The
Ranums'
Panat Times
Volume 1, redone Dec. 2014
Jacques II Dalibert:
an adolescent diplomat
Jacques II Dalibert seems to have been groomed to succeed his father as secretary and financial administrator to a royal prince ― or if that option failed to materialize, to be a real-estate speculator and financier. Through Gaston's daughter, the Grande Mademoiselle, we know that Jacques II was among the privileged who completed the cursus in a collège. Recollecting events that occurred in 1656, and quoting her father, the princess described Jacques II as being "un homme de dix-sept ans [qui] sortoit de ses études."(1)
We cannot be sure that this statement made by Gaston and subsequently recollected by the Grande Mademoiselle, was based on personal knowledge rather than upon the fact that a young man normally completed his studies at seventeen or eighteen. Still, "seventeen years old" meshes very well with what is known about the probable birth years of the different Dalibert children and their subsequent marriages, their acquisitions of offices or prebends, their entries into religion. That is, Jacques II was born circa 1638.
Phrases scattered through the anonymous Histoire written circa 1690 make it possible to draw a word portrait of Jacques II Dalibert ― a portrait that in the main conforms to the content of his correspondence. Known for his "manières flateuses et complaisantes," in his mature years this "pauvre flatteur perpetuel" would be ridiculed by his colleagues and by Queen Christina of Sweden, his mistress and protector. And although his gambling associates "le plumèrent le plus souvent," throughout his life Jacques II would demonstrate a capacity to remain resolute in the face of bad luck. For example, although he often lost at cards, "néantmoins il se sçavoit assez bien soutenir." Perhaps it was from his father that he learned how essential it was for a householder to wait patiently and humbly, while his master or mistress berated him: "[Christina] l'a souvent redressé, mais [Jacques II] a souffert le tout fort patiemment"?(2)
Dalibert's business ventures, as set forth in the Histoire, suggest
that it was from his enterprising father that he learned how to land on
his feet, and attempt to make money in the process.
For example,
even after Jacques II had risen to the level of a real (or presumed)
"count," he does not seem to have felt demeaned by the more fantastical
money-making ventures he undertook. (Interestingly enough, he preferred
to work through middle-men, to conceal the fact that he rented out
rooms, just as his father had concealed his financial ventures by having
third parties make deals on his behalf.) Nor, it would seem, did Jacques
II's conscience nag him when he took advantage of the public:
Il fit une loterie dans les sales du College de la Sapience, où aidé de quelques amis il mit quantité de colifichets, avec quelques miroirs & lustres de Cristal & autres galanteries. Il obligea plusieurs artisans à qui il devoit, de prendre des billets de sa lotterie en payement, mais presque tous ces malheureux perdirent leurs dettes, & il les paya avec un peu de papier, car en tirant les billets, on ne voyoit autre chose que blanque ....
Il trouva aussi l'invention de faire jouer les Marionnettes chez lui, & d'en faire un trafic. Il donna même pendant quelques jours à jouer dans sa maison. ... Et pour entretenir agreablement les joueurs, il leur faisoit entendre de fois à autre, des concerts de musique, & des instrumens dont la simphonie charmoit l'oreille pendant qu'on vidoit la bourse. Il a toujours maintenu un jeu de paume proche la place d'Espagne vers l'horto di Napoli; & il a été un tems qu'il louoit des appartemens meublez, aux chambres garnies, par le moyen de tierces personnes.(3)
The "Count" would later be accused of having been a regular customer at the used-clothing and second-hand shops of Rome, where he would snap up bargains in order to make himself or his domestics more splendid:
Quand il vouloit habiller ses gens de livrée, il avoit mille inventions pour cela avec les Juifs, sans jamais debourcer de l'argent comptant; tantôt il troquoit une chose, & tantôt l'autre."(4)
Little of the above behavior is likely to have been learned at school. Rather, did Jacques II's personality traits and financial ventures reflect the world in which he grew up? That is to say, around the time the son began his schooling, the father's energy and ingenuity were gravitating around two poles that nourished one another: the concealed financial world of the speculator, the partisan, the tax "farmer"; and the Luxembourg Palace (also called the Palais d'Orléans), residence of Gaston de France, Duke of Orléans, the uncle of Louis XIV. During the Fronde, 1648-53, Jacques I played a crucial role in the Duke's political maneuvering. As Gaston's surintendant des maisons et finances, it was he who was expected to come up with the money for which the prince was continually clamoring. If the Surintendant could not find the requisite sums, he provided the money himself.(5)
After Gaston's disgrace in 1653 and his exile to his duchy, Jacques I Dalibert remained at the Luxembourg, administering the Duke's finances and doing what he could to avoid paying his master's creditors or settling the unpaid inheritance due Gaston's oldest daughter, the Grande Mademoiselle, from her late mother.
