Portrait of Philippe de Courcillon, Marquis de Dangeau, [French School; Follower of Claude Lefèbvre]

Portrait of Philippe de Courcillon, Marquis de Dangeau, [French School; Follower of Claude Lefèbvre], 17th centuryA distinguished colonel of the King’s regiment, Philippe de Courcillon resigned from his post sometime after 1667, and concluded several diplomatic missions, among them the marriage of the Duke of York (later James II) to Mary of Modena. Although his Memoirs are infamously described as being “of an insipidity to make you sick” by Saint–Simon, he carried out the correspondence between Louis XIV and Princess Henrietta of England. Louis, who had became enamoured of his brother’s wife, often gave her magnificent fêtes, and sent her verses full of gallantry. She answered them, “and so it happened,” says Voltaire, “that the Marquis de Dangeau acted as confidant, in the ingenious intercourse, to both parties at the same time, the King having engaged him to write the verses in his name, and the Princess having retained him to answer them in hers.” -- source link

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