Portrait of Charlotte Madeleine de la Mothe-Houdancourt, Duchess of Ventadour

This portrait of the Duchess of Ventadour was painted whilst she was governess to the royal children, notably the future Louis XV. Charlotte Madeleine de la Mothe-Houdancourt, following an unhappy marriage from which her only daughter—the future Duchess of Rohan—was born, enjoyed great popularity at court, where her indiscretions were forgiven. Charlotte de la Mothe Houdancourt had in fact married Louis Lévis, Duke of Ventadour, governor of Limousin, in 1671; he went down in history for his scandalous lifestyle, but also, according to Saint-Simon, for his ugliness: ‘Madame de Ventadour was very beautiful and very pleasant; her husband was very ugly and very disfigured. Little attention was paid to the husband, whose debauchery and continual absence from court meant he was held in little regard.’

The Duchess of Ventadour thus set off for the court, where her mother held the post of governess to the Royal Children. Thanks to her mother, in 1684 she was appointed lady-in-waiting to the new Duchess of Orléans, the Princess Palatine, the King’s sister-in-law. She was then rumoured to be the mistress of François de Neufville, Duke of Villeroy.

She was in her fifties when she succeeded her own mother and took up the post of governess to the Duke of Anjou, partly thanks to her friendship with Madame de Maintenon, who discreetly supported her with her advice. According to the Duke of Saint-Simon, it was a turbulent youth, as well as a late-blooming devotion, that brought the two women together... The future Louis XV called his governess ‘Maman Ventadour’ because she is said to have saved the last direct descendant of Louis XIV from measles in 1712. Charlotte then became governess to the Queen Mother, before once again becoming governess to the children of Louis XV. The position then remained within her family, and her granddaughter succeeded her. At court, Saint-Simon described her in these terms: ‘Madame de Ventadour had been charming; she always retained a grand air and an air of beauty, and was perfectly well-proportioned. She had no wit, but was kind-hearted; yet she was governed all her life, and was made to be so.”

The portrait at the Château de Bussy-Rabutin is a copy of the full-length portrait, now held at Versailles and long attributed to Pierre Mignard, other versions of which have appeared at public auction. In this bust portrait, it is worth noting that the sleeve is covered by the cloak, which considerably simplifies the execution of the bust version. An identical simplification can be seen in the bust portrait held at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Marseille.

In the Versailles portrait, the Duchess of Ventadour is dressed in a brocade gown adorned with a lace collar and fine lace sleeves, set with semi-precious stones. The governess of the Children of France is wearing the cloak reserved for dukes and peers. She is posed near a jewellery box; the jewellery may have been presented to her by the young King Louis XV, whilst he was ‘in the company of men’, according to the account given by the Marquis de Dangeau: ‘ Madame de Ventadour was given a magnificent gift of jewels which the king had received from the estate of His Highness the Dauphin, his grandfather, and this gift is estimated to be worth 60,000 écus’ (Journal, Volume XVII, Paris 1854–1860, pp. 23 and 24). She is conspicuously wearing a cross around her neck, framed by a black beard as a sign of mourning. This is probably in mourning for her husband, Louis-Charles de Lévis, which suggests that the work was painted around 1717.

As a member of the royal court, the Duchess of Ventadour was portrayed on numerous occasions. One of the most remarkable portraits has recently been reattributed to Nicolas de Largillière, in which she appears alongside Louis XIV and his descendants (London, the Wallace Collection).

Jean-Baptiste-César, Count of Sarcus, ‘Historical and Descriptive Account of the Château de Bussy-Rabutin’, Dijon, 1854, p. 60.

Lucretia de Planta, ‘An Attempt to Reconstruct the Collection of Roger de Rabutin, Count of Bussy, at the Château de Bussy-le-Grand (Côte d’Or)’, Master’s thesis, Paris IV-Sorbonne, 1989–1991, pp. 59–60, 64–67, 72–73.

M. Mzykova, ‘The Collections of Sychrov National Castle: The Rohan Portrait Gallery’, Sychrov National Castle, National Committee of the Liberec District, Czechoslovakia, 1985.