Let us assume that Jacques II sometimes ― or perhaps always, since most Parisian collèges were situated only a short walk from the Luxembourg ― stayed with his father in the palace during the 1650s. Whom, beyond Gaston's administrative staff (which included Léonard Goulas, Henri de Castille, Barthélémy de Mascranny, and Nicolas Pinette(6) might the adolescent have met at the Luxembourg? For example, what cultural events might he had heard about, or perhaps witnessed? This question is central to our understanding of Jacques II Dalibert's career, because during the 1650s ― perhaps in his father's circle, perhaps at the collège ― seeds appear to have been sown that would blossom into a lifelong preoccupation with ballets, operas, entertainments, puppet shows.
The question has no answer as yet. We simply know the end result: Jacques II was fascinated with things theatrical. A passage from the Histoire, partially cited earlier on this page, bears repeating in this context:
Il affecte en parlant de declamer et gesticuler comme un Comedien, ... Il trouva aussi l'invention de faire jouer les Marionnettes chez lui, & d'en faire un trafic. Il donna même pendant quelques jours à jouer dans sa maison, ... Et pour entretenir agreablement les joueurs, il leur faisoit entendre de fois à autre, des concerts de musique, & des instrumens dont la simphonie charmoit l'oreille pendant qu'on vidoit la bourse.(7)
Obviously, he could scarcely have avoided learning how to declaim during his student days; and he probably performed in school theatricals. But was his love of theater and music stimulated by someone at the Luxembourg?
In all likelihood, this was the case. Young Jacques presumably was acquainted with Gaston's household musicians, among them Etienne Moulinié. But during the 1650s and 1660s another householder was engrossed in the lyrical arts: Gaston's maître d'hôtel, Pierre Perrin, a poet. In 1669 Perrin would be awarded a royal privilege to create a French operatic academy. As early as 1648 Perrin was writing poems honoring Gaston's wife and children. Some of these works were set to music by Moulinié. In 1659 Perrin's and Robert Cambert's Pastorale d'Issy would create quite a cultural stir in the capital, and much would be made of the fact that Perrin "belonged" to the Duke of Orléans. Jacques II can scarcely have been unaware that Perrin had written the lyrics for this pioneering work: the often-quoted letter about the Pastorale, penned by Perrin on April 30, 1659, was addressed to Archbishop della Rovere of Turin.(8)
And we shall see that Jacques II had visited Turin several times the previous year, on Gaston's behalf, and that he would be back in Turin by July 30, 1659. It is absolutely certain that Perrin knew Jacques I Dalibert well: not only was Dalibert his paymaster, he would also help bail the poet out of jail in February 1660, so that he could work with Robert Cambert on a new proto-opera, Ariane et Bacchus. Just when Perrin was resuming his work on Ariane, Jacques II happened to be back in Paris and presumably was following the Perrin-Cambert project closely.(9)
In sum, it seems highly likely that Pierre Perrin played a role in shaping Jacques II's future preoccupation with opera.
(Considering the protection offered his sister in 1662 by several householders and clients of the late Gaston, (10) it seems likely that Marc-Antoine Charpentier was acquainted with Perrin and perhaps with the Daliberts as well.)
