.1094 In a letter addressed to Madame Desloges and dated from

1628, the writer Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1597-1654) condemned women’s dress

for riding as outright transvestism, an act against the laws of God and propriety

(bienséance).1095 As female riding became more common amongst the elites, similar

beliefs probably became less common, but did not entirely disappear. Hortense

1092 On children’s portraiture, see Jean Baptist Bedaux and Rudi Ekkart (eds), Pride and joy: children’s portraits in the Netherlands, 1500-1700 (Ghent: Ludion and New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2000) and Laurel Reed, ‘Art, Life, Charm and Titian’s Portrait of Clarissa Strozzi’, in Albrecht Classen (ed.), Childhood in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: The Results of Paradigm Shift in the History of Mentality (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2005), pp. 355-372. 1093 French School, Portrait of Louis Auguste de Bourbon Duke of Maine, c. 1675. Château de Blois, Inv. 860.1.16. See Hélène Lebédel-Carbonnel (ed.), Catalogue des peintures du musée du château de Blois. XVIe-XVIIIe siècles (Montreuil: Gourcuff-Gradenigo, 2008), n. 33, p. 98. 1094 Harris, Hidden Agendas, pp. 62-66. 1095 Letter dated 20 September 1628, in Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, Lettres diverses (Paris: Chez Estienne Loyson, 1663), pp. 237-238.

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Mancini (1646-1699), Duchess of Mazarin, recalled how in 1668 she was publicly

accused by her embittered husband of ‘having a justaucorps d’homme made, to go

around dressed in that fashion’.1096 Being a keen horsewoman, it is more likely that

she was in fact being fitted for an equestrian ensemble in the latest fashion.1097

While textual and visual documents like the Bielke portraits testify to the

popularity of the masculine équipage amongst court-dwelling aristocrats, it is harder

to establish to which extent this became fashionable outside the gates of Versailles.

The Mercure galant claimed to provide a regular and direct connection between the

fashionable world of the court and the outside world. As the magazine itself affirmed

in 1673, new trends spread ‘from the Court to the ladies of Paris, from the ladies of

Paris to the wealthy bourgeoises, from the wealthy bourgeoises to the working

women (grisettes) that imitate them with cheaper fabrics’. 1098 Only afterwards,

fashion would spread to the provincial ladies, then to the provincial bourgeoises and

finally abroad. As seen in the previous section, the Mercure was only too eager to

discuss cavalier fashions, providing frequent updates on changing justaucorps

designs. These updates, however, only concern the male wardrobe. No mention of

equestrian fashions for women was ever made within the magazine’s sartorial

commentaries. Only a short passage in November 1687 issue mentioned a fleeting fad

for justaucorps ‘that have found themselves caressed by the ladies, but whose good

fortune ceased all of a sudden’. 1099 The Mercure’s reticence on this issue might

suggest that in spite of the popularisation of equestrian fashions at court, they were far

from being considered a form of dress suited to everyday life amongst the Parisian

and urban elite. Upon closer scrutiny, however, the magazine does not appear entirely

1096 ‘M. Mazarin, ne pouvant faire pis, s’avisa de dire au Roi, que je me faisais faire un justaucorps d’homme, pour m’en aller habillée de cette sorte’. Hortense Mancini, Mémoires, p. 84. The favourite niece and heiress of Cardinal Mazarin, Hortense was married off to the French general Armand Charles de La Porte de La Meilleraye in 1661. She left Paris and her husband in June 1668, returning to her native Rome. 1097 On Hortense’s adventurous lives, see Goldsmith, The Kings’ Mistresses. 1098 ‘… de la Cour aux dames de la Ville, des dames de la Ville aux riches bourgeoises, des riches bourgeoises aux grisettes, qui les imitent avec de moindres étoffes’. Mercure 1673, vol. 3, p. 107. 1099 Mercure galant (November 1687), pp. 22-23.

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silent. On the contrary, turning one’s attention away from the section expressly

dedicated to the modes nouvelles, it is possible to find two extremely detailed

descriptions of female equestrian équipages from the 1680s.

IV.3-iii Female Equestrian Fashions in the Mercure galant

The September 1681 Mercure regaled its readers with a detailed report of a pageant

organised the previous month of June at Die, in the Dauphiné region.1100 There, the

town dignitaries had decided to stage a siege with an invading army led by a group of

‘officers of the fair sex’.1101 The magazine took great pleasure in describing the

details of these noblewomen’s outfit:

They sported a very brilliant équipage […] there was not one who did not wear a little hat in the shape of a helmet shadowed by plumes, a cravat of very fine lace tied at the top with a large ribbon; justaucorps of various colours, covered in galloons of silver and gold, a sword dangling from an embroidered baldric, and a dainty pike in their hands, of whose iron was gilded, and all the rest decorated with ribbons.1102

Thus attired, the ‘little and gallant army’ of ‘Amazons’ followed by male troops led

an attack against the city walls.1103 After an animated skirmish and much riding about,

the ladies were welcomed by the governor and invited to partake of some

refreshments. Only then, abandoning their martial attitude, ‘[t]he ladies readjusted all

the disorder the ardour of the combat had caused in their attire’.1104

This account probably enjoyed a favourable reception from the readers of the

Mercure, for two months later the magazine offered a detailed account of an

equestrian tournament organised at Charolles, in Burgundy.1105 On 21 September,

1100 Mercure galant (September 1681), pp. 26-47. 1101 ‘… ce Siege a esté formé par des Officiers de vostre beau Sexe’. Ibid., p. 26. 1102 ‘Elles se mirent dans un équipage fort brillant […] il n’y en avait aucune qui ne portast une Capeline en forme de Casque ombragè de Plumes, une Cravate d’un très beau Point attachée par dessus d’un large Ruban ; des Juste-au-corps de différentes couleurs, couverts de galon or & argent, une Epée qui pendoit à un Baudrier en Broferie, & une légère Pique à la main, dont le fer estoit doré, & tout le reste garny de Rubans’. Ibid., pp. 33-34. 1103 ‘Cette petite et galante armée’. Ibid., p. 36. 1104 ‘Les Dames raccommodèrent ce que l’ardeur du Combat avoit causé de désordre à leur parure’. Ibid., p. 45. 1105 Mercure galant (November 1681), pp. 56-113.

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nine ladies from that town took the initiative to challenge nine chevaliers to a joust,

from which the female riders came out triumphant. The contest consisted in hitting

the effigy of a wooden bird with a sword while galloping. After providing a concise

account of the actual tournament, the magazine’s chronicler provided individual

portraits of the victorious ‘Amazons’ as they advanced in a celebratory procession

through the town. The first Dame, who in the contest had been assigned the title of

Maréchal des Logis, ‘had a justaucorps of blue taffeta lined in red and enriched with

silver lace, with a pale yellow (isabelle) garnish, the skirt, breeches (Culote) and

stockings of a similar colour’.1106 She was followed by Mademoiselle de Ganay,

whose appearance was the object of a particularly accurate description:

Mademoiselle de Ganay had her hair gathered at the back in a purse (Bource) tied with a cherry-coloured ribbon; a beaver hat bedaubed with cherry-coloured plumes mixed with white ones; a cravat of very fine point d’Angleterre, tied à la cavalière; a justaucorps of white satin from China, decorated with gold galloons and lined with cherry-coloured taffeta, with a skirt of the same taffeta, at the edge of which was a gold fringe. This skirt did not go underneath the knees. The sash that tied her was made of English lace similar to the cravat. On her shoulder, sleeves and sword, she wore voluminous tufts (Toufes) of cherry and white ribbons of thin cut. She wore white satin breeches, all covered in gold lace, with cherry-coloured silk stockings rolled up below the knee. In this équipage, she marched fiercely, mounted on a small white horse almost entirely covered with ribbon knots of the same colour as the caparison. She held her rifle with her right hand, resting on her pistol case.1107

1106 ‘Elle avoit un Juste-au-corps de Tafetas bleu, doublé de rouge, & enrichy d’une Dentelle d’argent, avec une Garniture isabelle, la Jupe, la Culote, & les Bas de mesme’. Ibid., pp. 90-91. This first lady is the only one to remain unidentified in the account. 1107 ‘Mademoiselle de Ganay avoit ses chebeux enfermez par derriere, dans une Bource noüée d’un Ruban couleur de Cerise, un Castor garny de Plumes couleur aussi de Cerise, & meslées avec des blanches; une Cravate d’un Point tres-fin d’Angleterre, à la Cavaliere; un Juste-au-corps de Satin blanc de la Chine, enrichy de Galons d’or, & double d’un Tafetas couleur de Cerise, avec une Jupe de ce mesme Tafetas, au bas de laquelle estoit une Frange d’or. Cette Jupe ne passoit point les genoux. L’Echarpe qui la ceignoit, estoit de Dentelles d’Angleterre pareilles à la Cravate. On luy voyoit sur l’épaule, aux Manches, & à l’Epée, de grosses Toufes de Rubans estroit, couleur de Cerise & blancs. Elle avoit une Culote de Satin blanc, toute couverte de Dentelle d’or, avec un Bas de Soye couleur de Cerise, qui estoit roulé sous le genoüil. Dans cet équipage, elle marchoit fiérement, montée sur un petit Cheval blanc, Presque tout couvert de petits Nœuds de Ruban, de mesme couleur que se Garniture. Elle soûtenoit son Fusil de la main droite, & le tenoit appuyé sur la custode de son Pistolet’. Ibid., pp. 91-94. Probably Catherine de Ganay (born in 1647), or one of the younger daughters of Jean-David de Ganay, Seigneur de Genelard (c. 1610-1661).

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Mademoiselle de Grandjean, daughter of the city major, followed assuming the same

pose. She too had her hair gathered in a ‘purse’ and wore a blue justaucorps lined in

brown-red (feuille-morte), decorated with silver lace. Her hat was garnished with

many plumes of the same two colours as the justaucorps. 1108 Mademoiselle des

Autels. daughter of the civil lieutenant, wore a justaucorps of cherry-coloured taffeta

lined in white with matching skirt and stockings, all covered in gold and silver lace

and decorated with blue ribbon trimmings.1109 Mademoiselle Carré, daughter of the

chief court clerk, sported a blue justaucorps adorned with a simple golden braid on the

seams and voluminous lace cuffs (Tours-de-bras) of point d’Espagne. 1110 The

younger Mademoiselle de Juchaut, daughter of the Treasurer of France for the regions

of Burgundy and Bresse, had a flesh coloured justaucorps lined in green and

decorated with matching ribbon trimmings. 1111 Her elder sister came afterwards,

carrying the tournament’s ensign and wearing a black beaver hat edged with gold,

with no plumes, and a velvet justaucorps adorned with yellow ribbon trimmings.1112

Mademoiselle de Marsilly, daughter of the late Count and first cousin to

Mademoiselle de Ganay, showed off her beautiful hair ‘simply tied at the back in a

crimson ribbon, so that one could see three of four big ringlets fluttering over the

horse’s croup’.1113 Like her cousin, she too was the subject of special attention:

She wore a black beaver hat covered in white, blue and crimson plumes; a justaucorps in blue moiré silk enriched with broad gold and silver galloons; an abundance of ribbon trimmings in the same colours as the plumes; a sash of

1108 Ibid., pp. 94-95. Probably Jacqueline Grandjean, daughter of Girard and Anne de Ganay; she married Antoine Chaintrey in 1685. 1109 Ibid., pp. 95-96. 1110 Ibid., p. 96. 1111 Ibid., pp. 96-97. One of the four daughters of Etienne Dagoneau de Juchaut, possibly Anne Marie, who married Jean Baptiste de Fretas in 1698. 1112 Ibid., p. 98. One of the three older daughters of the above, probably Catherine Françoise. 1113 ‘Comme elle a la plus belle teste du monde, ses cheveux estoient seulement noüez par derriere d’un Ruban incarnadin, & l’on en voyoit trois ou quatre grosses boucles, qui ondoyoient sur la croupe de son Cheval’. Ibid., p. 98. Marie-Anne Damas was the only daughter and heiress of Charles Damas de Marcilly and Marie de Ganay. She later married Anne-Bernard de la Magdelaine Count of Ragny and became Baronne of Marcilly in her own right.

