Fiction fools biographer of Louis

By Vincent Dowd
Arts reporter, BBC News

Louis XIV believed his power came directly from God

A new biography of a mistress of France's King Louis XIV has been withdrawn after it was revealed a major source for it was a work of fiction.

The publishers say the book about Madame de Maintenon by Veronica Buckley will be rewritten and then reissued.

In writing the book, Ms Buckley used a fictional diary by a French historian, mistaking it for Louis's own work.

Louis XIV, the "Sun King", reigned in France from the age of four until he died 72 years later in 1715.

Imagination

Louis XIV took his nation to war, did much to centralise power and reigned over an age of great achievement in culture.

What he did not do was write a secret diary recording his life and his relationship with his mistress and eventual wife, Mme de Maintenon.

A decade ago, French historian Francois Bluche wrote The Secret Journal of Louis XIV, imagining what such a diary might be like if it did exist. His book never purported to be the real thing.

Unfortunately, the New Zealand-born Ms Buckley failed to appreciate this when writing a new biography of Mme de Maintenon for the respected London publishing house Bloomsbury.

Her book was due out next week and it was only as advance copies went out to reviewers that her error was spotted.

Now Bloomsbury are delaying publication until at least July so that changes can be made.

Though embarrassing, their mistake does not rival the catastrophic error made by Germany's Stern magazine 25 years ago.

It paid millions of marks to publish what purported to be the diaries of Adolf Hitler. But that turned out to be out-and-out forgery.

In this case, Ms Buckley came across apparent "diaries" irresistible to a biographer and simply failed to check well enough.