The Grande Mademoiselle's anecdote about Jacques II Dalibert, alluded to above, is revealing about the young man and his propensity to boast and embroider upon the facts:
Quelques temps auparavant il se passa une affaire plaisante, où le nom de Son Altesse Royale [Gaston] fut mêlé. D'Alibert, fils de son surintendant [Jacques I Dalibert], qui sortoit de ses études et s'en alloit à Rome, comme font d'ordinaire les enfants de Paris au sortir du collège, avant que de partir alla visiter quelques dames au Marais, qui n'étoient pas les plus sages de Paris. Là, pour se faire valoir, il conta qu'il s'en alloit à Rome, et que Son Altesse royale [Gaston] lui avoit donné une lettre pour le cardinal de Retz [who had escaped from the castle of Nantes in August 1654 and fled to Rome], et qu'il étoit chargé de beaucoup de choses particulières pour lui dire. Comme en ces lieux-là il y va de toutes sortes de personnes, M. le cardinal [Mazarin] le sut et le fit arrêter, On le manda à Son Altesse royale, qui répondit qu'elle n'avoit nul commerce avec le cardinal de Retz, et que, quand elle y en auroit, on devoit avoir assez bonne opinion de lui pour croire qu'elle ne confieroit pas ses secrets à un homme de dix-sept ans.(11)
Dalibert's indiscretion almost certainly took place during the spring of 1656, for Retz returned to France in August of that year. If young Dalibert's "arrest" led to a stay in prison, his incarceration apparently was of short duration and was intended to teach him to be discreet. (It is not clear whether Dalibert was personally acquainted with Retz at the time: but if not, he would talk with him frequently in Rome in the mid-1660s.(12))
Jacques II soon was on his way to Rome. On July 31, 1656, on his way south, he stopped in Turin and presented the Duke of Savoy with dogs and horses. Dalibert did not conceal the purpose of his visit: he had come to negotiate a marriage between the Duke and Mlle d'Orléans, Gaston's oldest daughter by his second wife. He remained in Turin for a month, then set off for Venice, where he spent about six weeks and conferred with La Feuillade, archbishop of Ambrun and ambassador to Venice. By mid-October, when Dalibert stopped in Turin on his way back to Paris, Gaston's eldest daughter, the Grande Mademoiselle, was being proposed as a possible bride in her half-sister's place.(13)
Letters from Jacques II begin to appear in the correspondence to the Duke of Savoy and his secretaries and ministers, preserved in the Archivio di Stato of Turin. For example, Dalibert refers to the "chiens que j'ay pris la liberté d'envoyer à V.A.R." This gift upset the Duke's mother, Madame Royale, who was Gaston's sister. "One day," recalled the Grande Mademoiselle about a conversation with her aunt at Lyons late in the fall of 1658, "while chatting with Madame Royale, I talked with her about d'Alibert, who was boasting about being in her good graces":
Elle me dit: "Il est venu à Turin m'apporter une lettre de mon frère [Gaston]; puis je ne l'ai plus vu. Il a envoyé des chiens à mon fils sans qu'il lui en ait demandé. Tout ce qui me paroît de cet homme, c'est qu'il s'empresse fort. Qu'est-ce qu'il est à mon frère?"(14)
Did Jacques II Dalibert accompany Louis XIV and his court on this journey to Lyon? A letter written some fifteen years later to the Duke of Savoy suggests that this was the case.(15)
Back in Venice in 1659, Dalibert wrote a courtly letter to the Duke of Savoy:
Monseigneur,
Quand je serois aux antipoddes et que ma mauvaise fortune m'auroit confiné dans le pays des nez ecrasez, je me consollerois pourveu, Monseigneur, que vous continuassiez d'agreer que je rendisse de temps en temps mes tres humbles respectz. Vostre Altesse Royalle peut bien juger de là combien ceux qui ont l'honneur d'estre aupres d'elle doibvent estre satisfaitz puisqu'un souvenir sy esloigné peut de beaucoup diminuer le plus grand des maux. ...(16)
It doubtlessly was letters like this that made the anonymous author of the Histoire accuse Dalibert of cribbing from respected authors: "Quand il veut composer une lettre, il y réussit quelquesfois, mais c'est après avoir pillé Balzac, & Voiture."(17)
A month later Jacques II attempted to plant in young Savoy's mind some positive thoughts about Mlle d'Orléans and her three sisters: "Mon père a envoyé à Blois un peintre fort habile pour portraire nos Princesses. Aussitost que les portraits seront achevez, je les enverray à V.A.R."(18) Throughout November 1659, Dalibert shuttled back and forth between Paris and Turin, writing to the prospective bridegroom virtually every week.