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point d’Espagne, silver and gold; a skirt of brocade embroidered with gold and silver flowers; crimson satin breeches, and silk stockings of the same colour.1114

Mademoiselle des Landes des Pierres sported a justaucorps of white taffeta lined in

purple and decorated with ribbons and plumes of the same colours.1115 The procession

was closed by the ‘Queen’ of the tournament, Mademoiselle Pézerat, a young lady

praised for her beauty as much as her intellect, she ‘speaks Latin just as well as

French, understands philosophy and theology; and of all exercises, hunting is that that

she likes best’.1116 The Mercure declared that nothing could possibly be more brilliant

than the équipage she appeared in during her triumph:

Her hair, of the most beautiful black that one could see, were tied like a wig (en Perruque), that she pushed back with nonchalance on her shoulders. She wore a cravat of point de France with five or six folds of dark red (ponceau) ribbon; a little black beaver hat bedaubed with just one plume the colour of fire; a blue justaucorps with silver and gold embroidery; a luxurious sash of point d’Espagne, silver and gold; a short skirt like all the other [ladies], of blue brocade embroidered with gold and silver flowers, with a fringe at the bottom, made in the same manner; breeches adorned with embroidery similar to the fringe, and silk stockings the colour of fire. Her trimming was made with a thin dark red ribbon. She marched with a proud air of a true queen.1117

1114 ‘Elle avoit un Castor noir, couvert de Plumes blanches, bleuës, & incarnadines; un Juste-au-corps de Moire bleuë, enrichy de gros Galons d’or & d’argent; une Garniture de Rubans en tres-grande quantité des couleurs des Plumes; une Echarpe de Point d’Espagne, or & argent; une Jupe d’un Brocard bleu, à fleurs aussi or & argent; une Culote de Satin incarnat, & des Bas de soye de mesme’. Ibid., pp. 99-100. 1115 She was a daughter of Monsieur Drouy Seigneur of Landes, Pierres and Douvant, General Lieutenant and Bailiff for the Charolais region. 1116 ‘Mademoiselle Peserat est tres-bien-faite, a de la beauté, de l’esprit infiniment, parle aussi bien Latin que François, sçait la Philosophie & Théologie; & de tous les Exercices, la Chasse est celuy qu’elle aime le plus’. Ibid., pp. 100-101. Probably Marie Anne (1660-1740), daughter of Jean de Pézerat, who married Pierre Demontchanin in 1692. 1117 ‘Ses cheveux, du plus beau noir que l’on puisse voir, estoient noüez en Perruque, qu’elle rejettoit négligemment sur ses deux épaules. Elle avoit une Cravate de Point de France avec cinq ou six feuilles de Ruban ponceau; un petit Castor noir, garny d’une simple Plume couleur de feu; un Juste-au-corps bleu, en Broderie or & argent; une Echarpe tres-riche de Point d’Espagne, or & argent; une petite Jupe ainsi que les autres, de Brocard bleu à fleurs aussi or & argent, avec une Frange au bas de la mesme sorte; une Culote garnie d’une petite Broderie pareille à la Frange, & des Bas de soye couleur de feu. Sa Garniture estoit de petit Ruban ponceau. Elle marchoit d’un air fier & digne d’une veritable Reyne’. Ibid., pp. 104-106.

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In relating the events at Die and especially Charolles, the Mercure did not leave any

doubt as to the true purpose of its report. The ladies’ sartorial exploits mattered as

much, if not more, than their equestrian feats and the author strove to bring their

triumph to life with an accurate description of colours, shapes and materials. As a

result, the procession of Burgundian ‘Amazons’ forms an ensemble as vivid as the

portraits in Bielke’s collection. Indeed, paying close attention at the way equestrian

outfits are described in the magazine offers precious clues about how to observe

contemporary representations on canvas.

In their display of costly materials and colourful fabrics, the two groups of

provincial noblewomen seem to have no difficulty in rivalling female courtiers. Their

outfits abound with gold and silver braid, lace and ribbon trimmings, be they nœuds to

tie the cravat or touffes at the shoulder. In their composition too, they follow the same

model as the Bielke ladies insofar as they wear a justaucorps and related accessories.

In the case of the Charolles horsewomen, however, emulation of masculine fashions

was pushed one step further. The ladies taking part in the joust were said to don a pair

of silk breeches (culote) and stockings covered by a knee-lenght petticoat. Caleçons

hidden under a full-lenght skirt likely constituted an ordinary element of ladies’

equestrian attire. When mounting astride, female riders could also simply don a pair

of breeches similar to men. This case, however, presents a most unusual instance of a

compromise. A petticoat was indeed worn, but its length must have rendered the

bifurcated garment underneath perfectly visible, especially when the lady was sitting

in the saddle. The term ‘culote’ referred to a specific type of breeches, otherwise

referred to simply as hauts-de-chausses, which were especially designed to

accompany the justaucorps. According to Richelet’s 1680 dictionary, these were

‘narrower at the knee, with the bottom folded inwards and hold by the lining, which is

fixed to the fabric only at the top and at the bottom’.1118 ‘More or less tight’, the

culote could be ‘sometimes provided with front pockets at four fingers from the

1118 ‘Espece de haut de chausse étroit par le bas, & dont le bas est retiré en dedans par la doublure qui ne tient à l’étofe que par le haut & par le bas’. Pierre Richelet, Dictionnaire Françoi, contenant les mots et les choses, plusieurs nouvelles remarques sur la langue françoise (Genève: Chez Jean Herman Widerhold, 1680), p. 205.

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waistline and is never to be worn without a justaucorps’.1119 Furetière’s dictionary

also emphasised the inherent connection between culotte – here spelled in the modern

way – and justaucorps, suggesting as an example the sentence ‘the manservant has

been promised a justaucorps and a culotte’.1120 Often cut from the same fabric, the

upper and lower garment acted together as a form of male uniform that could be

applied to a variety of consumers and context, from the servant’s livery to the

nobleman on the hunting field or at court. Made of embroidered silk, the ladies’

culotes were certainly as luxurious as the petticoats and both items were clearly meant

to be showed off and admired. Wearing breeches probably also responded to a search

for more physical confort on the saddle. While the Mercure did not make it clear

whether the ladies rode astride or side-saddle, the type of joust as well as the nature of

the outfit itself seem to indicate the former option to be more likely. In both cases,

however, the absence of most of the skirt’s bulk would render the rider more agile and

balanced. Appropriation of masculine garments and search for greater comfort often

went hand in hand in the matter of equestrian fashions. Another item that was

incorporated in some of the ladies’ headdress was the so-called purse (bource). First

recorded in the 1706 edition of Richelet’s dictionary, the ‘bourse de cheveux’ is

described as ‘a type of great purse of cloth or black taffeta where one puts the hair or

the bottom part of a wig, and then throws it behind the head’.1121 Such accessory, the

entry read, was employed exclusively by ‘hunters, young cavaliers and travellers’.1122

Worn for the purpose of keeping wandering hair out of the way, this accessory also

blended in with the rest of the garniture thanks to a colourful ribbon.

1119 ‘La culote est large ou étroite, elle a quelquefois des poches par devant à quatre doigts de la ceinture & ne se porte jamais qu’avec un juste au corps’. Ibidem. 1120 ‘On a promis à ce valet un justaucorps & une Culotte’; see the définition of ‘culotte’ in Furetière. 1121 ‘manière de grande bourse de toile, ou de tafetas noir, où l’on met les cheveux, & tout le bas de la perruque, & que l’on jette ensuite derrière la tête’. Pierre Richelet, Dictionnaire françois contenant generalement tous les mots tant vieux que nouveaux (Amsterdam: Chez Jean Elzevier, 1706), p. 132. 1122 ‘Il n’y a que les Chasseurs, les jeunes Cavaliers & les Voiageurs, qui se servent de bourses des cheveux’. Ibidem.

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Bielke’s portraits depicted ladies at the very pinnacle of court society, moving

in the immediate entourage of the royal family. This fact, together with the lack of

similar visual documents, invited the dress historian to look upon the ladies’

equestrian ensembles as thrilling pieces of sartorial avant-garde reserved to the ladies

of Versailles. It is somehow surprising, instead, to find similar fashions well outside

the court milieu, worn by the provincial aristocracy in the early 1680s. Further

research is needed to establish how the knowledge of such trends circulated, or indeed

whether they developed independently amongst separate communities of French

aristocratic horsewomen. In the next section I discuss how printed images played a

key role in fostering contemporaries’ fascination with aristocratic ladies’ riding

ensembles during the last two decades of the seventeenth century.

IV.3-iv Female Equestrian Fashions in ‘Fashion Portrait Prints’

The conflation of stylishness and court culture, coupled with a lively print market in

the French capital, gave rise to a new type of engravings that have been termed

‘fashion portraits prints’ (portrait de cour en modes).1123 Combining the attractions of

celebrity portrait and fashion plate, these new products resulted from a shrewd

marketing strategy introduced around 1683 by the Parisian workshop of the Bonnart

brothers. Earlier models such as the ‘beautiful lady in hunting dress’ took the form of

simple fashion portraits (portraits en mode) devoid of a specific identity.

Characterised by the standardised vertical format and great uniformity of style, these

scenes have been simply referred to as ‘bonnarts’ since the nineteenth century. Within

a family of four brothers engravers and art dealers, Robert Bonnart (1652-1733) was

the only one to receive a veritable education as a painter, being placed as apprentice

with Van der Meulen.1124 Pascale Cugy’s study of the artist’s autograph drawings has

established how it was his influence that moulded the characteristic style of all

1123 Kathleen Nicholson, ‘Fashioning Fashionability’, in Norberg and Rosenbaum (eds), Fashion Prints in the Age of Louis XIV, pp. 15-54. 1124 Pascale Cugy, La dynastie Bonnart: Peintres, Graveurs et Marchands de Modes à Paris sous l’Ancien Régime (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2017). On Robert Bonnart and Van der Meulen, see Richefort, Adam-François Van der Meulen, p. 179.

