Philippe de Courcillon de Dangeau

Philippe de Courcillon, marquis de Dangeau , born with the castle of Dangeau (Eure-et-Loir) the September 21st 1638 and died in Paris the September 9th 1720, is a soldier, diplomat and memorialist French, known especially for its Journal where it describes the life at the court of Versailles at the end of the reign of Louis XIV.

Its life and its work

Brother of Louis de Courcillon de Dangeau, it was born Calviniste but very early converted with the Catholicisme. He is initially famous for his skill in the card deck, so much so that the expression “to play Dangeau” passes in the current language and than he draws to him the benevolent attention of Louis XIV. In 1665, it is named colonel of the regiment of the king, whom it accompanies like Aide-de-camp in all his campaigns. It becomes, in 1667, governor of Touraine and fulfills several diplomatic missions with Trier, Mainz and Modena.

Guard of the men of letters, it binds with Boileau, which dedicates its Satire to him on the nobility . the Heather depicts it in its Caractères under the features of Pamphile. He is elected member of the French Academy in 1668, without to have published anything, and becomes in 1704 honorary member of the Academy of Science, of which he is president in 1706.

Of 1684 with 1720, it holds a newspaper on the daily life at the court of Versailles. Extracts are published by it by Voltaire in 1770, by Madam de Genlis in 1817 and by Pierre-Edouard Lémontey in 1818. It is by associating Additions there that Saint-Simon undertakes to write his clean Mémoires . 19 volumes of the complete edition of the Journal of the court of Louis XIV appear for the first time between 1854 and 1860.

Anecdote

Dangeau lends readily its feather to the king and to his entourage. The abbot of Choisy tells that Louis XIV asked him to write his letters with Miss of Vallière, which required the same service of him to answer the king. The abbot of Choisy reports the epilog: “It thus made the letters and the answers; and that lasted one year, until Vallière, in an overflowing of heart, acknowledged with the King, which with his liking rented it too much on its spirit, that it owed the best part with their mutual confidant, of which they admired discretion. The King, on his side, acknowledged to him that it had made use of the same invention. ”

Judgment of contemporaries

; The marchioness of Créquy

The Marquis de Dangeau came sometimes supper to the hotel from Breteuil, but it was bound in such a discretion that I could truly to only report of it you, if not that it was for me the most worrying character of the ground, and that I had always fright to do or say in the presence of him something which he would have disapproved. It was said whereas he wrote his memories, and when I saw them appearing, they seemed to me neither more intéressans nor less insignifans that their author. The Marquis de Dangeau did not have less vanity than of ambition; but as its vanity had anything offensive and its ambition nothing of hostile, one made fun about it a little, if you want, but it was without disparaging intention, and besides one estimated one him it veracity, the benevolence and the perfect safety of the character. When it accepted the collar of the Holy Spirit, it cried about it of joy during the ceremony; and when the King, who diverted himself some, delegated his large-control of the to him Ordre of Saint-Lazare, it took a large fever of nerves, in result of sound émotion.

La nobility, Dangeau, is not a dream….

On is annoyed that it is with him which Boileau Despréaux was addressed to post a so beautiful discovery. Mrs. of Montespan told that this same Dangeau had said to him once, as a sign of nobility, - I want to be decapitated, if…, instead of - I want to be hung! what however says much more and is better much in fact of imprecation gentilhommière! Did Philippe de Courcillon, Marquis de Dangeau, Count de Merle and of Civray, Victome de Saintré, Baron of Holy-Hermine, Saint-Amand, Bressuire and other places, Knight of the Orders of the King, Knight of honor of Madam the Dauphine one, Large-Master of the Military and Hospital Orders of Notre-Dame of the Mount-Carmel and Saint-Lazare of Jerusalem, Governor of Touraine and Conseiller of state of sword, one of the forty of the French Academy, etc, die in Paris in 1720, old from 86 to 87 years, because it was still of my contemporaries who had never had birth certificate and which did not know its age too well?

; Saint-Simon

Dangeau, with all its insipidity and its policy, cannot be contained on top in the species of gazette which it left, Saint-Simon…

Dangeau had written for more than thirty years every evening until the most insipid news of the day. It dictated them very dry, more still than one does not find them in the Gazette of France. It did not hide any, and the king joked about it sometimes. It was an honest man and a very good man, but who knew only the fire king and Madam de Maintenon of which it made his gods, and was encrusted with their tastes and their ways of thinking whatever they could be. The insipidity and the adulation of its Mémoires are even more disgusting that their dryness, though it was well to wish that, such as they are, one had the similar ones of all the reigns. I will speak about it elsewhere more. It is only enough to say here that Dangeau was very pitifully glorious, and all at the same time servant, as these two things are often united, some opposites that they appear to be. Its Mémoires is full with this low vanity, consequently very partial, and sometimes more than faulty by this reason. It is very political there as much as partiality allows him, and always in worship of the king even since his death, his bastard, Madam de Maintenon, and very opposite with Mr. the duke of Orleans, with the new government, and singularly with the dukes, especially of ignorance more the filth which is shown in thousand places of its Mémoires .

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