Meanwhile, he was on the brink of disgrace. By August the Archbishop of Ambrun had been complaining about Dalibert to Secretary of State Michel Le Tellier. Ambrun's ears were burning about what he was hearing in Turin; and now Dalibert himself appeared on the scene, fresh from a visit to Blois and bearing letters from Gaston d'Orléans. On August 1, 1659, Ambrun informed Le Tellier that:
Le sieur d'Alibert, fils de M. d'Alibert, intendant des finances de M. le duc d'Orléans, est arrivé depuis deux jours [à Turin] et, comme il a apporté des lettres de S.A.R., et qu'il a pris la qualité d'envoyé de sa part, on le loge et on le défraie. Le prétexte de son voyage est un compliment de conjouissance sur le mariage de madame la princesse Marguerite [de Savoie] avec le duc de Parme ... Le véritable sujet du voyage de M. d'Alibert est la négotiation du mariage d'une fille de Monseigneur le duc d'Orléans avec S.A. de Savoie; ce qui est une affaire encore éloignée, parce que, quoique l'inclination de Madame [Royale] soit portée pour une de mesdemoiselles ses nièces, on n'est pas encore ici d'accord du choix de Mademoiselle du premier lit de S.A.R.(19)
Ambrun referred to "les discours pleins de calomnies que M. d'Alibert
m'a imposés." (20)
Meanwhile, Dalibert was
writing Le Tellier and complaining about Ambrun:
Extraict d'une lettre de Mons Dallibert escritte de Piedmont le 2e aoust 1659
J'ay cru, Monsieur, estre obligé de vous temoigner l'estonnement dans lequel j'ay été du procedé de Monsieur l'archevesque d'Ambrun, qui est arrivé icy huict jours devant moy et qui semble n'estre passé icy que pour favoriser Mme de Nemours avec laquelle il a eu tous les jours de grandes conferences. Il a parlé plusieurs fois à leurs A.R. [de Savoie] en termes generaux pour temoigner la soumission de la mere et de la fille et la bonté de leur naturel, mais comme tous ses artifices n'ont pas produit de plus favorables effects que les premiers, il a pris le party du mensonge et asseure leurs A.R. que Mlle d'Orleans n'estoit pas plus grande que Mlle de Sevantes qui est une maniere de naine et qu'elle estoit si carrée par les epaules et avoit le sain [sein] si formé qu'il y avoit bien de la certitude qu'elle ne croisseroit plus, et mesme il est allé jusques à dire qu'elle avoit la teste enfoncé dans le epaules et apres avoir si faucement parlé il adressé la parolle à Mme Royale et luy demanda si elle croyoit que S.A. de Savoye eut assez peu de coeur pour epouzer une princesse qui l'auroit toujours meprisé et consideré comme son pis allé.
Toutes ses [ces] choses ne viennent point de moy. Je les ay toutes aprise de Mme Royale, s'est pourquoy vous y pouvez adjouter foy s'il vous plaist, comme à des choses très veritables.(21)
At the time when this letter was being copied out, Jacques II Dalibert was in Venice. He left Turin circa August 30, 1659, and did not return until mid-October. Considering his future contacts with Venice and its operatic impresarios (especially the Grimanis), it is tempting to propose that if he was not already infected with the operatic bug, he caught it while in Venice.
When Gaston d'Orléans died at Blois on February 2, 1660, both Jacques I and Jacques II were at his bedside. A few days later, in a rather transparent plea for protection, Jacques II wrote Madame Royale about her brother's death and his own misfortunes:
Je viens presentement de Blois où j'ay vu expirer Son Altesse Royale, mon maistre ... l'on peut dire que feu S.A.R. emporte dans le tombeau les fortunes de tous ceux qui avoient suivy la sienne. Pour moy je suis celui de toute la maison qui pert davantage, puisque outre la perte de la premiere charge de la maison, mon pere se trouve encore en avance d'une somme infiniment considerable dont il avoit aidé Monseigneur dans ses affaires ....(22)
Jacques II later would recall Gaston's "feelings for him": "J'ose me flater que les sentimens que feu Son A.R. a eu la bonté de conserver pour moy durant 21 ans fondés sur la forte passion que j'ay faict paroitre en tout temps et en touttes occasions pour le service de cette Royiale maison." And indeed, Gaston had given young Jacques II the survivance for his father's position as surintendant. (23)
How does one interpret the expression "21 years"? Gaston died in early 1660, and Jacques II was born circa 1638. In other words, Jacques II wanted people to believe that these "sentiments" began at his birth, and that his "passion" to serve the House of Orléans dated back to around 1640, when he was a toddler. This was an exaggeration, of course: Jacques I does not appear to have entered Gaston's service until 1645, when his son was approximately seven years old.