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Bonnart fashion portraits.1125 Informed by a ‘static lightness’ that greatly contributes

to their delicacy as artworks, these prints nevertheless present a number of traits that

render them inherently ‘ambiguous’ as sources for historical enquiry.1126 In the first

place, the generally stereotyped depiction of the sitters’ faces completely undermines

their significance as actual portraits. Secondly, it is not uncommon to find the same

image being accompanied by different labels. Robert Bonnart’s drawing of a lady

wearing a hunting habit in mid-1690s style, for example, was employed to illustrate

both a generic ‘young lady of quality in hunting garb’ and ‘Madame the Marquise de

Hautefeuille in hunting garb’ (figs 91, 92). 1127 Despite their meticulousness in

depicting sartorial details, scholars have been wary of accepting them as actual

snapshots of ‘real’ clothing straight from the halls of Versailles. On the whole,

however, their key role in the diffusion of contemporary fashions remains

unchallenged. Their reliability has been recently put to the test through an exercise in

sartorial reconstruction of a court grand habit by a team of researchers at the Los

Angeles County Museum of Art.1128

One of the Bonnarts’ earliest fashion engravings featured a lady in hunting

garb (habit de chasse), whose outfit presents notable similarities with those worn by

the noblewomen in Bielke’s set (fig. 93). 1129 Consisting of a blue justaucorps

decorated with gold galloons and a generous garniture of red ribbons, her équipage

bears a remarkable similarity with the Duchess of La Ferté’s. Their red skirts appear

1125 Pascale Cugy, ‘Robert Bonnart: Dessins préparatoires à des gravures de mode du Grand Siècle’, Revue de la BNF 38(2011/2), pp. 74-84. 1126 Françoise Tétard-Vittu, ‘The Fashion Print: An Ambiguous Object’, in Norbert and Rosenbaum, Fashion Prints in the Age of Louis XIV, pp. 3-14. 1127 Robert Bonnart, Fille de qualité en habit de chasse. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cabinet des Estampes, coll. Smith Lesouf, 49 (9479). Robert Bonnart, Madame la marquise de Hautefeuille en habit de chasse. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cabinet des Estampes, Oa pet fol, f. 121a; Robert Bonnart, Fille de qualité en habit de chasse. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cabinet des Estampes, Oa 65-pet fol, f. 47. This example is discussed in Cugy, ‘Robert Bonnart’, pp. 80-81. 1128 See Maxwell Barr, ‘Recreating a Grand Habit’, in Ibid., pp. 223-232 and Catherine McLean, Sandra L. Rosenbaum, and Susan Renate Schmalz, ‘A Seventeenth-Century Gown Rediscovered: Work in Progress’, in Ibid., pp. 233-245. 1129 Nicolas Bonnart, Dame en habit de chasse, c. 1680. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, M.2002.57.14. A monochrome copy is preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (coll. Hennin, vol. 58, n. 5100).

291 to

Fig. 91: Robert Bonnart, Fille de qualité en habit de chasse. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cabinet des Estampes, coll. Smith Lesouf, 49 (9479)

Fig. 93: Nicolas Bonnart, Dame en habit de chasse, c. 1680. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Inv. M.2002.57.14

Fig. 92: Robert Bonnart, Madame la marquise de Hautefeuille en habit de chasse. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cabinet des Estampes, Oa pet fol, f. 121a

Photo of ‘Robert Bonnart, Fille de qualité en habit de chasse’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Photo of ‘Robert Bonnart, Madame la marquise de Hautefeuille en habit de chasse’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Photo of ‘Nicolas Bonnart, Dame en habit de chasse’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

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be made of monochrome damask decorated with natural motifs, which might illustrate

the fashion for ‘fabrics covered in little ornaments, flowers and grotesques, all in one

colour’ described by the Mercure in January 1678.1130 Like the Duchesses of La Ferté

and Bouillon, she also wears a wig à la cavalière, whilst her hat is similar to that of

the Marquise de Louvois and her white silk sash is edged in the same style as the

Countess of Saint Géran’s. Although the lady is not represented on horseback, her

self-assured and commanding attitude is clearly signified by her masculine posture,

left arm akimbo and carrying her riding stick in the guise of a walking cane,

mimicking a pose often assumed by Louis XIV himself.1131 ‘This beautiful lady in

hunting garb / With her sweet and brilliant eyes’, reads the caption, ‘Instead of

partridges and woodcock / Will certainly capture some gallant suitor’.1132 Her pair of

brilliant eyes might well have attracted the gentlemen’s attention, but it looks very

much like the artist directed the viewer’s attention towards the lady’s attire.

Hunting and riding outfits remained well-represented within the emerging

production of portraits de cour en modes, so that these objects provide key clues to

the evolution of equestrian fashions between the mid-1680s and the first few years of

the eighteenth century. William Brooks identifies no fewer than twelve engraved

portraits of the Duchess of Orléans in equestrian garb during this period.1133 The sitter

is depicted in a variety of poses: on horseback, seated, most often standing and

holding a rifle. Madame’s love of riding and hunting was well known at the time, as

was her particular affinity taste for the related outfit. Indeed, the Duke of Saint-Simon

reported, Madame ‘never appeared in any other way than wearing a grand habit or a

1130 Mercure galant (January 1678), p. 353. 1131 Joaneath Spicer, ‘The Renaissance Elbow’ in Jan Bremmer and Herman Roodenburg (eds), A Cultural History of Gesture: From Antiquity to the Present Day (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), pp. 84-128. Zirka Zaremba Filipczak, ‘Portraits of Women Who “Do Not Keep Strictly to the Masculine and Feminine Genders, as They Call Them”, in Katlijne Van der Stighelen, Hannelore Magnus and Bert Watteeuw (eds), Pockerfaced: Flemish and Dutch Baroque Faces Unveiled (Turhnout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 229-248, esp. p. 231. 1132 ‘Cette belle en habit de chasse, / Avec ses yeux doux et brillants, / Au lieu de perdrix ou bécasse, / Pourra prendre quelques Galants’. 1133 Brooks, Artists’ Images and the self-descriptions of Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orléans, pp. 131-155.

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man’s wig and riding habit (habit de cheval)’. 1134 Such reputation certainly

contributed to the proliferation of her equestrian portraits. Yet in the previous chapter

I have emphasised how a great many young ladies at the French court joined in the

royal hunts in the course of the 1680s and early 1690s. It is not surprising, therefore,

to see emerging amongst the Bonnart prints from the period a number of equestrian

portraits of high-ranking female courtiers. A group of engraved equestrian portraits

preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France presents a similar format, each

accompanied by a brief biographical note. The Duchesses of Chartres and Bourbon

are depicted majestically leading their horses into a levade and turning towards the

right (figs 94, 95).1135 The fact that they are placed with their legs off the right side of

the horse is most likely a consequence of the image reversal inherent in the printing

process rather than a feature of the original design by Robert Bonnart.1136 Their sister-

in-law the Duchess of Maine, instead, is portrayed cantering towards the left, whereas

Marie-Thérèse of Bourbon-Condé (1666-1732), the younger Princess of Conti, and

Anne-Marie of Orléans (1669-1728), Duchess of Savoy, towards the right (figs 96-

98).1137 Another Bonnart print from the same set features Marie of Lorraine, Duchess

of Valentinois (1674-1724), seated on a terrace while petting a hound, her hat left on a

1134 ‘Elle aimait les chiens et le chevaux, passionnément la chasse et les spectacles, n’était jamais qu’en grand habit ou en perruque d’homme et en habit de cheval, et avait plus de soixante ans que, saine ou malade, et elle ne l’était guère, qu’elle n’avait pas connu une robe de chambre’. Chéruel (ed.), Mémoires de Saint-Simon, vol. 1, p. 236. 1135 Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Françoise-Marie of Bourbon Duchess of Chartres. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 100, n. 8651; Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Louise-Françoise of Bourbon Duchess of Bourbon. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 97, n. 8423. On the sitters, see p. 203, n. 838 and p. 208, n. 862. 1136 Vanessa Selbach, ‘What is a Print? The Fabrication of Images’, in Peter Fuhring, Louis Marchesano, Remi Mathis and Vanessa Selbach (eds), A Kingdom of Images: French Prints in the Age of Louis XIV, 1660-1715 (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2015), pp. 15-21. 1137 Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Louise-Bénédicte de Bourbon Duchess of Maine, c. 1692-1695. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 101, n. 8742; Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Anne-Marie of Bourbon Princess of Conti. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 95, n. 8294; Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Anne-Marie of Orléans Duchess of Savoy, c. 1692-1695. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 92, n. 8062. On the Duchess of Maine, see p. 216, n. 894. Marie-Thérèse de Bourbon was the daughter of Henri Jules Prince of Condé and Anne of Bavaria, Princess Palatine; she married François-Louis de Bourbon Prince of Conti in 1688. Daughter of Philippe Duke of Orléans and his first wife Henrietta of England, Anne-Marie married Vittorio Amedeo II of Savoy in 1684.

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Fig. 94: Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Françoise-Marie of Bourbon Duchess of Chartres, c. 1692-1695. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 100, n. 8651

Fig. 96: Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Louise-Bénédicte de Bourbon Duchess of Maine, c. 1692-1695. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 101, n. 8742

Fig. 95: Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Louise-Françoise of Bourbon Duchess of Bourbon, c. 1692-1695. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 97, n. 8423

Fig. 97: Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Marie-Thérèse of Bourbon-Condé Princess of Conti, c. 1692-1695. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 94, n. 8173

Photo of ‘Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Françoise-Marie of Bourbon Duchess of Chartres’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Photo of ‘Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Louise-Françoise of Bourbon Duchess of Bourbon’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Photo of ‘Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Louise-Bénédicte de Bourbon Duchess of Maine’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Photo of ‘Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Marie-Thérèse of Bourbon-Condé Princess of Conti’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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table (fig. 99). 1138 Around one decade separates these Bonnart prints from the

execution of the Bielke paintings and the ladies portrayed are all a generation

younger.1139 Yet the riding ensembles they sport has remained essentially the same,

consisting of a knee-length justaucorps worn open over a buttoned-up waistcoat and a

voluminous skirt. A number of details, however, clearly differentiate these outfits.

While three of the ladies still wear sashes at the waist, these appear no longer to be

made of embroidery but rather cut from a fabric similar to that of the justaucorps.

While four of the five ladies still sport a rabat noué, shoulder knots have completely

disappeared and ribbon trimmings have similarly been removed from the edge of

1138 Robert Bonnart, Portrait of Marie of Lorraine Duchess of Valentinois in hunting garb, c. 1692-1695. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 70, n. 6173. Marie was the ninth of fourteen children of Louis de Lorraine Count of Armagnac and Catherine de Neufville; she married Antoine I Duke of Valentinois, eldest son of the Prince of Monaco, in 1688. 1139 The Duchess of Valentinois from the Bonnart prints is the very own daughter of Catherine de Neufville, Countess of Armagnac, whose equestrian portrait was painted for the Duke of Aumont.

Fig. 98: Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Anne-Marie of Orléans Duchess of Savoy, c. 1692-1695. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 92, n. 8062

Fig. 99: Robert Bonnart, Portrait of Marie of Lorraine Duchess of Valentinois in hunting garb, c. 1692-1695. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 70, n. 6173

Photo of ‘Robert Bonnart, Equestrian portrait of Anne-Marie of Orléans Duchess of Savoy’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Photo of ‘Robert Bonnart, Portrait of Marie of Lorraine Duchess of Valentinois in hunting garb’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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gloves.1140 Finally, all ladies wear wigs and black tricornes probably edged with gold

or silver thread and decorated with plumes.

