the sisters of versailles by sally christie

My interest in people sleeping around is minimal at best, so I was delighted that although the story stays focused throughout on the sisters’ affairs with Louis, Christie uses this to give a much wider picture of the personalities and life of the court. The first to get there was Louise, the eldest. Their lives were drab and their dowries so small they were unlikely to achieve great marriages, so all ambition was centred on achieving a coveted place at Versailles. Their mother had been notorious in her time for her many affairs, and following her death the sisters had been split up and housed separately, two with an aunt, two in a convent, and the eldest already married off to an older man she didn't really know, much less love.

They had no male relatives looking out for them, their drunken father having drifted out of their lives many years earlier and anyway being too lowly to exert any influence. Unlike the many queens of Henry VIII, the Mailly-Nesle sisters were not from a powerful family and so were not aiming at the throne itself. Christie shows us that for women in particular marriage and sex were their only route to security and social advancement, and marriage was often only a flimsy cover, a token nod to morality, in a court where adultery was the norm. The surprise comes because this book is clearly as thoroughly researched as most histories I have read, and she shows a complete mastery of all aspects of the period, not just the manners of the aristocracy at the heart of the book, but making subtle reference as to what is happening outside the gilded cage of Versailles.īut first and foremost, this is a comedy of manners, showing the jostling for power and position at the centre of Louis' court, and the licentiousness and profligacy for which it was notorious. To my surprise, Sally Christie doesn't seem to be an historian, though she describes herself as a life-long history buff. Louis XV and the sisters are from a later period in history, the last gasp, as it turned out, of the “ancien régime”, while the road to revolution was being built. But I was offered a copy by the author just after I had reviewed a 'proper' history book about Marguerite de Valois, which had sparked my interest in the French court. This is a fictionalised account of the true story of the five Mailly-Nesle sisters, of whom four became the King's mistress, and not always at different times.įirst off, I have to say this isn't at all my usual kind of reading.

When poor Louis XV of France began to tire of his ageing wife (she was nearly 30), he turned to one of the ladies of the court for comfort, Louise de Mailly-Nesle.

The sisters of versailles by sally christie