Somewhat later Jacques II informed his correspondent in Turin(24) that Louis XIV had decided to provide for Gaston's daughters: "S.M. n'a pas seulement accordé à Madame [d'Orléans] et Mlle [de Montpensier?] les choses que S.A.R. luy avoit demandées en mourant, mais il a voulu par un excès de generosité ... se charger de touttes les debtes de la maison."(25)
By the end of 1660, young Dalibert was negotiating in earnest the wedding of Gaston's daughter, Marguerite demoiselle d'Orléans, with Cosimo III de Medicis of Florence. At the same time he was angling for a position as secrétaire des brefs to Prince Pamphili. And in a letter to Madame Royale that was aimed at collecting the "pension" that she had granted him, he assured her that Gaston's widow approved of the portraits of her daughters that had been sent to Turin.(26) In this correspondence he also alluded to the financial misfortunes provoked by the Chambre de Justice and his father's arrest. Now that Mlle de Valois, Gaston's daughter, will be marrying the Duke of Savoy, he wrote Saint-Thomas, would Saint-Thomas "favor" him "sur le subject de la pention dont Madame Royalle a bien voulu me gratifier. ... Je serois au desespoir de luy [Mme Royale] estre à charge, estant encor tout prest de s'accrifier ce qui me reste du bien pour luy rendre service."(27)
We know that Jacques II Dalibert was in Rome on May 1, 1661, because he consulted a notary.(28) He gave his address as Via dei Greci, a street not far from the corner where he would build an indoor tennis court a few years later. By May 19 he was in Florence, where he presumably remained until the wedding of Mlle d'Orléans and Cosimo de Medicis, celebrated in June and followed by operas, cavalcades, and illuminations that continued into mid-July.(29) The Glixons point out that the Grimanis of Venice were recruiting Florentine performers circa 1662.(30) (This potential link to Florence, and to the operas performed for the Medici wedding, has the potential to provide a deeper understanding of Dalibert's fascination for opera and his creation at Rome of a Venetian-style opera house in the 1670s.)
By July 24, Jacques II was back in Rome, sending "odeurs" and "tableaux" to the ducal family in Turin and writing personally to Madame Royale:
Le voiage que J'ay faict à Florance m'a faict demeurer l'on temps [longtemps], dans le silence et la crainte d'Importuner vostre altesse Royale, m'avoit faict resoudre de ne me poinct donner l'honneur de luy escrire que pour m'acquiter du respec, que Je doibs à la plus Illustre princesse du monde et à celle à qui Je suis le plus redevable, Mais, Madame, la lestre [lettre] dont madame la Duchesse Dorleans [Marguerite de Lorraine, Gaston's widow] m'a faict l'honneur, de m'honnorer M'a faict passer la ressolution que J'avois faict, et J'ay creu que Je ne pouvois me dispenser, sans estre coupable, de vous faire cognoistre Madame que nos deux princesses sont à son choys, et l'on m'escrit que l'on me doict envoyer le portraict de Mademoiselle de Vallois qui n'a esté faict que pour estre envoiée à Vostre altesse Roialle, Je ne manqueray pas de luy faire tenir et de luy tesmoigner que personne au monde n'est avec plus de recognoissance et de fidilité que Je suis,
Madame de V.A.R.
Vostre tres humble tres obeissant et tres fidelle serviteur, Dalibert (31)
From Rome he dispatched several more letters to Turin that fall, one of them to the Duke of Savoy:
J'osse assurer vostre A.R. qu'elle ne ce repentera pas de ces choix, Mademoiselle de Valois estant de la plus douse humeur que l'on peut dessirer, et je suis certain de plus que quand elle paroitra dedans la vennerie Royale que l'on jugera facillement par l'esclat et la blancheur de son tein que c'est ceste Princesse à qui V.A.R. avoit donné un masque pour ce mieux conserver jusqu'à ce qu'elle luy o[r]donna de se faire connoistre.(32)
As the Histoire published by Franckenstein suggests, Dalibert would borrow images and phrases from books. And as these two letters demonstrate, Jacques II had graduated from a collège, but he had not mastered French spelling.