Robert Bonnart’s training with Van der Meulen probably accounts for the

great number and excellent quality of equestrian portraits, both male and female,

amongst the portraits de cour en modes. Another celebrated pupil of the Flemish

master, Jean-Baptiste Martin (1659-1735), also provided designs for three equestrian

portraits engraved by Nicholas Bazin (1633-1710) and featuring ladies at the very

pinnacle of court society.1141 A print dated from 1682 represents none less than the

Queen Maria Theresa of Austria, promenading on horseback, followed by a page

holding a large parasol.1142 It has been noted that Martin drew close inspiration from

his master’s work, so much so that their style is often indistinguishable. In this

instance, the queen’s dignified pose certainly bears a similarity to Van der Meulen’s

1669 equestrian scene in the vicinities of Vincennes. In a hand-coloured version of

this engraving preserved at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston the resemblance

extends to the purple hue of the habit (fig. 100).1143 This engraving leaves little doubt

as to the fact that the queen’s outfit was intended as a veritable ensemble. Whilst the

ladies depicted in the Bielke’s set often sport matching accessories, in this case the

coat and skirt conform to the same purple and blue chromatic pallet. Indeed,

similarities in ornamentation as well as colour suggest that they may be cut from the

same fabric. This trend is first mentioned in the Mercure from January 1678, when it

is presented as a novelty from the previous year.1144 Despite being ‘followed by many

people’, the magazine deemed that this taste for uniformity was unlikely to become a

‘general’ fashion, adding that to be dressed freely (à la fantasie) was still the surest

1140 The Duchess of Savoy wears her white cravat simply tied. 1141 Also referred to as ‘Martin de Batailles’, the artist succeeded to his master as Director of the Gobelins Manufactury after the latter’s death in 1690. David Brouzet, ‘Jean-Baptiste et Pierre-Denis Martin peintres des Maisons royales’, L’Estampille / L’Objet d’art 328(October 1998), pp. 64-82. 1142 Nicolas Bazin, Portrait of Maria Theresa of Austria on horseback, 1682. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, n. 5306. 1143 Nicolas Bazin, Portrait of Maria Theresa of Austria on horseback, 1682. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Inv. 44.1138. 1144 ‘L’Année derniere on portoit les Manteaux & les Jupes de la mesme Etofe’. Mercure galant (January 1678), p. 354.

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Fig. 100: Nicolas Bazin, engraved portrait of Maria Theresa of Austria on horseback, 1682. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Inv. 44.1138

Fig. 102: Nicolas Bazin, engraved portrait of Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria Dauphine of France on horseback, 1686. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 57, n. 5039

Fig. 101: Nicolas Bazin, Portrait of Elizabeth Charlotte Duchess of Orléans on horseback, 1682. Royal Collection Trust, Inv. RCIN 616074

Photo of ‘Nicolas Bazin, engraved portrait of Maria Theresa of Austria on horseback’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Photo of ‘Nicolas Bazin, Portrait of Elizabeth Charlotte Duchess of Orléans on horseback’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Royal Collection Trust.

Photo of ‘Nicolas Bazin, engraved portrait of Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria Dauphine of France on horseback’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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way of being in vogue.1145 While Martin’s queen seems to follow the latest trend in

terms of chromatic choices, other elements of her costume betray an old-fashioned

taste. Her headdress consists of a multicoloured feather panache and the upper part of

her habit is cut in the shape of a feminine manteau rather than a masculine

justaucorps. Conservative traits in Maria Theresa’s pose and wardrobe may result

from Martin’s reliance on older models from his master Van der Meulen. However,

they may also reflect the subject’s real character and appearance. The queen, after all,

was known neither for her equestrian prowess nor for her fashionable appearance.

Bazin’s portrait of the Duchess of Orléans, also dating from 1682, appears strikingly

different (fig. 101).1146 Elisabeth Charlotte is depicted while galloping and her attire

resembles more closely that of Bonnart’s huntress. Over a voluminous and ornate

skirt, her tight monochrome justaucorp is fastened at the waist with a fringed sash.

She also wears a small dark hat bedecked with a half circle of plumes. Both

engravings are likely to be inspired by a hunting scene preserved at the Château

d’Aulteribe, which David Brouzet has recently attributed to Martin.1147 This large

canvas depicts the Grand Dauphin hunting the stag accompanied by a group of female

riders. On the left, the galloping prince is portrayed donning the blue justaucorps with

red facings that distinguished the vénerie royale. Just behind him, a huntress is

depicted in a pose that closely matches that of Maria Theresa, riding with great

composure and throwing a regal glance towards the spectator. The resemblance

extends to the cut of the dress, here of a golden colour, and the purple nœud d’épaule

and matching panache. Riding in front of the Dauphin, towards the centre of the

painting, another horsewoman races in the pursuit of the chase. This appears to be a

perfect copy of the Duchess of Orléans’ engraved portrait, down to the minutest

details such as the fluttering of the ornamental ribbons. With a red justaucorps and

1145 ‘Cette Mode a encor esté suivie de beaucoup de Personnes, depuis que le Printemps a commence: mais comme plusieurs autres portent le Manteau d’une Etofe, & la Jupe d’une autre, on peut dire que cette Mode n’est pas generale, & qu’en s’habillant à la fantasie sur cet article, on sera toûjours à la mode’. Ibidem. 1146 Nicolas Bazin, Portrait of Elizabeth Charlotte Duchess of Orléans on horseback, 1682. Royal Collection Trust, Inv. RCIN 616074. 1147 David Brouzet, ‘Deux portraits inédits du Grand Dauphin par Jean-Baptiste Martin, Versalia: Revue de la Société des Amis de Versailles 10 (2007), pp. 20-25.

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blue skirt, the princess’ ensemble seems to mirror the male uniform. In the

background, two more female riders are clearly visible, both sporting a blue

justaucorps with a red ribbon tying their cravat and one donning a flaming red skirt.

Aside from the connection with the two engravings by Bazin, no other detail within

the painting provides clues as to the identity of the two main horsewomen. While it is

highly probable that the figure towards the centre does represent Elisabeth Charlotte

d’Orléans, it is equally unlikely that the figure on the left depicts the Queen. She is

never recorded taking active part in the hunts organised by her son, who preferred the

company of his aunt and half-sisters. After her equestrian exploit in June 1680, the

Dauphine too did not take to riding on a regular basis; a fact that might be explained

by her poor health as well as personal inclination. Yet a third engraving by Bazin,

clearly a companion of the other two albeit dating from 1686, represents the Maria

Anna Victoria of Bavaria riding confidently on her horse (fig. 102).1148 She wears a

plumed hat and a costume that appears very similarly to that of Elisabeth Charlotte,

although her justaucorps appears cut from a fabric embellished by floral motifs or

grotesques.

Other fashion engravers from the period contented themselves with

representing equestrian fashions. Antoine Trouvain (1656-1708) realised two prints

depicting the Duchess of Orléans and her lady-in-waiting, Mademoiselle de Loubès,

both ‘in hunting garb’ (figs 103, 104).1149 Turned in opposite directions, the two

figures mirror each other’s pose and silhouette in the general outline of their habits.

Indeed, the lower part of their dress is virtually identical down to the details of the

folds and the shadow they cast against the naked background. The upper part of the

1148 Nicolas Bazin, engraved portrait of Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria Dauphine of France on horseback, 1686. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 57, n. 5039. 1149 Antoine Trouvain, Madame en habit de chasse, 1694. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 7921; Antoine Trouvain, Mademoiselle de Loube, Fille d’honneur de madame, en habit de Chasse, c. 1695. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Inv. RP-P-2005-97. Marie-Françoise de Rochefort Théobon, daughter of Jean de Rochefort Marquis de Théobon, whose sister Lydia was briefly mistress of the King and later married the Count of Beuvron. The only in-depth study of Antoine Trouvain’s life and work remain the unpublished master’s thesis by Anne-Sophie Legrand, ‘Antoine Trouvain, 1652-1708: graveur et éditeur d’estampes, Université Paris IV Sorbonne (1995).

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two figures instead differs considerably, insofar as Madame holds a rifle, whereas her

younger companion carries her tricorne and a riding stick in her hands. Finally,

Madame’s portrait bears the date 1694 and is realised in black and white, while the

likeness of Mademoiselle de Loube is undated but beautifully coloured. Most likely

the latter was partially copied on the former’s design and turned the other way around.

The two sides on the justaucorps appear to be inverted, the buttonholes being placed

on the right and the buttons on the left. Aside from this sartorial solecism, never to be

found on any of the Bonnart prints, the ladies’ outfits are rendered in exquisite detail.

Both wear a buttoned-up justaucorps that reach just underneath the knee. The fact that

Trouvain depicted the ladies standing and turned towards the side reveals the

equestrian attire’s bulk in terms of both volume and length of the skirt. Such

abundance of fabric ensured that the lady’s legs were covered even when sitting on

the horse and riding at great speed. Justaucorps and skirt of both outfits appear to be

made of the same type of fabric, seemingly damask embellished with floral designs.

The similarity of decoration between justaucorps and skirt in Madame’s portrait may

even suggest that they are cut from the same fabric. Mademoiselle de Loubes’ outfit

Fig. 103: Antoine Trouvain, Madame en habit de chasse, 1694. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 7921

Fig. 104: Antoine Trouvain, Mademoiselle de Loube, Fille d’honneur de madame, en habit de Chasse, c. 1695. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Inv. RP-P-2005-97

Photo of ‘Antoine Trouvain, Madame en habit de chasse’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Photo of ‘Antoine Trouvain, Mademoiselle de Loube, Fille d’honneur de madame, en habit de Chasse’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

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instead differs in terms of both decorative pattern and colour. Her golden justaucorps

with light blue linings and ruby skirt are matched by few accessories, including the

decorative feathers and fil d’or galloon at the edge of her tricorne.

Remaining unaltered in its essential components, the female équipage evolved

following male trends and mirroring masculine aesthetic concerns. In 1682, the

Mercure promoted the liberal use of ribbons to prevent the outfit from appearing too

‘uni’, meaning uniform in shape and colour. Towards the end of the seventeenth

century, however, male dress underwent a shift towards greater simplicity.

Flamboyant shoulder knots completely disappeared and ribbon trimmings were

removed from gloves, sleeve cuffs and hats. Ribbons were only employed to tie the

rabat noué. Thus trimmed of its conspicuous garniture, the equestrian outfit’s

silhouette became neater and more compact. Instead of being symbolised by the

exhibition of colourful accessories, the wearer’s cavalier attitude was communicated

through the display of affected insouciance and sobriety. This new trend is epitomised

by the cravat à la steinkerque, which constituted the height of male fashion in France

for the few years following the victorious battle of Steenkerk on 3 August 1692.

Voltaire wrote that this trend originated from the report that the French generals,

lacking time to properly carry out their toilette, put on their cravats without the

habitual care.1150 An air of studied negligence was achieved by simply twisting the

two ends of the neckcloth once or twice and then putting the edges through a

buttonhole of the justaucorps. Women did not lose time in incorporating this new

trend in their equestrian outfits. Trouvain’s ladies wear their steinkerques with a

ribbon reminiscent of the traditional rabat noué. The fashion is similarly integrated by

the Bonnarts brothers in some of their plates from the period. An equestrian portrait of

the Princess of Conti by Robert Bonnart, preserved at the Musée Carnavalet, depicts

the lady sporting a similar type of neckwear.1151 The same accessory also features in

the twin prints of the Marquise de Hautefeuille (fig. 93) and a lady of quality ‘in

1150 Voltaire, Le Siècle de Louis XIV in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1878), vol. 14, p. 315. 1151 On the Princess of Conti, see p. 202, n. 834.

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hunting garb’. 1152 As the wife of a colonel of the dragoons who had fought at

Steenkerk, the Marquise was probably thought a suitable figure to be associated with

the new fashion. A steinkerque cravat also appeared in Robert Bonnart’s 1695 portrait

of the military heroine Philis de La Charce (fig. 45), which has been previously

discussed.1153 Considering that her military feats took place in late August 1692, it is

virtually impossible that she would have actually worn, or ever heard of, the newly

created fashion. However, the martial nature of her character together with her

equestrian prowess, rendered her naturally worthy of being represented sporting the

prestigious accessory. As a full-fledged military commander, Mademoiselle de La

Charce is entitled to wear her steinkerque without the decorative ribbon, in a way that

is usually reserved for males in engraved portraits from the period. Thus, for example,

Robert Bonnart depicted François de Neufville Duke of Villeroy, Maréchal of France

1152 Marie Françoise Elisabeth Rouxel, daughter of Bénédict François de Rouxel Marquis de Grancey and naval chef d’escadre, married Gabriel Etienne Louis Texier Marquis d’Hautefeuille and colonel of the dragoons in 1689. 1153 See p. 138.

Fig. 105: Robert Bonnart, Portrait of François de Neufville Maréchal of Villeroy, 1696. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 93 n. 8100

Fig. 106: Jean Dieu de Saint-Jean, Lady of quality in hunting garb, 1695. Bibliothèque nationale de France, ARS EST-368 (215)

Photo of ‘Robert Bonnart, Portrait of François de Neufville Maréchal of Villeroy’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Photo of ‘Jean Dieu de Saint-Jean, Lady of quality in hunting garb’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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(fig. 105).1154 Similarly sober is the neckwear worn by a ‘young lady of quality in

hunting garb’ etched by Jean Dieu de Saint-Jean (1654-1695) in 1695 (fig. 106).1155 In

this case, a white kerchief is simply tied at the neck with a single knot and folded into

the buttoned-up waistcoat. The lady’s habit, moreover, appears no longer made of

figured fabrics such as damask, but rather of plain and sturdier cloth (drap) or serge,

with the justaucorps cut more flared, following recent male trends.1156 In spite of its

apparent simplicity, the female habit de chasse unequivocally remained a luxurious

garment strongly associated with the highest echelons of French society. By turning

again towards the royal hunting field, the following section will investigate how elite

women’s ambition to refashion themselves as feminine cavaliers became more

pronounced when their equestrian behaviours gained further independence.

IV.3-v The Duchess’ Cavalcades and the habit d’Amazone

The previous chapter showed how Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy took over the reins of

courtly equestrian entertainment at the turn of the eighteenth century. By organising

informal cavalcades des dames on the grounds of Versailles, she created a space

where female courtiers could enjoy equestrian exercise away from the hunting field,

where the Dauphin and young princes reigned supreme. Contemporary accounts

report that the ladies’ newfound independence in the saddle was reflected in their

choice of a particular equestrian uniform. Since her first outings on horseback, The

Mercure paid particular attention to the Duchess’ turnout. In August 1700, she paid a

visit to the Duchess of Noailles at her residence in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.1157 Marie-

Adélaïde, the magazine reported, appeared sporting a habit d’Amazone and was

accompanied by her ladies-in-waiting, the so-called dames du palais, of whom only

Henriette-Marthe de Tessé (1678-1751), Marquise of Maulevrier, was ‘wearing the

1154 Robert Bonnart, Portrait of François de Neufville Maréchal of Villeroy, 1696. Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 93 n. 8100. 1155 Jean Dieu de Saint-Jean, Femme de qualité en habit de Chasse, 1695. Bibliothèque nationale de France, ARS EST-368 (215). On the artist, see Corinne Vaast and Jonathan Dunford, ‘Jean Dieu de Saint-Jean (1654-1695). Dessinateur de gravures de mode et peintre d’un portrait de Marin Marais’, Musique, images, instruments 10(2008), pp. 172-181. 1156 Mercure galant (June 1687), p. 309. 1157 See my discussion of the event at pp. 211-21.

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same outfit’.1158 At Saint-Germain, she met with Madame de Noailles’ daughters, the

Countess of Estrées and the Duchess of La Vallière, who were ‘dressed in the same

manner’.1159 Then, the Mercure continued, the ‘dames amazones’ went out for a

cavalcade in the forest followed by a magnificent meal, dances and games that lasted

until dawn.

The term ‘en Amazone’ had been sporadically employed by the Mercure

throughout the last two decades of the seventeenth century to refer to women’s

equestrian attire. From 1700, however, this appeared regularity to designate the outfit

of the Duchess of Burgundy and her suite during the autumnal hunting season. From

the magazine’s earliest reports, the wearing of a particular equestrian outfit is

highlighted to signal divisions within the Duchess’ female entourage. Those ladies

who wore the habit d’Amazone were the younger members of her suite who occupied

a position of particular favour. Informally referred to in the Mercure as dames

amazones, they accompanied Marie-Adélaïde in her rides, dances and other lively

activities still reminiscent of her not-long-passed childhood. The older ladies-in-

waiting, affectionately nicknamed dames sérieuses, were in charge of the Duchess’

education and quieter pastimes.1160

In the autumns of 1700 and 1701, the Mercure meticulously recorded the

Duchess’ attendance to various royal hunts, always specifying that she was dressed en

Amazone and accompanied by various ladies of her suite, similarly apparelled.1161 In

1702, the Countess of Estrées and the Marquise of Maulevrier were repeatedly singled

out by name as they followed the hunts ‘gallantly dressed like the Duchess of

1158 ‘… dans le même ajoustement’. Mercure galant (August 1700), p. 150. Daughter of René III de Froulay de Tessé, Henriette-Marthe married François Édouard de Colbert Marquis de Maulévrier in 1698. 1159 ‘… vestuës de la meme sorte’. Ibid., p. 151. 1160 Saint-Simon, Mémoires, vol. 10, p. 84. These were Mesdames de Dangeau, de Roucy, de Nogaret, d’O, du Chatelet and Madame de Montgon, who would die in 1707 and be replaced by the younger Madame de La Vallière. 1161 Mercure galant (October 1700), p. 242; Mercure galant (October 1701), pp. 365, 367, 370; Mercure galant (November 1701), pp. 208, 220.

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Burgundy’, who was herself en habit d’Amazone.1162 As special companions of the

young princess, they too were invited into the King’s carriage and, after the hunt, to

attend a breakfast organised for the Duke and other male hunters. By the end of the

hunting season, the magazine referred to the Duchess’ companions as ‘the young

dames amazones’ or simply ‘the young amazones’.1163 The ladies and their attire had

again become one. Meanwhile, Marie-Victorie-Sophie de Noailles (1688-1784), The

Countess of Estrées’ younger sister, had also been invited to ‘join the number of the

young Amazons in the Duchesse de Bourgogne’s retinue’.1164 While the Mercure’s

insistence on the sartorial similarities between the Duchess of Burgundy and her

companions may at first seem repetitive, the phrasing acquires significance insofar as

it suggests that the Duchess and her female coterie wore a specific outfit that rendered

them visibly recognisable as a group. In other words, they did not simply appear in

equestrian garb, but rather sporting the same type of riding habit.

As with the wearing of the justaucorps à brevet and the Dauphin’s équipage,

displaying the habit d’Amazone was a sartorial gesture laden with specific political

significance. Thanks to its ‘proto-soft power’ to visually communicate allegiance, it

represented a clear marker of distinction that placed the female wearer within a

specific network of court patronage.1165 Moving safely and respectfully within the

orbit of the Sun King and Madame de Maintenon, his morganatic wife, the Duchess

of Burgundy managed to acquire considerable influence during the course of the

1700s. Pauline Ferrier’s research shows that Louis XIV expressed favour towards his

recently ennobled ministers by introducing their wives into the Duchess’ circle.1166 To

earn this privilege, Ferrier adds, these ladies tried their best to please and go along

1162 ‘… galament habillées comme Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne’. Mercure galant (September 1702), pp. 407, 411 ; Mercure galant (October 1702), pp. 206-207, 210-211. 1163 ‘les jeunes Dames Amazonnes’. Mercure galant (October 1702), p. 213, 215-216, 220. 1164 Ibid., pp. 216-217. In 1723, she married Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, legitimated son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. 1165 On the proto-soft power of dress, see the ‘Introduction’ in Griffey (ed.), Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe, pp. 15-32, esp. p. 21. 1166 Pauline Ferrier, ‘La duchesse de Bourgogne et les épouses des ministres du roi dans le système de cour: Fêtes, honneurs et distinctions’, in Preyat (ed.), Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie (1685–1712), pp. 163-173.

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with Marie-Adélaïde in her love for balls and masquerades. High-ranking aristocrats

too endeavoured to stay in the Duchess’ good graces by providing various forms of

musical or dramatic entertainment. Thus, Don Fader reveals, the Noailles turned their

artistic patronage into a veritable political strategy.1167

Taking part in the Duchess’ equestrian leisure activities too constituted an

effective way for female courtiers to gain royal favour and even chance upon rare

occasions to find themselves in close physical proximity with the sixty-year-old

monarch, for example by being invited into the King’s carriage during the hunt. To

such opportunities and privileges the Duchess’ young companions were all but

indifferent. While the amount of time spent together certainly contributed to form a

sense of emotional closeness between the Marie-Adélaïde and her ladies, it would be

a mistake to romanticise their relationship. Saint-Simon’s memoirs cast a sinister light

on the young Amazons’ attempts to befriend the even younger Duchess, taking

advantage of her relative inexperience and affable disposition. While the Countess of

Estrées and her sister are presented as skilled and strategically thinking courtiers

always working in the best interest of the Noailles clan, the portrait of the Marquise of

Maulevrier and her husband is sketched in even darker tones. She is said to be ‘pretty,

rather unintelligent, troublesome, and, under the appearance of a virgin, evil to the

extreme’. 1168 As the daughter of Tessé, the minister who had arranged Marie-

Adélaïde’s marriage, she gradually managed to enter into her intimate circle, ‘riding

in the carriages, eating, going to Marly, accompanying Madame de Duchess of

Burgundy everywhere’.1169 In order to further the political career of her husband, an

ambition-consumed social climber, she probably went so far as to favour his brief and

ultimately tragic liaison with the princess.1170

1167 Don Fader, ‘La duchesse de Bourgogne, le mécénat des Noailles et les arts dramatiques à la cour autour de 1700’, in Ibid., pp. 175-190. 1168 ‘… jolie, avec fort peu d'esprit, tracassière, et, sous un extérieur de vierge, méchante au dernier point’. Saint-Simon, Mémoires, vol. 4, p. 171. 1169 ‘… comme fille de Tessé, à monter dans les carrosses, à manger, à aller à Marly, à être de tout chez Mme la duchesse de Bourgogne’. Ibidem. 1170 Marie-Paule de Weerdt-Pilorge, ‘Les secrets d’alcôve de la duchesse de Bourgogne ou le sexe par les larmes’, Cahiers Saint-Simon 42 (2014), pp. 25-34.