He remained in Rome until February 1662. It was there that he learned of his father's arrest and imprisonment in the Bastille for peculation ( January 30 to March 21). This news probably convinced Jacques II to decide to remain in Rome. Then, on April 14, 1662, Hugues de Lionne, the French minister for foreign affairs, recommended him to Cardinal Dezio Azzolino, Queen Christina of Sweden's confidant. The letter of recommendation stated that Dalibert was a relative of Michel Le Tellier, the influential royal minister for war.(33)
At the time, Christina was on her way back from Sweden and Hamburg, where she had spent the better part of 1661. Azzolino appears to have spoken to her immediately after her arrival in Rome on June 20, recommending Dalibert as an addition to her secretarial staff. (None of this evidence meshes with the tale told in the Histoire to the effect that his appointment was inspired a Mardi-Gras float.)
As late as June 21, 1662. the day after Christina's return, Dalibert was busily polishing his links to Turin. For example, he sent gifts to the Duke of Savoy, asserting that "[the services] que je puis rendre à V.A.R. sont fort mediocres puisqu'ils ne consistent qu'aux odeurs et aux tableaux"; and that very same day he offered to send similar items to the Marquis de Saint-Thomas, his contact in Turin.(34)
By June 27, Jacques II Dalibert's situation had changed: he had joined Christina of Sweden's secretarial staff and had copied out one of her letters to the French court.(35)
Footnotes
1. Montpensier, Mémoires, ed.
A. Chéruel (Paris, 1859), III, pp. 84-85. Cametti, "D'Alibert, p. 340,
preferred to trust a Roman notarial act of 1713 in which the family
asserted that the very "decrepit" and "valetudinarian" Dalibert was
eighty-seven years old. In a similar vein, when Titon du Tillet
interviewed the friends and family (nephew?) of Marc-Antoine
Charpentier, he was told that the composer was sixty-eight when he died.
In reality, Charpentier was sixty-one.
2. Franckenstein, pp. 153,
154.
3. Franckenstein, pp. 158, 159.
4. Franckenstein, p. 160.
5. "Mon pere se trouve encore en avance d'une somme infiniment
considerable dont il avoit aidé Monseigneur dans ses affaires," Turin,
AdiS, Francia, mazzo 70, fol. 52, Paris, Feb. 6, 1660.
6. AN, MC,
VI, 493, marché, Dec. 31, 1647: the two principal representatives of the
Duke were Jacques I Dalibert, his surintendant, and Goulas, his
secretary.
7. Franckenstein, pp. 154, 159.
8. Thoinan and
Nuitter, Les Origines de l'opéra français (Paris, 1886), pp.
47-49.
9. Perrin was freed on Feb. 18, 1660, Thoinan and Nuitter,
pp. 62-63; Jacques II was in Paris on Feb. 6, 1660, Turin, AdiS,
Francia, mazzo 70, no. 52, and he presumably remained there until
Gaston's funeral on Feb. 20. Jacques II was back in Rome on June 21.
10. See Ranum, Portraits, pp. 91-104.
11. Montpensier, III,
pp. 84-85.
12. See, for example, Stockholm, Royal Archives (Azzolino
papers), K 414, undated letter to Christina, circa June-July 1667, where
Dalibert's and Retz's names are linked in a letter about the pro-French
politics being conducted by Retz during the Conclave to elect new pope.
This collection contains other examples of Dalibert's political
activities, sometimes for Christina and sometimes for the French
Embassy. See also AAE, Rome, 471, Oct. 2, 1665, where Lionne refers to
Dalibert's correspondence with friends in Paris and asks the French
Embassy to keep Retz informed, for he is an "amy intime de Mr le
Cardinal Azzolin."
13. Rome, Vatican (ASV), Nunziatura, Savoia, 79,
fols. 226, 231v, 237, 237, 249v, 252v, 304-304v, 316, 330, 339.
14.
Montpensier, III, p. 326; and for Dalibert's remark about the dogs,
Turin, AdiS, Francia, mazzo 68, Dec. 20, 1658.