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With the passing of time, the Duchess broke free from the court’s hunting

conventions and established her personal form of equestrian entertainment, literally

taking over the royal grounds. Setting off on her cavalcades, the Duchess took centre

stage and, together with her cortege of young horsewomen, must have offered a most

splendid sight. On 5 September 1707, the Mercure described a rare a public outing of

the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy in the Bois de Boulogne. Marie-Adélaïde was

observed enjoying a leisurely promenade on horseback around the park, ‘en habit

d’Amazone, accompanied by around twenty ladies, the younger ones also dressed en

Amazones’.1171 While the fashion for tailored equestrian outfits had become more

popular as the number of the Duchess’ retinue increased, it still remained a trend

reserved for younger dames and demoiselles rather than court dowagers. Later that

month, the Mercure provided further details concerning the ladies’ equestrian dress.

On one occasion, when Marie-Adélaïde and her cortège accompanied the Dauphin

and his sons to hunt wolf, the magazine reported that ‘the ladies were dressed with

great elegance, wearing uniform tufts of plumes and cockades’.1172 At the end of the

month, the King organised a promenade where the Duchess of Burgundy and all the

young ladies of the court ‘were on horseback, dressed en habits d’Amazone with

plumes and cockades in their hats; their habits were magnificent’.1173 Once again, the

magazine emphasised the uniformity between the ladies’ riding ensemble, which

extended from the habit itself to the feathered headdress.

A view of the Orangerie of Versailles attributed to Pierre-Denis Martin (1663-1742)

shows Marie-Adélaïde setting off on horseback to hawk with two female and two

male companions (fig.107).1174 In the foreground, the young Duchess is recognisable

1171 ‘Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne se promena long-temps dans ce Parc en habit d’Amazone, accompagnée d’une vingtaine de Dames, dont les plus jeunes estoient aussi vêtuës en Amazones’. Mercure galant (Septembre 1707), p. 192. 1172 ‘Les Dames estoient fort pareés, ayant des plumets & des cocardes uniformes’. Ibid., p. 366. 1173 ‘Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, & toutes les jeunes Dames de la Cour estoient à cheval en habit d’Amazones, avec des plumets & des cocardes au Chapeau; leurs habits estoient magnifiques’. Ibid., pp. 416-417. 1174 Pierre-Denis Martin, Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy Duchess of Burgundy hawking (detail), c. 1705. Château de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. MV 5696. On the attribution of this painting,

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thanks to her full rosy cheeks and flowing curled dark hair. She is depicted wearing a

tight light blue justaucorps, probably made of cloth with gold facings and a gold-

embroidered waistcoat underneath. On the chromatically uniform front of the

justaucorps, more decoration is added by gold braiding and three gold buttons that fix

the lapel on each side. The skirt appears devoid of any ornamentation aside from a

discreet gold trimming at the hem. Like the lady sketched by Dieu de Saint-Jean,

Marie-Adélaïde wears a white cravat soberly tied and tucked into her waistcoat. A

dozen white and light-blue plumes almost entirely cover her small dark hat, thus

adding the only extravagant touch to her ensemble. The two other horsewomen,

whose costumes are only visible from the waist up, appear to be dressed in a similar

fashion. The lady in the middle sports an amber-coloured justaucorps, whose light

green lapels match the ribbons that tie her two plaits of dark hair. The third lady

instead wears a light pink justaucorps with no lapels and an old-fashioned rabat noué

see Claire Constans, Musée national du château de Versailles. Les peintures (Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1980), n. 5414, p. 149.

Fig. 107: Pierre-Denis Martin, Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy Duchess of Burgundy hawking (detail), c. 1705. Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Inv. MV 5696

Photo of ‘Pierre-Denis Martin, Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy Duchess of Burgundy hawking (detail) removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon.

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with a voluminous light blue ribbon. Both women don small hats garnished with

plumes that harmonise with the chromatic tones of their outfit. The brim of each hat,

slightly turned up at the front, is adorned with a decorative brooch or badge that may

well illustrate to the cocardes mentioned in the Mercure. This unique representation

of Marie-Adélaïde and her retinue on horseback well exemplifies the ladies’

endeavour to wear uniform equestrian ensembles. While the noun had not yet

acquired its sartorial meaning of ‘uniform’, the adjective uniforme was already

employed to identify specific qualities in one or more sets of clothes.1175 On the one

hand, it materialised the wearers’ intention to coordinate their ensembles as a group.

Unlike the male hunting équipage, however, this did not mean to sport chromatically

matching suits, but rather riding habits that presented the same general outline. On the

other hand, the habit d’Amazone was marked by an unprecedented chromatic

uniformity between its individual components.

Pierre Gobert’s full-length portrait of the Duchess in equestrian garb (fig. 52)

offers a more detailed depiction of this fashionable garment.1176 Staring gracefully

and majestically at the viewer, Marie-Adélaïde stands with her left arm akimbo and

the right pointing at the Grand Canal at Fontainebleau. Both her justaucorps and

trailing skirt are cut from plain scarlet cloth and decorated exclusively with gold.

Gold are the justaucorps’ facings, adorned with gold buttons, and strips of gold fabric

are sown over the seams along the side and sleeves. The pockets, two on each side

and cut en long, are decorated with a line of gold buttons and buttonholes. The skirt is

adorned with three bands of gold fabric at the bottom and edged with a thinner strip of

the same material. The sleeve cuffs and waistcoat appear to be made of a similar

fabric, probably gold and silver brocade. Marie-Adélaïde’s steinkerque is decorated

with a dark green silk ribbon. The same fabric is used to tie her shirt cuffs as well as

the final curl of her blonde powdered wig. Finally, her black tricorne edged with gold

braid is adorned with a cockade of green silk fastened with a small brooch.

1175 The first mention of a ‘habit uniforme’ appears in the 1718 Dictionnaire de l’Académie françoise. 1176 Painting previously mentioned at p. 217.

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Considered in its entirety, the Duchess’ outfit sets the perfect example for a new trend

towards greater simplicity in female equestrian habits. Looking at Gobert’s painting,

Janet Arnold finds that it preannounced the popular taste for the so-called ‘hunting

pink’ that lasts to this day.1177 A contemporary knee-length copy of the painting,

however, shows the Duchess wearing a blue habit edged in red while preserving the

whole array of gold trimmings. Martin’s hawking scene also shows that other colours

were popular at the time. What is most strikingly innovative, instead, was the use of

plain and chromatically uniform fabrics instead of brocaded or patterned silks. While

still luxurious, these habits appear less showy in their display of ornamentation; gone

are the ribbons, fringes, lace sashes and raised falbalà trimmings that weighted down

equestrian outfits in the previous decades. While such changes might have reflected

broader shifts in elite taste, it is probable that the Duchess of Burgundy played a key

role as trendsetter in riding fashions. Marie-Adélaïde’s well-known passion for riding,

together with the Mercure’s interest in her equestrian attire and that of her ladies,

certainly point in that direction. In spite of her love for lively amusements, the young

Duchess was famous for her simple taste in matters of dress and little interest in

fashion. Saint-Simon commented that

With all her galanterie, never a woman seemed to worry less for her figure or take less precaution and care; her toilette was done in a moment; and the little it lasted was undertaken for the court. She only cared about elegance on occasion of balls and festivities, and what she cared on every other occasion, which was the least she could, was only to please the King.1178

Writing to her grandmother in June 1710, Marie-Adélaïde herself admitted having

little patience for ladies at court when they ‘talked of nothing else but coiffures,

habits, skirts and fashion merchants’ explaining that ‘despite being a woman, I do not

1177 Arnold, ‘Dashing Amazons’, p. 18. 1178 ‘Avec toute cette galanterie, jamais femme ne parut se soucier moins de sa figure, ni y prendre moins de précaution et de soin: sa toilette était faite en un moment; le peu même quelle durait n’était que pour la cour. Elle ne se souciait de parure que pour les bals et les fêtes, et ce qu’elle en prenait en tout autre temps, et le moins encore qu’il lui était possible, n’était que par complaisance pour le Roi’. Saint-Simon, Mémoires, vol. 10, p. 91.

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take great pleasure in similar diversions’.1179 Considering her preference for a quick

daily toilette, therefore, it is easy to imagine she would favour the comparatively rapid

procedure of being dressed in riding garb rather than a more formal type of daywear

or the grand habit usually worn in the presence of the king. This involved putting on a

chemise, under-petticoat, over-petticoat, the gown itself consisting of split-front skirt

with a voluminous train and finally a heavily boned bodice that was laced at the back

and hooked to the skirts.1180 Lace trimmings were stitched manually at the neckline

and bottom hems of the sleeve openings of the bodice. Buttoning up one’s waistcoat

and wearing a justaucorps must have been considerably quicker. Moreover, putting on

a wig, previously dressed by a maid, and a hat took considerably less time than having

one’s hair arranged fashionably. The Duchess’ preference for the riding habit appears

confirmed by the Mercure’s suggestion that, on days when hunting was planned, the

Duchess of Burgundy and her ladies were dressed en Amazone in the morning and

remained so attired for the rest of the day when the hunt was followed by a collation

or an intimate souper.1181 A prompt change into a grand habit was only required to

attend formal receptions or the theatre.

Marie-Adélaïde’s particular liking for the habit d’Amazone may also have

been influenced by her literary education at Versailles, which was centred on the

reading of tales from the Holy Scriptures, roman history and classical mythology.1182

The abbé François-Timoléon de Choisy (1644-1724), a well-regarded religious author

and historian, composed a collection of thirteen moral tales expressly dedicated to the

young princess’ edification.1183 Amongst these was a ‘History of Queen Marthésie’,

1179 ‘… on ne parle que de coiffures, d’habits, de jupes et de marchands et, quoique femme, je ne prends pas grand plaisir à de tels entretiens’. Letter dated 23 June 1710, in Gargnère (ed.), Lettres et Correspondances, pp. 316-317. 1180 Maxwell Barr, ‘Recreating a Grand Habit’, in Norbert and Rosenbaum, Fashion Prints in the Age of Louis XIV, pp. 223-232. 1181 Mercure galant (November 1701), p. 222. 1182 Fabrice Préyat, ‘L’Histoire à Madame la duchesse de Bourgogne: Préceptorats princiers et politique à la cour de Versailles’, in Préyat (ed.), Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie (1685-1712), pp. 55-85. 1183 These were published within a two-volume Histoires de pieté et de morale (Paris: Chez Jean Baptiste Coignard, 1718). Fabrice Préyat argues that, while the first volume gathered six

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which recounted the founding of the Amazonian Empire.1184 Choisy took great care to

start his tale by emphasising that the Scythian women resolved to establish their own

kingdom after their men had been slaughtered in battle. This acknowledgement,

however, was followed by a speech in which Marthésie incites her subjects to take up

arms and challenge the false belief in women’s natural weakness. ‘Even though we

are endowed with beauty, are we lacking in strength?’, she asks. 1185 Once they

embraced a martial lifestyle, the tale continued, Amazons started wearing a suitable

outfit, which included an array of weapons and the inevitable ‘little gilded helmet

charged with plumes’.1186 They also took up daily exercises that consisted of ‘riding

on horseback and make use of the sword and the axe with dexterity (adresse)’.1187

Although she did not grow up to become a bookish woman, Marie-Adélaïde

found a more congenial way to apply her classical learning in the realm of music and

dance, where she excelled. Indeed, the Duchess played a crucial part in revitalising

Versaillles’ musical scene, which had been languishing due to Madame de

Maintenon’s puritanical influence on the King’s tastes. 1188 In 1700, the young

princess animated the Carnival festivities with ballets and masquerades where she

danced and acted alongside other courtiers and professional performers. 1189 On

January 21, Marie-Adélaïde and the Princess of Conti entertained the King and his

court at Marly by leading two groups of female dancers as a prelude to the Mascarade

stories dedicated to the Duke of Burgundy, the second volume recorded those tales Choisy had composed for the Duchess. Ibid., esp. pp. 74-82. 1184 ‘Histoire de la Reine Marthesie fondatrice de l’empire des Amazones’ in François-Timoléon de Choisy, Histoires de pieté et de morale, 2 vols (Paris: Chez Jean Baptiste Coignard, 1718), pp. 129-146. 1185 ‘Quoique la beauté soit notre partage, la force nous manque-t-elle?’. Ibid., p. 133. 1186 ‘Elles prirent une maniere d’habillement qui convenoit à l’etat qu’elles alloient embrasser […] Leur tête etoit couverte d’un petit casque doré chargé de plumes’. Ibid., p. 136. 1187 ‘Leurs exercices journaliers etoient de monter à cheval & de se servir avec adresse de l’epée & de la hache’. Ibid., p. 140. 1188 Jean-Philippe Goujon, ‘Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie, duchesse de Bourgogne puis dauphine de France: une princesse musicienne et mécène à la cour de Louis XIV’, in Préyat (ed.), Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie (1685-1712), pp. 190-213. 1189 Thomas Vernet, ‘“Que Mme la duchesse de Bourgogne fasse sa volonté depuis le matin jusqu’au soir”: La duchesse de Bourgogne et les divertissements du carnaval de 1700, in Ibid., pp. 214-229.

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of the Queen of the Amazons by André Danican Philidor (1652-1730).1190 The theme

of the Amazons had been recently made popular by André-Cardinal Destouches

(1672-1759) in his latest tragedy Marthésie First Queen of the Amazons, which the

Duchess saw performed at the Opéra in December 1699. 1191 Not unlike her

aristocratic predecessors who enjoyed being depicted en Diane or en Minerve, it

seems plausible that Marie-Adélaïde looked back at the world of myth and classical

antiquity when fashioning her image as a refined princess. Imbued with classical

notions rendered even more palatable through the mellow tunes of Destouches, she

may well have seen equestrian exercise as an occasion to play the Amazon in the

saddle as she had already done on the court stage.

Another strong signal that Marie-Adélaïde’s equestrian garb was considered

particularly significant, by herself as well as by others, is the fact that at least three

copies of Gobert’s portrait have survived. Alongside the full-length painting and the

copy in the blue dress, another knee-length portrait is preserved within the collections

of Versailles.1192 Another full-length copy was sent to Turin, where it still hangs in

the Sala delle cameriste at Palazzo Reale.1193 In November 1701, the Duchess’ sister

Maria-Louisa (1688-1714), Queen of Spain, wrote to their grandmother in Turin

expressing surprise at the fact that Marie-Adélaïde had sent her ‘one of her portraits in

hunting garb (en habit de chasse)’.1194 She added that she hoped to receive one herself

before too long, in order to admire ‘the great improvement that she had undergone in

1190 The masquerade’s libretto was published as Mascarade des Amazones, mise en musique par le fils de Mr. Philidor l’aîné, ordinaire de la musique et representée devant le roy, a Marly (Paris: Chez Christophe Ballard, 1700). 1191 See the entry for 1 December 1699, in Dangeau, Journal, vol. 7, p. 203. The tragedy’s libretto was published as Marthésie premiere reine des Amazones. Tragedie en musique (Paris: Chez Christophe Ballard, 1699). 1192 Formally part of the collections of the Château of Versailles (Inv. MV 3729), the painting is preserved at the Musée de la Vénerie in Senlis (Inv. D.V.2006.0.33.1). 1193 Enrico Castelnuovo (ed.), La Reggia di Venaria e i Savoia: Arte, magnificenza e storia di una corte europea (Torino: Umberto Allemandi & C., 2007), vol. 2, pp. 180-181. 1194 Letter dated 14 November 1701 in Maria Della Rocca (ed.), Correspondance inédite de la Duchesse de Bourgogne et de la Reine d’Espagne petites-filles de Louis XIV, publiée par Madame la Comtesse Della Rocca (Paris: M. Lévy Frères, 1865), p. 111. Maria Luisa of Savoy (1688-1714) married Philippe Duke of Anjou, the second grandson of Louis XIV who became King of Spain as Philip V.

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terms of beauty’. This testimony suggests that at least one version of the Duchess’

portrait in hunting garb had been painted years before Gobert first exhibited it at the

Parisian salon in 1704.1195 This may have been commissioned as early as the autumn

of 1700, realised to celebrate the completion of Marie-Adélaïde’s equestrian

education and her active participation in the royal hunts.

Originally associated with the cavalcades of the Duchess of Burgundy and her

entourage, the habit d’Amazone found great favour with young female courtiers. On

the first day of October 1707, the Mercure informed its readers that Louis XIV had

gathered ‘all the young ladies and a great number of noblemen’ of the court for a

promenade around the Grand Canal at Fontainebleau.1196 To express the scale and

grandeur of the event, the magazine found it sufficient to remark that ‘there were

around 150 ladies dressed en Amazones, whose habits were magnificent, and one

could count 94 carriages’.1197 Regarded in the mid-seventeenth century as a peculiar

and somewhat contentious garment, the equestrian habit turned into a status symbol

and a uniform to clad an entire generation of elite women. From the park of

Versailles, the habit d’Amazone made its way through all the major courts of

Continental Europe and finally into the wardrobes of well-heeled eighteenth-century

women. As it first crossed the Channel, however, this fashion appeared daring,

dazzling, and remarkably ‘French’.

In June 1711, a correspondent to the Spectator reported an encounter with a young

rider who ‘seemed to have been dressed by some Description in a Romance’:

His Features, Complexion, and Habit had a remarkable Effeminacy, and a certain languishing Vanity appeared in his Air: His Hair, well curl'd and powder'd, hung to a considerable Length on his Shoulders, and was wantonly ty'd, as if by the Hands of his Mistress, in a Scarlet Ribbon, which played like a Streamer behind him: He had a Coat and Wastecoat of blue Camlet trimm'd and

1195 Constans, Musée national du château de Versailles, n. 2062; Pierre Sanchez, Dictionnaire des artistes exposant dans les salons des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Dijon: L'Échelle de Jacob, 2004), vol. 2. 1196 ‘…toutes les jeunes Dames, & un grand nombre de Seigneurs’. Mercure galant (October 1707), pp. 227-228. 1197 ‘…il y eut à cette promenade, environ cent cinquante Dames vêtuës en Amazones, & dont les habits estoient tres-magnifiques, & l’on y compta quatre-vingt-quatorze Carosses’. Ibid., p. 228.

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embroidered with Silver; a Cravat of the finest Lace; and wore, in a smart Cock, a little Beaver Hat edged with Silver, and made more sprightly by a Feather.1198

At first convinced to have crossed the path of a foppish young man, the observer is

then surprised to catch sight of another element of the rider’s outfit, namely a ‘a

Petticoat of the same with the Coat and Wastecoat’.1199 The realisation that he had in

fact come across a ‘fair Amazon’ left the writer somewhat perplexed until he learnt of

the fashion for a ‘Amazonian Hunting-Habit for Ladies’, whose model, he added, had

been ‘first imported from France, and well enough expresses the Gaiety of a People

who are taught to do any thing so it be with an Assurance’.1200 To the careful eye of

the Spectator’s correspondent, the connection between the habit and a wearer’s spirit

appeared as plain as daylight. In its sober elegance, simplicity of lines and chromatic

uniformity the new equestrian uniform irradiated a sense of self-assurance that well

suited the physically empowered female rider. Known under the same name of

‘Amazon’, both the dress and the woman were a French creation. Shaped by the

convergence of various forces in seventeenth-century discourse, this beautifully

fashioned feminine ideal continued to amaze, fascinate and inspire future generations

of athletic women.

1198 The Spectator 104 (29 June 1711). 1199 Ibidem. 1200 Ibidem.

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Conclusion

An engraving realised by Henri Bonnart (1642-1711) around the turn of the

eighteenth century shows Europe in the guise of an elegant huntress sporting a

fashionable riding habit and carrying a flintlock rifle (fig. 108).1201 The lady’s horse is

visible in the background, left in the care of a male attendant. The caption reads: ‘In

this country one finds very active Ladies / Who know how to employ every moment

of the day / Since, for fear of remaining idle, / The hunt keeps them occupied

following the diversions of love’.1202 The print’s companion pieces, all preserved at

the Louvre, depict Africa, America and Asia similarly embodied by three young

women (figs 109-111). 1203 Their attire is fanciful and richly ornate, mirroring

theatrical costumes from the period.1204 The caption beneath the engraving of Africa

expresses surprise at how such beauty could blossom under the scorching sun.1205

America’s inscription laments the great loss that would have occurred if the ‘beauties’

of its inhabitants had not been discovered.1206 Finally, the personification of Asia is

praised for her peaceful nature and amorous disposition: ‘From the olive branch that

she holds in her hand / We understand that peace, for her, holds a great many charms /

The sweetness of her eyes and her tender attitude / Of love alone search the

1201 Henri Bonnart L’Europe, 1695-1700. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, coll. Hennin, vol. 71, n. 6283. 1202 ‘L’on trouve en ce païs des Dames tres actives / Qui scavent menager chaque moment du jour / Car de peur de rester oisives / La chasse les occupe apres le jeu d’amour’. Henri Bonnart L’Europe, 1690-1700. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Inv. L67LR85. 1203 Henri Bonnart’s engravings Africa, America and Asia are preserved at the Louvre (Inv. L67LR88, L67LR87, L67LR86). 1204 Julia Prest, Theatre under Louis XIV: cross-casting and the performance of gender in drama, ballet and opera (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), esp. pp. 80-82. 1205 The full inscription reads: ‘A mes yeux les climats bruslés / Aux autres regions paroistroient preferables / Si le monstres affreux dont ils sont habites / Estoient a celuy ci semblables’. 1206 ‘Des beauties d’Amerique en voiant le portrait / Chacun dira ce seroit grande perte / Qu’une partie du monde ou l’on est si bien fait / Resta sans estre decouverte’.

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Fig. 108: Henri Bonnart, Europe, 1690-1700. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Inv. L67LR85

Fig. 110: Henri Bonnart, America, 1690-1700. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Inv. L67LR87

Fig. 109: Henri Bonnart, Africa, 1690-1700. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Inv. L67LR88

Fig. 111: Henri Bonnart, Asia, 1690-1700. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Inv. L67LR86

Photo of ‘Henri Bonnart, Europe’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Photo of ‘Henri Bonnart, Africa’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Photo of ‘Henri Bonnart, America’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Photo of ‘Henri Bonnart, Asia’ removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Musée du Louvre, Paris.