15. Cametti,
"D'Alibert," p. 343, alludes to Jacques II Dalibert's statement that he
had known Marie Mancini-Colonna (Mazarin's niece) for "la moitié de [ma]
vie." He was approximately thirty-five when he wrote that. Taken
literally, this suggests that he first encountered Marie Mancini circa
1655, when he was a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old student and she was
setting her sights on Louis XIV. Relying upon this letter and a
statement in the Histoire to the effect that shortly after reaching Rome
Dalibert gambled at the residence of Connetable Colonna, Cametti
concluded that Jacques II Dalibert had belonged to Marie Mancini's
circle as a young man and had rekindled this friendship in Rome. I have
found no evidence suggesting that Dalibert was close to Marie Mancini at
the time of her love affair with Louis XIV, which reached its peak
during the trip to Lyon in October 1658, but which ended a year later
when Marie was relegated to Brouage and, not long after that, married
Colonna. We know that Dalibert inflated the length of his "passion" for
serving the House of Orléans. Is it not more plausible that he became
acquainted with Mancini in November-December 1659, when she, Louis XIV,
and the French court journeyed to Lyon to met with the Duke of Savoy and
Madame Royale?
18. Turin, AdiS, Francia, mazzo 68, fol. 39, Sept.
13, 1659.
16. Turin, AdiS, Francia, mazzo 68, fol. 39, Oct. 31,
1659.
17. Franckenstein, p. 104.
19. Quoted by
Ravaisson-Mollien, Archives de la Bastille (Paris, 1866-1904),
I, p. 227, written in Turin and dated August 1, 1659. For the Grande
Mademoiselle's narrative of these negotiations, see Montpensier,
Mémoires, III, pp. 301-27
20. For details, see Archives de la
Bastille, pp. 228-44. Ravaisson-Mollien
reported on this fuss because he mistakenly believed that Jacques II was
the Dalibert imprisoned in the Bastille, p. 245.
21. "Collationné
par moy sur l'original que j'ay en mes mains, Mascranny" [Gaston's
householder], BnF, ms. fr. 6895, fol. 236; and fol. 235, an indication
that the letter has been forwarded on to Gaston at Blois. On Dec. 11,
1659, Dalibert wrote Gaston, begging his protection; he wrote a similar
letter to Saint-Thomas, his principal contact in Turin, AdiS, Francia,
mazzo 68, fols. 51 and 52.
22.Turin, AdiS, Francia, mazzo 70, fol.
52, Paris, Feb. 6, 1660.
23. Turin, AdiS, Lettere ministri, mazzo
84, fol. 144, dated April 13, 1677 [sic]. The letter seems to date from
1667. For Jacques II's position as surintendant des finances, see
Arsenal, ms. 4214, fol. 85: the Daliberts, "pere et fils, surintendans
des finances."
24.Dalibert's principal correspondent was the Marquis
of Saint-Thomas — or San Tomasso — but twenty years after
reading these sources, I hesitate to assert that every letter on which I
took notes was addressed to Saint-Thomas: hence "principal
correspondent."
25. Turin, AdiS, Francia, mazzo 70, fol. 64.
26. Turin, AdiS,
Roma, mazzo 76, fol. 457 and following (re Pamphili, no. 433)
27.
Turin, AdiS, Roma, Lettere ministri, mazzo, 79, no. 312, Feb. 12, 1662,
from Rome.
28. Rome, AdiS, 30 Notai capitolini, officio 19, Pizzuti,
May 1, 1661.
29. Description of the festivities, Vatican Library,
Ottoboni lat. 2472, part 3, fol. 557ff
30. Glixon, pp. 99-101,
180-84.
31. From Rome, July 24, 1661, Turin, AdiS, formerly in Roma,
Lettere ministri, mazzo 76, but now in a separate Dalibert file, 37/2.
In another letter he referred to this pension and how much he had needed
it as well as Christina's help — at that particular time, mazzo 82,
no. 1130, dated April 4, 1661; and also mazzo 76, fol. 405.
32.
Turin, AdiS, Roma, Lettere ministri, mazzo, 79, no. 317, Oct. 29, 1662.
33. Bildt, p. 122, n. 1, alludes to this letter. Although I watched
for it in the Medical Library of Montpellier and in the Azzolino
collection at the Royal Archives in Stockholm, it eluded me. That
Dalibert had highly placed relatives is confirmed by ASV (Vatican),
Nunciatura, Savoia, 84, fol. 91, Jan. 13, 1663, which allude to Dalibert
and to the fact that he would be working "per suo parenti" on the
Corsican Affair.
34. Turin, AdiS, Roma, mazzo 76, June 21, 1660.
35. Bildt, p. 116.