318

thrills’.1207 Another version of the same set of engravings survives, albeit incomplete,

and is kept within the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.1208 In the

absence of America, the remaining three images look like an exact copy of those at

the Louvre. The one remarkable difference is the change of the inscription that

accompanies Europe, which now proclaims: ‘We so often praise the beauties of Asia /

However one should pay little attention to beautiful traits deprived of any spirit / Our

Ladies have something dazzling about their charms / Graceful manners and dexterity

in all they do’.1209

Without radically altering the essence of its message, Bonnart’s second

caption articulates even more plainly what character features set the Europe aside

from their companions. By explicitly contrasting her with Asia, the author emphasised

the fact that a feminine ideal based on tenderness, loveliness and beauty, however

charming, was no longer enough to qualify a European lady. On the contrary, such

traits were connected with ideas of softness and torpid indulgence commonly

associated with southern lands, and especially the Orient.1210 Meanwhile, the original

reference to amorous diversions (jeau d’amour) has been removed to make space for

a picture of female beauty that is not animated by Cupid’s arrows but rather by a

lively spirit. Indeed, the hallmark of a truly refined character resided in her ability to

display dexterity (adresse) tempered by grace in all her actions. These words

illuminate the real significance of the huntress’ image, which steps to the fore as the

realistic embodiment of this new feminine ideal. While America too appears equipped

1207 ‘Au rameau d’olivier qu’elle tient en sa main / On connoit que la paix pour elle a bien des charmes / La douceur de ses yeux et son tendre maintien / De l’amour seul recherchent les alarmes.’ 1208Henri Bonnart’s engravings of Europe, Africa and Asia are preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (coll. Hennin, vol. 71, n. 6284 and 6285). 1209 ‘Qu’on vante si souvent les beautes de l’Asie / Des beaux traits sans esprit on doit peu faire cas / Dans nos Dames on voit du brillant des appas / De l’adresse par tout et maniere jolie’. 1210 On the imagery of baroque exoticism, its aesthetics and representation in works of fiction, see chapter 1 ‘Fiction and the Aesthetics of Foreigness’ in Ellen R. Welch, A Taste for the Foreign: Wordly Knowledge and Literary Pleasure in Early Modern French Fiction (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2011), pp. 1-26 and Julia V. Douthwaite, Exotic Women: Literary Heroines and Cultural Strategies in Ancien Régime France (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), pp. 26-31.

319

for the hunt, carrying a bow and quiver full of arrows, her martial veneer is not

reflected in the inscription, which only mentions her beauty. Arrayed in feathers, this

apparition is reminiscent of earlier depictions of South American Amazons, yet a

number of elements of her outfit, not least the ostentatious train of figured damask,

make manifest its dramatic and fictional character. Unlike her companions, Europe is

not garbed in theatrical costume or camouflaged as a classical image. She does not

sport the succinct chiton of Diana, the archetypical huntress, nor does she appear clad

in armour. Her dress is borrowed directly from contemporary illustrations of a

fashionable habit de chasse or habit de cheval accompanied by all its accessories,

including rabat noué, perruque à la chevalière and plumed beaver hat. Accordingly,

she is not depicted armed with a pike or wielding a sword, but rather carrying a

modern rifle complete with a functional leather pouch designed to hold ammunitions.

Bonnart’s detailed rendition of actual clothing facilitated the identification of his

allegorical model with real-life aristocratic huntresses and horsewomen. Through

their pursuit of cynegetic leisure, and the equestrian activity that went with it, these

women represented the actual incarnation of a female ideal that prized the display of

an agile and graceful demeanour above all things.

Bonnart’s ethnographic musings, together with his depiction of Europe en

Amazone, perfectly encapsulated changes in popular attitudes towards feminine

behaviours and the female body that have been examined in this thesis. Beauty, still

regarded a fundamental female trait, was not to be tempered by the modesty and

composure advocated by moralistes and religious authors. Nor was the female body

circumscribed to the limited sphere of action determined by physicians’ concerns with

overabundant humors and reproductive malfunctions. European women’s charms,

Bonnart proclaimed, were enlivened by constant activity. His praise of dexterity and

grace echoed prescriptions addressed to the male public in contemporary fencing and

riding manuals. These were the ‘semi-intellectualised qualities’ that, according to

Georges Vigarello, marked out the French male elite by announcing a bright mind as

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much as a strong body.1211 Female excellence too, however, was measured against

similar standards. By encouraging women to aspire to an athletic corporeal ideal,

Bonnart implicitly espoused egalitarian theories of their body’s natural abilities and

turned them into reality. Whereas Petit’s Amazon had been deemed unsuitable to

enter civilised society, the fashionable huntress was presented as its finest product.

Realised within the Bonnart workshop, the depiction of Europe as a huntress

was closely related to their vast production of fashion prints. As a product of la mode,

it took its inspiration from real-life elite women, whose appearance and behaviour the

artist moulded into a typified figure. Like every influential trend, the feminine ideal of

the ‘active’ huntress originated at the French court, where cynegetic exercise had

indeed come to occupy a central place in many a noblewoman’s routine. From

Versailles to the entire continent, the leap seems audacious. Yet Bonnart’s prevision

was not far off the mark. Within a decade, the Duchess of Burgundy and her

entourage of Amazons enhanced the popularity of horse riding as a form of female

athletic activity. Further research is needed in order to establish how women’s

equestrian culture developed in the eighteenth century. A preliminary survey of

female portraiture from the period suggests that the French ‘Amazonian Hunting-

Habit for Ladies’ found favour with many fashionable ladies across Europe. As the

trend became widespread amongst the aristocracy, it also gained popularity with the

female members of the well-heeled urban bourgeoisie. Women who could not afford

or did not care to ride began donning equestrian habits as informal daywear. Deprived

of its original function, the habit d’Amazone, then simply referred to as amazone,

maintained those characters of simplicity and sobriety acquired at the time of the

Duchess’ cavalcades. No longer needed for comfort and ease in the saddle, such

sartorial features still granted greater freedom of movement when engaging in

everyday activities. It also suited the growing fashion for walking as a more

affordable form of exercise available in the city as well as in the country.1212 Less

striking in their display of grace and dexterity, these women nevertheless partook of

1211 Vigarello, ‘S’exercer, jouer’, see p. 254 on the idea of ‘qualités quasi intellectualisées’. 1212 Sophie Lefay (ed.), Se promener au XVIIIe siècle: rituels et sociabilités (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2019).

321

the female ideal embodied by the aristocratic horsewoman and huntress. Their

behaviour as well as their appearance represented their fitness and readiness for

action, albeit on a modest scale. Fanciful and aspirational as this choice of dress might

have seemed, it testified to the powerful hold of the Amazon’s image throughout the

eighteenth century. In 1788, the playwright François-Marie Mayeur de Saint Paul

(1758-1818) noted how fashionable youths who could not afford to keep horses were

still seen everywhere in Paris sporting riding clothes and accessories. Female

élégantes too were garbed as if to take part in a horse race, ‘dressed en Amazones,

wearing ankle boots, their hair unpowdered and a hat à la Henri IV on top’.1213

Following the outbreak of the French Revolution, Amazonian imagery

acquired a new political significance, as it was widely appropriated by female

militants who advocated equal rights to fight and bear arms. Fashion historians have

observed how their political ambitions were reflected in the donning of riding habits,

often incorporating the tricolour. 1214 Equestrian fashions were also employed by

female activists as a form of power-dressing in order to access the Revolutionary

political arena.1215 Once again, the militant Amazon and the fashionable amazone

were conflated in one feminine ideal. In August 1790, the Journal de la mode et du

goût featured the image of a ‘patriotic woman wearing the new uniform’, consisting

of a deep blue riding habit tellingly named coureur (‘runner’) (fig. 112).1216 From a

sporting uniform to a political uniform, equestrian garb responded to women’s need

for corporeal freedom and mobility that constituted the basis of any form of militancy.

1213 ‘Les élégantes ont épousé la manie des courses: vêtues en Amazones, chaussées en brodequins, coëffées en homme avec un chapeau à la Henri IV’. François-Marie Mayeur de Saint Paul, Tableau du nouveau Palais-Royal (Londres, et se trouve à Paris: Maradan, 1788), pp. 174-175. 1214 See p. and note 17 in my Introduction. 1215 The article ‘Rethinking the Amazon: Power Dressing and Political Self-Fashioning in Revolutionary France’, based on my master’s thesis, is currently under final review with Gender & History. 1216 ‘Femme patriote avec le nouvel uniforme’. Journal de la mode et du goût, ou Amusements du salon et de la toilette (25 August 1790), p. 2 and plate 2. On the significance of this illustrated periodical, which was published between 1790 and 1793 by Jean-Antoine Lebrun-Tossa (1760-1837), see Annemarie Kleinert, ‘La Révolution et le premier journal illustré paru en France (1785-1793), Dix-huitième Siècle 21 (1989), pp. 285-309.

322

Female political activism was officially suppressed in the autumn of 1793, when the

infamous réquisitoire by Pierre Chaumette urged all women to return to ‘the pious

cares of their household’ instead of crowding the public squares, to witnesses the

harangues in the galleries or address the Senate from the bar.1217 Denouncing the

present state of gender upheaval, his speech voiced the markedly mysoginist

tendencies that prevailed in the later phases of the Revolution.1218 Just as Petit had

predicted, societal constraints rather than physical limitations put a stop to female

emancipation. At first hailed as a precious political asset, women’s corporel

engagement was soon condemned as unnatural and threatening to the civil order.

In spite of its tragic epilogue, the Revolutionary cultural discourse greatly

contributed to crystallising the Amazon’s image as the quintessential embodiment of

1217 ‘Depuis quand est-il decent de voir des femmes abandonner les soins pieux le leur ménage, le berceau de leurs enfants, pour venir sur les places publiques, dans les tribunes aux harangues, à la barre du sénat?’. Chaumette’s speech is recorded in the Réimpression de l’Ancien Moniteur, vol. 18, p. 450-451, quote at p. 450. 1218 Jean-Clément Martin, La révolte brisée: Femmes dans la Révolution française et l’Empire (Paris: Armand Colin, 2008), esp. pp. 64-115.

Fig. 112: ‘Patriotic Woman with a New Uniform’. Journal de la mode et du goût, ou Amusements du salon et de la toilette (25 August 1790), plate 2

Photo of ‘Patriotic Woman with a New Uniform’. removed for copyright reasons. Copyright holder is: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

323

the liberated woman. With the popularisation of sports in the West between the

nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Amazon remained at the forefront in popular

discourse about female athleticism.1219 The term has been used to describe women

engaging in a variety of exercises, from football to cycling, and – of course –

horseback riding, which has become a chiefly female athletic province.1220 Gradually

freed from its derogatory and ambiguous connotations, the figure of the Amazon has

been embraced by the feminist community whilst becoming a key trope in the

scholarly discourse on gender.1221 The acquisition of physical strength still plays a

crucial part in the ongoing struggle for women’s agency over their own body.1222 By

employing exercise as a political tool, new generations of self-styled Amazons launch

themselves in the joint pursuit of social emancipation and corporeal empowerment.

1219 ‘Donald J. Mrozek, ‘The “Amazon” and the American “Lady”: Sexual Fears of Women as Athletes’, in Mangan and Park (1987), pp. 282-298. 1220 As discussed in Catherine Tourre-Malen’s 2006 monograph Femmes à cheval. 1221 Marilyn Y. Goldberg, ‘The Amazon Myth and Gender Studies’, in Kim J. Hartswick and Mary C. Sturgeon (eds), ΣΤΕΦΑΝΟΣ: Studies in Honor of Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum, 1998), pp. 89-100.1222 Shirley Castelnuovo and Sharon R. Guthrie, Feminism and the female body: liberating the Amazon within (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998).

324

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